One Last Coffee Before We College

Her: "This whole home thing is just weird, you know? 'Cause like..."

Me: "... you don't really have one?"

Her: "Yeah... thanks for understanding."

Me: "Yeah..."

(slurp)

Me: "Well, these are the best years of our life, right?"

Her: "They sure better be."

Third Part In Well Reknowned Multi-Part Series: Long List Of People I Would Let Stick It In Me

3) Peter Sellers

4) Regina Spektor

5) Roger Ebert

6) Bill Nighy

7) Chewbacca

8) Julie Andrews

9) Alan Rickman

10) Marketa Irglova

11) Michael Palin

12) Dora the Explorer

13) Al Franken

14) Diane Keaton

15) Michael Cera and Jonah Hill (Double Team)

16) and Jenna Fischer

Second In New Critically Acclaimed Multi-Part Series: Long List Of People I Would Let Stick It In Me

2) Bernadette Peters

First In A New Multi-Part Series: Long List Of People I Would Let Stick It In Me

1) David Cross

A Letter To Fellow Cast and Crew of The Glass Menagerie:

I am sorry. There is something here that must be said, something beyond these words, to each of you individually. But it is late, and while you all deserve a lengthy, personalized letter of your own, and while there is one, somewhere, inside of me for each of you, I cannot find the means or ability to do you all justice. Just know, please, that there is something in me, somewhere, that is yours. But for now, this general letter will have to do. So here goes.

Dear All Ya’ll,

Thank you.

For me this wasn’t just a chance to come back and be onstage. It wasn’t even simply a chance to come back for the sake of the good ol’ days. It was an opportunity to return and represent the Masque, demonstrate what a terribly important role this theatre and all of you involved took in my life.

Over eight years of my life is in this place, and what the Masque is, what it offered, and what it continues to be inside of me is something that I will never lose. The Masque has grown beyond a name, a building, a theatre, a place to… hang; it has evolved into an idea, an active passion, a source of creative and personal growth and ideals. It represents a milestone in my life and a greater part of who I am today. What the Masque is on any grand scale is indefinable, because within each of us the Masque is something irreplaceably unique.

The Masque is not a training ground for professional theatre. It’s not a program made to ready people for a future career in the arts. The Masque is a community larger than that established to instill an appreciation, respect, and love for who we are as people and to strengthen the relationships we have with others through art as we develop our own creative sensibility.

The Masque gives students an opportunity to discover what there is to love about not only the theatre, but also working and interacting and growing along side others on a regular basis. It gives them a chance to fully realize themselves.

At it’s best, the Masque is the one and only venue for youth to come together and collaborate creatively and freely as they struggle through the most overwhelmingly developmental stage of their lives. The Masque is freedom of expression and exploration. The Masque isn’t just a home away from home, it is the very foundation of my person.

The fact that I can return, nearly two years after my involvement at the Masque had come to its initial end, and discover the relationships I have with all of you have not only remained consistent and meaningful, but have even strengthened over time, is a true testament to the unmatchable lasting power of this place and what it means to us all. Our experience here has become a common unfailing bond, and while I cannot speak for all of you, the theatre and you all will stay most certainly forever and ever in my heart.

I can say with great honesty and ease that I love all of you. And I am forever grateful that you have all taken these central, involved, and intimate roles in my life. I am proud of the show we have put together and am already sorry that it must come to an end. Best of luck to you all as we go our separate ways once more and here’s to getting us all back together again in the future, in some form or another. You think I’m making this up because I was invited to do the alumni show and I have to be nice. I could do that. I could put on an act for you all and say a lot of things without being very sincere, but this time I am. I am talking to you sincerely. Thank you.

The Glass Menagerie

I don't want it to feel like a waste of my time...

The Glass Menagerie
Friday and Saturday, the 17th and 18th of August
7:00 PM
Masque Theatre, 14 4th Street SW Rochester, MN
$10 per ticket

Call me a dreamer, butI'd really rather not have it just be our parents in the audience.

The Architector

He stared at his thumbs a lot. One was shorter than the other, though not by much. He had cut off the tip years ago working as a short order cook at a local diner while struggling his way through college. He was going to be an architect.

He had driven himself to the hospital, pressing his thumb against a wad of paper towels just under his chin. The tip sat in the passenger seat next to him in a sandwich bag.

After waiting in the emergency room for near four hours, they had taken him into a back room and sewn it back on, but the stitches pulled and busted and when his mother told him to drive himself back and get it all fixed up he didn't. He let them bust. The tip fell off again and was lost.

He never finished school. He didn't have the money. And his mother certainly didn't have the money. There just wasn't any money.

He drew a lot. Scribbles and doodles resembling architectings. He loved to architect. He was going to be an architector. Co-workers would find the drawings, add to them, drawing people walking past the buildings, under the archways, dogs peeing on the pillars, things, flowers, growing on and around doorways and monuments. He took them home and hung them on his wall.

His favorite was that of an aqueduct running off into the distance, a basic design, a bad day for the doodles, but a co-worker had drawn an eye peering through one of the arches and a giant hand reaching over the stone to grasp at unsuspecting sheep.

The look on the face of one sheep that saw the slow approaching hand was quite possibly the funniest thing he had ever seen.

He never drew at home. He would stare at him thumbs and listen to the radio. But he would never draw.

He had never been touched. Not by a woman. He had never held a hand, he had never received a hug, he had never been touched. Not by a woman. And some nights that's all he thought about.

Go see Once.

Charles H. Duell and the IIoT

As my family whiles away their summer in New England, I have been left alone for the second annual What-to-do?-What-to-do?-So-bored-Kinda-Hate-Rochester Extravaganza. And no matter how exciting it sounds, this two week period is no walk in the park. I am left with the hefty list of responsibilities that includes, but is not limited to: watering plants, walking the dog, getting the mail, sleeping, taking out the trash, feeding the dog, driving my dad's car, not closing the door when I make #2, and dancing to ABBA with limited to no inhibitions.

This afternoon, on my way in from walking the dog, being the ever efficient time saving son-of-a-gun that I am, I also swing by the mailbox to wrangle up the letters and posty-cards. Killing two birds with one single stone, as it were.

Rifling through the notes and envelopes, a packet sent by the Illinois Institute of Technology catches my eye. It's for my sister, soon to be a junior in high school, already wildly bombarded by the many surrounding colleges screaming for people to join their quaint little school. Memories begin to flood back to me with the ferocious energy of any gay man presented with the opportunity to hop on board a young Kevin Bacon (am I right, gang!?) but I put them on hold to inspect a cuuuuuurious quote written in laaarge bold letters right on the back of the packet:

"EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE INVENTED HAS BEEN INVENTED"
-Charles H. Duell
Commisioner
U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

What!? What!@? How is that any kind of incentive to apply for a school?

I mean, if there is one frontier that relies on any kind of reach-for-the-stars go-for-the-gold let's-become-the-next-best-thing absolute optimism, isn't it education?

Sure, let's invite people to our college, but at the same time let's put some strange limit on knowlege and ability.

Printing a picture of Richard Nixon fingering the Pillsbury Doughboy while whispering in a tiny speech bubble "We're your last resort!" would have been a better draw.

I mean... reeeeally...

I don't... get it.