Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"How can one not dream while writing. It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream." -- Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher/poet.

You know things are bad when. . .

Even the US military thinks we spend too much money on them and our priorities are completely fucked up.

Three Cups of Spoiled Tea

He made millions from his book and speaking engagements he traveled by private jet- was lauded for his charitable work helping to build schools in Afghanistan. Then a recent 60 minutes story exposed Greg Mortenson author of “Three cups of tea” as a fraud. Among other things he made up the story about him being nursed back to health from the brink of death by kind Afghan villagers.

What a shame.

I really admired Mortenson’s intentions and I don't think he fabricated events in his book with the intent to deceive per se. Perhaps felt he had to over dramatize his experience in order to make his cause more appealing and attractive. After all, we’ve all heard stories of poor, destitute people in need of help and we shrug.

Greg Mortenson became a victim of his own spin. In his attempt to gain our sympathy for these people with a story that would pry us out of our cynicism, he lost sight of the truth. He began to believe he was the hero of the tale not the Afghanis who are exhausted after more than 30 years of war that has reduced the country to rubble. They got no assistance from a corrupt government or the Taliban trying to crush what was left of their culture.

Then along comes a westerner who wasn’t trying to complete the rape of their culture but wanted to rebuild it. People in America opened their checkbooks and gave to his charity, bought his books, listened to his speeches and now wonder how much of it was a lie, how much of the money they freely gave in good conscious is going to build schools or going into Mortenson’s pocket.

If he wants to redeem himself and salvage the good he’s done and he has done good- he needs to be honest with himself and us before another child in Afghanistan can be rescued.

How I saved the Country in Three Simple Steps

This country has a lot of problems. They are too numerous to list and overwhelm us with their complexity. How can we make a difference? Where do we start? If I were President and could only change three things here’s what I would do:

One -Make voting compulsory. You want a democracy, then everyone votes. Make campaigns publicly funded and only six weeks long.

Two - simplify taxes. 10% flat tax for everyone under $ 500,000, above that 15% and Corporations pay %20. Only deductible is for charities. You do business in this country- you pay taxes, no exceptions.

Three- Streamline the military. I believe in an efficient and strong military. What we have is a bloated, inefficient and poorly managed one. Black operations for instance, have too large a budget with no visible (for obvious reasons) results. No more padding the price of hammers, coffee machines and toilets to cover them. They get x amount period. If JPL engineers can ingeniously build, send and control a rover to Mars that far exceeds expectations on a limited budget- so can the US Military. Necessity is the mother of invention. Any one of these ideas would radically change our world. People think complex problems demand complex solutions. Maybe not.

For example, I have been doing aikido for many years and during class the teacher will occasionally ask two students to demonstrate some maneuvers. I watch these demos while mentally noting lots of corrections to improve the performance. When the students finish the teacher might suggest they do it again only this time relax more. They will do so and an exordinary thing happens; the laundry list of corrections I noted, disappear. By changing one thing they changed everything. I have always been astonished at this and believe it is the secret to creating real change.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margret Mead

The Invisible Barrier

         Socialization is a highly valued skill. Getting along, being chummy, making small talk. Those who don’t have the social graces are at an disadvantage. They are labeled antisocial, misfits, aloof. There is concern when a person prefers to be alone.
         Society rewards mediocrity and views original thinking as suspect and dangerous. Instead of seeing the value of someone who can focus and see things in new ways, society marginalizes them. The outcasts and artists of the world who are wired differently than “normal” people have a hard time fitting in and those with a mental disability have it worse. The non conformist at least can figure out the rules of road of normal social interactions but those with ASD, ADD or other disabilities don’t even know how to read the map. They end up being greatly misunderstood.
         No one ever says to someone with a visible physical handicap, “Oh you’re just lazy.” “You can work, there’s nothing wrong with you.” but it is said plenty to those with an invisible disability. It’s easy to imagine blindness or not being to walk. Injury or simply closing ones eyes can give one an idea but imagining the world of someone with a mental disability requires more effort. Spend a whole day not making eye contact with others. Imagine being in a room full of foreigners and you don’t speak their language. Completely lose your temper over some stupid little thing. That might give you a better idea of the world of someone who can’t figure out why they don’t fit in. Phrases like “try harder”, “If you would only apply yourself” or “you’re not paying attention” just aggravates the frustration from both sides. How can anyone who clearly looks ok not be able to do these things? Are they faking it or are just lazy? When people remark that I seem to be normal I dare them to spend a week with me and gain a different opinion.
         Everything from dyslexia, hyperactivity to autism are seen as some kind of defect, a deviation from normal and those afflicted are to be tossed aside as broken. This is society tossing out the diamond because they don’t recognize the value. Different gives humanity geniuses: discoveries in science, high art, classical music. Just look at Beethoven, Newton, DaVinci. People who were antisocial, irascible, stubborn and singularly focused on their subject of expertise.

The Actor Within

As I sit backstage waiting for my turn to act, I occupy myself with doing the crossword puzzle, getting into costume and observing the rest of the cast as they silently move around the narrow space or wander in and out of the side door to smoke or talk in the alley.

I decided my co star Bruce looks likes a young Francois Truffant, whereas I look like Jodie Foster if she really, really let herself go. Ralph plays a homeless man and looks like a drowned rat next to Bruce in his stylish pinstripe suit right out of GQ. The kids in “And I feel fine” are like the Olsen twins on caffeine. Most of the plays are contemporary except “Mother Courageous” which has a faint Eastern Europe during the Soviet heydays. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve come across a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” by mistake. “Where’s Tevye?” I’m tempted to ask Lynn, a big woman in full skirt and scarf wrapped around her head.

Actors are frequently accused of being vain and it may seem that way as we primp and fuss before the long mirror but it isn’t vanity, we need to make sure our character looks right.The fussing and dressing is also part of the acting process. I’ve noticed there are two ways actors get into their roles, one I call the light switch. One minute they are behind the curtain chatting with you then they step out on stage and boom- they’re in character. The other is the tee shirt; it takes time like changing into another shirt. This requires being left alone to get inside the characters head or to calm ones nerves. My years of martial arts training have taught me to tame any anxiety. I can’t pinpoint the moment I become the character except that once on stage, I’m there.

Before a show actors always “run lines” meaning they run through the entire script to insure they know their part. At first this is merely an exercise where the words are delivered quickly without inflection or pauses. Very dry and boring but in time more nuance is added until it becomes a private performance between the actors as words are tossed back and forth. I sometimes find it more interesting than the performance on stage.

Since we are backstage we don’t see the other plays (except during rehearsals) so they are an auditory experience sprinkled with favorite moments and punch lines. My favorite is “Thirty Seven cents” about three homeless men. Richard Leebrick and Paul Rhoden ‘s angry edgy dialogue always leave me riveted.

Theater is like a family reunion of eccentric siblings who joke and support each other but when the show ends and we wander back to regular life, we lose touch with each other. I can’t wait for the next reunion.

Growing up under God

Once there was a pantheon of Gods. Divine figures worshipped in the hopes of saving us from chaos and make sense of the cruelties of life. As time passed and civilizations grew more stable, those gods morphed into a single God. But where are the old Gods? Did they fade away, are they still in Vahalla, the Eleysian Fields, or paradise, sitting around drinking ambrosia in retirement? Are they waiting for a comeback?

Human civilization has evolved and our relationship to God has evolved as well. We once looked to the God(s) to help us to increase our crops, insure good hunting, ward off disaster. Now we turn to the divine for more subtle answers to the meaning of our modern complex existence. Questions that the old religions are increasingly unable to answer.

Historically a religion starts out as a cult viewed with suspicion and scorn by the status quo. There are attempts to squash the new cult by the dominant culture. The cult grows until it becomes a religion. Often it gains popularity because it appeals to a broader and usually an oppressed segment of society then the current ideology. Over time it replaces the old regime with it’s size, power and mass appeal. The need to protect it from newer ideologies also grows until it becomes as oppressive as the one it replaced. Entrenched dogma demands allegiance and obedience. It doesn’t change and flow with reality because it wants to fix reality in place- it’s reality. This kind of thinking , no matter how righteous or powerful, conflicts with human free will which is always changing. Because change is enviable, we must adapt in order to survive.
When a religion refuses to go forward, people get fed up with the stubbornness of the ideology and split away. Roman and Orthodox Catholics and Protestant Christianity, Orthodox and Reform Judaism, Shia and Sunni Islam, Indian and Zen Buddhism. All happened as a result of divergence interpretations of the original ideology.

When Galileo questioned the status quo by looking up at the heavens with his telescope he believed irrefutably in the divinity of God’s word, what he questioned was man’s interpretation of it. Like the Catholic Church threatening to excommunicate anyone who dared to look through Galileo’s telescope, these days, the self appointed guardians of sacred knowledge threaten anyone looking for change. Every new challenge to the status quo is met with violence, and fanatical resistance.

The latest rise of fundamentalism is an attempt to arrest the evolving view of the divine. The adherents want to make damn sure nobody changes anything about their God and His message. They incite someone to straps a bomb to their body and kill those who disagree with them. Instant martyrdom, but they are not martyrs, they are victims of rhetoric; sacrificial lambs for someone else’s cause.

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift that has been happening for two decades. The eventual outcome of this shift-as in the past- is a new perspective on the divine.

The fundamentalist would say this world is doomed because we have not clung to the old ways and will suffer God’s wrath but what if God wants us to change? What if the “The laws of God” as the faithful call them, are not immutable but constantlyshifting like reality? Passing over rules like not eating pork or being unveiled in public does not make one less faithful. Hating or killing each other for not following the rules does. Sacred scriptures are meant to help us define morality not textbooks for dress codes and nutrition. Martin Luther realized that faith, not good deeds or following the laws gets you to heaven. What matters more to the divine; how you say your prayers or how you live your life? We continue to think the divine is in the spelling rather than the meaning of the word.

I once thought of my parents as all powerful, people who would protect me, and whose explanation of the world I accepted without question. As I grew older I realized they were not the perfect beings I thought they were. I rebelled agarinst the boundaries they set for me. At one point I dismissed their every utterance as nonsense; even crippling. As I grew older and wiser I have come to see them - faults and all- in a kinder, more compassionate light. I now understand the reason for their rules was to protect me and how tose rules cahnged as I matured.

Perhaps, I wonder, God handed us some laws knowing they would be obsolete in a hundred or a thousand years and waited to see how long it would take for us to outgrow those rules. Like a child admonished not to eat candy or ruin their appetite; we were given such rules to guide us through our spiritual childhood.


When I was a child, I spoke as a child ,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child
but when I became a an adult,
I put away childish things.

The Jazz Players

There is nothing better than getting it right on stage. When you, and your fellow actor hit all the beats, when the audience joins in, everything flows- man, it’s jazz. It’s better than a good meal or sex. It makes up for all the work of juggling schedules, hours of rehearsal, fretting about lines and the stress of tech week.

Life, I have come to the sad realization, is paid with dull tin coins but there are golden moments. Little treasures that are reward for daily toil; a good night’s sleep, being with friends, a cold beer. The sound of laughter from an audience is my favorite.

Actors are always asked “why do you act?” and the answer sounds as fatuous as the question “because I have to.” and it’s true. All artists feel that way. The joy of creating art makes the work of every day life bearable. It gives color to an otherwise beige world. It’s the dance between artist and viewer.

Never stop dancing.

Science goes Shwing!

No thanks I'll take the expensive, useless drugs instead.