March 10: Fetid Little Passage, Calumet Theatre, Being On Stage

Ford and Arthur are about to be tortured with some Vogon poetry . . .

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples.  These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment--imaginary intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dampers--all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost.

Arthur Dent sat and quivered.  He had no idea what he was in for, but he knew that he hadn't like anything that had happened so far and didn't think things were likely to change.

The Vogon began to read--a fetid little passage of his own devising.

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly . . ." he began.  Spasms wracked Ford's body--this was worse than even he'd been prepared for.

"? . . . thy micturations are to me - A plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."

"Aaaaaaargggghhhhhh!" went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head back as lumps of pain thumped through it.  He could dimly see beside him Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat.  He clenched his teeth.

"Groop I implore thee." continued the merciless Vogon, "my foonting turlingdromes."

His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned stridency.  "And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, / Or I will tend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

"Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhh!" cried Ford Prefect and threw one final spasm as the electronic enhancement of the last line caught him full blast across the temples.  He went limp.

Arthur lolled.

"Now, Earthlings . . " whirred the Vogon (he didn't know that Ford Prefect was in fact from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and wouldn't have cared if he had), "I present you with a simple choice!  Either die in the vacuum of space, or . . ." he paused for melodramatic effect, "tell me how good you thought my poem was!"

I am back from performing at the Calumet Theatre.  The show ended last night around 9:30, and, by the time I got to my hotel room, I had just enough energy to order a pepperoni pizza, eat a few slices, and then fall asleep.  Any blogging I might have done last night would have sounded like Vogon poetry, so I decided to forgo any attempt at it.

I think the show went well.  I didn't notice anyone spasming in their seats or screaming "Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhh!"  Therefore, I will take that as a sign that the we didn't suck.

All kidding aside, I am really lucky to work with some great artists at The Red Jacket Jamboree.  They have become like family to me, as I said in my last post.  As a poet, I don't get a whole lot of opportunities to be around people who truly appreciate what I do.  If someone asks me what I do for a living, and I reply that I'm a poet, that someone will suddenly find a mole on his/her arm that needs to be removed.  Poetry is like sorcery to most everyone I meet. 

The other thing that The Red Jacket Jamboree gives me is the opportunity to flex a few of my other skills--acting, singing, writing scripts, and comedy.  I used to do quite a lot of theater work.  I actually was the lead in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I played the Stage Manager in a production of Thorton Wilder's Our Town.  I've directed plays and musicals, as well.  Until I started working at the Calumet Theatre for this radio show, I didn't realize how much I missed being on stage.

So, Saint Marty gets the best of all worlds on these weekend jaunts to the Keweenaw.  And the audience pays good money to hear, among other things, a few poems.  Pretty cool.

February 20: Sign the Papers, Bakery or Newspaper, Cautious and Careful

"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!"

"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact."

"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there."

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand.

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see.

"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye see?"

"Not much," I replied- "nothing but water; considerable horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think."

"Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand?"

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any- I thought the best- and all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me.

"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added- "come along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.

Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names- a singularly common fashion on the island- and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language- that man makes one in a whole nation's census- a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.

Ishmael is doing something here that I would never do.  He has just stepped aboard the Pequod and, within of few minutes of meeting Captain Peleg, is ready to sign on for a three-year whaling voyage.  Of course, that's why he and Queequeg came to Nantucket.  And, of course, Moby-Dick wouldn't be much of a book if Ishmael were less impulsive in his decision here.  There wouldn't be Ahab.  Or a monstrous white whale.

I am not a person who rushes decisions.  I prefer to think about things.  A lot.  Examine all sides of an issue.  Sometimes, I've been accused of being overly cautious.  It's just my nature.  If I were Ishmael, I wouldn't have ended up on the Pequod.  I'm sure of it.  In fact, I would have visited every whaling ship in the harbor, taking notes in my journal, maybe writing down names and drawing pictures.  Weighing my options.  And then I would have hopped on a boat for the mainland, turned my back on the ocean, and found a nice job in a bakery or newspaper.

I am not a coward.  I stand up in front of a group of 35 college students every day, talking about film and writing and poetry.  Subjects that 18- and 19-year-old men and women don't really give two shits about.  I sit at a pipe organ every Saturday night, making music to a church filled with people.  I've played the lead in the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I've directed musicals.  And I've attended a clothing optional poetry workshop. choosing the optional one night.

So, you see, I take chances.  Do things that would make other people incredibly uncomfortable.  Yet, I'm not impulsive in the choices I make.  Before I took up teaching college English, I worked in a book store.  Cleaned a hospital operating room at night.  Studied computer programming.  I tried my hand at a lot of things.  Then I decided I wanted to teach.

Before I played Pseudolus in Forum, I was part of a lot of choruses in musicals.  That's like being the second guy at the bus stop in a movie.  Or the fifth member of the landing party on an episode of the original Star Trek.  I built up some experience before I stepped into the spotlight.

That's how I roll.  I'm Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula at the moment.  I love meeting people, sharing poems, encouraging other poets.  It's exciting.  However, I've been practicing poetry for close to 20 years now.  I'm still practicing.  Every time I sit down with my pen and journal to work on a new poem, it's like I'm in my first poetry workshop all over again.

I'm not an impulsive person.  I'm careful.  I don't think that makes me timid.  That makes me smart.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for being cautiously fearless.

February 4: True War Story, Own Personal Narratives, My Story

Billy and the scouts were skinny people.  Roland Weary had fat to burn.  He was a roaring furnace under all his layers of wool and straps and canvas.  He had so much energy that he bustled back and forth between Billy and the scouts, delivering dumb messages which nobody had sent and which nobody was pleased to receive.  He also began to suspect, since he was so much busier than anybody else, that he was the leader.

He was so hot and bundled up, in fact, that he had no sense of danger.,  His vision of the outside world was limited to what he could see through a narrow slit between the rim of his helmet and his scarf from home, which concealed his baby face from the bridge of his nose on down.  He was so snug in there that he was able to pretend that he was safe at home, having survived the war, and that he was telling his parents and his sister a true war story--whereas the true war story was still going on.

Weary's version of the true war story went like this:  There was a big German attack, and Weary and his antitank buddies fought like hell until everybody was killed but Weary.  So it goes.  And then Weary tied in with two scouts, and they became close friends immediately, and they decided to fight their way back to their own lines.  They were going to travel fast.  They were damned if they'd surrender.  They shook hands all around.,  They called themselves "The Three Musketeers."

But then this damn college kid, who was so weak he shouldn't even have been in the army, asked if he could come along.  He didn't even have a gun or a knife.  He didn't even have a helmet or a cap.  He couldn't even walk right--kept bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down, driving everybody crazy, giving their positions away.  He was pitiful.  The Three Musketeers pushed and carried and dragged the college kid all the way back to their own lines, Weary's story went.  They saved his God-damned hide for him.

It's a good story that Weary weaves for himself.  A story of flag-waving and blood and guts.  Weary wants to be the hero of his life, wants to make himself into something that he's not.  Weary is not well-liked.  He's responsible for the deaths of his antitank buddies through his own stupidity.  Yet, when he gets home from the war, Weary will turn himself into a mixture of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.  Tough but friendly.

We all create our own personal narratives.  Make ourselves into heroes or saints or soldiers.  Sometimes those stories are completely true.  Most of the time, however, they are gilded and tweaked.  We erase the embarrassing details, like Weary does.  For example, many years ago, I played the lead in the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Every night, I had standing ovations.  Flowers tossed at my feet.  Glowing reviews.  Reality:  I messed up the first verse of my opening song.  Instead of singing "Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight," I sand "Comedy tomorrow, tragedy tonight."  I wanted to crawl under the stage and die.

Today, my kids are performing in a ballet.  In a couple hours, I will be heading to the theater for an afternoon of rehearsal.  I will sit in the darkened auditorium and watch my daughter and son pirouette and chaine across the stage.  And tonight, I will put on my tuxedo for the performance.  When I walk into the theater, people will whisper, "There he is.  He may be the next Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula."  As I sit down, spontaneous applause will break out.  I will nod humbly, waving from my seat.  People will come up and ask me for my autograph until the lights start to dim.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. 

Today, Saint Marty is thankful for dance.