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Just finished my MRI…
Elly and Cassandra say I had a seizure going into the test… apparently I was “babbling”…but I don’t remember it. I was under the MRI’s spell for about an hour. Now we are having dinner and getting ready to drive back home.
They have added 2 more doctors appointments in Hagerstown tomorrow. There goes my last day off. I’ll be glad when the brain surgery is all over with this weekend.
Posting from my iPhone is a new experience for me. These fat fingers on a teensy keyboard really means not much writing. Sorry.
to my more conservative readers…
Pardon the Header 
… it relates to my Tattoo stories.
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Here’s a video treat from ALL HAT NO CATTLE…
…the one blog I try to view every day. This is a video that Lisa put together Called “Back in the Good Old Days” which is a good indicator that Romney will bring Bushiness back to us.
Hope you enjoy it. I sure did!
Realizing how much I have come to depend on my wonderful Superfocus glasses.
For the last few weeks I have been wearing my new Superfocus Leonardos, the new Italian design frames for the amazing focusable glasses I discovered a couple of years ago.
My original pair is a very modernist design called Bauhaus. My wife was so impressed with them that she bought a pair as well.
People are always asking “Where do you get those glasses?” and we give people the source and refer them to the Superfocus web site, show them the Penn Gillette ads, and demonstrate the ease of use and the focusing action of our specs.
The Bauhaus focuses with a sliding device and the new Leonardos have a rotating dial that is virtually invisible to onlookers. Both methods are very easy to use and I am so used to them I rarely even realize that I’m carrying out the focusing.
Interested? Go Here:
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We don’t have Frank Zappa to advise us anymore… but we do have Gail
This is for all folks getting involved in politics and for women in particular. Gail Zappa calls up the spirit of her late husband, Frank Zappa:
Many of us have missed Frank for years and celebrate Zappadan every year. It’s nice to hear from Gail in this season of political madness.
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My thanks to all of you who responded to my personal notice yesterday…
I can’t tell you how much your sympathy and suggestions meant to me. Just getting through this part of my life is so difficult. This poor old fatman (22 pounds down on my diet in the second month) has to come to some kind of way of extending his purpose.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to direct theatre again… can’t get to rehearsals and can’t find a theatre group that might want to do one of my experimental pieces. That is pretty depressing, too, having been creating such events since 1967.
Oh well… lots of blog writing to do what with a big election coming up (that’s how this blog started years ago)…at least that exercises my mind.
Trapped and depressed…
I’m now in the sixth week or so of being trapped in the house, unable to go anywhere, no longer 
living the life I had been used to. Even in this highly medicated, lonely situation I’ve had two smaller seizures which means I probably won’t be allowed to drive or bicycle or anything in 6 months as the doctors had specified (there’s a state law!) I have to go seizure free for half a year and they will assume the meds work.
They don’t.
“Don’t you have any friends who want to take you somewhere?” says my wife on her way to work. I make a couple of phonecalls, get answering machines, and still don’t hear from anyone. I used to be able to drive around Shepherdstown and visit folks at The Folly and at Mellow Moods or walking up and down German Street. Now I just sit and think about it.
It is so depressing.
“Don’t you do crossword puzzles?” my Mother asked the other day. I don’t. I don’t want to. I read and write this blog and endured endless hours of news programs showing Romney’s gaffes – not as entertaining as they originally were.
So here I am waiting for my cell phone to ring, or waiting for e-mail to arrive or for someone to knock on the door wanting to see how I was doing. Unfortunately, I no longer think it will happen.
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- A Seizure (maggiemendus.wordpress.com)
I was thinking about my own labor history…
Since I’ve been taking a look at unions today, it occurs to me that I have been a member of two unions back in my New York past.
As a theatre worker in the early 70s, I had experience as a member of AEA (Actors Equity Association) and LOBTET (the League of Off Broadway Theatre Employees and Technicians.) LOBTET was eaten up by Equity after a couple of years and does not exist anymore.
As an Equity member (which I had to join as a professional stage manager), I was involved in the Off Broadway strike in 1970 or 71. Equity was protesting the fact that actors in off-Broadway productions were often paid very little or nothing at all, but took jobs so that they might be seen by critics or casting direc tors or Broadway producers.
I had to picket the Theatre De Lys (now the Lucille Lortel Theatre) one night. I walked back and forth with my
Shelley Winters
picket sign, alone, while the General Manager of the theatre sat in the ticket booth and stared at me.
After a while I was joined by another Equity member, and this was one of the most interesting occurences in my theatre career. The other picketer was Shelley Winters!
Shelley and I picketed for about two hours, carrying on a neat social conversation, until we decided that it was past what would have been curtain time and we quit. She got a cab and I walked down the block to the subway.
That’s my Union Story.
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I needed something to laugh at this afternoon… so here it is:
From Conan’s show: Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) & Triumph The Comic Insult Dog Visit Chicago’s Weiner’s Circle (a famous site of vulgar insults.)
You’ll get a kick out of this (language not safe for prudes.)
Click and Clack Ending New “Car Talk” Broadcasts
So NPR will be losing the Magliozzi boys’ new programs every week… but let’s hear it from them:
RAY: Hey, you guys. My brother has always said, “Don’t be afraid of work.”
TOM: Right. Make work afraid of YOU!
RAY: And he’s done such a good job at it, that work has avoided him all his life.
TOM: And with Car Talk celebrating its 25th anniversary on NPR this fall (35th year overall, including our local years at WBUR)…
RAY: …and my brother turning over the birthday odometer to 75, we’ve decided that it’s time to stop and smell the cappuccino.
Tom and Ray Magliozzi of “Car Talk”
TOM: So as of October, we’re not going to be recording any more new shows. That’s right, we’re retiring.
RAY: So, we can finally answer the question, if my brother retired, how would he know?
TOM: The good news is that, despite our general incompetence, we actually remembered to hit the “record” button every week for the last 25 years. So we have more than 1,200 programs we’re going to dig into starting this fall, and the series will continue.
RAY: Every week, starting in October, NPR will broadcast a newly assembled Car Talk show, selected from the best material in our archives.
TOM: Sorry, detractors, we’re still going to be on the air!
Goodbye guys… take it from me, everyone has to retire sometime.
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The TED Talk they tried to keep off the Net…
Young multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer gave a TED Talk that the TED folks originally refused to put up (not like them). Hanauer persisted and it is now up. If you want to hear a rich guy’s view of where jobs come from in this economy, then I URGE you to watch this one… and pass it on:
So when Romney says not to tax the wealthy because they create jobs, ask him where the jobs are.
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Romney’s experience…
Romney uses his Bain Capital performance as the experience he needs to run the country.
Right.
Don’t buy it… the country will NOT come first.
Walt Disney’s Taxi Driver…
There’s nothing I need more than a laugh after listening to politicians all day (and installing living room curtains). I came across this treasure while bloghopping: Walt Disney’s Taxi Driver. (You saw it, didn’t you?)
Have a great evening.
Why the Rich are Different from You and Me…
From The Smirking Chimp:
Benjamin Franklin, who used his many talents to become a wealthy man, famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But if you’re a corporate CEO in America today, even they can be put on the back burner – death held at bay by the best medical care money can buy and the latest in surgical and life extension techniques, taxes conveniently shunted aside courtesy of loopholes, overseas investment and governments that conveniently look the other way.
– Bill Moyers
Read the whole article HERE
.
I heard my name on a podcast as I was about to fall asleep…
When I take a nap, I usually turn on one of my favorite podcasts to listen to as I fall asleep… these 
include This American Life, Radiolab, The Smartest Man in the World, and Talkin Walkin (the weekly 1-hour broadcast by Kevin Pollak who interviews comedians while doing his right-on impersonation of Christopher Walken. If you’ve never heard it go HERE.) I clicked on Episode 6.
Anyway, I was just about asleep when I heard Pollak’s Walkin say my name (pronounced wrong, of course… he said “chak-ur-ee-deez” and I pronounce it “Chak-ur-eye-des.”) Apparently it was from my submission of a funny phrase a couple of weeks ago, an ongoing listener contest that Pollak has put out. The phrase I gave him was “Beak a leg”, the theatre way of saying good luck. He and his guest, Corey Levin, went on to discuss the phrase for about 5 minutes before I fell asleep.
I must say, it made me feel connected to the internet.
Working on “Lefty”
Hopefully, we are getting closer to John Case finishing his first draft of the adaptation of Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty” we have committed to. My job will then be revisions and adding the music to it.
We’re updating it to get closer to the current day/ current protests of the Occupy Movement.
Sometime this summer we’ll audition,cast and perform it at The Folly on it’s great outdoor stage:
I haven’t had a chance to direct anything since 2009, so this is going to be fun for me… get me up off my butt and back into action.
Starting the third week of moving and we’re still not done…
So help me, moving again is going to take more will than I think I have. We’re still hauling boxes and artwork and clothes and other stuff from 322 Starkey’s to the new house and it is an ongoing exhaustion creator.
To top it off it is raining this weekend and our helper students have football practice for much of it. When this is all done I’m going to sleep for two days straight and then get on with my life.
—
This morning on my radio show I was stumped for the first time on a play challenge, but, in general it went pretty well. Except, of course, that we weren’t on the internet due to a problem with the provider that the station is having. I’m sorry my regular out-of-town listeners couldn’t tune in today.
The Memorials the Oscars Left Out…
My pal Joe Bratcher turned me on to this in Facebook. As I looked at the list, I realized that there were some great… and important to our cultural history… actors and actresses left out of the Academy Award‘s “In Memoriam” segment.
Nicole Williamson? How could they?
Wednesday Night Graphic Amusement…
My friend Cecil sent me a ton of these, for which I thank him. I can only put a few up tonight, but more will come later in the week (Cec, there are soooo many of them!).
WORLD’s Best Graffiti:
WOW!
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Peter Corum’s Plan for Morgan’s Grove Market…
Peter Corum
It was more than a free lunch at the Bavarian Inn today… It was Peter Corum and his team announcing the exciting plans for the Morgans Grove Market area that he started up last summer. This time the goal is to create an Agriculture/Arts/Community campus that will serve many interests locally and do it year round.
Peter called this a “Charette,” which Webster’s defines as:
a meeting in which all stakeholders in a project attempt to resolve conflicts and map solutions.
Represented were the architectural firm he has been consulting, various arts and
Participants speaking
humanities “businesses,” agriculture folks, local development people, etc. My wife represented Sustainable Shepherdstown.
Over the course of about two hours just about everyone in the room spoke, made suggestions, pointed out various organizational needs and, in general, gave Peter hands down support on the project.
A really good range of attendees
Now we’ll have to see what comes next with the local and county government, the state and
all the other committees which will get in the way (sort of like the solar LLC discussion we had the other night at Town Hall.)
Well… we support Peter and Under The LobsterScope will keep an eye on this project and report good or bad news to you.
Lunch, btw, was great.
Ayn Rand an Illegal Immigrant
Ayn Rand
My thanks to Bruce The Economist for bringing attention to this as we see the conservative elite clamp down on possible voting immigrants…
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Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:27 PM
Earlier this month was the birthday of Ayn Rand, the controversial philosopher and novelist, who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1926. Regardless of what one thinks of her ideas, there is no denying that she was a great American. When the American intelligentsia was playing footsie with Soviet communism, Rand unabashedly defended liberty and individual rights, America’s core values, famously declaring: “[The] United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”
But this proud naturalized American, who arguably did more than any contemporary figure to restore the faith of Americans in America, might have been hounded out of the country if one of our current crop of Republican hopefuls had been president when she arrived. Why? Because Rand lied and bent every rule to gain…
View original post 6 more words
No contraception! “Every sperm is sacred”
I love Moe’s posts… I get my biggest laughs out of them. See the whole thing plus video HERE.
I think the recent Catholic objection to paying for contraception was not without merit on First Amendment grounds. But that’s the constitutional part. I am otherwise delighted to join in the mockery, so richly deserved.
This Monty Python classic has been getting a bit of play around the interwebs today. (Should I email it to the local archbishop I wonder? It might be okay cuz it’s not about lady parts.)
I must have missed this over the Holidays…
…but it’s worth playing it now. I need some humor this afternoon.
Under The LobsterScope 