15 MEN ON A DEAD
MAN'S CHEST
11 August 2002
It was not a good day for Pirates. In the morning the (Pittsburgh)
Pirates got trounced by the San Francisco Giants, and in the evening the Pirates (of
Penzance) were bested by the bumbling bobbies of Britain.
And we were there.
As I write this it is 1 a.m. and we have just returned from a long
day in San Francisco. I leave for the airport at 9 a.m. for a noon flight to LA.
Between now and then I have to (a) pack (b) shower, (c) finalize a report for the
psychiatrist, (d) transcribe a tape for Dr. G, (e) finish this journal entry, and
perhaps sleep. If I'm lucky.
We left here at 9 a.m. Saturday morning to drive to The City. We
parked in a lot which is a bit of a hike from the new Pac Bell stadium, but I'm a jockette
now, so the walk didn't faze me.
Pac Bell Park opened a couple of years ago, but this was my first
chance to visit the stadium.
I remember when San Francisco's baseball team was the Seals and they
played at Seal stadium, a kind of glorified high school field. And then there was
Candlestick Park (which I never was able to call 3-Com, when the name changed),
where I attended an occasional Giants game. (Tom and David were in Candlestick Park
for the World Series when the big earthquake hit a few years back.)
But now San Francisco has a really perfect baseball stadium. It's
great to sit there and look out onto SF Bay, watch the ships come into McCovey Cove, their occupants
hoping to catch a ball flying out of the stadium and landing in the water. There were all sorts of water vessels from the ferry boat which brought some of the people coming to the game, to a tug boat, to sail boats, to rubber rafts, and one guy who paddled in in a kayak.
This was "dog day" at the park, sponsored by the local
YMCA. People were invited to bring their dogs, and the parade of pooches marching around
the periphery of the field before the start of the game seemed endless, but it was fun to see the dogs, some dressed in
costume (the costume contest was won by a daschund dressed as a hot dog).
The national anthem was sung by a group of SPCA workers, who gave it
a lot of heart, if not completely in tune! The first pitch was thrown by a guy who had
adopted one of the severely injured dogs rescued by the SPCA
We were attending the game with a group of people from the old (now
defunct) Lamplighter tech crew, a group which has remained close even after the theatre
went pro and had to work with union technicians.
We were just a day too late to watch Barry Bonds hit home run #600,
but it certainly was all the talk all over the place today. Newspaper headlines, t-shirts,
commemorative bobble head dolls. Bonds only got a chance to hit once today.
After that, every time he came to bat, they walked him, to the boos
of the crowd. However, the ploy to keep Bonds from hitting backfired on the Pirates. They
walked Bonds to get to catcher Benito Santiago, who hit a grand slam homer, which won the Giants
the game.
It was a very nice, leisurely day to sit in the sun and watch a
little baseball, which I haven't done in a very long time. Having the home team win was
just a nice perk!
 When the game was over, we wandered down to the
bay and walked along the waterfront, looking at the boats, and up at the Bay Bridge, and then we walked back
through town to a nice Thai restaurant near Moscone Center where we had dinner before heading over to the
Yerba Buena Center to see the evening performance of The Lamplighters' Pirates of Penzance.
It's a show I've seen many, many times, by a company I've been around for
30 years so I didn't pay a lot of attention and I fear dozed through much of it. Still it
was nice to see old friends in the audience again, even if I don't know anybody in the cast any more.
But now I have to start getting ready to leave for LA. Tomorrow
night I'll be staying with my friend Michael (from The Last Session group). He and
I are going to a show tomorrow night and Monday night we're seeing the debut of Steve and
Jimmy's new show, The Big Voice.
I wonder if I'll get any sleep tonight...
BTW, for those of you who are interested in seeing or hearing Steve--for free--There are two video clips and a few audio clips that can be downloaded from this site. The video clips are part 1 and 2 of a snippet from his recent cabaret show.
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