Except, of course, catching up on and reading about the big ol' stupid world just gets one down.

So, varied subjects to mention or pass on . . .

Re: The Financial Bailout (aka "Your Money Or Your Life!/I'm Thinking, I'm Thinking!"):

Many others are writing about this with clarity, precision, detail, and even humor, and should be read.

Screenwriter toddalcott, who blogs constantly and well about many subjects, has turned to the current situation with appropriate amounts of wit and anger, especially HERE and HERE. He suggests, as many have this morning, writing your Senators and Representatives to let them know how you feel on the matter. I've already done this - with Senators Clinton and Schumer, Rep. Nadler, and Speaker Pelosi - it's easy to find out how to contact them online, and I suggest you do the same.

Isaac Butler points out that apparently phone calls are taken more seriously than emails or petitions (and snail mail is taken most seriously of all, but there's no time for that), but some of us are a bit phone-phobic, so . . . but you can also easily find out how to call them with a quick Google search, if you care to.

Other people I'd suggest reading: Paul Krugman, in general, and a specific post from "Devilstower" at Daily Kos, "Three Times Is Enemy Action," which is a good laying-out of the history of where the current crisis comes from, going back to 1982, and has been picked up by several larger media outlets as a result (extra points from me for the epigram/title taken from Auric Goldfinger).

The fact is that it certainly appears the Government will have to do something, some kind of bailout of some kind to keep the whole furshlugginer house of cards from collapsing - it's just that the current plan just AIN'T IT. You can read an easy overview of it HERE and a draft of the proposal HERE.

I'd like to point out (as a commenter did on Todd Alcott's blog, bringing it to my attention), a section from the proposal that, um, particularly bothers me (emphasis mine) . . .

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Oh yeah. That's great. Just great. Yeah, I trust ya, Secretary. I trust ya.

And along those lines, Wil Wheaton posts a little piece of humor about what kinds of spam this bailout may remind you of, with the reminder that sometimes it's important to laugh to keep from crying. John Clancy didn't tell me anything I didn't know, but did it in a way that made me smile, which is as good. And Mike Daisey posted this image he got from somewhere, without credit (as he is wont to do), which updates a classic National Lampoon cover to our present situation:

Elsewhere in egregious stupidity of a less-vital kind (courtesy of Gawker and Portfolio), Adam Buckman, critic for the New York Post, includes this section in his review of the season premiere of Heroes:

Instead, this show, which was once so thrilling and fun, has become full of itself, its characters spouting crazy nonsense.

Here's one I wish someone would translate for me: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends - rough hew them how we will," spouts the enigmatic industrialist Linderman played by Malcolm McDowell, who should win an Emmy for keeping a straight face while reciting these lines.

Okay. I'm not an all-out snob who thinks everyone everywhere should know their Shakespeare. Even Hamlet (heck, I cut the line from my version last year). That said, I hold critics/reviewers to higher standards. Even then, sure, I can understand maybe not recognizing the quote.

I CAN'T understand not at least hearing that and not thinking, "Hey, that sounds like it could be Shakespeare!" and looking it up before calling it "stupid nonsense" (and I just realized it HAD to have gone by at least ONE copyeditor before hitting print, right? so there's SHARED idiocy here . . .).

Also, does he ACTUALLY need a "translation" of the quote? Really? Sure, plenty of Shakespeare can be hard to understand today - less so if spoken properly with correct emphasis by good actors - but I keep looking at the line and trying to figure out what's so hard to understand about that. Anyone?

Oh - even more . . . now Buckman appears to have commented on the issue as reported at Portfolio, and if it is him, he couldn't even completely understand some of Jeff Bercovici's obvious sarcasm, and thinks Bercovici was calling HIM a "pretentious goober" when Bercovici was making fun of him by joining in and calling the author of the quote he didn't recognize by that phrase, while linking the words to Act V, Scene 2 of Hamlet. Jeez. This is a literate, observing critic with a keen eye, huh?

In less-annoying, just interesting items, I was amused to see a piece in The Guardian about a rise in theatre pieces in England using pre-recorded vocal tracks with actors miming to them live for artistic reasons. This is made out to be some kind of commentary on "our anxious times." Well, maybe. Berit and I shared a laugh though, as I've been doing that in the NECROPOLIS pieces since March, 2000 (for me it was about Determinism). Berit's comment was, "See, the British are going to steal the idea, make it bigger, and then claim to have invented it - just like Punk!" Yup, sounds right to me.

Speaking of NECROPOLIS, none of those plays or The Hobo Got Too High wound up nominated for anything at the NYIT Awards, which are being given out tonight, though all were eligible and I was really trying to push them for this last August, mentioning the Awards in the programs, by email, and here in the blog. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't disappointed by that, but I'm still a big fan and supporter of the organization and the awards, as it's pretty much within the Indie Theatre community for the Indie Theatre community, mainly from and for our peers, so I have some more respect for it than most awards.

Quite a few people I know and respect are nominated, including several old coevals I haven't seen for years but think of fondly, like three of the nominees for direction, Emma Griffin, Damen Scranton, and Edward Eleftarion. Some people have criticized the awards as being just friends giving awards to other friends, but given the judging system, etc. I don't think it really works that way. For the second year in a row I've been pleased to see that shows I checked out in my capacity as a judge, since you have to judge three shows for every one of yours you want judged, and really liked and voted for strongly - from companies that I didn't know, featuring no one I'd ever heard of - have wound up nominated for multiple awards.

Those going tonight, enjoy yourselves. Hope I'll be there next year, but as I didn't push this August's shows as hard as I did last year (I was both distracted by production and depressed about last year's results), I doubt it.

Last night's evening of music at The Knitting Factory was fun but long (and LOUD). Arnold Dreyblatt was wonderful, especially with his temporary "Orchestra of Excited Strings," Megafaun (whose own set I didn't like as much as I'd hoped - what I'd seen online was less folky and more folky-mixed-with-drone/noise). The two openers were also worthwhile, both the prepared-piano stylings of Melissa St. Pierre and especially the solo violin playing of Agathe Max, which I quite dug and recommend - for into on her, her webpage is HERE and her Myspace page is HERE. Great noice/drone/loop work, in a grand tradition that goes back to La Monte Young and Steve Reich but includes John Cale, Fripp & Eno, and Dreyblatt in there.

Well, to feel better about things tonight, either I'll sit around here at home and watch a marathon of David Bowie music videos or see if we feel like going out to see Burn After Reading. Probably the former. It's a day to stay in.

And, for some more smiles before returning to the horrors of the news, two favorite recent items from LP Cover Lover:

Later. Time for Bowie now . . .

This was my dubbed live theatre tribute to the 1960s films of Radley Metzger, Jean Rollin, Jesse Franco, and Mario Bava.

These shots feature me (as The Decadent Man), Alyssa Simon (His Wife), Jody Christopherson (His Mistress), Peter Handy (His American Friend), Stacia French (The Countess, a Succubus), Patrick Cann (Her Manservant), Jessica Savage (Her Protege, The Venus in Furs), and Douglas Scott Sorenson (The Incubus).

There's 20 of them, so I'll put them behind a cut . . .

( Where did you find her? / In the most incredible place - Lisbon! )

And now, Berit is insisting it's time again to pluck my eyebrows, and she's waiting for me with the tweezers . . . oh, BOY.

Berit and I don't currently have a functioning camera, so we relied on the kindness of our actors, asking any of them who had a handy digital camera to bring it to the calls, as I've had good luck in the past with a whole bunch of cameras each taking a whole lot of photos producing some really damned nice ones.

So at the WGW/WGW call, there was a lot of this:



Here, Yvonne Roen, Mateo Moreno, and Stacia French take pictures of a scene they're not in as Sammy Tunis adjusts herself and Jessica Savage and Alyssa Simon lurk in the shadows.

Above photo by, I think, Iracel Rivero -- the problem is that as people were being photographed, camera were being handed back and forth, so I have no idea at times who took which shot.

Here's one of Iracel, taken with her own camera by, I think, Aaron Baker:



So, sorry friends if I don't credit these all properly -- here's another two from Iracel's camera, possibly taken by her, maybe by Aaron - first, the shadows of a flunky (Bryan Enk) and a goon (Roger Nasser):



As their boss, Louis the torpedo (Jai Catalano), sits in the shadows:



And the dressing room of The Brick, during the whirlwind visited on it by the regular presence of 29 actors in four shows for four weeks in very VERY little space:

I'll have actual show pictures in the coming days, and some more of these behind-the-scenes ones, too.

So, first I have to go over to Duane Reade and buy a bag of strong rubber bands.

Then, I go get the boxes of cards for The Necropolis Series and Hobo out of the van, sit down, and make up 25 packets of 20 cards each for each show, and band them (NB: As someone who has run a few theatres, it is POINTLESS and ANNOYING to leave any more than 20 cards at a time at any venue -- they will get knocked to the floor, spread all over the place, mostly not get picked up, and ultimately will wind up in the trash -- put out 20, check back a week later, if some have been taken, fill out the pile to 20 again, no more - for spaces with large display racks - eg; The Kraine - you can maybe spring for 2 piles of 20).

Then I bag the packets up (and this is going to be a damned heavy carry, unfortunately . . . 1,000 cards? half of them oversized 8.5x5.5" ones? . . .oy . . .). Go shower, shave, and get clean -- I have a need to feel nice today. Blue contacts and fake teeth in, too. Maybe if it's nice enough, I'll even wear my straw boater in my perambulations (Berit's still out cold, or she might dissuade me from walking out the door with that hat on by calling me a "fop").

Subway to MoMA, check the heavy bag, spend as much goddamn time as I like and need in there to feel right again. See every damn thing in there that I can until I can't see anything right anymore.

Then, subway to the Village, start on Vandam.

And then, a couple hours of walking -- from Bank, Commerce, Christopher and whatever to Ave. A, Suffolk and whatever to Church and Franklin, and then subway home.

So this is the day off. It's a nice one.

And why just "okay" last night . . ? Well, I've never been able to cure second-show-slump. There's always that big DIP in energy after the cast has gotten one show under their belt and feels like they know what they're doing. A bit low-energy last night. And a little low-attentive. I had fixed the sound a bit, mainly to eliminate the giant pauses I had on the soundtrack between scenes, during the transitions. But I seem to have gone too far, because almost none of the transitions got done on time last night, and people were always still out on stage changing things when a new scene would begin.

At the same time, it wasn't only the shorter time, but that people were being a bit slower about it, too. On opening night, everyone was still so jumpy and nervous about getting the transitions right (we didn't rehearse them nearly enough, of course) that they just WENT FOR IT. Last night, I could see the cue line for the transitions happen, which people are supposed to GO on, but there would be a beat and a breath and then they would tentatively start for the stage (not everyone, but enough to make a difference). It got better as the show went on, and the cast realized they had a lot less time to move things, but it was still wonky to the end.

So I'm lengthening the transitions a bit, where needed, but I also have to get people to go faster and with more purpose and focus. Berit and I will fix the light cues a bit too, as they should go down faster at the end of every scene (it doesn't encourage people to start moving on a transition when it looks like they'll be walking into a fully-lit scene, though the lights will be changing right along with their move). The transitions are a little harder to deal with on this production, as compared to the 2005 original, because we've replaced the rolling trunk on a dolly with an actual desk, which needs two people to move it (carefully) as opposed to just quickly rolling it into position, and the power cords for the light stands now trail upstage rather than out a downstage aisle, and they tend to get caught on things more (unfortunately, now that they are being controlled from the board, that's where they NEED to go . . .).

The show between the transitions, however, was good, if not so sharp as opening night. Tonight I'll take a closer look at whether I should tighten up some of the scenes in dialogue editing or not.

My plan for today was to finish the transition-lengthening, drive to The Brick and drop off the new disks, pick up lots of cards for both shows, L Train it into Manhattan and schlep around from theatre to theatre (and a couple of rep movie houses) dropping off packets of cards, hitting as many Fringe NYC venues as I could. But the weather is not so great for this . . . Still, has to get done. Then I'm meeting a friend at The Brick at 3.00 to just hang out for a bit. And around this I want to work on my performance and lines for The Hobo Got Too High, which we'll be actually doing for an audience for the first time tonight.

So, maybe I'll just work on my lines and other Brick things, and do the theatre runaround tomorrow. The weather's gotten worse as I've been typing.


And on the iPod this morning, from among 21,056 songs:


1. "Where Are We Going?" - Marvin Gaye - The Very Best
2. "A Day in the Life" - The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3. "The Gremmie, Part 1 (alternate version)" - The Tornados - More Surf Legends (And Rumors)
4. "Glass Onion (remix)" - The Beatles - Love
5. "Sweet Dreams" - Roy Buchanan - Sweet Dreams: The Anthology
6. "Liar, Liar" - The Castaways - Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
7. "Summertime Blues" - Blue Cheer - 45's on CD Volume III ('66-'69)
8. "Sunday Morning" - The Velvet Underground - Peel Slowly and See
9. "Marlene On The Wall (live)" - Suzanne Vega - Live At Stephen's Talkhouse
10. "Settle Down" - The Flirtations - Northern Soul: The Cream of 60's Soul


More after the weekend, when I finally have a day off (and I think I'll be making a MoMA trip, finally, for the Serra).

Today, work all day on the soundtracks, then, at 6.00 pm, three hours of Slumberland rehearsal (and record one last bit of the show), then two hours of Worth Gun Willed rehearsal.

Tomorrow morning, record the last pieces of Succubus, then work on the soundtracks, then 60 minutes of World Gone Wrong rehearsal, 90 minutes of Hobo Got Too High rehearsal, then 90 minutes of Succubus rehearsal.

Wednesday, rehearsals all day from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm with different individuals/groups from different shows (Jessica Savage gets the big block of 90 minutes to rehearse bits of all three shows she's in), then the first big World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed rehearsal from 7-11.00 pm, with 18 out of 21 cast members (best we can do until tech on Saturday.

Thursday, daytime left open so Berit and I can actually do tech stuff, etc. 7-11.00 pm, Succubus rehearsal, including filming one of the "porno" movies featuring half the cast.

Friday, rehearsals all day from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm with different individuals/groups from different shows, including a big block where we film the other "porno" movie with the other half of the Succubus cast. Then Hobo tech from 7-11 pm.

Saturday, we have the whole cast for World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed from 12 noon to 6.00 pm for cleanup, cue-to-cue, and tech/dress run. Then break. Then we open the show at 8 pm. Brief pause, then The Hobo Got Too High opens at 10.30 pm.

Then, Berit and I get up and go to a wedding on Sunday. If we can get back to NYC in time, we rehearse that night, either Succubus or Slumberland or both (probably just Succubus).

Monday night, we again rehearse either Succubus or Slumberland or both (probably just Slumberland).

Tuesday, we tech Kiss Me, Succubus, At the Mountains of Slumberland from 6.00 pm until done.

Wednesday, we open that bill at 8.00 pm.

Then, we're running. And we're fine.

Then August is over, and Berit and I go collapse in Portland, ME for several weeks.


But right now, I have work to do, and shouldn't be futzing with my blog, except that sometimes, you do need a break in the work, just to stay sane.


See you on Friday, with a Random Whatever list . . .