Vincent Truman's Blog, page 10

Parallel Life #137

There is a strange eye thing that happens when you wake up. Sort of like an old film. A pinpoint of focus in the middle of the frame, gradually growing until it takes up the full screen. It was this phenomenon that met me as I found myself glaring at a pale blue television screen. A small TV, black and white, the reception unsettling and distorted.

I glance across the room and see what appears to be my wife, asleep on the other side of the couch. But I rub my lefthanded ring finger and there is no evidence. I attempt to stand, in an effort to fully take in my surroundings, but find my balance compromised. I fall back onto the couch and a light cloud of dust rises in my wake. I rub my chin. I have a beard here. It's uneven and unkempt.

 

Unable to move, I glance at the wife, or woman, sleeping next to me. Her cheeks are hollow, her blonde hair decidely unblonde. Her eyes sunken in. Unhappy.

I move off of the couch, like a snake, pulling myself over the armrest and sliding into the bathroom, which I notice is very small – and very close. I pull myself up to look at myself. When this happens, this transfer of realities, I try not to look at myself immediately, preferring to examine my surrounings first. But, having seen a ratty couch, a ratty woman and a ratty television, I think I have seen enough of my surroundings to do me just fine. I flick on the light, and the buzz of a sad flourescent light blinks to life above me. A pale blue light cascades onto a very sad face looking back at me from the mirror. The hair is thinner, curlier. The beard is thick around the chin. And the same sunken eyes that were stuck onto the front of the woman's skull.

 

I am in a trailer.

 

I stumble outside, falling down the metal, retractable stairs. A fire can be seen in the middle of a series of other, unremarkable trailers. Hearing voices, I walk to the fire. Several similar looking men – with the same plaid shirt or variations thereof, the same beards, the same lack of socks – sit around the fire.

 

"Hey Vinny," one says to me. For once, I'm not offended by being called Vinny. This is a name I feel like I have sought. I feel respected. I nod.

 

"You done with Suzi?" asks another. I nod.

 

The second bearded man gets up and staggers to the trailer. Is it mine, the trailer? No, it's not. It's Saturday night on the Reservation – this is what this trailer park is called – and Suzi is the entertainment.

 

I sit on a kitchen chair that was seemingly stolen from someone's kitchen 50 years ago. It is yellow and stained and metal. I look at the fire.

 

"How was she?" asks the first bearded man.

 

"Good as always," I mutter, automatically. A sinister feeling seeps through my gut. I am becoming more aware of my body. There is a limp on my right leg. A gunshot. Fifteen years ago. An episode involving a bar and an attempt to stop a fight. A hospital stay. A horrible band doing a concert on the Reservation to raise funds for my stay. A heightened respect upon release.

 

My eyes are dead. I feel that. I look at each and every one of my gang with suspicion. They look at me the same way. But somehow I have organized the gang into a force. There have been "jobs" on wayward truckers, some 40, some 50 miles away. There have been newspaper stories about a band of theives, dubbed The Robin Hoods by some young journalist. That is us. Our jobs have resulted in the members of the gang owning everything around us. It is no longer a trailer park. It is a compound. I look up to notice that, instead of in a row, the trailers are all in a circle, blocking easy entry or exit.

 

"What took so long?" asks Tommy, one of the younger members.

 

"Fell asleep," I say. I want to tell them about the dream. In the dream, I am living in Chicago and am separated from my wife. I am struggling to live. I am afraid of talking to my wife. I want things to work but feel powerless to fix anything. My wife, in the dream, wishes I had done everything three years ago, and even if I try and fix it now, it is dubbed "too late." I decide not to talk about the dream, not because it is insane, which it is, but it makes me so sad that the words cannot form in my throat.

 

I stop thinking about the dream long enough to hear the boys laughing. I instinctively pull the gun from the back of my jeans and hold it before the fire. The laughs end. They all think I might shoot one of them.

 

"OK," I say, "let's talk about the next plan." I have already devised a plan in which there will be tremendous risk. A truck stop holdup. It will end badly. But it already has, so what's one more?

 

Parallel Life #75

 

I wake up on my back and adjusted my shoulders slightly to get the feel of the bed. It isn't a bed I am familiar with. However, I consider it best to just familiarize myself slowly with my surroundings, instead of doing what I would prefer: sit up screaming. The mattress is very comfortable and, I would guess, pretty expensive. My left shoulder is exposed and the blankets and sheets ripple like frozen tsunamis to the other side of the bed. I turn my head and see the back of the head of a woman. I run my left thumb against my left ring finger. She is my wife. Or she is sleeping with me and I am a married man. This is a lot to consider before getting out of bed.

 

 

 

I ease out of the bed and my feet find a pair of leather slippers almost by instinct. I step into them and stand, looking around the bedroom. I have done quite well for myself, I think, noting the paintings and vast array of furniture which still leaves plenty of room to navigate the room. I walk on the plush carpet and into a long hallway. A door opens in front of me. A small girl, maybe 6, enters the hallway and calls me dad. I examine her face closely, instantly recognizing my physical traits but many more that I'm not familiar with. I look for the face of the woman in the bed within the face of the child. I rub my eyes and scratch my face and let out a tired, "morning", when inside, I am in a slight panic. It always takes too long to realize where I am.

 

 

 

Trying not to think, I let my body carry itself downstairs and into the kitchen. The little girl tags behind me closely, pulling at my silk pajama shirt. I instinctively reach for a cabinet which has it in cereal. I grab my favorite. "Not that one, daddy," the girl says. I return the sweetened cereal to the cabinet and instead pull out a healthy box of what appears to be rice and raisins and flakes.

 

 

 

I watch the girl eat from the other end of a large dining area. She chews like me – fast, determined – so I know she is definitely mine. She puts her bowl in the sink and runs upstairs. In a few minutes, she comes back down, wearing a sweater with puppies on it and pants with puppies on it and a backpack with puppies on it. I experience a moment of disdain, and in that moment realize that I am still a cat person in this life. That relieves me somewhat.

 

 

 

Again not trying to think, I drive the girl to school. I kiss her forehead and tell her I love her, and I do not doubt that, if I belonged here, I would. I buy some cigarettes and return home to find the house empty. A small note on the counter reads, 'be home at 7 – big meeting – xoxo.' I light a cigarette and cough uncontrollably. There are no ashtrays. I don't smoke here.

 

 

 

I finally build up the courage to look into the mirror. I am the same age but look older. My hair is more grey and there are more lines in my face. The lines that only a stay-at-home spouse has. This is always the moment I dread and the one I look forward to.

 

 

 

I stumble into an office that does not look like mine. There is a picture of my wife and I on our honeymoon. The year 1997 is etched into the frame. There's various family photographs on the walls and I notice only one of our daughter. I recall now urging her to have a child with me and why I did it. On the surface, I wanted a family. But deep below, I had nothing compared to my wife. She is an attorney and wildly successful and she bought our house in Palo Alto with cash. I had no friends left. Just blocks and blocks of identical and imposing homes. My wife Marta's friends were all amused with my stories about theater and art, but my wish that someone would want to produce a work of mine never came true. So I pushed for a baby. Being a househusband is like being a 24/7 performance artist.

Now my thoughts continue to go back to Melinda. What is she learning now? Is she being bullied? Did the Mozart albums work? Is she scared? Is there a boy she is glancing at now, feeling something but not knowing what? Will that boy be around in ten years' time? Will I be strong enough to take him in a fight if she wants to take my little girl away for a weekend? If Marta wants a divorce, what can I get in the settlement and how can I keep Melinda with me? How can I change her name from Melinda to something I like?

I get a call from the school. Melinda has soiled herself. So I get back in the car and find her, red-faced and shamed, in the principal's office. I ask which bathroom I should use. She's too old for the men's room and I'm too male for the women's room. I'm guided to the men's room. I go on what I seem to call Red Alert in my mind. Nothing can stop me when I'm like this. As Melinda cries and tells me she's sorry, so sorry, I remove her clothes, clean her up with amazing efficiency, and have her ready to return to class in fifteen minutes. "You take me to your class," I say, "you lead the way." I know, just by saying that, I am putting something in her head that will serve her well someday. She won't be pushed around. She'll be as strong as Marta someday, and I love and hate that thought.

 

 

New CDs For Fall 2011!

My silly meme.

1. Find pictures of friends on Facebook.

2. Find something they said.

3. Combine into CD covers.

4. Hope they don't defriend me.

Click each picture to see it all big and stuff.

Dear Henry

This was a submission for a local literary magazine.

* * * * *

Dear Henry,

Carol is dead.

I have thought long and hard how to tell you the news, or even if I should tell you the news. To say my emotions have been clear of late would be to suggest that London is bereft of fog. In fact, every emotion – every word I dare think, write or say – is heavy and thick like fog around me. This is where I reside now. However, I know you would have wanted to know, so I thought I would tell you in the most abrupt and startling fashion possible.

Carol is dead.

I am unsure how you will take the news, Henry, but I hope you take it hard. Damn hard. Harder than any news you have heard in your life. If I may share the extent of my wishes, I hope your legs have given out from beneath you and you have fallen to your knees so hard that, as long as you live, every step will reflect the damage you've done. Further, I hope you are sweating profusely at this moment and that your hands are shaking so violently that it takes the most supreme of will to hold this letter still enough to read these words.

It is understandable if you want details, and I will share them with you. After Carol's weekly book club last Friday, she stopped by at the mail box between her friend Joyce's bungalow and our home. Apparently, this was the coda to the book club each week. Anyway, she had just exited her car when she was struck. Hit. Slammed into by a car driven by a group of kids, drunk on their privilege and loud music. They were caught thanks to some well-meaning soul who memorized their license place. My wife flew twenty feet before slapping onto the pavement. When you go out walking on your bad knees, Henry, look twenty feet in front of you always. I always do. That's the distance she flew.

I was, of course, enraged that she had not returned home. And then, as you can imagine, I had that cold bucket of reality hit me when the hospital contacted me, after I had ignored their first two calls (assuming it was Carol, of course, I admit to feeling spiteful). I'm not sure where my blood went, but it drained out of me. I operated solely on adrenaline from that point on. In my car. To the hospital. Not hearing what room she was in. Rushing to it. Being held back. Being told. And then even the adrenaline couldn't hold me up. I crashed to the dirty ER floor much like you have done.

Carol is dead.

My mind was full of everything and nothing when I was given her personal effects. Her purse, phone, clothes in plastic and copy of "Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. I remember being mystified by the tome; I knew it was the subject of the book club, but her copy was tattered and dog-eared. On the inside, just below the title, was a dedication between two strangers: "To 42 with love, H." I wondered who these two lovers were.

You know what else I was given, don't you? This is where you silently nod, Henry.

The oddest thing I was given from her personal effects was an envelope, addressed to "H". One of the staff of the hospital revealed that she had it in her hand when she was hit by that stupid car, and hadn't let go as she expired a mere second or two later. What was this, I wondered. I opened it and, in a strange way, met my wife again.

"Dear H, I am thoroughly enjoying 'Tale'. Thank you for this. And everything. You know all the things I can't say, but I know you hear them. And I can hear you say the same things in return. Love, 42."

We all have little parts of our lives that no one knows about. But when life is gone, those little parts live on and can be discovered. Behind files and files and files, which I combed through in the interest of catching a smell of her hair or a written word I hadn't seen, merely to keep her alive a little longer and to avoid the well-wishers that plastered on impossible smiles of encouragement, I found your correspondence with my wife dating back four years. Four years.

I read all of your letters, from the first, in which you had just met her at one of those lectures she loved which I loathed. You recapped, in a rather shaky style, might I say, your meeting and how charmed you were in her. And how charmed she was in you. As the letter progressed, it became clear that you and her fell in love with each other. Perhaps I misspeak. You loved Carol and Carol loved you. You both loved each other so much that you never met again and you decided to not disrupt your respective families.

From your December 6, 2009 letter: "I am happy to hear you are happy. I am happy, too. Of course, my deepest love is for you, and I want you to be happy. Jerry makes you happy. And Tabitha and the girls make me happy. I think I've rediscovered love to really be something without demands. Thank you for that. You remain my answer to life, the universe and everything. I will remain your heroin."

Like I said, pretty shaky, H. You may note that this missive is equally shaky. I have an excuse.

No doubt you have calmed down a bit, or the shock has completely immobilized you. So I can get to the real point of this letter, Henry, with your full attention.

Carol's happiness was always on my mind, and due to the minutiae of the day, I didn't always ensure that it was a priority. I'm imperfect. But to let my wife retain her happiness, I want to write to you each and every Friday and speak of her. I want to read the books you recommended or sent. I want to share with you the spring in her step and sparkles in her eyes, which I knew weren't always inspired by my behavior. Please help me keep her happy now.

Oh, and finally, as you find the strength to stand and before you plan on dismissing your sad expression from your wife and daughters: thank you.

Until next week,

Gerald

Miss Ogynist (a poem)

 

So I heard Rebecca Watson told a scary tale

A scary, scary, scary tale

Of being with a man in a Dublin lift

Wherein there was caused not even a rift.

 

For there were no signs of ugly aggression

Or even unwanted sexual attention

There was an invite for chat and for coffee

And no suggestion, I understand, of schtupping or boffing.

 

And when she said, 'no.'

The man did go.

 

Well!  So rattled Watson soon became

That while not mentioning this poor bastard's real name

Took her case to the internet

And angry appetites she did prove to whet.

 

On camera she stood tall (well… she sat)

And said, 'guys, don't do that'

A blanket statement for half the population

To abbreviate or eliminate their perceived adulation.

 

This scary tale soon reached Richard Dawkins

Who is known for his writin' and his talkin's

He found such a proclamation absurd

And voiced as much in many more words.

 

Dawkins scribed a funny, fictional lettah

To a woman that he dubbed Muslima

And told her not to bemoan her plight

Or dare to complain about her lack of rights.

 

For women in the West have it far, far worse!

Like being in an elevator and having some verse

Spoken to one, and when one declines

Having that fellow say nothing but "fine"!

 

Reaction to this joke was instant and fast

As if all the people were joyous at last

To be, at Dawkins, incredibly pissed

And whom they all secretly knew was a misogynist.

 

People demanded apologies from this Oxfordian mutt

And Dawkins replied 'Apologize for what?'

Which made everyone all the more mad

Mob mentality does not common sense stand!

 

'You don't know what it's like to be afraid

Or made uncomfortable or ashamed!'

Came the response from the enraged blogosphere

Laying claim, as they did, to the concept of fear.

 

For me I find I must wonder about this

Although I'm a Mister and I've never been Miss

I'm made uncomfortable all of the time

To live in a city is to live near a crime.

 

So I could be shot or attacked or mercilessly mugged

By a random crazy or someone on drugs

So I really don't know what it's like to be scared?

Half the population thinks I've never been there?

And when I attempted to convey skepticism

Of this laying of claim about misogynism

I was told I have no respect for women or their strife

Holy hell, I thought, I hope no one tells my wife.

 

But if Watson and crew dictated behavior

And allowed only things in which we could savor

Then we'd never hear again from old Richard Dawkins

And forget the hell out of ol' Sadie Hawkins.

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-Vincent Truman, June 2011

Diamonds of Contentment

Everyone is very, very aware that life is short and time is fleeting, but it is a far better thing to feel that it is.

For no one special reason, but rather a domino avalanche of them, several members of a Myspace blogging collective reunited over last weekend. Last year, I was pleased to go and meet a few of them for the first time – including, but not limited to, Aaron Dietz, Gus Sanchez, Andrea Burlingame and Michael 'Spilt Milk' Grover – in Seattle. And this year, a trip to New York guaranteed meeting not only Aaron and Gus (and their respective loved ones) but Kristin Weholt, Inga, Erin McParland, Mike Garvey, Shaina Cohen, Christy King, Amanda Van Horn, Jannell Lannon and Luis, etc. within three days.

To merely describe the dinners and social events would prove a disservice to the people who came from all over the world for no other reason than to meet other people who came from all over the world to meet them. So I will attempt mere character sketches of a few of the people I met for the first time, and hope that the minimal lines below will coalesce to form a portrait one can see in one's mind but one would be unable to draw. Note: I have purposefully avoided talking about girlfriends and wives in any detail.

I will start with Erin McParland, someone who I just missed meeting last time I was in New York. She went out of her way to suggest or arrange places for us Out of Towners to go to, as well as being generous to host a big party with everyone from everywhere. Her smile is easy and her youthful energy is infectious. And she opened her home and heart to everyone.

Mike Garvey was known to me for many years as Armand Assante's Left Testicle on Myspace. He is acerbic, crude, vile and nasty – but it comes from such a good place that, upon meeting him, the handshake was quickly abandoned in favor of a warm bearhug. Although we did not have too long to have a heart-to-heart, we were able to share a few minutes and a few years of history together. He's genuine.

Christy King is angular, stunningly attractive and energetic like an Oprah-in-waiting. She described her religion/god to me as the nature she finds in the hearts and minds of other people; one could picture her hosting her own hour-long show and telling her stunned studio audience to look under their chairs. When the audience would return to their upright position, she would smile and say, 'I didn't say you were going to win anything - suckaz.'

Amanda van Horn would be a good cartoon lioness. Soft eyes, a perfect mane, a sly smile, a tat of a heart on her right shoulder. Virtually impossible not to greet her with, 'gawsh, yer purty.' We did not talk much, but she was a great pleasure not to talk to. I will work on that sentence.

Shaina Cohen sports one of those smiles that turn down at first, and is as vibrant as the ink that decorates her arm. An author/artist finding her way.

Allie Smith - a Smith girl and a Leo - was the biggest surprise.  We are e-friends of an e-friend and only got introduced as Allie was considering relocating to Chicago.  As it turns out, we were very old friends immediately, and while she had not met any of my fellow refugees from Myspace, she dove right in and held her own brilliantly.  Sharp as a razor, soft as a prayer.

Finally, there is Kristin. Like my friend Inga, Kristin hails from Norway. She is what one imagines when one imagines Nordic goddesses, which I never do. She was the first person I met in New York and the last I saw. So New York can be bracketed by the hugs with Kristin. I believe we find each other equally adorable and annoying. Instant siblings. Encouraging words come from one when the other is a little down; and when one is feeling overly confident, the other one pours a nice hot cup of sarcasm. As a result of our multiple meals and long walks through Central Park, we were very adept at finding each other's buttons. Whenever I might look at her for more than two consecutive seconds, she would snap back, 'What?!', drop-kicking me into a fluster that would take me some time from which to recover. She also enjoyed calling me "creepy", which is one button that terrifies me – and one that was pressed more repeatedly than Helen Keller's doorbell.

In return, I would poke fun at her many stories of her boyfriend – and how she misses him and how wonderful he is, etc. It did get to the point where Kristin was thinking of him so often and fondly that whatever we were discussing would snap, quite quickly, into a story about her boyfriend. During one of the days, lounging in a hotel bar and sampling oysters on a half shell, Inga and I wondered if there was anything that we could say that would not instantly turn into a story about her boyfriend. I offered up that my wife was enduring her time of the month. Within a minute of this revelation, Kristin pointed out that, yes, her boyfriend, too, gives plenty of blood.

And coursing through all of these people was, of course, that beast known as New York, with its constant murmuring, breathing and rumbling that make it sound like either an underground animal, living under the pavement and plotting to escape, or a music more melodious than Mozart and thick like jazz. Even at 330am, when the city is most quiet, one is aware of something under the pavement, itching to get out to take on another day.

As I sit on the stoop of Park 79, the bastard child of any number of overnight facilities (hostel, boutique hotel, YMCA, some social experiment), I am pleased and happy and on fire with inspiration. It is these diamonds of contentment that, when worn properly, permit one to forget about who one is and what journey one is on and simply bask in the reflections of the friends one has.

Perhaps the group is best summed up by something Aaron Dietz said to me as we were saying goodbye for the second time:

"Keep hugging me. She's going to take a picture."

Commuting Sentences

Commuting: the limbo between lives; the bridge between comfortable chairs; the arc of a tennis ball before it is batted one way or another.

I have taken to reading books on the short-term travels to the places that alternately give me money or relieve me of it. When I first commuted, all bright-eyed and bushy-mustached, I would read simply to appear clever and attractive. Since I have never been much of a weight lifter, I figured I could lure the ladies by my highly developed and defined tomes. I never did. But that's ok, because I never really read the books anyway. Instead of reading, I would practice making interested or amused expressions on my face in case I was being observed.

Now that I am as alluring to the opposite sex as a potted plant, I have taken up reading on the train again. Books are like orphans that need to be picked up, held and understood. The only difference is that you can't burn orphans afterwards.

But, to be frank, I read to ignore the fact I am commuting – and have become as alluring as a potted plant. I have taken to reading Neil Gaiman (an intentional purchase of his "Neverwhere") and Sloane Crosley (a spontaneous purchase of her "How Did You Get This Number"). Gaiman's book is a darker "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", with Arthur Dent replaced by Richard Mayhew, Ford Prefect replaced by a girl named Door, and the comic imagination replaced by a cousin of that same comic imagination, but who had a drinking problem once.

I know nothing of Crosley so I am just getting to know her as I tiptoe through the first few stories. At first blush, she's quite funny, which impresses me, as I know very few women who can pull off comedy. That is no affront to women. Comedy is all about the banana peel and the fall – men do that naturally. You expect men – idiotic, stupid men – to hit that banana peel every single time. For a woman to do that, it usually feels forced or unnatural. Crosley, however, places and descends on her own banana peels quite fluidly. Her only flaw is that she is seemingly quite aware and proud of this, and so the comedy does not always come across as honest.

But literature aside, I am finding more and more reasons to continue my spate of reading on the Blue Line.

• I can nearly tune out the white guy next to me, who is mouthing the words, and doing what he must think are subtle gestures, to a rap song about smacking bitches and whatnot.

• I can avoid being looked at with a look that says, 'You should give your seat to me.' I'm a liberated man. I'm not giving up my seat for anyone. If that sounds a bit cold, then let me point out I am as alluring as a potted plant, and potted plants can't stand.

• As said potted plant, I am very aware I am no longer being scoped out. As a result, the less I see tons of people looking in all directions but mine, the better I feel when I reach my destination.

• If I see a person who is obviously sad, I get sad. Genuinely sad. And empathetic. I want to look at them until they make eye contact, and then I want to give that nod that says, 'I get it. It's fine. Everything is ok, really.' If I have a book, fuck 'em.

• And the whole trip seems to take very little time at all when there is no external stimulation or distraction. As they say, time flies when you're having none.

It's interesting what we human beings do in order not to feel one things or another. And, with a book, you can feel all sorts of things – while avoiding feeling anything remotely important. Yay, civilization.

Reflections on "The Observatory" 2.0

 

When I finally sat down to write "The Observatory", I decided to continue my trend of writing myself a small role in order to add some laughs and punch to the play.  If nothing else, I know how to twist scripts and get laughs.  So I wrote the part of Victor, the charming and sadistic government agent (not from the FBI, as one reviewer suggested, and not in the future, as claimed by another – I'm all for reviewers projecting their feelings, but when they project my plot points, they're piss poor at their job).

 

Having myself in mind for the role of Victor allowed me to have quite a lot of fun at the expense of one of the main roles, that of David Lockwood.  Even with Victor offstage, I still relished in Victor-izing David throughout the show, tormenting him with his own weaknesses, foibles and vulnerabilities until he is crushed under the weight of them.

 

In early 2011, I had a breakfast meeting with a couple of fellow creative types and we ruminated on the idea of combining our powers under one umbrella.  This unnamed entity was to be used to promote each other's works and be on hand for each other to work with.  It was decided that, to launch this none-too-ambitious idea, we would remount "The Observatory" to capitalize on the very positive reactions we received from the December 2010 run (and – this should be underscored – we all liked the play anyway). 

 

Like most garage band philosophies, the idea of the creative umbrella didn't survive long after our french toast, pancakes and omelettes made their way back into the public water supply.  However, by this time, I was financially committed to remounting "The Observatory", so that was that.  From the first run came Angela Jo Strohm and Kasey O'Brien, both of which have outstanding talent, infinite charm and magnificent noses.  In line with creative evolution, we all took on more ambitious roles this time around: Angela, who had understudies the role of Marissa, took on the principal role of Sally Lockwood, as well as became the main director.  Kasey, who had understudied Sally in the first show, moved up to take on the principal role of Marissa, as well as assistant director. 

 

Right around this time, I heard an interview with Ken Finkleman, a particular hero of mine, in which he was asked why he chose to produce, direct, write and star in his various TV shows.  He responded, "would you ask a painter why he decided to paint the entire canvas?"

With that, I decided to take on the lead role of David Lockwood.

 

Now, as I mentioned above, I did delight in torturing our poor David when I wrote the script, but what I didn't realize is that the tools I used to create a mental Guantanamo Bay in David's mind – the insecurity, the vulnerability, the loss of worth, the fear of being mediocre – are exactly my fears.  And David and I get to share them with everyone for an hour and fifteen minutes.  Oops.

 

Over the last six weeks, it's been a circle of hell that Dante didn't even think of.

 

There were two saving graces to being so emotionally naked in front of the rest of the cast: (1) no one was aware I was really terrified and vulnerable and (2) Angela and Kasey were always there.  I have grown very reliant on their opinions and have come to trust them implicitly.  This is not a common thing in theater, no matter what anyone says.  I cannot hug them enough. 

 

Love is the cast member with the longest resume.  And she's not even Equity.

 

 

 

 

 

The Morgan Freeman Effect

It goes without saying that, although actor Morgan Freeman does not fare so well as a leading man, he is the very best supporting actor in the world.  From "Shawshank Redemption" to "Batman Begins", Mr. Freeman brings gravitas and class to every project he touches.  Even those movies that tank, like "Evan Almighty", are at least partially rescued by this fine thespian's gifts.

So it occurred to me: why can't Morgan Freeman be inserted into today's volitile and scary real life?   Would even the worst world tragedies garner a lift from Mr. Freeman's presence?  Could life be a bit more livable and lovable if Mr. Freeman made a (non lead-role) appearance?

The answer is yes.