England: Finally a Taste of England OR Proof the United States Could Still Ruin My Trip from Across the Pond
Monday, May 16th
For reasons I can't/won't explain here... the evening of debauchery that stemmed from that Pen and Parchment visit left me very VERY tired in the morning. For some reason, I have listed a "quick breakfast" for this morning... but I honestly don't remember it. Oh wait... now it's coming back to me. I thought there was a chance that I would be punched in the face Monday morning... but I wasn't. I thought some people may have been talking about me in the morning... but I think everyone was worried about everyone else finding out what THEY did Sunday night, that no one was talking about anyone else. See what happens when you give a whole choir a night free in a boring little town? Bad things, my friend... bad things.
But we left Stratford-Upon-Avon before anything illegal happened and we headed to Warwick Castle. I felt as though Warwick Castle was a more beautiful, more classical castle than Windsor. When I think of what a Castle should look like in the future, Warwick is the castle of which I will think. That was disgustingly good English.
But, anyway, there is a tower at Warwick castle called Guy's Tower that has the absolute greatest view of the surrounding area. Here are two pics from the top of that tower:
This is the view looking one way!
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This is the view looking the other way! That building has an exhibit that makes it look like there's a party going on... and there creepy wax figures over here too! Hooray!
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I actually made the walk up to that tower twice. Once on my own to get these great pics... and a second time with Mike, Justin, and some of the other Euphonics. As I ascended the tower, I realized that they have made no attempt to make this castle handicapped accessible. I became somewhat irritated that England can give Americans crap for not being culturally sensitive, but they themselves care very little for the physically handicapped enjoying their landmarks and monuments. And it's such a shame because the view up from that tower was so beautiful... I actually would have taken a lot more pictures of Warwick, but my camera battery decided it didn't want to charge the night before... and my battery ran out pretty early that day.
And this has nothing to do with anything, but, at lunch, we were waiting in this little cafeteria in a fairly long line... and everyone ahead of us was waiting ten minutes for a hot lunch, but we just wanted food. As such, five or six of us ended up politely asking a British woman to pass us chips and bottled water. The woman was very very nice... and I felt bad asking her for my chips and water when the time came... but, seriously, move out of the way lady. Geez! Make me feel bad! I don't know where I was going with that... let's move away from this.
Yes, Warwick Castle was beautiful and the day was going quite well, until we got to Shrewsbury. Now, don't get me wrong, Shrewsbury is a great little town with a really cool vibe. I finally felt like I had gotten a taste of an actual English town when we got to Shrewsbury... and I really liked the way it felt. It is a fabulous little burb, and the problem was not the town but what happened while I was there.
The first thing we did was to check into our hotel, the Prince Rupert Hotel. This was, by far, the worst hotel at which we stayed. The problem being that all the rooms seemed different... so while Chelsey and Katie's room looked like someone's cute little loft apartment, mine and Mike's room was small... and Mike's bed was complete crap. It was the worst mattress ever... and the fact that they had a placard over the bed boasting that fact was a little off-putting. In addition to the crappy room, the entire hotel had one elevator which wasn't big enough for anyone... so we all had to lug our luggage (although that's what it's there for) up to our rooms. It wasn't a problem for me, but just thinking of all the small people on our tour with big bags... it irritated me.
After complaining to each other about our room, Mike and I were off to choir rehearsal in the Shrewsbury Abbey. The choir then spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get us all to cram into a very small space so that we could take a group photo from about ten feet away. Why didn't we get some more distance between us and the camera? There wasn't enough room. Why didn't we move the picture someplace else? The Abbey was being reconstructed... and there was gross scaffolding all over the place. Why didn't we get the picture outside? It was drizzling rain outside. Why didn't I just complain a whole bunch? Because I knew I could do it here, thank you.
We then quickly rehearsed about half of the selections we were going to sing at the concert. The bane of my existence on this trip was a little piece we like to call the Chicester Psalms. Not only was it incredibly nonsensical rhythmically, but it was in a language that I'm not sure has ever been spoken on this planet. Suffice it to say, I didn't know the piece. And, when I'm messing around, having fun rehearsing, I laugh it off: "ha ha ha... I'm having fun." No big deal. There's a huge choir around me and somebody here knows this crappy tune... let them sing it. I had myself focused on something a lot more important.
On the way to Shrewsbury, DRR asked Mike if the BriTones were ready to sing. The BriTones being a male acapella group consisting of the men in Euphonics and maybe two other guys (one of them=me). What were we going to sing? Good question... we hadn't rehearsed together as a full group ever. I think they might have rehearsed without me... but, being myself and highly anal retentive, I prefer to rehearse something a bunch of times before I have to go out on stage and perform it (improv what?).
Mike, apparently, felt a little bit the same way because he decided to scrap the BriTones idea in lieu of having the Euphonics perform. That was a good idea, I figured... but what would I do? Should I bow out gracefully and let the NextGen kick the funk? Or should I show them all how we did it old school (by arguing over nothing and having a big ego)? The latter seemed the best choice, and soon I was practicing with the new group. And, by practicing, I mean I went through the songs once... because they already knew them all. In all honesty, I'm fine with singing something in front of a group that I've only sung once before... but I'm not fine doing vocal percussion. To me, the perc stands out... it's a completely different sound than anything else that's going on, and it's the most noticeable part of the song (yes, even more so than the solo in my opinion). So I became worried when the Euphonics decided to do a song for which I would have to do the vocal perc on by myself ("Crazy Little Thing Called Love"). To be fair, Mike seemed to notice and try to address my level of discomfort... taking the drum fills that stand out by themselves... but, needless to say, I was quite nervous.
Imagine my surprise when, out of the blue before the concert, someone in the choir (who will remain nameless... but shall be labeled Exhibit "Tactless Bitch," for identification) came up to me to give me some advice. TB said "I noticed that when you don't know your part in Chicester that you giggle,"(the italicized portion should be read with as much disgust and inherent judgment as possible, thank you) "and you're right in front of everyone, so might I suggest that you either switch with someone or..." "I'm gonna stop you right there," I said. "I perform for a living, and I will not 'giggle' during a performance. But thank you for your suggestion." Can you believe how almost polite that sounded? Coming from ME?! But let me tell you, inside of me, I was ready to rip her stupid glasses off her pompous face and smash them on the ground. The NERVE... The AUDACITY (of IRS!... that's from a wrestling action figure commercial from when I was younger. Anyone remember that? "The audacity of IRS" it said... referring to the wrestler Irwin R. Scheister who used to wrestle in business attire and would bring a briefcase to the ring. I always think of that commercial when someone uses the word "audacity." Stupid consumerism)... What a BITCH! This is why you don't have any friends, TB.
Regardless, that shut her up and sent her back to the soprano section (anyone notice that it's the sopranos and tenors who have the assholes in their section? Do you know any asshole altos? No... they don't exist). I was so furious at her that I gave the performance of my life. Never before have I been so focused, so loud, so energetic, so emotional... And it didn't matter that I had only sung the songs a grand total of once, I was on. And the emotional part was easy, know why? Not only because my emotions were raging because of Miss TB, but also because DRR looked like he was going to cry after we finished a couple of songs. He honestly looked like he was going to cry right there in front of us. How can seeing your director cry because of what you just sang not get your blood pumping? HOW?!
The answer is "I don't know." But I do know that, before I knew it, it was time for the Euphonics to sing. We were asked to go up in front of everyone by ourselves and sing our songs. I suppose this is nothing new to me, but I didn't like knowing that we were going to be doing a song that I wasn't ready to perform in front of people, well, in front of people. (My sentence structure sucks... I must be rusty) The first song we sang was "My Immortal" by Evanescence. Anyone who really knows me, knows about me and this song. It was not a song I want to necessarily ever hear again, much less sing. But I think it did me good to have to sing it... making the song more about doing something good rather than being affected by something bad. I hope that makes sense... if not, tough. I'm rusty. And then we ended with "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"... which sounded pretty good, actually. I actually found myself (there I am!) being able to hear the echo of the vocal perc while we were singing, and thinking to myself that I sounded pretty much like a drum. Good for me. And being able to sing peppy songs like "Crazy Little Thing..." is my favorite thing about singing. The music moves me... makes me merry... many mumbling mice... I hate alliteration! I'm all over the place today! Anyway... my point is that I enjoyed being able to sing with the Euphonics and the concert, on the whole, went really well for me. There, was that too hard?! (Apparently it was)
After the concert, a large group of us went to a grocery store to pick up some snacks and some drinks. For some reason I have ADAS written as the name of the store but, upon trying to look that up online, I got a government agency which is not a grocery store. Nevertheless, to envision the store, think of a British version of Wal-Mart and you've got it. Cheesy though it seems, this was my first taste of what it would be like to live in England. I think food says a lot about a people... how long it takes to make something worthwhile, what the food tastes like when you're done, how spicy the food is, or bland, and what foods are eaten for "comfort" are all indicative of the kind of people you're dealing with (with whom you're dealing?). So I walked around this grocery store, completely fascinated by the rows of "biscuits" and all the junk food, by the rows of cheeses, by the breads, and by my first encounter with Jammy Dodgers! "Jammy Dodgers?! Nnneeerrrr *plane crashes* and we hit a mountain. And I died." Sorry about that, I became Eddie Izzard for a second.
But it needs to be said that I found pancakes for sale. They sold CD-sized pancakes in packs of 8... isn't that wild? So I bought some... because, hell, I'm buying pre-made pancakes from a store! Miss Chelsey's continued fixation with Strongbow lead me to buy some of that, too. And I also bought "Digestive crap biscuits." Heehee... oh Eddie.
I think it should probably go without saying that my night was going pretty well. And, when we got back to the hotel, we were all going to get together in Chelsey and Katie's room (as it was largest and nicest), I just needed to make a quick phonecall first.
Ah yes, a simple and quick phonecall. No big deal... just calling The Second City to make sure everything was all set for me to move on to Level 2. More of a formality than anything else... as I had done everything they asked of me. After trying unsuccessfully to reach them twice, and eating a pancake, I finally reached someone at the Training Center. "Hi, I called to see if I made it into Level 2" "Okay, just a second John"... pause while they play old Second City skits over the phone instead of light rock music or some lame instrumental... "Hi, John?" says a different voice than who answered... I had been transferred to someone else. "Yeah, you did not make it into Level 2. So you can either... " the voice seemed to fade out. What? How could I not have made it? Didn't I do everything they asked? Well? DIDN'T I?! I guess not. My choice was simple: wait until the next audition and audition again; or pay a half-off rate and retake 1A. I told the voice, which was now very distant, that I would need to think about it. That was okay, he said, but he needed to know if I wanted to be in the Wednesday Class before the first class (T-minus two days)... and he hoped I had a nice day.
Well, kids... What was I to do? I wanted to cry but, in typical me fashion, I started to tear up, called myself silly, and stopped to stuff my face with something I didn't need to eat. So I ate. And then I called my parents... and a long time later, Chelsey stopped by my room to see why I hadn't gone to the 'party' yet. A long conversation later, and I was persuaded to head to where everyone else was hanging out... to have to explain my situation to them as well. It was a hard night for me... confusing and frustrating... and it would be the only time on the trip that I wished I hadn't gone.
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