It is with a heavy heart that I bring you news of the death of a very fine and talented actor.  Don S. Davis, whom I know from the role of General George Hammond from Stargate SG-1, passed away on June 29, 2008 from a heart attack.  He was 65 years old.

I’ve always loved Stargate SG-1, as you can see from my post on one of the phrases earlier, “If you immediately know candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago.” From day one, when SG-1 was on HBO, I saw General Hammond make the toughest decisions a person can make.  Davis did a fantastic job of showing the courage and toughness needed to deal in those situations, while still showing compassion and understanding and caring for those under Hammond’s command.

Last year, I bought Stargate SG-1 Season One on DVD.  When I finished that, I bought season two.  When I finished that, I bought seasons three, four and five, spent months looking for seasons six and seven, wound up buying seasons 8 and 9 to sit on my shelf while I waited for the two I was missing.  Finally found those, and then bought season 10.

I’d sit in my room for days and watch Stargate, and I was disappointed when Don Davis left the show, for health reasons.  I missed his courageous character and great strength.  I feel like I lived through six years of the Stargate team’s lives.

I’m saddened for this loss to the team of one of TV’s greatest sci-fi shows.  I’m saddened for other reasons, as well.  I am going to Dragon*Con this fall, and he was supposed to be there.  I was looking forward to meeting one of my role models.  Now that won’t happen.

Farewell, Hammond of Texas.  May you rest in peace.

Perhaps I should include more popular phrases from TV shows or movies in my blog (I am your father), since that seems to be the only traffic I get lately (You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!).  You see, awhile back I wrote a blog about a phrase from one of my favorite TV shows “Stargate SG-1″ (It took us 15 years and 3 super computers to MacGyver a system for the gate on Earth.) and roughly 2/3rds of my 35 average daily visitors come from people searching for that phrase.

Kind of odd, I thought.  (Our affair, like our hotels, had gone from elegant with crystal to seedy with plastic cups.)

Incidentally, I just checked and my post “If you immediately know candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago” post is the #1 hit on Google for that phrase.  Go me!  Don’t believe me?  Check it out for yourself.

So what does this mean?  This means that maybe 5-8 people are actually reading this thing on a regular basis, and that 2/3rds of my “audience” accidentally made their way here.  (Okay, Radar, state your business, in one word or less.).  That’s not good.

That leaves me some options.  I can shut this thing down and focus on other projects, spending my time browsing other blogs, and make my presence known that way.  Or I could keep this up, keep writing for myself and the handful of people who read (but don’t comment) and wonder at all the visitors who don’t care about theatre and just want to know the meaning of Oma Desala’s phrase. (You’re worth two 43s, 86.)

I guess you’ll have to wait in terrible suspense (I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti) until next week to see if I keep this up or not.

I wonder how many accidental visits I’ll get now.

One thing that people do very often is stare right into the face of truth and ignore it. They let their preconceived notions and assumptions inhibit their ability to think for themselves, to learn. My roommate, for example, believes very strongly that evolution (just a “theory”) is a hoax, that God put the dinosaurs in the earth for us to find. Obviously, he doesn’t understand what a scientific theory entails. But his religious beliefs and other preconceived ideas keep him from accepting the fact that science has proven thousands of times that evolution works.

My parents believe that I’m wasting my time with theatre. Every time I call my grandmother, she says something along the lines of “Maybe you should try getting a real job.” My family has made this assumption that theatre is all fun and games, that it involves no actual work and focus and meaningful activity. A lawyer friend of mine derided the American public for grieving for Heath Ledger’s untimely death by saying “You guys are a bunch of idiots. You never knew the guy. Even the guy you think you knew, you didn’t know. He made a living pretending to be something else.” Yes, that’s what actors do, but there is more to it than simply pretending.

Theatre is a very hard industry to make a living in, I’ll grant you that. But people like Scott Walters and others are trying to come up with ways to help theatre artists make living wages while still producing their art. They’re challenging the base assumptions behind the status quo.

One of my favorite shows is Stargate SG-1. In that show’s first season, Daniel Jackson encounters an Ancient, an being who as ascended to a higher plane of existence (think the Buddhists’ Nirvana). Oma Desala, as the character is called, speaks in riddles to Daniel Jackson. One thing she says is “If you immediately know candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago.” Daniel has no idea what it means.

Ten seasons later, I think I’ve figured it out. If you immediately know candlelight is fire (i.e. without thinking about it), then the meal was cooked long ago (i.e. you had already decided the truth). If you immediately know evolution is false, without looking at the facts or thinking about it, then you’ve closed your mind to any alternatives. In this case, you’ve closed your mind to the truth.

If you immediately know theatre is a waste of time, then you’ve already decided theatre artists are lazy people, no better than beggars and hobos.

Don’t be my parents.
Open your eyes to the truth.
Explore the possibilities.