I’m in Omaha, Nebraska having a fine time serving as a lecturer and panelist at the Great Plains Theatre Conference ’til June 1.

Here’s what theatre conferences are good for:

• expanding your network of good actors and directors. This week I’ve been collecting a big pile of paper scraps with names and email addresses scribbled on them.
• reminding yourself what makes for a good play and makes for a not-good play. In most cases, the not-good play could use more conflict and more subtext. In all cases, the good play leaves you wishing there were more.
• getting spurred on to do more of your own writing. I’ve written two plays in the past three days — that feels great. I got to hear the one right away, and I’m hoping there’s going to be time for me to corral some actors to hear the other one as well.
• eating and drinking on the host’s tab.
• seeing lots of other theatre on the host’s tab.
• staying up most of the night talking theatre and drinking and smoking cigars.

So while I’m sorry the posts have been few and far between, now you know why. And now I have to go shower off the aftereffects of two cigars and half a bottle of wine so I can make it to the dinner reception and tonight’s performances.

At the moment I feel very indebted to the fine people running this conference.

Some of us pride ourselves on being able to write about anything. Usually this involves having been at some time a general assignment reporter or a magazine freelancer (I was both).

After more than 30 years of writing magazine pieces, comic books, television scripts, books, variety shows, newspaper columns, cartoons, and who knows what else about countless subjects and with great wit, my pal Mark Evanier finally found the one thing he couldn’t write. Here it is. This amused me greatly.

Here’s the headline I just came across:  “Mega-shrew shot venom through red teeth.” I was surprised to learn it’s about an extinct mammal, because I was sure it was about someone I know. Science believes it’s extinct, but I’m sure she’s still out there.

Forget ADD — which as a culture we also have. The real menace is American Impatience Disorder.

On February 9th, Barack Obama promised the people of Elkart, Indiana that he was working on fixing the economy, and that meant jobs. Now it’s all of three months later and MSNBC.com says they’ve “given up on him.” It took 30 years of bank deregulation to get us here, but somehow he was supposed to undo it all in three months. And, I suppose, feed the town with loaves and fishes.

Back here I wrote about the countless parodies people are making of the now-famous scene in “Downfall” where Hitler chews out his senior staff for their incompetence.

Here’s the latest version, and it’s one of the best. For all you theatre people out there who’ve ever been upset they didn’t win an award, here’s Hitler’s reaction when he learns he isn’t eligible for a Tony. I’ve seen this very reaction in many a dressing room.

The irony does not escape me that my good friend Mr. Hackney, who (in)famously divested himself of all books for a Kindle and who was discussing this transmogrification with me a mere two weeks ago, has now bought me a book and sent it to me through traditional methods. (Also known as “the mail.”) I suspect, though, that the irony eluded Doug. Further irony:  I already have this book, meaning I now have two copies of it. This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve discovered that I have two copies (different editions) of the same book, both related somehow to comics.  No, Fates, I do not wish to open a comic-book store.

Doug,

Today in a little keyed box down the steps from my office I received a strange object enclosed in a larger, white, sleeve of sorts made out of some mulched tree product (is this paper?). Not knowing with surety what to do with that papery thing, I finally tugged on one end and it opened up. Inside was the other object (image imported on the left), made of a similar substance to the sleeve, except what I take to be the front of it has a wild array of colors. The interior is completely filled with black impressions — words, but they’re not on a screen. And on the first inside paper screen, it looks like your avatar script, but I get the sense that you somehow did this by hand:  “Lee, saw this and thought of you. Enjoy! Doug.” Am I right that this is only on this version of this object? So it’s mass-produced, but individualized, like the inscribed iPods from some years ago? How did you do this? Can you please tell me what tool you used? I would be curious to know.

In any event, what I really want to know is how to use this object.

I don’t see any way to turn it on. I know you’re probably laughing at me now, but I can’t find a slider or depressor anywhere. Knowing you, I thought maybe it was one of the first generation Wavio transmitters the Greater Harmony of Koreachina is developing, but when I waved my hand in front of it it still didn’t turn on. Is this the Kindle Kindle Kindle Spindle I’ve heard about? Again, it’s been long rumored (the thing has been in development for like 12 days now!), and if you’ve actually gotten hold of a K3M, I’m impressed. Whatever it is, how do I turn this on? I’m not worried about the power — because I don’t see any photoelectric cells, I’m assuming like everything else it recharges from background radiation. But I don’t know how to use it. And the colors on the front have really piqued my interest.

I feel honestly dumb to ask these things. And I’m sure the answer is right in front of me. Thank you for sending it to me — but how do I use this thing?

Best,

Lee

p.s. My elderly aunt says it’s a “book.” What is that?

Did I call Deadpool an obscure Marvel character?

That was before his closeup.

They sentenced the man who set the Griffith Park fires last summer when I was training for a marathon and snuffling up burnt forest fumes every Sunday.

He got a 16-year term. I hope security is tighter than the last time they had him.

Last month I was among the countless Californians outraged that the leaders of the California Assembly had decided to give a raise to some legislative aides at the same time the state is sliding into a fiscal abyss. The hue and cry was so great that within a day Speaker Karen Bass reversed herself.

Now the state faces what the Governator is estimating as a $21.3 billion budget gap if the May 19th budget propositions don’t pass (which they won’t). And here’s Karen Bass in today’s LA Times, still not getting why nobody people were outraged by pay hikes for staff aides:

She expressed frustration over the criticism she drew during last month’s salary-hike flap, which would have boosted the wages of about 10% of the Assembly’s more than 1,000 employees at a total cost of about $500,000.

“I regret the timing,” she said of the wage increases. But, she added, “I felt after cutting $15 million … spending $500,000 was a reasonable approach.”

I’ve met Ms. Bass and I like her, and I know this is a difficult job she’s got. But how one can rise this far in politics this quickly (she was first elected to her seat only five years ago) and not understand that this is no climate for bureaucratic pay raises is beyond me.