Tarhearted.

REFERENCES TO ADAM SZYMKOWICZ MAKE ME HOT.

Much thanks to the amazing Adam Szymkowicz, one of the most fucking talented playwrights working today, for interviewing me on his blog. You can read about MilkMilkLemonade and my fucked up childhood there.

(Picture from Flux's recent production of Pretty Theft.)

QUEER HUMOUR

The Boyfriend sent me this video, which is pretty much the most hilarious thing I've seen this week. (WARNING: super not safe for work.)

Sometimes I feel like it's wrong to laugh at things like this. My writing too, contains dialogue and themes that some would find unbelievably offensive. I suppose I'm too inside of it, because I'm always sincerely shocked- SHOCKED- that anybody would find my sense of humor offensive.

I was catching a train with a heterosexual and super liberal friend once and we were discussing different neighborhoods in the city when i said I wouldn't go to a certain neighborhood for fear of being "Matthew Shepherd-ed." Okay, it's not guffaw funny, but I don't think it's hideously offensive either. I was making light of a very real and legitimate fear I felt. My immediate thought was "oops, I've offended my friend," but then that gave way to something else. "Wait a minute, " I thought, "I'm the one who's fearful. I'm the one without my civil rights here." And then I thought, "Fuck it. I can say whatever I feel like saying."

As another example, I was with a group of friends discussing what their nicknames were in high school. When it got to me, without missing a beat, I responded "faggot". Nobody laughed. I thought it was funny.

I guess my question is this: is offensive humour a part of queer culture? Do queer people become funny as a defense mechanism or a survival tactic? Is the collective queer threshold for dark comedy wider because of a lifetime full of abuses? If you consider the popularity of John Waters, Margaret Cho, Absolutely Fabulous, Charles Busch, and Sarah Silverman, I would say that it is. Because if it isn't, well... then I'm just an asshole.

Hopefully though I'm just carrying on a tradition.

BASH BACK.

I'm kind of obsessed with radical queer group, Bash Back. For those not in the know, the kids of Bash Back have been in existence for just over a year and have thus far done a lot of stuff, some of it fucking rad and some of it a little unfocused. I don't necessarily agree with all of their politics. For instance, they're against marriage... for anyone. That said, I've often said in the wake of Prop 8 that gay liberation needs more aggressive tactics. Let us not forget that our movement began with a riot.

The mainstream gay groups (if such a thing exists) criticized Bash Back for vandalizing a Mormon temple in Utah, saying that they don't condone the destruction of property. Um, why not? The Mormons spear headed and funded one of the most large scale attacks against our community in recent memory and damaged a hell of a lot more than property in the process. I was only kidding when I suggested in my play, I Wanna Destroy You, that the queers of Los Angeles should have torched that city after Prop 8. I'm not for hurting anybody, but I am for destroying the heteronormative cultural narrative and gaining civil rights that I'm owed.

This week a Bash Back activist was arrested for breaking in the windows of a Democratic Headquarters' window. It seemed like they were focused on posters advertising health care reform. That seems a lot less focused to me. I get protesting the Democrats and Barack Obama, who have repeatedly shown that they don't give two shits about the LGBT, but why health care? Or was the intention to actually protest the Democrat's themselves? I'm not sure. A little clearer next time, kids.

Anway, the kids of Bash Back are going on my list of glamorous political people along with The Weathermen and The Black Panthers. Let's all bash back!

SWOON: A PICTORAL RETELLING OF MY JOURNEY WITH CHUCK BASS.

The gossip is that Chuck Bass of Gossip Girl is going gay. Finally god is listening to my prayers. I've had a long hard road with Chuck Bass, played by Ed Westwick. I wanted to love him because he's the male Blaire waldorf, the Upper East Side's most lovable trouble maker. I've always loved Blaire. She wears cute headbands and has great lines. She destroys Georgina's life and then gets to utter, "Haven't you hear, Georgina? I'm the crazy bitch around here." AMAZING.

Anyway, Chuck is her male counterpart, and he's always amazingly dressed. I know his costumes actually get made fun of in some internet circles, but other people's opinions are retarded. he basically dresses like me but with money and stylists. God, I love his costumes:

 

 

So his clothes are awesome, but then he annoyed me because he's always purring. He's never "on breath" as the annoying girls in my theater undergrad would say. He's so purr-y that he even started to look like a cat. I'm weired when people who look like cats, a la Ron Perlman in Beauty and the Beast.

 

But then I heard him talk in his actual voice. Oh my god, he's English! SWOON. So he's like a clean version of my love Pete Doherty. One without risk of Hepatitis infection:

 

And now I love him. Hooray! I hope the rumours are true. It should also be said that the dude he makes out with is a total fox too.

P.S. I've been fantasizing about being a writer for Gossip Girl later. Maybe if I can get an agent that could be made to happen? Probably not, but a dude can dream can't he.

DULL.

My double life as a marketer and a playwright has been combined. I desperately want to write a play about the branding and launching of L'eggs egg. From Wikipedia:

In the 1970s, L'eggs introduced a unique trade dress by placing its product in white plastic chicken egg-shaped containers egg (albeit much larger) and garnering shelf space in grocery stores. Parent company HanesBrands Inc. has ceased packaging the hosiery in the hard plastic shells. Notwithstanding the secondary uses for the eggs by crafters, artists, and hobbyists, the plastic eggs were seen as an example of wastefulness. ^[1]

The L'eggs naming, package and logo were created by designer Roger Ferriter, working in the design studio of Herb Lubalin Associates in New York City in 1969. On the morning of the scheduled presentation to the Hanes Corporation of the marketing and packaging ideas for the new low cost pantyhose launch, Ferriter was not satisfied that the work was sufficiently creative. In an effort to revisit the name and packaging one last time, he attempted to "experience" the product in some new way, hoping that the exercise would suggest a new creative direction for the branding. Among his efforts, he attempted to compress a pair of pantyhose in his fist, wondering how compact the product could become. Staring at his clenched fist with the pantyhose inside he was struck with the possibility that the package could be an egg. Just as quickly, he realized that egg rhymes with leg, and then adding the popular mid century marketing boost of giving a product name some French sounding twist, he incorporated the l' (french for "the" when followed by a vowel such as the "e" of eggs) and arrived at L'eggs. Some sketches were prepared in time for the presentation, including a logo that incorporated two egg-influenced letter "g"s and thus was born one of the most successful product launches in history.

I suppose I can't though, can I? I mean, Leggs is still a company and Herb was a real dude. I don't know why the mundane and forgotten fascinates me so much, but it does. Perhaps this could be my play (finally) about women who commute in white sneakers and then change into heels. (Another one of my obsessions.) I wonder what percentage of these women own cats and, further, how many of these women have tasted cat food in a private, lonely moment.

Holla, Cathy!

P.S. I still think it would be a really good idea to blow up black and white Cathy comics, frame them, and your decorating scheme be "Cathy".

TWO PLAYS THAT WEREN'T AWFUL AND ONE THAT WON'T BE.

WARNING: I realize this post is a little disingenuous. It starts by linking to a theater review I wrote and ends with me writing about how much I dislike certain critics' opinions. One. When i decided to become a critic I made a promise to myself to only review shows with PR materials suggesting that it is a show with an aesthetic I'm actually qualified to review. For instance, I'm well versed in late night theater, camp, cabaret, satire, dark comedy etc. I wouldn't review a dance theater show because I don't have the vocabulary for it. This is not to say I wouldn't see a dance theater show, by the way. I just wouldn't review it. NYTheater allows me to choose the shows I cover, which is the only reason I do it at all. Two. I have been in the position of having critics write things about my work that were dead wrong. I know that sounds cocky, and I can only qualify it by saying that usually criticism is totally useful and fair. Except when it's not. Sometimes a person just has shitty taste. So this post is about my relationship to/terrible fear of critics as well as my mixed feelings about being one.

I saw two shows this weekend, and neither of them sucked. Hooray! The first was Art's Heart, an adorable solo show written an performed by Anthony Johnston, which I was reviewing for NYTheatre. You can read the review there. All i will say here is that I have a major crush on Anthony. Plus, he speaks French so he'll feel right at home on a moped  after we've  gotten gay married and move to Paris. Just look at him:

 

Enough said.

Immediately following I saw Half Straddle's Family at the Ontological. I kind of knew the playwright, Kristina Satter, through mutual friends and I had two close friends performing in the show. Holy cow, I loved this play. I'd like to think of Kristina Satter as my experimental cousin. Our packaging isn't the same, but we have a lot of similar interests. I'll quote this synopsis from Heather J. Violanti's review at NYTheatre:

Family tells a strange story that somehow transforms itself into an allegory of American life. It centers on Lily, a would-be ballerina who must give up her dance dreams when her Mum orders her to be impregnated with Rudolf Nureyev's sperm. Meanwhile, Lily's post-modern Mean Girl of a baby sister, Frarajaca, has to drill her friends in their dance routine for the big art fair competition while Rolf, Mum's creepy friend, gets a little too close for comfort. It's deliberately, utterly fantastical—and yet, whether pointlessly chopping up zucchini or flailing about the stage in tulle and sequins, these characters argue, cajole, and live convincingly as a family. A family that happens to have its own DJ onstage at all times (composer/choreographer Chris Giarmo doubles with deadpan stare as the DJ and dogsbody, Sharky).

Holy. Hilarious.

It's so rare that experimental theater is this engaging. Too often it's just a wall of art that I keep banging my head against without ever gaining access to it. Family has a lot of crazy language and non-sequeters, but it was also remarkably funny, unpretentious, and surprisingly touching. I forgot how much I could like experimental theater when it's not boring or retarded. I plan to see all of Satter's plays going forward and so should you. 

This is as good a time as any to tell you to come see my new play, MilkMilkLemonade, which opens on September 10th and UNDER St. Mark's. Rehearsals have been going really well and I'm in love with my director, Isaac Butler. God, he's smart. Also, my cast is incredible. Andy Phelan, Jess Barbagallo, Jennifer Harder, Nikole Beckwith, and Michael Cyril Creighton have been a dream to work with on this show, and have been instrumental in its development. This play is a lot less "play-ish" then my other work. The actors had a large hand in the finished result.

I'm terrified of this show. It deals a lot in dark themes like suffering, cruelty, uselessness, sickness, aging, the body's limitations, exploitation... and it's a comedy!I hope that people see at its core that it's actually quite a tender little play. Under all the ickiness, I mean.

I get criticized for my work being hateful or abusive, which hurts my feelings a little. I suppose because that's never my intention. All I can say is that it's hard to write comedies about loneliness and cruelty and futility. I don't propose to have this figured out.

I'd also like to suggest that anybody who thinks MilkMilkLemonade is too mean never grew up gay in rural America, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, listen to me... I'm already bracing myself for a lashing by certain critics, even though I'm insanely proud of the piece. That's so fucked up. It just seems like some critics only like a certain type of work and mine certainly does not fit into that. I wish they didn't have so much power. Some of them have really bad taste.

MY MOM HATES ME.

I was sitting in on a rehearsal for my new play, MilkMilkLemonade (opening September 10th at UNDER St. Mark's!) when I received an  e-mail from my mother. To give you some context, my mother begins every conversation, be it by phone or e-mail or otherwise, as if you've been discussing the subject at length. It's pretty normal for her to start a conversation with "you know what I think its weird about that?" or an "I know!" without any giving any clues to what she's referring. For further context, this is a woman who measures people's auras with a metal coat hanger and maintains that she and her high school best friend, Suzy, keep in contact via ESP. She also has a black belt and practices nunchucks in the backyard. In short, she's amazingly awesome and hilarious, albeit by pure accident. Like Charles Ludlam said, "straight people don't understand camp because everything they do is camp." If you were going to satirize baby boomers (and you absolutely should) you could easily use her as a case study. As flaky as she is, she's also notoriously unsentimental. When I asked her once why there were hardly any baby pictures of me she shrugged and said, "you were our last baby." Also, during Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour (I was obsessed with madonna as a little boy as any gayling should be) my mother said, "Oh that. I was going to get you tickets but then I didn't."

Anywhoodle. I shouldn't have been surprised, I was a little hurt to get this email. The sting wore off in a few minutes and I just had to appreciate it for how hilariously "mom" it is. I've added my own notes in red for emphasis.

"Subject: the last box we're keeping for you. (What was the first box? Or the second box? Where are these alleged boxes?)

Following is what is in this box. Please let me know if there is anything here that you don't want shipped to you.

Contents of your last box:

·        Fur stole (Ha ha! Theater fag!)

·        Shoe box labeled “North Kitsap High School – 1996-1997”

·        Truancy report from February & March, 1998

·        A map of San Francisco

·        Graduation stole

·        A Pictorial Guide to the Tarot (My weird obsession of the occult goes back a long, long way.)

·        Who’s Who Among American High School Students, 1996/1997

·        A Butt Trumpet poster (My first concert. A now sadly forgotten grunge band.)

·        Several phonograph albums

·        A note you wrote Dad as a kid (Jesus, mom! Really? You don't want to keep that?)

·        A Christmas card from Dad

·        School pictures (See my last comment. Sorry all those photos of me are taking up space in your new home gym or crafts room or whatever.)

·        A Clear Creek Elementary concert program

·        A D.A.R.E. notebook (Must get back, actually.)

·        A Vans shoe box of unknown contents

·        A graduation cap

·        Clue mystery puzzle

·        "Life in a Mining Town" report you wrote (This is a paper about my family history, by the way. Guess mom isn't interested.)

·        Wine glass candles from the 1997 and 1998 proms

·        A Dick Tracy t-shirt

·        A gremlin doll

·        Shoe boxes from 8^th and 9^th grades

·        A Launch Cd of the Dave Matthews Band (Let it be known that I've never liked Dave Matthews. This must be my brother, Danny's.)

·        Your frog necklace from camp

·        Portable tv

·        Laptop

·        Faux bear rug (!)

·        NK prom prince plaque (I was the Juior Prom King. Believe it!)

·        Original Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

·        Watch that Dad got you in the Gulf

·        Motorola wireless phone

·        Brites camera

·        Soccer trophy

·        Catch 22

·        Candide

·        The Breathitt Funeral Home pouch and contents from my mom’s funeral (WTF!)

 

Hope everything is going well - Love you.

Mom"

What in the hell? What kind of magical, bottomless box is this, anyway? I love how it ends. Hope everything is going well! Love you! Well, everything is not going well, mom. You are throwing away my childhood.

BONE WATER.

 

Bone water sounds like bong water.

Bone water? No.

PLAY NICE.

You know what's a bummer about this? I'll bet the blogger is an assistant somewhere or somebody within the service industry that Cohen was nasty to.

I briefly worked at a spa on the Upper East Side when I was in my early twenties. I speak from experience when I tell that the wealthy women of Manhattan are awful. Yes, all of them. I wanted to make tee shirts about our clients so badly and wear them around Manhattan.

Patricia Grosz is gross.

Deborah Lipschiz is the dark half.

Connie Cohen is a cunt.

And so on. I should mention that these are fake names, by the way, so don't sue me or anything. I don't know the model in question, so it may be that she's a perfectly lovely woman both inside and out. My instinct though tells me that bloggers don't lash out at people at random.

Words to the wise: if you don't want anonymous bloggers calling you "psychotic" or a "ho" then don't be a psychotic ho.

 

(I use this image of Lila Fowler of Sweet Valley High whenever I need an image of a rich bitch. It just works.)

ELLI ET JACNO.

To no one's surprise I've become obsessed with a French new wave duo called Elli et Jacno. From Wikipedia:

"Denis Quillard alias Jacno and Elli Medeiros decided to start a music duo after leaving the punk band The Stinky Toys. Jacno composed and performed the music and Elli sang and wrote the lyrics. They released three albums together before splitting up and beginning solo careers."

That's pretty much it. I haven't been able to find any of their albums, really. It's so unfair! I love Elli's vocals, the wimpy sound (I love wimpy drums and synth), and Jacno is total masturbation material.

Plus, it's French! I love Paris more than I love almost anything and constantly dream that I''ll one day live there and ride around on a moped. America gives me hives and is full of fatsos and birthers and stuff.

Look at this awesome video:

Or this one:

Basically, I just want my whole life to be like this scene from Les Nuits de la Pleine Lune, an 80's movie that Elli et Jacno did the soundtrack for:

I wanna be at that dance party! I WANT THAT TO BE MY LIFE!