SimpleSimons

I'm a poet, playwright, blogger, educator, actor, singer, director, lighting designer, set designer, technical director, and passive activist. I'm a member of American Mensa and a lifetime member of the International Thespian Society. I live for the applause and the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd because there's no people like show people like no people I know. There's definitely no business like show business like no business I know. I love baseball, especially the Cleveland Indians and the Lake Erie Crushers, and golf, especially Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, and Arnold Palmer. I love dogs, especially big breeds. I tolerate cats. Billy Joel is the greatest songwriter ever. "Tender is the Night" is the best novel ever written. Sherman Alexie is my favorite poet. Bertolt Brecht is my favorite playwright. Shakespeare runs a close second. Star Trek and Star Wars are BOTH amazing. Babylon 5 might well be the best science fiction TV series ever written.

I grew up just outside of Akron, Ohio, the rubber capital of the world, the son of a third-generation Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company worker. I went to Kent State University, but was far too young to protest the Vietnam War, but all my professors were there on May 4, 1970. I live near Cleveland, Ohio, the birthplace of Superman and the location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

If you support education, I am for you. If you support the arts, I am for you. If you support the environment, I am for you. If you support free speech, I am for you. If you support the free exercise (or right not to exercise) of religion, then I am for you. If you support an open and free press, then I am for you. If you support peaceful negotiation and compromise as a way to resolve difference instead of war, then I am for you. If you seek to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and clothe those who need to be clothed, then I am for you. If you support wind, solar, and water power, then I am for you. If you support people over profit, then I am for you. If you support equal rights for women and homosexuals, then I am for you. If you support nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, then I am for you.

I am a proudly self-proclaimed liberal intellectual. I think, therefore I am. I act well my part; there all the honor lies. In all reality, I'm just an ordinary, average guy.