2005-08-22 - 8:24 p.m.
Friday N. had no show or rehearsal, so we did a bunch of stuff. We went to breakfast at Ellyngton�s in the Brown Palace, Denver�s oldest fancy hotel. I was pleasantly surprised that the place doesn�t rest on its reputation (restaurants are rarely any better than they have to be � witness my experience at NYC�s Rainbow Room with its lovely view and starry history) and actually serves good food.
I had granola with dried fruit and bananas (fiber, y�know), but also really tasty chicken basil sausage. (They did annoyingly have no lock on their bathroom stall door, but I reported this to the concierge, so hopefully it�ll be fixed by the time you go.) It made N. feel like the classy broad she is and I think I�ll take her to tea there at some point.
N. went on to do errands and go to Virgin Records, but I was pretty burnt out and had to go home to nap. We�d been up late the night before and hadn�t gotten much sleep. Early that afternoon, we went to a daytime Rockies game. They were playing the Chicago Cubs, who I guess are going to be my new home team.
(I got a place in Lincoln Park not far from the Cubs� Wrigley Field the other day. There also seems to be an inversion from New York in the fan base between Chicago�s American and National League teams. The Cubs are beloved of hipsters and white-collar types, like the Yankees. The White Sox are supported by a lot of outer-city ethnic whites, like the Mets. I�d try to be iconoclastic by becoming a White Sox fan, but it�s just too much of a pain to go to Comiskey Park on the South Side.)
I went to a Rockies game with Phil last week and, unlike the last time we went, we got really crappy seats. It turns out that the reason we got the clutch seats behind home plate was because we came so late. Normally that section is $150, but they hadn�t sold the handicapped seats for that game, so they just gave them to us when we showed up at the top of the fourth.
Usually when you buy box wheelchair seating, you get the very back row of the section. This is up on the concourse with people walking right behind you to buy concessions and go to the restrooms. It�s not even out in the open, as the level above extends over you. OK I guess, but I felt pretty ripped off having paid so much for the tickets. With a far-from-the-field view like that, I could have gotten $4 tickets in the �Rockpile� above center field, where they also have accessible seats.
We went to the ballpark early and asked if I could trade in the tickets for seats that weren�t so marginal. They exchanged them for seats further down in the section, but explained that I�d have to walk down the steps to get there. I figured I could make it using N.�s shoulder to balance. I also thought how it really sucks that the only disabled box tickets offered are either lousy seats in the back row or super-expensive.
Ballpark steps are absolute hell for me. Normally I�m pretty good with stairs. They usually have a handrail I can grab for balance. But stadium steps are just open with no railing. I needed to hang on N. pretty hard to make it down. Even then, I had to take a break in another seat midway. Not so much to recover strength or something, as to clear my head and gather courage. It was very scary; I kept imagining myself slipping and tumbling all the way down the rows.
But we made it and they were pretty nice seats, out in the open with a good view of the field. The Rockies almost immediately started getting spanked by the Cubs. (They ended up losing 5-3.) As a cop told me on the way out, �What do the Broncos and Rockies have in common? They both win one game a week.�
We didn�t feel bad about rooting against the home team, as we seemed to be seated in a whole area of Cubs supporters. There were a lot of cheers when a home batter struck out and an odd number of people wearing Cubs jerseys and caps. Go figure. We left early, but the Cubs carried the day. N. took this as a good omen for our move.
That evening we took the light rail out to Littleton (yeah yeah, where the shootings at Columbine High School happened) where they�re having Western Welcome Week. The name made me snicker, but I tried to restrain the urge to shout �Yee-haw!� and make gun-firing gestures. We had tickets to see a one-woman play (The Syringa Tree), but I was really more psyched to go to the Elks Lodge for their annual pig roast!
The show was incredibly acted, but really not very well written. Actress Karen Stack played every character, dozens of them, and often did scenes where two or more were conversing with each other. The show ran almost two hours and she was never offstage (in fact, blocking was worked in a few times for her to duck behind a curtain and chug some water).
But the text of the play didn�t answer a lot of the questions it raised. It takes place in apartheid-era South Africa (1960s?). Of course, obviously the main issue here is how the hell such a seemingly unsustainable cultural system was maintained for so long. Although the arrangement affects the characters a lot and raises doubts in them numerous times, the events of the play never broadly address it or even directly illuminate how characters see what happens to them as a reflection of apartheid.
The story is mainly from the perspective of a little girl from a wealthy, liberal family who is taken care of by a black nursemaid. The maid has a baby she has to hide from the police so they won�t make her go live in a township. The child is sent to a hospital for blacks at one point where the chaotic bureaucracy literally loses her. When the wealthy family�s grandfather is killed by a random assailant the maid leaves, apparently because she feels �ashamed�, although this reasoning is never made clear.
The little girl grows and heads off to college. One day she learns that the maid�s daughter has been shot dead at 14 for leading a protest march. She decides that the apartheid system is too unbearably bizarre and cruel. She emigrates to America and doesn�t return until a tearful reunion with her childhood maid in a post-apartheid country.
Why did the maid leave? Why did the daughter become a revolutionary? Why didn�t the parents take a more active role in opposing a system they obviously can�t abide by? Why didn�t the main girl do this instead of seeing abandoning the country entirely as her only option? These questions were never addressed. How or even whether the characters saw their lives as impacted by their place in society wasn�t made clear.
After the play we went to the Elks Lodge for the pig roast. Alas, by the time we got there they were out of pig. There was some country dancing going on in the parking lot, but I don�t really like country music and I don�t exactly dance these days. But N. pointed out that I approached a cop without thinking to ask about the food with a line you don�t often get to say to a police officer:
�Hey, where�s the pig?�
I don�t think either of us caught what I�d just said.
We ended up getting late dinner at the Main Street Caf�. Littleton�s main street is unusually nice for an inner-ring suburb, but is quite deserted late at night. I got a tasty beer that was brewed down the street and a bison burger. Although buffalo meat is usually too dry to make a good burger, I�ve found that the patty can be made decently juicy if ordered rare and with bacon on top. Then we took a late train home.
Of course we�ve had a lot of fun since. We�ve gotten kicked out of a fancy restaurant for having poor table manners. I saw N.�s show in Boulder and had mediocre barbecue afterwards. Just today we got a very special procedure together for reasons I can�t remember now. Tomorrow we�re going to see Devo. Stay tuned.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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