Bed, head

First post from phone

Hey! Ain't technology grand?
I've missed you blog.
I've been remiss and neglectful and a bit of a turd and I hope you'll
let me make it up to u.
You know I love u, right?
Come on. Give us a smile.
Come on...
What's that?
I'm like a puppydog u can't stay mad at?
Aw...that's sweet of u to say, but...
that was a simile and I asked for a SMILE.
Show me how a blog smiles now... U can do it. I believe in u.

Damn. Just realized I can't attach pics from the phone. If I want to
send them, I have to choose the pic 1st.

Oh, bother...

MarkERosenthal

Strindberg helium

Strindberg helium

I love Strindberg and Helium and I don't care who knows it.

Go there.
Watch it.
Even if you've seen it already.

It frightens and amuses me how much these cartoons reflect the discussions inside my head.
I am Strindberg.
I am Helium.
Who are you?
Are you Strindberg and Helium, too?
Then there's a pair of us, don't tell!
They'll medicate us all to hell.

A blast from the recent past

Probably not the best line with which to begin when you visit the Office of Disability Services to ask for a favor:

"So, I have a question but I don't have a physical disability. Unless you consider brain problems to be physical."

Louisville: It's not just for Sluggers anymore.

Yesterday, after several attempts, I got halfway through reading my play (the one I'm hoping to ready for my application to The Public Theater's inaugural Emerging Writer's Group).
It was awful. I was awful. How could I have thought this was ready? Despair came in without knocking, ordered a bunch of Chinese food, and didn't stop eating until it was all gone and I felt as bad physically as I did emotionally. I would have shaken my fist at Despair but I was inexplicably sluggish and too sweaty for that much exercise.

(You know where the story is going, don't you? You've known all along, yes? Is there no mystery left in the world?)

I called several people yesterday, trying to get them to tell me how good I am and why I shouldn't give up writing. Was not convinced.
Then I watched an episode of Life is Worth Living from 1953, discovering the fascinating Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
He was like the love child of Liberace and Red Skelton. The act worked. I laughed and thought about my eternal soul. (or was it the other way around?)
I watched the tube until I was too tired to hate my play, then I fell asleep.

Today I received a letter from Actor's Theatre of Louisville. It was the thickness of one sheet of paper. I continued to breathe while I prepared myself for the rejection.
it began:

Dear Mark,
Thanks for your patience while waiting to hear from us regarding your submission to the 2007 National 10-Minute Play Contest. ("You're welcome" I muttered) This year we received over 1,200 entries (Okay, here we go...the submissions were exciting but they're sorry mine was not selected as one of the finalists...)
and your play, A Morning After, has been selected as one of the finalists for the 2007 Heideman Award.

I screamed. I swear to you as God is my witness, I jumped up and down in that empty house and I screamed and laughed and said "OMYGOD!" so many times and so quickly that it sounded like I was speaking in tongues. Dizzy with joy, I tell ya.
It was a great moment.

Then I called almost everyone I know.
I will call more people tomorrow.
(Yes, I already posted about it on my Facebook. Was that tacky?)

I just want to savor this moment.
And when I forget, I want to read this and remember.
It's a stepping stone of encouragement in the river of doubt, despair and uncertainty.

Ah, yes. Life IS worth living.
Touche, Bishop Sheen, touche.

(takes a deep breath, visualizes more stepping stones, exhales.)

Cathy? Hi, it's Ben. Thanks for coming to the party. How are you feeling?

Just putting this here so I don't lose it. I think there's AT LEAST a 10-minute play in this story.

(from Ben Widdicombe's Gossip column in the Daily News, found from a link to a Liza item on talkinbroadway.com)

Don't shoot the messenger

Which network news executive had to confess to cheating on his partner after he caught hepatitis? Plus, he had to tell the 50 party guests whose food he prepared by hand the day before he was diagnosed.

Zis laptop...she is not healthy...

Apparently, up-to-date versions of Symantec anti-virus, Ad-Aware and Zone Alarm personal firewall aren't enough to protect your pc laptop from a virus that will destroy your hard drive.

Or, perhaps it's just me.
(Apple...why couldn't I have an Apple?)

So, for the last 30 hours or so (with 4 or 5 for sleep, nowhere near enough) I have been struggling to save my word documents, personal photos, digital music (and yes, porn, are you happy?) from the virus that was slowly murdering my 3 year old Dell Inspiron 1000. The virus won.

The bad news is everything is gone. The good news is I last backed the p.o.s. up about a month ago, so the loss isn't catastrophic. Thanks to the new web-based world, i still have my facebook stuff and my Myspace stuff and my webbased email and gmail and Blogger and Livejournal stuff and thanks to my incredibly generous host, i was able to pick up a wireless adapter for my Desktop from Sam's Club (Look! Multipacks!) at 8:45pm, and all is okay.
(Ah, yes...and the "service agreement" I got with the computer doesn't expire until the end of July, so back to Dell it goes! If I had known i was going to lose it to a virus, I would have gone hog-wild and seen how many of those suckers I could catch b4 the end. Maybe explore the wide world of bittorrents...)

I am, as you might imagine, a bit miffed, though.
I think i got the damn bug from a website, thisisby.us.com, an awful "writing site" (write for us! Get votes! earn $! You own your work!) that I found through (duh) Craigslist.
But, I'm afraid to go back and find out because my desktop doesn't have a service plan and if it dies, it gets buried.
Anybody else get infected by this site?
It happened when i was trying to delete my first post from the website. I clicked "delete" and my hard drive started making horrible scraping noises and it was all downhill from there.

I'm gonna look around in the net. see what i can find.
This post is boring and ill-thought out, but i just wanted to get it in b4 the day is all gone.

Happy July!

Two Guys Visit Yankee Stadium: A Tale of Loss and Friendship - New York Times

Two Guys Visit Yankee Stadium: A Tale of Loss and Friendship - New York Times

Sunday Morning (okay, afternoon...) tearjerker.
Maybe it's just good (manipulative) writing, (or maybe my body goes through a physical change on Sunday mornings that makes me sappier than usual) but this story about a guy who asked for and got a bunch of free stuff for his friend moved me.
I think it was this bit right here:

“We’re going to Yankee Stadium,” Mr. McGuire said on Wednesday. “Michael doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to meet his idol, Don Mattingly.”

For Mr. McGuire it will be an important outing at Yankee Stadium, but for his friend, it will be much more.

Mr. Sayre has congenital glaucoma, which has left him blind in his right eye and in danger of losing his eyesight altogether. Their road trip to the Bronx began in March with a letter that Mr. McGuire wrote to the Yankees.

“I’d like to tell you about my best friend, Michael Sayre,” the letter began. “Michael is a 25-year-old diehard Yankees fan. He was born with glaucoma. Recently, he lost all vision in his right eye. Right now he’s hanging on to what vision he has left in his left eye, and his doctors don’t know how long it will remain healthy.

“I knew I had to do something special for him. Something he’d never forget. I’d like to take him to a Yankee game and give him the chance to experience the game like never before — to walk on the field, sit in the dugout, hear the dirt crunch beneath his feet or have him meet his all-time Yankee favorite, Don Mattingly. Nothing would mean more to Michael than to get up close and personal with the team he is so passionate about.”

I know it's a kitschy, feel-good story, the kind that shamelessly panders to our emotions, and reinforces the lies that our system is fair, and good people are rewarded, and I know that this sweet event won't change the world, it probably won't even change a life (a bat with Don Mattingly's name on it isn't going to help Mr. Sayre find his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or help him feel useful in a world where our worth is determined by our jobs), but...

it moves me to see people caring for one another.
And, to be honest, next to images of dads hugging/accepting their sons (Billy Elliot, Field of Dreams, Tribute w/Jack Lemmon (rent it), etc...), nothing makes me emotional like people realizing their dreams.
It's not the dreams that get me, it's that people have them.
So many have no dreams at all.
I wonder if dreams are the USA's greatest natural resource.


There's a voice in my head that says "How dare you throw away those dreams. You know, there are children in Africa who don't have any dreams at all. (There are people who are dead, in prison, bedridden, hospitalized, mentally or physically crippled, etc...) They're dying to have dreams, and you're just throwing them away."
Here, too. Lots of people can't afford dreams here, either.
They're expensive as hell.
I think they might be the luxury we can't live without.

Thank God for TV.
It dreams for us.
Watching it feels like having dreams of my own, feels like going after them, feels like exercise.
As long as I never turn it off, I don't have to hear the nothing, see the empty space.

(I wanted to share this as a happy story, honest. I was trying to wrap the story in warmth, I didn't realize the blanket was wet until it was too late.)

YouTube - Commitment Ceremony - Julie Goldman Kate McKinnon

YouTube - Commitment Ceremony - Julie Goldman Kate McKinnon

2 Short Poems

Cash, grass or ass…

In line at 7-11

Surfer dude,

proudly and with conspiratorial glee announces

“I’m getting margarine! And this time it’s not for rent…”

Head-drop

It all makes sense now

I actually was dropped on my head.

After I sit with this new information for a while,

I ask my mother:

“From how far up?”

She shrugs and reassures me:

“Not far…really, not far.”

False Hope is dead. Long live False Hope!

Finally got my letter from Juilliard.

The wait is over.


Memorial service for False Hope to be held tonight. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to The Foundation for Real Hope, c/o The Commission To Figure Out Just How The Hell I Can Get From Here To There * When It Feels Like The Momentum From Columbia Was My Last Best Hope And I Piddled It Away On Ill-Conceived, Poorly Executed And Grandiose Plans To Apply For Admission Only To The Most Prestigious Playwriting Programs In The World, Somehow Hoping That My Admission To Any (Or All) Of These Impossibly Exclusive Programs Would Be A Message From God And The Message Would Be: "I Love You, Kid" And There Would Be A Postscript, Handwritten, That Said: "You're In. Now You Can Stop Wasting Your Time Being Afraid That I Gave You Keys To Unlock Doors That Are Within Castles To Which You Will Never, Ever Gain Entrance, No Matter How Much Wishing You Do. I'm Not That Cruel. Your Crippling Weakness, Your Mind, Is About To Become Your Greatest Asset. Keep Dreaming. I insist."

* ("There" representing a place where I can have the opportunity to use my actual talents in an atmosphere where they are artistically and financially encouraged, even the slightest bit, in a real and concrete way that involves more than words, but actually, really only money would be the sign that I have arrived, am appreciated, because, sadly, the only way I can judge my worth and the worth of my work is by how much money I make and what I really mean is not the Opportunity To Show My Work And Have It Appreciated, but Not Having To Do Any Work And Being Appreciated For My Essence, For My Potential, For The Brilliance That IS Within Me, Yet Hasn't Yet Found Its Way Into The World In Any Form That Can Be Exchanged Or Displayed Or Submitted For Money.)

My Life As A Blog

My Life As A Blog.

Like my father before me

(before life, with its meds and its wives and children and jobs and chronic medical conditions and jagged remains of shattered dreams dammed his stream of consciousness, or made it go underground),

I am a monologist.

I have always loved to talk and the people who have become my long-term friends are those wonderful folks who (often) enjoy listening to me, sometimes find me funny, and always accept me for the babbling brook that I am. Are these people saints? Perhaps. Do they never tire of the endless flow from my mouth? Of course they do. Sometimes they even have to step away from the banks of my swelling river of words for a while, if only because the sound of the water makes them feel like they have to pee. But, they come back. And sometimes I get to lollygag on their shores or play in their rapids and sometimes our streams cross and we all get wet and a fun time is had by all.

(Even though it sounds like it, I am not into watersports. At least, not yet.)

But, I don’t love these rare and special people only because they listen to me and laugh at my observations and love me. They also speak, though not in monologues

(although I do encourage them, fond of the form as I am),

and I love to listen to them even when they aren't speaking about me or something directly related to me

(and yet, let’s face it, almost everything is directly related to me in some way, being, as I am, the Piece Of Shit At The Center Of The Universe, or POSATCOTU for short).

I find them almost as fascinating as I find myself, and far more consistently delightful. And when I am low, and blue, and feeling mostly useless…when I am out of patience with myself and all I can see when I look back at the (almost) 37 years since I was carved out of my mother's body is:

1. the consistently unrealized potential


2. the overdependence on others


3. the learned helplessness


4. the victim mentality


5. and the countless examples of brilliantly planned and executed self-sabotage…

I can think of these people and understand that we do not see the same things when we look at me.

These friends are kind and encouraging and generous with their time and laughter and gentle (sometimes) acknowledgment of my many broken places and unwillingness to see me in the harsh light in which I see myself and they actively encourage me to replace the bulb (is it just one bulb? I thought it was an arena concert's worth of lighting trusses.) with one less likely to be used as a skin-singeing torture device due to its high wattage, perhaps one of those bluish ones that simulates sunlight or those new fluorescent ones that are good for the environment and last forever and don't really flicker like the old ones, making everything look like washed-out despair.)

When I am worthless to myself,
I know I have value to these people.*

* except when I convince myself that they're just too polite to tell me to go away, leave them alone, grow up, stop being such a lazy-ass whiner, etc… (tape #37, "I am a complete waste of space and time and the only organisms on earth that are happy that I exist are the plants and trees for whom I convert oxygen into carbon dioxide, and the bugs and bacteria and fungi that will consume my body when I die, unless I'm cremated or something, and it looks like the fungi can't wait, I've got that yellow toenail thing and I should get medication for it before my insurance from school runs out, but I won't and it will progressively worsen until it covers my entire body and who cares anyway because I'm such a fat, disgusting pig that no one will ever want to see me naked again so the only person it will gross out is me and I find it hard to imagine that I could ever find myself more naueseating than I do right now.") At these times, it is usually best to sleep it off, or if that's not possible, masturbate or watch television or play video games to deaden the mind, drown out the monologue.

But, I digress.
Back to me. And my history as a blogger.
I'm just sad that so many of my best posts have vanished because I wrote them on the air with my voice.
Well, not just the air. I'm sure there are archival remnants of them in the brains of at least some of the people who were reading my blog with their ears.

So.
The plan is:
Blog every day (yeah, that always works out)
And post things from archives and notebooks and crap so maybe I can get some sort of outside feedback on who the hell I really am and tips and tricks on how someone like me (which is like what, exactly? Aha! We'll find out!) can find a way to live in a system which doesn't seem to value the things I have in abundance.

Hoping that I can compile the evidence and do some detective work to discover my purpose, how I can best be of use, where I belong.

That, or I'll just post so many pieces of brilliant writing, and my blog will become so popular (with hardly any efforts on my part) that I will be offered a writing job at The Simpsons or Late Night with Conan O'Brien, or Saturday Night Live, or a videogame company or even ____________ (insert name of astonishingly bad show here, the television equivalent of Battlefield Earth), or I will be given lots of money to sell my blog to the makers of Welbutrin or Ritalin or some yet to be discovered miracle drug as proof of it efficacy, or maybe I'll just get laid.

or maybe, just maybe, this blog will get me writing.

Plain and Simple, that's really the whole point.

So, now I'm back...from outer space. (and by "outer space", I mean school.)

So. I come crawling back. Slouching toward Bloglehem…Bethleblog…Bloggerham.
(Can’t make an almost clever reworking of a phrase actually work? Just leave it the way it is. You'll get an "A" for effort. You'll get partial credit for showing your work. You will become, in the minds of the people who see the "potential" in what you have written, a horseshoe or a hand grenade and "almost" will, in fact, count.)

A year. It's been a year since I started this blog. Since I took the bull by the horns and then released it almost immediately. But, here’s the thing, I've had a date with Blogville, Blogtopia, The Blogosphere, Blogton for a long time. I've been blogging for decades. Since the 70's. Since I learned to speak.

I just didn't know it.