February 13, 2004

12:47 a.m.

Four Leaf Clover Day

On this, the eve of Will's visit, I should be getting sleep by now, but the lure of the diary is strong. The band had such a cool night -- we went to see Darwin in a show, as I mentioned before, starring Dick Van Patten and his son Jimmy. Beforehand, Dar had arranged for us all to go out to dinner at a fabulous seafood place, so we met at the restaurant. C, C and I got there first so we ordered some sushi apps and looked at the huge menu. After a bit the others arrived, and there was much shaking of hands and smiling and "so pleased"'s and shuffling of seats. Dick is 75 now (no way!) so I wasn't sure where he'd be comfortable; I asked him if he'd rather sit in the round booth, or on one of the chairs on the outside, and he opted for a chair. (It also helped make him slightly more anonymous to the room, although several people in the course of our dinner did come up to him to shake his hand and say they loved him in such and such a movie...) He and his son were both delightful, and he told us funny stories about famous people (one of which involved him beating Marlon Brando out for a part). Dick's mother was stagestruck, and determined to get him into theatre. When he was 4, she took him to a kid's modelling agency. He started in showbiz at age 7, on Broadway no less. This was when there were 50 operating theatres on B'way and, I suppose, more opportunities for seven-year-olds! Jimmy was also very funny. Now Dar is our biggest fan, and he's really wanted to get our music in front of these guys, so we brought them a CD and signed it (yeah, us signing something for them), and later we started talking about the Beatles and it turns out Jimmy is a huge Beatles fan. We happen to sing two a capella Beatles songs, so we promised to sing something for them after the show. He asked if he could videotape it, and we said yes, as long as we could take a picture with them and put it on our website.

So after dinner and much laughing we went back to the theatre, and saw the play (The Sunshine Boys, about two aging Vaudevillians who are reunited for one last show) and it was good to see an almost full house there. I looked in the program, and Dick's been in something like 600 productions, not counting movies and tv series. It's just ridiculous. The show was funny and well done and Dar was great. Then we got to go up on the stage and sing! For Hollywood folks! We did a Beatles tune, and another which I wrote. Then we got our picture taken and Jimmy said he'd like to come see us showcase in San Diego later this month. Hollywood house concert, here we come.

That was my exciting evening. How did I get so lucky?