Over on Mark Chaet’s blog, in his inimitably cranky style he takes on drivers who misuse the curb lane on Sunset. Which is pretty much what happened yesterday when I was a pedestrian in front of the Cinerama Dome and witness to an accident in the curb lane on Sunset — about four feet from me.

My friend, writer Christopher Meeks, passes along this story about how a play of his has most definitely changed someone’s life (in this case, that of actor Stephen Furst). (And, to answer Chris’s question, no it isn’t coincidence, and yes, it is something else: cause and effect.)

Coincidence—or Something Else?

While casting “Who Lives?”, actor and director Stephen Furst offered donated kidney

When I told my friend and fellow author, David Scott Milton, the following story, he said that writers have an amazing connection to metaphysics. I’ll let you figure out what the following is—coincidence, metaphysics, or something else. This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first production of my play, Who Lives? It also marks the 30th anniversary of the film Animal House. You’d think there’d be no relation, but there is.

In February, I spoke on a radio show called “Kidney Talk” about the publication of Who Lives?, interviewed by two interesting and funny hosts, Lori Hartwell and Stephen Furst. The interview was more like a morning drive-time show, with much energy, questions, and humor. I hadn’t expected humor. Furst, however, had played Flounder in “Animal House” as well as Dr. Alexrod in “St. Elsewhere.” He also had a major role in “Babylon 5” and had become a film director and producer. His own kidneys had gone out due to diabetes complications, and he was now on dialysis himself, volunteering on this radio show.

Furst was so taken with the play, he mentioned to a group of doctors in San Francisco that he’d like to direct it. That mention led to his receiving a call from a large theatre in Cincinatti, the Aronoff Center for the Arts, which was interested in producing the play with him directing for a September production, using a name actor such as John Lithgow. Of course I was elated. Furst flew to Cincinatti in June to do some initial casting. While there, he mentioned to someone that he’d been on dialysis two years already. The person want to know more. Furst explained dialysis made life complex, and he really needed a kidney transplant.

A few days after this offhand mention, Furst received a call. An anonymous donor heard about his plight and wanted to donate a kidney to him if they matched immunilogically. Now Furst was beyond elation. Tests were done. They matched. In fact, Furst should be receiving the kidney as I type this.

In short, because I wrote a play, someone’s life was changed. Of course, we writers hope that we can change lives emotionally, but here’s a case of a physical change. What do we call this? Luck?

Because Furst needs time to recover, the play’s production has now been pushed back. The play will open at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinatti in January. Those of you in the area, please come. If you want a good read, the book is available at Amazon.com, BN.com, and on the shelf at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena (626-449-5320), among other places.

As this analysis of classic “Star Trek” proves, if you’re part of the engineering crew, you very much want Kirk to hook up with alien women. Your survival may be at stake.

It’s a column about the demise of the comma, and whom to blame. (Evidently, the comma is following “whom” right into the dustbin of history. Just like the word “dustbin.”)

The columnist, who looks to be of a certain age, naturally blames technology and those damn kids who use it. (And please note my judicious use of commas to separate an exclusionary clause.) Some others among us might point out that the English language has been on the slide since Chaucer, was rudely fiddled with by Mr. Shakespeare among others, and has never had more vibrancy that it has today. If we need the comma, it will survive. If we don’t, it won’t.

One person the columnist doesn’t blame: Cormac McCarthy, who elides commas the way most of us reject anchovies. But I guess blaming literature isn’t as attractive as blaming kids and the overall culture.

I’m writing this while waiting in yet another long line in an airport this morning.

First there was the line at baggage check-in at Burbank Airport. Why? Because some of my toiletries were larger than 3 oz. and I refused to throw them away because they were expensive creams and lotions, so I had to check my luggage. I’m unclear on how terrorists might blow up the plane with my anti-razor-burn lotion, but I guess we’ll never get to find out.

Then there was the line for boarding. Of course.

Now I’m in line at a different airport (Phoenix) for my connection. They’re trying to board two different aircraft from this same gate, and mine was just announced as delayed 20 minutes. When was the last time I traveled somewhere by air and the plane was on time? I think… in 2000?

And now I’m looking forward to baggage claim in Cleveland, whenever I ultimately arrive.

All across our consumer society, customer service is ironically shrinking to invisibility. This is the one area in which airlines are at the forefront.

Worried about overpopulation? Then here’s some good news (unless governments screw it up):

Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) – One billion people will die of tobacco-related diseases this century unless governments in rich and poor countries alike get serious about preventing smoking, top World Health Organization (WHO) experts said on Monday.

“Tobacco is a defective product. It kills half of its customers,” Douglas Bettcher, head of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said at the start of an international conference in Bangkok to draw up a masterplan for the world to kick the habit.

“It kills 5.4 million people per year and half of those deaths are in developing countries. That’s like one jumbo jet going down every hour,” he said.

With smoking rates in many developing countries on the rise, particularly among teenagers, that annual death toll would rise to 8.3 million within the next 20 years, he added.

However, if governments introduced measures such as aggressive taxation, banning cigarette advertising and making offices and public places totally tobacco-free, smoking rates could halve by 2050, he said.

“It’s a completely preventable epidemic,” Bettcher said, citing countries such as Singapore, Australia and Thailand where tough anti-smoking laws have helped people to quit.

“If we do that, by 2050 we can save 200 million lives.”

Officials from 147 countries are attending the week-long conference, which is likely to agree on binding laws against cross-border tobacco advertising — a move against events such as Formula One — as well as tougher legislation against cigarette smuggling.

Around 600 billion cigarettes were smuggled in 2006 — 11 percent of the world’s consumption — according to the Framework Convention Alliance (FAC), an umbrella group of hundreds of anti-tobacco organizations.

As well as keeping the prices artificially low and thereby stimulating demand, the counterfeit cigarette industry also deprives governments of more than $40 billion in missed taxes, the FCA estimates.

BAN ON ADS

In Thailand, smoking rates have fallen from 30 percent in 1992 to around 18 percent, a decline health officials attribute to a ban on all domestic tobacco advertising 15 years ago.

“The most important medicines in tobacco control are: number one, increasing taxation; number two, bans on advertising; and number three, smoke-free public places,” said Hatai Chitanondh of the Thailand Health Promotion Institute.

Besides agreeing laws on cross-border advertising and smuggling, the conference is also likely to issue guidelines for countries introducing legislation on “second-hand smoke” and “smoke-free” areas.

Although not legally binding, anti-smoking campaigners are delighted with the explicit wording of the guidelines.

“There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected as they are contradicted by scientific evidence,” a draft copy of the guidelines said.

“Approaches other than 100 percent smoke-free environments, including ventilation, air filtration and use of designated smoking areas have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective.”

If you’re in your 30’s or up, you’ll enjoy watching this. (Or, actually, not.) The future isn’t coming fast — it’s already here. The culture you grew up in is already gone. (But no matter what happens, we’ll always have annoying Celtic music.)

This is an email I sent out yesterday to some people I thought were waiting for things from me. On reflection, I’ve decided to post it here because, well, the blog has been a bit slow lately. Here’s why. Read it and weep.

As you probably know, I had oral surgery last Wednesday. At this point, given the schedule-busting ramifications, I figured I’d better send out an email to a few close friends and associates.

Here’s what I was told before the “procedure” (you’ll note their choice of word, as in “something that proceeded,” i.e., a passive case, as opposed to an “infliction,” something that was inflicted): That I had a (large) tooth that had broken below the gumline, that it was infected, and that it had to be “removed,” “cleaned,” and the area “filled” with a “holding compound” until an implant could be “placed” in four months. It was strongly hinted that while the “procedure” itself would be pain-free, I would feel “some discomfort” for a couple of days and then it would be over.

Everything above in quotation marks is what we in the language industry call a euphemism.

Now that I’ve endured a full week of what I pledge to you is absolutely hellish pain, here’s what they say:

“You had surgery. This wasn’t just an extraction [you’ll note that where before it was “removal,” now it’s “an extraction” but even moreso] — this was oral surgery. We had to drill out all the broken pieces and then drill into the bone in your jaw and insert a bone-building compound that expands [you’ll note it no longer “holds” — now it expands]. Of course it’s going to hurt. The compound is right on your nerves, and your body is trying to reject it. But after about a month, it’ll all be over.”

You’ll note that “a couple of days” has been magically transmuted into “after about a month.” Half-truths and flat-out misdirection like this is how we got into Iraq, but that’s another story.

I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person not given to whining about pain and discomfort. How could any of my inconveniences compare against the miseries of most of the world? But this has been a major, throbbing, distraction. I’m taking their pain pills — a major concession for me — and that seems to alternate between having little or no effect, or making me feel like I’m going to pass out. We got new pills last night (my wife being astonished by my actual protests that I was in pain — and she’s been with me for 23 years and once saw my hands filled with shards of glass from a shattered window whereupon I walked into the room, spurting blood, and calmly said, “Hm. I think I need to go get stitches. Can you drive?”); these new pills have the added impact of making me sick to my stomach.

So:

I know I’m a little behind on a few things. If you’re someone I owe something to (a document, a proposal, a response), I apologize. I feel like I’m getting a good amount of work done most days between 11 and 3 when I seem most functional, but these half days have indeed put me behind. I don’t imagine this lag in my output is going to fill a full month, no matter what these oral surgery people say (and hey, why would I believe them again?), and I am catching back up. I intend by next week to be back in full swing.

In the meantime, I thank you for your patience.

Best,

Lee

So, how bad has this been?

• Last Friday we had the reading of a new play written in my workshop. I had to call the playwright and say I couldn’t make it. What I needed to do was take many, many more Hydrocodone (an opiate) and lie down on a couch at home. Which I did. In about 15 years of having readings from my workshop, this was the very first (and, hopefully, last) one I’ve ever missed. My apologies again to Jan, the playwright.
• A short one-act of mine is getting a revival this summer here in Los Angeles. (More on that later.) One of the roles needs to be recast. I let the director recast without me. There was no way I could sit through auditions.
• I’ve tried three times to read the same comic book. It’s World War Hulk #1. When you can’t quite follow the storyline of The Hulk returning to Earth and doing a lot of smashing, you need either more or fewer drugs. Last night, having effectively balanced the pills at least that once, I made it all the way through the issue and enjoyed it a lot. “Hulk is strongest one there is” indeed. Puny metal man Iron Man got smashed up real good.

That’s it for now. Time to take an opiate and drive home before it kicks in. G’night.

The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig clears up five myths about Scooter and the slammer, presented here as a public service.

As I said before, 30 months isn’t long enough. That’s barely enough time for him to write his book before getting pardoned by Bush and heading off on the book tour.

In my universe of true acting talent, Ron Campbell, above, is his own galaxy.

I’ve seen him in several wonderful plays, most especially the extraordinary one-man show “R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe” (which received a nice feature here). I’ve been an appreciator of Fuller since late adolescence. Despite my familiarity with Bucky and his thinking, I remember after seeing this show some years ago in Chicago walking out of the theatre and feeling that I had a better perception of (and gratitude for) the world and its potential. Whether or not everything is fixable, it is certainly improvable. And we ought to get on that.

Yes, the underlying work was brilliant. But on top of that, Campbell was utterly captivating. Unless you’ve ever stood alone on a stage, you can’t fully understand how difficult it is to be that mesmerizing. (I’m not a performer — not since my rock ‘n’ roll days, anyway — but I am a speech-giver, and I’m well aware of what mesmerizing is. Because it isn’t me.) Charles Nelson Reilly was mesmerizing in an inexplicable way. The first production I saw of “Waiting for Godot” was mesmerizing (because, as with being spellbound, I lost track of where I was and felt entirely consumed by that universe). The Berliner Ensemble production of “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui,” seen in 1999 at UCLA Live! was completely mesmerizing in a somewhat unfortunate way, so much so that I remember the awful moment when my friend Jack and I turned to each other at the end of the performance and realized that we had just, in effect, enlisted as eager compatriots of Hitler’s Germany. That was powerful theatre, but it also had the advantage of full spectacle. Campbell had just himself and some slides. And a desk.

I say all this because if you haven’t seen Ron Campbell, you should, and if you’re in southern California and environs you’re going to have a chance very soon. This and next month, Campbell will be performing “The Thousandth Night” at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. The synopsis:

Paris. 1943. A French actor has one chance at freedom before his derailed train to a concentration camp gets moving again. Like Scheherazade before him, this storyteller spins the tales of 1001 Arabian Nights as though his life depends on it — and it does. Solo performer virtuoso Ron Campbell plays 38 roles in this remarkable play written especially for him.

Few deserve the sobriquet “virtuouso.” Ron Campbell does. I’ll be there opening night.