It’s Raining Socks Hallelujah It’s Raining Socks
My feet are cold. Really really really cold. I’ve put my mini space heater under my desk in an effort to warm my freezing tootsies and it’s not doing the job. I decide to arise from my desk - a feat in itself - and get warmer socks from my even colder bedroom. Seeing all my pairs, folded and color coded, I am overtaken with a memory.
AMA’s - 2017.*
I stand silent stage right. A pair of white socks shoots into the air as my name is screamed across the stage. I expected this moment. Not the anti-climactic way the socks flew to the sky, but certainly the distress. Sock Lady* was aiming for my head, but the socks landed quietly, directly, in front of her. I can no longer pretend I’m not the target of this childish fit. That is my name being screeched into the microphone at an ungodly-like pitch. I approach Sock Lady*, clear wardrobe bag in left hand, two shoes in right and a tote bag full of - you guessed it - socks. I pull out every single pair of socks I’ve brought for the event- 14 pairs total. Each time I hand a pair over, it’s theatrically thrown into the air - not so dramatically landing silently at my feet. It’s difficult not to preemptively flinch, as if her flinging each pair in the air can possibly change the trajectory and the speed - or lack of speed – with which each sock falls to the ground.
At this point there is nothing I can do but watch. The sky rains socks in slow motion.
After this brief 30-minute period of my life, I pace around the entire stage of the Microsoft Theatre -up and down the front rows of plastic faces - place holders for audience members who have yet to arrive.
I found a white sock in between Sia and Jimmy Fallon and another resting upon Taylor Swift’s lap. Luckily, I shined my cell phone beneath Camila Cabello’s seat, that sock would have raised some issues I’m sure.
Murat Theatre - Indianapolis, Indiana
We always tried to remind ourselves we weren’t performing brain surgery or saving children’s lives while touring - to give us a little perspective to the pressures inside the business of live entertainment. Somehow, those thoughts didn’t relieve any of it, and even now I’ll wake in the middle of night sweating, swearing to myself that I put the dancer’s shoes where she asked me to, we got him quick changed in time, and I packed my compression socks for the 36-hour work trip to Australia!
*Names and dates have been changed to protect the writer’s mental health.
Underwear and socks – the unsung heros of every single performance. I once spent an entire day in Johannesburg South Africa dying 15 bras 8 different shades of nude in a single bucket. I spent another evening in Los Angeles - outside the Rose Bowl - riding the back of a cop’s motorcycle praying to God we could find the designer who made the star’s outerwear bra with only 24 hour’s notice. That was a close call. Indianapolis, Indiana, I refused to leave a venue until I had scoured every room looking for a single black sock which I found after an hour of searching.