I'll just entertain myself

How is it that the top 1% evade $163,000,000,000 in taxes every year, but immigrants are called the freeloaders?

They have better marketing and press agents?

Football starts early today. I hope Charlie Brown kicks one today.

Roku is running a western series I love from 1960. Brian Keith: The Westerner. I know what to do when today's games become boring.

A bit murky in the park when we arrived. Chilly. A blanket of fog rested on the water. Deer among the trees looked on. As we walked the sun slowly edged above the branches and the full day began. Burroughs park, in part, was the site of the gunpowder mill that served the Confederate army. All that remains of it is a plaque, set deep enough along a back trail that I've just seen it in photographs. The ducks and squirrels were in abundance. They had set up temporary pavilions for some kind of weekend activity. Fortunate for my kind of walking none of them were used for overnight camping. Now it's time for me to pick up street trash in my own neighborhood.

Another walk in the can. Lots of activity at one end of the park. Plenty of activity at the other end. They are still constructing an elaborate park entrance, which includes a giant retainer pond. And they are constructing a stage for Hamlet at the great pavilion. I don't think Denzel will be there. Nice clear day, cool temp.

The play or the cigar?

They do Shakespeare two or three times per year in the park. I never attend because of the crowds and because I doubt I would hear the actors well enough to appreciate their work.

When I was just a kid, I did crossing guard duty at my elementary school. The school rewarded me with a movie pass. My Mom spoke with older brother Rusty and it was decided we three oldest children would hike the two or three miles to the theater, to attend the Saturday kiddie matinee, on a continuing basis. Most of the road we walked was farmland. The side we chose to stay on skirted lush alfalfa fields. A huge irrigation pipe ran the length of the fields, on the road side. Once, we made the mistake of climbing atop it for a few minutes. Our intent was not destructive, but the farmer could not believe that. He drove up in his pick up and hopped out. He was a small Japanese man, but he was big in esteem and anger. After telling us to stay away from his pipe, he swung a foot at my butt. I dodged and my brothers and I resumed our journey down the road. The farmer drove away. We never saw him after that, but that is only because we never went on his land again.

We always entered the theater about a half hour early. It would be jamb-packed with kids, who were so noisy, management had made a policy of playing Stars and Stripes Forever and other such band pieces, full volume, all the way up until showtime. The cashier gave us buttons, the kind you pin on your clothing, that were printed with likenesses of the popular cowboy actors of the day. I still have John Wayne. One of the buttons was unique and it carried a prize to the one that received it. Popcorn boxes were flattened by some of the ones sitting at the upper floor and sailed across the lower seats. We usually got to buy Sugar Babies, Good and Plenty and Look candy. A minute before the first film began, the lights blinked. Then, the place became dark.

It was there that I first learned of the Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, Bowery Boys and such. My favorites were the cowboys. Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry, in particular. We saw Mickey Rooney play Huck Finn and Young Tom Edison. Unexpectedly, King Kong appeared on the screen. The boy in the next seat asked me to save his place; he would be right back. But I think he went straight out the door, as he never returned. I had to watch with my peripheral vision, because I lacked the nerve to look Kong directly in the face. When, later, they played Mighty Joe Young, I was much more sophisticated about it.

They were special times. One Saturday, Rusty lost some of our money. "We can't get in," he said. We went back in a roundabout way that took us into town. Rusty knew about a theater that we could pay for and so we watched a single Edward G. Robinson film, instead of the kiddie matinee. I am writing this piece now, because I just saw the same Robinson film on TV. When first we entered the theater, Robinson, the lawyer, picked up a bottle of poison in court and drank it to prove it was not dangerous. I did not recognize that movie, until he drank the poison. It made me nostalgic for a time when my brothers, who are now deceased, and I shared a few hours of camaraderie in an otherwise uneventful period in our childhood.

The RSC does a lot of live broadcasts direct to cinemas from stage.

The first time I went I made the mistake of going to the art House theatre. It was packed out, next time we went to the multiplex and had the place pretty much to ourselves.

I love the theater. Unfortunately, the elements doth conspire against me.

Perhaps four years ago - long enough I no longer recall - they cleared off one of the final remnants of pine forest at the corner of my neighborhood. It took most of the succeeding time to construct an elaborate daycare center. Now it's finished and it sits like Terlingua abandoned in the Big Bend country. For nearly six months they've had a sign proclaiming "enrollment now being taken." For a time somebody showed up daily. But nobody has been there for a while. Just a symptom of the times, I suppose.

I had a very encouraging meeting with someone who runs an art venue about putting on a panto I've written.

Play is too fine a term for this bollocks.

I almost wrote a play once. Then I realized I was not equipped to pull it off.

It's a long way from being a reality, if it is put on it will be next Christmas not this one.

It's very crude and vulgar, full of filthy jokes.

It's a panto for over 18s.

Nothing wrong with that. I have produced one novel that has enough crude happenings and language that it stays locked in a file cabinet, way in the back. I will be dead before anybody else sees it.

Over here pantomimes are an annual event they come out at Christmas and are family friendly with lots of audience participation. They are loosely based around Fairy Tales.

They're a mixed bag, some are very good and some have attracted famous American actors, both Henry Winkler and David Hasselhoff have done panto season and gone down very well.

As a rule of thumb though it's best to avoid the big productions because they tend to be full of celebrities, currently a lot from reality TV who can't act.

I you go outside the big cities they are put on by actors who can act.

Having said that I took my youngest to a production of Puss in Boots that I did not enjoy at all. It was alright for him, he was very young at the time, and all of the actors were very talented. All of them could play a musical instrument and there was a lot of singing and dancing.

I didn't laugh once,or even smile, there were some jokes but they weren't funny at all.

That's what inspired me to write mine, no singing, no dancing just gag after gag after gag. Most "adult" pantos over here have gone the same way as Carry On and Benny Hill and I want to get as far away from that as possible. It's more like Derek and Clive which is a whole different level of crudity, not sexy at all.

If you could get it on video I would be interested to see it. If we have something like that over here, it's not anywhere I have heard about.

That's very kind of you, it won't be for a year at the latest.

The BBC tend to show a panto every year and I'm sure some of those mag have made their way on to youtube.

If you don't have any luck with panto or pantomime, you could try searching for popular titles.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Snow White
Cinderella
Sleeping Beauty
Aladdin,
Babes in the Wood
Robinson Crusoe.

Similar to Disney Films but some others as well.

The Astros baseball team has played so well in Boston it's almost a shame they have to finish the series elsewhere.