So, I own a marketing firm. One of the things we do when you’re a new client is this: We perform a search on you. Find out what we can, and how to improve it. In fact, when you call us up or email us to see about becoming a new client, in other words, even when you’re just a prospect, we do this. It just makes sense.

Which leaves me wondering why whoever it was who rebranded the professional services firm Ernst and Young didn’t do even the smallest search — even using this thing called “Google” — to see what “EY” might turn up, before they branded their client as “EY.”

What they might have found is that “EY” brings up a site for “sexy boys.”

An actor friend from New York was in town Monday night, so another theatre friend and I joined her for drinks. I proposed the Dresden Room, a favorite old haunt of mine, because it’s classic Hollywood, because neither of them had been there before, and because I thought the one friend might enjoy saying she’d had a drink where they shot so much of “Swingers” and so many other movies. Plus, I just like the joint. I only wish Marty and Elayne had been on that night, but they don’t play Mondays. (The guys who do Monday nights were pretty good, but completely lacked the wonderful kitsch and showmanship brought to the Dresden Room by Marty and Elayne for 31 years now).

Anyway, we had some drinks and a very nice time. My friend who’s local I get to see all the time, but the other one I get to see only once a year. Thoroughly enjoying myself, when the tab came, I decided just to pick it up. The drinks, plus tax and tip, ran $53.

Late this afternoon I had a drinks meeting at a lounge in Burbank. This was a business meeting, and also a friend meeting (as in, my one companion said, “Why do we always have to wait for business to socialize?” Precisely.). I ordered some appetizers, and then we ordered more appetizers, and we each had some drinks, all of it, it turned out, at happy hour prices. And it was a pretty happy hour — the end of a day successful in many ways (a good prognosis for my friend in the hospital who got released; a good bill of health on my dog, recovering from surgery; financially a good day; and more) that I was now celebrating while having this meeting, in preparation for something I’m starting in two weeks. That project is through my company, so I rightly figured I’d be picking up the tab. When I turned away, it turned out that one of my companions had already asked for the check and slipped the server his credit card. So he picked it all up. I watched as he signed it. The total: $53.

While I don’t believe in karma per se, I do believe that when you do something nice for no good reason, the next time someone does something nice for you, you tend to notice it better. And, hey, the coincidence of the dollar amount was certainly eye-catching.

Here’s something nice I’m going to do for you. Here’s Marty and Elayne. Next time you’re in town, you should check them out.

Either this is flat-out the best drink I’ve ever had, or I really needed this.

No matter what you thought of Wendy Davis’ 12-hour filibuster, I’ll bet you it wasn’t what people in Taiwan thought of it. (But hey, this makes more sense than most of what you see in the news.)

My hatred for AT&T isn’t a new thing. But they continue to invent new ways to be infuriating.

About a month ago, they summarily shut off our Internet at my company. When one of the staff called to try to get this resolved, they wouldn’t speak with her because she wasn’t me — and given that I was out, I guess they just figured we could do without Internet service until I was somehow reachable. (And doing without connectivity shouldn’t be a problem for a digital marketing firm that does all its business via the Internet, I guess.) My partner was finally able to talk them into talking to her. They claimed we hadn’t paid the bill, so she put it on a credit card and we got service restored. Needless to say, when I got in I ran a report that showed that we had indeed paid the bill, and they had cashed the check. So I got on the phone and switched everything here over to Charter — our landlines and our Internet; absolutely everything except my iPhone — and canceled AT&T. Net gain:  Internet service that is six times faster, a savings of $190 per month, and no more dealing with AT&T.

I should also add at this point that I sit on a board with an executive from AT&T. When I, or anyone else, describes our problems with AT&T, here’s what he says:  “I know.” Sometimes he adds, “I know” again, so it’s “I know, I know.” As little as that is (i.e., it’s nothing), it’s more than AT&T has ever done for me; they don’t even seem to know.

So I just came into my office today (Saturday) for a half day and found a delightful little notice from AT&T. They’re saying we owe them another $10.65. I just checked online with our bank:  We don’t. AT&T cashed our final check, and by the way, that final check was for an amount they prorated (because I canceled mid-month) to about $192. So, in other words, not only do we not owe them $10.65, by their accounting, they would now owe us $182. And I want it. Boy, do I want it. I live to see a check coming back from AT&T.

So I did what the letter instructed me to do:  call them, Monday – Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., or Saturdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Well, it’s Saturday. So I figured I’d save myself or my assistant some time, and I just called them. Here’s the net result:  four minutes of wending my way through their automated phone tree. Then, after it promised to connect me with a billing agent who could resolve this, it announced that all lines were busy and I should call back another time. And it disconnected me. So now my assistant will be calling them on Monday, because no way I’m going through this again.

I thought I’d end by leaving  you with some AT&T marketing slogans that to me seem straight from Jonathan Swift in their irony:

“Fits you best.”

“Raising the bar.”

“Rethink possible.”

I especially like the last one. Because if you think something is possible for AT&T, you’d better rethink.

Let’s hope that the movement to subsist entirely off sunlight will persist. That should thin the ranks.

I detest Donald Trump.

Twenty-five years ago, he despoiled the beach in Brigantine, NJ by illegally dredging it in the dead of night just so he could pull his monstrous yacht into town. Paid the EPA fine out of his pocket, on-camera, just to further show what a jerk looks like. He was a rank failure in business — multiple bankruptcies, working from an inheritance — until television made him a TV star.

So this absolutely, 100%, filled me with glee.

I’m now back in town and not going anywhere for five weeks. (Until Comic-Con!)

I was in Omaha, NE from May 24 through June 2nd having an absolutely great time once again at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. I taught a couple of workshops, served as a panelist reviewing several plays, and saw several very, very good plays. And did things like go in and out of Iowa five times in one night (and morning) with some friends, but that’s a separate story.

I also got to sample one of the local 24 Hour Fitness centers. When I joined 24 Hour Fitness last December, I bought the nation-wide option so I could use a club wherever I was. Here’s what I’ve started to learn:  They’re highly similar, but oddly different. (Kind of like the Earth-1 and Earth-2 DC heroes. Google it.) Their hours are the same — 24 hours a day, which works with my schedule — but slight differences add up. In this case, I went equipped with everything I’d need:  workout clothes, swimsuit, Dopp kit stuffed with grooming items, lock and key, workout regimens from my trainer. But when I signed in they didn’t offer me a towel. I said, “Towel?” The girl and the guy working the counter looked at me funny, then the guy said, “You want paper towels?” Turns out that this 24 Hour Fitness doesn’t give you a towel. How was I to know that? The ones in LA do. My only recourse:  They would sell me a towel, about the size of a large dishrag and helpfully embroidered with 24 HOUR FITNESS, for eight bucks. I bought one. This being Omaha, they must store them with the cattle, because it had a definite bovine aroma to it. I was still glad to have it, and glad for the workouts I got at this gym while I was there.

From Omaha, I was supposed to head East — to see family and friends in southern New Jersey, spend a day in Philadelphia with friends and clients, and go to New York to meet with some people and see a couple of shows. But my dog had a mishap that required surgery, so I flew back to care for her through her recovery. We all know I love this dog. If you’ve ever wondered what price you can put on such love, perhaps this will help:  I love her more than $2500. Mind you, I would love to have that $2500 as well. But that wasn’t possible. She had better be really really grateful for the rest of her dog days.

With the Eastern trip canceled, and my 21-year-old son unexpectedly in town, I threw an impromptu dinner party. He and I and two of my friends had dinner, then watched “American Pickers” (a show I’ve developed an odd interest in), then watched “To Have and to Have Not.” The latter was surprisingly dull; I’m definitely of the “Have Not” school. Whatever charms Bogart theoretically brought to the screen, I didn’t see them showing up here, and I was less enchanted with Bacall than history would have me be. (I did think that Walter Brennan was great; he steals every scene.) The script was lackluster and the action plodding. I remember the Hemingway novel far more fondly than this movie; online research reveals that the film’s story is greatly changed from that of the book and, besides, the movie doesn’t give you Hemingway’s prose. (Which is the reason I’ve had zero interest in seeing the latest film adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” a story that demands to be read.)

I also took a night and went to see “The Iceman,” an independent film starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder, about a well-known hitman from New Jersey. (Well, his story is well-known in New Jersey. And probably not so unusual.) My son and I were running a little late (more like on-time), so we charged up to the box office, where I said, “Did ‘The Iceman’ starteth?” Not much of a response from the ticketing guy, which surprised me, this being an upscale independent film house (owned by Robert Redford, so you know it’s smart and classy) that tends to hire introspective intellectuals with middling customer-service skills. I made another lame pun and then finally said, ” ‘The Iceman’ — ‘The Iceman Cometh’ ?” No acknowledgement from him or from my son. I guess winning three Pulitzer prizes and the Nobel prize for literature doesn’t get you much in the way of lasting fame.

I also went to see my own show a couple of times, and went into my office off and on, where everything was humming along nicely without me (although my partner says one of our clients asked, “Does Lee still work here?”), and then the past four days I was down in San Diego and Carlsbad for a business conference. The last two nights I stayed at the resort spa where the conference was held; the night before the start of the event, I stayed in downtown San Diego at one of the hotels my friends and I frequent for Comic-Con stays. During Comic-Con, we jam seven of us into this suite and split the cost. (More money for comic books this way. And drinks.) The suite probably runs… $279 a night? More? Here’s what I got it for off-Comic-Con season, using an app called Hotel Tonight:  76 bucks, tax included, out the door. So there I was, with a two-room suite, no six other guys I’d have to step over, paying about what my share would be if they were there. I felt like calling every one of them and saying, “Guess where I am? OK — guess how much I’m paying?!?!?!”

The next morning I got what I think is one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had, from a girl named Crystal at the Floyd’s 99 in downtown San Diego. She asked what I did for a living, and I told her I own a marketing firm, and just when I was getting ready to say that maybe from here on out I’d be driving down to San Diego every month for my haircut, she hit me up for a job. Turns out she’s always wanted to work in marketing. Which, of course, is why she’s cutting hair. And not just cutting hair — doing a fabulous job of it, and being only the latest in four generations of barbers in her family. Clearly, haircutting is in her blood — but no, she wants to come learn how to write copy. She asked if I’d look at her resume, and I said sure — but it’s been four days and she still hasn’t emailed me, so it’s a fair bet she’ll still be cutting hair for a while.

Re the conference, which was great fun and greatly useful, I thought I’d share this line, from one of the speakers:  ” ‘Awfulizing’ is imagining the worst from things that haven’t even happened — and then suffering the consequences.”

So don’t awfulize.

Good night.

This Saturday night is your last chance to see “The Size of Pike.” Here’s where to get tickets (and it’s almost sold out)  and this link will take you to the reviews (all of them good). I’m sorry to see the show close, but I’m extremely grateful for the gift of having seen it again, in my home theatre, done in an entirely different way than its original production.

What am I speaking of? This was a production of a play of mine that we first did in 1997, newly mounted now as part of our 20th anniversary season at Moving Arts. It now occurs to me that the LA Weekly did a story on our anniversary season, but I forgot to post it here. So here it is. (My wife’s response to the recent — and not-recent photos in this piece:  “Wow, your hair used to be dark!”) We’re currently running my good friend Trey Nichols’ play “Fathers at a Game” in Hollywood. (I saw it last week and was immensely impressed. It’s a terrific production of a play that I’m just as excited about now as I was 18 years ago when I picked it for production.) Next up:  our multi-part one-act festival. Stay tuned.