My oldest friend died this week.
Or less ambiguously, my longest-running friendship...the past thirty-six years or so. Ken was born two days before me, and we probably met in 8th grade. My oldest friend in the other sense, michael, died earlier this year. After a life remarkably shielded from death, it's been a year of loss - though i've still been shielded, in one sense. When ken and michael and irene and my grandparents died, i was far away.
Ken was the only person i've known well, whom i never saw do or say anything unkind. I don't want to make too huge a deal of that, for it's easy to be loving during good times. I'm sure he had less gentle moments. But still, in this self-absorbed, needy world, kindness like his is...remarkable.
Not that he was a peace-eyed flower child...he was an occasional crankypuss. But lash out? Never.
We became friends in the M.P.C. Youth Club, which i resisted joining because it was churchy and the domain of my "perfect" older sister. My parents forced me, though i refused to be in the yearly play. Did i want to drop out, and was told i could quit after one more year? Maybe. That second year changed my life, though...after being stunned by the acting of an older student, i begged my way into the cast, and was a performer ever after.
By then, ken and i were chummy. I suppose he was like me socially...gratefully (for me, at least) occupying that safe ground between the cool kids and the outcasts. There were a group of us...ken and i, robb wilson, cathy o'brien...the only real friends of my adolescence. We were emotionally stunted of course, being uptight, alienated kids from the suburbs. We never knew how to be emotionally deep, not even in the half-pretentious way common to college dorms. But we shared the kind of friendship that keeps people sane. We spent time at each other's homes, and for me, none moreso than ken's. I was their housesitter when he and his parents went away (with a diabetic cat i had to give injections...imagine!). He was a regular at the pool plunges and volleyball games in my backyard, and we formed a school intramural team, the Fish 2. Many were the evenings spent in his basement, listening to music (he loved King Crimson and Rush, which i didn't get, but we bonded over sting's jazzy stuff, and it was perhaps in that basement i first heard "Kind of Blue"). And movies...do you remember where you were the first time you saw "This Is Spinal Tap"?
The yearly play was our social touchstone. Ken's acting climb was slower...when i got my first lead, he and robb were hairy ishmaelites #2 and 3...witnessing my exuberance, he eventually groused that life wasn't so damned glamorous in the hairy world. Our senior year, he snagged a supporting lead in Bye Bye Birdie and acquitted himself well, though he never should have been asked to sing...somewhere out there, there's a dog still twitching. And his forced extemporization when an actor missed an entrance is the stuff of, um, legend.
In high school, i was in a two-actor short. When a festival beckoned and my partner wasn't available, mr. roche told me to pick an actor and direct it myself. I switched roles, giving my old part to ken. He was agreeably competent, and we had a dandy time.
Our collaboration blossomed after our first year at different colleges. He said we should produce a summer play in the M.P.C. Fellowship Hall - he would direct and produce, and i would star. We did three summers of some of the most wonderful theater of my life. The Odd Couple, The Real Inspector Hound, The Star-Spangled Girl...is it rose-colored vision to say those productions were more brilliant than anyone ought have expected? When i later did professional theater and realized that some amateur shows are better, it was those three i recalled most. The energy, the joy...no actor should want anything more. For our supporting casts, ken was a minimalist director - he picked actors who knew what they were doing, and let them do it (a method that resonated when i became a director). Our sets were delightful, and his publicity spot-on - we played to crowds of 50-150.
Most of all, the process was as wonderful as the product. High-spirited rehearsals, with raids on the kitchen for frozen Cool Whip, and fits of rehearsal giggles that count as the best laughter of my life, while ken drummed his fingers and contemplated throwing water at us...
We parted ways theatrically after that. I went on to roles on many stages. He did Rider College theater and a couple local productions, then his life found its center in marriage and employment, as an education retirement specialist. He once ran a seminar at a school where my mom taught.
For the next twenty-five years, i lived 90 miles away, then 1500, then 3000. He never saw the plays i produced. It would have been fun having him there...so many things i learned, that he had learned first. We'd talk maybe once a year, and i'd see him every two or three. When his multiple sclerosis arrived, he said that The West Wing did NOT get it right.
It's easy to second-guess how you could or should have been a better friend to someone going through dire times. Did i call enough? No. A couple years ago, i mailed him a cd of my songs that i'd recorded with another Youth Club friend. Ken would have adored it, but in his depression, he never listened. When i learned that death was near, i tried to call him everyday for his last week and half, to sing another song i'd written.
Charlie chaplin said that life begins at fifty. Perhaps he meant that that's when you're mostly free of the immaturities, obligations, bad education, and hormones of youth. That resonates with me...at fifty, i feel like my best times creatively and personally are ahead.
Yet now i must try to do what can't be done...come to grips with my same-age friend hitting that black wall.
When i got the call, my heart gripped. I'd held on to a hope that he might bounce back.
There is an emptiness now that will ever remain.
But ken hartman made my life more than it would have been. Those joys and resonances will always inform who i am. In my heart until i die...i love you, ken.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
death is raining
Poke a living person, what happens? Something.
Poke a dying person, what happens? Something.
Poke a dead person, what happens? Nothing.
Nothing.
There is no nothing more terrifying.
Death is insanity.
In this world of artificial insanities, death reigns over all pretenders. No other beauty or horror, no mutual orgasm or murderous vengeance, no childbirth or maiming, is more essential and primal. We humyns create staggeringly intricate psychological and physical structures whose core purpose is to deny the power, nay the very EXISTENCE, of death. Heaven, reincarnation, cathedrals, art/literature, offspring, cosmetic surgery...
We even attempt to erase the word itself. Pass away, lost, transition...how many deathbeds/deaths/funerals are enacted without a single participant ever uttering the word "die"? If you never say it, maybe it doesn't exist...
Don't trust the conceit that humyns alone know the existential horror of mortality. Other animals grasp, and are unhinged by, death-awareness.
Death is insanity. To be around it for an abnormal amount of time, to dance with that nothingness for days, months, or years and stay sane, requires staggering amounts of mental discipline. Or pervasive, punitive socialization. Or self-medication.
To be a soldier (or civilian) living in a war...
To care for a loved one dying in slow agony...
It's clear how many fail to endure such reality. Those who flee, those who crack, those who survive but are forever scarred...no creature is designed to stay sane in the presence of unrelenting death.
There are other insanities, natural and artificial. Rejection, failure, loneliness, disaster...waterboarding, date rape, religion, reality TV...
But death reigns.
Knowing all that, the most incomprehensible and damning cultural reality is suicide. To willfully enact the most primal humyn terror...to erase this frailest of sparks, that everyone else is obsessively protecting...
How dysfunctional must any society be, in which self-annihilation exists...or thrives?
I'm a fan of statistics, but i think a single generality might be more germane. Is there anyone who knows no one who has taken their own life?
If you're one of those few, stay inside your bubble as long as you can.
Or burst it, to grow wise in the ways of this broken world...
And help us become humyn again.
Poke a dying person, what happens? Something.
Poke a dead person, what happens? Nothing.
Nothing.
There is no nothing more terrifying.
Death is insanity.
In this world of artificial insanities, death reigns over all pretenders. No other beauty or horror, no mutual orgasm or murderous vengeance, no childbirth or maiming, is more essential and primal. We humyns create staggeringly intricate psychological and physical structures whose core purpose is to deny the power, nay the very EXISTENCE, of death. Heaven, reincarnation, cathedrals, art/literature, offspring, cosmetic surgery...
We even attempt to erase the word itself. Pass away, lost, transition...how many deathbeds/deaths/funerals are enacted without a single participant ever uttering the word "die"? If you never say it, maybe it doesn't exist...
Don't trust the conceit that humyns alone know the existential horror of mortality. Other animals grasp, and are unhinged by, death-awareness.
Death is insanity. To be around it for an abnormal amount of time, to dance with that nothingness for days, months, or years and stay sane, requires staggering amounts of mental discipline. Or pervasive, punitive socialization. Or self-medication.
To be a soldier (or civilian) living in a war...
To care for a loved one dying in slow agony...
It's clear how many fail to endure such reality. Those who flee, those who crack, those who survive but are forever scarred...no creature is designed to stay sane in the presence of unrelenting death.
There are other insanities, natural and artificial. Rejection, failure, loneliness, disaster...waterboarding, date rape, religion, reality TV...
But death reigns.
Knowing all that, the most incomprehensible and damning cultural reality is suicide. To willfully enact the most primal humyn terror...to erase this frailest of sparks, that everyone else is obsessively protecting...
How dysfunctional must any society be, in which self-annihilation exists...or thrives?
I'm a fan of statistics, but i think a single generality might be more germane. Is there anyone who knows no one who has taken their own life?
If you're one of those few, stay inside your bubble as long as you can.
Or burst it, to grow wise in the ways of this broken world...
And help us become humyn again.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
ultimate sci fi moviethon
Get the popcorn, PB pretzels, and soy jerky! Colostomy bag optional.
morning
-Forbidden Planet
-Close Encounters of the Third Kind
-Planet of the Apes
afternoon
-Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
-Blade Runner
-The Terminator
evening
-Aliens
-The Matrix
-Star Trek: First Contact
morning
-Forbidden Planet
-Close Encounters of the Third Kind
-Planet of the Apes
afternoon
-Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
-Blade Runner
-The Terminator
evening
-Aliens
-The Matrix
-Star Trek: First Contact
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Riptide 8
Two new numbers, "Hotel Biglebowski" and "The Poop Song"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49nvZaH_HL0
Sunday, July 28, 2019
"The Better Angels of Our Nature"
(Why Violence Has Declined)
2011
-by steven pinker
A towering work. Pinker describes us as a species more moral than at any time in recorded history, due to civilizing trends that over recent centuries (and especially recent decades) have made us far less violent...a claim that flies in the face of headlines and common cynicism, but steven offers enough statistical evidence to silence a herd of cats in heat. That doesn't mean he's always right, but he maintains appropriate scientific humility. He analyzes the history of war, interpersonal violence, slavery, superstitious/ideological violence, and genocide, all of which are trending down (or disappearing entirely), and trounces the notion that the 20th century was the most warlike. He deconstructs how the rights revolutions have decreased government violence against its own citizens, with individual rights slowly superseding the good of the state. In almost excruciating detail, he explores the psychology and physiology of violence. He hangs all this pacifying on the rise of hobbesian leviathan states which replaced feudal systems. He describes civilizing as a downward process by which the poor mimic the genteel rich (i know that might not sit well with some, but pinker makes it plausible). He cites literacy as a linchpin of ever-expanding empathy, commerce as an antidote to tribal violence, and global feminism as a further pacifying factor. Pinker avoids political correctness, and even exposes its flaws. He doesn't shy from unsettling points, like the effect that our post-Three Mile Island nuclear abandonment has had on the fossil fuel apocalypse. He points out that the traffic fatalities of people who refused to fly in 2002 contributed six times the number of 9/11 deaths. He explains America's hyper-violence by showing that we're several countries, not one - the east and midwest have comparable violence rates to any advanced democracy, but the south and west have rates that reflect their origins as a culture of honor. It's tempting to compare this book to michael shermer's "The Moral Arc", which attributes all this to the ever-expanding ripples of the age of enlightenment and reason...an explanation which my humynism finds more appealing, but these two books might be complementary, not competitive (indeed, pinker is complimentary of shermer). Making sense of history's trends is one of the more challenging tasks any thinker can undertake. Wrong or right, pinker does humynity proud.
2011
-by steven pinker
A towering work. Pinker describes us as a species more moral than at any time in recorded history, due to civilizing trends that over recent centuries (and especially recent decades) have made us far less violent...a claim that flies in the face of headlines and common cynicism, but steven offers enough statistical evidence to silence a herd of cats in heat. That doesn't mean he's always right, but he maintains appropriate scientific humility. He analyzes the history of war, interpersonal violence, slavery, superstitious/ideological violence, and genocide, all of which are trending down (or disappearing entirely), and trounces the notion that the 20th century was the most warlike. He deconstructs how the rights revolutions have decreased government violence against its own citizens, with individual rights slowly superseding the good of the state. In almost excruciating detail, he explores the psychology and physiology of violence. He hangs all this pacifying on the rise of hobbesian leviathan states which replaced feudal systems. He describes civilizing as a downward process by which the poor mimic the genteel rich (i know that might not sit well with some, but pinker makes it plausible). He cites literacy as a linchpin of ever-expanding empathy, commerce as an antidote to tribal violence, and global feminism as a further pacifying factor. Pinker avoids political correctness, and even exposes its flaws. He doesn't shy from unsettling points, like the effect that our post-Three Mile Island nuclear abandonment has had on the fossil fuel apocalypse. He points out that the traffic fatalities of people who refused to fly in 2002 contributed six times the number of 9/11 deaths. He explains America's hyper-violence by showing that we're several countries, not one - the east and midwest have comparable violence rates to any advanced democracy, but the south and west have rates that reflect their origins as a culture of honor. It's tempting to compare this book to michael shermer's "The Moral Arc", which attributes all this to the ever-expanding ripples of the age of enlightenment and reason...an explanation which my humynism finds more appealing, but these two books might be complementary, not competitive (indeed, pinker is complimentary of shermer). Making sense of history's trends is one of the more challenging tasks any thinker can undertake. Wrong or right, pinker does humynity proud.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Riptide 7
Two new songs, "Monkey Butt Dance" and "Teach Me"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP-RFjhwcTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP-RFjhwcTU
Friday, July 19, 2019
"Babylon 5"
(Yes, i endured the entire five seasons, plus five telemovies. Mostly, it became a quest to be amused by which guest actors and genre stalwarts signed on. Dwight schulz, melissa gilbert, harlan ellison, john schuck, vaughn armstrong, bernie casey, gerrit graham, june lockhart, marjorie monaghan, david mccallum, david warner, brad dourif, erick avari, majel barrett, robert englund, tony todd, michael york, michael ansara, jeffrey combs, robin curtis, judson scott, paul williams, paul winfield, bryan cranston, adrienne barbeau, eric pierpoint, theodore bikel, bruce mcgill, danica mckellar, carel struycken, ian abercrombie, richard moll, and the winners - penn and teller! Plus a surreal nod to West Wing fans, who must see the entrance that comes at the 40-45 minute mark of "River of Souls")
1994-1998
-created by j. michael straczynski
A critique of late-era STAR TREK is that it got away from the social relevance of the classic, to become average, copycat sci fi fare. If you'd like to know how unfair that is, sit through B5, which is the living, breathing actualization of that critique. Zero inventiveness. No edge. Dialogue often unrecognizable as humyn speech (partial blame goes to straczynski's non-improvisation manifesto...one aspect of actor improvisation is making speech more naturalistic, a touch that was sorely needed here). B5 shows you all these alien cultures, and instead of diving into a meaty exploration of cultural relativity and moral ambiguity, those are glossed over in the service of some "heroic humyn" tale, full of pedestrian conceits and dime-store romanticizations. Is that a bit unfair? Maybe. Who knows...had three of their leads been more compelling/natural/relateable, the whole affair might have been watchable. Even with its flaws, i confess that i started to feel sentimental when the last few episodes arrived. The actors, for the most part, gave it their best. So i dedicate the rest of this review to them - you showed up, poured out your hearts...and occasionally did quality work on better sci fi shows.
ACTOR - # of episodes
mira furlan (CYCLOPS, LOST) - 110
She played humyn/alien hybrid delenn with sensitivity and class. She should give workshops on how to do bad dialogue convincingly.
peter jurasik (TRON, HILL STREET BLUES) - 110
With perhaps the greatest acting challenge of the show, making londo sympathetic, he acquitted himself well.
andreas katsulas (THE FUGITIVE, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) - 110
NEXT GEN's irrepressible tomalak rendered unflinching service under eight pounds of prosthetic, and as g'kar always hit the right acting values.
richard biggs (ANY DAY NOW, STRONG MEDICINE) - 110
The affable dr. franklin came off flat...did the lines fail him (yes), or did he fail the lines (maybe)?
bill mumy (LOST IN SPACE, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE) - 110
Ah, poor bill mumy! He never failed to make leneer believable. For a taste of what he could do with real dialogue, see DS9's "The Siege of AR-558".
stephen furst (ANIMAL HOUSE, ST. ELSEWHERE) - 110
Go stephen, go! Playing the "young" vir while over forty! He was placed in more unactable moments than anyone else, but daniel day lewis couldn't have done better. Well, maybe a little.
jerry doyle (CAPTAIN SIMIAN & SPACE MONKEYS, B5: THE GATHERING) - 110
A good actor makes bad dialogue better. Garibaldi might have made his worse.
claudia christian (A GNOME NAMED GNORM, STARHYKE) - 89
As ivanova, she became one of the few characters you kind of cared about. Her departure, sad.
bruce boxleitner (TRON, SCARECROW AND MRS. KING) - 88
And here he is, our hero sheridan! Or perhaps just a cardboard cutout, i can never tell.
jeff conaway (GREASE, TAXI) - 74
Ahh, poor jeff. Not even security chief...just assistant?! At this point in his career, didn't he rate a shot at a captain's chair? He couldn't have done worse than what they had. Am i being overly sentimental?
patricia tallman (ARMY OF DARKNESS, BABYLON 5: THIRDSPACE) - 47
As lyta, she rose (or descended) to the level of her dialogue.
jason carter (GEORGIA, BEVERLY HILLS 90210) - 45
As ranger marcus, he injected as much panache as you could ask.
andrea thompson (NYPD BLUE, 24) - 44
Before she left, telepath talia was the one character you'd started to care about. Doyle, this show ain't big enough for the both of us! Boy, did the fans get the fuzzy end of that lollipop.
michael o'hare (C.H.U.D., BABYLON 5: THE GATHERING) - 25
What seemed like a soulless studio decision to replace the first-season commander with someone "sexier", turned out to be a heartbreaking tale of mental illness.
tracy scoggins (LOIS & CLARK, HIGHLANDER) - 21
She did yeomanlike work as captain lochley, a final-season replacement for ivanova.
walter koenig (STAR TREK, STAR TREK I-VII) -13
As megalomaniacal telepath bester, he was okay. He even had a genuinely good episode in his last appearance.
1994-1998
-created by j. michael straczynski
A critique of late-era STAR TREK is that it got away from the social relevance of the classic, to become average, copycat sci fi fare. If you'd like to know how unfair that is, sit through B5, which is the living, breathing actualization of that critique. Zero inventiveness. No edge. Dialogue often unrecognizable as humyn speech (partial blame goes to straczynski's non-improvisation manifesto...one aspect of actor improvisation is making speech more naturalistic, a touch that was sorely needed here). B5 shows you all these alien cultures, and instead of diving into a meaty exploration of cultural relativity and moral ambiguity, those are glossed over in the service of some "heroic humyn" tale, full of pedestrian conceits and dime-store romanticizations. Is that a bit unfair? Maybe. Who knows...had three of their leads been more compelling/natural/relateable, the whole affair might have been watchable. Even with its flaws, i confess that i started to feel sentimental when the last few episodes arrived. The actors, for the most part, gave it their best. So i dedicate the rest of this review to them - you showed up, poured out your hearts...and occasionally did quality work on better sci fi shows.
ACTOR - # of episodes
mira furlan (CYCLOPS, LOST) - 110
She played humyn/alien hybrid delenn with sensitivity and class. She should give workshops on how to do bad dialogue convincingly.
peter jurasik (TRON, HILL STREET BLUES) - 110
With perhaps the greatest acting challenge of the show, making londo sympathetic, he acquitted himself well.
andreas katsulas (THE FUGITIVE, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) - 110
NEXT GEN's irrepressible tomalak rendered unflinching service under eight pounds of prosthetic, and as g'kar always hit the right acting values.
richard biggs (ANY DAY NOW, STRONG MEDICINE) - 110
The affable dr. franklin came off flat...did the lines fail him (yes), or did he fail the lines (maybe)?
bill mumy (LOST IN SPACE, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE) - 110
Ah, poor bill mumy! He never failed to make leneer believable. For a taste of what he could do with real dialogue, see DS9's "The Siege of AR-558".
stephen furst (ANIMAL HOUSE, ST. ELSEWHERE) - 110
Go stephen, go! Playing the "young" vir while over forty! He was placed in more unactable moments than anyone else, but daniel day lewis couldn't have done better. Well, maybe a little.
jerry doyle (CAPTAIN SIMIAN & SPACE MONKEYS, B5: THE GATHERING) - 110
A good actor makes bad dialogue better. Garibaldi might have made his worse.
claudia christian (A GNOME NAMED GNORM, STARHYKE) - 89
As ivanova, she became one of the few characters you kind of cared about. Her departure, sad.
bruce boxleitner (TRON, SCARECROW AND MRS. KING) - 88
And here he is, our hero sheridan! Or perhaps just a cardboard cutout, i can never tell.
jeff conaway (GREASE, TAXI) - 74
Ahh, poor jeff. Not even security chief...just assistant?! At this point in his career, didn't he rate a shot at a captain's chair? He couldn't have done worse than what they had. Am i being overly sentimental?
patricia tallman (ARMY OF DARKNESS, BABYLON 5: THIRDSPACE) - 47
As lyta, she rose (or descended) to the level of her dialogue.
jason carter (GEORGIA, BEVERLY HILLS 90210) - 45
As ranger marcus, he injected as much panache as you could ask.
andrea thompson (NYPD BLUE, 24) - 44
Before she left, telepath talia was the one character you'd started to care about. Doyle, this show ain't big enough for the both of us! Boy, did the fans get the fuzzy end of that lollipop.
michael o'hare (C.H.U.D., BABYLON 5: THE GATHERING) - 25
What seemed like a soulless studio decision to replace the first-season commander with someone "sexier", turned out to be a heartbreaking tale of mental illness.
tracy scoggins (LOIS & CLARK, HIGHLANDER) - 21
She did yeomanlike work as captain lochley, a final-season replacement for ivanova.
walter koenig (STAR TREK, STAR TREK I-VII) -13
As megalomaniacal telepath bester, he was okay. He even had a genuinely good episode in his last appearance.
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