He starts with "Ya'll."
Yesterday, while I was sweating schvitzing in the D.C. Metro, I received the last phone call from Nikko for many months. Was it a little sad? Of course. Was it as bad as I thought it was going to be? Not at all. We had already had the teary and loving goodbye months ago when he visited DC and I faced the fact I wasn't going to see him for an indeterminably long amount of time. When the phone rang yesterday, I expected to feel the smallest pang in the heart; however, the pang became pain (yes...I just wrote that) when he announced that he would be making some ridiculous blog about "art, travel, God, food, and offending each country along the way."
Woof.
The Title? Nikko Nose. Now I can't deny the fact that this is a pretty brilliant title. Not only is it a pun on the size of his mega-Aztec nose, it's also beautifully indicative of Nikko's habit of being certain that Nikko knows best. Am I anxious to see how this attribute serves him in foreign countries?...Am I ever?!?
Whether we were ready or not, the first blog post happened, and it started with, "First day in Europe ya'll..." I've never heard Nikko say "ya'll" in his entire life. I can't help but assume this is some kind of writing persona he's adapted for the blog. Exhausting? You bet. Why would he chose to adopt Southern slang upon leaving the country? For better or worse, Nikko is a representative of the American theater community while traveling in Europe and if "ya'll" is a part of that, I'm uncomfortable.
I could wax poetic about his choice of background image (weird vintage frames on a distressed wall?) and other aesthetic choices he has made but I've decided to stay focused on the written content in hopes that occasionally I'll have something positive to say.
His first entry is a list of things that happened on his first day. He's listed everything numerically but in paragraph form which I'll say isn't my favorite. His excitement about meeting the cast and his honesty about being an impossible roommate was charming and ultimately exciting. I may think he's an egomaniac, but I would hate to think he was having a difficult time with the company. No doubt they already find him hilarious, if not a little abrasive. His comment that in Germany you can add "gutte" before everything gives great insight to the kind of cultural insensitivity we can look forward to for the duration of his stay in Europe. He finishes the list with an anecdote about him trying to be funny with the cast and the joke failing - which isn't terribly surprising and will no doubt be a great inside joke between them for the rest of the tour. He also unnecessarily puts his character name in quotation marks for reasons that I'm not quite sure I'll ever understand.
So he made it. The boy from Glendale, AZ made it Berlin to rehearse one of the cornerstones of the American musical theater canon. I'm glad he's safe, even if West Side Story isn't. Totally kidding.
