Born Yesterday

In the fall of 1979, a bunch of us defected

From the Acting Company

By that I mean, we got sick of Beau’s shit

And the general company shit

And the business shit

And the shit shows

And we decided that we’d rather do theater

In a basement

With a folding table

And three flashlights

Than put up with it anymore

And this was the beginning

Of the independent theater explosion

Of the late 70’s-early 80’s

Or, as the local paper referred to it

‘The ants scurrying from the anthill’

The local paper refused to cover us

Or anything we did

Because Beau threatened to pull all the advertising money

The Orpheus Theater was spending

So the newspaper acquiesced

It didn’t really matter

We didn’t care how big of an audience we got

We just wanted to do our own thing

I was the first one to leave

After Beau tried casting me in Born Yesterday

Have you ever seen Born Yesterday?

It’s so dated, I’m surprised they don’t include it

In time capsules

This was 1979 and even back then

It was groan-inducing

Beau and I got into a fight

And I ended up taking off

I found this great space on the third floor

Of a building with a porn shop on the first floor

And a tattoo parlor on the second

Beggars can’t be choosers

The landlord of the building let me have the space

As long as I gave his girlfriend a lead

In every show I did

I’d love to say she was a great actress

But the truth is, she was from Germany

And the only English words she knew were ‘Credit,’ ‘card,’ and ‘Diamond’

Over the next six years

I turned her into a pretty decent actress

And by ‘pretty decent’

I mean, ‘sort of not terrible’

I named what we were The Crash Course Group

And we managed to hang around for awhile

Until the building burnt down in 1985

And my wife told me she’d leave me

If I spent the rest of my life

Mounting Beckett plays

That nobody wanted to see

So I became an art teacher

And a part-time pot dealer

Because why not, you know?

Quick story though—

Beau came to see the first production we ever did

In that building downtown

He sat right in the front row

With his arms crossed

And when it was over

He sort of slow-clapped

As if he’d just witnessed an abortion onstage

If I’m not mistaken

There might have been an abortion in that first play

So maybe that’s why

Afterwards he walked up to me

With this look on his face

Like…like…

Like he was saying—

You gave up being in one of the best acting companies in the country

For THIS?

But what he said was—

‘You sure?’

I felt like saying to him—

Everybody’s gotta have their own dream

And everybody who works for you

Is just working towards your dream

Not theirs

But I didn’t say that

Because he wouldn’t have understood

And even if he did

He would have said ‘What’s wrong that?’

He thought of himself as a kind of prophet

A savior

And we should all be so lucky

To be his apostles

Well, I didn’t see it that way

But don’t get me wrong

I loved the guy, I really did

Closest thing to a father

I ever had

So I gave him a hug

And said ‘I’ll miss you, you old bastard’

And he hugged me back

And that was that

So did I make the right choice?

Yeah, I did

You know why?

Because it was my choice

And my dream

And my failure

Maybe it was all one big waste of time

But at least it was mine, you know?

It was all mine