Invisible forest

I shot a film earlier this year called "The Invisible Forest". The film is almost done, and the director has a nice trailer up here. The trailer gives a really good sense of the film, and the sharp eyed will see that Gary Dailey (The Fear Project: Pinch) and Juliet Tanner (from Crowded Fire) are also in the cast.

I saw a pre-pre screening of the film on Christmas Eve. I quite liked it, and the few issues I did have I told Antero about, and it seems that two of my concerns had been voiced elsewhere and will result in some minor (but significant) adjustments to the final copy. It's a very meditative, visual film. It's very beautiful. I'm looking forward to hearing what others think of it, because I'm entirely too close to it to have any objective sense of how it works. It's more like a painting than anything else. I have so many memories attached to almost every shot that it's hard for me to decontextualize the film. So, if you see it, please let me know your thoughts.

Christmas day I spent at Dave and Kate Austin-Groen's place. I visited my aunt in the morning, then headed over to their place for a mind-bogglingly delicious dinner and a long afternoon and early evening of conversation and games. I like my holidays stress free, and this fit the bill perfectly.

Brian Schirmer got me a t-shirt that says "I'm big in Japan", which is an ongoing joke at Radiostar, due to our unusually high download stats from that country. Dave and Kate got me another t-shirt that says "I want to direct". I wasn't expecting any gift exchange at all, but my embarrassment quickly gave way to delight at the shirts.

Today, I work from home and discover how cold it is in my apartment. I wish I had direct control over my steam radiator...

get this...

It's just become sickly funny.

I had two more actors drop out of the show last night. Boom.

We have five rehearsals left.

The reasons why aren't important, although I understand why one of them needed to leave. The other, well he clearly wasn't invested in the show once he realized how small it was, so I halfway think he just took the first excuse he had. That sounds bitter, but it's not. Others in the cast had noticed it too, so I don't feel like I'm projecting.

Regardless, as of 6:20pm last night, I was down two actors. I was able to fill one role within ten minutes. I called Paul Jennings, who had originally turned down the role for schedule reasons that no longer apply at this stage in the game and he is on board and will be off book by his first rehearsal. This is good, since he only gets four rehearsals before we open.

The other actor was playing two roles. A bit harder to fill. The call has gone out, and the call appears to be spreading rapidly. The community is rallying for us, and I deeply appreciate it. My remaining cast has been in a bit of shock, but are pulling together regardless.

Various ideas have been floated of what to do if we can't get this last actor. One was to do a "concert version" of the show, which would work but is not my first option. Another idea was to turn one character, who isn't a person so much as a psychotic hallucination of a person, into a puppet. This will cost us some choreography, but it fits perfectly into the logic of the show and would be hilarious. I don't know if we'll do that, but I bought the puppet a few minutes ago so it will be here if we need it. That will make the casting a little more loose, since we don't need someone who can act, sing and dance. Just act and dance.

I should be completely freaked out by now, but I'm not. All I can do is what I am doing. The show will go on, one way or another.

The show always goes on, dammit.

break

My new duties in my day job involve lots of Flash, Photoshop and Powerpoint/Breeze work. As a result, after doing tech work professionally for 12 years, I am just now starting to experience a bit of discomfort using a mouse. So, I'm taking a break and doing a little typing instead.

The show is going well, and it feels so nice to say that. It's hit a point where rehearsals are fun, and my stress over the show is back to what I would think it should be. Of course, the stress level I expect is very high, but at least I no longer have questions as to whether or not the show will HAPPEN.

There are moments of relaxation, however. Dave and Kate Austin-Groen restarted their annual book party, which was on Saturday. Last year didn't happen due to birthing issues, and I had missed the previous two years due to show commitments. This was, therefore, a real treat. I gave a book about the schools of philosophy as expressed through the Simpsons, which went to a computer programmer who I believe will actually read and appreciate it. Lucky break that. I got a book called "A Humument" from Martha Soukup, which is a victorian novel which has had each of its pages painted over, revealing individual words and phrases that offer up observations about love in the midst of a refrigerator magnet type narrative. It's strange and beautiful, and I am looking forward to slowly savoring it. In addition to the books, lots of wonderful people were there, including Dylan Russell, Arwen Anderson, Brian Schirmer, and Kevin Montegrande.

Later that night I went with a new friend to go see Crisis Hopkins playing at the Climate Theatre. I haven't seen much theatre in the last month, and it's been even longer since I saw any improv. Julie Potter has stepped down from active membership, it seems, but the quartet has filled out with Lily Harvey, who I've always been a fan of. I laughed hard enough to bring tears down my face, so I consider it a good evening. I didn't hang out for long after the show, however, as I have been feeling the exhaustion rather more than usual.

The easy reason for this would be "age", but that's not the real reason. I'm sure that my temporal location as a man in his late 30's is having an impact, but the fact is that I don't get home until almost 11pm every night, and got home much later for much of last week, and when I get home I can't just fall right asleep. I should probably read, as it might send me to sleep earlier, but instead I've been picking up the XBox 360 controller and playing an hour of whatever is in the tray before slamming my head against the pillow.

As a result, I am tired all the time.

I know that I should just fall asleep when I get home, but part of me is unwilling to release that little time to play and let my mind disengage from everything that is going on. I wish I could figure out a way to have that disengagement without it resulting in so much fatigue, but with Christmas coming up next week, and New Year's after that, I'll have a few chances to chill out and catch back up on my sleep. Once I hit January, my weeknights will be completely open... at least for a while.

Honey, have you seen the cat?

Heather McCulley found this one.

So, South Korea has cloned cats with modified genes. Why modified genes? They say that it is a step towards being able to clone animals that suffer the same diseases that humans do, so that more precise research can be done in finding cures for human illnesses. Let's lay aside the ethics of creating animals for the express purpose of suffering for a moment, although you may guess at my stance based on the phrasing of this sentence. Why would the first thing they clone be glow in the dark cats?

I see a new pet market forming.

I am a dream

Antero has posted a little clip from The Invisible Forest, the film I died my head white for this summer. The final product should be done in January, but this is a neat preview.

Also, fun for anyone who wants to see what I look like as a crazy, white haired old wizard.

ew

In my apartment building, near the mailboxes, there is a small table. People can leave things there for the other tenants, and sometimes UPS puts boxes there for people who aren't home. It's a very useful table. I leave postcards for my shows there, as do some of the other theatre people who live here. I've seen books, New Yorkers, knick knacks and odds and ends left on that little table for anyone who wants them.

This morning there were six individually wrapped twinkies.

I thought that was rather odd, but was not tempted by the synthetic sweets. I used to like Twinkies when I was a kid. Hell, I was practically raised on Hostess snacks. Still, whenver I've succumbed to the nostalgic urge for a HoHo or a Hostess Cupcake, I've felt let down. My tastes are changing, and it really does taste pretty awful.

When I came home tonight, there were three Twinkies sitting there in their individual wrappers.

I've been wondering about it for a while now. Who picks up Twinkies left on the garage sale table?
Did they enjoy them?
Do they feel..... dirty?


I would.

Time for a new job

I so want to be an astronaut right now.

And I can think of at least one of the four that would work.

A question from a non-breeder

As part of her Advent Calendar of Hilarity, Becky Haycox continues to bring the holiday funny with this photo gallery of unhappy santa visitors.

Now really, children being terrified of Santa is not news. It seems that ever since we've had department stores, we've had Santas to terrorize our young ones. What I wonder is this: Why would otherwise loving parents do something to their children that they know will turn them into terrified and screaming balls of sound? Do we so buy into the idea that this is something that you MUST do that you're willing to put your child through that? Do parents secretly *enjoy* seeing their children suffer? Do kids scream in fear so often that it no longer curdles their blood? Why not, when you can clearly see that your baby wants nothing to do with the frightening man (and really, Santa right up there with clowns on the scare-o-meter), just get out of line and walk away?

"You're going to embrace the magic of Christmas if I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the candycane fields and elf infested warrens of the north pole, and you'll like it you little monster!"

And Merry Christmas to you, too.

Bits and Bobs

Brian Schirmer brought this to my attention. Good lord. It is official U.S. policy that we can go to any country and kidnap people and bring them back to the U.S. without the permission or sanction of the country that they are in. Now, I don't particularly like the idea that someone can embezzle a billion dollars and get off scott free simply by hopping the border, but I like it even less that as a country we've taken the stand of "If we want you, we'll get you, and damned be the laws or rights of any other country that wants to stand in our way." Basically, we've once again given the finger to every other country on the planet. I swear, I wonder why we have any allies left at this point.

Becky Haycox made me aware of this debunking of a myth I had never even heard of: that candy canes are rich in religious symbolism and were developed out of piety. The more likely version, based on evidence, is that the only thing religious about them was church leaders taking the existing candy and having them made into shepherd's crooks in order to keep the restless children occupied during holiday mass. What I find rather disturbing about the whole thing, however, is the historical retrofitting of something highly banal to make it spiritually profound.

It's much like an article that one of Neil Gaiman's readers pointed out, detailing the numerous "authors" of the poem "Footprints" and what has become practially a sub-industry of legal wrangling, chest puffing, and positively hallucinatory arguments of asserted authorship. Absuridty of the highest order.

As for me, things are moving along. Sweetie Tanya continues to move forward. In some ways, it's all golden. In some ways, shakey. Yet, the shakey things aren't about the quality of the work that's being done. I am still having casting issues, or might be. I'll know for certain tonight. I've stepped into the role of the Boss after holding auditions, offering the role to two people and those people having to turn it down for reasons either mundane or heartbreaking. I'm not prepared to enter the Equity waters at this stage of the production (Equity is the Stage Actor's Union for those of you not in the field), and I don't want to keep hunting endlessly for an actor when we should be rehearsing. So, unless a "Boss" falls into my lap (so to speak), I'll be performing in January. What this means, however, is that if I can't resolve this other casting issue by tonight, I need to look for another performer again. I can't step into both roles.

The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is never to rehearse a show over the holidays.

Bang the head slowly

Good things, as a general rule, don't come easily.

"'Sweetie' Tanya" has the potential to be the best script I've developed, but getting it to the stage has turned into a logistical nightmare. I've hunted for actors, lost actors, found actors, lost more actors, and had more scheduling issues than I've ever experienced before. There are numerous reasons for this, not least of which includes the decision to do the show in January and thus rehearse during the holiday season.

Still, I've come close to closing shop of a couple of occasions. Each time, the problem has been resolved just before my frustration crossed into a mood of destruction and closure. Now that we've begun rehearsals, however, I am unlikely to go down without a fight. Listening to Dave Malloy work with the songs and with the performers, watching Kate Austin-Groen and Alexis Wong inhabit these characters, seeing the others move from wariness to joy and excitement over this very dark and strange script... it's a joy. I love the rehearsal process, but my love of producing dwindles by the day.

I've been in talks with directors about future projects, but at this point I seriously doubt my stamina for another project in the near future.

No matter what happens, I'll continue to produce Radiostar, which posted its 100th improv show last week.

effects of change

I went to the most unusual audition today. It's for a film, and they asked people to bring in true life monologues. Nothing from plays, just come in and tell a story on camera. They filmed the auditions, and filmed them in groups of three so that they could get a sense of how you listen as well as how you speak. I was in the second group, but arrived an hour early due to extremely light traffic. I had brought my own set of headshots with me, as I'm still looking for three men for Sweetie Tanya.

I told an amalgamation of kidney stone stories, which had the desired effect of being amusing and horrifying in equal measures. Indeed, the stories from all the people in the second group were a sweet and sour mix of the goofy and the horrifying. I wish I had been in the first group as well, just to hear people telling their tales.

I get a bit spoiled, I suppose, as we do this sort of thing at the beginning of each Radiostar session. We tell true stories, based on a word or idea culled from someone in attendance. It's a good exercise, and the stories are often so compelling that Chris has often spoke of taking them and making them a podcast of their own.

I think it would be a good party game... to tell people not to bring food or drink, but a story to share, and to share them throughout the evening.

Most of the rest of this weekend was spent relaxing and working on Tanya. I had a fantastic meeting with our choreographer (Tonya Amos), and discovered some crucial things about how Nolan Cook's music will play into the piece. I also met an auditioner, who has become one of our Coffee Crush Chorus. I have an entire stack of old headshots of actors who will be getting emails from me tomorrow, hopefully ending my casting period.

But tonight was spent watching Doctor Zhivago. It's a long movie, but epic and gorgeous. I'd always heard of the film, but never seen it before tonight. Oddly enough, I am also nearing the end of a memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is called "Spider Eaters". The book and the movie bounce off each other in interesting ways, as both ultimately detail what it is to move as an individual through a revolution that denies the validity of individual meaning and experience. Both also heartbreakingly describe what happened to private homes and gardens that were gutted, over occupied and ruined during the revolution. In the film we see Zhivago's home, as he returns from the war, occupied by thirteen families and himself treated like an intruder. In the book, we learn of the author's grandmother, whose home was taken over by many families of the people, while she, old and suffering from diabetes, was stuffed into the pantry and left there for her last five years.

It's a quandry. Massive social change by its very nature requires the suffering of individuals. Yet, in the case of both these historical episodes... the change, for all its idealism, hurt the very people it claimed to serve and truly benefitted only those with a need for power. It seems to me that the moment that idealism loses sight of its impact on the individual, it becomes little more than a new tool of oppression. On the other side, there is a line from the film that gives me pause. "I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city."

But then again, what created the situation where five million people would be desperate for fuel?

Meta

The lovely and talented Slackmistress commented earlier this week about blog readership, content, and presumed gender roles. Seeing as how I haven't been posting a lot lately, and when I have been it's usually all about projects and whatnot, and not about my inner emotional turmoils, it made me think about my own blogging history. Back when I first began writing an online journal in 1997, I was very emotionally transparent. I wrote as much about matters of the heart as anything else. In the last few years, I've made a very conscious decision to keep my entries more tied to information about actions than meditations on feelings.

My reason for doing so was largely because of how the online culture has evolved. The development of Livejournal and similar communities where there is no shortage of people willing to open a vein for the world to see led to to reconsider the value of my old writing style. The rise of emo music, and an entire subculture that seemed to scream "look at me! I'm in pain! Look! LOOK!!" caused a reaction in me that continues.

Maybe it's also that I'm just getting older. My personal sadness and frustrations seem much less important than they did back then. I remember telling Joseph once that I was a bit more emotionally guarded than I used to be, and he laughed and said that a guarded Dan was still way more emotionally open than any other male. Still, as the years have gone by I'm definitely emotionally much less open than I was when that crack was made.

So, is it "ok" for women to be emotionally revealing in their blogs while men can talk about politics and robots and video games? I don't really subscribe to gender roles in most matters, let alone this one. But I know that I'm less and less interested in emotional exhibitionism.

And I want to go on the record that Slack is not an emotional exhibitionist. She's actually been extremely controlled with what she puts out there, but also brutally honest. I just found it an interesting question.

The Quiet time

I've been hibernating for the most part. After "the incident" I just stayed indoors for a few days. I did some office work on Tuesday and was able to think clearly enough to work from home all day on Wednesday. We're under a bit of a deadline, so I didn't feel good lounging, and I knew that if I went into the office I wouldn't get my work done. People from work have been *incredibly* supportive, bringing over food after work and during lunch breaks and generally being extra kind. When I did go in on Thursday, a large portion of my day was spent rehashing what had happened so far. I've worked the story down into a very concise monolgue by now.

I meant to work on Friday, but I first needed to in and get my eyes examined and get new glasses. It's been years since I had this done and forgot about what happens when they dialate your eyes. My day was pretty much shot as soon as they put the stoner drops in. I had no control over my ability to focus for the next several hours. I had cartoon character pupils, which made actually choosing frames a bit of a challenge. I felt fortunate I could see well enough to pick up the frames and try them on, let alone decide what looked best on me.

After several years of practically invisible semi-rimless glasses, I decided to go for the full on hipster-geek glasses. If I'm going to make a change and go around with my hair dyed white, I might as well go all the way, right? The problem, however, is that it takes a week and a half to get said glasses back from Kaiser, so I've been squinting, straining my eyes, exhausting my brain and generally not seeing well ever since then.

That said, I was able to see well enough when the police came by on Saturday with some photographs for me to look at.

They caught them.

It seems that there were other victims that night, and one of them got in a car with their sibling and drove around until they saw the thugs and then called the cops and let them know where they were. Absolutely brilliant. I only saw one of them clearly, but was able to give a fairly certain identification based on the photographs. Whether I'll be called in to testify or not remains to be seen, but the fact that one of the victims decided to go out and nail these guys is inspirational. Another victim, however, was apparantly hospitalized. Again, I feel fortunate that they got me in a brightly lit intersection. that might have been me....

Since then it's mostly been staying in, watching movies, trying to read books and play Halo. I can't focus on my laptop too long or my eyes get totally unusable. Since I project on my wall at home, the image is enormous and much easier on my eyes, but even that is a strain. The new glasses come on Wednesday, though. I will be back to normal then, and I can't wait.

mugged

I got mugged last night. Some of the folks from the hospital think it was a gang initiation, but I think they just saw me working on my laptop on the BART train and decided to follow me off the train.

It's two short blocks home. I was entering the intersection on Oak and 10th when I heard foosteps behind me. Clearly running. I clenched my bag, which was over my shoulder and not firmly on my back, and the grab failed. I turned and the assailant got aggressive. He had a friend a few feet off. I decided that this was a failed snatch attempt and decided to play my "I'm as big as you, don't fuck with me" card. One of them saw the keys in my hand and warned his friend, thinking I had a knife.
Bravado might have worked, but I glanced behind me for an instant and saw four others running towards me from the shadows. I got sucker punched in the head. Then again, again, again. I finally went down and they kicked the shit out of me. I kept fighting back, blind with anger, and they got away with my wallet, but not the backpack they had clearly been after. It was the middle of a brightly lit intersection. If they had waited another half block they would have had me in total shadow and might have killed me.

Bleeding, without my keys (I still haven't located them) or glasses, I got myself the final block home. I didn't see which way they went. I buzzed the manager, but she didn't answer. There was movement in the apartment right next to the front door, so I knocked on the window and asked for help. I was getting blood all over the doorstep. They let me in, helped me clean up, and got an ice pack for my head which was already swelling at the temple. Most of the blood appeared to be coming from my nose.

They leant me their phone and I called the non-emergency line. After all, it was over and no longer an emergency. I let the cops know where I was and was told to expect them shortly. My neighbors found the manager who came and joined us. She called 911, since it had been 20 minutes since the first call. After what was almost an hour I headed up to my apartment with the spare set of keys the manager had located for me, unsure when the cops would show up. As soon as I got in, and begin figuring out how to cancel the credit cards, the cops and the ambulance arrived. I suddenly had an apartment full of people. The cops said they would meet me at the hospital and the paramedics took me.

I made my statement, wishing I could have been a bit more clear in some of the details, but I only saw one of the six clearly, and only for a second or two. The only actual words I could remember was after they thought I had a knife. "you gonna stick me? you gonna stick me?".

The first question the nurse asked me (a Philipino male) when he learned I was mugged was "black or white?" The first question the orderly asked me (an Afrian American male) when he learned I was mugged was "black or white?". Same with the doctir (a white female). For me, it isn't the color but the age. That was the second question from the orderly. "Young men?"

Yep. Young thugs.

The cat scan shows that if anything was broken in my skull it's nothing that requires surgery. It will heal itself. My nose may or may not be broken, but it's not deviated. I'll be getting more information over the next couple of days. I need new glasses too. I got my cards cancelled when I got home around 4am (thanks to the taxi voucher the hospital provided) and they hadn't tried to use them yet. So, all they got from me was $8 in cash and a couple of checks. If they succeed in cashing those, they probably got around $150, or $25 each.

Me? I'm just glad to be alive. If I had seen 6 men from the start, I would have handed over my stuff. I thought it was a simple foiled bag grab and resisted. I'll be ok, and I'll be a lot more wary, but I'll be ok. But I could have died.. repeated blows to the temple could have killed me, but it didn't. I have a harder head than I thought.

Still. I'm an assault victim.

And I keep wondering how I'm going to tell mom without her becoming hysterical.

Phishing

One of my colleages pointed me to this article about an online teaching tool to help people identify scams and keep their information from getting phished.

It's a somewhat cheezy game, but it does a very good job at teaching people how to identify phishing scams, so if you consider yourself to be at all at risk I recommend spending a little time playing with it.

In other news, I saw Chinese Angle again on Friday and the cast completely nailed it. I was extraordinarily happy with the show and I think it bodes well for our final weeks of performance.

My weekend was fairly mellow. A birthday gathering in the park, a farewell party in the evening for Chris DeJong and Ann Speyer, and time with my Mom and Aunt Bev on Sunday. No high drama, no excitement. I've actually been feeling pretty exhausted, as if the last few months have decided to settle on me with a vengeance. I sort of have another mellow night tonight, but I need to work on a retirement montage for the Berkeley Superintendent of Schools, Michele Lawrence. This will be similar to the montages I do for the ELC conferences, and I have a vague idea of what I want to do, but she needs it by this time next week. My time is fairly booked between now and then, and if I don't get it done tonight, I'll be spending my Friday night working on it. I would have worked on it yesterday, but all my media clips were in the office. I need to start carrying that drive with me, I think.

Yeah, not a very exciting entry, but it hasn't been a very exciting weekend. I'm really ok with that.

retroactive pirate

I should probably also mention a guest appearance I make on Chris Walsh's blog.

Chris is pretty much my boss at this point, so when he wants me to be a pirate, I'm a pirate!
Actually, I'll be a pirate for pretty much anyone who wants me to be one. Other guests are Jennifer Novakoski, Bob Montgomery and Bo DeLong-Cotty.

Actually, Bo's name sounds kind of piratey anyway.

Conferences, improv, illnesses, and ninjas

Things are moving along at a more reasonable pace, it seems. I've actually had a few nights this last week where I just hibernated at home.

On the good news front, my Aunt June who has been suffering from Pancreatitis has been in the hospital for a good nine months is a little farther out of the woods. She was in a "have surgery or die" situation with a surgical procedure that might itself kill her. Things were looking pretty bleak, but they got her in a day early and did a different surgery that wasn't as dangerous and removed a litre and a half of fluid from her system. It seems that her intenstines were leaking. Now, that's profoundly disturbing, but if they've fixed that problem it greatly enhances her chances of getting through this.

I got the call from my Mom last night, and I knew things were looking good since her tone wasn't somber from the get go. Of course as soon as we got that good news cleared up she had problems with the new Macbook that I bought her. She managed, on her first day with it, to drag her AOL folder into the trash. Rather than take it out and put it back where she drug it from, she decided to reinstall the program and was confused.

Some would say, "oh, it's because she doesn't understand how to use a Mac", but dragging things in and out of the trash is pretty much the same action as on a PC, so that doesn't wash. I highly encouraged her to plug in her mouse and quit trying to learn the trackpad until she felt more comfortable in her new environment. The hour I spent on the phone with her was a good reminder of why I am very glad to be leaving Help Desk duties forever.

I was in a good mood, though, since I had served on a panel for the Theatre Bay Area annual conference that afternoon. I skipped the opening session and got some much needed production work done on Sweetie Tanya and, terrified that I was unprepared and underqualified to talk about "New Media and its use in Expanding Audience", I loaded up a slew of tabs in Safari with content that reflected everything I could imagine we'd talk about and packed up my LCD Projector. I didn't need the projector as the panel after us had ordered a projector for their use, so we just used that, but having everything preloaded was a godsend, since there was virtually no network connectivity in the building. Hell, there was only one power outlet in the entire room!

I got to sit on a panel with folks from California Shakespeare Festival, Impact Theatre, Killing my Lobster and promotions guru David Perry. The panel was very well attended and I think I managed to come off as reasonably competent. I had been very stressed over it, but as usual my fears had simply resulted in me being extremely over-prepared. Great motivator, Fear.

In other news, I cancelled the last half of the Submergency run, since we had virtually no audience for three shows in a row. Two people showed on to our Sunday show, and that was the most paying audience we had managed to garner. The other two shows in that space didn't fare much better, and one of them closed as well. In an excellent example of making lemonade out of lemons, we decided to use the space on Sunday night for Radiostar and to make it a live recording with a jam afterwards. A small group showed up, despite the last minute nature of the affair and the absolute lack of publicity. This was largely because it was also an unofficial sendoff for Radiostar genius Christopher DeJong. Chris and his wife Ann are going to Camaroon for a year where they will engage in do-goodery.

None of us have managed to fully accept doing Radiostar without him, and I myself am firmly in denial about the whole thing. Still, a year will go by very quickly, and we're in enough of a groove that we can continue to do great improv for Radiostar in his absence. I imagine that his return will result in lots of exciting changes as he'll be full of pent up creativity by that point.

On a totally unrelated note, Ninja Women from Pittsburgh robbed a gas station. I don't know when the world is coming to when today's ninja youth are letting themselves get caught on tape performing petty larceny. I mean, seriously, cigarettes and lotto tickets? In my day, ninja's stuck to the shadows, clung to walls, descended from ceilings and performed ruthless assassinations. Sure, maybe a few ninja might engage in theft, but only if it involved jewels large enough to sit in the eye socket of an ancient stone idol.

Kids today.

success, failure, life, and ...?

to say that it's been a tumultuous weekend would be an understatement.

Thursday night, I went to the theatre to drop off programs and watch the show. I was also supposed to update some of our sound files, but due to a miscommunication the necessary cable was not at the theatre. I had finally passed the stone that afternoon and my body was feeling light and I hadn't lost the glow of adrenaline that my body gets when it finally rids itself of such an unwelcome intruder. As the show approached though, my chemical uplift began to fade and I found myself on something resembling a caffeine crash. I headed home and chilled out for the evening. I found out the next day that one of the speakers had begun to go bad, and that most of the sound cues were marred by unbearable crackling. Not cool.

So, Friday comes and I'm supposed to be at the Eureka at 7 so that I can do box office for Match Play. I need to go to Chinese Angle first though, to update the sound files I had failed to update the previous night. I get there at six, and proceed to wait for a half hour for the stage manager to no avail. While there, one of the theatre techs shows up to look at the bad speaker. I can't stick around long though, and finally leave at 6:30 and just miss the stage manager with the cable.

I realize that I failed to bring a video cable adapter to allow me to use my laptop with my LCD projector (both of which I'm carrying), so I swing by CompUSA to get a new one. They are out. Aware of time ticking rapidly away, I move further away from my final destination to get to the Apple store, only to find that they are sold out of the necessary cable there as well. Hot, sweaty, and late, I arrive at the Eureka carrying lots of gear that I cannot use, having run all over downtown fruitlessly for 45 minutes after not doing what I wanted to do at the Playhouse.

I was a bit cranky.

My mood was not greatly improved as 10pm drew closer and closer. We had no advance reservations, and foot traffic was non-existant. 9:40 came and went, and we had no audience. 9:50 came, and still we had no audience. 10:00pm came, and it became painfully clear that a huge crowd was not about to appear on our doorstep. I didn't need that cable I had run all over failing to get. We didn't have a show.

We all sat and drank the concessions for an hour or so, and then headed a block up to a local bar. I'm not that much of a night owl, so I was surprised at how the bar got fuller after midnight... the time I usually make my departure from night hotspots. One of my performers lives not far, so I had a ride for the evening so we stayed out very late. One of our crew, who I see but rarely, kept petting my hair and talking about how every time she saw me I had a new identity while her husband grinned drunkenly at us both. On some level I was relieved to not have performed that night, as we were all bone tired. Still, I felt this was a bad omen.

Anastasia tried to buy me a shot before I left, despite my protests, so I ended up giving it to a young lady who had just arrived at the bar. After seeing her male friends responses to that, I advised her to keep her mace at the ready and we made our exit. Despite my having snubbed the drink, Ana declared it just what she would have done and gave her full approval.

I got home well after 2am, exhausted, frustrated, and pleased all at the same time.

Saturday morning brought my mother and aunt. We were going to visit my other "aunt", who is actually my second cousin. This aunt is suffering from severe pancreatitus, and had been scheduled for surgery on Thursday but couldn't do it due to an attack of pneumonia. I had seen her a few months earlier. She had been in an induced coma for six months, and was unrecognizable. Her hands had been fairly deformed by the swelling and her face was that of a stranger. She made an odd noise with each breath she took, somewhat like a throat clearing, and she did not move at all. Very little had changed since then. I know that she can feed herself and move, but chooses not to. The swelling has gone down, but not by that much. She needs to have this surgery immediately, or this could be the end. Paradoxically, the surgery itself might kill her. It is truly a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. I made her smile a bit, best as I could, telling her of my friend's fixation on my new identities as her husband grinned on, but I don't know if that was to be our last meeting.

Mom dropped me off at home and I tried to rest a bit before heading into the city, but I was unable to take a nap. I had gotten a call while on the way to the hospital about further technical problems with the Chinese Angle that had resulted in a total absence of music during the two songs, forcing one song to be abandoned and the other to sing a cappella. I canceled my dinner plans and got to the theatre by 6. The light operator's boyfriend thought he knew what was wrong and promised to bring some adapters, but what had been communicated to me by my stage manager led me to believe that he was barking up the wrong tree. I spent an hour diagnosing the problem and creating a stopgap solution, telling the producer and stage manager that the only thing that would truly get us back to the way we were was a new speaker with the right connectors. No adapter that I knew of would do the trick. I mixed all our music to a mono connection so it would no longer be directional, but at least be heard out of the other speaker when the light operator's boyfriend showed up right at seven... with a new speaker. He plugged it in and everything worked perfectly again. We had both diagnosed the problem correctly, and the information I had been passed had been scrambled. I raced off to the Eureka to help with Box Office again.

Audiences for Match Play haven't been much better than Submergency, and as 10pm grew closer, I knew in my heart that we were in for a repeat. Sure enough, not one single person showed up for the show. Chris, Brian, Trish, Dave and I went to the nearest pub got some beer and played pool. I noted that a perfectly fine pub, with nice furnishings and a great downstairs pool table was practically deserted at 10:30 on Saturday night. It was agreed that this was a strong indicator of our problem. The theatre is located in a late night desert. We are not a destination. I vowed that if no one showed up for our Sunday matinee, I would end the run of the show.

Sunday. Off to Suzuki, which was a good class and I was able to talk to Jeffrey a bit about Sweetie Tanya and about what is happening with Submergency. For all its technical problems, the Chinese Angle is an enormous success, and for all that people enjoy the show, Submergency is an abject failure. I am experiencing the highs and lows simultaneously.

I go right from class to the theatre and get everything ready for the show, knowing in my heart that this is the end. Remington shows up to do lights and box office, and we catch up for a bit. The cast shows up, and two women walk up and buy tickets, thinking that we're part of the fringe festival. Ten minutes later it's time for the show to start and I give them back their money. They are very understanding and undeterred, but I am a bit heartbroken. I would have liked to make them laugh today.

Submergency is dead, at least for now. Match Play is also going to close early, so we decide to take over next Sunday evening and bring Radiostar to the theatre and do a live set for friends, followed by a farewell improv Jam for Christopher DeJong, who is leaving in a few weeks for Africa. It's turning lemons into lemonade, but we all feel good about it.

Well, at least mostly good. I am glad to get my weekends back, but sad for the failure. I have succeeded. I have failed. But the failure is hard to be too heartbroken about, when the image of my aunt looms so close in my mind. Her body essentially broken, but her will even more so. I can only imagine what she would give to be able to succeed and fail as I am doing.

I have tomorrow, as far as I know, so I'll treat that as a gift.

having the stones for it

I woke up yesterday at 6:30 am, and I was in pain. It was a very specific kind of pain, and one that I've learned to recognize. Imagine that someone jammed their knuckle into your kidney, then left it there, and slowly twisted. That's the pain. I had experienced a toned down, and brief bout of this two nights earlier, so I knew that a kidney stone was passing, but normally I only get one bout of pain. This second bout just kept going, and going. After two hours of pacing around my apartment, trying to stretch and massage my kidneys to allow easier passage for the little invader, I finally gave in and called a taxi to get me to the hospital. I was near the verge of tears, and that's too much pain to "tough it out" through.

The cab itself took about a half hour to arrive, despite the initial assurances that it would be there in "five to ten minutes". It's one of the few times I truly regretted not having my own transportation.

Still, the emergency room at Kaiser Hospital was not terribly busy at 9am on Wednesday and I was screened almost immediately and taken into the E.R. proper. What was odd, however, was being security scanned before I was allowed to enter the emergency room. It was like boarding a plane. I had to empty my pockets and get wand scanned before I could hobble into the reception area. Life in Oakland, I suppose.

The rest of my stay was rather surprising and at times even fun. My nurse noticed my Lunatique Fantastique shirt and revealed that he had met Liebe before, so we traded stories about that and discovered that he also knew Davina Cohen and Thessaly Lerner as well. Very small world. The other nurse who took care of me was about six months pregnant, so we talked about that while she took my vitals and attempted to get my I.V. in. This seems to always be a problem with me, and sure enough I am sporting a very large and painful bruise today. I'm growing to accept that this is going to be inevitable every time an I.V. is attempted.

When I am in pain, I tend to become extra-polite. I almost turn into a Jane Austin character, I am so polite. The control I have to exert to fight the pain translates into a highly formal and pleasant personality, which may explain the extra kind level of service I received while being treated. The room I was in had a SpongeBob Squarepants television/DVD player in it, so they put in a movie for me to watch while I waited for the stone to pass. They had pumped me full of pain meds, and every time they wore off, the pain was less than before, until finally I felt quite normal again. Then they gave me lunch and waited to discharge me until I had finished my sandwich. (Egg salad)

The nurse who knew Liebe had come by a few times with an intern to practice skills on me (I had to prompt the intern once to ask me if I had any allergies), and on their final visit they felt compelled to let me know that they both thought I greatly resembled (and sounded like) James Spader. This last bit has happened to me more times than I can count, but it's the first time I've gotten it with my platinum blond hair.

I went home a little after 3pm. The stone had moved to just above my bladder and is 6.5mm, which is right on the edge of being operable. Any larger and they would have had to use the sound wave machine to blow it apart or reverted to more severe methods of treatment. This is why I had so many hours of agony as it shredded its way down my urinary system. It had reached a safer place, however, and was expected to pass without further incident.

All and all, I was incredibly impressed with the care I was given, which is not something one normally hears about a large HMO.

in spite of myself

Last night we had an almost sold out show for Chinese Angle, and the Chronicle this weekend ran a large picture for us in the Pink Section for Sunday's paper. Very nice. The show is off and running, and will most likely be the most successful thing I've ever directed. This is something for me to ponder as I consider the ongoing role of Cassandra's Call in my life and if I'm better off just directing and not producing anymore.

Far too early to say, though. But it's not too early to say that Submergency has been suffering from my lack of attention to it, and today was much more difficult and haphazard than it should have been. Still, we had a tiny audience (The Eureka, unlike the Playhouse, is far from Union Square), virtually no rehearsal, wonky tech... and the show was still a lot of fun. The squirtguns-short form comedy combination is pretty fool-proof. As long as the performers are having a great time being vicious to each other, the audience has a good time as well. It's kind of like Who's Line Is It Anyway? meets the Three Stooges.

Still, there are various things I can do this week to make the remaining eight shows more smooth and successful, so my work is far from done. Today was more like a preview, especially since the tiny house was almost entirely comps (free tickets).

No Radiostar tonight, so I should finish editing the show that needs to go up on Wednesday, but I'm extaordinarily exhausted so I think I'll push that off to tomorrow night.

I've earned a night off.