December 24, 2024

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Oddities

The Actor’s Nightmare

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It’s been years since I’ve had the full-blown actor’s nightmare.

I awake on a picnic-strewn blanket in the center of a brightly lit stage behind a traditional proscenium in a 300 seat theater. Not only do I not know any of my lines, I do not even remember rehearsing with these people.

Early twentieth-century dress. Ah Wilderness!? Chekhov? But no, there is no improvising my way through this one. It is Shakespeare. Measure for Measure, Act II.

My blanket-mate has a copy of the text hidden in a book! But I can never find exactly where we are in the script.
As people stomp this way and that with their arguments, I realize maybe I am part of some director’s concept about the general public waiting to judge those who had down judgement from positions of power. So I start acting in that manner, a member of the jury. Until my blanket-mate suddenly stands up to become Isabella.
 
My turn to “enter” is coming but I still don’t know I am, until the action stops and people glare at me for missing my cue.
 
And then a loud demanding meow tells me I have missed my real cue and Nisa New is heralding certain death from starvation if I do not get up and put food in her bowl.
 
I awoke on a sweat-strewn blanket, feeling like I need eight hours sleep.
There are few dreams that stay with me. Some I remember from decades ago, including various renditions of the actor’s nightmare, going back to my teenage years.
Actor's Nightmare stage
Arts and Culture / TV

Dunkirk Done Right

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Today, 79 years ago, the siege at Dunkirk was at its savage height

The small screen managed to do a better job of it than the big screen

I wanted to recommend a VERY good dramatization about Dunkirk that I saw recently – and I do not mean the cinematic Twilight Zone episode that got all the hype two years ago.
 
It is a three-part mini-series (three hours in total) from 2004, which is currently on Britbox. But it may be findable elsewhere.
 
Part docudrama narrated by Timothy Dalton, part scripted drama, it gives a much better idea of what a shitstorm it really was, compared to the artistic license version we saw in the cinemas.
 
And Benedict Cumberbatch is featured in the last part, when he was just starting to be recognized as someone special. “Bennie” loses his celebrity status quickly and is truly terrific as one of the real-life lions in those dark hours.
 
Not that the 2017 film wasn’t a good movie. But as my review puts it back in the day, it was a creative way to try to tell the re-examined metaphysical tale, rather than spend the zillions required to tell the actual one.
 
And in case you haven’t seen the movie yet, my review doesn’t spoil very much at all.
 
Just Sayin / music

April is the Cruelest Month

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Funny

How I’d almost forgotten what it’s like

That buoyant highline ride across a string of performances that just won’t let you stop til it’s all done.

But after two days of wake-up, travel, play til numb, stare at alien bedroom ceiling, get up too soon after a dawn ice storm, absorb coffee and carbs, play too many hours too long but not stop even after the last video is shot, prattle on over burgers before bed, and then performing for a third day at the Martin Museum despite swollen fingers and the unexpected construction of a special presentation site for a private, deep-pocketed tour heard just off-camera, and ending up in a hotel room rented to construct our own makeshift video studio because some new Martins suddenly became available at the Distribution Center, just as I was on my way to that stage coach home, I still ended up spending Friday night back in Brooklyn, vibrating in front of my best friends while gratefully absorbing their 21-year-old Balblair and Insanely-year-old Caol Ila, and then staring at my own bedroom ceiling only to not be able sleep past 7 on Saturday, what with my girlfriend sick as a dog in Florida when I can’t take care of her, and so much back log of writing to do after the soul-crushing fatigue of my own 30-day bout of the flu has finally dissipated just in time for this past week’s trip.

And here I am on Saturday night, now after midnight, after a good sushi dinner with “super dry” hot sake, after borrowing a pre-CBS seafoam green Stratocaster, after one too many glasses of the Great Malt Which Wounds from the Isle of Skye, after Season 1 episode 2 of Grantchester, here I sit, with roommates and cat having given up long before.

And 11 hours from now I head out, Strat in hand, to the plush Battalion Studios in Gowanus for a large amplifier reunion jam with my 1990s rock band, the Cheese Beads. (And me with no ear plugs!)

I have a sneaking suspicion that sometime Monday morning I will fall off the proverbial cliff…

Until the next tour gets underway.

But at least that one will require of my fingers little beyond giving massages to some very special toes situated near, if not always on, a beach in Florida, and lapping up some sun and sea.

I’ve never been that far south before. I hear it’s nice there.

 

People and Places

Rodney Dangerfield

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So I ran into Rodney Dangerfield last night.

I had taken a wrong turn on the way to get my coat as I was leaving this this kind-of-tacky Brooklyn restaurant, half Katz, half Peter Luger’s, but modern prefab decor, fake plants, bright lighting.

Anyway, It was one of those dreams that was absolutely realistic.

Dangerfield was dining with some half dozen friends on either side of a long table with a white table cloth, and obviously most of the party had already left, as there were many empty chairs strewn about.
 
None of his companions were known to me, but they are all sort of Ray Liotta types, basic Brooklyn with business suits.
Most were a lot younger than me or old Rodney, who couldn’t have been nicer, and I was invited to sit down.
 
And even though I had already eaten there was an enormous spread that I was welcome to. He even had a little laptop or tablet that was running his Biography Channel bio that he would keep starting if someone came up to talk to him. A prince of a guy! I had many interesting talks with him in between his many well wishers and joking friends.
 
I thought it would cost me a fortune, but Rodney and one other guy split the whole enormous check and I was sent home with a bunch of deserts and an unopened beer bottle in my pocket. I decided to take a cab, which immediately got lost. And as we pulled over to figure out where we were, I woke up.
 
I got nothin’ but respect for that guy, I’ll tell ya.
History / Monday Map

Rome From Start to Finish – Monday Map

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Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

I’ll Say!

Monday Map – The History of Rome

A special birthday edition features an animated map that explores the entire history of Rome, from its earliest days as a kingdom, through the massive expansion during the Roman Republic, and on through Roman Empire, which split in two for its final tumultuous years.

Please expect to want to hit Pause and stop to look at certain moments of the timeline in detail!

I never grow tired of history or maps, and love it when they come together so very well.

Humor / Just Sayin

Birthday Weekend – Part 3 – Comfort Food

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So I go out to blow a bit of birthday money on some comfort food,

Since I am sick and all

I am proud of my restraint

I was going to get a pumpkin pie. All that vitamin A, you know.
 
But then I thought of ginger snaps, which would go well with tea.
 
And then I thought maybe some chocolate pudding, which I have not had in memory.
 
But then I saw the mini red velvet cupcakes, so I got those.
 
And the gingersnaps and the organic chocolate pudding.
 
I only got half a pumpkin pie.