[Mb-hair] One more Reunion pic link...

[Sean Courtney]

Here's a link to all ONE picture I took -- I brought a digital camera and
like an idiot used up most of the battery power on the two videos I shot and
forgot to bring extra batteries!! I had just enough juice to have Lisa shoot
a picture of Robin, Tioga Joe and myself:

http://www.banana-and-louie.org/hair

(Robin -- you think Sib looks like John Ritter now? He looked kinda like
Stephen Stills when he had facial hair!  8)  )

Anyhoo, just a bit more detail about the reunion...I don't think anybody
posted quite this much detail yet...

My wife and I got there at about 9:00, as we both had a busy day and we
needed to slow down for a bit and grab some dinner before we went into the
city. When we got there Nina was the first to greet us -- amazingly she knew
who I was before I even said anything! Somebody asked me for my ticket, but
I never did get actual tickets -- I just called the box office and
paid, but they never sent me tickets. They let us through anyway (I DID pay,
don't worry!).

In the lobby on the second floor of the theater there was a small group of
people socializing, and there were some fantastic Dagmar photographs
enlarged and posted all over. ("fantastic Dagmar photographs" -- yeah, as if
there's such thing as a Dagmar photograph that ISN'T fantastic??) And there
was a TV showing a 2-hour looping DVD of Hair TV spots et al. (Really...if
my $22 per person was nothing more than standing in front of that TV and
watching that DVD, just that would have been worth the admission price!)

We were directed to the main theater, and when we walked in Jim Rado (and
yes, I noticed that he had the "Luther Creek" name tag, but I didn't want to
ask!) was making some kind of speech...couldn't tell for sure what he was
doing, whether he was reading a letter from someone, reading (or making up)
some free verse poetry, or what...all I remember is there was an anti-Bush
comment that everybody loved. :)

It became obvoius that WMH was the emcee (I don't think I was aware of that
beforehand), and he introduced Michael Butler, who talked for about five
minutes, IIRC about the message and spirit of Hair. Afterwards a few people
eulogized [J/G]erry Ragni.

After a short break and a bit more socialization (and truly realizing that I
have the social skills of a dead tree), there was the big sing-along, using
what appeared to be a pretty well-done karaoke CD, with WMH directing from
the stage. "Aquarius" featured many attendees in a circle dance, using the
classic choreography. And because it was a karaoke CD, not many people knew
when to come in with "Where Do I Go?" I turned to my wife and said that
there really needs to be someone taking the lead on this particular
song...and talk about timing, Jim Rado got up on stage and sang his lead,
with WMH cuing him on a few forgotten words. (And no, nobody was nude at the
end!) "I Got Life" featured WMH pointing to body parts to keep everybody on
cue. :)

WMH asked Shelley Plimpton to come to the stage to sing "Frank Mills."
Walter played the piano to back her up. He started playing in the key of C,
which I believe is what the sheet music dictates. Shelley turned to him and
obviously asked him to lower the key, so he started playing in A, the key of
the song on the Broadway and off-Broadway cast recordings, but she asked for
even lower, and so Walter went down to F, after which Shelley delivered a
really nice vocal.

Again on piano, WMH led everybody through "Walking In Space" (which sounds
VERY interesting with only piano!), "Three-Five-Zero-Zero," and "What A
Piece Of Work Is Man," with him soloing on his original vocal parts -- and
amazingly still hitting the high notes (in the original key!), even better than he did in
1968, amazing when you consider his current baritone speaking voice!

The sing-along ended with, what else?, but "The Flesh Failures." Afterwards,
WMH announced that they were going to show a montage of various tribes
singing "what you just sang," I believe were his exact words. Among the
"tribes" was the Urban Coalition TV advertisement that had a few Hair cast
members and a wide variety of famous folks; my wife got a kick out of seeing
a lot of "squares" singing "Let The Sunshine In." :)  (At least one picture
of that is in Nina's online Hair archive -- here's a direct link to a
picture:
http://www.michaelbutler.com/hair/holding/photographs/hair/UrbanCoalition.html
)

That was pretty much the end of scheduled activities. The rest of the
evening was basically a big social. I wanted to meet as many online tribe
folk as I could, as I've been a part of it for so long.

People spotted include:
- online folk such as Cara, Corrinne, Tioga Joe (heck, we live a few blocks
away from each other and took the train back home together!), Robin
McNamara, Ross (sorry I didn't introduce myself!), Sherwin, Nina, Michael
Butler (duh!), Leo
- past tribe members such as Red, Pappy (loved the hat with the playing card
in it!), Mary Davis (I wanted to introduce myself, but she looked like she
was having too good a time, so I didn't want to interrupt her!), Heather
McRae, Ben Vereen (seemed to draw a crowd everywhere he walked, for obvious
reasons!), I believe Marjorie LiPari was there, obviously Walter Michael
Harris
- And of course a few other folks...I was surprised to see SNL's Fred
Armisen there (I'm under the impression that he might be seeing Heather
McRae's daughter??)...I spoke with a gentleman named Danny who was in the
Detroit cast with Meat Loaf...obviously Jim Rado, who approached me
apparently for the sole reason of telling me that he was going to eat that
piece of cake in his hand, and he didn't care what I or anybody else had to
say. I said "Oh, yeah? Well......PLEEEEEEEEEEASE eat that cake!" I got kinda
goofy and dropped to my knees and said "PLEASE eat it!" (I figured heck, if
he wants to eat that cake, and he didn't care what I said, would this give
him a zen thing to think about?) He seemed amused.

Tioga Joe suggested that the three of us (him, Lisa and I) share a cab on
the way back to Penn Station, so on our way out I noticed that we lost him;
turns out he had to stop and say his goodbyes to a lot of folks...I saw he
was talking to Rado, and Sherwyn kind of excitedly pointed out how the
tie-dyes that Jim and I were wearing had the same stitching on the
shoulders. He suggested it's something rare. Jim wasn't quite as
excited...he said "Uhh....I guess we just shop at the right place, I
dunno..." (Sorry to burst your bubble, Sherwyn, but it turns out it's not
all that rare -- I've since inspected my tie-dye collection, and found that
pretty much all of my tie-dyes have the same pattern, as do most of my
wife's tie-dyes!)

Anyhoo...it was a fantastic time, hope to do it again! Have to go look for a
place to live now...

--
dauber at banana-and-louie.org
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