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July 10, 2015:

THE SCREED

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, as you may have read recently, some complete idiot in New York, got up on stage before a show and tried to charge his cell phone on the set of the play, apparently, being the idiot he is, not realizing that it wasn’t a practical outlet.  People yelled at him, ushers and staff came down and yelled at him.  It’s been all over the Internet (I hate the term social media) ever since.  Playbill tracked the guy down.  They have a photo of him and his friends and he looks just like you’d think he’d look – like a little twit entitled nineteen-year-old.  He’s cocky about it, he doesn’t really care that what he did was stupid and figures it brought publicity to the play.  Note to idiot:  You are sadly typical of your generation and one can only imagine the career in idiocy that awaits you.  Then yesterday at a matinee of a play starring Patti LuPone, someone in the front row was texting away for about ten minutes.  Miss LuPone had finally had enough of it and took the woman’s phone away, exited and put it backstage.  The person got their phone back, but hasn’t been publicly exposed, which is a shame.

What kind of world is this?  What kind of people have we become when we have an addiction as strong as any drug addiction to our phones?  I mean it’s appalling.  It’s not just young people – the old people, and I mean people in their 70s and beyond, sitting in theaters looking at their cell phones instead of reading their program.  What are these nudnicks looking at?  Texts?  Facebook?  E-mails?  These nudnicks didn’t even know what a cell phone was a decade ago and I’m sure they looked askance at the kiddies who, even then, were slaves to their phones.  I eat out mostly every day.  I see people having lunch together who spend the entire lunch on their phones – sometimes both, but sometimes just one of them, which is just about one of the rudest things I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen people trying to do banking while talking on their cell.  Put the damn phone in your damn pocket and concentrate on the damn business at hand, you stupid cretins.

People walk down the street talking at the top of their lungs as if we all needed to hear that.  No need to go into the accidents that are caused by people who can’t stop looking at their phones while driving – whether texting or talking.  They don’t care about anything but their own little pathetic selves and the fact that they cannot and will not spend ten seconds without texting or talking.  I mean, when you walk into a theater, just turn the damn thing off.  Don’t put it on vibrate, don’t check it at intermission.  You can go two or three hours without looking at the damn thing.  Seeing a text that says, “Hi, I’m going to the bathroom now” or “How ya doin’?” can’t wait?  Somehow people who grew up prior to 2000, the decade when cell phones became part of people’s anatomy, managed to not behave like this.  And if they grew up prior to the 1990s, they didn’t even HAVE the bloody things.  Somehow we all did what we needed to do.  If we had to make a quick call unexpectedly, we stopped at a phone booth and made it, otherwise, horror of horrors, we waited until we got home.  And WHEN we got home, we didn’t stay connected for hours on end, we made a call or two and then we, I don’t know, lived?  When we began this here site we were unique in terms of how it worked and our lovely discussion board.  Yes, we all posted, had fun, told everyone how we were doing.  There was no My Space and there certainly was no Facebook.  We WERE the Facebook back then, just a very tiny version of what that would become.  People can literally not stay off Facebook – they literally live there every waking hour – they check it from their computers, from their iPads, from their phones.  They check their Instagram and whatever other forms of this crap they happen to do – Twitter, Tumblr, Tinder, who can keep track of it all?  And make no mistake – it is like an addiction and a serious one.  I’ve known people who went into withdrawal when their phone was left at home or died.  They could not function.  They didn’t know what to do because they couldn’t be connected twenty-four hours of the day and night.

At theaters, it’s become an epidemic and the apologists, the ones who can’t actually turn their phone off, the ones who put it on vibrate (for what bloody reason), say that we all just have to live with it, this is the new world.  Note to apologists: Go play in traffic.  You walk into a theater – dress appropriately, leave your yahoo tendencies at home, have some damn respect for your fellow audience members who don’t want to be distracted by your stupid lit screen, don’t put your phone in your purse and keep opening it to check your texts or whatever and pray you never do those things if you’re sitting next to me.  When people go to their church services or to temple or to any religious service, do they check their messages while they’re praying or listening to the sermon or the service?  Do they dress in flip-flops and shorts?  Well, folks, the theater is a temple and you are defiling it.

However, I think we can place more than some of the blame on the theaters and producers of shows themselves.  They just don’t care.  They’ve got the ticket money and they don’t want to be bothered.  And when you debase the theater going experience by selling drinks and snacks in the aisles like it’s the circus, well, of course, you are telling people that this is not a temple, this is a fairground.  And yes, I would be doing this screed if I was a teenager, before you tell me I’m just an old fogey.  I have had to get very terse with someone I know who cannot stay off her phone.  If we drive somewhere, you cannot converse because she’s on her phone, checking Facebook, texting, and occasionally even having a conversation.  Who needs that?  And the couple of times she’s asked to attend shows with me, she’s one of those who, during the show, opens her purse and checks her phone.  I have been very vocal about it – and she just can’t stop.  She has a phone on her back, an addiction so strong that she would probably crumple to the ground in a puddle if someone took the phone from her.  She’s a nice gal, I’ve known her for thirty years, and we’re friends, but I just don’t want to ever go anywhere with her – not for a meal, not to the theater, not for a drive.  I don’t know what the solution to any of this is, but it’s noxious and Obnoxious and needs to stop.  I has spoken.

Well, that was a long screed, wasn’t it?  That screed just went on for over two pages.  That was an over two-page screed is what that was.  Don’t I have some notes to write?

Yesterday was a day in which not much happened, at least I’m having trouble remembering much of what either happened or didn’t.  I only got about seven hours of sleep, I think.  Once up I did my morning stuff, then I went and had a chicken salad sandwich and no fries or onion rings, after which I came home.

Then I had to do some paperwork regarding three projects I’m trying to get – should they work out, then I will have established a new relationship with a new studio and hopefully that will lead to many more releases, so send your most excellent vibes and xylophones that that works out.  After that, I had a telephonic call, did some work on the Kritzerland show, assigned all the songs the gals are singing, but can’t assign the guy songs until we have the two guys.  The guest star we were hoping for can’t do it, due to a concert he has the night before – otherwise he might just have.  We’ve moved on to my next choice.  Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I began watching a motion picture on DVD entitled The Loved One – haven’t seen it since the DVD came out and thought it would be fun to watch again.  I made two of the low-cal tortilla and cheese things for my snack.

Today, I have a lot of stuff to do – some things to do with Kritzerland that I need to finish, hopefully finding our two guys, I’ll eat something very light to tide me over until a late supper meeting, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages and then I have the supper meeting, which is with our set designer for the Sami show.

Tomorrow I have a work session with the Kritzerland musical director (trying not to do too many put-togethers in this show), and then there’s something else happening that I cannot remember.  Not sure what’s going on on Sunday.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, find two guys, eat something light, hopefully pick up packages, and have a meeting.  Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player?  I’ll start – CD, lots of stuff.  DVD, The Loved One.  Your turn.  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, exhausted from the long and winding screed.

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