is exactly what I did. I have left fond memories all over the state in the last 14 days. The tour has ended, I’ve returned home. I made some realizations and learned alot. I not only learned a lot about my career, but about myself. The last 3 cities brought on new challenges, new friends and even better memories.
The Vero Beach shows, both of them, had some moments, but overall were good. We started the morning super early, arriving at the venue before the crew. We decided to take a drive to the beach, we we go there, we got rained on…oh well. We went back and I did my thing, we had two pretty uneventful shows. I did convince the team to take the video guy with us to Kravis, that was a huge relief.
The next day, we were at the Kravis Center. It was a stressful day, I’ll admit it. We got there in the afternoon, the venue was doubt booked, things weren’t what I had asked for. But I figured it out, the crew was fantastic and we got done ahead of schedule.
After a few days off we headed to Sarasota. That’s where the real “adventure” began. The hotel was fantastic, they had free pizza aqnd beer/wine for dinner. Nothing like a drink by the pool and hottub with the sun setting. The evening was uneventful, or so we thought.
Let me back track a little and explain who exactly was with us:
- Michael Feinstein and his boyfriend Terrance- they made a lot of the final decisions on things.
- Starleigh- the office manager of Concord Entertainment- she was flown in to drive and take care of the old crowd.
- The old crowd: it consisted of the following Arlene Dahl, and her husband, Jane Powell and her assistant, Jane Russell, who is 88 and her cousin, Pat who is 87 and Robert Osborne and his wife.
- Then there was myself and Andy, the production manager.
Okay…so we all go to bed on Wednesday night. I wake up Thursday morning to a phone call, around 8:00AM from Starleigh, who said that I need to come down to Jane Russell’s room. There was a slight sense of panick in her voice. So I promptly get up, and walk down the hall way to Jane’s room. I walk in to see Jane had blood all over her face. When I asked what happened, she explained that she had fallen during the night, around 4:30AM, because she didn’t want to turn the light on when she got up to go to the bathroom because she didn’t want to wake Pat up. So I had to make the decision as to what to do. I called the conceirge and they told me that there was an Urgent Care center next door. Off we went. The Dr stitched her up with 6 stitches and proceeded to send us to the ER because of her age. She needed a CT scan, an MRI and and EEG. After 5 hours, we were cleared and went right to the venue. I managed to get done what I need to get done and we had a show. We then went off to a VIP party and back to the hotel.
The next morning we all parted ways. I was so upset. I was a blast. I learned to work in different settings, with different types of crews.
As far as what learned about myself. That will be another post. But I did decide to write a book.
