DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN

 Ever have one of those songs stick in your head but you only remember a tiny part of it? Happens to me all the time. And then I'll ask anyone and everyone: Do you know that songs that goes doo ba da do da da do da da-aa-ah?

And whomever I've asked will look at me like they think I just farted.

It's pretty much been that way my whole life.

A prime example. Fire on High by Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. It's this instrumental song that you'd hear on FM radio back in the day. It's sort of scary and awesome and not one you find on a lot of top 40 stations, but I always thought it was cool. It wasn't one of my favorite songs. Not one I'd put on a mix tape or anything. Just a song that lodged itself in my brain long ago, to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind and drive me to distraction.

That song came out in the other world known as the 1970s. Land of Happy Days, Viet Nam, Watergate, and leisure suits. A world I navigated on my bike and/or skateboard, traversing the streets of San Jose, obsessed with comic books, KISS, and after the Ralph Bashki animated version of it came out, the Lord of the Rings. I can recall hearing that song in my friend Chris Carver's family's garage. It had this backward tracking section that made you think maybe the devil could hear your thoughts while you listened to it. 

If there was such a thing as the devil. And ever since The Excorcist came out, we were all pretty sure there was.

So, the song was part of the fabric of my childhood.

Cut to many years later. I'm in NYC. I haven't thought of that song since forever. I'm a starving artist, waiting tables at Bryant Park Grill behind the main branch of the New York Library, doing theatre down town, struggling to make ends meet, having the time of my life. 

And that song pops into my head. Well, not the whole song. Just this one section where the orchestra goes: DUN DUN.... DUUUUUUUNNNNNN. 

I start asking people if they know it.

And I get the "did you fart?" look everytime.

Years go by. I'll be at a party. I'll meet someone who seems knowledgeable all things music. I'll ask the question. I'll get the standard response. 

Now, I was still drinking back then, so maybe my question was asked a bit more off key than I'd like, and a tad more garbled. At any rate, no one had a clue.

Was I mad? Had I invented this fake memory of this song with backwards tracks and a section that goes DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN?

Years go by. I'm driving a rental car back to NYC after going to a wedding up in Connecticut. It's summer, and some radio station is playing all things seventies. And the song comes on the radio. The song! Now this is before cell phones, and there wasn't a note pad in the car, and I was on a bridge over the Harlem River in very heavy traffic. And worse, the song was in a long set of songs with no interruptions. I waited and waited, praying to the radio gods that they'd say who it was. 

And they did! Finally, after what felt like hours. 

Fire on High! I said it out loud, over and over, making sure I'd remember. My girlfriend at the time, who was in the car with me, did not find this amusing, and told me so in no uncertain terms. 

So I stopped the car, opened the trunk, pulled out my backpack which had a notepad in it, and wrote the name of the song down. 

The cars behind me didn't appreciate this.

I didn't care. I had found the Great Lost Song of the 1970s. I had found a dimensional door to the Carver's garage, to bell bottom jeans and AC/DC before Bon Scott died. To a piece of me.

I collect those pieces, work them into my various projects, shows I direct, roles I perform, scripts I write.

It informs who I am.

A deranged seeker of lost moments, an Indiana Jones of my own soul.

Here's Fire on High, by ELO.

Bonus track:

Two things: First, I'm doing Rocky Horror Show with Organic Theatre up in Boulder this week end. Info Here: https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/organic-theater-dba-reel-kids-and-dba-boulder-music/64b20c8f3d38220e4092f78c

I'm taking a new show, Eigg the Musical, to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll be writing another blog on that next, but wanted to let you all know we have an Indiegogo campaign, raising funds to feed the actors, cover expenses, and all that. More info here: https://igg.me/at/eiggmusical/x/3385268#/

And here's one of the numbers from the show:

 

BLUE MONDAY TRUE MONDAY THAT'S MY FUN DAY MY I DON'T HAVE TO RUN DAY

I had a ton of vivid dreams last night. One of them took place in the 1980s, when I was in high school. The song Blue Monday featured prominently. Sadly, I can't tell you much more, because I had so many dreams, and they were all so vivid, they kind of cancelled each other out, and I am left with this strange mish-mash memory of them all. It didn't help that my dog Padfoot kept waking me up and needing to go out. Usually, he has one trip outside a night. Last night he went out four times. I kid you not. Four damn times. And just to pee. And each time he woke me up, I was in the middle of yet another vivid dream. And all of them were positive. I do remember that. They were those dreams that when you start to awaken you wish could keep on going. 

Still, the dreams put me in a good mood. And so, in honor of Blue Monday and songs of the 1980s, on my way to get tested for Covid, I put on U2's War, and listened to the whole thing. It was one of the first albums that I listened to over and over and over, and it always brings me back to those days, that time when the world was classes and friends and music and the Impala and driving over the hill to Santa Cruz and the Dollar Movie and Young Life and Swim Team and Scouts and no clue about where I was heading and not really caring all that much. A time when most nights I'd end up at Carrow's with Tom and Brian, going over the events of the day. 

Those vivid times are jumbled up in my mind now too. And they have an excellent soundtrack. 

One thing I can't stand about movies set in any section of the past that I have lived in is how often they get the songs wrong. They play top ten hits, but no deep cuts. No rarities. Just the hits. Not that some of the hits don't belong. If I was going to make a movie about my high school years it would certainly feature Blue Monday, I Will Follow, and Video Killed the Radio Star. But it would also include a ton of Dead Kennedys, Angry Samoans, and songs by Madness beside Our House. 

I do wish I had all my old records. LPs, EPs, and 45s. I think most of them are long gone. The few that are left are sitting in a storage unit in San Jose, and once my mom's house sells, I'll go get them. Not that I want to be one of those who only play the songs from their past. That is out. In fact, in my first play, Last Call, I had a group of friends who would only go to this one bar, and only play the songs from high school on the juke box. Over and over. To the point where the songs lost all meaning and resonance and became barriers to thought and expression and joy. 

So I don't want to do that. 

But I do like to listen to the old stuff now and then. 

And I did  back when I was in high school, too. I think if you limit yourself to any one thing, type of music, kind of film, and so on, you limit way too much. 

Sometimes, you need to expose yourself to the unexpected. To things that aren't part of your past, or determined to be something you might like by some algorithm. 

As Beckett wrote, habit is a great deadener. 

So here's to trying new things, to listening to old things, and to things in general. 

Here's a song. It's a cover of Blue Monday by Orkestra Obsolete.

MORE PERMANENT OBSTACLES

It's Thanksgiving Eve. And we are home. No road trips or plane rides. No traveling whatsoever. And no one coming here either. It reminds me a bit of being a Thanksgiving orphan in NYC when I was a starving artist, either stuck with working at the restaurant or short on cash to get home to California. Sometimes, Mom would come out and we'd have Thanksgiving in the city with my brother, sister, brother-in-law, and whomever else was in town who couldn't get home. And those were some of the best nights ever. Nothing like a bunch of theatre types crammed into a tiny apartment all day, drinking and smoking and yapping away. My mom would eat it up like candy. And we all loved it. 

It also reminds me of my first Thanksgiving away from home. I had just moved out to NYC, and was working at Triplets Romanian Steakhouse down in Tribeca. I was the new guy, and didn't get a lot of shifts, and money was very tight. In fact, the week of Thanksgiving, I had only one shift. Thanksgiving itself. I asked if I could have it off, but my bosses said no. They were identical triplets, separated at birth but reunited later in life. There was a documentary about them. (For more info, click HERE) One trait they all shared was a lack of empathy for new workers wanting to go home for Thanksgiving. And worse, on the day of Thanksgiving, I showed up ready to work, and they told me the books were light and I could go home if I wanted. Which I did.  I told them I'd be back in two weeks. My car, and old Hyundai Excel, was parked in Jersey. I ran home to my tiny studio, grabbed a few things, headed to Jersey, and drove West. Somewhere in Ohio, I got a speeding ticket. The cop wouldn't let me off with a warning, even after telling him my sad tale. It was raining, and once it was clear I was on the hook for about sixty bucks, I asked as many questions of that cop as I could, just to make him stand in the rain. Petty, I know, but satisfying in a juvenile sort of way. I got home a few days late, but still managed to have some left overs, and of course the turkey sandwiches. I like mine with a lot of mayo, cranberry sauce, and tons of black pepper. That's it. It took me three days to drive from New York to San Jose. The thought of those sandwiches floated in front of me the whole way, all along Interstate 80, from Omaha to Winnemucca and finally over the Sierra Nevada past Reno and home. The sandwiches, and seeing friends and family, was worth it.

Holidays are strange, in how they conjure up the past so effortlessly. Good times and bad occupy the soul on holidays. 

I remember the last Thanksgiving with my mom. She had been told by the doctors that she had about two years of life left in the spring, and we were all trying to figure out how that could be. I often got very high and tried to convince the Moon to intervene on her behalf. It didn't work. So we all gathered at the house, one last time. When I was a kid, we would rotate who hosted Thanksgiving between my mom and her two sisters, Aunt Mary and Aunt Alice. There'd be a ton of food. Aunt Alice always made Aspic, and Aunt Mary made Mince Meat Pie. And Uncle Bruce always said grace. Those were the rules. The rest I don't remember, other than it was awesome. Usually, we'd take a walk after the main meal but before dessert. On that last Thanksgiving, all the aunts and cousins gathered at my mom's house. 

It was great to see everyone. And quite terrible. It made it all very real. 

I had just met Lisa, my wife, and was full of love and joy. But at the same time, misery and sorrow. I was bursting with happiness at meeting the love of my life, and crushed and near insane at the idea of a world without my mom in it.

Like I said, holidays are strange.

Even so, I remember the love at that table, the laughs, the food, the joy in each other. Even though mom was dying, there was joy in being alive. 

I find that holds true to this very day.

We are all not quite where we want to be this Thanksgiving, or with everyone we'd like to be with. Some are separated by miles, some by more permanent obstacles. But even so, we carry a bit of each other with us. In the dishes we make. In the jokes we tell. In the favorites old movies we watch. 

A tradition my wife has that is now law is that we watch the original Miracle on 34th Street Thanksgiving night before we go to sleep. Sort of kicks off the Christmas season with magic and love.

This year, in what might be a new tradition, I'm making a mincemeat pie. In honor of Aunt Mary. And Aunt Alice. And my mom. The Three Ladies of Thanksgiving's Past, who always have a seat at the table.

Here's a song. It's Lyle Lovett's Family Reserve. Enjoy. And eat some pie.

I WANT TO SEE MOUNTAINS AGAIN

Bilbo has gone over the sea, to be with the elves. I shall miss him. There is always a bit of sadness when someone who gave you joy, who made your journey a little more bearable, passes. And I feel that now. But with the sadness there is also wonder and gratitude. Ian Holm, the great British actor who played Bilbo in the Lord of the Ring movies, and Ash in Alien, and the coach in Chariots of Fire, and about a million other things, died last week. I shall miss him. I shall miss that feeling whenever he would show up in a film I was watching for the first time, and I'd think "this movie just got better!" I loved so many of the flicks he was in. Most, though, has to be LOTR. I have loved Middle Earth since first reading The Hobbit in fourth grade. I read the trilogy twice by the end of seventh grade. I even once sat down and read The Two Towers, cover to cover, in one outing when I was all of thirteen. I watched the TV version of The Hobbit every time it came on. And when the Ralph Bashki animated version of The Lord of the Rings came out, I saw it many times in the theatre, and many more on TV. The Bashki version was mainly the first two books, and I waited forever for the final installment. It never came, although there was a rather odd animated version of Return of the King made for TV. I recall it had singing orcs. It did not go over well with me at the time. For years after, pretty much my teens, twenties, and early thirties, I wished and hope for a good version of either The Hobbit of Lord of the Rings to come out. And then I read that Peter Jackson, a film maker from down under known mostly for quirky horror films, was making a trilogy based on LOTR. And I hoped. Finally, the first trailer came out. I was at the movies with my friends Myles and Chris. When the trailer finished, which was amazing and perfect and looked like what I always hoped a film about Middle Earth would look like, Chris turned to us and said "I wish I could hit myself in the head, go into a coma, and not wake up until this film is out". He didn't follow through with his plan, but the film did come out.

And it was all we had hoped and more.

And Ian Holm, as Bilbo, was perfect. He made me cry, right from the start. There is this moment, early on in Fellowship of the Ring, where Bilbo's old friend Gandlaf, with whom he had gone on the greatest adventure of his life, shows up at Bilbo's house after many years. Gandalf knocks on the door, Bilbo opens it, and is overcome with joy. The way Ian Holm played that moment made me cry. I had lived long enough by then to know what it meant to miss those you love. To have great people in your life, people you have shared time and tests with, who you grew up with, who helped you become you are; to have friends that own part of your soul who you don't see all that often. It is just part of the deal, I think. We make great friends, and then we have the audacity to have lives that separate us. So Bilbo opens the door, and his face is filled with both joy at seeing his old friend, and sorrow at the knowledge of time passed without him. The bittersweet feeling of love and friendship in the face of the insistent march of time.

I knew how that felt, but had not articulated it as such just yet. And that scene, that moment, that look on Holm's face, sealed it for me. I sat in the theatre, and for the briefest of moments, I was with Brian and Jay and Greg and Jack, with my friends at Strawberry Park Elementary, my cast mates from East of Eden, my Scout Troop, my family, my mom, my dad. And I was also in NYC, far from all of them, as far as can be, for there is no greater distance between to things than time.

And I am with them still, but the hall of memory grows daily. And now Myles, and Chris, Vinnie and Shannon, Dutch, my brother and sister, they all are there too, along with the good times and bad, the discoveries, the triumphs, the defeats, the brief moments when we realized we were alive together, and reveled in that miracle.

So thanks, Sir Ian. You helped me be me. You own part of my soul too. I hope you have a gentle crossing, that the elves sing songs that delight. And while I know it is the right and proper road we all must take, I can't help but feel a little sad.

Here's a song. It's The Shire, by Howard Shore, from the soundtrack to The Fellowship of the Ring.

Poem I Wrote for Jack

Sometimes, I think my brain is like that scene in Poltergeist when Craig T. Nelson takes the paranormal investigators to the kids room- the one where one of the investigators tells him that he once, on a time lapse video, got a sponge moving several inches- to which Nelson looks extremely unimpressed. Nelson then opens the door to the kids room, the room where Carol Ann disappeared, and the investigators see all sorts of debris flying around the room- books flapping like birds, a kids vinyl LP that connects with a writing compass and impossibly begins to play, a light bulb that flies into the socket of a lamp and turns itself on, and a Hulk doll riding a toy horse like he's a little Teddy Roosevelt on San Juan Hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fntf6IpPOVI

That's my brain. All these disparate items, flying in a funky, magic, sort of malevolent vortex, creating crazy-logic that is both amusing and creepy.

Anyhow.

So Halpin me a poem the other day and I sent one back.

Here 'tis:

Could you find me?

Anew, anow,  anonymous

And wondrous and full of daffodils

I walk walk walk to the empty old barn, 

Remnant of times past but not dead, no

Not dead, alive with the imagined ghosts 

In the fragrant Oldewood 

And sword fights on the library sign 

With limbs from the local peach trees –

Falling backwards in the 

BlossomLandTime

Of Slurpee cups and that Book

Of Cryptozoological goodness

The sky is always blue always cloudy

always always always always always

Playing a Van Morrison song

I've never heard and know by heart and I

am there and I am here and we are

the walrus we are the night we are always are

dancing leaping smiling frowning

I have the Sword of Shannarra!

I they we you you you where did it go

where are those peach trees now

where are those mad members of

the secret society of forgotten forms–

the wild ones? 

And we go marching on.  

 

 

 

 

WHY NOT MAKE HIS HEAD EXPLODE?

SOME UNFORTUNATE HOUR, now available at INDIE THEATER NOW, and how it came to be.

I was stuck.  I had a big chunk of a new play written, and had hit a brick wall.  The opening was great, characters all clear in my mind, dialogue crisp and clean and all that jazz- but there was something wrong.  I couldn't quite find out what it was, or why whenever I sat down to write nothing really happened- I mean nothing.   I'd sit and stare at the screen and it all seemed weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.  Up to this point, my plays had come fast and furious, born fully formed like Venus on the shell- but not this one.

The play itself was a simple premise- one scene, written in the style known as "realism", following a guy named Tom's slow realization that he's an asshole.  It began as a whim, but now had a life of its' own- and there was no way in Hell I wasn't going to finish it.   So I did what any brave person would do.  

I ran away.

I was living in New York City, but my mom still lived in the house I grew up in out in San Jose, California.  I hadn't been home to visit for awhile, and so off I went, into the wild blue yonder.   I visited old friends, went to say hello to the Pacific, and hoped my subconscious would work things out as far as the play was concerned.  And then I got a phone call from a friend.  Thank God,

The friend was Harry Newman.  He's a fellow playwright, and was running The Pool at the time, and was one of those people whose opinion I trusted- and still trust to this day.  He had read the play, and had a  simple question- why does it have to stay in the land of realism?  Why not have his head explode, so to speak?

And like that, it all fell into place.  Yeah, why not have his head explode?  Why not have him slip back and forth between reality and his imagination?  I mean, Old Tom is drunk and getting drunker, and his mental state is not what you'd call stable- why not have his world be askew, ruled by unseen spirits, and all that good stuff?  

For me, there are times when I'm writing when all of a sudden, I see the piece as a whole- the world it inhabits, the characters, the color and sound and even the smell of it.  The Eureka moment, if you will.  I don't know why, but I do.  And usually, it happens after working on it for awhile.  I'll be plodding along from point A to point B to point C, with a rough idea of what's supposed to happen and who the hero is and all that, and then someone says something, or I hear a song on the radio, or I see a sunset, or a couple fighting in a store- and BLAMMO, the play is there, and from that point on I usually can't type fast enough.  

I dig that part of the process the most.  

So I dive back into the play.  Tom is still in the bar, but now and then, the lights change, a spotlight shines on him, and he goes into these strange soliloquies about She Who Shall Remain Nameless, or what the settlers meant when they said they "saw the Elephant", or how he's like a baseball that's been hit by Bugs Bunny and has traveled all over the world.  It fit- all of it.  Time to enter the show in the New York International Fringe Festival and hope it gets in.  And if it doesn't, put it up somewhere anyway.

Then I had one more idea.  What if I had a score written for the show, like how Simon and Garfunkel did the music for The Graduate?   I mean, Aristotle did list music as one of the basic elements of theatre, didn't he?  On top of that, I had a friend, Robbie Gil, who knew my work, liked this particular play, and writes really groovy music- in fact, if you don't know his stuff, you need to go to his web site, download some tunes, and get with the program.  I ask Robbie is he'd be OK with that, he says yes, and we are off to the races.  

I name the play "SOME UNFORTUNATE HOUR", which in my mind is a variation on the old Rogers and Hammerstein song "Some Enchanted Evening", but no one ever picks up on that but me.  It gets accepted into the Fringe.  I finish the play- which includes a really great monologue by Janus about unrequited love that, if you are an actress looking for a good audition piece, I highly recommend.  I get Tim Errickson, Artistic Director of the Boomerang Theatre Company, to direct- cast Dan O'Neill as Tom, Jodi Dick as Janus, and Ashley Wren Collins as Charity, and off we go.  The show is received well- go here for a review- and then gets a run in Denver - go here for really nice review from Variety.  And now, as part of the Fringe Collection offered on Indie Theatre Now, it's available online for less than $2.  Life is sweet.

Anyhow, that's the very basic story of Some Unfortunate Hour.  Stay tuned for more on me and my shows- up next, my biggest hit yet, BURNING THE OLD MAN.

BARE BOSOMS AND THUNDER-STONES

So on the Facebook the other day, American Theatre magazine asked people to post about their favorite theatrical moment ever.  I assume they mean on stage, as opposed to things in life that are theatrical that happened to us.  I mean, we've all had things happen to us that are amazing and weird and when they happen we think "Holy crap!  That should be in a movie!"   Like the time I saw a guy poop his pants on the subway. That was very theatrical.  But I don't think that's what they were going for.   The question immediately made me think of several moments I have either seen or was a part of on stage- and I thought I'd share them with you.

First moment- the day Thunder and Lightning joined the cast of Julius Caesar.   The production was part of the 1998 season of Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot.  I was playing Cassius.  We had been getting a lot of attention- including a cover story in the week-end section of the New York Times, with a gigantic picture from the show featuring me,  up front and center.  It was my first photo in a major newspaper, and I was over the moon.  For those unfamiliar with the Parking Lot Shakespeare- it's an annual summer series, presented in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, free to the public- dirty, loud, and quite an experience.  So the show is going along in front of a big crowd.   The sky had been threatening rain all evening.  As the play went along, clouds gathered, turned blue, black, purple. The electricity in the air was making the hair on my arms stand straight up.  The show itself is going like gangbusters.  People are leaning into it- audience and cast alike.  The clouds are getting thicker, which adds to the sense of excitement.  It gets to the scene where my character, Cassius, is convincing Casca to kill Ceasar.  In the script, it's supposed to be storming.  Casca comes upon Cassius walking the streets with his shirt open, challenging the heaven's.  Casca says "Who ever knew the heavens menace so?"  At that point, I would laugh kind of crazily, rip open my shirt, and exclaim, "For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, submitting me unto the perilous night, and, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone!"  On this night of nights, right after that line, there was a huge CRACK of thunder over head.  I mean shake your bones and make you instinctively cover your head kind of crack.  The audience oohed and awed.   The artistic director, who during performances always stood behind the audience, ready to come out and either postpone or cancel the show in just such a case, edged halfway through the audience.  I looked at Casca hoping he would see in my eyes that we were going to go on with the show,  and continued with the scene, saying "And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open the breast of heaven, I did present myself even in the aim and very flash of it."  At which point, there was huge FLASH of lightening, followed almost instantly with another huge roll of thunder.   Everyone froze- actors on stage and off, audience members, and artistic director- still in the middle of the audience.  Then the rain starts.  Not slowly, but all at once.  A deluge.  The artistic director starts to walk onto the stage.  I keep eye contact with Casca, but raise my hand towards our artistic director, hoping she gets the idea that the show must go on and indeed is going on, and that she needs to get off of the stage.   And the scene continues.  And the rain comes down.  And one by one, audience members pull out their umbrellas, and lean further into the show, and start to applaud- and we kick that scene, and the rest of the performance, in the ass.  There are times in life, few and far between, when you feel like a god, unstoppable and magic and like you are doing exactly the right thing.

More 'best moments ever' to come...

ONE MORE THING...YOU HAVE TO GET NAKED

It's funny how memories unlock each other.  After writing a little bit about how Last Call came about as part of small way of promoting my plays on Indie Theater Now, all these moments from that show came flooding back- rehearsals, performances, feedback, etc.   Memory is it's own Pandora's box, I suppose- once open, it's own set of devils and angels fly out.  One of the devil/angels that's been flying around in my head these past few weeks is nudity- full frontal male nudity, to be exact.  How I came to have it in the show, how actors re-acted to it, and how the public responded to said nakedness.

You see, in Last Call, the character David has come home to Salinas, California after having an existential crisis in NYC, prompted in part by 9/11, and also by witnessing a man kill himself by throwing himself in front of a subway train.  David freaks out, quits his high paying job, and goes home in search of truth and understanding.  When he arrives home, all his old friends are stuck in ruts of their own, and not interested in what he has to say.  In an effort to shake things up, and in a nod to their younger days when skinny-dipping was part of their lives, David takes all his clothes off in the middle of the bar, and invites his pals to go streaking with him.  They decline.  All except the character Jack.  He likes the idea, and strips down to the essentials.  Hilarity ensues.

I should probably mention that there was a time in my life when I got naked in public.  A lot.  Not for any sexual fetish, or to be an exhibitionist.  I just think we, as a culture, are sort of uptight, and need to be nudged towards a more loose way of being.  And I thought that getting naked and running around laughing was a good way to do that.  So it's not that surprising that I write a scene where a guy gets naked.  Write what you know.

Originally, this was not part of the play.  When the show was accepted into the Fringe, it was still not part of the play.  When I asked Jack Halpin to play the part of Jack, (and more importantly, when he accepted the role) it was not part of the play.   But then I wrote the nude scene, it felt right and more than right, and that was that.  So I called Jack, who was on tour with another show at the time, and told him he was going to be sharing a lot of himself with the world come August.  At first, I think he thought I was joking.  I assured him I wasn't.  He paused, said something about doing more sit ups and taking up jogging, and that was that.  Cool.  One naked guy in the show down, one to go.

Now, at this point, we hadn't held auditions for the show.  Most of the parts were still up for grabs, including the character David.  So, when it was time for try outs, we put an addendum on the audition notice that the role of David would have to get naked.  No ifs, ands, or buts.   So we have auditions, and this one actor, Brett Christensen, shows up and reads for the part of Vince.  At this point, the part of Vince is pretty much locked up by Vinnie Penna, and that's all there is to that.  But Brett does a great job reading for the part.  And I think he'd be a great David.  So I ask him if he'd read for it.  He asks me if that's the part that gets naked.  I say yeah.  Brett thinks for a moment, shrugs, and gives a fantastic audition.  The part is his.  He too says he is going to take up jogging.  And I have my two nudists.

Now it's close to performance time, and we need to send out a press release.  We put all the usual stuff in, and add a disclaimer how there will be full frontal nudity.

FULL FRONTAL NUDITY

It's amazing how one little sentence can get so many responses.  People call from all over, from places I've never heard of, asking me about the naked people.   When I tell them that it's two men who get naked, some get disappointed.   Some get excited.  What's funny is, nobody asks why the characters get naked as it pertains to the story- just how many naked people, what sex they are, and for how long.

As for the show itself, the nudity works perfectly.  It's just part of the story, and we kind of forget about it as being anything but another scene in the show. (except for the day R. Paul Hamilton's daughter, who is about 13, comes to the show and sits in the front row)  Also, I think it's unfair that more women always seem to have to get naked in films and on tv and stage, but hardly ever men.  Why  should women have to be naked so much more than men?  In a way, I'm doing my part for equality among the sexes.   Of course, there are a few guys who show up for the show, and afterwards come out saying things like "nice show, but you should have told us it was only male nudity".  Oh well.

I don't regret for one minute putting that scene in the show- in fact, I'm proud of it.  No doubt, there will be fewer high school and college productions of it due to the nudity- but so what?  It's my play, and I know it was the right thing to do.  The scene is beautiful, and the play would be less without it.

Now go here, buy your own downloadable file of it for about a buck fifty, and see it you agree.

MUSE OF FIRE ASCENDS

So the letter of from the Fringe comes, and I take a deep breath, then open it.  It starts with "Congratulations".  I'm in.  Muse of Fire has been accepted into the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival.  Holy Shit.

I am one of those people who doesn't really know how to take success, on any level.  It never seems quite real, or what I thought it would feel like.  Never.  In my mind, there should be music playing, fist pumping, slow motion leaps in the air, and a sudden, clear understanding of the Universe, and my place in it.  But still, it does feel pretty damn good.  What am I saying?  It feels friggin' fabulous!  Time to call friends, family, acquaintances, and tell them that I have been chosen from over one thousand entrants to be in this summer's festival.

Now I really have to get to work on the script.  The story is going nicely- I have my two muses, Dion and Polly, going down to Earth, to the Theatre Dept. at San Jose State University, and they come upon the girl they need to turn into a great writer.  Everyone ends up in a production of "As You Like It", and valuable lessons area learned by one and all.  I've changed the girl's name to Emily (middle name of my college sweetheart), and the boy she's supposed to fall in love with to Mick (one of many nicknames I had in college).  I realize, as I plot along, that the world of the play is the world of live theatre, and all the insane, funny, noble, and magic things that come with it.  Things start coming fast and furious- characters materialize, full blown, with specific voices- references to pop culture, mythology, and the Dumbarton Bridge all seem to flow and make sense.  Script feeling strong, it's time to get the production itself going.  I have several things I know I want, certain actors for certain parts- but there are other parts I haven't a clue about- and on top of that, it is always a good thing to have an open audition- you never know who you might meet, and what might come from that meeting.   So we have auditions.  Lots of folks show up. I have it all clear in my head, except for the part of Emily.  It gets down to two actresses, both really awesome in different ways.  So I have them read with Brett Christensen, who is cast as Mick.  And Jackie Kamm kicks the part of Emily in the ass, lights up the stage, and I think makes Brett's brain explode.  It is one of the great, rare joys of theatre, to witness an audition that catches fire, that makes it clear to everyone in the room that these people, and no others, must play these parts.   The entire cast is as follows- Dion: Jack Halpin, Polly: Sara Thigpen, Carlos/Hal: R. Paul Hamilton, Emily: Jackie Kamm, Cassandra: Heather McAllister, Phil:  Jerry McAllister, Mick: Brett Christensen, Lenny: Vinnie Penna, Jessie:  Christine Goodman, and the show is stage managed by Matthew Rankin.  They are all super geniuses, and amazing artists, and if you even come across them in this life, hang on to them and figure out a way to work with them.

So the show is cast, and we start rehearsing.  My company, hope theatre inc., is producing the show.  We'd formed a few years before, to present the American premiere of Shakespeare's Edward III, once part of the apocrypha but now recognized by some in that strange realm known as Academia as at least partially written by old Will.  We stayed together to produced Last Call, and now here we are, with show number three.  I am directing my own play.  I think this will be fun- and it is, but also a great pain in the ass.   I keep adding stuff to the show- interpretive dances at a cast party, love affairs, and a new way to end the show.  Instead of having Emily just fall in love with Mick, she has to lose him- and I don't mean they break up.  I mean Mick has to die- that his death is what is supposed to spark Emily's greatness as an artist.  And when Dion and Polly learn this, they have to figure out what to do- make a great artist, or save a young man's life.  I add a scene where Mick and Dion drive to the beach.  Dion knows Mick is supposed to die, but can't say anything.  They talk about Billy the Kid and the song "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi.  It's one of my favorite scenes in the play.

Anyway.  The cast is good, the script is good, and then we find out we are going to be presenting our show at the Cherry Lane Theatre.  If you've never seen this place, let me tell you- it's beautiful, historic, and exactly what you think a theatre in Greenwich Village should look like, right down to the cobble-stone street in front.   This is a theatre that had O'Neill, Albee, and Shephard in it.  I mean the playwrights themselves.  This place is a dream come true.  And I get to premiere my play in it.  This is a dream come true.  This is one of the great moments of my life.

Opening night arrives.  It's a full house.  The play begins.  As usual, I feel like throwing up for most of the performance.  But people are laughing in the audience.  A lot.  And then they're crying.  And at the end of the show, there's a lot of applause.  I have to stay after the show, to clear all our stuff out so that the next  play from the Fringe can load in for their opening, which happens one hour later.  Jack Halpin, who plays Dion, and I haul ass, get everything put in its proper place, and walk outside.  The street seems to be completely full of people- and they all cheer for us.  I come up to an actress I know, Aida Lembo, and she's crying and laughing, and she she's me and says "you're beautiful".

The show sells out its run, even with the great blackout of 2003 happening in the middle of the festival.   Nytheatre.com gives is a rave review- God bless them. On the last night, my mom flies out from California to see the show, and ends up sitting next to a critic from The New Yorker magazine, who is there not to right a review, but to check up on a new writer.  Somehow, I am on their radar.  Not sure how I got there, but I like it.  And now, the script is available online as part of Indie Theater Now, the new digital library of plays that is like the iTunes for plays.

So, like I said, I don't take success well.  But I think I can get used to it.

Lovers Leapt

So it was ten years ago that we all went crazy.  As Mr. Nelson said, ain't it funny how time slips away?  I remember a lot from that day, and the many days afterwards, being in New York, going to Union Square and seeing all the candles and flowers and people, and how people kept painting the boots on the statue of George Washington pink- which seemed very appropriate at the time.  It was a strange time to be alive.  Like most times.  Last night, I was at the Broncos game, and there were all these ceremonies going on about 9/11, and I heard a boy ask his father if we were celebrating 9/11.  It was a strange choice of words, but taking a step back, not too strange.  The ceremony had the air of celebration and spectacle, with just a pinch of gravitas strategically thrown in.  And of course, there were thousands and thousands of people chanting "USA!  USA!  USA!" over and over- which gave the whole thing a sort of pep rally feel.  It was kind of creepy.  Happily, the day before, I went to something far more interesting, and to my thinking, appropriate in regards to 9/11.

Sunday, on the tenth anniversary of the attacks, we went down to Colorado Springs to see a production of Leslie Bramm's Lovers Leapt, directed by the intrepid Scott RC Levy for for the Fine Art Center's Theatre Company, as part of a special event to commemorate 9/11.   The play is a one act, written shortly after the attacks, that brings to the stage what goes through the minds of two people as they jump out of one of the burning towers.  It's tough, and sad, and beautiful.  It's starts with their initial leap, and ends abruptly in the only way it can.  In the time between, we journey with the actors to ideas of what might have been and will never be.  If you would like to read a section of the play, or purchase it outright for less than $2, it is part of the 9/11 collection of plays offered at Indie Theatre Now.  Just go here.  The play was presented in front of a display of 9/11 art by Joellyn Duesberry, with no set to speak of, no lights or sounds- just actors, words, and heart.  I found the spartan staging to fit perfectly with the material, letting the audience imagine all the flames and smoke and horribleness from the plethora of images we seem to be inundated with every year around this time.  The performances by Steve Emily and Kara Whitney were superb- I completely believed I was watching two people falling through space, toward certain doom- which is kind of amazing when you think about it.  If this production is any indication of what Mr. Levy is going to doing with the company, I expect to be making the drive to Colorado Springs a lot.  After the show, there was a talk back, led by Mr. Levy, along with Sam Gappmayer, CEO/President of the center, and Blake Milteer, Director of the Taylor Museum.  One of the main points of the talk back, aside from comments on the show itself, was how the one question we all seem to ask each other when discussing that horrible day is "where were you", and why is it that we ask that question.  I thought about that a lot, and I think that maybe the reason we ask that question is that it is one of those moments in our lives that sticks out as a time when all facade slipped away and we faced the unknown.  I think beyond that, we have taken many different views about the attacks and what they meant- but the unifying moment, I believe, was not a wake up call to terrorism, or a justification for war, or a justification for peace- it was just a time when we all had to face death and mortality.  And it seems that most of us connect to that moment instantly when we think of it, and lose all our inhibitions and pre-supposed ideas of self, and are able to connect with one another.

Joellyn Duesberry, Memory Time Lapse

For information on more plays about 9/11 that I recommend, please go to Indie Theatre Now's 9/11collection.  And please, leave a comment about where you were, and what you thought on that day.

MUSE OF FIRE

So it's almost Valentine's, 2003, and I need to submit something to the Fringe.  The deadline is the 14th.   I had a pretty good go at the New York International Fringe Festival last summer with Last Call (added performance, Excellence in Playwriting Award, Publication in Plays and Playwrights 2003, etc.), and lots of people think I should do another one.  I  agree with them.  I really like being called a playwright, and having people read my stuff, and think I've found my life's calling.  I take Errant Muses, my unfinished play from a play writing class I took at SJSU, and dust it off.  Could I make a new play out of this old thing?  Should I?


A lot of it is pretty bad- lots of obvious exposition, two dimensional characters, and cliches.  But there is the germ of a good idea in it, so I start to tinker with it a bit.  I take the idea of two muses who are stuck working with each other but have diametrically opposed ideas of what art is about and keep the first scene, scrap most of the rest.  I make one of the muses female, and change their names from Tom and Dave to Dion (after Dionysos) and Polly (after Apollo).  And the reason I do that is because of the song Hemispheres by Rush, which I listened to a lot when I was about 13.  No lie.  In that song, Dionysos is the God of Chaos, and Apollo is the God of Order.  In the play, Dion is chaotic and loves how art makes him feel alive, while Polly is angry, and wants art to have meaning and purpose and be used to make the world a better place.

I also decide to change the title.  Errant muses just sounded clunky to me.  At the top of the show, Dion is alone in the muses apartment, reciting the prologue from Shakespeare's Henry V, the one that starts with "O, for a muse of fire...".    It hits me clear as a bell- name the play "Muse of Fire".  And so I do.

One of the great satisfactions for me is taking a play and twisting it and turning it and trying to find the magic inside- the stuff that seems to have been written by someone else, or better yet, seems to have not been written at all, but dictated by...what ever it is out there in the void, the infinite waters of mysticism.

The plot of Errant Muses was as follows- the muses are given a job, namely to help a young girl named Anne become a great writer.  She is a drama major at San Jose State University.  The muses have lost the report given to them by their superiors, which has all the details, including exactly what it is they are supposed to do- but fearing retribution, they don't tell anyone they've lost the report, head down to earth, meet the girl, figure out that she needs to fall in love with Will, another drama major.  Hilarity follows, and of course it all ends happily (and yes, I named them Anne and Will after Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare).

Also, I had just read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell.  Very cool book, and one I had wanted to read ever since I was a kid and heard that it had influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars (or as the Philistines call it, Episode 4: A New Hope).  In the book, Cambell outlines the basic hero story found in all cultures.  First, there is the young hero.  He or she gets a call to action, sometimes from a frog who comes out of the infinite waters, then there is a series of trials, then the final battle, where the hero has to sacrifice herself/himself in order to further the greater good.

I decide to incorporate the mono-myth into Muse of Fire.  The hero will have two faces, Dion's and Polly's.  The frog becomes Carlos, a god like being who calls himself the Toad of Infinite Waters.   And I start to get into it.   Writing is funny- you write and write and write some more, and it feels like drudgery, like punishment for wanting to be creative or something.  And then, all of a sudden, and usually un-noticed, you slip into the world of the story, and lose all sense of time and place and just go to that other place- then you look up sometime later, and there's page after page of story, and it's later, and you have no idea what happened and no memory of actually typing anything.

So I'm cruising along with the play, finding new characters and situations almost daily.  My mind is in the world of the play pretty much every waking moment.  I'd be a working a lunch shift at Bryant Park Grill, and in my mind I'm thinking "yes, the director will be named Cassandra- but in reverse, because she's crazy and spouts lunacy but everyone believes her!"  I ride the subway home and watch young lovers, eavesdropping and fishing for dialogue.  I read somewhere that there were nine muses in Greek mythology- so I decide there will be nine actors in the show.   I pretty much throw anything and everything I am experiencing and have experienced into the script.   I get as much done as I can, and send off the application to the Fringe.

And wait for May and notification.

To be continued...

INDIE THEATER NOW

Wheels are turning, winds are changing, and something new is coming to a computer near you- Indie Theater Now. It's basically a digital library of plays, put together by the good folks at nytheatre.com, and it will launch with a collection of over a hundred plays from the past 15 years of the New York International Fringe Festival. And I have the great honor of being part of it.

That's right, you heard correctly.

Me, goon among goons and freak among freaks is going to be part of the latest, coolest, cutting edge thing in the world of theatrical publishing.

What plays of mine will be part of this, you ask?

Last Call, Muse of Fire, and Some Unfortunate Hour.

And I have decided to give a little background on each play. What the hell.

So, first off, let me tell you about Last Call, my first full length play and probably the reason I am still writing. Back in the late 1990's, as I wandered Manhattan, lost, young, brilliant, and stupid, I one day had this idea for a scene. It sort of just popped into my head. I was down at the old Expanded Arts theatre space on Ludlow, standing next to my old friend Joe Neisen, and suddenly I saw a bunch of old buddies sitting in a particular bar I used to frequent in Salinas, CA- and I had to write down what was going on, so I cancelled that nights plan of debauchery and headed home to write up whatever it was that I saw in my head.

It was weird, but I felt compelled. So, I wrote this scene where a bunch of dudes who are sort of stuck in a rut sit around in the bar they always go to, having the same conversations they have every night, when into the bar walks their old pal David, who long ago went off to New York. He has come home to wake everyone up after having an existential crisis and coming out of it with a new found sense of life.

I know, not very original, but hey, when the iron strikes, or whatever that metaphor is, etc.

So I had a scene, and I liked it. At this point, I hadn't really written a lot- I was an actor, and writing was cool, but not what I was trying to do with my life. Although whenever I had written things, people were always pretty responsive. In fact, a few years before writing that scene, Taft Miller, one of the coolest people I ever knew in my life, said to me as he lay dying in a hospital, "Keep writing". So, I had written something. Now what? I gave a copy of it to my friend Lisa Zambetti, who at the time was working with the Turnip Theatre group, and the next thing I knew, there was a staged reading of the scene- which had grown into a one act play. The reading was great, we all had a wonderful time, and as soon as it was over, I put the play into a drawer and got on with my pursuit of lunacy on the stages of New York.

Then life got complicated, and strange, and sad, and rough. I quit drinking. My girl friend got cancer. And then 9/11 happened. Things pretty much sucked. And to top it all off, we didn't have any insurance and suddenly had a lot of bills to pay. So I took a second job on top of waiting tables, answering phones on the trading floor of J.P. Morgan. I'd get up at 5 every morning, take the subway to work, and on the week-ends work dinners at Bryant Park Grill. The average work week was about sixty hours, and I remember I stopped dreaming for a while. I'd just lay down, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, and so on. It was, to borrow a phrase, the best of times, and the worst of times- I was tired and scared and going nuts, but also supported by friends and family so much that I felt like George Bailey at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life". Minus the angel.

So there I was, working hard, floating through it all, when my pal Jack Halpin tells me one day that I should take that play I was working on and submit it to the Fringe Festival. So I printed up the application at work, printed up what there was of the play, and sent it off. And forgot about it. This was in February, 2002. Then in April, I got a letter from the Fringe saying "good news, you're in!". Which was great, except for the fact that I had said on the application that the play was going to be two acts, and that in act two there was going to be a murder, and one of the characters would turn out to be gay. None of that was true, but I thought it sounded good for the application. Oops.

It was time to get busy, because it looked like I was going to have a play produced in New York. Now, one of the good things about my office job was that for the first hour, I would watch over the phone lines and sit in front of a computer, free to do whatever I wanted. So every morning for an hour, I wrote. And suddenly my little play with 5 characters, all male, became a play with 9 characters, and 3 of them were female. And I started to dream again. In fact, a lot of the play came out of dreams I had. First, I dreamt that one of the characters kept seeing the ghost of his old girl friend. And the guy who saw the ghost was kind of crazy, and slipping in and out of reality. And it all made sense.

Next, hope theatre, inc. - the theatre company formed by my brother and sister and me- held auditions, cast the show, and started rehearsing. And that's when it got really interesting, because I discovered that with some tweaks here and some edits there, plus a few new scenes the show was not terrible. In fact, it felt like something special was happening. It helped to have so many talented people working on it. My brother Jerry was directing, my sister producing, and the cast was: Jack Halpin, Christine Goodman, Vinnie Penna, Brett Christensen, R. Paul Hamilton, J.P. Nord, Matthew Rankin, Masha Sapron, and Sara Thigpen. It was the best feeling, working on that play. It felt like I could fly. We all did. I'd rewrite a scene, bring it in, and it would be better, and we'd all look at each other like we were all part of some wonderful, powerful secret.

Then one night, I arrived at rehearsal after working a dinner shift at the restaurant, and everyone was outside, and Jerry wasn't there. This was back before cell phones were everywhere, and news took a little bit of time to get to people, but it seemed that my father was in a coma, and not expected to live long, and Jerry cancelled rehearsal. So I got a ticket to Alaska, where my Dad was, and wondered what would happen next.

To be continued...

ENIK'S CIRCLE

So Sunday, like a lot of people, I watched the Super Bowl and all of it's bonus features- the pre-show, the post-show, Bruce Springsteen- and the commercials. All of it was pretty cool- and I especially like seeing Obama having the guts to actually say he was for Pittsburgh- as opposed to some equivocating "may the best team win" baloney that you would expect from a politician- but what got me the most excited was the trailer for the new movie version of The Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell. I used to watch that show when it first came out, and I really loved it.
And I have this weird memory of a certain episode that I wasn't sure I had really seen, or only imagined or dreamt I had seen- the storyline seems so strange, so over the top for Saturday morning early 1970's fare. As the years have passed, I've become less and less sure as to whether I ever really saw the episode in question or had made it up due to an overactive imagination coupled with a fascination and fear of death.

Here's what I remember from Land of the Lost in general, and of that existential episode in particular. Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition, met the greatest earthquake ever known- and were sucked down this giant toilet bowl in granite of some sort to this place with several moons, lots of odd flora and fauna, and dinosaurs- not to mention monkey people and the dreaded Sleestack- or maybe it's Sleezstack- these bug-like lizard people who hiss a lot and don't take kindly to the Marshall clan. How the Marshall's survive in this strange world is basically the show. But that was just the beginning. Soon after their arrival, they meet Enik (whose name just happens to be the Greek word for cinema spelled backwards)- a tan looking sleeztack who can talk and is groovy and not quite so mean as his cousins- who turn out to be his descendants, as he comes from a distant past, and for some reason (like voting Republican too often) his people have become a bunch of cranky assholes. Among the cool things Enik can do is move these power crystals around in these funky little pyramids called Pylons that are all over the place. Ok- Marshalls, dinosaurs, multiple moons, monkey people, sleeztacks, and funky ass Enik. That's the general stuff about Land O' Lost.

Now the weird episode. Somehow, the Marshalls and Enik end up in this particularly powerful Pylon, and Enik is like "Hey, I have some serious shit to tell you about", and Mr. Marshall says "Oh?" and Enik is like "Yeah. It's pretty heavy. You better sit down." Picking up on the heaviness, Mr. Marshall tells Enik to give it to him straight, so Enik tells him "you don't belong here, amigo- something is all wrong with you being here". At this point, Marshall is getting pretty pissed off, and Enik can tell, so he shows him some stuff- telling him "this is not going to be so nice, but you asked for it, so here goes". Then Enik moves some crystals around, and on the screen in the Pylon they see the accident that brought them to the Land of the Lost in the first place- and Marshall gets all serious and says "there's no way we could have lived through that", and Enik goes "You didn't". Then they see the three dead Marshalls, and talk about some variation on Nietzsche and his theory of eternal recurrence. End of show.
Now that is a weird thing to have on a kiddie show- and you can see why I thought maybe I had dreamt it up.

But after seeing the trailer during the Super Bowl, I was reminded yet again of that strange episode- of how it dawned on me that the Land of the Lost was really the Land of the Dead- and I turned to Google.

Turns out it really was an episode, called Circle, written by Larry Niven and David Gerrold. It was the final episode of the first season, when they thought there wasn't going to be a season two. Oddly, the show got picked up and the whole they're all dead thing went away- but I never forgot that. I was eight when I saw Circle. Weird.

So what has that to do with things today?

Not much- except for this- I think we are kind of in a Land of the Lost right now, a crazy place where the past, the present, and the future are all happening at the same time- there are deadly dinosaurs running around in the form of greedy CEOs and senators against stimulating the economy, preserving the environment, letting gay people marry, etc.- there are Sleaze Stacks like Madoff and Cheney and Bush- who are like devolved, smelly versions of human beings-
and if we don't stop all the madness that has reigned over us for the past eight years, we'll be looking at ourselves sprawled on the side of a riverbank, realizing that we're the walking dead.

Oogie Boogie Man

We're watching the mini-series version of Stephen King's The Stand right now- the one from the early nineties, which seems like it wasn't that long ago but somehow is. How did that happen? i really don't get this whole concept of time and movement and life and death. i know that everything in the past, from the beginning of the scene i'm watching right now (Rob Lowe as Nick Andros just left the jail in Arkansas) to a million years ago are all the same distance from me- what is it that Tom says at the end of The Glass Menagerie? There is no greater distance between two places than time, or something like that. i know that to be true. However, there are these time worm-holes, powered by memory, that span that vast distance of experience in the blink of the eye. i think that as we go along in this world, we all become time travelers- occasionally popping through these portals and finding ourselves in a room that hasn't existed for fifteen years or more, talking with some people who no longer walk the same roads we who call ourselves alive do. And as we move along the highway, it happens more and more often- i'll be sitting at a wedding reception, and in the time it takes to pour some cream in my coffee, i'll go to several other wedding receptions from days that somehow have gone by, never to be seen again by waking eyes.

i just think that's weird.

i wonder what if John McCain ever time travels- if he's ever shot back to some other event in his life. i bet he does. i was watching some footage a little over a week ago- which might as well be a million years ago- and McCain was giving a speech, and some nut job in the audience yelled out "terrorist!", and McCain got this look on his face or regret, of sorrow, of "oh boy, i really did sell my soul, didn't i?"- and i think maybe he went on a little journey right then, to some other time- maybe to some moment where he learned about dignity and having a soul- like i said, it's pure conjecture. But i think it happened.

What is happening to us, as a nation? We're so full of anger and fear and sorrow, we don't know what to do. It's like the past eight years have been a variation on Captain Tripps, the man-made plague let loose on the world in The Stand, only instead of killing our bodies, this version has killed ninety-nine percent of our soul. And now, as we wander the wastelands, we have to decide whom to stand with- the Walking Dude, who caters to our more selfish, fearful half, or with Mother Abigail, who appeals to our better angels.

i have hope we will go with Mother Abigail, but it's going to require sacrifice.