THE TEAPOT COLLECTOR

Back to working on the play ...

I have now written about 50 pages, and am keeping 36 of them.

Progress.

I am being influenced.

A couple of years ago a friend was commenting on a work at the time, and suggested that a particular description of an event was "blah blah blah." She said - correctly - that although the description was accurate, it had no heart.

BLAH BLAH BLAH is now my screen saver, a reminder to occasionally stretch myself as a writer.

THE TEAPOT COLLECTOR has become a labor of love, and a true stretch. No Pratt falls, no chase scenes, everybody stays dressed. It would be nice, for once, if the merits of one of my plays would center around actual character development and plot.

In an earlier post, I wrote about an actor who is as unlike me as two people can get, yet I deeply value his friendship. A comment on the post said that my friends were like "a bouquet of wild flowers." I hadn't really thought about it that way, but it's true.

And, because of that, THE TEAPOT COLLECTOR has evolved. It started out to be a study of a friendship between an old man and a young girl. It has now expanded to include his relationship with a mean-spirited relative and a former co-worker. Each individual is represented by one of the teapots he collects.

Sounds good. We'll see if it works out that way.

And that's where I am so far. I'm still trying to come up with a logo for the play, but so far no pitcher has come to mind ...

Sorry. I can only stand it for

so long.

jb


And how was your day?

For The Record ...

We won.

Julie was, as always, lavish in her praise of our partnership.

However ...

This was
Her idea. Her direction.

Her name on what would ultimately be the success or failure.

'nough said?

jb

And how was your day?

A friend.

You know me. I like sophisticated comedy, crisp repartee, very subtle sarcasm as observations of life. In general, my friends are obviously quiet, smart, intuitive, and inwardly creative – writers, artists, and technicians.


So why do I like this guy? Don Roberts – an actor! We’ve been friends for years, and he absolutely doesn’t fit in anything you’d even remotely catalogue as a “friends’” box. (Or at least I wouldn’t.)

So what is it about the guy? He’s smart, certainly. On stage he’s outrageous, off stage quite shy – a living paradox.

And he makes me smile. Maybe that’s it. Take – for example – this picture of Don taken one morning while he was still in his pajamas ...

JB

And how was your day?

A Friend Is A Friend

A friend sent me this. I loved it. Wanted to share ...

JB

For And About Q ...

I have this friend. She sends me studies and short stories from time to time. I tell her that as a writer she is a far greater artist than I am. She doesn't believe me. Here's a sample of her work. What do you think?

J

She had an unfortunate face. Too symmetrical and smooth of skin to be ugly; too fused in an expression of distress to be pretty. Not that the visage mirrored the inner affect. No, she looked the same whether bursting with joy or ready to jump. A distress borne of facial features passed genetically, parents to offspring. A rare combination of her mother’s saucy pout and her father’s bedroom eyes—the features that made them such an attractive couple, somehow, when combined produced an unpleasant melange. One had to study her for a moment or two to determine if she was in fact, going to be placed in the “pretty” or “ ugly” column. Two days before he marries her and he’s still not sure.

They sat opposite. He studied her face, as he often did, looking for the answer to the knotted question in his intestines. She studied the menu, trying to decide on a noodle dish from the photos displayed. The server came over and she began to interrogate him. “Which are the skinniest ones, dragging noodles or cutting noodles?” He winced, knowing she would never eat anything considered “fat”, whether due to caloric content or shape.

“Okay…so dragging noodles then. In soup. Chicken, not pork…okay? No pork.” She said this last statement as though the young Asian server were her aged Aunt Mim, hard of hearing and slightly demented.

He ordered the same, less of a problem that way. She was speaking to him but his eyes were fixed on her features, still trying to decide…

“Dan! Are you listening to me? We need to decide now, right now. Blue or black?”

He had no idea what she was referring to, having long ago conceded all matters pertaining to The Wedding to her. “Um, black I think.” Could be they were going to have a black car, black cake or black priest…he didn’t much care.

She punched numbers on her cell phone. He continued to study her face. As she talked her lips formed vowels and consonants somehow remaining in a perpetual pout. This should be good, he thought. That’s what the supermodels have, and the strippers he occasionally patronized before she clamped down on his recreational time. A pout is good. But somehow on her, it was the pout of a petulant child, not of a sexy siren.

Nose: small, straight, upturned. Cute. The kind of nose any plastic surgeon would be proud to display on his “after” page. Eyes: blue. No, grey. Maybe kind of green. Hell, what kind of fiancé doesn’t even know what colour his betrothed’s eyes are? Blue, definitely blue. But a smokey blue, like the haze in the bar after the lights come on.

But then there was the shape. No, maybe the shape was okay. It was the way they were aligned on her face. Yes, that was it. They sloped up at the inner corners, in a pleading, dismayed way. Always disappointed; always wanting more.

Those eyes. That’s why they were engaged. A year of dating. She was nice, but it was more that she was easy---not in a sexual way, although that wasn’t really a concern, but more in that she was like him. Same background, same circle. Nothing complicated here. He would have been content to continue with the weekend dates, the hot, sweaty release in his car or her parents’ house after they were asleep. But those eyes. They pleaded for more. And every time he looked at her he got the message that he wasn’t man enough, or mature enough….

So marriage it was. He thought his concession to marry would make those eyes turn up at the corners, stop demanding, pleading, judging.

“Dragging noodles in chicken soup”. The food arrived.

The Movie Bug

So ... I'm sitting there, innocently typing away on The Teapot Collector, with the (now fading) hope of getting the thing finished before somebody asks to read it.

And the phone rings ... (I don't like telephones. I have never liked telephones. If I wanna talk to you, I'd much rather drive over to your home ... or email. Yeah, I like email. Or posting on this blog. I actually feel pretty close to you on this blog. Is that strange? I dunno. But I feel comfortable by communicating this way, and you certainly don't appear shy in answering ...)

So the phone rings. It's Julie, my writing partner. Don't get me wrong,I enjoy writing on my own, but I also like working out stuff with people. In addition to everything else, I'm presently writing a play with Q - one line at a time! (Excuse me, it's a collaboration. Politically correct, that's me ... not.)


So Julie calls, and she says she has just accepted a challange from something called Script Frenzy. The idea is to complete (I assume) a 100 page script during the month of April. She intended to write a movie script, and graciously invited me to co-author, if that was something I'd like to do ...

And it was something I'd like to do. I've read a number of movie scripts, in fact edited a couple, but I've never actually written one.

I should, I suppose, point out a difference between Julie and myself. She enjoys challanges. We have just finished writing a play together - a pretty good one. This was something she had never done before. She also just finished a gruling competition where she was enjoined to post something every day for a year. So she enjoys a good challange. Me? I enjoy a good meal, followed by a good wine, followed by a good nap.

So we are writing a movie - a science fiction epic about time travel. If you would care to follow our progress, visit http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/eng/user/161690

And finally, I must confess that with my limited experience in movie writing, it seems to me we have enough material for several movies, a thick novel or two, certainly a computer game, and eventually toys that come with your double cheeseburgers.

I dunno. I'll think about it later - right after my nap.

jb

And how was your day?

My favorire poet ... and one of the reasons why.

Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom

Daily dawns another day;
I must up, to make my way.
Though I dress and drink and eat,
Move my fingers and my feet,
Learn a little, here and there,
Weep and laugh and sweat and swear,
Hear a song, or watch a stage,
Leave some words upon a page,
Claim a foe, or hail a friend-
Bed awaits me at the end.

Though I go in pride and strength,
I'll come back to bed at length.
Though I walk in blinded woe,
Back to bed I'm bound to go.
High my heart, or bowed my head,
All my days but lead to bed.
Up, and out, and on; and then
Ever back to bed again,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall-
I'm a fool to rise at all!

Dorothy Parker


JB

of late ...

My candle burns at both ends,
it will not last the night.

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –

it gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

JB

For Everything There Is A Season ...

Identity.

There are people who love me. I never asked to be loved, although in truth I believe all people need at least one person to teach by example what we consider the best attributes of humanity.

There are people who think they hate me, not many, but a couple. In truth I think these people live in fear, and hate seems to momentarily quench a never ending thirst to be loved.

Ironic, isn't it?

Who am I?

This seems to be the age old question. Who am I? I learned long ago not to take my identity from what I do. If you asked me, I'd say I was a playwright, because I know that's how I'm most easily identified. But this is what I do, not who I am.

I'm directing two plays this year. I start with "Harvey" in June at a theatre about twenty miles from my front door. I'm following this by directing "Inherit The Wind" in September at a theatre about twenty miles in another direction. If this makes me anything at all, it would be temporarily insane.

I teach acting classes and have just started leading a quite active creative writers group.

And the list goes on and on. Honestly, I've done everything in life I've wanted to do, gone in every direction that appealed to me.

But none of this is me. I've learned that I'm one of those people who actually enjoys mowing the lawn, I enjoy being there when a friend wants or needs to share a thought. Genuine creativity makes me cry for happy, "adult" material of just about any kind bores me. I'm a product of my own morality and generation.

More and more I think that who I am depends on what is in front of me at any given moment. There are few constants . I take what I do seriously, but I never take myself seriously.

Maybe there's one constant.

I'm a child of God - not because I say so, but because He says so.

Yeah, I can live with that.


JB

SUVCW

Sometimes good things just happen …

So … this friend has these old swords, right? And at some seeming great distance I hear someone say, “Oooohh, my husband knows all about old swords. He can tell you all about them.”

Huh?

So … that’s why I’m standing there holding this pair of rusting old relics from the year one half. And a thousand eyes are staring at me in breathless anticipation.

(Okay, so maybe it was eight eyes in mild curiosity – ten eyes, if you count the rabbit in glasses. Oops. No. Wait. That was me. Eight eyes for sure.)

Here’s one of the swords. Not overly forbidding. A little on the petite side to be a for real fighting weapon. Probably carried in some social club of some kind. Purely symbolic something.

First clue. Figures on the hilt are dressed in Civil War garb.

After some research I find the same figures on a present-day logo.

Here’s the story. A number of years after the Civil War ended, the Union veterans were becoming more and more aware of their own mortality. Yet they felt that their individual stories, their very lives stood for something unique, and their passions should not be lost with their deaths.

SONS of UNION VETERANS of the CIVIL WAR came into being. In addition to the stories, all the rituals have been carefully handed down.

The group still exists, modernized, to be sure. Yet “camps” can be found all over the United States. The swords in my hand once adorned the alter in one “camp” in Michigan.

I know this because I talked to one of the present day leaders. Wistfully, he asked if my friend would consider donating the swords to the group, returning them to the very spot they occupied with honor a hundred and twenty-five years ago.

And my friend is going to do exactly that, which seems to me to be the coolest thing ever.

JB

And how was your day?

AAchhhhhhhh

I'm bored.

I've been sitting here for eleven hours, typing away on my almost sort of could be overdue play. It's going slowly, thank you, and not at all in the direction I wished it to go. Why is that? If anybody knows why these things never go in the directions you want 'em to go, I wish you'd explain it to me. I'd really like to know.

Birdie is throwing a big meeting of artists, musicians, writers, actors, and other assorted miscreants next weekend, and I can't go. I'm too far away and already committed to other theoretically creative mischief. Pshaw.

Nicki was out camping. Camping! Is it warm enough to do that yet? The last time I went camping a for real buffalo snorted on my tent. In case you're interested, nothing wakes you up faster than discovering the front of your tent covered in buffalo snort.

Julie hasn't posted anything today, so it's easy to presume she's out riding somewhere on her monster motorcycle. I rode a motorcycle once. Once. I traveled a distance of perhaps four yards, and ran over someone's foot. Although this occured many years ago, I've often wondered in that motorcycle is still laying in the spot where I dropped it.

My friend Mark is an attorney. He's a very pleasant individual. Actually, he's the third attorney I know who is genuinely good company. I guess I'm incredibly lucky in knowing all the attorneys in the world who are fun to be with - all three of 'em. Anyway, I called Mark, thinking he might like to go out and grab a bite. He couldn't - he's in a play. What? What?! He's doing a play and I'm sitting here?! He's having fun and frolicking and I'm sitting here typing and don't have a frolick to my name. Wa-a-a-a-a.

Okay. I'm better now. At least you are still with me.


Uh ...


You ARE still with me, aren't you? Breathe heavy or something, will ya, so I know ...

Yoo-hoo ...


JB

And how was your day?

Good stuff

Came across this ... liked it ... thought it was worth sharing.

Life isn' t about waiting for the storm to pass.

it's about learning to dance in the rain.

JB

And how was your day?

Flint

I've shared this story with other friends.

Every once in awhile I hunt for arrowheads. A buddy who is very good at it will call me, and off we go to spend an afternoon stomping around in an empty field somewhere in northern Ohio.

Now my friend is very good at this arrowhead business. He would tell me about the glaciers that once covered North America. I can almost picture them. I've seen the dramatic gouges in the ground that created Lake Erie. (They are stll there, in case you are wondering just how old I am.)

My friend would tell me that 2,500 years ago most of Ohio consisted of forests and ponds. Arrowheads, he would tell me, are almost always found near the top of any given hill. At the time, these places would have been beaches. Being a romantic by nature, it's easy to see the former waterline in the ring of hills south of where I live. It's easy, once you know what you're looking for. Further, if you are a fan of the garden of Eden, it's no great stretch to picture it in ancient Ohio.

Okay, so maybe could be this is what the natives looked like. I've been told that they would gather in mid northern Ohio and make arrowheads by the thousands, and trade them for furs with other Indians coming down from Canada.

Sounds reasonable.

Who knows? I am one quarter Ohio Indian. This could have been my great-great-great-great .... Well, you get the idea. On the other hand I am three quarters German. This draw in my heritage insists on a warm bed, walls, a roof, and indoor plumbing (and has the urge to invade Poland on occasion, but that's another story.) What I'm trying to tell you is that an outdoor adventure for me is usually no farther than from here to the porch swing and back again.

And ...

In the maybe eleven or twelve years I've been doing this, I have yet to find an arrowhead. Not one. My friend finds 'em. Of course. I never find any. I've found horseshoes and an old medicine bottle once, but no arrowheads. (My friend even offered to give me one of his. I didn't take it. The rule is that ya gotta find 'em yourself.)

But I've found lots and lots of flint. It may not be an arrowhead, but it works for me. It's been chipped while chipping something else - a spearhead, an axe, maybe even an arrowhead. I pick it up off the ground, and rub the dirt off of it with my thumb. I realize the last person to hold my find passed this very spot 2500 years ago.

I get chills.

From somewhere, an ancestor smiles.

JB

Where Is The Life That Late I Led?

I like a quiet life - know what I mean? Quiet. I like it when the most important decision of my day is trying to decide if I HAD an important decision in my day.

A good day for me is when I don't feel I NEED to do anything. (Yeah,yeah, those days don't come along very often - I don't remember the last one - but those are good days.)

So these are my goals - good day goals. Boring days. ZZZzzzzzzzzz ... Happy happy.

So ... If these are my goals, why do I seem to go out of my way to get involved in STUFF? Not just stuff, but one stuff after another?

Do you do that? Please tell me you do that.

I'm teaching a series of acting classes. Starting tonight. Last fall this sounded like a good idea, But now it's TONIGHT. These people actually expect me to show up.

Yesterday evening I met with a friend who wants to direct a play at a theatre I know well. We met and spent a quite enjoyable time discussing the approach he should take. On the other hand, before I left the house I had to put on shoes! Nobody warned me that friends could cause such hardships.

I am presently co-authoring a play with a very talented creative writer. This woman constantly challenges me with her contributions. She also expects - I don't know why - every few months she expects me to contribute my own sentence or two. I tell ya, the pressure is getting to me.

And then there's this blog. Just because it's here, does that mean it's anticipated that I'm actually going to write something in it? Birdie was right. This deathless prose business ain't easy.

And then there's the play I'm writing because I entered it in a contest and it never occured to me at the time that if it won something, somebody might actually want to read it. (I can't remember. When you are in the middle of a panic attack, is it short breaths or deep breaths? Why is everything turning grey?)

Tomorrow evening I'm applying to direct "Li'l Abner" next season at a theatre that's not near my house. Why don't I just beat myself with a stick and get it over with?

And finally. Last night my agent emailed me, informing me that one of my plays is going to be produced at a theatre in Glasgow Scotland. How rude these people are - how inconsiderate! Don't they know what a long drive that's gonna be from my house?!

So ... I have a solution. I'm gonna move. I'm gonna change my name and move in the middle of the night to a town that nobody in their right mind would ever want to even pass through in the middle of the day. Omaha Nebraska sounds about right. Yeah. I remember a few years ago the Russians confessed that when their missile program was at its best, that maybe maybe on a good day maybe maybe they could have hit Nebraska, and everybody here went "whew," because it was, after all, Nebraska.

I'll let ya know where I land. I mean, it's YOU. It's no fun at all in being shallow and petty and whining if you're not there to share it.

JB

And how was your day?