OBSESSION (It's not just a perfume from the 80's)

I, am, clearly ambivalent about blogging or just lazy (I cop to both) since I have been seriously deliquent about keeping this updated. Chalk it up to watching too much of "The Wire" which I am, yes, frighteningly obsessed with. I don't care if this makes me the hundredth hipster (and ONLY by virtue of my zip-code) to spout off on how "ammmmaaazzinnnng" the show is. It is. Amazing, that is. Plus, I feel a certain loyalty to any show that centers around the underbelly of America especially if that underbelly is located squarely in the heart of Baltimore, Maryland. (A place I know well: I went to college there, came of age there, fell in love hard for the first time there, and, lastly, was mugged three times, twice by gunpoint, there). Watching it is just a welcome back to Balmore hon'. Baltimore has a lot of charm but the City has been, more or less, ravaged by the loss of its manufacturing centers and what rose up to replace it: a drug trade with customer loyalty and profits that any Captain of Industry would envy. The show is in essence a treatise on moral relativism in an era of decay. David Simon (who I have now read a lot about in truly obsessive/pyschofantic fashion) says he was inspired by the Greek dramatists notion of fate i.e. instead of the Gods failing man it's now institutions (government, school, press) who randomly abandon and thus, destroy it's constituients no matter how good, how promising, how worthy they may be).

It's odd to have "The Wire" looming large in the background of my thinking these days. Seriously, I'm obsessed and this has to do as much with the compelling themes, the fantastic writing and the terrific acting. Seeing genuine journeymen actors (none of whom looked botoxed or underfed) chew the dialogue and tear up the storylines with relish is thrilling. At any rate, it's a curious thing to be bouncing back and forth between watching "The Wire" while indulging in my other obsession: the Democratic Primary. There's been a lot of ink spilled about how historic, blah-de-blah, it's all been and it has and it is. And, I will readily admit that my love of Obama seemingly knows no bounds. As Hendrik Hertzberg wrote "he's got Bobby Kennedy's heat and Jack's cool" so what's not to love? All things being relative and knowing that no matter what platitudes these pols spout to get elected most of it will remain just that: a platitude. "Change" is as amorphous as "faith" but I don't care, I'll take false hope over no hope while I can.

Nonetheless, there is something jarring about watching "The Wire" with its vivid and stark view of the rotted and decaying American-Every- City and then hear the candidates wax on about America's greatness, our military prowess, our vast potential... For many of us who have lived or are living in these parts of urban America know that there are entire pockets of this country where the violence and poverty rival most third world nations. John Edwards hinted at this but Obama's promise of one America was ultimately more seductive than being reminded that there were two America's. I fell for it too. Maybe I fell for Obama's One America because it makes me feel better about abandoning that other America. I watch the other America on "The Wire" from my apartment in Brooklyn (David Simon calls New York City "a pile of money") - I watch it struggle and gasp from the safe distance of my couch. Then in the morning I turn on NPR in hopes that I might catch a snippet of Obama's speech at some rally to make me feel better about America ( One and Two).

Female Liberation?

2007 was a great year for me in many regards even if I made enough to put me solidly on the poverty line. I did eight shows (count 'em 8 shows) last year and got paid for... one of them! In the process, I met some amazing new people, people that I came to New York to met: actors, and playwrights, and directors, and just general artist/dilletante-types. I ended the year with a kind of faith that, hell yes, I am struggling and I might, like the grasshopper, have nothing for the eventual winter of my life so to speak but nevermind; I am here now and making work and doing it with wickedly talented, sincere, sharp, funny people who are all sacrificing to be creative.

2008 has started out with a slight bump and I am about to do something that, honestly, I rarely do on this blog - confess. Believe it or not, I seldom use this as a public journal. But here goes -- I recently had an experience with a guy, who shall heretoforth go unnamed, and it reminded me of why, sometimes, I really despise the prevailing dynamic between (straight) men and women that exists in this particular time and place, especially in this City. Simply put, there seems to be a kind of reversal of any gains that were made during the sexual revolution or during the women's movement. (The latter especially is in tatters. The Onion recently had an article with the headline "Man Put in Charge of Ailing Feminist Movement" and it was the funniest thing in the paper). My example of this is dating in New York which is, in my experience, more like something out of a Jane Austen novel than, say, an episode of "Sex in the City" (a show which to me has about as much to do with my life as a woman in New York as "Gossip Girl"). Maybe this has to do with a 5 to 1 female to male ratio? Plus, as far as I can tell, being single is seen as some sort of major personal failure. I almost dread being asked the question "are you dating anyone?" as much as "what do you do?" Both being pre-cursors of judgement i.e. " are you successful? are you desired? and depending on the answers to those: are you worth getting to know?"

My latest experience hooking up and then attempting to have (a) date has not been great and I have sought out and received so much conflicting advice from friends it's made my head spin. The advice, usually, comes in two forms, the most prevelant is: don't make the first move - ever. You have to be pursued, there is a biological, evolutionary, model at work - woe to you if you mess with the hunter-gatherer paradigm of male/female relationships. You must be the Diana of this urban-myth so run and he will chase; if he doesn't chase then, yes, he's "just not that into you" (this turns out to, generally, be my experience). The other advice is, of course, the direct opposite and goes something like: "be aggressive, take control, it's sexy."

Armed with this information, the dance begins and is usually a tiresome series of emails that reveal, once again, that all relationships boil down to a power-play. I hate this. I find it annoying and incredibly, yes, tiresome. I loathe the inherent inequality - the game of figuring who holds the cards. I don't know why I would expect anything else though since we are just taking the model of what we've grown up with and feeding it into our own lives. Equality especially in personal relationships takes a lot of communication and a lot of honesty and, sadly, I find most guys especially most American guys just do not have enough genuine curiousity about another person for this to happen. I am shocked at how conversations usually develop between men and women - the woman asks questions all night, listens and then comments appreciatevely at the answers she hears from the man. As far as I can tell the "healthiest" most functional relationships I see are very often same-sex. I wonder if this is because by already subverting the expected cultural-norm/model it frees two people up to engage on a more level playing field as equals from the get-go? Am I generalizing? Probably. Is some of what I've just written bullshit? Absolutely. Is some of it true? Without a doubt.

I don't know where I am going with this and I am fearful that this is quickly turning into one quasi-academic, half-bakked theory on relationships or, in my case, the lack therof.

Pakistan on my Mind.

I found out that Benazir Bhutto had been assisinated in, of all places, the elevator. The news flashed on one of those "captivision" televisions that are de-riguer in most high-end office buildings. I mean, god forbid, we just be in an elevator sans stimuli. I gasped and I am still gasping at the news and the photographs of (even more) turmoil that have been unleashed in that part of the world. I read about it all day yesterday, her life as the offspring of a powerful and aristocratic Kennedy-esque (by way of Pakistan) family. The streak of tragedy and corruption that ran through her life. She sounded supremely flawed, like all leaders, and, of course, terrifyingly brave almost like a character out of a novel. I read that her minders didn't want her to go into the crowd and expose herself but she was apparently unfazed and bullheaded about addressing her supporters in the flesh, so to speak. It never ceases to amaze me how almost all human beings are capable of such extreme acts of courage and cowardice.

Of course, the U.S. news is focused on how all of this will affect the "Global War on Terror". I really wish that phrase would stop being printed and repeated. It's so laughably Orwellian and utterly meaningless; an advertising slogan not a policy and printing it gives it credibility. At any rate, I did remind me how, by comparison, life here seems so, well, placid. The past (nearly) eight years of governance have been so awful and the response, by and large, has been so utterly tepid, defeated almost. I am not, by any means, suggesting that turmoil is a sign of a healthy civic life but our culture seems like it's at the almost opposite end of the extreme. I sometimes look around at my peers, my friends, and, well, myself and am reminded of that frog in boiling water metaphor/analogy i.e. put the frogs in cold water and they won't jump out, slowly boil the water and the frogs won't realize that anything is wrong until they are floating on top i.e there will be no trouble closing the lid.

Well, that's dark...maybe too dark and it is an election year afterall. And, perhaps, the extreme cultural/political amnesia we've experienced these past eight years will begin to wear off and the great American mass will realize that if they don't act now, events like the ones happenning in Pakistan - corruption, military rule, quasi-dictatorship, phony elections, politics for keeps - will become a daily reality here too.

Home

"Home" I am vaguely obsessed with the concept, now that we've started asking questions about what that is, or what that means to people and, interestingly, how many times when the question is asked how torn or unsure most reponses are. And, to that end, I took the Greyhound Bus (to me an American icon of a bygone era). I get on it and immeadiately start thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song that has that refrain "Kathy I said as we boarded the greyhound in Pittsburgh, I'm empty and aching and I don't know why, it took me four days to hitchhike to Saganau, I've come to look for A...MMMM...EEEE...RRRR....IIII....CCCC....AAAA".. And, the Port Authority is quite an experience the day before the most travelled holiday of the year, Thanksgiving. I had the offensive thought as I joined the many feets-long line and began the process of waiting to get on a seriously overbooked bus that I knew how it felt to be one of those poor and huddled masses at Ellis island minus, you know, the stakes of a new life and the hope and terror the new arrivals must have felt. The only thing I feel as I stand in the line is something approximating severe irritation.

Finally, we board over an hour past the time that was scheduled. I wonder if somewhere President Bush is clutching his forehead over the bus delays like he did over flight delays but I doubt it, the bus is, mainly, the refuge of the poor - real Americans own cars or take planes.

The Music Industry

Would this man have stood a chance of getting his videos played on MTV (if he were just starting out and not a bona-fide legend being produced by Trent Reznor)???

Just wondering...

Wander Lust

Ooooh, I'm in love with travelling again but I was never out of love with travelling but I am often out-of-pocket which is a discreet way of saying: I'm a pauper and travelling is for rich folk or very crafty aid-workers or diplomat types. I grew up travelling so it's in the blood, kid. But, then again, who doesn't have the yen to blow this Taco Stand for places unfamiliar (though, uh, I've mainly been to Western Europe lately so that hardly qualifies as "exotic" or "foreign" even).

I've promised myself that the next trip I pay for (and, luckily, eventhough I've travelled a decent amount these past few years they've mainly been for theater gigs which means: me no pay) Besides, I want to get out of the Western Europe travel vortex. I'm talking whole other continents, people! And to that end, I am putting it in print and on the web in order to make it, somehow, more real and to make myself accountable to my own travel...lust(!).


And so, in no particular order, the top 3:

Vietnam and Cambodia (Does that count as 2?)


Chalk it up to watching "Apocolypse Now, Redux" one too many times... Not really, I have friends who have gone and say that it is astoundingly beautiful and that the people are, surprisingly, warm given that fact that we dropped Napalm on their children only thirty years ago. Oh, being an American is fun, isn't it? I think I am just generally fascinated by countries that have, for better or worse, been irreversably changed by colonialism and the former Indochine certainly falls into that category. Plus, I know this might be lame but...I love vietnamese food! The most delicate and piquant of all asian cooking (mint? lemongrass? vietnamese coffee?!). Plus, a communist/buddhist country with capitalist leanings is worth a visit, no?

PERU!!!!







I am itching to go back to South America though Peru just sufferred a terrible earthquake...but I want to see Machu Pichu before the acid rain washes away the last remnants of the once great Inca empire. Plus (here we go with the food again): cerviche? potatoes with cheese? arroz con pollo? Itchy sweaters and hats with ear flaps? Plus, it's relatively cheap and after spending a month in Europe I need to visit countries where the dollar is still king (or just not almost worthless).

SOUTH AFRICA


Truth and Reconciliation Committee! Nelson Mandela! Home to the next World Cup! Plus, I met a very cool South African in Edinburgh who made his country sound pretty incredible - joyous, beautiful. Again, I've heard it on good authority that it's the kind of place you don't want to leave and the political transformation of South Africa is fascinating. Plus, I've never eaten the food so that alone merits a visit.

Now, I just have to steadily amass a fortune which between temping and acting gigs should be doable in about 30 some-odd years after I give up my apartment and go live with my parents. But I can DREAM and thus make this happen.

Travel or Shrivel!

I saw 24 Plays last Month or some thoughts on Theater (cue the Snoring).

I saw 24 plays last month or 24 shows or or whatever you want to call them. Some of them were performance "experiences" I guess, but the majority of them were plays. And, dear me, I came away with the thought, that I often have, which goes something like "making a good play is so hard" and "theater is so subjective"... Actually, in a fit of pretension one night I even likened it to proving the existence of God (I was getting all St. Thomas Aquinos on their asses). But...here are a few things I came away with in terms of "what I want to see in when I am sitting in the dark" (ahem).

So without further ado -- Here in, ahhh yes, the always trusty, always reliable, numerical list format

1. A Story

I'm a sucker for a good beginning, middle and end. I am going to throw out all the usual cliches like when I see a play "I want you take me with you" and "bring me on a journey" blah, blah, etc. etc. Serioulsy though, maybe the time for non-linear, deliberately obtuse to the point of incoherence theater/storytelling is over (thank god). I don't want to be spoonfed by any means but from where I am sitting clairty is king. Now, that doesn't mean everything needs to be a clean point A) to point B) but if you want a mess on stage - let me, the audience member, know why. I can't care about your characters or their actions or the world artificially being created in front of me if I don't understand what the f!@#$ is going on and I don't mean in that ambigious Harold Pinter kind of way.

2. Cultural Authenticity

Hmmmmm, this is a tough one and I hestiate to put it out there but..the worst thing I saw at the Fringe was a British play set in the heart of white trash Americana (though they wouldn't have described it that way). Man oh man, was it phoney in the worst possible way - finger wagging, self-righteous which means it was also smug and humorless! Think Lars van Trier movie but not nearly as good (he's never been to the United States either but writes/makes those great DOGMA film allegories about the injustices of the Fat American Empire). For the record, Dancer in the Dark is one of my favorite things...when the dog bites, when the bee stings... But, really, I am not sure I would want to see an American do a play about the chav's who roam the British housing tenements. It's hard enought to write a play that doesn't reduce your own county members to two-dimensional cariactures but it's nearly impossible not to do it when writing about the "other" (especially ones as ubiqioutious and, at times, offensive as Americans). I am not sure what the solution is... Is it to keep theater local just like produce? I dunno but if you are going to take on another country's culture (especially the weakestmembers among them) make sure you do it with a wide embrace.

3. Writing RULES!

A beautiful play, a visually beautiful play, a feast for the eyes, a sumptious sensory experience unless it's a William Forsythe ballet or Charles Bukowski stories done with puppets (which I didn't see but I heard on very good authority was muthf@!#g amazing) is nothing if the writing is shit. It's just becomes so much window dressing - momentary distractions and utterly forgettable.

4. Actors shouldn't be critics

Yikes, I have a lot of opinions which, like a true actor, I am very good at running at the mouth and talking about after I've seen a show...within, of course, the correct amount of politcally safe walking distance of said show. However, I will say, with great sincerity, this is an art-form I love, even if the culture couldn't give a shit and most of our audience are going the way of the Dodo bird, so I wish I had fallen in love with more of the 24 shows that I sat through (in true Bogart fashion - leaning forward, arms uncrossed)...

But, theater, like faith, can't be willed - you're either a believer or your not.