I have supped full of theatre, and theatre-like things.

I enjoy the weekends when I can involve myself with some theatre.

As I've mentioned on several occasions, there is theatre art in this Capitol city of the Northern State; mostly of the amateur variety, and I mean that in the specific definition of the word.  No money is changing hands, just a love for being in front of an audience.

Yeah, they do have a 'Broadway' season; touring programs.  I can't for the life of me figure out who's making the choices, of course....I would rather see a touring version of SOMETHING ROTTEN than another tired old re-run of ANNIE.  And I would prefer to see LA BOHEME than another tired re-run of RENT.

That aside, there is a lot of interesting things to see in the City-Squared, and though it's a bit of a drive, this past weekend was worth it.

I sat through a matinee performance of THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE WATSON INTELLINGENCE, performed at a very lovely space; in the same neighborhood as the famous Fitzgerald Theatre, home of the famous Prairie Home Companion.  The play is....well, it's a interesting piece; it transcends time, the line between fiction and reality, and just when you think it's going to fall flat, it comes together to make a kind of sense that doesn't necessarily resound, but haunts.

Also got a chance to sit in on an evening at ComedySportz; a fun little improv theatre.  Good house, some decent performers....laughed out loud a lot, which I rarely do when I'm alone.

I also got a chance to sit in on a performance from The Red Throated League, an off-shoot of the Sherlockian Society to which I belong; they do radio theatre with all the bells and whistles.  They do it regularly....once a year or so.  It was fun to watch the audience engage completely with this reader's theatre thing; the true visual entertainment is to watch the sound effects table.  Marvelous work.

And in an incredible lack of foresight, I neglected to check the Tigers' schedule, and failed to notice that they were playing in town this past weekend....I really need to keep my eyes more open to that kind of thing.

And I walked around a huge Mall, which is pretty interesting...from an overwhelming mercantile perspective.

And now, back to the work at hand....

And when something is remembered, and you have nothing better to write about....

I remember this guy I worked with one summer at an outdoor drama in Kentucky.

Don't look for it; it's been gone for awhile now.

The outdoor drama; not Kentucky.  Kentucky is still there.  It's that lovely place you get to see after you leave Ohio.

That has to be the earliest digression in my history.  Moving on.

This was one of those guys...nice enough fellow, of course, but his level of friendliness walked right up to the sincerity line, and often he inadvertently stepped across the line, into creepyville.  He was a binary in the company; you liked him, or you didn't. 

He was, by far, the worst understudy I have ever seen in my life.

Understudies in the non-union, outdoor drama world are a reasonable necessity; every lead role had one, made up of one of the actors playing the supporting roles.  And usually, those minor roles are well prepared to take over on short notice, and look hopefully forward to the opportunity.

Well, a couple of times I had an understudy that would literally look stricken at the idea of going on for me...I've had my share of injuries, and if I ever twisted an ankle or accidently set my head on fire, that understudy was there to make sure I was alive, coherent, and ready to go back on the stage.

This guy I'm talking about?  He was understudy to the lead.  The lead was the guy who's freakin' NAME was in the freakin' TITLE of the freakin' PLAY.  Historical figure.  Big as life.  Absolutely necessary to the movement of the plot.

I don't think the guy could've found his understudy script for a regular rehearsal, let alone a last minute fill-in.

Last minute fill-ins are...exhilarating.

I was playing one of those minor roles, in the early days of my career, and earning extra money doing interpretation for the tourists in the fort that was right next to the theatre; a replica of the original fort, with all sorts of historical relevance...and I was in-between tourist groups when I heard a voice from over the wall between the fort and the theatre.

It was the stage manager.  There'd been an small accident, and I was going on.  That night.

And after that little bombshell, a copy of script came sailing over the wall.  Just to make sure.

I knew the role; I'd studied.  I was a professional.  Didn't covet the role, of course; I don't like actors to get hurt, or quit, or get fired.  But it was part of the job and I did it.  And when it's a one-shot, it's fun...for everybody.  The actors you're playing with get a different interpretation to play off of, and the other company members find places around the set and stage to watch, to see what you're gonna do.

So...one evening, as the sun is sinking, and Act I is closing with a battle-to-the-death between the good guy and the villain, a slight slip of the knee and good guy goes down with a very large cut in his forehead.  Pretty big.  You could see it from space.

He was a pro: he finished up, got off stage, came into the dressing room, all the time saying that it was nothing, it was a scratch, get him a butterfly bandage and he'll be fine....and then he looked in the mirror.  And immediately requested a ride to the hospital.

Head wounds realllllly bleed.

Anyway, he went off to the hospital, and the understudy was thrown into the costume, and anybody who had words with him went to quickly run them so that there would be a comfort level.

No comfort to be found; this guy knew almost nothing in the script.  I'll give him credit, he gave it the old college try, but pages of dialogue were being dropped.  He knew some of the pivotal stuff; the solo stuff...but there was very little of that.

So.  A bunch of actors, willing to murder this guy because they just made their jobs that much harder because they have to carry the lazy bastard through the second act....and we did.  Barely. 

We did a forty minute second act in 25.  I was the narrator character for that one, and I was doing a LOT of improvising dialogue to cover all the things that the lazy bastard dropped.

The crowning glory?  I remember this guy saying, 'well, that went pretty well, all things considered!'

I lost track of the guy after that summer; but I still have some very good friends from that cast, from those times.  I don't miss him at all, but wish him well.  I'm sure he's working some cool gig, teaching the up-and-coming actors the craft.

Which explains the occasionally sorry state of the American Theatre.

The weather is warmer now, the sun is setting later, summer is right around the corner, and my mind imagination returns to those halcyon days in the outdoor amphitheaters.

And I miss them.  Very much.

I'm not sure if it's flying, or just a respite before the controlled crashing.

I remember hearing a story, somewhere...it may have been a story on a television show, it may have been one of the late night bar-ramblings...or it may have been at one of the many airports I've found myself in, from time to time.

The story is about pilots who are new to flying on instruments alone; and how, when they fly into the clouds, they have to rely upon that one instrument that will tell him/her that they are flying level.  And they make an adjustment.  And another adjustment.  Just a tweak here.  And a tweak there.

The number of pilots that come out the clouds completely upside down is astonishing, apparently.

I know how they feel.

I've written things in the past...I mean, besides here.  Little sketches, here and there.  The occasional radio script.  Usually adaptations of some other medium, which is like getting a push as you begin to roll.

This was different. 

Of course, the character is well established.  But putting that character into a new situation, and using all of the original material in that new situation...it seemed difficult.  It felt like I was juggling cats; you need to keep them all in the air, not hurt them, and not get hurt yourself.  Or, keep the story straight, do not destroy the integrity of the original character, and don't beat your head against the table so as to cause concussion.

At any rate, I finished a rough draft on the first of April.

And now, I feel a little like that first-time pilot on instruments.

Tweaking.

And upside down.

I gotta get this thing outta my hands for a while.

But in the midst of all the crap in the last four months....there's a victory in actually finishing it.  Good or bad, it's done.

I will rest for a bit, and start the DB Cooper thing.

And by the way, my admiration of the friends who have made a living doing this just exponentially grows.

Random Stuff....

Three months of unemployment.

A dozen applications; a couple of interviews; and a lot of....shall we say....skeptical glances.

I realize that my outside doesn't match my inside; my brain tells me that I'm still running with the wolves; but my outside reads like I'm sitting with the doughnuts.  And I can't get anybody to see that I'm not interested in what I've done; I'm trying to find something that I would find interesting to do; and that includes making coffee or sandwiches.

For those of you that know me, you know that I'm not overly proud in that regard; I do what comes up, without judgement and at the top of my game.  Doesn't matter if it's protecting the flying public or making a foot long meatball sub.

So....thing on hold there, temporarily. 

And yeah, I've come a long way from laying on the couch, bouncing back and forth between relief and terror.

By the way, speaking of terror:  we really need to stop using the word "Terrorism," or any of the variations; because in the words of Indigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Terrorism is violent, and seeks to coerce a group of people or a government to change a position.  But we as Americans tend to expand that definition to 'anybody that does something that we disagree with.' And, at the same time, we contract the definition to only include groups that don't look like a majority of the GOP (think in terms of a ream of copy paper).

A Pakistani shoots up a bar in Orlando and it's terrorism.
A white guy shoots up his place of employment, and it's a social tragedy.

And all it takes is somebody to say that somebody said, "Allahu Ackbar" and we're off to the races.

And just because ISIS claims responsibility doesn't make it true, or terrorism.  ISIS will claim responsibility for anything that gets them in the media; they're basically an Evil E Network.

ISIS makes shit up.  I always thought there was a guy sitting in Syria, with a cell phone that he knew was bugged by every security network in the free world, making up stories and calling people to share them, like some awful 21st Century Crank Call....basically to impress his buddies who are in the room, hanging out.....

This would be the only explanation for the idea of the 'body bomb.'  I'm pretty sure Ahmed watched a DVD of THE DARK KNIGHT, and called up a friend.  And then laughed and laughed and laughed as the Intelligence community and the media ate it up.

In other news...

BASEBALL.  It's hard to get fired up when snow is still falling, and I haven't had my taste of the live action this year as I've had in the past, but it all rolls out tomorrow and there's always something magical about it.  The sound of the bat on the ball....the rise of the sound from the crowd...the yells of the concession people......the organ music (I'm old school).....and the memories of the old Gods...

Kaline.  Cash.  McLain.  Lolich.  Horton.  And a manager named Mayo.

'Cuz I'm a Tiger fan.

So.

Work.
Terrorism.
Baseball.

Oh, and just remember....there is nothing that terrifies a political figure so much as a group of people chanting, "Your Last Term!"

It makes them start to see clowns in the sewer drains.

Cheery-bye!