II:They say that good things come to those who wait...

This title from "Through & Through & Through" by Joel Plaskett, Cary's aptly chosen theme tune to the production of Half-Past, an irresistible piece of post-pop alt-songwriting. Or something. Anyway, it was the tune that indicated to the audience that the lights were going down, time to start the show. Lyrically and stylistically it was a great pick -- my theme song was the less-on-topic "Where It's At" (by Beck) and the laidback nature of this song fits better with the play than the equally lyrically appropriate "Don't Make Me Wait" by Locksley.

So ends perhaps the most exhilarating weekend possibly of my entire lifetime. I could not have asked for more from a collaborator, a cast, a crew, an audience, than what I've gotten over the past few days, as well as over the course of several months. Cary deserves every bit of acclaim he can scrounge up for putting it all together. Yes, I did write some awesome words, but Cary was the man who brought together the wrecking crew to tear the house down.

Friday night, I was sure to ride with mom, grandma and Brandon, guiding them to the proper destination. I did have to abandon them to go sit in the booth, because the place was sold out again. After two shows, the Half-Past Eight PM/Cast Party double bill was the highest-selling combo in the history of EAS, so I was told. Of course, it doesn't hurt that so many of the old gang, including oh so many people from previous versions of Half-Past, came out on Friday - which by consensus, sadly, seemed to be the lowest-energy performance of the run. So I was up in the booth, hearing the somewhat muted laughter, practically tearing my hair out -- "Laugh, people! You're my friends!" I was probably going a bit overboard, actually. Yes, nothing beats the immediate gratification of laughter, but it seems like people were at least interested in what the characters had to say even when they weren't making people laugh. Even Josh Kershaw was there, and he seemed to enjoy it. He also finally admitted to having had my Bone trades this entire time, which Kyle and I already knew.

Up in the booth, I met the writer/director of Cast Party, who gave me some praise for my writing, which I accepted totally without modesty, and attempted to coherently return. It isn't that I didn't like Cast Party - actually I thought it quite an enjoyable show each time I saw it - I just have a hard time returning praise just because it's been offered to me. It feels like an awkward convention.

So after the show, everybody (except Kershaw) went down to the Phoenix for drinks - on the ever-chilly patio (curse you, Canada!) Much of the early portion of the evening I spent talking to Anisah, CB, Hetherington and Neabel who had been cool enough to come down and be my Gin buddy at least for a little while. After a while her presence was replaced by Erika the assistant director, who was one of the few people on the production who had really broken the ice with me. Like, I'd made chit chat with pretty much all of them, mostly to say how much I like what they're doing, but Erika, and to a lesser extent Kat the stage manager were the only ones I managed to really converse with. Erika was described by Cary, later, as a "gregarious" sort. Clearly. Anyway, I'd gotten pretty comfortable around her.

After many drinks, the group dispersed after last call - I went back to Oakville with CB and Hetherington, Vanessa and Anisah went with Doug, and the remainder stayed the night. Long goodbyes.

Saturday was a long, long day. I got up good and early to make it to the 12:19 westbound train; I was meeting Amanda at the GO station. It was like the traveling version of our usual coffee hangout. So we got to the theater in good time, but on our way over I was called by Eric to alert me that -- riding with my Aunts Lori and Karen -- they were running late, having hit severe traffic around Oakville, and if I could get their tickets for them, to ensure promptness. Well, sure -- although I just barely had $30 on me, and Amanda didn't even have any cash so I had to promise the producer that she was good for it -- I have a certain amount of goodwill with them, I suppose.

Of course, that goodwill was stretched quite thin, I think, by the fact that I asked them to delay the show by about 10 minutes while my family rushed to the theater. I was worried about having a rerun of Thursday, but they made it with only seconds to spare (they were stopped at a red light a mere block away for what felt like an eternity.)

Anyway. It was a little embarrassing, but they all seemed to love the show. Although they bolted before Cast Party, which was kinda awkward, but I guess they do both have kids at home, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon (and Eric had a party later, I believe.) So after the show, Amanda and I went off in search of food, as she had not even managed to eat before getting on the train. I feigned my awkwardness, but eventually overcame with a Tim Hortons egg salad sandwich. It wouldn't seem to be the ideal sandwich for an upset/anxious stomach, but it puts me in a good state of mind usually. I'll have to remember that.

Having more or less four hours to ourselves, we then went over to Jackson Square to wander aimlessly. Amanda bought some socks and I perused dollar store toys.

It was about 6:00 when we returned, so we still had plenty of time, which was largely filled with Amanda reading and me doing Sudoku on the DS. After a while of this, she remarked that she knew we were good friends because we could just sit quietly without awkwardness, doing our own thing.

The last show saw the return of the Ferguson family, as well as my dad and Deb. I introduced Amanda around. It was a great performance to close out the week. The afternoon show had had a couple of hiccups, which were mostly well-covered, but the finale was pretty excellent.

I arranged for my dad to give Amanda a lift back to Oakville, and caught a ride with the Fergusons over to Cary's, where he and I waited for a friend of his before walking over to the cast party. We holed up inside for a little while preparing gifts for the cast. Now, here's where a bit of a theme started to develop, because in this entire process I've been kind of an outsider. I'm not in Hamilton, I wasn't really active in the preparation, I was just around sometimes, being an enigma, the mysterious dude who originated this script. I know, I've interacted with everyone to some degree by this point, and I got on well with them all, but...... man, fuck it. I didn't get a clock. I don't know why I care, I guess there just weren't enough on the shelves (seriously, between Cary/Erika/Kat and the cast distributing clocks back and forth as gifts, they appeared to have cleaned out at least two
Dollaramas.)

But before the drunken moping came the schmoozing, and boy did I schmooze. Now, my drunkenness accelerated at a previously uncharted level due to Michael Herman's distribution of a shot known quaintly as the "Rocky Mountain Bearfucker." So drunkenly I chatted up as many castmembers as I could, telling them how brilliantly they brought the character alive and all that feel-good shit we've been slinging around for so long. Not that I didn't mean it, but you can only say it so many times, right? Or seem like I was just fishing for compliments? And was I? Maybe. Actually, I think it would've been fascinating to hear some, like, criticism. Maybe not too harsh, but maybe a bit of a more rough critique to bring me back down to Earth since basically at this point I feel like I've written the most brilliant piece of theater since A Streetcar Named Desire.

The closest thing to that, actually, was the night before, when Adam Hetherington said he didn't really care for the movie, and I told him he was pretty much right, that the movie wasn't much of a product, just something that was fun to make. Well, sometimes stressful, but at least I got to spend a summer hanging out with people (*although across the board the performances in the movie were better than the original version, with all due respect.)

The other thing Hetherington said was noting how Perry had said his fiancee was "getting out of school" soon, but also that she had "gotten a promotion" four months earlier. I told him that was well-observed, and that I had actually thought about it myself -- not while I was writing it, but afterward, as things like these tend to escape our notice until funny times. I had decided that there were a couple of possibilities. First, that Kara is an extremely busy person, juggling both school and a career. Second, that Perry is a liar. Both are equally valid.

So I spent the bulk of the night doling out compliments, receiving a few in return, and getting a few standard questions. A lot of people want to know to what degree the play is autobiographical. I always feel the need to come up with some snarky remark in response to that, because hey, can't something a young writer does just be fiction? What a novel idea! I wrote it when I was 16; there wasn't much time for a love of my life to move to England.

The closet thing to biographical details in the play was that we name-dropped Conorton's after-party, which was indeed a memorable night. Also, the conversation about whether or not a platypus was a mammal, which I'd had with Amanda a while earlier, and it was a conversation that lasted for seemingly 15 minutes, and neither or us really had a good case.

The other hot topic for me was what would be my next project. I alluded to the play I am currently attempting to start writing, which I have pledged Cary a draft by the end of July. I didn't say much about it -- all Cary knows is that it's "about lesbians" and it takes place in an apartment. Really, that's all you need to know, and it sure beats "It's about a guy waiting at a bench and talking to people."

AJ, one of the producers, pitched me the idea of "Half-Past Eight PM act 2" which I think would have to be "Quarter to Ten" or perhaps as late as "Nearly Midnight." I told him that actually, when I first wrote it, I saw it as the middle act of a story with no real beginning or end. This was the attitude I took with the movie, and ultimately bore somewhat disappointing results, possibly because I went with the controversial decision to have Beth reject Mark and (again ambiguously) seem to be set up on a date with Billy. There are things about the movie I like, but really, it's not right.

I think in the nonexistent "Act II" (which would possibly be called "The Perry Robbin Show," as I had partly conceived a nonexistent followup for the next year's Fringe,) Beth would initially reject Mark, and then be convinced that perhaps she does indeed have feelings for him by the wisdom of Perry.

But no. No more of the world of Half-Past. It only exists from "7:45" until "8:35" or so in that reality. Time to move forward. I pledged I would get cracking as soon as Half-Past was done. I've gotta get cracking. I haven't mentioned it by title - I've got a title, but I'm holding off on publicizing it until I've confirmed I'm going with it. For a little while, Half-Past was known as "What Time Is It?" which is a stupid, dumb title. There were also a few early examples of me forgetting myself and referring to it as "Eight Thirty PM" which is less snappy. It sounds like something Noel Coward would come up with (because it basically is.)

Drinking, drinking at the Cast Party, more schmoozing. At one point I was introduced to a girl and she started asking about my writing, what else I do, and somehow I got onto the subject of Curiosities (a book project I've been working on slowly for some time) and if I could've stepped outside myself I probably would've been amused by my attempt to drunkenly summarize the concept - not that it's complicated, just that...... I was drunk and incredibly fascinated by myself.

Eventually I began to sulk off by myself, frustrated by the fact that I had really nothing left to offer these people, having been intoxicated into submission. Cary was asleep someplace. All I really had was Erika, and there's where awkward came in. I was not going to be "fun drunk Scotto" tonight, friends.

I found out a little later that Cary had forewarned Erika and Kat about my tendency to seduce his friends. Now he neglected to mention that for the most part, these women seek me out as much as I them, and that any time I actively try to initiate something it is doomed to go horribly awry. So with this hindsight, it's not hard to see why Erika was suddenly not all that keen on talking to me.

Is it so hard to believe that I really just wanted to take a walk and sober up? That she was the only conscious person at the party I felt like I could converse with at that point?

Okay, let's face it, as true as that all is, we all know I probably would've tried something, and it probably would've ended badly. And fair enough that it didn't happen. It's probably for the best on her part. But at the time, all I saw was this girl who was pretty keen on talking to me yesterday was now very uninterested in anything I (drunkenly, incoherently) had to say. I didn't realize she'd been tipped off, and from her perspective I must've been terribly obvious, and I feel like a bit of an ass for it.

So I found someplace else to mope, and that's when I ran into Kat. And we had a bit of a talk. First she said it seemed like I didn't care for her much, which I told her was absurd. I'm just socially awkward, I didn't mean to shun her. Then, recalling an earlier "closing night" prank she and Erika had pulled, she decided to pull up her top at a passing car.

That passing car was of course, a cop car.

Not, like, an undercover one, either. It said "police" on it in big block letters.

Well, the cop had come over to get us to tone it down (the party was largely outdoors) and the flashing probably didn't help matters, but he was pretty cool about it. I decided to calm her down, and we had another talk.

She had noticed me plying my game on Erika, and was the one who informed me of Cary's warning about me. I fed her my sob story in brief, which for some reason I feel the need to pull out whenever I'm drinking and things aren't going well. Actually, I pull it out when I'm sober too, but I'm less obnoxious about it then.

She then commiserated a bit, referring to a fella who'd been around earlier, with whom she had history. Then she she started to inquire as to why I was taking shit so hard, articulated in the brilliant line, "What are you, looking to fall in love tonight?"

So anyway, we kept each other company for a while, cheered up. Naturally there's a bit more to it than that, but the details are hazy. And the details that I do recall, you're not getting. Eventually, Cary woke up and said it was time to go, and when we got on the road, I drunkenly accused him (repeatedly) of "betrayal." Yeah, I'm mature.

After some talk, it was time for sleep around 4 AM. Cary said I shouldn't do the disappearing act like I often do, but I said it was hard because I often wake up early after a night of drinking (I don't know how I do it) and I'm not sure how long I'll feel like waiting around, and won't want to wake him up too early either.

I ended up waking up at about 8:30 AM, which is absurd, considering I had fallen asleep watching Friends a mere 4 hours earlier. So I did manage to roll over and fall back asleep until about 10:30 or 11, at which point I laid around waiting for an appropriate time to go knock on Cary's door and go "I'm leaving." That time ended up being quarter to 12. Sadly, no "doing breakfast." I walked down King, got some Tim Hortons, walked on to Main, to the GO station. The logic here is that I've found that then Hamilton bus typically drops you off at the GO station just after the bus for Aldershot departs. I guess the thinking here is that while places like Oakville have embraced the transit-GO relationship, Hamilton actually resents it, and sabotages it as much as possible. They don't even have a co-pay. Dicks.

SO, knowing that one way or the other I wasn't leaving Hamilton until 1:40, I decided to walk rather than spend money on the bus and wait. I was only a couple of blocks from the station when the bus passed me, so I applauded my call.

So I got back to town about 2:30, and have basically been kicking around ever since, trying to unwind and relax after the most exhilarating week of my life - which I believe is where I came in on this entry. It has been a long one, and rightfully so because this entire experience has been the stuff of legend.

I started writing this one at 12:30, it's now just almost 3.

Well, it's all out there now. Tomorrow I start a new journey. I've been preparing for it in my head for some time but you never know until you begin to walk. aside from this play, I have a shitload else to write. I relaxed today, tomorrow will be busy again.

Such is life. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Keep on rockin, you're beautiful.
-Scotto