In the Burgh

Well, I'm back in Pittsburgh, and I dragged my carcass out of bed to meet Ms. Amy Hartman for a little lunch before her appointment, and my rehearsal. Of course, I'm going to have hours to kill before my rehearsal, but that's okay, 'cuz there's stuff I need to do.

I'm writing on a Port Authority Bus right now... which is always a weird experience, riding these busses. Too many memories. Did you know that my dad worked for the Port Authority for most of his life? I may have mentioned in the early days of our family how he often held three jobs at one time to support his huge brood, but when it was finally possible to make enough money at one job to quit the others, it was the Port Authority that made it possible. He did pretty well for himself there, I think; he was a mechanic for years, but when age and those knees he'd abused during his high school years finally caught up with him, he moved over to the upholstery repair shop and worked on repairing torn or ripped seat covers. This back in the day before bus seats were covered in fabric. It was this quasi-plastic Naugahyde material. I used to joke with him and call him a professional seamstress. Like most everything, my dad took it in stride.

I'm reminded of the kitchen table set he re-covered sometime in the 1980s; I'm not sure exactly when. But he recovered the seats of this lovely ice-cream parlor type set we had in this orange Naugahyde material, and the craftsmanship of that work strikes me to this day. Those chairs lasted forever. In fact, when my parents decided to get a new kitchen table and chairs in the late eighties, they gave that set to me, and I kept it up until about three years ago or so. And the only reason the set got retired was because the table finally fell apart. Those chairs still see occasional service at Gavan's place, for parties and such.

But I have really mixed feelings about the Port Authority. More specifically about the union that represents workers. My dad's experience really informs my view of unions to this day. When the Port Authority workers went on strike in the late 80s/early 90s (I can't remember which, frankly), right after a nationwide Greyhound strike, the union pretty much told them they'd spent all their money on the Greyhound workers, and the local was on its own. My dad and his friends really suffered through that strike.

So I have some pretty strong trust issues with unions. It seems to me they're much like insurance companies: Perfectly happy to take your cash, but really, really reluctant to give it back when the time comes.

Not quite sure how I feel about being back in Pittsburgh for my theatrical swan song. Though, truth be told, if I hew to my plan, as it were, this isn't really a swan song so much as the curtain falling on Act One? Or maybe Act Two, since my first stint in Corporate America might more properly be considered Act One.

I had an interesting discussion with Amy Hartman about the weirdness involved in being an actor, and how others - even other artists - place so much pressure on us to, for want of a better word, perform. And I don't mean on stage. We do it when we run into each other on the street: "So what are you doing now?" And of course we have to be apologetic 'cuz we can't afford to take a class or we're working a temp job 'til the next gig comes along, or this or that or the other thing. If you're not working on something right now, and have plans to do something more on top of it, somehow there's this implied inadequacy. It's a thing we do to ourselves, mostly in that we allow others to do it to us; and there's scant comfort in knowing that the same thing happens to them, as well.