I don’t wanna say goodbye for the summer

Bela Lugosi serially married five women. His fifth wife and widow, Hope Littinger, was many years younger. She had fixated on Lugosi when she saw Dracula over twenty years earlier. Supposedly, on the day they married in 1955, Bela got on the phone and called wife #4, asking her to take him back.

I tend to get cast as bad-boy Byronic types. Occasionally, I tend to get lightly stalked after I do a theatrical show. The following five women and girls have basically no clue who I am, except for what they’ve seen on stage:

hey john! its your number one fan, A. If you don't remember me i went to
see you at The Rocky Horror Show in RED. I even had you sign my bra, and i
got to kiss you. ;-P Well i just wanted to say "hello" and see how you were
doing. Thank-you for signing the picture for me. I saw your resume, i want
to go to Harvard, but i want to go to Harvard Medical. Anyway, me and my
side-kick B (the one who wears black) are going to be in a magic show
in San Francisco. It is on August 22. If you are interested let me know so i
can tell you more about it. If not, its okay too. I also wanted to know if
there was going to be any more Rocky Horror Show showings? If there is i
want to go and cheer you on as usual. Well this is getting long so i will
let you go. hopefully, you will write back.
---
Hey, it B remember me? How r u? I'm sorry I never came to the last 
show, I couldn't :( I was really upset that I wasn't there. So what have u 
been up 2 lately? A and I are doing this magic show thing, It's lots of 
fun, But I think A already told you about that. Well I have 2 go, I'm 
going to a movie with my friends hope 2 hear from u soon.
----
hi john (rif-raf). how are you? you probably dont remember me....me
and my best friend used to go 2 the ROCKY HORROR SHOW  all of the
time. i was the one who always went in a red bra.... so yea...hehehe
i was wondering if you were going to be in any plays soon because we
would like to see you....oh, would you play rif-raf again if it came back?
i hope so! well talk 2 you later...
---
Ultimately, it wasn't enough and I ended up wet, horny and frustrated. I
tried John, I really tried, and I thought of you the whole time.  I wanted
to be able to come so badly.  I need you, very much. 
---
I miss you. Sorry to be so distracted. I'm tired of the tournament, and I'm
going to have to work a lot until it's over. Will probably be
working most of the weekend. But at least I'll be working at home on the
laptop, so we can still sleep late and have sex and hang out together
anyway.

Well, to tell the truth, the very last one was written by my wife. I’ll take it anyway. By the way, have I ever told you how I met my wife? She thought I was the cutest one in the show.

Powerful stuff, fan love, and you can get drunk on too much of it. I’ve received multiple offers of sex, marriage requests, and other random presents from women who really don’t know the first thing about me.

Except for the distracted one at the bottom of the list, these misguided girls fell in lust with fictional characters. Much as my ego would like to pretend so, I’m not the true target of their affections. Dammit!

We love spelling; it makes us feel normal

Yours truly went to the National Spelling Bee in 1981, representing the fair state of West Virginia, including Putnam County. (The damned word was “fulsome“. I came in at #40 in the national competition.) So it’s only reasonable that I should fall utterly in love with the score from “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” an adorable little musical that celebrates the essence of geek. It speaks to me!

Stop dragging this butt around

Rehearsals are great fun because I can strike up a great deal of trouble without saying a damned word. The key to being truly obnoxious is using the standard actor library of facial expressions. As we’re rehearsing Valerie’s new play, I start a conversation with Allison, who I’ve just met. Allison is a rangy, cordial, easygoing Texas actress who produces her own theater and does occasional stage reads. As I chat her up, she sort of reaches behind my head and tugs on a tuft of my hair.

“What, is something wrong with my hair?” I ask.

“Oh, I think you have stuff in it,” says Allison.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’s, um, hair product. I put in some extra product today.”

“Product?” she asks.

“Product,” I say.

“Actually, it’s not the product,” says Allison. “Your hair is sticking up in back.”

“It’s the product,” I say.

“This look is okay for really young men,” she contemplated, tugging on the back of my head. “But for older men? it’s not…” She trailed off.

At this point, I turned and gave her look #43. Now look #43, for those of you who are not professional actors, is a mix of sadness, offense and surprise.

“Oh? I didn’t mean? that is…” She covered her mouth. “Did I just really say that?”

“I’m not so old as that,” I said, subtly shifting into the #43a sequence, my lips quivering, tears in my eyes. “Not… so… very… old…”

She laughed nervously. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, look at my hair! It?s got gray in it, yes? Gray! Can you imagine that?”

I snuffled. Cue #43b. “I think… it looks very nice.”

Allison proceeded to turn a beautiful shade of mauve and remained thus for several minutes at least, until I changed the topic of conversation to balls. Pool balls. It was a plot point in the play. Never mind. So later, the cast is hanging out around the piano and I’m playing every 1980s pop song ever written and Allison comes up. “Wow, you have an astounding hidden ability with the piano,”she says.

“Thanks,” I say.

Conversationally, she asks, ?Do you have any other hidden abilities??

I give her look #76. This is the look that Riff Raff wore around during most of The Rocky Horror Show, kind of a lecherous lustful dangerous evil grimace thing. Allison cackles and gives me a light swat on the butt.

“I’m not even sure what that look means,” I say.

Allison says, “Yeah! Uh, did I just touch your butt?”

I go back to #43a.

Allison says, “I don?t even know you that well and I just touched your butt. Oh my God.”

Seamless transition to #43b. I say, “Not just touched. Grabbed my butt.”

She?s back to mauve again. “I did not grab your butt!”

I break out of #43b long enough to say, “That, right there, was a full-on butt grab you did. Big old handful of my very own personal butt.” Back into #43b. She just starts cackling again, so I go over to Tom, the director, and say, “Do something about Alison!”

“What did she do?” says Tom.

“She grabbed my butt and called me old!” I say.

“What do you want me to do about it?” says Tom.

I collapse into his arms, break into #76 and holler, “I want you to grab my butt and call me old too!” I love rehearsals.

And if I had the choice, yeah, I’d always wanna be there

Thank you for filling out our online questionnaire.
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YOUR RESPONSE:

Class:  1991
First Name:  John
Middle Name (if any):  W
Current Last Name:  Byrd
Home Country:  United States
Occupation:  Vice President of Business Development
Type of Business:  Video games
Spouse:  Amanda Kalikow Byrd
Date of Marriage:  Aug 22, 1998
Spouse's Degree Inst. 1:  Harvard College
Spouse's Degree Year 1:  1991
Spouse's Occupation:  Director of Development
NARRATIVE:  What a great fifteen years it's been!  Shortly after graduation, I gained the
ability to reverse time for up to ten seconds.  After my death, the evil clown Slo'or reconstructed me
from my DNA fossil record.  Now I can only be harmed by lava.  Current personal goals include conquering
all of California and enslaving it unto my dark, indomitable will.  Armed with my dystronic
Stratocaster, my plan cannot possibly fail this time. 
Bwah hah hah hah!
__END OF RESPONSE__

Lord, them Delta women think the world of me

Down three flights of stairs, up two, jump on the subway; dammit it’s the wrong one! An unwanted side trip to seething Shibuya Station, and I can’t cross to the eastbound Hanzomon line without exiting, down three flights of stairs, up one, across the courtyard, down four flights, up two, caught the subway ten stops to a flat escalator snaking up a low hill to the limousine bus (same as a regular bus, still) to Narita Airport, where I flash a passport and hustle through the Red Carpet Club (returning someone’s lost passport on the way) to United 852 (exit row) to SFO to walk through immigration control then twenty percent tip to a taxi home.

Eight thousand, six hundred, thirty-two miles, three days, thousands of dollars. Is what I have to say so damned important?