I'm learning that Meg is one of those people that somehow knows everyone in the entire world. And everyone in the entire world is at least a little afraid of Meg.
Let's just say I'm probably not the only person who reads Meg's texts in a scary dragon voice.
Meg set up a meeting with some folks at such a cool place that you have to name 25 bands no one has ever heard of just to get in the front door, and we're glad she did, because we are very excited to announce that Strangerville Live is going to partner with Church and State to bring you our next live show on March 30 at 8:00 PM.
Church and State is located just a few blocks away from our old venue, at 370 S 300 E in Salt Lake City. We think you're going to love this move.
And Jolyn, Meg, and I have a really fun show planned for you, featuring at least four storytellers, including:
1. Meg Walter: Strangerville Live producer, world-famous writer, texted Eli 5 times last night to try to manipulate him into watching the Bachelor finale.
2. Rachel Miller: local storyteller, Strangerville allstar, once fed the children she was babysitting poison berries from her yard.
3. The Suzzzz: Strangerville allstar, has been on every worst date ever, recently convinced Eli to switch lawn care companies through a comment on the internet, making her the only person in history who has ever changed someone's mind in a comments section.
4. Eli McCann: Best hair, athletes foot.
Please come support the Strangerverse by celebrating a fun night with us. Tickets are available at this link. Tickets are limited so get yours before we run out!
And after you do that, tell us your story: what is the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen or done on a stage. GO!
~It Just Gets Stranger
Step aside.
ReplyDeleteIn seventh grade band concert in front of the entire school, I was playing the trombone and I was seated closest to the audience in the line of like 14 trombone players (we had very disproportionate representation because the school owned a disproportionate number of trombones so on the first day the band teacher way oversold how cool the trombone was so everyone wouldn't fight over the 6 trumpets or 2 French Horns). Right in the middle of Three Blind Mice (which we were killing, by the way) I felt it coming. VOMIT. The first hurl went into the mouthpiece of the trombone. The rest onto the stage. By the third or fourth vomit, most of the class had stopped playing and were frantically spreading across the stage. I was referred to as "trombone vomit" for two years.
OMG please send me an email.
Delete...because they haven’t had a good vomit story in a while.
DeleteOMG please tell us there is video footage.
DeleteHahaha that’s amazing and beats my middle school trombone story, in which I (a 6th grader) dropped my trombone while the 8th grade band played. It clattered loudly and dented my instrument.
DeleteYou are the only person in the world who can make me wish I had MORE embarrassing stories to tell. It's like, your super power. My most embarrassing moment I don't really remember, having successfully blocked most of it out, but it involved being a freshman in the high school play, the part of a 60 something year old principal, whose clothing was all disheveled and hair askew, shaking one shoe and screaming "What a day, what a dog, what a fiasco!" which was supposed to be the big dramatic moment, but the entire audience was laughing at me. You see know why I've blocked from memory the rest of the details. But, all things considering, it's not that bad... And this is going to post this comment as my father, and if I knew the internets better I could fix it but I don't, so this is actually AMY ROSE, and now you know my father's name.
ReplyDeleteThat surprise twist at the end of your comment though!
DeleteOh my gosh!!! I totally thought Dad read the blog and was commenting!!!
DeleteAmes, I still quote that line in my regular line. Epic.
"What a day! What a dog! WHAT a fiasco." My kids have no idea what I'm talking about.
I've been on stage so many times. I'm trying to think about what my most embarrassing moment might be.
I was Annie in Annie, and my mic pack got unclipped and fell down, so I had to finish my musical number with the little black box swinging around hitting my legs. As a middle schooler, this was embarrassing.
Another one: I was singing a Christmas song in Portuguese. I think Silent Night. I suddenly forgot the lyrics, so (since I could speak Portuguese) I started singing about riding my bicycle down the street, but since it was in Portuguese and there were no Brazilians or Portuguese in the audience, no one could call me out on it except my family. Again, middle school, and very embarrassed.
I was going through a really modest phase in high school, and I thought that the choir outfits at school were not modest enough, because they didn't have sleeves. So I didn't join the swing choir when I was invited. I stayed in the concert choirs. After two years I got tired of not getting to sing AND dance, so I decided to wear the spaghetti strap dress, but I felt immodest, so I had my mom buy me a skin colored long sleeve leotard to wear underneath the dress. But singing and dancing for a few hours under stage lights makes you sweaty, so then I had huge pit stains on the skin colored leotard, and since no one else was wearing a leotard, their sweat didn't show like mine did, so I was just up there singing my heart out with huge pit stains visible to all every time I raised my arms.
This last one isn't on a drama stage, but I did gymnastics in high school, not because I was any good but just to have a winter sport. I had some horrible moments on vault and beam. One routine, I fell BEFORE even getting on the balance beam, because my foot got caught in between the two mats while I was running to jump on the spring board. Ridiculous. That poor beginning ended up being foreshadowing of an even worse routine. I fell a total of seven times, including "crotching" the beam, which is as painful as it sounds. Luckily for me, the manager would record the routines, so we could watch them later and see where we needed to improve. (Ha.) In my case, the footage got spliced into a blooper reel at the next football pep rally. Yuuuuuup. So, not technically on stage, but my entire high school watched it, so there's that.
But don’t let my sister fool you. She was crazy popular. She was in all honors classes with the best grades, graduated with more varsity letters than anyone else in her class except one boy who just barely beat her (so she was second in girls and boys sports!) and she was the friendliest person in her whole class. She was so popular that even though I was two years older I was known in the halls as “mimi’s older sister” and I wore that with pride. She got invited to more senior class open houses MY senior year when she was a sophomore, than I did. So she may have embarrassed herself, but she has such a great heart and attitude that everyone just loved her for it. (Ok, done bragging on my sister now. Carry on with your day).
DeleteOkay, now I’m embarrassed. Does this count as a stage??
DeleteI love you, Amy. I love being Amy’s sister.
You are the NICEST sister's! I hope my girls will be that nice to each other someday!
DeleteThe choir stories reminded me of another embarrassing moment. (I think if I dig through enough repressed memories we'll find out I embarrassed myself every time I performed). I was in high school show choir. During the Christmas season we were sometimes hired to perform at local events. That's how we ended up at the Lion's Club holiday luncheon. Cold and flu season was particularly hard on the choir that year, and I was the only member of the alto section who had not lost her voice. Our director instructed the other altos to mouth the words and encouraged me to "Sing as loud as you can." So there we were, caroling for the Lion's Club, with me enthusiastically belting out, "Let It Snow", when an unfortunate slip of the tongue caused me to mix up the consonants on a couple of the lyrics. So instead is singing, "And I brought some corn for popping", I instead sang, "And I brought some PORN for COPPING!" Our director's face....
I am crying!!!! That’s too funny!
DeleteInteresting, I've blocked the details too. I also quote the line frequently, mostly to myself, since no one around me would ever understand.
DeleteIt has long been my memory (fabricated or otherwise) that I heard about the events described, and about the big line, and that for some reason I was not in attendance. Would have been fall '98 or spring '99. I wonder why I missed it.
When in Muncie I am Amy and Mimi's brother. That's how I introduce myself. I always told myself I would be cool in the next stage of life. So now I expect to be cool when I hit mid-life crisis stage.
Yesssssss!!!! Life achievement goal unlocked!!!!!! This is my big brother Peter, and he commented!!!! Hahahaha. If we can get this to happen again, the comments section of your blog will turn into a chat room for my family. Bwahahahahahaha! And Pete, you were so cool I wore your clothes every day. Don’t forget that. And I don’t know where you were either, I remember Matt and Linda were there that night. I missed my cue, and they sang “oh where is our amy” to the tune of “oh where is my hairbrush” of veggie tales fame. Ah, happiness.
DeleteUm, Peach Galtzo, you are totes cool.
DeleteAnd I’m so thrilled that my brother commented!!
If you weren’t at Amy’s play, then I’m positive you heard us quote it. We quoted it a lot. Where you in Arizona then?
I was doing full time college + full time job, and trying to do full time wooing of women... and not yet in Arizona; I went there in Feb 2000. I was too much busy, and I missed out on epic things.
DeleteI actually remember thinking to myself, while feeling bad for having missed the play, "As long as I remember this line that seems to have been epic, I can still claim to be a little bit cool, and people will eventually forget that I wasn't there at all."
And it was working, until this blog post made me spill all my secrets!
You are a lotta bit cool and still totes busy in 2018. Some things never change . . .
DeleteOh no. I just noticed that I wrote "totes" in my comment before Peter's last one. And I just wrote it again in the one I just sent off. Oh man. I think there is a limit to how many times someone my age can say totes, and I've totally surpassed that limit.
DeleteGood thing this blog is where shame goes to die and dance in the fiery flames! That apples to everything.
Does a screen count? Because as a 17 year old high school student, I was recruited to be part of an infomercial explaining why people of Cache Valley needed to stay in Cache Valley for all of their shopping needs. I played the leading role of Dorothy, a Cache Valley teen who dreamed of shopping, "Somewhere.....out of this valley." And sang about it too. Do I need to say that I wore a blue gingham pinafore, ruby red slippers, and carried a basket with a stuffed dog in it? I believe the president of the Chamber of Commerce was the Tinman, and a another Chamber of Commerce member (who was large and male) played the part of Glinda the Good Witch. The prospect of my first film role was intoxicating, as was the opportunity to be recorded in a studio singing the hit single "Somewhere Out of Cache Valley". (What? You've never heard it?) The reality thought.....oh, the reality. I spent a day with a camera crew and the drag version of Glinda the Good Witch skipping down Main Street Logan and visiting retail businesses owned by Chamber members to oooh and ahhhh over their selection of goods and services. Because there's no place like home to spend your cash! In Cache Valley! I knew it was awful, but I plugged through it and hoped none of my peers would ever, ever see it. It took YEARS before I ever told anyone--even my husband--about my brief career in advertising, and even though it makes for a great party story, I still blush and cringe at the telling....25 years later!
ReplyDeleteNow I want to watch this for my next family movie night. Please, is it on the internets anywhere? YouTube, don’t fail me now!
DeleteThat is freaking awesome! I grew up in North Logan and I have never seen this infomercial. Was it on the valley channel? Do you have a copy of it? And for the most part shopping in Logan sucked in the 80s and 90s, no ad was going to change that. Nevermind I'm just calling the CCofC and asking for the tape myself.
DeletePLEASE make this video available to us.
DeleteI pray any copy of this marketing disaster is long gone. Especially since it was before the days of autotune and the recording studio was only available for about 13 minutes. I can find just about anything online, but I refuse to dig for this. And The Suzzzz grew up in North Logan??? So did I! Do we know each other?
DeleteRuth Did you go to Sky View? Class of 97.
DeleteSuzzzz, I did not. Logan High class of 94. So growing up we probably completely ignored each other, unless you had an older sibling that I knew. But I would just like to say that North Logan hosts the BEST small town events, period. Proud to say it's my hometown. {fist bump of solidarity}
DeleteRuth, NL is awesome but I'm going to be a traitor and say that Trout & Berry Days in Paradise is my all time favorite Cache Valley small town celebration. How can you not love a town holiday where there are pie eating contests AND a contest that involves wading knee deep in a pool and trying to catch live trout with your bare hands?
DeleteYou all look amazing in the Strangerville posters (especially your hair Eli oh em gee we can't get enough), but I must say The Suzzzz looks absolutely drop-dead unstoppable! Like, I want to be her best friend so I can see what happens when people cross her. That type of gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI know!! I thought the same thing!! Can I hire this photographer just to boost my self esteem? Or, do you all look that naturally fantastic in your regular lives? (Not you, Eli. We all already know your hair is it’s own force of nature, my very own “delicate arch”, if you will. Too far?)
DeleteOh Manda thank you, but you overestimate me. When people cross me personally I usually freeze up and then go home and stew. However when someone goes after my friends and family I go all Boudica on them.
DeleteSomeday I will have to show you the other picture we almost used for The Suzzzz. This thing could win an Oscar.
DeleteAmy Rose the photographer is my sister's sister in law, so I can totally hook you up if you ever come to Utah. It also helps that I had an amazing HMUA that made me look my best. Eli's right, the other photo is classy. I have so many very classy photos of myself it's hard to choose. That was sarcasm by the way. Why has no one in the history of the internet come up with a universally accepted font to use for sarcasm? We can send a convertible into space but we can't designate sarcasm in writing.
DeleteWe all want to be The Suzzzzzz’s best friend so let’s just accept that we are all her BFF’s and also not at all her BFF’s. Also...I thought Italics were the Universal Sarcasm Font?
DeleteOh Sandy, ask the people who know me REALLY well and you may want to reconsider being BFF with me. I've got issues.
DeleteThe Suzzzz that’s what’s makes us interesting. I find people with issues much more relatable. I don’t know how to talk to people who have their poop in a group.
DeleteI'm trying to understand why this picture of the The Suzzzz made you feel this way . . . .did you NOT feel this way before seeing the picture because I didn't need a picture of her to feel this way . . .
DeleteI have to tell you one more. Fortunately it's not my own, this time. A family friend, Jeanette, was cast as Calamity Jane in her high school musical. Wild Bill Hickock was played by the drama club dreamboat. They were "just friends", but Jeanette didn't mind playing his love interest on stage. There is one climatic scene towards the end of the musical when Calamity and Wild Bill kiss. The actors assumed it would be a stage kiss, with Wild Bill holding up his hat in front of their faces, so the audience would think they were locking lips. But no, the director thought otherwise, and made them rehearse that kiss over and over again in front of the cast, until they had it choreographed juuuuuust right, lip to lip. It was more than a little humiliating for the two of them. On opening night, a few moments before the show began, the director came to Calamity and Wild Bill and told them he'd changed his mind--they should do a stage kiss. Jeanette and her co-star were flabbergasted. The director walked away, and Jeanette turned to Wild Bill and said, "He did NOT just say that. He made us practice that kiss, we're kissing!" Wild Bill didn't argue. Well, the show started and was going along really well. The kissing scene arrived. By then Jeanette had been stewing about the director's inconsistency for a while, and she was pretty fired up about it. She turned to Wild Bill, looked at him, grabbed him by the collar, and kissed him. In the words of Jeanette, "Calamity Jane went out the window at that point, and it was ALL Jeanette. And I kissed that boy long, and I kissed that boy hard, and I kissed that boy liked he'd never been kissed before and it was NOTHING like the director had ever seen!" Suffice it to say, the kiss was not exactly what Wild Bill was expecting. When Jeanette finished, he gasped the last line of the scene and stumbled backwards.....where just offstage he FAINTED into the arms of the director. Calamity was on stage for the next scene without Wild Bill, so Jeanette was completely oblivious to the fact that it took a good five minutes for the offstage cast members to revive Wild Bill, until after the curtain fell. She decided that explained why he looked so pale in their last scene....
ReplyDeleteI love everything about this story.
DeleteThis is amazing. What pretty much every one of my daydreams in high school would have looked like if I had been brave enough to even imagine a scenario like this. Bravo, Jeanette! Also, I would LOVE to hear wild bill’s side of the story!! Amy Rose, still struggling to comment.
DeleteWhy are we all leaning to the left in those photos? Are we drunk? Do we have scoliosis? Is it REALLY windy?
ReplyDeleteI have spent most of my adult life actively avoiding being on a stage, speaking, performing in public or front of any kind of group. I have literal nightmares about being on TV. I even get paranoid at boxing class when the other class members are doing conditioning and I have to do mitts with the instructors and there are like 2 curious bystanders looking in the glass door to see what we're doing...true story, I almost got punched in the face last night because of this.
The last time I spoke in public is when I was guilted into speaking in church when I was 16. Which means that since I am perpetually 29 1/2 forever that it was exactly 13 12 years ago. However the last time I got on a stage in front of people was about 12 years ago (in real time, not make believe forever 29 1/2 time). I took belly dancing for about 5 years in Cache Valley. I am a terrible at dancing but I loved the classes. In those 5 years they talked me into getting up on stage with the class exactly twice, even though the class performed together twice a year and the individual troupes in the group performed about half a dozen times a year.
The first time was ok. I didn't fall down or turn the wrong way or fall off the stage, even though I felt like vomiting the whole time. The second time wasn't as smooth. About 5 minutes before we were supposed to go on stage we were told that the dancer who was supposed to be the first person on stage that the rest of us were supposed to follow out, didn't show up. I hadn't bothered to learn the count that we entered on because I was at the end of the back row and I just followed everyone else. The choreographer somehow thought it was a good idea to take me from the end of the back row and put me in the lead position on the front row. We're standing in the wings listening to the (reaaly REALLY long) intro of our song and I'm counting the beats and then I think I've gotten to our cue and enter the stage...then realize no one else is following me, because I was about 12 counts too early and everyone else knew it. So I had to just improvise alone on stage for those 12 counts, which was terrifying because I suck at improvising anything whether it's music or dance. So, um, yeah, that was awesome and I never got on stage with that group again even though I continued to go to classes.
At my junior high, there was a 9th Grade awards assembly at the end of the year. Unless you were one of the very few 7th or 8th graders receiving an award, this assembly was only for the mighty 9th graders. When I was in 7th grade, I took 2nd place in the spelling bee, and thus was invited to the awards assembly to receive my award. They called my name, and I ran up to the stage. In front of the stage were very large stairs, 3 times bigger than normal stairs. I decided to run up these instead of the regular sized stairs that were all the way on the end. So of course, on the last step, I tripped and fell flat on my face. In front of the whole 9th grade. I grabbed my plaque and raced back to my seat. I discovered later in spanish class that my leg was bleeding from a hole in my shin, so the teacher gave me a band aid. But the wound kept bleeding and dripping down my leg so I went to see the nurse. She examined it and determined I needed stitches, and called my dad. My dad picked me up later, and checked me out of school. He looked at the wound and decided in his expert medical opinion that it did not need stitches and took me home. It's been 25 years, and I still have a noticeable hole shaped scar in my shin to remind me of that day.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen or heard of someone laugh/sobbing (sobbing from sadness, not from laughing too hard)? Well, now you have. Now combine whatever image you've conjured up with that person conducting the music during the closing song of church and you have one of my most recent embarrassing moments. It came out of nowhere, and now my small congregation knows a little bit more about my weirdness.
ReplyDeleteI was the only freshman to make it into one of the top choirs at my high school. We had a cabaret-style song and dance show every spring, and I was dancing at the front of the stage one night when I slipped and fell off the damn stage. Popped back up, an upperclassman helped me back on stage, and got right back into the song.
ReplyDeleteOut of 8 performances, guess which one made it on the VHS?! Got to relive that moment when the class watched the recording. 😂🤦🏻♀️
VHS is also how I discovered that I looked like I was being electrocuted while doing a dance as a chorus girl in my church production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat when I was 12. I thought I was being so graceful!
I was in my state’s Junior Miss competition. For the fitness portion, we all did a choreographed dance together and then there was a section when each of us would take a turn in the spotlight doing one move to show off. I had done gymnastics forever and thought I’d wow everyone with a simple back handspring. I don’t even know if I missed my footing or what happened that messed things up, but I nearly dumped on my head. Awesome. And in the opening number when they introduced us, we were supposed to run out when they called our name and do a little something (some pointed at the crowd or yee-hawed since it was Western themed). I’d forgotten to come up with something since we didn’t practice that part. I had two long braids and I ran out and grabbed a braid and whipped it and made some sort of “Wuh-KSH!” sound (as if the crowd could hear me??) and ran off. What the??! “NOT a pageant,” I was told over and over...”just a scholarship competition.” On paper, I looked like a great candidate for it, but yeah, on stage was totally different. In the end, I won the “Be Your Best Self Award” and am still not sure how to take that! ;)
ReplyDeleteIt didn’t happen in front of an audience, thank goodness, but it did happen on a stage. I spent a lot of time in the auditorium in high school. I don’t remember if it was set up for a musical or for graduation, but anyway, the hydraulic orchestra pit was set up for a bunch of musicians. I was the one to close up the night before, and I went back first thing in the morning to grab something from the sound booth . I didn’t turn on the lights since the doors were open in the back and let enough light in to get from the stage to the sound booth. I was running to the front of the stage to jump off and head up the aisle when you can probably guess what happened...someone had lowered the orchestra pit and I ran right off the edge of the stage and fell in.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I know this is a few days late at this point, but...
ReplyDeleteJunior year of High School. I don't even remember how we got talked in to performing but both my younger brother and I were extras in Oklahoma! I had a huge crush on the girl playing Laurey. I was neot what you might consider much of a "performer" but I could sing, and I suspect the drama teacher was pretty desperate.
The night of our first Saturday performance my family is going all out in celebration. Lots of food, everyone there, everybody going to the play. Apparently the whole town had the same idea because it was packed that night. This naturally made me feel a little nervous. Kind of a butterflies in the stomach sort of feeling... Oh well though, we've all practiced and rehearsed, we've prepared for every eventuality, hours and hours of practice have been leading up to this. It is sure to be a night to remeber!
The curtain goes up and everything goes great. No drama, no missed queues, no flubbed dance steps. Everything great. Except... Backstage, I realize that feeling in my gut never really went away. My hands are sweaty, my head feels light. Strange, but the show must go on!
Act two starts, everyone is out singing and dancing to "The Farmer and the Cowman" when I finally realize what is going on. It's not nerves, or jitters. Why, this is food poisoning! This realization does bring up some interesting nerves. We are almost done with the song. When we finish I'm supposed to run back stage and help the set crew get ready for the next scene anyways. I can instead run to the bathroom and take care of th. If I can make it to the end of the song it'll all be fine. No interuptions to the play, no interuptions, no inter... I'm not going to make it to the end of the song...
As this realization dawned on me I immediately abandoned my post and attempted to retreat off the stage. The helpful set crew, waiting in the wings, looks at me in confusion and quickly blocks my path "Not yet, they aren't finished!" I hear someone say as I attempt to barrel through them. I was vaguely reminded of the game "Red Rover" as I slowly crashed between two of them. Everything was in slow motion. I knew time was of the essence. I remember vaguely screeching between cleanched teeth as I tore through the line and made a mad dash for the door. Curtains were in my way. The guy playing Ali Hakim was off to the side, his bowler hat and glasses sitting inexplicably in front of the door as I tried to side step and frantically turn the knob. Helpfully, the door starts to open from the outside.
But now it's too late. The sotrm that has been brewing all night is ready to rain. And brother, when it rains, it pours.
I see a brief flash of Laurey's praire dress as the door opens and the flood gates break. I'm heaving and still trying to run, trying to make it outside. Unfortunately I am standing point blank in front of Laurey who has just opened the door and tried to walk through. I hear a shocked and despaired "Oh GROSS!" as I sprint awkardly away, trying not to slip.
They say the show must go on, and it did. After an extended second intermission and a lot of scrubbing and costume changes, and (presumably) a shower. The show did go on, but I was kindly, so kindly, asked not to go back on myself.
O.M.G.
DeleteWill you please email me?
This is quickly turning into the embarrassing vomit story blog. I don't hate it, it's sort of bonding by joint misery, but just saying 'vomit blog'.
DeleteFor me, still just grateful it's not a full on cooking blog. I love our mix of travel blog, comedy blog, inspire blog, workout blog, complain blog, envy blog, and of course now, vomit blog. My best vomit story is waiting in the wings for its best moment to shine. (Also, this is Amy Rose again, not her father, Phil.)
DeleteI’ve never before so desired to have a “great” vomit story like all the cool kids.
DeleteNow I just search this comment section waiting for a moment where Dad might comment and not turn out to be Amy in disguise...
DeleteThe possibility of Dad actually reading and commenting is thrilling.
DeleteI feel kind of bad that my teasing of him saying he had commented on here stressed him so much.
I just bought my ticket and this will be my first Strangrville show! I'm very excited, but it's my first time being in the area. Will the venue have a parking lot or do I need to find a parking garage nearby?
ReplyDeleteWe're excited to have you! There is quite a lot of street parking in the block or two near the venue and it's all free in the evenings and on weekends. There's also a parking lot at the Salt Lake City Library across the street (not sure of hours or cost there). It's not usually too hard to find downtown parking on a Friday night. The venue is also right next to the library Trax stop, if you want to take Trax in.
Delete