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The camera flew in low over the heads of the backstage crew through the dark, here and there the flicker of a blue from monitors and switchboards, the outline of a head and shoulder reflecting the stage lights. "I've always wanted to see the Ed Sullivan Theatre," the announcer remarked over the sound system. I noticed him sitting at his podium off stage and wondered that he never saw the place he was sitting in. Only now in the waking hours do I think perhaps he was blind.
"And now, all the way from New York City, John Goodman, ladies and gentlemen!" The camera pulls up close to John Goodman in a tuxedo, slimmer and young looking despite his years leaning casually against a desk. He holds a statuette in his hands - an Oscar it seems, until I look closer. It is instead some grotesque, deformed Oscar with a wicked snarl and curling horns. "All the way from New Hampshire, actually," he says quietly, almost wistfully, while stroking the statue. [Apparently he's actually from Missouri]. He gives his big, loveable smile as the camera zooms out to show the huge red curtains of the stage on which John and his desk are the only ornaments. The stage lights glare into view along with the gold wrapped balconies on either side.
The camera pans up to the blue-black painted dome with it's pin-pick painted stars as fireworks start to explode right there in the theatre. I wonder if the place is really big enough to be setting them off in here and question whether this folly is wholly someone else's or partially my own for being there. I hear screaming from the mezzanine above me [I don't often get to use the word mezzanine and it brings me a little thrill to do so]. A cloud of smoke plumes from the heights as I crane my neck to look. The crowds above begin to shuffle and push and panic as they fight though the marble columns and red velvet seats for the exit. I cast around for a fire extinguisher and spot one by the door on my level. I grab it quickly, aware of vaguely of leaving some companion on their own as I pull the pin and leap the seats and end up on the balcony in some kind of lobby. I'm a little disappointed to find some lobby attendant in a bellboy hat with an extinguisher in hand already putting out the flames. Indeed, they are almost all out already. I point my nozzle at a few meandering flames by one of the pink and brown marble columns and give it a blast of white foam. There are large clear glass jugs scattered around on tables and bar tops with little tea light candles burning in them. I start to shoot them from a distance to prove my hose slinger skills. If I can't be the hero, I might as well look good, figure. The usher joins me and we have a good laugh competing to see who is the better shot.
A scream from behind causes us both to turn and look. "Where's the gold?" someone shouts. My mind briefly flashes. Gold? What gold? Was there a card table there laden with gold bricks earlier or am I just imagining that now? Was the smoke show just a smoke screen for the gold heist? Alarm bells started ringing.
I hit the snooze button and rolled over to face 5am through bleary eyes.
[Also somewhere in that night]: Chris Rock turns to me in the locker room - beige walls and snot green lockers - and says, "Most of us in LA look like this now." He's referring to colour of his skin which is more of a sandy brown than the black guy you tend to think of Chris rock as being. Maybe it wasn't Chris Rock at all, but it was his voice. "We're not all turning white one eyeball at a time, you know." I'm not clear what this is supposed to mean so I focus my attention on the 1950's travel poster on the door - an art deco gleaming grey DC-10 in a sky blue sky hovering over a palm tree. It wasn't clear where this was supposed to be or what company is was with but it did offer 50% off in large yellow type.
