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Curtain Call

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We interrupt this week’s blog post with some monstrous news: if you’re going to be in New York next month, please stop by the Chain Theatre. Back in May, I submitted my one-act play Mercy Road to Chain’s summer festival and promptly forgot all about it. I was certain it would go nowhere and I’d get another cordial rejection letter thanking me for participating while pointing me to the exit. But then this theater company on West 36th Street pulled a fast one on me. They said yes. Wait — what? That’s exactly what they did. Suddenly I was responsible for assembling a director and a cast, and I didn’t begin to know what to do next. I was sorely tempted to withdraw from the running, but my buddy Jerry — an actor who’s appeared in several Chain productions—talked me out of it. He offered to find the actors and direct the play as well, thus saving my keester. I’ve been promising for the longest time to get out of the comfort zone, and I certainly think this qualifies. We’...
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San Rocco

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One of the things I miss most about my brother Peter is his laugh. He would call me just about every day, and I loved getting him laughing with a joke or funny story. When it came to laughter, Peter did not hold back. I was thinking recently of one of my favorite Rodney Dangerfield jokes — one I know would’ve had him roaring. “My doctor told me I was crazy,” Rodney lamented. “I told him I wanted a second opinion. He says, ‘You’re ugly, too!’” We also traded war stories about our father, who could get mighty ornery with very little provocation. Today is Father’s Day, and tomorrow is Peter’s birthday, so it feels like a one‑two to the heart. Peter loved his daughter Kristin so much, and I know he was incredibly proud of her. He also loved animals, particularly dogs, and I recall how he once started crying when he told me about a movie where someone’s canine died. And Peter wanted absolutely nothing to do with A Dog’s Purpose, a 2017 film where a dog dies and is reincarnated...
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Cube Your Enthusiasm

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I was wheezing my way through a Stairmaster workout last week when I took a half‑century backward. Like most fitness clubs, my gym has music pouring out of the sound system nonstop. They keep it at a decent volume so you can enjoy the songs, but you can also tune out the tunes you don’t like. For years I worked out in the early morning, when the club played a solid hour of Frank Sinatra — probably to please me and my fellow dawn‑patrol geezers. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning how much I liked it to the staff, and it seemed like a short time later Old Blue Eyes went silent. The last time I heard Frank at my gym, the sound system abruptly cut him off midway through “You Make Me Feel So Young.” That made me feel so old. But my Stairmaster flashback concerns another Sinatra — his daughter Nancy — whose voice suddenly filled the gym in the midst of my stationary ascent. I strained to hear the lyrics over the clang of barbells, the gym chatter, the pounding ...
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Unlucky Number

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“ Hell is truth seen too late.”—Thomas Hobbes And then the dog showed up. I joined my sister and her friend on Saturday to see The Fear of 13, a play based on the life of Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before becoming the state’s first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence. The play, written by Lindsey Ferrentino, is based on a 2015 British documentary film and stars Adrien Brody as Yarris and Tessa Thompson as a death row volunteer, both in their Broadway debuts. It was also one of the most exhilarating theatrical experiences I’ve had in years. I knew next to nothing about the play when we walked into the theater, and I’d never seen the film. But I was in tears by the time the lights came up. Brody is simply extraordinary as he takes us on the brutal journey of Yarris’ life — how this stupid young kid with a knack for stealing cars ended up convicted and sentenced to death for a 1981 kidnapping, rape, and murder. Director David Crome...
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Post Imperfect

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Skip the sneakers. That’s just one nugget of advice that comes up when you google “how to dress for a job interview.” Men are advised to wear polished leather dress shoes or oxfords to go with a navy, charcoal, or black suit with a light-colored button-down shirt, “along with a conservative, high-quality tie.” But you can’t wear kicks. Of course, I already knew that. I always put on my dress shoes when I meet with a prospective employer, no matter how laid back the company appears to be. And yet I did that very thing when I went to inquire about a reporting position at the Washington Post. Well, it wasn’t a real interview. This was a moment in yet another very weird dream of mine where I had gone to the 149-year-old publication in the nation’s capital and made a string of rookie interview mistakes that looked like a career suicide note. This wasn’t a full-blown nightmare where I wake up trembling and thanking God none of the horrifying events actually happened. No, this w...
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Numbers Game

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They never saw it coming. That was the tagline from a movie called Derailed, but it pretty much describes my feeling about aging. By the grace of God, I turned 69 today, and I was reviewing my birthday blog post from 2006, which I described as “a quiet affair—just me, my dad, and my sister.” I titled the post What Hath God Wrought? , which was the first official message transmitted over a commercial telegraph line in the U.S. on May 24, 1844. Patti LaBelle, Bob Dylan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and my grandmother also celebrate their birthdays today. “Mary, my dad's aide, made a delicious pasta dinner, my sister got the cake and sang ‘Happy Birthday’—my dad didn't seem able to join in—and then we watched Derailed on DVD,” I wrote on that day. Back then I was shocked that I would be turning 50 the next year. Now, I’m just kind of numb to the numbers. “I couldn't help but think of my mom when I looked at the cake's candles flickering in front of me, I could almost...
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Holding the Line

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A year ago today, the phone stopped ringing. This is the one year anniversary of my brother Peter’s death, and like so many other events in my life, I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. It seems like it was just last week that I was sitting on my couch when I got a phone call from my niece that began with the words, “I have terrible news.” I couldn’t begin to imagine what the problem was, and then she said, “My father passed.” “Peter?” I shouted, jumping off the couch, as if I were hoping it would be somebody else. But it wasn’t. My brother was gone. My God, what a terrible day that was. I started making phone calls, and then my sister and I went to Manhattan to tell our aunt what had happened, because there was no way we were going to tell her that terrible news over the phone. I still miss his daily calls. I keep hoping I’ll see his name flash across my iPhone, even though I know that’s never going to happen. I later learned that Peter had b...
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