1:27
In this verse, God is referred to as "He". As far back as history records, humanity has been almost entirely male-dominated. This explains why God would be conceived of as male, but such a paradigm implies inherent male spiritual superiority. The "superiority" of males has never been proven, and not for lack of trying. Through observation of nature (where both male and female dominance can be found), or through the dictates of logic and reason (which show all humans to be basically alike in intelligence and capability), there is no justification for the notion of male superiority. The impartial "eyes" of God could not view gender as a sign of lesser or greater worth, and the notion of God being male is so obviously flawed and provincial as to be unworthy of consideration.
3
According to verse 5, Adam and Eve did not possess knowledge of good or evil before they ate of the tree. Yet they were punished for choosing to eat of it. If they were not capable of distinguishing good from evil, it is preposterously unjust to punish them. Also, observations of serpents reveal no abnormally malicious subtlety, nor any uniquely "evil" characteristics, therefore it seems unreasonable to attribute to them these traits.
3:22-24
Assuming that the tree of life exists, and we never hear of it because all die who see it, it shouldn't be hard to at least prove it's possible existence, and thereby begin to verify the veracity of the Bible. First one must locate the general area of the tree by finding the one spot on the earth where people go, but never return from (Palm Springs doesn't count). Then march a single-file line of people into that area. When screams of death come from the front, give orders to turn back. The people remaining would describe what they experienced. Anyone truly seeking to prove the truth of the Bible could have done this centuries ago, yet no one's bothered. Hm.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
my dream band
If i may be indulged in a flight of fancy, inspired by Wilbury dreams...
On piano, Bruce Hornsby. For those of you who don't know him, do you recall the piano playing on "The End of the Innocence", or "I Can't Make You Love Me"? That's Bruce. He's the only pianist i know whose style is so distinct as to be instantly recognizeable.
On guitar, Mark Knopfler. Ditto for his guitar playing. The former front man of Dire Straits, he may not be the best picker ever, but with the way he expresses music, he's my pick any day of the week.
On bass, Roger Waters. He's been waiting for an opportunity like this ever since Floyd broke up, even if he didn't know it. His solo stuff has been great, but it's time to feel his one-of-a-kind presence in the context of a band again.
On drums, Don Henley. As though having Waters wasn't enough edge, let's add Henley's vocal and lyrical bite.
It was tempting to add one more player, but i think the synergy of the group would be best served with these four alone. A fifth person might fragment the band. Leave these four to stare at each other and create music that rises above their individual talents and personalities. The sound would be stripped down, with beauty and rawness both. Has there ever been a classic four-piece band with this instrumental lineup? How is it possible that i can't think of one? Of course the mind boggles at the thought of these four as collaborative songwriters, but i think the musical flavor they might create would be as memorable as the songs.
On piano, Bruce Hornsby. For those of you who don't know him, do you recall the piano playing on "The End of the Innocence", or "I Can't Make You Love Me"? That's Bruce. He's the only pianist i know whose style is so distinct as to be instantly recognizeable.
On guitar, Mark Knopfler. Ditto for his guitar playing. The former front man of Dire Straits, he may not be the best picker ever, but with the way he expresses music, he's my pick any day of the week.
On bass, Roger Waters. He's been waiting for an opportunity like this ever since Floyd broke up, even if he didn't know it. His solo stuff has been great, but it's time to feel his one-of-a-kind presence in the context of a band again.
On drums, Don Henley. As though having Waters wasn't enough edge, let's add Henley's vocal and lyrical bite.
It was tempting to add one more player, but i think the synergy of the group would be best served with these four alone. A fifth person might fragment the band. Leave these four to stare at each other and create music that rises above their individual talents and personalities. The sound would be stripped down, with beauty and rawness both. Has there ever been a classic four-piece band with this instrumental lineup? How is it possible that i can't think of one? Of course the mind boggles at the thought of these four as collaborative songwriters, but i think the musical flavor they might create would be as memorable as the songs.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Fifth of July
THEATER 22
-spring 1989
The third show of my junior year was Sandi's, a delicate, beautiful piece by Lanford Wilson. Set in an old country house in Missouri, it's a story about family, youth, growing old, giving and receiving love, and coming to grips with what we are and aren't. The writing is funny and seamless. I've never done better acting, or been in a better play. The keystone was Betty Morehouse, as Aunt Sally. She was a non-student friend of Sandi's, in her sixties, and her spunky grace enriched us in ways no student could have. Lou played Kenny, the homosexual paraplegic writer trying to come to grips with his life. A new student played his lover Judd, and their sincere, gentle chemistry was more touching than i expected. He and i got along great. Karen Paxson played Kenny's cousin, a somewhat drug-addled singer who is on the verge of her big break. Karen mixed understated and over-the-top beautifully. Jeff Bleam played her sleazy husband, who isn't as in control as he thinks. I played Wes, the musician they bring along on their trip to the family home. Wes is a childlike hippie who seems more dippy than he actually is. Finally, freshman Kathy Herd played Shirley, the precocious fourteen year-old niece. Kathy had the biggest, brightest eyes you've ever seen, and she was perfect. She develops a crush on Wes. Greg Longenhagen taught me to play guitar for the role, and in one scene i'm strumming a tune i wrote myself, as Kathy rattles off a huge declamatory speech complete with an intention to marry me. She romps off, i gently strum, and softly say "far out". The sun sets, and the first act ends. The beauty was beyond words. My funniest moment was a huge speech i gave, with a folk tale about an Eskimo who saves his village by farting. Up until then, Wes never said more than a word or two, and everybody is a bit slack-jawed. Jeff and Lou then rip into me, mirroring our offstage pasts, yet it was somehow perfect. I had wanted the role of Kenny, and i'll be forever grateful Sandi had a better idea. One of the show's profound moments comes when Betty says that there's no such thing as death. Life goes on, then stops. You can't worry about the stopping, she says, you have to worry about the going on. The interchanges between Sally and Wes were fed from the love between Betty and i. I think we were each other's special favorites. Why did this show work so well? Especially when it was a small cast with my nemesis Lou, and the abrasive Jeff? A lot of that antagonism was turning to respect by this time, i guess. At the core of the play were four actors who knew each other very well. Add a stranger, a mature professional, and an embodiment of youthful enthusiasm…whatever the reasons any play works, i've never been involved in one more sweetly beautiful. The connection between actors and audience was so humbling. With THREE SISTERS and ON TIDY ENDINGS, it capped a year that was the equal of anything i could have hoped for (and that's saying something). It all culminated with the department banquet. I was up for an award for best supporting actor, for Wes, and i was a bit ambivalent. I found the Oscars embarrassing, how people took a popularity contest so seriously. The idea that art can be measured…i had always idolized George C. Scott, who turned down his Oscar. But i loved the attention Wes brought. Long after the show ended, Wes impressions were still flying around. I decided that it wasn't the Oscars, and that the voters were just my peers, trying to express how much they liked something. That banquet night, i won. I went up to the podium, accepted the pin, and after a couple moments of silence, gave a smile and a Wes-like "wow".
-spring 1989
The third show of my junior year was Sandi's, a delicate, beautiful piece by Lanford Wilson. Set in an old country house in Missouri, it's a story about family, youth, growing old, giving and receiving love, and coming to grips with what we are and aren't. The writing is funny and seamless. I've never done better acting, or been in a better play. The keystone was Betty Morehouse, as Aunt Sally. She was a non-student friend of Sandi's, in her sixties, and her spunky grace enriched us in ways no student could have. Lou played Kenny, the homosexual paraplegic writer trying to come to grips with his life. A new student played his lover Judd, and their sincere, gentle chemistry was more touching than i expected. He and i got along great. Karen Paxson played Kenny's cousin, a somewhat drug-addled singer who is on the verge of her big break. Karen mixed understated and over-the-top beautifully. Jeff Bleam played her sleazy husband, who isn't as in control as he thinks. I played Wes, the musician they bring along on their trip to the family home. Wes is a childlike hippie who seems more dippy than he actually is. Finally, freshman Kathy Herd played Shirley, the precocious fourteen year-old niece. Kathy had the biggest, brightest eyes you've ever seen, and she was perfect. She develops a crush on Wes. Greg Longenhagen taught me to play guitar for the role, and in one scene i'm strumming a tune i wrote myself, as Kathy rattles off a huge declamatory speech complete with an intention to marry me. She romps off, i gently strum, and softly say "far out". The sun sets, and the first act ends. The beauty was beyond words. My funniest moment was a huge speech i gave, with a folk tale about an Eskimo who saves his village by farting. Up until then, Wes never said more than a word or two, and everybody is a bit slack-jawed. Jeff and Lou then rip into me, mirroring our offstage pasts, yet it was somehow perfect. I had wanted the role of Kenny, and i'll be forever grateful Sandi had a better idea. One of the show's profound moments comes when Betty says that there's no such thing as death. Life goes on, then stops. You can't worry about the stopping, she says, you have to worry about the going on. The interchanges between Sally and Wes were fed from the love between Betty and i. I think we were each other's special favorites. Why did this show work so well? Especially when it was a small cast with my nemesis Lou, and the abrasive Jeff? A lot of that antagonism was turning to respect by this time, i guess. At the core of the play were four actors who knew each other very well. Add a stranger, a mature professional, and an embodiment of youthful enthusiasm…whatever the reasons any play works, i've never been involved in one more sweetly beautiful. The connection between actors and audience was so humbling. With THREE SISTERS and ON TIDY ENDINGS, it capped a year that was the equal of anything i could have hoped for (and that's saying something). It all culminated with the department banquet. I was up for an award for best supporting actor, for Wes, and i was a bit ambivalent. I found the Oscars embarrassing, how people took a popularity contest so seriously. The idea that art can be measured…i had always idolized George C. Scott, who turned down his Oscar. But i loved the attention Wes brought. Long after the show ended, Wes impressions were still flying around. I decided that it wasn't the Oscars, and that the voters were just my peers, trying to express how much they liked something. That banquet night, i won. I went up to the podium, accepted the pin, and after a couple moments of silence, gave a smile and a Wes-like "wow".
Sunday, October 18, 2009
tribal relations
Modern humans live lives radically different from the ones evolution prepared us for. If you would know yourself, and understand modern problems from a more elemental level, you must understand the life humans lived for our first 200,000 years.
Archaeology tells us our social unit was the tribe, numbering 100 persons or so. Biology tells us this too; a recent study revealed that the maximum number of people our brains can relate to as distinct individuals is around 150. Beyond that, we have to resort to hierarchy and stereotype.
Tribes were largely egalitarian, with little or no concept of private property. They were also the original idle rich. Creature comforts were easily met with two to three hours of work per day, leaving the rest of the time for leisurely pursuits. So if you decide to disparage Uncle Moe for doing nothing but sitting on the couch and expelling gas from both ends, or your step-neice Ashley for her inability to hold down a full-time job, the scientific arguments will be on their side.
You can read the writings of Marshall Salins and Richard Borshay Lee for more tribal insight. The angle that popped into my mind is interpersonal relationships.
In a modern society, how many people of your peer group will you come into contact with in your lifetime? Thousands is a conservative estimate. For the more mobile, tens of thousands is possible. If we include our "peers" from movies and television and the internet, 100,000 is not out of the question.
How many peers did tribal life prepare us for?
Let's postulate a tribe of 120, and break the tribe into age groups. For most of human history, we didn't live past forty, so let's say there are four peer groups by age in each tribe: children (1-10), youths (10-20), adults (20-30), and the elderly (30-40). So the size of your peer group would be one quarter of the tribe - thirty people. Halve that number, as the idea of men and women as peers is a revolutionary new concept in the course of human history. You're down to fifteen people.
Fifteen peers.
How did you get along with the other kids in first grade? Was there one you hated? Were you popular but lonely? An outcast with one true friend? A leader loved by all? Somewhere quietly in the middle?
Imagine time freezing in first grade, and the members of that class being the only peers you get for the rest of your life.
In my own childhood, each new grade brought a subtle reshuffling of my place in the class, which stayed largely the same until third grade, when my personality burst within the group dynamic, and i became the class clown.
I had never been that before, nor would i ever be again in such an unqualified way.
But in a tribal society, there is no third grade. Imagine the childhood peer you got along with least. Was there one particular person dedicated to making your life miserable? For me it was an arrogant churl named Dean. Now imagine that person being there, close at hand, your entire life. Tribal interdependence precluded homicide or running away. Modern life allows us to discard individuals we don't like...maybe not always right away, but always eventually.
How much better at conflict resolution were we, as tribal humans? Or how much better were we at simply accepting a certain amount of unresolvable misery?
What if your greatest nemesis had never been a part of your life, or what if he or she were with you every single day forever? How would you be different from who you are now? Maybe your nemesis would eventually become a friend. All sorts of miracles can happen...it took me a couple decades, but i've grown attached to Yoko's stuff on DOUBLE FANTASY.
And romantically...suppose you met your true love in fourth grade? Or tenth grade? Or when you were seventy-five, like Tony Randall? In a tribal society, that's not gonna happen. You're frozen with first grade. What if there wasn't any girl or boy you particularly fancied? That's your life, huckleberry. So much of our lives are consumed by the search for that special one who is right for us. But in a tribal society, that's nonsense. Maybe you get lucky, but i'm guessing not many love stories for the ages came out of tribal societies.
Or maybe our modern expectations are the myth.
Think about all the relationships in your life that didn't work out. Then imagine that you could never walk away from them. But wait, the fact that you picked such and such a person in the first place...if that had been your choice in a tribal society, you had a pool of fifteen from which to go shipoopie shopping. Where do you go if the relationship goes sour? Obviously, the person you were with had been your best option. Move on to choice #2, who's probably not available anyway?
The answer is you didn't move on.
Compromise. Acceptance.
Skills we have moved away from in this post-post-modern world.
How many failed relationships would we have worked at harder, if we didn't live in a world where humans are dispensable?
And i understand that "failed relationship" is a prejudicial term, based on the fallacious belief that humans are monogamous. Must a relationship which provided intimacy and healing, but fell apart, be labeled a "failure"?
No.
Just take care that your head isn't so far in the clouds, that you miss the chance to love the person or people who are standing in front of you. Maybe your last love wasn't perfect, but maybe "perfect" is some bizarre modern tyranny, leading many to lives of unfulfilled searching, or marriage number five.
Of course, there's the story of the lovers who are peas in a pod, finding each other only after a long road of loneliness. I'm not suggesting a return to tribal ways...and the freedom to leave someone is not one i would wish to lose. But perhaps the degree to which we view a new friend or lover as dispensable, perhaps this attitude needs more scrutiny than we give it, particularly through the lens of the lives that evolution made us suited for.
Archaeology tells us our social unit was the tribe, numbering 100 persons or so. Biology tells us this too; a recent study revealed that the maximum number of people our brains can relate to as distinct individuals is around 150. Beyond that, we have to resort to hierarchy and stereotype.
Tribes were largely egalitarian, with little or no concept of private property. They were also the original idle rich. Creature comforts were easily met with two to three hours of work per day, leaving the rest of the time for leisurely pursuits. So if you decide to disparage Uncle Moe for doing nothing but sitting on the couch and expelling gas from both ends, or your step-neice Ashley for her inability to hold down a full-time job, the scientific arguments will be on their side.
You can read the writings of Marshall Salins and Richard Borshay Lee for more tribal insight. The angle that popped into my mind is interpersonal relationships.
In a modern society, how many people of your peer group will you come into contact with in your lifetime? Thousands is a conservative estimate. For the more mobile, tens of thousands is possible. If we include our "peers" from movies and television and the internet, 100,000 is not out of the question.
How many peers did tribal life prepare us for?
Let's postulate a tribe of 120, and break the tribe into age groups. For most of human history, we didn't live past forty, so let's say there are four peer groups by age in each tribe: children (1-10), youths (10-20), adults (20-30), and the elderly (30-40). So the size of your peer group would be one quarter of the tribe - thirty people. Halve that number, as the idea of men and women as peers is a revolutionary new concept in the course of human history. You're down to fifteen people.
Fifteen peers.
How did you get along with the other kids in first grade? Was there one you hated? Were you popular but lonely? An outcast with one true friend? A leader loved by all? Somewhere quietly in the middle?
Imagine time freezing in first grade, and the members of that class being the only peers you get for the rest of your life.
In my own childhood, each new grade brought a subtle reshuffling of my place in the class, which stayed largely the same until third grade, when my personality burst within the group dynamic, and i became the class clown.
I had never been that before, nor would i ever be again in such an unqualified way.
But in a tribal society, there is no third grade. Imagine the childhood peer you got along with least. Was there one particular person dedicated to making your life miserable? For me it was an arrogant churl named Dean. Now imagine that person being there, close at hand, your entire life. Tribal interdependence precluded homicide or running away. Modern life allows us to discard individuals we don't like...maybe not always right away, but always eventually.
How much better at conflict resolution were we, as tribal humans? Or how much better were we at simply accepting a certain amount of unresolvable misery?
What if your greatest nemesis had never been a part of your life, or what if he or she were with you every single day forever? How would you be different from who you are now? Maybe your nemesis would eventually become a friend. All sorts of miracles can happen...it took me a couple decades, but i've grown attached to Yoko's stuff on DOUBLE FANTASY.
And romantically...suppose you met your true love in fourth grade? Or tenth grade? Or when you were seventy-five, like Tony Randall? In a tribal society, that's not gonna happen. You're frozen with first grade. What if there wasn't any girl or boy you particularly fancied? That's your life, huckleberry. So much of our lives are consumed by the search for that special one who is right for us. But in a tribal society, that's nonsense. Maybe you get lucky, but i'm guessing not many love stories for the ages came out of tribal societies.
Or maybe our modern expectations are the myth.
Think about all the relationships in your life that didn't work out. Then imagine that you could never walk away from them. But wait, the fact that you picked such and such a person in the first place...if that had been your choice in a tribal society, you had a pool of fifteen from which to go shipoopie shopping. Where do you go if the relationship goes sour? Obviously, the person you were with had been your best option. Move on to choice #2, who's probably not available anyway?
The answer is you didn't move on.
Compromise. Acceptance.
Skills we have moved away from in this post-post-modern world.
How many failed relationships would we have worked at harder, if we didn't live in a world where humans are dispensable?
And i understand that "failed relationship" is a prejudicial term, based on the fallacious belief that humans are monogamous. Must a relationship which provided intimacy and healing, but fell apart, be labeled a "failure"?
No.
Just take care that your head isn't so far in the clouds, that you miss the chance to love the person or people who are standing in front of you. Maybe your last love wasn't perfect, but maybe "perfect" is some bizarre modern tyranny, leading many to lives of unfulfilled searching, or marriage number five.
Of course, there's the story of the lovers who are peas in a pod, finding each other only after a long road of loneliness. I'm not suggesting a return to tribal ways...and the freedom to leave someone is not one i would wish to lose. But perhaps the degree to which we view a new friend or lover as dispensable, perhaps this attitude needs more scrutiny than we give it, particularly through the lens of the lives that evolution made us suited for.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
wheeeeee!
I've discovered a website called NakedWorldRecords.com. What delight. They give links to all sorts of naked firsts, mosts, and greatests. If you've never danced naked, swum naked, run naked, or played in the wind and sun naked, you're not quite alive. There are only one or two links which are idiotic, and i bless the fine folks who created the site. They're doing their part in the upward rise of the human spirit. I especially recommend the most naked people in a phone booth, the figure skater, and the first naked drum ensemble.
http://www.nakedworldrecords.com/index.htm
http://www.nakedworldrecords.com/index.htm
Friday, October 16, 2009
depo girl, park girl
(It seems these two, not Amy, are the last romantic connections to be recollected...several years after i finished the first draft of the memoir. If you're following along chronologically, pardon this backtrack [though it's vaguely possible the first part is a fast forward].)
WOMEN 35-36
depo provera girl
The memory of her is murky...i'm not even 100% sure she existed. The memories seem too detailed to be a dream, yet i can't place her chronologically in a way that feels right. I can't recall how we met, but we dated in my fourth(?) year of undergrad. She was younger. She had a second-floor apartment in the middle of town, with a window overlooking the street. It was very cool, we could look out at the people below, and all through the night the sounds of street life never died away completely. That window was abnormally low, and i remember very much wanting to have sex with her from behind, while she kneeled and leaned out the window, but we never did. She didn't have any connection to the theater department, and seemed almost too normal for me. I mean that in both directions; i was faintly mystified over what she saw in me. She was attractive, fun, a bit tall, with long dark hair, and maybe a league below me in intellect. She was on depo provera, a hormone birth control...patches, i think? We either had sex for a month or less, or had a relationship that was sexual but unconsummated, perhaps because we started to get into some physical/emotional issues she had, and the relationship became one of therapy. I remember singing Monty Python's "Medical Love Song" as i drove away from her building, maybe for the last time. Our affair ended abruptly but benignly, and why, i can't remember.
park girl
A hazy college memory. She was one of those outdoorsy hippiesque girls who are the coolest girls in the world, and she had a grad school level brain. We had one memorable date in a state park. We explored, we ran, we had fun...we made out, and it was great. We got naked. I remember her giving me a lesson on how i'd always be able to tell fake boobs from real. The real ones would sag to the side when the girl was on her back, and the fake ones would point up. I laughed, and affirmed my preference for real. We went back to town, and she was everything i could have wanted...yet i let her fade out of my life. I kicked myself for walking away, even while i was doing it. Maybe she was too real and available, and i was afraid of failing...maybe something else didn't feel quite right...and maybe i couldn't get past her saggy breasts. They really fell to the side, in retrospect more than average breasts, which was a strange effect, as she was in good shape. Don't bust my chops, i've done so plenty for both of us. But i still had had almost no experience with real breasts. Living in this repressed society, virtually all of my familiarity with breasts was through movies...and at the time, i still couldn't fully grasp how movie breasts were different from real ones.
WOMEN 35-36
depo provera girl
The memory of her is murky...i'm not even 100% sure she existed. The memories seem too detailed to be a dream, yet i can't place her chronologically in a way that feels right. I can't recall how we met, but we dated in my fourth(?) year of undergrad. She was younger. She had a second-floor apartment in the middle of town, with a window overlooking the street. It was very cool, we could look out at the people below, and all through the night the sounds of street life never died away completely. That window was abnormally low, and i remember very much wanting to have sex with her from behind, while she kneeled and leaned out the window, but we never did. She didn't have any connection to the theater department, and seemed almost too normal for me. I mean that in both directions; i was faintly mystified over what she saw in me. She was attractive, fun, a bit tall, with long dark hair, and maybe a league below me in intellect. She was on depo provera, a hormone birth control...patches, i think? We either had sex for a month or less, or had a relationship that was sexual but unconsummated, perhaps because we started to get into some physical/emotional issues she had, and the relationship became one of therapy. I remember singing Monty Python's "Medical Love Song" as i drove away from her building, maybe for the last time. Our affair ended abruptly but benignly, and why, i can't remember.
park girl
A hazy college memory. She was one of those outdoorsy hippiesque girls who are the coolest girls in the world, and she had a grad school level brain. We had one memorable date in a state park. We explored, we ran, we had fun...we made out, and it was great. We got naked. I remember her giving me a lesson on how i'd always be able to tell fake boobs from real. The real ones would sag to the side when the girl was on her back, and the fake ones would point up. I laughed, and affirmed my preference for real. We went back to town, and she was everything i could have wanted...yet i let her fade out of my life. I kicked myself for walking away, even while i was doing it. Maybe she was too real and available, and i was afraid of failing...maybe something else didn't feel quite right...and maybe i couldn't get past her saggy breasts. They really fell to the side, in retrospect more than average breasts, which was a strange effect, as she was in good shape. Don't bust my chops, i've done so plenty for both of us. But i still had had almost no experience with real breasts. Living in this repressed society, virtually all of my familiarity with breasts was through movies...and at the time, i still couldn't fully grasp how movie breasts were different from real ones.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
On Tidy Endings/Am I Blue?
THEATER 21
-spring 1989
Early in the semester, i auditioned for student-directed one-acts being staged in the studio theater. I got cast as Arthur, the lead in Harvey Fierstein's ON TIDY ENDINGS, and also a small part in AM I BLUE?. The first thing director Rob Diremigio told me was that he wanted a straightforward performance, unlike the Fierstein flamboyance of the original production. That suited me fine. It was an incredible piece, about a dead gay man's ex-lover and ex-wife coming together to sign papers, then fighting over pieces of a dead man's memory. Rob and i got along real well. Playing the ex-wife was Bree, a junior new to the department. She turned in a seamless, heartrending performance. Diane DeNoble played Bree's lawyer, and freshman Chris Moody played the son. Diane and i had no scenes together, but she was great. Chris did some wonderful work, and he and i hit it off. The bulk of the play belonged to Bree and i, and there was an affection between us that fed our work immensely. The show song was the poignant "Landslide". Our show was the last of three. It was the first gay character i ever played, and Rob's directing us past the surface of these characters was perfect. It ended up being the first play i was ever humbled to be a part of. I'm tempted to put it in the category of plays that had no right to be as good as they were, but it all felt so natural and right that i hesitate to do so. I'd never been involved in a production that affected so many so visibly. We could feel the audience's energy, and hear their gasps and crying. Our characters fought to protect our places in the dead man's life. The one moment i'll never forget was with a biker-type student i'd met once or twice, who had been dragged to the show unwillingly, and in the hall afterward he and his friends came up to me. He stood there trying to talk, but couldn't. He kept on crying…i'll never forget it. I constructed a show plaque for Rob, made of wood and seashells. AM I BLUE? starred Jim Sioutis and Laura Mealy, and was directed by Jeff Bleam. Directing brought out the best in Jeff, it was the most gentle and human i'd ever known him. Laura was a sophomore new to the department, and i started to develop a lasting crush on her. Jimmy was still the happily abusive so-and-so i had grown to love. My part consisted of three or four lines as an offstage barker trying to get Jim to bring Laura into the bar. It was great fun. I had always been glad i had friendships outside the department, it seemed healthy. But it made for talk. Anything, even the absence of something, made for talk. Because i didn't drink, word went around that i was an alcoholic. Because i didn't date anyone in the department, i got a reputation as a homosexual. And that spring, i got a reputation i could not trace. Word went around that i was extremely well hung. Damned insensitive rumor mill…
-spring 1989
Early in the semester, i auditioned for student-directed one-acts being staged in the studio theater. I got cast as Arthur, the lead in Harvey Fierstein's ON TIDY ENDINGS, and also a small part in AM I BLUE?. The first thing director Rob Diremigio told me was that he wanted a straightforward performance, unlike the Fierstein flamboyance of the original production. That suited me fine. It was an incredible piece, about a dead gay man's ex-lover and ex-wife coming together to sign papers, then fighting over pieces of a dead man's memory. Rob and i got along real well. Playing the ex-wife was Bree, a junior new to the department. She turned in a seamless, heartrending performance. Diane DeNoble played Bree's lawyer, and freshman Chris Moody played the son. Diane and i had no scenes together, but she was great. Chris did some wonderful work, and he and i hit it off. The bulk of the play belonged to Bree and i, and there was an affection between us that fed our work immensely. The show song was the poignant "Landslide". Our show was the last of three. It was the first gay character i ever played, and Rob's directing us past the surface of these characters was perfect. It ended up being the first play i was ever humbled to be a part of. I'm tempted to put it in the category of plays that had no right to be as good as they were, but it all felt so natural and right that i hesitate to do so. I'd never been involved in a production that affected so many so visibly. We could feel the audience's energy, and hear their gasps and crying. Our characters fought to protect our places in the dead man's life. The one moment i'll never forget was with a biker-type student i'd met once or twice, who had been dragged to the show unwillingly, and in the hall afterward he and his friends came up to me. He stood there trying to talk, but couldn't. He kept on crying…i'll never forget it. I constructed a show plaque for Rob, made of wood and seashells. AM I BLUE? starred Jim Sioutis and Laura Mealy, and was directed by Jeff Bleam. Directing brought out the best in Jeff, it was the most gentle and human i'd ever known him. Laura was a sophomore new to the department, and i started to develop a lasting crush on her. Jimmy was still the happily abusive so-and-so i had grown to love. My part consisted of three or four lines as an offstage barker trying to get Jim to bring Laura into the bar. It was great fun. I had always been glad i had friendships outside the department, it seemed healthy. But it made for talk. Anything, even the absence of something, made for talk. Because i didn't drink, word went around that i was an alcoholic. Because i didn't date anyone in the department, i got a reputation as a homosexual. And that spring, i got a reputation i could not trace. Word went around that i was extremely well hung. Damned insensitive rumor mill…
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