Limited Perspective

  My dad doesn’t tell “dad jokes.” He tells those long, story jokes. The ones with lots of characters and situations and detours. They seem to go on and on. Then, by the time you almost forget the set-up, he comes in with the punch line, “It’s too, too, too late!” or something like that. Sometimes when people try to tell these jokes, they start off, “You see there was this famer and he goes to the bank, then the farmer says – no the banker says – no wait he didn’t get into the bank yet because the guard stopped him at the door …” Not good! I’d read a book of those old jokes.   It’s an art form.   Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

I watched M Night Shyamalan’s The Happening tonight. I never like to speak poorly of something, so I will let one of the stars, Mark Wahlberg say it for me, as reported on the films Wikipedia page. “Wahlberg offered his own opinion of The Happening in 2010, saying that Amy Adams, who was in consideration for the role of Alma Moore, had ‘dodged the bullet’ by not starring in the film. He said, ‘It was a really bad movie... F**k it. It is what it is... You can’t blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn’t playing a cop or a crook.’” Wikipedia goes on, “In 2019, Shyamalan said he takes some responsibility for the way the movie turned out: ‘I think it's a consistent kind of farce humor. You know, like The Blob. The campy, 1958 debut of actor Steve McQueen, featuring a mysterious, growing amoeba that takes over a small Pennsylvania town. The key to The Blob is that it just never takes itself that seriously. I think I was inconsistent. That's why ...

I had an acting gig the other night with Dacha Theatre . It was Bainbridge Island High School’s graduation and we were asked to entertain the no-longer-students on their bus trip from the ceremony to the ferry and on to the Ballard Elks Lodge. The kids would board six different buses and one of our actors would join them as their tour captains. My thoughts were, most likely, a good portion of the kids would find this contemptible and we would struggle to keep them engaged.  How wrong I was! They were absolutely delighted. We invented a scenario where we were a bus tour company on the skids. I was Ted, the CEO and if my captains did not get high marks, I was going to have to get rid of them, or maybe even shut the whole thing down. This really got the graduates engaged in helping their captains, and vilifying me – though some of them liked me, too and asked me to pose for pictures. It was wild! We had a competition to choose a song – Party in the USA, of course, and then filmed them...

He rises from beneath the room on an elevator platform. I look at my watch. It’s exactly 8pm. Wayne commences singing his hits. Danke Schoen and all the rest. A big part of the show is the love going back and forth between Wayne and the crowd. Wayne is wending his way amongst the people, making eye contact and singing directly to their faces. They love it. I love it.  How could you not love it? This is the Stardust hotel and casino. I think this is my first time in Vegas. It’s wild. We’re in a room in one of the older towers, dozens of floors up. I realize I forgot contact lens solution. Luckily, from my high vantage point, I spot a Walgreen’s across the street. Half an hour later I get there after an elevator ride, winding through a maze of about eight game rooms, past the lobby, eight more game rooms and out into the parking lot, which is about a quarter mile wide, and finally to the street, Las Vegas Boulevard, where I press the “walk” button. And wait. And wait. Then it’s jus...

On the bus, I always like to sit in the back. That’s where everything happens. If I’m in the furthest seat, all the way back in the corner, it’s also warm, a good place to keep an eye on the action, or to sleep to the vibrations of the engine. I was in the back of the 358 one day, or maybe the 194, one of those old Metro routes that you might find anyone and everyone riding. Somewhere though Pioneer Square or downtown, there were a couple of just about to fall down on their luck, or maybe just bouncing back up guys talking religion. They were discussing miracles, out loud for all to hear. I had studied religion all twelve years of Catholic school. In college, I studied philosophy. My ears are always ready for a metaphysical debate. The first guy insisted the miracles as described in the bible had absolutely happened. The second guy wasn’t buying it. Suppose there had been all of that water into wine, summoning of plagues, curing of illness, and raising of the dead back in those days, h...

Thirty-some years ago I added up my college credits and found I was three short of graduation. I looked through the catalog of summer courses and found Introduction to Theater Arts. I took it.   The final project was a monologue. Somehow I selected one from La Turista by Sam Shepard. It starts with a character bounding from a hotel bathroom saying, “Well, I feel like a new man after all that. I think I finally flushed that old amoeba right down the old drain.” I was nervous as hell. I hid behind a pretense of smoking a cigarette.  It was a bust.   Flash forward to Saturday, Saint Patrick’s Day, 2018  I was doing the final project of my acting class at Freehold: a scene from Sam Shepard’s True West, which I did with a partner.  It was meant to be a real performance and students invited friends to come be our audience. The instructor called “lights up” and my partner and I flowed across the stage.  It was effortless and wonderful.   It didn’t n...

I bought this cookie sheet twenty years ago. It was non-stick. The water used to fly right off it. To dry it, all I had to do was turn and gently wave it.  Boom. Done. I remember making cookies on it. They never stuck. The thing was true to its name.  Not anymore. Stuff sticks to it and I scrub it off. It didn’t look like this either. It was shiny metal, the color of a fancy laptop. It did not transform in a day. It became what it is now slowly over the decades.  Having had it all this time though, I can still see what it was at the beginning.  It still serves its function perfectly. It requires extra clean-up and it looks its age but other than that it’s no different. It’s still really the same.  People are like this now to me. I can look at a middle-aged person, like me, and project backwards to when they were younger. I can look at a young person and have a good idea of how they will look when they get to be my age. I’ve observed myself and people in my life ...