CollisionWorks

Hope I remain worth reading.

Berit and I are annoyed (that our ride is gone), pissed (that we had a few things in there we miss - nothing irreplaceable in the long run, but including several gifts to us that we valued -- a jigsaw, a digital camera, a nice new 3-piece suit -- not things we can just get again easily), and stunned (that of ALL the cars on that block to steal, they chose a beaten-up 1994 minivan -- WHY?!).

Here's the lost boy in happier times -- as usual, in front of The Brick, as once seen on Google Maps (they've changed the street view of Metropolitan Avenue since then), during one of the Clown Festivals:

And unfortunately, as the car was actually my mother's, registered to her in Maine, the police aren't being too helpful in allowing me to even REPORT the theft as (understandably, yes) I have to PROVE that I have some connection to the car. Mom faxed me a whole bunch of documentation, but it wasn't good enough for them (faxes, that is), so I'm waiting for a package of original documents to arrive. As of now, even if it turned up somewhere, the police wouldn't know that it was stolen, or who to contact, as they wouldn't take the report. Great. All I can do (until I can actually make the report) is check online to see if the car's been towed or ticketed for being left in some other location, and be ready to grab it if it is.

The theft was a crappy end to an otherwise wonderful Sunday past, as we had a magnificent matinee of Kitsch at Theater for the New City (followed by a great Indian dinner on 6th Street for Berit and I). There were only 8 people in the audience, and I told the cast to just blow it out and have fun with it, and they did and gave the best performance of the run thus far. Until last night.

We only had 6 people in the house (which seats 85, so BOY does it look bare with less than two handfuls out there) last night -- there WERE 8 for a while, but right as we were about to begin a couple realized they were in the wrong theatre and left to go to the "correct" one next door. Damn. We also had a strangely vocal (with each other) young couple, one of whom left for the bathroom for a while during Part One, and then suddenly decided to leave altogether right as the lights came up on Part Two (after sitting there through most of Intermission). And did so with audible goodbyes and many kisses to the woman he left sitting there. Then, for whatever reason, having left, he came BACK IN midway through the scene, as the actors were, you know, working, and said goodbye and kissed his date AGAIN. Very distracting.

That said, the cast topped Sunday's performance with last night's -- which was fast, funny, confident, and energetic. I hope these qualities don't decrease as we get more audience back in (I know some of the speed will as we have to hold more for laughs again, rather than running on over the handful of chuckles we were getting last night). And I hope we GET more audience back this week . . . it seems like EVERYONE I know is coming to next Friday's performance. Everyone waits for closing week anyway, and now since we're doing a post-Thanksgiving ticket discount, people are waiting to take advantage of that, I think. The show's last two performances have been killer, I'd now like some others to enjoy this, too.

There's now a set of photos from the show, for those who are interested, HERE.

And here's this week's Random Ten from the iPod (with associated links) out of the 25,179 tracks in there right now . . .

1. "In the Mood" - Walter Horton - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 3
2. "Forty Four" - Geoff Muldaur - Mix Disk from my Dad
3. "Heartbreak Hotel" - John Cale - Seducing Down The Door: A Collection 1970-1990
4. "Lookin' for a Place to Park" - Slim Gaillard - Laughing In Rhythm, #2 - Groove Juice Special
5. "Up & Down" - Mom's Boys - Pebbles Volume 9 - Southern California
6. "Ride Your Mule Part 1" - Marvin Holmes & the Uptights - The Git Down!
7. "Theme From 'The Traitors'" - The Packabeats - Highly Strung Vol.1
8. "Night Comes On" - Leonard Cohen - Various Positions
9. "Song to Woody" - Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
10. "Leiyla" - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Part One

And from the now-gone digital camera, a few last shots . . . first a Friday Cat Blogging shot, with Hooker and Moni doing their occasional yin/yang act on the chair at the computer . . .

And here's a shot from backstage at Theater for the New City a couple of days before we opened, as Berit paints "Vogelbaum's" painting from the show during one of our late nights of working . . .

Now, off to napland before the long subway {sigh} ride into the city for the show . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	aggravated
Current Media:	Tony Joe White - "Polk Salad Annie" - The Best of Tony Joe White

I'd write more about it now, but I'm rushed as I've agreed to be an IT Awards judge for a show I'm seeing at a matinee in Queens this afternoon, and still have to type up and email my note son last night to the cast. So I'm attending two 2.5 hour shows today -- one as judge, one as director/tech operator. Long day. At least after tomorrow's matinee I'll have a few days off.

I'll try to write more then.

Here's a nice Random Ten for the day (with links so you can hear most of them yourself) from among the 25,159 tracks on the iPod . . .

1. "Eighties Fan" - Camera Obscura - Rough Trade Shops: Indiepop 1
2. "Messin' Around" - Little Killers - The Little Killers
3. "Love Me Like A Reptile" - Motorhead - Ace Of Spades
4. "Guess Things Happen That Way" - Johnny Cash - The Complete Sun Singles: Volume 3
5. "Example #22 (live)" - Laurie Anderson - United States Live Part 3
6. "Pidgin English" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Imperial Bedroom
7. "The Laughing Man" - John Carter & Russ Alquist - Tektites - Vol II
8. "My Real Gone Rocket" - Jackie Brenston - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 1
9. "Mozambique" - Bob Dylan - Desire
10. "Love's Gone Bad" - Chris Clark - One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found

And a shot from just a few minutes ago, as Hooker once again paws my shoulder as I try to do my online work . . .

"Why those kittehs no get cheezburgers? Give them the cheezburgers if they wants dem! Now cn we looks at 'Fuck You Penguin'?"

Off to the first of today's two shows . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	rushed
Current Media:	Captain Sensible - "Yanks With Guns" - Women and Captains First

I'm driving my car, and someone else on the road is making a horrible mistake that will result in them hitting me if I don't suddenly do something defensive and correct -- they may have made a wrong-way turn onto the one-way street I'm driving down, and I'm suddenly heading into their headlights, or they're trying to merge into the lane right where I am, or whatever, but always I have a car coming at me and I have to dodge with care and precision. These aren't exactly nightmares, as I always do avoid the other car, and I'm never woken up by some horrible dream-crash, but whenever I eventually wake up, I don't feel so terribly rested. Quite the opposite, I feel quite tense and fearful. It takes a good rehearsal to pull me out of the feeling of dread that hangs over me after one of these.

As Trav S.D. said when I mentioned this to him after Kitsch rehearsal last night, these dreams don't exactly need much in the way of interpretation here, it's all pretty much on the surface (and I should mention that these dream near-misses ALWAYS occur on roads I know well and have to drive to and from rehearsal of whatever play I'm working on -- yesterday's nap-dream-accident occurred on Houston Street just West of the FDR Drive).

That said, Kitsch, which opens in less than a week, is coming together okay. We'll be fine -- I will have some serious stress in the next few days in getting the lights, sound cues and projections together, but I'll get it done (not as fast as I'd like, but in time to run them enough before opening). I'll be seeing David Brune, the set designer, and Karen Flood, the costume designer, at the space today as we all go through the stock at TNC to find what we can pull and use for our show and I learn a bit more about the lighting setup and what I have available to me that way.

Tonight we'll run the thing from top to bottom again, as we did on Wednesday. Monday we ran Part II twice, and Tuesday we did Part I twice (with some skips in each case for actors who weren't there). On those days, the two individual parts looked in good shape, but when we put them together on Wednesday, it didn't quite sing as much, but I think it was just an off-day, and people are still struggling with the lines at times, which doesn't help. Last night, I worked the staging of 7 of the song sequences with the singers of those songs (there are 9 songs in the show), and focused them and made them clear, so we're all happy with those now. Trav also cut several of the longer songs down, which was needed -- the songs were great on their own as songs, but as pieces of a larger piece of theatre (pieces which I had asked for, as Trav had cut them from the play for a bit, but I thought they would really add to the whole work overall), a couple of them stayed with us a beat or two too long.

In any case, I'm now suddenly rushed to get myself together to run errands and get to the theatre (and hoping that the earlier Yankees parade hasn't screwed up traffic TOO much in getting to TNC), so I'd better finish this up as fast as I can . . .

Here's this week's Random Ten from the 25,101 tracks in the iPod, with associated YouTube links so you can hear the song there, or something else by that artist (there are some quite good video links in here this week, I should mention, and songs that, if you don't know them, are worth getting to know):

1. "The World Spins" - Julee Cruise - Floating Into The Night
2. "Dick Tracy" - The Chants - Get Back Up Again 3
3. "Matzoh Balls" - Slim Gaillard - Laughing In Rhythm, #1 - Flat Foot Floogie
4. "Midnight Showers of Rain" - Willie Nix - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 3
5. "You Let A Love Burn Out" - We Five - You Were On My Mind & Make Someone Happy
6. "Strange Weather" - Marianne Faithfull - Strange Weather
7. "Nenen Corta Essa" - Erasmo Carlos - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 1
8. "You're My Best Friend" - Queen - A Night At The Opera
9. "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" - Shonen Knife - The Birds & The B-Sides
10. "The Director Never Yelled 'Cut'" - Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep

And as for weekly cat-blogging, here's a recent picture of Hooker "helping me" at the computer, while I'm trying to get work done:

I'm looking forward to a brief, slightly "relaxed" day tomorrow, where I'll be working a little more with one or two singers in Kitsch on the last two songs, and then doing the improv theatre performance (and screening) with David Finkelstein that I hope some friends will show up at (check the link for details, folks).

Then, back to Kitsch full-time on Sunday . . .

And now, back to work . . . I'm going to put on some Mike Nesmith now to work to . . . excellent "chill-out" music . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	aggravated
Current Media:	Space Opera - "Holy River" - Cherry-Picked and Jerry-Rigged

Last night, it was Up for Anything by Marc Spitz at The Kraine, which was about as funny as expected -- I was in a reading of it earlier this year that was quite hysterical. It wasn't quite as funny at the start as it was at the reading -- certain pace things that work perfectly when a play is read don't work as well when it's on its feet, and the first section of the play seemed a little rushed and a bit TOO frenetic, but as it settled down a bit it all evened out.

And favorite Gemini CollisionWorks actors Alyssa Simon and Ivanna Cullinan were in there (along with Yuri Skujins, an old acquaintance I haven't seen in many MANY years) doing great work, so I was VERY glad I got the chance to see it, which I didn't expect. Wound up sitting with and talking with Tom Murrin of PAPER Magazine, a GCW supporter from way back, and we were good audience members to have laughing in the front row, I'm told. The show plays through tomorrow, if you're able and inclined to see it.

Tonight, I'm off to The Brick for the annual Blood Brothers show from Nosedive Productions -- I lit last year's and had a good time on that (and on their Infectious Opportunity, which I also lit). I'm not sure I'm in the mood for gore tonight, but I'm gonna get it, I'm sure.

The beloved CollisionWorks iPod is . . . acting up. It's going on three years old, and I've read in many places that three years is about what you should expect from an iPod, so our heavily-used baby may be on its way out. Last night, for the first time, it began repeatedly freezing or shutting down for no apparent reason. At the same time, I had just cleaned out a little space to put some tracks on there, and wound up then stuffing it to less than a MB of its life, so it may have been a space issue. I did a big cleaning today, giving it 2.5 gigs of safe space (a gig of which I then filled, of course).

So, from the something like 24,996 tracks on the damned thing now, here's a Random Ten for today, with associated links:

1. "Two Daughters And A Beautiful Wife" - Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
2. "Caryn Shaffer" - Wesley Willis - Greatest Hits Volume 2
3. "Mama, Mama -Talk To Your Daughter" - Magic Sam - West Side Soul
4. "The Dreams Of Children" - The Jam - Direction, Reaction, Creation
5. "The "In" Crowd" - The First Gear - Jimmy's Back Pages...The Early Years
6. "Push Button Love" - Internationals - Lost Deep Soul Treasures 5
7. "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" - The Ramones - Rocket To Russia
8. "Do I Do I Do I" - Richard Berry - Baby, Please Come Home
9. "Bonus Pay" - Pat Hare - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 8
10. "Eighties" - Killing Joke - Night Time

Tomorrow, Halloween, I'll be spending some of the day in rehearsal for the improv performance I'm doing with David Finkelstein a week after - as you can read about HERE.

After that, it's off to Millennium for Sinister Six Must Be Destroyed . . . but I haven't the time to write any more now . . .

So, since I have to run to get to the show, here's a quick grab of a recent shot of Berit and the two kitties, who have been quite annoying sweet recently (as I've been writing this Hooker has been casing me and leaping up on me quite a few times, despite the fact that there is no lap to jump into, and if I don't catch him, he'll just fall to the floor, which has been what's happening):

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	anxious
Current Media:	"Porky's Pooch" - Warner Bros. cartoon

Still, we're actually a little bit ahead of where I thought we'd be at this point, mainly because the actors are picking things up fairly quickly, though I'm going to have to constantly be vigilant about everyone's timing in this precise farce (a pain, when it appears at this point that we will NEVER have the full cast of 19 together at any one time until the ONE night before the show opens . . . {sigh}).

Up until recently, we've mostly been rehearsing in the chilly basement of Theater for the New City, amongst old props, costumes, and set pieces. Here's Josh Mertz and Avery Pearson as Violet Vogelbaum and Heinz Bruderlieben, having a lover's spat in the Klub Katzenratzen:

And here's Roger Nasser, Esther Silberstein, Josh, and Avery from the other side, as another spat between Violet and Heinz is watched by Klaus Hanswurst, busboy, and Schwamm, the Klub Katzenratzen singer:

This past week, and hopefully for most of our remaining rehearsals, we've moved upstairs to the actual space the show will be in, the vast (for me) Johnson Theater. Here's Berit (can you spot her? she's actually standing in the same "place" of the set as Esther in the picture above) in the midst of our rehearsal set . . .

That's a lot of space to fill, but it's looking good thus far. Sounding okay, too -- I was worried about echo making the lines muddy, but it's not too bad, and once the back curtain is pulled and our set is in there (and, hopefully, an audience) the reverb should be decreased to a perfectly fine level.

Tonight, Sunday, and Tuesday we're supposed to be in this space, and I've called as much of the full cast as I can for those days (which means 10-14 people, depending on the day) so we can put the pieces of the show together -- but there's always the chance at TNC that we show up and need to be moved to a smaller space (one night, as I noted, we wound up in a hallway), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get to keep working in the Johnson, as it makes the show a lot clearer.

So . . . we're okay on this, but not so much that I can relax.

Meanwhile, back in the iPod, here's today's Random Ten (with assorted links) from the 25,580 tracks in there . . .

1. "Hope" - Kristin Hersh - Strange Angels
2. "The Director Never Yelled 'Cut'" - Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep
3. "Speak To Me" - PP Arnold - The First Cut
4. "That Is Rock & Roll" - The Coasters - Fifty Coastin' Classics
5. "Peekaboo! (muzak version)" - Devo - E-Z Listening Disc
6. "Sinners" - The Cramps - Flamejob
7. "Anybody Seen My Baby?" - The Rolling Stones - Bridges To Babylon
8. "Devil In Disguise" - Elvis Presley - Beat of the Pops 02
9. "If I Didn't Love You" - Squeeze - Singles 45's And Under
10. "You Should Know" - The Sevens - The Sevens

And yes, some recent pictures of the kitties . . . Berit having some cuddle time with a sleepy boy . . .

And Berit tried to get some late night reading in, but has some friends that won't quite let her . . .

Okay, and now I have to get myself ready for our first "full cast" (11 out of 19) stumblethru tonight -- still figuring out where everyone goes much of the time . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	crazy
Current Media:	Devo - "Fountain of Filth" - Hardcore Devo 2

And today, a day late (as yesterday was taken up with reorganizing last night's rehearsal due to cast member illness), I finally get to the Random Ten (out of 25,580) from the iPod, with links to associated YouTube videos where available . . .

1. "Skin Deep" - Stranglers - Aural Sculpture
2. "Valerie" - Amy Winehouse with Mark Ronson - Mix Disk - Dad
3. "Rubberleg Twist" - The Isley Brothers - Twist And Shout
4. "Percy's On The Run" - High Broom - Psychedelic Archaeology Volume 8
5. "I'm On a Boat" - The Lonely Island (feat. T-Pain) - Incredibad
6. "Little Bianca" - The Bitter Poet & The Sound of Angst - Rocket Red Fingernails
7. "Funny Anymore" - The Heartbeats - East of Croydon
8. "Super Good (Parts 1 & 2)" - Vicki Anderson (as Myra Barnes) - James Brown's Funky People (Part 2)
9. "You Better Get a Better" - The Beatstalkers - Decca Originals: The Freakbeat Scene (1964-1968)
10. "Cruisers Creek" - The Fall - 458489 A Sides

Work proceeds on the production of Kitsch: Or, Two for the Price of One, which opens in . . . whoa . . . just under four weeks. Yeesh.

More info on the show HERE

Rehearsals have been a lot of fun for this show. I'm getting to pull out anything and everything I've ever learned from movie comedies of the 30s and 40s (and a few things from Warner Bros. cartoons as well). Double and triple-takes, slow burns, slapstick, comic sound effects . . . they're all showing up.

Theater for the New City has been a somewhat enjoyable place to work. I like the space itself, and the feeling of community you get there, which has been welcoming to me in faster order than I figured it would. Of course, with the easygoing atmosphere, you also get the kind of laissez-faire attitude that results in showing up last night to find the rehearsal room double-booked, so that we wound up rehearsing in a hallway. We still wound up doing perfectly good work that I was pleased with, but as the hallway was next to the bathrooms, we had to take an extended break from work and discuss blocking for another scene when a show upstairs broke for intermission and our working space became a corridor again. The work was still excellent.

Still, I am enjoying the feeling of "going to work" in a theatre that I'm not on staff at for a change, as well as visiting an old neighborhood of mine every day. I used to live around the corner from TNC on 10th Street, and I've been revisiting some of the restaurants I used to go to regularly for take-out while there (the food at Paquitos, where David Mcintyre and I got burritos every night while we were writing Even the Jungle, tastes exactly the same 18 years later). A lot more Indian and Ruben's Empenadas in the diet than usual. The area's a lot more gentrified, of course, but not as much as I had figured, actually.

So we're pretty good on this show, but I'm still a hair concerned about having all the design elements and music set in time without last minute craziness. I'll catch up on that on Monday (which is now a "day off" from rehearsal, but not from the show).

And as for today's cat blogging, here's a shot from last week of how I prefer Hooker to join me when I'm on the computer and trying to work or just enjoy myself -- this way I can pay attention to both the computer and the cat . . .

And, from this morning, here's how he likes to get attention from me while I'm on the computer, where he makes it clear that he is more important than whatever I'm trying to do online . . .

Time to begin psyching myself up for tonight's rehearsal . . .

There are still tonal things that need to be modified and worked out -- how far exactly to go with those accents; how far to go with the "swishiness" or not of the gay characters (in this farce, it seems right to go to almost Mel Brooksian levels, especially to contrast one gay twin from his straight brother, but there IS an offensiveness line that can be easily crossed); there's a lot of Brechtiness in the script, but how much Weimar/Brecht/Weill do we bring in vs. how much actual 1989? -- but we're only two rehearsals in with 24 to go, so we have some time to work things out (not too much, though).

Simple scenes thus far, for the most part. I was a hair stymied by the brief exposition transition from the prologue to the first scene of the play proper last night, when an idea came up that I hadn't considered before that looked to change my whole view of staging the section -- I had a visual gag planned for the scene, but a bit of prop handling I hadn't fully worked out led to the creation of a different gag, which was a less "sure" gag than the first one (that is, it could REALLY work or REALLY fail as a piece of humor, and the first one was a fairly definite laugh, or at least chuckle). So I had to decide between a gag that would work that I had planned, or one that could either work better or fail miserably, but which would also solve a problem of getting some props offstage (a major pain). An offhanded suggestion - more a joke about it - from Josh Mertz led to a solution that combined both gags into a better one, albeit one that's still unsure of a laugh (and brings up the question, when you throw a baby offstage, is it funnier if it's just tossed, or if you hear the sound of the baby going "Waaaaaaa!" as it arcs away?).

Monday will be a sudden jump in difficulty staging-wise, though, as I'll have almost the entire cast there for the climactic scene of the farce in which everything comes together. This involves 16 to 18 actors (not sure yet) with a whole lot of extremely specific blocking which must look chaotic, including the use of four "fake shemps" disguised as half of the four sets of twins the play centers on (it's basically The Comedy of Errors with two extra sets of twins, broken up in infancy and sent to either side of the Berlin Wall, all finally meeting up and causing confusion on the night it comes down - a nice classic farce, with a pedigree that goes back over 2000 years).

In any case, it's underway and won't be stopping now.

Back on the iPod, here's today's Random Ten (and associated YouTube links) out of 25,552 tracks:

1. "Dilated Eyes" - The Gregorians - You Deceived Me: USA Garage Greats 1965-1967
2. "Joey's On The Streets Again" - The Boomtown Rats - The Best Of The Boomtown Rats: The Millennium Collection
3. "King of Comedy" - R.E.M. - Monster
4. "Last Dance" - The Mekons - Fear and Whiskey
5. "The Picnic" - Johnny Mandel - The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea soundtrack
6. "Love Me" - Koko Taylor - What It Takes: The Chess Years
7. "30 Seconds Over Tokyo (live 1993)" - Pere Ubu - The Late Show
8. "CBS Marijuana Special" - Radio Promo - Rock'n'Roll - The Untold Story Vol. 6: The Jivin' Novelty Party Record

TV ANNOUNCER: "See a CBS Special on marijuana, 'Get the Habit' -- stay tuned to this channel!"
9. "Rots-O-Ruck" - Richard Marino - Ultra-Lounge 18: Bottoms Up
10. "I Shall Not Be Moved" - Johnny Cash - Unearthed

And a couple of new kitty photos from the last couple of days . . . Hooker, who has become a NEEDY attention hound of a cat since our last time away, here with Berit on the couch . . .

And, just a few minutes ago as I write this, nudging me in the face and pawing at me for attention, jealous of the computer . . .

Maybe I'll get some new photos of Moni for next week; she never seems to stand still long enough for a good photo, though.

Tomorrow we have a day off of rehearsal for Kitsch (one of only two we have between now and opening weekend, the other being Halloween), which B & I will spend going up to Darien, CT - just a bit north of my ol' hometown - where my dad, Nils Hill, is in a group show with some pretty good company, to say the least (he's a painter, in case you didn't know, as is my stepmother, Ivy Dachman). I'm looking forward to the small day trip up into the home state.

Also, in other events, there are 2 shows opening this weekend from friendly creators and spaces you might check out:

1. Titus Andronicus from Danse Macabre Theatrics at my homebase The Brick (looks to be Frank Cwiklik's usual intoxicating and overwhelming blend of staging and media); and,

2. Marc Spitz's new comedy Up for Anything at The Kraine, which I was in a reading of not long ago -- it's hysterically funny, like most of Marc's work (I've directed/acted in two of his plays, The Hobo Got Too High and Marshmallow World, and loved it), and has a really terrific cast (including CollisionWorks favorite Alyssa Simon).

And a first notice: Some of you may have seen my show Sacrificial Offerings this August, the text of which came from improvisational work by myself and David Finkelstein, who has been doing this kind of work for years as Lake Ivan Performance Group.

The play also contained a video by David called Marvelous Discourse, which was based on the videotape of the same improvisation that created the text of the play (David's notes on the video are HERE).

Well, there will be a screening of that video, along with another video of David's, Terrifying Blankness, created with a different improv partner, at CRS on Saturday, November 7 at 8.00 pm.

And most excitingly for me, David and I will also be performing a live 15-minute long improvisation that evening. I have been refreshed and rejuvenated in many ways by the work I've been doing with David this year, and the idea of doing some of this improvisatory theatre work live (the first time, for me) is something I very much look forward to. Details are at the links above; more info as the date gets closer.

Okay, time to leave the computer and prepare for tonight -- just found out I'm short an actor I expected, so revisions to the schedule must be made . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	quixotic
Current Media:	The Streets - "The Irony of It All" - Original Pirate Material

So, a few days late, but just as odd as always, here are the first random 10 tracks that came up out of the 25,552 currently in the iPod (with links to YouTube versions of the songs, or if I couldn't find them, something moderately close by the same artist):

1. "Go Through It" - Blondie - Autoamerican
2. "Security" - The Pleazers - Wild Things volume 2 - Wyld Kiwi Garage 1966-1969
3. "Lionel" - D.N.A. - No New York
4. "Desolation Avenue" - The Leather Nun - Force of Habit
5. "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" - R.E.M. - And I Feel Fine...: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987
6. "Hep Onaltí 'da" - Stereo Total - Music Automatique
7. "Rock Island Line" - Johnny Cash - Best Of Sun Records Volume Two
8. "It's a Crime" - The 23rd Turnoff (as The Kirkbys) - The Dream of Michaelangelo (The Legendary '66 / '67 Recordings)
9. "Green Things Have Entered My Skin, Gladys (alternate version)" - The Driving Stupid - Horror Asparagus Stories
10. "Standing Room Only" - Kim Tolliver - Lost Deep Soul Treasures 3

And, for those who like such things (and can see the embedded video), here are a few seconds of a cute kitten:

And Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking break it down:

And now, back over to The Brick to help Frank Cwiklik get things ready for his imminently-opening production of Titus Andronicus.

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	awake

Well, for goodness' sake, I forgot the weekly blog post yesterday.

And I won't have time to do it for real until tomorrow -- at least the music/photos/video part of it.

So, anyway, I'm back in NYC, and gearing up for Kitsch at Theatre for the New City. Today, Trav and I met with David, the set designer, at the space and discussed possibilities. I mentioned what I needed and David suggested possibilities that suggested additional avenues of approach, so I think we're all on the same page with this piece.

It's nice to collaborate sometimes -- but I don't think I could let go of too much more of the design of my own shows; I HAVE to do set, light, and sound for those, it goes hand in hand with the directing. Kitsch is purely about direction as craft -- how do I stage THIS script to get every drop of what's on the page out of it with THIS cast. That will be MORE than enough to do with this large script and cast (19 in the cast; 4 or 5 still uncast).

So today, I'm at The Brick for the most part - running box for the 3 pm matinee, supposedly having a 5.30 pm meeting (no one showed up), and training the box person for the evening show whenever she shows up. I'll probably have to stick around until the show starts just to be sure the box person actually understands everything I show her, then I can effoe home.

Current fave raves: The Beatles' music in mono -- no, I don't have the new box set, much as I would like it; I have , uh, acquired the mono mixes in the past, digitized off the vinyl -- I grew up mostly with mono vinyl copies of the albums, and hearing it again this way sounds a lot more "right" to me (and I think makes the music sound a lot less "dated"). Here's a couple of examples (if you're seeing this on Facebook, you'll have to click through to the original post to see the videos):

SCTV Network 90 -- Newbury Comics in Portland was having a sale and I was able to get the complete run of this great show for $10 a box; well worth it, and glad to go through the whole run again. Two favorite sketches:

And a favorite song I've been obsessed with and playing over and over again recently:

Back tomorrow with an actual Random Ten.

Current Location:	The Brick, Williamsburg
Current Mood:	bored
Current Media:	The Beatles - "If You've Got Troubles" - Anthology

Since then, I've driven back to Brooklyn - borrowing my brother's car as Petey Plymouth wound up needing some unexpected work in order to pass inspection here in Maine, where it's registered - and barely made it to the NYIT Awards to lose out on the "Outstanding Lighting Design" award (but had fun celebrating The Brick's Caffe Cino award).

Then Berit and I spent a day lighting the excellent show by Happy Hour now going on at The Brick (through Sunday), and that evening saw the last performance of the hysterical Icetacles/Viva Evel Knievel bill also there in the Amuse Bouche mini-Clown Theater festival we have going on.

Also had a meeting with Trav S.D. regarding the upcoming production of his Kitsch, or: Double Dutch Dumbkopfs that I'm directing for Theatre for the New City (opening in November). Unfortunately, we've lost a couple of actors and are still having some difficulty casting other parts, but that should be settled soon before starting rehearsals around October 5. I'm quite happy with the cast we have (at least those people I know; Trav has cast some people I've not met yet), am looking forward to working on this hysterical script, and hoping to hell that my idea for how to solve the problem of when the four sets of twins, each set played by ONE actor throughout the show -- as this is a loose adaptation of Comedy of Errors set in Berlin the evening the Wall comes down -- all meet at once in the end. At the current moment, the solution involves the concept of "Fake Shemps." We'll see if I can pull it off, blocking-wise.

Also met with Elaine, the set designer for Punk Rock/Love Song, a Horse Trade production NOT playing in one of the Horse Trade spaces, but at our own Brick (!). She had some questions about how best to work some things out in the space, and Berit and I offered solutions that seemed to work for her. I'm pleased that she's using two of the three platforms I built for my August shows (including the 6' cube) so that all that work we put in to them winds up being in the service of even MORE theatre.

Then I had to drive BACK up to Maine so I can get my own vehicle back -- though it was a pleasant 5-hour drive this time, and it means I get to spend a little more time up here, where a New England Autumn has come, and it is lovely and pleasant and cool. There's that special tang in the air that brings back lots of memories of Fall days at NMH from '83-'85 -- some of my fondest memories, still.

So, now, another update from Maine. I just wish Berit could have joined me, but she had to continue running the Happy Hour show through Sunday. Now, I'm here till Monday, probably, and looking for things to do on my own up here -- when Berit and I are here together, we mostly just sit in the same room, reading or playing on computers with the TV on, just vegging out, not actually interacting all that much really, but for some reason it's a lot less fun without B in the room with me.

I'm thinking of going to a local drive-in movie theatre tomorrow or Sunday to see a double bill of Inglourious Basterds and Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 - a PERFECT drive-in double bill - but there's something depressing about the idea of sitting alone in a car at the drive-in (and I don't think one or the other or both of the films will entertain the various family members here - and Berit wouldn't be interested in the Zombie film if she were here either). Still, I may not be able to pass up seeing these films at the drive-in (luckily, it's at the nearby drive-in, which I've never been to, and not the one that's an hour away, where B and I have gone before). I'll probably go on Sunday.

And before then, some hanging out, reading blogs, and doing the regular Friday Random Ten from the 25,551 tracks currently in the iPod (with associated links so you can - mostly - listen along):

1. "The Nearness of You" - Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
2. "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons" - Karl Zero - Songs for Cabriolets and Otros Tipos de Vehiculos
3. "Alone Again Or" - Love - Forever Changes
4. "Look at What I Almost Missed" - The Parliaments - Testify! The Best of the Early Years
5. "Let's Drink to the People" - The Deviants - No. 3
6. "I and I" - Bob Dylan - Infidels
7. "Tiger Roach" - Captain Beefheart & Frank Zappa - The Lost Episodes
8. "Lucy Potato (alternate version)" - Teenage Head - Teenage Head
9. "If You Don't Mind, Mrs. Applebee" - The Human Beinz - Evolutions
10. "The Baker Man" - The Beach Boys - Surfin' USA

No new or interesting videos or photos to post this week -- I seem to be linking to plenty from my Facebook account, which is taking up more of my online interest than this blog these days, but I prefer the form here for writing my weekly updates (and it gets ponged over to Facebook as a note anyway), so I think I'll keep this journal going as long as I'm going. I think I might try to bring it back to something a little more regular, but shorter, with more pictures, something like what Robert Fripp does. We'll see if I can keep that up when I get back home . . .

I could have used another week, but there's things to do -- the NYIT Awards on Monday, teching a show at The Brick the next two days, and getting really cracking on directing Trav S.D.'s Kitsch for Theater for the New City, going up in November. We'll get back here in January, I'm sure, but that's not exactly as great a time to visit Maine as September. Of course, we spend almost all our time here lounging about one room, reading, playing on the computer, and watching TV (as we have no TV at home in Brooklyn, we use our time away to catch up on what's going on there, or as B puts it, "surfing the zeitgeist"). Actually, though, there hasn't been much bearable on the cathode-ray box apart from cute animal programs, Mythbusters, some news, and reruns of Roseanne and C.S.I., so we're not really zeitgeisting ourselves all that much.

(Berit interrupts to note that we're seeing lots of TV commercials, and that this tells us more about what's really going on in the world than any shows do -- she's right, of course)

So that's our happily boring week.

Hey, some advice . . . if you're on a Mac, and still running Tiger rather than Leopard (let alone Snow Leopard) as an OS, and you haven't been upgrading QuickTime for a while because the upgrades interfere with some of your computer games (notably, maybe even only, ones from Aspyr) and make them not work, but you HAVE been updating iTunes . . . I wouldn't advise updating to the new iTunes 9, as it REQUIRES the newest QuickTime to run at all, and you will be stuck without any iTunes until you upgrade QT as well. And you will NOT be able to downgrade back to the previous iTunes without losing all your library info. And while Aspyr has patches that will fix the problem, assuming that all your copies of their games are {ahem} fully legal and so forth, if you simply want to go back to the older iTunes and QuickTime that you had, it involves a huge amount of workarounds and . . . well, it's a major pain in the ass.

How do I know this?

Guess.

In future, I ain't automatically upgrading nothin' without paying more attention to it and having more of a backup system. And I just have to say I'm SO tired of programs and upgrades that absolutely REQUIRE you to have the latest, most up-to-date software from top-to-bottom installed, as I've far too often had to keep my "out-of-date" but working perfectly equipment going for many years as I couldn't afford to upgrade -- we wouldn't have any of these problems if we had been able to upgrade to a newer OS.

In any case, I still have no iTunes until we decide which one of several ways we want to go about fixing this problem.

But I can still do the Random Ten on the iPod, out of the 25,551 tracks, with associated links, and here is this week's . . .

1. "Turtle Blues" - Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills
2. "Everything Louder Than Everything Else" - Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell
3. "Shake 'Em On Down (version 3)" - R.L. Burnside - A Bothered Mind
4. "One Time Too Many" - PJ Harvey - C'mon Billy EP
5. "Little Girl" - Pilferage Humor - So Cold!!! Unearthed 60's Sacramento Garage
6. "Nothing Down (99 Years To Pay)" - Jean Dee - Back to the 50's 04
7. "Kung See, Kung See, Let's Be Happy" - Penny Lim & The Silvertone's - Girls in the Garage volume 9: Oriental Special
8. "Sea Horses" - Blueboy - If Wishes Were Horses
9. "Contact" - Brigitte Bardot - Club Au-Go-Go
10. "City Creatures" - V2 - The Identity Parade

And as we're here in Maine, I should focus the weekly "cat blogging" on our loaner animals up here -- like Bappers The Cat, here in the living room . . .

And closer in. This cat is over 15 years old, an indoor/outdoor cat, in great shape and still going strong, though she weighs less than any cat I've ever lifted . . .

She can be a little standoffish, but will accept a good belly rub at times . . .

Bappers HATES the dog, Sasha, who is adorable, if excitable. Here, Berit tries to give both affection at once, though the kitty isn't having any of it, and is pointedly ignoring them . . .

And here's the dog on my lap as I try to watch TV -- in this case it was Meercat Manor, and when Sasha caught sight of the meercats on the TV she flipped out and wouldn't stop growling and barking at them and had to be removed from the room to get her to shut up . . .

Okay, time to sit back and reread book 7 of the Harry Potter series. I've already reread the first six this week -- I am not exactly a fan of them, but I was both interested in reading them all in order straight through in rapid succession and seeing how the entire story worked in one big lump as well as just examining them to understand what did in fact "work" about them. Rather relaxing.

Current Location:	Portland, ME
Current Mood:	sad
Current Media:	C.S.I. rerun on SpikeTV

Here's the good ol' Friday Random Ten, out of 25,551 tracks in the iPod, with more links to actual versions of the songs by the actual artists than usual . . .

1. "We Got the Neutron Bomb" - The Weirdos - Dangerhouse Volume Two
2. "Tiny Montgomery" - Bob Dylan & The Band - A Tree With Roots
3. "To Love Somebody" - Janis Joplin - Those Classic Golden Years 12
4. "Can't Steal My Way Around" - Barney Burcham - Tennessee Rock 'n Billy 1955
5. "The Thrill of Your Love" - Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back!
6. "Holy Flypaper!" - Nelson Riddle - Batman - Exclusive Original Television Soundtrack Album
7. "When You Walk In The Room" - Jackie De Shannon - The Definitive Collection
8. "Teclo" - PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
9. "The Reverend Goes To Hell (from "Edgar Wallace")" - The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra - Film Musik
10. "Have Love Will Travel" - The Sonics - !!!Here Are The Sonics!!!

And, yes, this date brings back a lot of memories, but I'll simply share (in videos) three songs that were circling my head for much of the year following (and if you're on Facebook, you'll have to check back at the original post to see them).

First, Bob Dylan's "High Water (for Charley Patton)," in a live version at Niagara Falls:

The classic video for Laurie Anderson's "O Superman (for Massenet)":

And David Bowie's "Heathen (The Rays)":

Which makes three songs with bit of their titles in parenthesis that I love and which make me full of sadness and dread.

Current Location:	Portland, ME
Current Mood:	annoyed
Current Media:	Mythbusters on cable

Why THANK you, Mary Worth's Tobey, for the kind words!

Yesterday we loaded the last of all of our stuff from this year's shows out of The Brick, and the August 2009 shows are now a memory.

And, as always, when we close a show (or 4, as now) I immediately come down with something, so I've been sniffing and coughing for much of today -- it's like my immune system holds out until I get a day to relax, and then the whole furshlugginer thing collapses.

Anyway, we have a couple of days before going off to Robert Honeywell & Moira Stone's wedding upstate, so we can rest and I can get well, somewhat.

And then onward to directing Trav S.D.'s show in November and planning next year's shows, including our Wedding-Show in June (we seem to have gotten the reception restaurant taken care of now, so that's a big part out of the way) and Spacemen from Space and . . . one other show in August -- I'm researching the rights situation on the show I WANT to do currently -- it looks to be a mess, as it's a British play from 1960 that has been out of print in the States for years, with no immediate indication of who actually controls the US rights. We'll see. (Oh, whoops, just checked the Samuel French site and THEY have it - $75 a performance; about standard)

I'm also currently obsessed with the films of Powell & Pressburger, Jean-Luc Godard, and Universal Pictures' monster series from 1931-1946 in ways that suggest there's something I need to be doing with/about them on stage (not together, I would think, but you never know), but it hasn't come clear yet. More watching is needed . . .

And here's today's Random Ten out of 25,537 in the iPod, with associated links, where I could find them (not all of them this week - some pretty obscure songs this week):

1. "I Was Wrong" - Gene "Bowlegs" Miller - Legacy Of Gene "Bowlegs" Miller
2. "Just" - Radiohead - The Bends
3. "Hey, Sweet Baby" - The Loose Ends - Sixties Rebellion Vol 3-The Auditorium
4. "Egg or the Hen" - Koko Taylor - What It Takes (The Chess Years)
5. "I Have Been to Heaven and Back" - The Mekons - The Mekons Rock'N'Roll
6. "I Was Born A Brownskin And You Can't Make Me Blue" - Priscilla Stewart - Complete Recorded Works
7. "Come On Christmas, Christmas Come On" - Ringo Starr - I Wanna Be Santa Claus
8. "Holiday On Ice" - The Nits - New Flat
9. "Hummingbirds (demo version)" - Love - Forever Changes
10. "Father and Son" - Johnny Cash with Fiona Apple - Unearthed

No new cat photos today, but I've been trying to decide on a picture of me and one or both of the little monsters to send to the Men and Cats site, and narrowed it down to 5, all but one consisting of Hooker enjoying his habit of standing or lying on me whenever he can (the other a nice naptime shot that also contains Moni)

These cover, chronologically, the last 4 years, starting with Hooker interrupting my reading of the newspaper in 2005 (back when I still read hard copy papers):

And the following year, he thinks he deserves more attention than my book:

And a few days later, as I have a nice nap with the boy, the jealous girl climbs on my back:

In 2007, another nap has someone joining in:

And last year, Hooker decides that I'm of more use as a standing place than writing the script I'm trying to get through:

And, as I was trying to write this post, he just jumped on me and demanded attention, and I was able to get a shot of us with the computer's camera, so I now have a 2009 shot . . .

And (courtesy of LP Cover Lover) sometimes I think a man of the cloth has the RIGHT IDEA:

As someone who honestly LOVES the original movie, without irony, and has directed a stage adaptation of it, and has also always wondered a bit about some of Bugs Bunny's . . . ahem . . . proclivities, this is an obvious step . . .

Then, a rest for a few weeks, and then onward to directing Trav S.D.'s comedy Kitsch at Theatre for the New City for November, and planning next year's shows, including the June production of The Wedding of Ian W. Hill & Berit Johnson. Because of that June show, I was only going to do ONE August show next year (the still-germinating Spacemen from Space), but I've been more and more inclined to a matched set of that wild comedy plus a big, nasty, depressing historical drama, maybe with the exact same cast in rep. I won't mention what the drama I'm thinking of is just yet, but it would be a clearer, in-your-face view of the themes of anti-intellectualism and religious repression that underlie Spacemen.

But that's next year . . .

This August has been a really positive experience, probably the happiest for Berit and I of all our work, and we're slightly at a loss now as to how to continue it and build on it from here. Berit says we learn two or three things every year in our work as to how to improve things for next year, and we surely have, but none of them this year is "how to keep the new audience you've gotten and get more." Whenever I think I've learned that lesson, I've been wrong. It's not blind chance that some things hit and others don't, but it's vision-impaired chance, to be sure.

Just to keep up with noting all the press appearances, there's an interview with Bill Weeden about Bathrobe at Broadway World.com, and Aaron Riccio of That Sounds Cool, who previously didn't very much like Piece and Blood (mainly because of the scripts), now somewhat likes Bathrobe and really dislikes Offerings. [UPDATE: I almost forgot Adam McGovern's kind words on Blood over at ComicCritique.blog] Interesting reactions all around, from the Press and the Audiences. There are people who like, REALLY like, each of the shows, but I'm not sure if there's very many who like (or would like) all four except me and Berit. Ah, well. It's a month of shows that does what I wanted it to do, about as well as I'd like. I can stand by them.

And if you're an audience member who's seen any of the shows, and hasn't voted for us in the New York Innovative Theatre Awards, PLEASE DO. All four shows are registered. It means a lot to me.

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, here's the weekly Random Ten from the 25,563 tracks in there today (with associated links, where available):

1. "Boredom" - Mitch Ryder - The Detroit-Memphis Experiment
2. "That's My Girl" - Monks - Black Monk Time
3. "Her Mind Is Gone" - Professor Longhair - Big Chief
4. "Sous Le Soleil Exactement" - Eyvind Kang - Great Jewish Music: Serge Gainsbourg
5. "Sober Driver" - Dengue Fever - Venus On Earth
6. "Rock on the Moon" - The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
7. "Getting Into The Jam" - Electric Six - Fire
8. "Rap-o Clap-o" - Joe Bataan - Hot Retro Summer - Lazar's Lounge
9. "Garbage Can Ballet" - Harry Nilsson - Skidoo
10. "Bristol And Miami" - The Selecter - Celebrate The Bullet

I have no new cat pictures today, and the little bastards are hiding and sleeping where I can't find them right now, so I can't shoot any.

So, instead, some videos I've enjoyed this past week (if you're reading this on Facebook, you have to click on "See Original Post" to see these) -- a whole load from Brian Auger & The Trinity with Julie Driscoll, all from '68 (it looks like they were all shot in the same soundstage the same day), starting with a long Donovan cover:

And this next one was the "hit," I think -- years later, Driscoll re-recorded it with Adrian Edmondson as the theme for Absolutely Fabulous -- here, Driscoll sings Dylan as she wanders through a field of Readymades:

From faux-Duchamp to faux-Pop (can there be such a thing?) with "Break It Up":

They seem to have blown their budget on set pieces by this point, and have to move on to different lighting and fast editing for "Shadows of You":

They're down to lines on the floor and turntables by the time of "Road to Cairo":

Ah, but they call in the backup dancers for Brian Auger's big moment in the sun, "Black Cat":

And just because I watched this and now can't get the song out of my head, here's a neat animation someone did as a school project for Le Tigre's "Deceptacon":

Well, back to puttering about and errand-running before this evening's shows . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	contemplative
Current Media:	Meteors - "Cindy" - Hunger

This is theatre, so there are up nights and down nights, but there haven't been very many down ones thus far, at least as much as usual by my own - overly high - standards (I often find entire runs of one of my shows "unacceptable" to me, while at the same time knowing I'm being ridiculous and that they're perfectly good theatre by any reasonable standard).

Blood on the Cat's Neck had an "off" show on Wednesday -- I think much of the cast knew it, I heard a couple of them say they'd had an off night backstage (and another, who may not have, say "Really?"). Blood may be the one that suffers most when it's just a bit "off," as it has the most problematic script of this group in many ways, where the problems have to be elided through actorial/directorial work, and if some of that work isn't there, the problems leap to the fore (we had what I think are our first two walkouts of the month, too, right around the time I was thinking, "the show's kinda boring tonight" from the back of the house). So it goes. It's theatre, it always changes. We'll probably have another stunning, magnetic performance of this same play next time.

Last night's George Bataille's Bathrobe was really quite superb, and had me smiling and pacing happily in the lobby while it was going (I can't watch the shows seated in the house; I have to stay in the lobby and listen and peek in here and there -- the more I hear things going great, the more I peek). Here, lots of things were off, and odd, and I have lots of notes of things that didn't work, but the overall piece just had some kind of special energy that made it somehow more meaningful than usual. It was saying what I wanted it to say, which is all I could possibly ask.

A Little Piece of the Sun just got a pretty great review from Stan Richardson at nytheatre.com - wish I'd had it yesterday before I sent out the latest email to the Gemini CollisionWorks list, but whatever. Nice thoughts, and I get his critiques, even if I don't necessarily agree with them (as the actor probably being referred to as delivering exposition in "the self-conscious guise of cocktail conversation," you might understand that I wouldn't). Tom Reid becomes "Tim" Reid, but that happens all the time (I've become "Ian W. Hall" and "Ian H. Will" in a couple of online pieces in just the past month). I'm especially glad that Stan pointed out that he didn't retain all of the information that is thrown at the audience during the show, and that he didn't seem to be concerned about it -- if it's important, we make sure you get it, otherwise, it's just part of a flow of datapanik (as David Thomas of Pere Ubu would say) that is there to overwhelm and become a landscape of facts that the necessary incidents pop out from.

However, an actor in one of the other August shows who's seen Little Piece twice now wrote to tell me that he missed some rather important pieces of information at the last performance he saw -- and he's right, some of the crucial facts that we need to get across got a bit fuzzy at the last show. Oddly, as this show gets better and better and sharper all around with each performance, a handful of small yet important moments get a bit more fuzzier and unclear -- I need to talk to the actors involved about these bits tonight (and brush up myself -- I'm responsible for one of the blurry bits that should be crystal-clear).

I wish Little Piece and Sacrificial Offerings were getting some of the attention, press-wise, at least, that Blood and Bathrobe are getting. I didn't expect it for Offerings, the small, strange beautiful child of the bunch, but Little Piece is the big epic of the whole group, and I pushed it as much as the others, maybe even a bit more, thinking of it as the big central show that the others circled, and we had the wonderful press photos taken by Mark Veltman, but to my surprise, no one in the media seems all that interested in that one. I guess that it comes off a bit as what it is - a difficult show, one from and for the mind maybe more than anything else. Blood is from the gut, and Bathrobe is from the heart, so they're a bit easier to understand and access, maybe. Offerings is from the . . . I dunno, "spirit" maybe - something more mysterious - so it's just as hard to push from a press/critical perspective. I don't think of Little Piece as hard work to watch, but I have the feeling it comes off that way in any reasonable description of it - theatrical spinach - good for you, and full of rich stuff, but not so tasty. A pity.

So tonight, back to that scary, awful, exciting world of Little Piece. It'll be damned hot, too. So it goes.

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, a Random Ten for this week (with links to explanatory YouTube videos) from among the 25,465 in there . . .

1. "It Ain't No Use" - The Meters - Rejuvenation
2. "Love of My Own" - The El Dorados - A Taste of Doo Wop Vol. 1
3. "Blue Mood" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - Schulmädchen Report
4. "Berkeley Mews (BBC version)" - The Kinks - The Great Lost Album
5. "Paint It Black" - The Animals - Winds Of Change
6. "Someone To Love (take 2)" - John Lee Hooker - Alternative Boogie 1948-1952
7. "My Man's Gone Now" - Lorraine Ellison - Heart & Soul
8. "Moisture" - The Mommyheads - Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents
9. "Mary Ann" - Duane Eddy - Girls! Girls! Girls!
10. "Road Runner" - Bo Diddley - The Chess Box

On our way to the theatre each night, we often detour around a crowded part of the BQE by going up Hamilton Avenue, and I've been fascinated by some signs on a little restaurant we've noticed when stopped at a light. Finally, I got some pictures of the place, "Solo Pollo":

Now, there's two things that have bugged me about this place. The first one that hit me, I'll get to in a second, but while we're looking at a picture that's the general view from the car, I'll start by mentioning that Berit and I have been puzzling over the sign at the bottom of the place for some time now: "HOME OF THE 80% BURGER."

80% BURGER? What the heck is that? I have an idea of what a burger is:

So to me, an 80% Burger would look something like this:

To Berit, who thinks more, say, in terms of Photoshop, and thus, opacity, thought of an 80% Burger like this:

So, moving closer, we can first see my main problem with a place called "Solo Pollo," which also helpfully translates its name to "Only Chicken": They sell LOTS more stuff than chicken, and they list a great deal of it on the awning, right below the "Only Chicken" name:

And while that still bothers me - Berit's never found that annoying - we were both chagrined to zoom in on the photo and discover what you may have already noticed, that our many-months consideration of what an 80% Burger could possibly be was rather silly of us:

Oh. Oops. Well, that makes sense.

This morning, at different times, Moni sat on the windowsill and wouldn't let me get a better shot:

And Hooker sat on my lap and wondered why I found the computer more interesting than him:

And to end (for those of you not reading this on Facebook, where the video won't show), a video that reminds me a lot of my boy Hooker:

Hope to see you at The Brick if I haven't yet . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	uncomfortable
Current Media:	Paul McCartney - "Bogey Music" - McCartney II

I continue to be SO proud of this group of shows I can't tell you. And they just get better and better, for the most part (notes are still, of course, occasionally needed). Maybe we'll get the houses we deserve this week, maybe finally the next and last week. Whatever, we are at least getting enough people to always make them worth doing, and I'm pleased with the audience reaction, so I'm, for once, happy with the work and glad to have it going.

But now, what to do with this day? Music? I'm almost done with my chronological listen to Steely Dan 1972-1980, which has been terrific morning relaxation music this last week. Berit and I generally listen to more "caffeinated" or "speedy" kinds of music - we generally like music that makes you edgy and jumpy and you grind your teeth and want to MOVE - so some "downer surrealism," as Zappa referred to Dan, has been a more pleasant, quaalude-y way to ease into the day; smooth, but with still enough of an edge and levels of irony to be listenable. Maybe some movies, or all the episodes of some TV show? Dunno. Not going out, that's for sure.

In any case, B's still sleeping, and I'm relaxed.

Oh, and here's a nice find of the morning, some videos of David Bowie's 1979 appearance on Saturday Night Live that I've wanted to see for YEARS and YEARS - where he's backed up vocally by Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias, thanks to Ian Zamboni over at Zamboni Soundtracks (and remember, if you're reading this in the Facebook repost, you won't see the videos and will have to check the original post for them). Here's the first number, "The Man Who Sold the World":

And here's the later two songs from the same show -- and DAMMIT, I've had to put them behind a cut (sorry), as I can't turn off the autoplay on the video. I've been wanting to see this disturbing blue-screen version of "Boys Keep Swinging" for over 20 years, since I first heard about it, and whoa, here it is . . .

( Bowie, Nomi, Arias do 'TVC15' & 'Boys Keep Swinging' )

And for fun, here's the original video of "Boys Keep Swinging" that caused the song, which had been rising up the charts as a single in the UK, to suddenly drop down those same charts the day after it aired on British TV, as the bitter irony of the song was made a little more clear to the audience, which had been taking the lyrics of the song at face value . . .

(for Bowie fanatics -- the clearer, non-embeddable, official EMI YouTube of the video is HERE and a cool alternate version of Bowie doing the song live on the same Kenny Everett Video Show set, without the drag sections, is HERE)

Okay, time for the leftover bread from yesterday's Little Piece with some cloudberry and gooseberry jam. A nice day.

After all the agita of getting the shows together to open last week, we are now pretty much settled on all of them, and can spend our days sitting back and relaxing until it's time to go to the theatre and run a show, remembering whatever disposable props we have to buy anew or get ready for the evening show (different shows need certain props that have to be prepared each time as they are used up or destroyed in them -- fresh bread, olives, chocolate-covered cherries, a vintage photo, a 1985 Ukrainian Communist Party Card, sliced cucumber, fake liquor, incense, 78 rpm records to be smashed, and, for one show, a big pile of blood squibs).

This will change a bit starting tonight for the next few days as we run more than one show a day -- two tonight and Sunday, three tomorrow -- but we're pretty together on what we need to do and get done. And next week we have ONE show a night from Tuesday through Friday. That's NOTHING!

So now I'm getting antsy enough at home waiting for the show each day (and worrying that there's something I need to do for it, which there isn't) that I'm actually getting some massively necessary housecleaning done.

And I mean that literally. Every year, as we do the shows, our apartment becomes a horrifyingly squalid mess as we use the place just for sleeping and working between theatre time -- and this past year, we were busy enough that we never really did the top-to-bottom Fall and Spring cleanings we had in previous years, so the place is pretty awful right now, but I'm now full of enough nervous energy that I should have it cleaned up by September. Maybe. Well, I got part of the kitchen done . . .

This morning, prior to the Random Ten, I've been chilling with the first three Steely Dan albums and going over the various press and notices the shows have received as yet . . .

I've already mentioned the fine fine superfine notice of George Bataille's Bathrobe by Michael Mraz at nytheatre.com. Nice. He liked it. Even better, he GOT it.

We now have -- and it has made some of the cast quite happy, of course -- a mostly-good, and reads-better-at-first-than-it-really-is-if-you-read-it-again-closely notice from Rachel Saltz in the New York Times (!!!) for George Bataille's Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck. She seems to have generally liked them both, but preferred the Fassbinder. Some stuff I don't agree with, of course, and almost no usable pull quotes (maybe "a wry dinginess"?), but she actually helped me understand a bit more consciously WHY these four plays this year, and how they go together (that is, under one of my three main repeated obsessional themes that I'm just beginning to understand exist, "The Treachery of Language" - the other two, as I think of them now, are "The Heroism of 'NO'," and "Figure on Ground: Man In and Against The City").

Aaron Riccio at That Sounds Cool didn't really like either Blood on the Cat's Neck nor A Little Piece of the Sun. S'cool. His problems mostly seem to be with the texts, with some additional quibbles (some of which are probably justified). Don't agree with him in general, of course, still. So it goes. Some nice amplifications from Aaron and George Hunka in the comments there, too (maybe I should have noted that while Fassbinder's Phoebe is obviously slightly inspired by the O'Donoghue/Frank Springer comic character - and I slightly based the image of mine on theirs - she's still a VERY different character, even down to the name -- the original character has a hyphenated last name: "Phoebe Zeit-Geist.")

Apart from reviews, Matthew Freeman simply had a nice little blurb about the Times piece (and thanks again), and Martin Denton at the nytheatre i lists us among the OTHER theatre things to do in NYC right now apart from the Fringe (thank you, thank you, thank you, Martin). And PennywiseNYC (cheap things to do, or recommendations from an Evil Clown?) had an entry on us as a good cheap cultural thing to do in NYC.

And hey, wow, I just checked the ticket site and we're actually selling some tickets today! And, of course, mainly for the two shows reviewed by the Times. Eeep. Hope someone will actually come to the shows of Sacrificial Offerings. That's going to be the poor little orphan this year.

You can get tickets online for the shows HERE.

Discount packages for multiple shows can be found HERE.

If you're around in NYC, please come on by to whatever sounds interesting. It is.

Meanwhile, let's have a Random Ten again, as we missed last week's. So what comes out of the 25,608 tracks in there today?

1. "Lucky Day" - Tom Waits - The Black Rider
2. "Just Another Fool" - The Abused - Loud and clear 7" EP
3. "Smelly Tongues" - Snakefinger - Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents
4. "Battle of the Planets—Main Title" - Hoyt Curtain - Battle of the Planets
5. "Flash, Crash And Thunder" - The Farmer Boys - Hillbilly Music...Thank God! Volume 1
6. "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" - Elvis Presley - The Complete 50's Masters
7. "Gotta Great Big Shovel" - Sammy Davis Jr. (as Shorty Muggins) - Laughin' At The Blues - A Hilarious And Scurrilous Collision Of R&B And Comedy Like You've Never Heard!
8. "Pêches à la Crème" - Dorine - Ultra Chicks Vol 6: Vous Dansez Mademoiselle
9. "Her Majesty" - The Beatles - Abbey Road
10. "Yellow Girl (Stand By For Life)" - Yoko Ono - Onobox 3: Run, Run, Run

And the kitties haven't been all that happy with us for being away in recent weeks (often leaving them at home at 9.00 am and returning home at 2.30 am for days on end), so they've been all over us this week as we've been home. They've also been crazy. Here they are, playing with, and breaking, a blind in the living room:

Not so crazy? Look at these eyes . . .

Okay, time to start getting ready for a two-show evening. Audience?

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	groggy
Current Media:	Les Sinners - "Les Bouffons" - Les Sinners

However, I've had to spend much of the morning dealing with canceling tomorrow night's performance of A Little Piece of the Sun due to a death in a performer's family. If the actor had had to miss more than one show I would have asked another actor to step in and do the part with script in hand for as long as needed, but only one show will be missed, and it's silly to go through teaching an actor to walk though the part for the one show, so we're canceling, which means emails and posts galore to try and reach everyone who might show up (though I will still have to be at the space tomorrow to turn away anyone who still comes to see the show).

This is the second time I've had performances of a show cancelled when an actor's parent has died, and it's been a weird, conflicted thing for me both times. The previous time, I was particularly close with the actor, so my pain for him was great, while still feeling upset about the loss of some shows (not helped on that occasion by some audience members yelling at me for some time about not having understudies, and not at all getting that you just DON'T HAVE understudies at this level of theatre, sorry). Now, I'm not as close to the actor, but my own emotions about loss of family members are a bit more bare and ragged, while still caring for the future of my show, so I'm equally conflicted. In any case, we're losing one show, and moving on.

I was also touched that the actor whose father died in that previous show's run also emailed me to ask me to express his condolences to the actor in the current show, which I will.

I now have to redo some sound effects for tonight's show of George Bataille's Bathrobe, so I don't have much more time to go over how great things went this past weekend.

Except to note that Bathrobe got quite the nice review from Michael Mraz at nytheatre.com, and a reviewer from the New York Times attended good performances of Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck, so I have my fingers crossed there.

I will also note how pleased I was that the two blogs that did nice "preview" promo posts for our season and shows were George Hunka's Superfluities Redux, HERE and Trav S.D.'s Travalanche, HERE. Berit and I were both pleased by this as both of these men are erudite and fine scholars of theatre, but George is -- to some peoples' annoyance, perhaps, but rarely mine -- the most intellectual and heavy thinker in the theatrical blogosphere, and Trav S.D. is the populist, baggy-pants vaudevillian. And while I can sometimes, yes, be a bit . . . well, I wouldn't say annoyed, exactly, but both George's intellectualism and Trav's populism can be taken to extremes that at least make me sigh deeply and shake my head, even when I agree with them (more often than not) . . . I'm pleased as punch to have both of them have such kind advance words for GCW's work, as it is the blend of these two theatrical modes of thought that is at the heart of what GCW is trying to do -- the chocolate and peanut butter making up our fine fine superfine peanut butter cups of theatrical invention.

Trav also mentions the idea of volume in what we do, which is indeed an important part of these festivals -- we don't just do multiple plays for the sake of doing them; there are reasons a group of shows goes together, even if we don't realize it ourselves until they're all together and running . . .

So, in lieu of anything more, below is the email I sent to the GCW list this morning to remind them where they can get more info on the shows, as I remind you now as well . . .

Current Location:	Gravesend
Current Mood:	aggravated