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.

August 16: Silver Boots, Unstuck in Time, My Dad

The temperature climbed startlingly that day.  The noontime was balmy.  The Germans brought soup and bread in two-wheeled carts which were pulled by Russians.  The Englishman sent over real coffee and sugar and marmalade and cigarettes and cigars, and the doors of the theater were left open, so the warmth could get in.

The Americans began to feel much better.  They were able to hold their food.  and then it was time to go to Dresden.  The Americans marched fairly stylishly out of the British compound.  Billy Pilgrim again led the parade.  He had silver boots now, and a muff, and a piece of azure curtain which he wore like a toga.  Billy still had a beard.  So did poor old Edgar Derby, who was beside him.  Derby was imagining letters to home, his lips working tremulously:

Dear Margaret--We are leaving for Dresden today.  Don't worry.  It will never be bombed.  It is an open city.  There was an election at noon, and guess what?  And so on.

They came to the prison railroad yard again.  They had arrived on only two cars.  They would depart far more comfortably on four.  They saw the dead hobo again.  He was frozen stiff in the weeds beside the track.  He was in a fetal position, trying even in death to nestle like a spoon with others.  There were no others now.  He was nestling with thin air and cinders.  Somebody had taken his boots.  His bare feet were blue and ivory.  It was all right, somehow, his being dead.  So it goes.

Billy is on his way to Dresden with the other Americans.  He knows what's going to happen.  Edgar Derby facing the firing squad.  The firebombing of the city.  All the death that he will witness. So it goes, as Vonnegut says over and over.

Sometimes I wish I could become a little unstuck in time.  It would make my life simpler.  At the moment, my 90-year-old father is in the hospital.  One of my sisters took him to the ER this morning.  I'm not going to get into details, but he's going to there for a while.  Tomorrow, he will be transferred to another facility.  Most likely downstate in Alpena. 

He's angry about his situation.  My dad has always been a difficult man.  He can be belligerent.  Sometimes physical.  A couple times today, he tried to walk out of the hospital on his own, only to be escorted back.  He's resting now, after a really bad couple of days. 

If I were Billy Pilgrim, I would know how all this is going to turn out.  I would be able to jump back to family vacations in Gay, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior, when I was a kid.  Or the time my dad came to see me play the Stage Manager in Thorton Wilder's Our Town in high school.  Or a few months into the future, so that I would know how all this is going to turn out. 

Unfortunately, I am not unstuck in time.  I have to take it one day at a time, just like everybody else, and hope and pray for the best.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for compassionate nurses and doctors.