Author: Matthew Groff

At least the sun was some up…

I met a friend last night for a drink, but he was running late, and I had thirty minutes to kill at the bar by myself. It was 5pm, and the start of Happy Hour, and I was the only patron there.

I got a beer and a bourbon neat. I sat at the end of the bar, and watched as people came in, and I jotted down notes.

I thought about the fact that I really can’t day drink anymore. I mean I could, but I don’t feel right about it. This would be due to the kid. I feel like I need to be sober “just in case” something was to go wrong. So, when I get a moment to drink in the day time, I feel like I am getting away with something.

As I had my beer and bourbon, I thought popped into my head that I hadn’t had in a very long time; I wanted to smoke. I haven’t had a cigarette in four years, and I have no desire to smoke, but it was there for a second in my mind. Like thinking about an ex-girlfriend you never want to see again, but “POP!” – There she is in your head. Not that I was going down that road, but just for a second, I did miss smoking in a bar.

And to be in a bar, to meet a friend, and catch up, and laugh.

There was a book that I read called “Bluets” by Maggie Nelson, which I was considered poetry, but read like prose, but impacted me like I felt poetry always should have. I enjoyed it highly, and even tried copying its style for a book that I was writing. Of the many things that “Bluets” is about, the color blue plays a role of popping up in the authors life.

I feel that I’m having the color “navy” show up in my life. I am the one bringing it into my life, as I feel that I want more “navy” colored things in my life. I have even got my wife to add some navy colored clothes to her wardrobe, and we are not contemplating painting our bedroom a shade of navy. I have a watched whose band is red and navy, I have a navy checkered shirt, and navy blazer, and navy argyle socks. I do associate the color with New England, and I have a desire to relocate there when the NYC adventure, and maybe I see the color as a sign that it is time to leave the City.

I do feel like the color blue is the default refuge color of boring white men, or at least that is what I used to think. I remember someone making the joke that the Republican National Convention was also the national convention of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts.

I own several pairs of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts…

I have been thinking about the state of theatre, and the importance of community theatres. I cut my teeth in the theatres of North Teas before I moved up to New York, and to be honest, I had way more fun in the community theatres. Now, I can make a living here in New York, but it’s not as much fun, and the quality of performance is better, but not always.

I would not be the first person to write about the effects of capitalism on art and theatre in this country, so I won’t, but capitalism is the force that has and, if nothing changes, will continue to have on theatre in this country.

What I want to approach is my belief that most of the theatre that is consumed, is through community theatres. (I will look for research to back this up later.) I define a community theatre as a non-Equity house for actors and stage managers. So, in my mind, we are talking amateur to semi-professional. It is in these houses that people either get their first opportunities to work in a theatre, or experience live theatre for the first time.

What I find interesting is that, being that community theatre are place where people first get engaged in the theatrical arts, why aren’t professional theatres, unions, producers and performers dosing more to make sure these spaces stay open, and continue to thrive? The more community theatres there are, then the more fans you will create who will travel to NYC to see a show, or go to a local roadhouse to see the tour of a Broadway show.

Part of the reason that I started this blog was that I wanted to sharpen my skills when it came to writing for an audience. I am fully aware that just about no one reads this save to subscribers, and I think my wife. I have been out of the writing game for almost a decade now, I felt very rusty, and thought that this was a good way to keep working at it, even when I wasn’t sure what I was working on.

The way I see it, right now, I spend about three hours a day writing, give or take. I journal, write in this blog or at least try to type out 250 words, and I work on a project, which right now is one of three novels that I shift between. I have been keeping track in a calendar to see what I work on, so I can see what has been taking up my time. Since I have started the calendar, my productivity has increased.

Which leads me to the question that popped into my head right before I stared working on the blog: Am I writing, or am I typing? Am I just creating words for the ability to say that I am creating words, with the hope that someday they will naturally help me to become better as a writer? I can crank out words, but am I really saying anything?

The President lying about the Stormy Daniels stuff. This level of Keystone Cops – Amateur Hour lying is just sort of amazing. I’m pretty sure my three-year-old is better at lying than these guys. But then again, I think that is what it takes to be a con-man; you just have to go for it and see if anyone calls you out on it. And then there is that other thing, which is you might be called out on it, but that doesn’t mean anyone can stop you. I think they will keep lying and changing the story until someone or something stops them, which is sounding like jail.

And why aren’t cheerleaders in the NFL paid? There is a lot of stuff in the NY Times story that is fucked up, but how is it a billion-dollar corporation is unable to pay any member of its work force? Non-profits not paying people, calling them volunteers, I get that. But the NFL made $14 billion dollars in 2017, and they can’t pay cheerleaders? Honestly? You combine greed and sexism and you get this situation.