MY LIFE AS AN ACTOR

Jon and I decided to become actors for a short while. 

 I was performing the part of Francisco in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

 I forget now who Jon was.

 We practiced on the grounds of the British Embassy with some very good actors from England and France, and we rehearsed only for a short time.

 But it was fun.

 I felt like a real actor.

 I remember one night we had dinner, followed by desert, coffee, and cocktails. 

 This was the life!

The evening of our play performance we were asked to lay off the liquor, but I was so nervous that I kept tippling the bottle, and before I knew it I had imbibed one bottle of wine and half a bottle of Sherry.

I was very tipsy.

It was, after all, a drowning scene. 

My fifteen seconds of fame had arrived, and I elocuted (or executed!) my lines on the outdoor concrete 

stage, then quickly exited. 

But on my way through the 

archway 

my right hand clipped a standing and 

burning torch, 

and the burning torch 

was now falling to the ground. 

I caught it just in time!  I could have 

ruined the whole production and my 

 career as an aspiring actor.

 IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE 

RESOURCES AND ACTING

CHICO THE CHIHUAHUA AND THE CRAZY LADY

"Ozzy is in a hotel somewhere and has taken his credit cards and some money with him," the source said. "But he is not brilliant on his own and is a bit like a puppy — he goes missing but then usually turns up sooner or later."

http://www.wonderwall.com/news/ozzy-osbourne-missing-jack-desperate-1920188.article?

A neighbor brought the chihuahua to our house thinking that it was ours.

It wasn't, but we decided to take him in until the owner could be found.

We named him Chico while he stayed with us.

He liked to bite a lot.

I didn't like Chico very much, and wanted to find his owner as soon as possible.

We took him to a vet. Chico was chipped, so we learned how to contact the owner.

We called the owner.

She was relieved that her Chihuahua had been found, so

were we, and my wife took him to the lady.

My wife said that the lady was strange, and that her son was even stranger.

I didn't think much about this, but was only relieved that Chico the Chihuahua was no longer nipping our body parts.

And then we started getting strange phone calls.

(I still had a land line.)

The calls came at all hours.

There was a growling sound on the other end.

Sometimes it was just a hoarse, rasping, unintelligible voice.

It was eerie.

Almost scary.

Chico was still at it...or

Was it the crazy lady?

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES

FROM WHENCE DID WE COME?

 The duck-shaped Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3595043/Is-world-s-multicellular-life-Complex-organisms-emerged-Earth-billion-years-earlier-previously-believed.htmlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-

3612984/Was-life-carried-Earth-COMET-Key-building-blocks-DNA-proteins-discovered-Rosetta-spacecraft-67P.html

God is never Wrong, but

after reading the first few chapters of Genesis, I noticed that God doesn't mention macroscopic eukaryotes.

(He doesn't mention measles or computers either.)

Before God made Adam and Eve, however, eukaryotes were holding on to rocks in the seas.

I don't know what God was doing.

Maybe He was baking some Divine lasagna.

I am not criticizing our Father Who Art in Heaven (and Everywhere else), nor am I saying that humans evolved from eukaryotes.

But then again, who can say?

God doesn't.

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES AND EUKARYOTES

MEN IN BLACK AND THE CORN KING

Henry Mullins "The Corn King"

I was fifteen and working as a sweeper and bag boy in a big grocery store.
The manager was a strict German who charged 5 cents for every piece of paper that I missed when I did my sweeping.
I don't think I ever had to pay a nickel.
In the winter I was given the honor of starting his car.
But it wasn't on his watch the night that robbers paid the store a visit.
It was another younger manager on duty.

I was looking down at the floor as I pushed the big broom.
Then the broom bumped into two pairs of shiny black shoes.
I stopped and looked up.
Black pants, black suit coats, black ties, black sunglasses and black hats.
And two shiny guns.

The holdup men made all employees go to the back of the store.
Then they made us lie face down on the cold, concrete floor.
I lifted my head and one of the thieves pointed the shiny pistol at me and said not to raise my head again.
I didn't.
The two men left us and went with the manager to the cash registers.

And then an unbelievable thing occurred.
One of the employees got up and ran to the upstairs office to call the police.
But just as he reached the top of the stairs the men in black were coming back.
Our would-be hero was back in a flash and back down on the floor with us.

We were then escorted to the large room where the incinerator was located.
The two robbers told us to put a tall ladder against the heavy metal door.
They warned us not to come out.
We stayed inside for about ten minutes.
Then the manager went out and took a look.
He returned and told us that they had left.

My other experience may not seem as exciting.
It was the same day that I accidentally bumped the cart where eight cases of dill pickles were sitting.
Not too many jars broke, but the smell was still quite strong.

It was this same day the Corn King visited.
I can't remember now whether it was bacon or vegetables that he was promoting.
All that I remember is that he was A VERY TALL PERSON WITH HUGE FEET!
I think the Corn King shocked me more than those two robbers.

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES

A NIGHT AT THE BEACH BAR WITH GREYHOUNDS AND EDGAR ALLAN POE

Spiderman never told me what he did to the guy who knocked me out.

Spiderman wasn’t his real name, but it matched his tall, lean and muscular body, and that’s what everyone called him.

Spiderman said, “Don’t worry, I took care of him.”

“But what did you do?”

“You don’t want to know.”

And I didn’t.

I had been at this particular beach bar before, but I had always gone home before the sun went down.

I parked my gold, muffler-less ’64 Impala, walked to the open-air bar, sat down at a table, and started drinking.

I don’t remember what I was drinking.

It was probably beer with tomato juice or Tabasco sauce.

I know, yuck.

It was a phase I was going through.

(For all of you grammarians, I know that I’ve broken one of your cardinal rules, and have ended a few sentences with a preposition.

I hope it doesn’t bring you too down.)

It was Saturday night, and early, so there weren’t too many people yet, but gradually the beach bar filled up.

After sitting alone for about an hour, a couple walked up and asked if they could sit down at my table, and I said

“No problem”.

No, the problem would occur momentarily.

They told me that they raised and sold greyhounds.

Right after that I excused myself and went to the restroom.

The beer was talking, and I knew that I wanted to get home.

On my way back to the table I saw this guy with black hair and a curved nose sitting by himself at the semi-circular bar.

I thought to myself, “He looks like Edgar Allan Poe.”

I must have taken too many looks, because it was he who came over and hit me.

It was a “sucker punch” on the right side of my head.

The punch knocked me unconscious.

When I woke up, a policeman was standing above me.

“Are you O.K.?” he asked.

“I think so. What happened?”

“Someone hit you and you passed out. Do you have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to give you a ride? You can leave your car here and pick it up tomorrow.”

“No. I can drive. Thanks.”

I drove home.

I had a bruise on my face.

I wondered how long I was out.

I forgot to ask anyone.

It was a few days later when I was sitting at the bar inThe Rose & Crown that Spiderman walked in and told me that he had taken care of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.

I thanked him.

IT'S (STILL) ABOUT OIL AND RENEWABLE RESOURCES!

ALL IS VANITY

All Is Vanity by C. Allan Gilbert

Leonard Cohen

It (and All) is Vanity I suppose.
Here are a few pieces of Vanity.
They are my brushes with greatness and some name-dropping.
First, a short preamble of ramble.

I've had the good fortune to meet some interesting non-great (i.e. non-famous) persons in my life.
I have also been quite fortunate not to have died in the many scenes of my life where I have played a part and encountered:
Danger.
Adventure.
Romance.
Amazement.
A few peak experiences.

After I had gone to college for four years, I finally picked my major (I had been a distributed studies major...well, really just a lost liberal arts major).
If my philosophy professor Dr. Weir had not been walking down the steps of the university's library just as I was coming up them, I might not have become a teacher.
With his pure white beard, Dr. Weir glided down the stone steps with his usual nonchalant manner and inquired:
"What are you going to do?"
"What do you mean?", I asked.
Professor Weir replied,
"What are you going to do when you graduate?"
"I don't know", I said.
"Why don't you get paid to read books?"
And so in my fifth year I loaded up on Education and English courses.

Now to some name-dropping and brushes with greatness.

I met Anais Nin.
She was an aging but still beautiful woman when I met her.
She was dressed completely in white.
Either way she seemed a goddess in my eyes.
I had read her Diaries.
I told her that I had had a dream with her in it.
I think she said something like "I hope it was a good dream."

I went on a date with a girl named Joan Bliss to listen to Allen Ginsberg read his poems (and play his little harmonium).
When he was finished I walked with Joan Bliss to say hello to him.
I extended my hand to shake Mr. Ginsberg's hand, but he kissed it instead.
That was an embarrassing brush with greatness.

I got hit on my right knee with John Prine's guitar when he walked by me on his way to the stage.
That brush didn't hurt my knee.
That same year I went to hear Leonard Cohen in the same small nightclub.
He didn't hit my knee, but I still felt that I had been brushed by some greatness.

At a concert in Denver I bought one red rose for Bob Dylan.
I gave it (in its vase) to the person who accepted such things to forward to Mr. Dylan.
When I handed this person the rose (with a card) I asked,
"Will he be sure to get this?"
And I was assured that he would.
Years later Dylan's Shot Of Love album came out.
On the back cover is a photograph of Dylan smelling a rose.
My rose?
Not quite a brush;
not quite a bouquet;
just one red rose.
ALL IS VANITY.

PostScript:

I actually met Allen Ginsberg three times.

Once while walking down Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado.

I wrote about this encounter and a publication called The Straight Creek Journal published it.

I have tried to locate my letter in archives without success. Maybe when I'm famous others will do it. In the letter I wrote how I was treated by this (in my humble opinion) not so great poet.

He accused me of having scrambled brains and of being just one more hungry fish who wanted his poetry to be recognized (and famous I guess) like Mr. Ginsberg's.

The other encounter was more mundane.

I had him sign a couple of his paperbacks. 


 IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES