The Teenage Boy Who Grew Up To Become an Old Man
Current mood: Reflective

THE PARTY IS OVER

So the year, month, day and hour rang for my 35th high school reunion, a two day affair that became a four day vacation. The first night icebreaker event at Meadow Links was fun, with everybody drinking and whooping it up. The main party the next night was a bust. There was a DJ, but nobody wanted to dance. After dinner, people congregated into little cliques, with little in the way of mingling. Some played bar dice and video games, rather than meet up with people they hadn't seen in years. And the party broke up early. And by early, I mean before midnight! That never happened before. There were a few people who wanted to keep it going, but most went home at 11:00 pm, which in the past was when the party really began. Attendance was low, only about 70 people. Some people had come from as far away as Alaska, but a lot of the ones who still live in town didn't bother to show up. There can be only one explanation.

THE GRIM REALIZATION

We're old now. Not all of us showed it. Some, like Jill and Jay, were in terrific shape, slender, well toned, radiating fitness and health. Some like Kathy Y and Kathy R were still pretty and glamorous. Most were like me, chunkier in belly and face, unrecognizable but for the name tag. A name tag to remind people who I am. Or - who I was?

A few really showed the ravages. The Rabbi showed up in his motorized scooter, the result of twenty years battling multiple sclerosis. Another girl, whom I hadn't known in our huge class of 606 people, showed up in a wheelchair. Most of the men resembled apples balanced on toothpicks, their middle-age pots, which have grown bigger every year, marking their age like rings on a tree. A lot of the girls were now past menopause, with big body changes, especially in their skin tone. More than a few resembled my parents, still alive in their late seventies and early eighties. We took a lot of pictures, and I dared people to wear my old letter jacket as I posed with them. Afterwards, we viewed the playback on their digital cameras.

That plump, grizzled old man looking back at me, with his pear-shaped belly and snow-white beard. Was that really me?

COMING INTO MANITOWOC

Driving the seventy some miles from Milwaukee to Manitowoc was like coming into another world, for I have been in big cities so long I've forgotten what small towns are like. Oh, the greenery! Trees everywhere, including big old elms, rare now since the Dutch elm disease hit in the 1950's. In old neighborhoods, some of the trees were old friends, little changed since I had climbed them in my childhood. Touring the villages just outside of Manitowoc, the green fields of corn, alfalfa and asparagus, the greenways near the many streams and small rivers, everywhere as far as the eye could see, greenery. And the smell of different plants, most of which I can't identify, but remember well. The smells especially brought back the memories.

I must have done something right, for my four days in Manitowoc were absolutely perfect summer days, moderate temps with bright sun by day, cool nights with clear, unpolluted skies, full of starlight and meteors. At dusk, as the last rays of the sun colored the western horizon, I remembered that this was the time of day when I would usually leave for Timber Lodge to drink underage. But of course, that place has been closed for decades.

Touring around the gully formed by the lower reaches of the Manitowoc River, I thought about my childhood. I could still easily find my way through that small wilderness, and find the secret locations only my friends and I knew about. Friends like Jon, who had died of pneumonia in 1985, and is buried in the cemetery on the hill on the other side of the river, looking over the gully we played in as children. Barry O. told me at the reunion the burial location was a deliberate choice by his family, who I knew well. He never reached thirty.

THE WORLD IN 1973

No computers or internet, except in our house, where my father had won one of the very first home computer games through a company contest. It was a real novelty. Only three TV channels. In November of that year, I would spend one hundred 1973 dollars on a pocket calculator, a brand new and revolutionary invention, though I would keep my slide rule for a long time.

The Watergate hearings had begun only a week before we had graduated, but nobody yet knew that Nixon was a crook. The draft for the Vietnam War had ended four months before we graduated, but we still had to register, and the war still dominated the news, and would for another two years. No gas crisis yet - the first would come that fall, after the Yom Kippur war, and the inflation of the mid-1970's would begin. For now, gas was only forty five cents a gallon, sometimes only thirty five.

A glass of beer at Timber Lodge was only ten cents, except on nickel Tuesdays. With only two dollars, you could party all night long. Cigarettes were forty five cents a pack. The local factories cried out for labor, and summer jobs were easy to find. My $250 per semester scholarship easily paid for twelve credits at the local community college I attended my first year out of high school. Cars had tail fins, and my car, only five years old, still had a manual choke.

Six dollars per hour was considered a big wage. Telephones were rotary, with no features like call waiting. A very new device called an answering machine was available in limited numbers, and there were no cell phones or text messages. If you wanted to commune with your peers, you had to do it face to face, which I did at parties centered around our production of Oliver! with the Peter Quince Performing Company, a summer youth theatre that still exists.

Work or play, a teenager's life back then was spent outdoors. On that June day in 1973, the day when we graduated, the world could still be innocent and afford to sleep just a little bit longer. In fact, for three more months, for in September of that year, between Watergate and the gas crisis, it changed forever.

FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO COLLEGE

In early 1973, I played Merlin in Camelot, attended my first make out party where I found my first girlfriend. Later that year, did another play, Beggar on Horseback. Took my girlfriend to prom, a terrific memory. In an incredible adventure, George, Tim, Jeff, Bo and I go to a basketball game in Green Bay and afterwards slip into a strip bar called The Bunny Hop without being carded.

Took a film class as an elective. Two weeks before graduation, on a night barhopping underage, I let Billy Schlei drive my car underage. He promptly backed it into a tree, we told the cops a cock and bull story about being hit and run, they saw through it and we both got fines, him for driving without a license, me for filing a false police report. That's why my yearbook is filled with comments about how "tree's don't hit and run". Towards the end of my last semester, my relationship with my girlfriend just fades away. Since I started school a year early, I'm one of the youngest in my huge class. Only Percy H and Joan H are younger than me, and at age seventeen I graduate.

I had gotten used to being the young one in school. Puberty curves being what they are, there is considerable dimorphism in my class. Some people have already physically matured, some are still children. The guy we called Jello (dear reader - can you imagine how he was built?) won't reach puberty until age twenty two! That was another realization at the reunion. If we were physically different ages at graduation, we are now all equally old.

During the summer, did Oliver with Peter Quince, got my first job as a bagger at Copps, then my second job working with George and Chi-Chi at the icehouse. Also started smoking. The summer is filled with work, play rehearsals, cast parties, pool parties, barhopping. Down in Billy Schlei's basement, I experiment with marijuana. My grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins visit in July, staying in big tents in our huge backyard. It's hot, sunny and green. I know everybody, and everybody knows me.

In August, I hosted the Peter Quince five year anniversary party at my house, still the biggest party I've ever thrown, with a huge crowd at the pool. Tried to get together again with my first girlfriend, failed. Leon H got drunk and stole my car later that night to get home (hippie asshole!), we picked it up the next morning.

That was the first eight months. The last four were rather more sedate. Went to college at the U-Wisconsin Extension in town, acted in Man of La Mancha for the Masquers Players, worked as a clerk at the Manitowoc Motor Hotel, and that's about it. Did a little dating, but otherwise, as I've mentioned, the fall was like an extension of high school, except after November when I turned 18, and I could go to bars legally.

OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE
At the reunion, if I found myself looking aghast on how the bodies of my classmates have deteriorated, it was because I dearly wanted to remember them the way they were.

For the one and only vignette on that subject, at the icebreaker party I ran into Karen W, a girl I had had a crush on in ninth grade. I was very interested in seeing her again. On that hot graduation night, George, Tim and I had celebrated by hopping from one party to another. I don't remember how many we went to, and have little memory of any of them except the very last one, well after midnight, when we stopped by Karen's graduation party. At the reunion, I reminded her how she had greeted us in her nice graduation gown with a fondue pot set out, which was quite exotic and fashionable at the time.

That was the last time I ever saw her. Never found out what happened to her, for if you didn't hang with certain people or go to certain bars in the years afterwards, you never met up again. I didn't see Karen again for thirty five years, until the icebreaker party. And I was startled, for of course I remembered her as I had last seen her when she was eighteen, with her long brunette hair and pixie face. Now she's fifty three, and the hair is short and on the reddish side. And her pixie face features a granny's sharp chin.

Why did that surprise me? Did I expect her to show up still 18 years old? That would have been interesting, but of course didn't happen. Still, at the times over the decades when I had thought of her that was what I had thought I would see, for that was all I remembered.

I did inquire about her life story, to fill in that thirty five year blank. Education, travel, work, marriage, it was the usual, the only surprise being she didn't get married until she was thirty three. But it pays to inquire, for she did have one surprise, as she told me the long wondered story of the fate of our Junior class president, Tim O'C.

It really hit us only five years ago that he had dropped out of senior year, and nobody knew if he had even shown up for the beginning. In fact, hardly anybody had noticed he wasn't there during the school year. But, being the junior class president, he had presided over the junior prom, and his queen, Karen, knew his final story.

On the last day of our junior year, he showed up in the cafeteria at Lincoln High School with a case of beer, that he proceeded to share with all present. There must not have been very many present, for few seem to have noticed, and the reaction of the school officials is lost to history. BUT, that was obviously his big "fuck you and goodbye" to Lincoln High School.

Our junior class president. Great story, wonder why it was buried so long. But as it is, he missed a fun senior year. Getting that story from Karen, I wondered how much drama I had missed hearing about during those years. It was a huge class, and my little corner of it was not as important as I had imagined it was at the time. What else had been going on? How do you write the history of 606 people?

It was good to see her. I wonder if I ever will again.

ENVY OF THE YOUNG

The day after the reunion, I went to a baseball game where I watched George's youngest son play. Seventeen and a senior this year in high school, Brad is a year older and an inch or two taller than I was as a senior, but otherwise the same build, slender and about 145 lbs. George had pointed out that he had been in a football camp being held in the Lincoln bowl, and I had seen them playing as I came into town, thirty to forty teen boys, dressed in nothing but shorts, throwing the ball around in the sun drenched grass, sharpening their skills with long, hard practice.

To be a teenager again, to play in the hot sun like that! Energy focused, springing into action, muscles singing as they're strained to their limit, leaping and falling without a thought as to the power of gravity. I remember my summer before my senior year, the summer of 1972. After the yard chores were done, George and others would arrive at my house for a pickup football game. Around four in the afternoon, it was down to the Lincoln weight room for three hours of calisthenics and power lifting, my progress in weightlifting marked on a chart on the wall, as it had been for the two summers before that. As the hot sun dropped behind the trees, down to the track for power stretching and a two mile run. By that time, it was dusk, the south practice field began to cool, and you found yourself swallowing bugs on your last lap.

From there, it was into George's car, a quick, reckless drive around town. We'd sneak into a bar called Hoot and Ev's, where they never carded, then sneak into the Music Bar and watch the fat black strippers. Then back to my place for night swimming in our pool.

A summer of relentless, never ending physical activity and naughty adventures, feeling the sheer joy of being a teenage athlete. That was something to have. Watching Brad playing baseball, it is also something to be dearly missed. I wanted to be out there playing.

It was good to see that George's kids were not tied to their cell phones or computers. In small town America, such things are still not the foundation of a young person's life. Hopefully, they never will be.

WAS IT REAL?

Was life then as good as I remember? I actually have very few memories of high school, something I first noticed in the summer of 1975, when I was asked some questions while doing summer stock in college, and realized that I had forgotten just about everything about it.

The parties, football games, summer hangouts are all well remembered. Classes, assemblies, obeying the bell, and the general angst and insecurity of being young are not. What memories I have are certain highlights, and the fact that there are a limited number of them is a clue as to how oppressive and tedious high school must really have been.

I do remember that I was so depressed halfway through my senior year, I had to go see a psychiatrist, and I saw her on and off through my first year of college. Until my senior year, high school had been nothing but athletics for me. Football in the fall, wrestling in the winter, track in the spring. My junior year, I didn't go out for track, and found myself puzzled after school as to what to do with my time. It was weird getting home before seven o'clock in the evening.

While from the outside, we seem to be a happy family living on a beautiful ranch in the country, the fact of the matter is that both my parents were physically abusive, and I was often scared to go home. That ended the one and only time I fought back. It turns out my parents are cowards, and when they realize they could be hurt if they continued, they stopped.

In my senior year, football season came and went, and I found myself without a purpose. I had finally gotten curious about what life was like outside of athletics, and decided not to go out for wrestling, but with graduation approaching and no plans, the future seemed like the Void of Chaos as described in Milton's Paradise Lost.

Later that year, I discovered dramatics, and got cast in the musical, followed by more plays, and wrote for the school newspaper, and found a girlfriend and attended the prom, all the things I had skipped the previous years to concentrate on athletics. Most of my memories about people who were not on athletic teams date from my very last semester of high school, when I pushed myself to expand my world.

It takes some effort, but I can remember wanting very much to graduate and get out of there, and live the life of a free adult. That was the reality. To move on.

VALUE DRIFT

Talking to my classmates - so much time has passed. Over the decades, subjects of conversation have changed; from what college to go to, to what college is like, to what work is like, through marriage, kids, and grandkids. Now, retirement plans and health plans are a big subject. The values and topics change throughout the years.

I have good reason to believe that a lot of my classmates have enjoyed their lives more than I have, at least up till now. For the ones who didn't go to college and never left town, it's not a matter of ignorant bliss. I'll freely admit in many ways, I'm an overeducated dolt, an idiot savant who's spent far too much time pondering and too little time living. Somebody like Lee M, who married Joan J, an old grade school classmate, and stayed in Manitowoc and raised his kids with her there, is one happy duck. His work as a county road crew chief has kept him in magnificent condition, he's bright faced, gregarious, and as fun to be around now as when he was our star fullback. They're having a great life, and have not known the loneliness and struggle that I have. Or, at least, it seems that way.

The mutual envies with many people were interesting. I'd talk to somebody and envy them their marriages and children, and their roots in a community that appreciated them. They would envy my singleness, my experiences all over the country, and the adventures that they dreamed of but never had my courage - or recklessness? - to pursue.

While I was not the best conditioned there, I was one of the healthiest, and have known little bitter drama. Some have bad health problems, like diabetes. Some have had tragedies, like Ann K, who's buried two husbands. Patti M showed up miserable, since her husband, who was a year ahead of us and played football with me, dumped her for a newer model. Should I feel thankful I don't have their problems?

Of course not. That's not only negative to the point of emptiness, it's not even an accomplishment on my part. But for the grace of God, there go I.

AN OLD FOGIES FANTASIES

Of course, what I want is the best of both worlds. My fifty two years of skill, education and experience placed inside my eighteen year old body. A common fantasy for people as they get older. To have what you once had, and more.

BE JOYFUL IN YOUR YOUTH

My youth had a great deal of misery in it, as do the lives of the young people I meet now. I went home to a violent family, one reason I sometimes acted like such a freak in high school, to the distress of my classmates. My grades were not good, and study was a struggle. While not well remembered, there were times I was terribly lonely, and real love with a real woman was still five years in the future. And it would be a failure.

I was often rude and surly. That actually continued into college, something I deeply regret. I could have, should have, been happier and more joyful in my younger days. A great deal of the misery was self inflicted, and perhaps there is a big reason why Dante assigned The Sullen their own Circle in Hell. It's just another form of violence against yourself. There was no reason to be a grump. I should have been joyful, and I should have spread it around.

DESIRE LIVES ON

I'd love to go skiing again, really skiing, down the double diamonds. I'd love to spend three hours again in the Lincoln weight room, toning up everything. I'd love to run a mile on the hot track at the southern practice field at Lincoln. I'd love to play a fully suited up football game again. I'd love to be in the school cafeteria at Lincoln again, pulling practical jokes on people. Alas, can't do it.

Visiting the Lincoln bowl, I did run a wind sprint up the hill. Just one, I didn't try for ten, which I used to be able to do without even working up a sweat. George was with me, and he didn't even try. I wish he had.

BUT WE HAVE TO LOSE OUR YOUTH

As Viktor Frankl would point out, if our youth, like our life, wasn't transitory, it would have no value. There would be no reason to preserve fond memories, or even learn from them, for they could be repeated again at our leisure. Time would have no value, for if there would be no imperative to do anything before it was too late. Nothing you would do would be of the slightest importance, for it could be put off forever. If we didn't eventually lose our youth, we'd never know it was precious.

REGRETS

Taking stock thirty five years after graduating, the usual self doubts come in. Should I have taken a different course of action? Chosen a different major in college, adopted different values, pursued different dreams? In the summer of 1977, should I have dropped out of college, married Mary Klein, and gotten a job at the shipyards or craneworks? Right now, I'd be living in Manitowoc, with a house and kids just getting out of college. I'd be on some tavern's softball team during the summer, playing golf at the local country clubs, maybe deer hunting in the fall.

But I would never have had my New York and Los Angeles adventures. I would never have founded a newspaper, thrilled readers with licentious pornography or written any of my plays. I would never have joined the police force, and the family who were saved when I got suspicious of a 911 call with nobody on the phone would have all died in a horrible fire.

So no, I don't want an alternate history. The only regret I have is that I never found a female partner to share the past three decades with. I want to change that. And I still can.

TO GRIEVE

Over the loss of what I once had, both in body and in the easy relationships of innocence and ignorance. It was fun, it was wonderful, it is past.

TO REJOICE

That teenage angst is but a faint memory. That wisdom, hard earned and valuable beyond money, is now developing at the same rate, and in much the same way, that my muscles did as a teen, through exercise and practice. As Frankl notes, we find the meaning of our lives in the demands that life makes of us at every moment, and at this moment, life is demanding that I reflect and tally up the gains and losses of the last three and a half decades. The gains outweigh the losses.

BE JOYFUL AT ANY AGE

At what I did end up becoming. Again, I have to remember that high school for me didn't really end until August of 1974, fourteen months after I graduated. My relationships my first year out of high school were the same ones, my activities the same. The only change was being able to get into bars more frequently, and in November of that year, legally. Hell, I even hung out at the old high school a few times. Exactly one year after I graduated, little had changed, which is why I did what I did next.

I arrived in college in Eau Claire that fall, where I was forced to start new relationships, follow new paths, find new horizons. That is why I chose to go to college 256 miles away from home. I knew I would never really grow up if I stayed in the incubator of my adolescence. Within a year, I'd forgotten what it was to be a high school kid, for I had grown enormously.

And as I began having sexual relationships, the girls discovered I could grow enormous. That's something to be joyful about. Heh-heh-heh

THE FUTURE

At the reunion, Dave C told me all about his life as a fundraiser at a small college in California. I had admired Dave in high school, his high grades, his musical talent on the saxophone, his sexy sister who I had taken to prom. We all thought he'd have a remarkable future, and for awhile, he did, becoming a professor of German at a university.

But something happened. He wasn't happy in academia. He really acted up at our 20th reunion, manic and unhappy about something. Now, he's completely satisfied with what he himself admits is a dead end career, with no ambitions (was he just saying that? I wonder). And from both him and his sister, I know they're dealing with some late family issues involving his father.

He told me his creative juices are all dried up, whereas mine are only just now reaching their peak. It's not a matter of comparative talent, Dave directed No, No Nanette for Peter Quince in 1975, and did a much better job than I could have at age 20. He calls that event his creative peak, but that has to be because he stopped trying. I have little doubt he could have done better than me if he had concentrated like I had.

For whatever reason, he didn't, and I did, making the decision to go to New York City and get into an advanced acting program, a very risky thing to do at age thirty five, when everybody else was halfway into their twenty year mortgages and just getting their retirement funds established. It made all the difference, for that was a real watershed in my life, when I came back not only with deep skills in my chosen profession, but a whole new approach to my emotional life, the ability to feel new emotions I didn't even know existed. I've written about that many times, but it is funny how I now take it for granted, like the typing skills I didn't develop until I was twenty seven, as the easiest thing in the world, whereas many of my former classmates would be totally lost in such a place.

I've always felt I have unfinished business, things that I had not had time to complete in my teens and twenties, and I still feel that. Perhaps I always will.

THE END

At the reunion, everybody found it remarkable at in our early fifties, only fourteen of our classmates are dead. Very low casualty rate. Men in my family live to an average of eighty four. The End is still thirty two years away. No reason to worry much about it yet.

There are hints that it will come. On my last day in Manitowoc, as George and I drove through town, an old woman was stopped at a green light. George commented under his breath for "granny to get a move on".

I reminded George to be kind. If granny at the green light wasn't one of our classmates, she soon would be.

I fully plan on attending our fortieth reunion five years from now. Memories have now become history and that's too precious to ignore.

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Playwrighting, Politics and Rassinier Redux
Current mood: accomplished

Finished writing the play. Square is now a full-length play ready for workshop. At 70 minutes, still about 20 minutes shorter than I want it to be, and I have the themes in mind that I want to work into it to finish the expansion. I'm not going to do that until I've workshopped it with live actors playing the roles, I have to see what does and does not work. During the auditions it became clear that the first scene where Johdell strips needed dialogue, otherwise it got tedious, and in workshop undoubtedly other weaknesses will be revealed. Also, during workshop, better themes than the ones I have in mind may suggest themselves.

But the way the play is now is wonderful. Johdell and Thomas are fascinating characters, the story is compelling, sexy and funny, and I can be proud of myself.

Since I've finished it, both I and some friends have noticed some similarities with other plays. Hard to write something truly original. In its argument between two flawed people sexually attracted to each other, it resembles John Patrick Shanley's Danny And The Deep Blue Sea, without the white trash setting. The onstage blow job behind a strategically placed piece of furniture is exactly what happens in Bath, a skit of unknown authorship from the musical Oh! Calcutta!, though my piece has much better characters and dialogue. Bath is an atrociously written skit, one reason it is often omitted during touring productions of the musical. I dare say the play also, to some degree, resembles some 1960's plays like The Gazebo or a Neil Simon work. Since the situation is so important, that makes it resemble a sitcom.

But there is enough originality, especially in the characters, to make this play standout. The plan is a workshop production in 2009 at the Alchemist Theatre here in town; a second production of the revised version at the Broom Street Theatre in Madison; then to shop the finished version into the general play market. For those brave enough to produce it.

Turning to politics, I hope I am not the only one who doesn't want to see that old babykiller McCain in the White House, and not just because he intends to instigate what can only be called Bush's third term. It was once said that to preserve peace, at the end of a war the first thing to do is kill all of the veterans. After Vietnam, that would have been a great idea. In fact, they should have willingly done it themselves, by doing so, the veterans of Vietnam would finally have served their country.

McCain is famous for visiting a united, peaceful and prosperous Vietnam only a few years ago and stupidly announcing that "the wrong side won" (I wonder how the Vietnamese would feel if America had won - the "Guatemalization" of the country would have compared nicely to their current status as one of Asia's "tiger" economies). He also said America should have "pressed home to victory" in Vietnam, without specifying what victory would have been in a situation where South Vietnam had ceased to exist in 1963. It doesn't take much to figure out that McCain, like every Vietnam veteran, is just a sore loser, unwilling to admit that the better man won. His five years in prison camp are indeed a shameful thing for anybody who ever imagined himself to be a mighty warrior. If he had a true warrior's honor, like a samurai, he would have committed hari-kari a long time ago. I'll cheerfully loan him the knife. Dull, and rusty.

On Memorial Day, watched what must have been the All-Jingo Channel with, of all people, actor Gary Sinese hosting a truly sycophantic TV special in honor of America's largest body politic of high-school dropouts. The troops.

It used to be that actors were progressive, even those who had served in combat, and realized that being a soldier was nothing to brag about. People like Kirk Douglas, Jackie Cooper and Henry Fonda even downplayed their admirable military records, so ashamed were they to have taken part in the general mayhem. What kills me is that Tom Hanks, Gary Sinese and Jay Leno, three major propaganda mouthpieces, are all from my generation, and watched the insane military and political corruption that was the Vietnam War from the same position I did, junior high school and high school.

They learned nothing, or remember nothing? Or, like so many from my generation, they have no real values, and simply pander to the crowd? I can't even imagine a European actor, or even an American actor from the 1930's, who would fail to have a core set of political values that they apply and make integral to their art, but integrity is not an American psychological property.

And now, the day may very well be coming when we get to watch Jay Leno, Gary Sinese and Tom Hanks all on their knees gratefully giving a blow job to every veteran of the Iraq War (actually, Iraq War III!). If it happens, it would not be much of a blow to their dignity. In fact, the scene might make it onto a postage stamp.

And since Tom Hanks, Gary Sinese and Jay Leno are all notable for having never served in the military, it would be their first substantial contribution to the war effort. Talk, after all, is cheap, and in that situation all three of them would have no choice but to shut up.

Finally, my lovely, sexy and very resourceful friend Sonia raided the UW-Madison library for yet another obscure work on Paul Rassinier, one of several I've had the fortune to come across in the past three weeks. Along with Andre Sellier's remarkable if too politically correct history of the Mittlebau complex and Samuel Moyn's philosemitic history of the uproar surrounding an obscure "novella of history" on Treblinka by Jean-Francios Steiner, it's all been a real gold mine.

Moyn draws attention to an article I did not know Rassinier had written (where he defended Jewish behavior at Treblinka, though Moyn gives him little credit for it). Astonishingly, it turns out that Jean-Francois Steiner was actually the son of "Kadmi" Cohen, the possibly insane Zionist who Rassinier oft quoted as proof of a Zionist plot to fragment the European proletariat. I don't have a clue if Rassinier knew that, but it might make an interesting addition to the play, along with the fact that the Jewish Steiner married the granddaughter of Walther von Brauchitsch, the guy who was head of the German army when France was overrun (an historical curiosity right up there with Himmler's daughter marrying and becoming an Israeli citizen). Moyn's book gives tremendous detail on the intellectual and social environment of France in the mid-1960's, when my play is set, which is a good thing, for I've neglected the environment.

The Lie Of Ulysses is still at least two years away from being written. I've already decided not to go to France this year (can't afford it), but I can still conduct a lot of good research from where I am. There's just too much to learn about my characters, their environment and their goals to write it just now. But - I can make a draft. That always makes it easier, after that, it is just a question of filling in the blanks.

Somehow have to make sure that it's only 120 minutes long. Audience attention just won't go any farther.

Finally, it's been raining a lot here. Felt I had to mention that.

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Swinging Bachelor, Horny Demons and V2 Rockets
Current mood: satisfied

Well, I'm all moved into my new bach pad. Tom and family helped me move all my stuff last week, it is such a terrific apartment. Sunny living room, nice cross breeze, plenty of space. And ladies: the bedroom is soundproof!

Went to see Pink Banana Theatre and their one act play festival, The Next Big Thing, on Saturday. This was the show that was supposed to have the Late Night Erotica series that included my script, until they read it, shit their pants in terror and ran screaming from it. In the end, they scrapped the late night erotica, except for one rather tame piece about people having cybersex that more resembled Jerome Kilty's Dear Liar than an original erotic play. For the most part, the plays were forgettable, but Tom did like an avant-garde piece about time and space. The stage at the Alchemist Theatre is not bad, but the lighting is sometimes way too dim, and if I produce Square in there, will have to demand more instruments, as well as a bright walled set.

After the show, a lot of the Pink Banana people were going to go to a Madonna party at a lesbian bar, but Tom and I were sore and tired from all the moving, so we called it a night. Poor lesbos, hope they weren't too disappointed us men couldn't make it. Maybe next time.

Watched the 1981 movie THE ENTITY last night. The theme is that a hard working single mother is viciously raped by an invisible creature, again, and Again, and AGAIN! With a theme like that, I was expecting an unintentional comedy.

What I found was one of the scariest movies ever made. The attacks begin with neither warning nor explanation, and Barbara Hershey turns in a terrific acting performance in what is actually a very difficult role. Plus, she looks great naked. It is a brilliant script with clever direction. Watching Hershey's character evolve from terror to determination is an acting masterpiece, and the scene where The Entity forces her to experience an unwilling and shameful orgasm is textbook perfect in the way she handles emotions that shift as fast as lightning.

The nature of The Entity is never explained, which is a neat thing, it keeps it scary. In the end, it is partially revealed as being absolutely titanic, almost three stories tall. There is one comic moment. The movie ends with the only words The Entity speaks. It calls Barbara Hershey a cunt, since it can no longer dominate her. Wow. A demon with demons.

AND, the movie is stated as being "a true story." A true story? This sort of thing actually happens? Those ladies who read my humble blog, do tell. Being raped in the middle of the night by invisible, misogynist creatures the size of a house - has this happened to you? Should we dedicate an episode of Oprah to it? Make it a theme of the Take Back The Night March? Publish a book, "Invisible Rapists And The Women Who Love Them?" Is there therapy available to help giant invisible creatures deal with their anger towards women in a healthier manner? Clue me in.

I found out the movie didn't do very well when it first came out, undoubtedly because the rape scenes are so graphic. It deserved better, this movie is actually a lot scarier than POLTERGEIST, which came out only a year later. AND, it is going to be remade, by some Jap director. Probably won't be as good as this though, it will be hard to turn in as good a performance as Hershey did.

Over the weekend, a whole bunch of new books arrived with either information or references to Paul Rassinier. In particular, Andre Sellier's history of the concentration camp at Dora is a gold mine of information, confirming a lot of what Rassinier wrote in Crossing The Line with details about the people he mentions meeting there. Politically correctly, he bashes Rassinier at every opportunity he can, sometimes with justification, but it's telling how much he depends on Rassinier's account, which was one of the first, if not THE first testimony about the camp at Dora. He also seems to have deliberately misread Rassinier at one point, criticizing Rassinier's description of the camp organizational structure. Rassinier himself was unable to make sense of the camp organization while he was there, and when he wrote Crossing The Line four years after he left the camp, depended on previously published material about the camp structure. To be certain, Rassinier could have attributed the source of his material on the dual structure of a Nazi concentration camp, and he did do so with the organizational charts he published in the original 1949 edition, but Sellier inexplicably used the 1979 edition published by IHR, which doesn't even have those charts included.

Still a damn good book though.

Well, have to go clean out my old apartment to get my security deposit back.

Oh, joyful day.

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Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem
Current mood: Critical

Another week of artsy fun.

Paid $70 to see SPAMALOT, and got a seat that felt like it was half a mile away. It turns out $70 is what the cheap seats cost at the Marcus Center.

But no matter, for the musical was played broadly enough for me to see it.

LOL, it begins with a Finnish musical, since supposedly, the Historian at the beginning of the play is misunderstood. The Finnish musical is completely noted in the program, leading to no small amount of Pythonesque confusion before the play begins. But a careful, or even cursory examination of the program entry makes it obvious that it is a joke. With names in the Who's Who such as Sad Aaarse and Bin Faaarkrekkion, it should have been obvious. But, with the opening Finnish dance number there was genuine audience confusion, even though it was "The Fish-Slapping Dance", a Python staple. And, when I think about it, that's not a bad curtain teaser, for the audience comes in with expectations, and the curtain teaser sets them up for surprises. Sort of a theatrical version of sorbet; it cleaned their palate for what was to come.

And what came next was pretty good. The first act was wonderful, and wonderfully creative. To create a good female role, they revived the Arthurian myth of The Lady Of The Lake, and added her as a female character. In her first big number, she's backed up by The Lake Girls, and you haven't seen anything until you've seen pretty Broadway chorus girls in skimpy medieval cheerleader costumes. I confess to having naughty thoughts at this point. There's also a terrific number called Find Your Grail, which really showcases the talents of Esther Stilwell, the actress playing the Lady of the Lake. The scenery is a marvelous combination of projections, backdrops and fly pieces, and the whole thing goes on with perfect pacing.

Until the second act, where things fall apart. When the Lady of the Lake shows up out of character to sing a song lamenting What Ever Happened To My Part and how it is midway through the second act and she hasn't appeared yet, things go sour. After that, it's like they forgot the musical, it devolves into all sorts of hamming up cultural references that really have nothing to do with the theme of the play. We see the Knights Who Say Ni!, and The Killer Rabbit is a great puppet, but inserted into this are things like King Arthur and his knights doing Anita's dance America from WEST SIDE STORY, and other cheap allusions that are some of the sloppiest and laziest writing you'll ever see, which is why some Python members have distanced themselves from the musical.

But the ending is keen, and a surprise. Hiding the Grail under a seat in the audience is a neat idea. On the whole, it was a good musical, though the lack of creativity in the second act is a big, big flaw.

Some final thoughts on being in the cheap seats. It wasn't long before I noted that acting in a Broadway musical is different from other acting problems. All musicals require a skill called Presentational Acting, where you act like there is a fourth wall while at the same time playing directly to the audience. But in these titanic Broadway musicals, you need to learn a skill that I can only call Arena Acting.

Arena Acting has much in common with performing in a rock concert. Your movements are sparse, simple, and broadly played. Nothing subtle is done; it won't reach the cheap seats. My former acting teachers would be appalled at these techniques, but that is because of a flaw in the way acting is taught in America, and maybe elsewhere. Acting training takes place in small to medium size classrooms that do nothing to prepare an actor for playing in such titanic venues.

And it hit me that acting on Broadway is so easy, just about any idiot could do it. All you need are basic singing skills, a good stage presence and the ability to make broad, simple gestures that are visible at a distance, like a Navy semaphore man. Creativity and subtlety, so important in film acting, just get in the way in a Broadway musical. Exquisite and rare skills won't play in the distance. Anybody, with a certain minimum of talent and training, could star in a Broadway musical, provided it is in a big enough arena. In a smaller venue, their shortcomings would be exposed.

Though they couldn't be a chorus girl. That requires no small amount of talent and training. I was pleased to see that the fine art of being a chorus girl is alive and well, and is still decisive in putting on a good musical. And ooh!, those nice long legs.

In a followup to my last blog, I noted some more things about the Marquis de Sade's Justine that skipped my attention last time. It is a curiosity that the only man Justine falls in love with through the whole book is (ta-da!) the gay guy.

The gay guy is the Marquis de Bressac, who whipped her to within an inch of her life when they first met, since she saw him wiggling his weenie in the rear end of some cute stable boy. He then abuses her savagely when she enters his service. But Justine loves him, and in typical female fashion tries to change him and save him from his homo-ness.

He rewards her by bringing her into his plot to murder his mother so that he can inherit her money and pay for more homo orgies. Justine reveals the plot to his mother, he finds out and kills her anyway, then horsewhips Justine again and arranges for her to be blamed for the murder before sending her off to her fate while he enjoys his millions.

So that is why I can't find a woman to love me. I don't horsewhip them and I'm not a homo. Sigh. So many wasted years.

What is striking about that section of the book is the speech the Marquis de Bressac gives to justify his matricide, pointing out that the atoms and energy of her body will simply be recycled by Nature, and reappear in a different form. Murder as justified by the First Law of Thermodynamics. De Sade obviously had some scientific training.

Anyway, two weeks before I move into my new home. I'm arranging to buy a new bedroom set. Are there any females reading this who would volunteer to help me test it and make sure it's in working order? Heh-heh-heh.

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De Sade? You need De Cheerup!
Current mood: discontent

A week of disappointment, with two artistic failures. Not mine, other people's.

First, a book report. I read Justine, the erotic novella by the Marquis de Sade.

Nothing much erotic about it, really. There are whippings, beatings, forced surgery, brandings, and other things that probably only de Sade found erotic. From age 14 to age 28, the orphan Justine goes from one position of sex slavery to another, her brief moments of freedom marked by little more than her travels to meet the next group of nihilistic criminals, all of whom give long speeches that coincidentally reflect de Sade's vision of human existence. I've never read a novel where the author put in multiple alter egos of himself, but there you have it. Everybody Justine meets is a criminal bent only on their own self-gratification, not only without concern about what it does to the object of their "affection", but with a proud contempt of their partners well-being. In fact, all of these people scorn the idea of partnership.

There are holes in the plot. In one of the last vignettes, Justine is approached by the female thief La Dubois, who tries to convince Justine to lure Dubreuil, who is in love with her, out into the country so she can steal his money, which she'll share with Justine. Justine, ever and inexplicably virtuous, betrays La Dubois, which did not have to happen, because La Dubois did not have to take Justine into her confidence. All she had to do was tell Justine that Dubreuil was in love with her, arrange the picnic, take the money and run. In some ways, de Sade's writing is almost as bad as Zane Grey's.

De Sade's description of sex is, at best, overblown, such as sections of when Justine is gang raped by four monks.

"He made me get down on my knees, and fastening himself to me while in this position, exercised his perfidious passions on me in a place which prevented me, during the sacrifice, from expressing any complaint as to its irregularity"

Ok, I can figure out what's going on there.

"Jerome was next. His temple was the same as that of Raphael, but he did not approach the sanctuary. Content to remain in the courtyard, and moved by primitive episodes the obscenity of which it is impossible to describe, he was unable to accomplish his desires except by the barbarous means of which I almost became a victim in the house of Dubourg and of which I was completely so in the hands of de Bressec."

I don't have a clue what's happening here.

I've lately found out that the Wordsworth edition of Justine, the one I read, is heavily edited and censored from the original. Probably just as well, I'm sure they just cut out some more grisly murders, mutilations, and other such stuff. Justine is not the brightest character in literature, in fact, a fun game is comparing Justine to Beauty from the Anne Rice Sleeping Beauty erotic trilogy.

Justine is certainly better educated than Beauty, much more attentive to what's going on around her and very well spoken. She keenly knows her countrymen, and unlike Beauty, has an ethos that is more than just personal. Beauty had no religious faith. But, in the end, when you look at the mindless way they blunder into one bad situation after another, with barely a clue as to what's going to happen in spite of it happening multiple times in the past, you realize that they are equally stupid.

All of de Sade's women, even the thief La Dubois as I noted above, have a stupid streak in them. At one point, Justine saves the life of a man assaulted by highwaymen, and her reward is to be stripped naked and tied to a water wheel at his counterfeiting factory, where along with other women she is mercilessly beaten and worked half to death. On his way to Venice to enjoy his ill-gotten millions, the counterfeiter takes one last look at his factory and miserable slaves and orders that his mistress, on the carriage with him, be stripped and tied to the wheel herself. Justine notes that the woman appears to be surprised. You have to wonder how dense she must be.

On the whole, it's not a very good novella. Napoleon Bonaparte ordered it suppressed and destroyed, but I have to wonder if that was for moral or literary reasons.

For the second disappointment, I went to the Alchemist Theatre on Friday to see a bill of two one-act plays written by some friends of mine. Both plays were seriously underwritten, under-rehearsed, badly directed and incomprehensible. I'm so disappointed; young people are just not producing the sort of cutting edge theatre that they could create, that was created in the 1960's and 1970's. The stage is a medium where, unlike television, they can do and say what they want, but they don't seem to have anything to say. But, the less said about this, the better.

But I did learn that if I produce SQUARE in that space, I'd better design the set myself. It's a dark, primitive space that would ruin the bawdy, sparkling comedy I'm trying to write. There's nothing dark about SQUARE, and the space will have to be brightly lit, so that the audience can follow the action AND admire the glorious nudity of the actors. Comedies don't happen on a dark stage.

For my anti-militaristic diatribe today, CBS News reported that the Veterans Administration has been deliberately under-reporting the suicide rate of veterans, and when CBS News dug into the story, the VA deliberately lied to CBS News.

This should come as a surprise to nobody. Looking over the bullshit that veterans give about why they join the military, a common statement is that they "want to die for their country" or "want to die for freedom." The operative word is, they "want to die."

The evidence has been right in front of their nose for decades, maybe centuries. People join the military BECAUSE of their suicidal ideation! And if they fail in getting themselves killed by the "enemy" - who is never an enemy of theirs - they have to do it themselves. The suicide rate of veteran's is sky-high? Like DUH!

A morally grounded man would never join the military, for he knows what's what. Only a moral coward would join up, somebody who cannot bring themselves to take responsibility for their life and actions and want such awesome responsibilities diffused into the chaotic limbo of an immense entity where nobody is responsible for anything.

Which isn't hard to figure out, since a three-star admiral admitted - BRAGGED - about his moral cowardice during the invasion of Grenada, remarking that the best thing about his job was that he didn't have to think about the political right and wrong of what he was doing.

America has become the most alienated nation since Czarist Russia. It will suffer the same fate.

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Printemps en Milwaukee
Current mood: complacent

On Tuesday, signed the lease on my new apartment, with its corner windows and nice draft. Looking forward to the free cable, and the free Roadrunner, which means I'll be able to download porn at three times the speed I can now.

Still working on SQUARE, but I'm badly blocked. I know exactly what themes I want to work into the expansion of it, but am unsure of the order. A structural problem, I'm not sure how to plot it right now. It'll come to me.

Things are picking up at work. The weather has become warm, and the criminals have come out to play. Thursday night, there were three guys on safari for college students, pulling armed robberies out of a stolen car using a pellet gun. They actually shot one guy with it, they had to pull the pellet out of his thigh. Just cruise around UW-Milwaukee and Milwaukee School of Engineering housing areas, looking for late night pedestrians and guys on bicycles. The three guys were an Asian male and two black males. The politically correct will be pleased to hear that diversity training is apparently now part of criminal culture. But before the night was out, they caught them, when a cop pulled over their stolen car.

In Criminal 101, the first lesson is usually to ditch the stolen car you commit your crimes with, right? Boy, these guys are stupid. They need a new career.

Seeing a play this Friday at the Alchemist, written by my friends A and K, a film-noir style detective mystery. There's also a production by Insurgent Theatre, it's a double bill of two one acts, that one will be of less interest, they've gotten into a rut with their counter-culture themes.

I missed the lecture at UW-Milwaukee on Wednesday by Tristan Taormino, niece of author Thomas Pynchon and author of The Ultimate Guide To Anal Sex For Women.  An odd subject for a woman who is lesbian but wants to be described as queer. I was very curious about what she would have had to say on the subject. She's also directed and starred in a number of videos on the subject, which must make for some interesting viewing.

Finally, I watched Coyote Ugly on TV the other day. One of the all time bad movies; Mystery Science Theater 3000 would have had great fun with it. As Tristan Taormino might say if she watched it, I could pull better dialogue out of my ass.

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Eventful!
Current mood: creative

Last week Tuesday the 25th was certainly an eventful day. 

Came home to find a phone message from the lovely Rachel announcing she was coming to visit and would arrive the next day.

That evening, went to UW-Milwaukee to listen to a lecture by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, controversial author of The Holocaust Industry and other books that buck the trend.

Starting with the lecture, it was similar to the one he gave at Marquette University two years ago. He again noted that a deliberate air of mystery is hung over problems in the Middle East, which are presented as being impossibly complex with no solution. As Dr. Finkelstein points out, this is just one of many frauds used to confuse people. He points out that the main problem is Israel’s land grab by military force, which is no mystery at all and illegal under every international understanding.

He could have pointed out that the principle denying the legitimacy of territory gained by military force was first stated as part of the Atlantic Charter of 1942, the beginning of the United Nations, on board the battleship "Prince of Wales"  in Argentia, Newfoundland, but I suppose that is a minor point. As it is, I think he’s only partially right. If Israel were to return the stolen territories, end their horrific occupation and destroy their weapons of mass destruction that would probably solve America’s problems in the Middle East.

But some of the Middle Eastern kingdoms are pretty brutal despotisms, and those problems would still remain. In particular, Kuwait, the country we "liberated" back in the early 1990’s, is a harsh autocracy, which proves the lie that Bush Incorporated has tried to bring democracy to the Middle East. The problem of poverty and lack of water would also remain.

Lecture was well attended by a mainly friendly audience, with Muslim Arabs in a distinct minority. Nice to see left wing students of the Madison model are still alive and well, brought back fond memories to see these earnest young kids still around. Dr. Finkelstein’s admiration for Hezbollah (reflecting my own admiration; they really kicked Israel’s ass in the border war last year) didn’t come up. And as for the Hollowcause - er, Holocaust, his controversial statement was to point out that there was nothing unique about Jewish suffering during World War II, not even for his mother and father. As Deborah Lipstadt would point out, that’s enough right there to label Dr. Finkelstein a Holocaust Denier.

But, he got his own shot off at Lipstadt when he pointed out how she had lied about Jimmy Carter’s book Peace Not Apartheid.  

So, onto the next day, when Rachel, ma jolie fille, arrived for her first visit ever in the six years I’ve known her.

First thing I noticed was how much smaller her waist was.

Alas, she stayed only two nights, and I had to work both nights. Didn’t get a chance to take her to the Off-The-Wall Theatre, or the Riverwest or Walkers Point art scene, or other places I’ve told her so much about. Even the protesters at the abortion clinic next door were absent, so I didn’t even get to show her the usual street theatre.

Did get to treat her to some good Greek food, and show her the Astor Street theatre/pharmacy/cafe, a unique place indeed. For my young friend Cassie’s amusement, we did build a little fort. Called my friend George for a possible visit to Manitowoc, but he and Chelle were going out of town. In the end, the fun moment was reading through the draft of SQUARE, where I got my first timing, it currently runs thirty-five minutes, which means I’m one-third finished with it. AND, it read beautifully, this is going to be a really good play.

But Rachel left the next day for California, for her new job and new boyfriend. I hope it works out and they get married, Rachel has been alone for far too long.

Finished a novel that was purported to be the greatest Western ever written, which it turned out wasn’t saying much. Zane Grey’s Riders Of The Purple Sage made him a millionaire, and all sorts of movies have been made from the book. But the book is awful. AWFUL! Zane Grey could not write to save his own life. It’s a daft story and possibly the most anti-Mormon book ever written, which I have no great problem with. But, this sentence illustrates the problem I DO have.

"Low swells of prairie-like ground sloped up to the west".

Stylistically, that is an abomination. It would get an immediate F in any freshman composition class. Is the ground prairie or isn’t it? What the hell is prairie-like? Low swells slope up? After that, it gets worse, and the characters are cartoons. But, he did laugh all the way to the bank with this book. And didn’t have to carry his money in his saddlebags while riding his horse and shooting over his shoulder at the outlaws pursuing him westward up a slope made of low swells of prairie-like ground. Lucky guy.

Leafed through my father’s 80th birthday present, which also may not be the best of books. Devra Davis book When Smoke Ran Like Water is about air pollution in the United States, and contains a number of chapters on the Donora Smog, which my father should find interesting since he grew up in Donora. BUT, a sentence I read leaves me questioning the accuracy of the book. Davis notes an autopsy that stated damage to Donora victims resembled that caused by phosgene gas, which Davis call’s "a nerve gas".

Phosgene is not a nerve gas. It is a blood agent and respiratory agent. High school chemistry students know that. She didn’t. Not promising; I’ll read thru the whole book this week.

Today, looked at an apartment only two doors down from where I live. No offstreet parking, but it is huge, with hardwood floors, and very cheap for the neighborhood. Huge bedroom, perfect for fort-building with pretty girls. Filling out an application today. Otherwise, working on SQUARE.

In the news, noted with satisfaction that fighting has broken out in Iraq again, and The Green Zone is under rocket bombardment. They killed a Marine, but just one. I’ll really start cheering after they’ve killed them all.

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Tasteful Nudity. Yum-Yum.
Current mood: amused

So, since the last time I wrote, a local theatre company approached me, and asked me to write an erotic one act play for a new late night series of theatre pieces, pieces supposedly beyond what you normally see on stage.  In other words adult only theatre.

So I oblige them, and write what I think is a very erotic and very funny little comedy about a straight laced girl who has had enough with the attitude of a jock who thinks he is God's gift to women, with the exception of her.  Lotsa nudity, some good sex scenes, and with all modesty some witty dialogue.

And after reading the very script they asked me to write, they run screaming in terror from it, too afraid to produce it.  The latest crop of theatre "artists" just don't have the guts for their profession, and there is something really funny about that.

But the script has taken on a life of it's own, especially the two characters, who have much more potential than I initially realized, so I have decided to expand it to a full ninety minute one act play and publish it.

The auditions for this were funny.  When I told her she had to be nude for the last third of the play, one actress asked me if "it would be tasteful".  What the hell is "tasteful nudity"?  Somebody eats her?  The little just-out-of college girl did look tasty enough, but I don't think that's what she meant.

SQUARE is a bawdy comedy, the nudity isn't tasteful, it's comic.  The Richard Strauss opera SALOME has plenty of nudity, and it isn't tasteful at all, at least the way the Florentine Opera produced it here last week.  Salome of course was the daughter of King Herod, who asked for the head of John The Baptist on a plate.  In the opera, the actress first did the "Dance of the Seven Veils", and when she removed the seventh veil, it turned out that was all she was wearing (and OMG the gorgeous ass on that opera singer!  Wa-hoo!  I'll help her hit some high C's!)

So, the head of The Baptist is brought out on a silver platter and when she sees it, Salome goes insane.  Naked, she squats down on the head and starts singing her last aria, and it takes you a while to realize that she's forcing the severed head to perform oral sex on her, the necrophiliac sex scene that the opera is famous for. 

There's nothing tasteful about it, but there is a lot dramatic.  As a metaphor for Salome's utter moral destruction, having a severed head lick out her pussy while she sings is a shattering vision of the utter destruction of w