Douglas Whaley

The Birthday Boy at 60 My husband, David Vargo, has always been a talented man, much admired in the acting community, a terrific graphic designer, and the winner of multiple awards for various things (trophies fill our house).   It was therefore a major shock for him to realize that in 2017, like it or not, he was going to turn 60 on December 22.   SIXTY!   YIKES!   A HORROR STORY!   More than that, in 2013 he had married into a chosen family that has rituals for Big Birthdays like this, and such momentous occasions do not pass quietly into the night but are instead celebrated with traditional major public happenings.   Oh, no!   NO, NO, NO!!! One of these rituals, in which David, alas, has participated a couple of times over the last five years of our marriage as one of the singers, is the rendition of the “Big Birthday” song, about which I have often commented on in this blog.   It was written years ago by myself and m...

John Sorenson and Me Last night we opened in “Proof” for a three week run at Little Theater Off Broadway in Grove City, Ohio (a suburb on the south side of Columbus). It's a drama with some very funny parts and involves a woman's search for identity in the shadow of her brilliant but mad father, a titan in the world of mathematics.  Her problem is that she had to care for him during much of his later life, slowing her own pursuit of mathematics.  After his death she produces a brilliant new mathematical proof that amazes everyone who sees it.  She explains that she wrote it, but even those close to her believe it is really the work of her father and she is either (a) lying or (b), like him, crazy.  The terrific play by David Auburn not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in in 2001, but also the Tony Award that same year. There are four characters: Catherine, the young woman in question, her sister Clare, a young mathematician named Harold Dobbs...

Maria and Clayton When my husband David and I visited my son, Clayton Whaley, and his wife Maria, in the Seattle, Washington, area this past summer, at one point we were all standing in their kitchen and Maria playfully suggested something to Clayton as a possible thing he should do and he replied without hesitation, “That’s an UNC.”  [It rhymes with "dunk."]  David and I both laughed.  Who knew?  My son and daughter-in-law use “UNC” too!  Clayton must have gotten it from me, and, happily this very useful meme has now been handed off to a new generation.  I was very pleased. The initials mean “Under No Circumstances,” and are used whenever what has just been proposed has no chance of happening if the speaker has any control over the situation. It comes up often, for example, when David and I are sitting in a movie theater watching previews prior to the showing of the feature film.  Some film previews, of course, ...

Looking back on World War II it is almost incomprehensible how someone like Adolph Hitler could have persuaded the German people to embrace his madness.  And, minor student of history that I am, I’ve often wondered that it really happened.  I’m half German (my mother’s side) and the Germans are a very practical people, rooted in reality, dedicated to making things work.  How could they have become so accommodating to evil to elect that awful government into power and then allowed it to thrive until it almost conquered the globe with its deadly choices?  Certainly, this madness, so demonstrably wrong, couldn’t happen again, and particularly not in an age where information is available at the touch of a phone pad and facts are widely spread so that truth is obvious to anyone paying attention to the issues. Then came the election of Donald Trump and now I nightly slump in my chair at the renewed madness loosed upon ...

One of my favorite comedy routines is Bill Cosby’s “Chickenheart.”   It is magically funny and when I first heard it in my 20s I laughed as hard as I ever laugh.   Even after repeated hearings over decades (I introduced my son to it in 1976 and he loved it) it remained a comedy favorite.   Listen for yourself: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Bill+Cosby%E2%80%99s+%E2%80%9CChickenheart.%E2%80%9D&view=detail&mid=5B1D6E640384D6583BC45B1D6E640384D6583BC4&FORM=VIRE .   But once Cosby was accused by 58 women (to date) of sexually abusing them (typically by drugging their drinks and then making love to their limpid bodies) I dropped my attachment to “Chickenheart.” Its humorous bubble had burst and this once funny routine had no appeal shorn of the innocence that made it so endearing.    I’m a liberal Democrat and I’ve admired Al Franken first as a very funny member of Saturday Night Live and then as an enlighten...