 There's plenty more linky-goodness to be had in The BradLands, a multi-megabyte paean to my own ego. If you enjoy reading The Daily Brad, there are several longer stories about some of the folks mentioned here in Dispatches From The BradLands.
Enjoy The Daily Brad to Go!
Glassdog: Although I'll probably be among the first up against the wall when the revolution comes, I still wholeheartedly support Lance Arthur's efforts toward world domination. Because he's cuddly. I'm just sayin'. Harrumph: The web home of the redoubtable Heather Champ, including stories of Sin, Penis Envy and other girly things. See also Jezebel, 'cause it's great too. The Ben Brown Website: You can almost hear the movie announcer intone, "This summer, ego has a name...". But c'mon, he's cute, wickedly intelligent and looks hot in big pants! I love Ben Brown! And you will too! The Fray: Promoting storytelling and interactive art on the web. I [heart] Derek Powazek. (Derek's also the organizer behind City Stories, a collection of websites sharing tales where the location is a character. Don't miss!) The Loser Chronicles: Philip Michaels long-fallow website has been showing signs of life. This treasure remains one of the web's few beacons of pure smart-assedness. And we mean that in the best possible way. Prehensile Tales: Between this site and Cocky Bastard, Halcyon has carved out the very definition of "vanity" pages on the web.
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  September 17, 2001A few observations and comments:
September 14, 2001I have nearly 3,000 songs compressed in MP3 format stored on my laptop computer's hard drive, essentially turning my expensive portable computer into a Walkman jukebox containing a good chunk of my CD collection. Most of the time when I'm at my desk at work, the computer is plugged into a set of small speakers and the whole selection of tracks set for "shuffle" play, meaning any random song can pop up at any time. A couple of weeks ago, a version of the old Julie Brown comedy song "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" recorded by The Flirtations started playing. After I'd begun singing along, I caught myself thinking that, in light of events such as those at Columbine High School, it was unlikely that this trifle of a song, parodic and outlandish when it was created, would ever see airplay again. It just wasn't funny anymore. Debbie's smiling and waving her gun, Today, seeking a respite from a week when my radio was seldom switched from NPR news, I opened my laptop and started the music playing program, then began working on a proposal I'd been putting off for days. Did you ever have feeling that there are elemental forces at work conspiring to screw with your head? Sometimes I truly believe that. Today, for example, Fate clasped hands with Shuffle Play, and Karma and Coincidence got jiggy with it. While I tapped away at the keyboard and silently muttered curses at Microsoft Word, three songs came up in randomly-selected succession: Styx's "Angry Young Man," Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot" and, finally, John Cougar Mellancamp's "Crumblin' Down". My hands were shaking as my concentration drifted from my work and I heard the lyrics of the chorus, divorced from the context of the song: When the walls come tumblin' downI shivered. I decided the universe was trying to tell me something. I shut off the computer and went outside and sat under a tree and lit a cigarette and cried for a while. It just wasn't funny anymore. September 13, 2001On the first day, I stepped off an airplane and drove home where I showered and shaved and dressed and turned on the television as an afterthought to check the traffic and weather. What I saw was a far grimmer forecast than I could have ever imagined. On the first day, I sat at my desk and tried to find all of my friends and family over the wires. On the first night, we cancelled the show and I went out and had a drink and held my friends close and couldn't sleep at all. On the second day, a missing friend was found and the show went on and I made a donation and I got angry because my brown friends were catching shit from idiots and I tried to work and got nothing done. On the second night, I went out to dinner and talked of fear and frustration with a gentle man and called my mother and chatted with friends and slept fitfully for three hours. On the third day, I had stuffy nose and a headache and I wanted to flee, to go to the place where people were hurting and hold them and bring things and feel like I was useful. But I sat at my desk and actually worked and copied and FAXed and tried to make a dent and learned that a friend had fallen from the sky. On the third night, I watched the news and looked into the eyes of a mother who loved her son and for the first time in three days and three nights I cried. And now I can't work and now I can't sleep and now I can't stop crying. As awful as it was, I liked the first day better. September 12, 2001There is something to be said, I think, for sharing stories with old friends and new ones in a funky art space with a supportive audience applauding and laughing and crying and hugging. There is something to be said for lifting a glass and dancing with abandon and meeting a boy and sharing a smile. There is something to be said for trains that take you to see old friends you haven't met yet and learning the immortal lesson that everything is funnier if it involves pirates. There is something to be said for a lazy breakfast and a leisurely walk through a sunlit park with someone who knows this city and loves it like no other and realizing that it is still possible to step off a path and share a joint and go back in time. There is something to be said for all of these things, indeed. And that something is "Thank you." September 11, 2001I am hurt, but hopeful. Today I have seen the magnificent potential of human compassion in the midst of violence. I am reminded that too often in these times we meet each other at the intersection of grief and grace, and that we walk away from that place, together, wounded but stronger. If we cannot find peace in the world, we must find it in ourselves. September 6, 2001You know your life is a bit out of whack when, in order to spend time with one of your dearest chums, you have to arrange to be interviewed on his radio show. Still, it was a convival hour and certainly the longest conversation Thom and I have managed to have since his return to St. Louis. Somewhere in the midst of the laughter and quips and catching up, I still managed to actually do my job and plug the theatre season. It's been a bit over three years since Thom and I got naked together, and thereby hangs a tale. I'd been going back and forth trying to decide which True Story I wanted to trot out to tell at Fray Day this weekend in San Francisco and recounting for tonight's listeners the circuitous path by which I came to lose my trousers in such charming company tipped the scale in its favor. Consider that fair warning, all of you on the Left Coast! We made an appointment to meet for dinner next week, Thom and I, and I really hope this one comes through. I canceled the last, pleading fatigue, and he tonight, citing a work obligation. Still, how weird is it that the the only chance I get to connect with an old friend is while thousands of folks are eavesdropping in the ether? September 5, 2001It took me a while to get to this career, but I plan on staying for a while. There are transcendant moments when I absolutely love my life in the theatre without reservation. Tonight, for example, when I stood in the back of a darkened auditorium, holding my breath and standing quietly still with only one question on my mind: Will her brassiere light up and twinkle on cue? It did. The audience gasped. The audience laughed. Everyone applauded. I breathed. I loved. September 4, 2001Last Wednesday evening felt almost entirely fictional. Lucas (not his real name), Jeff (not his actual hair color), the Giant Queen (not really giant at all) and I got together for coffee (not our usual beverage). We talked about Jeff's new job, the Giant Queen's new romantic interest -- on which subject we were able to reach a rare consensus approval among us -- and my new laptop computer. And then, just as casually as if he were ordering a second slice of cheesecake, Lucas said, "So, there's this thing..." This "thing" was spotted by his doctor during a regular physical the day before, a growth where things aren't generally supposed to grow. GQ, Jeff and I sat nonplussed while Lucas sipped his latte and remained stoically and damned annoying plussed. I lay awake that night until nearly 4 a.m., thinking about Lucas and the way he finally allowed his composure to slip as we clasped his hands and lingered over the second slices of cheesecake we all had eventually ordered. "I told the doctor that the only thing worse than having to face this," he said, "would be having to face it alone. He asked me if I had family in town and I told him I had something better. I had you all." Lucas had gone out of town for the holiday -- delighting, I presume, in the denial afforded by the fortuitously-timed Southern Decadence -- but finally called tonight, ending the almost daily round of voicemail tag Jeff and the Giant Queen and I played for a week: "Have you heard anything? Call me. No. Have you?" The "thing" was harmless, Lucas said, and I realized I'd been holding my breath since spotting his number on the Caller ID. I exhaled sharply, made a date for lunch next week, hung up and trembled for the next 20 minutes. There are time when life feels fictional, true. These are often the times when life actually can't get any more real.
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