Boiling

  My neighborhood friends, growing up, were great to be around.  We loved playing army in the backyard.  The neighbors behind us had a treehouse.  That was fun just to hangout, until it rotted and fell down.  We would get into trouble, just like kids would do, but we had fun doing it.  I liked to go to the house behind us, because both parents worked.  We could get into trouble, and their parents wouldn't find out.  If they did, they would get yelled at by their father who was in the military.  I could hear him yelling at them with their windows shut.  I was usually an instigator, and others would carry out my ideas.  It worked well.

 One morning, we didn't have school and were bored.  I was over at their house, and we decided to play phone pranks.  We were in elementary school.  We started out with the familiar stuff like calling random numbers and asking if their refrigerator was running.  That was fun, until we called a military base by accident.  They threatened to call the police, so we moved onto other things.

 We had a plan.  We would call a random number and pretend we were the phone company.  We needed to test their phone line.  I was doing the calling, because my voice was a little deeper than the other kids.  A woman answered the phone.  (I'll call her Mrs. Smith)  The conversation went something like this:

 Me:  Mrs. Smith?  This is the telephone company.  We have had reports of a problem with your phone.  

 Mrs. Smith:  You have?  I think everything is okay with it.

 Me:  Do you mind helping us over the phone to check it?

 Mrs. Smith:  All right.  What would you like me to do?

 Me:  Can you unscrew the receiver and tap on the metal plate inside it?  (I could hear some unscrewing of plastic and a tapping sound)  That's fine, Mrs. Smith, but it does sound like there is some dirt in your phone.  Are you in the kitchen?

 Mrs. Smith:  Yes, I am.  I am making some tea.

 Me:  Is the water boiling?

 Mrs. Smith:  Yes, it is.

 Me:  Okay, Mrs. Smith.  I'm going to need for you to drop the receiver in the boiling water to clean out your phone.

 (Mrs. Smith sounded hesitant):  Well, okay, if you think it will help.

 Me:  It will.

We heard a crackling noise, and then her phone went dead.  I hope she got a new phone.  We never called back.

Russians

  My apartment building had 8 apartments in it.  There were four on the top floor and four on the bottom floor.  The building had four on the front of the building and four on the back.  This information is important to the story.  My apartment was on the front on the top floor.  I lived at Ravenwood Apartments were almost 14 years.  During that time, we had several fires in our building.  Many more than other buildings in the complex.  Almost all of them involved cooking.  

 One strange thing about those fires was that I seemed to be home, when they occurred.  Some of the residents accused me of setting them, as it was suspicious that I was the one to call 911.  Now, I know that I have written about setting a fire in the woods, when I was much younger, but I had nothing to do with setting these apartment fires.  In fact, I think it was a blessing that I was home to call 911.  One of my greatest fears in life is an apartment fire.  After all, I have had a lot of expensive pop culture memorabilia in my apartment, and the worse thing in the world would have had it burn up.  I had it insured, but a lot of it couldn't be replaced. 

 There were several neighbors to come and go from my apartment building.  One was a woman who liked to cook cabbage on Sundays, and that awful smell would come into my apartment.  Another was a woman who liked to entertain male guests during the day.  She was very loud.  I really liked to keep to myself in my apartment building.  I never really knew the names of my neighbors, and I liked it that way.  One of the constant stream of neighbors lived across the hall.  I saw them come and go, and they seemed to not speak English.  I figured out that they were speaking Russian.  I had known some Russians who worked at Macy's, but they lived in Chapin.  I knew a few Russian words and would speak phrases to them in Russian.  It was a way to cheer them up, as they lived in a strange land.  

 I never spoke to my Russian neighbors until one night.  I was watching TV when a frantic knock was on my door.  I opened it to find the young blond Russian woman screaming.  She was pointing to smoke coming up through her carpet.  If you don't know the language, gestures are the next best thing.  I learned that in Europe.  She only knew the English for "911".  I called 911 and ran outside.  I ran to the top of the hill to direct the firemen down the hill to our apartment building.  When they rolled up to me, I was waving my arms.  They went down the hill to the apartment on fire.  I followed them down, and I heard one fireman tell our apartment manager that they knew where they were going, but some guy was trying to stop them.  

 Anyway, the apartment was a total loss.  The tenants had left something on the stove and gone to the movies.  The other apartments, including mine, suffered some smoke damage to our clothes and furnishings.  Everything had to be aired out.  As luck would have it (I don't believe in luck), the firemen said that they had just finished up a call not far from Ravenwood.  They were quick to respond.  Had the fire gotten into the attic, the whole building would have burned down.  There were no firewalls.  We were just minutes away from that happening.  My neighbors couldn't accuse me of setting the fire.  The Russians moved out.  Their apartment got new carpet.  From the kids snickering under my window watching me change to the fires, there was never a dull moment at Ravenwood.  I moved out a year later.

Blinds

  In June of 1994, I moved to Ravenwood Apartments in Forest Acres.  My parents had moved to Laurens, SC and were in a nursing home.  I had closed up their house, and we put it up for sale.  I got a two-bedroom apartment that was upstairs on the second floor.  I needed two bedrooms, because of all of my records and videotapes.  So, one bedroom was for sleeping in, and the other was for storage.  

 My sleeping bedroom overlooked the sidewalk below.  When I got home from work, I would sit in my recliner and watch the news and then head into my bedroom to put on my pajamas.  Most of the time, that would be around 8pm every night.  I was a creature of habit.  During the transformation, I would hear laughter outside, but I didn't think anything of it.  After all, there were a lot of children living in that complex, and they often played outside after dark.  

 There was a girl who lived there and worked at Rich's.  One day, she came up to me and informed me that one could see through my closed blinds and see me naked in my apartment.  I didn't know that one could see inside if the blinds were closed but pointing up.  The laughter outside came from the kids watching me change clothes.  After that realization, I joked with the girl that the show started at 8.  She informed me that if I closed the blinds pointing down, that the kids couldn't see me naked.  I started doing that, and I guess they went away.  I had been offered a nude scene in the movie "Chattahoochee" back in 1988, but I turned it down due to folks at work snickering.  I was even offered $1000 to do it.  I did have some scruples.  As it turned out, that scene was cut from the movie anyway but who knew?  I wasn't going to give a show to others for free, though.

 I had exposed myself before to groups, but that was in the Theatre changing costumes.  One doesn't think about others doing that, when one has to change costumes in a hurry.  Change you costume and off you go.  I also streaked once in college, but it was a very short run between two buildings.  I don't think anyone saw me.  But, the saving grace with the show at 8pm was that there were no cellphones back then, and I wouldn't have gotten on the internet.  Thankful.

Belushi

  Back in 1979, there were rumors that John Belushi was going to leave Saturday Night Live, and they were going to bring in new cast members.  I wanted to be one of those people.  After all, I had been in two movies by then and a whole bunch of plays, so I knew how to work live and on film.  I had also directed an improv group at PC and knew how to act on my feet.  I had even made up the third act of "Blithe Spirit" on opening night at Anderson College.  To top it off, I had done comedy on stage.  It was a perfect fit for me.

 I got a headshot and put together a resume.  Burt Lancaster had said I could use him as a reference, back when I worked with him on "The Midnight Man".  Besides all that, my ego was as big as all outdoors.  When people tell you that you are a great actor, it is inevitable that you want to do bigger things.  That was SNL.  I also had a friend from high school who went to NYC to be on the stage.  Her first audition was "A Chorus Line", and she got the part.  How hard could it be?

 Another plus for me was that I was doing drugs and drinking heavily back then, so I thought I would fit right in with the other cast members.  I could also do a variety of accents.  So, I sent in my resume and picture to Lorne Michaels at NBC.  I waited for a call.  He never did.  Their loss.