Category: This; And also that

“The Sun Also Ebbs”

we were supposed
to need less sleep
when we got older.

I thought I was completely burned out on the whole Talk Like a Pirate Day thing, and then I bumped into this lovely gem, which is worth playing just for the music:

who’s been worried about whether, in this post-9/11 world, what with the war, and the economy, and health care, and the general state of things, the cable news channels still had it in them to babble on and on (and on) about painful but not really very important OJ-type celebrity uglinesses?
You can imagine what a relief the last few days have been….

Caught the Coulton show in SF Friday night with xian and so-called Bill. Excellent fun. The highlight for me was a swank encore cover of Sweet Caroline. Here’s some footage of said cover from the LA show, which I believe was the night afore….

My 7-year-old just offered this interesting observation (which I reproduce here with apologies to my 81-year-old readers): “Death is OK. It’s OK if you die of old age. Dying at 80 just means that God thinks you’ve had enough time.” To which my 9-year-old added, “A soldier dying in war isn’t OK.”
The proximity of these two thoughts led me to the kind of rare insight that comes only once every few weeks, to whit: Why aren’t we sending our 80- and 90-year-olds to war and leaving our 20-year-old kids home to play with their video game contraptions and text messaging?
I know, I know, this is kinda politically incorrect, and I apologize for that. And I certainly mean no disrespect to 90- and 100-year-olds. But seriously, I’m picturing a wave of 30,000 pissed off 110-year-old soldiers, tossing grenades, pressing lethal buttons, shouting “take that you ratzis!” I would run away from a wave like that. Wouldn’t you run away from a wave like that? I think I would poop myself. And then I would run away.

“Did you find everything you’re looking for?” asked the guy at the grocery store checkout.
“Yes. Spiritual wholeness. Physical well-being. Companionship. Chick peas.”
“Do you want paper or plastic?”
“Paper?”
Handing over a medium-sized paper bag and my change he said, “Enjoy your happiness.”

Suddenly all I want to do is listen to Flight of the Conchords. And I don’t even have the HBO.

At the airport today, the Aloha Airlines employees were wearing Hawaiian shirts and lovely flowers in their hair, all designed to send the message: “You’re already there.”
And I was struck by the idea that a flower in someone’s hair can be all it takes to lift your feet, to change the temperature, to shift your sense palette and drop you on the far side of a wearying journey,
And then later on, I’m waiting to go through security, and I’m looking around at some of the smiling folks, blissed out, and I thinking, “You bastards! You’re already there!”
Me, I’m off to Boston. Would it have been too much trouble for the JetBlue employees to sport Samuel Adams wigs?

This fall (specifically, late October/early November), Virago Theatre will be staging an evening’s worth of sitcom good-times that I cowrote with an old pal. The aim is to film it, 3-camera-style, before a live studio audience. You can read all about the show, including a character list and a little more background on the show’s premise, here.
If you’re a Bay Area actor or theater person and you’d be interested in learning more, and either working on the production or auditioning for a part, consider yourself formally exhorted to drop me a line.