Bonny Blue

Tomorrow is the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. Confederate guns blasting the bejesus out of Fort Sumter. Hurrah, boys.

Hurrah.

My favorite Civil War tune is the "Bonnie Blue Flag."

I used to whistle this song as I made my gimpy way down the halls of my prestigious, public high school in between classes, blissfully unaware of, or indifferent to, the fact that openly expressing a fervor for Civil War marches and ballads was a way to remain utterly sexless.

Of course, I tell myself now that high schoolers back in the late nineties were, as a general rule, having far less sex than high schoolers are today. I'm not aware of any empirical data that either proves this statement right or wrong. I could probably Google it, but we all know I'm far too lazy for that. Besides, I only employ stats when I'm sure they're going to prove my point, and when they're relatively easy to understand.

It's a Southern song, one of the most popular during the course of the war, and after, perhaps only superceded in Southern-fried love by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." I used to whistle that one a lot in high school, too. It is perhaps old folklore I am repeating that there is still a law on the books in our nation's capital that you can be arrested for whistling "Dixie" on Federal grounds. Fortunately, such a brazen act was permitted at my Pennsylvania high school, and I faced no grievous repercussions for my mini-treason.

Civil War songs beg to be sung, hummed, and whistled. If they were good enough to keep thousands of young men from going absolutely insane on thirty mile a day marches in 100+ degree heat, you can pretty much rest assured they can be of service anywhere, at any time. To my ear, the Southern songs pack more of a punch, but "The Battle Cry of Freedom" is as stirring a song as I've ever heard.

"For although he may be poor,
No man shall be a slave,
That is the battle cry of freedom."

Can I get an "A-men?"

The earliest memory I have of falling for Civil War ballads was when I was ten years old. In a thrift shop somewhere, I randomly purchased, for the weighty cost of $0.50, a tape of Civil War marches and folksongs. I played it for my father one Saturday morning in his Pontiac Bonneville as he drove me to his factory. He and I spent lots of Saturdays together when I was a boy. He would go for 1/2-a-day on Saturdays and take me with him. I would play on the conveyor belt (not a good idea, in hindsight), take the messages from his answering machine, screw around with the time-clock and the tape-dispensing machine, basically touch anything that had buttons, and, on the long commute, I'd play my Civil War music for him.

"Where the hell did you get to like this music?" my father asked me one morning.

"I don't know," I said.

And, really, I didn't. I still don't. Sometimes I wonder if I've been somehow genetically programmed to store an affection for the Victorian era and its trappings:

pocketwatches
eccentric facial hair
bowler hats
three-piece suits
antique eyeglasses
antique typewriters
The Civil War
Gilbert & Sullivan
Mark Twain

I mean, I could go on. Really.

Sometimes, in the mornings, when I go into work early, the first assignment I have is "Personal Care." All it consists of is unlocking the cabinets in the day room for the ladies, putting out the mirrors, hair styling gel, curling irons and hair dryers and supervising their use, while I sit back in a wicker chair and drink my coffee and make sure no one's strangling themselves (or anyone else) with a hair dryer).

It's one of my favorite assignments, and not just because it's basically me getting paid to sit on my keister, it's because I get to play my Victorian music, because, let's face it: that shit's pretty therapeutic. The two CDs I favor are the Gilbert & Sullivan overtures, and a CD called "Mark Twain's America."

The latter CD is all piano music played by Jacqueline Schwab (if you've ever seen a Ken Burns documentary, you've heard her) performing songs that either Sam Clemens professed in a journal or book that he personally liked, or just songs that were popular while he was alive.

"I love this version of 'Beautiful Dreamer'," a patient will inevitably say to me, at least once a week. Without fail, somebody (always a female) recognizes "Beautiful Dreamer." It always surprises me when some 50-year-old woman with schizophrenia, wearing a bathrobe, pieces of tissue stuck inside her ears, and three pair of pants picks out "Beautiful Dreamer" amongst the Civil War-era ballads and melodies.

Every once in a while, a patient will ask me to write down the title of the CD for them. I don't harbor delusions that they're racing each other to Amazon to purchase it, but it's nice to be asked. It's nice to see them sitting in their wicker chairs, with their eyes closed, and a contented smile crossing their lips-- even if it's just for a moment.

They're my beautiful dreamers. They're bonny blue.

I'm One of Them

It's official: I've joined the ranks of the mustachioed.

Granted, I'm growing it for The Pirates of Penzance, but that doesn't alter the fact that there's a Rip Van Winkle ferret, snoozing beneath my giant proboscis. It's no child-molester or Hitler mustache-- that would be more of a rat or a hamster. This bad boy is definitely a ferret, sweeping all the way down to my jaw-line.

Oh, I've also got huge fucking mutton chops, too.

The show doesn't open until just before Thanksgiving, so I'm going to look like this for a while. I was wearing a full beard up until last night, but I felt compelled to shave down to what I intend the Major-General to look like, so the director can tell me if she likes what I've done because, if she doesn't, I kind of have to start from the beginning.

I hope she likes it.

She should, because from photographs I've seen of other Major-Generals, both Gilbertian and real Civil War-era ones, I pretty much look the part. Except that, no matter how Victorian I style my facial hair, I still look like a big Jew, which most Major-Generals and Civil War generals didn't.

But I can't help that. Maybe our make-up artist can, but I have my big Jewish doubts.

Ever since college when I appeared as Deputy Governor Danforth in our regrettable and obligatory production of The Crucible, I've grown my own facial hair for roles when required. Sure, I could use the fake stuff, but anybody who's ever had fake staches and beards applied with spirit gum will understand when I evoke the hallowed phrase, "Never Again." Aside from the fact that that spirit gum shit is terribly painful and nearly impossible to get off, you spend the entirety of your time on-stage worrying that the false hair is going to fall off during a pivotal moment. I can remember appearing in a high school production of Kiss Me, Kate adorned with a fake mustache, and unconsciously touching it the whole time I was on-stage, just making sure it was still affixed. Not good.

And so, once I could grow my own, I reasoned, why the hell would I ever use fake facial hair again? It's like stuffing clementines in your shorts when you've got a 14-inch dong, a situation I have never needed to ponder in any realm save the hypothetical.

Of course, the bitch about real facial hair is that you can't just wear it to rehearsals and performances-- you're stuck with it. And your wife is stuck with it. Last night, upon returning home from her art class she saw me and exclaimed, "Oh, noooooo! You're going to look like THAT for my birthday pictures?!!!"

Oops.

They say that artists suffer for their art, but, at times like these I am reminded that their spouses invariably suffer more. Fortunately, I'm not a real, professional artist, so my wife will never have to suffer the indignities of having our electricity shut off, or me flying to L.A. sixty-eight times a year, or appearing in commercials for Preparation-H. She just has to put up with me looking like Ambrose Burnside for two months.

Fortunately, when we woke up this morning, she didn't look over at me and scream and, when she left for work, she gave me a kiss-- so I think it's all going to work out.

There is a definite anti-mustache sentiment in pop culture these days, or perhaps I should say "these centuries." Eyeglass shapes come and go with regularity, round to square to rectangle to round again-- waistlines go up and they go down, men's suit jackets haven't changed much in a hundred years, except when lapels got as big as airplane wings in the 1970s because everybody was on drugs, but the mustache hasn't been regarded as anything less than creepy since maybe 1910. They weren't seen practically at all in the 1700s-- can you imagine George Washington or Mozart in a broached 3/4-length coat, powdered perriwig, white stockings, buckled shoes.... and a mustache? They wouldn't have known what to do with them. Do we powder them? I mean, Christ, they put wigs over perfectly good hair-- would mustaches have required wigs, too? Talk about a dilemma.

Then, in the 1860s, there was a mustachioed turning point: we didn't trust a Civil War officer higher than the rank of colonel unless he had abundant fur sprouting out from some of the most dubious facial locations. I suppose, if you were going to lead men to their certain deaths, the thinking was: you'd goddamn well better look like a man yourself.

There's a great line in "The History Boys." A young, fresh-faced teacher is brought in to tutor a class of genius slackasses in preparation for their entrance exams and interviews at Oxford and Cambridge. The teacher has a brief tete-a-tete with the arrogant, priggish headmaster who looks him up and down and declares with dismay, "You're very young." He then ends the meeting with a stern piece of advice,

"Consider growing a mustache."

Later in the play, the headmaster explodes at the teacher for having spoken of the Holocaust in a controversial manner, in an attempt to get his boys to think past cliche. As the headmaster is about to stride out of the room, he glares at the teacher unhappily and says,

"Didn't I suggest that you grow a mustache?"

Of course, the headmaster in this play is stuck in an era where a mustache commanded respect and possibly reverence. Today, it incites ridicule and contempt, and it evokes strong negative responses in people, which I suppose I'll have to endure until the curtain comes down on Pirates.

But at least I don't have to look at it.