Cherie

Haiku #229 - New Haven, CT

such great energy
in the audience tonight
ev'ryone was there

We had a lot of In the Heights VIPs in the house last night - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacamoire, Karen Olivo, our producers, a bunch of Lin's family and friends... we had a party afterwards. A particularly great show and a great night. My friend and faithful blog-reader Bear was able to come up from the city to see the show for the first time, and meet some of the people he's read about!

Bear (right) said he felt like he already knew Kurt & Cherie from reading my haiku!


Haiku #207 - Sonora Desert Museum

Kurt and I play Organ Pipe Cactus at the Sonora Desert Museum
Photo by CBT
is it a cactus
or musical instrument?
try it and you'll see!


Trip to one of my favorite Tucson-area attractions, the Sonora Desert Museum! Had a lovely week in Tucson, now in Greeley, CO for a show tomorrow night.  Greeley, home of my alma mater University of Northern Colorado, is as it ever was (that is not high praise). But I am looking forward to seeing some old friends and familiar faces tomorrow night! 

Haiku #198 - Kokopelli Goes to San Francisco

on a perfect day
we'll get in a car and drive
to San Francisco






Kurt, Cherie, Clarkie, and I covered a lot of ground on our day trip - Lombard St., the Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli factory, Chinatown (dim sum for lunch!), Golden Gate Bridge, and the Castro.  The weather was perfect!  A nice outing heading into a five-show weekend - two more days in San Jose, then Tucson next week!

Haiku #195 - Tech Museum

gadgets and gizmos
so many things to play with
at the Tech Muse'm


Went with Kurt, Cherie, and Christina to the Tech Museum this morning - played with hands-on exhibits, experienced a simulated roller coaster and a simulated earthquake, and saw Born to Be Wild at the Imax. It was nice to be reminded what amazing things we are capable of doing, when we choose to use our consciousness for good...


I liked this quote:
"Optimism is an essential ingredient for innovation.
How else can the individual welcome change over security,
adventure over staying in safe places?" -Bob Noyce

Haiku #183 - Mutual Admiration Society

guess who came to see
the show and hung out after?
Rico and Raini


Cherie, Rico, me, Raini, Kurt
Kurt, Cherie and I watch Modern Family every week, so we were pretty excited that Rico and Raini Rodriguez (Rico plays Manny on Mod Fam; his big sis Raini is also an actress) came to see In the Heights in their hometown, College Station.  There was a little meet-and-greet after the performance - turns out they're big fans of the show.  It was a mutual admiration society! 

Haiku #152-4 - Sonnet

I've missed a posting a few days recently, so today, I will catch you up with a haiku each from Kurt, Cherie, and me, and a sonnet for good measure.  This is how we entertain ourselves during long bus trips.  Missouri overnight tonight, then Friday and Saturday nights, shows in Lincoln, NE!

I spy with my eye
something red and crescent-shaped
it is on the bus
-Cherie

(Yes, we played "I spy" via text-haikus.  Incidentally, it was the red handle to the escape hatch at the top of the bus.)

the Midwest is big
Haikus can get lost out here
free-range syllables
-Kurt

in this vast prairie
haikus turn into sonnets
that'll shut us up
-me

Sonnet #1 - Ode to Brilliant Friends

A long day on the bus I feared could cause
a numbing of the mind and of the ass.
I greeted six a.m. with no applause
And soon my phone began to me harass.

As if alarm had not been pain enough,
The texts began to pile up thick and deep.
Kurt and Cherie were riffing off the cuff, 
A clear result of brains on little sleep.

The bus's wheels went on their countless rounds
As Thursday's sun arrived to the Midwest
No subject for haiku was out of bounds
In fact, I think we wrote some of our best. 

The moral - brilliant friends will help you find:
The bus will numb the ass but not the mind.


Haiku #143 - Toronto

food, coffee, massage
a trip to Chinatown yields
many benefits


Alex, Kurt, Cherie and I had a terrific breakfast at Karine's yesterday.  Tucked away inside a food court, it's a definite must-eat for budget travelers in Toronto: cheap, yummy, environmentally conscious.  I had a roast-veg omelet, and stole some of Alex's fries with homemade ketchup.  We caffeinated ourselves at Dark Horse Espresso Bar, and then unwound with hourlong reflexology foot massages at a place on Dundas in Chinatown.  It was pretty amusing with the four of us and each of our masseuses in one room, chatting amiably in Mandarin and English, with Cherie acting as translator when necessary.  


We're here for two more days, then on to West Virginia and beyond!

Haiku #115 - Corning, NY

Cherie & Alex after our impromptu music store jam
what is that I hear?
the ominous rattle of
an awkward giraffe?


Two shows in Elmira, NY, and in between we have had today free in nearby Corning. This town is so cute - it reminds me of my hometown with its main drag of brick buildings that house small businesses.  While apparently Corning is famous for blown glass and - duh - Corningware, my pals and I had a non-touristy but very restful day of Indian food, an impromptu jam in the local music store (pictured), and getting out nails done.  We found a giraffe shaker in the music store and bought it for Kurt.  The awkward giraffe is an inside joke - thanks for indulging my haiku.  Also bought a regular egg shaker, so now we have two percussion instruments to accompany Cherie's ukelele "Uke-snavi" (named after Usnavi, the lead character in In the Heights).  


One more show in Elmira tonight, then on to Lexington KY for the weekend!

Haiku #22, 23 - Real American: Cherie, ASM

REAL AMERICAN:
Meet Cherie B. Tay, our assistant stage manager, Texas/Singapore native, technology savant. 

Where do I begin.  Cherie possesses a level of talent and drive I can really only describe as stupid.  She is my massage hookup, because, in addition to her grueling itinerant-stage-manager schedule, Cherie has taken it upon herself to learn reflexology during this tour.  I made up this haiku for her the first time she used me as a guinea pig:

i wish i could purr
reflexology is nice
i will drool instead

I wrote her this, too -

signing is handy 
to talk to the ASM
from across the bus

- because she is also learning sign language using the videos from the ASL website.  She's teaching me, too.  Or trying.  So far, I speak sign language with an offensively thick accent: I keep saying "vaffanculo!" instead of "good", and when I'm trying to sign back "I don't understand" across the bus, it usually comes out as something like "HORSE! WANT! WHYYY!??!?"  Slowly but surely, however, I am learning to say such useful things as "I want cookie now!" and "Why, God, why today?"
Let's see, what else... she's working on her Spanish (a no-brainer on this bilingual tour), keeping a blog on her stage managing adventures, and acting as our unofficial tour photographer as well as posting on her daily photo project.  

She can also drink me under the table.  But that's not so stupid.