The performance of Dancing Barefoot at ACME went well. I guess about 35 people came, and we had a great time together. It was about 40 minutes too long, but luckily for me, (and the audience) I performed for probably the only audience in the world who wouldn’t mind such a long show.
Because I was in Vegas, and then lost my Fat Boy, I never really had a chance to get excited or nervous about the show. It was just a commitment on my calendar that I had to prepare for. It wasn’t until I was driving down Beverly, near Highland, that I got that familiar rush of excited anticipation that comes before I do a show for the first time.
We played with a few different visual styles, but eventually chose to keep the stage very stark: it was just me, a mic stand, and a stool with some water on it. We put a color wash across the back wall that we could change when the stories changed (flickering orange for Inferno, red for flashbacks, and blue the rest of the time), and used spotlights to isolate me. I dressed in all black (if you saw ACME Love Machine, it was the same costume I wore for Untitled Office Sketch Number Nine.) After the show, I got several compliments from people who thought the staging was cool. Honestly? I thought it looked pretty cool, too. Mike and Travis did a great job putting it together.

I read Ready Or Not, Here I Come, followed by We Close Our Eyes, and then Inferno to finish the first act. After a brief intermission, I did most of The Saga Of SpongeBob Vega$Pants (or how i learned to stop worrying and love star trek).
I had a really great time, even though I made some serious gaffes a few times, like introducing Inferno: “This is called Inferno. It’s a love letter to my wife.” Pause. Frown. Look at book. Look at audience. “Wait. No it isn’t.” Pause. Swallow. Sweat. “This is called We Close Our Eyes! It is a love letter to my wife.” Pause. Look at book. Look at audience. Wipe brow. “Thank you for coming to my dress rehearsal.”
Then, when I read Inferno: “This is called Inferno.” Pause. Pause. Pause. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
I had a really good time, and I can’t wait to do it again. Travis and I are going to edit the hell out of it, so the second half is closer to 35 or 40 minutes, and the first half is closer to 25 minutes. We figure that Vega$Pants has three main bits: Meeting WFS, totally dying onstage, and going on Star Trek: The Experience. I’m going to take those sections, write some new “bridges” to tie them all together, and the result will be the second act.
I didn’t get the greatest audio, because I ended up going off the mic an awful lot, but we’re definitely going to do this again, and I’ll get good audio from a future performance.
I want to thank everyone who came out to watch the show, especially my Mom and Dad. As I said in the show, if you’re really lucky, maybe one day you will get the opportunity to be heckled by your own father. (It was really funny. You had to be there, I guess.) I know it was much longer than it should have been, and I really appreciate you all staying with me through the whole thing.
Update: There are only a few comments right now, but many readers have asked if a DVD or streaming video from ACME will ever be offered. We’ve thought about taping ACME shows in the past, but with a cast of 10, SAG and Equity rules make that sort of thing not worth the effort. However, since I am the writer and sole performer of this particular show, it’s a lot easier. Streaming is not an option, but a DVD certainly is. I’ll look into the costs, and see what I can do.

I spent much of yesterday writing for Dungeon and The Onion, and the rest of it playing some SNGs on Poker Stars (I cashed four of five times: third place three times and second once for a total gain of about 2 bucks. Go me.)
Anyway, when I woke up, I felt like I was just going to stare at the wall all day, and I’m glad I had responsibilities I couldn’t blow off, and something else to do that would keep my focus off my grief the rest of the time.
Late last night, though, I transferred some photos of Sketch from my digital camera into my iMac . . . I’d been teetering on the edge of hysterical grief all day long and that shoved me right off the ledge. I collapsed on my couch and cried until my chest hurt and my cheeks stung. I really, really miss him.
(And a huge thank you to everyone who has sent e-mails, and comments offering support and understanding. You understand what this loss means to me. To everyone else who thinks it’s a good time to be cruel and heartless: a huge go fuck yourself.)
Anyway, tonight I’ve got my performance of Dancing Barefoot at ACME. Just like the writing yesterday, it’s going to be tough to get up on my feet and focus, but I’m glad it’s there. As we say in showbusiness: The Show Must Go On.
Here are the details, reprinted from a couple of weeks ago:

In an effort to be more like my hero David Sedaris, I’m doing a live performance of Dancing Barefoot, which will be recorded and turned into an audiobook!
Details:

WHAT: Dancing Barefoot, live on stage!
WHERE: Acme Comedy Theatre (where else? 😉
135 N. La Brea
Hollywood, CA 90036
(323) 525-0202
WHEN: Tonight — Wednesday, April 27th at 8 pm.
TICKETS: $12

I will have a very limited number of Dancing Barefoot books for sale, and if you already own a copy that you’d like to get signed, please bring it out. I’m happy to do that.
I just love Dancing Barefoot. When I read from it, I get to revisit the great memories I wrote about, but I also get to remember how fun and exciting it was to write, publish, and release it. In contrast to the frustration and disappointment I experienced with Just A Geek, I have nothing but fond memories of the Monolith Press run of Dancing Barefoot.
This is going to rock! \m/

If you’re in LA (or near LA, or have a lot of blog readers in LA) would you help me out and mention this to your readers? I think it’s going to be a good show, and I’d like as many people as possible to know about it.
Update: My friend and fellow ACME Main Company Performer, Shane Nickerson, recorded a hilarious Video Blog about tonight’s performance. It’s the first real laugh I’ve had all week. Thanks, Shane. 🙂

About forty minutes after I landed back in Vegas yesterday morning, my kitty Sketch had a heart attack. He was in “His Spot” on my bedroom floor, and Anne held him while he died.
He looked fine when I left, so I didn’t even scratch his chest like I always do. I just told him, “I love you, Fat Boy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Anne said that it happened so fast, it was over before she had a chance to freak out.
I had to stay in Vegas and write about the final table of the championship, so my psyche just sort of put me into shock until I got home this afternoon. Since I walked into my house, I’ve been moving between the hysterical sobbing and the weird numbness.
I think I’m going to take a few days off, meet my deadlines, and cry a whole, whole bunch.

The only thing worse than having pocket kings busted twice (by AQo, then AKo) in three hands, moving me to the other side of the rail and out of the money, was my goddamn iBook crashing so hard it wouldn’t even boot, leaving me with no way to blog about the last few days. Five times in two years (across two different machines — this most recent time just a couple days after I got the damn thing back from the Apple Hospital) is just about my limit, so I think I’m done with it, and now I’m shopping for a new laptop. I’ll look at the Powerbook if I can convince Apple’s Customer Service to help me out, otherwise I think I’m giong to break down and get one of those Dark Side laptops, so I can play ultimatebet, or partypoker, or pokerstars while I’m on the road.
Or in my bedroom. Or in my living room, kitchen, or just about anywhere else, because if I liked poker before, I am madly, passionately, stupidly in love with it now.
My friend Chris wrote in his blog a month or so ago about this moment when his game suddenly changed; when all the books, homegames, the online and live tournaments, the WPT and WSOP on TV, and everything else all combined to kick his game up to a new level. That happened to me while I was nearing the end of the first day at Bellagio. It never would have happened if I hadn’t sat with Lee Jones at Aladdin on Monday night, but somehow everything he told me, plus the little bit of reviewing I did, then putting that into action against some amazing players . . . I may not have much money to show for it (though I did kill a guy at Flamingo late last night in the 1-2 NLHE game with . . . wait for it . . . Kings) but my game is better, I’ve made great new friends, and I proved to myself that I actually can compete at a higher level than I could ten days ago.
I didn’t make the money, but I played the best poker of my life. I sat there with the best, and I played with them. They made plays at me and I played right back. I took down a few good pots from some great players, and I can take some comfort in knowing that I was finally knocked out by one of the best players in the world. I always got my money in good, and I only needed to get lucky twice. Once I did, and once I didn’t. Hell, that’s poker. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I made some great new friends in Vegas. John Vorhaus, who is blogging the tournament for Ultimate Bet, and Jen Creason, who updates for PokerWire.com cheered for me when I was a player, and welcomed me into their world when I traded my chips for a notebook.
I’m home for another ten minutes, then off to ACME for the show tonight, then back to Vegas tomorrow morning to cover the final table.
In the past, whenever I’ve had the good fortune to experience anything great, writing about it has always been as much fun (and sometimes more fun) than the original experience itself. I’m so excited to start writing this story . . . I have a feeling that the story that eventually comes out of this week is going to fucking rock. (Well, for me, at least 😉

Hooray for computer issues. My iBook is acting up, (details, including lots of NSFW language in the audioblog) but I took a chance on making it go this morning . . . so far, so good. I’m using Safari, so I wonder if the problem is with an older version of Firefox, because Thunderbird does the same thing. Maybe something’s corrupt in some library or something.
Well, I’m not going to worry about it right now, because I need to focus on the tournament.
I’m still alive, but barely. Yesterday I played pretty well, other than two huge fucking stupid dipshit rookie idiot mistakes that cost me 30K in chips, tilted me, and took about an hour of play before I recovered, mentally. Details on that stuff will come later on, as I understand some of my possible competition here is reading my blog.
Cool note: Andy Bloch told a writer for Pokerwire yesterday that my blog was really cool, and very well-written. Sweet!
So I was all the way down to about 25K in chips near the end of the day, when I finally got a hand I could play. On the button, or in the cutoff (can’t remember and my notes are messy) UTG raised it to 1800. With the blinds at 300-600, this was a standard steal-raise, but I had decided that this was my Moment iof Truth: I was all-in on this hand no matter what . . . I just wanted to play it right so I could get some action from at least one of the players, probably the raiser, who was this guy Victor (pro player, I forget his last name. Very nice guy, though.) I re-raised to 6000. He thought about it for a long, long time, asked me how many chips I had, all that stuff. Since I had decided I was going to move on this hand no matter what, I wanted a call, so if he was looking for weakness, he wasn’t going to find it. Eventually, he called. The flop was 9-7-x, all different suits. He checked, I moved in immediately.
He thought about it again, and eventually said to one of the other guys, “He hasn’t played a hand in four hours.” I just looked at the flop, and hoped he called. I loved this flop.
“Do you have Kings?” He said.
“It’ll only cost you about 20,000 to find out, Victor,” I said.
“I worked hard for these chips, man,” he said.
“You sure did.”
He tapped his cards, fiddled with his chips, rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, and folded.
I nodded and raked the pot.
Next hand I got was also a monster. Two playable hands in a row took a little bit of the sting off of the relentless string of K-2o, 5-3o, and J-7o bullshit I’d been looking at all day.
I raised it up to 6000, got one caller. The flop was a Jack and two baby cards. The caller bet half the pot, I moved in, he folded quickly.
I gave about 1800 back in blinds and antes, and ended the day around with 37375 in chips. That puts me around 272 in a field of about 314 or so, and it means that if I don’t double through before the end of the first or second level today, it’s only a matter of time before I’m out.
I talked with Travis from ACME last night, and if I’m still alive in this thing this afternoon, we’re cancelling the Dancing Barefoot performance tonight, and moving it to next week.
I only have to make it to 100th place to get $30,000! That would pay for all my kitties, and the knee surgery Ferris has to have on Monday. (Can I get an “Oy vey,” please?)
Time for breakfast, then a quick shower. I’ve got Darwin with me, so he’s channeling all the Monkey Mojo I can get.