Just Published!
The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be
A warm, witty collection of bite-sized stories, outsized characters, offbeat observations, and globe-trotting misadventures, The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be is a lighthearted chronicle of a lifelong storyteller.
“Reflections on a well-lived and adventurous life… charming, funny, poignant and wise.” — Drew Faust, President Emerita, Harvard University
“A riveting and rollicking collection of tales… With brutal candor and self-deprecating wit, Bowie unspools stories that both entertain and pack plenty of wisdom.” — Ben Bradlee Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team
“Pearl after pearl — brief easily-accessible stories that reflect the unclouded eye of the author for all things honest, compassionate and revelatory. I laughed, cried, reflected, regretted and rejoiced.” — Ty Cobb, Prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer and former White House Special Counsel
Now on Amazon!
An Accidental Diary
A sonnet a week for a year
An Accidental Diary has just been published. I am both surprised and extremely proud of my unusual book.
In writing a sonnet a week for a year, I discovered — almost 20 years later — that I’d created a wild subconscious diary in a year of transition.
It was whatever was on my mind Sunday night while working to meet my deadline.
It was what I had kept hidden from myself back then and what years later would happen: fond recollections and musings on loss, lust, love of family, my fear of dying alone, a sad divorce and, back then, even efforts to quit smoking.
I hope you’ll give it a read.
Plays by Robert Bowie, Jr…
Sold-Out Shows, Rave Reviews!
Our FringeNYC premiere could not have gone better…
ONAJE sold out all five shows, the performances were riveting, and both audiences and critics were exceedingly positive. Check out these great reviews from onstageblog.com and Theatre is Easy (theasy.com) .
Thanks again to our incredible cast, crew, and creative team — and to everyone whose generous support helped bring ONAJE to life!
Recent Posts
It’s Not My Birthday!
Maybe it was because my birthday was last week, or maybe it’s because Trump and I are close to the same age and were born into the same American culture of George Washington and the cherry tree, and Pick Temple, who hosted a 1950s kids’ show on Washington D.C.’s WTOP-TV.
Or maybe it’s because of the midterms…
Wait a minute, who the hell is Pick Temple? He jumped out of my subconscious from, like, 70 years ago… Yes, it’s the midterms.
When I was about eight or nine years old, my mother signed me up as a possible “Birthday Boy” on The Pick Temple Giant Ranch show.
Mr. Temple was a sort of cowboy god for after-school cowboy and cowgirl third-graders. The half-hour show was like a combination of Mister Rogers and Mister Ed on black-and-white TV.
On TV, Pick Temple appeared to be dressed entirely in white, and he played a lot of guitar. If you were chosen to be a Birthday Boy or Girl, you were singled out and got to ride in the saddle that was positioned on a sawhorse while the William Tell Overture played.
You were allowed to pull your six-guns out of their holsters during the music and fire them wildly at the sky — but there were NO caps allowed, apparently for fire safety.
It was black-and-white TV, but in person Mr. Temple was not dressed in all white like he looked on my TV at home.
He was dressed in light blue from hat to boots, because the studio lights, I was told, would make Mr. Temple “shine too bright on your TV at home.”
This was disturbing, I remember. But it was minor compared to what came next.
When my mother put my name in to be a Birthday Boy, she accidentally wrote down her brother’s birthday instead of mine. While I was being driven to the studio, a shocking thing happened.
My mother told me to lie about my birthday.
I held it together while they sang “Happy Birthday” to me as I sat in the saddle — up until they turned on the music and I pulled out my guns.
Then, as the William Tell Overture blasted over the speakers, I could not tell a lie. I started screaming over and over, “It’s not my birthday! It’s not my birthday!”
The music continued and the chaos grew as people off camera waved their hands, trying to get me to play along. But I had integrity, dammit, as a nine-year-old.
And it got worse. Because I couldn’t get anybody’s attention, I pulled out the guns and started firing, but I had forgotten to take the caps out.
They stopped filming for an instant while they snatched my cap guns, then went right back to filming with the music at full blast.
Before the broadcast, my mother had invited all my friends and their families to sit on our living room floor after school and watch my performance when it aired a week later.
I was worried I would be embarrassed for the rest of my life.
In hindsight, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. They had cut the film and spliced it together so that, in an instant, the William Tell Overture lost track of itself and came back in a different place, and I appeared for the rest of the performance without any guns, my hands at the sides of the saddle, motionless and almost in tears.
My classmates didn’t really catch the interruption, but of course all the adults had been talking about it all week and were laughing hysterically. They left, saying things to my parents like, “Well, he shot the lights out with that one!”
As for those parents, I’m sure they’re all dead. Even the Reflecting Pool has lost its memory in an algae bloom. I hope the truth is restored and the lies end with the midterms, but I suspect not.
Wouldn’t it be great if our leaders had the integrity of George Washington — or, at a bare minimum, a nine-year-old?
Birthday Parties and Wisdom from My Mother
My mother was a political genius responsible for my extremely successful lower school birthday parties but, because of two completely different events, I understand her now. After my short-lived political career and the opening of the Manor Mill in Monkton, the middle...
Sound Without Fury
Everybody knows there’s nothing worse than a deaf extrovert — except for the deaf extrovert or, worse, perhaps a person trying to learn how to be a deaf extrovert. This spring, Susan and I went to the London Book Fair for a week, and to Paris for three weeks in late...
Make America Generous Again
Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m all in on this “Make America Great Again” (as long as it’s the greatness I remember from the late ’60s and early ’70s — right on!). I saw the people rise up against the Vietnam War and and I saw an American president resign in disgrace...
About Robert Bowie, Jr.
Playwright and Poet Robert Bowie, Jr. of Baltimore, Maryland has had ten plays produced, including “Onaje,” which was selected for professional production at FringeNYC in October 2018. Its five sold-out FringeNYC performances received rave reviews. Other plays include “There Ain’t No Wyoming” and “Naked House Painting Society,” which were produced through The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Bowie’s political farce “Crash & Burn P.A.” was the only submission selected by the 2016 Festival Committee for a full production at Theatrical Mining Company, Baltimore.
Bowie’s plays are focused on social justice and span a broad spectrum between drama and comedy. His subject matter ranges from racial prejudice and civil rights to political farce.
Bowie is a graduate of Harvard University and is the Poet Laureate of The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA).
His well-reviewed collection of sonnets, An Accidental Diary, is available to order online.
“Without the arts, we are a rudderless boat.”
— Robert Bowie, Jr.