Ah, summertime and the livin is eeeeeassssyyyyy....
Hope everyone is having a good time with this great weather we're having (In Central KY , anyhoo) I do love the summertime. It takes me back to my youth, and for at least a brief time I can remember what it was like to be wide eyed and have the world laid out in front of me. Sure, life is much different now, with a job, family, responsibility, a HELLUVA lot more aches and pains, but there's still a little bit of that kid in me that just has to giggle every time the he sees the bright sun and the clear blue skies.
SOOO- describe to me what your summers were like when you were a kid. It can be from when you were a wee tot, a "tweener" or a full blown teenager, or a combo of all of the above. And, if something theatrical resonates with your summer memories (it sure does in mine!) lemmee specifically know about that.
ALSO- a little news for you: I have now officially changed jobs- I will be working in Lexington (NO MORE COMMUTING!) for the Bluegrass Technical and Community College coordinating their fine arts classses and building their new Theatre and Film degree, which should begin to go into effect in Spring 07. I have nothing but good to say about KSU, my former employers, as I spent five good years there and I am damned proud of the work we were able to accomplish in that time. Perhaps more on that in a later post- Just wanted my wonderful posters to be the first to know!
So knock me out- and 2800 pts for the reference, unless RICK8 gets it, and then only 28, as he probably knows the whole song by heart!
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Most of my summers of my youth were spent at the Fort Thomas Swim Club, getting a nut-brown tan and ogling nubile young women in bikinis (well, not really bikini...two-piece bathing suits. As I got older, it was working in an ad agency in Cincinnati. They did a lot of work for Proctor and Gamble, so I knew all about top secret products before they ever came out. During college, I sweated at American Book Company packing textbooks as they came off the assembly line. Great way to stay in shape. At night, I ran Mercury II Theatre...which was a summer theatre I started for college and high school performers. We usually did one play a summer and, later an evening of odd scenes and poems and skits.
Tim, congrats on your new job. Hope it is fulfilling.
Tim, congratulations on the new gig! Sounds like a wonderful opportunity and certainly a challenge.
I don't recognize the song reference and can't recall my childhood...just wanted to say congrats...here endeth my post.
bob
Dr Dave,
My office will actually be on Leestown Rd, but I'll eventually be over Cooper way quite a bit, so we'll definitely hook up!
So, does Rick actually get credit for naming the Fresh Prince tune? Aw, hell... of course he does.
Growing up with my family meant yearning to get back to school to my friends. Weird, I know. My first really memorable summer was in 1991 when I left town to go to a REO Speedwagon concert in Lex... and never came back. Spent the whole summer riding motorcycles, playing guitar, going to parties, etc. As an adult, summer theatre got me.
Hmmm... I really ought to do something about all those summers I don't remember.
Congrats, X!
Summertime meant school was out and vacations were coming up and I could drink lemonade and read in the hammock and play outside with friends until after 9pm because it stayed light and, even when it got dark, that was time for flashlight tag and lightning bugs.
Now I'm almost 30 and have a 3-year old and am married (tee-hee, it's still new so I can giggle)....but I still love summer, although I definately don't have as much leisure time. But I can pass these memories on to the little one. He is totally amazed by lightning bugs.
Tim, best of luck on your new job!
Think how much you'll save on gas...
Summer, 'tween style, meant hanging out at the Statesville (NC) Country Club pool while my dad played golf and my mom gossiped with her friends in the shade. We'd swim, throw down the towels, slather on the Coppertone, and eat Zero Bars from the snack shack. I think I acually had a red/green/brown plaid two-piece that I'm sure looked swell in Seventeen Magazine. My friend Cissi (for real, Cissi and Missy) eventually married one of the lifeguards.
(ala Homer SImpson)
"....Mmmmmmmmm.......ZERO bars....!"
Summer. Summmmmmmer. Ages 11-14: Boy Scout camp(Eagle, baby!) Ages 10-13: Swim Camp. Age 12: Skating my first halfpipe, which caused me to build my own in the back yard (much to my parent's pleasure). Ages 10-13: Spending a few weeks with my best friend at his parent's beach house in Charleston, SC. Spying on his sister and her friend as they changed into their swim suits, etc. (They NEVER caught us.) Life Guarding at Tates Creek Pool (ages 16-18) I never had to save a life but I did kick plenty of kids outta the pool. And a few for the entire summer. And got a terrible sunburn on the tops of my feet my first day of work. (Who remembers to put sunscreen on their feet?!) Ages 14-16: Skating all night, all over town. Ah, youth.
The Shakespeare Festival was fun for a few years too. Hamlet (1999) was fun, especially for the debauched/borderline creepy hot-tub "casting sessions" at KD's house. Romeo and Juliet (2000) was a blast because of all those fight scenes and I got to make kissy face with AB, and kill Rexx Samuell, or as I liked to call him Sexx Ramwell, with a dagger under the collarbone. Macbeth (2001?), going out for the last production wearing my kilt in the traditional Scottish way. That was cool (and breezy). Lear (2003?) was great because I got to wear leather pants, earrings, and tattoos, which is my usual get-up, you know. I got to look lile a rock star, kiss two ladies on the stage, have about 3 or 4 people killed, and gloat about it the whole time. Those were great years. Many memories. Many scrapes, bruises, a few laws broken, a couple of hearts as well.
Now, Summer blows.
Congrats on that jobby, X-man. No more commuting for you. I'm sure your little red car will be loving that. Not to mention your wallet.
Mmmmmm....Zero bars. I haven't had one of those in forever.
So summertimes were a mixed bag for me. I remember as a kid, we lived on a small working farm, so summertime meant lots of work to do, and rising early to get it done. As the farm began to get progressively LESS "active" in the years to come, those chores lessened (much to my liking at the time!) AS a teenager, I found the two things that would sustain me for many years: Theatre and Rock and Roll (well, okay, two of the three...) My brothers and I had a three piece punk band - I was the drummer- that would thrash loudly in our friend Greg's barn. We usually only played for our friends and the assorted farm animals (including one very hornary mule named Applejack, who didn't care for us OR our music too much.) I also formed many a combo with my friends once I started playing the guitar, and summertime was a great time to swelter in someone's garage trying desperately to learn the newest ACDC or Judas Priest tune. The music thing never amounted to much until years later...but that's another post alltogether! But it sho' was fun...and talk about a good outlet for small town teenage angst!
Also, when I was in high school (summer after Jr year, I believe) I got a really good role in our local theatre's summer production of DARK OF THE MOON ( I played MARVIN HUDGINS, the bad guy, if you know the show- nice little piece. And creepy as all hell!)
It was my first good role outside of school, and it really gave me a taste for more, and kinda made me realize that A) I really LIKED this theatre thing and B) I was actually getting good enough to hold my own. Our theatre had some very strong performers- some guys who had moved down from the tri cities area of NY where they used to do tons of summer stock, some really strong college actors, etc. But I wound up getting great buzz for the performance, and it really was a boost to me. There were also a TON of hot young chicks in this show (much to the chagrin of my then girl friend- I think I wound up making out with about four of 'em at the cast party...what a cad I was!)...yet another reason I came to love this thing we call THEATRE...little did I know that years later, I would MARRY one of those hot theatre gals! Some guys have all the luck, don't they?
Probably my most memorable summer was the summer of 85, the first I spent without my Dad. I posted about it last summer and it's special meaning to me, but suffice it to say it was the best of times, and yet the worst as well. It seemed like even in the midst of all the great summer maddness, I could see my childhood slipping away from me. Kinda exhilarating and sad at the same time. But DAMN , we had some great parties that summer, didn't we Fletch?
BTW- it just hit me that as of this month, I've been blogging for a year now. Gotta say, I NEVER thought it would last this long. I figured I'd go for a few months and that would be that, but it's really grown into a nice little "watering hole" as Mikey calls it...for all of my usual posters, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! and for all you lurkers (and I KNOW you;re there) com'on in - the water's STILL fine!
"Summertime....and the livin' is easy"
Gosh how I miss the days of summer (can't control myself...must put in oblogatory bitch about the state of FL...ready for it? Here is comes...there is no FREAKIN' summer here...it is just hot all the time and loses something, ya know?)
But I do have many fond memories of summer...kickball in the cul-de-sac of my neighborhood when I was in 1-3rd grade....holding my breath under water sitting Indian style in second grade in pigtails and a yellow bikini..."creek jumping" in 5th and 6th grade where we would try to jump across the neighbordhhod creek. I still have scars on my knees from that and I often did it in a skirt?????....kissing my first of many summer flings in the summer before 8th grade. He was shorter than me and from North Carolina....looking for Georgia boys at our time share in Kiawah Island...and teaching drama camp and dance camp at a park called Happy Hollow in Penn....and doing lots of things in the evenings during high school that may still shock my parents to this day...
Nowadays, I look forward to coming back to Lexvegas, going to the 4th festivities, heading to King's Island, grilling out and drinking beers, smelling freshly cut NICE grass (not this stick like shit that we have here!!)
I will be there from the 30th of June until the 11th.
LETS GET SOME SUMMERTIME FUN IN, MY FRIENDS!!!!
Let's plan on a cookout (I say that and I have no house of my own there...but someone??) or El Toro!
btw- that's ornery...not sure why I spelled it with an H...perhaps I thought meant horny mule? Ahh, summertime on the farm!
Oh yeah, , during the summer before 7th grade, we'd play kick the can for hours at a time after dinner. The playing field was an entire neighborhood, the field behind it, and sometimes included the inside of a house or two. We'd play that shit for hours and we'd love it. Couldn't say as much for the people trying to enjoy a relaxing, quiet evening in their house or yard. Usually they'd see 6 or 7 kids dart across their yard dressed completely in black. We were like Jr. High ninjas. I can't believe I forgot that. Sweet. Anyone up for a game? That would rock.
X, it was DARK OF THE MOON that finally made me leap into theatre with both feet and not look back...I saw a production of it at UK with this really hot babe playing Barbara Allen. She later directed me in my first piece at UK. She later married me (Very, very much later...after much sturm and drang, parting of the ways,our mutual sowing of wild oats, our mutual making of mistakes, only to be reunited years later. It is a long, convuluted and, as Roger Leasor puts it, "meandering history"). This was, of course, The Lovely Wife...Julieanne!
Very cool. I do have a very soft spot for that play...allthough, there was a "rumor" that the play was supposedly cursed, and from our production BOY you woulda thought it was the truth!
Within the next year and a half, our Preacher Haggler lost his business, our Edna Summey's parents divorced,two of our other cast members had divorced each other, our Marvin and "Witch Boy's" (me and my bro Jerry) father had died and our Leading lady had been murdered...coincidence, I know, but errie nevertheless.
"jr. High ninjas..." I forgot about my friend Micah Voss and I would dress in black and spy in people's windows....in 4th and 5th grade....We saw lot's of odd things and were breaking the law, but it was damn fun!
We saw a man in tighty whitey's, cowboy hat and boots doing a dance in front of his mirror....It was great!!! Very funny.
Hey X,
The "leading lady" you mentioned... was it THAT leading lady (the "3 Cheers" subject)?
Yep...I'll do a post about all that sometime this summer...
btw- the guy LG mentioned in the cowboy hat and the tightie whities...was that you?
Haha! I was actually gonna say that myself! I wasn't into the muumuu at that point yet.
KD,
That's why I like you. You're just a little bent. The first time I met you, you were in the Short Street parking lot (with AL, I believe) screaming obscenities and kicking your car. Someone had broken in and stolen some stuff from your car. Your behavior was very un-ladylike and caustic. Scared me a bit, to be honest. (AL was standing coolly by letting it all just rain itself out.) I liked you right away. Erin does too, for the same reasons I might add.
Got any of those pictures with the oranges? That's real American Gothic.
Tim, are you up to your ass in "Bottom" (excuse the dubious attempt at wit) or how about a new topic?
Actually, I AM up to my ass in BOTTOM...(but I'll shoot a new topic in tomorrow)
That shit better be good, man.
I have no doubts. Excited to see it.
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