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Tuesday, July 8, 2008
12:36:42 PM EDT
The Phone Call - part 2
A story
by DB
Part 2
Brian dials the number Cindy gave him. A very plaintive voice answers.
“Hello."
“Hello, Cindy?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Brian. Okay. Good. Let me get the phone book.”
Brian puts the phone down to get the book
. “Okay, now what’s your brother’s last name?”
"Butler.”
“Larry Butler. There are a lot of Butlers here, Cindy. L. Butlers. Larry Butlers, Lawrence Butlers. Where does he live?”
“Oh, I think it’s Pine Street.”
“There’s and L and L Butler on Pine Street, but that sounds like a business.”
“No. That’s it! My sister-in-law’s name is Lucille.”
“Okay, now write down his number.”
.She does.
“Cindy. I’m going to call him myself, right now, and explain the situation, and give him the phone booth number. Okay?”
“Okay/”
They hang up. Brian dials the number for L and L Butler. A woman’s voice answers:
. “Hello. You’ve reached the Butler residence; No one is here right now to take your call. But please leave a message at the tone and we will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you.”.
“Hello my name is Brian Sims. You don’t know me but your sister Cindy just called me from Florida. She tried to call you but she has the wrong number. She’s in a pay phone in a hotel lobby. She’s in some sort of trouble and needs your help. Here’s her number and also mine in case you want to call me back."
Brian gives the numbers to the answering machine then dials the phone booth. There is no answer.
To be continued.
Written by dbdacoba
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1:47:07 AM EDT
Feeling Lonely
Hearing BrahmsWe don't climb a staricase, we climb steps, one at a time.
Basic Business
We don't climb a staircase, we climb steps, one at a time.
DB - The Vagabond
************************************
Units and Objectives
We don't wash a sink full of dishes. We wash one dish, then another, then....
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single....
Several times in my career I played a major role of a character who never leaves the stage, who's on from the beginning to the end. I got the usual questions: "How did you ever learn all those lines?" and "Weren't you a basket case by the time it was over?"
Here's how it goes. In his preparation for a role, an actor must determine, at one point, what his character wants more than anything else. That's called a "super objective." Michael Shurtleff, an acting teacher, used to say that the first question an actor should ask himself about the character is "Where is the love?" I knew an actor named Brown (I don't remember his first name - senior moment) who said that ultimately what all characters want is peace.
That my be. But it is also a matter of defining what that love or peace means. It may mean to get the girl, or the boy, to commit the crime, to solve the crime, to win the battle, etc. So in pursuing the primary, super objective there are obstacles along the way. Thus there are minor objectives that are all related to the super objective. and each one of those has a series of steps that have to be taken and tasks done. These are the "units." These units have to be meticulously learned and carefully done, one by one, until they meld into a flow of action, or the scene will be messy and unclear. Thus: 1. walk to the dresser, 2. open the drawer, 3. take out the pistol, 4. open the pistol, 5. check to see that it is loaded, 6. close the pistol, 7. put it in your pocket, 8. close the dresser drawer, 9. walk to the door, 10. open it, 11. exit, 12. close the door. Each one of thse obstacles, the drawer, the pistol, the door are units that have to be dealt with individualy. And also the walking from one place to another. A good actor will know how many steps it takes him to walk from one place to another, which hand he uses to close the drawer, which pocket to put the pistol in, etc.
In life we have a thousand things to distract us and make us forget what we were after. Not so in a play. In order to reach his peace, his love, his objective all the obstacles, the dishes, the steps are there to be overcome, gotten around or eliminated. That's what makes the drama. The actor is so absorbed in doing that he doesn't notice how long it takes.
My niece called me last night to tell me that my brother died on the 4th of July. As we were 10 years apart we were not that close. But he was a good man. I liked him. As a young man he was a lieutenant in the US Navy. After leaving the Navy he was an actor. Then he got into advertising and worked up to be Vice President in charge of production for one of the biggest ad agencies in NYC. He retired in his 50s. He was always a man of the sea. Later this summer we will rent a sailboat and donate his ashes to the great Atlantic Ocean. That would please him.
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Monday, July 7, 2008
2:07:55 PM EDT
The Phone Call, part 1
A Story
by DB
It’s a rainy afternoon in early summer. Brian is sitting in his apartment reading when the telephone rings.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Larry?”
“No. I’m sorry. I’m not Larry. You must have the wrong number.”
“Oh, no!” There’s the sound of desperation in her voice
“Wait. Maybe I can help. My name is Brian, what’s yours?”
“Cindy.”
. “Who’s Larry?”
“He’s my brother.”
“Where does he live?”
“In East Dorado.”
“That’s right near here. Let me get the phone book and find his number.”
“My phone card is about to run out. I don’t have any money. I’m in Florida and I’m in a real bad fix. I need him.”
“Where are you calling from? Your apartment?”
“No. I’m in a phone booth.”
. “Where’s the pay phone? Out on the street?”
“It’s in a hotel lobby.”
“Is there a number on the phone?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me. And take down my number. I know you just dialed it but just in case.. Do you have a pen and paper?”
"Yes."
"Okay."
They excange phone numbers.
"Okay. Cindy, I'm going to call you right back. If your phone doesn't ring in one minute you call me collect. Okay?"
"Okay."
They hang up.
To be continued.
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1:33:38 AM EDT
Feeling Depressed
Hearing Handel
Adverse Advice
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything - or nothing.
Lady Astor
********************************
When I hear people say "If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing." I frankly don't believe them. On the other hand when I say "I'd like to go back to the beginning, start over and do everything differently." I don't believe myself.
Who doesn't have regrets? Who has lived the perfect life? What I would like to do is to take a scalpel and carefully remove all the moments of my past that I've screwed up while leaving the lessons, to harvest the wisdom and flush the ignorance, to reverse the directions when I chose the "road less traveled" and ended up in some mud flats. I would like to redesign, refine and redefine my life to suit myself, to erase the errors and recalculate the results. What's wrong with that?
But my tendency is to remember the wrong things and forget the right ones, and that leads me into a cold and thorny vortex of remorse. "No!" I scream, "I don't want to trade myself in. I don't want to be melted down by the button molder and poured into a new pattern." I've learned to like myself. It's only some of the things I've done that I don't like. I just need to clean out the closet, that's all. "Now see that pile of junk over there marked 'trash,' why does that have to stay with me for the rest of my life?" If only I hadn't collected it, I'd be a happier man.
Never mind "To be, or not to be." Do you throw out the baby with the bath water, or do you throw out the baby and keep the bath water, or throw out the bath water and keep the baby, or keep them both, THAT'S the question.
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Sunday, July 6, 2008
1:14:52 AM EDT
Feeling Sad
Hearing Vivaldi
Zero Zone
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe and it has a longer shelf life.
Frank Zappa
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This is a true story.
I was the morning news announcer for a large radio station in a major sity. It was customary to give a stock market report in every newscast beginning at 10:00 a. m. I would call the stock exchanges and give them the name of the station. They each had a form of the information I wanted and would just read it off to me.
One morning, when I arrived for work, I was informed tha the phone system was not working properly. We could receive calls but we couldn't place them. The studios were located on a high floor in an old office building. I was told that the problem was being worked on by the phone company but they didn't know when it would be fixed. When the 10 o'clock news came I made an announcement that due to the phones being out of order there would be no stock market report.
Within three minutes my boss, the general manager of the station, came into my studio with fire in his eyes, yelling at me that I forgot the stock report. I tried to explain to him about the phones being out of order. But he interrupted me to scream that they were ringing off the hook. People were calling to complain. Evidently he and a lot of other people didn't hear, or paid no attention to, my announcement. I went on to tell him that we could receive calls but not place any. "What do you mean?" he's still yelling. I explained again that the phones weren't working properly and that therefore I couldn't call the stock markets.
This man was the boss and general manager of one of the largest, most prestigious radio stations in the world. He reached into his wallet, took out a card and threw it on the desk in front of me. He said "Look! That's my stock broker's number. Call him!" Then he turned and stormed out.
I have no doubt that he went back to his office to call his stock broker to tell him I would be calling and found that he couldn't do it. The 11 o'clock news passed with no stock report. By noon the problem was fixed. I didn't see him again for the rest of the day.
I can be just as ignorant as the next person, but there's one thing I know for sure. There is nothing in the entire universe that would motivate that man to even think about coming back and apologizing to me.
Written by dbdacoba
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Saturday, July 5, 2008
1:39:03 AM EDT
Feeling Sad
Hearing Mozart
Yearning Yield
Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot,
but make it hot by striking.
Yeats
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm touched by how many of you already miss Blackie. Imagine, people actually became fond of that pesky python. As did I, as did I. The story of Blackie was a real event. I just turned it on its humorous side. But I'm pondering serializing a fictional story I wrote recently. It has no snakes in it, (except a couple of the human kind). It's an odd tale, mostly dialogue. I don't know. I'll think about it.
*********************************************
My mentor and teacher, Edward, was a great influence on me and my life over a period of seven years, off and on. At first we were friendly on a social level. He would come to see me perform and come back stage with compliments. I would see plays that he directed. I once audited an acting class that he gave and was very impressed. Then one day he asked me to come and work for his summer theatre. I accepted. That changed my life.
Now we were no longer just friends, it was an employer/employee teacher/student relationship. And I will never forget the first thing he said to me as my boss. It was the first day of work, I was sitting outside the theatre wondering what was going to happen. He walked by me, looked me straight in the eye, and said sharply "Can't you find anything to do?" and walked on. That remark set an energy cell of enthusiasm spinning inside of me that has never stopped. I immediately got up and went to work doing something, "anything." All the rest of my life I found things to do. If I had a job I was meticulous about learning the script and getting it word perfect. When I was out of work I memorized something everyday: speeches and poems. Now, in my senior years, I write, paint, keep my journal and when I'm lying down resting I plan, sort, solve and figure. People say "Don't you ever relax?" I'm relaxed. I relax in doing things.
Next to that theatre there was a beach and a man sat on the beach every day with a quart of beer stuck in the sand next to him and stared out at the bay. In the afternoon he would go get another quart and come back. In the evening he went to the bar. I was told that he was a composer. He may have written a lot of music in his head, but I wonder if he ever put a note of it down on paper.
One day in a life drawing class the woman next to me, a friend of a friend, stopped drawing when the model changed his pose. I asked her why and she said she didn't like the pose. I told her to draw it anyway. Often it's the poses we don't like that give us the most information. We weren't there to make pretty pictures, but to learn how to draw.
It's the same way with writing. "I want to write. What shall I write?" Write whatever comes into your head. Somerset Maugham said that if you want to be a writer you have to write every day even if it's only your name. "But I have to start somewhere." Start with your First Grade English text. See Jack run. Run Jack, run. Run as fast as you can, Jack. Get away from what's after you. What's after you Jack? A bear. The bear can run faster than you Jack. Maybe you should do something else. Climb a tree? See Jack climb. Climb Jack, climb. Jack, bears can climb trees also. Stones? You're going to throw stones at the bear? See Jack throw, Throw Jack, throw. I don't think that's going to stop the bear, Jack. How about that big stick? Maybe you can beat the bear off with the stick.
Tune in next week to see Jack in mortal combat with the bear. Will he survive? "You see?"
***********************************
Bless you all with leftovers. DB
Written by dbdacoba
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Friday, July 4, 2008
1:47:19 AM EDT
Feeling Sad
Hearing Beethoven
Xenophilic Xylograph
America doesn't have an elite ruling class, it only has one that thinks it is.
DB (The Vagabond)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Today is America's Birthday - 232 years old.
Here's to the true patriots, the common people, the Americans.
Here's to those who dared to make it happen. Here;s to the men who dared to drop everything and take up arms to protect their lands, their families and their neighbors, to the farmers who dared to defend the bridge and their weapons against ranks of the strongest army in the world and chased them away, to the freed slaves and others in Boston who dared to stand up against the English rifles and were the first Americans to die for it, to those who dared to dump a precious cargo into the bay rather than to allow the government to line its pockets and those of its businessmen at America's expense, to those who dared to cross the ice bound Delaware River on a freezing night, the river I see from my own window, to chase the enemy from Trenton, to those farmers and merchants who dared to spend a blazing hot Phildelphia summer behind closed doors to write a constitution.
Here's to those who dare to make it work. Here's to the farmer and the fisherman, to the miner and the forester, to the carpenter, the mason and the plumber, to the teacher and the preacher, to the banjo player, the trumpet player and the church organist, to the tailor and the cobbler, to the actor, the singer and the dancer, to the truck driver, the bus driver and the cab driver, to the fire fighter, the cop and the paramedic, to the lineman and the lighthouse keeper, to the long shoreman, the teamster and the transit worker. to the typist, the printer, the mail carrier and the factory worker.
Here's to the true patriots, the common people, the Americans
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
1:51:29 PM EDT
D's News From The Burb - 12
The Story Of Blackie
Epilogue
...one of those things.
***********************************
Blackie hasn't been heard from for many days now. It appears our favorite reptile has packed up his gear and left town. I always suspected he was a true vagabond at heart. It's the call of the wild, you know. "You've been too long in one place and it's time to go, time to go."
Perhaps, as our brave, esteemed snake handler opined, Mr. Twister has sauntered down the creek and into the river to make port in some other community where there is a fresh crop of household pets to check out. If he shows up in your garden tell him I said "Hi" but please don't send him back.
If, by any chance, he comes here again you can be sure your trusty, Johnny-On-The-Spot reptile reporter will grab the scoop. But for now its:
Good-bye snake and Amen.
Here's hoping we don't meet again.
It was great fun
But it was just...
Written by dbdacoba
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1:20:56 AM EDT
Feeling Lonely
Hearing Faure
Wise Work
It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.
George Washington
*****************************************
In a light hearted moment I said to someone the other day that my definition of retirement is: Putting new tires on my car.
An actor spends his entire career doing two things, 1) working, and 2) looking for work. When the show closes or your part of the film is wrapped, you're out of work. And since you rarely know where the next job is coming from our when, you generally take the first thing that comes along. As a result I've done a lot of plays I wish I hadn't done and worked with a lot of people I wish I had never met.
When I first considered retirement I didn't think of it as a way to stop working, but as the freedom to pick and choose the roles I played, or more exactly the freedom to turn down the plays and roles that I didn't feel I wanted to do. But, alas, some old man type infirmities crept in and now totally prevent me from doing that kind of work. Things are curable or treatable, but the time, expense and therapy involved are formidable. If I ever don a costume, slap some make up on my face and step upon a stage again it will be many years from now.
So what do I do? What am I doing? Years ago, fortunately, I learned how to draw and paint thanks to the excellent instruction and easy going philosophy of the Art Students League in New York. And some folks have told me that I'm a fairly good writer. So I write and I paint and I keep in touch with my friendly journal buddies..
This is how I look at it. We all have a divine right to do things, design things, construct things, manage things, make things, create things that are beautiful, interesting and valuable and nothing nor nobody can deprive us of that right. And it doesn't matter if you are building a skyscraper, planting crops, raising a family, writing a novel, stabling and protecting a herd of animals, composing a symphony, knitting a sweater, tending a garden, playing the guitar, baking bread, caring for a household pet or growing a flower on your window sill. All the wonderful things you do are precious to the world.
-----------------------
All the wonderful things you do are precious to the world.
As are you, my dear friend....as are you.
Love and Respect,
Barry
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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
12:22:35 PM EDT
D's News From The Burb - 11
The Story Of Blackie
Chapter 11
WHERE YOU WORKIN' NEXT WEEK?
Well, as you might have guessed, our resident reptile has once again avoided capture. The expert bounty hunters tried all day to find him. They used fiber optic cameras, a special snake collar and a leash (in case Blackie wanted to go for a walk) but after scouring the neighborhood they came up empty handed. No snake, no show.
Now the Head Hunter is saying that the Twister probably slithered on down the creek and into the Delaware River. I wonder if pythons, or boas, or whatever he is, can swim. If so then he's probably splashing about, pretending to be the Loch Ness Monster and living off of sea food. If not then I'm afraid it's Mister Twister "sleeps with the fishes." In either case it seems to be Bye Bye Blackie.
But wait a minute. The Delaware River runs right along beside where I dwell. There are tasty ground hogs and possums all aroung here and a family of cats living under the porch.
This is getting too close for comfort. I'd better bake some more ginger snaps. (I wonder if Blackie takes milk with his cookies.)
Stay tuned.
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