may 13, 2010

sinaia, romania,

i’m lying on my back once again, staring up at
the infinite romanian sky, on a hard wooden bench
outside the small peles castle in sinaia, the
cozy transylvanian town nestled in the foothills of the
thin-air pine forests of the carpathian mountains. the
carpathians are home of bram stoker’s dracula,
and have sheltered this part of the old autro-hungarian
empire from invaders as far back as genghis
khan’s mongol hordes thundering in from the
east.

i say “again”, because lying on my back, looking up
through the canopies of towering tree tops, seems
always to be my default position whenever i travel and
i feel like i’ve “arrived”. you see, i’m
something of an “anti-spalding”, my deceased solo
performance guru who was never able to find his
“perfect moment”. why do i say ‘anti”? because i
find them everywhere. perfect moments. they’re
simply not as elusive as they used to be before
spalding’s suicide, nor at this old dog/new
tricks stage of my life.

the peles castle, built by a famous
viennese architect in 1873 and surrounded by 7 graceful
terraces and countless, carved marble, italianate
statues of lions and tigers and bears (oh my), is one
of the most beautiful in all of europe. unfortunately,
thanks to mr. stoker, it is also one of the most
visited ones as well, with busloads of both
international and local tourists coming to gawk at one
of the many “vampire” castles in translyvania, and to
buy souvenir boomerangs, vampire-killing, crosses that
fly geo-magically back to you if you throw them
perfectly into the air at menacing blood suckers.

i say i’m at the “small” peles castle
because i’ve left the big one to the hordes.
i’m happy enough right here on my back, communing
with the carpathians in front of the junior
peles. i didn’t come to romania for
their clone of disneyland. that’s for the hordes,
not for yours trulesly.

i’ve come up here for the day from bucharest.
by four hour train. it’s only my third day here
in romania and i start work tomorrow, but i wanted to
get my first taste and smell of fresh
carpathian-transylvanian mountain air before i do.
i’m here on a fulbright grant from my imperial
government – to offer two theater workshops, in
solo performance and in improvisation and theater
games, at caragiale university in bucharest, the
best-renowned government film and theater training
program in romania. workshops. it’s what i do,
have been doing, at USC in los angeles for 24 years.
teaching students how to discover themselves, how to
tap into their creativity, harness their self-
expression, and how to become theater artists. i have
my act down. i’ve been doing it long enough that
hopefully all i have to do is show up and trust that
what comes out of my mouth will be inspiring,
insightful, and best case, helpful and
transformative.

but today i’m in the land of dracula, bram
stoker’s mythological and fictional character
based on “vlad, the impaler”, the mid-15th century
wallachian (holy roman, pre-romanian) tyrant who
hoisted his ottoman (islamic) turkish enemies up on
stakes to physically, and psychologically, vanquish
them. renowned as the most brutal ruler in the history
of transylvania, vlad became known as “dracul”, a word
that means either “dragon” or “devil” in old romanian,
while adding the letter “a”, made him “son” of the
devil. actually, compared with this historical and
monstrous “vlad”, bram stoker’s “dracula” of 1897
was a rather tame, mysterious, and hyper-sensual
improvement.

pre-“dracul”, i discover that before vicious vlad,
there were the “dracians” the first indo-european
inhabitants of modern day romania, who, mixed with the
“roman” colonizers of the area from the early middle
ages, made up the original ethnic inhabitants of
“romania”. however, after the latter-arriving german
saxons, the austro-hungarian hapsburgs, the ottoman
turks, the boyars, the tartars, the bulgarian orthodox,
you really start to get the balkan mish-mosh that has
been the eternal powder keg for international war and
violence for centuries and centuries of “western
civilization”.

me? what do i know about dracula and vampires?
literally, nothing. i haven’t read a single
author, not one, from bram stoker to anne rice, nor,
i’m loathe to admit, have i even watched
HBO’s new hair-raising sensation, “true blood”.
the genre simply doesn’t appeal to me.
it’s, to be honest, too fanciful and entirely,
unbelievable… definitely not sexy or compelling to my
sensibility . of course, i’m a guy who has no
interest whatsoever in the “star wars” or “star trek”
phenomenons; i prefer to look penetratingly within the
human soul and psyche, not freely fantasize about the
science fictionally, far out. yet, here i am in fabled
transylvania, maybe for the first and last time in my
life, maybe it’s time to search for… the
“dracul” within.

so i’ve trained up to sinaia, the quickest fix
to transylvania from bucharest, and i’ve arrived
at the station… in the rain. or let’s say
there’s a heavy transylvanian mist, perfect for
spotting elusive vampires, who are well known for
making their mysterious appearances in full-out
romanian storms. i’m not exactly dressed for the
rain…. but since i’m already here… i
absolutely have to see the infamous
peles castle. so… i take out my trusty gray
umbrella, the same one that i’ve had since the
1988 edinburgh festival in scotland where it rains at
least 5 times a day… and i start hiking uphill
between the raindrops. but after 5 minutes, i see my
plan is clearly not working… my pants are getting
soaked, and i’m stupidly wearing my open-foot
sandals for the day. fortunately, i’ve been
trained by my intrepid set designer-warlock,
gray-bearded hank, whose words of wisdom always come to
mind in rain-soaking moments such as these: “there are
no problems, only solutions”.

i hail a transylvanian taxi. good idea, right? i
know, i know, such an LA-new yawk kinda thing to do.
and i know, i know, i’m supposed to be hiking the
draculian carpathians in search of vampires. but
c’mon, you can only be who you are, right?
anyway… radu, the friendly, long-in-the tooth, cab
driver, lets me off right in front of the junior
peles castle and points the way to the big
daddy, senior peles, just around the bend. i
must truly be in tune with my inner vampire, because it
stops raining as soon as i get out of the cab.
naturally, i decide to take the road less traveled, and
walk… in the opposite direction, away from
the tourist hordes.

it’s fantastically beautiful. so quiet and
still. the hordes are far away near the senior castle,
and i’m alone on a little path taking me deep
into the carpathian mountain forrest. i’m
looking… and listening… for vlad the impaler. for
evidence of his wallachian kingdom. but really, the way
the forrest is right now, 500 years after his death at
the hands of his avenging ottoman enemies,
couldn’t be much different than back in the day.
the forrest is full of the same carpeted moss, the same
flowing sound of mountain streams and rivers, the same
feel of… hall of the mountain king, romanian
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“eh! bllxlxl ccclcvvl rrmx!” it’s romanian
castle security. i can’t understand a word
they’re barking at me, but it’s not hard to
figure out that they want me back on the path. back
with the tourist hordes. i’m pissed, but caught
dead to rites, so i reluctantly let them round me up
and escort me back to where i veered off road, back to
the junior peles castle. hey, it’s good
enough. “perfect” enough for today. i find my little
wooden bench in front of the junior castle, lie down on
it, using my back pack as a head rest, and i stare up
at the transylvanian sky.

from here, it doesn’t look much different than
the tree-inspired view from the rocky mountains in
durango colorado, or from the one in the swiss alps
near basel and “the jungfrau”, or… the one from the
san gabriel mountains right here in elysian park, 5
minutes from my house in lala land. i guess mother
nature has this way about her. beauty in patterns.
skies through canopies. it’s not like my jaded
friend, michael, says , “what’s the point? LA
looks like ecuador looks like turkey looks like
andalucia in southern spain…” no, every place has its
own foliage, colors, smells, … it’s own
uniqueness. it’s just that… the planet has,
perhaps, a repeating pattern of deserts, mountains,
oceans, glaciers, forests… and it’s only so far
that you can travel not to be in another repository of
one of its historic eruptions, earthquakes, dry spells,
ice ages… or tsunamis. it’s we humans that are
far more unpredictable in our brutal and bizarre
histories of war, pilgrimage, ocean crossings,
crusades, politics, religions, empires, and beliefs…
in saints, saviors, gods, devils, vampires…

…those poor, mythological beings who are eternally
bound to live off the essence of other mortals. human
parasites, alive only under the nocturnal powers of the
moon. “vampirs”… half human, half dead demons with
supernatural powers of flesh eating and blood drinking,
that have been fearfully held in the subconscious of
mankind since its earliest memory. from pagan and
pre-christian times. and here in romania, in the heart
of the slavic, nomadic gypsies, “vampir” has been born
out of ancient burial rituals. out of the fear of
possession of a decomposing body by an “unclean
spirit”… manifesting a permanently “undead” creature,
vengeful and jealous of the living, because of its need
for their blood to sustain its body and soul. yes,
“soul”, my fearful brothers and sisters, that unique
human concept, so alien to rats, frogs, stones… that
has induced human imagination to such leaps of faith
and fear… as pagan worship, monotheism, prayer, war,
jihad, and here in the carpathians, the cult of
“vampir”.

but as i’m lying here, staring up at the
translucent transylvanian sky in front of the junior
peles castle, i am oddly feeling my own blood
course through my veins. making me think of vlad, the
impaler, and of bram stoker’s mysterious and
tortured creature, dracula the vampir. and i
am wondering if i, myself, in essence, am more “vampir”
or… victim. am i one to feed off others’
“blood”, others’ essential energy, bending them
to my own stubborn will and desire? or am i more the
passive, unknowing victim, being driven by my own
fears, my own insecurities, down an unchosen path,
leading inevitably to my own demise? i have flirted
with belief in god for years, but i have violently
rejected it. i blame it for immeasurable death and
destruction in its impotent name. but what if i’m
wrong? could i have missed the boat? misread the signs?
could i… am i… have i… ultimately chosen to live
my life in my own atheistic, aesthetic wilderness, in
my own private idaho… leading only to my sad and
inevitable non-burial… in my own posthumous,
“un-dead” grave?

how can i say? in my younger, hungrier years, when i
still thought i could bend life to my will, i seduced
many less powerful beings. i entered sacred places with
women who i gave nothing to but my lustful desire. i
took from life everything i wanted without ever
understanding the necessity of giving something back. i
was selfish. greedy. i took. never gave. from my
parents. from my “friends” and acquaintances. from all
in my ambition’s insatiable path. was i then,
vampire-like? certainly. i drank the blood and tore the
flesh of those i needed… to survive… to
succeed.

but now, entering the 3rd and final act of my brief
candle’s life upon the tragic and comedic human
stage, i find that i’m changed. changed… by
having survived cancer. by having experienced loss and
death. by simply having lived this long and lucky life
of mine. i find that my former selfishness, my
inability to give, was, in essence, “impaling” me…
upon the spike of my own “self”. and i find now, now
that i am pushing retirement and have finally found
love and the ability to give – in my marriage
– i find that i am much less vampire-like, while
simultaneously, much less the victim as well.

love… it seems…. has little to do with
vampirism. sucking blood… living off the life force
of others. it has, indeed, more to do with giving
blood, life energy, to those around you.
indiscriminately. consistently. without the need of
love returned. jesus? buddha? lo, mohammed? they were
not jealous, vengeful, all-too-human gods… like zeus,
athena, vulcan, prometheus. they did not preach
vengeance, jihad, eternal punishment in a burning hell
of after life. they lived in the now. with love. and
compassion. and with the pain of human existence…
full of suffering, disappointment, guilt… regret.
sometimes, perhaps if they were lucky…. if they had a
good day…. the saints and spiritual behemoths, had
occasional and fleeting sensations of joy, of success,
pleasure, lo… even moments of brief and translucent
satisfaction and perfection.

so now, lying here on my back, high up in the
translyvanian mists of the romanian carpathians,
somewhere mid-step on the long and winding road of
life, i decide that i’m… ok. if i just continue
to make daily choices and commitments, if i accept the
“instant karma” i create on a daily basis… being
rewarded for acts of kindness and generosity… being
rudely “reminded” for acts of pettiness and
selfishness, then i…. might… even be rewarded… in
this lifetime… with such ungodly but still
perfect gifts… like… perception… or… insight…
lo, even… epiphany. insight and perception of such
astounding value and brilliance… such as those that
the great writers and artists and shamans have brought
back from the “undead”, but really alive, parts of
themselves, deep inside, which have sustained and kept
all of us non-vampires alive and well in this
world…. for time immemorial.

kept us alive… high up in the carpathians
mountains of central romania… or in the lowest
recesses of death valley in central california… or
alive… in the everyday hum drum of central bulgaria
or biloxi or even echo park, los angeles… where… we
fortunate, non-vampires go on and on… along our very
real, very banal… very beautifully-challenged….
paths of… life.

so…. here’s to…

life…

and love.

from high up in the carpathian peaks,

-transylvanian trules