Cummings Family Reunion: Generation ZZ

My nephew. I have two. (One is a horse? No.)

 

Canned Soup

We keep some cans of Trader Joe Soup around. Just in case. Tonight was a just in case night. It was late. I was hungry. I opened it, heated it up and ate it.

It must be poison.

Something about food that has been frozen in time in some can…how can that be good for you?

It was calories, I guess.

There were the little chicken chunks.

The little gummy noodles.

Some spice. Carrots grown in some pesticide field.

Chicken with chemicals, right?

What was this stuff that I just ate?

It had its day. And it will go away.

But really, must we ever eat this?

Happy July

Get ready for autumn, summer is almost over!

I have noticed that after every Fourth of July, the summer feels like it is almost over.

I do not know if you have experienced this. You will see by August 10, the light is quite changed and there are even trees with a little autumnal wear and tear.

Now, this is not to say that we should be getting ahead of ourselves. I say this to remind myself to really enjoy the summer because it is actually so short.

And during the days that are super hot, hazy and humid (today was not one of them. Today was dry and 72)—just remember, it goes away.

So, as of today, good summer to all. Time flies. Like butter.

Thank You Sudafed

I grew up when it was feasible to arrive at the age of six years old and to have never talked to a black person. Sure, I saw them, maybe. But people were still extremely segregated. And this was in the New York suburbs, 30 miles from Times Square.

The big news in the local newspaper when I was entering the first grade was that two black teachers were hired for a mostly white school. Turns out, one of the teachers was mine. I did not know what was going to happen to me. Would I be at a great disadvantage because of this? Somehow, I knew I would be okay (having faith in the white people around me who I knew knew what they were doing).

My first grade teacher turned out to be incredible. Though she did beat Larry M. into submission and one day threw him into a trash can. Apparently, his parents signed a note that allowed him to be punished in this manner. However, after the trash can beating, I noted that she never laid a hand on him again. So I imagine someone gave her a talking to.

Today, while heading to the F train in Queens, I saw a guy with brown skin, most likely Hispanic, maybe Asian, maybe a mix of the two, drop a napkin on the mezzanine floor. I got very indignant and harummphed something like, “These fucking dirty brown people really come from an inferior culture. What is wrong with them?”

Then, I had a feeling, maybe I noticed it without realizing it, but I thought, “Look at his hands.”

Well, his right hand had no fingers on it. So you can’t even say he was butter fingers. Clearly, the guy drops shit all the time. Poor thing.

Then, I was on my Sudafed high on the subway and a huge black woman with completely fake plastic orange extensions in her hair sat next to me. Tattoos that demarked deaths. She got on the subway at the stop that was underneath the largest government housing complex in all of New York City: Kingsbridge. Quite a place. I actually like it.
With her was her incredibly cute daughter in a stroller. She was between one and two. Babies between one and two are pretty much the cutest things on the planet and she was no exception.

I was, as I have written, on my high (Sudafed, mashed up and concentrated is basically Crack) and I looked at that baby and I simply wanted to take her home. I smiled at her. She looked back at me with a cautious glare. I thought, “Damn, her Momma already taught her fear.”

But then I thought, “All I have to do is smile at her a little, then ignore her, and you know she’ll be wanting my attention again.”

Sure enough, I did it and it happened. We had a little flirtation going on. I felt like one of those nutty women in a mall parking lot who just had to steal that baby!

At first, Momma was leery of me. I felt her anger. Then, she saw I was no threat. Then, she fell asleep, clearly overworked or depressed or both. I also got the sense that she felt sort of safe knowing that this crazy middle aged white guy was watching her baby. And then, I got the sense (did I say I was on a Sudafed high?) that she wanted me to marry her, take care of the baby, make everything okay. And I swear I would have, only I had to be somewhere by 9.

Gimme that baby!

(Of course, this is a bit of Atlantic mirroring to my Pacific best friend Mary’s adoption of the cutest African American baby on the planet, Jake. But then, aren’t we all just one big fungus?)

Sluggish?

Creativity is the basis for a strong economy. People think it is consumerism, but really it is creativity. People will tire of most things (excluding pizza, bacon and sex). Get them involved in something new, they usually perk up.

However, people are afraid of new things because, well, people are afraid of death and even worse, living in some sort of unknown future pain.

This hurts us.

Usually, the creative impulse can bust through the fear impulse. However, the fear impulse is strong right now--but it can be passed with strong creative intentions.

If you are feeling sluggish or see sluggishness around you, look at it for what it is: a lack of creative force.

Then, get creative. And pass that along. Bust through the old timers who denounce the economy while at the same time add nothing new to it.

We don’t need a revolution. We just need an acceptance of what is great about us. It really is fun.

Throw out some things. Make room for the new.

The Big Question

What are you doing after the recession?

The fat has been trimmed. The foreclosures have foreclosed. The wars have been depleting. The oil has been spilled. The failure is complete.

It is time to rise up. So before you rise, it is a good time to ask: “How do I want it to be this time?”

I remember during the Clinton years when everyone I knew was writing a business plan or thinking about writing a business plan for a new internet start-up, or to come up with something like that or to hook up with someone who was doing just that. It was madness. People got the NASDAQ fever and went wild.

Even I, for a minute, thought, “Am I missing something? Should I invent a website?’

That was before the tech bubble. It burst. And things only got worse from then on.

But people were not thinking too much. Even after, they were holding onto the boom years as best they could, during the two wars after the terrorist attacks, all of it.

But that is all long over. And we collapsed. And now we are tentatively rising up. How are you going to do it this time? Will you get pulled into a bubble? Maybe you should be because it is your time. Maybe you’re an amazing cheese maker and the cheese bubble is about to begin. Get in there.

But maybe you’re not a cheese maker. Maybe you’re a great calculus teacher or an amazing painter or a damn fine office manager. Can you be those things and do them in a way that affirms your role in the new world order, post-recession, offering up your services but in service to some great change?

Or am I just a romantic fool? And is human behavior merely reactive to conditions on the ground and so people do not have time for this malarkey?

I just have this sense—that if you rise up, you could do it in a way that is less reactive and more insistent upon what is better and more forward thinking.

Something Else Maybe

Right Wing loons are accusing President Obama of using the oil deluge in the gulf as a means to change our energy policy. And how dare he!

That would be like if our society had swung so Socialist that one day you went out to buy some pistachio ice cream and someone informed on you because you should never ask for what you want, that you should only ask what is needed for the betterment of the group and the president started to offer people up some free choice and some Left Wing loon says, “How dare the president destroy our Socialism?”

When things swing too far, things get out of balance. We are a business country. Oil is king. It has to stop. Don’t use your free enterprise, money at all costs thinking to justify a future of oil, oil and more oil.

Now---widening the angle---if it is actually the government that wants more oil (for their tanks, bombs, gasoline, international security) and they are full on way into the drilling and do not regulate it, then that is simply too bad. In the short run, we need it. I hear it. So buy it. From whomever. But it is time for sun grids and trolley cars.

Off to Fire Island. Where there are no cars.

Today

I have confirmed that blogging is kind of dead.

I wrote at least sixty-five emails that required some thinking.

I cried about the turtles killed in the Gulf.

I lived through the Beaver Swamp that is this New York weather.

I stretched.

I ate in Tribeca.

I considered going to Iceland.

I sat in a very comfortable Herman Miller Aeron chair.

I attended to the summer calendar.

I checked my sales progress of six items on Ebay.

I wrote a little. But thought a lot about what to write.

I considered, along with everyone else, that Obama might be a Carter-Dinkins combo.

I had no caffeine.

I struggled with making a simple doctor’s appointment because our health insurance has changed.

I have confirmed with myself that State’s Rights are a lot of bullshit.

I wondered if I would be happy when it comes time to die.

I ate well.

I felt guilty about liking air conditioning while coal companies lop off mountaintops and throw them into streams to rip the guts out of them thar hills.

I drank lakes of water.

I looked online for places to live in Manhattan.

I thought about Brooklyn and how far it is from where I always need to go and I’m always so damn late that it seems like an unlikely choice for a tardy tard.

I thought about California and how laid back it is but also how kind of sleepy it can be, too.

I wore very comfortable shoes.

I did not make many jokes.

I found myself cheering people on, cheerily.

I worried about my health.

I lost nothing today.

I desired greens and got piles of them.

I listened to everyone and I cared as I could.

More PTown Pics

 

Provincetown

 

Tick Farm

 

The Jetty

 

Cape Tide

 

Landfill in a Purse

There I was enjoying my longest day of the year. I was considering buying a Kindle today and my friend said, “Wait.”

I like simple advice.

Then a few hours later I was on the subway and next to me a young woman in black leggings and a shiny rhinestone necklace pulled out a Kindle. She poked around, then put it away. Next, out came the iPad. She played like a monkey (like you’re supposed to) all over the screen.

At first I thought, “Oh, she must be a reviewer of readers.”

But that was my denial engine not believing that anyone could be so insane as to zip around town with two different electronic readers in their bag.

Creativity is what gets us so many things. Redundancies, of course, too. We have to live with it. I just wish we could live with it creating everything with full knowledge that in just a few years, these things will be landfill.

Books last longer than iPads.

 

Closest Thing to CA

Provincetown is the closest thing I have experienced that feels like California. Good sea air, exceptionally laid back, lifestyle is everything. And the added bonus: it's still super queer.

Enjoy yourselves this summer.


 

Off to P-Town for the Weekend

Heading out to Provincetown for the weekend to see our girls triumph in a 130 mile bike ride from Boston to said town.

I heard last night at a party that New York State now recognizes marriages outside the state. So I could marry my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner this weekend and make him an honest Recognized-by-a-handful-of-States-and-Washington D.C. husband. I bet if I get a few drinks in him, and maybe a clam roll, he'd do it.

 

This Grease is Freaking Me Out

Perhaps it’s a plain old neurotic personality. Little things bother me. (Toenail fungus, temperature, loud voices, chunky flows of income as opposed to smooth, garlic where it should not be…)

And then for weeks, I pretty much ignored the oil mess. I have read that going into denial is a coping mechanism and while it is often derided, it is actually an adaptive behavior that has come in very handy for us for survival.

So I’ve been a bit in denial, thinking, “Hell, they’ll put a lid on it.”

But shit. They really have no plan to do anything until they get those new wells drilled, hitting their destination by August.

It’s a monster movie.

The monster is oil.

And will it really be taken care of by August? Over six weeks away? While all these gorgeous animals are either being sucked into the ooze or fleeing, wildly, into cleaner, shallow water away from the mess where they should not be—

So my non-regulation, free enterprise at all cost friends, what say ye? Is this just the cost of doing business?

And, to my regulation friends, how do you regulate this? What is the precedent, even, and how do you know that a company knows what they are doing?

Shit happens? Oil happens?

I am not in denial any longer. I am sad and terrified. Mostly because I do not think we will learn from this. O rings (The Challenger disaster due to poor management at NASA, 1986) is what comes to mind.

Mid-June Simple Headed Ideas

When you get caught up in dogma-religion-political ideology, all analytical thought is subsumed by childish desire for a unifying theory.

If your greatest passion does not include some commerce, you are considered subversive, or even worse, lazy. Commerce is exciting. But commerce is restrictive according to who is signing the checks. The only way out: death.

New York is more interesting. Los Angeles is more fun.

The thrill of new shoes lasts five days.

The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is nothing compared to the difference between a Scientologist and a non-Scientologist.

As I get older, things hurt a whole lot more. I used to say, “I am not my teeth and hair.” Now I say, “I am not my body.” No wonder the idea of an afterlife is so appealing.

Bought a used Herman Miller Aeron chair today. I feel like I am sitting on a writing throne. It is so comfortable. And the webbing, well, I feel like you can hose me down at any time.

I really want dogs to be the next species to rise up and take over the planet. I think their pack mentality will do wonders for the globe. And their math skills are far superior to ours. However, can you imagine what all of the world’s rugs are going to smell like?

People make the mistake of thinking that what they think is logical and then make the next mistake thinking that others think like them.

Candy corn is neither candy nor corn. Talk about it.

The ego, though helmeted and riding high, is a sad warrior.

The joy of listening to your own iTunes library is inversely proportional to the joy of listening to someone else’s.

I often find myself wanting more. Then when I get it, I just want something to eat or to drink to celebrate. Which is just about more. Might be interesting to want less.

Ten little Indians?

When Frito-Lay invented Funyuns, didn’t they realize it rhymed with bunions in addition to onions? So why did they make them flesh colored?

Ginger tea is the answer. Tons of flavor. Good for your stomach. No caffeine. Not even near the caffeine family. And ginger does not dehydrate.

They're Here

Since we’ve been living in New York City since August of 2009, we have become aware that we have friends who are Republicans.

It is strange. It is hard to take. Occasionally, you wonder what the hell happened.

It is an issue of geography. Everyone in Southern California is a Democrat. It makes complete sense. This is a more relaxed, live and let live, let’s all get along at the register kind of place.

But in New York, people come here to make a bundle, to live like a fake king, to grab. And the best way to do that is to be taxed as little as possible.

I feel sad for the Republicans. It’s an aesthetic issue, beyond being a humanist issue. Have you ever been to the house of a Republican? Unless it’s the classic Wasp-redo, the whole endeavor is poorly put together.

If Republicans hate Democrats and want us dead, fine. But they must keep us around at least to make sure they don’t have completely ugly houses.

Republicans are scared. They have world views that are as big as their family, maybe their community, that is it. A huge world? Nah, too much. One wants them to say, “Awww, hell, let mayhem reign. We’ll be fine.”

But I like my Republican friends. For the most part, they are adventurous and a bit wealthy. They can take a Polish joke. And they are not afraid to live life at full tilt.

But you can’t believe, you just can’t believe that they don’t believe in Universal Health Care.

A Tony for Tony

I want to say YAY! for my friend Tony who just started to work on a show (La Cage aux Folles) and his show now has a load of Tonys, including Best Musical Revival. So nice.

But what was not so nice was the sound of the awards broadcast. How can you produce a television show and have the sound get that wacked?

For years in Hollywood I did the books for a load of production companies. I have run payroll through for the producing team of tonight's show for television specials, including awards shows that we taped for live broadcast. Funny, these guys were always competent, and certainly exceptionally confident. Well guys, NEXT TIME MAKE SURE IT ALL WORKS! Or I'll make sure someone docks your pay.

More time on quality, in general, I say.

But back to the positive. The show had humor. Theatre is still a dork festival of dorksters. In the best way?

And here we are. Foggy night. Summer arriving. And today, my parents are married for 53 years.

For Ruth: My Sister's First Holy Communion

Ruth was our neighbor and my sister's best friend back in the day. She makes an appearance around the 16 second through the 22 second.

These clips, okay, okay, I know, they're mostly fun for the people who are in them. But still...

Birch Hill Game Park

Clearly where I learned to love goats.

With my sister and cousins, and hooved beasts.

Public Reading--Art by the Ferry FRIDAY night

Adam and Don

Will be reading well tested original material in this year’s

ART BY THE FERRY

Curated by the beautiful and talented Marian Fontana with published authors and other people who aren’t afraid to get up to tell it like it is.

Friday, June 11 @ 8PM

At the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, Staten Island. The boat is FREE in both directions!

The event is free (Well, a little donation is appreciated) and it’s not long.

And it’s always good to have a quaff afterward. We sure will.

Building 11 at the Lighthouse Plaza, Enter at 1 Bay Street

See link of detailed map below. It’s basically right outside the Ferry Terminal to your left.

ART BY THE FERRY

Staten Island Ferry Schedule:

Ferry Schedule

(On the average, about every 18 minutes from Manhattan)

There will be food around.

Don Says:

“The other writers are funny. I might even do an original song.
Adam and I have done these relationship companion pieces before. They are sure to please. It’s a happening. In Staten Island. On a warm night. With a free boat ride. What could be better?”


The Readers:

MARIAN FONTANA - Author of “Widow’s Walk” a memoir, and many monologues performed by herself at Playwrights Horizon and other venues.
DON CUMMINGS - Author of 9 critically acclaimed plays, some movies and a book. www.doncummings.net
ADAM WARING – Writer on “Two and a Half Men” and “Still Standing,” and a rash of Disney Read Along Records, plus readings at HBO’s Sit n Spin.
LISA DIERBECK – Author of New York Times notable book: “One Pill Makes You Smaller”.
MORNA MARTELL - Author and noted actress. Recently wrote “A Peaceful Crossing for the Sundog Theater production of Scenes from the SI Ferry. Morna Murphy Martell, an actor-writer-director, has done shows in London, New York, Washington, DC, Edinburgh and Hollywood. Awards include an NEA; DCA grants, and grants from COAHSI. Her comedy, “The Three Wives of Harry Simpson,” won a national contest in Oklahoma City where it had its world premiere in October, 2008. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and Actor’s Equity Association.
JOHN FOXELL - Author and artist, recently recognized in a bio in the NY Times.
IRA GOLDSTEIN - Local poet and short story writer. Mr. Goldstein was published by Home Planet News, Independent Literary Review, and COAHSI newsletter

Make Em Get Married!

Notice how Mike White makes the younger, cuter guy get fatter with time!

This is a fun youtuber, and it makes the point in a funny way. I mean, the point’s already been made. It illustrates it, cinematically, clearly.

What they should show, though, and no one is talking about this (and I’ve been in one of these torture chambers for almost 17 years) is that after it gets dull, it usually gets mean, and then it gets distant and then it gets tragic and then it comes together. Like most marriages.

We are still not talking about how it really can go on for a real long time and it can get just as complex as a straight marriage.

You might have to sign in to You Tube and click that you’re 18 to see this one.

Terry Cummings Christening

What I Saw in the Hamptons

A yellow finch.

Cardinals.

A wild turkey. I named her Diane. But I don’t think it stuck.

Two deer.

A handful of Humans swilling hundreds of dollars worth of wine.

Homemade pizza.

A Portuguese water dog.

A bruised left ring finger from where the Portuguese water dog bit me, but did not break the skin.

Industrial buildings outside the train tracks.

Sag Harbor. Say yes to Sag Harbor.

Peconic Bay.

Great properties with swimming pools.

First generation physicians.

A hearing aid.

Italian furniture.

Gravel driveways.

Scrub oaks with lichens.

Pine.

Stars.

Tomatoes.

Cummings Family Footage: Reunion

Big Cummings Family Reunion Coming...Time for old home movies!

Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead

Unless you have a little story.

Living in Hollywood for many years you end up doing a lot of work you had not imagined you would ever do. I got by, for a long time, being a production accountant. Yes, I’m good with numbers and I’m not even Chinese.

One of my clients, or really, she was my boss, S, well, I loved her and her partner and I pushed through the payroll paperwork and accounts payable checks for great shows like, America’s Most Fascinating Women, Where are they Now?, The Ultimate T.V. Trivia Challenge, you know, real cultural markers.

(Though much of what is not needed is made in Hollywood, this does not mean it was not fun to make.)

Now here is the story. So my boss, S, she owned the house that used to be Rue McClanahan’s house in Studio City. And the day of closing, I guess it was during Golden Girls days, Rue and her ten-plus cats would not budge. She just couldn’t do it. (I understand. It’s hard to move.)

They tried coaxing her out with flashy vests and cans of tuna (okay, not really, they got a lawyer). And finally, by almost force, they got her out of the house, paid mountains of money to clean up the cat filth and then moved in.

Was this a case of neurotic attachment? Or was it because she was an entitled star and did not want to be told when to do something, well I don’t know.

But if I was a T.V. actress with a passel of pussies and refused to budge long after closing, well, I would expect someone to blog about it and so consider it blogged.

Years later, when S’s business collapsed and all that was left of her staff was me and a few old imacs, we moved to the rec room of her house, Rue’s old house, and I sat there and did the books about once a month for a few months and then I quit and kept quitting doing accounting until I left Los Angeles, never to punch in another number for pay again.

Now, I am not trying to be all catty here, no pun intended. It’s just, I had this close up experience in Rue’s old house. I have no idea what she was like. I knew a few writers from Golden Girls, and there are some stories there---but those are not germane to sweet Rue’s death.

Apparently, her memorial is very democratic. She did not want to have a funeral. What there is is a big ol’ Facebook page. Jump on if you like.

Facebook Memorial Page

Al and Tipper and a Little Grease at the End

Come on! So Edwards didn’t make it. Gore is not making it. And the Clintons, well, they did…even after that pesky beej. What does this sort of prove?

You have to be tough as hell and committed like crazy to be in a successful marriage or to be President of the United States.

What else could it prove?

That trying to become President of the United States and losing destroys your marriage.

Or, most likely, none of the above.

I wonder what did the Gores in. Was it all his traveling, all her depression, his slightly lisping poorly pitched voice, or a combination of all these things?

Will we ever know?

I like it when people keep it “classy.”

Poor Al. I wonder if this will push him toward fatter or thinner. He never had the charisma of Clinton or the smile of Edwards, but he has something better: some sort of integrity, while bordering on overly earnest, but still, something is very right with him.

It is never fun to see a long term marriage break up. If a six monther or even a three yearer goes down in flames, well, you usually think, “They should not have gotten married so quickly,” or “They were much better off just being unmarried,” or “They should have never been together anyway.”

But with these long ones, you just feel sort of sad. And you hope that all their past public displays of affection and their heartfelt books about each other weren’t all just a bunch of bullshit.

Did they always have medium to big problems and while in the public eye used the wide platform to act as-if they were a great couple? Or, were they a solid couple and recently something went down? Or did they simply whither away from each other?

Strange. Why add to the loneliness at that point in your life? Or, were they one of those alone-together couples? I wish the sweet things well.

Now, how about that oil spill? It’s upsetting me so much, I have gone into denial, clamping down, just waiting for it to pass.

Henri Cartier-Bresson at MOMA

Go. Today.

Henri Cartier-Bresson at MOMA

He has been all over the world. Henri C-B, in addition to his clear technique and his eye for perfect but spontaneous composition, this man also had great material! The modern century. That’s the 20th Century. Amazing pictures of everyday life in every part of the world. Also, Gandhi’s funeral, portraits of Camus, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, etc. Some of the photos are so moving, you just kind of cry. His pictures are full of narrative. And maybe a snarkier man than I might find this all a bit sentimental, but that man would be missing much.

The show is a bit overwhelming. Huge, in fact. But worth the couple of hours. Try to go when you think there won’t be a million people there.

So much is living in the photos.

World Trade Center

I watched them go up as a kid. Yeah, I’m that old. And it was exciting. They were to be the tallest buildings on earth. And they were, for a while.

It was cool. It made you feel like something big was happening in New York, that huge city thirty miles away that was filthy, ridden with crime and hot dogs.

And then they came down. I was in Ojai. I thought the store clerk who told us about it must have been mad. Then I called my Dad who said in his strong Art Carney accent, “Can you believe this? It’s unbelievable.”

And then we went back to the B&B and watched it on the T.V., cut our trip short and went back to Los Angeles and watched it on television night after night. Like everyone else.

Now, we are here and we are watching the new building go up. I keep ending up near there. And it keeps going up. I feel like a kid, like a kid who is so excited about something going up.

It looks pretty sturdy. But who knows?

Friends of Don't Ask Don't Tell

I think everyone, Dems, Repubs, super lefties and Libertarians can agree—homosexuals in the military---Totally.

I think Obama is a bit of a black phobe, but he’s all behind it.

This is a no-brainer and everyone is like, yeah, this is a no-brainer.

Why are gay men so good at linguistics? Not to mention, why are gay women so good with their military stance?

Here we go. This is a quick one. Welcome to the current world, all.

Not that I want a military at all. But, well, if we must we must.

The Key

The key to happiness…seems to be coming up with people.

I find this, and it is not workable: if I get to some sort of functioning middle ground, all is well.

But adulthood is not like that.

I had one of those early childhoods that was very serene. Lots of family. Very reliable feeding schedule. Simple days. Repetitive days. Any surprises were quick and quickly dispatched.

Many people look for that “great moment” when everything disappears except for some magnificent grandiose pleasure. Those are fun. But they don’t last so I do not go looking. Plus, they stink of escapism and addiction. Of course, the troughs, no one goes looking for them (except for deep neurotics) and they, thankfully, do not last either. But the middle ground, you can make that last for a very long time. And it is pleasurable. Some Buddhists find it.

But then, I often find myself saying, “Fuck the Buddhists! They’re just afraid to really take a chance.”

So I ride between taking chances, because you have to, and then retreating back to middle ground. Perhaps taking chances and not worrying where you land is the middle ground…


Bunions, ugly shoes, irregular sleep, people banging into things.

Exercise

Why do we resist it? I mean, you exercise and everything gets better. Your mood. Your self esteem. Your body. Especially mine. I am one of those lucky people who—as soon as I work out---I have instant muscle tone and a natural growth of the stuff. And yet---I would rather sit like veal on a loaf of bread than get up the gumption to exercise.

Additionally, when you exercise, you end up getting all this natural regulation with your metabolism so naturally, you reach less for caffeine or wine to push you up or down.

Frankly, and yes, I am mostly speaking like some guy named Frank, frankly, the resistance to exercise is sort of medieval and a form of not being evolved. I hate to denigrate myself, but someone has to do it!

So I am stating publicly---I am going to exercise three times, possibly four, every week. And if I don’t, well, I don’t.

And lots of water.

Does anyone besides me, when they are working out and drinking a lot of water and losing weight, end up getting darker? Like you look tan? I swear, it’s some sort of fat-breaking-down thing going through the blood that makes me appear this way. Or something.

I usually do not talk about body stuff on my blog. It seems very aerobics-1989 to do so. And maybe a bit, I don’t know, girly? But I felt a need to go public. I have been such a sloth.

Drama Desk

I still don’t understand what the Drama Desk Awards are…but I went. Sort of NY star studded. Etc. I approached an actress and I said to her, which is true, “I am a friend of KS who gave you my new play that I wrote for you.”

And she said, “I was in a play. I didn’t read it. I’m such an asshole.”

Then, she turned away from me and introduced herself to a total stranger.

Then, she ran into KS and said she met me and he worked her over.

Face time is everything. But it does give you rickets.

Personality Disorder

Sometimes I wish I were one of two things:

1. A person who needed no attention at all, happy to be an accountant or petty civil servant and simply be done with it from 9-5 and then come home to an uneventful but satisfying home life.

2. A Swedish fisherman who is so simple minded but also so tall and healthy and not easily riled up and certainly without allergies.

I am neither of these two things.

MidMay Thoughts

1)People try to do what they can. They often end up watching television.

2)Marriage works if you work it. If you don’t, it becomes a nuisance. So just work it.

3)Small feet can do it. You just have to move them faster.

4)I would like to see what a libertarian world looks like. I would stand back and let it happen. But I can already see it. I would have to become a nurse.

5)Arizona, come to Queens. This is the future. It’s quite brown. It’s interesting. It is certainly alive. People are busy. Kind of cool. Why not enjoy it?

6)I believe this is a miracle. So what? The beauty is, it cannot be explained. Another dish of cous cous please.

7)The body has to move.

8)I have a Facebook friend who is in Junior High. It’s creepy and informative.

9)The weather in New York City truly sucks. On the other hand, it will be so interesting when this city is gone and it converts back to mosquitoes and beavers.

10)I don’t want to be fat. But I like to eat. Tricky losing weight. I don’t know how you can.

Battle Royale

This whole States Rights fetish is just a reflection of how much people (especially Americans) like to fight. The states fight with the Feds. The states fight with each other (gimme that river water!).

I like to fight, or at least, I appreciate a challenge. But I would rather have my adversary in any challenge be the difficulty of the project or a race against time.

But to fight other people? Endlessly? Why?

It’s a waste of time and energy and it really does not suit us well.

Vermont is Forever

We went to our niece’s graduation on Sunday. Had a great meal in N. Adams at Mass MOCA. Go eat there, total slow food thing: Gramercy Bistro. Best meal in weeks.

Sunday was the graduation at Marlboro College in Vermont. You know, it’s hard to graduate. Life nipped. I couldn’t wait to get out of college. I ran up a tree trunk sideways after my last final. I was so happy to no longer have to do assignments of any kind.

But after you graduate, the world does get slippery. You’ve been in school since you were five years old and now, suddenly, you are supposed to know how to live this whole new life? No wonder people go insane at this age.

Big time of transition.

But some things are eternal. Like nature. And staying at this farm house in Vermont is really what one wants to do if one wants that. Thrills the young, medium or old soul to the core.

Mountains from the farmhouse. Not a single manmade thing in site.



Old Stone fencepost, no longer in use.



Lilacs. Yes. Eternally grateful.



The Barn.



And what likes to live in barns (for the rodent treats)?
Milk Snakes.



What a face!

Another Little Way to Save Your Computer From Viral Damnation

On a PC, open Adobe Reader. Click Edit>>Preferences. Select Trust Manager from the menu on the left. Look for the PDF File Attachments heading. Uncheck the box labeled, "Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications." Click OK.

That is is, it is fast and easy to fix.

This will "block" any malware viruses that could be included in pdf files that are sent around.

Similar in Mac.

Guys---I'm just trying to save you time. Better to do this thing now then to wake up in a Koobface nightmare later.

Yours in Hard-Drive purity,

Don

Late Night It Is

There’s this thing I have had to face for about sixteen years. I stay up late. And then I sleep in. And I feel guilty. I usually sleep eight or eight and a half hours. The rest of the day is pretty much busy. But I get to bed so late and it’s supposed to be sort of bad for you. And sometimes, not being in synch with the sun, you end up with problems.

Why do I do it?

It’s simple. Because during the day it’s nothing but people people everywhere. Calling. Texting. Emailing. Throwing rocks through my window with notes attached. It’s completely fantastic and I would not want it to be any other way.

But when you’re a writer, you need time when you are completely alone and quiet. I find the only time of day for such a thing is after midnight. (I know, some people get up at 6 AM and write for a few hours before the day begins. I don’t even understand what it is to be an organism at that time of day.)

So, I get my four hours in at the end. After all the calls and meetings and shenanigans. After the pork chops. After the one or two glasses of wine followed by the three or four cups of tea with just one aching tea bag. After the exercise that never happened. After the bills. After the cleaning. After the facebooking. After the paper. After the emails. After the show. After the whole damn shebang.

Living is very important. Writing comes second. If writing came first, I bet I would not have much to write about.

They Say

In your wiring, you either lean more toward autism or schizophrenia. Apparently, there’s a choice here (or a condition here). Based on my flights of internal dialogue, the ability to feel anything as if it happened yesterday and a hint of paranoia I believe I am more schizophrenic than autistic. For me, human interactions become larger and last longer than they actually are whereas someone who leans more toward autism the reverse would be true.

How do you lean?

The Neanderthal is Back

Hello friends. No, I wasn’t in my cave painting, I was traveling. The blog entries grew fewer. People stood on their digital stoops waiting yet nothing arrived. Forgive me.

But I am back! And more Neanderthal than ever!

I love that we Human Beings interloped with the Neanderthals and that anywhere between 1 and 4 percent of my Euro (or Asian) DNA is Neanderthal. I am sure I am more like 4 percent. You can sort of smell it on me.

In case you have not been reading about it, they have discovered, by comparing DNA, that earlier humans had sexual relations with Neanderthals. So here we are.

I wonder what those sexual relations were like. Were Neanderthals invited over to Cro-Magnon houses for truffles and sherry and the next thing you know, someone’s in the upper cave making the two different beasts with two different backs?

Or was it something much less dignified? Like inter sub-species rape? And these rapes went in either specie direction depending upon size and fleetness? It remains a mystery. Though, one hopes in the future that DNA shows markings of all history to its minutest detail. That would be great. “According to this DNA, his great-great grandfather ate three potatoes three days before his death, listened too much to Puccini (when he should have been listening to his own heart) and rarely bathed.”

I love my inner Neanderthal. I feel him. He is the loser who somehow won.

 

Blogger's Weekend

I’m a bit on holiday. Are you? There is something about just letting it go and such. Pressure: nah.

Pay Attention

The longer you wait, the longer it takes. But what is interesting is---you have to wait for some things and not push. So one figures out when to wait, when to take action, when to rest and let it firm up, when to go full steam ahead. It’s good to pay attention to all that.

Well Well Well, Or...

BP: Better Pollution

Friends, it is cheap to keep doing the same thing, we all know this. It is expensive to change. And people are so naturally cheap. (What, give up my McMansion so a bunch of people can have clean air and water? Fuck you man.)

Even after this clean up, how many more cleanups will we have to do before we get over this oil thing? Think forward, friends. I know, I know, the sun, the wind, a joke, right? Not really. They’re forever. And they don’t cover the ducks and beaches with grease.

Why can’t we have less now and more later?


 

Hi Friends

I simply want to say this at this time. I love all people no matter what color they are or where they come from. I mean, I have this super fucking WASP boyfriend with a ginger beard and ridiculously blue eyes and I think it’s lovely and all, but really, it’s only because the neighbor boy growing up looked like that and I was imprinted. Boys are weird. We are sexually told what’s what at a young age. I am just so grateful mine had nothing to do with a spatula.

But forgetting sex and love and imprinting, I think everyone is so lovely and beautiful and I don’t care if you crawl across the Sonora Desert, come on in. Do what you must. I know I do. Give it a try. If they deport you, well, they deport you, but in the meantime, they might give you a Green Card because they will be handing them out, and maybe you can get your hands on one of those.

I have been to Mexico many times. And I do think the United States has more to offer in the opportunity department. So if you want to come here for that, I completely understand. Just work, keep your nose clean, educate those kids, don’t throw garbage on your lawn, keep the radio down and rock to it. At least, that’s my preference.

Do what you must. I would do exactly what you are doing if I was in your shoes. Maybe the U.S. will keep an eye on all this and make it a nicer transition for you. Maybe not. But know that I am so glad you are here. It’s so interesting.

New York Is

Sometimes when I walk these streets while listening to all the sirens and the honking, I witness people from all walks of life dressed in their chosen socio-economic drag in order to solidify their place in this concrete pile of a city, some of them who only know the word Fuck, some of them with frozen faces of hostile greed, many of them bewildered and in various states of urban desire, I come to the conclusion that this big apple of a town is just like Colonial Williamsburg and the people in it are just acting their parts for the entertainment pleasure of the tourists.

 

Tonight's Blog is Brought to You by Nyquil

 

Walking Makes You Think

Hiding out in my apartment as the pollen count climbs to ten-zswadrillion particles per milliliter, one’s mind slows down.

There is something about walking outside that really shakes things up. You get the new ideas, the new connections. It makes you understand that there is really almost never a reason to sit-and-think. In fact, sitting and thinking probably brings you tired answers. Being engaged in activity is zippy and gives rise to original thought, at least for me.

Also, talking to others.

Taking a shower.

In fact, anything in the bathroom seems to give rise to new ideas.

Drugs and booze do this, too---but you don’t want to rely on that.

Sitting in a different spot can help. Although it can be scary.

It is strange when the pollen takes over. I have no choice but to respect Momma Nature when this is going on. (And mold in October on the leaves). It always gives me a different perspective and a slightly different way of thinking.

I love trees so much. Apparently, they planted too many of just a few types in cities, this is why people are more allergic than ever.

Like anyone else with a handicap, I experience limitation. But luckily it is seasonal. But it makes you think about thinking. Maybe here is the gratitude: all things that change you for better or for worse do something to your personality. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. Slowing down is interesting. But I do prefer my faster thoughts.

Promises Promises

So many reviews of Promises Promises out there, none of them great. There seems to be a feeling that the show is lacking in wattage. I have to say, I thought the proceedings were quite lively, the design quite beautiful and the acting and singing, for the most part, quite wonderful. What is it with critics? I guess they have a preconceived notion about how things should go. My biggest beef was that Sean Hayes didn't sing all that well---but no one else shared my opinion, so it was probably just jealousy on my part, having never starred in a Broadway play or nuttin. Ms. Chenoweth sang amazingly and yes, she was a bit long in the toothies to be up there as the ingenue. Whatever.

It's always good to hear Burt Bacharach live. And it was fun to go to opening night, Neil Simon and Burt up on stage for the curtain call, the apres party at The Plaza Hotel, star studded in a very homey way, people yacking and mingling and eating and drinking.

Go see the play. It's schnazzy. And the opening scene of Act II is so funny, a rough pickup on Christmas Eve, it is worth the price of admission. Brilliant.

But back to the party.

I realized something about New York City last night. It really is colonial Williamsburg. All tarted up in its special way and people acting accordingly to make it seem authentic. The rococo style of the grand ballroom of the Plaza is so silly. Our good friend Chrissy calls the style, "Hungarian Whorehouse."


 

New Muslim Target

We've been researching neighborhoods in New York. Went down to northern Battery Park City which calls itself Tribeca. We walked by the new World Trade Center iron going up. This is the new single tower they are building to replace the two towers that pancaked into a cloud after those Isalmic lunatics destroyed them with their planes they hijacked.

This construction looks solid and old fashioned to me. Good luck.

 

More Volcanic Activity

I have a play that is in development here in New York. It is called A GOOD SMOKE. New York producers like to have readings, lots of them.

We put together a reading starring a couple of Broadway actors. But one of them is in a show right now, La Cage aux Folles. But wait. That pesky volcano spurted more lava my way.

Many of the London producers and the legendary Jerry Herman were stuck in New York when they should have been in London, southeast of Iceland and unfortunately shrouded in ash.

They had nothing to do so they decided to call a special rehearsal and notes session for La Cage and so my actor who was free today was plucked away from me by bored volcano victims.

But luckily, my grand reading producer, KS, jumped right up there and took the role and he was brilliant. It was like a modern Mother Earth plot of All About Eve.

But with a happier ending.

KS was brill. The day was an enjoyable success. Though I did tuck my bunchy button down shirt into my underwear to keep it smooth and in place and after everyone had left, Adam pointed to my lower back and said, “Did you know the band of your underwear is showing in the back?”

Which, of course, had nothing to do with the volcano.

Public Service Announcement

I just have to write it every couple of months for all my Open Trenchers to Read:

1)Update your anti-virus software and do a full scan.

2)Go into your web browser under Internet Options and Delete your history, cookies, etc.

3)BACK UP YOUR DAMN HARD DRIVE. Summer’s coming. Electrical storms are near. Volcanoes are erupting. Bunnies are chewing everything. Back it up. Pictures, Music, Videos, Web faves, Data bases, Everything.

Volcanic Panic

While walking back to my apartment on this beautiful clear sky evening, I saw two men talking, one was tall and lost and sounded and looked German, the other one was an average height Queens guy. The German was asking for help and the Queens guy didn’t understand him, got frustrated and fled. I decided to turn around and help…Hell, I took one semester of German.

I asked the guy what language he spoke and he said German and I said, “Ich kanne ein bichen Deutsche sprechen.” After that he spoke rapidly and with some distress and I didn’t understand a word he said, unless he massacred a little English, which he did. Something about his son in Miami. Then, he showed me his cell phone and was asking if the number displayed was a Miami number. His son lives in Miami. This man had just left Miami, “Where it was nice and warm and the people were nice.” He was unhappy with being in New York. Had no plans to be here. And he asked me three different times if, “This is Chelsea.” I said, sadly, “No. Queens.”

He was staying in an apartment in our building with two women with a small common area, which distressed him. Sounds like they got on some sort of help-and-we’ll-give-you-cash list by some airline. We do not live far from LaGuardia. We are also close-ish to JFK.

So this German guy (from Frankfurt) left his son in Miami, flew to New York and was on his way to Frankfurt when the plane turned around and dropped him back at the airport. Volcanic ash trouble.

But I still did not understand what he wanted. At first, I thought his son was on some sort of lam and this man was trying to figure out, by looking at the area codes, where his son was hiding. But that was not the case as I realized not only had he been to Miami looking for his son, but he actually had been with his son. But what was the deal about this Miami phone number? Basically, it was all about this area code problem and I was trying to look up the area codes on my cell phone web browser but my not-state-of-the-art Samsung Blackjack phone had trouble, so clearly we needed to get to a computer so I could check out this area code, though my phone did show on a googled site, for a second, that it was Miami. But we needed confirmation even though I had no idea why.

So I invited Mr. Deutschland up to my apartment. He was Euro-polite and did not want to intrude and also maybe afraid I was going to chop him up in the bathtub. But we proceeded. I fired up the computer and I looked up the area code and sure enough it was Miami. Then we got to the heart of the trouble. He showed me his phone and he showed me what he had been doing---sometimes placing a 0 in front of the number, sometimes a 1, sometimes a 01. He indicated by deleting numerals that he did not know if these other digits should be there in order to make the dialing go through. Ah! He needed to stop all that. So by miming, I told him to delete the 0 and the 1 and just dial with the area code and phone number and that would work. (Attention all international travelers. Usually when you go to another country your cell phone gets zapped into the local cell system. So dial as if you live there. When in Rome…)

Anyway, he dialed just the area code and phone number and started to hear a ring on the other end and was pleasantly surprised. His son answered, the German language flew, I got every thirtieth word…and I started putting away the day’s stuff, mail, paper, etc. Clearly, there was much talk about flugs, which are flights or planes. His son and he were figuring it all out. The deal: This man had just been in Miami with his son, had left Miami to fly through NYC to go to Frankfurt, came here, got stuck here, got stuck in a small apartment, and wanted to get the hell out of here but could not and so he had to speak to his son in Miami, using the right phone number, who is fluent in German and English to take care of all this.

In the middle of his German conversation on the phone, he shook my hand so as to say goodbye and Danke. And he was out the door and into the elevator.

Volcanoes. Affecting the streets of Queens.

April List

1. I like to find people on Facebook who share my name. It’s a completely shallow connection, but it is fun.

2. Most people with my name are accountants, bankers, insurance men with MBA’s. I see a bit of music in there, too.

3. This spring has been beautiful. The tree flower season is very long.

4. Having a reading this week of my play, A GOOD SMOKE, one mo’ time for the fellas with the producing cred. Development. They call it that. I’m open.

5. Obama is still crafty.

6. The United States is simply changing. Well, I think it is. I remember when Reagan was first elected. I felt like I was hit in the face with a skillet.

7. There are lots of skillets. So get ready.

8. If France is so great, why don’t I live there?

9. Why on earth must I buy a new cell phone every two years?

10. To be alive is pretty simple. You just have to pay attention. And when people try to convince you to not pay attention, pay attention to that.

My Republican Friends

I have Republican friends. It’s funny!

What I like about all of them, and I do mean all of them, is they have this wry detachment about the human condition. And why not?

I mean, you might as well consider yourself separate from the crowd because humanity is, ultimately, a big frigging mess.

We all see the rare outstanding things human beings do and we applaud. Great for us! But most actions we witness are simply common. And much human discourse is nothing special, at best, or really stupid and harmful at the worst. So why not have wry detachment and say, “Fuck it! I just want to take care of my own time, my own stack of cash? Okay? Take care of the military and the roads and just leave me alone with all those other people I do not want to have anything to do with. Government, go away, I can take care of myself, and take all those needy frigging brown people with you.”

And I kind of agree. I grew up in a comfy suburb. My life has been weirdly stressful but also incredibly easy.

So I like my Republicans. They are cynical and funny and you can still make an insensitive off-color joke with them and they laugh and no one feels bad for having had a good laugh at someone else’s expense.

Cool. Sure. People are mean. But they don’t really mean it.

But I still want universal health care for all, including all illegal immigrants, fantastic free education for all, through graduate school, extreme government oversight over the markets, with, yes, a world government putting the brakes on things whenever possible.

So I am, of course, a liberal. But I still like to laugh with my harsh, hard working, humorous Republican friends. But we all know my collectivey-touchy-I-love-everyone-man idealistic soul is a rock of forever. But we all get along, my Repubs and me. It isn’t that hard.

Not to be all narcissistic, but why can’t congress do this, too? Everyone has become way too serious and combative. Does anyone laugh at themselves, the human condition, any of it anymore? I believe it is time to get friendly. Stop being so serious about your point of view. It’s only your point of view and you’re just one person and you’re not right, you’re just part of being right. It’s collective, man. But that’s my point of view. Not to button this thing up…

Obama Giving a Gay Hoot

I do not want to write about Obama giving directive health care rights to gay people. But I guess I have to.

Sort of.

Thank you.

I am so tired of it all. A week or so ago, I blogged about incremental change being just fine. And I believe, functionally, it is still the way to go.

However, this slog is a long one. And I will be so old before it is close to over.

Why are rights not automatic?

We keep moving.

Obama Forward

This guy is moving fast. From Health Care to Securing Nukes, he has a To Do list and he expects people to fall in line. And they do.

If you are a registered Democrat and/or Obama supporter, do you keep getting all the emails of the videos of President Obama doing this and that, selling his line, letting you know what it’s all about? Even I, a supporter, feel like I am being bombarded by a wild propaganda machine. It is smart. The administration, along with the sympathetic left-wing media elite, have this country in a choke hold. The opposing tea party, its voice shrinking into racist grumbling, can barely be heard under the Center-Lefty din. “What’s that noise? Three of the last little deranged leftover tea children acting up in the school yard over being afraid to share their dollies with anyone else?” Cannot compare. Might is making right. Lefty might.

Which is to say, I am disgusted. Sure, it is pleasurable that “my side” is winning right now. But in order for that to happen, my president has to present himself as a school teacher/car salesman? To teach and to sell?

What is the other way? There must be one? Maybe not.

I was reading Marx quotes today. They say Marx got a few things wrong but he leaves me as academically excited in my brain as other brilliant philosopher circus barkers with a well thought out point of view crossed with the witty Mark Twain. It sounds and feels so great, all that. I love totalitarianism, especially when it is witty. It is slicing and bold. It attempts to slash and burn the past in order to build Utopia. It comes from a wonderful, positive impulse. But then you need a dark plan for its administration. Always the trouble.

I am not saying Obama is a Marxist or a Utopian or a man with a dark plan. But he is tricky and he has a biggish plan and he is following through, witty and purposeful. The Right is clearly annoyed by all this in addition to opposing what he is selling. How dare he get the upper hand? Because he has the talent for it. In recent memory I cannot think of a Republican as clever and smooth as our man. Rove had a certain something, but it sure was not smooth. Obama is a star, bigger than our first black president, Clinton. I am sure these tea party people want to lynch him.

To Live

So with the recession and the mid-life career strategizing and everything else, it has become clear that we need better living arrangements in New York or else we are going to end up killing each other out here in Queens in this tiny apartment.

Using the livability calculator, one ends up in Park Slope. Where do you end up?

The Livability Calculator

The calculator was found in this article:

Most Livable Neighborhoods in New York

Of course, all I want is my yellow California bungalow, my swarm of upbeat California friends and my old dog back.

But until that can be arranged, we need to figure this out.

New York is an odd place. Because I grew up very close to the city, it always seems so past tense to me. It is hard to feel like this is the present. Not to mention the strange way that people clump into their old timey groups---socioeconomically, creatively, ethnically, you name it. Just seems so frigging old world to me. Why are people still doing this?

In addition, as I have stated, the idea of having a house in the country in order to get your fix of greenery seems outsized and downright annoying. Though a car is prudent. I never feel more normal than when I am banging over that Triborough Bridge to the mainland of the United States in search of suburbia, woods, streams, small towns, mountains, apples, what-have-you.

The geography of the east coast is simply fantastic---because of all these chunks of crazy shaped landmasses sticking into the Atlantic in all sorts of directions. You cannot get bored looking at the maps, even.

But something sticks in my craw here. It is the old world thing. I am not much for separation-identity-history. I am more of a futurist. And this place feels much attached to the past.

I even experience Paris as being more in than present than this place.

Over time, I will figure out if it is me or if it is the city or, most likely, the combination.

One does want to break through this feeling.

Fun As Hell

I have been thinking about having fun lately. I don’t know what it is. Oh yes I do! It’s the weather. It is so nice out these days with cherry blossoms everywhere, you just want to scream with delight.

But instead, since screaming and being delighted are both a bit fagotz, I go on these walks to both increase the joy and dissipate it all at once. I have been attempting to write during the day instead of the vampire shift and when I am done, I reward myself with a monster walk. It feels so right.

But there is something else going on, well, two other things.

One, the economy IS getting better. This decreases anxiety. There is one way out of this economic mess and it is UP. But what about the soon-to-be expansion? I always wonder…but it is probably necessary, a reflection of the constant growth in population. But it scares me. But so what? Okay, so the economy is getting better. I will stop thinking about what that all means except for my present relief.

And I have decided something else. Two. If you are going to be a writer, you will make some big chunks of money here and there in your life with periods of time when the money is not so large. So you better calm down about it.

Calming down means you get to feel for yourself, firsthand, who you really are. And when you are doing that, you cannot help but notice the things that make you happy and so you just have to set aside time to do more of those things. For me, it is very simple: Long walks, playing music, spending time with friends, traveling and going to movies and plays. I mean, you could chuckle with how common that all is. A list like that--it sounds like I am looking for a very average date.

But then I think---there is comfort in being average. I mean, I once enjoyed watching The Preacher’s Wife on a cross country flight. Was it the Ativan? I do not know.

But happiness is underrated, and mostly by the very serious. I have decided I would rather be happy than serious. This may lower others’ opinion of me. But frankly, if I am worried about that then I am an ego-dude and that just makes me unhappy, too.

If it is not fun then it is not for me.

Those Counties Up There

Funny, you get in the car, you drive upstate to check out a bunch of cute towns and you come back and you think, “So what is this second home thing?”

I imagine myself sitting in a redone old house, obsessing on book cases and rugs. Managing Netflix becomes more difficult. And then, clichés be damned---there’s the roof. Always the roof.

I don’t know.

And Dutchess and Columbia Counties ain’t no Napa and Sonoma. Not even close.

Will tool around Litchfield County…but have been there before. Nice houses, an inn or two, nothing else.

Trees. It’s all about the trees. And the kettle ponds. And the brooks. But to go sit there?

Next Fall

Sometimes, you get to see a play on Broadway and there are not movie stars in it and the play is well written, extremely well directed and acted and there is no mention of Greek tragedy or Shakespeare and it is not a remake or a retake on something else, it is a new play, and it is good and you sigh, “Okay, finally.”

Next Fall, if you do not know, deals with the short four year history of a gay couple going back in forth in time between the development of the relationship and a waiting room in a hospital after a car accident.

One guy is an atheist, the other a true praying Christian who feels he will not go to hell, even though he is a gay sinner, because he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. The couple struggles with their opposing world views but not so much that they break up, though they do get close to that. In any event, a careening taxi cab changes things for everyone.

I do not know how timely this play is or if it is the timeliest play of the day. I personally feel this is twenty year old news, but then I realize, shit, it is actually tomorrow’s news. Slow slow rows the boat.

This is one of those lovely success stories where a well established smaller theater company (Naked Angels) gets their play onto the big boards. I hope they make money. I mean, it is absurd what the theater owners charge for rent. But it is not in the hugest theater, the lovely Helen Hayes on 44th, so hopefully they will meet their costs and expectations. Hate to get all businessy about it, but since I am in this dreaded business where 70% of all plays do not make their money back, well, I get concerned.

So, with this I will say this. You could go see this play and you would enjoy it for its smart, comedic yet serious experience. And in doing so, you would be sending a message to the world, “We want to see new plays! We’ll do it! Star free ones! Bring them on!”
And you will get to hear Geoffrey Nauffts’ great natural dialogue and you will get to watch Maddie Corman’s, Sean Dugan’s, Connie Ray’s, Cotter Smith’s, Patrick Breen’s and Patrick Heusinger’s fantastic unforced acting all put together by the wonderful director, Sheryl Kaller. I mean, isn’t that enough? Is it?

Bravo.

 

The Gay Agenda

You know what? I think they might slip in all sorts of gay agenda stuff, our Dems…but I do not believe it will be for marriage. And you know why I think that’s just fine? I will tell you.

Because of Abortion.

I believe that Roe V. Wade did more to calcify the divide between left and right than anything else in this country.

And I think the divide is silly and I am exhausted.

Look, I am pro-choice. And I am pro-Gay-marriage. But let’s face two things. The first is, we really do not know when life begins (though I am still pro-choice). And second, I am against marriage for everyone. I believe states should only recognize domestic partnerships and marriage should be something left for religious outfits.

But until that day (which is probably never), when marriage is off the table, I believe we might just let this gay thing go state by state. At least, that’s what the go-along-to-get-along part of me thinks, while the quiet schemer in me knows that this is the better strategy anyway.

If we go on the real numbers it appears we have to wait for the in-favor number to be about fifty-five percent. Right now it’s at forty-four percent. All growth points toward a majority in the near future. If about three or four more states turn, surely within a few years that national majority will get up to fifty-five percent. When the peanut crunching crowd finally accepts that states have much bigger fish to fry than to worry about same sex couples having the same rights as their straight brothers and sisters, they will give up their resistance to marriage equality. It will help to add just a few more states to the marriage equality roster and then the dominoes fall rationally all the way to Washington D.C.

Pushing for marriage equality in places like Oregon, Washington and New Mexico seem to make a lot of sense. And Nevada. Certainly New Jersey and California. If these six states go, it’s basically a done deal. And if it goes this way, we will not have to listen to the anti-choice type people screaming loud and crazy like they have since ’73.

Which brings me to this---Why do we not make birth control the first thing that is taught on day one of the Seventh Grade? I mean really? I think everyone can agree that abortion is not an easy thing to face, personally, politically, eternally. So why do we not simply get way into birth control? I mean, way way into it? I simply do not understand the resistance. Because we cannot bear the thought of our teenage citizens having sex? But they do in that wheelchair, Blanche, they do!

Cherry Blossoms

It is simply that time of year and you do get sort of freaky about it: The Cherry Blossoms

 

Near the Reservoir

Uncle Charlie

I would like to say goodbye to my Uncle Charlie who died tonight. He was a very cool guy. He was in WWII, though I don’t know what he did. He once popped a balloon of mine with his cigarette.

He was wry and a great friend to my parents. He was earthy and worldly and a rogue.
He had a hard bitten but light hearted bead on life. He was an Irishman with the best of them.

R.I.P. or Have a good time Uncle Charlie.

Recurring Dream: Sex with Bush?

During the Bush administration, I was terrified of this guy. He seemed like an out of control freak to me. And I do not like tension.

So how did my psyche solve this problem?

I had a recurring dream that I was Bush’s advisor. Truly. He would have me down to D.C. from New York…and he liked to call me D.C. since those are my initials. He always had a pet name for everyone.

George had a soft spot. He actually wanted the other side to like him. So he took me on, knowing I was from the other side, but also thinking I was a true moderate who “got him” and what he was trying to do. It might have even been possible to convert me to the neodoxy, but it was better for him to leave me just as I was, part advisor, part spy.

In my dream, Bush was right. I did get him. I could allow my mind to understand his point of view. I was happy to be near his power. And I felt bad for him that no one would ever tell him the truth: that he was actually hated. (And I was one of the few people who could look at him, let him know by my expression that he was hated and that being hated is not an enjoyable experience and that there might be a way out of this.)

But more importantly, I would come up with little ideas to push him away from waging war, toward helping the “homeland” to create jobs, to give people a sense that they could maybe crawl into the middle class.

He liked my ideas. We got along.

And there was a sexual element to it, too. But George and I never talked about it. He acknowledged it in his own way, but he had a country to lead.