Our First Friday

The first Friday night complete-play rehearsal coincided with homecoming at Your Sister's school. We knew my secretary wasn't going to be here. But when we start Act One, we are missing five witnesses just from the first act. One is gone for another weeklong trip. The others just no-showed. When I stand up to call the third missing character, the defendant actress asks why we were even doing Act One. I agree. But the director says, "we're doing it for the attorneys." And I have to agree with that too. I had 90% of my lines down, but I can't say how Doc is doing. He's using index cards with a shorthand script. I'm still carrying around the whole script, and I sneak peeks now and then.

Between acts, Doc tells me the 1993 cast of the show featured attorneys who used index cards throughout the performance. He's saying this as a way of asking me if I want to do so. I don't. While I agree attorneys would have notes and paperwork at their tables, I see those as props for the show, not crutches for the actors. I don't want them. If he wants to use them, and the director OKs it, fine. But I'll work the show sans notes. The accessibility of a back-up script will keep the words from sticking in my brain.

A number of us try Act One without scripts, and it goes haltingly at best. We have no flow, and we move backward at times to get a batch of dialogue right. The act takes a long time. We also may be tired after four days of rehearsals and facing a long night on a Friday. Then again, we may cranky after talking to the costume lady.

She rolled out a costume cart before the run-through to show us potential outfits from the theatre's stores. She shot down both suits that Doc and I brought and shot them down with barely a glance. She then tossed off a comment about allowing them if the director wanted them in a manner that suggested that she wouldn't like anything we brought to the show. The director didn't argue the point, and I tried on a black pinstripe suit hanging on the rack. The jacket fit great, but the pants were much too small. When I told the costumer this, she quickly suggested we mix the jacket and vest with solid black pants. Which would be fine if I was playing a butler or the Joker. But there's no way -- no fucking way -- that a 1930s New York DA would wear a mixed suit as he prosecuting the killer of a fictional Rupert Murdoch. I don't argue the point tonight, but nearer to gametime, yes, I'm bringing back the complete gray suit. I don't need to validate the purchase; it's only $5. I'm not that attached to it save that it's the right look for the show, and it fits like a glove. And, OK yeah, the costumer pissed me off.

I get the feeling she did this a lot tonight and mentally blame her for the show's early bad vibe. It might be no coincidence that the rehearsal goes much smoother after she leaves. Although, I have to say that I'm prickly as we begin because the other actors are chatting at normal volume when I'm trying to recite my lines from memory. I have to yell over them so the director can hear me. It's rude, and I want to throttle them.

The assistant director, who was present for one night, quit. The others say she's burned out, and I wonder how much that applies to the actors coming to us from the just finished Fiddler production. As I recall, they make up half our cast. We do have a new actor, and he's playing the clerk. An older gent with the voice of God. He'll make a fine addition to the show, I think. He obviously knows some of the others, and he jokes with them throughout the night. Because he's so otherwise quiet, the jokes slay us, coming out of nowhere with shocking sarcasm.

The later acts go OK, and the play does feel strong as we see it in its entirety. I get a better sense of my character's strategy of demeanor with varying witnesses. It's a long night, a full three hours compared to our usual two.

I spend Saturday and Sunday completing the memorization for Act two and beginning Act Three. I'm starting to force myself to stock the script in my forebrain by making myself recite the lines as fast as I can pronounce each word out of my mouth. It's speed talking, and it's how I ran my lines for Cat. I now have about five pages left to commit to my brains, and then I can start working rehearsals without a script in my hand. I still lose some incidental lines here and there, but I believe I'm retaining the majority of the lines. No, no index cues cards for me.

Official play website

Rehearsals
Act Three Lines
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

My lawnmower may have cut its last lawn. It continues to kill spark plugs with a nasty oil leak, and the blade almost fell off the undercarriage as I moved to the front yard. It's a good machine; it's served me well for ten years. And I'll be sorry to take it out back and shoot it.

We took steaks and taters to Kathy and Travis Sunday night for a leisurely dinner cookout and conversation. I lost the fantasy league week by fewer than three points.

I don't know what you've heard about Thanksgiving, but here's the latest. Your Mom, while talking to P2, did just what I advised her to avoid. She second-guessed their ability to host us with a new baby and a holiday dinner, and Your Brother called the whole thing off. There is still plenty of time for plans to get back on track. But I can't blame him. What else could he do when she's suggesting they haven't thought this through? The last I heard, Your Dad was going to call them back later in the weekend to calm the waters, but I don't know how that went. Also, I'm not positive that the plan is canceled. It's possible he suggested that only the two of them stay home. I don't know. I can't speculate. But Chez Debacle still intends to go if they're cooking a bird. I'll give you the latest as I get it. But until you hear about this from Your Brother or Your Parents, keep mum. Your Mom only called Your Sis to be told she did nothing wrong.

Picture of the Day
Am I geeking out over this? Verily. I am geeking out over this.

Act Three lines

A mid-day email states that Brick from Cat is on board as the private eye, and I assume he'll start next Wednesday when we get back to Act One. He'll be fine in the role, but I have to admit top a surprising streak of nervousness now. The stupid voice in my head frets aloud about the chances that the director will switch our roles. It's inexplicable. It's silly. But there it is, gnawing away at my brains. Something in me is intimidated by the actor.

We start tonight with the housekeeper scene from Act One because that actress is going away for another week. I'm not ready for this bit, and I have to use my script more than I'd like. That done, we start Act Three. The judge is absent so the defendant's real-life son reads for him and does much better with no previous reading. Too bad he's about 16. He does despair mightily when he flips the last pages to see the length of the closing arguments. All he can do is sit it out. Rehearsals can be pretty damn boring if you have no lines. This is why I did so much drawing during the last show.

I have pretty good energy with the defendant tonight. I'm trying to vary the delivery, making the attorney play dumb in some areas and quickly going into attack mode on the next line. This is the classic attorney style we've seen on TV and in movies. This is the fun stuff. You can hear the whispering of actors memorizing their lines or simply chatting as we run the act, and this is good practice for ignoring rude audience members. I'm not saying these people are rude (I'm memorizing lines at my attorney table too), but you have to build up your anti-distraction muscles.

I need to find a quote for this show's "poster" magnet, and the best lines are in this act. This is where people make dramatic declarations of the lengths they'd travel to get what they want. The father-in-law actor is already off book for this act, and it makes me admire him all the more. The gangster is close to leaving his script behind too. These are good actors, and they're relishing their roles. I'm reading while delivering my closing argument, and I don't have a handle on it yet. It's so full of exclamation points that I'm actually getting frothy by the third page (third page!). The director instructs both attorneys to walk with confidence as we stroll the courtroom and says she's wisely decided not to choreograph our movements. We'll move as the script and mood directs us. I appreciate that. I'll be able to swagger more when I'm not reading, walking, and talking.

I have ten days to finish memorizing the script and give myself two full weeks of rehearsals before we open. I have about 20 pages left to go, and it's feasible. I feel good about my pace of learnin'.

Rehearsals
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
The summer home.

Dusting Off Act One

It's been exactly a week since we'd run Act One, and I spent a little time during my commute running lines from memory. And I didn't do too well. But I was worried about cramming before I try a no-look rehearsal, so I stayed away from the script when I got home for supper. I also didn't pick up Cormac McCarthy's The Road, to which I am now hooked.

We didn't have the full complement tonight, not even of this act's characters. We still have no private eye, and we're now within a month of opening. This has to be addressed. Doc is convinced we can lasso the lead from Cat; he's worked with this group before, and he can surely tackle this small part. He even has the right 'New Yok' accent for the role. We're missing the handwriting expert, the medical examiner, the father-in-law, the defendant, but the last two have very few lines here. The actors playing the cop and the widow pull double duty to read those parts.

I was feeling icky earlier in the day but a double shot of Dayquil kept me upright and breathing. I nailed the opening arguments the first time and did pretty well all night, but I did carry my script so as not to delay the rehearsal by smacking my head to dislodge the lines. Between runs we chat about lines, and Doc asks how many I have. I haven't counted. I don't wanna know. Doc says he's got 530. My amount has to be comparable, and know I have the burden of knowledge that I have more than 500 lines to get right. I don't need this in my head. The number solidifies the stature of the role, but that also works in my favor. I'm reminded I have the part I wanted. That makes me smile.

Doc and I ratchet up our attorney confrontations, and we're now yelling at each other during the act. It's fun. I like this adversarial energy running underneath the testimony suspense.

Rehearsals
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night


Your Sis is working her ass off at school, and something has to change. She's coming home when I am, putting her daily work hours at about 14. That's nuts. She's a hard worker of course, but she needs a new tactic to work smarter. I don't know enough about her material to help, and that frustrates me. All I can do is watch, rub her feet, and feed her ice cream.

Your Mom is mucho worried about Thanksgiving in the same way My Mom was/is. She called Your Sis for a 90-minute stressfest. Can the kids juggle a houseful of folks while taking care of the new baby? Should we stay away? Will we insult them by second-guessing their ability? I say we go if we're invited. But if Your Sis and I are outv -- you know, we might go anyway. I'm not saying we will. I'll tow the company line if Your Sis asks me to, but just because Your Mom stresses out over this doesn't mean we should shun them and the new baby. I'm just writing out loud here. I don't know what we'll do.


Picture of the Day
It's not all easy being Wonder Woman.

Line Trouble

The four-day break was good for memorizing, but it doesn't help us synch with each other. The first run-through of Act Two is dismal as we stumble a lot. The problem is that we're not used to hearing the cue lines.

Here's what happens. The Swedish housekeep is on the stage, and I'm questioning her. We have our scripts in hand but not reading them. I say my line, she responds. She stops talking, so I start with my next line. She remembers she didn't get all her line out, and she tries to get it out. I stop talking, let her finish, and say my line again. I start to forget my next line, so she starts talking, and I try to blurt out my lines as I recall them. It's a mess. Doc has written his lines on index cards, but he left out a page when transcribing and relies on the judge's script. The actor playing the father-in-law has his lines down cold. The defendant (who has a lot of lines in Act Two after a fairly quiet Act One) does very well. She wasn't here Thursday because of a migraine. The second run goes much, much better, and the housekeeper and I are almost acting when we try the scene again. I should have Act Two memorized by the end of the week; I only have three witnesses in this act.

We do have an assistant director now, but she seems sick. A number of us are sniffling through rehearsal tonight. But the assistant talks the director into spreading out the attorney tables and now we have much more room between the defense station and the witness stand. But we're now further away from the judge and must turn to address him. I think we'll eventually angle the tables to where they're almost facing each other and perpendicular to the audience.

I show my photos of the cheap suit to the director and the cast sees them. They're stunned to learn I paid $5 for it, and the director approves it for the show. I'll need to change ties between acts, but that's not a problem. I learned how to do a necktie sans mirror during my first Neil Simon show.

Rehearsals
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
Any excuse for Shatner to parade his tan.

Quick Football Update

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-3), St. Louis (0-4)
AFC: Indianapolis (4-0), New England (4-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-3), Carolina (2-2)
AFC: New England (4-0), San Diego (1-3)

The Saints had the week off.

I won my first fantasy week match-up by .05 points, possibly the closest margin in the history of margins. My opponent and I both had New England players, and they again had a monster game last night.

She's 'Death Proof'-proof

Your Sis didn't like Death Proof, much to my sadness. We talked about it the next morning (over homemade pancakes), and she admitted she doesn't know enough about horror movies to appreciate the genre. But I also think she hasn't seen enough bad movies, trash movies, or Southern bootleg racing/pistol-packin' mama movies to dig it either. It held up for me on this second viewing. There's some additional footage, most notably the Act One subplot lapdance that was "cut" from the theatrical release. The Stuntman Mike character is fascinating. he's a boy with a toy (a killing car) but he's almost cartoonish and likable even as he's committing vehicular homicide.

The soundtrack remains stellar as does the film's best moment: Rosario Dawson's character gets a close-up of her face as we watch her shift from fear to bliss, and it's so pure a moment, so simple a shot, that it defines what we look for in movies. It's moments like this that make Tarantino a quality filmmaker. Not the gore and music and language and camera choices.

She worked most of Sunday while I finished the laundry and went over lines. I memorized up to half of the second act, and that was just with one witness. I also got a suit at the local Humane Society store for $5.

Speaking of the pancakes, the bacon smoke set off the fire alarm and filled the house with smoke. Tasty, comforting smoke. Late that night, just as we're abut to hit the hay, Your Sis decided we needed to reset the alarm. I do so. And then it started beeping every minute because the battery was dead. And we had no 9-volts. I throw my clothes back on and drive to the local convenience store (not many are open at 10 p.m. on Sunday in Mayberry), buy one, drive back home and install it. No more beeps. But this was not the cap I needed to the weekend.

I hope you did well on your test and that you can breathe easier when it's done.

Picture of the Day
The suit. I already had the tie, and I need to excavate my old pocketwatch chain. I'm stunned the local store had a suit that fit me so well without any noticeable stains or funky smells. And five bucks?! This is a divine gift.


Unsolicited Moment of Personal Reflection
Today is the sixth anniversary of my arrival home to find my wife had run away. I admit to a bit of shame for the failed marriage, but mostly I feel gratitude. I'm not saying she did the right thing. Nothing of her manner of departure and behavior was commendable. Or advisable. Or sensible. But my life improved many times over within a month of her leaving. And it's remained better since. Not one subsequent day has gone by that I would trade for another day with the ex.

That day was ultimately the most influential moment of my life, post-college, and I like to use the anniversary to take stock of what I've done since then. But I do this for 9/11 too as the days are only three weeks removed. I don't look wistfully out a window. I don't get teary eyed. I get happy. And very very relieved. But I do suppress the urge to email the ex and ask if she still thinks she did the right thing. Because I'm dead certain she's not better off for leaving what she claimed was a dismal relationship. This is the only bit of ego I regularly allow myself: She left the best thing she had.

End of Second Week

I met Your Sis for dinner with her new coworker, and I wolfed down a sandwich before leaving for the warehouse.

Thursday afternoon, a director email arrived with this info:

Next week is not only a new week but a new month! October means that we have only four more weeks of rehearsal before we open. These past two weeks have been gratifying watching the characters develop.

Attorney Flint is learning all his lines so quickly! I hope the rest of you are. The depth of your character cannot be plumbed until those words come out automatically. They are the key to this person you are trying to be. Acting can't really start until the character is formed with words.

When we arrive for rehearsals, the director has me run through my opening arguments in front of the actors. While part of this was to kill time while we waited for the defendant to arrive, it also feels like I was serving as an example to those not there last night. Around 7:20, we stop killing time and begin Act Three. My secretary plays the part of the defendant, who never did arrive. Again, while I'm not "onstage," I'm memorizing lines in Act One. I nailed down about 8 pages yesterday, and I'm now within sight of the end of the act. I will definitely be able to have it committed to memory by this weekend, and I'm aiming for the first five pages of Act Two as well.

The costume person (and now I know there's a costume person) has asked us to come up with our own duds. I'll hit the local charity stores to see if I can find an appropriate suit. I've also been told I don't have to shave the beard.

The director praised the timing and delivery of the Act Three material and noted the "fire" of the closing arguments. The actress playing the stripper is really digging into her role. She has a nice organic reading of her role -- nice pauses, nice enunciations. I should also note that Doc is a completely different person in this show. He's much more jovial and with it, and I think he's indeed playing up to this new level of responsibility.

We have a nice break before Tuesday. My brain will get a bit of a breather, and I'll recite lines as I'm working in the garden this weekend.

Rehearsals
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
Missed him by a mile. Maybe the Force is strong with his foot. Also? Luke has chicken legs. If he spent, let's say, two months running around Dagobah and getting his jedi on, he should be sporting some significant quad-dage.

'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'

I recited my first 20 pages as I drove to work and found a lovely surprise when I got home: IFC was showing GlenGarry Glenn Ross. This is the muy macho salesman film by David Mamet. Within the first half hour of the film is this magnificent scene -- virtually a monologue -- by Alec Baldwin. He's a home office representative who utterly decimates the branch-office sales group by threatening their jobs unless they improve their numbers. You can see it here (NSFW language).

Baldwin has never been better, and this is exactly the kind of pre-rehearsal scene I need to watch. My character has similar long clutches of dialogue, and he has to make his point to a group of people. I don't have this kind of anger or language to toss around, but I need to steal that level of confidence and carriage for my guy. So, yes, my guy will be a bit like Baldwin as he tries to bring the jury back to his version of the murder and not the (probably true) conspiracy. He's going to slam the female defendant even if he knows she isn't guilty of murder. The scene worked so well on Your Sis that she watched the rest of the movie.

We run Act One tonight, and I arrive practically twitching from anxiety about the memorization. The pressure comes wholly from me, but I would much rather get this stuff early then try to learn it all at the last minute. That's when big mistakes are made. Also, the sooner I put the script down, the sooner I can focus on the body language and floor movement. The attorneys constitute virtually the entirety of movement, and we need to choreograph this stuff to the inch.

Because some folks aren't here tonight, the assembled cast skews young. The widow, the handwriting expert, the rookie cop, and my secretary all look younger than 25. That leaves the judge, Doc, the defendant (a late arrival, she doesn't talk until the end of the act), and the medical examiner. The secretary doubles as the clerk and then the absent Aunt Jemima housekeeper, and the cop also reads the lines of the private eye, who we really really really need to cast. The younger gang makes for a looser, lighter atmosphere. They're having fun, and it's infectious. We're working with noir material with patches of goofiness, and when we step on those, we crack up.

My character cranks up about three pages into Act One, and I don't do so well with my lines. I stumble early and have to use the script to regain my mental footing. I recite, peek, recite, peek the whole way through, and then go to the script exclusively when I hit page 22. I apologize for the screw-ups, but the director just thanks me for starting the memorization. When I chat with the examiner between runthroughs, he assures me that lines always go better at home compared to the first time they're tried in rehearsal. I set myself up for it, and I let myself down. But we are only in our second week, so I can't beat myself up.

The act ends with a weird moment as the defendant is allowed to question the widow, and it makes for awkward positioning. We run through it a few times. Also, the judge is --- look, he seems like a nice guy, but he can't follow the script when it's sitting on his lap. When he's reading it. When his lines are highlighted. He's just not paying attention. We start to stomp our feet on the concrete floor to create the sound of the gavel he's supposed to rap on his desk. The gavel in his hand, the gavel with its specific stage directions in the midst of his dialogue.

Because the defendant arrived after we started the first run, she's shocked when I start the second run without my script. I hear her gasp and whisper to Doc, sitting next to her. I do pretty well until I switch the metaphors for heart attack and earthquake. The other actors yell out the right words, and I crack up laughing. They're giving me shit for the mistake this early in the process. And we all crack up as I thank them for not throwing lettuce. The rest of the act goes pretty well for my lines, and I do get to concentrate on my footwork for a few minutes. The rest of the night is practically slapstick as the substitute actors try broad accents and sometimes sing their lines. The director is letting them run with it. It's not like they'll play those other roles, and we can't cement scene direction until those actors are here.

Rehearsals
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Script Work

After a quick home dinner of soup and bread, I bebop over to the warehouse and walk in with the actress playing the Swedish housekeeper. The director says I'm doing some good work, and I thank her for taking a chance on a new guy. Some theatres won't, and many have good reasons to; you never know when a potentially good applicant will bomb out on lines or professionalism. Doc overhears and mentions that we met on Cat, and it turns out some of these folks saw the play. They ask who I was, I tell them, and then I hear the best compliment a guy can get: "You were Gooper?!"

We run Act Two. It's easier on my character. He has lighter moments and fewer lines. The first witness in this act is the second housekeeper, and it's a broad comedy bit. She's gossipy and indignant. The attorney razes her on her accent and nosiness. Then I cross examine the Swedish bookkeeper and lob softballs to Whitfield, the rich father-in-law. That actor continues to bring the awesome. He's got the right carriage and gestures to the jury. Also has a fantastic stage voice. The girl playing my secretary doubles as the court clerk. The actress playing the defendant tries out a Swedish accent, but it's coming out a little Hungarian. Not that her character has a set background; she can play it with any accent.

We work on the timing of the judge's gavel banging, and he's still having trouble following along even with the script sitting in front of him. He hasn't highlighted his lines and directions. Meanwhile others of us are not only walking and talking but writing our improved stage movements in our scripts while we're walking and talking. The judge has to be nudged into reading his lines most of the time. It's as if he's never read a script before, yet he's supposedly a veteran of this theatre.

While the other attorney is questioning his star witnesses, I flip back to Act One to learn more lines. It's tricky to read them and mentally recite them while making sure I don't miss a cue in Act Two. I'm up to page 20 now. That's the opening argument and three witnesses, but I have three more and 15 pages left in this act to learn. And when I get Act One memorized, that's only one-third of the play. I'd like to be off-script by Oct. 15, giving me two full weeks of rehearsals without the book before we open. I'm starting to wake up with the script bouncing in my brain, waiting to be recited.

Because I didn't sleep well the night before, I woke up Tuesday morning so groggy that I broke down and bought a frappuccino. I nursed that for most of the workday, and when I got home, Your Sis handed me another one she just bought at the store. I took that to rehearsal and was practically hovering through the runthrough. I woke up this morning somewhat rested but again with the last witness lines tapping on the inside of my forehead. A few minutes later, there I stand in the shower, giving my lawyer eyes to the shampoo bottle. I'll see how well I know these 20 pages tonight as we hit Act One for the first time since last week.

Rehearsals
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
It's just your spaaace waaalkin',
telling me lies.

J'Accuse

We're doing Act Three tonight, the act when we explicate the conspiracy twist: The deceased and the accused actually faked his murder for a massive robbery, but he died before he could run off to Buenos Aires. The third accomplice runs into the court to inform the defendant and attorneys. If she didn't kill him, she can't be found guilty of this crime and must be set free. But my character ain't having it, and he grills the two living accomplices and the deceased's loyal bookkeeper. And then he concludes with three pages of closing argument.

As we start the rehearsal, I'm introduced to my secretary. She's been on the cast list as the other attorney's assistant, but the defense table already has three people sitting there, so I get the girl. She's a student of my wife, and we knew before her that she was cast. She doesn't have any lines, and we'll probably spend the entire play pantomiming note-taking and talking about the audience and jury.

Because of the act's story, my character becomes noticeably feistier and I have to pay particular attention to pacing. The script directs him to punctuate his closing statements with certain sentences in all caps. This is becuase he's trying to direct the jury back to the original charge and description of events and way from the faked-death conspiracy. The defendant, however, is playing the act as if the conspiracy is true, and if it is, my attorney becomes a Javert -- unconcerned with truth, only with justice. He becomes a bad guy, and I have no problem playing the added degree of difficulty. It can make his protests and comments snarky instead of righteous. But I have to be careful that I don't get shrill in my exasperated arrogance, and I have to save that energy for the end of the play -- and the fucking three-page monologue.
I'm not complaining. Really, the length is necessary to encapsulate the entire play to the jury and the audience. I'm proud to have that responsibility. But, omigod, it's three pages long. I'll need water at the prosecution table, or I won't make it.

Everyone in this act is hitting home runs. The accomplices are working it; the actor playing the gangster accomplice is already chewing on a toothpick. The defense attorney has obviously attacked his closing argument at home, and the father-in-law of the deceased is reacting to characters played by absent actors. The bit role of the widowed stripper gets an advanced degree of sass, and the secretary pretends she's taking notes when she's not reading along with the script. These people came to play.

We focus on two moments during the rehearsal: the gangster's dramatic entrance at the end of Act Two and the Act Three dramatic confession of the loyal Swedish bookkeeper. We also have our first prop -- a gun that links the gangster to the defendant. It's supposed to be a 32-calibre handgun, but we're using a cowboy revolver tonight. Oh, and the judge is using small blocks of wood for his gavel, and he's sitting on a couch used in a previous production. It's only our second week, after all.

Rehearsals
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-3), St. Louis (0-3)
AFC: Indianapolis (3-0), New England (3-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-3), Carolina (2-1)
AFC: New England (3-0), San Diego (1-2)

Picture of the Day
Drillbird.

Cramming

Everything else I did this weekend was eclipsed by the effort to learn my lines.

The attorney's opening statement is a sprawling, weak-written salvo. Words are repeated needlessly (the word "world" pops up three times within five sentences), and the character fails to properly identify the deceased. One of the agreements of buying the rights to produce a play is that you don't drastically alter the script. Technically, you're not supposed to change it at all, but many companies erase bad language. This company has already rewritten the former Aunt Jemima housekeeper character, removing the now-embarrassing dialect. I wonder if I can tinker with the lawyer's monologue.

I also learned the examinations of two witnesses: the medical examiner and that rewritten housekeeper. What helps is the understanding that a lawyer has to paint a picture of the crime for the jury. Again, it would be nice if I told them -- and, most important, the audience -- exactly who died. The lawyer's questions follow a linear logic of describing the events. The ME conversation is a tad over a page -- what did you find, what kind of bullet could have hit the body, maybe he was dead before he was tossed off the penthouse -- but the housekeeper material goes on for days: who are you, why were you there, what have you seen, what happened the night of the death. This includes mystery men who went to the penthouse and walked off separately.

There's no easy trick for this that I've found; you simply have to know the material. I usually read a script page and memorize my lines each time they appear. I read a line, say it aloud, move to the next line, say them both aloud, go to the next, say those three aloud, etc. It dominated my weekend just to wrangle with ten pages. That's a discouraging fraction of the script. But that initial hump of a soliloquy hindered the work. I think now I can tackle batches of pages at one time, clawing my way to full memorization. I'd love to start the next Act One rehearsal with the script closed and across the room. I think it will shock the others.

I recited the material on the way into work and it felt good. I don't think I dropped any lines. That overnight mental retention is the sign that it wasn't short-term. My brain feels tender, like I overworked it.

I just got emails from the director. The PI actor has dropped out of the play and quickly managed to snag the male lead in Taming of the Shrew in another production; sounds like he auditioned for two roles and picked the better offer. Can't blame him for that. We also still need a handful of actors for small roles and a stage manager AND a production designer.

The director also is surveying the cast for which weekend day we'll surrender for a full, regular run-through of the play. It seems like we're only rehearsing Tuesday through Wednesday, and the director wants to avoid Monday. Because of schedule hiccups, we're doing Act Two on Tuesday, Act One on Monday, and then Act Three the last day. I'd rather do the run-through on Friday and give myself the full weekend at home.

Instead of becoming worried about this show, I'm instead almost disturbingly determined to be the best part about it. If nothing else, the folks spending their time and money to see this play will enjoy watching me. I will not let this show become a waste of time for me or them.

Saturday morning, I hit the garden. We had piled deadwood on top of the dead blackberry bushes in hopes of burning everything. But the state is under a burning ban stretching back to spring. Now we hope to make mulch using a wood chipper. I pruned away the sprawling vines atop the wood, then moved the wood to the previously cleared garden patch. This will make for a shorter and cheaper worktime when I rent a chipper. Now I have to dig up the stubborn root balls in the other half of the garden, clear the ground cover, and ready the soil for next year's crops. It's becoming a regular Saturday activity, and I'd be less inclined to do this if there were any decent cartoons on at the time.

I then watched a convergence of horrors that kept me from my first win in fantasy football.

Picture of the Day
Best t-shirt ever? Mayhap.

Walking and Talking

Today's fast-food supper: Arby's. One worry of theatre is eating badly and putting on weight. This is especially bad after you've been measured for a costume. Unlike the last show, where I had an hour commute after rehearsals and performances, the warehouse is just five minutes from my house. I should go home, snack, and drive to the rehearsal. But at home I'm distracted by mail and cats and the sweet allure of Pardon the Interruption. And there's the subsequent danger of my lawyer sounding like Tony Kornheiser.

We walk through Act Two tonight, and it starts with a very long broad comedy piece with a Swedish housekeeper excoriating the defendant as a greedy hussy. The defendant then takes the stand to explain how she met and fell under the spell of the deceased.

Someone brings a Wiki bio of Ayn Rand, and the cast take turns glancing at her life and philosophy. These comes as a surprise to many, especially the defendant. She starts to understand how Rand wants her female characters swayed by the heroic menfolk. And her testimony is packed with comments about her happy, wanton obedience. Many small conversations overlap about her connects to Alan Greenspan, her 50-year marriage, and her hatred for feminism. It reminds me of the Hot Lips quote from MASH: "I could never love a man who didn't outrank me." Some of us have read Rand; some have never heard of her. Most of us don't know how to pronounce her name (Hint, it ain't "Ann." Really. Stop it.).

I should mention the age spread of the cast. There are three or four young recent grads, me and the defendant at 30-40, and then a pack of silver hair. The latter is accompanied by a significant lack of hearing, and conversations take a while. The judge, who has the script in his lap, constantly misses his cues. On the other hand, a young actor has yet to show up and read his part.

One of our first play-related conversations involves costuming. The play stretches over three days, but there's no reason for us to leave the court, change, and come back in. It will just elongate the show. The mock-up of the courtroom unfortunately blocks the jury with the defense table and creates a small nook next to the witness stand. It makes strolling the court and working the jury awkward. Don't block the witness, cheat out to the audiences, don't stand in front of the other attorney and the defendant. We're hoping to get into the courtroom soon to physically see the floorspace. The producer, who saw and documented the courtroom, has taken ill and will miss the entire show. We need the director to rethink the practice space.

I'm also told to make my character more arrogant, to "strut" about the trial. I know I'm not yet steeped in the Denzel; I'm coasting a bit while I try to plot movement and inflection. And in a show that can become broad, I don't want to walk like Vince McMahon storming the ring. I'll be able to concentrate on posture and flow once I get this damn script out of my hand. Yes, I'm saying this just a week into rehearsals. I would love to get Act One memorized by Monday, but that's quite a chore.

I'm consistently getting laughs with the one bit of comedy Flint has: He laughs at his own joke, and the judge silently chides him. It's a moment of deflation dependent on puffing up the attorney beforehand. This is the act where the attorney shows more liveliness, and I have obvious moments of lighthearted mocking of accents and criminal behavior.

I'll spend the weekend running through Act One, braking the script down witness by witness and trying to get a handle on the sprawling opening argument.

Rehearsals
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
The epitome of awesome.

Marking the Floor

I read over the opening arguments during dinner at the local Japanese steakhouse. It's set up in what used to be a Southern diner, and the decor hasn't changed. It looks like a roadside chicken shack but they feed you mounds of shrimp sauce and sir-fried chicken. I adore this place. And it's here that I start to memorize the script. Except I'm doing it in the hardest manner: I'm just sitting and quietly reciting it. I have no movement or vocal flow to work as mnemonic devices. Also, the director could always make changes to the script. And frankly this argument needs it. The DA strangely fails to identify the deceased even as he describes him, and he does so in an unsympathetic way. It's weak writing, but I blame the editor, not Rand.

At the rehearsal, we again sit and read Act One. We still have no private eye, and the widow isn't here tonight. The handwriting expert and the rookie cop are though, although they arrive late. The reading takes about half an hour.

We then mark off the floor in measuring tape to the measurements of the courtroom. The reference pictures show a modern courtroom where I expected a 1950s-style Southern room. We are presumably setting this in the 1930s, so that design would have worked. But this new style will be slightly incongruous. Then again, we don't have to set this in the '30s. The swindled money is still significant and there's no anachronistic technology involved. On the other hand, we are supposed to be in New York too. The director proposes the attorney tables be turned around so we sit facing the audience. This puts our backs to the judge and the witness stand, which seems awkward at best. I'm hoping we change that.

Having this marked-out dimension lets us get a notion of workspace. We won't be able to rehearse in the courtroom. Our first crack at it will be with our first audience. Also, we presumably won't have a practice jury to work with. I wonder how those who have to address the jury (me included) will handle it. Remember the jury will be made up of volunteer audience members, and we have to convince them of our cases. The defense attorney, with whom I'm talking shit all night long, is going down.

I appreciate the working space so I can tinker with walking patterns and posture. Already, the acting improves across the board, and it's only our second day. I'm still working on projection, and I may be overdoing it. I fear I'm talking on a flat keel, and I need to vary my tones with each witness. I continue to imaging Denzel Washington in the role.

The judge improves his ability to follow along, and we make our comments to the pretend audience. I imagine faces in the chairs (well, faces attached to bodies and those bodies sitting in the chairs; I doubt we'll have a jury made up of multiple Re-Animator Dr. Hill heads), but the table closest to the jury blocks my access to them. I can only work those 12 people in an arc, moving from end to another of the jury box while also keeping halfway turned to the side so the audience can see me.

Standing at a 45-degree angle from the person you're addressing is called "cheating." If the director needs you to turn your body more to the audience, you'll be told to "cheat out." And now your head is turned 90 degrees from your body to make eye contact with the other actors, less if they're standing between you and the audience.

We run through Act One while skipping the parts of actors who aren't there, and we're quickly done. With this strolling and standing, I can start to cement the lines in my head, even if they're edited later by the director. We have a short rehearsal time; I can't wait too long to learn the script. Besides, I want to make a good impression.

Rehearsals
Readthrough

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

When I got home, we ignored the TV and sat on the couch, yakking it up for hours. It was a couch date, and we should do it more often. I worried that we watched too much TV anyhow.

Picture of the Day
The first official pic from the Sex and the City movie. The first thing I notice is that Carrie has cleaned up a bit. She always exhibited a touch of New York trash, the outlandish accents of a perpetual fashion hound. And here she's working the natural look with her makeup. I hope this is a sign the character is growing up a bit.

I'm still angry that this "committed writer" didn't bother to jot down one word while she lived with Alexsander in Paris; really, no one would have run a column by a transplanted, published author/love columnist who worships fashion and spends all day shopping? No one?

Speaking of Paris, I love that purse. When I shop with Your Sis -- in my position as Official Wardrobe Engineer -- I constantly see items I would gobble up if I was a gal, and a purse like that would be in heavy rotation for my various hypothetical ensembles.

The Readthrough

I drop by Wal-Mart to buy a small notebook before arriving at the warehouse. The local constables have set up a checkpoint right after the warehouse driveway. I turn on my turn signal to show that I'm heading off before I pull up to the cop a few cars ahead. What's odd is that he sees my signal, points to the parking lot, and nods his head. There's no effort to check whatever it is they're looking for -- license, inspection, seatbelt, etc. The other cops don't follow me in.

Lesson learned: If you need to duck a checkpoint after getting blotto at the local Hooters, pretend you're pulling into a rehearsal.

As I walk to the building, three older folks introduce themselves (and I've of course forgotten their names as I type this) and they ask after my Matrix. They're car shopping, and I praise the mileage and handling. Doc is there too, and we all walk in together. The assistant hands out instructions on turning in our playbill bios and headshots and verifies our contact information. After a bit of conversational murmurs, the director tells us to form a circle with our chairs so we can start reading.

There are no round-robin introductions nor is there a schedule of our rehearsals. This is a mite informal compared to what I've seen before. Obviously some of us know each other from previous plays, but others appear to be complete strangers. And we don't have a full complement. I don't know who's playing what until they start reading their lines.

Let me here tell you the story: The Night of January the 16th concerns the trial of Karen Andre, accused of killing her business partner and possible lover, Bjorn Faulkner. Bjorn recently married Nancy Lee Whitfield, daughter of a great philanthropist. Bjorn fell, or was thrown, from a penthouse rooftop after being shot. The question then is whether this was a very thorough suicide or murder. We see a bevy of caricatured witnesses: a Swedish housekeeper, an unrelated shady Swedish bookkeeper, a rookie Irish cop, a poor housekeeper (originally written like Aunt Jemima), a gangster, a PI, and a stripper.

But the trial has a twist. Andre and the gangster admit that they were trying to pull a swindle with Faulkner by faking his death, and the body actually is that of a rival gangster. Faulkner, the first gangster, and Andre were stealing money from Whitfield and were going to vanish in Buenos Aires, but Faulkner's plane crashed, and now he really is dead. The trial becomes a question of whether the gangster and Andre are lying about the conspiracy to get her off the initial murder charge.

Ayn Rand wrote this, but it has been "edited" by another writer, and the latter seems to have tried to make this a comedy with goofy accents. There are tiny Rand touches throughout, but any Objectivism present is reserved for the detailed morals of the filthy rich.

Clockwise from my left are the judge, the accused, Whitfield, the medical examiner, the Swede housekeeper, the gangster, the director, the shady Swede, the poor housekeeper, the widow, the stripper, the defense attorney, and back to me.

And we read. Doc does a fine job. His natural speaking voice is perfect for the quietly clever lawyer. The Swedish housekeeper nails her lines. The de-blackified maid and the Gangster are good too. Other folks may not have seen the script before. As with every reading, folks stumble over certain words. I have to learn the correct punctuation of "Rennsalaer." The director reads the parts of those not present. The judge gets lost, and we joke that the attorneys will have to nudge him awake when its time for him to speak.

The play has two endings depending on the verdict rendered by the audience-culled jury. Both endings have the same last lines by the judge accusing the jury of ignoring certain evidence and striking their named from the jury rolls for five years. But it's only a funny punchline if you know that both endings are the same. The accused actress approaches Doc after the reading and pleads straight-faced "you've got to get me off every night." Doc and I exchange raised eyebrows.

It's a two-hour read, and I make notes as to which words to emphasize in my delivery. Almost all my lines are questions, and I need to vary the cadence. I also have to adjust my tone depending on whose witness I'm questioning. I've listed my favorite lawyer roles in films (Denzel, Pacino, Newman, Tracy, Hackman), and I'm imitating them at various times in the play, mostly Denzel. I assume that my innate lack of fucking cool will keep the Denzel impersonation unrecognizable.

We start rehearsing Wednesday night with Act One. Two of the actors will be gone for ten days, but they play smaller witness parts. We can work around it. I won't worry about imprinting the lines in my head until we're sure there are no further director-mandated edits to the script. I've got my pen for notebook scribbling, my pencil for writing on the script, and my highlighter for stage directions and lines. I feel like an uber-prepared college student.

Picture of the Day
I've officially logged in 10,000 miles on a car I've owned five months. Your Sis is horrified and wracked with guilt over my commute. I'm OK with it; I have my Ipod, loaded with podcasts and disco.

It's Not Much of a Cheese Shop, Is It?

Kathy and Travis came over with Anna Claire. She's walking now, but not for very far at one time. She staggers for a bit and then drops to the floor. But she's a quiet child and seems happy. We can't agree on whom she favors more.

Kathy and Travis are back from Germany and visiting the family of their exchange student. She told us they tried a lot of cheese, some of which was too fuzzy for her to munch. Your Sis suggested she read Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch, and I dusted off the script books I bought in high school. Then I remembered I also have a CD set of sketches, and we all stood in the big room listening to Palin and Cleese recite as many cheese names as they could. Then we returned to football and wrestling.

Kathy brought Your Sis some tiny German incense cones to burn in her equally small gnome candle. It smells right nice.

I showed Travis the highlighted script, and he asked how I was going to memorize all the lines. I told him I'll have to break down the script into chunks of events and learn how my character relates to each witness. It's feasible. But it will be work.

Before all of this, I mowed the yard and kept a wary eye on the yellowjacket nest in the front yard. I need to buy a bug-bomb of some sort to burn out their underground clubhouse. The weather is considerably cooler suddenly, and that will help me sneak up on them. I don't think I'll have time to do that before I go to the read-through tonight.

Picture of the Day
Time lapse photo of a circling helicopter.

Bad Luck

We shopped for new clothes Saturday before watching 3:10 to Yuma, a quick and cool Western remake. Great acting, clean script, nice soundtrack. Your Sis really liked it. Then again, her head could have been swimming from the successful shopping.

I had less luck. For virtually all my life, a 32-inch inseam meant a 32-inch inseam. Apparently, no longer, no. Now, a 32-inch inseam equals 34 inches. Much like my hell of shirt shopping, I now can't assume pants will fit if they have the same measurements as the clothes I've worn for half my life. I managed to find some jeans once I tried on smaller pairs. I also snagged a freakishly cool shirt in Hot Topic, a store I'm almost too old to shop at despite their continued offering of items only my generation would appreciate. A Darkwing Duck shirt, for instance. What person under the age of 20 would even remember Darkwing Duck?

I took a highlighter to my script lines, and, wow, do I yap a lot in this play. I'll need a notebook to track my mnemonic devices.

While shopping, I happened to glance at a pancake spatula, and I remembered we have a new stove-top griddle. So I offered Your Sis a breakfast. I woke up Sunday and drove to the store to get the ingredients, and after a larger mess and longer time than necessary, I delivered fresh pancakes and bacon. Not bad, I think. But the meal filled us up for virtually the whole day and reduced her to naps. I watched my fantasy team dissolve after a horrible day of games.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-2), St. Louis (0-2)
AFC: Indianapolis (2-0), New England (2-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-2), Carolina (1-1)
AFC: New England (2-0), San Diego (1-1)

The Saints seem to have remembered that they are the Saints. Dammit. Once again, New England salvages my fantasy team.

Picture of the Day
MacGyver Punch!

Fourth Audition Night

First Night
Second Night
Third Night

Tonight is ostensibly for the benefit of the actors in Fiddler, but they have a dress rehearsal tonight. So they can't be there. How does that work? Were they gonna show up to audition before the rehearsal? Oh and here's a tidbit from an actor in that show: The weekend rehearsal lasted 11 hours. Eleven. The older actors had trouble with their lines. I know, you're shocked.

I arrive at the warehouse at 7 and am greeted by the stage manager. Inside is Doc, and we talk about choice of clothes and work dress codes. We're killing time because no other applicant is there. It's the two folks working the sign-up table, the director, the stage manager, another theatre figure, and the two of us. We hover in the "lobby" outside the audition room before slipping inside to grab a few Xeroxed pages to study. The director and others are talking about who is cast in what part, and Doc whispers that we should leave the room so they can talk about us. I argue that we should eavesdrop to find learn where we stand. But leave we do and chat a bit.

Very quickly, the director calls for me, and I go back into the room. And then she says it: "I'd like for you to be Flint (the DA)," This is the part I wanted. I smile a bit and say "I'd be glad to." And there we have it. Lead role. The aggressive DA in the noir play. The director says Lynn will play "the stripper" as a result of her audition last night. She continues to talk aloud about who is cast in what role, and then realizes she hasn't informed Doc yet. "Oh, well I'd like you to be the defense attorney." Doc is pleased as punch (he's not playing a doctor again), and we exchange proud smiles. I offer my hand, we shake, and talk shit.

"You're going down, sir."
"So you get to be Gooper again, right?"
"Oh no, this time I'm win."

Lynn arrives a little bit later, and the director tells Lynn the good news. We three applicants congratulate each other. A new arrival is known to the director and Doc, and he quickly reads for the part of Whitfield, the rich father-in-law of the deceased. Doc and I read our parts against him, and as we finish, the director says, "well, I think we have our Whitfield." Would anyone else get a role if they walked off the street? I don't think so. The theatre folks seem to be plugging cast holes now, and they discuss who to get for very small roles. We also learn one character originally written as a black maid character will be re-written. They're removing the stereotypical "oh lawdy, I don't knows anythang, suh" stuff.

We're also told that the jury in the play will be chosen from audience volunteers and will indeed be allowed to decide guilt. We'll perform the very end of the play based on that. That's cool. Now, I have to make my case as best I can. Another element of reality I look forward to.

No one else arrives, and we kill time thumbing through the full script until the theatre folks decide to close shop. We'll meet on Tuesday to start rehearsals. We'll have seven weeks to mount a 90-page script. No problem.

So long as Doc doesn't forget his lines again.

I met Your Sis at a Mexican restaurant to join Kathy and Travis for Anna Claire's birthday party. Because I get there so later after the start time, I can only eat a piece of cake. No din-din for me. We watch her open presents before going home so I can, ironically, eat. I give her the story of the audition and some rather dramatic doings at the office today. Here's the gossip-free version: Today was a very good day all for me.

Picture of the Day
GUILTY!

Third Audition Night

First Night
Second Night

It's been two weeks later, and this week's auditions are for the benefit of those performing in Fiddler. They are also open to the public. I stop by the house between work and auditions to dress up in lawyer-ish duds. I show up at the warehouse, and the guy working the sign-up table calls me on the outfit. I say I had to dress up for work anyway (lie) and laugh it off. The Doc from Cat On a Hot Tin Roof is at the table, and he also jokes about me dressing for the role.

I normally don't do something like this, but I also normally don't go through four audition nights for a show. Since I will be seen so often, there's no harm in dressing up at least once for a reading. I'm the only one decked out to this degree, but some of the womenfolk are nattily attired. I can't tell if this is their everyday wear or special for the audition. I haven't witnessed people going to absurd lengths for a period play. No one, say, in the Shakespeare audition strolled in wearing leotards or Elizabethan collars. No one came to the Sound of Music readings in lederhosen.

We have about 15 people auditioning, a big bump from the previous nights. Most of them look younger than me. There is an older gent and three guys, one of whom announces he's 30. A baby-faced 30, I should note. There are equally younger gals, and a few older women. One of them nails a part on her first sit-down. The 30-year-old guy reads the PI role in a top-notch "Nu Yok" accent.

Me, I'm there for the DA role. I've practiced my shady Swede accent and delivery, but the DA is the one that I seem to be the right age for in this group. Luckily, I get to read for it more than five times. The director tells all of us to read the DA with an edge, combative, and aggressive. About halfway through my chances, she stops me to say she needs a louder volume and more animation for me. No problem. I imagine myself heavier and older, almost angry and read the lines. It's comfortable and fun. I also read for the defense attorney once, and I add a bit more charm to that. The other people reading the roles have soft voices and high pitches which seem to work better for the defense attorney. When the director asks if anyone wants to try the Swede, even though I've practiced the dialect, I don't volunteer. I don't want to lose focus on the DA.

As the night progresses, the director is clearly reading certain applicants for certain roles. One kid reads for the rookie cop twice. Doc reads for the defense attorney twice. There are two women presumably reading for the same role, and at one point the director has them stand side-by-side to compare heights and builds. They know each other, and they joke through the slow removal of shows and the jostling. Lynn, a former student of Your Sis, blushes as everyone jokes about her reading for the "stripper" role. We learn through whispers that some roles are already cast, but I can't find out which ones. They sound like random, smaller roles though.

Most of this crowd seems to know each other. Doc knows some of them from previous plays. I know him and Lynn, and that's it. I sit toward the back next to Doc, who offered a chair, and watch the group pre-read the Xeroxed pages and share war stories. I'm clearly not a part of the group, and I'm aware of group dynamics each time I'm asked to read the DA. I admit to feeling a mix of sheepishness and pride that I''m trying this role so much. I avoid consciously admitting that I want a role, even to Your Sis; it's jinxed me in the past.

But I really want this role. Especially after thumbing through a Xeroxed copy of the whole script and seeing the DA's opening and closing arguments. Lordy, it's the good lawyer speak. It's the meat of a courtroom drama, and it's pages of monologue. We wants it.

After we're dismissed, some applicants introduce themselves to me, and it feels like being welcomed into the group. One woman, I learn, works at the college I attended, and we trade notes on Homecoming and theatre. It's great ending to what felt like a successful audition.

There's one more audition tonight, and I'll dress down a tad (read: no tie), and polish up on my giddy attempt to get this very desirable role with a theatre group I've consistently shunned since I moved here. I didn't think I've be so invested in this effort a few weeks ago. And I continue to imagine myself performing the lines in my Sunday best in a real, live courtroom.

I try not to giggle.

Picture of the Day
Some assembly required.

Twenty-Year Glee

Back around 1988, I found myself at home alone for the night, a first for me. I was two years away from graduating high school. I, of course, did the responsible thing and stayed up all night watching movies on cable TV. The horror movie on Cinemax around 3 a.m. was From Beyond, a film I had never heard of, and this was odd. I read about movies from an early age, and I was deeply invested in horror movies at this age. Also, the TV Guide movie index noted the movie was "not for the squeamish," a warning I likewise had never seen before. There could be no question then; I was going to see this movie.

And it was crap. I mean, this is what Grindhouse tried to recreate. The script was laughable (really, where does a psychiatrist escaping shock treatment and brain-eating physicists find dynamite in the middle of the night?), but the effects were mind-blowing for the obvious budget limits. It was based on H.P. Lovecraft, an early 1900s writer heavily touted by Stephen King, whose books I was inhaling. This wasn't a horror movie to be scared by, unlike all the ones I had seen previously. This was a film to laugh with, to lose one's standards to. It was the first bad movie I enjoyed for being what is. I had found my first trash film. Combine my age + the material + the joy of running loose in the house, and this became my favorite movie.

It stayed that way. I rented the film from Blockbuster (thankfully, the parents didn't use the option to block me from renting R-rated videos), and eventually bought my own copy. Blockbuster, back in the day, would order you copies of the films they rented. It was a little-known service. When DVDs came along, the film had gone out of print. It managed the small leap to laserdisc but not to DVD in an official version. At the time, you could only get it on DVD by ordering a Honk Kong bootleg from eBay. I did that. It was only mildly better than the VHS quality. A few years back, a German edition was released, but it wasn't much better (I bought that too). Eventually, MGM purchased the film rights and looked into releasing a domestic, official DVD. And then the incredible happened: The studio found footage edited out to appease the ratings board. The DVD would be the director's cut with as much as five added minutes, including an infamously excised scene of brain eating.

It came out yesterday, and I spent almost all of last night watching the entire DVD material, including the commentary track. The film was spruced up digitally to air on Monsters HD, a premium satellite station, and the print is pristine. And letterboxed, for the first time. It's like watching a new film. It's a beautiful, sterling release of what remains a gooey, trashy movie. I'm glowing with joy, but my eyes are shot to hell.

I almost couldn't find it. Best Buy didn't have it on their new-release wall, and the guy rolling a cart of DVDs didn't know of it. He went to check on a store-hub computer, and I glanced over his cart load to pass the time. And there it was. I grabbed one of their two copies and told the guy I found it after all. No, it's never easy.

Before I sat myself down to watch it, I went back to the school to work with the paper staff. This time, I suggested some design tricks to their layout officer. I don't know how much, if anything, stuck, but I told them all to contact me if they need help throughout the year. The paper already looks good; it just needs tweaking.

Six Years

Reflecting on 9/11 also sparks recognition of what's changed personally. Since that day, the following has happened to me:

+ Lost a wife
+ Reconnected to, wooed, and married Your Sister
+ Reconnected to my parents
+ Held two jobs (technically, my first full day at the weekly paper was 9/11)
+ Moved back to my first college town
+ Bought a house
+ Inherited two cats
+ Inherited a new family
+ Started running
+ Created a handful of short comic stories
+ Worked in a half-dozen theatre shows
+ Visited Boston twice and Washington, DC once
+ Grew potatoes
+ Married off my high-school friends

A lot.

Distracting NFL Babble
I officially lost my first week of Fantasy Football League action. Our league is set up so players' drafted rosters compete against each other for statistical supremacy. My team was outdone 89.8 to 78.35. Tom Brady's passing skill saved my ass, but my running backs didn't gain enough yardage to eek out a win for me. Also, the Saints sputtered against the Colts. I was close. I don't regret my picks this early in the season, and the stats make me pay attention to more games each weekend. It's anxious fun.

Picture of the Day
Doll's eyes.

You Killed My Fantasy Team. Prepare to Die.

How long can a cold last anyway? Your Sis is out of the sick bed but feeling utterly raggedy. She went to bed without supper Friday night and left me to my own geeky devices.

I woke up early Saturday and worked on the garden. I hacked down or pulled up the biggest weeds. We still have a pile of sticks where the blackberry bush used to be, and I'm looking into shredding them in a wood chipper to make mulch. She took an afternoon nap before we drove down to Greenville to see Mandy Patinkin.

That man is a showman. Two solid hours of him performing, not simply singing. Just him and the piano player. He has the stamina of someone with lots of stamina. It's exhausting just to watch him.

He performed on a bare stage with his piano player facing the back of the theatre. He wore a headset plugged in with a hundred-foot wire and used some props through the show.

Among his songs:
It's Not Easy Being Green
Send in the Clowns
Broadway Baby
Alexander's Ragtime Band
Dixie Medley
Bring Him Home
You Must Be Carefully taught
Oklahoma
The Hokey Pokey, God Bless America, and Take Me Out to the Ballgame in yiddish
Pennies From Heaven

As he took his bow, he said "let me leave you with these words," and his made the Inigo stance and said "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Crowd went nuts.

We hit my old, favorite head shop to buy incense by the metric ton, and I was momentarily dazzled by a men's belt decorated with the New York subway map. We drove back home at night with the moonroof open and the stars escorting us home.

And I spent Sunday being a Sports Schlub. I watched a TiFauxed broadcast of ultimate fighting (my new interest), followed by almost 12 hours of glorious football.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), St. Louis (0-1)
AFC: Indianapolis (1-0), New England (1-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), Carolina (1-0)
AFC: New England (1-0), San Diego (1-0)

The Panthers rolled over the Rams, the Chargers took advantage of Bears' bumbling, and the patriots had no trouble with the Jets. A Buffalo Bill took a shot to the head and faces paralysis.

Picture of the Day
The alleged title and logo for the upcoming movie planned for next year.

Paper Tigers

I left work early to help the school paper editor and adviser adjust their layout. The paper is nicely designed but it needs some spacing; the columns are crammed together. I showed them how to fix some elements in their software (on a Mac, unfortunately) and suggested some small graphic elements to use if a photograph assignment didn't come through. I may go back next week to work directly with their layout person. After dinner, Your Sis and I took in the hype-a-thon that was the season kickoff TV show and then enjoyed some football.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), St. Louis
AFC: Indianapolis (1-0), New England

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), Carolina
AFC: New England, San Diego

The Saints could only restrain the Indy offense for so long, and the second half was a scoring spree for the Colts. I'm currently a distant fourth in my fantasy league. My top running back ( a Saint) was clobbered by the Colts defense.

Picture of the Day
Uranus and its rings.

Sweet Merciful Odin, It's Football Season Again

Your Sis continues to harbor the cold, and now her fellow English teachers are getting it too. She's taking it easy at night and turning in even earlier than normal. She's using the sick bed.

I used the griddle from Your Parents to grill chicken for a pasta dish. We've bought frozen fillet bags for years now, and it's just about time to stop. I notice more and more of the egg-based preservative that coats the chicken, and I don't want it. If I want egg in the recipe, I'll add it, thank you.

Your Sis and I finally made our Super Bowl picks last night. I wrote out all the teams in their respective conferences and let her pick first. I didn't see her picks when I made mine, and surprisingly, half of our picks are identical.

HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans, St. Louis
AFC: Indianapolis, New England

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans, Carolina
AFC: New England, San Diego

New England and Carolina figure heavily in my fantasy team. I have to root for them. Your Sis has a small crush on the Indianapolis quarterback. Indy and New Orleans play each other tonight, and Carolina and St. Louis play each other this weekend. The season begins, and there is no slow stroll toward domestic warfare. As of tonight, it's on like Donkey Kong.

Picture of the Day
This man was clean shaven yesterday. Such if the power of football season.

Laborious

Saturday was highlighted by a cookout dinner at some friends' house and a pleasant summer night conversation on the back deck.

I started Sunday by clearing the garden space of a weed jungle. It took longer than I thought, and I flushed out a small zoo of yard critters including a praying mantis and a frog. The town was oddly quiet, but the cooler cloudy weather may have kept the tourists at bay. Your Sis, still cold-ridden, slept a lot. I washed both cars before grabbing a pizza and DVDs.

The Lives of Others is a German film that won the best foreign language Oscar this year. It concerns a Stasi agent monitoring a writer/actress tandem in the last days of East Germany. It's very good. We see the monitoring agent transition from strident interrogator to a quiet co-conspirator without the knowledge of his bosses or the couple. It didn't go where I expected it to, and I'm relieved for that. If this was a domestic film, there are dozens of places you could pinpoint where the film would go badly.

Monday morning we kayaked down the French Broad, from Rosman this time. I believe this was the same company you and Your Sis used a few years back. We chose the four-hour trip and saw dozens of animals we normally don't get to see: herons, kingfishers, ducks, two flocks of geese (which produce an enormous amount of horsepower when they take off en masse a few feet from your kayak), and bugs by the truckload. The trip would have been quicker had we not run aground so often on the riverbed. Once we dropped off the boats and drove back to Mayberry, we inhaled pub food. Your Sis, shock of shocks, then napped. This morning, I am a wee bit sore from all the work. I'm also guzzling Gatorade to fix my sun-roasted hangover.

Picture of the Day
Mount Fuji



In the News
You could practically hear the celebration in Boone all weekend. I watched my ECU Pirates hold off Virginia Tech for most of their game.