The 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival “www.fringefestival.org” begins this Thursday, July 31st. Let me recap: I am a member of the Board of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. I am also an overtly political, usually sexually explicit performance artist who has not missed performing in a fringe since 2008. This is not a testament to my skill as a performer; rather is is merely a testament to good luck. Entrance into the Minnesota Fringe, like most Fringe Festivals worldwide is by the luck of the draw and not because some snotty Executive Director or Producer or some other big deal person decides to let you in. The Fringe is all about being the best unjuried, uncensored performing arts and not about elitism and cliquishness. All this openness, transparency and luck of the drawishness is what I love about the Minnesota Fringe. Although I love it just a touch less when I find myself on the outside looking in, which, until two days ago, was precisely where I found myself. My number was not drawn (I was WAY DOWN) on the wait list. No one asked me to join their show (which has happened in the past). I even offered directorial and other advice free of charge to any Fringe newbies who needed a helping hand. No takers. Oh boo hoo I told myself. Just get over it. Enjoy being a mere spectator and blogger for once. Really feel the Fringe. Blah blah. I was going to keep a stiff upper lip and all that but was feeling a touch blue. I did manage to Bogart myself into my friend and often performance buddy Loren Niemi’s Indianapolis show, and will be on stage with him there later in August. For more info on this show and this Fringe: www.indyfringe.org, and “our” show specifically: www.indyfringe.org/aloneandtestifying.php”; But no Minnesota Fringe. Until last Friday, when the Fringe sent out an email to all wait listed artists letting us know that 2 shows had dropped out last minute and anyone who could be ready to go in an instant (artwork, description, minuscule tech, etc) could have a slot. I saw the email the second it arrived (I am a CrackBerry addict), hesitated 1 second, called Loren, and voila, we are now in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! Oh Panic! One week until we open. Fuck it. We’re in! I’m in! I can wipe the mope from my brow and join the party where I enjoy it most: onstage. The name of the show is ALONE AND TESTIFYING (funny, that’s the same title of our show in the Indy Fringe), and we will be at the INTERACT CENTER FOR THE VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS, 212 3rd Ave N # 140, Minneapolis, MN 55401, (612) 339-5145. Our schedule is:
Sat., Aug. 2 @ 10:00 p.m.
Sun., Aug. 3 @ 5:30 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 4 @ 8:30 p.m.
Fri., Aug. 8 @ 8:30 p.m.
Sat., Aug. 9 @ 2:30 p.m.
For more info: http://www.fringefestival.org/2008/show/?id=966
Have a rehearsal now. More later.
Why another blog? From me?
I suppose the answer is easy: I have things to say and not enough people were visiting my prior blog which was costing me way too much money. So here I am. Read what I have to say or not. I have really only one ground rule for this blog: I will always say what’s on my mind with woefully little filtering. I expect no less from others who wish to chime in.
Some background: (I seem to love semicolons. If you hate them, this blog will annoy the hell out of you). I am a skinny bald performance artist on the board of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. My lottery number didn’t get chosen this year (2008), again, and I’m a tad crabby about that fact. I’ll live. I believe in the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the largest totally un-juried (hence the lottery), uncensored performing arts festival in the US. It’s fair, balanced, open to all, transparent, out of control and much much more. I just hate that I’m not in this year. I will, however, be in the Indianapolis Fringe later in August (thanks to my dear friend Loren Niemi), so all is not bleak. More on the Indy Fringe later.
I’m a performance artist. What the hell is that? Am I a storyteller? Not according to many of the local and national storytellers who find my art a tad too edgy (lots of sex, politics and very strongly held opinions). Do I do “plays”? I don’t think so. At one of my 4 colleges I majored in theater, and what I do today is definitely not what I did back at dear old Marlboro College. Am I a slammer? I’ve done some slams-poetry and story. But slams are too limiting as an art form. Too often slams are in bars, and playing to drunks leaves a lot to be desired. I mostly do solo work, but sometimes not. I dance. Tap. Ceili. My dad was a renowned single-named tap dancer and I used to be the artistic director of the Irish Arts Centre in NYC. But I’m not really a true dancer. I sometimes do a George Carlinesque type of show, and John Belushi was a dear friend. They’re both dead, which makes the world a more miserable place. I look like Larry David and am often as bilious. I guess I’m a just a performance artist.
I have a day job that has me on airplanes at least several days of almost every week. What I do is something I am not at liberty to discuss, but let’s just say that it is a form of performance art and speak no more of that.
I am a a progressive libertarian. I came to this conclusion/title quite by accident. I was sitting in a room full of very conservative, very religious “clients” in Houston Texas. My back was out. I was on some pain pills that someone whom I had never met kindly offered. When a question regarding my politics was raised, I came out with “I’m a progressive libertarian.” I couldn’t say far left wing Democrat. I would have been (or at least felt) ostracized. So I became a progressive libertarian. And the more I though about that label, the more I began to like it. I am a strong, assertive, opinionated get government out of my personal life sort who cares deeply about the downtrodden of the earth and the commonweal. I began to ask myself why I have so loyally voted Democratic my entire life. I began to ask just what the Democrats actually stand for, and came to the conclusion that as a party, they stand for absolutely nothing other than the fact that they’re not Republicans. OK. I get that. Now what else? Obama seems to be pro-gun (I’m sort of OK with that), favors faith based whatever (I am very very not OK with that), is waffling on the US invasion of a sovereign nation known euphemistically as the Iraq War (again, not OK). Evey knee-jerk liberal’s icon, Paul Wellstone was a huge supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act in Minnesota (should have been titled the It’s OK To Bash Gays and Lesbians Act, and that is a big not OK with me). C’mon Dems, when was the last time you got excited by a presidential candidate? Al Gore? I don’t think so. John Kerry? His only claim to fame was that he married well. Twice. Forget the Republicans. At least the current crop. To them the Constitution is little more than an obstacle to be gotten around. So there you are. I am John Stuart Millsian progressive libertarian with a wicked sense of humor. Much more on this when I’m less sober.
2002.
