Overplanning Halloween

On Facebook, a friend who lives in another town was describing how the various neighborhoods and towns in her area were regulating trick-or-treat. Some had declared it must be done on Friday night and within certain hours; others said Saturday and limited hours; still others Sunday within a specific time; and there were those who said anytime on Sunday was OK.

Now, growing up on Staten Island in the 1950s and '60s, we did trick-or-treating on Halloween--and only on Halloween--no matter what day of the week it fell on. In general, the younger kids went out in daytime, usually right after school, and stayed out until dinner time. Older kids (say, 10 and up) went out after dark and usually stopped between 9 and 10 PM. Some really little ones might be out at those hours, too, with an adult accompanying them (probably because the adult had to wait until they were home from work).

I really don't understand the municipal need to control this activity as if it were equivalent to businesses doing soliciting...or a parade taking over a thoroughfare. It's children in "fancy dress" entertaining the neighbors and being rewarded with a few little pieces of candy. It's a community acting in concert, without government oversight, to celebrate and have some harmless fun.

But apparently, we have some Grinches in this world who, not content in stealing Christmas, are now stealing Halloween as well.

 

Firearms on Stage 2

 I've never worked on a film set (though I have visited a few) and never been involved with a professional theater production...but I can say this: I have worked on many amateur stage productions and none of them would ever take the risks that were apparently taken on the set of Rust that resulted in the recent tragedy.

The closest thing to a "real" gun I've ever been around on stage is a starter's pistol, the gun used to signal the beginning of a race, which is designed to do nothing more than make a loud bang--no projectile, not even the wadding that is part of a standard blank round. Even then, no one would have thought to aim that weapon at anyone. The standard was always to "cheat" a bit--the gun was pointed to the left or right of the alleged target and, thanks to distance and stagecraft, the audience is none the wiser (or, if they are, they understand it is all make-believe anyway.)

Live rounds on set? Crew and actors taking "target practice" in their down time? Fingers on triggers outside of "action" being called? Somebody is responsible for some very lax standards.

Firearms on Stage

 I'm working as an assistant stage manager for a community theater production of A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin...and that has got me thinking very hard about safety, especially after the tragic events on the set of Rust this week.

Our play famously includes a suicide by gunshot. The character in question handles the gun in two different scenes. I know our firearm is a dead weapon--purely a prop without even the possibility to be loaded, let alone fire a projectile or even a blank--and we have staged the scene so that the gunshot occurs offstage, with only the sound of the shot heard.

Still, I wonder if our audiences--we open in 11 days--will have the recent tragedy on their minds when they see the gun on our stage...and be thinking of what could happen if that gun did fire? 

"Light Sleep?"

 I did something this morning I haven't done in months--I slept late. Now, to be fair, sleeping late in this house means rolling out of bed at 7 AM, since we're usually up between 5:30 and 6. Still, it's really rare for me to do that--and rarer still for Jill to do so as well.

What kept us in bed? We're not sure, but we think light might have something to do with it. In our part of the world right now, sunrise isn't until around 7:30, so "first light" is right around 7. The blame for that is, at least in part, on Daylight Saving Time, which doesn't end in the United States until the first weekend of November. And then we'll need another month to get used to that change.

This does not mean, however, that I am in favor of year-round DST--precisely because of what it means in terms of dark early mornings. I can remember waiting at the school bus stop in deep twilight with my kids in January--and that is with Standard Time in effect! With DST, we'd have been waiting in the pitch of night. There are those who would argue that the solution to that is to start school later...but that would just turn the twilight trip from morning to afternoon. (Sunset in mid-January is 5 PM. Move school hours 90 minutes later, and that afternoon school bus is arriving home just about then.) It would also make after-school activities nearly impossible.

If anything, I would actually shorten DST. It's currently nearly two-thirds of the year! I think late April to early October is about right.

The "Spider-Man Rule"

 The recently late Colin Powell is well-known for promulgating what he called "the Pottery Barn rule" in military and diplomatic policy--"if you break it, you bought it." (Oddly enough, Pottery Barn doesn't actually have that policy.) I would like to propose a corollary--the "Spider-Man rule"--"with great power comes great responsibility."

This rule applies not only in foreign affairs but in domestic affairs and at all levels, from the tiniest municipality to the mightiest nation. It applies to the cop on the beat as much as it does to the Commander-in-Chief. If your position gives you the power to affect others, you are obligated to use that power responsibly--with justice, with equality, with mercy.

And the rule doesn't only apply to those in government or law enforcement. It applies to medicine, for example, and to business. It applies to family relations. There is scarcely any element of human life in which position implies power where it does not apply.

If the youthful readers of Spider-Man's origin story in 1962 could absorb this lesson, I fail to understand why our leaders in all fields today cannot do the same.

"Truth, Justice, and....."?

 As you have likely heard by now, DC Comics has announced a change in the time-honored phrase that defines Superman's "never-ending battle". It is no longer "truth, justice and the American way"; it now closes with "a better tomorrow".

The original version dates from the radio serial that began in the 1940s and, perhaps more significantly, the TV series starring George Reeves, that originally aired during the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. But even by the time I was watching that show in the early '60s, the phrase seemed out of place.

The Superman I knew, though raised as an American and instilled with the traditional values we associate with our nation, was a champion for more than one country. He defended the whole Earth and, while "American way" can be defined as democracy and equality under the law, too often it could be seen--even back then--as might makes right, racial prejudice, and a narrow conservatism. It's worth noting that DC regards other parts of that famed opening sequence--"Faster than a speeding bullet...." "Look up in the sky...."--as trademarks, it has never indicated the same for "truth, justice, etc." Perhaps by the late 1970s, when the company began putting little "TM" marks on those phrases, it realized "American way" was simply something that had lost a generally accepted meaning.

Of course, the usual suspects--including Fox News--have derided this change. Perhaps they think "the American way" does not include a hope for "a better tomorrow".

To Protect and Serve? Not So Much

 To protect and serve. It's the motto of many police departments in this country, emblazoned on their vehicles from coast to coast. But it seems protecting the public from COVID-19 is something many cops are unwilling to do.

Cities all over have mandated vaccinations for their employees, and most of those government workers have complied--often before the mandates were announced or went into effect. The largest contingent fighting vaccine mandates seems to be police officers--strange since they are perhaps the largest group, save for teachers, to regularly come in close contact with the public. You'd think they would want to protect themselves from the virus, if not everyone else.

And it's not just the rank-and-file who are taking this stance; they are being backed up by their unions. My first thought was that they were making it a contract issue--that such directives needed to be part of collective bargaining. But it seems that is not the case.

One of the most outspoken of the police union leaders is John Catanzara, the president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police, who is telling his members they do not have to comply with the city's mandate. "This vaccine has no studies for long-term side effects or consequences," he told the Chicago Sun Times. "None. To mandate anybody to get that vaccine, without that data as a baseline, amongst other issues, is a 'hell no' for us."

One has to wonder how the forensic scientists who work with police regularly in solving crimes react to that. "Do you have the same doubt about our findings as you do those of the CDC, NIH, and FDA," I imagine them asking these cops. If I were a police scientist, I would refuse to allow any unvaccinated cop anywhere near my lab.

The Not-So-Wonder Years

 A rccurring question on socisl media: Given the chance, would you go back to your high school years?

I am often amazed by the number of people who answer in the affirmative (although, given the way some people in their 40s and older still brag about what high school they went to, I probably shouldn't be). An awful lot of people seem to remember their high school days the way Kevin Arnold did on The Wonder Years...and I have to wonder if they are only remembering the best parts.

My answer is negative. While my time spent in high school was not uniformly horrible--it is the place where I discovered theater and performing, after all--it is also a time when I had few real friends, was ostracized for not being athletic, and had my heart broken by two different girls. I had teachers I liked and admired, but others who I found to be cold, aloof and completely unsuited to the profession they found themselves in.

I did not come out of high school morose and depressed (thank heavens), but neither did I come out of it elated.

 

Who Goes to Space Next?

 By now, we've all heard William Shatner's comments upon his return from his brief flight into space. Yes, he was emotional and awed by what he experienced and saw....but I have a feeling he was, for the most part, preaching to the choir.

Those of us who care at all about Star Trek or Shatner already shared these feelings--and without having been in space. We were awed by the images sent from the moon in July 1969, by the pictures taken with the Hubble telescope, by the pictures beamed back by our Mars explorer robots.

What we need is for someone that a much larger community cares about to make that same trip and come back with similar thoughts. How about somebody like Mary J. Blige or Jay-Z? How about one of the Kardashians? Or, for a real challenge, how about Ted Cruz or Ron deSantis--imagine if either one of them came back with an epiphany about the fragility of our planet and our need to all work together?

The Jeopardy "Conspiracy"

 No, Matt Amodio did not win 38 straight matches on Jeopardy! because the producers were deliberately feeding him really easy questions. And, no, he did not finally lose last night because they got tired of him and rigged the game so he would (or, in an even more unlikely scenario, that he agreed to throw last night's game).

I watched every single one of Amodio's appearances and here's what I saw: He is very fast on the buzzer, so fast that it often seemed that he was ringing in before he was sure he knew the correct response. Go back and notice how many times he has to wait a bit--clearly thinking his answer through--after being called on. When a Jeopardy! contestant knows the correct answer, he or she is eager to give it, in my experience, often not even waiting for the host to finish acknowledging them before speaking. They only pause when they are still trying to come up with a response.

That speed allowed Amodio to control the board and hence, usually, pick the clues he wanted to see--avoiding categories in which he wasn't as confident--and find the Daily Doubles far more often than his opponents did. But last night, confronted by two opponents more nearly on his level of knowledge and reflexes, he lost that edge. He never got even one of the Daily Doubles, and his challengers correctly answered all of them. 

In addition, I think Amodio got desperate. He began ringing in even more often when he wasn't sure of the answer, and got far more responses wrong than usual....and that resulted in a double penalty: He lost the value of that clue and his challengers had the opportunity to give the correct answer and thus win that same amount. (It can also be said, by giving an incorrect answer, Amodio made their job easier by thus eliminating one of the possible responses.)

And now,  the reason why the producers would not "rig" the game: it's illegal. After the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, Congress amended the Communications Act, in part, to make it illegal

To engage in any artifice or scheme for the purpose of prearranging or predetermining in whole or in part the outcome of a purportedly bona fide contest of intellectual knowledge, intellectual skill, or chance.

And the penalty?

 Whoever violates subsection (a) shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/509

Not to mention undoubtedly losing their job, never to work in the entertainment industry again.

All it would take for such a scheme to come to light is for one contestant, one production assistant, one stage hand, aware of the conspiracy, to step forward and blow the whistle. Would you risk everything on the chance that no one of the scores of people involved in a production like Jeopardy! would spill the beans?  Look how quickly Mike Richards lost his job for something that was in no way against the law.

I know "conspiracy theory" is the new on-line meme, but this one makes even less sense than all the ones about our last presidential election.

 

Anything Can Happen

I am often asked why I love live theater so much...both working in it and viewing it. The answer is summed up in the title of this post: "anything can happen."

And that does not necessarily mean errors, goofs, technical mishaps--though those happen at times. It can mean wonderful things: Suddenly an actor who has been giving an adequate if not superlative perfomance is struck by inspiration and finds new readings, new insights, new interpretations of his role and begins to shine. A dancer who had been, up until now, just another chorus member, smiles and lights up the stage and the audience, as one, is suddenly unable to see anyone else in the ccmpany.

And if there is an unfortunate incident--a player goes completely off-script, a lighting or worse a sound cue happens or doesn't happen, a piece of scenery rolls on too soon--you can watch as the cast miraculously deals with it all. No one breaks character, no one looks atound as if he hasn't a clue; no, they all simply carry on, treating the mishap as if it were always intended to be that way or making it an intentionally amusing bit--so that audience members unfamiliar with the play have no idea there was a problem.

And, even if the audience does become aware of the situation, they play right along with the cast, supporting them in their troubles, applauding their pluck, giving them congratulations for muddling through.

Monologue On Line: Camelot

 Unlike most musicals, the finale of the first act of Lerner & Loewe's Camelot is not a big song; it is, rather, a dramatic soliloquy by King Arthur, as he muses on the love triangle he finds himself in with Guinevere and Lancelot.

It's such a strong speech, I decided to record a version of it for future use.

School Memories

 My pal Mark Evanier posted on his blog about his elementary school experiences. Now, Mark and I are almost the same age (just a few months separate us) and, while his early years were spent in Los Angeles and mine on Staten Island, NY, certain of our experiences are similar.

Like Mark, in the middle of first grade, I was moved ahead one year, largely because my reading level was far in advance of my classmates'. And, again like Mark, I had a lot of trouble fitting in. (Fortunately, I never had to deal with the "sitting alone at lunch" thing; on Staten Island, those of us who lived within walking distance and had a parent at home, went home for lunch.) I was never athletic (still am not) and I was always the last one picked for any team sport (even when the sport was co-ed).

Dodge ball was a particularly rough game for me. I don't know what balls they used at Mark's school, but in my gym class it was volley balls. Ever get hit by a really hard-thrown volley ball? I can tell you it hurts like hell. Because of all the same things Mark discusses--envy of my "brain" status, being an outsider among older kids, and, in my case, being pretty small, physically--I was the favorite target in dodge ball.

Unlike Mark, being funny and witty never helped me get along. It just made me stand out as different. Even when my artistic talent blossomed, that was no help. In the late '50s and early '60s, boys weren't supposed to be "artistic"--they were supposed to be strong and athletic and physical. And moving to junior high didn't help...because most of my tormentors just came along and spread their dislike of me to the kids who came from other schools.

And while I had a few teachers who liked me, it seemed that most just saw me as a distraction. I was the kid who, first of all, didn't fit in and, second, needed special handling because of his intelligence. In a class of 35, they didn't have time for that. And certainly my principal never stepped in the way Mark's did.

Yeah, over all, my school years were pretty awful.

 

Pondering the Weather

 I was just getting used to the cooler weather and now it has turned warm and muggy around here again. I turned on the air conditioner in my office for the first time in three weeks this morning.

This is, I think, the greatest effect on human living from climate change--we no longer get to acclimate ourselves to the seasonal changes. When I was growing up, we could count on a gradual cooling from mid-September to early November, starting from a high in the 70s and declining to a high in the 50s by just after Halloween. Now, the "fall" (such as it is) bounces all over the charts--Friday night, I slept in long pajamas and a light cover; last night, I was in shorts, no shirt, and a fan going. I suspect that's what I'll wear tonight as well. But by next weekend, we'll be back in the low 50s for an overnight low.

And then November will bounce around from 60ish to 40ish, before finally settling into the low end of that scale, after Thanksgiving. I used to put away summer clothes and pull out winter stuff around Halloween...now I never know what to plan on from week to week.

Fighting Retirement Boredom

 Other than the errands we all have to do--laundry, shopping, etc.--how do you spend your weekends? I used to spend a lot of time doing theater--rehearsing, acting, directing, running tech, or attending shows that other people were in. But for the past 18 months, that was (obviously) not possible...and now I'm having trouble getting back into it.

I auditioned for a show this past week but was not cast; I was not surprised, the roles were a bit of a reach for me anyway. I'm supposed to do some sort of backstage work on another show opening in November, so October may be a little busier. But I'm still finding that weekends are really no different from weekdays, now that I'm retired.

I'm searching for activity through the whole week. Any ideas?