Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Laphroaig

It's Wednesday, and my weekend just ended. It was a good one.

Friday had sushi with Fred, John, Boyd, and Sumner. I was the kid at the table, allowed to join the grown-ups for the night. Afterwards we went to see Souvenirs at Diamond Head Theater. It was awful, and I left at intermission. It was a two-person one-joke play (a rich lady can't carry a tune, but thinks she's a diva) with a life-affirming message at the end about how being true to our dreams is important. I didn't need to stay until the end to know that - you could see the moral coming from five minutes into the play.

It was so bad that I actually went online to do some research, and to try to figure out just what the authors were thinking - and how it managed to make it to Broadway. Turns out it started as a lounge-type act, and I can see it working there. I don't know how anyone thought it would work in a theater.

I skipped the cast party at Town, obviously.

Saturday I went to Ozomatli with Ken Zen. We tried to recruit others, but the ones who were interested were broke, and the ones who had the dough weren't interested. Too bad; it was a fun show. Later we went to Ke Kai's for a night cap. It was dead: two transvestites, the bartender, two other male customers, and a mentally impaired guy who was the boyfriend of one of the transgendered ladies. One of the trans chicks danced on the bar for a bit, but that kind of thing sounds more risque in print than in reality.

This was not enough to make the bar interesting

Sunday was Swamp Romp practice. Allen had us run 1.95 miles (according to Google Earth) and I didn't die. That surprised me. My thighs still hurt. I did the first 1.6 miles in 17 minutes (that's a sprint in my book). The last stretch was on soft sand, and that was hard.

Later went to Hulas for one drink, which turned into more than one drink. Monday I behaved. Last night I went to Hawai'i Opera Theater for Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and honestly enjoyed it. The last two times I tried to go to the opera in Hawai`i I fell asleep, and I'd given up. My opera friends had told me that they refused to go with me again, anyway. This crowd doesn't know my history. I made plans to see Carmen in March with Ron, and Sumner might have an extra ticket for Abduction from the Seraglio ... it looks like I'll get a dose of culture to counteract all the circuit parties.

Julia Kierstine as Manon was the star of the show

Ron and I rounded out the night with a nightcap - or maybe five or six nightcaps - at his place. Our final drink was a thimblefull of Laphroaig - which is the single best whisky I have ever had, by far. A sip, and you could almost taste the wind blowing across the moor. It would settle in, releasing smoke and peat and whatever ice age elements were carried in the peat.

I will have dreams about that whisky

And that ended my weekend, just in time to get ready for the next. Since I overspent this past one, this one, I think, will be much quieter.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The soprano shown here, in Act IV of "Manon Lescaut" is NOT Julia Kierstine. If you're going to include photos from live performances, you should note the correct names of the singers whose photos you post.