Drinking, Smoking & Screwing

Music from the Big Love 1994-1997
01. Missing (Little Joey Remix) Everything But the Girl - The Remix EP
02. Elmogambo Howard Shore - Ed Wood
03. Alternative Girlfriend Barenaked Ladies - Maybe You Should Drive
04. Gentleman Who Fell Milla - Divine Comedy
05. I Saw The Light The The - Hanky Panky
06. Andy Danny Hoch - Blue in the Face
07. If I Had $1000000 Barenaked Ladies - Shoe Box EP
08. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here Weezer - Weezer
09. Other People Prick - Prick
10. We Prick You David Bowie - Outside
11. My City Was Gone The Pretenders - Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
12. Thank You (Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Agin) George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars - Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
13. Quote from Black Adder Christmas Carol- Rowan Atkinson
14. Dritter Teil Kurt Schwitters - Ur Sonata
15. Before Today Everything But The Girl - Before Today [CD Single]
16. Mais Que Nada Sergio Mendes And Brasil '66 - I Shot Andy Warhol
17. Axis Sally Queue Up - Possession
18. Bazamba Sister Soleil - Drown Me in You
19. Lovefool The Cardigans - First Band on the Moon
20. God Give Me Strength Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello - Grace of my Heart
21. Honeymoon Suite Suzanne Vega - Nine Objects of Desire
22. Rumble In The Jungle The Fugees - When We Were Kings
23. Sex Appeal Ute Lemper - Berlin Cabaret Songs
24. One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces Ben Folds Five - Whatever & Ever Amen
25. The Joker k.d. lang - Drag

Book of the Week

Forever Our Angels by Hannah Stone.

The book is a collection of personal essays, written by men and women who have been dealt the blow of pregnancy loss. Whether the loss occurred in the first trimester or it was experienced in the later weeks of a happily anticipated pregnancy, these men and women were willing to share their pain and devastation in order to help others. I have received endorsements from the book from several obstetricians, including Dr. Bernard Gonik and Dr. Steven Klein.

Hannah's website.

Pretty Pictures

(Thanks to Kristen for bringing this one to my attention.)

ENDURING IMAGES, LASTING MEMORIES
Parents hold dear photos of their stillborn and gravely ill babies

Hours after Connie King gave birth to a stillborn baby boy, a stranger arrived, carrying a camera. Parma photographer Michelle Reed Cantley entered the room and got to work, carefully and quickly, posing baby Nicholas on the couple's bed and in the arms of his parents, hoping to capture both his beauty and his peace. Cantley, who has spent most of her eight years as a photographer chronicling joyous events such as weddings and proms, has found a calling giving grieving parents a remembrance of their babies ... [more]
- Susan Glaser, The Plain Dealer, Friday, April 07, 2006

We're down. And down safe.

Traitor!

Taking a short break before preparing for the evening. Toni and I (alone!) will be attending a performance of Blackbird by David Harrower before heading home for a sleepless night worrying about whether or not we will make the plane on time. This will no doubt be my final entry before departing for the States. It's been fun.

This morning we took the kids for a walk around St. James Park. Birds to feed, large tour groups to avoid, dogs to pet ... I think Zelda is getting antsy about leaving, there were a few outrageous outbursts but for the most part it was a delightful walk.

The weather has been incredibly kind this trip. I don't know what I was expecting, there was rain, of course, and the Ghost Walk was a bit chilly. But the past few days there have been these bursts of sunshine which have made our outdoor walkabouts pleasureful, not dreary. Zelda refused to wear her jacket around the park.

Crazy middle-aged squirrel man.

Sighted in the window of a magic shop in the Charing Cross Rd. underground; a scary-ass, life-size dummy.

After returning to to the vicarage, Henrik and I made an excursion to St. Mary's - Worshipping God for 1,200 Years if their website is to be believed. Why this last-minute trip to a church literally up the road from my brother's house? Yesterday, two days before we leave, he suddenly decided to inform me that St.Mary's is the final resting place of Benedict Arnold.

Directing Kirk W. Bromley's The American Revolution I got to know a bit about the General. Brian, who played him learned a lot more and let me know some of it. I figured it was someplace I had to check out. Though it isn't normally open on a Monday, they were kind enough to let us in, anyway.

We entered the church through the rear, because that's where the memorial is, right there, by that door. A step down into what was once the crypt ... and is now the Sunday school rooms.

Where Arnold, his wife Peggy Shippen, and his daughter are buried exactly, no one knows. The basement was just a charnel house full of coffins with lead plate inscriptions. The place flooded a lot, the caskets knocked around, and knocked their plates off. Finally, they were all just buried.

What remained was a painted memorial, neglected by time and ignored by Sunday schoolchildren. Recently a slab of Vermont granite was dedicated by a retired Senator, and that's what I took a picture of.

Upstairs, in the church proper (the building dates back to 1777) there is also a window to America's best known traitor, which includes a legend similar to the monument downstairs.

The crypt monument reads:

In this crypt lie the bodies of
Benedict Arnold
1741 - 1801
sometime General in the army of
George Washington
and of his faithful and devoted wife
Margaret Shippen
and of their beloved daughter
Sophia Matilda Phipps
The two nations whom he served
in turn in the years of their enmity
have united in enduring friendship.
The phrases "sometime General" and "the two nations whom he served" crack me up.


Benedict Arnold
1741 - 1801
Stone cold Yankee Doodle stud.

See you on the other side.

Sunday School

We joined Covenant Players this morning for a service at Bow Baptist/London Chinese Baptist Church. As is the case with so many congregations in the UK, Bow Baptist has dwindled in size, and so the London Chinese Baptists, who did not have a building of their own, have struck a sort of compromise. To see the breakdown of the worshippers this morning, I believe the future of Bow Baptist is Chinese.

It was delightful to see Henrik, Brenda and Joanna work together. I don't believe I have actually seen my brother and his wife do this work together since the weekend they were married. That's 20 years ago this June. They put on three short plays, one for the children and two for the adults. The set was a table, some chairs, the costumes their clothes, a few odd props - and fake blood. I could dig it. Looked like my day-job.

When Henrik came out after the longest of the plays, he led a Q&A about the issues raised in the performance, this about a leper healed by Jesus who shyied away from thanking Christ for the miracle, and taking the risk to find Jesus' followers only after he had been killed. Asking people what they think about what they see is a difficult task in the best of situtations. I can dig it. Again, I think my brother's work and my own has more in common than I ever realized.

It was agreat way to bring our journey here to a conclusion, it started with me performing for the Albion team, and ended with their performing for us.

We had a great Sunday roast afterwards at a family-freindly pub called The Gun, and just finished out the evening watching the first episode (a rerun) of a dynamite new drama on the BBC; Life on Mars, about a 2006 cop who gets hit by a car, and spends the rest of the series as a 1973 cop, trying to figure out if he is going crazy, in a coma, or dead. Or, just perhaps, really in 1973.

All Fools' Day

A Trip to the London Zoo


Regent's Park.







Zelda with tarantula.


Orson loves locusts.


Bouncy fun.













The family.

Shopping and Busking

Stuck close to home yesterday. I was making buffalo wings, bbq beans and cole slaw for dinner, and so our most exotic trip was to Sainsbury's for food.

Today we ventured to Covent Gardens, which was perhaps one of the best days of the trip so far. As I was singing Zelda to sleep tonight, she interrupted me to ask if we could go to the place where we got spaghetti again some day and get strawberry ice cream this time.

I thought then of everything we did while we were in Covent Gardens. There was a great, fast lunch, Zelda saw maybe a half-dozen different buskers, I got to show her the toy and puppet shop I first experienced five years ago, Toni and I loaded up on bath products, and Z. and O. got new outfits for church on Sunday ... which will be the first time they ever go to church.

Toni was jonesing to have time alone on Charing Cross Rd., and I wanted to see the Shakespeare exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, but it was already around three when we were finishing our ice cream. Toni figured we should get back instead, because the kids needed to sleep. I said they would sleep the minute I got Orson in the sling and Zelda into the stroller. She should go off on her own and Brenda, Henrik and I would be fine at the gallery.

I was right. The little ones knocked out shortly after we entered the musem. A bad habit to encourage, but there you are.

The Searching for Shakespeare exhibit was better than I thought it would be. They have six portraits formerly theorized to be life-portraits of the Bard - one is still under consideration as the real deal. I think they're all bogus. Regardless, they are historical paintings I have seen in reproduction for years, and it was fun to see them for real, up close.

Those - and famous, familiar portraits of Jonson, Marlowe, De Vere, Burbage, Stanley, and so on. More than I'd hoped for.

Dinner was pizza, and then the women went off for their night out. They saw a production of The Odyssey at the Lyric Hammersmith which you just need to ask Toni to describe. I'm envious, it sounds like it was an incredible production. The two of us will be seeing something on our own the last night here, or at least that's the plan, but The Odyssey closes tomorrow.

The day would have been perfect, except for this Cockney unicycle clown at the Gardens who called "all Americans are no-nothing dummy stupid-heads" and said that "Justin's favorite band sucks ass."

I thought that was uncalled for.

Don't talk about our son, Martha.

Millennium Bridge

A week before we left I visited a specialist, someone who treats migraines. Her entire staff was wonderful - the nurse, the doctor. Really put me at ease.

When I was in sixth grade I suffered from recurrent headaches. I went to a doctor, a man. He interviewed me, ran some tests, and concluded that there was nothing wrong with me, that I pretended to be ill because I wanted to be home with my mommy. He told my mom this.

Last week I received two migraine meds, was instructed to keep track of my headaches, how they come, my diet, etc. I have used each now - they are miracle drugs. Coming home from the theater last night I developed a pain over my right eye which moved into my right eye. Unlike most cases, the pain was not too intense before I started feeling nauseated. I didn't help there was someone on the train eating a really rank hamburger. Since Sunday I have been really susceptible to odors for some reason, especially at night. Dinner hasn't been too fun this week.

Phoning ahead (I thought cellphones were prevalent in the States, there's so many more of them here - and iPods, that's another story) Toni had a bed prepared for me in the t.v. room, away from the kids, away from everyone. I took the migraine medication - and it went away.

A migraine. Went away. I would have cried for joy, only I was asleep.

The day was lovely, though I will admit I was a little disappointed. I need to get over that. We had three things on our list - the London Eye, a boat ride down the Thames and possibly, if there were time, a tour of the Globe for Zelda, just the basic one, to see the inside.

We saw the Eye. That's it. Well, that isn't entirely it, we also had a great lunch at a noodle soup chain called Wagamama, and that led to a big little girl taking a serious nap in the stroller while we had coffee in the Globe cafe ... and then it was time to get home. Oh well. I guess what's important is that we're having a great, relaxed time - after all the weariness that's been passed around, it was best to take it easy. And there are worse things to do than take a long walk along the south bank of the Thames.

After a quick meal of fish and chips, Henrik and I took off to see the recent revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner at the Apollo. Okay, not British, not the playwright, not the actors, but who cares? Couldn't see it in New York, thrilled to be able to see it in London. Besides, Henrik has never seen or read it, ever, so I knew it would be a kick for him.

Martha & George

It is as good as they say. I was on my guard for an "understudy" notice to be up when we arrived, but it wasn't - I knew the entire cast had gotten nominated for Tonys. Henrik tells me Ms. Turner missed a few performances a month ago, and when she opened her mouth last night I almost wished for her sake she'd taken the night off, her classic, dusky voice just sounded very, very tired. Big, but tired.

The event began a bit symbolically, as we took our seats, the folks from Chicago sitting next to us were being harangued by a red-headed drunk. Apparently he had been sitting on one side of them, and then the actual owner of that seat arrived, and then he had been in our seat, on the other side. He started talking to them politely, and then got loud and insulting, "You Americans think you're big shots, but your just f***ing middle class," and like that. There were about a dozen people gesticulating wildly at the ushers and he was eventually escorted out.

Our aisle mates and we chatted for a bit, Henrik reporting that was the first time he had ever seen something like that happen in a dozen years of British theater-going. We concluded being verbally assaulted by an alcoholic wasn't exactly an inappropriate way to begin that night's performance.

SPOILER: You haven't read or seen Virginia Woolf? Maybe you don't want to continue. Secrets will be revealed.

I was probably supposed to read Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in college, but I didn't. I know I haven't seen the Mike Nichols film, and some say that's for the best. In any case, the only other time I've seen it was (surprise) at Great Lakes Theater Festival, about ten years ago. I really enjoyed that production. In fact, having never even read it before, I was shocked at how great the first act was, and equally amused to hear another audience member heading for the lobby during the first intermission saying loudly, "This is terrible - there's nothing to like about any of these people!" Great drama, very funny, and it was still pissing people off after 35 years! That's theater.

What I did not get ten years ago was the whole "no son" thing. Thought it was symbolic. Maybe there was a son, but he's gay or something so they don't want to talk about him. Or it was just a game. The kind of game that people don't want to have children play, those kinds of people. Intellectuals.

Except it's stated pretty clearly at the end, they cannot have children. Cannot. In the days of my ignorance, the idea that people cannot have children was a very simple concept. Intercourse, but no conception. You cannot have children.

What I did not know was that means trying to have children. A lot. Hoping for children. Having miscarriages, maybe a lot of them. Stillbirths. Not so simple.

Honey & Nick

The play takes place on the advent of the 21st birthday of this "imaginary" son. A private ritual, George and Martha make up a life for their son, and on this night she breaks the rules and tells someone else. And on this night, George kills him. It's over. He's dead.

So he was never imaginary. Was there a boy? A small boy, a stillborn boy, or a boy who died shortly after birth? He was real.

"There's nothing to like about any of these people." Maybe not. It's ugly in its hysterical-ness. It's a play about failure, so many different kinds of failure, for everyone in the room. The younger couple have much in common with the older one. Nick and Honey can't have children, either. Hmn. Another take on the word "hysterical."

The performances were uniformly brilliant, but I simply adored Bill Irwin. A monument to passive aggression. But I was also struck by Mireille Enos' Honey. Never gave her character much notice before, I think I had the least sympathy for her in the past. But she was heartbreaking. Oh yes, mousy and yet so, so sympathetic. So vulnerable.

It was a great show. Capped by a migraine. Ah well.

The Good Meeting

I remember the date in June, 2001, which was the first time I ever traversed the New York subway entirely on my own. I was a 32 year-old man. Ever since I had been with Toni, I was used to just following her, because she knew the system like the back of her hand. It was a little disorienting to be on my own.

Yesterday may have been the first time I did the Underground entirely on my own - not as momentous occasion. It doesn't sppear as complicated, doesn't seem like there are as many routes. And people don't walk as fast.

I was attending a meeting with the folks at SANDS. Their office was a few blocks up from Oxford Circus. I got out of the tube and it was bright and sunshiny, though it had begun raining before I had arrived at 28 Portland Place.

It was an illuminating meeting. The show made quite an impact on them last Friday, and they can't wait to get me back in town to perform it again. So we were discussing how to make that happen.

The big question for me was, and is: What do I want to do with this show? And, of course, there's only so much more I can do with this show. There's not going to be a motion picture - video was discussed, again. There was a general consensus that video can be dangerous, it was too easy to imagine medical practitioners using it in the wrong way, showing select scenes to get an impression of "what not to do" for example, and I'd hate to think of that. They agreed.

Publication is a possibility. I never thought a play publishing concern would be interested, who would want to perform this work other than me? But letting a bereavement support organization distribute it so others can read it, people who need some new way of looking at their own grief? That's appealing.

BTW - I love UK pop radio. I had no idea my British relations consumed so much contemporary American R&B and hip-hip.

There were some great, surprise exchanges, reflecting on the performance. Neal thought the show will go over great in the British Isles because, as he says, it's not very American. I wanted to know what that meant, and Erica chimed in that she wasn't sure I was American, once she heard my brother lived here she got all confused, and thought that perhaps I was British and that I was the one who had moved to America.

Also, Neal gave me their one criticism - the title. They understood it after they'd seen the play, but had to admit it was a bit off-putting beforehand (and he's not alone in that assessment) and so ... where did I get the idea to call the play I HATE THIS?

I picked up one of their own books from off the table, and told them I wanted to title of my play to sound like this picture looks:



There were smiles all around, as if to say, "Well. Yes. That's all right, then."

I was very impressed with them, and their work. Their mission, primarily, is to comfort and advise the bereaved, those who lost children before term and up to twenty-eight days after birth. Now they are beginning to get into research and prevention, working to discover the reasons certain babies don't come to term.

It was a warm, positive meeting, and it went on longer than I thought it would, it was such an interesting, engaging time.

Toni was feeling very unwell all day yesterday, I got to take the kids out for a long walk late yesterday morning, getting postcard stamps, and a kite - maybe there will be kite-flying later this week! The plans for to day ... well, we'll see if they come to fruition.

A Blustery Day

photo: St. Peter's Vicarage

Yesterday was spent close to home. Mothering Day falls in March in the UK, and lucky me, I knew this in advance. While Henrik and I were dashing around the City last Friday, I had the good fortune to hit up a LUSH (that's well-put, isn't it?) in Victoria Station.

LUSH is home to our favorite luxury bath products, something we discovered to our great delight in Vancouver on our Honeymoon. So it has that connection, too. There are a few in the states now, but plenty more over here, where it originated. I got Toni a special Mother's day package, with bath bombs, hand lotion, hair treatment, etc. She was surprised to see it on the tabel yesterday morning.

Lydia made her famous double-chocolate chip cookies, we took some walks, and for dinner went to a local Italian place called Aldo's. It's charming, and so is Aldo and his girlfriend, who is the server. Small place. I don't believe it would normally be open on a Sunday night, but it was a special occasion.

I was not feeling well, I'm still not, and Joanna had recommended the alfredo - which is not on the menu, but Aldo will make it if its requested. Delicious, subtle (not too salty) creamy, amazing. Thanks, Aldo! He actually chased us halfway down the street when we had left a few of Orson's toys behind.

As for today ... The changing of the guard? Not so much. I've never really felt compelled to see it, I mean who wants to show up in the exact place every other tourist goes to, exactly when they go there?

It was very blustery, and started to rain, and so Zelda began to lose patience with it after time. Couldn't blame her. Luckily we were standing in the right place for the morning's replacement regiments to come marching by, playing fife and drum, and so the event was not a total downer.

photo: Like mother, like daughter. A lust for shoes.

Zelda was disappointed she did not get to see the Queen, and though I tried to explain to her that Her Majesty does not make personal appearances, having already ridden in a coach with one Queen Elizabeth, she could not understand why this one wouldn't want to meet her.

We did go to the Queen's Gallery, where we got to see the permanent collection, and the Queen's 80th birthday portrait. They play a long video of the artist, Rolf, creating the portrait next to the actual thing. Zelda found this very interesting, then fell asleep, and so we got to actually look at some of the art a bit more casually.

This evening Toni, Brenda and I took a "Ghost Walk" around the West End. More jovial than creepy, our host, Graham, led us on a tour hour walk around the theatre district and then into a pub.

I am actually feeling "rather poorly" at the moment,my shoulders are very sore and I am just feeling woozle. I hope I feel better in the morning, I having a meeting with the people from SANDS tomorrow afternoon to discuss future plans for I HATE THIS. Wish me luck.


Waiting for George Michael.

not the play what i wrote

Shakespeare's Globe tour.

Oo-ah. Apparently I have been terribly misunderstood, regarding my 24 March post, and the "first question."

I thought my description of the situation was pretty clear, or at least I did at the time, but I can see how now it was misconstrued (see the comments for the last two days for the whole story.)

Actually, what I was trying to present was my own first impression of Berni's question. Having just performed an unusual performance for a foreign crowd (and by that I guess I mean people not from Cleveland - the Minnesotans were more alien to me than the Brits) I was looking for an indication of how the show was received. Berni's comment threw me because, emotionally, I was in that place.

She was obviously sharing a painful question she herself had been asked a number of times, that was the conversation starter. It was a GREAT question, a challenging question.

(Reminder, here's the question: "Has anyone ever asked you, if you're over it, why do you keep doing this show?" She didn't ask me why I keep doing the show - she asked if anyone has ever asked that. Big difference.)

Keep in mind - when I performed IHT last October, for a room of exhausted RNs at the end of a full day of lectures in a hall with no air conditioning, the first question I received (after a tense silence) was "Well ... you told us all the things we shouldn't say ... what are we supposed to say?"

So ... not knowing whether I was speaking to an insulted professional or one of the club, I was on my guard. That's all I wanted to express, that first - false, fearful - impression. Because I am an insecure guy.

I'm sorry, Berni. You are lovely, I really, really enjoyed speaking to you, and I hope we meet again soon. I knew what you meant, and I hope everyone else understands now, too.