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2011-06-23T06:27:00.001-04:00

Steal This Life!

In What’s In A Name, which closes tonight at the Bococa Arts Festival, Susan Price is able to establish her new life through a stolen birth certificate.

Getting one of these is easier than you might think, as anyone who’s read Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book can attest. Apparently it’s as easy as asking your dear friend for unreasonable favors in the name of the revolution and cash-free living.

It makes one think about a time when such requests were not outside the lines of reasonableness.

When you’re young, you think about what the future will look like, whether it’s a reachable and comfortable as a loving marriage, good job, house, children; or as ambitious and outrageous as the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of magic realism and culture-jamming performance art. Either way, you make your choices based on what you think the next few years will look like. And then, as the years go by, you find you’re stuck with them.

I know more than one person who’s had to live down a shoplifting rap, or a drug bust, or a hospital stay because they thought their futures would look different than they turned out. But their choices are what they are.

Susan’s choices, like a lot of folks at that time, were more extreme, but no less reasonable at the moment they were made. It’s the unforeseen consequences that always do you in.

What’s In A Name, tonight at 7, part of the Bococa Arts Festival, at the Ceol Pub on Smith St in Brooklyn.

2011-06-11T12:17:00.003-04:00

Who Is Susan Price?

What’s In A Name, my play opening June 17^th at the Bococa Arts Festival, tells the story of a mysterious and troubled woman named Susan Price. But who is she really?

The story of Susan Price is loosely based on the true-life tale of Katherine Ann Power, who turned herself into the authorities after living for twenty years underground. She obtained a stillborn’s birth certificate, moved to another coast, had a son, married a man, and set up what was for all appearances a normal, fine life.

And it nearly killed her.

The struggles of Power show just how much of our sanity is tethered to our identity, how the verbs and nouns that make up all of us work together… or don’t work together. They also show very clearly how, at the end of the day, we are nothing more than the sum of our choices, good or bad.

Check out these links about Power’s story, and be sure to check out What’s In A Name at the Bococa Arts Festival, opening June 17^th.

Wikipedia

New York Times (60’s Radical, Linked to a Killing, Surrenders after 23 Years)

Time Magazine (The Return of the Fugitive)

2008-02-11T11:14:00.002-05:00

Breslin on Blogs

It's somebody talking in a saloon and people think it's important!

The great Jimmy Breslin at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Square, February 5, 2007.

If you want to know what New York has lost, think about a city where JB was its voice. Today, the voice of the city is the twentysomething at your bank branch who turns down your loan.

2007-11-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

Norman Mailer, 1923-2007

"I may be wrong, and if I am, then I'm the fool who will pay the bill..."
--- Norman Mailer

I would certainly be remiss if I did not mark the passing of the man who was an inspiration in so many ways (not the least of which is the title of the blog).

His accomplishments are well-known (two Pulitzers, a National Book Award, mind-altering essays, countless best-sellers, etc etc), as are his low points (stabbing his wife with a penknife, the Jack Henry Abbott affair, Town Bloody Hall), and they have been, and will be, better documented elsewhere. But they miss the most important statement of Norman Mailer’s life.

Norman Mailer was a writer. He was all that, and he was more than that.

He was a Writer.

He was unashamed of it. He embraced the heroism of it. And he went balls-to-the-wall with it.

If you are a writer, you can feel important, you can feel ego-inflated, you can occasionally feel gratified. But if you are a writer, and you listened to or spoke with Norman for any amount of time, you felt… heroic. Like part of a secret, endowed clan that was called upon to move off into hopeless quests that had to be undertaken anyway, or moreso, had to be undertaken because they were hopeless.

In Advertisements for Myself, Norman Mailer said he would settle for nothing less than changing the consciousness of his times. A heroic quest. Norman pointed to the farthest fence, picked up his biggest bat, and took his mightiest swing. Sometimes he connected. Sometimes he whiffed. Some went over the fence, some went into the stratosphere, some went off the wall for a double (and some went off the wall in other ways). But he always took the biggest cut he could and no matter what happened, he still strode to the plate every time up eying nothing but that fence.

And what he taught is what, if you are a writer, could be the most important lesson to learn: you must be absolutely, totally, completely unafraid to fail. Because fail you will at times. But there is something worse than failing, and that’s not taking your turn at bat.

I had seen him speak many times, all when he had passed eighty, but even as I could see him turning frail, his mind was still sharp. We spoke briefly and shook hands at a reading/signing of Castle in the Forest. And we had one encounter in our neighborhood in Brooklyn Heights:

Not too long after we, too, moved here from the Village, my pregnant wife woke up around seven on a Sunday morning famished. So I threw on some scurffy clothes and went out to get us some bagels. I get outside and look up Clark Street and I see a guy, older, wild hair, scruffy chinos, making his way up the block with a very pronounced limp. I’m thinking it’s some guy who woke up on a bench and is just making his way, until I get about half a block behind the guy and I realize “holy s***, that’s Mailer!” So now I’m getting closer and closer up behind him and I’m thinking jees, what do I do when I pass him? I gotta do something, but the wrong thing would just ignite that famous temper. So I give him a wide berth as I pass, then I turn a little to the right and say, “Good morning, Mr. Mailer.” And he looks up at me like Popeye, regards me for a second, then says, in that great inimitable voice, “HOWAAREYA??!” I just said, “Fine, sir” and we nodded and went on our ways.

He had the courage to fail if he could fail brilliantly, and the audacity to risk success if success could make others think and feel in new and different ways. In this, he was the epitome of the artist and the writer. He is a model for all that come after. And in the age of plastics and too much technology, it was his authenticity that made him more and more unique.

Rest in peace, neighbor. It will be sad to look up at the terrace and know you're not in the nabe anymore. You will be sorely missed.

2007-02-09T14:41:00.000-05:00

What better day than Valentine's Day to learn

The Truth About Love?

OPENING ON VALENTINE'S DAY

for FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY

THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE

is a new play by

SUSANNAH NOLAN

from

PRESENT TENSE PRODUCTIONS

directed by

CHRISTINE SIMPSON

The Truth About Love is set in 1958 Philadelphia. On the idyllic Penn campus one hot summer, Rachel sees Mark and Mark sees Rachel and they fall in love. But for Rachel, 'the truth' about love is that it makes her see only a beautiful light at the end of a tunnel, not the locomotive speeding towards her. The Truth About Love is Our Town, if Emily was bewitched and bewildered—and George was gay.

The Truth About Love is funny, touching, absorbing drama, brilliantly written and brilliantly staged. It's the first collaboration of Susannah Nolan, who's equally brilliant Don't Pick Up is now being performed around the country after being named Best Play in the 2002 American Globe Festival, and Christine Simpson, on of nytheater.com's Dowtown Theater People Of The Year and fresh from her Theater Row triumph The Great Conjurer. The Truth About Love will be another downtown triumph.

Tickets are available at SmartTix or at the Manhattan Theater Source on 177 Macdougal (btween 8th St and the Park) .

SUSANNAH NOLAN is the author of Don’t Pick Up, which won the American Globe Theatre's 2002 Fifteen Minute Play Festival and was also staged at New Dramatists and published in the Guthrie Theatre’s anthology The Best Ten-Minute Plays for 2 Actors: 2004 (S mith & Kraus) and is now performed around the country. Some of her other works include Fed Up to Here (finalist, Samuel French off-Broadway Playwrights Festival 1992), The Man with David’s Face (part of “Bi-Polar Expeditions” at Synchronicity Space) and No Time To Change Clothes (presented as part of THAW Out for Peace @ Collective Unconscious).

CHRISTINE SIMPSON is a Korean-American writer/director based in Manhattan. She was recently named one of nytheatre.com's People of the Year for 2006. As a director, Ms. Simpson has directed with Ma-Yi Theatre Company, New Georges, Reverie Productions, Peculiar Works Project, Bumblebee & Blackbird Productions, The Public Theater, the NYC International Fringe Festival, Fluid Motion Theater & Film, and Happy Lady Productions. Plays penned by Ms. Simpson have been produced at the Blue Heron Theatre, Baruch Performing Arts Center, the New York City International Fringe Festival (2003 and 2006), and Theatre Row. She has also written and directed two short films that have screened globally. In 2005, she was selected as one of five filmmakers to compete in the Asian American International Film Festival Michelob Light Music Video Contest.

2006-03-27T11:38:00.000-05:00

She's So Beautiful
A New Play by Timothy Nolan

Animated by Jodi Chamberlain

Starring Michael Chimenti

"I am so into you, I can't think of nothin' else…"

Sometimes it feels like she's right there.

The sun rises. The city rouses from its heavy sleep. The light creeps in like an unwanted intruder. The remnants of the night before are strewn about the room: a drained glass…a crumpled pile of sheets. A radiator taps out the seconds of his life that are ticking away. When he woke up this morning, he saw he was alone. So he decided not to be.

This short play written by Timothy Nolan, performed by Michael Chimenti, and illustrated by Jodi Chamberlain, has found it's way into an unusual type of animation.

She's So Beautiful marries both the complex dialog of adult culture with the lush but simple nature of illustrated line.

2005-08-03T15:22:00.000-04:00

Loose in the Louvre

Paris Journal, Part 3

I had just loaded up our camera with four fresh batteries and a brand new 256mb memory card. We had 300 pictures to play with. I figured it was safe, and would be interesting, to let Olivia wander around the Louvre with the camera and see what she turned up with.

Olivia Rose - ready to go!

Four hours later the batteries were dead and we had ten pictures left.

"Dad, I had to take a picture from every angle. That's how you're supposed to look at sculpture." This is usually followed by a sigh which says something along the lines of Don't you know anything about art? Sheesh.

Here are some samples of what you get when you let your eight-year-old daughter loose in the Louvre with your camera:

Sense a theme developing here?

"What the Venus de Milo has to look at every day."

2005-07-22T06:00:00.000-04:00

Partyin’ with the Parisians

Paris Journal, Part 2

David and Claire, nos hôtes extraordinaires

Sometimes you get a sense when something will be fun, despite your fears. David and Claire, our amazing hosts in Paris, invited us along to a party soon after we got there. “Don’t worry, they’re all fluent in English,” he said. I sure hope so, I thought, not quite standing astride my ten words of French and ready to take on the city.

It was our third night in Paris, and we were still getting up at ten and not falling asleep until two or three in the morning. So despite the fact that both my wife and I are terminally shy, especially around people whom we don’t know and who don’t speak the same tongue, I was up for adventure. We accepted the invitation and hoped for the best (and, as always, took the baby weasel option for our Plan B, excusing ourselves after an hour because, well, we have to get the kid to bed).

The first thing I noticed at Parisian dinner/house parties is that even though this one had a distinctly grown-up flavor (in other words, the party was so the grown-ups could get together, not so the kids could have a play date), the kids all come along. No reason why the adults should have all the fun of trying to make small talk with perfect strangers in a foreign country. No sitters… the kids play together have something to eat, and then when they’re tired they all go to one of the bedrooms and crash. And the party goes on. Amazing system.

So here we are in this wonderful Paris apartment, surrounded by bright, funny, engaging people, the food is delicious, the apple cider is flowing (“No, Liv, you can’t have any, it’s not that kind of cider”), and laughter and good conversation is filling the air.

On this night, four days before the Olympic announcement, naturally everyone was curious about what the race to see who would be the host city looked like from New York. Michel, who works for the French equivalent of NASA, asked me point blank, “Is there excitement in New York over the possibility of the Olympics?”

Being a good New Yorker I replied, “No, just derision.”

Now I tend to this that the contrarian, world-weary, slightly jaundiced eye that lifelong (or even long-term) New Yorkers cultivate is in its own way roguishly charming. “Oh, those New Yorkers, they’re soooo cool…” And one of the things I have come to love about Paris and Parisians is that they are the only match I’ve found for New Yorkers in their urban energy, vibe, and just-this-side-of-cynical eye. So I knew Michel would totally identify with our anti-Olympics attitude.

The Tour Eiffel gets into the act.

But Michel was completely taken aback.

“There is no excitement over this?” he said.

“We’re actually rooting for you guys. We’re hoping Paris gets it.”

Forget the language barrier (though Michel’s English was impeccable). I could have been speaking Ku and he would have understood better.

“Why wouldn’t you want the Olympics?” he said in a tone that was starting to indicate an insult to sensibilities, though he was never anything less than unfailingly polite.

Undaunted (or clueless), I blundered on. “Well, you know how New Yorkers are. We’re like Parisians. The Olympics are nice, but it’s not worth the aggravation.”

This he seemed to get. “Ah, yes. We know about aggravation. And yes, having the Olympics in town would have it annoyances. But I think there is also national pride at stake as well. There is great national pride in the Olympic bid. So it is balanced between aggravation and national pride.”

I didn’t have to ask… national pride was coming out ahead.

I also didn’t have the heart (or common sense) to go on and tell him that in New York, we don’t have the counter-balance. That most NewYorkers refer to their home as “an island off the coast of America.” That where the Parisians have no problem carrying the flag for France, most Gothamists think about the rest of their country and say “what have you done for me lately?” And that being told by our Mayor that we’re inviting the Olympic Games was like being told by your mother-in-law that she’s inviting five more cousins to the family dinner you’ve been persuaded to throw.

Apparently Parisians weren’t as much like New Yorkers as I thought. At least in one respect. Parisians proudly consider themselves French. In fact, they think of themselves as almost uber-French (pardon the mixed metaphor) --- no one is as French as them. New Yorkers think of themselves as, well, New Yorkers.

And yet I never felt more in touch with being American than when I am in a foreign country. You have no choice but to embrace your nationality, for its wrapped around you whether you like it or not. And to my surprise, it was a very comfy fit. It’s amazing how having an ocean between you and the homeland can make all the differences and feuds with your countrymen seem a little fuzzier. I never felt like I had to make a stand for the stars and stripes, but I did feel them around me.

Suppose we had marketed the New York Olympics that way… Come to New York, for the real America! No one’s more American than New Yorkers. That instead of the bid trying to avoid, and therefore unintentionally reemphasizing, the disconnect between New York City and the U. S. of A., it sailed right into the teeth of it. For to most of the people at this party, and to most of the folks we met in Paris, we were not New Yorkers, but Americans… in fact, uber-Americans. No one is as American as we are.

As a postscript, the party ran on until after one in the morning, with many more discussions about politics, sports, the state of France, the state of the United States, the difference between liberals in the two countries, and the price of real estate (at last, something real!). Two days later, London beat out both Paris and New York for the 2012 Games. Paris lost by a whisker. New York wasn’t even close.

Even though no one is as American as we are.

2005-07-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

Sam and the City
Paris Journal, Part 1

Temporary expat

Back in NYC after two weeks in Paris, and in between checking the net for apartments in the 14th arrondissement I'm working on writing up some of the better stories from the trip.

The rotund-looking man with dark hair and glasses and sporting a beige shirt waddled on over to me. He could not have looked less threatening, but to me, he held the power to torpedo my whole day, maybe even the next two weeks. As he got closer, he feigned a smile and interest as he unholstered his weapons, pointed, and fired:

“Bonsoir, monsieur…?”

“Bonsoir, monsieur. Un espresso, s'il vous plait?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Merci, monsieur.”

Parry, dodge, turn, spin, thrust. I could sit now.

Last Tuesday I was sitting in the L’Escale Café, 41 Boulevard Saint Jacques, Paris. An obscure café on what was at that hour a pretty quiet main drag. One other person sat in the café, nursing a beer and a cigarette and poring over some papers. That’s about it.

The only notable thing was it was across the street from Samuel Beckett’s house.

Many writers go to Paris and do the “Hemingway thing.” They read A Moveable Feast, go to Lipp’s and Closerie de Lilas on the Boulevard Montparnasse, spend hours in Shakespeare and Company, and go to Harry’s New York to get drunk and start a fight. I certainly was not above having a drink at Harry’s and exploring Montparnasse (especially since that’s where my host’s apartment was) but I decided, after a couple of my own trips to Shakespeare and Company, to go on a Beckett search.

38 Rue Boulard. Home for two weeks.
(Our room is the one with the open window on the terrace.)

The Théâtre de Babylone, the theater where Waiting for Godot premiered, is gone, his summer house is outside the city, so there was really only one place to check out… 38 Boulevard Saint Jacques, his address since 1963, where he had an apartment with a terrace that overlooked the work yard of Le Sante Prison. As it turned out, it was a ten-minute walk from where I was staying, 38 Rue Boulard, and as I crossed Denfert-Rochereau I could imagine Sam loping the streets on his long spindly legs, stopping for an espresso and a smoke at one of the cafés, chatting up friends…

Beckett: It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?
Friend: Yes. Makes one glad to be alive.
Beckett: Oh, I wouldn’t go that far…

My kind of guy. (Kidding.)

I threw my leather-bound notebook, a couple of pens, a cigar, and my lighter into a bag and set off for the Boulevard Saint Jacques. I didn’t have to go far. But if I wasn’t following the numbers I would have missed it. Beckett’s old building is perhaps the most nondescript-looking building on the arrondissement. A plain, white apartment building that would look at home in Ardsley or Massapequa. I wondered if I even had the right building. Check the address… yup, 38 Blvd. St. Jacques. I looked through an adjoining hedge and did see in the distance the foreboding-looking wall of Le Sante Prison. Yup, this was the place. The place where he ate breakfast and kept his notebooks and looked out on the morning sun (though one doubts that he did that sort of thing).

Sam's house, 38 Blvd. St. Jacques

I was standing in a spot that I had read about from an ocean away. I put together the pieces… the names in my memory with the places and object, bits and pieces, in my vision. I was slowly feeling the city going through me. And so, to the café.

There is nothing that can stop this process dead than the feeling of the whole city of two million thinking you are a singular idiot. So I eyed the café warily. I could get a drink, but trying to explain that a Jack and soda does have Jack Daniels but not Coca-Cola (and I didn’t know the word for “club soda” beyond “Perrier”) had proved a challenge in other places. Besides, I was going out later, so a drink right now might not be the best move. But coffee? I could drink coffee anytime. And I’ve never had a bad espresso within the city limits. And I can say “espresso”… I think…

The cheery, pudgy guy in the beige shirt brought me my cup and I sat outside, smoking a nice cigar (you can do that here, too), scratching some notes down in my notebook, and sipping an espresso that I had ordered in the native tongue. I thought about what Sam’s French must have sounded like run through that Dublin brogue. And I knew that this guy had me nabbed as an American, no matter how my vocabulary grows, my hard vowels are a dead giveaway (though before I’ve opened my mouth I’ve been mistaken in Paris for everything from Italian to Arabic to Sephardic Jew). But his cheerfulness welcomed me, more in a “You’re not bad” way, rather than the usual “Thanks for trying, let’s stick to English, a-hole” way. I’d found a niche. I could stay. I could live here.

I finished my smoke and scribblings and took the last pull at my espresso. Okay, next trap… gotta pay for it. I’m not sure this guy is going to write me un addition for a cup of espresso, but I’m not quite up for, “What do I owe you, pal?” But I’ve got no choice. Go with what I know or mumble and stumble. I’m feeling too good to mumble. So I get his attention…

“Monsieuer…” He comes over, gives me a “what’s up?” sort of look. “L’addition, s'il vous plaît ?”

Okay, now he’s laughing, gesturing to my small cup. And for a second I think I sense the “you’re not from around here” look. But he smiles and says something that sounds like “due euros.” So as not to embarrass myself still further, I hold up two fingers and he nods. I smile back and drop the coins on the table. He probably charged me one for the espresso and one because he could, but que diable. As I’m packing up my bag I look back up at the seventh floor of 38 Blvd. St. Jacques one more time. I look up and down the street. It now seems familiar… my hour or so spent here mixing in my memory of the backgrounds of the photos of Beckett I’d seen. It feels like his ghost is still here, muttering “no no no no no… yes…” as he lopes home. I lope home.

My desk away from desk.

Paris's reputation is a misnomer. It is much more welcoming to newcomers than one might think.

2005-06-03T23:44:00.000-04:00

Thank You, One and All....

If a man is measured by the quality of his friends, then just hand over that industrial tape measure.

Thanks to one and all for your thoughts, prayers, and good wishes upon the death of my dad.

The site has been down for a little while, but it will be up again very soon, I promise.

Thanks again.

2005-04-17T16:00:00.000-04:00

'Bye, Dad

This past Tuesday, April 12 2005, my father died, three months after being diagnosed cancer-free and one year, seven months, and nine days after my mother died. In working up a eulogy, my brothers and I each contributed our thoughts about the man. Below are mine:

1963... I'm on the right

When you look in the face of a dying man, you can see their whole life. As they slip from one world to another, you can see the baffled new dad, the Bronx street dude, the scruffy young man, the adoring grandfather, the dedicated officer, most of all the loving and devoted husband and father.

Grandpa Tom

On the last night of his life I saw the man who took care of my mother in what was undoubtedly the most difficult time in his life. It tore him up to see the great love of his life deteriorating day after day, but he never let her know that. When my dad talked to my mom, even in the days when she couldn’t understand him, every day was sunny and fun and full of love. At his most tortured, he could put on a smile and make mom feel like nothing was wrong. That was Dad.

I live near downtown Manhattan, near the Supreme Court Building on 100 Centre Street, and every time I would walk by the building I would think of Dad. Especially when I saw a few of the officers hanging out… excuse me, on door patrol… outside the building sharing a laugh or airing a gripe. But what I really thought about was the fact that that building, the first building where my dad served as a court officer, was about 50-something miles from our house in Mahopac. About a hour and forty-five minutes by car, at night, with traffic, when your eyes are tired and your body is tired from standing all day and your head is tired from a long day’s work. There must have been many days when the last thing he wanted to do after a tough day was climb into our old Volkswagen Bug, with too many miles on it and too many funny knocks and grinds, and set out on that long journey. But that’s what he did. Every day. Because that’s what he had to do to give us a nice life in a nice house with a back yard. He did it because he felt it was what he had to do. That was Dad. I saw that guy on the last night of his life, too.

Sarge

I saw the guy who got his brother out of trouble, usually right after he got him in trouble. I saw a young man who ran afoul of Bronx street gangs because he stuck up for a guy who couldn’t stick up for himself. I saw the sergeant who demanded excellence from his crew by casually expecting it. I saw the guy who was usually assigned difficult officers, who had not worked out with other crews, and by simply expecting them to do what was asked of them, by a combination of confidence and toughness, he showed his charges that they were capable of more than they thought. That was Dad, too…

In the words of another Irishman, “… we fight, all the time, it’s alright, we’re the same soul…” When I said goodbye to him, I said, “thanks for showing me what a man is.” I saw all parts of that man on that night, and I’ll pay tribute to the man he was by being the best I can be. He would demand and expect nothing less.

Thomas E. Nolan
1937-2005

2005-04-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

Living Will is the Best Revenge

Making enough noise to wake the dead.

It should be apparent by now that, as Bono so eloquently puts it, "I like the sound of my own voice." But there are times when one must defer, and this week I defer (and paraphrase) to Robert Friedman of the St. Peteresburg (FL) Times, who this week wrote the column "Living Will is the Best Revenge," which I'm predicting will soon be boilerplate for such documents throughout the country (at least let's hope so).

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semi-existence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.

* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

"And where are the cameras, brothers?" "Right this way, Reverend."

* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.

* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

* I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.

* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated oblivion.

"We're gonna take care of Tami, you wait and see." "It's Terri."

* I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start calling me "Tim," as if they had known me since childhood.

* I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a "Tim's Law" that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.

* Even if the "Tim's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want Congress - especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.

* In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.

* And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.

* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.

* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I'd want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best "to err on the side of life."

* I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF's care.

* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to argue.

2005-03-23T09:46:00.000-05:00

Christians with Bad Attitudes

Why, indeed…

“You never know at any given moment whether you’re [working for God]… or whether you’re being duped… whether you’re an Agent of the Other Side. It is when we feel our holiest that we are actually doing the work of the Devil.”
--- Norman Mailer

Well, the lawyer for Robert and Mary Schindler finally got one thing right.

In their testimony before the Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, they demanded that the three judges hearing their appeal restore a feeing tube to their brain-dead daughter Terri, because otherwise the actions of Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and George W. Bush will amount to “a vain and useless act.”

Which, of course, it is.

I have been able to think of little else lately besides the Terri Schiavo case, because when I think of it, I think of my God, and my church, and my grandfather, and my daughter, and my brothers, and my mother, and mostly my father.

Two summers ago, as I lounged on a beach in Cape May, reveling in the successful run of my play Acts of Contrition in the Fringe Festival, my father called me on my cell phone. At the time, I didn’t think my father even knew I had a cell phone. But there he was on the other end:

"Tim, you better give me a call. It's not good."

My mother, suffering with early onset Alzheimer's and two weeks shy of her 64th birthday, had stopped swallowing. My father had been holding her hand while she wrestled with the ever-increasing symptoms for better than ten years. Now, as she was unable to respond to him, unable to speak, unsure of what she was seeing and hearing, she had stopped taking food and water. The doctor presented my father with the choice: adminster a feeding tube or, as he said, "let her go."

My mom didn't have much life left at that point. We looked at her broken body and knew there was a vibrant, ornery, beautiful soul in there somewhere. And it was trapped. And it was tortured. We couldn't see what was to be gained by forcing nutrition on her.

We let her go. And we did the right thing.

It was the second time I had had to be part of such a decision. Two years earlier, my grandfather, who was like a second father to me, was dying of more things than I could mention. I remember sitting with him in the hospital near the end thinking the only reason I'd want to keep him around is for me. So I could see him, so I could be around him. Selfish reasons. I looked at him, at his soul straining against what was left of him mind and body.

My friend Fr. Ned Coughlin told me a story of a man and his son trapped in a burning house. The man made it to safety, looked up at the house and saw his son trapped in the smoke on the second floor. "Jump!" yelled the father. "But I can't see you!" yelled the son. "It's alright, I see you,"said the father. "Jump, I see you!" He then turned to me and said, "What you're telling your grandfather is its okay to jump." So we let him jump.

I sometimes wonder if his soul wasn't already halfway in Heaven and we just cut him loose for the rest of the trip.

Now I sit here and think about the Terri Schiavo case and wonder: What if some stranger, some Christian with a Bad Attitude (CBA) walked in, yelled stop, and then proceeded to berate us a bad fathers, sons, grandsons, and Catholics.

I’d have done what any good Irish Catholic I knew would have done. I’d have knocked all his teeth out.

Terri Schiavo was a chubby teenager, and like most chubby teenage girls in America, she was lonely. She finally went on a doctor-approved diet and changed her look in her 20's She met Michael Schiavo, and for the first time in her life a man made her feel pretty. They got married and moved to Florida.

Some say that Michael found a picture of her from her bad old sad old days and said if she ever looked like that again, he'd divorce her. Some said that her brother used to torment her by showing around old pictures of her in a mocking tone. We'll probably never know which is correct. What we do know is that Terri began getting heavy again after a few years of marriage and couldn't tolerate it. She developed an eating disorder. She stopped getting any nutrition. Her potassium levels dropped to dangerous levels. And one night at home, she collapsed from a heart attack.

Michael called 911 immediately. The paramedics came. They got her heart started. Unfortunately, they couldn't bring her brain with it. The brain, where so much of what we are - our identity, our memories, our manners, our loves, our hates - is stored, was gone.

Michael and Robert and Mary couldn't believe it. Try another doctor. Try another hospital. Try another therapy. Keep talking to her. Keep singing to her. Keep bringing her the things she loves. She's gotta wake up. I can see her eyes, I can see her looking at me. She's gotta be there. She's just gotta...

It took Michael eight years to realize that, in fact, his wife was gone. There was nothing left but a hollow shell holding a heart that had been brought back alone. He wanted to believe, he did, so bad, but there was nothing there. She could breathe, but she couldn't eat. She needed a feeding tube for that. He was keeping her around for his reasons. Selfish reasons.

So he decided to let her go. He told her to jump.

I cannot imagine the pain this man must be in.

Now, this is a bad situation for Christians with a Bad Attitude to get involved with. Because it's a real-life situation. It's messy. It's unpredictable. It doesn't fit in any perscribed right or wrong scenario. Its a lot like democracy. It isn't easy. The CBA like easy. All their answers are easy. My way or severe abuse followed by eternal damnation.

So what have the CBAs done to Michael Schiavo? Tormented him, threatened him, attacked him, slandered him. What have they done to the judge, himself a born-again Christian, who decided the case? Forced him to live under armed guard and issue rulings by telephone from undisclosed locations.

And what are they doing to Terri Schiavo herself? A woman was arrested yesterday for trying to bring Terri Schiavo a glass of water. Friends, a glass of water could have killed Terri Schiavo. Unable to swallow, the water would have gone down her throat, landed in her lungs and possibly blocked her breathing. Doctors have said this. CBAs don’t listen. This woman would have killed Terri Schiavo in the name of saving her life… and getting her own picture in the papers.

The CBAs will try to tell all of us what it means to be Christian, what it means to be American. They will try and try and try. They will use the most un-Christian rhetoric and expound the most un-American principles to get this country to line up single-file behind them. They will slander a husband and threaten a judge and callously kill a woman. They will override the Constitution and even double-back over their own espoused principles. Because it's not about what God wants or what Terri wants or what other believers want. It's not about democracy or civil rights or the law or the Constitution.

It's about winning. At any cost. And then spiking the ball in the name of God.

In the Christianity I know, and in the America I know, we don’t call people like that Christians. We call them bullies.

And sooner or later, everyone figures out that they are not being led by “assertive leaders.” They’re being bullied. This may, just may, be the moment when the people of this country, the real people who get up in the morning and try to get their kids to school on time and get their work done and worry about their bills and wish they had a weekend free, realize they are getting pushed around in body and soul.

All Michael Schiavo wants is to see that his wife, who he apparently loves very much, gets safely from this world to the next one with a shred of dignity. In America, of all places, he should have that right. Who's to say she's not already halfway there?

“The sanctity of marriage must be paramount.”
--- Tom DeLay

“I don’t care what the husband thinks.’
--- Tom DeLay

“Have you no decency?”
--- Joseph Welch

2005-03-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

The Gates

In the park with my daughter Olivia, February 26, 2005.

All photos by me, except for the one of me and Liv which was snapped by a stranger.

2005-02-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

It Makes No Sense

Thoughts on this ‘n’ that…

The Gates

Photo by Bluejake

I didn’t get The Gates at first, but I wanted to, I did. Then came the announcement that they’ll only be up for 16 days. And it clicked in.

It’s not so much straight art, it’s a moment in time, a finite “thing” to be experienced before it’s gone. In that respect, it’s like joy itself: surprising, revelatory, transporting, and then gone. What does art do, if not take the power of emotions, bottle them up, present them with beauty and unleash them back on the world? The form may take some getting used to (okay, they are the color of parking cones), but in their way Christo and Jeanne-Claude have made a piece of true art.

What do they mean? As Jeanne-Claude said, “Nothing. They just are.” In other words, they don’t have to make sense.

Joy rarely does.

The Anti-Gates

Speaking of making no sense… did anyone catch Andrea Peyser’s column about The Gates? (Does anybody really read past the sports section of the Post?)Amazing. Perfection. A piece of art in its own right… the art of self-revelation.

"Chuckles" Peyser

As a review, it’s a complete failure, because halfway through it you forget what she’s writing about and only focus on what kind of person could write something so dark, gloomy, scolding, negative, off-putting, unenthusiastic, downbeat and depressing.

Life with this Debbie Downer must be just a non-stop yukkfest. Can you imagine?

“Honey, what do you want for dinner?”

“Aww, who cares? It’s just gonna suck anyway. I’ve never really had food that I’ve enjoyed. Of course, I’ve never really enjoyed anything, so what the hell.”

“We’ve got pasta.”

“Oh, puh-leese! It’s friggin’ macaroni! In Queens, we called it macaroni, and that’s what it is! Save your postmodern, yuppie, pretentious, revisionist, too-good-for-the-bougeois rephrasing for your steel-and-glass cased Manhattan-venued office.”

“We’ve also got crabcakes.”

I mean, I’ve met nuns who look like Shecky Greene next to this lady.

My daughter’s a big Harry Potter fan, and her some of her favorite characters are the Dementors… horrific creatures who can make you feel like you’ll never be cheerful again, and whose kiss can suck out your soul. I can’t imagine I’d have much soul left if ol’ Andrea planted one on me. (“It’s just a kiss, for crissakes! It doesn’t matter, nobody kisses the way they used to anymore, now it’s all slobber and tongue. Fireworks? Puh-lese.”)

I’ve heard a lot of critiques of The Gates, some love it, some object to the obstruction of the landscape, but most get it. Some don’t get it. But some don’t want to get it because confronts them with what they don’t understand and aren’t willing to learn.

Sense and the City

You’ll see a Jets Stadium at 34^th and 11^th just before you see a Second Avenue Subway and just after you see all those new shiny buildings downtown.

In other words, never.

Now, I think the Jets Stadium makes no sense (you got $3 million for a stadium and more millions for the Olympics but my daughter’s teacher has to take a summer job? Puh-lese!). But it is sad that it’s become so difficult to do good, big projects in New York. It’s how a city grows, how it expands, becomes stronger. But lately it seems that if we’re either wasting money on some boondoggle that you can’t even tailgate at or nickel-and-diming to death something we need (like another subway on the East Side).

It makes no sense.

Life is bad, life is good...

My daughter went to her first shiva yesterday. It was for a classmate. A seven-year-old girl. A beautiful little girl A beautiful little girl in my daughter’s second-grade class who was killed in a freak accident last weekend. An artist, an actress, a life full of potential… gone, just like that.

My daughter drew a picture of all the things she loved: acting, art, dancing, the Yankees, her school. A unique combination different from every other person on the earth.

It’s amazing the footprint a child leaves in the world after such a short time. A cubby in a classroom full of art. History reports and math worksheets tacked to the wall. A stack of photographs of her with friends. Videos of performances in plays. Reminders that none of us, even the lonely, live in a vacuum. And that every life really is a miracle.

It’s been said that there are two kinds of people in this world, those without kids and those with kids. I’m not sure that’s totally true, but I do know that I didn’t realize how profound and unspeakable love could be until I felt the love I have for my daughter. And to have to look straight at the unspeakable horror, the ultimate nightmare, of having that love broken has left me frightened and sad and a little angry. Angry at the fates, angry at the sheer nonsensical nature of this life.

And a little angry that now my daughter and her friends have to learn that life makes no sense.

Contrast that with my father, 67 years young, who this week was declared cancer free. Ten weeks of treatment and the esophageal cancer is gone. Cured. Passed like a bad cold (granted, with a much tougher therapy). He gets to experience that sublime moment of “I’m not gonna die, I’m gonna live!” He called me to tell me that very message. The tone of his voice forced me to picture my ex-court officer father, -- 6 foot 200 pounds (maybe less now) of pink Irish rock – skipping down the street like Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters after the doctor has told him he’s not going to die.

See the resemblence?

Life is good, life is bad, but either way, life makes no frigging sense.

2005-02-07T23:05:00.000-05:00

The Shanley Papers

A toenail drops off the body of Organized Crime: Ex-Street Priest Paul Shanley (left), Ex-Button Man Joe Valachi

As I write this, Paul Shanley was just convicted by a Boston jury of child rape. Big deal.

From this evening’s Times online: “Paul R. Shanley, the defrocked priest whose name figured prominently in the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston three years ago, was convicted on two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery today, more than two decades after the victim said the molestation first occurred… Mr. Shanley, who many said had reached out to wayward teenagers as a so-called street priest, is only the second priest to be convicted of sexual abuse…”

Platitudes of faith in the judicial system and in the Roman Catholic Church’s ability to clean its own house; there will also be ample mention of Shanley’s support for gay men being accepted into the church, mostly with a “look, they’re all the same” bent.

Beautiful.

If you believe that, my friends, then you’re likely to believe the other twaddle that comes out of the mouths of the Princes of the Church who just want people to swallow what they’re putting out in the hope that this all goes away.

It won’t go away. Not as long as they keep lying while claiming a moral monopoly on the truth.

Convicting Paul Shanley will no more clean the Church of child rapists any more than the testimony of Joe Valachi made the Mafia go away.

Don’t remember ol’ Joe? Joe Valachi was a low-level Mafia soldier, a “button man” who was the first to break the vow of omerta or silence. He told the whole story: capos, bosses, soldiers, the Five Families, the Commission, the rackets, the made guys, the whole thing. He described his job as “the boss says to push a button on a guy, and I pus the button. I’m a button guy.”

Prosecutors, the press, the public at large, all knew that this would mean the end of the Mafia. The mob’s victims knew better. “You wanna kill a snake,” said one famously, “you cut off its head. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time.”

Why did the Mob flourish? Because prosecutors weren’t that interested in stopping it. The FBI was chasing Communists. I mean, they didn’t have to work that hard, it wasn’t like the Mob guys were some organizational geniuses or masters of stealth. They were in fact pretty clumsy. It had to do with not going after them.

They would occasionally catch and trot out a guy like Joe Valachi, who told their tales, horrified some city fathers, but in the end they didn’t amount to much. The guys on the bottom rarely do.

The mob bosses actually liked Joe Valachi. He became something of a smokescreen. When people were talking about Joe, they weren’t talking about them. They made a half-assed Mob movie about his tales, The Valachi Papers. Everybody went, "Oooh, gangsters!" And the Mob still stayed in business. Nothing changed.

When the Princes of the Church are talking about abortion, or electing George W. Bush, they’re really not talking about their own fetid house.

When they talk about their “moral authority” to speak out, they are really saying “don’t bother us with that again.”

Moral authority takes courage.

Ergo, they have no moral authority.

When will a prosecutor put these men under oath?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Paul Shanley’s in jail, but if the goal is to clean the Church’s house of the evil, then they’re just wasting their time.

Tomorrow, every bishop, archbishop, cardinal should offer his immediate resignation, then answer these questions under oath:

Bishop, did you ever know of a case of a priest abusing a child within your diocese?
Did you ever fail to report a pedophile who reported to you to authorities?
Did you ever attempt to cover up those crimes?
Do you know of anyone who is covering up for these priests today?
Do you know of any accused pedophiles still performing as priests under your command?

Only then will the snake be dead.

2005-01-30T06:30:00.000-05:00

Snow Makes the Mayor

The ghost of John Lindsay settles over Mike Bloomberg like a soft, two-foot deep snowfall.

New York had its first big snowstorm of the season last weekend. The rituals of snowstorms in this city fascinate me: people sledding and skiing on streets, the lakes that form on sidewalk corners, the peace that engulfs the noisy streets, and most of all, how fast the mayor gets on television to say, “The snowplows are on the streets!!! The streets will be cleared!!!”

The first vivid snowstorm memory of my childhood was the time we were stranded at my grandmother’s house in the Bronx for a week because our forest green VW bug was buried in a snowdrift on Esplanade and the streets weren’t plowed.

The first elected official in my memory was NYC Mayor John Lindsay. Because that was the guy my father and grandfather spent a week cursing out because those streets weren’t plowed.

And if you want to know why everyone in New York makes a four-alarm media alert for every small and mid-range snowstorm that breaches the city limits, here’s the story. For once, in the sixties, I can say, I was there. One month shy of my sixth birthday, I lived one of the great truths of Gotham politics. Forget the crime rate, the schools, the clean streets, the economy, forget it all...

Snow makes the Mayor.

Hey, is this our car? Bronx street, Blizzard of '69

Saturday morning, February 8, 1969. My mom and dad and my brother Chris and I pile into the Bug and head for Grandma and Grandpa’s, 1953 Tomlinson Ave, Morris Park, the Bronx. Going to G&G’s was always a big deal, you never knew what present they had waiting or what spare change they would pump into your hand. So Chris, who was 4, and I were already excited.

Light snow was predicted. My dad could deal. The city thought it could, too.

By the end of the weekend, 25 inches had fallen on the city. Fallen might not be the right word. Dumped in one fell swoop might be more like it.

Manhattan loved John Lindsay. He had a patrician grace and an air of elegance. “He is fresh and everyone else is tired,” wrote the great Murray Kempton about Lindsay when he first ran for mayor in 1965. There were race riots in Newark and a dozen other cities, but New York stayed quiet. Many credited Lindsay’s ability to reach across the races. He lured the best and the brightest into public service.

But he was the bane of the white working class (in other words, my parents and grandparents). They concluded that John Lindsay didn’t give a damn about them. He may have saved the city from race riots. But could he get the streets plowed?

The snow started on Saturday, when we were at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. Grandma and Mom made hot chocolate. We watched the snow fall. On Sunday it was still snowing, we went out and made a snowman. On Monday it was still snowing a little, Chris and I had a snowball fight in Grandpa’s driveway.

And the snowplows never came. The VW Bug was going nowhere. And so were we.

My mother called the school to say we were snowed in and wouldn’t be getting there for a couple of days.

I thought all snowstorms are like this.

My father and grandfather, who both had to walk to work, sat at the dining room table and cursed John Lindsay until there was no breath left in them. Then they went to sleep, so they could gather their energies to curse him out all over again the next day.

I thought all politicians were like this.

It was Wednesday before the plows moved. Manhattan was moving just fine. Manhattan had subways. The boroughs didn’t have subways. So it was just another case of John Lindsay screwing the boros over the downtown crowd.

Was it Lindsay’s fault that people were trapped for days? Probably not. For one thing, the weather forecast was for light snow. Wrong. So everyone was caught off guard. It was also a very strange storm. Not only did the city get more snow than it expected, it got it real fast. If 25 inches fell, it seemed like 20 fell in one two-hour period Saturday night. So the snowplows themselves were snowed in. The city hired 10,000 shovelers to shovel out the plows. As the Times said, “Schools were closed, drivers were stranded in cars and travelers were marooned at airports. New Yorkers were ready to be dug out, but the city wasn’t ready to dig.”

The sanitation guys claimed that the streets weren’t cleared, they couldn’t get to work. Sure, they didn’t live in Manhattan. The Sanitation Commissioner swore for years that the workers dawdled in their response to make the mayor look bad. If they did, it worked.

Lindsay had walked the streets of Harlem and Bed-Stuy when the police were sure riots would break out. He stood eye-to-eye, without bodyguards, on hot nights, with some very angry men and calmed them down. And the city didn’t burn. He has walked streets piled with trash when the sani guys went on strike. So he decided to walk through Ozone Park, Queens, and face it down. The people in Ozone Park were just angry that he found a way to drive there when they couldn’t move their cars. They thought he had his nerve walking around their block. He tried to talk. They turned their backs. He tried to listen. They screamed. He got back in his black mayoral limo and drove back to Manhattan. They yelled him right off the block.

The Lindsay charm fails to move Ozone Park.

He couldn’t win, and that’s a bad thing for a politician.

We’ve had five mayors since Lindsay left in 1973. And believe me, every one – from Abe Beame and Ed Koch and Dave Dinkins to Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg -knows one basic truth. If there’s snow in the forecast, you better have the machines on the street. And to this day, my friends in the sani department tell me, Ozone Park gets plowed first.

John Lindsay actually won re-election later that year of 1969. It was the wackiest election not held in Florida. And in one of his campaign ads, he looked right into the camera and admitted he screwed up the reaction to the snowstorm. The people in New York (enough of them, anyway) bought it. But some never forgot. Lindsay died in 2000. I called my dad that day and said, “Guess what?” His first reaction? “That sonofabitch, there better not be any blizzards in Heaven or God’s going nowhere.”

Mayor Bloomberg and his sani commishioner
reassure Ozone Park.

2005-01-23T05:59:00.000-05:00

Embrace Freedom!

Just don’t get all in my face about it...

Bottom of the ninth... two on... two out...

“Say you’re looking for some peace and love
Be the leader of a big ol’ band
You want to save humanity
But it’s people that you just can’t stand…”
--- John Lennon

I was morbidly curious about what GWB would say given an opportunity to make a speech with no political stakes for the first time in his life, and with the entire nation (not just the 50.9% who voted for him) and the ghosts of history watching avidly.

He went to the plate swinging a big bat, men on base, the crowd screaming, a tough pitcher on the mound. He dug in, confident, in control of the moment, took a big hack… and hit a single. He kept the inning going, kept the energy high, did his job, and then made room for the next guy. There was a thought that maybe he’d do something that history would remember.

But not today. There was the standard prattle about liberty, about opportunity, yeah yeah yeah, but the overriding note was freedom as the power of salvation… the engine of America’s greatness.

No argument there, Mr. President.

But with all due respect, you’re full of crap.

Booing fans are escorted from the stadium.

Digging into the batter’s box, the President talked trash about Freedom being the light of the world. Obviously that light didn’t stretch over to Fourth Street in DC, where Bush’s fellow citizens were being gassed and beaten for exercising their freedom. The freedom they are supposed to have by birthright. The freedom that allows them to criticize the conduct of the government without fear of imprisonment.

There will be trumped-up charges: disturbing the peace, verbal assault, whatever, that will be tossed out by a cool-headed judge as soon as they are presented to him. But he point will have been made. The freedom-free perimeter will not have been penetrated. Those inside will be of one like mind, or they will not be allowed inside. Check your thoughts at the door. And the President will talk about freedom encased in a “frozen zone” where none exists.

This says more about the man at the plate than it does about those yelling from the dugout. Bush at times seems to really believe what he says about America. The people who vote for him think he really believes it. But the fact of the matter is this: He likes his freedom, easily gained through family fortune and powerful friends, but doesn’t really give a damn about yours and mine. He’s just not thinking about it. My father used to say, “Your rights end at my nose.” Fair enough. But Bush’s nose is getting longer and longer.

Mike Bloomberg said during the convention, “You can have freedom, but maybe not as much as you want.” Who gets to decide how much I want? How much free speech do I want? As the great Jimmy Breslin said, “As much as my voice can stand.”

As he stands at the plate, Bush wants everyone to cheer. They would cheer if he hit a home run, brought everyone – everyone- in to score. Not just 50.9%. Because they 50.1% will still boo. And he can have the boo-ers escorted from the building, and the stadium will just be half-full. And the boo-ers will still come back, booing him as he punches his weak base hit, booing him as he stands on first, waving his hat and taking a bow to half the park.

2005-01-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

The Shout-Out

Wrong Barbarians. Photo by Dixie Sheridan

The Blatant Self-Promotion Department Checks In

The Broadway World Interview

So you want to play with the big boys, huh? When Adrienne Onofri approached me to answer some questions about where politica theater goes from here, on this dark day in our nation's history, I thought this will be fun (and it was), she's probably talking to lots of folks from last year's Fringe Festival, since every third piece was a Bush-basher, or she's talking to some of the good folks from THAW. Then I pop online and I see Tony Kushner (Tony F-ing Kushner!) and Edward Albee (Edward Albee, for chrissakes!) and... well, me!

Acts of Contrition. Photo by Jessica Ochs

It's a bit of a rush, to say the least. And then I got to the part where Mr. Kushner defends our "preaching to the choir" and I remembered that I told Ms. Onofri that our community not only preaches to the choir but we fall in love with our own voices (sort of like this blog). I'm thinking, "Okay, here's where I get into it with Tony F-ing Kushner." But Adrienne saved me... I think.

I had the pleasure of meeting Tony Kushner and hearing him speak at a Drama League lunch last year. I was fully prepared not to like him, but he's just too nice a guy and too real to dislike. Disagree with, maybe. But I was happy that I was completely mistaken. He's a good guy.

Albee, however, is just what you think... an asshole.

2005-01-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

The Beautiful Void

Full Moon Over Manhattan, photo by TN

No entries last week, was finishing a big project and was therefore underground. Now I sit in “the beautiful void,” connected to the working soul, but without anything big to work on. Knowing another idea will come and maybe flesh out into another project, but not aggressively looking for anything. Basking in the temporary glow of accomplishment. For the moment, anyway, I have nothing to prove.

Now will come the endless cycles of reading, rereading, staging, critique, restaging, rereading, tweaking, editing… but that will start tomorrow. Today it is time for a nice cigar and good, fresh walk around town.

In the meantime, there are worse ways to start off a year than reading the new Pete Hamill book and listening to the new U2 album (more on the later in this week’s shout-out). In the meantime, here’s my suggestion: dedicate the year to something that will make you feel better and follow-through on it every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

See you next week.

2005-01-05T05:56:00.000-05:00

The Wednesday Shout-Out

Buttcrack Carny Discovers Its Tele-Kitchen

"In almost every urban city around the world, space is extremely limited. The result is often tight quarters and a restaurant culture. In 2004 New York City decided that smoking in bars and restaurants should be illegal. Smokers rediscovered something very important and very convenient… their own kitchens."

Check out Episode One of Pinch here.

Just notice that that room where the refrigerator is also houses other appliances? Finally figure out that you can do something else with that "big machine that makes fire" other than light a cigarette off it? Congratulations... and now there's a cooking show for you, too.

The uber-hip rep company at Buttcrack Carny (Jodi Chamberlain, Chris Lee, Tim Kulp, Susannah Nolan, Miguel Erb, etc.) that was responsible for last year's The Stork Stalker have obviously decided that since everyone seems to have a cooking show these days, we denizens of restaurant culture might as well have one, too... though one with a slightly twisted outlook. Pinch is kind of like The French Chef if Julia was on acid (and had a three-day growth).

Happy cooking.

2005-01-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

Ten Wishes for New York City in 2005

That we will be bold enough to proclaim the truth about our evil government, and humble enough to allow people who don’t agree to listen and be convinced.
That the so-called Christian movement sees that, as NY-er Norman Maile r once said, “When you think you are doing your holiest work is in fact when you are in the service of the Devil.”
That Eliot Spitzer launches a major investigation of the Catholic Church by deposing every bishop he can find and asking, under oath, whether or not he ever covered for a pedophile or knew someone who did, thus putting the lie to the "moral authority" bishops command over the ballot box.
That everyone find some time this year to read Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities before deciding whether or not the Jets Stadium or the Brooklyn Nets are good ideas.
That people take a hard look at people like Monsignor Alan Paca, accused pedophile, and Bernie Kerik, accused phony, and wonder just who is and was on the payroll of Giuliani Partners.
That we stop referring to Rudy Giuliani as a “hero” and start referring to him as a “shill.”
That people see that the real “heroes” of the eleventh are the folks in the next apartment or the next cube or the next block who helped you (and you them) through that day and the days after.
That Cardinal Egan shows some true heroism and courage and proclaims loudly that homosexuality is neither a disease nor a choice but the way God made some people, then welcomes them into his church.
That Randy Johnson can go back to showing New England why they are and always will be second-rate citizens in the baseball universe.
That despite losing the pennant and losing the election and losing the ear of the nation, we will find a way to persevere and regain all three over the next fifty-two weeks.

Happy New Year, all. You’ll be hearing a lot more from this space in the coming year. (No, that’s not a threat).
(top photo by me)

2004-08-02T16:05:00.000-04:00

WE'RE A DOWNTOWN FAVE!
WRONG BARBARIANS ONLINE
Hello, Friends... head over to the Fringe Preview on New York Theater Experience to see yours truly on the list of "Fringe Faves," then head over the WRONG BARBARIANS preview for an interview with yours truly!

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!
Tickets for the 2004 NY INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL are ON SALE NOW!
As a matter of fact... they went on sale Friday. Tickets to WRONG BARBARIANS are selling out fast (the Cherry Lane Theatre is only 60 seats) and once they are gone, they are gone! So head over the http://www.fringenyc.org/ now so you're not shut out!

Still need more convincing? We'll be on The Barry Z Show on August 9, and we'll also be appearing on Janet Coleman's show on WBAI next week as well. Stay tuned!

2004-06-03T20:31:00.000-04:00

COMING THIS SUMMER!

2004-05-08T21:46:00.000-04:00

SEE YOU IN THE SUMMER!!!
Timothy Nolan returns to the NY Fringe Festival
WRONG BARBARIANS to premiere in August

Just in time for those farty-smelling Republicans to descend on our beloved city, I'm proud to blow my own horn and say that WRONG BARBARIANS will be part of this year's New York International Fringe Festival. The play actually first showed its face during last year's Thaw Out for Peace sponsored by Theaters Against War. In fact, you can read my curtain speech for that event here.

"I let the fear f*** me and now I'm pregnant with the fear..." Intrigued? Come see the play! We will probably let RNC people in for free, just to see what their arrogance has wrought by coming to NYC ('course, it's not like they can't afford to come, is it?) The Fringe Festival runs from August 13th through August 29th. Details to follow!

For more info on our past Fringe successes, click here.

Me... Summer '01

2004-03-01T13:07:00.000-05:00
THE GOSPEL TRUTH ABOUT "PASSION OF THE CHRIST"
... or "Mel's from Peekskill."
I think my friend and fellow scribe Jennifer Duffy ( The Stork Stalker ) put it best when she said she'd had her last conversation regardingThe Passion of the Christ. A wise policy indeed, and one that AFMAMF set out to subscribe to. Then on Sunday, our parish priest, Father Richard Leonard (who goes by the unfortunate moniker "Father Dick" but is really a very bright, funny guy) decided to wade into the fray.
I usually disdain anything at Mass that isn't involved with the Mass, from political pronouncements to what hall the Bingo game is in this week, but it was fascinating to hear Father Dick speak of TPOTC. Turns out he's not only a film reviewer as well as a priest, but as an import from Australia, he's, well, as he said, "I've had a busy week."
You should read the review for yourself, but I'll preview it with this quote from Sunday: "Being from Australia, when Mel does a move we love we all say 'He's Australian.' When NPR asked me about him this week, I reminded them that he's from upstate New York."
Without further ado, here's the best reason to run screaming from this film, in the churchman's own words.

2004-02-26T14:18:00.000-05:00

LIKE TRUE LOVE AND NORTH-SOUTH MAGNETS...
Talented people just keep finding each other.
Amazing, isn't it? One of the better theater companies to grow out of the garden of dramatic delights that was Synchronicity Space, along with our very own Present Tense Productions (see reviews below) was Lightning Strikes Theater Co. Now, they have found Buttcrack Carny Pictures (Stork Stalker ) and will be showing two of Buttcrack's Best, Chronic Nursery Rhymes: Jack and Jill and Urban Pills: Trio. It's part of Lightning Strikes First Mondays! series of short films and hot theater pieces at Galapagos in Williamsburg. When you get there, say you read about it on AFMAMF and get a free smirk. And listen for yours truly fulfilling a childhood dream as a subway conductor in Urban Pills.
NY Mag on Galapagos

2004-02-26T14:13:00.000-05:00

What's that I smell? Oh, it's a Republican...
OK, here's the deal... I work several floors away from RNC Headquarters. Anyone requiring any sort of intel (for legal purposes only... I work in the building, too!) can post here and we'll work something out. Maybe they'll read this and think it'd be better to find another building, then we wouldn't have to deal with their rudeness (and farts) in the elevators any more.

2004-02-25T18:42:00.000-05:00

STORK STALKER UPDATE
Voting for The Stork Stalker for Best Story is done... thanks everyone for voting! We'll keep you informed on how it goes... and on possible sequels.
Jodi Chamberlain, animator extraordinaire: Buttcrack Carny

2004-02-23T14:20:00.000-05:00

THE MOST IMPORTANT VOTE YOU WILL EVER CAST IN YOUR LIFE
(If you're even thinking its for that lying sack of s*** in the White House, log off now as the rest of this is too complicated for your feeble brain to handle... you'll only get frustrated and want to pass some dopey legislation...)

Go to www.flashforward2004.com/peopleschoice.asp and cast your vote for BEST STORY for THE STORK STALKER, a great send-up of the Thin Man films written by friend Jennifer Duffy and animated by friend Jodi Chamberlain. (Check the cast list for the shameless self-promition part). It's a terrific short film that's getting great buzz... a victory for the do-it-youself artist class. And since it's up against a lot of big-money-backed stuff that shows that when you cash in you not only sell your soul but have it reformatted by DOD-level unencryption erase software, its winning would only be sweeter.

PS: As for that remark about "cashing in" I hearby promise to be different when and if the bushels of kale show up at my doorstep, I do! I do! I do! I won't let that Lexus keep me from being balls-out, nosireeebob!

For more stuff on The Stork Stalker and Jodi, go to www.buttcrackcarny.com

2004-02-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

OK, and who the hell are you?

Timothy Nolan, that's who! Dramatist and, uh, writer of, uh, other...stuff (can't you just tell words are my colors and paper my canvas?). For the real story, head to:

ACTS OF CONTRITION, 2003 NY Fringe Festival:
OffOffOff.com Review
Curtain Up Review

THE WAY OUT, 2002 NY Fringe Festival
NY Times Review
Curtain Up Review, Fringe 2003

or take a look at the next post...

2004-02-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCERS ALERT!!!
(Bruce Weber's Words, not mine!!!)
Most of the Fringe will stay on the Fringe, but one entry that deserves a serious production is ACTS OF CONTRITION.
(Again, Bruce Weber's Words, not mine)

OK, y'all... time to get on the schtick... thanks to the great folks at FringeNYC, our show from last year's Fringe Festival, Acts of Contrition, was performed for a select audience of NY Theater backers and the phone haven't stopped ringing! Maybe you might want to find out what all the hubub is about. You can call the aforementioned Mr. Weber if you need to:

August 18, 2003, Monday
THE ARTS/CULTURAL DESK
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; Faith, Hope and Guilt On Fringe of the Fringe
By BRUCE WEBER (NYT) 1668 wordsApproaching the New York City International Fringe Festival is like getting on line for an exotic but low-budget all-you-can-eat buffet. Surprises are possible; danger lurks. Who knows what you'll be sampling? The Fringe, which continues through Sunday, is now in its seventh year of sprawling across the extremities of Lower Manhattan. It has had its reputation sprinkled with glitter the last couple of years by the Broadway musical ''Urinetown,'' which was presented in
nascent form at the 2000 Fringe.
As it happened, my scheduled four days' and 12 shows' worth of Fringing was cut short by the power blackout, which caused the cancellation of shows on Thursday evening and all day Friday. But I did get to probably the most anomalous of the festival's presentations: ''Discordant Duets,'' a play with an evangelical Christian bent about two young couples that begin in the same unholy place and proceed in different directions. It's a professional production with a cast of obvious training, directed earnestly by Mark Todd Bruner and written with sincere, or at least fervent, purpose by Mr. Bruner and his wife, Michelle. It is, however, quite a terrible play for a very simple reason: it presumes that life's problems have one unambiguous solution. This may be the secret of effective preaching (though I doubt it), and perhaps this kind of storytelling is useful as a recruitment tool for the born-again crowd. But it makes for simple-minded drama, and unless you are already converted or wish to be, you might run out of patience, as I did; I left midway through the second act, after a couple of suggestions that offended me, namely that if you are not willing to accept Jesus as your savior, you are bound to become a belligerent drunk.
The program claims that ''Discordant Duets'' -- which can be seen at Teatro La Tea (107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side) on Wednesday night at 9:30 -- is the ''only play in the festival that explores Christian themes,'' but that isn't so. A much better, much more realistic play is ''Acts of Contrition,'' a drama by Timothy Nolan that doesn't flinch as it addresses the sexual abuse scandal in
the Roman Catholic Church.
To those who object to my favoring the astringent view of the church over the saccharine, please hold the indignant e-mail messages and letters. I simply prefer theater that probes the complexities of conflict to theater that pretends they don't exist. In any case Mr. Nolan's play is not only respectful of Catholicism and Catholics, it is also a distinctly sorrowful work, as opposed to an outraged one.
Its characters include a cardinal (Gene Fanning) and three young priests who are good friends, one of whom, Stephen (Shiek Mahmud-Bey), is on his way to becoming a bishop. The moral issues that arise when Stephen is accused of sexual impropriety spray off in myriad directions.
And though in the end the play feels a little programmatic, covering all the bases -- from celibacy to homosexuality to the craven hypocrisy of church leaders -- that have been debated endlessly in the newspapers, Mr. Nolan writes thoughtfully and carefully about the human cost of a problem that is, after all, a function of human frailty. And at the center is a vivid performance by Mr. Mahmud-Bey, who makes Stephen's faith profound and his gift for the priesthood as evident as the tragic weakness that makes him
unfit for it. His confession, which is heard by both his friends (James M. Armstrong and Mark Gorman), is as wrenching a scene as I've seen in quite a while.
The play -- which can be seen at the Play Room (440 Lafayette Street, third floor, East Village) on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. and Friday at 7:30) -- is uncertainly directed by Vincent Marano. Not only would it benefit from a crisper staging and some money for a set, it also deserves both. (Off Broadway producers alert.)

2004-02-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

WELCOME TO THE MOST IMPORTANT BLOG IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
Now that we've got your attention, welcome to ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF... AND MY FRIENDS. This blog is exactly what it says it is... essays and rambling thoughts on what's up in New York and the world mixed in and amongst shameless self-promotion for life-altering and worthwhile work that myself or others are involved with. Is it self-serving and self-promoting and self-centered at its core? People, this is the Internet!!!

However, while the motives behind this effort are laid bare (required sex reference) we will effort to be amusing and insightful and, if we're not careful, intelligent. So join us... won't you?