rear view mirror

Gray day outside, a pot of coffee inside of me and a stack of work on the desk staring me down.

Monday after a long holiday weekend, time to get behind the mule and get it done.

I'm thinking back this morning, for some reason. A decade ago, when no one had ever heard of Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama or Sarah Palin. When the towers still stood and Afghanistan was never in the news.

A crazy ten years, but we're all still here.

What will ten more bring?

Thirty three years ago on Thanksgiving Day, The Band performed their Last Waltz and so our MMMQ asks:

Who didn't climb onstage with the boys that night?

1. Van Morrison

2. George Harrison

3. Neil Diamond

or

4. Muddy Waters

Losers have to carry the weight, winners shall be released.

thanks be

to Gob for all good things.

Shutting down the Museum early for the holidays.

Enjoy, all.

a special place

in hell awaits these scumbags:

The United Homeless Organization, supposedly a nonprofit group set up to help feed and house the homeless, was actually an elaborate fraud.

According to a complaint filed by Mr. Cuomo on Tuesday morning, U.H.O. does not operate a single shelter, soup kitchen or food pantry. It does not provide food or clothing to the homeless. It does not even donate money to other charities that do.

Most of those coins and bills, Mr. Cuomo contended, end up in the pockets of the group’s founder and president, Stephen Riley, and its director, Myra Walker. The rest was kept by those working the donation tables, who paid a daily fee to Mr. Riley and Ms. Walker for the right to use the U.H.O. tables, jugs and aprons.
Nicholas Confessore, writing in the New York Times

Truly world-class scumbaggery.

Had a touch of the 24 hour Death Suck yesterday, kept me in bed most of the day. Sleep, tomato soup and the love of a good woman have restored me. Next week's MMMQ will be twice as tricky, promise.

get up and go

Mark Lawson has a piece in the Guardian about the ethics of walking out of a show in mid-performance.

I've never understood this problem.

Here's what you do:

Whisper "excuse me" to the person next to you, hit the aisle and fucking leave.

It's your time, your life, your night.

And if you're hating the thing, your presence is actually making it worse, you're not helping anyone by sitting there sleeping or fuming.

Get out of there. If the actors can't handle it, they shouldn't be up there. Stage acting is art in a shared public space in real time and the audience is not obligated to sit there and quietly suffer.

Get up and fucking go, folks.

gustav says

One must be quiet and borgeoise in one's life so that one can be violent and original in one's art.

Flaubert

Some days that hits me right in my comfortable home.

Borgeoise?

Bourgiose?

Something wrong there.

The Quiz Twins are back, both winners. Ann for being right and Rose for being Rose.

kudos all around

Saw The Last Days of Dr. Jekyll over the weekend and it blew my tiny mind. An audience of about forty stands in the middle of the room, scaffolding and platforms against all four walls, actors running through the crowd, the ensemble whispering and morphing through the whole thing. Didn't feel like a play, much more intimate and dangerous, more like an immersion into someone else's dream.

Great work from Peter Clerke, Melanie Stewart and the entire cast and design team. They made my words sing.

And I saw this morning that my old friend Scott Organ has a play at the Humana Festival, something called Phoenix. Scott is a great actor and a wonderful writer, good to see him getting some Louisville love.

Here's an easy MMMQ, since we're all feeling good at the Museum.

According to noted cultural historian Iggy Pop, Raw Power had a baby and they called it:

1. Rock 'n Roll

2. Raw Power, Jr.

3. Thelonius

or

4. Jim Osterberg

another opening

The Last Days of Dr. Jekyll opens tonight down at Rowan. Spitfire and I will wing our way down there this afternoon.

Got a good feeling that this one will rock.

On the road tomorrow, so happy weekend all.

something to look forward to

Word is that American Idiot is coming to town.

Now who's got the balls to say yes to Yeast Nation?

Ann is back and correctly answers the MMMQ. Sinead O'Connor blows the roof off with her rendition of Mother.

How about The Wall on Broadway? Didn't somebody try that once? And if not, why not?

beautiful day

Seriously gorgeous autumn day out there. Hard to sit at the desk, but I know that the future of the American theater depends on it, so I toil on.

Great Get LIT event tonight at the Kraine, see previous post and see you there tonight.

Was listening to Roger Waters' "The Wall" live album over the weekend, for obvious reasons. Hadn't heard it in a while, truly brilliant stuff and fine fodder for a MMMQ.

Who sings the holy hell out of "Mother"?

1. Van Morrison

2. Sinead O'Connor

3. Marianne Faithfull

4. Joni Mitchell

Winners get liberation, losers live under a totalitarian system for forty years.

High stakes this week.

Get LIT

This should be fun:

From Indie to Broadway: Does it change your work?

Join us for a great conversation with Urinetown's Greg Kotis and Blithe Spirit's Susan Louise O'Connor. Our fellow indie theater artists share their experiences in indie theater, Broadway and more at the next Get Lit with LIT event.

Great people, great conversation, and great beer!

Monday November 9
7-9pm
Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street

FREE TO ALL LIT MEMBERS!

No takers on the MMMQ, so I'll take the answer to my grave, never revealing that ?'s real name was Rudy Martinez.

Whoops.

stumble-through

Saw a very strong stumble-through of The Last Days of Jekyll and Hyde down at Rowan University Friday night. No sets, props or costumes and people still reaching for lines, but the thing held together very well. Huge kudos to Peter Clerke, the director and Melanie Stewart, choreographer. And the actors, of course.

We might just have ourselves a show.

Our MMMQ comes courtesy of the I-Pod shuffle. Great thing about the shuffle is you hear things you forget you even had, and in this case I was reminded I have the Cameo-Parkway recordings of ? and the Mysterians, hiding right there in plain sight, ready to rock and juke and shiver at will.

? never gave his name and claimed a Martian past. I believe everyone has the right to be who they want to be, but more earth-bound folk would tell you that ? was born:

1. Larry Borjas

2. Rudy Martinez

3. Joe "King" Carrasco

4. Freddie Rodriguez

Now back to the shuffle.