Fare Thee Well, George Francis

George Francis died the other day. He was 112. He was the oldest man living in the U.S. at the time of his departure for points unknown, for that undiscovered country old Billy Bob you-know-who wrote about way back when. I think a lot about death and time and what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil- even more so around the holidays when so many ghosts of Christmas past run amok- so I took particular interest in this story about Mr. Francis and his recent demise. Here was a guy who was born when years, as counted in the western world, began with 18- as in the Nineteenth Century. Too bad he didn't get to see tomorrow and all that it will bring. But then again, 112 years is a lot of living, and that guy got to see a lot of stuff none of us will ever, unless we somehow become friends with Marty McFly and his time traveling DeLorean. If I live to be 112, I wonder what things I will see- what new wonders, what epic tragedies? I guess (and by the way, I am dropping the use of the small "i" when I say I) I've seen a lot in my days- but there's a lot I'd like to see that hasn't happened yet- like people on Mars, contact with Aliens, a feature film of The Hobbit. Yeah, I dream big.

So.

This morning, I saw the stupidest segment on the Today show- wherein this super white bread reporter was pondering whether Barack Obama is as "gangsta" as Fifty-Cent. Nothing like a bunch of honkeys trying to act street to make one want to barf. It just blew my mind that, with all that is happening in the country, with all that is riding on the upcoming presidency- this is something they choose to take the time to make an entire segment out of- how cool is Obama? Seriously, that's just lame. It was sort of like when Doctor Evil told his son Scott "I'm hip, I'm with it" and then went into a bizarre version of the Macarana.

Speaking of the new Administration, I got an e-mail the other day urging the creation of a Secretary of the Arts- which I think is an awesome idea. Here is a link with more on the subject:
www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html. I hope you all sign it, and pass it along to everyone you know- we should be the world leader in the arts, not the world slacker.

What? We don't slack? There are great things going on right here, right now?
I know, but I still think our government needs to get a better grasp of the Arts and their place in society.

Okay, that's it- my first blog of 2009- sort of rambling, but I only had one cup of coffee so far, so what do you expect?

And lest I end without at least one plug, the web site is up for Gravity and Glass, which is producing my new play Hela and Troy- here's the link:
Gravity and Glass.

So. let's all live to 113 at least, and let's all be gangsta cool the whole ride.

Cesta hořícího muže

Hi- the translated title of Burning the Old Man has changed, and I know you all would want to know that- so below is the blurb on the play. I think my new favorite word is neohipiku.

Kelly McAllister: Cesta hořícího muže

Překlad Víktor Janiš
Režie Maria Záchenská

Česká premiéra duben 2009

Dva rozhádaní bratři vyrážejí na přání nedávno zesnulého otce na cestu k místu, které si jejich příbuzný vyvolil jako místo posledního odpočinku. Uváznou těsně před cílem, v laciném hotýlku kdesi v poušti společně s barmankou, dvojicí neohipíků a rozzlobeným mužem středního věku. Putování s urnou je hořkosladká a velmi vtipná hra o smrti, nepříjemných rodinných pravdách i o plameni vášně, který dřímá v každém z nás a který může být tak snadno uhašen.

Feeling Groovy

You ever notice how life is like a bowl of chocolates? Wait a minute- i've heard that somewhere, in some strange dream that mashed up Andy Rooney and Forrest Gump. Still, it is a pretty good thing, life. Of late, i've been thinking positively. Yes, i know- what a shock. Me, thinking things will turn out well. What can i say? We live on this beautiful planet, that has birds and music and the Beatles and Obama and my wife's celestial eyes- i have never, even at times of great despair- never found this world to be anything but a miracle. So, here we are at that time of year in America when we all are supposed to think about what we are thankful for- and i thought I'd share a couple things, and then ask you all to send in things you're thankful for as well, so that we can all groove in karmic goodness.
i am thankful for this moment i had during the opening night of the play i've been working on with Watershed High up in Boulder. It was an original piece put together by the students, and was one of those shows that came together and surpassed all expectations, and was a huge success. i was in the theatre, watching the kids perform- the house was full, the play was stunning, and all the kids had this look of wondrous magic on their faces. And i thought, wow, i had something to do with getting them to that place. Cool. Thanks Universe.
i'm also thankful for my wife's encouragement with my writing. She's the education director for Clementine Art School (see link to the right), and leaves for work about two hours before i do- and often i take that time to get some writing in- being the wife of a writer who is still waiting for that big break can be rough, but she's the best. So thanks, gorgeous.
And this morning i'm thankful to Gravity and Glass Productions, who have wisely decided to include my new one act Hela and Troy in their Valentines Week-end presentation of one-acts at CenterStage in NYC. So thanks!
Yes, life is being good to me right now. i think it always is- yes, there are things that suck, like death, the current administration, etc.- but all in all, i dig it.

Change feels good

i woke up this morning feeling exceptionally wonderful- like i was about to go on a trip to Europe or had just won the Pulitzer Prize or something. i don't know why, exactly. i just feel great. Maybe i'm in the middle of a mood swing, and in reality i am in dire straits, psychologically speaking. But i don't think so. Part of it has to do with Barak Obama winning the election- no doubt. i didn't realize just how down these past eight years had gotten me until Tuesday night. It's like we all were stuck in a horrible situation and were pretending it wasn't so bad- like we were collectively the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or something. And i mean after Arthur chopped off all his limbs and he said "it's just a flesh wound." That was us every time we watched the news and some new terrible decision had been made by the Decider. "Just a flesh wound". But those days are gone. When it was announced that our long national nightmare was over, i sat there on the couch at our friends Tim and Steph's house, and had the most complete catharsis of my life- it was just insane. All these pent up feelings of joy and sorrow and hope and fear came flying out, like all those vices that flew out of Pandora's box back in the days of myth. In a nano-second, i cried, laughed, gasped, cheered, wished my mother and father could have lived to see this day, jumped up and down, and cried some more. All in a nano-second. My soul felt better- feels better- is better.
Whoopee.
i've always kind of felt like there is a specific path i am supposed to follow- like there are things i am meant to do. i know, it's magical thinking. Whatever. i still feel that way. There have been times when i've known i was in the wrong place- like when my boss at the restaurant where i worked as a singing waiter told me that if i had to shovel shit, i should be the best shit shoveler there was. No, i thought- if my job is shoveling shit, then it's time to seek other employment- which i did. Sitting there listening to that bizarre advice was a moment when i knew i had strayed from my path. Something was wrong- the world was not working the way it was supposed to. That's how i've felt ever since the nightmare in Florida that gave us the current Pretender-in-Chief. Like something was amiss. Now, there have also been times when i've known, with absolute certainty, that i was where i was supposed to be, like the day i got married. There we were in Prague, the City of Magic, saying our vows while the ancient clocked chimed and thousands of passersby cheered and took snapshots. i was where i was supposed to be, doing exactly what i was supposed to be doing, and all was well with the world.
When the election was called for Obama, i knew that the world was back on track- and that somehow, i too was on the right path.
And things are starting to click in my life. Final paperwork is being signed in Prague right now for a production of Burning the Old Man set to go up in April at Vaclav Havel's old theatre, Divaldlo na Zabradli. The latest book i'm featured in, One on One- The Best Men's Monologue's for the 21st Century, hit the bookshelves this week, and i am very proud of that- especially since it also features such stellar writers as August Wilson and Spaulding Gray. Work on the tv project about Edgar Cayce that i'm working on with my buddy Myles Reed is coming together- whole new stand alone episode set to be sent out, and i am confident some wise producer will read it and say, "yes, with the way those glorious winds of change are blowing, now is the time to green light this baby!". Oh yes, it will happen.

In short, things just rock right now.

i'm even excited to rake the leaves out back.

So thanks, Mr. Obama, for helping put the world back in order.

Going Obama in Denver

I live in a battleground state - which makes it sound like I'm in No Man's Land, and that when I look out the window I should see nothing but trenches, barbed wire, and smoke rising from machine gun nests. "Well, Lieutenant McAllister, the GOP is 40 clicks past that blasted out farmhouse- your mission is to take five of your best men and retake the district. God be with you". Instead, I look up and down my street, and I see suburbia- quiet houses, leaves falling, people out walking their dogs- you know, the usual thing conjured in most of our minds when we hear of the ubiquitous "Main Street". It doesn't feel like a battleground- it feels like America.
On Sunday, Obama gave a speech downtown, and we decided to go. It was a great day. I got up a little before 8, made coffee for myself and Lisa, and then headed downtown. Lisa and some friends were meeting me later, so I had a nice half hour stroll on a gorgeous Autumn morning. As I neared the park where the speech was going to be, more and more people appeared, walking along, smiling, drinking coffee, wearing pins and stickers and tee shirts proclaiming their support for Obama-Biden. There was this electric excitement in the air- it reminded me of what it felt like in high school when you went to a concert- an electric sense of expectation and good fortune. Several helicopters hovered over downtown, buzzing in the distance. About ten blocks from the park, I began running into volunteers telling people where to go, how to get in, and so

on.

Some on them had info on state elections- amendments, state senators, etc. My anticipation was rising, and I just felt great- I felt magic, blessed- like the Blues Brothers, I was on a mission from God.

I was going to see the next President of the United States. Oh yes, I was.

There's an area in downtown Denver called the Golden Triangle, which includes the state Capital, the new Art Museum, the Main Library, and the Civic Park where the speech was going to take place. It's one of those great places full of parks, plaza's, and noteworthy architecture. I walked along past the giant Cow statues (yes, we have giant bovine statuary here in the Mile High City), through the plaza in front of the museum, and came upon the Great Line. It stretched out from the park, then turned, circled around the library, and headed back, like a great U of humanity. I began to realize that there were going to be a lot of people.
I walked past the crowd, to see where the line started and to take it all in. Near the gates stood a solitary figure, a McCain supporter with a big sign saying Obama was a socialist. I asked him if he believed that, and he told me that he was a veteran, that he was 60 years old, and that he had never been scared of any politician before- but that Obama frightened him. He pointed at my Obama shirt and said "that guy scares me. His domestic stuff is okay, but there's no way he can lead our troops over seas." He seemed nice enough- just of a vastly different opinion than mine. Next, I walked the line, around the library, along the edge of the park, and down Colfax- one of the main streets in that section of town.
I walked through the upper end of the park, through the throngs, and came across a group of protesters. Most of them wore togas, and one of them was dressed up like a big orange cat or bear or something. I asked of them what the togas were for, and was told it signified how "Obama thinks he's all like a Greek dude, standing in front of those columns!". I asked him if he meant the columns Obama stood in front of when he gave his acceptance speech during the DNC. "Yeah," he said, "he thinks he's like Jesus or something".

"Don't you think that's a stretch?" I asked. "Yeah, totally. He's not a messiah!". I began to suspect this guy and his pals were nuts.
I walked on, and literally ran into an old friend, which I took as a sign that I was where I was supposed to be. That's me and my old pal Dan in the photo with Obama waving- we're in the middle, about halfway up the crowd. It might be hard to make us out as there were over 100,000 people in the park that day. Lisa showed up, as did our friends the Andersons- and we basked in the glow of the event. The warm up acts were Governor Ritter, Senator Salazar, the Democratic nominee for Senator Udall- lots of really great people, and we listened to them happily- but everyone was waiting for the big event- Obama. And finally, he walked out. The crowd went nuts. It really is like a rock concert to see this guy speak. He walks on stage, and it's like when Bono walked out during the Unforgettable Fire tour, way back in the eighties. Somehow, Obama (and Bono) know how to connect to a crowd. It's that X factor that people either have, or don't. Clinton had it, too- that ability to communicate. I don't know why more people don't have- but they don't. I mean, look at President Dummy- every time old George speaks, I don't feel like I've been spoken to as much as I feel like I've been lied to yet again.

After the speech, we made our way towards home, stopping for a late breakfast and to talk about the speech. Lisa and I decided to vote early, which you can do here in Colorado- and yesterday, we did just that. The voting center was packed, but we only had to wait about half an hour. I brought my passport as my means of identification, because I didn't want to have any trouble voting, and a passport is the best means of I.D. Maybe I was being over cautious, but then again, maybe I wasn't. I worry because I think the GOP cheats, that they have for at least the past eight years and that they are going to cheat this time. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that the exit polls will show a much larger margin of victory for Obama than what the precincts counts will show- not due to the mythical "Bradley effect", but due to cheating on behalf of a washed up party that is more out of touch with the public than Richard III was in Act Five. I can see it now, some GOP operative somewhere on election night, or maybe many of them, writhing about in the agony of defeat, realising that this time they just couldn't cheat their way into the White House, screaming "Another ballot box, another ballot box, my kingdom for another ballot box."

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.

And I quote...

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our selves, that we are underlings". That's from Julius Caesar, and it's one of my favorite lines from Shakespeare, and also from modern American history. See, Edward R. Murrow used most of that line while talking about McCarthyism. i remember being a young man of 14 or so and seeing some documentary about that, and i was so impressed with the whole thing- Murrow, his style, his gravitas, and his ability to quote Shakespeare like that. How cool that a quote hundreds of years old could be so pertinent to the here and now. For some reason, that moment resonated with me. i wanted to be able to quote things like Murrow did. It was the same admiration i felt for Bobby Kennedy the first time i heard a recording of the impromptu speech he gave the night Martin Luther King died and he quoted Aeschylus. There is something inherently comforting in the idea of human beings from long ago saying things that are still timely today- some sort of implied order to this chaotic world, and whenever i come across those moments of quotation, i feel like less of a quotidian. Sorry, i couldn't resist the alliteration. So, the other night, Stephen Colbert went on this riff about which Shakespearean characters the candidates resembled- and i was in heaven. First, he likened McCain to the Scottish Laird- a man of honor who loses all that is good about himself to achieve power. Then Colbert compared McCain to Prospero- a cranky old man living on an island with a creature that nobody liked (at the mention of the creature, a picture of Lieberman can on the screen). If you want to see the whole thing, go here.
What is most interesting to me, as a writer, is that i take more comfort in pertinent quotes in times of trouble than when things are going well. And right now, what with all that's going on economically, politically, and environmentally, you have to admit things are pretty scary. Yet, old quotes make me feel better. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". Ah, Yes! Thank you Mr. Dickens! "May you live in interesting times"- oh, damn you old curse. "These are the times that try [peoples] souls." Amen. We need to know that others have been through something similar to what we have gone through- it's comforting. It's human. In fact, it seems to me that what truly gives comfort to most of us in the hard times are the humanities- music, poetry, stories- and of course love. All those material things we have sort of lose their stature- I mean, when you read about the stock market crashing, do you go out and stare at your car and think "boy, it's all right- I've got a hybrid!"? No- it's when you remember something you heard once in a story, or said by someone you loved or looked up to, that you start to feel okay.
Okay, I feel a little rambly right now- what I mean to say is just this- money really can't buy you shit, in the long run. Money is a lie, a made up system for trading stuff that can vanish far quicker than a dream you have in those last minutes of sleep after you've already hit the snooze button. And unlike that dream, which may come back to you from time to time, when money goes- it's gone. Poof.
So, here's your assignment for today- think of some quote- it can be from a song, a movie, a poem- whatever- that somehow relates to you at this very moment in time. Say it out loud. Carry it with you for the day. Share it with someone. And wonder and how great and mysterious it is to be a human being.