Tending the Soil, Trusting the Season

Fragments I don't see relating, but want to put together anyway:



Sometime today there will be a procession through my mostly Dominican neighborhood, honoring Good Friday. There will be a priest on a megaphone, calling out lines in a musical chant, the congregants responding likewise. Actual songs will be interspersed through all this. To my no doubt unsophisticated ear, I always hear an echo of the Muslim call to prayer in all this, especially the priest's amplified chanting, but also in some of the hymns. I imagine the rituals of prayer coming down through the ages, starting in Moorish Spain, changing from Arabic to Spanish, Muslim to Christian, emigrating to the Caribbean, and ending up outside my doorstep in New York City, still retaining a bit of all those flavors. I may be completely off about the influences... but even so, I like the feeling it gives me that at the heart of true blessing, reverance and thanksgiving, we are more alike than not. At least that's how I see it today.



To answer a question from new friend Butch, the mask accompanying the post below is not the River Liffy, but the Green Man. This link is by no means the only place you can find information on him, he's an old fellow with lots of meanings. Put loosely, I understand him as the male energy of life, specifically a Celtic manifestation, a sort of Father Nature, and with particular ties to Pan, Dionysus, Herne the Hunter, and all the other male gods of Springtime. As such maybe he'd be a better accompaniment to today's post, but he seemed like the right image for my St. Paddy's Day post. Yeats, Ó Searcaigh, and I all connect with Pagan impulses in our own ways, I would say, and the idea of 'going back to sources' explored in both poems made me think of this guy. My sister and brother-in-law gave him to me a few years ago, and he hangs on my wall, across from my bed (one of the few guardian masks I didn't make myself), smiling down on me each morning as I wake up in my gritty urban fifth-floor walk-up.

I don't think St. Patrick would have minded.



By a funny coincidence though, I do have a small River Liffy mask, a gift from my mother a few years ago. Liffy hangs on the edge of the wall dividing the living room from the hallway. She's one of the first things I see when I walk through my front door, shrouded behind my exuberant golden pothos, twining itself around three of the walls. My sense of who she is to me is much more unformed (okay, just so Java's heart will go pitter-pat, I'll say 'inchoate'. Happy Easter, Dear). I'm always glad to see her though. And I do love Dublin. If you enlarge the lower photo, you'll also see that behind her hangs a beautifully calligraphed print of the Yeats poem that I copied out in the previous post, so while I didn't post her with the poem, she is close to it in my world. I don't know what all the lovely coincidences in Butch's question mean, if anything, but I liked them.



Years ago I heard a fantastic joke on TV, from Art Buchwald (yes, that takes you to Wikipedia, it was the most concise biography I could find; feel free to do your own search). I won't do justice to Buchwald's telling of it (it really loses something if you don't hear it told in his New York accent), but here it is.



A man decides that he wants to win the lottery, so he begins praying to God for this, every day. Years go by with the man making this prayer daily, all to know avail. After ten years of this increasingly frantic supplication one day he loses all patience and screams, "God, I've been a good man all these years, why won't you let me win the lottery?"



Suddenly, a voice booms from the heavens.



"Do me a favor! Buy a ticket!"



I fear I have spent a lot of my life being that man. One of the lessons I seem to have to relearn repeatedly is how to find the balance between taking action, and -for lack of a better description- going with the flow. The wellspring of joy and creativity in my life, particularly as it relates to performing, has felt very blocked for years now, and I haven't done much recently to address that (unless we include periodically moping about it on my blog). Spring is one of my favorite times of year, in part because of its reminder that life is reborn, growth occurs, rejuvenation does happen, it just happens according to its own time-table, not mine.



And yet... this doesn't mean I can just sit back. I still need to plant the seeds. For long stretches of time that may be all I do. I'm learning to trust fallow periods more as I age, trusting that just because I can't see it or measure it doesn't mean important growth is going on underground. But that doesn't let me off the hook for doing some work.



Sometimes the soil is sour, depleted or just unsuitable. Sometimes there hasn't been enough water. Sometimes the shoots come up, and it's my job to protect them from late frost and snow, careless feet, or hungry rabbits. Nature will take care of itself just fine without my help, but if I am hoping for specific results, flowers or vegetables say, rather than happy rodents or a rocky front yard, then I have to do some work. Yes, a balance is to be sought. Respect for the forces involved must be maintained. But I mustn't fall into the comfortable laziness (probably really a form of fear), of passivity.



Then there's the other side. Various people in my life are dealing with difficult issues right now, and various caretakers are watching them deal with those issues, trying to help, but often struggling with the recognition, and accompanying guilt, that there is nothing they can do. I feel badly for both people in the equation; both experience a feeling of helplessness, of being at the mercy of forces they can't control, even when they believe they should be able to. While I am reminding myself that I must do the things I can, THEN trust in other forces, many many of my loved ones might want to remind themselves that some things are beyond our power, and even when we do all the 'right' stuff, sometimes things still go wrong. Then we find what to do next. Feeling guilty for failing to protect a loved one is a burden many people subject themselves to understandably, but needlessly.

("Easy for you to say," mutters the chorus... I know, I know. I do it too, sometimes.)

So I hope each of you, in your own way, finds this season a time of rejuvenation, healing or just plain old joyous growth, in whatever way is best for you. Some of us may need to get our asses out there to plant seeds and pull weeds... but some of us may just need to trust that we've done all we can. Do you know which one you are? Are you sure?

Tying Knots

From time to time I’ll feel a vague, inchoate desire to make something. Sometimes it finds expression in baking bread, making red sauce, or having friends to dinner. Sometimes (all too rarely) it results in me emptying my mending bag, sewing on buttons, closing up seams. I can remember a time when it took expression in sketching on pretty much a daily basis, but sadly I’ve fallen out of the habit, and the ability has atrophied. I still make masks, but they are more often motivated by specific projects or commissions these days; less often do I turn to it as pure impulse. Sometimes the house gets cleaned, lemon and lavender scents clearing my head and my mood, clean, uncluttered surfaces letting my eye come to rest.

And once every great while, the desire to make will find expression in making friendship bracelets. You know what I’m talking about, right? Well, maybe if you didn’t go to a pinko-commie-Quaker-pacifist-hippy-dippy-crunchy-granola college, you didn’t come across them. They’re those colorful little ribbons of macrame, made with embroidery thread. They're given as gifts to someone special (not exclusively romantic partners), tied on the wrist, or in some cases, ankle, then worn until time, sweat, and showers causes them to break off. Almost everyone in my school wore one or two at some point.

From the very start they satisfied some deep needs in me. First of all was the need to play with color in a very basic way. I love rich, deep, super-saturated colors, more jewel-tones than neon. I don’t usually care much for pastels; I like colors with the courage of their convictions, and usually pastels just look watery and wimpy to me (as in all things, there are exceptions). I’m generally disappointed in the colors of men’s clothing. Maybe there will be an ultramarine blue, a tomato red, a green once in a while, less often a lavender – and even then they are shades I find boring or unappealing – but most of what one sees is black, grey, khaki, white, the least interesting browns one can imagine, and of course, navy blue; this is what real men, at least in the United States, are allowed to wear. Anything else runs the risk of making one look frivolous, if not downright faggy.

I like blue. I wear blue. I wear a lot of blue. But the colors that really get my juices flowing run more towards pine green, deep violet, Tuscany yellows, and copper reds just to name a few. In recent years I’ve come to appreciate fire colors like never before, reds, oranges, yellows, (I think coinciding with a lifting in spirit, and greater willingness to be seen) but even then I don’t want them to look like they came from a Crayola box. A SMALL Crayola box. Primary colors in general bore me, especially the most basic blue and red that exist out there (often even in the plaids). I think I would like them well enough, if they weren’t so damn ubiquitous.

So anything made with embroidery thread is a good antidote to all this. They were meant to be used purely for decoration, so there is no need to bow to utility. Every possible color and shade, is available. Just browsing at the store is a delight to the eye. What’s more, the bracelets allow you to explore colors in combination. How will this teal look next to this magenta? How about if a lavender is placed between them? Can a yellow be added, or will it just spend the whole time screaming at the lavender? And what about pattern? The repertoire of the friendship bracelet is limited to angled rows, chevrons, diamonds, and something I call alphas (basically diamonds with an inverted V attached), but that still opens up an array of possible color and pattern combos.

Maybe this need for color would be equally satisfied by finger-painting, but that’s not the only need it fills. I also find a great satisfaction in making knots. In the simple act of joining threads, the image of healing is never far off for me. Then there’s the pleasure in watching the pattern take shape, rows of knots slowly accruing, like weaving but with much quicker results and fewer equipment needs. Also like weaving, the process of tying knots becomes a great gateway to a trance-state, what Abraham Maslow called ‘flow’. At the very beginning of the process I may need to focus on the task so the threads get put in the order I want, but once I’ve made it through the first complete sequence, my hands can take over with only minimal attention paid by my eye and conscious mind. This is when things often rise to the surface, questions I’m grappling with, confusions I’m feeling, all the clutter in my brain that needs shaping, organizing, purging. Occasionally when I’m aware of feeling this way, I’ll choose to make a bracelet. More often than not though, the impulse to make one, even to some extent the choice of colors, will come first, and only after I’ve started do I begin to see what is lurking in the depths.

I used to have this joyful, timeless experience in a lot of different ways; like I said above, drawing used to provide it; so did putting the layers of paper mache on the mold of a mask. In 1992 though, when I had just ended my first serious relationship, I was asked to make some masks for a production, and realized that while I was working, instead of my welcome trance-state, I was tapping into a whole lot of anger. Fights were replayed, irritations relived, I wrote new scenes where I explained why his ‘let’s be friends’ approach was unwelcome and insulting... not the peaceful meditative state I was used to having during this task. I no longer envision my poor ex-boyfriend’s head on a platter when I make masks, but neither have I regained the sense of flow I once had. Someday, I hope it will return.

I never lost it with these silly little bracelets though. And that’s another part of their appeal, I think. They’re completely pointless. Wearing them until they rot off, that's the closest they get to having a purpose. Occasionally I will tie one around a gift bottle of wine, or a vase, but attempts to use them like actual ribbon, i.e. for tying up packages, rarely works. I’ve sometimes offered them as bookmarks, but they’re ill-suited to that purpose as well, for all but the biggest, thickest hardbacks. I made a big one once, just for the hell of it, and ended up sewing it into the bag I made to carry my tin whistles. It does the job okay I suppose, but something else would have probably been better. I rarely give them away these days because people feel obligated to put them on, then they worry I’ll notice it missing the next time I see them. I explain that unless they’re surfers, skate-boarders, or under the age of 20, I don’t expect them to wear it, but they don’t believe me. There was a time when I had a plethora of them, and left them tied randomly to poles and fences in Greenwich Village. I figured I’d recognize my own patterns and color choices well enough that if I ever saw someone with one later, I’d recognize it and strike up a conversation, but so far that has never happened. Chances are good most of them got thrown in the trash by disgruntled supers.

No, they’re utterly pointless, and frankly, I don’t make them for the finished object, but for the process. Sometimes life fills me too full of experience, and I need the clarifying, organizing energies the making of these things gives me.

Last night I found myself needing to stay home. I thought it was simply wanting to take advantage of having the apartment to myself, but soon I realized that I was feeling the desire to make a friendship bracelet. It’s probably been years since the last time. I think I’d been feeling the desire for a few days, so my unconscious finally just made me sit at home, declining all invitations.

Right off the bat my color choices indicated new thoughts. Black, white, sunny yellow, a dark, not-quite-wine-colored red were my choices. I got two strands of each, for a V pattern. These are not colors I would typically combine. Normally I would have seen them as the the easiest choices in graphic design, striking yes, but maybe dull from over-use, in newspapers, logos and posters all over the place. I went with it though, and soon into the pattern realized I liked it, perhaps needed the message each color had to give me.

The white thread warned me of my perfectionism, rigid thinking, my fear of looking foolish, my need for there to be absolutes. The yellow reminded me to notice the simple, quiet, daily pleasures, especially the ones I think I don’t deserve. The red spoke, yes, of passion, love, committing deeply and fully, taking risks, but also of seeing the bigger picture, and committing fully to that as well. The black spoke of mystery and nighttime (when I often feel my creativity is at its most free), of the seed planted deep, committed to its own secret growth. It reminded me to be patient, truly patient, not just pay lip-service, to the secrets working underground, according to their own rhythms.

I felt for a number of years that I was spinning my wheels professionally and artistically; in recent years I felt like I wasn’t even doing that much. This black thread told me to have faith, to trust that things have to work at their own pace. I must tend the soil, water and feed the seed, but mostly I need to leave it alone, and trust I will know what to do when the next step presents itself.

The knots spoke to me as well. They tied me to so many people in my life; to my family and college friends of course; to the new friends I’m getting to know on and off-line; to the old friends who show up out of the blue - even from out of town - with an uncanny sense for when I need them; to the cautious optimism a treatment plan is providing a loved one; to the celebration of a deep bond being made deeper, where I drank too much and kissed too much and gave straight guys noogies that they took with admirable forbearance; to the new friends and gracious hosts who once again opened their home and lives to me, revealing themselves a bit more through older friendships; to the death of a wonderful old man who had helped liberate Bergen-Belsen, and let the horrors of what he saw there move him to connect, to befriend, and to nurture; to another celebration of another impending marriage and the joy I felt in being included; to the cooling words of a good friend reading my first draft of an enraged letter, less than a week after I had done the same for her; to shared meals and late night talks that nourished me more than the missed sleep; all these bonds, all these connections were recorded and celebrated in the tying of knots.

A sense of gratitude has been growing in my life in recent months. You can see it in my blog, I think. I’m sensible enough to know that it isn’t enough however. If the only thing my gratitude leads to is bits of macrame and cheerful mooning about in my apartment, then it hasn’t done me much good. I am ready to take action, but I know I haven’t yet. It’s odd too, because the fact is I like working. At least I think I remember feeling that way. I agree with G.B. Shaw when he says "I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake." I dance with Rumi as he sings "everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." I nod with recognition – and cringe at the unwitting accusation -- when Thoreau says "be not simply good – be good for something." I say this with no self-pity, and with no need for loving denials (Seriously, I’m not fishing), but in recent years I don't think I've been good for much. I’m wary of the ego’s need for adulation being the secret motive for my work (a constant bugaboo for actors), just as I watch his tendency to insist that not doing things at all is better than doing them badly. But the need for work, the need to do, to make, that isn’t ego. It’s recognizing responsibility to life.

Goodness. What a lot to hang on a tiny piece of ribbon. By the end of the evening though, I felt like something important had been rediscovered. There was a sense of grounding: of coming home even. I don’t know what the next step is. But I think I will when I see it.

All About Me

This is Megan.
She's a koala.
She's eating eucalyptus leaves.




(We had just been exercising in the Sheep's Meadow under a hot summer sun. I'm sweaty, red-faced, and blotchy the way you're supposed to be. She looks like she just stepped out of the shower. Maybe she's glowing. A bit. God, I hate that bitch.)


This is Jeff.
He's a clown.
He's wearing a rubber nose.
Also a hat.




(It's all right, he's a good clown, he won't hurt you. Seriously, he's really funny. Okay, okay, breathe...No no, the T shirt is a name, not an instruction...yes, I understand but- uh huh... look, he's also a great actor, and he doesn't wear the nose then. Usually. Does that help? ...All right, if you would just come over --look, will you calm down-no... no... Seriously dude, would you CHILL? Jesus Christ on a Bicycle!)




Jeff and Megan have known each other since high school in Northern Virgina (NoVA, to the cool kids, and believe me, these kids are cool), were sweethearts for a while, and managed to maintain a friendship throughout college and the years after. Well, last Tuesday the Koala and the Clown decided that their duo was too good, too right, and should be made a permanent thing. I couldn't agree more.


I've been trying all weekend to explain why this makes me so deleriously happy. The funny thing about trying to explain why you love people is it so hard to do without sounding like a Hallmark card, or just listing their fine qualities. On top of that, the entry about their engagement kept becoming all about me, and why I wanted this to happen. I don't seem to be getting anywhere though, and what the hell, it IS my blog, so here are just a few of the things that make me happy about all this.


I met Jeff doing the original play Significant Circus back in spring of 2001, and he was but one of many precious gifts I took away from that experience. I tend to treat straight men like timid woodland creatures when I first meet them, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to startle them, in the hopes that maybe eventually they'll feel safe enough to eat from my hand. Initially Jeff seemed like a prime candidate for this policy, but I soon found I was selling him short. You have to understand, in this play, while Jeff was playing a human being, I was playing a dog. A talking dog. Nor was this my first time (see, all about me...). We only had a couple of scenes together, and our characters didn't really interact much, we were usually just there as parts of crowd scenes. At one point we had stopped while the director attended to some other problem, me crouched at Jeff's feet, both of us lost in our own thoughts. It took me a few moments to notice that Jeff was petting me absent-mindedly, scritching me behind the ears... Just petting the dog. I doubt he was even conscious of it; like I said, it had been going on for some moments before I was. If that hadn't been enough, I knew we were going to be friends when he, I, and two other (hot!) actors decided to run our extremely physical, acrobatic, full-body-contact fight call in our underwear. Just 'cause. It was that kind of play.


He is one of the most disciplined, hard-working people I know, and at times I feel like he's driven, and too self-flagellating (like life in New York Theatre doesn't beat you enough). I'll tell him to lighten up periodically, yet I'm also awed by how much he gets done. Generally he's juggling roughly 493 projects at once, in three states and two countries (I'm not kidding), but even then, if you ask him to help you move, he's there. I swear, if I suddenly needed to move while he was working in Italy, he would find a way to be there that day, and still miss less than an hour's rehearsal. And you have to understand, we're talking about moving IN NEW YORK CITY. No place to park, five floor walk-ups with no elevators, doors and staircases that are too small for TV sets, let alone actual furniture... nope, he's there, and usually taking charge.


I met Megan a few years later, when she moved to New York as their relationship rekindled. As with Jeff, I initially thought she was sweet, lovely, a bit shy and reserved, a southern gal I might easily scandalize accidentally. I was just as wrong with her. While she and I haven't wrestled in our underwear (yet), I quickly learned she was actually a hot dancer, a rocker-chick with a serious Guns N' Roses fetish and several tattoos. At first I thought it odd someone like this was studying library science, but it just turned out I hadn't met enough librarians. She can drink me under the table, which granted isn't that hard these days, but she IS a lot smaller than me. Of the two of them, she's far more likely to be the one causing trouble in public, and she gets away with it because she can turn on the Bambi eyes, and just look like a sweet young thing. I adore this about her. I also adore the fact that when she's writing papers, she wears bunny ears because "they help me think." When she has her glasses on she looks like she's the librarian at the Playboy Mansion. She and I bonded when we learned each of us has a Muppet Dance (Jeff likes to make us sit on the same side of the booth in restaurants, so he can watch us do them simultaneously). Her sense of humor is often wicked, and I adore this about her too.




Then there are all the things I love about them that they have in common: their writing skill, their empathy, their ability to switch from serious to silly on a dime (and not belittle either one), their love of books, art, dance, theatre, music, good food, red wine -all the things that make for wonderful friendships and amazing conversations, but perhaps not particularly good stories. They've challenged me, supported me, and maybe best of all, helped me make my work better. I feel blessed by my time with them, hearing, being heard, loving, and being loved.



They're also both smokin' hot, and not afraid to give me smooches when I need 'em. (Which, for the record, is CONSTANTLY. Probably half the reason I went into theatre. All about me.)



The road to this point has been a long one, and what with them being human beings and all, not always easy. They were split up for a time, a few years ago. I've had good couple friends break up before (who hasn't) and knew I would have no trouble maintaining a friendship with each of them. So why was I so upset by the break-up? Sure I was sad that they were both hurting, that made sense, but this seemed like something more. Gradually I began to realize that I felt strongly that they were SUPPOSED to be together. Unlike in previous cases, I had an opinion, dare I say, an AGENDA even, in this.



I was good. I behaved. I did not breathe a word of this to either of them, because what the hell did I know, it wasn't my decision, I wasn't involved, I didn't know all the things that had come between them, and besides I know better than to advise people on much of anything but especially romance, yeah, let's look at my track record, and no one wants advice when they're in this much pain anyway, and they DEFINITELY don't need me pursuing my own AGENDA for god's sake, what kind of moron would risk alienating both his friends by meddling in their affairs like this because HE wants them to reconcile...?



(All about me.)



Nope I didn't say a thing (right, guys? I didn't, did I? I was good, right?). And I worked at picturing them with other people, starting new relationships, building different lives. They were mine, I wasn't going to lose them, and since it's all about me, that's what mattered.



BUT... I was thrilled when they reconciled, saw that if anything the bond was stronger and healthier now, maybe in some way the split had been necessary. It was good. So glad you two finally saw sense and did what I wanted, ya pinheads. (Me. All. About.) I'm sure I'm only one of many people saying this to you. Together and separately you have inspired, delighted and supported me. I hope you'll let me return the favor, whenever I can.

Two Steps Forward?

I've been mulling over my reaction to the death of Heath Ledger, and reading the heart-felt responses from many in my blog family. Brokeback Mountain obviously struck a deep chord with a lot of people, as it did with me. In one of my earliest posts, written just after seeing the movie, I talked about how connected I felt culturally to this particular story in ways that didn't make sense. I had privileges Ennis never dreamed of, yet I still see how easy it would have been for me to become him. For an interesting interview with Ledger on his experience working on the film, go here. The skill and emotional insight Ledger and Ang Lee brought to this character created a resonant performance, one that deserves all the accolades and awards it received. I think it may go down in history as one of the great film portrayals. I was inspired in deep ways by the beauty and commitment of Ledger's work, and it's obvious I was not alone.

Ledger -and in fact, Gyllenhaal as well- impressed me in another way. As is still the case whenever a straight man plays a gay role, members of the press, particularly the gay press, often feel compelled to ask if the decision to take the role was 'scary'. It's not uncommon for there to be a fair amount of thanks given for an actor's willingness to play gay, like he is doing us some kind of favor. Read Ledger's response to a variation on this question in one interview (see above link).

Question: Who was the biggest supporter and biggest detractor in you playing this role in regards to the gay aspects?

Heath Ledger: No one was trying to detract me from it. Everyone was very supportive of it. I understand everyone else or people found it risky. I hate to call it "daring" or "brave"; firefighters are daring and brave. I'm acting. I didn't get hurt and I'm not mentally wounded from this experience.

I love him for this response, and I love what it tells us about the present landscape in Hollywood. I am even more encouraged by comments he makes later in the same interview.

Question: Why did you take the role when others in the past had said no?

Heath Ledger: It was a beautiful story. It was a story that hadn't made it on the screen; which is rare to come upon a script so beautifully well written and hadn't been told before. It was very exciting to tell a new story. Ang lee is attached to it. I don't think I would have done it if it were in anyone else's hands. He was the perfect director for it and that's really [it]. I looked at it as a wonderful opportunity to get in the head of this character. I never saw it as a huge risk that everyone else was seeing. It's all relative to the person you are and how relaxed you are with people and the people around you. I was very happy to tell a story that hadn't been told and I thought it should have been told.

This response reveals to me both a sensitive artist and an astute businessman. He recognized the challenges of the role -playing gay was not one of them- and saw the potential for a rewarding project and improved career. No one can know in advance if a film is going to be a critical or popular success, but part of being a successful actor is learning how to pick projects wisely, to weigh the potential risks and benefits, and to strike a balance between personal challenge and box office success. It seems to me that Ledger recognized the benefits far out-weighed the risks, especially for him.

It's easy to forget now, but before 2005 (when Brokeback came out), Ledger's career appeared to be on a downward spiral. After making a big splash with his Hollywood debut, being identified as a hot up-and-coming actor, Ledger had four commercial and critical flops in a row, and in Hollywood that is often the kiss of death. At this point he was in the papers more often for his high profile romance with Naomi Watts than he was for his work. People were already looking at him as one of those 'where are they now' stories. His response to this career crisis was that of a talented artist (as opposed to determined star); he looked around for projects that would, yes, improve his professional standing, but do so by connecting him with artists he admired (he wouldn't have taken the role without Ang Lee, remember), in challenging, well-written material, and as he says, a story "that hadn't been told before."

Don't misunderstand me. I am not discounting Ledger's achievement in this role. I applaud Ledger for insightful, detailed, captivating work with a character who was as different from him as he could be, but was also a difficult person to portray on film. Lee told him the thing to keep in mind in portraying Ennis was 'stillness'; between the two of them, they did just that, and it worked brilliantly. Ennis' clenched jaw, physical awkwardness, and flattened speech showed us a man at war with his feelings, the demands of his culture, even his own body. Ledger deserves all the praise he received for this work, and more. I simply want to counter-act the idea that he took a huge gamble to play gay, or did so as a favor to us. To his credit, he never made any such claim, in fact he denied such claims when others suggested them. There was a time when playing gay could seriously damage a career even for a straight man, but Ledger, perhaps in part by looking at the list of actors who had done so with great success before him (a partial list, off the top of my head: Tom Hanks, Antonio Banderas, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Justin Kirk, Campbell Scott, Dermot Mulroney, Daniel Futterman, Daniel Day Lewis, Ewan MacGregor, Christian Bale, Jude Law, Matt Damon) realized that risk was now pretty minimal. He saw an incredible opportunity, and he leapt at it.

Then of course, I began to hear the ugliness -John Gibson's reprehensible response, Fred Phelps desire to picket Ledger's funeral- and I thought, maybe I was dismissing the risks of playing gay too quickly. Further examination though leads me to believe I am not. Yes, horrible things are being said in response to his death, making it clear (surprise!) homophobia is alive and well. More than one whack-job is suggesting Ledger's death is God's punishment for his involvement with Brokeback Mountain. Gibson may have been ridiculing him as a 'weirdo' with a 'drug problem', but his exclusive use of Brokeback Mountain quotations tells us what really bothered him.

The fact is though, this stuff came out in the open again only because of Ledger's death. It wasn't stopping him from working while he was still alive. His career was not damaged by Brokeback, in fact it was significantly improved by it. He had gained A-list status in Hollywood and remember, and this was not a status he had ever had before. I honor Ledger for his work on this role, and for the respect he gave to Ennis and the film as a whole, and I honor him even more for his clear-sightedness on how little a gay role threatened his career. Neither he nor Gyllenhaal were the first actors approached for these roles; men with bigger names were approached first, and all of them passed. I hope at least some of those actors are now realizing what an opportunity they missed, and that their fears were unfounded, or at least archaic. And those folks spouting such poison about this man's death and his career choices, I think that's just further evidence that this film struck a nerve. If I had been involved, I would be taking almost as much pride in the viciousness, as I would in all the accolades.

I could easily start writing more about related issues (gay actors being cast in gay roles, gay actors being cast in straight roles, lesbians getting cast at all), but those seem topics for another time. Ultimately I just want to acknowledge that I am greatly saddened by Ledger's death, not only because I find it horrible when anyone fails to make it past thirty, but also because he was clearly a great artist whose best work, I can only assume, was still ahead of him. I am sorry for the grief his loved ones are now experiencing, and I regret the work that we will never see now. Most of all, I am grateful to him for the gift he gave us in Ennis Del Mar, and for making it clear that playing gay was a risk only if he let it be.

A Room of One's Own

Whenever my mom leads writing workshops, she often has the participants do an exercise called A Room of One's Own.  (The title is from Virginia Woolf, though she has no other influence on the exercise as far as I know.)  The guidelines are simple; describe a room that would be yours alone, and perfectly suited to whatever need you wanted addressed.  If you're lucky enough to already have this room, describe it.  If not, describe the ideal in as much detail as you want.  Then to finish up, tell who would be the first person you invited in to the room.  (I don't know if Mom created this, or borrowed it from someone else, but I'm sure she gives credit where credit is due.)  Thinking about this question has actually been helping me clarify some other, deeper issues, funnily enough.  So, here is my thoughts on the subject as they stand today.  


My room is a free-standing structure actually, possibly a renovated barn or boat-house, and lies a short yet beautiful walk away from the cozy cottage I share with my hypothetical partner, family, dog, cat, and possibly horse.  Maybe also chickens.  But we're not talking about that, we're talking my room. One fantasy at a time, 'kay?  This is my work room, which is to say it's where I go to play, but I mean play in a very serious, artistic, concentrated way, plumbing emotional depths...oh, screw that.  I have a whole different room for "but this is TOO work" which doubles as my "you're wasting your life" room, so I don't need to do that here.  This is my play room.  


The mental preparation starts with the walk that takes me through a forest, alongside a small
creek,  noticing whatever has changed since the day before, because something always has. I enter through the door in the northwest corner. The single room is large, with very high ceilings (in case I want to hang a trapeze) and a nicely sprung floor made from some renewable source, like bamboo wood. Stored against the north wall are several matts for tumbling and more acrobatic work, but most of the time the floor is left free for dance.  There is a CD player, with small storage for music.  I can't tell you yet what the building is made of, though chances are it's also wood.  I like wood.  I also loved the cottages in the west of Ireland, which are usually cement block covered in stucco,  and they're quite cozy, so that would be all right, as long as the floor is nice to move on.


Close to the door, on the east wall, is a window that looks out onto the forest.  Next to it is a
full length mirror for mask-work, but when it's not in use, it's covered by a cloth.  I get distracted if there's somebody else is constantly moving out of the corner of my eye.  The south wall is all glass sliding doors, with a bank of windows above, tilted back at a slight angle.  The doors open out to a grassy open glen that in May is carpeted with violets.  Some deciduous trees stand close enough to the building to shade it in the summer, but when their leaves are gone, the light pours into the space.  Leafless, they also reveal the lake and the mountains on the other side.  There are a scattering of houses along the opposite shore, but no one's presence intrudes here.  


Three quarters of the room is left empty to allow for movement, but the final quarter, along the west wall there is a work table and chair for making masks, a built-in bookcase for supplies, and two comfy easy chairs on a soft rug, one chair for when I am writing or reading, the other for guests.  There is also a small sink, and a counter with the supplies to make tea or coffee. The window in this wall has a deep window seat,  and it shows the forest, a glimpse of the lake and mountains, and a small chuckling brook whose sound fills the space whenever it's not frozen.  In the winter, I see amazing sunsets through this window as well, and that's how I know it's time to go home for dinner.   The east window probably gets great sunrises too, but I'm rarely there to see it, since I'm enjoying it in the bedroom with the hypothetical boyfriend, or as we sit in our breakfast nook in the kitchen, drinking our coffee.


Right, other fantasy.  


I can't decide what color the walls are.  At first I thought they were just a warmish cream, to keep the space neutral, airy, and unimposing.  I've been living for nine years in a apartment with all white walls, however (quite common in NYC, for light issues), and I think I'd like some color in this room.  So the walls are possibly washed with a warm Tuscan yellow, or perhaps a shade of  amber or apricot.  With all the serenity and quiet beauty I have surrounding the space, I probably could handle a little bit of energy inside.  I think one of those colors would energize me.  


Describing this room shows me some things of interest.  First, it's obviously in a rural setting of great beauty, possibly Maine, the Pacific Northwest, Ireland, Scotland, or Cape Breton.  I would love to live in the country.  News Flash.  But there are other things to notice.  I seem to want to keep my options open for the kinds of work, which isn't always a virtue, I think.  Sometimes I wonder if my interests are too scattered, rather than varied.  I also note there are no books, or computer in the room.  I have trouble picturing a room without books, so that might change, but I would keep the computer elsewhere.  It's a necessity for the business side of the job more and more, and is obviously a great research tool, but those things require a different energy from me, so I'd like the computer to be in a different space.  One energy is not better or more creative than the other, they just have different vibrations.  Even after more than seven years of fairly regular keyboard use, I still find that when I write, I have to do it longhand in a notebook if I need to go deep or move quickly.  I've gotten slightly better at composing on the keyboard, but still not as well as when  I write by hand.  Editing and re-writing I can do on a keyboard, but that is also a different energy.  So, no computer in this room.  


The biggest thing I notice from this exercise is, I've created a room for generating my own work. Sure an actor would enjoy this space, and be able to use it well, but the focus really is on creating new work, especially physical theatre, mask pieces, and other non-naturalistic performances.  That is what I've done for the last fifteen years or so.  Recently though, I've wanted to shift my focus back to more mainstream forms; plays that are time-tested or at least promising, film and TV projects with decent budgets behind them, that sort of thing.  I had a whole host of reasons for making that decision, and I think it's still the direction I'm heading for now.  I'd like not to be the main or only force behind a project for a while, and I'd like to make more money, pure and simple.  But I've also realized something else with all this.  Somewhere along the line I equated self-generated work with solo work.  


There are understandable reasons for this.  I started doing it as a way to give myself work when nothing else was happening, and to have more autonomy and control over my career.  It also made it easy to rehearse ('hey, I've got a free hour'), change things, or even improvise in performance if necessary.  I'd been doing lots of experimental dance/circus/theatre shows created by someone else, and way too often I found myself working for months with assholes or flakes, for little or no money, and the work ended up being crap.  Or it turned out well, but everyone was so bitter and angry it didn't matter.  Or it turned out well and no one came to see it.  So having a little more say in my work was nice, and even if the work turned out badly, at least I'd spent the time working on something I cared about.


I've been missing the joy of working with ensembles though.  That is one of the main reason I became an actor, and I haven't done it since 2005, really.  It's simply easier to work with others if someone else, preferably a well-established arts organization, is producing and supporting you. One drawback to solo work is -stick with me here- you're by yourself a lot.  You're the one pushing to make it happen, you're the only one at rehearsal (unless you've talked a willing friend into directing you, or at least watching it once), you're the one seeking out venues, you're the only one who notices or cares if nothing happens.  It can be lonely, and New York is lonely enough as it is.  (There's also that sneaky little voice that says "you're working on your own to side-step the fact that no one wants to work with you because you SUCK."  I keep that voice locked in the "You're Wasting Your Life" room most of the time.)  


So, I'm mulling this over.  These aren't really new thoughts, most of them, but they've fallen
into a new pattern, and that's useful.  I keep reminding myself too that since this is a fantasy, I don't have to justify my using it.  Funny how my inner Puritan starts running the show any chance he gets.  


Oh, who would be the first person I invited into the space? Barring the hypothetical boyfriend, I guess I'd show it to my sister first.  She and I are psychic twins.  She would only be the first in a long line of friends and loved ones who would appreciate this space though, and some of them might end up collaborating with me on a something.  I'd resist the temptation to use this as a social or party space, but that would be easy with the cozy cottage up the road.  That is such a good space for a party, and the boyfriend puts on a mean spread.    


One fantasy at time, Patrick.   

So, I'm not turning this into a meme or an obligation, but if anyone is inspired by this exercise to describe his or her own room, I'd love to read it.  Will over at Designer Blog is way ahead of the game due to the fact that he designed an entire house which is nearing completion.  If you don't have a blog of your own, we can figure out a way to have you guest blog here, if you want.  I'd love to see what people come up with, I bet I'd learn a lot about you.  Annie laMott does a variation on this exercise, where instead of a room, you have an acre of land.  It's yours, you can do whatever you want with it.  If that is more inspiring, then do that one.  

Bad Voodoo

I was with Kevin for just over two years, when I lived in Seattle.  Neither one of us normally took pictures so one day we decided to go a photo booth, so we could have pictures of the two of us together.  It was a color booth which meant we only got two shots, unlike the black and white booths where you got at least four.  (Do any of the youngin's need photo booths explained?  Black and white photos?)  So we got our two shots,  cut them apart and  each put one in our respective wallets.  Later we discovered that they hadn't entirely dried, so putting them in our wallets had smeared them.  You could make out who we were, sort of, but they weren't great images.  

Soon after that my parents came to visit.  They took lots of photos, especially of me and Kevin together.  When they got home however, they discovered that the film was ruined, and the camera itself was completely broken.  A few weeks later my brother James came to visit, and knowing what had happened to Mom's and Dad's camera, he made a point of taking lots of photos of the two of us again.  When he got home, his film was ruined, the camera was broken, no images survived.  

To this day I have no photos of Kevin, or of Kevin and me together. When I google him, this is all I can find.   As a record of him, and his work, it's not bad really, but as a record of our time together it leaves something to be desired.  I assume there are photos of us out there somewhere.  We went to parties together, we had  a shared social circle, surely someone has at least one.  I've just never seen any.  If there are any old Seattle hands lurking out there who has one, would you mind sending me a copy?  

I've been thinking about this today because of an experience I'm having now.  In the Fall of 2004 I had a one-act produced as part of a festival.  It was my first time writing for someone other than just myself.  Yes, I was also in the play, but don't worry, someone else directed, I swear to god I'm not narcissist.  It was a festival for works-in-progress, so I developed the script, writing new drafts up until we declared it "done for now" about two weeks before we performed it, flaws and all.

During that development period my computer was completely unusable.  Fortunately I had saved everything on a disc, and my director gave me keys to her apartment so I could use her computer during the day.  What this means is, several more versions, including the final one, ended up on her computer, not mine.  At the time I didn't think anything of it, didn't take steps to copy it onto a disc, we all had hard copies anyway, when everything calmed down, I'd get to it.  

Except I didn't.  Throughtout the whole experience that play had had a feeling -at least for me-  of being carried along by something else, that a force was behind it, smoothing things at times, providing unexpected blessings at others.  That feeling  had started the previous Spring actually, when I performed in a different play with this same company.  As is often the case with me, I fell in love with the space itself, and it inspired my play in the essentials.  So when we finished our brief run, and got some nice feed-back from people, I waited to see what was supposed to happen next.  

Well, that would be nothing.  Evidently I was supposed to take it from there, which seems reasonable enough, I don't mean to be greedy.  It just took me a while to realize.  I really don't know what is going to happen next, if anything does.  Maybe the play, like Bromios, served its purpose, and it's time for me to do something else.  I figure it wouldn't hurt though to look at the script again.  There were tons of things wrong with it, that were left as they were because of time.  I could at least do some re-writing, right?  

So I looked at the copy I had on my now-behaving computer (who's a good little computer!  Yes you are!  Yes you are!  Don't let Daddy scare you with all his complaining)... and realized it was an older version.  Not too old, it was from after the point when a major shift had occurred in the story I was writing, but there was at least one key scene that was out of date in this version.  So I went to find my hard copy.  I save old scripts forever; don't know what I'm going to do with them, but I've got 'em.  Except for this script.  This one I don't got.  Not at all.  Presumably I thought "eh, I've got it on the computer, it's going to change anyway, don't need to hold onto this."  That sounds like me.  

Hm.  Okay.  What am I going to do?  I called the play's lead, my good friend Genna, to see if she had the most recent draft.  Like me she saves all her scripts, and lo and behold she had it.  Goody.  She kindly made a copy for me which I carried in my bag briefly, thinking I'd look at it on the train, and I did a little... until it disappeared.  Poof, gone, don't know what the HELL I did with it.  

See, the thing is I really don't lose things.  That's part of what makes this weird.  Don't want to jinx it, but I've never misplaced keys, important documents, my phone (washing and drying it, that's a whole other story, but losing it?  Please).  I'm often really good at finding things other people have lost, up to and including contact lenses on stage floors after circus shows when nine of us had been tumbling and racing about for nearly three hours.  So it is just odd that I would have misplaced this script after I had made a point of tracking it down.  No it wasn't like a passport, but it had become something I wasn't going to be careless with.  Or so one would think.

I was too embarrassed to ask Genna for another copy, so once again, I didn't do anything with the play.  Months passed.  I decided to spend the month of August in Indiana with my family (trees!  dogs!  cats!  family dinners!  good talks!  good walks! books! escaping a hot stinky sweaty armpit of an apartment in a bigger, stinkier, sweatier armpit of a city! Score!).  I decided I might as well take along a copy of the version I do have, and see what I could do to reconstruct the out-dated scene.  The play as a whole needs to be revamped after all,  that scene will probably change anyway.  

So I printed it out.  I remember seeing it clearly in my printer tray.  Apparently I didn't put it in my bag though, because when I got back to Richmond it wasn't 
there.  I felt like a complete MORON, but okay, I had brought other stuff to work on,  it was 
mostly a vacation anyway so what the hell.  It could just wait for me back in the printer tray.  

Except it wasn't.  It wasn't waiting anywhere for me, not the hard copy anyway.  There was nothing in the printer tray.  Tommy wouldn't have moved it, and even if he had, he would have just put it on my desk in a prominent position, so if I had printed it and left it, it would still be there.  And it wasn't.  

No, I don't think the play has been hit with some bad voodoo, I accept that I am causing this somehow, but I still want to know why am I doing it (I mean, if I don't actually want to work on it, why not go on ignoring it like I did for most of two years?), and how I keep doing it without noticing or remembering a damn thing?  I was perhaps more of a whack job than usual this Summer, but still.   

I finally got over my embarrassment and asked Genna if she'd make me another copy.  By now I wasn't sure it was such a good idea for me actually to touch the script, so I asked her to make it, and I'd pay for it.  Genna actually saved all the drafts, I believe, which is either an impressive dedication to the archival arts, or some serious pack-ratting, and she's not now sure which one is the newest version, so she's planning on just copying
 all of them for me.  I'll admit, I have a bad feeling about this.  It just seems like there's going to be at least one more weird-assed thing before I actually get to look at the stupid scene.  After feeling like the play had been quietly helped along by unknown and unnamed forces, it's tempting to wonder if now the forces have other plans.  Or they skipped town because I was such an ungrateful sloth and squandered the momentum.  Or maybe some OTHER forces are at work here, just causing trouble.  Oh, except I don't think this is bad voodoo, remember?  Right?  

We'll see what happens.  

 

Remembering, Regretting, Releasing

For a number of reasons -some of which are no doubt obvious- I've been thinking about gratitude a lot for the past three days. I've also been thinking about my strange reluctance to accept gifts. Steven at Sooo-this-is-Me has me thinking about regret, self-recrimination, time and opportunity lost -and the dangers of losing myself in them. He also has me noticing how easily I still step out of life sometimes, in the mistaken belief that it will make things easier, if not better. Somewhere Joe and Cooper have me thinking about the ways in which remembered blessings can trigger present gratitude.


As these thoughts roil around in my head, I find myself looking again at a piece I wrote and performed a number of years ago. I performed it several times, sometimes by itself, sometimes as part of a larger piece. For at least four years however, I've felt no connection to it, or the character who performed it. Sometimes that just means the piece has served its purpose, and needs to be put aside. That certainly may be true with this piece. I think though that my lack of connection with the piece reflects a deep disconnection from simple yet significant truths in my life. So I'm re-examining the piece today. Maybe I'll find my way back to it, and the character, maybe not. I don't really know where any of these ideas are taking me. I'm not worried about that right now. Today I'm just remembering.

The Toasts of Bromios

I'd like to propose a toast... For cheese and chocolate, and good red wine, for fresh hot bread and garlic in olive oil, for sour apples and sweet grapes and the salt of a lover’s skin, for these tastes and more, praise, all praise.

I'd like to propose a toast...For lilac and roses, and fresh brewed coffee, for the air near a waterfall, or after a storm, for cedar, and cinnamon, and the first cut of a lemon, for these scents and more, praise, all praise.

I'd like to propose a toast...
For the wind through pine trees, and the crashing of water, for thunder and hailstorms and the silence that follows, for crickets and cellos, and the purring of cats, for cheering and birdsong and really hot dance music, for a lover’s moans and sigh of contentment, for these sounds and more, praise, all praise.

I'd like to propose a toast...
For violets and fireflies and windblown pasture, for horses and dogs and all creatures who dance, for lightening and ice storms and Spring-thaw rivers, for the light of a candle reflected in eyes, for the sprawl of a body sleeping tangled in sheets, for these sights and more, praise, all praise.

I'd like to propose a toast...
For the caress of silk and soft summer breezes, for dry towels after a hot bath or cold rain, for strong hands cradling your head and pulling your hair, for the crash of a wave that makes you gasp with cold, for the lover who knows where, when and just how hard to bite, for these touches and more, praise, all praise.

I'd like to propose a toast... For hard work and dancing and the good sleep that follows, for solitude and companionship and the shoulders of friends, for new sights and old homes, and the travel between them, for being surprised still, every once in a while, for growing old gracefully - or kicking and screaming every step of the way, for all of you here, each of you luscious as grapes, I give you praise, all praise.

Spreading the Love

Brian over at Peace of Cake has been working for about a year helping to develop a great new play, written by Kevin Podgorski. It's titled F*ck Me, B*at Me, L*ve Me. I saw a staged reading of it a few months back, though 'staged reading' is inaccurate for something as fully realized as this was. I thought the writing, acting, and directing were all fantastic. The play deals with some complex, difficult stuff in gay life and relationships, and I was blown away by it. For one entire scene two really hot guys were in their underwear, and it should tell you something that I was able to concentrate on something besides the sexy dragon tattoo climbing up one guy's thigh. The writing was that compelling.

Brian and Kevin have decided to produce the play themselves. Accordingly, they're in the process of fundraising; over at Brian's blog you can send donations to his paypal account. If you have a little change burning a hole in your pocket, and you'd like to help bring a smart, funny, sexy new play to its just fame, go on over. Every little bit helps, seriously. Hey B, maybe you can post some press photos if/when you get some? (Hope it's okay that I stole your headshot.)

Brian, by the way, has been the source of much good in my life. I have him to thank for introducing me to Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, Russell Davies' Dr. Who, John Barrowman, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, just for starters. So if you'd like to help a talented artist and a nice guy, drop some moolah over at his blog.

I won't be making these kinds of pleas here often; I just think this one is worth it.

Chicken or Egg

I was on the subway with Martha Plimpton recently. I adore Martha Plimpton, which is funny because when I told people about having seen her, I could only remember two things I'd seen her in. Most recent was an episode of Law & Order, a series I think generally gets things right, but her episode, specifically her work in it, raised the bar significantly. I think she's amazing, and probably would think so from that episode alone.

I had to behave of course, I didn't want to make her nervous, but I wanted to stare at her. I guess conventional standards might not identify her as pretty, but I could watch her face for days. I couldn't even tell you what it is about it. Is there just some sort of liveliness or charisma that shines through? Is she so in tune with her instrument, channel, muse, talent, or just her humanity that it has a physical effect on her? Does she know she's doing it, whatever it is? And if she does, was it something she was born knowing, or did she have to learn it? Is she a successful actor because of this undefined ability, or did success create it somehow?

Returning to Sources

Look at that little boy. Can you believe it? What a baby. It’s the Fall of 1983; I’m seventeen years old. That’s right, if I had known most of you back then, it would have only been because I was baby-sitting you. This is a detail I took (with my nascent photo editor skills) from a press photo from the first REAL play I ever did, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m playing Lysander. I cut Helena and Hermia out of the photo here not because I didn’t want to show them, but because I’m cautious of posting photos of other people without their permission, and even if I knew how to get in touch with Kristy and Laurie, it seemed a little silly. Plus I wanted to see what I could do with photo editor.

There are a couple of reasons I’ve been looking at this photo of late. One is to marvel at the fact that I once had a chin. Seriously, what the hell happened there? Well, twenty-four years and twenty pounds I guess. Apparently all twenty of it ended up on my face. Well, that’s not true, there’s a lot of it on my belly now too, though you can’t tell as easily in this photo. I was 120 pounds then. I had a twenty inch waist. Seriously. At the costume fitting for this show, the costumer told me she wished she had my measurements. Just what every (closeted) teenage boy wants to hear.

But my real reason for looking at that young, callow kid’s face is more than morose nostalgia masquerading as vanity. With just a little bit of romanticizing, I can make this photo epitomize the time when theatre, and Shakespeare first saved my life. It sounds melodramatic, I know, but seriously, look at that kid. Doesn’t it look like he’s discovering something life changing? Life affirming? Hear me out.

It’s very easy to forget, as a gay man, out for 22 years, and having met a gazillion other queers, that at one point, I really, truly thought I was the only one. Yes, I had met one or two gay people as a kid. I was vaguely aware that my folks were friends with a few lesbian couples, though since they weren’t local, I didn’t know them well. One of my sister’s friends at school was a gay man. He had gone on the England program my folks led when I was fourteen. He was all right. I knew there were whole cities FULL of gay people, marching, dancing, cruising, wearing dresses, throwing pies at Anita Bryant, and, by this point, getting AIDS. They scared me, I wanted nothing to do with them, but I knew they existed. I knew god had no problem with them, and I felt free to question anyone who claimed otherwise. I believed gay people deserved equal rights. I knew my parents, sister, and any adults I respected, all agreed. It didn’t matter. I still believed, deep in my heart, that I was the only gay guy in the world. I felt wrong, ugly, dirty. It might be all right for others to be gay, but for me it was still shameful. And I knew I would never tell another soul my horrible secret.

I had known I was ‘off’ by the time I was five. I had a name for it by age twelve. At age fourteen I had resolved firmly that I was never going to be with anyone, and I’d probably be better off not having any friends. I loved my family, and there were other people I regarded favorably, but actually connecting, building real relationships of any kind, that was not going to happen. I might look like a normal person, but my goal was to be free of emotion.

I suspect few people who knew me then would recognize this self-portrait, but at the time I would have identified that fact as a measure of my success. I had figured out early on that if I truly wanted to be left alone, then anti-social behavior was NOT the way to go. I did well in school. I pursued extra-curricular activities. I was nice to other people. I worked to look like nothing seemed wrong, so everyone would leave me alone. The family ailment of depression had probably sunk its claws deep into me by this point, I see now, but at the time social gracefulness worked well to mask the isolation I was cultivating.

But see, when I was fifteen, I saw this play. The college theatre company produced Equus (yes, Harry Potter’s show). After seeing it, I was in a daze, unable to think about anything else for days. It’s hard to say what resonated so deeply with me. Certainly the themes of seeking ecstatic experience, of living a deep, passionate life would have struck a nerve, however unconscious, given my plan to avoid both. The ritualized staging, the horse masks that did and didn’t reveal the actors’ faces, the choral hum that built tension at key moments, all of that must have captivated me; they’re elements of theatre that still do. Most of all, however, I was blown away by the actor playing Alan Strang.

No, it didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eye, and spent one scene in his underwear (college production, small conservative town, so no nudity), but even at the time I knew it was more than this. Years later when I talked with the show’s director (now my mentor and friend), he said the actor had burned in that role. There had just been an incredible alchemy, he was the right actor, at the right point in his life, for that role in that production. I’m sure if I were able to go back in time to see that same production today, I’d see flaws and amateurishness all over the place. In reading the play now, I’m not convinced it’s even that good a script, really. But it doesn’t matter. I was fundamentally changed by that production.

But how does this get me on-stage in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my first ‘real play’ you ask? Hang in there, I’m getting to that. I was fascinated by Alan Strang for some time afterwards, though I think it was more hero-worship than adolescent crush. Truth be told, I saw him in two more productions after that, and eh, he was okay. His Leontes in A Winter’s Tale didn’t impress me. The habits and mannerisms that had been so convincing for a disturbed adolescent seemed petulant and childish in a Shakespearean King. In Lady from the Sea his patriarch was better, but still didn’t have the fire that had burned in Equus. In other words, he was an undergraduate acting student learning his craft. I didn't need to put him on a pedestal, and frankly, that was a relief.

Thus two years after I had been overwhelmed by his Alan Strang, I no longer felt intimidated by this guy. I still, however, wanted to be his friend. So when the auditions for Midsummer came out, I decided to go. As a faculty brat I was actually allowed to audition for any college production, but had never been willing to brave it before. The idea of working on a Shakespeare play was both daunting and thrilling, as was the thought of working with this particular director (whose work had consistently impressed me). I swallowed my reticence, and went to the auditions.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to know I was excited to be cast, but I’m not sure you can fathom how BIG a deal it was to me at the time. My family had spent, cumulatively, almost two years living in London, where I had seen a number of plays. The vast majority of my theatre-going experience, however, had been at the college, put on by this department. So my excitement wasn’t just about the fact that I was cast in a Shakespeare play, in a substantial role with an interesting storyline, lots of lines, and some fun physical stuff to do, it wasn’t just the fact that I was getting to be with college students while still in high school, it was also the fact that I was getting to do it at what was, really, the premier theatre in my firmament. First shot out of the gate I was playing Lincoln Center, and not just as Peaseblossom or some other one-liner, but as Lysander, one of the lovers, a real role.

(Oh, in case you were wondering, my Alan Strang was not in the production. He had transferred out of the college that Fall and was attending an acting studio in London. Over the years I would see him in TV commercials, but the best part was stumbling across him unexpectedly in the original production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. I even got to see him in his underwear, albeit Victorian underwear. Even better, the character in his underwear was a rent boy whom we saw embracing and caressing another hot rent boy in his underwear. Oh how my teenaged head would have exploded, if it had seen this. I sent a note backstage telling him how Equus had led to me becoming an actor, and he later left me a gracious voicemail, especially kind given that I had probably gushed in the note like a teenager, not a man in his thirties.)

There was a long journey to take between getting cast and performing though. You see, I was really, really bad. Wooden was the nicest thing you could say at the time. I don’t for the life of me know what Sears, the director, saw at the audition, because it didn’t seem to be there at rehearsal. Remember, I had spent the last few years cultivating a persona meant to be overlooked. In addition, like most midwestern boys, I worked hard not to let any emotion, or indeed much inflection come into my voice. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say Ennis Del Mar was our role model for masculinity, at least when it came to talking. When my character got angry (that was okay), maybe a little bit of change might bleed through my voice, but that was it. And my body? Wooden doesn't begin to describe it; I was a redwood, except they must sway some in the breeze, no I wasn't a tree, I was rebar, or a steel girder. I would move as little as possible, except for my fingers which would ripple unconsciously and constantly, as if I were playing scales on a piano. I haven’t the slightest idea where that tic came from. Actually, I guess I moved like Ennis Del Mar as well, not counting the piano-playing fingers. No emotion, no vocal inflection, no movement. Suffice it to say I was NOT serving the play or the character at all well.

This problem was exacerbated by the fact that the guy playing Oberon epitomized the worst, most embarrassing excesses of over-acting I could picture. God forbid I indulge myself the way he did, as he swept grandly about the stage, making his voice BOOM most Shakespearean, biting off huge chunks of the scenery with every line, then chewing moistly while anyone else spoke. He didn’t help his case by also refusing to take direction. Any attempt by Sears to shape his performance was met with excuses, arguments, and petulance. As rehearsals progressed it became a pattern for most of us to leave the room anytime his scenes came up. I knew I wasn’t getting the job done, but I simply could NOT to turn into this guy, and the terror of that kept me from trying anything. You can't be wrong if you don't make a choice, right? Such is the logic of a teenager.

I have to give this guy some credit though, because he unintentionally did me a favor. Sears had been hammering away at me, saying ‘get the editor out of’ my head, but he also recognized that my father, as a literature professor, had probably spent some time and effort helping me develop this editor, so when next he ran into Dad, Sears mentioned this. This gave Dad the opportunity to report what I was saying at home about Oberon, and this gave Sears the insight he needed. The next time I rehearsed, he found a moment to speak to me privately about my fears of ‘going too far’. I wish I could remember what he said, because whatever it was turned the light on for me as well. I didn’t suddenly fix things that night, but I made enough of a transformation for fellow actors to compliment me on the improvement (somehow I avoided freaking out when I realized they had all been wondering what was wrong with me.) By the time we went into performance, I had gotten where Sears needed me to be, and we all knew it.

My baby steps as an actor is only part of the story though. The play also provided me with a room full of people I was desperate to befriend. What’s more, many of them were (gasp!) GUYS, guys who were open, kind, not given to ridiculing others (which was almost the only way I had witnessed male friendship before), and what’s more, because this was a touchy-feely College, they regularly HUGGED me. Just ‘cause. The men weren’t the only ones I wanted to feel close to, by the way, but I was already more comfortable with women at the time anyway; befriending guys was definitely the uncharted territory. And remember, I was in high school, and these were COLLEGE STUDENTS. It’s funny to look back and remember what a big deal that was. Many of my dad’s students, and sister’s friends had been nice to me over the years, but they still saw me as a younger brother when they saw me at all. Here were people I had met on my own, NOT through Dad or Mary, they were MY friends, and they treated me as an equal, even while I secretly thought they were all so much more sophisticated and witty and smart and beautiful.

This impulse to connect flew directly in the face of my master plan of course, and I wouldn’t say I immediately came out of my shell by any means, but seeds were definitely planted during that time that have flowered into friendships I still cherish (hi Scott! Hi Mark!).

Shakespeare’s influence can’t be ignored in all this either. This experience opened up a whole new world for me. Suddenly language took on a visceral, vibrant beauty it never had before. Poetry became a driving bodily force, not the ornamental words floating in the ether it had been. And you can’t just be good with his language, he demands big physical choices (even without fight scenes), and psychologically detailed character analysis. This play in particular, grappling as it does with frightening, violent, even bestial elements of humanity as well as the comedy, love, and beauty, also had a profound influence, accepting as it did that humanity isn't always noble or beautiful, but it's alway worth committing to. The production was probably also the first (or most fully realized) occasion I had experienced to date of a group of people coming together to tackle a significant, shared goal. I didn’t hurt that the cast included one of my high school English teachers and the father of one of my classmates. I got to watch them struggle, make mistakes, take direction, and work just like me to get to the core of their characters (Flute and Bottom respectively.) This was nothing like the half-assed larking about that had characterized most of my previous dramatic experiences. Shakespeare really is a complete workout, body, voice, imagination, but once you meet his challenge, he starts to pay back with interest. His humanity infuses this play as it does all his best work, and working on it demanded that I commit to my own humanity.

Heady stuff. I can’t claim that I completely gave up my misanthropic, shutdown ways from this point on. I was still two years away from coming out, from kissing a boy, from letting myself express a need for other people, from risking a broken heart. But a corner had been turned.
After Midsummer closed, I was devastated and lonely for months. I missed all the other actors (and was convinced they didn’t give me a second’s thought), but I also just missed the play itself. My mom said I was having ‘to come down from Shakespeare’ like he was a drug, and I think she was right. As luck would have it, I was cast in the same play, in the same role, eighteen years later, and found that I still remembered all the lines. All of them. Eighteen years, three cities, two schools, god only knows how many other plays, I still had them. That’s how much they meant to me, how deeply they had been instilled.

So, I’ve been needing to be reminded of this recently, perhaps for the last two years. Shakespeare is the original source, the font, for me, as he is for so many others. I need to be reminded, in the fullest, most visceral way possible, of why I first fell in love with theatre. I need that complete workout. Often in the last few years my work has delved into one arena, but neglected others. A play might demand detailed, sophisticated character work, but leave my body out of it. Or the piece asks for extreme physicality, gymnastics even, but little in the way of character work, and nothing of the voice. I don’t mean to suggest none of them have been rewarding, but I’ve been doing a lot of quick sketches and it’s time to work on a big painting again. It may not be Shakespeare, but it needs to challenge me on that scale. Don't worry, I know that the volcanic emotions I experienced as a teenager just stepping into the current of life cannot be replicated. I'd be worried if I needed to experience that again, frankly. But this play was merely the first, not only, time I was transformed by theatre. I think I'm due for another big challenge.

Wish me luck.

I Hate Relearning S&1t

I've had a couple of occasions recently to be reminded of things I had forgotten. Man I hate that shit. I mean I'm glad anytime a solution for a problem is found, but whenever it's a reminder rather than a discovery I always get a bit annoyed at myself. Cycles, learning is relearning, yeah yeah, I know. Sometimes it just bugs me. Like now.

First example: My sister reminded me of a very useful technique last night, called the Twenty Minute Rule. The idea is simple; when faced with a task that one is at all resistant to, one simply decides to tackle it for only twenty minutes. After the time is up, one is free to go onto something else, guilt assuaged, one's inner Puritan mollified. Can one really get anything done in twenty minutes? Surprisingly yes, more than one usually expects but, in any case, one gets more done in twenty minutes than in zero, which is often what I've been giving my chores. For my sister (who really should have a blog of her own, but refrains for some very sound reasons) the task she's recently found daunting is her garden. She and her husband Tony have a beautiful place (see photo), that I covet with a most unbrotherly passion, but she reminded me how easily its care can turn into obligations which, depending on time ignored or one's general state of mind, can become reproaches. It can, in fact, quickly become ample evidence in the growing case one is building (somehow I ALWAYS have time for this) for why one is an utter waste as a human being. In the case of the garden, deadheading, weeding, pruning, planting new plants, checking for voracious bugs, are just a few of the tasks that go into making something look that good and 'natural'. So she recently reinstituted the twenty minute rule, the garden is happy, she's happy, it's all good. Of course the secret weapon of this technique is the way it fools our inner Couch Potato; often after an hour she will find herself still happily puttering away in the garden, actually enjoying herself. It's best to ignore this side of the technique though, so as not to betray the Couch Potato's trust. If you say it will be twenty-minutes, and anyone (your Inner Child, Inner Couch Potato, Inner Naysayer, Inner Crank, whatever) is not having fun at the end of twenty minutes, you stop. Follow the rule, or it won't work in the future.

Heartened by this reminder, I've used it repeatedly all morning. Being unemployed, it's an especially good way to structure my time. Here it is, 1:30pm, and I am sufficiently ahead in my chores to feel that a few minutes writing on my blog (in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY?) is permitted.

Man, I hate this shit.

Second example: I had reason to be leafing back through some fairly old emails, from 2002-04, and while I was seeking specific information, easily fell into the trap of rereading old notes just for the hell of it. Naturally I discovered that three to five years ago I was frustrated by many of the same things, complaining about the same things, struggling with the same self-doubts and confusions, same problems all around. Subsequent emails showed me how I began to fight my way out of that quagmire and surprise, many of the discoveries I made and things I tried are the very ones I've come back to recently, including, of course, the twenty minute rule.

I really really REALLY hate this shit.

Okay, so I'm on an upswing of sorts at the moment, it feels like the sludge is getting broken up JUST a bit (don't want to jinx it), syphoned off, that's all just absolutely NIFTY, I'm not really helped by bitching about how long it took me to learn STUFF I ALREADY KNOW. I really want to, though.

So

I'll give it twenty minutes.

Now, perhaps as tonic for my own grouching...

When I'm modeling for college drawing classes at the beginning of the school year, quite often first year students will become so disgusted with their efforts, so horrified at the ugliness that is their art (and by extension of course, their very being) that they will choose to crumple the offending, hideous, EXCREMENTAL page into a tiny, diamond-hard ball, and throw it away, getting the offending sheet as far from them as possible. (As a side note, is there anything more melodramatic than a teenager, regardless of age, race, gender or sexual orientation? Drama Queens, the lot of 'em). Usually the teacher takes that opportunity to remind them that they are being graded on their PROGRESS throughout the semester, so they should save everything, to have an accurate record of the semester. Most of them accept it gracelessly, since, hey, apparently it's a RULE... but you can tell they resent it. A lot. It's usually not until much later in the semester, or year, that they experience the pedagogical beauty of this rule. As we progress in anything, so does our gauge of excellence. We forget the lessons we already learned, and focus only on the impossible task before us. So sometimes, a student will be faced with a new frustration, a new thing she's just not getting, and the teacher will make her look at one of her earliest sketches. Suddenly, she'll realize how things that used to seem impossible now are second nature. Usually she also makes the leap that if she did it before, she can probably do it again.

As an actor, it is perhaps a bit harder to find these records of past efforts, a collection of my past 'sketches.' I'm smart enough to know NOT to look to videotapes of live shows for this experience, and while previous films MIGHT work, I don't have any film work to look at yet. Rehearsals, like performances disappear the minute they are over. This is the beauty and the heartache of theatre. Nonetheless, I think I benefit greatly from looking behind me, and realizing I've actually progressed, however minimally. I just have to remember to do it, and how.

I will forget all this again, apparently. Forty plus years of experience shows me that, at the very least. So maybe I'm leaving this entry as a note to my future self, for the next time when I feeling trapped, blocked, or useless.

Some Pet Peeves

So I've come to realize in the past few years that May is my favorite month of the year, followed closely be December. I love each season (as long as Summer doesn't get above 75 degrees), but if I had to choose one month it would be May. Violets, and lilacs, my first and second most favorite flowers, are in season, and I think this has a lot to do with it. I find it strangely comforting that they aren't available year-round, as so many other flowers are these days. I guess greenhouses haven't figured out a way (or bothered to try) to get them to bloom year-round, and given how fragile they both are, trying to ship them from Australia in the dead of Winter- assuming they even grow there- just wouldn't be worth it. Nope, to enjoy these blooms, one has to wait for them to bloom. I like that. I buy lilacs far more often than my budget allows, and in lieu of the woods near my parents' house, I've found some locations in Central Park where I go visit the violets when they show up. I've been to visit three times already. I've really been enjoying the season; it's nice enough to be outside during the day, then it cools down at night, so even though I have the window open (as I do year 'round), I still sleep like a log, and need a blanket. It's been great.

Then we have two days of 80 degree weather, and I'm back to being Mr. Cranky-Pants.

I've been actively working to see to that I'm not in the hell-hole that is NYC this Summer, but so far there are no concrete plans. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, auditioning when I can, sending headshots to all and sundry, trying to figure out how I can afford to go to my friend Mark's wedding in Seattle in August, while I try not to flay the hordes of stupid STUPID people who seem determined to walk in my way, ride the subway with me, and play their loud, stupid music.

So, while I look around for some serious therapy or maybe just some decent medication to help me with my misanthropy, I thought maybe I'd just let Mr. Cranky-Pants have free rein for a bit. So here are some of my pet peeves, in no particular order.

Cynics. By this I mean the smug, self-proclaimed cynics, the ones who act like it's some sort of goddam higher calling. I always want to hit them with a brick. It's such a cowardly, lazy attitude to adopt, and yet they get off on thinking they're smarter than everyone else. Hey, it's easy. You don't have to do any work to improve things in the world, hell, you don't even have to have any real opinions, you just sit back and tell other people who are actually DOING something with their lives that they're wasting their time, they're foolish, they're hopelessly naive, they're so cute and sweet, but they're never going to accomplish anything, because, hey, they're just up against too much. That's true, they are, and one of the worst things they're up against are self-satisfied, arrogant, lazy shits who have fooled themselves into thinking cynic equals genius. If all you can do is sit back and laugh at other people doing things, I really think you need to shut the hell up. Shut. The. Hell. Up.

Devil's Advocates. Here again I'm talking about the morons who adopt this as a stance, thinking it somehow accords them extra IQ points by default. If you disagree with me, let me know. If you think I'm full of shit, that's great, let me have it, punch holes in my logic, as long as you can back up your arguments with some actual substantiated facts. But if you just like playing around saying zig every time I say zag, red when I say green, then you need to be hit with a brick. You're clearly a close relative of the Cynic, because here again, you're not actually offering thoughts or opinions of your own. It's the easiest thing in the world to so no to someone else's yes, but it doesn't amount to ANYthing if you're not actually engaging in the discussion, letting your own emotions, opinions, and experiences be a part of thing and (yikes) possibly even get challenged and shot down. If you're a teacher mediating a discussion in class, then by all means, play the Devil's Advocate. If you're just some shmoe at a party thinking you're helping to liven things up a bit, then being a devil's advocate is obnoxious at best, at worst it's condescending bullshit. Worst of all, you people have convinced yourselves you're behaving in this ass-wipe way FOR OUR BENEFITS. Yes sir, you're challenging our perceptions, strengthening our arguments or showing us our folly, and it's all to HELP us. Or you think you're making the party more interesting. Funnily enough, the guys who like to do this (and for some reason it's almost always guys) are often prime examples of the 'can dish it out but can't take it' variety. You love being provocative; you hate being challenged. Bite me. Right before you take the next trolley car straight to hell, 'kay?

Wanna-Be Therapists. In my limited experience, this prick can often be found working as a director or acting teacher. If I'm not giving you what you want from the character, by all means, let me know. If you have an exercise you think might help get us where we need to be in rehearsal, please, let's give it a try. But do not, do NOT think you are qualified or remotely welcome to psycho-analyze me, or speculate about what deep-seated issues are preventing me from giving you what you're looking for. No actual therapist would DREAM of making a snap judgement about my past, my family or my emotional struggle based on one acting choice or a sludgy rehearsal. That's because actual training as a therapist tells you that doing so would be stupid. STUPID. I can safely say too that everytime a director or acting teacher has speculated about what was going on with me internally, he or she was always wrong. Always. Even if he or she had been correct however, that kind of approach has no business in a rehearsal setting. We're working to create art here, people. Yes of course when we're dealing with character-driven work, my psychological make-up becomes involved in the character's, and we're working to uncover his motives and drives. Often this takes us into very raw, vulnerable terrain for the character, and that can, in may cases, mean that I as an actor am also exploring raw, vulnerable terrain... but what I'm bringing back is choices for the art, not opportunities for you to feel like Mommy. For the record, I have two of the finest parents in the world. I do not need anymore mommies or daddies. If I need a hug, I'll let you know. If I want a therapist, I'm going to find one who is qualified, and you ain't it. So back the fuck off, and let me do my work. Which, let's be clear, is not making you feel better about your empty empty lives. Oops, have I said too much? Have I misread your responses? Have I brought up inaccurate and irrelevant speculations about your motives? Have I tried to be Freud with you? AM I MAKING MY POINT?

Don't make me get my brick.

That is all.

Mr. Cranky-Pants.