Another "Heroes and Villains"

Must be a popular title this year...

Heroes and Villains

Well, I don't have words to describe what I've been through lately.

I haven't been blogging much for the past year, because I've been busy with Heroes and Villains, Limelight administrative duties, and teaching, of course.

Finally put the finishing touches on the show. The show about college, and friends, and family, and fathers, and heroes and villains. And stuff from my life, and from other lives, and stuff I made up.

We opened tonight.

For the outsider, it's very hard to describe all of the emotions that I've experienced throughout this season. And to write about them would seem to cheapen them, somehow.

That seems strange, considering how I've written about such personal stuff on this thing over the years. But what has happened lately, I'd like to keep to myself. For now.

I will say this: all of the hard work, all of the stress, and late nights, and time spent away from friends and family, was worth it. And I hope they understand.

What I've become wrapped up in isn't just some hobby, or vanity project, or an excuse to go play with the kids.

It's something much, much more.

This is an adventure.

Writing H&V

There was a section of the play I'm working on that was giving me trouble. Middle of the second act--wasn't sure how much story there was left to tell at that point, and what the characters should be doing by then. I knew how it ended, but I didn't know how they were all going to get there.

Had one of those "ahhhhhhh, yes, that's how it should g0" moments earlier today and now it all seems to be coming together. I was in my car, going to pick up a few things, when an image jumped into my head. Scribbled down a few notes and wound up turning around and spent an hour or so writing new dialogue for Scenes 4 through 6.

I get into a weird mode when I'm writing. I tend to forget about everything else around me and I find myself in a weird, absent-minded professor state. The story just acts itself out over and over in my head and I follow one storyline for a while and then I back up and try it a different way and then if I like something it goes down on paper, either a battered notebook with a red cover or a small Moleskine notebook that I carry with me everywhere.

And when I type it up, it's on the laptop, because that feels more like a typewriter, and typing on a typewriter still feels more like writing to me.

Listened to a lot of Paul McCartney at first, while I wrote, then Townes Van Zant. Spent the other night listening to Astral Weeks and drinking a bit of whiskey, just sitting in my chair well past midnight, lost in thought and letting any old idea take root.

It's interesting to see what a story starts out as, and what it winds up. This one's a play about college, or at least part of it is. But more and more it seems to be about family. And something about whether or not you can grow out of your family, like you grow out of clothes as you grow up. But I haven't got all that figured out yet.

Chocolate Martinis at Duder's House: A Photo Essay

There was also wine. Red and white. And steaks, and mussels. Music DJ'd by me. And several obnoxious comments by yours truly as well.

I had barely left the house in a week, after working on Heroes and Villains for most of my spring break, so I was ready for some adult company. And booze. Booze was needed as well.

I didn't move a whole lot on Saturday.

Like Butter Scraped Over Too Much Bread

I was talking to my Uncle earlier this evening, and I realized that I haven't seen much of my family in a while. Haven't seen a lot of people lately; head's been in the thick of it lately. Lots of theatre, lots of teaching.

I've been stretching myself a bit too thin, however. Been fighting various versions of viruses that have been floating about in the ether, which may or may not be apparent in the photo above. The strained, weary look comes from two days of nonstop coughing and preparation of sub plans.

When you think that teachers have it easy, just remember this: it's more work to call in sick than it is to just suck it up and go to work. True story.

Did sub plans for two days, and limped back to the classroom today. The subs always say the same thing: "you have a very interesting class." "Quite the personalities."

It's all code for the fact that they're a challenging bunch. I love 'em just like any other class I've had, but they've really tested me this year. And that's all that needs to be said about that.

One more week, and then a glorious week of spring break. I plan on spending the week locked in my study finishing up graduate classwork and really pounding out the guts of the play I've been working on. Part of me plans on disappearing somewhere isolated and distraction-free for that week just so I can get some real work done.

So if I don't answer my door or return any phone messages, consider this the explanation.

Pogue Mahone

Tomorrow I get to spend the night with The Pogues.

And I'll get to hang with the man some call Duder, whom I have not seen in some time.

Because I'm busier than Uncle's Night in a whore house.

I didn't make up that line. I think David Lynch did.

But yeah, I'm busy. Was dating this cool girl, but I don't even have the time to be a proper Dating Man. Too much to do.

The play, it's all about the play....


A quick aside:

Please America, don't pick Hillary Clinton. I don't think she's a ball-busting bitch, but I just want to move this country forward. I fear that electing Senator Clinton will be an acquiescence to Machine Politics and another decade of divisional politics.

And I don't want to see the presidents listed as Bush Clinton Bush Clinton in my textbooks. It's a bit too War of the Roses.

Someone else used that phrase, but I can't remember. So credit to whomever.


Been thinking about summer. About theatre, and travel. I'm looking forward to both, of course.

Check the tickets to Dublin about once a week, and get my heart broken a bit every time. So very, very expensive this year. What happened? Fuel prices? Falling dollar?

While it has been expensive, it has always been worth it. A week or so in Dublin, Galway, or Sligo. Trains and pints and some good friends. Budget tells me that it isn't a good idea to go this summer, but I keep holding out for the financial miracle.


I like Irish things.

Little White Dogs

Thanksgiving approaches, and that means only one thing for me: a few days off.

Obviously I'm looking forward to family and food; these things are important to me, and will always be important to me. But I'll get a few days off from work, and that will indeed be something to give thanks for, because there's a lot I have to get done.

Those stupid online grad classes I signed up for back in April? Yeah, I didn't get to those this summer, and time is running out, so I need to finally buckle down and get them finished.

The remount of the radio production of It's a Wonderful Life is going on right now, quite swimmingly, but it takes up a bit of the ole free time as well. (November 29th and 30th, folks, if you have a hankering to see the show. I even get to be Uncle Billy this year, because seriously, is there a better part for me than the lovable alcoholic uncle?


And then there's Heroes and Villains. I think I may have found a writing partner, which should be quite interesting and enjoyable. Plus a collaborator on some short films that I want to create for the show, which should add an additional layer of awesomeness to the show. More on that as it develops.

Instead of just writing about why I have no time to do things such as blogging, and commenting on other peoples' blogs (Bicyclemark! I miss you, man!), I should give you a story. So here goes:

Last Saturday I woke up with a horrible fever. 101 degrees, couldn't even get out of bed. Called around, trying to find someone who could bring me some necessary items for my sick bed (7-Up, French bread, Simpsons DVDs, etc.), and eventually made it downstairs to the couch. I probably should have gone to the doctor right then and there, as it turned out to be strep throat, but I didn't even have the energy for the short drive to the doctor's office up the road from my house.

So I was sitting on the couch, watching one of the several episodes of The War that I had recorded, when I hear a knock at my door. Now, I don't normally get many unannounced visitors at my place, but this was the third knock at my door that day. (One other being two very nice middle-aged women who undoubtedly wanted to save me from the horrors of the Planned Parenthood clinic recently opened up the road.)

There was a Chinese woman at my door, cradling a small, white dog in her arms. She is my neighbor. She doesn't speak much English, but tried as best as she could to explain that her dog was sick and that she needed to go to the hospital, and since she didn't have a car, could I drive her and her sick dog to the animal hospital?

Now, I would love to say that this story ends with me driving a scared Chinese woman to the nearest veterinary office, where I heroically sit with her in the outer office while her little white dog is examined. That would be a good ending to the story, and had situations been a bit different, maybe that's how it would have happened.

But I'm standing at the front door, unwashed, unshaved, in an old bathrobe and my head dizzy with fever, and all I can get out is, "I don't know.....I......I don't know if I can help. I'm sick, too."

She apologizes for bothering me and goes to another neighbor's house for help.

I stand there for a minute, trying to process what had happened. I feel horrible, not just from the fact that I'm sick with the strep, but that I wasn't able to help this woman. It had happened all so sudden, I didn't know what to do.

After a minute or so I come to my senses, and decide that I'll get dressed and drive her to the vet despite my ill health. I throw on some clothes, flipping through the yellow pages as I pull my coat on, and walk out the door, looking for the scared Chinese woman with her little white dog.

I knock, and ring the doorbell, and hear the other 3-4 little white dogs she owns, barking and yipping on the other side of the door. No answer. I look up the road, wondering if she's going door-to-door, like the middle-aged women from this morning, but I don't see her anywhere.

Eventually I go back inside and collapse on the couch, where I resume my combination of sleeping and watching of WW2 documentaries.

Later that night there is another knock at my door, and it is my Chinese neighbor, letting me know that she made it to the vet's office, and that her dog was being taken care of. She apologizes again for bothering me, and I try my best to apologize as well, all the while wishing that I could have helped her, or else that the whole thing had just never happened.

As I close the door and return, once again, to the sick bed that is my living room couch, I think about my inability to help the Chinese woman. How much of my reluctance had to do with the fact that I was, truthfully, very ill, and how much did it have to do with the fact that those goddamn dogs always crap on my lawn.

I guess I'll never know.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Part One)

The first week of June was spent saying goodbye to students. It was very sad, very emotional, and a lot harder than I imagined.

June 7th was the last day of school. Finished packing up one office sometime around noon.

First rehearsal was that night.

From June 7th until July 16th I didn't have a day off. I worked 12-15 hours every day, for the most part. (Sometimes I was lucky and only had to work 5-7 hours.)

Directed one play, produced another, shepherded a third (from my original from 5 years ago), and more or less watched the fourth. (Although I did get to finally be a filmmaker and direct some film sequences for Singin' in the Rain. I'll post some video later.)

Ate a lot of Caesar salads (not for the irony--there's an excellent Italian restaurant just up the road from the stage), shed some teacher weight, avoided graduate school responsibilities once again, said no to friends over and over (regrettably), and finally made vacation plans (Ireland, of course.)

And I started working on a new play. Heroes and Villains. It's about college.

This is, of course, the short version. I felt a post was needed, though, since I have been horribly neglectful towards this blog for some time now. Thank you, readers, for being patient with me as I direct my creative energies elsewhere for a while. It was very necessary that I get this blog out of my head for a while, so as to focus my attention elsewhere.

More to come soon. The hour is late, and I need some sleep.