o, senator o

Well, hellzapoppin' and heaven be praised.

I knew he could talk, but it looks like the man can fight, too.

I kept flashing to Johnny Mac watching the speech with friends and family and staff, the room growing quiet, people starting to send their resumes out on their Blackberrys as the indictment builds, the only sound heard besides Obama's booming voice and the roar of the stadium crowd, the grinding of Johnny's teeth as that weird death's head grin of his widens until the fangs are bared and he leaps at the enormous flat screen shouting:

"Die, you Vietcong bastard! Die!"

It's going to be razor-thin in November. There are still a lot of people that won't vote for Obama even if he showed up on their front porch and signed a notarized statement that he'll personally mow their lawn and drive them to the doctor's office and send their kids to college, but it's going to be a brawl for a change, not another Democrat sacrificial pop fly.

Nice little blog/interview thing on The Invitation up at nytheatre mike's blog:

http://nytheatremike.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/john-clancy-sends-the-invitation/

We have our first audience a week from tonight. We'll be ready.

Waiting to hear about Johnny's VP pick.

If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.

Just so you know.

I'm booked these next four years.

calling all union actors

So it was announced a little while ago that Actors' Equity Association is putting a new and largely unchanged Basic Showcase Code into effect on September 1st. You can see it at http://actorsequity.org/docs/codes/Basic_Showcase_08.pdf.

This despite the conversation that's been taking place for over a year and a half now, the concerns expressed by ART/NY, the League of Independent Theater and other organizations, companies and individuals working in 99-seat theater in New York City.

I was a little stunned when I got the news.

For those not up on the issue, the central reality of the Basic Showcase Code is that it's an anachronistic document, built for a much earlier time when the primary desire of people working Off-Off Broadway was to "showcase" themselves to an agent so they could get a TV gig.

Every actor I know and work with would love that TV gig, but it's not why they're accepting work in a small theater in New York. It's not why they agree to say the words of Brian Parks or C.J. Hopkins or Kirk Bromley or Susan Bernfeld or Will Eno or Don Nigro or Thomas Bradshaw or Young Jean Lee.

Saying these words, working with artists they've worked with for years in intimate theaters in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx and even in Staten Island is not a means to get somewhere else for these actors. It's where they work, it's where they practice and perfect their craft, it's where they celebrate their community and deepen their artistic integrity, it's home.

And the Showcase Code is the single most destructive and disruptive thing in that home. It's making a grown man wear short pants. It's a symphony played on a kazoo. It's horse and buggy rules for the automotive age.

I'm a big union supporter. Hell, my grandfather was a Democratic state Senator from Queens and he's responsible for getting teachers a pension fund. I used to be a member of the Teamsters, of all things. They controlled the supermarket workers in St. Louis and I was a proud union bagboy back in the day. It is vital that we have a strong union protecting actors from unscrupulous and uncaring producers. They used to leave people out on the road when a show failed, you used to have to buy your own costumes.

But it's the 21st century and some things have changed.

Bottom line, no one can change the Code or have a legitimate voice inside the union except for union actors. And that's how it should be. Every union actor has the right, if not the obligation, to attend the union's committee meetings and after a time, join the committee and move the union towards a sensible and healthier understanding of how Off-Off works.

Here's the League's official response to this news:

The League of Independent Theater is disappointed in the decision made by Actors' Equity Association to put a new, largely unchanged Basic Showcase Code into effect on Sept 1. We strongly urge all union actors working in venues of 99 seats or less in New York City to contact their union representatives and become actively involved in efforts to persuade Equity that the Code (see http://actorsequity.org/docs/codes/Basic_Showcase_08.pdf) is in need of pro-actor, pro-practitioner reforms.

Despite Equity's decision, the League will continue to advocate for Code reform, including the creation of new codes. We again suggest that all concerned parties examine the L.A. 99-Seat Theater Plan as a useful and sensible model.

Our position was mischaracterized by AEA spokesperson Maria Somma in a recent Backstage article. Ms. Somma voiced concern that Code reform could result in “...allowing showcase producers to have much longer runs without compensating actors."

The League has never, and does not, advocate leaving actors uncompensated. Indeed, if Equity were to join the League and consider the 99-Seat Theater Plan as a model for New York City, actors would earn greater compensation in direct proportion to the weeks of an extended run.

The League looks forward to an open, spirited and long-needed discussion with all concerned parties about the urgent need for Basic Showcase Code reform. We remain confident Actors’ Equity will heed the concerns of its members, resulting in a healthier Off-Off Broadway for all.

This is not about fighting. It's not about shaking our fists and rolling our eyes and trudging forward, grumbling, for another year.

This is something that the union actors and only the union actors can change, if they wish.

I think it's something that has to be changed if we're going to honor and revitalize Off-Off Broadway. And I think a strong and revitalized Off-Off leads to a stronger Off-Broadway, which leads to a stronger American theater.

This is a simple thing, at the end of the day.

So I'm calling all involved union actors who work in and care about the Off-Off territory to call your union and get involved.

It's up to you now.

speechifying and whatnot

Got home from rehearsal around 10:15 last night, just in time to catch Senator Clinton's extraordinary performance.

Always loved that woman and last night she gave me another good reason to keep that torch burning.

Rehearsal was smoking. Staging hysteria isn't easy but when you've got pros up there it's not that hard. Leslie joked at one point, "Aren't you glad you have us?" and I 'fessed up to what every honest director knows:

Only work on good scripts with great actors, make those actors talk fast, and you will have a successful career as a director.

Everything else is theory and style. Not unimportant, but not essential.

Good words, brave actors and then crank up the pace.

That's pretty much it.

Spitfire is up in the Poconos this week, so I'm flying solo here at the Museum. We've got our big Fall Re-opening Bonanza Sales Event next week, with those twirly things that catch the breeze and folks dressed up like animals and I'm in negotiations with the second-best jug band in the county.

Could be something else entirely if I can get that fire permit.

Going to sit here all day and write. Need to finish the third Postmen episode and tackle Overlord again. Going for my sixth draft on Overlord, just cleaning and polishing and planting some stuff early so that the ending makes more sense.

I'm a lucky man, me.

Sitting in the cool quiet just typing all day with the rock and roll playing in the background. Biggest challenge is not stepping on the cat, biggest worry is that I may not have bought enough coffee.

Some people are out there actually working for a living.

summer's over

When I was a kid, summer wasn't over until after Labor Day. You had that last long, sad, quiet week-end before you gathered up your empty notebooks and sharpened your pencils and re-enlisted.

Someone walked the calendar back a week or two since then because not only are all the kids back in school, but this morning down on the street buying coffee and orange juice I felt that sweet chill that cuts into the wind around here.

Feels like football and Canada and leather coats and Halloween.

Feels good.

We burn and melt all summer long here in Rat City and the winter freezes over with black ice and dark afternoons, but there are four weeks out of the year, two in September and two in April, four weeks that keep you loving this hard, hard town.

Autumn in New York. Stuns the most jaded eyes and makes you believe in everything.

I believe everybody got the afternoon Monday Morning Music Quiz right.

Mike, Ann and Rose are all going back to school and all of us here at the Museum are paying the tuition. School of your choice, just please don't become a dentist.

If you're going to go to all that trouble and expense, become a proper doctor.

Back to the factory floor tonight with The Invitation. We go into tech on Sunday, so time to tighten that bastard up.

And save the date:

Sunday, September 14 at Barrow Street Theater, Matt Oberg speaks aloud the words of The Event, written and directed by me. A one-night only engagement. We want to see how it works in a big house.

All right. Back to it.

papa joe, poconos and people who rock

Obama Biden.

Lovely.

That was the Scrappy Jack pick back when, good to see some good things coming true.

Joe likes to fight and he knows his facts and that's all I'm looking for in a VP this fall.

Just back from three days in the Pocono Mountains. Saw about three hundred and eight deer. And I was still gawking at the three hundred and eighth. Gob's country out there.

Need to raise the roof for the Overlord cast. They were astounding last week and I haven't worked with such a large, good group of people in ages.

In no particular order, thank you and you rock to:

David Calvitto, Nancy Walsh, Matt Oberg, Paul Urcioli, Wil Petre, Christopher Yeatts, Melissa Lynch, Barb Pitts, Eva Van Dok, Mike McShane, Ben Schneider and Kurt Rhoads.

That's a hell of line-up.

Today's MMMQ is actually an MAMQ, as the time is growing late.

Let's make it an easy one.

Which great rock critic was way too obsessed with Lou Reed and wrote a short story based on Rod Stewart's Maggie Mae?

Was it:

1. Timothy Crouse

2. Lester Bangs

3. Jann Wenner

4. Harry Swift

or

5. "Papa" Joe Biden?

Winner goes back to school, losers have to steal their Daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool.

Obama Biden. It just rolls off the tongue.

quite a week

Well, damn.

Friday again?

Tuesday we flew out to Edinburgh, that same day we did the first workshop, Wednesday we did the second one and then threw a party at the flat that night, Thursday we flew back home and here it is Friday.

Life stays busy.

Workshop of Captain Overlord's Folly well and truly rocked. First show was good, we did some tinkering and the second show was extraordinary. Audience reacting all the way through, even at the very, very end when it gets a little sticky.

Well done to all.

What else?

Run out and see a FringeNYC show if you're in Rat City, the festival ends this weekend.

Don't worry too much about these polls showing the race tightening, it was always going to be incredibly close. Most people still aren't paying attention.

It's still summer. Eat a hot dog, buy some lemonade from a kid or run through a sprinkler. Do something that you can't do in January.

And although no one came right out and answered the MMMQ, Ann was close enough with Little Maggie.

Little Maggie is credited to Josh Groves on the Essential Bluegrass Collection, so for the purposes of this quiz we're going to say that Robert Burns didn't write it.

Ann gets whiskey. And by that I mean she really "gets" it, you know? She understands it, in a meaningful way.

Good to be home. Feel like I spent the week on Continental Flight 102.

so long, pervez

We hardly knew ye.

Showing his modern moves right to the end, Our Man in Pakistan has executed a bloodless self-coup, giving up the office of President, but hanging around Islamabad. For the waters, I suppose.

What could possibly go wrong?

In local news, all concerned with the AEA Basic Showcase Code reform movement should check out this article:

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839415

Something strange going on.

May be light on the posting this week, tomorrow is the big EIF showing of Captain Overlord's Folly and don't know what my internet access is going to be like the next few days.

Our MMMQ is in honor of the great Robbie Burns, Scotland's bard and lyric hero.

Besides writing Auld Lang Syne, Mr. Burns penned countless hits. He was both the Bob Dylan and the Neil Diamond of his day.

Which of these immortal classics didn't Robert Burns write?

1. Little Maggie

2. Charlie, He's my Darling

3. Oh, My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose

4. The Birks of Aberfeldy

Winners get single malt, losers get invaded by the English.

friday sermon

Reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead and laughing at some of the things, (mostly the wild Indian names, Eurocentric jack-ass that I am) and amazed at the detail and urgency of the text. It's all very interesting and you can study it and ponder it and then you realize with a start:

I will die some day.

That's the entire, taut tight-rope of growing up Catholic and trying to live as a Buddhist.

In Catholicism, the story is very straight-forward:

Don't do these things while you're here and you get a nice room when you go there.

That's pretty much it. God is bigger and older and smarter than you and he's not around much and he's got a violent temper, but his Son is very mellow and will talk to his Dad about you if you buddy up strong with the Son while you're here.

What little I've grasped of Buddhist thought is:

Hey. This is it. Nirvana now. Buddha means "awakened one". Wake up. It's all the suffering of illusion and the illusion of suffering.

And when you read some of the stuff, especially the Dhammapada, which is supposed to be words Buddha actually said, you're struck by the clarity and simplicity of it.

No Big Story about a volcano god and virgin births and doves whispering in people's ear. It all sounds very sane and true.

But then someone you love gets hurt. And someone else dies. And millions are wiped out by a wave. And the Buddhist in you, with great compassion, tells you it was all an illusion anyway, don't grasp on to these aggregates and hallucinations too tightly.

But the Catholic in you wants Someone to blame. And He's standing right there, all omniscient and white-bearded.

So you take another step on the swaying rope, madly balancing, arms see-sawing up and down, knowing you're going to fall one day, you were born on this rope and everyone in front of you has already slipped. And your only thought besides balance is the question that keeps arising:

When I do fall, will I scream for Jesus or Samantabhadra?

Or will I just smile and let the pole drop out of my hands and release?

I'll know soon enough, but I can't stop wondering.

Enjoy the weekend, try not to die just yet. Still plenty of things to see.

double duty

Rehearsing two shows full-out today and did the same thing yesterday.

I've done it before, back in 2002 I had four going at one time, but of course I was a much younger man and still had my strength and eyesight.

And I've got an overlap of three actors, so Dave, Paul, Eva and I are working Overlord all day, trudging up to the Atlantic at 4:30 and wrestling The Invitation until 10:00.

Find myself giving the same notes in both rehearsal halls, of course.

My directing book will be called One Hundred Ways to Say "Faster".

Truthfully, below and beneath the obvious speed-freak element, I'm struck lately by the sameness of the work I'm doing. Neither The Invitation or Captain Overlord's Folly are actually all that fast; that vocal urgency isn't as key to either as earlier Parks' plays or most of the C.J.Hopkins' stuff we've done. But ever since Fatboy, I've found a kind of clarity in thinking and speaking about what we're doing. I was talking with Madi Distefano last night, an actress and director and writer down in Philly I've known for years and this came up, this recognition that sometimes, through very little effort or intent on your own part, you find yourself working calmly and simply and with great confidence, every project making sense, every rehearsal building off of the last.

And then, next thing you know, you're back in the weeds, searching hopelessly for that lost ball.

Enjoy it while it lasts, smooth road is rare in this territory.

Most days are hacking through a jungle, but sometimes you raise the machete, give a whack and before you lies an open veldt and you can see for miles.

Ann gave me the veldt idea, blame her.

now starts the craziness

Going back into Captain Overlord's Folly rehearsal today, working The Invitation at night. Same thing tomorrow. Then Friday we pack it up and fly over to Edinburgh for six days. While there, we drink much whiskey, catch up with friends and present a "workshop" showing of Overlord on the 19th and 20th. Home on the 21st, out to Pennsylvania on the 22nd and then into The Invitation technical rehearsals, opening the show down at the Ohio the first week of September.

No sleep til Brooklyn and all that.

I'll sleep in September.

Had our "Blood Night" for The Invitation last night. Not to give anything away, but holy Gob there's some blood in that show. Wanted the actors to feel what it was like looking around the room and doing a scene with someone drenched in blood.

It's different, we discovered.

And must send random props out to Oliver Butler. Saw Robert Lyons' Red Haired Thomas at the Ice Factory last weekend and the direction was outstanding. Oliver did Hostage Song at the Kraine a while back and everyone told me I had to see it and of course I didn't as I hate going to the theater. Really wish I had caught it.

Well done, Oliver. I'll look out for your next show.

First I've got to talk to some killer clowns, mix up some blood and find my passport.

losing one more for the Gipper

Watching Russian tanks roll down a highway in Georgia last night on my TV, I thought:

What the fuck?

Did Dick and the Idiot huddle together a few weeks ago in an undisclosed location and say,

"All right. There must be something else we can fail at. Something. Let's think, now."


Russia? Re-energized, re-armed, rolling down the highway?

This is like taking an old dog in that you should have put down and eight years later it's attacking the neighbors and you're on the porch in your bathrobe shouting nervously,

Bad dog! Uhhh... bad dog!


As he takes a chunk out of some kid's leg.

Unbelievable.

Down at Fringe Central again today, selling the finest T-shirts on the market.

Writing like a bastard, trying to get some stuff started and some other stuff done before Edinburgh next week.

The Lampshade Queen made a rare slip yesterday, bringing Eureka Lori down with her.

Byrne's elegy to modern life is Glass, Concrete and Stone (allowing him to rhyme stone with home), not Glass, Concrete and Steel.

Sorry, ladies. Bus passes for both.

Rosie reliably took the bait with Drywall, so I'm throwing in a free transfer for her.

Rehearsal tonight and tomorrow I go into Overlord rehearsal again. Burning the candle at both ends, lots of light but man, it gets waxy.

dead guys, liars and the rest of us

So Bernie Mac will never again stare me down from the TV screen, eyes bugging and head shaking, forcing me to laugh from his assumed concern and Isaac Hayes has finished giving me and the South Park youth advice and counsel.

Godspeed, gentlemen.

But Johnny Corn-pone will be with us for awhile, I bet.

Nice that he only cheated on his wife while her cancer was in remission.

Only a lawyer would make that kind of distinction.

I believe the phrase is:

"What a douche-bag."


Semi-quiet day at the Museum. Writing, swinging by Fringe Central this afternoon to hawk the merch, meeting up with the Postmen crew tonight to read the pilot and talk bidness.

Heading out to Edinburgh at the end of the week for the big Overlord reading.

That should be fun.

This morning's MMMQ concerns the work of the great David Byrne, the original nerdy genius art rocker.

With the Talking Heads (the "Heads" as we 80s hipsters used to say) Mr. Byrne wrote the dance card that allowed the whitest kids to get out there and boogie and then he walked off on his own but kept sending back perfect acoustic postcards. I missed the architectural organ he created last month (or did I, anyone know?) but I can't stop playing the first track from Grown Backwards these days.

Grown Backwards opens with:

1. Glass, Concrete and Stone

2. Glass, Concrete and Steel

3. Concrete and Stone

4. Stone, Wood and Metal

or

5. Drywall

Winners get a house and a home, all others get a bus pass.

And apologies to all who've dropped off the blogroll, we're under construction here. I'll get it back up in good time.

twelfth time's a charm

Twelve years ago, right about now, the New York International Fringe Festival went from a big idea to an actual thing in the world.

I'll never forget that first day, or more, that first night. Everyone buzzing around the Piano Store, strangers buying tickets, money going back and forth. I sent my Mom to work a box office at the Tenement Museum, hoping she'd come back alive. This was back in '97 before Orchard became Madison Avenue South.

So godspeed to all you young Fringers and god bless to all you older, wiser festival boddhisatvas down there and Gob love you all for keeping it going.

If you come down to Fringe Central, find me.

I'll be the guy selling T-shirts.

random thursday

Many things in the air and on my mind.

Our friends Collective: Unconscious may have lost their space on Church Street, but they just got a rave review in the Scotsman for Charlie Victor Romeo over at the Edinburgh Fringe. Joyce McMillan gave them four stars out of five and in Edinburgh it's all about the stars. Artists roam the streets, exclaiming in joy or grief:

"Five stars!"

"Two stars!"

"Three stars!"


Few get five, so four is very, very good.

Well done, Paul, Bob, Patrick, Irving and the rest.

Through one of those increasingly less random confluences, CVR is being produced by our old friends Jen and Lou of Scamp Productions, the outfit that produced screwmachine/eyecandy over there in 2005.

So well done, Jen and Lou as well.

I'm reading the business section of the paper these days and wondering when someone's just going to break character and scream:

"O god! God! It's over! Convert it all to gold and get a gun and head for the hills, boys! O god!"


They're dribbling out the bad news, but a guy I know was told by a guy he knows that come January, when everyone has to show their books, the Party will be officially over. It's all just a confidence game, in both senses of the word, and once you and me and Joe Broke-Ass lose our confidence in the big set-up, it's lights out.

In happier news, rehearsals for The Invitation continue to romp. I thought the clock stopped last night, we were getting so much done. I looked over and it said 7:15 and we started working at 6:15 and I was sure it was at least 8:30. Excellent cast and we've all worked together for so long, we just get to it. Sitting there with David Calvitto, Paul Urcioli and Leslie Farrell working on a Brian Parks play, it could be any year since 1994.

Good to have an ensemble.

FringeNYC opens tomorrow. We're selling T-shirts. Come on down.

Reading Steve Martin's Shopgirl. Beautiful, simple prose. Not what you'd expect from the Jerk. Sort of strange, like when Jim Nabors would sing on Gomer Pyle, USMC. You have to adjust your whole perception and it takes a moment before you think:

"But... that's beautiful."

Writing today and Tony's up from Philadelphia to scour through our old press. He's trying to get an interview with me and McGee published somewhere. I read the transcript, it's hilarious.

Onward, Gob willing, and call your broker if you have one. If not, you're in better shape. Those with nothing to lose have nothing to fear.

more from the book

Here's part of the Tear Down the Grad Schools section:

You may have less to learn than you think.

Who knows? Maybe you're a genius.

Making mistakes is the only way to really learn things. So get out there and start making mistakes, the bigger the better. Get your early years behind you as quickly as possible.

You know how you sit back (even if you're 23 years old), and think back on what an idiot you used to be? You want to do that now, towards the beginning of your career, not at 35 after you've spent three years in grad school and five years out fighting.

Make your mistakes early enough, learn from them early enough that you have time to adjust and re-orient yourself and still be young and brave enough to stay in the game.

The worst thing about grad school for a theater artist is how it teaches you to think about the job.

You don't get grades in life. It's strictly Pass/Fail. And Pass usually just means you get to keep doing it, you get to stay in the game and try again.

Fail is going broke and being humiliated and embarrassed and having someone dismiss you or laugh at you in print and wanting to wriggle out of your own skin.

But you never get a B+. In the real world, that's a Fail.

Going to school for three years to learn how to act is like going to school for three years to learn how to play poker or to learn how to seduce a woman.

You get better at playing poker by playing lots of different people for real stakes and you either know how to seduce a woman or you don't. No intense study is going to help, it's just going to make you creepy.

Going to school to be a playwright, or any creative writer is completely pointless and probably damaging. That's all that's worth writing about that.

Going to school to be a director is probably helpful if you plan to spend your career directing classical work, Shakespeare, Chekhov, etc.

Maybe.

Going to school to be a designer might be a good idea, I don't know enough about it. My guess is you should just buy a stack of art books, go to the museum a lot and get a job in construction and learn how to dry-wall and weld and actually build things.

Just about everyone should get a liberal arts college degree, it's helpful if you need or want a straight job and it's good to have that baseline of knowledge and experience. But grad school for theater arts is sending a call-girl to Etiquette School, teaching a riverboat gambler Game Theory.

You're just wasting everybody's time.

global domination, downtown style

Sitting in the Parkside last night with Mel and Mark, in from New Zealand. Friends we met in Edinburgh years ago, Mark is a TD savant and works at a festival in Auckland, Mel now works for some huge commercial theater concern down there. She's in town shopping for musicals, he has the unwelcome task of loading in some massive show at Lincoln Center this weekend and here's today's twist:

The set didn't arrive.

They're building it from scratch, curtain is Friday night.

Ah, live theater.

So we're scheming over Scotch and Brooklyn lager:

Mel loves screwmachine/eyecandy and Mark loves Fatboy. We get Marnie in Adelaide to pay for flights, we play the Adelaide Festival in February, sell the shows to the Sydney Opera House sometime in March, keep heading east and play New Zealand in April. I can just about double-cast the shows so we can travel with six or eight, counting stage management.

We haven't been to Australia since 2004 and we've never been to New Zealand.

And I hear them Kiwis know how to live.

Strange not to be in Edinburgh right now, the festival has officially kicked off.

Strange but not weird, feels right and mature somehow. We'll be there in two weeks, flying out on the 15th and showing a concert version of Captain Overlord's Folly.


I'm getting phone calls and emails from people:

Where are you? Meet me at the pub.

Edinburgh is the big tent, the yearly bazaar where all the lost souls and pilgrims of world theater gather in August to drink and tell each other lies. It will be wonderful to be there and see everyone, but I'm liking holing up here on the Lower East Side this August, quiet with Nan and the Bunny, working on The Invitation.

Rose and Damn Ann both get to go home again, or they can go to each other's homes if they like, up to them. The Caucasian Cattle-Call is indeed Kool and the Gang's Celebrate.

In the event of a natural disaster, they should just play that song out of a PA mounted to a truck and have the truck drive slowly to the safety zone. You'd have a 95 percent evacuation rate, people wouldn't even know they were evacuating, they'd just think they were getting down to the music, swaying and finger-snapping behind that truck.

Woo-hoo.

another New England morning

Up here in Greenfield, MA again.

Holed up at Spitfire's ancestral home, everything green and pastoral outside the window. Attended her 25th high school reunion Saturday night and while you may not be able to go home again, you can certainly circle the block, slow down and get a good look at the place.

Most of these people were at our wedding back in 1991, so I've known them for awhile. Now we see them every five years at these reunions and it's like a sociological study for me: Real Americans with Regular Lives.

Career changes, divorces, grown children. All that stuff.

They ask me and McGee what we're doing and we say,

"Ahh... Same thing."

Still in New York?

"Yeah."

Doing theater?

"Yep."

Kids?

"Nope."

Well... Can you believe how fat Jimmy got?

And we drink and dance and wait for five years to do it again.

A lot of fun. They're like this group of friends I have that I only have to think about every five years and the commitment is mutual.

Driving back down to the Big Dirty this afternoon for a League of Independent Theater board meeting tonight. And then rehearsing all week for The Invitation. Writing Postmen during the day. A good week.

The Greenfield High School Class of 1983 inspires our MMMQ this fine New England morning.

There is one song and one song only that will cause a crowd of forty year old white people to lurch onto a dance floor as one and happily flail about, clapping their hands and bobbing their heads, letting out the occasional "Woo-hoo!"

This magical number is:

1. Celebrate

2. Lady Marmalade

3. Rapture

or

4.Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Winners get to go home again, all others have to stay at the Super 8.

blocked by blogger

That was weird.

This morning I went online and found out that blogger.com thought I was a robot and blocked me from signing on.

So I melted their fortress with my laser-beam eye-glare, Vorn, I believe the expression is, and destroyed them with my super-human strength.

All very weird.

Enjoy the week-end, Walsh and I are headed up to her ancestral home, Greenfield, MA for her 25th high-school reunion.

Like I wasn't feeling old enough already.

She's a year younger than me, for Christ's sake.