Brain Cells on Parade

I went down to the storage room in the basement tonight. What I was looking for doesn’t matter right now, because I didn’t find it. But the effort led me to open boxes that had not seen the light of day for a very long time. I saw some things in those boxes that I hadn’t thought of for many a long year! I’ve transported a few of them over here to LJ for a bit of show and tell.

This first pic shows me as Dr. Zap. I was living in East Lansing, Michigan and working at the Impression 5 Science Museum. In fact, I’ve scanned this from their newsletter. Dr. Zap was probably one of the best jobs I’ll ever have – I got to drive around Michigan in a rented station wagon that was filled with chemicals and assorted test equipment, performing science shows for middle school audiences. Yep, I combined the needs of the theater geek and the science nerd in one cool job. By the way, this photo shows me with both a full head of hair and a top hat, in case that isn’t clear.


This next photo is from several years after that. In fact, this is from the last show I did in Detroit before moving to Chicago, an old comedy called So This Is London, in which I played a stuffy middle-aged Brit who was fiercely proud of his homeland and snobbishly disdainful of America. That’s Henry Bennett on the left, a fine actor with whom I shared various performance venues during my years in Detroit. And yes, that’s my own moustache. I was pretty happy with this show and role. I felt like I was leaving Detroit on a definite high note.


I will close with this odd photo. I’m the tall one in the middle. I offer this as evidence that a struggling actor will go where the work is, though this was merely a one-day job. In fact, it was only a 3-hour job. I had to walk around Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit at a trade show for manufacturers of refrigeration equipment, dressed as the Pillsbury Doughboy. It was actually the coolest costume I’ve ever worn, and I mean that literally – it was air conditioned! I had a battery pack strapped around my torso that powered A/C and a fan! My view to the outside was through the round blue Pillsbury logo on the Doughboy’s tummy. Believe me, 3 hours of getting poked in the tummy by grown men and women, and having to affect a giggle each and every time – well, that’s more than anyone should have to endure! But it paid me a cool $150, so I had no complaints.

Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my past!

And P.S., the title of this post certainly does describe much of our lives, doesn’t it?