Today is Oscar day, usually a fun day for people in my business regardless where they are, but especially serious in Los Angeles. Last year Angie and I had a whole gaggle of people over with ballots and prizes and trivia questions and homemade chili. This year we're not doing any of that. Just the two of us and a quiet night at home after I finish the matinee of Adding Machine.
For one thing, I've hardly seen any of the nominees. We've officially turned into a Netflix/cable kinda household. A clear sign of aging. We did see 'Winter's Bone' because we had a close friend in it. And we saw 'True Grit' because I love westerns. But, I blush to confess, that's about it, really.
The times, they are a-changin'. There were many years in which I'd never dream of not seeing one of the nominees.
Like most actors, when I was very young, I practiced my Oscar speech late at night while drifting off to sleep. I was always very magnanimous. "It's such an honor to even be nominated with Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Jay Silverheels." Or whatever.
A few years back a good buddy of mine actually attended the Oscars, live and in person. Had a reserved seat, the whole thing. I was very impressed. He told me he peed in the urinal next to Denzel Washington. I was doubly impressed.
Coming face to face with a certain kind of celebrity is an interesting thing. When I first moved to NY a gillion years ago, I often encountered celebrity. At first it was always sort of world rocking. Eventually, of course, it became rather old hat. In New York there's an unwritten law, of sorts, that says you can't bother celebs. Not like Chicago or LA. In Chicago people swoon and faint and carry on like toddlers around a birthday clown. I guess that's because Chicago is, deep down, just a big, midwestern small town. In LA it appears to be no big deal but because it's such a spread out place, the celebrity sightings are not nearly as common as one might think. Although it certainly happens. But in NY I ran across so many recognizable names and faces and the rule of thumb was, 'don't bother them.'
As I got older it became not such a big deal. I worked with high profile people onstage myself. I drank beer with people I'd seen on the afternoon 'bowling for dollars' movie as a kid. The entire idea of 'celebrity' lost it's luster for me.
But there are still a few that captured my attention. People that got my blood up even after many jaded years in this business. One was running across the late Paul Newman after a play one night. Another time was during a brief visit to LA many years ago and accidentally bumping into a vry old Ray Bolger. Still another was flagging the same cab during a drizzly afternoon as Woody Allen. And still another was a spur-of-the-moment conversation with Rex Harrison a few months before he died. Celebrity, in general, doesn't really do much for me these days, but there are those still that make me feel like a kid again. And finally, there was a life-changing chance meeting with Muhammad Ali in a diner on 36th and Third in the city.
My first encounter with celebrity was at the age of ten in Missouri. When I was a boy I was completely fascinated with professional wrestling. I all but held my breath until Saturday nights when 'Wrestling at the Chase' or 'All-Star Wrestling' came on tv. Even today I can remember the wrestlers in startling detail: Dory Funk, Jr., Handsome Harley Race, Jack Briscoe, Dick the Bruiser, Black Jack Lanza, Baron Von Rashke, Rufus R. Jones, Hans Schmidt, Terry Funk, Johnny Valentine, Nature Boy Roger Kirby ('Nature Boy?'). This was long before professional wrestlers were the chiseled, monstrous, massively huge specimens they are today. No, these were mostly middle-aged tubby guys in speedos.
In any event, the local Optimists Club (a club I could would never be allowed to join today, no doubt) brought in a wrestling event at the VFW hall. I took along some notebook paper and a black crayon in the hopes of getting an autograph.
One of the wrestlers featured that night was a guy who went by the name 'Lord Alfred Hayes.' He was a British Lord that had, inexplicably, decided to become a professional wrestler. At least, that was his backstory. So after 'Lord Alfred Hayes' finished pinning his rival for the night, he left the ring and disappeared into the temporary dressing rooms. And for some reason decided a bit later to come out and watch the rest of the program. He was standing in the back in his street clothes directly behind me. Up to that point I'd been unsuccessful in getting an autograph from any of the wrestlers. But suddenly I turned around and there, towering over me, was 'Lord Alfred Hayes.'
I had recently heard on the news that the hockey player, Bobby Orr, had purchased a ranch in Montana. So, at the age of ten, I assumed that's what famous people did, they purchased ranches in Montana. When I turned around and realized 'Lord Alfred Hayes' was standing right beside me, close enough to touch, I was speechless. I thrust my paper and crayon at him. Wordlessly he took it and scribbled something that looked like 'Libby Alfling Habs' (I still have the autograph). Then, remembering the hockey player on the news, I blurted out, "How is your ranch in Montana?"
Lord Alfred Hayes paused a moment to be sure he'd heard me right. Finally, he drew himself up, stared sternly at me (he was a 'bad guy' in the ring) and said, "I don't have a ranch. I have a castle." He prounounced the word 'castle' especially British. And, much like years later when my friend peed next to Denzel Washington, I was very, very impressed.
The funny thing is, today, quickly approaching fifty, having been onstage with scads of celebs, hung out with them, drank with them, laughed with the newsworthy, argued with the recognizable, eaten dinner with the noteworthy, I think I'd still get tongue-tied if I ever came across 'Lord Alfred Hayes' again. Your first celebrity is a powerful thing.
See you tomorrow.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
A Night Out.
My wife and I decided to try out the Thai restaurant up the street from us last night for dinner. I love having dinner with my wife in a restaurant. We giggle a lot. Bless her heart, for some strange reason she still finds me amusing on occasion. And vice versa.
For the life of me, I don't know how this place stays open. I've never seen a single soul in there. Years ago, in NY, I was between acting gigs and decided to get a job waiting tables again for awhile. Back then it was relatively easy to find a job waiting tables. These days, I'm told, getting a job waiting tables is almost as tough as it is to get a job on a network series. Anyway, so I wander into this place in Chelsea one day and drop off a resume. This must've been around 1989 or so.
The place was owned by two women, lovers as it turned out, and one was the manager and one was the chef. They specialized in free-range food. The restaurant was called 'The Restaurant with No Name.' That was the actual name of the place. They hired me on the spot and asked if I could begin that night. I was delighted. So I show up for work a few hours later and they put me immediately 'on the floor.' I stood there all night. No one came in to eat. The next night, same thing. The third night, same thing. Just me and the two hopeful lesbians. It got to be sort of embarrassing. Someone would wander by, pause briefly to glance at the menu on the door, we'd all stand up and brush our clothes, attentive faces frozen in tight smiles, the would-be customer would look in and see us, far too eager, nearly ready to run out and physically drag him into the place, he'd get a little frightened and slowly wander off. We'd glance uncomfortably at each other, sit back down and watch the clock. Finally, after the third night on the job I told them I couldn't come back. I said, as nicely as possible, they might consider changing the name to 'The Restaurant with No Customers.'
Anyway, that's sort of how this Thai place is on the corner. Angie and sat there, alone in the place, eating our Phad Toe Fung or whatever, while they all sort of stared at us and rushed over to fill our water after every sip. Once they were a little late on that part and I suggested we lower the tip.
But that's not the point. The point is, I love being alone with my wife. I don't have many close friends. This, I'd like to think anyway, is by design. I'm simply one of those people that has never really allowed myself to be too accessible. Angie knows this about me and frequently comments on it. She, of course, is just the opposite. She has a whole gaggle of close friends. Her demeanor is open and caring and if you're her friend, chances are you're her friend for life. Me, I'm more like Dick Nixon at a picnic. Uncomfortable with small talk and too severe for idle chit chat. I wasn't always that way. But it's the way I choose to live today.
I have two close friends in Los Angeles. And I'd do anything for them. Both, not surprisingly, have been friends for many years. They both knew me when I was not so guarded, not so distant, not so insular. And they both stood beside me when terrible things were happening in my life.
At the moment I'm doing this little skit out at The Odyssey Theatre called 'The Adding Machine.' Often times I have someone I know in the audience and am compelled to go out front to the lobby and say hello after a performance. I rarely do this sort of thing, not because I'm a snob or arrogant or anything else, but because it makes me intensely uncomfortable. I don't take compliments well, like a lot of actors I know, and the whole backslapping, 'loved your work,' kinda thing just makes me squirm. Not to mention the whole backslapping, 'hated your work' kinda thing. The other cast members are always giving me amused grief about it. In fact, a few weeks ago I actually went out front for a moment after the show and the house manager rushed over to me and asked urgently if I was alright.
So anyway, there we are, my wife and I, sitting alone in this Thai place, making each other smile and grimace and titter, a little chilly 'cause it's cold in LA these days, and I look around and think to myself, 'this is it. This is my life. This is the moment I've cultivated for fifty years.' And I was perfectly content with it.
I thnk most of that contentment has to do with a buried sense of gratitude. I don't express it enough, at least not out loud. I'm writing a new piece these days, working title 'The Promise,' although I'm sure that will eventually change, and there's a pivotal monologue in the second act as one of the characters tries to express how difficult it is to climb out of his own hole of self-exile from the world. Sounds a little high-falutin' but it makes perfect sense in the context of the play, I hope. Anyway, I can't seem to find the exact words to use in the monologue. The words that might make the speech universal. I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few weeks. I didn't have a solution. Sometimes when I get snagged on a moment like this in my writing I just have to let it percolate for a little while until I see or hear something that opens the flood gates. Last night at that empty Thai place was one of those moments.
It occurred to me that being alone was not always the result, the settlement, the sad ending, but rather a choice, a solution. I'd been approaching the speech from the wrong direction. It's not a rant but a testimony. Not an inevitability, but a decision. I've been thinking about it all night and woke early this morning, around five a.m., and finally decided to write it that way.
We, my wife and I, live in the 'Rancho Distict' of Burbank/Glendale. That is to say, the area near the Equestrian Center where nearly everyone in the neighborhood has horses in their backyard, us included. It's sort of like living in Green Acres right smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles. Our neighbor has a rooster. He begins his morning keening (the rooster, not the neighbor) around this time everyday. Aside from the distant train whistles I used to hear laying in bed as a boy in my hometown in Missouri a couple of centuries ago, it may be the most mournful sound I've ever heard. It sounds so terribly alone to me. So isolated. But when the rooster is approached, he quickly runs away and becomes sullen and watchful and silent. I feel very much at home living next to that rooster.
See you tomorrow.
For the life of me, I don't know how this place stays open. I've never seen a single soul in there. Years ago, in NY, I was between acting gigs and decided to get a job waiting tables again for awhile. Back then it was relatively easy to find a job waiting tables. These days, I'm told, getting a job waiting tables is almost as tough as it is to get a job on a network series. Anyway, so I wander into this place in Chelsea one day and drop off a resume. This must've been around 1989 or so.
The place was owned by two women, lovers as it turned out, and one was the manager and one was the chef. They specialized in free-range food. The restaurant was called 'The Restaurant with No Name.' That was the actual name of the place. They hired me on the spot and asked if I could begin that night. I was delighted. So I show up for work a few hours later and they put me immediately 'on the floor.' I stood there all night. No one came in to eat. The next night, same thing. The third night, same thing. Just me and the two hopeful lesbians. It got to be sort of embarrassing. Someone would wander by, pause briefly to glance at the menu on the door, we'd all stand up and brush our clothes, attentive faces frozen in tight smiles, the would-be customer would look in and see us, far too eager, nearly ready to run out and physically drag him into the place, he'd get a little frightened and slowly wander off. We'd glance uncomfortably at each other, sit back down and watch the clock. Finally, after the third night on the job I told them I couldn't come back. I said, as nicely as possible, they might consider changing the name to 'The Restaurant with No Customers.'
Anyway, that's sort of how this Thai place is on the corner. Angie and sat there, alone in the place, eating our Phad Toe Fung or whatever, while they all sort of stared at us and rushed over to fill our water after every sip. Once they were a little late on that part and I suggested we lower the tip.
But that's not the point. The point is, I love being alone with my wife. I don't have many close friends. This, I'd like to think anyway, is by design. I'm simply one of those people that has never really allowed myself to be too accessible. Angie knows this about me and frequently comments on it. She, of course, is just the opposite. She has a whole gaggle of close friends. Her demeanor is open and caring and if you're her friend, chances are you're her friend for life. Me, I'm more like Dick Nixon at a picnic. Uncomfortable with small talk and too severe for idle chit chat. I wasn't always that way. But it's the way I choose to live today.
I have two close friends in Los Angeles. And I'd do anything for them. Both, not surprisingly, have been friends for many years. They both knew me when I was not so guarded, not so distant, not so insular. And they both stood beside me when terrible things were happening in my life.
At the moment I'm doing this little skit out at The Odyssey Theatre called 'The Adding Machine.' Often times I have someone I know in the audience and am compelled to go out front to the lobby and say hello after a performance. I rarely do this sort of thing, not because I'm a snob or arrogant or anything else, but because it makes me intensely uncomfortable. I don't take compliments well, like a lot of actors I know, and the whole backslapping, 'loved your work,' kinda thing just makes me squirm. Not to mention the whole backslapping, 'hated your work' kinda thing. The other cast members are always giving me amused grief about it. In fact, a few weeks ago I actually went out front for a moment after the show and the house manager rushed over to me and asked urgently if I was alright.
So anyway, there we are, my wife and I, sitting alone in this Thai place, making each other smile and grimace and titter, a little chilly 'cause it's cold in LA these days, and I look around and think to myself, 'this is it. This is my life. This is the moment I've cultivated for fifty years.' And I was perfectly content with it.
I thnk most of that contentment has to do with a buried sense of gratitude. I don't express it enough, at least not out loud. I'm writing a new piece these days, working title 'The Promise,' although I'm sure that will eventually change, and there's a pivotal monologue in the second act as one of the characters tries to express how difficult it is to climb out of his own hole of self-exile from the world. Sounds a little high-falutin' but it makes perfect sense in the context of the play, I hope. Anyway, I can't seem to find the exact words to use in the monologue. The words that might make the speech universal. I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few weeks. I didn't have a solution. Sometimes when I get snagged on a moment like this in my writing I just have to let it percolate for a little while until I see or hear something that opens the flood gates. Last night at that empty Thai place was one of those moments.
It occurred to me that being alone was not always the result, the settlement, the sad ending, but rather a choice, a solution. I'd been approaching the speech from the wrong direction. It's not a rant but a testimony. Not an inevitability, but a decision. I've been thinking about it all night and woke early this morning, around five a.m., and finally decided to write it that way.
We, my wife and I, live in the 'Rancho Distict' of Burbank/Glendale. That is to say, the area near the Equestrian Center where nearly everyone in the neighborhood has horses in their backyard, us included. It's sort of like living in Green Acres right smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles. Our neighbor has a rooster. He begins his morning keening (the rooster, not the neighbor) around this time everyday. Aside from the distant train whistles I used to hear laying in bed as a boy in my hometown in Missouri a couple of centuries ago, it may be the most mournful sound I've ever heard. It sounds so terribly alone to me. So isolated. But when the rooster is approached, he quickly runs away and becomes sullen and watchful and silent. I feel very much at home living next to that rooster.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sheen, Lohan and Arquette.
You know, there's been an inordinate amount of interest and commentary on addiction as of late, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, and yesterday on Oprah, David Arquette. I am filled with personal thoughts about all of this, of course, but I hesitate to throw my opinion into the mix.
Some years back I did something I said I'd never, ever do: I went back to school. But not to get my Ph.D. or anything like that. I decided to go back and get my C.A.D.C. For those not familiar with that, it stands for Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor.
I even dropped out of the theatre world for a few years in order to do something noble, something 'hands on,' something that might help people and not just this silly little 'pretend' business I had been in all my life. I was very serious and very committed. I thought I could possibly change the world in some small way. I was an idiot.
This subject is so deep, so full of pitfalls, so complicated, so full of misunderstanding it is, frankly, nearly impossible to weigh in with anything in the least bit helpful. So I won't try. Besides, after a few years I threw up my hands in disgust and walked away from drug and alcohol counseling. The primary reason is the simple fact that it is just overflowing with hypocrisy. And, like Holden Caulfield, it is the one thing above all others that brings out the devil in me.
My wife likes these shows on television about interventions and rehabilitations and these so-called experts yammering on about how to 'beat addiction.' I occasionally watch them with her. The difference is I watch with a jaded and cynical eye and she watches with her usual optimistic and hopeful eye.
Alcoholics Anonymous is, in my opinion, at its very core, the most altruistic social movement of the twentieth century. It has saved countless lives. It is an organization, on paper anyway, absolutely free of selfish motives. Unfortunately, it is run by human beings. And because of that, it regularly falls morally short of its ideals.
Charlie Sheen recently called AA 'brainwashing.' Gasps of offense were heard around the world. But you know what? He's right. That's exactly what AA is. It has never pretended to be anything else. It is brainwashing in the same sense Christianity is brainwashing, or capitalism, or socialism, or any other code of living that requires a single paradigm shift in one's thinking. Ultimately, and I'm sure this will upset many who have built their lives around it, it is a band-aid for the disease of addiction, at best. In addition, it not only encourages, it demands a completely new and often uncomfortable way of looking at life. And that, Gentle Reader, is no small potato, it's huge, it's massive, it's the difference between life and death for many.
The problem is, unless one is ready to live this new life every single moment for the rest of eternity it is doomed to failure.
Now don't misunderstand, I've known men and women to achieve sobriety and maintain it for thirty, forty, fifty years and more. They are people who've thrown off their 'demons' and have accepted and embraced this new way of thinking, this new way of living. They have somehow managed to build a bridge over that impossibly deep canyon called 'faith.' But not without cost. Not without struggle. A phrase in the 'program' as it is called by insiders, is 'one day at a time.' In other words, it's impossible to visualize a lifetime of sobriety. But it is possible to not take a drink or do a drug for twenty-four hours. Sometimes, in fact, in the beginning, it's 'one hour at a time,' or 'one minute at a time.' For those not afflicted with this most misunderstood disease, this is incomprehensible.
I've written an entire play about it, in fact. Praying Small. A very successful play, in the final analysis. Written when I was not so sullied by the human element of AA. But the play, at best, only scratches the surface.
Here's the thing about addiction: there is no known cure. Sobriety is contingent on one's 'daily maintenance, physically and spiritually.' And again, that ain't no small thing.
Okay, I've sort of wandered away from my point. I digress. The point is, I suppose, that Lohan and Sheen live in a reality that cannot be easily judged. And, not to drop names, but way, way back in my NY days I hoisted a few with Charlie. Our paths crossed often in a class we were both taking. Obviously, we didn't stay in touch and I'd be surprised if he even remembered who I am now.
This addiction business is an indescribably depressing subject. The recidivism rate is off the charts. And those not afflicted are always astounded by this. But why shouldn't it be? There is no cure. It's not now, nor has it ever been, a question of 'just say no.' That's as ludicrous as just saying no to cancer. Nancy Reagan, as well-intentioned as I'm sure she was, set back twelve-step programs decades with that little catch-phrase.
And then there was that jaw-dropping interview with David Arquette yesterday on Oprah. Angie and I got into a gentle disagreement over that. I was, frankly, appalled. Here this guy is, TWO WEEKS out of rehab, and he goes on national television to say he 'now has the tools' to cope with this disease. Good Lord, that's tantamount to someone going on national television and announcing they've discovered the path to world peace in the past week. Now, believe me, I understand the zealousness of the recently converted. But years in the business of recovery as a counselor has taught me how ludicrous that is.
I suspect Mr. Arquette had ulterior motives. Probably trying to get his wife back. Nothing wrong with that. Just terribly misguided. And this whole 'ulterior motives' thing is exactly why the success rate of AA has been estimated at somewhere around five percent. Yes. Ninety-five percent, or thereabouts, of the people who turn to AA for help eventually drink or do drugs again. It's a statistic AA is not especially proud of. But five percent is better than no percent.
My own personal journey has been littered with mistakes, bad decisions, rage, anger, shame, resentment, relapse and remorse. I have no answers, not a single one. I'd like to make that clear.
I have friends in 'the program' who get awfully stringent about it after awhile. Especially the 'old timers' as they're called. The brainwashing has been successful and they are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is only one way to get and stay sober: AA and the Big Book (the 'how to' manual written mostly by one of the founders, Bill Wilson). And one certainly can't argue with success; it worked for them. And I don't necessarily think they're wrong, I just think their lack of imagination is wrong.
Old time AAers are the most inflexible people I know. They've discarded the chains of addiction and replaced them with a very unattractive sense of piety. It's my way or the highway with them. And for someone with a day, maybe a week, of sobriety, that is the very last thing in the world they want to hear. They somehow manage to turn AA into an organization of exclusion. In some ways it's unforgivable. They have, in another phrase bandied about in the rooms of AA, 'forgotten where they come from.' They, over the years, begin to mistake time for rank. They become authority figures in their own minds. And the last thing a newly recovering addict wants to find while reaching out for help is a self-deluded drill sergeant who considers them a private.
Here's the sad thing about addiction: some die. Some die. A sentence in the Big Book explains the focus of AA is 'attraction, not promotion.' In other words, a newly sober person sees someone who is apparently living a meaningful and happy life and says to him or herself, "I want that. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that." It's a great theory. But it only works if they see someone who actually is living a meaningful and happy life. And thirty years of physically not taking a drink does not mean that. In my experience some of the unhappiest people I know are people with a butt load of sobriety. And, by the same token, a few of the happiest people I know are people with a butt load of sobriety. The point is time sober does not, by any stretch of the imagination, equal rank. Most of the time it means they've simply gone an awfully long time without a hangover.
One of the most dangerous things in the world is to give an addict, any addict, a title. You can bet the farm they'll eventually abuse their authority (see our ex President). A buddy of mine was once actually booed at a meeting when he said out loud, 'Sobriety corrupts and absolute sobriety corrupts absolutely.' I thought he was dead on and applauded.
In any event, I, like so many others, have an encyclopedia of advice for Lindsay and Charlie. But AA, with the possible exception of death itself, is the most personal journey one can ever hope to take. My advice is based upon my experience on that journey. And it's probably all wrong. It's probably just another pile of bullshit. It's probably about as helpful as tits on a bull.
Alas, I'm most likely nearly alone in this thinking.
Robert Downey, Jr. was recently on the television program, The View. The redheaded broad, can't remember her name, asked him what he would say to Charlie Sheen if he had a chance to talk to him. Now remember, Downey, sadly, had to deal with his addiction demons in an all too public manner. Against all odds, he's pushed through and, by all accounts, is living a relatively content life now. He smiled tightly and replied, "I'd say to him what I'd say to him." Good for you, Robert Downey, Jr. Good for you.
See you tomorrow.
Some years back I did something I said I'd never, ever do: I went back to school. But not to get my Ph.D. or anything like that. I decided to go back and get my C.A.D.C. For those not familiar with that, it stands for Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor.
I even dropped out of the theatre world for a few years in order to do something noble, something 'hands on,' something that might help people and not just this silly little 'pretend' business I had been in all my life. I was very serious and very committed. I thought I could possibly change the world in some small way. I was an idiot.
This subject is so deep, so full of pitfalls, so complicated, so full of misunderstanding it is, frankly, nearly impossible to weigh in with anything in the least bit helpful. So I won't try. Besides, after a few years I threw up my hands in disgust and walked away from drug and alcohol counseling. The primary reason is the simple fact that it is just overflowing with hypocrisy. And, like Holden Caulfield, it is the one thing above all others that brings out the devil in me.
My wife likes these shows on television about interventions and rehabilitations and these so-called experts yammering on about how to 'beat addiction.' I occasionally watch them with her. The difference is I watch with a jaded and cynical eye and she watches with her usual optimistic and hopeful eye.
Alcoholics Anonymous is, in my opinion, at its very core, the most altruistic social movement of the twentieth century. It has saved countless lives. It is an organization, on paper anyway, absolutely free of selfish motives. Unfortunately, it is run by human beings. And because of that, it regularly falls morally short of its ideals.
Charlie Sheen recently called AA 'brainwashing.' Gasps of offense were heard around the world. But you know what? He's right. That's exactly what AA is. It has never pretended to be anything else. It is brainwashing in the same sense Christianity is brainwashing, or capitalism, or socialism, or any other code of living that requires a single paradigm shift in one's thinking. Ultimately, and I'm sure this will upset many who have built their lives around it, it is a band-aid for the disease of addiction, at best. In addition, it not only encourages, it demands a completely new and often uncomfortable way of looking at life. And that, Gentle Reader, is no small potato, it's huge, it's massive, it's the difference between life and death for many.
The problem is, unless one is ready to live this new life every single moment for the rest of eternity it is doomed to failure.
Now don't misunderstand, I've known men and women to achieve sobriety and maintain it for thirty, forty, fifty years and more. They are people who've thrown off their 'demons' and have accepted and embraced this new way of thinking, this new way of living. They have somehow managed to build a bridge over that impossibly deep canyon called 'faith.' But not without cost. Not without struggle. A phrase in the 'program' as it is called by insiders, is 'one day at a time.' In other words, it's impossible to visualize a lifetime of sobriety. But it is possible to not take a drink or do a drug for twenty-four hours. Sometimes, in fact, in the beginning, it's 'one hour at a time,' or 'one minute at a time.' For those not afflicted with this most misunderstood disease, this is incomprehensible.
I've written an entire play about it, in fact. Praying Small. A very successful play, in the final analysis. Written when I was not so sullied by the human element of AA. But the play, at best, only scratches the surface.
Here's the thing about addiction: there is no known cure. Sobriety is contingent on one's 'daily maintenance, physically and spiritually.' And again, that ain't no small thing.
Okay, I've sort of wandered away from my point. I digress. The point is, I suppose, that Lohan and Sheen live in a reality that cannot be easily judged. And, not to drop names, but way, way back in my NY days I hoisted a few with Charlie. Our paths crossed often in a class we were both taking. Obviously, we didn't stay in touch and I'd be surprised if he even remembered who I am now.
This addiction business is an indescribably depressing subject. The recidivism rate is off the charts. And those not afflicted are always astounded by this. But why shouldn't it be? There is no cure. It's not now, nor has it ever been, a question of 'just say no.' That's as ludicrous as just saying no to cancer. Nancy Reagan, as well-intentioned as I'm sure she was, set back twelve-step programs decades with that little catch-phrase.
And then there was that jaw-dropping interview with David Arquette yesterday on Oprah. Angie and I got into a gentle disagreement over that. I was, frankly, appalled. Here this guy is, TWO WEEKS out of rehab, and he goes on national television to say he 'now has the tools' to cope with this disease. Good Lord, that's tantamount to someone going on national television and announcing they've discovered the path to world peace in the past week. Now, believe me, I understand the zealousness of the recently converted. But years in the business of recovery as a counselor has taught me how ludicrous that is.
I suspect Mr. Arquette had ulterior motives. Probably trying to get his wife back. Nothing wrong with that. Just terribly misguided. And this whole 'ulterior motives' thing is exactly why the success rate of AA has been estimated at somewhere around five percent. Yes. Ninety-five percent, or thereabouts, of the people who turn to AA for help eventually drink or do drugs again. It's a statistic AA is not especially proud of. But five percent is better than no percent.
My own personal journey has been littered with mistakes, bad decisions, rage, anger, shame, resentment, relapse and remorse. I have no answers, not a single one. I'd like to make that clear.
I have friends in 'the program' who get awfully stringent about it after awhile. Especially the 'old timers' as they're called. The brainwashing has been successful and they are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is only one way to get and stay sober: AA and the Big Book (the 'how to' manual written mostly by one of the founders, Bill Wilson). And one certainly can't argue with success; it worked for them. And I don't necessarily think they're wrong, I just think their lack of imagination is wrong.
Old time AAers are the most inflexible people I know. They've discarded the chains of addiction and replaced them with a very unattractive sense of piety. It's my way or the highway with them. And for someone with a day, maybe a week, of sobriety, that is the very last thing in the world they want to hear. They somehow manage to turn AA into an organization of exclusion. In some ways it's unforgivable. They have, in another phrase bandied about in the rooms of AA, 'forgotten where they come from.' They, over the years, begin to mistake time for rank. They become authority figures in their own minds. And the last thing a newly recovering addict wants to find while reaching out for help is a self-deluded drill sergeant who considers them a private.
Here's the sad thing about addiction: some die. Some die. A sentence in the Big Book explains the focus of AA is 'attraction, not promotion.' In other words, a newly sober person sees someone who is apparently living a meaningful and happy life and says to him or herself, "I want that. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that." It's a great theory. But it only works if they see someone who actually is living a meaningful and happy life. And thirty years of physically not taking a drink does not mean that. In my experience some of the unhappiest people I know are people with a butt load of sobriety. And, by the same token, a few of the happiest people I know are people with a butt load of sobriety. The point is time sober does not, by any stretch of the imagination, equal rank. Most of the time it means they've simply gone an awfully long time without a hangover.
One of the most dangerous things in the world is to give an addict, any addict, a title. You can bet the farm they'll eventually abuse their authority (see our ex President). A buddy of mine was once actually booed at a meeting when he said out loud, 'Sobriety corrupts and absolute sobriety corrupts absolutely.' I thought he was dead on and applauded.
In any event, I, like so many others, have an encyclopedia of advice for Lindsay and Charlie. But AA, with the possible exception of death itself, is the most personal journey one can ever hope to take. My advice is based upon my experience on that journey. And it's probably all wrong. It's probably just another pile of bullshit. It's probably about as helpful as tits on a bull.
Alas, I'm most likely nearly alone in this thinking.
Robert Downey, Jr. was recently on the television program, The View. The redheaded broad, can't remember her name, asked him what he would say to Charlie Sheen if he had a chance to talk to him. Now remember, Downey, sadly, had to deal with his addiction demons in an all too public manner. Against all odds, he's pushed through and, by all accounts, is living a relatively content life now. He smiled tightly and replied, "I'd say to him what I'd say to him." Good for you, Robert Downey, Jr. Good for you.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Finger.
So I'm sort of half watching the tv last night, half doing piddly stuff on the computer, and this story comes on about 'serious, young, LA actors studying at the Strasberg Institute and their reaction to the upcoming Oscars.' Well, as you might imagine, I had to immediately stop what I was doing and watch what I knew would be something funny and embarrassing all at once. It was. They started this segment (I think it was the local channel four news with that half-wit Chuck Henry) with a clip of a few youngish type actors, one with a pronounced, almost comical British accent, screaming at each other on a bare stage. Screaming so savagely it was impossible to understand what they were saying. It was a flashback to the shockingly bad stuff we've (actors) all seen at one point or another in college acting classes. The clip was clearly meant to show how serious they were because they were screaming so and gnashing their teeth. There were about half a dozen of them 'studying' there at the 'institute.' After the screaming, they cut to them all sitting in the theatre all dressed in their circa 1950 acting uniforms; torn t-shirts, dirty jeans, unkempt hair, slouching demeanor. Then they made some comments about the upcoming Oscars. "I guess it's cool," one said. Another shouted (the hysterical Englishman) off camera when asked about 'The Social Network,' "It shouldn't even be CONSIDERED!" Another, looking particularly serious, muttered something about 'the money and the fame, yeah, I guess that's all okay.' They all shouted the name 'Natalie Portman!' when asked who they thought should win Best Actress and one girl piped up that 'to work and prepare for six months only eating nuts and fruit for a role, that's what it's all about.' Off camera once again we hear the attention-starved, verbose Brit, "Oh, is THAT all it takes!"
After that the teacher there at the 'institute' spoke briefly about the seriousness of the 'institute.' His last name was Strasberg, according to the subtitles, so I suppose he was a descendant of old Lee.
Anyway, the whole thing sort of plunged me back 28 years or so to my own college acting classes. I studied with an older gentleman (old to me, anyway, he was probably in his late fifties at that point) who worshipped at the hemlines of Uta Hagen. He meant well, he really did, but good Lord, thinking back on it now, I'm appalled.
And the sheer tonage of crap he stuffed into our impressionable heads back then is jaw-dropping as I think about it nowadays. I remember once, I'd just finished a scene with someone, sat down, and, in the fashion of one his idols, Lee Strasberg, he began to lecture. He said, "Okay, tell me what you did wrong." I said I didn't know, really, it had felt pretty good. "Can anyone tell him what he did wrong," he asked the rest of the class, dismissing me. Hands shot up everywhere. There were the usual suspect type answers: "I didn't feel he was in the moment." "He wasn't emotionally connected." "He wasn't committed on an organic level." And on and on. They were all parrot-like criticisms, the things they'd heard our teacher say ad nauseum over the years. Finally, he said, no, these were all valid comments but they weren't getting to the meat of the problem. So he narrowed it down. "Think back to when he pointed to the other actor during the scene. What did he do wrong?" Some muttered in confusion. "HE USED ONLY ONE FINGER!" Huh? "HE USED ONLY ONE FINGER!" He yelled again. "WHEN YOU POINT ONSTAGE YOU MUST USE TWO FINGERS SO THEY CAN SEE IT IN THE BACK ROW!"
And therin lies the wisdom of academia in a nutshell.
Oh, I'm not saying all college acting teachers are full of shit. I'm sure they're not. I'm sure there are some out there that are just dandy. But over the decades I've talked to hundreds of actors about the things they were taught in academia from well-meaning but clueless acting teachers.
This guy had only worked once, and for only one summer, as a professional actor himself. A summer-stock situation in the 1940s in New England. But he called upon those memories to make his points as though it were the Moscow Arts Company itself. "We worked and rehearsed seven days a week with only a half day off on Sunday to do our laundry. Other than that we spent every waking moment working on our craft!" No doubt this is where he picked up that whole 'point with two fingers' revelation.
Don't get me wrong, he was not a bad guy, although I locked horns with him repeatedly during my course of study there. But he was dangerous, I think. Dangerous in the sense that, like most of academia, he was woefully inadequate with regards to preparing his disciples for the hard, cold, unimaginably depressing world of professional theater.
I was lucky. In my early years in New York I stumbled, quite accidentally, across the brilliant actor/teacher Michael Moriarty. I learned more about acting from Michael in one night than I did in my previous four years of academia. And since then I've vehemently distrusted teachers and directors who haven't actually acted themselves.
So, anyway, I suspect that's what's going on over there at the 'institute.' I could be wrong. I often am. But probably not. First of all, any acting class that refers to itself as an 'institute' gives me pause.
I could write reams about Lee Strasberg and his iconic, narrow-minded, soul-sucking style of teaching. But I'm really not interested in doing that. Besides which there are a few actors out there, stellar actors, that would disagree: Pacino, Winters, Newman, DeNiro, to name only a few. But I think I would reference Stella Adler as a defense: "Good actors are good actors no matter what. I didn't 'teach' Brando anything. I just gently pushed him in the right direction."
In fact, Brando himself is on record as calling Strasberg a 'windbag' who 'liked to hear himself talk.' He never studied with Strasberg, despite the media-encouraged myth that he did. According to his own memoirs he only 'audited' a few classes with him and left after a week highly discouraged. There's a story of Pacino, early on in the filming of The Godfather, quoting Strasberg in front of Brando. Brando purportedly said, "If it makes you feel better, Al, go ahead and keep thinking that."
The uncomfortable truth is most acting teachers, academic or otherwise, are charlatans. They approach acting like math with clear and undeniable right choices and wrong choices. It's balderdash.
But, alas, the damage is done. After thirty years or so, everytime I point onstage I inwardly chuckle at the idea of using 'two fingers instead of one.' And sometimes, just to amuse myself, I do, in fact, use two fingers to point.
A few weeks ago, standing in the kitchen, Angie was cooking something. I was standing nearby sampling the wares, no doubt. She pointed, with one lonely, felonious finger, to some diced onions and said, "Could you hand me those, please?" I said, under my breath, "Can anyone tell me what she just did wrong?"
See you tomorrow.
After that the teacher there at the 'institute' spoke briefly about the seriousness of the 'institute.' His last name was Strasberg, according to the subtitles, so I suppose he was a descendant of old Lee.
Anyway, the whole thing sort of plunged me back 28 years or so to my own college acting classes. I studied with an older gentleman (old to me, anyway, he was probably in his late fifties at that point) who worshipped at the hemlines of Uta Hagen. He meant well, he really did, but good Lord, thinking back on it now, I'm appalled.
And the sheer tonage of crap he stuffed into our impressionable heads back then is jaw-dropping as I think about it nowadays. I remember once, I'd just finished a scene with someone, sat down, and, in the fashion of one his idols, Lee Strasberg, he began to lecture. He said, "Okay, tell me what you did wrong." I said I didn't know, really, it had felt pretty good. "Can anyone tell him what he did wrong," he asked the rest of the class, dismissing me. Hands shot up everywhere. There were the usual suspect type answers: "I didn't feel he was in the moment." "He wasn't emotionally connected." "He wasn't committed on an organic level." And on and on. They were all parrot-like criticisms, the things they'd heard our teacher say ad nauseum over the years. Finally, he said, no, these were all valid comments but they weren't getting to the meat of the problem. So he narrowed it down. "Think back to when he pointed to the other actor during the scene. What did he do wrong?" Some muttered in confusion. "HE USED ONLY ONE FINGER!" Huh? "HE USED ONLY ONE FINGER!" He yelled again. "WHEN YOU POINT ONSTAGE YOU MUST USE TWO FINGERS SO THEY CAN SEE IT IN THE BACK ROW!"
And therin lies the wisdom of academia in a nutshell.
Oh, I'm not saying all college acting teachers are full of shit. I'm sure they're not. I'm sure there are some out there that are just dandy. But over the decades I've talked to hundreds of actors about the things they were taught in academia from well-meaning but clueless acting teachers.
This guy had only worked once, and for only one summer, as a professional actor himself. A summer-stock situation in the 1940s in New England. But he called upon those memories to make his points as though it were the Moscow Arts Company itself. "We worked and rehearsed seven days a week with only a half day off on Sunday to do our laundry. Other than that we spent every waking moment working on our craft!" No doubt this is where he picked up that whole 'point with two fingers' revelation.
Don't get me wrong, he was not a bad guy, although I locked horns with him repeatedly during my course of study there. But he was dangerous, I think. Dangerous in the sense that, like most of academia, he was woefully inadequate with regards to preparing his disciples for the hard, cold, unimaginably depressing world of professional theater.
I was lucky. In my early years in New York I stumbled, quite accidentally, across the brilliant actor/teacher Michael Moriarty. I learned more about acting from Michael in one night than I did in my previous four years of academia. And since then I've vehemently distrusted teachers and directors who haven't actually acted themselves.
So, anyway, I suspect that's what's going on over there at the 'institute.' I could be wrong. I often am. But probably not. First of all, any acting class that refers to itself as an 'institute' gives me pause.
I could write reams about Lee Strasberg and his iconic, narrow-minded, soul-sucking style of teaching. But I'm really not interested in doing that. Besides which there are a few actors out there, stellar actors, that would disagree: Pacino, Winters, Newman, DeNiro, to name only a few. But I think I would reference Stella Adler as a defense: "Good actors are good actors no matter what. I didn't 'teach' Brando anything. I just gently pushed him in the right direction."
In fact, Brando himself is on record as calling Strasberg a 'windbag' who 'liked to hear himself talk.' He never studied with Strasberg, despite the media-encouraged myth that he did. According to his own memoirs he only 'audited' a few classes with him and left after a week highly discouraged. There's a story of Pacino, early on in the filming of The Godfather, quoting Strasberg in front of Brando. Brando purportedly said, "If it makes you feel better, Al, go ahead and keep thinking that."
The uncomfortable truth is most acting teachers, academic or otherwise, are charlatans. They approach acting like math with clear and undeniable right choices and wrong choices. It's balderdash.
But, alas, the damage is done. After thirty years or so, everytime I point onstage I inwardly chuckle at the idea of using 'two fingers instead of one.' And sometimes, just to amuse myself, I do, in fact, use two fingers to point.
A few weeks ago, standing in the kitchen, Angie was cooking something. I was standing nearby sampling the wares, no doubt. She pointed, with one lonely, felonious finger, to some diced onions and said, "Could you hand me those, please?" I said, under my breath, "Can anyone tell me what she just did wrong?"
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Writing is a Lonely Business.
Today I have to write a 'business plan.' I have no idea what that means or, really, how to go about writing it. But I'm going to give it a whirl. Angie and I are standing unsteadily on the edge of a new idea, one that is quite original, if I don't say so myself, and we're getting close to actually launching it. Now, one of the reasons (I say 'one' because there are so many) I'm not a particularly wealthy man is because I have absolutely no business sense. None whatsoever. I have a few friends that have 'portfolios' and 'investments' and 'retirement packages.' I don't have any of those things. In fact, I'm not even sure what some of those things are.
I remember some time back I was a 'guest artist' in a large Equity theater in upstate New York. It was actually a LORT A theater, so it wasn't a 'guest artist contract' as specified in EQUITY, the union for professional stage actors, but rather a new thing that had been drawn up specifically for me. A contract that outlined my duties as a teacher, director, and yes, an actor, over an entire season. It was intertwined with my duties for the the local university as well as the theater itself. It turned out to be quite a busy year.
In any event, I ended up having a longish 'thing' with a graduate student at the university. Part of the contract that my agent negotiated was this really beautiful apartment right on the river, high up, large balcony, tons of space, nicely furnished. The girl I was having this 'thing' with assumed it was my apartment and that I must be a reasonably wealthy guy. I did nothing to discourage this line of thought. So one night, quite secretively, she asked about my 'portfolio.' I told her not only did I have one, but that it was quite large and I hadn't even gotten around to using it yet. Problem was, I'd left it in my apartment in New York because I didn't anticipate having to do a lot of filing while I was up there. She was not amused.
So, this idea, this new business we're about to launch, is on my mind today. I haven't the faintest idea, of course, whether or not it will fly, but I suspect under ideal circumstances it could. And if so, it could be a wonderful little money making thing.
But, like most entrepenearial ideas, it will require seed money. Hence, the business plan.
I'm a little gun-shy about the whole venture because the last time I tried something like this (a new theatre company), once I had launched it and got it rolling, I had to go off for a bit to make some money and in my absence the whole thing came to a grinding halt. Taught me a lesson about starting a business with too many fingers in the pie. Not that I'm upset about this, it just happened. Falls under the category of 'if you want something done right, do it yourself.'
So this new thing is just my wife and I. My title is His High Chairman, Mr. President, In-Charge-of-All-Things and Angie's title is The Sensible One Who Actually Makes It Work. That's pretty much the way things are in my life, too.
If and when this idea takes flight, I'll be a bit more specific about it all.
In other news I am starting to gear up for some new playwriting, too. I have to finish a new play that's been hidden in the bottom of the proverbial trunk. It's tentatively called 'The Promise' and I think it's fairly good stuff. I went back and read what I have so far and, unusual for me, I actually sort of liked it. I started it about six months ago because I wanted a project that my friends and I could act in together: Jimmy Barbour, John Bader, Kyle Puccia, Rob Arbogast and myself. So I began writing it with the rare luxury of having actors in mind that might play it.
Unfortunately, I then went off to do this Adding Machine thing and it stopped for awhile. Well, today I'll pick it back up.
You know, I don't much enjoy writing. I have a good buddy of mine, an old, old, friend and one of the finest prose writers I've ever read, Jeff Wood, who says he likes writing quite a lot. Jeff, like most of my close friends, is much smarter than I am, and I suspect has a clear idea of what he wants when he sits down to a blank page. Not me. I do have an idea of how I want a play to start, sometimes an idea of what I want to happen, and once in a blue moon, an idea of how I want it to end. But further than that, I'm completely adrift.
I don't think I could ever be a full-time writer of any sort because I tend to write only when I'm engulfed in a wave of passion for a particular idea. For example, once I started writing 'Praying Small' I did nothing else for a few weeks; just wrote, ate, slept and wrote. And then, of course, the actual nuts and bolts of the craft began - the dreaded rewriting and editing. If possible I dislike rewriting and editing even more than the actual writing.
As Faulkner said in his famous speech upon accepting the Nobel Prize, it's a lonely business.
A lot of writer buddies I know say that HAVE to write in order to maintain their sanity. They say they don't care if no one ever reads it. They say it's the writing itself that is important. Well, that might be a great position to take if you're living on a dune in Provincetown in 1923, but it holds no luster for me today. I'd kinda like people to see and hear my stuff eventually.
Another part of writing that disturbs me is the fact that once a play is done it takes about thirty years for anyone to mount it. Well, not thirty years, but you get my drift. I'm an impatient guy. I want to finish the last sentence of the play and then go into rehearsal the next day. Obviously, that rarely if ever happens.
And I can't even imagine writing a screenplay for a major studio out here. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone wants to suggest rewrites. This is even true for the playwright who holds a position of near royalty in the live theatre as opposed to the screenwriter who is, at best, considered a necessary evil in Hollywood. It's the old George S. Kaufmann quote: 'Every human being has four needs in life: the need for food and water, the need to procreate, the need for shelter and the need to rewrite someone else's play.' Truer words were never spoken.
Now, for anyone who has ever read my work, they know that I tend to be fairly raw sometimes with the language. Like Mamet, I completely believe if you say an offensive word enough it loses the power to offend. This is the tact many rappers have taken with word 'nigger.' Although I personally have no use for rap, I completely support this point of view.
So, and this is a true story, once I had a play going up in Chicago. One of the play's themes was a fightening dose of misogyny. The director of the play, an otherwise sensible fellow, called me up one night and said, "You know, you've got seven 'cunts' in the play. I'd like to cut three of them. I think seven is simply too many and our audience will be offended." I said, "So, you're saying that four of them won't offend them but seven would push them over the edge?" "Yes," he said. "I think so."
I don't usually allow someone else to dictate the actual writing in one of my plays (a director recently tried very hard to do so out here in LA and the experience turned into an ugly ordeal), but this one time I said, okay, cut the other three cunts. Just out of curiosity, one night I attended a performance and talked to an audience member right after. I asked, "Tell me, did the fact that this guy in the play said the word 'cunt' four times, offend you?" He said, "Not at all...that's the way that guy talked. He was a dirt bag." So I said, "If he had said the word three more times would you have bolted from the theatre screaming in horror?" He didn't know I was the playwright and looked at me oddly. "Um, no. No I wouldn't have." Then he quickly brushed past me and pushed through the crowd in the lobby, darting looks back at the obviously crazy man behind him.
I don't know where I'm going with all of this. Just getting the old fingers warmed up, I guess. Which brings to mind a trick Stephen King talks about in his book 'On Writing.' He says when he's having trouble getting started in the morning, he'll pull out a favorite novel, in this case 'The Great Gatsby,' and begin typing it out, word for word. After a bit, he claims, the creative juices start to flow and he's ready to write his own stuff. Interesting.
Alright, courage summoned, healthy bowl of oatmeal in front of me, music in the background, fingers warmed up, mildly focused, ready, set...write.
See you tomorrow.
I remember some time back I was a 'guest artist' in a large Equity theater in upstate New York. It was actually a LORT A theater, so it wasn't a 'guest artist contract' as specified in EQUITY, the union for professional stage actors, but rather a new thing that had been drawn up specifically for me. A contract that outlined my duties as a teacher, director, and yes, an actor, over an entire season. It was intertwined with my duties for the the local university as well as the theater itself. It turned out to be quite a busy year.
In any event, I ended up having a longish 'thing' with a graduate student at the university. Part of the contract that my agent negotiated was this really beautiful apartment right on the river, high up, large balcony, tons of space, nicely furnished. The girl I was having this 'thing' with assumed it was my apartment and that I must be a reasonably wealthy guy. I did nothing to discourage this line of thought. So one night, quite secretively, she asked about my 'portfolio.' I told her not only did I have one, but that it was quite large and I hadn't even gotten around to using it yet. Problem was, I'd left it in my apartment in New York because I didn't anticipate having to do a lot of filing while I was up there. She was not amused.
So, this idea, this new business we're about to launch, is on my mind today. I haven't the faintest idea, of course, whether or not it will fly, but I suspect under ideal circumstances it could. And if so, it could be a wonderful little money making thing.
But, like most entrepenearial ideas, it will require seed money. Hence, the business plan.
I'm a little gun-shy about the whole venture because the last time I tried something like this (a new theatre company), once I had launched it and got it rolling, I had to go off for a bit to make some money and in my absence the whole thing came to a grinding halt. Taught me a lesson about starting a business with too many fingers in the pie. Not that I'm upset about this, it just happened. Falls under the category of 'if you want something done right, do it yourself.'
So this new thing is just my wife and I. My title is His High Chairman, Mr. President, In-Charge-of-All-Things and Angie's title is The Sensible One Who Actually Makes It Work. That's pretty much the way things are in my life, too.
If and when this idea takes flight, I'll be a bit more specific about it all.
In other news I am starting to gear up for some new playwriting, too. I have to finish a new play that's been hidden in the bottom of the proverbial trunk. It's tentatively called 'The Promise' and I think it's fairly good stuff. I went back and read what I have so far and, unusual for me, I actually sort of liked it. I started it about six months ago because I wanted a project that my friends and I could act in together: Jimmy Barbour, John Bader, Kyle Puccia, Rob Arbogast and myself. So I began writing it with the rare luxury of having actors in mind that might play it.
Unfortunately, I then went off to do this Adding Machine thing and it stopped for awhile. Well, today I'll pick it back up.
You know, I don't much enjoy writing. I have a good buddy of mine, an old, old, friend and one of the finest prose writers I've ever read, Jeff Wood, who says he likes writing quite a lot. Jeff, like most of my close friends, is much smarter than I am, and I suspect has a clear idea of what he wants when he sits down to a blank page. Not me. I do have an idea of how I want a play to start, sometimes an idea of what I want to happen, and once in a blue moon, an idea of how I want it to end. But further than that, I'm completely adrift.
I don't think I could ever be a full-time writer of any sort because I tend to write only when I'm engulfed in a wave of passion for a particular idea. For example, once I started writing 'Praying Small' I did nothing else for a few weeks; just wrote, ate, slept and wrote. And then, of course, the actual nuts and bolts of the craft began - the dreaded rewriting and editing. If possible I dislike rewriting and editing even more than the actual writing.
As Faulkner said in his famous speech upon accepting the Nobel Prize, it's a lonely business.
A lot of writer buddies I know say that HAVE to write in order to maintain their sanity. They say they don't care if no one ever reads it. They say it's the writing itself that is important. Well, that might be a great position to take if you're living on a dune in Provincetown in 1923, but it holds no luster for me today. I'd kinda like people to see and hear my stuff eventually.
Another part of writing that disturbs me is the fact that once a play is done it takes about thirty years for anyone to mount it. Well, not thirty years, but you get my drift. I'm an impatient guy. I want to finish the last sentence of the play and then go into rehearsal the next day. Obviously, that rarely if ever happens.
And I can't even imagine writing a screenplay for a major studio out here. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone wants to suggest rewrites. This is even true for the playwright who holds a position of near royalty in the live theatre as opposed to the screenwriter who is, at best, considered a necessary evil in Hollywood. It's the old George S. Kaufmann quote: 'Every human being has four needs in life: the need for food and water, the need to procreate, the need for shelter and the need to rewrite someone else's play.' Truer words were never spoken.
Now, for anyone who has ever read my work, they know that I tend to be fairly raw sometimes with the language. Like Mamet, I completely believe if you say an offensive word enough it loses the power to offend. This is the tact many rappers have taken with word 'nigger.' Although I personally have no use for rap, I completely support this point of view.
So, and this is a true story, once I had a play going up in Chicago. One of the play's themes was a fightening dose of misogyny. The director of the play, an otherwise sensible fellow, called me up one night and said, "You know, you've got seven 'cunts' in the play. I'd like to cut three of them. I think seven is simply too many and our audience will be offended." I said, "So, you're saying that four of them won't offend them but seven would push them over the edge?" "Yes," he said. "I think so."
I don't usually allow someone else to dictate the actual writing in one of my plays (a director recently tried very hard to do so out here in LA and the experience turned into an ugly ordeal), but this one time I said, okay, cut the other three cunts. Just out of curiosity, one night I attended a performance and talked to an audience member right after. I asked, "Tell me, did the fact that this guy in the play said the word 'cunt' four times, offend you?" He said, "Not at all...that's the way that guy talked. He was a dirt bag." So I said, "If he had said the word three more times would you have bolted from the theatre screaming in horror?" He didn't know I was the playwright and looked at me oddly. "Um, no. No I wouldn't have." Then he quickly brushed past me and pushed through the crowd in the lobby, darting looks back at the obviously crazy man behind him.
I don't know where I'm going with all of this. Just getting the old fingers warmed up, I guess. Which brings to mind a trick Stephen King talks about in his book 'On Writing.' He says when he's having trouble getting started in the morning, he'll pull out a favorite novel, in this case 'The Great Gatsby,' and begin typing it out, word for word. After a bit, he claims, the creative juices start to flow and he's ready to write his own stuff. Interesting.
Alright, courage summoned, healthy bowl of oatmeal in front of me, music in the background, fingers warmed up, mildly focused, ready, set...write.
See you tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
More Gibberish on Turning 50.
I think it's time to seriously re-think this whole diet and exercise thing. In a week I turn fifty. Fifty. I can scarce type the word without feeling a chill. I can't help but feel, like that series of bad horror movies, the name of which escapes me at the moment, that there's been a serious mistake somewhere. Some great scorekeeper of the clouds has a call in right this very moment to his superior who's office is on the cloud above him..."Got this guy here, slipped through somehow, he's turning fifty. Please advise."
As I sit here pecking away I can think of, with no effort whatsoever, at least ten different occasions when I cheated the scythe. A bit like Captain Kirk in one of the last Star Trek movies. Although I think I've always had better taste in trousers than Kirk. Anyway, I think, like James T. Kirk, I've always been a bit skeptical about getting older. "Bones," I hear myself saying, "I've (searching pause, not in the written dialogue)...I've...cheated death. I've laughed at it. I've (another inexplicable pause)...danced(yet another)...around...it."
In any event, it's an odd feeling, this turning half a century business. When I dream of myself, I'm always about twenty eight or so. I don't know if this is how others dream of themselves. I should ask around, I suppose. But I'm always around that age. Perhaps that's when I felt best about myself. I don't know. Regardless, I never dream of myself as being in my forties.
In many ways I understand completely now when over the years I've heard people say, old codgers, to my way of thinking, 'I don't FEEL fifty.' Well, I don't, despite the complications of diabetes I've recently had to contend with.
Now, I have no interest in getting all philisophical about this right now...I already did that in a blog a couple of weeks ago. No, I'm really just curious about the whole thing. I mean, it's just another day, the day I turn fifty. Right?
I've been reading (in fact, I'm finished now) a published, day-to-day diary/journal kept by Sir Alec Guinness lately. He was eighty three when he wrote it. It was published in 1996 and Guinness had four years to live. Not surprisingly, at eighty three Guinness is obssessed with the idea of dying. Mostly because all of his friends are dying. That's not the case with me, although I've certainly seen my share of death amongst friends I've known over the years.
In my play, From the East to the West, there is a recurring line that each character, at one point or another, says: 'How did I get here?' That's more or less the way I feel. How did I make it this far? How did this oversight escape unnoticed? And it's never a comfort when older people say to me, "Ah, you're a youngster still." A very fine actress, a girl who's name I've long forgotten, once said to me long ago while doing a play together in NYC, "I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night."
The most telling billboard about all this aging business is most readily apparent when I haven't seen someone for many years. It happened to me when I first moved to LA. A friend of mine, at one point in my life a very close friend of mine, had moved here a decade or so before me. The last time I'd seen him was in Louisville, KY, when I was doing a play down that way. I hadn't seen him since. He drove over a few weeks after I'd gotten here. I was visibly stunned at how much he'd aged. And vice versa, obviously, because he immediately said upon seeing me, "Where's Clif? I thought I was supposed to meet Clif here."
Funny. And a bit sad.
There's another of my plays, Bachelor's Graveyard, in which the leading character, in much the same way Terrence McNally does in 'Love, Valour, Compassion,' skips ahead chronologically and tells the audience exactly how and when another character dies. It's a terrible device, really, not because it doesn't work, it does, but because it would be absolutely terrifying to have that information at one's fingertips. It's an old parlour game...if you could know the exact date and fashion of your death, would you want to know? I think not. At least not me.
There's another phrase, often used as a punchline of sorts, that comes to mind: 'How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.' Now THAT has certainly been a truism in my life.
But enough of all this yammering about death. These are the good, old days, as a folk singer once said. One of the interesting things about reaching the startling age of fifty is the single, unexpected fact that I find myself living what Thoreau, sitting stiffly beside his touted pond, called 'a life of the mind.' Or what, a few years earlier, Socrates warned of 'a life unexamined.' I do not fear that old Greek's advice. I've spent the better part of a year now examining the road less traveled. Wow, three dusty allusions in one paragraph. How's that for pretention?
In any event, I have very few regrets. Things I might have done differntly, oh, good God, yes, but regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention...Stop it. Just stop it. Where was I? Oh, yes. Regrets. I regret being, on occasion, unkind. Tennessee Williams believed the only 'unforgivable sin' was 'deliberate cruelty.' I think he may have been on to something with that. I sincerely regret being unkind.
I suppose, by natural progression, I ought to start thinking about my epitaph. I say this in jest, of course, but epitaphs have always fascinated me. W.C. Fields had written on his gravestone, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Which, upon first hearing, I thought was pretty funny. But thinking about it now, given the root word 'Philadelphia,' I think it may be a bit more thought out.
My favorite is Jack Benny's, a lifelong hypochondriac. Written on his tombstone? "See, I told you I was sick." That still makes me chuckle all these years later.
But I think, upon serious consideration, I'd prefer mine to be almost common. Succinct, really, and what I'd like. I've already told Angie.
I want it to say simply, "A good husband and person who sincerely regrets any unkindness."
My second choice is more ambiguous. It would say, "Pizza, pizza, pizza!" Because then I'd know the movie was about to start.
See you tomorrow.
As I sit here pecking away I can think of, with no effort whatsoever, at least ten different occasions when I cheated the scythe. A bit like Captain Kirk in one of the last Star Trek movies. Although I think I've always had better taste in trousers than Kirk. Anyway, I think, like James T. Kirk, I've always been a bit skeptical about getting older. "Bones," I hear myself saying, "I've (searching pause, not in the written dialogue)...I've...cheated death. I've laughed at it. I've (another inexplicable pause)...danced(yet another)...around...it."
In any event, it's an odd feeling, this turning half a century business. When I dream of myself, I'm always about twenty eight or so. I don't know if this is how others dream of themselves. I should ask around, I suppose. But I'm always around that age. Perhaps that's when I felt best about myself. I don't know. Regardless, I never dream of myself as being in my forties.
In many ways I understand completely now when over the years I've heard people say, old codgers, to my way of thinking, 'I don't FEEL fifty.' Well, I don't, despite the complications of diabetes I've recently had to contend with.
Now, I have no interest in getting all philisophical about this right now...I already did that in a blog a couple of weeks ago. No, I'm really just curious about the whole thing. I mean, it's just another day, the day I turn fifty. Right?
I've been reading (in fact, I'm finished now) a published, day-to-day diary/journal kept by Sir Alec Guinness lately. He was eighty three when he wrote it. It was published in 1996 and Guinness had four years to live. Not surprisingly, at eighty three Guinness is obssessed with the idea of dying. Mostly because all of his friends are dying. That's not the case with me, although I've certainly seen my share of death amongst friends I've known over the years.
In my play, From the East to the West, there is a recurring line that each character, at one point or another, says: 'How did I get here?' That's more or less the way I feel. How did I make it this far? How did this oversight escape unnoticed? And it's never a comfort when older people say to me, "Ah, you're a youngster still." A very fine actress, a girl who's name I've long forgotten, once said to me long ago while doing a play together in NYC, "I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night."
The most telling billboard about all this aging business is most readily apparent when I haven't seen someone for many years. It happened to me when I first moved to LA. A friend of mine, at one point in my life a very close friend of mine, had moved here a decade or so before me. The last time I'd seen him was in Louisville, KY, when I was doing a play down that way. I hadn't seen him since. He drove over a few weeks after I'd gotten here. I was visibly stunned at how much he'd aged. And vice versa, obviously, because he immediately said upon seeing me, "Where's Clif? I thought I was supposed to meet Clif here."
Funny. And a bit sad.
There's another of my plays, Bachelor's Graveyard, in which the leading character, in much the same way Terrence McNally does in 'Love, Valour, Compassion,' skips ahead chronologically and tells the audience exactly how and when another character dies. It's a terrible device, really, not because it doesn't work, it does, but because it would be absolutely terrifying to have that information at one's fingertips. It's an old parlour game...if you could know the exact date and fashion of your death, would you want to know? I think not. At least not me.
There's another phrase, often used as a punchline of sorts, that comes to mind: 'How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.' Now THAT has certainly been a truism in my life.
But enough of all this yammering about death. These are the good, old days, as a folk singer once said. One of the interesting things about reaching the startling age of fifty is the single, unexpected fact that I find myself living what Thoreau, sitting stiffly beside his touted pond, called 'a life of the mind.' Or what, a few years earlier, Socrates warned of 'a life unexamined.' I do not fear that old Greek's advice. I've spent the better part of a year now examining the road less traveled. Wow, three dusty allusions in one paragraph. How's that for pretention?
In any event, I have very few regrets. Things I might have done differntly, oh, good God, yes, but regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention...Stop it. Just stop it. Where was I? Oh, yes. Regrets. I regret being, on occasion, unkind. Tennessee Williams believed the only 'unforgivable sin' was 'deliberate cruelty.' I think he may have been on to something with that. I sincerely regret being unkind.
I suppose, by natural progression, I ought to start thinking about my epitaph. I say this in jest, of course, but epitaphs have always fascinated me. W.C. Fields had written on his gravestone, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Which, upon first hearing, I thought was pretty funny. But thinking about it now, given the root word 'Philadelphia,' I think it may be a bit more thought out.
My favorite is Jack Benny's, a lifelong hypochondriac. Written on his tombstone? "See, I told you I was sick." That still makes me chuckle all these years later.
But I think, upon serious consideration, I'd prefer mine to be almost common. Succinct, really, and what I'd like. I've already told Angie.
I want it to say simply, "A good husband and person who sincerely regrets any unkindness."
My second choice is more ambiguous. It would say, "Pizza, pizza, pizza!" Because then I'd know the movie was about to start.
See you tomorrow.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Two Not-So-Bad Movies Over The Weekend.
I've been dealing with unexpected complications with regards to the 'silent killer' (diabetes) the past couple of days. Consequently I spent a goodly amount of time on the couch watching some movies I've recorded.
The first was a movie Angie had never seen, 'Come Back, Little Sheba,' a 1952 film based on the William Inge play. The extraordinary Shirley Booth reprised her stage role in the movie and she's just teriffic in every possible way. Unfortunately, Burt Lancaster is miscast opposite her as the shaky recovering alcoholic husband, Doc. Funny, because I remember seeing the film some twenty years ago and vaguely recall Lancaster being good. Well, he's as good as he can be under the circumstances, I suppose, but woefully miscast, ultimately.
The play is one of those rare ones that is so stunningly good in terms of ideas and themes, but badly written. Much of the language (it was written in 1949) is terribly dated. But aside from that the play itself works on so many different levels. It's just a blisteringly good idea, but it was Inge's first play and he didn't quite have the horses to pull that cart as a writer yet. It is one of the few plays that I would love to go back and rewrite myself. That sounds a tad arrogant, but I kept thinking it all the way through. Somehow it has become a bit of a 'sacred cow' over the years and the idea of tampering with it makes theater purists a bit crazy. I don't care, I'd really love to update the script and make it relevant to today.
My God, what a sad story. And a lot of the sadness comes from Booth. Yes, it's a very well-sculptured role, but she takes it to an entirely different level with her astonishing performance. She deservedly won the Oscar for it. Lancaster, on the other hand, is playing a role clearly written as a frumpy, past-his-prime, living-in-his-head, scaredy-cat. Lancaster, especially later in his career, had some chops. That's not the problem. The problem is he's too young for the role and too goodlooking. The character should be at the end of his rope, physically unappealing, caught forever in a daily existence of en oui. Lancaster, through no real fault of his own, looks like he could run away and be a gigolo if he wanted.
But the core of the movie is still there. It made Angie cry (and me, too, actually). As well it should. It's such a great idea for a drama. And a little more poignant knowing that Inge himself died of alcoholism some twenty years later. I kept thinking what a remarkable film it would have been if Spencer Tracy had played the role instead of Burt Lancaster.
The second film was a surprise. A surprise in the sense that I completely expected it to be a laugh-riot, tongue firmly planted in cheek, much like, say, 'Dusk Till Dawn' is a funny film. It's called 'Hostel' and it's produced by Tarantino and directed by Eli Roth. It follows the same sort of pattern as the DiCaprio movie 'The Beach.' Some youngish, American party types are looking for fun and sex in Europe while backpacking across the continent. They unexpectedly hear about the existence of a sex-filled, girl-laden hostel in Slovakia so they hop on a train and head over there to check it out. And I'll be damned if the movie doesn't actually get scary at this point. Now, to be honest, it's nothing to write home about. I mean, it's not in the same league as, say, 'Silence of the Lambs' or 'Jaws' or 'The Exorcist,' but it's pretty spooky nonetheless. And the special effects are dead-on. To say much more would spill the beans about the film, but suffice to say it manages to make a very believable right turn from 'Beach Party Movie' to genunine 'Scare the Shit Out of You Movie.' And even though Roth directed it, there are very clear touches of Tarantino throughout.
And the sheer ability to go from a movie apparently about topless girls sitting on a bed, breasts bouncing enticingly, giggling and uttering inanities to a hide-your-eyes, real-assed horror flick is in and of itself quite an achievement.
Anyway, there you have it. 'Come Back, Little Sheba' and 'Hostel,' two movies to which I give a half-assed thumbs up.
The old blood pressure is fluctuating wildly. So much so, in fact, that the play had to be cancelled yesterday because I was having trouble standing up. Waves of dizziness. Saturday's show was a nightmare for me. There were four separate spots in the show I actually thought I might lose my balance and pass out.
Good Lord, I hate getting old.
Seeing you tomorrow.
The first was a movie Angie had never seen, 'Come Back, Little Sheba,' a 1952 film based on the William Inge play. The extraordinary Shirley Booth reprised her stage role in the movie and she's just teriffic in every possible way. Unfortunately, Burt Lancaster is miscast opposite her as the shaky recovering alcoholic husband, Doc. Funny, because I remember seeing the film some twenty years ago and vaguely recall Lancaster being good. Well, he's as good as he can be under the circumstances, I suppose, but woefully miscast, ultimately.
The play is one of those rare ones that is so stunningly good in terms of ideas and themes, but badly written. Much of the language (it was written in 1949) is terribly dated. But aside from that the play itself works on so many different levels. It's just a blisteringly good idea, but it was Inge's first play and he didn't quite have the horses to pull that cart as a writer yet. It is one of the few plays that I would love to go back and rewrite myself. That sounds a tad arrogant, but I kept thinking it all the way through. Somehow it has become a bit of a 'sacred cow' over the years and the idea of tampering with it makes theater purists a bit crazy. I don't care, I'd really love to update the script and make it relevant to today.
My God, what a sad story. And a lot of the sadness comes from Booth. Yes, it's a very well-sculptured role, but she takes it to an entirely different level with her astonishing performance. She deservedly won the Oscar for it. Lancaster, on the other hand, is playing a role clearly written as a frumpy, past-his-prime, living-in-his-head, scaredy-cat. Lancaster, especially later in his career, had some chops. That's not the problem. The problem is he's too young for the role and too goodlooking. The character should be at the end of his rope, physically unappealing, caught forever in a daily existence of en oui. Lancaster, through no real fault of his own, looks like he could run away and be a gigolo if he wanted.
But the core of the movie is still there. It made Angie cry (and me, too, actually). As well it should. It's such a great idea for a drama. And a little more poignant knowing that Inge himself died of alcoholism some twenty years later. I kept thinking what a remarkable film it would have been if Spencer Tracy had played the role instead of Burt Lancaster.
The second film was a surprise. A surprise in the sense that I completely expected it to be a laugh-riot, tongue firmly planted in cheek, much like, say, 'Dusk Till Dawn' is a funny film. It's called 'Hostel' and it's produced by Tarantino and directed by Eli Roth. It follows the same sort of pattern as the DiCaprio movie 'The Beach.' Some youngish, American party types are looking for fun and sex in Europe while backpacking across the continent. They unexpectedly hear about the existence of a sex-filled, girl-laden hostel in Slovakia so they hop on a train and head over there to check it out. And I'll be damned if the movie doesn't actually get scary at this point. Now, to be honest, it's nothing to write home about. I mean, it's not in the same league as, say, 'Silence of the Lambs' or 'Jaws' or 'The Exorcist,' but it's pretty spooky nonetheless. And the special effects are dead-on. To say much more would spill the beans about the film, but suffice to say it manages to make a very believable right turn from 'Beach Party Movie' to genunine 'Scare the Shit Out of You Movie.' And even though Roth directed it, there are very clear touches of Tarantino throughout.
And the sheer ability to go from a movie apparently about topless girls sitting on a bed, breasts bouncing enticingly, giggling and uttering inanities to a hide-your-eyes, real-assed horror flick is in and of itself quite an achievement.
Anyway, there you have it. 'Come Back, Little Sheba' and 'Hostel,' two movies to which I give a half-assed thumbs up.
The old blood pressure is fluctuating wildly. So much so, in fact, that the play had to be cancelled yesterday because I was having trouble standing up. Waves of dizziness. Saturday's show was a nightmare for me. There were four separate spots in the show I actually thought I might lose my balance and pass out.
Good Lord, I hate getting old.
Seeing you tomorrow.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Books.
Yesterday, a dear friend brought over a couple boxes of books and gave them to me. He no longer had the room to store them, apparently. It was an ecclectic bunch of books ranging from biographies of Orson Welles and Marlon Brando to sassy, cutting edge cookbooks to fantasy genre to Jack Kerouac (my favorite quote on Kerouac: when Johnny Carson asked Truman Capote what he thought of this 'hot, new writer,' Capote replied, "That's not writing, that's typing."). There's even a copy of 'The Great Gatsby,' arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century.
By God, I love books. They have been my salvation throughout a sometimes turbulent life. Not film, not tv, not theatre, not religion, not love, but books. Books. Books have been the constant in my life that have kept me from spinning off into a life of true apathy and self-destruction. Now, that's a heady statement, to be sure, but I believe it whole-heartedly.
Many years ago in New York when I was suffering through a savage break-up (and only age and late-life understanding have finally made me realize that nothing, nothing at all, can ease the pain of love lost...except the passage of time...and that's always a poor trade-off) I didn't leave my apartment for a month. I just sat indoors and read. And read. And read. And a month later, I finally escaped my self-imposed exile a better person. That was my Faulkner period. During that month of self-pity I devoured everything Billy Faulkner had ever written.
Skip ahead about ten years and I was in Rochester, NY, and again suffering through a devestating break-up (beginning to sound like a pattern, isn't it). I was teaching at the time and would only leave the apartment to go to class, and afterwards would race home and start reading again. This was my holocaust period. I was pouring over everything I could find about the Jewish Holocaust. There was no connection between that particular subject matter and my broken heart, it just turned out that way.
When I first moved to NYC I was often scared witless. I mean, here I was, 23 years old in New York, knowing hardly anyone, working as a waiter in an anonymous restaurant, absolutely no idea what my next step in life might be, and I discovered the works of John D. McDonald and Robert Parker and Dashiell Hammett. After my lunch shift I'd keep my brave face on until I got back to my apartment in Jersey City and spend the evening enveloped in that unmistakably American genre writing, the detective story. Parker, incidentally, recently passed away. He's a vastly underrated writer. A terrific story teller.
And, of course, when my mom died in a boat accident in 1987, once again, I took refuge in books. I needed some powerful voo-doo for that one. And it was then that I started on the Russians: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky and Pushkin. Those old Russians saved me. They took me to places where mid-summer, tragic, middle-class houseboat accidents didn't happen.
Naturally, over the years, I've developed favorites. John Irving is one. I love opening a new Irving book. Mostly because he's one of the few writers around today that always surprises me. Yes, one can always count on at least a passing reference to Austria, hotels, bears, wrestling or incest, but man oh man, can he surprise me. He may be the only living writer that has had me weeping with laughter and only a few pages later weeping with genuine sorrow. He is the Dickens of our time. An absolute master story teller.
But I'm not a snob about reading. I devour King and Grisham and Clancy, too. In fact, one of the books I recieved yesterday was King's 'Bag of Bones,' perhaps my favorite of King's later books. My early King favorite was, oddly, 'Pet Semetary.' That book, for some reason, scared the bejesus out of me. And make no mistake, now and then King can do some real writing. He'll be chugging along with all of his paranormal yadayada and suddenly, out of nowhere, he'll write a heart-breaking paragraph, as good as any writer working today anywhere. King, despite being the best-selling author in the history of mankind, is no lightweight. When he chooses, he can write like a house-a-fire.
Early in life, of course, I discovered Hemingway and Salinger, two writers that planted ideas and phrases in my head that have forever taken residence. Hemingway was the master at writing the exact right word at the exact right time. There's a story about him being unable to submit his novel, 'The Sun Also Rises' because he couldn't find the right word for the last sentence. The protagonist, Jake, is confronted with his ex-lover and she says something along the lines of 'We could be happy forever together...the best of lives.' Jake finally answers, 'Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.' It took Hemingways months to find the word, 'pretty.' Remember, he was at the top of his game then, the world breathlessly awaiting his next masterpiece. And he held it up for months in order to find that word. Nice.
And Salinger. Ah, Salinger. First I found 'Catcher in the Rye' like most teenage boys. Later I discovered my favorite of his, 'Franny and Zooey.' It is the most important book of my life, along with Irving's 'Prayer for Owen Meany.' I've read it dozens of times and still find something new. I give it out yearly as Christmas presents. I buy it for students because I think it's the most valuable book an actor can ever read. I've probably given away over a hundred copies of the book over the years. If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly. It addresses the idea of honesty in acting, truth on stage, integrity amidst lies. An astonishing piece of writing. And it's a quick read, too. A novella, really. If you haven't read it, run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore.
And even though for some years I made my living as a playwright, I've never really enjoyed reading plays. Plays are meant to be seen not read. Hence the bad rap Shakepeare has gotten over the centuries. Who among us hasn't had to sit through an English class reading 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'Julius Caesar' out loud? Oh, the humanity. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that I finally figured out what all the fuss was about Shakespeare. He was meant to be seen, not read. Shakespeare done well is among life's greatest pleasures. And during my journey of discovering Shakespeare I came to the conclusion that there is Shakespeare and then there is every other writer in the history of the planet. His work lives unchallenged on a hill by itself. He grasped the human condition more completely than anyone before or since. But, Christ, it's hard to get my students to understand this. And mostly it's because of all those clueless high school English teachers crassly tossing his work around like a bucket of dead fish. Academia has nearly single-handedly hidden the genius of Shakespeare.
So I gots me some new books. And I am quivering with anticipation. Today I begin a personal and joy-filled quest into the world of Orson Welles, and later I'll have a front row seat as dragons terrorize the night skies, and after that I'll enter the life of Jay Gatsby once again and lovingly wonder why he was so lonely and what great burdens he carried, what mysteries he locked away in his heart, what kept him from saying, "I love you" to the great love of his life. And I'll envision the great eyes of a billboard staring accusingly at all that pass by and I'll sit on a long dock at the end of a long day and picture, in my mind, the unblinking green light across the bay.
See you tomorrow.
By God, I love books. They have been my salvation throughout a sometimes turbulent life. Not film, not tv, not theatre, not religion, not love, but books. Books. Books have been the constant in my life that have kept me from spinning off into a life of true apathy and self-destruction. Now, that's a heady statement, to be sure, but I believe it whole-heartedly.
Many years ago in New York when I was suffering through a savage break-up (and only age and late-life understanding have finally made me realize that nothing, nothing at all, can ease the pain of love lost...except the passage of time...and that's always a poor trade-off) I didn't leave my apartment for a month. I just sat indoors and read. And read. And read. And a month later, I finally escaped my self-imposed exile a better person. That was my Faulkner period. During that month of self-pity I devoured everything Billy Faulkner had ever written.
Skip ahead about ten years and I was in Rochester, NY, and again suffering through a devestating break-up (beginning to sound like a pattern, isn't it). I was teaching at the time and would only leave the apartment to go to class, and afterwards would race home and start reading again. This was my holocaust period. I was pouring over everything I could find about the Jewish Holocaust. There was no connection between that particular subject matter and my broken heart, it just turned out that way.
When I first moved to NYC I was often scared witless. I mean, here I was, 23 years old in New York, knowing hardly anyone, working as a waiter in an anonymous restaurant, absolutely no idea what my next step in life might be, and I discovered the works of John D. McDonald and Robert Parker and Dashiell Hammett. After my lunch shift I'd keep my brave face on until I got back to my apartment in Jersey City and spend the evening enveloped in that unmistakably American genre writing, the detective story. Parker, incidentally, recently passed away. He's a vastly underrated writer. A terrific story teller.
And, of course, when my mom died in a boat accident in 1987, once again, I took refuge in books. I needed some powerful voo-doo for that one. And it was then that I started on the Russians: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky and Pushkin. Those old Russians saved me. They took me to places where mid-summer, tragic, middle-class houseboat accidents didn't happen.
Naturally, over the years, I've developed favorites. John Irving is one. I love opening a new Irving book. Mostly because he's one of the few writers around today that always surprises me. Yes, one can always count on at least a passing reference to Austria, hotels, bears, wrestling or incest, but man oh man, can he surprise me. He may be the only living writer that has had me weeping with laughter and only a few pages later weeping with genuine sorrow. He is the Dickens of our time. An absolute master story teller.
But I'm not a snob about reading. I devour King and Grisham and Clancy, too. In fact, one of the books I recieved yesterday was King's 'Bag of Bones,' perhaps my favorite of King's later books. My early King favorite was, oddly, 'Pet Semetary.' That book, for some reason, scared the bejesus out of me. And make no mistake, now and then King can do some real writing. He'll be chugging along with all of his paranormal yadayada and suddenly, out of nowhere, he'll write a heart-breaking paragraph, as good as any writer working today anywhere. King, despite being the best-selling author in the history of mankind, is no lightweight. When he chooses, he can write like a house-a-fire.
Early in life, of course, I discovered Hemingway and Salinger, two writers that planted ideas and phrases in my head that have forever taken residence. Hemingway was the master at writing the exact right word at the exact right time. There's a story about him being unable to submit his novel, 'The Sun Also Rises' because he couldn't find the right word for the last sentence. The protagonist, Jake, is confronted with his ex-lover and she says something along the lines of 'We could be happy forever together...the best of lives.' Jake finally answers, 'Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.' It took Hemingways months to find the word, 'pretty.' Remember, he was at the top of his game then, the world breathlessly awaiting his next masterpiece. And he held it up for months in order to find that word. Nice.
And Salinger. Ah, Salinger. First I found 'Catcher in the Rye' like most teenage boys. Later I discovered my favorite of his, 'Franny and Zooey.' It is the most important book of my life, along with Irving's 'Prayer for Owen Meany.' I've read it dozens of times and still find something new. I give it out yearly as Christmas presents. I buy it for students because I think it's the most valuable book an actor can ever read. I've probably given away over a hundred copies of the book over the years. If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly. It addresses the idea of honesty in acting, truth on stage, integrity amidst lies. An astonishing piece of writing. And it's a quick read, too. A novella, really. If you haven't read it, run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore.
And even though for some years I made my living as a playwright, I've never really enjoyed reading plays. Plays are meant to be seen not read. Hence the bad rap Shakepeare has gotten over the centuries. Who among us hasn't had to sit through an English class reading 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'Julius Caesar' out loud? Oh, the humanity. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that I finally figured out what all the fuss was about Shakespeare. He was meant to be seen, not read. Shakespeare done well is among life's greatest pleasures. And during my journey of discovering Shakespeare I came to the conclusion that there is Shakespeare and then there is every other writer in the history of the planet. His work lives unchallenged on a hill by itself. He grasped the human condition more completely than anyone before or since. But, Christ, it's hard to get my students to understand this. And mostly it's because of all those clueless high school English teachers crassly tossing his work around like a bucket of dead fish. Academia has nearly single-handedly hidden the genius of Shakespeare.
So I gots me some new books. And I am quivering with anticipation. Today I begin a personal and joy-filled quest into the world of Orson Welles, and later I'll have a front row seat as dragons terrorize the night skies, and after that I'll enter the life of Jay Gatsby once again and lovingly wonder why he was so lonely and what great burdens he carried, what mysteries he locked away in his heart, what kept him from saying, "I love you" to the great love of his life. And I'll envision the great eyes of a billboard staring accusingly at all that pass by and I'll sit on a long dock at the end of a long day and picture, in my mind, the unblinking green light across the bay.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Rich Get Richer, etc.
I don't usually blog about political issues and I'm not going to start now. For one thing I'm too dumb. But recently I posted an article on Facebook about the widening divide between the ultra-rich and the so-called 'middle-class' in this country. It sparked a fire fight because a couple of conservative Facebook friends weighed in on the issue. I was mildly surprised at the rage and online hissing that followed.
Really, however, I don't know why anyone is surprised. Not at the reaction to the posts, but at the reality of the situation. I think the simple fact that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a natural endgame to capitalism. I mean, come on, it's at the very root of the American dream. It is the pot of gold at the end of the idealogical rainbow, the game-winning response to the final American jeapardy question; in short, it is the solution we sought, not the problem we've inadvertently created. And now, 235 years after the fact, we're shocked and awed it turned out this way at all.
I don't mean to sound elementary here, but the final goal of capitalism is not, regardless of what we've been taught, supply and demand. No, not at all. The final goal of capitalism is who can screw the most people out of the most money in the shortest amount of time. And the circus-like atmosphere that envelops this nation in the high-stakes game of disguising that fact has become treacherous and partisan, to say the least.
The great experiment known as democracy has succeeded. I can't remember who said it and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's been called 'the worst system of government on earth...until you look at all the others.' And make no mistake, democracy and capitalism are forever and permanently bound together.
And yet, we (and by 'we' I mean 'me') are outraged by it. The combined income of the wealthiest ten percent of American citizens comes to approximately 1.7 trillion dollars. The bottom fifty percent comes to 1.6 trillion dollars. We're coming to the end of the monopoly game, Gentle Readers, and there are winners and losers. As in every single aspect of life in the 21st century, there are winners and losers. It is an extension of Darwin's survival of the fittest and, as in nature itself, the most adaptable, the boldest, the strongest, the ones without remorse, the quickest to the draw, continue to thrive and flourish. The weak, the less aggressive, the slow and careless, the moral and fair-minded are destined to live in the dreaded bottom fifty percent.
Even Jesus, allegedly delivering his inauguration address from the mount, acknowledged the inherent unfairness in Darwin's theory. He extolled the virtues of 'the weak,' encouraging them and offering the consolation prize of 'inheriting the earth,' of partaking in a much fairer plain of existence in the afterlife, promising everyone a 'mansion' in the kingdom of heaven, and mollifying the disgruntled masses by promising that 'the rich man' cannot enter. It was tantamount to the after game speech from a disappointed little league coach...'we'll get 'em next year, boys.'
This is the system of economy our ancestors bled and died for. We won. Our dreams came true. Everything we stood for, believed in, were taught was sacred, has come to fruition. And, as Cervantes warned, we were apparently not careful enough in our wishes, because we have had the misfortune to have them granted. The rich, not the meek, have inherited the earth. And we're all just starting to shake off the effects of the dream and coming to grips with the fact that it wasn't a dream after all. It is our who we are.
And in our confusion, we want to call a 'do over.' "Wait a minute," we say, "Um, this is not, uh, this is not what we wanted at all. There's been a terrible mistake. We'd like to start the game over, please." Too late. Too late for that. The game of Risk is nearly over, 'global domination,' as it says in the rulebook, is the final solution. We wrote the rulebook. We approved it. We voted for it. We wrote it and then prayed to it. And now, like the scientists at Los Alamos, we'd like to put the genie back in the bottle.
And finally, we are enraged. We are appalled that the playing field has been so unlevel all these years, all these centuries. We paid our money, we took aim, we threw the softball and we didn't quite knock all the stacked bottles down. And we didn't get the stuffed bear. All we got was a weathered and yellowing ticket and a hopeful memory of the circus that came blazing through town 235 years ago.
I dare say in about a hundred years, our grandchildren's children will be the true recipients of our shortsidedness. And we can only hope we will be forgiven for a noble experiment gone terribly wrong. Our roads were indeed paved with the very best of intentions. But we wrote the rule book. We set the height of the bar ourselves. We clearly and methodically outlined the game. And now it's getting late, people are going home, most have already been ousted from the game, the winners are still gathered around the table and the losers are questioning why they ever started.
America was founded on the concept of winning and losing. "...And justice for all" and "We, the people..." are wonderful concepts for a melodrama, but lousy concepts by which to develop a philosophy to insure 'the pursuit of happiness' for upwards of 300 million people. In the final analysis, 'the rich get rich and the poor get poorer' is not a courageous and defiant phrase uttered by our parents and grandparents. It is a summation of the rules of the game. The game we invented. The game we played passionately and lustfully. The game most of us lost.
See you tomorrow.
Really, however, I don't know why anyone is surprised. Not at the reaction to the posts, but at the reality of the situation. I think the simple fact that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a natural endgame to capitalism. I mean, come on, it's at the very root of the American dream. It is the pot of gold at the end of the idealogical rainbow, the game-winning response to the final American jeapardy question; in short, it is the solution we sought, not the problem we've inadvertently created. And now, 235 years after the fact, we're shocked and awed it turned out this way at all.
I don't mean to sound elementary here, but the final goal of capitalism is not, regardless of what we've been taught, supply and demand. No, not at all. The final goal of capitalism is who can screw the most people out of the most money in the shortest amount of time. And the circus-like atmosphere that envelops this nation in the high-stakes game of disguising that fact has become treacherous and partisan, to say the least.
The great experiment known as democracy has succeeded. I can't remember who said it and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's been called 'the worst system of government on earth...until you look at all the others.' And make no mistake, democracy and capitalism are forever and permanently bound together.
And yet, we (and by 'we' I mean 'me') are outraged by it. The combined income of the wealthiest ten percent of American citizens comes to approximately 1.7 trillion dollars. The bottom fifty percent comes to 1.6 trillion dollars. We're coming to the end of the monopoly game, Gentle Readers, and there are winners and losers. As in every single aspect of life in the 21st century, there are winners and losers. It is an extension of Darwin's survival of the fittest and, as in nature itself, the most adaptable, the boldest, the strongest, the ones without remorse, the quickest to the draw, continue to thrive and flourish. The weak, the less aggressive, the slow and careless, the moral and fair-minded are destined to live in the dreaded bottom fifty percent.
Even Jesus, allegedly delivering his inauguration address from the mount, acknowledged the inherent unfairness in Darwin's theory. He extolled the virtues of 'the weak,' encouraging them and offering the consolation prize of 'inheriting the earth,' of partaking in a much fairer plain of existence in the afterlife, promising everyone a 'mansion' in the kingdom of heaven, and mollifying the disgruntled masses by promising that 'the rich man' cannot enter. It was tantamount to the after game speech from a disappointed little league coach...'we'll get 'em next year, boys.'
This is the system of economy our ancestors bled and died for. We won. Our dreams came true. Everything we stood for, believed in, were taught was sacred, has come to fruition. And, as Cervantes warned, we were apparently not careful enough in our wishes, because we have had the misfortune to have them granted. The rich, not the meek, have inherited the earth. And we're all just starting to shake off the effects of the dream and coming to grips with the fact that it wasn't a dream after all. It is our who we are.
And in our confusion, we want to call a 'do over.' "Wait a minute," we say, "Um, this is not, uh, this is not what we wanted at all. There's been a terrible mistake. We'd like to start the game over, please." Too late. Too late for that. The game of Risk is nearly over, 'global domination,' as it says in the rulebook, is the final solution. We wrote the rulebook. We approved it. We voted for it. We wrote it and then prayed to it. And now, like the scientists at Los Alamos, we'd like to put the genie back in the bottle.
And finally, we are enraged. We are appalled that the playing field has been so unlevel all these years, all these centuries. We paid our money, we took aim, we threw the softball and we didn't quite knock all the stacked bottles down. And we didn't get the stuffed bear. All we got was a weathered and yellowing ticket and a hopeful memory of the circus that came blazing through town 235 years ago.
I dare say in about a hundred years, our grandchildren's children will be the true recipients of our shortsidedness. And we can only hope we will be forgiven for a noble experiment gone terribly wrong. Our roads were indeed paved with the very best of intentions. But we wrote the rule book. We set the height of the bar ourselves. We clearly and methodically outlined the game. And now it's getting late, people are going home, most have already been ousted from the game, the winners are still gathered around the table and the losers are questioning why they ever started.
America was founded on the concept of winning and losing. "...And justice for all" and "We, the people..." are wonderful concepts for a melodrama, but lousy concepts by which to develop a philosophy to insure 'the pursuit of happiness' for upwards of 300 million people. In the final analysis, 'the rich get rich and the poor get poorer' is not a courageous and defiant phrase uttered by our parents and grandparents. It is a summation of the rules of the game. The game we invented. The game we played passionately and lustfully. The game most of us lost.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
What's Next?
I have become endlessly fascinated lately with real estate. I don't know why. Well, I guess I do know why. It's probably because Angie and I were very seriously considering a move to what we considered our dream house which is very near to where we live now. We call it 'The Garden House,' not because it has a garden (although it does) but because it is on Garden Street here in the Rancho District.
This was all happening several months ago and I think I even posted a picture of the house here on the blog. It really was our perfect house: beautiful wood interiors, a great office off the master bedroom, two full baths, a guest house, three stalls for horses in a nicely appointed, turn-around barn, a converted garage where I could teach classes, a huge kitchen and dining room, massive fireplace, big lot with, literally, a white picket fence, a park across the street for the puppies to play and a portrait-like view of the mountains in the distance. Quiet neighborhood, long driveway and plenty of space for not only a flower garden but also a vegetable garden. Angie and I looked at it while taking our daily walk about fifty times. We even contacted the realtor and went inside a couple of times.
The house was not selling. The price kept dropping. Finally, the realtor called us and said the seller might be interested in a lease-option. Our hopes soared. The house, to be honest, was slightly outside of our range financially, but a lease would have been ideal.
Alas, the house sold a few weeks ago.
But the flame had been fanned. Since then I've been watching house-selling shows non-stop. In fact, just last night I was up very late watching one. Nine million dollar condos in New York City, Beach-front property on the Gulf Coast, a fixer-upper in Austria, a Costa Rican place on fifty acres...on and on.
Utterly fascinated by it all. I've even gone so far as to start finding places on the internet and saving them so that Angie can see them. She briefly enters my outlandish fantasies and looks through all the floor plans and pictures with me.
One of the features in the more high-end places here in LA is a home movie theater. I love that. The pictures on the web show a mini-movie-theater and my imagination darts off at a thousand miles an hour.
Now, the truth is, we have no intention of moving. We love our house. We live very close to The Equestrian Center here in LA and Griffith Park is only footsteps away. We have a wonderful two-stall barn in our backyard complete with tack room, a huge garage, a great yard all attached to a 1920s, two-bedroom bungalow with a big fireplace, office and wood furnishings. In short, we live in a great house in a very exclusive neighborhood.
The uncomfortable truth is, I always want more. I have the disease of 'More.' It's a niggling disease that sits dormant inside me for months at a time and then surfaces at the oddest times.
The uncomfortable truth is, I have a tremendously difficult time being satisfied with what I have. The grass is always greener, ya da ya da ya da.
The uncomfortable truth is, I spend way too much time living in the land of 'What if...' It's a place that doesn't exist. It never has. It is a land of refuge for nitwits like myself that should know better but don't. It is the land of unnecessary dreams. For when all is said and done, I live in my dream house, I live my dream life, I do, every single day, the stuff of dreams. I exist and thrive in the midst of a life I dreamt of fervently only a few years ago. I want for nothing. I am so layered in care, love and purpose that it has become second nature, common ground, daily habit. And yet I, like many others, I suspect, thrash around, gazing longingly at stuff I don't need nor really, down deep, want. This disease of 'More' is pesky. It's diverting. It's illogical.
And yet, I recommend it highly, in moderation. Because the moment I stop wanting more is the moment I enter into the world of resignation.
Many years ago I watched a terrible movie called 'First Family.' It was about, well, the first family, the President of the United States and his family. It starred Bob Newhart, of all people. Just an awful film. But there was scene in the movie that has stuck with me all these years later. The camera, at one point, moved from bedroom to bedroom in The White House and depicted the dreams and hopes and fears of the first family. The daughter dreamt of parties and impossibly good-looking boyfriends, the son dreamt of harrowing adventures in the old west, the wife dreamt of being chased by Zulu warriors in the jungle and the president, Bob Newhart, dreamt of sitting alone in a white room at a plain table and sipping clear soup hour after hour. A shockingly good scene in an otherwise forgettable movie.
I think of that scene because it is one of my deepest fears; to stop wanting more, to have reached the summit of my dreams, to have reached a point in life that demands nothing from me, no effort, no demands, no effort, utterly lacking in ambition. It is a loud, clanging warning bell for those of us cursed with the disease of 'More.'
I live in my dream house. I live in my dream world. My grass is so green it hurts my eyes. In short, I have never been more content. Every aspect of my life is beyond comfortable, it is borderline royal. But I still like to look at the pictures, read the stories, anticipate the vicarious thrills of a younger and less informed life. I still tremble with the thought of what might be around the next bend, over the next hill, of what might happen...next.
Life is what you do while you're busy making other plans.
See you tomorrow.
This was all happening several months ago and I think I even posted a picture of the house here on the blog. It really was our perfect house: beautiful wood interiors, a great office off the master bedroom, two full baths, a guest house, three stalls for horses in a nicely appointed, turn-around barn, a converted garage where I could teach classes, a huge kitchen and dining room, massive fireplace, big lot with, literally, a white picket fence, a park across the street for the puppies to play and a portrait-like view of the mountains in the distance. Quiet neighborhood, long driveway and plenty of space for not only a flower garden but also a vegetable garden. Angie and I looked at it while taking our daily walk about fifty times. We even contacted the realtor and went inside a couple of times.
The house was not selling. The price kept dropping. Finally, the realtor called us and said the seller might be interested in a lease-option. Our hopes soared. The house, to be honest, was slightly outside of our range financially, but a lease would have been ideal.
Alas, the house sold a few weeks ago.
But the flame had been fanned. Since then I've been watching house-selling shows non-stop. In fact, just last night I was up very late watching one. Nine million dollar condos in New York City, Beach-front property on the Gulf Coast, a fixer-upper in Austria, a Costa Rican place on fifty acres...on and on.
Utterly fascinated by it all. I've even gone so far as to start finding places on the internet and saving them so that Angie can see them. She briefly enters my outlandish fantasies and looks through all the floor plans and pictures with me.
One of the features in the more high-end places here in LA is a home movie theater. I love that. The pictures on the web show a mini-movie-theater and my imagination darts off at a thousand miles an hour.
Now, the truth is, we have no intention of moving. We love our house. We live very close to The Equestrian Center here in LA and Griffith Park is only footsteps away. We have a wonderful two-stall barn in our backyard complete with tack room, a huge garage, a great yard all attached to a 1920s, two-bedroom bungalow with a big fireplace, office and wood furnishings. In short, we live in a great house in a very exclusive neighborhood.
The uncomfortable truth is, I always want more. I have the disease of 'More.' It's a niggling disease that sits dormant inside me for months at a time and then surfaces at the oddest times.
The uncomfortable truth is, I have a tremendously difficult time being satisfied with what I have. The grass is always greener, ya da ya da ya da.
The uncomfortable truth is, I spend way too much time living in the land of 'What if...' It's a place that doesn't exist. It never has. It is a land of refuge for nitwits like myself that should know better but don't. It is the land of unnecessary dreams. For when all is said and done, I live in my dream house, I live my dream life, I do, every single day, the stuff of dreams. I exist and thrive in the midst of a life I dreamt of fervently only a few years ago. I want for nothing. I am so layered in care, love and purpose that it has become second nature, common ground, daily habit. And yet I, like many others, I suspect, thrash around, gazing longingly at stuff I don't need nor really, down deep, want. This disease of 'More' is pesky. It's diverting. It's illogical.
And yet, I recommend it highly, in moderation. Because the moment I stop wanting more is the moment I enter into the world of resignation.
Many years ago I watched a terrible movie called 'First Family.' It was about, well, the first family, the President of the United States and his family. It starred Bob Newhart, of all people. Just an awful film. But there was scene in the movie that has stuck with me all these years later. The camera, at one point, moved from bedroom to bedroom in The White House and depicted the dreams and hopes and fears of the first family. The daughter dreamt of parties and impossibly good-looking boyfriends, the son dreamt of harrowing adventures in the old west, the wife dreamt of being chased by Zulu warriors in the jungle and the president, Bob Newhart, dreamt of sitting alone in a white room at a plain table and sipping clear soup hour after hour. A shockingly good scene in an otherwise forgettable movie.
I think of that scene because it is one of my deepest fears; to stop wanting more, to have reached the summit of my dreams, to have reached a point in life that demands nothing from me, no effort, no demands, no effort, utterly lacking in ambition. It is a loud, clanging warning bell for those of us cursed with the disease of 'More.'
I live in my dream house. I live in my dream world. My grass is so green it hurts my eyes. In short, I have never been more content. Every aspect of my life is beyond comfortable, it is borderline royal. But I still like to look at the pictures, read the stories, anticipate the vicarious thrills of a younger and less informed life. I still tremble with the thought of what might be around the next bend, over the next hill, of what might happen...next.
Life is what you do while you're busy making other plans.
See you tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Our Next Car.
Someday soon, maybe not tomorrow or the day after or next week or next month, but someday soon, we're going to buy a new car. There was a time, in fact not very long ago, that I really didn't pay attention to cars. Cars held little to no interest for me. The only time I took notice of cars was when something odd appeared on the car horizon. Like the Smart Car. I began mentally playing the old 'slug your sister in the arm everytime you see a VW Bug' game in my head whenever I spotted a 'Smart Car.' Maybe you didn't play that game, but in my family it was considered the height of sophisticated travel enjoyment. It was the contract bridge of the Morts family. We were a simple people. My family played that game well into our adult lives. Even after I moved to New York City I would slug cab drivers when I saw one. They were always surprised, especially the foreign drivers, and occasionally asked me to get out of the cab.
Anyway, I never paid much attention to cars. I think it had something to do with the fact that my older brother and my dad seemed to never talk about anything else. They were obsessed with engines and fenders and tires and motor fluid and oil filters and transmissions and cubic inches and viscosity (whatever that meant). They were both amateur mechanics (my father worked in a NAPA auto parts store when we were all kids and my brother managed a tire store when he became an adult). So cars played a big part of their lives and, consequently, they bored the bejesus out of me.
This is all changing now that I live in Los Angeles. This is a car culture and there's simply no way of getting around that.
Angie and I talk about our next car purchase a lot. Just yesterday she remarked that she was seeing a lot of Bentleys on the road lately. There was a time I wouldn't know a Bentley from an AMC Gremlin. Nor did I care.
Yesterday we got a notice from our bank informing us we were 'pre-approved for a car loan up to $30,000.' I was so intrigued I actually went on-line to check out some cars that we could buy for less than $30,000.
When I was a kid my favorite car was a 1973 Buick something-or-other. I liked it because it had bat wings on it like the bat car.
Later I liked the Jaguar because a friend of mine's parents had one and I rode in it once and it seemed like a perfect place to spend time. It had seats that warmed your butt and a powerful engine that made a cool sound when you accelerated. Plus it had that hood ornament that seemed really imposing, too.
I also always wanted a jeep. I loved the idea of having a jeep. This is because a high school buddy of mine had one and we often went '4-wheeling' at Hazelrigg's Claypit back in Fulton, Missouri where I was born and lowered. Now, '4-wheeling' was a term used to describe driving a jeep over trecherous landscapes. And Hazelrigg's Claypit was a place just outside of town that was the perfect place to do this. We even busted a few 'oil pans' doing this and then we'd have to race back to town before the oil all drained out. Or something like that. I really never knew why we had to race back to town, but I liked telling people we 'lost the oil pan so we had to drive back to town at 80mph to save our lives.' They were usually impressed.
So today, after much consideration and endless conversation, Angie and I have decided we want a Ford Flex. It's a hybrid, so that's a good thing. Again, I have no idea what that means, but it seems like a responsible thing to want. If we have two cars we also want a Prius, which is good because it runs on ketchup. Oh, I don't know what it runs on, but it gets nearly 400 miles to the gallon, so we want that, too.
But we want those cars only if we're living like normal people. A few weeks ago when I played one ticket for the lottery of 209 million dollars after taxes and I was spending whole days fantasizing about the winnings, I was considering our next purchase. Part of that irrational fantazizing included new cars. One, I decided, would be a new Mercedes SUV - the kind that looks like a matchbox car, or the SUV that was featured in, brace yourself for an incredibly obscure reference here, the TV show DAKTARI - and the other would be a brand new, four-door, convertable Cadillac for Angie. This is because that's what Angie wanted. I used to live in Chicago and any Cadillac was considered 'ghetto.' But that's not the case in Los Angeles, apparently. So she wanted a Cadillac. "A very underrated car," she would say. Okay. Whatever.
All my life I have identified cars by their color rather than their brand name. So I told Angie I wanted a 'forest green' car. "What kind?" she asked. "Oh, I don't really care, but I like the forest green kind." She decided if we went to the car lot to get a car it would probably be best if I didn't say anything.
At the moment we have a perfectly good, nice running, utilitarian type car. It's a Saturn station wagon. It's been very good to us, although it was built in the 1920's or something. We bought it straight out with cash. Before we had a huge red truck roughly the size of a Soviet Abrams tank used to defend Stalingrad. It got one quarter of a gallon of gas every mile. We would drive to the store and have to fill it up again. It had an impossibly huge gas tank and cost about $4,000 to fill up. But we liked it and were comforted in the fact that if we ever needed to pull a house around behind it we could.
Angie has named our Saturn 'Envy,' because she thinks it is the envy of all who see it. She claims that if it's very dark out and one closes one eye and squints it could easily be mistaken for a Mercedes Benz station wagon.
Anyway. I'm looking at cars nowadays with a much more discerning eye. I chuckle at the idea of only wanting a 'forest green' car. I'm much more sophisticated now. These days I want a forest green car with those hubcaps that look like they're spinning the wrong way while you're driving. If I had a car like that I'd be so very happy.
See you tomorrow.
Anyway, I never paid much attention to cars. I think it had something to do with the fact that my older brother and my dad seemed to never talk about anything else. They were obsessed with engines and fenders and tires and motor fluid and oil filters and transmissions and cubic inches and viscosity (whatever that meant). They were both amateur mechanics (my father worked in a NAPA auto parts store when we were all kids and my brother managed a tire store when he became an adult). So cars played a big part of their lives and, consequently, they bored the bejesus out of me.
This is all changing now that I live in Los Angeles. This is a car culture and there's simply no way of getting around that.
Angie and I talk about our next car purchase a lot. Just yesterday she remarked that she was seeing a lot of Bentleys on the road lately. There was a time I wouldn't know a Bentley from an AMC Gremlin. Nor did I care.
Yesterday we got a notice from our bank informing us we were 'pre-approved for a car loan up to $30,000.' I was so intrigued I actually went on-line to check out some cars that we could buy for less than $30,000.
When I was a kid my favorite car was a 1973 Buick something-or-other. I liked it because it had bat wings on it like the bat car.
Later I liked the Jaguar because a friend of mine's parents had one and I rode in it once and it seemed like a perfect place to spend time. It had seats that warmed your butt and a powerful engine that made a cool sound when you accelerated. Plus it had that hood ornament that seemed really imposing, too.
I also always wanted a jeep. I loved the idea of having a jeep. This is because a high school buddy of mine had one and we often went '4-wheeling' at Hazelrigg's Claypit back in Fulton, Missouri where I was born and lowered. Now, '4-wheeling' was a term used to describe driving a jeep over trecherous landscapes. And Hazelrigg's Claypit was a place just outside of town that was the perfect place to do this. We even busted a few 'oil pans' doing this and then we'd have to race back to town before the oil all drained out. Or something like that. I really never knew why we had to race back to town, but I liked telling people we 'lost the oil pan so we had to drive back to town at 80mph to save our lives.' They were usually impressed.
So today, after much consideration and endless conversation, Angie and I have decided we want a Ford Flex. It's a hybrid, so that's a good thing. Again, I have no idea what that means, but it seems like a responsible thing to want. If we have two cars we also want a Prius, which is good because it runs on ketchup. Oh, I don't know what it runs on, but it gets nearly 400 miles to the gallon, so we want that, too.
But we want those cars only if we're living like normal people. A few weeks ago when I played one ticket for the lottery of 209 million dollars after taxes and I was spending whole days fantasizing about the winnings, I was considering our next purchase. Part of that irrational fantazizing included new cars. One, I decided, would be a new Mercedes SUV - the kind that looks like a matchbox car, or the SUV that was featured in, brace yourself for an incredibly obscure reference here, the TV show DAKTARI - and the other would be a brand new, four-door, convertable Cadillac for Angie. This is because that's what Angie wanted. I used to live in Chicago and any Cadillac was considered 'ghetto.' But that's not the case in Los Angeles, apparently. So she wanted a Cadillac. "A very underrated car," she would say. Okay. Whatever.
All my life I have identified cars by their color rather than their brand name. So I told Angie I wanted a 'forest green' car. "What kind?" she asked. "Oh, I don't really care, but I like the forest green kind." She decided if we went to the car lot to get a car it would probably be best if I didn't say anything.
At the moment we have a perfectly good, nice running, utilitarian type car. It's a Saturn station wagon. It's been very good to us, although it was built in the 1920's or something. We bought it straight out with cash. Before we had a huge red truck roughly the size of a Soviet Abrams tank used to defend Stalingrad. It got one quarter of a gallon of gas every mile. We would drive to the store and have to fill it up again. It had an impossibly huge gas tank and cost about $4,000 to fill up. But we liked it and were comforted in the fact that if we ever needed to pull a house around behind it we could.
Angie has named our Saturn 'Envy,' because she thinks it is the envy of all who see it. She claims that if it's very dark out and one closes one eye and squints it could easily be mistaken for a Mercedes Benz station wagon.
Anyway. I'm looking at cars nowadays with a much more discerning eye. I chuckle at the idea of only wanting a 'forest green' car. I'm much more sophisticated now. These days I want a forest green car with those hubcaps that look like they're spinning the wrong way while you're driving. If I had a car like that I'd be so very happy.
See you tomorrow.
Monday, February 14, 2011
A Night on the Beach...
Today is Valentine's Day. It's a Hallmark Card kind of holiday, no doubt invented to boost sales of some sort or another. I'm just guessing. I didn't google it. Fine. It's the American way. Not being cynical, just musing.
Angie and I spent the evening, a really fun evening as it turns out, at our dear friends, Mark and Tammy, in their really exquisite Manhattan Beach house. Mark is a player with Fox Network and Tammy owns her own exclusive catering company headquartered out there.
We had a couple of friends in from Missouri (ostensibly to see my play, but really just to get away from the horrid Missouri weather for the weekend), Steve and Carolea.
So we all trotted over to Manhattan Beach following the play yesterday (typical matinee, by the way, played to a sea of blue hair).
I love spending time over at Tammy and Mark's place. For one thing, it's a really cool house; there's a beautiful and very private back patio complete with fire pit, hot tub and ping pong table. The conversation is always lively, with a great deal of healthy disagreement over a wide range of topics. And then, of course, there's the food. As I said, Tammy is a high end caterer and we always eat like Louis XIV over there. Or XV, or XVI or whoever it was that had the best food. Last night was no exception...filet mignon was the centerpiece of the evening.
Steve, coming in from Missouri, had never been there before, although his wife, Carolea (whom I've known for about 31 years) spent some time in LA early in her career and had visited the house often. Steve is now a very successful business man in southern Missouri, but back in the day he was the lead singer for a really great, semi-famous rock band called 'The Mistakess.' He is now the very picture of the former rock star complete with a deceptive 'I don't give a fuck' attitude. A funny and smart guy, the truth is he does give a fuck and he's incredibly informed.
These are good people. The kind of people I like to be around. I don't socialize much, I've made no secret of that in this blog over the past year or so, and when I do I like to be around people that challenge me, people that provoke and question me. I like to be around people that have opinions. Odd as it sounds, so many, many people simply don't. Well, not these folks...they do and I love it.
Steve and Carolea had seen my show, Adding Machine, the night before and like many others, didn't quite know what to make of it. I think it fair to say they liked it in a 'big picture' kind of way. Carolea is a true musician, years of training under her belt and a very discerning eye when it comes to this sort of thing. Last night when I called the music 'Sondheim squared' she said, enlightened finally, "Yes! Yes, that's it exactly!"
Steve, who is the kind of guy that doesn't suffer fools gladly, said as we dropped them off at their hotel last night, "You know, I've never seen you live, always on a DVD or something. You're unbelievably good at what you do." Coming from someone like Steve who rarely, if ever, speaks in superlatives, it meant a lot. Made my day, in fact.
Angie and I have been tossing around an idea as of late, a new company we're thinking of forming. Not a theatre company, but an actual business. So I sort of plopped it out there last night to get some reactions. In an instant the evening turned into a massive brainstorming session. They all thought it an amazing idea and were tremendously supportive. So much so, in fact, that Ange and I kind of made the final decision to go forth with it. Now, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a business kind of guy. Angie is far ahead of me in that respect. So today, we start the actual research, the actual nuts and bolts implementation of this idea. When it is moored securely in reality, I'll write about it. But all in all, we're very encouraged.
So it's Valentine's Day. I won't belabour my thoughts on that. I will simply say this: Never in my wildest dreams, my most outlandish fantasies, my most fervent and halcyon imagination did I ever expect to find someone so perfect, so good, so beautiful and fascinating, so forever as Angie. She has single-handedly and seemingly effortlessly given me the life I've spent five decades searching for. She is my soul.
And a happy Valentine's Day to all of you, Gentle Readers.
See you tomorrow.
Angie and I spent the evening, a really fun evening as it turns out, at our dear friends, Mark and Tammy, in their really exquisite Manhattan Beach house. Mark is a player with Fox Network and Tammy owns her own exclusive catering company headquartered out there.
We had a couple of friends in from Missouri (ostensibly to see my play, but really just to get away from the horrid Missouri weather for the weekend), Steve and Carolea.
So we all trotted over to Manhattan Beach following the play yesterday (typical matinee, by the way, played to a sea of blue hair).
I love spending time over at Tammy and Mark's place. For one thing, it's a really cool house; there's a beautiful and very private back patio complete with fire pit, hot tub and ping pong table. The conversation is always lively, with a great deal of healthy disagreement over a wide range of topics. And then, of course, there's the food. As I said, Tammy is a high end caterer and we always eat like Louis XIV over there. Or XV, or XVI or whoever it was that had the best food. Last night was no exception...filet mignon was the centerpiece of the evening.
Steve, coming in from Missouri, had never been there before, although his wife, Carolea (whom I've known for about 31 years) spent some time in LA early in her career and had visited the house often. Steve is now a very successful business man in southern Missouri, but back in the day he was the lead singer for a really great, semi-famous rock band called 'The Mistakess.' He is now the very picture of the former rock star complete with a deceptive 'I don't give a fuck' attitude. A funny and smart guy, the truth is he does give a fuck and he's incredibly informed.
These are good people. The kind of people I like to be around. I don't socialize much, I've made no secret of that in this blog over the past year or so, and when I do I like to be around people that challenge me, people that provoke and question me. I like to be around people that have opinions. Odd as it sounds, so many, many people simply don't. Well, not these folks...they do and I love it.
Steve and Carolea had seen my show, Adding Machine, the night before and like many others, didn't quite know what to make of it. I think it fair to say they liked it in a 'big picture' kind of way. Carolea is a true musician, years of training under her belt and a very discerning eye when it comes to this sort of thing. Last night when I called the music 'Sondheim squared' she said, enlightened finally, "Yes! Yes, that's it exactly!"
Steve, who is the kind of guy that doesn't suffer fools gladly, said as we dropped them off at their hotel last night, "You know, I've never seen you live, always on a DVD or something. You're unbelievably good at what you do." Coming from someone like Steve who rarely, if ever, speaks in superlatives, it meant a lot. Made my day, in fact.
Angie and I have been tossing around an idea as of late, a new company we're thinking of forming. Not a theatre company, but an actual business. So I sort of plopped it out there last night to get some reactions. In an instant the evening turned into a massive brainstorming session. They all thought it an amazing idea and were tremendously supportive. So much so, in fact, that Ange and I kind of made the final decision to go forth with it. Now, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a business kind of guy. Angie is far ahead of me in that respect. So today, we start the actual research, the actual nuts and bolts implementation of this idea. When it is moored securely in reality, I'll write about it. But all in all, we're very encouraged.
So it's Valentine's Day. I won't belabour my thoughts on that. I will simply say this: Never in my wildest dreams, my most outlandish fantasies, my most fervent and halcyon imagination did I ever expect to find someone so perfect, so good, so beautiful and fascinating, so forever as Angie. She has single-handedly and seemingly effortlessly given me the life I've spent five decades searching for. She is my soul.
And a happy Valentine's Day to all of you, Gentle Readers.
See you tomorrow.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Hill.
Los Angeles is different than New York or Chicago when it comes to a social life. I'm not altogether sure of the exact reasons for this but I suspect the sheer size of this city has something to do with it. And, of course, LA is a car town. You drive everywhere. There's a little store up the street on the corner where Angie and I occasionally get cigs (we're both about to quit smoking...AGAIN...more on that later) or cookies or milk or what have you. It is, I'm guessing here, probably three hundred yards from us, door to door. I walk to it when I need something. Angie drives.
In any event, unlike NY and Chicago, if you wanna meet up with a couple of friends for coffee or dinner or maybe catch a movie, the planning starts weeks, sometimes months, in advance. In Chicago let's say you live in Edgewater and your buddy lives in Lincoln Park and you want to meet for coffee in Andersonville. You call, you set it up, you meet, ba da bang, ba da bing.
In New York, let's say you live in Astoria and your friend is on the Upper West and you wanna meet in Chelsea...you call, you set it up, you meet, wham bam, thank ya' ma'am.
This would never happen in Los Angeles. It becomes an endless series of phone calls, texts, emails, planning, scheduling, waffling, yes, no, how about 4 instead of 3, sorry, but I have a yoga class then, what's your Tuesday look like? I don't know how people do it.
The most common and exasperating excuse is, "I don't like to drive over the hill." (The 'hill' is the small, mountainous barrier between the San Fernando Valley and the rest of the civilized world, apparently.) Sometimes people use that excuse even if they don't live over the 'hill.' They just like to say it. Sometimes a friend will live in Studio City and you live in Burbank and they'll still say it. Los Angeles is the perfect place to live if you're really into isoloating.
The mass transit system out here is treated as one might treat a leper in the second century AD. In New York and Chicago EVERYone uses the subway, the buses, the el, etc. In Los Angeles if one is caught using public transportation, it's sometimes announced on the local news..."And when we come back, Clifford Morts allegedly took the bus sixteen blocks to North Hollywood. We'll have the shocked reactions from local residents."
Here's what a friend of mine often says, "You know, after driving all over the place all day, when I finally get home I just can't stand to go out again." This always gives me pause. I mean, you're DRIVING places, you're SITTING DOWN, you're in a comfortable seat, the window is down because it's in the mid-seventies outside, you're listening to your favorite music on the CD player. It's not like you're in a Flinstones car and you're running to get it started and using your heels to brake. People out here act as if driving is something akin to lumberjacking all day. It's utterly exhausting to them. "Oh, I couldn't possibly drive ONE MORE SECOND. I'm just pooped!"
I think one of the reasons Los Angeles is not as healthy, socially speaking, as NY or Chicago is because of this rampant car culture. When I first moved here a few of my buddies from NY would meet up almost every week at this little diner in Studio City called 'Sitton's.' We'd sit out on the patio, smoke cigarettes, have coffee and eventually eat an egg or two. We'd discuss the myriad twists and turns of our careers, our hopes and dreams, laugh about past misadventures, recount our perplexing love lives, encourage each other, etc. And afterwards we'd all feel connected, we'd feel a part of something. One by one, however, we all stopped meeting up. I asked a friend of mine why we stopped meeting the other day. He said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess we all got tired of driving over the hill." None of us live over the hill.
That's it, you know. There's the rub. That damned 'hill.' It took me awhile, but I finally realized 'the hill' is actually a metaphor. It's a way of saying, 'I don't want to exert the energy to let someone into my life, not even for a few minutes, the time it takes for cup of coffee, not even to meet for a stick of gum." No. The 'hill' is the perfect excuse not to share our lives. It is Frost's good neighbors and good fences. It is the symbol of of our fear, at the risk of sounding dramatic. That damned hill.
The longer one lives out here, the larger the hill gets. Eventually, I suspect, the 'hill' becomes almost impossible to navigate. "I'd love to meet for dinner, I haven't seen you for ages, not since we celebrated Clinton's inauguration, but the hill, you know, the hill, I just can't get over the hill. I don't think I can make it over the hill ever again. It's just been too long. I don't think I can even try. The hill is spreading. It's almost in my backyard now. It's blocked our view. We used to have a glorious view from our front window. No longer. These days all we can see is the hill."
I miss having coffee with my friends. I miss connecting, face to face, sitting on the patio, laughing at stuff only we would laugh at, eating bad omelettes, drinking bad coffee, saying things out loud I would never dream of saying out loud to anyone else. But I've been in Los Angeles for over a year now. And when I stand outside and look around, all I can see is the hill. Sometimes, and this is really scary, I can see the hill in my own living room, my own kitchen, my own bedroom. I'm really beginning to hate the hill.
See you tomorrow.
In any event, unlike NY and Chicago, if you wanna meet up with a couple of friends for coffee or dinner or maybe catch a movie, the planning starts weeks, sometimes months, in advance. In Chicago let's say you live in Edgewater and your buddy lives in Lincoln Park and you want to meet for coffee in Andersonville. You call, you set it up, you meet, ba da bang, ba da bing.
In New York, let's say you live in Astoria and your friend is on the Upper West and you wanna meet in Chelsea...you call, you set it up, you meet, wham bam, thank ya' ma'am.
This would never happen in Los Angeles. It becomes an endless series of phone calls, texts, emails, planning, scheduling, waffling, yes, no, how about 4 instead of 3, sorry, but I have a yoga class then, what's your Tuesday look like? I don't know how people do it.
The most common and exasperating excuse is, "I don't like to drive over the hill." (The 'hill' is the small, mountainous barrier between the San Fernando Valley and the rest of the civilized world, apparently.) Sometimes people use that excuse even if they don't live over the 'hill.' They just like to say it. Sometimes a friend will live in Studio City and you live in Burbank and they'll still say it. Los Angeles is the perfect place to live if you're really into isoloating.
The mass transit system out here is treated as one might treat a leper in the second century AD. In New York and Chicago EVERYone uses the subway, the buses, the el, etc. In Los Angeles if one is caught using public transportation, it's sometimes announced on the local news..."And when we come back, Clifford Morts allegedly took the bus sixteen blocks to North Hollywood. We'll have the shocked reactions from local residents."
Here's what a friend of mine often says, "You know, after driving all over the place all day, when I finally get home I just can't stand to go out again." This always gives me pause. I mean, you're DRIVING places, you're SITTING DOWN, you're in a comfortable seat, the window is down because it's in the mid-seventies outside, you're listening to your favorite music on the CD player. It's not like you're in a Flinstones car and you're running to get it started and using your heels to brake. People out here act as if driving is something akin to lumberjacking all day. It's utterly exhausting to them. "Oh, I couldn't possibly drive ONE MORE SECOND. I'm just pooped!"
I think one of the reasons Los Angeles is not as healthy, socially speaking, as NY or Chicago is because of this rampant car culture. When I first moved here a few of my buddies from NY would meet up almost every week at this little diner in Studio City called 'Sitton's.' We'd sit out on the patio, smoke cigarettes, have coffee and eventually eat an egg or two. We'd discuss the myriad twists and turns of our careers, our hopes and dreams, laugh about past misadventures, recount our perplexing love lives, encourage each other, etc. And afterwards we'd all feel connected, we'd feel a part of something. One by one, however, we all stopped meeting up. I asked a friend of mine why we stopped meeting the other day. He said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess we all got tired of driving over the hill." None of us live over the hill.
That's it, you know. There's the rub. That damned 'hill.' It took me awhile, but I finally realized 'the hill' is actually a metaphor. It's a way of saying, 'I don't want to exert the energy to let someone into my life, not even for a few minutes, the time it takes for cup of coffee, not even to meet for a stick of gum." No. The 'hill' is the perfect excuse not to share our lives. It is Frost's good neighbors and good fences. It is the symbol of of our fear, at the risk of sounding dramatic. That damned hill.
The longer one lives out here, the larger the hill gets. Eventually, I suspect, the 'hill' becomes almost impossible to navigate. "I'd love to meet for dinner, I haven't seen you for ages, not since we celebrated Clinton's inauguration, but the hill, you know, the hill, I just can't get over the hill. I don't think I can make it over the hill ever again. It's just been too long. I don't think I can even try. The hill is spreading. It's almost in my backyard now. It's blocked our view. We used to have a glorious view from our front window. No longer. These days all we can see is the hill."
I miss having coffee with my friends. I miss connecting, face to face, sitting on the patio, laughing at stuff only we would laugh at, eating bad omelettes, drinking bad coffee, saying things out loud I would never dream of saying out loud to anyone else. But I've been in Los Angeles for over a year now. And when I stand outside and look around, all I can see is the hill. Sometimes, and this is really scary, I can see the hill in my own living room, my own kitchen, my own bedroom. I'm really beginning to hate the hill.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Sometimes it just is.
I've discovered I really don't like doing this play every night. Don't get me wrong, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just is. A close friend came to see the show last night and Angie and I had a conversation outside the theater with her afterwards. And as we were chatting I said as much. I hadn't actually said it out loud until then. Angie looked at me a little askew.
The reason, I finally realized, has nothing to do with the subject matter or the hopelessness inherent in the text or the difficulty in doing it. It has to do with the fact that there are parts (actually massive CHUNKS of the play) that are either right or wrong. That is to say, there is very little room to play. There is either the 'right way to do it' or 'the wrong way to do it.' That doesn't appeal to me.
One of the reasons I became an actor a hundred years ago is because success or achievement or goals or whatever has absolutely nothing to do with 'right' or 'wrong.' This business, this craft, is concerned only with what works or what doesn't work, not 'right' or 'wrong.'
For example, I was watching an old movie the other day. Gene Wilder was playing the lead role. A line was said, a line that probably no other actor on earth could've said 'funny.' Yet Wilder did. It wasn't a funny line, it probably wasn't even intended to be funny by the author. But Wilder, in his inimitable fashion, said the line in such a way that made me chuckle out loud. You see? There was no right or wrong, there was only Wilder's choice. That's a very small example but it's precisely what I'm talking about.
Try to imagine doing 'Hamlet' and after the show someone walks up to you and says, "Sorry, but you did the role wrong tonight. Try harder tomorrow night." You see? There IS no 'wrong' way to do Hamlet. Or hardly any other role for that matter. And that is exactly the beauty of it, the appeal, the excitement, that 'unknown variable.' But, as much as I don't like it, there IS a wrong way to do this role. And again, it just is. No one's fault, no one is the cause of this...except maybe the composer, but that's hardly to be considered a drawback. The music is every bit as genius as I first thought it to be.
In this play, Adding Machine - The Musical, there is so much of it that is complex rhythm and exact counting. It is necessary because other things can't happen next unless it happens exactly right at that moment. I know that's a bit nebulous, but that's the long and short of it. It's like going on stage every night and doing trigonometry. This is, obviously, by design, hence the title of the play. But I don't like it. I don't like not being able to play INSIDE the text.
I suppose it comes from a deep-seated hatred of people telling me there is only one way to do something. So I naturally, given my pre-disposition and distrust of authority in general, gravitated toward this business. I've spent a career, I'd like to think anyway, approaching roles from a different viewpoint, a new way of thinking about something, an eccentric thought process. Maybe I've been kidding myself, but I like to think so, anyway.
There is room to do that in this play, to be sure. Not a lot, but some. But not nearly enough to give me enjoyment over the evening. Our friend said last night, "Well, it's no wonder you're not having a lot of fun. It's a very depressing theme." Honestly, that has nothing to do with it. It has to do entirely with the practical application of what I do. Not the text, not the subject matter, not even the music, really, but the inability to 'play.' I hate actually 'working' when I go to work.
Now, the audience is none the wiser. So, with that in mind, it really doesn't, in the final analysis, matter how I feel. This is entirely my own thought process. It's not about me, never has been. This is one of the reasons I've always disdained 'Method' work. It's not about the actor. It's all, entirely, every bit, always and forever, about the audience. It's about the $45 they shelled out for that seat. To ever, even for a moment, think otherwise is the absolute height of self-indulgence. It's the closest thing to a crime that an actor can commit, as far as I'm concerned. So many actors actually think it's about them. It astonishes me.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it's best to at least acknowledge that I'm not having any fun doing this. Rather than simply walk around in a sort of morass all the time about having to do it again, simply acknowledge what and why it effects me in such a way. And I think that goes a long way to at least accepting the work and the personal effort on a nightly basis.
Sometimes I feel like I'm going out on the boards every night to compete in a spelling bee rather than interpreting a role. It just is. This is one of those rare occasions when one just has to suck it up and do what is necessary. I may not enjoy it, but I sure as hell appreciate it.
See you tomorrow.
The reason, I finally realized, has nothing to do with the subject matter or the hopelessness inherent in the text or the difficulty in doing it. It has to do with the fact that there are parts (actually massive CHUNKS of the play) that are either right or wrong. That is to say, there is very little room to play. There is either the 'right way to do it' or 'the wrong way to do it.' That doesn't appeal to me.
One of the reasons I became an actor a hundred years ago is because success or achievement or goals or whatever has absolutely nothing to do with 'right' or 'wrong.' This business, this craft, is concerned only with what works or what doesn't work, not 'right' or 'wrong.'
For example, I was watching an old movie the other day. Gene Wilder was playing the lead role. A line was said, a line that probably no other actor on earth could've said 'funny.' Yet Wilder did. It wasn't a funny line, it probably wasn't even intended to be funny by the author. But Wilder, in his inimitable fashion, said the line in such a way that made me chuckle out loud. You see? There was no right or wrong, there was only Wilder's choice. That's a very small example but it's precisely what I'm talking about.
Try to imagine doing 'Hamlet' and after the show someone walks up to you and says, "Sorry, but you did the role wrong tonight. Try harder tomorrow night." You see? There IS no 'wrong' way to do Hamlet. Or hardly any other role for that matter. And that is exactly the beauty of it, the appeal, the excitement, that 'unknown variable.' But, as much as I don't like it, there IS a wrong way to do this role. And again, it just is. No one's fault, no one is the cause of this...except maybe the composer, but that's hardly to be considered a drawback. The music is every bit as genius as I first thought it to be.
In this play, Adding Machine - The Musical, there is so much of it that is complex rhythm and exact counting. It is necessary because other things can't happen next unless it happens exactly right at that moment. I know that's a bit nebulous, but that's the long and short of it. It's like going on stage every night and doing trigonometry. This is, obviously, by design, hence the title of the play. But I don't like it. I don't like not being able to play INSIDE the text.
I suppose it comes from a deep-seated hatred of people telling me there is only one way to do something. So I naturally, given my pre-disposition and distrust of authority in general, gravitated toward this business. I've spent a career, I'd like to think anyway, approaching roles from a different viewpoint, a new way of thinking about something, an eccentric thought process. Maybe I've been kidding myself, but I like to think so, anyway.
There is room to do that in this play, to be sure. Not a lot, but some. But not nearly enough to give me enjoyment over the evening. Our friend said last night, "Well, it's no wonder you're not having a lot of fun. It's a very depressing theme." Honestly, that has nothing to do with it. It has to do entirely with the practical application of what I do. Not the text, not the subject matter, not even the music, really, but the inability to 'play.' I hate actually 'working' when I go to work.
Now, the audience is none the wiser. So, with that in mind, it really doesn't, in the final analysis, matter how I feel. This is entirely my own thought process. It's not about me, never has been. This is one of the reasons I've always disdained 'Method' work. It's not about the actor. It's all, entirely, every bit, always and forever, about the audience. It's about the $45 they shelled out for that seat. To ever, even for a moment, think otherwise is the absolute height of self-indulgence. It's the closest thing to a crime that an actor can commit, as far as I'm concerned. So many actors actually think it's about them. It astonishes me.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it's best to at least acknowledge that I'm not having any fun doing this. Rather than simply walk around in a sort of morass all the time about having to do it again, simply acknowledge what and why it effects me in such a way. And I think that goes a long way to at least accepting the work and the personal effort on a nightly basis.
Sometimes I feel like I'm going out on the boards every night to compete in a spelling bee rather than interpreting a role. It just is. This is one of those rare occasions when one just has to suck it up and do what is necessary. I may not enjoy it, but I sure as hell appreciate it.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
New Review.
“I’m sorry to lose an old and faithful employee, but you see, in an organization like this, efficiency is the first consideration. You will, of course, draw your salary for the full month. We couldn’t do anything less for such a valued and loyal employee. And I’ll direct my secretary to give you an excellent letter of recommendation.”
“Wait a minute. Let me get this right. You mean … you’re letting me go?”
No, this isn’t dialog from Up In The Air, the movie that had George Clooney flying around the country firing people. It’s from Adding Machine: A Musical, adapted from a 1923 play by Elmer Rice. Talk about timeless!
Rice’s The Adding Machine centers on a certain Mr. Zero, a sad sack of a man who finds himself after twenty-five years of old-style accounting suddenly replaced by a machine. Unlike the pink-slipped victims of Up In The Air, however, most of whom a slick Clooney was able to convince that a change would do them good, Mr. Zero snaps and kills his boss.
Clearly Adding Machine: A Musical has other intentions than being your average, everyday musical. Winner of the Outer Critics Circle, Louise Lortel, and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best New Musical, Adding Machine: A Musical (libretto by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt) is a surreal fantasy with a score that makes Sondheim’s complex melodies and rhythms seem like old-fashioned show tunes by comparison.
Since the adjective “surreal” generally makes this reviewer want to turn and run, it may come as a surprise to StageSceneLA readers that I loved every one of Adding Machine: A Musical’s dreamlike, even nightmarish, moments and composer Schmidt’s complex, often dissonant melodies. Under Ron Sossi’s inspired direction, and featuring a uniformly superb cast, Adding Machine: A Musical’s West Coast Premiere at the Odyssey Theater turns out to be about as exciting a musical event as they come.
Like Adam Guettel and Michael John LaChiusa, composer Schmidt take a while getting used to, but the more you listen, the more his music resounds and resonates. Mrs. Zero’s nagging, cacophonous “Something To Be Proud Of” sets the mood from the get-go, followed by the quite extraordinary “Harmony, Not Discord,” entirely spoken by a quintet of performers, each at a different speed and rhythm, yet all somehow blending into one powerful whole. Then there’s “In Numbers,” with its syncopated harmonies, “The Party” which somehow amidst its racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic slurs recalls the talk-songs of Meredith Willson, and “A Pleasant Place” with an almost angelic chorale singing backup to a post-execution Mr. Zero.
Amidst these weird yet wonderful concoctions, out pop several quite hummable show stoppers, like the Kander-&-Ebb-in-Chicago-mode-esque “I’d Rather Watch You,” the catchy three-quarter time “Ham And Eggs,” and “The Gospel According to Shrdlu,” which seems straight out of a Southern Baptist revival meeting.
Charles Erven’s abstract, deliberately dingy gray scenic design sets the expressionist mood from the get-go, aided and abetted by Kathryn Poppen’s monochromatic costumes, Adam Blumenthal’s striking lighting, and Rosalyn Rice’s dramatic sound design, with its strident factory whistles and perfect mixing of musical instruments and unamplified voices.
Working in tandem, director Sossi and choreographer Natalie Labellarte keep the cast moving in ever-varied patterns, particularly the four-member ensemble, who execute numerous roles while serving as a kind of Greek chorus.
Performances are all-around sensational, beginning with Clifford Mort’s angry, bigoted, resentful Mr. Zero, whose enraged roars alternate with near-operatic arias sung in a rich, powerful baritone. Abandoning vanity, Kelly Lester disappears into Mrs. Zero’s faded shell, sings in a crystal clear soprano, and proves herself as adept in a stark dramatic role as she was in her much lighter roles in That Perfect Moment. The non-traditional casting of Christine Horn as Daisy Devore, Mr. Zero’s co-worker and the object of his affection, proves disconcerting at first given the racist epithet Mr. Zero spits out in his confession, but ends up adding complexity to Zero’s character. Not surprisingly, given the StageSceneLA Award winner’s recent performance as the most unforgettable of The Women Of Brewster Place, Horn dazzles in this very different role, imbuing Daisy with a sad sweetness and vocalizing with a set of absolutely glorious pipes. Horn’s fellow StageSceneLA Award winner Rob Herring makes it three superb performances in a row with his work as the sweetest mother-killer ever to grace a musical stage, once again revealing the heavenly tenor that doubtless contributed to his Ovation Award-nominated turn as the doomed Tobias in Sweeney Todd.
An ensemble of gifted musical theater newcomers (Greta McAnany, Travis Leland, Nick Tubbs, and Mandy Wilson) not only acquit themselves of their demanding vocal tasks with consummate skill and flair, they also execute a variety of supporting roles, including married couples Mr. and Mrs. One and Two as well as assorted accountants, prisoners, a prisoner’s wife, a matron, and a prison guard. The only nit one could possibly pick with this particular group of performers is their uniform youth, making middle-aged Mr. Zero stand out as a tad too much an anomaly in the accounting firm. Alan Abelew completes the cast quite effectively in the show’s sole non-musical track, playing three roles: Mr. Zero’s boss, a Fixer, and Charles, whose job it is to inform Mr. Zero of his post-death future.
There would be no Adding Machine: A Musical without the accomplished work of musical director Alan Patrick Kenny and the production’s marvelous three-piece orchestra—Kenny on piano, Chris Meyers on keyboards, and Scott Director on percussion.
Makeup and hair design (both excellent) are by Catherine Joseph, Jennifer Palumbo is stage manager, and Katherine S. Hunt is prop master.
Adding Machine: A Musical will not be everyone’s cup of tea. If Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music is as dark a show as you’d care to see, if you’d pick Jerry Herman over Stephen Sondheim any day, if out-of-the-ordinary is something you’d rather opt to skip … then by all means, search out a more traditional show. If, however, you are open to taking chances where musical theater is concerned, Adding Machine: A Musical is simply not to be missed.
ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Click here for current performance schedule, closing date, and reservation line.
www.odysseytheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
February 6, 2011
“Wait a minute. Let me get this right. You mean … you’re letting me go?”
No, this isn’t dialog from Up In The Air, the movie that had George Clooney flying around the country firing people. It’s from Adding Machine: A Musical, adapted from a 1923 play by Elmer Rice. Talk about timeless!
Rice’s The Adding Machine centers on a certain Mr. Zero, a sad sack of a man who finds himself after twenty-five years of old-style accounting suddenly replaced by a machine. Unlike the pink-slipped victims of Up In The Air, however, most of whom a slick Clooney was able to convince that a change would do them good, Mr. Zero snaps and kills his boss.
Clearly Adding Machine: A Musical has other intentions than being your average, everyday musical. Winner of the Outer Critics Circle, Louise Lortel, and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best New Musical, Adding Machine: A Musical (libretto by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt) is a surreal fantasy with a score that makes Sondheim’s complex melodies and rhythms seem like old-fashioned show tunes by comparison.
Since the adjective “surreal” generally makes this reviewer want to turn and run, it may come as a surprise to StageSceneLA readers that I loved every one of Adding Machine: A Musical’s dreamlike, even nightmarish, moments and composer Schmidt’s complex, often dissonant melodies. Under Ron Sossi’s inspired direction, and featuring a uniformly superb cast, Adding Machine: A Musical’s West Coast Premiere at the Odyssey Theater turns out to be about as exciting a musical event as they come.
Like Adam Guettel and Michael John LaChiusa, composer Schmidt take a while getting used to, but the more you listen, the more his music resounds and resonates. Mrs. Zero’s nagging, cacophonous “Something To Be Proud Of” sets the mood from the get-go, followed by the quite extraordinary “Harmony, Not Discord,” entirely spoken by a quintet of performers, each at a different speed and rhythm, yet all somehow blending into one powerful whole. Then there’s “In Numbers,” with its syncopated harmonies, “The Party” which somehow amidst its racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic slurs recalls the talk-songs of Meredith Willson, and “A Pleasant Place” with an almost angelic chorale singing backup to a post-execution Mr. Zero.
Amidst these weird yet wonderful concoctions, out pop several quite hummable show stoppers, like the Kander-&-Ebb-in-Chicago-mode-esque “I’d Rather Watch You,” the catchy three-quarter time “Ham And Eggs,” and “The Gospel According to Shrdlu,” which seems straight out of a Southern Baptist revival meeting.
Charles Erven’s abstract, deliberately dingy gray scenic design sets the expressionist mood from the get-go, aided and abetted by Kathryn Poppen’s monochromatic costumes, Adam Blumenthal’s striking lighting, and Rosalyn Rice’s dramatic sound design, with its strident factory whistles and perfect mixing of musical instruments and unamplified voices.
Working in tandem, director Sossi and choreographer Natalie Labellarte keep the cast moving in ever-varied patterns, particularly the four-member ensemble, who execute numerous roles while serving as a kind of Greek chorus.
Performances are all-around sensational, beginning with Clifford Mort’s angry, bigoted, resentful Mr. Zero, whose enraged roars alternate with near-operatic arias sung in a rich, powerful baritone. Abandoning vanity, Kelly Lester disappears into Mrs. Zero’s faded shell, sings in a crystal clear soprano, and proves herself as adept in a stark dramatic role as she was in her much lighter roles in That Perfect Moment. The non-traditional casting of Christine Horn as Daisy Devore, Mr. Zero’s co-worker and the object of his affection, proves disconcerting at first given the racist epithet Mr. Zero spits out in his confession, but ends up adding complexity to Zero’s character. Not surprisingly, given the StageSceneLA Award winner’s recent performance as the most unforgettable of The Women Of Brewster Place, Horn dazzles in this very different role, imbuing Daisy with a sad sweetness and vocalizing with a set of absolutely glorious pipes. Horn’s fellow StageSceneLA Award winner Rob Herring makes it three superb performances in a row with his work as the sweetest mother-killer ever to grace a musical stage, once again revealing the heavenly tenor that doubtless contributed to his Ovation Award-nominated turn as the doomed Tobias in Sweeney Todd.
An ensemble of gifted musical theater newcomers (Greta McAnany, Travis Leland, Nick Tubbs, and Mandy Wilson) not only acquit themselves of their demanding vocal tasks with consummate skill and flair, they also execute a variety of supporting roles, including married couples Mr. and Mrs. One and Two as well as assorted accountants, prisoners, a prisoner’s wife, a matron, and a prison guard. The only nit one could possibly pick with this particular group of performers is their uniform youth, making middle-aged Mr. Zero stand out as a tad too much an anomaly in the accounting firm. Alan Abelew completes the cast quite effectively in the show’s sole non-musical track, playing three roles: Mr. Zero’s boss, a Fixer, and Charles, whose job it is to inform Mr. Zero of his post-death future.
There would be no Adding Machine: A Musical without the accomplished work of musical director Alan Patrick Kenny and the production’s marvelous three-piece orchestra—Kenny on piano, Chris Meyers on keyboards, and Scott Director on percussion.
Makeup and hair design (both excellent) are by Catherine Joseph, Jennifer Palumbo is stage manager, and Katherine S. Hunt is prop master.
Adding Machine: A Musical will not be everyone’s cup of tea. If Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music is as dark a show as you’d care to see, if you’d pick Jerry Herman over Stephen Sondheim any day, if out-of-the-ordinary is something you’d rather opt to skip … then by all means, search out a more traditional show. If, however, you are open to taking chances where musical theater is concerned, Adding Machine: A Musical is simply not to be missed.
ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Click here for current performance schedule, closing date, and reservation line.
www.odysseytheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
February 6, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
A no-lose situation.
My disease, the silent disease, that is, type II diabetes, is cramping my social calendar. I probably have a host of other health issues but that's the one in charge of me today. I have to go over to Cedars-Sinai to get some blood work done at the behest of my doctor. The last time I was in for my check-up, everything, all the 'numbers', as she says, were incredibly good. At least the ones she could read without the help of bloodwork. She was very encouraged. Remarkable difference, she said, from when I first came to see her nine months or so ago.
But I don't wanna go to a hospital and sit around for a few hours waiting to get my blood drawn. I wanna be free and run like the wind in the park and dance complicated Pakistani swivel-hipped dances under the stars.
Well, I don't want to be stuck in the hospital, that's certainly true.
Anyway.
I really can't go into too much detail with what I'm about to write next, but it bears mentioning. A screenwriter/producer (well known, with film credits out the ying-yang) type came to see the play I'm doing awhile back. He sent a message to me via our director that I was to contact him. Left his home number, etc. After a bit of confusion in getting the message to me, I finally called him a couple days ago.
He really liked my work, apparently. I won't go into what-all he said, but it was embarrassingly nice. Suffice to say, he really liked it. So we talked for quite awhile. Turns out this man is close friends with Jack Nicholson. In fact, he said he spent Sunday at Nicholson's house watching the Superbowl and he spoke to 'Jack' about 'this terrific performance onstage he had just seen.'
That's all well and good, but of course, it really means very little in terms of getting work. I learned long ago that actors rarely get other actors work. It happens, but not often. Yes, it was nice to know that somebody told the legendary Jack Nicholson about my work, but realistically, that's not really legal tender out here in Lala land.
But what IS legal tender is that this gentleman's son is a major casting guy out here. In fact he's in the middle of casting several pilots at the moment. So he said, "Send over your pic and res and reel right away. I want to personally hand it to my son with a verbal recommendation." Nice.
So I did. Angie, who's been in the wild and wacky film and tv business out here for many years, was tremendously excited. To me, regardless of this guy's stature in the film world (natually, being a dummy about this stuff, I immediately googled him...he's the real deal), I figured it was just another case of someone paying lip service to something they happened to like. But Angie didn't feel that way and consequently now I don't either. She said, "You don't understand. I've been in casting out here for twenty years. This is how things happen." Hm.
There's a lot more to the story, but that's really all I can relate at this point. As a buddy of mine, a very successful tv actor, said when I told him all about it, "It's a very good thing, a no-lose situation. It could turn out to be a small thing or a very big thing, but it's good no matter what." Whatever it turns out to be, at this point it's simply a wait and see kind of thing. More on that if and when it pans out.
It's another stunningly beautiful day here in Southern California. Franny and Zooey are staring at me wondering when the walk will commence. Angie and I have been taking them over to The Equestrian Center and Griffith Park (both literally around the corner from our house) and letting them run free. They love it, especially Franny. They completely ignore, for the most part, the horses and riders we encounter on the trails over there, which is a good thing. It's what I worried about most when we decided to take Franny (who is 13 months old now). He's, uh, easily distracted.
It's all good.
See you tomorrow.
But I don't wanna go to a hospital and sit around for a few hours waiting to get my blood drawn. I wanna be free and run like the wind in the park and dance complicated Pakistani swivel-hipped dances under the stars.
Well, I don't want to be stuck in the hospital, that's certainly true.
Anyway.
I really can't go into too much detail with what I'm about to write next, but it bears mentioning. A screenwriter/producer (well known, with film credits out the ying-yang) type came to see the play I'm doing awhile back. He sent a message to me via our director that I was to contact him. Left his home number, etc. After a bit of confusion in getting the message to me, I finally called him a couple days ago.
He really liked my work, apparently. I won't go into what-all he said, but it was embarrassingly nice. Suffice to say, he really liked it. So we talked for quite awhile. Turns out this man is close friends with Jack Nicholson. In fact, he said he spent Sunday at Nicholson's house watching the Superbowl and he spoke to 'Jack' about 'this terrific performance onstage he had just seen.'
That's all well and good, but of course, it really means very little in terms of getting work. I learned long ago that actors rarely get other actors work. It happens, but not often. Yes, it was nice to know that somebody told the legendary Jack Nicholson about my work, but realistically, that's not really legal tender out here in Lala land.
But what IS legal tender is that this gentleman's son is a major casting guy out here. In fact he's in the middle of casting several pilots at the moment. So he said, "Send over your pic and res and reel right away. I want to personally hand it to my son with a verbal recommendation." Nice.
So I did. Angie, who's been in the wild and wacky film and tv business out here for many years, was tremendously excited. To me, regardless of this guy's stature in the film world (natually, being a dummy about this stuff, I immediately googled him...he's the real deal), I figured it was just another case of someone paying lip service to something they happened to like. But Angie didn't feel that way and consequently now I don't either. She said, "You don't understand. I've been in casting out here for twenty years. This is how things happen." Hm.
There's a lot more to the story, but that's really all I can relate at this point. As a buddy of mine, a very successful tv actor, said when I told him all about it, "It's a very good thing, a no-lose situation. It could turn out to be a small thing or a very big thing, but it's good no matter what." Whatever it turns out to be, at this point it's simply a wait and see kind of thing. More on that if and when it pans out.
It's another stunningly beautiful day here in Southern California. Franny and Zooey are staring at me wondering when the walk will commence. Angie and I have been taking them over to The Equestrian Center and Griffith Park (both literally around the corner from our house) and letting them run free. They love it, especially Franny. They completely ignore, for the most part, the horses and riders we encounter on the trails over there, which is a good thing. It's what I worried about most when we decided to take Franny (who is 13 months old now). He's, uh, easily distracted.
It's all good.
See you tomorrow.
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