*lurkface* We're here, what's the assignment?
Now that we'd gotten all of our preliminary missions accomplished, it was time to officially start our Blue Man weekend. We got to the theatre really early (probably half an hour earlier than we needed to be there), and hung out with Jay (gentner8) and Amy (ladybluebird), who'd also gotten into the city. Amy was so excited to be there that she did a mini-spazflail, saying, "I'm just a little giddygiddygiddygiddy!" Just imagine the "giddy" part being spoken really fast in a semi-high-pitched voice. So for the rest of the weekend, when any of us were feeling a little hyper, that was the phrase to say.

Then we were called over to the merchandise counter for "the talk," i.e. general information ushers should know. The speaker was Kayla, and she pointed out the rest of the house staff to us, who all waved and gave a friendly hello. At some point, Mark (theatre manager) stopped by and said a few words to the fans (along the lines of "remember not to give away parts in the show, because a lot of the audience will be first-timers"). [He was the same guy who talked to my school group a couple weeks before.] Anywho... Lal and Mere wanted to try tube-talking, so the five fans plus one lone usher headed upstairs with Sean (it could be spelled Shawn, but since I don't know, I'll use the one with less letters). Sean gave us another verison of "the talk," and was really nice and funny (yay!). After Lal and Mere were sent to tube-talk, the four remaining ushers were briefed on the balcony layout. I'd ushered the balcony before, but Sean made it easier by having two of us (Nicole and I) stand at the entrance, and one usher on each side. So for the most part, Nicole and I would be like, "Hi, may I see your ticket(s)? OK, you're in Section F, so you're going to go see that usher over that and she will seat you." Super-easy, especially compared to orchestra-ushering. After a while, the paper-passer-outer, a guy with a cool two-pointed beard, gave us our paper and hung out for a bit as the rest of the audience filtered in (his name turned out to be Dave).
Eventually one of the house-staffers came to retrieve us, and seated us in the back row of Section A (stage left). I ended up one seat from the aisle closer to the stage (with the lone usher next to me, it was her first show)... and since we were way under the balcony, it was quite obstructed view (couldn't see the band at all, and stage left was pretty blocked too). When I've ushered before, we were seated in wooden chairs in the back of the house, which were cramped but offered a great view... Being closer and more comfortable was a trade-off for the view, I suppose (and the new usher-seats are right where we need to be after the show). The left LED sign wasn't working, and we couldn't see the right... But I had to giggle because we fans knew them almost by memory anyways. We respected Mark's wishes for the show, but may have jumped the gun on "BIG COW!" by a couple seconds... D'oh! ...but other than that we behaved ourselves, haha.

Friday, 7PM: Show highlights
--Mystery Blue Man still didn't look familiar... When I couldn't place him by marshmallows/cheese, I was sure he wasn't anyone I'd seen before... which made watching him all the more interesting. =) He played the Chris part, and his obvious strong point was his drumming. Rick and Jake were able to plow full-speed-ahead with him during all the musical numbers. The only thing the new guy didn't seem to have down was marshmallows, but although he missed more than average, he still did a great job. Another thing we noticed about him was how all over the place his eyebrows were, hehe... He had really great, natural expressions, most evident during audience exploration as he climbed over chairs.
--Since I've seen the show enough times to know the posters pretty well, I watched the Blue Men instead... I found myself watching Rick, and he seemed to be looking in our direction. I arched my neck a little to see over the people in front of me, and he did it too. I figured this was just coincidence though, since we were right against the wall in the dark...
--Crunch was pretty hilarious, largely due to the insanely ridiculous smirk-face Rick had on the entire time. We kinda looked at each other as if to say "what is he doing?!" and proceeded to laugh our asses off. Furthermore, when Rick had the gigantor-crunches, he totally spazzed out and flung his head around (it amazes me how these guys don't like, flip themselves over onto the stage). And when Jake flung the cereal onto his face, he pretty much flung a huge handful into the air ("Whee!"), and half of it went flying all over onto the stage. Hee.
--Jake was amazing on Drumbone... he seemed to do a lot of improv-type stuff, and the whole sequence was beautifully flawless. =)
--There was nothing too out-of-the-ordinary about the twinkie girl... But because of where I was sitting, I got to see the Blue Men looking towards us when looking at the twinkie girl... Jake's wide-eyed, innocent blinking had me all mush for the whole feast--he was soooo cute. *pinches his cheek* Anyways. Ahem. Neither the electric candle nor the clap-on light worked, so Jake's bug-zapper thing looked REALLY impressive, haha. It almost seemed like a non-romantic, last-resort kind of thing. When the Blue Men were all eating their spewed goo, Rick keep offering forkfuls to the twinkie girl, who kept refusing (even when offered it airplane-style)... But he was persistent, so it was like he was going, "want some? no? ok. *eats it* want some? no? ok. *eats it*..." in rapid succession. Oh, and he also did his trademark quadruple-take when the girl gets sucked off the painting... Haha, I'm laughing just thinking about how hysterical Rick is.
--Having the Center Blue Man be completely anonymous to me helped gel that "three as one" feeling... At one point during "PVC IV," I purposely let my eyes go out of focus, so that I was seeing three blue-headed beings, rather than three distinctive Blue faces. The raw PVC performances never fail to blow me away--those guys are so talented and passion-infused, and it's something else to watch them run away with the song together.
--Jake doesn't have the Basic Head Bob down... To him, it's the Basic Body Bob. But he's totally all over the veil-flip ("whee!" number two). Oh, oh! And have I mentioned he rules at the pelvic dance? (Lal: "he pop-locks it!")
--When Jake flipped on his veil, Center looked at him for a moment, and then kinda caressed the veil and moved it around with his hand, as if to look through the folds--so cute! LOL.
--During Wands, as Center stood us up and the other two Blue Men came to the front of the stage, I tilted my upper half down a bit so I could see Rick too (he was blocked by the balcony once I was standing)... And he mimicked me perfectly, which kinda startled me but was really cool, haha. I'd seen him a few times before (and the last time he came over to knowingly stare at me during the show), so I guess he remembered me, LOL. So I danced around a little to see if he would, and he did, which threw me into gigglefits because he's a silly dancer (yay!).
--When dressing the Klein paint-guy, Jake whipped out that white suit with gusto! I'm glad Lal noticed it too, because we looked at each other and giggled--Jake was all about the "whee!" thing, haha. Anyways, after seeing the guy off after the skit, Rick wandered over to our little section to peer down our row... Center followed him curiously, and gave us a gentle two-handed salute before getting back to the stage. I wonder what the lone-usher/first-timer thought... She was on the aisle, and so closest to the Blue Men... Haha, there we (fans) were, all yay-let's-salute-the-Blue-Man! And she was probably thinking ahhh they are close to meeee! Ahh! At least that's what I would have been thinking if it was MY first show (don'tpickmedon'tpickmedon'tpickme...).
--During KLF, we fans stood up and danced around, since we were in the back row and wouldn't be in anyone's way... I was preoccupied with my very own(!) roll of paper, but apparently Lal and Mere were doing the band's dances. Suddenly I saw Rick a few rows ahead, standing on some chairs, mimicking Lal and Mere's dancing. He merged it into a simple I-am-not-worthy type arm movement, which our whole section of people joined in with. Or maybe it was just our row, I dunno, I was watching Rick. LOL.
--Bows revealed that the drummer we were all so impressed with was Ramsey. =) I couldn't tell who the other two were from where I was seated, but judging by how much the wireman jumped around, the Stick player was probably Victor. Yeehaw!

Ushering part II, and talking with Mark
When the show was over, we walked out of our row to right where we needed to be for packing paper... Half of the white paper on stage was pulled to us (half to the other 6 ushers who were at stage right), and we were told to get it into no more than three giant garbage bags. My fellow fans seemed wide-eyed for a second, as in, "...we're doing what?!" Apparently clean-up is not so intense for ushers in Chicago or NYC, LOL. Just to be irritating, I chimed, "Welcome to Boston! Haha" as I set to breaking paper apart with my huge boots. Mwhaha. Anywho, whether it was because our side got too much paper, or we just didn't have a great system, it took forever. LOL. I recall Lal jumping on one of the bags to try and pack it down, and totally falling into a heap of paper, hee hee. See, ushering in Boston is fun! Anywho, we were just about done when Rick strolled by our side and said hello. I didn't hear most of the conversation, but Mere introduced herself and we found out Rick was doing the 7 and 10 shows the next day, which we were happy to hear... I think he also asked if there were going to be more of us the next day. I walked over a row of seats so I could hear the conversation better, but at that point Rick was heading out, and we all waved and said goodbye.
After helping to clean miscellaneous paper and such from the orchestra floor, we ushers were free to go. By the theatre entrance (but still inside), we ran into Jay and Amy, who'd seen the other two Blue Men go up through the bar--apparently one of them stuck a napkin (or something) on the other's head, haha. I forget how it happened, but we ended up sticking around and chatting with Mark, the theatre manager who'd stopped by before the show. I asked who the new guy in Center was, and he said his name was Josh. Boston needed a new center since Kalen, Michael R., and Jonathan T. had all left recently (I believe they all could pay Center). While on the subject, Mark mentioned that Eric Rubbe (pronounced "Rube," not "Rubie," as I'd previously thought, haha) was the only Blue Man who'd been around the whole time he (Mark) had (I think he said about 3 years). Haha, same goes for me, actually. *nerdface* Mark stayed and talked for lot longer than I'd expected he would, which was really nice of him. I asked him if he might've been the hilarious guy I talked with on the phone when I signed up for ushering, "because he was really funny!" and Mark said, "no, it was probably Curtis--I'm not very funny." Hahah! The whole time, the lone usher had hung out with us, blending in to the fan group (LOL)--she was cool, haha.

Rock Bottom
While still on our WEJUSTSAWBLUEMANYAAAAAY!! high, the 7 of us (Nicole, Jenny, Lal, Mere, Jaymy, and myself) headed to a nearby restaurant called Rock Bottom. We stayed there for probably two hours, goofing off, talking, taking silly pictures, and just having a great time. Amy got a little tipsy and was babbling half-incoherently about nematoads and such, which was entirely too much for us already-giddy girls. That was probably the most fun I'd had and the hardest I'd laughed (not counting at the computer screen when I'm talking to Cyn) in a long time. Haha.

"Look at the slice! It's a SLICE! It's huge!"
The next day, Saturday, June 12th (our big fanmeet day), my roommates and I headed out for lunch at New York Pizza, which is only maybe a block from the Charles. In the aforementioned interview with Bryce, he goes to this pizza place and exclaims how big the slice is (and that this is how Blue Men get their protein, etc. etc.), and proceeds to eat it backwards. So first of all, it was a funny clip, and second of all, that pizza looked damn good, so we decided to hit Bryce's old hangout. Next to a crazy-looking gag gift store, no less.

Ushering part III
Back at the Charles, we met up with Sharon (minnie40_2000), her son (Freddy), and his girlfriend (Yesly). And then there were 8. Then Eric showed up again, so there were 9 of us to usher... but Sonia was nowhere to be seen. We were called in before she showed up...
After stuffing playbills again (this time with closed House doors)--during which I noticed Sean and gave a quiet hello--we got to watch part of soundcheck. This time, they were rehearsing Klein (the part where the Blue Men are up in the little drum loft). It looked like Jonathan C., Mike, and Josh this time. They sounded awesome, if much more laid back than during an actual show. Mike ended up calling attention to a loose drumhead, and casually pounded out a few sequences to demonstrate--they make it look so damn easy, hehe.
We were called out for the talk again, and this time the whole group consisted of fans. Sonia showed up somewhere in the middle of the talk, looking tuckered out (but in the Charles!). Most of us had ushered before, so everything was pretty casual here. Since there were only 10 of us, Nicole and Jenny weren't able to tube talk... But Mere and Lal hadn't had much success the night before, so it may not have been a big loss. I opted for a spot in the orchestra, since I'd already done balcony. Olga was the one to train the orchestra ushers... and it's a whole lot more complicated than balcony, that's for sure. Plus, there are more people coming into the orchestra, so occassionally an usher won't be available right at the door, and people try to find their own seats... Which is a bad thing, since none of the sections are labeled, haha. I ended up on the stage right side with Sonia and Eric, and the orchestra ushers were seated stage left (while the balcony ushers--Lal, Mere, Nicole, and Jenny--were seated across from us by stage right). It was kinda funny to sit so far from our buddies, but still be able to see each other and such. Because this show wasn't quite as sold out as the night before, we got to sit a couple rows closer (still with no one behind us). I ended up on the aisle not-as-close to the stage, which had a bit of a bitter view--still couldn't see the band, however. Well, I could see the drummer's right arm. Hehe. I add the stupidest details in my journals. Anywho... onto the show...

Ushering part IV, and Ohemgeeeee hi Mike!!
Somehow packing paper went umpteen times faster, even though each side had one less person, and we had that theatre cleaned in no time. I went out to retrieve my bag (which was held in the closet for me), but before my bag was taken out, I noticed Sonia stopping Mike in front of one of the House doors. I hesitated for a moment, thinking he'd say hello and walk through the door, but he stayed, and I couldn't resist going to see him--he was such a sweetheart both times I'd met him before. When I got over there, I think Sonia was telling him about how he recognized her before she knew him (he was a trainee at the time)... I asked if he'd be playing the 10, and he shook his head. I gave an "awww, shucks" snap of the fingers. He informed us that our show would be played by Jake, Eric, and Rick (which meant we got to see all 6 Boston Blue Men in ONE day! haha.) No idea what else was said here, but I probably said something like "awesome show" or "great job" (I resisted from saying "Ohemgee Mike you are so adorable!"). Since the last couple times I saw him I gave him extremely awkward hugs, so I was determined to be smooth about it this time. So I concentrated real hard! and gave a nice neat hug. Except he got his face on my hair, so I got a big blue streak (again)... but that's nothing. ;) Sonia pointed to her cheek and he sweetly leaned over and kissed her, with a soft "mwha!" Awwwww. Hehe. Mike turned to leave, but then stopped and reached out to me (whether it was a handhold/shake or armtouch or halfhug, I have no idea), and said something like, "Hey, you wrote a really nice write-up from the last time you were here, thank you!" At first I thought he was going to say my write-up on his Blue Man of the Week thread, and it hardly sunk in that he'd read one of my journals, so my face lit up in blank recognition as I said, "oh! Thank you! =)" Of course, it didn't occur to me until later to check which visit he meant... I'd been at the Charles only two weeks before (and Mike wasn't there), but the time before that, Mike was one of the Blue Men--and in the journal I probably said "yay Mike!" like 20 times, LOL. So I guess that'll be a mystery--either Mike knows I think he's a totally cute Blue Man, or he knows about Eric mocking me (from the other journal). =P

Off to the Hard Rock Cafe...
Outside, the group of fans got together for a few pictures... One of the Charles staffers was kind enough to get a picture of all of us (minus Amy). I was a little hyper... yeah. After the picture, Sharon, Freddy, and Yesly had to head out... While Jaymy stuck around for their 7 o'clock show, the rest of us walked off for dinner.

Back to the Charles for a final time. *sniff*
We then split up to change out of our ninja-gear, to come back for the actual Fanmeet show...
The (big!) fan group hung out in the bar before show time... Ryan (blueman04) and Debbie (lilacwine) also ended up coming, so were chatting with the group. In the theatre, my roommates and I plus Sonia, Eric, and Barbara were seated in the front of Section A (where I'd sat for ushering, but not so under-the-balcony), while Royal was across the way (stage right) and Deb, Ryan, and Jaymy were nearby. However, Jaymy got pulled to be the Late Arrivals, which was pretty funny... I remember saying to Ryan, "hahah we should boo them!" (I was relaying what Lal had said, haha!) to which he replied, "aww, that's mean... let's do it." LOL. Anywho... My roommates and I were seated in the 2nd row of our section, but the row in front of us was mostly empty, even when the show LED's were starting. Royal had been hanging out there until the seats were taken, but since they never were, he stayed. We asked Kayla if we could slip forward if the people didn't come, and after some Charles communication, she gave us the OK during Shadow Drumming, saying "only because you guys were such a big help!" which was really sweet of her. Sonia, Mere, (maybe Jenny?), and I scuffled into the front row (of our section, not the theatre), while Lal and Nicole stayed behind us. At some point, we spotted Dave in the balcony and waved/yelled hello to him--he seemed tickled to have fans. ;) And finally, we were ready to start.

Saturday, 10 PM: Show Highlights
--From the very beginning, it was evident that the Blue Men (Rick and Eric especially) were feeling particularly silly, and they kept doing little quirky things throughout the show, as if they were playing to the fans who would catch that sort of thing. Eric had posted on the blueman.com message board a week before about us coming, and of course Rick knew, so I suppose that is entirely possible. But the whole show was hilarious because of that... The first thing was during paint-drumming, and Jake got the facefull of paint... After a moment of Jake's disbelief, Eric tapped the drum again to splash him a second time, heheh. Eric is such a smartass. ;)
--Eric was insane with marshmallows--he was flawless! Mere started a count, and he got 33 with no misses. Well, maybe one miss, but it was because the thing bounced off his existing clump... haha.
--Rick's face was even more hysterical than the night before... How he managed that, I have no freaking idea. But instead of flailing during the big crunches, he slowly, smuggly crunched, as if he was savoring it. Of course, combined with his contorted sorta-fish-face, it was just too much for us to take. I remember Lal and Nicole laughing their faces off (even during the silences, LOL), which made me dissolve into giggles. You could tell he was looking in our direction, too--he probably heard us laughing at him, hahahah. For the rest of the show, he'd be turned towards our side at odd times too--like while playing PVC or paintdrums. Rick got himself a fanclub this weekend, hehe--the visitors to Boston were all "Rick is so awesome!" "Rick is so fun!" "Yay Rick!" etc. etc. You know, because he spoiled us. =P
--On the way to get the big blue gloves, Rick stopped and noticed his shadow on the wall, so he started wiggling around the way Chrispart used to during the "Shadows" skit, hee hee. Rick was feeling his oats, that's for sure. Whatever that means.
--Jaymy as the Late Arrivals was hilarious... Jay was all "what? what? You wanna piece of me?" As we started booing him (and got the whole theatre to join in, LOL!)... And then poor Amy was pretty much hiding behind him, all shy and embarrassed. Haha, that was fun.
--Twinkie feast was soooooo funny--Eric and Rick were totally out of control. Eric tried new inventive ways of opening the twinkie--twisting it and letting it unravel, then... let's see how can I explain this... Well he'd work his fingers from the bottom to the top, then, finding himself with no twinkie left, flip it up and do it again--so it was like a Jacob's ladder-esque cycle, hee hee. Silly Blue Man. Rick did his trademark quad-take, followed by a look-under-the-canvas ("where'd she go?") for the sucked-off girl... But the real fun came with the twinkie goo. The Blue Men went all crazy and hyper about it, snarfing it up frantically. At one point, Eric had a huge glob of it hanging from his mouth--literally swinging from his lips--and then with an impish smirk, he slurped it all up in one snakelike motion. Rick nudged the goo off the front of the table so everyone could see it slime over the front, and he gathered it from there and ate it, to the audience's disgust. Mwahahah. I don't know how he managed it, but at the end, Rick threw an entire twinkie in the girl's box. I don't know if any of these little things would have been so funny by themselves... But all in a row, it was just too much too take.
--During "Time to Start," Rick and Eric came right by us for throat cam... Eric swung the camera over the fans, and Rick stopped right in front of me... Looked at me, gave his little Blue Man pseudo-smirk, and twitched his hips at me in time to the music. I died laughing. Hahahahaha. They continued to head-bob and such while "examining" their "victim." Hehe.
--While messing with the shaving cream during Animation Film, Eric came from behind the frame and aimed his can right at it, spraying it directly on in little fizzles. Hahah... then Rick decided his trowel wasn't working, so he used his hand to smear the cream around. Then he looked at his hand like "oops, how'd that happen?" and went around the back of the frame... And Eric, who'd apparently got some cream on HIS hand too, held it up in front of him and walked quickly after Rick, like he was chasing him with his handful. "I'mmmmgonnagetyou!*smirk*" LOL those two were so hilarious together... They were all playful the whole time, hehe.
--For wands, Rick danced around extra-crazily, yay! Eric decided to be a smartass and toy with the drummer by clicking the Wands on and off so fast that the drummer was only able to hit one or two notes at a time, haha. Then, instead of asking the whole audience to stand, Eric turned to our section and motioned for us to stand. We did of course, cheering all crazily like the silly fans we are--then he turned to the other side and did the same thing. Then, in a frantic motion, he crossed his arms. We all stood there dumbly, except Mere and Sonia, who pretended to run off and actually switch. I think they would have done it, too, had anyone else joined in. Haha.
--When the Blue Men got the Klein paint-guy, they pulled off his paper headband, which Eric took. He (Eric) dropped it to the stage, watching it float down with a silly impish look on his face--haha, Eric really is quite impish. (This is a cuter version of "smartass." Hee.)
--KLF was so strange! Since I was facing the aisle, I was throwing paper... onto the floor? Huh? Rick ran by numerous times to gather it and run it towards the front, as did Sean (who was all "heyyy!" when we cheered at him during the chaos). It was a little less fun to not be able to stand up and dance, but seat-dancing is good enough for me, too. ;)
--I didn't recognize any of the band guys by name, but knew I'd seen the drummer before... During the show, he had sort of a lighter jazzy feel compared to some of the other guys. Oh, and in addition to giving the band a special woop, we cheered for Dave and crew, too. ;)

10 PM Meet and Greet
Yay, our actual Meet and Greet! LOL. So the band came out first, and no one was really paying attention to them... So we went up to say hello and such. The day before, my roommates and I couldn't add, and ended up with a mystery 10 dollars (not needed to pay our hotel cost), which we ended up donating to the AIDS fund. I asked the drummer his name, since I'd seen him before but couldn't place him, and he said Jonathan... Then a little intro-fest followed, and I shook hands with the Stick player (Ed), and heard the other guy's name--Tom. It turned out the Zither player was Tom McCarthy, who is from Chicago--Jenny and Nicole ended up talking to him because of that, I think.

Goodnight--er, morning, Boston.
After all of this, we said goodbye to Royal, who was heading out... A brief goodbye to Jaymy (who'd got the spinart), Deb, and Ryan... and then my roommates, Sonia, and myself went to Sonia's room to hang out. All the fans had planned to go out somewhere, but nothing was open, haha--plus we were all exhausted, so instead of meeting with Deb/Jaymy (I think Ryan had left already), we just hung in Sonia's room talking (and posting OMGTHATWASAWESOMETHANKYOUUUUU's on the message board from Sonia's laptop).