The Phantom of the Drama

You might remember the director of the courtroom play, and the horrible backstage shit that she sparked. She has returned. She's working backstage on the annual kids show. I can only assume this is a test to see if she's salvageable.

I had little problem with her during rehearsals, but things fell apart during performance week. She lost her shit over an actor who wanted to direct, and she took it public in emails, and she went nukulur on the stage managers. We had a coffee chat a few weeks after the show closed, and it was pleasant enough when she wasn't harping on the stage-light debacle. She gave me prints of DVD captures to show other cast members and prove her argument. It was my understanding that she alienated a good stage-manager team, a number of actors, and the president of the theatre. Maybe this is a one-time deal.

Actually, as I think on it, the director of the kids show was the script-committee member who gossiped about her the most. Now they're working the same show, and I wonder if the director had any say in the matter. Getting tech crew for this theater's shows is often a struggle. Perhaps she was desperate for help.

I've been asked to compile my list of script preferences for tonight's meeting. I've read 30 scripts so far, and hopefully, we'll only get a few more to read; I know we're asked to consider The Rainmaker as a drama.

Picture of the Day

Decor Concerns

Bed Bath and Beyond carries this wall plaque, and it cries to join my theme bathroom:



Might be too much. I'd like to cobble together some pictures and souvenirs from my previous shows and hang them in a display box. I couldn't find any fancy towels and bath mats to fit the theme, so I'll have to settle for color coordination.

The script meeting was bumped to later this week, and we once again fired up the grill to make burgers. We've grilled four times within a week. Your Sis is almost getting the hang of it.

We Scrabbled again under customized rules. It helps her stay competitive. You'll be shocked to hear that she's going to school during the week.

Decorating the Throne

Your Sister received a motorcycle learner's permit so she can legally test drive scooters. If she takes a community-college driving class, she can skip the driving test for the license. I think that's how it works.

I decided to start the redecoration of my bathroom. I've tossed around a few ideas, but I focused on colors taken from pages of Vanity Fair. It's a good source for fashion and modeling photography, and I've clipped pages for years now. Recently, it started running full-page images of Broadway casts. I decided to frame three of them for the room's largest object and base the towel colors around that.



These are two of the images, minus the print accessories, and I like the look of the printed pages more. They have a standard section headline and decorative word boxes. That's Young Frankenstein up top and Gypsy below it. I also have a photo from Boeing Boeing.

I have a star-shaped bank from my decade-ago production of Barefoot in the Park, and I'll see how tastefully I can push the stage theme. Now I have to figure out what to do with the leftover Vanity Fair images.

I got the frame and matte board at Michael's, and that store will assemble the whole thing for me. Yes, I finally got someone from their framing department to talk to me. The clerk also showed me how they attach frames to paintings, and that will be my next little project.

Summer has become busy with vacation plans, doctor's appointments, teacher parties, and movie releases. We made a deal to see Mama Mia the same weekend as Dark Knight. We also have tickets for Avenue Q that Saturday.

Mom has an appointment with a therapist friend with the legal wrangling calms down. I'll have to drive back home to sign some credit papers for Dad's materials. She's starting to wonder what to do with the rest of her life; she and Dad had specific retirement plans. She could still pursue them, in time, but she needs to stick around people she knows for now.

July 4 Weekend

We got an early start as I stayed home Friday and slept late. Scattered rains allowed me to sleep in and ignore the garden, at least until Saturday. We watched Wanted Friday afternoon because Your Sister was dying to see it.

"It looks just like The Matrix, I said.
"And would that be so bad?" she asked.

So off we went. It's more like The Matrix, meets Fight Club, and no, that's not so bad. It has some nice photography choices too. This director could make some significant movies in the near future. The movie has little to do with the original comic, and that's to the film's advantage. It wasn't a great book.

The town held its annual holiday street fare, which I hate and despite and detest and loathe. The sounds of synthesized pan flute covers of '90s ballads overpowered everything else, and this is why there's a waiting period to buy guns. The festival also makes leaving town a protracted exodus.

We accidentally met up with some teacher buddies and had a leisurely dinner. A last-minute drive to find decent space to watch fireworks was for naught. We even scaled the high-school bleachers to see them, but the fog obscured them. No big deal. We went home and watched the various holiday specials on TV. I was horrified to see Keith Lockhart direct the Pops through a country version of Life Is A Highway, and I almost reached for the salvation of beer to dilute the pain. We didn't sleep well that night; the neighbors shot their fireworks until 2:30.

I fertilized the garden Saturday morning. Everything looks good. The corns is spindly, but we should get a few good ears before fall. We will have tons of squash. I may have planted the garlic upside down.

A quick haircut followed, and we drove to Greenville for the wedding of a former co-worker. He was my editor at the weekly, and I knew his bride from before I moved to Mayberry. I met up with them once in Boston during New Year's in 2005. This was our first wedding since we were married; we must have attended a half dozen when we dated. The little flower girls sparked another conversation about kids (survey says: no), and the new husband suggested I contact him at his new paper for possible illustration work. It was a lovely and cool wedding. They used the theme of Hawaii for the groomsmen (they lived there for two years while he worked for another paper), and bride designed her own dress (just like Your Sis). It rained buckets immediately after we got into our car to to drive to the reception.

It continued to rain most of Sunday. We tracked down documentary DVDs at the local movie shops for Your Sister's AP class and watched the men's final of Wimbledon. It lasted approximately three weeks. We also spent much of the weekend watching Olympic trial coverage, highlighted by runners diving across the finish line to make the team. We ended the weekend with Scrabble for the first time since, I think, we moved in the house. I'd like to play more of that. Or Guitar Hero.

We're now scheming a weeklong vacation around your ECU ceremony, and we're looking at doing touristy things at the Outer Banks. We might take surfing lessons. But we first must work on our base suntans, lest we turn lobster. Also? We might eat lobster. I don't think I ever have. You, Mark, and we will get together for a meal during that week. And, no, I'm not trying to set you up with him. Honest.

Mom is OK. I continue to have weird Dad dreams. I told Your Sis that I'm still digesting the past month in case she thought I was mad at her about something.

Picture of the Day
Dying dying dying to see Dark Knight.

Scoots and Bleeds

I left work early to give blood. They weren't equipped for the apheresis this time, and I was little disappointed after preparing myself for it all day. Seems like the Red Cross would push for a centralized donation archive so regular donors like me wouldn't have to identify themselves and provide medical history every time. It's not likely that I've spent three months in England in the 56 days since since my last donation. I have to explain my middle-school heart murmur each time. I assume they have me in their system more than a dozen times. Also, my files don't transfer from South Carolina even though the Red Cross uses SS numbers for each pint. And, in closing, Red Cross shirt designs stink.

Your Sis made stir-fry on the grill again, and it was delish again. She is aggressively shopping for a scooter. She looked at local Vespas and a brand called Aprilia. She even has the manual to prepare for a motorcycle license. She's committed to this. She rarely drives out of town nowadays, but I worry about how we could get a scooter to the nearest dealership if it goes kaput. It won't fit in the back of our Matrix.

Picture of the Day
On the march!

Talking Scripts

The script committee now has until August to choose the plays. We also need to pick more of them. Instead of the original four, we need to pick seven. Because the board isn't sure when and where the next season will run, it wants extra choices in case we produce more shows to make up for lost ticket sales.

We're in the home stretch for play consideration, but we're still getting new scripts. I just finished The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, a small show I was given yesterday. I have three more before next week's meeting. We have plenty of good shows to choose from, and now we're building consensus.

I went head-to-head with another member over two farces written by the same guy. They're very similar, and one, I think, is clearly superior. She wanted the other one on the grounds that the theatre already performed the script I liked. My point was that the theatre made that choice for a reason, and the other script shouldn't be presented just to be "fair" to it. This is a show she really wants to do, though. I agreed that a play so similar to the one I prefer can't be all bad, but it's clearly inferior. It's much like a bad episode of "Three's Company."

The committee is wary of doing dramas. Every theatre thinks dramas are the least-commercial choice to present and the hardest shows to cast. I don't agree. I think you're likely to get more actors when they don't have to sing. We might do Glass Menagerie, a show I did in 2002. We're also going to look at The Rainmaker. We can't just offer comedies and mysteries. We need meatier stuff, and I think a good show will bring in audiences, no matter what genre it represents.

Your Sis is trying stir-fry made on the grill. We have a new porous wok, and we're grilling corncobs give to us by Your Parents.

The recent funerals are giving me weird dreams. Last night, I dreamed I was one of the few survivors of a planetwide disaster. I scavenged and set up residency in the remains of My Parents' house. Last night, I chopped an onion, and it almost got me weepy for real. I'm obviously affected by recent events, and I'm not sure how to wring them out.

Picture of the Day
David Cronenberg and Placido Domingo are making an opera version of the former's The Fly. That was a remake of the original '50s grade-b horror film. Opera is desperately trying to remain relevant and bring in younger audiences. This -- and the hit London Jerry Springer opera -- is the right path.

Running Out of Time

Your Sis pruned the front walk yesterday and probably gave herself a massive sunburn despite the cloudy skies. It looms much better now, and the bushes don't loom so carnivorously. The garden has made another leap because of the rains.

This cooler weather encouraged me to run for the first time in a month. I ran around My Parents' neighborhood while waiting for Dad's visitation, so that was just over a month ago. I drove to the college to run; I hadn't been there to run since last summer. The school's a ghost town again, and I can run without too many distractions or embarrassing myself to the young'uns. I ran a 5k. It hurt. The headwind was not my friend, and my legs are now very sore. The subsequent wings and beer helped though.

We have a script meeting tonight, and I've enjoyed a week off from the readings. The July 10 deadline doesn't give us much time to choose our next season, but the theatre renovations may delay the season's start even more. I would rather not attempt to read new scripts; instead, I'd rather we re-read the ones most of us have graded. Give them all a second chance to win us over. I've read 26 scripts since April, and the majority of those since May. I think it unlikely to now find a new script that shoves another show out of contention. If we're still to assemble a season made of high-profile shows, we can't waste time reading small-time stories no one's heard of. We have to raise money. We need crowdpleasers. We need to produce requested plays.

Picture of the Day
Dinner for one, then?

And the Band Played On

I met Your Sis and Parents at the music center Friday for the season's opener. We had lawn seats, and I was worried about a string of storms moving through. Somehow the storms grazed us well before the show. Your Sis packed a cooler, and you should picture a large pirate chest of food. She even packed poundcake, fruit, and whipped cream for dessert, and those sitting around us stared and drooled. She's gone utterly Southern Living.

The show was my first classical concert, and it was incredible. We stole Keith Lockhart from the Boston Pops, and Yo-Yo Ma was the featured soloist. I know very little about the cello. I don't think I've seen one up close since my fifth-grade orchestra class. But Ma conveyed what the true greats can: Powerful Effort. Watching him or a Tiger of LeBron, the casual audience can see these guys know what they are doing and are doing it on a superior level. I hope to attend some of the opera dress rehearsals. I've never seen an opera before.

On Saturday, I drove to a work seminar to take pictures before helping Mom clean out Louis's house. It's a pile of plump garbage bags, currently. Mom and her cousin Jean were selecting what can be sold and what must be chucked. I was put on file-cabinet duty. This was what I did after Dad died: organizing loose receipts and legal documents. I found out Louis was in the Air Force for two weeks before bein shipped home with a bum foot. He had shot himself "accidentally" after getting his Selective Service notice, and when the military found out, they discharged him. We will be taking his old piano -- actually, Granny's old piano -- to our house before summer is over.

Your Sis was in Greenville to visit a college buddy, and I spent my bachelor weekend pruning the garden (accidentally uprooted a squash plant) and seeding the grass. She came back Sunday evening, and we watched the Olympic trials for track and swimming. I readily admit I have Olympic fever. I'm a sucker for them every year.

I hear someone got a Matrix.

Moving Picture of the Day
The trailer for the new James Bond film.

Back Home

We put Louis to rest yesterday. He had traded his grave for a mausoleum recently, and the funeral was held in the interior chapel. Thankfully, it was air-conditioned. That chapel contains the urn of my high-school friend who died of AIDS 13 years ago. I didn't know he was there until I found his urn. I think he's next to his dad, who died in May.

The visitation on Tuesday night was in the same funeral-home room as Dad's, and I found myself standing in the exact same spot for three hours as we welcomed the mourners. No time could have passed at all. The only difference was that Louis was in the coffin instead of standing to my left. Your Sis drove down to make sure Mom and I had supper, and she drove back up the mountain that same night. She's insane and wonderful.

Mom is OK. I think she's mad at Louis, as I am. I'll go back Saturday to help her clean his house. I drove back home yesterday and barely slept last night. I'm exhausted. I'm afraid to drink coffee lest I become a jittery zombie. We saw Dad's grave as we left the cemetery.

Picture of the Day
No pictures please.

Weary

The visitation and funeral for Louis are today and tomorrow, and I'm exhausted just thinking about them. of course Mom has to deal with all this. She sounds OK, and she says she's surprised she has no tears. I think she's out of them. She says she doesn't cry about dad anymore, and that's good. They had prepared for his death since January. Louis has planned for his for about ten years, but it happened because he rejected the rehab. The oldest and youngest of the Clardy children are the only ones left out of five. It's Mom and Uncle Don.

I drive down this afternoon and come back Wednesday night. My suit still has the dry-cleaning tags following Dad's funeral. Your Sister and Parents will stay in North Carolina. The latter only met Louis at the funeral. Your Sister met him last year, and he was awfully sweet on her. Louis was a man with a broken heart and a sad knowledge of himself. He needed a woman like her to clean up his act but knew he couldn't keep her around.

The best thing I can possibly do for mom is to keep breathing.

Picture of the Day
Diving in.

Well, That Was A Weekend

We left Asheville early on Friday and arrived at Susan's around, um, 7ish? I can't remember. That sounds right. We thought we'd arrive much later, but I got away from work around 3. Susan's house is brilliant. I want one just like it -- the screened-in porch, the stairs, the shower and bath, the fireplace. Our house is a humble abode compared to hers and Your Brothers. But for the two of us, it's the right size. We'd waste more space if we had it.

Because we arrived in the evening, we could take Susan out to dinner, and she chose a seafood joint near Duke called Charlie's Garage. They offered three specials, and we ordered one of each and swapped dishes throughout the meal. We slept upstairs under open windows.

We woke up around 7:30 to get to Chapel Hill for the "Adventurs in Ideas" seminar on American Satire. The symposium wasn't at the campus at all but at some Leadership Campus a short way up 501 from the main UNC cluster. We got free food throughout the day and each lecturer spoke for about an hour:

Mark Twain -- a review of the pre-seminar assigned readings, unfortunately. We didn't learn much more about Twain than what we were give to read.

H.L. Mencken -- the Baltimore curmodgeon. This was a better presentation and a full biography.

Lunch happened her, and the two of use stumbled into a conversation on sitcoms and politics with a UNC professor emeritus of history, Peter Finele. Then he spoke on sitcom TV and cultural commentary.

The Daily Show -- an examination of political journalism and satire. This had lots of clips from the shows. A panel followed that wandered away from humor and into political discourse. But the whole event was a nice classroom experience with Your Sis. We haven't been in a class together before.

We drove throw a torrential torrent of torrenty rain before eatina Italian. Susan opted to stay home.

Sunday morning, mom called to say that she had found my uncle Louis dead. This was her brother who walked out of rehab after knee surgery. Susan said almost immediately that a clot could have killed him, and Mom confirmed it later that night when I talked to her at legnth. Four weeks to teh day that Dad dies, we lose Louis. But Louis, as examplified by his rehab behavior, did not take care of himself. I'm unabashedly angry at him. Instead of taking steps to really clean himself up, he handed ownership of all his materials to Mom within the last three years. He drove away prospective wives and crashed through his last years and the various debilitations.

As a result, he practically designed it so Mom would have to break into his house to find his body. And that's what happened. She wasn't alone, thankfully, but she knew before she got to his house that this was the likley conclusion. Louis was yher closest brother; they were the babies of the family. Louis was the class closn, the life of the party, the bigot joke-teller, and the messy bachelor. Mom was shocked by the pills and alchohol she found in his house, and she was a frequent vistor. They had supper together just a few weeks back. They talked on the pohone regularly. His latest girl pal was hysteriacl; she had no idea he would treat himself this way. He might have overdosed. he might have mixed the wrong elements. But the coroner was satisifed with Louis's medical history (long, storied) and recent operation to label him a death by stroke.

Mom is meeting with teh funeral home today (the same we went to for Dad's funeral) , and I'll hear the plans sometime before tonight. She said I don't need to drive down yet, but I'll got for the likely Wednesday and Thursday combo of services. This is going to be a seeming repeat of what we went through for Dad. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. i can't imagine what Mom is feeling. And that makes me mad at Louis again for doing this to her.

We had planend to attend the Charlotte comic show Sunday before we heard the news, and we went. If I'm facing another week attending to Mom, I wanted to get one day of escapism. So here's what happened:

HeroesCon
This was by far my best con experience. The stereotype of the typical con attendee is officially deflated; not only did I see families of all age ranges stroll around, but I saw packs of roaming college gals. HeroesCon is the Guitar Hero of conventions. Everyone comes to play.



She had not been to this before, and she appreciated the relative tranquility of the event compared to DragonCon. We strolled through the vendor tables first, where we picked up the Ringo "What If" book at the Heroes Initiative table [10]. Mike Weiringo, nice guy and good artists, died last year of a heart attack, and a scholarship has been established his his name at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This book is part of a fund-raiser for the scholarship.

She was stunned by the bootleg DVDs on sale and wondered how anyone keeps from getting arrested. We found a booth selling GI Joe figures, and she was temporarily mesmerized by them. We also decided she could easily be Lady Jaye at DragonCon (green jumpsuit, basbeball cap, boots). I found a classic Destro figure and the new Torpedo figure [4]. They also had the Star Wars figures based on Ralph McQuarrie's original designs, and she almost bought a few.

We found a booth selling stuffed microbe toys, and she bought one [5].

We ate paninis before hitting the artists tables. We used a chart created by an online acquaintance to find other online buddies. First up, we met Jeremy, from whom we bought a sketchbook that he was nice enough to sign [7]. In retrospect, I should have bought a GI Joe page (he did the issues packaged in two-figure packs).

We swung around to to the other side of the con floor and found Visible Light Comics selling their Beowulf title, and shw bought one [3]. She would have bought the t-shirt based on a comic panel to wear in her classroom, but it had the word "hell" on it, and that wouldn't fly at her school.

Next we found Kody Chamberlain, and I went gag-ga over his collage comic, Punks. I bought two issues, and he handed us a sketchbook [12] while showing us his original art pages and discussing his technique. We then found the Mike Oeming/Taki Soma table, and I finally got to meet Taki. They handed us a teaser image of an upcoming project [11].

I bought four minicomics ([8] 50 cents each!) from Roger Landridge (originally from New Zealand, now living in England). I almost walked right by Jim Rugg's table, but I specifically wanted the Afrodesiac mini (Medusa: Why aren't you turning to stone? Afro: Because I'm already rock hard, baby!), and I believe I bought the last one. I also got an impressive newsprint broadsheet comic he made and a copy of The Plan Janes [6], a comic geared toward teen girl readers.

Nice guy, but he was catching shit from Evan Dorkin (one of my heroes) about drinking at the show. And kicking his baby. And spitting on the floor. He then threatened to beat him in a Texas Death Match and rub his broken NWA title belt into Rugg's face. He wouldn't let up, and Rugg was too flummoxed to respond. So, my wife -- Your Sister, my delicate flower, my schoolmarm -- gave Dorkin shit, claiming a con rumor said he was charging for signatures and signing with invisible ink. Dorkin was stunned before she confessed she was joking. Then we chatted about Jack Kirby comics and gas prices. I got a signed copy of Biff-Bam-Pow [14], a comic created with his wife and fellow artist Sara Dyer.

We then found the Oni Comics table, and I bought the third and fourth volumes of fantastic comic Scott Pilgrim [2], and the artist was nice enough to sign my books, complete with a stellar sketch.



I offered to pay for it, and he would have none of it.

After meeting up with my ECU buddy Mark, we went back to the Oni table, met another online guy, and Mark sold me on Black Metal [9]. The Oni guy then asked Your Sister and I to get to it signed by the writer and give him shit about the upcoming volume two.

As we strolled the very back of the artists alley, we found the creators of Perry Bible Fellowship and Wondermark, the Victorian clip-art strip. I bought the new Wonder Mark collection [13], and the creator asked us to put up a review at Amazon after reading it.

As the con wound down, we hit the vendors for some deals, and I got the Promethea figure set for $5 [1]. It's the toy based on a comic of a literature-based Wonder Woman. And then we went home.

We saw costumes through the day, and here's the best of the lot.




This is a guy from my hometown comic store.




Spidey will save the day when he feels like it.

I should also mention Your Sister's revulsion for animal mascots. Streaky the Super Cat? Beppo the Super Monkey? Krypto? Ace the Bat-hound? She saw the various toys and was tempted to destroy them with her Swinging Backpack of Intellectual Superiority.

I found an original comic page of Spider-Man against sewer-dwelling monkeys wearing gangsta bling, and she almost vomited on it.

She kept asking "why?" and I kept saying "why NOT?"

When we got home, I called Mom for details, and she sounded OK. I'll see her in a few days, and we'll get her through this.

And then I found out George Carlin died, and that just drops me down another rung on the ladder of dazed exhaustion.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I talked to the publisher of my minicomic and some anthologies my work appeared in. I was bummed about being left out of this year's theme-book (cavepeople), but he said the book was a mess to organize, and he'd be sure to contact me about the next book. That was a big relief. I thought I had lost favor somehow.

An Offer I Can't Refuse

We had dinner with the director of my last show and his wife. We're becoming a cozy couple. He's also the head of the script committee, and, yes, he gave me another script to read as we sat down. We talked theatre and Tonys and personal histories and the problems with the new performance space. And then he asked me, after a warning not to panic, if I'd be interested in joining Board of Directors.

Of course I would. I told him my opinion wouldn't be as informed becuase I'm new to the company. He said the board has so little representation of theatre people -- backstage or onstage -- that he thought the board was making bad decisions. Of course the board can use lawyers and accountants and realtors, but they need people who have worked an audience. He said the chairman of the theatre won't even step onstage, and I remembered that I hadn't in fact seen that guy speak publicly at any of their shows.

The company needs help, and it needs new ideas. The director was apparently taken with my notions during the committee meetings and the comments I made about the scripts. He thinks I have the right level of informed consideration for the board. Sure, yes, I'll give it a shot. I wonder if this will skew my chances to playing roles. I don't know if I have to be elected or simply tapped on the shoulder like a Harvard fraternity.

We're leaving today for Durham to visit Your Aunt. We'll also hit the Chapel Hill campus for a one-day class on American satire. I think Your Sis gets credit for taking the class; I'm just tagging along. On the way back, we're hitting the Charlotte comic convention. I might meet up with my ECU buddy there.

Picture of the Day
The mars Phoenix probe is finding ice just under the soil. It makes little trenches and bakes soil samples to analyze the content.

Wii and Corn

On short notice, I walked with Your Sister to a coworker's house for grilled dinner. It's Kat and Rachel, both whom we really get along with, and they made us pasta and salad. We talked up The Happening with a minimum of school talk to everyone's relief.

They have a Wii, and I finally got to play one. It's addictive, and the remote-control is nowhere near as difficult to learn as I thought. Your Sister, who you know doesn't play anything but Guitar Hero, was crying from laughter. She had no trouble learning the Wii, and after we made virtual avatars, we played for about two hours. She beat me in bowling. She had a blast, and she might be talked into getting one. We walked up around 11 p.m. under a bright moon. It was a fine evening.

I watered the garden this morning and discovered corn. They finally emerged yesterday, but they sprouts are random in the rows.


Here's what the pumpkin sprouts look like.


The tomatoes and peppers are looking good, but the garlic is still hiding.

Eating and Growing

I got home to find Your Sister had arranged an outdoor dinner. She grilled corncobs, stuffed apples, and steaks. We ate on the deck as the weather was great. I managed to break a wine glass for a five-minute clean-up session.

She wrapped up the official school stuff yesterday, and this was a blow-out ceremony for her. She's still getting calls from fellow teachers and spends a good deal of the evening talking in detail about class plans and administration baffling. Many is the time that a scheduled coach surfing has been demolished by an hourlong call from a co-worker.

We did manage to close down the phone to watch the Celtics beat the Lakers. That was an astounding performance. The Lakers were consensus pick to win. The debate centered on how many games they'd need to win.

Mom is currently focusing on setting up her house for the internet. She wants to find a Dell PC from Best Buy, and she's calling the cable and phone companies to find the best price. I'll drive down to see her probably next week, and we'll window shop for computers.

We have sprouted squash plants. I see nothing yet from the corn or garlic.

Picture of the Day
You might need this for your school studies.

Follow Up

I Googled the sticker I found Sunday evening and found a company called Silly Girl Design. They make the image I photographed, and I discovered the company's MySpace page. They're based in California, and I let the owners/spokesperson know they've reached the other coast.

They clearly borrow heavily from Obey Giant material, but they may be too small to notice.

The script committee exchanged notes on our readings, and I was given five more scripts. No one else is getting this many each time, but I'm reading them all. We're nearing positive consensus on a few scripts -- we've already shelved a handful -- and we may have chosen our mystery play. There's still uncertainty about the upcoming season: when it will start, how many shows could be produced, etc. The delay in securing a permanent space likewise moved back the process of renovation and using the theatre. It's, of course, way too early to see what my acting prospects might be but I think my unusual age for this group (between college and retirement) will continue to help me with auditions.

Our local shuffle radio station, named "Charlie," has just switched to yet another conservative talk station. Because we didn't have enough. Obviously. The iPod retains its belt as Sanity Preserving Heavyweight Champion.

A Weekend for H Movies

Here's a hint for school administrators across this great nation: Do not fire and rearrange teachers within hours of the big district-wide faculty party. It tends to cast a pall. The much-anticipated blow out took a turn. A significant turn. And the administrators, oddly, didn't show up. Your Sister wasn't directly affected, but she now has a new English teacher who, just a few hours before, was the head of the social studies department. There was movement among the coach/teachers to accommodate the new football chief, too. It was sudden and unexpected for the staff, and it happened on practically the last day of school. The party couldn't escape the topic, and I was desperate for something I could talk about. We left early.

As she went to graduation, I saw The Incredible Hulk, a movie very different from the Ang Lee Hulk film. It's a simpler story told with more energy, and there are lots of extras for the comic crowd. I was very happy with it; I had expected a trainwreck almost as soon as the project was announced. I don't know if you ever got to see the TV series from the '70s, but this film tips its hat to that show often, to the delight of geezers like me. Strangely there were single women watching this film, and I can only assume they came to see Ed Norton.

After we put away another class' research papers, we watched The Happening. This is a small film that will piss off a lot of people expecting The Mist or Dawn of the Dead. I enjoyed it. I think there's a lot of meat on the bone, and it reminds me thematically of The Mist or Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's assuredly a post-9/11 film. But don't go expecting to see something veiled in the ads. The commercials show you all the R-rated bits.

While at the theater, I saw a strange sticker in the bathroom, and I don't know if it's for a local band or a movie-marketing ploy. But I like it.


We got home around 9:45 and caught the last half of the Tonys.

We've grown some more grass, and now a pumpkin plant -- my first pumpkin plant -- has sprouted. We're going to have a bouncing baby jack o'lantern.

I finished my five scripts for this week, including the farces Arsenic and Old Lace and Moon Over Buffalo, two murder plays, and a play that's either a parody of such plays or a very stupid straight version. I cant tell, but I say we play it campy. We have another meeting tonight and I assume I'll be given another handful of scripts. I've read around 20 already.

Maybe My Thumb Is Green

I've managed to grow grass. I noticed brand-new blades this morning as I watered the lawn, and I haven't been this proud about looking at the ground since we yanked up last year's potatoes. The ground is still patchy, and I may have to put down a second seeding, but a precedent has emerged. We have grass-age.

I bought some fertilizer spray for the veggies. It attaches to the hose, and it can feed a garden for 15 minutes. My plot is smaller than the square-foot suggestion, and I switched from that watering to the normal sprinkler. We haven't had the rain we were predicted (shock), making manual watering necessary again. The peppers and tomatoes look OK, the cucumbers are dead, the garlic is still buried, and the marigolds have lost their first blooms.

We hosted a teacher buddy for a dinner of homemade spaghetti. It went over well. We're all excited to see The Happening despite common comments that it's a hilariously bad film. But we have to hit research papers and play scripts before Tuesday. I might skim the scripts form here on; the last one I read was pretty bland.

I talked to my Greenville friend, and he's available to meet up with us the weekend of Aug. 15.

Picture of the Day
This is from the Seattle alt-weekly, The Stranger.

Theatre Doings

Last night's script meeting went well. We had a new member join, and our introduction was punctuated by his effort to remember where he had seen me before. Something similar happened when we watched the play last weekend; the box-office people called me by my last character's name. I do the same thing with other actors. We often call each other by character names as those are the ones we use the most often.

I had finished five of the eight scripts within the week, and I gave short reviews of them out loud. We have right at one month to make our suggestions for the season, and we've begun to cull the scripts that just won't fly. Both Neil Simons are out, unfortunately, as is Inherit the Wind (too huge), Dracula (too grim), The Hollow (the weaker of the 2 Agatha Christies), The Light in the Mill (too damn stupid), and a few others. We debated the merits of other scripts and disagreed professionally. The discussions are going really well. We champion some plays and defer to the consensus on others.

I was given five mores scripts to read, including Arsenic and Old Lace which I had somehow never read before. It's a stalwart of community theatre, as much as Oklahoma! and Greater Tuna.

Two bits of news caused ripples.

1) The renovations to the new theatre space might postpone the season until January. If we tried a full complement of productions, that might force a show each month. That's a large burden on our loyal audience and an even larger obligation on our repertory. It's possible the renovations can be done in phases, and maybe we can start the season in November.

2) The director of the courtroom drama -- the lady who was one-half of a horrible clash of egos -- not only emailed the theatre to ask for another directing gig, but she did it by contacting the guy she butted heads with. Of the committee members, I was the one directly involved with that mess, and I couldn't believe what I heard.

I also got confirmation of an ugly rumor where she dismissed a young male actor because he was black. She didn't believe he could credibly be someone in the 1930s drama. I saw this guy perform just last week and, hearing this, I got pissed. I remember how much trouble we had finding and keeping male actors, and we turned away a competent actor with a clear stage voice in the first day. We could have avoided that trouble for at least one role, and maybe the role we filled just two weeks before we opened . I said so and made sure to praise the guy who did ultimately rescue us. I don't know if that director knows that the high chief of the theatre is black, and word is that he decreed she wouldn't return.

I hope to polish off the five scripts while helping Your Sister finish reading research papers this week. She told me to stay away from Saturday's graduation ceremony, and I might watch Incredible Hulk.

Picture of the Day
Jesusmaaaaaaaaan.
Burning out his fuse up here alone.

Short Stuff

The only real news is that it finally rained. And rained and rained. I was able to sleep in this morning. I think we need to slap down some fertilizer on the new plantings this weekend.

We had a swank dinner out for the jailhouse-iversary, and we got a bit tanked on champagne.

Picture of the Day
"The Maze" by James Jean, who now does covers for comic books.

My Last Haul Perhaps

Because we're predicted to get big-mama storms starting, perhaps, today, I planted the rest of the seeds. These are actual seeds, mind you, not transplants from the high school. We picked out corn, pumpkins, a squash medley, and sunflowers. I demanded sunflowers. Pop had them, and I always liked them.

Things I learned when researching the plants:
1) Squash basically grows itself. You slam it in the ground and leave it alone.
2) Pumpkins take up a lot of root space and require hills to grow in. I had leftover mounds from the potatoes (And we're growing orphan potatoes from what didn't die in the fall. We've sprouted tater plants.)
3) Corn is going to be the hardest plant to grow to ripeness. Bugs, sickness, and birds will attack it always.
4) Cucumbers die pretty easily, as our vines are yellow and pale.

It took about two hours to finish the garden, and it really is finished now. There's no more room to plant more (unless I replace the cucumbers), and now I'm trying out watering patterns with the just-too-small rainbow sprinkler. But the rain this week will let me sleep later before work.

It's our jailhouse-iversary today, and we're going out for din-din. This means that today, three years ago, you and I became in-laws.

Picture of the Day
A Martian sunset seen from the Spirit rover.