I get a lot of emails. I suppose we all do. Most are semi-junk from sites I sort of follow, with updates, headlines, things to buy and so on. This morning, I got one from The Hollywood Reporter that sort of made me laugh and cringe at the same time. "The Batman Will Still Open in Russia, But What Will Happen Next?" was the subject line.
Fucking weird.
I immediately had this vision of The Batman in Moscow, hunting Putin down and bringing him to justice, hauling him off to Arkham Asylum to hang with The Joker and The Scarecrow and Killer Croc.
Then my mind went to Zelensky being The Batman, a crime fighting super hero with no super powers other than determination and a sense of what is right and wrong.
And I dug that thought.
Things are crazy, but also clarifying, I think, right now.
Thanks Vlad.
There are a few things that are clear.
Invading a country because you are a dickhead is bad.
Want of money and power lead people to do evil things to one another.
We are always at our best when things are at their worst.
Always.
I check the headlines of the NY Times, HuffPost, Apple News, and The Washington Post almost hourly, dreading and expecting to see that Ukraine's Batman is dead.
But so far, that hasn't happened.
Instead, I read about women in their 60s making Moltov Cocktails. And road signs being changed to read "Go Fuck Yourself " in Russian. And about that garrison of soldiers who told the Russian Navy to Go Fuck Itself.
Seems that Go Fuck Yourself is sort of a new national slogan. Maybe international.
I picture Zelensky/Batman, in his confrontation with Vlad the Invader, telling him to Go Fuck Himself before kicking his ass.
I am finding this whole situation, this invasion, somehow inspiring. Giving me new found hope in humanity, in resistance, in glory and honor.
This is how you treat a bully. This is what you do to people who want to destroy the world we all share for short sighted and selfish ends.
This is what is means to be a hero.
Okay. Off to the races. Here's a song. It's The Captain by Guster.
Ah, Friday. End of the week, even if you work all week end. It just has that feel to it. And yet, work work work. I'm feeling a little tired, a little cranky, and little in need of a little more coffee.
And also need to stop using the word little, at least for the next few paragraphs.
I listen to a lot of podcasts of late. Mostly about screenwriting. There's a lot out there. Some are better than others, some resonate, while some just come off as people trying to sell me something.
My favorites, in no particular order, are The Screenwriting Life; ScriptNotes; On Story; and Write Your Screenplay. They each have a distinct tone, and I often find what they have to say useful for my writing. On top of that, the hosts are funny, smart people who I enjoy listening to as they discuss the craft and also the day to day business of being alive.
The Screenwriting Life (TSL) the other day had an episode that included the all important idea of being able to say "Fuck it". When you are nervous. When you're shooting for the stars. When you're playing baseball, or pitching an idea, or basically taking any sort of risk.
Great advice, something I have found works. It's not always easy to do, and fear is relentless. There is always a reason to doubt, to remain silent, to shut down. Most often, those reasons are bullshit, but there they are, manifested in our imagination and quite unwilling to leave peacefully.
But somehow, when we manage to say Fuck It and go for whatever it is, those fears crumble, dissipate into mist, and vanish, and we stand there, amazed at ourselves for having taken that risk, and feeling like that was way easier than we thought it would be.
I don't always manage to say Fuck It. But I try.
Today, I have a rather big Zoom meeting with some important folks about funding a new theatre project that would be a dream come true. I don't know what will come of the meeting, but I am fairly certain that one of the main reasons it's happening is because I said Fuck It, and pitched the idea to one of the theatres I work at, and then to a friend with connections, and so on. And then I have another Zoom meeting. about another theatre venture going up this summer as well. That one is the result of a writer I know who also decided to say Fuck It and get his play produced.
Fortune favors the bold, and those who say Fuck It.
Yes, Fuck is a bad word, and throws some people off. That's why I usually say it to myself in my head, and not out loud.
Sometimes it slips out. I have a habit of blurting out what's on my mind, and I think that might upset some folks. But it's how I'm wired, and has been since I was a kid. In fact, one of the first big Fuck Its I said was when I first stood up to my step-father, a very sad man who happened to be an alcoholic and quite scary when he drank.
It was scary. I think I had simply reached a point where if he killed me, I didn't care. I just couldn't take it anymore.
Happily, most Fuck Its don't involve risking your personal safety, and I am not saying it's a good thing to say when you're on the Golden Gate Bridge and wondering if you could survive jumping off. That's not saying Fuck It. That's saying I'm Crazy.
Don't do that.
Do take risks. Even if you think you will fail.
Say Fuck It this Friday. Tell that person you like them. Tell your boss they need to give you a raise. Apply for that better job. Have that Zoom meeting. Have two.
Just say Fuck It. Life is too short not to swear in public now and then.
Here's a song. It's Salute Your Solution by The Raconteurs. I dig it.
I did something last night I haven't done in forever. I went and saw a movie for a second time at a theatre. It's been ages since I've done that. Way longer than just before the pandemic. Time was, once, I would see a movie I liked at least twice in the theatres. And not just Rocky Horror or Star Wars. All sorts of movies. Time, Tide, habit and life have a way of changing, metamorphing on a constant basis, and that's cool. I am not bemoaning time lost or anything like that. I just haven't gone to a flick twice in forever, and it was nice.
The film in question was The Worst Person in the World, which I first watched at the Austin Film Festival. I loved it there, and I loved it last night. Watching a film twice, in a fairly short amount of time, is a trip. First off, the second viewing seems shorter than the first. Sort of like how when you drive somewhere always feels longer the first time, and gets shorter and shorter each successive drive. Second, you notice all the background stuff more, the scenery, the extras, the music. I really noticed the plot progression, how each scene is instrumental to the main characters journey, which felt so spontaneous the first time. The story still rang true, but I was just able to dissect it a bit more during the watching this time around.
I am a sucker for story. I often sort of transport into the world of whatever movie I'm watching, and suspend my disbelief immediately. As such, structure, theme, tone, all is something I ponder afterwards, because during the story I am too caught up in the moment.
I wonder if that is how we are all approaching life now, two years into a pandemic that literally shut down pretty much everything and had all of us stuck inside our homes, pondering the greater things like life and death and what is worthwhile and what is not.
I think that's one of the reasons there are worker shortages for shitty jobs. When you realize that life is indeed short, and not in some stupid Nike commercial sort of way but in the here and now, it makes it harder to take some stupid, low paying job doing mind numbing work. Not that those sort of jobs aren't okay to take, indeed necessary at times. It just puts them in perspective. Makes it easier to say the glorious words "I quit".
I've also found it easier to make decisions about spending money, taking trips, visiting friends, speaking my mind, telling people I love them.
There are a lot of things I appreciate more, ever since the Covid.
Like seeing movies a second time at the theatre, instead of waiting for it to hit HBO or Amazon.
Someone once said there is only now. Ever.
True that.
So as we slide into the next phase- I was about to say slide back to normalcy, but stopped because we aren't going back. What happened to all of us happened. We are not the people we once were, and nothing can change that.
I suppose that's always been the case, but it seems clearer now.
At least it does to me.
So here's to more second viewings, to quitting jobs that suck, to hugging more often, to taking walks and phone calls and actually reading the New Yorker magazine and local newspaper and that book you were supposed to read in high school but never did, to writing long birthday card inscriptions, to calling old friends out of the blue.
To doing all those things that make being alive worth being alive.
Here's a song. It's Waters of March, by Art Garfunkel. Yeah, Art Garfunkel. I know. See, I even listen to a song by Garfunkel without Simon. If that's not a sign of change, I don't know what it.
It's Valentine's Day. Day of love and chocolate and cards and kisses. And that is far out and groovy. I hope you all get some love, give some love, and bask in the glow of being alive in a world with other humans, music, theatre, movies, nature, and your own sweet self.
We are magic, strange beings, but I think we have potential.
I love the human race. I really do.
I also find it very trying at times.
We do so many contradictory, fucked up, glorious things, on a regular basis.
I often think of think of the opening monologue of my play Some Unfortunate Hour, where this guy named Tom bemoans the world, saying there are two choices for him: either be Asshole Happy Clown, who expects the worst from humanity and often gets it; or Idiot Sad Clown, who holds out great hope and is continually heartbroken.
Of course, there is a secret, third clown.
The Balanced, Brilliant Clown.
That clown knows that we have our flaws, and a long history of terrible decisions. But she also knows that there is knowledge gained by those experiences. She knows that evolution is slow, but always happening. She doesn't believe in science. She knows science. She doesn't believe in magic. She is magic. She has found the great key to dealing with her fellow human beings: forgiveness.
And she is smart enough to know that forgiveness does not mean giving cruelty a free pass, or sitting idly by while atrocities are committed.
She is a warrior, a healer, and a mystic.
She is the Third Clown, and she is your spirit guide, waiting in the wings for you to make your entrance.
I use the metaphor of waiting in the wings because it fits, but also because I took a really cool photo yesterday at the final performance of The Wizard of Oz I directed down at the PACE with my company Sasquatch Productions. There was this kid in the show who would watch as much of the show as she could when she wasn't on stage as a munchkin and/or poppy. She just loved the show so much, felt the magic so strongly, that she had to soak in as much as she could.
I would often see her, standing in the wings, reveling in the glory of being backstage during a performance, experiencing fully the show. So I took this photo:
There's a bit of the Third Clown in that. Hope and mystery and wonder.
So Happy Monday, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Third Clown Day.
If you feel so inclined, you can find the whole monologue, plus a few more of mine, in Contemporary Monologues for a New Theater, by clicking HERE.
I am off. Scripts, productions, and a house to clean this glorious day.
Here's a song. It's the English Beat doing a cover of Smokey Robinson's Tears of a Clown.
I don't understand inflation all that much. Or the economy in general, really. Seems like people work, they get paid, they buy things they need, and things they don't, and live their lives. And behind that, there are these powerful companies and individuals who control a lot of it. Banks, Oil companies, Big Pharma.
I like money, but I think some people love it more than anything else. Or think they do. Maybe they just think that having enough money will fill in that empty spot in their heart or soul of being or whatever you want to call it. Which is sad, really. Paying the bills and having food and shelter and being able to take a trip now and then is awesome, but I don't need a million dollars, five houses, a private island, or anything like that.
Besides, even if I had any of that, I'd still be mortal. I'd still be able to hear music, feel the wind on my face, experience loss and sorrow, and die.
We are all in the same boat, and no amount of money can fix that.
Ever.
And yet, we keep on trying to pretend otherwise.
We pretend a lot, I think. We pretend we are immortal. That big government don't work due to their size, but that somehow huge corporations work due to their size.
Because Capitalism.
I've always felt that capitalism, like communism, doesn't work because all systems that have people in the are subject to corruption.
Maybe there is a system for running the world that works but I haven't seen one yet.
And now we have global warming and pandemics and who knows what else on the way?
So what do we do?
Freak out about inflation.
Yay us.
From what I do understand, inflation is the result of too much spending, leading to high prices.
Which sounds crazy. I would think that is things are getting sold, those who sell said things would be happy. But no. Prices go up as things get sold, so wages need to increase, interest rates go down, and fingers get pointed.
And we are all still alive, still here, still working the same jobs, leading the same lives.
I will be honest.
I don't give a shit about inflation.
Or the Dow Jones.
Or banks or fast food chains or the minimum wage.
I like animals, arts, and people.
I also love theatre, movies, and teaching.
So that's what I do.
Here's a song. It's the Beatles doing Can't Buy Me Love, as seen in the great film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester.
PS- I watched the film "Oh, God" from 1977 the other night. It's fucking awesome. Watch it and feel good about the world.
When I was a kid, there was Star Wars. I saw it 21 times at the movie theatres. It changed my life.
And then there was the Star Wars Christmas special, a bizarre concoction of crap and schmaltz, with characters thrown into the mixer.
For the most part, it really sucked.
A lot.
For starters, the first chunk- and by chunk I mean 15 minutes that seemed like an eternity- had nobody speaking anything but Wookie language, and doing nothing but hanging out at their Wookie house doing such exciting things as cooking, walking around, and trying to seem cute but coming off as annoying and kind of brain dead.
I was used to this sort of thing on TV. Back then, there was all sorts of stupid shit on television. And even if something was good, given time, TV had a way of making it terrible.
The one cool thing on that baffling special was this short cartoon of Boba Fett, a character we hadn't seen before, as this was before The Empire Strikes Back. Boba was mysterious, cool, not really good or bad or ugly. Just tough as hell.
And he rode a space dragon thing.
It was awesome, and the only think we spoke of at Rogers Junior High the next day. Junior High is what we had before there were Middle Schools. It was 7th and 8th grade only, and sort of a Lord of the Flies kind of experience we all had to go through before the slightly lesser pain known as High School.
Boba Fett has always been a mix of awesome and suck, from the first time I saw him. Now, after that special, there came Empire, which was amazing and awesome and is considered by many to be the best Star Wars movie ever made.
And then came Return of the Jedi.
Good, but not great. It had some amazing stuff, to be sure. But it also had C3P0 kind of break dancing with Ewoks.
Ewoks are the Cabbage Patch Kids of the Star Wars universe. Evil and wrong.
And Boba had this stupid, ignominious death right at the top that was disappointing, anti-climatic, and as full of suck as anything I've ever seen on screen.
It seems like the current TV show is trying to carry on that tradition of combining awesome with suck. Some of it is fantastic, exciting, new and brilliant. And some of it is hackneyed, dull, and unimpressive.
And they still kill off the wrong characters in really boring, anti-climatic fashion. Yes, there are some fabulous episodes (5 & 6 being my personal faves); but there are also some that just don't do anything for me but wish and hope it's all a bad dream.
Maybe this is good.
Maybe that mix of joy and disappointment, of rapture and frustration, has helped prepare me for the ups and downs of this world.
Maybe.
But it would be nice to have it all be Empire.
Here's a song. It's the Jefferson Starship performing Light Up the Sky, as seen in the Star Wars Christmas Special. I'm sorry.
I get up every morning and go through my eternal list of emails. I get so many updates, ads, pleas for money from various causes, it takes a good five minutes to delete them all.
I don't read them. I just delete. Even so, I have over 95,000 unopened emails in my inbox. And that's just the gmail one.
That's kind of sad. All these unread messages.
Sometimes, I take a few minutes and try to clean up old messages, deleting page after page. It's a fool's errand, I know. But still I do it. I am not sure why.
One of those emails I get but mostly ignore is my daily word. I opened today's, a rarity, a sign I suppose that I got a good night's sleep and woke up feeling energized and ready to take a long walk, eat the right things, get in at least two hours of writing on the new screenplay, and answer the emails I actually do open and need to get to.
And the word today is cacoethes, which roughly means the urge to do things you maybe shouldn't.
That word describes my first thirty three years of life this time around.
At least, that's how I am choosing to interpret it. Though I supposed it could mean urges to do really stupid things like stick your hand in the garbage disposal to see if this reality is actually reality or merely a dream a butterfly is having in some other dimension. Or pick a fight with Cad Bane.
But the way that word resonated with me was in reference to things I have done and survived. Like jumping from one building to another six stories up while at a theater party, or running across a freeway in the wee small hours of the morning after another theatre party.
You know, a lot of my past poor decisions were made at or after theatre parties.
What was that urge? I think a desire to keep life exciting, to seek a reality slightly more exciting, more real, less dull. And yet, those were things that could have killed me. Was I defying death itself? Or embracing life?
I don't know.
But I do know what it means to feel the urge to do crazy things.
In my experience, they've all paid off. My wife always says "leap and the net shall appear".
I've leapt a lot.
This past week, I closed a production of two one acts, one by me and one by Shannon Brady, a former playwriting student who is just amazing.
This was in the middle of putting up a huge production of Wizard of Oz down at the PACE with my company Sasquatch Productions, rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Logan School, casting and beginning rehearsals for The Wedding Singer up at StageDoor, as well as beginning a production of Chamber of Secrets for young actors up at Reel Kids. And beginning prep work for another new play called Puerto Rican Nocturne.
Holy shit, I do a lot of theatre.
And I am writing the aforementioned new screenplay, as well as getting ready for a new draft of another.
And I feel like I am living well. Doing what I am supposed to be doing. Living. Writing. Directing. Teaching.
I am absurdly lucky. And all it takes is listening to the mad voices, the ones that say "go ahead, write it", or "add a wizard's duel for the witches"; or "yes, take on yet another show".
I am not interested in life without these things.
The One Acts, under the title Dates with Death, sold out three of four shows, and got very positive feedback. Oz is selling out every show, and has one more week end. The scripts are coming together and there is a very good chance the new one will be shot this fall.
There are plenty of things that suck in this life. But taking risks is not one of them.
Here's a song. It's The Legend of Xanadu by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, & Tich. It captures how I feel sometimes. Absurd, joyous, insane.
Ah, Meatloaf, we hardly knew ye. And there's a rumor on the electric wind that you died of Covid. And now there are all sorts of weird back and forths about whether or not the album Bat Out of Hell is some seminal happening or a blight on the aural landscape.
For those who don't know, Meatloaf was a singer/actor who died recently. Long ago and far away he had an album called Bat Out of Hell, full of songs by a guy named Jim Steinman, that was very huge. The most famous song on it is Paradise by the Dashboard Light. He also played Eddie in the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show. For that alone, attention must. be paid.
I first came to him not from that huge album of 1977, but at Cinema 150, on Camino Royale in Santa Clara, in 1979. That was the year my brother took me to Rocky Horror for the first time. And the second. And third. And on and on. In my mind, we went every week end that entire year. I was all of thirteen, navigating eighth grade in your average American dysfunctional home. Which seems to be what most kids were doing at the time. Rocky Horror was scary, exciting, and liberating. I felt at home going to that movie. Nothing was taboo, everyone seemed cool with everyone else, regardless of how they looked or dressed, and I was accepted as I was.
And on Cinemo 150s huge screen, along with Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon and Richard O'Brien and Little Nell and Barry Bostwick and that narrator with no fucking neck was this chubby biker dude who came out of a frozen sort of suspended animation to sing a song about Saturday night, only to get axed, literally, by Frankenfurter.
This was my introduction to Meatloaf.
It was glorious.
Years went by, and suddenly I was in High School and there was this thing called MTV, which showed music videos, and since this was a new format, we got lots of old vidoes at first. And one that seemed to be in heavy rotation was Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Very awesome, dirty, cool. Some of my more musical purist friends spoke of Meatloaf with disdain, but I liked the song. It didn't change my life or anything, but it was fun.
More years go by, and I am out of college and seeing a gal who was going to UC Santa Barbara, and while waiting for her to get out of class, I went to a matinee of Wayne's World, and there was Meatloaf, playing a bouncer in a club. I watched that movie a lot. Not as much as Rocky Horror, but a lot.
So Meatloaf again had a presence in my life, now as a sort of has-been showing up in the movies.
And then, in the summer of 1993, I took an extended road trip with my brother, and at some forgotten gas station bought a cassette of Bat Out of Hell, and played that sucker over and over, across Arkansas, over to Graceland, up to Chicago, and on to NYC.
And I realized that the album was pretty fucking great. A pop album, yeah, and a bit juvenile, but there was a kind of glory in that unvarnished teen age angst and lust. I would play it from time to time, and some of my friends would smirk, roll their eyes, or worst of all, ask me if I could play something else.
More years go by, and then Meatloaf and Steinman get back together and make Bat Out of Hell II.
Now that sucked. It was like they wanted to make an album that was as stupid and shallow as some had said their first effort had been.
And they succeeded.
I think the last big thing I remember Meatloaf doing was sing the National Anthem in what I hope was a drunken stupor and not just where he was, singing wise, for a rally for Mitt Romney during the latter's run for President.
I think about that moment from time to time. Here was this guy who at one time had a multi-million selling album, a dude who was in the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show, who I later learned was in the original cast of the musical Hair, standing in front of a crowd, singing horribly in honor of a man who bore a striking resemblance to that neckless narrator from Rocky Horror.
What a downfall. Or so it seems to me. Who knows, really? Maybe that's what he wanted to do. To make bad follow up albums trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. To support what seems to have been the polar opposite of what he stood for in his youth. To become the butt of far too many jokes.
I don't know.
I do know I loved him in Rocky, and I still listen to Bat Out of Hell from time to time.
Here's a song. It's Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Crank it up.
This morning, I am thinking about Rudy Giuliani, and how as a character in a play he is quite interesting. Here is this public figure, who was given this global spotlight at a very dramatic time. He could have become some kind of political super hero, a person who through this horrific experience finds complete moral clarity and salvation, and then uses his powers for good.
Sort of a political Spiderman.
But when his chance came, after Uncle Ben gets killed by the crook he let run by, Rudy doesn't connect the dots. Doesn't realize that with great power comes great responsibility. No. Instead, he tries to join the Sinister Six. But he can't even get into that group of super baddies, because he instantly loses his super powers.
I am thinking of him and his odd fall from momentary grace because of two things. First and foremost, he is in the news a lot thanks to his trying to help the former Lunatic-- sorry, former President -- steal the last election. A lot. He actually wanted to overturn a democratic election in the land of E Pluribus Unum. I always thought that when someone tries to stand for Law and Order, they should do just that. Stand up for the law. And order. But no. Rudy just wanted to keep his buddy in power, regardless of who actually won.
He wanted to cheat.
A lot.
And thus, became more of a joke. And man, what a joke. Hair dye running down his head during a press conference. Farting on mic during a hearing. Holding that other presser in front of that run down warehouse. You can't make this shit up. It's too weird. Too on the nose, to use screenwriting speak.
Besides his clear involvement in the attempt to kill democracy in America, I am also thinking of Rudy, who I think looks more and more like Nosferatu, because of the series Dopesick, which is where I learned that shortly after 9/11, he became a lawyer for Purdue Pharma. He decided, after being declared America's Mayor, to represent a company that pushed some very addictive and not good for you drugs, through lies and more lies, into the mouths of millions of his fellow Americans.
What a dick.
What a sad, pathetic, waste of space dick.
I lived in NYC when 9/11 happened. I did not think he was a good mayor. He was clearly in bed with landlords and corporate interests. He pursued laws against small time crime, but was never that good going after corporate goons.
Then that horrible day came, and he stood up. Briefly. And became a true leader.
It didn't last long, but he had a shot, a chance to wash his hands of his past imperfections and become something better.
And he didn't.
He failed.
How sad.
So, on this Tuesday, I am going to try and remember old Rudy, how he failed when opportunity knocked, and do my best to not make the same kind of mistakes if I am lucky enough to be given a chance to do something good.
Here's a song. It's Rudy Can't Fail, by The Clash.
