Action Bob Markle

A Playwright's Exercise: Spill It On The Floor and See What We Got

2012-01-05T15:05:00.001-05:00

Well, it's 2012 and that really doesn't mean anything to me, but I am finding my life shifting and since I'm having a dickens of a time coming up with a project that will occupy my soul for at least six months or a year, I'm finding myself writing bits and pieces like this one. I've been writing in my journal, just putting fingers to the keyboard seeing what comes out, trying to get a bead on what's really bothering me or getting me excited. That gives a writer a pretty good indication of what he or she should be writing about. That's pretty much what I'm going to be doing here. This post is more for me more than it is for you (sorry to say that, but it's the truth.) I just want to see what's in there, and by writing to an actual audience, I'm interested to see what I'm brave enough to share. You're about to get a snootful of the flotsam and jetsam of my life as it pours out of my brain like tipping over a bucket.

Work is coming along but it's still difficult. I graduated at the end of August and it took me about eight weeks to land something. I knew I was going to teach creative writing at BU, but I needed something more. Sue and I live cheap, real cheap, but sometimes it gets down to the bare bones and that can be scary. I had a few nibbles, some that looked really promising, and by that I mean they were conveniently located or paid a lot of money but I knew by the end of the gig I'd be spiritually bankrupted. Then Boston College hired me, and as Sue and I like to always point out, things do always seem to work out. I worked there one other time for a different group, and loved it. This proved to be the same experience. I can't say enough about how wonderful it was to work for Norma and her staff, and be around all the wonderful, fun, intelligent people who work in stewardship. Norma was a sane, sensible manager, and you can walk in the place without checking your morals at the door. Just as a comparison, I just got word yesterday that a company was looking at me and the feedback was, we're afraid he has too much experience. Okay, maybe I'm gun-shy, but to me that's code for he's old. I know I play the age card sometimes (others might say a lot) but until you walk in my shoes I suggest you believe me. Age discrimination is alive and well in corporate America. It is not only tolerated, it seems to be fostered.

The downside to working two jobs, though, was my entire life was put on hold. By the end of the day I was too knackered to even go to the gym or pick up my guitar. I got fat and sloppy. And it seemed like I forgot over half of whatever I had learned in music. Big, big resolutions for 2012 are get into the gym after about a year and a half of no exercise at all, and picking up the guitar and working it. I mean, playing scales, doing the grunt work that makes you a better musician. I've inherited my father's stomach, which basically means I look like I swallowed a basketball. Not quite, but it could get there. He had a large, round, hard stomach. I could get there if I let myself go. This to me is a silver lining. If I've inherited the bulk of my father's genes, it means I won't die of cancer in ten years, following my mother.

Musically, just today I signed up for a basic ensemble class at Club Passim. I'll be studying with Kimber Ludiker and Austin Nevins. I could have taken a more advanced class, but I want to hang out with these two hip, cool, talented people; I think I can actually learn from them and I've learned in theater (and in business, too) to hang out with people you like and get along with. Kimber is an awesome musician. She's the fiddle player in Della Mae, one of my favorite bands of recent. Scroll down on their site and there's a pic of her. I want their song, Blessed Hands, sung at my funeral. (Besides Tom Sawyer, and I the only person who continually plans his funeral? I doubt if a lot of people would show up, so I want to maximize the tears.) I play their CD all the time, and if were the olden days (and someday these will be the olden days, too) it would have been said that I was redigging the grooves on the record. And who can go wrong with a guy whose first name is Austin?

And I'm seeing more sweat equity at the gym. Thankfully, I'm not that out of shape. What seemed to affect me even more than inactivity because I'd walk everywhere on campus, including up and down five flights of stairs in the library, was that bout of spinal stenosis that hammered me last fall. I think there was a little nerve damage done, and I'm just a bit unsteady on my feet, not a good thing for the mountains when you're hopping from rock to rock on a slope. So I want to drop a few pounds and tighten my stomach up, and also get some coordination back. I want to be back in the mountains this summer. It's been way too long, mostly because of school and Roberto, the Wonder Aussie.

Speaking of Bob, he's on his last legs (literally, he can't get up the stairs anymore and has a real hard time going down them.) I grab his hind legs and we have a wheelbarrow race up the stairs. He has hardly any control over his hindquarters, and no control over his bowels, which can get pretty gross in the apartment. It going to be my job to give him the shot, but I'm just not ready yet. Everyone around me, doesn't want the responsibility. I know this is a process. Just yesterday Sue said she wishes he'd just die in his sleep, but he won't; he's still too strong for that to happen. My wish is that the people around me would back me up when I say it's time, but no one wants to that. The hard truth is he's crippled, even though there are days he's happy and alert, even puppy-like. He goes in and out, up and down, and in the meantime, dog shit laced with Lysol smells horrible.

But when it comes to Bob, it's impossible not to draw a comparison between him and any of us who are getting old. What's going to happen to us when we get inconvenient, because truthfully, the bottom line is that's what he is, though trust me, it's a colossal inconvenience. Try the other day, seven degrees outside and he has shit all over him from lying in it and it's too cold to hose him off. I know so many people who silently worry about their future.

I'm not going to touch politics or the state of our country, though I think that's the thing I'd really like to write about, or at least tell a story set against the backdrop of a dying empire. Yep, that's how I see it. And I'm watching all my liberal friends do their typical knee-jerk because most of them don't own houses, have never been laid off or been in fire financial straits because, in this country, that's what really strips off the veneer of our society. When you have to make hard financial decisions in your own life, you start to see who the government and the financial markets (tied to corporations) couldn't care less about any of us. Until you've had to scrape to buy food or pay the heating bill, life has been way too easy on you and you're basically flying blind right now in this economy. They don't see how Obama is no different from Romney, who happens to be the Republican front runner (barely) and how Obama is just following the policies of Bush. They don't want to go there, because they haven't had to. It's easy for them to follow their old ways and beliefs, but what this country needs is someone to hit the ejector button. Democrats and Republicans alike are tainted. That includes Obama, Paul, Romney, Clinton, and anyone else you want to name. I've been bringing up Ron Paul a bit online, not because I support him, but because he's the only politician right now who is saying the things people don't want to hear. Then liberals do exactly what conservatives do: fall back on their doctrine or on something he said ten years ago, which means anything he says is tainted today. I don't understand people who just won't listen, period, to everyone and everything. It's like listening to Christians quote the bible. And it always reaches a point where I just glaze over and want to run away. I said to Sue, though, the only thing that's stopping me right now is how the #ows movement came about, and there are people who realize the system is broken--everyone from Obama on down. I'm not sure what to do next, but that's the start right there: If you just accept that even your favorite liberal politician is just as corrupt as Newt Gingrich, then you've just anted into the game. Before that, it's just the same old mess.

I'm growing my hair. Actually, it's more that I'm not going to a barber and therefore my hair is growing. I've gotten some compliments. Right now I can feel it tickling the back of my neck, and it's long enough so if it gets in my way I just tuck it behind my ears. I'm doing this because I'm tired of going to barbers to whom I say, I want to keep it long, and they say sure, then pull out their scissors and take a big hunk out. I had a great barber a few years ago then she quit. After going to a number of people, including Sue's hairdresser who is a woman and we figured she'd understand how to cut long hair, I got tired of shelling out twenty five to thirty bucks with tip and walk out looking uglier than I did when I walked in. It dawned on me if I want long hair to stay out of the barber and just grow the damn stuff, just like I did when I was a hippie. Hair's like writing, if you want it, just grow it. If you want to write, just write.

The bread machine actually walked off the chopping block today and hit the deck. I'm thinking this is the sort of news my aunt Marcella would have written. "The dern thing walked right off the table right onto the floor," she'd say. Now that I'm not working full-time (and my next gig will involve some work at home) I'm back to cooking. I love cooking and I like it the same way I like gardening. It gets you involved in your food, in your health. I baked a semolina bread today. When you make it yourself--bread soup, sauces, anything that doesn't mean opening up a package and firing up a microwave--it gets us back to a more natural way of living, which I think is necessary for people to have. And it tastes better and it's better for you, though I don't use "natural" ingredients because they are too hard to find and too expensive. It's gotten so only the rich and elite can eat healthy in his country, but I do the best I can.

I think that's about it. Thanks for listening, if you've read this far. This was helpful to me as a writing exercise, and eventually I'll be posting something at my other blog. Hopefully it will be good news, though there is a reading of one of my plays coming up in about a month on Cape Cod.

Happy Birthday, Alice Anne

2011-12-24T11:47:00.000-05:00

Today would have been my mom's 94th birthday. I always remember her on Christmas Eve with a candle.

MBTA Red Line Moment

2011-12-15T16:56:00.001-05:00

I can put up with just about anything on the T. For starters, the people who hang by the door when people are trying to get in or out, even when they are obviously in the way.

Or people who talk loudly on the phone incessantly, like the guy yesterday morning who turned his face into the door (yes, he was also hanging out in the doorway) and still managed to share his moronic business call with the entire car.

I've even learned to accept all the commuter with their backpacks, the young and old alike, who don't seem to get that that big honking backpack 1) takes up just as much vertical room as another person, and 2) whenever they make the slightest move the backpack swings proportionately more. Think pendulum.

Yes, I can even, God love them, accept the people who sneeze, cough, or whatever into their hands, then grab the overhead bar--with the hand they just expelled bodily fluid into.

The one thing I cannot tolerate, though--the one thing that's fingernails on a chalkboard to me--are the people with the headphones who have their music on so loud, you can still hear this tinny tune going on. It's like a listening to a dripping faucet. Which is exactly what I finally told the guy this morning on the Red Line who was standing next to me. He was wearing full-size headphones, no less, and you could still hear this tinky, tinky, tinky thing going on.

I tapped his bag. Hey man, can you turn your music down a bit. It's like listening to a leaky faucet.

He did, but he didn't seem too happy about it.

Google Dynamic Views Suck. It's Back to Old Blogger.

2011-10-16T16:06:00.000-04:00

Well, that was a nice experiment with Google's dynamic views for blogger, wasn't it? I don't know how many of you got to see it in action because DV's don't work with third party analytics, so I had no idea who was checking out ABM. I know through Google Analytics there were lots of visitors, and because DVs were flashing pictures and links at you like Saturday night at the carnival, there were lots of page views, but I have no idea who you were. Or what you were looking for.

So it's back to the old look until Google gets off its high horse and realizes what people really want (or at least this peep) isn't necessary what Google wants for him.

I'm a sucker for technology. Give me a button to mash down on and I'm there. And I don't read the manual. I just dive in. And I liked the interface it gave to old Action Bob, nice and spiffy and all dynamic just like the name promised and it caused people to at least look at more content. But flash is no substitution for real content, for real information.

I'm loving social networking more and more, especially since now I see it in real action with #Occupy. About a year ago I was at a very high faluting party at BU and there was a Very Big Deal professor (tweeds, flannels, just the right length hair) there holding court for all his pretty little blonde grad students, and he was joking about technology and proud of the fact that he didn't know Twitter from his professorial ass. And this was about the time when China was shutting down the Internet and he asked me with a broad wink to his harem what was Twitter good for. I mentioned China and freedom, and that wasn't good enough for him. He fired off some dumb joke that was meant to dismiss me, but it only lowered my opinion of him to about what Obama's approval rating is today.

But you have to draw a line in the sand. I don't own a smart phone out of choice (well, I'm really broke too, so I can't afford the additional monthly payment) but I really don't want to be that connected. I still want to engage in the world, face to face, in real flesh and blood. And when I'm blogging, I want to know who I'm talking to, and what they're looking for.

The Times They Are A Changing

2011-10-15T14:05:00.000-04:00

I feel like I got shot out of a cannon when I finished grad school. Others who had gone through the program warned me about it. You're so steeped in your studies you don't realize how single-focused you are. At times, when Sue wanted me to think about something--anything, plans for the weekend, what to cook for dinner--my answer would be, let me just get through this...and this would be an assignment, finishing a scene, finishing the semester, something, anything that was so encompassing of my mind that I couldn't fit one more thing into my head without the feeling that it would explode.

And then, suddenly, you're back out in the world. And what a world it is. Occupy, and all the craziness and noise that it brings as people shout and argue their values when to me it seems so simple: Our society has been overtaken by corporate greed with a complicit government. Anything that falls from that is suspect, including your political bent (liberal or conservative), your religion, or your place in society. It's something I'm definitely excited about, but it also wears me out as people seem fixated on getting their point across. We know what the problem is. If you don't, you haven't been awake for the past four or five years.

There is an increasingly worse economy that has made it even harder for a fifty-something-year-old man to find a decent job, and by decent I mean one that not only pays enough so I can pay my bills and have a little extra, but also one that I find fulfilling.

There's a political world where the president who I had reluctantly put so much hope and faith in, has done nothing in the line of what he ran for, and he is now putting troops in Africa, even though we're fighting losing and expensive wars on two fronts.

But all this makes for things to be so exciting. My plays are getting good feedback. That's a start. That means so much to me. Those plays are the real me, so personal at their source and they harken back to me as a boy, and now it seems I'm pretty close to where I wanted to be "when I grew up."

My life is Sue grows everyday. I love her a little more each day and I don't know what I'd do without my best friend. We walk through this crazy world hand in hand and as long as I know she still loves me all is right with the world. There are a couple of lines in Highland Center, Indiana about this, where Hank says to Alice Anne, Are you scared? and she answers, Not if I'm with you. That exchange took place between me and the real Alice Anne when we were on a plane coming to Boston when she had two more months to live. See, it's all so personal, as the world should be, I think.

You can even see Action Bob has put on a new face. Google opened the door, I walked through, and though I'm not 100% happy with this new interface, I'm willing to give it a chance. What I don't like is Google forcing me to do things its way. This is just one more example of corporate greed, small yes, but enough is enough. Corporations and governments, I believe, should serve the people. Corporations (are you listening, Google?) should give their customers what the customer wants, not what the corporation wants them to want. The only company that got away with giving customers what they didn't ask for was Apple, and Steve Jobs is dead. Google is no Apple, not by a long shot. Don't give me that free-market line, either: If you don't like Blogger move. You can't. They got you locked in. The free-market, as you call it, is broken, just like our political system. And that's what the Occupiers are protesting about. If you don't get it, that's not my problem. Stay at home and watch your television. Someone will come along shortly and wipe the drool from your mouth.

What it was like for me at today's Occupy Boston protest

2011-10-11T01:12:00.000-04:00

I feel I should get this out to people who may be either wondering what is really going on with all the Occupy cities in the United States or rolling their eyes at me going, here he goes again. John just can't keep out of trouble and he's a little too old to be an idealistic hippie.

I don't want to get into why I went, starting with the notion that I truly believe our government is completely broken and dysfunctional. I don't believe our one person/one vote notion of freedom is worth a damn anymore, and I think that anyone who says, If you don't vote you can't complain is truly clueless as to what's going on. Anyone you vote for except maybe on the very local level couldn't care less about you. They're politicians, and all they want is the office. And when they get the office they go to work for the people with the most money. That's not me, that's large multinational corporations. And then they sell off the country to the highest bidder.

It doesn't matter that Occupy Boston or Wall Street or Los Angeles or wherever (did you know they're all over the country? So many people think it's just Wall Street. No, it something like fifty something major cities) are just gathering and protesting. You hear the MSM say they are directionless and wonder what they are they protesting about? That's not the point. That's just the MSM doing what it always does. Hey, Political Candidate, what is your agenda? And the PC gives them one, just so they can tick that off their list. It doesn't matter to the MSM that tomorrow that agenda will change depending on the locale of that day's stump speech, they have an agenda. And this is where the MSM is so clueless. First, the Occupiers don't need them. The MSM is missing the boat on this one the same way they missed the boat on the paradigm that's putting them out of business in the first place. All the news and information is flowing back and forth on the social network and the digital world. At first I couldn't find any info on what was going on. I mean, people were setting up tents in Dewey Square in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank, and I couldn't find anything on the Globe's or the Herald's sites? Of course not. They're run by corporations, and their parent corporations aren't going to want that reported on. So I went to Facebook and Twitter and there it all was. (Right now I'm following real-time Twiitter and Facebook feeds as the Boston Police are approaching the tent city. They do this under cover of night, and won't allow the press to watch. When did our country become like this?)

Which is why last week I stopped by the tent city and I was amazed. I wanted to see things for myself. There was all kinds of organization going on there, including a press tent filled with computers. I mean, these people know what they're doing. And here's the thing: the MSM is missing the whole story. The BIG STORY is that for the first time in forty years, people are finally taking to the streets again in the United States. And today, I saw regular middle-class people, because what has been decimated in this country by corporate greed but the middle class, and there it was in full force today. In Boston there were thousands.

I had heard about the march on Facebook. Sue and I actually packed a picnic lunch and headed for the Common where students were going to meet then march to Dewey Square. It was a beautiful day, though kind of hot. We walked around and things seemed a bit scraggly. We walked around some more, and noticed the crowd had grown. People were gathering. Sue and I parked ourselves in the shade and watched for awhile, then the marchers began marching. Should we join them? It seemed weird. We passed some police officers and I heard on say that it seemed the marchers were heading one way. The cops didn't know where the marchers were going. And that's when it hit me. You know the first time you vote you felt this power, this right. I am an American and I am voting. Today I thought, freedom of assembly. That's what I'm doing. I'm free to assemble and a whole crowd can assemble and they don't need a permit from the city, who came up with that rule? This was our freedom and our right at its most basic core.

We wound our way through the Common, past the State House, passed the Fox News offices (it didn't look as if anyone was at home) through Downtown Crossing to Dewey Square. I said to Sue that if and when it comes to the police against the demonstrators, the tiny streets in Downtown Crossing would be the perfect place for the police to trap them.

People seemed awe-struck as we marched by. A lot of support, though. A lot of thumbs up. We got to Dewey Square and Sue and I peeled off and used the capitalistic bathrooms in South Station, then went back outside. The marchers, now thousands since the marchers from the Commons joined the Occupiers at Dewey Square, continued on down Atlantic Ave. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn I was marching in a walk for hunger. The march just continued on. Back through Downtown Crossing and towards the North End. We didn't know where we were going or who was in charge. We just followed the crowd. We marched past Faneuil Hall toward the Garden. It was in the North End where things went ugly. Not real ugly, but not pretty.

I was marching along thinking this is so much like a pretty day in the city, but at some point it's going to end. The nice relationship between the protesters and the police will end. Because as some point the city, as it is doing at this very moment, will impose its will on the protesters. And the police will be ordered to step in. Or you can't just quietly occupy a green space forever and do nothing. Something has to change. Because values will clash, and when that happens, people become unruly.

Check this out. This is the sort of rhetoric that is out there. This is a profile about one of the protesters on Wall Street:

"The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION. These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back."

I can understand that. It's how I feel. The system is broken, and isn't working for me. And it won't anymore. The government is not concerned with me or my loved ones and I have to start taking matters in my own hands. What that means I don't necessarily know. I know getting out and marching made me feel like I was doing something. And we don't know where this is going to take us. I posted something a few days ago where Chris Hedges, who has seen plenty of revolutions, talked about what was going on in the United States. I was most intrigued by what he said about the protesters in Berlin. They thought in a year they might have people crossing between East and West Berlin, and then suddenly the Wall was down. Even the leaders of the protest movement didn't see it coming.

But it was at a bridge in the North End where the police stopped the march. Traffic stopped, and by traffic I mean tour buses and duck boats (oh no, not the duck boats!) Later I read that the police said the bridge wouldn't have held the collected weight of the protesters, but doesn't sound a bit odd to you? I mean, it wasn't a suspension bridge made of jungle vines. But a couple of paddy wagons pulled up, and a couple of locals got into it with a protester in full view of the police, and one of the protesters actually pointed it out to an officer who then had to respond, and the woman said her freedom of speech was being trampled on because she couldn't yell inflammatory inanities at the protesters.

We started talking to a man who I know wouldn't have wanted to be identified, and I'll respect that. He asked what we were protesting, and I asked him, You have to ask? Where have you been the past four or five years? He agreed he knew sort of what it was about, and said it was an anit-capitalistic protest. I told him that was part of it, but also a dysfunctional government that is up for sale to the highest bidder. We had a nice conversation. Later I thought to myself that I should have asked him a question. He admitted to a six-figure income, and I should have asked him how much money in actual dollars and cents did he lose when the stock market crashed. I'm sure it would have been a lot. On that day, Sue and I looked at each other and shrugged, saying if you don't have any money to lose what does it matter? But I'm sure this guy lost big. And there's the big question: You asked me what I'm doing in the street protesting, and I have to ask you, after that, why aren't you off the sidewalk and in the street too?

10.10.11 OccupyBoston Raw Video

2011-10-10T20:37:00.001-04:00

Just trying to dump as much of the video and images I shot today. Beautiful day that started out peaceful, but you knew that was going to end. But it was a wonderful crowd, thousands out there finally feeling, I think like I was feeling, finally doing something. I'm sorry, the one person/one vote system is broken, and I didn't know what to do. You vote someone in who promises change, and they then just vote with whoever has the most money. Today I felt like I was really finally voicing my total dissatisfaction with our government, and I was doing it with thousands of great, intelligent people. When you talked to them, they weren't nutbags, they were intelligent concerned people who really cared about their fellow human beings and for society and their country.

A Della Mae Threefer

2011-09-23T14:12:00.000-04:00

Della Mae just posted three new videos on YouTube. Really nice ones, too, that really show off not just their talents as musicians but also a flavor of the energy you'll see when they're on stage.

We got turned on to them when Sue started taking fiddle lessons at Club Passim from two-time National Fiddle Champion Kimber Ludiker, Della Mae's fiddle player. The next step was easy: Grab some tickets to one of their concerts and you'll be hooked.

Anyway, give 'em a listen. Here are their three new videos.

Blessed Hands

Polk County

Jamie Dear

I'm Stoned Again

2011-09-22T16:21:00.000-04:00

Two days ago I woke up and knew something wasn't right. The fact that it was 6:30 in the a.m. was part of it. I'm rarely awake at that hour. But the pain, discomfort, and general ill feeling was telling me something I was hoping I could head off with a glass of water laced with a bit of orange juice. Not a chance. When you've got kidney stones, you're a goner. Nothing, and I mean nothing, short of some serious intravenous pain killers that you can only get from serious medical professionals, can get you through what a minuscule crystal is about to put you through.

"Oooh, kidney stones. I've heard they're pretty painful." They're the one thing a man can throw at a woman if she starts going on about the pain of labor. Granted, the thing that comes out in one is nothing compared to the thing that comes out in the other, but pain for pain, women even back down from kidney stones. They're even more painful than the excruciating pain I had to bear last fall when I learned I had spinal stenosis. That's a condition caused by your spinal column being too small for your spinal chord. You know what that is, right? It's the entire bundle of nerves that run up and down your spine. Yeah, kidney stones hurt more than that. They hurt more than the symptoms I was exhibiting, numb and paralysis in my leg. Shooting pains up and down my leg, all the way to my ankle. A charlie horse that I called, the Mother of all Charlie Horses. Yeah, kidney stones hurt more than the Mother of all Charlie Horses.

In the ER, the drill is simple. I writhe in pain on a gurney while nurses take blood and my vitals. Then they hook you up to an IV to force fluids in you. You want to hose the mother out. In the meantime, I might be weeping like a Nancy or if I feel like it, vomiting. Real serious pain causes nausea, did you know that? Then the drugs come and you lie there experiencing the best dreams you've ever had in your life. Eventually they let you go with prescriptions for enough Oxy with a street value that could pay off my school loans. And now they also give you this other drug that helps you pee like a racehorse. Like I said, the idea is to hose the little bastard right out of you.

In the meantime, the stone is taking its sweet time negotiating your bladder and ureters, and your body, sensing this intruder, feels that a fever and general malaise is the best thing it can do under the circumstances.

So, you drink and drink and drink. You're supposed to drink up three quart of water a day. Night and day, you're in and out, in and out of the bathroom. Let it be known that there reaches a point in taking in that much water that it turns from drinking to drowning. Eventually, you can't stand water because you're just forcing it in. Can you say bloated?

I get to the point where I'll drink anything except water. Water with OJ maybe. Today I drank pot after pot of herbal tea with honey, but that eventually starts to get to you, too. Oh, and with all this liquid intake, there's that drug working on you, so you're running to the bathroom every whipstitch.

I don't even want to go into what happens in the bathroom.

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams VIDEO

2011-09-19T14:26:00.000-04:00

Well, the video is pretty much a seven-minute long commercial to buy the CD, but it's not like it's Netflix trying to screw you. It's not a huge box set with "extras" that so many recording artists are putting out now, either, for a couple of hundred dollars, not understanding or caring that that amount of money for some music lovers now pays for the heat or for food on the table. It doesn't sell for a lot, and it's looks like it's a compilation of a bunch of old songs never recorded by Hank Williams by a bunch of really talented and passionate musicians. I just always grind my teeth, though, when I see the CEO or president of this or that company talking folksy. I don't understand why they just don't stay in their fancy offices and continue to just pull in their overpriced paychecks. Why do they have to get out and mingle with the rest of us? Now that is something Hank would say, so I think it's totally appropriate.

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams EPK from Columbia Records on Vimeo.

Hey Netflix's Reed Hastings: Your Skin's Hanging Off Your Bones

2011-09-19T10:51:00.000-04:00

Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, came out with this big mea culpa on Netflix's blog and in text messages for raising prices, apologizing for being the arrogant, greedy bastards they are (wow, 20-20 hindsight, huh, Reed?)

What an example of damage control, huh? Take a look.

And if you believe that, as they say I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. What you are looking at is the product of hours and hours of meetings and conference calls and emails and a helluva lot of money in costs--probably more money than many of us will make in ten years--to PR agencies and corporate communication professionals. The whole tone and premise is we want to show our human side, when all along we can see it Reed: You're skin's hanging off your bones. What you're seeing is an alien life form trying to act human.

Netflix is just one snake in a nest of snakes comprising the home entertainment business. We know the entertainment business is cutthroat, and these third-tier providers are the true bottom feeders. Netflix's business was taking in water everywhere. It wasn't just customers jumping ship. It's own "partners"--which is a business term akin to a Facebook "friend"--trying to take them for whatever they can. This business is just a passle of jackals.

"Two weeks ago, negotiations between Netflix and Starz, the premium pay-TV provider, broke down. Starz owns the Internet rights to titles from Sony and Disney, so it is an important source of films and TV shows for Netflix. But Starz is reportedly asking for a $300 million deal, or 10 times the $30 million agreement it penned in 2008 and Netflix doesn’t want to pay." Here's the source of that quote.

Netflix, partially through its own doing and partially because of the Darwinian law that rules the business, was the wounded antelope on the Serengeti, with the lions closing in. Netflix's last option was to actually try to appear human and appeal for mercy from people who don't have a clue about the true nature of the game.

Della Mae- Blessed Hands

2011-09-18T11:36:00.000-04:00

To anyone who has a hard life. To anyone for whom life can be, at times, hard. For all of us who find joy and inspiration in music and what it can do for the soul. This is music based in what I feel is real life, filled with human interaction and love.

I'm Becoming a Huge Tom Russell Fan. What About You?

2011-09-15T14:25:00.000-04:00

Been digging through YouTube for Tom Russell videos just to get stoked for his concert next Tuesday at Club Passim. And just about everything I click on I love. Great American stories. Not the crap the Tea Party/GOP is slathering on the public like lard on toast. These are real American stories, based in the Old West (stand up tall next to Sam Shepard.)

These are just a few of his songs I could listen to over and over. Real, impassioned stories.

East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam

2011-09-13T10:48:00.001-04:00

Going to see Tom Russell at Club Passim next Tuesday, September 20. Maybe you should, too.

Here's East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam.

Tift Merritt--Stray Paper

2011-09-13T09:20:00.000-04:00

And while I'm back on posting songs, here's one I stumbled on. Tift Merritt is someone who's on my short list to see. I missed her the one time I can remember her coming here to Boston--she played at the MFA, that's the Museum of Fine Arts and I can't imagine this act playing at that staid place. She probably played an acoustic set.

I know I learned about her a while back on one of those compilation CDs that music magazines are wont to put out, a good idea that I'm sure a lot of labels balk at. I mean, you can't just give it away for free, the greasy suits with the nice haircuts say.

You can see from this that this woman has some serious rock-country chops. And she's got an awesome band backing her up.

Enough. I'm just blathering. Just listen. And hang in there because there's a nice surprise at the end.

The Weight--Gillian Welch & Old Crow Medicine Show

2011-09-13T09:04:00.001-04:00

Crap rattles around in my head. The Internet doesn't help. Actually, the Internet is an enabler. I can surf and follow my nose like an old bloodhound following a scent over the horizon into oblivion. From this tree to that rock over this stretch of sand and the next thing I know I'm around the bend and everyone is out of sight. Which is usually the way I like things.

I criticize my own daughter for posting songs on her blog simply because they resonate with her. You got to add your own voice, I tell her. Give it more value and pass it along, I say in words that make me wince now that I've realized they came out of my own mouth and now that I think about it. I've been guilty of doing that more than once in this space, and who cares? Music speaks for itself, doesn't it? Do I have to add words, words, words? More noise to the world when the music simply wants to be heard?

Anyway, as I was following my nose this morning, I found this and I would have loved to have been sitting in that audience just taking it all in.

Back to Square One with the Guitar

2011-09-12T23:12:00.001-04:00

Graduate school was one of the most intense long-term experiences I've had in a while. Not that I don't get intense experiences almost on a daily basis. I mean, check out the economy. As I used to say when I started freelancing, homelessness and starvation are great motivators. There's nothing like the realization that I may still end up on a park bench in my old age, huddled under a raggedy-ass thin blanket in the snow. Seriously, I've thought of it. What do you do when the money runs out?

Look back on that first sentence and realize that what grad school was, was long-term. It was a non-stop shot out of a canon where you just kept flying through the air and you never thought you were going to land. I'm reading comments, primarily on Facebook, of people who have started the program at BPT and they are completely overwhelmed, exactly the way I was a year ago. I mean, when do I sleep? When do I see Sue? When do I do anything except study? Even, with all the studying and the completing responsibilities toward your stipend, when do I write? Well, it all came together, you slip into a mean routine and just ride it out.

Now, I'm trying to cobble a life. I'm looking for work, and I'll probably blog about that at some point when I get over the fact that I got hammered on an interview for a job that I thought I had, but didn't really want in the first place, but I had to go for something. I mean, I think I'm done with the corporate world and I certainly don't want to shill for an insurance company, which is what this interview was for. That seriously shows how desperate I am, that I said, Insurance?--no problemo. I'll just check my soul here at the door before I wipe my feet. I never did fit in that well to begin with, and now as I've gotten older and set in the writing world, I fit in even less. I think Sue said it best, It's almost like they can smell I'm an outsider. But the work scene is scary. I want to teach, and teaching jobs are scarce, just like any other job. But I'm...hopeful.

Tonight, though, I got back to music lessons, something I had to give up while in school and something I missed so much. And maybe I'll need the lessons some day in case I need to busk in Park Street. I did have a teacher who once said, in all sincerity, that all musicians should have the experience of playing out on the street or in subway stations. I guess there's a visceral grittiness that happens that leads to the blues. I don't know.

I did get rusty. I was really cruising along, learning and growing as a musician, but then I had to make some real choices and cut things out of my life and just dedicate all my talents and energy to playwriting. Sometimes I wouldn't touch a guitar for a week or two. Or I'd just pick it up and dust it, since that's all it was doing was collecting dust. Or I'd walk past it and run my fingers along the strings like you would a picket fence on the street. That's all changed, and tonight Joe, my old timey teacher, got me started back on square one. Start reading music. Start playing E, F, and G on the first string, and tap it out with my foot. Three notes. It's all back to square one stuff. I don't mind though. I'm back at it. And I want to get into songwriting seriously. I mean, what am I really supposed to do in Park Street?--cover old Lowell George songs? Still, I do love this one.

Saturday reading...

2011-09-10T12:15:00.000-04:00

There are a few things I'd like to get out of my system here, but a couple of things.

It's a beautiful Saturday and Sue and I are soon going to meet some wonderful friends for a trip to the ICA in Boston, so I don't want to spend my time blogging, for cripe's sake.

The other thing is, as much as I'm for openness and truthfulness, I've learned to censor myself a little bit. If you want to get a glimpse of what I'd really like to be talking about here--and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do it without shooting myself completely in the foot--check out my Twitter feed. Yeah, it's still Johnny vs. The Volcano a.k.a Corporate America. Why do I even keep trying?

But, in lieu of some hot gossip, check out johngreinerferris.com for some of the latest posts on theater and playwriting there.

Kenny Fuentes Asked For This Recipe & It's Too Good To Keep A Secret

2011-09-04T17:45:00.000-04:00

The last time I saw Kenny Fuentes, the artistic director at the Colab Theater, was last night at Krista D'Agostino's good-bye party and he was taking a poll asking if it's cheating on your spouse if you...well, let's just put aside what the circumstance Kenny was proposing.

Anyway, before that, we were talking about food. Good food. Because he and Bob Mussett, along with Krista, had cooked up a Chicken McNuggett casserole. I don't even want to tell you what these folks do with bacon.

But anyway, we got to talking about recipes and Sue said I had this kick-ass recipe for chicken that I cook at Christmastime. Kenny asked for it, saying he'd be too lazy too cook it but might find someone to do it for him.

I was thinking this recipe is too good to keep secret. So Kenny, here ya go. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy hanging out with you. And anyone else who wants to give it a go, try it out.

Now, as far as your question, Kenny--Don't both people have to be alive to do that??

Roasted Chicken with Holiday Stuffing

Recipe courtesy Martin Yan

Show: Cooking Live Episode: Feast with Martin Yan

Recipe Summary

Prep Time: 8 hours Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Marinade:

2 tablespoons dark soy

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1(2 1/2) pound spring chicken

STUFFING:

1/4 cup dried chestnuts

3 dried black mushrooms

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 Chinese sausage (2 ounces each), diced

2 medium shallots, thinly sliced

2 stalks green onions, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons oyster-flavored sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 cup cooked glutinous rice(sweet rice)

Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl. Rub chicken inside and out with marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Stuffing: Soak the dried chestnuts overnight in water. Place them in a pan with water and simmer, covered, until soft, about 30 minutes; drain. Discard the stems and thinly slice the mushroom caps. Place a wok over high heat until hot. Add oil, swirling to coat sides. Add sausage; stir-fry until sausage is slightly crisp, 11/2 to 2 minutes. Add shallots, green onions, chestnuts, mushrooms and cilantro. Cook for 1 minute. Stir in oyster-flavored sauce, and sesame oil. Remove pan from heat and add rice; mix well. Let stuffing cool. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Just before roasting, place stuffing inside chicken; enclose with skewers. Place chicken, breast side up, on a rack in a roasting pan. Insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of thigh meat, without touching bone. Bake until thermometer registers 180 to 185 degrees, about 1 to 11/2 hours. During the last half of roasting time, baste chicken occasionally with pan juices.

Controversial Commercial In Australia On Fertility: What do you think?

2011-09-02T09:03:00.000-04:00

Australian ad agency Rhodes Shapter Dale Rhodes has produced a commercial that will air on Australian television for a fertility clinic that shows a birth taking place.

I guess it's causing a stir there. Geez, for my money, I'd rather see semi-clever ads for beer like this one, wouldn't you?

Okay, if you ignore all the cliches, from fostering (hey get it, fostering!) a national stereotype, to setting back male/female relationships about sixty years, it is kind of funny. Hey, it's beer, right? This is the reason, though, why I don't own a television set. If I was subjected to that commercial over and over and over again, along with the rest of the campaign, I'm sure I'd have this sense that my brain and intellect was under the influence of about a case of Fosters. Which I guess is what they want.

Anyway, here's the fertility ad. What do you think? I actually like it. It's pretty to watch, but the maybe five times I've watched it now has really made me hate that heavenly host music.

Oh Good Grief, Not Another Blog: Digital Presence Sure Is A Lot Of Work

2011-08-30T16:45:00.000-04:00

I forgot where I saw it or what the number was, but the number of Web pages being generated daily, or by the second, is some astronomical Eisteinian figure. Not that that means anything, except companies like EMC or whoever the "leading worldwide provider of enterprise-wide storage devices" is nowadays are hopping up and down. Hoarders of the digital ones and zeros.

I had to make a new blog. It's over on my new Web site, which I also had to make. The site is my digital presence as a playwright, and everyone, I'm told, has to have one. So the little nerd in me found a cheap (Weebly--it's free!) development platform (only a nerd would use that term with a straight face) and in less than two days I had me a brand-spanking new Web site. Pretty darn proud of myself, yes I am. Who said all those years in high tech were wasted years? Just for some gravy I also threw together this little puppy. Aren't I a hot shit? Oh, when you check out the puppy, vote for me. I might get my card up in Times Square and wouldn't that be awesome for An Emerging Playwright?

But now I have the problem of having to keep two blogs going. It's like two stoves in the wintertime, they have to generate some heat or else the analytics will drop. That's right, I added my own analytics to the site, so I could track visitors. Plus I have to keep my site current with new content or else people will stop coming. Oh shoot, and I started another blog at BU for my creative writing class to post, so I'm going to have to watch that one, too. And let's not forget my Facebook page. I post a lot there, there, reposting and commenting.

All this digital presence stuff sure is lot of work. When am I going to have time to write plays?

On The Eve of Destruction: Food, Liberty, and Civil Rights

2011-08-27T12:09:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene is supposed to pay Boston a visit come tomorrow. It seems there's a lot of hullabaloo about destruction. News reports always add an adjective before the characteristics of the storm: Irene begins its "destructive run." It "lashed" the North Carolina coast. It "pounded" shorelines. The Boston Herald today said, "The storm stands to bring a treacherous trifecta of nature’s forces: punishing winds, torrential rains and pounding waves along the coast." Not to mention some really bad alliteration.

It's going to be a big blow, no doubt. There's always the danger of the wind blowing down trees onto cars and houses, and knocking down power lines that could leave us without electricity for days. That means food spoils--you can lose hundreds of dollars that way--and things like showers become luxuries for some if their heating system depends on an electrical water pump.

I didn't want to buy into the whole hurricane fever. I looked around the house and it seemed we had pretty much whatever we needed. Worse comes to worse we'll either fire up the grill or a camp stove and live on pasta until things settle down. Still, I felt the pull to head to Stop 'n Shop. I grabbed my two bags and walked there. I like to generally walk. It's a way I can think about all the characters I have milling around in my head--both fictional and real. And think how they intersect and I think of interesting and evil things to put them through, the fictional ones at least.

And walking is the only way to really learn a city or a neighborhood. When I travel I love to wander the neighborhoods. And doing it in your own can be so illuminating. The Chinese here in Wollaston are doing a great job settling in. Every other house has some sort of garden in the yard. They don't grow something as useless as grass. Instead they grown their melons and vegetables. Their yards and gardens are so efficient. They're a combination of the practical and the decorative. Little paths wind through the vegetables. I saw a pipe sticking through a fence to drain the garden onto the sidewalk. Bamboo and other exotic plants are there for decoration. I think I saw more than a couple of dahlias taller than me. I looked down one driveway and saw an old woman sitting in her garage with a full kitchen at work. The shipyard and the quarries are long gone from Quincy. I know from talking to a few townies that they long for those days. They're like characters in a Tennessee Williams' play, longing for the days of the Old South, when things were genteel and there were Gentleman Callers.

I was expecting pandemonium at Stop 'n Shop, but the only signs that there was trouble were no carts inside the store and one of the scanner stands was out of order. It was crowded, but people were polite. It didn't seem any different than what could be any other Saturday. But the lack of carts, the crowd, the technology breakdown, and the sale on so many of the perishables told me that cracks were showing in the system, but it was still holding up. The world we live in, the way we have it set up, is so fragile. Just our food supply is in jeopardy every day, influenced by the price of gas and natural disasters. We've been watching the price of food go up in the past year. Just the other day Sue called me from the store, astonished that a red onion costs two dollars. An onion! The price of a gallon of milk is about four dollars now. We usually go to BJs for milk, eggs, and orange juice now, though today I bit the bullet and bought a dozen small eggs and a half-gallon of milk. We used to squeeze our own orange juice until the price of even juice oranges made that prohibitive. Last night I read a tweet from a reporter in Libya who said they were boiling eggs in the water from a flower vase. Imagine things getting to that point around here. Oh, that would never happen in the United States, people say. But the cracks are showing there, too. Being an insomniac gives me the opportunity to have a lot of waking hours to read, and last night I came upon this story on Al Jazeera. It's an opinion piece entitled, New York Becomes the Occupied Territories, and the writer explains how the NYPD is now working with the CIA to infiltrate the Muslim community in New York. "Simply put, if the intelligence that the NYPD intelligence unit is gathering is not useful to the judicial process, then it's not police work, it's spying. If Americans think being spied on by their government isn't such a big deal, they can talk to the millions of Arabs who've rebelled in good measures because of decades of such practices, or the citizens of former Communist countries in Eastern Europe. All of these governments also justified spying with the need to "protect" the state and citizens from potentially dangerous people. But it always ends the same way."

Anyway, it looks like we're on the eve of destruction on a few fronts, doesn't it.

Internet 2.0 Fortune Cookies: Knee-Deep in Social Networking

2011-08-25T16:22:00.000-04:00

Two days ago I learned I passed my French exam which means I have completed all my coursework for an MFA in playwriting from Boston University. And, as my first act as a graduated playwright, yesterday I, as an artist of the 21st century, began work on a Web site to promote my plays. (Every playwright has one.) So yesterday I started it and today johngreinerferris.com went live. One thing you learn how to do in grad school is write and work fast and under pressure. And one thing you learn from working in the computer industry is how to intuitively use computer tools including development platforms that to someone else (read, non-nerdy types) resembles foreign language manuals on how to survive a nuclear meltdown.

Plus, I put together an About.Me page. Which is where I learned about Klout. Klout says that I am an Explorer, and that I actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You're exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you "get it", we predict you'll be moving up.

Klout also says, You are influential to a tightly formed network that is growing larger.

And, You do not engage with very many influencers.

Also, You have the ability to generate actions and discussions.

And, You have a small but tightly formed network that is highly engaged.

Does all this sound like something you'd find in Internet 2.0 fortune cookie?

Well, Klout sure is making me feel like Mr. Cool Hipster. Mr. Nerdy Pants. Mr.--oh, to heck with it.

Yes, anyone who follows me on this blog knows I'm a nerd who is fascinated by all this social networking Internet 2.0 or whatever it is "influencers" are calling it now. But while the influencers are coming up with names for things, people like me want to use them to engage in some serious discussion.

I know Facebook and Twitter take some serious abuse (even by me sometimes; oh, they can take it) about how shallow things can get. That's not the fault of the technology. The fault lies with the people who don't know how to a) use the tools; or b) don't see the full potential of the tools. But there's no denying: Facebook and Twitter and blogs and Web sites can be the source of some serious dialogue. You just have to know the limits of the technology, and the limits are there and very real.

They will never, I repeat, never replace face-to-face human exchanges. Skype and all that are all very cool for adding dimension to human interaction, but there's nothing that will replace feeling a warm handshake. But for giving a theater on the other side of the country a good idea of who I am and what my work is all about, Weebly did the trick.

The Mill 6 T Plays: Behind the Scenes Video

2011-08-19T16:28:00.001-04:00

Barlow Adamson who, by the way, read brilliantly for the part of JP in the Boston Playwright Theater's Ground Floor New Plays Series reading of Highland Center, Indiana, put together this video about the process that goes behind making The T Plays. This is really it. For those of you who somehow have the notion that theater is all glamor and Hollywood, this might change your mind. Although you still don't get the sense of the butterflies the size of wombats in your stomach, the mind-numbing fatigue that you usually have to push through due to sleep deprivation, or the bad food that usually accompanies putting together a show.

Mill 6 Collaborative's The T Plays run for two more nights. I'm heading in this evening, meeting my daughter, Allison, at New York Pizza first (no one works at The Factory Theater without making a stop there; I forgot who said that) and then off to the show.

Break a leg Derek Fraser and Matt Chapuran. Here are those two talented actors, courtesy of Meg Taintor Photography, playing in Striking Out the Peanut Man, a play that takes place on the D line of the T.

I Got Down with Howard Zinn Last Night

2011-08-16T13:22:00.000-04:00

The movie was sitting in my in my instant queue on Netflix for I don't know how long. It was one that I've been meaning to watch for awhile, but never felt in the mood for. You really have to be in the mood for a documentary, you know. You have to have that intellectual, brainiac mode going on in your head. But life's got a way of working out, of things happening at the right time.

And last night was the right time for me to watch, Howard Zinn: You can't be neutral on a moving train.

A huge regret is that I never heard him speak, even though we lived in the same city. A huge disappointment is that I enrolled at Boston University, where he was a professor in history, a year after he died. There are so many amazing professors at BU, and while on the one hand I and my wallet are kind of glad I was able to get through my program in a year, it would have been so great to have spent time in the classroom with some of these great minds.

But I'm getting off point. Last night all that Tea Party/Christian Fundamentalist/Conservative Movement that is roiling the intelligent discourse in this country--dare I say the intellectual backlash caused by people who simply are ignorant--really hit me hard. Last night it was personal. And last night I did exactly what I hate to do: I fired up Netflix looking for some mind-numbing film just so I could stare and let my mind idle. But you know what? I'm not like that. Every time I fall down, every time I feel life giving me a sucker punch, every time it looks like I'm out for the count, I'll still find a way to get back on track. Minds are not meant for idling. They are meant for peddle to the metal thinking. And Howard Zinn's life and values and intelligence was exactly what I needed and I think, frankly, is what this country continues to need. His values were steeped in traditional American values as I've understood them. That this country was founded on respecting individual rights. That the people, not the government or worse, Big Business, own and rule this country. That patriotism is not leveled at a government, but the country, and again, this country was founded on individual rights and not groups, and that includes the fanatical right who seems to think it espouses so much of traditional rights and values--all in the name of Jesus.

I would have loved, though, to sit with him and pepper him with questions about what continues to be happening in this country. The unbelievable hatred by people who profess to follow Jesus. The ignorance of people who clearly aren't capable of understanding complex issues, or even worse, people who don't have the capacity to simply admit they are in over their heads and then search out the answers. And I suspect, in a classroom, he would have encouraged that discourse. I'm a Libra, and I play a really good devil's advocate and I would have cherished the time spent with him.

Benchpressing Dialogue

2011-08-13T11:55:00.000-04:00

Finally, last night and this morning I got back into the gym. Graduate school is not conducive of good health. You can't exercise, you eat shitty food all the time because shitty food is quick and cheap (grad school is all about being poor and having no time) and you spend an inordinate amount of time on the couch reading and writing and, if you're me, snacking on bowls of goldfish crackers. I've put on weight, have a spare tire, and my arms are scrawny-looking. Walking as much as I could on campus and taking the stairs wasn't going to stem the tide of old age and an inbalance of calorie intake and no calorie burn.

But it wasn't my body that also suffered from this lack of physical activity. My writing did, too.

I've always used physical activity as a way to purge my brain. Before I had to stop running, I would run for miles, usually at the end of the day, to mull over the day's events and just get all the nasties out of my system. All the real and perceived slights I felt were handed to me by life. All the great and little failures that were holding me back. I'd leave them out there on the road in my wake to die. I'd think and bathe my thoughts in endorphins and supercharge them to find paths to make them reality. Great dialogue--heightened dialogue--is written on adrenalin and endorphins. I rode a bike. Played basketball. Hiked. I still can't just sit still. If you read my blog yesterday, you can see that I have be doing things to let my brain do it's job.

And while I understand and believe that this body is just a temporal container for the real me, I know I do so much better mentally when I take care of this physical container. I can't create when I'm upset or in a bad emotional spot--I'm not one of those artists who has to suffer to create; it's the opposite for me. And, just like I can't explain what happens when I write, I can't explain what happens when I exercise. I do know today I was on a machine today, cranking tunes on my iPod, when suddenly a bit of dialogue came into my head that I've been struggling with for weeks now. And there it was. It just appeared.

Why Housework and Playwriting Work Together

2011-08-12T12:56:00.000-04:00

Classes are over. Done. Terminee. Yesterday I dropped off a stack of books at the library that lined the floor of our office. These were books I lugged home from the Mugar Library for papers and my own personal interest. No more papers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. Thursday I take a French translation test, and if I pass that my graduate studies are done. It's hard to believe it will be over. I'm going to miss school. I've always loved school, even high school, which most people hated.

But today is a wonderful day. Turtles, a full-length play I started at BU, is up on the laptop, and I've been writing. Well, not writing. Writing is writing--actually typing or making marks on paper that are words. Don't ever confuse writing with the writing process. But everything I did today is definitely part of the writing process. What were those things? Today, they took the form of cooking a pot of spaghetti sauce, baking bread, making a big bowl of salad, doing the laundry, taking care of the plants on the deck, and an assorted other things. These are the things that get left behind when your brain is revving at 5,000 rpm in a literature class. But I've learned I need to "trick" my brain about writing. I can't just sit down and stare and say, okay, I'm going to write now, though sometimes I certainly do that and at times it does work, but I've learned it works only for so long. I have to let my creative part work alone, and at some point I know when it's time for that creative side and the practical side--the side that knows the touch system of typing--to get together and write.

And I like doing these things I've been doing today. I do. They feed the soul. I like being the "lady of the house"--a reference to Highland Center, Indiana in case you're a knee-jerk liberal and rile at anything remotely anti PC. I've always had a paternal side, and I like taking care of things and people. Left to my natural rhythm, this is the sort of things I would be doing in the morning--and blogging and reading the news and checking out all the social media sites and connecting to the world out there. And all the while my writing brain would be churning. Sometime around 3:00 I'll sit down and write. Actually write, make words and write dialogue and stage directions.

What is it about the number 11 and significant times in my life?

2011-08-11T10:16:00.000-04:00

Today is August 11. It's the last day of class for me. Not just the last day of class for summer session, but the last day of class for me in grad school. More on that in another post, but what exactly is it with the number 11 in my life?

Numbers are weird, and I'm the first to say I have no idea how they work. I know they add up and all that, but I mean some people get them, what they do, how they interact with one another. I don't. To me, number, and their accompanying mathematics have always been hard to understand. I know I have synesthesia. When I see numbers (and the alphabet, for that matter) I see it in terms of light and dark, and on a kind of roller coaster. But that's as far as I have any real interaction with numbers.

But, check this out:

It was December 11, 2008 when I was laid off and whatever happened in my brain kicked me over to this path that I'm on now. I wasn't going to let an economic disaster stop me from living my life.

And, it was June 11, 2002 when I was laid off from this awful dead-end job by this absolute troll of a human being who I had to deal with for years and I decided to go in business for myself. I thought that day, you always wanted to run your own business, no better time than now. And I embarked on five fantastic years that really showed me what I was made of. I did some fantastic work, actually made a pretty good living on my own, and grew in so many ways.

Okay, one more. I was talking to my French tutor, and we were talking about politics and such and I mentioned the draft and he didn't know we used to have a draft in the United States, and I actually still have my draft card from the Vietnam era. Yep, the date on it is the 11th. But not just any 11th. September 11, 1973.

It's a weird number, right? At least in my life. It's like some sort of weird, numeric Tarot card that initially looks like it portends doom, but then there's always fortune behind it. So, I wonder what lies behind this 11?

The Badass Honey Badger

2011-08-11T09:34:00.000-04:00

Facebook wouldn't allow me to post this on my wall today. Maybe it was because I wrote "badass" in the comment. Or I said, Honey Badger doesn't give a shit.

This video has been around before (it went viiiiraaalll!) , but it's what I'm feeling today. The economy. Politics. The world. God, the wooooooooorrrrrlllllddd. What is going on in the world? Are we all going to end up in some post-economic-apocalyptic mess populated by badass honey badgers? Or maybe we all should become like Honey Badger. Honey Badger just doesn't give a shit.

The Mill 6 T Plays: Like a Song Stuck in My Head

2011-08-08T22:29:00.000-04:00

I can't seem to turn it off. It's like when a song gets stuck in your head. I get on the T and instead of just sitting back and enjoying the ride, I immediately look around and try to match people up with stories. Or try to figure things out. Like tonight, why the guy across from me with the religious medallions kept periodically sucking his teeth. Or what was up with the kid a few seats down from him, dressed in what I'm sure he thought was business attire--electric blue shirt too big for him and a tie the size of a lobster bib. Put them together and...

Wait. I don't have to do that anymore. As a matter of fact, that's not the way Striking Out the Peanut Man came about anyway, even though for a couple of weeks before I had to write a play for Mill 6's T Plays I would play that game on the T. For anyone who's going to it next year, in the end I didn't find that helpful. It was more helpful for me to know my actors and write for them, imagining them in the situation, than it was to imagine them as real people on the T. And now I know all that worrying was for nothing. It's like anything: You just have to trust your talent that it will come through.

I did a bit of rewriting, just tweaks to lines. Meg Taintor, the director, tonight said it wasn't working for her, and frankly, with Meg, she didn't have to make much of a case. It wasn't working for her, and that was enough for me, and we took them back out.

I'm not even sure when I'm going to see the show now. It opens Wednesday--really a preview, I think--and it's really all up to the actors and the tech people--all of those talented people. Break legs, everyone.

Day 3 of Mill 6's T Plays

2011-08-07T10:00:00.002-04:00

More on Mill 6's The T Plays.

Yesterday was the killer for me. Friday night we all were matched up: playwrights, directors, actors, and oh yes, the T line we'd be dramatizing. Just to get everyone up to speed, Meg Taintor, the artistic director at Whistler in the Dark and who I'm finding out to be a very crazy, very dear, very wonderful human being is the director. The actors are Derek Fraser and Matt Chapuran, who I still haven't met but did see a video of him at work with ImprovBoston. Kind of like Wallace Shawn, wouldn't you say? Oh, and we're working the Green Line.

Friday night Meg, Derek, and I talked for awhile. I particularly was interested in the actors, and I kept asking Derek everything I could think of: What would be his plum role? Where was he born? Just listening to the cadence of his voice. One little gem I gleaned from him was he someday wants to play the part of Cliff in the The Woolgatherer. I kind of knew the play because a few years back I used a monologue from that play for a StageSource audition.

Anyway, Friday night I was a wreck. It seemed everyone at Doyle's knew each other, had worked together, was so accomplished, and man was I feeling the pressure.

As I said, yesterday was the killer. Get on the T, get some inspiration, find a story, and write it by 6:00. Here's how it played out. I got up and got caffeinated. Read the news. One thing that didn't necessarily stick but is important is that there is a Red Sox-Yankees series in Boston this weekend. It sounds crazy and it all happened so fast but the series of events went: D train, hey wait, there's a Fenway stop, empty train, why would two Red Sox fans be on an empty train going outbound during one of the biggest series of the season, oh wait, one of them got them kicked out of Fenway, one is like Cliff the other is like Wallace Shawn, turn around and write it.

That's really it.

I tried to make it easy on the actors (no three-page monologues), I tried to give Meg a lot of action to work with, and I tried to make it funny. In the end, writers write what they know and they write about that bone they like to pick. For me, comedy is a lot of cuss words. I think the words fuck, fucking, and Jesus fucking Christ, spoken just right by the right character can be so funny. And for me, comedy is based in class. Someone in the "lower class" poking fun at someone in the "upper class." (It's easy to think "upper class" on the D line what with all those Newton stops.)

And so, that's how Striking Out the Peanut Man was written.

Derek asked me last night how I was doing, and I replied, A lot better than I was doing twenty-four hours ago. Yeah, he said, you definitely had that deer caught in the headlights look about you.

Last night all the teams sat together and read. I am so impressed by all the work that was presented. Today, we start the part that I love. Meg, Derek, and Matt will start rehearsing at noon. I'll swing by around 1:30. It's the collaboration. All the people working together to make something bigger than the whole.

That's where we stand today.

Oh, and you can learn more about this project and get tix here.

Mill 6 T Plays. Holy Crap! What Did I Get Myself Into?

2011-08-05T09:40:00.001-04:00

I don't think there hasn't been a single theatrical endeavor I've been involved in that at some point I didn't ask myself, What the hell did I get myself into and how is all this going to work out? I've come to resign myself that that is one reason I love the theater so much. It is live. It is real. And there are no guarantees when the lights go down and the curtain goes up what the heck is going to happen.

So I agreed to write a ten-minute play for The Mill 6 Collaborative's T Plays. The assignment: Tomorrow ride one of the lines on Boston's subway system, then write a ten-minute play by 6:00 tomorrow evening that will be performed in front of a paying audience next week. This is a whole 'nother kind of weird. A whole 'nother kind of pressure than even the kind you get in grad school where you're given a week to write a ten-minute play about three characters standing on the edge of a cliff.

I mean, I was honored John O'Brien, Mill 6's artistic director asked me to do it. (I didn't even know he knew me.) And I love the T. Yes, yes I do. I live three minutes from the Red Line and its sound is part of my world (it rumbled past just now) and I think the $59 monthly pass is the best deal in Boston. I used to love to drive, but now the thought of dealing with the parking lot we call the Southeast Expressway or negotiating Boston's maze of streets clogged with tourists and their Freedom Trail maps leaves me with a sense of doom, like knowing you have to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon with that aunt of yours who smells like a laundry hamper. I love sitting on the T with a book, or just watching, as I did just the other day, keeping my eye on two junkies on the Red Line, a young man and woman, wondering about their lives, how pretty and sad they looked.

But to write a freakin' play, from scratch, in a day?? Holy Crap! What did I get myself into? Talk about the blank page staring back at you? Rick Park, who I've never met but whose name I know for all his involvement in Boston's theater world has blogged about his experience with the T Plays. (Holy shit, Rick Park?? I have to write a play that's going to be in a show with Rick Park? Doesn't he work with the Gold Dust Orphans? Isn't he a Very Funny Guy? Oh shit, is it too early to start drinking? Should I fake something?--a nosebleed? a rare illness? the birth of a child?) He wrote about his first experience writing for the T Plays and how nervous he was. Ok, that's good. Rick Park was nervous. Rick Park puts his pants on every morning the same way I do. (Wait, how do I really know how he puts on his pants? Does he even wear pants? Oh, I'm doomed.)

Tonight everyone--playwrights, directors, actors--will be meeting and John will match us all up. Tonight I'll meet the director and actors I'll be writing for. Deep breath.

A Play's Not A Play Until It's On Stage

2011-08-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Who said that? Wasn't it Tennessee Williams? That a play's not a play until somebody puts it up onstage. So, really, playwrights are scriptwriters, right? We write scripts, the blueprints to a play. Still, there is that funny little business about being play-wrights, and not play-writers. So maybe, just like for a shipwright a ship isn't something useful until it's launched (what's more useless than a ship on land?) in that sense we're forging plays, but they're useful until they're on stage.

But the question is, how to get it from being a script to a play? That's where I stand now in my career as a playwright. We--I--write these things not to keep in a drawer, but for people to hear and see them. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, despite so many writers being of the quiet, introspective type, there is a certain arrogance associated with the act of writing. You are saying, I have something to say, and you better darn well listen.

I am entering a stage where I'm sending my plays out to theaters. Not flooding the market, but picking and choosing theaters whose work I admire and where I'd like to see my work produced. Or where it seems like there would be a good match. And sure, I'm sending scripts to theaters that are putting out the word that they are looking for full-length and one-act plays whose work I don't know, but maybe I should know. They're saying they're looking, so they must be, right?

Still, all I keep hearing is the old model is broken, the one where playwrights send scripts to a theater and then the theater puts on the play. I don't want to address that issue right now. That's a whole nuther kettle of fish.

Right now, playwrights still have to send out scripts to theaters where they aren't known, where they don't have any relationship yet. (I was reading about Paula Vogel's career last night, and she and Molly Smith at the Arena Stage have a relationship that dates back a long way.) You have to start somewhere, and yes, I still believe that despite the obstacles that producers and artistic directors are facing today, I can't help but think that when they sit down and open an envelope there is this hope against hope that This Will Be The One.

I was just faced with sending a script out to two Very Big Deal theaters, and the question I grappled with was, What else do I put in the box besides a script? Neither theater asked for anything except a script formatted a particular way. One said a short bio could be included, but it wasn't necessary. One theater I saw (not one of the two where I just sent scripts) said send them a script and anything else we can think of that might entice them to look at my work. I think back on all the job application letters I've written over the years, trying all sorts of ploys to break through the clutter--funny, serious, straight, clever, coy--and I'm not sure what worked on any given day. In the past, some, but not all, of the best jobs I had were ones from people I already knew, or through relationships I had from making appointment after appointment with different creative people throughout Boston. I think that holds true with getting plays produced, too. But as I said, not all the time. The Provincetown Theater produced one of my plays--produced it marvelously, I might add--and no one knew me there.

This time, I questioned whether I should include a bio, but in the end, I included a short, short letter with one sentence telling them I am currently a graduate student at Boston University, and thought to myself, in the end, it's the play that's going to have to stand on its own, so let's see if it's as good as I think it is. In lieu of the theater knowing me or my work, this is all I've got right now.

What's My Credit Score?

2011-08-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

This little image shows up on more than one occasion as I flit from here to yon on the Internet. I've never paid any real attention to it, just delete in the same way I wish I could delete flies that annoyng me. Or, I didn't pay much attention to it until today when it hit me with all the partisan bickering going on in Washington that I wonder if this shows up on some master computer at the Fed. But I do imagine my credit score, at least as it's tabulated by government-sanctioned loan sharks, probably isn't very good.

On the other hand, the way I tabulate it, I'm sitting pretty. Well, maybe not pretty, but not too shabby.

I live frugally. Mighty frugally. I do it out of necessity because I'm pretty broke for any number of reasons from being in grad school for the past year to being in my fifties and trying to get work in an economy and a society that values people half my age. And I live frugally by choice. I wouldn't have it any other way. The typical American lifestyle gives me, as Mark Twain would have said, the fantods. (Yes, it's a word; look it up.)

The thought of a big house filled with all the latest stuff, from a wide screen TV to a bed the size of a aircraft carrier actually makes me feel nervous. I don't even own a TV. I don't want to own one. The programming, I believe, is mostly crap that just wastes my valuable time and attention. And it's expensive. I gave up my television years ago more out of a necessity to cut costs, and when I got rid of it I suddenly realized how much better I felt. I guess it's sort of like how some people feel when they cut out red meat or caffeine.

I have a pretty basic phone, and I just recently had to replace my phone and opted not to get a smart phone for a couple of reasons, including the cost of the service, but also because I don't want to be that connected. Because I think the more connected we are, the less connected we actually are, if you understand my drift.

It came to my realization a few years back that what makes this life so expensive is the upkeep. Marketers figured out that the real money is in add-ons and service. Once you buy the phone or the TV they gotcha. You got to spend more and more to utilize what amounts to commodity items. I saw that in the computer industry. The initial cost of a enterprise computer system is one thing, but where people make their long-term money is in the service contracts and upgrades. On a smaller level, it's one thing to own an iPhone, but then you're dealing with that additional monthly payment just so you can look up a restaurant while you're walking around Boston.

When I drive, which isn't very often since the $59 a month T pass is the greatest deal in the world since I usually have taken $60 in rides by the middle of the month, I jump in my 1997 Ford pickup with 180K miles on it. It's rusting out and the springs and brakes are a little mushy, but if I'm careful I get to where I'm going.

What little debt I have is in my upcoming school loans. But I did get a scholarship to Boston University, and then a teaching fellowship that defrayed even more costs. I'm not sure I could have swung the cost without the scholarship. But I think me borrowing money to go to school is a good example of how you have to spend to get out of trouble. I think for the Republicans and the Tea Party to think otherwise shows how little they know.

Credit cards? Nope. I carry two out of necessity, but the American Express gets paid every month and I keep it for the points. The points are Sue's and my ticket out of here someday, on a plane going to the other side of the world. The other one I only use if someone doesn't take American Express. Otherwise, it's cash all the way for me. If I run out of cash, oh well, that's what's called a balanced budget.

I have to say I'd like to ask all the people who say they live within their means and expect the U.S. government to do likewise to open their books. I think a lot of people who say they live within their means actually don't. I'm not saying they're liars. That would be kind of harsh. I'm just saying it's human nature for people to see reality whatever way is best for their own interests. (Okay, true disclosure: I'm steeped in Tennessee Williams' work right now, and that's pretty much standard operating procedure for his characters.) I don't even think it's a crime to borrow money, just as long as you can pay it back, which is really what all this debt ceiling nonsense was about, wasn't it?

I've said it a few times here: I'm not holding out a lot of hope for this country. It seems to be run right now on one hand by a lot of mean-spirited ignorant people, and on the other by a bunch of spineless politicians feeding out of the hog-trough of the political lobbies.

From The Witty Fool...

2011-08-01T20:32:00.000-04:00

My friend, Jessie, a.k.a. The Witty Fool wrote something good today.

Check her blog out.

"...well, I just want to know… when will my opinion and hopes for this country matter? To you. Enough to say to the Republicans WHO WILL NEVER EVER VOTE FOR YOU that you aren’t going to compromise."

The Dog Days

2011-08-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

We're definitely in the dog days, aren't we? Unreliable sources tell me we get that term from the star Sirius, but I'm going to rely on folklore and stand on my hillbilly principles and say it's so hot the dogs just lie around in the street.

That's what I feel like doing, but I've got a ten-page paper due and an oral report and this weekend I'm writing for the T Plays and all the while my back is acting up so much that my right leg is about to fall off, so I have to fight my natural inclinations to just lie down and take a nap.

And the world news doesn't make you want to kick up your heels either, does it? I must admit, I am despondent. I don't even fully understand the business of the debt ceiling, but I do understand the politics. The politicians in Washington on both sides of the aisle do not have the country in mind. It's all politics. It's all the 2012 elections. And it's all driven by fear (I won't get elected if I vote for what I truly believe is right) and ignorance and hate.

And for those who say I'm a liberal because I don't agree with your stupidity, that's on both sides of the aisle. For years now, I haven't been able to tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. The nation is run by the money-lenders and the lobbyists, and votes go to the highest bidder.

I think the country is going to hell in a hand basket so fast that the wicker is already starting to catch fire. It makes you wonder if you should really stick around for the end of the show, or head for the exits now so you don't get caught in the jam afterwards.

When I get like this I focus on the little things. I can't do anything about the big ones. Years ago, I remember riding my bike on a hot summer day much like today, and I rode past a little frog on the road. He didn't jump as I road by, and I circled around to see what was up. He was flagging on the hot road, and so I picked him up and put him in the water ditch by the side of the road. And I thought to myself, well, that isn't much, but at least I didn't hurt anyone today, and maybe one life is saved.

On days like today I make sure I write and get it all out. Clear my brain out. I work on a play, because that is one really big gift to be able to do that. To be given the talent and the chance to write something that may someday move someone. Writers and fishermen are the most optimistic people, I'd say.

I light incense for the Buddha. For some reason this seems to do some good. When the Buddha is happy, it seems the world is, too.

I'm going to print some copies of my play today, and send them out. One to a theater in Portland, Maine, and the other to Yale University. I'm shooting high, but I think I'm that good. I have a play that I think is a killer. You just know when something is good. When something is so different it will cause people to sit up. I'm not being arrogant, but truthful, when I say I truly believe Highland Center, Indiana is one of those plays. I would love for it to hit the big time, and I would love for some small theater to produce it, because small theaters are so passionate about the things they do. They have to be, because some days passion is all they have.

I'm going to smile a lot today, and make an effort to really see the good in people. I believe it's there, despite what's going on in Washington and despite what some people are like in this country. No, I don't think it's just a difference of opinion. I think the way some people think--based on ignorance and prejudice, for starters--is hurtful. And sometimes this makes me wonder if this grand experiment called the United States hasn't failed. It doesn't seem that everyone should be given the right to vote. I know that sounds elitist, but it's true. Some people are mean and stupid and hateful, despite their so-called allegiance to Jesus. Narrow minds and shallow thinking is ruining this country.

That's about all I have for today. And if you see a frog in the road, stop and give it a boost.

Memories, journals, being alone, Krapp's Last Tape

2011-07-31T13:04:00.000-04:00

I've been spending, it seems, a lot of evenings alone. Sue, when she's not working her two jobs, one of which takes her out at night, has been doing a lot of yoga in the evenings. Right now she's on the Cape taking care of her mom who just had surgery and she's visiting with friends while she's there. Thursday she leaves for Canada for about a week. School is keeping me busy, but not so busy that there aren't moments when I look around and wonder, Hey, where'd everyone go?

You--I--fall into old patterns, and I don't necessarily like that. Don't like living in the past, though I've been thinking a lot about that lately, mainly because I've been reading and researching a lot of scripts and the lives and works of different playwrights including Sam Shepard and Tennessee Williams. Thornton Wilder, too. Those writers and their work took up a lot of my time and energy a while ago. You, that is, I can't help but read those scripts and think, well, when I was saying this I was downstage right and here I crosssed to center and then she...

Or why the hell didn't I see this particular subtlety or nuance in the writing then? It's so obvious. Yeah, well...

Or how embarrassing what that?

I was thinking this morning about what it would be like to have no memories at all. What would a man be like if he didn't have any memories, or purposely chose to forget them? I know I've jettisoned so much of my past--for good reason, I think. I remember one day I just piled up everything in my living room that she gave me and picked it all up and threw it in the dumpster. A big pile of stuff. Most liberating day of my life. You--we don't realize how memories and feelings and emotions cling to things. Like dust. Or mold. And it affects us.

And when Sue and I were moving into this apartment, this place, this space that is so much a home for me, a place with wonderful memories and a place for starting over and a place so filled with warmth and laughter and love, when Sue and I were moving here I filled two garbage bags with stuff from my past, just cleaned out drawers of old theater programs of shows I was in, pictures and memorabilia and all sorts of crap. Mostly because I didn't want to move it. And, truth be told, I just wanted to clean house, too.

Memories. Where was I? See, when you don't have memory, it's not only hard to know where you've been, but where you're going.

Oh yes. Spending nights alone. I write. When I'm alone I write in my journal, the thoughts that rattle and buzz in my head that I'd normally just spew out to Sue and then they'd disappear. I usually write in my journal first thing when I get up. I'm still in that dream state and my head is in both worlds. And then I leave my journal open for over the course of the day I'll jot things down. Memories. I even post the time with the date. I do that because once my thoughts came so fast sometimes I was posting in my journal at thirty second intervals. Can you imagine your brain going that fast? That out of control?

I don't do that so much now--writing first thing--now that Sue and I are together because our habit is we sit on the couch in the morning drinking coffee and talking. It's my favorite part of the day, drinking coffee, slowly waking up, seeing Sue and having that intimate time together.

But when Sue's not here, I'm like a hoarder hoarding my memories and thoughts. It's not a bad thing. It's a record. I've been doing it for years. Since I was around thirteen, really, when a student teacher I had for English at Woodward High School, Miss Harbert, told us to keep a journal. What did I know? I went home and started writing what was going on in our house and what I was thinking and doing. Looking back, it's a wonder Social Services wasn't called in, all what was going on in our house and what I was doing after hours. But it taught me the value of writing, and keeping memories.

Some people hate that I do it. Exes, for instance. In an argument I can call up my journal and say that at such and such a time this was going on. ("Yes, but that's your interpretation, it doesn't mean it's true.") But it's the one place I'll allow myself to live in the past. To face the past and what I've done and how I've lived. Someday I might have an evening like Krapp's Last Tape. Look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about. You'll be glad you did.

Tweet This

2011-07-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

I was emailing an old friend, Craig Moodie, whose new children's book, Into the Trap just was released today, and I told him that I tweeted the news, "for what it's worth." Then I commented that I can't believe I lived to see the day that the word, "tweet" is a verb.

First, Craig's book can be found here. And here's his blog. (If you think I'm a crusty old writer, get a load of his mug.)

I wrote about Craig's work sometime ago, too. He and I met way back in the corporate world--many lives ago for me. He's still hanging in there, has a beautiful wife, two kids, and home.

But tweeting. One of my professors, a dramaturg, kept saying that the old model of the theater is gone--where you send in a script and if they like it it's produced--and that now to succeed now in the theater you have to be "part of the conversation." That does make sense; that people who know you and who know your work are more likely to produce it. But that means you have to follow God knows how many Twitter accounts, blogs, Web sites, and I don't know what all. To be honest, it's comes across like a full-time job, and I think for dramaturgs and artistic directors it's a great thing to do. But if I'm tweeting and blogging and Facebooking and surfing, I'm not writing. And now there are new social networking sites coming out, like Google +, that's making me choose what to call people: friends, family, acquaintances, people who I barely know and can't figure out why they're still on my Christmas card list I guess it's simply laziness or something else deep-rooted that I'm too tired or scared to figure out.

So if I'm part of this conversation I'm not part of the real conversation, the conversations that my characters are having. It's enough to make this writer want to spit.

It all kind of seems as ridiculous to me as that section in Huckleberry Finn where Jim is being held in that shed in the back of Tom Sawyer's uncle's house, and Tom has him writing on tin pans and carving things and throwing them all out the back window because that's what the romantic, swash-buckling heroes did that Tom read about. I feel Tweets and root-a-toot toots are just as silly sometimes, as I try to write something witty and pithy in 140 characters or less.

But then, I do wonder if I'm not a Willy Loman, left behind by the world and on my own, just trying to get by on a smile and a shoeshine. (BTW, I know no one would ever say that, but I love that line.) I know I'm not exactly like Willy. I believe in hard work and talent more than charm and a handshake, but I will admit I do it all with an underlying feeling of desperation that I'm still swimming against a tide that will still sweep me into oblivion.

How To Stay A New York Playwright...Or Anything Else For That Matter

2011-07-19T09:51:00.000-04:00

There was this post on HotReview.org that was making the rounds among the theater makers that I'm hanging out with, more hanging out online than anywhere else, but that counts, doesn't it? Right? An online relationship is just as good, if not better, than a real face-to-face one where you actually have to do all these annoying things like, well, wait for your turn to talk while the other person goes on and on and on about, well, God, I don't know because I'm really not listening. Or feign sympathy because the other person's cat died.

(Ok, all that was a joke, meant to for the style of the writing. If your cat just died I am sincerely sorry. No, really, I am. And whatever it was you were talking about, I really am happy for you. Really, I am.)

Anyway, where the heck was I?

This post about the sacrifices that you have to make if you want to be a playwright. It's good, dead on, and I found myself nodding my head because it nails some real-life things, like flossing and brushing your teeth because you can't afford a dentist. If I'm home all day writing and doing the laundry and baking bread and doing all the things I do to try to keep some semblance of order in our little home, I'll brush my teeth maybe three times during the day because I can't afford (time, energy, money) to have major dental work done.

But this post also got me thinking that anything you really want to do takes that kind of sacrifice. Sue and I are wanderers. It's one of the really strong bonds between us because we both love--love, I tell you, love--to travel. And more importantly, we love backpacking. We love the local buses and local restaurants and just soaking up culture that otherwise is sanitized in a Marriott or a Hilton or a big tour bus. In other words, we travel cheap, but when it comes to travel it still can be expensive. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of parallels to being a playwright and a backpacker.

No one believes me, but we have financed quite a few trips now on spare change. That's right. We have a cookie jar that we throw our spare change into. And we also throw in the money we might have spent. For instance if I'm getting a cup of coffee and that piece of marble cake for $2.50 looks so good, I ask myself if I really want it. And then I think of our stock saying in that situation: $2.50 will buy a lot of beer in Mexico. Well, maybe not a lot of beer in this case, but it will buy a beer in Mexico and so I pocket the change and when I get home I chuck it in the cookie jar. You'd be surprised how much money you can accumulate by living like that.

What this article says to me is that if you really want something bad enough, there are sacrifices you're going to have to make, and many if not all of them are going to be in the materialistic world. That world is such a suck of time and money and energy. And you just have to decide what you really want in life, and then put all your resources towards it. Including your dental floss.

Danger: Things in mirror may be closer than they seem...

2011-07-18T20:03:00.002-04:00

This just landed on the screen behind my head. It's crawling around now and but it's not making any noise at all after it's initial landing.

This thing reminds me of my pickup truck. I love my pickup truck--a 1997 Ford F-150 long bed with a Super Cab and a gas-guzzling V8 with over 180,000 miles on it. (The politically correct crowd can now be excused from the rest of this post.)

I call it my white-trash pickup. No one, and I mean no one messes with me on the road. It's old and dented (though girlfriends and ex-wives have put in the really big dents) and it basically says, I really don't give a fuck about your brand spanking new BMW or your SUV that is too big for you to drive. When I want to change lanes, I put on my blinker, and if people don't get out of my way, if they don't have the courtesy to let me in, or are too self-absorbed to notice or care there are other drivers on the road, I just start to ease over, and you'd be amazed how people get out of your way.

I got a sneaky suspicion that's the way it is for this critter. I don't think too many things mess with this guy.

I'll Make A Deal With You

2011-07-18T19:12:00.001-04:00

It's been almost a month since I weighed in here, and really haven't been a consisted blogger in a long while now. Mea culpa.

I know, I know, readers want new content every day, but I have the age-old suspicion of many writers in that I wonder if I have enough to say every day. It's not that I don' t think I don't have anything worth saying; oh, Lord, I've never had that problem. It's that I wonder if I have enough to fill up a blog every day. I think it's the curse of our age that 24/7 cable networks have ruined this country. I remember when CNN was started. Good Lord, who can fill up 24 hours with news? Well they sure did, didn't they? Actually, I don't think they have. It's a lot of useless commentary and rehashing of old news and making news where none is to fill the space (every hurricane season, for instance) and bring in the advertisers. Let's face it, there are few people on the earth who are that interesting.

But try telling them that, right?

But for the folks who I know are interested in what I'm up to (yes, I know who a lot of you are; it's the Internet: You can run but you can't hide) for you I should be adding more to this space. So I do know there are people who are Googling my name and this blog and checking in from time to time. And when you visit you can at least see my Twitter feed to the left. (Extra points if you start following me on Twitter.) And to my loyal friends and fans and those folks who are simply hoping that something bad has happened to me, I say, Hola!

Things are intense with school. I'm hopefully finishing up in about a month. I'm in the middle of the summer session, where they take 15 weeks of work and jam them into six. The upshot is you can really chalk up the credit hours and they charge about a thousand bucks less for the class. The negative is it's 15 weeks of work crammed into six weeks; you honestly think your head's going to bleed.

I'm in the second half of the summer session and the only thing that's standing between me and graduation is French and two ten-page papers and two oral reports. If you don't think that's not a load you're not seeing it from my perspective.

And then beyond that? Well, it's wondering what I can do with this Masters. Boston University hired me again to teach creative writing in the fall. I'm very excited about that. I had a great group of students in the spring who I loved meeting once a week. That class was in the CAS--arts and sciences. This fall I'll be teaching in the Metropolitan College, which would be BU's night school if BU had a night school. It's geared more toward working people, with classes in the evening. Again, I'm very excited about meeting a new group of students.

And there's the big question of how can I get my plays produced. I think it was Tennessee Williams who said a play's not a play until it's on stage. It's interesting to see English grad students in drama classes reading scripts, and reading them like they'd read a novel, and saying they are reading plays. With a script you're looking at a blueprint, not the building. You read scripts and watch plays. There's a huge difference, and as soon as you wrap your brain around that you've suddenly got your foot firmly wedged into the stage door that was about to slam in your face.

Phew. Okay, remember those ten-page papers I mentioned earlier? One's due this Thursday. I'll try to write more on this space. I know I've made that promise before. But here's the deal, it would a whole lot better for me if a few readers would drop a comment now and again. It would let me know I'm not howling in the wilderness. And isn't this whole Internet thang supposed to be about conversation? So...join the conversation.

Bruins parade, maybe. How about a parade for the arts?

2011-06-20T16:57:00.000-04:00

We've seen the pictures and the video of the Vancouver hockey riots on the night of the Stanley Cup final game. There's no need for me to repost them or even go through Blogspot's clunky procedure for posting rich media onto this blog. (Though, Blogspot, it has gotten better.) We've all gawked. It's embarrassing for Vancouver. Move on. Show's over.

Wow. All over a hockey game. Scenes we saw from that night are usually reserved for places that are trying to overthrow a dictator or win civil rights. I'm not even sure what it was all about. I'd be willing to bet they didn't even know either. Were they mad? At whom? Frustrated? By a hockey team? You're kiddng? By the economy? By their spouses? Man, there is some deep-seated anger in Vancouver. Who knew?

Still, deep, deep, deep in one of my darkest places, I might be mildly thrilled if I wrote say, a play, that infuriated or touched people so deeply they were compelled to storm out of the theater and riot. Turn over a few cop cars and set them on fire. But that ain't going to happen. Not in the United States, at least. That only happens with sporting events. And in Europe.

And I would love if I, or maybe I and a group of fellow artists, were given a huge Duck Boat parade through Boston like the victorious Bruins were. Or if I was given a trophy, maybe. A trophy would be cool. I could put M&Ms in it, to show I was still just a regular guy. Or I think it would be neat if people held up signs with my bespectacled face reading, JGF for president. Or I'd even take an on-camera interview by a blonde Barbie of the like who interview middle-aged, fat coaches, who I resemble more than just a little, on ESPN. I'd nonchalantly mumble some cliches, because if we've seen one thing from this Bruin victory, these guys can't really say anything articulate. Sorry, they can't. Maybe they are star athletes and really nice guys to boot, but they effing flunk public speaking. Hey, take it from a word guy.

We're too sports-crazy in this nation. We are. And I know it sounds like sour grapes, but we don't value artists--at all. I even heard someone in my current class ejaculate (yes, it means something else beside that; what are you?--a hockey player or something?) that she is tired of hearing about artists. And she was sitting in a room with artists and I'm assuming self-professed that she was the same. Talk about your low self-esteem.

When my kids were little and I'd sit in an auditorium watching a school play, it would amaze me what parents would put up with. Those very same parents and relatives who would groan at a dropped pass on the football field or a miffed play on the baseball diamond were willing to put up with the sloppiest productions. Excruciating-long set changes, missed lighting cues, mixed up sound cues, bad blocking were totally acceptable, yet these same people would blow a gasket if a team didn't perform up to snuff. I figure they a) didn't know any better, and b) didn't care.

What's up with all this? I'm not saying nixed sports. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we should, like the ancient Greeks, embrace the arts equally with sports.

Funding for the arts is one of the first things to get cut. But in my opinion, given the economy and general disarray of the country, the fractured nature of our country for years, we need the arts more than ever. Politician every election year say they are going to bring the country together, but politics divide. Politics promotes debate, which can be good, but I'm not so sure it's what we need right now. We need dialogue--something completely different, and I'm a word guy and if you don't believe me look it up--but the arts promote dialogue. Conversation. That's what we need now.

Yeah, dialogue. Conversation. That's worth a parade.

CentAstage Three Ring Reading Series

2011-06-09T11:36:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you have to ask yourself why you're in the theater. You hear all the time about how you can't make a living and how (some, a few, many) of the people are, shall we say, hard to deal with--present company included I must say on certain days.

But it's not boring and that's one of the many things I love about the theater--it's rarely boring. I hate boring. I like new. I like fresh.

So, when you get up in the morning and check your email and you see you have a Facebook message from someone in the theater who you haven't worked with in a long time and is frankly not one of the hard people to work with, you know it's going to be a good day...

AND to make it even better, she's asking you to read a part in a new play (I heart new plays) and it won't take up that much time or energy so it won't really affect classwork or even your life in general...

AND then you open the script and see such a surprise: The script is set in the 1500s and you'll be reading the part of an anatomist who also just happens to be a dwarf and then life can't get much better.

Or actually, life sucked and then it got very cool again.

Tomorrow night at 7:30 at the BCA in the South End in Boston as part of the CentaStage Three Ring Reading Series, I'll be reading the part of Andreas Vesalius in Hortense Gerardo's one-act play, On the Fabric of the Human Body. It's free. And I promise tomorrow night that I'll be on my best behavior.

Tornado in Brimfield, Massachusetts--Raw Footage from June 1, 2011

2011-06-02T14:53:00.001-04:00

This is incredible raw footage right after the Springfield, Massachusetts tornado that touched down yesterday. I post this because it is so filled with raw emotion that's in the moment. It is so much a piece of human drama. Two men who just seconds ago survive a tornado. And you can deny that quintessential Massachusetts accent and attitude.

myentertainmentworld-theatre Has Some Nice Things to Say About Me and My Friends

2011-06-02T13:43:00.000-04:00

When you have invested as much time and energy as I have into a new career in the theater, I can't tell you what it's like to get up, pour yourself a cup of coffee thinking to yourself, Lordy, what's today going to bring, and see this: Playwrights to Watch.

First of all, congratulations to both Heather Houston and Peter Floyd, who are classmates of mine (well, Heather just graduated.) They both wrote terrific plays and it was a huge part of my education so far to watch the plays' development.

And it's nice that the blogger had good things to say about my play, Highland Center, Indiana:

"...one of the most moving nights I’ve spent at the theatre in a long time."

"Highland Center, Indiana speaks to the greatest strengths of the human spirit and the worst failings of human beings, a story more honest than any I’ve seen."

As I near graduation--hopefully in August if I can just get through two more lit classes taught by two extraordinary professors and somehow hurdle my language requirement--the realization that I'm going to have to cobble a living in the theater becomes this looming, scary problem. After the thrill of being accepted to the Boston Playwrights' Theater program, then experiencing the roller coaster ride of the curicculum, you reach the point where the reality of the real world starts to come into play. Was I nuts to pursue something that I love so much?

And then here's the answer. Here's why we all do it. To touch someone with our art. You can't do it any other way and some of us reach the point that we have to do it. There is no choice. It literally is do our art, or die, at least metaphorically.

Who Are Your Artistic Influencers?

2011-05-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

It's a question an artist gets asked quite a lot in the theater. Or it's something that gets discussed generally. Who are your influencers? Whose work do you admire? It assumes your work doesn't come from within. Or that there isn't anything new, only recycled. And it's true, dat. Who knows what goes on in the subconscious, when you're so focused on a scene or even a line or two that, unaware to you, you're digging into your favorite playwright file.

But I also think it's a chicken and the egg question.

In my short playwriting career, anyone can see that I at the very least admire August Wilson and Sam Shepard. They both put characters on stage that had never been onstage before. August Wilson writes plays that are true to his people. I try to do the same thing. Sam Shepard writes about the American family the same way I try to, and seems to have the same point of view of American society, where it's headed, and where the answers lie. It was a compliment to me when someone, after reading Fool for Love for the first time, said, Oh, now I can see your sensibilities and why you like Sam Shepard. But I don't go around intentionally writing the way they do. If I do anything of the kind at all it's that I might use them as a departure and try to take my own riff on things. But one thing I don't think you'll ever see is a play I've written "set on an island off the coast of Massachusetts." To use a newspaper adage, it's not my beat.

And of course I admire Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neil. Just look how I write stage directions. I could read either one of those writers simply for their stage directions.

But more to the point, just like Wilson's major influences were, as he called them, the Four B's (the blues, Amiri Baraka, Romare Bearden, and Jorge Luis Borges), I wouldn't say I necessarily draw inspiration from the theater and playwrights. Heavens. My big gripe with most theater people is they spend way too much time in the theater. I think any artist should live their lives--raise families, travel, work on a shrimp boat in the Gulf--and then take what you learn and put it on the canvas, or in your music, or on the stage. So many of the people I talk to know so much more about the theater than I do, but I wonder if they know anything about their fellow human beings.

I started out in life as a photographer. To this day I am a very visual person, to the point where one of my profs, in exasperation I think, said one of my scripts was a screenplay, not a theater script. I was intentionally trying to write small visual snippets for the stage (think the end of Blasted.) She was not going to have any of it, though. I do constantly try to work visuals onto the stage, and when someone asks me what my influencers are, I'm always a bit nervous to actually tell the truth.

But then today I stumbled on this very interesting short documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson, who should be on everyone's list of favorites artists, and should be a mentor for anyone who works in the arts because his approach to his work can, I think, be applied to anyone's art: painting, music, theater. His work was so influential (there's that word again) to so many of today's photographers, that to not know him and is work is a crime.

And then, I don't know why except I think in life circumstances happen that seem coincidental--I don't know if they are supposed to happen or that we're just more aware that they happen--but then over email I got notice of this project by Magnum photographers. Again, everyone should know about Magnum and the photographers who worked for this great agency. They are the greatest photographers in the world, and their approach to their work is something that all artists should strive. What they do with images playwrights try to do with words. As I looked through the photographers' portfolios, I was inspired to write a play about the people and things I saw. These people bring new worlds within the boundaries of own world, and they teach us.

Right now, I think I can say the one writer I greatly admire is Cormac McCarthy, and not for his success in the American cinema. Nor do I necessarily want to emulate him, but I do like the worlds he conjures up (and how he does it.)

Musically (and this will come as no surprise) but I love any of the great country singers (two favorites are Lucinda Williams and Chris Knight) for their storytelling abilities. (Here's just one example from Chris Knight.) The songs they write have so much drama and tension in them. And again, none of them are set on an island off the coast of Massachusetts.

Influenceexplorer.com Let$ You $ee Who I$ Influencing Our Government

2011-05-27T14:01:00.000-04:00

As a freelance columnist, one of the first big lessons I got was learning, if you want to figure out what the real story is, figure out where the money is. Figure out where it's coming from, where it's going, how much is getting made (especially by whom) and you've got your story.

But it's not easy to figure out. But here's a start. Influence explorer.com lets you type in a company, politician, or prominent individual and see how they're influencing the political system. And when we say influencing the political system we all know that means you can see where they're spending their dollars in the political system. Who they're supporting, which is another way to say bribing. See what they support and how much they're spending. See who their lobbyists are and how much they're paying them.

It's sad that our political system has reached the point where dollars are votes. One man (person)/one vote my eye. But what's also great about the world and the digital space is how you can use it to combat the system.

Let's face it: The system is busted. And funny, it's been busted for a long time. I just got finished reading Clifford Odet's Awake and Sing, written during the first Great Depression and produced in 1935, and you could almost change the date and everything would be the same. The same issues are facing families, the same responses and choices are being made, and the same cry about socialism is being heard. Funny, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But also, the play ends in the optimism of youth. Optimism isn't always with the young. As much as I've complained of late on this blog about age discrimination, most times I get the response that I don't look or act my age. That's the secret: Don't ever lose your optimism. Don't ever lose your idealism. And just act like a juvenile delinquent. That's how you stay young.

Networking and the Theater

2011-05-27T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm the sort of writer who all he wants to do, deep down, is sit in a little cottage overlooking a quiet body of water and write all day. And then at the end of the day I spend the time with Sue and my kids and my dumb dog and listen to some music and have a nice dinner with a decent bottle of wine on the porch that overlooks the water.

Well, that ain't the way it goes.

What's I'm learning more than anything about the playwriting business is how much of it is a business. And how much I have to learn. There's TCG and Humana and the O'Neil Center and this fellowship and this conference and how it seems you have to know all this and be connected to all that. You just don't write a play and people recognize you for the genius you are and then they put it on and everyone loves it so much they come to the next play that you write. It may seem as if that's how it works, but that's only the outside looking in.

I've always been a writer, no doubt. But I've always been bad at networking. I've always been one of those people on the fringe, watching. Hell, I thought that's what writers did: They observed then wrote about the things they saw. And I always thought the social part was best left to the people whose time wasn't occupied with writing and art.

And I've never been good with groups, always much more comfortable one-on-one with people.

And I know so much of this is colored by all that time--years!--spent in the corporate world, trying to fit in with people who I really didn't fit in with. I truly was the round peg trying to fit into the square hole (and square it was, so surprising for what you might expect from a software company, so mainstream, so conservative, so mind-numbing boring, filled with people whose value system was based on a house in the suburbs and not rocking the boat.) But that all came later. There were places and people who I look back open with a great amount of fondness. At one point I worked in a department where now I realize we really were all family.

But the world changed and business changed along with it, until finally I found myself in some sort of twisted Fellini/Tarantino/Disney world. Which brings me to networking.

I would have to go to conferences (all of them in Orlando because that was the sensibility of the president and owner of the company) and I would spend about a week trying to blend into the wallpaper because no one, and I mean no one, had a bit of interest in spending time with me. It was high school all over again, except I actually liked high school. I guess, yes, in retrospect, I lived out my high school days in my thirties, dealing with people who, as Lou Reed sings, were doing things I gave up years ago. I went from having friends and working with people who respected me and the work I did, to being a veritable outcast. I'm not even sure how it happened.

I remember one particular incident--an evening soiree, I guess you could call it--where I was with some co-workers, people who I shared an office with and with whom I worked with everyday, who actually ditched me. Ditched me. I can't believe I just typed those words and that I can truthfully say that something that embarrassing happened to me as an adult. And the next day we all acted like it didn't happened. No, what the hell happened to you guys? Where'd you go? I thought you were going to wait for me? None of that. Just an obvious signal that we don't like you. That was just one of so many times when I just swallowed my pride and said I have to do this. Yeah. I know. The question is why did I have to do it, and the answer was I could telecommute most days of days a week and it paid good money, which meant I could take care of my kids while my then wife could work on her career. The things we do for our loved ones.

The company would put us up in these hotels dotted throughout the theme parks, actually pretty nice rooms, and I would dread it, because I would have these nightmares that were ferocious. One I remember with such vividness that even today I wonder if it was a dream or if it actually happened: I dreamed that storm troopers burst into my room, broke the door down, and I clearly heard gunshots, and the sound of ejected cartridges hitting the walls and the floor and furniture, and the smell of gunpowder. What part of the recesses of my psyche that came from I don't know, but it's pretty telling that my soul was pretty damaged by about then.

So, now I'm learning and seeing how important it is to be connected in the theater world, but I think I still have vestiges of PTSD. I'm not kidding. The idea of doing all that schmoozing, I'll honestly say, scares me. You'll notice that when I go to plays alone, I bring a book, so I've got somewhere to dive if it gets too weird for me.

But here's the happy ending. It's never gotten too weird. I am finding that people are accepting and friendly and genuinely seem to like me. (Please leave your Sally Field jokes at the door.) I'm finding that people do accept me for who I am, and are interested in the work I'm trying to accomplish. I've known all along that theater people are some of the most accepting, open people you can find. That age doesn't mean a hill of beans to them (unless of course their age precludes them from getting a part) and that young people in the theater, for the most part, are willing to work with someone twice their age without a second thought.

It seems all my life I've wanted to make the world a better place. It's a concept I applied to my freelance business, and it worked. The business was successful and I was happy. I'm not sure where all this going or rereading this post where this rant came from. It's just the mind and the creative process at work. Just another stretch of the path I'm going down.

Too Cool To Be Forgotten

2011-05-24T19:13:00.000-04:00

House rules, no exceptions

No bad language, no gambling, no fighting

Sorry, no credit, don't ask

Bathroom wall reads: Is God the answer? Yes.

Ninety-nine and a half just won't do.

Almost Saturday Night

Outside my window, I can hear the radio,

And I know that motor wagon is ready to fly,

'cause it's almost Saturday night.

Already Gone

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains

And we never even know we have the key.

Ventura

I wanna watch the ocean bend

the edges of the sun then

I wanna get swallowed up in

An ocean of love

Beautiful Wreck

I've lost count of the times I've given up on you

But you make such a beautiful wreck, you do

Ya, you make such a beautiful wreck, you do

You make such a beautiful wreck, you do

Beautiful Wreck

At the dark end of this bar

What a beautiful wreck you are.

It's better to burn out than it is to rust.

She said her name was Billie Jean and she was fresh in town.

I didn’t know a stage line ran from hell.

And feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues

You know, feelin' good was good enough for me

I wished I was in Austin

In the Chili Parlor Bar

Drinking Mad Dog margaritas.

Won't you share a common disaster?

Crumbling Down

Some people ain't no damn good

You can't trust 'em, you can't love 'em

No good deed goes unpunished.

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don't let 'em pick guitars or drive them old trucks.

Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.

Don't think twice

It's all right.

Why'd you let go of your guitar

Why'd you ever let it go that far

Drunken Angel

Everyday is a winding road

I get a little bit closer

Everyday is a faded sign

I get a little bit closer to feeling fine.

Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,

The first one's named sweet Anne Marie and she's my heart's delight.

The second one is prison, babe, the sheriff's on my trail,

And if he catches up with me, I'll spend my life in jail.

Georgia, Georgia, no peace I find.

Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind.

Even God must get the blues.

God must hate me

He cursed me for eternity

God must hate me

Maybe you should pray for me

Did she make you cry

Make you break down

Shatter your illusions of love

Is it over now- do you know how

Pick up the pieces and go home.

Oh good shepherd

Feed my sheep

So I bought a guitar and I practiced real hard

I wasn't much good, but I was willin'

Till to my chagrin, my girlfriend came in

And she said, "Can you sing any Dylan?"

out all night playing in a band

looking for a fight

with a guitar in your hand

with a GUITAR in your hand

We all got holes to fill

and them holes are all that's real

some fall on you like a storm

sometimes you dig your own.

I am just a poor boy

Work’s my middle name

If money was the reason

Well I would not be the same.

I love this town... like an unmade bed

I need a love to keep my happy.

It's a long way to Texas... it's a long way back home

It's a three hour flight on the plane when I go

... away from this snow from Boston to South Shore where the

Dreams roll and tumble... and bring the prose to the wheel...

If you're goin' through hell,

Keep on goin'.

Don't slow down:

If you're scared don't show it.

You might get out,

'Fore the devil even knows you're there.

It ain't wise to need someone

As much as I depended on you.

It's goodbye to all my friends.

It's time to go again.

Now that we come showin' up

Rumors bouncin' off of that truck

Just a let 'em stare at her and me

'Cause I don't care about anything but us

And there's nothing wrong with me

This is how I'm supposed to be

In a land of make believe

That don't believe in me

And when you said I scared you,

Well I guess you scared me too.

If I had possession of Judgement Day

I wouldn't have no right to pray.

Now I'm leaving Normal and heading towards Who Knows Where.

I've finally learned that there's good and bad

And that a guy can do some choosin',

Of that I'm glad cause this heart and face

Won't take any more bruisin'.

And the next time I fall in another's arms

There's one thing I'll be certain,

That she can bear the weight of the love I give

Without considering it a burden.

Living Life #9.

When you can't find a friend

You've still got the radio.

Livin' on refried dreams.

Guess I've got that old travlin' bone, 'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.

But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no

long as I can see the light.

All I ask

Don't tell anybody the secrets

I told you.

I said "Mama, he's crazy and he scares me

But I want him by my side

though he's wild and he's bad

and sometimes just plain mad

I need him to keep me satisfied"

My Give A Damn's Busted

I got no friends 'cause they read the papers

They can't be seen with me and I'm getting shot down

And I'm feeling mean.

No more to give so no more to take

Why won't you

leave me alone?

I'm old enough to know better, but still too young to care.

Why is there one in every crowd, and why do I attract them?

Some rich men came and raped the land,

Nobody caught 'em

Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,

People bought 'em

And they called it Paradise

The place to be

They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

Is it too much to demand

I want a full house and a rock and roll band

Pens that won't run out of ink

And cool quiet and time to think.

And the moral of this story

Is I guess it's easier said than done

To look at what you've been through

And to see what you've become.

Quivers down my backbone

I got the shakes in the knee bones

Shivers down my thigh bones

Like I'm

Shakin' all over

I've heard that into every life

a little rain must fall.

If there's any truth to the saying,

Lord, let it be a southern rain.

Blow up your TV throw away your paper

Go to the country, build you a home

Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches

Try an find Jesus on your own.

Well, I sat there at the table and I acted real naive

For I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve.

So what in the world's come over you?

What in heaven's name have you done?

You've broken the speed of the sound of loneliness

You're out there runnin'

Just to be on the run.

Well, I got a heart that burns with a fever

And I got a worried and jealous mind

Well how can a love

That will last forever

Get left so far behind?

I'm the PATRON SAINT of the denial with an ANGEL FACE and a taste for suicidal.

I recall once upon a time,

Livin' was so easy and I felt so fine.

But, my, my, my right before my very eyes,

Satan came with fire to burn me,

Wouldn't listen when they warned me.

A dagger in my back while she's calling me honey,

Wouldn't stand back, for neither love nor money.

The hotter it is you know the hotter it gets.

Every Friday, well, that's when I get paid.

Don't take me on Friday, Lord, 'cause that's when I get paid.

Let me die on Saturday night, ooh, before Sunday gets my head.

Why don't you cash in your chips

Why don't you call it a loss

Not such a big loss

Chalk it up to better luck

This old guitar ain't mine to keep

It's mine to play for a while

To live is to fly, low and high

So shake the dust off of your wings

And the sleep out of your eyes.

Well I been drinkin' again

And I know it's a sin

But I just can't refuse an old friend

Cause life is gettin' me down

And I been two times around

And there ain't nothing but pain around the bend.

Is there anything a man don’t stand to lose,

When the devil wants to take it all away?

Clouds of myst’ry pourin’ confusion on the ground.

Good men through the ages, tryin’ to find the sun;

And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.

Well you stole it 'cause I needed the cash

And you killed it 'cause I wanted revenge

Well you lied to me 'cause I asked you to

Baby, can we still be friends

And I been from Tucson to Tucancary, Tahathapi to Tanapall

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made

Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed.

And if you give me weed, whites, and wine

And you show me a sign

Then I'll be willing

To be moving.

I'd rather look around me -- compose a better song

'cos that's the honest measure of my worth.

In your pomp and all your glory you're a poorer man than me

as you lick the boots of death born out of fear.

You took my joy

I want it back.

You Might Be Shocked

2011-05-24T11:59:00.001-04:00

You might be shocked if you were on a job interview and the interviewer casually pointed out that the majority of the staff was white. You might be speechless if the interviewer noted that the staff was mostly men. Or non-Jewish. Or even had all their arms and legs.

And you would particularly amazed if you were a person of color, a woman, a Jew, or in a wheelchair.

But it's perfectly fine for an interviewer to sit with a person with close to thirty years of experience in the workforce, and note that the staff is mostly in its twenties. Gee, as if I hadn't noticed.

I got an email yesterday that the company where I interviewed for a job was going to continue its search, and best of luck to me. I knew I was going to receive that email, and for a split second I even considered being "professional" (just in case; don't burn any bridges) and sending an email back, saying thank you for your time, keep me in mind for future positions, etc,

But then I thought, to hell with it. They're not going to hire me; I don't fit into their "corporate culture." I knew it when I rode the elevator up to their offices and everyone was in their twenties. I knew it the minute two more interviewers were ushered into the conference room and they couldn't contain the look on their face (what was that?--surprise? horror?) I knew it when I was asked what I would do if they asked me to use certain words in the copy, and I said, You mean keywords for SEO?--search engine optimization?--and again, there was that look--surprise? astonishment? How could someone over thirty know this?

And I knew it when I was asked how I got inside a woman's head considering I wasn't a woman. And I know by then I was a bit gun-shy by the whole process, and realize that while it might be a valid question under other circumstances, by that point it seemed to come from a place that questioned a middle-aged man's ability to "relate" to women, even though I have two daughters, one about the same age as the interviewer, and over the course of my career, which spanned more than both the two interviewers' lifetimes, I've written for female audiences.

And while I most certainly will admit that maybe I wasn't best-suited for the position, I certainly don't feel it was my skills I was defending. Or if it was my skills I was defending, I'm pretty sure I was defending them for the wrong reasons.

This all is so astonishingly hard to write about, because again, I'm not certain I was the right person for that position. I'm fully aware of my deficiencies, and really don't want to get into the discussion about what older, more mature workers can bring to the workplace, their skills and knowledge that can only be attained by putting in the years.

But the one undeniable moment I'm not going to relinquish is the look on the faces of those interviewers when they walked into the room and took their first look of me. There is no hiding it; there was no hiding it. And after you've seen it more than once, you identify it quickly.

And I know the three people I came in contact that day would deny all this in the most emphatic way. And I'm not saying they are mean, horrible people. The only thing I can fall back on are Anita Hill's words, You just don't get it, which I am fully aware is lame, but our prejudices (yours, mine, ours) are so ingrained into our ways that we just don't see them.

Lawyers will tell you that age discrimination is the hardest thing to prove. (Although when a company's hiring does not reflect the diversity of society, you may have something.) Really the only thing I or anyone who experiences the prejudices that are inherent in our society can do is move on. I'm not going to fight this. I don't have that much to gain. So this company, which is very successful, I might add, will continue with its questionable hiring tactics. As a headhunter told me yesterday, I have the proven skills, I'm likable, and I have the experience. I just have to find that place where I'll be valued. And I will be. I've made lots of money for businesses over my lifetime. And I'll tell you this: Something that would give me supreme pleasure is to be valued by the competitor of the company where I interviewed.

Hamilton Says Lance Armstrong Took Banned Substances

2011-05-20T10:31:00.001-04:00

Say it ain't so, Lance.

Tyler Hamilton now says that he witnessed Lance Armstrong shooting banned substances while they were teammates. Hamilton is now the second teammate of Armstrong (the other was Flloyd Landis) who said they saw Armstrong take performance-enhancing substances.

CNN has a report with some sanitized pictures of Armstrong.

Armstrong, I think, is one of the true heroes of our time. As you can see from the first line of this post, I'm like a little kid when it comes to Lance. I was following the Tour (that's the Tour de France; it's like other things that are on a first-name basis over the years, starting with Jackie and onto Lance and continuing today with Pink) way, way back in high school (think Breaking Away) living in the Midwest when I thought myself so, so European. Six consecutive wins and seven overall wins of the Tour. But then he puts his fame to good use. I rank him right up there with the likes of Bono, who you can say what you want, but puts his money and his fame to good use trying to change the world for the better. When did Mick Jagger ever do that?

Nina Totenberg to Receive an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Boston University

2011-05-20T09:12:00.000-04:00

It is because of my absolute deep respect for good journalists that makes me post this. Nina Totenberg, who dropped out of Boston University as a journalism major so she could take a job as an actual reporter, will be receiving an honorary doctorate this Sunday from BU.

Here's the interview with her from the website, BU Today. I particularly like the advice she gives journalism majors: Don't do it. It's the same advice I gave my daughter. I don't think the industry knows where it's going today, and I think that's a terrible thing. We are in such need of good, objective reporting today (and for those who say there is no such thing, you don't know what you're talking about. When I hear that argument I just nod my head, the same way I do with bone-headed Christians--there's no use fighting. If you want a fight on your hands, accuse a real reporter of not being objective.)

But in this day of the Internet and the likes of Perez Hilton and Fox News and celebs like Anderson Cooper, there still are a few talented, intelligent reporters who are more interested in reporting the facts and not pushing some corporate agenda. And many of them are nameless, their files are on the Internet posted by the myriad of news outlets across the world on the Internet. It's a different world, and I wonder what Ms. Totenberg would have done if she were an undergrad today. Probably pursue law.

Putting Artists to Work for Cultural Recovery

2011-05-18T15:42:00.000-04:00

Okay, from a StageSource tweet I followed a link about some legislation pending in the Masschusetts' Senate for funding. And I wrote to my senator asking him to support an amendment. This is important to me, not only because I'm trying my darndest to make a living in the arts, but because I truly believe in the positive influence and power artists have in our society.

Here's what I wrote:

On May 18, the Senate Ways & Means Committee released a proposed state budget for the coming fiscal year that would significantly cut state support for the arts, humanities, and sciences through the MCC.

Senator Eileen Donoghue of Lowell will file an amendment to restore MCC funding to this year’s levels.

The Senate Ways & Means Committee recommends $7.45 million for MCC for fiscal year 2012. That would cut $1.65 million, or 18 percent, from the agency's current budget and would represent a cumulative cut of 41 percent to arts and cultural funding since 2009.

sen. keene...i strongly feel that cuts to the arts and cultural funding is detrimental to our society...of course i understand about the dire condition of the economy for schools. roads, infrastructure, etc...but i also strongly believe that in times like these, we need to bond together culturally...it's what will keep us pulling together as a group, as a society...it's not a feel-good thing i'm talking about...it's about a real necessity for community that will get us through these tough times...

thanks for listening...

That's it. (Feel free to use the text when writing to your own senator; of course you will.) Then from another tweet from StageSource, of which I'm a member, I found this.

Funny that Julie Hanus and I came up with the same reason for artists in our society. I think most artists realize their value in society (even though they are usually so bad at articulating it,) while I think there is either a misunderstanding or a lack of appreciation on the part of the general public for the contribution of artists and the arts in society.

The arts bring us together, and in my experience they do it much better than any promise from some politician who make standard campaign promises to unite the country. Artists and the arts generally don't have the agenda that you get from politics and politicians.

The arts promote dialogue, as opposed to politics which usually promotes debate.

The arts bring people together usually in a celebratory way: theater, painting, dance, music. Think of all the times you've been to something like a concert, and what a positive feeling you left with.

I saw some terrific theater...

2011-05-18T12:23:00.000-04:00

...and you can argue with me that it wasn't. Some might say it really wasn't theater.

The actors weren't professional. It didn't take place in a theater. It wasn't the result of any theatrical process. In other words it happened in the "real world" by "real people" reacting "in the moment." But my experience, my reaction to it, was exactly what I would hope I'd have from a piece of theater.

It was produced just one time, and then it closed forever. It happened last Friday at a retirement party on the Cape at a country club. I didn't know hardly anyone there--just one or two people; I just a quiet observer, just like I'd be in the theater. A man was retiring--he was leaving a life he knew for 32 years--so the stakes were pretty high, at least a dramatic moment was ripe for the taking.

His co-workers put on skit, this wonderful piece of theater I'm referring to. They structured it. They actually realized they needed something to hang their skit on, and instead of concentrating on something classically Aristotelian--rising action, climax, denouement--they chose the alphabet. I loved it. Something we've known since our childhood. Something familiar. Something simple. Twenty-six scenes. Each "actor" was assigned a letter, and had to stand up at a staged area and talk about the retiree, and the script, their monologue, because that's what it was, was to be rooted in that letter.

When you give people, people who are not trained or comfortable in being in front of an audience, give them a microphone and force them in front of an audience, they are stripped bare. The are naked. And my reaction was I cared for each and everyone. I applauded their bravery, which in a small way spoke the something deep and meaningful in the human spirit, and also something that I think is waning in our society too. I wanted to hear what everyone had to say. I rooted for the ones who were uncomfortable. I enjoyed the more polished speeches. But even deeper, I was amazed but how much was revealed.

There was Mr. Popular. He was attractive to look at. Vivacious. Funny. Comfortable. And it was easy to see why people liked him. And he reveled in his place in this little community.

Conversely, there was the guy who was unpopular, and you can see how he struggled for the group's approval. Everything Mr. Popular wasn't--not comfortable in his own skin, unfunny, inarticulate, the group still accepted him and drew him in.

From A to Z I saw quiet people, smart but reserved people, the outsiders, and people who believed in sincerity and love, and weren't afraid to show it, because when you put people under pressure, and make no bones about it, these people were under pressure, people will resort to what they are most comfortable with, their core values and beliefs.

And there were two other characters. There was the man for whom all this was done: the retiree. who seemed at first so much outside of all this. Sometimes it seemed as if I wasn't so much at a retirement party as I was at a wake, and the participants were celebrating their life, their vitality, because they were going to go on living in the world they and the man had occupied. He was the one moving on.

And then there was me. The outside spectator, who thought about his own life, his community, if there even is one, and how long it's been since I've had a "real" job, one where the office was my life and characters like I was watching were a part of my life. Thirty-two years. Thirty-two years of his life the man spent in his career. Wow. And now it was over. They talked how he now had time to paddle his canoe and read his Boston Globe. Hmmm....

I wish I could write scenes like this, actors' pieces, that are simple and rely on the talents and instincts of people who can replicate this kind of world night after night. This is storytelling at its best, something I strive for but never seem to be able to get it quite right. It's frustrating as hell, to sit here at a keyboard day after day, then see it so genuinely and endearingly done by people who aren't even trying.

I'm blowing off an audition because...

2011-05-17T12:05:00.003-04:00

Maybe career-wise I'm shooting myself in the foot, but I'm blowing off an audition at a very well-known and connected casting agency this afternoon because...because...oh God, there are so many reasons, but first the simple one stupid reason I agreed to the audition is this:

I am flat broke and if cast I'd make $500 on the day of the shoot. File that under, I Was Young And Stupid And Needed The Money.

I have been cast in I think two industrials in my entire life. I used to go on auditions all the time and would get occasional callbacks, but rarely a job. This one was for a computer company (I'm always getting called in for white-guy office workers, in other words, a white guy in either a suit or business casual.) I don't even own a suit. I know it's acting, but just once can they call me in for something that's a bit more my type??

And I was looking at myself in the mirror today and yes, full confession here: I'm feeling old (well, I'm feeling maybe not old, but my age: it's not easy being in an environment where 99.9% of the people are over half your age and you're constantly reminded of your age, just like I imagine people of color are constantly reminded of the color of their skin. It's an interesting, eye-opening experience for me in our society.) And I just wasn't up to standing in this crowded hallway (yes, auditions are so glamorous; you're jammed cheek by jowl with actors in a hallway) with all these glamorous people. Yes, most are glamorous and so much better looking than me.

Maybe I'm better off just sticking to the theater and the stage, where I feel so much more comfortable.

So, looks were a big thing. I'm just not feeling too good about the way I look lately. Because of school I haven't been in the gym in months, I've been eating crap food just to stay alive so I'm out of shape and have put on weight, and reread the above paragraph about age if you want some more reasons.

And I was rehearsing the script this morning and I couldn't memorize it exactly, which is scary because for an actor if you can't remember your lines, well, that's a problem.

But it was so badly written. It was so badly written it was stupid and do you know how many times I've sat with corporate types who don't know the first thing about writing, who are schooled in writing or script-writing from what they've seen on television, or worse bad cinema? And every nerve in my body is screaming, this is stupid, I'm making an ass out of myself, we're all making asses out of ourselves, doesn't anyone care?

And you know what: the answer to that last question is either a) they really aren't aware they're making an ass out of themselves; or b) they don't care. What is the deal that self-respect is the first thing that goes out the window when it comes to money?

I have three plays I'm currently working on. All three are good writing. Do you know how I know it's good writing? Because I'm a good writer, and I'm so good at it that I can spot it a mile away. I have three plays that are in various stages of completion that need my undivided attention and for me to blow off a good portion of the day to do something I don't want to do and makes me feel like shit is just plain stupid.

Thanks for listening.

Monday's Thoughts on Age Discrimination in the Workforce

2011-05-16T17:45:00.000-04:00

Like most people, I'm not a big fan of Mondays. I learned though, when I was struggling, like I am now, that Monday's are the day that you really learn what you're made of. Put a person under pressure, and you'll see what they are made of. They'll crumble, or bitch and moan, or yell and lose their temper. Or they'll knuckle down and face what it is that's beating them up, and figure out a way to get passed it, move on, defeat it, do whatever it takes to get to Friday.

I'd get up on a Monday morning, and an entire empty week would loom below me like a ski slope. (I'm one of those people who see things like time lines and even the alphabet in 3-D color and shadow.) So the top of the week is really the top of the week. I'd have no work, no obvious means of income, with bills piling up and my stomach just churning, and I'd pick up the phone or email or something and by Wednesday I'd usually have something. Work. A plan. Hell, sometimes it was an entirely new problem, but I had something going.

I always say, homelessness and starvation are really good motivators.

So that's where I stood today. Actually, it was over the weekend when all the craziness of the semester just dissipated and I suddenly realized my I got my last check for teaching and I have no visible means of support. (Or, invisible means, either.)

Nothing yet. And this economy makes it all the harder. I did go on an interview last week for some contract work, but I'm not holding out for much there. Riding up in the elevator, I noticed just like the last place I worked that the people were at least half my age. The VP who I first spoke with me and was probably just a bit younger than me, even came out and told me that the average age of the your average worker there was in their twenties. (The fact that there wasn't an true representation of all ages in society is always a good indication that while they talk diversity, they really don't practice it. I don't recall seeing any African-Americans either.)

Then came what I always dread. He ushered in two managers who had never met me and only knew me from my resume. And the looks on these twenty-something faces when they turned the corner into the conference room and saw me told me all I needed to know: Age discrimination is alive and well. It's a look I've seen a number of times on younger people's faces when they first lay eyes on me, and the generational gap yawns between us. And I know I barely have a fighting chance, even if I might not be exactly right for the job. (Although this time I think I was.)

There's not a lot you can do in that situation. I can't prove that I was being discriminated against. But I do know what I saw.

And truth be told, when I was freelancing it was a requirement of the clients I took on that I 1) liked the people I'd be working with because I like to have fun, and I do consider my work fun; and 2) I had to feel that client organization was making the world a better place. I built a pretty good, thriving business by being true to my own beliefs and values. It worked once, and I believe it will work again.

My Honey Must Love Me...

2011-05-12T12:34:00.000-04:00

...because look what came in the mail yesterday.

This.

While working on my dramaturgy dossier on Trojan Barbie for contemporary drama, I was first turned onto, then fell in love with the Greek tragedy. I knew very little about Greek mythology and even less about Greek tragedy and the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, but the more I learned, the more I got sucked in. (It was nice to learn that when she took the commission to adapt Trojan Women, Christine Evans also knew very little about Greek tragedy and basically familiarized herself through an independent study while working on her doctorate at Brown.) We saw Euripides' Ajax at the ART a few weeks ago, and it was amazing--2,500 years old and still relevant today. The human emotion still current.

People are always amazed that Sue and I don't have a television; I haven't had one for maybe six years now. People always ask us what we do if we don't watch television.

First, we do still follow the news online and there's Netflix for our entertainment. But we're also psyched about sitting together and popping in these DVDs. Sue calls it brain night. We'll actually sit down with a pizza or maybe a bowl of SmartFood. Sue props herself up on the couch; I'm amazed how she can sit with her feet tucked under her with her knees to her chin. Maybe some people thinks it's boring. Maybe some people think we're just nerds. Frankly, I don't understand how people can spend a good portion of their lives following fat, spoiled, overpaid athletes or following some television series with a lame plot line.

I mean, the Greeks did it first and did it so much better.

Like A Man Freed From Prison

2011-05-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

I'm reveling in all my free time. It's like after a show closes and you suddenly have your life back. I have time to do all the things I want to do, all the things, the crazy, weird things that make your life normal, or at least make you feel comfortable.

For one thing I can blog some more. It's not a big deal to write here, and it doesn't take up that much time, but it shows just how little time I did have that I couldn't post here. I was blogging on our contemporary drama classes blog, and I literally would use very waking minute to do something for class: read standing on the subway, take twenty minutes to open the laptop sitting on some couches outside class to write five more lines of dialogue in a play. It was all so crazy. I do like to be busy, but the past five months were overload.

Did I mention what I did when I finished? I opened a bottle of cream soda, sat on the floor of the living room (or what we call the music room) and played guitar for about three hours. I've been so out of practice and it's something that I just love to do to relax--a lot of times I'll work for a while and take a break for about ten minutes. If I'm working in the office instead of on the couch I'll usually have Alice, one of our acoustics, propped against the table.

And I've been doing all the crazy little things that a man just freed from prison might do. Today I'm making bread. Yesterday I was in Boston (to drop off the infamous dramaturgy dossier), went to the graduate school office and figured out how I was going to pay for the summer semester, and then I went to Daddy's Junky Music and played a bunch of guitars they have there. (Also bought a metronome, something one of my music teachers, Lloyd Thayer has been beating in my head to get. I bought it off the salesman who walked in the guitar room and said hi, and I said hi back in a way that said, leave me the hell alone. They know me there and he was decent enough to let me alone and not hassle me with pushing a guitar sale.) I went a few doors up and grabbed a hamburger at Wendy's; Wendy's hamburgers are a nasty vice I have. I met my daughter for dinner and I was able to talk and listen without having this other tape running in the background of my brain, thinking about dialogue and plot and stage directions and getting this paper written or planning this project. I'm picking up laundry and making grocery lists and I'm making sense out of our house. Sue works two jobs to keep us going, so I'm the one who manages the house and I actually like doing it. I've always been kind of domestic. I like to cook and I like working at home; the only time I ever liked working in an office was when I was first starting out and I thought I was hot shit. It didn't take me long to realize I was what is known as a self-starter (hardly anyone is; most people need the whip from the office to keep them motivated) and did much better on my own away from the stupidity of office politics and general office shenanigans. I always thought that was so much noise.

It'll will all start again in a week and a half when summer starts. I am so excited about the classes I'm taking, but for now I'm happy to just be able to noodle around the apartment.

Life is too short...

2011-05-10T11:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at exactly 2:00 p.m. (according to the clock on my MacBook, at least) the spring semester ended for me. Just a few minutes before that the notice on the printer came on saying the toner was low. After all those months, I quite suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. A curious feeling; we've all felt that where you're crazy at work and suddenly it's Friday at 5:00 before your vacation.

BU has ruled every second of my life for about five months. Every waking second, and a lot of my sleeping ones, were concentrated on what I had to do, where I had to be (sometimes two places at once.) I knew this was going to be a challenging semester, even more challenging than the fall when I was acclimating myself to grad school then suddenly in the second week my back went out and my leg became paralyzed and I couldn't walk. I got through that and I knew I was going to get through the spring, too. I kept telling myself (and I'm bragging but I feel I have bragging rights), You are one of three people picked for the program. BU and Kate and I'm sure there were others on the selection committee who felt you could do the work, felt strong enough that you were given a scholarship and a teaching fellowship. So do the work.

I look back on the semester and think I finished one full-length play (of which I am so happy with and proud of) and started and finished a second full-length script. I've read I don't know how many plays and books, self-educated myself on the life and work of Sam Shepard, participated in amazing discussions in class about plays and playwriting and playwrights, something I am passionate about, taught a class of sophomores, again about something that I am greatly passionate about, and basically fulfilled the requirements for a pretty rigorous curriculum. I've grown immensely as a playwright and as a student and as a thinker and a theater creative artist. And what's funny is that, while I can see how far I've traveled, I can see how far the road continues on. And that discouraging and enticing all at once. There's so much more to learn, so much more to do. Life holds an incredible amount of opportunity and challenge. As they say, life is too short.

Highland Center, Indiana ready for its reading

2011-04-29T12:41:00.002-04:00

I was sitting in The Burren on Monday (right before the open mic for playwrights with STAB) with Krista D'Agostino, one of the founders and the artistic director of Holland Productions, and we were talking about Highland Center, Indiana and it suddenly hit me we were talking about my play. It was quite an out-of-body experience. We were talking about it the same way we would talk about any other play from oh, say, Sam Shepard, and it was all hanging together and I was pretty darn happy and proud all of a sudden.

Its first reading is on Tueasday at 7:00 at Boston Playwrights' Theater (unabashed self-promotion.) Along with Krista directing (an extraordinarily talented director who made me so happy when she emailed me and said she LOVED the play), the cast is like the New York Yankees of Boston actors.

Hank: Daniel Berger-Lewis
Alice Anne: Sarah Newhouse
Henry: Will Lymon
JP: Bob Pemberton

And we're still looking for a Billy.

Here's something the theater put together on the play.

I'm pretty happy with the script. I say "pretty happy" because experience has told me that I could open it up tomorrow and see so many new things. Things to add, things to take out, changes in direction. But I'm confident that it's ready for Tuesday and, after months of anxiety, that's a really good feeling.

Another good (and scary feeling) is knowing I have two other plays in the works. It's such a good feeling to know I have things to work on, and it's scary to think that I have to get them finished. They gnaw at you, and it gets really annoying that there are these stories that are inside me and sometimes I wish I could just lie on the beach and stare at the water and let my mind just drift. They're little bastards in the sense that they demand so much work and energy from me. Why can't they just write themselves?

And frankly, as exciting as everything is right now, I know I'm ready for some downtime on the beach, not that that's going to happen. I was the T this morning (up at 5:30 after not sleeping all night; too much on my mind) out of the house at 6:20 to make sure I was on time for our 8:00 Contemporary Drama class) and I was thinking how I need to get away from schedules and people who are bound by their schedules. It was a year ago Sue and Kathryn and I were in Costa Rica, and then Sue and I just kept wandering, finding ourselves in Panama, and I realized this morning that since last summer I've been getting up every morning and the first thought in my head has been, what do I have to do today [for school?] And while I'm having a great time, I did so much "work" on the beaches and jungles and buses in Central America. I need that to get away. Even here at BU I see people who are no different than people in the corporate world (surprise, surprise.) People who cling to schedules and jargon and a way of life (here it's the academic world) and I always get so bored with convention, no matter what kind.

Taking the time to put it down...

2011-04-23T09:19:00.001-04:00

We're winding down the final days of the Spring semester at Boston University, and way back at the start I wanted to blog and write all about my experience and bring people along with me during this phase of my life. It's an exciting time. Most people my age are "positioning" themselves for retirement. Thinking about hanging on to that job for the homestretch, dreaming about the house in Florida and playing golf everyday (nothing sounds worse to me than that.) I'm not ready for the rocking chair, not by a long shot. I still have plays to write, mountains to climb, people to love. Still so many places I want to travel to. Every day is a new day, precious, full of opportunity to grow and learn.

Today is Saturday, and I'm teaching a workshop on writing ten-minute plays for Write Here, Write Now. It's a program for the LGBT community, and the reason for it is in their mission statement. I want to help anyone who wants to learn to write. This opportunity came to me from a grad student at Umass, and as soon as I got the email I knew it was something I wanted to do. I never thought about the obstacles facing someone who is LGBT. To me, writing is so free. You don't need a license, you don't even really need a degree. I proved that with my career. I just wrote and proved to people that I could do it and for a long while they paid me a lot of money to do it. You just do it. I'm so excited to hear what my students have to say today, those first ten minutes when people are telling why they are there, what they want to do.

I wish I had been able to find the time (and the energy) to put it all down, all the steps, the up and downs, the joys and the frustrations, the disappointments and the anxieties. It's all there, a very exciting life. I would have like to have been able to go back and read about it, when I finally am in the rocking chair. But I haven't even been writing in my own journal. I used to get up in the morning, pour my coffee (I'd set the coffee maker the night before) and go straight to the computer and write in my journal for about a half hour, still in that dream state. It's what I told my students to do, write in their journals every day, if not at a specific time every day, but I couldn't do it. Between the marathon of writing two full-length plays in less than a year, and the weekly sprints of writing a ten-minute play plus reading three or four plays a week and doing the background research on the play and the playwright, teaching, grading fifteen essays every week plus rewrite, seeing theater including staying out late on the weeknights because that's when the cheap tix are, and just thinking and planning for the long-term (what am I going to do when I graduate?) I didn't have the time or energy to set the coffee pot the night before.

I don't know how some people do it. Right now I'm following this guy who as I write this is on the north face of Everest. He's 69 years old and he's attempting two summits of Everest back to back. If that's not enough he's blogging. He's finding the time. Kind of puts me to shame, doesn't he.

Allen Johnson's Another You: a critical response...

2011-04-22T16:43:00.000-04:00

As an assignment in Contemporary Drama we had to watch two films on OntheBoards.tv and write a review of one.

First, the one thing that I'm learning in that class is that there is some amazing, mind-blowing theater out there, and that there are artists that are raising the bar to extraordinary heights. Scary? Yes it it, but I always wonder if I can measure up.

And it's not arrogance, but pure joy that makes me try and try and try again. It's not about money. It's not about success or fame. It's saying what you want to say, what you think the world should hear. There's no amount of money or attention that can equal that.

Anyway, here's my response to Allen Johnson's Another You.

Here's where I've been blogging of late--if you're interested...

2011-04-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

My hope was to blog all through the school year and record and share my experiences as the oldest living grad student at BU. What's the saying about alligators in a flooded swamp. If you follow me on Twitter (@johngf) you'll see that a lot of times I feel lucky to get to bed before midnight when I've been up since 6:30 and have to be up the next morning at 5:30. Broke and sleep-deprived pretty much describe my world.

And when I do blog, I've been blogging for our Contemporary Drama class, taught by the incomparable Professor Ilana Brownstein. Friday (today) at 8:00. Winter mornings were tough. But every class I leave with my head swirling with ideas, my fingertips tingling to hit the keyboard.

So, anyway, here's a taste. Check out the blog, too, for the other students' postings. Some really cool, talented, dedicated people are blogging there.

Passion and Believing in What You're Doing

2011-02-20T16:26:00.000-05:00

When I was doing hard time in the corporate world, I worked for awhile with someone who I will only identify as Marko the Magnificent. Marko was smart enough to get out before the corporate world and money and all that jazz got their hooks in him. He dropped out to play clarinet, the thing he really loved to do. Money wasn't a priority for him; happiness was. He used to say we, as corporate writers, simply were trying to get people to buy shit they didn't need. I later amended that statement to say, we simply made rich men richer, and we tried to get people to not only buy shit they didn't need, but shit that really was just shit. Over the course of my internment, or career, whatever you want to call it, I have worked for software companies that knew the code wasn't stable--we all knew it--but we wrote that it was anyway, to finally my last gig in the corporate world working for GM--and we all know what happened there--selling, I am embarrassed to say, Buicks.

There were a good five or six years in there where I freelanced, and once I got things moving along (let me tell you, homelessness and starvation are great motivators) I only took on clients who I felt made the world a better place. And I only worked with people I liked. So, with that philosophy, I was able to get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror. I worked for Eastern Mountain Sports (for about a year and a half I wrote a good portion of their catalog), Boston's Museum of Science, Saucony, Boston College, a couple of little start ups and a sweet little design company that let me write about Harvard University and the City of Cambridge and a lot of other interesting assignments. I did art reviews and feature stories for Cape Cod Life, and met and talked with people who were really doing things with their lives.

And now I'm at Boston University and just to give you a sense of how exciting it is there, I have a class at 8:00 a.m. on Friday that goes for four hours, and I'm typically sitting outside the classroom door by 7:30 waiting to get in.

If you don't have passion in your life, if you just are doing the nine to five to pull a paycheck and are willing to ignore or worse, scramble your own brains in order to make the insanity in the world appear sane, turn the nonsense that goes on in life into sense simply so you can have a house and a car and a nice television, well, I just don't know what to say. Isn't that game over?

In most of my classes, I am easily the oldest person sitting in the room, and that's including the professor. And I find being with young people, even with their madness and what comes across many times as inappropriateness, is refreshing and inspirational. Robert Pinsky told me he loves teaching. He waved his hand towards his grad students and said, I get to hang out with them. That's how I feel. I am at a stage in my life where I "should" be starting to position myself for retirement, not take too many risks because, I think the line of thinking goes, I'll be too old and frail to do any living. And the thought of that, well, it infuriates me. How dare you pigeonhole me into something that I'm "supposed" to do. I, quite frankly, find a lot of people my age boring, and the questions and uncertainty that I see in the young people at BU I still find in myself, too. Who will produce my plays? Can I make some kind of living doing what I want to do--writing and teaching? If you think those are big questions when you're 22, try asking them at my age. (No, I'm not going to tell you my age, simply because I'm pretty sure I'm older or younger than you think. We're talking mental age here, anyway.)

The life I'm experiencing now versus the one I used to experience are worlds apart. Sometimes I can't believe I actually lived in that other world. I'm not sure how I did, and now it's as if I'm awake and then I was asleep.

easy

2011-02-18T17:31:00.000-05:00

it is so much easier when the temperatures aren't punching you in the nose and you're not wearing boots so heavy kind of like the kind the astronauts wear but instead your favorite pair of cowboy boots and an old pair of jeans and you're not wearing so many layers not even a second layer under your old leather bomber that you can't move even on days when the fresh bottle of milk is spoiled and it's 5:30 a.m. and still dark and you need that coffee and sue god love her doesn't think twice about jumping into her car and heading for the 24-hour cvs to pick up a bottle so you can push out the door semi conscious and not have to pick your way through the ice and around piles of snow over your head and on the subway people are normal size again not like when they're wearing coats the size of sleeping bags and take up two seats and sit with a look on their face like try me just try me and the switches don't freeze and the conductor doesn't lie over the crackling loudspeaker that there's a train ahead because there's always a train ahead and it never stops us only when it's biting cold so we get to park on time and your feet aren't crying because the damp has swollen them and the train just rumbles on through the tunnels and pops up in the light that's pink and empty still and the earnest are jogging and bobbing and walking with a purpose to somewhere and i get off and enter the building and the student who signs in the applicants for their music auditions is already nervously tapping his pencil and a young asian is dragging her cello to the elevator and i get on because i'm here and you're not and that's just the way it is which makes it so easy.

Plans and the inevitable

2011-02-11T12:38:00.000-05:00

What do they say about draining the swamp filled with alligators? It's the southern version of the best-laid plans of mice and men.

It's the end of the fourth week of classes, and if it weren't for me having some free time as I hold office hours for my English 202 class here in Blue State Coffee, I wouldn't have had the time to open up the laptop and ramble here like I am. Nobody's showed up but me who is required to. I imagine a few emails are forthcoming this week, and we'll deal with last-minute problems that way.

Last semester, the second week, my back went ka-plooey and so did my leg. And I worked hours and hours and more hours backstage in the theater. Even though I have a bigger load this semester, I figured I'd still have plenty of time to get my work done if I didn't waste time and still have time for a life. Ha!

But this semester no one told me I was going to get sick with a cold/flu/plague that I'm still recovering from. No one told me Sue would get sick, too. No one told me what teaching was like, or the amount of work it takes. (What was I thinking?--it is a job, after all.) I planned on getting in shape for cycling in the spring with a spin class every Saturday. I hoped to have at least one meal a week at home with the kids, to talk and catch up and just feel like family if only for a few hours. I planned on sending my plays out and getting some relationships going with theaters so when (what an optimistic statement!) I graduate. Hell, I even thought I'd have the time to play some music with friends maybe every week or so. The amount of work that has to get done is monstrous, and the self-induced pressure to excel seems to triple the workload.

So, the best thing to do, as always, is scrap the plans. Plans and rules were made for breaking, right? If things don't work out the way you plan them, just go with it and see where it takes you. So you don't end up where you plan. You always end up somewhere.

Why I Write for the Theater

2011-01-21T13:26:00.001-05:00

At BU, every one of my writing professors inevitably ask why we/I want to write plays. What's our passion? When were we first "touched" by the theater? What's our earliest memory of the theater?

I've been a playwright for two years, one month, and nine days. I can actually count the time. I was laid off from my last gig on December 11, 2008, working on car accounts at a large ad agency. Talk about a low point in your career. On December 12 I put my feet up on the coffee table with a laptop in my lap and started writing my first play, Red Dog, one that had been rattling around in my head for a few years, about broken hearts, adultery, dogs, writing, whiskey, guns, and redemption--all of my favorite topics. I finished that play five months later in May, and kept writing plays. That I am an actor and I've also read countless plays helped me in the writing. I understood what happens on stage, what actors need, what's possible and what's not.

But I wasn't drawn to the theater the way some are. At least, not on the surface. I've heard so many stories about people who were putting on plays for their parents when they were five or eight or ten, dressing up in their mother's clothes and performing for their relatives. And these are the guys, and I'm only being slightly facetious when I write that. The theater is an inevitable destination for many people. It's a safe haven for so many intelligent, creative people.

But the question, like the subject matter of an essay or play, kept eating at me, because I, unlike so many others, didn't seem to have a clear line, an epiphany on the road to Damascus. Or was there?

I tell this story often to anyone who wonders why I write. I always knew deep down that I wanted to be a writer. I was the kid, from little on, whose essay was read aloud in the class by the teacher as an example of good writing (and if she didn't read it I'd get mad and work so my next one was read.) I guess hearing someone in authority read aloud my words to an audience was the thing I needed to get from childhood to the next phase of life.

Do I have to connect the dots? Not everyone lives his or her life in a straight line. Writing for the theater is no different than being eight years old and handing your essay over to a reader and feeling that jolt of acknowledgment that what you have to say matters. And to take it one step further, that you matter.

The first time I heard one of my plays read aloud I was scared and nervous. For some reason I felt more vulnerable and confessional than I've ever felt before in my life, even though, as you can see from this blog, I'm not averse to baring my soul. And you know what?--as much as I'd like to say it was a terrific, life-affirming experience, it wasn't. The production was horrible, one of the actresses simply was bad, miscast, whatever, and one other actress flubbed her lines. I also had been asked to tailor the play for the festival, in other words, change my play. I never should have done that.

But the second time I saw one of my plays performed, Oh my. Playwriting is a collaborative endeavor. Only songwriters and composers (well, screenwriters, but they're second cousins to playwrights) create with the knowledge that their work is going to be handed off to someone else, or a bunch of someone elses. When I sat in the audience and saw the production of Love on the Rocks at the Provincetown Theater, I actually had a moment where forgot it was my play. I didn't remember writing it, and I didn't have any affiliation to the words or the work. I was stunned. And hooked.

I've always been one to follow my nose. Writing to acting to playwriting. It makes perfect sense to me, and if I wasn't dressing up in my mother's clothes, I was playing with my sister's dolls at a much later age than most boys my age. Does that count?

The Birth of a New Idea

2011-01-19T19:57:00.000-05:00

So you take a piece of writing you've been working on for, oh say seven or eight months. Rewriting and rewriting. Let's say you're on 24th draft. And then, at around 2:30 this afternoon you get an email from your professor saying she needs a bunch of questions answered about your work class tomorrow (10:30 a.m.), and oh, yeah, this too:

Rewrite the first utterance/action of the play (one word, one line, one brief exchange or one image) so that it sums up what the play is about. Use sleight of hand, use magic, use trickery to tell us everything and draw us into the story in an instant. Be subtle, be obvious, be direct; be crafty; be brave. I want to know WHO it's about, WHAT KIND OF PLAY this is, and SOMETHING IMPORTANT ABOUT THE WORLD.

And when you think the play is just where you want it, because that's what we're talking about here--a play--at least the first half, which includes the "first utterance" because you slaved and slaved over it and rethought it and rethought it again and again last semester, what do you do when you get this message. Do your freak out? Or do you rethink it again?

Survey says: rethink it. And before even being in the class I don't even know where I came up with what I came up with, but I like it. And it is going to affect the rest of the play, how I visualize it, how I'd write the staging.

I only worked on Highland Center, Indiana on a couple of days during the break, and that was only on the second half, cleaning it up, moving things around. So, I hadn't even thought about the opening since maybe the end of November when I last worked on it in class.

Our minds are incredible, how they work, how they work without us even knowing what they're working on. When this happens, doesn't it almost prove that the universe and other worlds exist simply because there's no proof that they do? Our conscious minds are so limited, knowledge is like the dark matter of the universe: ninety-nine percent of it we can't see. This is why a person can believe that anything is possible, because a new idea is just there, just out of reach, just out of eyesight, waiting.

Crappy New England Weather Can't Rain on My Parade

2011-01-18T17:52:00.001-05:00

Today was the kind of day when I always asked, why did the Pilgrims stay here? At a little past 5:30, today the day still has the kind of weather that makes you hate New England: Cold sleet is just falling out of the sky. The roads and sidewalks are thick ice, the kind that happens on a skating rinks towards the end of the day. Hard ice with puddles on top. Lakes of slush slosh on either side of crosswalks. And it's supposed to get worse tonight. Still, the weather couldn't put a damper on the first day back of classes.

First up today was dramaturgy with Kate Snodgrass, the head of our program. Familiar faces, new faces, and one student from last semester dropped out. Tons of reading. More tons of writing, and then the grad students have even more writing, plus we have to prepare and lead one class. And I can't wait.

At the theater I saw someone who I've worked with in the past--she was the director for the first play for which I had a staged reading--and she was there working on her auditions for grad schools that she'll be doing for the next two weeks. And I remarked to her how many people I know who are doing such great things with their lives--real positive actions that make you forget about the economy and politics. And I also know so many people that just want to drag people down, or drag them back into the past, and on a day like today, as miserable as the weather was, they still just fade away. A gloomy, bitter day like today can still be so bright and optimistic

Yeah, it's a weird human trait that when people are miserable they want everyone else to be miserable, too. Yes, misery does love company, it certainly does. But not my company. (Plus when I came home there were even more books--scripts actually--for me to read. How cool is that?)

Spinning for Jesus

2011-01-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

My running days are over. A recap: Back in September, right at the time when I was just starting grad school, I suddenly had excruciating pain in my right leg. Actually, there were about three kinds of excruciating pains, along with numbness and weakness in my right leg. To make matters worse, sometimes the pain took turns and sometimes they came all at once. The clincher came on about the third night in Harvard Square T stop where I had to hang onto the wall to walk a couple of steps, then stop because the pain was so intense. People steered around me, the look on their faces wondering what brand of urban crazy person I represented. Worse, some didn't even see me.

Then came a month of dealing with today's health care industry at Milton Hospital (quickie diagnosis said it was a slipped disk, cortisone shots were scheduled before an MRI, then an MRI was scheduled when I'm claustrophobic, then the inevitable CYA antics of the doctor who tried to blame me for being claustrophobic, medications were prescribed that didn't even touch the pain, making me live with it for a month, my personal physician had to step in and prescribe more meds so I could take the MRI.) The MRI showed that my disks are in beautiful condition, just like bricks stacked on top of one another with just the right amount of mortar in between. What I have is spinal stenosis, which I've had my entire life. It explains why I can only run a certain amount of miles then I'm bed-ridden. It explains why I never got to run the Boston Marathon before my fiftieth birthday, because every time I trained I'd get up to running fifteen milers and my body would retaliate. I've been dealing with this my entire life, and as the doctors said I have a very high threshold of pain, so I just always dealt with it. I'm also very stubborn. Or stupid. Pick one.

Which is the reason why this morning I found myself in a spin class at the gym, spinning and pumping to music I'd never otherwise in my life listen to. Dum thumpa thumpa dum dum dum. Well, except the one Pearl Jam and the one Psychedelic Furs songs. It's all to get in shape for cycling this summer. And it's part of Sue's and my commitment to stay in shape as we grow old gracefully, and to stay active. We're both going to be very busy for the next couple of months, but we're determined not to let our health go. Maybe we're a bit vain, but it's more that we don't like to sit around around our keesters and it ain't easy staying in shape in New England when the temps are in the single digits like they were this morning.

When I was selling bikes at REI, I would groan when all the good suburban women from Framinghan, Wayland, Sudbury, and Weston would come in looking for biking shorts, shoes, and tops for their spin classes. Oh, and their gel seats. And now here I am. Sans gel seat, though.

After my first class, I can say a few things. First, it's not easy. There's were a few crazies in there, but I took it easy and did my own pace though, and got a heckuva workout. I've reached the point in my life where slow and steady makes me very happy. But it's also not cycling. They're not called stationary bikes for nothing. They not only don't go forward, they don't go side to side like a bike does, nor do they flex. So it's kind of like ride a log. It took me about three-quarters of the class to figure this out, but by the end of the class I could sustain standing on the pedals for the whole time of the drill.

I feel great right now, but something tells me my quads are going to be screaming tomorrow. Still, there's plenty of time to heal for the next class Saturday. And the instructor promised me he'd play some stuff off American Idiot.

Coming to the End of a Dog's Life

2011-01-14T16:41:00.001-05:00

Something I tell new writers not to do is write about their pets. I know they think they're cute and adorable and there's nothing else like them (just like parents think that stuff about their kids: She stood up in her crib and clapped her hands!) but you have to understand that feeling is only in your inner circle. And what I try to get new writers to do is push to their outer circles and what's in them.

But Al took such a great picture of Bob over the holidays, and frankly Bob's been taking up more than a small portion of my attention lately, I can't not write about him. Besides, I've almost gone so full circle that I can write about my dog if I want. And if you don't like it, just click off.

He gave us a bad scare a couple of weeks ago, and I can't help but look at him so differently now, knowing what he must be going through. He's coming to the end of the line, and that means I'm coming to the end of the line with him. I don't know if this post is about him or me, frankly.

A few weeks ago, it was a Friday, Sue was getting ready for work and I was up and about. I remember we were talking about Christmas; Christmas took up a lot of energy this year, and while we were trying to sort things out, suddenly Sue said, Where's Bob? He's no longer always underfoot, but he usually is somewhere in one of his spots, and he usually gets up with Sue, knowing she'll be a sucker and feed him before me.

We found him lying on the bedroom floor, in his own shit and piss, and he couldn't move his hindquarters. We called the vet, and tried to figure out how to clean him up and get him out of the apartment. We got some towels under him, and a tarp, figuring we could carry him down in a litter, but once we started to hoist him, he didn't want any part of it. He found his legs, and lumbered down the stairs.

The short story is he's just slowly easing toward the end of the line. He's just about blind now. The vet said it's like he has maybe three pair of sunglasses on. So he's slow going just about anywhere except when it's bright sunlight. Down the stairs at night and into the backyard so he can relieve himself is a long process as he feels his way along. I tried putting him on a leash and leading him, but he didn't seem to like that. Bob is smart, and lets you know what's up.

He's pretty much deaf and responds only to the loudest, sharpest noises. He has arthritis in his hips, and nerve damage in his hindquarters, so he doesn't always feel it when he has to go to the bathroom. He'll just walk along the sidewalk and things drop out of him like goose eggs.

All this so far might seem funny or endearing, but at times at can be pretty tough, like when it's pouring rain in the middle of the night and he wasn't responding to commands like he had been taught. Or when he'd relieve himself at the bottom of the stairs before we got out of the house, or right on the porch as soon as we got outside. Yeah, I was short with him. I got mad. I yelled. I said he was bad. And, like I said, he's smart. He had a vocabulary of maybe twenty words or more. We had to spell things sometimes because he knew words like walk, truck, kibble, Rocky (a cat), Toby (a dog). What am I saying; he knew more than twenty words. So when I yelled he took it hard. And I hate myself now for making him feel like that. He was trying. He's always been so good and he was still being good, just not in the way he always had been before. He was old and even he knew it. He hated it when he messed on the porch more than I did.

I knew he was getting old, but I didn't quite absorb it all. Or I didn't want to. I'm not trying to make myself look better than I am (ever hear the saying, I want to be the person my dog thinks I am?) but I questioned if I was getting mad at him because I was scared of the inevitable decision I was going to have to make. Or I was more angry at what seems like desertion. How dare you leave me. He and I have been together since he was twelve weeks old, and now he's thirteen and a half. We went everywhere together, and I mean everywhere. If I had to drive somewhere, he came along. Most times he came into whatever building I had to go into, too. And now he can barely make it back up the stairs.

On December 26 the girls came over and Al brought her dog, Ella Mae. It was snowing like crazy that night, and after dinner we all went out in the snow with the dogs. A neighbor came along with her Lab pup, and that pup and Ella Mae just tore through the snow. And while my girls laughed and clapped at Bob horsing around too, I saw something else. I saw a very old dog who couldn't keep up any more, but who wanted to. I saw a dog who used to be a big strong alpha, get run over by a runty little Lab pup that before would have been nothing more than a chew toy.

We've pretty much come to terms with Bob and what he can and can't do. We don't get guilty when we don't take him places anymore, because we know it will just tire him out. We're patient when he takes his time, knowing he's still the good boy he's always been, still doing things better any other dog. And we've decided that the inevitable day is coming for not only Bob, but us too, and before he goes we're just going to do our best (but not as good as Bob could do it) to make his last days here on earth as good an comfortable as they can be for him.

Back in the Saddle

2011-01-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

And it feels so good. Spent almost the entire day working on Highland Center, Indiana, a full-length play and the one that I'll probably use for my thesis. Classes start next week, and my playwriting prof wrote to and wants to see some of our work by Friday. She wanted to know where we stood with it, if it was almost finished, if we were sick of it, or what. After working intently on it since around last May, I love going back into that world and dealing with those characters.

And she wants to see something else we're working on, and I'm thinking of showing her Red Dog. I haven't really touched that since the reading last March with Whistler in the Dark, and I know kind of what I want to do with it (based on some really good feedback from the audience that night) but also, just when you think something is easy, that's when you'll get snagged every time.

I'm so lucky right now to be enjoying what I'm doing. I've written my entire life, professionally for thirty years, and there were times when I was simply writing for a paycheck, which should never happen. And now, I can't wait to get up and get working.

Tomorrow I'll be fixing up details for the writing class I'll be teaching, and again, I can't wait.

And yeah, it's all so familiar. Starting a couple of days ago I've been waking up at around 2:30, I think from the sheer weight of everything I have to accomplish. I just lie there with details swirling in my head. How to line up all the ducks for the class? What can I do about this particular sticky part of Highland Center? (Hint: if it's not character-driven, it's not the answer.)

So welcome back to my world.

Gabbie Giffords Shooting Makes Me Think of this Explanation of Gun Control

2011-01-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

Every time something like this shooting in Tuscon comes around in the United States--and it happens a lot--I'm reminded what how a visitor from Switzerland once explained gun control to me in her country.

She was visiting, and kept talking about her husband, Eddie, who was away in France hunting boar. It actually started getting funny hearing our friend speak in a French/Swiss accent about "Eddie" and "hunting boars."

Anyway, I started asking her questions, and it turns out not only Eddie but a whole lot of Swiss people have high-powered rifles that they keep in their homes and carry across international borders. "Really?" I said, amazed. "And what keeps you from all shooting one another?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "Maybe we're more civilized."

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is a pretty good explanation of gun control.

Gabbie Giffords: Let's Just Put Out the Fire and Walk Away

2011-01-10T13:19:00.000-05:00

The system is broke. Busted. Kaput. Get it? Government. Banking. Business. News Journalism Telecommunications Education Sports All Our Institutions (now say this in your best Yyl Brynner accent) etcetera, etcetera, etcetera are all ineffectually flapping like an arhythmic heart if they're not like some disgusting multiheaded mutant that crawled out of the local lake slobbering in your picnic basket at your family's summer picnic.

Now suddenly, all the people who caused the problems are saying, Whoa, enough is enough. All the pundits, commentators, journalists, talking heads are now giving their spin, opinions, their yakkedy-yak and filling the 24/7 talk-news-what's my agenda programs with the same useless, pointless, knee-jerk blather.

News is now agenda. News is business, not reporting or informing. And yes, there are some who are making sense on both sides of the aisle, but for the most part, all the hate and attitude and snarky personas we see and hear on the airwaves are going to stay there because, simply, they make money for those big corporations NBC CNN FOX ABC MTV etcetera, etcetera, etcetera and you think Rush or Bill or even Sarah are going to stop talking? Do you? That's how they make money, too. Say it for me: Muuuuunnneee. That's right. Money. And it's a Pandora's Box: Once they're out, they're not going to shut up and their going to keep defending themselves. I mean, excepting for Imus and Helen Thomas, both of whom pissed off advertisers. It's 24/7 baby, and the sponsors are eating this up.

Last month a man opened fired on a school board in Florida. Here's a parents' blog from January 5th : Three school shootings in as many months. Remember the rash of gay kids committing suicide from bullying? People going berserk, people who simply don't know how to treat others with kindness because all they hear and see is a pop culture of narcissism and greed and nastiness. I think it's about time we start to realize that pop culture does indeed affect people's behavior, and I'm not advocating censorship, I'm talking about abuses of the First Amendment where people who should know better--the journalist and the members of the media whose shoes cost more than the some people's average weekly paycheck--who hide behind the constitution and have either a political or business agenda to push.

Now some crazy person (and from all reports he's as crazy as a loon) shoots someone in Congress and kills a few bystanders including a little kid and this story becomes THE BIG ONE. Oh, it's because finally you can really pin this one on Sarah and Rush and Bill (and let's not forget the lesser voices you can hear every day on talk radio, all the wannabes.) Omigod, am I really this jaded that I think it's still all politics and business as usual?

Sunday Morning Without the New York Times

2011-01-09T11:47:00.000-05:00

We canceled our subscription to the Sunday New York Times. This morning was the first Sunday morning we didn't crunch up on the little loveseat by the window with our cups of coffee and divy up the fat package of paper and dive in: Travel for Sue, Arts and Entertainment, the front section, and the week in review for me, and the magazine was up for grabs.

I felt bad about it. I've been reading the NYTs for years. I used to say, if you want to a good education, read the Times every day for a year, and at the end of that year you'll be a changed person. It's great reporting--still is, that's undeniable despite many people's disdain, ambivalence, and apathy towards the Mainstream Media (MSM). If a bridge falls down, the Times not only reports the facts of the bridge collapse, you learn about the engineering and construction of that type of bridge, as well as a bio of the architect who designed it. It was, and I think for the most part still is, intelligent, in-depth reporting.

Still, we couldn't justify the $30 a month we were paying. That's $360 a year we could have put towards our travel fund. And, we're so active, and many times after a few articles were read and discussed, the rest of the paper lay on the coffee table for the rest of the week, ignored. We had the best of intentions in mind; we intended to read it all. We just never found the time. It was just wasting money.

And it's so much easier to find the news and reporting and commentary on the Internet, including the Times' own site. The times they are a changing for the news industry. And I used to freelance as a journalist/columnist, and I loved every minute of it, but I'm not sure of the direction newspapers should take. It's not that you can even get the news cheaper (free) or easier, it's that you can look into an issue more in-depth. There's the Times, the Globe, the Herald, the BBC, NPR, CNN just for starters with the MSM. Then there are the main overseas outlets, then the alternative outlets.

It's ironic that we canceled our subscription right when the shooting in Tucson of Representative Giffords occurred. And it's even more ironic that I first learned of it on Facebook.

To Live is to Write

2011-01-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

I wrote all day today, and this is the first time today I've put fingers to keyboard.

I'm not saying you don't have to put down words every day. Let's get this straight: Yeah, you do. You have to actually write every day. But, unless I'm right on top of a deadline, or the deadline is right on top of me, pinning me to the wall, which is what's usually the case, I don't actually start typing until mid-afternoon. Usually the first thing in the morning I write in my journal, and that counts--sort of--as writing. I'll do a brain dump and write about the dreams I had the night before and basically orient myself (do you know we get the verb, orient, from years ago when east, not north, was at the top of the map because that's where the sun rose, and to right the map you had to "orient it"?)

So today, I was writing all along in my head, thinking about that sticky scene 6 in Highland Center, Indiana that I'll address as soon as I finish blogging. And I thought about what I'd write here, but more importantly, I lived my life, which is what all artists should do. Live it and enjoy it and wrestle with it and swallow it whole.

I talked to both my kids who slept here last night after a night out at the theater and their first jazz bar. I played dad, giving Al advice. I watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock with Kathryn--we're peas in a pod when it comes to stupid humor and Kathryn and I talk anyway like old friends, laughing and calling each other out and sharing our experiences in the world. (Kathryn has been more organized than me at the age of three, and I've gotten used to it.) And I made red sauce for a dinner tonight and bread and I don't know how many pots of coffee to keep this crew running: Sue in court today, Al with two job interviews (and I can't even get one!), Kathryn to wake up, me because a cup of coffee is usually by my elbow until around noon.

I don't have a lot of friends--I never have; I've always been the type with one or two very close friends, but I cherish them and my small family. I've said it so many times: The most dangerous place in the world is between me and my loved ones.

So, that's how I've written so far today. Which, if you can read between the lines you can see, means writing is living life. You can't do one without the other.