4 Seconds

Apparently, that's the secret.  That's what you need to know.  That's it.  That's all.

I don't know why it offended me the way it did.  I don't know why I was taken aback, soured, instantly priggish and resentful and almost insulted.  But I was.  I'm like that sometimes. 

I was at a rehearsal for a Gilbert & Sullivan roadshow.  I hate doing roadshows.  To me, they're like a pimple that becomes infected and then results in the immediate amputation of the affected body part.  Roadshows start out small, innocuous and barely problematic.  "Oh, it's just this and that and it'll be thus and so and then it'll be over."  And then it turns into more songs than you were comfortable with, songs you've never done before, then all of a sudden there's costumes and props and blocking and -gasp!- CHOREOGRAPHY.

(I don't do choreography.  Because it involves feet.  I do not have feet.  I have ankles, attached to biscuit-tins)

And then they tell you where the roadshow is.  It's in some godassfucked place you've never heard of and it's for a bunch of elderly people who'll be watching you while peeing in their pants, and not because they find Gilbert's searing humor funny.  They can't hear it anyway. 

And I know all this, but I agree to do roadshows because, well, I love G&S and I'd do it on the equator or inside a toilet bowl and because, you know, I'm an idiot. 

So, I'm at this rehearsal last night and a colleague of mine leans into me and proffers a tidbit of G&S trivia/advice after I'd just sung a patter song.  I guess I immediately got my back up because I don't like it very much when fellow performers give advice.  That's why we have directors, so other performers don't fillet each other in the dressing room.  Anyway, he was trying to be helpful, and I like him, so I suffered through the following well-meaning anecdote.

"You know, Kenneth Sandford said that in this moment onstage that he shared with Katisha in 'The Mikado' that if he waited four seconds before responding after Katisha said, 'My face is plain' with his line 'It is' that he got the most laughs.  So you should really wait four seconds before doing your bit in the 'Little List' song."

And I smiled politely and said that I would try it.  And I won't. 

I guess I just don't understand.  I guess I'm still a petulant, truculent, pain-in-the-ass boy who bristled at the Theatre Chair's suggestion that I go get an MFA in playwriting all those years ago.  ("Why should I do that?  Can't I write plays now?")  Don't give me advice, even if I love and respect you.  Your breath shall be wasted, I promise.  And don't tell me cute stories about world-renowned operetta stars, because I hate them-- the stories and the people-- because I will never ever come close to them, whether I wait four seconds or not.

Mediocrities everywhere: I absolve you.  I absolve you, all.

I suppose what annoyed me most was that, to me, comedy is so much more than that-- it's so much more than math.  Four seconds or three or six.  That's not comedy.  That's counting.  And I don't care if you're Kenneth Sandford or not but, if you're standing up there on stage going "1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi" or whatever English people say when they're counting, you're not acting.  You're not in the moment.  You're not up there having a conversation with Katisha and regarding her face.  Likewise, comedy cannot be distilled that way-- it's cheap and it's false and it's crude.  It negates all the other work that a performer does-- what about the slight cock of the head, the crook of the neck, the barely observable lift of the left eyebrow?  The thinning of the lip.  The blunted smile, the sideways glance.  Inflection, nuance, tone-- there is so much more.  It's timing, not time. 

I can't explain it.  I can do it-- sometimes-- and sometimes I can't.  Some nights a moment gets a laugh and some nights the same moment doesn't.  Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.  And what defines a moment "working"-- five people out there cackling hysterically for six seconds or a quarter of the audience tittering while others sit with a satisfied, knowing grin?  And others, still in the dark.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.  Maybe I take comedy too seriously.  Maybe it's just a quaint anecdote tucked away in a G&S bible, oft repeated by the minions and the minyans.  And maybe I'm just jealous.  Because nobody is ever going to quote a passage from this blog to anybody else as an example of what one should think or say or do about comedy. 

No, I'm definitely jealous.

I suppose I'll grow up one day-- maturing, they call it-- and I'll forget what I know because I use it so infrequently, and I'll turn to the tomes to read about what others who came before me knew, and I'll quote their quaintness to young and lithe performers who will be my age now.  And I'll forget to trim my nosehairs, too, because that's the way these things go. 

1 Mississippi.  2.

Sometimes I'm sure I know what funny is-- I can make my wife laugh after nearly ten years.  I can make strangers laugh-- old friends who know the innuendo before I do, and newish ones, too, who are just figuring out my stilted, self-effacing delivery.  Sometimes the humor's Jewish, sometimes it's vulgar, sometimes it's in rhyme while I'm prancing around like the English prat I wish I could be and be paid for it.  Sometimes it's an accident. 

My face is plain.  And I want to ride the bike myself like a big boy.  Look, ma.  No hands.  Look at me go.

I know I'll never be as funny as Kenneth Sandford, or John Reed, or Martyn Green or George Grossmith-- and I guess I don't want to.  Because I don't listen to my elders, or yours.  I don't have four seconds these days anyway.

3 Mississippi.

Four. 

Getting On With It

I was talking to my therapist last week about acting, which I sort of do, and he and I were exploring the possibility of it one day (far, far away) becoming more than just an amateur, "sometimes" pursuit, and making it a professional, bread-and-butter pursuit, since it's really the only thing I'm reasonably sure I do well, and it's definitely the only thing for which I'm qualified.

"How do you reconcile, though, what I think is your core belief about acting," he asked me, astutely crossing his legs and cocking his head slightly in the manner of an inquisitive Border Collie, "that it's vainglorious and indulgent?"

"Well," I said, "it is.  But, I suppose, if one is going to make the decision to pursue it professionally, you kind of have to just get over that and get on with it."

I feel that way about writing, too.  It can be purported to be done for the writer's own demon-wrestling purposes, but I think we all know I'm after the comments.

(Gimme.)

While the twins are napping, there are other things I could be doing.  I could be dusting the... thing in the dining room.  I could do dishes, wash bottles, clean the high chair trays, prepare lunch, organize... things.  But here I am, at the computer, writing.  Writing for the first time since we put our sad old dog to sleep.  That pain and that loss has subsided some over the weeks-- has it been months?  I don't even know.  But, after I'd dressed the babies this morning, and we were playing around with toys on the bed, as I was tickling my daughter's foot, I caught myself thinking about Finley.  My wife gets triggered when she sees a dog, who maybe looks like him, or maybe doesn't, around the neighborhood, or when she sees a "Science Diet" commercial on TV.  That stuff doesn't strike me in quite the same way.  Finley comes to me at random, quiet moments, times where his rough panting would have been the background noise, times where I wish that the babies, who are far more interactive, could have spent more time with him.

There's a lot of things I wish for, and most of those things center around time, and wishing I had more of it.  More time to spend with my wife and children.  More time away from work.  More time for writing.  I've been working every other weekend, that's Saturday and Sunday from 7am-3pm, friends, for more than two years now, and I'm so tired of having my weekend family time halved like a grapefruit.  I'm so sick of cramming things into my weekends "off" (you don't really have time "off" anymore when you have children, for those of you who don't and consequently don't know) and I'm fed up with disappointing my wife, who, good fortune be praised, actually likes it when I'm home.

That fact is part of what's stopped me, incidentally, from writing more-- either on this blog or as part of something else.  When I'm home, and the babies have gone to bed at 7:00 and I know we have to be in bed by 10ish or I'll be a drooling idiot at work the next day, and there are lunches and bottles and wash to prepare for the next day, how can I reasonably justify excusing myself from my love's presence while I shutter myself away in the office for an hour clacking away at the keyboard?  To be honest, I know that, if she really believed it was important to me, she wouldn't mind, but I can't justify it to myself.  I guess it's too vainglorious and indulgent after all.  I even feel guilty doing it while the babies are napping and there's no dog to walk anymore.  If I close my eyes for a moment, though, I can visualize all the dishes and bottles in the sink, and they're calling to me.

The babies are probably going to wake up soon.  There's so much in my head that I want to talk about-- no, write about.  I hate talking.  My voice is flat and heady and boring, and my words come out in a jumble of sleep-deprived fits and starts and half-cocked ideas and trailing off sentiments.  I want to write about politics (sort of) and George Takei Facebook bullshit and memories and dreams and my family but I don't really think I know them anymore so what would I say anyway and the mess in the basement and the crawling and the teething and the changing and the graying and the rolling and the tolling of the bells bells bells and I want to connect-- with you, I suppose-- and that's what we all want, isn't it?  Your time, your thoughts, your attention.  If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:

I am the very model of a modern major-general.

I am the monarch of the sea.

I have a song to sing, O!

I am a writer, I suppose.  One who writes.  I string words and thoughts and phrases and ideas together and I give you paragraphs and periods and you make of it what you will, and I like that.  I think I do.  I really think I like that.  If you give me two numbers and ask me to put them together, I will give you a fucking mess in return.  But words I can cope with.  I'll take words for eight hundred, Alex.

No, a thousand.

Give me a thousand: I have twins to feed.  

Notes from the Anglo File

The bumper-sticker (custom made, mind you) says it all:

"WARNING: Gilbert & Sullivan Freak Behind Wheel"

You know, even if you're just some random schmoebert driving behind me, that I'm a little, well, off.  I'm a little, well, smitten with all things Britain.  I'm a little looney.

Just a li'l.

(To be said with a traditional Cockney glottal stop.  Of course.)

Anglophiles are a unique breed, and we're all a bit muddled, a bit befuddled, because, see there's the whole identification issue-- identifying with your oppressor.  After all, Good King George did try to fuck our shit up for daring to take flight, lest we forget.  But for an American who is, after all, half-Israeli and 100% Jewish to boot, that whole dynamic seems almost a bit irrelevant.

I fell in love with English culture years and years ago.  Too much "Monty Python's Flying Circus" exposure at a time when the brain was extremely soft, malleable, and porous.  It's settled some now, but the damage has been done.  And it was done unto others.

Our elementary school had a program where 5th graders were paired up with 2nd graders.  The purpose of this was that the 5th graders would get together with their 2nd grade "book buddies" in the library once a week and read the 2nd graders stories.  Mentoring at a very young age.  It worked-- my book buddy and I are Facebook friends.  And she's fucking hot as balls now, but I digress.  Anyway, I can still vaguely remember reading young Carly "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."  It was a swell time.

Anyway, the culminating event of the Book Buddy program was that we 5th graders were to write a book specifically for our 2nd grade book buddy.  Every page of the book would be laminated (in case, I guess, our book buddy became violently ill while reading it) and spiral bound by the school librarian, and entered into the permanent school library collection, for future impressionable youths to enjoy.  Some 5th graders wrote their takes on traditional fairy tales, some wrote stories where vegetables came to life and some wrote about things that had happened to them in their own lives, like breaking bones or getting puppies.

My story concerned Queen Elizabeth II getting kidnapped by members of the IRA and being hidden away inside the clock tower of Big Ben, and then rescued by members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard, assisted by Detective Inspectors from the London Metropolitan Police Department.  That Carly is Facebook friends with me today, and that, to my knowledge, she has never been the recipient of inpatient psychiatric treatment, is nothing short of miraculous.

I'm the kind of Anglophile who believes that everything coming from the British Isles is better than things in America.  Hobnobs taste better than Chips Ahoy.  The English Ford Focus is cooler than the American one-- at least it was for years, until the latest American restyle.  G&S is better than American musical theatre.  The monarchy is cooler than the presidency.  British comedy is funnier than American comedy.  British men's clothing is sharper than American men's clothing.  The British are more refined, more tasteful, more... correct than Americans.

That last point, however, gave me a moment's pause today as I looked through a slideshow from the Queen's Jubilee celebration.

Observe:

Mm-hm.  And let's not ignore...

And that, my friends, is how an American Anglophile gets bloody well humbled.

God Save the Queen.

Heymish

I never set out to make friends by becoming a blogger.

The very idea, had it been presented to me when I began this wayward little adventure, I think I would have disregarded as daft, and a little bit mad. The notion of sending out random, disconnected shards of oneself into the great beyond, anonymously at that, to return and forge friendships with complete and total strangers would never have even occured to me.

Of course, this is exactly what happened.

Of course, it had never occured to me that it was, in point of fact, the randomness of IP addresses, screennames and avatars that snagged me the girl who was to become my wife-- a chance online meeting on February 16th, 2003.

That should have warned me that the possibility of e-motional connection was, well, possible.

I have been incredibly lucky, I think, with, well, you. The people who have, for whatever reason, been drawn to this blog are... heymish. It's a Yiddish word, meaning "to feel at home with." Comfortable. Cozy.

Yeah, I'm talking to you. You're heymish. Deal with it.

That's what Paige said to me after she'd friended me on Facebook.

"I found you," the Facebook email accompanying the Friend Request read, "deal with it."

We'd been emailing for a while, back and forth. Supporting each other through transitions and scary times and just for fun. After some hardcore sleuthing, she'd figured out my full name. What a punk, right? A while later, in September of 2010, after I'd started my job at the psych hospital, a card arrived in the mail from an unfamiliar zipcode. In it, was a handwritten message wishing me good luck in "Zombieland," an affectionate moniker for my new place of employ. Attached to the card was a tangible good wish, too-- a bay leaf. She'd figured out my mailing address, too. My shoe size still remains a secret from her.

I think.

In May of 2009, my best friend stopped speaking to me after I called into question his relationship with the woman who has since become his wife. We met in the fourth grade and, in college, we were the other's shadow. We loved each other very very much, and we tried to be brothers and, for a while-- it worked. Then one day, it stopped. Paige came onto the scene, with her wit and her charm and sense of humor and supportive ear right around the same time, and she lifted me up-- and continues to do so, with a check-in email here, an insightful, knowing blog comment or a lately too-infrequent IM conversation there. A Facebook "Like." I've gotten her angry, and she's done the same for me. Sometimes, life comes at her and I don't know what to say. And that's okay. We're not trying to be brother and sister, or friends from elementary school, or even socially compatible, because we're none of those things. It's good to have a friend like that again, and the fact that we don't do lunch together or take drives, philosophizing in the car as I used to do with my this-zipcode-friends doesn't seem to matter much to either of us.

Paige responded to a blog post of mine a long time ago with, "Pssst-- I want to be your friend." Pax was not so overt. Or maybe he was moreso.

A Mason, Pax has e-settings that send posts and webbage with the words "mason" and "masonic" to his inbox. He read for a while before sending me an email, letting me know that he never has done something like this before, telling me how much he enjoyed the blog, (even though it has absolutely nothing to do with Masons) and how he believed that we could be friends. He was right. We sent some pretty perverse emails back and forth to each other. We both have an ardent appreciation for lesser-loved Monty Python material (our favorite full-length film is "The Meaning of Life"-- after all, it's only wah-fer theen!) and found that we could keep pace with the other's dubiously functioning mind. Pax contacted me to let me know that he couldn't access the archive, with over 700 posts of My Masonic Horseshit contained therein and to tell me how frustrated he was that he couldn't read the history of this out-of-control... thing. I told him how to go back to the beginning.

"I'm going to do it tomorrow, while I'm on conference calls all day." I wrote back and asked if he'd be wearing pants. He said probably not.

One day, a little while ago, Pax emailed me to ask for my address (or the address of someone who could get something to me). I was tempted to tell him to write to Paige to ask her how she found it, but I gave it to him. Me, a four-star paranoiac-- I gave it to him. Because I trusted him. More than that: I like presents.

What came to my doorstep a few days ago made my heart swell.

"A Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan: The words and the music of one hundred and two songs from eleven operettas." Copyright, 1941. Hardcover. Beautifully bound. Lavishly illustrated. It is the crown jewel of my G&Sery, and it has many competitors for the title, of that you may be sure. It is one of the most beautiful, meaningful books I own, and one of the most special gifts I have ever received. And he doesn't even want a thank-you gift. That doesn't mean, of course, that he isn't going to get one. Or, I don't know. Maybe this is it.


I'm a big whiner sometimes, I know that. Everyone loves to complain about how hard life is and how this sucks or that sucks and how they don't have any friends, and, that part is kind of true, on paper at least, the amount of friends I have in my life are far fewer than the amount I had ten years ago. But for whom I have, and for how I have them, I am extremely grateful. The cover of the card from Paige features a whimsical drawing of a plant onto which grow funny-looking folks, growing on the plant with their legs attached to the vine, and it reads,

"Manypeeplia Upsidownia"

And that's exactly the kind of people I want in my life-- the upsidownia kind. Just as long as they're a little bit heymish, too.

Who Never Learned to Sing

Tonight, at a small brick-and-mortar music store (the last of a dying breed) in my neighborhood, it will be a game of "Spot the Faker" for bemused citizens sitting in folding chairs as the principals in a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe will sing selections from the operetta as part of a First Friday event.

(Hint: I'm the faker. The tall, skinny one with the glasses and the airplane hangar-proportioned proboscis.)

See, I never learned to sing. Strangely enough, in middle school, you could find me in the chorus. Stranger still, in high school, I was in musicals. But the weirdness didn't reach its height until two years after college ended, when I auditioned for my first Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, and audition committee heads turned to each other in stupification as I crisply and excitedly sang "When I Was a Lad," the patter song from H.M.S. Pinafore, (a song I had been singing in the shower for years) memorized, with silly little homespun choreography.

And here we are, six years later, seven operettas later. One more under the belt. They only wrote fourteen together, as all particularly proper 'peretta pedants know.

Yeomen of the Guard
Patience
H.M.S. Pinafore
Ruddigore
Pirates of Penzance
The Sorcerer
Iolanthe

I'm halfway home.

And I'm as scared to death as ever, because I never learned to sing.

I barely learned how to read music. When I was in first grade, our overweight and impossibly coiffed and painted music teacher did a note recognition exercise with us. If she held up a drawing of a quarter note, you got down on your knees. A rest, you sat down, Indian-Style. A whole note, you stood up with arms outstretched, and so on. As we got better at recognizing the funny symbols, my music teacher sped up the game, frantically holding up one card, then another, all of us sitting and standing like it was some sort of crystal meth-infused, gleeful church service for kids. The glee came to an abrupt halt when my ankle snapped after we were shown a rest and I sat down too quickly, and too awkwardly.

And so I became the first child to break his ankle in music class. Of course.

It's a cute story, sure, though it was embarrassing for a while, especially during the b'pimpled era, but I think it speaks rather uncomfortable volumes about my relationship with music, but specifically singing. I never quite stood up straight again, and I don't mean that literally, although I do have scoliosis, as is required by Jewish law. When I sing before an audience, there is always something being held back, there is always a reticence, something that is not quite sure it's supposed to come out, or wants to. And so I hide behind the comic G&S roles-- those funny, silly patter roles that were never written for operatic singers, real singers. They're written for a "comic actor who can sing," in the words of Sullivan himself, as opposed to the more lyric roles for the romantic leads and the heavies, people who must sing first, and act second.

And I hide pretty well, even though, at least in my own mind, I out myself every time I open my mouth. Although, to be honest, there's always a piece of me that's waiting for my other ankle to snap out from under me every time I sing and prance about a stage.

It's a shame, really, because I never get to enjoy what I do. Never. It's also a shame because I think my continued participation in these shows, the portrayal of characters traditionally inhabited by seasoned, veteran, trained performers, smacks a little bit of disrespect for the material I love so much-- the joyous and jocular, sonorous and sweet, precious and precocious material of two obstinate Victorian gentlemen who should have been sainted-- not just knighted-- just for staying together as long as they did. But I mean no disrespect, Sir William & Sir Arthur. Like an altar boy, I just want to celebrate you through the only means you handed down to me. And I've been lucky enough not to be found out yet.

Shhh-- don't tell. Anyway, no time for that now. As Gilbert said, "I have a song to sing, O."

Apron for President

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The Dry Cleaner Thinks I'm Poor

A cute, squat Chinese lady dry cleans my clothes. Say whatever you want about offensive stereotypes, but it's just the truth, and I can't change it. I'm also a neurotic, asthmatic Jew who loves his mother, so what can you do, you know?

Anyway, my dry cleaner thinks I'm poor. She developed this judgement very quickly, as, I suppose, most of us do when judging others (which, of course, is naughty-naughty) and, not only did she come to this conclusion, she had absolutely no problem sharing it with me.

I don't go to the dry cleaner a lot-- you know, because I'm poor. I don't come from a big dry-clean-only family. We're pretty low maintenance. If a member of my immediate family is clothes shopping and s/he sees a very alluring garment, if the tag says "Dry-Clean Only" any member of my family would probably pass it up as "too much work."

When my mom would take little me out on errands (babies were portable back in the early 1980s) we would frequently go to the post office, the supermarket, the bank, Tommy's general store (seriously), and the pharmacy. We never went to the dry cleaners that I can remember. My mother diligently ironed my father's dress shirts back when he wore dress shirts, my sisters wore cotton "Esprit" tops and jeans, and I wore sweatsuits until eighth grade when I discovered masturbation and khakis.

The first person I ever met who went religiously to the dry cleaner was my first boss at the optical shop. He never wore a shirt that hadn't been dry cleaned, steamed, starched, and pressed. The back of his car always had at least five freshly-dry cleaned shirts hanging from the grab handle, all comfy-cozy in their shimmery plastic bag with their stapled paper tags. The dry cleaner was several doors down from our optical shop, and I would frequently be dispatched to pick up his shirts. I didn't mind. I knew my place on the totem pole, and I also knew he loved me-- so getting him coffee or a slice of pizza or his shirts was my way of loving him back. I always thought it was kind of ironic, though, that a man who was so obsessive about his dress shirts frequently came into work desperately hung over, eyes bloodshot, and sometimes asking me to smell his breath to see if it still reeked of gin and vomitus.

The only reason I go to the dry cleaner is when I'm in a big fucking jam. A few weeks ago, "The Sorcerer" was about to open. I played the title role, and the show was being performed in a very small, eighty-seat venue, where the audience can practically taste your sweat-- and so it's important to look good. I was to wear the clothes in which I got married: black and gray striped trousers, red suspenders (braces for you Brits), a white tuxedo shirt with widowmaker collar points, black tie, gray checked vest, black wool morning coat with tails and topped off with a for-real, beaver-fur black top-hat from a Canadian hatmaker, circa 1890.

Talk about a foppish dandy/nabob!

As opening night approached, I took a gander at the outfit as it hung in the closet. The collar of the tuxedo shirt was absolutely caked in tan stage makeup, from the last time I wore the get-up, two years ago in a production of "Ruddigore."

NB: If you ever want to be sure that you'll wear your wedding clothes again, do Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. This goes for males and females alike.

Shit, I thought looking at the disgusting shirt-- this motherfucker needs to go to the dry cleaner.

I went to a little dry cleaner that is very close to the post office where I pick up the P.O. box mail for work, and where I sometimes get coffee when I'm a.) too lazy to make it at home and/or b.) in the mood for coffee that doesn't taste like Lemon Joy. I had never been there before, but, since I'm in that neighborhood every day, I figured it was a good idea to take the shirt there so I could be sure I'd be close by to pick it up in time for the final dress rehearsal.

The squat, short, smiling, waddling Chinese lady walked up to me and she looked at the shirt.

"Oh, no! Wha happan?!"

(Sorry if my dialect writing offends anyone. If you have a problem with it-- tell Mark Twain.)

"Well, nothing really happened-- it's stage makeup. I'm... I'm an actor."

I really didn't feel like addressing the fact that I'm not actually an actor-- I'm a loser who works at a non-profit and does gay G&S operettas because, well, it's a fetish. I didn't think she'd understand. Or care. So I just told her I was an actor. This was a mistake.

"Oh! You an actor! No money, right?"

I stared at her.

"What?"

"Actor, very poor. No money."

"Um," I started to sweat now. What was the proper response to that? "No, I have money. I mean-- not a lot-- I mean, I can pay."

She laughed.

"Sure, sure," she said. "But stain no come out. Is very bad stain."

"Just do the best you can," I said, "I don't really expect it to all come out-- I just need it to look better than it does."

"Better, okay, but no come out!" she warned ominously.

"Right. It won't come out. That's okay."

I came back two days later and picked up the shirt. She was right, the stain didn't come out, but it looked much better.

"I'll be back with more," I said.

"Oh, okay," she said, disbelieving. After all, how could I, a lowly actor, afford to get more clothes dry cleaned?

After the run of "The Sorcerer" had mercifully finished, I figured that it was time to get the entire outfit (sans the top hat and vest) dry cleaned to get it ready for the next operetta, because there's always a next one.

"Oh, the actor!" she said as I placed the morning coat, gray and black striped trousers and the shirt of ill repute on the counter.

"That's me!" I grinned.

She laughed. I wondered what the fuck was so funny. But I didn't ask.

When the clothes were ready, I returned. The bill had Chinese chicken-scratch all over it, numbers and prices scribbled out and re-written and it was crumpled.

"Your coat too long!" she cried, as if I were about to trip on it.

"What?" I asked, totally confused. I had brought a pair of my wife's wool pants and a sweater. She couldn't possibly think I was poor now.

She pointed to my morning coat.

"Coat has tails-- too long! My boss get very angry when I show him-- he say, 'This coat too long, need to be three dollar more! Not regular coat!' But I say 'No, he only an actor! He very poor-- no money.' And so my boss say, 'Ok, charge him regular this time.' So it's okay."

So, I was suitably embarrassed now, but at the same time rather pleased that the dry cleaner's assumption that I was an indigent stage-hack had now saved me three dollars off my dry cleaning bill.

"Thank you, that's very kind of your boss. You know, when you're just a poor actor, every little bit helps," I said. She nodded her head approvingly.

"In my country, actor very poor. No money. Live with parents."

"Yes," I said, "that's the way it is here, too."

"$13.25," she said, the total bill for dry cleaning my wedding/stage clothes.

I pulled out my debit card. She laughed.

"Oh no!" she pointed to a sign that said, "$20.00 minimum charge." I only had two dollars cash in my wallet, which played right into her assumption about me.

"I only have two dollars cash," I said.

"Oh! He no have money! Want to pay with card! No money!" She laughed hysterically at that, and I wanted both to join in and punch her in the throat at the same time. It's such a confusing world sometimes.

"Well," I said, "can I pre-pay for the sweater and the pants that I'm dropping off now, and pay for these clothes at the same time, that way it will be over $20.00 and I can use the card."

"Hahaha! You use card, is okay. Pay for everything now. No money!"

I paid for everything and picked up my freshly-cleaned morning suit. It was pouring outside.

"Lift up very high or long coat drag on ground!" she counseled, "you walk here, right?"

"Um, no, I have a car," I said, pointing outside to the P.T. Cruiser. She laughed at that, too.

Yesterday, I went to pick up my wife's sweater and wool trousers. I was just about to pull up in front of her store when a thought popped into my head that made me drive past the shop and park around the block.

I couldn't let her see the Volvo. That would totally turn her assumptions about the world upsidedown. An actor in a Volvo? Even an eight-year-old one-- that could not be.

She walked up to me, raising her eyebrows up and down in a suggestive manner, like a short, Asian, female Groucho Marx. She put my wife's pants and sweater on the counter and she said with a devilish smile,

"Girlfriend?"

I'm Not Gay

This a difficult statement to convince people of when you're sitting at your computer, wearing a blue tie with little green goats on it, you've got a pocketwatch from 1921 with a gold fob dangling from your belt loop, and you're swilling gently from a bottle of Lorina Sparkling French Limonade.

And you're wearing a lady's wedding band.

But, at least I'm married to a woman-- and is it my fault my fingers are too slight to accomodate a man's wedding band? I mean, sheesh.

I've had to defend my heterosexuality for as long as I can remember, and the inconceivable amounts of heterosexually-based hardcore pornography I've consumed since age 15 aren't really appropriate corroboration, nor can they be readily accessed whenever a doubter is present. My dandy manner of dress, my incontrovertible knack for precisely matching outerwear, my ability to happily spend time at Anthropologie, enthusiastically and successfully shopping for outfits for my wife, my obsession with Gilbert & Sullivan and other aspects of the Victorian era and my involvement with theatre in general have all served to raise a few eyebrows over the years.

Sometimes, I'll say something to my wife, with complete and utter seriousness, whether it's a comment about a shirt she's about to inexplicably and ill-advisedly pair with certain shoes or about an antique that I think would look great over there, she'll stare at me and ask,


"Are you sure you're not gay?"


I'm pretty sure.


When I was a very, very young boy, I can remember sitting on the toilet in our downstairs bathroom and excitedly calling my mother into the bathroom.


"Are you sure you want me to come in?" I remember my mother asking from behind the closed door.


"YES! YES!" I cried. She entered warily, probably expecting to see yet another piece of my feces shaped like a question mark or a starfish.


"Look, Mommy!" I shouted energetically, my Osh-Koshes dangling around my ankles as I kicked my legs back and forth. Staring down at my crotch I proudly announced, "My penis can do tricks!"


(N. B. Although I was very young, it should be noted that I never, ever called it a "whingus" or a "teetletoo" or a "schmenkmen" or a "bing-bong" or whatever euphemism that was commonly utilized by little boys in 1985.)


"All I have to do is think about Vanna White!" I exclaimed. My mother crossed her arms in front of her and regarded me for a moment in my state of ecstacy.


"That's very nice, honey," she said as she turned around and walked out. See? My mother never needed Dr. Phil or Dear fuckin' Abby.


Please bear in mind that my taste in biddy has improved significantly since those days of my burgeoning sexual awakening. I mean, my wife's a little hottie-- let's face facts. Not only that, but I'm also slightly obsessed with English actress Natascha McElhone, if we want to face all the facts.


Of course, nobody actually thinks I'm gay. I don't think. Though I'll admit that, when I'm twittering and mincing about the stage inhabiting the 19th century clothes and effete mannerisms of a G&S patter role like Reginald Bunthorne, limp-wristed aesthetic poet extraordinaire or the ballet-prone Major-General Stanley, sometimes even I'm a little bit confused. I suppose the fact that the only dick I'd ever touch is mine keeps me on the right track.


The problem is with societal conventions that explicitly and implicitly portray manhood as husky, burly, sports-centered, slovenly, insipid, dull, monosyllabic, unshaven, eyes partially closed so as to look like he's on pot.


Oh, and did I mention stained sweatpants?

Ah, society-- with your preconceived notions and stereotypes and fucked up ideas about what it means to be male. If you're not eating a hoagie with extra bacon with one hand while the other hand is enthusiastically scratching your taint, you're just not really a real man at all, are you?

I have a great uncle who is gay. He's lived 80-some years and has never been truly outed, even though a select group of family and very close friends know. The world at large? Not a clue. Why? He runs track and plays tennis every week, smokes cigars and barrels his way through board meetings with headfirst, obscenity-laden gusto. He's a man's man if there ever was one, and he's always seen with a lady on his arm.

Thing is: he likes the peen.

A Skiier's Prayer

Editor's Note\Apology:

My wife and I are on a vacation-lite in the Poconos for a few days. For webnotainment and blogging endeavors, I have only my smartphone on which to lean, and type. And the fucking keys are the size of a cricket's nipples. As such, you will observe that My Masonic Apron's blog entries for the next few days, while not as annoyingly brief as tweetledeetdeets, will be regrettably truncated.

**************
I'm going skiing tomorrow.

I know-- you're like, "B.F.D., loser. I pour lighter fluid all over myself, have some neckless guy named Bra shoot me with a Vietnam War surplus flamethrower and then jump out of a helicopter while strapped to nothing but a bag of broken glass and Oral Robert's corpse."

And I hear you. Really. I do.

But my family's idea of excitement was going to the King of Prussia mall or taking the Buick through the car wash. I never went skiing until a few years back when I let Mrs. apron pop my ski bunny cherry.

And I fell down a lot.

I still fall down, but not as much as I used to. I even go on some moderate-level slopes and I don't spontaneously start crying on the way down anymore. Now I sing Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs at the top of my lungs as I somewhat erratically cut through the obstacles in my way-- namely red-faced, drunken assoles in North Face jackets and giggling girls with jangly fleece jester hats.

So, wherever you are today, send up a quick prayer for me. And, if you're taking to the slopes somewhere in the Pennsylvania mountains and you happen to inexplicably hear "I am the Monarch of the Sea" sung out lustily behind you-- get the fuck out of the way.

Often... Frequently

The Pirates of Penzance opens tonight.

Since its premier in 1879 (a dual premier in New York City and England to prevent, ironically, piracy) The Pirates of Penzance has had a lot of opening nights, in most countries around the world, whether or not they speak English. Or understand the English and their peculiar, quaint sense of humor.

Sorry, "humour."

Anyway, whenever it is time for another opening night, people invariably ask the question, "Are you excited?" And they always put the emphasis on the word "excited" which, I suppose, would be the logical choice there.

I hate to give the true answer, because it never fails to disappoint the people expecting a resounding "YES!" The truth, though, is that I'm not ever excited for opening night, or any night thereafter. I'm anxious, my bowels are in a state of absolute turmoil, I'm incessantly running through lyrics and tonalities in my head to stave off a spot-lit brain fart, I'm mentally and physically exhausted.

Oh, and did I mention I've been defecating at least five times a day recently? Would you be excited about that?

I realize that, in the hundreds of thousands of opening nights The Pirates of Penzance has enjoyed (and I'm sure sometimes "endured"), from music hall to concert hall performances, to professional to semi-professional to amateur to boarding school stagings all over the world, my production will barely be a hiccup in the overall scheme of Gilbert & Sullivan-ism, but it is my opening night.

I just can't seem to get excited about it.

When I was an EMT, random people-- family members, friends, patients, nurses, my supervisors-- would ask me with a smile, "So, do you like your job?" I would always smile back and answer, "No." Of course, looking back on it now, I realize that I really did like my job, and maybe I realized it then, too. Maybe I just like the look of utter consternation that ripples over peoples' faces when you give them the unscripted answers to life's formulaic questions. I don't, though, like opening nights. To me, they are an endless fathom of potential cockups, clusterfucks, missteps, trips, traps, falls, failures, and voice cracks. The chances that everything goes off without a hitch are non-existent.

I know, I know. I'm a pessemist and an alarmist and a nervous nellie and a catastrophist. Thank my mother-- I get it all from her. She'll be at the Saturday matinee-- you'll know her because she'll be the one wearing the HAZMAT suit in case Al Qaeda decides to launch a holy jihad against amateur Gilbert & Sullivan performances.

Sti(cke)r Crazy

Bumper-stickers always kind of got on my nerves, and so I never thought, growing up, that I would become the kind of person who'd want to put any on my own car.

Turns out, I was wrong about that.

Not only do I have several bumper-stickers on my car, I actually had one custom-made, just for me, and I'm pretty convinced that, because it was an original creation, I'm the only person in the world who drives a PT Cruiser with a bumper-sticker that says:

"WARNING: Gilbert & Sullivan Freak Behind Wheel"

After all, I think it's only fair to alert other unsuspecting motorists in the immediate vicinity that the vehicle rolling near them is being operated by a less-than-sane Anglophile who might, at that very moment, be singing the patter song, "My Name is John Wellington Wells" at the top of his lungs and rolling his "Rrrr's" while driving.

It's probably more dangerous than texting, though I don't think enough empirical research has yet been done.

I have another sticker on the back of my car, and it is the Pennsylvania Department of Health seal, which only certified Emergency Medical Technicians are permitted to display. While I no longer work on an ambulance, I am still certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as an EMT until 2011, at such time I will either have to renew my certification or, I guess, peel that sticker off my car.

There are lots of reasons why I keep that sticker on my car, even though I quit my ambulance gig back in 2007. First of all, it lets people know that the PT Cruiser with the blue dashboard light flashing that stops at the scene of a fresh car accident is supposed to have that light, and is supposed to be there, and contains someone useful who can be of service. It says that if you've been hit by a car or you've been shot in the back or you've just had a stroke, that this is a car you can stumble over to and ask the driver for help-- and I'll give you whatever help I can remember how to give. I've got an emergency EMS bag in the back with some tools of the trade-- not many, though.

More than any of this, I display the sticker because I'm proud of the work I put in to become an EMT. In my class of thirteen, only two of us hung around long enough to get to the State Certification test, and I was the only one who passed. I worked for seventeen months for crap pay, got a bullshit performance evaluation that resulted in a disgraceful 33-cent-an-hour raise, suffered through an endless stream of incompetent, irrational, psychotic, delusional, violent, unpleasant, odoriferous partners and patients and only crashed one truck and, damnit, if I'm entitled to slap a sticker on my car's ass, well, I'm going to.

The other sticker on my car is from a non-profit organization that I support, financially and through my writing. It's the Officer Down Memorial Page (www.odmp.org) and it was started by a young man named Chris Cosgriff, approximately my own age-- a civilian who, like me, found himself deeply moved at a very young age over the tragedies of law enforcement fatalities in this country. On opposite ends of the country, he and I share a lot in common, and, in our twenties, we both decided to do something about it. I wrote a book, Chris created a non-profit. The ODMP features a small profile of every single police officer who has ever died in the line of duty (either of natural or felonious causes) since the first recorded police fatality in 1791. There have been over 16,000 since then, and the ODMP honors every one of them. They have also been very kind to me, keeping the ever-flagging, modest sales of my book on life-support by stocking my book on their online giftshop.

A lot of people probably think I keep the www.odmp.org bumper-sticker on the back of my car so I don't get stopped by the police, so they know I'm a friend-- but I don't give a shit about what people think. Besides, it doesn't work anyway. I got banged for speeding just this year, and the fine was as steep as Mt. Olympus.

The three bumper-stickers on the back of the car that used to be owned by my wife tell the stories of three very different, very important parts of my life, and I like all three of them very much. I'm very interested by the things people choose to slap on the back of their own cars, these little tidbits of information that tell us things about the driver.

"Keep Honking, I'm Reloading."

"Like My Driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT."

"YES, WE CAN!"

"Vote for Ron Paul"

"Abortion Stops a Beating Heart"

"Visualize World Peace"

"I <3 Jesus"

I wonder what Jesus thinks of "I <3 Jesus" bumper-stickers. No doubt he appreciates that there are deities out there who could benefit from publicity more than he. Even I know who he is. I say his name every time I hurt my knuckle on a doorway while carrying the laundry basket.

Tales of Suburbia: Leaves Me Alone

One day, my neighbors will probably call the police on me. It's pretty much inevitable.

First of all, our houses are all really superfrickingclose together, so chances are pretty good that my abberant behavior will not forever go unnoticed, even when inside my heavily mortgaged walls.

I play obscure Gilbert & Sullivan operettas on the phonograph (and not the normal ones, like "The Mikado" and "H.M.S. Pinafore"-- I'm talking about the ones only the hardcore buck-toothed gits know, like "Utopia, Ltd," "Ruddigore," or, if I'm in a really oddball mood, "The Grand Duke"). Not only do I play these on a phonograph, I do so loudly. And I always sing along, too. And I do so loudly.

Sometimes, when I'm in a playful mood, I can be seen (well, hopefully not seen) leaping about in various stages of undress, prancing around like a lemur, screeching in a high-pitched tone, eyes bugged, for no real reason other than boredom. Sometimes I just sit around at the computer and shout profanities when blog material doesn't come to me effortlessly.

It seems to help.

While my neighbors may think I have a personality disorder, or Tourrettes Syndrome, or a closed head injury, they don't bother me much-- and maybe it's because of that. This morning, I was out front raking leaves and laughing my ass off. My dog, who I routinely tie to the iron bannister while I'm outside, watched me demurely as I scooped up huge armfuls of wet leaves and dumped them into the bag, only to see about 75% of the leaves fall to the pavement again as the bag crumpled and shifted under their weight.

"AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!" I roared in hysterics. "Is this what my life has become!? Jesus fucking Christ!" I screamed to the clouds above.

I have no doubt that somebody would have called the police, if the rest of the residents on my block-long street hadn't been at work or AA meetings. I mean, I admit it, I'm strange-looking. Thanks to the show I'm in, the oddity that is me is only now compounded by a walrus-moustache and side-burns that would only look appropriate on a steampunk artist or Civil War colonel. And there I am, laughing, in corduroy pants, a dress shirt and sweatervest as I ineptly rake leaves. While my dog's tied to the steps, watching me, thinking, "No, that's not my Daddy."

I wonder which neighbor's going to narc on me. It'll probably be Kathy who lives next door. I can tell she doesn't like me. She thinks I'm queer, in every sense of the word. I know it. And that's okay. I think she's a passive-aggressive bitch. While I was conversing with her the other day, she clipped an overgrowth of hedge right in front of me, while we were talking. My hedge. As if to say, "You are too irresponsible to do this yourself. Faggot. Shall I come over and dust and Febreze and maybe wipe your faggot ass for you, too?"

At first I thought she was nice, and helpful. Pointing out poison ivy that was growing in our yard, and giving us a bottle of poison ivy killer to get rid of it. Then she started to get manipulative, and condescending. I mentioned to her that we were having some stumps removed from our flower bed.

"Oh, good," she remarked, "then you can finally do something in there."

Really? Maybe I'll come over late one night with no pants on and do something in your flowerbed, honey.

I guess then she'd definitely be the one to call the police on me.

I'm not altogether thrilled with the people on my street. Sorry, Mr. Rogers, but it's just not working out. The Asian family never says "hi." Ever. I even rang their bell one night to let them know that they'd left the lights on in their CR-V. All the woman said was,

"Oh no! Hurry hurry! I fix! Oh no, no, no!"

You might remember the guy in the black Passat wagon. He yells at his kids and his dog. A lot. One day, I hope I don't have to call the police on that angry, bald humptyfuck.

I don't like the self-described "part-time accountant, part-time comedian" because he's very nosey, and, one day, I saw him standing on the corner dressed in some sort of full-bodied, furry mascot costume. And, when you're sixty years old, that warrants a call to the police, just by itself.

I do like the elderly gay man who wears glasses with plum-hued lenses, tweed sports jackets and cologne. When he talks, his turkey neck flaps around wildly and his capped teeth gleam in the sun. He's married with four grown children, and he's gayer than Oscar Wilde's neckerchief collection. Unfortunately, I don't interact with him much. He doesn't rake his own leaves.

Life in suburbia has its challenges, and I think, the more I live her, the greatest challenge I'm going to face is making it without getting the cops called on me. In the city, you can deal drugs to children, keep sex slaves in your basement and stockpile enough ammunition to put North Korea's arsenal to shame and nobody would ever even think to dime on you.

But, in the suburbs, you've got to watch your ass.

You See Yourself

I made the mistake a little while back of doing a favor for my boss.

You, I'm sure, would never commit such an occupational solecism.

My employer informed me that her friend, a published playwright, had written a play and her publishing company asked her to make multiple revisions on it before it could be published. My boss asked me to review this script and make suggestions, revisions, comments, criticisms, & c "as soon as possible."

Actually, before she asked me to do this, she volunteered my services to the playwright.

"Please don't do that again," I said to my boss when I was informed that my services had been volunteered without my knowledge or acquiescence.

"Do what?" she asked innocently, quite possibly resisting the urge to bat her eyelashes.

"You know what," I said flatly. I've known my boss since I was eleven, so I can talk to her this way, rather like the way we churlish boys abuse our mothers.

"I thought you'd love the opportunity to be more creative!" replied my boss, feigning hurt.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see slaving over someone else's bullshit children's musical and working diligently to further her career as an opportunity to be "more creative" nor do I see it as something I, or anybody else, would "love" to do.

But that's beside the point. I did it, partly because I was already commited to do it, and partly as a favor to my boss.

The musical, by the way, sucks donkeynips. It has all the hallmarks of a musical about high schoolers written by a fifty year-old woman, because that is precisely what it is. There are the stereotypical characters, even referred to in the character list as "The Jock," "The Nerd," "The Cheerleader," and "The Artsy Girl."

I mean, seriously? Shoot me in the teeth.

But I took several hours, on a Saturday, mind you, to review this woman's daft little musical, because her publisher was breathing down her neck to receive the final revisions by Monday. I reviewed and edited the work, even adding monologues and dialogue of my own, and emailed her four pages of notes. Then, I washed my hands of it.

Until she emailed me back not 25 minutes later with 10 more questions about the play, and other character ideas to consider and get feedback on. Now, I should have said, "Sorry, you got your feedback already. If you want more jumpy mattress, you'll have to put another quarter in" but, of course, I didn't. Because I am a slave, a doormat, an assfuck, a limpwimp. More of my weekend got pissed away making changes and suggestions and additions and deletions to this manuscript that I don't give a hoot in Christ's left nip about. I sent her another email, indicating in a very polite way that this was the end of my critique session. She emailed back and was appropriately grateful.

I didn't hear from the playwright until yesterday, when she called up my office.

"Oh, I'm actually glad you picked up the phone," she remarked. Gee, thanks.

She went on to say how helpful the revisions were and how they made the play much stronger, which was nice to hear. She also mentioned that the publishing company was pleased, which was also nice to hear, since nothing I've written has pleased a publishing company since 2001. She then mentioned that she gave me "credit" in the script for my aid, and I won't lie and say that didn't please me either, because it did, though a fee of $1,000 would have pleased me a good deal more. Unfortunately, she did not stop there.

"And I wanted to let you know that I'll be contacting you again in the future to consult on some of my other musicals that I have coming down the pike that need a fresh voice, because I really see you as a dramaturg. Isn't that how you see yourself?"

This is where I ceased being pleased.

From the ever-trusty Wikipedia, for those of you not familiar with the term: "the dramaturg will often conduct research into the historical and social conditions, specific locations, time periods, and/or theatrical styles of plays chosen by the company, to assist the playwright, director and/or design team in their production."

In short order, The Playwright's Bitch.

I think this is what one might call a "back-handed compliment." I have definitely been on the receiving end of such compliments before, and I know distinctly what they feel like when delivered. Now, this playwright may very well think that it's a high honor to be called upon to flush out and finesse her simple and fatuous theatre pieces, but I do not share that opinion.

Proud? Sure I am.

Snob? Probably.

I think, though, I was less offended by her suggestion that I be her own private, in-pocket, free-of-charge dramaturg than I was by her incredibly and outlandishly presumptuous question, "Isn't that how you see yourself?"

Isn't that how I see myself? As what? As chained to your hip, spending my free time reviewing outdated and ridiculous feel-good musicals about pimples and algebra?

No. Most definitely not.

"I see myself as a writer," I said to my boss this morning, recounting the conversation to her in a voice close to breaking, "but I suppose nobody else does," I said as I turned on my heels and walked out the door. On my way to go to Staples. To stand there for half an hour making photocopies. Of one of this woman's stupid plays.

And so maybe I'm just not.

Of course, I'm a blogger-- you know that. But, is that the same thing as being a writer? I vacillate on that point. I perform in amateur G&S operettas-- does that make me an actor? Maybe. Does it make me a singer? No, I'm no singer. Does affiliation with the arts always have to be dependent on whether or not you get paid? I don't necessarily think so, but that is how culture defines you. The insipid, scripted question you hear the most when meeting some painful new schmuck at a party, "So, whaddyoo do?" refers, of course, to what you doo, for money.

I don't know what titles or jobs or hobbies or anything really means anymore. One thing I do know quite clearly is that, at no point in my life will I answer the question, "So, whaddyoo do?" by saying,

"I'm a dramaturg. Nice to meet you."

Because neither of those statements will probably be true, especially if you write children's musicals.

Their Stodgy Old Cuteness

I think it's probably pretty likely that, when most Americans think about English culture, if they ever do, the word "cute" wouldn't immediately leap to mind as an appropriate adjective to describe the British. We tend to think of them as stuffy, boring, uptight-- that's the overwhelming American stereotype (sorry, Sebby-Debs, but it's true). Our minds turn to pomp and pomposity. If we're old enough, we think about the Coronation. If we're not quite that old, we think of Charles and Diana's wedding. If we're younger still, we think of Diana's funeral and, any way you slice those memories and television broadcasts, the word cute is still pretty far afield from what we perceive is the English way.

As many of you know, I am a dedicated anglophile, and my condition as only worsened with age. I first suspected the English of being a cute culture when I began my love affair with Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. There, W. S. Gilbert created an adorable world of parliamentary faeiries, sailors who never swear (well, hardly ever), pirates who are duty-bound and weep when they hear someone is an orphan, police officers who are sensitive and sentimental, and Japanese people named "Pish-Tush," "Pooh-Bah," and "Yum-Yum."

Could this notoriously bombastic, proper, conservative British gentleman with silver-colored sideburns and walrus mustache, clad in his dark frock coat and beaver top hat be harboring the trappings of a cute culture in disguise? Mate his precious characters to Arthur Sullivan's sparkling, glittering, whimsical melodies and there can be no doubt.

If you are wanting for further evidence of the covert cuteness of British culture, go into a bakery there and order a cupcake. Just remember to call it a "fairy cake."

Speaking of food, last night my wife and I were fortunate enough to visit a supermarket located in the next town over, you know, where the "goyim" live! She confronted me upon my arrival home from work and announced that we had "NO FOOD!" in the house. Concerned as I was by this bold pronouncement, I was loathe to venture out to the supermarkets located in our Jew 'hood, as yesterday was the day before Rosh Hashanah, and every Jew in the neighborhood would be at the supermarket, haggling over the expiration dates on their mackrel coupons. I couldn't deal with that.

"Let's go to the market in the goy neighborhood. Deal?"

"Deal."

While we were at this supermarket, we wandered into the "ethnic/foreign" food aisle. You've been there. Lots of Goya products-- frijoles, rice-n-beans, taco shells, and then there's the plethora of soy-and-soy-related sauces, bean sprouts, shrimp-flavored chips, ramen noodles, and the odd Indian meal. And, even in the goy market, there was gefilte fish and matzah, for the wandering Jews who happen to wander in.

"Oh my God, Bobber-- look at this!" my wife squealed. "They have a faggy British section!"

My wife always knows just what to say to me.

I stared in disbelief. Kippers. Fucking kippers. Unbelievable.

There was HP Sauce, which I had read about in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4," back when I was basically the same age. There were Jaffa Cakes, which I had heard referenced in the British mockumentary "People Like Us," a brilliant and almost totally forgotten-about show that I discovered on BBC America in college. There were Ryvita crackers, which Sybil offered to the health inspector in an episode of "Fawlty Towers." There was salad cream, unforgettably offered by Basil to an unctous little bastard in the dining room of another episode of "Fawlty Towers."

Basil: "We don't have any salad cream. The chef made this freshly this morning."

Boy's Mother: "He likes salad cream."

Boy: "That's puke, that is."

Basil{through clenched teeth}: "Well at least it's fresh puke."

As you can probably tell, I was in Brit Heaven. All of my fond, warm memories of the books, TV shows and films I enjoyed as a boy were coming back to me in that supermarket last night.

"Well, we have to buy something from this section," I said to my wife.

What recession?

I settled on the Jaffa Cakes. I don't know why-- I guess because "People Like Us" was the last British program (ahem, "programme") that my wife and I watched together, in which WPC (that's Woman Police Constable, for you yanks) Jane Thorpe offers some Jaffas to her male partner on the force. It's her solemn duty to offer the male constables tea and cakes, apparently.

As I looked over the box of Jaffa Cakes, (soft, cake-like circles with a dollop of orange jam half-covered in chocolate) I couldn't help but laugh, right there in the supermarket, thinking that the conclusion I had begun to form about the underlying cuteness of British culture way back in my early obsessional days with G&S was still true today. Here's how the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group (which is based in Ireland, by the way), advertise Jaffa Cakes on the box:

"10 Spongy Cakes with the Squidgy Orange Bit."

---------

I'm sorry-- the squidgy orange bit?

Wait. It gets better.

With this box, you get "Bigger Jaffa" and "NEW recipe with lots more orangey centre yippee!"

ORANGEY CENTRE YIPPEE, MOTHERFUCKERS! ORANGEY CENTRE YIPPEE!

I don't know how the English culture, by and large, feels about its inherent cuteness. I suspect it makes certain members of the population a tad uncomfortable. I can imagine Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, all 6'4" of him getting hot underneath his celluloid shirt collar at being referred to as "cute." Maybe only his Lucy could get away with that, but I suspect it's one component of British culture that often flies beneath the radar.

Look at the Japanese-- stern-faced businessmen in black suits walking around with "Hello, Kitty" cellphone charms attached to their Nokias. Cuteness is out there, folks, and it's not just for children. We lose many things in this world when we grow up, and I think that's what J.M. Barrie, another Englishman who was often moved to flights of cuteness, was fighting against as his immortal Peter Pan shouted out, "I WON'T GROW UP!" He was fighting against the loss of cuteness that we so often suffer from as we age. It doesn't have to be.

But, in America, it so often is. Americans, especially men, feel this extraordinary lust for machismo. We need to drive fucking trucks. We need to wear camo. We need to drink 74 ounces of coffee in the morning. We need to eat breakfasts referred to as "The Lumberjack." We need to wear boots, even if we don't work outdoors. We need to wear scruff. We need to scratch our asses and our balls.

I don't know what that's all about, but that's what we're all about. So I guess I'll just sit back with my Jaffa Cakes and enjoy the squidgy orange bit while I sit cross-legged on the sofa with a cup of tea and Utopia, Ltd. plays merrily on the record player.

Join me, if you please. I'll even save you some McVitie's Hobnobs. Be careful, though-- "one nibble and you're nobbled."

Best Wishes and Love

Like a lot of twentysomethings, I struggle with God. And I don't mean that we arm-wrestle.

It's always been a tenuous alliance, ever since I asked, "Daddy, are we Jewish?" on a family car ride at age 6. My father answered by reaching behind his driver's seat with his clumsy, bear paw of a hand in a vain attempt to control the car whilst simultaneously trying to pull my right leg off.

Of course I knew we were Jewish. In those days, we walked to synagogue, for Christ's sake. What the fuck did I think we were doing-- cardio? I was just trying to stir up the pot, to push my father to the point of explosion. To goad God.

My wife and I had a little picnic dinner out on one of the local college campuses, the one with the duck and turtle pond, and, as we sat there on our blanket, feeling all collegiate again, our post-dinner conversation drifted seamlessly proto-philosophical dimension to another. Just like college conversations do, except without the pot or frisbee-golf.

"Do you think some extremely religious people are crazy, or were they crazy before they got hyper-religious?" I asked, her head resting against my sternum.

"Well, I think there's something in the rituals that appeals to a certain type of person who is obsessive," she replied.

"Right," I said, "like wacko Orthodox Jews. Because the people who convert to Orthodox Judaism have a shitload of rituals and rules, not only that govern prayer, but that run their entire lives-- and you can really get obsessed with that bullshit."

Seriously, the laws dictating what you can and can't do (mostly can't) on Shabbat could fill up a goddamn bookcase. And it's very easy to get so bogged down in whether you can dunk your tea bag on Shabbat or whether or not you can eat bagels that were prepared on Shabbat (well, only if they were prepared by the black non-Jew in the kosher kitchen, and, was the water boiled on Shabbat? etc, etc, etc) such that you can totally ignore or at least forget the meaning behind all of these things.

And, of course, what is devout and pious to one person can really be regarded as totally clinical to another person. Of course, it's the sum total of a person's beliefs and behaviors, attitudes and lifestyle that determine if you're religious or crazy. I mean, it's great that you're in synagogue a lot and that you study the good book and that you pray all the time, but, if you do all that and you live in a one room shack covered in filth, don't pay any bills, count your eyebrows and eat hamster food, then I think we might have a problem.

I've always been skeptical of hyper-religiosity, because I worried that it was a veil covering something unpleasant, that it is sometimes used as a mask or a venetian blind. It's sometimes the case, sometimes not. Child molestation, mental illness, birth defects, social ignorance, racism or other prejudice, sometimes hyper-religiosity is just an innocuous-looking cloak to be worn over these most regrettable negatives. "Ah, but he is such a learned man-- studies the Torah night and day!" "Oh, but he goes to mass and confession every week!"

Well.

At 29, I wish that I had a better handle on my views on religion or God. The pragmatist in me knows that the whole thing is made up, that every people on this planet has their own spin on it, their stories and their legends and their books-- their guides to morality and behavior. And I don't resent or make fun of any entity that desires to prescribe morality for human beings, because, really, we need it. We're a scandalous lot, we are. But I know that religion is always going to be manipulated, either from the top or the bottom, by people who want to use it for their own nefarious reasons, and that depresses and upsets me. As a generally pessimistic person, I tend to focus on this darker aspect of religion, and that, I suppose, is my own failing. Fallen from grace.

On Sunday afternoon, my friend Bob, who is 64, came to our house to put the finishing touches of trim around the master closet that he built for me and my wife. We met Bob through my various Gilbert & Sullivan activities. He's a wonderful man, a music educator and a conductor and, thankfully for us, a pretty skilled carpenter. He popped in some nails in some thin pieces of trim with his pneumatic nail gun and, as he was getting into his truck, we shook hands warmly.

"You know," he said to me, "you gave me too much money."

"Maybe you didn't charge enough," I said. I felt guilty. He said he was giving us "The Thespian Rate," and originally quoted us a price of $500-$600. He eventually finished the job, after multiple trips out here, and he said he wanted $500. I gave him more.

"Well," he said, "you're very kind. Oh, and Winnie sends her best." Winnie's Bob's wife, who accompanied him to our house last weekend with bagels and cream cheese for brunch.

"Well, send her our best wishes right back."

"Oh," Bob said, "and I'm heading to Julie's tomorrow to supervise some guys who are putting in $10,000 worth of fencing at her house, and I spoke to her on the phone and told her I was seeing you guys today and she was so excited. She said to please send you her love and all her best."

Julie's another Gilbert & Sullivan friend of ours. My wife and I love that woman to bits.

"Oh, send her our love, too."

"I will," Bob promised.

"Jeez, all these best wishes and love-- it's like God's singin' in our ears today," I remarked.

"Well," Bob smiled and said, "that's what God is, you know." He waved out the window of his truck and drove off.

An Open Letter to the D-Bags Sitting in Front of Us At the Opera

Dear D-Bags,

Hi.

I'm the guy who was sitting in back of you last night at the Academy of Music for the Savoy Opera Company's production of The Pirates of Penzance. You probably don't remember me, but I remember you.

What I remember vividly was you screwing around on your fucking Blackberries. During the overture. It's funny-- Sullivan didn't compose many of the overtures himself, usually leaving that task to colleagues like Alfred Cellier, who arranged the Pirates overture. Do you know why Sullivan didn't compose many of the overtures himself? Because of inconsiderate, shitnecked little fucktitties like you.

Sullivan was extremely dismayed after opening night of Yeomen of the Guard. He took great pains to compose a beautiful, soaring overture-- and the audience talked all the way through it. He swore that he would never compose another overture himself again. Of course, he also was always swearing that he would never work with Gilbert again. And again. And again. And he always did. And he wrote two more overtures himself, for the Gondoliers and The Grand Duke. And I'm sure people talked all through those, too.

People like you.

You see, people have been rude dicklicks in every century. They've always found ways to be self-important little tadgers, but now cellphones make it so much easier to be an asshole in a dark theatre. The iridescent glow from your screens are so distracting and so obnoxious.

I realize that you must be extremely important, you waifish, slightly intoxicated blonde tramp with your metrosexual husband thing. An on-call neurovascular surgeon, perhaps? The mayor of Seattle in for a visit? A CIA operative? Or maybe you're General David Patraeus after undergoing a covert gender reassignment procedure.

Maybe.

But you're probably just an asshole.

Did you like how, after the overture concluded, I made it a point to clap extremely loudly and extremely close to your left ear? That's my passive/aggressive way of saying,

"Hi. I'd like to bury your Blackberry inside your cerebellum."

You're lucky it was me and not my hotblooded, Israeli father sitting behind you, or he would have killed you with a Mossad tactical maneuver that involves the rapid insertion of a big, hairy thumb into the back of your skull.

It's funny-- I was outraged at paying $50.00 for a theatre ticket, but I did it anyway because a friend of mine was in this show, and I love Gilbert & Sullivan like I love little else. I thought that, by paying $50.00 for a seat that I had paid for my right to witness this show in relative freedom for annoyances or disruptions. You paid $50.00 for a theatre ticket, and you believe that paying this amount gave you the right to behave like a total asshole-- snickering at your texts and private, very loudly whispered jokes all through the first act. You obviously wanted to be somewhere else, and that was clearly indicated by the fact that you and your annoying companions left at intermission.

I realize that you're too uncultured to appreciate Sullivan's music and that you're too stupid to understand any of Gilbert's humor anyway, so it's just as well that you buggered off to go get even more drunk at some ridiculous hipster bar where you pay way too much for drinks you don't even like and drunktext your soulless, vapid friends who don't care about you.

You had no business being at that show. You weren't socially awkward or wearing a bowtie, you didn't have buck-teeth or a back-parting or seersucker trousers or saddle-shoes. Gilbert & Sullivan is clearly not your speed. And I'm glad you realized that early, so that my wife and I could enjoy Act II-- the entrance of the delightfully timid constables, the clever device of invoking Queen Victoria's name, the delightful plot contrivance and the most ingenius paradox.

Phony

I spent much of this weekend writing a grant. It's for an ambulance company-- not the one I used to work for. They want a powered stretcher that automatically lowers and raises at the push of a button, so the EMTs and paramedics operating it don't pop their vertebrae every time they have to transport a fat bison. It's also extra durable and extra wide, again, for the benefit of the bison.

I mean "patient."

I met the managing director of this ambulance squad after I had written a scathing editorial in the Philadelphia Daily News about the state of Philadelphia's 911 system, which is pretty poor. I wrote the letter after a woman called 911 complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. According to national standards, the average response time for an emergency call to 911 should be under 9 minutes. An ambulance showed up at her house 41 minutes later. She was obese, like many patients are, and the crew had a very difficult time getting her out of the house and into the ambulance. Once they had her loaded in, the truck wouldn't start. They called for a second unit, which had to race across town to get there. They arrived in around 3/4 of an hour, too.

Don't be surprised when I tell you that the patient died.

In the editorial, I wrote that the Philadelphia Fire Department, manning 40 ambulances, cannot possibly provide effective and timely service to the 1,447,335 citizens of Philadelphia without assistance, and I suggested that they integrate any number of the almost 50 different private ambulance companies that operate in the city for help when Philly can't respond to calls for help.

This gentleman, the managing director of a private ambulance company, read my editorial and was impressed. He had long been saying the same thing I was saying, and he was happy to find a friend. He asked me to come work for him as a grantwriter. This was last year, and it began my first paid gig as a writer.

The only problem is, I'm not a grantwriter.

In my regular, full-time job, I write grants also. But I'm not a grantwriter. I never learned how to write a grant. Nobody ever told me. I've never been to a grantwriting seminar. I've never read "Grantwriting for Retards" and I've never been formally trained on the ins and outs of writing grants. I've been given advice by successful grantwriters. I've looked at a lot of grants, both successful and unsuccessful, and, by this point in time, I've written probably close to ten full grant applications. I've applied for a total of probably close to $200,000. Let's just say I haven't earned nearly that much for my benefactors' benefit.

I told you: I'm not a grantwriter.

Engaging in professional or even avocational activities for which I am unqualified, untrained or unskilled appears to be a hallmark of my existence. My level of fakery, then, must be pretty good, because people keep trusting me with responsibilities, hiring me for jobs, giving me assignments and casting me in roles when, probably, they shouldn't. In November, I'll be appearing in my fifth Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. I know nothing about singing technique. I've never had a private voice lesson. But I get by, I guess. People keep handing me the keys to Gilbert's Rolls Royce. Don't ask me why.

At age 20, I was hired as an optician in a small eyeglasses store. I didn't even know what an optician was. Was it the doctor? Did I just get hired as an eye doctor as a sophomore in college? Was I going to have to puff air in peoples' eyes and perform surgery on fishook eyelids? Didn't you have to go to school for that? To my relief, I found myself cleaning 300 pair of eyeglasses and the display boards on my first day of work. I eventually sold, repaired, cleaned, and adjusted eyeglasses, checked prescriptions, managed the doctor's appointment book, ordered lenses, cut and grooved lenses (though I never got very good at this), measured bifocal heights and did a lot of other boring stuff like taking out the trash (which I was very good at.) I learned how to do all of this stuff by watching my boss. But I didn't actually know anything. I was faking my way through it.

Then I was hired as a loan officer. Talk about faking it. Amortization schedules? Debt-to-income ratios? Charge-offs? Lending practices? I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. But I had an office with a big desk, and a computer, and a filing cabinet and a bunch of loan applications that I barely knew what they meant. I was on the phone with banks and they were saying shit to me that was like some alien dialect. I was truly alone in the ocean with this one. But I hung on for a year. Being a phony.

We're all phonies to a certain degree, I suppose. Some more than others of course. People trust us with things and tasks that they probably shouldn't, mostly because they're probably too lazy to go out and look for someone who is actually qualified. Plus, qualified people are much more expensive than unqualified people, aren't they? They demand big bucks for their competence. Us? We're just happy to have a job.

My favorite character from literature is probably Holden Caulfield, not that that should be pretty surprising to any of you who know me well, or even those of you who don't know me well. I love Holden very much, and it depresses me that, if he met me, he probably wouldn't like me half as much as I like him. He'd undoubtedly call me a "phony" but I guess that's okay, because I am. And he is, too, and I guess that's the point. Holden and I have very little tolerance for the world, but, then again, I don't think we're particularly fond of ourselves either.

"My brother D.B.'s a writer and all, and my brother Allie, the one that died, that I told you about, was a wizard. I'm the only really dumb one."

Apparently, I AM the Very Model of a Modern Major-General

In the heady excitement of stripping wallpaper, scheduling allergist's appointments and generally running about like an epileptic chipmunk, I forgot to mention that I got cast as Major-General Stanley in "The Pirates of Penzance."

I now get to share the stage with a bevy of adopted daughters, dodder and mince around like an affected prat, and sing the immortal song, "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General," a piece of music which most Americans think is from "Animaniacs."

This will be my fourth principal patter role in a Gilbert & Sullivan operatta, and I'm proud to be ticking them off, one by one. Only ten left to go. It's a good thing I'm still young.

The audition was okay, as auditions go. I feel like my singing showed improvement while my comic timing was on the decline, but I guess the auditioners didn't feel that way. Or maybe they did, and there was just nobody else. I don't know, nor do I care that much either. I got the part, and it's always a nice thing to be wanted, except when it's by the police.

Rehearsals don't start until September, so it's difficult to get really excited about the show, and I have trouble getting excited about shows in general. Part of me thinks it's a waste of time and energy-- do audiences really give a shit about who's in a certain role in a given show? Does it really matter? There are many, many people who could do the part just as easily as me-- why does it have to be me? Sometimes I browbeat myself about doing community theatre. I could probably get paid work if I dusted up my resume, sent out headshots and put a little effort into it. But I don't.

G&S doesn't require serious acting chops (some would argue there's no acting involved at all, and that's true sometimes, but only if you can't act) and it satisfies my longing to pretend I'm British. Also, the Gilbert & Sullivan patter roles are relatively easy and comfortable for me-- it ain't Pinter and it ain't Arthur Miller or Eugene Ionesco. Not only do I appreciate and respect the talents and work of the two men intellectually, but I am over the moon for the music and the wit.

The thing I do have to work hard at, though, is the music. I can barely read music, so I fake a lot of things. I listen to recordings constantly to augment my meager sightreading abilities. Mrs. Apron tutors me privately, coaching me. I sing the songs constantly so that it is more muscle memory than anything else.

I'm pleased to have another opportunity to perform. I feel like I get better each time, and that's saying a lot because, the first time, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. If you had told me, six years ago, that I would be singing solo operetta roles I would have laughed so hard I would have soiled myself, and you. But, here we are. I'm pleased to have the opportunity because I feel like I do have some talent-- certainly not enough for film or Broadway or even Philly professional theatre, but, there's something-- and, as long as there's something, then it should be shared.

I suppose that's why I have this blog instead of a diary. It serves the same basic function, a record of thoughts and musings and feelings-- and that's what it's for. I suppose, if it were just for me, I wouldn't try as hard-- and there certainly wouldn't be funny, hyperlinked pictures-- but I recognize that this is a place for you, too. You're here for some reason, and maybe I don't know what that is, and maybe I don't need to know, but I'm glad that you're all there, sitting in the audience, clapping away as the lights go down.

It's a little army, I know. But I'm proud to be your Major-General.