Today I'm spinning Blue Valentines from my imaginary demo album The Ghosts That Haunt Me. After a botched marriage ceremony and a disastrous breakup, I moved to Orlando to get my life back on track. I found writing songs helped me through it all. I recorded the songs in my living room, using an old Tascam 4-track recorder. The only effect used on the recordings (because it was the only effect I had) was a wee bit of reverb. There was a [...]
I was re-reading some of the play Deep Into That Darkness Peering that I wrote with my friend Mark Rector. Here's a monologue I wrote for the top of the second act but we ended up not using it. It might be able to be cut down and used as a contemporary monologue for auditions. Or not. POE Thank God you're still here. The walk refreshed me. I am calmer now... Did anyone come for me while I was out? My [...]
The other day I posted about my song "The Rain," which was the first song of my imaginary demo album The Ghosts That Haunt Me. Today I bring you the song "The Wounded Circus." I was living in Orlando, FL after my big breakup in Chicago. (The breakup being what led me to write the aforementioned song "The Rain.") I was in the process of pulling my life together and I remember standing in an aisle at the grocery store, unable to [...]
Back when I was 30-years old I had a marriage ceremony. Not a marriage, though. Just a ceremony. That's because my marriage was never official. In a a nutshell here's what happened. In September 1993, I was living in Chicago and I was all set to marry my then girlfriend. All hell broke loose the day before our wedding between my girlfriend, me and her family. My girlfriend was hesitant to go through with the marriage and she felt there [...]
Some may call this NJ Weather Map graphic unfortunate. Others may drool over the beauty of it. All I know is my immature 12-year old self loves it. Feel free to add your own captions. "The east coast is taking a much needed pounding right now." "Wow. The storm is much bigger than I thought it would be." "It's a big one, don't forget to wear protection." "Weekend plans are getting the shaft." "A massive storm is coming." "Montreal is [...]
What I Learned From my Mom My mother recently passed away. Her funeral was yesterday and the numbness has descended upon me. I hate to be Captain Obvious but losing a parent is a terrible thing. I lost my father three years ago and now my mother. I think that's all of my parents but you never know who may show up. Life is strange. My mom was a wonderful woman. At her funeral, a lot of people came up [...]
I just got back from Arkansas, where the workshop production of my show The Quest for Don Quixote went extremely well. My show was the featured production at the Arkansas New Play Festival at TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, AR. The three weeks I was there gave me a fantastic opportunity to focus on the script. The rewrites I made worked very well. I came into the second day of rehearsal bearing chocolate truffles for the two actresses because I cut two [...]
The Arkansas New Play Festival Update Well, it's not really an update since I haven't written anything about The Arkansas New Play Festival but I couldn't think of anything witty. In the Dallas airport with Mark Jacobson I'm here in Fayetteville, Arkansas at TheatreSquared for the previously mentioned Arkansas New Play Festival, to workshop my play The Quest for Don Quixote. And it's going swimmingly. I'm fortunate to be in the featured play slot. That means the show gets 2 1/2 weeks [...]
Today is National Donut Day and what better way to celebrate this time-treasured holiday than with a donut coffee mug. It's Police Approved.
Tiananmen Square Protest Today marks the 26th anniversary of the brutal crushing of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Or as it's known in China - Thursday. I was in China 10-years ago to adopt my daughter. In our tour of Tiananmen Square, not one word was uttered by our tour guide about the massacre. Nothing. It was the same reaction I got from every girl I ever asked out on a date. But on our bus ride back to the airport, [...]
