Pittsburgh and Goat Cheese

Charlie & I cruised over the Mississippi into Minneapolis in Daves Toyoto (Hair's musical director) yesterday. looking down at his speedometer squinting over his glasses for a minute before he says anything [as he does] and says almost in embarrassment '8200 miles. that's how much I've clocked onto my car since October when the tour began.' Dave would admit it. he's a simple guy. very neutral. & he definitely decided since his divorce that life is not meant to get caught up in complication. I get now that most folks who've been in 'the business' like to keep this simplicity without ruffling too much up. In a business of predominantly Midwesterners [and a few Texans] it makes sense. That and the simple act of being nice and cordial. the cool kids club rules: be sensitive, be kind, and don't ask for a whole lot... As well they should.  As long as we don't shake things up too much and are sensitive to others the cycle continues and nothing has been ruffled too much. Its a nice place to live I admit. But its also a place where outside of the bubble, one could get lost. There's not much room for sensitivity in the real world and hypothetically if forced INTO that world I could see a lot of theatre folks go mad under this new light. Ok I'll get off my soap box.

I said faretheewell to my mac in Costa Mesa as it took its last breath into the hard drive. thats tough to do. especially for a cheap piece of plastic. I enjoyed Pittsburgh...Even immediately following their Superbowl smack in the face. The warhol museum, the strip-an old Italian section of town turned into a local downtown farmers market. Steel was out with pre-nodules [not good-as Lee says] so I was on all week for Berger. I found out I'd be going on right after a 13 hour flight from California [stopping through Denver and LaGuardia. please help me explain that logic]. Traveling with a dog is nice most of the time but not when you book 2 stop-offs just to save a little cash. It was miserable. like a sad HS football coach trying to rally his beaten ass team for one more round of beatings, Charlie being the team. I should have been more excited about the news but I was too beat to think about anything else but my hotel bed.

view from the trolley

The woman sitting next to me on the final flight into Pittsburgh made the last leg go by easy peasy. And when we landed I was sad to leave. She turned and asked how Charlie got to to fly..the way most conversations start with me on planes these days..but really she seemed relieved to be sitting next to Charlie and not a human.  It was a 4 row seat prop-jet plane that could barely fit a starving Somalian. It was funny to witness Charlie trying to compromise with his 1 foot space on my lap. I couldn't believe every time I looked over and she had this giddy smile on her face. 'I LOVE dogs'. One of those people who, even if your not a talk-to-your-neighbor-person, which I'm not, you immediately speak the same language. You just pick up conversation that's easy yet passionate and forget everything else. I asked what she did for a living. Candy was her name. She quit her real-estate life at 53 and in the past 4 years opened a goat cheese farm in Harrisburgh with her husband. She began winning awards for her cheese and then had it patented and now sells it locally, along with eggs from her chickens and goat meat which I agreed is still one of the best tasting meats out there hands down. Africans and Caribbeans definitely hit the jackpot with the this as a big part of their diet. Caprine Delight & Room to Grow is her company. I'll never be wealthy but I'd rather absorb this rich life at my age than do something like Real-Estate' she says. And I hear her on that. We talked about Michael Pollan and rotating crops and how we both can really see glimpses of a local movement taking over big organic in this country and it actually sticking. I mean lets face it. We now live in the whole foods generation...where a trip to Whole Foods is no different than a trip to a really good book store, where a good story can sell any product and with one organic label your left deciphering images of pastoral settings, beautiful farmlands, etc. This organic label has got people using their imaginations to decipher words like free-range, pastoral fed, raised humanely at 5000 ft elevation, and the words of food writing goes on and on. Enough to make even myself confused on which tomato to buy when shopping for dinner. I don't know about you but I'd rather eat the chicken I can see running around in front of me than an organic chicken shipped from California, clocking 1200 miles of oil on the way.