And We Shall March

Let It Be

Because all of life's questions can be answered in pop culture ... even as pop culture lies to you with every single breath. Which means it's up to the individual to make the call.

Right now, with several things going on in life that are not within my ability to control despite all attempts to do so, Let It Be is all I can do.

In a way, this song ties into Del Close's philosophy, maybe? Yes. It does. This is all so complicated.

I don't know if loving this song (in all its iterations) makes me a bad atheist or not. I just know that in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom. Let It Be.

Maybe it's all due to being the atheist child of an Evangelical Baptist and a Vatican I excommunicated Catholic? Or not. I don't know.

I just know I have leaned to this song in times of strife since childhood, and it works for me. It gets me through the roil and to the other side, where rational sanity waits.

My Mother Knows My Phone Number And Uses It Often, Actually, But There Are Times I Get The Big Picture Vibe Behind This Song

Continuing with the using of videos as filler thing as I work behind the scenes on getting real content in shape for posting. Sweet Honey in the Rock is one of my fave vocal groups on the planet.***  I've only seen them perform once in person, and will always remember it.

*** A selection from my other fave ever group/band/whatevs here, and another especially here ... the latter of which apparently was written without any knowledge of Me or James ... which is weird only if you deny the general Indifference of the universe and the concept of Sounding ... because 'fair' is not a concept the Universe pays any mind to, what with being busy elsewhere ... and Sounding is one of the many Invented Things created to help Deal with that Truth.

Bill Cosby Gives A Keynote Speech - Watch The Whole Thing

! Death 40-Feet Tall ! Opening Night @ The Hollywood Fringe Festival Tomorrow, June 16! Am I Ready?

Yes I am!

I got the Litany. I got my super-hyper mojo on. I got so very off-book that I can actually rearrange entire segments of the story at random on the fly while talking on stage, and still get back to where I was supposed to be in the script to take it home.*** I got one of my go-to relaxation movies - Armageddon - up and ready to roll for today and tomorrow morning when I fire up that, John Boswell's glorious songs created for my show, and also this one, all on continuous rotation as a It's A Process sort of mind trick thing.

And I got a fantabulously awesome collection of friends who turned over staple gun hammers and cat hair lint brushes and their lists and their cars and their camera equipment and chocolate and cabernet and even their physical selves in the middle of the night when I was in Need and said so and they Answered - even though my apartment is a complete and total pit right now - which means it was not easy for them to fight over couch/floor space so they could Collectively talk me through the Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul.

Wow.

These people did not look with Harsh Judgment upon me when I admitted that I needed Somebody to be here last night. Not only did the first contact show up,  he reached out two other local pals who also showed up at the house in the middle of the night, and and and then he/they(?) contacted two others who live far away to join in.

You know those emergency management calls that you hear on tv in tornado country? The loud, annoying electronic tone to get your attention? it was like that.

So what I had was a gloriously delightful roil of people talking all over each other about Whatever and doing so At Great Volume while sometimes yelling at me with related advice about the Issues going on in Life that brought them to the house to begin with before breaking off to yell at each other over the advice offered. And they showed up with snacks and wine and whatever they thought they should bring that they could find at a 24-hour outlet.

I didn't ask for them to bring anything but themselves. What I asked for companionship late into a very difficult night. I wasn't sure anybody would answer. They all did, though. All of them. They have their own things going on, and they answered anyway.

It was beautiful. I didn't have to say anything or work to hold up the conversation(s). They don't do what I am trying to learn to do, but they all understood what was behind my "I can't talk/I can't stand the sound of my own voice right now/I need a distraction/ Help Me Please." And so they did. When I started crying a bit once I clued into what was going on, they either Gently Mocked or Ignored it because they Understood.

What these people did last night, from gut level understanding,  is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.

Trust. You have to try it every once in a while. Sometimes it pays off. Most of the times it doesn't, but when it does? Wow.

They also worked out couch/floor space without involving me directly (except for the bit where they confirmed there would be homemade pancakes at the end, yes? Yes!).

In a way this flows into the Kickstarter 106, only 1/3 of whom I actually know personally, but there they are standing in Support and Belief anyway. They are the reason I can do this. I could not have mounted the show this year without them. The people who provided signal boost help are, to me, part of that group.

Which is a really long and rambly way of saying I. Am. Fucking. Ready.***

I'm typinig this having gotten back from my second tech, this one with the mighty Konstantine Anthony at ComedySportz LA, where ! Death 40-Feet Tall ! will be based for the run of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Because this one was with Konstantine, who is also my Guide for this #HFF11 version, I got a couple of dead-on last minute notes to remember to execute once ! Death 40-Feet Tall ! goes live for nine shows.

Alas, I will not be going to see The Mountain Goats when they play at the El Rey next week, but that's because I still feel guilty for abandoning Fringe at points last year for WorldCup and so pledged I would not do that again this year. Too, when the Goats are on their stage, I will be on the Fringe Caberet stage in the big bar tent Throwing Down.

 I. Am. Ready. Come see for yourself.

Background here!

Tickets (pay what you can) here!

Big picture of the Fringe here!

*** Technically when that happens? It's an accident. But you will not know this if it happens when you come see me, because I rock that hard.

*** Please note: ! Death 40-Feet Tall ! is family-friendly. I do actually get through an entire hour on stage without saying "fuck" once! Truly!

What? A Post Unrelated to ! Death 40-Feet Tall ! @ The Hollywood Fringe Festival??

Kinda yes, kinda no. This just popped up in my feed over at the other outlet, and since it weirdly also came up last night, I'm putting it here so I can get to it easily every time I need a Reminder.

"There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."

-- Nelson Mandela

Now off to reward the Emergency Sounding Board with homemade pancakes. That conversation was actually rather fun now that I look back on it through the blurry haze of Not Nearly Enough Sleep:

Me: Waaaiiiil!

ESB: ... It's midnight.

Me: Waaaiiiil!

ESB: ... Actually, it's quarter to one. Did you know that? It's quarter to one in the morning, which means it's Tuesday.

Me: Waaaiiiil!

ESB: I'll be there in 20 minutes. There damned well better be pancakes at the end of this.

On the list of things I am grateful for? Solid friends.

Circus Parade! Laura Brody! Kickstarter! You Want To Be In On This!

I met Laura Brody (etsy shop, main website) last summer at the inaugural Hollywood Fringe Festival, where her live draping event won an award from the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

I’ve kept in touch with her not just because of the wicked cool jacket she made from leftover cloth used for a major character in the Thor movie, nor because of the fantabulous costumes for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's movie about Cthulhu that she created, nor even because of the TOTALLY kick ass earrings I bought off of her. And the whole making costumes for the Black Eyed Peas thing? I didn't even know about that until recently, because she's the sort of humble that doesn't drop names.

I kept in touch with Brody because she's a phenomenally great person who, when clearly explaining her artistic ethos, made me think about how I directly contribute to a culture of consumption and waste - and what I can do to change that. Her eco-friendly creations are comprised of 90% re-purposed, re-used materials, cast-offs she turns into sensual, lovely clothing to be worn with flair. (You should have seen what she created out of some mudcloth I gave her! I can't find the picture at the moment in the morass that is my hard drive, but she mixed it with something else to create a fantastic samurai-style jacket for dreadlocked male client. It was gorgeous.) Whether she's doing a bit of steampunk-inspired outfits, or creating beautiful mobility devices for her friends, or designing awesome jewelry, Brody is an all around viciously talented nifty person.

Now Laura is branching out even further, and she's using Kickstarter to do it!

Take a look at the delightful video pitch for the project and read a personal message from her (in bold) below, then please kick in a couple of bucks. Every little bit helps! Please feel free to share word of her super-fun, worthy project with others by passing along the Kickstarter link!

It's my very first Kickstarter project and I'm stupid excited about it!

If you can, please take a look, share the link and be inspired to come up with a project of your own!

It's for a repurposed circus in Baraboo, WI. I was asked to put together a package of live draping workshops and events along with a fellow textile artisan for a new arts festival out there, and we came up a major proposal: right before the Wisconsin state budget cut issues went haywire. We're going to see about self-funding.

Baraboo is the home of the modern American circus, so it seems like a natural, and they have some great resources locally. There's also this great roadside artist, Dr. Evermor, who makes insane magical creatures out of scrap machinery and has a whole world created at the back of a local salvage yard. And of course he's never had a real gallery show there, so we figured we might be able help with that. I love his Forevertron.

Me again. Isn't that great? I'm throwing in next payday. Whatever you can give, please do so. You will not regret it. Now, go go go!

"I'm Making It Up As I Go Along." - Indiana Jones, Philosopher

So.

I have no idea how this is all going to turn out, but I have a Vast List Of Blame should it all ultimately end up beneath an overpass along the 101 with a bottle of Mad Dog 2020 inside a ratty tent.

Thing is, those same names appear on the Vast List Of Praise if things eventually go the other way. Odd how that works out.

I can say is that I am already starting to feel like myself again, and I haven't felt like that way in a very, very long time.

Also, I have a vuvuzela. As you probably know, that can only help.

No, really. I have a vuvuzela.

And you don't.

A Message For All The Remaining Days Of Your Life

I discovered Hugh MacLeod, the guy whose design I use for my Most Awesome business cards, several years ago by accident when roaming the internet(s) looking for something else. I'd stumbled upon a series of posts he did called How To Be Creative that just knocked me over. More research revealed that he's behind the Mr. Hell cartoon from the 90s I loved, and it turned out he's an artist who primarily works on canvases the size of a business card. He offered up some of those works as templates for custom business cards. Though shipping was !!! due to Himself and his partner buiz card company being based in Europe, I very quickly snagged my fave design, and have been using it ever since. I love my business cards.

(The only person who has business cards more awesome than mine is Gary Leonard, a phenomenal LA-based photographer whose business card is partially in braille. At least the one I have is. Wrap your head around the meta of that.)

MacLeod runs a very active homeport that includes a widget featuring daily-ish creations. I have that widget programmed into the siderail of my homeport, but you'll never see what shows up there if you're visiting through a feeder thingy. Honestly, if you're anything like me when it comes to visiting various homeports - look at the main text, ignore the rest, go along your merry way - you might not ever see it. Over the weekend, the work below showed up in the widget. I pull it to the main site for the benefit of all:

  

Yup.
 

I Am Sitting At The Keyboard Wearing My Do-Over Prom Dress...

...purchased for $8 earlier today at a local gay thrift store during a turned-out-to-be-fantastic-day.

And I am having such thoughts, forgotten ones from 20 years ago, triggered by this awesome sounding post-irony geek party. This is so weird. 

The dress is not nearly hideous enough, though. It fits perfectly, but I need it to have something to echo the 80s-era, Dynasty hideousness of my original prom dress. Because of the design of this dress I can't add giant, poofed shoulders. I can, however, add a giant bow. I have time to do that before I leave for show.

Don't know if I will have time to collect the memory roil in my head, translate it into something coherent enough for public view, and upload before I leave. If I don't, I'll come back to this when I return - regardless if I actually go to the event or not.

This is so weird.

Related.

Ricky Jay: Too Distracted By The Amazing To (Immediately) Succumb To The Teary Bits

So. Ricky Jay.

As directed by David Mamet.

In a 90-seat theater.

<swoon>

<thud>

Don't think there's a point in attempting a write-up of a sold out show because it's not like you can go check it out later in the run. How I got in at the last minute, long after the sold was out, is a Kitchen-Aid Mixer Mystery. So I'll give you this conversation held among strangers wandering in a stunned pack back to the parking garage.

"But WHERE did the vegetables come from?!"

"But where did the vegetables COME from?!"

"But where did the VEGETABLES come from?!"

"Actually, only two were vegetables. One was a lime." <odd silence from the group> "But yeah, you know? The FUCK with the vegetables?!" (this one was Me.)

"EXACTLY."

Let's just say I was not the only on in the audience to go O MY GOD when the vegetable thing happened. I was just the loudest.

(Update, next day: You know what hit me in the shower the next morning? What happened to the tattoo??? Update II, a couple of hours past lunch: The what happened to the tattoo??? question has been making my head hurt all day. Update III, after home from work, four loads at the 24-hour drug dealer laundromat, brief grocery shopping and the trauma of the Beverly Center <shudder> because only now did I remember that I am in desperate need of a pair of black pants but am too busy with other people's sewing projects to make some and H&M has that $5/$10/$20 sale going on: I'm gonna give it a stand-alone post.)

It was such a fantastic show! There were a couple of points when you could hear everyone in the room gasp, and so many when you could hear the central air running because the entire room was dead silent watching him with WTF wonder. You hear about performers who have 'timing'? Jay has astounding timing when it comes to manipulating silence. When the curtain zipped open and he walked onto the way coolio set, it was a couple of minutes before he said a word...just looked at us while rolling up the sleeves of his suit jacket and then opening up a sealed deck of cards. That said, Jay uses language wonderfully - he was as much fun to listen to as he was to watch. I don't know how much of what he was talking about was made up and how much of it was fact-based (of the many historical magicians/gamblers he talked about I only recognized two names, but I was rather Proud of Moiself at catching all but one of the poetry references) but who cares because his patter was both entertaining *and* educational. He was also extremely funny.

I did get the sense that something was up with the blonde woman he pulled onstage during the second half of the show. When she got up she tossed a look at a couple sitting on the far (stage right) end of the front row and they all had a huge laugh. I don't know who that couple was, but everyone in the front row paid $250 for the privilege, the man got double-takes in the lobby, and while waiting for the curtain to come up the two of them practically had a receiving line. See, during the first half of the show, when Jay made his first call for volunteers, he said he didn't want anyone he knew to volunteer. Later during the first half when he was going down the row having people pick cards, he stopped at this couple and asked a woman sitting *behind* them to pick a card. So put it all together and the guy in that couple was probably a Somebody (and a Somebody powerful enough to walk around with a neon green sweater knotted over his shoulders in 80s High Preppy Style as if that was normal), and someone Jay and the blonde woman knows.

Down the road won't be surprised if I find out by accident who this guy was and laugh at how stupid I was not to recognize him. I have a long history of failing to recognize celebrities, starting with my first week in California, when I was a grocery store in Palm Springs and talking to the woman who played Brenda Walsh without a clue until the checkout lady said do you know who that was? She never talks to *anybody*! Last month I was at Amoeba standing behind Sara Silverman and her giant bodyguard, completely clueless until I noticed folks doing the stop/stare/photo/autograph request thing and asked one of them who she was. Though I did recognize James Cromwell that time in the Whole Foods down on Fairfax, that was only after wondering why all those little kids were staring at this guy in awe while their embarrassed moms were trying to shoo them away. That guy is *really* tall. You gotta see it in real life to get the impact. He's like Magic Johnson tall.

On the other hand, I recognized Kelly Link instantly on the floor of BEA, even though all I've ever seen is an author mugshot.

This was only my second time at the Geffen, in part because I dislike that part of town, but mainly because they don't have a Hot Tix or similar program and so the whole place is out of my price range. I'd forgotten about the well-stocked bar in the lobby and the pretty twinkle lights in the courtyard. It's a nice space. I can't wait to go back in the fall. Before the show I got to talking with a guy who flew down from the Bay Area for Jay's performance, which he found out about by accident and a couple comprised of third- and seventh-generation Los Angeles natives. (!!) They saw Jay when he last did this show a decade ago and we all got to talking about various local Mamet shows we'd seen.

Back home, Cuddle Kitty thought the ticket was tasty:

I think I'll make a shadowbox! This ticket & playbill, toss in the ripped playing card that black magician from Alaska let me keep after his set at the Magic Castle a few years ago, and add the teeny scrap of cloth alleged to be from one of the capes of Blackstone, Jr. That'll make a nice one.

Man, I love this town so very much. Never thought I'd ever get to see Jay in live performance but figured if the chance ever came up it would happen here. The only thing that would have made it all perfect would have been the hours-long (possibly days long) geekout conversation with The Departed going over every single detail. I miss not being able to bring things like this back to him so he could enjoy them, too. I can get used to the rest of life without him, but I will probably never get over the whole Not Fair of it all.