What Donny Vomit Did On Summer Vacation

Part of helping our parents get settled into their new house is figuring out where to hang all our framed family photos, art, mirrors, and random taxidermy. That means finding a hammer. And in the Thomas house (once you've dug through a shoe box of screws and nails and mistmatched picture-hanging hardware)... that can also mean finding a hammer like this.

This conjures up an image for me (while alone in my mom's master-suite bathroom about to hang some art by the tub) of Donny back when he was first figuring out this whole sideshow thing of his.

I can just picture him before the handlebar mustache, before the shaved head, and before the Lasik (a Christmas present from mom) pushing his cute John Lennon spectacles back up his nose, while carefully painting the handle of one of our parent's old hammers white – but still leaving a proper mess of dripped paint behind him on the garage floor. And then coming up with the very clever (and very Tim Burton inspired) idea of adding jaunty black stripes out of electrician's tape.

photo: Autumn Luciano

And then I picture him wherever he might be.

Donny's Summer "Vacation":

1. He promoted his Human Blockhead Lager

2. Left his steady gig at Coney Island, still making special appearances but free to tour more

3. Traveled the country performing with the Pretty Things Peep Show

4. They even took the show to Australia, where he showed a little leg, but...

5. He still saved some moves for his family. Specifically for the spontaneous sibling balcony dance party, on the very, very top floor of our very, very, very tall beach rental in Destin, Florida.

That's just the condensed version. Here's Donny's full report.

Even though my dream was to move to New York and establishing myself as a performer at the Coney Island Sideshow, I decided this summer that it was time to move forward and fufill another goal to travel the states and the world. So I jumped across country to kick off Seattle Beer Week with the crew of Coney Island Lager. For three years I have hosted The Kulture Freaks at Brouwers Restaurant, joined by Nic Sin for a night of debauchery and beers.

The Summer really began with a Winter Festival. Twenty hours in flight to Australia. I was set up for ten days in Port Macquarie at a rockabilly festival. Made friends with the locals and traveled around town in classic cars.

Once back in NYC joined up with Shmaltz brewing company for the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. Had my two favorite girls with me as we rode a float down Surf Avenue. Heather my sword-swallowing partner, and Anna my actual "girl." After partying with the Mermaids on the shores of Coney I headed south for another beach – a week with the family in Destin, Florida.

Returned to NYC and picked up another one of my side jobs, swallowing swords for Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditorium! Spending time with magician, Albert Cadabra, always leads to endless hours of laughter and mischief.

Soon I was back out on the road as July rolled in. Thirteen days of tour to Chicago and back. Our RV, "The Shasta" has become a second home to me. Once back in town headed to Tuxedo Lake, NY for some relaxation with Anna. Playing with dogs and paddling in the lake. Ended July with a trip to Harrisburg Pennsylvania for three nights.

And, August? Well, it's taking me and the Pretty Things Peep Show on another cross country tour, including Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada.

I'm thinking Donny has probably left more than just one hammer behind in all his travels. I'm sure when we pull out the Halloween decorations I'll find some other oddity to get sentimental about. But that's, well... a whole other season.

Lego Condo

So about a week before our entire-family-beach-trip, Charlie and I started fantasizing about what the three-story condo we were going to rent was going to be like. I firmly believe that anticipation is the best part of any vacation, so we decided to build our preparatory vision out of the best toy ever invented... Legos.





First, we had to be sure our Lego getaway was in fact three stories, which was the most mind-blowing thing about the whole condo-to-be since we usually stay in like hostel-similar hotels when we go to NYC and when we were kids we'd all cram into one motel room. Second most important feature to capture was our very own pool in the backyard. So I tackled the towering condo. Charlie worked on the pool. Then we connected it together...







... and added the most important factor. Little tiny food.

The actual beach house did not disappoint once we got there. Our family went nuts running up every story picking out our rooms and screaming our heads off. Kathleen is doing a great documentation of the beachy-aspects of our trip. So not to be too redundant, here's what happened exclusively "in the house":

Top 5 Actually-In-The-Beach-House Moments:

1. Kathleen and Charlie leaping in the pool with all their clothes on the minute they jumped out of our two-car Honda Fits family caravan after two days of driving.

2. Working assembly-line style in the kitchen putting away the week's worth of food we went out and got that evening from the grocery store. Then Kathleen said she felt like some group of crazies was going to trap us in the house or hold us hostage... or something like a giant post-apocalyptic flood was going to force us to barricade in ourselves on the third floor and we'd have to live off of our cornucopia of snacks from the Publix. Each eating only one Whole Wheat Wheat Thin a day to ration ourselves.

3. Standing on the balcony two days later waiting for Donny and Anna (his girlfriend) to arrive from New York City. When they stepped out of their rental car below we started screaming. Donny told us that when they rented their car at the Mobile, Alabama airport the lady behind the counter told them (as they were both all tall and clad in black and grey with beautiful severe features) that they "looked like people from the TV." They played it cool, but then quickly got in the car and got all puffed up, gleefully repeating "we look like people from the TV!"

4. Playing our own version of Marco Polo in the pool that Donny invented where you start off as a zombie (in his case a zombie with a wet drooping disheveled mustache), and groaning a lot with your eyes closed had to touch someone else in the pool (pretending to eat their brains optional) and then they became a zombie too and so on and so on. Lots of screaming again. The neighboring renters, a nice elderly couple who walked their cute dachshund dog every day, probably just didn't know what to think. Except to keep a close eye on their little dog for fear of him getting devoured.

5. Mom making us write our names in Sharpie on our one blue plastic cup we were allocated and Kathleen writing "Forget You." (A clean homage to the Cee Lo song).

6. Completing jigsaw puzzles with the microwave timer counting down our deadline... you know to keep the pressure on.

7. Dad with his fishing rod out by the pool, trying to catch discarded socks and diving sticks in the water by casting in an actual hooked lure, inches from little Sam's face. I never doubted. My dad casts like an expert archer hits an apple on an assistant's head. Or in our family's case, like Donny can whip a cigarette out of his assistant's mouth (or is that the other way around?)

8. Always forgetting something that you needed on the third floor. A blankie, the sunscreen, an iPod, shoes... underwear. I didn't really mind going up and down the Vertigo-like stairs. It was kind of fun, like a fitness challenge. When you're spending all week in a bikini next to P90-X girl and a girl who dances for a living... um, you can use some extra steps to keep you fit. I just thought of my kids shouting down the stairwell as my personal trainers.

9. The stairwell itself was especially interesting at night. Everyone had bedrooms on different floors. According to my sister, if like Sam would even peep in his sleep in one room, I'd be bounding down two flights in the dark, on marble freaking floors, in an eerily responsive flash. Have I mentioned we are a family of intense sleepwalkers, sleepwalkers... sleepscreamers? Screaming is a theme. Wait, maybe our family is the group of crazies that descended upon the house after all?

10. Taking my kids around the house to say goodbye on our last day. Goodbye third floor balcony where we had an impromptu afternoon dance party during an impending thunder storm and Kathleen pretended to be Lady GaGa, hiking her cutoff shorts up her rear and prancing around with her "paws up." Goodbye giant winged ant bugs that liked to drop down into our bed right when my husband and I were finally alone, cozying up and about to fall asleep. Goodbye marble staircase that no one (thank God) broke our neck on. Goodbye kitchen counter where after biting into one of Kathleen and Jeremy's healthy no-meat hotdogs, Charlie commented "this hotdog is good, but I think it needs a weenie inspection." Goodbye zombie pool. Goodbye beautiful beach house. See you next year. Don't worry, you'll hear us coming from a mile away. Screaming.

House. Call.

Dollhouse picture in my hall. I used to have one almost exactly like it from my parents when I was eleven. It's still in my attic. Retro rotary phone below it. Got at a yard sale years ago. But it rings so incredibly loud that I have to leave it unhooked.

Kathleen called me near the end of her New York trip last week. Or was it week before last?

I sat on my front porch swing while she told me about running around Brooklyn and Manhattan. About going to brunches and bars. About Donny and Jeremy having one too many and then going to stalk Jason Schwarzman during a filming of his show that happened to be going down in the lobby of their building.

The evening she was calling me was Friday. They were just going to stay in. They walked down to the Target across the street and bought a jigsaw puzzle, per Donny's request. Of all their antics and city-seeing, I told her I wished that I was there that night.

We always do jigsaw puzzles together. Sometimes even two...

... or three in a row.

Mixed Feelings 'Bout Missing Bath Time

So I'm on a three-day business trip for the advertising agency I work for. Travel is typically exciting and fun. Typically bath time at our house is exciting and fun, too. But with a seven-year old and two-year old left to their own devices in a tub (not completely neglected, we have a tiny house, we're right around the corner, okay just don't call social services)... exciting and fun can quickly turn into manic and/or a situation that could call for a home equity loan to repair our flooded bathroom.

But I can't complain. My husband actually always gives our kids their bath. In fact, they probably wouldn't get bathed if I had to remember when they were due a good scrubbing. He even blow dries their hair as they stand in the toweling down "station." Then he shuffles them down the hall to me, where I get them in their PJs, get those iPhones back in their little hands, and tuck them into their bunks.

We don't actually allow the iPhones in the bunks, but a few nights ago I did wake up to both the kids playing them at 4:30 am in top bunk, bottom bunk respectively. They were like children from another era with flashlights and comics... a tiny oasis of light in a dark bedroom (but with Angry Birds soundtracks.) Apparently Charlie stole them from their docks in the kitchen, but at least he was considerate enough to steal Sam's for him, too.











"Where's my phoooonnnne?"
(Sometimes he clarifies if I don't give him the "phoooone" and says "iiii-phone.")

They probably should invent one that goes in the water. (Hey, Apple folks, how 'bout now that you guys have the iPad 2 out, why don't you get started on that waterproof iPhone?) Meanwhile, I think I will enjoy the mixed blessing of being on the road, in my wonderfully lonely hotel room and take a bath all by un-manic – at least for the moment – self.

On The Road Again

Photo: Vegas Vision Studios

So Donny is on the road again, touring the country in a crowded trailer full of costumes, girls, roadies and a dog... with the Pretty Things Peep Show.


Photos: Deanna Marie

And there's lots of exhilarating on-stage moments like this one.

Photo: Eric Harvey Brown

And exhausting ones, too. This is Donny's stressed out but-taking-charge-in-the-moment look.

Kathleen had a quick visit with him after his show when he came through Tulsa on some random Wednesday night a couple weeks ago. She said he was "accidentally sober." That he hadn't really been partaking in the festivities that ultimately surround their shows in the bars and lounges and hole-in-the-walls their burlesque tour takes them. And so he was missing home. Thinking about settling down and getting "domestic." Donny Vomit Homemaker.

It could happen.

Snow Motel

Another week. Another snow day stuck in the house.

Driving in the snow isn't really something the Thomas family relishes. I mean, we're not completely opposed to it, but on a scale from one to ten, I'd say we're a six or seven when it comes to snow-driving aversion. Although, after getting pushed out of snowy intersections twice last week by complete strangers, I'd say I'm becoming a little immune to the anxiousness of winter weather motoring.

But no one, I mean no one wants to be stuck driving in the car with my dad when it's icy or snowy. This is the person that says "left is death" if you make a left turn under normal conditions, and acts like he can't see the exit ramp off the highway if it's like twilight or even nearing twilight.

Which is why when an unexpected snow and ice storm hit the Okahoma-Texas region during spring break of (I think if I do my math right) let's say 1988, we spent three days stuck at what I now call... The Snow Motel.



Now when our family – Mom, Dad, Me, Donny and Kathleen – left home for our family road trip everything was peachy keen. Yes, that's our Ford LTD station wagon. Yes indeed.



But on the way back home a week later, the weather took a turn for the worse. As we tried to make it down the interstate we just finally encountered an icy overpass that our poor wagon couldn't pull the boat (oh, we were pulling Dad's boat)... that we couldn't pull the boat across.

So we pulled over in Gainesville, Texas and found one of the last available rooms at a motel there. We quickly realized that we made the right choice, as within hours the motel was at full capacity, stranded truckers and travelers were sleeping in the lobby and we were grateful for our one room. Mom and Dad on one bed, me and Grandma on the other (oh, did I mention we were bringing our Grandma back with us for a visit? Yeah, we're like the Griswalds here people!) Then we had a little cot for Donny and Kathleen I think.

We were stuck there, seriously, for like three days. So what is there to do at the Snow Motel in Gainesville, Texas?

1. Mom and Grandma would frequently trek across the street to some Red Cross station there where they would visit with other stranded travelers and drink coffee and get free donuts. This was mortifyingly embarrassing to me because a.) I was thirteen, so everything was mortifyingly embarrassing to me and b.) I thought that it was really weird and inappropriate of my mom and grandma to take advantage of the Red Cross services like that... I mean, that was for people who were in trouble. Geeez. I guess I imagined a gym full of refugees over there or something. But really, it was probably just a bunch of other moms and grandmas who were sick of being stuck in this shelter with their bored kids and anxious husbands.

2. Kathleen got super sick. Like fever hallucinating. We just let her sweat it out on her cot in the corner of our room. So basically the entire experience for her was a total blur.

3. We rented The Milagro Beanfield War on the pay-per-view box of our crappy little motel room TV on like the second night. Random. This was before iPhones and wireless, people.

4. And while everyone just waited and waited for the thaw, watching TV, drinking their inappropriate Red Cross coffee, and feverishly sweating on their little pathetic cot... Donny and I had the most, most fun.

I don't remember all the details. Just that this motel was basically like a snowy, locked-down labrynth of snowy stairwells and icy empty corridors (all the grownups and normal kids I guess were bundled in their rooms) as Donny and I concocted this awesome epic spy game. It really was the precursor to the Bourne Identity in my opinion.

We literally played from morning to night chasing each other around, hiding, plotting, dramatically peering around corners. So much fun that I forgot to be thirteen and mortifyingly embarrassed. Now usually Kathleen and Donny were the ones goofing around when it came to outdoor shenanigans, and I was the inside girl who locked her door and told them to go away.



Look at my cool coat. It was like a white sweater knit on the outside with pink and tan sewed on patches.



Grandma is totally going to throw that at someone and steal their Red Cross donut.



But, I guess what happens at The Snow Motel, stays at The Snow Motel.

Pizza House Revisited

So it's sort of become a snow-day tradition to walk down my street to Pizza House.













Correction, a Charlie and Tara tradition.

Our street always looks so picturesque in the snow. And Charlie and I are the only ones walking down it. That is, until we get to the end of our quiet street to a very busy, bustling intersection, and hand-in-hand hop across the slush, watch out for the sluggish not-used-to-snow cars, avert past the shady-looking characters getting their cigarettes and liquor from the corner store, and watch cars spinning their wheels, swerving about and getting pushed through intersections by the surprisingly good-samaritan-ish but still shady characters... until we hop to the other side like the little Froggers we are to the steamy, friendly, seedy Pizza House.



These series of photos are actually from our big snow last year.



And these are from this year's snow. Charlie is a little older. Our driveway is a little clearer (not because of less snow, but because I was a total badass and shoveled the whole freakin' thing. Chris couldn't believe it!)



And I was a little less well-accessorized.



Perhaps because a certain little sister borrowed my favorite Helly Hansen hat for her fabulous blog convention. Hmmph. I'm sure it enjoyed the Sundance Film Festival more than a trip to Pizza House.



But, I don't know. It could be a toss-up.

For a long time Charlie used to think that all neon "open" signs actually said "pizza." I think because we drive by Pizza House every day on the way home. I realized this when a summer or so ago, after driving nine hours to our beach condo vacation destination, the condo office had a neon "open" sign in the window, and Charlie said, "oh, great they have pizza!"



This is when Charlie got excited and asked if he could climb up on this pile of shoveled snow and take an Everest picture. Kathleen's fabulousness is not lost on Charlie.



I don't really know if this exactly captures the traditional mountaineers pose. But for reaching the summit of a snow-day Pizza House expedition? It's a classic.

Donny's Bag

This is Donny's trusty bag. In off-seasons it travels with him across the country on his burlesque tours, in more touristy times it rides the train from his Brooklyn apartment to the glittery lights of Times Square where Donny sometimes works as a sidewalk barker for Ripley's Believe It Or Not. And of course from Memorial Day to Labor Day it spends many long afternoons resting in the sideshow dressing room at Coney Island (on the floor next to the snake's tank to be exact) while Donny runs the ten-in-one for the constantly revolving crowds.

It also comes home with him on the holidays. He packs light. Spare socks in one side pocket, spare undies in the other. One pair of skinny jeans inside, rotating out with the pair he wears. The same system with his button-up shirts, one white, one chambray. And a couple wife beaters for good measure.

When his tour came through Oklahoma, he showed off a smaller companion leather sort of dopp kit bag that matches this bigger saddle-style-backpack one. He was very proud of it. I was like "um, Donny, are you going to do something real with your money, or are you just going to keep buying bags?" Kathleen thought this was hilarious. I think it hurt Donny's feelings a little. I was halfway through my second ungodly strong vodka tonic, so I am absolved.

Lastly it comes with this odd white thingamabob.

Which actually isn't strange at all. It's kind of sweet. It's a viewfinder. The picture inside? That's Anna. Donny's "girl." Wowsa, right? You don't know the half of it. But this post is about traveling light, so Anna tales must wait for another day (and for me to be sure that she doesn't mind getting the Thomas treatment, i.e. telling all to anyone who'll listen.)

So in the meantime, like Donny's spare socks, just know she travels with him wherever he goes.