There was this auto repair place on I-55...

For two weekends in January, 2013,  First Run Theatre will stage my play. It's a one-act called "Open Sundays, All Makes Repaired." The dates are Friday thru Sunday, Jan. 11, 12, 13 and 18, 19, 20. The story involves two strangers with conflicting agendas who meet in a seedy garage on I-55.

The real story, however, began back in the summer of 1991. My son, Gregg, and I had driven to Memphis, where he took SAT tests to be admitted to the U. of Memphis. It was a hot weekend in Memphis, laced with thunderstorms and high humidity. He took the exams, I walked around the campus in the city, then we went to a movie. Big mistake. Kevin Costner as "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves." Actually Kevin Costner as Kevin Costner, dressed in his cute outfit. The movie was saved by Alan Rickman who, I later learned, had some of his best scenes edited out because Kevin was afraid Alan was going to steal the movie. It should have been stolen and dumped into the Mississippi.

But I digress. That was a Saturday. We headed back to St. Louis on Sunday. We were in my 1988 Mazda RX-7 convertible. One of the reasons I bought it was that it reminded me of the 1960 Corvette I once owned. Anyway,  Gregg was driving. We hadn't been out of Memphis more than an hour, tooling north on I-55, when the engine let loose with an awful noise and the temperature gauge shot up a few seconds later. We pulled over. I'm not very capable when it comes to automobiles. I know how to open the hood. Which I did and saw smoke. At least I thought it was smoke, realized it was steam, then saw that one of the hoses had broken loose.

We hitch-hiked to a garage not far up the highway. Looking around the garage, while waiting for someone to take us to the car, I wondered: "What if...." From there it was, "What if two guys meet... one headed south, one headed north, both of them on an urgent mission, and they both need their cars repaired 'right now.'"

That became "Open Sundays, All Makes Repaired." It's been through a couple of severe rewrites since I first wrote it a few years ago. First Run Theatre chose it as one of the plays for their new season. My play appears on the same bill with another one-act, "The Predicament" by Patrick Conley, a very funny comedy about the Irish, the IRA, and a group of men who take matters into their own hands.

I am fortunate to have a strong cast, and an excellent director in Donna Nelson. Her list of credentials is very impressive and she has effectively brought my play to life. The productions take place in the theater at DeSmet High School on North Ballas Road. I hope you make the time to see both of these plays, and support local theatre. You can click on this link for more information.      About performances and tickets

That Night, Again

Jesse shoved his dead beagle out of the way with his bare foot and set another log on the fire, watched the smoke curl around it for a second, then leaned back in his cracked red leather easy chair.  “Okey-dokey,” he said.  His favorite word.  He reached for the cup of hot cocoa on the tv tray, let the sweet steam waft up into his nostrils, and smiled.  He took a small sip.  A bit of melted marshmallow clung to his upper lip.  He felt it sitting there, wiped it off with the back of his hand.
“Bet you would’ve liked some hot cocoa, Samson,” he said to the immobile dog.  Samson had been dead four days now, but he was the only company Jesse had.  Better a dead dog than no one.  Even if Samson had still been breathing, Jesse wouldn’t have given him any cocoa.  He knew that chocolate was bad for a dog, something about their digestive system not being able to handle it.  And he sure wouldn’t have done it with just one more day til Christmas.  Ain’t no way to find a decent vet on Christmas day, he knew.  All the good ones are at home with family or on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, he figured. 
Outside, a soft snow began spreading its stark winter blanket across the neighborhood.  The first snow of the year, and what better time than on the night before Christmas.  He looked out the window.  “Okey-dokey.”
Jesse thought about the dogs of his life.  His best friends.  Dogs that died before they left puppyhood, dogs that trembled and slept into old-age.  Samson was one of his favorite dogs, probably the last one he’d ever have.  “Got you the year after Emma passed,” said Jesse.  He remembered other Christmas eves, when Emma would hang the stockings on the mantle, wrap last minute presents, slide chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.  Forty-six years of chocolate chip cookies must be some kind of record, both for baking and eating, he thought.  He wondered how many chips of chocolate had melted down on their behalf.
Emma had gone off her meds before she passed, twelve years ago.  Except she didn’t know she had.  She had become impossible to live with, drove Jesse up one wall and down another with her incessant complaining and whining, her mind melting down like those chocolate chips.  So he dumped her meds, all seven bottles of them, down the toilet, replaced them with placeboes.  He liked that word “placebo.”   It took a couple of weeks, but eventually Emma passed in her sleep.  “A peaceful placebo departure,” said Jesse at his most poetic.
He lifted Samson by his tail, half off the floor, to reveal the tattered book under his rump.  He picked it up and turned to the first page.  He always felt a thrill when he read aloud the very first line.  “Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...”  What magic, what power, what craftsmanship.  Not “It was the night before,” but “Twas.”  Not “Christmas Eve,” but “the night before Christmas.”  Jesse stretched his legs out to let the fire warm his bare toes.  Samson slid across the hearth to the edge of the fire.  Outside the snow thickened, swirled, piled along the curbs and bushes.  The street lay silent, no headlights, no crunch of tires.
Jesse continued his annual ritual aloud, to deaf, floppy ears.  “Not a creature was stirring...” He stopped on that line and laughed.  “You can say that again” and looked at Samson.  “...not even a mouse,  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.”  Jesse looked at the mantle.  Yep, the stockings were still there.  He had never gotten around to taking them down from last  year, although Emma had complained about that until midsummer.
Jesse got as far as “... had just settled down for a long winter’s nap” when he smelled the burning, an acrid smell that was neither oak nor hickory.  He looked down at the fireplace.  Samson was smoking.  Or at least the fur on his backside was, turning the dull brown fur into stringy black ash.   “Move away, dog,” he said, and reached over and scooted Samson to the side.  Luckily the dog had not burst into flame yet, and as the smoke subsided, Jesse approached the conclusion of the poem.  He stopped before the last page.  “Not so fast, not so fast,” he thought.  “Gotta let the magic last a little longer.”  He drained the cup, scooped the remaining marshmallow with his finger and licked it clean.  “Okey......”  He felt his eyes getting heavy.  The fire, the cocoa, the snow, his dog.  “How lucky I am,” he said aloud.  His eyes started to close.  But he had to get to the part about “But he heard him exclaim as he rose out of sight ...” and the rest of it.  His head nodded and his chin dropped to his chest.
The peace was shattered by a loud rap-rapping at his door.  Jesse lifted his head.  “Who could that be, Samson?”  He struggled out of his chair, shuffled to the door.  Another series of rap-rap-rapping, this time louder.  “Keep your shirt on, I’m coming, fast as I can,” said Jesse.  He opened the door.  And what to his wondering eyes should appear, but Santa Claus standing there, with no shirt on.
“Sorry  couldn’t keep my shirt on,” said Santa.  “Are you named Jesse?”
Jesse nodded.  This was wonderful beyond belief.
“Then let’s go for a ride,” said Santa with a hearty laugh, making his stomach shake like a bowl full of jelly.  He slipped on his red coat.
“I’ll get my coat,” said Jesse.
“No need to.  I’ve got a propane heater in my sleigh.  I just wear this because it’s expected.”  He laughed again.   “Here we go.”
Jesse and Santa walked out to the sleigh and climbed in behind the eight reindeer.  “Good looking reindeer,” said Jesse.
“I take good care of ‘em.  Thanks for noticing.”
“Bet you never give ‘em any chocolate.”
Santa smiled.  “You sure know your reindeer.”  He grabbed the reins and gave them a shake.  “Hold on, Jesse.”
As they rose above the house, the neighborhood, the town, Jesse heard Santa shout, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
“Okey-dokey,” shouted Jesse.

                     

Archie's BBQ Pit - "We're smokin' for you."

According to the latest issue of The National Barbecue Journal, a new BBQ joint is scheduled to open in St. Louis on Delmar Boulevard, just a few blocks east of the famous Loop district. The name is Archie’s BBQ Pit, and the head pitmaster is Bob Archibald, aka Smokin’ Archie. “Wait until you get a taste of our special sauce,” said Archibald. “It’s a secret recipe that’s been in my family since the War Between the States.” This could be the beginning of the War Between the Sauces.

Until recently, Mr. Archibald was president of the Missouri History Museum, a respected institution on the edge of Forest Park in St. Louis. His new restaurant is located in a building formerly owned by the ex-mayor of St. Louis, Freeman Bosley, Jr. Better known as “Juice Junior,” he helped steer Archibald to this distinctive location. Bosley will be featured with his blues band on weekends to provide entertainment. His recent album, “Bone Suckin’ Blues,” has enjoyed enthusiastic reception and he promises to play several tunes from it, including the hit “Don’t Dig Too Deep.”

Smokin’ Archie is proud of the unique taste he brings to the St. Louis barbecue scene. “We found some interesting ingredients in the ground around and underneath the building,” he said in an interview with this correspondent. “There are things in the soil you just don’t find anywhere else in this area. Once we put them through our exclusive filtering process to remove the glow, we add some chili powder, fresh garlic, and... but if I told you any more, it wouldn’t be a secret now, would it?” He laughed his jolly laugh. No more secrets coming from Archie.

The oversized menu at Archie’s BBQ Pit was designed by David Hoffmann, who also helped design the real estate transaction. What’s unique about the menu is that there are actually two menus. One has a price, the other one doesn’t. Which puts the burden on the customer. According to Mr. Hoffmann, “You can’t let price come between you and enjoyment. If you have to ask what the price is, maybe you shouldn’t be eating here.” Hoffmann was paid $10,000 for the design.

Customers will be greeted at the front door by John “Jackie D” Danforth, former attorney and senator, now turning his talents to a new line of work. Jackie was not available for comment, but a spokesperson said, “You can come here with no reservations. Also, we are not accountable for indigestion, inflated bowels or blood disorders caused by our sauce.” The spokesperson intimated that all customers will be asked to sign a release before ordering. “It’s the way of the world,” she said. Prior to joining the Archibald venture, Danforth had plans to open a restaurant in the Loop, to be called Bryan’s Cave. In a statement released last month, Danforth said, “It was to be a Thai BBQ establishment, but when I heard about Smoking Archie’s plans, I backed off to avoid a conflict of interest.” Rumors have circulated, however, that Jackie D. is still linked to the Thai Q spot.

The one-acre lot upon which Archie’s BBQ sits cost around a million dollars, which included a hefty back-tax that Juice Junior had neglected to pay. The land is currently valued at $232,000, a drop of more than 70%. The article didn’t state how much Smokin’ Archie paid for it, but word on the street has it that he could have paid for it with accumulated vacation pay. “I don’t discuss money,” Archie said, “but I’ll talk ribs with you anytime.” 

For more information on the restaurant, visit their website, www.archiesbbq.org. The restaurant is scheduled to open between Thanksgiving and Christmas, depending on whether Mr. Archibald is out of town researching and writing new, secret recipes.

Roles for the Mature Male. Like me.

More than a month has passed since my last post. My apologies. Other projects, such as doing a couple of biographies, creating a 200-photo album (via MyPublisher), planning a trip to NYC, and watching my grass turn brown, have taken up much of my time. Plus evenings spent watching Season 4 of "Breaking Bad" with Mary Lee - it's addictive. Like meth. Or so I hear.

On to the subject at hand: Roles for Mature Actors. Such as Michael Caine, Debbie Reynolds, Peter O'Toole (although I hear he recently retired), Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Judi Dench. They keep working. 
Sure, there are many who have professionally disappeared, either victims of botched face-lifts or no longer interested in "cameos." But there are parts for actors once they pass the 70-year wrinkle in time.

Which is why I signed up with Talent-Plus about 5 years ago. Originally I anticipated some light-comedy parts in sales films or commercials. You know, the kind where an older guy with a sprightly step and a gleam in his eye delivers a meaningful glance or a well-timed retort. I'd be perfect for that. Turns out the only role I landed was in a low-budget movie about advertising. I played the part of an old Italian baker on The Hill who is approached by The Mob. Like somebody said, "There are no small parts; only small actors." (It was either Stanislavisky or Ginger Rogers. Maybe Mickey Rooney) My reviews were excellent. Three people who saw it said, "You weren't bad."

Why talk about this now? Because I got a phone call last week from Talent Plus. A client was going to shoot a commercial or instructional video and thought I'd be perfect. At last. Someone saw the potential in my style, my smile, my incredible timing with a punch line. "What's the part?" I asked, not really caring what it was, only a chance to work, to loosen up my chops, as somebody said. Maybe it was a musician. Still, relevant. "They like your chest," said the young woman on the phone. She continued. "They like you because you're old and thin." 

I'm not kidding about this. That's why they liked me. "Old" and "thin."
"What's this for?" I asked, though my hopes were fading like my hearing. "It's a robotic device that operates on the heart. A less invasive procedure that produces only a small scar. They thought, given your age and weight, you'd be perfect to put a scar on your chest and show how the machine works." 

Long pause, while I considered the "challenge." It was a non-speaking role. I imagined a scene where adoring relatives and friends would stand around my hospital bed, admiring my small scar with smiles and nods and even a comforting pat on my shoulder. "Way to go, champ." Stuff like that.

Fortunately, I was saved by the schedule. The video is to be shot the week I'm out of town. I told her I couldn't be there. "But they really like you," she said. I asked her, in a joking manner laced with a touch of bitterness, "Do you need a picture of my chest?" She laughed lightly, said no, but I repeated I would be out of town, "perhaps you can find someone else just as old and thin with minimal hair on his chest." She understood.

After I hung up, it hit me. I have reached the point in my on-camera career when I am "right" for such roles as a consumptive senior citizen, a terminally-ill patient, a subject for a medical procedure, or - logically - a cadaver. That doesn't really upset me. What bothers me is that there is not much room for a funny line or a wink or a double-take. Makes me wonder how Michael Caine would handle this situation. Of course, having a British accent has its advantages. 

I'm actually sorry I'm unavailable. I've got a great closing line for the video. A friend at bedside says to me, "That scar is so small, it's actually beautiful." And I say, after a short pause, "If you think THAT'S beautiful, you should see my prostate." Too bad we'll never know how funny that would have been.

Writing is hard, poetry is harder.

I've written a lot of stuff in my life, from 30-second TV commercials to a 317-page novel, with stops along the way including a biography, short stories and plays. But I had never taken a serious shot at poetry. Couldn't be too tough, right? A few lines or stanzas, whatever you call them, some vague thoughts, words that don't rhyme at the end of the line, and an esoteric title having no relationship to the real world. The New Yorker publishes stuff like that every week. 


With that in mind, I submitted two poems to a poetry contest recently. One, a very long poem which I called "Echoes in B-Flat." Very cool, I thought: jazz oriented, musical, visual; a sure winner. First line: "The cool blue neon beckons through the window." Hard to stop reading, right?


 The other poem, much shorter...3 stanzas or paragraphs or whatever...I called "Transplant." Intriguing, you must admit. Opening line: "The first time I met her I knew she was not right for him." That's a grabber, for sure, like the start of a Stephen King or John Grisham novel. I could hear the comments now. "I couldn't put it down." "The fastest three stanzas I've ever read." Things like that.


I mailed the poems in, with my check for $15. I was sure I could add "Poetry Winner" to my list of accomplishments. The results were announced two weeks ago. Nothing. Not a prize, not an Honorable Mention. Not even an addendum to the tally, like "The judges were impressed by a new poet... etc etc." 


Maybe I didn't know enough about the art of poetry. So I got a book from the library. "next word, better word: the craft of writing poetry." Yes, the title was all in lower case, an example of how weird the subject is. Author is stephen dobyns. I picked this book because he wrote a poem once which I actually liked a lot, about a guy and his dog going for a late night ride. And the dog talks to him. Hey, it's poetry.


The book is a revelation. It's like opening a tool box and seeing a bunch of tools you've never seen before and, worse, have no idea how to use. These were the tools of poetry. Let me tell what's in there. First, there's this over-arching premise which sounds exquisite, though I haven't yet conquered its meaning.
"What makes human beings different from any other creature is their sense of possibility. We can speculate about things that don't exist..... This, as well as art and metaphor, dream and humor, is a product of the right brain. The left brain can analyze, but it cannot imagine....It cannot hypothesize. A metaphor - and all art is metaphor - presents us all at once with a complete  totality of meaning that we dwell upon and continue to learn from as we consider its implications."


And I was still on page 6 of the introduction. Skipping nimbly ahead to page 90, I encountered this:
"The two main reasons to have line breaks are rhythm and meaning....A poem's rhythm is by and large influenced by the fact that English is a stressed language...But if the line is broken where no punctuation or syntactic pause exists - if the line is enjambed - then we have an artificial pause, a brief hiccup in the flow of the sentence."


The only person I can imagine understanding that is a proctologist.
Next, a thought I can empathize with.
"In a poem, unlike an anecdote, the reader's question - 'what does this mean?' - is not fully answered by its syntactic closure. We have a sense of more, and so we move past the syntactic closure to reread the poem in search of the scope of that 'more.'"


Now I was really on dobyn's side. He knew I didn't have a clue about writing or reading a poem, and I constantly asked myself - or my dog, if she were nearby - "Just what the hell does THAT mean???" Finally I got near the end of the book, scanning much of it, I admit. Then I came across this section, which turns an analysis of a poem into an accurate description of how those scientists in Geneva recently found the Higgs boson, aka The God Particle.
"The first line begins with a trochee and ends with a pyrrhic and spondee; the second ends with a pyrrhic and spondee, the third beings with a trochee... Affecting our sense of what exists and what should exist is our psychology, our belief system, our history and even comparatively superficial factors such as whether we got a good night's sleep."


I understood the "good night's sleep" concept.


So this is a long-winded way of my telling you, Don't expect any more poetry from this writer. I find it much easier to write a novel, a play, the biography of a failedcaterer, than to attempt another conflict between the two sides of my brain. I can't leave you without naming 3 of my favorite poets. They write poems I can understand. I think. They are Stephen Dobyns, Billy Collins, and George Bilgere. I've attached links to Dobyns and Bilgere. A few poems by Dobyns  A few poems by George Bilgere


So you don't have to wonder about my "Transplant" poem, here's how it begins:


"The first time I met her I knew she was not right for him.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike her.
She smiled and laughed and said the proper things.
I just knew she would wear him down, 
a perpetual grindstone on weathered wood.
She was the oddly shape piece of a puzzle that couldn't
possibly fit into the portrait of a complicated man."


I still think it's pretty good. Just not enough metaphors probably.

The Smell of Cigars, the Sound of Shuffling

An intersection that is locked into my memory made the news today. The item - on Stltoday.com - mentioned a new apartment building to be constructed next to an existing building from 1925. They are to be called The Gotham and The Gotham Annex. "Holy Renovation, Batman, let's check 'em out."


What got my attention was the location of the new Gothams. It's the intersection of Hamilton and Delmar Boulevards, in St. Louis where the city meets the eastern edge of University City. Not a nice neighborhood these days. Definitely on the low end of a long losing streak. 


But back when I was a little kid, Hamilton and Delmar was alive with retail stores, apartments, shoppers, and restaurants. It was also the site of Chester's Pipe Shop. Keep reading, because this is not about pipes and tobacco and old men puffing on their Meerschaums. Chester's is where Dad would head on many a Sunday afternoon. He would tell Mom "I'm going down to the store, check the receipts." (He owned a shoe store on Cherokee Street, with a big Red Goose over the doorway.) Or he'd say "I'm going to visit Minnie and Goldie." Those were two of his five sisters, all of whom had come over on the boat from Russia 30 or more years prior. And, frequently, he would do just that: the shoe store or his sisters.

Frequently he would do neither, and head to Chester's Pipe Shop for an afternoon of gin rummy with several friends. He took me with him once. I walked into the store, looked around, and was surprised that it was dark and empty. Just lots of pipes and cans and pouches and things I didn't recognize. Dad didn't smoke a pipe. He didn't smoke anything. We headed to the back of the store, through a doorway, into a lighted room filled with smoke. Cigar smoke. I remember the smell. It filled every corner. I was afraid to take a deep breath. The center of the room was dominated by a large round table. 


Around the table sat a lot of men, maybe 5 or 6 or 7. It seemed they all were puffing on  stogies of one length or another. I recognized three of the men. Sid Ginsberg and Jack Golberg and Nat Kornblum. I called them Uncle Sid, Uncle Jack, Uncle Nat, though none of them were related. But that's how I was told to address them. I also noticed lots of black telephones in the room. Very unusual, I thought, until I found out a few years later it was a big bookie operation. Mom didn't like these men. Worse than that: she hated them, thought Dad was too good for them. They not only smoked but drank whiskey and used bad language. Mom was better than that and thought Dad was too. 


But gin rummy with his buddies was important to Dad. That one time he took me, he stayed for only a short time. He told me to go look around at the pipes while he "took care of some business." I sat in the front room, listened to the chatter, heard lots of dirty words, the shuffling of cards. They told jokes with words I didn't understand, came to the punch line, and the room would explode with their laughs. To this day, the pungent odor of a cigar takes me back to Chester's. I wish I knew some of those jokes.


When we got home, Mom said, "You've been to Chester's." Dad claimed he just stopped by to drop off a pair of shoes. She said, "I can smell it all over you. That doesn't happen in two minutes." Dad mumbled some response, offered no argument. It was part of their ritual. That was my only visit to Chester's. But every time I passed it, over the years, the neighborhood in decline, Dad long since given up gin with his pals, I recall - fondly - how he had found this haven of friendship and recreation, and a place to display his awesome gin rummy talents. I don't even know if the building is still there, but I somehow suspect the Sunday afternoon games still go on in another dimension, cigars and all.


I was never able to beat Dad at gin. To this day, when my wife and I play gin rummy, she invariably mentions how good a player he was, how quickly he played his cards, and how impossible it was to beat him. I would have liked one more visit to Chester's with him, and some insight into how to win at gin.

Those Gutsy Boys in Blue

I finally figured out this thing about the U.N., and why they are so ineffective when it comes to stopping violence. It’s not bravery or motivation or physical skills. They’ve got that, and I admire them for it. The reason is their blue hats.

Did you ever notice those cute little toppers? All U. N. “Observers” wear these little blue hats when they wade into a conflict or danger zone or places that most of us wouldn’t go within a hundred miles of. Sometimes they wear helmets. Even their jeeps and trucks are emblazoned with that same blue.

It’s a powder blue, a robin’s egg blue, a blue as cheerful as the sky on a beautiful day in May. The U. N. Blue makes you want to hug and kiss and skip through fields of flowers. It makes you want to say, “I’ll have a popsicle, please.” It does NOT make you want to sheath your machete, lower your AK-47, disconnect the bomb or the booby trap. It certainly doesn’t make you want to give up your cause and go home to sit around the fire.

You need a better color if your intention is to intimidate. You need Black. Or Olive Drab. Or Brown. Or Gray. If you want Blue, you’ve gotta go with DARK Blue or NAVY Blue or STEEL Blue or MIDNIGHT Blue. 

The U. N. Blue is about as intimidating as the uniforms of the Redcoats of 1776, the French pantaloons of a couple centuries ago, and a long parade of military styles, including these two characters at the left. Maybe bright colors did a lot to heighten the morale, like when they marched in parades or advanced twenty abreast into battle. But they also made for tempting targets. The British Redcoats discovered that when they came up against the Rebels, who tended to dress down. 

Of course war was different back then. "To the Colors" actually meant more than the flag, I assume. Just take a look at this guy in a blue hat - with a feather, no less. I'm betting he didn’t make it out of his tent. But he looked great the night before at The Ball.

Berets, actually, are okay. It's the color, not the style. You know about the Green Berets. But did you know that the style and color originated with the British Commandos in WW2? Then it was picked up by Australian, French and Dutch Commandos. The U.S. Army Special Forces took a liking to that style and used it in Nam, with veterans made up from WWII and Korea. Even John Wayne got into the act. He said the beret was more comfortable than a cowboy hat and he could fold it up and stick it in his back pocket when he went bar hopping.

If the U. N. wants combatants to listen up to their Observers, they could take a lesson from this guy. This is intimidation at its finest. Doesn’t even matter if his gun is loaded. You know he means business, and you sure as hell better back away. 

So that's my advice for the U.N. Oh, one more thing.That word "Observer." It doesn't do a lot for me. It certainly doesn't compare with "Commando" or "Special Forces." It's not even as strong as "Referee," who at least can blow a whistle and stop play.

The Observers have a difficult and frustrating job. Striving for World Peace is not easy. But at least they could take a first step and dress for the part. I urge you to write Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the UN, and tell him to pick a better color. He lives on Sutton Place in New York City. You can also tell him I have a brother-in-law in the hat business who will give him 30% off all orders over $100,000 if he orders before the end of July.