I know you are all dying to know what happened next in my thrilling tale of adventures in Iowa. I promise I haven't forgotten. I've just been busy. Too busy to blog? Well, maybe not. But it's not something that's made it onto the "To Do" list lately.
What have I been up to? You ask. Well, let me tell you.
I've been rehearsing a show called Dream a Little Dream which opened Monday night at the Prop Thtr. It's produced by WNEP and is part of The Rhino Fest. We'll be performing on Monday nights at 9pm through September 24. So if you're sitting around, thinking nothing very fun happens on Mondays, come check out the show. It's only an hour long and I know you'll be entertained. Plus, admission is $15 or pay what you can. You can't beat that. Oh, and at one point I dress up as Princess Leia. That's worth $15 alone.
I've also been working on a television pilot with my friend Jason Headley. Jason and I went to college together and hosted our own radio show called Goodnight. It was in the midnight to 3am slot, which meant that we had about two listeners. I'll have to see if Jason has any of the shows as MP3 files and maybe I'll be able to post one on here for your amusement. It was a pretty damn good show. Most nights. At any rate, we decided to see if we could recapture the magic and write something with a little more substance and that led us to the pilot. We're shooting for that Northern Exposure/Ed feel and I think we're doing a pretty good job so far. We've written two episodes and we're talking about doing one more so that we have a nice little package to present the powers that be. I'll write more about it later. And I'm sure I'll be hitting some of you up for your opinion on it. So get your red pens ready.
Speaking of television pilots, I received an email from Dan O'Day yesterday saying that Ken Levine's Sitcom Room is gearing up for another run. I attended it in July, after much wailing and nashing of teeth, and it was well worth the price of admission. If you're thinking about getting into tv writing I highly recommend checking it out. There's nothing else out there like it and it's run by one of the true masters of the field. You can sign up to be on the "alert list" here and Ken will contact you with more information.
While I'm on the pimpin' wagon...
I'm still offerring headshot packages for cheap. Like $100. So if you or someone you know has been talking about getting some new shots, let me know and we'll get you taken care of.
Joe Janes is running a sketch writing workshop called RoboWriters, every Thursday night at 6:30 in the Uptown Writer's Space. It's only $5. Joe teaches at Second City and Columbia College and gives excellent feedback. The dude knows sketch. So, if you're working on a sketch show or just want to improve your skills, this is workshop is soooo worth your time. I've only managed to make it a couple of times, but I plan on getting there every chance I can.
Go see The Fugue. It's part of Theater Momentum's show at The Theater Building on Wednesday nights. It's an evening of improv, three thirty minute shows, that were created at the Work(shop) in Progress. It's improv, so there's as many misses as there are hits, but the forms are worth checking out. Don Hall directed The Fugue, which follows the form of a musical fugue, and I can honestly say I've never seen an improvised show like it before. It was a little slow going at first, but once all the balls were in the air it was very entertaining. I also really enjoy '97 Bulldogs.
All right. That's enough advertising for one day. I'll try to finish my story about the fair soon. And by "soon" I mean before the end of the year.
I love a small town fair. I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania/mightaswellhavebeenWestVirginia and the end of the summer was always rung in with the West Alexander Fair. A week long celebration of livestock, tractor pulls, demolition derbies, rigged carnival games and rickety rides. It was a thing of dusty, stinky beauty and my family went pretty much every year.
But somewhere during college I found other things to do with that week and I haven't been to a fair since. So when K. and I rounded the bend entering Maquoketa and were greeted by the sight of spinning rides and the smells of livestock barns I knew how we were going to spend our evening.
We were staying in the fabulous, turn-of-the-century, Decker House Hotel. It's in downtown Maquoketa and it felt like something out of a western. Grand staircase. Actual keys for the doors. Lots of dark wood and high ceilings. It was scheduled to become a parking lot until a young couple swooped in and saved it. Their three kids were playing in the lobby when we checked in. How cool would it be to grow up in an old hotel? I mean, as long as the place didn't go all Shining on you.
After a quick shower, we had dinner in the hotel. Great food and, unlike some smaller towns, more than capable of handling a vegetarian. It had a been a beautiful, sunny day and the evening was just starting to cool off, so we decided to walk to the fair. We took a back street, behind the business district, past quaint houses with dogs tied up out back and the garage doors standing open. It reminded me a lot of my hometown. But then, how could it not? It was probably cut from the same plant as other small towns that stopped growing somewhere in the late fifties.
We arrived at the main gate, just as country singer Sawyer Brown took the stage. This worked out well because it meant that the majority of people were in the grandstand instead of creating lines at all the rides and games. We decided we'd just walk through first. Take everything in and then go back and start the fun.
The first row of fair goodness was the concessions area. Every kind of deep-fried evil, a dozen kinds of "homemade" jerkey, smoked meats galore. It was as if they consulted with every doctor in America, decided which foods were the absolute worst for you and made sure they had a sampling of each. Hell's pantry isn't stocked as well. I mentally tagged the little trailer with the handmade sign that said "Deep Fried Oreos" and we went on our way.
I'm sure the midway games haven't changed all that much in the last fifteen to twenty years, but for some reason, they don't have the same appeal to the 34 year old as they did to the 10 year old. I walked past each booth a couple of times, hoping one would call to me. I had promised K. I would win her something, but I wanted to earn it. I didn't want to just throw a dart at a balloon or pluck a floating duckie from a tub. And my basketball skills are weak with a regulation hoop, so trying to sink a basket with the carny hoops was out. After the second pass the only game that seemed to fit the bill was the old "Throw a baseball and try to break a bottle" game.
Nine rows of 2x4s have holes drilled in them and the bottles are turned upside down in the holes. The rows are spaced just far enough apart to make room for the bottles, and the bottles are placed far enough apart as to allow the ball to fit between them, so this one is all about accuracy. It's also about masculinity. First you're throwing a ball. All real men know how to throw a ball. Nothing wounds a man's pride like being told "you throw like a girl". Second, the object of the game is to break a bottle. What can be more manly than to destroy something else? And that great smashing-glass sound. Gotta love it.
I gave the world-worn carny my two bucks and he handed me three baseballs. Now, I haven't thrown a baseball in years and while I was confident that I could chuck it the twenty feet to the bottles, I was unsure if I would actually hit anything. I offhandely commented to K. that the real trick was hitting the wooden shelf and getting the ball to bounce back to you, thereby giving you another chance. As luck would have it, this was exactly what I did with my first throw. The bystanders thought I did it to show K. what I meant, so they all clapped at my hurling abilities. Unfortunately, my ego was quickly deflated when I tried to catch the returning ball. I managed to drop the two other balls. The applause faded. I only wish I had stepped on one of the balls, had it roll out from under me sending me sprawling on my back, then the image would be movie moment perfect. Instead I just rolled my eyes and quickly gathered the stray balls.
I took a deep breath and tried to summon up some ancient t-ball memory to guide my hand. I tried to visualize the ball smashing into the upended Corona bottle dashing it into a million pieces. The wind up. The pitch! Oh! It glanced off the Corona bottle and hit the backstop. (The holes are also bevelled a bit at the top so the bottles have room to move if nudged.) I closed my eyes and took another breath. Focus. Focus. The wind up. The pitch! A hit! The brown Budwieser bottle was history. To win a prize I only needed to smash two out of three. I tossed the last ball up and caught it. I winked at K. That cheap-ass-made-in-China stuffed animal was as good as hers.
I'm not always the best under pressure. As an actor I love it when something goes wrong during a show and you have to see if you can get the wheels back on the bus while it's still in motion. It's one of the reasons I love improvising, though I do it rarely anymore. But in other areas, the pressure and me don't always get along. I am still haunted by the memory of a little league game in which my team was one out away from winning. I was playing second base and ball was popped up right over my head. I called it. I raised my glove. I could already hear my coach and teammated celebrating. But I'd come in too close and the ball landed right behind me. The tying and winning runs scored as I scrambled to pick up the ball. I don't think anyone made eye contact with me the rest of the day.
I tried not to think of that moment. I only thought of the breaking bottle. The victory. Proving my manliness to my woman. I am a man. I break things with balls. Love me. The wind up. The pitch. Straight into the dirt. I tried too hard. Wanted it too badly. I lowered my head. The bystanders drifted away. K. came over and put her arm around me. "Don't worry about it, babe. I didn't want that thing anyhow." And she smiled and started talking about which ride we should hit first. But I know she was only trying to cover over her shame and fear. She had seen her man fail at something manly. The doubts would begin to creep in. "He can't even break a beer bottle with a baseball, how is going to be a decent provider?" I prayed that there would be another chance to prove to her the kind of man I really was.
I don't know whether it was because of all the wide-open space around us, or because God likes a fair as much as the next guy, but no sooner had I uttered that prayer than it was answered in the form of a ride. It was called The Octopus and it was about to forever reveal exactly how manly I really am.
We finally wind up in Maquoketa, IA the next morning, still talking about the haunted house adventures from last night. We're both boggled by the fact that this one man has spent the last twenty years of his life turning his house into this gerry-rigged Frankenstein that must get hundreds of visitors around Halloween. Will I ever find something to devote so much of my life to? When does passion cross over into obsession? How does a place that, in this litigious age, continue to exist? We are both grateful to have experienced it.
Then we find the caves. They aren't the sort of caves that immediately come to mind when someone mentions the word. Some are big enough to walk around in. Some are so tight you have to crawl on your belly to enter. Only one of them is of the massive, echo-chamber size that I imagine caves to be.
I've only ever been spelunking (cue sophmoric giggling) one other time, back in WV where I went to college. The entrance was a tight squeeze, but once you were in, it was like being in a giant, dark, damp, dripping blimp hanger. Having the over-active imagination that I do, I was fully prepared for some creature of the deep to be awakened by our tromping around and devour us all. And any time I had to crawl through a space where I couldn't turn around was the worst. But it was cool. We got muddy. We turned out our flashlights and freaked each other out just standing there in the absolute darkness. Then we emerged back into the sunlight, alive and uncursed.
I don't have any real phobias. Sure, I'm not the first guy up the ladder to the high dive, but I'll get there. And I don't want a spider crawling across my neck, but I'm not going to have a spaz-attack when I see one on the wall. I do have a teensy-tiny issue with tight spaces, though. Mainly it's a control issue. I like to know my options and have free reign to express them. But if, say, I have to wriggle and squirm to fit my body through an opening and my range of motion is limited to pushing myself forward with my toes while my head is turned to the side so it doesn't get wedged between two massive pieces of rock AND, god forbid, some demon of the depths were to attack and the only way I could get away is by shimmying backwards...well...I'd rather not.
K.'s the adventurer and she was usually the first one to enter each cave. This was fine with me for two reasons. 1.) I could judge by how much grunting and crawling she did as to whether I wanted to follow. 2.) If there were cave-dwelling trolls that feast on human flesh, she would distract them long enough for me to escape. My chivalry only goes so far.
Most of the 16 caves were simply inset pockets in the hills. You could almost imagine Native Americans using them to get out of the weather or bunk down off the beaten trail. But a couple required a little manuevering to enter. One you have to climb over a small ledge, then slide down an opening, squat down under some rocks and then were able to stand up. It was just big enough for two adults to stand in. There was another that you had to lie down on your stomach and inch your way into. We sat at the entrance of that one, listening to a couple of other adventure seekers huff and puff and ocassionally comment on being stuck and decided we didn't need to check that one out. Or rather, I decided for us when I just got up and started walking away.
After about four hours or so of climbing hills and crawling through chilly caves we were ready to call it a day. But there was one cave we still hadn't found. When we first entered the park, we met some folks who were covered in mud and soaking wet. We asked them where they had been and they mentioned The Wye. K.'s eyes lit up and she said "We have to go there." Most of the caves follow along a single trail that winds through the hills, along a small stream. But the Wye Cave is off the trail. Taking a break at the little park shelter, with the bathrooms that smelled like dead bodies covered in poo and industrial cleaner, we made the decision to find The Wye.
My legs were already tired from climbing up and down hills and squating and crawling through mud and ice-cold springs. So, naturally, to get to The Wye, we had to hike up a steep hill. Once we got to the top, the trail sort of died out and there were no markers to point the way. Trusting my impecible sense of direction and the not-scale trail map found at the smelly shelter, I took the lead. After probably another thirty minutes of following a dried up stream that was leading us farther and farther downhill, K. and I decided to give up the search and just get back to our hotel where we could take a shower and eat.
Since we were no longer on an actual trail, I just started heading back in the general direction from whence we had come. The way down was pretty steep, so instead of simply back-tracking, we veered off to make a lazy circle back. And wouldn't you know it. As we crested the last hill, there was a marker for The Wye. "See," I said. "I knew where I was going all along." And walked to the mouth of the cave.
Where most caves are cut into the side of a mountain or hill, The Wye is simply a hole in the ground. It looks like it's going to head straight into the side of the hill, but when you get there you realize that the entrance is at your feet. The rocks that lead down are slimy and muddy and it only added to my anxiety about going in. I can turn into a real sour-puss when I'm hungry. Tack on a little physical tiredness and we're talking cranking asshole who just wants to sit on the couch and eat tater-tots. So my first thought is, "Well, we've seen it, let's go". But before I can verbalize this, K. is already up to her chin in earth and in the next blink she's been swallowed whole. I curse. I peer down into the hole. When she finally reaches solid ground she looks up, her head-lamp shining in my sugar-depleted eyes. "You coming?" And she squats down and crawls out of view.
When I was a kid, maybe five or six, we lived on a farm. Or rather, we lived in a house that was part of a farm. My family didn't tend to it, but as kids, my younger brother and I were always eager to get in the way of the poor farm hands, thinking we were helping. There was a stream that ran through the property and a dirt-covered bridge you had to cross to get to the house. My brother and I loved playing in the stream, daming it up to make a wading pool. Throwing rocks into it. Standing on the bridge and spitting into the stream. One day, we were on the bridge watching a monsterous black snake swim under the bridge when the dirt and gravel gave way and my brother fell into the water backwards and disappeared under the bridge right behind the snake. I paniced. I ran to the house, screaming for my mother who came running down, waded into the tunnel and fished him out. Once she as assertained that he wasn't injured, just scared silly, she then proceed to scream at me, asking me why I hadn't helped him and why I'd put him in harm's way to start with. He was my little brother and it was my job to protect him. Funny how those kinds of things stick with you.
Ever since, I've had this hang-up with not being there when it counts. As K.'s light grew fainter and fainter I thought of all the possible ways things could go wrong and how I could never forgive myself if I weren't there to pull her out when the walls crash in/the flood waters rise/the flesh eating trolls attack. So tired and hungry and more than a little scared, I flipped on my light, sat down on the edge of the rocks and began to lower myself into the cold, damp earth.
Once I got down it took a second for my eyes to adjust to the pitch-black. Even with my light, I could only see what was right in front of my face. As I made my way farther in, the cave opened up and I was able to stand. I called out to K. and she called back only about ten feet in front of me. The ground wasn't solid earth, but made up of rocks and boulders, each one damp and slippery. So, while I could stand, moving around was much easier in a crouching position. The ground slanted down, deeper into the earth, and the farther we got the colder it became. It was really kind of neat to realize we were standing in Nature's Meatlocker.
After crawling down a few more rocks and over another ledge the cave began to narrow. You had to sit on your butt and scoot yourself forward. It narrowed even farther, to the point that K. was lying on her back, sliding feet first into the darkness. I had paused in an area where I was still able to sit and move around. I asked her how much farther she was going and she said she just wanted to see if it opened up again. So she kept crawling. And crawling, until I could no longer see her or her light.
As I sat there I began looking around and noticed that there were tree limbs and debrise lodged in some of the cracks between rocks, evidence of the recent flash flooding the area had experienced. I chastized myself for not checking the weather forcast before we left the hotel. I wondered how fast I could extract myself if she were to get her foot stuck and the rains began to pour in and the water started to rise around her. Would I be able to get help fast enough? Or would I just grab her arm and pull and hope her foot wrenched free still attached? Would it matter if it didn't? Could I love a woman with no foot? A fake foot would be cool and we would have fun playing pranks on our friends with it. Like she'd say something vaguely offensive and I'd say "Wow, you really put your foot in your mouth there". And she pull her fake foot off and cram it in her mouth and say "You mean like this?". And we'd laugh and laugh and laugh.
I was just beginning to wonder if a one-footed woman makes for a better sexual partner when she tapped me on the shoulder and scared the shit out of me. I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn't hear her coming. I just shook my head and scolded myself. What kind of protector was I? If she could get right up on me like that, the cave trolls would have been picking their teeth with her bones before I could even scream for help. Thank god we were headed topside. There were showers to take. Food to find. And a fair to attend. Far from the beady, patient eyes of the cave trolls.
