Just Like Merrion Square Blues

There's been an arc of feeling throughout this trip. The first one, as my plane landed and I boarded my train to the west of Ireland, was one of relief. The two weeks off stretched before me, and over and over again I sighed deeply, feeling the tension and worry start to drop away, stubbed out like a finished cigarette.

Midway through week one I started getting that anxious feeling, wanted to get home and get back to work. Missed my kids, missed the Midwest. Knew this would pass, and worked through it. I knew I came this far away for a reason, so that I wouldn't drop the tools and leave the job and just head back home. I came this far so that I could look back on everything from a proper distance, to better judge it all.

The week in Dingle ended and I packed it all up and got on the train again. A week was enough, but it's a lovely town, and there's a strong reason why I've gone there three times in the past year. "Time doesn't seem to pass here: it just is. A remarkable place altogether," said Bilbo once.

Spent an interlude with some friends just outside of Dublin, but still I thought of home. For a while I had thought about coming home early, and columned the costs of either staying, or changing the flight booking. Economy won out, but also the knowledge that it must be fight, not flight, when faced with these thoughts.

The last day or so has been in the city centre, Dublin city. No more sea air, no more apartment life, no more home-cooked meals by myself or my hosts. The hotel and the streets are my home. And now a new feeling: familiarity and comfort.

The city can be a bit oppressive, with the crowds and the beggars and the tourists and buses, but strangely I seem to be finding myself happiest and most content here. Maybe it's the time away that's finally sinking in, but I think I'm getting used to Life over here.

On my list of Ten Things To Do, #10 was, "look into maybe finding meaningful work over here." And I even found this, thanks to Issy. The interviews aren't until early March, and they said they weren't able to meet with me earlier, even for a friendly chat, so, well, there it is. Best that the job goes to someone around here anyways, considering the state of affairs here.

I've got a couple of days left here, and I'm still very ready to head home, but there was a moment tonight, sitting in a pub, sharing a drink with Elisa, when Issy arrived, telling tales of an old double-decker bus, that I felt very much at home. Donal arrived shortly after, tired after a long day, and we went to a show, and chewed and debated it afterwards in an old Dublin hotel bar, cracking jokes and enjoying the time together.

It was a lovely night.

Pancakes and Writers Tears

And so now I'm in Dublin, and I'll be here until Saturday.

Spent most of Sunday taking a long train ride up from Dingle to Dublin's Heuston Station, where Donal met me and took me back to his (and Issy's) home, where I spent the past few days. They were incredibly gracious hosts, giving me the place to myself while they went to work. I worked as well, laying out the summer rehearsal schedules and other Limelight business that I am getting very, very caught up on. (I can't tell you how good that feels.)

I haven't written anything for the new play in days, though, so I have to get back to that during my time in the hotel I booked for the rest of the trip. I loved my time at Donal and Isobel's home, but you know, fish and house guests and all that. No need to overstay my welcome.

Today is Mardi Gras, which everyone here calls Pancakes Day. Right before Lent starts, tradition says, you use up all your sugar and stuff and gorge yourself on pancakes. Cafes everywhere advertise them, and I made sure to have a few (topped with blueberries) before I get back to my normal routine of Never Really Eating Pancakes, Actually.

I don't recall ever hearing of Fat Tuesday being called Pancakes Day in the states, so either this is a local thing, or I just didn't grow up in a very religious family. Probably the latter - giving up something for Lent was never on our annual list of things to observe.

Since I'm here to write, I picked up a bottle of something called Writers Tears. Donal shared a bit with me the other night, and I found one of the last bottles available at the great Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street. And so now my fantasy of the writer holed up in a hotel room to finish a project is now complete.

And to think I could have gone to Wisconsin and rented a cabin. Probably would have been cheaper, but I know if I had done that, I would have been back to work by last Thursday. The break's been wonderful, and badly needed, but I miss my kids, and I'm anxious to get back to teaching.

How to Disappear Completely

Week One: The Freedom of the City

Monday

Wake at 4 AM (local time), read for a bit, then fall back asleep until mid-morning. Buy groceries and work on summer schedules, catalog copy, and staff possibilities.

Around 10 PM I head down to An Droichead Beag (The Small Bridge), a large pub down the hill that features live music every night of the year. A couple of girls play some quiet trad and I take a seat at the end of the bar. This will become my standard seat every night I'm down there.

I start outlining the play I'm working on until an American girl asks me about what I'm writing. We chat for a while. She's touring around the country for a month, going here and there. Then I get talking to a group of Kilkenny girls who are also here on holiday. We stay up until 4 AM and I even get to play host for a bit in my rented apartment. One of them eats toast.



Tuesday

More sleep. Instead of adjusting to GMT, I pretty much stay on US Central Time, waking at noon and staying up until 3 or 4 AM all week. I continue to work on Limelight business, and get to a point where the administrative stuff is "caught up," for at least a while. I wander back down to the pub and listen to more music and jot down more ideas for the play. Could have joined the Kilkenny girls for some stir-fry, but I politely decline. Need to stay focused on the tasks at hand.

Wednesday

Today is the day where I let myself do Nothing. I sleep until 2 in the afternoon, take a long walk around the town, and watch a lot of Sky TV. I may have written a bit, but the day is mostly spent on standby mode.

Thursday

While sleep has been easy to come by here, it is often interrupted by a group of barking dogs which seem to be penned in directly under my window. They are awful.

I spend a lot of time writing, and a fair amount of time doing more of Nothing. Whenever I want a break there are always several channels of overplayed American sitcoms to watch. I am also limited in doing Nothing because for some reason all the ATMs, Internet connections, and most mobile phones are out of service all along west Kerry. They finally come back online around 9:30 at night.

With money now in my pocket, I wander back down the hill to the same pub and take my same seat. The landlord of the place I'm renting is playing with the trad band tonight. After he's finished for the night we chat over a pint, mostly about the state of the Irish economy. Lots of empty, newly-built homes around here.

I return "home" and watch the newest episode of Lost, recorded on the DVR of my Sky box. A wee country cottage this is not. I also read a remarkable play by Brian Friel called Translations.

Friday

I step outside to get some lunch at The Goat Street Cafe and the sky is filled with smoke. Farmers are burning the gorse up on the hillside and it's created quite the atmospheric conditions. I eat seafood chowder, write some silly lyrics for another silly song, and take a walk along the bay. I read a second Friel play: The Freedom of the City, and finally fall asleep around 4:30 in the morning.

The dogs only wake me up once.



Saturday

Some laundry, some last-minute food purchases. I've made practically every meal I've eaten at "home." Pasta one night, a steak another night. I drink a lot of tea, and learned how to make coffee using a French press.

Maybe I'll wander into a pub or two tonight, or maybe I'll just stay in and write some more.

I am perfectly okay with the idea that I can do whatever I want, whenever I feel like it.

Tomorrow I leave for Dublin, for friends, further thought, a bit of theatre, and more work to be done.

All These Will Be Worthless

That's the title of the play I'm attempting to write.

Limelight has a strong history of original works, and we've had a new play pretty much every year since we've been in business. As our 10th Anniversary nears, I wanted to make sure we had another original play for the summer 2010 season. Last year the Lumberjacks! team knocked one out of the park, and so that meant that it was my turn.

The last major play I wrote, Heroes and Villains, was about a group of friends that comes to realize that they all need to go their separate ways. It was also a bit of a response to the glut of mythic-hero-type stories that had become all the rage in the movies, on the tv, and even on the stage. I was a bit tired of stories about "destiny" and "chosen ones" and magic weapons or outlandish villains, and so I wrote a story about regular people following their own heroic journey.

So now I'm trying to write a new one, and it is again a reaction to the played-out stories that we're seemingly fixated on right now: the apocalyptic thriller. I want to try and write a story that doesn't end with the world blowing up, but instead offers a glimmer of hope about where we're going.

I met with a small team of actors throughout October and we started putting together a story. There were lots of ideas, including one involving a zombie-hunting Ronald Reagan, and if you can believe it, I have figured out a way to include that in the story.

It's about two sisters growing up at the end of the cold war, during two different stretches of time in the 1980s. It involves the Berlin Wall as well, but I haven't quite figured out how to pull that part off. There's also a character named Ryan Ortega, and I think I'm starting to figure out what to do with him.

I made sure to read Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N Roll before I really got going with it, since that play concerns wall-and-cold war themes as well. Thankfully they're very different in story and scope.

So now here I am on a brief sabbatical, and it's time to get this thing written. We were originally going to be performing this thing in March, but due to the lack of writing time in my life, and the fact that we want to do it right, we're moving it to the summer schedule. It'll get more exposure and more effort there anyway.

Since it's largely a story about females, I wanted to have a woman's voice come through, so I've got a girl writing some original music for it as well. It's not a musical, though; I imagine she'll play stuff in-between scenes or occasionally pop up on stage, like the troubadour on Gilmore Girls.

Wrote a complete outline of the show will listening to some trad in a pub last night. Much of my administrative work is caught up for the time being, so there's nothing left to do but write. Here goes...

The Off Season

Or: The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Myself

I am taking a bit of a break from myself and my current life for the next two weeks. There has been far too much work in my life, and not enough peace, and so I have had to put the job on hold for a bit, to relax and get caught up on the work.

A note on terminology: The Work is different from The Job. The Job, which I do happily (most) every day of the week for nine months out of the year, involves teaching an elementary school classroom of kids. I've been doing this for about a dozen years.

The Work refers to the other job, the theatre company I founded and have run for about ten years now. It involves directing several productions a year, but also includes supervising a staff of (roughly) a dozen directors, graphic artists, photographers, etc; planning seasons, picking shows, calculating budgets, answering email queries, organizing and attending planning and production meetings, running workshops, supervising other shows, maintaining a website, and occasionally writing new works.

Here are the facts:

1. I am currently out of the country. I should be teaching, but I have taken a two-week leave, which The Job was incredibly supportive of me taking.

2. There is this post from a few months ago. It is required reading in order to better understand the trajectory from Point A to Point B.

3. Doing the Job and the Work simultaneously has becoming increasingly difficult over the past two years. The Job continues to need an incredible amount of attention, and The Work has become more complex and more demanding as the company matures into a proper organization.

4. The amount of time involved, and the stress that comes about as a result of doing the Job and the Work means that my Free Time becomes something that I guard and hoard like a dragon crouched on a mass of plundered gold.

I'm a pretty independent person, and I like my time to myself, especially when the Job and the Work involves working with large groups of kids day and night. I still like getting together with family and friends, though, but any time a gathering or a getting-together is offered, it goes through some perverse cost-benefit analysis in my head.

Will it take away from The Work that has to get done? Sometimes, yes, but I have to enjoy myself every now and then, and so The Work is set aside for a time, but it is always in the back of my mind.

5. Sleep is something else that I get into a real panic about, because it's so damn difficult for me to get any. For the past few weeks I've been waking up at 4 AM, no matter how tired I was or what time I went to bed. I wake up, toss and turn, fret and stew, do some of The Work in my head, and finally resign myself to getting up and starting the day, knowing that it'll be one that I will walk through in a strange, listless, easily-irritated trance.

(Despite the fact that I had been up for over thirty hours, and am six time zones removed from my usual sleep patterns, I woke up precisely at 4 AM, local time in Ireland. What. The Fuck.)

6. Please take note of this: I am not depressed or despairing. I enjoy my life, and the Job and the Work, but there is way too much of it right now. I am obviously not in a happy place at the moment, but it is the amount of work, not the work itself, that is causing this. This is an important point to make.

7. A simple one, but perhaps the most important: if I keep going the way I'm going, I am going to grow old and die alone. (And maybe not even grow old; the last thing I want to do is drop dead of a heart attack during tech week on some show I'm working on.)

Whenever I start dating a girl, I immediately put the potential relationship into that cost-benefit analysis thing I do, and realize that I won't be able to commit myself to a proper, healthy relationship without letting either The Job or The Work suffer. And so I extricate myself from the situation and continue devoting all my spare time to The Work.

This pattern has been going on for about seven years now, and I have effectively given away the romantic-social life of my thirties to The Work. This is also probably why my vacations (and this brief sabbatical) take place across the Atlantic Ocean. When you want to travel fast and light, The Work is too heavy to fit into my luggage.

(Ironically, I have brought along quite a long list of items to be accomplished for The Work, but Ireland in the wintry off-season is a better place for it than puttering around at home for two weeks. Besides, if I stayed home, I would be back at The Job by Wednesday, because I would miss my class too much.)


So, after considering all these facts, I am forced to make a choice:

Change, or face the consequences of another ten years of stress-filled work and a fire-bombed social life.

I would like to stay on this earth for a number of decades to come, to explore much more it, to have a healthy, normal relationship with friends, family, and future partner(s), and to be hale and whole, not this stretched-out, worn-out thing of a life I've been living for the past few years.

My mission, in the next two weeks, is to figure out how to Change.

Sis and the Worst Time to Have a Birthday

Today it's my sister's birthday. She has the Second Worst Birthday in the World, next to mine, which is on the 30th of this month. She has to deal with all the people who can't get together right before Christmas, and I have to deal with everyone who wants to save their strength for New Year's. Hers is slightly less worse than mine, because at least on the 23rd, people aren't sick of parties and get-togethers. By the time mine rolls around, they only have the time and patience to deal with one more, and as they get older, they can't even make it to New Years.

I won't reveal her age, since that's not polite, but she is three years younger than me, and I'm pretty much in my late 30s now, so yeah, neither of us are anywhere near the age we were in that picture.

Janie doesn't really get called Janie anymore, but of course I will call her that until we part from these places. It's what big brothers do.

What the Sister does is host the holidays, and I'm headed there tomorrow. Seriously, eternal thanks to Janie for being the Married One with the Kids, because I certainly haven't done so well in that department. She gets to be the stable one, the Host, the person with the lovely kids and the lovely home, and I get to be the cranky eccentric who either livens up the party or comes close to ruining it.

And the fact that she still invites me into her home, well, that's a kind of Christmas Miracle itself.

Even though I almost set it on fire during our last Christmas spent there...

(I find this picture strange. It's like the photographer was so mesmerized by my shirt that they (almost) forgot to include my sister in the frame.)

Happy Birthday, Janie. Love you lots, and I'll try my best not to be a grumpy idiot this year.

The Canals of Amsterdam, Part Four

FYI, the complete set of The Canals of Amsterdam can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

When you talk about Amsterdam, or more specifically, when you talk about visiting Amsterdam, there are one or two fun facts that always get asked about by people. The first one is the legalized pot they sell all around the city in its various "coffee" shops. Pot and Amsterdam are as close as Guinness and Ireland, or sunny skies and Saudi Arabia.

The other famous Amsterdam factoid is the infamous Red Light District, Amsterdam's neighborhood of legalized prostitution and sex shops . Everyone always wants to know about the Red Light District, and when you talk about Amsterdam, it's an unavoidable topic of conversation. And so, I suppose, when you write about Amsterdam, the Red Light District is, inevitably, going to get brought up.


Bicyclemark, the legendary citizen reporter of the 'Dam, owns a small boat called The Red August. If that name suggests something revolutionary and vaguely socialistic, then that is probably how Bicyclemark wants it.

A ride through the canals of Amsterdam on The Red August had been promised by Mark during the planning stages of the trip. Another Dutch blogger, just a nameless girl who goes by Just a Girl, came up from the south to join us. We were enjoying a small backyard party at Mark's home, the Politburo (see above), and dusk was settling in, and we were anxious to get into that damn boat.

Mark graciously tore himself away from the garden shindig and took us to where his boat was docked, a short walk from his home. As the light disappeared behind the brick buildings of the city, we boarded Mark's small boat and set off for our ride.

Most of the canals were built in the 17th century, for residential development and defense purposes. They form a series of concentric half-circles throughout the city and are Amsterdam's number one tourist attraction, giving the city the nickname, "the Venice of the North."

After wandering through the city's various canals, we made our way onto the Amstel River after an hour or so in the boat. Party boats passed us by, we floated under bridges packed with people enjoying their Saturday night, and we watched it all happen from a small red boat cutting through the night-dark water. Much of the city is designed to be seen by canal, and once we were out on the water, and saw the city lit at night, from the perspective of the quiet network of canals, Neuwirth and I started to understand and appreciate the city better.


As we bobbed along on the river, Mark seemed to be having a small conversation with himself, tilting his head this way and that, until he finally came to a decision. "I thought about taking us over here... Hmm. Yeah, I should show you that. Nahh. Let's go to the red light district." He turned the boat around and we left the wide river, moving into a narrow canal that cut through the heart of the city.

Soon enough the crowds along the canals became thicker, louder, and the quiet calm of the dark canal was replaced by a neon electric thrum that pulsed out from every shop window, every street.

I don't think the Amsterdam Red Light District is something I would have visited on my own, or even with a game travel partner like Bobby Neuwirth tagging along. It's just... not my thing, you know? There's too much of a "tee-hee" quality to the whole thing. Back in the states I've never felt the need to hire a prostitute, legal or illegal, drunk or sober, and even with the Amsterdam better business bureau making this choice a lot easier for me, I find that I'm content to just watch it glide by as I sail along on Mark's boat.

It's like a more pornographic version of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. It feels just as artificial, only here you're allowed to get off the boat and join the drunken carousing, if you're so inclined.

Later that night, after the canals were done, we found ourselves in a former city morgue, now transformed into a late-night museum of modern art. One room had a mixed-media collage of people running in a park or doing trust exercises; another held a large curved room divider that caught JaG's eye and we finished out our night posing in front of it and taking pictures.

Until JaG accidentally kicked it while leaping in the air; then we got the hell out of there.


Sunday morning came 'round and we said goodbye to the Hotel de Filosoof; said goodbye to Bicyclemark and Jag; said goodbye to the bikes, to the beer, and to the canals. Hauled our packs into Centraal Station and bought tickets for the next stop, Antwerp, Belgium, and continued on with our travels.

The State I'm In

Last month I found the time to read a book by Frank McCourt about teaching. If there's anything I can't stand it's some poorly-written sentimental volume about how teachers inspire, teachers matter, blah blah, and I was worried that Teacher Man was one of those types of books. It sat unread on the shelf for a few years until one night I pulled it down and started reading.

With utmost respect for Mr. McCourt, I was definitely wrong. The guy can write, and what he writes is true and straight-up. Here's something from the Prologue:

In America, doctors, lawyers, generals, actors, television people and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not teachers. Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go around the back. They are congratulated on having ATTO (All That Time Off). They are spoken of patronizingly and patted, retroactively, on their silvery locks. Oh, yes, I had an English teacher, Miss Smith, who really inspired me. I'll never forget dear old Miss Smith. She used to say that if she reached one child in her forty years of teaching it would make it all worthwhile. She'd die happy. The inspiring English teacher then fades into gray shadows to eke out her days on a penny-pinching pension, dreaming of the one child she might have reached. Dream on, teacher. You will not be celebrated.

This has been rattling around in my head for the past month or so, as the school year drags on and I find myself continually swamped with more and more stuff to do which bears little resemblance to teaching. I do like this job, even love it at times, but man, it seems like it's the last thing I get to do anymore. I spent an hour planning for Math today, because I Have To Be On-Model, which means, "Teach it exactly like we tell you to and don't you dare deviate from the book one bit."

I'm a goddamn robot in there anymore, with everything programmed for me in advance, all my words carefully chosen so as not to offend, all my decisions made for me ahead of time. My creativity was shoved into a black van and dumped in the river, and any original thought I get in my head is immediately pushed aside in favor of some pointless task I've been told is Best Practice.

Thankfully there's Limelight, but even that is suffering due to the weight and the crush of this job. There is so much that I want to do with this organization, so many wonderful ideas and plans that jump into my head first thing in the morning and have long disappeared by the time lunch rolls around.

I can't even find the time to finish a simple story about taking a boat ride.

There is just too much going on, and something has to change. I want to just throw out all the bullshit that has piled up and get working on what's good, what matters. McCourt talks about how it took him his whole life to get a book written: "When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you're not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose."

I took a weekend to go out of town to get something done, but spent most of the time driving around listening to music or drinking at my old college bar. Came home on Sunday refreshed and ready to go, that is until Monday rolled around and a new week's worth of headaches arrived.

I can't accept the fact that this is how the rest of my life is gonna go, hunching over my desk grading papers and working on School Improvement Plans and Mission Statements calming parents downs and whatthehelldoIhaveplannedformyteacherassistanttoday christfortyfiveminutesmakesomecopies pickfivekidsgetsomethingdone and oh if I have time maybe write something new and get a group of actors together and get it up on stage, half-baked as it always is. Hire this person, fire this one, arrange schedules, craft the season, update the website. Didn't I have friends, girlfriends even, at one point? Now I'm lucky to see anyone more than once every two months. I think I see the Dubliners more than I do my own sister these days.

Time's up. Back to work. Answers come another day.

The Canals of Amsterdam, Part Three

FYI, the complete set of The Canals of Amsterdam can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four


That girl looks like JaG, I thought to myself.

Wait a minute. You've never actually seen this girl in person, and you think that's her, up ahead?

Yeah. Maybe. The hair looks about right. And those clothes seem like something she would wear.

You're crazy. What are you gonna do? Shout out her name for all of Amsterdam to hear? If you're wrong, you'll look like the Stereotypical American Tourist Who Mistakes Pedestrians for Dutch Bloggers. Don't ruin it, man.

(This is the conversation I had with myself while we walked along the road towards The Politburo, home of the other Dutch blogger, Bicyclemark. )

Bicyclemark is not Dutch, actually. He's from Jersey. But he also has Portuguese citizenship through his parents, and so he gets to live in the EU fairly easily. At least, easier than I would have it, since the last time my Scottish ancestors lived in Europe the Civil War hadn't even been fought yet.

Neuwirth and I arrived with a sixer of Heineken in our hands. There was an elaborate dinner being grilled in the back garden, but through the miracle of miscommunication or misunderstanding or misdirection, we had already eaten. And that girl that I thought was JaG? Yep, it was her.

And before I go any further, let me address the fact that I was arriving at a Saturday night Dutch barbeque with a six-pack of Heineken. In the states, or at least in the smaller cities in the states, if you arrive with Heineken, you're considered someone with reasonably-decent taste. At the very least, you're not That Guy who brought his half-empty case of Miller Lite to the party.

But who are you if you show up to a party in Amsterdam with their most well-known beer? Would I get a dismissive shrug, a tut-tutting behind my back about my predictable choice in lager? Honest, I tried to get something interesting, but this was the only thing they had in the cooler.

(Truthfully, I wasn't even concerned about what people would say; I just wanted to drink something a bit more interesting and exotic than something I can buy at Target.)

And no one really cared about what I brought; they weren't really drinking beer, as far as I could tell.

JaG and I finally met, and we talked about various things that people talk about when they sort of know each other. We talked about education a bit (we're both teachers), and more about the state of blogging. JaG likes to treat her blog, and the act in general, like a former boyfriend that she doesn't love anymore, but I think she still has a soft spot for it at times.

More people arrived, and Mark spent some time socializing as the sun went down, but Neuwirth and I kept to ourselves, afraid that if we drank too much, or got too social with people, we might miss our chance of getting on that boat.

"I don't think it's gonna happen, man. I think he forgot."

No, no, he'll take us out there. JaG just said he told her we were going out on the boat. The boat! It'll happen!

I suddenly remembered Neuwirth and I driving to the airport almost a week ago. We're both two guys who grew up in a fairly land-locked area, Lake Michigan aside. Nautical lifestyles lived by those people from island nations or coastal areas is a strange and mysterious concept to us. In addition to flying across the Atlantic for the very first time, on a plane, Neuwirth was also gonna be on a boat! On several boats! He was very excited and couldn't stop playing this song.

We had to get on that boat.

To be continued...

Just an FYI, Part Three of the Amsterdam story will be up in the next couple of days, I hope. Got knocked down with a resurgence of the crud I've been carrying around in my lungs these past couple of weeks, and haven't had the time/energy to get it done. Patience, my readers; it won't be nearly as long of a wait as the infamous Death March tale...

The Canals of Amsterdam, Part Two

FYI, the complete set of The Canals of Amsterdam can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four


Neuwirth and I figured we should get a little culture in our system, as opposed to all of the beer and English breakfasts we had been ingesting, so we spent Saturday morning in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum. It was either this or the Van Gogh museum, so Neuwirth went with the Rijks.

Upon further reflection, Neuwirth chose poorly, and aside from the Dutch burrito place that he chose later than evening for dinner, this was one of the only disappointing decisions he made on our behalf. When you go to Amsterdam, go to the Van Gogh museum. Or at least choose to visit the Rijksmuseum when it is not going through a massive renovation. The pickings will be slightly better than the "greatest hits" of Dutch masters that we ended up seeing.


We finally met up with Bicyclemark in the early afternoon. He arrived, naturally, on his bike, and was taller than I imagined him to be. I always imagine bloggers to be shorter than they actually are, for some reason. I have this same problem with The Gurrier. Maybe it's all those photos taken from a webcam that throws off my perspective.

Mark showed us around the park, and an indoor horse stable, where we watched people take riding lessons, all riding "English" to my eyes. A youth spent riding Western will always make me think this other method somewhat odd.

We eventually found ourselves at Mark's home, a three-story building known as The Politburo by its many, varied residents. A lesbian couple, visiting frisbee enthusiasts, and others that were either away on holiday or wandering around the many rooms. Users of the toilet are asked to sit while urinating, regardless of gender, and are politely reminded to clean the seat after each use. It was easily the most unique residence I have ever seen, to say the least.

Mark made himself a snack and we talked about the philosophy of hacking. Now, since this is Amsterdam, and I have already made reference to backpackers and hippies and traveling frisbee players, it would be natural to assume that I am talking about hacky-sack. You would be wrong in this assumption.

Hacking can refer to anything from lock-picking enthusiasts to computer programming to Matthew Broderick's character in War Games. Hackers like to take things apart, they like to break into things, and they believe in free and open access to anything related to computers and software and things like that. "Hacking" can take on many terms, and even after talking to Mark about it, I still don't feel like I fully understand it. I know it involves more than illegally downloading music and films, and is more than just a bunch of social misfits trying to break into the Pentagon, but its overall goals are still a mystery to me.

Mark announced that he had some business to take care of, so we decided to part ways for a while, until JaG showed up later that evening. We were a bit surprised by this turn of events, since we had just seen THE FORMER JAIL CELLS IN THE BASEMENT OF THE POLITBURO, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! WHAT OTHER FANTASTIC DUTCH MYSTERIES DO YOU HAVE HIDDEN IN THE "POLITBURO", MR. BICYCLEMARK, IF THAT REALLY IS YOUR NAME?

We headed back to the Hotel of Curiously Decorated Rooms, relaxed a bit, ate the aforementioned Dutch burritos, and waited to meet up with Mark and JaG. We were getting excited. A ride through the canals on Mark's boat, The Red August, was promised.

To be continued...

The Canals of Amsterdam, Part One

About five years ago a guy named Bicyclemark started commenting on my blog.

This was back when everyone blogged. Well, not everyone, but it was a new thing, and there was a nice community of people from all over the world that took the time to write about their daily lives, and they read and they commented on other peoples' lives.

Some people rolled their eyes at this supposedly-narcissistic activity, and wondered why in the hell you would want to know what someone halfway around the world ate for dinner? Why was it important for the average person to write about the last movie they saw, or what they did with their friends on a Saturday night? Writing was for the professionals; why let amateurs screw everything up with their half-hearted attempts at prose or, (even worse), poetry?

This past August I met up with a couple of bloggers from the Netherlands, and along the way hopefully answered the questions of those people who never understood what blogging was about.

I've been traveling overseas for years, mostly Ireland and the UK. When you travel solo, when you hope to spend your evenings talking to strange people in foreign locales, it helps to stick to countries where you know the local language. This theory falls apart a little when you realize how many people speak English around the world, so maybe I just like going to Ireland a lot.

Each time I plan a trip I always try to figure out how I can fit Amsterdam into the itinerary. Mark and I have been blog-friends for a long time now, and I felt bad that I hadn't made it over there to visit him. There was Just a Girl, too, another Holland blogger I had been reading for years, and I felt a slight digital pang of jealousy when the L.A. blogger Tony Pierce made it over there a few years ago and arranged their first meeting.

When my friend Neuwirth said he wanted to do the Grand Tour overseas, I made sure that Amsterdam was on the list of places to see. Time to finally meet Bicyclemark and find out what this guy was all about.

Neuwirth and I flew into Amsterdam on a warm Friday night in August, and our first view of the city was the Central Station in the heart of the city.

Now, for those of you who avoid European travel in general, and Amsterdam in particular, I don't recommend making the Station Amsterdam Centraal your first stop. Every bad cliche you have heard about the 'Dam being home to a bunch of dirty pot-smoking layabouts will be unfortunately confirmed. After spending the first three days of our trip in the bucolic green splendor of northern Wales, a muggy, crowded rail station full of college backpackers and shifty-looking hippies took some getting used to.

Disoriented and tired after a day of traveling from Betws-y-coed to Amsterdam by way of a brief stopover in Liverpool, we eventually found the correct tram and made our way to the Hotel de Filosoof. Translated, that means The Hotel of Philosophy, or The Philosophy Hotel, depending on whether you like your European place-names Americanized or not. Recommended by Mark, and as stated on their website, "each of the 38 rooms is decorated in different philosophical and cultural themes."

This should give you another clue as to the unique qualities Amsterdam possesses. While they may be known for being ground zero for the world's soft-drug culture, not to mention an entire area of town dedicated to legalized prostitution, they also have hotel rooms dedicated to Søren Kierkegaard and Confucius. Amsterdam, you are a city of many hidden secrets and delights.

I am not sure which philosopher, or school of philosophy, our room was devoted to. All I know is that there many, many pictures of women on the walls. We apparently got the power-of-the-female room, but on the plus side, it did have a nice view of the garden.

Mark had a date that evening, and JaG wouldn't be in town until Saturday, so Neuwirth and I spent the evening wandering around the neighborhood and drinking a lot of booze. We sat outside and watched people glide by on their bicycles, one after another. I don't know if Bicyclemark got his name before he came to live in Amsterdam, but after seeing the bike culture here, I don't think he could live in any city but this one.

To be continued...




FYI, the complete set of The Canals of Amsterdam can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

The Mercy Seat

Profiles Theatre
Uptown, Chicago

Now playing through November 15th

At the bequest of my good friend Amanda, I headed into the city to check out Profiles Theatre's production of Neil LaBute's The Mercy Seat. She was the Stage Manager.

(Not like the character, The Stage Manager, from Our Town. She was the actual Stage Manager. Just so we're clear.)

The play concerns two people in a New York apartment the day after the attacks of September 11th. One is married, one is not. One has decided to use the attacks as a means to get out of his fading marriage, as the ultimate Reset Button. A nice clean escape, only not so much.

Two people in a room, quietly talking, then massive shouty anger, then quiet again. It was like a Pixies song done as a 90-minute play.

LaBute's plays are about awful people doing awful things, and not even the horrors of Sept. 11th can cover the horrible choices pondered by these two people. It's real good.

Got the chance to meet a few of the Profiles crowd, and caught up with Amanda a bit. It's always wonderful to see her, and whenever we hang out we slip into this rapid-fire sarcasm-filled dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a Howard Hawks film.

As usual, after consuming good quality Chicago theatre, I start wondering whether I could ever get involved with one of these groups. Sure I write and direct and run a successful (youth) theatre program, but I always wonder if I'm just a country mouse who would get laughed right out of them big fancy PRO-fessional-type places.

I've been told that I need to move on from my current station, and try something new, and I think about that sometimes, but then I'll get into a teaching groove, or Limelight will get more awesome, and then those plans fade away. The plan to publish The Last Dance is now over six years old, by the way.

We started working on a new play this week, speaking of Limelight. All These Will Be Worthless. So far it's a comedy about the fear of the end of the world, the fall of the Berlin wall, and a mutant-hunting Ronald Reagan. It'll be way better than The Mercy Seat.

Here Come the Man!

Last week I finally got to see Van Morrison perform Astral Weeks live, after almost a year of waiting.

Van played the Hollywood Bowl last year, performing his legendary album in its entirety, and I thought hard about heading out there to see it, but the high costs of traveling out to California deferred this dream.

He put out a live album from the performance, and eventually a DVD, which I figured would have to suffice. The concert was such a success that Morrison added more dates, in New York and London, and then he added more, but Chicago never showed up on any of the tour announcements.

The Chicago date was finally added while I was in Ireland, of all places, but fate conspired against me yet again and no tickets were gotten. Time to press play on the DVD player again.

Then they opened up a few final tickets and I headed to Ticketmaster. Pit seats, going for an insane amount of money. And I bought one. One, because that's all you could get. Duder tried getting one himself, but they were all snatched up.

And so I found myself about twenty feet from Van's gold microphone last Tuesday at the Chicago Theatre.

No opening act, no delayed start. Van comes out precisely on time, and plays a tight set of about 100 minutes, with no encore. He never interacts with the audience, letting the music speak for itself.

First half of the show is a warm-up, consisting of other songs from his career. It would be easy to make this the "hits" portion of his show, considering how unknown Astral Weeks really is to the average fan. He'll throw in the "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Gloria" to keep these people satisfied, but most of the songs in the first half were the deep cuts, semi-obscure numbers that didn't get (most) people singing along, but instead served as companion pieces to the Astral Weeks numbers.

"Fair Play", "Little Village", and "In the Garden" set the tone for what was to come, and despite a few annoying people who chose to talk half the time (except, of course, when he played a quick and perfunctory "Have I Told You Lately"), it was a remarkable first half.

Van could have chosen to use this tour as a "greatest hits" comeback, like many artists of a certain age do, throwing out "Moondance" and "Wild Night" night after night to the eager fans, but instead he's been performing one of his most obscure albums to sold-out crowds for the better part of a year.

He has the reputation as a sour grump who's always complaining about the public's perception of him, and the record companies' inability to "get" him. So he's doing everything the way he wants to do it, releasing the live Astral Weeks on his own label, allowing no production sheen added to the mix, refusing to load his sets with the easy hits. This is one reason why I love him.

Astral Weeks live was fantastic, although a lot of the surprise has been lost after a year of listening to the live album over and over again, but no matter. "Slim Slow Slider" is still the highlight, as he threw in new lyrics about "going to see the German doctor" and riding that passenger train. It was a phenomenal show, and it was worth every penny I paid. This was one of those rare chances to see something legendary, performed as the artist wanted it performed.

As we filed out after the show I started talking to a middle-aged guy who was sitting next to me, both of us marveling at what we had just seen. "Pretty great, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was. Now, what was 'Astral Weeks'?" the man said. "Was that his band?"

June 29th Revisited

Have you ever thought about goodbyes? Ever been disappointed by how one went? Ever wished you could do one over, make it really special, really one for the books?

This is a story of a goodbye.

I went back to teaching fifth grade a couple of years ago, and the class was filled with strong personalities, as we say in the profession. The less polite way is to say that it was filled with a few jerky kids.

Not that I wouldn't be the first one to stand up for each and every one of them, when it counted. But they were a rough group at times.

There was a student that was a bit different. She was quiet and funny and nervous and had a hard time getting her homework done. But she was Austin, and she had Maddie by her side (thanks to my artful seating arrangements), and she got through the year.

She was scheduled to move to Texas at the end of the summer. At the last minute, at my prodding, she showed up at summer auditions and wound up with the lead in Harriet the Spy. (Just so you know, I didn't cast it, but was overjoyed when Mal made her decision.)

Austin was a great Harriet, and perfectly captured that fragile thing that you need in a good Harriet M. Welsch. I was exceptionally proud of her.

Last day came, and she was leaving for Texas the next day. The kids had a pizza party while we tore down sets. Everyone left, and Austin and I said a brief goodbye over the sound of the drills and hammers.

Got busy taking apart something, a bit sad that we weren't able to have that proper farewell that should come with someone that you're close to. I know some people aren't good at goodbyes, and maybe she was one of them. I probably try and make them too monumental, too orchestrated.

Mal suddenly says, "Hey Austin!" and I turn and she's coming back in, with this awkward shuffling walk, arms out, tears streaming down her face.

This is the hard part to write about. It was very emotional, but it played out in front of everyone, like it was a story that needed to be told. A big hug, declarations like "you were the best teacher I ever had," "I don't want to go, " stuff like that. Like I said, it's hard to write about, and it's taken me over a year to put it in words. The last thing I want to do is make myself out to be this awesome teacher dude who inspires the masses, blah blah blah. That's not why I'm writing this.

If you know me fairly well, or if you read this thing a while back, then you're familiar with my father-abandonment-anger issues, etc. etc. etc. No need to dredge that business up, but needless to say, it left me with an unwillingless to get married and start a family.

That moment with Austin changed me, a lot. She was one of the first students I had where the parents were around my age. A strange enough thing to realize for a guy who still feels like he's in his early 20s. Holy shit, I could have a kid around this age!

Anyway, I guess I came to some sort of conclusion that I didn't need to be afraid of that whole being-a-father business anymore. I guess I realized that it might be something I might be okay at. Later that fall, I talked about this with my sister one night at a bar in Indianapolis, but I think this is the first time I've written about it.

I think about Austin a lot, and I miss her a ton, and one day maybe I'll track her down and thank her for deciding to come back into the stage that day, to say a proper goodbye. It wrecked me, but it was one of the most important days of my life.

Forest Lodgings

Wales is a great place to go for some quiet, some trees, and some hiking.

For the first leg of the trip, I wanted all of these things. I had worked without a day off for over two months, and I was ready for somewhere familiar and relaxing. I remembered Betwys-y-coed as a place that would fulfill all of these desires.

I also remembered it as the place where Annie grew up, and since our paths seem to be oddly intertwined, it seemed the perfect choice.

“You have to stop by and see my parents! They’d love to meet you,” Annie declared over an online conversation we had shortly before I left. She even promised lodging for the visit, but I had just booked a (nonrefundable) bed and breakfast in Betwys, so that part was left up in the air.

“Dad likes red wine.”

What does your mom drink?

“Whiskey. Irish whiskey.”

--------------

After that long day/night/day mashup of airports and ferries and trains, Neuwirth and I arrived in Betws as the sun faded away behind the mountains. Had a quick meal, suffered through a glass of Welsh whiskey, and slept as best as we could. Despite being up for 30 hours straight, it’s still hard to get a full night’s sleep when you’re suddenly on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ate the best Full Breakfast I’ve ever had in my eight-odd years of traveling over there, and spent the day hiking in the hills. As afternoon wore on, we packed a small bag and grabbed a train south to a small town a couple of stops down the line.

Annie had created a map for us, indicating the bridge, the pub, and the local shop for locals. We strolled through the tiny village, enjoying the quiet and the lack of tourists. The road took us out of town, until we arrived at a long lane which led to the home of Bruce and Mary, our hosts for the evening.

Mary was already waiting in the lane, along with a huge black and white dog that promptly reminded us that we were strangers here. It only took a few words and a welcoming hug from Mary to change its mind. Hello, Pablo.

Suddenly Bruce appears from behind the house, and he is exactly how I imagined him, and that is to say that he (and Mary as well) are unlike anything I could have imagined, complete unto themselves. Wild white hair and flowing shirts and wide grins and an uncanny ability to make you feel completely at home.

Wine and whiskey are presented and glasses are quickly filled, and never left empty, for the rest of the night. Talk of travel, of work and home, of Annie’s adventures spreads itself out. Pablo becomes my new best friend, while Cat One and Cat Two wander around the fringes.

Mary is from the west of Ireland while Bruce grew up in London, but Dolwyddelan has been their home and studio for a long time. They are both artists. Watercolors and photography and forest park diagrams and many other projects. Their home butts up against a wood that I ached to explore, but as the whiskey took hold I was content to just sit in a comfortable chair and listen to the talk.

It was a place that filled your head with endless possibilities. I could do this with my life, or this, or this, I thought as I looked through Bruce’s self-published books of photography. At one point I was quoting verse in the sun room with Mary. It was that kind of night.

Slept long and deep in Annie’s room, and then morning arrived, me up before anyone else, woken by the sound of a farmer cutting silage. I sat for a while in the quiet living room, scribbled a few thoughts down, Pablo next to me, the cat curled in a corner.

I could do this, and this, and this.

A Rainy Night in Dublin

Neuwirth's sleeping one off after too much fun last night. We blew into Dublin in the late afternoon and checked in to our hotel. The gentleman at the desk said "two twin beds, yes?" although when we got to the room there was only one double bed. Um, no, seriously, we need two beds. Please.

Hazards of two men traveling together, I suppose.

Hurried over to The Stag's Head, where I met a former student of mine (and founding Limelight member) Jaclyn, who's been doing an internship in Dublin all summer. Unless I'm mistaken, this will be the first time I've ever bought a beer for a former student.

She left after a short catch-up to go enjoy her final night in Ireland before flying home, back to school. We sat and drank in the corner for a bit before Elimare and The Gurrier strolled in, followed later by Linus and Issy. More drinks were consumed, with dinner being something to laugh at, something maybe to accomplish before the night was over. More drinks.

9:00 pm approached, and Annie heralded her arrival via text message. Shortly thereafter two hands were slapped on my shoulders and there she was, and this strange Irish-Welsh-American blog universe was almost complete. Almost.

Caught up with Annie for a bit, then finally decided to get some food. Conor, her boyfriend, appeared briefly, but then headed home to recover from some L.A.-induced jet lag. Wound up back at a Japanese restaurant I had been to before and ordered seafood Ramen and a Tiger beer. Tiger? Sure.

The Dublin pubs were overflowing, although I was told that this was light compared to what it's usually like. Recession, you know.

More drinks.

Seafood ramen doesn't absorb much, just so you know.

At some point I think Linus decided to sove the recession difficulties by deciding to be my fake-gay-husband so that he could get a U.S. green card. I may have accepted this proposal.

Annie disappeared, then Linus, then the rest of us called it a night. Neuwirth and I wandered back to our hotel on Merrion Square and collapsed on two twin beds.

I'ts now almost two in the afternoon and he's still under the covers.

Rookie.


Lots of stories from the trip that are still to be told. Just thought I'd check in. Newwirth's up and moving around after a much-needed rest, so it's time to check out Dublin.

A Few Photos

The Story So Far (in brief)

I am in Antwerp, which is in Belgium. I have been in several other cities before this.

I am in Antwerp, because we woke up this morning and decided that this is where we should go. A man named Bicyclemark suggested it, and so Antwerp won out over other Belgian cities like Bruges, Ghent, or Brussels.

I am in Antwerp, and it is awesome.

I am not going to bother describing Antwerp, at least not for now. I have other things to write about, since I've been traveling for almost a week now, and this is the first time I've sat down to write anything proper online.

This is the short version, written in a swanky hotel room in Antwerp, on a Sunday night, drinking foreign beer out of cans, after a long dinner at a French bistro near the hotel. We would have been at a bar, but they're closing up, on a Sunday night.

Bobby Neuwirth and I spent a few days hiking in a small town in Wales. I was once there before, seven years ago. Betwys-y-coed. We also visited Annie's parents a few miles down the road, but that's a tale that deserves its own telling.

We wandered north by northeast after that, winding up in Liverpool to catch a quick flight to Amsterdam. Even with catching the early train out of Betws, we didn't have enough time to explore Liverpool and investigate any Beatle business.

Amsterdam was a strange mix, of highlights and disappointments. Chose the Rijksmuseum over the Van Gogh museum. Fail. Took a cruise through the canals with Bicyclemark and JaG, which was one of the high points of the trip. Again, this will get its own story.

When you travel solo, you have a lot of time to think and write, but when you travel with someone, you spend more time involved with everything around you. This is a good thing.

There are a million stories I want tell, and they'll be told, but there's just been too much travelin' to be done.

To be continued...

The Ballinastoe Death March, Part Two

This is a tale long in the telling, and I want to thank everyone for being so patient, as I let myself get distracted by other matters large and small. Linus had a birthday not too long ago, and he said a great present would be for me to finally finish the damn Death March story. So here you go:


It was when we started downhill that everything went wrong.

After straining our winter-sore muscles, climbing up a steep incline that never seemed to end, sweat mixing with the cold March Irish wind, we reached the peak, took some pictures, and were happy in the knowledge that from this point on, everything would be easier.

After walking through a brief suggestion of a forest, we were presented with a choice: not exactly a fork in the road, but an option, let's say. Go this way, or go that way. There might have been a detour sign involved as well, but it's been four months, and this is a story, so it doesn't really matter. You see where I'm going with this.

We stalked downhill, switching this way and that, getting hungry and thirsty as a brief weekend jaunt in the country moved into hour three. We edged closer and closer to where the car (in theory) lay, when suddenly the path just...ended. Stopped. Not blocked. Stopped. No more path.

Issy went over the map, Elimare cursed her decision to get up and join us (perhaps), and others tried their iPhones for some sort of desperate navigational epiphany, until we resigned ourselves to our fate and turned around. And started walking uphill, again.

The Gurrier, not one to take his medicine gladly, at one point left the pack and decided to strike out a new path for us, trudging through thick bracken and shrubbery, up a steep hill, and suddenly disappeared into the treeline, hidden from view.

I don't know if it was actually bracken, but it seems like the appropriate Tolkien-esque foliage description. And anyway, we were making all sorts of Sam-and-Frodo-march-through-Mordor jokes as we passed through a nasty bit of deforestated desolation.

Anyway, Donal disappears from view, and then Linus decided to follow. I stayed with the women. To protect them. From bears, or Gollum, or something. At least that's how I remember it.


Donal and Linus eventually came back, defeated once again, and we retraced our steps back to The Choice, and this time, chose wisely.

We finally found the car, and headed towards a small town for dinner. Something called a Rock Shandy was consumed, burgers and Irish stew and something vegetarian was eaten, and we eventually headed back to Dublin. We had planned to go into the city to visit a pub or two, but we were all just too exhausted. A cup of tea and some episodes of Arrested Development at Linus' flat were all we had in us, but at least I got to meet Franklin.

And then it was Sunday and I had to leave, back home, back to everything I know here, in Illinois, in my classroom, on my stage. They are all wonderful things to come home to.

But heading over to Dublin every now and then, despite the cost, is also something wonderful to come home to. That's how I see it now. I have my home here, and my friends, and I have a sort of home over in Ireland as well, and I have my friends in Ireland. They are wonderful people, and I feel incredibly lucky to be welcomed into their lives. It was four years ago this summer that the blogger Linus agreed to meet me in Grogan's for a pint, talking about comic books and mobile phones and introducing me to Elisa, Isobel, and Donal.

There's a guy named Chris Cope, another American friend of The Dubliners. He lives in Wales, and achieved two things that I've been unable and/or unwilling to get done: publish a novel, and live overseas. We both share a friendship with these guys, both have hung out with The World's Greatest Blogger, and we both like drinking. It's strange that we've yet to meet.

Not sure why I bring up Chris now, but he somehow seems to be mixed up in this grand story, and I'm curious to see what part he may play in the tales to come.

I leave for Europe in a week, once again spending my hard-earned cash on an expensive trip overseas. but it's what I want to do, what I need to do. This time I'll also see Bicyclemark, and hopefully JaG, and some new places, in addition to my old Irish haunts.

My dear, dear Kate told me last week that I always come back different after a trip. I told her she was wrong, but she might have been on to something. Travel always changes me, a bit, mostly because I travel solo, giving myself a long time alone with my thoughts, that rare chance to think about myself and my life.

I don't know if I'll come up with any grand realizations this time 'round. Bobby Neuwirth's coming with, and I won't be able to get lost in my head like I usually do, but that's probably a good thing. Mostly, I'm just looking forward to wandering around a bit, and seeing some good friends in far-flung places.