Blog-dentity crisis...

You may have been wondering where I have been for the last week or so, what with the flurry of posts and the seeming return to writing, and then silence again. (Or maybe you haven't--probably you just come here for the funny videos. I dunno.) I started writing this post a week and a half ago, and then got stumped. So much started flowing out of the old fingertips, and I wrestled and wrestled with how to phrase it--hell, I wrestled with whether to post it or not. But here it finally is.

The old Internal Debate has returned: to blog or not to blog. As of tomorrow, Living Loud will be one year old. Initially, I viewed the blog as a coffee table--a place where I would share funny stuff, rants, and observations. It was meant to be a way to stay in touch, albeit one-way, with folks who are interested in sharing coffee with me but cannot practically, geographically do so. (He said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.) Now, however, I am part of the soul-sucking phenomenon known as Facebook, and seem to be staying in touch there quite well. So is this blog really good for that any more? Should I even keep this blogging business up?

I think the answer to this is 'yes'--but if it isn't good for staying in touch any more, what is it good for? I could use it as a place to share my writing, but that is scary for me from a copyright viewpoint. (It would, however, be a great impetus to challenge me to finish up some of the stuff that is laying around incomplete.) Some friends and family members have mentioned wanting to hear more about life in the theater, but that can get a little dicey and gossip-y, and I'm just not sure I want to go there. I could use it as a place to share funny discoveries and humorous anecdotes, but frankly there are millions of those pages out there already. Why would you come here to read that stuff?

Which leads me to the question: is Living Loud a destination? Should it be? Do I want it to be? And if so, what would you find if you came here? Am I trying to get more readers, or just vainly publishing my little two cents for a handful of people to see? I don't even know how many of you there are, let alone what you think--but I am sure curious to find out. If you are reading this, please take the time to comment and let me know whatcha think.

Clip of the Week...

A friend forwarded this to me (thanks, Jon) and I just had to share. It is from a project called Playing for Change. Basically, this dude recorded a street performer singing a song in Santa Monica, CA, then laid down other tracks across the world with other unknown performers. It is incredible.



Click the link above to visit their site. They also have a version of Bob Marley's "One Love" that is pretty amazing.

In partial defense of the madness that is my life...

Okay, I will start by saying the following:

(a) I am a poor correspondent. I am, in fact, so poor at keeping in touch with others, that I expect to be posthumously decorated by some Agency for Not Staying in Touch with Others when I am interred in this earth.

(b) I am busy. Over busy. Some of this over-busy-ness I select and put upon myself, and therefore my excuse of being over-busy is partially my own fault. (I say partially because every activity I undertake includes the possibility for change, error, and misstep, and therefore also includes the possibility for delay and stress.)

(c) My life is loud. Hence the title.

However, I also find that I get--not flak, per se, but lack of understanding from some of my single friends when I tell them I am buried and cannot hang out. I try to convince them that it isn't because I don't want to spend time with them, that I am just crazed with work and shows, and half my life is spent with my kids. It is the last part that gets barely-restrained eye rolling.

There is a writer named Carolyn Hax who pens an advice column for the Washington Post. Here's one that has been floating around the aether for a while now, but that just recently caught my eye--she has said it better than I could, so I'm just going to wantonly plagiarize.

Dear Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

Tacoma, Wash.

Here is her response:

Dear Tacoma: Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

You can read the full article
here, but I pretty much reprinted all of it above.

Give your friends-who-are-parents a little patience and understanding. They probably would LOVE to spend time with you. They just need time. Like, maybe a decade or so.

Bad time to die...

It's getting so you can't even be buried in peace in this country, let alone rest in peace.

A few months ago, I first heard of the Westboro Baptist Church--you may have, also. They are a radical religious group that was picketing at a soldier's funeral, carrying signs that the people who shot the soldier were 'sent from God' and that God was punishing the United States for all our transgressions. (Their website is www.godhatesfags.com, if that gives you any indication of how insane these people are.) They actively picket memorial services for children slain by gang violence, soldiers killed in Iraq, and campuses with gay organizations, mis-quoting Scripture and handing out leaflets laden with typos. I could go on and on (indeed, I had made an entire post devoted to the anger I felt at these people), but I would rather not feed into the violence.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard about a woman in the Carolinas who was on her way to Florida when she decided to stop in at a funeral home. She walked right into the funeral hall, started waving a wand and dancing around the deceased (some police reports called it a car antenna) and opened the casket. She laid her hands on the dead man, tapped him on the head with her 'wand', and then threw flowers from on top of the casket at the family before leaving. She was apprehended a few miles away and, when asked why she did it, responded that she "felt that it was the right thing to do at the time." If that isn't crazy enough, there's more--she didn't even know the family. She just stopped in to raise the dead, or send it on its way, or whatever she was doing, and then left. (Original story here and here.)

Just a couple of days ago, there was a similarly odd situation in Arkansas. Some woman from Texas wandered into a funeral carrying a can of beer. When the family asked her to leave the can, she refused. When they asked her to leave the premises, she scratched a man's face and then got into a fight with the man's mother, who allegedly kicked her in the chest. When the police showed up, the beerophile replied that "no backward country cop" was going to take her to jail. Apparently she was wrong about that, because she is now enjoying some time in a state-funded facility. (Original story can be found here.)

So, to all of you--my dear readers and friends: Please don't die right now. It's a mad, mad, world out there.

Clip of the Week...

From last year's NHL playoff series:



The quest for the cup begins tonight.

It is Risen--Rejoice!

Yesterday was the final day of the NHL regular season. It was a barnburner of a finish, with the last few slots in the playoffs determined in the last couple of games.

Now it's a feverish fight for this bad boy:



Here is the 'Season by the Numbers', from the NHL website:

0 -- Shorthanded goals allowed by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first 81 games of the season. When the Rangers' Brandon Dubinsky scored one Sunday, it prevented the Flyers from becoming only the second team in the last 46 years to play a full season without being scored on while playing with an extra man. The 1975-76 Montreal Canadiens, who went on to win the Stanley Cup, still hold that distinction. Philadelphia also led the NHL this season with 16 shorthanded goals.

1 -- Penalty shots taken in overtime this season. Boston goaltender Tim Thomas stopped Chicago's Patrick Sharp at 2:44 of OT on Nov. 12, 2008. The Bruins went on to win the game 2-1 in a shootout.

2 -- Overtime goals scored by Anaheim defenseman Scott Niedermayer while the teams were playing 3-on-3. There were only three 3-on-3 goals scored this season; Niedermayer had two of them; Calgary's Jarome Iginla had the other in regulation time on Jan. 21 at Columbus.

3 -- Tie-breaking goals scored by Detroit's Marian Hossa in the final 2:00 of regulation. No other player had more than one.

4 -- Consecutive 30-win seasons by New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. He's the first netminder in NHL history to win 30 or more games in each of his first four seasons.

5 -- Most power-play goals scored in a game -- both times against the Nashville Predators. Detroit was 5-for-6 on Feb. 18, while Minnesota went 5-for-11 on Nov. 28.

6 -- Games this season that were scoreless through 65 minutes and had to be decided in a shootout. No team won more than one; Dallas was the only team to lose twice -- goaltender Marty Turco had two games in which he was credited with a shutout but not a victory.

7 -- Shootout wins at home by the New York Rangers, part of their League-leading total of 10 victories in the breakaway competition (in 16 tries).

8 -- Game-tying goals scored in the final five seconds of regulation time. That includes three goals scored within the final one second -- by Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer (Nov. 21 at St. Louis), St. Louis' David Backes (Jan. 19 at Boston) and Washington's Alex Ovechkin (Nov. 15 at New Jersey). Only Backes' team won.

9 -- Road wins by the New York Islanders, who were the only team not to reach double figures in victories away from home. The Isles were 9-29-3; every other team had at least 12 victories on the road.

11 -- Tie-breaking goals scored in the final minute of regulation. Nine of the 11 were scored by the home team; Calgary's Todd Bertuzzi (Jan. 3 at Nashville) and Chicago's Dustin Byfuglien (April 11 at Detroit) were the only visiting players to get a game-winner in the final 60 seconds.

11 -- Wins by the Pittsburgh Penguins in games they trailed after two periods, the most in the League. No other team had more than eight; the Islanders were last with just one.

13 -- Rounds needed in the shootout between Vancouver and Anaheim on Oct. 31, 2008, the longest shootout of the season (no other game went more than eight). The teams went to a shootout after playing to a 6-6 tie through regulation; each team scored once in the first 12 rounds of the shootout before Vancouver defenseman Mattias Ohlund got the deciding goal in the 13th.

14 -- Most goals scored in a game this season. It happened twice -- with the Calgary Flames on the losing end both times. The Flames lost 8-6 at home to Tampa Bay on March 1, then were beaten by the same score at Toronto on March 14.

18 -- Games lost by the Tampa Bay Lightning in overtime or shootouts, the most since the shootout was adopted for the 2005-06 season. Tampa Bay was 2-8 in games decided in the five-minute overtime and 3-10 in shootouts.

21 -- Games in which a team led by three or more goals and didn't win. Nineteen teams were unable to win after leading by three goals; two others (Carolina in a shootout on Dec. 11 and the New York Rangers in OT on Dec. 23) were unable to win after leading by four goals.

28 -- Shots on goal by Detroit in the first period against Calgary on March 12. The Wings scored twice on Miikka Kiprusoff while outshooting the Flames 28-4 in the opening 20 minutes. The Flames rallied for a 6-5 shootout victory. The Wings also had the second-highest one-period total, firing 27 shots against Nashville in the first period on Feb. 10.

31 -- Goals by Washington's Mike Green, the most by a defenseman since the Caps' Kevin Hatcher had 34 in 1992-93. Green became the eighth defenseman to reach the 30-goal mark (it's been done 17 times by those eight players) -- but the first to do so while playing fewer than 70 games. Green also set an NHL record for defensemen by scoring a goal in eight consecutive games from Jan. 27 to Feb. 14, breaking the 25-year-old mark set by Boston’s Mike O’Connell.

111 -- Goals allowed by the New York Islanders in the third period of their 82 games, the most by any team in any period this season. Colorado was next with 89 goals allowed in the third period; San Jose was the best in the NHL with 58. Not coincidentally, the Islanders finished last overall; the Sharks finished first.

528 -- Shots on goal by Washington's Alex Ovechkin, the second-highest single-season total in NHL history behind Phil Esposito's 550 for Boston in 1970-71. Ovechkin led the NHL with 56 goals and was second to Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin with 110 points.

799 -- Regular-season games played by Calgary's Olli Jokinen, who will make his playoff debut this week when the Flames play Chicago. No player has waited longer than Jokinen to make his playoff debut.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY...

Well, I must say, with all the craziness going on in life, I had a pretty darn good weekend. (I hear you saying "about time" back there--shush, you.)

Saturday morning, I met with a friend who is writing a very exciting one-man show that he has asked me to direct. It is a challenge, very interesting, and what we in the Theatah call "important". (Meaning I think it is a story that needs to be told.) (Meaning I think people should hear it.) (Meaning I think people are ignorant, I suppose, which means I am judgmental and stuck up.) I am really excited, as I haven't had the chance/opportunity to direct in a long time, and we seem to be working together very well.

After a danish, a cappuccino, and a great discussion (see how artistic I am?), I left to pick up one of my best friends on the entire earth. We grabbed coffee and chatted about the show I'm in, which she saw last weekend. (Two coffee/danish/theater meetings in two hours? Wow, you really are artistic!) The great thing about Sandman's friendship is that she is a rare blend of artistic, opinionated, and honest, so the conversation was really good. I truly, deeply appreciate the comments and support of ALL my friends, but having someone who will tell you when your performance really sucked is a rare and valuable thing.

Afterward, we grabbed some lunch and shot a round at the local mini-golf establishment. Denise was at rehearsal for the show she is doing next, and after she was finished she joined us for another round. I won both games, but the second one only by one stroke. (I believe this was mainly due to the yellow golf ball I was given.) Denise went home, I stopped by the store to get Easter candy for Sunday's basket bacchanalia, and got a few things for the evening before dropping Sandman off at her mom's house (she lives in NYC now, and was in town for a visit). I dropped the candy off at my folks' house and went to the show.

Easter morning, I picked up the boys and we headed up to my parents' house. They have about 2 1/2 acres in the country (Windsor, CA), and it is a wonderful place to spend an Easter. (So wonderful, in fact, that the ex said 'It wouldn't be Easter if they didn't get to go to Grandma's.') We did a basket hunt (indoors) and an egg hunt (outdoors) and then had colored eggs and crudites for lunch. The kids played indoors and out for a few hours, I made a leek-artichoke-au gratin to go with my mom's ham, and we had dinner before coming back home. I went for a brief motorcycle ride (just to the gas station, but it feels so good to ride), then went for a walk with the kids and Denise and my dog and my pipe before tucking the kids in for the night.

Good lord, that was a long post. And a good one. :o)

More Blue Room press...

Okay, this should about do it. If you are tired of reading about the show, I think this is the last of it:

We had an article in The Bohemian, a local paper with some good coverage of the arts. It is by the same writer who did the radio piece, but the focus on the article is a little different. (Amazing what you can do, when you have more than two minutes. Although the article is then edited to fit, so his original words are often tweaked or left out.) Anyway, after all those parentheticals, here is the article.

There was also a piece in Theatre Bay Area Magazine. Apparently (thanks for the heads-up, Panda) we were in the "Editor's Pick" section, but I am not a member, so I don't have access to the article online. I *may* try to purchase a copy, but a transcript of that article would surely be plagiarism, wouldn't it? And I would *never* do something like that, would I?

Press for The Blue Room...

So, there has been quite a push in the press for my latest show in Santa Rosa. We have done some interviews and 'appearances' on local radio and for local print pieces. Two weeks ago we were on KSRO's morning show on Thursday, and on "Curtain Call" on KRCB on Friday. ("Curtain Call" is the performing arts talk show on the local PBS affiliate.) We did a long interview that is in a local paper this week, and are apparently the Editor's Pick in the current issue of Theater Bay Area (no links yet, sorry). And we were on another radio show this morning (KRSH--a short weekly piece called "Stage Fright").

There is another short piece on KRCB radio called "Second row, center". Yesterday's segment was on our show, as well. Here is a transcript, printed with permission of the author:

KRCB 91.1 FM – 4/8/09 at 6:35 and 8:35 a.m. – David Templeton

Times have certainly changed.

What was scandalous a century ago is not necessarily so today. As a demonstration of this, the 6th Street Playhouse, as part of this season’s daring Studio Theater series, has just opened a three-week run of David Hare’s "The Blue Room," based on a German script that was once called the filthiest play ever written.

Of course, that was 110 years ago, when playwright and author Arthur Schnitzler first penned Der Reigen. At that time, he knew the subject matter was far too scandalous to ever appear on an actual stage, so the play was only performed in private, by Schnitzler and his friends, in various German living rooms, and the script was distributed secretly among Schnitzler’s closest acquaintances. Two decades later, when he was finally persuaded to let the play open on a legitimate stage, Schnitzler’s original concerns were confirmed when the opening night show sparked a huge riot in the theater, and the writer was immediately arrested and branded a pornographer, charges that were later dismissed by a German court, but not before Schnitzler decided once and for all to withdraw the play from the public—in Germany. At the same time, the play was building a strong, appreciative following in Russia and Czechoslovakia, and most importantly in France, where the play appeared under the title La Ronde. Today, it’s hard to believe that Schnitzler’s original text, in which ten people bed-hop through a series of partner-swapping assignations, was ever the stuff of riots and obscenity trials. Ten year’s ago, when playwright David Hare wrote his own adaptation of Der Reinen—changing its title to ‘The Blue Room’—there were no public outcries, no riots in the lobby, except for the rowdy lines of people desperate to buy tickets to see Nicole Kidman—one of the London and Broadway production’s stars—in a much talked-about nude scene. Even the full-frontal cartwheels of her co-star Ian Glen weren’t seen as scandalous and obscene so much as just another reason to buy a ticket.

So, times have certainly changed.

And yet, it’s still a bold move for a theater company to tackle a play like ‘The Blue Room,’ as 6th Street Playhouse is doing right now. Under the direction of David Lear, actors David Yen and Denise Elia are playing out the ten-character daisy-chain of sexual encounters three times a weekend, and initial word is that Yen and Elia give brave, thoughtful performances in a show that, counter to the claims of those critics who saw the original Der Reigen, is not a play about sex so much as it is a play about human beings desperate to feel a connection with another person—no matter how tentative, shallow, or brief. 6th Street Playhouse is to be congratulated for scheduling a show that continues the all-important, age-old theatrical tradition of telling stories that just might cause riot, of one kind or another.

The Blue Room runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday through April 26 at the 6th Street Playhouse, that’s 52 W. 6th Street, in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square. Showtimes are Friday and Saturday at 8:00, and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Tickets run from $14-$20. Call 707-523-4185 or visit 6th street playhouse.com—that’s with a numeral 6.

Listen again next Wednesday morning at 6:35 and 8:35 for more news about Bay Area Theater.

I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB

Clip of the week...

Okay, I know you've probably seen this already--it's on TV right now. But I can't seem to get enough of these little guys:



'specially when they're rocking out at about :45 or so. Always gets a smile outta me.

Originalism...

I was reading an article on Cracked.com (forwarded by my dear friend the Manhunter from Mars), when I tripped over a different story they wrote about plagiarism. Apparently, some outfit in Mexico stole some of their material and posted it on their site in entirety--including linking directly to the images in the Cracked data files on the web. Not terribly smart. The article is about the retribution visited upon them, and is rather funny (you can read it here if you want).

Anyway, the whole thing struck me as rather funny (funny weird, not funny ha-ha), because my girlfriend had just a few days earlier quoted Paul Gaugin, who said: "Art is either plagiarism or revolution." I really like this quote, especially since one of my most deep-rooted fears as an artist is that my work will end up derivative. I find it inspiring, and it challenges me to take chances and make bold leaps.

My previous favorite motto (one I used with dripping sarcasm) was one I had always attributed to Mark Twain: "Creativity is the art of concealing your source." But when I tried to look it up on Google last night, all I could find was "Originality is the art of concealing your source," credited to a Franklin P. Jones. Ironically enough, Answers.com says, "Unfortunately, the identity of Franklin P. Jones is not clear. Some ... refer to him as an American businessman who lived from 1887-1929, while others refer to him as an American humorist who lived from 1853-1935. A bit of research has identified a Franklin Pierce Jones ... who lived between 1874 and 1953 and had a successful furniture store in Clinton, Oklahoma, after working as a farmer in Missouri." I entered just the quote into google, and found it attributed to Norman Lear, Coco Chanel, and--perhaps most disturbing--a Pastor named Rick Warren.

This prompted me to look up what other people said about creativity and originality, and here is what I found:

"Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good." --Friedrich Nietzsche (the "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" guy)

"What is originality? Undetected plagiarism." --William Ralph Inge (the edgy clergyman)

"Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it." --Laurence J. Peter (the guy who read a lot of Nietzsche in college but forgot it all)

I trust you find the humor in a post about plagiarism composed entirely of others' thoughts on the matter.

"Have a nice day." --Forrest Gump

Saving Captain Spielberg...

I watched that movie last night. That one with Tom Hanks and Matt Damon. Saving Private Ryan. I am stunned. But not in the way you might think.

I found the combat scenes to be very disturbing. Having spent time in the military, it caused me understandable angst. Even though I never personally experienced people trying to kill me (I got out three months before Desert Shield), the feeling was very familiar--they reference the acronym FUBAR in the movie, and that almost nearly summed it up for me. (Personally, I prefer SNAFU--look them up on google if you don't know them already.)

The production team for the movie spared no detail from the combat scenes--barrels of blood, local military used as extras (including actual amputees for the oh-my-god-my-limb-has-just-been-blown-off scenes) and actual live fire of period weapons for sound. The combat was so accurate, the VA (Department of Veterans' Affairs) overstaffed their trauma 800-number and extended the hours after the release of the movie (see this VA newsletter, bottom of page six).

While for various reasons a discussion of the violence in the movie might be interesting, I was rather put off by the storytelling, and in particular, the end of the movie. If you haven't seen it (I know, you're rolling your eyes because I am the last person on the earth to have seeen this movie), there are spoilers coming, so scroll up or something if you don't want to read them.

Okay, here we go. I have conflicted opinions about the characters in the squad, and I have big problems with the unrealism of their task. (The army is disorganized so well, it installs steel plates in a glider that cause it to crash, but it will send eight men on a rescue extraction immediately following the largest invasion of the war? Hrm.) Here's my biggest gripe, though. I didn't want to hear, after all the shit this group of individuals had to go through for this one man who didn't even want to be rescued, that he should "earn" his life. And then see how that guilt had ridden on his back for sixty years.

I found Spielberg's preaching in Schindler's List to be effective once. Once. He saved 1,100 people from the Nazis, and all he could do at the end was cry: "This pin... This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one... I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!" It was novel in Schindler; I got it. I wanted to do more for others, and less for myself, than I had before (and I was doing a LOT at the time).

What should I take away from this film? An impression of the sacrifice of the men (and women) who served in times before so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have, or a feeling that I personally am not doing enough, am not good enough, am not living life as fully as I should? Spielberg claimed over and over that he wanted to make an authentic film with Ryan. Great. Then do that. Don't limit your 'authenticity' to the violence. Extend it to the story, the people. The movie would have been better--less Spielberg-y and Hollywood--and more real, more impacting, if they had just taken Miller's last words out of it. Let Ryan come to that conclusion himself. Skip the preaching.

Sorry, fans of the film. All I got out of it was a mild case of PTSD and a wish to be excluded from Spielberg films for a while. Especially after the last Indiana Jones fiasco.

Opening weekend...

The kids are in bed, my stomach is full, and I am moderately content. I spent yesterday fighting back the front lawn, which had gone waaaaaaaay too long without a shave. How long? My father saw it on Thing 2's birthday and commented 'your neighbors are going to kick you out of the neighborhood.' My dog would run through the grass, and I would lose sight of her. I felt like Allan Quatermain, hacking through some tropical locale with a machete.

Today I played around in the back yard, swept the patio off and set out the outside furniture in a way I thought might be appealing. And I actually sat on one of the chairs with a Sunset magazine (one of my favorite publications in the whole wide world) and dreamt of other things I might do to/with the garden areas whilst sipping my morning coffee. (Yeah, the Manhunter's comment hit home a bit, thank you very much.)

The big news, though, is the show, of course. The Blue Room opened this weekend, and I was pleased with my performance, overall. The show is a real challenge, artcraft-wise. There are two actors playing five characters each in ten scenes (get a math tutor if you need help figuring that out). The play is about how we, as people, are--the things we crave, the way we modify our behavior based on who we're with, and the mistakes we make. I hate to use the word "real", especially in this context, as it is overused and therefore undervalued (like the word "awesome" has become). But the show is especially interesting in that, instead of external obstacles like an antagonist or some time deadline, the barriers these characters face are primarily internal. It makes for quite a challenge, overall.

We opened this weekend opposite a huge commotion in the mainstage theater--there was a benefit with a big name actor doing a one-man show. But we still had reasonably seated houses, and a GREAT audience today. This was a particularly nice surprise, since the Sunday matinees are usually an older, quieter crowd. But for whatever reason--Denise thinks it may be because the show is so real and they have all "been there"--this was the liveliest house we had all weekend. They were ooing and ahing and commenting all throughout--it was fascinating.

I had a wonderful evening with my sons, eating and watching Shrek, which we hadn't seen in so long we forgot all the subplots. (If you have kids, you know the wonderful, refreshing feeling that comes from that--instead of watching the same movies over and over again.) Now I'm going to take a gander at Saving Private Ryan, which just came on, do some laundry during the commercials, and fricken relax.

If you're an Ashton Kucher fan...

...you probably shouldn't read this post.

I went to a site called My Heritage that is a genealogy site of sorts. One of the applets they have on the site is a photo comparison page that allows you to upload a personal photo, and then compares your photo to those of celebrities, trying to find a look alike. How this is supposed to help you find family members, I have no idea--seems like a reach to me. (For example, I matched Tom Hanks pretty closely, according to the site.)

Another thing it does is look for multiple images in the same photo, and offer you a step-saving look at other people at the same time. I nearly died laughing when I saw this:



You are indeed reading that correctly. It is recommending Ashton Kucher as a match...FOR THE DOOR FIXTURE. Too funny.

On the cusp...

Tonight is the one and only preview of the show I am currently in. The description reads:

The Blue Room

Written by David Hare

Directed by David Lear

A sensation in London and on Broadway, The Blue Room depicts a daisy chain of ten sexual encounters between five women and five men all portrayed by one actor and one actress. Each couple is seen working their way up to having sex. It is following a blackout that the hypocrisy, the folly and loneliness become apparent. Hare, freely adapting the original play, LaRonde by Arthur Schnitzler, has moved the action from turn of the century Vienna to modern London and infused the sketches with witty and provocative modern nuances.

All my professional life, from working as a paper boy to being in the army, from working in an office to performing on a stage, I have tried to put my best into what I do. There is nothing more frustrating, I believe, than wanting to do something well, and not being able to because of some external circumstance. When I was managing a Starbucks store, I also tried to convey to my staff that I wanted them to have everything they needed to succeed.

This production has been, unfortunately, plagued with behind-the-scenes drama. Not from the creative team, so much--my director is someone I deeply respect and admire, and my co-star is my girlfriend, who I also deeply respect and admire. But the production has no costumer, a very pared-down production budget, and has had a myriad of other challenges along the way. It has been distracting, and difficult, to continue "on with the show" in the face of some of it. But nevertheless, I am tackling the challenge and doing my best to learn from it all.

If you are considering coming to see the show, I should warn you that "The Blue Room features adult situations and nudity and is recommended for mature audiences only." The show runs the month of April--Friday-Saturday nights at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm (no show on Easter Sunday). Ticket information is available by following the link above.

Clip of the week...

Happy April Fool's Day, readers!