Master Thespian. Or…Not

People often ask me why I never went into acting like my sister. Aside from the fact that Brooke worked her ass off to get where she is and I’m a lazy sod, I reply to these inquiries with my standard observation that I have a good face for radio and then launch into the tale of my acting experience in fifth grade.

It was 1976. The bicentennial. And I had the lead role in the school play. I don’t even recall what it was or what it was about, other than something to do with the Revolutionary War. I want to say it had something to do with the story “Johnny Tremain,” but I don’t really recall. I’ve blocked most of the experience out of my conscious mind.

I went to rehearsals. I studied my lines. I did what I was supposed to do. And then came time to perform the play and I forgot my lines. No, not some of my lines.

Every. Single. Line.

Every last word. Complete and total brain lock.

I froze. I didn’t just stumble over my lines. I forgot every word I was supposed to utter. I forgot the little interstitial I was supposed to do that involved reciting the Declaration of Independence. Basically, I stabbed Thomas Jefferson’s corpse through the heart with a dull blade. And Laurence Olivier’s, too, and he wasn’t even dead yet.

I haven’t been on stage or in front of the cameras since.

But then last week, a friend sent me an email about a company in Boston that was casting for a commercial. The guts of it was: “We are also looking for former hockey players in their 40’s or 50’s. We are looking for the kinds of guys who have been around the rink their whole lives.”

40-something hockey player? Hello? Yeah, I think I fit that demographic just a wee bit.

The email included these details: “We will be casting both principals and extras. Those selected as principals will be paid $400/day, and extras will be paid $200/day. Shoot will be in the Boston area.” Whoa! Two hundred bucks (I didn’t expect to make principal status)? Sign me up!

So I sent an email detailing my hockey experience and included a couple of photos: the golf shot that is my current Facebook profile photo, and a shot of me skating in an alumni event in 2009.

A couple of days later I got a phone message asking me to call back and arrange a time to do an audition. And not wanting to be the guy who’s afraid to try something, I said, “what the hell?” and called back. I made an appointment to do an audition a day later and that was that.

But it’s never just that. You can’t help but start to wonder: what if this goes well? Hey, 200 bucks is nice but maybe this will lead to something else…maybe even an acting gig, even just a small supporting role. And then, hey! Maybe I hit an untapped demographic: never-married 40-somethings. One score: accolades, moolah, too much fame and fortune. Better than hitting the lottery, right?

Instead, I drove to a seamy neighborhood in Allston (shocking, right: seamy neighborhoods in Allston?!) with nonexistent parking for a building wedged between the Mass Pike and a shopping center complete with rent-a-cops to make sure would-be George Clooneys don’t park in their lot. I finally found a spot on the street and walked in, dressed, as requested, in chinos and a polo shirt.

A 20-something girl sat at a folding table in a hallway and asked if I was there for the audition. She handed me a clipboard with a form on it and had me stand against the wall for a photograph. I smiled. I wasn’t sure if that was the right move or not, but too many years of being told I never smile for photographs came to the forefront just then.

I sat on what looked like a church pew and filled out the form, detailing my height and weight, my athletic abilities and any other skills and certifications I had that might be relevant. The 20-something girl reappeared and stapled an 8.5-by-11 printout of my photo to the back of the form, and when I finished my bit, I turned it in to her.

There were three other guys in the hallway. Not one of them looked like they’d played any hockey beyond bantams, and they were all young enough to be my sons. So much for 40-somethings. One guy’s take on a polo shirt was a button-down biz-cas shirt with jeans. I started working on my Oscar acceptance speech.

A door opened and a man and woman stepped out and called for the next audition. The woman read four names — coincidentally, the names of the only four of us in the hallway — and we stepped into a room with another folding table and some folding chairs. There was an empty pizza box on the table and a video camera on a tripod a few feet away.

The guy explained what we were to do. First, we each, individually, stood between the table and the camera and, when prompted, held our hands beside our face and recited our names, our agent’s name or the fact we were non-union, and then turned to present a profile.

After that, we each took a seat around the table. We were supposed to pretend there was pizza in the box and act like we were old friends and talk about last night’s game and other assorted malarkey. I mentioned the hockey aspect of the listing and the camera guy said, “Yeah, in the commercial, you’ll see an empty zamboni run down the rink and then you’ll cut to Papa Gino’s where the zamboni guy and a bunch of hockey players are digging in. And, no offense, but you know, you hockey guys all look alike.”

Through it all, I had a huge shit-eating grin on my face. This was the first step toward Hollywood stardom and this clown wanted us, hockey players, to gush over Papa Gino’s pizza? Okay, like Master Thespian, I can do anything. I am, after all, the brother of a professional. And then the camera guy said, “Action!”

And I froze.

Oh, I kept the shit-eating grin on my face. I smiled the whole time. But the three kids fell right into it like they’d known each other all their lives. I chimed in with a “you’re outta luck” when the one guy asked why the box was empty, but that was about all I had to offer. I just didn’t know what to say. I had no lines to forget, but I also couldn’t generate any lines. I had expected a photo check or something, maybe there’d be a question or two about our ability to skate (I was really counting on the hockey part of the posting), but hell, this might as well have been Shakespeare and I was back in fifth grade all over again.

After a couple of minutes, it was, mercifully, over. We walked out and I asked one of the guys if he did this sort of thing often. “Oh yeah, all the time. Don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “First time.” I should have added, “Last time, too.”

Unsurprisingly, I never heard back from the casting agency. And the shoot was scheduled for today. Oh well. So, Brooke: your role as the actor in our family is secure. Me, I had a gas on my one audition. I’m glad I went, but I won’t be going to any others.

Before I drove off, I’d switched back into surf shorts and flip-flops, and I was headed back to the beach (via a marina to check out a couple of sailboats for sale).

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And God Saw the Light, That It Was Good

I try to mark the solstices whenever possible. It’s the pagan in me, I guess, but among the ingredients in my personal gumbo of a spiritual life, observing the concrete astronomical and natural forces at work in the universe seems to me like a pretty good hedge.

Edward Abbey said, “I stand for what I stand on.” To Ed’s sage wisdom I would add: “and also what I stand below.” And by that I mean the sun, the moon, the stars, galaxies, nebulae and the like. Those things are real. They’re THERE. We are made up of the remnants of other suns and moons and stars and galaxies and nebulae and…you get the idea. That’s a fact.

Mimosas, baby! Now THAT’s how
you toast the solstice.

So observing the natural patterns of our little dance in the universe makes me feel grounded. Makes me feel like I’m saying “thanks” to all the forces and processes and, well, magic that have led me to what is a pretty cool existence.

From winter camping in the Uinta Mountains of Utah with my pup Spooner, both of us surrounded by coyotes out in the darkness whose eyes were visible in the glow of the firelight, to an early summer morning toast on a hill in the woods of Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska, with an amazing view of the sun rising over the Talkeetna Mountains, I’ve created some great solstice memories that I cherish.

But not all of the locales in my life have been so pastoral. No matter. The sun is the same sun and the solstice still occurs at the same moment no matter where on this planet you happen to be located. There’s no reason NOT to observe a cardinal point in the annual calendar of our biosphere, however subdued that observance might be.

One such subdued observance just took place on the fire escape of my apartment here in Newburyport, Massachusetts. No, it wasn’t the Uintas. Nor was it the woods at Kincaid Park. But it wasn’t as paved over as one of the summer solstices I observed while living in San Diego: for that one, which occurred while I was at work, I walked out to the edge of the parking lot overlooking the canyon below the office building. You could see the Pacific Ocean off in the haze. I marked the moment, nodded, and that was that. It was enough. Back to work.

Rose on a hot New England
solstice. It’ll do.

This year’s observance found me out on my fire escape with the sun peeking from behind the chimney of the neighboring multi-family dwelling. And I toasted not with Veuve Cliquot (my toast of choice) but rather with a chilled rose because it’s just too damned hot here in New England today. First day of summer? And then some. It feels like the tenth level of Hell. This northerner is feelin’ it (although the beach was wonderful today; even had some small waves to play in).

Now I’m back inside, in the air conditioning, praying this apartment will cool down enough by bedtime or else getting any sleep tonight is gonna be a challenge. It’s so hot today that I’m wearing my Park City Muckers tank top. A tank top? I haven’t worn this shirt in probably fifteen years (and if you’ve seen the photo, I’m guessing you’re saying: Luke, make it another fifteen before you dig it out of the dresser again). But anything beyond a tank top feels smothering.

In any case, the point is: regardless of your religious persuasion, the fact remains: you’re a human being, an animal on this planet that is home to ALL human beings that have ever been. That planet that sustains all of us (for the time being, anyway) has patterns that have been going on for billions of years. Taking a moment to observe those patterns is simply paying homage to the forces that have made you YOU. No, I’m not saying God didn’t play a part in making you you (if that’s how you roll). But if that is how you roll, God still made you YOU within the construct of this universe in which you live. Paying your respects to that teeny bit of God’s creation is the least you can do, don’t you think?

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Memorial Day, One Generation Removed

Last night, PBS televised the national Memorial Day Concert/Celebration from Washington, D.C. It’s an annual event and is a deeply moving tribute to those who serve in our armed forces. I watched the show for a few minutes after Sunday dinner with my parents, watching with one person who served in those armed forces: my father, an infantry veteran of World War II.

Those of you who know my father know what a big, tough guy he’s always been. At the peak of his power, he was a solid 6-foot-2, 200-pound man with broad shoulders and a sheer size and force of will that, even though I’m physically bigger than he was, I never had and never will.

You may also know that, deep down, my father is a marshmallow: he cries whenever some young athlete wins an Olympic medal and his voice breaks at the sight of sappy commercials. He especially chokes up at any news involving our troops — past or present — so it’s not surprising that the made-for-TV event in Washington, D.C., got to him so deeply. And it’s at times like those, when I watch this formerly fierce, powerful man break down, that I realize where my hippie, anti-war sentiment comes from.

And that realization happens more often than just the final Monday in May each year. Unlike many Americans, my father observes not just Memorial Day but also Veteran’s Day (which was Armistice Day to his father, who’d served in World War I) in the fall; the anniversary of D-Day, and V-E and V-J Days in the summer; and other dates that don’t get mentioned in the news: the day he shipped out from the East Coast for Europe, the day he and his platoon crossed the Rhine, the night around Christmas 1944 when he and a few mates ran into a German patrol and both groups turned and walked away, and other such dates that mark those days in the Ardennes — days he went through as a 20-year-old.

Twenty years old. I can’t comprehend going through something like at any age, let alone as someone just out of his teens. Whenever I try to imagine those times — and I do, often, in my quest to understand my father just a little bit better — I shudder. I physically shudder. Mentally, well, let’s just say it’s a frightening place to be, and I don’t know what it was really like. I like to think I could have withstood such horror as well as my father did, but I highly doubt it. And it’s when I come to such realizations that I get angry. Not at myself and certainly not at my father, but at a society that glorifies war and combat so easily and lightly.

Rather than listen to Selma Blair tearfully recite the story of a young father whose death in Afghanistan left his two young children fatherless and his young bride a widow, I want to hear that we really do support our troops — so much so that we’re bringing them home. Rather than hear Joe Mantegna tell us that the American Idol finalist who sang the national anthem has a father stationed in Singapore who’s so proud of her, I want to hear that he’s actually stationed in Seattle…or some other place here on this continent where he’s closer to his loved ones and here to protect our country, not the interests of some far-flung corporate tax haven. Rather than hear about the eleventh year of hell our troops in Afghanistan are entering, I want to hear that they’re being brought home, and that the chicken-hawks of both political parties who sent and keep them there aren’t doing so just to prop up the bottom lines of Lockheed-Martin and other military-industrial complex corporations.

Yes, I’m angry. Watching what my father goes through on all of these dates of infamy is painful for me, and they must be infinitely more painful for him. Not only can I not imagine what it was like to be there on the front in 1944, I can’t imagine what it’s like to carry that with you every single day of your life since.

So when I see my father break down as he did last night, in a lot of ways I wonder if he isn’t still in the Ardennes, alongside Red Lynch and the other two guys — all three now gone — in his band of brothers.

Certainly, as my father has gotten older, the memory of those days has moved more to the forefront of his mind and soul than probably any other images he carries — more than the sad memories of the deaths of a wife or a son or other family members, more than the joyous present of a multi-generational family living a broad range of lives, and more than the hopeful thought of the future embodied by four granddaughters. And I find that heartbreakingly tragic.

Yes, my father is proud of his service in World War II, as well he should be. But when I see him breaking down over the plight of others who have shared his experiences, I wonder if he didn’t pay too high a price. And I want us, as a society, to stop paying that price. For my father’s sake. For the sake of all servicemen and women. And for the sake of all the rest of us who know and love them.

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