Friday, April 20, 2012
I was 16 when I did my first show at Lakeland. it was a revue called, "TV, Movies, and More." And Jack Underwood was the first person out of all those new strangers to come up and say hello to me. Within minutes he killed my shyness, and he and I began to exchange very crude, and very dirty jokes. We had a number in that show called, "Solid Gold" for a tv show that I had never heard of. Our costumes were black leotards underneath all of our costume changes. But Jack obviously couldnt fit a leotard, so he did the "Solid Gold" number topless, as in, he was in a sequined gold vest (as we all were)but there was no shirt underneath, just Jack's round belly.
The after I registered for my wedding in 2008 on Amazon.com, Jack and Moira were the first people to buy my husband and I a gift, and I know it's shallow and it doesn't matter, but I have to say that he got us the most expensive gift on the list. When I thanked him, he said, "I should've bought the whole registry for you." My wedding was two weeks after the run of "Arsenic & Old Lace" and he lamented that he and Moira would not be able to make it since they were going to England. I told him that was fine, and that it didnt matter. He then tried to give me $300 - which I laughed off and refused.
It's just money, it shouldn't matter, but I grew up without a lot of it, so I knew how much he meant it when he offered. But that wasn't the extent of his kindness. Jack was always behind the bar at the lounge, building sets, teaching me how to play the piano, and always telling me I was beautiful and talented, and that I had "It". He made me kiss him every time I saw him. I would go a few months without being to Lakeland after I moved to Raleigh, but every time I came back, he would track me down until he found me, and then there would be a kiss and a huge bear hug, and he'd ask me what was new.
When I was the lead in 'Cuckoo's Nest", to say I was'nervous' was an understatement. But every time he found me backstage, he'd hug me and tell me that no one else could do it the way I could.
I loved how Jack did anything and everything he could for people. I loved how he was more than happy with taking a part where he had no lines and all he had to do was stand there with his arms out. He just loved being at the theater, around all of his friends.
Jack believed in youth, in the potential that young people have, and he was never without a piece of wisdom for me - usually with some sort of vulgar punchline. My favorite line was this:
Me: "Jack, do you want me to grab you a water?"
Jack: "Do bears shit in the woods?"
To be honest, Jack reminded me of my own father. And he knew it.
Jack's main gift was to make others laugh, and when I could make HIM laugh, it was like hitting the jackpot. Because he was smart, very smart. People usually took him at face-value with his jokes, but behind that, he was one of the most intelligent people I ever met. Jack would explain to me the infrastructure of IBM and old computers. And new computers, he would track Van down and talk IT with him. He once sent me a 20 page email all about his theories on the intangibles of the universe, God, the Space Time Continuum, and the mystic travels of energy and feeling. Heavy, right? But it was brilliant.
Jack was always there to calm my tears and tell me to be strong. He would tell me all of his past regrets and tell me to 'always think of others' before making any decisions. He would tell Van to always treat me like a princess.
And the way he loved Moira, the way he would look at her, like he was meeting her for the first time everyday.
I am so angry for being in Washington. I am so angry that I am not there to say goodbye. Jack meant more so much to me, he was a real friend and I loved him like a father.
Jack, I will miss all those laughs And everything else.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Praise the Sword - and pass the Ammo.
You are missing something.
There is a place inside of you where something should be, and you’re searching for the missing piece of the puzzle. It is an empty hole in your soul.
Don’t expect me to tell you what to fill it with. Don’t expect me or my words to fill it for you.
Respect that hole in your soul; it’s a wonderful reminder that you’re human, people need a steady dose of humility. Listen and you can hear the entire world ignoring you. Your family is your army, stitched together with love and nights bonded when the electricity got shut off. They’re the occasionally protective, but mostly stinging fisherman’s net. Everything you’d ever catch in an embrace – more hate than love, but just as sincere. A mother bear in constant hibernation to you, catching and releasing you to the wild, over and over – endurance test for the long-run. People with families go through life with a shield.
That’s just my opinion, but right now, it’s the only one that matters.
This is when I mention that I don’t have one of those shields. I don’t want to begin at birth and steer my story through the canals of my life. It’s obnoxious, and that information isn’t going to solve the great mystery of why I am the way I am. You should appreciate that thoughtfulness, because nothing dissatisfies me more than doing someone a favor that has done nothing for me in return.
Quid quo pro. Living is about supply and demand, tit for tat, and give and take – one action no better than the other. But I don’t expect anyone to understand that, I don’t expect much out of anyone.
There was no explosive catastrophe that made able to do what I do. I wasn’t molested as a child by a neighbor. I don’t have a vulgar distaste for the world around me because my parents’ divorce was the final nail in my self-esteem coffin. I don’t drink and sometimes see things that aren’t there because a burglar came one night and tortured me until the cops finally came. It is a luxury to have something to blame all of your problems on. It is a treat to pin down an exact moment or place where all of this stems from.
Nevertheless, here is the simple truth about me as a human being, as a component of a statistic; it is that there is no parachute for me. There is no net or trampoline below me. I had a mother who left, a father who died, and a sister that I remember mostly when the sun starts to get tired and go down in the summer. However, I can’t even remember the last time I saw her, or spoke more than ten words to her.
It’s okay if no one loves me, I know the ghosts do. If only because I’m the last one of the living that they will ever love because I am just as abstract as they are.
This is what being alone feels like – it’s a dull and constant ache, with sporadic moments of bursting agony. My home is in The Pit of myself. And in that pit there are no doors or windows. It is easy to lose track of time there, there have been many times where I have planned an escape to no victory.
No one has ever tried to break me out.
But, conversely, I am so invested in this planet and the beasts that pretend to be people. Even when I am at my deepest in The Pit, my brain bursts out like a wounded and angry vulture, and while I pass swiftly and quietly past people – I absorb them. All of their energies and gibberish thoughts are as if a dark and romantic map lay at before me. I want to describe it as a million different voices looks like a million different route, alternating paths that are possible for me to take.
Try to remember the last time you were utterly, staggeringly, blind-in-the-night confused?
Every voice you hear is a scream, but yours never goes above an Easter morning zephyr.
Multiply that depth of disorientation and by a hundred and sink it to the bottom of Hell and I will tell you, “You are blind in Ancient Rome. You are a Slave in Ancient Rome.”
Hey, there is nowhere to go but everywhere, right?
You can go anywhere even when you’re not really here. Or there. The heaviest ball and chain is confusion – named because your feet become fused in one spot. A spot in time or a spot in a place – some place where the outlines of your daily routine take on a dramatic blur, and you have no choice but to stop. You become a part of it, it is engraved in you – the best statue of yourself, forever in time, and time is oblivious to your problems.
Time has no fucking problems, but I’ve got plenty.
See, I can sum up myself of to the tiniest of molecules – but only when I’m lying on silk sheets, only when the clouds past midnight look like silver spun cotton candy above the ocean – here and now, counting down the hours until I die.
Why wasn’t I able to get all of this shit together before I only had a few hours left of living?
Because, as sure as the horizon will appear I will be dead.
It seems only fair to lie, and edit myself into a PG-13 rating and shine the bullshit up for you.
But the truth of it is, is that everything that happened was more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
It’s just that it was beautiful and also so awfully malicious. A colorful and lush tapestry of pure silk malevolence.
I never meant to hurt anyone, but I did – a lot of anyones. But, who are we if not for our scars? Maybe they’ll learn something; maybe someone will start paying attention.
Life spent in mid-prayer. Now every thought is a prayer, and a virgin – these are my first prayers in my whole life, my entire brief and blistering 25 years. And the first prayers will be on the same night as my last prayers.
Empire opens champagne from behind, he’s walking out of the hall, onto the 4th floor terrace – all marble and ancient limestone. He is wearing his usual double breasted Navy blue suit, but with my bright green Converse Chucks on his feet, and his tie undone and tied around his head like a bandana. He is already drunk, good thing he is carrying another unopened bottle of champagne in his pocket. I watch the golden foil over the cork catch the light as he walks towards me.
"When you get to Heaven love, please send me directions.”
It’s October again, a wink of a year later, but still once again under that arrogant night sky – every star is a mirror.
A goddamn mirror.
A Goddess Damn mirror.
We’re (empire and I) are dealing in guilt, remorse, and wickedness by the pounds tonight. I’m telling him the story of the last year. He was beside me most of the time, but he wants my recount of the past year.
What the fuck else am I going to do tonight?
There is a place inside of you where something should be, and you’re searching for the missing piece of the puzzle. It is an empty hole in your soul.
Don’t expect me to tell you what to fill it with. Don’t expect me or my words to fill it for you.
Respect that hole in your soul; it’s a wonderful reminder that you’re human, people need a steady dose of humility. Listen and you can hear the entire world ignoring you. Your family is your army, stitched together with love and nights bonded when the electricity got shut off. They’re the occasionally protective, but mostly stinging fisherman’s net. Everything you’d ever catch in an embrace – more hate than love, but just as sincere. A mother bear in constant hibernation to you, catching and releasing you to the wild, over and over – endurance test for the long-run. People with families go through life with a shield.
That’s just my opinion, but right now, it’s the only one that matters.
This is when I mention that I don’t have one of those shields. I don’t want to begin at birth and steer my story through the canals of my life. It’s obnoxious, and that information isn’t going to solve the great mystery of why I am the way I am. You should appreciate that thoughtfulness, because nothing dissatisfies me more than doing someone a favor that has done nothing for me in return.
Quid quo pro. Living is about supply and demand, tit for tat, and give and take – one action no better than the other. But I don’t expect anyone to understand that, I don’t expect much out of anyone.
There was no explosive catastrophe that made able to do what I do. I wasn’t molested as a child by a neighbor. I don’t have a vulgar distaste for the world around me because my parents’ divorce was the final nail in my self-esteem coffin. I don’t drink and sometimes see things that aren’t there because a burglar came one night and tortured me until the cops finally came. It is a luxury to have something to blame all of your problems on. It is a treat to pin down an exact moment or place where all of this stems from.
Nevertheless, here is the simple truth about me as a human being, as a component of a statistic; it is that there is no parachute for me. There is no net or trampoline below me. I had a mother who left, a father who died, and a sister that I remember mostly when the sun starts to get tired and go down in the summer. However, I can’t even remember the last time I saw her, or spoke more than ten words to her.
It’s okay if no one loves me, I know the ghosts do. If only because I’m the last one of the living that they will ever love because I am just as abstract as they are.
This is what being alone feels like – it’s a dull and constant ache, with sporadic moments of bursting agony. My home is in The Pit of myself. And in that pit there are no doors or windows. It is easy to lose track of time there, there have been many times where I have planned an escape to no victory.
No one has ever tried to break me out.
But, conversely, I am so invested in this planet and the beasts that pretend to be people. Even when I am at my deepest in The Pit, my brain bursts out like a wounded and angry vulture, and while I pass swiftly and quietly past people – I absorb them. All of their energies and gibberish thoughts are as if a dark and romantic map lay at before me. I want to describe it as a million different voices looks like a million different route, alternating paths that are possible for me to take.
Try to remember the last time you were utterly, staggeringly, blind-in-the-night confused?
Every voice you hear is a scream, but yours never goes above an Easter morning zephyr.
Multiply that depth of disorientation and by a hundred and sink it to the bottom of Hell and I will tell you, “You are blind in Ancient Rome. You are a Slave in Ancient Rome.”
Hey, there is nowhere to go but everywhere, right?
You can go anywhere even when you’re not really here. Or there. The heaviest ball and chain is confusion – named because your feet become fused in one spot. A spot in time or a spot in a place – some place where the outlines of your daily routine take on a dramatic blur, and you have no choice but to stop. You become a part of it, it is engraved in you – the best statue of yourself, forever in time, and time is oblivious to your problems.
Time has no fucking problems, but I’ve got plenty.
See, I can sum up myself of to the tiniest of molecules – but only when I’m lying on silk sheets, only when the clouds past midnight look like silver spun cotton candy above the ocean – here and now, counting down the hours until I die.
Why wasn’t I able to get all of this shit together before I only had a few hours left of living?
Because, as sure as the horizon will appear I will be dead.
It seems only fair to lie, and edit myself into a PG-13 rating and shine the bullshit up for you.
But the truth of it is, is that everything that happened was more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
It’s just that it was beautiful and also so awfully malicious. A colorful and lush tapestry of pure silk malevolence.
I never meant to hurt anyone, but I did – a lot of anyones. But, who are we if not for our scars? Maybe they’ll learn something; maybe someone will start paying attention.
Life spent in mid-prayer. Now every thought is a prayer, and a virgin – these are my first prayers in my whole life, my entire brief and blistering 25 years. And the first prayers will be on the same night as my last prayers.
Empire opens champagne from behind, he’s walking out of the hall, onto the 4th floor terrace – all marble and ancient limestone. He is wearing his usual double breasted Navy blue suit, but with my bright green Converse Chucks on his feet, and his tie undone and tied around his head like a bandana. He is already drunk, good thing he is carrying another unopened bottle of champagne in his pocket. I watch the golden foil over the cork catch the light as he walks towards me.
"When you get to Heaven love, please send me directions.”
It’s October again, a wink of a year later, but still once again under that arrogant night sky – every star is a mirror.
A goddamn mirror.
A Goddess Damn mirror.
We’re (empire and I) are dealing in guilt, remorse, and wickedness by the pounds tonight. I’m telling him the story of the last year. He was beside me most of the time, but he wants my recount of the past year.
What the fuck else am I going to do tonight?
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