Best Laid Plans ...

      So okay, I admit it – At some things I’m a colossal failure.

      Believe me, I start out with every good intention. I do! I’m gonna decry theatre altogether – devote all my energies to writing – move to a mountain top, live on goat cheese and wild berries, grow a beard, commune daily with raw nature …

     So okay, I grew the beard. Big deal. I stopped shaving.

     So okay, here’s the problem; I am totally free and over the age of consent. (Decently into the age of descent, thank you very much for pointing that out.) BUT … in order to dissent, it becomes necessary to list those particulars from which it is desirable to abstain, and in so doing, create a rhetorical doppelganger of the very system being held up as undesirable …

     Huh? You getting any of this, Bunkie? The harder I try not to conform to one system, the more I seem to gravitate toward another.

     My head hurts.

     Here’s an example. I decided that any writer worth anything should live in a cave. I mean, that’s what serious writers do, don’t they? They live in caves. So I found a cave. It was wet. And cold. And dark. And the bathroom facilities left something to be desired. So I decided that instead of being a part of the angry generation, I could be quite content just being mildly unpleasant. (And beside, the peacock feathers are inspirational – everyone will tell you that.)

     I would show you the upstairs but the bed isn’t made and for the world I would hate for you to get the right impression.

     Now for the unvarnished failure part.

     I told you I was done with theatre, right? Done. Finished. Kaput. Gonna write. Theatre just gets in the way. Not gonna direct any more plays. Not not not.

     Yesterday I was offered the opportunity to direct the stage version of “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

     I said yes. And meant it.

      I have all the resolve of spilled buttermilk.