Here's Dorothy onstage, playing Death, Herself an impossibly long time ago. 2009, if I'm not mistaken, at the Off Center Stage. But who remembers such details? Time (that again) and other exigencies—some of which are operative for you at this particular time, no doubt—make such lavish and thrilling stage shows impossible at the present moment. But this situation, these conditions, lead inexorably—if one is willing—to other opportunities.
But first.
This is an MRI of what started the whole thing—the whole Death thing—for me. This brain abscess darned near killed me in 1998. My left temporal lobe was toast, gone. In fact the ER doctor later told me—he actually wrote a letter to me when he retired— that not only should I not be talking and writing, I shouldn't, by rights, be alive. And yet.
Now for my NDE I had no tunnels with angels nor loved ones waiting for me, no dreamy or otherwise landscapes. No memories at all, as a matter of fact. But when I awoke 3 days later, unable to speak or to comprehend very much of what was going on around me, I knew things. Things had changed. I had changed. And for your benefit and to save time, they can be put into these three things: 1. There is a god, or someone or something roughly along those lines. A great intelligence or presence of love. I don't want to get into details, for I have none. 2. We are all in this crazy thing together whether or not present company suits us or not. That is, All means All. 3. Everything is, and will be, OK. No matter what it happens to feel or seem like right now.
It was pretty overwhelming. Some months later I felt grief, real grief, for the guy who had lived for 45 years in the left side of my head, because it was clear now that it, and he, were gone forever.
6 months later, I was writing again. And my painting career began. A whole new era of my life began, as a matter of fact. I do forget it sometimes, of course. But after this, everything I had seemed like a true gift. It really is.
And that's what making friends with Death did for me. Perhaps it can do the same for you.
Here, over 10 years after the first show in 2006, still doing the show in 2017 at the Lets Reimagine End of Life event in San Francisco.
The thing is, I was not, and am not, interested in communicating what happened to me while I was in the hospital. I couldn't even if I tried. But what I feel compelled to communicate is a sense of lightness, or relief, of humor, a sense that we're all in it together, you, I, life, death. That the whole shebang is Just This. And it's fine. And a sense that, when we're able, even for a moment, to appreciate this fact, we can live so so so much more fully.
So, in a very rough and probably unsatisfactory way, that's what I've been trying to do with this show for all these years—14, I think it is now. In coffee shops, real theaters, peoples' living rooms and outdoor decks, art galleries, churches, comedy clubs, night clubs & drag clubs from Alaska to Massachusetts, Port Townsend to Tucson.
So yeah, the old lady Dorothy, She who became Death Herself, is tired, and, like the rest of you, homebound. And, not to mention, awfully busy these crazy days, no doubt. With the Business.
So we're morphing the whole thing from a 90-minute stage show to a serialized podcast story. One chapter at a time. This has the benefit of allowing us—Dorothy and I—to put a lot of material back in that got cut because of our time limit. To our artistic sensibilities this is indeed very satisfying. It's as if we're given a much larger canvas to work on. For in storytelling, time is space. Now we've got you sitting down at the kitchen table with us, sharing a cup of coffee, and we can tell the whole thing.
If you're not familiar with the Patreon site - it's a way for people to support - to be patrons - of artists, musicians, journalists, and storytellers - like me! Most of my material is up on my page for free. Go ahead and check it out. You don't need to sign up for anything at all. No salesman will call. but you can see my latest writings and songs and podcast stories.
So this is appearing on my Patreon site now. For free, if that's what it takes. I did have this story at the $5/month tier, but I just can't bear to charge for things, to make some things available and others not on the basis of price. I trust that if you like my material and want to support the creation of it, you'll join in. If not, that's cool too. My policy with live shows was that no one would ever be denied because they couldn't afford a ticket. Same here.
Lots of material that never was in the stage show will be in this extended version. Dorothy's golf game with the God of War, for instance. Just so you know, the God of War was murderously angry (naturally, of course) that Dorothy—"this old hag"— got the top job instead of him. So she had to convince him otherwise. What better way than to whip his ass in 9 holes?
And so much, much more.
Also • Plus • In Addition • I've got the first two chapters of my new story, 2025 • A Story from the Future. Post-Apocalypse, a man wanders in the world alone, heading for the mountains. Alone until he starts meeting some friends. Special friends. A small bird who says the right thing at the right time. An Ant. An Ant well-versed in philosophy. A story-telling trio of a pig, a dog, and a turkey who say they escaped a farm run by Bruce Willis. Hardly anyone believes it - but these days? Who knows? It would be unwise to tell you more at this time.
You know, I have no idea what's coming up and I'd venture that no one else does either. But even in the midst of what seemed like the semi-rock-solid normality of a few months ago, no one had any idea, either. Such is life. "Nobody knows anything." The immortal words of William Goldman.
King Felix, which words appeared in a newspaper headline about a champion baseball pitcher, means The Happy King. Those words are important to me. We are not, by all appearances, in the realm of The Happy King at the moment. But neither the little shaman clown with the three-pointed cap, ready to make a joyful noise with her little horn, nor Hello Kitty, whose cheerful embrace of the world is imperturbable, would be brought low by this situation, by this knowledge. That's my guess, at least. They live in a timeless realm right next to ours. Maybe that's where The Happy King lives, too. I don't know. But I think so. And I think that world is, really, right next to ours, even in our darkest moments.
Please take care and remember that kindness is always possible. We are all here together.
