But Enough About Me, There are Earthquakes and Tusnamis

Our basement is flooded, is being dried
That’s the extent of our tragedy now.

No earthquake, tsunami or disaster.

I’ve put on a little extra weight
Which means I had enough to eat today.

No starvation, want, need, or chill for me.

There is nothing here to feel sorry for.
Especially me, who should grow up

No charity, no gifts,  no help needed.

I am comfortable and surviving
Alone but never abandoned by life.

No misery, no terror, no danger here.

Dear God, give me the wisdom to embrace
People with real needs and true challenges.

And stop thinking about my stupid self.

Living in Real Time

I think the hardest part of growing older is realizing that this is it. This is the time you spent your whole life working toward and none of it is anything like you desired...nay! You DEMANDED! You knew. It was just a matter of staying strong and focused. If 99 percent of the people who tried to make it in the Arts, you were going to be the one...who didn’t make it. Somewhere out there was a person for you and...you never found him. You can’t really think about the future beyond Medicare and Medicade...I’m already on Social Security Disability. If you think about the future, you can be pretty sure it involves things you don’t want to think about. Like Death.

So, here we are in real time. This day. Today. Just me. Toujours Seule, Baby! I really should get to the gym. It’s raining. The woman upstairs, who lost her job two years ago is spending another 12-14 hour day, seven days a week, cleaning her apartment, walking with heel-banging purpose back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, slamming things down forcefully to show that THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT TASK THAT MAKES HER LIFE WORTH...something. I’m not kidding. She does it from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day. She is trying to qualify for Disability. If she’s using insanity, she has a  good chance.

Some of my friends spend their lives on Facebook, posting articles and videos. And if you have the right equipment, that can be a form of creation, but it’s not going to pay the bills. Despite the fame of Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, it’s not an accomplishment to leave behind and it sure doesn’t earn you a living. I just lost two friends because I got too close to a third and maybe it’s time for all of us to take a break and go to the gym. I have to pay attention to the people there, talking to them and making friends. I have to volunteer at my church and, damn it, be humble. I’m not famous or important unless I give something to others. That’s all I can do right now.

I am submitting plays and attending Dramatist Guild meetings, surrounded by younger people who think it’s all going to happen someday. I try not to discourage them. I am an example of nothing and they are the shining hope of tomorrow. They have to be. It’s a necessary part of survival, of growing up, of making it here with a bit of savings, a car and an apartment...with an upstairs neighbor going slowly insane above me. I wish I could tell her to stop worrying about the dreams and listen to the rain. The apartment’s clean enough for now.

Grandma May Go to Jail for This, but Before I Forget

Sex to me was naked and spontaneous. A sudden surprise while washing dishes or a mahogany bump on a Conference Room table after hours; with suits being pushed down and up and giggles echoing through empty halls. Pull the stop button on the elevator and drop to your knees; skillfully, quickly having your fun and arriving on the Penthouse floor, reminding him of his zipper. Being bent over the back of an armchair while in t-shirt and shorts. A tug and a thrust and there you are. And best of all, half-asleep, wrapped in flesh, in the dark, sleepy kisses with your fingers in his hair. Silky liquids in the dark, opening, filling...and what are the words for the waves of pleasure a man can cause? Electric is too harsh and even “waves” is too simple. It is about flesh and blood and feeling pleasure move down your arms and legs to your fingertips, which are sliding down his back, completing the circle of joy. And your mouths, your mouths all greedy and kissing till the lips are sore and the tongue immobile. And it’s over and you dash through cold air to pee and he follows behind you naked and hops up and down till you’re done and you trade places and he opens the lid and points as you put your arms around his bare body and then you run back to bed through the cold and throw the covers over you and cuddle close. This was sex to me.

Actually, I May be Class of ‘71...But I Didn’t Graduate

For all of the bragging Ohio University used to do (before they became a Party School), it was quite disorganized, especially in the Theater Department. I was allowed to transfer into O.U.  my Junior year as a Playwriting Major. I believe there were 9 of us and one by one they defected to the English Department. It was about the time that they required us to take a Theatrical Construction course. (Set building 101) and while I am proud to have the ability to build a wall from boards and canvas, I haven’t had much call for it of late.

While Shakespeare was reputed to have done everything that needed to be done to get his shows running, from sweeping the stage to running the concession stand, (“Mead! Get your cold mead and hot pasties!”) the more modern Bards considered themselves AUTHORS and INTELLECTUALS...not carpenters. Fortunately, I saw the metaphor of it and loved getting my hands into the casein buckets, although I was less than thrilled crawling around the flying areas fifty feet in the air. Yeah! O.U. had THEATERS, baby!

I returned for my Senior year and just before Christmas was called into the Head of the Department’s office. It seemed Captain Crackerjack had forgotten to tell me about certain requirements for graduation that were now too late to sign up for. And even more fun...they were canceling the Playwriting Major as I was the only one left. I would have to return for a FIFTH year of college. Now, think about it. I don’t act, I don’t direct. I write plays. I can’t change to a different theater major and I was about 93 required classes short for an English Degree.

This was complicated by the fact that the guy I had had a fling with in Atlantic City the summer before was dating a virgin and let’s just say that when he realized I was...um...easier to approach, he showed up in Athens, Ohio and decide we should get married the following October, and me, being provably to this day, an idiot about Love matters, said “Yes!” It was years later that I realized that he had never said “I love you.”

So, therefore, I dropped out of college, wrecking my parental relationship and all possibilities of being taken seriously as a Playwright. No matter how many classes and workshops I took in New York, I couldn’t be a real playwright. And when I realized the producers preferred college professors because the schools will pay for the first production, I realized that I doth hath screweth the pooch for a marriage that lasted 7 years.

And now, in this economy there is no point in going back to school and little money to pay for it. I have the time because I am disabled, but being on Disability...you get the picture. All I can do is write and say that I am Ohio University, 1971. Not necessarily graduated with the class, but I did make it from 1967 to 1971. And remember that Shakespeare wasn’t an academic either, so there!

I'm Running Out of Time to Grow Up

Still have problems reading quietly on a quiet night in a comfortable chair. Still daydreaming about things that would make you laugh like a loon. (I'm actually writing that play, called "Her Again.") I am not silver haired and sixty-one years old in my fantasies and the avatar only works with fantasy men. And fantasy publishing and fantasy productions. I mean, you got to sit down and write the damned thing, on a quiet night in an office chair; and then you have to take your crippled old ass out to sell it and pray they don’t dismiss you without a reading. It was demographics, I know!

And what is this fascination with me? I have to famous! I have to be rich and win prizes. Me! I deserve it because...because I want it..? I’ve been playing that damned tape for fifty years and it’s so not the era of tape any more. I should at least transfer to an MP3 player...if I could afford one. It has to be earned and you cannot think of the Producers as Assholes and Idiots. You have to find a way to get through to them. That's part of being an Artist, like it or not.

But, what’s wrong with just going outside on a nice Spring day and taking a walk? Why not? Am I depriving the world of my great gift or renewing it? I’ve spent far too much time on line and in Facebook and have the scars to prove it. Blogging every day even though no one reads any of them. Trying to find clever postings and the most interesting news...ENOUGH!

I’ve blown it. Wasted everything in life both personal and professional and yet, giving up is not an option. I know I can’t relive the past. The only day we have is today. But sometimes, I can’t help wondering if the fact that I don’t slow down and relax is one of the reasons I accomplished nothing. That, and ten years of self-pity that ended last year. One more blog. One more posting to Facebook. Read the damned Neruda and learn something, Reinhard.

You’re running out of time.

Bad Poetry Day in the Rites Replacement

It had to be done, I understand that.
But was it imperfect? You bet it was.
Clumsy, ham-handed, so badly managed
That I will always be ashamed of me.

It had to be done.

Too many distractions and worries re
Things that are not my fucking business
And over which I could have no control
Leaving my mind to race with vague shadows.

It had to be done.

But it will never be done, it haunts me
With questions. Did I somehow make it worse?
Did I need more humor ? Less mothering?
Did I put me first and run for the door?

It had to be done.

All Art is Lonely and I Have to Work This Crap Out

All Art is Lonely.

What’s the worst part of being a writer? For one thing, it’s plain black letters on a plain white surface. You don’t know what it will look like until it’s bound or produced. You don’t know what it is saying or doing until someone else reads it or speaks it or reviews it. You know what the resonance in your own head, but what about the echoes in other minds? Unlike a painting, which has color and theme clearly stamped and finished and in your face, the written word is always a trembling possibility that may fall flat in a stranger’s hands.

All Art is lonely.

All arts have to deal with the idea of the future. Generations will see it differently. Translations into other languages will slightly bend the meaning. Like the translations of Pablo Neruda that do not flow as beautifully in English as in Spanish.  Plays will be performed in different ways, in different settings and ages, like Julius Caesar set in Nazi Germany. The great murals of the Depression often seem archaic now and the Communist Genre is a gentle joke in which we do not yet remember  why the workers are so shining and optimistic.

All Art is lonely.

Opening night parties for shows and exhibits are celebratory, but it’s also one of the few times when Artist and audience can touch. At the first theater I worked at in New York City, I wonder if my career wasn’t hurt because I had to get back to the suburbs and couldn’t stay out partying with the cast. And, I had to go from New Jersey to New York to work at 9 a.m., which also cut my nights short. I wasn’t the best raconteur or drunk and I wonder how much this truncated my career? And why, or why, did I permit depression to ground me for ten years. Ten years I could have done, something, anything more important than sitting.

All Art is lonely.

And that loneliness can get you in trouble. We are prone to delusions and fantasies to begin with. We tend to be needy and addictive. I declare undying love to a man I just met but he then declares undying love to someone he hasn’t even met yet. Game over! He goes me one better in both Art and Insanity, but that’s what Artists do. That’s why ears are sheared and heads go into ovens. I’m too modern to end up Vincent or Sylvia, but Lord, don’t I know why they did what they did both in Life and in Death...because all Art is lonely.