Oh Good Grief, Not Another Blog: Digital Presence Sure Is A Lot Of Work

I forgot where I saw it or what the number was, but the number of Web pages being generated daily, or by the second, is some astronomical Eisteinian figure. Not that that means anything, except companies like EMC or whoever the "leading worldwide provider of enterprise-wide storage devices" is nowadays are hopping up and down. Hoarders of the digital ones and zeros.

I had to make a new blog. It's over on my new Web site, which I also had to make. The site is my digital presence as a playwright, and everyone, I'm told, has to have one. So the little nerd in me found a cheap (Weebly--it's free!) development platform (only a nerd would use that term with a straight face) and in less than two days I had me a brand-spanking new Web site. Pretty darn proud of myself, yes I am. Who said all those years in high tech were wasted years? Just for some gravy I also threw together this little puppy. Aren't I a hot shit? Oh, when you check out the puppy, vote for me. I might get my card up in Times Square and wouldn't that be awesome for An Emerging Playwright?

But now I have the problem of having to keep two blogs going. It's like two stoves in the wintertime, they have to generate some heat or else the analytics will drop. That's right, I added my own analytics to the site, so I could track visitors. Plus I have to keep my site current with new content or else people will stop coming. Oh shoot, and I started another blog at BU for my creative writing class to post, so I'm going to have to watch that one, too. And let's not forget my Facebook page. I post a lot there, there, reposting and commenting.

All this digital presence stuff sure is lot of work. When am I going to have time to write plays?

Two of my plays are listed at gorillatango.com

Two of my plays, Love on the Rocks and Norwood, Ohio are now listed at Writer Source at gorillatango.com.

Go to Writer Source and right now you can click on newest and they're right at the top.

Or here is Love and here is Norwood.

Check them out and rate them.

Come on producers. Chicago is the town for playwrights right now. You guys are doing so much cool stuff.  Let's collaborate.

Paul Kahn, playwright

I heard the other day that Paul Kahn passed on on New Year's of respiratory failure. Paul was a Boston-area playwright, plus I'm sure other things--he was quite the remarkable human being. But he came into my life as a playwright, and that's the only way I knew him.

I met him when I was asked to perform in a play he wrote. I'm embarrassed to say that I can't remember the name of it, or the name of the character I played--a Holocaust survivor who won an award for a book the character wrote. John Tierney, another fine community theater actor played my agent/publisher, and Kate Blair played my wife. Michelle Aguillon, who was the one who asked me to take the role and president of The Hovey Players, a community theater in Waltham, Mass., directed, and we performed the piece at the Acme Theater in Maynard at a festival of ten-minute plays David Sheppard was putting on. David still runs that theater today.

Enough of circling around the details.

It was a sweet piece, with a lot of emotion and a nice story line that carried the characters up to the climax and set us back down hard on the other side. We all loved the play, and we were rehearsing the hell out of it one night in the upstairs room at the Abbott Theater where the Hovey Players live when Paul stopped by to see the rehearsal. At that point not even Michelle had met him.

It was a shock to meet him. Not that Paul noticed or probably could have cared less. Paul rode in a wheelchair that was like a Sherman tank. It had to be big, not that Paul was that big, but because I guess it had to carry all his shit. Batteries to drive the thing, and his oxygen and all that. And the thing was, that night it was pouring buckets, so Paul and the whole apparatus was covered in this big poncho or tarp or something with just Paul's head sticking out of this hole in the center of the tarp. I mean, it was just kind of like this head floating around. It appeared to be a struggle for Paul to talk. The words came out slow and his head jerked around when he talked, and his eyes bugged out of his head when he formed words. But with all that coming into the room, also came his personality, his wit, his intelligence, his charm, his insight, his energy, his peace, his passion, and his determination.

We worked that freakin' play that night, with Paul's help, and when he was leaving he told us a true story, that he had recently been to a Halloween party where he went as--are you ready for this?--the head of St. John the Baptist. God, that man could make me laugh.

I worked with Paul one time after that, when I did a staged reading of a poem he wrote. I'd go over to his house, where I met Ruth, his wife. We'd chat a bit, then Paul and I would go off and rehearse. There was a gentle calmness that pervaded their home. I'll always remember that.

He was such a talent, but I think what struck me most about him was his inspirational quality, which I suspect he might take as an insult. But, you see, about the time I met him, I was going through some pretty dark times emotionally, and suddenly it seemed to me I was working with Paul and another beautiful artist who, coincidentally was a quadruple amputee. I'm not the kind of person who believes people "are put into your life for a reason." I don't believe in some grand puppetmaster. But I remember observing these two as they worked, and thinking to myself, they had to overcome some immense physical obstacles. The way they look on the outside is the way I look on the inside. I have to do emotionally what they did physically.

That's what Paul did for me and he never knew it.

He'll be missed by a lot of people. I wish I could have worked with him more. Because, man that guy could make me laugh.