​Yeah, first off; it’s totally a concert.

The show begins…not with a full house.  About 5/8 of the theater is occupied.  With the balcony closed.  But people seem to be very excited to see the NYC debut of this band.  Then the realizations begin to pile up.

It’s an Austrian band.  Not Australian, Austrian.  Which maybe explains the name of the show; It probably sounded better in the original Austrian.  The lead singer, Monti Beton, looks like the American actor Robert Webber.  The surprise presence of European football (soccer) icon Johann Krankl is a big surprise because we’ve never heard of him.  And he played in the 80s.  Apparently he had a hit song in Europe after his soccer career and now fronts this band.

It’s going to be a trip through American’s song book, except they lost the book.  They kick it off with Elvis and that rockin’ number, “King Creole.”  Who opens up with “King Creole?”  Then, to change things up, one of Dean Martin’s Italian songs.  No, not “That’s Amore.”  A full song in Italian.  It seems the band is big in Italy, because they did like four more Italian songs.  Some Neil Simon, some Supremes, some Kinks.  Actually, a lot of The Kinks.  Krankl is a huge Kinks’ fan.  They tossed in a couple of Beatle songs late in the game (causing an audience member to blurt out loudly, “About time!”—like, what was she expecting??) Basically I felt like I was watching Austria’s greatest wedding band in action.

They had some of the crowd up on their feet.  A couple of ladies in front of me seemed to be watching the whole thing ironically, live-posting the whole show.

The band featured their two female back-up singers.  Their female percussionist sang lead a couple of times.  When the soccer player got a solo, the lead singer would dash around the band, joining in wherever he could.  And all the between song patter was heavily accented.

It was a bizarre show.  Like a Will Ferrell sketch, only sketchier.  They finished with the Beatles “All You Need is Love” and exited.  But the lights didn’t could up.  They then did a 3 song encore.  They took a band selfie with us in the background.

We left the show with goofy grins, all trying to sort out what we had just scene.  I mean, they weren’t awful, but they weren’t great.  And the tickets were free, which makes me wonder how many comps they had to hand out to semi-fill the house.  Not that I’d tell anyone to watch out for their show, but they apparently headed back home to Europe after this show.  I hope they left the plane running.

Someone on Twitter recently posted his video from the last WGA strike 15 years ago, just to show how little has changed for the studios and what they think of writers.  And it's spot on.  I'm posting it here, though, because, I'm in it.  I'm one of the picket sign holders in the background.  I even use a screen-cap of it in my blog header.

This is the writers of the Daily Show putting together a video to explain the reasons for the strike.  The WGA wanted to have a picket line in front of the NY Stock Exchange on Broad St.  You know, to let the big corporations that own the studios and networks that they were serious.  The city wouldn't give them a permit to picket the NYSE, and basically forced them to picket several blocks over by Battery Park.  I don't know what passer-bys thought; were we protesting pigeons?  Did Castle Clinton alarm us in some manner?  Anyway, this was all down by where I work my day job, so I grabbed by WGA jacket, took a long lunch and jumped in the picket line.  

​Good luck, WGA.

This'll be a long post because I can't bring myself to write a short one...

We lost Niko, the canine member of our family.  He was 12 and developed a tumor on his liver.  Outside of some arthritis, he was acting fine until the last 36 hours of his life.  He was a beautiful collie/shepherd mix.  I used to tell people he got by on his looks.  He was a calm, friendly dog unless you were a delivery guy coming up the front walk, then you would think he was a rabid wolf.
 
I grew up with dogs in the house, but Niko was my first dog as an adult.  My wife was afraid of dogs growing up, then became used to them, from being at my family's house.  But never what you would call a “dog person.”  She remained reluctant to give in to the kids...

ETA: Months later, I remember to add the YouTube link...

It's been announced that my radio script, "Cupid is As Cupid Does" was the winner in this year's MTB Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition, which celebrates exciting aural storytelling! 

The script is an adaptation of my short story that was published in "Love and Other Distractions: An Anthology by 14 Hollywood Writers."  You can pick up a copy today.  All proceeds go to charity!

The story is a sequel of sorts to my film script "Lost Claus." I've been working on several episodes of a project I call "The Nick Files," where the detective character, Nick Flebber, is called in to solved other odd-ball cases.  I started adapting them to radio, getting the idea from the time I took the film script and knocked it down to a 15-minute sketch for Prairie Home Companion.  They didn't produce it, but I sent it around to various radio groups and it's been produced.  I followed that up with an adaptation of my book "Author in the First" and then found a home with the Lakes Area Radio Theater.  They have produced "Never Say Never Neverland Again," "The Leprechaun Job" and "Spoiler Alert" but I'm still waiting for them to post the shows online.

Wow, this post went off in a lot of directions at once.

I got a certificate of achievement!  My screenplay, "Hitler's Script," was a finalist in the 4th Dimension Independent Film Festival!  

They said they thoroughly enjoyed the work and want me to send us more!

On my way, baby!
Festival Director

She was boisterous and had a raspy voice that sounded like she had to explain things to lots of people over the years and had to make herself heard. And made a fuss over everyone she came into contact with.
​
This is the woman who asked me to write up an idea she had for a short horror comedy, which became "Steamed." It just started making the festival circuit this year, and we couldn't fully enjoy it because COVID. She did go to one festival in Scranton, PA, just last month (October 2020), where she told us the film got great reactions and she looked like she had a good time. I didn't attend. I hope COVID wasn't involved.

It's been a couple of days since I found out and I'm still processing it. Shock, sadness, anger. To be truthful, I guess we were more co-workers than friends and she was always had some hustle going on; most I sidestepped. She often made my introverted self retreat and that's on me. Just last week she emailed me about setting up a website for the movie and what would be a good time to call. It's not something I'm good at beyond Weebly, but I gave her a time. There was no call, which wasn't unusual for her, she always eventually did call.  A while ago, I did set up a page on my site to promote the movie, Steamed, which is about the peak of my abilities.  Before that, she called me a few weeks earlier, as I was building my backyard shed, and she was so pleased about the reaction to the short that she was making plans to produce more and wanted to know if I wanted to be part of it.  I said "Sure."  

But, to be honest, my first reaction to the news of her passing was selfish and now I have that guilt on top of all the other feelings. I read the email from the member of the production team telling me about her. When it finally registered, I thought, "crap, there goes the movie." Awful, right?

Then, naturally, her producing partner just found out the film got into another festival. They're still figuring things out. She was a tough cookie and was always working to make her next break. She saw an opportunity to use some of the chit she had from her horror fame and try to build off of that. And she thought that I might be able to make something of it. I'm sorry the timing didn't work out for her.

I had been noodling with the idea of doing a couple of blog posts about how Steamed came about.  I still made do that.

​Some year, right?