Into Thin Air
“Old actors never retire; they just fade away.”
That’s a play on the phrase made famous by Douglas MacArthur in his farewell address to Congress in April 1951. The truth of that phrase lies in the reality that acting is, technically speaking, something that a person can do pretty much until they’re completely physically unable. When James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson appeared in a Broadway production of The Gin Game in 2016, Mr. Jones was 84 and Ms. Tyson was 91. Having just completed a run of that show myself as Weller Martin, I have no idea how they did that.
In the intervening nine years since I wrote the content that appeared in my last post, I’ve gone through a period of time where I’ve wanted to retire, but found myself not quite able to do so. I’ve realized that the reason I have not been able to quit until now is because I kept getting asked to do roles by people who have been kind and supportive of my career.
Melted Into Air
Whenever I have mentioned to people that I am retiring from active participation in the theatre, the response is always the same: a laugh, and a retort along the lines of “Oh, I’ve heard THAT before” combined with “you’ll never stop doing theatre.” I understand their response, because to some degree, this has been true. Since retiring in April 2017, I have done a few shows; five, to be precise. I also chose to get involved with a local community theatre group, helping them for the past three years get a new one-act festival of 10-minute original scripts going. So I can plainly see why they should be skeptical.
My motivation for writing this post is to write something publicly and then stick to it. Circumstances have changed. For one thing, I’m older. But I think a first step might be to share what I wrote 9 years ago, about four months after I retired. Most of what’s here hasn’t changed much as reasons for giving up theatre. I will use this as a base, and then follow up with another post on how things have changed over nine years and where I am at now, having finished my last show.
A Tech Conundrum
I currently have a working Linux laptop, which is a 2017 MacBook Air running Mint Linux. it works fine as a couch-surfing machine, although sometimes the keyboard does unusual things at the mere brush of a finger on the keys. The screen is a little dim, and the battery will only give me 5 hours of use tops, but I seldom take it anywhere where I’d need 5 hours of battery time.
But I don’t trust it as a production laptop. My MacBook Air M2 is my main production machine, and it works fine. However, I’d really like to know if it’s possible to build a Linux laptop capable of producing my podcast. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting the final Intel version of the MacBook Air (2020?), but research tells me it may not be fully compatible with Linux without something called T2 drivers. I’ve also looked into getting a Lenovo T4, which apparently is the gold standard for Linux Mint installs.
Either of these choices will set me back about ~$350. I am torn between being satisfied with using the Mac M2, saving the money and staying in the Apple ecosystem, or paying the cash to experiment with Linux and moving away from Apple, a move that would align with my desire to be as unreliant as possible on Big Tech. Buying the Lenovo refurbished would mean adding another computer to my already overgrown collection.
The choice is really one of ideology on my part. Compromises are a necessary part of life. Is continuing to work on my MacBook M2 the place where I compromise? How will I ever know if my choice is correct without purchasing the Lenovo to find out? Is it really necessary to find out, as the M2 works flawlessly? Am I trying to solve a problem which really doesn’t exist at all except at the theoretical and ethical level? Curiosity, I think, will eventually kill this cat.
Update - After writing the above, I tested both Audacity and Zoom on my MacLinux laptop. With an external webcam attached, the computer did the job! I was surprised that the LinuxMac 2017 could handle the job. But can it handle it smoothly enough? Fast enough? Also, if I use the open source Jitsi Meet as an alternative to Zoom, will using Audacity and Jitsi on the M2 be enough to clear my conscience?
Transitions
I haven’t really had much to say lately, which is due to the fact that when I plunge into an acting project, I tend to disassociate myself from the rest of my surroundings. I have found, since the end of the pandemic, that theatrical pursuits take up far more energy now than they ever have before. During the process of rehearsal and performance, it’s all I can do to muster the energy to function in rehearsals. By the time I get home, I am pretty worn out, and it takes most of whatever time I have left to myself the following day to recuperate and recover so as to be able to function at the next rehearsal or show.
With this latest show, however, I feel underneath all the work a seismic shift taking place. There are things taking place that have never happened to me at quite this magnitude before, and I can feel the tectonic plates being shaken. Metaphorically speaking, the foundation is cracking, and I can sense that something has to change in order to shore up the cracks. I will leave that to another post, but for the time being, it’s looking like some major transitions are on the way. It may be time to be heard no more.
Notes from the Aisle Seat Episode 5A.02 - The "Mini02" Edition
Mark Brazill, co-creator, writer, and producer of That 70s Show, gives us an inside look at his work on the show in an upcoming presentation at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House on August 1, while director David Oliver talks about the upcoming production of The Gin Game at the Lakeshore Center for the Arts in Westfield the weekends of July 17 and 24.
No Escape
I have always been interested in wandering. Wandering is simply traveling without a specific destination in mind, just moving until you need to stop, eat, and sleep someplace along the way. Wandering requires an abundance of time, and I have that in spades. It’s this mindset that leads me to Youtube videos where I spend too much time looking for “best places to retire” or “living in a Toyota Sienna.” These dreams are unlikely ever to come true, but I feed them nonetheless.
However, this post is really not about that, but a side note that I’ve picked up from looking at these videos. In almost all of them, the presenter frames the content through the lens of escape. Whether it be the rat race, the cost of living, the hellscape of politics, or some other similar factor, escape is the dominant theme. And I find I am at odds with that theme, as I am not looking to escape anything in particular. I just want to see what else is out there.
AI: A Deep Dive with Asian Boss
How much - really - do you know about what it takes to make artificial intelligence LLMs run? Do you know exactly how many gigawatts one - just one - data center consumes? Do you know how we evolved from ENIAC to ChatGPT and Gemini? And finally, do you know why Google and other companies are beginning to build even more massive data centers in India?
This video produced by Asian Boss - aka Stephen Parks - is one that I think anyone who wants to seriously converse knowledgeably about AI should watch. it is factual, dispassionate, and chock full of specific information. Fifty minutes of your time is all it will take to become 50x more informed about the growth, development, and direction of AI. I highly recommend it, as well as the channel itself.
Latest Tech Update
The Time of Your Life
I was reading some articles from a newsletter I receive weekly, curated by the father of a former student, consisting of a collection of internet links. One of them was from an advice writer, and through a series of mental leaps, I remembered this forward from The Time of Your LIfe, a play written by William Saroyan in 1939 over six days holed up in a San Francisco waterfront hotel. The play won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This prologue was something I actually had posted on my dorm room door as an undergraduate.
In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.
Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.
Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.
In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
The Slate: A Look at the American Mindset
FIFA: A Deep Dive
If you know nothing about the history of FIFA (International Association Football Federation), then you owe it to yourself to watch the video below, which is a 45-minute deep dive on the history of FIFA, how it began, how much power it wields, how much money it makes, and so on. It’s eye-opening in its depth and scope. For the record, Asian Boss is one of the most fascinating YouTube channels out there. Worth a subscription.
(Update 6/25/26 - Apparently FIFA has had the video mentioned here removed from the Asian Boss website, claiming it used FIFA content without permission. Yet another example of FIFA’s heavy-handed mobster mentality)
Leafing Out
It’s been one month, more or less, with the 2015 Nissan Leaf, and while I don’t have any hard numbers to share with you, this is my one-month impression of the driving experience. It’s been a delight!
Let’s do the reality check first. The Leaf falls just teeny, tiny bit short in the range department. As it turns out, the battery in this Leaf has about 65% of its capacity left. I would have wished for 5-10% more, but that’s only because of one specific reason. I have begun rehearsals for my latest theatrical endeavor, and that has meant a 40-mile round-trip commute. If I leave my house with a completely full charge, I can just barely make that round trip, sweating a little on the way back. If the battery had that extra 10% it wouldn’t be quite as big an issue. Fortunately, the village of Westfield has a Level 2 EV charging station that charges 25 cent/kWH, which is remarkably cheap, and can get me back up to 85% in 15 minutes, plenty to get back home. So while I could wish a little more battery capacity, it is not that big a deal simply to recharge before heading home.
Juneteenth
Portrayed Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger once again today for the city’s Juneteenth Festival. Still can swing that leg over the horse, although I do get a step stool to get up to the first stirrup.
Third Time's A Charm?
The more I have gone down the rabbit hole of trying to create “cameo” microposts, the more interesting and deeper it has become. I’m now trying out a third method, hoping that this third time’s a charm.
Somewhere in the back of this addled old brain of mine I seemed to dimly remember that one could eliminate any category from the home page of their blog with the proper code. When I started this project, the last thing I wanted to do was mess with code. I know just enough about coding to get into serious trouble, which is the reason I searched for a non-coding option.
Well, when the time stamp feature on Mataroa was lumping all my posts together in one day at the same time, I felt this wasn’t optimal. I was about to go back to Sourcefeed, when I decided that, since I was that far down the rabbit hole, I’d see if I could find anything in MB help posts about eliminating categories.
Surprisingly, I had remembered correctly. I found a conversation between @pratik and @willtmonroe concerning hiding categories on the home page. All you need to do is add three lines of code in the right place in your index.html file, and voilá - no microposts appear! Of course, everything has to line up in terms of the names of the categories and all that, but the code works. My home page now has nothing but longer posts on it, and I have a new category called Cameos which will show my short posts.
Cameos will appear in the timeline, but not on the blog’s home page, which was my original goal. Cameos are accessible by clicking the “Cameos” button at the top of every page, and if you want to go further back in time, Click “Archive”, and then click “Tweets.” I sincerely hope this is the last time I have to bore you with my rabbit chasing. That’s all, folks!
Keeper of the Flame
I watched the Hepburn/Tracy movie Keeper of the Flame this evening. I had never seen it before, and I love a good Hepburn/Tracy flick. I was startled at how completely contemporary the movie’s reveal sounded. The film was made in 1942, in the thick of WW2. Things haven’t changed all that much. And Americans still don’t get it.
Enter Mataroa (Sorry, Sourcefeed)
Have you ever had the experience of buying something for what you thought was a good price, only to see the same item somewhere else at an attractively lower price? Well, I’ve just had that experience with my use of Sourcefeed, and while I still like the web app, I have found something I think is a little better and easier for the user. Cameos will now appear using the Mataroa blog service.
I won' go into too many details, since I am sure people will be able to figure it out. But the major reason I am changing is to reduce user friction. Cameos will now be available as a website as well an RSS feed. That way users have the option. Cameo posts will also appear in the timeline.
I still like Sourcefeed, and I might use it for other types of writing, but for now, the user is the one whose experience should be as frictionless as possible. It’s still simple, and Mataroa is free for use. Sorry, Sourcefeed.
Sourcefeed: An Experiment in Old Protocols
Let's Get Small! (or, How I Came to Discover Kagi)
Slow Leaks
I have begun to feel an almost imperceptible sensation lately concerning the direction of this journey we call life. The sensation feels akin to driving a car on a road trip with tires all of which have slow leaks in them. You can probably get to where you want to go, but you always have to stop and check to see that the tires are filled with air.
I’m finding that one of the “slow leaks” in my life’s journey lately has been blogging. I’m really not sure the best way to express what I’m feeling. Is it boredom? Is it loss of interest? Is it lack of engagement? I’m not really sure. One thing I do know - it’s not as exciting or stimulating as it was in the 2000s.