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Summer School, 2010

The daffodils are quickly being replaced by dandelions, meaning that summer is on the way. In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of summer school.

For me, summer school is always a syllabus, assigned to me by me as my own teacher. How convenient!

I figure, if I don't have a list of things I want to learn this summer, I shouldn't be surprised if autumn arrives and I haven't learned anything. Perhaps that's too goal oriented for you? (Perhaps you should be reading a different blog?)

Last year's list of assignments was helpful. So, here's this year's line-up for my own private summer school.

Summer  School Curriculum:

1. How to speak in a Southern accent. I need to do this to portray Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. (Four performances only: June 24-27. More on that another day. For now, save the date.) 
2. How to turn some of this blog into a book. Every time my age ends in a zero or five, I look at my bookshelf and think: "Hey, I was an English major. Where's the book I've written? Dang. Nowhere to be seen. Someday, I need to write a book." I recently turned 50, so there's the zero — in my age and on the bookshelf. So, after To Kill A Mockingbird closes, I plan to take two weeks and write the book. (I'll write it online, so you can participate.)
3. How to keep dandelions out of my yard. I don't think it's because I care so much what the lawn looks like. I just want to win an entire year's battle against the dandelions. 
4. How to build a bocce court. There's a perfect space in the back yard. And I already have the balls. Really. Bocce balls.
5. How to spend an entire day in silence. This is to prepare myself for the inevitable day when I enroll in a weeklong, silent meditational retreat. A friend told me, "You of all people need to work up to this. Don't just go away for a week of silence. It will drive you mad." 
6. How to monetize SpeakerSite. Rob and I have poured tens of thousands of dollars into this site, with no monetary ROI. We aren't greedy, but we want to achieve our vision of "Every speaker has a message and every message has an audience" — and we can't do it without revenues. We have to turn what is now the world's largest social network of public speakers into what must become the world's most highly functioning marketplace of public speakers. (We think we are very close to unleashing the functionality that will enable this.)
7. How to better coach executives to greater effectiveness and engagement. This kind of coaching. 
8. How to deliver sandwiches to tables in a delicatessen. I think my turn is coming.
9. How to build a life where I am in New York City once each month. With Mrs. Isaac as often as possible.
10. How to write a country song. Thankfully, Parker MacDonell is my guide and co-conspirator. I'd like to write 20 songs before Thanksgiving.

Let the learnin' begin.

What do you want to learn this summer?

Making Peace With The Radio

I've long recommended turning off the television. 

And, during recent years, I've recommended turning off radio in all its many political and harmonic forms.

It's not that I so dislike the media. It's that someone — someone — has to advocate for silence.

Why Speak For Silence?
All creative people need space in which to work: 

• That space can be defined physically: the artist needs room to work.
• That space can be defined visually: the artist needs a blank canvas.
• That space can be defined aurally, too: the artist needs some peace and quiet to concentrate.

This is an old story. As in Genesis, an artist needs a void into which to create.

Question: What's wrong with the radio?
Answer: It won't shut up. 
Radio is an endless stream of other people filling your ears. 

Sometimes, it's the cloying BBC, editorially blinded by the underdog, where anyone who suffers is therefore morally superior, their own responsibility notwithstanding. Or all the hideosity of commercial talk radio, where bombast and vulgarity drive a mob non-mentality.

Over time, we equate call-in voices with experts, just because they are on the air.

But it isn't the content that's corrosive to creativity. The argument holds true for beautiful, soulful, important music, from Miles to Mozart to The Beatles.

This Is The Main Creative Problem.
We abdicate our role as creative thinkers.

Because there isn't time. Because here comes another voice with another statement — even if the statement is "ob-la-di ob-la-da" — made more important by the media than anything we might be thinking for ourselves.

It's been ugly.
The counter-cultural call for silence has positioned me as a zealot. (Guilty as accused.)

One reader accused me of hypocrisy, because we do have a screen that plays DVDs and some of these DVDs are unworthy, violent, sex-filled tripe. (I plea-bargain the charges down to premeditated complex inconsistency. I hope you aren't disgusted and frustrated when you see blatant inconsistency. If so, you sure must be disgusted and frustrated a lot.)

Others have suggested that I don't want outside stimuli, that I eschew the media. Not so. I have an ever changing, quite varied stream of external observations. I don't have a problem with input. My problem is when too much input impedes output. 

That is, who are we if we consume media during every waking hour? All gobble and no egg makes Artie a dull rooster.

To be creative, we have to sometime — sometime — during each day, turn off everything and get to work on our own media.

In this new age of compromise, I have a new idea about media.

But First: Let me on! 
Alert the hypocrisy police. I'm pursuing an opportunity to land myself on air. To be yet another voice filling your ears. (I'm trying to get Ann Fisher to let me talk with her and her wonderful listeners about living ever more creatively.)  

So am I part of the problem? Perhaps. But, really, this is another case of complex inconsistency.

Consider This Modest Proposal.
Here's the cure. Use the on button slowly and the off button quickly. 

• On slowly. Turn the radio on as a last resort. First, try to consider your own thoughts and feelings. Think about something. If there's truly nothing to think about, think about that. (Very Zen of you.) If you want a little distraction, fine: turn on the radio. But if this happens more than once a day, you aren't trying hard enough to develop your own thoughts.
• Off fast. As soon as the radio has given you something to think about, turn it off. Think about the new idea in your head. Reflect. Enjoy. Savor the new idea. Prevent the very next item on air to displace this new idea. As a fully formed adult, you must be the arbiter of what you will think about.   

This way, radio can truly live up to its mission of broadcasting in the public interest. Rather than distracting us to death.

And you will soon hear your own voice and find out what you want to think about. Or are you afraid of what you might hear in the silence?

Turn on life.

Men, Men, Men, Men

I belong to an all men's club. (For the sake of this argument, let's call it "Kit Kat.")

Once a month for the past 99 years in Columbus, Ohio, one of the 39 members delivers a well-researched essay on a topic that is not his profession. Academics, professionals, businessmen and clergy share their most passionate curiosities — for the sheer enjoyment of the intellect. 

And there's a big dinner and drinks and camaraderie. So all are nourished — mind, heart and body.

And it's only men. Nobody else. In the current day, this needs some explaining. 

Some Explaining
In the olden days, when men ran most aspects of influence, Kit Kat was just another place to hide from women. You might think this sad and soulless. As I look back and judge a former generation out of context, I see it that way, too.

I'm sure it made sense back then. I frankly have no interest in judging the merits of their decisions.

I'd rather spend this moment rationalizing my own behavior. Thanks for joining me on this important mission. 

The Times They Are A Changin'
My life is most different from my father's in one primary way: women are the largest influence in my life. All my clients, my dentist, the pilot of last week's airplane, my dean at Ohio State, my provost at CCAD, half my rabbis, the police officer who most recently pulled me over, the owner of my deli, half my mentors, the radio interviewer — are all women. 

Believe you me, my family is run by women. (And thank goodness for all this.)

Of course, men still run the world. It's facile to suggest otherwise. Men mainly run the world. Men are the masterminds behind Wall Street, war, religious institutions, and other legendary successes.

So men might still run the world, but that's not how it feels. It's not how I experience my world. I look around and I see women. I've never been one for team sports and locker rooms. I don't play poker. I'm neither Oscar Madison, nor Felix Unger. (Though, I'm much more Felix than Oscar.) 

Beyond Kit Kat, I am never in a company of only men. Is it healthy to never be among your own gender?

As a friend and mentor put it when he recruited me for Kit Kat membership — after I had rejected it for nearly a decade due to the all-male regulation: "Would it kill you to be, for three hours a month, among only men? Perhaps that dynamic, the single-sex dynamic, will also be interesting to you."

It's Not Perfect
Kit Kat suffers from the lack of women. We rob ourselves of half the world's perspective and entirely from the world's female perspective. 

But we are giving ourselves what has suddenly, over a long time, become a rare treat: a room full of interesting men whom I would otherwise be unlikely to meet. And the lifelong friendships that result. 

If the Club voted to become co-ed, I'd go along. I never vote against women. But, if the vote passed, the Club would be a very different thing. 

Better. And worse.

How To Watch Theatre

"I have a confession to make," said an educated, intelligent, thoughtful, soulful, artistic fellow. "I hate to say this to you, but I hate theatre."

It was a surprise to hear, but I'm always glad for candor.

Why Do You Hate Theatre?
"Because it's an artistic fraud," said my friend. "I mean, I just keep thinking: just who the hell do these people up there think they are to pretend to be other people? I'm not convinced for one moment. I just can't see past this. I wish I could."

You Know, He's Right
I'm one of Those People Up There and, believe you me, I'm often wondering, "Just who the hell do I think I am?"

But I love theatre, even though — as an actor — I am perpetuating a fraud.

Hey, I could argue that it's not fraud:

Because the script is more thoughtful and, er, scripted than life itself — and because the actors and director and the stagecraft are so deliberate — more than people in real life — I could argue that Life Imitates Art. That theatre is true life. That life is fraudulent.

But you wouldn't buy it. So I'll spare you and me both that awkwardness.

I feel my friend's pain. I spent 25 years — after acting in college, including eight years living 50 blocks from Broadway — unwilling to see theatre. Not because it was a fraud. But because I feared for the actors — that they might "go up" on their lines and drop character. And the fraud would be revealed.

The fear of other actors potentially forgetting their lines kept me from going to the theatre for decades!

So How Can This Fellow Learn To Love The Theatre?
Ian Short, the director of Our Town, The Odd Couple, this June's To Kill A Mockingbird and scores of other plays in this town says:

Acting is making choices.

If you can't leap over disbelief, this is the key to enjoying theatre.

After all, that's what acting is: the making of hundreds of choices. How will the actor choose to move and speak? The lines are scripted. But everything else is a choice. Gently guided by the director, amplified by the sound and lighting experts, draped by the costume designer — hundreds of choices for you to enjoy or question.

How Can You Prepare?
First, get a copy of the script. Here's the classic version we are using for our June 24-27 performances of To Kill A Mockingbird. It's short. An easy read. And, like the movie, very faithful to the original text.

Read the script three times. Once, quickly for the structure of the play. A second time, closely, to savor the language. A third time, thinking of the choices you would make.

Then come to the performances. (Bring your script for reference during intermission.)

Those who don't willingly leap over disbelief have trouble being in a theatrical audience. This method (coming armed with the script) allows you to be more of a perpetrator, if not victim, of the theatre. You won't belabor the question: "Is Artie believable?" because, of course, I cannot be believable because we are friends. But you will be able to wonder, and perhaps appreciate: "Artie did that? And Scout did that? Ha!"  

Ha!

The Enemy of the Good

The following belief is a trap:

"Anything worth doing
is worth doing right."

This mantra, implanted in youth, made a lot of sense back then. It was good learning. I'm grateful for the teachers who taught me this.

But now, that belief is dysfunctional and must be destroyed. It stops me before I start almost anything. I pause for a quick conversation with my inner critic. And the inner critic tells me to avoid creative risk.

Huh?
I love the following video, which I found on Matt's Theaterforté.

This video is delicious. Jay Smooth's words are exactly the ones that walk in boots in my head and on my soul — when I am not writing.

I haven't been writing enough.
Though I've been "busy" during the past month, that video describes the obstacle I've been facing.

One of Jay Smooth's commenters, anjiaoshi, writes: "I have a word for the cycle you describe: shamelock. The shamelock is worst when you've gone so long without talking to someone that you put off talking to them because you dread having to apologize for not talking to them for so long."

What's your antidote for shamelock?