The Tan Duffel

This was an assignment for a writing class that will be revised. I was to write about a travel obsession and decided to take a fun angle with the idea. I thought readers might enjoy it.

* * *

The package sat unattended, its position safe but its contents unstable.

I held check, my position secured.

Chatter around the perimeter suggested joyful celebration, as if a long-awaited goal was about to be attained. A rogue adversary approved forward activity.

I positioned myself for visual confirmation and verified my peripherals: a clear line on the target two feet away, entry and retreat uninhibited for a ten-foot radius.

I moved in.

“No, don’t do it!” A child’s voice, the worst calamity.

I drew back but kept my eyes on the package.

The tan duffel sat along the driveway, its black straps limp and disconnected across the concrete, its innards exposed through an open top. The zipper had been ignored, final details unimportant once the bag was filled.

I changed my approach, circled the yard for a clearer route.

"Kids, let’s go.” The adversary’s voice resonated with stress. “Why isn’t that bag in the car?”

I was caught! “Huh? Oh, hey, Michelle.”

My wife pointed at the duffel. “Throw that in the car and let’s go,” she said.

Every trip we take repeats this same issue. I pack the car and my wife and kids hand me bags that are wide open. I am no highly-trained inspections officer from the Transportation Safety Administration, but I know when a bag looks nice. A bag that is not closed is slovenly. As I lug the burdensome luggage through parking lots, I sense surveillance from open windows. Better dads and proper husbands stare and scoff. I can hear their remarks as drapes slide closed: Guy can’t even close his suitcase. Harumph, grumble, grumble. An overnight bag with a gaping hole across its top is a cavern of chaos waiting to break free should it be toppled.

Soon, we buzzed along the interstate en route to a friend’s wedding. The obsession rattled in my brain like Yahtzee dice wanting to escape their shake and roll cup. I wanted to scream, “Why won’t you just pack four items less so the bags will close?!” But I remained quiet. Operation Stop and Pee had already been set in motion.

I had given each kid a can of Pepsi. “Why not?” I had told them. “It’s a mini-vacation. Go for it!” Had they seen my devilish smile, they would have run. Dad’s up to something again, save us! Not this time. Not this trip. I waited.

An hour into the trip, the first sign of weakness echoed from the backseat of our red Chevy HHR. “Are we there yet?” my son asked. A trained parent recognizes the first response to pressure upon the bladder. He shifted in the seat, approaching the “I gotta go!” moment.

I looked in the mirror, fixed my eyes on Brian. His sandy-brown hair hovered over bored eyelids like a canopy over a canceled picnic. “Not yet, Buddy. Everything okay?” He sighed, uttered yes and leaned his chin on his fist. The thought of the duffel lingered as I gave a courtesy check around the car. “Girls, you okay?” Two sweet voices piped up that all was well, but my youngest, Bethany, added, “I guess.” Operation Stop and Pee had entered Phase Two – the Wait.

Somewhere in the hatchback, the tan duffel sat open. I was distracted with thoughts of exposed garments. There’s no shame in what we own; everyone has underwear, right? It’s the practicality of the matter. Why risk dropping things when the zipper is right there? “Just close the damn zipper!” I muttered.

“What, dad?” my smiling “tween”, Becca, asked from under headphones.

“Huh? What? Nothing. Just calculating the mile markers.” I lied to my kid. How far would I go? The open duffel loomed over my very soul. The obsessive thoughts grew.

In truth, my obsession is a rebellion against excessive behavior. We have too much stuff, and the last thing I want to show weary travelers is that I am raising kids to bundle their possessions like squirrels in winter. Travel is an extension of who you are, it defines you to the people you meet along the way. I can’t show the world my ugly side. I have people to meet, friends to make and good times to have.

My hand gripped the steering wheel. Sixty-seven minutes had passed since Brian asked if we were there. That kid was growing too fast! His bladder had become an impenetrable fortress. If a can of soda could hold in there for two hours, what would become of his college days? My mind wandered. I imagined him taking wide open suitcases and de-lidded boxes back and forth to college; envisioned parties where a beer bong hovered over my little boy like a Gothic ritual. I had to save him. The boy needed to...

“Dad, are we there yet now?”

There it was – Operation Stop and Pee, Final Phase.

“What’s up, Buddy?” I had watched The Bourne Identity. I know how to play these roles. “You okay?” My eyes barely left the road.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

I glanced at Michelle, smiled, shrugged. “Guess we gotta stop,” I told her.

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, lost in a magazine.

Four miles on, a sign read: “Rest Stop – Right Lane.” I pressed the gas just enough to creep over the speed limit. I hit the exit ramp hard and threw a spiral of cinders into the air.

My wife flinched.

She folded the magazine and tucked it away. “Girls, either of you have to...?”

I heard nothing else. The moment crawled with perfect execution. I edged the car into a spot, popped the locks, and my family sprung forward. Nikes and knock-offs hit the pavement the same way they burst through the door on the first day of summer.

I stood, stretched, took a look around the parking lot.

“Why’d you park so far from the entrance?” Michelle asked.

“They have energy to burn. With an hour left, the walk will do them good.” I leaned on the roof, content. I thought only of the satisfactory plu-chunk of the tailgate as it popped open.

“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.

“Don’t need to. I went before we left, haven’t touched my Pepsi.” She gazed into the car and saw the unopened can. “Not thirsty,” I said. “I think I’ll just stretch, walk the legs out.”

She shook her head and walked toward the store. Things had all fallen into place masterfully.
The automatic doors slid shut behind Michelle, and I zapped the button on the keychain. The tailgate lifted like an offering. I scanned the lot again for recognizance surveillance. The coast was clear. A man in a fedora puffed away at a cigarette by the entrance, but he didn’t notice. He was someone else’s decoy.

I stepped toward the gate and fished out the open bag. There it sat – wedged under roller skates and someone’s fluffy pillow. I reached for the bag, gave a good tug. The weight above added pressure and it did not budge. “Damnit,” I uttered. I have fast pee-ers for kids, they wouldn’t be gone long. I gave a hefty pull, full reverse throttle, and the bag leapt toward me, bringing a skate with it. The plastic bomb clomped onto my toes and I let out a yell that would stop the mailman. “Son of a” something I cursed. I threw the skate back in and set to work.

I rested the bag against the bumper – no time to place it on the ground. The opening was wide, a gap. The duffel carried clothes I hadn’t seen the kids wear in months. A piece of aqua green swimsuit with a fake palm tree lapped out of one end and a blue shirt hung precariously over the other. I stuffed the contents in and pulled the zipper, hard. It moved a smidge, four teeth gripped at best. I pressed down on the bag, crushing all cotton and any hidden bottles within. If need be, I would pay for laundry services at the hotel. What’s a little shampoo in an open bag, right? Nothing popped inside, but nothing gave way either. I grabbed the duffel from both sides, squeezed the zipper’s unhinged sides as close together as possible. The little connecting nubs cut into my hands but I withstood the pain. With my right hand I again tugged at the zipper; it edged forward a bit closer and then slid away as I let slip my grip. Sweat galloped from my brow. I looked up – no family in sight. I tried again, punched the middle, pulled the zipper, and pressed a knee against the side. I gained an inch, maybe two.

Then I heard it! Bethany’s friendly chatter. She’s a loud kid, like her dad. I canvassed the scene – they were on their way. I tried the zipper again, made no further movement forward. Thirty seconds until I would be caught. Michelle would lob accusations of paranoia and ridiculous worries at me. I tried again, no progress. My right hand burned; little half-circles were indented into the flesh from the zipper tag. My left hand cramped. No time. I yanked the thick cotton shirt from the bag, stashed it between a backpack and another pillow, slid the duffel closed and jammed it into place just as Brian reached the car.

I slapped shut the tailgate, rubbed my hands and smiled. “Everyone go potty?”

“Dad,” Becca warned, “We don’t go potty anymore, we’re big now. It’s just a bathroom.”

“Right, let’s go then.”

Michelle sensed my deception. “What were you doing?”

“Huh? What? Nothing.” All these lies!

“Dan,” she used my name, the sign of serious business. “Why were you in the back?”

“I thought I heard a game beeping.”

“Did you turn it off?”

“Turns out it was the guy next to us – one of those squawk radios. What did your dad call them?”

“A Cee-Bee.” She did not look convinced.

“Yeah, that’s it. Funny, they sound like a computer game. Let’s roll.”

It takes a mastermind to think of everything. I had my tracks covered from every angle. Operation Stop and Pee had been successful. On we rode, a family safe, bags properly secured, children prepared for a solid future. Espionage – it’s not just for Special Agents anymore!

A versus V (or My Personal Pipe Dream)

I think I am onto something. Hear me out, this is not one of my crazy plans to rule the world. That sort of ended when I realized that the P-52 Space Modulator is not even real!

I am not a Sociologist, but I do have a knack for paying attention to how we live our lives and how people interact. The fact that our society is marred with issues and problems is not unique. While we magnify the controversies of our day, each society throughout history has had its fair share of scandal, debate, pressures and wrongdoings. Look at The Plague – how fun could that have been? Mankind has often faced challenges and We Of the Modern Age have it no differently. I can only care about the context of our time, so I thus offer the following hypothesis.

We need to reduce our definition of success. Okay, maybe that isn’t a hypothesis but let me explain.

I work a modest living at a good school and take what probably falls into the realm of an “average” commute back and forth each day. I can’t complain. I have it easier than a lot of people and find great satisfaction in my career. Still, I spend more time with my co-workers than I do with my kids.

There is something wrong with our society when I have time for in-depth conversations with a math teacher and only enough time to recap the day and preview what’s on the docket for tomorrow with my wife. Don’t get me wrong, the match teacher is a good guy, but that fact alone magnifies what is wrong with how we live in the modern day.

We need to experience a cultural shift, one that is serious and real and refocuses what truly matters to us as a people. I will call it the A versus V Societal Shimmy. “A” relates to Accomplishment; “V” relates to Value. What we value is accomplishment, yet what we should try to accomplish is a refocusing of our values.

We need to change from an accomplishment-centric people to a value-centric people.

We need, quite simply, to find a way to live better, and the solution isn’t all that hard to imagine. I certainly am not calling for a hippy commune of shared survival. We have to work, and we have responsibility. Things need to get done. I just want us to value our lives more and work less. Is that so much to ask?

I propose we advance to a four-day work week and close all non-essential services for two of the three days that we are off. This does not need to extend the weekend; maybe we could take a mid-week break. Work Monday and Tuesday, rest up on Wednesday, return to work for two days before the weekend. Huh? What do you think? How cool would that be? I don’t care whether it is cool or not, I know it could restore a focus on valuing our lives and our time and our society, if we use the time wisely.

I get it – competition breeds hard work, hard work creates success, success leads to a better life and the cycle goes on and on. But when does such a maddening cycle stop!?! It doesn’t. And that is the root of our problems; our problems are so out of control that we just don’t know what to do. But wasn’t success supposed to allow for leisure time? Time to spend with, oh I don’t know…family?

If we claim to support, and want to foster, and even propose to need, the ever-popular “family values,” I think it is high time we change how we function as a society. If we find a way to truly encourage family values, then maybe we would improve some of the things that ail us in the twenty-first century. Again, I am no expert in Sociology, but my hunch is that with a better core value, we could do away with such things as…gee, I don’t know, the pressure of a list... How about we abolish hatred, prejudice, laziness, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide and the drop-out rate for starters? With a value-focused life directed toward true family time, these all can disappear.

Instead of trying to fix these problems, why don’t we look at them as symptoms of a bigger problem!?! That problem being how we live and how we balance our time.

The problem is we push too much toward Accomplishment and care too little about Value.

I don’t care what you have accomplished in your life, tell me what you value.

It doesn’t matter how you spend your family time, it’s about returning the “value” to the phrase family values. If you enjoy going to the park as a family, grab that basket and go! If prayer is your thing for the family, churches on nearly every main street in America will open their doors to you. Go Episcopalian, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhism, it doesn’t matter to me. If sports bring you together, coach up, buy tickets, wear jerseys, though I suggest you leave the beer at home. (Sorry, no plan is perfect!) Movies can be family time – if you talk about them beforehand and afterward. Teach your kids by teaching them how to ask questions. Why was the film script written? What was unique about the setting? There is even an opportunity to take a tour. If you loved a movie, tour the city in which it was filmed. That would be neat.

The point is simple – there are a lot of ways to spend time together. But first we need to change how we go about life in order to have more time together…and that is where A slams into V and causes chaos. (I wish I had that math teacher handy to draw up a formula that would describe that better. Inertia and energy and unstoppable forces, that sort of diagram.)

This is not Utopian banter. I realize life cannot be perfect and peaceful and bursting with free time for everyone; someone has to work. I am willing to do my fair share. But, what if we just cut down on the amount of progress we need to record? What if the seven day week became a week of four work days and three family days? Not leisure time, not get stupid drunk time, certainly not “let’s-shop-more-there-might-be-a-sale” time either! Just time. Time to refocus our values.

It seems to me that we have accelerated the human experience. We live faster, worry about deadlines more and push, push, push to get things done, acquire more goods, make more money and ultimately live unfulfilled lives. Guess what? The only time we cannot control is the minute we die, and then we will be lying there wishing we had all those days back.

Trouble

I am troubled today. What troubles my mind is a list of things I can only minimally affect, things that require big change, full progress and many people interested in helping me to ease my troubled mind.

I am troubled by thoughts of a misconstrued apocalypse. Really, is the world ever going to end? Scientists suggest some ridiculous number nearing fifty million years. A religious fanatic predicts it will happen this October. Too much room for error for me. I think I will follow Natalie Merchant’s advice and “let the mystery be.”

I am troubled by a planet that is becoming over-populated, yet equally troubled that the fair distribution of space is nowhere near equilibrium. Have you seen the open countryside? If we could find a way to get jobs and commerce to the “middle of nowhere,” it seems that everyone would have a comfortable homestead.

I am not in trouble often but am troubled by a number of things:

Troubled, by the number of students who opt to drop out of high school. I have read statistics that place the drop-out rate anywhere between 19 and 22% of high school kids. 1 in 5 teenagers won’t finish high school? In the so-called richest and best nation in the world, we let that happen? My goodness, that is a shame.

Not troubled, by similar college numbers – there is much more involved in decisions on the college level. Not everyone is “college material,” and the costs may outweigh the benefits. Let’s face it, we need skilled labor as much as we need menial labor, and college is not intended to prepare a person for all of the jobs we need for society to function.

Troubled, by the rising occurrence of murder-suicides in our nation. Times are bad, I get that. But what ever happened to perseverance? Or, worse, when did it become acceptable to take others out because of your own suffering? Maybe the ultimate act of selfishness is when you can’t see the light so you blacken it from others.

Troubled, by larger issues as well. If a guy from Pittsburgh can comprehend that killing others in the name of religion doesn’t make sense, then why do power-hungry rich autocrats not get that? I ain’t all that smart, folks. It doesn’t take much to see that blind philosophy bent on hatred leads to nothing good.

Troubled, definitely, that my message can only reach those who already know the above to be true. What good is a point if the ones who need to read it, never do?

Troubled, by small things with big implications. Why do we create discounts and tax breaks and incentives for companies to convert corn into fuel when people are starving in the world? Why do so many Americans say “I am starving” when really we are just hungry until our next meal? It is an exaggeration and, sure, we know what you mean. Is it possible to be more sensitive to what words mean in their basic form?

Troubled, that we had to write up hate crime laws to protect the innocent. At what point on the moral compass of humanity did we violate an individual’s right to be who they are born to be? And, if you disagree and think that one is “not born a certain way,” then take that up with your God and leave the rest of us here to make society better through acceptance and understanding. Perhaps (and probably) hatred and its resulting violence has been around as long as mankind has walked its only Earth. Duh! Of course it has.

Troubled, that it took us 2,000 years and more to figure out that bad people come in all shapes and sizes too. They just surprise us more by how and why they strike out.

Troubled, by our systems in this country. It seems that social programs and capital campaigns and political parties and education sectors have all gotten to be too big. Within their colossal scope it becomes more and more difficult to practice control. Not control in terms of who runs the bureaucracy but rather in the context that someone who is running the ship can foresee the eventual outcome of what might come next. (I am troubled that the point I am trying to make here may not be clear enough.)

Troubles abound. I am troubled not by lack of education but by a willingness of people not to care about education. If young people don’t even know they have a chance…then where are we?

Here’s a troubling thought. I have no problem with the self-flushing toilet…but why in the hell did we have to invent that thing in the first place?!? What person began the trend of not disposing of his own waste? That is what troubles me – that the need to invent such things exists because some people are pigs.

I am troubled that teens find more excitement in video games than they do in intellectual curiosity. When did we forget to teach that? It is troubling that we teach to specific tests and “guidelines” and forget that to learn is to think for oneself.

What a troubling thought that marriage is not taken seriously, but yet perhaps more troubling that society insists upon marriage when really it is such a deeply personal decision. Not all people should/ need to / could be married.

It troubles me sometimes that I am a dreamer. We will never get rid of guns, we will probably never stop countries from hating each other, we may very well never be able to endorse the benefits of education to everyone, yet we will continue to have troubles.

Twenty Years with Stanley: May 25, 1991 – May 25, 2011

As a kid, you dream of things that may come to matter less when you get older. Some say you grow up, others say that you change perspective. Maybe it is a little of both. My brother had a friend who used to say, “I still got a little kid left in me,” and I never really knew what he meant. I heard it as a verbal conundrum. Was he saying that he was still a little boy, in that he refused to grow up and hoped to remain the proverbial toys-are-us kind of kid? Or, was he suggesting that he hoped to always maintain a bit of kid (as in a “little” amount) within his personality. That way, he would mature but still enjoy the things that make us remember being a kid. I never asked him and maybe will one day. It suggests, however, that each of us should hold onto some strand of what mattered when we were little.

One thing I really wanted as a kid was to be a baseball player. That fell to the wayside when I realized I couldn’t hit a curveball or throw one or even recognize one as a broadcaster. Another thing I wanted was to be a rock star. Not happening! Have you heard me sing? My music skills are even worse. Still, one thing I wanted had nothing to do with my career or my hopes or may lack of talent. Rather, it had to do with being a sports fan.

I was one of the few kids in my Pittsburgh neighborhood who liked hockey. This was before the Mario Lemieux era hit Pittsburgh, the short four year span between the U.S. Hockey Gold Metal at the 1980 Olympics that has inspired talk of miracles, and the day in 1984 when the Pittsburgh Penguins were saved as then-General manager Eddie Johnston announced they had drafted “le nombre soixante-six” or, number sixty-six, known throughout Pittsburgh ever since simply as Mario. Other kids still watched the Lakers and the Celtics or the Steelers and Cowboys. Ever since Mike Eruzione and Lake Placid, I was interested in Maple Leafs, Bruins and Penguins.

Years roll by and by as we age, but as Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Being a young hockey fan in the 1980s was torturous. The Penguins almost eliminated the defending champion Islanders in 1982, and then made only one play-off appearance in 1989. Throughout my early hockey fandom, they kept losing early in the elimination tournament that is the play-offs. The dream I had and my brother shared was a Stanley Cup Championship. Our goals were simple. We wanted the Penguins to win!

The hockey years tumbled along with the awkward teenage years and I kept hoping for the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup, which for those not in the know, is the trophy given to the hockey champion from the National Hockey League (NHL). The league really should be called the North American Hockey League because Canada is heavily represented. Regardless, I wanted to see the Penguins win The Cup. It seemed they never would. Living through seasons from 1980 through 1990 seemed to be a lot longer than a decade, and much, much longer than the two decades since.

I have long said that every true sports fan deserves to see the team they root for win a championship. It is just that much fun. It is a thrill-ride, it is exciting, it is the fulfillment of the euphoria that makes us fans. I have also said that if you are going to be a fan, you might as well have fun. So, I take this crazy sports fan thing to the level of passion. Who knows why? It has probably been a lot of energy spent that could have been directed toward better projects. Hey, it is what it is and it was fun hoping the Penguins would win. And they finally did so in 1991, twenty years ago this very day.

On May 25, 1991, after a brutal and amazing season, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the elusive Stanley Cup to claim their first NHL Championship. And I had finally realized one of my wishes. At the celebration event, the gritty Phil Bourque raised The Cup above his shoulders and said to us fans, “What do you say we take this thing down to the river and party all summer?!” I had just turned twenty-one and was not a drinker, but I celebrated all summer and fondly recall that year to this day. You have to understand how much this meant to me then. I was dating a girl for what became my first serious and mature relationship. One of the first tings I told her was, “Listen, I think it is important we spend time together, but if the Penguins ever make a run to the Stanley Cup, I will be in front of the television almost every night watching games.” When it happened, she got mad and broke up with me. I walked away clean. I had warned her!

The Penguins have gone on to win two more Stanley Cups in 1992 and 2009, but as they say, the first time is always special. I have also gone on to do a lot of things in the 20 years since. Through so many moves I can no longer count, getting married, having three kids, buying a house, changing jobs several times, going back to school twice and owning ten different cars, it is the night that I blew a fuse for the horn in my first car that I remember most clearly. Sitting on Route 51 in a 1983 Chevy Chevette, cheering with strangers, blaring the horn en route to the airport to welcome our hockey heroes back from Minneapolis with the cargo bay heavier by thirty-four and one-half pounds of hockey glory, I laid on that horn ceaselessly. I was celebrating – fuse be damned!

Hopes, memories, being a kid, being young, being a sports fan. It all mattered then and it still matters today. The Beatles sang, “It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.” We Penguins fans can now and forever know that our favorite team won The Stanley Cup, and as of May 25, 2011, it was twenty years ago today…

1987 – 2011: My 20 Concert Tour (3 Days / 3 Performers / 2 Friends – What a Tour)

I recently embarked on what may be the last of the great hurrahs in my rock-and-roll life. I am not a performer – unless air-guitar counts – but I really like rock music. As the Beatles once sang, though I think Carl Perkins may have written the words, “It’s got to be rock and roll music, if you want to dance with me.” Not that anyone particularly wants to dance with me, but you get the point. I was raised on baseball and rock music, among other influences. While I have enculturated myself to different levels both above and below rock and roll (let’s be honest, seedy is fun!), the baseline has been there from as early as I can recall, as has the bass line, but that is a different idea entirely.

Like many Pittsburgh suburbanites, I was into what was called “Classic Rock”, music that roughly spanned from 1965 to 1980. From the British Invasion through Post-Modern, I was a guy who just wanted rock music, save the heavy metal hair for someone else. Bad Company and Bob Seger filled my cassette player, and orders from Columbia House (free music scam – Google it yourself) consisted of Foreigner, Billy Joel, The Eagles, Jethro Tull, Fleetwood Mac and the like. Eventually, I found Led Zeppelin and they were a favorite for years. I was a “Ten Years Gone” and “Out on the Tiles” guy as much as I was “Dazed and Confused” and “Black Dog.” Truth be told, I still sit in the car to hear the entirety of “Stairway to Heaven” if a trip ends before the guitar riffs do. Along the way, I discovered Rush.

Hold on! I know a lot of you just rolled your eyes because you are sick of me talking about the band. This isn’t necessarily about Rush, it’s about something bigger. Be a good reader and continue.

Rush and Zeppelin were my favorite bands for years, though Rush officially (As if these things matter!) became my top favorite in 1989 with the release of their Presto album. I figured a band that was still recording and still touring should be a favorite. I have seen the band in concert more than 20 times since 1987, and each has been a unique level of coolness, rock-amazing-ness and good times spread over 11 venues, 7 cities, 5 states, with and without my wife and kids, but mostly with one friend. There have been other people invited over the years, but roughly the other Dan and I have rocked Rush in concert at least 15 times. (We’re idiots – we lost count somewhere along the way.) The most recent, the 2010-2011 Time Machine Tour, was the best.

I first saw Rush in 1987 when I was a straight-edge kid with a huge case of The Big V suffering through an insufferable high school. Since then, I have been educated, fell in love, married, parented, re-reeducated, hired 4 times, fired 2 times, dabbled in and out of theatre, went through a mini drinking phase and, of course, matured. Throughout those years, the Rush concert has been the one constant (other than the Pirates losing).

It has been said that there is no luck, that luck is born where preparation meets opportunity. I think this is true now more than I ever had before. Was I lucky to see Rush 3 times in 8 days in April of 2011? Sort of. The schedule and availability fell in line well because the band’s tour dates were close to Pittsburgh when my school was on break between classes. Perfect! But I had prepared my place in life so that I could attend.

They called the tour “Time Machine” in reverence to their now-thirty-seven years in rock and roll. I can’t help but think that witnessing the tour 4 times in total was like taking my own trip through the backward lens of a life spent. Rush ripped through “Time Stand Still,” a song that inspired the first poem I had published in a college journal. When you’re 19, those things matter. They cycled through the entire Moving Pictures album, which includes a personal favorite called “The Camera Eye.” That song once served as means for bonding, silliness and good-natured laughter with a friend Phil who has since moved far away. The band also tuned up a blues rendition of their classic, “Closer to the Heart,” a song that has a unique place in my life, my heart, my ambitions and my art. I am working on a novel that borrows its title from that song, and every time I hear the line from which the title is drawn, I get shivers of hope and excitement. (Look for more blog postings before anything is revealed about the novel. A writer has his secrets!)

The thing about Rush is they have always somehow said in song exactly what I was pondering at each moment of the last twenty-five years of my life. Case in point, this past year I went back to graduate school to study creative writing and with the hope of finishing that novel. Shortly after I signed on, a new song by Rush was released that sang, “In a world where I feel so small, I can’t stop thinking big.” That’s me right there – I just keep thinking something big is out there, and I am working toward it. In 1991, as I was figuring out all those late college / early career ambitions, they released “Bravado,” which tells us to pay the price but not count the cost. I followed some of that crazy old dream. When I became a parent, a Rush song written four years earlier took greater precedent in its meaning: “Take it easy on me now, I’d be there if I could; I’m so full of what is right, I can’t see what is good.” That is no lament! We parents should take pride in doing what is right at the risk of being our child’s friend, or even simpler, just going to a kid’s second birthday (which they will not remember) and passing up on the night at the bar with friends. It sounds like an easy lesson, but count how many friends would actually make that right choice.

So the music continued through the concert and then Rush made the whole cost, the whole travel, the whole two decades worth the time and energy by playing my all-time favorite song. A rare title track for Rush, “Presto” from the aforementioned CD is without a millisecond of consideration my favorite song. That Rush chose to finally play it live in 2010-11 was worth each trip taken. (Don’t tell my wife; she thinks I would have wanted all of the other 20-25 songs for the money too!) As far as I can recall, they had never played “Presto” before. This song has inspired me as an artist and a thinker in ways I cannot express in words in a small space. One has to have such a song in their personal repertoire in order to relate. From “Don’t ask me, I’m just improvising” to “I’m not one to believe in magic, but I sometimes have a second sight,” this is my directing song. I can’t explain it, it just happens. When I am directing a play and looking to move characters along with a playwright’s words, “Presto” somehow creates a rhythm and nuance that dictates the show. It is as if, and as the song goes, “I could wave my magic wand.” And they finally played it after all these shows!

That is why you go again and again and again, not because you drink copious amounts of beer (I never have) or because you hope some stoned chick will take her top off (there are girls at a Rush concert?), but because a favorite band should not just be about music, they should fill your life, enhance who you are, and connect on a higher plain.

Will I See Rush again? If they tour again, sure. A secret hope is to publish that novel and make enough money to follow the band on their eventual farewell tour and catch baseball games in every city they hit. But, if Rush retires without ever taking to the road again, I think I would be okay with that. Hitting the twentieth concert is a cool watermark. That they played so many songs that are part of my life makes it the perfect Farewell to Rush Tours Tour. (I didn’t even mention the beauty of “Faithless” and “Brought Up to Believe” as they relate to my personal views.) My kids are older, my plans are changing but I will keep rocking. We’ll have to see if I catch multiple shows again. I am just damn glad I did when they came around. I was lucky…no, I prepared my life so that when the opportunity presented itself, I could go.

"The caravan thunders onward, stars winking through the canvas hood; on my way at last.” Oh, you don’t know that song? You should! It’s by this band called Rush.

The ABC List

THE ABC List…some have a bucket list, I made an ABC list.

As I approach my 41st birthday, I am supposed to reflect on this, my life. I can say without any degree of certainty that it has been my life, but not that any of my information is clarifying, profound or even worth reading. However, my children challenged me last year to write the ABCs of my life, so here goes.

A: absurdsit theatre – I love the movement known as such; it reflected upon the confusion, distortion and disconnection that will come to define the twentieth century; memorable if not essential. Go Albee!

B: baseball (DEFINITELY) – do not ever blame baseball for your short attention span. I am a Pirates fan and always will be. A game in which a clock will never run out on you, yeah, that’s the game for me.

C: cantaloupe – we’re already married so we can’t…never mind. It’s just my favorite fruit; it speaks of summer and goodness and all that is wholesome in life.

D: dad – I’m a dad, it is important to me; it’s a goal reached but a work-in-progress. I have long said that I will be the dad my father wasn’t. I think I am on my way.

E: everyone – not everyone knows me, and that’s okay by me (Imagine the Christmas card list!) but I have met a lot of good people along they way.

F: foreign lands – I hope to travel before I die, so the next forty years still have purpose.

G: guy card – I had this taken away the moment I said, “Have you ever read the poem by…” And I am okay with that; I am a balanced guy – love sports, love the theatre; I can sort of cook and be stubborn, hate yard work but try to keep a good home for my family. I like to think I am a Retro-Renaissance-Realistic kind of guy…I just happen to have lost my Guy Card because of Dylan Thomas!

H: husband – I try to be a good one; being faithful is the easy part, being a good husband takes work.

I: I – the me, myself and I is important; have a healthy self-image. Hell, why not?

J: joking – we have to laugh at this life. My funeral better be fun. Come on, I always went for the joke! The J is cool enough to deserve double-billing, so this is brought to you by the letter J. There just are not enough words with the letter in our language.

K: kids – I can’t live without them, can’t have enough of them. I am lucky to have three amazing kids. And the smiles just keep coming. Hey parents – it’s called RESPONSIBILITY; don’t be a parent if you don’t have the skill. 99% percent of the world’s problems could be solved through better parenting, enforced parenting, hold some loser fuck-up accountable because he was terrible at parenting. Drugs, violence, racism, ignorance, teen pregnancy, lack of education, and so many social ills can all be solved through better parenting. Wake up, America, and make parents do their damn job!

L: love…too easy? I could write a blog, a book, a memoir, but why? We have been discussing it for centuries and the mystery lives on…

M: Michelle – if a man has a good wife, he needs to give her props. I am one such man. Here, Dear, have some props!

N: no regrets – bullshit! We all have them. Admit it, accept it, learn from it, move on.

O: opportunity – I don’t know; sometimes I have seen it, other times it has evaded me entirely. I’ll keep on keeping on.

P: playwriting – it somehow has crept into my blood, it is there, and like my lousy Final Four prediction each year, I cannot get rid of it!

Q: quiet – yes, that is too simple as well, but it is something I need to seek more often and is something we all could use more of. Hey, I’m working on it!

R: Rush…come on, did you expect anything else? The greatest rock and roll band of all time. This is my list. If you want to disagree, write your own. When you recognize the Truth, we Rush fans will welcome you to the Light.

S: sex – glad I had it in this lifetime; dying a virgin would have sucked.

T: tattoos – no thanks, not for me. It’s cool if you want one, if that’s your thing. It’s your body, do with it as you wish. I have an alternative tattoo drawn on paper – the word “Imagine” inside a star with wings. Jared Lashinsky (a former PTI student) designed it; it doesn’t hurt and didn’t cost a thing!

U: unbelievable – what can I say? I have had a good life. When a guy gets to write for pleasure, teach for a living, has a brother who has grown with him, a best friend for almost three decades and counting, a mother who has been both supportive and loving, a great education, wonderful experiences, amazing kids, a wife who is a dear friend, and has seen all his favorite teams win championships, what else can he ask for? Each man’s story is his own, and mine would not make for a Hollywood movie, but it has been fantastic. This sounds like I am dying; I am not...well, we all are but… Let’s move on.

V: veterans – yeah, I think it is fair to thank them. I was too soft to even think about joining the military. But let’s not exaggerate the truth. Would the Great American Way have toppled had Germany won World War 2? Maybe, but probably not. Thank a Vet, I do so when I can. But learn history from a wider angle than just the American view.

W: women…ahh, what would the world be without women? Wait, that doesn’t make any sense…yet it means everything, doesn’t it? Ahhh, women…

X: XY chromosome! Let’s hear it for being male! I have said it before and I will sing it from the mountain top: I am so glad I am a guy. Between what nature throws and society demands, we have life so much easier. I love my XY chromosome pairing!

Y: YOU! Without everyone else in this life, I would have been dead a long time ago. Wait, that doesn’t make sense either. People are great; sure, some are wankers and assholes and derelicts and degenerates, but damn if most of you haven’t made this life extraordinary. Thanks for being you.

Z: Zzzzz…I love me a nap (slang intentional). But Z can be such a tricky letter. There is Zeppelin, Led -- gotta get the lead out; Datsun Z, an old car; Zeta Tau Alpha, Thiel College 1991 Man of the Year I was; zippers break, deal with it; zygotes move, gotta keep up; Z is so overrated and yet so frustrating…But that is how we end things. Someone put the Z at the end of our alphabet. When I lay me down to die, I will take the nap of all naps! A little cliché, a little risqué, a little naïve, a little bit new, a little predictable; it is life, live it!

Now I know my ABCs, next time write your own for me.

To The Theatre

“To live a life useful.”

“To live a life useful” is the motto for Alpha Psi Omega, the National Dramatic Honorary Society. I am glad to be a member of this organization and have tried to live a life useful in the theatre. It hasn’t been easy. But that is what Alpha Psi Omega is about – the theatre; most specifically, college theatre. I remember during the initiation into this organization thinking about how I could be useful to the world of theatre. Most of my friends and fellow actors at the time went on to work in other areas – business, medicine, computer programming, etc… but not me. I had to be in the theatre. Don’t get me wrong, anyone can live a life that is useful; from a concrete mixer all the way to a college instructor. Usefulness is present in all walks of life, that much is obvious. My contribution to usefulness just happens to be in the theatre. I learned my values as a theatre artist at Thiel College.

Quite simply, my experience at Thiel College changed my life. I know it sounds so cliché, but it’s true. I discovered theatre, and the theatre was the first place where anything had made sense to me during my life to that point. At 18, that matters! By 26, that had become a goal. I went onto graduate studies in the theatre arts at Marquette University and set out to work at a small college where I could offer students the same opportunities and growth that Thiel had provided for me; a place where the arts would enhance the personal experience of young students, help them to grow, help them to find themselves perhaps. Not necessarily big time Broadway, but it made sense to me. I was lucky enough to have found such a gig at Penn State New Kensington, if only for a little while.

The strength of Thiel and PSNK and Pittsburgh Technical Institute (where I now work) and other similar schools is in working with students who are not performing arts majors. What they lack in talent or experience or trainable skill, they make up for in enthusiasm. With passion, dedication, hard work, they somehow do more even if they are studying something else entirely. And isn’t that what we want teaching to be about in its truest form? I would rather take 10 students who really care about the process and help them develop through rehearsals and onto a rewarding opening night than follow 5 mega stars who could do it without my guidance on Broadway. It’s just what I am made of.

I am indebted to Dr. Donald Bruckner and to the late Jackie Kallal for giving me my start at PSNK; and for all of the wonderful students and friends I met while working on that stage for 5 years, 10 shows, 31 live performances in front of a couple hundred people, roughly 300 rehearsal sessions and close to 1,000 hours of rehearsal. Wow! That is a lot….all for 62 hours of performance. Say it with me, guys and gals: “football players practice, actors rehearse.” It’s a mantra.

The beauty of working in the arts (and a lot of fields) is the time spent in preparing, the interaction with the students, the 13 hour days, the skipping of holidays and family time and yes, even Steelers games; the building of the set and sometimes rebuilding of the set – just to get a show up in time. The audience never sees that. They never see the whole cast and crew (and yes, even the director) on their knees cleaning the stage of confetti one night so that it can be tossed all over everywhere again the next night during the show; or the running of lines over and over again until they are actually memorized and finally sound logical; or the magic of hitting that note just right at the first audition and hitting it at every rehearsal and performance thereafter.

While we tend to love performing, I think most actors, and certainly most directors, enjoy the process more. It is the making of the art that challenges us – not the show. So while we go about trying to be useful, you are entertained. And we thank you for that opportunity. We truly do.

My experience in the theatre holds so many cherished memories that I cannot even begin to recount them. No matter the show, be it Shakespeare or a musical, it is a pursuit toward usefulness that drives us, motivates us, inspires us. And for me it was a joy. Working at PSNK theatre was an absolute joy. I learned a lot, hopefully taught a few things along the way and left as a better artist than I had entered.

For those who wish to pursue the theatre – do it! Keep acting, keep writing, keep dancing, keep directing, and in the end you will find your place. It may be New York, it may be Pittsburgh, it may be…anywhere. But you have to pursue it. Live your life useful!

People often ask me why I didn’t go to LA or New York. Well, I kind of knew that my hand would be better used elsewhere, that I could be useful in my own small way, in my own small town. And, honestly, I realized at an early stage of the process that I am a better director than I am an actor. More so, I believe in teaching the script first, believe in teaching the play more than directing it. It is a fine line.

Of everything I obtained from PSNK, a personal motto stays with me the most: “Without risks we are not artists, we are imitators.” That notion arose while we were working on Pippin in 2004, and I believe in those words. I really do. A student thought we should just do everything that was on the DVD from a 1970s touring production of the same show. I disagreed. Out of our argument came the notion that we just can’t copy what someone else has already done. We need to create! This was to be ours, if it was to be anything at all; we were artists – not imitators. I directed what I envisioned from the script as an artist not an imitator. For the record, we got three standing ovations, one for each night of that show.

About Thiel College. My mentor and professor, Dr. William A. Robinson (Dr. Bill to all Thiel Players), taught me everything I needed to know for a career in college theatre. He once interviewed for a job at PSNK – back in 1975 or 1976. He was hired at Thiel College first, and ironically that opened the door for Lil Coury to take her job at PSNK – a job she held until 2003 when she retired and opened the door for me to work there. Think about the sequence: Dr. Bill almost worked where I got my first job, but I was lucky enough to have studied under him at Thiel. He attended my first professional production at PSNK, which I only had the opportunity to do when Lil Coury retired. Life has a funny way of working out. Growing up in Pittsburgh, I didn’t even know the town of New Kensington existed. Now it is an integral part of who I am.

I thank everyone I met along the way for any small part you played in my success, and I wish you the best while you live your own life useful. I will wrap up in the same fashion I ended every rehearsal: “Questions? Comments? Concerns? Criticisms? None? Than that’s a night. See you next time…"

But What's in a Jersey?

We have the ability to take stands. This aspect of humanity connects us with the animals to some degree, though they are driven by instinct whereas we are driven by logic and emotions. (And, typically, our stands aren’t quite as bloody as those between a bull and a ram.) Sometimes we have great difficulty balancing the two – logic and emotion – and this often gets us into trouble. If we had a red light to tell us which to use in any given situation, we would be a much more successful species. Our right to take a stand, however, doesn’t have to represent something larger because we can choose to stand up for small things or for things that matter only to us. I have taken one such small stand by not wearing a jersey of a player on my favorite football team.

Allow a digression as means of explanation. I, for instance, reserve the right each year to be a fair-weather basketball fan. I just don’t like the sport enough to care unless the University of Pittsburgh or Marquette University on the college level, or the Boston Celtics on the professional level, are doing well. If they lose, I don’t watch; when they win, I scream and hoot and holler and root. It’s the one area where I am dispassionate about certain sports teams.

On a larger scale, I take a stand on things such as education and family values. I absolutely stand firm in keeping my children away from bad things and bad people and bad places, and yes even bad relatives, in the world that only do more harm than good. Through action we parent; through dis-action, we end up with regret.

One stand I took in 2010 concerned my aforementioned favorite football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. I like to think that I am not a Yinzer. For those unaware, a Yinzer is a Steelers fan, usually from Pittsburgh, who thinks they know everything, thinks they would make all the right calls on the field, and somehow takes credit when the Steelers win but points a big foam finger elsewhere when the team loses. It is the kind of person who will say, “We beat the Raiders by blocking down,” or “We need to fire Coach So-and-So.” I try to avoid the “we” comments. I am sure no Steelers players know me, and I am even more certain I have never done anything to help them win or cause them to lose. Yet, I am a devoted fan. I am just not the kind of guy who will spread rumors about gay quarterbacks and divorcing coaches when the team has 6 wins and 10 loses only to praise the same Kordell and Cowher when they beat the Ravens. Ever notice how that talk seems to follow when the team is lousy but never rears itself when they are in the play-offs? Huh, I wonder why?

Anyway, to my Stand.

There are few who will disagree that the Steelers current QB, Ben Roethlisberger, has been a jerk the last few years. As much as I admire his athletic skills and leadership abilities, I have to think that when he took a knee at the end of the AFC Championship in January 2011, his prayer went something like this: “Dear Lord, whom I believe in when I win, thank you for good lawyers who got me out of trouble in Georgia last summer.” (I might be paraphrasing.)

Sure, he has been a model citizen and yes I want him to win his third Super Bowl in six years. However, I decided in August of 2010 that I would make a personal protest by not wearing his jersey for a year. I wore it briefly last week only because I thought I would need an extra layer against a cold night…I was wrong. It is already back on a hanger and out of sight, and here is why.

That Big Ben had a great season in 2010 does not dictate that he will be a Good Little Boy in the off-season. It is how he deals with success when he has nothing to focus upon that will make or break his legacy not as a quarterback, but as a human being. It is easy to behave when you are focused and pre-occupied. Any good parent knows that a kid starts to get into trouble sometime after they get bored. Thus, such a parent keeps their kid busy, or at least full of options that will not allow them to get bored in the first place.

When all the cameras are off, when CBS and NBC are focused on their spring and summer line-ups, when the seats in Heinz Field are doing nothing more than absorbing the sun’s rays, when Steelers Nation is on vacation, when the bars are open late, when Ben’s entourage doesn’t want to go out and play, when the summer doldrums set in, when the excitement and thrill and passion of a football season wears off and Ben Roethlisberger is still a well-behaved and dignified human being, THEN I will pull out my number 7 jersey (which was a gift by a team of really great students, by the way!) that I really do enjoy wearing, and I will put this all behind me.

I believe in second chances, I really do. I also have two daughters. They may never ask, but for them I have taken a personal stand. I am disappointed in myself for having sported my Roethlisberger jersey last week, but I too deserve a small and inconsequential second chance. If Ben is still a nice guy after his recent success, then I will welcome him back to the fold. Winning isn’t everything that a Yinzer would make it out to be. You can win the game with a touchdown, but to win respect you have to be in it for the long haul.