Ten Years Later Than Never

Oh goody. It's the end of the year and another decade, so that means it's time for some reflection and to
pontificate on the passage of time to see where we've been, what we've learned and speculate on the future.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......

Huh? What? Who's that? How did I fall asleep on my laptop? My face has keyboard marks all over it. Holy crap, I just backspaced the last decade! Sigh. If only...

Aw, bullshit. Life. That's what happened in ten years' time. A lot of ups. A lot of downs. Still managing the balancing act, though I wish it would stop tipping so much. I'm getting motion sickness and my arms are tired.

However, I'm choosing to focus on the highlights here. The bad times can take care of themselves and, frankly have done so already. They've had their way with me and everybody else out there, so instead of dwelling on them, I prefer to sweep them away like so many dust bunnies, at least for the time being.

The time being. Or should I say the time remaining? The mortality question or statement, for that matter, has been rearing its inevitable head as the clock continues to click away. As such, I prefer to to celebrate the good because it still exists in this increasingly angry, complicated and overly-caffeinated world. I'm just a sap at heart and therefore, an easy mark, but gosh darn to heck, I still maintain hope over cynicism because that's the kinda guy I am.

And I have several reasons to back this up. I'm crazy about my family, filled with loving, caring, intelligent human beings who make this world better by their very presence. Two new additions have doubled my grandpa ante, a one-two shot of granddaughters born on both sides of the decade. This all culminated in a brilliant family reunion this past August on the Oregon Coast.

In 2011, a summer vacation straight out of an MGM musical caused to fall in love with New York City, particularly my beloved borough of Brooklyn. (See the New York posts on my page: CHERNEY JOURNEYS) As a result, it seemed to set things in motion for me about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I needed to get back to writing. I felt this was my last option as (please don't gag) an artist. I was wrong. I've been wrong for most of my life. It should have been my first option and stuck with it. But I dove back in, especially when good fortune came my way when I finally put myself out there. Once I was lost, but then I was found.

Great American Melodrama cast and me courtesy of Ed Thorpe

I'm sure I've bored you to horrors already with the success I've had with my melodrama and murder mysteryplays in the last few years, so I'll beg off...for now. But I would like to acknowledge and once again thank the following theater companies who have produced my work since 2014:

MEL O' DRAMA THEATER (Mel Roady is the Queen!) Nashville, TN
THE GREAT AMERICAN MELODRAMA AND VAUDEVILLE Oceano, CA
FOOTHILL THEATRE CO. Jackson, CA
AVENUE THEATER West Plain, MO
CHEYENNE LITTLE THEATER Cheyenne, WY
BRAZOS THEATRE Waco, TX
THEATER SUBURBIA Houston, TX
MANTORVILLE THEATRE Mantorville, MN
MT. VERNON COMMUNITY THEATRE Mt. Vernon, MO
STAGECOACH THEATRE CO. Louson County, VA
SUGAR HIGH THEATRICALS Galesburg, IL
ROGUE THEATRE CO. Sturgeon Bay, WI
DELTON ACT Delton, MI
SANZMAN PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeles, CA
SLV THEATRE CO. San Luis Valley, CO
BRICKSTREET PLAYERS Clovis, NM
RIO LINDA ELVERTA COMMUNITY THEATRE Rio Linda, CA

(For info about my plays, visit www.scottcherney.com)

I did manage to write a new book, an adaptation of my melodrama SONG OF THE CANYON KID, which was read by less people than saw the CATS movie. But it managed to gear me up for a personal triumph, the completion of the first draft of a novel I began 22 years ago, now in a major re-write stage. More information coming soon. Promise!

I'm going to close with this photograph of a couple of my grandchildren, Aefa and Sebastian, frolicking at the beach in Lincoln City, Oregon this past summer. I don't take many good photographs. In fact, not at all. When I get something like this, it's a happy accident. Now there's a good metaphor for the past ten years, a series of happy accidents amidst all the strife that threatens to overwhelm us all on an on-going basis. Look at those two in that shot. That's pure joy captured in that moment of time and it's out there not just for the asking, but for the taking. They're the future and they give me...here's that word again...hope. The latest addition to our Brady Bunch, Athena, fought like the little warrior princess to be here in this world. Why shouldn't we do the same to stay here? The love I have for my grandkids surely enters in this assessment and if it does, so what? They've helped me through the minefield this far. I'm ready for the long haul. Or I should say, the rest of the journey.


The Cherney Journey, ready to take on The Roaring Twenties.

Happy New Year and Decade, gang.

2010: The Year We Break Contact

Where the hell was Roy Scheider when we really needed him?

In the movie 2010, we were told "something wonderful" would occur which, at the end of the film, turned out to be another sun. But that's Hollywood. What did WE get in the real world? Snooki. That's not a sun. That's more of a moon.

This year started out with such promise, but we all know that's just the self-delusion of time. The calendar changes and that's supposed to change everything for the good? What a bunch of gullible schmucks. Another decade in the still new millennium? It's gotta be good!

There were high notes to be sure that were hit right at the git-go, again perpetuating the myth of optimism in an increasingly cynical age. It holds about as much water as a cheese grater, a point proven when the tide turned in the wink of an eye. Oil spills, missing children, terrorist plots in our own backyard, political discourse leading up to a potential revival of the Civil War, 21st Century style combined with some personal kicks in the groin that aren't as easy to recover from as the year passed. It all became off-kilter, much like that hotel corridor sequence in INCEPTION.

But far be it for me to end this year on a down note. To tell you the absolute truth, I'm actually feeling a wee bit upbeat. It hasn't always been so over the last 36o-odd days, that's for sure, but as I've told my friends recently, life has a way balancing out. As I say, the yin, the yang and the whole damn thang. Perhaps it's all a balancing act after all. And sometimes, there's actually a net when you least expect one.

It's also me trying to be reflective and wax poetic at the end of the year, just like every other nimrod with a laptop and a blog to call his own. What have I learned in the year Twenty Ten? well, for one thing, the year isn't over for me until my birthday which falls at the end of January. I'm not done yet. I have a few deadlines to meet by January 29 and maybe we should talk then.

I also send you folks out there in the blogosphere the great wish of finding some balance in this cockeyed world o' ours. It's tough. You fall over a few times and most certainly will get knocked down too. There's no reason you can't get right back again, even if it is slowly. Let's just say you're an easier target on the ground and, if you're standing on your own two feet, you can push back. Balance, baby, balance.

Next up: The Best of 2010, just like every other nimrod with a laptop and a blog. (New Year's Resolution #1: Stop being redundant.)

Happy New Year, ye lads and lassies.

At the End of the Decade

And so it ends as always with a CNN re-broadcast of the ball falling in Times Square to signal the beginning of the New Year...and in this case, decade as well. What an odd and somewhat pathetic manner in which to chronicle the passage of time, but this is how some of us mark this event in other zones other than Eastern Standard. What better way to end an era than a celebratory rerun. Kind of a bastardization of the space/time continuum, isn't it? No wonder Dick Clark stayed looking so young for so long.

The last ten years began ever so auspiciously at one second past midnight in 2000 with the Y2K boondoggle (AKA The End of the World As We Know It) It should gave us all a big damn clue of how the rest of the decade was going to be. We were at the brink of DOOM...until we weren't. We breathed a big sigh of relief and went about our business, not learning a damn thing about the major disaster that never happened.

By the end of the year came the Endless Presidential Election that signalled the beginning of the next Civil War, the Reds vs the Blues. This battle that keeps escalating day after day turning as the flames of hatred keep getting fanned by a bunch of mental media midgets in the name of higher ratings with zero accountability and Internet snipers with even less credibility or even souls.

The following year came the real Day the Earth Stood Still...9/11. The worst thing that could have happened did and in the most absurd manner possible. The Kamikazes of yesterday had become the airline terrorists of today. Suddenly we came together as one in our grief and in that shock and sorrow came a glimmer of hope that we might just get through this as one. It wasn't meant to be since united we stand, divided we fall and the Powers that Be found that is was easier to keep us in line if we fought amongst ourselves instead the ones who got us there in the first and last places. And if that doesn't do it, they'll make sure they make us live in fear. If they keep us cowered, they can keep us in line.

If that wasn't enough, we went to war...somewhere else. Many of us bought it at the time since we still had vengeance in our hearts and minds. But we got sidetracked. Iraq was a divergence so we missed the sleight of hand trick that became the longest running practical joke in the history of futility and we looked for ways to find the nearest exit until it became as fruitless as trying to get out of a gym membership. Hey, I hear we're finally getting out of there...only to go around the corner to Afghanistan.

Then Mother Nature went on a drunken tirade and sent her nasty ass bitch daughter Katrina to lay waste to a chunk of the country. Just to make matters worse, the aftermath became one of the most shameful events of modern times. 9/11 was an example of what evil forces from the outside could do to our country. Katrina was an example of what evil we could do to ourselves.

The collapse of the economy, global warming and the denial of gay rights...oh, my what an obscene mess the world has become in ten short years. That glimmer of hope many of us hoped for in the guise of a new administration has dimmed to a small burning ember that isn't enough to even light your cigarette, but that's okay since there's no smoking anyway.

For myself, my mother died two months after 9/11, ending a long illness that took her mind and body long before she eventually passed. Some good friends were also lost in those years as well the final decimation of my beloved Pollardville. Two jobs went by the wayside along the way making everyday life even more of a struggle than it is already especially when that goddamn Sword of Damocles keeps waving to and fro, ready to lob over its next innocent victim in a cruel game of chance.

Okay. Enough of a purge already. That was the Worst of the Double-Ohs. Amazingly enough, we have been resilient enough to withstand even the most devastating of times and even manage to prevail in many situations, driving around the potholes in the road and maintain our journeys.

Since this is my damn blog, let's talk about me some more. I have managed to have 5 of my works published in a ten year period, an accomplishment I may not be able to match in volume but still plan to surpass in substance. I appeared on stage twice, once in a local production of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and another at the last Pollardville show ever. I've had a life changing trip to South Africa. and I've found a home here in Oregon surrounded by like minded weirdos along with a family that has taught the true meaning of unconditional love for the very first time.

So I end the Double 00s sad about the nature of the world but oddly optimistic about myself. I say oddly because it has never been part of my nature to feel comfortable in my own skin, kind of like an old shoe. Just call me Hush Puppy. Maybe the aging process it having a positive effect on me after all.

Then again, I could be in denial. Now THAT'S comfort!

Next up: The Best of the Decade

Yeah, like you care...