This is (not) so exciting

Spent yesterday from about 8AM to Noon in traffic court. Life can get tedious when your last name is near the butt end of the alphabet. The constable was really really busy that Sunday morning in July – our docket spilled over into the next, there were so many there – and many more who did not show up.

Though I have to say, compared to other such episodes in my life, it wasn’t too bad. Though I had been warned this courthouse annex was in “a bad part of town”, it wasn’t, really, and the staff was genial. They helped make the old making-the-best-of-a-bad-thing easier, and for that, I thank them.

Phone tag with a case worker from the Texas Workforce Commission finally bore fruit today, ie., we actually talked to each other. She had a few questions about my termination. Considering that I just gave Harris County my last hundred bucks, I’m hoping this will finally result in my unemployment coming through.

I hate being desperate.

My job applications have gotten a lot more scattershot, in the hope that something will shake loose. I haven’t quite gotten to the point of applying where I’m obviously unqualified, but when you find yourself reflecting on the one month back in 1993 when you used Pagemaker, and wonder if that constitutes “experience”…

Is it any wonder I’m chewing my way through Banacek? He’s the smug, successful bastard I wanted to be when I grew up. Alas, I have only three episodes left, and then my collection will be complete, as it were. I’m finding the first season better viewing, if only because the solutions to the impossible crimes are more credible than the often rococo methods of the second season.

Also missing from season one is Carlie Kirkland, played by Christine Belford. Kirkland was another insurance investigator, and was apparently conceived as a love interest for the womanizing Banacek, but the writers could never really figure out what to do with her, at one point even marrying her off to another insurance investigator. Considering that a couple of times so far in Season One, Banacek has appeared to be pretty serious about his liaisons – the Margot Kidder character in particular – the episodic nature of the series does make the investigator seem pretty cavalier about his relationships, as none of the guest stars ever return. I can see Kirkland as a counter-balance to that – not that the womanizing and parade of hot 70s chicks ever stopped.

There. I feel better now. Holding forth on subjects absolutely nobody else cares about does that for me.

August 7, 2008
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant, The Wonderful World of Crap . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

I Don’t Believe It Either

Whole lot of unpleasantness on the home front lately; I may bore you with it someday, but suffice to say due to a nasty set of coincidences – the Internet is currently an unfunded luxury at my home, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Irony of ironies, though: I have some access at the Hated Job.

That’s not what I’m here for, though. To those two or three of you that check in here: there is actually a new review at The Bad Movie Report. Yes, believe it or not. It doesn’t go officially live until tomorrow. Have a preview.

Time to go home now and… oh, I don’t know. Watch a movie, perhaps.

July 19, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 7 Comments

Turn the Page

The show is over, long live the show.

The last weekend was very trying. We arrived Friday night to find that the air conditioning had been off all week, and since the performing space is in a reconditioned church with the stained glass windows still intact – well, it had been a greenhouse during the week. We were then told someone should have really come in at 8 AM that morning to turn on the AC, which was not exactly helpful. It was miserable both backstage and on, and though I work blind, ie., without my thick eyeglasses, I could see a sea of undulating white blurs in the audience, as the attendees fanned themselves with their programs.

Saturday started a little better. We arrived to find a pleasant chill in the theater. This was, however, short-lived, as the AC cut itself off an hour before the house opened and the atmosphere once again became sweltering by showtime. The air conditioning unit in the backstage area, at least, was quite separate from the rebellious climate control in the theater, so the dressing rooms were comfortable enough. Score one for roles with limited stage time.

My hat is off to the audience members who actually toughed it out through those two performances. It may not have been as bad in the house as it was onstage, with no lights beating down or heavy costumes, but it couldn’t have been at all comfortable.

So I guess the question at this point is – does this mean I’m back? Am I to plunge back into a field that was once my goal, my preferred way to spend my life, my chosen vocation? At present, it’s a very open subject, but the likely outcome is, sadly – very, very sadly – no. Though I came in at, for me, a very fortuitous time frame – a mere two weeks of rehearsal followed by three weeks of performance – the amount of time taken up by this endeavor and The Hated Job is truly daunting. There are a lot of responsibilities that got skipped in that period, and I’ll be playing catch-up for a while. Something would have to
go to continue that pursuit, and since a number of those aforementioned responsibilities involve paying out money to various entities, the thing to go would not be The Hated Job, alas. As the LOLCat says, “I has morgatge.”

Archive photos were taken the last night, and my relatively frill-less digital camera came out, with predictably lackluster results in the low light. These put yet another nail in the coffin; I was under no delusion that I was cutting a dashing figure, but the pictures of me result in a mental disconnect, wondering who the fat guy is with the sword cane.

I’ve never liked pictures of me performing, for just that reason. My mental picture of the character is destroyed by the cold, hard reality of myself.

Past the horrific physical evidence however, it was largely a positive experience. I enjoy acting, and I enjoy being told how good I am.

Fancy that.

May 7, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Caramba!

What a miserable couple of weeks. The show opened last week to less than full houses (no marketing budget to speak of), so I’ve had theoretically four days to rest and heal. Heal because the theater is in a reconditioned church, and the steps leading up the stage are not uniform, which is messing with my bum knee terribly. The acoustics in the space, however, are incredible.

I have a fair amount of downtime in the first act, during which I usually commune with my MP3 player. Now, however, my son Max has discovered the wonders of Daddy’s MP3 player. Since he doesn’t have his one line until near the end of Act Two, he’s commandeered it. At least I can take comfort in the fact he likes Alice Cooper.

I said “theoretically heal” earlier because this week has been anything but restful – my wife and I both had court appearances over tawdry matters which are now thankfully over, concurrent with putting my car in the shop for two days and the resultant further flummoxing of our schedules. And the Hated Job, of course, was the Hated Job.

So here I stand on Thursday, preparing to do the run home, wolf down dinner and hit the road for the theater routine again. It appears that we actually had a critic in last weekend, who singled out Lisa’s “sympathetic opera diva” (surely an oxymoron!) and my “thunderously evil” Moriarty for praise. Which I guess is why we do this.

In other troublesome news: as some of you may know, I’ve been running an Internet radio station at Live365 for almost a couple of years now. And as some of you may know, the entire Internet radio industry is in serious trouble, as the Copyright Royalty Board had decided to triple royalty rates for the Net retroactive to January of 2006. Please drop by SaveNetRadio.org for a fast and easy form to send your local reps e-mail messages (and, with a little more trouble, hard copy) telling them this is not such a good idea. If your local radio market has become part of the Clear Channel Borg, you know what I mean.

Due diligence requires that I mention I used the site, and got a canned reply from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson explaining how she felt copyright was indeed important and she would fight for the rights of copyright holders until her dying day, just as I (had not)requested in the letter that was apparently unread by anyone.

Which I guess is what I get for not voting for her.

April 26, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant, Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

You Know What?

This whole working a nine-hour day, rocketing home, wolfing down dinner, and hitting the road again to rehearse all evening, and then doing the half-hour drive home to collapse into bed?

It’s a whole lot easier when you’re younger and stupider.

In connected news: although I have tried to bring him up right, to be a valuable member of society, Max has to go to rehearsals with myself and Lisa. This has resulted in him getting a walk-on part, and a line, which greatly excites him.

It has been pointed out to me, however, that all I need do is wait a few more years, until he becomes a teenager, then let him know I really want him to be an actor. Then he’ll become a plumber, just for spite.

April 11, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Still Only 24 Hours in a Day? DAMN!

So for a while now, my wife Lisa – who teaches at, and also acts as Administrator of, a private school for dyslexic children – has been trying to work herself to death. Her church is important to her, so besides her duties as worship leader at the contemporary service, she was convinced to head the Evangelism Committee (which needed “new blood”). Then she was asked to teach third grade Sunday School. At each of these, i would sigh and say, “Oh good. You have so much time on your hands, you needed a hobby.”

So she received a phone call a few weeks ago from an old friend – one of my old flames, in point of fact – who was directing a show and needed an actress. Lisa had been pining for the stage for quite some time, so I knew how important it was to her. So I would play single parent at night for a while – no big thing at all.

This is, it turns out, A Sherlock Holmes play, and Lisa was asked to play Irene Adler, or as Holmes and his fans know her, “The Woman”. It’s an interesting combination of William Gilette’s sturdy old warhorse of a play, a couple of penny dreadful set-ups, and “The Final Problem”. And word came back to me, via Lisa, that there was a problem: the actor playing Moriarty was not very good – he wasn’t “getting it”.

How can one “not get” Moriarty, for God’s sake? If Adler is “The Woman”, Moriarty is “The Villain”. THE Villain. The only way the role could be better, more self-explanatory, would be if for some reason Moriarty was wearing Dr. Doom’s armor!

So Thursday night I received a phone call while sitting down to dinner with my family – the actor had been fired. Would I please take over the role?

So. I now have two weeks to opening. Guess I needed a hobby, too.

01. Soul Experience – Iron Butterfly
02. My Ashes – Porcupine Tree
03. Dark Continent – Scott Fitzgerald
04. My Baby Loves Lovin’ – White Plains (again, a heckuva segue)
05. Adam & Eve – October Project
06. Reload – Rob Zombie
07. I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You – Elvis
08. Adiemus – Adiemus
09. Take A Chance on Me – ABBA
10. Cheek to Cheek – Frank Sinatra

April 7, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments

RIP Robert Clark

As Ray Smuckles would say, “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!” Ofttimes my morbid habit of clicking “Obituaries in the News” over my morning coffee bears bitter fruit; in this case, the news that film director Robert Clark, along with his son, was killed in a car wreck yesterday. The other car was apparently driving under the influence and swerved into Clark’s lane.

Clark is reviled in some quarters as the director of crimes against humanity like Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things and Baby Geniuses, not to mention the seminal Porky’s movies (alright, I admit to being entertained by Porky’s 2, but that had Shakespeare in it, fer pete’s sake. But, let us hasten to add, he also directed the equally seminal Black Christmas and one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes movies, Murder by Decree.

The suddenness of the death was a shock, of course, but what surprised me even more was Clark’s inclusion in the list, taken from the AP wire, if I’m not mistaken. Usually the names are complete strangers to me, football players, diplomats, trustees of various universities – but it’s rare that people I know of via my love of genre entertainment appear there. I had to find out about writer Arnold Drake’s passing via Mark Evanier’s blog.

Then I realized: Clark directed A Christmas Story, which I believe is still shown for 24 hours on TNT every Christmas. So for once, it appears the man belongs to more than just myself and a band of geeks.

In any case: R.I.P. Bob. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

April 5, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

At the Top of the Mountain

I actually had a fairly positive experience last weekend. Came home to find out I had been tapped to produce a short script THAT EVENING for performance THAT SUNDAY. I bitched, I did it, had it e-mailed out by 10 pm and was hailed as a genius. It performed well, and was judged by many to be a high point of the morning.

So I reflected on this, and remembered reading an article by Tom Robbins, long, long ago. He related how one day he decided he wanted to see the pyramids, so he “asked the Universe for a ticket to Egypt.” that afternoon, Playboy called and asked him to cover the Grateful Dead concert at Giza.

So this morning I asked the Universe for more of that. “I need some paying work like that, writing and performing, what I like to do, what I am good at doing.”

This afternoon, I got a phone call from Mystery Cafe, the dinner theater I quit in exasperation several years ago, asking me to fill in this weekend in a technically demanding role I originated six years ago, and have not performed in nearly three.

Universe, you’re an asshole.

March 26, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

Change of pace….

Oh, I was so prepared to post sarcastically about the horror that was my day. School holiday here, so the office was flooded with lots of kids and their drama. I confess, I never saw the big deal about dentists when I was a kid. Then, we never had a lot of money, so I was only taken there when there was a problem; so dentists always meant to me a release from pain. I was glad to see them.

But then, something happened in the last hour of the day. I caught a ray of sunshine.

There was a gentleman who called Friday; he said we had fixed up his daughter and now he needed our help – a crown had broken off with the tooth in it. I sighed heavily,as our emergency slots were already double booked and I was looking at coming home very late on my wife’s birthday. I ascertained he was not in pain, and he was fine waiting for Monday’s emergency slot.

I hate booking up emergency slots in advance, but sometimes it’s the only way to get home at anything approaching a decent hour. I do agonize over making people wait; often I’m right, and they can wait, but I’ve also been wrong, and that eats at me.

But today, this gentleman arrived early; the problem was not as severe as expected, and was fixed within twenty minutes. And as he left, he told me, in a very unmistakable New York accent, “I’m glad you could get me in so fast. Tryin’ to get this fixed back home woulda been a nightmare.”

So I had to ask. yes, new York City, born and raised. Worked Wall Street – in the trading pit, for God’s sake – for 42 years, retired, and followed his daughter and son-in-law down here, to Houston. “I love it here! I love the pace, and everybody’s so nice to each other! I’m not leavin’, I tell you that.”

The last few years, all I’ve heard about Texas has been quite negative, which is bewildering to a lifelong Texas boy. It was very nice … hell it was wonderful… to meet someone who not only liked the place, but appreciated that I got him in as quickly as I could. It wasn’t just a breath of fresh air, it was the whole damn oxygen tank. To put it in cynical hipster terms, he turned that day right around and put it in the plus column.

Tomorrow I will doubtless return to the usual collection of whiners and entitled jerks who are certain I work for them… but today, I was appreciated. So screw them.

February 12, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

I owe it all to SNL

Boss: (working on crossword puzzle) Who was the totalitarian dictator of Spain in the 60s and 70s?

Me: Generalissimo Francisco Franco, wasn’t it?

Boss: Wow, I think you’re right.

Me: He’s still dead, you know.

Boss: What?

Me: Nothing.

Und so weiter…

Chris managed to entice me into joining Flixster, yet another social networking site, but one that is based on movies. Interesting, though an anti-social fellow like myself is not likely to click on the “make new friends” tab.

The site does feature a very addictive and fast-paced movie-rating activity (the source of the “My Recent Reviews” widget to the right), which I finally gave up on one night, because it was late, and sleep is a good thing. I’ve been reluctant to start up in idle moments because I coincidentally stopped at 666 ratings. That’s the sort of thing you just don’t walk away from…

And I’d also like to append multiple exclamation marks after a “Not Interested” rating, but I can see where that sort of thing would be prone to abuse.

February 11, 2007
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

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