🎭How The West Was Lost—Or, Pure As The Driven Smog (Part 2)
Behind the Curtains
Okay, so maybe the Aquarius Rising Theater didn’t have curtains, but we definitely had a backstage area where all the stress went to play before the play. It’s in that area where one realizes exactly how much work goes into play acting.
I promised you yesterday that I’d introduce you to the powerhouse woman who made all the difference in my stage presence. This castmate was both an actress and a stunt woman, and she had a commanding influence as a trainer behind the scenes. The actress was Spice Williams-Crosby, whom you may have seen play a saloon girl in The Cherokee Kid with Sinbad or the Klingon Vixis in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. If you want to learn more about Spice and her super health conscious endeavors that make me think she is still just as powerful now as then, check her official website.
Since I was only 16 or 17, I don’t recall if Spice was actually an official director or not, but she definitely directed me and others to pull off a truly great performance. She took our little production as seriously as if it were a high-paying, top Hollywood release. By the end of her training, I knew how to speak and act like a New York newspaper boy, a little orphan girl, and an old Indian woman.
Seven Costume Changes and One Tired Teenager
That newspaper boy had more than one headline to sell, and in between those sales, three little orphan girls had to show up in tattered clothing and then change to more appropriate sleepwear. The fun Irish nanny taught us to have hope for tomorrow with a little song that went something like:
Some fine day when my ship comes in,
I won't care about, never think about,
What my life has been.
I'll have chicken every Sunday,
Never go to work on Monday,
When my ship comes in.
That was the chorus, and I know the verse had the line, “I’ll live the life of Riley, hip hooray” in it, but I can’t recall the rest.
Wild, Wild Mabel
For some reason, though, I can recall all the words and the tune for a song I didn’t sing myself, and that’s the song Wild, Wild Mabel that was sung by Spice.
(Chorus)
Wild, wild Mabel,
Wild, wild Mabel.
There's never been a man who was able
To tame her.
Meaner than a lion, she could scratch and claw.
With a red hot trigger and fast on the draw,
Yes Wild, Wild Mabel was her name.
(Verse--partly spoken)
(Speak)
On a cold dark night,
Back in 74,
Mabel went out
To settle a score
(Sing)
With a tall dark stranger who was known as Dangerous Dan.
(Speak)
A shot was fired,
And the silence was broken,
The door swung open,
With the gun still smokin'.
(Sing)
Yes, Wild, Wild Mabel got her man.
(Repeat chorus)
Wild, wild Mabel,
Wild, wild Mabel.
There's never been a man who was able
To tame her.
Meaner than a lion, she could scratch and claw.
With a red hot trigger and fast on the draw,
Yes Wild, Wild Mabel was her name.
When I shared these lyrics with Gemini to see if they exist anywhere online, I got a little history lesson about an embedded joke in the lyrics. Gemini says, “That is a direct, hilarious nod to ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew,’ the famous 1907 Robert W. Service poem that practically defined the entire ‘Wild West saloon melodrama’ genre!”
It’s a very long poem, but it has some interesting history and alternate texts, so I recommend looking at its Wikipedia page for all the info, like the fact that Ronald Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney did their own alternating recital of it.
Stay Tuned for Our Final Act: Part 3
While the orphans were getting ready for bed, the Irish nanny had some comedic surprises of her own as she sang to us about failing at being a “Shoplifters Daughter,” and then walked to the corner of the room to sing the ultimate guilt-trip torch song, “Tears on My Pillow.”
You won’t find these lyrics anywhere else on the internet (or if you do, please tell me where), so make sure to check back tomorrow for the grand finale of this fun journey down my memory lane.
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Prompt Response: Faith is the Answer
How do you handle fear and self-doubt?
I’m not sure where I learned the two acronyms in the image above, but I know they weren’t together when I learned them. The idea of the first part is to see fear as nothing to fear. But, in truth, sometimes it really is something that can harm us or those we love, and being in fear is the normal response we need to activate our “fight or flight” response.
Whether it’s a real, worthy of fighting or evasive maneuvers, fear, or the weight of tossing our troubles around in our minds until they harm us whether they come to fruition or not, FAITH is still an answer. Faith may give you the wisdom you need for a proper fight or the direction to run for a good getaway. Or, faith may just tell you to stand your ground and be still because the battle belongs to The Lord. The hardest and easiest part is when faith tells you that nothing will change but that nothing changing also means God is still on His throne taking care of what we can’t control and of our eternity.
On that last part, I can tell you honestly that the idea of losing anyone I love and care for from this Earth is hard. Thinking of my own passage into eternity is hard. And I need statements like the one above to remind me that God’s got it all in His hands.
Still, it’s totally human to fear and doubt. In Psalm 56:3, King David didn’t say he would not fear but rather …
Psalm 56:3 BSB
[3] When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.56.3.BSB
Though, once he acknowledged that he could be afraid, he strengthened himself in The Lord and went on in verse 4 to say …
Psalm 56:4 BSB
[4] In God, whose word I praise — in God I trust. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.56.4.BSB
When the roots of our fears and doubts are of our own making, they can harm us at least as much as real dangers. Recently, I spent an entire night with my lessons, blog, and sleep all negatively affected because I feared an unknown scenario where I’d received a subpoena. Not being a person who likes to defend myself even when I know I’m innocent, that postal note on a certified letter let my mind wander to many possible scenarios. The next day, I thought of better possibilities (like an old family parcel with water rights finally becoming worth something), but oh how the wandering mind can torture us until we know the truth. And at the end, not one thing I imagined matched the real reason for the letter.
So, did I put those weights of the world on a tray and hand them over to The Lord? Unfortunately, not. And He might have been extending His arms, ready to take over, the whole time. As many times as I’ve written about fear and shared miraculous testimonies, wouldn’t you think I’d know better by now? But alas, I am human and have a lot of experience that has set me up for fear and doubt—probably like everyone who reads this post.
I hope that sharing this helps someone to get through a fearful event or time a little more easily, even if it’s because you now know you’re not alone in being a person who loves and trusts God but still gives in to your fears at times. And I hope creating a visual of someone passing the weight of the world to the waiting hands of God will stay with me (and you) for the next time fear becomes a battle.
I wrote the poem below for my sister in 2015 as we both maneuvered life after losing our mom. You can find it to download in its largest size on my Flickr page at https://flic.kr/p/ybqdqj where I’ve listed a regular copyright but am happy to let people use it for personal and non-commercial purposes. Since I’ve placed it on items for sale at Zazzle, I must protect my copyright to make sure no one comes and says I took it from them, but I’m a big believer in freely I have received, so freely I will give.
(Both the image and words are by Crystal A Murray © 2015)
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