The Critics

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
ABOUT DB

Touching. Portrays the role with great sharpness. (New York Daily News)

His versatility is awe-inspiring. (The West Side Spirit)

The most consistent acting is provided by DB. (New York Native)

Commendable professionalism…virtuosity. (The Nation)

Very well acted. (New York Times)

Illuminating intensity. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Vivid acting. (Variety)

Played with immense flair and feeling…sensitive acting.
(Philadelphia Courier-Post)

Expert performance. (Philadelphia Daily News)

DB is brilliant. Philadelphia Welcomat)

DB is a dramatic find…a dynamic, subtle, fully-realized characterization.
(Philadelphia Gay News)

Hours of wonderful work and entertainment. You are a marvelous actor.
( Walnut Street Theatre)

It’s a pleasure to work with such a giving actor. (The Glines)

The smooth, assured theatrical skill and intrepidity that comes from solid artistry. (The Southampton Press)

Superb. (The East Hampton Star)

Drolly played. (Newsday)

A true professional and a consummate actor. (The John Drew Theatre)

Adept at both physical comedy and crackling dialogue.
(The Philadelphia Inquirer)

B gives a strong performance. (Bucks County Courier Times)

Beautifully and subtly handled by DB. (Courier Pigeon, PA)

A good feel for the character and for Feiffer’s humor. (Bristol Pilot)

DB, the seasoned pro, is a tower of concentration, a hub around which the wheel of the play spins.
(The Southampton Press)

Mr. B’s extraordinary performance, childlike in the most delightful sense of the word, inspired the evening…wonders of acting.
(The East Hampton Star)

Leaned Leaves

The best thing about the future is it only comes one day at a time.

Abraham Lincoln
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Good day to you
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Today is America's Birthday - 233 years old.
Here's to the true patriots, the common people, the Americans.
Here's to those who dared to make it happen. Jere's to the men who dared to sign for independence and gave thier lives for it. Here's to those who dared to drop everything and take up arms to protect their lands, their families and their neighbors, to the farmers who dared to defend the bridge and their weapons against ranks of the strongest army in the world and chased them away, to the freed slaves and others in Boston who dared to stand up against the English rifles and were the first Americans to die for it, to those who dared to dump a precious cargo into the bay rather than to allow the government to line its pockets and those of its businessmen at America's expense, to those who dared to cross the ice bound Delaware River on a freezing night, the river I see from my own window, to chase the enemy from Trenton, to those farmers and merchants who dared to spend a blazing hot Phildelphia summer behind closed doors to write a constitution.
Here's to those who dare to make it work. Here's to the farmer and the fisherman, to the miner and the forester, to the carpenter, the mason and the gardener, to the teacher and the preacher, to the banjo player, the trumpet player and the church organist, to the tailor and the cobbler, to the actor, the singer and the dancer, to the truck driver, the bus driver and the cab driver, to the fire fighter, the cop and the paramedic, to the lineman and the lighthouse keeper, to the long shoreman, the teamster and the transit worker. to the typist, the printer, the mail carrier and the factory worker.

Here's to the true patriots, the common people, the Americans.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Kinetic Knack 6/25/09

Kinetic Knack



Being a writer is like having homework

every night for the rest of your life.


Lawrence Kasdan

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Good day friends


I write every day. I spent my working life as a performing artist. Due to physical problems I can't work at that trade anymore, so now I write. I am amused to see that Google in its profile section under "industry" has no category marked "theatre," "film" "entertainment" or "show business." So I had to go with "arts." I guess that's okay. Artists have always been considered sub-citizens by the big corporate world, especially actors (except rich and promiscuous movie stars, some of whom are not "actors" in the strictest sense of the word). I'll settle for "arts."


Somerset Maugham said that if you want to be a writer you have to write everyday. In my case I write everyday whether I want to be a writer or not. I write because somehow I feel obligated to. I don't have a publisher or an agent tapping his impatient foot, nor a teacher gleefully giving me impossible assignments. I just think that if I didn't write something and put it in my journal every night I would be letting myself down and also possibly a few readers. So I write whether I feel like it or not.

I often sit at this keyboard and know I have nothing to say. So I check the mail, go for a walk, do a little reading, ponder, take a nap (old folks do that), wake up and have another cup of coffee, while I try to put a sentence or two together. Soon I give up, hopelessly admit a blank mind and an uncreative day. It's pure drudgery. I heave a sigh over my lumpish nature and decide that I'll just leave a quote and forget about it.


BUT


Silently and suddenly, like a squirrel showing up on the porch outside the window, a thought comes to me. And then another, and soon there are a few that line themselves up in a good order, Some words pop up, a phrase or two, an example, some language that appeals to me, colors and sounds, pictures, a new way of saying something and a feeling. The squirrel becomes a deer. And then everything begins to circle around a main idea like planets around the sun, each sending out its own energy and beauty and light. The marvelous English language starts caressing my mind. I can't type fast enough. I'm in love again.

DB Vagabond Journeys

Inimical Instructions 6/21/09

Inimical Instructions 6/05/09
Don't let anyone tell you that it doesn't matter what you think. Of course it matters. Above all else thinking matters the most.

DB - The Vagabond
*********************
Greetings
______________________
Things that must be written, must be written.

I made an appointment and went to see a very wise man, a well known provider of good advice and positive, practical solutions to life's problems and difficulties, My problem was that I felt I had no purpose and direction in my life, that I was aimlessly working as an actor with no reason nor objective, that I really didn't have any value in the world. In response to his questions I told him about growing up.

My father died when I was 4 years old. They never told me that he died. All they said was that he wasn't coming back. My mother, my grandmother, my sister and my brother; none of them told me. They say that I cried for many days afterward. For the next 8 years I expected him to return. The phone would ring, there was a knock on the door, it might be my father. I would look out the windows of cars and buses to see if he was walking down the street. Why did he abandon me? It must be my fault. I wanted to find him, to apologize and bring him back home. Finally, at the age of about 12 years, I accepted that he was in truth never coming back. Why didn't they tell me? Why wasn't I valuable or important enough to be told the truth?

The relationship with my mother was adversarial, My brother and sister left shortly after that, but when they were around they either ignored me or were critical of me. There was no love. I was not liked at home.

I grew up without my father's wisdom, advice, judgment, encouragement or approval.
I missed him. Ironically, it was at my mother's funeral, 40 years later, that I could grieve for him. At the cemetary I was placed in a chair directly over my father's grave and for the first time I read his tombstone. He was a young man when he went, only 53. He was a Lieutenant/Colonel in the U.S. Army. I wanted,with all my heart, to know the guy and wanted him to know me, his son. I wept.

"There is a sacredness in tears" Washington Irving said

As I spoke on with that wise man, I told him about the influences on my life after my father's death. How I had been criticized and minimized and disapproved of by everyone around me. How I had fought to reject other people's opinions of me and how I was trying to establish in my own thinking a positive structure of self-respect and self-approval but that I was having trouble doing it and needed help. Then this wise man, the purveyor of positive advice and well being said to me "Well, fortunately it makes no difference what you think."

How, after listening to my tale of deprivation and woe, could this wise man, this guru of positive thinking, this friend of mankind, this generous and compassionate dispenser of good, sound advice tell me that it makes no difference what I think?

I left his office believing him, and his words sank down into the very bottom of my being. After losing my father and not told why, after the scorn and resentment from members of my family and to be told it doesn't matter what I think, I realized what I was: a useless thumb on the hand of the world, a worthless appendage that needed to be amputated, something taking up space for no reason. As someone once said to me "I don't understand why you're still alive."

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

Shakespeare

In my mid 50s, when I had outlived my father, I began to understand some things. I began to put some pieces together and throw out some others. I may be a worthless and annoying hunk of junk as far as the world is concerned, I thought, but I was still alive, I was working, supporting myself and entertaining people. And if there was only one thing I knew it was that it did matter what I thought. My thinking was just as valid and important to the world as anyone else's. Thinking matters the most. And one who thinks is not a useless appendage, taking up space. That's something my father might have taught me when I was just a boy.

Shakespeare also wrote "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

Even today, at 70, I miss my father. I miss what we might have meant to each other. I want the love only a father can give. I want the advice of someone who cares about me. I want the companionship of the man I can look up to and admire. I want the words of encouragement and approval from the man who is grateful I was born and is glad I'm alive. I want my Dad.

DB

Victorious Voices 1/01/09

Everything has its own song.

Josef von Eichendorff

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I hear the music of creation.

I hear the sounds of nature.

I hear the songs of life.

I hear the vigorously loud and the beautifully silent.

I hear the rolling tympani of thunder, the cymbal crash of lightening, the snare drum of rain on the window and the sweet celesta of falling snow upon my cheek.

I hear the adagio of the drifting clouds, the harp notes of sunshine and the oboe song of the moon.

I hear the trumpet calls from the mountain tops, the trombones in the forest and the gentle horn upon the surface of the lake.

I hear the flute tones of the humble pebbles on the beach, the whisper of the sand and the parade of marching bands as the tides come in.

I hear the choir of autumn colors, the sopranos in their nests in spring,

I hear the largo of the growing flowers and the presto of the squirrels.

I hear the siren song of stars and the humming along the garden path.

I hear the bubbling madrigal of children on their way to school.

I hear the opera of the busy city streets.

I hear the strings that sing of love and friendship, of hope and faith.

I hear the sounds of nature.

I hear the music of creation.

I hear the symphony of life,


"And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."
Isaiah 55:12


DB

Quick Quackery 12/27/08

It is not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring.

Spanish proverb
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I can talk about acting because I have been on the stage. But I won't. Instead I will surmise that almost any occupation in life whether a profession or a hobby, is too often looked upon and thought upon as being much simpler than it is.

I'm not much of a sports fan but I will occasionally watch a baseball game. I enjoy watching the pitcher before the pitch because I know something about the thinking going on. It's a battle of brains between the pitcher and the batter. When the pitcher winds up to throw the ball a decision has been made. There is an agreed upon tactic between the pitcher and the catcher based upon observation, study, intuition and the character of the game up to that point. Many factors come into play with each pitch. But most people are probably totally unaware of the thinking that is going on. Don't talk of bulls

If you go to a tennis match you will see everyone watching the ball. The heads all go back and forth, back and forth, great exercise for the neck. My head goes back and forth in the opposite direction, or more likely I look at only one of the players. I like to watch the thinking of the one who is receiving the ball because it doesn't matter so much if he hits it, it's where he hits it that counts. Don't talk of bulls.

I had a nasty neighbor once who said that I looked tired. I told him I was double shifting. He wanted to know what I did. When I told him I was a radio announcer he said "Oh, well, that's not hard work." I wondered if he had ever been on the air in a radio studio. I think probably not. No doubt there are jobs that are harder than broadcasting but don't talk of bulls. It sounds easy because we make it sound easy.

Ballerinas float effortlessly through the air on their toes. Have you ever seen a ballerina's toes? Don't talk of bulls.

One day a building on my block in New York which was still under construction caught fire. Burning pieces of the building were blowing off and falling to the street below. It was a tall apartment building about 50 stories of it had been completed. The fire was on the top floors. The only way the fire fighters could get to it was by the construction elevator on the side of the building. But that elevator stopped two or three stories above the blazing inferno. I watched in awe as those people jumped into the fire, at the risk of life and injury, not knowing what was underneath them, to put the fire out. Don't talk of bulls.

A well kept garden is a beautiful thing, lush, fecund greenery and many colored flowers, delighting the eyes and offering sweet aromas to the air all the way down to the ground. But what's under the ground, where all the work is being done, only the flower and the gardener know. Don't talk of bulls.


The Vagabond

Necessary Navigation 12/24/08

I would not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a serving sense of humor.

Horatio Nelson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took me many years before I learned to laugh at myself and at the absurdities of the world around me. I was a sensitive, serious and somber kid. Not appreciating what others found funny, I was easily offended when people would laugh at me. In spite of the loving attempt by friends to point out the big red clownish bulb on my mental nose, I maintained my right to my own self-importance.
I don't remember exactly what it was or when it was that I finally learned to laugh at life and at myself. But I know that one day, when I was in some serious difficulty and had problems that I thought were too much for me to handle, I suddenly saw the funny side.
Humor is more than telling jokes It is the positive against the negative, the ability to see light where the darkness is gnawing, to spot the subtle thing that's alive in the wasteland, to see the end of the tunnel before you enter it, to breathe fresh air and life into an oppressed and suffocating spirit.
It must seem strange to one who hasn't developed a proper sense of humor to see someone laughing at their own troubles, but humor will minimize the troubles and the sufferer's reaction to them, piling up defenses against the fear and pain and freeing the soul to face up to them and solve them, That is a law of life.
One day in June, several years ago, my phone service went out. It knocked out my phone and my computer. I went to a pay phone and called the company. They said they would send someone around to fix it. That night there was a severe summer storm that caused flash flooding and knocked down phone lines all over the county. I was frustrated and almost in a frenzy. People were trying to reach me, friends, who were used to getting email from me everyday were getting very concerned about me.
It took a whole week for the repairman to finally get to me. When he got my service back up and running, there were two messages from the phone company telling me why they couldn't come to fix my phone.
I could grind my teeth in rage over the stupidity and silliness of that, or I could laugh.
What would you do?

DB The Vagabond