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?

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