MY MOM IS READING MY BLOG

The other night, my Mom and I were chatting on the phone. We talked of many things (there's a lot going on right now) and then, just parenthetically, she said "oh yes, and I'm reading your blog".

I felt like I'd been caught with my pants down.

My MOM was reading my blog. Not some complete stranger in Timbuktu but my MOTHER, who birthed me, who probably knows most of this stuff anyway, if not consciously then just below the surface of cognition. It's really silly if you think about it. I am more concerned about my mother reading these basically inane, self-involved ramblings than complete strangers who I have no connection to at all.

I started to think about this a bit further. WHY was I so caught out? The more I thought, the less of an answer I have. I am fairly private about matters that effect others in my life so it's not as if I'm telling tales out of school about my family all over the internet.

I guess I'm just surprised, that's all ---- not that that emotion makes any sense either; my mother is a bright, inquisitive woman whose interests range widely. And because I'm her son, she follows my meandering on the internet fairly closely.

This blog is really just a shout out to my Mom, my biggest fan. I love you Mom, read away.

The Body Never Lies...

The body never lies.

We sweat. We fart. We shake. We orgasm. The bile rises in our mouths. We cry and we smile.

The only way we can miss the truth of our humanity is to ignore what is right in front of our face. What is called "non-verbal communication" is really just paying attention to what's before you.

When I think over all the relationships I've had in my life, both physical and not I'm struck by the fact that the most successful ones all started from me looking the other person dead in the eyes and telling the truth about what I saw --- and them telling me the truth right back.

I mean, we're basically animals, right? Aren't we?

Well, not exactly I think.
After all, success comes from telling the truth. An animal can't lie. Only humans have that special skill. Sure, an animal can stalk or lie in wait --- but it can't lie. Not like a person. Tell you one thing but do another.

I once had a woman in my life who said she loved me. She was distant, cold, and rude. She didn't laugh at my jokes. She winced at how loud I was. After the initial attraction faded, she was repulsed by my smell and I was infuriated by her manner. We both lied to each other that we had a future together --- but our bodies t0ld the truth. We weren't meant for each other, more than that we probably wanted to hurt each other.

My big take-away from this five year matriculation in the school of the blind is that I have to follow my gut and that I accomplish that by looking at what's in front of my face and checking in with myself about what I see.

So I say follow your gut. Don't waste five years of your life like I did trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

Caring for Self

I find taking care of myself an endless challenge. I break down almost constantly, in little ways that annoy me no end. The bursitis in the foot, teeth need to be cleaned, I gain weight I never intended to put on, I need new eyeglasses. All of it needs attention. The list of self-care necessities just goes on and on ---- and I know from watching those ahead of me age that it is absolutely necessary to do these things every day or it will come back to bite you in the ass later in life.

So what do I do?

I do it all. Not perfectly, not 100% consistently but to the best of my ability one day at a time (to use an old saw).

Study

"Oh this learning, what a thing it is!"
Gremio, Act I scene 2



At each juncture in my life, study has made a huge difference to me. In my time, I've been both a student and a teacher. When I was a boy I knew it was my job to study as hard as I could, not to be good but to further myself and my abilities. In early twenties, I lost that clarity of why one should be a good student but I can honestly say I have regained my focus over the last ten years or so.

In my early 40's I finished my B.A. and got two masters degrees, largely focused on the world of classical theater and Elizabethan and Renaissance literature.

I've spent this last period of my life delving into Shakespeare.

I've learned to study his work from both an emotional and mechanical point of view. I learned the difference between a trochee and a spondee, how Billy-boy used metaphor, simile, and rhetoric to make his thunder. I find that the words of this dead white man speak to me in a way I never anticipated. I'm not sure my thoughts about Shakespeare are original, but I do know that the process of my having those thoughts feels essential to my being.

I am also attracted to the world of Shakespearean performance because of the process of STUDY. I believe there is a time and place for everything. There've been times in my life when study and reflection were not important to me. It was of primary importance at those points in my development for me to do.

When one works with Shakespearean text, either as an actor or a director, one must study it ---- but not as a scholar. You have to find a key, a way into the material that isn't intellectual or "up in the head". This process uses the head, the heart, and the gut. One learns to take what one reads into the body and make it beat in your heart...

This work somehow seems vital to my being. I'm not sure why, but I must memorize Shakespeare text on a regular basis simply to feel good. And therefore I do it.

It's my experience that most thoughtful people have something they love so much they are willing to give it their attention, their study. What's yours?

Death, Attitude, and LIfe

When you've got to go, you've got to go....

I've been thinking about death. Alot.

I think this comes from getting on the dark side of 40. My parents are aging, all around me senseless events seems to invade the lives of many people whom I care about. Death, violence, accident. Sometimes people die from these events, sometimes not. Always I feel the brush of what's coming.

While I can't control death, I can control my attitude toward it.

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of death. Like many children, I was afraid of the dark and all that it implies. I outgrew that point of view when I understood that the world existed beyond me, that everything I see is real, not simply a stage set constructed for my pleasure and edification. Since then, while not exactly happy about the idea of death --- I want to be here a good long time; there's great stuff to do; barbecues, sex, sunsets, hanging out with my nieces, music, theater, the list is endless --- I somehow have come to understand that my ceasing to exist as I am is not a tragedy of epic proportions.

I've come to feel that death is a process to be faced with humanity and compassion. I need, for my self-respect and the comfort of those I love, to be brave as I approach the dark.

I also know from my minimal dealings with the dying that there comes a point when the soul lets go. I saw it with my grandmother. I remember the moment; she chose to leave, to let go. Where she went is, your guess is as good as mine.

I once had a friend (who is now dead and gone) who said "life is for the living". I try to stick to this maxim to the best of my ability. I feel I didn't begin to fully live until I hit my early 40's. It feels of critical importance to me that I love the remaining time I have left. Since what comes next is a mystery, I stay focused on the now.

None of these thoughts are new to me. What is so striking to me is how similar all our thoughts are when we are faced with the ultimate unknown, "the undiscovered country" to coin a phrase.

LOOKING FOR WORK
Ours is not to reason why....

I've been looking for work my entire working life. That's right, over thirty years. Since I was 15. The first job I had was washing the windows of the stores on the Upper West Side, near where I grew up. I think I got a dollar a window, big money if you add up how many windows you can do in an afternoon (and you're a fifteen year old kid in 1979). I loved it and held that gig for several years.

I had a job as a busboy in a deli on West 57th street the same year. Cleaning, mopping, doing dishes. I didn't like that much --- not because of the work but because it was steady. I had to be in the same place, the same hours week after week. I lasted two months.

I'm a freelance person by training and temperament. I've always loved hunting for the next gig, show, experience. When I was younger this attitude extended to my dealings with the opposite sex. I am much more settled now when it comes to my dealings with women (one woman, getting remarried, life is MUCH simpler that way) but I'm still a rover in my work life --- and I like it that way.

Of course working in theater, where there is little consistency and few long-term jobs, help with staying freelance. At this stay of the game I am probably ready to go to work on a daily basis.

But who knows? Possibly I will work this way for the rest of my professional bouncing from job to job. I know that I love the challenge of making something where there was nothing before.

What about you? What's your style? What do you prefer?

PIE IN THE FACE

Sometimes someone does something I love. Jonathon May-Bowles lobbed a pie in Rupert Murdoch's face today. I couldn't be more delighted.

I have been digesting my visit to my parents, thinking about my next blog post but then this incident emerged and I couldn't help but blog on it. It's topical, it's stupid but I don't care.

I love it. Really love it. No shouting, no violence, no nothing. Just simple clowning, designed to embarrass the mark. Which Murdoch certainly is. It's pretty reprehensible that anyone could create an organization where the need to create content superseded basic morality. While the people directly responsible are directly responsible, Murdoch set the tone. And he should be punished for that.


So what does this have to do with me? Nothing, really ---- except for the clowning.

In my ideal world, clowns would administer all non-corporal punishment that didn't involve violent crime. Clowns would punish insider trading, lying under oath, all sorts of administrative transgressions, and just plain being a fathead.

Clearly, I'm a bit pent-up. I don't care. May-Bowles is my hero du jour. He even had the stones to tweet this just prior to landing the cream on Mr. M's puss;

It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat

Vengeance is mine, saith the clown....

YARD SALE FOR THE SOUL....

Knowing what to sell, what to give, and what to keep....

This weekend I was out at my mother's house on Long Island helping her with a Yard Sale. You all know yard sales, of course; endless lines and piles of used stuff that you don't need but are tempted to buy simply because it's there. Goldfish bowls, golf clubs, Ray Mancini Sings The Blues records and God knows what else, all there lying in wait to suck your wallet dry.

I had never really thought about what it means to the person running the yard sale to get rid of all this stuff.

For my mother, and by extension me, it was the beginning of major change.

As my parents age, they are looking to sell their home, move back into the City, downsize, and simplify their lives. This sale of endless tchotckeys was the beginning of this movement to a new life for them.

My parent's lives are changing.

Buddha wrote that nothing is permanent, that the ultimate illusion is stability. I remember feeling the truth of this when I was with my mother on her last day in the apartment I grew up in on the Upper West Side of Manhattan prior to she and my father's moving out to Long Island. All around us the movers and workmen were quickly and efficiently removing any trace of the life we all led in that place for the prior thirty years. My mother asked me if I was upset. I started to cry but something inside of me stopped and I answered:

"No, it's just a place. A place we loved, but just a place."

That moment stays with me. I can never quite get as attached to people, places or things as I used to. I know it's all going to end, myself included ---- and somehow, that's not a bad thought. Of course, this clarity comes and goes. Like the rest of us, I'm human. I just feel lucky to have this sense of distance at least sometimes present in my life.

And you? These are big thoughts, particularly when you're talking about a yard sale...but then again, we get what we pay for ---- and we all pay, one way or another. What do you think?

I don't have a job...

And that's not really a problem for me.

That's a surprise, huh?

During the current economic crisis, I have followed the emotional ups and downs of many of my fellow Americans as they've lost their jobs, seen their livelihoods vanish, and suffer the effects of dislocating economic change --- and it's made me thank my lucky stars I've worked in the professional theater for most of my entire life.

With US unemployment hovering around 9.2% I see the pain of economic uncertainty on every face and voice I hear on the news. We're at a tipping point as a nation; we can no longer expect secure jobs that last a lifetime nor certain retirement the way we used to.

For myself, I never really expected to have one job for my entire working life. I knew from the time I was sixteen, I was going to go from "gig to gig". I'd get too bored (I am marrying a woman who is exactly the same way.) So I direct, act, write, teach, stagehand (less now of course because of the foot), do home improvements, do presentation coaching, and anything else that pays real American money. Some times are flusher than others. Right now, it's an uncertain transition --- but I know in the end all will work out.

My biggest work love is, however, making my theater company RAISED SPIRITS THEATER COMPANY fly. Please check us out.

And you? As always, I wonder what works for you? I want to know

Changes....

"Time to face the strange ch-ch-changes..." --- David Bowie

At this stage of the game in my life I am yet again beset by the need to change.

I have bursitis in my left foot.

That might not seem like such a crisis. But for me it means I need to figure out yet again how to sustain myself within the world of show business and theater. You see, I spent the last 12 years of my life making the bulk of my living from working as an IATSE Local 1 stagehand. While I work for other possibilities (I direct plays and teach acting ---- and made half my living doing that work last year) my bread and butter has been stagehanding. Now with my foot on the fritz, I am forced to rethink how to live (I don't believe in survival anymore; we're put here to live and enjoy life, not suffer it.)

Needing to shift is not new to me; I am an actor who went to Wall Street who went back to theater as a stage manager who became an arts administrator who became a stagehand who went back to school to get an MFA in Directing who then taught high school in Baltimore City who then came back to NYC and began to direct plays and teach acting. But I never get used to it.

So here I am at a crossroads. It's exciting. It's scary. It's life.

I wonder about you...How have you changed? What gets you through uncertain times?