"Tell Mama. Tell Mama All."

I’m halfway through Theodore Dreiser’s 800-page “An American Tragedy.” (Thank you, Kindle!) I’d never read it before and it’s been years since I saw A Place In the Sun which is based on it. It’s a great read, although I think the same story could have been told in 500 pages. That Dreiser does go on and on saying the same thing over and over again.

The story takes place in the Adirondacks about an hour north of where I live now. Two of the main characters work in a factory that produces detachable collars, a ubiquitous product in that part of the state at that time. (Troy, NY’s nickname is still “The Collar City.”)

That alone is enough to hold my attention, but what I’m finding most interesting is the social/historical detail woven into the text. Since the story hinges on class differences in early 20th century America it was necessary for Dreiser to be specific about his character’s daily activities.

So, mundane (to Dreiser) things such as the proper way to address a new lady friend, or the fact that every little town had a movie theater, or how one would buy a ticket for each dance at a fun fair the same way one would buy a ticket for a carousel ride are presented matter-of-factly, while I’m finding them exotic and fascinating. Or the notion of being able to travel from town to town on convenient “interurban trolleys” (E.L. Doctorow explored this a bit in “Ragtime”, too) or the fact that one could not speak freely and confidentially on the telephone because there were very likely other people listening in on the conversation. Meanwhile, the description of upper-class summer life on the Adirondack lakes is making my mouth water.

I already know how the story ends so there’s no real suspense for me, but it’s a fun trip Mr. Dreiser is taking me on.

I’ll rent the movie when I finish the book, but I’ve already decided Shelley Winters was miscast. I think the character is more of a Janet Gaynor type—truly sweet and sincere and doe-like. I mean, who wouldn’t want to push Shelley Winters out of a canoe after spending too much time with her? The book provides good character background, too, as the movie version starts a couple of hundred pages into the novel. We’re first introduced to the Montgomery Clift character as a 12-year-old and meet his evangelical parents who are only referred to in passing in the movie.

While researching the story online I found there was an adaptation of the book on Broadway in the 1930s by The Group Theater and directed by Lee Strasberg. The unbelievable cast (and a HUAC wet dream) included: Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Bobby Lewis, Sanford Meisner, Ruth Nelson and Paula Miller (who would later terrorize Hollywood directors under her married name, Paula Strasberg, as Marilyn Monroe’s acting coach.)

Provincetown Peeps

Before Varla’s show tonight (did I mention I’m having more fun doing The Loose Chanteuse with Varla than maybe I’ve ever had doing a show before?) I stopped by the book release party for Bobby Miller’s “Provincetown Peeps, Vol. II” Bobby is a rather fantastic photographer and also an acquaintance from the East Village back in the day. I hadn’t seen him in years and years and years before running into him here in Provincetown earlier this summer. He’s done many photo essays over the years and this new one has got to be the most glamorous of all. Over the past year he shot many of the locals in his inimitable style and has just published them in book form. (The photos--not the locals themselves.) They’re dreamy and creamy and ethereal and just all around divine. I’m happy to say I’ve gotten to know quite a few of the Peeps since I arrived here in May and it was great fun to see them in their Milleresque glory hanging on the walls of a Cape Cod mansion.

Here’s the illustrious Mr. Norman Vane as seen through the lens of Bobby Miller.



(P.S. I really did write this entry yesterday, thereby keeping to my goal of one entry per day, but they seem to turn off the wireless signal around 11:30 and I missed getting in under the wire. It shan’t happen again.)

At The End Of The Trail...

My new Provincetown friend Chase Wyatt took me on a tour of the bike trails through the dunes last week. Another friend described them as “an amusement park for bikes” because there are a couple of big hills but the path is paved, so one doesn’t have to work too hard to get up them and the coast back down is plain old fun. The trail goes through open areas with gorgeous views of the ocean as well as some wooded stretches of pine and oak. All the trees seem to be small-scale, though. I assume it has something to do with them being rooted in sand and the quality of the salt air in which they’re growing. At the end of the ride is the parking lot for the beach at Herring Cove. It’s the perfect opportunity to take the sun and jump in the water for a bit before heading back in the opposite direction. All in all it’s a pretty good cardio workout. Well, if you push it, anyway.

Along the way there’s an historic rescue station where guards would scan the sea for signs of shipwrecks or sailors in distress. The building wasn’t open when we were there but Chase took the opportunity to snap some pictures. They’re all great but here is one I particularly like.

Really? Just One Year Ago?

It was just over a year ago that Canned Ham was first presented to an audience. It was not a performance, per se, it was a reading for my new friends on Saba, the island where I had spent the summer and where I had written the play. It was quite an exciting event for me. I was nearing the end of my stay in the Caribbean. The two months there had been perfection—I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the experience. The people I met and had come to know and love were quirky and colorful and simply wonderful. I was eager to share what I had written in their midst.

Of course, I didn’t really know what that was, having shown it to only a couple of close friends and never having heard it read aloud. The structure of the play is “eccentric” (as Charles Busch called it) and I wasn’t sure how it would play or if the jumping back and forth in time would be difficult to follow. Also, I would be reading it to people who were unaware of my existence two months prior, who were probably unfamiliar with many if not most of the cultural references in the script and for whom English was a second language.

Well, with script in hand and reading glasses on my nose it went over like gangbusters there in the dining pavilion at El Momo Cottages and gave me the first hint that—personal as the story is—there’s enough in the show that’s universal to appeal to a wider audience.

And so here I am a year later performing what is essentially the third version of the show. It’s this version Kevin Malony and I will be working from to go forward with the project. I won’t simply be restoring the cuts I made to bring the show down to an hour; performing the truncated version here in Provincetown has taught me much about what in the play can be expanded upon and what can remain gone. And we’ve got a few ideas for completely new things kicking around that we’re going to try out.

As the season goes along here on the Cape the audiences are growing in size and the terrific response to the show is really spurring me on to knuckle down and really beat the script in to shape.

Never, ever did I imagine Canned Ham would be a project I would spend so much time on. And derive so much satisfaction from.

Product Placement

When I watched The Sopranos I consumed the entire series in a two-month binge on DVD. I started to feel like I was one of the characters on the show. Well, with Mad Men I feel the same way but it’s because they’re telling me I’m part of the show. In an episode from season three, Joan’s dweeb of a husband prods her into taking out her accordion and entertaining their dinner guests. That’s an obvious reference to me and my love of the accordion. But in the new edition of “Mad Men Yourself” on AMC.com one of the accessory options is a red accordion. And one of the wardrobe choices is a plaid jacket. Well, check out my Mad Men avatar and compare it to the photo of me taken in about 1985. ‘Nuff said? But the piece of resistance, the cherry on the sundae, the beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt evidence that Matt Weiner is plugging my show Canned Ham came in lasts night’s season four premiere: Don Draper, dashing, lead character Don Draper is presented with a canned ham as a thank-you from a client. Not a box of candy, not a Palm Beach weekend. No. A canned ham.

Thank you, Matthew Weiner.

Talk About Your Childhood Wishes!

Since I’m a kid Goetze’s Caramel Creams have been one of my favorite candies. I remember our babysitter used to bring them to us in a sealed 10-pack on a little white card that had the long edges turned up slightly to hold the candies in place. Who knows? Maybe they can still be purchased that way.

But I always preferred them individually wrapped out of a large bag. The wrapped candies provided a unique pleasure in the act of removing them from the crinkly cellophane: after untwisting the ends, one could pop the candy out of the wrapping with one hand. Also, the product on the card were always slightly flattened (most likely from going through the wrapping machine) and their centers (made from God knows what. Hydrogenated something-or-other) were more unified with the caramel surrounding them. (Likewise with Cow Tales, essentially a mini, unsliced roll of Caramel Creams. In theory, a great idea, but it just ain’t the same.)

When I was a kid (the old man croaked) the centers had a completely different, dryer texture. So much so that one could occasionally actually remove the centers with one’s tongue and enjoy the two flavors individually.

Sublime.

Doing research from this entry, it turns out the fine people at Goetze’s make several other products, including a Strawberry Cream I've never come across.

Intriguing.

They also have a recipe page (with one recipe) suggesting Caramel Creams be melted and incorporated into brownie batter.

Brilliant.

Until then I shall enjoy the original versions by the fistful and recall the halcyon days of youth when Mrs. Baltera would proffer a 10-pack card of Caramel Creams to a bright-eyed, sweet-toothed little boy.

This Time I Mean It!

After going to the trouble (and fun) of creating the fantastic header graphic for this blog I really fell off the wagon in terms of regular posting. Unless one considers every seven months “regular.” And since I’m making a concerted effort to spend less time on Facebook (one of the most convincing signs that Satan exists in the world) I have reason to get back to this blog just to let folks know I’m still alive.

So this is my pledge: I am going to post something here every day. Even if it’s (literally) a single line or just a photo.

Hey, if Samuel Pepys can do it by candlelight with just a quill, I should be able to do it on my MacBook Pro.

So, here goes with entry #1:

I’m teaching myself the concertina this summer. My friend John Glover gave me one when I was doing Canned Ham in L.A. last May. It’s an instrument I’ve always wanted to learn (I had one years and years ago that—I think—came from my grandparents’ attic, but it was old and brittle and the bellows eventually lost their air-tightness, so that came to naught.)

Being kind of handy on the accordion you’d think I’d have a leg up with this concertina thing, right? Unfortunately, no. In point of fact the concertina is a closer cousin to the harmonica. In two respects: it’s a diatonic instrument (just the white keys on the piano) and the same button plays a different note depending on whether you’re pressing or drawing on the bellows. It’s a real pat-your-head/rub-your-stomach kind of challenge.

Also, it’s mostly a single-line instrument (for the beginner, at least.)

I’ve been working on it now for about a month and can pretty well play simple melodies from the beginner songbook I ordered. Mickey hates it (and so, too, I imagine, do my neighbors here at the Art House apartments in Provincetown) so when I first started practicing it, I’d take it to the ancient cemetery a short walk away. No one goes there so it was just me and the long-deceased. Many of the songs in the book are old sea shanties from the 18th century and since many of the folks lying prone around (under?) me were seafarers from the 18th century, there was a nice poetic symmetry as I’d stumble through my concertina concert.

I discovered a virtuoso on YouTube who provides inspiration (and a few chuckles) to keep up with the practicing and I would like to think that when, oh, 10 or 20 years has elapsed, I’ll be as good as he. Until then, I’ll continue to stumble through “Oh, Nanny, Wilt Thou Gang With Me?” as Mickey runs under the bed.