Some days you catch the Mr. Whippy van.

Some days you are in the Mr. Whippy van.

It turns out the biggest culprit was my Apple Mail folder, bloating out at over 11GB. I only sync two gmail accounts with Mail, my personal and Repertwa accounts, and they don’t exceed 4GB of Gmail usage together.

I discovered that the All Mail folder causes Apple Mail to download another copy of every message in my inbox, causing unnecessary disk space usage. After digging around for an answer, the solution is quite simple:

1. In Gmail (webmail), go to Mail Settings, and the “Labels” tab.
2. Under “System Labels”, find the All Mail label and uncheck “Show in IMAP.”
3. In Apple Mail, select your Gmail account under Mailbox menu > Synchronise.

The caveat here is that if you have any mail in your “All Mail” folder that you haven’t labeled somehow else (ie. it’s not in your inbox, sent mail or with another label), you’ll not get access to it in Apple Mail. That works just fine for me, since I leave mail in my inbox until I it’s irrelevant, and then move it to All Mail. You also set up a “Keep” label/folder, and move your useful mail from the inbox to “Keep”. The benefit is that Apple Mail will only keep one version of it (in “Keep”), and won’t include duplicate copies of the sent and inboxes.

It took a while to get my Apple Mail in line with the changes, but after a few minutes, my mail folder had dropped to just 4 gigs.

Dennis

The gentle gentleman. Dennis joined the theatre group shortly after I did and it’s hard to remember a show without Dennis in the chorus, backstage or out the front in his usher blacks. He was our chief carpenter, achieving incredible things on non-existent budgets (including a rain curtain for Little Shop of Horrors). Eternally overcommitted, Dennis would be learning his lines, building sets and generally spending every waking minute at the theatre. He’d often find himself emotional come opening night, so proud of his set, the show and the group.

He’d often say that we (the young ones) were so lucky, having this outlet and community as young adults, but he never missed out. He was always one of the boys backstage and got his fair share of the spotlight out front. He masterfully played drunk, and could be relied upon to brings tears of laughter to my face whenever he’d do a bit of character schtick.

We loved swapping stories, usually toilet-related. Once, while we were onstage (behind the curtain) awaiting the start of the show, he told a long and involved story about the time he went for a jog through the suburbs when he was struck with an impending urgency. With each inaccessible toilet he told, he demonstrated his newly frustrated run. Whilst trying to be silent, the whole cast was in hysterics and the curtain opened to a cast all very red in the face.

Ultimately, and most importantly, he will be remembered as the kind, generous man he was. On several occasions he’d put his hand on my shoulder and say “If you need something, get on the phone to Patto.” He had no limit of time for anyone, and we had no limit of time for Dennis.

Next time I step into that theatre I will miss his friendly face and our cheerful chat. It will be a different place without him.

Kevin

I met Kevin simultaneously in 2004 through his community radio show, ‘ShowBiz!‘ and when I was playing in the band for Nunsense 2: The Second Coming which he was directing. He came over during our sitzprobe and said “He makes all those sounds with that keyboard!” I played in the band for his production of 70, Girls, 70 and he eventually asked me to musically direct You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown for him. From there I working with him again on Nuncrackers, and occasionally collaborated with him on his radio show.

Kevin’s passion was the art of musical theatre. A lifelong theatre goer, there was little he didn’t know about any show. We had countless wonderful conversations where we’d share information and he’d tell me stories about productions he’d seen. He taught me a great deal about theatre history, and loved to share his favourite shows.

Our collaborations were always fun. The shows we worked on together were small cast shows, and we always had a terrifically fun environment. He was the perfect director for these shows. He loved watching performers perform, and had a special skill of moulding the whole show into a unified piece.

He loved to share his knowledge with his radio audience whom were very faithful to him. On the occasions that I filled in for him in his absence, the radio listeners always called to ask where ‘Kevin’ was and if he would be back for the following week. We presented a few shows together, including one in which we discussed and played, track by track, Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns. He always invited me for his annual christmas episode, in which we discussed the year’s theatre and played silly christmas related tracks.

The amateur musical theatre scene can be a bitchy, scary place, but everyone loved working with Kevin, and had great respect from his peers. Theatre was everything to Kevin (that was clear whenever his face lit up in rehearsals), and he fed that passion into others. It was after the final performance of his latest production, Dames at Sea, that he passed away. It’s tremendously sad, but somehow fitting that Kevin took his final bow along with his cast and crew.

Here’s to two lives made all the better by theatre, and to the theatre they both gave us.

… and some bad.

Since last writing, around thirty days ago (a period which is less than 3/1000ths of my life thus far, and when you put it like that I don’t feel so bad) I’ve been to catch a few shows. The last two-thirds of the Jerry Herman triptych were enjoyable, particularly Dear World which featured a very ill but still magical Diedre Rubenstein (probably not known to her fans for playing “Crazy” Svetlanka, Russian lover of Lou from Neighbours). I had missed the first show, Milk and Honey because I was busy passing out in the hospital foyer. The final show in the set was Hello, Dolly which suffers the misfortune of being concerned with Small Town America™ which is just one of those alarm bells for me and means I’ll probably spend a lot of time looking at my shoes when they’re talking on stage.

Last weekend Phillip and I took to the streets of Melbourne and took advantage of Melbourne Open House, a situation where otherwise private areas of city buildings are made public for people to explore. This meant I spent most of the morning posing in embarrassing ways while Phillip kept saying “No, I’ll do it again, the light/focus wasn’t right.”

Most recently, with Jess as our house guest, we took to the Regent Theatre to view Love Never Dies again. Just proving that I wasn’t having a bad night when we first saw it, I was still enraged by the show’s all-too-obvious flaws and PERHAPS SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE NOTICED THAT WE DON’T PUT THREE DUETS BETWEEN THE SAME TWO CHARACTERS IN A ROW BECAUSE THAT’S SIMPLY NOT A GOOD IDEA AND OH GOD I’M BORED AND NO ROTATING THE SET DOES NOT MAKE THIS SONG DIFFERENT TO THE LAST ONE. In truth I spent most of this viewing listening to Ben Lewis as The Phantom and studying his character voice in the off chance that I am ever offered an audition for The Phantom/Batman/Will Arnett.

Paul Duffus (Deputy Commissioner of Taxation To The Stars) helped me pay my medical expenses (personally, I think if they’re going to do crazy crap to me while I’m asleep they should be paying me), which sorted me out to book flights to New York and Los Angeles with Nico early next year. This means the zipper on my bumbag which holds my wallet will need to be locked even more tightly than usual so that I can be reckless and break all sorts of personal rules when traveling*.

Other than this it’s back to work (for which I set up a small site), and hoping to have some time to pay my blog some more attention.

* I’m expecting to break my “Don’t eat anything bigger than your head” rules quite a few times.

Admittedly I’m not great with needles and the whole hospital vibe, but everyone was very friendly and once it was my turn – around 2:15pm – everything went pretty quickly. Climbing onto the operating table was not as terrifying as I had imagined, and they distracted me with plenty of questions.

Soon after I heard someone talking to and I lifted my heavy eyelids as someone said I was being taken back to the day ward. I later opened by eyes slowly to work out I was back in the day surgery ward, though *very* groggy. I wasn’t feeling bad, but my mental capacity was back at full strength while my physical ability was almost zero. I was recovering for a few minutes when my Dad called and the phone was handed to me around 4pm. I remember just groaning a few times and he said he’d call later. The surgeon stopped by to tell me the surgery went well and the mass was all removed.

At around 5:30pm, after a few cookies, a cup of tea and getting changed, I was in a recliner. Nico came through to pick me up and a few tests were run. I was feeling a bit lightheaded and had very low blood pressure. Regardless, we decided to head home.

I made it to the lift, but as soon as we got into the lift I knew things were turning sour. I was sweating and starting to loose strength. As soon as the lift doors open I was able to make it to a nearby chair just as my vision disappeared. There I was, splayed out in the hospital foyer, passed out for all to see. Nico went and got a nurse for me, who came up from the day surgery ward and picked me up in a wheelchair. I remember the young nurse saying “Oh dear…” as she saw me with my head back in the chair, legs spread dripping with sweat.

As I sat in the wheelchair waiting for the lift to arrive, all I could think was my friend AG’s claim that I have ‘a delicate constitution.’ I was wheeled back into my recliner and started shaking fairly violently. We stayed for another hour, and didn’t stop shaking the whole time. Eventually it was time to go home (the ward was closing and the poor young nurse had been working for 12 hours). Barf bag in hand, Nico and I got a cab and made it home without further incident.

I caught a glance of myself in the mirror before getting into bed. I was Elphaba-esque. In spite of the painkillers, I didn’t get to nod off until almost midnight.

Today I’m feeling a lot better, though still not 100% well.

* In her defence, she probably thought “speakerphone” was play superhero talk or something. I had broken my arm, and nursed it even as my friends stopped for eat-in McDonalds on the way to the hospital. So there.

Surgery seemed like such a great idea while sitting in my doctor’s secretary’s fancy office. In fact, it’s much like those years a night of improv theatre in Wollongong. Months away it sounds like a great idea. “Sure,” I think, “I’ll get to leave the house and wear daggy clothes!” In the days leading up to it, the enthusiasm turns to emotional swings between “I’m terrified!” and adamantly believing that I’m not scared, it’s just something I don’t want to do. Like swimming. And sports.

Of course, improv theatre turns out to be the best night of the whole year. People find me funny, bathe me in attention and we take home a trophy. I’m expecting the surgery will be just the same.

On the other hand, I’m fearful that my tumour might contain unique powers. If it isn’t growing cancerous cells, it must be doing something else with its time, and that could be maintaining the few things that make me who I am. What if it contains my sense of humour? My ability to eat fatty foods without gaining weight? My ability to tap dance from the waist up? I could wake up post-surgery groggy, boring, obese and a fabulous dancer. I guess the exorbitant hospital bills would at least cost less than years of tap lessons.

Above all I’m mostly scared of the nurses not giving me enough attention, not being aware of hospital bathroom etiquette and being stuck with the ward television set to Today Tonight. All this fades away when I consider that I was lucky my body was just giving me the Australia’s Funniest Home Videos of problems*.

* By this I mean a lightweight, filler problem, not an interminable, IQ-lowering one hosted by a revolving door of low-grade celebrities.

I was not a slow learner and was reading books well ahead of my age, probably Roald Dahl at that point, but Batman captured my imagination. I loved this character, and the way he chose to be so dark against his colourful enemy. I remember quite distinctly doing a painting one day at preschool. When the teacher asked what this massive bright green blob was, I said it was the scene from Batman where he drops Joker into the vat of chemical waste.

Batman opened the doors to a lot of other things. I can safely attribute my love of film scores to hearing the Wagnerian brass in Danny Elfman’s score. His main theme, being pieced together slowly as it rises in pitch, is a large part of the magic of the film’s opening.

[audio:http://tysonarmstrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Batman-MainTitle.mov]

As my tastes expanded as a young teenager, I discovered Hitchcock and the magnificent music of Bernard Herrmann. Imagine my horror when I first heard “Sunrise” from Herrmann’s score to Journey to the Center of the Earth.

[audio:http://tysonarmstrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth-Sunrise.mov]

It’s all there! The build, an *extremely* similar motif, the arpeggiating chimes! Sure, they resolve into different chords, but it’s strikingly similar. Elfman’s score even includes the tubular bells later on (though, that’s understandable given the film’s climax occurs in a church bell tower).

Of course, Danny Elfman is not the first composer, not least film composer, to rip off someone else’s work, unintentionally or otherwise.