A Me-Me-Memory....

For those of you that DON'T watch television news 24/7.....

It's kind of like watching the entertainment during the wee hours of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. It's slim pickin' at 0300, my friends.

MSNBC re-runs their centerpiece evening programs ad infinitum; FOX runs pretty much the same thing...all O'Reilly, ALLATIME!

Other channels run the dreaded infomercial, which makes me wonder what advertising genius chooses the fictional panels for the Magic Bullet: the old lady with the cat's eye glasses, chain-smoking the cigarettes is particularly jarring, if they are aiming at realism.

And can Ron Popeil be any more excited about the newest RONCO product? They guy is going to need medicating, if he's not careful.

I once did a pilot for an 'infomercial' type thing. It was written and produced by a guy named Chris Bearde, who produced Laugh-In and The Gong Show and such...he's a very funny guy. We met when he used a part of something I put together and produced for a theatre out in California; he came, he saw, he liked, he borrowed. And he put me into this little variety program. I think I have a tape of it somewhere.

I'm recalling my terribly manic version of "there's no business like show business", while whipping the company into shape. It's a bit hazy, though. I could be wrong.

It did give me an opportunity to meet Cheryl Ladd (who is stunning in real life) and her husband (who's kind of a doofus, but a good-natured one). I also got a chance to shake hands with the great Jonathan Winters, and I should have had him sign something, but I was being all stoically professional.

But this pilot was something he was doing for one of the shopping networks, on spec. The premise was unique at the time.....it was a soap opera kind of thing, with characters and plots and such, but everything on the set was for sale. And every so often, one of the characters would describe an item, show it off, and such; all in character, and all integrated into the storyline, such as it was.

I played the villain. It was a great time. There was some interest in it, but I think they passed on it. In either case, they would have re-cast.

Wish I had a copy of it. Chris Bearde is a nice man, but forgetful. He's married to a psychic, though...so, every so often, I send off a vibe. Maybe he'll get the message.

The vibe usually includes my address, just in case.

Next time, on AN UNFINISHED CONVERSATION:

I'll talk about how much more fun it is to play a villain than it is a hero.
Be warned: scenery will be chewed.

Bridge; Gasoline; Match.

I am having nightmares, of a kind.

They involve the elements of debauchery that I've struggled to set aside; and the nightmare is that I'm really, REALLY enjoying them.

So....struggling just a little more than usual, in my waking hours.

Which leads me to a story, and not a good one.

Years ago, when I was young and impressionable (there was a time), I met a girl whom I will call Shelli; I call her Shelli because that was her name and I'm damned if I'm going to change the name to protect the innocent; I won't, cuz she wasn't. In fact, she (and by extension, I) am responsible for f**king up my relationships for DECADES afterwards.

And continues to this day.

She was an attractive girl, no denying; quick witted, with an easy laugh.

I should have run when I had the chance.

She strung me along like no other had up to that point; suggesting that we should get together, and then not being able to make it. Often. Not really wanting me, but not wanting to give up the naive attention I was paying.

Loved to watch me act, and probably fell for that. I thought it was deeper; I clung to the idea that perhaps it was.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Come to find out, it was the 'out of sight, out of mind.' kind of love.

So, the outcome is not hard to guess. I have a hard time saying that I love. And I don't, under any circumstances, believe it when somebody says that they love me.

Close the book and end the story. That's what I do.

Because my believer is broken.

And my sadness is profound.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Karaoke-ist.

In the late 90's, if you were in Saginaw, Michigan, and you drove West on State street until you were almost clear out of town.....you drive until you get to some weird fork in the road......

Well, right in the middle of that fork was a little house that was the famous bar called Casey O'Coffey's. And I never went in there, except on the occasional Saturday night during the Fall/Winter of '98-'99.

I think back with great fondness to Casey's, because it was always warm and welcoming on those bitterly cold Michigan winter nights. And, not to put too fine a point on it, there was precious little else in Saginaw that was warm and welcoming on a bitterly cold Michigan winter's night; at least, not for me.

Saturday at Casey's was Karaoke Night.

Now, there was a bunch of us that had mistakenly signed contracts to perform in a Children's Theatre company, and Saturday nights were a chance to perform for adults for a change. No matter how bad the week was, there was always merriment to be had at that little bar. And on Saturday nights, it was always packed.

There were regulars; but I only really knew them by the songs they would sing.

There was the guy who sang New York, New York with a gusto that eclipsed his occasional move to the flatter part of the scale.
There was this charming old fellow who would break us up with his rendition of Funky Cold Medina. I still smile at the memory of it.
There was this woman who would always sing this sad country song about Strawberry Wine....

And then, there was us.

Everybody had their things, of course....sometimes, some of us would our own, and wing a duet, or a trio....heavenly harmony abounded. I can recall Aaron singing some Neville Brothers number, pitch perfect. Misti singing the hell out of a Barenaked Ladies ditty. And you couldn't help but dance when Jason did the Ants Marching bit from The Dave Matthews Band.

Me....I did songs that didn't require a whole lot of melody. Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama; Travelin' Band by Creedence. But what tore the house down was the night Jason and I sang Southern Cross by CSN. The harmony still lingers like the memory of a fine cigar.

It was odd in a wonderful way, really......there was griping and sniping and some bad blood in that company, but at the table in the corner on a Saturday night, all that was forgotten. The smiles were broadened by the never-ending pitchers of cheap beer; the malice temporarily forgotten in the mist of Marlboros.

Casey's is gone now; the building is still there, but there's another bar there now. Like so many things of the past, they have faded like the last chord of A Day In The Life, but they linger in the memory, like the taste of 30 year old Scotch.

And there are some times, in the bitter cold of a Northern State winter, that I wish I had a place like that to go, and a circle of friends like that to go with.

I really could use it.

I surely could.

Last Plane Out.

I can remember the first time I heard this tune; I was sitting in a seedy housing unit, known affectionately as the Boone Docks, and my great friend Eric was playing this on a cassette across the hall. The music was great, but it was the lyrics that attracted me; cynical.

'Cuz that's how I roll.

Someone said the Big Man will be joining us soon;
But I never was the kind to hang with the Harbingers of Doom.
This party is addictive;
Self-destructive, no doubt!
So, I hope that someone saves a seat for me
On the last plane out.....

A Sadder But Wiser Idiot.

Thus Spake the Prophet Shimoda:

"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats."

I've practiced being fictional; in fact, I have two degrees in the fine art of being fictional. Fictional was one of my favorite careers.

And, Donald Shimoda was right; the fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats. Largely, because the limitations of my realities didn't play into the limitations of the fictional.

I can remember a classroom of students, having seen me in a play (I believe it was The Glass Menagerie, and if you know me, you know which character I played. You have a fifty-fifty chance of being right.), and they marvelled at the fact that for most people, they put on the mask when the go on the stage and take it off when they leave, and I do just the opposite; that I am more open ON the stage than off.

Clever class of students; they found me out.

Because I've never been hurt on the stage.

Oh, well...there were temporary physical pains throughout the years, but never an...injury.

I mean, I've tried, with limited amounts of success, and those successes are those people who have touched my heart, in some cases saved my soul, and carry me through to this day.

But I get tricked so easily. And the tricking is the thing that causes the mask; if you can't see me, you can't hurt me.

My friends see past the mask; they ignore it, and it goes away.

Those who are simple acquaintances, they don't recognize the mask.

The ones that truly hurt are the ones that get by me, inflict the damage, and move on.

Still happens. Even after all these years. And I'm smart enough to know to accept my responsibility; I opened the door, after all.

I should use that little peephole thing in the door. But I don't.

Because I'm not done learning the lessons yet.

But when it all falls down like Humpty Dumpty, I have those friends and loved ones who take me in, pick me up, dry clean me, and send me out again, a sadder but wiser idiot.

Yup, it really is true: to those that love you, no explanation is necessary; and to those that don't, no explanation will suffice.

So, my friends....thank you for doing, and being, and helping, and hoping.

And to the others......Pththththththth!

Good night, and good morning.

Recovery. Kind of.

Welcome to Friday. I got up early to prepare if for you, and I hope you like it.

It was reasonably warm early this week, and today we've gotten the cursed Canadian cold front. Temperatures have plummeted. So, I'm looking forward to a week in Florida; ten days and counting.

The muscles in my lower back continue to remind me that I've skipped my semi-annual drink at the Fountain of Youth; but the feeling in my feet has returned, so I'm not as concerned today as I was yesterday. But, it does make walking a new and interesting pastime. Occasionally, I list to starboard, with a spike and a curse.

Hi diddle dee dee; a pirate's life for me.

Arrrrrgh. And not in a Pirate Way.

Back in 1993, when I was a good teacher and a part time actor, and I was in love with a very tall German girl, I spent a summer in the south of Indiana, doing a couple of musicals; one, an historical musical about the early life of Lincoln, and the other a musical version of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

I enjoyed both of them, very much; even in the heat and humidity that IS Southern Indiana in the summer, every night was a ball.

And, as an added bonus, there was the aforementioned tall German girl.

But this is not about any of that.

In July of that year, I had a small, seemingly innocuous accident upon the stage; I had this wireless microphone pack that usually lived under my shirt, and in a small pocket underneath my left arm. But one night, the thing slipped, and wound up in my lower back. And, during a exercise in stage combat at the top of Act II, I rolled over it.

Didn't give it a thought. Until three days later, when I begin to get his annoying kind of buzzing in my toes. And three days after that, I stopped feeling them at all.

To make a long story short, I lost the feeling in my legs. I could still use them, I just couldn't feel them.

I'm feeling muuuuch better now.

At least, I was until two days ago.

It's back.

It's incredibly painful right now; I can't seem to walk for any length of time. I'm heating and cooling and all of the things I need to do to relax the muscles in my lower back, in the hope that I won't need additional therapy.

I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and in case anybody wonders, yes, it does SUCK. Bunnies. Through a straw. Ears first.