As the title says, friends: everything is, indeed, bigger in Texas. Big Tex himself welcomed us to work at the Texas State Fair in Big D (Dallas). Unfortunately for Tex, fires tend to be big in Texas as well:
That's right. Big Tex, icon of the state fair for over sixty years, burnt to a crisp late one night. Authorities blamed it on the mechanism that moved his mouth, but who really knows? Could there have been a jealous rival (perhaps not as big as Big)?
Also big at the state fair was the idea of deep fried food. I say idea because some of these items would never have occurred to me; case in point:
Here's Brad enjoying the stuff, which was kind of like Beer Ravioli:
I have to say, the fried beer was not on my list of favorites. Clever, yes, but the taste and texture didn't do it for me.
The jerk turkey leg, however, was an epic success:
Spicy? Yes. Tender? Absolutely. Full of flavor and busting with juices? Hellz yes. This was the turkey to end all turkey. Fitting that it was followed by the grill to end all grills and the corndog to end all corndogs.
Here you can see the "world's largest (portable) grill," attached to a sixteen wheeler truck:
And here you can see Roland enjoying one of their products: the biggest, most delicious corndog I have ever tasted. No joke, it was fried heaven.
Speaking of fried heaven, the desserts were putting up a fair fight for my favorite item. The deep fried PB&J (with Banana) was the number one choice, followed closely by the fried pecan pie and fried pumpkin pie.
Look at this sandwich. Its like they read my mind or something:
Now, this item is called a Donkey Tail:
I would try to explain what's inside, but this lovely young miss is far better with descriptions:
To combat the rising cholesterol options, I stayed at the Hyatt House and put together salads in my tiny kitchen. Below is one of my many victories in the war of Tori vs. Dallas:
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You guys. There were pig races:
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Our opening night party was hosted at the home of one of the guild members. I use the term "home" as a substitute for "mansion:"
The whole house (and yard and pool house) were decorated in the Addams style. Photo opportunities like this one everywhere:
Look at the cake!!!
A screen projector had been set up opposite the pool, and they were playing the Addams Family films:
Some more decor:
Apparently, Frito Pie is a big thing in Texas:
I'd never heard of it before, but let me assure you: it is delicious and horrible. Delicious, because all the ingredients are mouth-watering. Horrible, because you can't put it down. Basically, you take a bag of Fritos and dump in chicken chili, beans, cheese, sour cream... whatever fixings you want, and then you eat it with a spoon. Out of the bag:
DELICIOUS. HORRIBLE.
Some of the gentlemen I met had name tags on their asses. Sorry, tushies. Apparently, this is what you do when someone takes your picture at an event in Dallas:
When we took a cast photo later in the evening, they suggested we all peel off our name tags and stick them on our tushies. This really happened.
Here I am with my new lady-swing-buddy, Lauryn! She's pretty badass, having swung multiple shows:
Dougie and Cousin It:
Sara was kind enough to let me borrow her bracelet for the party. She didn't tell me how much it cost, which is a good thing because I never would have borrowed it. Now I just want one for my own:
I didn't venture upstairs in the mansion (I was shy), but Ray showed me this photo later on:
Any family that keeps taxidermy squirrels on motorcycles in the house is fine by me.
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Did I mention that the state fair has rides?
Christy and I tackled the mega-swings one afternoon between shows. Here we are before:
And here we are on the way back down:
I don't think we realized how high we were going and how fast we'd be moving once we got up there. This was terrifying (exhilarating):
But I felt like I should don the cloak of shame afterward:
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One of the many wonderful things about Dallas was the fact that they fed us on two show days. I don't mean sandwiches... I mean three course meals: Salad, entree, sides, dessert, texas tea, etc. It was all delish and it was all home made. The tables were lined with paper and we were encouraged to doodle as we ate:
They also provided us with coupons for the fair (which is how you pay for food, rides, etc). We took advantage (and photos):
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Dallas kickstarted my love of Karaoke. Especially at the gay bars, where the patrons are drunk and like my taste in music (Celine Dion, Donna Summer, and so on):
There was interpretive dancing. Your eyes are not playing tricks.
There was also street art in Dallas, which I wasn't expecting:
And moustache tins, which I'm never expecting:
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FRIED BUTTER.
Pictured right, next to the PB&J:
Testing:
Honestly? Not my favorite. Essentially, they take a cube of butter, cover it in dough and fry the whole thing. The middle is gooey cause the butter doesn't have time to fully melt and the dough doesn't get hot enough to cook around the cool butter. I tasted it and handed the rest off to curious strangers.
Where the butter failed, this photo succeeded:
Yes, Carolee. YES.
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Did I mention that the Karaoke bar also had two-stepping?
We love watching them cowboys dance. Look how happy we are:
I didn't get the memo for that photo, clearly.
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Sara always wins carnival games:
Soon, the carnival animals were gang fighting in the dressing rooms:
The dog was eventually decapitated and left for dead in the girls dressing room. I'm not kidding.
While this gang war was going on, I was working on the next big project: a decorative box for the theatre to auction off:
The money would help pay for the meals future companies would eat, as well as programs to bring inner city children to the theatre.
I was encouraged to incorporate glitter, paint, and lighting fixtures. Naturally, I dove in head first:
We filled our box with trinkets representing different situations and characters from our show. These first two are my finest work:
Roland made the most adorable voodoo doll of his caveman character:
Complete with tag!
Here is the finished collection:
Fester's face is whited out because of the lightbulb:
This is a jar full of "moonstone:"
It was impossible to get a good shot of everything:
Grandma's Deep Fried Acrimonium:
I sewed a mini version of our red curtain to mask the electrical outlet. Notice the added detail of the fallen tassel climbing up the side:
Fester's Full Moon Pies:
Can you see Thing cutting the heads of roses?
Thing is a ceramic hand intended for jewelry display that I painted. It was nearly impossible to get the scissors on the fingers because they were immobile:
Sorry 'bout it, Tex:
Cortney and Curtis's contribution:
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Broadway for Obama has brought our community together in showing our support on Saturday nights. Wear your Obama swag to the stage door, and get special attention and photo ops with cast members like Cortney!
Vote, people. Seriously, this is getting scary.
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Our final night in Dallas, a bunch of the gang headed over to a local haunted house:
The house was actually pretty awesome; the rooms were small, dark, and filled with creepy actors doing their best to scare the pants of my friends. I don't scare easily at walk-through houses, so I ended up carrying people through most of the spaces... with the exception of the clown room. I used to think I was scared of clowns, but now I think I just strongly dislike them. They don't make me scream or cower, they make me throw up my middle finger in disgust while challenging the poor performer to "Get the fuck out of my face." They make me angry. Maybe that means I'm scared deep down? I don't know. My brother and I saw "Killer Klownz From Outer Space" when we were very young, and it left a bad taste in our mouths.
At the end of the house was a big room with dirt floors and a man with a chainsaw. Apparently, my friends had asked him to scream my name and scare me, but I didn't hear it. I was too busy laughing at Josh crawling in a corner to get away from the sound of the saw. Silly people. Chainsaws are COOL.
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This brings us to the end of Dallas and the beginning of a new city! (Actually, my next post will likely be about a wedding in California, but we'll get there when we get there.)
I leave you with a clip from our Dallas airport: a little shop selling some very active beans!
