COMMUNICATIONS

Whatever happened to communicating?

Blame the phlegmatics. (That's a temperament, not the country south of Sweden.)

They invented movies so they wouldn't have to go to a play. They invented TV so they wouldn't have to go to the movies.

They invented blogging, which is a form of journaling. (Journaling is a form of autobiographical rambling which is of interest to no one, and blogging allows this egomaniac drivel to be shared with the world.)

And I was okay with that. (Blogging is "Art." Okay?)

So ... I am now on facebook. I didn't want to be. I didn't plan to be. However, since the majority of my friends are actors (and that should tell you something.) and actors love to talk about themselves, if I wish to occasionally wade in the shallow end of the gene pool, Facebook is the perfect place to go.

All this I mostly understand. All this is a form of communicating without being forced to actually talk to anybody.

Now we get to the part I don't understand.

I don't like cell phones. People stand beside me and talk to relatives they don't talk to when they are together.

And now they are sending text messages on their phones. Excuse me, doesn't this defeat the purpose of a telephone in the first place? I'm really confused here.

What's next?

I long for the old days, when everything was simple. I'm ready, Scotty, you can beam me up anytime you want.

LOL

jb

MORGAN!

Years ago I wrote a play about Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister. The work had one public reading, and then I withdrew it. Not altogether sure why.




Anyway, today I was organizing - stuff, and ran across my master hard copy. Here's one of the monologues. At this point Morgan is desolate – life has no meaning. Even the stars at night cause her pain.

I once thought they be not stars, but mirrors of my soul – those myriad twinklings set apart, aloof. How alike we are, I thought, to watch as bourgeois’ kingdoms rise, gasp for life, and fall. To remain pure, chaste – unreached and unreachable – thereby avoiding the countenance of that soiled creature, God – in His perfect wisdom – permitted to begrime the earth. To live forever! To never age or … or if to die, to die purposed, a bright burning gash across the heavens.

I thought them supreme. Omnipotent! One with the creator! But with the coming of the simple morn, they depart, those stars. Frightened, no, offended by the belligerence of the sun.

I remain. I.

Take me with you! Leave me not to face the iniquities of this little life – which draw me away, which make me less like you.

They do not hear me. Or, if hearing, disdainfully ignore my supplication. And in my heart, that secret place where truth be not denied, I am pleased – grateful! For if in compassion they respond, then they be more like me than I would be like them.

And so, for a space I forgot them, moved as I was toward consuming sorrow, the pain within all too jealous for attention.

And now … now I think again we are alike, those stars and I. Distant. Untouched. Unknowing – affecting not the nature of any living thing, save as a curiosity. Existing for the mere sake of …

existing.

jb

Do You Feel Weird? I Do.

So-o-o-o …

Here’s the next question for you. Is something weird going on?

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting here innocently typing away. For no good reason I could pin down, I felt strange. A little strange. This is not a new thing for me.

I looked around. On my left was a glass of warm soda pop and my notebook. On my right, a mostly empty jar of peanuts and cookie crumbs. Everything normal.

No it wasn’t. Something was … I don’t know what. Weird.

Ever get the feeling that somebody is watching you when you know you are alone? That’s the relatively uneasy feeling I was having. Earlier I’d had a wedge of cheese and a pickle. (I enjoy a varied diet.) So I knew this feeling was not the result of a change in my eating habits. (Except for cucumbers. I love cucumber sandwiches at two in the morning. Yum! What I don’t like are the dreams that follow – being chased by 100-foot-tall dachshunds with vampire fangs.) Actually, the jury is still out where cucumber sandwiches are concerned. For one thing, I love them. For another, some of my best stories have been written the morning after …

I digress.

But maybe not. I’m presently co-authoring a science fiction … something … where the main character finds himself in another dimension that looks just like this dimension. Mostly. Sort of.

Yes! That’s how I felt – I was living in another dimension that looked just like this one. A touch creepy perhaps, but nothing compared to life with my first wife.

So I’m going along, doing fine, ya know? Going along. And one night I’m invited to see a friend of mine in a production of the play EQUUS. So there I am, watching a strange presentation being performed on a raised dance floor in the back room of a gay bar. To be honest, the play was predictable. More interesting was the person wedged in beside me. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to guess if it was a man or a woman. The highpoint of the evening was when the creature turned to me and said “I feel weird.”

Ya think?!

I let that pass. I mean …. Letting that pass is a good idea, don’t you agree?

I was standing in a department store a few days later and heard one clerk say to another, “I feel weird.” Same words. I followed the voice and saw a woman who looked quite normal. At least it looked like a woman. I hoped it was a woman. Normal.

So now I’m feeling a little anxious in addition to weird. Coincidences like this bother me. I stop eating pickles for awhile, but it doesn’t help very much.

And then – there was the evening that pushed me over the edge. I was at a Writers Group meeting … (and I’m mad crazy about this group. We don’t write anything. Sometimes we read bits of this or that. In general we gossip and eat. One night we had cucumber sandwiches. I was in hog heaven.}

Anyway, in the middle of the “meeting,” someone says “I feel weird.”

I almost dropped a cucumber.

So-o-o… here’s my question. Is there some big conspiracy going on? (No, that wasn’t the question. Here it is.)

Do you feel weird? What do you think?

(Okay. Technically that’s two questions. Sue me,)

Jb


And how was your day?

(I know. I know. Three questions. The last one doesn’t count.)

UPDATE

The play I'm working on is now at mid point. Fifty pages written, about fifty pages to go. It's progressing. Coming along. A third of the way there. Daylight on the horizon.

(Hmm. Until this moment I've never thought about how far away a horizon actually is. And when I get there, how will I know I've arrived?)

In the meantime, I've not fully responded to comments and questions aimed in my general direction. A serious character flaw, that.

So here they come - the answers, and not in any special order. Other than addressing individuals by name and adding pictures, the persons asking questions shall remain anonymous.

SAM. Yes, I will be there. How could I say "no" to a sweet face like that? I will be there - I will move heaven and earth to be there. Unless I have to work, in which case I probably won't.

BIRDIE. Thank you for sending me the picture of you on jury duty. You neglected to tell me which one is you.

MARK. Very nice. Personally, I favor something with four wheels. And a bathroom.

NANCY. Yes, there is hope for you. You appear normal. On the other hand, "normal" is subjective, isn't it? I mean, things that seem normal to a hundred and fifty pound rabbit may or may not ...

Excuse me. It's past time for my meds. I can hear the alarm. I think they are looking for me.

Sh-h-h-h ...

jb

And how was your day?

Now Here's A Good One ...

So I got this little notice on my computer - "Upgrade your security system," followed by the magic word "free."

So naturally I did. Free is good. Cookies are better, but free is still good.

So I upgraded. In the process, some interesting buttons appeared on my computer.

One of them was a map of my house. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the button. Sure enough, there was my house. Beside it, a car I no longer own, and in the back yard I saw - me! No extra charge. I always wondered what the top of my head looked like.

Another button said "suggested sites," indicating places I'd like to go. One was my mail, another was a free dictionary site (excuse me, aren't they all free?), and the last was the very site you're reading at the moment. I must admit I was disappointed with this button. At the top of "places I'd like to go" should have been the beach on Pango-Pango, and it didn't even make the top five!

The last button was/is by far the most interesting. It's labeled "Answers." With trembling fingers I touched this magic button. Imagine - answers!

And there they were;

(1) Yes.
(2) 3.14159265358979323846
(3) LaOtto Indiana
(4) Fish breath
(5) To get to the other side.

Uh-huh. Gotta be some kind of code. I mean, if answers were for just ANYBODY, then ... then ... well, you know ... everybody would have ... answers ... and where would we be then?

I'll get back to you later on this - after my sudden headache goes away ...

There's one more button. It says "Add more buttons."

Should I?

jb


And how was your day?

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