F*CKED UP AND HARD TO DRESS FOR

So cold today. In the ones. The weather of late matches the mood of the world. All over the place. In a few days, it'll be in the sixtes. Then cold again. Now, Denver is usually a lot of warm and cold. But the top and bottom ranges are expanding, so instead of going from the fifties to the teens, it's upper-sixties to the negative ones. That's insane. Not healthy. Hard to dress for, and fucked up.

And according to more and more posts on those awful news feeds that come with each phone these days, there's a "city killer asteroid" heading to Earth that has a more and more likelihood of hitting us.  Also hard to dress for. Also fucked up.

And, of course, we are now a country run by a crazy person, who is surrounded by more crazy people, who are all seemingly bent on making life awful. Hard to dress for. Fucked up.

It feels like I'm in junior high school again. A land dominated by wild fluctuations of mood, strange priorities, and a strange mix of students roaming the halls. The Popular, the Middle of the Roaders, the Outcasts, and the Feral Bullies that scared me because they were always angry, unpredictable, and at times violent. 

The teachers were a mix of the comically incapable, the burnt out and tired, and the rare champion of humanity who fought the system from within.

Sometimes, I'd see some of my friends hanging out with those bullies, joining them in making fun of other kids, and either looking the other way when things got out of hand, or even actively taking part in whatever terrible thing they were doing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I know those bullies were children who came from unhappy places and were lost and sad and didn't have much of a chance in this world. By high school, most of them gained, along with the look of anger and menace, a hint of sorrow behind their eyes, what seemed to me to be a sense that they knew they were not dealt the best hand, and that their chosen method of dealing with that harsh fact was not helping things. Some would double down on their rage, some would get help. And then we'd graduate and go off to our respective lives. 

At the time, I didn't know any of that. I just knew there were some people that it was best to never look in the eye, to never say anything to, and to avoid at all costs as they took down as much as they could of a system that wasn't giving them what they wanted and needed, by any means they could, which at times included violence and vandalism.

So yeah, it feels like junior high, or middle school. 

And it's time for us to all stop being afraid. To stand up to bullies. To call out our friends when they stand next to bullies who are picking on the outcasts. 

It's time to point out when things are fucked up and hard to dress for. 

Here's a song. It's Tommy Show and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra performing Fooling Yourself, a song that helped me get through junior high, way back when. Enjoy.

 

BACK IN THE SADDLE ON A HORSE WITH NO NAME

During the Shut Down, I wrote on my blog everyday. I would get up, make coffee, go to my desk, and crank out whatever was on my mind. No agenda. No pre-planning of what to write. I’d just go.

It was therapy of sorts.

And a lot of my friends liked it. Said it helped them to know they weren’t the only ones freaking out, over thinking, under thinking, going a bit insane, and all those things that happened to all of us that we really don’t talk enough about but that happened and were real and strange and large.

I am doing it again.

I have meant to start this since the election. The past few months have felt like the end of the movie The Mist. Like everything is fucked and we are making nothing but wrong choices and there are monsters everywhere. Every day, some new horror awaits me on the internet. And it feels like said horrors are planned for maximum effect. Human rights. Woman’s Rights. DEI. Transgender Rights. Elon Musk and the Doge-bags given access to all our information. All of it.

And I have had enough. I don’t know what all there is to do, but I am certain part of it is talking about it, writing about it, speaking what I perceive to be the truth, seeking a better way to live, to interact, to respond.

To not despair and die, figuratively or literally or digitally.

So here I am.

Alive and kicking and howling.

Remember when we howled every night during the Shut Down? How, out of desperation and need, we would all go to our windows or doors around 7 or so and just howl our asses off for a minute or two? It felt so good. So real. Like all of us, all of humanity, was connected for a brief moment. I think on that often.

More and more, I think of the Shut Down. How there were times, especially early on, when I wondered if we had finally done it, and ended ourselves, like some early 1970s Sci-Fi movie starring Charlton Heston, some mad combo of The Omega Man, Soylent Green, and the original (and best) Planet of the Apes. How Lisa and I would take long walks in the early morning through what felt like a deserted Denver, past empty freeways, along silent streets, under a gloriously clean sky, serenaded by birds who seemed quite happy to have the world back. I was the worst of time, it was the best of times.

And I felt completely alive. Frightened, yes. But alive. Aware. In the moment.

I feel a similar way these days. Glimmers of reality pushing through the noise. And I need that reality. So, I have stopped watching the news, which seem to have all been bought and sold by big corporations who do not care about anything but dumbing us all down and selling us useless shit. I took all the social media apps off my phone. I still check both the news and the socials from time to time, but nowhere near like I used to. I’ve started reading all the books I’ve been meaning to read, watching all the movies I missed when there were in the theatres.

I’ve started yet again to live life as I want to.

And I feel better.

I do not know what will happen. No one does. But I am fairly certain that the best thing I can do, that we all can do, is to live fully. If life can’t be lived under bad times, what chance do we have?

Here’s a song. It’s Road to Hell (Reprise) from HadesTown, a show I am directing up at StageDoor right now that I love very much. It’s a sad song, but we sing it anyway.

And here’s a photo. It’s from another show at StageDoor. A show that was stolen by the plague. We were about to go into Tech for Sweeney Todd when everything in the world stopped. We couldn’t do our show. So we went into the woods, socially distanced, and did it anyway, best we could.

We sang it anyway.

PS- I am now using Substack as well as this spot. Go here to check it out. And please follow!

WILD AND UNTAMED THINGS

I lost my Rocky Horror Virginity when I was thirteen years old. My older brother Jerry, who was and is my hero, let me and my buddy Noel tag along with him and his high school friends- the drama kids of Blackford High, whom I also idolized- to see this funny movie where people yelled and threw toilet paper and went insane.

And it was at midnight. 

I went. I was scared shitless, but I went. How could I not? Somehow, my parents were letting me go to a movie that started at midnight. On a Saturday. With a bunch of teen agers. Life was not always brilliant in those days for me. But this was one of those rare times where the Gods had granted me a moment of grace. And I was going to run with it for as far and as long as I could.

We piled in to a station wagon that seemd to have at least twenty people in it, and headed to Cinema 150. I was so excited. What would happen? As we drove along, everyone was laughing, singing The Time Warp, and going over the shout outs for the movie. I had no idea what was going on, but I loved it. Something felt right.

We get to the theatre, park, and walk towards the entrance. The lot is full of young people, a lot of them in costumes. Some are smoking weed, some are drinking beer, and all of them have this mad gleam in their eyes. 

We walk into the theatre. It is teeming with at least a thousand lunatics, all laughing and talking and dancing and singing and not giving the slightest shit what anyone else things about them.

And to my great mortification, I am loudly declared a "Virgin!" by my brother and his friends. The thousand lunatics turn as one and stare at me with the Devil's Eyes, and scream back "Virgin!" and drag me to the front of the theatre. 

And my induction began.

Being a Rocky Virgin simply meant I hadn't seen the film yet. But instead of being made to feel stupid or strange or inadequate by the Lunatics, the Thousand  taught the Time Warp,  gave me some hints on the shout outs, and took into their glorious, bedazzled arms.

And thus began a lifetime of going to the film as well as being in and later directing the original Rocky Horror Show, the stage musical on which the 1977 movie is based.

Right now, it is tech week for my latest visit to Frank's Place, up at StageDoor Theatre in Conifer. It's one of three productions currently going on in the Denver area. Which I think points to a clear fact:

We seem to need to find our inner freak here.

We need to let go of all the sturm und drang, the yelling and crying and wondering-why-ing and just give ourselves over to absolute pleasure.

This show has been an absolute joy for me. I don't know if it's the cast, the time of year, or what- but every moment has filled me with a sense of not being insane. 

At least not being the bad kind of insane.

This show always opens the vault of memory for me; from being thirteen and finding an escape from my dysfunctional home if only for two hours every week end to my first job as an Equity Actor at the Barn Theatre in Michigan the summer after graduating from SJSU right before moving to NYC to directing my first production at Reel Kids.

I've been doing the Time Warp for a long time now. And while I might, the Warp never gets old. 

It gets younger. Groovier. Sexier. 

Our cast is sublime- every single one of them. 

Our set magnificent, the lights moody, the sound gothic, the costumes delcious, the props kinky, and the whole vibe is dirty, dreamy, and delightful.

I want all of you to come see it with me. I don't give a shit if you live across the country or the ocean. Get out here. Now. 

And now I'm off to our first preview, then tomorrow we open.  I'll write more soon. I got a short film set to shoot later this month. And a new script I am excited about. And another script. And another. And I need to write about them. It helps me. 

Here's a song. It's Over at the Frankenstein Place.

CLOSE TO SANITY

Back home. So strange how, after all these miles and experiences, you wake up and it all seems like a dream. It all seems strange, to be honest. Days, weeks, months and years. Best not to dwell to long on it, or I will get swept up in a river of thinking. pulled under by the currents of time, thrown to the surface by unforeseen circumstance, and pummeled by a storm of lament. 

Wow.

What a happy thought.

Sometimes, it just goes that way.

I'm sitting in my den, working on coffee number one, fretting about everything and nothing and all that's inbetween. The usual morning existential blues. I think it is good to ponder, as long as it doesn't take over my life. 

I am such a lucky soul. I have so much. A home. A family. Friends. Job. Writing. Theatre. Film. Travel. 

Even so, at times, I find myself waking up before the alarm clock and wondering about it all. What does any of this mean? Have I chosen the right path. Should I have done other things? 

All the great "What Ifs of Life" that people my mind.

And as usual, I come to the conclusion that regardless, Life is meant to be lived. Examining it from time to time is part of the deal, and necessary, but so is being in the moment. Appreciating how nice it feels to take a morning stroll and feel cool air on my skin. To find a new song by a band I never heard of. To share a look with a random dog I pass. To work on a new story. To watch a favorite film. To argue about stupid shit. To spill coffee on my shoes. To tell a joke that doesn't land. To tell a joke that does land. To clean up a mess. 

Really, this beats being a chair or a rock or an electron floating in the void.

I don't know if life is a simulation, part of a plan by celestial beings, or what- but I do know I am here. I think, as our old pal Des Cartes said, therefore I am. 

Okay. Had to get that out. I have lots that needs to get out. 

On a constant basis. I think that's why I write. It keeps me close to sanity.

I have a few things going on this fall. Top of the list, my short film Burning the Old Man, based on my play, which I co-directed with my dear friend Timothy McCracken, will have its world premiere at the SOHO International Film Festival on September 20 in NYC. I am going. This will be the first time I sit in a theatre and see my name on the credits. I am excited. I want it to go well. I want to make the full length. I want so much. The fact that it is happening, that I get to be there, in NYC, where my writing career began, is amazing. 

A shot in the arm. An ego boost. A party. 

And before, during, and after said party, I have new stories to write, classes to teach, plays to direct, movies to make, trips to take.

It takes a moment for me to breathe, to realize how much I have. I don't mean to negate my morning blues. I think they are important. I do not wish to ever pretend life is not hard, puzzling, and far too short. I also do not wish to disregard the magic, the joy of it all. It's both. Every day. 

Up and down. High and low. Happy and sad. 

Here's a song. I somehow missed it when it came out. But I do love it now. It's At the Bottom of Everything by Bright Eyes. 

DAY THIRTEEN - IN AND OUT, UP AND DOWN, ALL OVER TOWN, AND SO IT GOES

The last day of our time at the Fringe arrives. We wake, we move, we walk. A long walk at that. There's been a substantial amount of moving things around on this one. From the first day to the last, with bonus moves in between. 

Keeps us healthy. 

But the new place is nice. Quiet. Clean. I dig it. Lisa digs it. We dig it.

And so, after setting up our things, we take a stroll down this lovely street to see a dance show called Midsommar. 

It's fucking amazing. Beautiful. Wild. Original. I don't know if it's inspired by the movie and I really don't care. It's brilliant.

We walk into the space. First thing we notice: There is dirt on the floor. Dark, loamy, the kind of dirt life pops out of. Also, there are all these young girls on the stage. They could be anywhere between 14 and 30. There is a wildness to them. A danger. They all seem to be anticipating something that will be happening soon. They also all have laurels of flowers in their hair.  They keep looking out into the audience as we walk in. Some smile. Some flat out stare. One of them walks up to Lisa, places her crown of flowers on Lisa's head. One by one, all the dancers place their flowers on someone in the audience. And then the dance begins. Music pulsates. The dancers perform this ritual of spring and life and power and fear and it's transportive. It's like a dream of that party you went to after dropping acid. 

It's enthralling and kinetic and I love it.

Next we stroll over to ZOO Playground to see Sam Bate's new play Sessions. This is a serious play about serious things, and it's beautiful in every sense. The writing is spot on, organic, funny, real, fast-paced and on point, at times brutal and at other times brimming with empathy and insight. The acting is some of the best I've seen at the Fringe. Ever.  Kudos to Sam Bates for both writing and directing, Adam Halcro for his incendiary turn as George, Naytanael Isareal for his rock solid portrayal of David, Finlay Murray for a subtle but powerful design, and Stacey Cullen for producing this fabulous, numinous new play. Go see it if you can!

So, now I am full of two brilliant shows. Nothing left to do but give our final performance of Banned at Fringe. The house is full. The cast is primed. We've been up and down and all over the past ten days. We are ready. We go out and give the best performance yet. The audience by the end is yelling and hooting and hollering, and I feel both elated and sad. Elated at the show tonight, sad that now that we've cracked it and I think could do it for a while quite well, it's time to pack our bags and head to points unknown. 

We have a cast drink atop the Johnny Walker building, which is lovley. The views are stunning and we are all in high spirits. After, some of us head to Greenside HQ for their end of the week party. I see a lot of people I've met this week. Meet some more. Talk with others I met last year who now feel like old friends. Which of course they are. Somehow it's past midnight and time to go, and we walk for over half an hour, through a town still dancing, past theatre's going dark, down some of the prettiest streets you will every see, to our quiet room and sleep.

In the morning, some take the high road, some take the low. Lisa and I take a car and head to the Highlands.

More on that soon. 

Here's a song. It's Sinatra. One for My Baby. The baby in question being the show we just closed. One for my baby, and one more for the road.

DAY TWELVE - SAINTS AND POETS AND ELVES AND FAGHAGS

I'm not seeing enough shows. I see a couple everyday. It's not enough. So much theatre. So much talent. So much story and song and inventiveness and brilliance.

The Fest is like life that way, magnified and amplified and dramatized in every way possible.

I walk the streets and see poster after poster of something that looks cool.

I meet person after person, mostly actors and writers and directors, all interesting and funny and having some show they want me to see, and that I do indeed want to see.

But there's just not enough time. 

And Time does not give any extras. 

So you do what you can. Develop an appreciation for where you are, what sight you are seeing, conversation you are having, show you do manage to see.

It's thrilling and sad in equal measure.

Walked down the Royal Mile yesterday to check out the Palace. So gorgeous and full of history and Lion Rampants and Mary Queen of Scots. It's this combination of history and beauty, the Palace. Part of it is a functioning home to the Royals, part of it's the ruin of an ancient church. 

And there's a wooden floor with blood stains from when Mary Stuart's husband stabbed a guy he thought she was messing around with fifty some odd times. 

Very dramatic.

We spend a few hours walking the Palace, then speed walk to a performance of "I'm Almost There", which is this semi-one man show, a musical of sorts, about life and love and working through your shit after meeting someone and thinking you are falling in love. It's beautiful and hilarious and touching. The show is the main guy at a piano, plus a harpist and bassist who not only accompany but become some of the characters the main guy mentions. The whole show is like a monologue, a confessional one person show, all about a chance meeting that leads to a day spent walking and talking and connecting to a missed kiss, a cup of coffee, and how the journey to a decision, to taking a step forward, to simply accepting a cup of coffee brought unbidden, can be an odyssey of the soul. 

It's brilliant. 

We walk home, and happen upon this strange, wondrous tea shop, run by two young women who might be elves. They smile, talk and sing to themselves as we walk about the shop, smelling little samples of tea. It's one of those random stores you find now and then- well, you find them a lot here in Edinburgh but this place is another dimension, to be certain. We buy some tea and a brownie that one of the elves tells me is "most certainly the best brownie you will ever have". 

I haven't eaten it yet, but I'm fairy certain when I do I will find I can levitate or speak with animals or something.

Then it's time for the show. And it's one of those shows where things just feel odd. First off, there's a street band playing outside the building, behind and below us on Victoria Street, which is this winding cobble stoned thoroughfare that looks like Diagon Alley, because it was the inspiration for Diagon Alley. The band has an excellent sound system, and we can hear them as the play is being performed. The audience is almost a strange mix, with some looking rather unimpressed, and one guy somehow napping. In my big fight scene, my Apple Watch, which I wear but have turned to theatre mode so it won't ring, starts beeping. 

But even so, it's a solid show. Tight. The cast has this thing down and are now in control, and that feels excellent. 

Afterwards, we head towards the show Dylan Mulvaney: FAGHAG. En route, we stop at this outdoor food court- there are lots of these throughout the Fringe, parks and courtyards and open spaces full of food trucks and tables and tents and people. This one looks like Pleasure Island from Pinocchio. As we walk in, a random man sees me and says quite loudly "you're from that show! Up by the castle!". He looks at my face a moment, continues. "Yeah! It's you. Great job! Great Show". And off he walks.

And I feel absurdly good. 

We have Pizza and falafels and I feel just fucking great.

We head to the show, which most of the cast is there for. It's wonderful. Dylan Mulvaney is the trans woman who made headlines when Bud Light had them as a spokesperson and the right wing section of American went even more insane. She is magnetic and uber-talented and makes every single person in the theatre feel like they are a personal guest at her most fabulous and excellent party. The show is a joyous, hilarious, romping good time that is witty and tender and touching and uplifting, and we are all hooting and laughing and I'm watching my friends absolutely fill up with joy, which increases my own joy even more. It's yet another thing I love so much in this city full of things I love. 

And then it's time for bed. We have to move from the flat we are staying in, which is basically a college dorm with free entertainment nightly as it is right next to an intersection where the howling banshees of the night meet, and the screaming seagulls of the morning hold court. So I'm up early, even before the coffee shops open, to write and then pack. 

And tonight, we have our final performance. 

It all makes me think of one of my favorite lines. "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every every minute? No. Saints and Poets. They do. Some."

Here's a song. It's Dylan Mulvaney singing Girlhood.  

EDINBURGH DAY ELEVEN - BREAKING CUBES AND ADDING A FUCK YOU HARD

You blink your eyes twice, and time flies by. Two more shows to go. What happened? Didn't we just land? Somehow, it's been over a week. I've seen show, ran into old friends, eaten way too much haggis, laughed entirely too loud too often for anyone's comfort but my own.

I am a loud person. I am told that often. 

I can't help it. I don't mean to offend.

I just enjoy things. And when something is funny, I laugh. And when I speak, I speak.

No apologies. The world is full of much worse things than a person loudly enjoying their life.

Also, I may have kicked a hole in one of our cubes on stage last night.

We have this scene in the show between my character Ron, and his wife Denise, Played by aforementioned friend of blog, Tracy.

And we fight in it, and yell, and it gets ugly, and I storm off, and she sings this song "Only the Lonely" whose title always makes me think of that old Roy Orbison song but is a new one and a number I particularly love in this show, as it's dramatic, set up nicely by the scene going into it, and performed perfectly, and one of the moments in the show I think I directed well. 

A heart breaking work of staggering genius and all that. 

Nothing feels better than directing a moment and having an actor not only get what you're trying to do, but have them run with it. Soar. Transport the audience.

So the scene going into that moment is important.

So we're doing the scene last night. It's going ok. We're yelling. Doing the lines. Something feels a little different about the scene. We're playing off each other, but it's in some new zone. Usually Denise is more aggressive. Tonight, maybe it's my loudness, or the rain that day, but she's more leaning back, a little more of a slow burn kind of anger. 

Which fuels my character's/my anger. 

And we get to this point, right before I say "I want you to shut your fucking mouth..." and I stand up off a cube, and for some reason I kick the thing. 

I've kicked it a few times, both in rehearsal and in the show. But tonight, I have extra-kick mode on, and a kick it like I'm a field goal kicker and it's the Super Bowl.

And as I turn to say "Shut Your Fucking Mouth..." I notice a hole in the cube. About the size of a golf ball. And then, as I march off, where I'm supposed to say "Fuck you", I add a bonus "Fuck you hard."

I may be insane. 

Now, here's the thing. Part of me feels bad about this. 

But part of me feels good. I was playing the role. In the moment. And yeah, I kicked the cube and swore more. 

But that's live theatre. Shit happens. Actors go a little nuts. 

Or a lot. 

After the show, Lisa and I and some of the cast go Ceilidh Dancing, which is Scottish folk dancing similar to square dancing. You run around a lot, sweat your ass off, dance with strangers, and release all of the days worries. 

It's fantastic. I hang with cast mates and also old friend and fellow Fringe performer Katelyn Berrios, who was in the sublime How to Eat a Bear last year and has a great solo piece this year called The Basement Entertainer, which I saw in the morning and recommend. It's a new piece about trying to make it in the business, create some art, and somehow combine creative freedom with success. Definitely worth catching.

And now it's Friday. The day is clear to see shows and sights, then we perform, then I think as a group we are going to see a show.

Last year, on the Isle of Skye, I heard a tale of an Islander who married a faerie. They could only be together a year, then she would have to return to her world. Then spent a happy year together, full of love and magic. Then the time came, then walked to a bridge, kissed one last time, and she took the high road and he took the low, never to see each other in this world again. I feel like that now. Like the Fringe is my faerie, we'e had this grand time, but tick tock goes the clock, and the bridge awaits.

Now real life starts to creep into my mind. Now I start to prep for the next show, the latest gig. A bid for Rock of Ages. A new production of Rocky Horror Show I'm directing. Scripts that have been patiently waiting for me to get back to them as I have this adventure. 

Speaking of, time to head out, grab coffee, feel the cool morning air.

Loudly, of course.

Here's a song. Only the Lonely by Roy Orbison.