Category: 1990s

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY SMILE

And now for something completely different.” –Monty Python’s Flying Circus

(Please click below and follow along with the lyrics)

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY SMILE©

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I promise you I won’t bite your dog

Or expect very much dialogue

I’ll wave at your kids, smile at your wife

I’ll probably be here for the rest of my life

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I’ll check your oil if you want me to

I’ll wash your windshield till it looks like new

Pay by credit, pay by cash

Yes I’ll even throw out your trash

I’m into ???? and my hair is long

I like a country and western song

I still take tips occasionally

I’m the best pump attendant I could ever be

I’m not all that handy but I’ll fix your flar

I wear the company logo hat

Wind, sleet, rain or snow

The customer’s always right you know

Regular, mid-grade, or supreme

I am here to fulfill your dream

Tire’s flat, needs some air

I got a gauge and I’ll be right there

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

(This song was composed and performed by an actual gas station attendant, albeit one with a creative and humbly self-deprecating sense of humor at times. One who lived with a big monkey of a MUSEon his back that relentlessly compelled him to compose and record songs all about 75% of whatever might come down the pike of his experience. And what had come down the pike in the case of the goofy smile was a trip to a dentist and, consequently, an embarrassing gap-toothed grin.)

All my life I’ve been an observer, discoverer, and sharer of what appears (to me) as the interestingly unusual. Such finds entertain me, teach me a little more about the world I live in, and make for intriguing conversation with others. I’m a storyteller after all, so interesting and unusual tidbits are my bread and butter. But see, in this blog it’s my job to share with you a motley variety of “roadside attractions” I’ve picked up along the turnpike of my own journey. Basically I suppose that makes me kind of a local yokel version of one of those washed-up History Channel celebrities, like William Shatner hosting The Unexplained.

And this particular singer/songwriter is just one more subject of my many episodes of Tom Lyford’s The Interestingly Unusual.

Joel was nothing if not an amazingly indefatigable songwriter. The good, the bad, and the ugly? All of it was fodder for the imaginings that would inlay their way into his various rock and roll, blues, folk, patriotic and/or protest songs, country and western ballads, and tributes. And this guy conjured up hundreds of songs. Literally. I would know, because I was the friend who voluntarily recorded a library of most of his output. On CDs.

Not the complete discography

I’m talking CDs you’ve never seen nor even heard of though, CDs featuring a singer/songwriter who’s “as unknown as they get” (to use the artist’s own words). How’s this for odd: pouring a lifetime of effort into productions destined to be sampled by exactly no one! Well, except for the same old baker’s dozen of his very few close friends (which you could count with the fingers of one hand) and family.

Despite the fact that Joel’s output was industrious, he viewed much of his talent and work with humility.

(Please click on the link below, and follow along)

SONGWRITER©

There’s cats and hacks and geniuses

Takes all kinds in the music biz

Some will make the Hall of Fame

Or become a forgotten name

Some will last on radio

Their popularity will grow

Some fade to obscurity

Playin’ clubs for a modest fee

I am a songwriter who ain’t

made the Big Time yet

I’m as unknown as they get

I am a songwriter who would

love to write a hit…

This one isn’t it.

Some develop fans for life

Other than their mom and wife

Some draw numbers quite obscene

Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen

Some attract a college crowd

Mellow, rockin’, soft or loud

Music that is hot and hip

Makes’em all wanna dance and strip

I am a songwriter who would

love to sell a song,

but they all come out wrong

I am a songwriter who could use a

brand new car

Please make me a star

I’ve never written anything

that’s revolutionary

I won’t set a music trend

I’m very ordinary

If a wrote an awesome tune

then maybe I could score

a platinum selling number one

and take it out on tour

There are those who have the gift

They’ve got talent, get the drift

Others, they could write all day

Still have nothing good to play

Some write songs spontaneously

Others craft them carefully

Some write stuff that really sucks

And still it makes them megabucks

I am a songwriter who has never

made a dime

Singing his own rhyme

I am a songwriter with a

guitar in his lap

Who made up this crap

Someday I might write the one

that turns a million ears

If it takes a hundred years

Joel, the singer/songwriter. I was his biggest fan. I’ve selected here a variety of what I consider to be among Joel’s best. I realize his music may not be for everyone. But I’ve always felt it was a shame that his stuff never really got to see more of the light of day. So… I’m just here to give him his due. Posthumously.

Some Odds and Ends About Joel’s Life

The Beginning

Hanging out in the band room (at the expense of his English, math, science, and social studies) was the only thing that motivated Joel in school. In the music department’s classrooms he took piano and guitar lessons, and this led to music becoming an integral part of his life. The idea of becoming a lifelong musician was suddenly all he could think and dream about.

At some point in high school, he made the rash decision to drop out. He was going to put together a band. And he did. More than one. But the very idea of a rocker’s exciting lifestyle, even in middle school back in the 70’s and 80’s, invited rock musicians to take certain risks.

Click on the link below to follow along:

CRISPY FRIED©

First time I ever got high was behind the school

I laughed my fool head off and thought I was cool

I sold my record collection just for dope and cash

Must have cost a new car into smoke and ash

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

First time I ever got drunk was on a bottle of wine

It cost me 99 cents and almost made me blind

Next mornin’ I had a head felt like a medicine ball

That’s been bounced up and down and around the hall

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

At fifteen I thought I was hip

Dancin’ around in my very first acid trip

First time I tried cocaine I got a wicked good buzz

It became one of my favorite loves

More than once I was snorting to a pile

Spillin’ it all over the bathroom tile

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

I did a lot for a long time to my brain

Now it looks like I might never be the same

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

And consequently Joel ended up having a dark and wildly adventurous past. He got drafted into the Army. But of course the fact that he’d never had any patience with authority figures didn’t bode too well for him militarily. So duh, that didn’t end well.

He went A.W.O.L.

He took off on one of those rite-of-passage cross-country odysseys with little but his guitar and backpack, all by his lonesome. And when his bus fare cash ran out, he hitch-hiked and took up some odd jobs along the way. He made it a good three quarters of the way to the Pacific Ocean before some grifters who’d offered him a ride just drove off with both his guitar and backpack while he was in a convenience store.

He turned himself in at a nearby Air Force base. Was arrested and returned to the Army. Where he convinced his superiors that he was never going to be a soldier, and was (I imagine dishonorably) discharged. And then he was right back in his little old hometown of Dexter, Maine where there were few prospects, and even fewer for a hopeful musician. He got a job at a shoe factory and made enough dough to eke out a life. Got a new guitar and joined a band or two. And composed songs.

Click the link below to follow along:

IF THE MILL SHUTS DOWN©

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

”Cause there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Joel married, had a daughter he loved dearly, and got divorced. And time passed

I met him back in the early 90s. Turned out he and I both had one friend in common. Ever hear of him? Some old guy named Bill W. We didn’t hit it off right away. We were from different worlds. I was the high school English teacher, and 50+% of America’s population ends up not liking English teachers. Joel was one of those in the negative 50. He had a kind of gaunt, scruffy look about him, always showing up in an old beat-up Army field jacket. He never spoke much. Kept to himself a lot. His appearance (to me) cried outlaw. And I made him out to be a stoner. And I was right.

We were two different kinds of cat. We had little in common. At least not until I discovered his favorite musicians were exactly the same as mine! Bob Dylan, The Stones, Neil Young, The Beatles, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Warren Zevon, Townes Van Zandt, and Willie Nelson. And then lo and behold, it turned out that he was into poetry too, especially the Beat Poets and Outlaw Poetry. Hey, so was I. And then on top of that I discovered he was literate! Not just literate. Very literate. Sure, he was a drop out, but over the years since high school he’d gone on to become a life-long reader, an aficionado of the great classics, the poets, the histories, and the philosophers. He had a library card and used it. He’d become a knowledgeable, self-educated soul. I mean, he was only one of two guys I ever knew who’d actually read War and Peace cover to cover. And no, I wasn’t the other one.

I found myself wondering, Who IS this guy?

Well for one thing, he was this counter-culture freak deep into Jack Kerouac. And when I heard him perform his “Jack Kerouac” at an open-mic one night, I had to sit up and take notice.

Click the link below to follow along:

JACK KEROUAC©

Jack was rad, Jack was mad.

Kerouac was the most beautiful we had

Jack would rage, Jack he gave

The very best he had to give

to Burma Shave

Jack and Neal were the deal.

Jack would hitch hike

Neal drove everything he’d steal

Smoking tea on benzedrine

They would rap all night

With Neal behind the wheel

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Doctor Sax hit the facts

Layin’ down the beat refrain

With railroad tracks

And he showed through his code

That he had the most gone rhythm

On the road

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Kesey begged him, “Come along

And find a brand new trip.”

But with Jack that tired song

Was sunken like a ship.

He’d become the Dharma bum

Who would drink his Toquay wine

to get all numb

Off he’d go on his floe

From his Massachusetts home

to Mexico

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

And then? And THEN…? Well, it turned out that like me, he was also a big fan of the sleaze bag novelist and poet, Charles “Hank” Bukowski! I couldn’t believe it. One of my underground favorites. And when I heard him sing his very own “Bukowski” at an open-mic, I was knocked for a loop for a loop.

BUKOWSKI©

Screenshot

Click the link below to follow along:

Charles Bukowski lived a life of drunken, squalid raunch

With pitted face and tiny hands and alcoholic paunch

Writing the tales of a dirty old man was Charlie’s bread and butter

Lived on whiskey, wine, and beer– his mind was in the gutter

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

About the lowlife laureate of American literature

So worthy and jaded his poetry was pure

Screenshot

He wrote a screenplay called Barfly, based upon his youth

Drinkin’ and fightin’ in alley ways, man, he tells the truth

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

He worked for a while sorting mail, post office in LA

Hanging out with whores and gambling all his blues away

He became the darling of the LA underground

And ended up in Hollywood, the Toast of Tinsel Town

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

Well, hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

So we started visiting each other. And then we did it. We became frends. Good friends, though strange bedfellows for sure. We spilled our guts to each other about our long, often unhappy lives.

Joel was many things. A member of a pretty sketchy looking rock band, The Breakers. He was an admitted alcoholic. Plus he’d experimented and gotten hooked on and off every drug known to man, plus a few others. Even acid. I was way out of his league. Overall he’d striven to live a life as raunchy as his patron saint himself and, like Bukowski, he was no stranger to the occasional jail cell or two. Plus from what I learned, his life had also been one long, dangerous, sexually permissive adventure. Half the songs he wrote were rife with wild women who’d populated his life.

I don’t know how successful he actually was at the dating game, but he’d outgrown that part of his life by the time I met him. He still missed it of course. Because Joel had been, and still was, a Don Juan wannabe. His songlist was laden with a prurient and randy nostagia.

Click to follow along:

HEY LITTLE WOMAN©

You’ve got an innocence that’s real appealin’

But it’s not just your heart that I’d be stealin’

You ain’t that pretty and you got no leg

But I’d be willin’ to sit up and beg

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

You make an older boy feel much younger

Somethin’ about you makes me ache with hunger

I’m the big bad wolf wishin’ that he could

Pull up with little Red Ridin’ Hood

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

I got to tell you it’s a rare occasion

I wish I had the powers of persuasion

I’d cast a spell to last a week or two

So I could get a little taste of you

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Hey hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Waitin’ for you at home?

I know Joel was feeling betrayed by the aging process.

When I’d gotten to know him, he was a loner who kept himself squirreled away in his little rented apartment with his pencils and notebooks, his guitar, his stereo, his cassette tape recorder, and a cat named Crash. There he worked his craft like a monk in a monastery, writing day after day. Rewriting. Recording his rough drafts. Listening to the playbacks booming out on that megawatt stereo (and how the apartment dwellers in that building didn’t call the cops with noise complaints I’ll never know). And then going back to the drawing board all over again. For more.

The solitary life took its toll. I know he preferred to be alone, but at the same time missed company.

He was constantly taking inventory of himself in is songs. He was good at that, stepping outside of himself and doing self-exams. His lifestyle may’ve been unhealthy, but his habits inspired his dark, razor sharp lyrics. Joel was nothing, if not a lyricist.

Cli4ck the link to follow along

HAUNTED MANSION©

Screenshot

There are shadows in the corners

Of all my memories

Crumbling moral failings

Have often haunted me

Phantasms of perversions

Have moaned their sorry wail

Within the walls of conscience

So prickly and pale

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Indulgence demonized me

I’ve been so damn depraved

I even spooked my own self

To think how very grave

And wanton was my evil

The spectres stalk me still

In every room and hallway

On every floor until

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

I’m sitting right in plain view

Of any who live near

And ‘cause they may not know me

Their hearts may fill with fear

Should they hear the rumors

That surely can be spread

About this mansion’s history

And all its awful dread

I’m like a haunted mansion

Where children dare not play

And forces would destroy you

If they could have their way

This poor old battered building

Is in need of repair

It needs the light of reason

To shine on it with care

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Loom within my mind

Like a haunted mansion

The man wrote and wrote and wrote. And I feel privileged to have been welcomed to spend so many hours, days, weeks, and months of his life– me, sitting at his kitchen table while he, sitting across from me with guitar in lap, played me some brand new one he’d just started working on maybe, or one he felt and hoped was a done deal. And he allowed me to be a tiny part of his process, using me as a soundboard now and then.

I’ll tell you what I love about Joel’s songwriting. His lyrics. In so many of his songs it’s the imagery, and the way he’d string well-chosen words together for the greatest effect. I would loved to have had him as a student in one of my English classes.

I’ll also tell you what I love about Joel. His honesty, his humility and his courage. He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever met.

He was a best friend. And yes, our relationship was one of opposites, The “strange bed fellows” thing. Butit was a soul adventure for me. And our friendship spanned more than a couple of decades.

THIS SONG MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH©

Click the link to follow along:

This song can’t change the weather

This song can’t brush your teeth

This song does not wear leather

This song won’t cause you grief

This song is not too heavy

This song can’t read the news

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song won’t win a Grammy

This song won’t make a pass

This song won’t paint your fanny

This song won’t give you gas

This song won’t make you lonesome

This song won’t make you blue

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song ain’t hard to follow

It speaks a simple language

This song is getting hungry,

Won’t you feed this song a sandwich

This song won’t wash your dishes

This song won’t clean your clothes

This song won’t grant your wishes

This song won’t blow your nose

This song may not do nothing

That you would like it to

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is kind of clumsy

This song is quite a clod

This song may have two left feet

This song is rather odd

This song can’t change your tire

This song is always broke

This song can’t start a fire

This song can’t tell a joke

This song can’t put your pants on

This song can’t tie your shoe

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is not self-righteous

It doesn’t preach or judge

This song can love all of mankind

This song can’t hold a grudge

This song can’t change the station

On you big HG TV

This song is on vacation

More or less permanently

This song has no opinions

No agenda to push through

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

JOEL (1958-2022)

Missing you, old friend

(Wait a moment for encore)

Seated on our front porch

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“BREAK A LEG: Part Two”

(On Making Me Look Good)

My high school dramatics-coach career lasted an incredible quarter of a century+. I’ve counted and before it was over, I’d directed/co-directed fifty-two high school plays and/or musicals. But believe me, had some crystal-ball fortune teller ever prophesied such a terrifying future to me, I would have run away and joined the circus. Nobody knew more than I just how unqualified I was to fulfill such a prediction.

So what happened? A rocky start. That’s what happened. So many things would go wrong. No big surprise considering I was the guy who’d virtually wilt at the prospect of being commissioned to pilot such an above-his-pay-grade helm.

Take for instance the ordeal of my first time being tasked with three one-act plays to produce and direct on my own at Foxcroft Academy. I say on my own because it wasn’t like it had been eleven years ago at Belfast when I’d inherited an army (The Footlights Club) who could’ve/would’ve managed just fine with or without me. No, there was no army to carry me through and make me look good this time.

So what went wrong? Well, right off the bat, two of my best and brightest plays fizzled right out from under me due to critical absenteeism at scheduled practices. That was crushing. The professional embarrassment over such a failure! I couldn’t figure out how other directors somehow managed to strong-arm their players into seeing that showing-up-at-rehearsals is a very big priority. Me? No General Patton. All I was is just some passive little ‘know-little’ who happened to have accidentally parachuted into the “director’s” chair, and was just going through the motions because, honestly…? I’m ashamed to say I simply didn’t know how to do it.

So there I was, Nervous Norvous me, left only with my B-side play, the least important of the three; a silly, childish piece of fluff titled “Once Upon A Playground,” the one I’d basically inserted into the program only as a filler. Talk about feeling naked.

So despite the fact that I wanted to gather up my family and run away to Canada, we were required to do the play in front of the Academy’s student body first, once that evening, and then once more for the kids in the lower grades the next day. I was going to die!

I remember the feeling of abject shame right down to the pit of my stomach while hearing the sound of the audience, quieting right down to watch as the curtains finally swept apart for our first performance of my fiasco. It was Zero hour. D-Day. And oh how I pitied my kids for having had the bad luck to end up with… me. And now everybody would know, would see with their own eyes, just what an incompetent loser I was as the so-called “director.”

Backstage, and following along with my script, I listened to my kids out there begin delivering their memorized lines. What an empty little play, the voice in my head harangued. What was I ever THINKING?

About three minutes into the play, I was startled practically out of my shoes by a thunderous, raffish noise that sounded something like a crash! Two seconds later in, I’d identified the ‘concussion’ as… laughter. Audience laughter!

Ohmigod! Was that a contemptuous laugh???

Utterly confused I looked down upon the last delivered line. Huh! OK. Yeah, it was… kind of a funny line… but that funny? And by then of course the show was moving on at its inevitable clip, totally out of my control. But before long…

It happened again! Another volley of belly laughs. And not sounding one bit mean-spirited either! And then another one. What the heck was going on?!

What was going on was that the play was working! Somehow succeeding way beyond my mousy, second-guessing expectations. It had never occurred to me that, duh (a) the playwright knew what he was doing when he wrote the thing, that he was good at what he did for his living, and that (b) the kids I’d cast could be trusted to do their part at making the thing work. What a surprise.

But here’s the real reason this dinky little offering somehow finally got off the ground? It turned out that I had two little freshman firecrackers in that cast, two young women who had SO much Pollyanna-esque-optimism and drive to, first and foremost, just be in plays and secondly, once cast, to do everything in their power to make those plays succeed.

That’s the truth. And my God, I had no way of imagining the walloping impact this duo was destined to have on not only me over the next four years but also on Foxcroft Academy’s dramatics program overall. God bless the freshmen, Sarah Thistle and Marliese Eberbach!

So know this: the overall, underlying purpose of me writing this post is… all about me setting the record straight. Because of them, I ended up getting one hell of a great reputation over a number of years as an award-winning drama coach. But that’s not where the bulk of the credit should have gone.

So here it is: this is all about me giving credit where the credit’s due.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. Let me back up a little first.

The first time I held auditions as the new director, something quickly became clear to me: on the one hand, I had a handful of underclassmen who’d come in with the greatest of hopes to be chosen. It was obvious that The Try-Out was something of great importance to them. And… not only had they come to me so admirably prepared, but also with an unbelievable ethic of teamwork and support for one another. Like, I mean they were altruistically helping each other get prepared for their readings, giving each other selfless encouragement to others in the hopes that they too might succeed, rather than approaching the whole ordeal with the hostile intent of a dog-eat-dog competition.

On the other hand was the gang of upperclassmen boys and girls who arrived all cocky, smirking, and openly sneering at their inexperienced, younger counterparts… and right in front of me. Oh yes, they knew this was an open “audition” alright, and yet their vibe was, We don’ neeed no steenkin’ try-outs. Us getting all the juiciest parts? That’s a foregone conclusion, it’s in the bag. Because we’re the varsity and that’s just the way it goes, you losers.

And although I had serious qualms about doing it (and as a result had to endure a long period of guiltily second-guessing myself thereafter)… I assigned roles not to those who seemed to have the most credentials necessarily, but to those who actually demonstrated the most skill, energy, and desire during the audition. Meaning that a lot of those juniors and seniors got dumped in favor of underclassmen who had just honestly earned their places with hard work and talent, damnit!

And oh, what a high school, drama-queen scandal that turned out to be! Upperclassmen’s parents were not happy campers. And the dumpees? Dumbfounded, yet mad as wet hens. But... in the long run, it turned out the best thing I ever could have done. For the kids, for me, and especially for the Academy’s drama program.

And so yes, my directorial career had to get shakily jump-started with the frivolous “Once Upon the Playground.” And I couldn’t believe it got such an enthusiastic reception. Because I guess me, being the dyed-in-the-wool college English major, I was feeling my job required more literarily-meaty offerings with dark and complex themes, overtones, symbolism, double-entendres, and elements of existentialism… which is pretty much why shortly after “Playground,” I opted to put on Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” the one-act featured in my last post.

How pretentious of me. I had so much to learn.

So my tenure got off to an embarrassing, molasses crawl over the first couple of seasons. Reason being, (besides not having a hint of a clue as to how to proceed) I was choosing my plays from among the same musty, curmudgeonly classic titles that F.A. had been putting on since back when I was a student. And my God, weren’t they ever talky and boring!

So one day, I pushed myself to begin to look for something new. Something unique. And I started sending away for play catalogues from all over the country. And as summer vacation loomed, I was deep into poring over the descriptions of many much-more-interesting-sounding, just-published scripts.

Script-reading turned out to be fun. To me, the script catalogs were like the old Sears and Roebuck Christmas Toy Catalogs, each play description sending visions of sugar plums of all the props and costumes we would need to get dancing in my imagination.

So I started ordering. Like a madman! Perusing scripts became my newest hobby, and I found myself rabidly getting into it. For a ‘know-little director,’ at least this was something I could do. And my burgeoning script-library began filling up mostly with some very odd titles such as “Postponing the Heat Death of the Universe,” SECOND Prize: TWO Months in Leningrad,” and “Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music.” As time went on it got so that before I felt confident about a purchasing a title for my program, I’d honestly ended up reading close to a hundred scripts. And I’m talking each year! (Did I mention that I’m a little obsessive-compulsive?)

Picking the Perfect Play developed into one of my unique Super Powers (OK, let’s just call them my stronger suits, my forte if you will). Say anything you want about me but, damn, I could pick a great play. The other super power being that I was actually very good at coaxing kids out of their little shells, and really releasing and expressing their emotions effectively. But that’s it. That’s all I had. Other than that… I was just some friggin’ moron in the field. But anyway, one day…

Ding! I’d found it! The best play out there! Something brand new and odd and unique in the catalogs, something just published too, something that no one in the entire state had probably heard of yet, let alone had seen performed. Something deliciously unusual.

(from the catalog…)

INCIDENT AT SAN BAJO by Brad Korbesmeyer Short Play, Drama  /  4w, 3m

The residents of a trailer camp have quite a story to tell. A stranger tried to sell each of them a mysterious elixir which he claimed would make them live longer. Most, of course, did not buy the elixir –and they are now dead, the water supply having been poisoned by the stranger. Only seven are left to tell the tale– the seven who drank the elixir which, it turned out, was an antidote! Each of their stories is told in a series of interlocking monologues directed at an unseen interviewer. The effect is somewhat like a “60 Minutes” segment.

THE ONE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Yes! This was the one! And when I ordered my dozen copies of the “San Bajo” script, I actually felt excited to be committing us to a different sort of play at least. And when I began our first meeting with my, “OK kids, here’re your copies. This is the play we’re doing. First read-through is right now… I felt a curious little spike in my heart-rate, a little blip of passion that was beginning to go right to work at countering the usual dread that normally handicapped my heart in these endeavors. Because this one was unlike any play I had read before.

What I had no idea of was that this was the play that was going to change everything.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Early on, I’d decided (in order to set the dark and mysterious tone of the piece) that the first thing I wanted the audience to hear while waiting for the curtains to open would be Bob Dylan’s “The Man in the Long Black Coat.” That song is captivating, lurking, spooky, and evocative of some mysterious event so very like “The Incident at San Bajo” it was uncanny.

You don’t have to listen to the whole thing, as we were only going to use the first minute and a half. But here, take a quick listen if you will and try to imagine you’re seated in a packed auditorium waiting on the curtains to swish open, and then this mood-setter starts up. Close your eyes and see where the music takes you. Listen to the tone. Listen to… the crickets:

Most often I’d have that piece playing while the kids came in and took to setting up the rehearsal stage. And right away a positive sea-change overtook the spirit of our rehearsals, which were becoming a labor of love.

Because this little newcomer in the catalogs was a unique ensemble piece wherein each actor is given a coequal starring role, it is an actor’s dream. Each of the seven individual players is intermittently a star in his/her own right, simultaneously occupying one of the six “stations” spread left-to-right across the stage (one station being occupied by a “married couple” together). When the single spotlight is highlighting one of the stations, the other five are left frozen, out of sight in silent darkness. Each “station” is an off-and-on little “micro-world” of its own.

Sure, the entire play is set in the one-and-the-same trailer park— each character being one of the trailer park’s trailer-trash losers. But each is being interviewed in his/her own “mobile home” individually— one, a guy a who’s a conspiracy-theory-ranting gas station attendant; an octogenarian spinster; a wannabe-suave ladies’ man in a smoking jacket, sipping bourbon; a middle-aged, new-age, lady-psychic scammer; and a shallow yuppie couple hell-bent on keeping up with all the latest trends. Point being: the physical space each character occupies on stage is a disparate little time-space microcosm, replete with that character’s emotional, educational, psychological, and spiritual plane. An actor’s dream.

The audience never hears the interviewer’s voiced questions, but of course the characters’ responses make the prompts obvious.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So along with the two other one-acts, we put “The Incident at San Bajo” on in front of the school and then the community. We were a big hit. Then it was time to board the bus and head out to the Maine State Principals’ Association Regional One-Act Play Competitions.

The Regionals never know what hit’em. We took them completely by surprise and by storm. “San Bajo” steamrolled right over the other schools. Not only did we take first place, but each and every individual of the seven took home his/her own much coveted All-Cast Festival Award, a rare accomplishment. And when it was all over, everybody was talking about the play itself, and about us.

(below, an encouraging note from our supportive headmaster)

So two weeks later, we hit the States on a roll… but immediately found ourselves humbled. We were up against the much bigger schools, a lot of them, and it showed— bigger schools with fatter wallets, humongous programs, and decades of greater experience, schools who were used to winning.

We were the small school underdogs, ripe for failure…

Such an interesting thing though, these competitions. Your big yellow school bus stops at a local motel for you all to drop the bags and suitcases into your assigned rooms, and then you rush to get right back on the bus. Next, over at the host school, you unload all the props, register yourselves at the welcoming table in the school lobby, get your festival badges, get escorted to your assigned to a classroom (which will be your home base over the next two days), get handed your programs, discover what time of day (Saturday or Sunday) your play is scheduled to hit the stage, and then you just sort of dissolve into the chattering crowds for a bit.

It’s a time for all the kids to meet and befriend their competitors, while the directors do likewise. There are three sessions each day: morning, afternoon, and evening— each one followed by The Unnerving Critique where your cast and crew (with their little tails between their legs, most likely) get herded into the designated ‘Judges’ Classroom’ and face the music.

It’s kind of like a rodeo.

Over the entire weekend you’re seated with your crew in the auditorium (watching all the other schools perform their little hearts out), seated in the cafeteria for the lunches, or seated in your assigned classroom going over and over your lines.

But you know, it’s a wonderful thing, getting to watch the spunk and the amazing creativity of all those various high school students on parade. Often daunting too, because you do find yourself struggling with imagining just how well your play might get measured up against the ones you’re watching.

But somewhere during those seemingly endless two days comes That Heart Attack Moment! It’s… your turn!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thank goodness I’d chosen the first two-minutes of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in the Long Black Coat” as our intro for “San Bajo.” Because while we were toiling at the last-minute tweaks of our props set-up back-stage, in the semi-darkness back there behind those closed curtains, the lethargic tempo of that music (which was soft and slow, and contained the sound of the night-time chirping of crickets) felt familiar and comfortable, and seemed to calm us all right down. Seemed to make the whole thing feel that this was nothing more than just another dress rehearsal back home.

My visual memory of those last moments have the actors, like busy, little, methodical shadows, silently tip-toeing about the stage, and moving things around in slow motion.

And then OMG! The curtains swept open. And there we were.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK, so no, we didn’t win. The competition was really stiff. Still, what we did do is knock the socks off everyone! So it was a moral victory. There is no third place trophy, at least there wasn’t at the time (1990), but according to the judges’ notes, that’s where we placed. Sure, we’d have liked to have won, but the enthusiasm that was showered upon us from all the other directors and cast members throughout the rest of the festival left us all very proud.

Two signs indicating how well we’d done were (1) in the following year, and the years that followed, we saw many, many other schools choosing to enter their versions of “The Incident at San Bajo” into the competition, so I’d say the Samuel French Publishing Company owed our school a big debt of gratitude for the free advertising, plus (2) before heading for home, we were profusely congratulated on our performance by the judges and were informed that in the following year we’d be placed at the highest level competitively (i.e., we’d be judged specifically against only the top-tier schools). And see, I didn’t even know that then, that there were two levels of the competitions. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since at that time an encyclopedia could have been published containing all the directorial things I wasn’t aware of.

But… look at us: WE’D MADE IT TO STATES!! And so yes, this was the play, and the cast, that began making all the difference in the Academy’s dramatics program over the next ten years back then.

So with FA’s student body back home already awed by our stellar performance on the hometown stage, some changes were in store. For one, it immediately became a lot easier for me to get boys to try out for the plays. When I’d begun, 98% of those trying out were females, while 98% of the scripts I could get my hands on called for mostly guys. Secondly, over time our productions began drawing larger and larger audiences, not just the parents and families of our cast members anymore, but seriously interested theater-goers from the neighboring towns and general area were showing up. So we were steadily building a reputation, which meant our program was beginning to haul in more money on ticket sales for a change.

So, “Incident at San Bajo” really had put us on the map. But does that mean I finally got over my Nervous Norvousness as a director? Hah! Nope. Not at all. It just meant more ulcers for me. Don’t get me wrong. I loved seeing the plays I’d selected do so well. But there were always, every single time, those lingering terrors threatening to, you know, unexpectedly collapse everything… all those what-IFS that could end a play in disaster in the wink of a poked eye.

I just wasn’t cut out for a tension-filled career.

But my actors were. They thrived on it. Things did go wrong, of course. But my kids always took care of those things. They were amazing. So it’s embarrassing for me to have gotten the credit for the way our dramatics program took off over the next decade. Yes, I picked great plays. I can take credit for that. And yes, I was pretty good at getting kids to let their emotions loose, and to project their voices. But that was it. The only other thing that I was good at was… well, letting go of things, letting my amazing crackerjack kids loose on each play. They were wonderful.

So here I am, setting the record straight: The lion’s share of the credit for making Foxcroft Academy shine in dramatics and helping the drama program grow and improve during my tenure goes to the kids, the little actors I was so blessed to get the chance to be associated with. And this is especially true for the three above, my drama wunderkinder: the amazing Sarah Thistle, Marliese Eberbach, and Pat Myers, all members of the class of 1994. They put their magic into those “great plays” I selected. They made each one simply fly. They made me practically famous as a director.

Only it wasn’t me. It was them.

I was only picking the plays and sort of going along for the ride…

And look at what a ride it was…

THE SECOND-BEST PLAY WE EVER DID— GOT US A COUPLE OF MONTY- PYTHON-ESQE LETTERS OF COMPLAINT FROM LOCAL MINISTERS, HEH HEH

Et Cetera…

Ah, those halcyon days (with ulcer)…

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