Last night I went with three other playwrights to see what I thought was a pretty dull play, David Hare’s “The Blue Room.” Whenever you find that you’re more involved with the lights and the sound and the music and watching the set changes (all of them admittedly pretty interesting in this production), then you know that the play isn’t working. I kept debating whether it was the script, the actors, or the direction, and landed finally on the script. Sex has never been so uninteresting, and every line sounded written, not spoken.
Afterward, the four of us went out for a drink. I sat there, determined not to be the first to dig into the play. Maybe because I was so drained by seeing it. The experience was so enervating it had me wondering again whether the balance in quality between theatre and television had permanently shifted. When television is producing shows like “Breaking Bad” and “The Wire,” and you can carefully select what you want to see and when you want to see it with your DVR, and nine out of ten plays are a disappointment and every experience is a crapshoot and it all costs more, the argument for getting off your couch becomes harder. And no, you cannot imagine what it feels like to say this here.
One thing the theatre will always have over television is this: drinks afterward. We had some fun at the expense of the show — I offered my usual analysis of why a play in question was 90 minutes with no intermission: “So no one can leave early” — and somehow we got on the subject of drink and drugs. And then we got the quote of the night, something far better than anything in the play, something that I’ll be putting in a play of mine unless the playwright who said it beats me to it:
“I smoked weed. I didn’t like it. It made me feel like part of the wallpaper. Drinking is better. Alcohol is like me, plus.”
It’s so perfect a bit of dialogue that it sounds written. If only anything approaching that level had been in the actual play that night.
This is deliciously bad. As such, this scene from some long-lost movie may provide the finest entertainment of your day. I know it amused and entertained me.
By the way, despite claims to the contrary, this does not represent the worst acting ever. That distinction belongs to some odd-looking and unremarked character actor who auditioned for me 15 years ago and who at the end of his audition proudly punctuated the end of his standing monologue by planting one foot atop the seat of a nearby chair much in the way of an imagined Admiral Wellington or Napoleon Bonaparte. After he left, my producing partner said she didn’t believe any part of this man’s monologue. I replied, “I didn’t even believe the way he put his foot on the chair.”
This video therefore represents the second-worst acting ever. Although I’m open to other nominees, if you’d care to comment. And I suppose I’d nominate a third-worst: Nicolas Cage’s performance, such as it was, in last year’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans,” in which Cage’s lieutenant is best described as a cackling hunchback. Now that was pure enjoyment!
Living inside my house we have four people (and a fifth who still lives here occasionally), a dog, and assorted spiders that my daughter is always aghast to find lurking unexpectedly in some corner.
Outside in addition to the expected flying and crawling insects, and worms, we have a squirrel who proudly serves as our dog’s arch-nemesis, baiting her and chittering at her whenever given the opportunity, at least one patchy brown opossum who plays dead quite convincingly, tree rats in the palm trees towering nearby, hummingbirds — and a nest of mourning doves that lives in our cactus. That’s right, in our cactus.
That’s them right in the center. There are two parents and two recently hatched chicks in the nest. Just two weeks later, the chicks are almost as large as the parents. This nest is eye-level with me, which might beg the question, what bird would build a nest here? Isn’t it easy prey for predators — like raccoons, which we also might have, or neighborhood cats? But note two things: Look how well the birds and their nest blend in with the bark of the cactus; color-blind animals will have a challenge seeing them there. (So did I, at first.) Note also the severe challenge to entry: Yes, there’s a wall behind the tree, but the entire nest is surrounded by a thicket of cactus needles no animal wants to brave.
Here’s another shot, below. From this angle, you can see how the birds get in: There’s one clear angle of approach for flying in. But in the photo above you can see that any other way in is fraught with danger for would-be marauders.
I have several friends waiting for the next generation of the iPhone. They’re waiting/hoping for a front-facing camera, longer battery life, 4G, and availability to Verizon as a carrier.
Now it looks like they’re going to get at least those first three wishes granted soon. (And a lot more, like a flash feature for the camera.) Someone “left” a prototype iPhone 4G in a bar in Redwood City, California — where it was discovered, disassembled, and analyzed by Gizmodo. Here’s that story, along with videos showing off the new features.
(Direct message to various Comic-Con friends: This should answer your question of “When should I buy an iPhone?” Answer: When this comes out.)
By the way: The story of the prototype phone having gotten “accidentally” left behind sure sounds like a prototype of its own — for a marketing campaign. Note that Gizmodo, above,
The gentleman in this picture, Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot of Kenya, just finished the Boston Marathon in record time: 2 hours, 5 minutes and 52 seconds. He thereby shattered the previous record of 2:07:14 (“shattered” being a relative term here), set in 2006 by Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot. The two Robert K. Cheruiyots are unrelated, which leaves me thinking that in Kenya the name Robert K. Cheruiyot is the equivalent of James Smith or Juan Garcia here. (And yes, I know a James Smith and a Juan Garcia.)
There’s no confusing either Robert K. Cheruiyot with me, though. I myself ran a marathon in late 2008. My time was closer to 2 days, 5 minutes, and 52 seconds.
As frequent readers of this blog may have noted, I’ve been traveling frequently since January. (I was in Irvine on Monday, San Francisco on Tuesday, Denver on Wednesday, and between now and next month I’ll be in Napa Valley, Philadelphia/NJ, Utah, Omaha, San Francisco again, and probably some other places.) The successful outcome of all of these trips to some degree require internet technology — the ability to access the web on location, and to project video and Powerpoint and audio. Past experience has taught me that it’s best to bring the tech with you. Dating back to my adolescence when I was a comic-book dealer exhibiting at one or two conventions a weekend, I learned the hard way that when you didn’t bring it with you, whatever was provided just wasn’t enough.
I saw that again in January when I attended Twiistup, a two-day confab in Los Angeles where tech startups make presents to venture capitalists and angel funders. The tech guys weren’t able to get WiFi to work for much of the conference, and the projector and screen rarely seemed to be in synch. I felt bad for the presenters, all of whom are timed, who complained that their time was cut in half because of faulty tech. And this was at a tech event.
That doesn’t top this story, though. This weekend I’m at the California Democratic Convention. A friend just sent me this text:
So, at the Computer and Internet caucus, they couldn’t get their Powerpoint to project properly, and they had no internet connection.
I’m sorry to hear that. But any more: I’m not surprised. So if you see me in some airport around the country lugging around my laptop, and a projector, and even a small case of speakers, you’ll understand why.
