A New Musical is Coming to LA

A new musical is coming to Los Angeles. King Kalimari , written and directed by Derek Taylor Kent, opens April 13 at the Avery Schreiber Theatre in North Hollywood. For more information on the production and tickets, go to kingkalimari.com


I must confess that I am in the cast as the somewhat eccentric, to say the least, narrator. And I am one of the more subdued characters in this over-the-top romp through life at a crucial historical time in the Kingdom of Kermopoly. It will run on Friday and Saturday evenings through June 2.

In my spare time, I am also in rehearsal for a "synagogue" play written by Morgan Land to be performed by a cast of both youth and adults on June 3 and 10 at Congregation Ner Tamid in Rancho Palos Verdes.. This is the 4th play written by Morgan for the Habimah program. They are great fun and really provide an incredible opportunity for the young people of the congregation. Morgan has gone out on a limb this time in that he has cast me as both Moses and Abraham. (Now that is a huge weight to bear!) And he is either brave or foolhardy in that he actually has me sing (much to the chagrin of my family who only allow me to sing during religious services and then only in Hebrew). It will be both interesting and great fun.

The Printer Solution; As if anyone cares

The printer problem mentioned in the previous entry has been solved. . .for now. It really was simple. When I discovered that Epson had Vista compatible drivers for the printer on my computer, I switched printers and downloaded drivers. Donna now has my Epson and I have her Lexmark. Now if Palm would update their drivers, she could Hotsync her Palm and all would be well.

New Operating Systems. Argghh!

Well, it was fun helping Donna buy a new Dell laptop computer. And I set in this weekend to get it set-up as her primary computer which normally is not a problem. And it seemed exciting to be learning my way around the new Vista operating system. . .until that is. . .

It seems that while Vista is here and is automatically installed on new computers, the software supporting peripherals hasn't yet been updated to work with the new operating sytem. Palm Desktop installed and seemed fine until we tried to hotsync the desktop with the handheld. Nothing happened and I finally found a note on the Palm website that said that upgrades were coming soon. Then I hooked up the Lexmark printer. Same story; Lexmark does list all the printers it makes on its website and, if you search long enough, you discover that many of the models, including Donna's, don't yet have drivers that work with Vista. It was frustrating to say the least.

But now on to the new week and plenty of rehearsals for 2 plays. I'll talk about those in a later post.

History of a name. . .

I'm really not that ancient; just 69 as I enter the world of blogging. But the title of the blog is one given me by my children several years ago. It started because with the 2 younger children, I was always the oldest dad on parents night at school; I was well into my forties when they were born. One day one of them (I won't name names) called me "The Ancient One." I replied that they could use that title only if those words were followed by "Blessed Be He." They agreed to my stipulation.

Nowadays, if they are present and one calls me The Ancient One, the others immediately intone Blessed Be He. I would like to think that they call me that out of love and respect. After all, they still use the name and they are currently 23, 25 and 39 years old with their birthdays scheduled to arrive in the next several months.

So that's the story behind the name of this blog which likely will contain the ramblings of this retired college professor/administrator who still does consulting and is an "aspiring" actor, I hope that eventually my children read what I write here. It might contain some bits of family history that I haven't already told them hundreds of times. It might include my thoughts and feelings about events that surround us. It will probably contain a lot of words about topics that haven't even crossed my mind. And. . .I may even find that I am not suited to blogging. Only time will tell.