Model Minority

Seriously…that’s how I feel right now.  Nothing new to report.

I have spent two hours this morning thinking of a comedic sketch involving people in Care Bear costumes on stage directed and written in a production by David Mamet.

I’ve just been notified that another sketch turned into a short one act has been accepted to a local Staged Reading Festival.  Yes.  I’m still holding to the idea that staged readings are primarily an exercise in futility but apparently I’m not getting enough attention and validation so here I go again.

Oh…and apparently everybody is in love except me and I’m this close to ending my term as companionable third wheel, odd man at dinner party, wing-man, shoulder to cry on, or the recipient of torrid bed-room antics.

I was at a club last week and after trying to hang out with two friends in their newly christened couple mode.  After narrowly avoiding getting mauled in their passionate mating dance, I gave up, walked toward a corner, sat down, and accidentally drank a floater while listening to Digital Underground’s Humpty Dance for the third frigg’n time that night while buff gay black man gyrated in front of me.

"Hello Buff Gay Black Man…although you certainly seem to take care of yourself and are wearing an impressive Kenneth Cole ensemble, I would appreciate if you could impress your straight lady friends with your delicate butterfly on ecstacy dance moves from a different location as you are blocking my view of the monitor which is playing clips of Starsky & Hutch.  Thank you."

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Random Sang Trivia: Sang had his hair permed back in middle school.  All photographs from this time have been destroyed so don’t bother.

Logistics.  Boring.  But it’s got to be done.

Gears are shifting and groaning under the weight of inertia as we move head first into the spiked brick wall known as auditions.

I’ve been on both sides of the table when it comes to auditions.  And I can say that with a lot of people there is a justified and wholly legitimate reaction to stress, panic and fret about the prospect of displaying your dramatic/comedic wares in front of a judgmental director and production staff.

My own personal accounts are hardly noteworthy except to say that I scared thunderbird theater back in 2000 when in my cold reading of a Gerald Ford character (typecasting I know), I decided to add a prat fall off a chair and off a stage to simulate our former President & Football player lack of shall we say…grace.

Unfortunately, I didn’t warn them of this ad lib nor was I at all versed in the arts of stage combat or physical comedy.  Yet that did nothing to deter my enthusiasm much to annoyance of my then director/fight choreographer and currently good friend.  He seemed to worry that my ability to hurl myself fearlessly into walls and off-stage was off-set by my lack of safety concerns.  Guy wouldn’t let me have any fun.

So in the next two weeks before audition day arrives, I’ll be talking with hopefully our talented costumer who has had the dubious distinction of sticking his hand down my pants…yes I said “his” and yes…I said pants.  It was very confusing and I’m still trying to sort it all out.

Then there’s what I hope to be our fight choreographer.  No pants diving here…just a good guy and all around professional. 

Rounding off the bunch will hopefully be our music composer & art designer.  I don’t know the former at all but the latter is the paramour of a childhood friend.  The man is also a fierce artist which is why I’m trying to pilfer his abilities for my own selfish purpose.

But the best news is the viewing of our rehearsal space.  Thankfully for me it’s conveniently located in downtown.  Good amount of space and plenty of storage and thus not requiring transporting ridiculous amounts of props and costumes as was the case in EVERY DAMN SPURN PRODUCTION.  I have carried, hefted, and tolled in cabs, subways, buses, taxis, double parked cars on over 2 dozen occasions for that comedy show.  I miss many aspects of my NY show…slave labor was not among them.

Okay.  That’s it for now.  Weekend is here and I need to work out some rage brought on by the NY Appellate Division…I’ll relay the transcript of that ridiculous conversation some other time.

I’ll end by saying that in my attempts to get off to a good start as director, I have asked my talented acting friends, what their pet peeves are as far as directors.  I was hoping for some technical or stylistic comments.  Surprisingly, the overwhelming remarks were more along these lines:

Don’t yell.

Don’t talk down to me.

Be on time.

Don’t ignore me.

Don’t touch my ass.

No spitting.

Don’t sleep with my mother.

I guess the secret of being a good director is not being an asshole.  Oh well.  It’s that last one that’s going to be tough.

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Random Sang Trivia: Sang hates

Colorado

because he was involved in a freakishly horrible FunHouse accident at age 11.

I love the Science Section of the NY Times.  Say what you will about the liberal bias of the Times or its over-exposure, the Science section is a nice source for idle conversation.  And then sometimes, in a moment of journalism verite, articles seem to talk right at you.  It’s like their extraordinary personal relevance shines out like that scene with Russell Crowe in that movie where he gets a Nobel Peace Prize for being an insane asshole and banging Jennifer Connelly.

Ahem.

So in this week’s Science Section, there are two articles that caught my eye.  One that pretty much supports my long-lasting belief that “being in love” is a certifiable brain disorder.  Check out this opening paragraph:

“New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.”

Amen.

And apparently the psychosis is spreading.  It’s 2005 and I find myself in another year full of love and marriage.  One of which I’m looking forward to with great enthusiasm (even if its later in 2006 or 2007), another one I’ve gotten invited to by being in a sufficient degree of separation, yet another from one of my few law school friends (although I’m expecting that invitation to be rescinded), the fourth is a childhood friend who surprised me with his plunge into the vortex of matrimony, and finally a possible fifth one from someone who could have ended up as a character from Great Expectations.  Poor gal had the unfortunate luck to be in a long engagement that abruptly ended.  New guy seems okay though.

But back to the article…look at that gland.  That gland is supposed to be responsible for the tempest of emotion you feel when you realize that you’re in love with someone.  F*ck you gland!  It’s like a little tumor of angst and obsession…pumping unknown quantities of hormones and bio-pheromones all with the single terrible goal of making you look like a jackass in front of the object of your affection/obsession/all-consuming loin enraging lust. F*ck you Caudate!  Thanks for making high-school rejection even more unbearable.  Thanks for ruining that date in 2^nd year in college!  And thanks for the criminal record!  I hate you you stupid f*cking gland!

But as crazy as first love can be…it’s nothing compared to the current hypothesis circulating regarding the demise of our favorite rabid marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil.

Now apparently, these poor critters are suffering from an epidemic of a vicious form of face tumor.  I’ll spare you the horrific details of this awful disease except to say that it’s killed half the known 115,000 population.  Now I’m hardly an animal activist in fact you can say that me and Nature have a bad relationship.

That vicious b*tch has had it out for me since Year One.  Feral animal attacks.  Poisonous shrubbery.  Toxic sunlight.  So no…I don’t really care too much about animals but I’m even more of an opponent of tumors whether it be malignant, benign or this variety.  Plus, I am a huge Taz lover.  Grew up with that slobbering spinning fur covered ball of Id watching Warner Brothers cartoons.

However, whenever I look at Taz like here…

…I’ll be thinking of this bit of scientific revelation…

“Devils got their name from early European settlers who heard spine-chilling screams and thought that Satan was surely in the backyard. "Devils do make weird noises," Mr. King said. "When they first arrive at a carcass," he said, "they make a recognition signal - whorf? Are you there? Then they start hissing from the stomach. Growls turn to whines and flow into screeches. They sound like a groaning witch." 

Devil sex turns up the volume. In March and April, males engage in vicious, blood-soaked combat, said Dr. Menna Jones, a wildlife biologist who also works in the environment department. Females select "big butch dudes," Dr. Jones said, and allow themselves to be dragged by the scruff of the neck into a burrow. There they scream and fight for several days, mating many times for hours at a time. At the end of such bouts, the male thrusts his sperm into the female every two minutes.”

OhDEARGOD…what is wrong with scientists and their need to get into the bedroom antics of all god’s creatures.  I was brought up with the every healthy and respectably old fashioned notion that sex is something intimate and private to be shared between two people for love or $140 dollars/hour…Out-Call of course.

Anyway, scientist don’t really know whats causing thise disease, but theorize it could be a blood disease thats been transmitted by the violent blood orgy.  I’m not going into the possible right wing parable someone’s going to draw from this.

So there you go…love is either a psychosis or can lead to awful face tumors and kill your species…Why did I start this blog in the first place?

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Random Sang Trivia: Actually this one’s about Blind Willie.  One of the best slide guitarists ever and one of his songs is encoded on Voyager One which has just left our solar system. 

…ahhh…what a handsome corporate logo…

So friends & colleagues gathered last night at what appears to be a ritualistic pre-production brouhaha for the ubiquitous thunderbird theater company.

It was at the cozy yet dive’ish restaurant that has become a bit of an institution in the Bay Area.  Taking over the backroom and probably annoying the hell out of the other dining patrons, 30 or so company members, auxiliary cast members, and people of varying degrees of separation gathered to listen to a bit of comedic farsical mayhem that has been dubbed "The Las Vega-Nauts".

It went very well.

My last post spoke of the unneccesary torture that a staged reading could elicit so thankfully the T-Bird’s continuing goal to simply "have fun" have found a perfect solution to a staged reading malaise.  It’s quite simple and I’d be happy to share their recipe:

1. A stageplay that does not take itself seriously.

2. A group of people who enjoy each other’s company off-stage as well as on-stage.  Sometimes too much of the former but that’s the subject of another post.

3. Alcohol.

4. Food and snacks.

5. No fee for admission.

6. No after-show critique discussion (that’s what emails and phonecalls are for).

7. Alcohol.

As far as a play by play (pun intended) of the night, people gathered, lines were read and THANK GOD, laughter was heard.  And not the polite laughter of the religiously saved but the laugh of the damned…oh yes…we are laughing at jokes about alcoholism, emotional abuse, prostitution and eating babies…and all this in a show about comic book super heroes.  But don’t worry you literary snobs…we got high brow stuff for you to…alliteration, allusions, and allegories in case a show about the illegitimate son of Elvis Presley battling the evil forces of the Swiss Mafia against the backdrop of Las Vegas is a bit beneath you.

Okay. I’m not much for spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.  My co-writer and I have the dubious task of editing the final draft in time for auditions next month and rehearsal thereafter.

A final bit of backstory…i was approached by this very good co-writing friend earlier this year to help him write this story.  It had been gestating in his head for several years (I heard his pitch about this story back 2002).  For some reason that still escapes me, he asked me to help him flesh out the play b/c he had hit a rather bad case of writer’s block as all of us do. You gotta understand, writers like any artists are extremely territorial and protective so for him to share it was quite an extension of trust…or stupidity because you see his writing style and mine couldn’t be more different.  We have extremely similar senses of humor but our execution on paper is completely different…

…wizard monkeys…he insists on keeping wizard monkeys…he won and it got a great laugh but still…i die a little everytime…

…anyway through a lot of arguing back and forth, we churned out 80 pages which for the most part works really well.  And I’ve grown enormously egotistical enough to attach myself to something i never would have conceived of writing several years or even months ago. 

…wizard monkeys…god friggin dammit…

He still bugs the sh*t out of me but the people I’m closest to tend to do that.

Okay. Off to edits, enjoying my weekends for a while, and prepping for my role as director of this whirlwind of insanity.

I’ll update this blog accordingly.

Oh and check out the theater website which will soon be updated with an incredibly cool looking poster designed by one of the core members. If I can fulfill my job of directing something that is as close to the sheer giddy fun that poster elicits then I’ll have done my job.

This BLOG was brought to you by the Ditty Bop’s Sister Kate.

Random Sang Trivia: On a trip to Venezuela, Sang’s arm was almost crushed by a petting zoo’s Boa Constrictor.

  Okay so I went to a stage reading last night.  For those of you not aware, a stage reading is essentially a playwright’s attempt to showcase before an audience, his/her written work in its barest form…no costumes, no production values, minimal rehearsal preparation.  Sounds interesting right?

Wrong.

Imagine the most beautiful man/woman/mammal in the world.  Got the image in your head?  Congrats…you’re going to go on a date with her skeleton…no muscular system, no nervous system, not even her endocrine system. The liver is the frigg’n slut of the human body and you’re not even going to get to second base with it.  That’s what a stage reading is.  Now I know some people like to see the skeleton but I prefer to at least see some semblance of the final product.

There are of course exceptions which I won’t bore you with but again…it’s still a skeleton but somehow they made it dance, sing or put a hat and boa on it and made it talk like Calista Flockhart.  Amusing and interesting but still…not quite right.

Cue last night.

The only reason people go to these things is if they’re in the industry or a friend of the production (the latter for me). So I’m there to be supportive because as a wannabe writer, I like to see my colleagues out in the trenches, exposing themselves to public ridicule and disparagement.

Which I’m happy to oblige.

This play wasn’t so much bad (although my good friend who actually had to read the lines used much stronger language) as it was ridiculously contrived and overly sentimental.  Full of saccharine but advertising itself as all natural.  That’s not the worse part.  I’ve seen plays and movies like this.  TNT and its much ballyhooed "New Classics" has made it their goal to force feed me movies I carefully avoided like Stepmom, While You Were Sleeping, and the very very scary Pay It Forward with cute demon spawn Haley Joel Osment.  I’ll relate my fear of Pay it Forward another time. Anyway, these kinds of things are annoying but harmless.

But then there was that tennis ball.

As I said above, a stage reading is just actors reading right from the script.  There’s barely any kind of movement involved and if so, its very rudimentary.  But someone decided to add a prop.  This prop was a tennis ball.

This tennis ball stole the show.

It rolled around on the stage floor.

It bounced off the wall.

It got thrown from one actor to another.

It never forgot its lines.

It was pleasantly spherical and its lime green fuzziness was quite comforting.

In everyway possible, this green tennis ball in its 10 minutes of stage time stole the show and upstaged the actors in every way.  Hell.  It made me forget what anyone was saying.  The show was all about this tennis ball…

…and the tennis ball wasn’t even billed in the playbill.

OH Tennis Ball…truly you are the king of kings…a thespian like no other…I cower before thee…and to all you actors, directors, and writers…woe be to you in underestimating its awesome power.  You cannot tame it…cast the glorious tennis ball at your own risk.

That is all.

…

…

Oh and the play was about some old white guy trying to teach and reform a young urban (translation: black/hispanic) boy.  Hmm.  That’s quite original.  I hope to see the finished product some day.

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Random Sang Trivia: Sang was mugged at the age of 12…it was over a quarter.

So for some reason that somehow hints to a higher power in the lonely universe, several events among the social lives of myself and my friends have parallelled each other…unfortunately these parallels also hint that this higher power is an insufferable prick with a f*cked sense of humor.

Several of my friends including myself have unfortunately been posed with the dilemna of being the recipients of low grade crimes against humanity…not genocide or oppression but the little acts of casual rudeness and thoughtlessness that pile up resulting in the ocassional emotional conniption.

In other words, people f*cked us over and now we want to f*ck them over…

Ahhhh…but we’re supposed to be enlightened and accept the failings of our brothers and sisters.  And isn’t this the better route because as much as we secretly enjoy revenge thrillers like the Count of Monte Cristo, Seven, and Oldboy, the little things done to us don’t really merit such an over-reaction.

I mean is it really feasible to imprison someone in your basement or wait years to enact some act of vengeance?  Netflix has reduced their mailing time to one day!  That’s still too long! Am I supposed to wait years to get back at my enemies when waiting a day for I Heart Huckabees is borderline torture?

And caging someone seems all well and good until you actually have to feed and take care of them.

But wait?  What about the little lauded tool of passive aggression?  Well that’s a mixed bag…that too takes too much energy as well.  Not every one is Gandhi and can make a world empire give up because they can’t take you sitting around their country doing nothing…

Britain: Whatcha doing Gandhi?
Gandhi [sulking]: Nothing.
Britain: Come on.  I need your people to sell goods to.
Gandhi: I don’t care.
Britain: I’m sorry I subjugated your people for almost a century.
Gandhi: Do I look like I care?  Forget about it.
Britain: You’re obviously mad.  Can we talk about it?
Gandhi: Nothing’s wrong.  I want to watch tv.
                                 Britain: You don’t even have a tv.
                                 Gandhi: Whatever.  I’m outta here.
                                 Britain: Dammit Gandhi!  We can’t live like this!
                                 Gandhi: Then leave!
                                 Britain: Maybe I will.
                                 Gandhi: Then do it.
                                 Britain: Fine I will.  Then you’ll be sorry.
                                 Gandhi: Go already.  I don’t care.

See this is why they still name kids after him!  Genius.  On the other hand, my attempts at passive aggression are not nearly as eloquent…

Roommate: Hey Sang.
Me: Whats up.
Roommate: Did you shit on my bed?
Me: No.
Roommate: Are you sure?
Me: Yeah.
Roommate: Cause there’s a pile of warm shit on my bed and its got a post it note that says "You suck You suck You suck. Signed Not Sang".
Me: Wasn’t me man.
Roommate: Okay.  Let me know if you know who did it.
Me: Sure thing.

Hmmm…what am I trying to say?  Oh yeah.  It’s not worth getting into a tizzy about this sort of thing.  You ask for an apology and if you’re lucky you get one (I did and it was very much appreciated). Or you get back together with someone and its better to be with the one you love instead of being right. Or you remove yourself from having to deal with sh*t in the first place which is probably the best thing for everyone.

Okay. Enough introspection. Our first readthrough is Thur so things will hopefully get interesting after that…

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RANDOM SANG TRIVIA: At age 9, Sang was mauled by two french poodles.

Well it’s all over.  I went ahead despite my best judgement and saw Lucas’ last little attempt to soil my fond memories of a series…a series of movies that I now realize I’ve spent way too much time on.  Mission accomplished George.  For the life of me, I don’t see how anyone can believe this was a good movie.  Any attempts to justify it by saying "it was better than the last two" are falling on my Helen Keller-esque ears.

Sigh.  Oh well.  I’ve seen this through and now I can move on and find a new obsession that will help me not get laid.

Now moving unto the a REAL WRITER , and master of epic storytelling, Orson Scott Card has written the best critique about the above movie.  It’s honestly chastizing but very generous.

Okay.  In a bit of self indulgency and recognizing that I am egotistical and attention mongering I am starting this blog here.  Will it last?  Meh.  We’ll find out.  So until I get into the rythm of actually talking to myself, the first few entries will be all over the place.

First, one of the primary reasons for this laughable bit of web media is that I am starting to get involved in theater again after a year hiatus.  It’s been over two years since I was involved in theater on the west coast.  Since I’m an out of the closet bi-coastal, I like to keep east-coasters updated on the goings on here and for reasons that escape me they seem to enjoy the updates.  So instead of en masse emails in the age of spams, forwards, and viruses, I decided a blog would be appropriate.

So here are the bullet points:

1. The show I’m doing is one I co-wrote with my good friend and esteemed colleague called "The Las Vega-Nauts".  It’s being produced by the Thunderbird Theatre Co. In a bit of further insanity, this is being directed by yours truly.  Now, this ain’t Chekov or Beckett. It’s a rather light hearted comedic farce but its a full stage play with fight choreography, multiple characters, and an overall higher production value than I’ve encountered before in my time with my other theater group, spurn.  There are an excellent array of adjectives available in your unused copy of a thesaurus to be synonymous with "oh jesus god and buddha…what the hell am I thinking?!"  Those feelings have mostly subsided but they do rise up ocassionally like bile or a geriatric penis.  They’ve now mostly been replaced with an eagerness to get started…again like the aformentioned male organ.  We’ll hold our first public table read next Thursday so we’ll see how that goes.

2. So I am an unashamed liberal but i hate rhetoric because god knows there’s enough of it and I don’t plan on making this into a soapbox but here’s something we can all appreciate…really bad commercials.  So bad it invites mocking on all sides of the political spectrum.  I speak of the new Moveon.org commercial that parodies the largest independent movie in history.  I enjoy a good star wars parody like everybody else but this bit of cheap flash animation is just achingly bad.  Just cause your a grassroots movement doesn’t mean you have to take in sh*t people.  Are we trying to reach the untapped political power of the raging star wars fanatic?