Net Cotton Content / On Life and Marketing, Creativity and Ethics

My Non-Television History

"Mystery" (a mysterious reader of Net Cotton Content) has left the following comment prompted by a recent post:

"I have been to your home, more than once. You do have a television. What you do not have is cable. Your children play video games on and you watch DVD's on a television. Perhaps you might revise your statement to say simply, you don't have cable. As I have seen, you have had a television over the past 13 years. Be honest with what you do have vs what you do not have."

I plead guilty, but only kinda. Kinda guilty. Is that a valid plea?

First, here's the result of today's audit:

We have a DVD player which is cable ready (but without the cable). And we have a bushel of Macintosh computers which are wired to the Internet. And we have a couple radios. And two newspaper subscriptions.

Hopefully, I've come clean enough for Mystery.

But, wait. I wasn't ever talking about hardware.

I'm talking about behavior.
When I wrote that I haven't had "television" in my life since we jettisoned our television in 1993, I was thinking of "television" as "television programming" rather than as "the thing that is a television."

If, hypothetically, we had kept our television, but were using it as the base for our coffee table or as a footrest or, refurbished, as an aquarium, then Mystery would probably allow my claim of having no television.

For example, I have a bottle of Scotch for when my dear mother visits. But I don't drink Scotch. I think I can claim that I'm not a Scotch drinker. But, to rise to Mystery's standard for accountability and accuracy, I will own up to having a bottle.

I guess I should have said, "I don't watch television programming." That would have been accurate. I haven't seen the evening news in my home in 13 years. (And, as I have already written, that's a good thing.) Nor any other programming via broadcast or cable. (Further disclaimer: I've seen some BBC programs on DVD.)

TV or no TV, Mystery thinks I'm a bore.
Maybe, as a former television addict, I've now long been one of those irritating recovered addicts. You know, the person who replaces his hard drinking with annoying tales of sobriety. (More to come.)

But I'm no hypocrite. I've always freely admitted that we watch movies and plenty of them are inappropriate. Our kids watched Henry V so many times before they turned five that we are clearly not protecting them from the hard images of battle. As Hank himself says, with two thumbs up, "This was a royal fellowship of death."

Have you ever sent a letter to someone you know personally and not signed it? What were you thinking?

Must-see TV, my ass

I don't watch television. We haven't had a television for more than 13 years.

Before you dismiss me as a crank (too late?), ask yourself this:

How much television do you think Bill Gates watches? What does Warren Buffet do when he has free time? What is Steve Jobs' must-see TV? Did Mother Theresa watch Friends? Will you, on your deathbed, wish you'd seen that one last episode of 24?

You will never learn anything about yourself
while watching television.
There is surely nutritious programming. But a life spent watching a box is a wasted life.

The very idea of a show called Friends is revealing. The message: You don't need friends. Here are your friends.

For there to be growth, there must be change.
The message of television is clear: stay tuned, don't touch that dial, don't change that station, don't change. Stay right where you are. Don't change.

Stand by for a new message:

Cut the cord.

Turn off television.

Turn on life.

If you must watch television, watch any show once, for fun. Watch it a second time to understand the art, the direction, the production values, the cleverness of it all.

But, if you are watching it a third time, you might ask yourself, "Why? Do I really have nothing better to do? Is there no friend I can find to love? (A real friend, not a televised "Friend.") Does no charity need my help? Would I be better simply sitting quietly and reflecting on life? What am I afraid I might learn about myself if I turn off the distraction?"

This was originally posted in January 2008, then quickly removed because the Youngsters thought it might be bad for business. It's back because it's truer than it is bad for business.

A Letter to the Cast and Crew of Our Town

Last night, after another great show, we gathered at Katzinger's for a private cast party. Diane Warren opened her deli for us late at night, and placed that bounty before us, because she so respects the work we have done — and our product, the gift we have given our neighbors. Diane (and Eric and Michelle) and the entire Katzinger's team told us in food and hospitality:

Please, eat like actors, where "eat like actors" doesn't mean starving artists, but rather the city's best pastrami and corned beef. And pickles. Oh, those pickles. As actors, especially in Our Town, we are teachers. And as teachers, we can so mistakenly be undervalued by society. Diane Warren joined the applause we hear every night, and the laughter, and the engaged silence, and the tears, by saying: "No. What you are doing is worthy. As worthy as the best my business can offer you." ("What'll you have?... What can I do for you?")

Of course, we all thanked the Katzinger's team. And we thanked each other.

But, you have taught me (under threat of Aran Carr) to follow the script, and I found myself thanking you without a script. I was simply not prepared for that moment.

Please accept these words, as another attempt at expressing my thanks to you:

You gave me such a beautiful photograph of the production. Thank you. I've been looking at it overnight. Of course, it's beautiful: it shows the faces of the actors with Ian, Aran and Matt. Our eyes are shining. And in those eyes, I can see reflected, in the larger photo in my heart, the beautiful faces of the entire crew, providing expert sound and light. And props. And pickles.

At Katzinger's, Sara Courtright asked me, just before you gave me that photo, "Has this experience been what you wanted? Did you get out of it what you had set out to get?" I told the folks at the table that I didn't know yet. ("Do I believe in it? I don't know. I suppose I do.")

Of course, I have no doubt that my answer is yes, but "yes" doesn't do justice to the experience. I will need many days, weeks, perhaps my lifetime, to fully weigh all the emotions and growth. To more fully appreciate just what all of us have done here. To measure the size of the gift we have given more than a thousand members of the audience. And the gifts we have given each other and ourselves.

Yes, it will take weeks for the swelling to go down. Not in my head. (My ego will never recover. I must now become a World Menace.) No, it's the swelling in my heart. Since the final week of rehearsals, when I started to see, like you started to see, the larger scope of just what we are doing here, my heart has been popping out of my chest.

For now: Yes, Sara. Yes. This experience has delivered on every wish I had, every wish I might have had, and every wish I didn't know I could have. Every star delivered. Friends were gathered. They came to support the production, but left with the meaning of life. Emily saw the truth. And Simon said it outright. ("Yes, now you know. Now you know.")

Last night, I said something to you that might have sounded outrageous, but I firmly maintain it here:

There has never been a better production of Our Town. As proof of this outlandish assertion, what would you change to improve our production?

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Except perhaps, I would raise and seat the congregation at the wedding on cue. I'm sorry to have created such a tradition. ("Sumep'n went wrong with the separator. Don't know what 'twas.")

Friends, truly, this is no ordinary Our Town. This is the very heart of Our Town. ("Once in a thousand times, it's interesting.") I don't mean to say we are such big shots, that we are Broadway. No, no, no, to the contrary: our Our Town reminds us (and our audiences) that sweetness and bittersweetness and life come in the smallest, most genuine moments. In a world where bigger is often mistakenly considered better, we are producing these fine little moments, like diamonds. (As Emily says about the patent device that waters the stock, "It's fine.")

During that long wait for the opening of the first act, I look at the stage and I see two tables covered with these diamonds. Or are they little pills? Yes, this drug comes in a tiny pill. Better sit down. There are some side effects.

We learned enormously, with Ian's extraordinary teaching — so generous, so effective, so precise, so dear. I hope that I carry into my classrooms and life what I have learned from Ian as a teacher. Of all your wonderful performances, none has so taken my breath away as his work on our stage. I hope I am forever changed by his role modeling.

When I first realized that it was time again for Our Town, my friend Emily Rhodes suggested I seek advice from Matt Slaybaugh. You know how it is when you receive a new name. It sounds funny. You imagine the experience, but it is just a flat image of the unmet moment. ("You're just a little bit crazy.") We met for an ice cream (after finding the coffee shops too noisy) and I told him my tale, why I was compelled to do Our Town. He patiently listened. We chatted about theatre.

At the end of our ice creams, he said, "I like your reasons for doing this show. I'm willing to produce it. I want to produce it."

Months later, still wrestling with the presumption and preposterousness of precasting myself as the Stage Manger, I mentioned to Acacia that I felt awkward about claiming the role without an audition. She smiled: "Oh, but you did audition. When you met Matt over the ice cream cone, you were auditioning. Whenever he meets someone, he's watching, figuring out where on the stage they should go and in what role. You auditioned. And you passed the audition. If you hadn't, Matt would have simply finished his ice cream cone and that would have been that."

In the program, Matt writes of agape-love. I first read "agape" as when your eyes and mouth are open, and your eyebrows are high enough to pick up Cleveland. I could understand that. I've been agape with love. But Alisa said, no, Matt is writing of "agape," spelled the same, but from the Greek, and I had to visit the dictionary to understand. It's a love that is brotherly, divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful. Yes, I came to Our Town and I got more than this lousy tee shirt. I learned a new kind of love.

Here we are for this brilliant moment together, living life in its fullest. ("Saints and poets, maybe. They do some.") What does it feel like for you? For me, it is scary. I am thrilled seeing life for what it can be. Hearing each night's audience of friends beyond the curtain between acts, glancing at them as I sweep the stage, still separated from us, like in Plato's cave, but closer to the truth than I've ever heard. And Mrs. Webb's eyes, when she fixes on Emily, and so nearly sees her, and yet, alas, just misses her — or, perhaps, not? Perhaps she does see. Perhaps we really do see each other just fine.

A friend, who came to the show from the east coast, told me this weekend that Wilder didn't want to answer any questions for us. ("Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?") Wilder dodges the answer. He wants us to live in the question, my friend teaches, because life is found in the question, not the answer. In Wilder's text, "yes" isn't really better than "no." What's better is asking the question. ("What do you say, folks? What do you think?")

For Wilder, and for me, the answer isn't the goal. The search is the goal. That's why I'm straining away. And glad about it.

I've had Our Town for more than 25 years. Now it's yours, too, especially for those of you living in Our Town for the first time. Welcome to Our Town. May Wilder's themes and his wonderful words haunt all of us forever.

All along, I've tried to understand, "The morning star gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go."

And now here we are, facing our final performance, wonderfully bright the minute before we have to go.

Again, yet again, let's light up the sky.

"Stay loose and play tight."

Here's a beautiful message, reprinted with permission, I received this morning from Parker MacDonell.

A weekend recording artist and entertainer, weeknight music publisher, and the official banker for Our Town, Parker is a member of the Old Bohemians, the presenting sponsor of this evening's opening night performance of Our Town.

Parker is a role model for both business and artistic sides of life. Read his words, please, because they apply to you, too, if you are exploring the outer reaches of your ability:

Artie - tomorrow is your debut (at least in this century) as Stage Manager in Our Town. Tonight you are going to have dress rehearsal, then you will go home and practice your lines one more time with Alisa. Then you will try to go to sleep, and my wish for you is that sleep comes easily so that you are as alive and aware as possible tomorrow. We are very much looking forward to being there with you tomorrow night.

"Stay loose and play tight" is now my standard exhortation to myself and those with whom I am about to go on stage. I heard it for the first time in 1978. I was playing in a band called Sonora (that name alone should help you get to sleep tonight) in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the band, Dave Sheils, had an older brother who was an agent with the William Morris Agency. Big stuff, that agency. So Dave was always bugging his brother Peter to help our band.

One day Peter calls me — I was the business manager of said band as well as the bass player — and said, "I got you guys a gig. Any time that Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley play in California, you guys will be on stage as their back up band." Wow! All we had to do was join the union. No problem.

But get to rehearse with these 50's rock stairs before the show? We did not. Instead, we were told to learn every song from Chuck Berry's "Golden Hits" album, which we dutifully did, and be prepared to think quickly on stage.

Our first gig with Sir Chuck was at Knott's Berry Farm, a poor man's Disney Land in Orange County, CA. The show was scheduled for 8 p.m., so we were there and set up far in advance.  Maybe we thought we'd get a little rehearsal at the sound check. No such luck. Instead, as the crowd was starting to chant "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck" at 7:55 with the curtain still down, we looked around and said, "Where is he?" At exactly 7:58, the back door to the stage opened, and there he was, guitar in hand, all alone.

He walked over to his amp, plugged in his guitar, turned all the knobs up to 10 — I swear this was before Spinal Tap — and played an out-of-tune E chord. The crowd stirred, sensing that the Great One was in the building. He walked up to the mic, turned it 180 degrees so that he was facing us with his back to the stage curtain, and said, "Have I ever played with you guys before?" 

"No sir, Mr. Berry, sir, we have never played with you."   

"Okay, I want you to watch my right foot. When I put that foot down, you start to play. When I lift it up, you stop playing.  Down is start, up is stop. You got that? Okay, I want you guys to stay loose and play tight."

With that he launched into "Johnny B. Goode" as the curtain went up and the crowd went crazy. There was only one problem. On his record, he played the song in B flat. (One of the little secrets to his unusual sound was that he played in the flat keys instead of the usual guitar keys of E, A, G and D.) But because he was at least 50 years old at the time of this story, he had decided to play this song in a lower key to make it easier to sing. So while he was playing in A flat, we were in B flat or some other key unrelated to A flat. It sounded a little like that piece that Charles Ives composed for two marching bands who were to march past each other playing the same tune in two keys that were as far apart as two keys could be (a flatted fifth from each other). What worked as 20th century atonal music for Charles Ives did not work so well for the song that NASA chose to put on the Voyager spacecraft as a representation of earthly rock 'n roll for any extraterrestrials who might find the Voyager.

Finally, our piano player Jim King yelled out the correct key and we got into the groove with Chuck. He played this song and two others with his back to the audience to tumultuous applause. Then he turned his mic stand around and said to the audience, "Thank you. With your permission, we will now begin our performance."

You will be great. You, unlike my friends in Sonora and Chuck Berry have rehearsed your work with each other. So, my friend, my wish for you tomorrow and the rest of this week is that you stay loose and play tight.

Peace,

Parker

Thank you, Parker, my friend.

Let's dance our way into dress rehearsal. Here's Sir Chuck and some crazy kids with all the latest moves...

Why invest so much time in Our Town?

I've tried to tell you why I'm devoting so much time to Our Town.

Still you might wonder.

This week, several friends have sent me the same piece from The New York Times. It's nice when people forward items to me, especially good writing that they found meaningful.

But it's downright weird when several people send the same thing. That suggests, "This is more than interesting. It is somehow about you."

It's a short column from the op-ed page of the Times, describing the breakdown of neighborhoods and what we can do to know our neighbors.

Which reminds me.
Speaking of neighbors, and several of them sending you the same thing...

When it rains hard in our neighborhood, my mother's basement is sometimes filled with rainwater.  That's bad.

Sometimes it's worse. Much, much worse. More than rainwater. Chunky style.

Not wanting to volunteer (or be paid) to go down there and clean it up, I never want a lot of detail. A glance and errant sniff down the steps was all the detail I needed. I'm satisfied to say, "Gosh. That's a shame." Or, if it's particularly ripe, I might add a sympathetic, "Bummer. That's disgusting."

During the years, we've exhausted all the technical language for this delicate situation. We've said "sewage" and "feces." We've laughed about it, using the very coarsest language, which is always fun with one's mom. (My mom, anyway.)

But then we wipe our eyes and look down the stairs. And it's all still there. Laughing never makes the real poop go away. (Note to survivors: please put that on my tombstone.)

So for a while we chose to refer to the visiting floaters in a more poetic way, a way that embraces the contribution of the entire community.

We called it, simply, "meeting the neighbors."

After all, where do you think this detritus came from? Topeka? I don't think so. It's from John across the alley or Jack over the wall. Of course, it didn't come across the alley or over the wall. It was borne on little water wings beneath the homes, like drone gondolas. But this ain't Venice, friends. 

Actually, in the end, my mother determined that it also wasn't "meeting the neighbors." I don't know how she determined this. I don't want to know.

No, it wasn't "meeting the neighbors," she decided. It was "know thyself."

"Now we'll go back to our town."
That's an actual line (no charge) from Our Town, opening tomorrow to more than 800 advance ticket buyers and who knows how many buy-at-the-door folks.

Part of the reason I'm devoting so much energy into Our Town is because of the theme in the Times article that is finding its way to me.

I'm trying to give us all something to chat about. Something that will help us reveal ourselves to each other. (Just not in my mother's basement.)

So we can really be neighbors. So we can know each other.

Here it is, "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" by Peter Lovenheim of Brighton, N.Y.

Cutting Back

"I'm sorry we haven't been in touch for the past month," a good friend of ours said recently. "You see, I was recovering from some sensitive surgery."

There's no phrase like "sensitive surgery" for ending a conversation with me.

If you say "sensitive surgery," I will form a tight-lipped smile and slightly tilt my head. Because I care, I will inquire, but only as far as etiquette allows.

However, in my gut, just south of my navel, I feel this imaginary grip, a tightening of parts deep within, as if you were Harry Potter and you'd waved your wand at my abdomen and shouted, "Sensitivus Surgeonimous!"

Proving That Opposites Attract
To the contrary, "sensitive surgery" is a real conversation starter for my wife. If we weren't married, I'd recommend it as a pick-up line.

You see, Alisa has just graduated from The Ohio State College of Nursing with a M.S. that sets her up to start as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

Alisa is professionally interested in what the surgery was, how you are feeling, and do you want to lift your shirt or drop your trou right here on the front lawn for a quick freelance grope. ("That's not true," Alisa says. "Examinations only occur with a chart at hand during an appointment in a healthcare setting." O.K., yes, dear. But the front yard exam seems to me like a logical conclusion to most of these conversations.)

Really?
So Alisa leans in and inquires. I wait for my gut to say, "Danger. Danger." and engage my fright or flight response.

"Yes, I had breast reduction surgery," our friend says. And, as she says it, she raises an eyebrow toward me. Huh, would this be because I am the only male among the three of us?

OK, so suddenly I'm both repelled and attracted. I'm not a publicly lusty guy, but if you're going to claim "breast reduction," I'm listening.

Popular culture — and Mother Nature and Sigmund Freud — have worked diligently to tell us that bigger is better. I know that if you have to have surgery for any condition, it's probably a condition that you wish you didn't have. (I'm so wise.) So I'm sorry and I hope you are feeling better soon.

But breast reduction? In this world of implants and bikinis, "breast reduction" sounds like a boast.

Let Us Now Consider My Own Private Parts
I mean, if I tell you that I need penis reduction surgery, are you interested?

Go ahead, I dare you: click away to CNN to see what's happening in the campaign.

First of all, believe you me, you won't find any doctors in the phone book offering PRS. I've been looking for years.

Second, because you receive all the same spam email that I get about Viagra and enlargement of both mortgages and man parts, you might say, "Artie, dude, wrong direction." You might add, "Don't throw it away. Lend some to a brother."

Listen, loyal reader: I'm not going into specifics. This is a family blog.

But oversized mammaries aren't the only thing causing backaches out there.

And the idea that my eventual grandsons might inherit this burden concerns me. Let's just say this raises sensitive issues. I guess I have a growing crisis on my hands.

Disclaimer: some aspects of this tale are fiction.

Why invest so much time in Our Town?

I have a variety of reasons for plunging headfirst into Our Town.

The primary motivation has been wonderfully recorded by Mike Harden in The Columbus Dispatch and Jennifer Hambrick in The New Standard.

But, as rehearsals continue, the motivations multiply. Here's a new aspect of my motivation.

All Those Books
For decades, I've walked past the bookshelves in our home. Titles catch my eyes, especially those that I don't know as well as I should. Many were assigned reading in high school and college. So, either I don't remember them vividly or, worse, I never really read them in the first place.

I look at these familiar titles with their unfamiliar contents — and feel a pang of guilt, at worst, or a longing for a missed opportunity, at best.

Among the titles: Our Town.

Now, as I read and re-read Our Town, memorizing and internalizing the language of Thornton Wilder, I realize that I am, as Jennifer Hambrick suggested, exorcising a ghost. The ghost is the false impression that I am so well read.

But how well read can a late bloomer truly become?
For now, Our Town will serve as a representative of the other books on the shelf, the other ones that sailed through my fingers and over my head when I was too young to really digest them.

Even if I don't know any other book so well, I will know Our Town intimately. I will know one book exceedingly well. I will know it cold.

So now, I know Our Town.

Barber Talk

With beloved Bobbie the Barber on sick leave, each day I look more like broccoli, rather than a proper sharpened pencil.

Recently, after years of cutting my hair, Bobbie mentioned some of his old customers who might have known my father in the old days.

Might have? It turns out that Bobbie cut all the heads that were nearest and dearest to my father.

And, like any good barber, he knew them well. "There was never a closer group of men, with more genuine affection for each other, than this group of World War II veterans," he told me. "They were rare and devoted to each other."

"And they were so funny," says Bobbie. They had highly refined, expert senses of humor. One day, a passer-by caught a glimpse of Harry Hofheimer in Bobbie's chair:

The passer-by said to Harry, "Hey, Willia—oh, sorry, I mistook you for an old friend of mine.... But, no, you couldn't be him. He's been dead for five years."

Harry responded, without missing a beat, "You're right. I couldn't be him. I've been dead for only three years."

Get well, Bobbie. And bring your hedge trimmers.

Excuse me.

"Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration."

This gem comes from Steve Martin, from his "Personal History: In The Bird Cage" in The New Yorker.

Here's a beautiful example:

Old Man Tennis

We didn't know it would be the week my father died, but it was.

Dad was healthy as long as I could remember, because he quit smoking the year I was born.

He'd been a lifelong smoker, the kind who lit the first one before getting out of bed in the morning. His doctor had noticed that Dad's blood wasn't circulating through his fingertips and gave him a choice: continue smoking or watch your son grow up.

My father took the harder choice and lived until I was 31, seeing me wed. He loved Alisa — and that he never met our children is the incurable bittersweetness of my life. They would have loved each other so.

Dad craved cigarettes the rest of his life. "Whenever I see someone get off an elevator and light a cigarette," he would say, somewhat wistfully, "I want his cigarette."

In Hospital
A year before his death there was a hospitalization for pneumonia. Dad recovered and came home soon enough, but he didn't much enjoy the time at the hospital.

They woke him up once in the middle of the night, cheerfully telling him: "We think we've figured out what's wrong with you."

His sound sleep (a rarity in a hospital) interrupted, my father asked, "What makes you think you know?"

They told him, "We realize that the fellow down the hall has the same thing."

Dad: "Is he still alive?"

Big Pharma: "Yes."

Dad, turning back to his pillow: "Then tell me in the morning."

My Inheritance
Anyway, about a year later, on Friday morning, Dad called to say, "I'm not feeling so well. Would you play for me in my tennis game this weekend?"

"Sure," I said. The tennis game was a familiar delight: Bob, Bob, Bill, Fernand and others in a men's doubles game whose membership had evolved over the years. These were men who I usually saw in our living room with Scotch on the rocks and beautiful wives at their sides. It was always a treat to see them dressed as boys in white shorts.

I played in his game that weekend.

The next Friday, after the funeral, back at the house, the tennis boys surrounded me to bring me up to date on the game: "Your father probably isn't going to play this weekend either. Do you want to take his place?"

I played in the game for the next two years. It was a delight. I learned how to play tennis like an old man. Young men work to win, hitting the ball as hard as they can. Old men, however, can't be beat, always placing themselves where the ball is going next. They practice spin, not power, slicing the ball thin like pastrami.

I remember running down a lob, sprinting from the net to the baseline. One of the men called out, "Your father wouldn't have run for that one."

I've always thought of those two years on the tennis courts as my inheritance.