A play I'm fix'n to submit.

Two friends and I are joint writing a seven page three-act play called Razor Butterfly Apple. Why, you might ask? Well, Kristen and I were at Red Moon's Hunchback (stellar!) and we were waiting for the show to begin and she said "razor butterfly apple," not randomly but the back-story to how we reached this point in the conversation is long and incomprehensible, so suffice it to say we arrived at "razor butterfly apple."

And I said, "What a great title for a play."

And in the deep background of both of our brains, a gunshot rang and we were off: Structure: 3 acts. Length: 6-7 pages. Characters: two girls and a potentially talking willow tree. I claimed apple. Kristen took butterfly because razor was too obvious. This took about 2 minutes. An email to Liz later secured our third. And our guerrilla playwriting project had begun.

This was all last night. The first draft is already done. I have found my people.

I will post the completed terrifying mess when we have "finished" it.
The length of 6-7 pages was actually determined by a festival that a local company holds every year called Sketchbook, and it is our intention to submit it after we dramaturg the shit out of it. And once I start writing, all I kind of want to do is write, so I wrote another piece to submit (we can enter three each because they are short).

I am posting this play with the following disclaimer:
This is NOT autobiographical.
The character in this monologue play is NOT me, though we share some thoughts.
And most importantly: mom, I do NOT think you look old at all.

WHEN IT’S ALWAYS 3

ACTOR

I am ignoring the large dark elephant in the room. So are you. I'm distracting myself by talking to you, and you're distracting yourself by watching me, listening to me, wondering if I am going to go up on my lines, wondering if I am going to crack under the pressure. But the truth is when I'm up here is the one time that I feel no pressure because I have ceased to be me. I have taken on my merry little role, my character, which in this play is a reluctant nihilist, just as you have taken on your polite little role as audience. We don't do this because we have to, we do this because we need to. To distract ourselves.

Because in the back of the room behind the seats resting comfortably by the door ready to slide behind us as we exit is a truth that we don't want to think about. And if I'm not doing my job or if I'm doing a shitty job, he'll sneak into the seat next to you and prop his elbow on the arm of your chair and start breathing silently into your ear and you don't even realize it but all of a sudden you thinking about how old your mom looked when you went home for her 60th birthday. You're thinking about how you can't remember high school anymore and how when you look back at your childhood you are seeing yourself in the third person. Thoughts usually reserved for the eerie quiet of 3AM when you haven't been able to fall asleep because you can't quite reach that annoying little itch somewhere between your skull and your chest and suddenly the flood gates crack and you're drowning.

You roll over and cling to the person next you. You try to think about anything else. What you have to get done at work tomorrow: oh I have a lot to get done I have to xerox that report for administration and coordinate that meeting with management and utilities and if I can sneak it in my nephew's birthday is in two months and I wonder if that toy store has an internet site, or if Amazon.com has it, or if Ebay has it.

ACTOR looks around content and then it fades and s/he is freaking out again.

You think about what you are going to eat for breakfast oh bacon sounds good bacon sounds great maybe I should make some bacon right now oh but I am so tired I can't move there's no way I can move I’m just going to fall asleep.

ACTOR looks like s/he is asleep but then is freaking out again.

Hey baby hey sweety: sex come on come on kiss kiss kiss wake up sweety I am going to rock your world baby if you would only wake up baby oh hi did I wake you well now that you're awake...

That's why we fuck so much, and when we're not fucking we're masturbating and if not that then we are thinking about fucking or masturbating. Or we are watching a tv show in which people either presently fucking or in the process of securing a person with whom they can fuck. Because sex is not just a recreational past-time: it is a defense mechanism. Because the evolution that is corsing through us is telling us that we need to procreate and so when we are having sex we have tricked our brain into thinking that we are actually achieving something.

And despite all that practice, we all think we're dissatisfied with our sex-lives; but we're really just dissatisfied with life. The whole mechanism. We say that we're unhappy with our sex life because we can fix that. We can buy another toy, call up another friend, try doing it on the roof in the rain...

Catharsis is a term that is thrown about a lot in the theatre. As a good thing. As a thing that cleanses us. A thing that makes us feel like we have achieved something just by watching a play. Like we have achieved what the actor has achieved even though we're just sitting there. Like when an asshole character gets his comeupins, we feel like we gave it to them. We feel like justice has been served and that we somehow served it. Or some character in need got helped, and we feel like we helped them.

But then we don't give any money to the homeless guy outside trying to sell you a Streetwise. Catharsis is the queengoddess of all distraction because you feel like you’re the opposite of distracted: you feel like right now at this very moment you are hyperaware of all of the realities of truth and beauty because it has just been presented to you in an easy-to-digest coated blue pill on a silver-spoonful of sugar. Like we were in a cave and we had been looking at shadows, but we can now turn around and look at the candle. And we are so happy, so fucking gleeful, that we don't even think to look past the candle outside the cave.

Or maybe we do look past it, but it's too fucking dark out there to see anything.

It’s not just cathartic for you all either. When I experience something up here, I almost really experience it. It’s like life without the risk of death. I can't die when I'm up here. (DEATH comes up behind him/her) My character can die. (S/he dies) In any number of ways (S/he dies again). But I will always (S/he dies again) come back (dies again). It's like a shield. Or like a bodyguard. And as long as I have my guard up, I'm safe. And this stage is safe because we made it

The lights hiss and pop and go dark as if a fuse just melted. In the dark, ACTOR remains basically still. Then ACTOR improvises. S/hee can wait a while if s/he wants. But then s/he tries to strike up a conversation. Maybe about her/himself. Maybe about the festival. Maybe about some local bit of news that everyone knows about. S/he is making small talk because if s/he doesn't then s/he will start freaking out...the improv should end with the following line:

The irony of it all is/

All the lights burst on and during the darkness as many DEATHs as you can costume have slipped into the audience, in the aisles, in empty chairs, standing directly in front of people. Hopefully there will be screaming. And no catharsis.

End of Play

Torn 2008

Just when I thought I was positive I was going to vote for Obama:

It was anybody's guess what Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg were talking about when they met for a breakfast date in Manhattan Friday morning — but Obama picked up the tab. Judith Perez, a waitress at the New York Luncheonette on East 50th Street, said Obama picked up the $17.34 check and left a $10 tip for the early riser nosh of coffee and eggs.


Hilary goes and does something that makes me think that she wouldn't be that bad:

During the standoff, Eisenberg had three conversations with CNN staffers in Washington and Atlanta, Georgia, during which he said he had mental health problems and could not get the help he needed. CNN and police refused his requests to speak with Clinton. "As a tactical standpoint, that would not have been wise for us to do that" because it would have reduced negotiators' bargaining leverage, Rochester Police Chief David Dubois said. Clinton said she made it clear to authorities that she would "take their direction" in deciding what to do.

Can you imagine GW in this sort of situation? Would he even show up? Or would he phone in a "we don't negotiate with terrorists" from his ranch? If he did show up, or if anyone from his administration showed up, do you think they would take direction from the Rochester Police? Or would four cars full of NSA experts flank him and take over?

Maybe this isn't fair: he's the President and the stakes are different. I should have worded everything in the past tense: When GW was running way back in '99 when the world didn't hate us and our military wasn't spread out like that last little bit of peanut butter on a piece of honey wheat and we were not buried beneath $9,142,461,538,254.04 of debt and so on and so forth, do you think he would have shown up?

The secret of the non-existent secret lives of dorks who want secret lives.

I have been having this urge to dork-out and write a fan letter to the writing teams of Pushing Daisies and Chuck because, well, they make me smile on a regular basis and not a lot of things make me smile on a regular basis. This is not to say that I am not a happy guy, but I am certainly not a happy-go-lucky guy and hopefully the distinction is clear because I have no idea how I would explain the difference in less than 3000 words and 20 hours of research in the Newberry's collections on philosophy and etymology.

Pushing Daisies is easily the "better" of the two shows: beautiful, fun, witty...great. It has been flawless except one moment in the second or third episode that only someone who wore an eye-patch for a year and a half of his life would notice...I had a lazy eye...the school nurse caught it...I'm not blind in my left eye because of her...they called me pirate boy...

I cannot conceive how anyone could not be addicted to Pushing Daisies and so I don't really see a need to defend it. Check it out. It is its own defense. Because it is brilliant. It is brilliant. It makes me want to write for television.

If you are reading this writing team of Pushing Daisies, I want in...Please...please.
Chuck, on the other hand, probably could use some friends. The basic story of Chuck is ridiculous: a very-smart-but-basically-regular-Joe gets a whole system of government secrets downloaded into his brain through some shaky hypnosis thingy that is sent to him through his email by his ex-best-friend-turned-CIA agent. So he is now a walking computer that the NSA and CIA have to protect and use on missions, which are all conveniently local. Sounds pretty stupid right? But the characters are, again, brilliant and whoever cast the show should probably be given a medal. F-ing hilarious with just enough action to make it somewhat thrilling. And all the actors are really pretty. I mean REALLY pretty.


But more than the eye-candy and unapologetic-no holds barred-we-are-going-to-entertain-the- shit-out-of-you-attitude, Chuck is tapping into the secret dream of every single dork, pseudo-dork, and semi-dork: to have a secret power, or a secret life, or a secret. Do we all want to be spies? No. Because dork fantasies maintain a certain degree of logic and being a spy would be pretty lame. Chuck knows this. He's not thrilled about having a super-computer inside his head. Who would? I already get migraines.

But we do all want to be heroes. Superheroes wouldn't be bad either. Depending on the power of course: there is a lot of literature out there right now about how being a superhero would probably suck too. And, likewise, Chuck is tapping into an interesting angle of the escapism of the hero-fantasy: we can all become heroes overnight if we just receive the right email or we just get bitten by the radioactive spider or get doused in the right combination of crime-lab chemicals during an electrical storm.

But when that happens, we are not going to stop being dorks. We are just going to be dorks with super-powers.

I am searching for a day job, and finding a day job is kind of like searching for the right secret identity: you probably won't love it, but you should at least try to find one that doesn't make you miserable. And if you are really lucky, your day job will be helpful to your secret life. The Flash: Barry Allen, police detective; probably hated the paperwork, but he was always in the know. Spiderman, Superman: work for news organizations. Do they like taking photos and writing articles, maybe. But it's probably not as interesting as soaring through the air.

Batman runs with the social elite. Do you think the brooding obsessive Batman, enjoys brushing elbows with those boring suits? Of course not. He would rather be down in his cave eating the souls of all the weirdos running around Gotham as he feverishly pushes his super-computer to figure out who the hell killed his parents and psychologically scarred him for life, but instead he has to sip champaign and hear about how Eleanor's poodles just won nationals and about Simpson's dissatisfaction with his new caddy. No wonder he is so irritable.

Ideally we could all be like Mr. Fantastic or Aquaman: merge our two lives into one. Not have a need for a secret identity. But I don't think that is going to happen for me anytime soon. So I need to find a kick ass cover. Because I don't want to be irritable. And I get irritable...

Writing for Pushing Daisies would be nice. Please...please.

Regarding a fictional conversation with Will Shakespeare:

Sometimes dramaturgs need to save playwrights from pirates.

Nantes (from the Flying Club Cup) - BEIRUT

Hermit

There is a man
On the coast of Antarctica
At Dumont d'Urville
Living in constant fear
That the French will show
And ask for a passport
he does not have.

Dramaturgy in motion

I am at a table with very smart people. Smart in that way that I have never been smart -- heads full of random facts and semi-important names; remembering everything they ever heard, saw, read -- but also smart in that other way. The director has found the only extant biography of the Canadian playwright that American production teams can get their greedy hands on without ordering from Amazon.com, and has copies of T.S. Eliot poems that he believes are subtly alluded to in the script. Gold. The sound designer suggests the nostalgic music of Beirut -- "Think Amelie" he helpfully offers to those of us who look lost (but only half of us are, because these people are smart in that way I have never been smart) -- would help us as we are finding an appropriate soundscape. Gold. The Artistic Director explains how the play fits into the larger goals of the company and why it specifically was picked for this season: Gold. I have to be reminded that I have two photographs -- results of a Google search of the word verdigris -- that might provide some insight. I sheepishly share.

I ask questions. I play devil's advocate. I remind people of what they said the other day. I try to keep up. We are in the back of a restaurant in a section that is outside when weather permits and under a tent when it doesn't. There is a space heater frying my ass. Literally. Jess moves my coat because she thinks it might be burning. I am hot, but I am having fun. I love conversations like this. It is Autumn 2003 and I'm in the back of someone's car driving back to Advanced Playwriting from a preview of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia. And we are talking about it, and I am deciding I cannot stop talking about it and all I want to do is talk about it.

Autumn 2007 is quickly feeling like winter in the back of this tented pub with good cheap dark beers, and questions of "do these smart people need me" quickly evolve into "how do I step up my game so that these smart people need me." Maybe this is dramaturgy: smart people helping smart people be smart...