This is What I was Afraid Of

More theatre in my life, less time and attention to ye olde 'blogge. Oh sweet 'blog, I want not for thee to be a mere band-aid for my theatrical ego. Whist! Whist! 'Zwounds! Other archaic exclamations! Be true to me, mine 'blog, and I shall carry thee onward like that guy in the sandy footprints poster!

In lieu of my own writing, I present you with some text I'm using as part of my "homework assignment" for

The Torture Project

, which renews its vow to become a real show someday--no strings attached--this evening. The following are terms and definitions harvested from the Grand Old

D.O.D.

I've already begun editing them for the piece I'm presenting tonight, so the "See also" portions at the end do not necessarily reflect the actual references on the website.

unaccounted for — An inclusive term (not a casualty status) applicable to personnel whose person or remains are not recovered or otherwise accounted for following hostile action. Commonly used when referring to personnel who are killed in action and whose bodies are not recovered. See also casualty status.

casualty status — A term used to classify a casualty for reporting purposes. There are seven casualty statuses: (1) deceased; (2) duty status - whereabouts unknown; (3) missing; (4) very seriously ill or injured; (5) seriously ill or injured; (6) incapacitating illness or injury; and (7) not seriously injured. See also casualty type.

casualty type — A term used to identify a casualty for reporting purposes as either a hostile casualty or a nonhostile casualty. See also prisoner of war.

prisoner of war — A detained person as defined in Articles 4 and 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949. In particular, one who, while engaged in combat under orders of his or her government, is captured by the armed forces of the enemy. As such, he or she is entitled to the combatant’s privilege of immunity from the municipal law of the capturing state for warlike acts which do not amount to breaches of the law of armed conflict. For example, a prisoner of war may be, but is not limited to, any person belonging to one of the following categories who has fallen into the power of the enemy: a member of the armed forces, organized militia or volunteer corps; a person who accompanies the armed forces without actually being a member thereof; a member of a merchant marine or civilian aircraft crew not qualifying for more favorable treatment; or individuals who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces. Also called POW or PW.See also hostage.

hostage — A person held as a pledge that certain terms or agreements will be kept. (The taking of hostages is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions, 1949.)See also missing/MIA.

missing — A casualty status for which the United States Code provides statutory guidance concerning missing members of the Military Services. Excluded are personnel who are in an absent without leave, deserter, or dropped-from-rolls status. A person declared missing is categorized as follows. a. beleaguered — The casualty is a member of an organized element that has been surrounded by a hostile force to prevent escape of its members. b. besieged — The casualty is a member of an organized element that has been surrounded by a hostile force, compelling it to surrender. c. captured — The casualty has been seized as the result of action of an unfriendly military or paramilitary force in a foreign country. d. detained — The casualty is prevented from proceeding or is restrained in custody for alleged violation of international law or other reason claimed by the government or group under which the person is being held. e. interned — The casualty is definitely known to have been taken into custody of a nonbelligerent foreign power as the result of and for reasons arising out of any armed conflict in which the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged. f. missing — The casualty is not present at his or her duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons and whose location is unknown. g. missing in action — The casualty is a hostile casualty, other than the victim of a terrorist activity, who is not present at his or her duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons and whose location is unknown. Also called MIA. See also duty status – whereabouts unknown.

duty status - whereabouts unknown — A transitory casualty status, applicable only to military personnel, that is used when the responsible commander suspects the member may be a casualty whose absence is involuntary, but does not feel sufficient evidence currently exists to make a definite determination of missing or deceased. Also called DUSTWUN. See also casualty status.

I wish to make it clear that, in spite of the themes of

The Torture Project

, I believe our military system is one of the best in the world. Any beaurocracy is going to have the silliness of acronyms and the categorization of terrible or ridiculous statuses. It's unavoidable. I admire the spirit of our country that creates such a furor over retrieving POWs and accounting for every MIA soldier; it's not like that everywhere.

I'm building something of a clown piece around this text (in, like, the next five hours) and though that may make it seem like I am taking lightly something horribly serious, I assure you that is not all that is going to happen. One of the fascinating things about red-nose clown, as I was trained in it, is that everything that happens must have personal resonance and be dire for the clown to function properly. To go even further with it, and brutally paraphrase much greater artists, what the audience responds to in the clown is the clown's plight, or even misery.

Because, whatever else, the clown keeps fighting.

Car! . . . Game on!

Five bucks to the first person who can name the movie quote.

I'm here today, folks, to talk about an addiction. My usual methods of coping with an addiction are two-fold:

1. Keep all resources and enablement as far away from me as possible; or
2. Indulge it.

The first is what I do with cookies and ice cream. Most of the time. The second is what I do with things like theatre, circus, etc., which, though legal, are often more difficult to attain than certain controlled substances. I practice "TYPE 1" coping with a number of things, not the least of which is television. I have no cable service, and a roommate who is okay with that. I've never attached an antenna to my TV. The only thing attached to it is my DVD player, and I'm seriously considering locking my DVDs in a time-sensitive safe that only opens on weekend evenings. This may seem excessive to you, but I assure you, it comes of self-awareness. And it always surprises me when I am praised for my discipline; for anything, really. Because it ain't discipline

.

Nosce te ipsum

. That's my only "discipline." If I am successful in working out regularly, it has more to do with circumstances that I can manipulate to make it easier for me than it does with any great, internal control. If I am at all impressive in my dedication to pursuing acting, it is as much because I have made my life so it's harder without the theatre, as it is because I feel theatre on a deeper level than some. It's choices, hopefully wise ones. I suppose maybe that's all discipline really is--a series of helpful choices.

My point? I have no point. (Haven't you been reading my 'blog long enough to know that?) But my purpose is to reveal that I have accidentally tripped over TYPE 1 into TYPE 2 on an old addiction. My circumstance became less helpful, I wasn't vigilant enough, and one thing led to another. Thus, I am indulging, once again, in that most insidious addiction:

Games.

More specifically:

Video games.

I know.

I know

. Therein does not lie the most productive use of my time! In point of fact, it is an astonishingly effective time-sucker. If you play, you know what I mean. You sit to play, maybe an hour, and when you look blearily up from your electronic pursuit, it's dawn. Someone is poking you in the head, making sure you aren't in a reflexive coma. Your survival instinct has been channeled into a screen for half a day, in which time your Mom has called saying she's fallen and she can't get up, and you didn't hear it because you thought it was the aliens firing plasma at your sidekick. The last time I was this plugged-in to the gaming world was when I was about 14, playing a

D&D game

in the basement (you flew dragons; it was really cool) while listening to Nirvana on my grandfather's

single-speaker cassette player

.

How did I come to this prepubescent nexus? A variety of factors are involved:

1. Friend D. Younce started emailing me about a year ago about game theory.
2. I gave unto myself a chemical epiditymitus (see 12/31/06), rendering me unable to exercise with purpose for months.
3.  
4. Friend Heather loaned me "Catch-22" to read.
5.  
6. Friend Adam got an XBox 360.
7. Friend Mark started playing "City of Heroes" again, and had my account reactivated so we could play together.
8. Friend D. Younce got his own "CoH" account and created a character to sidekick my own.

Perhaps you're wondering what Joseph Heller's immortal classic of war-time bureaucracy "Catch-22" has to do with my current plight. Well, I hate it. I am not enjoying it at all. This must be

my

problem, for it is widely acknowledged as hysterically funny. My feeling is that it excels with great vigor at telling the same joke ad nauseum.

War doesn't make sense, and neither do people, and we'll never, ever, stop.

I know: It doesn't even have a fart in it. Nevertheless, I am compelled to finish it. I only have 100 more pages to go. One hundred unrelenting pages, just sitting there, getting read four or five pages at a time. But oh, here's that

GameBoy Advance

dear Megan got me two years ago. So portable. So full of colored light patterns bent on my destruction...

So here I am, visiting Adam way up in Washington Heights to play "Gears of War," coming back home to sit at my laptop to play "City of Heroes," and during the subway ride I make Luke Skywalker my avatar for our journey through the only three Star Wars movies that matter. I am the addicted. I am the damned.

But it will pass (God, please make it pass). Because when all's said and done, I'd much rather be rehearsing a play or bettering my handstand, which is why the guilt. If I were "normal," and had a 9-5 job, and after I paid the bills could afford sections of time to save the virtual world, I doubt I would have this complex. But mine is not the "normal" life, and my "free" time is needed for a variety of pursuits, such as mailing resumes/headshots/cover letters, rehearsing audition pieces, networking and learning at long last how to do a kip-up. Hence: guilt.

But it's not rewardless. Sure, it's easy and artificial and time-consuming, but the game(s) has changed since I started wondering what it would be like to kiss a girl. Last night, for example, I signed on to "CoH" and discovered Youncey online. He lives in NoVa, and I see him maybe twice a year, if I'm lucky. And last night our heroic personae, Peppah (yours truly) and Salt Shakah (his, truly) got their asses whupped together for a couple of hours. Having a reason to see Adam more frequently than whenever the latest kung fu movie comes out is also great, and we end up talking about his stand-up comedy and my commedia dell'arte more than we might otherwise.

So all that remains (when my "discipline" kicks back in) is to sell my GameBoy on eBay. Maybe with the funds I can afford the Cliffs Notes on "Catch-22" . . .

It's kind of Cold Here

Understatement is an unheralded art form. Because it would defeat the purpose of the form, wouldn't it? Ironic. Actually, that's not ironic. It's somewhat self-fulfilling and wry, but irony, strictly speaking, is the statement of meaning opposite of the words one uses. The vilest form being emoticon irony, i.e. "I freaking hate you, you bastard. ;D " Actually, the emoti-wink eviscerates the irony too, making it more of an aside. It would be more apt to follow up the statement with something like " =D " Statements that are merely apt are often swiftly categorized as ironic nowadays. It makes me sad. It wish it were a more remarkable occurrence. Alas, it merits only the amount of remarks I have made prior to the period at the end of this sentence.

:P!

That emoticon's tongue is actually stuck there, frozen to the exclamation point, because it is SO FREAKING COLD HERE. Friend Adam made a good call a couple of months ago, when he predicted we would reap the whirlwind following the balmy start of our winter here in sunny Manhattan. Me, I've ceased to make weather predictions beyond that it will rain whenever I'm feeling depressed. And no, there's nothing Sophistic about that. Why do you ask?

I still remember my first winter in New York. I moved here on the second of January, 2000, an eager-eyed little 22-year-old whipper-snapper, and hardly realized what I was in for . . . in so many ways. One of those ways concerned the effects of a northern city wind. At that time I had visited Chicago, and so thought I knew wind, but the consistency of the winds in Chicago is part of their mythos. Not so with NYC's zephyrs. There should be traffic lights and crossing signals for the gusts that bide their time in The Big Apple during the colder months. I've turned onto avenues before and been mind-numbed by the sudden drop in temperature. It's fun to watch tourists do as I did that first January here, namely walk the steps up from the subway and run up the last three because a powerful gale has hit their backs.

When I first arrived here, I was still clinging to this notion that there was virtue in being colder than I had to be. In part, this was to justify the wearing of my grandfather's fall coat nine months out of the year. (The other part was that mentality so many of us come at a significant challenge with: "I am going to do this no matter how

hard

it is, and it better be

pretty hard

, so I know my efforts are justified!") I loved that coat. Love, I should say, because it still hangs forlornly in my closet, never again worn. It has, to be kind, seen better days. A light, gray-brown tweed coat that comes to knee length, it was actually refurbished by my father (paid for it--not a tailor) one Christmas, and still I've worn it into the ground. There are holes in the lining, and a one developing through the tweed itself in the seat. The button holes are ragged, and the tweed is also wearing away around the collar fold and seam. Yes, I am ridiculously sentimental. Or rather, I used to be. Few things I've acquired since about 2001 have held enough intrinsic reminiscence for me to think thrice about tossing them. Still, I consider it an act of great callousness on my part not to wear the coat anymore, so giving or (NEVER) throwing it away is not an option.

I started wearing the coat in my junior or senior year of high school. I can't remember why exactly, and it was an odd choice for me, since at the time I placed a very high priority on my clothing being as jet-black as possible. (Yeah: That guy. And you're reading his 'blog.) I remember I wore it in a show, which may have been the start of it. I also remember my girlfriend at the time asking me if she could have it to wear, and my deftly giving her another of my grandfather's coats, as though that would settle the issue. (And that one was the heavier of the two; see my supposed IQ in entry

1/6/07

.) It rode across my back for years, and every year I would be eager for the temperature to dip so I had an excuse to wear it, regardless of how ineffective it was as a winter coat. That paragon of tweed traveled with me through quite a lot; more than I can reasonably sum up here.

I've shed a lot over the years since arriving here. It's an important and continuous life lesson--letting go--and nothing brings it to the pragmatic forefront quite like living in a city in which you're expected to change apartments bi-annually. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever actually learns that lesson, or if we just go through times when we're forced to accept its necessity, or choose insanity. That's a regular theme in shows I've contributed to the creation of here in the city, and with little wonder. In the resonance of 9/11, it was natural for

Kirkos

to create

Awake, My Heart

and

Requiem

, and for Joint Stock Theatre Alliance to continue work on

The Torture Project

. We've had to honor so much passing (though not the passage of irony from vogue, as so many were eager to report) that to say we're still grieving is an understatement. I know that I'm still learning about the effects that day continues to have on me as I continue to survive (and occasionally even thrive) through the losses then and since. And the lesson that keeps challenging me is how and when to let go. Because eventually, you have to. Life is growth and movement, and you can't move while clinging to one point, object, person, belief, etc....

Someday I'll give up my grandfather's coat entirely. I've already replaced it with something more suited to me as I am now (I swear to you, on my life, that I didn't intend that pun). My winter coat now is calf-length, and black, of course. It's still not the heaviest thing in the world, but I've learned to layer. I've had it a couple of years now, and the lining in the back has gotten torn at the seams (which I consider apt). For now, I continue to keep my grandfather's coat in my little New York closet. I still need it, somehow. Some part of me identifies with it more intimately than I do with anything I've worn since.

But I'm not really sentimental anymore. ;)

This Pigeon, She Limps

If you get no other lesson or nugget of wit'sdom from this here entry, please let it be this:

The FedEx/Kinko's at Astor Place is the devil.

I am not joking. "Ha ha," you think with private, interior laughter, "He is calling a

location

the

ultimate creature of evil

, which is a hyperbolic impossibility and therefore meant to induce laughter. Ha ha." Or perhaps, "Ah yes, the righteous artist, rebelling against the establishment and insidious corporations that are dug into our society like bedbugs attracted to the heat of our commerce. Rail on, my scrupulous-yet-ultimately-doomed-to-failure savant. Rail on." Or just maybe: "Dude. Chill. So they screwed up your order. It happens."

WELL THAT'S WHERE YOU'D BE WRONG! 'Cause they didn't just "screw up my order" (and don't use that tone of typography with me, mister) once or twice, but yesterday would represent the double-digit rite of passage as they rocketed from 7 to 10 incidents of humping the dignity out of me. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that yesterday was the final straw for me and ol' Astor Place FE/K's, regardless of the convenience of their location, and I encourage everyone to find a local place--where they'll learn your name, like on Cheers--for all your copying and shipping needs. Though the fine people at the 52nd Street FE/K's are quite awesome, I must admit.

Anyway. So yesterday I'm holding up the wall (and holding in my Hulk-like rage ["Don't neglect the manufacture of my brochures...you wouldn't like me when the manufacture of my brochures has been neglected...."]) outside said Kinko's establishment-o'-evil, and I espy me another injured pigeon (see

1/8/07

), this one fully legged but limping. Again I'm confronted with the question of how exactly this pigeon (or any pigeon) comes to be limping, exactly. But again, too, I'm given hope by the image. The pigeon flies perfectly well, and does so to escape an oncoming minivan. For our younger readers, a "minivan" is what "SUVs" were before Americans started playing the I'm-taller-No-I'm-taller game. See also "station wagon" and "Hummer" for further extrapolations in both directions.

Speaking of cars, Heather ended up with a

red PT Cruiser

for a rental, so we headed down to Philly in style (and I did not crush the dashboard with FedUp/Killyouse frustration) and got there in good time.

To discover that no one came to our

workshop

.

So, maybe the Gods of Copies knew something I didn't. Maybe I used up all my attendance karma at KCACTF (see

1/17/07

). Maybe it was just the "Blue Monday" factor. Apparently, January 22nd has been deemed, for a variety of factors, the most depressing day of the year (this seems wrong somehow; it's the kind of thing I'd expect to be kept track of by a lunar calendar, and thereby float over the Gregorian days, like Hanukkah; anyway:) and had Heather and I but known, we might have scheduled our workshop for another time. Instead, we taught Heather's friend Kelly some acrobalance, discussed methods of creating physical characterizations, and joked profusely over the lack of attendance. It was a good excuse to spend three hours training, and we took it. We stayed at Kelly and Diane's last night, amidst their menagerie of catsandonedog, and this morning drove back into Brooklyn, whereupon I caught the train into work here.

What's my point? I have no point. Feel free to make observations of the events herein and interpret them as you will. This is a twenty-four-hour period in the life of an actor/teacher/artist doing something related to their craft(s). But perhaps this doesn't pique your attention, blunted as it is by constant in-streaming of advertising and appetite-driven media. Very well. A dream I had...a nightmare, actually:

This was Saturday night, amidst my gloriously care-free weekend (it always is, isn't it?). It was part of a larger dream, but this is the only part I can remember:

Wait for it:

Okay:

I'm walking up a sidewalk in the Bronx. I'm on my way to some kind of party, possibly a barbecue, and I was supposed to bring meat. Ahead of me, his leash tied to a radiator outside a store front (what's a radiator doing outside?), is a medium-sized black dog. Not sure of the breed. Possibly an

Australian Kelpie

mix. (This from looking up breeds; I don't know them instinctively.) So it's suddenly imperative to me to get out my

Ginsu knife

and cut the dog into four even pieces down its back. Which I do. The dog is now held together by I know not what, and just looks at me, very sadly, ever-so-slightly whimpering. Now I'm in trouble deep, I know, because the owner is probably just inside the store. So I scoop up the severed dog, rather like how one holds a few boxes together by applying inward pressure in a two-sided grip, and run him around the corner. Now I'm in a neighborhood much more suburban looking, and possibly a cul-de-sac I knew not far from where I grew up. I put the dog down and sort of lay down with it (him, I know it's a him) in a nook of curb, semi-obstructed by trees, and think to myself "Oh man. Now I have to kill it." To put it out of its misery and so I have something to bring to the party, presumably. I decide slitting its throat is what needs to happen. (Why that's going to succeed where full-body amputations didn't, ask not me.) So I prepare to cut him...

And wake up. It might be angst over allowing the film to be cut (see

1/21/07

, "Film Debuts"). It may be about a metric tonne of guilt over some of the seemingly brutal decisions I've made in my life of late. It may just be I was hungry that night, and couldn't summon the creativity to imagine a

Royale w/ Cheese

. All in all, however, I would rather have the kind of dreams my friend Dave has:

Dave's dream.

Eva Green: Call me. We'll do lunch. I know this great

place

in the medieval quarter of Orvieto...

"You ain't shit. You ain't about nothin'."

This past September I found myself suddenly teaching filmmaking to South Bronx high school freshmen. I mean it when I say "suddenly." It ocurred with great suddeness. Ask me how it happened and I'm likely to give you a blank stare. "How what happened?" I'll ask, then blink twice, look around me and exclaim, "

There's water at the bottom of the ocean

!"

Actually, how it happened was that I returned to the city from months of travels abroad, spoke to my friend Alison and happened to mention that I wanted to continue, in the city, the teaching I had experienced elsewhere in the summer months. Bing. Bang. Alison and her roomate Briana and their friend Sam are collectively hanging with their friend Rebecca, who administers at

Wingspan Arts

and is desperately seeking a replacement. Boom. A troika of testimony on my behalf lands me an interview which lands me the job.

Of course, I owe three women my first-born child now, but somehow I think they'll barter on trade instead.

Cut to now (

must...resist...redundant...

Morphine

reference

), when I am cutting together all the raw footage my students have filmed of themsleves over the semester, head screwed on tighter, yet still slightly awhirl with the out-of-context-ness of it all. As I watch moments from class on repeat, I vividly remember the caution with which I approached this world, a lot of which caution remains for me. I clearly don't belong there. I'm not wanted. I'm not part of the community. The students and I have earned quite a bit of each others' trust over time, but we're still aware of the different worlds we come from, the worlds we'll return to when it's all over. The moment from the semester when my caution was most apparent came during an indoor basketball game.

The kids had set up the scenario that they were two groups who had a dispute and decided to settle it by playing sports (an immensely clever ploy to get to play sports every Friday). We had just moved to a basketball court indoors, pursuant to their request to move on from football. It was a heated game, with a lot of smack-talk. At first glance, I thought they were actually playing their roles for once. It gradually became clear, however, that two of the students were getting results from one another. As such things go, when it escalated the verbal arguments became much simpler and repetitive, like a chant:

"You ain't shit. You ain't about nothin'."

"So do somethin'. So do somethin', niggah. So do somethin'."

"You ain't about nothin'."

"So do somethin', niggah!"

They were ready to go, but another teacher and I pulled them apart and eventually took them to separate rooms to cool off. Once faced with the prospect of not playing any more, they managed to quiet down and rejoin the game, keeping a wary eye on one another while projecting the image that they were doing no such thing. That game ended peacefully, and in the following weeks they seemed fine with one another. I even spoke to them together last class, to survey their thoughts on whether I should include footage of their argument or not. At first they were lackadaisically mute (stock response of the teenage set), then one said he didn't care, then the other said:

"Unless it make us look good."

"Yeah! Yeah, if it good for the movie."

"Yeah."

And as I try to splice together this spat on my roommate's iBook (O, Dell, your notebooks are cheap, but yea, they are also...well, cheap.) all the same feelings of fear grip me. I have never been able to respond to real violence appropriately. I become sort of petrified. This never happens when it's a matter of violence threatened on me or my situation, rather only when others are coming to it. I don't understand it. It's like being bathed in ice water all of the sudden and frozen to the spot.

The really startling thing about rewatching the tape, however, was to notice what the two were actually saying. "You ain't about nothin'." It's devastating, isn't it? A terrible thought. And one which I believe we're all somewhat afraid of. It's horrifying to imagine that I might not be about anything, that I'm just a collection of random occurrences. I don't know; maybe some people are completely at ease with that idea. I'm not.

I've been lucky to visit these kids in part of their world, and I wish I could show them more of mine. I've got two classes left, the last being when we show their film to the rest of the school. I hope it's been about something to them. I know each of them is about something important to me.