7:41 p.m. - 2007-03-20
Purim
Purim was kind of weird this year. Not real Purim, but Yid Vicious Purim. We celebrated a week late, owing to various scheduling matters. First we played a kids' matinee at the High Noon Saloon in the afternoon (this being a couple Saturdays ago already. My, where does the time go), then we drove up to Wausau, where we were hired to play at a Purim event at the Wausau, I don't know, VFW hall or something. The event was organized by a lawyer who lives in the area and who is active in Jewish affairs. It was a fundraiser for his synagogue. There was a raffle. There were a lot of prizes being raffled. A LOT of prizes. I think the idea was for everyone who bought a ticket to win several prizes. It went on for quite some time while our instruments sat on the stage, not being played. This caused us some restlessness. But what REALLY made us restless was when the lawyer guy recited the Story of Purim, in eighteen lengthy chapters. I'm sure we played a little bit, but my dominant memory of the evening is of us staring at the lawyer guy while he was on the mic, each of us wondering, How long? How...long? It must be noted, in the interest of fairness, that the lawyer/organizer appeared to be taking up all the stage time because he was drunk off his ass, and therefore more fully in the Purim spirit than anyone else there.
The biggest disappointment, of course, was that we didn't get to perform our Story of Purim puppet show. We had performed it at the kids' show that day and it had been well-received. But let's face it, it needed work. The pacing was all off, a lot of the line readings could have snappier, the lighting cues could have been better...we were really hoping to straighten it out on the road. But there's always next year. Wausau will probably still be there, and since the lawyer never wrapped up his Purim story when we were there, it's very possible that he's even at this moment standing on the stage at the Wausau VFW, still telling it.
