Banjo

Our new song this week is Bill Cheatum, the most fun song yet. Man, if I get this down, I'll sound like a banjo player! And yes, I will get it down.

This summer I may make a CD for friends. A good reason to keep practicing.

Mainly this summer, I am writing my novella and hugely excited about it because, in fact, it is a COMEDY and I haven't really written a comic novel, although my novels have comic moments. But the vision of this one is comic. Two old farts in the 21st century. I mean, that's comic by definition.

A man with a mattress

H had business in town so I caught a ride early. Stopped at Starbucks, my ritual of getting coffee and a fruit & cheese plate to bring to the office.

On the hobble here, I passed a man carrying a wet old mattress, homeless by the looks of it, probably addicted to something or other and maybe drunk now, mumbling to himself -- and I remember how easily that could have been yours truly in the early 90s. This was when my doctor convinced me it was "now or never" in terms of getting my act together, and I'd like to say I saw the light and got my act together. In fact, I took advantage of some accidental and available steps that led to getting my act together but if those steps had not been available, well, I am sure I'd have been dead for quite a while by now. 

The most important "accident" was the availability of programs at the VA that, in fact, are not available today. With these, I was able to get in house treatment for nine months. Nine months! That's a hell of a long time to be out of circulation, so to speak. My "self-employed" writing life made it possible, as did the scheduling of a production that would give me a significant royalties check when I got discharged, transition money. And meeting H was hugely significant. She gave me a social life apart from my old one. Everything added up. I think the gods were looking out for me. But without these accidents, well, that guy with the mattress could have been me in about 1994, my last year on the planet. 

You can understand why I count my blessings so often.

The only main character in my body of work who is homeless is Mort in my play "A Chateau for Mort," which is one-third of the hyperdrama Cocktail Suite. I tried a different storytelling strategy here, trying to ease the audience into the pleasures and challenges of hyperdrama. Instead of a sprawling branching narrative, I wrote three self-contained plays that run simultaneously in 3 parts of a restaurant-bar, and major characters in one became minor characters in the others.

One play was a dark sex comedy, "Lonely and Horny in the City"; a second a fierce marital drama, "The Contract"; and Mort the third, which amazingly enough was ... a musical! 3 very very different genres playing at once, with characters slipping in and out of them, each with major characters, and minor characters from the others.

This was probably the most successful hyperdrama project I've done. We formed a coop with shares ... I got 2 as writer and director, and the actors got 1 each, and we split the gate. Our host got the drinks and food and didn't charge us rent (I knew the owner). We all made damn good money for the early weeks of the run. But as audiences tapered off, and actors wanted to do other things, we shut it down. But it was a successful hyperdrama production in many ways. Publicity was terrific and we had many sold out houses.

Read a 1988 preview article about it.

Sequel hilarity

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

Sadness

50 years ago, in the early years of the Kennedy administration, this country was filled with energy, hope and promise. So it's very sad to watch it self-destruct now in endless, unresolvable bickering between rightwing Christian extremists, a spineless administration, and an irresponsible media, especially in times when we face extreme and urgent challenges with climate change and growing corporate plutocracy. Despite a glimmer of hope in Wisconsin, until the streets of New York City are flooded, most good folks may not feel the urgency enough to put their bodies on the line for needed change. By then it probably will be too late, and the human experiment will have failed. Well. I'm going to have a good day anyway. I'm damn lucky to be an old fart with my life behind me.

Rain rain rain

Sometimes I really get tired of it.

Student project proposals to evaluate, banjo to practice for class tonight (I'm in good shape actuallly).

Is America Addicted to War? - By Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy

Is America Addicted to War? - By Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy:

"Here are my Top 5 Reasons Why America Keeps Fighting Foolish Wars:"

Sanctuary

One of those days when the office feels like a sanctuary. Easy day, show the documentary Tales from the Script, a good look at screenwriting from the experiences of working pro's.

One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick by Matt Kish: MOBY-DICK, Page 001

One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick by Matt Kish: MOBY-DICK, Page 001:

"Because I honestly consider Moby-Dick to be the greatest novel ever written, I am now going to create one illustration for every single one of the 552 pages in the Signet Classic paperback edition. I'l try to do one a day, but we'll see."

Dorothy Parker, 1937

James Jones, 1950

John Cheever, 1979

NCAA men's national championhip: Don't remember the Butler Bulldogs for this performance - ESPN

NCAA men's national championhip: Don't remember the Butler Bulldogs for this performance - ESPN:

"If you're a fan of the 'little guy,' try to put in perspective what Butler has done the past two seasons and it'll make it a little easier to digest that horror show in Houston."

Maybe (poem)

Maybe

maybe today is the day
when there will be no beheading

maybe the gang rape of the
13-year-old girl doesn't happen today

maybe today the rich get a little
bit poorer and the poor get
a little bit richer

maybe today the education of
our children gets more priority
than the regulation of
which couples can marry

maybe today a politician gets
elected who does in office
what s/he pledges on
the campaign trail

maybe today is the day
I win the lottery even
though I never play

--Charles Deemer

UCLA suffers loss

Nikki Caldwell, the wonderful new UCLA women's basketball coach who put the program back on track, has gone to LSU, a storied program needing a shot in the arm. Very sad if you are a Bruin fan. She's a fine coach and will be hard to replace. Money and prestige talk.

A curious observation

I usually watch March Madness with the sound off because the pundits drive me up the wall. But as I watch the Mariners play this afternoon, with the sound on, I find it curious that baseball pundits, who in the slower game have much more time to sound off, do not -- that baseball pundits are far less obnoxious than basketball and football pundits. I have no idea why this is so but it strikes me as accurate, as least by my sensibilities.

Another fine memoir of the sixties

More than any book of the era I've read, this book communicates what it felt like to live in the sixties. I couldn't put it down -- and even though the story is to follow three women, the male experience is here as well. A fine achievement, a best seller from the late 90s that I missed then.

How "Grey's Anatomy" suggests a term project

I'm not a fan of Grey's Anatomy. Strikes me as an often pretentious soap opera. However, H is a great fan and I often am reading while she watches it, so I learn something about it despite my dislike. But I was blown away last Thursday by the "musical" episode, which came off as something like a chamber opera, because I was engaged and moved by it. In fact, I loved it.

And this, of course, fed my interest in doing a short chamber opera on video. My term project could be writing the libretto for it. I don't have a story in mind, so I'm going to browse through Chekhov short stories to see if anything strikes me as adaptable to my needs. He writes the sort of thing that would work in this format (indeed I believe "The Good Doctor" was adapted musically to stage). I have 199 stories on my Kindle now -- surely something there might work. We'll see!

Local News | King Felix delivers for Mariners in opening win | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | King Felix delivers for Mariners in opening win | Seattle Times Newspaper

The Body I Look Out Of (poem)

THE BODY I LOOK OUT OF

the body I look out of is
not the body you look into

what I see through two holes
in my skull has not changed
much over the decades
but what you see in the
reverse angle is no longer

the young folksinger on stage
curly hair red beard
singing Woody Guthrie
or the graduate instructor
turning students on to Norman Brown
or the regular at his bar stool
not quite boorish as he talks
about his latest play in rehearsal
or the obsessive lover who makes
you wonder if sex may be enough
or the adventurous cook proud of
his paella and his scrapple
or the restless traveler in
a red bug named Ruby
camping coast to coast

what you see in the
reverse angle is an
old man growing older

so how can you possibly
know it's a young man
looking back at you?

--Charles Deemer

Ah, attitude!