FIRST DRAFT

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...

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

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"

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

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

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

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.