Thursday, January 1, 2009

My New Years Eve Gig

It's hard to imagine many things more unlikely than me being an evangelical preacher harping on the evils of alcohol. I haven't been to church since 1972, and I think that the invention of beer is probably mankind's greatest feat (oh, sure, the wheel is good too, but if you are not going out to get beer, you really don't need the wheel!). But that is exactly who I was for about 90 minutes last night.

The beautiful Boulderado Hotel celebrated it's 100th anniversary last night, and the director of marketing decided it would be fun to have some characters from the hotel's past there to tell some stories. So, they hired 4 of us from the murder mystery company I work for. I portrayed the Reverend Billy Sunday, a former major league baseball player who left baseball to become a preacher, and was quite famous for his fiery sermons demonizing drinking, dancing and card playing.

We introduced ourselves to the crowd during the band's first break, with each of us having a brief statement. I declared that I was dismayed to see that "Boulder is an even greater cesspool of iniquity than it was when I stayed here 100 years ago". That got me some laughs. When I followed with " and I intend to put a stop to it" it got me booed. Some actors might not like to get booed, but that was just the reaction I was looking for. Then, I spent the next hour damning the drinkers, while really wanting to join them.

The interesting question asked to me: If alcohol is so evil, how come Jesus turned water into wine? My answer: It wasn't safe to drink the water back then.

A rather unusual way to spend New Years Eve, but actual much better than getting drunk and watching a ball drop!

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