Bigezbear

Another Op'nin'

2013-05-18T11:06:00.000-05:00

I dragged myself out of the house last night and went to a play. Or should I say I went to a musical comedy? Or an extended live-action cartoon with real animation thrown in for good measure? Or a clown show? Or a classic Greek or Roman farce?

Well, it was all of those things, a revival of Crimes Against Nature: A Love Story, a show first produced in 2008 at the Backyard Ballroom on St. Claude Avenue. Now it’s running for three weeks at the Allways Lounge and Theatre where it’s bigger than it was before, and everybody in town should go see it. It’s the kind of show New Orleanians love: raucous, sexy (sexy? no, say downright pornographic), funny as hell, and kind of heartbreaking.

There’s a story behind it, but it’s not required that you know it to enjoy the spectacle. The music is by Ratty Scurvics, and I hope he puts together a cast album. The songs are keepers. The show itself, written by downtown legend Otter, is well-built and sturdy. It even answered my nagging question: Why is that woman wearing shoes that are way too big for her feet?

The cast consists of Otter (when you write the script, you get to pick your part) as Gaye Daye. Dennis Monn directed and doubles as Happy Daye. They are supported by Dahktur Sick (an evil clown, meant to terrify the child in all of us, and he did me), Thugsy DaClown (a classic clown, which means he is very funny and also poignant), and Veronica Belletto (who gives me the distinctly guilty [and damp] pleasure of conjuring in my mind the specter of Myra Breckenridge—I’ve begun having dreams of the tortures she could put me through...if only).

Don’t let any of them scare you though. They’re the sweetest kind of people you would ever want to meet offstage.

So get off your butts and go see ‘em.

They’re running the show for three weeks with performances on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays, 8:00 PM sharp. Tickets are $15 on the weekends and $10 on the Mondays, so you can’t say you can’t afford it.

Support New Orleans’ alternative theatre. It’s where the action is.

It Ain't Easy in the Big Easy

2013-05-13T09:10:00.001-05:00

Bobby and I went out to our neighborhood bar yesterday afternoon to wish the bartender, a friend of ours, a happy birthday. I was going to write about how our little watering hole has changed into a tawdry tourist joint, catering to the worst proclivities of our world-travelling visitors.

I was going to write about ordinary men and women getting sloppy drunk on cheap booze at rock-bottom prices and carrying on in ways that would get them arrested if they did these things at home.

I was going to write about how they get loud and pushy, and how they circle the bar so no locals can belly up to it to buy a drink, and about how their perfumes and colognes dry my throat and nasal passages, forcing me to honk like the Aflac duck.

I was going to write about all that, but by the time we got home, there was something real to think about.

It seems a gunman opened fire on a crowd second-lining in celebration of Mother’s Day.

The shitass wounded nineteen people, two of them children ten years old. This is fucked up.

Almost immediately, the police were on television discussing statistics that illustrate the area where this shooting occurred is a high crime area. “Nothing to see here, keep moving on.” The implication being that my French Quarter neighborhood is safe, that the Uptown neighborhoods are safe, that Mid-city is safe, that the Lakefront is safe.

This is bullshit.

Nobody is safe when one person has to walk the streets in jeopardy.

The city government has become a money-grubbing corporation, insensitive to the life-sustaining needs of its indigenous population. “You got money? Throw me some, mister, and we’ll all live together on Easy Street.” The police force is made to proactively issue citations instead of preventing crime. They might investigate a beating, a knifing, or a shooting after the injury or death has occurred, but they are not present and visible to give pause to a thug, except maybe in that area encompassing the first seven blocks of Bourbon Street so sacred to tourists with money to piss away.

Citizens are beginning to fight back against their attackers and are being hailed as heroes. But how long will it take before one of these “heroes” gets taken down himself and dies in a pool of blood on a city sidewalk?

Oh, wait, that already happened.

As for yesterday’s event, NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas is telling the news media they had a “full complement of police officers” at the parade, and still it happened.

And, in keeping with the times we live in, here’s a video of the crime as it occurred:

It used to said if there were only two people left in New Orleans, they would have a parade. One would march, the other one would run behind, shouting, “Throw me something, mister!”

Today, if there were only two people left standing in New Orleans, they would still get together and throw a parade. One would march. The other would shoot him.

An Anniversary

2013-05-05T10:04:00.000-05:00

Today is their anniversary—if you can call it that. They can’t get married where they live and probably won’t be around to see the day when each can make an honest person of the other. So instead, they commemorate the day they met cute thirty-seven years ago, when the one began to court and woo the other until he gave in and they made a home and life together.

That life has had its peaks and valleys, as have all lives; but they go on, holding each other up and seeing the world through shared eyes. They know they haven’t had it as tough as some, and for that they are grateful. If happiness exists, they’ve felt its breeze.

They still laugh. They still fight. They lose patience with each other. Then they laugh some more. They seem to laugh more—and more easily—with each passing year. They make do. They look after each other. They care for each other.

They have no secret to reveal that would explain their longevity, no words of wisdom to impart. They simply stayed together through those years, seeing no reason to uncouple, and now they will see it through to the end.

Maybe it was just love, after all.

Plenty of Nuthin—A Stream of Consciousness

2013-05-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

I’ve been bad.

Oh, not “salacious” bad. Or “New Orleans” bad (which is just “salacious” bad with some spices stirred into the pot). Or even “evil” bad.

I’ve been “lazy” bad.

I get up in the morning, and it seems that by noon, I haven’t done anything.

I mean I get up in the morning, and I don’t even want to do anything.

I recently joined Netflix because I can’t watch anything on television since Bobby’s been fixated on the Jodie Arias trial running on HLN since January (!). But when I go onto Netflix, I find I don’t even want to spend the time it would take to watch an 87-minute movie. When I force myself to try, I end up looking at my reflection in the monitor in the black portions of the screen or glancing out the window at the brick wall outside my balcony, thinking to myself, why don’t Brad and Angelina come back home? I miss the sound of children laughing and squabbling on the other side.

Of course, I’m only imagining the sound of children laughing and squabbling because I never really heard those kids. At their tender ages, they’ve already learned to not make outside noises since it will only attract the paparazzi or potential kidnappers—or that loony lady who’s been trying to get her screenplay to Angelina since they bought the property.

So I don’t do much a’ nuthin’.

I’m neglecting the few friends I have.

I don’t show up at their birthday parties. I never write. I never phone. I never text. I’m hardly ever Facebooking any more.

I’m not even reading books. I started reading that book written by the service station attendant who used to supply randy guys and gals to the Hollywood stars back in the glory days following Word War II. But I’ve let it slide.

The only thing I do do is drive Bob around when he wants to go out, and that kind of drives me nuts. He never plans a route. He dreams up places to go on the fly, and I hate that.

He’s been cranky lately, too, and I don’t like that either.

I get my revenge by letting him sleep late.

Of course, that just means I have nothing to do by myself.

I haven’t been looking in on my friends’ blogs in over a month. What amount of time does that take? A few minutes here and there? Leave a comment? Not even a minute. But do I? No.

So what do I do? Just sit around the house with my arms folded.

Whoa! My coffee’s gotten cold. I should go down and run it through the microwave.

In a minute...

Hmm, it's clouding over.

On My Feet

2013-04-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

When I was little, I thought feet were gross.

I was a strange kid.

Or maybe it was just that all the feet around me were old, and mine were rubbery and unlined. There was a wide gap between my little-kid’s feet and my teenaged brother Russell’s feet that smelled of high school and our parents’ gnarled and scaly feet that I believed should always have shoes around to cover them.

This idea didn’t change for a long time.

When I was old enough to check out library books, I would immerse myself in art books covering the classical period and the Renaissance. These were also the only books featuring naked people that I could take home at my tender age. And I did what every kid since time began has done: I compared my body and its parts with those designed by the likes of Praxiteles, Leonardo, and Michelangelo.

I sure didn’t know anybody who looked like those people, and nobody I had ever known had feet like theirs!

Eventually, I discovered Dance in America and beautiful feet on television. Here were real, living people who seemed to have feet that were as perfect as feet should be. In college, I got to know dancers, and I got to see their feet.

They were gross.

They were misshapen, buniony, calloused, and flabby. When these dancers walked barefoot, they waddled like ducks. So much for dying swans.

I was becoming reconciled to my belief that feet were ugly.

Some years later, here in New Orleans, I allowed myself to be seen barefoot one time, and someone scanned my feet and said they looked like claws. I was mortified.

But then a friend of mine who owned a shop called Gargoyles on the corner from where I live asked me to photograph some women’s shoes he was selling. I told him I would try but that I didn’t really get into that, did he have any leather harnesses, vests, or jackets instead that needed to be advertised as well? He did! He would let me shoot the whole works.

Of course, the shoes were outrageous. They possessed impossibly high heels, soles that were inches thick, in colors Mother Nature would only paint on Amazonian birds or Asian snakes.

They were gross.

But then I started to see the structure, the way they were built. And they really were built. They were constructed. Those impossibly high heels weren’t so high when coupled with the thick soles. And the ankles were held tight with straps or leather uppers.

They were not gross.

What they were was sexual. They were come-ons.

Feet? Used for sexual attraction?

I guess, that was when I really started looking at feet, studying them to try to find out what it was that could catch and hold the attention of an onlooker.

I began to realize that my earlier perception of feet had been but a perception of their surfaces. I had never considered their form and function. And that was where their beauty lay.

That person who had told me I had feet like claws? Well, maybe he was right. But where do you find claws? On birds, whose natural place is in the air. And their claws? Their claws come into play when they light to rest on the precarious branches of trees.

Now I look at peoples’ feet as if they were cornerstones.

I look at mine, too, nowadays, and see that they have served me well.

My big toes are thick and bullish with wide nails. I’ve inherited them from people who once pushed plows behind oxen through muddy furrows. My second toes, the long ones, are the truly claw-like ones. They bend and dig into the surface I am walking on and push me forward. The third toes coyly turn away from the second toes at their tips, but at their bases, they support those second toes. The fourth toes flay away to act as columns keeping me from tipping to the left or right. And my little toes? As far as I can tell, they are simply there to still cry “wee, wee, wee all the way home” and keep me in touch with that once-upon-a-time little boy I once was.

The soles of my feet are tough and calloused from the years I have spent standing upon them, walking on them, running with them.

They aren’t pretty, my feet, but they are rugged. They enjoy a form and function I have come to appreciate, and I can detect an awesome beauty in them today. They are the particular result of billions of years of particles scattering through space, creating blazing stars and spinning planets before pausing for a tiny moment to shape the parts of this body I inhabit.

My feet, you see, like yours, were fashioned by God. So they are good.

And they are beautiful.

Stages

2013-04-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Photograph by Becky Plexco, Enigma Arts Photography

One day last week, while sweeping leaves, I chanced to glimpse a face looking at me from the brick wall that constrains my patio. It was a face that had been molded by years, much like clay is kneaded by a sculptor, his thumbs gouging hollows for the eyes, the heels of his hands pushing the contours of the putty in below the place where the cheek bones ride until they deepen and sink into shadow, finishing it off by etching cross-hatches into the surface with his tools.

That face was the reflection of my own face staring back at me from a cast-off mirror I had found on the street and hung up on the wall, and I saw that I was old.

I had never imagined I would become an old man. That’s not to say I expected to die young. I never led the kind of life that implied an early death. But neither had I reckoned on the changes life and years would scratch upon my surface.

The face was not unpleasant. There was kindness there and humor. The steady eyes that looked at me expressed compassion at my perplexity. And the lips, unlike the lips I pressed into determination when I was young, implied a smile about to release a quiet chuckle.

And it was not unattractive. It was big, a big man’s head, set atop a squat, barrel-bodied figure, one inherited from centuries of French and Sicilian peasants. But it brandished some enticements of its own.

It seemed that time had been a friend to it, mainly. There’d been lessons learned, some easy and joyful, and others that had led it to despair. There’d been friends and lovers, and assassins, too.

But the face of that old man had smiled at me that morning when I was sweeping leaves, so I knew that he’d come through his trials.

A few nights later, the cast of a play I had directed called me up onstage to take the final curtain call with them. A person in the audience snapped a photograph, and when I saw it, I saw in it the old man I’d encountered recently. A handsome man. A man who had, with no regrets, laid down his sword and dagger and taken up instead his staff and wand.

And so must I now. So must I.

Some Idle Notes on Directing

2013-03-31T20:06:00.000-05:00

This may sound crazy, but I’ve often wondered what is I do when I’m directing a play. I tend to be a thick-headed dray horse when it comes to my creative processes. Hitch me up and let me do the job. Don’t ask me for whys.

But now that Battle of Angels is secure in its run, I’ve had some time to think about what I do, and I’ve come up with some jottings, random thoughts, if you will, about my operation. (I write these down more for my own clarification than for any worth they might be to anyone else.)

Read the script with a listening eye.
Cast the roles with the best actors available—or with those actors who actually come to your auditions to read for a role—or with the friend of a friend who is available to step in and assume a character you have not been able to cast because no one has any interest whatsoever in either a) playing the part or b) working with you—or settle for that interesting-looking guy who hangs out at your neighborhood bar whom you believe you can either coax or coerce into taking that one remaining (small) part you haven’t been able to find a real actor willing to play because, excuse me, Mr. Stanislavsky, there are so small parts.
Do not quit after the first reading. First readings are terrible. What did you expect? Venus on the half shell with no sweat in the kitchen?
Foster an atmosphere of safety and security in rehearsals so that the actors will not be humiliated when they do something mindbogglingly stupid for creativity’s sake. Falling down is the first step in learning how to walk.
For that matter, don’t be afraid to be stupid yourself. You’re only human. You can’t know everything. But do take the time later on to find the right answer to what you were stupid about.
Do not tell your actors how to deliver a line, make a gesture, or walk this way. If that’s what you want, you should be playing the part yourself or working with those little cardboard figures that come with paper dresses with tabs you can fold over the shoulders. Instead, steer the actor toward this direction or that, whichever path she feels comfortable taking to get to the place you both believe to be the right destination. And don’t worry about how she will eventually get there. What does it matter to you if the actor gets there by walking, cycling, or taking a cab. Everyone has her own preferred method of transportation. Respect that. (Hey, you’ll never get me into a plane. No way. That’s just me.)
Learn the individual actors’ languages so you can speak to them in their own patois. Don’t expect them to learn yours right away. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. And, sadly, there is too much jargon in the theatre. I tell you, there are as many ways as there are actors and directors to translate that hoary old stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear,” instead of just pronouncing those five plain words. Don’t try to figure it all out. You’ll lose too much time. Just listen to what I’m telling you.
Don’t layer your blocking onto a scene as if you were laying tile on the living room floor. Let the actors stand up and find their own way. You will discover them doing something by experiencing the scene that you could never have dreamed up on your own. Pursue that flicker of inspiration. In most cases, it will lead you someplace wonderful.
Encourage your actors to listen visually to the words of the text. None of our five senses should function alone.
Be a watcher and a listener when the actors are rehearsing a scene. This way, you will see and hear what is right or wrong for your idea of the play. Don’t be afraid to stop the action and work on something right away. On the other hand, you might stumble onto something so wrong that it’s right, and you might want to alter your concept altogether. In the same way, don’t ever be afraid to censor yourself from spontaneously saying, “Yes!” or “Good boy!” or “Good girl!” Generally speaking, whatever works with puppies will work with actors. (I’ve even been known to whisper one of those phrases now and then from the back of the house during a performance.)
Never have sex with your actors, that goes without saying; but do fall in love with each one of them.
At the close of each rehearsal, say thank you to the actors. They deserve it. (You should also thank whatever technical crew members are in attendance. They are important to the success of your production, too.)
Once the show has opened and the reviews are good, don’t feel sad and lonely when the actors forget who you are or what involvement you had with their success. Your job was to bring them to that moment when you could release them into the air. You’ve done that, so let ‘em fly. Be content to look at what you’ve put on the stage and relish it for its own unique beauty.

[In the interest of full disclosure, I should amend the paragraph beginning, “Do not tell your actors how to deliver a line, make a gesture, or walk this way.” I did once demand that an actor walk in a straight line every time he moved and always turn at right angles after a moment of confusion and indecision. This was the direct result of a personal vision I experienced, and I felt compelled to follow the dictates of God in this matter. In other words, inspiration trumps actor’s ego. Deal with it.]

A Twee Tweet in Passing

2013-03-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

The Magic of Theatre

This Woman = the Woman Below

Rebecca Meyers as Vee Talbott in Battle of Angels
(Pre-Show Preparation)

As the Band Plays the Last Anhedoniac's Waltz

2013-03-29T13:07:00.000-05:00

Battle of Angels is performing well. By and large, the audiences have been receptive. Last night, we had a sold-out house, and the cast received a standing ovation at curtain call. This morning, the three-day-a-week Times Picayune hit the stands, and its pull-out, the Lagniappe, had our picture on the cover and Theodore P. Mahne’s enthusiastic review on Page 10. My friends who have seen the show tell me it’s very good. The cast and the technical crews are talented and first rate and get along with each other like a happy, boisterous family.

Everything about the production has succeeded beyond my dreams.

So why can’t I shake loose out of my head the fact that last evening some people walked out of the theatre before the final curtain?

Maybe it wasn’t the show.

Maybe they had a band to go hear. Maybe the babysitter’s time was up or somebody’s water broke. Maybe one of them had a premonition that the North Koreans had launched a missile aimed at the theatre. It could happen.

Or maybe it was the show, and the show just sucked.

Could all those other people be wrong, and these few be right?

Why can’t I just let go and boogie like there’s no tomorrow and there’s nobody looking?

Why, indeed?

Surviving

2013-03-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

I’m sick, and I feel bad. I have a cold, and it’s a cold of biblical proportions. It’s a cold like no one has ever had. It’s in my sinus cavities, pressing against my inner skull, expanding the bones to the breaking point. It’s in my lungs, preventing me from breathing except in short, shallow intakes of air that rip my diaphragm and make me whimper in searing agony.

It has to be the result of kissing someone over the weekend who was already infected. My problem is that I kissed so many people I haven’t a clue who could have passed it on to me.

Why was I kissing so many people?

Because our production of Battle of Angels has been performing well. The opening on Thursday night was okay. The audience, by and large, enjoyed it. Friday night’s audience was livelier, and the cast began to relax into the terrain of the text. By Saturday, they began to click with the audience and with each other. It was as if they believed they had made something good and worthwhile.

They had, and I am grateful to them. They gave up so much of their time to do this, and they have done it well.

The two reviews we’ve received have been wonderful, too, better than I could have hoped they would be. They’s been so kind to us, in fact, that I no longer even care if that demoralizing soul sucker who considers himself to be the ne plus ultra of the New Orleans theatre scene shows up at the Allways Lounge and Theatre one night to puke on our shoes.

Pardon me, that was the cold talking.

God, this cold! It’s like the price one has to pay for not failing miserably.

It’s probably worth it.

But, in the future, let’s just blow our kisses in each other’s direction.

Okay?

Thank you.

Dear Brian,

2013-03-17T08:01:00.000-05:00

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since you wrote me, and I haven’t responded until today. Please accept my apologies. There is a reason for my discourtesy, but no excuse.

I’ve been working on this play, you see, and I find it’s sapping nearly all my energy. Being around people for long periods of time does that; and it’s been a difficult job, as well, juggling time and personalities with all their quirks and foibles. The cast seem to be enjoying themselves and are convinced the show is good and will play well. We open this week, my work will be done, and I soon should be back to my old reliable self: reclusive and more willing and able to write rather than meeting so many folks face to face.

I’m glad you’re enjoying my pictures on the other blog, My Life in the Quarter. Being so far away in one those -istanic countries, these snapshots must raise fond memories for you of your years spent across the street, hanging out on your balcony overlooking the foot traffic on Decatur.

I look forward to your visit in the next couple of weeks and the time we’ll have to sit and jaw some over cups of coffee.

Please forgive the shortness of this note. I’m really tired and overdue for some breakfast. Be safe and be careful. You know how those foreigners can be.

I’ll be seeing you soon.

G

Where Did the Time Go?

2013-02-27T16:02:00.001-06:00

Whenever people ask me for advice, which is something no one should ever do, I usually respond by saying, “Time is your friend.”

“Time is your friend” is a good phrase to soothe a scrambled mind.

Unfortunately, of late, my old friend time seems to have been holding out on me. He slips away from me when I need him most.

Like this past Monday.

I had offered to take someone to his dermatologist’s office for a little outpatient surgery. Before going there, though, he wanted to take me out to lunch.

He usually does this. It’s his payback for my transporting him from one place to another. Not having a vehicle of his own, he still hasn’t figured out that filling my car with a tank of gas is cheaper than inviting me to a restaurant.

I don’t complain.

We went to a restaurant he’d heard about and wanted to try. I loved my entree. He hated his. I liked my dessert. He couldn’t finish his. He did enjoy his cup of after-dinner coffee. Mine was...coffee.

No big deal. Some friendships are based on mutual likes, others on contradictions.

But soon we had to take off to get uptown to his doctor’s office, and we did it pretty quickly, considering it was storming, and I don’t like driving in bad weather in this city or in the outer parishes where the people already don’t drive well on a pretty day in Spring.

After his surgery, he asked if I could swing by another doctor of his. This guy had some sample meds waiting for him.

Did it.

Driving away, he mentioned that he had a prescription from the dermatologist he needed to fill, could we stop at the Walgreen’s on Elysian Fields?

Check.

“Any place else you need to go to?” I asked as we were pulling away from the drugstore.

“Nope, we’re done,” he said.

So I began to drive him home.

As we neared his place, he asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

“Oh, no, I wanted to go to the Golden Lantern.”

“!“ I said as I took a u-turn on Rampart Street to backtrack and get him to his watering hole.

Where I dumped him.

Free at last?

Nope, not quite. I forgot to mention that during the meal I was having up there at the beginning of this saga, Bobby had called me to ask if I would pick him up a burger and fries on my way home.

So it was back down St. Claude to St. Roch, to the Rally’s that Bobby likes.

Then home.

At nearly 4:00 o’clock.

How was I going to take my nap now?

Since my retirement, I have found great pleasure in daily naps. They do something to my body’s chemistry, something nice. That’s how addictions start, and I will admit that I have become addicted to my naps.

But on Monday, there was no time. I had to be at a rehearsal of our play by 6:30, and there was no way I could experience a decent sleep before having to gather my wits about me and face a handful of people who would expect me to act like the authority figure they want me to be. So I didn’t nap.

I fretted.

When it was time to rehearse, I was there. It went well, but when it was over, I didn’t go home.

I went to the Golden Lantern for some “me” time. For some quality time to unwind. And it was there where I found my old friend time, sitting there waiting for me.

“Where you been?” he asked.

“Dude, I could say the same thing to you.”

“I’ve been running, man.”

“You’ve been running! What do you think I’ve been doing all day?”

“Them’s the breaks, bro. Sometimes I just need a little time for myself,” he said. “You think this gig is easy? It’s not, man. It’s tough. You think most of my people take the time to pay me any mind? They don’t. They take me for granted, brother. They use me. Oh, yeah. ‘Time’ll take care of that.’ ‘Time heals all wounds.’ ‘Time will bring her around.’ It never ends. Lemme tell you something, asshat. All of y’all work for me! It ain’t the other way around. Y’all need to straighten up.”

I noticed some of the other patrons in the bar beginning to eye my buddy time. I needed to calm him down.

Putting aside my own rough patch of a day, I said to him, “I understand how you feel, bubba. But remember...time is your friend.”

He looked at me like I was crazy.

“Buy me a drink,” he said.

Where Was I This Time?

2013-02-16T16:44:00.000-06:00

Last night was the first rehearsal for the next play I'll be doing, Tennessee Williams' Battle of Angels.

It never gets easy, you know, starting a new project. I felt awkward, didn't know what to say. Did the dumbest thing I could think of which was to blurt out, "Why don't we all introduce ourselves?" So lame. I felt as if I were back in one of those ridiculous committee meetings I used to participate in when I was a working stiff.

The cast was game, though; and the reading went on without a hitch. I think it will play nicely.

Two of my ladies had conflicts and couldn't come, so I read their parts. I have to admit I found myself pretty compelling. I may have to engineer a return to the boards sometime soon before I tumble into the grave. I do seem to have a knack for Tennessee, he said in a Kim-Stanley kind of glissando of longing.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Before heading out to rehearsal, I received an email telling me that last July's production of Standing on Ceremony had received a Big Easy Theatre Award nomination for Best Ensemble of 2012. That was unexpected news, and it was delightful to hear. SoC was certainly a "little engine that could." It was a pleasure being a part of it, and the audiences enjoyed it, so its nomination is like a cherry on top of a swirl of whipped cream. Of course, the award is presented to the producer, so, as only a director, I don't get a free pass to the ceremony—nor does the ensemble, come to think of it; but it's the thought that counts.

Now I need to get back to my main chore this weekend: devising a rehearsal schedule for Battle of Angels. One should never have to work with more than three actors in a play at a time. Any more than that, and you find yourself dealing with people who have personal lives that just get in the way.

And who wants to deal with that?

An Ode to Joy

2013-02-14T10:37:00.001-06:00

Mardi Gras day did not dawn auspiciously here in the bear cave. It’s never auspicious when one trundles into the bathroom first thing in the morning, flips on the lights, and the fluorescent bulb above the medicine cabinet flickers and pops.

The other one who lives here decided it was time to ask the landlord for a new medicine cabinet. I thought this strange. Granted, the medicine cabinet we have is many years old and was up on the wall during the previous tenancy, but I hate asking the landlord to spend money because the money will eventually come from me in the form of a rent increase. Besides, we’re talking about a burnt-out light bulb here.

I decided to bide my time until Wednesday when I intended to slip out of the apartment and find a Valentine’s Day card and some chocolates. I would take the time while doing this chore to pick up another bulb and see if that might not resolve the crisis.

Then my USB hub blew out. I would definitely need to take that trip the next day.

Wednesday dawned—as is its usual wont—and when I had decided to leave, I discovered we were getting that rain we had been promised for the day before. I grabbed an umbrella and set off on my three-block walk to the parking lot where our car is stashed.

Leaving the lot, I proceeded (to use police-report jargon) along Frenchmen Street to Dauphine Street where I took a right turn and proceeded (again) to Elysian Fields Avenue. (Don’t you love when I mention traversing these streets so many of you have only ever heard of in some old Tennessee Williams movie or other?) Once at Elysian Fields, I came to a stop behind two cars that were waiting at a red light.

The light changed to green, and the first car crossed the avenue. The second car did the same. As I was entering the intersection, I caught in the corner of my eye another vehicle racing through the downpour at an accelerated rate of speed, heading at me and showing no sign of intending to slow down.

Ah, but, dear reader, I was sober and slammed on my brakes, and he missed me. I then sat on my horn and raised an alarm to alert the pedestrian to my right so that he might not step out into the abyss that follows being slammed by a speeding car, thrown up into the windshield then up toward the sky before plunging down and landing hard on the asphalt where bones are shattered and life is snuffed.

He waved at me in gratitude.

All this being done, I continued on my way to my neighborhood Walgreen’s for the card and the chocolates. Unfortunately, there was no place to park so I did not stop but continued on to Office Depot where I intended to buy my new USB hub.

From there I headed to another Walgreen’s up on Saint Charles Avenue, that boulevard of stately homes. Yes, O reader, a Walgreen’s sits in the midst of New Orleans’ once-great wealth and opulence. O tempora! O mores!

Now it was time to find that light bulb. Finding it turned out to be easier than I had expected because I had written down the strange code on the old bulb that identified its size and wattage. The person waiting on me at Mary’s Ace Hardware (on North Rampart Street, a block away from Basin—remember Basin Street Parade?) was thus able to find it in a snap, and I was off again home.

“What surprise did you bring me?” asked Bob, and I revealed the new fluorescent light. He seemed indifferent, obviously having a honey bun in mind, but I was brimming with anticipation as I rushed up the stairs to the bathroom and coaxed the bulb into its fixture.

I flipped on the switch, and the bathroom burst into light, a cool, white flood of radiance.

I was astonished at the brightness and laughed with joy.

A feeling of happiness came over me and clung to me for about twenty-three minutes. That’s a pretty fair happiness-duration in my experience, and I was grateful.

My question, though, is this: what the hell was that all about? Why would plugging in a light bulb make me as giddy as a slightly-overweight seventeen-year-old girl on a prom date with the captain of the football team?

It occurs to me that life is strange. Perhaps nothing she gives us can truly be anticipated. We go out in the rain, on a hunt-and-gather expedition; we get what we’d intended to get and end up with something in our hands we never expected. Sometimes it’s a broken egg or two in the carton at the bottom of the shopping bag; other times, it’s just a bright light.

No, not “just a bright light.”

Say, rather, a brilliant glow.

My Kind of Mardi Gras

2013-02-11T17:59:00.000-06:00

This year, I am officially taking it easy. No more frenzy for me. No wading through the edges of smothering crowds. No more stale beers spilled on me. Okay, I did have a drink sloshed across my torso yesterday, but that was vodka. No more shrill cackles piercing my eardrums like ice picks. No more otherwise grown-up women and men behaving badly.

I’ve packed all that up, and I’m moving on. To peace and quiet.

The weather’s helping matters. It’s too chilly and wet to be out there.

Do I miss the mayhem? Nope. Just a little? Uh-uh.

Been there, done that, never caught an STD.

Or a bullet.

Besides, at my age, it takes way too long to get pretty. And all that product is expensive for a little old man on Social Security.

So, goodnight, ladies. It was fun while it lasted, but the high old times will always, sooner or later, drag and sag.

It’s time to turn the corner and head on home.

My Current Most Favorite Map of the City

2013-02-10T15:49:00.000-06:00

From Quarter Rat Magazine, Mardi Gras 2013 Edition

Serendipity

2013-02-10T11:47:00.002-06:00

I just stumbled onto this and wanted to remember it. The best way I could think of doing that was to place it here. It feels as if it were written by a big-hearted man with wide-open arms.

Fragments from an Apocryphal Gospel

3. Wretched are the poor in spirit, for under the earth they will be as they are on earth.
4. Wretched is he who weeps, for he has the miserable habit of weeping.
5. Lucky are those who know that suffering is not a crown of heavenly bliss.
6. It is not enough to be last in order sometimes to be first.
7. Happy is he who does not insist on being right, for no one is or everyone is.
8. Happy is he who forgives others and who forgives himself.
9. Blessed are the meek, for they do not agree to disagree.
10. Blessed are those who do not hunger for justice, for they know that our fate, for better or worse, is the work of chance, which is past understanding.
11. Blessed are the merciful, for their happiness is in the act of mercy and not in the hope of reward.
12. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God.
13. Blessed are those who suffer persecution for a just cause, for justice matters more to them than their personal destiny.
14. No one is the salt of the earth; and no one, at some moment in their life, is not.
15. Let the light of one lamp be lit, even though no man see it. God will see it.
16. There is no commandment that cannot be broken, including the ones I give and those the prophets spoke.
17. He who kills for a just cause, or for a cause he believes just, is not guilty.
18. The acts of men are worthy of neither fire nor heaven.
19. Do not hate your enemy, for if you do, you are in some way his slave. Your hate will never be greater than your peace.
20. If your right hand should offend you, forgive it; you are your body and you are your soul and it is hard if not impossible to fix the boundary between them…
24. Do not make too much of the cult of truth; there is no man who at the end of a day has not lied, rightly, numerous times.
25. Do not swear, because every oath is bombast.
26. Resist evil, but without shock and without anger. Whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him, as long as you are not moved by fear.
27. I do not speak of revenge nor of forgiveness; oblivion is the only revenge and the only forgiveness.
28. To do your enemy a good turn can be the work of justice and is not difficult; to love him, a job for angels and not men.
29. To do good for your enemy is the best way to gratify your vanity.
30. Do not accumulate gold on earth, for gold is the father of idleness, and it, of sadness and boredom.
31. Believe that others are just or will be, and if it proves untrue, it is not your fault.
32. God is more generous than men and will measure them by a different standard.
33. Give what is holy to dogs, cast your pearls before swine; the important thing is to give.
34. Seek for the pleasure of seeking, not of finding…
39. The door, not the man, is the one that chooses.
40. Do not judge the tree by its fruits nor the man by his works; they may be worse or better.
41. Nothing is built on stone, everything on sand, but our duty is to build as if sand were stone…
47. Happy are the poor without bitterness and the rich without pride.
48. Happy are the brave, who accept applause or defeat in the same spirit.
49. Happy are those who hold in memory words of Virgil or Christ, for these will brighten their days.
50. Happy are the loved and the lovers and those who can do without love.
51. Happy are the happy.

— Jorge Luis Borges

Losing It at the Movies

2013-02-08T22:23:00.000-06:00

I didn’t want to do it. I’d managed to avoid doing it since before Christmas, but I couldn’t come up with any more excuses not to do it anymore. So I did it.

I took Bobby to see that movie, Lincoln.

It was okay.

I mean, the theatre had the sound turned down, so we couldn’t hear the dialogue all that distinctly. Why do they seem to turn the volume up on action flicks then keep it low in movies heavy with plain speaking?

I also went to the movie with the knowledge that Tony Kushner’s script had stacked the deck against Connecticut for no good reason (and his explanation for screwing around with historical facts is a gobbledygook of patronizing arrogance), so I was ready to stop suspending my disbelief during the scene in which the House votes on the Thirteenth Amendment.

I also confess to a certain personal aversion to Steven Spielberg’s tender touch with every film he makes.

For example, is there a pitiful little boy in all of this man’s movies?

I didn’t see Amistad. Did it have a pitiful little boy in it, too?

Was Oskar Schindler really just a big old cuddly Irishman? He sure seemed to be.

However, to give him his due, the man does know how to make movies; and if I enjoy being manipulated by somebody like Alfred Hitchcock, I ought to extend the same courtesy to Spielberg. So I will willingly spend fifteen minutes in the corner with my head hung low.

I enjoyed Daniel Day Lewis more than I thought I would. All the press I’d read about his acting in this movie made me think I was in for two-and-a-half hours of Great Acting. Instead, I discovered Abraham Lincoln was in reality another big old cuddly Irishman. I think I would have liked sitting around a campfire with him, listening to his yarns, both of us with our shoes off and in our socks.

I enjoyed all the performances, as a matter of fact, even the pointless ones like Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasting his time and talent playing Robert Todd Lincoln just so he could have a Spielberg credit on his resume. I liked Sally Field. She made me want to see a movie about Mary Todd. I also like Tommy Lee Jones a lot. He made me want to see a movie about Thaddeus Stevens, of all people! And his ending up in bed with S. Epatha Merkerson was almost worth the five-dollar matinee ticket price and the thirty dollars I spent on popcorn and Sprite.

Like I said, it was okay.

Going to see Lincoln did accomplish something good, though. It got Bobby out of the house and gave him a nice time. So I ended up doing a good deed today, even if I hadn’t wanted to do it. And I feel good about that.

I also told Bobby afterward that he can order any pay-per-view movie on DirecTV from now on since it’s gonna save us ten dollars for tickets and allow us to chow down on some of our own Orville Redenbacher we’ve already bought at supermarket prices.

Hey, wait a minute. That’s two good deeds!

Damn, I’m good.

Bleh

2013-02-06T16:46:00.002-06:00

Things are easy and copacetic down here right now. Life is like a limpid pond somewhere in the woods.

And you know what?

It sucks.

It means I have nothing to talk about—nothing to celebrate, nothing to rant about, nothing to say. I’m sure you don’t mind, but it drives me crazy when I open this blog and stare at old posts, wanting to open up to you, but having nothing to open up about.

Sucks, I tell you.

I mean, the last thing I wrote was a lamentation over the boorish tourists dropping into the city for the Superbowl. And look what happened. The universe conspired to turn out the lights! It’s like I called down a curse!

I didn’t mean to do it. I mean, not really.

I keep reminding myself to be careful what I say here because words have repercussions. You put them down in black on white and set them free, and then they have a life of their own. They can soar through the air like doves or zip like arrows into somebody’s chest. You can’t ever be sure.

But at least having something to say is better than not, isn’t it? I mean, to hell with collateral damage, right?

Right?

NOLA Manners for Tourists

2013-02-02T16:59:00.001-06:00

It’s that time again. Mardi Gras. And in addition to that, our leaders in their wisdom have gotten us the honor of hosting the Super Bowl right smack in the middle of all that.

This has resulted in a disconcerting number of tourists dropping down into our city like a plague of locusts.

I would like to offer a few suggestions to you, dear visitor, to make your stay in the Big Easy as pleasant for us locals as it certainly will be for you.

Don’t change your baby’s diaper in the middle of a sidewalk. It will create a bottleneck. And some creepy person will surely stare at your baby’s naked bottom. You don’t really want that, do you?
Speaking of sidewalks, they are meant to be walked upon. Don’t stop suddenly and stare at the top of a building across the street. Someone is sure as hell going to rear-end you.
Always remember, a recessed gateway in the French Quarter will not shield you from the sight of passersby, nor will it hide from them the fact that you are taking a piss.
I have come to regret the fact that I have spent a lifetime deferring to other people’s right of way, and your mama never taught you to do the same.
It is rude (if not downright criminal battery) to push a little old fat person out of your way so you can get to the sterling silver jewelry counter at the flea market(!). You never can tell. That little old fat person might be a blogger who will rush to his computer and tell the whole world what a crass asshat you are.

Got that?

Good. Now carry on and enjoy your stay.

Willpower

2013-01-27T22:18:00.000-06:00

I believe we can accomplish much by acts of will.

This is self-evident in the case of those who achieve public renown for acts of heroism, great art, or large buildings. It is also true in the smaller things of life.

As a person who has been called a pessimist or, by certain members of the medical profession, a depressive, I have come to believe that I can sometimes counter my tendencies toward a downward spiral by focusing on things outside myself.

Much as I believe that our eyes are meant for looking out at the world instead of “into the glass” at our own reflections, I have come to believe that by turning away from our baser proclivities, we can do what the world considers to be “the right thing.”

For instance, if I want to be happy, I can will myself to do a good thing for someone who has a need I can fulfill. I can speak kindly to someone who is unhappy. I can listen to someone who needs to unburden himself of a private misery. I can help an old lady cross the street. I can choose to do good. It is a choice, an act of will.

Conversely, I can decide to do ill, to wound someone, to ridicule another as a loser, to push an old lady in front of a bus.

We see this everyday. We live in a world of pain-givers, people who take a fiendish delight in hurting others. I do not want to live in a world like that.

In my maturity, I have come to admire and revere that simple phrase embroidered on our pillow cushions, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

And in that spirit, I would like to tell you that I went to a play this evening...

Good night.

The Episode of the Madeleine

2013-01-25T10:41:00.003-06:00

Last night there was a man out who reminded me of Harold Prince. I caught him looking at me, and he smiled.

And with that smile, a rush of memories washed over me of a long-ago summer when I visited New York.

I remembered a certain Sunday when I passed by the real Harold Prince as I was walking down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was leading, I assume, his children into the museum. As I came near to him, he looked at me. His eyes locked on mine, and he looked at me in much the same way as I was looking at him. But, of course, he was an important person. I was not.

During that summer, after a performance of The Misanthrope with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg looked at me (he was very short; she was very tall; I was the baby bear).

Crossing the street one afternoon, Bobby Short looked at me and watched me until I turned a corner.

And one evening, in a restaurant near Lincoln Center, Jerome Robbins stopped his conversation abruptly to look at me as I passed by.

What was it that they saw in that person, these people who had seen the world? Why did they pause the forward movement of their lives for a moment to look at the nondescript young man walking away?

Who was he, that boy I cannot retrieve?

I wonder.

On the Virtues of Mindlessness

2013-01-20T12:04:00.000-06:00

I haven’t had a thought invade my head for days, and I’m not so sure I mind.

Pretty much all I do is wake and sleep, watch a little mindless television while I’m awake, which helps to put me back into my own unthinking state of dusky hibernation. It’s not unpleasant.

My imagination is customarily far too active and enthusiastic. It’s a nice change to put it aside and turn down the volume on its alerts and alarms.

Of course, the real reason for this retreat has to do with the upcoming resumption of my theatre work (can I call what I do “theatre work”?). I’m having trouble gathering a cast for Battle of Angels, and I’m not so sure if this thing is going to be “a go.”

So, since I cannot run away geographically, I mentally bolt back to my empty dark cave. It is there in that airless duskiness where potential solutions to my questions flit into view and offer me solace. You see, I believe I can do this show with the people I’ve got and a twist of imagination on all our parts.

But will an audience grasp what we are doing?

Should I care so much?

Or should I concentrate on the “vision thing” and let the outcome speak for itself?

That’s a rhetorical question.

The consumer I have always wooed is in my empty head.

Ave atque Vale

2013-01-09T14:27:00.000-06:00

When I first sneaked into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and made my way back to the apartment in the Quarter, the first person I saw was Chester Breaux, walking up Decatur Street with that genteel-hobo stroll of his and trundling a suitcase on wheels behind him.

My first thought was, I’m ashamed to say, please, sweet Jesus, don’t let him ask me if he can crash with us.

I should have known better. Chester had any number of places he could stay. He had been working at a hotel on Frenchmen Street, and that was where he had ridden out the storm. There was no more food or water left there, so he was making his way back to his own place which was nearer to Johnny White’s where there was food and water and other assorted beverages, the kind to make one want to sing.

But now the song is done.

Never again will we hear him take his leave with the explanation that he had to check the “bear traps” he’d left scattered around the Quarter.

No one is left to “scratch his cat.”

And he will never rebuke us again saying, “You don’t wanna go dere,” or “Let’s take it outside.”

His nom de carre may have been Chester the Molester, but his molestations were of the ticklish kind that lifted you into a jolly mood and left you there long after he had slipped away.

Chester had the gift of love.

I raise a last glass and offer a final salute to my friend: Hoo-ee!

Paving Paradise

2013-01-07T08:09:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning to find out that just about everybody in the country had tuned in to PBS last night to catch the beginning of the third season of Downton Abbey. It was a topic of discussion on the Today Show and CNN and Good Morning and Wake Up, America. Never mind this guy Hagel or Hillary Clinton and her bo-bo, everybody wanted to talk about British class distinctions and who got to savor the best zingers, Dame Maggie or our own good-time gal Shirley.

Time was, Bobby and I were the only two people either one of us knew who were watching this show. Nobody else could be bothered. Hell, nobody else seemed to know it was on. We had it all to ourselves, a tiny park of wit and civility surrounded by acres and acres of ka-pow action shows, over-miked sitcoms, and whatever else sells deodorants and laxatives these days.

Now, they’ve gone and paved our little paradise and put up a parking lot. And as you very well know, if you build it—a parking lot, I mean—they will come. And come and come and come. Even if there isn’t enough room for all the cars.

It might be time for me to stop watching.

This has happened to me before. Some years ago, HBO came out with that show about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I watched that one, and I was enjoying it, too, until I started seeing how some of my friends and neighbors were getting real proprietary over it, like it was their story, like it was all about them and what they had gone through. It didn’t help if you tried to point out that they weren’t black or that they didn’t know which end to blow on a horn or that they had only just moved here from Massachusetts seven months after the flood waters had receded. That was their life, man, up there on that screen, with all of its heartaches and passing joys and more heartaches and disenfranchisements and callous beatings from the man! Damn.

Weird.

Lot of power in that TV. Somebody ought to try to channel it for good.