Severdia

Year's end

The Christmas season is nearly over and, with it, all the cheer that goes along with it. But I was reminded of how great the story "A Christmas Carol" is and how powerful the message is this time of year. It has also inspired me to perform a one-man version of it next year at Christmas time.

The end of the year is upon us and it's a time of reflecting back. There were a few memorable quotes this year:

Stephen Fry demonstrated another potential weapon of mass destruction. When asked whether he had any sharp objects at Heathrow airport, he replied: "Only my tongue, sir."

Woody Allen prevented the tone from getting too teary: "Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions."

Many entertainment icons were lost in 2004. The most notable of which:

1.10.2004 Spalding Gray
1.14.2004 Uta Hagen
1.23.2004 Bob Keeshan (aka Captain Kangaroo)
3.7.2004 Paul Winfield
5.17.2004 Tony Randall
6.5.2004 Ronald Reagan
6.6.2004 Ray Charles
7.1.2004 Marlon Brando
7.21.2004 Jerry Goldsmith
8.6.2004 Rick James
10.5.2004 Rodney Dangerfield
10.10.2004 Christopher Reeve

The biggest tragedy was, of course, Christopher Reeve, mainly because of his extensive medical research work. I remember when Superman came out and I lined up with my friends in front of the Regal Theater in Ukiah, CA (during my 2 year stint in military school) in December 1978. I also remember coming out of the theater afterwards and wanting to go right back in to see it again and again.

Naturally, an even bigger tragedy is the over 120,000 people killed in Southeast Asia and Africa. Humanitarian efforts are pouring in from around the world (with Spain as the single largest donor at $68 million). Amazon.com has set up aone-click way to donate to the Red Cross here.

Holiday spirit

It's that time of year again. It always seems to come and go so fast. I guess when you keep yourself as busy as I've been, it speeds things along.

We've just finished our 6-week run of "The Foreigner" at the Ross Valley Players to neverending rave reviews and lots of excitement. The cast was really great (albeit, not as zany and wild as the generally younger cast of my previous show "Room Service"). The performance was taped and a DVD is on the way, so if you missed it, contact me for a copy. Meanwhile, you can see some photos from the show and backstage moments in my gallery here. It was really great to work with these people. All of them were new except Jim Dunn.

Many have asked what the next show is going to be and I have no idea. The rest of the shows this season at RVP have no roles for me (and I'm not interested in doing musicals any more) so that leaves me out of both RVP and the Mountain Play. I auditioned for the California Shakespeare Festival last week, but they're doing 3 shows which aren't really for me either: Othello, The Tempest, and The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. I did Othello many years ago, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's weaker plays, and Nickleby is a marathon which I'm personally not interested in. So you ask, "Why the fuck did you even audition, you dork???" Well, since my audition last year at Cal Shakes was the WORST AUDITION OF MY ENTIRE LIFE, I felt I needed to redeem myself in some way. Since living in Europe, I've gotten really rusty in my auditions (since I rarely had to audition--I got parts based on those who knew me and my performances). Oh well, back to the real world.

On that note, there might be something going on at the Marin Shakespeare Festival this summer, but they haven't announced their season yet.

My Uta Hagen DVDs just came in the mail. I found them on sale for 50% off (otherwise they're pretty pricey at $40) so I decided to get them. Maybe I'll find some time over the holidays to watch. Just added them to the rest of our monstrous DVD collection.

Last year, Natalia decided she wanted (at the last minute) some carp for Chritstmas Eve dinner (which is traditional in Slovakia) and our hunt was unsuccessful. This year, I got a head start and found a place in Berkeley that has it and they'll keep it fresh for us until December 24th.

Since Natalia has a few days off, we're going to try and get out of here for a little bit. We went to see Closer last night and it wasn't bad. Clive Owen is great and is probably the most likeable of the four characters, but none of them are really likeable enough to get involved in the film or identify with any of them. We saw Sideways a few weeks ago and it's a much better film. We also saw Ocean's 12, which wasn't bad either.