Lou's got her tongue...and Dumb's got mine.

I recently finished a one-person play that I’ve been working on for quite sometime. It’s been swirling around in my head for the last few years and I began writing dialogue for it a year ago. I’m certain that I have many re-writes ahead of me and it will no doubt continue to evolve even once it’s on its feet. However, it still felt good to actually write The End at the end.

I haven’t written much else lately. I’m sorry if you’ve been checking and I haven’t posted anything new in a while. I’ve just been trying to stay focused and disciplined on finishing the play.

So, I’m excited and scared and there’s a feeling of accomplishment present. But mostly I’m kind of wired…and I’m not really certain that it’s in a good way. I’m mainly scared that now that it’s done I have to do something with it. And this means putting it out there: for critique, for rejection, for complete annihilation. So, I’m trying to gear myself up for all of it. I’m trying to keep motivated to not go and put it on a shelf and not look at it for another year.

I’ve begun making calls to some people that I’ve known for quite sometime, but haven’t talked with in a while. Old acting coaches and friends involved with theaters and others involved in the business who may know managers or agents that might be able to assist me.

So, trying to put my fears aside and to get the ball rolling, I began calling. I heard nothing back, from anyone. I did another round of calls…nothing. This one coach that I had worked with whom I adored, I called her for the third time. I had previously left a message the first week, talked with her husband the second week and now this was the third week. I was a little fired up, I admit. I hate it when people don’t eventually call me back – I hate it. It’s rude, it’s bad form, it’s bullshit is what it is. And I’d always like to jack-slap people when they don’t call back in a healthy amount of time. I’m not talking hours or even days, but weeks… And unless someone’s dead or they’ve been hung up in the hospital barfing for three weeks, then there’s not a whole lot of excuses…or is there?

I called her house again, for the third week, and her husband answered, for the second time. I told him who I was and asked how he was doing. I really was being nice, I hope. Anyway, I asked to speak with his whore of a wife again and he hesitated. I could tell that he was screening and was also perplexed that I had called her a hoe. I don’t think that he was aware of such behavior in her and I think that he was momentarily turned-on. He finally said, “When I told her that you called before, she said that you must not know what’s happened to her…” I said, “Why, what’s happened to her?? Did she get the clap again?” (I did not) And then I heard her…in the background…I heard, “Whaaaa nnnaaaa ddoodoodllee noaa”, which he understood. My heart sank and I felt my knees get weak. He said, “She remembers you and thinks that you’re a dumb fucker.” (He did not, although at the moment it wasn’t far from the truth) He did say that she remembered me, but that she couldn’t talk to me, she has Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He kept asking her if she wanted to try to talk. I just kept thinking that I wouldn’t be able understand a thing that she would be saying. I told him how sorry I was and that I had a fondness for his wife and of course I had no idea of her condition…I didn’t know how much I should lament on the phone, because she wasn’t dead, she was still living and they had actually just married. He was her high school sweetheart from 50-some years ago. I said that I was glad that she had him. And then he said that he was glad that he had her. I said to give her my best.

When we hung up the phone, I was acutely aware of how irritated I was that she hadn’t called me back and I felt foolish. My play is quite human – and I hope that it makes people laugh, but I also hope that it inspires others to be better to themselves and to one another and to all of life – and I had forgotten all about it.