Tarhearted.

REALLY? I HATE THE HAMPTONS.

I stumbled across this pearl while walking down Greenwich Street on my lunch break today. I think it might be among my favorite pieces of graffiti art I've seen.

CRY BABY.

EDIT: I wrote this and then read and was all, "god, shut the fuck up you insufferable asshole!" I was about to delete it when I thought perhaps other playwrights might feel similarly conflicted/self-hate-y from time to time and take comfort in the stupidity of this post:

This post is kind of on the serious and very theater-centric so feel free to skip it in favor of something more fun, like the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Board Game (which arrived... with no rulebook!)

My play, Up With (Some) People, competed in the finals of the 34th Annual Samuel French Festival yesterday against twelve other short plays. Basically, Samuel french publishes an anthology of six short plays every year and they decide the six by holding a play festival. This year they received seven-hundred and eighteen submissions and mine made it all the way to the finals at Playwrights Horizons. And then didn't win.

After the show the writers and actors and directors, along with their loved ones, gather at a bar down the street to await the announcement over a champagne toast. I think I took it pretty graciously, but yowza was that one of the more painful moments in my playwriting career.

Don't get me wrong. My play was awesome. I had an amazing director and amazing actors, and I'm so proud of us for getting that far out of hundreds and hundreds of plays. The competition was fierce, to say the least.

But I can't help feeling like I almost make it a lot. That my life is marked by almost. It's a really frustrating feeling. I'm okay with not winning Samuel French. Like I said, the competition was fierce and all of the plays were really, really good. All six of them totally deserved to win.

But it did make me think of my writing in a larger sense. I mean, in terms of the theater and my place in it as a career playwright. By that of course I mean that I don't have a career. I don't make my living doing this. Almost none of us do. It seems like the way that things are set up now you have to have a lot of advantages in order to ever get somewhere that resembles a "career" in playwriting. Like money. Or an ivy league MFA. And even then it's not a guarantee. Furthermore, many of those that do have a so-called career make less than half of what other people make at their office job.

So why do I keep pounding my head against a wall, trying to force myself into a world that doesn't want me? The "legitimate theater" doesn't really seem to want plays like mine, so why do I keep trying? I mean, maybe I should shift my expectations. What's wrong with just making plays for my friends? For my community of freaks and homos and downtown lovelies? Those are the people who made me a good writer to begin with, and still the people I'm writing for when I think about it. So I think I'm going to focus on them for a while and nurse my tender tar heart back to health.

UPDATE: It took me less than twenty-four hours to get my tar heart back.

Game. Fucking. On.

 

I HEART SMUT.

I just bought 16 sleazy paperbacks from the 50's and 60's to begin working on my next project: to weave some of the stories together for a late night theater sex comedy soap opera. It may be a pipe dream, but these books will be fun to read nonetheless.

I Wanna Destroy You is having a staged reading next week.

MilkMilkLemonade is getting its first full-production in the Fall.

Up With (Some) People in the Samuel French Festival.

Save Yourself for You in the EstroGenius Festival.

Everything is coming up Conkel at the moment! Let's see how long that lasts.

I'm trying to get some gay pulp titles but they're SO expensive on Ebay. I lost every bid I went in on. I can't justify spending over fifty bucks on vintage porn lit right now. Apparently the gays are way more into their sexy literary history than the straights.

I managed two get two readily available gay titles: Song of the Loon and Lord Dismiss Us, respectively. I'd love to know about any smut resources I may have missed.

THE WICKER MAN, THE SENTINEL, AND THE GLAMOROUS OCCULT.

I've been meaning to write about two wonderful movies I saw recently. These are both movies I had absolutely no excuse for not having seen before. The first of the two, The Wicker Man (the original, not that Nick Cage shit), I've wanted to see for years and just got around to. The second film, The Sentinel, I'd literally never heard of despite my well-documented affection for glamorous Satanism (See: Rosemary's Baby).

The Wicker Man (1973) concerns a police detective who travels to an island off the coast of Scotland to search for a missing girl. He soon learns the island has abandoned Christianity for a pagan earth-centered rituals and comes to suspect that the girl is alive and being prepared for ritual sacrifice. In reality, the truth is much more sinister.

This movie, although having some genuinely creepy moments, is awesomely Renaissance Fairish and had the boyfriend and I using the descriptor "bonny" for days, as in the Olde English "bonny", meaning nice or good. As in the theme song of this film is called "Cornrigs are Bonny."

We both found the movie hilarious. It has GOT to be masturbation material for more than one larper and/or Wiccan (the religion that snubs fashion), as well it should be. It totally makes me wish I was a sorcerer. Also, it contains crazy musical numbers. Check out some highlights. There are also two, yes two, naked slut dance routines, one of which uses wood paneling as a percussion instrument.

God, I love the occult.

Speaking of, The Sentinel (1977) is also awesome and has found a home in my personal cannon of glamorous New York occultists movies (see again: Rosemary's Baby). A fashion model moves into a house inhabited (on the top floor) by a blind priest. She begins having strange physical problems, has trouble sleeping at night, and has some nasty flashbacks of her attempted suicide. She complains to the real estate agent of the noise caused by her strange neighbors, but finds out that the house is only occupied by the priest and herself, and ultimately discovers that she has been put in the house for a reason.

One of the highlights is a young Beverly D' Angelo playing a lesbian ballerina ghost who masturbates on camera. So chic! I have to take away point though for the films use of burn victims and the deformed as extras meant to be denizens of hell. I don't know why exactly, but it really bugged me.

Incidentally the film takes place in Brooklyn Heights, where the boyfriend works. I had him walk by the address the movie gives to make sure it was actually filmed here. Tada! Photographic evidence:

If this building is really the gat to hell, then I'm happy to call it home.

I'M EVERY WOMAN.

This is just more proof that I am channeling Cathy of the hilarious cartoon, Cathy, but is anybody else loving Nora Roberts month on Lifetime? I won't lie: I like cute dudes with no shirts on. Yes, even when they're saying stupid shit near Brittany Murphy. To quote my favorite Heather, these movies will "provide shower nozzle masturbation material for weeks."

I can't wait to put on my snuggie, have a glass of white wine, and watch Midnight Bayou.

 
  
 

PETS OR MEAT.

I know a lot of people find the artist Banksy a little insufferable, and I kind of get why. His pieces sell for a trillion dollars each, which sort of goes against who he is (whomever he is) and it seems like it would be more difficult than it is for somebody who remains anonymous to appear smug.

That said, I really like Banksy's work. I especially like his new installment that quietly opened a few weeks ago on 7th Avenue and that at first glance appears to be a pet shop. Upon entering however we see that things are not quite what they seem.

By using animatronics for the first time in his work, Banksy treats us to chicken nuggets with legs that sip from barbecue sauce, a rabbit wearing lipstick busily filing her nails, and living hot dogs and sausages that slither around tanks like reptiles. IT'S. FUCKING. AWESOME.

Not so awesome was the mini-tanaholic from the Upper East Side I overheard talking to one of the gallerists.

TINY BITCH: What is this place?

WORKER: It's a gallery.

TINY BITCH: But for what?

WORKER: Art.

TINY BITCH: But there's no art here. It's just, like, stuff.

UGH. You could tell her whole family was stupid.