beautiful, funny, sad & true

My head hurts from laughing so hard.

Just got home from rehearsal for the plays. I say ‘plays’ because in about a month, we’re going to be having a night of six short plays, for your pleasure.

I say ‘we’ because I will actually be playing accordion and piano (and maybe cello or something) as incidental music between the acts, actual music for one of the actual plays, and I’m actually playing the actual accordion in one of the actual plays (in which I even have an actual speaking line!).

I say ‘pleasure’ because that is the feeling you will be overwhelmed by if you come to see this show. Allow me to elucidate.

There are six plays in this particular show:

One–written by a member of the reading group–involves a writer’s struggle to create; one explores the nature of how much information is too much to share with a new love; one is a touching story of a father and a son; one–written by another member of the reading group–explores the nature of predator and prey, and involves both goldfish and marijuana; one is the story of the hijinks that ensue when staunchly feminist Amazon women encounter a handsome male ‘diplomat’ in the jungle; and the play I’m in is the story of a girl who wears a coat that’s made out of meat.

If all of this doesn’t sound enticing to you, then gawd help you. I’m honored and thrilled to be a part of this production. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that this is Theatah At Its Finest. The show will be on April 12th, and costs a mere ten dollars. Contact me by any means necessary if you’d like to come. If you leave a comment here on BFST, I’ll have your e-mail address.

And now I’m home, eating dinner and enjoying what I like to call a Crash Day, where I stay home and completely unwind after an insanely busy couple of weeks of work, rehearsals, gigs, and socializing. Special thanks to Maddy for making the trek down from Seattle to come to the awesome Stephanie gig last night, and for bringing me some DVD’s of a show I’ve been wanting to see for a year.

And now it’s time to start watching said DVD’s of said show. The Crash begins now.

Oh, and hey. . .here’s the first actual incarnation of OneYearAgo!

Last night’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration was a total blast.

Played accordion with that pseudo-Irish group I play with occasionally, and I have to say that we totally rocked the house.  The other two bands were total yawners and will remain nameless–partially because I don’t even know their names!–but we had the place packed and the people dancing and singing.  The violinist and I did a bit of Irish dancing too, if you can call what we did ‘dancing.’  Try doing that jig thingy where you jump up and cross your legs behind you while wearing a forty-pound accordion, and after drinking two glasses of wine.  Good times.  My legs and shoulders are certainly sore today!

One guy in the front of the crowd noticed us sweating up there, and seemed to take it upon himself to cool us off by using his straw to spit mouthfuls of cold soda on each of us.  You could tell that he wasn’t doing it in a malicious way, but I’ve never seen anybody do that before, ever.  Gross, but still kinda funny at the same time.  Jeez, dude, if you’re that worried about our hydration, grab us some glasses of water instead of spitting on us.  But whatever.  All is forgiven.

Tonight and tomorrow are rehearsals for StephBand.  Friday is our first show in six months, because Steph was so laid out after masterminding the Uganda shows, and then she spent the next few months collaborating with an electronica guy.  We get to hear on Friday what they’ve been cooking up all this time.  Can’t wait.  And can’t wait to play with everyone again.  I can’t believe that six months have already passed.

Incidentally, I’d like to express my gratitude to those of you who wrote and commented on my previous post about using powers for good.   It seems that I needed to be reminded of a few things, and to take some of the pressure off of myself again.  And incidentally, when Bill Cosby’s name is invoked in a discussion like that, it stirs up things deep inside me, you know?  I was raised on Cos, and to this day I think he’s brilliant and under-appreciated.

So that’s what’s what.  I’m off to rehearsal!

I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week, where writing is concerned. It seems that lots of people are criticizing blogging lately, which I find has left me feeling a bit tongue-tied. I want to make each post Beautiful and Funny and Sad and True, but sometimes that’s a tall order to fill.

The other side of that feeling is that it’s a new one for me. It’s only since I switched over to this new page and got my own domain name and all that. For some reason, I’ve felt much more self-conscious about the things that I write, which I never felt before. Part of the self-consciousness has to do with a certain blog stalker, too. If you’ve never experienced someone crapping all over your online life before, let me just tell you that it really sucks, and that you should count yourself lucky. It has affected my writing in ways I can’t even begin to describe, which is completely abhorrent and unacceptable to me. AND it really pisses me off.

Ironically–and, as if to add insult to injury–as soon as I finished writing that last paragraph, one of my friends actually called to ask me if he could use my picture in a fake profile, so that he could write inflammatory things online.

“No, absolutely not. My stalker did that.”

“Oh, dude, you’re right. . .I’m sorry. I totally forgot; that’s verboten.”

“Yeah, man, you’re on your own on that. Use a picture of Darth Vader or something; anything. Online identities are not to be messed with.”

“Well, that’s the whole point of a fake profile, is for it to look like a real person. . .”

Well, that may be the point of a fake profile, but it’s not what I stand for, and it’s not the point of How To Be a Decent Human Being.

The point of being a decent human being is this; if you have something to say, don’t hide behind anonymity, or pretend to be another person, just be honest. You don’t need to blast the other person out of the water. Honest doesn’t mean ‘nasty’, or ‘insulting’, or ‘character-defaming’, it doesn’t mean ‘ad hominem‘, and it doesn’t mean ‘brutal’, it just means. . .well, here’s a definition that I like:

Honesty is the human quality of communicating and acting truthful and with fairness, as best one is able. It is related to truth as a value. This includes listening, reasoning and any action in the human repertoire — as well as speaking.

That’s a good–dare I say ‘honest’?–definition of honesty.

And a word of warning; not only do you have to be honest about what you say, but also about your motivations for saying things, because if you aren’t honest about that, you may get some unforeseen repercussions, or consequences, for your statements. This is why you need to be careful.

We all leave impressions everywhere we go, and I try very hard to make my impressions positive ones. Not all of them are–I admit that–but I think that the vast majority of them are.

And now, may I take this opportunity to urge you to use your powers for Good in this world. Life is hard enough, without having to deal with any more negativity.

Tonight two great things happened, and two funny things also happened.

Great Thing #1: Had the first rehearsal for the play that will be performed in April, in which I prominently play the accordion, and may end up even speaking a line. Yes, it’s true. I almost took a few pictures, but I figured it was too early in the process, and it would’ve been too disruptive. We all met in an empty loft-type space (and by loft I mean 1980’s, gray-carpeted loft-type space) to start blocking, and moving around, and trying music, and getting a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Total blast. This production is going to be hilarious and awe-inspiring.

Great Thing #2: The original post-rehearsal plan was to meet at Yoko’s, but as we were driving in our caravan over there, we found out that they weren’t seating people anymore, so we went to Dot’s instead. At first I was disappointed, but once Lindsey and I got our black bean quesadilla, suddenly the clouds parted and the metaphorical sun shone through, and I forgot all about Yoko’s. Yum.

Funny thing #1: As Tossed In (my new favorite nickname for T. Austin) and I walked out the door, he kinda lost his balance on the ramp outside the door. I did fine. Number of drinks he had: zero. Number of drinks I had: two. We continued on, in the direction of our respective vehicles, and when it was time to go our separate ways, we gave each other a hug like we always do. This time was different, though, in that I got an errant knee to the groin in the process. Again; number of drinks he had: zero. Hilarious, and also painful.

Funny thing #2: The second I parked my car in front of my apartment building, Astor Piazzolla (FlutistSusan’s white cat) ran over and jumped up onto the hood of my car, and looked in at me through the windshield. I hadn’t even been there long enough to turn the engine off yet, and he was right there to say hello.

And now it’s time to go to bed.

I’ve been feeling really good lately.

Lots of good musical things happening, including two amazing recording projects and one play production in which I’ll be playing the accordion at least, but probably some other things as well. It promises to be a great time.

Been laying low these last few days, to recuperate from the busy and exhausting weekend. I’ve also been planning the next installment of the 80’s hard rock blog thingy I’m working on, for fun.

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone this week, too. Lots of planning, and talking, and re-connecting, for some reason. It always seems to happen at the same time.

I had a funny thing happen a couple of days ago, which reminded me of something funny that happened twenty years ago. Someone on my street owns a really nice old Mustang. I’m not much of a muscle car guy–I’m more of a ’60’s and ’70’s European guy (the BMW 2002 is my favorite car)–but I always appreciate a nice car that someone has loved and restored.

So. I parked behind this particular Mustang the other night when I got home late, and the street was unusually full of cars. Blame it on my sleepiness from the Daylight Savings Time adjustment, blame it on whatever you want, but when I went to go to work in the morning, I found out the hard way that I had left my car in first instead of in reverse, like I usually do. So I went forward when I expected to go backward, and I sorta almost hit the Mustang. I DIDN’T, but I’m just saying it was close.

That reminded me of a time back in 1989 when my friend Blaine and I were going to a school to do some location scouting for one of our band’s videos. He parked his little white Honda behind a really nice, flashy, purple muscle car. We walked across the street from a grade school, and Blaine noticed that he was parked too far away from the curb or something–I don’t remember the details–but for some reason I ended up going back to move his car. Since the road was at a slight incline, I opened the door, leaned in, released the parking brake, and reached my leg in to engage the clutch, so that the car would roll forward slightly. I did it more by feel than by sight, because most stick-shift cars are the same, but after the car had rolled a few feet, I really should have looked instead of relying on my angle-guessing, because I kept pushing on the clutch pedal instead of the brake pedal. This meant that Blaine’s Honda rolled about ten feet and then banged into the back of the pristine muscle car.

It took about one second for the car’s owner to come storming out of his house. He ran out the front door, across the lawn, and right over to the open driver’s side window and pointed at his car, yelling, “Hey! That’s the ’85 Hot Rod champion!!” There wasn’t any damage to Blaine’s Honda, and the only damage to the ’85 Hot Rod Champion was a tiny little crack in one of its two-inch round tail light covers, luckily. No real harm done, so I just apologized profusely, and told him how beautiful we both thought his car was, and the guy let us go on our merry way.

Oh, and a few years ago, when I had my little green Toyota truck, I rear-ended a Camaro when the driver stopped too suddenly–in in the middle of the block!–near the Lloyd Center mall to let some girls cross the street in front of him. Nice. The crash put a little scratch on his bumper, but really smashed up the front of my truck.

Apparently I have more of a problem with muscle cars than I realized; it seems that my subconscious is out to single-handedly destroy them all.