Some sports related stuff…

Is it possible that it’s really difficult for us to compete in something like the World Games or the Olympics, when our athletes might have terribly confused feelings about being an American in 2006? Is it possible that all the attention on the number of medals we win this Olympics, and our celebration of individual achievement over any kind of team play, is because of a fascination of both sides of the Clark Kent/Superman American identity?

I’m just asking here. Our celebration of anti-intellectualism, of easy answers, of gut-responses, of, essentially, the wholesome simpleness of Clark Kent, the bumbling simpleton who knows the difference between right and wrong because he listens to his heart and his God, could that lead to compacency? When simple unimpressive men become our superheroes, when the marginally talented but fortuitously sexual become our reigning American artists, when tactical decisions of the largest magnitude are made without nuance, then is America becoming a place where things seem to happen without reason, where ends don’t justify means, they seem to occur without means, where winning doesn’t matter?

It’s just a question, really.

There are two professional sports players, Terrel Owens and Ron Artest, both of whom caused enormous upset on their individual teams, and both of whom are some of the most talented players to play their individual sports. T.O. went most of the season without a team because he was such a problem, Ron Artest did the same. How on earth can people be surprised by this? You don’t become players of their caliber (both are considered among the very best in their sport) without an enormous amount of work and a giant genetic lottery win, why shouldn’t they expect the entirety of the world known to them to bend to their will.

In the end, the world did bend to them. They will get paid, they will get anything they want, and they are professionals. They have a job, which is playing a game, and they will get as much money as they want. We, America, were obsessed with the shenanigans surrounding both these players. I’m just asking, is it possible that we see this behavior and we feel like we’ve found an outlet for our outrage because there are white collar white guys, who also worked very hard and had a giant genetic lottery win being born into rich families with white skin, who are responsible for crimes against America and Humanity, but who’s deeds are so much harder to understand than a black guy yelling at his team-mates and wanting 10 million more than his 60 million dollar contract…

Probaly not. This probably doesn’t mean anything, it’s a stupid question, really.

But when we wrestle something like the Olympics to feature LUGE… I’m sorry, I have interrupt here. These people are going down an ice pipe on a sled? I mean, I’m not sure what the math is, but couldn’t you just weigh a whole bunch of people, do the algorithm for gravity and weight vs. drag and then just put the person with the optimum weight on a sled and send them down? Or, why even a person, can’t they just count the right number of sand bags, put a flag for each country, and see what happens…?

Sorry.

When we wrestle the Olympics into featuring something like snowboarding, and then our woman doesn’t win the gold because she’s hotdogging… Jesus Christ, I don’t even know what the hell people are talking about. We didn’t win as many medals as the Germans because someone was better at skiing to a place, then riding a bike to a lake where he had to ice-fish or some damn thing, I can’t even figure out which of these things is a sport and what makes someone good at it. (I mean, in Golf, if you say “closest to the pin buys lunch”, I get that, but is there really a scoring system for dancing? Man, if you got Squeek from Baseketball out there doing pelic thrusts, I’d vote for him.)

Anyone who calls this Olympics a dissapointment is a jackass. The Olympics are the Olympics, it’s a celebration of international competition among amateurs, or at least it should be. If you watched the women’s figure skating and were upset by the outcome because Sasha Cohen didn’t win… Japan won it’s first winter Gold medal EVER, and Japan won it’s ONLY MEDAL last night of this entire Olympics. And the woman who skated was perfect and breath-taking.

Is it possible, I’m just asking, but is it possible that since we think it’s okay to hold people without reason in foreign prisons and torture them there, even though we claim the bill of rights is inalienable, that a man can rise to the highest positions of power in the government and in business based on their family names, even though we claim we live in a meritocracy, that we can wage war on other countries based solely on their ethnic makeup and their ability to be conquered, despite the fact that our country was founded on religious freedom and the idea that all men are created equal, that maybe some of this has something to do with our disappointment in not winning every single event that we compete in?

Probably not. It’s a hell of a stretch. I’m sure the Romans in the 4th Century probably thought the Turks and the Huns were their equal in sport. It didn’t stop the inevitable, though.

There. I promised myself I’d write today.

I won’t apologize for not writing in this blog, I’m just bad about updating it and I don’t really feel any guilt. I don’t expect anything from you in return, I don’t feel like I’ve got any kind of an agreement, spoken or unspoken, and this will get updated when it gets updated.

In other words, Mom, I’ll call you if anything interesting happens to me.

Now, really quick.

Tolerance is really important. You have to tolerate things that you despise, unless you have the right to obliterate those things. For instance, I am intolerant of headaches, I will drink massive quantities of coffee and water combined with Excedrin and Tylenol Sinus or whatever the hell I have to in order to do battle with headaches. I tolerate being overweight. I hate it, but I work around it.

I tolerate religion. I despise it and, to be perfectly honest, I lose respect for people who thank God for the good things that happen to them, and then blame people for random natural acts. God has never made me a better actor, and God has never caused a flood to kill people. The floods are random weather situations and people’s triumphs happen because of either hard work or luck. God doesn’t make a jump shot fall, and God doesn’t punish the leaders of Israel for dividing the promised land.

But I tolerate it when people say they want to worship God or whatever. I am not respectful of it. I don’t have to be. If you keep kosher or you go to church every sunday, there’s a part of me that respects that because it takes sacrifice and organization and you have to give up something in your life in order to obey a ritual, and I think that ability translates into real world skills. I respect a Muslim who prays five times a day, it takes gumption to do that. It takes moxy.

But, you know what? I don’t pray five times a day. And I don’t pray because I don’t believe. Every time I’ve cast my eyes skyward, even in moments of horror and panic, I knew I was being a fool and I simply couldn’t formulate a prayer. I don’t believe in the supernatural, I don’t believe in monsters, I don’t believe in God.

You can’t make me. You can kill me, you can threaten to kill me, you can say whatever you want, but I will never believe that your God is on his way to judge me, I will never believe that there is a next world where I will get my come-uppance. I tolerate your religion, and many times I go so far as to respect it, but unless I get some kind of super-material world proof that there is a knowing God that has control over anything, I won’t believe you no matter how many times you say it.

So why won’t you get the hell out of my life? Why do you want to deny me the right to an abortion? Why do you want to deny me the right to draw cartoons? Why do you want to deny me the right to learn about science in grade school?

It’s because you are afraid. I think it’s because you know I’m right. It’s because deep inside yourself, you know that God isn’t coming, you know that your prayers aren’t heard. Deep inside yourself, you know that the Messiah’s return has been foretold and missed thousands and thousands of times. I’m not that smart, and it’s easy for me to know that the floods and earthquakes have always been here.

I think it’s because you feel insignificant, because you think you don’t matter. You want to believe that God loves you because you don’t completely believe that the people around you love you. And that’s really sad, it really is. I feel lonely, I miss the existence of God, I hate the coldness of the infinite that surrounds me, and it leaves me in a state of panic and shock sometimes. I’m attracted to a father of infinite power and intelligence that loves me, I would love for it to be true.

But it doesn’t make sense, none of it. And you hate the fact that someone can ignore your truth because it makes you question it, and if you question it even for a moment, you will know it isn’t true. Look, if you had a regular diet and a roof over your head, you wouldn’t give a shit about a cartoon. If you could masturbate without shame, you wouldn’t give a shit about abortion. If you weren’t scared of being wrong all the time, you wouldn’t care if I was wrong.

I tolerate you. I don’t respect you. And I don’t expect you to respect me, my life is ridiculous. But you’re gonna have to learn to tolerate me, because you won’t ever be able to get rid of me. I’m the future – science, industry and freedom are the future. You’re the past

We have just this morning dumped six months worth of construction trash into a hired trash guy’s truck. MAN, the relief you get when you take out the trash. I really wanted us to go through the house and take out every single bit of trash we had, but I think Jordana was worried that she didn’t get a big enough truck, so we just did the construction stuff. Credit little Jordana, she took an hour off work this morning and put her little chicken wings to work and loaded trash into the truck with me.

Both of us worry about the other’s health, and we’ve both admitted to a weird obsession with the other one dying. I feel like this will be cured by finding more things to fill our time.

I’m just kidding, of course. She wishes my weight and cholesterol were a little more controlled, and I wish she had a little more weight on her because I sometimes feel like she will literally shatter if I roll over in my sleep. It’s not that she’s painfully skinny, I think she looks fantastic, but I worry about her back and shoulder pain, and I think if she weighed a little more she’d be happier.

I’m always a little nauseated by the assumption of a shared understanding of beauty. First of all, I’m not the kinda guy who’s universally praised for his sex appeal. After all, this is what I look like…

…but I sorta sneak up on you and next thing you know, for some reason, you think I’m reasonably handsome.

Some people think Jordana is funny looking sometimes. After all, she can’t keep her hands out of her underarms…

But when we’re just sitting there goofing off and talking, like when we’re in the car or reading books or watching TV… I don’t know. It’s not that I’m gonna argue that she’s the loveliest woman in the world in some empirical sense, but there is no woman in the world who I find lovelier. I’m made so incredibly uncomfortable by men talking about the comparative sexiness or hotness of their wives or girlfriends. I’ve got to assume you’re attracted to them, or you wouldn’t marry them. Unless you hate yourself, which, I guess is fine.

But one wants to have someone at their side that the world agrees is attractive, like a sort of calling card. Men and women get dolled up to go out and meet the world, and then walk around unshowered and un-coifed at home with their significant other. I gotta tell you, it’s the opposite for us in this fucked up house. I have to beg Jordana to change out of her pajamas if we decide at the last minute to go out to dinner, but there have been a number of times that we’ve gotten showered and stuff in order to spend an evening at home.

Which doesn’t make that smart or right or morally superior or whatever. We’re bad at selling ourselves. I mean, I’m better at it than Jordana is, but the more time I spend with her, the more retarded I become. I will throw on a baseball hat and not shave in order to go see a play, but if I think there’s any chance we’ll be kissing for a half-hour, I’ll run and take a shower and put on, y’know, *lotion*.

We cleaned the house because we’re refinancing. We’ve installed tile and put up walls and trim and all kinds of shit. It wasn’t until we realized that the house would be basically *done*, and that the dook/CAROLINA game was the same day, that we decided to invite people over. That’s the thing, Jordana gets out of the shower and lies next to me with her hair unbrushed and wet, and I feel like I should invite over a casting director so you can see this girl without her shoulders up, without her jaw set, without a worry in the world. There’s a tuning fork in the middle of me, and her face makes it ring.

In any case, throwing a huge amount of stuff away is a lot like taking your house through the shower. And it’s gonna be nice that we can share it with our friends. Now, of course, I have to go finish the drywall and the closet installation, before I got to Home Depot for more trim.

And no, I haven’t showered.

This show is a little bit harder than the last two, and the ways in which it is more difficult are kinda interesting to me.

First of all, this show is gonna be entirely guitar based, and that lends to some complications. The guitar is a lot like the piano in that everyone thinks they can play it, but almost no-one can play it well. On “Lost” last week, that hobbit dude played piano in that wretched way that non-pianist play, with fingers rigid, sticking up and wrists collapsed. I should know, I’m a terrible pianist.

But the guitar is unlike the piano in that there are keys and positions that lend themselves to the guitar, and there are keys that are just really hard. The flat keys are much harder to play on the guitar, to play in Eb or Bb is tough compared to playing in E or A (which are both sharp keys).

What that means is that we will have less, or actually *no* flexibility when it comes to casting the vocal parts. The singer is gonna have to be able to sing the song that I wrote.

But that’s not what makes it harder on me. The difficulty is that this show is gonna be have to have several flat out rock songs, and those songs are far less complicated than the songs I wrote for Fleet Week. This also means they are way more naked. I tend to lean on false cadences when I get the chance, I will set up patterns and then move keys and stuff, just to keep the music active.

Think of the song “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner. Or “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Motley Crue. I mean, it’s amazing to me that I’m writing a show that borrows heavily from 80s pop music, but it isn’t the Cure or The Smiths, it’s “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult.

Plus, as you loyal readers saw yesterday, we’re trying to get our house finished in time for the inspection on the re-fi. It’s a helluva day at sea, sir.

I took this picture and sent it to my family because they all, collectively, got me everything you see here. The only things I bought myself were the electric guitar and the desk, and both of those were back in ’93. On MTV’s Cribs, the bedroom is always introduced as “where the magic happens” and the home studio is always like “yeah, I had this built.”

Fuckers. I’m willing to bet that the bedroom is mostly just sex, sleeping and watching TV, that’s all that happens in my bedroom. If I had a home studio…

One of these days, baby. Fluff and Fold.

So, I’ve been working on our show for next summer and our house for, um, well next time we have people over. We’ve tiled the floor of the kitchen and we’ve tiled the backsplash. We’re pretty psyched about the musical, we’re far more psyched about the house. Every once in a while the house takes a big step forward, and this weekend it took another limping leap. Here’s our kitchen.

Actually, that’s just the backsplash and the new stuff, we also did the floor.

Jordana’s mom is always worrying about her wearing a mask.

All right. We’re also tiling the front entryway, but we’re not done with that, so no pictures.

Look, I’ll get back to ranting as soon as I have spare time. Right now, I’m making up for all those years of sitting around talking about stuff. I know I don’t update this enough, I’ll get to it. The new music is actually really hard, much harder than Fleet Week.

Here’s what the kitchen looked like before we started kicking its ass.

Hilarious that my brother Ian would post his fears about ADHD at the same time as I realize I have a blog that I never write in. My battles with ADHD have led to a number of problems, not the least of which is how long I go without shaving.

Also, I said I’d been sick, but so has everyone else. My mom’s latest trip was basically this

And Jordana’s been doing nothing but this….

You’ll notice, Jordana’s never too sick to have a box of oreos next to her.

We were at a play the other day and one of the characters in the play was talking about how much she likes “snacks”. I sorta nudged Jordana to tease her, and then, two rows in front of us, our friend Lindsay turned around to laugh at Jordana. So fantastic.

Here’s a fun look at the show we wrote last month…

And the show we’re writing now…

We’re really very busy…

I’ve eaten two sandwiches and a bowl of oatmeal in the last six days. Before that it was the studio, the Christmas, so I can’t really apologize for the lack of writing. My fever is now under control, hovering just under 100, but I’m still sweating through anything I wear and soaking anything I’m lying on.

I talk a lot about the fact that I don’t get sick, and any time I get a little sniffle or if I feel like I have to go to sleep at 10 PM some night, I get kidded about saying I don’t get sick. But I don’t get sick very much, once a year or so. This kind of illness I’m going through now, the kind of sickness that leads to me losing about 20 pounds in a week, hasn’t happened very often at all.

Mac called and I started talking shit, before I realized I didn’t know what I was talking about.

So. I will write more, this entry sucks, I know, so let me find some pictures that are fun.

There is no way to show the sheer insanity of ten people living in a two bedroom apartment in New York, but I can tell you the funnest thing about Christmas was having everyone together and our local deli are really depressed that this group of “good eaters” isn’t buying 27 sandwiches a day from them.

Jordana is nervous about having kids, and I totally understand that. But seeing her with Lucy is just amazing.

Now, I’m not trying to say that my friend Steve is responsible for anything untoward. Steve is a good man, and a great doctor.

But, what I can tell you is that my friend Mac, about a month ago, found himself written upon.

If you look close, you will see one of the prime suspects, Amy, who pretty obviously has the pen in her hand, and who seems to be faking sleep. Here’s a closer look.

And just so you see the context, here she is, clearly in the same room and same bed with Mac.

Now, clearly, not only is Amy a suspect. Carrey might be as well a suspect. She *is* in the room. But here’s the thing, a picture can say a thousand words, and if you know my friend Steve, you will *know* that, while words may be written on Mac’s face (and a hell of a moustache) GUILT is clearly written all over Steve’s face.

So, I was gonna write to my friends and bitch about how they never update their blogs and I realized that I don’t update this one nearly enough. So. here are some comparison/contrast fotos for you.

This is our dining room after we pulled up the shitty sticky tile and poured concrete floor where it was uneven.

This is the same dining room after we tiled a chunk of it.

This is the full cast of our latest show……taken during the show with no flash. Here is proof that grab-ass is a theme in our shows. St. Ignatius Hanukah Pageant…
And Fleet Week, The Musical…

And yes, there are some actors in both shows. We are a hopelessly loyal bunch, and we, all three of us, have a bunch of actors that we just think are fantastic. The skinny girl in both shots, Laura Perloe, was also in our other play this year, and she has proven to be just intensely good at everything we’ve asked of her, even when she had to be the anti-Christ.
She crawled out covered in blood screaming like a baby, despite this being, essentially, a workshop production

Yeah, we’re very loyal, and I’m sure everyone who knows the three of us takes this as a given. We always invite our friends in to audition, we always seem to be very nice people. But I’m here to tell you, there is a sick underbelly. We remember every single slight. We can recall verbatim every single mean thing you’ve ever said about anybody. We keep two lists in our heads, just remember that. Two lists. And whichever list you think you’re on, you’re probably on the other one. Unless you think you’re on the shit-list, then you’re probably right.

In the last two or three weeks, Jordana and I have made it a priority to go see the theater our friends are doing, and in some cases “friends” means we worked with them five years ago and haven’t really spoken since. Which is never done maliciously, I don’t really have any bad feelings about anyone right now, but there are only so many people you can keep in your head, and for me that’s probably a smaller number than usual. Some quick thoughts, and I mean quick…

“The Great American Trailer Park Musical” – the show isn’t about anything, really, but it is really funny and any moments that aren’t well written are saved by the enormous talent of the entire cast. Leslie Kritser (who I worked with five years ago) is pitch perfect in every single moment in the show, and I would say every actor had their own moment to shine. The production gives off a sense of ease and well-being, the actors cutting up with the audience, that seems to fly in the face of the recent closing announcements. That, and the theater was packed.

The plot barely existed and the music… I have written shows where moments were supposed to be evocative of other musicals and other pop songs because the shows were, on some level, parodies or homages and I was using similar structures to communicate theatrical ideas. The songs in “Trailer Park” are spot on remakes of popular 70s and 80s funk and country tunes, to the point where some things are even in the same key and use the same vocal arrangements. To say that the songs are memorable is missing the point, you could remember these tunes without seeing the show.

“Souvenier” This is fantastic. I found it a constant delight, not at all the one-joke show it could have been. Both performances are extraordinary, the shape of the show makes the time in the theater spin by, and the jokes are designed for both insiders and those who know nothing of music. This is the original Andy Kaufman story, and the fact that it took place before the age of irony is a testimony to the universality of the human experience.

“A Month In The Country” – Theater Ten Ten’s production of this wonderful play was an absolute breath of fresh air. I’ve talked about why people produce certain plays, and vanity stinks to high heaven when you’re in the seats, but this show was designed entirely in service to the piece. I didn’t like the young actor’s portrayal of the handsome tutor, but the performances across the board were just sensational. I love the piece too, one I’d never read or seen before.

I walked away from this piece feeling so refreshed. Everything was elegant and simple, everything designed to be in service to the piece and to the audience. It isn’t constructive criticism to say so, but watching this play felt like drinking a large glass of cold water. Refreshing, invigorating, calming and not overly flavorful. Greg Bodine, who I couldn’t like better as a person, was outstanding in a cast of standouts, and I loved being able to watch him work his craft with such simple precision.

“Scapin”. From Columbia Stages This was a consumate college show. Most of the audience liked the actors that they knew personally, and much of the show was self indulgent and over long, but the entire evening was put together with the kind of passion and precision that only people of youth and leisure seem to be able to afford. I *loved* most of the cast and would slip them higher on the callback list if I saw this particular production on their resume, but the show became more of the same after a while, and there really is only so much Comedia a person should have to endure.

“The Immigrant”, at Westport Playhouse was difficult and not all that rewarding a show. Musically, there are stretches where the audience is forced into arhytmia and atonality, which I don’t mind, but I hate it in musical theater if it’s used when two people are communicating simple ideas to each other. There were moments in this show where I just leaned back and let the gorgeous haunting modalities run over me, particularly during a Sabbath Prayer moment when a young woman is singing to her mother, left behind in Russia.

Tally Sessions who plays the title role, is one of the most approachable and talented actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing on stage, and I’m really proud to call him my friend. Contrary to what you might think, I have a lot of actor friends that I don’t think are all that great, but Tally is an enormous talent, who’s greatest successes are still ahead of him. Any chance you get to see him in anything will be worth while.

The House Of Yes, produced by Ground Up Productions was as confusing as it was transparent. I have never had a very good longview, and I’ve never been very good at self-promotion, but the idea that there is a company out there that produces shows that not only have had Broadway runs in New York in the last five years, but that have also been made into movies starring extremely famous people, purely so that the actors involved can pad their resumes is, frankly, shocking. The fact that this is *honest* self-promotion doesn’t give it any grace in my book.

I should say that in the middle of my distaste for the entire evening, I was at least treated to some really fine performances. Amy Heidt, who never seems to get the credit she is due, was outstanding in this play, reeling off every line perfectly and embodying a woman wholely unlike herself and one she is roughly twenty five years too young to play. As her son, Guy Olivieri was quite good. Both of them were fighting a losing battle of a crappy script in a play that didn’t seem to have any direction, lost in a senseless playing space with akward light shifts and bizarre choices throughout.

***
It’s impossible for people not to get hurt by what people say of their work, I know that, but far more destructive is silence. Our last play provoked a lot of conversation among people, and some people were disturbed by it, other’s were excited. But there were also a group of people who found the evening distasteful, and none of them spoke to us about it. If there were some way we could all open up a dialogue so that we could critique each other’s work and not get jealous or destructive, it might inspire us to work harder and to actually want to see each other’s shows.