Last Ever Lima Blog - Extra Cumbersome Version

Jim: So.

Kirk: Yeah.

Jim: How you been? Anything going on?

Kirk: Saw Snakes on a Plane this weekend.

Jim: I saw Snakes on a plane once.

Nah, we did that like four times last week; when you get tired of your own catchphrase, clearly you need to write some new jokes.

Kirk: Yeah, and you know what else? We wrote a freakin' play. Maybe you recall? You came to Ohio for two nights. We hung out with Hodges. Ate some sammiches. Heard the worst rendition of the National Anthem ever performed before a living audience. Watched our show. Found the previously untapped comedy in the number seven...kind of a big weekend we had a week ago. I had myself another big one just now, if only because the Comfort Inn put me and my wife in the bridal suite; jacuzzi, round bed with padded posts and red marquis lights around the top. Too bad I was too tired to take advantage of something like that. Damn plays...they wear you out, even if you're just sitting in the audience trying to figure out why in the hell that "Leif Garrett could've been the next spoon" line never gets over. But yeah, there was a play.

Jim: Oh. Yeah. That. You want to start?

Kirk: Nah, good people read this to hear what you have to say. I'm just along for the ride.

Jim: Okay, first of all, I ate no sandwiches. Through a powerful cocktail of crippling anxiety and restaurant salads, I lost five pounds. Secondly, I hope no one ever gets that Leif Garrett joke, 'cause that shit is funny, and, you know, fuck 'em. Beyond that, I have three feelings coming out of seeing Spoon Millionaires performed for the first time.

First, I'm miserable. Abe Lincoln-style miserable. Not because of Ohio; it freaked me out a little to be back in Ada, but no more than one would expect. I'm miserable because I'm a "his brain was so loaded it nearly exploded" sort of a cat, and I just like to let the bad times roll. More than that, I've occasionally had a big moment in my life, and having this show produced was kind of a big moment. A moment of triumph. A moment of validation. And the only thing that makes me feel worse than failure is success. Unfortunately, I'm not good at just taking things for what they are, I look for successes to make me feel better about the condition of my place in the universe. Somehow, I've developed a cosmological worldview that applause will drench me in the cool stream of happiness and instead I always find myself in a desert of depression.

That's gonna be my nickname when I go into mixed martial arts, incidentally: The Count of Monte Fisto, The Desert of Depression, the Big, Blonde, Buxom, Crazy-Eyez Killah - Jim "$240 Dollars Worth of Chocolate...no, Butterscotch, Hells yeah, Butterscotch, Puddin'" Jividen!

And so, I always wind up feeling let down, you know, when the applause goes away and everyone returns to his real life, and I still feel like this.

I gotta believe some of you feel the same way—you know, don't you, historically when it is that popular uprisings occur? It's not when things are at their lowest ebb; people revolt when there's been an upturn in the quality of their lives—when they've had a period of rising expectations—and then they fell back again. You become aware of your intolerable condition and it becomes impossible to go back to normal. You ever heard that line, "been down so long, seems like up to me?" It's easier that way, I think, but when you decide that the vituperative production blog, articles about you in the paper, and accepting plaques on stage are going to reverse the course of your life—and then they don't—it's hard to keep the darkness at bay.

First time I connected those dots, incidentally, was our first comedy troupe show, I don't know that we've ever talked about that before. The people don't care about, well, they don't care about any of my ramblings in this cumbersome blog, but they really don't care about the hardship in getting that first comedy troupe show on its feet. It was kinda a big deal for the 1990 versions of both of us, and when that first show was over, I walked back to my dorm, and couldn't have been more miserable. There's a reason that I do, you know, less, than otherwise I might. I finished 8th at the national speech tournament my freshman year, which I think is still the highest finish in our university's history, and then I only went to one more tournament (I won, I'm just saying) the rest of my life. You know what happened with the comedy troupe; I haven't gone to any of my three graduation ceremonies after high school; and after I won the money on the game show, you would have thought I had just been told I had 11-1/2 minutes to live or that something terrible had happened to Pam~

Sigh.

This is where you get to be my married friend, so put on that hat; all of those things happened during stretches of my life when it was just me and me, you dig? Is it different if there's someone with you? Someone who knows how much fucking work it all takes and how big a deal it is? In my head, I think it would, but the times when I've been in a serious coupled up thing, I really played the supportive, behind the scenes, talking about her shit role, and wasn't so much looking to get myself over. Times like this, when I could use someone who gets me (I hate saying "nobody gets me" in even a semi-serious way, 'cause I feel like a pussy, but there you go), I always wind up feeling terribly when I'm not showered with interest from someone for whom I care. In my head, I think it would be different had I someone with whom I could go through this, but it's entirely possible that's just another variation of "now, this is the one thing that would make me feel okay about bein' me." And changing your life with one swing of the bat only works if it's October 3, 1951 and your name is Bobby Thomson.

Use what you will. Take care.

Kirk: Ah, see, more inside jokes. I do dig that, but I still feel like a shit now because I wasn't there feeling miserable with you after that first comedy troupe show. Hard for me to do that, though, because it takes a hell of a lot for me to feel miserable. I've got no emotions. I drink my coffee at the Even Keel Cafe. But dude, I could've at least shared that funk.

As for having someone supportive, I wouldn't get your hopes up there, either. I'm not knocking my wife, she's plenty supportive. She wants to see me happy, so she's pleased when I get there. She read the play, she highlighted the funny parts, and she agreed with me on the things I felt were wrong with the production. But did she put me over with the other theater patrons Friday and Saturday night? No. Did she sing my praises all the way home? No. Did she make hot, drunken, post-production motel sex to me in that round bed with the crazy lights? No. But I'm good with that. She keeps me in check by distracting me from the things I'd dwell on. Get a girl who does that, not one who validates you. The ones who simply distract you don't usually need so much validation themselves, and that's for the best. We both know that.

Now, what's the second feeling?

Jim: I'm embarrassed. The only unexpected thing about the experience of returning to Ohio (outside of, perhaps, how much I enjoyed the Hiner children and the burgeoning baby fever it has engendered in me—I'm considering freezing my eggs) was that when the shows were over, I left the theater feeling really embarrassed. Not about the quality of the show—the show was pretty good, and I'll offer my thoughts in a moment—but about the idea of that I'm somehow a playwright.

Do you feel this way even a little bit? 'Cause, what I felt was inadequate for the spot; how is it that somehow, the world works like this: One day, I sit in my house and write a joke, and then a whole bunch of people: actors, crew, everyone associated with mounting a theatrical production, give up huge chunks of their time, sacrifice being with the people who actually matter to them, just to tell that joke?

The more I thought about it the crazier it seemed. Under the economic notion of best alternative gain foregone, how does it make any kind of sense to give up all those hours of your life, when you could be playing with your children or having greasy sex with your boyfriend or writing obsessive fan letters to Pam~

Sigh.

Just to expend the full weight of your intellectual and emotional energy to tell my joke? Even if it is pretty darn hi-larious.

I was just embarrassed, I wanted to apologize to everyone for making them work so hard for our little play. I just don't feel worthy of that level of sacrifice, even though I am doublefunny, supercute, and unusually gifted in the pants.

Sigh.

Kirk: Okay, you're assuming they care about the joke. I'm assuming they don't. People do this because they love it, obviously, even those mysterious tech men and women in the black shirts who you don't see until the post production party and wonder, "Who the hell's that eating all the pizza?" Numerous times after Saturday's performance I heard people talking about their next show already, trying to get others to audition. Our jokes are just rungs in their ladder as they climb on to better things. They're all just rungs in our ladder as we tighten up this play to take it elsewhere. It's a fair trade...although, honestly, I'd sure like to take a couple rungs with us. More on that later, I assume.

But, I need to add that I do get the embarrassment, if for a different reason. The people need to know that immediately after returning to our homes after that first weekend's shows, you and I immediately got into rewrites. We knew what had to go, what may have to go, and what needed redone, and we came up with some fantastic ideas. Some great, great jokes. A much better ending and...hell, you know what we're about to do. But I just didn't want to see the show this weekend. I didn't want anyone else to, either. I was embarrassed that we hadn't given our actors these lines to begin with. I knew what jokes were going to die onstage, and that we'd already fixed them, but they still had to deliver the old ones. I felt like a general sending his troupes to certain death armed only with knives and sticks when I know we've got some kind of super weapon in development that will certainly save all their lives if we just wait. That was harder to deal with than I can convey to them or to your readers.

And hey, thanks for the complement on the littlest Hiners. I'm quite fond of them myself, yet I'm always surprised when others dig them as much as I do.

Jim: Oh, yeah, no problem on the kids. And, unlike the readers, who just assume I'm saying I enjoyed them out of a sense of protocol, you know I couldn't give a fuck about protocol, that the degree to which I will give out the clearly required platitudes in order to continue a relationship is almost nonexistent. They're good kids. You and the wife have done a good job. I'm pleased for you and a little bit stunned that somehow you've been able to get your personal shit together while I...well, suffice to say that I have not.

The other thing I totally get is how you must have felt going back the second weekend. Remember the one blog entry I wrote when it was the second to the last draft that inadvertently got put up? It really wasn't all that different from the final version, a sexual reference or two—maybe one more picture of Pam~ that I wanted to use and couldn't.

I'd assume no one but me would read carefully enough to notice. Me, though, I literally could not read that entry all the way through until the right version got put up. It pained me to read a version other than the final one. It was awful—so, yeah, I can picture you watching the play and wanting to scream, "That's the character we're cutting out!" or "See, right here, this is the part where we're gonna make you motherfuckers cry—all of you, even you, big dude sitting over there—you're gonna have tears in your eyes during this part!" I totally get that.

Kirk: Yeah, that's it. And it's not that I wanted the audience to see the new version. They'll have other opportunities. I just wanted the actors to have the better material. In my arrogance, I often felt I was outwriting my actors back in comedy troupe. I may have been wrong (note, I never felt that way about Hodges), but that's how I was. This is the first time I didn't, and it was weird to have to deal with that. But let's move on.

Jim: One more, here's the thing about our first ever production of Spoon Millionaires—I'm still not sure if I like our play; I'm still not sure if the actual work matches the level of satisfaction I have in our marketing of the work; and I'm still not sure if we're gonna get on the kind of roll necessary for me to stop feeling completely unworthy of my new print designation as gentleman playwright.

But what I am almost 100% convinced of is somehow, someway, we are really fucking close to writing something that's pretty damn good.

Kirk: That's it. We're closer than we've ever been. I self-published the novel because I knew it probably wouldn't get accepted, but I also knew there wasn't one more thing I could do to make it better. Best to just get it out and move on to the next project. But with Spoons, no, we've got places to go with it, and when it does get produced in a newer, better form somewhere else, we'll owe that in large part to Lima.

Jim: Let's talk about Lima as honestly as we feel comfortable with; the most obvious issue with the show is it is crazy long. Somehow we've written Long Day's Journey into Spoon Millionaires. Part of that was not on us; the tempo for this play needs to be breakneck, 90% of the lines have to be delivered like the actors' hair is on fire.

But most of that is us; the play's too long; we both knew it was too long, but to sit there on Friday night as long as we sat there on Friday night, and to know, say a couple hours in that we still had 30 pages to go, I just wanted to disappear inside my seat. I've rarely been as pleased with any of my decisions as the one not to sit up front at our assigned table, and instead hide in the back of the house jotting every thought I had in my script.

See how I said that like it was a tactical decision and not because I have an untreated social anxiety disorder to a really vicious degree? I'm doublecrafty like that.

The play was really crazy long. It won't ever be nearly that long again.

Kirk: Unless it's performed by a high school acting class, but we precluded that with our liberal use of the word "fucking" (as an adjective, never as a verb). That's my answer now when people ask why we need so many swear words in our play; it's pretty much the only thing we can do to determine who's performing it and for which audience.

Jim: People ask why we need so many swear words in the play? Fuck them. Seriously, it's just language, we're not biting the heads off live chickens. I absolutely refuse to buy into the puritanical notion that somehow there's something wrong with a collection of syllables. What does it even mean to "need" swear words? Why not ask why we need so many adverbs in the play? I never understood, for example, this idea that curse words or nudity [Note to Kirk: Why not add some nudity? We get the hot, sexy cast and I'm thinking that were we to add nudity, I might find a way to show up to the occasional production down the road.] is only okay somehow if it's not gratuitous? It's a play, man, it's not cardiothoracic surgery—all of it's gratuitous. There's no reason for any of it; we write things that strike us funny. It makes much more sense to ask, "Why do you need so many characters?" or "Why is that one scene so fucking long?" At least then that's an actual question not driven by one's infantile belief in the evil nature of a random collection of consonants. If it strikes me funny to add another dozen jokes all about areolas, that's what I'm gonna do.

Of course, my favorite play is Glengarry Glen Ross, so Ilike it like that.

These are theSpoon Millionairesleads. And to you, they're gold.
And you don't get them. Because to give them to you
is just throwing them away.SpoonMillionaires isfor closers.

If that's not for you, feel free to watch a rerun of Raymond Blows the Mailman instead.

But the fucking play is really fucking long.

Kirk: Yeah. Length. Our actors were drained by the time those last couple scenes rolled around. Hard to ask an audience to sit around that long, harder to ask those involved in the production to work that long, and it seems to annoy the reviewers, too.

Jim: Beyond that, it was a mixed bag. The production was what I thought it would be based on what I had heard from rehearsals. There were elements of it I really liked, elements of it I really didn't. [A note: I'm a dude of goodwill, and there's no real reason to throw anyone under the bus, but nor am I a Pollyanna, and there were elements of it that made me want to stab people in the jugular; if you need me to be more candid, feel free to e-mail). Overall, it was an enormously helpful experience that is already informing the Biggest Rewrite of Our Lives, and I am legitimately humbled by everyone's effort. Thanks to Lima, Ohio.

Kirk: This whole thing has been great for the play. If we decide to do another, I'm going to suggest we pass it through Lima first. I'll take this over a reading any day.

Jim: I do want to talk about three of the actors; the vituperative production blog isn't the place for shout-outs to one's friends, obviously, but since I'll almost certainly never see these people again, it's worth taking a moment to praise a few actors who gave us more than for which we had hoped.

I talked to Mike Bumbaugh (Brandon) for a few minutes after Friday's show. Seemed like a good dude, and given that he left engineering to teach, and someone of my acquaintance left the law to teach, we probably have some level of similarity. I don't care about any of that, though. What matters is the boy be funny. I've been hearing throughout the process that Brandon was gonna steal this show, an idea I hadn't even contemplated. There were a couple of characters and a handful of jokes that I thought were automatic laughs, but I didn't see Brandon as particularly crucial to the show.

But Mike was great, just consistently scored scene after scene, and most of my notes about him were how many of his takes I want to use for the revised stage directions in the Biggest Rewrite of Our Lives.

Kirk: After the first readthrough, Hodges told me that of everyone there, Mike most had that "Hiner delivery." He's wrong, of course. I was never half as good as Mike. Yeah, the guy was a workhorse, selling everything, and selling it well. I'm not sure what was him and what was George directing him, but there were numerous times when the action was elsewhere on stage, but I was watching Mike. He was just hilarious at nearly every moment. Funny offstage, too. A good guy.

Okay, who's next?

Jim: I spoke with Ali Ferda (Amber) for like 28 seconds after Saturday's show; I've been teaching a long time now, so my default is to try to give some variation of advice to people younger than I am. I didn't here, though, at least no advice that was recognizable as such. See, 'cause what I realized I wanted to say, as it percolated in my head, was that she shouldn't ever take advice from people like me.

Ali's strikingly pretty and strikingly young and strikingly talented, and if it hasn't happened already, she's going to spend the next decade having middle-aged white guys—who would all give up their pasts to have her future—saying something like, "Here's what I think you should do." Sure, it's possible that one of us might be helpful, but that's not worth her having to listen to the hundred of us who don't have a clue what it's like to have our entire lives in front of us and all the skill necessary to own every room in which we enter. A girl who has as much going as Ali Ferda shouldn't pay attention to people who don't.

I'm figuring she's way too cool to read the vituperative production blog, so I'll just say thanks for being part of the Spoonosphere (that one's Kirk's), Ali. Consider thanking us when you pick up your Academy Award. Or maybe just thanking Kirk. If I don't constantly feel overlooked I don't know what to do with myself.

Kirk: Jim's not being hyperbolic there, people. He's right. I've told Ali this, and I'll tell her again to make sure she understands, but when I saw her read of Amber in the first rehearsal I attended, I knew that character was going to become more than we had anticipated. Amber was completely incidental in the original version of this at ONU fifteen years ago, and when we rewrote it, we never once discussed making her more important. But you'll recall me, Jim, calling you right after rehearsal and saying we had to rewrite the ending because the audience was going to love Ali's Amber, and we had to give her a better ending. Thankfully, George accepted the rewrites that late in the game, and the play was better as a result.

Yeah, as the co-writer, I expected some of the actors to rise above our material and even inspire some changes. I wasn't expected any to cause us to reshift the entire focus of the play, and that's what she and Joel did. (We gotta recognize Joel Frezee here, too, as I don't think either of us found Steele all that likable until Joel played him. And an aside, I met the guy who was supposed to play Steele but had to pull, leading to Joel getting the part. Nice enough guy, but I get the feeling he would've played the part the same way I did in college (yes, Steele was me back in 1992), and that wouldn't have helped this show. Dude was at the cast party, though, and I did hear him lamenting the decision to drop because of the make-out scene he would've had with Ali. At the end of the night, he gave Ali his phone number. Ali, if you're reading this, before calling the guy, refer to Jim's comment above about middle-aged white guys offering advice.)

And for what it's worth, Jim, Ali gave me hell Saturday night because she went to read the blog last week and all she got was me talking about Tom Petty. I guess she doesn't understand how disappointing it is for a guy when Tom doesn't do "Breakdown" live. It's the kind of thing you dwell on for years.

Jim: And finally, our boy Jon Hodges (Luke). Jon and I did a handful of plays together in undergrad; Jon carried the performance end of the comedy troupe on his back for a couple of years; and Jon's a guy about whom I never heard a discouraging word at any point when we were all in school together. When you hand over your play to the theatrical community in Lima, Ohio, knowing that if it just dies on the stage, that would be the absolute end of Spoonmentum, you have some sleepless nights.

But of all the things that concerned me and Kirk about the production, we never had any doubt that Hodges would carry his end. Mike gave us more than we had written; Ali's crazyasstalent is more than we could possibly have expected; but Jon was always going to be money in the bank. Dude was good when he was 20. Dude's still good today.

That radio station up there needs to step up and take care of him before the right person figures that out and he bolts for greener pastures.

Kirk: It's a country station. They call him Harrison Frog. I hope the hell they don't step up so he can go to greener pastures and spin records that are actually worth spinning. If any of you run into Jon, ask him to tell the story of the irate listener who called to protest Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." That anyone would protest that song for a reason other than the fact that it sucks harder than a Super Bowl loss is at once hilarious and horrifying.

But yeah, Jon. Jon's the reason I decided to submit to Lima first. He played the Archduke in '92, and I had visions of him doing it again. Our director saw him as Luke, though, and thank God he did, because Jon was as good as I've ever seen him. Maybe better. I've always thought Jon was better than Ohio, that he needed to go to a bigger market and do bigger things. I had him in New York with me for a few weeks, but for one reason or another, he headed back to Ohio. I'm kind of okay with that now, though, because I'm also back in Ohio, and knowing he's around and will be available to work on my projects makes me more apt to actually give him a project on which to work. I thank him for that.

Jim: Alright, I've gotta shut this down and say goodbye to the people. What else do you got?

Kirk: Two things, really. Just two. First, we had a good cast. Some of them actually read this blog of yours, and if you're not mentioned here, don't take it personally. I spoke to you all, and you know how appreciative I am. But if you taught Jim and I anything this month, it's that we need to start cutting things shorter, so I can't mention all of you here. Likewise, although our director didn't handle a few of our jokes right, I think, he yanked the comedy from the script with glee in other areas, even where we didn't know there was comedy to be yanked (seriously, George, I had no idea Amber's "raisins" comment would be a sexual joke). And more importantly, he was always enthusiastic about the play and about its life after Lima, and that really matters.

Jim: So, kids, it's closing time for the vituperative production blog. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Several months ago, after we had finished Spoons but before we shopped it to Lima, Kirk and I compiled a list of our 10 top accomplishments. (When we are not actively engaged in writing something, we'll toss together a fairly random list: Top 5 Journey songs, for example, would be typical. I like "Send Her My Love" hop aboard, people!) It wasn't really to articulate our resumes, but instead to discuss what we had done that filled us with the greatest amount of pride. I think Kirk's number one accomplishment was his kids or something similarly appropriate, mine was killing that hobo back in '96.

Kirk: Did I really say my kids? Am I that guy now? I hope not. I love my kids, but are they my greatest accomplishment? All I did to get that done was fuck my wife.

Was that joke in bad taste? It's a Howie Mandel joke. I ripped it off. Here, how about this instead?

Did I really say my kids? Am I that guy now? I hope not. I love my kids, but are they my greatest accomplishment? Sam just drools all day long and Sophie cries when I refuse to show her the dirty diaper after removing it from her butt.

Jim: Yeah, two things: One, you didn't really say your kids, I think it was the novel; I was just putting you over as a good dude; that's one of the character development things I've done in the blog, see. You're the good guy; I'm the mess. I could point out a dozen little threads I've woven together to create that portrait. Here you are breakin' kayfabe in the last blog.

Two, shouldn't you have said, "fudge my wife?" Goddamn Hodges...you thought I wouldn't find out, didn't you? I'll kick Dorf's ass again; don't think I won't. Fudgin' Hodges.

Kirk: Sorry to get us off track—you were talking about our greatest accomplishments.

Jim: I don't know where this blog would rank on my list, but it would be really, really fucking high.

One of the pieces of advice I give to students is the way they can tell if they've written a good paper is if they want to read it after they're done. You know what I mean—sometimes, you finish something scholarly or creative and you give it a cursory glance and fundamentally you're just glad the thing is finished.

I do that too—but when I write something that I just adore, that expresses the form I had in my head, I just read it over and over, like a narcissist marveling at his own image in the mirror. "I'm the prettiest girl in the world," I've been heard to say when reading some of my more nimble references. And then I grab my shirt as if massaging my budding breasts. 'Cause that's how I roll, son.

I'm just really proud of this production blog; it's gonna be a long time before the answer to the question, "So, Jim, who are you, really?" isn't "Go read the blog, kid." I've long held that everyone's favorite word is their own name, and while earlier in this piece I lamented that nobody gets me, the truth of the matter is that that's wrong, 'cause I totally get me (perhaps I should amend that to "nobody good gets me") and while a healthy percentage of this blog is just my telling a story, building some drama, trying to create a compelling Jim Jividen character in order to sell the play, a lot of it is just flat me being me.

I'd prefer that a certain comely young lady about whom I may have obliquely referred might read this blog and get me as well.

Not that I have anyone in mind.

Sigh.

One last joke. I couldn't resist.

But if that's not going to happen, the next best option is that I read these pieces and know that I do, in fact, totally get me.

We're shuttin' this down now. Not the site; we're gonna have this site until the Spoonmentum grinds to a sad and lonely halt; it will continue to be updated, and perhaps, when the next production comes around, there might be a continuation of this blog. But this production blog is shutting down. Sooner rather than later, we'll have a MySpace account designed to pimp the show, and somewhere, probably the news section, we'll give that contact information. And should you so be inclined, as always, I'll continue to be reachable at jim@spoonmillionaires.com. Should you care to write, for whatever reason, I'll respond. I'm cool like that.

I appreciate your reading. For those of you who enjoyed Spoon Millionaires, Kirk and I appreciate your patronage. Hell, even if you left at intermission, we still appreciate it. You can walk out of a Hiner/Jividen play whenever you want, just pay up front, please.

It might happen for us, you know. When Kirk and I were barely 19 (young and taut, with high lipid counts and bursting with masculine essences) we went into the comedy business together. At no point, even when we had the pitch meeting for the sitcom, have I ever thought it might happen for us. But as we're now working on the Biggest Rewrite of Our Lives, and both of us can clearly see exactly what it is we need to do to make the show exactly what we want it to be, it is impossible not to be filled with an intoxicating combination of optimism and fear.

'Cause Spoon Millionaires is good. We think we can make it significantly better.

And, while it sounds silly to say...

...it really might happen for us. We're close. Look, it's a virtually impossible road to take; a remarkable degree of good fortune is required, and if it turns out that the awful truth of the matter is that Hiner/Jividen still isn't good enough, that wouldn't necessarily be a miscarriage of justice. The number of times you'll ever hear the words, "that isn't fair to Mr. Jimmy" come out of my mouth you can count on no hands.

But, I gotsta say, if Spoon Millionaires fucking rocks your boulevard, you shouldn't be surprised about that either. In the word of Johnny Drama, "Victory!"

I'm gonna conclude with a poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay. Oh, come on, you knew you weren't getting out of here without a philosophical reference or some Latin etymology or my quoting Justice Douglas from Griswold v. Connecticut. Be thankful I'm just gonna slap down a poem. When I left Ohio Northern University at the age of 24, after 7 years at that place, in the middle of the night swearing never to go back, I stood at a particular spot in town, and in my typically overly dramatic, painfully sincere "boom box over my head" Jividen way, I recited this poem, which I had committed to memory somewhere along the line.

With it, I'll say goodbye, and ask you to keep checking the site; go to the MySpace page when it appears; write me if the mood strikes you; wait for a production of Spoon Millionaires at your local theater; continue to help us build Spoon-mentum; and keep fighting the good fight, wherever you may find it.

Thanks for reading. Not just my blog, but everything you read, left to right, one line after another. It's fundamental, you know.

Stay Black, kids. Bye.

Travel

The railroad track is miles away,

And the day is loud with voices speaking,

There isn't a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,

But I see its cinders red on the sky,

And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,