CollisionWorks

Today, more of the same. Plus, as mentioned, preparing a script for online publication. There are events and shows I'd like to get to, but I don't think that's going to happen. So it goes. I think today's westerns to watch (if we can get them all in) will wind up being Support Your Local Gunfighter, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and maybe The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, none of which I've seen.

Still waiting to hear back from the casts of our August shows, ObJects, Antrobus, and Gone, about whether they'd be available and interested in coming back and doing the shows again sometime early next year to make up for the performances we lost with Hurricane Irene. So far, 11 of the 21 actors have responded, and those positively, so that's a good start. Maybe this will actually happen.

There's 24,779 tracks in my trusty iPod. And yet, even after 5 years of using it constantly, there are 8,483 tracks in it that haven't been played. Here's a random playlist of ten from among those unheard tracks (with links to online versions of the songs, where available).

1. "I Got Loaded" - Peppermint Harris - The Aladdin Records Story
2. "All Last Night" - George Smith - My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
3. "Crazy" - 999 - 999
4. "The Bloody Assizes" - Julian Cope - Fried
5. "Wind-Up Toys" - The Electric Prunes - Lost Dreams
6. "Someday You'll be King" - MX-80 Sound - Out of the Tunnel
7. "Packin' Up" - Delilah - Lost Deep Soul Treasures volume 3
8. "Just Play Music" - Big Audio Dynamite - Super Hits
9. "Absolutal Bastard" - Las Comadrejas - We Are Ugly But... We Have the Music
10. "All Night Operator" - Bryan Ferry - In Your Mind

Hey, cool -- for the first time in doing one of these Random Tens, I was able to find a YouTube for every one of the songs (okay, the Julian Cope is a demo version, but close enough). Here's a spiffy playlist of all the above (with bonus 11th track):

Okay, back to figuring out how to make NECROPOLIS 3: At the Mountains of Slumberland read like a real script.

So, I've made up some playlists of videos I've been watching recently - longer programs that have been broken up for posting on YouTube, which I've brought back together so you (and I) can watch them straight through.

So, inside each of these cuts, a playlist (or four) embedded for your dining and dancing pleasure.

First, this 66-minute documentary on the career of the Pre-Fab Four, by Eric Idle, Gary Weis, and Neil Innes:

( The Rutles in ALL YOU NEED IS CASH )

I was led to this next one by queencallipygos, a project from 1990 I'd never heard of - One World One Voice, a "chain tape" started by Kevin Godley and sent to musicians all around the world to add parts in a massive jam, with over 250 musicians and groups coming together to try and raise consciousness about environmental issues, becoming a massive jam of musicians of all styles and lands coming together on multitrack tape.

The musicians include Afrika Bambaataa, Laurie Anderson, Bagamoya Players, Cedric, The Chieftains, Clannad, Johnny Clegg & Savuka, Terence Trent D'Arby, Dred, Peter Gabriel, Bob Geldof, Dave Gilmour, Kevin Godley, Eddy Grant, The Gipsy Kings, Rupert Hine, Chrissie Hynde, Howard Jones, Salif Keita, The Kodo Drummers, the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, Maria McKee, Milton Nascimento, Native Land & Themba, New Frontier, New Voices of Freedom, Nu Sounds, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Courtney Pine, Lou Reed, Robbie Robertson, Michael Rose & Junior, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shakespear's Sister, Dave Stewart and The Spiritual Cowboys, Sting, Joe Strummer, Steven Van Zandt, Suzanne Vega, Venice, Adam Woods and Guo Yue. And others, who looked familiar, but I wasn't sure (I think I saw Yellowman - annoyingly, I couldn't find a complete list of the players online).

The final 52-minute-long piece is all over the place, from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the ridiculous is at least entertaining, and the sublime is . . . sublime:

( One World One Voice )

In 1997, all four of The Monkees reunite to create a new album, Justus, which Mike Nesmith only agrees to do if they actually write all the songs and play all the instruments themselves, which they do. Then Nesmith writes and directs a pretty-much-ignored TV special, Hey, Hey, We're The Monkees!, based on the concept that TV shows never actually stop when they go off the air - the characters are going on with their stories, they're just not getting aired anymore. So The Monkees are still trapped in their looney show as middle-aged men trying to ignore the "adventures" that come their way and still trying to get their band off the ground. This is a playlist of the bits of this bizarre show I've found on YouTube and stitched together:

( A Lizard Sunning Itself on a Rock )

And, more in the research category, an interview with Orson Welles, back when TV had something like real interviews:

( Orson Welles on the Dick Cavett Show )

And finally, all four parts of John Berger's classic 1972 Ways of Seeing series for the BBC. It seems everyone reads the book version of this in college now, but the video version is a far preferable version of the text, and worth sitting down and watching:

( WAYS OF SEEING, parts 1-4, by John Berger )

Enjoy.

Crazy last few days. Got Merry Mount up and running just fine in the Hawthornicopia at Metropolitan Playhouse. Berit made up the maypole for it on Thursday and Friday before we opened Friday evening (so we had it mostly finished for Thursday night's final rehearsal). It became far more elaborate than I had anticipated - B got into it with her usual prop-making fervor and did something quite grand with it. But it did take two afternoons to make rather than one. We spent Thursday working on it at The Brick, toted it to The Battle Ranch for rehearsal, then kept it overnight in Petey Plymouth (I tell you, I don't know if I'll ever be able to not have a vehicle that can carry something 10' long inside it - it comes in really handy). Then we schlepped it over to Metropolitan Playhouse early afternoon Friday, and B went back to work finishing it in their lobby . . .

(while wearing my 1988 Devo tour shirt - which has been through a lot by now and still holds up!)

We weren't sure if we would need more flowers for the maypole or not, so we didn't get any that morning at the 99-cent store near us that we knew had them. B figured there were places close to the theatre where we could get them if we needed them.

There weren't.

I spent 90 minutes trudging around looking for the fake flowers B needed to finish the maypole (and an hour before that getting the props I had expected to get), finally taking the L train to Williamsburg and getting them there. I was not in a good mood when I returned, and my feet were blistered up pretty good actually (my current shoes seem to be great except for long walks). I was also nervous, as I had expected to have more time to go over my lines -- I had to understudy one of the speaking parts on opening night. So I did what I could with some help supplied by one of the actors in the show, Liz Toft, who works for a certain beverage company . . .

So, fueled by nerves and Red Bull, I did an acceptable job and the show went well. Went even better last night. Two more to go.

I got home from Friday night's show, sighing, thinking "Thank god I can sleep in tomorrow!" Then I remembered - B & I had to tech the new Penny Dreadful episode the next morning at 9.00 am. Oh, great (B wasn't happy either when I reminded her).

So we got up and did that. I didn't get to see the final performance last night, unfortunately (I was still stuck cleaning up after Merry Mount, but I got to see a semi-runthru at tech, and I got a few nice pictures:

The Magical Mister E (Clive Dobbs) checks the house before performing "The Great Switcheroo" for the first-(and last-) ever time.

Co-writer Matt Gray as Pinkerton detective Leslie Caldwell, Detective of the Supernatural (as seen in Hearst newspapers!).

Jessica Savage as Penny, magician's assistant, argues with her boss and lover, The Magical Mister E.

Harry Houdini (Patrick Pizzolorusso) is consulted by The Amazing Viernik (Fred Backus) and Caldwell in their search for The Magical Mister E (and, tangentially, a vampire).

Jessica Savage as Penny.

Aaron Baker as Bob Ford, Pinkerton agent, apparent time traveler trying to get home, and vampire victim.

Penny and Mister E argue again as director Christiaan Koop takes notes at tech.

I heard it went well last night. I wish I'd been able to light it better - it was okay, but I was really happy with my lighting of the first two episodes, and for this one, as expected, I had to use the lighting plot currently up for Bitch Macbeth, which is great for that show, but not for much else in the radically rearranged Brick at the moment (the seating platforms are gone and a large acting platform is in their place, with the light/sound boards in front of it, and the audience seated in two rows facing each other against the brick walls, with playing area up the middle). I did okay.

If you haven't seen any of the episodes of Penny Dreadful, you can check out the videos and synopses at the link above. It's worth it. I'm looking forward to directing the March episode.

Bitch Macbeth seems to be doing pretty damned well, too - I think the Time Out review helped (as well as nytheatre.com). We were going to see it tonight, but, for various reasons, I think we're going to wait now until next week (hope we can get seats . . .).

I've started doing some research for the graphic design of the postcards for the Gemini CollisionWorks shows coming this year (The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles, Spell, Harry In Love, Invisible Republic) - I want the cards to look like great dust jacket designs from various eras of publishing (Harry should look very 1960s - Catch-22 or Portnoy's Complaint, maybe; Ambersons very 1900s), so I've been reading up on these designs. And as you can see here, Hooker and Moni are helping with the research . . .



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I got a call this morning from my mom to tell me that my uncle John, her brother, had died. I hadn't seen or spoken to Johnny in years, for a number of good reasons, but we were close, he, his late brother David, and I, when I was growing up, and I have many fond memories of those times, all of which are seeming to come back today. So, not a cheery day.

I was more unhappy for my grandfather, who has lost both of his sons and a stepson who was very close to him (two in the past year). I talked to him and his wife, Jennie, for a bit earlier, and they're hanging on, but it's not easy, I'm sure.

I haven't thought very well of my uncle for a long time, but, yes, all those memories are coming back today, and I'm glad that those good times seem a lot more vibrant and real to me now than anything that has happened since.

It's much better that way.