Catch, then, O catch the transient hour, improve the moment as it flies.
Saint Jerome
****************
Hello Ally
****************
I was born in 1939. That was known as the Post Depression Era. There were wealthy people of course. There are always wealthy people, most of whom know nothing at all about wealth. But for the average guy, facing the horrible memories and echoes of the depression, the most important thing was to have a job. It really didn't matter, in many cases, what the job was as long as it provided a living wage. I grew up with that ethic drummed into me. I shouldn't think about having a career. Get a job.
In my recent move I've uncovered many things that have been packed away for want of space. Now that I have some room I'm unpacking boxes and discovering what is inside them. One of the things I found is my original Social Security card. I never had it replaced because I haven't had to show it to anyone for many years. You might say it's a collectors item.
It reminded me of my first job, a stand up job running a machine that wrapped up to mail issues of the Port Chester Daily Item of Port Chester, New York. For an entire summer I stood at a table with a stack of brown wrappers in front of me each with a number on it. The numbers repersented the number of papers I had to wrap. I would slide them across the wrappers into a small forked arm of metal and step on a switch. The machine did the rest. I put the wrapped papers in a pile and later someone came by to collect them. I took a bus back and forth to work and at lunch break I had a burger at Scotty's Diner. Four years later I had my first professional acting job.
The theatre became my career, my profession and my job. But I got side tracked into a radio announcing job that was very good. Although a cornucopia of difficulties and tensions, radio can be a lucrative and satisfying endeavor, I made money, I was satisfied, I was self-satisfied, life was good, the future was rosy, I thought. I didn't have to worry about anything. I had a job.
I was the afternoon announcer. In the evenings, after dinner and a few drinks I would put myself to sleep watching aimless, inane television. I did that for seven years. SEVEN YEARS.
Today that is one of the greatest regrets of my life. What did I do with all that time I had given myself? Nothing. At about the same time as that was beginning to worry me I was growing dissatisfied with just broadcasting. Although for some announcers going on the air everyday was a thrill, for me the thrill was gone. Then I heard the Paul Simon song "One man's ceiling is another man's floor." It hit me that what I was doing was bumping my head on the ceiling. I had to move on. (What? And give up your job?)
I did, and went back into the theatre which kept me active and busy, challenged and involved with life up to it's full cup and running over. No regrets, except that I didn't do it sooner.
Now I write every day and paint often. I am busy, productive and reasonably happy, in spite of personal problems. I don't want to waste another moment of life, and I pass along the same advice to everyone.
There is a useless, pointless life to be lived drinking yourself silly every night or getting high on drugs and playing stupid games on a screen or in a bed. Life is the most important thing you have. Why waste it?
The present is what we have and what we always have, in fact it's all we have. It should be grasped, seized and improved on in every way possible. It doesn't matter what you do with the present moment as long as you don't waste it.
Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
************************
Showing posts with label theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theatre. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Lost Images
A man's work is nothing but the slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his , heart first opened.
Albert Camus
******************
Hello Bruce
******************
What was it I wanted way back then? After decades of living, years of joy and sorrow, success and failure, I sometimes wonder what it was I originally wanted, before I met bullies and friends, before I discovered girls, before I knew teachers, good and bad, when I was still innocent.
I remember sitting on the ground, with the warm sun at my back, arranging twigs into tiny villages. I remember hearing my first opera when I was six and having it become a life long passion. I remember seeing my first worm. I remember my first book. I vaguely remember my father. He died when I was four. I remember my first Christmas Tree.
I don't remember what it was I wanted way back then. That is a frightening thought. Was there something I wanted that would define me and described my life, and have all these years of living simply covered it up like layers of shirts or is it gone, dropped off along the way and down into some impenetrable Hades. Has the devil stolen my soul? It's a horrifying thought, but I don't believe in the Devil, so I doubt it. Beside I don't remember signing a contract with any Mephistophelean Monster.
I look at my paintings and my stories, I consider my career in the theatre and I wonder if all that work is pointing, not to the future, but back at something original. If so, what is it?
What was it I wanted way back before I became a vagabond, before I was a Beatnik, before I developed an appreciation for the ironic and absurd, before I displayed my talent for sarcasm, before I became rebellious and destructive? There must have been something there, some magic in the wisdom of the child, that enthralled and thrilled me and told me it would always be there. I do remember something was there, but I can't remember what it was.
Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for the world that I come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
(Michael Jackson)
I am on the slow trek through the detours looking for the true images that first opened my heart. It's a sad trip. Wish me luck.
Dana Bate - The True Vagabond
Never Give Up
*****************************
Albert Camus
******************
Hello Bruce
******************
What was it I wanted way back then? After decades of living, years of joy and sorrow, success and failure, I sometimes wonder what it was I originally wanted, before I met bullies and friends, before I discovered girls, before I knew teachers, good and bad, when I was still innocent.
I remember sitting on the ground, with the warm sun at my back, arranging twigs into tiny villages. I remember hearing my first opera when I was six and having it become a life long passion. I remember seeing my first worm. I remember my first book. I vaguely remember my father. He died when I was four. I remember my first Christmas Tree.
I don't remember what it was I wanted way back then. That is a frightening thought. Was there something I wanted that would define me and described my life, and have all these years of living simply covered it up like layers of shirts or is it gone, dropped off along the way and down into some impenetrable Hades. Has the devil stolen my soul? It's a horrifying thought, but I don't believe in the Devil, so I doubt it. Beside I don't remember signing a contract with any Mephistophelean Monster.
I look at my paintings and my stories, I consider my career in the theatre and I wonder if all that work is pointing, not to the future, but back at something original. If so, what is it?
What was it I wanted way back before I became a vagabond, before I was a Beatnik, before I developed an appreciation for the ironic and absurd, before I displayed my talent for sarcasm, before I became rebellious and destructive? There must have been something there, some magic in the wisdom of the child, that enthralled and thrilled me and told me it would always be there. I do remember something was there, but I can't remember what it was.
Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for the world that I come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
(Michael Jackson)
I am on the slow trek through the detours looking for the true images that first opened my heart. It's a sad trip. Wish me luck.
Dana Bate - The True Vagabond
Never Give Up
*****************************
Sunday, November 27, 2011
No Yawning
The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you by the end of the day.
Daniel Barthelme
*********************
Hello Jen
*********************
Someone recently remarked that my life is not boring. How can a man who lives alone, in an attic apartment, in a small and quiet town, with no family, no pets and hardly any visitors not live a boring life? How can that be, especially since he spent his working life in the entertainment business, as an actor, one of the most interesting, exciting and action filled professions there is and one which is never boring? Why isn't he bored to a perpetual yawn now?
I have known people in my days who were expert at planning out their lives so well that they knew where they would be at any minute during the day. They would keep to strict schedules, were dependably prompt and never deviated from the discipline of their lives. That's a noble way to live, I suppose, but it doesn't allow for much improvisation, adventure or whimsy. And when carried to an extreme it tends to invoke rules for buttoning shirts and tying shoes.
"I always do my laundry at 11 Saturday morning."
"Why not do it Friday night instead?"
"Oh no, Friday night is my time for doing the crossword puzzle."
It gets ridiculous. Some people will tell you that if they didn't carefully plan out the day little would ever get done, and I agree with that. Any serious actor knows time must be set aside for memorizing lines and developing the script. When rehearsal and performance times come the actor must be there and ready to work. But if it weren't for the freedom of expression and imagination, the unexpected moments of creativity, the bright light of inspiration that suddenly flicks on, the actors performance would be boring. The arts when properly done are never boring.
So why aren't I bored? Why isn't my life boring? Although I like a good healthy yawn now and then, I'm not an authority on boredom. My life in theatre taught me curiosity, imagination and, best of all, enthusiasm. It also taught me to respect the unexpected.
When the stranger wanders into your life, when the door you always go through is suddenly locked and when the steady rhythms of your day become syncopated smile, boredom has just fled out the window like an escaping racoon.
If you can embrace with enthusiasm the ever new, ever changing story of your life it can only get better.
Dana B - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
***********************
Daniel Barthelme
*********************
Hello Jen
*********************
Someone recently remarked that my life is not boring. How can a man who lives alone, in an attic apartment, in a small and quiet town, with no family, no pets and hardly any visitors not live a boring life? How can that be, especially since he spent his working life in the entertainment business, as an actor, one of the most interesting, exciting and action filled professions there is and one which is never boring? Why isn't he bored to a perpetual yawn now?
I have known people in my days who were expert at planning out their lives so well that they knew where they would be at any minute during the day. They would keep to strict schedules, were dependably prompt and never deviated from the discipline of their lives. That's a noble way to live, I suppose, but it doesn't allow for much improvisation, adventure or whimsy. And when carried to an extreme it tends to invoke rules for buttoning shirts and tying shoes.
"I always do my laundry at 11 Saturday morning."
"Why not do it Friday night instead?"
"Oh no, Friday night is my time for doing the crossword puzzle."
It gets ridiculous. Some people will tell you that if they didn't carefully plan out the day little would ever get done, and I agree with that. Any serious actor knows time must be set aside for memorizing lines and developing the script. When rehearsal and performance times come the actor must be there and ready to work. But if it weren't for the freedom of expression and imagination, the unexpected moments of creativity, the bright light of inspiration that suddenly flicks on, the actors performance would be boring. The arts when properly done are never boring.
So why aren't I bored? Why isn't my life boring? Although I like a good healthy yawn now and then, I'm not an authority on boredom. My life in theatre taught me curiosity, imagination and, best of all, enthusiasm. It also taught me to respect the unexpected.
When the stranger wanders into your life, when the door you always go through is suddenly locked and when the steady rhythms of your day become syncopated smile, boredom has just fled out the window like an escaping racoon.
If you can embrace with enthusiasm the ever new, ever changing story of your life it can only get better.
Dana B - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
***********************
Friday, November 18, 2011
Steps Up, Steps Down
Do good and don't worry to whom.
Mexican proverb
*********************
Hello Jen
***********************
This event happened many years age when I was doing a season of summer theatre. The theatre was located near a beach and there was a pier with two buildings on it. One building had a wooden staircase that led from the pier up to a porch, and inside was the rehearsal area. The morning rehearsal went from 10 until noon. I wasn't involved in it that morning so I was sitting on the pier with my script.
It was a warm, bright summer day. The tide was coming in and as it did an ocean breeze was caressing my cheeks and curling through my hair. The deep, mystic aroma of ocean air was everywhere.
Our Technical Director, Bill, came out of the shop with 4 large planks of fresh lumber, went back inside and came back out with a hand saw, a claw hammer, a saw horse, a bucket of nails and a ruler. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to replace the stairs. I figured that it would be a day's work for him unless he got some help. He politely declined my offer
I'm not sure of the dimensions of those planks of wood, but they were thick and long. Because a power tool would have disturbed the rehearsal going on upstairs, he took a hand saw and, after he had carefully measured everything, he cut 10 identical triangular grooves in both of the larger, thicker boards, about 5 inches each. They were so perfectly cut that when he reached the corner of each one the triangular piece just fell out onto the pier. He also cut the corners off of each board. I kept wondering when his arm was going to fall off.
Then he set them aside and measured the thinner planks and cut 10 identical pieces from them. The he stretched out the two larger planks parallel and braced them against the building. He took the smaller pieces he had just cut and with the hammer and some nails from the bucket, he attached each plank neatly into the grooves he had cut from the large boards. He then lifted the whole thing up and braced it against the porch.
He climbed the old staircase with the hammer and the bucket. He pried the old staircase loose from the porch and let it fall gently on to the pier below. He then pulled over the new one and with large nails attached it to the porch.
He picked up the hammer and bucket and ran down the stairscase he had just erected. He put the tools away and cleaned up the pieces of wood that were left lying on the pier. Then he took the old staircase into the shop to dismantle it.
I was amazed. I said I couldn't believe what he had just done. He said that there was nothing to it, and then added "I'm a good carpenter." I agreed.
In a moment or so the rehearsal stopped and the actors came tromping down a brand new staircase on the way to their break. Nobody knew how it got there, but I did. "There was nothing to it."
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*************************
Mexican proverb
*********************
Hello Jen
***********************
This event happened many years age when I was doing a season of summer theatre. The theatre was located near a beach and there was a pier with two buildings on it. One building had a wooden staircase that led from the pier up to a porch, and inside was the rehearsal area. The morning rehearsal went from 10 until noon. I wasn't involved in it that morning so I was sitting on the pier with my script.
It was a warm, bright summer day. The tide was coming in and as it did an ocean breeze was caressing my cheeks and curling through my hair. The deep, mystic aroma of ocean air was everywhere.
Our Technical Director, Bill, came out of the shop with 4 large planks of fresh lumber, went back inside and came back out with a hand saw, a claw hammer, a saw horse, a bucket of nails and a ruler. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to replace the stairs. I figured that it would be a day's work for him unless he got some help. He politely declined my offer
I'm not sure of the dimensions of those planks of wood, but they were thick and long. Because a power tool would have disturbed the rehearsal going on upstairs, he took a hand saw and, after he had carefully measured everything, he cut 10 identical triangular grooves in both of the larger, thicker boards, about 5 inches each. They were so perfectly cut that when he reached the corner of each one the triangular piece just fell out onto the pier. He also cut the corners off of each board. I kept wondering when his arm was going to fall off.
Then he set them aside and measured the thinner planks and cut 10 identical pieces from them. The he stretched out the two larger planks parallel and braced them against the building. He took the smaller pieces he had just cut and with the hammer and some nails from the bucket, he attached each plank neatly into the grooves he had cut from the large boards. He then lifted the whole thing up and braced it against the porch.
He climbed the old staircase with the hammer and the bucket. He pried the old staircase loose from the porch and let it fall gently on to the pier below. He then pulled over the new one and with large nails attached it to the porch.
He picked up the hammer and bucket and ran down the stairscase he had just erected. He put the tools away and cleaned up the pieces of wood that were left lying on the pier. Then he took the old staircase into the shop to dismantle it.
I was amazed. I said I couldn't believe what he had just done. He said that there was nothing to it, and then added "I'm a good carpenter." I agreed.
In a moment or so the rehearsal stopped and the actors came tromping down a brand new staircase on the way to their break. Nobody knew how it got there, but I did. "There was nothing to it."
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*************************
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Show Them
For he who'd make his fellow creatures wise should always gild the philosophic pill.
W. S. Gilbert
**********************
William Gilbert wrote the book and lyrics for some the most famous musical comedies of all time. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are still performed the world over. The quote from above is sung by Jack Point, a jester, and probably the one character closest to Gilbert himself.
Years ago I was involved in a project involving theatre in the schools. It was discovered in one state that the students who could not connect one idea with another and follow a thread of logic in any particular subject, history, math, geography, whatever, were able to do it automatically when they saw a play. When subjects were dramatized for them in that way, their learning was fast and correct. Many teachers came to learn the techniques, many refused. Those with ability and an open mind learned it well, others did not.
Unfortunately there is a lot of prejudice against theatre in this country. There are those, some of them intelligent and well educated, who won't go to the theatre, talk to actors or discuss the art of acting. I have heard and read the most ridiculous reasons why one should not pursue anything that smacks of that "devil's workshop known as show business."
When there was a recession happening one year at a local high school they canceled the theatre program to save the electricity, but they retained the basketball program, where all the lights blazed. Though I know there are many, I am not qualified to discuss the merits of basketball. I'll leave that up to the Phys Ed teachers.
But I am qualified to discuss the merits of theatre. Within the context of a play an actor has no limitations of behavior. He is entitled to be the hero, or the villain, the seducer, the victim, the cop or the jester. From all the roles I've played, following the psychological threads that made the man a good man or an evil man, the special theatrical glamorization of ideas, the gilding of the philosophic pill and the thrill of discovery about myself have made me wiser about the human race and many other subjects than if I had shunned "the devil's workshop."
It's called Show Business because we don't lecture you, we show you.
-------------------------
Never give up
DB - Vagabond Journeys
****************************
SUMMER QUESTION
It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.
Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
12 answers so far.
You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
************************
W. S. Gilbert
**********************
William Gilbert wrote the book and lyrics for some the most famous musical comedies of all time. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are still performed the world over. The quote from above is sung by Jack Point, a jester, and probably the one character closest to Gilbert himself.
Years ago I was involved in a project involving theatre in the schools. It was discovered in one state that the students who could not connect one idea with another and follow a thread of logic in any particular subject, history, math, geography, whatever, were able to do it automatically when they saw a play. When subjects were dramatized for them in that way, their learning was fast and correct. Many teachers came to learn the techniques, many refused. Those with ability and an open mind learned it well, others did not.
Unfortunately there is a lot of prejudice against theatre in this country. There are those, some of them intelligent and well educated, who won't go to the theatre, talk to actors or discuss the art of acting. I have heard and read the most ridiculous reasons why one should not pursue anything that smacks of that "devil's workshop known as show business."
When there was a recession happening one year at a local high school they canceled the theatre program to save the electricity, but they retained the basketball program, where all the lights blazed. Though I know there are many, I am not qualified to discuss the merits of basketball. I'll leave that up to the Phys Ed teachers.
But I am qualified to discuss the merits of theatre. Within the context of a play an actor has no limitations of behavior. He is entitled to be the hero, or the villain, the seducer, the victim, the cop or the jester. From all the roles I've played, following the psychological threads that made the man a good man or an evil man, the special theatrical glamorization of ideas, the gilding of the philosophic pill and the thrill of discovery about myself have made me wiser about the human race and many other subjects than if I had shunned "the devil's workshop."
It's called Show Business because we don't lecture you, we show you.
-------------------------
Never give up
DB - Vagabond Journeys
****************************
SUMMER QUESTION
It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.
Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
12 answers so far.
You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
************************
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Places. Please.
Sometimes the best helping hand you can get is a good firm push.
Joann Thomas
**********************
"Half Hour!"
"Oh, no, not another theatre story." Well I spent over 45 years in the professional theatre, I have stories.
Half Hour! That's a phrase that strikes fear or excitement or both into the hearts of most theatre people. After a play has been rehearsed fully and is ready to open it is handed over to the Stage Manager. From then on nothing happens unless he or she says so. The Stage Manager may have assistants, Assistant Stage Managers, ASMs, and altogether they are known as the Stage Management. (Isn't that clever?)
It is traditional in the professional theatre that someone from Stage Management gives four calls before a performance. (Those of you who know all this can talk among yourselves or go out for a smoke.) The first call is "Half Hour" which means you better be there, signed in and getting ready. The next call is "15 Minutes" which means in approximately 15 minutes the performance will begin, give or take any unexpected problems. Then there's the "5 Minutes" call. The cast and crew of a production absolutely depend on these countdowns, these calls. Stage Management may say "5 Minutes And Holding." A sudden costume repair, or scenery fix, or maybe a late arriving audience because of bad weather, slow service at the local chop house or a peaceful demonstration across the street. Then comes the most hallowed call of all, which we all wait for and expect and which generates a sudden burst of physical, psychological, emotional and nervous energy. "Places." We are ready to start and if you are in the big dance number at the beginning you better get where you belong, pronto.
In a few moments the show starts and proceeds along under the careful ear and eye of the Stage Manager until 2 to 3 hours later the final curtain comes down, the curtain calls are done, the house lights go on, the audience shuffles around putting on their coats and leaving. The rest of us go out to eat and drink, or just drink.
I have known some great stage managers in my career: Adam, Barry, Bruce, Liz, Margie, Maria and some whose names I can't remember dating back as far as the 60's. But I have also known some bad ones.
I was doing a play in Washington. There were 4 actors. It was a chaotic production, but we eventually got ready to open it. On opening night the Stage Manager, whose name I mercifully forget, called Half Hour, didn't call 15 Minutes, but called 5 Minutes. I sat in the dressing room, with one of the other actors, waiting for Places. I wasn't on at the beginning of the play, fortunately, but I heard it start. So I rushed upstairs to the wings in time to make my entrance.
At Intermission I told him that he forgot to call Places. He said "Oh I never call Places. I expect you to be professional enough not to miss your entrance." We divided him into 4 parts, chewed him up and spit him out on to the sidewalk.
We didn't really, of course, but what we did was a little more than a good firm push. The next night, and every night after that, he called "Places."
DB - The Vagabond
---------------------------------
Never Give Up
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Joann Thomas
**********************
"Half Hour!"
"Oh, no, not another theatre story." Well I spent over 45 years in the professional theatre, I have stories.
Half Hour! That's a phrase that strikes fear or excitement or both into the hearts of most theatre people. After a play has been rehearsed fully and is ready to open it is handed over to the Stage Manager. From then on nothing happens unless he or she says so. The Stage Manager may have assistants, Assistant Stage Managers, ASMs, and altogether they are known as the Stage Management. (Isn't that clever?)
It is traditional in the professional theatre that someone from Stage Management gives four calls before a performance. (Those of you who know all this can talk among yourselves or go out for a smoke.) The first call is "Half Hour" which means you better be there, signed in and getting ready. The next call is "15 Minutes" which means in approximately 15 minutes the performance will begin, give or take any unexpected problems. Then there's the "5 Minutes" call. The cast and crew of a production absolutely depend on these countdowns, these calls. Stage Management may say "5 Minutes And Holding." A sudden costume repair, or scenery fix, or maybe a late arriving audience because of bad weather, slow service at the local chop house or a peaceful demonstration across the street. Then comes the most hallowed call of all, which we all wait for and expect and which generates a sudden burst of physical, psychological, emotional and nervous energy. "Places." We are ready to start and if you are in the big dance number at the beginning you better get where you belong, pronto.
In a few moments the show starts and proceeds along under the careful ear and eye of the Stage Manager until 2 to 3 hours later the final curtain comes down, the curtain calls are done, the house lights go on, the audience shuffles around putting on their coats and leaving. The rest of us go out to eat and drink, or just drink.
I have known some great stage managers in my career: Adam, Barry, Bruce, Liz, Margie, Maria and some whose names I can't remember dating back as far as the 60's. But I have also known some bad ones.
I was doing a play in Washington. There were 4 actors. It was a chaotic production, but we eventually got ready to open it. On opening night the Stage Manager, whose name I mercifully forget, called Half Hour, didn't call 15 Minutes, but called 5 Minutes. I sat in the dressing room, with one of the other actors, waiting for Places. I wasn't on at the beginning of the play, fortunately, but I heard it start. So I rushed upstairs to the wings in time to make my entrance.
At Intermission I told him that he forgot to call Places. He said "Oh I never call Places. I expect you to be professional enough not to miss your entrance." We divided him into 4 parts, chewed him up and spit him out on to the sidewalk.
We didn't really, of course, but what we did was a little more than a good firm push. The next night, and every night after that, he called "Places."
DB - The Vagabond
---------------------------------
Never Give Up
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
Come on. 11 diverse and interesting answers so far. Where's yours?
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Is This A Real Apple?
The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe Discard the make-believe and take the truth.
Ramakrishna
**************************
Hello Buenos Aries. Have a happy day.
---------------------------------------
Years ago I was an actor in a beer commercial. The scene was a party where we were all walking around chatting and having good time. It took an entire day to shoot the commercial which is about average. We all had glasses of beer in our hands. Because of the truth in advertising regulations then in effect it had to be the actual beer being sold in the commercial. But because we were working we couldn't actually drink the beer. And because of the hot lights for the cameras the beer soon became flat. So every now and then they would come around with a big bucket and we would pour the beer into it and get a refill. For a beer lover like me it was heartbreaking to see all that tasty beer going to waste.
On the stage and films there is a lot of make-believe. If there is a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers all of it is artificial or the bright lights would soon rot the fruit and wilt the flowers.
There may be a scene in which a character takes an apple from the bowl and bites into it. In that case the actor has to be very sure he picks the real apple and not the plastic one. On the other hand, during "Greetings" I had to throw a baked apple on the floor. The other apples in the bowl were real ones so I had to make sure I got the make-believe baked apple or there would be a mess on the floor for people to skid in..
It's the same with liquor on the stage. It's water, colored water or tea. If it was genuine we would never make it through the third act.
Now you might say, Well, everything on the stage is make-believe, isn't it? And the answer is More and Less. On the stage the kisses are real but we shoot blanks. A fight is choreographed and rehearsed but the rage that brings two people to fight is real. It's that combination of the wig and the passion, the portraying the real life of a human being through art, that makes theatre what it is.
That is a condition that exists in all the arts. When you look at a painting you may see outlines, colors and brush strokes, but is that really what the painting is all about? It could be the painting of a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers. But they are not fruit and flowers no matter how realistically the painter has rendered them. They convey to the earnest observer the essence of fruit and flowers, or even more the essence of one's experience with nature. Huntington Cairns said "Art is imitation, not of things, but of the nature of things."
Real artists are always peering more deeply into the nature of things so they can cast off the make-believe and paint and portray the truth.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
2 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Ramakrishna
**************************
Hello Buenos Aries. Have a happy day.
---------------------------------------
Years ago I was an actor in a beer commercial. The scene was a party where we were all walking around chatting and having good time. It took an entire day to shoot the commercial which is about average. We all had glasses of beer in our hands. Because of the truth in advertising regulations then in effect it had to be the actual beer being sold in the commercial. But because we were working we couldn't actually drink the beer. And because of the hot lights for the cameras the beer soon became flat. So every now and then they would come around with a big bucket and we would pour the beer into it and get a refill. For a beer lover like me it was heartbreaking to see all that tasty beer going to waste.
On the stage and films there is a lot of make-believe. If there is a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers all of it is artificial or the bright lights would soon rot the fruit and wilt the flowers.
There may be a scene in which a character takes an apple from the bowl and bites into it. In that case the actor has to be very sure he picks the real apple and not the plastic one. On the other hand, during "Greetings" I had to throw a baked apple on the floor. The other apples in the bowl were real ones so I had to make sure I got the make-believe baked apple or there would be a mess on the floor for people to skid in..
It's the same with liquor on the stage. It's water, colored water or tea. If it was genuine we would never make it through the third act.
Now you might say, Well, everything on the stage is make-believe, isn't it? And the answer is More and Less. On the stage the kisses are real but we shoot blanks. A fight is choreographed and rehearsed but the rage that brings two people to fight is real. It's that combination of the wig and the passion, the portraying the real life of a human being through art, that makes theatre what it is.
That is a condition that exists in all the arts. When you look at a painting you may see outlines, colors and brush strokes, but is that really what the painting is all about? It could be the painting of a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers. But they are not fruit and flowers no matter how realistically the painter has rendered them. They convey to the earnest observer the essence of fruit and flowers, or even more the essence of one's experience with nature. Huntington Cairns said "Art is imitation, not of things, but of the nature of things."
Real artists are always peering more deeply into the nature of things so they can cast off the make-believe and paint and portray the truth.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
2 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Give The Gift
Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
Longfellow
*********************
This is the story of the fly and the artist.
--------------------------------------------
One summer day, having just had my lunch, I was sitting staring out the window (as we old folks do) when I noticed a fly on the windowsill. Time was I would have swatted that fly, summarily ended its life and its career. But the fly was barely moving. It was having trouble opening it's wings and taking a step seemed to be agony to it.
Curious, I took a bread crumb from my lunch plate and put it down near the fly. In a moment the fly sensed the crumb, slowly and painfully moved over to it and sucked every bit of liquid out of it.. Then, in another few moments, it spread it's wings and flew away. I won't forget that fly, obviously. What to me was an errant bread crumb to the fly was survival, a banquet filled with the elixir of life.
--------------------------------------
From the bottomless well of imagination an artist can draw inspiration and create something important. The creation is the first step. Next comes the sharing. One of the sublime purposes of art is to serve the world. But a more expansive way of thinking about it is to build community. Art provides an earnest invitation to share the sharing. The third step is the experience gained from enjoying the work, the poem, the painting, the song, whatever it is.
One can go through an art museum and see many works that are of little meaning to the viewer One may even see paintings that one doesn't like. But there is always the chance that something will pass right by the critical sense and proceed directly to one's heart and mind. "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse did that for me when I turned a corner one day at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and there it was. It changed my life.
The next step is presenting back to the world what has happened to one as a result of the experience. The Matisse painting didn't make me a better painter, I wasn't even painting in those days. It made me a better man and hence a better actor. I could not measure the depths or types of effects that experience had on me, but I know this, somewhere, one day, my work may have done the same to someone else.
In theatre we invite the audience to share in our experience. We provide the hospitality and a tangible but non-material something of value which they can take with them if they wish and use to improve their lives and the life of someone else.
Give what you have. To you it may seem to be only a crumb, but to someone else it may be of inestimable worth.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
*****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Longfellow
*********************
This is the story of the fly and the artist.
--------------------------------------------
One summer day, having just had my lunch, I was sitting staring out the window (as we old folks do) when I noticed a fly on the windowsill. Time was I would have swatted that fly, summarily ended its life and its career. But the fly was barely moving. It was having trouble opening it's wings and taking a step seemed to be agony to it.
Curious, I took a bread crumb from my lunch plate and put it down near the fly. In a moment the fly sensed the crumb, slowly and painfully moved over to it and sucked every bit of liquid out of it.. Then, in another few moments, it spread it's wings and flew away. I won't forget that fly, obviously. What to me was an errant bread crumb to the fly was survival, a banquet filled with the elixir of life.
--------------------------------------
From the bottomless well of imagination an artist can draw inspiration and create something important. The creation is the first step. Next comes the sharing. One of the sublime purposes of art is to serve the world. But a more expansive way of thinking about it is to build community. Art provides an earnest invitation to share the sharing. The third step is the experience gained from enjoying the work, the poem, the painting, the song, whatever it is.
One can go through an art museum and see many works that are of little meaning to the viewer One may even see paintings that one doesn't like. But there is always the chance that something will pass right by the critical sense and proceed directly to one's heart and mind. "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse did that for me when I turned a corner one day at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and there it was. It changed my life.
The next step is presenting back to the world what has happened to one as a result of the experience. The Matisse painting didn't make me a better painter, I wasn't even painting in those days. It made me a better man and hence a better actor. I could not measure the depths or types of effects that experience had on me, but I know this, somewhere, one day, my work may have done the same to someone else.
In theatre we invite the audience to share in our experience. We provide the hospitality and a tangible but non-material something of value which they can take with them if they wish and use to improve their lives and the life of someone else.
Give what you have. To you it may seem to be only a crumb, but to someone else it may be of inestimable worth.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
*****************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
A Day In The Theatre
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
Robert Heinlein
*************************
Have you ever noticed that no matter how big the ocean liner or tanker is when it docks it is tied up by a rope. With all of our newfangled gadgets it is the simple rope that does the job. Something once thought up and fashioned by some brain child to make it easier to keep the boat in place. A rope.
Some of our most important inventions are very simple things that virtually never change. Think of the golf tee. Golfers used to tee off from a pile of dirt or sand until someone thought of putting a stick under the ball. Now the tee is taken for granted.
Three of the most important inventions of use in theatre are tape, Velcro and, of course, everyone's favorite two fisted, brass knuckle, steel toed, betrayer of human intentions called the computer.
There have always been quick changes in the theatre, change of costume, change of character. The ancient Greeks used to do it with masks. But that changed when theatre tried to become more "realistic" and the lace took over. To accomplish a quick costume change by unlacing and lacing up took some doing, and lots of help. Changing scenery was just as complicated, muscle straining and time consuming. It gave rise to a new skilled laborer known as the "stage hand" for whom there is now a union.
At some point in the history of the entertainment business the lace was replaced by the button which did speed things up a bit but not by much. The button was an improvement but it came with a hazard. Buttons, like laces (and actors), could come undone and sometimes in a most embarrassing way. I have found myself twice on the stage with my fly open because in the rush to get the costume on I forgot to button up or they became unbuttoned somehow.
Soon the zipper replaced the button and costume changes became speedier although there were other hazards which the zipper presented that never occurred with the button or the lace. They had the same problem of being forgotten about, leaving the actor with the embarrassing job of zipping up as surreptitiously as possible while playing the scene. Worse than that however is that the zipper could get stuck, half way up it could get snagged by the tail of a shirt. Imagine, which is neither unusual nor extraordinary, two young apprentice girls fussing over an actors fly, trying to get the zipper unstuck while his entrance cue is coming up.
But costume changes and set changes still took time and often if the changes were major the producers would put in a cross over to take up the time. A cross over is done in front of the curtain and usually consists of other characters following (sometimes chasing) each other across the stage. Other times an extra something was inserted to take up time. I read somewhere that the song "On The Street Where You Live" which was sung in front of the curtain was put into "My Fair Lady" to cover the huge set change.
Theatres were built with a lot of space above the stage called "The Heaven" where scenery could be stored when not on stage .Gradually set changes became easier with winches taking the place of pulleys and weights. Then the winces became electronically operated which gave rise to a specialty stage hand know as the "winch operator." I was a winch operator for one season in Boston. It's very tricky, but it works.
Now about tape. There are two kinds of tape used in the stage: spiking tape and glow tape. Spiking tape is used in TV and films also. It comes in several colors and is placed on the floor so the actor can find where he is supposed to be when he enters, or where he has to move if he's already on. The audience won't see us looking for our tape because we are very clever at finding it, some of us. I have know of actors who seem to have never heard of spiking tape, especially one soap opera actor who will remain nameless. Along the way some lazy person invented glow tape. This tape will glow in the dark if it has been in the light for a while. Glow tape is used to find our place when we have to enter the stage in the dark or to find our way out and not run into the scenery, as some dunderheads do, if we have to exit in the dark. Believe me in happens. I was the dunderhead who ran into the scenery during a performance of Zorba when I didn't see the tape. The glow tape is on the floor, the steps and the corners of all the furniture and other set pieces that we are liable to run into in our rush to get in place. I remember a production where I had to enter in the pitch dark on the upper right side of the stage and sit in a chair in the lower left side. When I stepped onto the stage I saw something that looked like the runway of a major airport at night. In Arthur Miller's "The Price" the second act picks up exactly where the first one ended. One actor had some glow tape on the back of his coat so I wouldn't run into him when we came into place to start the act.
Historically, about the same time glow tape became available Velcro hit the stage. There are still laces to be done up, buttons to be buttoned and zippers to be zipped, but when it comes to the quick change it's the scraping sound of the Velcro that tells the story.
The computer has become a great blessing and curse to the theatre as computers are notorious for being. With computers all the lighting effects can be preprogrammed. For example, if the lights are supposed to dim out slowly, say on a 7 count, it can be programmed to do that and the stage manager and electrician no longer have to count to seven together. if they ever did. When I started in theatre a dimmer board was a rack of large handles and to do a black out one had to jump on the rack and ride the handles down with body weight. Now the computer does it with a click.
In the theatre as anywhere else we live under the constant threat of Murphy's Law. As a result, even with all the new fangled gadgets there still have to be the skilled crew people around, the costumer with safety pins at the ready, the electrician with his eye and hands on the dimmer board and the stage hand watching.
The computer is also used in some theatres to perform complicated set changes. The massive effect in "Les Miserables" for example. But even then if a piece of scenery has to be temporarily held in place before it flies back up to heaven the stage hand will tie it off. And what will he use to tie it off?
A rope.
---------------------------------
DB - Vagabond Journeys
******************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Robert Heinlein
*************************
Have you ever noticed that no matter how big the ocean liner or tanker is when it docks it is tied up by a rope. With all of our newfangled gadgets it is the simple rope that does the job. Something once thought up and fashioned by some brain child to make it easier to keep the boat in place. A rope.
Some of our most important inventions are very simple things that virtually never change. Think of the golf tee. Golfers used to tee off from a pile of dirt or sand until someone thought of putting a stick under the ball. Now the tee is taken for granted.
Three of the most important inventions of use in theatre are tape, Velcro and, of course, everyone's favorite two fisted, brass knuckle, steel toed, betrayer of human intentions called the computer.
There have always been quick changes in the theatre, change of costume, change of character. The ancient Greeks used to do it with masks. But that changed when theatre tried to become more "realistic" and the lace took over. To accomplish a quick costume change by unlacing and lacing up took some doing, and lots of help. Changing scenery was just as complicated, muscle straining and time consuming. It gave rise to a new skilled laborer known as the "stage hand" for whom there is now a union.
At some point in the history of the entertainment business the lace was replaced by the button which did speed things up a bit but not by much. The button was an improvement but it came with a hazard. Buttons, like laces (and actors), could come undone and sometimes in a most embarrassing way. I have found myself twice on the stage with my fly open because in the rush to get the costume on I forgot to button up or they became unbuttoned somehow.
Soon the zipper replaced the button and costume changes became speedier although there were other hazards which the zipper presented that never occurred with the button or the lace. They had the same problem of being forgotten about, leaving the actor with the embarrassing job of zipping up as surreptitiously as possible while playing the scene. Worse than that however is that the zipper could get stuck, half way up it could get snagged by the tail of a shirt. Imagine, which is neither unusual nor extraordinary, two young apprentice girls fussing over an actors fly, trying to get the zipper unstuck while his entrance cue is coming up.
But costume changes and set changes still took time and often if the changes were major the producers would put in a cross over to take up the time. A cross over is done in front of the curtain and usually consists of other characters following (sometimes chasing) each other across the stage. Other times an extra something was inserted to take up time. I read somewhere that the song "On The Street Where You Live" which was sung in front of the curtain was put into "My Fair Lady" to cover the huge set change.
Theatres were built with a lot of space above the stage called "The Heaven" where scenery could be stored when not on stage .Gradually set changes became easier with winches taking the place of pulleys and weights. Then the winces became electronically operated which gave rise to a specialty stage hand know as the "winch operator." I was a winch operator for one season in Boston. It's very tricky, but it works.
Now about tape. There are two kinds of tape used in the stage: spiking tape and glow tape. Spiking tape is used in TV and films also. It comes in several colors and is placed on the floor so the actor can find where he is supposed to be when he enters, or where he has to move if he's already on. The audience won't see us looking for our tape because we are very clever at finding it, some of us. I have know of actors who seem to have never heard of spiking tape, especially one soap opera actor who will remain nameless. Along the way some lazy person invented glow tape. This tape will glow in the dark if it has been in the light for a while. Glow tape is used to find our place when we have to enter the stage in the dark or to find our way out and not run into the scenery, as some dunderheads do, if we have to exit in the dark. Believe me in happens. I was the dunderhead who ran into the scenery during a performance of Zorba when I didn't see the tape. The glow tape is on the floor, the steps and the corners of all the furniture and other set pieces that we are liable to run into in our rush to get in place. I remember a production where I had to enter in the pitch dark on the upper right side of the stage and sit in a chair in the lower left side. When I stepped onto the stage I saw something that looked like the runway of a major airport at night. In Arthur Miller's "The Price" the second act picks up exactly where the first one ended. One actor had some glow tape on the back of his coat so I wouldn't run into him when we came into place to start the act.
Historically, about the same time glow tape became available Velcro hit the stage. There are still laces to be done up, buttons to be buttoned and zippers to be zipped, but when it comes to the quick change it's the scraping sound of the Velcro that tells the story.
The computer has become a great blessing and curse to the theatre as computers are notorious for being. With computers all the lighting effects can be preprogrammed. For example, if the lights are supposed to dim out slowly, say on a 7 count, it can be programmed to do that and the stage manager and electrician no longer have to count to seven together. if they ever did. When I started in theatre a dimmer board was a rack of large handles and to do a black out one had to jump on the rack and ride the handles down with body weight. Now the computer does it with a click.
In the theatre as anywhere else we live under the constant threat of Murphy's Law. As a result, even with all the new fangled gadgets there still have to be the skilled crew people around, the costumer with safety pins at the ready, the electrician with his eye and hands on the dimmer board and the stage hand watching.
The computer is also used in some theatres to perform complicated set changes. The massive effect in "Les Miserables" for example. But even then if a piece of scenery has to be temporarily held in place before it flies back up to heaven the stage hand will tie it off. And what will he use to tie it off?
A rope.
---------------------------------
DB - Vagabond Journeys
******************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Monday, November 8, 2010
How To Disturb The Universe
He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.
Dylan Thomas
******************
One day I was talking with a young fellow, a high school senior, who had done a few plays in school and was considering majoring in drama when he got to college and then going into show business. He asked me what life was like for an actor. I don't remember everything I said to him, but it went something like this.
Life for an actor is interesting, exciting, aggravating, irritating, satisfying, fulfilling, frightening, insecure, fascinating, difficult, exhausting, vivifying, unpredictable, confusing, revealing, contorted, visionary, preposterous, challenging, inspiring, dangerous, resuscitating and extraordinary. The one thing it definitely never is, is boring.
People don't get into the arts in order not to be bored, but once in it becomes clear that work time is of the essence and down time is spare. If an actor is not memorizing lines, searching the script for it's hidden beauties, working his body, voice and spirit in rehearsal designing and fulfilling his role, taking the great leap into performance when all things else are of no matter, he is out looking for work. And there is nothing boring about it.
I for one am grateful that I was able, and still am, to be an artist. It's a mysterious, magical way to live. Most artists don't talk about it or even notice how special the work they do is to the world. T. S. Eliot wrote "Do I dare disturb the universe." A good artist is at the point of disturbing the universe every time he picks up a pen or a brush. Why? Because he is using natural law as his tool. Because art is not an imitation of nature, it is an imitation, or explanation of the essence of nature, "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature" as Shakespeare put it, to explain the universe to itself. Physics tells us that when a thing is observed and contemplated it changes it's behavior. It is disturbed.
What gives us the right to do that? I don't know. I only know it's true. There are many excellent ways to live one's life, being an artist is only one of them. But we are given a special trust to do the work we must do. Most artists take it for granted.
I don't know what happened to that boy. Maybe he's a busy actor these days. That would be good. But I'm grateful to him for asking me that question so I could articulate what I know.
DB
**********
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
Dylan Thomas
******************
One day I was talking with a young fellow, a high school senior, who had done a few plays in school and was considering majoring in drama when he got to college and then going into show business. He asked me what life was like for an actor. I don't remember everything I said to him, but it went something like this.
Life for an actor is interesting, exciting, aggravating, irritating, satisfying, fulfilling, frightening, insecure, fascinating, difficult, exhausting, vivifying, unpredictable, confusing, revealing, contorted, visionary, preposterous, challenging, inspiring, dangerous, resuscitating and extraordinary. The one thing it definitely never is, is boring.
People don't get into the arts in order not to be bored, but once in it becomes clear that work time is of the essence and down time is spare. If an actor is not memorizing lines, searching the script for it's hidden beauties, working his body, voice and spirit in rehearsal designing and fulfilling his role, taking the great leap into performance when all things else are of no matter, he is out looking for work. And there is nothing boring about it.
I for one am grateful that I was able, and still am, to be an artist. It's a mysterious, magical way to live. Most artists don't talk about it or even notice how special the work they do is to the world. T. S. Eliot wrote "Do I dare disturb the universe." A good artist is at the point of disturbing the universe every time he picks up a pen or a brush. Why? Because he is using natural law as his tool. Because art is not an imitation of nature, it is an imitation, or explanation of the essence of nature, "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature" as Shakespeare put it, to explain the universe to itself. Physics tells us that when a thing is observed and contemplated it changes it's behavior. It is disturbed.
What gives us the right to do that? I don't know. I only know it's true. There are many excellent ways to live one's life, being an artist is only one of them. But we are given a special trust to do the work we must do. Most artists take it for granted.
I don't know what happened to that boy. Maybe he's a busy actor these days. That would be good. But I'm grateful to him for asking me that question so I could articulate what I know.
DB
**********
AUTUMN QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?
8 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
************************
Friday, October 1, 2010
Follow The Music
Art occurs at the point where a form is sincerely honored by awakened spirit.
Lawrence Durrell
***********************
Years ago I did a South African play. It was a true story about a young white doctor who had been arrested for political reasons, tortured and eventually executed. I was told he was the only white man to be executed by the South African government. I played the boy's father. He was a farmer/rancher who had moved from Kenya to South Africa.
The producer of the play had acquired a brief film of the real parents at their son's funeral. Thousand s of people of all races had shown up for the funeral and the parents were amazed. In the film clip they stand there for a few moments, then turn and walk away. The director wanted the actress and I to stand in front of the film and move when the two parents did, tricky business because we couldn't see the film.
Besides the producer, director and assistant director there were a number of African actors in the show. To my knowledge I had never worked with Africans before. They were impressive. I was particularly struck by the fact that the while Africans considered themselves Africans and not anything else. They were not transplanted Englishmen. Other than a shared language and empire they had no connection with Britain or The Netherlands or the culture of any other European nation. They were born and brought up in Africa. They were Africans, first and last.
I was also impressed by the music. It's very distinctive. African music is not Western Rock, it's folk music is not like American folk music. It has a very individual and unmistakable sound. Once you know African music you will immediately recognize it as such. Africans love their music.
Pondering the problem of how to find the cue for the movement away from the film we sat and watched it over again a few times. During the scene in which the film clip occurred there was no dialogue but there was a recording of a sad folk song sung by a group in a native language. After a few times through viewing the film I realized the song ran concurrently with the visual. It was exactly the same every time. Once more and I caught the exact phrase in the song where the movement came and said "I can take it from the music." "No. You can't do that" the director said. "It's too repetitive." "Let me try" I said. So the actress and I stood up while they ran the film and at the precise moment in the song I turned and we walked off just as the two peopl on the film did. The director was impressed.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
*******************
A'S UBAW' MB IXCWUO SG ZCG BR NAKAW'
AR MXCM CAWM OWBYUX
MXOW A'NN IXCWUO MXO ZCG
MXCM A DMVYM SG DMYRR.
'ICTDO WPFPLG ZCWMD GPY
ZXOW GPY'VO BNL CWL UVCG
MXOVO'NN FO DBSO IXCWUOD SCLO MBLCG.
Good luck
DB
*****************
Reprinted from May 13, 2010
In old age we are like a batch of letters someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.
Knut Hamsun
*******************
I'm a mad man. No, there's no doubt about it, I'm completely cracked; stark, shivering crazy. I've lost it.
Shakespeare calls old age "second chilishness." It is a theory that all babies are born insane and gradually grow into sanity and wisdom as they mature. I don't remember much about my babyhood but I'm of the opinion that it might be the other way around. I think it's possible that all babies are born completely sane and knowing everything which they can't articulate except to other babies and that they gradually grow to lose it in the carriages and play pens of the world. Imagine how frustrating it must be for a baby not being able to tell anyone what you know. It's enough to make you wet yur diaper and wake up in the middle of the night crying for no apparent reason.
Not having lived a normal life has taught me that there is no such thing. Being a wanderer has taught me that the only place anyone really lives is in his own head. And being an artist has taught me to gracefully let go of the ball and chain which is generally known to the world at large as common sense.
But being mad is a good healthy way to be as far as I can determine. I do illogical things. If I am on my way to the market I stop and feel the leaves of a tree or a bush. If I pass the kitchen sink I squeeze a little soap into the sponge and wash three dishes instead of the whole sink full. If anyone lived with me they would become exasperated at my behavior or else go mad themselves.
I say things no one understands. I know that, because every time I make a statement of pure, simplified wisdom it's met with a blank, uncomprehending stare. There's a small tree in front of the house. When I refer to it as "yonder wood" no one cares to know why.
When I find conservative nonsense and liberal grunting humorous people don't get it. But when I become fascinated by some obscure news item that doesn't make the papers or the TV news every day they just think I'm off the beaten path of life. Well, I am. I'm the crazy old loon who lives by himself in the attic, harmless in his madness. He listens to Wagner operas and reads philosophy. He's a total fruitcake.
The letters have been sent and read and the attempt to summarize the contents has taught me that there are no summations (which it also says in my Profile).
So what's left for an old crackpot to do? To what have I arrived? A certain benign orneriness, acceptance and refusal, an abiding sense of humor, willingness to face the fog and walk into it. I can now change my own diapers, if I wake up in the middle of the night the only thing I want to know is what time it is. I accept the fact that I will never have all the things in my playpen that I want. I refuse to get angry at any one but myself. I refuse to do today what I can put off to tomorrow. I don't follow the Phillies. I refuse to accept everything any authority tells me. I will think for myself and not worry about it if the thoughts come from the mind of a lunatic.
I refuse to be afraid of death. If you go to England you can visit the grave of Charles Dickens, but Dickens isn't there, he's still alive. If I could live my life all over again I would change almost everything. But would I then have something to summarize? I doubt it.
Being an actor has taught me that the world is a stage and the roles keep changing, but they are all masquerades. So I will set Sir Percival spinning, wash my hands and face in the words of some other old maniac's sink, play in my pen and enjoy, as much as possible, the role in which I have somehow cast myself.
DB - The Vagabond
Lawrence Durrell
***********************
Years ago I did a South African play. It was a true story about a young white doctor who had been arrested for political reasons, tortured and eventually executed. I was told he was the only white man to be executed by the South African government. I played the boy's father. He was a farmer/rancher who had moved from Kenya to South Africa.
The producer of the play had acquired a brief film of the real parents at their son's funeral. Thousand s of people of all races had shown up for the funeral and the parents were amazed. In the film clip they stand there for a few moments, then turn and walk away. The director wanted the actress and I to stand in front of the film and move when the two parents did, tricky business because we couldn't see the film.
Besides the producer, director and assistant director there were a number of African actors in the show. To my knowledge I had never worked with Africans before. They were impressive. I was particularly struck by the fact that the while Africans considered themselves Africans and not anything else. They were not transplanted Englishmen. Other than a shared language and empire they had no connection with Britain or The Netherlands or the culture of any other European nation. They were born and brought up in Africa. They were Africans, first and last.
I was also impressed by the music. It's very distinctive. African music is not Western Rock, it's folk music is not like American folk music. It has a very individual and unmistakable sound. Once you know African music you will immediately recognize it as such. Africans love their music.
Pondering the problem of how to find the cue for the movement away from the film we sat and watched it over again a few times. During the scene in which the film clip occurred there was no dialogue but there was a recording of a sad folk song sung by a group in a native language. After a few times through viewing the film I realized the song ran concurrently with the visual. It was exactly the same every time. Once more and I caught the exact phrase in the song where the movement came and said "I can take it from the music." "No. You can't do that" the director said. "It's too repetitive." "Let me try" I said. So the actress and I stood up while they ran the film and at the precise moment in the song I turned and we walked off just as the two peopl on the film did. The director was impressed.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
*******************
A'S UBAW' MB IXCWUO SG ZCG BR NAKAW'
AR MXCM CAWM OWBYUX
MXOW A'NN IXCWUO MXO ZCG
MXCM A DMVYM SG DMYRR.
'ICTDO WPFPLG ZCWMD GPY
ZXOW GPY'VO BNL CWL UVCG
MXOVO'NN FO DBSO IXCWUOD SCLO MBLCG.
Good luck
DB
*****************
Reprinted from May 13, 2010
In old age we are like a batch of letters someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.
Knut Hamsun
*******************
I'm a mad man. No, there's no doubt about it, I'm completely cracked; stark, shivering crazy. I've lost it.
Shakespeare calls old age "second chilishness." It is a theory that all babies are born insane and gradually grow into sanity and wisdom as they mature. I don't remember much about my babyhood but I'm of the opinion that it might be the other way around. I think it's possible that all babies are born completely sane and knowing everything which they can't articulate except to other babies and that they gradually grow to lose it in the carriages and play pens of the world. Imagine how frustrating it must be for a baby not being able to tell anyone what you know. It's enough to make you wet yur diaper and wake up in the middle of the night crying for no apparent reason.
Not having lived a normal life has taught me that there is no such thing. Being a wanderer has taught me that the only place anyone really lives is in his own head. And being an artist has taught me to gracefully let go of the ball and chain which is generally known to the world at large as common sense.
But being mad is a good healthy way to be as far as I can determine. I do illogical things. If I am on my way to the market I stop and feel the leaves of a tree or a bush. If I pass the kitchen sink I squeeze a little soap into the sponge and wash three dishes instead of the whole sink full. If anyone lived with me they would become exasperated at my behavior or else go mad themselves.
I say things no one understands. I know that, because every time I make a statement of pure, simplified wisdom it's met with a blank, uncomprehending stare. There's a small tree in front of the house. When I refer to it as "yonder wood" no one cares to know why.
When I find conservative nonsense and liberal grunting humorous people don't get it. But when I become fascinated by some obscure news item that doesn't make the papers or the TV news every day they just think I'm off the beaten path of life. Well, I am. I'm the crazy old loon who lives by himself in the attic, harmless in his madness. He listens to Wagner operas and reads philosophy. He's a total fruitcake.
The letters have been sent and read and the attempt to summarize the contents has taught me that there are no summations (which it also says in my Profile).
So what's left for an old crackpot to do? To what have I arrived? A certain benign orneriness, acceptance and refusal, an abiding sense of humor, willingness to face the fog and walk into it. I can now change my own diapers, if I wake up in the middle of the night the only thing I want to know is what time it is. I accept the fact that I will never have all the things in my playpen that I want. I refuse to get angry at any one but myself. I refuse to do today what I can put off to tomorrow. I don't follow the Phillies. I refuse to accept everything any authority tells me. I will think for myself and not worry about it if the thoughts come from the mind of a lunatic.
I refuse to be afraid of death. If you go to England you can visit the grave of Charles Dickens, but Dickens isn't there, he's still alive. If I could live my life all over again I would change almost everything. But would I then have something to summarize? I doubt it.
Being an actor has taught me that the world is a stage and the roles keep changing, but they are all masquerades. So I will set Sir Percival spinning, wash my hands and face in the words of some other old maniac's sink, play in my pen and enjoy, as much as possible, the role in which I have somehow cast myself.
DB - The Vagabond
Friday, August 27, 2010
Always Leave Them Laughing
The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.
Salvador Dali
********************
I have so few readers these days that I thought I would indulge myself a bit and write about my grandmother. Those of you who often join me as travelers on the vagabond's journey may enjoy it. I hope so.
Her name was Charlotte Cole. That was her married name and her professional name. She was born in the 19th Century, as were her three children, two boys and a girl, my mother. Charlotte was trained as a youngster to sing, dance and play the piano, she was also given acting lessons..
She married a man who wanted to be a pioneer. So the two of them set off for Nebraska where he built a sod house and was a farmer and rancher. Charlotte gave birth to all of her children in that sod house.
One day she told me about getting supplies form the village. While her husband was working in the fields she would drive an ox cart into town. When the cart was filled there was no room for her so she road back sitting on the ox.
When her husband died her boys were grown and her daughter was a teenager. They moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where my mother finished school. Charlotte taught my mother to sing and dance, and a day came when they joined a traveling theatre company as a variety act. My grandmother was always very young looking so they became the Cole Sisters, a song and dance duo. She had amazing stories to tell about those years.
They played in some very rough places, some of them weren't states yet. Men would come to the theatre with their rifles. The theatres were often very primitive, with little or no sanitary facilities for the actors. There was no such thing as privacy.
One of the skits that was performed involved a Native American being shot and killed by the villain of the piece. Wherever the company went they would hire a local Indian to play the part. In one location he arrived for the show with his whole family and when the villain fired his pistol, once, the entire family fell down.
She told about another time when the entire company got diarrhea during the performance. The only way out was through the back door which was covered by a piece of scenery. As soon as the first act was over and the curtain closed there was a mad dash to the out houses which immediate filled up leaving every one else to use the forest out behind the theatre.
They eventually got to New York City. In those day the motion picture business was located in New York, before Hollywood was born. So Charlotte became an actress in silent films.
She taught me things and encouraged me to go into show business. She was the only one in my family who did.
One of the most remarkable things about my grandmother was her sense of humor. When something struck her funny she would laugh in such a way that everyone around her was infected by it and would laugh along with her even if they didn't know what was funny. One day we were driving somewhere and the wind blew her hat off, right out the window. My brother went chasing after it and each time he leaned over to pick it up the wind would blow it again. After a couple of times watching that she started to laugh. Even though it was her hat she couldn't resist the humor of it and neither could the rest of us. My poor brother eventually saved the hat but didn't appreciate being laughed at.
Another time she was visiting me, my mother and my sister. She decided to take a bath. When she was finished she couldn't get up. My mother and sister tried to get her up but were unable to, she was a bit overweight by this time. So they called me. Charlotte held a towel in front of her, I grabbed her under the arm pits and hoisted her up, then went about my business. Charlotte was unfazed by the whole thing.
The most memorable story about her and her sense of humor happened a few days before she died. She was very independent. She had lived for many years by herself in a residential hotel in New York. One day she called my mother and said to come and get her because she was passing on. We were living in a New York suburb at that time. So we drove into town and picked her up.
This was in the 40's. In those days you didn't enter an upscale New York hotel without being properly dressed. So I wore a tie and jacket. I was 14 years old. Not only that but Charlotte never went out without being immaculately dressed, which meant a nice outfit, her fox fur stole, gloves and a hat with a veil.
When we reached our apartment, which was on the second floor, Charlotte took one look at the stairs and declared that she would not be able to climb them. So I got a chair. We put Charlotte in the chair. Mother got in front, I got behind, and we lifted her step by step up the staircase. Except that every time I leaned over to grab the back of her chair my tie fell in front of her face and she had to blow it away. Well, about half way up the stairs it struck her funny and she started to laugh. Within moments she, mother, I and the two people from the first floor who came out to see if they could do anything, were helpless with laughter.
We finally got her upstairs and into a bed. Two days later she went to the hospital and made her exit. She was 88.
I'll never for get that day. There she was an old lady knowing that she was going off to die and yet she found something humorous about her own passing. I vowed to be like her. If I have to go, that's the way I want to go. Leave them laughing.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
**********************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
These are not the right titles..
Please Correct them.
______________________
1. Uprising by all the fruits and vegetables.
2. Skipped town with the clarinet.
3. The lizard came out after dinner was over.
4. The Raging Dozen
5. Don't be wary of a female novelist.
6 Me and the chess piece.
7. The long distance runner.
8. Ain't living just grand?
9, Vocalizing with the tempest.
10. There's a ghost backstage at the Met.
11. After this we close down the theatre.
12. Youngsters in the Amazon.
DB
****************
Salvador Dali
********************
I have so few readers these days that I thought I would indulge myself a bit and write about my grandmother. Those of you who often join me as travelers on the vagabond's journey may enjoy it. I hope so.
Her name was Charlotte Cole. That was her married name and her professional name. She was born in the 19th Century, as were her three children, two boys and a girl, my mother. Charlotte was trained as a youngster to sing, dance and play the piano, she was also given acting lessons..
She married a man who wanted to be a pioneer. So the two of them set off for Nebraska where he built a sod house and was a farmer and rancher. Charlotte gave birth to all of her children in that sod house.
One day she told me about getting supplies form the village. While her husband was working in the fields she would drive an ox cart into town. When the cart was filled there was no room for her so she road back sitting on the ox.
When her husband died her boys were grown and her daughter was a teenager. They moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where my mother finished school. Charlotte taught my mother to sing and dance, and a day came when they joined a traveling theatre company as a variety act. My grandmother was always very young looking so they became the Cole Sisters, a song and dance duo. She had amazing stories to tell about those years.
They played in some very rough places, some of them weren't states yet. Men would come to the theatre with their rifles. The theatres were often very primitive, with little or no sanitary facilities for the actors. There was no such thing as privacy.
One of the skits that was performed involved a Native American being shot and killed by the villain of the piece. Wherever the company went they would hire a local Indian to play the part. In one location he arrived for the show with his whole family and when the villain fired his pistol, once, the entire family fell down.
She told about another time when the entire company got diarrhea during the performance. The only way out was through the back door which was covered by a piece of scenery. As soon as the first act was over and the curtain closed there was a mad dash to the out houses which immediate filled up leaving every one else to use the forest out behind the theatre.
They eventually got to New York City. In those day the motion picture business was located in New York, before Hollywood was born. So Charlotte became an actress in silent films.
She taught me things and encouraged me to go into show business. She was the only one in my family who did.
One of the most remarkable things about my grandmother was her sense of humor. When something struck her funny she would laugh in such a way that everyone around her was infected by it and would laugh along with her even if they didn't know what was funny. One day we were driving somewhere and the wind blew her hat off, right out the window. My brother went chasing after it and each time he leaned over to pick it up the wind would blow it again. After a couple of times watching that she started to laugh. Even though it was her hat she couldn't resist the humor of it and neither could the rest of us. My poor brother eventually saved the hat but didn't appreciate being laughed at.
Another time she was visiting me, my mother and my sister. She decided to take a bath. When she was finished she couldn't get up. My mother and sister tried to get her up but were unable to, she was a bit overweight by this time. So they called me. Charlotte held a towel in front of her, I grabbed her under the arm pits and hoisted her up, then went about my business. Charlotte was unfazed by the whole thing.
The most memorable story about her and her sense of humor happened a few days before she died. She was very independent. She had lived for many years by herself in a residential hotel in New York. One day she called my mother and said to come and get her because she was passing on. We were living in a New York suburb at that time. So we drove into town and picked her up.
This was in the 40's. In those days you didn't enter an upscale New York hotel without being properly dressed. So I wore a tie and jacket. I was 14 years old. Not only that but Charlotte never went out without being immaculately dressed, which meant a nice outfit, her fox fur stole, gloves and a hat with a veil.
When we reached our apartment, which was on the second floor, Charlotte took one look at the stairs and declared that she would not be able to climb them. So I got a chair. We put Charlotte in the chair. Mother got in front, I got behind, and we lifted her step by step up the staircase. Except that every time I leaned over to grab the back of her chair my tie fell in front of her face and she had to blow it away. Well, about half way up the stairs it struck her funny and she started to laugh. Within moments she, mother, I and the two people from the first floor who came out to see if they could do anything, were helpless with laughter.
We finally got her upstairs and into a bed. Two days later she went to the hospital and made her exit. She was 88.
I'll never for get that day. There she was an old lady knowing that she was going off to die and yet she found something humorous about her own passing. I vowed to be like her. If I have to go, that's the way I want to go. Leave them laughing.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
**********************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
These are not the right titles..
Please Correct them.
______________________
1. Uprising by all the fruits and vegetables.
2. Skipped town with the clarinet.
3. The lizard came out after dinner was over.
4. The Raging Dozen
5. Don't be wary of a female novelist.
6 Me and the chess piece.
7. The long distance runner.
8. Ain't living just grand?
9, Vocalizing with the tempest.
10. There's a ghost backstage at the Met.
11. After this we close down the theatre.
12. Youngsters in the Amazon.
DB
****************
Monday, July 12, 2010
Tricks And Treats
Most people rust out due to lack of challenge. Few people rust out due to overuse.
Unknown
*****************
Don't look now but there's a rabbit in your hat.
The people who have been the best influence and inspiration to me in my life have been those who have kept going in spite of seemingly impossible problems.
I confess that in my early years I often sought the easy road, the soft job. For me sitting in a radio studio was easier than acting. Certainly broadcasting had its challenges and I admire the men and women I worked with in that industry who performed in it very well. Some of them were excellent. There were times when the pressure was fierce, when I didn't have enough music to fill out the time, or when I had to interview an impossible guest, or when I had to announce an outdoor concert in the pouring rain when no one was there but the orchestra.
Theatre on the other hand is filled with wall-to-wall problems. If a good systems engineer sat down to figure out how to run a theatre he would conclude that it couldn't be done. My theatre friends who are reading this are smiling.
So I left the relative comfort of the radio studio and went back to theatre because I knew the challenges and that they would be met somehow. In show business there are no rules and there is no such thing as giving up on a theatrical effect if it is needed for the production.
I love to watch a good magician. I don't try to figure out how he does it, I just enjoy seeing him do things that look impossible. A magician I know once pulled one of my own cigarettes out of my ear. That was amazing enough but even more scary was where he got it from since it was one of my own cigarettes and he didn't smoke. He must have filched it from my pocket without my knowing. I saw a magician crunch down and lock himself into a small box after which his assistant stuck a sword through all the sides and the top of the box. When she opened the box he was gone but it was filled with hens who came strutting out and around. That was great theatre because it was not only a great trick but it was also funny to see all those hens.
Sometimes magic happens in the theatre and people don't realize it. A character walks off stage and 30 seconds later comes back on in a different costume. The color of the walls change from scene to scene even though no scenery is moved. I did a play called "Greetings" in which the Christmas tree lights come on even though they aren't plugged in. Murders are committed and no one dies. The actor playing King Lear reaches the point of raging madness and completely recovers his sanity in time for the curtain call.
Amazing things happen, mountains get climbed, seas get crossed, planets get walked on, discoveries get made, problems get solved because people don't give up on them. To take up the great problem of life and work toward it's solution without giving up or giving in is what keeps the chrome shining.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
Sunday Puzzle Answer
1 correct answer and it comes from Val of the Blogspot Tigers.
One of these things is not like the other.
Which one and why?
1. baseball, soccer ball, football, tennis ball.
OK, that was the easy one, Now they get tricky.
2. grizzly koala black polar
the koala is not a bear
3. flute violin banjo harp
the flute has no strings
4. Washington Adams Franklin Jefferson
Franklin was never Presidnet
5. palm tomato peach zucchini
palm, all the rest are fruits
6. 2 4 6 8
6, the only one divisible by 3
7. New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York
New Mexico not one of the 13 colonies
8. tennis badminton ping pong volley ball
vollye ball requires no racket
9. Champlain Erie Michigan Superior
Champlain not one of the Great Lakes
To Val goes the grand prize of stainless steel eraser.
------------------------------------------
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
5 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
Unknown
*****************
Don't look now but there's a rabbit in your hat.
The people who have been the best influence and inspiration to me in my life have been those who have kept going in spite of seemingly impossible problems.
I confess that in my early years I often sought the easy road, the soft job. For me sitting in a radio studio was easier than acting. Certainly broadcasting had its challenges and I admire the men and women I worked with in that industry who performed in it very well. Some of them were excellent. There were times when the pressure was fierce, when I didn't have enough music to fill out the time, or when I had to interview an impossible guest, or when I had to announce an outdoor concert in the pouring rain when no one was there but the orchestra.
Theatre on the other hand is filled with wall-to-wall problems. If a good systems engineer sat down to figure out how to run a theatre he would conclude that it couldn't be done. My theatre friends who are reading this are smiling.
So I left the relative comfort of the radio studio and went back to theatre because I knew the challenges and that they would be met somehow. In show business there are no rules and there is no such thing as giving up on a theatrical effect if it is needed for the production.
I love to watch a good magician. I don't try to figure out how he does it, I just enjoy seeing him do things that look impossible. A magician I know once pulled one of my own cigarettes out of my ear. That was amazing enough but even more scary was where he got it from since it was one of my own cigarettes and he didn't smoke. He must have filched it from my pocket without my knowing. I saw a magician crunch down and lock himself into a small box after which his assistant stuck a sword through all the sides and the top of the box. When she opened the box he was gone but it was filled with hens who came strutting out and around. That was great theatre because it was not only a great trick but it was also funny to see all those hens.
Sometimes magic happens in the theatre and people don't realize it. A character walks off stage and 30 seconds later comes back on in a different costume. The color of the walls change from scene to scene even though no scenery is moved. I did a play called "Greetings" in which the Christmas tree lights come on even though they aren't plugged in. Murders are committed and no one dies. The actor playing King Lear reaches the point of raging madness and completely recovers his sanity in time for the curtain call.
Amazing things happen, mountains get climbed, seas get crossed, planets get walked on, discoveries get made, problems get solved because people don't give up on them. To take up the great problem of life and work toward it's solution without giving up or giving in is what keeps the chrome shining.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
Sunday Puzzle Answer
1 correct answer and it comes from Val of the Blogspot Tigers.
One of these things is not like the other.
Which one and why?
1. baseball, soccer ball, football, tennis ball.
OK, that was the easy one, Now they get tricky.
2. grizzly koala black polar
the koala is not a bear
3. flute violin banjo harp
the flute has no strings
4. Washington Adams Franklin Jefferson
Franklin was never Presidnet
5. palm tomato peach zucchini
palm, all the rest are fruits
6. 2 4 6 8
6, the only one divisible by 3
7. New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York
New Mexico not one of the 13 colonies
8. tennis badminton ping pong volley ball
vollye ball requires no racket
9. Champlain Erie Michigan Superior
Champlain not one of the Great Lakes
To Val goes the grand prize of stainless steel eraser.
------------------------------------------
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
5 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Home Alone
From success you get a lot of things, but not that great inside thing that love brings you.
Samuel Goldwyn
*****************
I spent my life as a performing artist, most of that time as an actor. Life in theatre means that you work in very close, intimate relationships with other people. Wherever I went I carried with me the constant frustrating fantasy that I was going to make a family out of whatever company I was working with.
I had no family growing up. It was just my mother and I. We did not care for each other much and she was relieved when I finally left. My siblings were so much older than I that they were never around unless they had to be. Any child can tell the difference between real time and obligatory time.
Any possibility, if it ever existed, for a home and a family was spintered on all sides, in all directions. So I was familyless, unfamilied. I know there are people who say a family can be an aggravation if it's a bunch of people who don't get along. But I have also witnessed families that were so close the moment by moment activities were examples of love that was so omnipresent no one noticed it. I once knew a family with four brothers who were fond of addressing each other by their last names, "Mr. __". It didn't matter who answered. They were all attuned to each other.
My search for a family in the theatre world was fruitless, of course. For one thing everyone I worked with had a family somewhere else, they certainly didn't need me in it. And no one understood what I wanted, The young women thought I was coming on to them for sexual reasons, and so did some of the young men. Some of the older folks were also suspicious of my advances for other reasons. I was searching for mothers and fathers, for brothers and sisters, for sons and daughters. It was a pointless search. And there was always an end date. an out clause, closing night, a time to move on.
I shared an apartment with a guy for a while who seemed glad to have me there. We developed, I thought, a fraternal relationship. We were both actors of about the same age. But he met someone, a woman, and wanted his space, so I left.
I kept thinking that someday I would meet another vagabond who was on the same trail with the same need. It didn't happen.
Now I'm 71. My phone still doesn't work. Even though I have some dear invisible friends at the other end of the email world. I live alone. I never found my family.
DB - The Vagabond
----------------------------
----------------------------
APRIL FOOLERY
Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 6 days.
APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.
3 ENTRIES SO FAR
On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______
Good luck
DB
****************
Samuel Goldwyn
*****************
I spent my life as a performing artist, most of that time as an actor. Life in theatre means that you work in very close, intimate relationships with other people. Wherever I went I carried with me the constant frustrating fantasy that I was going to make a family out of whatever company I was working with.
I had no family growing up. It was just my mother and I. We did not care for each other much and she was relieved when I finally left. My siblings were so much older than I that they were never around unless they had to be. Any child can tell the difference between real time and obligatory time.
Any possibility, if it ever existed, for a home and a family was spintered on all sides, in all directions. So I was familyless, unfamilied. I know there are people who say a family can be an aggravation if it's a bunch of people who don't get along. But I have also witnessed families that were so close the moment by moment activities were examples of love that was so omnipresent no one noticed it. I once knew a family with four brothers who were fond of addressing each other by their last names, "Mr. __". It didn't matter who answered. They were all attuned to each other.
My search for a family in the theatre world was fruitless, of course. For one thing everyone I worked with had a family somewhere else, they certainly didn't need me in it. And no one understood what I wanted, The young women thought I was coming on to them for sexual reasons, and so did some of the young men. Some of the older folks were also suspicious of my advances for other reasons. I was searching for mothers and fathers, for brothers and sisters, for sons and daughters. It was a pointless search. And there was always an end date. an out clause, closing night, a time to move on.
I shared an apartment with a guy for a while who seemed glad to have me there. We developed, I thought, a fraternal relationship. We were both actors of about the same age. But he met someone, a woman, and wanted his space, so I left.
I kept thinking that someday I would meet another vagabond who was on the same trail with the same need. It didn't happen.
Now I'm 71. My phone still doesn't work. Even though I have some dear invisible friends at the other end of the email world. I live alone. I never found my family.
DB - The Vagabond
----------------------------
----------------------------
APRIL FOOLERY
Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 6 days.
APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.
3 ENTRIES SO FAR
On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______
Good luck
DB
****************
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Synergetic Solidarity 7/11/09
It is not the one branch that has strength but the many branches bound together in a bundle that cannot be broken.
Chief Sitting Bull
**********************
How do you do?
--------------------------
I could speak of armies. But I don't know armies.
I could speak of ball teams. But I don't know ball teams.
I could speak of construction crews. But I don't know construction crews.
I could speak of theatre companies. And I will, because I know theatre companies.
I could speak of orchestras. And I know something about orchestras.
One of the most interesting and exciting things to me about working in the theatre most of my life was the sense of the ensemble. Everyone involved in a performance is important, from the leading player to the stage manager's second assistant. Everyone is requited to be at a specific place at every point in the play and perform a specific function, whether it's to speak a line or change a piece of scenery. A theatre company consists of a cast and a crew and they are equally important even though the audience never sees the crew. I once did a play in which I had to go off stage, get a sword and bring it back on. I had no time to go looking for it. It had to be done almost instantly. At every performance the was a young man, a member of the crew, waiting to hand me the sword.
When the cast and crew are working together as a well trained team, even emergencies can be quickly solved. In another play I had to make some drinks at an upstage bar. I had very little time to do it and one night I broke one of the glasses. Shortly after that my character left the stage for a minute. When I got off stage I told the crew member stationed there that I broke a glass, She immediately said "Okay, I'll take care of it." When the lights went up for the next scene the broken glass was gone.
On the stage the actors depend on each other to be where they are supposed to be and say what they are supposed to say so that the other actor gets the right cues for his own speech and actions. If you see a fight scene in a play it has been carefully choreographed and rehearsed so that all the actors involved know exactly what they are going to do. They depend on each other. No one gets hurt.
Ask a musician in a great orchestra and he will talk about the other musicians. They are interdependent. They have to be. The violinist listen to the flute, the flutist listens to the horn and the horn player listens to the drum. They play together. It doesn't happen by accident.
When that synergy is absent it's obvious in both theatre and music. There are some actors who are not team players. We call them "prima donnas." Some of them are well known. They will grab attention and focus, and they will not care about cooperation in the process of the performance. They will frequently get a lot of applause because of it. But what the audience doesn't see is the compensation and adaptation the rest of the company has to make, which they can do because they are a company of people working together. But with a prima donna on stage that sense of ensemble is missing and the chain is broken. A prima donna in an orchestra would not last another day.
I love the theatre because of the wonderful coming together and team forming of a bunch of different people with different lives, deffernt personalities, histories and experience, for the successful creation of a work of art.
DB - The Vagabond
__________________
Good sailing.
********************
Chief Sitting Bull
**********************
How do you do?
--------------------------
I could speak of armies. But I don't know armies.
I could speak of ball teams. But I don't know ball teams.
I could speak of construction crews. But I don't know construction crews.
I could speak of theatre companies. And I will, because I know theatre companies.
I could speak of orchestras. And I know something about orchestras.
One of the most interesting and exciting things to me about working in the theatre most of my life was the sense of the ensemble. Everyone involved in a performance is important, from the leading player to the stage manager's second assistant. Everyone is requited to be at a specific place at every point in the play and perform a specific function, whether it's to speak a line or change a piece of scenery. A theatre company consists of a cast and a crew and they are equally important even though the audience never sees the crew. I once did a play in which I had to go off stage, get a sword and bring it back on. I had no time to go looking for it. It had to be done almost instantly. At every performance the was a young man, a member of the crew, waiting to hand me the sword.
When the cast and crew are working together as a well trained team, even emergencies can be quickly solved. In another play I had to make some drinks at an upstage bar. I had very little time to do it and one night I broke one of the glasses. Shortly after that my character left the stage for a minute. When I got off stage I told the crew member stationed there that I broke a glass, She immediately said "Okay, I'll take care of it." When the lights went up for the next scene the broken glass was gone.
On the stage the actors depend on each other to be where they are supposed to be and say what they are supposed to say so that the other actor gets the right cues for his own speech and actions. If you see a fight scene in a play it has been carefully choreographed and rehearsed so that all the actors involved know exactly what they are going to do. They depend on each other. No one gets hurt.
Ask a musician in a great orchestra and he will talk about the other musicians. They are interdependent. They have to be. The violinist listen to the flute, the flutist listens to the horn and the horn player listens to the drum. They play together. It doesn't happen by accident.
When that synergy is absent it's obvious in both theatre and music. There are some actors who are not team players. We call them "prima donnas." Some of them are well known. They will grab attention and focus, and they will not care about cooperation in the process of the performance. They will frequently get a lot of applause because of it. But what the audience doesn't see is the compensation and adaptation the rest of the company has to make, which they can do because they are a company of people working together. But with a prima donna on stage that sense of ensemble is missing and the chain is broken. A prima donna in an orchestra would not last another day.
I love the theatre because of the wonderful coming together and team forming of a bunch of different people with different lives, deffernt personalities, histories and experience, for the successful creation of a work of art.
DB - The Vagabond
__________________
Good sailing.
********************
Friday, April 24, 2009
Talent Tool 4/24/09
Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive...then do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Howard Thurman
******************
Hello. Come right in.
________________
I was doing a play in Virginia and the producer asked two of us if we would talk to a group of high school drama students who had seen the show. We both agreed and a session was set up at the high school with about 10 senior class students. They were a bright and curious group. I enjoyed meeting with them and answering their questions.
At one point one of the boys asked what life was like in theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in theatre. He answered "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly, don't think about it."
I could feel the kid's reaction so I said to him "My colleague is not being insulting. He's telling the truth." I went on to say that the theatre, as with any important venture in life, one had to go into with both feet, stomach, heart and brains. If it wasn't an unqualified desire in his life then something else was and he should keep experimenting until he found it.
I also let him know that the theatre may in fact be his life's work but that he just didn't know it yet. That he was in that class showed that he was definitely interested in acting and he should keep doing it if he wanted to and one day it might happen that his bells would ring and his lights go on and he would know "This is what I want to do for my life." I told him that might happen in the next five years, the next five weeks or the next five minutes. One never knows. But that if it doesn't happen he should keep on looking and one day it will.
I told the story of a singer I once worked with. To the age of 50 he owned a successful insurance company. His doctor told him he had to do something to exercise his throat. They both agreed singing would be a good choice, so he began taking singing lessons, Three years later he sold his business and became a full time professional singer. He was 55 when I knew him. He said that it was as if he had been asleep for half a century and suddenly came alive.
I knew another man who, in his early middle age, quit the corporate world and went to medical school because he suddenly realized that what he wanted to do, what he had to do with his life, was to deliver babies.
There are hundreds of stories like that. It usually doesn't happen in any grandiose fashion. I have described elsewhere how it happened to me as I stepped over my sister's vacuum cleaner. It's usually more like the silent, final click that opens the padlock One may not even realize it has happened. And one can't force it. But when it happens it always leads us somewhere.
Ask, seek, knock, struggle, strive, get to know yourself and one day you will find, as Beth puts it, "what floats your boat."
When you come alive you contribute to the world and make it better. It's inevitable. You can't help it.
DB - The Vagabond
________________
Sing a song to Spring, tra la.
******************
Howard Thurman
******************
Hello. Come right in.
________________
I was doing a play in Virginia and the producer asked two of us if we would talk to a group of high school drama students who had seen the show. We both agreed and a session was set up at the high school with about 10 senior class students. They were a bright and curious group. I enjoyed meeting with them and answering their questions.
At one point one of the boys asked what life was like in theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in theatre. He answered "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly, don't think about it."
I could feel the kid's reaction so I said to him "My colleague is not being insulting. He's telling the truth." I went on to say that the theatre, as with any important venture in life, one had to go into with both feet, stomach, heart and brains. If it wasn't an unqualified desire in his life then something else was and he should keep experimenting until he found it.
I also let him know that the theatre may in fact be his life's work but that he just didn't know it yet. That he was in that class showed that he was definitely interested in acting and he should keep doing it if he wanted to and one day it might happen that his bells would ring and his lights go on and he would know "This is what I want to do for my life." I told him that might happen in the next five years, the next five weeks or the next five minutes. One never knows. But that if it doesn't happen he should keep on looking and one day it will.
I told the story of a singer I once worked with. To the age of 50 he owned a successful insurance company. His doctor told him he had to do something to exercise his throat. They both agreed singing would be a good choice, so he began taking singing lessons, Three years later he sold his business and became a full time professional singer. He was 55 when I knew him. He said that it was as if he had been asleep for half a century and suddenly came alive.
I knew another man who, in his early middle age, quit the corporate world and went to medical school because he suddenly realized that what he wanted to do, what he had to do with his life, was to deliver babies.
There are hundreds of stories like that. It usually doesn't happen in any grandiose fashion. I have described elsewhere how it happened to me as I stepped over my sister's vacuum cleaner. It's usually more like the silent, final click that opens the padlock One may not even realize it has happened. And one can't force it. But when it happens it always leads us somewhere.
Ask, seek, knock, struggle, strive, get to know yourself and one day you will find, as Beth puts it, "what floats your boat."
When you come alive you contribute to the world and make it better. It's inevitable. You can't help it.
DB - The Vagabond
________________
Sing a song to Spring, tra la.
******************
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hindering Hierarchy 2/15/09
Always listen to experts.
They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
Robert Heinlein
*******************************
Happy Sunday to you.
___________________________
I grew up in a very negative environment, at home and at school. I was always being told not to do something, or that I wasn't ready to do something, that I didn't understand or wasn't good enough or smart enough to do something. So I tried to believe it. I had a generally negative attitude about everything and I spent a lot of my youth convincing other people that they couldn't do things. I am deeply sorry for all of the less than courageous ones I convinced of the pointlessness of their desires and hopes.
When I came across people who listened to me and then went on do to the thing I was sure they couldn't do, I was resentful and to justify myself was critical of them and their efforts
I'm glad to say that as I grew into manhood I slowly saw the error of my ways and stopped being a dissuader. I was observing people who were accomplishing things that other people said couldn't or shouldn't be done. And after a while I became a doer of impossible tasks, in small ways, myself. And every time I did I was delighted with myself. That feeling of the joy of accomplishment took me to the other side and made me start to persuade folks to go for the things that seemed impossible. There was one very important event that caused me to become a permanent encourager. And here it is.
I worked for a year at a theatre company that toured schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions. We performed a one act play, about 20 minutes long, and then held a discussion with the audience. Our audiences were groups that went from kindergarten to senior centers. One of the plays required a musical score. The director asked me to compose one. It was a strange score with bits and pieces of music and some sound effects.
When the discussions came the director would frequently turn questions back by saying "What do you think?" There were often questions about the musical score and various opinions were expressed. One day we played at a junior high school in a state I won't name. After we finished and were packing up to leave a boy came up to me and said that he liked the music and told me what he thought it meant. But then he said he was probably wrong because he was a "G" class student, or something like that, and therefore couldn't really understand those things. I boiled.
I was standing on a platform about a foot above him. I jumped off of it, stood in front of him and said that his explanation of the score was approximately what I had in mind when I composed it, which was true. Then I put my hands on his shoulders and said "Don't you ever let anyone ever tell you that you are incapable of understanding something ever again in your life!"
I will never forget that experience. Sitting here right now at my computer typing this story a great feeling of sadness is building up in me. I can only hope that fellow took my words to heart, that not too many students were harmed and that the state in question has discarded it's barbaric policy of classifying kids.
DB
------------------------------------------
Try out a smile on yourself today, and see if it works.
They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
Robert Heinlein
*******************************
Happy Sunday to you.
___________________________
I grew up in a very negative environment, at home and at school. I was always being told not to do something, or that I wasn't ready to do something, that I didn't understand or wasn't good enough or smart enough to do something. So I tried to believe it. I had a generally negative attitude about everything and I spent a lot of my youth convincing other people that they couldn't do things. I am deeply sorry for all of the less than courageous ones I convinced of the pointlessness of their desires and hopes.
When I came across people who listened to me and then went on do to the thing I was sure they couldn't do, I was resentful and to justify myself was critical of them and their efforts
I'm glad to say that as I grew into manhood I slowly saw the error of my ways and stopped being a dissuader. I was observing people who were accomplishing things that other people said couldn't or shouldn't be done. And after a while I became a doer of impossible tasks, in small ways, myself. And every time I did I was delighted with myself. That feeling of the joy of accomplishment took me to the other side and made me start to persuade folks to go for the things that seemed impossible. There was one very important event that caused me to become a permanent encourager. And here it is.
I worked for a year at a theatre company that toured schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions. We performed a one act play, about 20 minutes long, and then held a discussion with the audience. Our audiences were groups that went from kindergarten to senior centers. One of the plays required a musical score. The director asked me to compose one. It was a strange score with bits and pieces of music and some sound effects.
When the discussions came the director would frequently turn questions back by saying "What do you think?" There were often questions about the musical score and various opinions were expressed. One day we played at a junior high school in a state I won't name. After we finished and were packing up to leave a boy came up to me and said that he liked the music and told me what he thought it meant. But then he said he was probably wrong because he was a "G" class student, or something like that, and therefore couldn't really understand those things. I boiled.
I was standing on a platform about a foot above him. I jumped off of it, stood in front of him and said that his explanation of the score was approximately what I had in mind when I composed it, which was true. Then I put my hands on his shoulders and said "Don't you ever let anyone ever tell you that you are incapable of understanding something ever again in your life!"
I will never forget that experience. Sitting here right now at my computer typing this story a great feeling of sadness is building up in me. I can only hope that fellow took my words to heart, that not too many students were harmed and that the state in question has discarded it's barbaric policy of classifying kids.
DB
------------------------------------------
Try out a smile on yourself today, and see if it works.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Kinetic Knack 11/24/08
Life is a great big canvas, throw all the paint on it you can.
Danny Kaye
**********************
About 20 years ago a friend decided to make a master resume of my professional life. I still have it. It is many pages long because I did so many different things. I went to kitchens, gardens, stages, studios, pools, band shells, offices, lecture halls, class rooms, street corners, prisons, auditoriums, orchestra pits, ball rooms, church basements, book stores, bell towers, subway stations, senior centers, insane asylums, playgrounds, press rooms and others: the twisting trail of a vagabond trying to make a buck. My paint box was very complex.
The artist Robert Motherwell created many interesting paintings for many years using only black on white. And I have seen other artists create amazing, magical things with nothing but a piece of paper and a pencil. It just goes to prove the old rusty adage that says it doesn't matter what you use it's what you do with it that counts.
Life is an opportunity as well as everything else it is. Or rather, it's a vast, inexhaustible string of opportunities to do amazing things. But those things require vigor and enthusiasm no matter what's in your paint box. Notice that Kaye says "throw" not dab or fiddle. After the throw comes the time to shape, form and carefully arrange
I think the secret is love. If you love what you're doing you will throw it at the canvas, at life. Most of all I was a performer. That's what I loved, and whether it was music, broadcasting or theatre I would do it anytime, anywhere, even on a street corner or in a band shell. And I always knew when I was with my kind of people because when they weren't on stage they were standing in the wings watching the show.
DB - The Vagabond
Danny Kaye
**********************
About 20 years ago a friend decided to make a master resume of my professional life. I still have it. It is many pages long because I did so many different things. I went to kitchens, gardens, stages, studios, pools, band shells, offices, lecture halls, class rooms, street corners, prisons, auditoriums, orchestra pits, ball rooms, church basements, book stores, bell towers, subway stations, senior centers, insane asylums, playgrounds, press rooms and others: the twisting trail of a vagabond trying to make a buck. My paint box was very complex.
The artist Robert Motherwell created many interesting paintings for many years using only black on white. And I have seen other artists create amazing, magical things with nothing but a piece of paper and a pencil. It just goes to prove the old rusty adage that says it doesn't matter what you use it's what you do with it that counts.
Life is an opportunity as well as everything else it is. Or rather, it's a vast, inexhaustible string of opportunities to do amazing things. But those things require vigor and enthusiasm no matter what's in your paint box. Notice that Kaye says "throw" not dab or fiddle. After the throw comes the time to shape, form and carefully arrange
I think the secret is love. If you love what you're doing you will throw it at the canvas, at life. Most of all I was a performer. That's what I loved, and whether it was music, broadcasting or theatre I would do it anytime, anywhere, even on a street corner or in a band shell. And I always knew when I was with my kind of people because when they weren't on stage they were standing in the wings watching the show.
DB - The Vagabond
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