Prop 8 Overturned.

I'm currently having a major computer malfunction, so I am going to have some problems uploading photos and telling you about this past week, which was great, but here's to the overturning of Prop 8. May it stand forever.

Post Exposure Prophylaxis.

This week I met a great guy, Dr. Anthony Urbina, here in New York, who has been promoting a new weapon against AIDS. It's called PEP, or Post Exposure Prophylaxis. What it does it duplicate the procedures healthcare professionals use if they accidentally expose themselves to HIV. It involves taking anti-viral pills for four weeks, and is 80% effective.

He's created a side called PEP411. It says that if you think you might have been exposed to the virus, through a broken condom, or sharing needles, or just through neglecting to protect yourself, you should get to an ER within two hours, and then take the four week course of drugs.

They warn that it's not a "morning after pill," in the sense that one should feel it's okay to just go out and have unprotected sex. PEP is not 100% effective, and it involves a rigorous regimen of drugs that usually have side effects. (Trust me on that one.)

But it's at least hope for people who make a mistake.

New York, Home & Spider-Man.

The first time I saw her was on the bus from Newark airport. I saw that skyline and something inside me said, "Home."

In Buna, Texas, where they didn't even have a stoplight (but did have a blinking yellow light where the highway cut through), the day of the week I loved most was the day the comic books arrived at the drug store. Back then, I think it was a Wednesday.

I know this sounds very 30s depression-era, but the truth is that Buna really was that cut off from the rest of the world -- especially in a pre-computer era. Many of the older folks there refused to follow daylight savings time. Many didn't believe we got to the moon.

As that bus got closer and closer, and the towers of lights of the City began to loom over me, I naively felt protected. That this was my city. And, yes, I'm a terrible romantic.


All through high school, I felt lost in piney woods since I didn't grow up there. (As a preacher's kid -- a PK, we moved several times during my childhood. I was a sophomore when we got to Buna. I was actually raised in southern California. I wore a "hippie hat" and moccasins to prove how cool I was).

But, aside from being a newcomer/outsider, I was also discovering/suppressing my sexual orientation, watching the straight boys and girls have romances and sexual encounters, trying not to look at hot guys, and feeling constantly under scrutiny. No one ever threatened me, but I thought if anyone found out, I'd be dead. ("You got a purty smile.")

(Ironically, I could hide behind the very Bible that supposedly condemned me. I took it to school and fended off danger as if protecting myself from vampires. I never had a drop of alcohol or touched an illegal substance. Never danced or went to clubs.)

So, though I might have been walking backwood country roads, in my mind, I was flying down concrete canyons with Spider-Man. I wondered if the Baxter Building, which housed the Fantastic Four, really was a place.
When I finally arrived, I was so excited, I couldn't sleep. The city does vibrate with energy. You can hear it and you can feel it.

I slept on a couch. Waited tables at a seafood restaurant on 76th and Columbus, got a job at a piano bar even though I didn't know a single standard or Broadway tune.

A couple of hustler bars. Some Italian restaurant where the owner tried to get me to do lines of coke and go look for girls. But there wasn't really a future for me in cabaret. I'm not entertaining in that glitzy kind of way.

I burned myself out, eventually, and was saved when I got the ship gig with the Galileo. Which is where I met Jim.

It feels different coming back now, but this time I think I'm not quite as naive. Or maybe I am. I still have this simple-minded belief that I can "take" this town.

As big as New York is, it's still, really, a small town. And I can do small towns. I've had a lot of practice.

A Genius Marketing Video for Stallone.

I was totally not expecting this, but the geek in me has to give props to Stallone's movie, The Expendables, for this viral ad. I do not know how they did it.

New Video Interview with Jim Brochu.

Catch Jim in a new video interview at BroadwayBlogspot.com.

Seeing Carol Channing.

Carol Channing is so consistently herself -- dizzy, hilarious, talented, relentless -- and, yesterday, at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble, host Richard Skipper basically just let her go, which was great, because being in her presence is really enough.

Her husband, Harry Kuligian, a man who was her childhood sweetheart -- and with whom she got back together only a few years ago -- is a perfect match for her. When she would do one of her frequent meandering down rabbit trails, he was there with a ready punchline to pull her back. And she would break out into this huge guffaw.

She was there to promote her new Gospel CD. Yes, Gospel CD. (Mom, I got one for you).

Oh, why not. Ethel did a disco album. Channing can do Gospel.

But she wasn't there merely to sell product. She and Harry, who was a bandleader back in the day, are both passionate about the tragedy of how arts programs are being excised from school curriculum. And they were blunt: To take the arts out of the schools is to destroy our civilization.

And it's that simple.

It's been proven, over and over, that when a student has music or art as part of his curriculum, it creates pathways of understanding for science and math and the other hardcore subjects.

It's not enough, in this life, to merely eat, sleep and work. Our souls and our lives and our minds are enriched by art, music, plays, movies, games. These things make the rest of life possible.

You have too look at these two lovebirds. He's 90. She's 89. Their love for music and art, and for each other, is palpable. And you can tell that one would not be possible without the other.

And though I don't love the TV, GLEE -- a little too wacked out for my taste -- I do love the premise, kids singing in high school. Today, in the NY Times, is an article about college students banding together in schools mainly concerned with other kind of academics and creating glee clubs for themselves. And bravo to all of them. The school systems might be failing our kids, but there's always hope when the kids themselves decide that the arts mean something.

Two Very Nice People. Coulter and Siegel.

Everyone is praising Scott Coulter's direction of Scott Seigel's showcase concert, Broadway's Rising Stars. So, I'm showin' a little blog love to them here. I'm glad Scott is exercising his directing muscles, but not at the expense of hearing him sing. He completely mesmerizes audiences.

Scott Siegel (Creator, Writer and Host) and Scott Coulter (Director) shake on a terrific show!

From Broadway World. Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter Keddy

Create Peace Through Inception?

"Inception" is a movie based on the premise that if you plant an idea deep enough in someone, it will change or alter their behavior.

Yesterday, I posted about this study showing how facts don't alter anyone's opinion about anything.

Recently, I asserted that music is an ultimate way to create peace. What is my evidence? How did this whole line of thought begin?

It began on a ship in the dead of night.

A Ray Bradbury dead of night. (In "Something Wicked This Way Comes," the description of 1am. Not so bad. 2am. Getting later. 3am. The dead of the night. 4am! I don't remember the details, but there was always something so delicious about the progression of the dead of night.)

So, I, having retired early, was now up and wide-eyed at 3am, dressed in black casual slacks and shirt, creeping down the corridor, saying hello to the night crew with their mops and vacuums.

Peeking into the night club, I looked around to see if the partiers had gone to bed. They had. The bar was now dark and empty. Too dark to work in. I pushed the secret button to "late night," and a glow settled over the gleaming black Yamaha grand, freshly tuned but showing its constantly pounding wear.

I probably played through a few of the pieces I was composing, at the time. And then, at some point, I went into my zone. When I'm in the zone, I pace. I talk to myself. I go up and down the aisles, bumping into cocktail tables. (The night crew all think I'm funny. They pretty much leave me alone, at first, until they get used to me and we end up making a choir together.)

Finally, I sat down and looked at the piano, thinking about the current foreverwar, and why war happens. And how sad it all is.

The image that came was simple. It's one we actually witness and experience every day of our lives.

I saw a huge room. It was filled with people of every type of cultural, political and religious division.

And they were all listening to a beautiful piece of music.

And it was perfectly still. Perfect stillness. And peace.

I thought about how religious and political figures, currently in the media, are all saying they want peace -- and how ironic that all of them think the only path to peace is by creating war and violence. As if "peace" were some physical shoreline just over the horizon, and "war" is a living creature, or a big storm, a physical obstacle getting in the way.

This same moment hit me when I was playing John Lennon's IMAGINE piano in Gabi and Alec Clayton's front yard. How the music from this instrument created this space of perfect peace.

Can you go into foreign territory and create peace?

It's exactly what the gay men's choruses do, for instance, when they go to a small town, like the San Francisco group did this past year, on the Freedom Tour.  

But how do you do it on a macro scale? If all the soldiers in the Middle East, for instance, start singing the same song, will they stop fighting? Remember the stories of the Civil War and WWI soldiers who, at night, were so close, they could hear each other? And sing Christmas songs together? Even cross the lines and share a drink with each other? How warm and fuzzy are those stories, those moments of shared humanity.

And yet, the stories end the same way. The next day, they continued slaughtering each other.

No. I'm not naive.

But what I do know is that when people who normally don't sit in the same room together are all joined together in song, it changes things. It makes you realize that peace is not a foreign destination. It's an achievable reality. For a little while, at least.

But maybe there are ways to extend those moments.

In "Inception," they plant the idea through dreams, and insist that it won't "take" unless it's deeply implanted. In real life, we can't jump into dreams, but we can create them, and by creating music along with those dreams, we can not only implant the idea of peace, but create peace while doing it.

Facts Backfire.

Great story today about how facts backfire in most people. That they don't come to their political (or religious) beliefs through a series of facts. People have beliefs.

This is why, as artists, we have to create peace and community and justice. People won't be swayed by someone doing a lecture.

I've been discussing a possible new, and very exciting, evolution for New World Waking.

Stay tuned.

Dying Online.

When I saw this NY Time article this morning about how Facebook is coping with the issue of what to do with people's accounts after they die, it reminded me of a diary entry I wrote long ago back when I was an "Internet pioneer." It also set me to thinking about levels of society in our culture.

Since I was under a "death diagnosis" at the time, I was ruminating on my own death and it hit me that my words, here in the last moments of my life, would actually live on forever because of new Internet thingie. None of us who were early adopters, who weren't computer experts, really knew where the Internet was. It seemed more like a wonder of nature, newly uncovered. Like gravity (which, apparently, might also be an illusion).

For the first time in history, a peasant, non-royal life is sitting in the class of Everything That Is and raising its hand saying, "Here."

Coming from Buna, Texas, it was my first chance at having a voice.

From this moment on, anyone wanting to know what life was like for me, or that I even existed, could just look me up, online. (I started to write "google me," but then remembered that Google hadn't been invented at that time.)

At the time, I was reading history books about the creation of Christianity, and others about the Middle Ages, realizing that the only written accounts we have from those periods tend to be whatever the royalty, or other privileged persons in society, allowed. (It seems so obvious now, but back then, it was pretty heady stuff.)

Since I wasn't expected to live much longer, I poured it all out.

But, I have to confess, it's not enough. What I really want is people singing my songs.

See how selfish I am? And on a Sunday morning, too!

Mark Evanier Tells About Auditioning Jim.

In this wonderful blog entry by Mark Evanier, he tells about meeting Jim and auditioning him as a writer for a TV show back in the 70s -- and what got Jim the job.

He came in to "audition" (chat) and as I was walking him out, he joked, "I live to grovel." That's a line from my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I responded with another line from the show and he did another line...and pretty soon, we'd done about half the show in the outer office there, stopping just short of singing a few choruses of "Everyone Ought to Have a Maid."

Jim Brochu is Special Guest at Mark Janas' Salon, Aug. 1st at Etc. Etc.

I just want to alert everyone in the New York area who care about such things that Jim and I will be making an appearance at the Salon on August 1st at a club called Etc. Etc. on 44th Street.

Jim will be guesting. Co-hosts Booth & Pat. Mark Janas, one of the greatest pianists I've ever met, will be on piano. There will be an open mic. So, you have to show up early and sign up at 7pm. You know I'm gonna be there.

And you! Yes, you reader. Sing my damn songs!

Musical Insurrection!

Growing Up Without Theatre.

In Ken Davenport's essential (for any performer or producer) blog, he makes a list called "Five Things Theatre Can Learn From the World Cup." Here's number three:

2. PARTICIPATION IS THE KEY TO LONG-TERM GROWTH

Do you think it's a coincidence that 25 years ago there was no girls' team in my hometown, and no one gave a crap that Argentina beat Germany in a 3-2 squeaker? Soccer became a bigger part of American life just a couple of decades ago . . . and now those kids are grown up, and are loving watching what they participated in. The arts are no different. If it were mandatory that every kid out there performed in at least one play during their high school career (and I'm not saying that it should be), Broadway would have a bigger fan base. Today's participants are tomorrow's audience.

My first participation, that I remember, in theater, was in the Buna High School junior play.

Buna, being a tiny little town where we moved when I was a sophomore, had no drama department. But, every year, the English teacher would pick a play and choose a cast from the students in her class. (Yes, I said "the English teacher." My class numbered 96 that year. I think it was down slightly from the previous year because of a few extra pregnancies.

I don't remember much about it, but I got picked to play a nerd. It was a comedy called "Cracked Nuts." Or that could have been the Senior Play. I don't know.

And I know I've told this story before, but after I got to Dallas, in my mid-20s, I heard about this "dinner theatre" that needed a tenor. I was fresh off the boat from being in my Jesus rock band and had no idea what a dinner theatre was.

Honestly. I mean, I suppose I could have pictured it, logically, but I had no idea what I was stepping into when I stood up at the piano, looked down at the floor, and sang a Stevie Wonder song. (I only got hired because I could hit a decent high note, I knew how to wait tables, having just survived a run of the midnight shift at the Denton IHOP, while living in an apartment with a bunch of Iranian engineering students. But, I digress.)

The point was that when I showed up for rehearsal on the first day, everyone there was a theatre or opera major. I was this Baptist rock band guy who was dancing for the first time in his life. And by that, I mean that I never went to a high school dance and we did not have dances at Jacksonville Baptist College.

This was my first time to dance.

As they showed me "steps," realizing that I was completely hopeless, they eventually kept me out of everything but the most crucial big cast numbers. I'm sure I resembled a scarecrow being dragged around.

Then, someone mentioned an "audition." It was for a "Broadway show" called Platinum. They were looking for "alternative casting" for the lead, a rock star.

I had no idea what that meant.

Seriously. A what? A Broadway show? I thought "Broadway" meant old movies.

I think that moment is the one that has crystallized, for me, over the years, the difference between the larger culture I now find myself in, and the sealed-off protected environment of the World of the Missionary Baptist.

I started to remember things. Ah, yes. Time Magazine. It always had a section on "Stage." It featured people I never heard of doing things I couldn't see. Not from east Texas.

Also, none of it felt "real." It looked like a pretend version of the real thing. Or just something for elite kind of people.

The Booth, The Merman and the Martin.

So, I never read that section, though sometimes an image would catch my eye. I didn't have a picture of Broadway in my mind's eye. I didn't think of it as a place.

If I pictured those theaters, I only saw them in terms of old movies.

Over the years, I've felt kind of ashamed of that. But probably because my first stage appearances were totally embarrassing there at the Gran' Crystal Palace (in Dallas). Bobby Grayson, the successful Broadway hair stylist, was there at that time. He always fascinated me because he had perfect hair, a great smile, and could sing show tunes and dance.

They always used to group up and do the big final dance from "A Chorus Line." I just stood watching, mystified.

I probably didn't register much on his radar, at the time.

But it was there that I started to catch the fever of musical theater. It was there, in the culture, all that time, but it was as far away from my world as Russia, where all the commies lived.

The chasm was, and may still be, enormous. But, all I needed was that one show. That's when I became a fan. (My first Broadway musical was the original cast of "Sweeney Todd" -- Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou. I don't think I've told her about this. I did tell him, but he doesn't really know me, so I probably just sounded like a idiotic fan. When Angela came to our party, I was so dumbstruck, I sat next to her at one point, on the couch, and couldn't come up with a word. She was there because she's great friends with Bob Osborne. I felt like Alexandra Billings meeting Piper Laurie. "I'm your biggest flan.").

So, I was all the way in my mid-20s before I was even a potential audience for theatre. I didn't really know it existed.

I wonder what a drama department at Buna High would have been like? I doubt they would have done Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. Probably play it safe.

The standards. Dolly. Oklahoma. Sound of Music.

All those Baptists dressed up like nuns. I think I would have loved to have seen that.