I’m pretty bummed about the lack of audience we’ve had for Pick Up Ax. We only had four people tonight. Even in a 99 seat house, that’s pretty bad.

Where the hell are all those people who said they’d be there back when I told them about it during the past year and a half? It’s so discouraging to play to an empty house.

I’ve sent out thousands of flyers. I’ve emailed everyone. I’ve made calls, hired the publicist, we’ve had all the Los Angeles press out to review the show. What more can a person do? As if that wasn’t frustrating enough, I finally broke down and called On the House, an organization that allows its members to attend shows for free. And we only get four people! All this work and I can’t even give the tickets away.

The root of the problem is that no one knows Pick Up Ax or the playwright, Anthony Clarvoe. My theatre company is also not a major name in Los Angeles, though we’re better known at home in Orange County.

You see, people will go to see a show they know at a theatre they don’t know. Or vice versa. But the average theatre-goer won’t take a chance on a show they don’t know being staged by a theatre company they are also not familiar with.

This is not a surprise. I’ve known this since the day we started. But I decided a long time ago that if I’m going to put the time, money, and effort into producing a show, then I’m going to produce something that is innovative, interesting, and didactic. If that means the production suffers with low attendence, then I’ll take that hit.

I’d rather see it go down that way than have a production of Oklahoma or some overdone Neil Simon play open with my name on it. No matter what, I’ve got faith in my vision, and come hell or high water I’m going to do it my way.

Anyway, I was down about it for a while. But something always comes right along to cheer me up. My old college friend Dave Ehlen (who gets married in just over a week) sent out an e-mail with some short stories about children that made me feel better. I’ll share ‘em with you. I liked the first and last ones best.

Children are often our best teachers…

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“The Golden Gift”
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Some time ago, a friend of mine punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.” He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that the box was empty. He yelled at her, “Don’t you know that when you give someone a present, there’s supposed to be something inside of it?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy.”

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged her forgiveness. My friend told me that he kept that gold box by his bed for years. Whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there. In a very real sense, each of us as parents has been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

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“The Most Caring Child”
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Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing … I just helped him cry.”

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“Two Nickels and Five Pennies”
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When an ice cream sundae cost much less, a boy entered a coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae?” “Fifty cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. “How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table, and the waitress was impatient. “Thirty-five cents,” she said angrily. The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream.”

The waitress brought the ice cream and walked away. The boy finished, paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies–her tip.

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“What It Means to Be Adopted”
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Teacher Debbie Moon’s first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different color hair than the other family members. One child suggested that he was adopted and a little girl named Jocelynn Jay said, “I know all about adoptions because I was adopted.” “What does it mean to be adopted?” asked another child. “It means,” said Jocelynn, “that you grew in your mommy’s heart instead of her tummy.”

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“Discouraged?”
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As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of the boys what the score was. “We’re behind 14 to nothing,” he answered with a smile. “Really,” I said. “I have to say you don’t look very discouraged.” “Discouraged?” the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. “Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t been up to bat yet.”

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“Roles And How We Play Them”
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Whenever I’m disappointed with my spot in my life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott. Jamie was trying out for a part in a school play. His mother told me that he’d set his heart on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen. On the day the parts were awarded, I went with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement. “Guess what Mum,” he shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson to me: “I’ve been chosen to clap and cheer!”

Today, a new addition to the site: the Rappcam! I don’t have any particular reason for doing it. But then again, I don’t need a reason, so it works out pretty well, wouldn’t you say? I was inspired by the .zannahcam., which is still of a much higher quality than mine. But oh well. Trying to install the stupid thing was quite a pain. I seem to have used up all my IRQs, so I couldn’t install the parallel card I got. I should have remembered that. I even had to disable my second serial port a while back in order to give that IRQ to the Ethernet card.

But enough mumbo jumbo. It’s a fabulous day outside. It’s been raining like hell the past few days, and today the sky is clear and blue! Speaking of rain, I always said that the next time it rained I was going to go ouside and play in it. That was a long time ago, before El Nino even arrived. But I finally did it, and boy was it fun. Literally singing in the rain.

I have to say, though, that it was completely freezing out there. Not only was it cold, but the wind was blowing. By the time I was done my teeth were chattering and my hands were blue. I mean, really blue. But it’s all in the name of good fun. I managed to take some photos. Does water hurt disposable cameras? Hmmm.

Later today I managed to injure my back somehow. All I was doing was sitting in a chair, and suddenly, it hit me. So now I’m more-or-less immobile. Had to cancel the Pick Up Ax rehearsal for today so I could rest. Hopefully I’ll be back in business for tomorrow’s performance.

The last episode of Seinfeld is tomorrow. You’d have to be living inside a hermetically sealed bubble to have not heard about it by now. Supposed to be the most watched sitcom episode in history, something like a billion people.

On the John and Ken Show (it’s on an L.A. talk radio station, KFI 640 AM), John has been going on about how wrapped up people get in these fictional characters and how he doesn’t understand it. I’m listening to it right now, and John is making fun of the Puerto Rican activists who are up in arms over the flag burning in the second to last Seinfeld episode. Don’t worry, John’s not racist–he hates all activists as a matter of principle. I have to say, KFI is my favorite radio station. You can listen to it anywhere on the Internet via RealAudio, which is how I’m hearing it now. I believe KFI has the most powerful signal in the country. You can get KFI as far away as San Francisco, Nevada, and Arizona. Most of the hosts are very entertaining even if you disagree with them, which I often do.

There is one exception, however. Phil Hendrie. All of his guests are staged. He rants about the stupidest little things and has a nasty habit of insulting and unceremniously hanging up on his callers. His show is the biggest waste of a 50,000 watt radio station I could possibly conceive of. I never liked him, probably because he replaced Mr. KFI, who had a fabulous show. Mr. KFI had no screener, no staged calls, nothing. You just called it to say whatever you wanted to say or talk about. It doesn’t sound like much the way I describe it, but it was great. And it got me through a lot of L.A to Orange County commutes over the years. I don’t know exactly what happened to Mr. KFI. I think he discovered he was actually adopted, and moved home to a different radio station.

Frank Sinatra
Dec. 12, 1915 - May 14, 1998

      

      

Today is a very sad day. The Voice is gone.

One of those days that will remain etched in your memory forever; you’ll always be able answer the question, “Where were you when you heard?” I was standing in my living room, flipping aimlessly through the stations. When I passed through CNN on channel 14 and saw they were playing a clip of The Chairman singing, I knew instantly. 10:40 pm. Cedars-Sinai. Heart attack. And yet I still don’t want to believe he is dead.

What’s the big deal, you ask? I don’t know that I can pin in down in words. But let my try anyway.

Except for perhaps George Gershwin, I’ve never been a real fan of any artist or style of music. I never got into metal, ska, grunge, rap, or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to a wide variety of music, but the only person who could really move me was Frank Sinatra. Perhaps part of the sadness is because, as ridiculous as it sounds, I hoped one day I could meet him. Even though I knew I never would, as long as he was around there was always the possibility that it could happen, and that was something!

When Sammy or Dean or even Bing Crosby died it was sad, yet understandable. Sinatra always seemed to be bigger than life, though. I won’t shed any tears for the life he led, but I wonder what kind of weight that was on his shoulders; wherever he went he was always the Leader.

The worst thing that can probably happen to you in this world is to be on your deathbed looking back and realize God gave you a life and you didn’t live it. Sinatra didn’t have that problem. I remember a story about how, in the 1960’s, when the Rat Pack was filming Ocean’s 11, they would all meet in the steam room around 5 pm and plot that evening’s mischief, which of course would last until all hours of the night. Frank would takeover a Blackjack table in the casino and deal cards to the ladies. He’d keep flipping through the cards until they added up to 21, and he’d say “You won!” and pay them out of the house’s money.

Sinatra was the best because he was a real person. He had his faults and didn’t try to deny them. But he also had so many great qualities. Loyalty, chivalry, style, flair, limitless talent, business savvy, charisma, street smarts, and generosity. Did you know he gave and raised more than one billion dollars to charitable organizations during his lifetime? And most of his gifts were anonymous. Dean Martin once said, “God just keeps throwing him money”, to which Frank replied, “And I keep throwing it right back.” He would never tip anyone with less than a $100 bill, and it was usually several of them.

He was an amazing artist. What I listen to most is his songs, of course. But Frank won 9 Grammies, an Academy Award, 51 top-40 albums (more than anyone else in history), made 1,800 recordings, and 60 films. He was so popular that he had a song on the Billboard charts every single week from 1955 to 1995, a record that I’m sure will never be broken.

You know, he left behind so much! Not just music and films, but a positive impact on almost everyone he touched. Heck, Sinatra was also a human book of proverbs. I love all his little quotes, you’ll find several of them around my site. My two favorites are “You gotta love livin’ baby, because dyin’ is a pain in the ass” and “You only live once, but the way I live, once is enough.” It certainly was, Frank.

You did it your way. Rest in peace.

The world is really shedding some tears over Sinatra’s passing. It’s all you see on television. As I was driving up to the theatre last night, I saw a couple of tributes to him along the way. The first was skywriting in the air over Sinatra’s home in Beverly Hills. I heard a story about it on KFWB, looked up, and there it was in the sky above me. A cross, the letters FS, and a heart.

I kept on driving. Later, as I passed the famous Capital Records building on the Hollywood freeway, I noticed that the top of the building had been encircled with black fabric. It almost looked as if the building was wearing a black armband. I thought that was particularly memorable since F.S. recorded so many of his big hits there. Ahh, the “Capitol Years”.

Something occurred to me. The TV and radio stations had intervews, histories, stories, and tributes running literally minutes after the announcement of Sinatra’s death yesterday. That means they prepared all these stories about his death while he was still alive and had them just waiting to go. Creepy.

Speaking of creepy, I was onstage last night, in pain as usual because of my back, and during the fight scene (where it usually hurts like hell) the pain just went away for the rest of the show. It was a welcome relief, but totally odd. I just can’t figure this thing out! Back pain is awful. If it’s just a muscle pull I don’t mind so much. I can deal with some pain. What worries me is the vertebrae and spinal cord elements. If those get damaged you’re more or less screwed.

I’ve been so good about avoiding any news, articles, conversation, etc. about the Seinfeld finale for the last week. I didn’t get to watch it live, but since I taped it, I figure I’d only have to hide out for a little while. Unfortunately, yours truly picked the one bum videotape at The House of Rapp to record the long-awaited final episode. So when I went to watch it last night, the sound and video was halfway scrambled. #(^@=%!!

Fortunately I’ll be able to get a copy of it from someone so I don’t have to go Seinfeldless for too long. It’s a good thing, too, because apparently the final episode isn’t going into syndication, so if you missed it, you’re outta luck Charley.

We’re coming down to the wire with the last two weeks of Pick Up Ax. At this point I’m thinking, “Forget the damn ax! Pick up the numbers, wouldja?” Because to this point it’s been an artistic success and a financial disaster. Even the pimply 16-year old teller at the bank is laughing at me.

It hasn’t all been bad news though. We’ve had some real fun. This past Saturday night Tony threw a very cool party at his place. No puking, no smashed people making idiots of themselves, just a group of pleasant people relaxing while The Child Drunkard (complete with monogrammed apron) tended bar magnificently as always. Even I had a bit to drink, and that does not happen very often, a fact those of you who know me will attest to. It was very relaxing. And rather than drive back down to Irvine, I managed to get a good night’s sleep at his place. I think it paid off because our performance on Sunday was excellent. Probably the best to date.

It’s been so great working with everyone on this show. I truly can’t remember the last time I was in a show and wasn’t sick to death of the director or a castmate by this point. But it’s been a smooth ride personality-wise. Pity to see it end.

It is such perfect timing for Pick Up Ax, I tell ya. This Department of Justice lawsuit against Microsoft for anti-competitive practices is fascinating. Strangely enough I’m actually on Microsoft’s side on this one, even though I love Netscape.

I was watching Burden of Proof on CNN today and they had lawyers for both sides arguing their respective cases. It’s maddening how few of these attorneys understand the technology they’re condemning. So many of the players in this case (and on today’s Burden of Proof) said, almost proudly, that they couldn’t install Netscape’s browser without the help of their nine year old kid. That essentially makes them computer illiterate. I mean, how hard can it be to point your browser to www.netscape.com? Stop me if I’m wrong, but there are “Download Netscape Now” links on almost every site on the Internet. What kind of difficult questions do you have to answer once you get there?

Let’s take a look at that, shall we?

What language do you want?
Swahili, German, or English?

What O.S. are you using?
Macintosh, Windows NT, Windows 95, or UNIX.

Which version of the software do you want?

Do you want industrial strength encryption?

What add-on software do you want to go with it?

You could literally make wrong choices for half these questions and the software would still be fine. As long as you know you’re using Win95 and want English, you could pick an older release or the wrong encryption type by mistake and it wouldn’t make a difference. You download one file and have to double-click on it once. That’s it.

Admittedly, things could get more complicated if you, for example, ran out of disk space during the installation. But for 99% of people, this should be a no-brainer.

The irony to all this is that if the DOJ suit is successful, products like Linux will gain market share. That’s good right? Maybe. But then these same attorneys who couldn’t figure out how to download a browser under Windows 95 will be faced with recompiling Linux kernels, tweaking archaic Xwindows configuration files, and figuring out why they can’t read the Windows 98 disk they were just given on their bitchin’ BeOS system.

Replace Linux, Windows and Be with Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari and you’re back in 1985. I remember 1985, it sucked. What I dreamed of was the day when if someone said they had a computer, you didn’t have to ask “What kind?” It took a long time to get here. I, for one, don’t want to go back.

After today’s matinee performance of Pick Up Ax, I was over at my friends Eron and Amy’s place. Eron just got the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time: a 1979 full-size Asteroids video game. Do you remember this? He’s got one of the original ones, with the “Copyright 1979 Atari” burned in to the bottom of the black and white screen and everything! I think Atari made about 90,000 of these in all. I wonder how many of them are left.

When I was 9 or 10 years old I used to steal quarters out of my piggy bank and ride my bike down to the infamous Sauce & Such Liquor store on the corner of Riverside Drive and Whitsett to play Asteroids. One day my dad caught me there. I was playing a great game and all of a sudden somebody tapped on my shoulder. He wasn’t too happy. He thought all video games were a waste of time and money. I remember once, after we had eaten at the original Jerry’s Deli on Ventura one Saturday afternoon, we actually played a two player video game in the bowling alley behind Jerry’s at his suggestion. Boy was that a shock. The game had some completely generic name like “Fire Truck”. One person would drive the front end of the truck and the other person would drive the back end.

Anyway, a whole bunch of us were over at Eron’s taking turns playing. Every now and then the game would spontaneously shut off. Rob said it was a loose connection in the power supply. He had spent part of the afternoon fixing all the little problems the machine had. I took a peek at the guts of the thing. That’s where it really shows its age. The motherboard is absolutely massive with hundreds of chips and resistors on it and wires going every which way. Even the way it scores points is old! If you reached 10,000 points you were doing a great job. Today most video games easily score into the millions.

But despite all that, Asteroids will always represent something great from my childhood. My best friend, Ryan Kirk, used to play it for hours on his Atari 2600. One day we sat up in his parents bedroom for half the day in an effort to “flip” the score and get a picture of it. I can’t remember if we were successful or not.

Those were the days. It’s so sad to think of that kind of carefree fun being completely in the past, even though I know it is. Fun is still out there to be had of course, but not like that. Not like the day we pushed a huge boulder across the street simply for the hell of it. Or the cocamaime schemes for getting rich off selling lemonade to passing cars. Or swimming in my pool in the summer. Jumping on the big rectangular trampoline at his place. I could go on, but you get the drift. Happy memories, but kind of sad all the same. I believe the word is “bittersweet”.

I wonder where Ryan is now and what he’s up to. It sure would be nice to catch up on old times…

Memorial Day is the official American barbeque day. I honestly think that’s what it means to a lot of Americans. Either that, or just another random name for a three-day weekend.

Holidays are such funny things. Did you spend any time today thinking about those who gave their lives in the service of our country? I did, but only because it was brought up in a conversation with someone. I must admit that most of the time I don’t, which is pathetic because I respect the hell out of those in military service.

So what did I do today? Barbecue, of course! I was over at Julie’s place hanging out with some of The Gang. It was fun, but their pathetic Sunbeam (that should have been the first clue right there) barbeque didn’t work too well. Julie mentioned something about it’s having sat outside throughout the whole El Nino season (clue number two). My steak came out perfectly though. I’m not much of a cook, but I whipped up a killer slab of meat today.

It was cold and windy outside, so we hung out indoors and watched Simpsons re-runs and other miscellaneous television. Rich was annoyingly accurate at calling out the answers to Jeopardy questions. In his own words, “I fucking rule!”. After hearing such poetic utterances, I had to repeat them throughout the evening. They begged me not to encourage him, but what can you do? Sometimes a phrase just gets stuck in your head. Rich said he was going to try to get on Jeopardy. Strangely enough, I think he would do pretty well.

I was dumbfounded to learn that Phil Hartman was killed today. Apparently by his wife, no less. Sheesh. Sinatra and even Chris Farley were not a shock, but this is totally unexpected.

Maybe there really is a curse on the SNL alumni.

If Hartman can go, then no one is safe. I never knew him personally, of course, but he seemed to be among the most rational and level-headed of the Saturday Night Live types. I was on my way to a Sound-on-Site performance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center when I heard about it on KFI, and even while we were onstage I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Phil Hartman was the voice-over king. If you really listen and know his voice, you’d realize it’s everywhere. Television, radio, commercials, cartoons, you name it. It seems that in today’s world of untalented “stars”, Hartman was a guy with a lot to offer. He was a trained graphics designer, a writer, a sketch comedy master, and voice-over actor. He seemed to lead a fairly normal life, too. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a Hollywood star living in Encino?

Anyway. Tonight’s performance of Pick Up Ax turned out nicely. Only three more performances to go! Some of the people I’ve been expecting to make it to the show are finally starting to show up. Tony, Steve and I decided to dedicate this performance to the memory of Springfield’s own Troy McClure.

Lately I can’t seem to keep track of all the work I’ve got going on site-wise. I made a list of all the web sites I’m working on in one capacity or another, and it comes to something like 25 projects. I’m starting to make a web-based project page so I can keep track of the status of each one. We’ll see how that works out. It’s not that I can’t get them all taken care of, it’s just a matter of efficiency and organization. Right?

The biggest project I’ve got right now is a dynamic database design/implementation and web interface for performing arts events in Orange County. It’s going to be part of the new O.C. ArtsNet site. A searchable, scalable database of all the Arts O.C. members’ events. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do it, but once it’s done it’ll be Orange County’s single greatest source of information on the performing arts around here. Relational, dynamic, sassy, and always up-to-date. I get tired just thinking about it.