Locked Logic

Monday, September 8, 2008
12:05:57 AM EDT


Locked Logic

A person who can live in his own darkness
and patiently await the dawn with a sense of humor,
is not crazy.

What's crazy is to be afraid of the dark.

DB - The Vagabond

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Good Monday to you, may there be sparkles in your day.

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Even before I got to confront the trolls of emails and journals, I came upon a few in the real world.

Several years ago a friend of long standing turned malignant on me for no reason. The lies and nasty name calling spread to his family and mutual friends, one of whom even suggested to me that I should apologize. I couldn't understand what I should apologize for. For not being more gracious in putting up with the lies? But I was gracious about it. I tried to understand what the ill will was about and I did it with humor and a light heart, until the moment when I knew the friendship was over. Every attempt I made to understand what to do to save that friendship was met with an increase of the abuse.

But the most interesting part of it was that I was being accused of darkness. One email included the sentence "I'm not going down this dark road with you." When I wrote back honestly wanting to know what dark road was being referred to, there was no answer.

I knew this fellow for 20 years. We worked together on several occasions. He has a lot of darkness in him, I'd seen it. I think he is running from it and, as with most people, pointing at others as he goes.

I once worked with a radio producer who insisted that he had no sinister side while he was doing sinister things, like stealing other people's ideas.

Who doesn't have darkness in them? Who hasn't found themselves down in a pit or nailed to a cross now and then. It would be great if life was always sweet and joyful. But it's not. Where there's life there's trouble. It is necessary for us to take off the pretty pink tinted glasses, stop pretending that we are always walking in the bright sunshine and look at the dark things with courage and reason. Do you think there's a crocodile under the bed? Don't lie there shivering with fear. Look under the bed. Is there a monster in the closet? Turn on the light and open the closet door.

Some shadows are short term problems. Others take time But they can never be chased away by running or pretending they aren't there. And to blame someone of something you can't face in yourself is the same thing as pulling yourself up by putting someone else down.

We all have dark places along the journey. To do the best we can and patiently await the outcome is the manly and womanly thing to do. But to be afraid of the dark is childish.

DB - The Vagabond

Maestro's Mark 8/11/09

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
12:12:00 AM EDT


Maestro's Mark


Direct the play, not the players.

DB - The Vagabond ---------------------------------------------------
Good day friend.
*****************************************************
Oh, that more directors understood.

I have written here about dopey actors I have known. But, in all fairness, I must talk about some dopey directors. The shameful fact is that I can probably squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle the number of good directors I have worked with over the years. Most of them seem to think that it is their job to give acting lessons to the cast. While it may be true that some young, inexperienced actors might need some sort of training, the rehearsal is not the place for it nor is the director the proper teacher.

I often advise youngsters who are looking for an acting career to study with an actor, not a director. If you want to learn how to play the violin, do you study with a violinist or a conductor. There are too many intricacies to the art of acting that directors are unaware of or have forgotten about. I will say that if you walk into an acting class and the teacher is sitting in a chair with a clipboard in his lap taking notes, head for the exit.

I once served on a jury in a trial during which the judge was not watching nor listening to the testimony but was typing notes into her computer. Both attorneys asked for and got a new trial. The acting teacher must pay close attention to everything you're doing and not take notes. Taking notes is what directors do.

Some directors will order an improvisation on the first day, before anyone is really acquainted with the play, their characters or even each other. It usually means the director has no vision or ideas of his own. Doing that is a stupid waste of time. Improvisation itself is very valuable under the right circumstances. Some day I will write about my friend Stuart and the best improvisation I was ever involved with.

The only screaming fights I've ever had with directors were over their inability to understand that stage business must be rehearsed. There are fight choreographers and fight rehearsals so that people don't get hurt. But complicated activity on the stage, especially when it is tied in to the timing of the scene, doesn't happen when you push a button. Why is it some directors have a total blind spot about that?

Twice I was involved in something I will never do again. I performed a rehearsed scene for a directing class. One was at a prestigious New York City film school, the other was under a private grant. In both cases the teacher was more interested in criticizing the actors than in helping the directing student.

In the first case, I don't know whether the teacher was playing a nasty game or if he was just an ignoramus. I tend to think it was the latter. But he had no idea what he was talking about. I almost stopped him to tell him to stick to the directing and leave the acting to the actors. The only thing those students were learning, in both cases, was how NOT to talk to actors.

I'll close this with an amusing story. The three character play had a line that read something like this "You work and work and save money so that you can buy a house. Then you move into the house and where are you?" The director began the rehearsal one day by saying that she wanted to deal with the realities. So I asked her if we were still in our apartment or if we had moved into the house. She answered "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." So much for the realities.

Some day I'll write about how important PLACE is to the actor and the production.

DB - The vagabond
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May you have lots of sunshine in your heart today.
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Nifty Newness

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
12:01:57 AM EDT


Nifty Newness


If you want to know the truth of something,
imagine looking at it from the side you can't see.

DB - The Vagabond
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Good day people of the world.
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That quotation came about as a result of a life drawing class. One day the teacher asked us to draw the model as if we were on the opposite side of the room. She was sitting in a chair with one arm draped over the back of it. It was very difficult to get all the details of the figure but it was a great exercise.

I carried that technique over into acting. All plays are about conflict. An inexperienced actor will just shadow box, flailing or raging into the air without knowing what he is really fighting against. I decided to spend some time imagining what the source and substance were of the force that was challenging my character. It added so many dimensions to what I was doing. It gave validity to my character's struggles.

As with all art, there is a life lesson in this technique. How much time and effort do we ever spend really understanding an opposing point of view? When in an argument, don't we rather dig in our heels and refuse to listen to the other guy?

Similarly in politics, no matter which side you're on it's common to quickly reach the conclusion that the other side is just plain wrong. Liberals and conservatives should investigate, observe and learn what the other side thinks. They should imagine things from the opposite point of view.

Think of the heel digging that goes on with religion. I don't think there is any more ignoring of conflicting views than is practiced by those who have a firm belief in their own faith. I know a woman who converted to Christianity by reading a book many "Christians" refuse to read and which, in fact, some have burned.

When the disaster of 9/11 happened to the World Trade Center a lot of time. effort and money was spent immediately to find how HOW it happened, but not a nickel was spent on WHY it happened. What would be the situation in the Middle East and South central Asia if the American could really imagine and understand the Arab's thnking.

To refuse to see things from another's point of view or even to acknowledge that he has a right to have one is pure cowardice.

To imagine life from the other side maybe won't change a person's mind, but it will enlighten him.

DB

Righteous Reasons

Sunday, September 14, 2008
12:07:58 AM EDT


Righteous Reasons


When we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.

DB The Vagabond
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"What do you mean by that?"

I mean what I said.

"You mean in a peaceful world there will be no justice, mercy and so on?"

No, that's not what I said.

"You think a world without compassion, honesty and such is a peaceful world? I don't think so."

Neither do I and that's not what I said.

"I can't live in a world where there's no compassion."

Nor can I, but that is still not what I said.

"Well, I hope I never stop noticing justice."

You might, if there was no reason to.

"Let me get this straight. You think a peaceful world is one in which there is no justice, mercy, compassion or honesty, right?"

Wrong. That's not what I said.

"All right then, what did you say?"

I said, when we no longer notice justice, mercy, compassion and honesty, it will mean that the world is finally at peace.

"I don't get it."


(Sigh) DB

Snatching Sagacity

Monday, September 15, 2008
Snatching Sagacity


It's not enough just to live life, we must seize it.

DB - The Vagabond

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"Carpe diem" Horace wrote, (Seize the day).

I used to know a radio announcer who was on the air from 6 in the morning until noon. In the control room where he worked there was a small, square calendar, the kind with a single date on each page. You know the type, Hollywood movies were fond of showing the passing of time by having the pages blown away in the wind.

Every morning, when this announcer came to work, one of the first things he did was tear off the page from the prvious day, crumple it up and throw it in the basket.

I came to work at about the same time and one morning I found him in a loud, shaking rage, yelling at the announcer who had just worked the all night shift. The regular all night announcer was off that night and a replacement announcer had been there. At some point after midnight he had removed the page from the calendar and the morning announcer was yelling at the poor fellow over it.

The morning man went on the air and was his usual charming, entertaining self, but he considered his day was ruined because he couldn't perform his morning ritual of the new day. "Seize the day" does not mean tearing a page off the calendar.

Life is confusing, chaotic and challenging and we help ourselves through it by developing dependable patterns of behavior and thought. The danger is letting those patterns take the place of life itself. Someone wrote to me recently about a woman who only votes the way her husband tells her to. If you keep your house clean and neat as a pin (whatever that means) it's a good thing, but it should never take the place of adventure.

Ever since that pivotal day when my teacher/mentor said "Can't you find anything to do?" my life has been spinning. Every day, even in my reduced circumstances, I still find activities, sometimes just mental, but always with a positive goal. Even when things become emotionally bleak, as they periodically do, there is always some puttering to be done, some bit of chaos to be put in order. Life is never the way we want it, and if it is it doesn't stay that way for long. There is always more life to be lived than we are living, there is more to life than we know, so why not seize it and discover it. Investigate things with imagination and observation and find that there is always something more to do.

Beethoven continued to compose music even after he became deaf. Matisse continued to make art works even after his eye sight went dim. To seize life is often uncomfortable and unbalancing but if we don't do it we have no life at all.


DB - Vagabond Journeys

Trusty Terms 8/07/09

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
12:08:31 AM EDT


Trusty Terms


One lesson you can learn from composing music is that no matter what the problem is in life the solution already exists.

DB - The Vagabond

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I was working for a big, important classical radio station in a large city. One evening a week there was a special program heavily sponsored by a multinational corporation. As a result the music was carefully chosen to be the best performance of the best music possible and the show was scripted. It was usually hosted by the chief announcer. But one evening he was unable to be there and the announcing of the program fell to me.

I carefully checked over the script ahead of time and made sure the record album was in the control room. There was one piece scheduled for the show, a long symphony lasting about 45 minutes. The program began, right after a 5 minute newscast, with brief recorded theme music, followed by a live introduction That was followed by a 20 second recorded commercial. After that came the script, written by the music department. Then came the music. After it came a one minute live commercial read by me, the closing theme and a word about next weeks program.

For some reason I will never understand I told the engineer that I would reverse the commercials, do the one minute live commercial at the beginning and the recorded commercial at the end. This was not the way it was scripted but I felt it was best to do it that way.

So the program began. I opened it, did the introduction, read the one minute commercial, read the script, signaled the engineer to start the music and settled back to listen and read my book. But disaster struck!

At about 15 minutes before the hour the engineer called into me that the piece was about to end. I said "When?" He said "Right now." Sure enough I was hearing the final cadences of the symphony. Somebody, either the record company or the music department, had mistimed the piece, the one thing I didn't check on. It was going to bring the program up to be almost 15 minutes short. But I had no time to think about that. The engineer was saying "What should I do?"

I told him to give me the microphone when the piece was over and then go to the 20 second recorded commercial. I announced the end of the piece in a calm and dignified manner and as soon as the recorded commercial was on I dashed down to the music library, want right to a specific shelf and pulled out an album. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I never spent any time in the music library. But the album I pulled had a ten minute piece on it that was just perfect for the program. I ran back to the control room, gave the record to the engineer, told him what to cue up, took the album cover and ran back to the studio. I sat down just as the 20 second commercial was ending and, again with the proper dignity and sophistication, announced the second piece. The program ended smoothly. The amazing thing was that if I hadn't reversed those commercials I wouldn't have had the time to solve the problem.

There was another announcer there, Frank, who was busy preparing the next newscast. He saw the whole thing happening and after the second piece was playing he came to my studio, opened the door and, with an awestruck look on his face, said "How did you do that?"

I just laughed and said "I don't know."


DB

Ancient Affection

Thursday, August 28, 2008
12:09:12 AM EDT

Ancient Affection

When an old man dies, a library burns down.

African proverb


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One of the most remarkable people I ever knew was my grandmother, Charlotte Cole. I was only 14 when she died, but I remember as a child, literally sitting at her knee and listening to her talk.

She talked about growing up in the Shenandoah Valley in the late 19th Century where she was taught to sing, dance. act and play the piano.

When she married she and my grandfather moved to Pawnee City, Nebraska to pioneer the land. She spoke of her life as a farmer/rancher's wife, of the other pioneers around, of the men and women of the local Indian tribe, of riding on the back of an ox to go to market because there was no seat in the ox cart. She spoke of the tornados that would rip through a person's home taking the pictures off the wall but leave the wall standing, of the sod house they lived in, where she bore two sons and a daughter. She talked of her sons, one, a successful businessman who, when he was a teenager bought a piglet for 50 cents and a year later sold it for 50 dollars, and the other an important baseball coach and trainer.

When my grandfather died, she took my mother and hit the road with a traveling theatre company. She taught my talented mother the rudiments of entertainment and they worked as a song and dance sister act. She talked of the dangers and hardships of traveling out west in the early 20th Century and of the strong theatre people who helped and protected each other. She recalled performing in places where the men in the audience would come in armed. She talked about the time the two of them barely escaped being kidnapped by men who would seize girls and force them into prostitution. They were called "white slavers" in those days. She told of performers being stranded in far-off places, because the unscrupulous producers would take the money and leave.

When she got to New York City she went to work as an actress in silent movies when they were being made in Astoria and Long Island City. She lived, with her trunk, in a NYC hotel room until she died. That trunk contained all the bits and pieces of an adventurous career. She let me poke around in it and look at the things in there, and she would talk about them.

She knew many people. She knew opera singers, comedians, politicians and prize fighters. She had an engaging, infecting sense of humor. She even found something amusing about her own passing. She was a fiery Christian.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how valuable all that information was. I wish I had taken notes or had had a tape recorder. The library that was my grandmother exists now only in the shreds of my meager memory. I am the only one left of my family who knew her and I was the only one who listened to her.


DB - The Vagabond