rants, reports, raves, and embarrassments from eric trules

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Gino Cumeezi

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…

Karma, Coincidence, and Clowns, or… a Perfect Circle of People

Sometimes… on a certain night…. or on a certain day…. or in a certain moment, people come together in your life… in an inexplicable, maybe karmic, and if you believe in it, even in a magical way. There’s no logic for it. It’s just something like “life is stranger than fiction”.

On Retirement from a Life in the Theater

Tomorrow I’ll pick up my final pay check. It’s my “last day of service” at the great University of Southern California, where I’ve taught in the School of Dramatic Arts for 31 years. I started as a simple adjunct instructor with a single improv class, and I ended up improvising my way to becoming a full-time “Associate Professor of Theater Practice”. Non- tenured… but still impressive in my parents’ eyes, and not anything I could have anticipated or imagined when I graduated college in 1969 with a degree in Frisbee. That’s almost 50 years ago… during which time I grew…

gino cumeezi, outlaw clown & provocateur

as many of you may, or may not know, i used to be a clown. “gino cumeezi”. that was my name. great grandson of the infamous and toothless “gums” cumeezi. a cross between charlie chaplin, jack kerouac, and grand central station. i like to think of gino as a subversive public fool. a comic outlaw. a provocateur to the max. truly one of new yawk’s “finest”. in fact, gino ran for mayor of new york city in 1977. against the recently deceased (february, 2013), one and only mayor of new yawk, ed koch. “put a real clown in gracie mansion.” that was gino’s campaign slogan. he finished 5th out of 4 candidates.

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