MDRansom

Fresh Poetry

2012-01-13T08:16:00.000-08:00

I have been punched in the face
my nose exploded in a torrent of
Blood

More than once

I have fallen off a scaffold and had my hand lacerated to the tendon
As it went through a stained glass window

There’s nothing passive about bleeding or blood

It is an active part of life.

The poet once said, “New York seduced me”
She got that right.

One night I rented a room in the Chelsea Hotel
It cost 65 dollars. I left a poem in a bottom drawer
With a copy of SCREW magazine
And another one on the bed.

I wanted to be a great poet, I got hooked
On New York instead.
It wasn’t hard; she gives you what you like
And I have a
High tolerance for pain
And a low resistance to pleasure

So I still wander these streets
of a million doors
and a million floors
and 8 million stores

But the New York I knew is in the rear view
The City has changed and I walk
like a ghost among her ruins
looking for Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Patti Smith
and John Lennon.

And all that’s real
Is the taste of blood
Inside my mouth.

Welcome to...Port Richmond

2012-01-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

Last year I went back to the old neighborhood, camera in hand, to do a photo essay of how the place looks now. I was also in the last pages of composing my novel and used these images, and more like them, to propel me to the finish line. Here's a glimpse at how the place looks today. These shots include the sheltered doorway of the Bridge Tavern, where Jack Simms ducks out of the rain while Mary Jimenez performs at the protest rally across the street in Elm Park.

Keep up with the blog for more photos of Port Richmond and locations in and around which have provided inspiration for scenes in the novel. You can't miss the ever present image of the iconic Bayonne Bridge, the dome of which features prominently in Jack Simms' history with his home town.

I am continuing to send the manuscript out to agents with the goal of landing a publisher in 2012.

2011 A Year in Photos

2012-01-03T12:28:00.001-08:00

Pictures really are worth a thousand words.

NEW PLAY BY J. BOYETT

2011-12-05T09:05:00.000-08:00

We took in a staging of a new play by J. Boyett last Saturday and I am writing to let you all know there is still time if you want to see an exciting play explore a troubling trend in our age of techno instant gratification. Without giving too much away I will just say the ride starts slowly, but once it picks up speed the emotional twists and turns are non-stop.

Samantha (Kelly Kay Griffith) is Sam's (Dennis Brito) younger sister and she has flown almost 2000 miles to talk to her brother about his upcoming nuptials to a considerably younger Dee Dee (Kate Eastman). What ensues, directed by Kathryn McConnell, is a lively and sometimes hilarious debate on morals, generational differences and sibling rivalry.

The radiant Kelly Kay Griffith and luminous Kate Eastman sizzle as they square off to compete for the respect, adulation and love of Dennis Brito's "Tom". A man who proves unworthy of either powerful women. An insipid secret is at the nexus of this play. Both what it is doing to society as a whole and what it specifically does to these three people is revealed.The play deals with its issues not in a preachy, showy way, but presents the dilemmas and tragic consequences with jarring realism. This is an interesting effort by Boyett who has a strong sense of drama and a keen ear for poetic dialog delivered beautifully at times by his actors.

In the end, a women's issue is eclipsed by obscene, misogynistic objectification. Thought provoking and disturbing, it was well worth the 90 minutes without intermission.

"My Week With Marilyn"

2011-11-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

In this most gentle late November last evening we strolled into Fort Green and BAM to see "My Week With Marilyn" about the tense filming of a 1956 "light comedy" in London. Based on a true story, the film dramatizes the relationship between the newly wed to Arthur Miller Marilyn Monroe and a young third assistant director working on his fist movie set.

I have been a casual fan of Monroe's since I first saw her in "Some Like It Hot" on TV when I was maybe 10 years old. Michelle Williams does an earnest job of portraying our cultural icon, Kenneth Branagh is brilliant as the aging Sir Laurence Olivier and Eddie Redmayne plays Colin Clark, the wide-eyed and innocent star struck man/boy at the heart of this story.

Beautifully shot on location, meticulous in every period detail, the film is an intimate behind-the-scenes look at a snapshot in time. While a valiant attempt to depict the mufti-faceted and layered personality of a Hollywood legend, this film seems to only reinforce the stereotypical notions that Marilyn was some sort of idiot-savant with no intellect what-so-ever. Michelle Williams' performance is complex and nuanced and readily worthy of high praise, but director Simon Curtis chooses to view his heroine through the soft focus lens of nostalgia. He gives us a Marilyn at once crushed by fame and disabled by insecurity addicted to both love and Tuinal with very little in between. There's not a moment in the film where she's not hiding behind dark glasses, preening for the camera, flirting with disaster by taking too many pills, or playing up to our adult male fantasy of Marilyn Monroe.

"Shall I be her?" Williams coos at one point in the third act. The "her" I wanted to see was the real Monroe, and there was nothing of reality in this love letter to a preconceived notion of the star.

Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh, Zoë Wanamaker as Paula Strasberg, Emma Watson as Lucy, Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike and Derek Jacobi as Sir Owen Morshead (a cameo really,but always a joy) round out this all-star cast.

A must see for everyone who is up on everything Marilyn. Also recommended: fragments (2010) Poems, Intimate Notes and Letters By Marilyn Monroe.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T14:42:00.001-08:00

I have so much to be thankful for...I know that is ending a sentence with a preposition...and for that I am thankful. I have an amazing wife with amazing friends whom we love and they take us on awesome adventures like kayaking in Maine during the summer of 2010 as pictured here. We were supposed to go see them this holiday and enjoy the peaceful rural environs of Meadowood in Palmyra VA. But due to circumstances beyond control we have been delayed. Our love is not lessened. Our thanks but deepened for all we have in the richness of our family and friends. We cooked our first turkey together, Jennifer and I. I have either worked or we have gone to friends for the past 12 years we have been together. It has been fun to cook together, just the two of us going nowhere.We wish all of our loved ones bliss this season of abundance and giving. Regardless of financial situation, while we draw breath, we have love to give.

The Readiness is All

2011-11-18T06:51:00.001-08:00

You know things are going a little crazy when you got to put your reading spectacles on and you are already wearing your glasses. It inspired me to take a few moments and get present. The Mrs. is in Montreal at a conference and I am home writing my next novel even thought the first draft of my first is still warm. I have come to the conclusion that when I am not at work as a building inspector I am a nut. (My co-workers might tell you I am nuts there too.) I can’t believe I am the age I am. Can’t believe the world is the world. Look at all the wealth and all the poverty; the darkness and the light; the good and the evil. Look at all the natural wonders, and then at the man-made, and just which is mocking which. How do we navigate it all? How do we stay on the right side of the road? Is insanity not just a little bit healthy in learning to cope with opposing forces that constantly pull and stretch at reality? It is a time of thanksgiving. I am very thankful for so many things; my wife, my family, my friends, my job, my city. But mostly today, I am thankful for my madness, my source of inspiration and vision. Here’s to a peaceful, joyous holiday season. One in which we take the opportunity to give aid to one another. To love one another just a little more than we did last year.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T09:23:00.001-07:00

10/31/11 October. Ends.

With five query e-mails sent to various literary agents I begin the task of getting the damn thing (aka my novel) published.

And now this Random Ransom thought. When you see someone smoking out on the now, tobacco filled streets of NYC and you ask: “What are you doing?” and they answer: “Oh, nothing, just having a cigarette,” what they really mean is:

LIFE SUCKS THEN YOU DIE! So I’m just helping that process along by inhaling some poisonous gas and then, oh yes, spewing it out in to the fresh, crisp Autumn air, because I’m miserable and everyone around me should be miserable TOO!”

Oops. Did I just think that out loud. Sorry. never mind.

Happy Day of the Dead

FIRST DRAFT

2011-10-27T07:56:00.001-07:00

My friends. Here it is. First draft hot off the press. In scanning the first few pages, I see changes I would like to make, so it is by no means finished. Now the work begins. I must find an agent and a publisher. What is a novel called Port Richmond about?

When a Mexican/American day laborer falls to his death from an Upper West side Manhattan apartment building, it sparks a political and social uproar in post 9/11 New York City. An Emergency Response Building Inspector is assigned to work with detectives from the NYPD to investigate the possibility of wrong-doing, and winds up battling demons from his own past as the trail leads him back to his boyhood home in…Port Richmond.

More than anything, this exercise proves to myself that I am able to focus my scattered attention long enough to take on a big project and see it through. I look forward to the challenge of finding a publisher. I am already formulating the plot for another in a series.

Speaking of publishing…Alister Sanderson proposes to immortalize yours truly by filming me performing one of his riddle poems. Very excited about that also.

Stay tuned!

I Read The News Today...Oh, Boy...

2011-10-15T23:59:00.001-07:00

It’s almost three in the morning. I have been working since Friday afternoon, just got off a few hours ago, thinking about a friend whose father just passed. Drinking a Patron or two to his memory. The windows are open and the street is quiet save for the frequent passing of taxi cabs and the leaves rustling on the breeze. Not three miles from here, young people are staging an historic protest.

Much has been made about what people think they are doing and why they are doing it. My own two cents is just about frustration. People want to work, and work hard and feel that their life’s work means something. Nobody I know wants or expects a free ride, and to couch what the Wall Street protest is all about as a simple matter of “Let Them Eat Cake” is to over simplify and insult the entire endeavor. People are fed up. They are mad as hell, and they are not going to take it any more. The People are the sole premise for this whole thing to begin with.

We…The People…well...the people are dissatisfied. Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Anarchist, we are all fed up. They feel…we feel, everyone feels that we are no longer represented in our representative government.

We…the People are exercising the right of free speech to let every one know it. There is a real consternation about the fact that there are no demands being made by the protestors. They have picked Wall Street as the object of their ire because…well, I don’t know why because…I can only guess, and so can everyone else…I do know that We…The people…BAILED WALL STREET OUT…so I think that entitles us…yes I said it…we paid…we should get our good capitalist money’s worth, we are entitled, by virtue of the good tax dollars that went into the WALL STREET BAIL OUT, to vent a little. OK so it was billions of dollars...to vent a LOT.

By the way,IT HAPPENED BEFORE, AND it’s happening all over.

To quote a late, great, famous, and beloved American Playwright: “In Spain, there was revolution. Here there was only shouting and confusion.”

And Pepper Spray.

Long Live Liberty Street.

God Bless John Marion. May he rest in peace...John..we hardly knew ye...

October...2011

2011-10-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

I have been 10 years with ERT...13 with DOB...it has been 30 since WSIA FM...

OCTOBER...AND THE LEAVES ARE STRIPPED BARE OF ALL THEY WEAR...DO I CARE...

It really is fall. I look back on a wealth of experience and wax with melancholy. Through the miracles of technology our pasts are no longer consigned to mere memory or moments captured in fading photographs enshrined on silver nitrate. Our friends from high school and before...and after...are now Face-Booked and Linked-In on My-Space...people we never knew had interest in us now say hello as if for the first time. The whole of a life's experience never leaves us, but is condensed, like a fine liquor, heady and intoxicating as we revel in the life lived, the loves lost, the loves gained, the dreams that remain...the dreams just that...fantasy...and the harsh halo of reality meshed with day to day onerous life of constant value. I pray every night giving thanks...to what ever all-in-all God, if you will, for my existence...for all it is and all it is not...I give thanks. And those who did not come with-in arms length for whom I still lust...and for those whom I've held in my arms and will ever love...my heart feels full and heavy, like a ewer overflowing with fresh cream and milk.

I just want to tell all of you in this moment, where you read these words and for a second join with my thoughts in this most incongruous and intimate of universes, that I... I am truly, truly, blessed.Thank you for your friendship past and present. Thank you for your thoughts and well wishes and know I send the same to you and yours...in our hours or need...we always have each other.

"My Happiness"

2011-09-08T06:48:00.001-07:00

I miss you dad, and find it strange to be writing a novel about you that I will never feel completes our story since I will never see you read it. I know you are somehow helping me write and you know every word. “Rest, rest perturbed spirit.” Here you are in happier times with Susie.

I did not finish the draft before we left for England because of Hurricane Irene which called me into work. So, we are back from Stratford-upon-Avon and the birth place of Shakespeare, and London, where a replica of his Globe Theatre now stands. I began the last chapter today adding a page and a half to the narrative which brings the total to just over 71,000 words.

I started the process a year ago today, not knowing it would ever develop this far. I thought I would not have the stamina, or the focus for a long narrative. Now I just hope people will read it. “Any place on Earth will do just as long as I’m with you.” Love you dad, forever.

"Well, I'm back." Sam Gamgee

2011-09-07T07:21:00.001-07:00

It is comforting to know that at my advanced age there are still experiences yet to be had that are life altering. Our international travel to England, I trust, will be the first in a long line of journeys that lift the veil from our mundane, day-to-day existence long enough for a real look at the wide world. While travel was exhilarating, it was also hard work. The rewards we hope to share, Jennifer with her students, friends, and family and I with all of you. But instead of boring you with the details, I will just post photos from the journey and urge you all, if you have a passion for Shakespeare and his theatre as it was originally presented, then by all means take the trip. I let my camera do the site-seeing. Often just raising it above my head and letting it see and record the places we were passing through.I took almost five hundred photos. Don't worry, I will only bother you with the best.

Dateline: London

2011-09-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

We arrived in London late afternoon Sunday which helped us avoid a mad crush I am certain. Please, first I must apologize for my spelling errors in the previous post. When you travel with a professor it's best you let her read before you push send. We just completed our tour of the White Tower. Fantastic. Last night we made our way out to the Globe Theatre by the Thames. No easy task when, on a Sunday, the Underground is just as messed up with track work as the NYC subway, but we had a lovely walk. Rewarded by a stunning Dr. Faustus by Kit Marlowe, the trek back to our hotel, which is virtually on top of Victoria Station, did not seem so bad. Next stop today after our Starbucks Coffee, St. Pauls, then a tour of the Globe, then Ye Olde Cheshire Pub, if we can locate it.

On Saturday we did hike out to Anne Hathaway's Cottage and hopped a train (one stop to Wilmcote) and visited Mary Arden's farm. In the evening we treated ourselves to dinner at the Rooftop of th RSC and then took in an interesting rendition of A Mid-Summer Night's Dream. Tomorrow we head home. Then I will start posting photos.

Macbeth

2011-09-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

Our first day in England was full of sight seeing, touring and culminated with an RSC production of Macbeth, the shortest and one of the bloodiest plays in Shakespeare's cannon. Of course I had to finish the evening with a single malt Scotch, yes Lagavulin. It has been one peaceful thrill after another here. Beautiful weather, lovely gardens. The river Avon is soothing and full of Signet Swans. It is a vibrant town with a wonderful buzz, but not crazy hectic. Getting used to the currency has been a challenge, and getting wi-fi in this Starbucks a chore and a half (and hardly free!). All in all yesterday was one of the fullest days of my life. I don't know where we found the energy, but we were up at 7 and touring the town, the Bard's birthplace, his daughters house, the place where he is buried, and then one of his most favorite works in the land where it was first performed!!! Bliss. And the local beer helps. Great stuff. Today we venture further to see Shakespeare's wife and mother's houses respectively and tonight we see another classic :

A Mid-Summer Night's Dream which apparently was written during a time of hard weather here in England where the sun refused to shine and summer's had been either drought ridden, cold or both causing crop failures and the like. Gotta go, my English Breakfast is waiting.

Ransom is an English Name

2011-08-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

Often when we are asked about our heritage we first point out that mom is Italian, so we have a clear sense of where we come from on that side of the family. But on dad's side of things the path from the past is not so clear cut. So as we journey to England this weekend in search of facts about William Shakespeare, I will be keeping my eyes and ears open for everything and anything Ransom.

While I am third generation Italian on my mother's side, the Ransoms have been in America for centuries. There are records of them participating in the American Civil War on both sides. Just how far back we go I have not looked into very closely, afraid I may find some nefarious and unsavory facts about my distant relatives. Yet, curiosity is getting the better of me...so I will be keeping in touch form the Motherland as we make our away into the heart of England.

Much Ado About...Irene

2011-08-28T08:16:00.001-07:00

We get a bucket of brown water every time we have a wind driven rain, so Irene just forced more water through the leaky windows.Lots of twigs and leaves, and one big branch down in our immediate vicinity. I will be going to work in a few hours where I am sure to be dealing with the hardest hit areas.We are all fine here and have weathered the storm safely. We do now know all the verses and chorus to "Good Night Irene" which we sang between episodes of "Rescue Me" on DVD. After this shift I will be on vacation. Next stop...Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Rinse Cycle

2011-08-14T06:49:00.001-07:00

August rains began in earnest around 2:30 AM this morning. The streets of Brooklyn New York are being given a serious wash down. Unfortunately all the detritus of life not neatly collected into bins for waste is washed into the city sewer and makes its way to the waterways of this our fair city. But it's hard to be depressed when even the air is rinsed to a fresh fragrance of late summer. Here nature wins at last. Like the biting freezing cold of winter, the summer rains pervade and overwhelm the senses in a good way. There's no sound like the hissing whoosh of passing cars slowed to a human pace by downpours. Pedestrians present to their environment seek shelter beneath colorful umbrellas. Floods flash as streams and brooks overflow their confining banks, leaders spout, and roofs in need of TLC become known to the sad inhabitants of not so dry rooms below.Its a day for the movies or indoor games, bending your elbow, tour a museum, write poetry, make love. Get on the phone and keep in touch with those far away. Listen to music. Write a letter, with pen and paper. No Yankee game I'm sure, and the Mets are in Arizona. Stay safe my family and friends. Keep dry, but be thankful, for in Texas they are in a drought that is reminiscent of the dust bowl. Love rain over me!

Call Me a Radical

2011-08-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

With the news full of the gloom and doom of economic disaster worldwide, I never thought that my conservative behavior over the past ten years could be considered radical, but now I don't know.

During the housing bubble we resisted the urge to be seduced by the temptation of 120 percent financing. We actually paid off all the outstanding balances on our credit cards with what we earned from our jobs, and we are now considered "dead beats" by those companies because we pay our bills on time and do not have to pay interest or fees.

We actually managed to start a modest savings program and, aside from student loans which are on their way to being repaid, we are debt free. The only thing we own is pictured above, a now "used" truck. I am not bragging. We still pay way too much in rent for way too little space. We got rid of our storage locker because the price kept going up. The same space they offered for $75.00 a month for first time renters, is going for twice that if you are a longtime loyal and consistent customer.

I consider us truly blessed. Too many of my friends are being devastated by what has happened. For once the government should make a productive use of "Imminent Domain" by seizing every foreclosed property in the United States and return those homes to the very people who have been duped by disingenuous mortgage lenders and banks. Homeowners who fell victim to schemes and get restored to their homes in that way should pay what they can afford based on their incomes. Talk about stimulating the economy, once banks have a vested interest in what people make, lets see how fast and how many jobs get created.

I don't know, I'm just saying...

SUDDENLY THIS SUMMER

2011-08-08T09:12:00.001-07:00

NOW...
that mid-summer is well past and the dog days are upon us I am taking a moment to get present with the things we've done thus far...we start in Essex, CT where we did a sunset sail on the Mary E. AND saw Bill in "The Producer's" at the Ivoryton Playhouse centennial.Took a break to go to work (yuck!) And then... proceeded to Cape Code with Cyndy and V for a wonderful mid-week day at the beach. Next stop for Jen is Chicago and her ATHE conference. And then, as labor Day looms we're taking a leap of faith (considering all the gloom and doom on Wall Street) and we are making the pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the birthplace of William Shakespeare in preparation for Jen's course she's teaching at Marymount this coming semester.

As you can see by the photos I am very plump these days...fat and happy as the saying goes. I am like the stock market. I lose...I gain. Life goes on. If you would like to check my flesh out...I mean see me in the flesh...check out Rebstock 2011 this Sunday in Tompkins Square Park. It's free.(http://www.rebhan.com)

The novel is in the final chapters of its first draft. The pace has slowed somewhat but I am still on track for a September deadline. More about September and the marking of ten years since the 9/11 attacks next month.

Finally this: "They all want you to borrow anyhow. Banks, car lots, investors. The whole thing's geared to invisible money. You never hear the sound of change anymore. It's all plastic being shuffled back and forth.It's all in everybody's heads."

from Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard first performed in 1978.

John "Jack" P. Meade Way

2011-07-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

One of the very best things to ever happen to me was when I met Jack Meade at Apprenticeship Training in the Bronx a long time ago. Jack showed me one opportunity after another in the trades. It was he who suggested I put my resume in with the Building Department. Jack was instrumental in helping me obtain my Site Safety License, my evening trade school teachers certificate and so much more. If Jack could help someone, he would and he did. He was tireless and selfless. Many times we would meet in ECB Court and we would be the only two inspectors there. We would shoot the breeze about the old days. I heard someone say it has been a year and a half since his passing. It seems like yesterday. His street was re-named in his honor. The ceremony was well attended by Jack's many friends and family. Also attending were the Boro President of Staten Island and representatives from City Councilman James Oddo's office.

Jack was a member of so many organizations, but I will always remember him as a Labor Leader of the highest order, a superb craftsman, and a diligent inspector. Jack my friend, I hardly knew ye. Born on Saint Patrick's Day, Jack was all Irish/American, all the time. He had a smile on his face always. He will not be forgotten.

A View From the Game

2011-07-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

This is the view from Staten Island of the ever expanding skyline of Manhattan. The new World trade center is rising just to the left of the flag. We had an awesome time at the game, the SI Yankees came back to beat the Brooklyn Cyclones in extra innings. everything was cool and gravy until they forgot to tell us the boat back to Whitehall would be early so we missed it and had to wait in the ferry terminal for an hour or more. Not like that hasn't happened a million times before. Still don't like it. Anyway...can't complain. The sight of the city gleaming and rising, thriving and changing despite all that has taken place with war and economic downturns...oh say, did you see, that star spangled banner...still waving over the land of the free...

Wee Wee Hours

2011-07-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

This is a first. I am blogging from the Emergency Operations Center this AM. To all my loyal fans: The City is all quiet at the moment. I was just reading my archive and see that I have been slacking. I used to blog a lot more. I am never sure how I am being received. Nobody ever comments and I get a little discouraged.

I took last week off from writing. I am itching to get back at it. Hopefully blogging from the iPad will rejuvenate the experience since now I can do it where ever I can get wifi.

My main character is a lot like me. Except tall, dark and handsome. He is also sometimes at a loss for the write stuff at the right time. I am listening to the mice squeal. All is quiet this summer morning.

So last week zero pages, but proofed some copy with the help of God and two friends I will get by...time to listen to some Grateful Dead.

Taking a Break...for a Beer and a Dog

2011-07-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July everyone. We celebrate freedom with a trip to Yankee Stadium...on Staten Island of course...that affordable alternative to...HOLY COW I THINK HE'S GONNA MAKE IT!...NY YANKEE BASEBALL in the big ball yard in Da Bronx. Not that I have stopped writing...got my page done today plus and now stand at 61,975 words and 148 single spaced pages!!! moving right along to the finish line. For those of you who want to know more about the story it's about an investigator whose case leads him back to his home town and the very house in which he grew up in his old neighborhood. It is filled with suspense, excitement and nostalgia.

The photograph is from a trip to Wrigley Field...go Cubbies...not to worry, I still like the Mets (except when they play the Yankees)...and a trip ti Citi Field is being planned for later this year with Eric and Stew...stay tuned...

Writer's Workshop

2011-06-29T14:41:00.001-07:00

I've been a bit remiss with my blogging lately because I am in the middle of composing my first novel. Literally, in the middle and now I am starting to frighten myself a little. I might just finish the thing. With the help of God and two friends...so I thought I would begin to blog about it in a way to challenge myself to stay the course. As of this week I am at 142 single spaced pages and roughly 60,000 words.The goal is a minimum of 71,000 words, but no more than 120,000 which is acceptable for a first rough draft I am told.

The working title of the tome is "PORT RICHMOND". Here is an excerpt from a chapter I have been working on called "The Trial".

Ominous clouds, dark purple, and gray descended over and around the Empire State Building. Forks of lightening spiked out of the sky as if aimed by a malevolent, unhappy god. Foreboding as this was, more dangerous to the two, lone, tiny figures of men suspended on a scaffold hanging on the east elevation, was the roaring wind. It began to swirl in all directions. Angry blasts against sheer limestone walls created down drafts, and up draft which tossed the platform about like a row boat on high seas. The two men were almost in the middle of a drop on the tallest part of the building, the fifty stories between the 25th and the 75th floors which creates a monumental vertical rise giving this stately, landmark tower its prestigious position as the tallest building in midtown Manhattan.

The men had made several egregious errors. One was not listening for the weather forecast. The second was they failed to bridal the running lines to the structure every three floors or so. The tethers would have prevented high winds from blowing the scaffold nearly across Fifth Avenue. Then slamming it into the facade of the building as it swung back. 911 calls were coming in furiously from all over the city as local news cameras broadcasted the harrowing ordeal. The terrified men were not wearing safety harnesses. They were nothing more than paralyzed passengers clinging to the back rail of a scaffold, frozen in utmost fear for their lives.

Lear BAM

2011-06-05T08:31:00.001-07:00

CAN'T GUSH ENOUGH ABOUT THIS. Derek Jacobi's Lear was stupendous.

Strange Days Indeed

2011-05-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

I have seen some weird things in my line of work. This takes the cake.

However, if you are an aspiring "exotic" dancer at Mr. Wedge's club, you are not allowed to eat any. This was posted at the entrance of the establishment for all to see. I am not sure these requirements are even legal, but one thing is certain...they are morally repulsive. I would dare say bordering on extremism of those who would make women wear a Burka or veil.

You can't make this stuff up kids.

DUSTY MIRROR

2011-05-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

IT IS A MOMENTOUS OCCASION...when the President of the United States visits New York to specifically pay tribute and remember the victims and survivors of the September 11th, 2001 attack on New York, the Pentagon and the sky over Pennsylvania. Taking a moment to reflect on the historic event that took place a few days ago, it is neither a day of joy or celebration, but a moment of triumph over despair. The work by so many, evident in the green of the trees at the World Trade Center site, is a testament to the resiliency of a united people who want only peace, but who have been provoked by acts of war. What has happened must never be forgotten. The dust has been removed from the mirrors. May we see ourselves and each other as a nation on Earth free to civilly disagree without resorting to violence and chaos. May our debates going forward be tempered by the unity we feel as human beings at this moment. Let us show the world that differences will not tear us apart. On the contrary, let them solidify the faith we have in Freedom.

DAKAI ROCKS NATIONAL UNDERGROUND

2011-04-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

Not talking about a new group of subversives, but an exciting duo from Williamsburg Brooklyn creating music in New York City. Definitively not your pre-teen's goth band. Though influences of acts like Nine Inch Nails won't go unnoticed, unlike NIN, DAKAI seduces with a feather touch rather than a jackhammer.

The set kicked off with a slow driving "Heaven and Hell" and never looked back. The stunning Leela provided power packed vocals with a blend of raw sensuality and skill while Dirty Soul supplied everything else in an electronic repertoire wall of sound masterfully constructed.

Sultry, haunting lyrics and melody of "Little Boy" bounced off the stone basement vault of this Lower East Side performance hole transporting its audience deep into the twisted mind and dirty soul of a boy hanging out in some graveyard looking for thrills.

Hypnotic numbers like "The Uncertainty Principle" and "Shocking" cast a spell that can calm raging madness or incite a riot in your psyche.

The show ended with an apocalyptic "Motherland Blues" with its reverberating question of "Whose God is gonna save us now?"

The band plans on playing future dates at venues in our area. Stay tuned for details and definitely check them out.

http://www.myspace.com/dakaimusic

DAKAI TONIGHT

2011-04-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

You may not have heard of them yet...but DAKAI is coming. Tonight at National Underground 159 E Houston Street at 9:30 PM the first NYC performance of this exciting new duo....DAKAI.

COME WITH ME...

March: Out Like a Hunter Colt

2011-04-02T09:12:00.001-07:00

March was a break out month for theater going. We began with a deconstruction of Tennessee Williams by the Wooster Group and a revival of his work by the Roundabout, Vieux Carre, and The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore respectively, sandwiched between was HERE and the experimental Feeder: A Love Story (pun intended). We followed those up with Beautiful Burnout and Room by the SITI Company, not finished by a long shot we then saw CSC’s Double Falsehood and finally War Horse at Lincoln Center.

This past month of theater, surely enough to make any Greek proud, was a most intense and delightfully rewarding experience.

War Horse, being the most spectacular effort with special emphasis on the word “spectacle”, is a performance which needs to be seen to be truly explained. Suffice to say it is not beyond my power to describe, yet I would rather you see it for yourself. With such notables in attendance the night we went as Donald Rumsfeld and Betsy Gottbaum and that announcer guy Allan Kalter from the Letterman Show, we certainly were in some high profile company. Rummy sat in the first row center on the aisle. I didn’t notice him until the second act started, but by the end of the play, he was weeping too.

Let me just say this work does not judge or glorify war, but depicts it in all its savage and heroic complexity of moral ambiguity. War is hell for man and beast. Beast proves more praiseworthy than man does by the end.

From our near vantage point we suffered some obscured sight lines, but we were treated to intimate performances by the enormous cast and got to see the wires and woodcraft of some amazing puppets. War Horse will move anyone who loves equestrian arts.

April now begins cool and clear. It is a cruel month, “breeding Lilacs out of the dead land mixing memory and desire.” As Poetry month kicks off hopefully this tragic fire season will come to an end in New York City.

War Horse plays through June.

A Room of One's Own...

2011-03-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

Ellen Lauren in Room

Directed by Anne Bogart, if you want to see Viewpoints in action go see Room at The Women’s Project. A meticulous physical performance combined with a cerebral interpretation of the late great Virginia Woolf in all her glory of mad genius. The performance is hypnotic and inspiring. You will not be unmoved. As an aspiring novelist, I was uplifted by the gifts of text delivered with laser-like precision by the masterful Ellen Lauren. What a treasure, a must see for all who count themselves artists in the post modern world. Friends who are interested, we have a half price ticket offer we’d be happy to share. Contact me for details. Life is so good, three shows in the last week, three worth while experiences and we are not finished with the month of March yet…

They Call Me Mac...

2011-03-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

St Ann’s Warehouse presents
Frantic Assembly
National Theatre of Scotland

Beautiful Burnout
Text by Bryony Lavery
Directed and Choreographed by
Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett.

Anyone who has had padded leather fists thrust into his or her face and tasted his or her own blood in his or her mouth will immediately identify with the electric performance delivered by the stellar cast of Beautiful Burnout. For those who abhor the “sweet science” for the barbaric and ultimately cruel element of humanity it deifies, you will identify with the electric performance delivered by the stellar cast of Beautiful Burnout.

The folks who brought us the amazing Black Watch a few seasons ago have triumphantly returned to Brooklyn with a piece inspired by a visit to our own Gleason’s Gym. This amazingly accurate and unglamorous look at the world of a boxer from humble roots, to sweaty gym, to goals inspired by lofty ambitions and finally bitter reality, is a one hour and forty minute piece that will engage your senses from start to finish.

One of the many highlights is a movement piece where every gesture a boxing referee might make is choreographed into an absolutely sublime dance to which even a novice of the square ring can relate and admire.

I could go on at length about my love/hate relationship with boxing, how many of its core disciplines represent the best values of humanity, but how, like anything pure and good humans strive for, the attraction of our darker natures seems to be exponentially magnified as well. Attention to detail in story telling is paramount to this production: Fact. Science and social nature entwine in this tragic tale of heroes and heroines, mentors and men-tees, obedience and rebellion. Definitely worth the trip to the Brooklyn waterfront. Now through the 27th. In DUMBO

My own brief incursion into boxing happened many years ago inspiring a one-person show performed in the Knitting Factory once upon a time...once upon a time they called me Mac...

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES
By Mark D Ransom

He stands
As if an alabaster David
With padded gloves fixed to wrists
Like cudgels on arms of old.

Young, strong, determined and
Alone against his foe, his fear,
He woos a maddened crowd
Cheering for a champion
Shouting for redemption
Hollering for Blood.

Smoke rises above the din,
Rules of engagement are exchanged
Like mean pleasantries,
Before a harsh alarm rings
And two combatants begin.

He moves.
Sinuous muscle wrought in
Furnaces of pain,
Sweat, anger and guile
Sweetly fly into motion
Defying science as
Living, moving, grunting
Art.

Driven through crushing blows
Never to surrender
With a pounding heart

He falls.
Broken like Achilles,
Laurels, limelight and spoils of
Victory elude his reach
For yet another day.

He sits
Alone and exhausted,
Empty upon a heavy canvas
His essence flows
Like color from brush strokes
Painting yet
Another saga of sorrow
Pain and Hope

FEEDER: A Love Story HERE

2011-03-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

As you enter the theater at HERE, the first thing you notice is a partition which has been partially demolished next to a closed door. You may, as you walk past this set piece, peer through that opening to notice a hospital bed with someone in it. As you round the corner to find a seat you will undoubtedly note that indeed, Jesse, played by Jennifer-Conley Darling is pre-set in the bed, she is a feedee who has gone immobile in her quest to weigh 1000 lbs. That is to say, she is willfully gaining weight with the aid of her husband and feeder, Noel played by Pierre-Marc Diennet. You will also notice that you have little or no information in your program about the play you are about to experience.

This is not an oversight. (A link to a PDF will be provided after the show.) A web-log of the characters is available on line. If you have not checked it out before coming to the theater, there is a MAC set up in the lounge where you can read Noel’s blog entries or watch him on video. You will notice the playing space demarcated by long slender tables which look like a pantry stocked with cans of Goya beans and frozen pizza boxes neatly arranged and stacked. You also notice television monitors suspended from the ceiling. Cameras trained on the players have been planted through out the set. The only thing you can not do is ignore the 750 lb woman in the room, or the device stored in a corner used to lift her from the bed so sheets can be changed.

Director José Zayas has taken James Carter’s script and run it through a production team which includes scenic design by Peter Ksander and Video & Projection Design by Alex Koch who may well have changed the way we experience Black Box Studio Theater forever. Their work alone is worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, though the acting was first rate excellent, the play seems to take on too many topics at once.

The issue of the play is the fringe fetish of Feederism, a practice where-by one enjoys sexual gratification from feeding their partners in a foodie version of dominance and submission. Mealtime becomes foreplay, and this couple doesn't just play with their food, they fuck with it. Complicating this sensual pleasure are facts like Noel’s predilection for women of size, and Jesse's willingness to become totally dependent on Noel for even her most basic needs perhaps pointing to a problem with low self esteem.

The couple meets on line. This is where the entire theme of technology continues, for it truly begins when you open your promotional e-mail and become attracted to the provocative photo of a woman reclining on red satin sheets surrounded by a sumptuous feast or when you Google "feederism" or perhaps check out the web-log where you may find out that Noel is not only a dominant feeder, but also a webmaster of many fetish sites including a few he develops after he begins his relationship with Jesse in order to support their "Lifestyle" making him a true celebrity in this loosely connected virtual community.

The inciting action takes place when a former employer of Jesse's, a television show host/producer who seems to be a cross between Oparh and Nancy Grace, stages an intervention and literally breaks Jesse out of the apartment she shares with Noel through the wall. The characters tell their story to cameras, Noel on webcasts and Jesse to Judith who is doing a feature documenting Jesse’s recovery. Interspersed there are flashbacks of Jesse and Noel’s life together, their courtship, wedding, and their huge plans for Jesse to become the biggest woman in the world.

In the end the premise is never fully explored or expressed, instead all we get is the sensationalized Jerry Springer-esque detritus which results from the slanted, edited media exposure of our darkest and most mysterious impulses. Jesse reclaims her sense of self-worth and mobility with the help of Judith, the TV producer, though she would still take Noel back. But Noel? Well you have to judge Noel for yourself. I am certain I left the theater knowing less about the subject than when I entered, but one thing was crystal clear: the lens through which we may experience life was altered to the point where I found myself watching an actor on a monitor rather than watch the actor on the stage and it’s not because I was too far away. That disturbs me more than any fetish.

Over 30 people in the production staff for a 75 minute, one act, two-hander that packs three issues into one play: Feederism as a fetish, fat acceptance/fat prejudice as social phenomena, and the ubiquitous incursion of technology into every corner of our lives rendering boundaries between the virtual and the real permanently and irrevocably blurred. Zayas and company scratch the surface of the first two issues while concentrating heavily on the latter, consequently the human story, provocative and mysterious as always, seems merely rendered as a vehicle for…tech.

Sent from my iPad

Men At Work

2011-02-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

The winter drags on. This ice palace was the scene of a deadly fire on a sub-freezing night.

Structural stability inspection complicated by extreme ice condition made just walking on flat surfaces treacherous.
No injuries to the inspection team that day, I am happy to report.

Never a dull moment with ERT.

Super Cozy

2011-02-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

Nothing like being home for the Super Bowl Holiday...most people take it for granted, but sitting at home on a Sunday evening is not always a given with me and my crazy schedule. Routh brought over a Little Sumpin' and it was a great time with Jennifer, Green Bay, me and the chips 'n dip. We drank beer, turned the sound up for the advertisements, and had a splendid time catching up and making future plans for all kinds of fun dates together. Go Cheese Heads, cheers on your VICTORY.

"But this is More than Winter..."

2011-01-27T06:28:00.000-08:00

The frosting on the fire balcony
in silence stares
Court Street is clear this year
The plows can get through
The private carters too
Though they cannot find the bags of trash
Stashed under fresh
White snow

A new aura is added
To the street lights glow
For a moment
New York is not so hectic

For a moment
we must get present
With what Nature is

Reminded of the fact that
We adapt to our world
Not the other way
Around

Another Bitterly Cold Night

2011-01-22T08:52:00.001-08:00

The city is encased in ice, but the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets are ready to fly. Let's hope their access to the Super Bowl is NOT denied by the Steelers and their Super Pride. New York (and New Jersey) is along for the ride! Let's hope that we can turn the tide, it's been far too long since the Jets were IN.

A BIG SHOUT OUT TO:

SCOTT BROOKS, and the cast of

Screen Play now on stage off-Broadway.

BREAK LEGS BUDDY...may this be the first of many grand victories for you. Onward...

Long Winter...Just Started...

2011-01-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

Kitty has discovered the planter. He is now showing off his ability to light upon this perch. It is snowing outside, an elderly man just slipped and fell on school property across the street and an ambulance had to come.

My cough persists, but thanks to some warmed Bourbon and well wishes from you my friends I got a decent nights sleep (thanks NyQuil). I feel a bit better today. Regardless I am going to work tomorrow for my all day Saturday tour. The last time I worked all day Saturday with the pager we vacated half a building...they were all back in for Christmas!Let's see what tomorrow brings.

It feels like a long winter already and we are only just getting started. Take heart my light deprived North Eastern neighbors, we can get through this together.

Holy salt-spreader Batman, I thing I hear a plow outside! Nope, just a front end loader dragging a steel plate along Court Street. Go figure. Snow not even sticking.

CABIN FEVER

2011-01-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

SICK OF BEING IN THE APARTMENT, BUT THE TRUTH IS:

I have not been out of it this year. New Years day I woke up with the infamous "cough" that everyone is talking about.

I have done everything, EVERYTHING the doctor said:

rest,hydration,no antibiotics...and it's been a freaking week, feels like a month and now I want to feel better.

RIGHT NOW! UUUGGGGHHHH!

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

January 1st 2011. Yes, that is the world famous Times Square Ball. We were perched in an adjacent building on a unrelated matter yesterday at work and saw them testing it in the bright December morning sunshine.

New Years Day. Always a time to reflect on what has passed...my resolutions will not be to lose weight or some such non-sense, but to face the challenges that loom before us in the coming year. Most notably: relocation. Will I be sitting in this seat next year at this time? Dr. Mobley is on with her job search and none of the prospective Universities on her list include a one in the five boroughs of New York City. So where does that leave this life-long City boy? On the road my friends, to a new life somewhere far from here. Will this transition be swift? Will it be slow? Stay tuned for the blow-by-blow. I will be keeping my camera handy and doing my best to document the good-bye tour. As the old Jackson Browne song goes..."Maybe the hardest thing I've ever done...was to walk away from you..."

OK enough drama...one of the last things I did in 2010 was make a donation to the World Trade Center Memorial. I have promised all the proceeds from the sales of my two books of poetry...not the profits, mind you, but all the proceeds, are to be donated to the Memorial. So if you have not yet ordered your copy of "After September", do so soon. Or make a direct donation to the Memorial so that future generations will remember what happened there.

Thank you all for your continued interest in my life and for periodically stopping by to check in on me. If I have one resolution it will be to contribute more content to this page. May you and yours have a bright and fruitful 2011 and enjoy the bounty of our times.

The Bermuda Tri-Angle of Court Street

2010-12-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

All night long, I mean from two in the morning until nine thirty...every manner of vehicle got stuck in front of our building at the intersection of Court and Baltic Streets! The most ironic being the salt-spreader, pictured here with a front loader coming to his aid. Even an RMP(Radio Mobile Patrol) from the 76th Police Precinct was stuck at around six!

The first thing one wonders is why anyone would think it a good idea to drive a little egg beater race car with front-wheel drive, over inflated tires and about six inches of road clearance into a blizzard. Really, the little spoiler mounted on the trunk-hood did no good. That noisy sucker was stuck for an hour, at least, without a clue of even how to drive in the snow, and with several good Samaritans helping to no avail. Again he was one of many. One of my favorites was a couple who got out of their yellow cab with suitcases in tow, obviously either returning in defeat from the airport, or triumphantly after a trip. I wonder how far they had to walk.

I was truly amazed at the sheer number of cars on the road between 2 and 6 this morning. If anyone complains about the roads not being clear, you only have these fools to blame. Roads cannot be cleared with disabled vehicles strewn all about! Those who were stuck outside my door blaring horns at four in the morning like it was rush hour on Friday, no doubt got stuck again after leaving this triangle. I bet they wished they heeded the advice of people who know better. The should have stayed home!

Only in Brooklyn.

This, That...and Another Thing!

2010-12-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Its coming on one year since our favorite door-holder and smile giver, Tom of Court street passed. It has been quite a year where we saw his beloved Yankees fall short in their quest for championship number 28. The street itself has gone through seasonal changes with eateries opening and then closing and then opening again as something new.

From Court Street to Broadway, I think I have seen more in the theater on boards of the famous mid-town houses than ever before, and there too, shows have come and gone. The knock on productions like Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson or The Scottsboro Boys is that they were not ready for Broadway. The opposite is more likely: Broadway was not ready for productions that ask audiences to think while they are being entertained. This can be the only explanation for the long running success of a show like Mama Mia, and a short lived shooting star like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Speaking of thinking...what was America thinking last November at the polls when we decided it would be a good idea to deny health and compensation benefits to the responders of 9/11? What were we thinking when we voted to increase the deficit and give more to the people with the most leaving those of us in the middle to suffer through with no relief in sight?

It's gotten so bad in New York that now the City wants to charge you for pulling you out of your burning car and taking you to the hospital to treat your injured body because you stopped short for a cyclist who refuses to use the bike lanes your tax dollars paid for in the first place...but I digress.

I was remembering Tom, his gentle smile, his keen observations, his sage wisdom about the important things in life like how cold it was going to get, or if we would have snow, or if the Yankees would win it all next year. During this holiday time, I lift my glass to his memory, Brooklyn Man, Man on the Street, Tom, we hardly knew ye. Fist bump to you in Heaven. I think John Lennon would have liked Tom.

The 30th Anniversary of Lennon's brutal death was marked the other day, I was at work, traveling far and wide in the Big Apple. As I listened to his music and his last interview on the radio I was reminded of who I am, how back in 1980 when I was 22 and I had no idea what the hell the guy was talking about. I just knew it was something radically good, but how now, respect for women, respect for the planet on which we live, love and respect for each other are as current issues as ever. Lennon's feelings about all that is what he expressed through his art. These are the things I value as well. Now that I am old enough to understand, now that I have lived through war and social ennui, now I can better relate to what he was saying about "making it through," and it was a whole lot more than just:"Give Peace a Chance". Now I raise my voice to join the chorus and sing..."So this is Christmas...and what have we done?"

Ransom out!

Gridlock Writers Block

2010-11-16T08:40:00.000-08:00

OK, so I am not really blocked, the story is in my head. I am just lazy about extracting it from the labyrinthine wilderness that is my brain. It's the story of a building inspector wrapped up in a clash of the old world and the new. Sound familiar?

In addition to my literary exploits I have a new Ten Minute play being read by the Friends Always Creating Theater (F.A.C.T.) this coming Sunday afternoon in midtown. Another of my short plays had a super reading last month. A great bunch of actors, directors, writers and producers jam the small studio theater for "Words and Wine". Andrée Lambertson and Kelly Griffith are Co-Producers, F.A.C.T. Words and Wine.It will be held on Sunday November 21st at 3:00pm at Joria Productions- 260 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor in NYC.

Also some exciting developments on the acting front in terms of taking a long delayed class. I have been waiting for the right opportunity to try a new approach to my acting and hopefully a workshop is about to take place that will reinvigorate the old chops. I have signed up with Actors Access and I am very close to sending my head-shot and resume out to prospective directors and producers for roles right for me.

So here I am blogging...anything to keep me from writing the damn book!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Measure for Measure not a “Problem” for director Natalie Doyle Holmes

2010-10-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

Focused, determined, energetic, passionate, Natalie Holmes directs the American Bard Theater Company in their forthcoming production of William Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” which is known as one of the Bard's "problem" plays for various reasons. The thirty year old Actor/Director and Dramaturg for ABTC is working hard on making this production a success. I caught up to her the other day before rehearsal to ask a few questions.

MDR: Where did you grow up?

NDH: I like to consider myself a "Tri-State Area" Girl. I was born in Brooklyn, NY... moved up to the Catskill region...moved down to Paramus in Bergen County NJ and grew up in the Paramus school system until I graduated high school. When I went to College it was more moving back and forth between NY/NJ, making stops at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Brooklyn College, and then ultimately Montclair State University where I completed my BFA in Acting and went on to get a MA in Theatre Studies there. Now my husband and I are back in NY living in Astoria...so I am definitely a product of the Tri-State Area.

MDR: When did you get the theater "bug"?

NDH: When I saw my first Broadway show at the age of four. It was The King and I starring Yul Brynner. My father claims that I sat still through the entire show and watched every move they made, later picking out the differences between the movie and the play when we rented the video.

MDR: Who is your most influential mentor or teacher in theater?

NDH: Wow, that's a hard one. I can't chose only one because they have all either taught me what to do or what not to do, so in some way they have all been extremely influential. If I had to chose...they would be Jorge Cacheiro, an undergrad professor I had at MSU, who taught me how to really connect with your onstage partners, Debbie Saivetz, a graduate acting professor I had at MSU who really taught me the importance of ensemble work and being true to yourself as an artist and John Basil, who is one of the most amazingly gifted educators of Shakespeare, (how to read it, act it, think it, breathe it) at the American Globe Theatre in Times Square. Dr. Jane Peterson would be my first choice for a theater educator outside of the realm of acting and directing...as a Dramaturg she taught me how to look at a text from all angles, dissect it, and look at the world and its history to use as a major source of creativity in the theatre.

MDR: What was your first exposure to Shakespeare?

NDH: Probably on Sesame Street somehow, back when Sesame Street was intelligently written...but from what I can actually remember, it was freshman year of High School when we studied Romeo and Juliet. I already knew who Shakespeare was, but I had never read any of his work. I told my Mom what we were reading and she exposed me to the movie version starring Olivia Hussey. After that, I became obsessed with watching movie adaptations of Shakespeare's work on video through out High School. That's why I was so honored to have been able to play Beatrice last spring in American Bard Theater Company's Much Ado...I had watched and loved Emma Thompson's Beatrice since I was 15yrs old.

MDR: What is your most memorable experience of the Bard?

NDH: In John Basil's class, when I first felt the mysticism of Shakespeare's language lifted. I don't claim to be an expert, but from that moment forward I was not afraid of the text anymore, it became fun rather than overwhelming.

MDR: What is the most challenging aspect of staging Shakespeare for the American audience?

NDH: Making it fresh and new for a New York City audience in a studio theater setting. We want to honestly tell the story …find the humanity and not get lost in a concept.”

MDR: What attracts you most to Measure for Measure?

NDH: It was originally said to be a comedy, and somewhere along the way it became a tragedy, I’d like to highlight the comedic aspects.

MDR: Why is it important to continue performing Shakespeare?

NDH: Because Shakespeare's poetry and plays still speak to us as human beings in an ever changing society where history repeats itself. Each artist and audience member can always find a Shakespearean character they can relate to on some basic human level. As for theater as a whole, Shakespeare's plays are accessible, universal in themes and malleable. They remind us that, no matter what time period you are from or what part of the world, we are all still human beings, connected to each other by common emotions, struggles, and triumphs.

Well said Natalie, break a leg!

The American Bard Theater Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s
“Measure for Measure” opens November 4th at the Roy Arias Theater Center, The Payan Theatre, 5th floor, 300 West 43rd St., (corner of 8th Avenue), New York, NY 10036 For ticket information: http://www.americanbard.org/

Mrs Warren's Profession

2010-10-20T06:41:00.001-07:00

Anytime you get the chance to see a George Bernard Shaw play, you take it. Add to the mix an American treasure of the stage, Cherry Jones, and you have the makings of a memorable theatrical experience. The production values are first rate. Even the audience was full of luminaries like Neil Simon himself and actor Alec Baldwin. Cherry Jones delivers and thank goodness she did. Any other actress may have wondered what she had gotten herself into. Costumes and sets were absolutely magnificent, all the male actors were worth their salt, and Cherry Jones was superb. I am leaving someone out because I don't think I can decide on weather I did not care for the actress or the character she portrayed. Reviewed elsewhere will be the actual trappings of the performance, I was really impressed with the social consciousness of the text. "Shaw was a feminist," I said to my wife at intermission. "Yes," she agreed. "Sort of." I think feminists today would be as appalled by a play about the glorification of the oldest profession as the public who first saw this play were back in the day. However, this was a clever way to point out how women were second class citizens in the 19/20th Century and how the battle for equality is far from over here in the 21st. Despite this plays glaring short coming, it is still a must see for the fans of Shaw.

Fall Season

2010-10-14T07:56:00.001-07:00

Leaves, branches, whole trees falling all around this season so far. We did a reading for White Horse last Saturday night and it felt good to do a little acting again. One thing leads to another they say and the FACT Company has picked one of my ten minute plays for their Words and Wine Series. October 24th at 3:00pm at Joria Productions- 260 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor in NYC. Very excited.

Jennifer and I just celebrated out 7th wedding anniversary. I am lucky to have her.

Got word from Paul Rebhan he sent me a slew of photos from Europe where he and Marcy are doing a victory lap around France and Italy after Paul's battle with Cancer. I am so happy for them. They look great and we hope to see them soon!

It is with great sadness we mark the passing of the father of a co-worker of mine. Anthony Carbone, my heart felt condolences go out to you and your family at this difficult time.

May God Bless and keep you all as Fall, this beautiful fall winding toward Halloween!

ORLANDO/DELUSION

2010-09-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to a preview of ORLANDO presented by the Classic Stage Company as part of their Fall Season. Orlando is an adaptation of Virgina Woolf's novel of the same name where a young nobleman in the Elizabethan Court becomes a woman and travels forward through time. In this enchanting production adapted by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Rebecca Taichman and choreographed by Annie-B parson with an original score by Christian Frederickson, one is transported to a whimsical, fantastical world by the likes of Francesca Fairdany, Tom Nelis and David Greenspan (all worth the price of admission). In a contained spectacle the story telling commences straight away with movement, spoken-word-like poetry, and a sublimely beautiful reveal. The second act drags a tad when questions of existentialism are raised, but all in all well worth our time.

Speaking of Spoken-Word...

Last night we went to see Laurie Anderson at BAM. I had never seen the legendary artist in residence for NASA. I thought it high time. Introspective pieces about the nature of maternal relationships rendered into music for electric violin and bass sax accompanied by Colin Stetson and Eyvind Kang are augmented with evocative visual effects by Anderson and lighting by Rus Snelling. The rain on stage echoed the rain outside. "We die three times," Anderson says. Once when our heart stops, once when we are buried or cremated, and once the last time some one says our name.

Tonight: Angels in America.

A Time To Remember

2010-09-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

Nine years ago the world changed forever. I was lucky in so many ways. The job I had recently started went beyond being a vocation, and became a way for me to help New York City heal. Not all of us are altruistic, but to a person, those of us who worked for the city during those difficult days of mourning will never forget the unity and compassion shown by our friends and neighbors. When the quiet hours of early morning came and I watched workers on the pile diligently toiling to restore our sense of order, honor, and security, I felt the mighty sacrifice of all humanity in the name of decency and peace. Those men and women trapped in the deadly collapse are who I dedicate my service to, and to those simple New Yorkers they left behind in my care, I pledge my very best. Civil Servants are tough threads holding the fabric of our society together. To the members of the Armed Forces of the United States, the NYPD and the FDNY, OEM, HPD and all the city agencies with which we interface daily: "I thank the Lord for the people I have found." It is a privilege to serve with you and I thank you all for the opportunity to aid and comfort the citizens of this City.

Two years ago, on September 11th, 2008, we bid a final farewell to my father, David Jude Ransom, forever in my heart, always on my mind, the light of my conscience.

Tony Noe "Chasing Better Days"

2010-09-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

Meticulously composed, performed, and produced, this collection of songs and music brings Tony Noe’s recording artistry to a whole new level. Noe produced and arranged the music along with Vinnie Zummo on this ten song collection of emotionally charged material easily accessible to the listeners of our generation and beyond.

Stand out tunes include: Rescue written in response to the tragedy of 9/11, and honors the spirit of community with those who rush in where angles fear to tread. The irony of “no choice” is the powerful choice made to risk one’s own safety and well being in the service of others. With awe and reverence, Noe points to the foundation of our future resting on shoulders of those giants of the past including his own father who with “no hesitation in his moment of fear” risked it all for the promise of a better day.

Also a favorite is Forgive Me Mandolin twangs of Country and Blue Grass, lilting and steeped in folk traditions; this self-deprecating confession of ignorance at hurting someone unintentionally is a joy. Simply beautiful as the mandolins also pay homage to Italian country sides as well as Venetian cafes, the hills of Virginia and the city of Nashville. With the help of Karen Lee Larson’s violins, this is a delightful musical departure and a highlight of the CD.

Available now at CD Baby.com, I give this collection 5 ***** Stars!

What Work Is: My Brother-in-Law's Kitchen

2010-08-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

So for a couple of days this past week I got out my old tools and literally knocked the rust off of them and did some repair work on a stoop I built for my sister and brother-in-law at their house upstate. It has been a long time, 1992 I think is when I built the thing, making all the concrete pavers myself in the basement of a house we rented on Staten Island. Not all of my masonry work comes with a lifetime maintenance contract, but if you ever tasted my brother-in-laws cooking, you would not be surprised that I make a trip up there now and again to taste what his grill produces in exchange for some deck painting or power-washing.

This morning there is not a part of my old body that does not hurt. Getting old sucks. Moving on can be very painful. This brings me to the real subject of this missive: Moving on after 9/11. For some of us the events of that day will be forever and indelibly imprinted on our souls, the pain and the nightmare with us in a very palpable way every waking and many sleeping moments for the rest of our lives. The world moves forward and there is going to be an Islamic Cultural Center built on a block where citizens once had to run for their lives from a massive dust and debris cloud caused by the collapse of two of the worlds tallest buildings. Many died, many more have been poisoned afterward by toxic air. The wound is still fresh and slow to heal. So the out-cry against the mosque is understandable. We cannot force healing on a wound in a humane way. It is a slow process aided by compassion, understanding and most of all, faith. Even Atheist's have faith. After all is said and done I will be proud to say I am an American, and a New Yorker and tolerant of the building and the people who want to see it built. I see their point. They are as American as you and me. They feel the same hurt as I about the events of 9/11 and have had to live with a bigoted stigma ever since. Efforts to establish identity and change hateful perceptions is a lofty and worthy goal. It will be a long hard battle before their dream can be realized, much rhetoric will issue forth re-opening old wounds. I have ultimate empathy for those who want to build and create, and I only have my faith that those who propose to move forward into this forever hallowed ground will understand the resistance from the many who suffered at the hands of a few.

May Love and Peace guide us.

Our Divine Mr Brooks

2010-07-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

Screenplay written by and starring Scott Brooks, Directed by Jenny Greeman, with Heather Dilly,Diana Delacruz,Jonathan Sale and Kristofer Aigner

Mid-town International Theater Festival
Workshop Main Stage Theater
312 W 36th Street

Scott Brooks has been "banging his head" against the stonewall of success for as long as I've known him. In his latest stage effort his considerable story telling talent and his knack for crisp, witty, dialogue have combined to bring us this acerbic tale of faith, faithlessness, disappointment and the cold hard facts of life. And he can act! Wow, can he act! This is a must-see for people who enjoy watching people living their dreams.

Diana De La Cruz is wonderful, as are Heather Dilly and Jonathan Sale. Jenny Greeman's direction is superb.

The script leaps off the stage; brought to heart-wrenching life by some wonderful actors. The black box quality of the Main Stage actually enhances the experience, the minimalism of the set shadows the essential-ism of the text. Nothing is superfluous, or fluff, and every note rings with scathing truth. Masterfully done. Kudos, kudos, kudos. They say good theater compresses time…this did not feel like 90 mins. Scott: Man you hit one out of the park!

PS This is my resume. Let's do lunch.

June Swoon

2010-06-30T07:52:00.001-07:00

As June ends and Summer begins in earnest I can't help but think how beautiful a photograph this is. The back-back, the skate board, and the Yankee cap tell one story, but the music emanating from this young man by way of his piano playing was absolutely sublime. Moments after I snapped the picture his cell phone rang and he was off to another "appointment" reminding me of just how fleeting life is and how it is important to take a moment to simply get present with the wonder of it all. The Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, in his infinite wisdom has scattered pianos all over town inviting players to play to the delight of everyone. NYC is a summer place when the nights hum with the electricity of the streets, people are out of doors walking, running, kayaking in the Hudson, riding bikes, and skate boarding or lounging in a cafe or sidewalk bistro. Life is being lived to the fullest by residents and visitors alike. It reminds me of why I am desperately in love with my home town and take great pride in the privilege of serving her.

We Have A Doctor in the House!

2010-06-03T04:56:00.001-07:00

The final flourishes on a celebration that started when Jennifer-Scott Mobley completed her graduate work back in March of this year culminated with Commencement ceremonies at Avery Fisher hall last night. I am so proud of her achievement. Congratulations on a job well done and a degree well earned. To my wife: All of our love and your hard work combined to make this moment, thank you for sharing your life with me.

Mark

A New Month

2010-06-01T14:30:00.001-07:00

Time flies when you are having fun and fortunately for us, we didn't fly anywhere over the long weekend, but instead drove "home". Take me home country roads. There is nothing that evokes more a feeling of Freedom as when you get in your car and drive. I don't care if it's down the block or across the country. When we got frustrated by flight delays for a trip we had planned, we chucked the trip and chose instead to visit family in Virgina, and that turned out to be a tonic for city weary workers like Jennifer and I. We paddled, we ate, we shopped, we strolled our favorite haunts in Billy Burg and had a fantastic time with Jen's parents. Looking forward to more of the same later on in the summer. Ciao for now. Here's howling at the moon with you...

What a...Week!

2010-05-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

Last week we saw three plays. They were all great. Since Jennifer is going to review Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson for publication I will just say we had a great time. The weeks ahead will see less theater and more the inside of my mind as I write a play myself, work on a short novel and continue to work on my poetry. My crazy day job for the city keeps things lively especially when the wind gusts 50 mph or better. A shout out to my diverse and far flung family of fans. Drop me a line sometime.

"You take my breath away..."

2010-05-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING
JULIA MILES THEATER, 424 West 55th St. NYC
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 7:00 PM

by Sheila Callaghan
directed by Daniella Topol
with Rob Campbell, Dana Eskelson,
Ronete Levenson, and Elisabeth Waterston

The last time I sat in the theater on West 55th that makes a home for The Women’s Project I saw a whimsical and campy piece by the legendary Virginia Woolf. The most recent production now gracing the old stage is quite different. The play itself is amazing, an awkward love parallelogram between August, Daphne, Liza and a character named Boy that is steeped in Greek tragic tradition and American angst. The time is very specific: November of 1980 when idealist hearts broke upon the landslide election of Ronald Reagan,(more about “landslides” in a second). The place is a non-descript Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea which comes as near to utopia as Western thought can bring you. On this island, we find August played by the delightfully swarthy and satyr-like Rob Campbell, an ex-sixties radical hippie rabble-rouser who long ago lost his copy of Das Capital. Instead of leading workers to revolution, August has become a worker of the land and a farmer whose crop is a rare varietal with which he hopes to produce a legendary bottle of fine wine. His young wife Daphne, played to Goddess-like perfection by the radiant Elizabeth Waterston, is bearing their child. To complete this incredibly idyllic male fantasy, a girl named Boy shares the confines of their family vineyard into which August has married. Ronete Levenson as Boy is perhaps the most lascivious thing in Lascivious Something being about as taboo and inappropriate as it gets. She is the embodiment of unbridled passion, her looks, her body language her speech (all in Greek) evoke the reckless impulsiveness of youth. Into this seeming Garden of Eden strides Liza, a crazy-maker of legendary proportions played deftly by the beautiful Dana Eskelson. Liza is an ex-lover and cohort from Augusts’ war protesting past, a ferocious lioness with a mane and a propensity for biting to match.

Together this foursome unravels a tale of wine, politics, and tragedy. The lines about Greece and her money problems are almost prescient. Sheila Callaghan is a playwright who employs what my wife terms “magical realism”. Her characters in Lascivious Something wax poetic. Some of the most important scenes in the play have alternate endings. This repetitive device is jarring at first, but you soon get the hang of it. This first playing of the scene will be wildly inappropriate with real intentions and reactions of the characters’ truthful feelings revealed. The second playing of the scene gives a more reasonable reading and moves the play forward. Callaghan uses film genre methods in her plays ala Paula Vogel in Hot and Throbbing, but in a more subtle and challenging way. She employed similar techniques to great effect in her Pretty, Pretty or the Rape Play staged here in New York last year. Lascivious Something has been around since 2002 and had a run in L.A. earlier this year with a different cast. That production featured full frontal female nudity, which this one here does not.

One major problem I have with the New York production is the set by Marsha Ginsberg which is elaborate and seems shoe-horned into the old Julia Miles Theater. The retaining walls of crushed stone and wire-mesh are foreboding and overpowering. The stone beneath the actors’ feet shift and move as they walk over them and the entire set threatens to avalanche into the first rows of the audience. It makes an otherwise large stage seem crowded and difficult to navigate for the actors not to mention the constant thoughts about the structural stability of the stage holding all that weight. Intimacy may have been the goal here, but it is hard to believe anything can grow on such a rocky place.

Be all that as it may, this is a beautiful production which ideally should move to a larger house. We are still talking about it.

The Passion of the Christ...sort of...

2010-05-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

SARAH RUHL'S PASSION PLAY
IRONDALE, 85 South Oxford Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn

This is actually three plays with the same premise: A behind the scenes look at a troupe of actors rehearsing and performing the classic Passion of Jesus Christ at three specific times in history: one being Elizabethan England, the second Hitler’s Germany and finally Reagan’s America.

What an experience, we went on Sunday, the perfect day for a Passion, though early spring would have made more sense. The play itself must be seen to be judged. I enjoyed most of the 3 hours and 30 minutes with two intermissions. However, the last act was a tad cliché with the Viet Nam vet suffering from PTSD. Be that as it may: The actors are amazing; the props gorgeous, perhaps this is a bit of an “actors” play in that there are a few esoteric jokes about theatre. Nevertheless, the point of this play is how the origin of theater itself is always with us in communion. It is also is about how monarchies, fascism and capitalism have just about hijacked theater (and religion?) as the world once knew it while attempting to co-opt them for their own purposes. Sarah Ruhl is one of our favorite playwrights at the moment, she also wrote “In the Next room…or the Vibrator play” which was staged on Broadway this season. The Irondale Center is a jewel in Fort Greene. This is a great find. Traditional companies focusing on Shakespeare might want to check this space out.

VIDEO: "Passion Play" Rises
How Epic Theatre brought Sarah Ruhl's new play to a Brooklyn Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcXAoilMPFI&feature=player_embedded

Busy Week Ahead...

2010-05-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Busy theatre going week in store for Mark & Mobley (as little Ty likes to call us). Sunday at three is Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play, Tuesday we see Sheila Callaghan's Lascivious Something and then Thursday we check out BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON at the Public. Hot enough for you? Photo courtesy of my cousin Stew.

GIRL MEAT

2010-04-24T05:11:00.001-07:00

Victoria Libertore debuted her solo workshop performance to a sold out space at the Brooklyn Art Exchange (BAX) last night, and received a standing ovation from her audience. The show lasted about sixty minutes but had us talking into the wee hours of the morning. I have distilled our discussion about what the piece is now, and what it can become with time. Portraying Countess Bathory, a notorious mass murderer from Hungary who died in 1614, Libertore takes on the most challenging role of her career. We meet the Countess in the last moments of her life as she is walled into a room in one her many castles. Aided by magnificent costumes, props and sets by Jeff Studivant and Jono Lukas respectively, Libertore has a bit of fun with the gruesome, gory details of Bathory's legendary cruelty. In so doing she dominates an entire audience. In the end this sad tale is about a woman who is the prisoner of her desire to be beautiful forever. Narcissistic vanity may be the driving force of her fury, but a keen sense of our place in history here and now allows Libertore to bridge centuries of myth with laser like accuracy. "I have eye like hawk," she says. With those eyes she communicates present day themes of lust and greed, along with the irresponsibility of those in absolute power using graphic depictions of torture and abuse. Rosalie Purvis directs.

American Bard Theater Company Presents:

2010-04-16T07:55:00.001-07:00

Review*: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare presented by the American Bard Theatre Company, Flamboyan Theater at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center April 16-May 1st 2010.

*This review based on a final dress rehearsal...in previews for the next three performances and opens Wednesday, April 21st.

In the neighborhood of a Perfect Blue Building and a hot-bed of Cultural Diversity that is 2010 Lower East Side of Manhattan, the American Bard Theater Company has chosen to stage its debut full length Shakespearean production.

Let me first say this is no troupe of wanna-be amateurs. The production values of their Much Ado About Nothing are extraordinarily high; and when you are talking about Shakespeare that means a spotlight squarely and firmly on the language. Directed by Jefferson Slinkard and loosely set in post Spanish Civil War Italy, this Much Ado comes most alive when that loose setting becomes background to the formidable story telling by wonderful actors. Shakespeare in America is almost always a crap shoot, but with The American Bard, you see a group that has been through those tedious stagings of classics and the work they have done in preparation for their own production is immediately apparent. The only laughs to be garnered here are in all the right places.

Like the Public Theater’s recent staging of Othello, there is some interesting non-traditional casting taking place. Unlike the Public, American Bard Theater uses this device to great effect. Damon Kinard as Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, and Marcus Denard Johnson as his companion Claudio, are both African American actors of impressive stature and verve. They both infuse their characters with life that leaps from the stage. The non-traditional casting comes in the form of Cheri Wicks as Antonia, the Duke’s sister (instead of brother Antonio). When she confronts The Prince and his friend for having shamed Hero at the altar, her use of the word “boy” carries a not so subtle racial insult as befits her rage, yet makes one cringe in our era of political correctness.

Andrew Eiseman has some stellar moments as Benedick. His comic timing is most fun to watch at a hilarious opening to the second act. Natalie Doyle Holmes as Beatrice is caustic with her wit and wisdom, and beautiful to behold as is Tara Henderson as Hero. Bryan L. Cohen is Constable Dogberry, a part he was born to play. He embodies the buffoon of a civil servant to the hilt. Almost a bit over the top, to say he plays a mean trumpet is an understatement. Erin Gilbreth as a guard on Watch is just delightful with her fluffy gray mustache, tin-pail helmet and rolling-pin for a weapon; she embodies the spirit of play for which Shakespeare is famous.

This is not to say the production is without flaws. Costuming the Bastard Don John in a period Fascist Uniform and having him hold a copy of Mein Kampf complete with red cover and black swastika is a bit heavy handed especially when there is no obvious political symbolism in counter point. Aptly played by Clint Morris, John and his co-horts played by Jack Herholdt and Evan Scott Schweitzer reek of maliciousness by virtue of their spot on delivery of the text. Schweitzer, Betina Joly and Garciany Miranda prove the old adage “there are no small parts” by playing their bits with skill and the enthusiasm required of a successful ensemble.

Ross Hewitt plays a credible Governor and while Mary Riley sings beautifully and is stunning decked out in her red dress as Margaret, there is no costume change for her, other than a period hair net, when she switches roles to play the local judge. The set by Sheila Phalon is simple; I especially love the center fountain with what appears to my failing eyes as a green frog with a crown on its head. Costumes were most effective when not trying to evoke a specific era; I loved them for the most part except for the fact that the Prince had private-first-class stripes on his sleeves. The players were well lit at all times thanks to lighting designer Jeffrey Whitsett. Overall, this is an effort worthy of attendance by those who love Shakespeare and an auspicious start for this company.

GIRL MEAT

2010-04-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

GIRL MEAT is the provocative creation of Victoria Libertore appearing as part of the Air Festival at BAX. In this solo tour-de-force, Libertore channels the infamous Countess Erzsebet Bathory who, over four hundred years ago, gave Count Dracula, Caligula Caesar and Jack the Ripper a major run for the money as the most blood thirsty human being on earth. Possibly the world’s most prolific female serial killer, Countess Bathory of Hungary has been the source of legend about incredible beauty and wealth as well as unspeakable cruelty. They say she actually bathed in the blood of some 650 people she murdered in a bizarre ritual designed to keep her looking young.

Written and performed by Libertore, directed by Rosalie Purvis with dramaturgy by Jennifer-Scott Mobley Ph.D., GIRL MEAT taps into our great American hunger for sex and violence. With archetypal set design by Jono Lukas and stunning costumes by Jeff Sturdivant, this captivating portrait of the Countess will come to life April 23, 24, and 25 at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, 421 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn New York 11215.

Check out the promotional video:
http://www.ryankipp.com/GIRL_MEAT/Promo.html

Reunion: Me and My Old School

2010-04-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

I was right in predicting there would be cousins I never met waiting for us there in Baltimore. Tanya was a complete surprise and I am so glad I met her and her two lovely daughters. The great thing about “family” is no matter how long you’ve been apart, when you finally get together, you pick up where you left off. I showed Jen my elementary school and the path I walked to where we once lived on Mayfield Avenue. I had not seen that route in years. That, in and of itself, does not compute. I don’t feel like I’m that old. I was very moved and touched at all the attention generated by my first book. It was great to see my sisters all in one place, my mother, her sisters and brothers, their children, and their children, first cousins and second cousins…in all four generations of the clan gathered for the best cookies on Earth!

Lots of theater news in the coming week including reviews of "Much Ado About Nothing" by the American Bard Theater and I am very excited to see "Girl Meat" by Howling Vic at the Brooklyn Art Exchange.

Not Out of the Woods

2010-04-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Pay up
Pay down

They own you
Wild Tiger
Captured and caged
Put on display
Poked and prodded
Teased into being ferocious
But
Not too ferocious
Or precocious

No, that will not do
Not for us
Not for you

We like you in the rough
Prowling the sand
Stalking the green

But take more than your
Share of white women?
Oh, that is simply
Obscene

And we won't have it
Not from the Tiger we tamed
If you want to indulge
In the treasure of the
Flesh

Go play another game
These hypocrites
Don't swing that way.

Silence is Blissful

2010-04-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

Cobble Hill is very quiet at the moment. It is Easter Sunday, and the church bells have just chimed calling the faithful to mass. I am here at my alter, the writing desk, meditating on the bliss and horror of our world.

Today it feels as if the Earth has renewed itself in an especially palpable way. I have sensations in my chakras that I’d almost forgotten over the long winter. Grief and sorrow colored, like fancy eggs, with joy and fulfillment now co-mingled as one. We have prevailed through darkness, ice, snow and rain to a rebirth of leaves and grass, sun and blue sky. The deluge has passed. It is a time for sowing. Therefore, I sow warm and loving thoughts in your hearts with this missive in hopes we may soon reap laughter and good times together, soon and through out the year fulfilling the Bacchanalian traditions of wine and song. Happy Vernal Equinox to my Pagan sisters and brothers. Happy Easter to my Christian Fellows. Happy Passover to the descendants of Abraham. Blessings upon the followers of Muhammad, Buddha, and all the deities great and small who encompass our love of life and mother Earth.

Also today I pray for TJ on his 4th birthday. This little boy is going through some rough times with his health. Please take a moment to send him good thoughts and well wishes.

At times such as this I reflect on how very fortunate I have been in my life to have met and known such awesome, wonderful people, and to have fallen in mad passionate love with all of you.

Wishing everyone the best Spring and Summer...

The Book of Grace

2010-03-27T08:09:00.001-07:00

Susan-Lori parks and the Public have presented a moving and ephemeral portrait of America that has to be experienced. Using a combination of broad and subtle strokes, this three-hander takes the audience on a journey patrolling the borders of our perceptions about good, evil and every shade between. Buddy played beautifully by Amari Cheatom is the quintessential prodigal son whose checkered past has been redeemed by a Bronze Star winning stint in the service of his country. His skeptical US Border Patrol Officer of a father named Vet, played by the awesome John Doman, is about to receive an award of his own for intercepting a shipment of illegal Cannabis-sativa from Mexico. Between the two estranged men stands Grace who passionately loves them both. Grace, played as a down-to-earth, scared feminine step-mother and wife by Elizabeth Marvel, collects “evidence of good things” in a scrap book, augmenting them with her own thoughts and meditations about what good is like the Magic Castle in Disney World. Staged in the intimate environs of the Public, 90 minuets of un-interrupted, surreal family drama unfold. This is not a laugh fest, but a gut wrenching portrayal of what is good, decent, decadent and evil about what we are as a nation and a family. Deftly directed by James Macdonald with an alive set by Eugene Lee and Projection/Video design by Jeff Sugg, we enjoyed a thought-provoking evening.

Jen-Scott Mobley Ph. D.

2010-03-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Luck Strike was when I met this woman 10 years ago and we embarked on an Odyssey through the Academy which culminated Friday March 12th, 2010 at approximately noon with her committee of distinguished professors congratulating her on a successful dissertation defense. What did that mean to a lay person like me? One thing : PARTY!

So we went bowling with a group of friends who braved a deluge and subway delays to meet with us on the far West Side of Manhattan to bowl, shoot pool and enjoy the swanky vibe of Lucky Strike Lanes. The service, for the most part, was great except for when lane 21 kept breaking down, but our wait staff was attentive, so thanks to Tatiania, Jessica, our waiter whose name escapes me because I never had to call him he was always there, and our event coordinator Laura Leon. Thanks to all our friends, to Chet, Routh, Ken, David, Tommy, Dale, Babs, Rod, Lee, Scott, Jill, Kelly, and Bill for coming out to say: Happy Birthday Doctor Mobley!

NEWS from Jen and Mark land.

2010-03-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

THERE IS SO MUCH TO REPORT I AM JUST BURSTING AT THE SEAMS!

Last night we went to see Karen Finley in her latest First Lady incarnation. The venue certainly was an added challenge to her already alternative material in that it was just so main stream as to almost be distracting. Add to that the fact it is the place where my wife and I met and fell in love way back 10 eons ago when she was a bar tender/aspiring actress and I was an aspiring actor/construction worker. Proprietor of the Westbank Cafe, Steve Olsen graced our table with a visit; he remembered "Jay," as she was known back then, very fondly.

Also in the audience ingenue Rachel Weitz of "The Constant Gardener" film fame among others. Her entourage left after only five minutes of the performance piece, perhaps because they had sold-out tickets to "A Lie of the Mind" directed by Ethan Hawke across the street at Theater Row. Or perhaps Finley wasn't exactly what they expected. (Back to Ethan Hawke in a second.)

Finley's final performance of "The Jackie Look" was at times ridiculous and at others torturous as she not only opened mass wounds, but prodded and explored them using a barrage of multi-media, poetry, and primal scream therapy. Finley does an interesting impersonation of the icon, not the woman, and iconography is at the core of her thesis on Jackie O. I am not the scholar my wife is about to officially become, I only know that when Finley goes into her deeply maternal and sacred-feminine "You Know...You! NO!!" I was reduced to a puddle of man-goo. I heard people in the audience audibly try to console her. Jennifer commented that the piece doesn't sound "finished yet". I know what she means, but is anything a performance artist ever does "finished"?

On our way out of the Westbank, Jen spotted Steve and wanted to thank him for the complimentary Risotto balls he sent over to our table, which were fantastic by the way, along with the Stinky's of Brooklyn cheese plate we had. I found my self in the vestibule of the famed celebrity hang-out with none other than Ethan Hawke himself scratching his head under a blue and white ball cap. We exchanged pleasantries, may be it was intermission of the Sam Shepard play he directed, I recounted for him a moment 10 years earlier when we encountered on another on the street in Greenwich Village. He graciously shook my hand and allowed me to introduce myself. "I'm Mark Ransom," I said. "I'm Ethan Hawke," he said, as I presumptuously gushed "I know who you are," and now I think hey, wait a second, what did I say? Because I really don't know who he is. I only know the icon, which is what Finley was pointing out all night. But the one thing he said that makes me feel like we had a human exchange to day was "Until we meet again..." a positive and generous thing to say to a stranger such as myself, let there be no mistake, I am, people, strange.

HOWEVER...

Stars are lining up for us. By this time next week, Jennifer-Scott Mobley, my friend, my lover, my wife, will have been through her third exam, her dissertation defense and, if all goes well her panel of esteemed scholars will confer upon her the title: Doctor of Philosophy. When that happens...I think I will burst, into tears, into laughter, into the next chapter of our lives that has us publishing and performing. We are ready for our close-ups. So I want to spread this glorious energy into the world in an effort to counter the effects of earthquakes and war. Until we meet again...stay tuned! Hi to Paul Rebhan, whose recovery from Cancer is an inspiration to me, and urges me ever to fulfill my potential.

Winter Still Bites

2010-02-25T14:20:00.000-08:00

Just heard a man was killed in Central Park by a falling tree limb. Yikes, it is the second time in less than a year. I love the winter and all the snow, but this is a little ridiculous. Hope everyone makes it home safely tonight. Keep warm. Blessings upon you! News from the front is that I am very close to completing a second book of poems. Very different from the last collection. I will let you all know when it comes out.

Love Mark

New Book/New Music

2010-02-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

I am working on stuff...I visited Davey in Vermont last month and recorded some old songs. Nowhere near done, I am now working on my second book of poetry...but the real exciting news is that my wife...soon to be Dr. Jennifer-Scott Mobley...has a date set to defend her dissertation. The road has been long and the work one of passion and love. My wife is so well read, she has seen more and done more than any one I know, I am in awe of her accomplishment. She inspires me, without her I don't think I would have published a book of poetry, or continue to work on my music, or ever dream of acting on stage again. I truly look forward to the coming months when she achieves what has been long delayed for one reason or another. I am proud of her and what she has accomplished.

Paul is doing well. While not exactly cancer-free, his tumor has reduced in size since completing his chemo-therapy. He is still very much in our thoughts and meditations (prayers too!) Happy Valentines Day every one!

Valentine?

For what is a heart…?
but a couple of question marks?

One straight forward
One reversed
The second joined
To the front of the first

And what is Love
But the space between
That infinitesimal universe
Inner space of dreams

Tom

2010-01-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

Tom had been a fixture on Court Street since we moved here from Wyckoff Street in 2002. He never smoked or drank as far as I could tell. He loved the Yankees and if there was a game on he knew the score. I asked Tom once what his story was. He told me: "Well, Mark, the guy who had this spot before me left. So I took it over." That was my last attempt at a serious conversation about who he was and where he came from, or how he came to be the guy just standing outside the deli, but most days Tom was always there with a smile and a thumbs up. A usual exchange would be like this: "How you doin' Tom?"... "Hello Mark, not bad for a Wednesday," followed by a fist bump and a comment on the weather, the Yankees or the news on the street. Tom was the one who described for us in detail what happened the night of the fire in 240 Court. He was not homeless though I don't know where he lived. He was not destitute, though he never refused a sandwich from Louie at SAM'S, or a couple of bucks from me. He helped us with our groceries, he watched the meter for our cars, he opened the door on the deli entrance, he stood out there most evenings from around five to midnight everyday, rain, shine, hazy, hot, humid, or bitter, freezing cold. He was part of this hood. Some of my favorite exchanges with him were when I would pass by and others were talking with him about this or that as he stood or sat on that blue metal box. People loved him. He had big, kind eyes and a wide grin spread from under a wiry mustache. When I noted his absence shortly after Christmas I felt something was amiss. Then we saw the memorial and heard from Brenda across the street at Ruben's Liquor store where he often bought his lottery tickets, that Tom had stomach cancer and passed away. So, just to repeat:

We Love You Tom, you will be missed.

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Virginia with Jeff and Sue, Sea and Dom was a respite from the stone and steel of New York City. The only gunshots we heard were from duck hunters in Williamsburg. It was good to feel the muddy earth underfoot in Palmyra.

Meadowood was a particularly moving experience as Sea and Dom are nearing completion of the "Studio" for the creation of art and all that entails. We are reflecting on the decade. The start of it found me adrift in a sea of humanity with no compass. I had met Jennifer and we began our way out of the madness together, meeting many fellow travelers along the way, people who are near and dear to us today, yet mostly unknown to us ten years ago. Those of you who are our oldest friends have witnessed the collective changes. We have grown, our wisdom deepened, our understanding expanded, our compassion realized in ways we could only imagine. We made a commitment to each other and to ourselves, and to you our friends and family, to make a difference in the world for the good of all. This effort is an attempt to balance a world seemingly so one-sided with evil. May whatever God you pray to bless you and help us heal the sick, enrich the poor, and find the forsaken. Happy 2010.

"To the Stuff in the Studio"

Work
Is a curiously versatile
Word

Meaning not only
The physical exertion required
To put something together,
Like a peppery arugula salad
With quartered tomato and shaved
Parmesan

Or take something apart,
Like an old pine car shed,

Or to move something from
one place to another
Like a cairn of sandstone, or a mountain, or an old chair
Across town
But also

The final product of that labor

Work
Here to fore eternal
Versions of unique visions
Of nature's life and
Immense beauty, her
Hallowed mystery
Rendered for all
To share
Forever

Places where this
Work
Takes shape are sacred

And the people who
Perform it

Holy, holy, holy.

Silent Night

2009-12-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

There is so much advice my friend Paul, my spiritual brother, has given me over the years. He counseled me against getting tattoos, for example, and I always disagreed with. However, I think he was right in that he made me wait long enough to figure out just what I want permanently inked onto my skin. I don't want some high art or naked women, skulls with cross bones or even a heart that says "Mother". I want the Pythagorean Theorem. I want Pie. I want the mathematical expression for "Bubbles of Perception" inscribed in fiery letters of the Phoenix onto my back. My friend is exploring the spiritual realm, his body so paper thin that if you touch it it may tear. The hope and the prayer is that he has made the choice to stay with us here in the physical world a bit longer and that his rebirth will bring robust life back into his limbs so soon we will be hugging him once more. As light is re-born on the Solstice, so will Rebhan re-emerge from the ashes of Chemo-therapy. The blizzard of '09 has brought a moment of muffled Peace and quiet to our metropolis, reducing us to a compendium of small towns and villages, and households waiting for loved ones to arrive home from work. The chains on snowplow tires ringing like sleigh bells. Happy Solstice every one.

Hubba, Hubba

2009-12-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

We had an awesome time at the shoot last Saturday. Nothing went as planned and we still got some awesome shots. Thank you to our lovely models who braved rainy weather and all kinds of setbacks to soldier through with great professional performances. Last weekend was very emotional for me. Shoot on Saturday, work Saturday night...and then to the fond farewell for a man who is no less than my professional father: John "Jack" Meade. I would not be putting food on my table without his influence in my life. He also supported my theatrical ambitions with sincere interest and passion as one who understood the value of the stage and how all the world is one. On this stage Jack is a leading character. A family man, a Union man, and a stand-up guy. I am overwhelmed by his generosity, and his families, to have been invited to say goodbye. This was no tearful wake, but a joyful celebration with a live band and near 200 people.

"It's not how many breaths you take in life, but the moments in life that take your breath away." Jack Meade.

As I left the party, my breath was indeed, taken away at how fortunate I was to have met Jack. I got to tell him and his wife Anna, that I loved them.

2009-12-05T07:14:00.000-08:00

The Ace of Pentacles is the foundation for all kinds of projects in the real world; this foundation is as valuable as gold, and as solid as concrete. It is the cornerstone of a building that might stand for decades, or crumble to dust after a few years - this is determined by how the rest of the structure is put together. The Ace of Pentacles is not the promise of long-lasting financial and material security that some might expect, but it is the sign that such things are within your reach. It gives you the resources to go in search of higher goals.

What a challenging weekend is ahead of me. Today a dream is about to come true, a dream of creating the best possible art using the very finest of raw materials. The prospect of once again creating something lasting and meaningful gives my life purpose. And the fact that I can involve the people I love and who love me is the only way for me to get through it. This is how the weekend begins...alas it ends not with a wake, but with a celebration of a man's life. I can not say enough about Jack Meade. He was a guide and mentor to me when I was young and in need of direction. We shared many interests. He showed me that there are men of honor and pride everywhere. He is a father, a husband, a leader whose influence has touched millions, though not many know it. As with my friend Paul getting set to go the fourth and final round of chemo, Jack has given me the tools and inspiration to go forward and deal with a life out of balance and bring some equilibrium into the world. And I am not alone, there is a little card reading angel whispering into my ear: "Look up! The Great Work Begins!" Thank you Mystical Marcy! I am present to the possibilities.

"The verb "to temper" means to modify or strengthen by adding a new component to an existing substance or mixture, and this broad definition can be applied to many areas of your life. But all applications of Temperance share the common theme of moderation and balance, culminating in the creation of a centered and well-rounded being."

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

Windows open and windows close. This was last night as we drove through Times Square toward our next stop on West 45th Street. This city never ceases to amaze me, even after 51 years. I've been told 5 is one of my prime numbers, so this being my 5th decade on Earth, I feel like a good ten years are ahead! I have so much to be thankful for: my friends, my wife, my family, my good fortune to be employed by the greatest city in the world...and our cat! Going for a nap now, Paul is home from the hospital...again! One more round of chemo to go. Thinking of him too, and thankful he is still around. Another friend and mentor of mine is not faring so well. My prayers and thoughts are with him and his family as they face the final curtain.

Miracle Manifestation

2009-11-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

The Star

Miracle Manifestation,

My first royalty check came in this week from the sale of my book: After September. I will be donating $58.80 to the National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. May it be the first of many. Thank you all for your support, for those thinking of holiday gifts...give the gift poetry (tax deductible!).

The Hierophant

Let Me Down Easy

2009-11-15T08:14:00.000-08:00

We, me, Jen and Routh, went to see Anna Deavere Smith last night in Let me Down Easy at 2nd Stage. There was a bit about a boxer getting knocked out. I had flashbacks to The Knitting Factory many years ago and my own solo performance as a boxer who gets knocked out and does not remember how it happened. This one woman tour-de-force takes on Cancer, Health Care Reform, Life, Death and aging in a 95 minute channeling of 20 individuals. Among them a former Tour-de-France champion battling cancer, a supermodel, a bull rider injured on the job, a TV movie critic dieing of cancer, (even a woman who does one person performances!), all interviewed by Smith who impersonates them verbatim with a skill that lives up to her reputation. Last night at our post show discussion over cocktails in the Film Center Café the question I posed was: “How do we grow old in America now?” For me I can find some great salvation in my work, a reason to live, so I can put this poetry out in hopes that it will inspire others to keep going and face the brutality of our darker natures with luminous offerings of Peace. However, in a culture that seems to value the violent, the young and the beautiful, it seems an up hill battle. The only thing we can do is:

Keep fighting. Thinking of all my loved ones in physical difficulty: Keep fighting. To my loved ones who stand up in front of crowds of people to deliver messages of hope: Keep talking.

Agent Provocateurs

2009-11-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

To my friend and Agent Provocateur about to subject himself to another round of trial and error...I salute you. Our thoughts and prayers continue for you and for your friends and family near and dear, keep the strength!

We saw the film "Precious" yesterday with our friends Kelly and Jill, and it is as brutally an honest portrait of urban-American life in the late 1980's as I have ever seen. Raw and powerful, unapologetic and disturbing, real life artfully depicted.

Happy Birthday to My Father

2009-11-04T06:24:00.001-08:00

Is it macabre to celebrate the birthday of a loved one after they have passed? I don't know, but it seems to me in the case of my father, when I celebrate his life I am celebrating my own. I love my father very much and have never had an adequate way of showing it. So... I'll just keep marking his arrival and his passing on this earth until the day I no longer am able. He would have been 79 years old today. My thoughts are also with my friend in Florida recovering from his 2nd round of Chemo. Stay strong Rebhan.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T07:52:00.001-07:00

The Alpha and the Omega of my all time favorite character. Here I am the Satyr making a plaster mold in performance of a woman's petite breast. Here what follows is the finished sculpture. Fond memories of the Harper Gallery in Tribeca. My friend Paul continues to battle his illness with the help of his Mystical companion Marcy. My thoughts are with them both during this difficult time. Were I there with him today I would wrap Rebhan in bandages and gauze and parade him around to trick-or-treat on a hand-truck, selling tickets to those who wish to see the Mummy come to life! Haunted indeed. Wishing everyone a spiritual and fun All Hallows Eve. Paul Rebhan is a Saint who marched into my life ages ago. I am forever grateful for my friends.

On Anger

2009-10-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

People often misinterpret Anger. They think it bad to get angry, to be mad about something. Yet Anger is a very ancient and essential human emotion. It's the way in which we get angry that can be destructive and hurtful. Try to think of all the good anger can do. When we get angry about injustice laws can be made or changed, when we get angry about incompetence, people can be called into account. Anger is on the 7 stages of grief.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING-
Frustration gives way to anger...

The worst thing we can do about Anger is to hide it, bottle it up until the pressure becomes too great and then...POP! We explode in a rage. Face your Anger. Embrace it, for our Anger is trying to inform us. As with all emotions it must be examined from a place of no judgment, no fear, no bias, so we can give our Anger an opportunity to express itself in a positive way.

What do you think Edvard Munch is expressing in his seminal painting? Many say Angst, I say: Anger. Anger need not be ugly nor counter-productive. We need it to survive, to change things, especially ourselves. Some of the greatest gifts we both give and receive are those of forgiveness for our loved ones whom have vented their Anger on us. We have all been there, all been frustrated by seemingly immovable objects and facts of life too terrible to bear. Anger makes us human for it is almost always rational. Always rooted in some tangible thing. Getting to the root is the journey. Be aware of Anger, the how and the why, there is much wisdom in it. MDR

Witches, Bitches!

2009-10-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

A Bitchin' evening with Shakespeare's Witches and some of his Bitches! Great effort by the American Bard Theater Company. Scenes having to do the macabre and death, perfect for this time of year, opened last night with a ghoulish bang. The group, dedicated to First Folio technique, which they gladly illuminate through out a selection of scenes from the Bard to Mamet while relishing in elocution and enunciation, phrasing and pacing to a delightful degree of professionalism.

Stand-outs include Cheri Wicks as Julius Caesar's cautious spouse Calphurnia, Damon Kinard as Othello, Jacob Troy as Mamet's evil Edmond, and Betina Joly as Jose Rivera's Marisol.

Directed by Raven Peters, the players seamlessly meld this material by way of the Scottish Play's Weird Sisters alternatively performed at one time or another by each of the eleven member ensemble with devilish glee. A good way to kick off the Halloween week long festivities. Don't miss it tonight. Check out: www.AmericanBard.org also on Face Book and Twitter.

Walt Whitman and Levi's

2009-10-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

"Pioneers! O pioneers!" I'd heard these words before, now echoing from my television speakers as black and white images of young people having fun in high definition paraded across the screen. I had heard those words before, and instinctively I went to my bookshelf to my last remaining copy of a text from college, my long held paper back copy, pages now yellow with age, my blue BIC pen notes still in its margins, "Leaves of Grass" by the great, great grandfather of American poetry Walt Whitman and sure enough there it was on page 229 of the 1973 Norton Critical edition. Then I looked across to another book shelf of ours and saw our copy of "Poetry Speaks" and thought hang on a moment. Could that actually be Uncle Walt speaking those lines? Low and behold, not "Pioneers! O pioneers!" but an excerpt from "America" was contained there-in which I then heard on another similar ad featuring a half submerged sign AMERICA, along with black and white images of young people having fun in high definition. The significance? The meaning? Let there be no doubt, they are trading on the nostalgia of America, of the genuine article, of the true blue tried and true. Though the authenticity of the actual recording is in doubt, that never stood in the way of a good ad campaign. Now Levi's makes no claim that the recordings are authentic nor that the poet is even Whitman. Yet I am happy these long cherished words are finding a wider audience probably not even aware of their historical significance, just as many are ignorant of America's historical significance. Poetry for mass consumption has not traditionally been well received. Let's see if Levi's sales improve!

On another note, speaking of college and the real thing, Paul has gone through round two of chemo. Still in the hospital, and my thoughts are still with him.

What a Beautiful Day for Baseball

2009-10-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

I'm just saying... of course there was no baseball played anywhere today, not professional baseball, not MLB, not play-offs. No World Series. Take note Bud, take note of the icy breath of Phillies and Rockies OVER THE WEEKEND. At night. In the Rocky Mountains! You better pray it's an all Los Angeles series Bud. Otherwise you may be looking at a postponement of the World Series until...SPRING!

On another, more serious note, Paul is back for round two of the chemo. Lets all wish him a better experience than last time. Our good thoughts are with you pal.

After September on sale NOW

2009-10-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

Click here to purchase a copy!

Thank you all for your support. The marketing campaign is about to begin in earnest...as soon as I can figure out what marketing is, means, does...

This is me just hanging around near the top of the Empire State Building.

October

2009-10-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

October...and the trees are stripped bare...of all they wear...U2

It seems September flew by. What with the fire, the bathroom retro-fit, my friend being deathly ill, I never got to write about my dad at all. On the 8th of September, the day marking one year since his death...I was up to my elbows in soot and bleach trying to clean out our place from the aforementioned disruptions. Hard work always makes me think of him. So he was on my mind, even if I did not get a chance to sit down and watch the video. In a way "After September" is all about moving on from grief, getting present with the most each precious moment of our lives, however seemingly mundane, has to offer, to teach, to share. Here's to you Paul, thank you for believing in me and for having the strength to get better! Here's to you daddy. We will never forget.

Paul says Hi.

2009-09-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

This FETCHING IMAGE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT PAUL REBHAN!

The greatest times we had, he instigated it all...and there is still much to do. The night this shot was taken we transformed a living gallery into something ethereal. The house was packed, the lips smacked and we got it all on video long before HBO.

YES, that's me in the fangs and the horns.

My FRIEND, Paul Rebhan

2009-09-22T07:30:00.001-07:00

Dear my friend, I know you can't read this, but know it is coming to you like prayers from a great distance, but it is as if you are right here with me. You have touched my life in a most profound way and we have always had a non-traditional friendship, an unconditional love between two human beings void of the garbage baggage of this world. My thoughts are with you in your great battle against the force that ravages your body and the chemical warfare you are waging against it which is just as toxic. I know you are on the brink because that is the strategy for this type of treatment. You are the bravest man I ever met. You have been the inspiration to me for the entire time I have known you, as if you were meant to deliver me from madness and narrow mindedness. Which you have done. I continue to practice on the Bubbles of Perception and try to know you and the world we inhabit not through interrogation but through interpretation. I am love. I am non-violent. I am a warrior for peace whose only weapons are my words. There was a time I doubted you, many, many years ago when we were young and I trusted no one. I thought your faith in me was patronizing at best. But after many years of watching you travel the world and do the things many people only dream of, I came to realize how blessed I was to have a person like you in my life to call me friend. You are my best friend. So it is difficult to be so removed from you right now, but this is not about your friends and our comfort, this is about yours. Know that we all pray for a peaceful and painless resolution to the conflict. I know you are in a place I could not dare to imagine, yet you inspire everyone you meet to imagine. You have changed the world for the better, and will continue to do so. Andy Kaufman got nothing on you kid.

Chaos, Fire, Mayhem!

2009-09-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

So...after the electrical fire in the cellar a week ago today, we are back in the apartment under temporary power. It has been a very hectic week to say the least. The guys were in the middle of changing out our bathroom when they had to drop everything and change everyone's locks because the fire department broke down everyone's doors. We were not home at the time having self-relocated during the construction on the tiny bathroom. We didn't find out until last Sunday when we just stopped in to see how things were going. Things were not going well. The hall still reeks of smoke, it's like 9/11 all over again. Fortunately no one was injured although the restaurant downstairs that makes Jen's favorite food (Peking 2) has been forced to close. Snug is safe and not traumatized thanks to dear friend DD who let us stay in her place for the long weekend which turned into over a week. We are all waiting to see what will happen next. The generator could run out of diesel at any time...

I Have To Write About This!

2009-08-30T08:05:00.001-07:00

This is Farrah on the ferry from Orient Point Long Island, N.Y., to New London CT. She was a popular doggie. We were taking her from Wainscott in the Hamptons to North Branford, CT to live with her new family. The odyssey started for us the night before when I was at work and Jen was sick with a cold. Neither of us got much sleep at all. Yet when I arrived home from work at about twenty to seven in the morning, my lady was up and ready to roll. The skies were gray and heavy, rain already started to drizzle down. We jumped into the Colorado and headed for eastern Long Island. The ride out was uneventful, yet we were nervous about making our noon reservation for the ferry. Having never taken the South and North Ferry from Shelter Island to the North Fork of Long Island and Orient Point, we were not completely sure of the timing. And we were not sure how long it would take to pack up the pooch and get on our way. However, despite a last second dash to chase some kids on an RV, we got the 2 year old Golden into our truck, said our goodbyes, and headed north. She was a wonderful companion on the road. Not a problem at all, and such a hit with all the other dog loving ferry riders. When we arrived to her new home, we had a warm welcome despite the rain. The dog was soon frolicking in the backyard with her new boy. Mom and dad very happy to have this beautiful creature drop seemingly from heaven to the laps. All in all we feel we did a good thing for everyone concerned. We stayed the night in Guilford, partly because we wanted to make sure no complications arose, and partly because we were both exhausted, and Jen's cold got worse. We summd the trip up in this fashion: Tank of gas: $60.00; Ferry fees: $100.00; Dinner at the Chowder Pot: $80.00: a night in the Guilford Comfort Inn: $180.00...the sight of Farrah pooping in Holly, Jim and Tyler's back yard: PRICELESS

After September

2009-08-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Those of you who follow this page are the first to find out that my book of poetry, "After September" is now available on Amazon.com as well as Xlibris.com. My author page will link you to the book :

Author page: www.xlibris.com/Ransom.html

100% of my royalties are being donated to the:

National September 11 Memorial and Museum
at the World Trade Center

I can't thank everyone enough who has helped bring this project to such rapid fruition. A process begun in early June of 2009 is now complete. Well, almost. Now I have to get the word out and hope people will react. I wrote this book not so much for those who were there that day, though I hope they find it helpful in expressing their own emotions, but for those who were not, those not even born. In a sense this is a milestone in my own emotional recovery from what took place eight years ago. This moment represents my own personal climax to a healing which began on September 12th, 2001.

Moving Forward

2009-07-21T08:31:00.001-07:00

Some last hurdles have been cleared and I am getting ready for the release of my book of poems. It all started innocently enough when I clicked on an ad on FaceBook which led me to Xlibris and the rest is...about to become history. Don't let anyone tell you that advertising on the internet doesn't work. I only wish that I thought of this a year ago when my dad was still alive. I think he would have been proud. But last year I was up to my eyeballs in work training new recruits at the DOB. No regrets. Everyone says I am a late bloomer. All the details about when and where the release will take place will be duly noted. Stay tuned.

After September
by
Mark D. Ransom
ISBN: 978-1-4415-5497-0

Mark David Ransom — comes from a long line of craftsmen. His Italian
immigrant great-grandfather worked on the world famous Brooklyn Bridge.
His German/Irish father practiced his trade at the 1964 World’s Fair and
on the State Capital in Albany, NY. He spent many years himself restoring
masonry buildings in the five boroughs, including the Brooklyn Museum and
the Empire State Building. The son of a slate roofer and a bookkeeper, and
educated by the public school system of New York City, Mark’s chosen crafts
have been making song and theater. He has done poetry slams at the Nuyorican
Poet’s Cafe and readings at Reckless in Hell’s Kitchen. He is a member the
White Horse Theater Company where he played the title role of Half in a
workshop production of the original play. A lifelong resident of New York
City, he is a poet, an actor, and a singer/songwriter. As a building inspector
and civil servant, living in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, Mark witnessed the events
of September 11, 2001, from a unique perspective, one that provided him with
the inspiration for this, his first volume of published poetry. In his official
capacity as an inspector, he documents the physical damage of city buildings.
As a poet, he investigates the emotional and psychological topography of a
new era emerging from the old. His chronicle in verse, dedicated to the city of
his birth, is written with words of healing, admiration, respect, and love.

Man at Work

2009-06-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I should title this page "Putting Out".

It's not so much about ERT work as it is about poetry...and the poetry is about work. I am collaborating with a bon-i-fide editor, and in negotiations with Xlibris to publish a volume of my poetry on the subject of September 11th, 2001.

This is my big news. I am hoping to pop my cherry, so-to-speak, and enter the world of publishing with this most intimate and personal account in verse of my impressions of the days, weeks, and months that followed that life altering event.

To say the least, I am excited. My poetry has always been another outlet of expression for me, my most immediate, most near and dear to my heart. Sharing it has never come easy. After my father's death, I now feel obligated to let others decide if they care to read me or not. I feel I must give people the opportunity to decide for themselves. Poetry about such an event is something I never felt comfortable submitting to publishers with the possibility of rejection. So I have decided to self-publish, but in order to provide legitimacy to my voice I am working with an accomplished writer and editor who has agreed to take on the task and I can't thank her enough.

As usual I am all over the map. My headshots and resumes are in envelopes ready to be mailed, I am studying rigging, hoisting and tower cranes for an up-coming test, and there's work and overtime and all manner of distractions pulling me this way and that, not to mention a deck to paint and a stoop to repair in Rockland at my sister’s house and a nude beach in New Jersey calling to me on sunny summer days, but hopefully I can manage it all and still get my book out.

My horoscope says this new moon is the right time for this project...and did I mention it's a two book deal? I can publish a second volume at no additional cost. What subject should that book deal with? Stay tuned.

What Work Is

2009-05-30T08:22:00.001-07:00

What work is…for me. Most people can’t wrap their heads around what it is I do to make a living. I work for the Buildings Department in New York City in a special unit called ERT which stands for “Emergency Response Team” and is basically descriptive of the work we do…except for the hours. We are only activated at night, on weekends and holidays. We are the staff of the department when everyone else is home. Our schedule rotates between seven tours a month consisting of the afternoon and evening of one day and the morning of the next. We work round the clock on weekends and extend those weekends into the various Monday holidays.

Basically, we are the people the Fire Department, the Police Department call when the lives have been saved, and the fires put out. We coordinate recovery efforts, we stabilize situations, we tell the FDNY they can go home, we ask the NYPD to stay and keep an eye on things. This work is also carried on during the day by the myriad of other units in the department. In my line of work, I have witnessed many disturbing things, tragic things, heroic things; I was in my office just six blocks away from the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11^thand heard the first jet fly by my 14^th floor window and an instant later impact tower one. I, we, my colleagues and I, have been responding to fires ever since.

For the past ten years, I have been immersed in training, both giving and receiving. New York City recovered from the devastation downtown and is courageously fighting through this economic recession. None of it would have been possible without the outpouring of support from around the world, and for that; as a New Yorker who stayed to rebuild, I thank you.

Oh, Yes We Did.

2009-05-20T07:25:00.001-07:00

Say hello to our little friends. So there we were...in an undisclosed tropical paradise....our long delayed, solitary, all inclusive honeymoon type vacation. It felt good, exotic and strangely a bit dangerous as we relaxed poolside, oceanside, side by side for a week. We almost did not know how to do it at first...but quickly got the hang of it.

White sand and gray bracken

Shoulder a blacktop road

Leading up to and away from

A tongue of rocky beach

Shadowed by the towers of Tulum.

Pane-less portals gape

At deep tossed blue tropical sea

Haven for ancient wind and spirits

Which rule the Earth when we do not.

Flat jungle tangled and twisted

Bleeds down to water’s edge

Like wreckage strewn by

Intangible impacts

In gifts of stormy rage.

From massive heritage of pale blue sky

Hawks circle on high

Sweep wisps of clouds of time as

Weathered petro-glyphs

Say nothing, mean much

Stone hard to my mind

Soft to touch

Bring messages of

The Past.

I wrap my arms around me

Rock forth and back

Like waves on the ocean

And read a solitary sign

From that deserted highway:

GUARDA SU VIDA

Post a watchman at our door

For some unbidden intruder

Invited by the ennui of this age

Seeks to usurp our moneys

Our stones, furs and...

Something more, that inexplicable

Something always more powerful

Greater than...

Sorcery is very strong in this part of Yucatan

Where stars are more than they are

And man is less than large

La Na Bu Ma Ti Yo Nu Ho

Recovery of the Inner Child

2009-05-03T08:24:00.001-07:00

The Boy in the Wooden Box

I found him

While on a search for the source

Of some dangerous thoughts

There he was tiny as a pixie

A near naked blue eyed imp

Scrawny but for his bushy blond

Hair

Enraged and hidden deep

Within a wooden box

Upon the walls of which

He thrashed and crashed

Angry, shameless, crying

Over his broken family

One long ago fractured and

Splintered under the weight

Of Norman Rockwell’s America

To calm the violent beast in him

I acknowledged his predicament

And I set him on my shoulder

He was abandoned and alone

So, I set about to father him

And to mother him the best I could

Now, when dangerous thoughts

Enter my mind

I know it is time

To bring him forth

Where he stands placated

Holding onto a lock of my gray

Hair

Sucking his thumb

Poem for Yesterday Today

2009-04-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Jawbone of an Ass

This shit will rot your brain
This mass media thing selling
Multi media masturbation
Promoting a different kind
Of Onanism

It seduces your intellect
Until the only thing
A brain is good for
Is predicting the plots
Of silly sit-coms

(Forgive my slathering
The dentist got angry
When I ordered composite
Instead of amalgam
And shot my face full
Of pain killer)

They want me on that couch
They need me on that couch
Watching anti-mysterious who-done-its
Finding commercial advertisements
More entertainingly clever
Than the repeat programming
Constantly, annoyingly, more comfortable
And familiar than my own left hand

(The subway smells like
Roach spray
I guess it could be worse
Because even with all these distractions
Even with all these restraints...)

I feel a little more lucid
A little more here
A little more with it, man
With that little, tiny bit
Of Mercury
Removed from the back
Of my Jaw

New Work

2009-04-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

Feeling really out of sorts lately. I am trying to figure out how to proceed with my "second act". I've given my self the freedom to do nothing, to loaf, to be lazy, to miss dad, my childhood, my youth. I nap a lot. I love to cook dinner for my wife, my family and our friends. My mom actually let me take her out to dinner on Easter Sunday. She let me pay and everything. It was amazing.

One constant has been the poetry. I am trying something new, a lttle new for me, just going ahead and free writing and maybe trying to figure it out later. Or maybe not figuring it out at all, ever. I put together things from here and there inspired by this and that. I even composed a verse in my sleep one night. I'm going with it. Here's something:

When things fall down
When things collapse
When April feels like October
Wet, cold, and dark

When I miss you
When my world ends

When worlds collide
When cars go crash

When you deny
Your denial
Like a crack of the lash

Paranoia of perfection
Image in the bathroom glass
Is not mine, not me

My wind chimes sing
Of wind and rain
The hardware on the flag pole
Clangs now and again

Busses and trucks hiss
And whoosh
People hurry by slicker-ed and umbrella-ed

When lives diverge
When language
Will not serve
When cruel seasons
Binge and purge

Another cold spring.

Loss

2009-04-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

I keep losing and finding
The same 10 pounds

Letting the days go by
Is just like it sounds

Leaves bud on trees
Street buskers sing

Without you here
It doesn't mean a thing

Missing you today Pop

Love markie