When I was a kid… I was kinda precocious.  I’ll be honest.  I was a little smarty pants.  Big surprise, right?  Well… when I saw this at the bottom of my New York Times today:

On June 13, 1966, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda vs. Arizona decision, ruling that criminal suspects must be informed of their constitutional rights prior to questioning by police.

I was reminded of a story.  When I was 12 or 13, I missed a day of school.  I had a cold or something.  So the next day, I dutifully approached my teachers one by one to find out what I had missed.  In Social Studies, it turns out, the day before we had discussed Miranda Rights.  To which I responded, "Of course!  That’s the right to wear fruit on your head!"

Blank stare from Mr. Reck.  "No."  He looked a little concerned, to tell the truth.

I stared back at him, "You know… Carmen Miranda?"

Ah… then it finally dawned on him and he laughed.

That’s my story.  The end. 

As I am, in fact, a gigantic nerd, I subscribe to a weekly grammar newsletter.  Yes, you read that correctly.  At any rate, they had an amusing little brainteaser today that I wanted to share.

What do all these words have in common?

Banana
Dresser
Grammar
Potato
Revive
Uneven
Assess

Leave your guesses in the comments.  If you get it right… I dunno… maybe I’ll give you a cookie.  Or a free ticket or something.  I dunno. (We at the Distracted Globe are in favor of non-specific rewards)

Well, we have now run the show twice, which is always encouraging and scary at the same time.  It’s encouraging in that, now we know there actually is a play here - the scenes go from one to the next, the story exists… it’s real.  Of course, it’s scary because there are still so many things to be tuned up and played with and tweaked and worked between the first runs and opening night.  Tonight we’ll be concentrating hard on act one.  I am particularly pleased that tonight, the incomparable Paul Savas, Grand Poobah of The Warehouse Theatre, will be on hand to help me effectively (and "safely") beat the hell out of Jason.  I don’t get to do enough punching people in my daily life, so stage combat is a pleasant catharsis.  Watch out Petruchio.  I’m coming for you.

Hey gang!

You know… we are an independent theater company… so I just feel the urge to share this with you. You see, in my other life as a grown-up working at Brains on Fire, I spent a lot of time last year working with the American Booksellers Association. It’s the association of independent booksellers across the country. And it’s an amazing group of people. Really… I LOVE them! And last night they made an amazing announcement to their membership, devoting themselves to independent businesses and localism. IndieBound will be finding its way into local bookstores and businesses throughout the coming year, so be looking for it! And in the meanwhile, enjoy the Declaration of Independents! Then go support a local business!

Don’t worry… I’ll post something irreverent and pointless later today.

Okay… it has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion that I am a crazy person.  But here’s the thing… I don’t care.

When I get started rehearsing for a show, I have to get my script ready.  Now, this is no mere highlighting… oh no.  With pre-printed scripts, I make a copy, cut each page individually, and tape them into a notebook.  With new scripts or Shakespeare scripts that have been edited… I copy the text from the word document into a publisher document which allows me to structure the script like a small book script.  That way usually involves a LOT of spacing issues and editing and making sure the margins and line numbers and page numbers and line breaks, etc. are all correct… and match the page breaks of the printed script that has been handed out to the rest of the cast.  THEN I print, cut and tape the pages into my notebook.  THEN… the highlighting begins.

My intern saw me cutting my pages by hand with scissors yesterday, and he graciously offered to cut them for me in the big paper trimmer, but I declined.  And last night, while I watched LOST, I sat with my double sided tape and set the first 30 pages into their new home.

Time consuming?  Yes.  Old school?  Absolutely.  Insane?  Probably.  But it’s part of my ritual that tells me "I’m in a show now, it’s time to start working."

Any of you out there have rituals like that?  Even if they’re not for theatre.  Just things you do that help you get in the right mindset.

… and possibly make everyone around you think you’re totally batty. 

You know, the universe doesn’t usually give you second chances.  But this morning, that’s exactly what it did.  I was driving to work this morning, and what should I see in front of me?

That’s right.  Apparently, the Crackheads Gone Wild are hanging around Greenville for a while.  I’ll keep you posted on more sightings. 

And by the way, I watched a preview of Cloud 9 at The Warehouse Theatre last night.  Do yourself a favor.  Go see it.  Be ready to have a great time.  And be ready to leave thinking lots of big important thoughts!  They play this Thursday-Sunday and next Thursday-Saturday.  And we’ve got improv Friday & Saturday.  So much fun, you won’t know what to do with yourself!

This morning as I was driving to work (before I realized that I should have been driving to my Doctor’s office… JUST barely made that appointment, oops!), for about a block I was next to a truck pulling what appeared to be some kind of ATV/Dune Buggy thing.  Both vehicles were plastered with magnets and decals.  Not several different magnets and decals, mind you.  No.  It was all the same.  I fumbled for my camera, but he turned down a side street and I decided not to try to follow him… which is a good thing.  I never would have made my doctor’s appointment if I had spent the morning following around a truck plastered with:

"Crackeads Gone Wild South Carolina."

There was something about a top-selling DVD… and there was a phone number… that I did not write down… since I was too busy looking for my camera and trying not to run off the road.  But a little Google searching showed me that this is an actual, real, underground thing that people are doing.  "Crackheads Gone Wild."  

First of all… WHAT??!!?

Second of all… Way to go SC, getting on the "Crackheads Gone Wild" map.  Movin’ on up! 

Third of all… how much do you think it’s going to up the hits to this blog, now that I have said "Crackheads Gone Wild" four times? 

Let’s face it.  The Distracted Globe hangs out with some truly awesome people (with the notable exception of Brock, of course).  There’s Doll Imago, who we posted about yesterday.  There’s the incomparable Davis family… full of talent and energy.  There’s the revolving door of ridiculous talent that IS the Warehouse Journeymen.  There is Michele - the woman with more experience and less ego than anyone on the planet.  I could go on like this all day.  Seriously.  We have awesome friends.

And tonight, one of those awesome friends is doing something… well… awesome.  DG friend and soon-to-be cast member, Craig(e), will be performing in the wee hours this evening in the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Easley Cinemas!  It’s tonight at midnight… I guess they do this the last Friday of every month.  I have, of course, seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show… but I personally have never been to one of the live/movie performances… In Portland there were all kinds of die hard people who brought supplies and there were key moments in the evening when first-timers would reveal themselves and then be tortured.  I have heard many a tale from my braver friends.  And I have no idea of they are that hard core out in Easley… but I can’t wait to find out.  Because tonight is my maiden voyage to a live Rocky Horror Picture Show… and it is in Easley, SC.  I’m all about adventure.  Michele and I will be there… will you!?!?

This morning the gym TV was tuned to a different local newscast than usual.  During the whole newscast, they had a headline ticker running at the bottom of the screen.  And just so that we wouldn’t get confused, there was a label to let us know what category of the news was running by: business, health, disasters (I’m not kidding… that was a real label).  At one point, the Education label popped up.  And these were the headlines:

"American Idol hopeful David Archuleta will miss his high school prom in Utah."

"University of Colorado police say that they did not write any tickets at this year’s marijuana smoke-in." 

Wow.  I feel better about the state of education in this country already.  Don’t you?

I live in a world of misplaced apostrophes.  It seems that the use of that particular punctuation was just plain skipped in most people’s education.  Everywhere I go, there’s a sign talking about a sale on CD’s (on CD’s what?  What belonging of the CD is on sale?), or there’s a website inviting you to the award’s banquet (so nice to throw a banquet in honor of that one award).  And the itsos are everywhere!  What’s an itso, you ask?  It’s the inability to choose correctly between its and it’s… even twice within the same sentence.  And of course, apostrophes dangle their little toes into the you’re/your issue… another that seems so simple, but is so unbelievably often mistaken.  I remember driving by a church that proclaimed, in all its evangelical glory "You’re judgment is at hand!"  And Dunkin Donuts had a special on "pizza’s" not so long ago.  Of course, at the very least, those last two were temporary signs.  Some moron typed them in, and tommorrow that moron will type in something else egregiously incorrect.  But it never ceases to amaze me that people pay good money to print permanent signs and programs and websites… and no one thinks to proof read them.  Misspellings don’t usually change the meaning of the word, they’re just wrong.  But a misplaced apostrophe actually changes what you are saying.  It just gets under my skin.

My world is filled with typos.  Sometimes I even find typos in finished, printed, bought-’em-at-Barnes-&-Noble books!  How is that possible?!?!  I won’t claim that I never make a typo.  Of course I do.  And I try to coexist peacefully.  But if, one day, you turn on the news to see the still-burning remains of a billboard advertising "Firework’s… Next Exit!"… well…

There.  That is your slightly disturbing peek into my psyche for today.  Go watch some Distracted Videos or look at some Distracted Photos or something productive like that. 

Update: Our friend Rachael tried to leave a link to this article in the comments, but she was denied by our spam filter.  But the link was so good, I had to post it.  Take that, Spaminator!