Backstage...maybe the most
magical place on earth. The energy...the frenzy...the possibility...you can taste
it. Costumes and chaos. Lines memorized and improvised. Doesn't matter if it's theatre, music or comedy,
its all grand...hours of boredom peppered with flashes of pure, unadulterated
adrenaline in the moment that the audience responds.
I've been in some great
ones and some dives, but my favorite backstage has to be The Fox Theatre in
Atlanta, Georgia.
I got my tickets the day
they went on sale at Ticketmaster in the Macon Mall. When the girl handed
me the tickets, they read HOWIE MANDEL. How long had I waited for
this and now it was going to happen...the tickets were right there in my
hand. But underneath his name, featuring Lou Dinos.
"Who's Lou Dinos?" I
asked the Ticketmaster girl through the hole in the glass. She shrugged.
"Who is he?!" I repeated?
"I guess he's opening for
Howie?" she offered up.
"Yeah well, I won't be
watching him. I'm paying to see Howie. Waste of my time." She returned my
stare. Held my pause. "And I will not," I continued, "even watch his
show."
"Ok," was all she said.
I went with my friend David and a couple other friends. The three of them
went in to see Lou Dinos while I hung out in the lobby with the t-shirt
guy. On principle. After about 25 minutes, David comes out and begs me to
come in. "This guy's funny. You gotta just come in for five minutes. If
he doesn't make you laugh, you can come right back out here," he told me,
nodding to the t-shirt guy. "Please? Were killing ourselves in there!"
I relented.
He was funny. Lou Dinos
was funny. I went backstage to meet him after the show. He signed my
jeans. We went to a jazz bar. And the next night he went to New York City
to play Carnegie Hall. And the next day back to Los Angeles to wash windows
to get the rest of the rent money for his place on Sepulvelda in Van Nuys.
Two years later, I
married him.
Backstage...maybe the most
magical place on earth...