CollisionWorks

When I did Ten Nights in a Bar-Room - Romero zombies in Temperance-landscape, a Punk friend said with complement that it was "Punk Rock Theatre."

This is the ideal.

To do in these works (my theatre, what I do, the Gemini CollisionWorks) what I find in the best Punk, the best Garage. What David Thomas of Pere Ubu calls the "Avant-Garage." Burn it all down. Smash what's still standing. Pick up the pieces. Look at them. See how you can put them together in different ways that make you understand better what they were in the first place. Start again. Do better. Destroy things better. Fail better. Rip it up and start again. Be angry. Be joyful. Always be angry with joy.

The thought been done occurring to me that the best rock 'n' roll - the perfecting of it - came in the hands of those American garage rockers of the 60s. That this was what RNR was supposed to be - the line that starts with "Good Rocking Tonight" and "Gee" and "Rocket 88" and "That's Alright Mama" down to a bunch of kids creating greatness in limitations and ignorance. Good rock been done made since then, but not actual rock 'n' roll. Not quite part of the original line. Like film noir - REAL film noir - only existed in USA filmmaking from 1941 to 1958 . . . everything else in the noir "manner" is a conscious imitation of a natural national style that unconsciously just HAPPENED. Maybe that's it then, real RNR only existed in the USA from 1951 to 1968.

The punks came in and reconstituted it, the garage ideal, the RNR ideal, but from an intellectual point-of-view - most of them were college educated or dropouts, or could have gone that path and chose not. Smart people trying to lose their smartness in energy and non-reason and volume. Closer to something basically human underneath. But always aware somewhere that this was indeed Art. Nuggets and The Stooges were the key, the hinge on which it all turned. What was it, transforming Outsider Art into Modernism? Not quite - you can't call something as consciously planned and created as Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" an Outsider work, no - but something like that . . .

This is a point of view, not a prescription for the Work. This does not mean violent and loud and messy always in action. Precise, clean works can be done from this mindset. Even "pretty" ones.

(when I directed my first play, several people described it to me as "exquisite," with one even saying it was like a "perfect little jewel box" - and it didn't entirely sound like praise to me - I was [relatively] young; I overreacted; I made my second production as loud and chaotic and confrontational as I could - it was appropriate for the show, but I know better now - sometimes the Work is just supposed to be a jewel box)

It is all about the place of the individual Work in the context of the larger Scene. It is about Reconstruction, not Deconstruction.

It is a mindset. It is important for all the collaborators to be on the same page. It is about a kind of energy, a kind of awareness. It is about operating the tools we've been given with care and respect and precision in a manner that will destroy those tools. We are using these old forms and filling them with a real human energy while we take them apart.

(I often use the example of Penn & Teller doing the classic Cups and Balls routine, where they do it "properly" and then do it again . . . with clear plastic cups so you can see - supposedly - how the illusion is done - and they do it so skillfully that while you can actually see the trickery, it's more impressive and amazing and moving than seeing it done "right" - THIS is what to aim for)

It can be Matt and Bryan's Penny Dreadful, or Jeff's Babylon Babylon, or Nosedive's The Master of Horror, or Robert & Moira's Lord Oxford, or Michael's Notes from Underground, or Bouffon Glass Menajorie or whatever show I'm trying to do this week - and not all of these were entirely successful, maybe, sure - but they all have that quality of self-awareness, that ability to share with the audience the smile and laugh about how dead these forms we're using are (aren't they? I mean, aren't they?), and then stun them with how real and sad and painful and human we can be in these forms.

This is what we're doing at our best in Indie Theatre, Off-Off-Broadway, whatever you call it. I just call it Theatre, the rest is just a marketing label.

(which is not unimportant - and the Punks were brilliant in their marketing using limitations as strengths - something to look at and think about and write upon in future . . . we now have to try to convince the audience that's out there and only thinks of what we do as a dead museum that it is being reinhabited with new energy and life . . .)

In other words, we're not playing around.

Inspirational Text for the Day #1.

Iggy Pop to Peter Gzowski, CBC, March 11, 1977:

I'll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and, uh... and, uh... heartless manipulators, about music... that takes up the energies, and the bodies, and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds, of young men, who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it's a... it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism, and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll. I don't know Johnny Rotten... but I'm sure, I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did.

You see, what, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise... is in fact... the brilliant music of a genius... myself. And that music is so powerful, that it's quite beyond my control. And, ah... when I'm in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you ever, have you ever felt like that? When you just, when you just, you couldn't feel anything, and you didn't want to either. You know, like that? Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?

Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?

And no, neither of them are the dancing prisoners video. That's from the Philippines.

(but if you haven't seen that one, it's HERE - more videos from the dancing prisoners can be found HERE)

No, these are two other videos that both demonstrate both a great and cool determination to complete a complex, pointless, and joyful task, and that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is a great song that cuts through all kinds of bounds of nation and clique.

First, a gentleman who performs his cover version of the track:

( François Macré performs 'Thriller' a cappella in 64 Tracks )

Meanwhile, at a French high school in Rouen (I would guess, from some of what we see, maybe a performing arts-centered one?), what looks to be the entire student body uses "Thriller" to create a pretty remarkable one-shot, lip-synced overview of their school and themselves:

( Lip Dub IUT SRC Rouen 2008 - 'Thriller' )

Enjoy.

So, I need to do some rewrites on A Little Piece of the Sun and then have the actual author of the play go over them and rewrite or adapt or approve my rewrites. I have to keep reading the text of Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe to find more of why I'm doing it and who the people are that are saying these lines. And I need to watch a whole bunch of 1940s Republic movie serials for more inspiration on Spacemen from Space. And maybe I need to stop the continual thoughts of Fassbinder's Blood on the Cat's Neck that keep coming up - I'm doing the OTHER three plays in August '09, so stop making me think I can do a fourth, oh you sneaky Fassbinder play!

I'm trying to figure out a "theme" or "festival" heading I can place my shows under. I've found that some places - well, Time Out New York specifically - won't list my shows separately when I do a group together in August, and they get listed in a way that I don't think sells them so well. So I want to get the jump on it and find the linkage I can exploit and promote myself, so it's not just the "Gemini CollisionWorks" Festival or worse, as it always gets referred to, the "Ian W. Hill" Festival. Yuck. What's the connecting theme of these plays? Lying? Deception? Anti-intellectualism? Maybe that's a good name, the "Anti-Intellectual Festival." Sounds like a bunch of plays you don't have to think at, but are actually dense plays about anti-intellectualism. "Dope-Fest?" "Stupid-O-Rama?" "The Cretin Hop?" "A Celebration of Bad Judgment?" "The Wrongheaded Festival?" "Idiots Abound?"

In any case, that then there's The Future. As for The Present, I've got two shows I was tangentially involved with going on or opening tonight:

photo by Ken Stein/Runs With Scissors Photography.

Above, Robert Honeywell as Lord Oxford (your host), Gyda Arber as Greta (representing the Northern European Peoples), Iracel Rivero as Lucia (representing the Southern European Peoples), Audrey Crabtree as Patty O'Pattycake (Western Europe/the UK) and Alyssa Simon as Nataliya (Eastern Europe/Asia) in

Lord Oxford brings you The Second American Revolution LIVE!.

Being an episode of a variety show taking place in a 2008 where George Washington was killed in the original Battle of Brooklyn, Sally Hemmings slit Thomas Jefferson's throat as he slept, and the British Crown still rules its New World colonies. On this night, the actors in the show revolt against the stereotyped "European" characters they are normally forced to play and join in a Second American Revolution against their British oppressors across the sea and the privileged peoples to the South (the freed Negro slaves, now Lords) and the West (the Native Americans). With musical numbers, clowning, politics, disturbing imagery, and potentially confusing or offensive metaphors!

written and composed by Robert Honeywell

directed by Moira Stone

I saw the final dress/tech of this the other night and it's a grand production. I'm sure I'll be back soon - Berit's off preparing for opening night of this now; she's board-opping and she built a few props and did other things. I shot the video coda and recorded a voice-over for them (the "Lord Oxford Show" announcer, in full Gary-Owens-Radio-School-For-Big-Voiced-Men mode, always fun to pull out).

Interested? Click the link in the title above for more info.

And still playing, in another borough:

photo by Aaron Epstein

Above, the Brothers and Sister Blood torment another poor soul in

The Blood Brothers present... The Master of Horror

stories by Stephen King, adapted for the stage by

James Comtois, Qui Nguyen, and Mac Rogers

directed by Patrick Shearer and Pete Boisvert

Now running smoothly, I'm told, and getting good notices (though my work - I did the light design - has gotten some mixed criticism, but it's mostly because of the limitations of the space and house plot I had to work with, so, whatever). A fun, creepy evening.

Interested? Click the link in the title above for more info.

In other electrical locales . . .

Ron Howard made a little pro-Obama movie with some old friends of his (one VERY old friend of his) - thanks be to Joshua James at his Daily Dojo for passing it on.

I also wanted to share it, despite feeling kinda odd about it. I wasn't sure how to describe this odd feeling, but David Pescovitz over at Boing Boing captured it: "It's funny, cute, sentimental, and incredibly awkward and horrifying all at once." Enjoy:

( The Return of Opie Cunningham )

Also from Funny or Die, a more immediate solution to Our Nation's troubles is suggested by Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones:

( The Best Course of Action )

Oh, and, uh, have you heard? Alan Greenspan appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has decided he made a widdle mistakey . . .

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Oh. Oops.

The full article in the New York Times is HERE.

If you really want to know just how "exceptionally well" this free-market ideology has been going for the past 40 years, I recommend the incredibly depressing book The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, which makes the whole subject easy-to-understand for people like me who find the whole world of invisible money difficult in the first place, and is a fine and horrifying look at the mindset that has led us into the current crisis.

The filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonas made a kind of short-film/trailer/promo for the book that I appreciated (and maybe posted?) when it appeared over a year ago. Now that I've read the book, I appreciate it much more:

( THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Cuarón, Cuarón, and Klein )

At times like this, sometimes I wish I had a device like this one, which can transform a boring apartment into a loud, sleazy, smoke-filled club with just the push of a BIG RED BUTTON. Really:

( EMERGENCY PARTY BUTTON )

For more cheer, I read the fine fine superfine Kim Morgan at her four(!) locales, Sunset Gun, Pretty Poison, Strange Impersonation, and Movies Filter.

I mention her today because she posted a brief appreciation of one of my favorite DAMNED LOUD 60s bands, The Sonics, earlier, which included a great video for the song "Psycho." So go visit her site over there at the link to the post above if you want to see some odd, crazed, 1960s TV go-go dancing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just got the brand-new Electric Six album, and Berit's running the show right now, so I can boogie like an idiot all by myself at home. And only the cats will know how stupid I look . . .

I'm not sure if I'd exactly call myself a fan, but damn I enjoyed his movies. I was introduced to them by my friend Jim Baker, who described Dolemite as "Plan 10 From Inner City," but RRM was several levels above most of Ed Wood's work.

Here are two trailers from RRM's best period and a brief clip from my favorite film of his, Petey Wheatstraw, The Devil's Son-In-Law:

( If You Crave Satisfaction, This Is The Place To Find That Action )

B & I will be going to a Halloween party this year that's actually on Halloween, for once. There is a costume theme for the party (though it won't be strictly enforced) which is "Fine Art," as in "come as Jackson Pollock or come as a Jackson Pollock." I suggested to Berit going as some characters from a Philip Guston painting but she said no (I think perhaps wisely, as they wouldn't be good costumes to walk around in).

Not a lot of time to really figure out anything elaborate. Maybe I'll wear a red shirt and black pants and say I've come as Mark Rothko's No. 14.

Not sure what Berit will do - it seems that a woman these days doesn't just have to decide on a costume, but on a "sexy" version of that costume . . .

( . . . and Frog )

And queencallipygos posted a meme that got me because it made me immediately look around and follow the instructions, which are:

Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions.

The only book within reach of the computer turned out to be Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer, on loan from Matt Gray. So I'll leave you today with these words . . .

Margaret was living in fear of the Spiritualists, who had a great deal at stake and were threatened by her confession, and especially her older sister, the domineering force in the family. As Margaret stepped to the platform, she faced more than two thousand people, including a good number of devoted Spiritualists who greeted her with hostility. As she attempted to speak, she found that the words were rambling and disjointed; the strain was too great, and Margaret was completely unable to continue. The expectant crowd realized that she had lost her nerve. Perhaps the entire confession had been a hoax.

I thought I had my final director's draft for my August, 2009 production of A Little Piece of the Sun finished - I had made some minor cleaning changes and cuts here and there and had them approved by playwright Daniel McKleinfeld, and I was planning to send it out to the actors I'd like to have in the show, when I started doing some more research on what's gone on at Chernobyl since Daniel wrote it in 2000. ALPOTS is a documentary play, almost all found text, mixing the stories of the serial killer Andrei Chikatilo and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, so at the time it was written, the latter story was still ongoing - as it is today - as the Russian government continues to try and figure out what to do to keep containing the radioactive lava still inside the concrete sarcophagus built around Chernobyl Reactor Unit #4. Which is falling apart. They now have a plan for a new structure to go around it by 2012 that will last a hundred years. Which isn't as long as the radioactive lava will remain harmful, but they figure the Russians of 100 years hence will figure out what to do with it by then. Ha. Ha.

So I have to go into the ending of the show (where the cast sums up the post-Chernobyl situation) and add that fact and one or two others I've found that should be mentioned (Daniel had mentioned back when we first did the show that the evacuated and desolate area around the plant, including the ghost city of Pripyat, is known as "The Zone," partially in tribute to the similar area in the Tarkovsky film Stalker, but I didn't know that the full term for it is often translated as "The Zone of Alienation," which I have to get in there somewhere). And then have it re-approved by Daniel so I can send it out to actors.

Very little work on the Foreman play, George Battaile's Bathrobe. Some thinking about the "space opera" piece. I need a working title for that at least. I need some more input and inspiration for those pieces - they're yelling at me, but from a distance, and I can't quite make out what they're saying but I know it's important and must be dealt with right now.

I think, maybe, I'm just getting the sense, that the space opera piece - to be based around old Republic movie serials and Rocky Jones and other mid-20th-Century sci-fi trash - is about changing views of science and American anti-intellectualism in general, filtered through a world where science is only valued if it is flashy and dramatic to the point of hyperbole and impossibility. As Berit says sardonically, now that I've told her this, "Ah, another cheerful show."

Maybe it should be in chapters - with titles and cliffhangers and "period ads" between the episodes . . .

Those seem to be the three plays for August - ALPOTS, Bataille, and the space opera piece, which for the time being I will now refer to by stealing an old title from my friends Sean Rockoff and Jim Baker, Spacemen from Space - but I'm also now very interested again in doing Fassbinder's play Blood on the Cat's Neck. Though I always actually wanted to do that as part of a "FassbinderFest" of plays, which keeps being mentioned around The Brick apparently. I don't know if anything will come of that. Maybe I'll look into what the rights for the Fassbinder will cost me, and that will put an end to my production dreams.

Berit's working every day on the upcoming Lord Oxford Brings You the Second American Revolution, Live! by Robert Honeywell, directed by Moira Stone, which looks like a good production (I was hanging around during the first runthru). I also wound up shooting the video coda to the piece (a talk show taking place 5 years after the events of the play) for Moira, and, as always, it was nice being behind a camera again. I need to find an idea for something to do in film or video. Nothing comes to mind, except the short comedy-horror piece Berit and I want to make for one of Bryan Enk's Sinister Six yearly horror compilations. Well, that and novel adaptations where I'd never be able to get/afford the rights (Vurt by Jeff Noon is highest on the list). Ah, well. Sometime.

The new episode of Penny Dreadful plays tomorrow and the day after, lights and other tech stuff by me and Berit. We did our usual dry tech the other day, but didn't have time to finish the whole show, so we have to go into The Brick at 7.00 am (AARRRGH!) tomorrow to finish it before the actors come so we can have it all ready for the evening - we have to be out by noon (Lord Oxford is teching) so it's not a lot of time. This episode - the first of Penny's "Season Two" - looks to be up to the standard of all the others. I love doing this show.

I haven't posted since a week ago, the day after opening night of Nosedive's The Blood Brothers present... The Master of Horror. Opening night of that was, as I said, being tactful . . . rough. James Comtois has written about it accurately and a little less tact than I did, as he (as co-writer/producer) felt able to. He points to the reviews as well, one of which was pretty bad (attended opening night) and one was okay (attended later). I've gotten some nice personal comments about my lighting, though I'm sure the cues in "Nona" are still pretty hard to pull off (and even the good review notes the tech problems). James says the show's in much better shape now - and the acting always worked anyway - so if it sounds interesting to you, it will be, go and enjoy.

They did a photo call, and Aaron Epstein took some really great shots. I saved my favorites over on my Flickr site, and all of them can be seen at the Nosedive site, but here are my favorites of the favorites:

from "The Last Waltz #1":

from "Nona":



from "Quitters, Inc.":

from "Paranoid: A Chant":


from "In the Deathroom":

from "The Last Waltz #5":

Nice shots. Glad to have 'em.

So, besides all the theatre, here's the regular music stuff. I'm still wedding out unnecessary songs from the iPod, which has gotten too packed for me to put it any more music that I really want in there. So here's a Random Ten with notes as to whether or not I can remove the songs . . .

1. "Shut Up" - The Monks - Black Monk Time

A favorite from a bunch of Americans playing loud simple garage rock in Germany in 1965, dressed as monks, with heavy use of organ and electrified banjo. Beautiful. Stays, of course.

2. "Dandy in the Underworld" - T.Rex - Dandy in the Underworld

I've eliminated some T.Rex from the iPod - I had SO much and not all of it is top-drawer - but this stays. I bought Electric Warrior and Dandy in the Summer of 1987, and they became my theme music for that fun age 19 Summer in NYC, studying film all day and, um, doing other things at night.

This song brings back those days instantly, as well as always being, in my head, about my dear friend and roommate from that time who introduced me to T.Rex and so much of the music that means so much to me now. "Gypsy explorer of the New Jersey heights . . ."

3. "Blazing Saddles" - Frankie Laine - Blazing Saddles soundtrack

Just too funny and unlikely to drop. Stays. The iPod is throwing up too many good things I have to keep today.

4. "Jailhouse Rock" - Elvis Presley - The Complete 50's Masters

Okay, come ON, iPod! Give me something I can eliminate!

This is one of my "25 Favorite Recordings of All Time." I consciously know Elvis did "better" songs, maybe even some "better" performances, but he never made a better record than this. Nothing on earth sounds like this record does.

Written and (uncredited) produced by Leiber & Stoller. Piano by Mike Stoller.

5. "Looking for the Magic" - Phil Seymour - Phil Seymour

Who? What? Ah, this got on when I didn't think I'd use up 80 gigs on the iPod and I was putting on all kinds of pop music I was finding for "variety" in random shuffles, and to surprise myself with songs I really didn't know.

Nice new wavey-pop trash, but not good enough. This one gets removed.

6. "Willie and the Hand Jive" - Johnny Otis - Back to the 50s 05

The Bo Diddley beat is co-opted by a white Greek cat passing as a Black man into yet another classic (so it stays, of course). Damn, Johnny's still alive and cookin'. Good for him.

7. "Uala Ualal" - Jorge Ben - Samba Esquema Novo

Huh? Okay - my liking of lounge music and "Space-Age Bachelor Pad"-style stuff led to a brief infatuation with sambas, as I recall. Nice now, but not needed. Gets dropped.

8. "Upa Neguino" - Augusto Martelli - Cinematica - Italian Soundtracks from the 60's and 70's

And in a similar vein, a pretty cool, but maybe not enough - no, not enough - Italian movie song. Yeah, pretty good, but I've got DOZENS of similar, but better ones. Drop.

9. "Satisfy" - Jonathan Richman - Surrender to Jonathan

And heresy! - here's a Richman song that I think will actually go. I love JoJo, but damn I have a lot, and I don't need all of it. Lots of better ones. This goes.

10. "Caught You in the Act" - Mel & Tim - Good Guys Only Win in the Movies

Some damn good soul that I don't know as well as a lot of bigger acts/songs, so I'm keeping it.

A site I read also does a Friday Random Ten, but the main blogger there has recently encouraged people to put up their lists as made by the new Apple iTunes 8 "Genius" function, which can make up some interestingly odd lists (as long as you feed it something of just the right level of obscurity - if you feed it anything remotely "classic" - even a Punk "classic" - you'll get a playlist of other "classics"). I've enjoyed feeding Genius some strange songs and seeing what the various algorithms in it decide should go with that song (and I wonder how it knows to pull certain songs that come from bootlegs or mix disks made for me by friends). Here's the first ten from the most recent Genius playlist of 25 I made up (by accident, actually, just slipping and hitting the button while the first song was playing):

1. "About Her" - Malcolm McLaren - Kill Bill, Vol. 2
2. "I'm Not There (1956)" - Bob Dylan & The Band - A Tree With Roots
3. "You Are My Sunshine" - Norman Blake - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 26
4. "Caravan" - Puccio Roelens - Phase Six Superstereo
5. "Il Triello" - Ennio Morricone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
6. "Within You" - David Bowie - Magic Dance 12"
7. "Teen Horniness Is Not A Crime" - Sarah Michelle Gellar, Abbey McBride & ClarKent - Southland Tales
8. "Long Time Woman" - Pam Grier - Jackie Brown
9. "Philadelphia" - Neil Young - Philadelphia
10. "Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up" - Pink Floyd - The Pop Side of The Floyd 1967-1972

That is one odd group of songs (and the full playlist gets weirder - it stops by soundtrack pieces from the original Star Trek, Dark Shadows, and Man from U.N.C.L.E., then Fire Walk With Me and Black Snake Moan, and then ends with The Brady Bunch doing "Time To Change"). I think it's bringing some of these together because they are from soundtrack albums or at least have been featured in films (all but 3 and 4, as far as I know, fit this category). Odder still is the fact that the damn thing actually works and flows. Berit thinks, since iTunes does keep info on how many beats-per-second a song runs at, that it tries to match tempo/speed, which it does seems to do.

Okay - long catchup post, stuff to do now. I have a cat demanding attention, and jumping and drooling all over me (Hooker actually, yes, drools when he is ultra-happy and getting attention, which is both sweet and icky), and I need some breakfast.

And remember, The Crimson Ghost sez . . .

SCIENCE will defeat you fools and save the WORLD!

These are three short stories by Stephen King adapted for the stage (note: links include spoilers): "Nona," adapted by James Comtois; "Quitters, Inc.," adapted by Qui Nguyen; and "In the Deathroom" adapted by Mac Rogers; all directed by The Blood Brothers: Patrick Shearer and Pete Boisvert (jesus, it's a showfull o'bloggers!). Plus several other short interstitial bits (a couple of them long enough really to not quite count as vignettes): "The Last Waltz," the poem "Paranoid: A Chant," and the wonderfully nauseating "Survivor Type" (which I read aloud on the 1985 Halloween episode of my high school radio show on WNMH, grossing out many listeners, heh-heh-heh).

It's been a fun gig (I had to come in quick and replace the original designer, who got another gig, which is why you won't see my name anywhere on this right now) and an enjoyable show.

I'm a King fan from way back, as uneven as he is (I sent him a fan letter so many years ago that he was still answering fan mail, and I got a personal postcard response from him answering questions of mine and telling me about his upcoming books Firestarter, Cujo, and Danse Macabre), and have always been especially fond of his short stories, which aren't probably his best work, but are great reads that at their worst are still as fun as (and much in the style of) the EC horror comics of the 50s - Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear - with their twisty plots and gruesome comeuppances. Like those comics, which featured The Crypt-Keeper, The Vault-Keeper, and The Old Witch chuckling (heh-heh-heh) over the misfortunes of the poor dumb slobs in their stories, Nosedive's occasional grand guignol shows - they've done two others - have their own hosts, The Blood Brothers (aided in this new show by a Blood Sister, it seems):

So in my viewings thus far of the show, I've been enjoying it at the level of one of those classic comic books, alternately horrified or amused (or both at once). There will be plenty of blood and ichor, that's for sure.

And I'm just geeky enough to imagine which EC artists, who each had a very distinctive style, would have been assigned to each story: "Nona" would have worked done by Wally Wood; "Quitters, Inc." by Jack Davis; "Survivor Type" by "Ghastly" Graham Ingels; "In the Deathroom" by Jack Kamen; and, if lucky, Bernie Krigstein on "Paranoid: A Chant," with wraparound host segments by Johnny Craig. That'd be a good read of a comic book, there.

I can't exactly imitate the look of the books with what I have to light the stories - no lurid Creepshow effects - but at the same time I wouldn't really want to - it's not at all played those comics, though it may feel like them in some ways (that's just inherent in the original King stories).

In any case, I have to work with a somewhat limited house light plot - all house light plots are limited, but this one really comes down to banks of lights in cans on track lighting, with a manual 2-scene preset board. I've added two floor-mounted birdies and two clip lights for some additional effects, but it's pretty bare bones. I've spent years by now though being "the guy who works well with any simple house plot" so I think I got a good look for the whole show out of this. Very noir, which might be expected from me, but the limitations kinda lead to it. Very little color - I've been told I can regel the lights if I really wanted to, but as regelling in this case means removing the gels that are gaff-taped to the cans and sticking new ones on, I thought it'd be best to keep it simple. I've got three colors in limited areas I can bring in - deep red, deep green, and light blue-white - so I'm saving those for special bits and just using the larger washes as elegantly as I can.

Yeah, keep it simple. It's already a headache for Ben, the company member acting as board op, to do the cues on the manual board, with some fast dimmer repatches in there, and a lot of sound cues at the same time, but he turned out to be able to handle it much better than I expected last night (I once had a stage manager/board op walk off a show I was designing/directing when I gave her the cue list and she said it was impossible to run - it was hard, sure, but Berit or I could have handled it fine - and wound up doing so - and Ben obviously could have done that one as well).

Fine cast doing good work here, too, most of whom I don't know. I know Jessi Gotta and Michael Criscuolo (another blogger!) well enough though that when I heard they were in the show, and what stories were being done, I pegged exactly what characters they'd be playing, respectively, in "Nona" and "Quitters, Inc." Jessi also gets to do the solo performance of "Paranoid: A Chant" which is my favorite part of the show - it's my kind of piece and I get to do my favorite kind of lighting for it, which tries to feel like it's coming out of a person's emotions as they flip around, complementing their emotional state.

Well, I'll be on The Master of Horror another two nights and then back home to The Brick to design the next episode of Bryan Enk & Matt Gray's Penny Dreadful and help out on Robert Honeywell and Moira Stone's new musical, LORD OXFORD BRINGS YOU THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION, LIVE! - being the necessary and appropriate response to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's suppression of the freedoms and dignity of the European-American settlers and their descendants in the Royal Eastern American Colonies and the inordinate conferring of special favours and privileges on the merciless Indian savages and the former Negro slaves, in the year Two Thousand and Eight.

But those are later this month . . . first up, opening tomorrow:

The Blood Brothers present... The Master of Horror
at
Endtimes Underground at The Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street (between Bowery & Lafayette)
October 9-11, 16-18, 23-25, 30-31, & November 1, 2008
Thursday through Saturday, 7.30 pm
$18.00
Tickets HERE

It'll warm your heart. And then eat it, heh-heh-heh.

(Berit is amused by the cover tagline, noting that, to her, a "jolting tale of tension" would be more on the order of "Urgh! I got to get these FORMS in!" and not exactly something on the order of what's depicted here . . .)

I got distracted, and the day's schedule done gone all wonky, by going in for the first time for jury duty today which was interesting and okay, however I got picked to be on a jury in a civil case (as an alternate yet, so I have to sit through it all and then NOT get any say in the matter). The trial starts next week, so at least I'm not back in tomorrow.

Tomorrow night is the season-opening party at The Brick. That looks to be a good time. Then I'm light-designing the new Nosedive show and doing additional tech help on Robert Honeywell & Moira Stone's new show at The Brick. Penny Dreadful coming up again, too.

I am missing tonight's not-so good time - the Palin/Biden debate - through the pleasant fact that Berit and I don't have television. We have a television of course, a big one, and lots o' videos, but very deliberately no antenna or cable, so I'll just read the reports and transcript later, and maybe subject myself to some online video of bits of it if I feel masochistic. Right now, I'd rather look at videos I'm saving up.

So instead of the horrors of the current rotten political debate, how about a commercial pitch from Johnny Rotten?

( Never Mind the Bollocks, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! )

I was a little put off by that ad at first, but my friend Sean noted that, as always, it was just another example of how any form of true rebellion is stolen, de-edged, incorporated into the Status Quo, and used to sell stuff to us, and there's actually something heartening in seeing Johnny Rotten now transformed from "antichrist" to "symbol of England."

Sean also, years ago, made the statement that Johnny Rotten and Brian Wilson were the two living people he believed were to be forgiven any and all screwups they will, have, or may have committed in their lives, as the greatness of their finest work wiped away all their sins. He added that dead people who got this same forgiveness were Buddy Holly and Frank Zappa. I tend to agree.

Sean and I went to a book-signing for Rotten's autobiography when it came out, and got to have a brief conversation with him. There were some young punks (in two senses of the word) across the street from the bookstore, with signs protesting Rotten's having written (and now SELLING!) this book as a "sellout." Very silly. So when Sean and I approached him together, we brought it up:

SEAN: So, uh, did you see those people across the street, protesting you?
ROTTEN: (honestly taken aback and confused) Aw, YEAH, what's that all about, then? What are they angry at me for?
IAN: Making money.
ROTTEN: (with great realization) OHhhhhhhhh! COMM-u-nists!

I just read an article where someone was complaining that "viral videos" have gone downhill in the last few years, pointing to this one below as an example of the kind of charming, funny, bizarre and inexplicable videos that people used to send around that you don't see so much anymore. I don't know if that's true, but I'd never seen this before and it was indeed funny and inexplicable:

( Valentine for Perfect Strangers )

Strange things are indeed happening everyday, as Sister Rosetta Tharpe once noted, and here are four other examples of the amazing singing and guitar playing of that great performer:

( Sister Rosetta Tharp rocks the gospel, early 1960s )

Also from the 60s - in fact, like me, 40 years old - here's a piece of video newly out on DVD, a performance by Harry Belafonte that was cut by CBS from the Third Season premiere of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour as it includes footage from one of that nasty Summer's nastier moments:

( The Whole World Is Watching )

Ah yes, the world is full of fine fine superfine people, and here's a real sign one of them has on their front yard:

Personally, I regard him more as a 50/50 cotton/poly blend . . .

If you have a problem with the "Muslins," maybe you can make a request of your own Savior . . .

And, in the midst of all this, for cheeriness' sake, here's 13 adorable seconds of catness:

( The Sliding Cat )

Keep your heads up.

But. It's what I've been looking at and concerned with, and my theatre work has been supervising clowns and some slight working on the scripts of (and thinking about) George Bataille's Bathrobe and A Little Piece of the Sun - just blue-skying about casts, sets, effects, music, and so forth. And trying to find that original show that's just out of mind - like the mental equivalent of being on the tip of your tongue - abstract images dancing there, forming for a moment, then vanishing like a dream when you wake. Frustrating. What the hell IS it that's trying to get out?

Every now and then, between thinking of a show I want to do and looking at what's happening outside my head, I think the show I want to do is called Country of Assholes. Nah, too on the nose.

We rewatched the film of Peter Barnes' play The Ruling Class the other night, and I kept thinking we needed something like that for this time and this country, but I'm not sure that's my bag. Something to think about, in any case . . .

Anyway, here's some of my "favorite" quotes, links, and videos from the past couple of days, in case you missed some of these. I found them from all over the place, but a bunch came from toddalcott and flyswatter.

Bill in Portland, ME at Daily Kos points to a Fox News interview from March in which Chris Matthews suggests repeatedly to Henry Paulson that the events that have now played out may well come to pass, and repeatedly gets back the answer that "we're just going to have to wait and see how that plays out." Fine fine planning there. Apparently, as long as we have "confidence" in the markets and firms, everything should be alright. Yeah, this has worked out well.

Perhaps my favorite on-the-record quote in a long time was given to Forbes.com, in what many people, when first seeing, felt just had to be a parody from The Onion:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Wow.

Yeah, that "Wow" is from Forbes, not me. Though I agree.

Nice to see that some of our Nation's reps have some backbone and righteous anger, namely (though I think they're not alone at this point) Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, and Jim McDermott of Washington:

( We should not be rolled by a Wall Street exec who is masquerading as Secretary of the Treasury. )

I'm still a bit stunned by the New York Times' account of the meltdown the other evening at the White House meeting to work out the bailout plan. Henry Paulson getting down on his knee before Nancy Pelosi? Barney Frank refereeing an "internal G.O.P. ideological war?" The hell--?

Doesn't it make you feel good to know that we're going along exactly the way Osama Bin Laden said he wanted and expected us to, way back in 2004?

mcbrennan - Cait - is not a mental health professional, but is a keenly-observant wordsmith who has some experience with the developmentally disabled, and has a "Modest Theory" (which she qualifies as "troubling, but half-baked") regarding Sarah Palin's "word salad" responses to some of the questions she's been asked recently. Troubling, certainly. "Half-baked?" Maybe not. Maybe a little more baked than that.

Didn't anyone around McCain know what happens when you snub Letterman, and then he finds out your excuse is bogus and you're off doing something else? Cher did this to him around 1988, and he did half a show about it that tore her to pieces. Can't make it, fine, but don't lie to the man, or you get something like this:

( 9:11 of a pissed-off Dave )

I really like Don Hall's summary of how conservatives focus on social issues so much as a smokescreen to avoid their incompetence with fiscal policy:

"Dad. It looks like you've really screwed up the check book and the power has been turned off. Maybe Mom should be in charge of the money."

"Wha? You're a gay abortionist!!"

And never mind about paying attention to tonight's debate, John McCain has already won it - haven't you seen the ads that say so? And it is so, if you say it's so.

Oh, and in the midst of all this, we've now escalated to our forces and Pakistan's actually shooting at each other. This is going to go well. (h/t VetVoice)

Oh, don't worry - The Department of Homeland Security is working on a little something called Project Hostile Intent, a "pre-crime" detector to determine who best to pull out of line and ask a few questions. Neat, huh?

As Glenn Greenwald notes, though, there's no reason to be at all paranoid about the fact that a U.S Army Brigade has been newly assigned to "the Homeland," in probable defiance of The Posse Comitatus Act. One brigade couldn't do any major "martial law" action, and if it could, it wouldn't have been made public. It's just probably illegal and a damned bad precedent.

At times like this, music may soothe the savage breast. The iPod is now almost jammed up, after adding a bunch of newly-acquired Bowie live tracks and a good deal of Dylan/The Band's basement tapes. Less than 100 MB free in there now - have to do a cleaning, get rid of some of the 26,181 tracks. Here's what comes up random this morning - the iPod appears to have decided We're All Devo . . .

1. "Time Out for Fun (muzak version)" - Devo - E-Z Listening Disc
2. "Imitation Situation" - The Sixpentz - Mindrocker 60's USA Punk Anthology Vol 13
3. "Climbing the Walls" - They Might Be Giants - The Else
4. "It's Making It" - The Lollipop Shop - Just Colour
5. "Night By Night" - Steely Dan - Showbiz Kids: The Steely Dan Story
6. "I Saw Her Again" - The Mamas and the Papas - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 8
7. "Jet" - Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run
8. "Words Get Stuck in My Throat" - Devo - Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology
9. "Winos on Parade" - Marga Benitez & The Mello-Tones - Winos on Parade
10. "Alias Pink Puzz - LP Radio Promo Spot # 2" - Paul Revere & The Raiders - Psychedelic Promos & Radio Spots, vol. 4

Maybe a nice relaxing game would help. Here's a commercial from 1975 that I actually remember (h/t Boing Boing Gadgets), and now wonder how the hell this was ever actually released to market . . .

( BALL BUSTER! Fun for the whole family! )

Or maybe, for relaxation, I'd like to look at some great hairstyles of the past that I miss:

Which takes me mentally - through flashing on the 'fro of Don Cornelius - to a video Adam Swiderski linked to today on Facebook, noting its coolness. It makes me happy, too, and I hope this fine fine superfine track from The Commodores can make you move and smile this dreary Friday:

( Machine Gun )

. . . and you can bet your money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey. Love. Peace. Soul.

As this article from WNBC puts it so clearly in its title: "Body Parts Strewn on BQE After Deadly Hit-and-Run." Ewww.

However, another line used not only in the article, but as the caption to the photo below which accompanied the story, makes me wonder if something ELSE was responsible, and a police coverup is in effect:

A "grizzly" scene? Dear sweet merciful gods in heaven, there are BEARS roaming the streets of Williamsburg, tearing innocent tourists to bits! And THEY don't want us to KNOW!

(this is actually the THIRD time in as many months I've encountered a news organ that apparently doesn't know how to spell "grisly" - come on, GET IT TOGETHER, people!)

Operated board twice yesterday for a show - Big Bang - in the Clown Festival - last two shows for that one. In between, I saw another show - Bury My Heart at Dumbass Cowboy - which is one of the funniest damned things I've seen on a stage in FOREVER. Loved it, loved it, loved it, though I also kinda had the same reaction I had when I first saw The Big Lebowski on opening night in the movie theater - David LM Mcintyre and I were sitting there, laughing so hard at the movie that it was nearly over before we realized that we were the only people in the entire audience laughing, and that everyone else HATED the movie.

I don't think the rest of the audience HATED Dumbass Cowboy, but I did eventually realize that the loud laughter I was hearing came from me and about four other people in a packed house, and everyone else was smiling kinda strained or looking confused and disturbed. Oh, well, whatever, it was great and it plays one last time, tonight at 7.30 pm.

I'd go see it again and drag Berit along - she's working board for the show before it tonight, Kill Me Loudly, a Clown noir, which she tells me is really good and I'll be seeing - but we're off to see, as mentioned, Arnold Dreyblatt at The Knitting Factory.

Arnold's playing on an interesting bill, with several other performers, including a three-man band out of North Carolina called Megafaun, who will be backing Arnold up on this occasion as The Orchestra of Excited Strings (Arnold's name for whatever group is doing his music with him at the moment). They just did a residency and played up at the Salem Art Works together, and I like what I hear in these videos - the first of Arnold and the group, the second of Megafaun:

( Arnold Dreyblatt & Megafaun )

In other music news, I do indeed like the theme song created by Jack White (and co-performed by him and Alicia Keys) for the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace (which, luckily, only mentions "solace" and doesn't try to get the film's title in there) - you can hear the real theme, where White Stripes meet James Bond, HERE - however, Joe Cornish, British comedian, has created his own theme for the film that may top it:

( The Something of Boris )

And finally, continuing the "Ian and Hooker the Cat at the Computer" series that I've been posting, for those who enjoy cats, computers, me, or any combination thereof, I let the video run the other night to capture how Bastard Kitty demands affection from me in more detail. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn on the microphone, so I just grabbed a Pixies song I liked that fit the video exactly, timewise (and seemed to work otherwise as well) and put it behind it.

( La La My Cat Loves Me, Even When I Don't Want Him To )

That's my cat. Some other time I'll post one with the sound so you can hear the yowls . . .

In any case, Qui Nguyen and Abby Marcus of the theatre company Vampire Cowboys were just married over the weekend (I don't remember which day, only that Qui announced on Facebook that he was going to "marry the shit out of Abby" that day), and I probably wouldn't have brought it up here were I not so completely and utterly taken with the sweetness of the photo Qui posted over on his blog, Beyondabsurdity, HERE.

I am filled with awe. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!.

Congratulations Qui! Congratulations Abby!

I was also reminded that once again, B & I have forgotten our "anniversary" day, September 4. I remembered on the 2nd, then forgot. Then on the 7th, and then forgot. Then on the 12th, and . . . well, you get it. I don't think she's remembered at all. I think I'll let her find out from when she gets to this post. So, eight years now. Huh. Amazing. We'll probably deal with marriage next year or the following - next year would be nice just to finally GET IT DONE, but Berit makes the point that marrying in 2010 will make remembering the year pretty easy - we'd also like to get married on June 20, as that's halfway between our two birthdays (June 16 and 24) to make that easier to remember, too (we think - knowing us . . . well, we'll see how likely it really is).

I still have to write and design the service, which will be performed in a theatre as a multimedia performance piece. We're hoping that The Brick will decide on a Summer Festival theme that our wedding will fit into, so we can do an actual 4-performance "run" of the wedding in the Festival (one performance would be the "actual" wedding, by special invite only).

But that's in the future. Today, we run another show together at The Brick. Tomorrow, we have a day off, so maybe we do something nice together - oh, wait, we have a board meeting in the evening for UTC#61. Well, maybe we'll do something before that. Then, we're back on Clown Festival work through Saturday. Wheee.

And from the past eight years . . .

We're very very fortunate.