Free stuff!

A free audio sample of The House on Summer Street is now available. It’s only me reading it, so it’s hardly one for the ages, but you’ll get a taste for the thing. I hope to get the book online this week. (Writing that previous sentence will motivate me to make it happen.)

Speaking of one for the ages, we saw King Lear Saturday night with the Clintons, although I would imagine that from their perspective, it was just a matter of seeing King Lear and we didn’t really factor into it. Everyone in the place seemed to need to take a photo of them (except for me; I’ve already seen plenty of pictures of them elsewhere, so the picture to the left I picked up on line). Whatever. Apparently the couple is in regular attendance, which I guess helps the actors get over the celebrity-in-the-house aspect. Otherwise, with theater in the round and celebs at 48 degrees, the temptation would be to play every line to 48 degrees and the hell with the rest of youse guys. As for the play itself, to tell you the truth, it’s another one of those where Shakespeare just strung together a whole lot of famous quotes and tried to make a story out of them. A king falls for flattery, and everyone winds up splattery, to take a “That’s Entertainment” angle on it. (“A ghost and a prince meet and everyone ends in mincemeat” is one of my favorite song lines ever.) Anyhow, it was time well spent. The forecast had been for strong thunderstorms—how appropriate is that?— but they never materialized. I guess the Clintons refused to let them happen. (And I have to wonder. I mean, this was King Lear. What the hell are those two laughing at so heartily? "Look, look, they just blinded that poor guy, ho ho ho!")

The first registrations for the new season are a week and a half away. I’ve probably got all the Sailors lined up Pups-wise, or at least all the Sailors I’m going to get. The Pups actually reminded me to sign up right away. So cute. It’s me and Dunay at the controls for this one this time around; Pups tab has cycled through a lot of people over the years, what with one thing or the other. JV is over in IE land these days, and Kaz does their policy, so new blood is needed. Anyhow, I probably should give the tabroom account one last glance, to make sure everything is copacetic. Big Bronx too, for that matter, although I’m assuming O’C is on that one with his usual maniacal diligence. Then again, O’C is at his Shaker Revival Meeting in Las Vegas at the moment, as anyone who hasn’t yet blocked him on Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook already knows. Three days of salt and pepper and nothing but salt and pepper. It’s like Woodstock without the mud or the music. Maybe he’s forgotten he has a tournament this year. Big Bronx. It’s also like Woodstock, three long days, also without the mud or the music. Or even the salt and pepper shakers. Historically, aside from the duration, the only similarity between the music festival and the tournament has been the presence of Wavy Gravy at the one and wavy gravy (AKA Foods From Far And Wide But Mostly Rice) at the other.

Too bad we postponed the DisAd. I would really like to be in WDW a month from now. Or right now, come to think of it. Boating along with O’C, merrily singing that it’s a world of laughter, a world of tears…