Forced Vacation Update

This being my first week of unemployment (or nonemployment, since I'm on the payroll until July 3 and then will start receiving my severance package at that point), I thought I'd write a line or two.

Today was Steve's birthday, so I was busy getting a present and putting together a nice dinner for this evening. It was good because it got me out of the house, and I'm starting to get a little agoraphobic, choosing to sit around the house rather than go out and enjoy myself.

One other recent development, which happened a couple weeks ago but got upstaged by my late writings on "Arsenic & Old Lace" and my trip to Wisconsin, was the passing of Steve's cat Buddy (snoozing here with Christmas Elf and Xmas Bear last holiday season).

He was an orange tabby and was about 14. He had been throwing up a lot in the past few years, but we found that giving him a quarter of a Pepcid daily helped that greatly. Still, it was pretty rough on the ivory-colored berber carpeting, which itself is rather old.

In the last few months he had stopped eating (very unusual for him) and even drinking water. Buddy was looking really bad in the last week or two, just skin and bones and weighing only about four pounds, so Steve decided to have him put to sleep. It was kind of rough and we miss him still.

This leaves us with one cat, Marcel, a very singular cat who will have bursts of affection and then simply go off on his own for hours and hours. Since Buddy has gone, Marcel has taken to being afraid of the television, skirting around it in panic. It's very weird.

One of the things we can have in the house, now that Buddy is gone, is plants. Buddy would eat any kind of plant: real, silk, plastic, and then get sick in the biggest way. So Steve's birthday gift was a plant in a very nice pot. (I also brought back some Fiestaware for him from Red Wing).

So I'm doing fine. I'm concentrating this week on getting out more. I'm contemplating a trip to Hollywood, or maybe Chinatown or Olvera Street; whatever strikes my fancy and is close to a MetroRail station. (Oh, yeah; Universal City Walk!).

Drop me an e-mail if you want. I could use the diversion.
And lord knows I have the time to answer.

Freedom

Freedom is a terrible thing. Freedom with a nice severance package is not too bad.

Yes, for those of you who have not heard (and that's everyone who's not on Facebook), I have been "made redunant" by the Nielsen Corporation, owner of The Hollywood Reporter. Translating that Godless corporate gobbledigook into human speech, it means I've been canned. After almost eight years and a half-dozen rounds of layoffs.

I can't say I was overly surprised. I had been informed that another round was coming this week (this is the fourth time in a single year), but I had also been told my name was not on the short list (which was true for a while). But corporate politics being what they are, I was a pawn that was swapped out, sacrificed for the perceived success of the game. I think there's a chess term for that, but not being a chess player, I can't think of it.

In any case, there simply weren't very many people left there to fire, and they sacked ten of us, which leaves about 12 people to put out the book on a daily basis.

I can't feel too bad because the company I was in was stellar: from the co-publisher, the art director, top editors on down, folks were given their walking papers.

The severance package Nielsen provides is quite nice. For all practical purposes, I am fully employed well into August, with all benefits intact. It's a nice 10-week window in which not to worry too much about stuff. And even after that's expended, unemployment will cover expenses nicely for quite a long while.

So the biggest impact for me now is missing all the folks I've worked with at The Reporter over the last eight years. Every morning I've been getting up and taking the Gold Line into Union Station, then the Purple Line out to Wilshire and Western, where I stared at the Art Deco magnificence of the Wiltern Theater while I waited for the bus that took my down Wilshire and dropped me off a half-block from the office building. That's a routine that I won't have in my life anymore. Here's hoping that my next job will be as easy to access on public transit.

Today I sent an application into the Art Center College of Design here in Pasadena, since they need a design director (who also writes) to fill in for someone going on maternity leave. It runs July through December, so if it pans out, I might be getting salary and severance pay simultaneously for almost six weeks; that would be sweet.

But I'm not trying to plan out the future like that right now. Right now I'm accepting that this is one of those transition points that everyone encounters in their lives, voluntarily or not. So I'm trying to release all the things, good and bad, about this last decade in Los Angeles. There will be things to mourn. There will be things to rejoice in. There will be things to be very, very thankful for.

And soon, there will be a new place, a new job and a new phase of my life will begin. Right now, I'll try to enjoy this corporately enforced vacation. As Fritz Perls said, "You can't push the river; it flows by itself."

Just Because It's There

Nothing much to report, except it's the end of my work week and I can't wait to begin my weekend.

Included here is a rather disturbing picture. I have no explanation, no reason for including it here except that I found it rather unsettling. This photo is from lileks.com, a very entertaining and bizarre Web site. Check it out sometime, especially the Institute of Official Cheer.

The last blog entry, I'm afraid, was quite long and arduous, both to read and to write and assemble. I promise not to do that anymore unless I absolutely have to, and I will endeavor to do more short and pithy entries, like this one, that have absolutely nothing specific to talk about.

So that's it. Have a wonderful weekend; I plan to.

Back in LaLaLand

The good news is Steve and I are still legally married in the State of California. The bad news is that no same-sex couples who want to tie the knot will be able to. Yes, Proposition 8 was upheld today by the California Supreme Court.

I've only skimmed the opinion, but I have to agree with the court on this one: The right of the people to amend the constitution needs to be protected. I get that. But why not change the rules so you need 60 percent of the vote instead of a simple majority. If the process were thus, 8 would have gone down in November and all this would be moot.

You must forgive the tardiness of this entry, but I turned my computer off before I left for Wisconsin, and when I got back it didn't want to turn back on. A little troubleshooting revealed that I needed a new power supply. $170 later, I am back online, so here we go!

First: Captain Jack Sparrow of the Black Pearl was on the subway last week and he took the wrong train.

Those of you who follow the blog will recall the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you've read any of their literature at all, you will know that global warming is a direct result of the decreasing number of pirates on the planet. The jaunty gentleman on the subway was certainly doing his part.

Actually, he was an out-of-work or wanna-be actor who was doing an ersatz Sparrow (and not a very good one once you got past the pirate costume), heading up to Hollywood & Highland to pose for pictures with tourists and make a couple of bucks in the mix.

But he found himself on the Purple Line, which I take down Wilshire, instead of the Red Line, which goes to Hollywood, Universal City and North Hollywood. When I left the station at Wilshire and Western, he was wandering around, wondering where he was. Not a very effective characterization for such a savvy traveling man.

On Monday, I was on the bus on Hollywood Boulevard passing in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater and saw Jack out front with the hoards of tourists. As the bus proceeded west, I saw another Jack Sparrow heading east toward Grauman's. I wonder what happened when they met: Maybe some kind of matter-antimatter thing?

Second: The performance of "Arsenic & Old Lace," which took place at La Perla del Mar Chapel in Shell Beach on Saturday, May 16.

Steve and I took off from Los Angeles Friday around 4 p.m. We got into Arroyo Grande around 9:30. It was a hell of a drive. We checked into the motel and then headed over to the moms' house to say hello.

Saturday we had breakfast out with the moms. Call was noon for a 2 p.m. show. The cast included Paula McDougal as Abby, Kit Sine as Martha, Steve Burtner as Teddy, Mike Mesker as Mortimer, Robin Riker as Elaine, Pete Star as Jonathan, Mike Suddarth as Dr. Einstein and Officer Brophy, Ted McDougal as Dr. Harper and Mr. Witherspoon, yours truly as Officer Klein, Phillip McDougal as Officer O'Hara and Mr. Gibbs, Cody White as Lt. Rooney, and Kittie Vicars (my lul sis) as the narrator.

I was really amazed at the amount of work and study the entire cast put in on the show, even though it was just reader's theater. About 20 people showed up (including Cousin Sandy, who came all the way from Long Island, New York, and Robin's brother-in-law, David, who came from Atlanta, Ga.) and it was a very appreciative audience. Sister Kittie had put together a buffet table of snacks and drinks, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Robin's husband, Evan was there to chronicle the event, and seemed to be having as much fun as the rest of us did. I wait with anticipation to see his handiwork.

The show ended around 5 o'clock, so the out-of-towners all got together at the moms' afterwards. We ordered in Chinese food. The meal was really good (it always is when everyone orders something different), but the fortunes in the cookies were decidedly mundane.

Steve and I headed back down to Pasadena on Sunday after a farewell breakfast with the family at a restaurant called the Quarterdeck. Robin, Evan, David and Sandy returned on Monday.

For me, it was good to do some theater again. It's been well over a decade since I last took the directorial reins, and Mom and Aunt Kit and I had always talked about doing this show. Granted, it wasn't a very extensive production, but even with minimal technical, it was fun to direct again, if only for a rehearsal or two.

Third: My trip to Wisconsin to visit my brother Steve and his family. I left on Wednesday, May 6, for a four-day visit with Steve and Pam and Amanda and Emily in Ettrick.

I arrived Wednesday about 7:30 in La Crosse. Steve picked me up at the airport (no checked baggage, so no delays), and we stopped off at a Wendy's on the way out to their place, since I hadn't had any food beyond an apple galette and a latte at an LAX Starbuck's before boarding the plane there. I polished off a chicken sandwich and shared the fries with Steve on the drive home.

On Thursday, Steve and Pam had to work in the morning and Emily had classes, so I vegged out at the homestead and waited for Amanda to show up after her shift at work. She got there around noon, and everyone got together in the afternoon. Steve and Pam went to a faculty dinner while I took Amanda and Emily to dinner in La Crosse (onion blossom and cheese curds for appetizers), then we went to play pool at Top Shots (I actually won a game against Emily, even though she has her own pool cue; always a bad sign for us amateurs) and wait for the parents to show.

Friday, Pam and Amanda took me on a grand tour of La Crosse. First, though, we stopped in Onalaska on the drive in to see a very large and excellently painted sunfish (the animal, not the boat). It sits on the hill above the Mississippi, with wonderful views of the river. While we were there, a woman offered to take a picture of the three of us. In Los Angeles, this would mean she wants to steal your camera. In Wisconsin, it just means she's a nice lady who saw us taking pictures and offered to help out.

We lunched at the boat club, which is a river version of a yacht club without a lot of the attitude and pretense (but there was some). After lunch, we visited the International Friendship Garden and the Hiawatha statue (a 25-foot, 25-ton concrete sculpture watching over the conjunction of the La Crosse, Black and Mississippi rivers) in Riverside Park (the steamboat museum was closed until Memorial Day). According to Pam, there's a big festival held there every Fourth of July weekend (cleverly named "Riverfest"). It sounded like an old-fashioned American good time (in the words of Captain Beefheart: "Everything a nation needs/for making whoopla while it feeds). And the steamboat museum is open then. So, after a stroll through the park, we visited the city art center, where they were putting up a show of artwork of the mentally ill (very intriguing and mildly disturbing). They also had a number of large garishly decorated cranes (like the cows other cities have).

From there, we walked around the convention center and ended up at Pearl Street, which used to be the red light district for the riverfront. Like so many old red light districts, it was renovated and now sports a bevy of trendy shops (well, trendy for Wisconsin). Among them was the original cheesehead shop, where you can purchase those foam cheese wedge hats (and various other cheese-related paraphernalia), along with cow stuff. Lots of cow stuff. There were a couple art galleries with overpriced and hastily executed work by local artists. And antique stores filled with local and not-so-local artifacts, also at inflated prices. The ice cream shop was my favorite, though: an old-timey place with an ice cream counter and a candy counter. I was very, very good and only had one scoop.

One of the many highlights was visiting the world's largest six-pack of beer. They are actually holding tanks at the local brewery, but they've been decorated to emulate their smaller locally brewed counterparts. Big sunfish. Big indian. Big six-pack. I thought California was king of big tasteless effigies, but Wisconsin has us all beat on that front.

The afternoon was waxing, so we headed up to Grandad Bluff for a really good overall look of La Crosse. The large marsh that sits right in town was easily evident from this vantage point, and that's where we were headed once we stopped at the university and picked up Steve from his last two classes.

From there, we took a long, leisurely walk in the marshes (well, not in the marshes). There were lots of water fowl (baby geese, which I know are called goslings, but "baby geese!" sounds cuter).

Now, during the previous evening and earlier in the day, Emily and Amanda had been lobbying me to press my brother (for whom Friday is a take-and-bake pizza and rent-a-DVD night) to have broasted chicken from Beaches, an Ettick landmark consisting of a bar and a small cafe. Both Emily and Amanda work there off and on. When we stopped in for a meal there earlier, Emily disappeared when we sat down: Turned out, she knew the woman who was working that day was a horrible cook, so she went in and cooked the entire meal for us. Dude! Is that homespun or what? (For those of you in the know, this is the place that Emily wants to buy.)

On Saturday we went to Taliesen East, the home and workshop of Frank Lloyd Wright. It still functions as a teaching institution with the fellows living on the grounds. It wasn't in the best of shape and not a lot of activity was in evidence, but it was quite interesting. I came away with the same impression of Wright: a bully and a genius who didn't seem like a very likeable person. But his designs still inspire me. After, we stopped at a small church where his family cemetery is housed, and we got a look at his final resting place.

It was a very long drive (over an hour) through some very beautiful scenery (see evidence of cows in the inset photo). When I arrived in Wisconsin, spring had just started taking hold of the countryside: All the fields sported new grass (it looked like someone had just mowed the entire state) and all the trees were just past budding in that bright spring yellow-green that makes your eyes pop.

On Sunday we went to Red Wing, Minn., home of the shoe, yes, but also home to famous pottery. My main reason for requesting this trek (also fairly long) is because there is an outlet store that has the complete line of Fiesta Ware in every color available. And since hubby Steve and I have started collecting Fiesta Ware, I splurged and got some nifty chili bowls, a couple of corn plates and a holder for the sweetener packets we use for our coffee at home. What total fun. On the way back, we stopped at a dam and lock in Alma (I think that was the name). The town is almost as interesting as the lock, like all the little towns in this area of the country. They all just feel so homey.

Monday was time to head back to L.A. My flight left La Crosse at 12:45, and I was home in Pasadena by 7:30 that evening. Nothing too untoward occurred on the ride home. Tuesday I took as a day off, which I always try to do when I get home from traveling. The next day, May 13, was the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, so I've been pretty busy ever since then.

So I think that sort of brings us up to speed on what's happening with Mark (God, I love it when it's all about me). Here's hoping the time between blog entries will get somewhat shorter. Keep checking in.

A&OL: The First Rehearsal

The last few days here in L.A. have been hellish, with temperatures toying with 100 degrees. Today a lovely wind has blown in from the ocean and everything is cooling off. Here in mid-Wilshire, where I work, it's in the 70s with a light breeze. Still lots of smog around, though.

But this is not my tale for today: I am here to chronicle the first rehearsal of "Arsenic & Old Lace," which took place at the moms' house in Arroyo Grande last Saturday. It's taken me this long to get a slot of time to write this, and I wanted to wait for Evan, Cousin Robin's husband, to e-mail some of the pictures he took of the event. I'm sure you'll agree that it was well worth the short wait.

Steve and I started in Pasadena, leaving about 9:30 in the morning. The drive up to Arroyo Grande was pleasant and, except for nearly getting creamed from behind by a speeding BMW just south of Summerland, things went well. There was the one point when we stopped for lunch and got delayed by several wrong turns in Goleta, but the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we arrived at the moms' at about 1:30.

My sister Kittie is stage-managing and I am directing. The moms, of course, are playing the two sisters. We didn't have a Mortimer for the first rehearsal (he was auditioning for something else, I believe), and one or two of the smaller roles are cast with folks who also weren't present, so Kittie read those parts. (She has me down to play Officer Klein, but as I was busy taking notes, Deb Star read that part.) Kittie is also the narrator I've added to our reader's theater version: between filling in for folks absent and reading the narrator, she was busy. At one point, she read over a page of the script all by herself!

In the overall shot we have, clockwise from far left, Steve Burtner (Teddy), yours truly, Teddy McDougal (Dr. Harper/Mr. Witherspoon), Mike Suddarth (Dr. Einstein), Kittie Vicars (narrator), Pete Star (Jonathan), Deb Star (groupie and my designated reader), Phililp McDougal (Mr. Gibbs/Officer O'Hara), Robin Riker (Elaine), Paula-mom (Abby) and Kit-mom (Martha).

When we first gathered to begin the read-through, Goldie, the moms' dog, thought everyone was there to see her and, hopefully, give her walkies and/or treats. She went around and around in the middle of the circle of people until it became clear we were there for something more important. Once she had realized that, she grabbed her pig ear, sat in the center of things and chewed it until she dozed off.

It was odd having a read through that was also a rehearsal. Some of the folks were getting their scripts for the first time, but things went amazingly well for what was essentially a cold read. There weren't a whole lot of notes to make, since everyone had a pretty good idea of the parts and how they wanted to play them. Also, with no staging required, we were a little freer to play around with it.

It's been over a decade since I directed my last show but it didn't take long to get the creative juices flowing. Over the course of the rehearsal we came up with numerous ideas to keep the piece reader's theater and yet add a little visual punch to it and give the actors more latitude to get creative themselves.

This was a "ninja run" for Steve and me (a phrase coined by Robin which means drive up in the morning and drive back in the late afternoon), so we were headed out the door by 5 o'clock. Still, there was enough time to have a sandwich (which the moms had thoughtfully provided after rehearsal) and do a tiny bit of visiting before we took off.

We have another rehearsal scheduled for this Saturday (the 25th), then a third rehearsal on May 9th (which I will be missing since I'm going to Wisconsin to visit brother Steve and his family), and then on May 16th we will be performing for an invited audience in a chapel in Shell Beach.

The first rehearsal excited me; the second one will be even more fun, since we'll be driving up Friday afternoon and will get some of the visiting time we missed out on last weekend. After that, for me, it's show time!

And thanks again to Evan for providing these great shots. Cousin Sandy sent me a saying in an e-mail and it's so true: "A picture is worth a thousand words, but it takes up three thousands times the memory."

Hippity Hoppity Flying Spaghetti Monster

Yes, it's that time of year again. I can tell, because there are lots of young people on the Gold Line when they should be in school. But school's out because it's Spring break and can Easter be far behind? Passover comes today when the sun goes down. But you don't see a lot of Passover marketing going on (although I did find a Passover basket online). It's all about renewal, though cloaked in various ritualistic forms. This ritualistic form I think says a lot about Easter for me. And if you want to expand your religious awareness (and who doesn't), you could check out the Flying Spaghetti Monster in all its mystical forms. It has brought me faith.

The biggest outward impact of this time of year is candy. In all its cheap forms, candy is everywhere. We didn't get enough during Valentine's Day, so it is reintroduced in new forms and colors. Steve and I are doing amazingly well on our diets (a New Year's resolution that we've actually been sticking with). I've lost 20 pounds and Steve's lost about 10 (but I have much farther to go).

The one thing we've allowed ourselves is Peeps. He eats his fresh from the box, while I practice the dessication of Peeps; for me it's the only way to eat them. You must cut open the cellophane wrapping and tip the peeps up to allow maximum surface area. Leave them that way for 10 days to two weeks to develop full potential of all their chewy goodness. When they sound like a hockey puck when tapped on the counter, they are ready to consume. Mmmm-mmmm. I do not think they are kosher, though.

And eggs. Easter eggs. Some of them are elaborate and stunning (those are Eastern European eggs), but most of them are just garishly colored (those are American eggs). Either way, I haven't quite figured out why we do this. I know that, as a child, Easter always meant one inevitable thing: egg salad sandwiches for the next week.

Personally, I haven't dyed Easter eggs for some time now because there aren't a lot of kids in my life, and they are what the easter egg hunt is all about. These days I just hard-boil eggs if I want egg salad. Besides, those dyes leak through the cracks in the eggs and imbue the salad with a weird bluish-brownish tinge that I always felt looked somehow unhealthy.

Cascarones are the best eggs of all, I think, but then you have to blow out the eggs (scrambled eggs for week) and fill them with confetti. But the fun you get breaking them over people's heads. And, of course, it's always fun to put one or two raw eggs in with the cascarones so some unsuspecting goofball will get a real surprise.

So Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy Flying Spaghetti Monster Day. Have some motzoh, your candy, your extra meatballs. Times is hard, but fun is harder.

Fun at Work

Everyone is so worried about the fate of publication, and the state of the economy just intensifies all the uneasiness, not just here at the Hollywood Reporter, but everywhere in publication. There are people standing in the corner, wringing their hands, absolutely convinced that the sky will fall. It reminds me of the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz": "I do believe in ghosts, I do believe in ghosts, I-do-I-do-I-do-I-do believe in ghosts."

But I can't take that for very long. Most of the time it comes up in meetings where middle management types, who feel they have a duty to have everything under control, bandy words like kids at a high school debate session, trying to out-authority the others in the room when none of them really knows what's going on. And the corporate higher-ups will never let them in on the real scoop. So it becomes a self-important game they all take too seriously.

I do have something rather lighthearted to share with everyone, though: A cover that we published last week that was probably the highlight of the day for many of our readers (Access Hollywood even mentioned it). The story is about an upcoming film project based on the lives of the Three Stooges, and the story concerns the casting, which is almost complete. You don't have to read the story to know its content; just look at the picture (those are not the real stooges, by the way. A hint: the one in the middle is Sean Penn). And on the left, Obama's speech numbers, which are getting lower: Seems he's like a space launch; once folks get used to it, they stop watching. However, I take it as a good sign that not everyone is feeling compelled to glom on to his every word in public for reassurance: We're starting to realize we'll make it through the present shit -- a little smellier and perhaps not as wealthy but we'll make it -- it'll just take time.

So no real big news to convey. I still don't have the Disneyland pictures with me, so I can't write that post. I'm starting to forget what all happened during the day at the Happiest Place on Earth anyway, but I do recall we had a smashing time. And the photos will stir the memories, I'm sure.

Steve's doing well at his new job. April will bring the rehearsals for the reader's theater performance of "Arsenic and Old Lace" up north. If you're in the San Luis Obispo area on May 16th, you're invited to join us.