Macon Memories

Melbourne seemed promising. The hotel was fine, the venue average. Somewhere between the hotel and the theatre is where it went wrong.

The star bus would not start after everyone was loaded on and we were ready to depart at 10:45pm. After 2 hours of head scratching and hopeful tinkering by 4 bus drivers, I decided to ask people if some would give up their bunks (as I did) to make room for the 8 stranded souls. Bunks secured and blankets and pillows moved, we left our lead bus driver behind with the dead bus.

Later, we heard he got the bus jumped and heard a rattle as he drove. He pulled over and noticed an open window.

Someone on the star bus had opened a window marked “emergency exit only.” These windows have sensors on the latches that kill the bus engine relays but will not indicate the window is ajar. The driver closed the latch and drove the empty star bus without incident. A 500-mile journey was never going to be fun, but the misery would have been shorter. We arrived in Atlanta, GA at about 9:15am and staggered to our rooms. I slept most of my “day off.”

We left Atlanta today for Macon, GA and our 8pm show here. The decision was made to stay in Atlanta on the day off because the hotels in Macon were scary. The mention of bed bugs on hotel review sites, were the deciding factor.

Before our arrival here today, I got an email asking me to warn the cast not to bring any valuables into the building upon arrival. The building did not seem secure. This could be because the “stagehands” doing the load in were all “trustees” from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office. Each wore a white tracksuit with the sheriff’s logo on it. I felt bad for them. Some of our crew made “Don’t drop the soap jokes.” And one even played “Dueling Banjos” from DELIVERANCE on the radio shortly before the show.

There was no room for a production office of any kind in the building, so I worked from the bus today. It was very annoying. If you wanted a piece of tape, it was a 5 minute walk into the building where the road cases were. That was pretty much how the entire miserable day went.

I am warned by my superiors about how there are many fans of the show who sometimes send letters / cards/ gifts along with strange notes. Today I opened a nicely wrapped box containing some wooden roses from a former combat solider whom had come home from the front depressed by the “visions of death” until he saw one of our performers on PBS. In his two page, hand-written letter, he quotes the Bible. He also assigns a personality to this performer based on what I imagine is his fantasy of what he would like in a woman. He included a cute picture of himself and his equally cute dog. I felt sad for both of them.

I may be in Macon, GA very far from all that matters to me, but I’m not writing to Dolph Lungren certain he must be a good bit of fun because of how hot his pecs were in Rocky IV.