Have You Seen My Wig Around? (4/29)

-Another rough morning. Hard to get up. Still made it to work early.
-Work is...I don't know what it is. It's work. Pretty standard day, although I guess there are a few more botched deals that need ironing out. The guy who gave me the three week runaround about being properly contracted to sell to him has declared our transaction 'illegal' and that he won't pay his invoice. When we replied "that's fine, we'll be there this afternoon to repo our equipment," his tone shifted and wanted to work something out. I'll tell you what to work out: stroke a check by the end of next week or we'll sue. Can you spell litigation? We'll take his ass to Judge Judy.
-Very excited about the Charlie Kaufman/Coen Brothers show tonight. Should be excellent. If it ends at 11, we'll leave Brooklyn directly but likely won't get back to Jersey until the wee hours of the morning. I might need to sleep in til at least 8 tomorrow.
-Leave work at three and shoot over to the Metropark station where I grab the 3:44 train to NY Penn. Into NY at 4:30. After a quick call to Kevin for a reminder on the directions, I walk two blocks to the NRWQ station and take the uptown train to his office. Supposed to get off at the 59th/Lex stop but, being early, I jump at the Central Park exit and walk the four blocks. It's a beautiful day and I'm finding myself wishing for more time to walk around.
-The new building is excessive. Very cool to look at, but I understand how it would get real old, real fast. Aside from the shoots of color everywhere, and the hundreds of 46" flat panel displays hanging from the ceilings, the decor is like being on a giant iPod. Very clean. I asked if they make microchips.
-We jet from his office at 6:30 or so and try to navigate the subway over to Brooklyn. On the 6 (I'm just Jenny from the block), there is a kid sitting by himself. He had plenty of space even though it was a crowded commuter train. I'll tell you why: he was huffing a can of pressurized air and making no secret of it. He was taking 15 second hits, and literally doing two a minute. Also, after each hit, he would offer to share his cup of soup with everyone on the train. Nobody took him up on the offer, possibly because they didn't have a spoon with them. Our huffer, however, did have a spoon; the spoon was tucked into strange/dirty/dreadlocked/braid thing on top of his head.
-We change trains and find ourselves going to Brooklyn. Kevin comments on a guy with a full size mountain bike on a crowded train. To make it better, he takes out a U-lock and locks his bike to the center pole....and leaves. What is going on here?
-Exiting the AC train in Brooklyn, Kevin points to a "little person" fiddling with his iPod at the top of the stairs. I don't look, silently wondering why Kevin is being so juvenile. He urges me to look again, which I do, and see that it is Peter Dinklage. I recognize him immediately but can't remember his last name so I don't say anything to him. We start walking and, sure enough, he's going to the same place we are: a big warehouse theater directly under the Brooklyn Bridge.
-Pick up the tickets at will call and kill some time talking about how to jump off the corporate rat race to middle age. I'm feeling confident in my film career but would be quite happy to open a family business with my brother in law. They flash the lights and we head in to find our seats.
-The first show is "Sawbones" by the Coen Brothers. John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and Marcia Gay Harden are the actors I immediately recognize. The other two are unfamiliar. The show itself is remarkably short, only about 25 minutes. There are funny moments but I don't get what I expected. Everyone performs well, but I find myself thinking the story to be sort of...I don't know. It could have been better. Several people around us were commenting that it was hard to follow with the two separate narratives going on at the same time. I understand it, but I'm not thrilled with it.
-Second show is "Hope Leaves the Theater" by Charlie Kaufman. First of all, Peter Dinklage was performing in this one, and he owned it. Great timing and delivery, and nailed the accents. The story, wow, where to begin. There are at least three different levels of "show within a show" going on, and it gets tiresome. In his usual way, Kaufman works himself into the story more than a few times, and at one point Meryl Streep begins crying over Charlie's "suicide". The fourth wall is repeatedly broken and I notice that Kevin is pulling his fingernails off waiting for this to end. Overall, I enjoyed the night but was underwhelmed by the show.
-Catch the AC back to NY Penn, grab a NJ Transit train out to Metropark, get the car and run over to Kevin's place to pick up Karen who spent the night with Jenny and Alec. Arrive before midnight but, as usual, we all sit around and talk until almost 2 in the morning.