rants, reports, raves, and embarrassments from eric trules

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The Not So Dumb Wrestler, A Tribute to Broadway Producer, Kenneth Greenblatt

We grew up in the same neighborhood. Post-war, baby boom suburban Westbury, Long Island, just about an hour as the crow flies from New York City. Manhattan. The Great White Way. Both our fathers worked in the “schmata business”. That’s the Yiddish word for the textile business. Kenny’s father worked in sales and printing. My Dad was the middle-man, a textile broker, arranging sales between manufacturers and the guys who printed on raw fabrics. Both our Dads took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan five days a week. Who knows, maybe they took the same train at 7:15 a.m. every…

On Losing Kobe

— Every weekday morning I wake up at 5:45 a.m., to carve out 45 minutes for myself in the bathroom (ok, on the toilet) – before I start my daily “personal homework routine” with my still English-learning, almost 13 year old, son… alternating spelling with dictation, and every morning, reading: “Charlotte’s Web”, “The BFG”… parents, you know the drill.—Ok, I sit and read the newspaper – the old fashioned way – turning the pages to find what I want to read. I have to be judicious, with just 45 minutes at hand. I look at the headlines, page 2 &…

Hubris and the LA Sports Gods

I’m a native New Yorker. A sports junkie. I grew up worshipping the New York Yankees of the 50s and 60s. The Bronx Bombers. Mickey Mantle. Whitey Ford. World Series champs year after year. We took their winning for granted. Came to expect it. When the Yankees didn’t win, it was an aberration. Sure, ok, we were spoiled and conceited, and we knew the rest of the country hated us and our team, but we just… didn’t care. By the time Derek Jeter starting winning championships, I was already a fading fan. And now, with “The Cap”‘s 2014 retirement, I…

Childhood Heroes, Part 2, Cassius Clay aka Muhammad Ali

Cassius Marcellus Clay. The “Lousiville Lip”. “The Greatest” heavyweight boxing champ of all time. “Floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee!” My second boyhood hero… long before he became known as the most famous man on the planet, Muhammad Ali. In 1960, when i was 13 years old, 18 year old Cassius Clay burst onto the national sports scene by winning the Olympic gold medal. He was brash. Talented. Faster than lightning. And he couldn’t be beat. With the help of loud mouth and equally-brazen sportscaster, Howard Cosell, Clay brought entertainment, poetry, and show biz back to the dismal…

childhood heroes, part 1, mickey mantle

june 10, 2014 i’ve been blogging a lot about my childhood lately. my first discovery of anti-semitism on valentines road (https://www.erictrules.com/blog/blog/there-was-a-horse/). my horrendous, forced-upon-me  bar mitzvah at temple sholom (https://www.erictrules.com/blog/blog/bar-mitzvah-blues/) . a lot of pain, a lot of negativity, blah blah blah. we all have it. so what? can i really transform the microcosm of my own pain into the universality of art? make it the story of other people’s pain and suffering? like o’neill? arthur miller? tennessee williams? the 3 greatest american playwrights. not that i’m a great american playwright. i’m not. but… i’m a theater prof, and a…

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