Category: Arts

Those that can, do.  Those that can’t, teach…or perhaps, those that can’t, feel compelled to critique those that can.  I’ve never before discussed critical responses to my work, which have generally been  positive.  My job is to do The Work and the job of critics is to critique it; however, in our brave new cyber-world,… Continue reading GOD AND SARAH

    TRISKADECAPHOBIA MY ASS. Last nite, I had over a friend of many years who’s going thru a difficult patch. I grilled steaks and veggies and we sat up talking well into the nite, laying waste to the bottle of Jamesons Cask Strength he’d thoughtfully brought along. I’m always grateful for the chance to… Continue reading FRIDAY THE 13TH

Tonite’s Oscars I liked Kimmel.  I’d watched them in the past with a friend…who also recently passed.  So I watched alone tonite.  I loved all the nominated films, I was happy for the winners…but I was struck by how personal the broadcast seemed to me. I’ve never been to the Oscars, I’m a successful dinosaur. … Continue reading OSCARS

It has been some 42 years since our encounter at Lincoln Center.  I was hired to understudy Albert Hall and Bill Cobbs was the understudy for Dick Antony Williams in Bill’s play, BLACK PICTURE SHOW.  A week before leaving for Vietnam in May 1969, a girlfriend had taken me to see a play in New… Continue reading BILL GUNN

“I ain’t afraid of dying.  I already been there”, says Leonardo in The Revenant.  And I can dig it. But pain now….pain is something else.  Leo and that bear…well, he may not fear death but he damn sure remembers how much that bear made him hurt. And it sounds good. “I ain’t afraid of dyin”.… Continue reading PAIN

I want to acknowledge the passing today of two unique voices.    It was my synchronistic good fortune to have enjoyed encounters with both, back in the day. I resigned my Army commission after Vietnam in 1970 and moved to New York to study acting.  Sanford Meisner, a seminal teacher of ‘The Method’ (along with Stella… Continue reading TWO VOICES

So, you know…I’m kinda pissed…and you’ll never imagine why. I’m binging MAD ABOUT YOU, now midway thru Season 3. I’m appreciating just how fucking brilliant the sitcom pairing of Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt truly was. I laugh out loud A LOT. Not so much at witty lines but at human behavior, at which they… Continue reading SOAPS

What an excruciating experience, four days filming The Wayans Brothers Show for WB. Many words come to mind, unprofessional leading the pack. I came as close as I can ever remember to losing it and ‘reading’ my director in front of his charges.  John Bowab began by directing SOAP and perhaps has done some notable… Continue reading THE ASYLUM

This is an amazingly low end project to which I find myself attached; a film budgeted somewhere around $750,000-$1,250,000.  That’s lunch money to the studios, but apparently this producer liked the sentimental script, persuaded Gary Busey to star in it and raided somebody’s piggybank.  It’s the story of a driven selfish businessman who dies, finds… Continue reading QUIGLEY (GONE TO THE DOGS)