Look, son - there's only two reasons why one does anything. Either in response to something else, or because the wires have just crossed each other, and you're doing the best you can with the language you have and the madness in your heart.
In short, odes and nonsense.
Running on an hour of sleep and was tempted to make the second gift this week another somber one.
Thought better of it, today.
Today, I want to push past the sad swimming round my guts.
Despite what I'm dealing with, I got up, did a wonderful production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this morning. Hugged a few kids in the audience afterwards. Days like these remind me that making things, making theatre, is ardently bigger than me. Than my ruddy flaws and fears. That if I just show up and be present, good things can happen.
Last week, when I was back in California, staying at my sister's home, when I wasn't holed up in bed trying to sweat or sneeze or cry out all the sick and grief, I got to play with my nephew CD (Carter David). He's two, and the first time I brought out my guitar for him, he started dancing. Then, he rushed to his parents room, and handed me a fistful of dollar bills.
So, it's a given that whenever he wakes up from a nap, or is about to take his evening bath, dance parties with Ole Uncle Jara are gonna be rockin' ! Dance parties consist of him worming around my air bed while I sing and play him my songs.
I wrote this one just for him. He picked up a habit of saying "No way" to my sister, and this silly tune got him to change it to "no, thank you". If you have kids, or love songs about stinky toe sandwiches, listen and smile.
Back in the city. Spent a week in CA to see my family. Buried my father Friday.
Still not well. Bad head cold. Sleeping no more than an hour or so a night.
This week, I'm gonna write about seven gifts, ones from past and present, that I've been given or that I've given out. It's a way to keep moving.
And, to really kick my ass, I'm using the first gift as a chance to write my first new poem in over a year and a half.
Before I was an actor, before I was a writer or a singer or a playwright or a songwriter, I wrote poems. Thousands of terrible poems. I wouldn't even talk to women. I'd just write them these impromptu poems and leave them at their table. Or while sleeping on a train. I thought poetry would forgive me. Minored in poetry writing in college. For five years, earned more money and awards after college for poetry than I did in acting. And the poems slowly became more cohesive - less second-hand e.e cummings and Russell Edson - and more authentic.
But then I self-published a book of poems, RAMSHACKLE (it's so cheap and so good and it has poems about people eating suitcases and drunk weathermen - go buy it like crazy) , and I stopped. Acting and songwriting took over.
Here's the poem and the description of the first gift.
FIND THE PEA
The flag, folded and snug,
Slouches against my mother's breast.
My brother, with quiet mercy,
Offers her his hand.
My nephew paws at the lip of his hoodie,
Trips and shuffles along the grass with his father.
My sister warms her brittle fingers.
She does not cry. She keeps
Tradition.
I ease out of the wobbly plastic chair
when the honor guard captain
taps me on the shoulder. I turn,
and see him hold up the shells
from the twenty one gun salute.
He grabs my hand,
slides the metal caskets across my palms.
People keep these.
My father in ashes, not three feet away
boxed in a wooden enclosure the size of a newborn.
He has a shell.
My brother, his humor, his love.
My sister, her son, her resolute strength
My mother, her faith , her determined ability to tell the same story seven different ways
to seven different people.
I'm going rotten
And I know it
If I don't grow some enamel quickly
This is all I have to say about the past few weeks.
It's a sloppy, raw song. But it's the only way I know how to process this, how to pry myself away from cynicism and loss of hope.
I really wish change was a tangible force right now.
I'm so scared it won't be.
Here's a few groups worth your time and money. But it's nowhere near enough. Our masters need to join together and hear our cries. Not with speeches. Not with symbols. But with clear compromise and resolve.
weve done so well
developed tools to snuff life
quicker and quicker
weve done so well
offered them up like candy
and when the bodies fall
we lift the microphone high
record their screaming
we wear our somber faces
and throw our speeches in the air
afraid
to choke
the beast
of commerce
chorus
there is no bottom
there is no bottom
there is no bottom
for this wondrous
human
suffering
there is no bottom
there is no bottom
there is no bottom
for this wondrous
human
suffering
second verse
weve done so well
dont have the tools when we get
sicker and sicker
weve done so well
keeping our problems
in a breath
that were holding
til we vomit
and if you dont
youre crazy
and with a word
remaindered
life sentence given
we act like its contagious
so unaware the virus
breeds inside
our silence
and denial
chorus
bridge
i really think weve done so well
that its high time we took a break
arent you proud that weve done so well
its a dream i hope we never wake
for if we really didnt want this
we would have rose up
stared down our leaders
gave em hell
weve done well
third verse
weve done so well
another week well wash our hands
and ignore it
weve done so well
meanwhile in new mexico
a pilot pushes buttons
burns a village
its such a joy to be alive
to see the corpses moulder
we have no power
our songs ephemeral
our voices withering and small
who will protect us from each other
Today's my sister's birthday and would have also been my parent's 40th anniversary.
They were married twice. Eloped on this date in Reno, and then married in a church the next month.
Legend has it that my father only had about twenty bucks on him after the wedding ceremony and couldn't afford a hotel room. Sidled up to the blackjack table, and through a combination of guts, luck, and thousands of hours of gambling experience, earned enough cash to garner a room for the young couple.
My father loved games. The ritual of gaming. The patience needed to learn specific rules and patterns each game demanded. Through him, we children discovered that games taught us countless lessons about ourselves: how we coped with stress, how we stuck through and finished the game no matter what, even if we were losing, and what our character truly was when the elements of being prepared, being lucky, and being crazy came into alignment and we were actually winning.
These weren't always welcome lessons. I'd often be surprised and embarrassed by my own arrogance, or insanely angry and jealous that my siblings were able to dominate a game over and over again. But I kept playing, kept paying attention.
Nowadays, I don't really run with a group of game playing friends. The ones that do play extremely detailed wartime strategy games which require a rule book the size of a baby's head. Those aren't fun, to me. If you can't describe the goal of a game in a single breath, I don't want to play it. It may take my whole life to become good at said game, but the general conceit should be elegant and simple.
So, what do I do? My Connect Four set hasn't been opened since I bought a new copy after wearing the old one out. Yeah, I would wear Connect Four boards out, I would make friends violently angry with me at how fast I'd beat them. My playing cards, my scrabble board, my Munchkin set, my Gloom cards collect dust in a closet. I play video games and take on fifteen players at a time in Words with Friends, winning 90 percent of my games.
But there's one game in that closet which makes me sad I haven't got to play with real, living souls in a long while: Monopoly.
No one is casual about Monopoly. You either love it or hate it. It's not a short, conversational game. You don't play it with people you barely know, or the dark truths uncovered will stun you.
But it's my favorite game. I remember my father teaching us kids the rules, the craft and guile one could use to make trades. It was one of the first games where he stressed to us how important it was to stick through it. Winners and losers were made in seconds, and even the best preparation depended on luck to strike.
And we adored him for it. Even though he didn't coddle us and beat us time and time again. I started playing him Monopoly when I was about ten and didn't win a single game with him until I was seventeen. That's the sort of person he made me: one who spent years and years reading up on monopoly strategies, playing thousands of hours and not seeing any positive growth. Just hoping that the time spent doing this made me more proficient, and would proffer success. If that's not a metaphor for my acting career now, I don't know what is.
Summers with my brother and sister were non-stop Monopoly games. A single round would often last days and days. We'd fall asleep huddled around the board - a hastily written note tossed in the center to remind us whose turn it was to play.
Through Monopoly, we developed a catch phrase. When someone lost, after all their money and property had been sold and they landed on one rent too rich for their blood, we'd taunt them, saying: "Well, all we have to do now is just take your piece off the board". A mere swipe of a hand, and their entire existence in the game, wiped out.
Pretty grim stuff for children.
But, looking back on it now, I think only having your piece on the board left to take shows a quiet, defiant strength. We've all played rounds of Monopoly with less disciplined people who, upon hitting a rough spot of luck, toss their cash and property to the banker and just give up. That's no fucking way to live.
The game ends for everyone eventually.
You must play it completely.
Even if you're not winning.
Even if the backhanded deals aren't going your way and the dice rolls don't shine in your favor.
And, if you find yourself a lowly shoe clopping onto Marvin Gardens with four houses and twenty dollars left to your name, you smile. You smile goddamn wide. You played this wonderful, cruel game well, and I love you for it. You take your piece off the board.
I think I've finally got a passable first draft for a new song for the Hobo Guidebook.
Pass it along- I think it's a silly, fun piece!
Every good hobo has a few tips on scuffling, should the occasion permit.
Gilly is no exception. Here's his take on the fine art of coming to blows.
Lyrics
first verse
im a peace loving guy
dont want no ruckus or no brawl
but trouble comes
mebbe not today
mebbe not tomorrow
but sure as shootin
youll be pinned down
laid bare
bullied
youre a stranger
what can ya do
chorus
theres a point in everyones life where ya choose
will you be silent
will you respect yourself
its true
if ya got to fight
fight dirty
second verse
keep your back to the wall
their shoulders give it all away
before they swing
counter from the blow
feet apart and ready
just stick your thumb into their eye
i know its crazy
thats why it works so well
thats what you do
chorus
bridge (and me just being a goof)
third verse
for a group
how to fight
forget the flourish and the pride
heres what ya do
find the meanest one
scream and cuss and cry
aim for their groin to save your life
knife hidden in your boot tip
kick em til the blood drips
and run away
As you may know, I'm using the quiet time while looking for acting work knocking out a rough draft of a one man hobo musical called THE HOBO GUIDEBOOK ( for more information and to listen to the title track, click here) While I was writing and rewriting verses for a song extolling the virtues of fighting dirty, this one popped into my head.
I'm trying to find a way to justify why Gilly became a hobo, and temper some of his silly, lusty behavior with something which shook him as a young man. And then I thought about my childhood, my experiences with Modesto, CA.
Modesto is the perfect place to be a child. Lengthy exposure to its customs and sense of justice makes you angry and hunger for more. Makes you lie on your back and stare at the chipped white popcorn ceiling and daydream about leaving for good and fostering a life infused with vitality, an impolite and demanding need to be heard. That struggle to endure childhood and promise yourself that being a courageous adult in a new city is a possibility, (even when you're poor and don't feel like you're worth a damn), it burns. I spent a lot of time in bed as a kid, full of fantasy, writing scripts for the cosmopolitan life I hoped to live one day.
It's a town where being biracial marks you as a cultural riddle, neither familiar or resonant with the white kids or the latinos. You are your own ethnicity. You grow up strong, or else Modesto breaks you so harshly you give in and you cease desire.
It's a city so anonymous that the white man who assembled the first stirrings of the town was offered a chance to have it named after him, and he refused. Straight up refused. And the locals muttered, "ay, muy modesto", Spanish for "very modest". It stuck.
I'll be the first to tell you that the only reason I'm not living out my days there now is through a combination of three factors, three precepts which I learned long ago are the only way one can be successful for a lengthy period of time: 1)You must be prepared. My parents and teachers raised me to love words, and to read as if books could save you. They were right. They encouraged and helped me constantly as a kid, supporting the artistic endeavors I undertook, teaching me to fight with every last breath for the chance to create things.
2)You must be lucky. And goddamn, I was and continue to be. I'm not a smart or phenomenal artist by any stretch of description, but I was lucky enough to have these parents and teachers and scholarships and to meet other wonderful actors, directors, designers, singers, writers and musicians who helped me grow, gave me work opportunities which let me move on to new and more exciting locales. I was lucky enough to be born a man. Wouldn't have lasted long in this world if I had all the same challenges I had and have now, but was a woman. It's a cruel doctrine of male privilege, especially with the arts. I know this. I do not take it as a birthright. I was lucky enough to finally, after spending a decade tumbling through demoralizing survival jobs, to find a career which complements my acting. It's a pretty fucking charmed life. 3)You must be crazy. You have to remain terminally unsatisfied. Play ends, song's written, story's cooling its heels. And it's done. You're scrambling for the next chance to stitch something together out of nothingness because there's this sharp, wicked truth in your heart which reminds you that you don't really matter. You are an amusement to people, and at best tolerated.
Nobody loves you, because you're the type of person who sings three seconds of a song you're writing over and over for hours until the exact, impeccable wording is revealed. You're the type of person who will drop everything, passport in hand, to work on a project. Nobody will love you because aside from the efforts you spend making things, your mannerisms and personal effects resemble a monk's. You can pretend to care about people, and you may even help them from time to time, but you have a sickness. Ultimately, you are selfish, and any sane person who is filled with altruism, who seeks a broad, well-balanced life, will come to their senses and stop chasing success.
But that's not you.
Nothing gives you as much peace as the endorphins making things does.
**For those who are in Modesto, or a town like Modesto, here's my advice**
This advice is only for those who are unhappy. If living there brings you comfort, love and care, you've already won. If you are unhappy, you need to ask yourself: what can I sacrifice in order to have the life I deserve? The only thing I remember from former Mayor Lang's economics class in high school was the concept of opportunity cost. Essentially, what you lose when making a choice. I saved for over two and a half years in order to have the funds to move to New York City. Damn near broke me in the process. I was crazy enough to do it, lucky enough to be able to do it, and mentally prepared to adopt for a spartan lifestyle all for the ministry of a better future.
Also, know that moving doesn't change who you are. I'm still a pretty plain, humble guy in New York City. I'm still chubby, still dress like an alien just discovering the concept of clothes. I'm still painfully shy when I'm not making things and have to behave with the world. I just get a chance to make more things more often. I get to act Off-Broadway on a weekly basis. Every day is growth and experience.
Here's the song!
lyrics
ive travelled all across this nation
but the one place
ill never shine again
its a whitewashed town
modesto
california
place where you settle
'mong the culdesacs
grey women
ruddy men
chorus
and part of life is lettin' go
grab a shovel
fill the earth
and you dont look back
youre not as brave as you think you were
dont have the strength or the money for a new attack
why are you still breathin'
weight of ruin upon your back
its always modesto
in your heart
second verse
arrived there
with my wife and darling son
held my tongue at the notions
neighbors plied
took a job at the winery
it wasnt fun
my families faces
my only comfort
while the noose was tied
chorus
bridge
ran as fast as i could
when i got the phone call
by the time i arrived
the intersection
choked with glass and rubber
two sheets on the sidewalk waving
in surrender
Saw a great deal of theatre last week, and I wanted to talk about a far too common practice which happens onstage.
Yelling.
It's a flare gun, people. Do it once, quickly and in an unexpected place, and it is riveting. As a spectator, your hair will rustle from the back of your head with fright and that primordial cocktail of adrenaline served upon our steady neurotransmitters will crackle inside us.
But keep yelling for an extended period of time, or yell over and over again throughout a play, and it's just painful. Squeezing and grasping the trigger for a weapon that's spent. And you end up breaking the tool. Wind up with Hamlets who sound like gym coaches.
Why do actors yell?
1)They don't trust the space. In New York City, a majority of the theatres (if we're talking Off and Off-Off Broadway) are black box in nature. Now, I started out in Los Angeles, and there were plenty of actors there who only possessed film training and would whisper during a play, their efforts awaiting a kindly boom operator who would never appear. But that's not the case with NY actors. It's the opposite problem. If you're working a 45-seat house, you can trust the audience to hear you if you have sufficient vocal training.
2)They want to be "real". Yes, in the real world, people yell. And, when they do, we tend to tune them out after a time. Any subway rider can tell you that. It's a coping mechanism we've adopted to shut down when faced with constant yelling. Besides, theatre isn't real. You're not really a king or getting murdered on stage. Theatre is the human experience ideally and artificially expressed. People responding in an articulate, complicated fashion.
3)They don't have a wide enough variety of tactics to play in a scene. This is the big one. This is why acting is different than real life. In real life, I only utilize about four tactics when interacting with people before I give up:
- to tease
- to comfort
-to compliment
-to charm
But me in a role? That's the time when I can seduce or punish or devastate or bleed someone dry or mock or betray or reconcile with them or annoy or stab them with only the words I say.
Verbs. Devour them like crazy. Don't hide behind adjectives in any medium - acting, songwriting, stories, poems, whatever. Verbs used with passion and play deliver powerful art. And if an actor doesn't feel supported by their choices, (and I'm speaking from painful experience in my twenties here), one quick fix is to yell.
Don't use the quick fix. Challenge yourself to explore tactics in rehearsal and performance, especially ones which frighten you.
