Tarhearted.

OVER, UNDER, THROUGH.

I read Tina Fey's delightful little book Bossypants and I can't stop thinking about the career advice she gives, advice she gleaned from this old school Sesame Street clip:

 

Over, under and through.

They don't play the clip anymore- I guess because it's a bad idea to encourage children to play in a construction site? But the career advice feels fresh.

Fey is talking about gatekeepers and, in her case, sexism in the workplace. If you have a boss who is mysoginistic, don't waste your time trying to change them. You can't. Instead, focus your energy on someone above them, below them, or find an alternate route to the other side of said gate.

I think the same thing can be said for writers. Being a young writer can be frustrating, because you're consistently at the mercy of other people's taste and the folks running the show and the young playwright often have very little in common. Different ages, classes, sometimes different races and certainly a different taste. It's a baby boomer's theater, so what's a young playwright to do? Over, under, through.

 

THE SHAGGS, CRITICS, AND TASTE.

I saw The Shaggs at Playwrights Horizons, a new musical about a band that I've been obsessed with since I was a teenager. For the uninitiated, The Shaggs were three teen sisters in New Hampshire whose father pulled them out of school and forced them to start a band, squandering the family's savings in the process. The band never went anywhere and was relegated to obscurity until the early 80's when radio djs began to play the record as a joke.

It's a really sad story, and it made me glad that these girls didn't record their album in the world of today, with youtube and social networking everywhere. In that regard, they were spared.

But not everybody laughed at The Shaggs. Frank Zappa really loved them. So did famed music critic Lester Bangs. And so do I. And no, not ironically. Sure, they weren't the best songwriters or musicians but, then again, neither were The Ramones. The Shaggs managed to capture the innocence and sadness and anger and mystery of being a teenage girl all at once, and watching the play made me think of The Virgin Suicides and how that novel felt to read. This felt similar. There is something special and weird and wonderful about their music, but also something mysterious and dark too.

I was disappointed to read Isherwood's review in The New York Times. Not because he didn't like the play per se, but because of his glib dismissal of The Shaggs themselves. EDIT: I just read The wall Street Journal review, which is entitled"How Do You Create A Musical About A Terrible Band?" Sigh. I know I'm being sensitive, but The Shaggs mean something to a lot of people, myself included. It made me think about taste.

When I was thirteen I was obsessed with The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Like, really, really obsessed. it had just been played on television for the first time in history for its 20th anniversary, so a lot of kids my age were seeing it for the first time. And, mostly, the kids at school didn't like it. It was gay and weird and cheap (all the things that make it great) and the dumb kids at school just didn't get it. It hurt my feelings, but then it also became a barometer for me. A litmus test. I was simply unable to respect somebody's taste if they didn't like it. That, to me, was 101 shit.

When I was single I couldn't date anybody who didn't like rock and roll music. Why? Because it's just too important to me. Music and movies and plays and art are the most important things in the world to me (after friends and family.) I'm reminded of a quote from High Fidelity: "I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like... Books, records, films -- these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the f****n' truth." It struck me, reading Isherwood's review, how protective I am of these offbeat little things I love.

I remember seeing a play in the marathon at Ensemble Studio Theatre a few years ago and loving it so much that it's basically my favorite short play I've ever seen. I re-read the script all the time when I need a pick-me-up. I was shocked to discover later that this particular play upset people so much they complained or even walked out and I still fight people about it to this very day. (Later it really hurt my feelings when a few people acted the same away around my play, The Sluts of Sutton Drive. Hell, it was probably the same audience members.)

On the flipside, there have so many things that are universally loved that I just detested. How could anybody sit through Forest Gump? Who on earth would be seen in a Juicy Couture tracksuit? I'm constantly frustrated by other people's "common" taste. And you know what? That makes me an asshole.

This is a lesson I've learned over and over and over in life, but it never quite sticks. To quote my granny, "It takes all kinds." Not everybody can like The Shaggs or Rocky Horror or punk rock or the plays I write. Sure it'd be nice if they did, but they won't.

I don't want to call out Isherwood. I almost never agree with the Times, as their taste, to me, always seems a little stuffy and unadventurous. I don't want to argue the merits of this particular musical, either. I enjoyed it and found it moving, but who cares what I think?

All I want to say is this: let's be our own taste makers, yes? Let's all protect what's precious to us, advocate for the art we love, and follow our own taste. It's really the only way to find a gem.

BUYING LOCALLY WITH FARM FRESH GIRL.

This maker and star of this short film was my best friend in college. She was my first muse and I wrote all of my earliest plays for her. We are kindred spirits. Nasty, messed up kindred spirits. God, I wish we lived in the same city.

NSFW. Fuck, this ain't even safe for LIFE.

Tarhearted proudly presents, Farm Fresh Girl.

 

Check out the rest of the site, CLIIT, which spoofs third wave femism and lazy progressives in amazing ways.

CLIIT.

GAY DISCO.

I absolutely cannot wait for Hercules and Love Affair's new album. "Blind" was the best song from 2008 without a doubt* (Pitchfork agrees with me.) OMG has a great interview with Andy Butler, the genius behind Hercules, and it's got me all kinds of excited.

If you don't know Hercules and Love Affair, you should. It's really just Butler, who is the producer/dj, and whomever he gets to sing with him. On "Blind", for instance, the singer is Antony from Antony & The Johnsons, securing the track's place as a new gay classic.

I'm not usually into dance music- my background is in punk rock. But there are exceptions. I love disco, for instance. Especially really highbrow Euro disco like Cerrone and Amanda Lear. But mostly I love acts that inject art into their dance music. I like acts that embrace the past without recreating it and simultaneously look toward the future. I'd put Goldfrapp in this category. I also loved Sally Shapiro's record when it came out and have been waiting for something new. (The most downbeat, depressing dance music ever! That's my sound!)

I recently heard a scholarly discussion about disco somewhere. I can't remember where it was. Maybe in a documentary? It was about the vehement hatred of disco in the seventies and how that was less of a reaction to the actual music than it was a reaction to gays, especially black and Hispanic gays, gaining power. It was a rejection of race mixing, of fluid sexuality and gender representation, that the disco scene embraced.

Anyway, all of this is offtrack. I really wanted to post about Andy Butler, because LOOK AT THIS PICTURE!

HUMINA-HUMINA-HUMINA-WHA!

This could have been taken right from Randy Blue's website. Now I'm going to look for his photo spread in old issues of Butt Magazine. I just KNOW he had one. How could he not?

*It's kind of a tie for me. I was also super crazy for Santogold's "L.E.S. Artistes" in 2008. Where is Santogold, anyway?

TATTOOS.

I'm getting this picture of my mom tattooed on my arm.

It's going inside a heart and will match the aesthetic of my sailor tattoo. My friend Jen (of Venture Bros. fame) is going to draw it. Yay! I'm so excited.

AN ADDENDUM.

I'm also grateful for the amazing Married to the Sea.

MARY WORONOV INTERVIEW.

Swoon.

This interview only cements Mary Woronov's place as one of my favorite people of all time. It's also nice to see somebody else who feels the same way I do about acting.

Read it.

"Bouncy Bouncy?" Hilarious.

Also, she's not kidding. She is a really good painter:

AESTHETIC CANDY: SOMETHING PRETTY, SOMETHING PRACTICAL.

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.