Wednesday, December 19, 2007

jump down, turn around

Full day yesterday. Met up with the lovely Vallejo Gantner, he of PS 122, ostensibly to pitch him on The Event, a one-man thing I wrote for Matt Oberg. As always happens when I talk with V, we end up just laughing about silly shit. A deeply funny man. He's got dates in February, too soon for us to do anything, but he bought my coffee and a chocolate croissant too, so I look at the meeting as a clear gain for me.

Have to get up to 52nd and 7th to have lunch with Dave Weems, my new writing partner and old boyhood friend. I'm coming from 9th street and 1st avenue and its high noon, so I'm fully fucked. Jump in a cab, 15 bucks later I'm still eight blocks away and twenty minutes late. Jump out, run through the madding crowd, Weems is waiting at the bar. We tell each other how much money we're going to make writing screenplays for Al Pacino and Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick, eat stew, hug and I'm off.

CJ calls from Berlin, we talk about his new play America the Beautiful. We're probably taking it to Edinburgh this year, we both get the wild idea of rehearsing in Germany, dirt cheap there and maybe we can get a local theater involved. Hmmm...

Meet up with Jon Stancato of Stolen Chair, end-of-the-year catch-up thing. Stolen Chair have been clients for awhile, we're actually on retainer for them, how cool is that? Like we're lawyers or a goon squad or something. They are, frankly, rocking of late, got a NYSCA grant for two years, planning their latest unholy hybrid, working title is The Tragic Swashbuckler, an Errol Flynn movie as penned by Sophocles. Love how their minds work.

Then out to the wilds of Brooklyn to The Brick for a reading of Julia Lee Barclay's latest, Besides, you Lose your Soul, A History of Western Civilization. Julia's in town from London and the evening is hard to distinguish from some sort of feverdream. Everyone from the old Theatorium days is there: Elena, Fred Backus, Maggie Cino, Robin Reed, Danny O'Brien, Chris Campbell, the Dentons, the Piper McKenzie crew, Julia, etc. The Brick feels like a scaled-down Theatorium, in a way, and I keep flashing back to the old days, losing the train of meaning of the script, which is easy to do even if you're paying full attention because it's a Julia thing and you better not be looking for narrative.

Goddamn. Just typing all that wore me out. Thank god for the meth or I'd never get through these days.

Last League meeting of the year this afternoon. Things finally winding down. I'm about ready for my nog and a good book.

3 comments:

CJ Hopkins said...

Dear Mr. United States,

Correction: Berlin is cheap. Germany is expensive. And just because Berlin is cheap, that doesn't mean every alienated American artist and his brother should move here. It's dark. Very dark. And cold. Everyone speaks German. There are big, mean dogs.

John said...

Berlin is cheap. Got it.

Bunch of big, mean German dogs barking at me in German don't scare me, chief. Not even in the cold and dark.

Well, in the cold and dark that could get scary.

But cheap, you say? I'm calling up my brother and we're heading over. May need a couch to crash on for a couple of weeks.

Cool?

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