I AM CACOETHES, ASK ME HOW

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.

I NOW LIKE MONDAYS AND SO SHOULD YOU

Monday comes, and is different than it used to be. Long ago and far away, Monday was the Day of Dragging My Ass; the Day of Droop; Ragnorok Here on Earth. But I think that had more to do with my bad habits and wild ways than with the day of the week. Indeed, pretty much every morning was like that. 

 

How sad was that?

We all agree life is too damn short. There is never enough time spent with loved ones, ourselves, nature, or anything really. And yet, most of us manage to gripe about Mondays, Rainy days, Hump Day, Tax Day, Turkey Day- you name it. 

In my opinion, life is too short for complaining about it being Monday. You're tired? Don't want to go back to work? Boo hoo. Grow up. Enjoy the day anyway. Here's a photo of polar bears in an abandoned weather station. Lighten up. 

So yay Monday. Hello, I love you, and let's get this week going.

I probably feel this good because I felt so crappy last week. Had a cold of some sort present itself, then got my second Shingles shot later in the week, which kicked my ass three ways to Wednesday. It was like how people getting off of heroin is presented on most tv shows and movies. Hot sweats, aches, and a bit of delirium. 

And this was a week I opened a pair of one acts, was supposed to start rehearsals for The Wedding Singer up in Conifer, as well as more performances of The Wizard of Oz down at the PACE.

Yowsa.

But enough of me and my woes. 

I want to talk a little about Dopesick, currently streaming on Hulu. It's fantastic, engrossing, tragic, uplifting, and mind blowing. It's based on the book of the same name, and is all about the Oxycontin epidemic and greed and need and human beings and all the crazy things we do. It is well written, never dull, and has some of the best actors out there doing some amazing work. Watch it. Now.

My wife wondered, after we finished the series, if maybe one of the reasons there are folks out there who are vaccine hesitant is a result of the lies that Purdue Pharma shoved down people's throats via the doctors who prescribed their poison. 

Maybe we should separate money and medicine. To paraphrase Jesus, money and the constant want of it by powerful assholes fucks up the world over and over.

Okay. That's my sermon for the day. Now I am off to work on Indie script for possible shoot in Texas this fall. More on that soon. 

Also, my production of Wizard of Oz got some good reviews. You can read them HERE and HERE.

And you can find info about the pair of one acts, which we call Dates with Death, HERE.

Oh, and about the Book of Boba Fett. Last week's episode was all about the Mandolorian, and was exquisite. A must see.

Here is today's song. It's I Don't Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats.

 

THE WORLD IS MYSTICAL AND MY COFFEE, AN ELIXIR

I get up every morning at 5:30. It's weird, but true. I used to be able to sleep all day, no problem. I was famously impossible to wake. I remember laying in bed before school upstairs at my home in San Jose, long after my old clock radio had been snoozed at least five times, and my mom yelling up that I had to get going. Now, this was early, so there was a little justification. I had a paper route, and I needed to get my ass out of bed, fold my seventy or so papers, load them into my basket attached to the front of my bike, and hit the road. But there I would be, trying to continue to sleep, my mind still at least partially connected to that deep, dark world of sleep that lies at the bottom of the ocean or the vast reaches of outer space or some other dimension that is very warm and thick. And Mom would yell up. And I would reach over the side of my bed and smack the floor with my shoes to make her think I was up and moving. 

Now I wake up before the alarm, on a daily basis. I still feel that connection to Dreamland. But I awake. And the first thing I do is put on a kettle to make a fresh pot of coffee with our French press. It may sound snooty, but as those who know me will attest, I really don't care what people have to say about my coffee habits. So I put the water on, fill of mug of cold coffee from the day before and put it in the microwave, and then sit down to write in my journal.

I find this gives me peace, joy, a sense of self. And reminds me that I am a writer. This is something I think I need to do, as often as possible. Because it is easy to not think that way. To think "I need to do A, B, and C", which are usually the mundane requirements of life like cleaning the house or paying the electricity bill, and still be able to then think "And I need to sit down at the computer for at least an hour and rework that scene, adding in what he writes in the letter to his dead dog".  Whatever A, B, and C  are, day to day, they are of course important. But not as important to me as being me, as expressing myself, writing down whatever I am thinking. I have to say "yes, I am a writer, and I need to let these things loose that are rampaging through my brain". So I write in my journal. Next, I take a long walk with my wife. Today, the sun rose against clouds, and the world was this insane color, first gold then pink then gold again. It was like being in a Maxfield Parrish Painting.

Next, I help Lisa get ready for work, then I write this blog. And that is my morning routine. I recommend it. There is something to be said for doing what makes you happy first thing. Coffee, writing, walking, nature, love, and more writing. That does not suck. I can take most of what the world has to sling at me when I am able to do those simple things.

So. Week two of Return of the Blog, and it feels right. You know how some things just feel right? How, from the moment you start, there is this sense of being where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing? I feel like that with this blog. I don't want to think about it too much beyond that, as over thinking can lead to some really bad writing, some phoney, convoluted poop. I think it was Aristotle who wrote "To over think is to create a lot of bullshit". 

He was wise.

What else? Well, had our first cast meeting for Wizard of Oz last night. Very exciting. I forget how awesome that story is, how bizarre and clean and scary and fantastical. My cast is excellent, and I feel like we are about to take an incredible journey together. Also, in two days, I head to the Austin Film Festival. Which feels to me like going to Disneyland. A whole week, focused on screenwriting and movies. Panels, pitches, parties. As Aristotle also wrote, "Fuck yeah". 

I don't know why I felt compelled to give my daily routine to you all today. Honestly, when I write this blog, I don't prep at all. I just sit down and write whatever pops into my head. Today it was my routine. Tomorrow it might be a treatise on the joys of ascribing foul language to the greats. Who knows? Only The Shadow. 

I think that's it. For the moment. Need more coffee. More music. To go over my pitches for The Belvedere Jungle, American Spirits, Burning the Old Man, and Out of the Past. I have to run errands. You know, A, B, and C.  And then I have rehearsal for Holiday Inn up at StageDoor Theatre in Conifer. That show is going well, and that place is special. Full of energy and magic. In fact, both the Scarecrow and Dorothy in my upcoming Oz are former students from StageDoor. On top of that, a Jitterbug and an Ozonian are former students from the Denver JCC. How cool is that? One of the greatest things about teaching is when your students grow up and start to excel, to work in the field you teach. It's quite amazing. As amazing as the sunlight was this morning, turning the world into a mystical experience.

On that happy note, I shall go forth. 

Here's a song. It's The Jitterbug, a song deleted from the original movie but put back in for the stage performances of The Wizard of Oz. Dance, you maniacs, dance.