Don't Miss The Gaelic Park Players Production of The Patrick Pearse Motel by Irish playwright Hugh Leonard: April 9 - 11, 16 - 18, 23 - 25, 2010
There are few South Side actors whose work I recommend unreservedly, but this production includes one of them in the likes of Marty Donovan who I have had the pleasure of working with onstage myself and witnessing his raw talent, attention to his craft, his ready wit, his incredible imagination, humor and all around ability to move an audience to laugh, cry and cheer.
In the context of a Hugh Leonard play, his efforts are not to be missed. While you may be more familiar with Leonard's Da or A Life, I urge you to take a chance to see this production of The Patrick Pearse Motel while you can, and to get seats while you can. Opening night offers two for one tickets a rare theater buy.
Here's what the company says about the play and the production:
The Patrick Pearse Motel by Hugh Leonard
An upwardly mobile couple living in an upscale Dublin suburb, and their business partners are showing what real patriotism is all about-selling it in the form of hotels. Each room in the Patrick Pearse Motel is decorated with a portrait of a national hero. Unbeknown to her doting husband, the lady of the house is plotting a tryst with an old flame, a television commentator famed for his rudeness. Soon the stage is filled with mistaken identities, dropped trousers, a flimsy negligee and false accusations. On a rainy night at The Patrick Pearse Motel, the characters crisscross paths, threaten one another with a shillelagh and hide in convenient closets. An hysterical bedroom farce that will have you wondering how will all of this turn out and who will get out alive?
The Patrick Pearse Motel
Director-Tom Kearney
Assistant Director-Georgina Chapman
Cast:
Dermod -Marty Donovan
Grainne-Kathy Holahan
Fintan-Stephen Heffernan
Niamh-Mary Kate Brophy
Miss Manning-Taryn Mckenna
James Usheen-Mick Kenna
Hoolihan-Barney Farrelly
Show Dates are:
Fridays April 9th, 16th and 23rd at 8:00pm
Saturdays April 10th, 17th and 24th at 8:00pm
Sundays April 11th, 18th and 25 at 3:00pm
Tickets:
PLEASE NOTE TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE GAELIC PARK OFFICE
$12.00 Theater Performance only
$25.00 Dinner & Theater (Sundays Only)
Opening Night - Buy 1 Get 1 Free!!
Reservations are a must for Dinner & Theater
Tickets are non-refundable
Steven Wright Videos. Steven is one of the funniest driest comics around. If you like this stuff you will go to the iTunes store or over to Amazon or even a local record store and buy all his stuff, even these routines so you can take them with you on your iPod, I mean, your portable media player.
I hesitated for a long time about putting these up, but apparently, Wright's camp has only objected to some of the material being taken down. For example, parts 4-5 of the material below come from his "I Still Have a Pony" album. If he had wanted it all taken down, You Tube would have had it taken down immediately. So clearly, they see some value in having some of his material up. (In the same vein, I will take down any copyrighted material immediately upon notification of the original copyright owner and I usually avoid putting up anything not meant for further distribution.)
Since it appears that Steven wishes the publicity, I'll introduce him to you this way. There is a huge amount of his material available and I encourage you to become a fan.
IMPORTANT - I can't guarantee the language on all of this one, so use headphones if you are at work. Steven does not usually use bad language though.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
"I knew when I was going to die because my birth certificate had an expiration date on it." - Steven Wright
Patrick: Ah, its good to hear that the Americans have another good Irishman running for President, and a Democrat as well!
Michael: Who are you talking about?
Patrick: Why Senator O'Bama of course!
Hope this joke didn't turn you green!
If you want more Irish or St. Patrick's day jokes, just click the keywords below the YouTube.com videos, or enter a search for the words, or the word Ireland in the blue Google search box in the side bar.
If you get drunk enough, of course, feel free to donate to the blog using the donate now button, or by clicking ads with abandon and then doing things at those sites. No hacking there, please.
About the new YouTube Videos box, it is linked to about 68 hand picked comedy videos. They are excruciatingly funny and yet clean. They are always in the same order however, so once you've seen the first 7 you will have to hit the multiple window button which will bring up a selector for the videos, it will include an arrow selector for you to move to the next block of 7 videos on the right, and backwards on the left. The little pictures give you clues as to the content, but are not always a good clue.
For example, from the first picture, it is impossible to tell what funny stuff is in that video. I especially recommend the one with six guys at a table in a library. 5 Japanese, and what appears to be one African-Japanese. I dare you to keep from laughing at this one. The content is safe for work, except for the guffaws, snickers and hoots that may come out of your cubicle. On the other hand, if your boss starts to watch it, her or she will probably not be able to stop, nor stop laughing. It is totally non-sexist. Unless you think the abuse of men in a 3-stooges manner is somehow sexist.
Please do check out the sidebar. I've cleaned it up a LOT. There are a lot of new jokes listed in the favorite links and you must have noticed how much faster these pages load.
What ever you do on March 17th, the Imbibes of March, as I call it, drive safe, and remember that others may not be!
So, how did you spend your leap day? That extra day we get every four years, give or take the ones added or subtracted for century or millennia occasions. Wiki it if you like to get the formula.
Was there anything special about the day for you? Did you take some time off? Spend a few extra minutes surfing on line? Call a friend? Order a pizza but then realize you couldn't put meat on it (if you were a practicing Catholic or Jewish or possibly Hindi (at least not sausage)).
If you were an accountant type did you realize that salaried folk got hit up for an extra day of work for no extra pay while union hourly types got an extra 8 hours pay but that everyone has an extra day of work because of leap year? It seems that we should have a day off on February 29th 2 days out of every 7 leap years. Better yet, why not make it a holiday - say - History of Time awareness day. Not a big enough holiday to celebrate every year, but big enough to take a day off once every 4 years.
Think about it. The commercial possibilities are endless.
Greeting Cards:
I'll still be leaping for you 4 years from now!
I forgot about my boyfriend and leapt for you last night, it was great, see you in 4 years!
Hey, diddle, diddle, was that you I saw leaping over the moon last night you #%*& cow!
T-Shirts:
I Shoulda Looked on Leap Years Now I'm Stuck With This Guy And His Kids! (Arrow)
Take a Leap for (insert disease here). The Quadrennial Long Jump Competition where every inch counts.
I only bring the whole Leap Year topic up because an awful lot of people seem to be looking for leap-year jokes and looking here for them. Unfortunately I hadn't put any up here - till now.
Q: What did the blonde name her leap-year's-baby?
A: Leap Ear
Q. What College did she send daughter Leap Ear to?
A. Look Before U.
Q. At college Leap Ear Met the Son of Environmentalists who named him to commemorate an environmental disaster while affirming the importance of passion in life. They decided to blend their names in marriage. What would their new names be?
A. He became Love-Leap Ear-Canal and she became Leap-Love Canal-Ear. They almost broke up over whether to have their honeymoon at Lover's Leap or Love Canal when Leap Ear's Mother gave them free tickets to Disneyworld. After all, if you love ears, you can't pass on a free trip to Disneyworld.
The blond guy got called into his boss' 20th floor office. He was about to be fired for missing a mandatory staff meeting.
"But Boss", he said, "our meeting software has bugs in it all the time, so when it showed a staff meeting on an alleged 'February 29th' instead of March 1st, I figured it went goofy again and used my standing first of the month time off request to visit my sick Mom at the rest home."
The boss said, haven't you ever heard of 'Leap Year'?
The blond guy said, "Hey, I'm a team player, you want me to leap, you just tell me how high!"
At that the boss just opened his window and said, "Try six feet...."
Baby New Year sang to Father Time: "Jeepers Creepers Where'd you get those Leap Years!"
I'll admit these are pretty lame, but they are original. Just be glad I didn't add 17 lines to the Baby New Year's Song!
Oh, my leap day was spent mostly in bed feeling fluish. I didn't even know I was fluish. I don't even own one of those round black hats. I respect the flues. I get a flue shot every year. In my right arm. Or my left arm. Sometimes the nurse shoots me somewhere else occidentally. I don't mean to seem to be needling fluishness but I've been reading Woolly Allen all day.
Apparently my bed is Without Feathers. But I learned how to Cheat Death, just play chess with him, or checkers, or backgammon, or use a striped deck. I don't know why stripes help, maybe they confuse death. After reading this whole book of his collected short stories I have learned a lot about being fluish, its just like being Iris, only you can eat more things together if you're Iris and you only get starved to death or blown up if you're Iris whereas if you're fluish they get you a whole lot of other ways.
I think the score is probably something like Iris 1.5 million killed, starved to death, blown up since about 1500 (facts need checking), flues 7 million going back to when G_D didn't want people to use the vowel in his name and had this great secretary named Moses who knew when to quit taking down commandments before they got silly. Though I sometimes wish "Though shalt not pester thy father or mother endlessly in the store for stuff" had gotten in there somewhere. Probably because HE knew it would do no good anyway. Why put in a commandment that would only undermine his authority?
This is where having had the flue for 5 days is bad. Not because I am open to charges of worshipping a porcelain idol, albeit an American Idol, from Wisconsin, in fact, but because I don't know when to quit.
So if I have insulted you I am sorry. If I have bored you. Now that makes me feel really yucky. My spell checker tells me that yuck is a work but that yucky is not.
I am certain that the phrase "rumpshy-gumpshy in the trash bank" does not qualify as a commonly used idiom for "about to toss my cookies" either, though I heard it from my father every time I wanted to throw up, in fact students of Pavlov might wonder whether after some years the relationship might have reversed itself.
Well, on that note, most of you can pretty well be assured that your leap year's day was better and more comfortably spent than mine. Especially after my son started jumping up and down on my bed yelling "Pillow Fight!"
A whole bunch of people in the County of Louth, Ireland. That's who.
Of course, none of them responded to my post. Me Da told me.
I avoided embarrassment by not telling him about the previous post when I asked him. He'll see it soon enough. Worse yet, we have cousins in the next two counties over.
Last time's the charm.
So here's to my reader from Louth Almost faithful to us as a clock I home my weak rhymes Won't sink his good times Or want Louth to throw me off the dock!
Well, for three minute wonders all, they could be worse.
If you right-click on the red and yellow site visitor meter that sometimes comes up on the bottom, rather than the right, along with the rest of my sidebar, depending on your machine, browser and monitor - I've tried to fix this, but am not smart enough, yet, you'll get to the sitemeter.com statistics page for this blog.
I've set the settings so that anyone can see what I can see, since I don't pay for this service, but get the free version, which generally gives me overall totals for the year, month and day by some categories, and some details on the last 100 visitors.
I check this from time to time to see where people are coming from, which is a lot from the U.S. but always someone from every continent except Antartica and less often from South America. I have a Hemmingway scholar friend in Chile who checks in every once in awhile and he helps the South American total, but generally Indonesia does better than they do.
I think its my lack of Spanish writing in these posts? Por que?
Butter.
I found out that I had a reader from Louth, Ireland by checking the "By World Map" feature after clicking on the 100 under the map which directs it show the last 100 rather than the last 5 visitors, then hovering over the dots in the Ireland area of the Map.
My friends Brian and Diane Leo wrote a song about the Town Gort, called "Gort" oddly enough on one of their albums as Molly and the Tinker, and I thought that since I had seen a listing from Louth several times now, that it was probably the same person.
Since no one leaves comments saying, Hey, I'm Tom or Rachel from Arkansaw or Micronesia or whatever, and I love/hate your blog, or at least admire your persistence, and hits from big cities could be from thousands, I thought I could at least reward one probable regular reader by composing this Limerick -
"He's from Limerick, Ireland, ya naow, where the little Limericks come from." Peter, The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire, Jokes and Comedy
Sorry, got distracted. Happens to me all the time. So here it is my first effort at the Louth Limerick.
I once had a reader from Louth And I hope you don't 'tink me uncouth To suggest that he's/she's merry And intelligent - very For having this blog under roof! Copyright 2008 by PJF & Peter, The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire, Jokes and Comedy
Now ya see dears how easily I dealt wit de unknown gender problem dere. And thats the end of the dialect attempt from meeself. Maybe.
One problem now occurs to me, what if Louth rhymes with South and not uncouth?
Well, I suppose I could do this.
A very wise person from Louth Looked East, West, North and to South, To find bloggy quotations And funny notations But came here(!) for words blithely to mouth. Copyright 2008 by PJF & Peter, The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire, Jokes and Comedy
I hope the good people of Louth like their Limericks and are not in a long time feud with Limerick. I also hope that Louth is an actual town and not just a company hosting the server, now, gee wouldn't that be embarrassing.
Worse things have happened to me.
Anyway, thanks for any regular readers I have. Please let me know that you are out there. I know that I get many from referrals for something else due to having more than 500 posts up here now. My comments are only moderated for language and spam, so please do comment, even if it is just a hello. I love those!
I am betting on the first pronunciation by the way.
This one is from my friend Tom. A wee bit of an Irish joke.
A Texan walks into a pub in Ireland and clears his voice to the crowd of drinkers. He says, "I hear you Irish are a bunch of hard drinkers. I'll give $500 American dollars to anybody in here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back-to-back."
The room is quiet and no one takes up the Texan's offer. One man even leaves.
Thirty minutes later the same gentleman who left shows back up and taps the Texan on the shoulder. "Is your bet still good?", asks the Irishman.
The Texan says yes and asks the bartender to line up 10 pints of Guinness. Immediately the Irishman tears into all 10 of the pint glasses drinking them all back-to-back. The other pub patrons cheer as the Texan sits in amazement.
The Texan gives the Irishman the $500 and says, "If ya don't mind me askin', where did you go for that 30 minutes you were gone?".
The Irishman replies, "Oh...I had to go to the pub down the street to see if I could do it first".
Be like Tom! Send a joke via email at the address below or include it in the comments and if we like it we'll put it up here with whatever part of your name you want. It must be relatively clean!
Thanks for visiting the Peter Files Blog of Comedy! Bookmark us and come back soon! Feel free to forward posts to your friends and to taunt them with your savvy nature for finding this blog first!
We strive to keep our humor and comments safe for home and work. Some of the links that appear on the sidebar may not meet our standards. If this appears on a regular basis, please let us know at "thepeterfilesblog at gmail dot com". Thank You!
Once upon a time, there were two girls, Mary and Anne, who were signed up for dancing lessons at the local park of the Chicago Park District.
The girls thought this was a wonderful idea, not so much because of their love of dance, but because it got them out of the house two or three times a week for at least an hour when they might otherwise be forced to do homework, or chores, or laundry or such, being from a large family, there was a great deal of laundry or such that they were chained to like dwarves in a Grimms fairy tale, not the nice French kind.
Unlike those in suburban households, where children live on cul-de-sacs and must be driven everywhere, Mary and Anne had the option of either walking or riding their bikes to dancing lessons. I say option, but the truth of it was that in general, no car was available anyway for the trip.
This was not really a burden, because the park's field house was really only a long block down their street, another very short block to the stop light. A few feet to the driveway for the park, and a few more feet to the door of the Park District field house where the dancing lessons were held. A trip of less than 10 minutes, unless, unless, well, we'll get to that, for that's the story.
As a Chicago Park District program, the lessons were free of course, the costumes for the end of the class show were to be provided by the class member's families. Remember this point. It comes into the story later.
Mary and Anne were from a large family for the time, six in, say 1975, when Anne might have been in, at best 3rd or 4th grade, at best, and Mary would have been in 5th or 6th grade, at best, but certainly with a better sense of consequences than Anne. Mary also had perhaps, a little more interest in dancing.
For you see, on that short trip from their house to the dancing class their was, a potential for - diversion! Yes, diversion I tell you!
And this diversion took the form of the home of the two girls' true and dear friends' Ann and Peggy. Ann was Mary's age and Peggy was Anne's age, or a little younger.
Now this is a true story and the names have not been changed to protect the innocent, or not so innocent in this case. So we must bear with a little confusion. Anne lives in the house up the hill a little and takes dancing lessons with Mary. Well, she is supposed to take dancing lessons with Mary. Ann lives in the house down the hill at the end of the long block on the corner that Mary and Anne are supposed to pass on the way to dancing lessons and not enter once the have turned the corner and are just out of sight of their mother, who I will call simply "Mom".
I think, given that I have revealed already that this is a true story that it would be just too much to reveal whether I called this woman "Mom" in those days too, as it would rip away any semblance or pretense of anonymity that the characters Anne, Mary, Ann and Peggy might have as the story goes on.
You can grant me that can't you?
So, to Anne's credit, she did attend the very first dance class with Mary. She absolutely did. She met the dancing teacher. She learned some dance moves. She lined up with the other girls and listened to them start to follow the teacher's movements as so many classes each fall had to the ever so moving and thrilling strains of that thrilling popular tune Alley Cat.
And Anne was indeed moved. It is indeed unfortunate that history does not record Anne's comments to Mary about the class she had just attended on the way back home, because Anne is one of the naturally funniest people in the universe. Especially, especially, when she has an audience capable of understanding her special blend of irony and wit.
If they, and the temptation by now would have been irresistible, stopped at the home of Ann and Peggy to describe exactly how strange their dance class experience had been, and they would have stopped in any case to avoid getting home early enough to get drafted into making one of the delegate-able typical Irish-American dinners so popular with their mother (such as kraft dinner and hot dogs, or roast chicken, onion salt and green beans (salt on the chicken before roasting), or broiled hamburgers, baked fries, and applesauce, or, a ham slice, corn, and another boiled veggie (ever wonder why PBS has never featured a series called "The Great Cooks of Ireland?))
Fortunately, there is no need for historical veracity here:
Anne: That is the stupidest thing I have ever done. Mary: You mean intentionally. Anne: You agreed not to bring up the time I let Anna cut my hair ever again! Mary: And you believed me? Anne: I believed that these dancing lessons might be good for something, so far all they are good for is getting us out of the house. O.K. that is something. Mary: Look, its just the first day, things will get better. Anne: Things will NOT get better. Did you hear that song they had us dancing to? I think I heard it at a funeral once. And Mom is supposed to make part of our costume. you trust her to do that? Mom can not sew. Mary: That's just a practice song. No way will we be doing it for the final recital. Besides, we'll get Grandma to do the sewing. Anne: Like she has time after cleaning up after 9 cats, 3 St. Bernards, a mangy Collie, and Grandpa. Mary: The cats don't count, they live under the front porch, Aunt Sally & Aunt Laura help with the dogs, and Grandpa is self-cleaning and still works. She only has to sew on some reindeer tails and there are three months to go. Anne: Maybe, I'll go again, but you better not tell anyone at school that I'm in it and if I don't go anymore you better not tell Mom! Mary: You're kidding right? I would never violate The Code!
The Code: Survival among the siblings created the code and caused the defeat and retreat of many a babysitter who hoped to threaten them into submission.
Simply put: Though shalt not squeal. Whenever possible, though shalt not cause the wrath of parental units to descend upon us. If such should befall you Though shall do your best to take it for the team.
The effect: For Mary, Anne and their siblings, adult wrath of all kinds was avoided. This also made them popular with the friends to whom they extended this treatment.
Somehow though, Anne never made it back to dancing class. Instead she stopped a Peggy's house and played with Ann and Peggy and Mary would tell her about what happened at dance class. As the weeks went by Anne's worst suspicions were confirmed.
There was no new music. They would have one number in the Christmas show. They would be dancing reindeer. The curtain would open and they would do a simple number where they danced in circles and from side to side in reindeer costumes to the tune of "Alley Cat".
What "Alley Cat" had to do with Christmas neither of the girls could figure out. Their best bet was that the show was originally a Halloween show that had been pushed back to Christmas, but that while the costumes were changed, the music was not because the de-dee-dee de de de de dee de de beat of Alley Cat was impossible for young dancers NOT to hear.
Also, the girls, any boys in the class dropped out within two classes, usually, had only to change from buying black leotards to brown leotards and from making long cat tails to short reindeer tails. The noses were painted on about the same, except for those who wanted to do gender crossing and pretend to be Rudolph.
Through all of this time, Anne remained unconcerned about the number of practices she was missing. Sometimes at Ann and Peggy's house she would ask Mary to run through the steps and Mary would make it looks so easy that Anne thought, shoot, I can do that, say "Thanks, I can catch up if I have to" and go back to playing with Peggy.
Mary: Ann, I'm worried about Anne, she's not worried at all that my Mom and Dad are going to figure out that she's not going to class. Ann: Well, why should she worry? They're not going to see her dance, so what's the problem. She just gets sick on show night and that's it. Mary: That won't work! My Mom and Dad will feel like they'll have to apologize that she didn't make it, and after making that costume, Mom just might Make her go thinking its just stage fright. Ann: You'd better make her go to a few practices. Mary: I think she's scared that she's missed so many they won't let her come back and will call home. Ann: Oops. So She's going to have to just show up for the show and fake it? Mary: Yes. Ann: Well, don't tell her beforehand, but look for us in the top row, he he. Mary: No! Ann: If you think I'm going to miss this. This will be better than the hair cutting incident.
Just like in a fairy tale things got worse. Grandma had to visit a sick relative. Mom had to buy the leotards and came back with black ones. Then made the reindeer tails without actually looking at a picture. She made them out of stockings. Fortunately, the reindeer antlers were purchased. Nonetheless the afternoon before the show, the girls were shown the leotards with tails permanently sewn on.
They screamed in horror. Windows broke for blocks around.
The local news attributed it to a weather anomaly.
Anne: Mom! Those aren't Reindeer tails, those are Rat tails! We'll look like Mutant Rat-Reindeer. We're supposed to have cute white tails. (Almost crying.) Marye: Mom! You've got to fix them. Ann's right! These are awful. Mom: But Reindeer are like horses, don't horses have long tails! Mary: Not LONG THIN RAT TAILS! Besides, Santa's Reindeer have cute white cotton tails, all the girls agreed! Mom: I'm sorry girls, but you didn't tell me that. (History is uncertain of this detail.) Anne: But don't you see, with black instead of brown costumes, we will REALLY look like Christmas Rats! Mom: We can't do anything about the leotards except maybe give you red collars. Then with two of you, you will look special. Maybe I can pin the tails in a circle or something and stuff them into a white sock...
So this was done and our two reindeer now had stubby tails that were quite fat, but they now no longer looked quite so much like rats and they were a little mollified. Until...
Dad: Good news girls, I talked to Grandma, Uncle Ron, Aunt Sally, Uncle Neil, Dave and a few other friends and drummed up a real audience for you tonight. With their families I'll bet you'll have at least 30 people there to see you dance tonight! Plus the six of us not dancing of course. Mary: (To herself) Plus Peggy and Ann, 38, plus anyone they told, that makes, easily a thousand. Anne: Screams and falls to the floor attempting to simulate the onset of a grave illness.
Two hours later, fed and a little nervous, Mary and Anne are dropped off at the entry for the "backstage" of the performance area. Since the announcement of the potential attendance of 30 relatives Anne realizes that she is well and truly trapped and has spent the last two hours in the basement, without the benefit of a recording of the dreaded Alley Cat, trying to learn the routine.
Her one advantage is that Mary knows it by heart by now as it has been drummed into her until she can do it in her sleep. So she sings the tune as they go along. Two hours is not enough time for Anne at her state of panic to learn the routine. She has never tried to learn a routine before. But she does learn how to do each of the moves, she just cannot get what order they are in.
Walking in Anne has two strategies. One - not be noticed and two - get on stage.
Anne does not want to be noticed because if she is noticed the Dance Program Director might not let her go on. She decides to hide in the darkest corner of the room with her head half hidden and her tail completely out of sight as she knows her tail is completely in opposition to strategy number one - not be noticed.
Mary on the other hand bravely tries to draw fire by being noticeable. And of course she does, as most of the girls can't stop themselves from laughing at her tail, even the nice ones. They all like Mary, she's that kind of girl, nice to everyone, supportive, always something nice to say to everyone, but even with the foreknowledge that Mary's Mom is a terrible sewer, the reality is beyond their comprehension and trying not to laugh just makes it worse.
What saves it of course, is that Mary sees the humor in it.
Mary: You should see what it started as. She took a stocking thinking that reindeer had long thin tails. My sister Anne said I looked like a Mutant Reindeer-Rat.
After that the room exploded with laughter, even Anne couldn't help laughing, the pent up tension inside her bringing tears to her eyes as she looked at the clock and noticed that the show was due to start in two minutes. Just then, the Dance Program Director walked back into the room and called the girls to attention. It was nearly their turn. The younger classes had finished and it was time for them to go on.
Dance Program Director: Girls! Time for you to go on. I want you to know that I am very proud of each and every one of you. You have all worked very hard and you know just what to do. SO, go out to do it and have fun. For some reason we seem to have a particularly big audience tonight, one of our biggest ever. Don't let that throw you. They are here to see you succeed, so pay attention to each other and not them. At the same time, don't forget to smile at each other. After all, you know each other very well and you can count on each other if you are not sure what to do.
If so, just follow the person ahead of you or to either side! Now break a leg!
Line up in one minute.
She left the room and Anne took that moment to sneak up next to and behind Mary as close as she could in line. The clock was ticking. The Dance Program Director came back in went to the curtain, began to open it, looked across her girls smiling, saw Anne, frowned and then hurried to her and said:
Dance Program Director: WHO are YOU? And what are you doing in line with my class, in a costume? Anne: I'm in your class! Dance Program Director: No you're not! I've never seen you before, I have no idea who you are! Anne: But I'm in your class, I'm on your list, look at it, my name is Anne, it's on it just before my sister Mary here. Dance Program Director: Why so it was, I scratched it out when you never came back, but I can't let you go out there if you haven't been here, you don't know the steps. Anne: I've been sick, but Mary's been teaching me at home, and my whole family is out there, praying that I'm well enough to do this. Dance Program Director: Well I'm sorry, but I pray that they'll understand that I can't let you go out there without seeing you do this right at least once and we just don't have the time. I AM sorry to disapoint you, but it's just not fair to the other girls.
And Anne, terrified, sat down, weeping as the other girls went out. Then the Dance Program Director slid out the side curtain to announce the girls and start the record.
Then, terrified of what her parents would say and do, Anne did something that would change her life. She got up, peeked though the curtain, saw that the lights were still down and slipped into the back row of reindeer, not noticing that she had ripped the seam holding the sock onto her "Rat tail" somewhat.
Then Alley Cat began and the lights went up to vigorous applause. The crowd was larger than in her worst nightmares and all of the girls froze for about 4 bars, enough that the Dance Program Director apologized for some "Technical difficulties" and reintroduced the act in blackout again, this time bringing up the lights before the music in hopes of fooling the audience that she was at fault for the incomprehensible stares.
The second introduction worked and it gave Anne a head start as at first she remembered what Mary had taught her. This lasted a glorious 45 seconds, of reindeer dancing to the left, to the right, spinning to the left, spinning to the right, then moving in a box so that those who had been in the back of the formation were now in the very front of the audience.
Two things happened then.
One, Anne ran out of choreography without an example right in front of her to copy from so she was forced to look to either side for help.
Two, she was now blocking Angel, the girl who for the last 6 weeks had been in the front of the pack at this point and whose mother could not get the great picture of her that they had been planning.
Three, this very same girl, Angel noticed something funny about Anne's reindeer tail, it seemed to be having a stitch problem. Surely it would be better if that hanging white string were removed. So, when the reindeer all danced in place in a circle to the right, the little minx held on to that thread and let it unwind, undoing the thread holding the sock in place and before the entire audience, dead center, down front, in front of 30 relatives, poor Anne who appeared to be dancing pretty well thus far, was transformed into a Mutant Rat-Reindeer.
Without Anne's knowledge, at first.
So, if you will excuse the term, seamless was her transition. And so clearly was the transformation the work of Angel, the reindeer behind Anne, that it was mistaken for plot, and from then on all eyes were focused on Anne to see what would become of this poor bespelled Mutant Reindeer-Rat.
What became of her was that she immediately began to lose her reindeer powers to dance.
For as Anne reached the end of her memory of the choreography she began to do every dance move increasingly behind the rest of the dancers, with the gap increasing as time and her panic went on.
When the reindeer turned left, Anne turned left, just a second too late. When the reindeer hopped backwards, Anne stuck in front, caught on a St. Nick of a moment too late and hopped back with so much enthusiasm that she almost knocked the girl behind her, Angel, into the closed curtain, again, this was mistaken for plot. The audience roared. Anne, thinking this reaction was due solely to her inept dancing, was really shaken, but bravely went on, determined to follow the advice given earlier and ignore the audience.
The next time the group twirled full circle, Anne was so determined to dance dramatically, Anne's mutant tail elevated and whipped Angel in the face, hard. She screamed, the audience clapped and laughed again, now convinced that Anne was the star in some little morality play. And Anne began to suspect that the laughter was due to a costume flaw involving her tail. This was confirmed when she spotted the white sock on the floor where she had been standing in front of Angel previously.
Could Angel have? Nooo....
Meanwhile, Mary, a little behind and to the right, watched what was going on with growing concern. Angel could be a vindictive little soul and was not beyond starting a throw down cat fight in front of everyone if this went on any longer. At the same time, Mary knew who the audience would favor. What to do?
Then the reindeer did a block dance again. This finally put Angel in the front row and Mary near her. Angel noticed that Mary had a similar tail to Anne's and put two and two together and she ripped Mary's sock off with glee as the audience whistled.
Mary: (whisper) This means war Angel! Angel: (whisper) I'm not afraid of you! Mary: (whisper) You should be worried about the 40 relatives I have in the audience if I were you, I'd be thinking of a way to give this fairy tale a happy ending. Angel: (whisper) 40! You're lying! Mary: (whisper) Unfortunately not. Just look at their noses. The really tall boys are her brothers. They are having fun, now... Angel: EEK! Mary: (Tail undone - perfectly timed rotation of tail) "Whack"! Think about it!
At this point Angel's confidence had fallen a bit. Realizing that in front of the audience she had removed two tails, and was seen, as the "bad reindeer", she had only one option.
With the end of Alley Cat nearing Angel moved out of position in front of the dancing group and did her best "remorseful" dance which ended with her on her knees facing the side of the stage on which Mary and Anne were "Dancing".
Mary was now doing her best to follow Anne poorly following the other dancers since M was now also a Mutant Rat-Reindeer and so unable to dance in time to the music. She grabbed Anne once Angel was kneeling and brought her to the front to see what she was up to. Angel then, brilliantly, ripped her own tail off, split it in half, and offered it to the two reindeer, who rejoiced in an ersatz "Snoopy Dance" bearing no resemblance to anything taught at the park or the timing of the music.
Mary then ripped off Anne's tail. Anne ripped off Mary's tail. And they raised them up as if to crown Angel for her kindness. Instead, they tied the two together which made them long enough to tie around Angel's waste making Angel a Mutant Rat-Reindeer just as "Alley Cat" ended.
The audience roared with laughter and applause.
The dancers all took a bow together.
Then the audience, being mostly relatives, called "Mary and Anne, Mary and Anne" and to the Dance Program Director's dismay, they came forward to take bows. But then Anne went back and pulled Angel to the front, and to her surprise, the audience, thinking her shenanigans were all part of the act, gave her big applause as well. Thus redeeming Angel in the eyes of her mother. So she joined the three in one final bow.
Then the Dance Program Director having had enough, cut the lights.
Wisely, Mary and Anne did not return backstage.
In the car on the way home. A short but revealing ride.
Mom: Huh, ha, Huh. Ha, Huh, Ha. Anne, You, Ha, You, Anne, Ha, You, Ha, You, Ha didn't ha, go, to a, ha, huh, single, ha, practice, did you? Anne: Um, I went to the first one. Does that count? Mom: If that, ha, huh, wasn't, ha, so, funny, ha, seeing, hu, you, ha, a, ha, a step, behind everyone, ha, else, you'd hah, be, in big, trouble, now. Whew, ooh, lord.
And so the story ends, Anne lived happily ever after. Except that she was doomed to hear this story over and over for the rest of her natural life, because it is one of Mary's favorites, and it is better when Mary tells it.
Except when Anne tells it, of course.
And of course now it is on the internet, where her friends and co-workers at the Park District may see it and understand why she always uses Alley Cat for the Fall Introduction to Dance classes she teaches now.
Thanks for visiting the Peter Files Blog of Comedy! Bookmark us and come back soon! Feel free to forward posts to your friends and to taunt them with your savvy nature for finding this blog first!
We strive to keep our humor and comments safe for home and work. Some of the links that appear on the sidebar may not meet our standards. If this appears on a regular basis, please let us know at "thepeterfilesblog at gmail dot com". Thank You!
We strive to keep our humor and comments safe for home and work. Some of the links that appear here may not meet our standards. If this appears on a regular basis, please let us know at "thepeterfilesblog dot gmail dot com". Thank You!
Home of the Best Doctor Who Podcast in Time and Space
