Îmi Place.

march 28th, 2016

This is my first music video project of such type and scope and uses footage from the last 18 months or so. i felt more exposed than usual by this video — “exposed” as in vulnerable. Nearly didn't post it! Unusual for me to feel bashful at thrusting myself into the spotlight. But then, it was also refreshing to feel bashful. In a Zen way.

i brought three new pieces to the Green Mill yesterday. Video to come later on the performances archive. In one piece i claimed the Baby Boomers elected Reagan twice, because “they needed a daddy that badly.”

Marc said, “It's true! I was there!”

Another piece was literally my stand‑up set for Wednesday with slight modifications to include more internal rhyme and rhythm and performed in my Slam Poetry Voice. The laughs were very sparse! Which i found very funny! That part of comedy where you make a joke and then don't get a laugh and you just wanna pilot your starship directly into the sun. Goodbye forever!! And to keep flying straight, instead. That part of comedy that's pure courage. i love it.

A Special Place.

march 19th, 2016

i did stand‑up for the third time the other night at Cole's. i want my stand‑up persona to be as smooth as my poet persona, which means i might try rehearsing my next set like a poem. Try lots of things!

i did a long bit comparing the current US Presidential candidates to forms of birth control. Obviously this involved talking about vaginas. That's supposed to be a stereotype about women in comedy, that we just talk about vaginas and periods. But then i think of all the boring dick jokes i've had to sit through and feel a big WUTEVR.

i opened with a bit about the Friend Zone. Superfans will recognize it as nearly entirely lifted from last fall's poem Kill the Men (not all men?):

“Any dudes out here in the friend zone, stuck in the friend zone? Yeah, fuck you. That's right. That's what women do when we sexually alienate men: we're your friends. What is it that men do when they sexually alienate women? Don't answer that!”

One of the hosts recognized me from Twitter, others recognized me from The Moth and from Clinton/Cheney homoerotica. That felt amazing. Creative traction.

POLITICS

It's strange to watch the conservative USA establishment implode. i'm rooting for FOX News reporter Megyn Kelly and former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. Didn't see that coming as a life event, but here w'are.

i'm watching Ann Coulter's Twitter feed for hints at the human behind it. i call her “Annie” and every time she says something ignorant or immature i tell Vlad, “she's just trying to provoke me.”

i dunno whence my thing for Ann Coulter came. It arrived and i haven't fought it. She's in her 50s, engaged several times but never married. What happened, Annie? Why didn't you close? She treasures her independence as a writer and performer. “No one can fire me,” she's said. i've said that about the way i work. Those exact words. Consonance.

Her public persona is so racist, so childish. Is it a veneer? Is this the price of her independence? Did she try writing balanced intelligent political prose, and it just didn't sell? And this public Ann Coulter character/caricature and accompanying books are how she's figured out how to work her Writing Life?

i dream of interviewing Annie and asking her about all of this. It's a dream right up there with my dreams of improvising with Fred Armisen and leading a big dance number in front of a live audience.

Fratzi.

march 3rd, 2016

Joining the ranks of Reactionary Internet Culture for a moment, because it's fun and i feel like it, the Coen brothers™ said something in the press the other day that irritated me:

As filmmakers, is it important or not important to consciously factor in concerns like diversity, I asked.

“Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It's important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”

“It's an absolute, absurd misunderstanding of how things get made to single out any particular story and say, ‘Why aren’t there this, that, or the other thing?’” added Joel. “It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how stories are written. So you have to start there and say, ‘You don’t know what you're talking about.’”

Wait this was the best part:

He continued: “You don't sit down and write a story and say, ‘I'm going to write a story that involves four black people, three Jews, and a dog,‘ — right? That's not how stories get written. If you don't understand that, you don't understand anything about how stories get written and you don't realize that the question you're asking is idiotic.”

Source: The Daily Beast

OOoooohhhh sssssssick burns! Idiotic! Don't know what we're talking about!! Not how stories are written!!! Like the Coen brothers™ are the prophets of storytelling. Like they received divine information on how to tell stories from the g0ds of storytelling.

You could think of it as a writing exercise, brothers. i loved Fargo. i loved Lebowski. The other Coen movies have come across as not‑as‑good retellings of those two. So maybe it's time to write a new movie. Maybe trying a new writing prompt would help.

What i got from this interview was that the Coen brothers™ just mean they feel comfortable writing the way they feel comfortable writing. As usual, defense is a function of terror at ever feeling uncomfortable. Think of all the people they would need to talk to to write black Lebowski. Think of all the friends they would need to make. Think of all the vulnerability they would feel. Very uncomfortable! i get that.

But it is not a time to feel comfortable. It is time to put our bodies against the machine.

Diversity is a major factor in the storytelling of DR DOG, btw. i'm excited for all the conversations i'll have to have, the friends i'll need to make, the things i'll need to learn in order to tell the story.

Hindi pulp fiction novels. Something i'm learning about for DR DOG. Source: Wikimedia