It took me years to figure out how to perform. My acting teacher would graciously say, "use your body as an instrument, try acting like a flowing willow tree, then try a human being." I couldn't learn anything until I tried acting like a mad labratory rat (while sporting a Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire early 90s ponytail), that was the breakthrough. The Coffeehouse, March 21, 1992.

Any High School in the USA

Students

upon receiving their Scholastic Aptitude Tests

immediately contract white blinding headaches

and rush out of the high school gymnasium screaming:

DUH! DUH! DUH!

They run about aimlessly like laboratory rats

driven mad from too many bells and mazes,

until guidance counsellors talk them back to their senses

and they return to graduate directly to the nearest factory,

broken-down old folk before they are able to vote.

by TJ Richter

© 1985 Theodore J. Richter