In my opinion, the current revival of Ragtime being produced at the Neil Simon Theatre is unparalleled by anything currently playing on Broadway. For another musical to compete with Ragtime, it’s cast would have to contain Patti Lupone. By Patti Lupone I mean Patti Lupone in Gypsy. Meaning this is the best musical I’ve seen on Broadway since Patti Lupone in Gypsy. Saying this is the most honorable thing I can say. And I am a stickler for details. Ragtime the Musical based off of the novel of the same name by E.L. Doctorow is a constant patriotic rhythm with the tempo of a steam engine. The musical starts steadily enough building steam and peaking high at the end of the first act. Thus making the musical follow classical style. There are appropriate breaks from song after almost every one except for two suites, one in each act. Dialogue is brief, yet effective. The music, by Stephen Flaherty, is completely original with incredible reinvention of Scott Joplin style keeps a constant Ragtime theme. The lyrics, by Lynn Ahrens, although sometimes wordy, are epic when the entire cast is singing them clearly in unison. The book, full of sarcasm and black humor, is by Terrence McNally. As the curtain rose the audience applauded, the cast stood in anticipation of the first note. They heard it about five minutes later, due to applause. The audience kept up this habit throughout the performance applauding at the end of every song, and after several peak moments. This gave the company brilliant energy which pushed the most difficult scenes to the highest levels of excellence. The direction was clean. A little stage-right heavy but it was wonderfully set up and the actors were able to control the audience’s sight with the most minute of affects. Directed by James L. and James M. Nederlander every element of the show seamlessly collided (if you see it you’ll know what I mean by collide) into a beautiful experience. My favorite part of this production was the set. The set, imported from The Kennedy Center production, is a three tiered steel-looking structure that strongly resembles a turn of the century train station. Giving the whole show a feel of ominous movement. At points different stage pieces ascend and descend from the loft allowing scene changes to seem more real. There was great space for the audience’s imagination to create the set. The set itself was minimal. Only what was absolutely needed. Upstage was a background cyc showing many clouds. The lighting changed every now and then to set the weather but the clouds themselves were a wonderful element of mystery and hopeful light. The lighting was almost never curious (that’s a good thing), everything fit well with the scene. The ensemble was spotlessly perfect. Completely tight, and inspiringly spirited. They looked like they were having fun up there. And were a reminder of what a true Broadway show looks like. Two amazing actors made their Broadway debuts in this production of Ragtime. Quentin Earl Darrington, who’s works include only minor tours and regionals, rocks the lead role of Coalhouse Walker Jr. to the point that you are hopelessly sobbing, I was. He commands the stage. His voice is broad and clear. He knew his schtick. The other amazing actor is Stephanie Umoh who had experience in Broadway readings but no shows. To follow Audra McDonald is like trying to chase a Corvette with a Civic. It’s difficult and you often can’t do it. Umoh, fit into this role like it were the perfect dress. This part being Sara, the lover of Coalhouse. As a couple, Darrington and Umoh react like hydrogen and oxygen, forming the perfect pair. Just listen to their harmonies. Filling the leading lady role (Mother) is Broadway veteran Christiane Noll, while not a celebrity she certainly could out perform any little starlet. This woman was a breath of clean fresh air, a good actress who just played the part. Noll’s sensitivity to detail and beautiful voice gave depth to the character and brought tears to the eye. I have no criticisms, but she did flub a line. Playing Mother’s Younger Brother is Bobby Steggert who plays the role in a peculiar but original and interesting way. By peculiar, I mean it’s new. Steggert takes his character’s internal conflicts (which are only hinted at in the script, but are well developed in the novel) and outwardly broadcasts them to the audience. This gave every line lush depth and tension “what will he do next?”, “why is he doing this?”, and “what will become of him” were just some of the questions Steggert’s performance raised. Questions that weren’t as apparent in the original production. Steggert really did his subtext homework. My favorite character was Emma Goldman, a Jewish Socialist-Anarchist. I liked her the most because she was the one who created the conflict, who really stirred the pot. Donna Migiliaccio did not play the part too Jewish but played it rather naturally. Echoing the real Emma Goldman excellently. The rest of the principle roles were played without flaw. Ragtime arrives on our doorstep at the most appropriate of times, where we still grapple with racism, class division, and the hyper-accelerated train of technology. The same lessons that play in Ragtime in the 1900′s are pertinent now. If you want to see an incredible patriotic musical, see Ragtime. It is better than any other show on Broadway right now. Ragtime The Musical is playing at the Neil Simon Theatre, Broadway and 45th St. New York, NY. (Regrettably) Closing Jan. 10th.
Dear Darwin… 12/22/2009
Darwin and Why Evolution Equates Life
I have always had an interesting relationship with Charles Darwin. Most of my life I was taught to know that man progressed slowly over time from a monkey-like mammal into the upright people we are today. I accept this as fact because it makes sense to me and I’m not religious enough to swear that God made dinosaurs…and humans…at the same time?
For a long while, I was quite familiar with Darwin. I never read On the Origins of Species in its entirety but from what I’ve read of it, as well as other academic writings on Darwin’s theories, I’m pretty sure it boils down to this:
We evolved from less complex animals, cells, so on so forth. We evolved over time. We will continue evolving based on how we can react to a changing environment.
Simple right? Well not really, it’s always amazing to see what interesting interpretations people come up with. Why they do this, I don’t know, the theory is simple enough to me. I may have it wrong but I will accept correction. These interpretations end up being critical cornerstones in someone’s thesis or life definition. Not good. Never build an argument on bad evidence, that’s what I’ve always been taught. Understand Darwin separate from your interpretation before you use his words to make an argument.
Not doing this ends in you looking like an idiot. Let’s take Hitler for example, his “doctors” made the argument that Jewish people are not evolved enough (citing Darwin) to be humans. You see, stupid.
Here’s a theory that has been rattling around in my head for a while. Someone told me the following, citing Darwin, and I was a bit amazed by how exstensively thought out it was but ultimately it does not sit well with me. And probably nobody who has about twenty minutes of clear thought.
So this is the theory, and it’s a bit popular. Civilization needs to end, we need to go back to a pre-agricultural lifestyle such as being hunter gatherers. As in all humans, all people, all the world. Now this doesn’t bode well with the sophisticated air conditioned museum attendee that I am. While I do not shirk from replacing the kit in my toilet, I do shirk from bloodying my hands with uncooked meat and low carb diets. According to this theory, one of the reasons why we have irregular stomachs and such is because we eat cooked, farmed foods. And apparently medications and treatments are also messing with our biology.
Something is fishy about this theory, when I asked “what about the handicapped, the mentally ill, etc.” I got a stern stare, a casual transition and this: “why is life so valued. In the grand scheme of things, in all of the universe why is human life so valuable?” This could just be the ranting of a socially depressed child but sadly academic adults believe this too. I responded to that statement with “There is nothing more beautiful than life, nothing more meaningful, nothing grander or more important to the universe than life. For without life the universe is meaningless, it exists in a nihilist state. One that is unrealistic. Life is the white, not life is the black, they are yin and yan.” I was then retorted by a stern face saying “you’re missing the point.” I didn’t miss the point, he didn’t read the Tao-Te-Ching. Here’s my academic problem with this.
How do we know if our bodies are adjusting to change or if they are unable to tolerate something. Well I can’t really believe that there is anything the human genetics are unable to adapt to over time. Other animals do it, microorganisms do it. Forms of life live in places where humans cannot like in volcanoes or glaciers. I think given the time and need, humans could adapt to live in those places too. I also know that if I’m going through a major change in environment (say going from home to college) I cannot identify what my body is reacting too and why. However in hindsight I can examine closely what causes certain reactions in my body. This study of the past as fact doesn’t help me while I’m experiencing the change but it, as history often does, give me insight into the future. What is important however is that my body adapted at all. Even if I didn’t notice it, my body adapted. It changed thought process to be work related, it changed to digest bad food, it changed to accomodate stress. So there is absolutely no assumption that medication and farmed foods are bad for humans or that humans can’t adjust to them. We have adjusted so well to nature, I would say, that nature needs to adjust to us. H1N1 may not exist if we weren’t immune (or even well exposed to) seasonal flu. I don’t see evolution as something that pertains strictly to natural biological development because I see it occurring on all sorts of levels. I see it working in social situations, I see it in developmental situations, I see it in artistic situations. It’s a theme that plays throughout a larger human story, and an even larger life story.
To say that Darwin sanctions the deaths of people who don’t adjust physically is wrong, he never said that evolution is limited to the physical ability to survive and reproduce. As I have always believed, Darwin meant his theory of evolution to inspire human achievement and the value of life. I recall that weakness is not favored as a trait but what is weak now? Maybe in the Stone Age weakness was being a scrawny twit who couldn’t lift a rock. But today, it may be someone who does not listen to others, someone who is irresponsible, or someone who gives in too easily to vices. With the evolution of our bodies, we have always seen the evolution of our thought.
A Dry Poem 12/06/2009
Lying Around in Agony
As I lay face up in the sand
My throat parched, my lips chapped
While sand gets in my eyes
My skin contracts and pores close,
Oh, But they’re still open
Just wide enough to get sand in them.
But the storm keeps whipping
And as I wait for the sea,
I dry.
The tide will come, someday.
And till that day,
I will patiently await
The coming of the sea.
An Essay I Got an F on. 12/03/2009
Why did I get an F? It didn’t fit the style of writing my professor wanted.
Empathy in To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is a modernist novel that the reader experiences more than reads. As much as the reader may like the story, Woolf didn’t write the novel to tell a story. Her style isn’t simple enough to just tell a plot from start to finish. While Virginia Woolf does include a situation for her characters to exist in, she writes more about how they react to each other than any twist in the plot. Her style is complex and poetic but is so because she wants the reader to experience the character’s thoughts and feelings. Using several techniques, she blurs the lines between first person perspective and third person perspective and constantly makes you empathetic to the characters. In chapter one, two specific techniques Woolf relies on to put the reader in the character’s shoes are repetition and irony.
The first technique Woolf uses to draw the reader into the character’s minds is clarification through repetition. Take for instance the first sentence of second paragraph of the novel, “extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness, and a day’s sail, within touch” (Woolf 1). In this sentence, James Ramsey’s hopes to go to the lighthouse are confirmed, but they are confirmed several times with building anticipation. Each comma breaks up the sentence to both isolate one feeling and build upon the last feeling until it peaks. The effect of this repetition excites the reader allowing the reader to share James’s excitement. The whole second paragraph is a giant build up for Mr. Ramsey to say “But, it won’t be fine” (Woolf 2), so that the reader’s hopes are as dashed as James’s. Woolf uses this throughout the novel to build different feelings for the reader.
Repetition is found elsewhere in chapter one to establish Mrs. Ramsay’s character as the “good mother”. Specifically in this passage: “if they did go to the lighthouse after all, it would be given to the lighthouse keeper’s boy…” (Woolf 5). The repetition pushes the point that Mrs. Ramsay is a good person. The more she does for the man in the lighthouse, or thinks about doing, the better a person she looks.
The second technique Woolf employs is irony to put the reader in the character’s shoes. After all of James’s anticipation, his father dashes it with “But it won’t be fine” (Woolf 4). James then feels immediate frustration and anger shown in, “Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, any weapon that would have gashed… ”(Woolf 4). Mr. Ramsay’s casual comment to James results in James’s rash overreaction. This shows the deep hatred James feels for his father but the tone is almost as if he were saying, “any ole thing would do”. The contrast is a bit funny and the image itself allows the reader to feel the frustration James is feeling because of how childishly violent James’s reaction is. It’s relatable because of how plainly it is discussed.
Another example of irony is “Nonsense” (Woolf 6), Mrs. Ramsay’s line responding to Mr. Tansley. She says it with “severity” which seems hardly necessary. This asserts her controlling nature and sets her up to be this way in the rest of the novel. Her response to Mr. Tansley’s sensical argument about not going to the lighthouse because there would be no landing due to weather is out of place and mean spirited. In this the reader is experiencing Tansley’s conflicts with Mrs. Ramsay. Mr. Tansley does not know of these conflicts, but Mrs. Ramsay is put in a bad mood by him, because she then goes on to be severe with Nancy.
But here’s where I’m breaking away from tradition. Honestly, I wrote the previous pages a month before the following ones. Bad decision, I know but I realized that as much as I love Virginia Woolf. I realized I really wasn’t talking about how significant and interesting her work is. Why I care about it and more importantly what I learned from it. Which, let’s face it, is far more interesting and important than me repeating lines and saying why they mean something. I am well aware that the previous part of this essay will no longer flow with what is to come after this paragraph but with two more pages to go, I feel honesty and integrity are the way to go. If I want to, I write a pretty damn good essay. If I have the freedom to, I write a pretty damn good essay. I have the passion for this subject and I am giving myself the freedom, so here we go strap in. Let’s go for a ride.
Weeks ago in class, somewhere in October, I was in deep though and someone’s comment sparked my attention. It was a very general comment, rather ordinary but for some reason it made me snap. Maybe it was my bad mood, or maybe it was my lack of breakfast that day but whatever it was caused all of my deep thinking to flow out like water behind a dam. I believe the comment was along the lines of “Why is she so confusing? Why can’t Virginia Woolf just write the story.” And being the thoughtful speaker I am, I naturally retorted with “Nonsense! The story is not important! It’s the experience that counts!.” This is what the first two pages was trying to say, but said poorly. I’ve often found that in literature the author seldom wants you to pay attention to the story. At least in Modern literature they do. I can safely say that Sylvia Plath does not really want you to read The Bell Jar for chills and thrills. She clearly wants you to experience her character Esther Greenwood. The story in To The Lighthouse is pretty boring and uneventful. These are the events: James wants to go to the lighthouse, mom says yes, dad says no, (big whoop), the Ramsay’s have a dinner party, end of part 1, Mrs. Ramsay dies, Prue dies, Andrew dies, end of part 2, remaining Ramsay’s return home, James starts the trip to the lighthouse, they meet a sailor named Macalister, Lily finishes her painting (about time!), they arrive at the Lighthouse. Whoppie! This story is so interesting on it’s own! It’s as good as Dickens! No it’s not. This story is completely boring and meaningless without the deep internal thought Woolf writes. Without knowing James hates his father you would never know how crushed he was when Mr. Ramsay decides not to let him go to the lighthouse. Without knowing how fake and pompous Mr. Ramsay was you would never know what kind of company he kept at his party. Without knowing how well organized and controlling Mrs. Ramsay was you would have no clue as to how her death would unravel the entire family, so on and so forth. Every event’s significance is completely dependent on not what came before but how each character reacted to the event. That’s why this is brilliant and canonized literature. It’s brilliant and canonized because it is not Dickens. There is no Magwich being the benefactor at the end of part 2. In To the Lighthouse there are no surprises, just people living their own lives together. Virginia Woolf wants you to experience the characters more than anything else in the novel. If she didn’t intend that than she would have made them far more boring.
So, of course, my big mouth and it’s retorting was snapped at by another student saying “don’t be rude, everyone has their own opinion.” My first instinct was to say, “no, you’re wrong. I’m right. Want to see the tear stained tissues from when I read this to prove I’m right?” But I didn’t. I was being disrespectful (note to self: eat breakfast) but I was right wasn’t I? If I learned anything from this novel it’s that your expectations will not always be met. And if they are always met, expect them to be missed one day. That is the plight of every character. James expects to go to the lighthouse tomorrow. Then his father comes in and says no son the weather isn’t right because I know everything! Mr. Ramsay then excepts everyone to laugh at his jokes and for his wife to serve him all his life. Basically Mr. Ramsay expects the world to work his way all the time. But that slowly and surely dissipates into nothing so that by the end of the novel, he is left with nothing but his anxieties and a legacy of oppressing those around him. But that’s just what I learned as far as the moral.
As far as being a reader I know now that being alone in a room with a Virginia Woolf novel is a sad and depressing experience. Especially when the only thing in the room remotely close to human life in that room is a box of Oreos, you start crying fast. Every page I wanted so badly to stop reading not out of boredom but out of shared pain for the characters. I got so involved in the experience I forgot it was just a novel. I wanted to fly to England and tell Mr. Ramsay he was a moron. That is what most impressed me. I wanted to drive a fireplace prong through Mr. Ramsay’s skull just like James.
What I learned about being a writer was that style counts, it’s not always what you write so much as how you write it. In fact it’s almost always important to have both. Have the way you write fit what you’re writing. This is what makes a great Albert Camus novel, this is what makes a great Salman Rushdie novel, this is apparently what makes a great Virginia Woolf novel. I knew this already but how Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse was so important that it reminded me how crucial style was to a great novel. And of course, to great writing.
So that’s the essay, it took way too long to write and didn’t come out as expected but what the hell. I said what I wanted to say and I more or less supported it with quotes from the book. As far as I’m concerned that’s all that matters. That and the box of Oreos going straight to my thighs.
The goal was to discuss a theme with evidence from the text. I did that, just not in the manner my professor was looking for. Mine was more honest, mine was easier to write. Mine was undisciplined. For the assignment
But with some work I think it could be a very interesting piece to wake up any AP test grader.
The Boy named Rock. 12/01/2009
The Boy Named Rock or Taking a Chance at Love
Once we were together for a few minutes, him making some poor excuse to come see me in the darkroom and me making a small rebellion against darkroom rules. We had conversation. Quick, interesting conversation that seemed to be dominated by his natural physique and his adorable vocal lisp. I walked aside in the dark, having begged him to walk me home I felt obliged to listen to him talk. Not that it was much of an effort. I was intrigued. I wanted to know.
As we grew a bit closer, our friends casually pushed us together. The boy named Rock and I were a just a bit more cautious. I wanted to be honest. But he had an odd habit, of ignoring me when in conversation with friends. It seemed as if he were hiding his relation to me. As if I were some hideous creature. Not very supportive to my esteem. I would never do such a thing, I would make sure he were involved in conversation. But I forgave, figuring we had only just met last night.
We did laundry together, I invited him up to my room to watch a film. We never got through the film but we talked, folded, listened to music, so and so forth. It was delightful, it was delicious, it was de-lovely. I felt there was something, a glowing friendship. Or at least the discovery of common interests. Then we went to the mall, more of the same. A bit of development. And life rolled on.
We began building something. Whatever it can be called I don’t know, something between friendship and good friendship. But I wanted more. A bit of intimacy. That’s it nothing big right? Maybe it scared him, maybe it hit a little too close to home when I let him know how I felt. How I felt honestly. Openly, and clearly.
Why would I do that? Because he has the right, the right to know how I feel. And I do not do well holding such truth inside. So I told him, and it altered the something we had. It became weird on his half, not mine. I wanted to continue our friendship. But apparently all he saw was a bridge being built. A bridge for me to join him.
All I wanted was to know. I wanted to know his deep dark devices, I wanted to know his highest hopes. And I wanted to share mine. Nothing wrong with that right? Maybe I presumed too much. I definitely assumed too much. But those are my only vices. He is what ultimately, turned me away.
As we got closer I noticed so much about him. His hubris, his rudeness, and his insensitivity. I heard the way he disrespected his superiors, never hearing any sense as to their actions. He always thought he knew better, often he spoke as if he was better. He was hung up on his last lover, a loser from his home town. This loser left him for no reason, shame. But above all else, he never asked me how my day went. It was always either discussion of his day or his beliefs or his subjects. Never once did he ask me how I felt about something, or how my exam went, or complimented me on a hair cut. All of this came from me.
But he did ask me for a favor, to listen to him give a monologue for an audition. Fine, a favor. I watched it, it was flat and lifeless. Boring and trite. I told him to put some feeling in. What feeling? The feeling we both shared, a broken heart. A betrayed heart, for him it was from some long lost loser lover. For me it was of my own fault. Either way, with this in mind. With that pain present in his heart, he nailed the monologue. Didn’t get the part, but it wasn’t his fault. He just didn’t look the part.
After my directing him, I was lost to why I liked him in the first place. He was available, he was interesting. He made me want to know, appealing to my old learning addiction. Not much else. I had to invent fantasies for us and I had to maintain the relationship. A bit too much effort.
Yet, there were…some things I did like, in the end. He was smart, he was disciplined. He was determined to do his work. And consequently was a responsible adult. Something I found reassuring and attractive. Which, if given the right tip, could balance or maybe even outweigh the bad. I’d have to see him make great, constant efforts. But since I do not see them, I no longer want him.
A Boy Named Rock, is a boy I shall never have. Too hard, too cold, too heavy to have around. If he wants to someday flow like water, then maybe we have a chance. But until he gives up his concrete ways, nothing can happen for him with anyone.
I wish him luck, I wish him love,
I wish him life.
The End of The World, Not. 11/17/2009
Darlings, the world will not end in 2012. Please stop this nonsense.
You cannot escape your responsibilities, even in death (possibly).
Instead make what you’re being responsible for more worth it.
Have kids instead of mortgages. Perhaps one leads to the other.
Remember, life is not about kids, it’s about grandkids.
How Grande! 11/05/2009
“My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Phillip, my infant tounge could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.” -Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
I’m supposed to be reading The Tempest by William Shakespeare but all I can think of is how I missed Mandy Pantinkin in it. Maybe he wasn’t that good. Maybe he was terrible. But he is Mandy. He is Che Guevara in Evita, he is George Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George so he’s a legend.
And I like legends. I like greatness, it’s interesting. It raises so many questions. Why is he so great? How did he master this craft? How big is his dick? Greatness is so much more interesting than normalcy. Nothing new. Samuel Beckett played with this little notion in Waiting for Godot. Pozzo, with all his greatness, quickly becomes the center of attention because he is fat and more complex (seeming) than Vladimir and Estragon. That raises a fun question, should you cast a famous Pozzo and an unknown Vladimir, Estragon, and Lucky? I always thought that Pozzo should be played by either Rush Limbaugh or Gene Hackman. Politics aside, Rush looks like Pozzo. Rush is big, voistrous, and possibly sickly. I don’t know how his acting is, but in the end it’s the looks that count. Gene Hackman is just incredible. The rest of the cast should be little no-bodies that only devout theatre goers know, how little they know. So maybe Nathan Lane wasn’t the best pick for Estragon. As much as I love Mr. Lane, and as good as I thought he was in The Roundabout’s production of Waiting for Godot, I’m not sure if his fame got in the way.
But then why do I think Nathan Lane was good? I’m an actor, but I’m not an expert on playing Estragon. Maybe I just had a feeling. I don’t know. I’m a big Dickens fan. I love Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, and every time I finish one of his serials I yearn to pick up the next. In school, I never understood why my peers were so hateful towards Charles Dickens. Maybe it’s because his works are long, maybe it’s because they’re wordy, maybe it’s because of popular opinion. But his greatness to me is simply that when I read the text, I’m experiencing the text, directly. I am Pip, I am Charles Darney, I am Oliver Twist, I don’t want to be Little Nell (but I am). Whenever I get into an argument with friends about the greatness of Beat Master Chuckie-D, I mention that the greater literary community is on my side. Harold Bloom agrees Charles Dickens is great. But my peers are not impressed, they do not respect the literary community or Harold Bloom. So then they’re not playing the greatness game.
There are two kinds of greatness, you can feel something is great or a group of people can. Essentially person and canon. If you are going to participate in literary discussion, you must accept the seemingly silly rules of the discussion. It’s like fiction only instead of suspending reality, suspend your criticism. Suspend your opinion. Accept that Charles Dickens is great. Accept that Stephanie Myer is sheyest.
I love it when the morons talk about literature and criticize the story. Idiots, please listen. There are only seven stories. Strike that, there is only one story. Man has something, man loses it, man gains it back or doesn’t. One story, live with it. Here I’ll map it out for you, Harry Potter has parents, Harry Potter loses his parents, in the end he gains them back (not literally) by becoming his parents. Same thing with Great Expectations, Pip has a happy life, he loses it (only it’s his fault), and in the end he gets it back. There are many variations especially when want or desire are involved but that is that. If someone says they like the story, they either arne’t paying attention, or are just trying to be nice.
Literary greatness then, can only be discussed based on style. Style, how the author writes. How the author composes sentences with words. How the author tells the story. How the author individually tells the story. What a terrific word, style. And in the end it seems that’s the only way to compare anything in art, how an individual approaches a subject.
Greatness, what an odd topic to enter my head.
No Canary in a Cage for Me! 11/03/2009
Little Boys, Little Men
Please go away boy. Now, get out of my life. I’m done.
I’m through with you complications
You’re little smiles that are cute
You’re little lips
You’re little everything,
I can’t bear to walk past your door
Come out already, tell me how you feel
Stupid people with their feelings
They never know what to do with them
So they sit in the chest and stew.
While I sit, and wait, like waiting for the gynecologist
Ten more minutes and I’ll scream.
For a little while, I was patient.
But now that I know the truth from elsewhere
I wait
And wait
And wait
For you to confirm it.
What am I a mind reader?
But now that I realize it,
You were never quite correct
We could have put in the effort
But seeing how you are,
How long could I forgive you for?
So go away, we’re done.
World Take Me Back 11/01/2009
“I’ve sliced my slice of life a little thin, haven’t I Ephrim?”
Well I have, yesterday I was curling my hair with my finger hoping for my life to start and today I’m making a blog. Gee, how exciting. I feel like a Cole Porter musical waiting to happen.
Darling, yes that’s you. If you stick with this you’ll go on a wild ride through the life of of one of the world’s most boring uneventful people. And I’m not kidding! But you will go through that life, follow it closely, and have fun. It’s my boring life, not yours. Who knows maybe you’ll learn a little something.
So without further ado:
“World Take me Back! I want to be part of the human race again and bid good bye to all the trouble and tears. I’ve spent so many odd years-It’s time to get even! So world Take me Back Again!”-Ethel Merman
(you’ll hear a lot about her)
Sincerely Yours,
Jeff Midler
