The Story That Didn't Get a Telling

So we arrived in Selma at around 4:00 in the afternoon and soon located a nice Mexican restaurant downtown and settled in for some great food and a couple fear-quelling beers. By the time we got to the tale telling we missed the open mike portion of the evening, so I was spared the tremor-inducing horror of getting up in front of a crowd of strangers and trying to communicate. So here's the story that didn't get a telling:

Clay's Snowmobile Story
I grew up in the northeastern corner of Washington state 10 miles south of the Canadian border, and back when I was a kid before global warming the winters were long and cold with lots of snow. Snow so deep that we only knew where the barbed-wire fences were by the little pyramids of snow that piled up on the fence posts. Our main transportation in the winter was the snowmobile. For all you native southerners who may not know what a snowmobile is, it's a kind of sled with skis in front, a treaded rubber drive belt in the back powered by a loud, smoking gas engine that pollutes the countryside and scares any nearby animal and is just a blast to ride. We rode those things every chance we could, and gas was under a dollar per gallon back then so it was affordable fun.
I was six years old when I first tried to drive a snowmobile. The machine belonged to a young man who was interested in my 17 year old sister, and he thought a good way to impress her and score points with our dad was to teach me how to handle his brand new SkiDoo 295cc sled. So I climbed on the machine at the top of our driveway with him behind me and he began the lesson. In hindsight, he shouldn't have started with the trottle, or where the gas was. He said "squeeze this to make it go," and I did. I began to speed down the driveway and I waited for his next instruction, which didn't come because he was sitting on the ground where he fell when I rocketed out from under him. I noticed this when I turned around to see where he was, and I also noted the look of concern he had that he had not informed me of the location or purpose of a mechanism called the brake. My speed was increasing and I was running out of driveway. In fact, luckily, I was on a collision course with a large pile of snow that had been plowed out of the driveway earlier that week. I say luckily because beyond the snow pile awaited a shed full of farm equipment.
So when I came to, I was under the snowmobile still squeezing the trottle. The engine was screaming and smoking, about to burn up, and the fiberglass engine cover had cracked in two. Dad pried my fingers off the gas and he and the young man rolled the snowmobile off of me. This event left the young man with a SkiDoo in need of much repair and no girlfriend, me with a banged up knee and a fear of snowmobiles, and my dad with another story that he used to embarrass me at family gatherings for the next 10 years.
If there is a moral to this story, I guess it would be that in life and snowmobiles, ride fast but know where the brake is.

Hooray For Oral

The oral tradition is alive and well in Selma, Alabama this weekend, and I am there. Some buddies and I are road-tripping to the Tale Tellin' Festival, and some of us are going to tell a story in the open mic part of the program. I hope I don't pass out from fear.

Karma's a Hell of a Thing

I think the Cosmic Hand of Serves You Right is about to smite me upside the head. Over the past six months I've developed balance problems serious enough that I even fell down the stairs in front of my apartment once. Whilst I wait to get into my doctor next week I've been doing some research. I should tell you that when I was nine years old my hands began to shake when I tried to do things like hold a pencil or pour a glass of water or anything else that needed some dexterity. This was diagnosed as Essential Tremor, and I've dealt with it the last 36 years by developing strange-looking yet effective ways of performing tasks that most people take for granted. I assumed the head tremor that showed up ten years ago was just exhaustion or stress. I can't ignore the leg tremors, or the fact that my hands and head shake even when I'm rested and relaxed. Even if they had told me at nine years old, I don't know if I'd have understood what it meant when a syndrome is "progressive." As a kid I always made fun of my shaking hands before the other kids got a chance. Karma's a hell of a thing.

F***ing Geniuses

The MacArthur Foundation has awarded its foundation grants for 2008 to 25 amazingly smart and talented humans who make me wish I had paid more attention in school. Just imagine, 25 people given $500,000.00 over 5 years with no strings attached, and they didn't have to walk on hot coals or eat goat penis or otherwise degrade themselves to get it. They just have to keep doing what they obviously love to do and make the world a little better than it was. How cool is that. Even cooler is that one of the group is a theatrical lighting designer. Yeah home team!
I know you can't apply for one, but I'd love to see the look on the faces of the Foundation's committee when I walked up in bibbed overalls and a "Beer School" baseball cap asking "hows ah go 'bout gittin me one uh them there genius grants y'all handin' out." And that's why I'll never get the call. I should have cured a disease.

I'm Baa-aack!

Sorry I've been MIA for most of the summer. The job got hectic, then uncertain, then depressing, then rage-inducing, and now has settled into a pace akin to King's "The Long Walk." If you must fall down, be the last to fall down. For my own sanity and hopefully your amusement, I'm going to try to post on a regular schedule. This world is just too wonderfully weird not to document.

Charlton Heston Put A Vest On

(FYI,the title of this post is a line from a song by an '80's band named Stump. The song was called "Charlton Heston.")
If you noticed the picture to the right of this post, you could conclude that I'm a fan of the Planet of The Apes movies, especially the first one. What set that film latex-simian head and shoulders above the others was the great performance of Charlton Heston as time traveling astronaut Taylor. Even though I own a copy on DVD, I'll still stop and watch it whenever it pops up on late night cable.
Of course he did a couple other decent movies. Soylent Green, The Omega Man, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and over a hundred others during a seven decade career. I even liked his cameo in that wretched Marky-Mark remake of the aforementioned Planet of The Apes.
So one morning in the early '90s I came into work here at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and was informed by my boss that a special event had been hastily scheduled for that evening and I'd need to work it. All I was told was that a big-wig friend of the theatre's benefactor, Mr. Wynton Blount, was going to speak to a group in the smaller of our two theatres. I parked myself in our green room at 6:30 and waited for Mr. Blount and his guest to arrive. At 7:00 on the nose two black SUVs pulled up on the lawn outside the stage door and a bunch of people in suits entered the building. The mob pushed their way into the room where I was trying to look officious, and then it happened. The mass of people (sorry) parted like the Red Sea and Mr. Blount and his friend walked up to me, and Mr. Blount said "Chuck, I'd like you to meet Clay Koontz. He keeps everything running around here." I shook both their hands and tried not to sound like a gushing idiot. We made some small talk while the audience took their seats, and I reminded Mr. Heston the name of the theatre's artistic director two or three times, because he said that years before he had to choose between remembering people's names or his lines.
He spoke to the audience for about 40 minutes, asking them to be supportive of our theatre and the arts in general. He performed Prospero's last speech from The Tempest (quite well) and some pieces from a play about Sherlock Holmes he was working on at the time, and then the black SUVs swept him away to a Republican fund-raiser at Mr. Blount's estate (hey, nobody's perfect.)
Everybody can close their eyes and hear his voice saying those iconic lines: "let my people go." or "Soylent Green is people." or "damn dirty apes." I feel fortunate that I can also remember his voice intoning those last words of Prospero, asking an audience for the blessing of their applause.

Enigmatisms

I changed the name of the blog. The old name just gnawed at me as self-centered. The new name isn't a sure bet either. I think the definition of enigmatism is "a vision problem related to over-analysis and/or an inability to accept anything at face value, however benign said thing seems." I have developed an enigmatism, and everything puzzles me.
I should also cop to a couple other bothersome and somewhat embarrassing ailments. The first is a sarcaneurism, which involves bleeding from the nose or tear ducts while being brutally sarcastic. The second is Situational Tourette's Syndrome, which comes over me in the face of extreme stupidity. Both of these usually occur at work.

Farewell Mr. Clarke

I was saddened this morning when my buddy Neal told me that Arthur C. Clarke had passed away. I was disappointed when Neal told me that the two people he had broken the news to before me had responded with "who's Arthur C. Clarke?" Damn kids today need to read a book once in awhile ( I'm turning into my dad.) At least they knew 2001: A Space Odyssey. My favorite is Rendezvous with Rama. What a great read, and what a great man. Writer, explorer, thinker. The world sure could use more humans like Mr. Clarke. Farewell.

The Speech

If you missed Barack Obama's speech yesterday, find it online and watch it or read the transcript. It is maybe the finest piece of oration since Obama's convention address four years ago. A thoughtful, nuanced examination of the issue of race in America that sought to explain the roots of the problem but avoided demonizing any side or offering any simplistic cure. As John Stewart pointed out on last night's Daily Show, he spoke to us like we were adults. That's different.

Back on Track

We opened The Count of Monte Cristo last week and I haven't been so happy about a show in a long time. A great adaptation of a classic performed by a talented cast in stunning costumes on a beautiful, well lit set, and it sounds great too. HOORAY! Even better is we're about to open another fine show. Over The Tavern is a cute coming-of-age Catholic comedy (sorry about all the c's in a row) that I think our audience will eat up.
Very few things cheer me up more than having a hand in the creation of good theatre. Its nice to know that for now, when that inevitable something or someone darkens my mood, I can sneak into the back of the theatre for either of these shows and just enjoy.

Superdelegate My A**

I have to say this whole superdelegate crap is starting to bug me. This is the first presidential race ever (for me anyway) that I don't feel like I have to settle for someone. I'm actually excited about a candidate (Obama - I know, kind of a man-crush) and he may get "Gored" at the convention by a bunch of party hacks who can ignore the last eleven months. Its not that I have any problem with Hillary Clinton (or John McCain, to be honest) because after the last eight years I'd vote for a double cheeseburger as long as its last name isn't Bush, but I'd hate to see the Democratic Party's nominee selected by a process so undemocratic. It's in their name, after all. I shouldn't be so surprised, though. Most of my life politicians have found a way to make me stay home on Election Day. That's just super.

Meditation Vertigo

For the past couple of months I've been unable to meditate. I know its the result of a staggering lack of discipline, but that knowledge doesn't seem to help me stay on the bench for any length of time. I used to settle into position with okay posture and better intent, and as I started watching the breath come in and the breath go out, random thoughts would pop up, and I would identify them as "just a thought" and watch them fall away. I could do that fairly well when it was a thought here or an image there, but my mind has upped the game on me. Now its thought on top of image on top of idea in a roiling swamp of to-do lists and movie clips and story ideas and I have to get up and turn on the television just to grab whatever narrative it provides like a lifeline. I even fell off of the bench once, in an episode of meditative vertigo.
Any meditator would read this whiny post and respond "buck up soldier, welcome to the club." I know the answer is be patient and keep sitting. I am curious if anyone else meditates with a bicycle helmet on, ready for the next fall.

Romeo & Juliet Gets The Treatment

It's 11:30 AM, and I'm in my office listening to a student audience scream with joy at the production of Romeo & Juliet they're watching above my head. As happy as I am that they like the show, one aspect of the production gnaws at me.
I don't always have a problem setting Shakespeare in a non-Elizabethan period. I've worked on some great shows that skipped men in tights for another look. A Victorian Love's Labors Lost and a Third World Banana Republic Julius Caesar are two that pop up in my mind as solid, well-executed pieces of theatre.
This time we've set R&J in a Verona that mimics modern day Miami. Bright colored buildings with palms and Spanish tiled roofs and cellphones and blackberries, and here's the rub, gentle reader. Cellphones and blackberries are my problem.
The story of Romeo & Juliet is fairly dependent on that old chestnut of a plot devise, the lost message. Romeo never gets the note telling him that Juliet is faking her suicide and it all falls apart from there. So in this production, do all the cell towers go down at once? Did Romeo forget to take a charger with him into exile, and there's not one Radio Shack in Mantua? I can't stop imagining Romeo walking around with his cellphone to his ear, repeating "canst thou hear me now" over and over (Verona Wireless - Its The Network.)
All in all, its still a well-acted, solidly staged production. The costumes, sets, props and lighting are all first rate, if I do say so myself. And later this season we're producing West Side Story. Maybe we'll set it in the future. I'm thinking Predator Tony falls for Alien Maria, and boy do the sparks fly.