October 2005
25 FIRST PREVIEW ( DRESS REHEARSAL)
CAL AND MTV
Hello;
I have called Cal to met him and have lunch with me. The first thing he told me was that Sasha's assistant had called him in the morning to ask if he could go to Lisbon first in the morning. Well, there was a message on the net and he called back and found out what did they want. What they wanted was that Cal would go to Lisbon immediately and direct the back up dances for Borat while he was presenting the MTV awards. Cal was really nervous and it was really nice to see him like that because when we are nervous for a nice thing we are always very vulnerable and nice.
He was all the time waiting for a phone call from his agent and having lunch at the same time. Of course he had called already many people to share the news and they were calling back. There is a nine hours difference with Europe so all the messages were being picked up as we were getting our club sandwiches.
Was I jealous? Of course, very jealous, because it was a very good opportunity and a very exciting thing to do. I could not have been able to do it because we were playing until the 12 of November and that would have minted that I had to leave but that is not the point I am talking about Cal. I think that it was around 3 o'clock when the agent of Cal finally called him and told him that they have accepted his demands and that he was flying to Lisbon at 8.
He was very happy and we left the restaurant because he had to pack and get ready to go to the airport.
He gave me a call from the airport and he was very excited. I wished him good luck and the next thing I heard from him was from Lisbon via e-mail. He was very scared because the whole MTV thing was so big that he did not know if he was going to be able to do it.
I told him you are going to be great and very funny so do not worry.
It is really great when our friends get big jobs and very famous and important. Their talent get finally challenged and his talent get shown all over the world.
Have fun.
RIVER CAFÉ
Hello;
There is a restaurant in the middle of the river of Calgary. I am terrible because I do not remember the name of the river that goes through Calgary. The problem is that probably I remember more stupid things and something that is usually good to know I do not have a clue. Anyway, I heard of a place in the middle of the river in Calgary in a small island. It is a restaurant. We went to a Hallowing party and someone told me that there was a very good restaurant over there so as soon as my day off arrived I decided to go there by myself and try it out.
I went there with Cal after the matinee show on Sunday. We have not reserved but there were not many people so they put us in small place by the window that face downtown. It got dark and it was really nice how the skyscraper were incredible lighted and the sky full of stars. No, it was not a romantic dinner but we arrived there at five o'clock and we left at 11:30.
The place is great. It is very spacey and there are enough tables and there were not too many people. The waitress was really fast to receive us and took us to our table and helped us during the whole night very nice.
We drunk wine from Spain, specifically Conde Valdemar, Reserva 1998. We both choose the special as starters and then I was longing for a steak and Cal went straight on for stake of Elks. My stake was not great but the eke looked incredible tasty. When the main course arrived we were already having our second bottle of wine and it was even better that the one we got before.
Wit the deserts we also hit the spot, Cal went for the cream Brule and I got the pecan tart. Both deserts came with ice cream and they were really nice.
We had café, well, Cal had a tee and then we drunk a couple of drinks and that tool us to the end of the evening.
We had a very good time and the restaurant helped a lot because it was really nice and comfortable.
At one point I had to go to the toilet and it was very nice and very well designed, I came out of the toilet and told Cal “ you should go to the toilet because it looks like the toilet of Tarzan of the jungle”. And it is true because there are things all over the restaurant that seemed to be building with pieces of branches from the trees.
If you go to Calgary go to have dinner to the River Café is really nice.
Have fun.
STANDING OVULATION
Hello,
Yes there are reviews and they were not great but let me go trough them with you.
“Campy production crosses fine line of Slapstick.
Cooped shows genious of Marx silliness of Stooges.
…at its funniest, Cooped reveals the kind of comic anarchy found in the best Monty Python or the Marx brothers; at the other time it drifts dangerously into the comic tedioum of the three stooges.
ANGELA WEIS
Hello;
Let me introduce to you the newest member of the Spymonkey gang. I thought for a second to write the Spymonkey family but immediately realise that I was being possess by the Cirque du Soleil way of talking and I change immediately the word family for gang. I like to be part of a gang, a big gang, a dangerous gang but lets stop talking about me and let me tell you about her.
She has been introducing to the “gang” by Cal; they have worked together in the past. They did a pantomime in Newbury two Christmas ago and she was great so now that we have resources to get a proper stage manager we asked her to come on tour with us.
She has been with us for the last six weeks and she is very hard and very determent person. She has organised all our Spymonkey life in a very subtle way and now we know where everything is and where everything would be. She has not being pushy at all and she little by little she has become very powerful in our lives.
I think she is great. We are so casual with all the small details of our work that now she has become indispensable.
And now in the big dreams of Spymonkey she is the new Ferrari of the stage managers and we are so closed to our dream that we are not going to let it go.
Have fun.
OPENING NIGHT
Hello,
We are running high in adrenaline and it is everything ready to go. We have work a lot and the set is great and the show is ready and it needs life and danger. The only way we will be able to make it like that is by running as many times as we can. The process will get painful and there is not other way. You have to go trough all the things that you have decided to put in the show and put lots of pleasure and then everything will be great.
So there we were playing the show for an audience coming to an opening night. There were some reviewers and sponsors and people that go to those events. It is funny that most of this people would rather be somewhere else and that makes the whole experience quite painful because you want them to like it a lot and as the night goes you learn that it is not going to happen.
People laughed a lot but we were tense and there was a small incident with a member of the audience that wanted to be part of the action of the show and she was not going to ask first. In the middle of the most sentimental scene of the show she starts to tell the main character of the show, played by Petra what is what she has to do next. We were very fragile there and it was upsetting but we took it fine and the show carried on like normal.
Petra wanted to kill that person at the end of the show and it was impossible to find her so she could be happy but it made us stronger because thou she put the opening night in danger of failure the whole thing was a success and in the passed we have never need the help of other people to kill our work.
Have fun.
THE DAY AFTHER
Hello;
No I am not drunk and I did not get completely wasted yesterday so if you are coming to see the show tonight you should because we have been taken care of ourselves. Now we are a little but more professionals.
Still, it was not a relax night because if was difficult to unwind. I had lots of dreams and I woke up lots of times. I dream with friends I have not seen for many years and that suddenly there they were in my dreams. I saw Macu and Isabel in places that I am sure it was Seville. We were happy to see each other's and then we went.
I finally had seen the others. They partied for long and they got rid of the stress of the last few days. At the end of the day I do not get stress so much as they do. What is there to loose? I have nothing so it is always a new beginning.
We had a call for pictures in the morning. We had forgotten about it and we had to rush out of the house to be there. It is quite funny to be back in this process, the world of show business. The pictures got some time of us in the morning and also we had a meeting and then we had to go and rehears but you do not want to know those silly things.
What is more important is that we were ready for another show and that they laugh. It seems that the audience that night was nice, too nice but for us when we were in the interval it sounded that they were a little bit difficult. It is always estrange what we live in the back of the stage and in the front of the stage; audience and performers.
But let me tell you that that we are having a great time doing the thing we love the most, acting and we are once again doing it in our own terms, full of risks and challenges in every corner.
Have fun
FIRST PREVIEW
(DRESS REHEARSHAL)
Hello;
I cannot even say hello in a normal way because I am very nervous, the show is about to start and I do not know how ready we are? How ready we are we will find out very soon?
There are enough people to have a nice audience but still after being for the last two years doing a show in front of 1500 people every performance this is going to be different. I cannot say it is going to be for the better or for the worst.
We have already gone through the whole show a couple of time so we have the show. It may not be smooth but that is the reason why we are here to run the show.
I have already put a little bit of smoke behind the window so the atmosphere for the show gets starting. I think about how much have we changed if we have and how much the play has change and that I know it has changed. I wander if the audience would laugh like they used to and if the jocks that used to work would still work. As soon as the doubts come into my head a put myself into the hands of my friends, they seemed to be confident so if it goes bad for me they will do well and the show will be fine.
Today Angela will play the part of the girl that dies in the beginning. She is nervous and she could loose the voice very easily. The screams are coming from the other side of the stage and I can see Mr. Mudstone running to catch Margo and now she is already dead and there is a black out and Mr. Mudstone in getting in the spot light and starts his speech.
I am seconds away to go in the stage and I do through my words so I do not forget. Ok, “Mr. Alfredo Graves” that is my cue and there we go.
Have fun.
THE EGG
Hello;
New gag in the spymonkey show COOPED.
Ok, I am going to try to explain it to you. There is going to be a pheasant that is going to cross the stage from the left side to the right side. The pheasant is going to cross the stage flying believe it or not. Well, not really in a see through fishing wire the bird will slide down from one side to the other, as I just said.
The “fly” would be accompanied by a distinct sound that this birds do. It took us a little bit of time to find that sound but there is nothing that with a little bit of time and Google you can not find on the net. I am not going to try to describe the sound it would be really difficult.
Ok the bird will fly over my head and that precise moment will drop an EGG over me. The Egg will land in my forehead because I will be looking at the fly of the bird and my face will be facing the Egg. Everybody says that is going to be very funny but there is something inside myself that tells me that it is not going to be pleasant, funny yes but not pleasant.
Ok, I am on the marc; I can see the bird and is starting to get closer to me. He is flying quite steady and it is going to make it to the place that is immediately on top of me in seconds and then the egg will drop.
I can fell my face griming with the idea but I am working really hard to keep my face straight.
I look up and I can see where the drop box is so I am trying to put my forehead underneath.
Shit, it has hit me and it is a real Egg. I thought they were going to fill it with water. It is disgusting.
Well, everybody is laughing so it is fine and great we will get one more laugh in the show.
Have fun.
23 rd October 2005
VODKA & LEMON
Hello;
“Listen, you have been working the whole day and I want you to relax and enjoy the evening”” welcome to my house” “try this, I made it myself” “you get some good vodka and then you mixed with lemon juice, then you put it all in a bottle and then you let the whole thing rest for some weeks” “ the whole thing become what Italians call “lemon cello”” Blake took us into his house for dinner. He said, “I know how this is, you spend the whole day rehearsing and working and you will be very tired. You come whenever you want and dinner will be ready. I will gather some friend and if suddenly at the last moment you decide not to come you will give me a call and I will understand. Ok?” How great and generous Blake is. The funny thing is that for us, now perhaps we do it more often but we usually never say no to an invitation. He had everything for us to chill out Nice food, nice wine beautiful house and fantastic company and conversation.
My thing and I think the thing with everybody was the Lemon cello that we had as soon as we got in. Stephan took two as soon as we got in the house with nothing in his stomach and then spent a long part of the evening staring to everybody with a smile. I have to say that I was not very bright neither and I had just one.
Delicious evenings we had in Calgary with our best friends from One Yellow Rabbit.
Have fun.
DAY OFF
Hello;
I do not think I should write and say anything in days like this because it is my day off.
Have fun.
BLOGS
Hello;
I have discovered today the blog of Pedro Almodovar, the famous Spanish director. It is funny to read somebody else's thoughts and in my case it is very reassuring. Sometimes I think that I should not talk too much about myself, get away from me, I am not the most representative human person that I know, is it too egotistic the whole blog thing? So I realise by reading others people things that it is not, I am in the right track. I write about what I see what I fell what I think and what I want.
I need to say that because I do not do this writing as a masturbation or even as someone in the future will discover by pure chance a microchip of my computer and get this blogs in 200 years in the future and they would get a unique portrait of the world of the end of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI. NO, thou I think that my ego would like that I little bit. I write and I would like you to enjoy what I write. In some place inside me I am waiting for an answer about everything that I ‘ve just said. I like this to be a dialogue. I started the conversation and you; hopefully one day will answer this.
Also the time passes real fast and I want to make it stop sometimes so I can enjoy every moment one more time. So when I write this words days after the fact has been I have another intimate moment with it and as a big voyeur I enjoy the look of me and the people I love or heat doing things.
So now, like Almodovar I have to tell you that this is nice, that to write your diary is like monologue in shouts and I am not going to be satisfied just with the Echo.
Have fun.
THE END OF THE WORLD
Hello;
Let me tell you; the tsunami, the New Orleans flood, the earthquake in Cachemira, the genocide in Rwanda, the hunger in Ethiopia is the end of the world as we know it.
For many years' clever people is being telling us that the end of the world is near and as far as I am concern this is it. And this is just the beginning.
The Tsunami that devastated the entire south if Asia was a terrible reminder that the end is coming. Then we got back in our feet and the flood in New Orleans brought our attention back to the fact that we are running out of time. In Catchemira a big earthquake in case they did not have enough problems in their war with Pakistan or the problems with food and the terrible weather of the region. They all should move to much better places or committed suicide but no they keep at it. Well, now that the end of the world is near everything is going to be fine, they would not have to move they would die anyway.
The genocide in Rwanda was some men taking action and not giving all the work to “the end of human kind”. “The end of the world” is going to have so much work to do that actions like that or the Serbian and Bosnian wars are just action of helpful people.
Even the twin towers terrorist attack was an action remainder that the end is much closer than what we think and soon everything will be over.
You think I am crazy? Well you are wrong many famous preachers that have direct contact to god have said many times that the end is near. And not like Frank Sinatra that sinner, real believers and wise men, who said in his song “the end is near, the final count down”.
I have told you and I can tell you too that it will snow in Athens. I had a dream last night and it will happen in January. Please do not call me crazy because I know what I am saying.
Have fun.
THE FLOOD
Hello;
It is a very spooky experience to suffer a flood in these times where such a terrible things are happening around the world. We had a flood in the theatre during the night. It seems that we forgot to switch off the compressor pipe and this one got so high pressure that the pipe blow off and the water started to go at 1 o'clock in the night. I believe that there was water coming to the theatre for at least four or five hours. The security people of the theatre found water in the lobby and they went in to check what was happening. There was 4 inches of water all over the room. The water had gone to the office and had gone down stairs through the floor and damages the hairdressers shop underneath the theatre and also some of the box office.
Immediately they started to collect all the water and to try to dry everything that got wet. They first did lots of pictures of all the damages things so we can claim all the money to the insurance company. They also shoot a video with all the damages that had occurs because the flood. After seen the results of the flood in this theatre I can see how the people in New Orleans must have felt. It is horrible. I love water and I can believe that is able to create such a horrible disaster. We have lost a couple of remote control cars, we have lost a couple of prints that we had selected for the show and some of the back of the set was so wet and messy that we have had to replace.
The theatre thought about the possibility of cancelling the show but the guys that are specialist said that it was not necessary. An expert cleaning company came and assesses the whole thing and said that there would have to be four very strong fans blowing air for four consecutive days. An impossible thing when you are trying to rehears a show four days before the opening night. So they accepted the fact and the fans would be blowing all the way but just during the next six nights.
Thing are back to normal now but if you look at the bottom of the walls of the theatre you still can see the left over of what it could have been a big tragedy.
Have fun.
WORK IN EVERYTHING
Hello;
Things are getting heat up. The opening night is getting real close and we are starting to panic. I look at my friends and I cannot believe that they are panicking. They have done this so many times and it is always more or less the same. There is never enough time and in fact we deliberately give a short time to the work that we do so we work fast and we do not give too much time to the work so it does not gets too well done like the food.
Everything is trepid ante and fast and urgent and for the first time we are doing it with somebody else. Until now it has been always by us and now all the movements have to be done at the same time than the other part. We have had a very big and long and courteous flirtation and after that as soon as everything got really hot we got even more together and then started to do it. The first things were very clumsy and sometimes painful but by doing it we started to fell how the other fell and to understand what the other wants. We are here to give each other's pleasure and we are going to get it.
I fell we are ready to “come” but their juices are not there yet and really we have a big stiff but like a teenager the first time. That is what we are, teenager ready to come on his first time. We have to hold back and that is great because it is going to be a very long fuck and we have to aim to come at the same time.
Have fun.
DAY OFF
Hello;
I am here looking, just looking thinking that there is not going to be enough time to do all the things I want to do to relax and rest. It is just 24 hours and it is not like the TV series of Kiefer Shuderland where he has time to do everything from saving the world to have a relationship with his wife bring up a daughter and also to be nice. But I am going to try my best to achieve everything that I want to do.
I am going to go for a stake. I do not know where to find one in this part of town. I mean one with guaranties that will cover of the aspects of good stake. The two aspects are good price and good quality. If you are ready to pay as much money as possible you will always have very good stakes.
I have decided to go to the pub that is very close to my house here in Montreal. There is this pub the Joe's what ever is called, very near and I am going to be having there something to drink with my stake and if you ask me I will be there the whole afternoon and read my paper while I get a little bit drunk.
There it comes and I have very good vibrations about the whole thing. At the end, at the sound of stake, Stephan has decided to come with me and both hand to hand we are having a great time eating a fantastic stake and drinking a nice home grown beer.
The beer is in my head and I do not think I am going to move for a while.
Have fun.
16 th October 2005
PAM & MOOKS
Hello;
Let me introduce you to my great friends Pamela and Mooky. She was the clown in Varekay and she becomes very good friend with Cal. When we were ready to go to work for Cirque du Soleil she helped us a lot as an inside person.
Cutting a long story short Mooky was touring in USA while we starting to work in Las Vegas, and at the end of their contract they came to see us in Las Vegas before they will be back to Calgary.
Pam is Mooky's wife. She has two children from a previous marriage, Nick and Jonah (forgive me for miss spelling). The four of them are great people and with the time we spent together in Las Vegas and now that we are in Calgary where they live we are going to become even better friends that we are already are. I love them dearly and I hope that one day come to Spain and spend some time in our house. It is an invitation.
We have just arrived to Calgary and they invited to their house for a meal. In the same way that all of us have bought houses after Cirque they did the same. They had cooked for all of us but Pamela left the finishing of the salmon to Mooky and she blow it. It did not really matter because there was lots of food and we were very happy to be together.
After dinner we went down to the room of Nick and Jonah to play gestures. We made teams and we started to play. In one of the teams were all the English ones and in the other everybody else. Of course the whole thing was being prepared so the kids could win. I do not know why I call them kids now they are very grown up and big.
We had an amazing time and we laugh so much that my jaws hurt next day. Stephan had to mime hole and he saw his asshole to all of us and Jonah had to mime torch and he left the room and the confusion was great, everybody thought that he had to mime void, emptiness. We laugh so much when we are around them that I miss them all the time.
I hope they are very well now. Mooky is in Montreal doing a show and I am sure she is ready to go on tour like the family. Love you guys.
Have fun.
PER D Ms
Hello;
I do not mean anything for many of you that work all over the place for companies that have been going around for a long time. For Spymonkey it means a step forward towards the full professionalism of the company and the people that work for the company.
What are PER.D.M? Well. It is the amount of money that a company pay to their employees for everyday that they work out of their house. The amount varies from company to company and forms country to country but lets say that it always is quite fair. Well, the truth is that you have to have lots of money just to be able as a company to pay everybody a real amount of money for PER.D.M.
For us while we are on tour this little amount of money is helping us to shave almost all the money that we get pay completely full when we go back home. We travel to many nice places and it is very difficult to say not to things when you are in situations that you know for sure that they will never happen again for a long time. So in the passed we use d to come home with not wages left and then having to work on an other things until the spymonkey call.
Now we have enough money with the PER.D.M. to get by and then we have saved enough money to feed our families.
Have fun.
THE BIG SECRET THEATRE
Hello;
The big secret theatre it is for me the little brother of the family of theatres that exist in the Epcor Centre. The Epcor Centre is in downtown Calgary. No, downtown it is not pretty, it is quite impressive for someone that comes from Europe because the whole place looks really cold and artificial and there is nothing really. When you try to go out in the weekends the whole place is completely empty and boring. Boroughs like the downtown areas exist all over the North of America. Now in Europe there are places like that and are the business quarters like the City in London.
So the Big Secret theatre is in a building in between all this scary huge skyscrapers dedicated to make money. When you go in there is a little bar on the right side. So when the show finishes everybody can go and have a drink. While we were there the bar moved somewhere else because there was not enough space and it was in a room in front of the theatre.
The theatre is quite big black box. On the right side when you go in it has a balcony and underneath sits the main body of audience. Also there are sits in the balcony. And they set up more sits in front of the door in a portable tribune so they can fit more people and make more money.
The dressing rooms upstairs on the right going out side from the balcony and on the left the sound and light both. Thou I do not think they use it as such in many productions because it has a very weird view of the theatre.
It is quite high and there is enough space to get around 250 people for a show.
The best thing is when the show finish and everybody gather for as smoke and a beer in the theatre. Everybody talks to everybody and the night is always young.
Have fun.
TRIBUNE
Hello;
There is a new restaurant in Calgary. It is called Tribune. It is in the middle of Stevens AV in a very old building that used to be the building for the local paper. It makes sense doesn't it? Well, at thanks given we met the head chef he explained everything about all the things they were planning to cook and how the menu was coming alone and it got us very excited. I was really excited, I like restaurants and I like eating a lot.
We were there a little bit earlier and I order a glass of wine at the bar. You could see by the way the waiter was moving that they had not being working for very long but it did not matter to me because the wine was great. When everybody came we just went down to the ground floor where the main part of the restaurant is located.
I was not impressed by the decoration because thou it was nice for me it was not more than a new place with everything new. If anything I loved the sofas and I loved the metal piece hanging from the ceiling.
We all sat in the middle of the room and immediately far too many waiters and everything came to talk to us. Another sign that the whole thing was new and people had not picked up pace yet.
We order our food and the first thing was the pate. Cal and Toby were having the same dish and it came in a ravioli that was undercook and the pate was there and it was nice but…
The other firsts were nice and the main courses came and they looked good but it is true to say that we were by then a little disappointed perhaps because our expectations had gone really high and they were not getting full filled.
The desserts were very good and the wine was excellent. We paid a good bill and say good bye thinking that there is still quite a long way for them to go before we are ready to go back there. And for us that is the most important thing.
Have fun.
A MAUSE
Hello;
Yes, there is no possibility of trying to hide what is the subject of my blog today. We do have a mouse in our house. I know that it could be confusing but I mean my house here in Canada.
Stephan and me are staying in the southwest of town in an area known as Mission. It is a very nice area; full of small wooden houses one after the other that was built fifty years ago. Now the whole town is booming and instead of preserving this beautiful examples of what Calgary used to be they are put inn them down and building blocks of flats that look like commissaries for the Basque police.
But I did not come here to write about that. I use one of the bedrooms of the house and Stephan stays in the living room because his family is coming very soon and they would need more space.
The house is quite comfortable for the two of us. It has a nice kitchen and the bathroom is good enough and the room I am staying is very nice.
Yesterday night when we arrive home I went to cook a little bit of noodle soup. We are hooked on those instant noodle soup that sell in the off licence. They are very fast to cook and when you have been working the whole day and do not have had time to do anything else it warm and tasty and easy to do.
So I had chosen the prawn and vegetable. I had bought three of then the day before so we did not even need to stop in the local shop and I had been thinking about it the whole walk from the theatre to the house.
I picked the pack and suddenly and small portion of dry crusty noodles came out of the bag. What is this? I asked and Stephan with a face of horror informs me that we have a mouse.
Well, that is shit I said we have to do something about it. We cannot live any food out side and we have to find a mousetrap so the animal will get eliminated. Stephan with his more German business of dead said; leave that to me, I have experience. I suddenly had images in my head of Stephan transforming the whole apartment in a gas chamber but today is two days later and the only thing he has done is buying a mousetrap and we are waiting for the mouse to get catch in it.
Have fun.
MY HOUSE
Hello;
Sometime ago I bought a house in my village. I bought it with a little bit of money that I earned working for the Swiss national circus, The Circus Knie. I never thought that I was going to be working for circus all my life.
The place is in a building with three other flats and I am sure it is at least 90 years old. It does look really pretty. It is in front a nice park and there is a small river in front of it and they're not many cars passing through. We do not see the sea from our house but if we want we walk for five minutes and the brave Cantabric Sea will appear in front of us.
Last time I was in Bilbao there was somebody else living in my flat so today is the first day I am going to see it after a very long time. I have come to water the plants.
I am opening the big door of the flat. It is on of those big wooden floors that are very heavy and that makes you fell very secure on the inside. It is very apparent as we open it that it is going to need to be reapaired because is tilting to on side and it does not close properly. I love all the bronze bits that the door has attached to it.
Once you cross the door you arrive to a big square hall that lead to all the rooms of the house. At least I thought it was very big before now being back from Las Vegas nothing seemed to be big anymore. Is it because I am bigger now? Or is it because everything was very big over there?
Immediately on your right there is a bathroom with a big iron cast bath. Next and on the right is the kitchen that has not been renovated for the last fifty years and now it will. In the kitchen there is a small balcony and a window to the park. Lets carry on going right and we will see the door to the living room. That was the place for the TV and the sofa but as soon as Miren and me bought the flat we put the wall down and we create a bigger living-dining room. We kept there the old dining room set and the old cabinet with the plates and drinks and so on. I never liked it but we did not have money to buy anything else so…
Next on the right is the dining room that has the big windows-balcony where you get an amazing view of the hills of Neguri. It is my favourite room in the house.
Next is the master bedroom and next the guest's room. The master bedroom is not big and we have kept it with the very old furniture of the person that used to live there. It is basc style and it oak and wood. Now all the rooms have big windows and the house get light all the time and also lots of wind.
The floors are pine and it has been renovated. It is going to the market for, well it is not for sale but we are going to have to do something because we have being leaving in Las Vegas and now it looks old and run down. I am sure by visiting the house little by little we will remember all the reasons why we liked it so much and we will be happy here.
Have fun.
THANKS GIVEN
Hello;
Happy thanks given to all of you. I have to say that this is not new for me anymore. I had my first experience of this costume that has not much sense for me. When we discovered America, and I do not mean me I mean the Spaniards we never stopped to thank anybody. As far as I am concern if think that you are going to kill everybody and educated everybody to be racist then I would not stop to say thank you. But you know I never understood this protestant people. I was brought up catholic and I do not know anything else.
The best thing of all is that now, many centuries after that moment we have one more reason to drink and eat with friends.
We are now in Canada and they celebrate Thanks given a different day than in the USA and I wader why? Is it they arrived earlier? I think that being Canadians a little bit more sensitive probably they realised earlier that they have to say thanks to the people that were in the country before they arrived but this is just a guess.
Well, being here in Canada and being foreigners we do not have anybody to say thank but we have friends so we can help them to say thank you.
Our dear friend Michael Green and his family invited all of us to come and have dinner with them in their own house.
We ate the famous turkey and I have to say that it looked very much like the one I had in USA. They are not so different after all. The biggest difference is probably the desert that in Canada has lots of maple syrup but in USA there is more variety.
But they both drink a lot and they both have lots of fun being together with their families.
Thank you very much Michael Green and your family. I am sure that now you fell like the Indians. I fell like one of the pilgrims.
Have fun.
AIRPORTS
Hello;
I am waiting for Stephan at Calgary Airport. I do not even know the name of this airport because if you do not know the entire airports have names like dogs or babies. He had gone to see his family in Vienna before coming to Canada.
Did I ever say here that I like airports? I love them because I am a little bit of a voyeur and at airports there are always lots of things to see, especially people.
Here I can see a son waiting for his parents. I can not work out if his parents live here and they have gone on holydays and then he is coming to pick them up to go home or they live in one of those retirement place by the sea with lots of sun.
When they come out from the door they immediately see each other's but they hide their felling completely. That immediately excite my imagination and I wander why do they not saw each other's how much love there is between them. They hug and it is a very weird hug. I can see that their bodies are not use to touch each other. I am sure there was a time when this was not like that, probably everything finish when he, the boy become a teenager and at that moment he become a man so there is not more lovy didi shit.
Another possibility is that they are not his parents but his parent's wife. She could not come to pick them up because she is very sick in the house. No, this is not possible he would not have left her alone and they are coming to see her because she is about to die. Sorry I got depressive.
I do not know what is the right story but I could spend days at the gates of airports watching people greet each other's and imagine the most wonderful stories ever.
Have fun.
CALGARY
Hello;
As we drive from the airport into a motorway that takes you downtown you can see almost everything that Calgary is. You have downtown on front of you and as the car carry on driving towards it the buildings seem to be getting bigger and bigger. It is a clear winter afternoon and the sun is shining thou is cold. You can see the reflection of the mountains on the tinted windows of the skyscrapers, the magnificent Rocky Mountains. Already white from the permanent snow and the prairie underneath them being very grand in his toasted yellow colour.
There is a river that goes through the middle of town and then the prairie that keep surrounding Calgary. The landscape receives us and for me it is a little bit threatening. If now it looks nice soon this is going to be cold and deserted like the Siberian prairie.
When you are getting into downtown a very modern city appears in front of your eyes. In the van that is taking as there we recognise places from the last time we were here and we know more or less where we are.
The downtown part of Calgary is going to be our home for the next five weeks. We think we will be able to explore many other place but we do not know yet there are not many other places. It seems that here is so cold that you do not go out. You go from a close place that is warm to another close place that is as warm as the one you left. Of course there is a summer but we have arrive here in autumn and in that season humans fell lost because is very cold and very warm all the time.
We have One Yellow Rabbit as our family and friends here. I am sure we are going to have a great time here and I cannot wait to start to work.
Have fun.
PACKING; SPYMONKEY ON TOUR
Hello;
Here we are again on tour. Well, do not imagine all theses people going on tour with the big busses that have all the commodities to be on the road for months. First we travel by plain and we are never more than eight weeks away from home. We are getting make the new set in Calgary and we are travelling with our props and costumes all the way from England.
We have decided to use the whole day for packing all our staff. Stephan, Angela, Lucy and me while Petra and Roger are going to come later with the van that would take everything to the airport tomorrow morning.
Someone said lets get everything out so we can do a proper list of everything that we are taking there and all the things that we need to get. So there we were with all our things on the floor and we started to pack all the props. They went easily into two suitcases and then the time for costumes arrived. The costumes in this show are very important because the clowns have lots of costumes change.
The costumes start to appear and then there were some missing. All of them had been repaired in LasVegas and in the way back from there they seemed to get lost. Well, there is not time for panic because we are flying tomorrow and whatever is not here it would have to be find or bought or something. Most of the clothes were the most important costumes for some of the characters and they got lost.
When we discovered this we look at each others and said “spymonkey on tour”. And accept the fact that we cannot be in control of everything that happens around us.
Have fun.
THE FIRST RUN THROUGH
Hello,
Miren arrived yesterday from Bilbao. She is going to be here the next three days and then when we leave for Calgary she will go to get her plain to go back. I have not been away from her for so long since before Las Vegas and I had missed her a lot. I am very happy that she is here.
She came to the rehearsals space and then we went for dinner to an Italian place in Muswell Hill. It is so nice to see her. I love her that is why is nice to see her.
Now she is sitting in the audience while we get ready to do our first run trough. There more guests but not as many as we thought we would have. There is also an Irish friend of Cal called I do not remember his name. We do have an audience thou because now we are a big enough team so Angela, Lucy and more people are looking.
We have been working for the last three weeks creating new material and going trough what we always go and now it is time for people to see and for as to put it together for the first time.
There are at least for of five new scenes and some of them are really funny. At least they made as laugh and hopefully they will make the audience laugh.
The show is going well. Miren is laughing quite a lot and that is a good sign. It is difficult thou because we do not have all the props and also the set had to be put down because we thought they were going to close the place. It seems that there is an Iranian organisation that do not like the free Iranians to do things without their permission or support. Of course Susan Gaulier is not the Muslim fanatic Iranian she is part of the others, So that Iranian organisation was calling the council saying that illegal activities where happening in that place so the council came a threat her to close it. We took everything out and we lost one day of rehears.
With those entire thing against the show the run is going fine and we cans see that there is going to be a nice show coming out of this old COOPED.
Have fun.
OAK AND WOOD (the big fish)
Hello;
The rehearsals are going very well. We are coming out with very funny staff and things are going to be great. I am optimistic as you can see, well, as you can read. I am staying with Cal and it is very nice.
They just got a new pond in the garden. I have to say that I do not remember how the old one used to be but this one it is quite big and it had the old fountain in the middle of the pond. Also most of the old fishes are still here. There are new guests thou. They got the other day a big one to live with the little red and black ones that were living there before. They have called him Oakandwood. Yes, I know that it does not make much sense to you but for us it is very clear. The whole thing comes from a stupid joke of STIFF our old show. I am not going to go through the whole thing now because you need to see it soon. Stiff is a wonderful show that needs to be played more often. It will happen but it is going to take a little bit of time because we are now into COOPED.
There are other fished in the pond. The most famous one after oakandwood is fishimodo. It is his name like that because he has developed a small hunchback and swims all over the pond in a weird manner. He is also very irritable and get into fights with all the fishes. As soon as Oakandwood arrived to the pond Fishymodo tried to bully him in the most horrible manner. Thanks God, Oakandwood it has gentle souls because fishymodo could have got kill in a second. Those fishes live very well. They have a very nice garden to look at and two meals per day of very tasty fish food.
Have fun.
X-MEN
Hello;
Well, they are the X-Men II because I have never seen the first one. This time the world is in danger because a Colonel that help to create mutants in the past has organise a complot so they all seem to be dangerous for the humans. At this time in Time the humans and the mutants live together in not a great harmony.
The Colonel is play by Brian Cox. He is an amazing wonderful actor from England. Once I met his son, or one of them, he was doing a play with Andrew Sachs from Fawlty Towers.
The other actors in the movie are, but wait, before I talk about the actors let me talk about the movie. So the Colonel gets permission from the president of the USA to attack the places where mutants may be trying to do bad things against humans. Of course the Colonel knows about the school for mutants that the X-Men have and he assaults the school in the middle of the night when nobody is there and also makes a big tramp for the big chief of the mutants, which is the Captain in Star Trek (Patrick Steward). He gets put in a machine that can control his brain so he can uncover all the mutants that live in the planet earth so they can be killed. It is a horrible thing to do.
Well, and that all because if not you will not need to see the movie.
The actors are all great, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin etc. I have to say that there are actors better than others in that movie. My favourite is Famke Janssen. I like her because is pretty and acts very well and Halle Berry is super pretty and we met her at Zumanity she is very bad actress. You just want her to go and do something else.
I thought the movie was going to be boring but I liked it very much.
Have fun.
HANGOVER
Hello;
There are so many hangover days in my life that I am thinking that I should consider checking into AA. Do not you think? I cannot move and I am not going to bother by that. There is nothing I have to do and there is nothing I want to do so I am going to be in my pyjamas until the time to go to bed and then tomorrow I will go to work rested.
I had breakfast with the little cafeteria that Cal has in his house. It is very convenient to have that here because I could not have just tee when I had been drinking the night before. I think I am going to be like this the whole day and I must drink lots of water.
I am going to go downstairs to get more water and to have a little wander trough the house. AH¡ I know I am going to do my laundry. I have already dirty clothes for the last week and I am sure that as soon as we get close to the time of going to Calgary I am going to have less time. Where did I put all my dirty clothes? Ok, here they are. I am going down stairs. My head hurts, not too much but it hurts.
It is very nice to see people that you have not seen for a very long time but what it kind of piss me of is that everybody talks about boring things and yesterday I felt I wanted to talk about things that matter and eat and drink nice things with not too many people. This was not happening so I hide myself in my drinking and now I am paying the price.
Where is the soap? There it is in these cute pills that you have to put inside the drawer of the washing machine. I am going to have the small program and with cold water because I do not have time to do two washing machines and I have colour and white. SO if I put them together in cold water the whole thing does not get ruined.
What can I do? If I switch on the TV that would be it, it will be the end of my day. I will fell completely hook and then I will go back to my room to sleep.
Ah¡¡ Cal is here, OH, NO¡¡ he is looking at the shopping channel. I do not know how he can watch that channel all the time. We all watch different channels all the time so…
Have fun.
PARTY
Hello;
For quite a while we knew there was going to be a party this day. It is a very good idea because it is going to give us the time and the space to see friends that we have not seen for a very long time. Cal has invited many people that are our friends and that we would not have the chance to see other ways because we are working all the time.
I have been working the whole day. Cal has gone to Newbury to audition kids for the Pantomime that he is directing this Christmas and Lucy and me are going to be in charge of cooking.
All along the week we have spoken about the menu and at the end the decision has been Chilli con Carne. We have done the shopping in the morning and all the afternoon we have been cooking to the point that now and I cannot see any food. No, the whole thing taste great and believe me I think Lucy and me we have done a great job. Everybody is going back to the pot to repeat and get more food. Also we have done guacamole but this last thing is Cal the one who did it.
Lots of people are here. Rob is here and I have not seen him in a very long time. He is one of this people that you do not see very often but every time you are with him he is great. He has been doing the Jerry Springer Opera for the last two years.
Also Kristine Landon Smith is here looking great and always very nice. She is a very good friend of Cal and a fantastic theatre director. Barunka and James from Population Three witch I do not believe exist anymore. They had some troubles and now they all have gone their own ways.
The whole bunch of Piggy Nero with Matty's girlfriend inclusive is here. They are really nice and they did a fantastic job with “the Bubonic Plague”. We saw that show last Thursday and I laughed a lot.
I do not remember anymore who was here, oh, yes, O'Driscol, she is very funny and she was doing very funny things.
There were also some friends from the Cambridge Footlights that I do not know very well and being honest with you some times I think they are a little bit irritating.
Overall I had a great time and I had a great hung over the next day but that is just normal when you are having a good time with friends.
Have fun.
WHERE IS HOME?
Hello;
Well, it is very obvious, in Bilbao. I bought a flat something like five years ago. I did a job for the Circus Knie and with the money that I mad plus a nice mortgage my wife and me bought her old grand mother flat.
Yes, that make sense but how long do you stay there? What I mean is do you spend there enough time to say that is your home?
No, not really. Miren is the person that stays there most of the time. I have realised that my house is where my wife is. Miren is coming here to London in a couple of days and then London would be my house.
For many years I always thought that my house was in Romo but I have not live there for the last 15 years so it is very difficult to say that now. I know lots of people there and my wife and my family live there and also I have a house there. But my house is almost my suitcase. It is funny and many people could not understand that but I think is a kind of rule for people that are on the road all the time. Your suitcase becomes a little bit your house. I keep the most stupid things in my suitcase all the time. I keep books, little toys; I keep things that make my case to be my little house. I keep a corkscrew. Yes, I like wine but not so much that if I do not drink then is the end of everything.
My friends do little bit the same. One of my friends have the suitcase full of pictures of people that he likes in the inside the cover of the case. Another friends of mine make pictures of all the rooms they stay. So we that live on the road do many things wherever we are that make possible that the new place becomes the most close thing to home. Does this answer your question?
Well, yes and no, where is home?
Ok, home is on the road and where my dear wife is.
Have fun.
