Dark Corners and Little Windows
Fifty two years ago today, a man running an outsider campaign for President won the California primary. He was trying to convince the powers that be in the Democratic party that he was the best candidate to win the 1968 Presidential campaign and move the country away from war, from poverty, from division and injustice.
Read MoreBobby hadn’t wanted to go into LA that night. He was tired and staying at the beach house of friend, director John Frankenheimer. Frankenheimer convinced him that he should go in, if only to say ‘thanks’ to the campaign staff. Kennedy reluctantly put on a suit and Frankenheimer drove him into LA, to the Ambassador.
Read MoreAt Stela, I interviewed three times,; phone, person, and person. It was interesting. The first person I talked to in-person, at Stela was the marketing director, who not only was a low talker, (really, she almost whispered) and had a Chinese accent making it more difficult for my American ears to always understand her. I would come to learn all the management, where from Taiwan or China, as was all the money that keep things afloat. That part of the interview with her (she was perfectly nice, if hard to understand. I didn’t want to be a jerk and keep asking her to repeat herself), was fine, but really I’m not a marking writer, and then the creative director took over.
Read MoreHaven. It was/it a graphic novel I worked on for nearly a year. It was never published. Here is that story.
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…I think of this because I came across one of those photos sent to me by Russell Johnson (the Professor on Gilligan's Island). I paid him for a photo for the theatre, and he sent me one for free, just for me. It shows the Professor, as an 'old coot knight', from a dream sequence, a little bird resting on his finger. He wrote "Hey bird, That Tom Stewart is OK"
Read MoreAs a kid in the 70s, I LOVED 'In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy. I devoured every episode, eagerly watching and believing the things they presented. The 1970s was a great era for the 'mysteries' being presented, with tons of books like 'Chariots of the Gods' and documentaries like 'In Search of Noah's Ark' all those Schick Sun Classic documentaries and the many alien visitation and 'real' monster books being pumped out almost daily by the cheap paperback press. 'True' ghost books, strange phenomenon, unexplained disappearances, all things 'paranormal' (a term I don't think existed then), I haunted the library to get them. Loved it, read it, wanted more.
Read More“Kirby is coming”. It was splashed across ads for DC comics in the early 70s. It was the biggest thing to hit the ever-shrinking comics world since the Batman TV series. Jack Kirby, a (the?) mainstay of Marvel Comics, erstwhile partner of Stan ‘the Man’ Lee, was leaving the company he’d help lift to popularity with his shear talent, and going to Marvel’s greatest rival, DC Comics. Worlds shook that day. When Jack arrived, he was there to shake those worlds even more.
Read MoreHis face clouds. His speech becomes clipped, the words bit off and spat at the viewer. "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered. My life is my own." With that, the man known only as Number Six, turns and stalks toward the door. He doesn't where he is, where he's going or how he'll get there, all he knows is he has to get OUT.
Read MoreThe Joker’s ‘team-up’ with Batman (Brave and the Bold #111, Feb-March 1974) was one of the best-selling issues the title had up ‘til then. Psycho killer be damned! Here was a character just crying out for his own title, and Infantino, Julie Schwartz and Denny O’Neil would give it to him!
Read MoreAugust, 24th, 1955, a young Chicago boy died in Mississippi. No not 'died', that sounds almost like an accident, like it just sort of happened. It was not accident; white men came for him in the night demanding vengeance over a kid stunt, the crime of whistling at a white woman on a dare.
Read MoreJeffrey Glenn Miller; age 20
Allison B. Krause; age 19
William Knox Schroeder; age 19
Sandra Lee Scheuer; age 20
They were murdered on this day.
Read MoreFeb 3rd, 1959.
It had been a miserable tour, riding a bus through the Midwest in the winter. The bus' heater broke down almost as much as the bus itself. Temps were -25 to -40 degrees, the cold bitter and invasive. A drummer lost toes to the winter and frost bite caused by the dying bus heater.
Read MoreHe was a working actor, maybe not working enough. He had several guest roles in series, even a supporting role in a series, and supporting roles in movies but nothing that broke him out of the herd of other handsome actors in his age range... until Batman. He was a smart and talented actor with the sense of humor and innate ability to 'get' what William Dozier and Lorenzo Semple Jr. were after in the pilot script. He nailed it. See the screen tests done by Adam and his competition for the role Lyle Waggoner. Lyle plays a man who believes what he is saying, Adam plays one who believes, but is in on the joke. It's a fine line and not easy to play, but one that is bright as day when you see. Adam got the part.
And therein lies the tale doesn't it?
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So, I wrote a play. Actually I've written several, but the one I'm referring to I started writing shortly after a breakup. That's what I do after a breakup; some get drunk, some travel to foreign and distant lands... me, I write. I started by dealing with that particular breakup by writing about a different and previous breakup. A very painful breakup. Yes I tried to deal with one breakup by recalling an even worse one. It made sense at the time.
Read MoreDid you know I stutter? I do. I work to hide it because I have to as an actor.
Here's that story:
Read MoreThe ensemble audition, with everyone in the room at once, is making something of a limited comeback. I’ve been at a few recently (all for comedies) and they’ve been something of a revelation to me. One; we’ve got some really talented actors in Seattle! Two; we’ve got some really bad actors in Seattle who don’t seem to understand just basic stuff.
Read MoreShorty after graduating from the mighty Cornish College of the Arts, I auditioned for a play advertised as a new work musical about country music. Do a contemporary monolog and bring your guitar! So I did.
Read MoreThis is going to be an odd topic, and I’m not sure where I’m even going with this, and I’ll probably get called on my enormous ego, but here goes. I’ve never thought of myself as a leading man, ever.
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