AmazonMidwife

So, what's going on?

"Fucking hell, where have you been?" you might be saying. And if you're saying it with a British accent you might be Eddie Izzard, or one of his devotees. I am quite the devotée (yes, with an accent aigu now that I've lifted Alissa's idea of copy-n-paste-ing it and have been ever since Mama Dee introduced me to the Dress To Kill soundtrack a few years ago. Ever since I started teaching the history classes I've been waiting for us to get to the period of the British Raj so I could show them the following:

And that will probably happen next week. But I digress, ( á l'Izzard). I've been waiting on some pictures (as well as time) to post this entry. Here's what happened:

So, about a month ago the 'Savant told me that M. Izzard was coming to town. The tickets had already been on sale for a month and there were no good seats left without paying scalper prices, which seemed a bit much, esp. after we had just went to see Billy Joel. So, Mama Dee and I decided, with heavy sighs, to forego the concert. (It was also an office night, and I had appts. as well.)

But, as the concert grew closer, I kept muttering (and sometime even whining), "I wanna go see Eddie Izzard." Finally, on the day of the concert, the 'Savant manifested a single ticket and told me to go, that he wasn't all that interested and was fine with staying home with the kids. (note to self: repeated whining works) I bowed to the will of fate, canceled my appts. and went to my closet to find something spectacular, yet comfortable, to wear. What does one wear to see a (gorgeous) transvestite comedian perform?

Arraying myself in togs from my fag hag days (that had been much admired by assorted drag queens) was as close as I got, since I've arranged my life so I could choose cotton and comfort over style and expense. I had a few moments of apprehension as I rode the bus downtown; it had been a long time since I'd gone anyplace as a single and I was imagining making conversation with my seatmates (who would probably be a couple).

But when I arrived at my seat, there was this lovely, bubbly woman sitting next to me. It turned out that she and her husband had been to the show in Cinci the previous Fri. She was hooked---so much so that she had also bought a ticket that day, despite the price of gas, took off early from work and drove up. AND she and her husband had waited at the stage door in Cinci for Eddie to come out, sign autographs and generally chat. She showed me the photos she and her husband had taken on her cell phone, including one with she and Eddie standing together. However she lamented their poor quality, saying that she had brought her camera this time and was planning to wait at stage door again and did I want to come with?

I saw this as a heaven-sent opportunity. The irony of this was that Eddie's show was about getting rid of the Big-Guy-in-the-Sky God concept and promoting an individual ethic. "I think God /The Devil is inside us and we are led to good or evil like Mahatma (sic) Gandhi or Darth Vader....well, he's fictional...but he's still really bad. (breathing impression)" He retooled a lot of his previous history comedy to support this hypothesis in his usual synaptic-leaping stream of consciousness style. It was brilliantly funny. I particularly liked the impressions of dinosaurs going to church ( singing "All Things Bright And Beautiful") as well as God and Jesus arguing over sending the frog plague to Egypt while the Hebrews thought Moses was crazy for taking directions from a burning bush.

He started out with some great local improv, talking about Christopher Columbus and how he discovered...Columbus OH...by bringing his ship overland and leaving it in the middle of town by the river. And it turned out that Eddie had walked over to Deaf School Park and the lack of a school caused him consternation. The audience tried to explain but it was too chaotic/noisy for him to understand, so he moved on. (Too bad the show wasn't on Weds.; our homeschool drama group could have met up with him. I have had a good time imagining the Boy and Eddie meeting up and the hilarity that would then ensue.)

AAAnyway, the show was 2 hours of solid silliness and philosophy, then my seatmate and I headed out to the stage door. We weren't alone; there were about 200 people waiting, some of whom stood on various floors of the parking garage. My seatmate said there were only about 100 in Cinci, and the increased amount may have led one of the security folks to announce that Eddie wouldn't be signing autographs that night. The announcement didn't seem to daunt the crowd, who continued waiting, talking amongst ourselves.

And Eddie did come out, announcing that he would take questions, but that signing autographs for this big of a crowd would take longer than they had, since they were loading up to travel to the next show in Chicago. He took charge of the scene, saying that this was like a street performance and directing the security folks to move back so as not to obstruct the view of the folks who were gathered in a semi-circle around him. We were standing at the base of the 'U', not 6 feet away and my seatmate got some great pictures:

When I emailed her to thank her for the pics, she sent me this link to a you tube video of the Q & A:

SO, to sum up, it was a wonderful show AND a wonderful evening, thanks to Mama Dee, Eddie, the 'Savant and the kindness of a (former) stranger. Blessings on them all.