The most amazing performance of Little Orphan Annie

So I already put up a post today, but I've decided to put up another one. School started for me today, and I'm already burnt out on it. With school starting, I'm legally mandated by my doctor to put up my stress-o-meter again which detects hair loss and tells how likely I am to be stressed that day. Kind of like the fire warning meters that tell you how likely you are to burn down the forest if you light a match. Or my personal favorite is the former Homeland Security meter that would tell us all how afraid of getting blown up by terrorists we should be that day in leaving our houses. That was a great idea, a meter that would strike a sense of pride in every Americans heart and bring unity to a country as we all sat inside our makeshift bomb shelters in our basements on days with high warnings... It's a good thing nobody ever even paid attention to that thing, or the first Bolts of Thunder video probably wouldn't have been finished. Anyway, I'm supposed to be reading right now, and I'm about to start reading, but I needed to do a little something that would take my mind off school for a minute, so torturing you via blog was the best thing I could think of. So while we're here, I'm going to tell you a story. I must first say that this is a true story, it's too rich to have been fabricated out of thin air. It's the kind of thing that you pray and wish would happen when you're obligated by familial ties to attend a school musical, but it never does happen. But this time it did happen. So I was reminded of this story yesterday at dinner, and it's too good a story to keep locked away in my memory vault. So here it is, for all to read and rejoice in... So when I was 18, my sister was in the high school production of "Little Orphan Annie", and she played Daddy Warbucks' personal secretary. The drama teacher guy that was directing the play deemed the entire student population unworthy of playing the sacred and highly coveted role of Daddy Warbucks, so he reserved that special role for himself. Being that Rim of the World High school put on this little musical number, it goes without saying that it was one of the worst critically acclaimed high school musicals of it's time. But that's beside the point. The point is the last day of the performance, when students, faculty, and families combined were happy that they would never again have to watch Rim's rendition of this play, all hell broke loose in the middle of Daddy Warbucks' living room. It was the song, "I think I'm gonna like it here," and one of Daddy Warbucks' many indentured servants was doing what was supposed to be a standard hitch kick when he poorly stuck the landing and busted his knee on the middle of the stage. He had a microphone on, so he just started screaming profanities and incomprehensible rants into the microphone as he crawled on the floor with his broken knee. Nobody in the the audience or on the stage remembered the line, "I broke my f---ing knee!!!!" in the song, so half the singers/dancers stopped mid song and just stared at the kid as he crawled in pain on the floor, trying to remember if they had simply forgotten a vital part of the song, or if the kid was really in trouble. This scene was too much for Daddy Warbucks, and he half-fainted on stage. He would have completely fallen off the stage, but my little sister grabbed him by the back of his collar and helped balance him until he came through. The funny thing is that through all of this, nobody went out to help him, nobody cut the microphones, everyone just watched the kid as he screamed on the stage. That's how serious Rim is about their musical productions; the show will go on regardless of crappy performances and broken knees. After a minute, they finally realized that they should help the kid, and someone shut the curtains. Everyone took off their microphones because the play had stopped... Everyone except the kid with the broken knee. For a good fifteen minutes, he moaned and occasionally screamed in pain as he awaited the ambulance to take him away, and the audience could hear every breath of it. Let me try to draw this image for you: the audience was sitting in a dark auditorium staring at a dimly lit red curtain and hearing over the loud speakers every couple of seconds, "oh man... oh man!... my knee's busted.... My f---ing knee's busted! oh f--- man... aw.... awwwwww......." You get the idea. Yeah, a good, solid 15 minutes of it. And I think the audience secretly enjoyed it. Nobody went to tell the sound people what was up. Everyone just wanted more. It was a sort of payback for having to sit through a normally boring and painful rendition of "Little Orphan Annie," and the audience was happy to have a few moments of true entertainment. The climax of it all was when one of the other kids had the epiphany that he wanted to be a doctor, and he wanted to start his career right then. He told the hurt kid he could pop the kid's knee back into place. So the hurt kid, into the microphone, said, "oh man, I don't think so... no man... no way...." But the doctor insisted, and the hurt kid finally consented. Or maybe he never did consent, I guess I don't know. Either way, all of a sudden the kid started screaming super loud and pleading with the doctor kid not to touch his knee. The ambulance showed up a few minutes later, and someone finally realized that he had the microphone on the entire time and that the audience could hear all of his cursing. So they took off his microphone and took him away... But that kid was never taken away in our hearts, and their he will remain.... Many years have passed since this event, and I have yet to see or hear of a comparable performance. I now go to every musical event with the hopes and expectations that it will be the most entertaining event of my life: either the music will be awesome, or it will suck really bad but someone on stage will entertain us with his broken body. Thank you "Little Orphan Annie," thank you for making all of our lives richer through your suffering. Thank you kid that busted your knee for your poetic fluidity of cursing on stage. Thank you Ginger Hart for being in this production and allowing all of us to have access to this event. And I'd say next time Gin, just let Daddy Warbucks go... That's a picture of me on my hands and knees with my forehead on my skateboard. Don't ask me what I'm doing there because I simply won't tell you. I refuse to.