From Drab to Fab (Part One): A Good Scrubbing

One of the things we had committed to this summer (and especially, during our week-long vacation coming in July) was to refurbish certain sections of Green Victoria that needed a little bit of care and attention. I've mentioned on many occasions that the guys who owned the place before us did an amazing job of making this place really special, but of course, there are still sections that need a little bit of fixing up.

The back yard needs the most improvement. Corb, who is the master builder, has a lot of ideas for what he wants to do--and some of it is going to take a few years. For one thing, he wants to grade the entire area so that it slopes downward (and doesn't become a swamp during the start of spring). He also wants to extend the back deck so that we can install a swimming pool and fire pit. And around the swing area, we need to remove an old dead tree that is what is popularly known as a "widow maker." It has a huge dead branch that extends over the swing set. If that ever feel while Kaeden was playing on it...

But, first for the easier stuff, and that's why, this week-end, we started on the patio area. It was clearly once really nice--in fact, at one point, the guys had installed a jacuzzi, but while the house was up for sale, the area had fallen into disuse. The stones were covered in moss, and the garden beds had become overgrown with weeds. This week-end, Corb fixed up a power washer that his brother had that was broken (Corb is a handy one, no?) and Sunday morning, bright and early, we got to work.

I did my fair share, but again, I have to give Corb credit for the grunt work. He spent six hours power washing all the stones. It was like watching an archaeological dig, as he used the washer to line by line remove moss and dirt from each stone individually. The whole project (which isn't completely done yet) went quite smoothly, except for one little rough patch, as we were weeding the flower beds and came across one bit of suspicious wickedness.

CORB: Is it poison ivy?
ME (Still weeding): I don't know...
CORB: It looks like poison ivy. Three leaves...
ME: Then we should get rid of it.
CORB: So get rid of it.
ME: I don't want to get rid of it. You get rid of it.
CORB: Does it look shiny? Poison ivy is shiny. Is that shiny?
ME:L Deep sigh...
Anyway, turns out it was climbing hydrangea. It is now dead climbing hydrangea. We didn't figure that out until we had removed it with a steel rake.

Other than that, I am pleased with our progress. We still have some planting to do and have to pick out patio furniture, but I think part one of the "Drab to Fab" project turned out pretty nice!

Stupid Shit I Read in People Magazine (May 5 edition)

Nicole Beharie: The Sleepy Hollow star star has come up with a shudder-inducing way to make sure she looks her freshest for the camera. "I just got into doing cold-water splashes in the morning," says Beharie, 29. "When we have to wake up at 4 in the morning to be on-set, I will put ice cubes into a bowl and push my face into them. Basically, I dunk for apples in a tub of ice." 

"Corb," I said last night, well into a delicious lemon drop martini. "I know how much you hate getting up in the morning. I have a suggestion for how you can look your freshest. I know you like to look your freshest for work."


Corb groan could be heard through the restaurant. "This is one of those stupid things you read about in People magazine, isn't it? I may need another drink for this." And with that, he took a swig of vodka and cranberry. "Okay, Ted. How can I look my freshest in the morning for work?"

"I'm so glad you asked! All you need to do is to put ice cubes into a bowl and dunk for apples in a tub of ice."

"Ah...ha." The Ringmaster lifted an eyebrow and looked at me critically. "You want me to wake up in the morning and dunk my head in a bowl of ice cubes? That's a little Mommie Dearest, isn't it?"

Question mark? "What do you mean, Mommie Dearest?"

Corb smirked. "I'm surprised you never heard of it! It's a classicly bad movie from the early 1980s, starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford. She's the famous Hollywood icon who had a less than ideal relationship with her daughter. Wire hangers, gardening sheers. It's kind of a gay cult thing--"

"I know what Mommie Dearest is, moron. I saw it before you were born. But why is dunking for apples in a tub of ice like that?"

"Because that was Joan Crawford's beauty routine! She had this morning ritual where she would scrub her face and arms with soap and boiling hot water, then plunge her face into a bowl of ice to close the pores."

I lifted up the top of my martini ice container, staring down at the bottom at the glinting cubes. "It's nice to see beauty hasn't changed that much in seventy years. And that's why you owe it to yourself to look your freshest in the morning, Corb. Hey, I could take these ice cubes home with me, if you'd like, for tomorrow morning. Just to get you started on your new routine!"

"Oh yeah, right. Thanks." Corb finished off his drink and turned to face me head on. "We're going to have a new routine, all right. A new beauty routine. For YOU. You see, I read in Marie Claire the other day that there's another beauty secret that another star has that would be just perfect for you! You see, all you need to do is to dunk your head in the toilet bowl every morning after I've performed my morning constitutional. It's guaranteed to make you look you sparkling clean for all your friends all day long." A pause. "Just make sure you use a towel to wipe everything off."

Touche. I lifted up my martini glass. The main course was getting ready to be served. "It sounds refreshing. I'll pass."

"Oh no. I insist. Dunky dunky, Ted! Dunky dunky."

Sigh. Bring me another Old Fashioned, please. I grabbed a few ice cubes for my martini and closed the container on the ice container. Plunky plunky. Well. Looks like neither of us will be looking our freshest in the morning any time soon...

More Tales of the Hopeless Handyman

Now that spring is finally with us, and we've got this home thing, this was the first week-end we really had to start all those outside things that responsible home-loving homeowners do every waking minute of their livings during the week-end. And p.s.: in case I haven't mentioned this before, I am completely inept when it comes to outdoor household duties.

It's definitely something I didn't miss when I left Josie with the homestead. Now, don't get me wrong: I can get the job done. But there is pain involved, and some things I really hated doing. I didn't miss not mowing a lawn for ten years, for example, after I moved out. 

When Corb and I agreed to buy the house, we bought it with him clearly knowing this was a weakness on my part. There was no buyer beware, here. He knew that he liked to landscape and that I liked watching him landscape. Oh, yes, we agreed that I would help out. But there were limitations.

Anyway, we decided to start on the gutters this week-end. The gutters at Green Victoria are in dire need of doing. The previous owners had moved to Maine during the spring, and cleaning out leaves and other debris from the downspouts of their previous monstrosity had not been a priority. So, yesterday, we went to Loewe's, bought ourselves a nice long hose and a big huge ladder, and there I was, climbing up ladders, dredging out crap with my garden gloves, and then, watering the downspouts to make sure they were clear and free of the muddy sludge that had formed at the bottom.

And I was pretty good at it, too, until we reached the back gutters. The ladder had to go up a lot higher to reach them, and I suddenly realized I wasn't the biggest fan of heights. Corb was at the bottom, though, holding the ladder and coaxing me through it.

"I can't stand this...this is too high up..." Some people whistle while they work, I keep up a steady monologue of insecurity and paranoia.

"You can do it. You're doing great!" shouted Corb encouragingly.

"There! I'm done!" And then, with the hose still running, I nervously threw it down and proceeded to step downward, when---

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Um? What?

I looked down, and there was Corb, gripping his right eye and screaming in pain. "I hate you! I hate you! I f***ing hate you!"

Oh no...had I...oh, dear. I had. As quick as I could, I climbed down the ladder to see if I could help. Corb was now kneeling on the ground, writhing in pain. "I'm blind...I'm blind...I can't see..."

"Oh my God, you're blind! You can't see!" I screamed out, bordering on the hysterical. "Waitaminute..." I looked over. "You don't have your glasses on..."

"Where are my glasses?" He looked at his hands. "Oh my God, I'm covered in blood!"

"Can I help you?" I looked over. Like an angel of mercy, an elderly gentleman had suddenly appeared near Corb. Oh great, of all times to meet the neighbors. He extended his hand. "My name is Dick Whitehead." 

Dick Whitehead? Let's pause for a minute to reflect on how awesome that name is. Suddenly my life was bordering on the surreal. "I'm a retired police officer. Is everything okay?"

"Oh. Hi!" I looked around nervously and shook his hand. "Yeah, we had a little accident with the--"

"Oh God, oh God! Ted, I f***ing hate you. I F***CKING hate you! Oh my God, it hurts so much!!!!"

The elderly gentleman turned a white shade of pale. "He doesn't usually swear like that, I swear."

###

For some reason, Dick Whitehead left quite quickly. And an hour later, we were driving to pick Theo up from work, without the need for an emergency room, but with the need of a bandage, which was now covered in blood. Corb had a terrible bruise under his eye...and a presentation to deliver in the morning.

"Oh God," I moaned as I was driving, reliving the incident in my head. "It was awful. I was so stupid and careless. How could I have thrown that hose down without looking? Without turning off the water? It was just stupid stupid stupid..." Then, another thought struck me. "Gah, I am so irresponsible! What would have happened if I had been up there with a CHAINSAW and done that? Your poor head would have been sliced off!"

Well, that got his attention. Corb stopped his groaning and looked over at me, eyes full of amazement (well, one eye, at least). "Ted, why in the hell would you be cleaning the gutters with a chainsaw?"

"That's not the point!" I said, wallowing in sadness. And then, another thought. "Oh my God! What if Kaeden had been down below?"

"Ted, why in the hell would your two year old grandson be holding the ladder while you cleaned the gutters with a chainsaw?" Then he held his eye and shook his head. "Please don't make me laugh. When I smile, my eye hurts..."

Writing about writing

With the play over, and the next chapter of the life of Tedwords finally under way, one of things I've been determined to do is to focus more on my writing. This week, I made great progress in editing my Late Night manuscript, which my agent had asked me to update back in January. this week, I edited 200 pages, and the good news is, the technology didn't need to be updated half as much as I was fearing.

I have plans on where to go with Late Night, but possibly that's better left unsaid. Let's just say I have a rough outline of what I'd like to do with my life, and leave it at that.

In the meantime, one other writing goal was to spend more time writing letters. Yes, writing. My friend fixnwrtr has been maintaining a steady correspondence with me for over a year now, but during the course of directing the play, that correspondence became entirely one-sided.

In fact, I have to confess, by the time the play was over, I had a small stack of letters from her, unopened. They would stare at me at nights, making me feel guilty.

One of the first things I did after the play ended was to go through them, one after the other. And then, I made it a point to actually write to her in response. In the past month, I've managed to send out three letters. Actual letters, too, with actual pages attached.

I have to admit, when I first started, my letter writing skills were nothing to (pardon the pun) write home about. My handwriting had deteriorated terribly through the years, through disuse. I mean, who actually writes any more? Aside for the first drafts of my manuscripts (and let's face it, there haven't been any of those in a few years) and a few attempts at morning journaling, not this guy.

As a result, my first few letters were cramped, messy. I can only imagine poor J. trying to struggle through them. I have a weird enough handwriting style as it is, a helpless hodgepodge of lower case mixed with upper case. Throw in sloppiness as a result of disuse and it's a wonder poor J. didn't just rip them up and scatter them to the winds.

I've been seeing progress. The letter that I just finished was actually legible, I think. The letters were large, the o's and the g's perfectly formed (for the most part.) I even attempted my favorite signature at the end of my letter, along with a tiny Ted cartoon.

The truth is, letter writing feels good. Like journaling, but in a different way. It's different than electronic journaling (like Live Journal) because it's all by hand, and that feels more personal, for some reason. It's different than personal journals because it's not simply one sided, which has been one of the problems with personal journals I've had over the years. I don't WANT to just write stories to myself. I want other people to read them, comment upon them. I like the two-way discourse (even if I'm not always so great on keeping up my side of the conversation.)

And I like the process of letter writing. The smell of the ink. The feel of the pen in the hand, The struggle to fill the page, the process of addressing a letter. Yes, even the licking of stamp. Definitely the satisfying feeling of placing the letter in the mailbox. It's like sex, only it lingers longer.

What I do find, however, is that life only hands you so much time, and it's hard to keep up with everything. Between editing the book, letter writing, Facebook, Live Journal, Blogspot, not to mention email, there are just too many ways to communicate these days. Forget Twitter. Something has to give, and I find Twitter to be way too limiting. The only time I actually use it is to promote a story, if I feel I have a good one worth telling. That hasn't happened in a month or so, frankly.

Am I the only one who feels that there's too much of a good thing out there? How do other people do it? When I'm at work, I find it practically impossible to keep up with everything.

Maybe my retirement from theater will help things. At least, that's one of the goals. In the meantime, I'm just grateful that this week has given me some ability to feel a bit more organized...at least, on the writing side of things.

Pieces of Tartan (Part Six): Method Acting

Backstage at the Institute. Yes, that's THE costume.

About five years ago, I started a series of stories devoted to a month I spent in Scotland participating in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, back when I was young and had a full head of hair. I passed the time with a group of actors from Trinity, including future Tony/Oscar-award winning actress Viola Davis.

The composition book I used as my journal, which is the source for these stories, has been sitting on my desk for the past two years, waiting for me to open it up and tell the next chapter.

"Please come see our show.”

The man standing in front of me stared down dubiously at the flyer I had handed him. He swept a meaty paw through what was left of his thinning hair and frowned. “I’m not sure I really want to see your show, son.”

“Oh, please see it!” I said, trying hard not to let my desperation show, and fully aware of the fact that the small theater inside was completely empty. “It’s a great show. You’ll love it. Really, you will. I promise.”

“What’s it about?”


“It’s called Crises in the Garden and Xantippe’s Lament. It has actors from Rhode Island!”

The man stared at me as if I had two heads. Then, he started walking away.

“Please!” But the man kept on walking. Desperately, I turned around to assault the first person in my path, an older woman with gray hair and sensible shoes. “Please come see our show,” I whined, hoping the pathetic desperate state I was in would somehow charm this poor woman into submission.

She glanced at the flyer. “What’s it about?”

I kept in mind my last conversation, and tried hard to avoid the words “Xantippe” and “Rhode Island” at all costs. “Oh, these are two great one act plays. You’ll just love them! Some of the best one act plays ever written. And really, when you get right down to it, who doesn’t love one act plays? They’ve got incredible, award-winning actors in them, too. One play’s about Adam and Eve. They wear flesh colored clothes and everything!”

“Oh.” The old lady seemed to take pity on me, for a minute. Then, her face hardened.

“I don’t know, I have a sick friend to tend to…”

I looked down nervously at my watch. Five minutes until opening. Time to unleash the floodgates. “Oh, please! You don’t know the miserable night I’ve had. My boss—the director of this play—found out at 8:30 that the theater didn’t have the tickets here, so he asked me to pick them up at the Assembly Room, but when I went to the Assembly Room and I learned that they closed the Room at six, so I had to beg and plead to get them to open up, you know? And I got them to, but when they did, I learned that the tickets weren’t there, so I raced down to the Main Office…and got lost, may I add, really lost!...only to find out at 9:35 that Aleister—oh, he’s our contact here, really funny guy. Played Song for Guy on the piano the first night we were here, can you believe it? Because that’s one of my favorite songs and I was just listening to it on the plane ride to Scotland. Anyway, somehow I managed to find Aleister and I raced back here to the French Institut, only now it’s ten minutes before the play’s going to open and they tell me no one’s in the theater even though we tried to pass out a lot of flyers this morning, only my boss doesn’t think I really tried hard enough, and if I don’t get someone in that theater soon…well…anyway, would you please like to see our show?”

I think by this point the lady was a little bit afraid of me. Her face turned a paler shade of white, which was pretty hard to do in Scotland. “How…how much are the tickets?”

“It’s a bargain,” I said. “And I’ll let you in at half price.”

###

Earlier that evening, I had been doing a line through with Doug and Missa, the stars of In the Garden.

“I hate these clothes,” complained Missa in the middle of one of her lines. Our well-endowed Eve made a face and picked at the hem of her flesh-colored leotard.
“Me too,” said Doug, our Adam, brushing back his long flowing red hair dramatically.

“They’re so freaking cutesy. I hate cutsey.”

“I wish there was something we could do to kill the cute,” said Missa, tossing her script to one side.

Doug thought for a moment. “Hey, maybe there is.” A dramatic pause. Doug was quite fond of dramatic pauses. Also, hair flips. “Your character spends a lot of time wandering around the garden discovering things, right? Naming them?”

“Sure does,” giggled Missa. “Half the play.”

“Maybe that’s the problem with our costumes, then.”

“What do you mean?”

Doug started to bounce up and down, which was about as out of control as he ever allowed himself to get. “They’re too clean! She’s wandering through the garden, Missa! Climbing mountains, scrambling through mud. Lifting up rocks and naming insects. Would you be all clean and cute if you were doing stuff like that?” He shook his auburn locks again. “I think not.” A finger point. “You’d be dirty, right? So would I, too. So how can we make our costumes look dirty?”

“Ummmm…look around for a mud puddle?”

Doug grimaced. Clearly not the correct answer. “Well, we could do that…but that would take too much work, I think. Ted, you think you could scare up a garden hose?”

I decided to ignore this ridiculous request.

A moment. Then, an idea! This was ACTING! Doug snapped his fingers. “Hey! If we can’t get ourselves to a mud puddle, why not make a mud puddle can come to us!”

Missa looked at him, strangely. “Even I don’t know you what you mean by that one, Doug…”

“Missa, you know that god-awful coffee that Margot made this morning? Tasted like crap, didn’t it? Do you think the grounds are still in the coffee maker?” Doug’s eyes grew wide, his smile broad. The sociopath lurking underneath the surface was finding its way out…in a controlled way, of course. “I think we can put those grounds to good use. Don’t you?”

###

One minute before opening. I stood by Doc, nervously playing with his program in the back of the theater. “Well, the tickets are all her and we’ve got…um, one person in the audience.”

Doc stared at me, clearly unhappy.

I tried to think of something positive to say. “But she’s really excited to see the play, Doc! She says she hasn’t, um, seen any Adam and Eve plays at all this year.”

Somehow, that didn't do much to lift his spirits. “Well, it’s about to get underway,” he said, resigned. “We’ll just think of this as a dress rehearsal for tomorrow night.”

“The lights are lowering in the theater,” I said. “The stage lights are going up. And look, here’s Doug going on to the stage, making his—”

I watched as his face went from resignation to frustration, as his jaw tensed and he made the realization that—

“What’s that all over his costume?” Doc asked, carefully.

Oh! Oh, dear. Looks as if Doug and Missa neglected to him that—“Um, well, funny story, that. Um, coffee grounds.”

Doc squinted his eyes tightly. “Coffee grounds?”

I stepped back, afraid that this former man of the cloth might finally come unhinged.

“Yeah, well…see, they decided the clothes were too cute for their characters. Needed to be a little dirtier. So they decided to smear…um, coffee grounds all over…”

“Too…cute?” Doc squeezed my hand, tightly. I gasped, stopped talking. After a second or two, his grip relaxed.

Almost in slow motion, Doc walked away from me, to take a seat in the empty theater.I don’t remember much of the play after that.

###

Three o’clock in the morning. In the flat. Laughing hysterically—Doug, Missa, our stage manager Rio, and Viola.

“It’s perfect!” Missa shrieks, sitting cross-legged on the ratty green couch that took up half the living room. I’m on the piano stool across from her, ignoring the annoying temptation to test out the upright.

Doug’s laughing, loudly, sitting next to her. “He’d believe it, too, you know.”

Viola nods. “Sure he would. With that much crazy, it’d be hard not to believe it.”

A wild gleam in Doug’s eye. “It’s decided. We blame it all on Tallulah! Tell Bill she was the one behind it all, that she was still angry about the parade. Felt we made Queenie look bad. And nooooooobody makes Queenie look bad.”

Missa’s laughing so hard she’s having trouble speaking. “So…so…she wanted revenge. She waits until we’re…we’re about to go onstage…”

“And then…and then she throws coffee grounds at us! Wet, sticky coffee grounds.” Doug looks off into the distance, imagining the scene. “I’d have to play it really serious. Look him straight in the eye. ‘She’s not well, Bill. She’s coming unglued! I’m scared.’”

Missa wipes at her eyes. “Queenie made me cry…”

“You know, maybe we should have had the courtesy to tell him,” says Doug, abruptly. Missa grabs him arm. “We have to say SOMETHING to him, Doug. He’s not speaking to us right now!”

“He wouldn’t even congratulate us after our stellar performance in front of…what was the audience count, Ted?”

“One old lady.” I reply, insanely proud of my dubious achievement.

“One little old lady,” repeated Doug. “But that little old lady got the best we had to offer! Although maybe I shouldn’t improvised and said you had a nice butt, Missa. I mean, you do, but I’m not sure Doc liked that one, either…”

“I just feel bad,” said Rio, sitting cross-legged on the armchair. Like every good stage manager, she was fond of putting the weight of the world…well, at least the world that had been created…on her shoulders. “I should have warned him about it. I gave you the green light, after all.”

Doug sweeps that away with a sweep of his arm. “Don’t worry, Rio! It’s all Queenie’s fault. That’s what you get for letting unstable character actresses take a flight to—”

Suddenly, there’s a loud noise outside the door to our flat. We all stop talking, immediately.

The doorknob twists around. From outside, we hear the rattling of keys. Missa looks around at all of us, wide eyed. “Who the hell would be trying to get in at three in the—”

“Shhhhh!” whispers Doug.A key into the doorknob. It doesn’t fit. The rattling of keys again. Then, a weird scraping sound. I hold my breath. Then the sound of footsteps, moving down the hall.

The room is deadly silent. We all sit there, staring at each other.

“What in the hell was that?” Rio asks, slightly freaked.

Missa stares at her, deadly serious. “It’s Tallulah, Rio. Sharpening her knives.
Queenie’s going to GET US BACK!”

The flat erupts into a wave of laughter. Missa holds her side, unable to breathe.

I turn to Viola, who’s sitting with her back against the couch and staring down into her coffee cup. “You okay? You’ve been quiet all night.”

“I miss A.,” she says softly, talking about her boyfriend back home. “It’s only been five days away, but it feels like forever.”

Pieces of Tartan (Part Five): Corn Starch and Mother's Milk

Me at 23, at a very special men's club in Scotland. Or so I was led to believe...


About three years ago, I started a series of stories devoted to a month I spent in Scotland participating in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, back when I was young and had a full head of hair. I passed the time with a group of actors from Trinity, including future Tony-award winning actress Viola Davis.

The composition book I used as my journal, which is the source for these stories, has been sitting on my desk for the past three years, waiting for me to open it up and tell the next chapter.


Monday, August 14, 1989

"We can't get lost, Doug," I said, as we wandered through the windy and narrow streets of Edinburgh. "I want to see the dancers roll around naked in corn starch!"

One thing you had to give the Fringe Festival, there was no end of interesting theater to be found, in small theaters and auditoriums scattered on each and every block. The night before we had seen "Hanging the President," a powerful Anti-Apartheid piece about two convicts sentenced to die in a South African jail, which featured (and I'm quoting from my journal for this one) "graphic nudity and lots of homosexuality." Egad!

One guy actually shit in a bowl onstage! I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Actually shitting onstage. What guts that must have taken.

As for the nudity, Viola complained that the naked men all had tiny dicks, and the only man she was actually interested in never took anything off. Good to see I wasn't the only size queen in the audience.

Tonight's theater adventure didn't sound as cutting edge, but it did sound entertaining.

It's not every night you get to see people rolling around naked in corn starch, after all.

The play was called Other Worlds, by a group called Abiogenesis.

By the time we made it through the Edinburgh maze, the show had already started, although we had only missed about five minutes.

Our group was sitting in the front row of the small theater. I moved past Vi to sit next to Missa. She had a really strange look on her face, as if she were about to give birth or something. "Is everything okay?" I asked.

She looked over at me, with large brown eyes that glistened, as if she were on the verge of tears. "Why?" she asked, and she had trouble getting even that out.

"You look like you're about to cry."

"I am."

"Why?"

She pointed to the stage, her chest heaving back and forth, involuntarily. "Watch," she managed to say.

Was the show that intense? I didn't think anything could have surpassed "Hanging the President." Crapping in a steel bowl, after all! How can you top that? I turned my head to the stage. I watched.

The lady on the stage stood alone. She was a small, bird-like creature, dressed in a purple leotard. She spoke in a weird monotone, every syllable over-articulated, as if she was a stroke victim. In the background, unearthly space music played.

"Time," she said, pointing to a large watch on her hand. "Moves on..." She moved one step toward the front of the stage. "As the pop-u-lation..." She moved her hand to her belly, mimicking pregnancy. "Pro-gresses..." Then, one huge step toward the audience.

"Through e-vo-loo-tion."
Oh. My. God.

Suddenly I understood why Missa was looking the way she was.

What's the worst piece of theater you've ever seen? Take that and multiply it times two.

This was definitely the worst, for me. I mean, it was laugh-out-loud bad, and the worst thing was, we couldn't even laugh, because we were sitting in the front row, with all eyes on us. So we had to keep it all in. By the end of the first act, my eyes were watering, too. I was laughing so hard inside that it had to come out, somehow.

"And also, they're incredibly rude," complained the director of another Edinburgh production, "Is Their Life After High School," during intermission. "My kids had to stand in front of them in the parade yesterday. We spent hours decorating our float! You know what they did? They walked down the street and made weird barking noises at the crowd. Weird barking noises! Can you imagine a worse group to put in a parade?"

I thought about our parade entry, which had been even more half-baked. At least they had a method to their madness. Our banner had been made up of curtains we had taken from the flat we were staying in, wrapped around a broom handle, with the name of our group spelled out in glow-in-the-dark duct tape. Our straggly bunch had included a man in a toga and a lady in a giant ape costume.

"No, I can't possibly think of a worse group," I lied.

"Act Two's about to start," said Missa. "This is the one with the corn starch!"

"I can't wait!" I said, and turned to Vi. "Try to stay awake this time, would you?" Viola had fallen asleep during Act One.

"I can't promise ANYTHING," said Viola.

###

"What a rip-off," I complained at the Scots Club, later that night. "Just a couple of saggy boobs covered in corn starch. Everyone ended up looking like shake and bake."

"The scene after that was the worst," said Missa.

"What was it?" asked Margot, our Shakespearean-trained thespian, who had had, by all accounts, spent a "lovely" evening at the theater.

"It was set in the future," said Missa. "The dancers were supposed to be androids. They used clothes dryer tubes for robot arms."

"Honestly, they looked like the Robot in Lost in Space," said Doug, nursing a Brandy Alexander. "I expected them at any moment to start calling out, 'Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!'"

"How was the audience for your show, tonight?" I politely asked Talullah, our resident prima donna without an ounce of prima in her. She had been performing that night at our theater at the French Institute, as Queenie. Think "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" on anti-depressants.

She pursed her lips. "Small. Appreciative."

Margot raised her hand up, behind Tallulah's back. Held up three fingers.

"Oh, look who's here!" said Missa, pointing to the table next to us. It was Aleister, who was the adorable young assistant of Harold, the festival organizer. 22, blond hair, blue eyes, the gift of gab like you've never seen.

"Rhodeislanders!" Aleister announced, staggering toward us. "Howya all doing tonight?"

"How are you, Al?" asked Margot.

"Do better with another drink in my hand," he said, and lurched toward Tallulah, who sniffed and turned away from him.

"I'll be happy to get you a drink, Aleister," said Margot, standing up to move to the bar and accommodate him.
"Mmm, I bet you would. Wanna go somehere else?" Aleister asked. "I kin show you around the town."

"Whereabouts?" asked Missa. "What would be fun?"

"Dunno," said Alesiter. "How about Chapp's?"

"Where's Chapp's?" Missa asked.

"Jist round the corner," he said, and winked at me. "A very special kind of men's club."
Missa looked at him shrewdly. "How special?"

Aleister grinned. "It's a nice gay bar. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Oh no," said Tallulah, turning around to glare at Aleister. "Certainly not that!"

"Why not?" asked Aleister, clearly enjoying offending her. "What else do you want? Well, we could get ourselves into a bit of a gang bang, then, eh?" He asked innocently, before moving his head down to nibble at Talullah's neck.

"Young man!" said Tallulah, pushing Aleister away from her neck. "I'm old enough be your mother!"

"How bout it, mum?" Aleister said seductively, moving to take another nibble at her.

 Tallulah screamed in horror and started whacking at him with her purse.

"Calm down, boy," said Margot, smoothly placing a beer down in front of him. That got his attention. "Come over here and put your talents to some real use."

Missa and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. This might actually turn out to be a better show than Abiogenesis. 

And it was. We all went back to the flat. From what the ladies said later, Aleister was really, really good at back massages.

Pieces of Tartan (Part Four): Parade of Fools

Check out the wayyyy coooool jean jacket! I tell you, was I the height of fashion back in the eighties, or what? NOTE: "Or what" is a perfectly acceptable answer.


Sunday, August 12, 1989
Today was a total disaster, from start to finish.

It started out with one of my first actual assignments in Scotland as “assistant producer.” Bill was stuck with opening all the trunks that had finally arrived from the States, containing the costumes and props for the show. It was a time-consuming task, so he instructed me to get thee to the Performer’s Center at eight in the morning, and attend a conference held by the Parade Committee, to “educate” all of the groups that were appearing in the Festival regarding what the parade would consist of.

“Educate”...what a joke. What that basically meant is that I spent half an hour standing around with a bunch of similarly-clueless gophers.

To my right, I stood next to a girl from a punk rock group that’s performing in a play about Ophelia. I think it was called "Something about Ophelia." To my left, there are two girls from an American high school troupe performing a play called “Is There Life After High School?”

After the first fifteen minutes, an 18-year-old guy came over, whispered to the two girls next to me, and then left. So did they.

The punk rocker turned to me. “Are you waiting for the parade committee?” she asked, chewing gum, her dark eyes surrounded by eye liner. I resisted the impulse to give a snappy answer to a stupid question.

“Sure am,” I said.

“It’s almost been an hour,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. “Maybe we should look around for Happy Harold?”

And so, the two of us start to comb through the crowd. We finally spotted Harold standing by the front of the building, his nose stuck in a clipboard. We walked right up and asked him about the Parade Committee.

He looked up from his clipboard and pushed his glasses up to his face. “Oh, didn’t you talk to my Parade assistant?” he asked.

We shook our heads. He scratched his thinning hair and looked around. “Oh, there he is!” he said, and pointed to the 18-year-old boy who had been so eager to assist the two girls from “Is There Life After High School?” Apparently, there certainly was...

Hal signaled for the kid to come over, and he ambled toward us, reluctantly. “Be a good chap and tell these people what they’re expected to do for the parade, would you?” asked Harold, and then ambled off.

The kid sighed, having been forced to actually DO HIS JOB. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Get your group to meet at 10 o’clock. They'll need to decorate their float for a 2:00 take off.”

“Wait a minute,” said my punk rock friend. “A float?”

“Yeah. Or whatever you can put together, yeah,” said the kid, as though we should have known about putting together a float, and were idiots for not knowing.

“But what kind of float?” I asked, trying not to panic.

“Up to you, mate,” he said. “But Harold wants you to dress up as fifties greasers. Says the theme is, ‘Happy Days.’”

Ophelia looked as though her gum had turned to barbed wire. “Ummmm…I don’t think my actors are going to understand Happy Days...”

“Even by Samuel Beckett?” I asked. Ophelia looked at me as though I had two heads.

“Well, can we at least promote our show with flyers?” I asked. “No one’s going to know who we are if we’re dressed as greasers.”

“No flyers,” says the kid, firmly. “We don’t want people passing out paper everywhere.”

Glumly, I trudged back to the flat, to bring the news of the parade to my friends. I knew that it’s not going to be met with much enthusiasm.


###

“Happy Days?” asked Doug, as I gathered everyone together in the living room—everyone, that is, except for Doc and Jeri, who were nowhere to be found. Doug raised left eyebrow, amused by the thought. “Are you sure you heard correctly?”

“Yes,” I said. “Positive. Fifties greasers. That's what I was told.”

There was a collective groan out of everyone. Everyone, that is, except...Miss Tallulah.

“Yes, greasers!” she said. “This will be fun! Doug, you can be the Fonz.”

Doug fixed her with a look. “And Tallulah dear, you can be Pinky Tuscadero. No, I don’t think I’ll be playing the Fonz. Alas, I left my leather jacket back in Providence.”

“Well, hmmm...” said Tallulah, playing with the top of her upper lip. “Hmmm...well, maybe we could just show up in costumes from our show! That might be a good idea, don’t you think?”

Doug snorted. “Tallulah, I play Adam from the Bible and Socrates. Either way I’ll be a bit overexposed, don’t you think?”

Melissa shrugged. “Well, that might sell some tickets...”

Doug stared down, less than innocently, at her pendulous breasts. “Only if you dress as Eve, and show off your apples.” She let out a snort, and the two of them burst into laughter.

“Well, you don’t have to wear your skintight outfit,” says Tallulah, still scheming. “But you could wear your toga!”

Reo cleared her throat. “Tallulah, don’t you think we should wait until Doc gets here, to make these decisions?”

“Why wait?” Tallulah said, imperiously. “This whole event has been entirely too disorganized, if you ask me. We need to strike while the iron’s hot! We need to show the world the BEST that Rhode Island has to offer! So, Doug, you’ll wear your toga...and...and...maybe a silly hat...I’m certain we have some silly hats in the costume trunk...”

“No, I won’t be wearing any silly hat,” Doug said, firmly, flipping back his long red hair. “But I’ll be happy to march in the parade, to support the show. See you at two!” And with that, he got up and left the room. Melissa followed closely behind him, before she was told to wear the funny hat.

Tallulah looked as though she had been slapped across the face. “Those two are pimples,” she hissed, after they had left the room. Somehow, she had suddenly forgotten the fact that Melissa held her hand all the away across the Atlantic. “Pimples! What do you think, Margot?” she asked, turning to her fellow thespian from Trinity.

Margot had so far kept a distance from the conversation, but was now forced to jump in head first. “Well, of course. I’d be happy to appear in costume...although as a character from the play, not as a...” And she shuddered. “Greaser. Maybe something from our play, ‘Ape God’?”

“And we need a banner!” shouted Tallulah, totally out of nowhere, shooting an arm up into the air like a rocket. Suddenly, she turned upon Viola and myself, almost childlike. “You two...we need your help...we need to promote our little troupe! I want both of you to work like the dickens and put together a banner for us! Something wonderful and eye-catching!”

Viola and I looked at each other. “With what?”

Tallulah waved us away. “I’m sure you’ll think of something." Her mind had moved on to another subject. "And I...I shall dress in the regal persona of Queenie! The audience will love it. Only...” she looked aggravated. “I left my costume in the shipment box. Reo, will you be a dear and escort me back to the Center, to fetch my outfit, and perhaps a funny hat for Douglas?”

And with that, Tallulah dragged Reo, our stage manager and the only one of us with any real technical expertise, off, to “fetch” a costume. That left Viola, Margot, and I all alone, saddled with the task of making...

“A banner,” I said.

“What in the hell can we make a banner with?” asked Viola, glumly.

“Well, there is a broom in the kitchen,” suggested Margot. “We could use that.”

“That, and what else?” I asked.

“Reo’s the stage manager,” said Vi. “You think she has anything in her suitcase?”

###

Reo stood before Viola and myself, at the start of the parade route, staring at our banner as though she were a priest and it was a pagan idol. “You used up all my duct tape,” she said, gritting her teeth.

“Not all,” I said, trying desperately to avoid having my head ripped off. “Only that cool green tape. You still have a lot of other duct tape left.”

“The ‘cool green tape,’ huh?” she said, her eyes becoming tiny slits. “You mean, my glow tape. Do you know how much that shit cost me?”

We heard a voice behind us. I flinched, recognizing the voice instantly.

“Oh, what a LOVELY day for a parade!”

Viola and I turned around to face Tallulah, as Reo moved past us, muttering furiously under her breath.

As promised, Tallulah was dressed as Queenie. Apparently, Queenie was a bizarre woman from the Old South wearing a moth-eaten blue petticoat. All she needed was a price tag hanging from her matching blue hat and she could have been the Confederacy’s answer to Minnie Pearl. “What do you think?” she asked, bowing low.

“Quite nice!” I lied. “And what do you, er, think of our banner?” The minute I said it, I felt Viola hit me in the side, as if to say, ‘don’t call attention to it.’

Tallulah looked at our banner, and instantly, her smile started to drop a few notches. “Oh. I see you used a broom handle.”

“Well, we used what we had,” I said.

“Very true,” she said. “But couldn’t you have removed the BROOM from the handle, at the very least?”

“Well, we couldn’t get it to come off,” said Viola, “And we didn't want to break the broom in half. We didn’t want to get the owner of the flat mad at us.”

“But didn’t you staple his bedsheets to the broom?” asked Tallulah. “He might not take kindly to THAT.”

“We wanted something pretty,” I said. “Something that looked good with the glow tape.”

WHAM! I looked over, and saw Reo, over by the sidewalk, slamming her foot against the curb and cursing to herself.

As I moved my eyes away from Reo, I saw Doc approaching us, dressed as Thomas Jefferson, accompanied by Margot. Or at least, I assumed it was Margot.

She was dressed as a giant black ape.

Suddenly, the absurdity of the entire situation started to hit me. It was all I could do to maintain control. Here we were, one highly dysfunctional acting troupe, ready to go out and, in Tallulah's words, show to the world the best that Rhode Island had to offer.

Apparently, the best that Rhode Island had to offer consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Socrates, a crazy Southern belle, and a giant hairy ape, all marching behind a banner constructed of a broom (dust balls and all), bedsheets, and glowing duct tape.

No wonder we were the smallest state in the union.

To make matters worse, Melissa, Viola and I manage to get lost from the others, and ended up watching the parade from the sidelines.

Well, at least we stood next to Emo Phillips. That was pretty cool.

###

“No flyers,” said Doc, later in the evening, after the parade was but a distant memory and our last rehearsal had ended. We were back at our favorite dingy Italian restaurant, just the two of us and Reo. “Everyone else had flyers, except us.”

“Well, we were told not to bring flyers,” I said.

“Wouldn’t matter,” he said, gulping down a glass of ale. “We don’t have flyers, anyway, do we?”

“No duct tape, now, either...” grumbled Reo.

“I swear, this was deliberate,” said Doc. “They’re trying to sabotage us!”

”Oh, Doc, I don’t think they’re trying to,” I protested. “I mean, why would you think that?”

“Listen, the show’s opening night tomorrow,” said Reo, putting a hand on Doc’s shoulders. Even stripped of her beloved duct tape, she took control of the situation, as a good stage manager should. “We’re going to do just fine. Don’t let this get you down. No one’s trying to sabotage anything. But I suggest we get to sleep and get ready for tomorrow.”

“Doc, if you’d like,” I said. “I can take care of flyers, for you.”

“Good man,” said Doc. “You’re elected.”

“Do we know how big an audience we have?” I asked.

“Oh,” said Doc, cheering up at the thought of opening night. “I’m certain it will be small...but appreciative.”

Monday, August 14, 1989

Three people showed up for opening night. The audience count included Jeri.

Pieces of Tartan (Part Three): Bobby and Booze

Friday, August 11, 1989 I slept until noon today, and I’m a little sad that I missed out on the action. We were invited to a tour of Edinburgh, but only Doug and Margot actually went. They lorded it over the rest of us by going on and on for HOURS about the story of "Greyfriars Bobby" using a dreadful Scottish accent.

For the rest of the day, one of them would find a way to the words "Greyfriars Bobby" into the conversation, just to get the other laughing. The emphasis was always on the last word, too, with the "y" cut off so that the word came out more like "boe-beh."

"Greyfriars Boe-beh," Doug would say, and Margot would hold her hands over her mouth, giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Greyfriars Boe-beh," Margot would say, with her husky voice, and Doug would let out a bark.

The rest of us all laughed. The first time.

I am firmly convinced that had poor little Bobby been in our flat this afternoon, this loyal, faithful pooch would have turned rabid. Surely he would have turned on all of us, having been driven insane by hearing his name taken in vain so often.


The place is beautiful, although the weather is off–alternately sunny and rainy. The building that we are living in is ancient. The steps outside our building are time-wornand currently being repaired. Our flat is beyond description, although the term bomb shelter comes close, I think.

Today is Viola’s birthday, so we made a big production out of that. Actually, during the day, Viola didn’t make a big production out of much of anything–she just stayed in the flat, with Melissa and me. We ransacked the living room and discovered a money chest under the piano.

Gleefully, the three of us filled our pockets with coins. No need to convert our dollars, now! Vi and Missa took the most, though. I felt a little guilty about the whole thing, honestly. I guess in a way, I felt like I was stealing from my twin.

We spent a lot of time taking a sex quiz. I received an 8, although I wasn’t completely honest about certain questions, like the homosexuality one. Vi received a 6 and Missa received a 4. Doug actually scored the highest, with a 16, although I noticed that he was a bit hesistant on the homosexuality question, too. He might be, though. There’s just something about him that tells me he plays for the other side.

We celebrated Vi’s birthday with Indian food–her choice. The food was hot and the conversation was interesting, and the combination made my head spin.

Saturday, August 12, 1989

Had our first rehearsal for Shadows of Time at the Institut Francais. The performance space is much smaller than our theater at Rhode Island College, but has a great deal more charm.

After rehearsal, Doc, Tallulah, and I went to an Italian restaurant for some late supper. The drunks were out in force and the service was terrible, but it was the only place on the street that stayed open until two in the morning.

But then again, I love watching drunks, as long as it’s from a distance. There was one girl, named Suzy, who was sitting at the table next to us, and was totally wasted.

"I didn’t order lasgana!" she kept yelling at the waiter, and then, would fall off her chair. Then, she would stagger back up, and repeat herself, swaying and bobbing back and forth, her hair dangling into her plate.

"I didn’t order lasgana!" she'd bellow. Finally, she lurched out of her chair and stumbled to the door.

Another drunk man kept coming into the restaurant, demanding service. The owner of the restaurant refused to let him in. In desperation, the kitchen staff put together a plate of leftovers and handed it over to him, if he promised to eat it elsewhere.

It didn’t work, though: he ate it outside, and then came back into the restaurant, and sat down next to me!

Doc kept us entertained with stories about his days as a minister in the sixties, teaching for a black college in the South at the heights of the Civil Rights movement. He’s really a fascinating guy.

Talullah is just as fascinating, but I'm not sure it's in a good way. Frankly, I think she's totally out to lunch. She’s nothing like I imagined--with her acting credentials, I expected she’d be dramatic, but I wasn’t expected the neurotic spawn of Norma Desmond, trapped in the body of a plump frog.

Melissa told me that the first night that they arrived in Scotland, when Aleister had shown everyone to a McDonalds for dinner, Talullah had refused to go. "I REFUSE to travel across the sea, just to grab a lousy hamburger at a McDonalds," she sniffed. "All I want is a cup of soup and a salad at a nice little bistro!"

To make her point, Talullah broke with the group, and grabbed Melissa by the hand, dragging her along for her quest to find her cozy bistro. Somehow, Melissa had formed a connection with her on the plane. Or perhaps it was just a cruel twst of fate: the two had ended up sitting next to each other on the flight to Scotland, and Talullah, frightened to death of air travel, insisted that Melissa hold her hand during the entire trip.

Unfortunately for Talullah and Melissa, all of the restaurants they visited were closing up for the night.

This didn’t set well with Talullah.

As they entered their third restaurant, the waiter stopped them at the door, and politely indicated that the restaurant was closing.

Talullah, infuriated, pushed him out of the way and scuttled over to the nearest empty chair.

"I DEMAND to be served!" she cried out, hitting the table with her fist.

Melissa, embarrassed, tried to sneak out of the front door, but Talullah stopped her. "No, Melissa," she said, using her theatrical voice. "You sit down right here, next to me."

By this time, the manager of the restaurant had been alerted by the waiter. "Ma’am, I’m very sorry about this, but we’re closed. You’re going to have to leave."

"My dear sir," said Talullah, turning to him, arms outstretched, in her best Evita pose. "We’ve just been traveling across the ocean for the past 36 hours. Can’t we JUST get a cup of soup and a soda?"

The manager frowned. "No, ma’am. You can’t."

Talullah let out a dramatic sigh, and lifted herself up from the table. Slowly, she dragged herself out of the restaurant, turning every now and then, in the hope that the manager would change his mind.

They ended up in McDonalds, after all.

Anyway, I guess that what goes around, comes around. The drunk that was sitting next to me served as a reminder that it was time to go. But on the way out, someone threw a slice of pizza at Talullah. It stuck, square on her backside.

No debate about it, have yourself a merry little holiday season.

When it came to figuring out how to dress up my tacky little manger scene this year, there really wasn’t much of a presidential debate to be had. I mean, hands down, the Republican race has been the biggest source of unintentional entertainment for a while now…at least, for me. Combine that with an Occupy Wall Street background and badaboom! Instant American Manger, 2011 style.

It's been an interesting year, to say the least, but we got through it. Some of us even grew a little wiser, I think. I hope all of my friends have a great holiday season, a terrific Christmas (for those who celebrate the birth of the baby…um, teabag?), and good food plus holiday cheer in the weeks ahead. And, laughter. Lots of it.

My wish for the new year: Here's to many happy stories in the next twelve months, and the gift and ability to tell them well. I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store! I’m sensing good things in all of our stockings.

All the best,
Ted

"If you can hear this..."

"There you are in Mousetrap, Paul. Love the pointy mustache!"

Paul grins and pulls at his pajama bottoms. His legs are so skinny. "Do you remember the guy who played the Inspector in that show? What was his name?"

Sue looks up from browsing through the scrapbook she holds in her hands, anticipating the well-worn story he's going to tell. "His name was Larry."

"Remember the time he was on stage in the middle of the final scene, telling everyone who the murderer was, and he forgot his lines?" Paul laughs. "So he walked off the stage to find where he was in the script and figure out his line? Remember that?"

I laugh politely (did it sound fake? I hope not) and grab his arm. "I know it was a good thing you were there to keep the show going."

"Paul is the master improvisor," says Sue.

Paul turns the page of the scrapbook he's holding. "Oh! And there you are as Scumbiscuit," I say, pointing to a picture of Paul wearing a ridiculous white pastry chef's hat, with the word 'Scrumbiscuit' embroidered on it.

"Mais oui, I am the, 'ow you say, Scoombiscuit," he booms in an over-the-top French accent.

"--and the master of a million and one voices," continues Sue. "He can just hear one once and bam! He can do it perfectly. Hey Paul, do you remember the first show we were both in? The director would come to rehearsal drunk as a skunk..."

"...and take out her false teeth when she got excited, and wave them around. Ha! Hey, Ricky!" Paul says, noticing an orderly passing by. The orderly nods politely, turns around. "I want you to meet a few people. This is my sister Sue, and her husband Rick. And this is my friend, Ted."

"Nice to meet you," says the orderly, and then turns to go about his business.

Paul turns his attention back to me. "Hey, you were in Jesus Christ Superstar, weren't you? You played Judas, didn't you? Were was that held?"

"North Eldredge High School," I replied.

"Great show, great show. Remember the two-record album? Man, I used to play that all the time. One time, a friend of mine took me to see it at PPAC. It was amazing. That opening number, right before they go into Heaven on their Mind...first, there's complete stillness, and then you hear the guitar come in..." And then, he proceeds to sing every note in the overture, staring at me intently.

I had forgotten that Paul liked to reenact albums. It kind of reminded me of my son-in-law, who likes to loudly play songs he's plucked from YouTube, in the middle of parties. Of course, in Paul's teen years, they didn't have YouTube...only vinyl. This approximation were probably his generations' form of mass communication (note: why yes, that was an obscure Jesus Christ Superstar reference. Thanks for noticing!)

I wait politely until he arrives at the fanfare. "I remember waiting for my first song to begin, during that overture. I stood behind the grand drape. The director wanted the stage to be completely covered in fog when the curtain went up. So I'd stand there as the fog machine poured smoke onto the stage, and it would get higher and higher and higher, until it was over my head. And I'd have to breathe it in! I tell you, by the time that curtain went up, I'd choke out, 'My mind is clearer now...'"

"But your voice wasn't," giggles Sue.

"Hey, you!" says a fiesty-looking Italian lady with dark hair, who it turns out, is Paul's Occupational Therapist. "You singing Pink Floyd again?"

Paul laughs, shakes his head.  "Nikki! I want you to meet a few people. This is my sister Sue, and her husband Rick. And this is my friend, Ted."

She nods appreciatively. "You sure have a huge crowd today. He tellin' you about Pink Floyd? This man knows everything there is to know about Pink Floyd. Paul, you show 'em the jacket we gave you?" She turns to me. "One of our orderlies had a boyfriend who made her one of the all time great Pink Floyd jackets, back when she was nineteen. She kept it all this time and decided to give it to Paul! It fits him, too, believe it or not."

Paul looks down at his skinny frame, at least a hundred pounds less than when I last saw him. "I have a little trouble with the sleeves..."

That rings a bell with Nikki. "Paul, did you go down for dialysis today?"

Paul nods.

Pink Floyd. Funny, just about a month ago, I rediscovered my Pink Floyd fascination, brought about by a Rolling Stone article on the anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon. "So, you're a big Pink Floyd fan, huh?"

"The biggest," says Paul, with obvious pride. "Ask me anything."

"Who was the original lead singer?"

"Syd Barrett," replies Paul. "Their first album was Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Of course, their greatest album, and the one that made them famous, was Dark Side of the Moon."

"Oh yes..."

"It starts off with the really quiet, but then, you start to hear this sound, coming out of the silence..." And suddenly, Paul launches into a recitation of the entire first side of Dark Side of the Moon. Sue turns her head, starts talking to Rick. Paul shifts his attention solely to me.

Politely, I listen. He runs through album, song by song. Speak to Me, then Breathe. Then On the Run.

"...and then, you hear the tick tock of a clock, and suddenly, there's a huge noise of all these clocks going off, everywhere!" says Paul, enthusiastically. "And then you hear the guitar, and then..." And then, he starts singing. "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way..."

As he sings, he gains momentum. I sing along, trying hard not to think of the situation Paul has found himself in, of the world within which he resides. Paul continues forward, the same old smile on his face. "So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking..." His eyes grow wide, he points to Rick, he's unaware of how loudly he's singing. "Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death!"

The punchline has been punched. Paul pauses. "Oh...what's next...I forget now..."

"Every year is getting shorter," I sing, helpfully. Together, we finish off the song. Paul seems pleased. "And then comes The Last Great Gig in the Sky. My favorite."

He nods, grabs my hand. "Do you know, if you listen closely to that song, after the second chorus, there's a section that sounds like mumbling? But if you listen really closely, you can hear what it says? Do you know what it says?"

I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable, "No...what?"

He stares at me, dead serious. "If you can hear this, you're dying." He shakes his head. "That's what it says. 'If you can hear this, you're dying.'"

I glance away at Paul, look over at Sue. She brings a hand to her face. "How long can you stay, Ted?"

"What time is it?" A glance down, to the phone. "Oh,man. Have to pick up the kids soon. Guys, do you mind if we take a look at that jacket, though? I'd really like to see it..."

We pack up the scrapbooks. Rick and I head off to Paul's room, trade small talk. Paul lifts himself up, uses his walker to shuffle back to his room, Psychic Sue following behind. The jacket revealed, photos taken. Then, goodbyes.

"I'll be back," I say to Paul as I hug him.

"You'd better be," he says.

All the way home, I think about life on the dark side of the moon.



"What's the purpose of life, Corb?" I ask, later that night, as he's going to bed.

"That's easy," he says, stretching out his big toes. To live."

"Is that it?" I pace around the room. "It just seems so purposeless, if that's all there is to it. There's just got to be something more, if not, it just all seems kind of futile, if all that living means is you're going to end up in a--"

"But few people really live," Corb replies. "Most people spend their times obsessing about stupid things, like bills and laundry and day-to-day crap, and don't spend any time at all actually living. The trick is living, Ted. That's something only a lucky few achieve."

Living. Hmmm.

If you can hear this...

Operation: Scumbiscuit

One of my silly mystery nights, featuring Psychic Sue, far right. 
This one was called The Battle Royale

Just the other day, I mentioned in my entry on journaling a quote from the play Love Letters, and lo and behold, what should I receive this morning but an email from my favorite acting partner, Psychic Sue. Some of you may remember her from a memorable adventure I took to Heniker, New Hampshire to perform in a production of that play with her.

This time around, the message was not so cheery: "Could you possibly call me as soon as you can? I have new information about my brother Paul."

Paul is an old friend, too, although I haven't kept in touch with him as much as I have Psychic Sue. I certainly never performed in any productions of Love Letters with him. However, he was a kind, loving bear of a man, with a love for old Three Stooges routines, and he had appeared in a few of the wildly amateurish mystery nights I had written and directed (and sometimes appeared in) back in the days that I still had hair. His character was usually that of Scumbiscuit, a jovial French chef with an atrocious French accent.

Last I had heard from Psychic Sue, Paul had fallen upon hard times. He had been diagnosed with diabetes and as a result, lost his eyesight for some time, although two painful surgeries had partially restored that. He had even been homeless for a while, although Sue and family had managed to find him a good place to live.

Immediately, I called Sue back. Sure enough, the news was bad. After a short peaceful lull, things were tough for Paul once again. "He scratched his toe a few months ago," Sue told me. "And because he has diabetes, things got bad quickly. They've had to amputate that toe. But even worse, because circulation is so poor down there, the other toes started to die. So, they've made the decision to cut all of his toes off on one foot."

What could I say? I said the words that you say. To repeat them here would be pointless.

"Ted, the thing is, through all that he's been through, he's always maintained a good attitude. You know how he always was. Always smiling, always there to listen to other people. Never thought badly of anyone. But this one's getting him down. He's grown really moody in the rehab center. Still has good days. The other day, he told me that he had had the best day of his life, can you believe it? I asked why, and he said that they held a Halloween party for some area kids, and he had never laughed so much in his life. A kid's Halloween party and it did that for him! But there are other days...well, he gets down. Moody. He''s losing hope, I think."

I waited for the next step. I knew that Psychic Sue was formulating a plan.

"So, I was thinking about the fact that loved the mystery nights he was involved in, and also Mousetrap. And I was wondering, do you have any photos from those shows he was in? He still talks about all of them, and how much he loved them. They still bring a smile to his face...so I was wondering, do you have any--"

Aha! "Actually, Z, yes, I do," I said, moving into the bedroom. Josie and I had kept good care to record all of the shows we were in, back in the days when we involved with Eldredge Community Theater. We took dozens of photos, and maintained beautiful scrapbooks that Josie spent hours putting together. When we left the group, under not-too-pleasant circumstances, we had kept them, fearing that they would not have been treated very nicely by the group that was then in power. So, yes, I had many dozens of photos on hand.

Sue was amazed. "Oh wow...if you could just find a way to share them with Paul, that'd be great. I'll be coming home for Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure when I could stop over. I'll be with family all day Thursday, and then we're visiting Paul on Friday..."

I took a deep breath. "How about if I go with you to visit him on Friday? I could bring the scrapbooks with me. He could see them firsthand"

You could hear the relief in her voice. "Ted, would you really do that? I think it would mean the world to him."

Absolutely I would.

It's nice to know that those old memories mean as much to someone else as they do to me. All those old friends and the silly adventures that people went along with me on. They were foolish and unpolished, but in many ways, those are some of my fondest memories, back in the days when I was young and extremely foolish.

It's time to pay it forward, I think. Seeing Paul on Friday...Operation Scumbiscuit...is going to be a pleasure.

This Greek's Way.

"The fact that they were in love with play and would play magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived and how they looked at life...the little pleasures, too, that daily living holds were felt as such keen enjoyment."

Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

Aha! That's it. That's the whole purpose of my life, I think. Or at least, my online journal writings. Who needs all that sturm und drang, and even more, who wants to look back and read about it, years from now?

Oh, I've written down-right down and depressing entries, of course. When I first starting writing my online journal, way back in 2002, my first few years were all about the crumbling of my marriage to Josie and my first hesitant steps into the world outside, on my own. Not the cheeriest of subjects, frankly, which is why, try as I might, I've never been able to go back and read it from beginning to end. It's just too sad for me.

Instead, it's the moments of silliness and celebration that I've preferred, and frankly, which I think I have more of an inclination to write about. In fact, one of my first online journal entries was about a giant plant that lived at the Homestead on our deck, and some insane tall tale about how it went wild and one day and grew vines that wrapped themselves around Josie, attempting to drag her down underneath. Freudian symbolism abounds, certainly, even up to the ending, where I discover a secret passage, hidden underneath.

Those are the stories I go back to, time and again, because they have a lightness of spirit that I find attractive. That, and my "power statements," such as the story about how Josie and I first met, and what she means to me, or unpleasant stories of being bullied in junior high...nothing light in spirit about those, although they both have messages of hope contained within, about how it's possible to overcome even the worst of adversity and prosper from it.

Even so, I'm keenly aware that the way I tell my story is a bit different, and that not everyone is as obsessed as I am about turning the "little pleasures that daily living holds" into the fabric of the stories they tell. Many people use their blogs to wax political, or make things intensely personal without regard to others (an audience of one). Or, they skip the personal altogether, and use their space primarily to discuss anything BUT their personal life. Or, they try to focus their stories exclusively on one aspect of their lives: those who focus on how they raise their children (and usually how well they do at it), or on their life in writing. I can't be constrained like...my stories could be about my kids, could be about my life with Corb, could be political, could be about theater, could be about nothing. A high spirited people do not obey so easily. And do not focus so narrowly, either.

One could call my material myopic in nature, and perhaps it is. But, it's what I do. Since I first started keeping journals, actually, when I wrote in the third person, and attributed the stories to the author "Vern Slater." My interest has always been on celebrating the every day, the mundane, the trivial matters in my life and those around me. That's my fascination, and it's a fascination I've increasingly chosen to embrace.

My dear friend adrianaendless has taken to calling me a gypsy, because she feels that my style of writing the stories that I write are akin to that a gypsy telling a story around the fire. I think there's an element of truth to that, and I find it flattering. But in reading The Greek Way, I'm struck by how much of who I am has been influenced by a culture that I never really knew much about. My grandfather came to America as a Greek orphan and died when my father was 12, so I never really knew him nor did I have family members that I could reach out and connect with. However, likes those vines that entangled Josie, what lurks beneath has always held quite a strong pull, and the secret passage underneath has been informing my life since the very start.

Oh, and I'm usually deeply in debt, too. There's another thing I can attribute to my Greek heritage.

Note: today's photo is me, one Halloween. Five, maybe?

Best Bathroom Book Bets 2011

Anyone who's read me for a while knows I'm a huge fan of what I like to call toilet books. These are the books that (maybe not) you bring in with you for a pleasant little time away from the world, crapping or peeing to your heart's content while you read a little something something.

Toilet books can't be linear. They need to be something you can simply flip through and select a random page to read. Doesn't matter what page you turn to, you're going to find something interesting. After all, you're only going to be in their for ten or twenty minutes. Now, this is important: It also can't be a book you're reading in a linear fashion, because that interrupts your digestive flow. No, no, no. The perfect bathroom book needs to be something light and tasty, but with a little kick...kind of like an aperitif.

And of course, you need to mix bathroom books up every so often. One does get bored reading the same books time and again, after all. As a result, some get put away for a year or so, and then come back again. Others get retired for good.

So, in no particular order, here are my current picks for classic bathroom books...what I'm reading now. Pick a few up and you can crap like Ted! Let's face it, that's infinitely more entertaining than moving like Jagger. I know, right?

• Get Happy: the Life of Judy Garland by Gerald Clarke. Okay, I lied, this is my number one fave, right now. I have to admit, I am mildly obsessed with this book. But how can you not be fascinated with a book that has a story about Judy Garland giving some random movie star a hummer and then being forced to sing "Over the Rainbow" after she's done finishing him off? Talk about singing for your supper! Or the MGM executive who flashes a teen Shirley Temple, expecting her to service him, but she just ends up in a fit of giggles, so he fires her? I mean, this book is the Good Ship Lollipop, and the some! (My personal favorite pages: the late MGM years, right before she gets fired and tries to commit suicide. I don't like the suicide part, so I always skip over that.)
• Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story by Wilson and Florenski. A quick read about the misadventures of a deeply troubled gay icon: practically every page ends in disaster. Without a doubt, the most offensive Hollywood Squares Paul Lynde joke: "What should you think when you walk into an apartment and all the walls and carpets are brown?" Paul Lynde: "The maid exploded."
• Sing for Your Supper by Ethan Mordden. A look a Broadway musicals in the 1930s. Fascinating rhythm!
• Popeye: The First Fifty Years by Bud Sagendorf. If I had a book on Dick Tracey, that would be on this list. But how can you go wrong with the Sea Hag, Alice the Goon, or Poopdeck Pappy?
• My 1981 High School yearbook. Okay, okay, I know you PROBABLY don't have access to this one, particularly the version I own, which my best friend from high school sent an ENTIRE YEAR defiling and defacing. But if only you could...oh, the hours of pleasure I've derived from this book! It's better than sex. Well, almost. I'm including two of the few items that couldn't possibly offend anyone...the rest just will have to remain secret for some time to come.

A Summer Place.

About a month ago, I received word that a friend of mine, Alana, would soon be retiring, and would I like to go to her surprise retirement party?

Of course, I said yes. Even though I haven't worked in the department she works in for over decade, I have fond memories of my time spent as a Casualty Supervisor in the Claim Department, and especially, the people that I worked with. Without a doubt, Alana was one of my all-time favorites.

I love Alana because she has such a love for the absurd. She never fails to see the humor in things, and is one of those people who can get you laughing, no matter how serious the work at hand is. Working in Casualty, which basically means figuring out how much of a price tag to place on a person's injury, you have to value people like that.

Being a lover of the absurd, I suppose it's no surprise that Alana tends to attract absurd situations into her life. It's just bees being attracted to honey, I suppose. Time after time while I was working with her, Alana would come to me, as her boss, and, being a lover of tales (just like me), she'd unfurl in glorious detail some of the strangest situations, much to my amusement.

During one of her first months, she came to my desk with the strangest look on her face. Even at that time, I knew her well enough to know that I was in for a great story. "What is it this time, dear?" I asked.

"Well..." she said, clearly distressed. "I have this injury claim, and I just don't know what kind of value to put on it."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Our insured struck the vehicle in front of him in the rear, so liability's clear," she replied. "He struck two little old ladies, these two sweet little old ladies. Nicest women you'd ever want to meet. So I was doing my job today and making calls out to both of them to see how they were and whether they were injured. I called the passenger, and when I spoke to her, I asked whether she was injured. She told me, well...yes...but in a kind of interesting way..." Then, Alana  blushed and smiled, for dramatic effect. "It seems that because of the impact, her left breast smashed up against the seatbelt, causing her nipple to become inverted."

I blushed, tried not to giggle. "You're saying her nipple...went..."

"That's right, Ted," she replied. "It went south for the winter. But should I offer her any money for that? I mean, other than the inconvenience, it's not hurting her. She's certainly not going to be breast feeding any more...so what should do?"

"Keep the file open and call her in a month," I replied.

One month went by, and the inverted nipple lady came up for diary. I called Alana over to my desk. "So, what ever happened to that little old lady with the nipple that went south for the winter?" I asked.

"Oh, that!" Alana beamed at me. It was as if she had been waiting for me to ask. "I called her the other day to see how things were, and she said, 'Oh, just fine.' Then I asked her, delicately, how her little problem was. She said, 'You know what? I was taking a shower the other day and soaping up the puppies, when all of a sudden, POP! Everything was back to normal!"

Then she laughed, and of course, I started to laugh. For the rest of the day, all of I could think of was POP! Right away, that would get me to laughing again.

There are so many other stories like that. Weddings we'd go to, where she'd come dressed in a fox stole complete with matching muff. I marveled over that muff of hers for hours. Another wedding, where she brought with her a Nantucket wicker basket. I amused myself by shoving things into her basket whenever she went to the bathroom...dinner rolls, napkins...stories of pranks she pulled on neighbors, memorable Christmas themes she'd arrange for her children...oh, and sayings. "Laugh and lie," she'd always tell me, and it's something that stuck with me for years. Laugh and lie, even if you're furious with someone or about something. Better to put on a happy face than to fuss and make a bad deal even worse. Just don't let them see they got to you.

Alana is a lover of life, and it always showed. And even after I left the department, I still kept in touch with her. How could I not? People like her are few and far between.

This afternoon was her retirement party, and after she had entered the room and delivered her farewell speech, she went around the room to thank everyone. When she came to me and our friend Anna, she stopped. "You two," she said, sotto voce. "Follow me for a minute."

With that, she walked out of the room. Of course, we followed, wondering what in the heck we were in for now.

Alana moved us by a cubicle, then lifted up a finger. "Wait right here," she said, then scurried off.

Of course, we didn't move a muscle. How could we?

Alana returned a few minutes later, with a bag under her arm. "So, I think both of you know that my husband Russ inherited a beach house in Westport, and we've been in the process of refurbishing it," she said. "Anyway, I was going through some stuff in he cellar, and I came across a box of watercolors that had been painted by his Great-aunt Mabel. Remarkable woman. Born before the turn of the century. She had been a student at RISD, but didn't graduate. Smart as a whip, though! She made all her children bring home all their college text books so that she could read them, and she did, cover to cover. Anyway, she was quite an artist. Her husband was an artist, too, and he never graduated from RISD either...he'd been thrown out, for some such thing. She always got angry about the fact that they would go to art fairs and sell their works, and his would always sell, and hers wouldn't. Even though she was the better artist. 'Your paintings are too dark!' she'd always tell him. Then he died, and what did she do? She took all his paintings and made them brighter! I tell you, remarkable woman..."

"Anyway, I found this pile of paintings in the cellar, and figured she'd want people to have them, rather than have them gathering dust in some dark old place. So, would you like to take one?"

The one I chose is shown at the start of this story, and I fully intend to frame it within the next few days and hang it on my wall. Right in the living room, right by my writing desk.

And not just because it's a nice painting crafted by a remarkable woman. That's just half of the story, for me.

The other half is that the painting was given to me BY a remarkable woman. A professional absurdist, an eternal optimist, someone who taught me to laugh and lie (although I don't use that trick half as much as I should.) Every time I see that painting on my wall, I know it's going to make me smile.

That's something anyone can use to brighten up any corner of a home, I think. Which is why I'm happy to have Mabel...and Alana...brightening my life for many years to come.