Sometimes You Need to Note The Good Times

Had a great weekend!

Friday:

Watched my Contemporary Theatre students at Boston Conservatory at Berklee further develop their show with Double Edge Theatre. That goes up next Sunday. Details to come. That evening I took in a performance of THIS IS OUR YOUTH produced and performed by Musical Theatre students  from BoCo in an apartment.

Saturday:

Worked with my teenage acting students at Walnut Hill School for the Arts...and then I got an offer to add on another advanced acting class in the spring to deepen the work with some of the more experienced kids. That night I drove with Katelyn to Old Sturbridge Village...and ate more than I should have.

Sunday:

Helped out Katelyn's family work around their house in Connecticut and then went home to laze around, watch the season finale of Westworld and then prep for the end of the semester and an upcoming audition.

Now...sleep...maybe.

Lost Memories.

I've been going over my old blogs, some other loose writings I've kept around the house, and notes I have on receipts and napkins.

Some of my writing is truly laughable and terrible...well...most of it is.

Still, I wish I had written more, and put more of it up here if only for the lone fact that my brain has become a blender and I can remember next-to-nothing of things that have happened.

I have 12 wonderful students right now at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee and it pains me to even allow myself to think that some of them might fall away into the lost sewer systems of my cesspool of a memory, but, well, there you have it. I'm looking through some writing and just noticing fragments of thoughts, shorthanded notes to myself that I can no longer remember what they meant, lost and forgotten loves, jobs, and worries.

Actually, the worries stayed.

My prose hasn't gotten any more concise, or any truer, but I hope I can come back to this form of sharing myself with myself.

New Reality

The news is beyond depressing...only slightly more depressing than seeing "news" reports that still focus on the "Clinton machine" that apparently is still an evil, and powerfully menacing thing, even in defeat. 

Apparently I'm supposed to blame Democrats for the republic's now quick unraveling, and not a whole host of thugs who have spent the last 30+ years spreading disinformation like a virus, while defunding education across the country so most people can't tell the difference between what is and is not a lie.

Apparently I'm supposed to agree Trump doesn't mean what he says except when he does.

Apparently there is no more truth. We're "post-truth." But even that's a lie because we just went back to old tactics with that choice.

Apparently if you care that nothing makes sense you're just "too sensitive," but not sensitive enough to care about people in a conservative bubble because your liberal bubble is too powerful a bubble...despite the fact that it has lost all three branches of government.

Apparently it's now time to register religions to big government, but not to the bad kind of big government...just the good kind...even though no one can tell me what either is.

Apparently it's time to surrender my sanity, faith in humanity, and last semblances of decency.

Thank God I'm a damn moron.

It would be terrible if I could think and feel the pain of these thoughts.

A Post About My Fiancee and The Election from November 9th

I've been working hard my entire adult life, struggling to simply get a footing in my career, or to make a difference in my personal life and the society around me. 

Tonight I am watching a misogynistic, racist, xenophobic bigot born with a silver spoon in his mouth who proved in three failed debates that not only was he was massively unprepared and uninformed, but that he didn't deserve any executive office...and now he possibly will get enough votes to win the office of President of The United States of America. His ascension to even this point makes me want to vomit. It proves that all the years of hard work, education, constant attempts at decency in my own day-to-day life (and sometimes failing) guarantee nothing in the realm of political desires, and especially in the face of the whims of mob mentality. I've been let down not only by total strangers, but those I used to look up to from years gone by who voiced their support for a sociopath and a bully. 

I'm proud to have supported a candidate with integrity and decency like Hillary Clinton, and I would do it again. I'm also proud of my fiancée Katelyn Dix who also supported her with so much sincere hope for a better future for not just our home and the family we hope to have, our immediate community, or the country, but also the world. Katelyn is a wonderful example to everyone around her and the type of adult others should aspire to be, just like Hillary Clinton is. 

This night is shaping up to be a big letdown in not just my political hopes, but also my faith in the judgment of most of the world's humanity. The citizenry of the United States is on the verge of a terrible misjudgment on par with that of other countries around the globe in recent years. I have belief in education, art, God, and humanity that cannot make sense of any of this, nor square tonight's events with those who CLAIM they believe in these. Still, my faith in common decency, rationale and logic are shaken, but not destroyed.

I may be truly terrified for our world now, but that is why the work at home is now more important than ever. So many have decided to elect a virtual madman as a world leader...and if there is any hope for our future it begins at home. I have, at home, someone who will continue to be a great example to her students, her family, and everyone around her with her intelligence, decency, creativity, and strong spirit. She deserved a champion like Hillary Clinton, but I have no doubt Katelyn will be a great example and champion to others around her no matter what happens.

We all must be...especially since so many irresponsible people have wrought so many ill decisions upon us in the past year alone. There can be no falling into the abyss of despair and giving up. I look at Katelyn and she never gives up. She works harder whenever she gets knocked down. Those of us who had hoped for a better world can't fall down. We have to get up and keep working hard no matter what.

Our work will lead us to peace. Whenever your faith wavers look to the great examples at home like Katelyn.

TRUE DETECTIVE & GREEK TRAGIC THEATRE

For anyone who has been watching True Detective on HBO you have come to know Rust Cohle's strange, seemingly rambling, existential monologues really well.

Case in point, the following now famous, or infamous (depending on how you feel about it) example of speechifying to the two African American detectives from Episode 5, “The Secret Fate of All Life,” has divided many on the internet, as well as friends and loved ones close to me, who watch the show. (Full disclosure: I love it when Rust goes on these little metaphysical “rants.”)

COHLE: You ever heard of something called membrane theory, detectives?

PAPANIA: No. That's over my head.

COHLE: It's like, in this universe, we process time linearly. Forward. But outside of our space-time, from what would be a fourth-dimensional perspective, time wouldn't exist. And from that vantage, could we attain it, we'd see – [he crushes a can of Lone Star between his palms] --our space-time look flattened, like a seamless sculpture. Matter in a super-position—every place it ever occupied. Our sentience just cycling through our lives like carts on a track. See, everything outside our dimension—that's eternity. Eternity looking down on us. Now, to us, it's a sphere. But to them, it's a circle.

Theories, and opinions, abound about this little monologue. There are those who see this as nothing more than mumbo-jumbo Cohle is spewing to throw the two rube detectives off his track of either evil deeds, or being a “TRUE DETECTIVE,” as opposed to (as Rust calls them later), “company men.” Others see it as an ongoing shout out in the series that goes back to H.P. Lovecraft and other writers of his era. There are hints of Cthulhu-type descriptions of an infamous “green-eared, spaghetti-faced man,” or “Carcosa” and “The Yellow King,” which are a references to an influence and contemporary of Lovecraft's, Robert W. Chambers and his work, The King in Yellow.

I've read a bunch of theories how people have sees this series as nothing more than a bunch of fanboys who got together to write their pay-network-TV episodic homage to weird literature and its themes and structures. There have also been a great many individual theories that have stated the references are just pointers to plot points in the series' narrative in specific and nothing more.

Rust is the “True Detective” and will end up saving the day, while Marty will end up being exposed as a “company man” involved in the rituals.

Rust will be exposed as a “False Detective” covering his tracks.

All of this has been a red herring just to keep us away from the real “Yellow King!” Marty's now ex-wife!

And they go on and on...

So I figured I'd offere my interpretation.

Well, actually, the theory belongs somewhat to Jan Kott, who wrote a book about Greek tragedy called The Eating of The Gods, a book that looks at the structure, history, and present day relevance of ancient Greek tragedy. I picked up the book today for the first time in a long time and reread the first chapter...which started to sound, at times, oddly like Rust's seemingly meandering monologues.

The first chapter is called, “The Vertical Axis, or The Ambiguities of Prometheus.” Replace Promethesus's name with Rust's and we're talking about a present day HBO TV show, instead of the physical structure of Greek theatres, and their relation to society and the narratives of their plays. Other lines in Kott's first chapter struck me as somewhat Rust-esque. The opening line is:

“Gods are above, men are below.” (Kott p.1)

Sure that line is too frank and direct to sound like Rust, but it immediately fits in with his “membrane theory.” If you're ready to turn this theory down, just read what Mr. Kott has to say later in the same chapter about the structure of Greek theatre:

“In Aeschylus' drama [Promethesus Unbound] the entire cosmos takes part: the gods, men and the elements. This cosmos has a vertical structure: above, the seat of the gods and power; below, the place of exile and punishment. In the middle is the flat circle of the earth and the flat dish of the orchestra around it where the action unfolds. The vertical structure of the world with its definite functions, symbols and destiny, the above and the below, is one of the most universal and perennial archetypes.” (Kott p.4)

In True Detective there are definite people who can be considered gods (the Tuttles, the man with scars, etc.), men (the detectives, Marty's wife, others), and the elements...? Well, Rust's “visions,” the birds flying in one episode into the definite formation of the symbol that appears again and again drawn on dead women's backs, and more.

What about this “orchestra.”

Well, we're watching it...WE...the AUDIENCE.

This is our Greek tragedy. We can watch it again-and-again, over-and-over, trying to behave, ourselves, like a Greek tragic audience, like True Detectives. Don't believe me yet? Let me offer up this last bit of Kott from the end of Part I of Chapter 1. Tell me if you don't hear equal parts Kott Greek tragic analysis, and Rust Cohle metaphysical mumbo jumbo in this:

“Prometheus is crucified by the emissaries of the gods who have come from above to punish him for his excessive love for men who are below. Zeus is not seen, but it is to him that Promethesus directs his reproaches and threats—to him, and to men who are the audience. God and man are both parties in the drama. Promethesus is the accused; but the accused turns into the accueser, whereas in the Oedipus of Sophocles, it is the accuser who becomes the accused. Above, a political drama is being performed, and the rulers change. Below, men have emerged from their primeval animal condition. Men change; so do the forces of nature and the gods. The entire cosmos moves in time but still preserves its vertical structure, with Olympus, Tartarus and earth's flat (orchestra-like) circle in between. A topcosm moves in time, but a time that runs at different speeds for gods and for men. Gods are immortal, men mortal-- brotoi who die but once. Emissaries of the gods derisively call them “ephemerids”: for an ephemerid, a damselfly, one day is all time.” (Kott p.7)

I wish I could have Rust give a dramatic reading at an interrogation of that passage. It would fit if he just randomly started spouting nonsense about Greek tragedy just as equally as when he talks about Membrane theory.

Anyway, for those of you who watched tonight's Episode 7 (“After You've Gone”), instead of the Oscars sleep-inducing boredom, look again at the last scene of the man on the lawn mower as the camera pulls away from him. He has mown a concentric circle, similar to the ancient Greeks' playing space, “orchestra.” There are white objects piled in the background that vaguely resemble a skene, or some sort of backdrop, and the whole area surrounding him looks like an almost perfectly rounded amphitheatre.

Noir tropes be damned! WE are the gods. These people on the screen are our “brotoi” playing out a day for us. We are Rust's version of “eternity” looking down on them playing out this drama over and over. The makers of this show are actually honoring several major tropes of Greek tragedy. The reversal at the climax of this story should be one hell of a cathartic reveal, if they continue on with following Kott's interpretation...or nothing will be revealed, reversed, or resolved...and it will end having been all about a green, spaghetti-faced weirdo named Cthulhu.

That would just be stupid.

IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY (or, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD)

I don't know why I do this...

I don't know why I get involved in Facebook comment thread discussions about JFK.  Differentiating between possible trolls and earnest, heartfelt people who want a discussion is so difficult.

Anyway, I posted this as a response to someone who still thinks that Lee Harvey Oswald was aided by a second shooter.  



If he was shot from the front, and there was, in fact, a conspiracy, then you have to accept that the assassination of William McKinely by Leon Czolgosz was a conspiracy. I mean, really, who could believe that a known anarchist would be allowed to approach the President of the United States? You have to accept that the assassination of James A. Garfied by Charles Guiteau was a conspiracy. And Lincoln's...?

There have been roughly 31 attempts or plots on current and former Presidents that have made major headlines. Four plots that succeeded in execution. Two others succeeded in hitting the target (Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan). However, only one of the attempts appears to be a government conspiracy, and that was the attempt by Saddam Hussein to kill George H.W. Bush in Kuwait. Every single other attempt that involved a group of people on domestic soil could only be called a conspiracy because a group of like-minded individuals got together with a plot to kill the president. The one that succeeded that involved something remotely resembling a true conspiracy plot was the assassination of Lincoln. And yet, still, that attempt was headed and carried out by a man, John Wilkes Booth, who's own brother, Edwin Booth, stated his brother had mental problems.

In fact, in almost every single case the assassins were stated to be "agitated," or seemed "unstable" prior to the shootings for years by those closest to them. This is the one defining factor of each and every attempt on the head of state in a relatively peaceful and stable nation like the United States.

Andrew Jackson had a man point 2 guns, which misfired, at him in front of the White House. God knows how many plots tried to kill Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt was shot at by a true crank...when he was running as a 3rd party candidate. Argentine anarchists tried, and failed, to kill Hoover...before they could even get to try.

However, Giuseppe Zangara might be the guy you're looking for. He's the guy who tried to kill FDR, but failed. His motives have never been clearly established. He may, or may not, have been hired by the mob to kill the Chicago mayor and the new President then. Still, who knows...? Lone gunmen are kind of live wires with weird motives anyway.

A guy named Stern Gang sent letter bombs to Truman. A few Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill him too...in Washington DC.

Kennedy had two or three other attempts on him during his presidency. One had been thwarted just a few weeks prior that was supposed to be carried out by four people. They wanted to shoot him while he was going under a highway overpass. Here's a strange fact to consider though before its suggested this proves there were several conspiracies in the works all around JFK. It was not a federal crime to kill or threaten the President at the time. The approach to all of this was just a shrug of the shoulders. There was actually little the government could legally do to monitor possible assassins. However, after 11/22/63 those attitudes, and laws, toward such a thing drastically changed.

Still, there was more. A guy named Arthur Bremmer wanted to kill Nixon. He killed George Wallace instead. A guy named Samuel Byck wanted to kill Nixon too, but got killed in a shootout instead (He took his own life when he realized he lost).

A follower of Charles Manson tried killing Ford.

An unemployed drifter tried to kill Carter.

John Hinkley Jr. thought he had a great way to impress Jodie Foster...by shooting Reagan.

A bunch of whack jobs tried to kill Clinton. Osama bin Laden even put a bomb under a bridge in '96 to try to kill him.

An assassin for the 2nd Bush apparently had "emotional problems."

Oh, and President Obama has had a bunch of attempts on his life, some through the mail in the form of ricin.

Sorry, for the mound of information here, with this many attempts on our presidents' lives (and these are just the ones on Wikipedia) you seriously think the government is hiding something from us about a sinister second shooter? I lived in Dallas for 3 years. I've been to Dealey Plaza. There isn't, and wasn't in 1963, really anywhere to run to except a giant parking lot behind the now mythical Grassy Knoll. It's not so mystical and when you stand there it's completely plausible and acceptable that Oswald killed him.

The man in the umbrella and trench coat didn't do it. Mr. Zapruder didn't do it, or capture anyone else doing it. It was Lee Harvey Oswald, alone, on the 6th floor. You know why? Because he was a poorly educated, somewhat skilled marksman, with severe emotional problems. He was 24, had been rejected for residence in the Soviet Union (and that is an accomplishment only the most unstable mentally or intellectually could achieve), married to a Russian woman in a somewhat volatile relationship, had a kid, and a dead-end job. Sorry, he fits the profile of almost every last single other nut who tried to kill the other presidents.

Kennedy was shot from behind. End of story. If you want a conspiracy, apparently Zachary Taylor and Warren G. Harding may have been assassinated. Now why aren't we talking about those mysteries? Oh right...there was no one standing around with a camera.

Patti Smith, NYC, DC, and Baltimore

I posted a link to the following article on Facebook.

Patti Smith Says NYC Is Closed, Find A New City

I got some interesting and varied responses to this posting, especially since I added my own comment: "Kind of what I thought..."

The responses it produced came from a New York based Assoicate Producer at a film company who attended Southern Methodist University with me:

"I was at a party of NYC performance artists and Penny Arcade said the same thing. Interesting right?"

NOTE - For those not in the know (I wasn't) Penny Arcade is a performance artist in New York City.  

The next response was from another New York resident, someone with whom I attended Towson University, who is now the Artistic Director of a prominent theatre company:

"I think this is dogmatic. New York nourished me as a young broke artist. Certainly, it isn't the NYC rendered in Patti Smith's Just Kids but it still feels inspired and creative to me."

The following response came from an independent musician who has composed music for productions I've created in Washington DC and was referring to him and his wife and their time in New York in relation to this posting:

"It's why we left"

The final series of responses came from an actor who lives and works in Washington DC.  He offered these three replies:

1)  "yup. the young and hungry searching for artistic fulfillment end up feeding into the service industry and are too exhausted after 16 hour shifts to make a difference. NYC is for the established, the young who want to struggle, and/or the wealthy."

2)  "that said, I wouldn't trade my years there for anything..."

3)  "dude, I'm thinking that it's Baltimore's time..."

For those of you who don't know, I live in Baltimore.  I've been hearing this about Baltimore for some time.  It's changed a lot over the years, but all I could initially offer as a response was this:

"Maybe."

I had a lot to say...about New York, Baltimore, and even Washington DC.  There were also people who "Liked" my posting.  God knows what the hell that means.

Do they like that artists are fleeing New York in droves?
Are they thrilled Patti Smith thinks the city is a cultural wasteland?
Do they agree with me?

Whatever.  

I'll save you their partial biographies since they only shared little white thumbs rather than opinions.   I weighed my options, considered some of the politics I should play with people who are both friends and professionals, and what I should write in response...if I should write any real response at all.  Then I thought, "What the hell...  I'll just write what's on my mind."

This was my extended response to the conversation:

I think this is less about Patti Smith's lost New York, or Sarah Jessica Parker saying it's "too pricey," or Madonna saying it's boring, or even David Byrne saying the city as he knew it is gone. It's about something else that is happening.

An arts scene will always be alive in any city. The state of its health is always in flux, or defined by the eye of the beholder. It's never going to fully die, but it might find itself in periods of being on life support. Anyway, again, how one defines that is in the eye of the beholder.

The more troubling thing I keep hearing is just how expensive the city has become in such a short time. DC may not be as "pricey," but is experiencing a similar kind of "accelerated gentrification" (I think that's the term used by The Post a few months back). I agree with P-. The end point is that fewer and fewer people from the class people like Patti Smith came from can afford to live in that city and actually practice their art, craft, whatever. Hell, I know people who have "regular jobs/careers" outside of the arts and are dancing on the razor's edge of being able to afford living there, or in DC.

What to do? I don't know. Some leave. Some stay and fight. Some succeed. Some fail. Others start ashrams. Find your place. Find your fight. Find your ashram...I guess. Or a safe and affordable suburb?

As for Baltimore...?

I've lived here on and off since '98 when I first came to school at Towson University. Back then I would never have even STOOD on the corner of North and Howard in what is now called Station North. Back then I thought of it more as NO MAN'S LAND. Maybe I thought that because it looked and felt dangerous as hell...and there were these kids who rode by on mopeds and four wheelers (two kids to each vehicle) popping wheelies while holding little brown paper baggies, weaving in and out of traffic.

I saw those types of kids a couple of years ago, but now there's a pizza place on that corner. As they rode by I went into it. It's called Joe Squared. Every time I eat there I can't believe I am eating a meal at that corner. Go there. Eat there. I recommend either the Irish Pizza, or the risotto with venison and arugula. They are both divine.

Baltimore has that going for it.

Joe Squared's full address is:

133 W. North Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21201

They have a location in Power Plant Live, a performing arts venue in the Inner Harbor, but I hate that place...and so should you...unless you're going to the National Aquarium.  Then you're fine.  

NOTE - The Irish Pizza has Roasted garlic cream, corned beef, potato, caramelized onion, mozzarella and Swiss cheeses.  It's really something else.