Clark Kent, super blogger

"Well, Clark Kent is leaving the Daily Planet.  Superman is resigning his day job as a reporter and going rogue, possibly as a self-employed blogger."  -- Washington PostDear Readers,Sorry I haven't blogged in a while.  Just been so so so busy.   Been full of ideas, though.  Since I haven't had time to flesh them out as full-fledged posts, though, I decided to share them in trusty list form, because, hey, lists are teh awesome.  So enjoy: CLARK'S TOP 10 BLOG POST IDEAS.1. Don't you hate it when you're wearing one complete outfit underneath another complete outfit on top, for any of the many valid reasons people do that sort of thing, and you can't get the outfit on top, the outer outfit, to fall quite right?  Your shirt's riding up in back and there are those weird wrinkles across your thighs?  And don't get me started on how wearing two complete outfits one on top of the other gets mad stuffy, yo.  Um, hello, corporate air conditioning gods, some of us are wearing two outfits at once here, a little consideration?2.  Also, when the sleeve of your underneath outfit starts sort of peeking out from under the sleeve of your top outfit and people are like, "Clark, is that your long underwear?  It's July."  *facepalm*3.  Check out this instagram of what I made for dinner last night: chicken and onion tagine with black bean quinoa.  Clark FTW!  Yo, I can't even pronounce quinoa!  But I can cook it all right.  Just four seconds under the heat ray.  Best.  Snack.  Ever.4.  Had a kerfuffle with the gf and she came out with this one: "It just doesn't seem like anything hurts you."  Hello, since when is this a bad thing?  So then I bashed myself with a crowbar, smiling all the while.  j/k, regular people like us can't do stuff like that thing with the crowbar.5.  Used to think there wasn't anything I couldn't do.  Then, just recently, I took up knitting.  WTF.  Here's a photo of my latest scarf/potholder.  I HAVE FEWER STITCHES THAN I STARTED WITH, WHAT IS GOING ON?  *headdesk*  *deskbreaks*  *buynewdesk*6.  One side effect of the rise of the cell phone that no one talks much about for some reason?  No more public phone booths means -- wait for it -- no place to change clothes wherever you suddenly need to.  Am I the only one who's noticed this?  Department store changing rooms are too far away, and the clerks there are judgey.  And public restroom stalls?  Um, yeah, I just threw up a little in my mouth.7.  Hate the way, when you throw up a little in your mouth, then you're carrying around that vomitty taste.  You know the taste I mean: tastes like mossy radioactive gravel?  We've all been there.8.  Facebook.  Here's the thing.  Friends from work, okay.  Old school friends from the farm town back home, that's cool.  Your mom and dad and their friends, that's getting weird.  But when someone who actually calls himself your archnemesis -- his words, not mine -- sends you a friend request, what.  Is.  Up.  With.  That?  I'm looking at you, Lex.  #mixedsignals9.  Another thing about the cell phones: what if your outfit doesn't have any pockets, as is the case with many of the outfits one wears daily?  Am I supposed to just carry the phone around in my hand?  smh.  What if I have to get some coffee, or punch somebody?  j/k, normal people don't usually have to do punching.I said there'd be ten, huh?  Gonna have to put a pin in that, though, because my DVR is at like 97% and these back episodes of "Honey Boo Boo" aren't going to watch themselves.  In the meantime, please, comment and link; I'm still trying to figure out how to monetize this mutha.  Clark out!

I'm as Big as a Bird, Now

Thanks to last night's debate, Big Bird is at the center of the national political conversation.  But he's been there before.  Here's a Halloween-themed comic strip I published about five presidential campaigns ago.Bleak Street 

Insane in the Meme Bain

The time: the year 2000.  The place: a guy’s office.  He places a phone call.  Someone answers:MITT:  Good morning, Bain Capital.GUY: Hi there.  I was calling to speak with the CEO?MITT:  This is the CEO.GUY:  Terrific.  So look: I’m just calling because I’m working on a project and I was hoping to get some numbers...MITT:  Let me stop you right there ‘cause I’d hate to waste your time.  For answers like that I’m afraid you’d need to talk to the CEO.GUY:  I--.  Oh.  Sorry, I--.  But aren’t you the CEO?MITT:  Me?  Oh ho ho ho.  Goodness, no.  No, no.  Wouldn’t that be something, though.GUY:  O--kay, but... didn’t you just say that you were the...?MITT:  Did I?  No.  I don’t think so.  No, I didn’t say that.  Almost certainly not.GUY:  Okay, then, could I please speak with the CEO?MITT:  Speaking!GUY:  So... you are the CEO?MITT:  Yessir.  Last time I checked, yep.GUY:  ...Okay, then, I was wondering if I...MITT:  Oops, hang on, just checked again -- nope.  Uh-uh.  Definitely not the CEO.  Sorry about that.GUY:  You’re not the CEO.MITT:  Not even a little bit.GUY:  Tell you what -- could I talk to the president of Bain instead?MITT:  Absolutely.  Terrific guy, you’ll love him.  Let me transfer you.GUY:  Thank you.Beeps, clicks, ringing.  Then:MITT:  Hello, Bain Capital!GUY:  ...Aren’t you... the guy I... was just talking to?MITT:  Am I?  Hard to say!GUY:  And you’re -- president of Bain Capital?MITT:  President?  Oh gosh no.  I’m just the lowly CEO.GUY:  So you are the CEO.MITT:  Absolutely.GUY:  You’re sure?MITT:  Positive.GUY:  -- Seriously, you’re sure?MITT:  My friend, I think I know who I am, gosh.GUY:  Okay, so as the CEO...MITT:  President.GUY:  Sorry?MITT:  President.GUY:  Not CEO.MITT:  Don’t think so.GUY:  Can’t you be both?MITT:  You tell me.  Can light be both a particle and a wave?GUY:  -- Can’t it?MITT:  I’m asking you.  Gee, I’m no scientist.  I’m just a simple CEO.GUY:  You are the CEO!MITT:  Or president, whatever.GUY:  Different approach, here.  Could I just talk to a managing member of Bain Capital Investors?MITT:  Speaking!GUY:  -- Or someone else entirely, maybe?MITT:  You bet, friend.  Let me just transfer you.Beeps, clicks.MITT:  Hello, Bain Capital!GUY:  Look, I just wanted to talk to the CEO...MITT:  I’m afraid if you want to talk to him I’m going to have to transfer you back to myself.GUY:  So you are the CEO!!MITT:  I was.  I just retroactively resigned.GUY:  Retroactive to when?MITT:  To the beginning of this phone conversation.  Paperwork just went through.GUY:  So this conversation never even happened?MITT:  Oh, it happened.  Silly.  But you had it with someone else entirely.GUY:  Who’d I have it with?MITT:  Beats me, fella!  I wasn’t here!GUY:  So you’re the CEO of Bain Capital.MITT:  Yes.  Absolutely not.GUY:  And instead you’re the president.MITT:  Yes.  I was. Until you asked that question.  Now not so much.GUY:  And -- who am I?MITT:  I don’t know.BOTH:  Third base!Fin.

Why I'm a Playwright

When ACCIDENTAL RAPTURE was produced by the 16th Street Theater they asked me to write something. I tried to explain to them: I'd already written something! What was I, a machine? But anyway, this is what I wrote:People often ask me why I’m a playwright. That’s not true. People often ask me to move my car. Apparently I’m not supposed to park there. Frankly I’d prefer it if they were asking me why I were a playwright. If they did—if they asked me why I’m a playwright, and honestly I don’t know why more people don’t ask me that, it’s really pretty fascinating stuff—I’d probably say something about the vibrant immediacy and political vitality of live theater, about the collaborative dynamic, about how Tom Stoppard said writing dialogue is a respectable way to argue with oneself in public. Some stuff like that. Only I’d make it sound good; I work with words for my job thing, after all.Really, though, it’s about the white space. I’ve done other kinds of writing, and most of them require so many words. You have to fill almost every inch of your blank page with the things. Like poetry, playwriting can occupy obscenely vast expanses of pages’ real estate with remarkably few words. Playwriting is a wasteful landowner of a genre, looking smugly over its sprawling and underpopulated Beckettian vistas, reveling in the pleasure of having so much more room to stretch out in than over in those Dostoevskian tenements where words huddle crammed together, sometimes as many as fifteen or twenty to a line.Too much? Yeah, I’ll probably fix it when I revise this. I’m a writer, after all, and revision is one of the tools we have for to make the words more better.Point is: what do writers in other outlets use to fill all that white space? Everything: what the characters are wearing, what their surroundings look like, what they’re thinking and feeling, how and when they move, what they ate that morning. Playwrights, unless they’re Eugene O’Neill (and who is, nowadays?), don’t care about that stuff, because playwrights have other people around who care about that stuff for them: designers, directors, actors. It sounds like I’m lazy. And indeed I am. I really don’t want to have to move my car. But also: every time a play is produced, the playwright has the pleasure of seeing how all these other people have helped to fill in that white space, with the result being a play that’s not really at all like any of the plays this script has been before.