Beacon On The Hill

As the election drew closer I became more and more prone to excessive outbursts.  The thought of the right wing nincompoop from Alaska being one heartbeat from becoming my leader drove me to distraction.  I don’t think that I truly believed Obama and the Democrats would pull off a victory.  I also realized that from 1968 until today I have felt almost completely disenfranchised politically.  I had come to the unfortunate conclusion that I lived in a country in which the majority of citizens held views totally incompatible to my own.  On election night I sat glued to CNN (I hated that red/blue line nonsense) with my body clenched from furrowed forehead to curled toes.  Then the results began to roll in.  When PA went for Obama, I sobbed and emailed my gratitude to my many PA friends.  Slowly the realization that Obama was going to be the next President of the US of A began to overwhelm me.  When CNN showed the rainbow of people massed in Grant Park to hear Obama’s victory speech I was overwhelmed with joy and wept uncontrollably.  I was born and raised in Chicago, the most segregated, racially divided major city in the US.  The Chicago of my youth was a place where black was south side , white north side.  The two met occasionally on the El somewhere around Washington.  My Grant Park was the Grant Park of Mayor Daley’s police riot where I was gassed, chased and beaten for daring to be against the Viet Nam war and other LBJ/HHH policies.  I stood at those barricades and saw former high school friends in uniform preparing to aim weapons at me for daring to be an American.  I lost so much heart at that time.   I came clean for Gene.  I watched as Bobby and Dr. King lost their lives.  I saw a country cleaved in ways that put a pall on my spirit.   Then came November 2008, 40 years later, and my spirit was made whole again.   This can be a great country.  A country full of promise for all.  A place where effort can be rewarded regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference.  It has not been this place for many years.  It has become a country of unbridled greed and insider double dealing with a continually diminishing regard for civil liberties and freedom for all.  The pinnacle of this change was the last 8 years.  A time during which: religion became king, torture became no big deal, spying on civilians became business as usual, invasion and occupaton of a sovereign nation that posed no credible threat to the US became acceptable foreign policy, and so on.  THAT NIGHTMARE IS NOW OVER!  A wildly intelligent and highly educated person of mixed racial origin is our new leader.  I have never been prouder of being an American.

Real Americans

I honestly intended to write lots and lots and lots during this outstandingly annoying exercise in national banality known as the election campaign season.  I really did.  But to be blunt, this season has annoyed and depressed me more than any I can remember (and being 59, I can remember quite a few).  Obama takes positions with which I disagree, and that idiot from Alaska and the old man she lugs around make me want to puke.  So, why am I writing?   The answer is simple:  lately, the award winning team of Palin and Bachman have been running their mouths off about what constitutes a real American, and where real America really is.  This offends and even scares the hell out of me.  I seem to recall that back in the good old days of Nazi Germany, the philosophical underpinning of Nazism was that there were certain Germans who were real Germans and others (Jews, gays, gypsies) who were not.  For the Nazis, the best way to have a happy homeland was to do away with all those who were not real Germans.  This was the Nazi final solution.   From what I can tell, the vile garbage that flows so freely from Palin/Bachman et al sounds horrifically like the crap that spewed from Hitler and the boys.  Those places that aren’t real America are urban areas where jews, gays, college educated people and other terrorist sympathisers live and do their vile deeds.  Am I the only one who finds this eerily Nazi-like?  Joe McCarthy was a witch hunter who ruined countless lives, but these cretins make old Joe look like a kindly old man by comparison.  Am I exaggerating?  I don’t think so.  You see, I live in a nice, white little town that these assholes would see as real America full of real Americans.  In fact, I live in Michelle Bachmans electoral district-Stillwater, Minnesota.  I know Michelle.  I have looked in her crazy eyes.  Heard her spew invective towards and about the “other”.  I also saw how, when my daughter was growing up in real America, some parents would not let their children play with her because her dad is a Jew.  I’ve heard diatribes from friend and foe alike about “you people”.    I hate to the marrow in my bones what these people stand for.  There is nothing funny about Sara Palin-she is an evil woman who belongs as far away from the White House as possible.  As for Michelle Bachman, the only thing I can say is the more she opens her ignorant mouth and spews venom the more money winds up in Tinklenberg’s war chest.  I really really really hope Michelle gets rejected, finally, by the good white Chirstians of Stillwater and the rest of her district.  Unfortunately, I fear that ignorance and intolerance will prevail.  Anyone who reads this (or anything else that appears on this blog) and wants to disagree (or even agree) with me in person, I can be found at the Daily Grind coffee shop in Stillwater every Saturday and most Sundays of the year.  Beware:  I am not Minnesota nice.  In fact, some would say I’m really not any kind of nice at all.  I am very opinionated.  I say what I think.  I guess I’m a real American.

Here’s a good look at what she said:  http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/10/video-chris-matthews-v-michelle-bachman.html

More

A few more thoughts on the Indy Fringe:  Pauline Moffatt, Executive Director of the Indy Fringe, seems to do a splendid job.  I have numerous clients/friends in Indianapolis, none of whom came to my, or any other shows.  Shame on you all.  The arts community in Indianapolis seems vital, inspired and inspiring.  Indianapolis has some surprisingly good restaurants, with my favorite being R Bistro. I grew up in Chicago, and we Chicagoans mostly looked down our collective noses on Indy.  My 20 years spend in NYC didn’t make me any more favorably inclined to places like Indy.  I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised by how cosmopolitan the art scene, the restaurants and many of the people whom I met really are.  I’ll be damned.  Who knew?

Not Just Another Fringe But A Really Good One.

The Indianapolis Fringe Festival is a mere 5 years old with, I believe, 5 venues, all of which are on or just off of one street-Massachusetts Avenue.  Doesn’t sound like much compared to Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco etc.  Sometimes size matters, but not here.  Loren Niemi and I just completed a successful run of Alone and Testifying in the Indy Fringe.  This was my second year coming to Indy; the first as a performer.  I am usually overly loquacious, but let me just get to the point:  the Indy Fringe is/was GREAT.  I have never seen a more friendly group of fringe goers interacting with a more lively bunch of fringe artists spending money at local businesses.  I managed to see 11 shows, Loren 20 and my wife Pat 13.  There was some really really cool work here.  Lively, funny, risky, political and sometimes delightfully lewd and crude (hooray for the Monkey Poet!).   I either really enjoyed or loved everything I saw except for one show that will remain unnamed this Indy Fringe is over.  That show I positively hated.  More than any fringe show ever.  Actually, more than any show I have ever seen of any kind anywhere.  Oh well.  One stinker out of 11 was not too shabby.  What seems to really set the tone for Indy Fringe is the fact that is it small, intimate and totally self contained.  Some shows I loved:  Adventures in Mating (Joe Scrimshaw’s work moved to a new venue with non-Scrimshaw performers), Money Poet (incredibly funny Brit  doing scandalously perverse poetry about topics such as fisting), In Rehearsal (dance/yoga/storytelling), Assholes and Aureoles (BRILLIANT sketch comedy), And I Am Not Making This Up (improv dance/spoken word), Phil the Void (stand up monologue/?), Improscaping (brave, sensual poignant dance/movement).  How was our show, Alone and Testifying?  As you may have read below, I am not afraid to be self critical, so when I say I thought we did a bang up job, I really mean it.  We didn’t have huge crowds.  In fact, we drew larger audiences in Minny.  But we were better in Indy.  We just clicked.  Most of the reviewers seemed to agree.  Oh well, mea culpa Minny.

I hate to say this out loud, but I enjoyed the Indy Fringe this year more than I did the Minny Fringe.  For some reason, it felt like most of the Minneapolis Fringe shows I saw were all solid B’s, but no real A’s.  My wife Pat concurs.  As we drove back from Indy last night and today we realized that we could not recall one Minny show that really stood out.  In fact, there was almost none that we could even remember.  Most of our favorite memories were from the 2007, 2006 and 2005 Fringes.  Nothing scandalized, or titillated, or angered, or amazed, or or or.  It just was … nice?  I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I do, and did even before I became entranced by Indy.  I love the Minneapolis Fringe.  It just was too tidy for my taste.  Our intrepid Executive Director Robin Gilette ( a Kokomo Indiana native) was there with her parents.  Lovely people.  Oh well, next year it’s all new all over again, and I hope to see some of my favorites like Amy Solloway and Kevin Kling get a good number.  And I hope some of the regulars like the Scrimshaws push the taste envelope harder next year if they get in.  And I hope I get in again and really make up for what I saw as a sometimes lackluster performance on my part.  Hope springs eternal.

Obama in Virginia

I caught some of Obama’s public forum from somewhere in Virgina this AM.  I was not pleased.  He spouted slogan-like platitudes with few specifics and little more.  Worse, he sounded discombobulated.  He stumbled and stuttered along in a way that reminded me of my own miserable performance discussed in an earlier post.  Sure he’s tired, but come on, the guy’s running for President.  What’s worse, McCain’s been looking like a people’s “maverick” again lately.  Obama’s numbers are reputed to be falling.  I can see why.

And Now For Some Politics

Over the last couple of days a number of people have asked me my views on the upcoming presidential election in these good old United States.  So, over 5 scoops of ice cream at Pump House Creamery in Minneapolis (the BEST ice cream in the entire world), I actually took a few minutes to ponder and here’s what I’ve decided (at least for today):  John McCain is a tired old right wing conservative who has done little to distinguish himself except spending time in the Hanoi Hilton.  He is not a “maverick” or any type of “independent thinker”.  He is a by the book right wing Republican who married a rich woman (with whom, by the way, he started playing hide the salami while married to another woman-where’s the media outrage?) and doesn’t really give a damn about much except being President.  He is not pro-veteran, he is not pro-environment, he is most definitely anti-abortion rights, he favors free thought and free enterprise but only when it suits his needs, he is anti-equality for non-heterosexual people, he is mean spirited, he is stupid (finishing somewhere near the absolute bottom of the military college he attended), etc.  In short, he would, most likely make an absolutely horrible President.  Obama:  is pro gun to all Americans, pro-FISA, pro faith based blah blah blah, unwilling to speak out forcibly on issues like abortion, equality for all Americans, Israel, intelligent design, or, as far as I can tell, almost anything.  The man seems like a nice enough fellow, but what else is there to him.  Those positions he has taken are positions with which I disagree, so as I told a nice attorney the other day in  the kitchen of the  NYC office of a prosperous national labor and employment law firm, I intend to vote for Obama, but he makes me NERVOUS.  The nice attorney agreed.  Just once in my life I would like to see a candidate for high office, especially a Democratic candidate, be bold, say what they really think and tell the world that if they agree with these positions then vote for him/her, if not, vote for the other person.  More later.

Less Sorry Today

After reading my Sorry Sorry blogs, my dear friend Loren Niemi emailed me privately to see if I was ok. Loren, and anyone else who reads this blog: I’m ok. I have been singing the blues for the last couple of months and I would be telling a great big fib if I said that lo and behold, the blues have washed away this sunny Monday AM. They haven’t. More or less. Life has its ups and downs. I surely know that at least as much as the next person. Sometimes the downs overwhelm the ups, as has been the case with me recently. The good news is that there are concrete reasons for this most recent chaotic journey. I am an empathic person. I have always been such. I was warned in my teens by my guardian at the time that I felt the pain of others too acutely. He was right about that. Perhaps other things as well. These down times will pass. I am not yet suicidal. I’m actually too narcissistic to be truly suicidal. For that I have Mr. Bojangles to thank. So, it is a new day and the sun is shining and the humidity is low and life is not too bad. I will be going to a Moth slam in NYC tomorrow night and hopefully my muse will have returned before I get up on stage. I suspect it has already found its way home.

Further thoughts on the topic of storytelling: there is a place where stand up comedy, sketch comedy, personal narrative, and mythology intersect. I’m not sure where that place is, but wherever it is, that’s where all forms of storytelling meet. It’s a place where the teller, comic or whatever takes off his/her ego and stands before and apart of a group of listeners and shares what is inside and needs to come out. Somewhere in the delicious chaos known as a Fringe Festival, this place is found over and over again usually to the delight of the audience and teller alike. It’s not always profound, but it is almost always worth grabbing onto riding off into the sunset with (and yes, this is a dangling preposition. Get over it!).

More Sorry Sorry Sorry and a few thoughts

I have been in such a personal hell recently that it has been hard for me to do as much blogging as normal.  I like to say what I really think and leave the more literary stuff to Matthew and others.  I am basically a straight ahead type of blogger.  Little artifice and a certain absence of eloquence.  I saw fewer shows this year than in the last couple, but still managed to see 15 shows.  As my wife and I headed back to Stillwater without stopping to see an Encore show (has never happened before) and totally blowing off the party at First Avenue, I told my wife that I was somewhat disappointed this year with a lot of the shows I saw.  They seemed flat, not really risk taking.  That made me feel bad.  But after some reflection, and reading other’s reviews, I was left with the realization that what was flat was me.  I hate to be so damn confessional here, but it’s true, I was in a personal hell during this Fringe and should probably not have agreed to do a last minute show.  I hoped a show would pull me out of what ails me.  It didn’t, which is really a drag.  I love Fringe more than just about anything and now it’s over until next year.  Damn that hurts.  Ah well, soon it will be 5:30 AM Monday morning and life goes on.

I loved watching Penny Freeh dance in small aida at Jeune Lune.  I loved Fool for a Client at BLB.  I missed Squirrel, but I’m certain that Joe Scrimshaw et al were brilliant as usual.  Allegra’s Tipping the Bucket was great fun and I was thrilled to see Allegra off the page so much.  Allegra rocks!  I missed seeing Amy Salloway and Kevin Kling.  Cody Rivers was a knockout, Regi Carpenter in The Dog, Moses and Me made me want to laugh and weep simultaneously, and gave me a knew friend, Deviants at the Soap Factory intrigued me but not much more (although that may have been my, not the show’s fault), Spaceman Chronicles at Jeune Lune took my mind off of the blues for an hour this evening and for that I am indebted, and perhaps my personal favorite this week was The Pumpkin Pie Show by Horse Trade Theater Group.  Man, you two just grabbed my by my limp shirt collar and pulled me to my feet, smacked me upside my head and gave me one big fat smile that lasted an entire evening.  There were several shows I saw that I just didn’t like very much, including one of my own, but except for mine, there is little to be gained by being negative here, especially as I said somewhere, I’m not sure how much was the show, how much my crappy mood.

Sorry Sorry Sorry

I am chagrined.  Big time.  This past Friday, I gave what I believe was the worst performance of my entire life.  I have been on stage often enough these last 59 years to know that every once in awhile you give the audience far less than they deserve.  I also know that apologizing for the lump of coal you occasionally leave on stage is not recommended.  But fuck it.  I need to apologize.  My and Loren Niemi’s show in the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival was, although a last minute repalcement, rolling along pretty well according to the reviews.  And in fact, I tended to agreee with the mostly favorable reviews.  For a whole host of personal reasons, I was, to be polite, FLAT and DISJOINTED in this one performance.  I offer the following not as an excuse, but merely to explain:  My personal and professional life the last couple of months has been hell.  The details are personal and will not be shared with any who may read this blog.  Suffice it to say that when I got on stage this past Friday I was gone both physically and mentally.  If I could return the money audience member spent to see the show I would.  I cannot.  A story telling performance artist needs to be in the moment and sharing with the audience.  I was not and did not.  I suppose to be kind to myself, this is really the first truly shitty performance I can ever really recall giving, so perhaps that’s not too bad.  I can promise any and all that this will not happen again.  I was so chagrined about this performance that I could not bear to go to the Fringe closing party tonight, an event I have never missed.  If I get in the Fringe next year, and you were one of the unfortunate audience members this past Friday, let me know and you will be comped.

WHAT IS STORYTELLING AND WHO IS A STORYTELLER?

As I finally begin my mad dash to see as many Fringe shows as humanly possible I find myself sitting in Bryant Lake Bowl actually laughing out loud at Mark Whitney’s show “Fool for a Client.” As I’m walking out the door I happened to overhear two people complaining that the show wasn’t storytelling, it was stand-up comedy.  This person’s companion huffed in agreement and went on to say that it wasn’t “even ” theater.  So I ponder.   This commentary between two Fringegoers with whom I have more than a passing acquaintance kind of hit home a bit too much like the spicey harissa sauce I had with my lunch today at Sapor.  It gave me heart burn.  Actually, these last words are unfair to the harissa-I ate that voluntarily and loved the taste and felt that the heart burn was a fair price to pay for some serious spice.  You see, I am a performer, Fringe and otherwise, and I use humor (often of the serious R or even X rated) to tell my stories.  Often, the more painful the story, the darker and broader the humor.  Not every story needs to be of the traditional variety.  Story can be personal narrative (visit the Moth web site and you’ll know what that genre is all about), it can be ancient folk tale, it can have a clearly defined plot, or moral.  It can be told completely scripted or significantly improved.  It can be read with fairly minimal physicality or completely “acted”.  From my point of view, a storyteller is someone who speaks from the stage directly to the audience as opposed to someone or a group of someones who uses the stage as a private world and allows the audience to watch the action more or less as a voyeur.  So what the hell is my point?  Fool for a Client is a most compelling personal narrative told to a participating audience in an extremely humerous manner.  Sometimes using sex or other no-no’s to allow people to groan, hiss,  laugh, etc.  Mark Whitney is most definitely a storyteller, and if that title bothers you because you have a narrow definition of what a storyteller is, then life for you is full of too many shoulds and should nots, which makes me laugh because in many ways, that was pretty much the main point of Mark’s story.  The show is outstanding and selling out, so if you still plan to go, reserve, reserve, reserve.

And now for more ranting on this topic: I went to the Rarig Arena last evening to watch the always glorious Charlie Bethel do his one hour version of Beowulf. Damn he’s good. He told me later that evening at Fringe Central at the Bedlam that he felt that he had rushed the piece a bit. Charlie: get over it! You were, as always, just too damn exhilarating for words. When Charlie Bethel is in the Fringe, go see him. Always. But, was what Charlie doing storytelling? According to my thesis set forth above (ok, not really a thesis, more a poorly sketched out set of thoughts), the answer is yes. Charlie was not doing a story in a bubble world that we, the voyeurs in the audience got to see and with which we could not really interact. Charlie was telling the tale of Beowulf to us, all of us, in 360 degrees of energetic glory. Was there a “story?” Of course, Beowulf is a story in epic poem poetic form. Seems like a story to me. It has a plot. Dramatic arc. All that good stuff. So, Charlie Bethel is a story teller who told us a classic story as interpreted by him. He used humor and some audience interaction to bring the piece alive. Similar in some ways to what Mark Whitney uses in his piece described above. And, I will vainly add, similar to what I do (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) in my show Alone and Testifying at Interact. 3 very very different shows. All I posit, storytelling.

I also saw Mortem Capiendum by Four Humors Theater last night.  This was not, I have decided, storytelling.  It was sketch comedy ala Saturday Night Live.  I’m not sure why I make that distinction here, but it seems that the purpose of the performers here was to tell an hour long joke in sketch form.  How’s that for saying nothing.  There was a story, plot and all (more or less).  It was clearly interactive with the audience.  There was certainly lots of physicality.  I don’t know why, it just wasn’t storytelling, and I’m fairly certain that the three hysterically funny performers don’t see themselves as storytellers.  I’d bet they see themselves as comic performers.  Oh well, who cares.  I, and apparently everyone else in the theater, has a hell of a lot of fun.  You know, laugh until your face hurts fun.  Was it Great?  No.  Like many sketches on SNL, it went on a bit too long for my taste.  They could have cut 10 minutes from the piece and it would have been every bit as funny and felt tighter.  It dragged in some places.  But that’s quibbling.  I still watch SNL as often as I can (I’ve been a fan from Day 1; John Belushi was a childhood friend, and the BEST person with whom to share a joint), and highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys irreverent sketch comedy.