beautiful, funny, sad & true

Last week was super busy, so now I finally have a spare moment to sit, and process, and also to get you up to speed.

Wednesday night was the first play-reading group we’ve had since Tossed In tossed in the towel on leading the group. A handful of us have been persistent about keeping the group going, and after about two months, we finally managed to make it happen. We read the script for the movie My Dinner With Andre.

It was an amazing evening. A few of us were die-hard fans of the movie, and knew our favorite parts almost by heart, and a few of us had never seen or heard of the movie, so it made for a particularly interesting discussion. I really should say ‘discussions’, because we stopped many times along the way to switch to different readers, and to discuss the section that we’d just finished reading.

A couple of us had our favorite sections that we really wanted to read. I read Andre’s section about the Little Prince and about how New York is the new model for concentration camps, and Matt read Wally’s introduction, his argument near the end, and his ending monologue. We all discussed different ideas for staging this work as a play, and the various ways we could bring the various scenes to life, while still retaining the feel of a dinner. It was an amazing evening, and a passionate discussion all the way around.

Afterwards, Matt, Lindsay and I went to Squeez for a drink. I really should say ‘another drink’, because we’d already had plenty at the reading. We shared some quesadillas and continued the discussion about the play and about various other things.

Matt was too shy to want his picture taken that night. I tried to surreptitiously snap a picture of him and Lindsay while they were at the bar ordering, but the picture didn’t come out. Not that these did especially well, but the other ones are even worse, I promise you. I love the colors inside Squeez. It’s just a really cool, comfortable place to meet with your friends.

Oh, and for the record, I’m lucky enough to have found a very special copy of the script for MDWA. . .it was autographed in 1982, by both Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, AND it’s inscribed to someone here in Portland. A bunch of years ago, I went looking for the script, and finally found it at HugestBookseller. I decided to wait, however, and felt that another one would turn up, despite the fact that I had already been fruitlessly searching for it for years. No matter, I had a hunch.

The next day I went to Powell’s (even though I’d checked there countless times before) and sure enough, I was rewarded with this:

Talk about synchronicity. . .which fits in perfectly with the themes of the script, too. The autograph picture I left at higher resolution, so you can read what they wrote. I love it.

I first saw the movie when I lived in Yakima, at the age of twenty-four, and was mesmerized by it. I instantly went and tried to find out as much as I could about both of the guys, and all of the references they made to actors, directors, books, plays. . .everything. Jerzy Grotowski, The Master and Maragarita, The Little Prince, I couldn’t wait to understand what they were talking about. For the record, not a single one of my friends shared my enthusiasm for this movie. I raved about it, and even made a few people watch it, but they got bored and gave up after a few minutes. (I think this has something to do with the adage, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’)

Anyway, it’s one of my all-time favorites, and it also introduced me to the Little Prince, which to this day I re-read every year or two, and I’ve probably had to buy ten or twelve copies of it over the years, because I’ve loaned so many out and never gotten them back. That’s okay, in this instance, because the story is so beautiful that I want everyone to read it, and I hope that they get as much out of it as I have.

And I have my friends Wally and Andre to thank for it.

I woke up yesterday to find that my phone had been shut off. Yesterday I took the day off from work to play a noontime gig with Breanna and the band down in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

I decided to take the MAX commuter train downtown, because Pioneer Square is one of its stops, and parking downtown can be tricky and expensive. So I drove to the stop and carried the cello and accordion on board the train. Two stops later, we all had to exit the train and cram onto a waiting bus, because the bridge over which the train travels is closed this month for repairs. It wasn’t fun trying to get two large instruments onto an already crowded bus, let me tell you. Not to mention the screaming kids and obnoxious people. When we arrived across the river, we all exited the bus and got back on a MAX train to follow its regular route. The exhausting trip took forty-five minutes, and it normally takes fifteen.

So then we played our gig, which was great. It was well-attended, and we sold a whole bunch of CD’s.

Came home afterwards via the exhausting and circuitous train-bus-train route. By this time, it was about ninety degrees outside. I finally got home, drenched in sweat. I had an e-mail waiting for me from J saying that PhoneCompany’s service was down for a while yesterday, so it wasn’t my phone after all. What a relief!

I took a nap and then went to meet J for sushi. She came over afterwards, and we watched an episode of Planet Earth; it was the episode about how the climate is changing drastically and rapidly, and how we are losing species (sometimes in as little as ten or fifteen years) and completely destroying the natural environment. It was very informative and influential, and it was good to be reminded about many of those things, which we tend to forget about in our daily lives.

Incidentally. . .for the record. . .I try to do my part by living near enough to where I work that I don’t need to drive, and where I can easily ride my bike, walk, or take public transportation to the places that I need to go. There have been many years where I didn’t own a car. I’ve always owned economical cars, including the one I have now. I don’t eat very much meat. I choose to live in a small apartment in the city, as opposed to a sprawling suburb. I don’t intend to have children. I try not to use disposable things when I have permanent options. These are all choices that I feel make a big difference in both the quality of life, and minimize the effects of my existence on this planet, but I still have a long way to go, and there are plenty of things that I can still do to make a difference for this little and unique planet.

So. After that, I got a call from JBJ saying that Jaime and Becky (whose CD I played on) were playing an impromptu show, so I texted Becky to say that I was going to be there, and it would be very easy for me to bring my cello with me. She thought that sounded great, so I ended up going down to join them at eight o’clock. The show was awesome, and the two other performers, Galveston and Justin Power, were amazing as well. I recommend that you check all of them out

I have another daytime gig with Breanna today, actually, so I’m going downtown again in an hour to load our equipment onto the Portland Spirit cruise ship. This is going to be a really fun gig; I’ve played it once before, last summer. It’s a lot of work, and it’s an all-day affair, but it’s just. . .totally great. I’m really honored to have such good opportunities to play with such good people.

Tonight the plan is for more J time, and then I need to do laundry and pack for the annual trip to Cannon Beach with Mom, Stepdad, and Brother and his family tomorrow morning. I’ll be staying for the weekend, until Sunday afternoon, when I’m driving back and then going to see a play at night.

SoOoOoO, it’s all a bit of a blur, but at least now you know why things have been a little quieter than usual around here lately. I’ll have my computer with me at the beach, so I should be able to check in from there too.

But now, it’s time to take a shower and get downtown to the boat.

OneYearAgo

Yesterday after work, my friend Blaine came to meet me at my place, where we switched to my car and drove to Seaside to meet Chris and Nicole, who live in GoldenGateCity. You remember them, they got married this last spring. Anyway, they were up in Seaside (Oregon, that is; there’s a Seaside in GoldenState also) for the entire week. They stopped in to see me at my place on their way up, and I recruited Blaine to join me when I went over to visit them last night. We had a blast listening to a funny CD we made about a million years ago, and laughing like hyenas the entire way.

It was sunny and ninety degrees when we left Portland, but when we arrived at the coast it was cold and fairly crappy. This is the norm on the Oregon coast, and I’ve learned to be prepared with a hoodie or something, no matter what time of year it is.

The terrible picture is from my phone, by the way. There’s a huge amateur volleyball tournament happening this weekend (Sarah in NYC? You gonna be there?), so there are nets everywhere on the beach, as well as a smallish stage. We met Chris and Nicole and went to sushi at a pretty decent Japanese restaurant called Tora. After that, we headed back to their time-share, which is the same one that Chris’s parents and siblings (and siblings’ kids) were staying in, so we went to their parents’ place to say hello to everyone.

We all talked and laughed, and at around 10:00, Blaine and I drove the hour and a half back to Portland. Again, we had a great time talking and laughing, but the drive was more difficult this time. It was foggy through the mountains, and we saw a coyote or something in the road at one point. Once we were in the city limits, around 11:45, there was a huge wreck in the opposite direction of the highway, which looked like a motorcycle was involved. There were lots of police cars, and at least one ambulance, and traffic was completely stopped.

We got home and I went in and went to bed, but Blaine still had to drive himself back to his house, which is about half an hour’s drive, in Vancouver’s NorthernSuburb. Incidentally, I’d like to give a ‘shout out’ to Blaine, who said that he reads my blog in the morning on his PDA, while sitting on the toilet. No doubt some would say that’s the only appropriate place to be while reading blogs, but as far as I’m concerned, wherever you want to read from is fine by me.

OneYearAgo

Tonight I played a show with Breanna and the band at the Doug Fir, and the stars must have been in perfect alignment or something, because this show was absolutely transcendent.  The band consisted of all the usual suspects, but we hadn’t ever played in this particular instrumental lineup before (DrummerAndy, BassistChris, ViolinistKarlee, AccordionistSlashCellistMe, and Breanna and Justin singing and playing their acoustic guitars), but it really felt great.  Nights like this are what playing music is all about.

Breanna got a glowing write-up in the Willamette Week, too.  Someone handed it around while we were back in the green room eating dinner.

I hope someone took pictures, or videos, or something.  I wish everyone could have seen this show.

Surely you can spare four minutes to watch something so beautiful.