when is a cigar not a cigar?

i've never liked my name. a sad fact, but true. my mother gave us names that could not be turned into nicknames (her reasoning). even my sister couldn't stand being called cherry and asked us to call her cheryl.

what's in a name? wouldn't a rose by any other...? i remember hiking alone in the sierras, age 20 or so, thinking, 'ah, let these mountains remain unidentified. after all, the native americans called them something else.' the pristine lakes felt like puddles before time, when lightning flashed and caused the first amoebas.

it shall remain nameless. if only it were possible, but that's quickly disappearing. a couple of articles in wired magazine trace this sad fact. the author first recounted the story of a man who tried to abandon his identity while his wife collected the insurance. he got caught. then the author himself attempted to stay hidden for a month, he too ultimately betrayed.

http://blog.newscloud.com/2009/09/how-we-caught-evan-ratliff.html

ah, for the old frontier, where one could vanish, put on six-guns, grow a mustache, and have a new life. or, say, leave lithuania for ellis island. assume an american name, and erase the past, reborn. why don't people do this more often?

as we all know too well, if we walk through a room, the police can pick up traces of our dna. you can find old girlfriends from fifty years ago by tracking them down through the net (i've done it.) despite books like how to disappear and never be caught other books like find anybody, anywhere, anytime belie the premise of the first.

theoretically, you could go to a distant country and begin again. yet, as the poet cavafy wrote, 'destroy your life in one corner of the world and you destroy it everywhere.' other famous sayings like 'wherever you go, there you are' seem to be true. on the other hand, brain-damage can totally change a person, like the brother of a college-friend who skidded on the ice in montana. his IQ dropped from 166 to 72. his family had to adjust to living with a temperamental stranger. and if that can happen...

truly, drugs, madness, brain operations, they could make us someone else, however the fun would be gone cause we wouldn't know who we once were. the magic of changing your name remains in your awareness that you've done so. what good is it to live in tahiti if you can't remember living in cleveland. the world's full of ironies.

samuel clemens changed his name to mark twain, and got away with it. rock hudson (roy harold scherer jr.) was not what he pretended to be in more ways than one. only actors can become someone else without escaping to the desert or erasing their fingerprints. how strange, the most visible become the intangible. replace yourself with an image and maybe you'll be saved from yourself.

i encourage you once again to see the inside story of the munchkins: http://www.blueroomtheatre.com/ you'll never dance with the tin woodman again. www.pbase.com/wwp/bab the actors knocked them dead last nite.

and you might check out the disguises of yours truly at

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/perform

on living like a child

you would be amazed how many times artists and writers told to see things like a toddler, freshly, for the first time. there's no doubt this true. look at tolstoy. vision as new as a baby's.

unfortunately, tolstoy also acted like a kid. and there's the flaw. to act like a child when you are an adult: evidence of insanity. a crazy person is a grown being acting like a three year-old.

acting and seeing, a thin line keeps one from being locked up or merely criticized. 'love and madness closely allied', wrote shakespeare. true enough. don't most murders come from physical passion gone wrong?

this whole business much on my mind, as i feel a longing for childhood. not that it was particularly pleasant. i remember lots of mental pain. every disappointment cut like a knife. every feeling of being denied and silenced threw me into a tantrum. if only someone would listen! yet how rarely it seemed to happen. and i can't forget miss clark, the math teacher in grade school who seemed to have a soft spot for me.

childhood, why? making a living, taking care of yourself, decisions, being protected by parents takes away all that. you can throw yourself into the moment, no matter what pleasure or disaster it brings. later we become so careful. and if we don't, we die in a car wreck or end up in jail.

these things on my mind because of the pictures i took last nite, a dress rehearsal of the play 'babylon heights.' first of all, i have to say, judy garland in the wizard of oz my first love. plump, yes, but adventurous. and the babylon play about the munchkins hired to make the movie. we live with four of them, and you'll see how everything in their surroundings huge and difficult:

www.pbase.com/wwp/bab

adults treated like children, outsiders. we experience four of them living in a oversized hotel room. i don't want to give away the plot. needless to say, the experience provides a telling and strong story.

to have a body that doesn't develop, it gets mixed up with those who's brains don't. and to live your whole life with a son or daughter in such a situation...well, that's as difficult as it gets. (it can have high moments, your child always a child and often endearing.)

needless to say, to have escaped childhood without damage seems like an ancestral myth, never to be proved or denied, like the primordial golden age.

see the play at http://www.blueroomtheatre.com/

the only self-help method that works

i'm one of the original self-help junkies. it's me that made depak chopra and wayne dyer rich and famous, while i stayed a pauper.

yes, i devoured titles like 'when helping others is hurting you.' of course, i'd think of the one book that did change my behavior:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-You-Hurting-Me/dp/0824521080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264018386&sr=1-1

ah, so i was trying to make the world safe for myself by controlling others. and how did this come about? my mother used me as a confidant for her troubles. no wonder i became a rescuer of young women. that never worked, certainly, but i schemed, plotted, and tried, when probably all i really wanted was sex. unfortunately, turning every woman into a sister, the sibling-sex prohibition prevented a culminaton of my desires.

what a damned dilemma! therapists and psychics augmented the books. one told me i was a natural hermit. another, that i'd been too impressed by death when young. the psychics declared i'd had too much responsibility in past lives and in this one i was supposed to have fun. hah! so much for that. all this freedom led me to stewing in my own juice.

not that i regret any of it (except not savoring the moment more). i'm amazed i learned to tie my shoes, open a bank account, hold a job. one has to be grateful to one's parents and teachers, after all. otherwise, look at all those citizens hurrying down a city street. they really don't look like they can cope, but they do.

you've been waiting for the real secret. EMBARRASSMENT. never would have guessed that, would you? only being embarrassed by my actions has made me improve. (this is different from shame, which reduces you to a wet noodle.) no, i mean feeling like i goofed and promising myself not to do it again.

for example, unprepared, i gave a speech, which fell flat. i vowed never to do that again! or being a bad guest, as i was in tokyo, and being made aware of it by my host. i've become a much better dish-washer and contributor to the house-hold. or once i slipped into being the old and bitter critic with a young artist, basically saying, 'oh, i've done all that.' she raked me over the coals. it's definitely a pitfall for the aging. if this happens again, i catch myself. as the tao te ching reminds me, 'everyone is enlighted except me. i alone am dark.'

so, hopefully you will be able to turn blushes into pluses, making vows you actually can keep. for this, you need a conscience. that too may have been given to you by those who were close. another reason to be grateful. and, how did i ever learn to drive a car?

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/album

where angels fear to tread

let's face it, i live like a monk. a room with a view. that's all i seem to need. and the thought of owning a house and tending a yard makes the hair raise up on the back of my neck.

not that i'm exactly happy with this. my mother said i played alone so much as a kid she thought i'd never have anything to do with people. alas, i've enough of the primate in me to like being around people, when it's at my own discretion. maybe this will help some of you understand my behavior.

not that you need to. it's my cross to bear. there it is again. the messiah complex. a therapist (and i've been to half a dozen) once told me, 'your mother and sister trained you very well to be concerned with the well-being of women.'

and it's true. i judge a country by the position of women within it, happy when we invaded afghanistan for this very reason. the taliban little boys who treat their women like slaves. on the other hand, the invasion of iraq destroyed the position of women and threw them back into purda. that i consider to be a crime against humankind.

like all men, i have had trouble with idealizing women, then being bitterly disillusioned. i'd say i haven't completely overcome this tendency. when you keep your distance, desire freedom over sexual comfort, the other remains a mystery. however, i'm a great believer in books. that's part of my monkish nature. libraries give me great comfort and calm me down. and somewhere in them i find the answers i need.

here's the book i ran across at barnes & noble which has helped open my eyes:

http://www.amazon.com/Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767920104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263924668&sr=1-1

i've always believed much of what goes on with us involves chemistry. that our experiences change our chemistry, and vice versa. this book shows the difference in the hormonal tides of men and women. women seem in general more at the mercy of their bodies, living often in a state of discomfort. this means, on the positive side, they take care of themselves better than men. and married men live longer than the unmarried cause their wives make them conscious of things like heart attacks. they get their men to the hospital in time.

i once read the men of the old west had to be domesticated when the women arrived. the women had a tough time. the men were used to whiskey and brothels. eventually, the women succeeded in getting men to carry on the species.

anyway, now i understand a little better why women of all ages pore over 'house & garden', magazines on weddings (they go through stacks), worry about what their bodies presenting to the world. self and body get all mixed up. and of course it's frustrating for them the way men mix up self and mind.

the mystery remains. if it didn't, we'd all go smoke cigars and lounge at the club. i've always loved looking at women. they seem to me nature's greatest work of art. and the temptation to play pygmalion finally seems to have faded. the world's less exciting, if sometimes more depressing.

here are some poems i wrote about the stuggles between love and art:

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/bagatelles

no, i'm no angel.

the gods died laughing

at least, that's what i imagine. yes, we're all 'the pawns of comedy', the name of a group performing in town last nite:

www.pbase.com/wwp/paw

and this kind of stand-up an art. it wallows in the gutter, forces the performer to tear at his/her insides, and leap for the clouds, falling back in the mire. more than a high-wire act, it combines agility with a wise stupidity.

of course, i didn't realize all this while watching. at barnes & noble this afternoon i discovered what they were doing:

http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Up-Comedy-Book-Judy-Carter/dp/0440502438/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263787350&sr=8-15

nothing like a good book to reveal the mysteries. ah, that's why they talked so much about themselves and the ironies of sexual attraction. everybody in the audience begins here, with themselves! only slowly can higher things be introduced, like cultural insights and political scarification. even the clown in shakespeare had to wave his thing-a-ma-jig for the groundlings.

nietzsche, i think, said, 'you can tell what's essential about a person by their laughter.' people do find very different things funny. think of an american reading punch. it's often like a foreign code. and in class and at the theater i'm always breaking into guffaws when everyone else silent. luckily, it doesn't make me embarrassed in the least. in fact, i like demonstrating my superiority.

yes, humor is a sign of intelligence, the ability to make connections, to bypass one's conscious thought and go right to the juglar. baudelaire wrote on 'laughter and cruelty'. and the two never far from each other. death escaped is hilarious, no matter how you did it. but a final demise, can that actually be comic?

of course, it can! but not necessarily. one has to expire with a certain style.

for example, i've just posted pictures of my time in prague:

www.pbase.com/wwp/prag

i chased kafka all over the place, including going into the building where he processed worker's injury claims, flashing a photo right under the guard's indignant nose. (see if you can find it.)

when living in germany and conversant with a modicum of the language, i looked at the first page of kafka's the trial. i perceived a humor i've never gotten from any translation. he uses some kind of germanic conditional phrasing, essentially saying, 'this might be happening, or it might not.' alas, i don't have any pictures from my adaptation of the metamorphosis in which i performed the human turned cockroach.

still, i remember laughing through my tears.

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/kafka

who was it said, 'the world is a tragedy for those who feel, a comedy for those who think'? might be something in that, as long as you don't get the two mixed up.

"courage is the first virtue.

without it we can't practice the others." so said the english writer samuel johnson.

as far as i know, we've two basic fears. the first the fear of falling. and lately i've been increasing my exercises, feeling wobbly in the shower. a 30 minute power walk, a few minutes on a balancing board, and fifteen minutes hopping up and down on a mini-trampoline.

this fear the foundation of childhood. we fall. we stand. we stumble down steps and tumble out of bed. in nightmares we try to fly. and sometimes succeed. what a glorious feeling that is.

our second greatest fear: exile. being thrown out of the tribe means starving to death. without the help of others we can't provide for ourselves. and we'll go to great lengths to avoid being abandoned.

this is the secret of franz kafka's writing. he demonstrates again and again how we lose ourselves accommodating to circumstances. alas, this very act of self-abandonment never saves the protagonist.

what struck me watching television in japan, circa 1986: how group-solidarity instilled in the very young. this kind of social cohesion seemed unimaginable. and scary. we learn that if you identify too much with the captain you'll go down with the ship.

here are some slides from that first trip: www.pbase.com/wwp/jasol

rationality cuts both ways, to free us and to bind us. i've been scanning photographs of guatemala and belize. if you don't learn to make logical connections, you exist in a world of magic. and that world can vanish at any point.

www.pbase.com/wwp/tik

ruins remind us one may fall from a great height, no matter how secure we may feel. alas, 9/11 exactly that kind of event. the greatest erections in the world collapsed in minutes.

i like the simple streets of belize and the island life. how can we live with nature without submitting to the fears its mysteries cause?

www.pbase.com/wwp/bel

weather-beaten boards seem more true to me than castles of stone. perhaps they can ride out the waves when the sea rises.

heaven wasn't made for us

or how anton checkov stole christmas.

catchy title, no? no?

alas, ben allen, artistic director of the blue room theatre said, 'i love historical dramas. unfortunately, most people today don't even recognize the name of freud.'

yes, we're a dying generation, and that's not all bad. in california last year most of the people under 35 voted against banning gay marriage. i thought, 'there's a reason people die.' you've heard, of course, that if flies didn't die the earth would be under eight feet of them within six months!

anyway, anton checkov, a russian playwright, established modern drama. and his director constantine stanislavsky used the plays to create modern acting. every movie, every tv show, is a result.

yes, yes, why should you care? i know, if it has nothing to do with you, to hell with it. it won't help me get a job. ah, but there you're wrong. it might. why?

the beauty of checkov plays: his characters respond to the weather, to the time of day, the seasons. in other words, the given circumstances. like most of us they are not movers and shakers. we'd rather draw a salary than start a business. true, this means we'll never get rich, but we can sleep at night.

what i'm saying is, all the good characters in checkov go with the flow. they marry the person next door (or not), they drift into this work or that. they're sensitive but not pro-active. and those who have drive turn out to be cads.

not very american, eh? we need a center of energy, a person or persons to make things happen. at the blue room theatre last night for a reading of

http://www.amazon.com/Her-Naked-Skin-Rebecca-Lenkiewicz/dp/0571241468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263450114&sr=8-1

at least five people present who make things happen. this is what gives this theater vitality. damn rare, that.

and so, though the checkov characters create a lovely atmosphere (and that's charm of the plays), sensitive to every human and circumstantial shift, they're incredible maddening, letting the given circumstance push them this way and that.

alas, i'm one of those characters, having no idea why or how i've done what i have. here are pictures from jamaica which i scanned this morning as an example. what a strange and inexplicable trip it was.

www.pbase.com/wwp/jam

in two weeks they will be reading checkov's three sisters at the blue room. hopefully, the lovely response to the weather will come through. despite the fact the personae never reach moscow. but i guess i've already said that.

ps. the pic above from checkov's own tiny theater in his moscow apartment.