flight of fantasy

some people have money, y'all.

on the train of weirdo gigs, i've got another: on saturday, a bunch of us took a motor coach up to wisconsin to help with a 40th birthday party and do improv bits. she's really made it, you cry! wait, wait - before you lose your mind, you should hear how insane this all really was.

first off, you should know that the theme of the evening was "flight of imagination: welcome to funtopia (barf)". (barf shouldn't have been inside the quotes - that was me.) secondly, you definitely need to know that i was dressed in uniform as a hot airline flight attendant all evening. not a shoddy one, either- the real deal, ordered from a uniform catalog. reason? we were the guides of the evening, pushing the crowd of 450 from site to site, merrily doing airline bits like stopping people in "security" and passing out nuts (make jokes here).

as the guests arrived the compound - "Funtopia Airport (barf)" (that was me again), they were welcomed to a replica of an airplane hanger designed specifically for the party. there were three bars inside this structure, and people blissfully waited there as we did our bits.

on the guest list, you ask? republo Jim Oberweis (yes, the owner of the ice cream shop, too), and dreamy possible up-for-ores-candidateship dem Barack Obama. we saw neither of these people, even though we ran out like children every time we saw a motorcade come in. doesn't matter i suppose, because even bigger things are coming, dear reader.

so, 7:15 rolls around. that means the airport bit is over, and we are to usher all 450 guests through a replica of a plane, in order to go to the entertainment cabin. we do this with spunk and vigor, clamouring to the next bit ourselves; we knew what was coming, but not many else there did. part of our cast was pre-set onstage to pose as a phony american idol show. two of our people sang songs very badly to purposefully get awful ratings, posing as friends from college of the 40-year old (now referred to as "FYO" for rest of post). the FYO's wifey then got up to sing the last song. she said something preceeding her songs about how if you knew her, you knew she would never sing to FYO for his birthday, but that he loved "Fire and Rain"... so instead, she brought the real thing. james taylor himself walks to the stage. no, not schmames mailor (tribute band?)- i'm talking the real JT, james taylor.

tayls proceeds to give about a 75 minute private concert to the guests. he sang a bunch of classics - you've got a friend, carolina, and personal fave close your eyes. i grew up on him, so it ruled for me, and i thought about my mom being super angro at me from afar (hi mom!) - if she could marry a gent of her choosing, it may be james himself.

so, the concert ends. JT sings a nice happy birf to FYO, and we get ready to usher the people to another venue. there's more? you bet there is. we scoot all the guests to the next location, the biggest part of the compound. outside, there is a huge cast-iron gate that has been constructed that says the words "Wonka Land" at the top. after the crowd gathers and forms a respectable mob, they stand together as music pipes through the sound system. a Willy Wonka look alike (Wilder, not Depp) comes out of the gates. he sings a parody song of world of your imagination, then welcomes several "kids" to the front to let those with golden tickets inside. the big reveal? everyone's got a golden ticket, silly! so everyone can see his factory! the mob is pleased, and they shuffle indoors.

remember -this ain't some hack outfit - and they proved it here again. the set? a total recreation of the set of the new movie, complete with chocolate river and a sugar mountain. a dance troupe that we befriended earlier in the talent tent did a 5-10 minute oompa loompa routine, which we caught during dress rehearsal - it ruled.

guests feasted on a seven course meal, then were treated to a birthday cake that was probably near 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide. we snuck glances at all this stuff, then headed back to our tour bus to do a lot of bits and feast on our own pirated snacks (thank you kat and zach).

pretty funny way to spend a saturday.
on my fortieth, i'll expect a 90's cover band and totino's pizza rolls.