Blog

So, we’re underway. The Office–a hysterical comedy about the banality of corporate office working life–put on by the BBC for a couple seasons, has been brought across the Atlantic, and American network NBC is trying its hand at putting first class comedy on American air.

March 25 was my Dad’s birthday for as long as I can remember, and long before that. I guess it still is, in the sense that he was born on this day. But he also died on another day – June 3rd – which adds a whole new wrinkle to the whole “birthday” thing. And since this is the first arrival of Dad’s birthday since his passing, I’ve been thinking about the significance of the day.

There’s an old saying that goes: “those who can’t do, teach”. Woody Allen extended and enhanced that into a joke with the corollary: “and those who can’t teach, teach gym.” But what does one say about someone can’t write theatre reviews? Where do they come from? More importantly, why do bad theatre reviewers exist? Gym is one thing – a monkey can throw a ball at a bunch of adolescents and blow a whistle – but analyzing a play and reporting on it to a local readership – who just may have to rely on the ability of said reporter to know whether they might want to see it – takes a little more skill than that. It does a community a disservice when a press outlet’s installed theatre critic is so bad at what he does: so biased, so fickle, so research averse, and… well, just such a poor writer, that his reviews are little more than a childish blow-by-blow by a cliquish wannabe director. Who can’t write.

I’m pleased to announce that the website containing my father’s writing has some new additions. A co-worker of his contacted me recently and informed me that she had copies of his stories, including some that I did not have in my collection here. She sent them to me last week and they arrived this weekend. I was delighted, because I just knew of at least one story that I didn’t have. Well, that one, along with a couple others I’d never seen, were included in the envelope.

“Despair overthrown often turns in mad directions.” So says Martin Schulse. Martin, one of two characters in “Address Unknown” – the latest play in previews at the theatre where Brenda works – is beginning to slide down the slippery slope into Nazism, in early 1930’s Germany. This statement – along with an amazing monologue that to Martin Schulse is about “liberals” and could easily be heard from the talking head of the week of the neocon plague currently rotting this country – are among the many gems contained in this wonderful 75 minute theatrical immersion. This is what theatre is supposed to be. I loved Jerry Orbach, but “and you give me Allentown?!?” is not the stuff of real theatre.

Some links to things I’ve written elsewhere.

I’ve been saying for some time now that I want to do this or that to my website, find a better host, add more content (some of it old content that never made it back online after the last time I changed software). Well, recently a bunch of things happened all at once. My webhost had a series of outages and poor performance periods, followed by a very frustrating lack of follow-up by the webhost’s tech support. Then, my friend Paul switched from Movable Type to the new version of WordPress. Intrigued, I had a look at WordPress’ website. Turns out, they have added a bunch of functionality that I have wanted, and many of the features that initially appealed to me in Textpattern are easier to use or more intuitive for me in WordPress 1.5. Then, my friend Joe offered me a slice of his server to host my website, with more functionality, for less money. Like the Jeffersons, I moved on up.

My last job as a bike mechanic was in 1994, at the old Bike Tech in Philadelphia, which became a BikeLine, which has since closed its doors. Sigh. Amazingly, a guy on the retro pages at campyonly.com (see links) has a nice Eddy Merckx that I used to ride. I sent him an email and he was able to catch me up on the whereabouts of many of the wrenches from those days (thanks Ben!). Otis, Eric, Syd, Meech, drop me a line! The internet is making this small world ever smaller.

Not Rob Guglielmetti

Friday

And the next item up for bid, a lovely heart-shaped bathtub. Red. Who’ll give me $100? One hundred? One ten, one ten, lemmehearonetwenty, one ten, lemmehear one twent-onetwenty… and so it will go, over and over, until all the heart-shaped tubs are gone.

Where have I been? Around. Sorry for the silence. Meanwhile, here’s a link to our Cozumel trip photo library. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve used a service like Ofoto. Their “Ofoto Express” application makes it darned easy to upload pictures right from your iPhoto library, too. Given that two of my friends offer superior competing products I feel the need to discuss those now.

I didn’t know it was gonna be a sex flight, but that’s the way it worked out. That’s the cool thing about sex flights, they are like the real thing—you try for it all the time, but usually come up short. When you have a sex flight, you are pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday, as I waded through my backlog of email, I got not one, but two emails from friends of mine, announcing recently published interviews.

Home again. Got back last night. Great trip.

After a wonderful few days of unseasonably warm weather, the temps dropped last night and remain in the 30’s today. Add a 20-knot wind and you have an unpleasant experience. I think I’ll head to Cozumel for a week!

… especially when you try it without a plane. Yesterday, when getting ready to go fly, I flew. Let me explain.

Never Again, and again, and again.

Attention, all who knew him: Miriam is putting together a keepsake memorial memento book, to contain all of the anecdotes from Bil’s memorial page on this site, along with other surprise bonus material. If you wish to contribute, you need to email your stuff to her right away.