Category Archives: The South

September 26, 2010 · 11:36 pm

“The Glass Menagerie” at Triad Stage

We had the privilege of seeing the last performance of “The Glass Menagerie” at Triad Stage tonight.  Our season tickets are usually for earlier in the run, but we had to  move them later due to a conflict.  I really wish we had seen it earlier so I could encourage more people to go see it.  It was truly stellar.

Preston Lane’s post-modern staging, incorporating video and a striking, yet minimalist set was brilliantly executed.  His direction was spot on.  Preston and Triad Stage always do good work when presenting Tennessee William’s work, but they really raised the bar with this production.

While I love Tennessee Williams and know his work very well, “The Glass Menagerie” is usually my least favorite of his plays.  It could have something to do with  Southern Mother thing hitting a little too close home!  But, anyway, this was a whole new take on the play.  I’ve seen this play many, many times and for the first time, to me,  it really seemed to be Tom’s play and it was not overshadowed by Amanda.

All four actors gave lovely performances. It was a beautifully balanced ensemble consisting of Kate Goehring as Amanda/The Mother,  Cheryl Koski as Laura/The Daughter, Matthew Carlson as The Son/Tom and Tyler Hollinger as Jim/ The Gentleman Caller.  Great work by all.

If you missed this one, you really missed a treasure.  It’s nights like this that I am grateful that we have Triad Stage here in Greensboro.  Innovative, interesting theatre is always a treasure, but even more so when it’s in your own backyard.

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Filed under Entertainment, North Carolina, The South, Theatre

September 23, 2010 · 10:22 pm

Chapter 22: A Few Things I’ve Learned Along the Way | My Southern Gothic Life

I put up a new post on my other blog last night.  Here is an excerpt.  Please click the link for the full post….

Being born in the South, you are raised with a lot of preconceived notions.  When you are young, you are taught to accept certain things without question.

Well, I’m really am glad I’m not young anymore.  I’ve learned too much along the way that I don’t ever want to lose.

I admit, it might be nice to be 35 again. But I would never want to lose the knowledge and confidence that only comes with getting older.

Perceptions change with time, education and experience.  We learn a lot of things we are told when we are young are simply not true.  We learn life is a long, incredible endless journey that, hopefully, leads us to a truer knowledge of what’s real and not real.

Hopefully, we learn to find our own defining beliefs along the way…

Here are a few bits of personal knowledge I’ve picked up along the way:

via Chapter 22: A Few Things I’ve Learned Along the Way | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under My Journey, The South, Virginia

September 17, 2010 · 10:40 pm

Chapter 21: Summer Jobs and The Mad Men of Danville | My Southern Gothic Life

Finally, a new post is up at my other blog:

I’ve recently had a revelation.  The concept of ‘”summer jobs” is really a passe concept.

Nowadays it seems kids spend the summers going to “camps” to increase their skills and marketability for College as opposed to earning cash for college like my generation did.

I think this is a contributing factor to the break down in societal cohesiveness and the understanding of Class Structure in America.

I know it was a different time and place, but I think I got almost as much education in Life 101 from my summer jobs as I got from College.  For one thing, the jobs we had back in “the day” generally required us to interact with people from, how does one say this politely, other classes?

My Father had a very strong work ethic.  He believed you worked yourself to death, like he did at age 55.  He was from the traditional school of thought that men worked.  Period.

I delivered papers from the time I was about 10 0r 12 until I went away to College.  In addition, as soon as I turned 16, I had Summer Jobs.  I’m not talking internships.  I worked in the warehouse of my Father’s Company or at Dan River Mills.

via Chapter 21: Summer Jobs and The Mad Men of Danville | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under Danville, My Journey, Social Commentary, The South, Virginia

September 3, 2010 · 3:22 pm

Cammie King, Bonnie Butler in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 76 | PopEater.com

But Olivia de Havilland (Melanie Wilkes) is still around and kicking…

Cammie King Conlon, the former child actress who portrayed the doomed daughter of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ has died at the age of 76. She died of lung cancer Wednesday morning at her Fort Bragg home on California’s north coast, said friend Bruce Lewis. Her son, Matthew Ned Conlon, was by her side.

Conlon was picked to play the small but pivotal role of Bonnie Blue Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic at age 4. Her character’s death in a fall from a pony irrevocably damages Rhett and Scarlett’s tumultuous marriage.

Conlon also voiced the young doe Faline in Walt Disney’s ‘Bambi’ three years later. It would be her final film role.

“My mother decided she wanted me to have a normal childhood,” she wrote on her blog, which talked about her brief career and a memoir she published last year on her ‘Gone With the Wind’ experience. She often joked with interviewers that she had “peaked at 5.”

The Los Angeles native graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in communications and spent two years editing California Pictorial magazine. She moved to Mendocino County 30 years ago, working as director of the Kelly House museum and as a publicist for the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce and the Little River Inn.

Conlon stayed in touch with her ‘Gone With the Wind’ family. On Sunday night, she took a call from Olivia de Havilland, who played Scarlett’s sweet-hearted nemesis Melanie in the film, her son said.

via Cammie King, Bonnie Butler in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 76 | PopEater.com.

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Filed under Entertainment, Movies, The South

September 1, 2010 · 9:48 pm

True Prep

This one is mainly for my College friends.  The Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar, RMWC, Mary Baldwin, UVA and other Virginia Colleges  gang.

The rest of you, please bear with us…

If it’s any help…my partner says he would probably have hated me in College, but we’ve managed to reach a stylistic middle ground and last almost 14 years…

Lisa Birnbach was one of the authors of “The Official Preppy Handbook” back in the late 1970’s- early 1980’s.  I won’t say it was our handbook because that implies we didn’t know it all before hand.  It just happened to reflect our lives at the time.  Her new book, “True Prep”, comes out on September 7th.  It’s about Preps at Middle Age.  I’ve already pre-ordered my copy from Amazon.com.

I’m already scared….How many cliches can I be at one time?  I’m already seen as a middle aged Guppy and now I realize I’m still a middle aged Preppie.  From what I have read of this book so far, I’m totally still a prep.  Just because I have at least a half dozen pair of Cole Haan Loafers and my weekend wardrobe is totally J Crew.  Everything else is Brooks Brothers or Ralph Lauren.  It hurts to face the truth….

You can take the boy out of W&L, but you can’t take the W&L out of the boy…

Here is the video that defines our generation’s new place in Society:

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Filed under Entertainment, Gay, My Journey, Social Commentary, The South, Virginia

August 29, 2010 · 2:48 pm

Congressional Campaign Ads: Against Virginia Fox and for Tom Perriello

Here’s a great ad from Billy Kennedy who’s running against the totally insane Virginia Foxx in the next Congressional District over here in NC:

Here’s Tom Perriello’s first ad in VA 5th District’s, my old home district.  Tom is such a top notch Congressman.  Especially after that fool Virgil Goode.  I hope the folks in his district realize how lucky they are, but I fear they don’t….

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Filed under North Carolina, Politics, The South, Virginia

August 28, 2010 · 9:41 pm

This is who `we’ really is, Glenn – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

I love Leonard Pitts….

Here is an excerpt from his column on Glenn Beck and his ridiculous and insulting rally.  I encourage you to click the link and read the entire post.  It’s worth it.

Thanks to Steve for making sure I saw this…

`This is a moment,” said Glenn Beck three months ago on his radio program, “…that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. . . . We are on the right side of history. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!”

Beck was promoting his Restoring Honor rally, to be held Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial, 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King famously spoke there. You’ll notice he didn’t define the “we” he had in mind, but it seems reasonable to suppose Beck was speaking of people like himself: affluent middle-aged conservatives possessed of the ability to see socialism and communism in places where it somehow escapes the notice of others.

If you agree that assumption is reasonable, then you must also agree Beck’s contention that his “we” were the architects of the civil rights movement is worse than nonsensical, worse than mendacious, worse than shameless. It is obscene. It is theft of legacy. It is robbery of martyr’s graves.

via This is who `we’ really is, Glenn – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com.

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Filed under Politics, Social Commentary, The South

August 27, 2010 · 11:04 pm

Chapter 18: Drinking Again | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog.  Here is an excerpt and a link to the full post:

There are three predominant themes to life in the South:  Sex, Religion and Drinking.  I’ve touched on each of these subjects and will do so more on the future.

For now, let’s concentrate on drinking.

That seems to be the through line in my posts so far.  We spend a lot of time thinking about alcohol in The South.  And, if we are honest, we spend a lot of time drinking in The South–or talking about why we don’t.  Or those who do…

Southern culture, as I know it, is built on hypocrisy.  We were trained at an early age to play a role and hide it if we deviated from the role.  This always lead to conspicuous alcohol consumption.

Therefore, we spent a lot of time focusing on these areas of thought about drinking:

Drinking too much

Lying about drinking too much

Lying about not drinking

Hiding from our neighbors that we were drinking.

It was both a very simple and very complicated situation.

via Chapter 18: Drinking Again | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under My Journey, Religion, The South

August 21, 2010 · 3:25 am

Chapter 17: The Gym | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog:

I am now a gym rat.  I know several people who read this blog and have known me since childhood have already fainted.  Please pick yourselves up off the floor and work with me…

I will readily admit, until I was in my late 40′s, I did everything I could to avoid the gym.  It was the source of too many bad memories of “not belonging” and being inadequate as a conventional guy.

I was always intellectually competitive, but I missed the physically competitive gene.

via Chapter 17: The Gym | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under My Journey, Social Commentary, The South

August 17, 2010 · 11:40 pm

Chapter 16: Losing My Religion | My Southern Gothic Life

I have a new post up on my other blog.  Here is the opening and a link to the full post:

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I lost my religion.  Or at least my patience with organized religion.

Growing up, we were Social Baptist.  That means we went to Church, like most people did back then, as kind of club.  It was just something one did.  You didn’t really think too much about it.  We thought that was for the best…

Religion, or the beliefs part, was viewed as a private journey.  It was considered tacky and intrusive to talk about it too much in public.  One went to Church to socialize, hear a sermon meant to make you think on your own, and then went on with the week.

via Chapter 16: Losing My Religion | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under Danville, Gay, My Journey, Politics, Social Commentary, The South, Virginia