Stephen Metcalfe's Blog, page 2

Indifference

From my novel, Attachment Patterns

It came from the back of the room, a soft, shy voice. “Mr. Boone, what is it you like about art?”

(Talk about questions.)

“Jesus, I don’t know, I just do it.” More giggles and grins and Dad smiled in return. He pondered a moment. What did he like about art? He hadn’t so much as thought about it in who knows how long. “Okay, what is there these days? What’s out there? You guys know better than I do. There’s video games and music and movies and all this, what, streaming stuff? There’s social media and computer web sites and everybody’s on their cell phones all the time and there are… pod things and bit things. What else, what am I missing?”

“Art!” cried the voice from the back.

“Yes. There is art. What there is, what there has always been” – Dad pointed at his eyes – “is what you see. And when you stand in front of a statue or a painting, a mural, a photo, any work of art – what you see stands alone. There’s no soundtrack, no voice over, no commercials telling you what to do or an announcer telling you how to feel. Hopefully you’re not taking pictures of yourself in front of it and sending them to friends. It’s a singular experience, all yours. You might like what you see, you might not like it, but if it’s true and honest, you react to it. You take it in, and you hang it on a wall inside your head and it stays there because it’s real and it means something to you.”  Dad hesitated, wondering if he should go on. Why not.  “And I wonder if it’s happening anymore. I think art today has become meaningless in the lives of most people. Yeah, they might go to a museum, but they go as tourists. It’s no different than the Empire State Building or The Eiffel Tower, you check it out when you pass through town. You walk from gallery to gallery, trying to take in hundreds and hundreds of years in a single afternoon. Do you really see anything? I don’t know how you can. Art can survive anything but not indifference.”

The room was very quiet. My father could feel all eyes upon him.

“Indifference. I’ve been guilty of it myself. But you people haven’t. You looked at my work today and you told me that it means something to you.” Bob glanced at Mr. John Murphy. “I get the feeling you do that a lot in this class. I think you’ll continue to do it. And if you can do it, how can I not do it as well?” Dad looked back at the young, attentive faces. “I want to thank you for reminding me today what it is I like about art.”

There was applause from John Murphy and the class joined in. It was nice but my father didn’t need it. He thanked the students again and told them he’d come back again soon to see what everyone was working on. Uncertainty felt very far away.

The Exhausted Age

An interesting phrase came across my desk recently.  The Great Exhaustion.  It seems that all over the world a vast number of people are tired.  Burnt out.  Stressed out.  Overwhelmed.  It apparently makes them want to lie down and take a nap.   Okay, not really.  By nap, one is referring to sleep.  In this case, it’s more like wanting to shut down, tune out and give the brain a rest.  Call it staring into tranquil space, if there is any anywhere.  Recovery time.  Thinking and feeling nothing.

And what is it that’s so stressful and tiring these days?  It seems that making a living is for one thing.  Not just living but meeting a standard of living.  Being able to afford things you think you should be able to afford.  And often can’t.  So what do you do?  Work harder?  Work longer?  Find something different to work at?  Does anyone enjoy their work anymore?  I wonder sometimes.  It seems there’s always a constant nut to crack, another level to attain.  What happens when you’re working to support a family and you hardly have the time or energy to be with that family?  Talk about emotional fatigue.

The world is making people tired.  The constant on-line litany of bad news has always been filled with grave tidings, but they used to take a little while to get to you.  It had to filter down the pike.  Hit the search engine on your phone now and beneath the search bar is a list of current headlines, each one like the title to a horror movie.  Websites and social media and text messages spewing commentary and angry warnings on a daily – no, an hourly – basis.  How can that not affect you?  Danger, Will Robinson!  Danger, danger!  Meaning quick – run and take a nap!  Or better still, turn off your phone and computer and then go lie down.  Studies show that too many of us take our little toys to bed with us.  Talk about helpless. 

Unresolved stress makes one feel out of control, simple as that.

I look at the essays and blurgs in my little, published collection, Crossing the Meadow, and it pleases me that so many are rooted in a sense of humor, making light of semi-serious things that happened to me over the last fifteen years.  It pleases me because humor has always been a way to express myself.  It also saddens me just a bit because lately it feels as if I’ve lost that sense of humor.  Is it because I’m tired? When you’re mentally exhausted, it’s difficult to be light and positive, no matter how hard you try.  You sit down to write something amusing and there’s not much to be amused about.   No wonder you want to go take a nap.

Let’s see….

Light and positive example 1.  I was chatting with a friend on the phone last week – yes, sometimes I call as opposed to text – and I asked a simple question.  “So, whatcha been up to?”  “Oh, not much.  Just Biden time.”

What!?   What did he say?  Biden time?  Or wait – biding time.  I guess both mean pretty much the same thing.  Biding time means you’re waiting for something and since that heartrending debate we’re all certainly doing that. Sorry to say, whatever that something is or will be, it doesn’t feel as if it’s going to be anything to laugh about. 

Oh, but wait – see?  I just tried to write something amusing but I didn’t.  I’m just feeling tired.

Let’s laugh about the weather.  I live in La Jolla, California which has always been pretty close to paradise. Not this year. A rain filled spring gave way to May-grey which gave way to June-gloom which has given way to July-purgatory.  Fog in the morning, a bare whisper of sunshine in the afternoon,  cool, damp and grey all throughout the day.  One shouldn’t complain, of course.  The coastal grey is being caused by dangerously high temperatures inland.  I heard a visitor from Phoenix (120+*) recently state that he felt like he was in a place where mother nature had finally turned on the air conditioning and —   

Wait, stop. Again, I’m trying to amuse myself here but I’m not, I’m complaining.  I’m Biden-timing, still waiting for youthful summer to come.

Okay. Want to talk about something really funny?  I’ll talk about the despicable knee.  Not the traitorous one, the left one, the one that’s been the bane of my tennis existence for the last eight years, no, this is the so-called “good” knee, the right one.  According to a doctor friend, I’m now dealing with a “Baker’s cyst” which is a swollen sac behind the kneecap.  Who’s doing the baking I have no idea, all I can tell you is that the “good” knee is suddenly so stiff and painful it hurts to walk.  I’ve been told to rest and ice it, meaning bide my time and do nothing and wait for the swelling to go away.  It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The only positive is that the bad knee, the left one, has suddenly stopped hurting, probably out of sympathy. 

Left knee – right knee.  Democrat – Republican.  Biden – Grump.  Is there an analogy here?  Other than that it hurts to think – I mean, walk – no, not really.

Shoot. I’m still not being amusing, am I.  I’m trying, I really am.  I’m just too tired.  I’ll try again later.

It’s the age I’m at.  The Exhausted Age.

*

Stephen Metcalfe’s work can be found at:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stephen+metcalfe&ref=nb_sb_noss

Grandchild

Yes, it’s happening, something grand.

The news came out of nowhere, a complete surprise.  “Okay, what do you think this is,” asked my lovely daughter, she and her husband, showing us an image on her cell phone.  My wife and I had no idea.  It looked like a small, swirling whirlpool.  (“A hurricane in the North Atlantic?” was her uncles’ later reply).  “It’s an ultrasound,” said the lovely daughter, trying not to burst at the seams.  “It’s a baby.  Five weeks old.” 

“We’re pregnant”, said the equally elated son-in-law.

We. 

Well, yes, it does take two to tango.  It brought back immediate memories.  At age 39, I was in the kitchen when my wife approached, an incredulous look on her face.  We were perhaps five or six weeks back from our honeymoon.  “I think…. I’m pregnant,” said my wife. 

I’m pretty sure I blinked.  Blinked twice.  Or gaped.  Or half fainted.  “You think or know?” I might have said. 

“I’m pretty sure,” she said. 

“Well… so much for getting divorced now,” I might have said.

A grandchild.  Due in eight months.  My wife and I were speechless.  We sat there, our mouths hanging open.  It might as well have been a hurricane in the North Atlantic, it was that big a deal.  “It will be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said my daughter.  “We’ll have a tree and presents.”   Christmas.  Christmas is about children, isn’t it.  Holidays are.  The celebration so often joyfully focuses on them.  The gifts, the food, the family stories, the myths and legends.  How old are they when you tell them the easter bunny has hidden eggs around the house.  Who first explains the significance of Independence Day to a little one?   Thanksgiving.  What are we all giving thanks for and why?  Answer?  Each other.  You.   Because we’re so grateful to have you here.  

Babies.  They change everything.  The sense of purpose, the sense of responsibility.  Being there.  I remember feeling that newborns were the foundations of a new family.  And then your babies become toddlers, bravely walking, and then toddlers become children, happily running, and those children go to school and go to the playground with friends and eventually children become teenagers – nothing need be said about that! – and teenagers become young adults who go off to college or go off to jobs and sometimes go off to live in other places and you’ve been on the entire journey with them, sometimes driving, sometimes along for the ride.  And now you find yourself staring at your daughter who has come into the house and given you incredible news that it’s happening all over again. 

“Is it a boy or girl,” asked my breathless wife.  Surprising because as an expectant mother to be, she didn’t want to know in advance.  We discovered our children’s gender at birth.   Among other things, we thought it would make choosing names more fun.

“Too early to tell,” said my daughter.  “Maybe another five or six weeks.  We’ll probably have a gender reveal party.” 

A what?  Oh, that’s right.  These days expectant parents reveal the sex of their child by serving layer cake to friends – if the interior frosting is blue it’s a boy, if it’s pink it’s a girl.  At least, I think that’s how it works.  Maybe the friends serve the cake to them.  Oh, but wait, how would they know….?

“What do you want it to call you?” asked my son-in-law, teasing.

My wife and looked at one another.  Call us.  What a question.  Is it ever for a grandparent to decide how a grandchild refers to them?   My maternal grandmother was named Elsie.  Somehow, I was told, grandmother became a mispronounced Mummer which quickly became Bomber.  It fit.  She was the family equivalent of a military jet, always ready to protect and serve.  My wife’s dear father was first called Poppy by my young daughter.  Somehow Poppy became Poppy-Poppy, which meant my wife’s mother was then called Mommy-Mommy which meant they were eventually referred to as M-2 and P-2.   So it goes. 

And really, that word – Grand?  Grand means magnificent and imposing.  Grand suggests that it’s the most important item of its kind.  When it comes to grandparenting, that sure will be my wife but that sure ain’t me.  Grandfather?  How about Grumpy-father which could eventually evolve into Grump-paw.  Yes, that would fit.  The Grumpster!

“Daycare will be right here at the house,” said my wife, already thinking rapturously ahead.  “Whenever you need me.” 

Daycare.  Yes, the daughter and my son in law both work full time jobs.  I’m sure my daughter will get maternity leave but only for a while.  There will have to be day care, won’t there.  Babies need changing.  And feeding.  And burping.  And comfort when they cry.  Babies need attention.  Why not here at the house?   Unless the babe wants tennis lessons, I can always vacate the premises or go lock myself in the office downstairs.  Ah, but we’re already getting ahead of ourselves.  At least, I am.

It comes down to this.  A change is happening.  Something wonderful is coming our way.  A grandchild.  And in this case, the word – grand – is right on the money.  The most important item of its kind.

A (Surprise) Review

Much to my surprise, a review appeared on Amazon for my recently self-published collection of essays, Crossing the Meadow.  I certainly didn’t expect it but here it is.  (Thank you, Jim!)

Imagine you’re flying from the West Coast to London. It’s a very long flight, and you can’t get to sleep. The passenger sitting next to you strikes up a conversation. He is a very interesting man who has led a very interesting life. He tells you about his life as a screenwriter, and his experience with movie stars, He is a novelist now and discusses the creative process. But you learn he has the same problems, hopes, and dreams that you do.. Some of his stories make you laugh, some make you cry. Before you know it, you are landing at Heathrow. Where did the time go?  That’s what this book is like — a conversation, perhaps the best conversation you ever had. I read it in a day.

Crossing the Meadow is available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stephen+metcalfe&i=stripbooks&s=date-descrank&crid=1SUPPLBNEZ4EY&qid=1717518504&sprefix=Stephen+Metcalfe%2Cstripbooks%2C167&ref=sr_st_date-desc rank&ds=v1%3AqI6nj%2B6%2F%2BlAZxISpR6p5eqwqFYazFmpootftzfGPfRo

Crossing the Meadow

Crossing the Meadow. A metaphor for a writer’s life. Walking through a world you imagine in your head.  This collection of short pieces is divided into four sections.  Plays, Movies and Words are about the adventures of a working writer. The Desperate Man are some early shouts and murmurs about fatherhood and family. Dog-Dumb entails the adventures of having dogs in the house. Notes on a Son are thoughts about the challenges and revelations that come with having a son on the autism spectrum.  Walking the Meadow are pieces written over the last few years. Some are serious, some are humorous, some are self-deprecating, some are personal, more than anything I hope they are entertaining. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4TWDYTJ?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520

Beautiful Jerk

As hard as it is to believe, I directed a feature film once.  Yes, a real full-length movie, one that had producers and designers and actors and and a several million-dollar budget.  I rarely tell people about it because if I did, they might want to see it and I really don’t want to inflict that on them.  Is it really that bad?  Or should I say is it really not that good?  Uh… well, maybe, kinda… sorta… yes.  And I’ll take a good part of the blame for it.  What can I say, I got in over my head. 

I’d spent time on movie sets and watched how it all worked.  I’d directed stage plays, including some of my own, and I’d enjoyed the process, very much enjoyed working with the actors and the designers.  I  felt I had a visual sense that would translate to film.  Could I do a superhero movie laden with special effects?  No, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. Beautiful Joe was a character driven romantic comedy/drama.  It was about a plain speaking, innately decent, working man, Joe, who, suddenly faced with his own mortality, realizes he’s never had any kind of an adventure in his life.  He goes in search of that adventure and much to his surprise, finds it in a down-on-her-luck, Southern belle named Hush, a single woman/con artist with two small children.  Opposites in this case don’t so much attract as they collide on a road trip across America that starts in New York, moves through Kentucky and ends in Las Vegas.

Much to my surprise (I’m always surprised), people liked the screenplay.  It was optioned by a producer who I knew and respected who then, for a reason never explained, optioned the rights to an English production company.  Perhaps that should have been my first warning.  English production company.  For what was an innately American story. Their first suggestion?  Perhaps I might consider setting the film in Europe as it might be cheaper to shoot over “here”.  Uhh… okay… maybe… I guess.  The story could start in Dublin as opposed to New York, our couple could meet outside London as opposed to Kentucky and they could travel to Monte Carlo as opposed to Vegas.  And I guess, well, yeah, maybe if I was to do it this way, Joe could maybe be “Irish”.  There wouldn’t be different words, just a different accent.  Okay, sure, why not give it a try.

Was I out of my mind?  Yes, most definitely.  But it had been my experience that a successful film can often be a culmination of things no one expected or planned for.  And heck, shooting in Europe sounded like a paid vacation.  I did a quick rewrite and other than locations the script and story felt pretty much the same to me.  Ultimately Europe became a no go, but people found Joe as an “Irishman” interesting.  Translation?  More talkative.

You start meeting actors.  At least you’re supposed to.  I had been thinking of someone like Sylvester Stallone for Joe and maybe Meg Ryan or Uma Thurmon for Hush.  Well, that sure didn’t happen.  However, I did have a meeting with a lovely, young actress named Jennifer Lopez who was coming off a film I hadn’t seen yet.  I didn’t think she was quite right for the part. I thought the actress Andie McDowal might be, but she was filming something in the Carolinas and a meeting was never arranged.  If you can believe it, the producers flew me to London to meet a potential, “Irish Joe”, the actor, John Hannah, known for his role in Four Weddings and a Funeral.  A terrific guy but not quite a Joe.  And then, somehow, and out of nowhere, it happened.  “She who shall remain nameless” was interested in the role of Hush; a quote-unquote bankable movie star, meaning an actor who could give investors’ confidence by ensuring a large box-office return.  I suppose going panty less on camera, which this actress had done, can do that.

A meeting was arranged.  Said actress – okay, the heck with nameless, we’ll call her “SWSRN” –  was doing a “fashion shoot” in LA and she would take time to sit down with me and discuss the role of Hush.  Only that didn’t quite happen.  I showed up at the “shoot” at the arranged time and was – there was only way to put it – completely ignored.  I stood watching as a horde of assistants and fashionistas hovered and pampered.  It was as if I didn’t exist, as if the potential project didn’t exist.  I’d never encountered an attitude like this, and I finally left.  I called the producers and told them, “This ain’t gonna work”.  They called back and told me that “SWSRN” would now like to meet one on one at her house in the hills.  They encouraged me to do so.  Nothing like perceived rejection to make an actor more open-minded.  The house, on a secluded lot, above Belair, was beautiful and very obviously professionally decorated.  You had a sense no one really lived there and if anyone did, it was only on a part-time basis.  “SWSRN” told me about her background – as I remember she said she was from a working-class family in Pennsylvania.  She felt the character of Joe could have come from that family.  She told me she was married to a journalist based in San Francisco and spent a lot of time there.  She was now pleasant and soft spoken and if still a bit distant, seemingly semi-normal and suddenly it seemed as if could work.

What did I know.

When and how the Scottish actor/comedian Billy Connelly, “the Big Yin”, entered the picture I’ll never know.  Connelly was an improvisational comedian, an actor, and a musician.  He’d done TV specials, television sitcoms, had, at that point, done small roles in several movies.  He was, I was told, world renown everywhere but America.  That he was talented was without question.  But was he a Joe?  An Irish Joe, perhaps and it seemed that this was the direction the role was now going.

A dinner was arranged at, of all places, the Belair Hotel, movie star central.  An associate producer and I sat and patiently waited at a corner table.  Billy made his entrance first wearing a wildly brocaded shirt, a madras plaid suit, and sandals with no socks.  His hair cascaded down around his shoulders, he was heavily bearded and the only thing louder than the plaid suit, which could have stopped traffic at midnight, was his voice.  It was as if a Scottish Falstaff had arrived in the building. 

Billy was followed a short time later by the academy awards on steroids.  “SWSRN” made her entrance on the far side of the bar and proceeded to stop at every table in the room, loudly and brightly acknowledging attention whether it was being given to her or not.  She finally got to our table, sank into a chair, and went off for an annoyed ten minutes on how it was “impossible to go anywhere without being besieged by fans”.

I don’t remember if we talked about the script.  I don’t remember if we talked to one another.  I really don’t remember anything.  I think I was in a fugue state – a mindless state of shock where I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing.  I do remember this.  Driving home that night, I wondered if I could get out of this if I crashed my car into a tree.

No, too late.  We were a go.  And when you’re a go in the film business as a first time director, you go.

CUT TO:

Four months later.  Vancouver, Canada of all places where the producers have decided to shoot the film.  This means hiring Canadian actors which means all the American actors I had specifically in mind, friends, countrymen, to play different characters are out of the picture. 

CROSS CUT TO:

The English actor, Ian Holm, is hired to play by the producers to play the role of the Kentucky based, nerdie/bad guy.  A brilliant, classical actor, a name actor, but totally wrong for the part.  I knew this but what the heck, I didn’t say no.  There didn’t seem as if there was anyone else in Canada.

CROSS FADE TO:

A film “trip” that was supposed to be across the continental United States meant thirty-six separate locations in and around greater Vancouver in twenty-five days.  Someone also forgot to mention that late spring and early summer nights in Vancouver are maybe six hours long at most. We had three lengthy night shoots scheduled.  An experienced director might have known this timetable was semi-impossible.  The key word here is experienced.  With so little time, as the shoot progressed we usually ended up filming a master shot, necessary close ups – one or two takes at most – and then we wrapped and moved on.  Time, time time… see what’s become of me.

JUMP CUT TO:

SWSRN not just designing her own wardrobe but deciding that the character wears different, extravagant  wigs for different occasions – different colors, different lengths.   She had decided that Hush was a “look at me, look at me!” character when in fact Hush was just the opposite – she’d been there, done that sort of thing and she didn’t want that anymore.  There was no explaining this to SWSRN – and because she was late to the set, we didn’t have the time for her to go change.  Oh – did I mention that she didn’t like to rehearse?  

INSERT:

The loss of the third day of shooting because the camera lens was out of focus.  We had to reshoot the entire day with a different supporting cast. 

CUT TO:

The idiot writer/director (me) rewrites an early scene that shows Hush at work in an adult night club.  As first written, she hates the job and stays behind the scenes as much as possible.  Producers have suggested that because SWSRN can “play to a crowd”, she should get up and entertain.  She can and she does.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  My fault entirely.  I was working on uncertainty as much as adrenaline.

INSERT

The loss of half a day of shooting because the electric grid at the location short circuited.  We improvised outside – tried to.

INSERT

The loss of half a day of shooting because the producers hadn’t been received a security clearance at the airport and forgot to tell us… 

INSERT

The total loss of three days of shooting towards the end of the shoot because SWSRN’s husband had a medical problem on a Wednesday and declaring it an emergency, she flew to San Francisco on Thursday morning.  The husband was back at work the following Monday, but SWSRN didn’t return to Vancouver until the following Wednesday.  Oh, but she did find the time to appear on the Tonight Show in LA that Monday night.  We shot “around” her for three days, trying to find ways to explain why an essential character wasn’t in the scenes.

FLASHBACK TO:

A seagull pooping on my head when we were filming near the harbor in Vancouver.  I considered it an omen of things to come.

INTERCUT:

Sundays spent sitting brain dead and exhausted in my hotel room, trying to convince myself it was all going well, at the same time wondering when it would be over.

FAST FORWARD TO:

London.  Postproduction.  Putting the film together with an editor made me feel like a writer without enough words at my disposal.  We had what we had, simple as that, and there were not a lot of choices to be made with the material.  There were moments and scenes that worked but there were many that didn’t because you didn’t care enough about the characters.  It was as if they were vying for attention.  The subtle humor in the script that bound them together, two very different people quietly reacting to one one another, and slowly learning to trust one another, just wasn’t there.   I hadn’t been able to convey that subtle journey to the actors.  Maybe I hadn’t realized it myself. 

There was no “director’s cut”.  The film was ultimately taken and reedited by some English someone I didn’t know and never spent a moment of time with.  I never had any say on the soundtrack, which was a disappointment as well.  Beautiful Joe?  No, me. Beautiful Jerk.

Looking back now, I can tell you it takes a certain obsessive quality to be a film director – enormous self-confidence, an uncompromising, singular vision, an almost fanatical attention to detail – plus patience, patience, and more patience.  My ADHD brain had none of these attributes.  I can admit it now.  Like I said, I was in over my head from the beginning.

A big sigh.  Over.  Done with.   Twenty years past.  On a “positive” note, the experience drove me out of film and pushed me towards the writing of fiction.  The money ain’t been as good but there’s been a certain satisfaction to it.

The Journal Writer

Amazing the things you stumble upon when going through old boxes of papers and scripts.  There it was – a blue, old, hard-covered notebook.  I hardly recognized it.  I opened it and immediately saw scribbles.  No, not scribbles – penmanship.  Words legibly handwritten in deep blue, probably with a fountain pen.  At the top of the first page was this: 

Idea for a screenplay: 

         Bank robbery :   Young man

                 returns to his home

                 town and robs bank

_____________________________________________

Hmmm.  What exactly had I stumbled upon.  I continued reading.   The screenplay idea was followed by what seemed to be a monologue.  (Typos and incomplete sentences included.)

“He liked the paraphernalia of work more than the work itself.  He was totally enthralled by with the topography of his desk; the typewriter, the reams of crips white paper, a coffee mug filled with pens and sharpened pencils springing from it like stiff tropical plants, yellow legal pads placed within easy reach just so.  He could look at these tools for long minutes at a time and in truth, if he had spent half as much time scribbling as he did designing imaginary spaces suitable for a literary career, he might have filled each and every one of those eagerly awaiting pieces of paper.”

A typewriter?  Pens and pencils and legal pads?  Okay, these tools would suggest that the the writer – I won’t take or deny credit yet – wrote this well before the early 1980’s which is when computers began to take over desks.  I continued reading.

“He was an actor for two weeks and was enthusiastic about it.  He had pictures taken, typed up a resume of accomplishments – easily the most imaginative thing he ever wrote – and went to a lot of movies to survey the competition.  The competition seemed to be having a lot of fun, living the highs most people achieve in a lifetime in a mere two hours, never once going to the bathroom, then taking a brief vacation and then being ready to live again.”

By the way, one thing I remember about writing with a pen – and a typewriter – was the inability to easily make corrections.  This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The minute I started working on the computer – call it “word processing” – I not only immediately started correcting my typos and misspellings but began rewriting a sentence three or four times before moving on.  But I’m getting off the subject.  “The writer” here, whoever he might be, is writing about acting.

“He stood in front of the mirror imitating Robert DeNiro and judged the performance satisfactory.

“You talkin’ t’ me?

Uh, say, uh… are you talkin’ t’ me?

Well, who d’ fug you…

But then he went to an audition and two weeks of artistic self-congratulations went out the window.  He had picked up a paper that contained notices of various try outs and interviews. They were looking for young men in their mid to late twenties and asked that a 2-minute monologue be memorized and performed.  He had been doing Robert DeNiro 5 hours a day for 3 days and judged himself ready. 

But so did half a million up and coming, promising young hopefuls.  There was a line out into the street, and everyone was glaring at each other with nervous animosity.  Drifting around the outskirts of this backwash of people, acting suddenly seemed to be a trivial child’s game and a waste of his good time.  His mind’s eye saw his resume as a nonsensical fabrication and his picture, before full of dramatic solemnity and inky shadows that bespoke sensitivity and a soul that had known great despair, now seemed to say that he suffered from constipation when in dark rooms.  He tossed the offending articles in the nearest wastebasket and went out and treated himself to lunch.”

Okay, thank goodness.  If I am the writer here, I’m making this all up.  Call it a first foray into fiction.  Facts.  Before moving to New York City in the fall of 1976, I had spent one semester in the MFA program at Boston University, studying, yes, of all things, acting.  One in NYC I took classes at the Herbert Berghof Studio.  I eventually even did some roles Off-off-Broadway.  But I had also begun seriously writing.  My acting career ended the day I had an audition to go to but found myself more entranced with the words I was putting on a page. The DeNiro excerpt, by the way, is from the film, Taxi Driver.

Moving on, the journal writer – okay, maybe it’s me – now changes the subject of his monologue completely.

“I am a pacifist only because I seem chemically built that way.  Aggression and fear trigger responses in me that I simply find unpleasant; a sense of hysteria, a lack of control, an aversion to getting my nose broke.  And yet violence is part of my fantasy memory.  When I was a child my brother and I played at being cowboys, knights, and gladiators. We killed and were killed a thousand times. We were in love with wooden swords, pistols that fired plastic projectiles, rubber rifles that didn’t go bang but merely made the sound of a bullet ricocheting.”

I should mention that this was a time before R rated movies – movies that vividly portrayed real violence.  We were kids.  The most violent thing on TV was Sugarfoot.  Again, moving on:

“I am appalled, disgusted and terrified of war yet there are moments – mundane moments, when the insanity of conflict seems like the most logical, mind-body fusing, logical act possible.”

Wait, no, this can’t be me.  That’s utter nonsense.  Oh, but maybe the writer, if it is me, was working on something here, developing a character of some kind.  They talk about robbing a bank in my play, Half a Lifetime.  They talk about the horrors of war in Jacknife and Strange Snow.  What is drama if it isn’t creative imagination?   And now, finally (for now anyway), we jump to this.  And I’m not kidding:

                    PROGRAM NOTES

(ABOUT THE AUTHOR)

He lived in Manhattan and spent a lot of time wondering how he got there.  As a child in Connecticut, the very words – New York – filled him with contemptuous horror, a pity for those urban aliens who daily trod that concrete island.  New York was a geographical bogeyman, and he would as soon live there as he would in…. heaven forbid, Waterbury.  He had no interest in the place, no stake. When people talked about it, he felt the same uneasiness that came when someone tried to force the facts of Auschwitz through his thick wasp skull.”

(Ouch.  Please substitute stupid and unthinking for thick.)

“Now that he was there, still not knowing how he got there, he remembered with some amusement and some puzzlement – why had his brain failed to pick up on this early warning system? – telling friends he was going to learn how to feign a crippled knee, thereby having an excuse to carry a thick wooden cane for protection.  Let some addicts even try to steal his last 20 dollars then!  And now, of course, he didn’t feign an in jury or carry a cane.  There was almost a disappointment in learning that New York was pretty normal.  Perhaps a little more tense than Connecticut, all the egos and failing ambitions packed into one concrete can…. but normal.

And small.  You picked a path and a space, and you made it yours.  In a short time, you started recognizing faces on the street – emotionless, stoic masks for the most part but recognizable just the same.”

Okay, I know where I am now.  It’s 1979 and I’m sharing an apartment on the upper west side with terrific roommates, people I’ve met while teaching summer tennis out on Long Island.  The journal writer – yes, me – is 26 years old.  In a pretty good place but still —

“He daydreamed about moving.  He hated jogging but thought he’d do it if he had a country lane to do it in. He found loafing on beaches for any length of time boring but often, trapped in the towering castle walls of Manhattan, his mind looked at sunshine and warm water as being as exquisite and valuable as the jewelry in Cartier’s window.  Not to mention, they were free. 

It seemed as if everything worth wanting, doing, possessing, enjoying had a price in Manhattan.  Someone had recognized the worth, cornered the market and attached a price tag.  Their palm was thrust forth, greedy and waiting.

He would have moved, would have gone ahead, and done it except for one thing.  He was afraid that once separated from the city, once bedded down in a softer, easier going, quieter room, he would miss it.

What would he miss?  He made a list once.  He liked not owning a car.  He liked being able to see all the feature movies immediately – he never did but he liked knowing he could if he so desired.  He liked the short, thick sausages the corner  shop served with eggs, toast, coffee and home fries for one dollar ninety cents.  And though he seldom met any attractive  girls who were interested in him, he was convinced he’d have less success no matter where else he went.”

Ah, youth. I look back on my New York years now mostly with pleasure.  When I wrote this in 1979, I didn’t know that in the next few years I’d have plays done and that in ten years I’d be living in California near the warm water, embarking on a career as a screenwriter, a husband, and a father.  But then, who could?

There are more scribbles in the journal. More from the “journal writer” to come.

Check out — https://substack.com/@stephenmetcalfewords

Audrey

Audrey

the skull illuminating pose

A chapter I cut from the final draft of Attachment Patterns. Kind of fun.

*

That afternoon Bob went to yoga. 

He went to the one closest to his house.  It was called Bikram Yoga and Bob had noted any number of times, especially in summer, that attractive young women in tights and yoga tops wandered in and out.  At the very least, this seemed like a consolation prize if yoga struck out.

“I’d like to try yoga,” said Bob.

The girl behind the counter was shapely and had a cheerful smile.  Her top consisted of bands of stretch fabric that covered her breasts, crisscrossed her shoulders and tied at the base of her neck.   Her leggings stopped below the knee.   Bob, who was wearing a warm up suit over shorts and polo shirt, approved.

“Great!  Have you done it before?” 

“No.”

 “Oh.”  The girl looked uncertain. “ Well, we have one starting in half an hour.  But it’s an advanced class.”

“Sign me up,” said Bob.

What a horrible mistake.  The yoga studio was like being in a Finnish sauna competition and by the time Bob took off his warm-up and laid out the rented yoga mat, he was a soaking burble of sweat.  Yes, there were several attractive women in the class and yes, like the girl at the desk, they were wearing sheer outfits, but Bob hardly noticed them as he was too busy trying to breathe.  The instructor, a shirtless, ponytailed young man, greeted the class and without further ado, they started.  Standing tall and straight with their hands on their heads, everyone took deep breaths.  Bob did too.  So far so good.  Next, the class put their hands and feet together and bent at the waist to the right.  They then bent to the left.  They then bent their knees and with straight backs, stuck their arms out in front of them.  Bob followed suit.  Everyone in class now tightly crossed their legs and then crossed their arms in front of them. 

Other than the temperature of the room, yoga was easy!

Standing, the ponytailed instructor raised a leg, held it straight out in front of him and effortlessly dropped his forehead to his outstretched knee.  Everyone, with varying degrees of success, did the same thing. 

Bob fell over.   

Did Annie actually do this?

Deciding to make the most of the momentary break, Bob took off the sweat drenched polo shirt.  He watched as standing on his left leg and bending at the waist, the ponytailed instructor lifted his right leg and holding it by the ankle, pointed it in a perfect line up towards the ceiling. 

Okay. 

Standing and putting a hand on his thigh, Bob got his own leg up off the ground – barely – and stood there, fighting for balance.  

Bob fell over.

It was now obvious to him that Annie had blatantly lied about the benefits of yoga.  Why would she do such a thing?

As long as he was down, Bob decided to take another short break.  He watched, lightheaded and panting, as the class went through what the instructor referred to as The Balancing Stick Pose, The Standing Separate Leg Stretch – which looked, to Bob, like a strenuous way to have anal sex – and The Standing Separate Leg Head To Knee Pose.  Bob rose to his feet to attempt The Tree Pose, which meant standing on one leg, with the heel of the other leg waist high and the hands clasped as if in prayer.

Bob prayed for water.  

Did Annie know she was a sadist?  Bob suddenly pictured her in a leather corset brandishing a whip.  It wasn’t a completely unappealing image.

Everyone sat.  This was good as Bob, having fallen again, was already down.  The class lay down on their backs with their legs together and their arms at their sides.  Bob could do this one.  Everyone pulled a knee to their chest.  Bob found this one user friendly as well.  Everyone sat up and leaning forward with straight legs, grabbed their toes.  Bob almost reached his knees.  His lower back was as tight as a drum and he was no longer sweating.  Obviously he was deathly dehydrated.  Everyone now rolled to their stomachs, arched their backs, and raised their heads high.  “The Cobra Pose,” called the ponytailed instructor, “relieves the pain of arthritis, helps with menstrual disorders and improves digestion.”   Still on their stomachs, everyone stretched as if they were doing a swan dive. 

Cursing all things Annie, Bob rolled to his side, opting for the fetal position.  He listened but didn’t participate as the class went through The Camel Pose, The Rabbit Pose and The Knee to Knee Pose.  He mustered enough curiosity to raise his head and observe the class go into the Half Lord of the Fishes Pose.  He tried not to faint as everyone did the final Skull Illuminating Pose. 

The class ended.  Everyone stood and flushed, smiling and chatting with one another, rolled their yoga mats and gathered their things.  “How you feeling?” said the ponytailed instructor.  He had come over and was now helping Bob to his feet.  He was as smooth and dry as mannequin.

“Like I crossed the Sahara on crutches,” said Bob.

In the outer room, Bob sat for a good thirty minutes.  He drank half a dozen large glasses of water.  Putting on his warm up and forgetting his polo shirt, Bob went out to his truck and drove carefully home.  Going up to his bedroom, he lay down and pulled a blanket over himself.   

Though he had no intention of telling her, Annie had been right about yoga.  Bob no longer felt bored, stressed, guilty, tense or nervous.  Bob felt too exhausted to feel anything. 

After shivering for a while, Bob fell asleep, conveniently forgetting that before leaving the studio, he had signed up for half a dozen more classes. 

For beginners.

Burnout

 A new term has recently entered my lexicon. 

Creative burnout is a lack of interest in the work and activities that have always been meaningful to you.  You doubt your ability to create anymore, you feel you’re no longer “good enough”, that you’ve lost whatever talent you once had.  You find yourself in a place where you have no energy, imagination, or focus when it comes to work and so you start to become cynical and detached about the work itself – what’s the point, what does it matter, nobody really cares about what you do so why bother doing it.  Let’s put it another way.  Sitting down at the keyboard can be a physical challenge.

Sounds familiar.

So what do you do?

From what I’ve read you can start by taking a break.  Take some time off, not a lot but enough to give yourself a reset.  Hmmm.  I feel I’ve been in reset mode for a while now.  I’m a wound-up grandfather clock only the tick-tock has stopped.  What time is it anyway?  No, a break’s not going to work. I need time on.

Be kind to yourself.  Okay, but it’s hard to be kind to someone who’s constantly boring you to tears.

When you come back, find yourself something “new” to work on.  Great idea.  Another project to put on my ten-page to do list.  Really, what do you do when you have ideas but the ideas no longer flow?  (You sit at the keyboard and write nonsense like this.)

Read inspirational stories.  Meaning fiction .  Something someone else has made up.  Do not read the newspaper, and on pain of death pay no attention to the real world.  And yet, isn’t fiction – adult fiction -supposed to be a reflection of the real world?  Maybe that’s why trying to write it these days is soul sapping.  

Freewriting.  Freewriting is where you write words down without thinking about what they should be about.  You just write.  Which is what I’m doing right now.  Damn, but I’m good. 

I suppose one could always write poetry as well.  I’vd always had a talent for poetry. 

Damn, I’m good

Even though my brain is made of wood

Maybe I should

Take a walk through the neighborhood.

Incredible.  Give me a guitar and I’d be doing country music.

Spend time with people that are supportive and encouraging of your goals.  Hmmm.  Afraid I don’t have that list.  One of the things about sitting at a desk by yourself every day for years is you didn’t get to meet a lot of people.  If anything, better to find more people to play tennis with.

Okay, the list goes on and on mostly saying the same thing, most of it posted on writer’s blogs by writers looking to make a buck or two.  More power to them.  Here’s advice to myself.  Learn to enjoy the work again.  Allow yourself to enjoy it again.  No expectations.  You’re letting disappointment in the aftermath – readers, book sales, making a buck or two – get in the way of enjoying the process.

Enjoy the process.  That’s really all you can do.