I've been reading up about sociopaths lately

Scary and fascinating...

Sociopaths don't have normal affection with other people. They don't feel attached to others. They don't feel love. And that is why they don't have a conscience. If you harmed someone, even someone you didn't know, you would feel guilt and remorse. Why? Because you have a natural affinity for other human beings. You know how it feels to suffer, to fear, to feel anguish. You care about others. And if you hurt someone you love, the guilt and remorse would be very bad because of your affection for him or her. Take that attachment and affection away and you take away remorse, guilt, and any kind of normal feelings of fairness. That's a sociopath.

and

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

This is an interesting question. Of course most people have purposes that are strongly influenced by our connections and affections with others. Our relationships with others, and our love for them, give us most of the meaning in life. So if a sociopath doesn't have these things, what is left? What kind of purposes do they have? The answer is chilling: They want to win. Take away love and relationships and all you have left is winning the game, whatever the game is decided to be. If they are in business, it is becoming rich. If it is sibling rivalry, it is defeating the sibling. If it is a contest, the goal is to dominate. If a sociopath is the envious sort, winning would be making the other lose, or fail, or be frustrated, or embarrassed.

A sociopath's goal is to win. And he is willing to do anything at all to win. And sociopaths have nothing else to think about, so they can be very clever and conniving. Sociopaths are not busy being concerned with relationships or moral dilemmas or conflicting feelings, so they have much more time to think about clever ways to gain your trust and stab you in the back, and how to do it without anyone knowing what's happening.

more about sociopaths here

And more here:

The Superficiality of Image

On the surface, sociopaths may, at first and even for a long time, appear to function smoothly. Their manners are impeccable; they are well groomed; they fulfill the codes of romance and courtship to a tee. They are likely to be eloquent talkers who lace their speech with impressive sounding facts and figures. They may be fun, laugh a lot, sweep you off your feet with their sweetness. They may also seem ambitious, driven, and fond of grand, impetuous schemes for their success. Unfortunately, this behavior is an act for the sociopath. It is simply a means to getting what they want without thought to future consequences or your feelings.

even more about sociopaths

I Claudius part 2

Thinking of I, Claudius, I remembered just how damn freaky that show could get. This is one of the best scenes - Claudius and two other noble Romans are waiting fearfully for an audience with Caligula, hoping they won't be executed - suddenly Caligula appears as...

You have to watch John Hurt doing the best Caligula evah.

Love is Like a Ball and Chain

Janis at Woodstock

More angst about love

Sitting down by my window,
Whoa, whoa, looking at the rain.
Whoa, down by my window, baby,
And all around me,
I said suddenly I felt the rain.
Somethin' grabbed a hold of me, darling,
Honey, it felt to me, honey like, yeah, a ball and chain.
Oh honey, you know what I mean,
It just hurts me.

Say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, honey, it can't be
Whoa, it can't be, babe,
Said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hey.
Whoa, baby, it just can't be
Every time I want to reach out my hand.
No, no, no, no, no, babe, baby, never, no, no,
Never, never, no, no, no.
Here you gone today, but I wanted to love you, darling,
Oh, till the end of time,
Yeah! All right!

Love's got a hold on me baby
Feels like a ball and chain.
Oh, love just draggin' me down, yeah yeah yeah,
Feels like, honey sometimes it feels honey like a ball, yeah like a ball and a chain
Wonder why when I did the very best I could to love you
You wanted to leave me here, honey in so much pain
Come on, honey, I want you to tell me, please, yeah.

Say oh, oh, oh, oh,
Honey this can't be
No, no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Honey, this can't be just because I want to want you
Does this mean I have to hide to cry, cry all the time ?
I just wanted to love you, darling,
Every day, oh, whoa, till the, to the very end, to the end of time,
Yeah, no no no no no, hit it!

Love's got a hold on me, baby,
Feels like a ball and chain.
Oh, love's holdin' on to me,
Feels to me, oh like a ball and a chain
Honey somethin' will grab around the knees, grab me in my heart,
Feels to me like a ball and a chain now,
Yeah, alright, yeah!

Say oh, oh oh oh,
Honey this can't be
Tell me please what am I askin' now,
It can't be babe
I know it just can't be, darling, no no.
Whoa whoa whoa, whoa darling don't you feel me reachin' out
Tell me, tell me, darling please
Tell, tell, tell me darling please, I'm gonna need it,
I want you to hear me baby
Tell me why, sometimes darling
I said sometimes I feel I got to know why
Sometimes I feel, honey, honey that I need to know why
I said baby when I ask you
I could use a little help sometime
When I say, I say tell me, come on man,
Tell me, tell me, babe,
Honey I never understood, why when I want to work my hands out,
I want to wear my hands out, I try the very best I can, babe
Why you always want to go, honey and let me down baby.
I said why I always wanna go, honey drag me around.
Seems like anything, it could be the telephone company man,
it could be the man I love, I always got something else going, you know what I mean ?
Over on the other side, say, not quite got it right this very minute.
I'm so sorry babe, I said I'm so very sorry babe,
But I never did promise you nothing, right ? I see what you mean.
Come on, man, now come on, that ain't the name of it,
And that ain't the end of it, you know what I mean.
Sometimes, it feels just about breaking things, you know what I mean.
Just like, just like a grave, just like a grave to call
Just like a cry to call.
Honey I never understood and I said please
Lord, I swear I never understood and I say please
I want you to help me, fill it up baby,
I want you to help me, I said allow me to hear
Please, please, please, please, please, please, please,
Honey make me understand why love just feels so heavy on me, darling,
Feels so bad on my back, babe,
Feels just like a ball,
Feels like a ball, ball, oh daddy feels like a ball,
And a chain.

Running up that Hill

Watch the Kate Bush video


It doesn't hurt me.
You want to feel, how it feels?
You want to know, know that it doesn't hurt me?
You want to hear about the deal I'm making.
You,
You and me

And if I only could,
Make a deal with God,
Get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could

You don't want to hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder.
There is thunder in our hearts, baby

So much hate for the ones we love?
Tell me, we both matter, don't we?
You,
It's you and me
It's You and me, won't be unhappy

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could

Come on, baby, come on, come on, darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
Come on angel, come on, come on, darling,
Let's exchange the experience

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems.

And if I only could,
Make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems.

If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill
If I only could, be running up that hill


Wiki about Running up that hill

HUCK FINN in Central Park

My next production will be HUCK FINN in Central Park. The audience at the Metropolitan Playhouse's Twainathon seemed to really like my HUCK. Even the guy running the festival told a mutual acquaintance he thought it was a great adaptation - even though he apparently loathed me personally, because he thinks I'm a "control freak." In addition to the fact that you really can't exert too much control when you're the playwright/director/producer - as I found out with my JANE EYRE production - he based his assessment of my control freakyness on the fact that I asked him a bunch of questions at the outset of the production - since asking questions is how you learn things, especially when the person in charge isn't giving you the information you need. Argh.

Avoiding unpleasant people and not getting sued, are big reasons why I do the whole producing/directing/writing thing myself.

The big advantage of doing a show in Central Park is you don't have to fork over thousands of dollars for the space, like you do if you rent a theatre in Manhattan. Theatre rental is usually half the budget or more.

So in late summer, look for HUCK FINN in Central Park.

Top 3 worst play formats

These three types of plays show up all the time, everywhere from readings to Broadway and they drive me crazy.

Zoo Story Clone

Usually done in short-play format.

I am one of the few people in the theatre world who is completely unimpressed by Edward Albee's ZOO STORY. The formula is simple - put two men together, have them talk and talk and then suddenly one of the men violently attacks the other. The end.

There is rarely an evening of short plays that does not include an example of this genre. I just saw another one last night at the Turnip 15 minute play festival.

Bickerfest

Similiar to Zoo Story clone but without the exciting violence at the end. And the people arguing - or rather bickering which is basically arguing about trifles - are not necessarily both men. People bickering is not drama. Few people in the theatre world get that.

Wallowing in Squalor

Writing this type of play will win you a Pulitzer, as AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY demonstrates. Wallowing in squalor is a genre that allows wealthy upper-class theatre-goers to enjoy the misery of dysfunctional and/or poor people, who suffer and do bad things and then die, go insane or just sink down into their own filth and hopelessness. Class war as guilt-free art.

RIP Stanley Kamel

I am distraught - Stanley Kamel has died - he died a week ago and I just found out about it. I rarely care about celebrities but he was so wonderful as Monk's psychiatrist Joseph Kroger. I actually had a huge crush on him and I very rarely get crushes on older guys.

You can watch a clip of him on Monk here.

Tony Shaloub on the torture of being in a bad play. What I want to know is why do actors so often AGREE TO BE IN BAD PLAYS?

Love Poems

Enthralled

By Alfred Bryan

Teach me to sin--
In love's forbidden ways,
For you can make all passion pure;
The magic lure of your sweet eyes
Each shape of sin makes virtue praise.

Teach me to sin--
Enslave me to your wanton charms,
Crush me in your velvet arms
And make me, make me love you.
Make me fire your blood with new desire,
And make me kiss you--lip and limb,
Till sense reel and pulses swim.
Aye! even if you hate me,
Teach me to sin.

I Loved You

Alexander Pushkin


I loved you; even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.


I Would Live in Your Love

Sarah Teasdale


I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave
that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul
as it leads.


More love poems

My Hero Roy Edroso

The Official Village Voice Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere

Favorite feature - each conservative blogger gets an evil/stupid ratio rating.

And then Roy provides feedback from the conservatives about his article.

Those naughty poets

Delving into sonnets has introduced me to facets of poetry and poets that I did not know about. Especially the fact that Shakespeare has lots of company in writing about sex, as he did pretty explicitely in Sonnet 151. Even lil old Emily Dickinson wrote naughty verse.

A recently published book The Best American Erotic Poetry includes Dickinson and Walt Whitman, even Francis Scott Key. By the dawn's early light indeed.

Of course, being only American poetry, the book leaves out the likes of Shakespeare and Catullus (whose work is the basis of Carl Orff's bawdy Catullus Carmina, the lesser-known work of his scenic cantata triptych which includes two other erotic-tinged works Carmina Burana and the obviously carnal Trionfo di Afrodite.)

I'll have to find a more international book on the subject.

But now Emily Dickinson gets freaky.

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

*****

Clearly the sea is an excellent source of erotic metaphor.

I am afraid of my own play

My latest play will have a reading at NYCPlaywrights this week. It's called EARLY ONE MORNING but I'm having a hard time working on it thanks to the fact that it involves Numbers Stations. There's something about them that I find unbearably creepy. I can't work on my play at night because I'm so creeped out. Here's what Wikipedia says:

Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters (sometimes using a radio alphabet), tunes or morse code.

The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mechanically generated. They are in a wide variety of languages, and the voices are usually women's, though sometimes men's or children's voices are used.

And NOW you can listen to many of the numbers stations (with video) on youtube.

You can watch a TV segment about them on youtube as well.

I was inspired by The Lincolnshire Poacher numbers station for my play. That station gets its name from the folk tune it uses. My play's fictional numbers station plays the folk tune Early One Morning.

JANE EYRE costumes

Viviane Galloway did the costumes for JANE EYRE - here is some of her work from sketch to completion below. Not only is Viviane very talented, she is a joy to work with. And she always helps me see that when dealing with bitchy actors, the problem is not ME:

"Photo calls are always tough--I feel actors are a bit selfish in that respect. They don't seem to understand that all this work has gone on around them, and that there are people who need to document that work. But in the end they always want to see the photos, so I don't get it!"

I just love Viviane.


See a larger version of this image.

Dazed & Confused

Some of the best moments from "Dazed and Confused"

Bowling ball

This country was founded by people who were into aliens

You got to do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do man.

Another great movie about the 70s - Boogie Nights

The sign just blows up because the name is so powerful

Heavenly

The British "twee" band Heavenly was great and way too unknown for their talent. My daughter turned me onto them in the 90s and I enjoy them more all the time. And my friend Phoebe Summersquash toured with them!

Here's the wiki for her band Small Factory.

Some favorite Heavenly lyrics below... and you can listen to a clip from Cool Guitar Boy.

He looks so cool in his jeans that are real tight bleached ripped split
And he's sort of cute in his coat: plastic mac with gold glitter on
He's really gear in his shirt, coloured purple-pink splash design
He looks just great in his boots: pointy ankle-highs

I love him lots and I wish he'd see me: the Cool Guitar Boy
He looks so brilliant when he plays his twelve-string and smiles
Oh pure joy!

And I wish he'd see me
And I want him to love me
Cos I know there's heaven, heaven in his arms

He looks so neat with his hair which is tousled up long mess and
He acts all coy, smiles and hides. Could he like me? I have to guess
He looks so cool in his shades, hide his eyes, might be looking my way
Never speaks, which I like, doesn't have much to say

I love him lots and I wish he'd see me: the Cool Guitar Boy
He looks so brilliant when he plays his twelve-string and smiles
Oh pure joy!

And I wish he'd see me
And I want him to love me
Cos I know there's heaven, heaven in his arms

Love & Art & Dumbarton Oaks

Art created in the name of love, especially romantic love, is a concept I've always found highly appealing.

So many great works of art from the Taj Mahal to Shakespeare's Sonnets to Layla have their origins in romatic love.

I owe my theatre career almost entirely to romantic love. When I was 30 I was a graphic artist hoping to throw myself completely into illustration or even pure painting once my daughter was independent. But then I met Chris, the most beautiful man in the world, who happened to be involved in community theatre, and one thing led to another - playwriting-wise - and eventually I was in Manhattan, watching a performance of my play MONKEY'S PAW 2000, directed by my boyfriend Jonathan. A few years later Jonathan produced my play TAM LIN. After we broke up he had nothing further to do with theatre, and always claimed to hate actors, so I can only conclude he had done it all for love.

I recently heard Concerto in E flat - Dumbarton Oaks on the radio and became intrigued because it was written on commission by Igor Stravinsky for Robert Woods Bliss to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary. In spite of this, and being a diplomat and having his home become a research library, Robert Woods Bliss has no entry in Wikipedia. I want to know more about him because I want to learn if he and his wife were truly devoted to each other after 30 years of marriage. I hope so.

Fred Rogers - giving Christianity a good name

These days when someone says they are a Christian, and feels that it is their duty to try to tell other people to become Christians, it invariably turns out that all their talk of Christian virtures is simply a way to smother their conscience and avoid examining their deepest impulses and desires. Certainly there have been enough famous Christian preachers who have been caught practicing what they preached against - so many that when I hear someone proclaim what a big Christian they are, I immediately become wary of them, which usually turns out to be the path of wisdom.

Ole Fred Rogers did NOT make a big show of his Christian beliefs. He simply made people, and not only children, feel better. There was an article in the TV Guide in 1985 about Lauren Tewes, who had been a cast member of the TV show The Love Boat:

When Lauren Tewes heard Mr. Rogers offer and question, “I’ll be your friend. Will you be mine?” she broke down in tears and answered aloud, “Yes! Yes, I will!” She later said, “I resolved at that point to get my life together. I was totally collapsed, and Mr. Rogers saved my life — with an offer of friendship.

Naturally this sort of display of honest emotion, vulnerabilty and sincerity is met with derision, and Mr Rogers was mocked and dismissed by those who, I guess, fancy themselves sophisticates. I found this account very interesting:

Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television--gently; of course--to just shut up for once, and television listened. He had already won his third Daytime Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are .... Ten seconds of silence." And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, "I'll watch the time," and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked... and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds... and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children.

OK, in this case he got God in there but at least it wasn't on his TV show.

In my own struggle to get past recent grief it helps to think of Fred Rogers, and also of the people who were helped by him who had it much worse than I've ever had:

“This person said that when she was growing up, she lived in an exceedingly abusive household where she was raped and scared every day. And she said the only time that she felt that anybody really cared about her is when she was watching us,” Mr. Rogers said to Pinkston.

Predictably, Fred Rogers antithesis, Fred Phelps appeared at the memorial service for Rogers to proclaim that he was going to hell for not condeming homosexuality.

It's a bad break for Christianity that Rogers died in 2003 while Phelps is still here. Fred Rogers proved that not all Christians are bad.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Morrissey is so popular because he puts his finger on the never-ending angst of life on earth.

Watch a performance of "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"

The lyrics:



I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now


In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?


Two lovers entwined pass me by
And heaven knows I'm miserable now


I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now


In my life
Oh, why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?


What she asked of me at the end of the day
Caligula would have blushed


"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled


In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye ?


I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now


"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled


In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

Sideburns are hot

Sideburns are hot, while beards are not. And the reason is because sideburns say "I'm male, and I COULD grow a beard if I wanted to, but I have restraint. But still, I'm male."

Just a little bit of sideburns is necessary for this effect.

Beatles Internet Album

A very good web site devoted to the Beatles is The Beatles Internet Album. It has interviews, audio clips and fun facts, including this section about the creation of the Sgt. Pepper's album cover.

My daughter is the Queen of Libraries

She rehearsed her NYPL presentation with me last night and I learned so much and got a treasure-trove of researchy goodness on Marvin Harris

I have most of his books and quite a few magazine articles, but I want to have a complete collection, so I was thrilled to get the full text of an article Harris wrote on a critic of Margaret Mead called "Margaret and the Giant Killer."

The article starts out with a demonstration that very little has changed in the past 20 years in the relationship between the media and sociobiology - now generally called evolutionary psychology.

Edward O. Wilson's best-selling sociobiological thrillers have shown that there is no limit to the spasms scholarly books can stimulate in the press if they advance two propositions: one, social scientists are incompetent bleeding hearts who deny the existence of human nature; and two, hard-nosed, real scientists must assume control over the social sciences and reassert the importance of biological factors in human life. Harvard University Press, Wilson's publisher, has found that, by twitching certain nerves, nearly any book advocating neo-Darwinian forms of biological determinism can soar to bestsellerdom.

Once again, Paul Krugman is entirely right

The Bush administration, however, has spent the last seven years trying to do away with government oversight of the financial industry. In fact, the new plan was originally conceived of as “promoting a competitive financial services sector leading the world and supporting continued economic innovation.” That’s banker-speak for getting rid of regulations that annoy big financial operators.

To reverse course now, and seek expanded regulation, the administration would have to back down on its free-market ideology — and it would also have to face up to the fact that it was wrong. And this administration never, ever, admits that it made a mistake.

more of "The Dilbert Strategy" at NYTimes

Echidne hits the big time

She's guest blogging in The Nation

Echidne on her home turf

Marsha Norman makes an excellent point

So how can critics serve their readers - and the theater - better? They need to accept their responsibility to report how the audience responded. And not in a dismissive way, but in a way that reflects the standards of ordinary journalism. I’d like to see sentences like “On the night I was there hating it, the other 1,600 people were cheering in the aisles. Go figure.” Or “On the night I loved it, half of the audience was asleep. Check it out.” If the critics are writing for the audience, then the reader needs to know what else was going on besides what was in the critic’s mind.

More in the NYTimes

Random lessons learned from off-off Broadway

Clearly I am bitter about my recent off-off Broadway production experience. Will I ever do more theater again - hell yeah! Even though there's at best, little money to be made in it. And my finances were hammered this time around. It's going to take me months to recover. But what else yah gonna do in this existentially meaningless reality on the way to eternal oblivion?

And as Megan McArdle will tell you (see previous post), Thomas Edison had to go through lots of wrong versions of the light bulb before he got it right. He learned from his mistakes. So will I.

So let us review a few random mistakes. This is not a comprehensive list by any means.

1. Trying to be friends with actors. You have to remember they're your employees. Too many actors will lose respect for you if you get too chummy. And just because someone is a good actor does not make them a good person. You're just asking to have your heart broken if you forget that.

2. Casting friends of cast members. This pretty much never works out - they tend to form little cliques and either gang up on actors who they don't like for whatever reason, or gang up against the stage crew. Or the producer. They will probably form cliques anyway, but you don't want to expedite the process.

3. Neglecting to build a core of backstage people. Casting is the most important aspect of a show, but a solid core of backstage people is the second most important. You have to make sure you have a good solid team even before rehearsals. They have to be good communicators, they have to be able to think on their feet, and they can't get huffy or surly if the actors don't treat them with respect. They have to know how to push back.

4. Not learning to say "no." I let an actor talk me into buying a smoke machine for one scene. It was a pain in the ass, and it couldn't really be used properly under the conditions we had - almost nobody saw the smoke. And did the actor feel bad about making me spend the money and making me deal with the hassle of trying to get it to work right and making sure that Equity was OK with it? Not in the least - he was too busy making lists of mistakes made by me and the stage crew.

5. Paying for things with credit cards. Don't do it. But this is a good rule for life in general.

Shameless people

Shameless people never fail to amaze me. I recently re-read an email I received from an actor during the run of a show. This actor did not change into the right costume for a scene. As a result, the stage manager and other people in the booth were talking amongst themselves wondering what had happened - and whether the costume assistant was in trouble. Since nobody complained about the costume assistant we inferred that the fault was the actor's.

So this actor complains about the noise from the booth - which occurred because of her mistake. As if the audience would notice the noise in the booth much more than the fact that this actor was wearing a completely inappropriate dress.

This wasn't the only time this happened - she missed a hugely important entrance during another performance, and when I asked her about it later her response was to simply shrug it off, like no big deal.

The shameless never blame themselves for their own mistakes but are quick to blame others. I guess shameless people must sleep better at night than the rest of us.

Probably the performing arts does not have a higher percentage of shameless people than the rest of the world, it just seems that way.

Luckily I can get a sense of perspective on this via Roy at Alicublog. At least the critical, self-satisfied, demanding, ungrateful actors I've been forced to deal with dwell in complete obscurity - and probably will always remain there - unlike Megan McArdle, who writes for The Atlantic:

As Tbogg has pointed out, Megan McArdle has previously defended her own Iraq wrongness on the grounds that her heart and methodology were in the right place and her opponents are mean, and darned if she isn't doing it again. Give her credit, though: in her follow-up, she has actually found a way to make her argument simultaneously more abstract and more viscerally offensive:

My discussion of failure in the context of the Iraq discussion is part of my broader beliefs about innovation...

To succeed quickly, he said, what you want to do is fail. A lot. Failing eliminates wrong answers faster than any possible analysis. I was reminded of the famous Thomas Edison quote: asked how it felt to have failed to invent an electric lightbulb, Edison said "I haven't failed! I've discovered 10,000 filaments that don't work."


By this point McArdle has segued to the economy, but those of us who can remember two whole paragraphs back are thinking: did she just defend the death of 4,000+ Americans and countless Iraqis on a "try try again" basis?

Why, yes she did, and I'm sure she doesn't even know what's wrong with that, except that certain mean people may insist on making a big deal of it.

I've changed my mind about the First Amendment. I want to ban Ayn Rand. Let's not lose another generation. Our dorks should be fiddling with computers, not applying their hideously deformed ethics to matters of life and death.

As always with these shameless people, whether they are actors, Atlantic writers, or the current president of the US the question presents itself - are they EVIL or STUPID?

Probably both.

off off Broadway theatre critics... pre-essay musings

I am having a hell of a time with my planned essay on off-off Broadway theatre critics. In part because they have much in common with off and Broadway theatre critics - except that the further up you go, the more male critics there are. So I'm wondering if it should be something about critics in general.

I did not expect my adaptation of JANE EYRE to receive an especially favorable reception by critics because for one thing, it's extremely girly. The original work was written by a woman, it's about a woman, and then I, a woman, adapted it.

And then there's also the issue of fans of the book never being satisfied with adaptations because something is always left out.

However, I DID expect a better response to the acting, which got fair-to-middling reviews.

But the most important thing is that the audiences LOVED my JANE. And if I could have afforded to extend the run, I think that word of mouth would have eventually been a significant factor in the show's success.

I will give the critic from NYTheatre.com thanks for her review though, for acknowledging the critic/audience split. She said:

Worth noting, also, is the fact that my companions—four in all—enjoyed the play. Where I found lack of depth and feeling they saw clarity and variety. Maybe this is what happens to someone such as myself who has loved the book and tried to see every adaptation available: there are particular sensations I look for, and the book leaves very large shoes to fill indeed.

You can read the rest of it here.

That's a great ratio - 4 people liked it for every person who did not. We would get people coming up and saying how much they liked it, or emailing, like this guy who wrote:

Dear Jane Eyre Team,
My complements to all connected with the production of Jane Eyre.
I saw the show yesterday. It was wonderful. I don't think I will ever forget it.
Thank you for presenting it.

Another critic went so far as to suggest that people should not even BOTHER to go and see adaptations and just read the book. I will have more to say about that review, and other aspects of the off-off Broadway critical environment, once I'm done brooding over them.

Angels in America

This scene demonstrates why ANGELS IN AMERICA is a great play - and why Pacino is still great.

Men in their early 40s are in denial

It is striking, this phenomenon. On online dating sites, so many men in their early-mid 40s list the MAXIMUM age of the women they are looking for as mid-30s. And mind you, most of these men are not especially attractive.

And the crazy thing is that women in their 40s usually look so much better than most men that age - they are more likely to dress well, to dye and style their hair, (and of course many men that age barely have hair) they take better care of their teeth and their health and they are more likely to work out.

These 40-something men are living in the past, when there were two different standards for male and female desirability: men had money, women had youth and beauty.

Well I guess it's understandable these men don't want to give up that male privilege. In the same way that too many women still don't understand that part of equality is paying your share of expenses.

But no mistake, that's what this phenomenon is - an expression of male privilege, plain and simple. These 40-something men TOTALLY buy into the idea that males are innately more desirable - just flat out BETTER - than women of the same age.

But judging by the age ranges desired by men in their middle-late 40s, most of them snap out of it eventually, and start considering women their own age.

The rest of them probably just rent 20-something prostitutes.

You're So Vain

who is this song talking to?

Washboard abs

My trainer says he can help me attain the holy grail of physical fitness, washboard abs, if I obey him completely.

Has anybody under the age of 70 ever actually seen a washboard? It might be time for a new term for muscley bellies.


A washboard, in case you're under 70.

Brand New Key

This song is a classic.

Attica! Attica!

Watch it on YouTube

Nobody ever like young Al Pacino.

More about Dog Day Afternoon

More about the Attica riots

This "Cougar" lifestyle isn't working out too well so far... PART 2

Really cute 23 year old IMs me. Things go downhill quickly...


Him
you had (age) 25 down so i figured maybe you'd bend the rules for a 23 year old ;)

Me
I surely will. But I don't like to IM

Him
do you have AOL instant messenger or Yahoo?

Me
I have to go - I have a meeting tomorrow at 8AM.

Him
don't go i wanted to tell you how hard your pictures made me ;)

Me
(.... sign off...)




Like I said, his photo was really cute. But who knows if that's really who I'm talking to? And I prefer NOT to discuss hardness on the first IM exchange.

Oy.

UPDATE: one hour later I get this email from him:

Can't believe you punked out and went to bed!

Sheesh.

This "Cougar" lifestyle isn't working out too well so far...

I just had another depressing date with a younger guy. Depressing because this one also turned out to be a closeted homosexual - well the first one said he was bisexual, but I really doubt it.

How could I tell he was gay? Well, straight men will look at your boobs surreptitiously... but a closeted gay man makes a BIG production out of it, making sure you and everybody else sees him do it.

*siiiiigh*

AND he's a libertarian. *siiiiiiiiiiigh*

Who is in denial about global warming.

argh

PRAISE

Each actor who enters the profession carries with him from childhood a starvation for approbation. As he grows older, he finds that acting is a socially acceptable form of doing something in hope of getting the kind of approval that he missed in his childhood. A director understands that to an actor praise is like food. The actor cannot live without it, cannot flourish without it. A director must discipline himself to praise ceaselessly.

It is not necessary for the actor to have done something extraordinary in order to be praised. General praise, in comments such as "you're doing nicely" or "This scene is coming along" or "It's a pleasure to work with you" doesn't have to apply to any specific achievement, but it lifts the actor's spirit and causes him to flourish. He feels his flower is blooming. He feels his life is healthy. He feels as though the sun is shining if a director, who is, after all, the authority figure, is in favor of him.

more from "A Sense of Direction"

It's important for female directors to ensure that they establish themselves as authority figures first, in order for this to work. My daughter has suggested to me that I'm too open, and therefore too vulnerable in my approach to actors, and set myself up for disrespect and grief from those with an inclination to exploit any signs of "feminine" weakness.

Instant Karma's gonna get you

Look at this adorable toy Mongoose. As all fans of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi know, The Mongoose is the mortal enemy of The Snake.

Another interesting passage from A Sense of Direction

From time to time there might arise what might be called a battle between the director and an actor. What do you do? The director always surrenders. That is the law. The reason for this is practical. If you win a battle with an actor, you lose. There's no such thing as a director winning a battle with an actor. So, if the beginning of a battle occurs, you yield immediately. It doesn't make any difference what the issue is. "I absolutely refuse to wear these boots." "Well, let's find something else for you to wear. Would that be better?" As soon as you accept a supportive position, the next step is creative.

If the director has an ego problem, it may be impossible for him to lose a battle with an actor. Then he must go back to grade one and be a stage manager until he has learned that his ego must be subservient to the art and that he must be graceful in relation to the actor. As we've said before, the director needs the actor as an ally, and we defeat our purpose completely if we make the actor an adversary. In battles, the director always loses.

You can get it at Amazon.com

Laboring in the vineyard

Meanwhile other producers have been calling Mr. Byrd, who, unlike Mr. Binder or Mr. Sanders, is black. They’re curious about his future projects, he said.

“Where were you when I was laboring in the vineyard?” Mr. Byrd asked. “The heavy lifting has been done.”

I totally underestand where Byrd is coming from - you struggle to get work up and seen, and nobody cares until you have a bona fide hit.

More at the NYTimes about the black-audience hit CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.

Yes, Obama is a good speech writer

It takes more than speeches to be a good president.

Senator Clinton, I think you owe Obama Girl and the people of this nation an enormous Obama-pology

What Sarah Ruhl said is so true...

"I will also say that there's a kind of aura around young male writers, say age 26, the hot male writer thing that never surrounds women playwrights. And there's a tremendous irony there, because the playwrights most interesting to read and see now, the ones who are really pushing the work forward aesthetically, are almost all women."
more here

You see this all. the. time. from every damn theatre group. They're all hoping to discover the next manly David Mamet while he's still in his 20s. And women can go to hell as far as the theatre establishment is concerned.

Roy on Mamet

As usual, Roy at Alicublog has something pithy to say, this time in response to David Mament's rightward "conversion" - Mamet wrote in the Village Voice:

I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years.

To which Roy responds:

I'll say. He wrote American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, Homicide, and House of Cards before figuring out that people are not basically good at heart? That's a pretty amazing job of compartmentalization.

Dar Williams - The Blessings

If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right,
It's gotta be raining, and you gotta move your stuff that night,
And the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all,
And you know when he says "Now who dumped who?" that you never should have made that call.

I had the blessings, there's nobody there, there's nobody home,
Yeah, the blessings, at the moment I was most alone
And aimless as a fulltime fool, the joke was on me,
I got all those birds flying off of that tree, and that's a blessing.

And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know,
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go.
And they said, "Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very old,"
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold,

I had the blessings, a moment of peace even when the night ends,
Yeah, the blessings, can we meet? Can we meet again,
At the crossroads of disaster and the imperfect smile,
With the angel in the streetlamp that blinks on as I walk on amile, the blessings.

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong,
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong,
And now I'm getting the answers, when I don't need them anymore,
I'm finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for,
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call,
And she said, "Did I wake you up," I said, "Hey, no, not at all."
And she said, "I got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack,"
And I said, "You can take anything you want, just wait and see,
It's not a release, not a reward, it's the blessings,
Its the gift of what you notice more,"
And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night,
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light.
Yeah the blessings...

See them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

Music from JANE EYRE

Actor Nat Cassidy and I put most of the music for the recent production of my play JANE EYRE together using sound loops from GarageBand, but I did compose one original piece the "Jane Eyre Waltz" from scratch, which I'm pretty proud of. The most complete piece of music before that which I created was Cinco de Mayo, which, although I wrote the melody line, is mostly loops.

Check out music from JANE EYRE here.

here's a little something for all you David Mamet-lovers in the theatre world

He's no longer hinting at his right-wing attitudes via plays like OLEANNA anymore - now Mamet has OFFICIALLY come out of the closet as an asshole.

This is so satisfying - I was just arguing with a bunch of actors a few weeks ago that Mamet is ultimately a reactionary. So nice to be proven right so quickly.

Best part of Mamet's VOICE essay: Kennedy = Bush

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

Wow. Mamet, a late-middle-aged, wealthy white guy has turned to the right. Who would EVER have seen that coming???

Chet Scoville delivers a righteous smack-down at Shakespeare's Sister

More from "A Sense of Direction" by William Ball

The intuitive brain is like an oversized retarded child playing with a bauble and mumbling incoherent phrases. It acts like a baby, it wants its own way in everything, it requires perpetual attention, it is unreliable and completely unreasonable. But within that moronic child lives the brilliant composer of dreams. Dreams are arrangements of poetically perfect, preciously interlocking, self-referential symbols.
There is a quality of perfect creation in a dream. That perfect poetic creativity is the work of the little genius, or the "little professor," sitting in the intuitive brain. In other words, the intuitive brain is the home of an amorphic moron who is selfish, moody and irresponsible but who, on certain occasions, is inspired with flashes of brilliant and unassailably right thought, flawlessly appropriate action, and sublime clarity of vision. Intuition is capable of inspiring one with instant truth, with absolute and perfect clarity. It is ironic that intuition, the source of inspiration and genius, should spend most of its time behaving "like a slob."

Lessons learned from off-off Broadway

Coming soon: the very poor quality of off-off Broadway critics...

Eliot Spitzer believes

Christians may not believe in Karma...

...but Eliot Spitzer sure does...

Eliot Spitzer resigns

Why do people like that always think they will never be caught???? Arrogance? Stupidity? Undefeatable self-absorption?

May all philanderers come to this kind of humiliation. I feel sorry for the poor spouses and children though...

unequal relationships suck

I met the partner of an actor acquaintance recently, and the partner said to me that when he heard that the actor was an actor, he was uninterested in pursuing a relationship, but that when he realized the actor was "realistic" about all actorly aspirations, he changed his mind and they hooked up.

What sorts of aspirations does the actor's partner, this mighty paragon of practicality have? you may wonder. Equities investments? Real estate? No, this advocate of all things real spends much of his time drawing.

welcome to the club Katha

I believe Gloria Steinem said the exact same thing a couple of months ago

A far more important question is this: Why did The Post publish this nonsense? I can't imagine a great newspaper airing comparable trash talk about any other group. "Asians Really Do Just Copy." "No Wonder Africa's Such a Mess: It's Full of Black People!" Misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice, and nowhere more so than in our nation's clueless and overwhelmingly white-male-controlled media. I can just picture the edit meeting: This time, let's get a woman to say women are dumb and silly! If readers raise too big a ruckus, Outlook editor John Pomfret can say it was all "tongue in cheek." Women are dingbats! Get it? Ha. Ha. Ha.

more at the Washington Post

The funniest twist on Family Circus ever!

oh Eliot

You gigantic hypocrite. How could you?


Spitzer is linked to a prostitution ring

Belief in the general beauty

William Ball's "A Sense of Direction - Some Observations on the Art of Directing" has many interesting and valuable things to say, especially this:

The general beauty of a work is the way in which we talk about its worthiness to be seen. The general beauty contains the theme. The general beauty is the reason we feel passionately that an audience should see it. The general beauty is what excites the director and what makes him feel that other people should be excited. A director has to be a missionary. He must feel strongly about the theme of a play - to the extent that he feels it is important for other people to share or to witness that theme...

...the director must believe. We are makers of belief... he has to believe that he could stand on the corner and sell it, that he could market it, that he could convince people of the beauty, that he could stop passersby and say, "Did you ever wonder about the possibility of this? Isn't this beautiful? Doesn't this strike you as something important and marvelous and amazing and peculiar and wonderful?...

...When a director chooses the general beauty he is making a choice on behalf of the audience. The director agrees to represent the public. The identity of the director goes like this: "I am an audience, I am everyman, I am all, I am judge, I am servant, I am listener, I am moderator, I am synthesizer, I am seeker, I am helper, I am child, I am believer, I am maker of belief."

One of the things that made me so happy about the recent production of a play of mine is that I think we did achieve the general beauty.

In my ongoing struggle with the anguish of a friendship destroyed thanks to this production, I have to stop for a moment and acknowledge that the actor who hurt me so much did succeed in the mission, even beyond my expectations. There is one moment of his performance that I will always remember. The actor is playing a man who is very much in love with his fiancee, a woman who is younger and less experienced in the world than he. She informs him that she knows that a man's love is fleeting because she has read all about it in books written by men. And when she says this, it usually got a laugh, but more importantly it always caused the actor to smile in such a tender, indulgent, appreciative way as if to say "isn't my darling girl the most wonderous creature on earth with her skeptical view of the world based only on what she has read in books? And how wrong she is to doubt my devotion." It's alot to be said in a brief smile, but he did it, every single performance.

But the most amazing part is this - now that I've come to know this actor, I truly believe that he has never felt anything close to such feelings, himself, in his entire life. I believe that what he did was channel those feelings directly from the collective human unconscious through his body.

I suppose he isn't the only actor capable of such a thing - it may even be routine - but it's still a bit shocking to realize this is what you are witnessing, rather than an expression of feelings that the actor himself understands. It's almost mystical, and a little scary, the way you feel when you try to wrap your head around the idea that serial killers have no sense of empathy.

George of the Jungle

One of the hottest videos around is found in the "Family" section, thanks to the amazing Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle.

Watch this great clip on youtube

AND Naked fight between Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser. whoohooo!

Wow, this helps me make sense of recent events in my life...

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

People who are overly narcissistic commonly feel rejected, humiliated and threatened when criticised. To protect themselves from these dangers, they often react with disdain, rage, and/or defiance to any slight criticism, real or imagined. To avoid such situations, some narcissistic people withdraw socially and may feign modesty or humility.

Though individuals with NPD are often ambitious and capable, the inability to tolerate setbacks, disagreements or criticism, along with lack of empathy, make it difficult for such individuals to work cooperatively with others or to maintain long-term professional achievements. With narcissistic personality disorder, the person's perceived fantastic grandiosity, often coupled with a hypomanic mood, is typically not commensurate with his or her real accomplishments.

The exploitativeness, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, disregard for others, and constant need for attention inherent in NPD, adversely affects interpersonal relationships.

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
4. requires excessive admiration
5. strong sense of entitlement
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect.

Kissing Hank's ass

The sublime religious parody now in video format!

Also - Hankisms

Sample Hankisms

Atheism - Hank doesn't have an ass to kiss.

Christian Fundamentalism - Kiss Hank's ass and he'll give you a million dollars when you leave town. If you don't, he's going to kick the shit out of you. Read Karl's list, it's important. Only eat wieners on buns, without condiments.

Protestantism - It's OK, you don't have to kiss Hank's ass— but you'll want to, if you trust him. If you don't trust him, he's going to kick the shit out of you when you leave town. If you do trust him, he'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.

Jehovah's Witnesses - Everybody in town should kiss Hank's ass, but only 144 are going to get a million dollars after Hank burns the town down, which we think will be Real Soon Now. Then he'll kick the shit out of anyone who didn't kiss his ass, and send the rest to a nicer, newer town. Here, have a pamphlet; it describes what we think we mean. We'll be back tomorrow to tell you why everyone else is kissing Hank's ass wrong.

Exodus Ministries - We love you, and we want to help you heal yourself of this terrible sickness of eating wieners The Wrong Way. Let us teach you to enjoy wieners only in buns, without condiments. Then, and only then, will you be allowed to kiss Hank's ass and collect your million dollars when you leave town.

Shi'A Islam - A long time ago, Karl died. Then his father-in-law tried to make his own list, but we know Karl's wife hid the real list and gave it to her son. Listen to Karl's wife's son, or we'll kick the shit out of you.

Sunni Islam - Baloney. You know Karl's father-in-law's list is the real one, and if you don't admit that, we'll kick the shit out of you.

Heaven's Gate - Kiss Karl's ass, and -- oh, wait, Karl just saw Hank's limo drive by. We're leaving town NOW to catch it.

truly a play after my own heart!!!

...you’ll find something in Push Productions’ hilarious Actors are F*@#ing Stupid that addresses humanity’s universal obsession with attention, praise and, most importantly, seeing the other guy fail. Don’t bother to look for characters connecting on any genuine level. As in life, so it goes in the vicious acting community - it's every narcissistic moron for themselves.

more at off-off-online.com

I'm really proud of my daughter. She's a thorn in the side of the patriarchy

My daughter took me out for my birthday, and we discussed the theatre trouble I've had recently. She believes that sexism plays a large part in the disrespect, disdain, or even contempt that I'm given on occasion, whether in the role of playwright, director or producer.

I'm inclined to agree with her, although I don't think that the theatre scene is more sexist then the rest of society. But people in the theatre scene like to think of themselves as enlightened, progressive and (ugh) "cutting edge" and so it's just a bit more hypocritical when they mindlessly reflect sexist attitudes.

Eddie Izzard is a proud atheist

I caught his show in the Village last night and the best part was his riffs on religion and atheism.

Eddie Izzard clip at ex-christian.net

Meanwhile, not far away at the Reformed Church in America, they still believe in "election" which means basically, that some people are "saved" and the rest are damned, purely through a random act of God.

Lest you have a problem with this, the RCA is ready to get all up in your face:

Article 18: The Proper Attitude toward Election and Reprobation

To those who complain about this grace of an undeserved election and about the severity of a just reprobation, we reply with the words of the Apostle, "Who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God?" 14 and with the words of our Savior, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" 15 We, however, with reverent adoration of these secret things, cry out with the Apostle: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen." 16

Translation: God said so, so suck it.

No wonder people who believe in this crap are so incredibly superior and insufferable and convinced they are blameless, no matter what rotten things they do.

Here's the whole deal:

Article 7: Election

Election is God's unchangeable purpose by which God did the following:

Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of God's will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom God also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.

And so God decreed to give to Christ those chosen for salvation, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ's fellowship through the Word and Spirit, that is to grant them true faith, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of God's Son, to glorify them. God did all this in order to demonstrate God's mercy, to the praise of the riches of God's glorious grace.

More on the RCA web site

Do Christians believe in Karma?

Most Christian denominations seem to say that if you do wrong, you need merely ask for Jesus's forgiveness, and everything's OK. This is a much easier way to go than the popular belief in Karma which is that bad things you do will turn into energy that will come back to get you later. There doesn't seem to be any way to escape Karma.

Although the original Karma is about being reborn, on a higher or lower plane, this people's Karma seems to have much greater currency. And so even Christians believe in it, much like many Christians also believe in Astrology although I would think that would be tantamount to heresy.

The Christian churches seem to be getting really lax on matters of dogma.

I hugged David Hyde Pierce

David Hyde Pierce has a reputation as a really cool down-to-earth guy, so I was not entirely surprised that he responded to my invitation to stop by and visit my JANE EYRE production by actually stopping by - but I was still thrilled.

We closed today and I was helping load up a truck with set pieces and props. Somebody came up to me and said "David Hyde Pierce is looking for you."

I went back into the theatre, there he was, and I just hugged him - I couldn't stop myself somehow. He's just very huggable. Or maybe because I'm so familiar with his work it feels like I know him.

I then introduced him to some of the actors from JANE EYRE who were also helping with the load out.

And then he was gone. *siiiigh*

But still, it was great, he's great and you should go see his show Curtains because I've heard that it is great.