"Pace is story just as surely as character is destiny."

--Stanley Kubrick
(excerpted from Kubrick by Michael Herr)

Sorry, kids: summer is dunzo.

The best way to celebrate the end of our most skin-cancerous season? For my money, it's the upcoming Robyn Hitchcock show at Symphony Space on November 22nd, where my favorite musician will be playing the entirety of what might be the ultimate autumnal album this side of Plastic Ono Band, I Often Dream of Trains. For the uninitiated, it's a deathly-quiet album chock full of bones and skulls and leaves crackling underfoot. That is, when it's not veering into a few desperate explosions of utter despair. The surreal moments of Hitchcock's gallows humor keeps the whole thing gently, if precariously, afloat. For those of you who haven't seen me in a while, and that means just about everybody, on November 22nd, nothing, and I mean nothing will keep me from this event.

Second best way to celebrate fall?

Here's a documentary film I co-produced with six talented cohorts in 2006. If you thought Sissy Spacek's prom was a big deal, you obviously have never been to Racine, Wisconsin. Anyway, see the whole thing here, free of charge!

If you like what you see, why not purchase the home version?

Several years back, an actor I knew landed a small part in a movie. He heard he figured prominently in the coming attractions trailer before a summer action flick. Naturally, he was excited to catch himself on the big screen. "One ticket for Gone in 60 Seconds," he told me, "is the loneliest sentence I've ever uttered."

While we're on the subject of things that will disappear in a minute or less, here's my entry in the 2008 GI60 Play Festival, recently held simultaneously at Brooklyn College and Leeds University.

On Death and Dying*
* with Apologies to Elizabeth Kubler Ross

A DOCTOR holds an X-Ray, while a MAN in a paper robe awaits his fate.

A Slide Reads---

On Death and Dying*
*with Apologies to Elizabeth Kubler Ross

Next slide-- The Five Stages of Death

MAN
So?

DOCTOR
Bad news. We've found a spot.

MAN
And?

DOCTOR
The worst has happened.

MAN (Choked)
How long do I have?

DOCTOR (holding X-Ray to the light)
By the looks of this...I'd say...thirty...maybe sixty seconds--
tops.

Slide-- Stage 1: Denial

MAN
There's been a mistake! You must be reading that X-Ray wrong!

DOCTOR
I wish that were true.

Slide-- Stage 2: Anger

MAN
You incompetent fool! Isn't there something you can do?

DOCTOR (Shaking his head)
It's inoperable.

Slide-- Stage 3: Bargaining

MAN (Pleading, grabbing DOCTORS lapels)
If I can just live long enough to see the last reality television show canceled...

DOCTOR
No such luck. Do you have your affairs in order?

Slide-- Stage 4: Depression

MAN (Angst)
Why bother? I've got, what? Fifteen---

DOCTOR (Looking at watch)
Ten.

MAN
Ten seconds left?

Slide-- Stage 5: Acceptance

MAN (Diplomatic)
Well, I've had a good run. On the bright side: no more tax returns, traffic jams, La Cucaracha ring tones, ice-cream headaches, inscrutable pharmaceutical commercials, Bill O'Reilly, or Prostate Exams...

DOCTOR (Snapping his glove on)
One more for old times' sake?

MAN (Faraway look, steadying himself)
I...I can feel my life force draining...

DOCTOR (Noticing X-Ray, sees something)
Wait a minute...

MAN
I...I can see it... A tunnel! A tunnel of light...it's beautiful!

DOCTOR (Holding X-Ray to the light)
Silly Billy! I had this thing upside down! That spot's supposed to be there! You're perfectly healthy!

Slide--- Step 6: Anger

MAN puts his hands around DOCTOR's throat. Chokes him.

Slide-- Step 1: Denial

DOCTOR (Choking)
This can't be! I'm too young to die!

Curtain