Monday, September 24, 2007

 

And In Other Webby News

I don't smoke regularly. I have one maybe once a year. Yet this morning at around 10 am I had such a strong urge for a smoke that I had to call my wife. At around 10:30 am I got all of this spam urging me to quit smoking.

Irrefutable conclusion: my wife secretly runs a successful spam business.

Labels: technology, true confessions

posted by Dan 1:37 PM
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

 

Can’t Do It

Today’s a somber day of reflection for many, but it’s also my eight-year wedding anniversary. So forgive me if I don’t join in on the sobriety, and instead say that my wife is rad.

And I’d also like to apologize to her for breaking both our cellphones in the course of 48 hours. I plead the hero-dad defense on the first (I chased after a floaty my daughter threw in a lake and forgot my phone was in my pocket), but I make no excuse for the second (I strapped hers to my belt-loop, despite her misgivings, and then dropped it in the middle of the street). But is there any greater gift a man can give his wife than a reminder of his own incompetence?

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 4:44 PM
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Friday, August 31, 2007

 

Call Me Irresponsible

Inquiries here and elsewhere as to whether or not I found the edge of the Earth, and dropped off it. If by “Earth” we mean “the Internet,” then this is true. What’s in the chasm?

• The workshop of Early Poe at Utah Shakes. Great actors and a good working experience. I’m finally comfortable with the play, in that I’ve accepted (though I’ve known for a while) that it is not the sort of play that fits in with the NYC off-off-scene. It feels like I’ve found peace with a wayward child.


• Five plays are fighting for attention. I need to spend time realizing them.


• One million application deadlines, as most playwrights know.


• School plans for my eldest, which changed at the last possible second.


• The peace of mind found only away from up-to-the-second punditry and comment threads.

I can’t promise I won’t vanish again, but I will try to post something regularly…anything…

Ah, that’s the stuff.

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 1:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

 

This Way I Don’t Have To Think of Anything to Write About

Thanks to Meron for the assist.

Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers.

1. I don’t like The Sopranos, but I will watch anything with William Shatner.


2. I have an autographed copy of the Go-Gos LP, Beauty and the Beat.


3. I owe a call to my friend since 2nd grade


4. Favorite rum: Appleton


5. I once got into an argument with a total stranger about whether or not “blue balls” is a real phenomenon (P.S. it is)


6. I rode a tandem bike only once, and I crashed it into a street sign


7. Today my debut CD is titled Nobody Likes a Whiner Unless They Bring Cookies.


8. There’s lots of things I thought of putting on the list, but didn’t.

Crimeny Jehosophat, tag EIGHT PEOPLE?! No way. That’s too many. Besides, I know I’m late to this party, hasn’t everybody already done this one? Look, if you haven’t done it, do it. Okay?

Labels: meme tags, true confessions

posted by Dan 5:34 PM
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

 

Meme-Beamed

The mysterious e. hunter spreen has whacked me with Laura Axelrod's sinister invention, "5/5".

1. Name your area of expertise/interest

Right now? The chunk of “Nips” brand dulce de leche candy that has fused itself to my upper right molars. Ha! You thought I was going to say “playwriting” didn’t you?! HA! STUPID FOOLS! If there’s one thing I’m not an expert in, it’s that. This candy stuck in my teeth, though, I am intensely interested in.

2. How did you become interested in it?

One of my coworkers planted a bag of the stuff near the file cabinets, because she has a hatred of molars/passion for incisors, or maybe she wants to see how long before I go after the STUPID CARAMEL with my fingers, or perhaps she hopes to get hold of my fillings and prospect for gold.

3. How did you learn how to do it?

You don’t learn this. Like great art, it only can come from an experience of profound fucking suffering.

My tongue is learning how to twist itself into all sorts of new positions in a vain campaign to pry this candy loose. Maybe I will be a better deep-kisser for this experience. They say the tongue is the strongest muscle, but it is apparently not strong enough to dislodge this piece of GODDAMN GORILLA GLUE disguised as a tempting sweet.

4. Who has been your biggest influence?

Dr. Drill N’ Fill.

5. What would you teach people about it?

Lesson Plan – Caramel Stuck in Your Teeth 202 – D. Trujillo, instructor

Week 1: Review syllabus, develop objectives for semester

Week 2: Investigative reading: Barbara Tuchman, Howard Zinn

Week 3: First essay due

Week 4: Guest lecturer (TBA)

Week 5: GAAAAAA GET THIS OUT OF MY FUCKING…GAAAAGHH! MOTHER OF…GAAAAAARRRGH THAT’S A BASTARDY FUCKING NERVE ENDING GARKGJOPL


Let’s see, who to tag...Sherri, Kronda, Adam, Meron, and Sarah.

Labels: health, meme tags, true confessions

posted by Dan 6:05 PM
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

 

Dee-del-Lee-Del

Normally I don’t bring this stuff up. But the theatre-weenie luminaries in my hometown gave me an award last night: Outstanding Original Script, for Jingle Spree. It warms my neglected weenie fuzzies, in a way that other awards can't. It's like a pat on the back from Sarge. I miss Portland so bad it hurts sometimes.

I have to credit the cast (Eric Reid, Deanna Wells, Bill Barry, Barb Klansnic, Harold Phillips, my homeslice Adrienne Flagg), Director Tony Sonera and crew, for the good that came. Amazing. Especially since the reviews were mixed. And especially since eight people actually saw the production.

Okay, enough onanistic horn-tooting. Time to Toot the Horns of Others!

I went to the Grote reading last night, and it's a tribute to the writer that I was very involved in the play, in spite of the fact that I was not so much listening as poaching in the sweat of a hundred strangers. Seriously, it was hot. Henceforth my readings will always feature eunuchs with large straw fans.

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 5:26 PM
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Thursday, May 31, 2007

 

No Taste for Blood

I'm sorry to see MattJ going, but I get it. I know he won't read this, but I bring it up because I've been pretty down on the interweb social zones too lately. Perhaps for the same reasons, perhaps not.

I can't seem to derive any use out of the debates, contretemps and falderals that make up the community. I understand some people do, and I used to, sometimes. Maybe it's age or my dwindling free time, but now I read the latest text-brawl and I get sad, that's all.

There seems to be an unquenchable eagerness out there to find somebody we disagree with, and shit on them.

I don't mean to throw stones from a high horse on the great field of mixed metaphors. Lord knows, I've said things plenty of combative, judgmental things here. But there's something about this form of instant publication that brings that out. And it takes a lot of energy out of me. And I don't have a lot to spare these days.

But I don't want to give up Venal Scene just yet. So here's the deal: there will be no entries into debates, arguments and discussions, on theatre or politics, here anymore. There are others who do it better than me anyway. This is going to become more of a personal diary and creative site. I know that's a big change for all three of my readers, and I won't be surprised if I lose at least two.

And here's something else I never said and should have: Thank you for reading.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 11:43 PM
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

 

Thoughts At the End of a Revision

The following is writer-y, so consider yourself warned.

I’m tinkering with my play Early Poe for a festival (more on that soon). During this tinkering I have instinctively avoided posting and reading the blogs. There’s something about the atmosphere of revolution in the blogs that I find appealing, but it also can be destructive to my work. At least with this play.

Early Poe will not explode anyone’s ideas of theatre. It does not blaze a new path. It does not speak for an unspoken multitude. It does not take the form and change it irrevocably. As I’ve worked on it, I’ve watched it shape into a recognizable drama, with scenes, conflicts, characters, about the dead guy and the dead people in his life. As I’ve watched the play grow, I’ve thought to myself, Maybe I’m messing up. I should be Breaking Boundaries. This play should be like The Incredible Hulk, an angry green smashing goliath. Then this other voice says, But that’s not what the play is. Then I’d get angry at myself for being so conventional. Then I’d have trouble working on the play, and want to withdraw it, and burn all the copies.

That’s no way to work.

I love playwrights that challenge the form. Caryl Churchill’s a favorite. I am inspired by the writers on the left that effortlessly revolutionize with their plays (I won’t embarrass them with a public mash note, they know who they are, or will).

But sometimes I can’t help but love the plain vanilla playwright in me. Early Poe, regular ol’ play that it is, means something to me. I know the characters, the dilemmas, the heart of the play, even though it takes place in 1823. It’s something from an open vein. I won’t disown it because it’s not the looniest piece of political/structural/formal bizarreness I’ve ever written.

This concludes the self-indulgence. Sorry. Funny to come!

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 3:34 PM
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

 

Ghost Whistle

At work: From somewhere in the depths of the air shaft outside my desk window, or perhaps from the stairwell directly behind me, I keep hearing a whistle, over and over, the first two notes of the theme from "The Andy Griffith Show," in loop, over and over. Richard Foreman is playing tricks on me.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 5:16 PM
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Monday, April 16, 2007

 

First Embedded Videos (Huzzah!)

In celebration of this technical milestone, let me introduce you to the rock goddess that is my wife, Julie, fronting her band of yore, Jerk Alert.

First, (I’m a) Werewolf, which is true:

Click To Play

Next, a cover of GG Allin and the Jabbers’ Don’t Talk to Me, with special guest vocals by Jimmy from Sweden. Video is after the intro.

Click To Play

Did I mention she married me? I want a time machine so I can go back in time and show these to my 13-yr. old self to let him know everything’s going to be ok.

(h/t Francisco Daum, who I think took the videos. Thanks!)

Labels: linkage, music, true confessions, tv

posted by Dan 4:45 PM
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

 

Dialogue Detritus

MY LITTLE GIRL:
The Invisible Man keeps pushing us over.

ME:
Hm. Maybe we should kick him.

MY LITTLE GIRL:
We can’t see him.
Maybe we should fill the room with poison.

ME:
Okay.
I think it worked.

MY LITTLE GIRL:
Good. I’ll clean up the blood.

Labels: dialogue, true confessions

posted by Dan 4:06 PM
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Blogging = Walking, Writing = Chewing Gum

Sometimes you’ve got to get away from the theatre-talk fluffernutter to work. Go ahead, you can admit it. I do.

I go to work on my play about hotel housekeepers, the Iraq war, used condoms as slingshots, photonovellas, and winning wars in our heads.

Then I go to work on my play about vanishing roommates, eroticized q-tips, masks for burn victims, insane homeless artists, and trading lives.

Then I go back and brush up the rhymey-apt. super-runaway play.

Then I do a pass on the Poe-crazy older lover-crazy dad-crazy play.

Then I will lie down and hum childhood favorites softly.

This is the plan.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 4:00 PM
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Friday, March 09, 2007

 

20 cc's Frosted Flakes, Stat

When my blood sugar drops, I get cranky. Suicidal, even. It’s ridiculous that my mood and personality should be shuttled into despair so easily, but there it is. My wife knows the look on my face when it’s happening. She doesn’t even ask, “Have you eaten?” anymore. She just grabs whatever’s in the refrigerator, wrestles me to the ground and shoves it down my throat.

But I didn’t start this to discuss bedroom games. What’s amazing about this sugarless state of mind is that, in the midst of it, I don’t want it to change. I revel in it, in a way. Because now I’m seeing the world as it truly is: a horrible, awful meatgrinder without beauty or respite. And I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SEE IT. EVERYONE ELSE IS A FOOL.

But before the really dark self-destructive thoughts gain complete dominance, yogurt or Clementines or bread are applied, and all is well again. And I have to laugh at how desperately I wanted to hold on to my own illness.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 1:23 PM
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

 

Sign of the Subconscious Times

I looked at this painting today, Cima da Conegliano’s St. Jerome in the Desert:


image from Olga’s Gallery @ ABCGallery.com

What does it look like St. Jerome’s doing to you, upon first glance?



Here’s what I saw:



Even holy hermits can’t escape the 21st century mindset. I feel so sacrilegious. At least I didn’t see this:

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 4:16 PM
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Thursday, February 15, 2007

 

Prime Time at My House

(Scene: My living room.)

TV:
Assigned to supervise a burgeoning civilian refugee camp housed on the Galactica's starboard hangar deck, Capt. Karl Agathon faces a restive population, including many Sagittarons. Considered insular and backward by their fellow Colonial citizens, the Sagittarons are used to discrimination — and to fighting back. Worse, the civilian doctor overseeing the refugees, Dr. Mike Robert diagnoses a number of the Sagittarons with Mellorak sickness . The disease is curable if it's treated within 48 hours. Untreated, it's fatal — and the Sagittarons don't believe in medical care.

ME:
Sorry, TV. Did you say something? My mind was elsewhere. Just got home from the job, after watching the kid, after shoveling snow. Where does the day go? God and I’ve only spent two hours this week writing. I’ll never get anything done at that rate. Sorry, TV, you have my attention now. You were saying something about Sagi-trons?

TV:
A power play ensues between Jack and "The Others" as Juliet's future hangs in the balance. Meanwhile, Kate, Sawyer and Karl continue on their journey away from "Alcatraz."

ME:
I didn’t really get any of that, TV. I was trying to follow you but then I had to cook dinner and fix the plastic cover on my kid’s window and track down where the HELL this credit card bill came from. Is this about that show Lost? I’ve been meaning to get to that, the first season DVD has been sitting on top of my DVD player for three months now. I did catch the first episode. Maybe I’ll just jump in on season three, I’m sure I can pick it up quickly, right?

TV:
2:05 P.M. Morris is brought into CTU. Chloe rushes to him, but he is embarrassed and refuses to respond. Jack enters CTU for the first time in almost two years. Faces he doesn’t recognize stare back at him. Buchanan lets him know that they believe that Gredenko is aiding Fayed.

ME:
Okay you obviously can’t take a hint, TV. Would you just dial yourself to SHUT UP, please. I’m trying to change one daughter’s diapers and give the other one a bath. CRAP I MIXED THEM UP AGAIN. Look TV, I just can’t be bothered with all your comings and goings. If you can’t speak to me in Perry Mason-sized, repetitive installments, I’m not going to listen. Speaking of which, do you carry Perry Mason on any of your hundred billion channels? There we go. Maybe poor Hamilton Burger will catch a break this time.

Labels: true confessions, tv

posted by Dan 5:59 PM
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

 

We Will Prevail

The temperature has not risen above 64 degrees in my apartment. This is because we insulate our walls with cold air collected from the holes in said walls.

Last night I brought up heavy drapes stored in the basement, in the hopes of reinforcing our cold-air insulation with something of substance. Unfortunately, cold’s allies Mold and Mildew had gotten their first, and rendered the drapes fatally smelly.

But courage, friends. Cold might have won that round, but tonight we begin a reign of terror on cold, utilizing the power of cheap thin plastic.

Send the dogs if you don’t hear from me.

Labels: New York, true confessions

posted by Dan 5:58 PM
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Saturday, February 03, 2007

 

Even My Subconscious Has Gone Weenie

I had a dream there was a new Harold Pinter play opening.

The title?

RePauseItory

Sad.

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 2:47 PM
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Thursday, February 01, 2007

 

Gillette Can Expect My Lawsuit Shortly

I have -- what’s the nice term for it? -- a “beauty mark” on my face. Left cheek, right where the muscle bunches. It’s not huge. I don’t think I’m known as “Dan the Guy With The Mole Eating His Face.” Maybe I am, who knows.

But it does occasionally get on the wrong side of the razor, and when it does, there’s a fountain of blood that continues unabated throughout the day.

But this uninteresting personal tidbit is only the beginning of today’s trial. Because the wound gushes from the left side of my face, I need my left hand to sop up the hemo with a paper towel. Normally I’m right-handed, but at work I’m left-handed (don’t ask). This means that I must reach across my keyboard to use the mouse. My right arm feels awkward and strained by this. The shoulder’s starting to get sore.

Which is how I almost dropped a large café au lait on my boss’s desk just now.

In the Twilight Zone version of this, I do, causing myself to get fired, which makes my wife throw me out of the house with nothing but my razor, which it turns out was planted in my bathroom by space aliens. I have no idea why.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 4:17 PM
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Monday, January 29, 2007

 

That Peculiar Human Myopia

It began to snow last night.

First thought: Thank God, this winter has been too warm.

Second thought: Dammit, now I have to put down salt.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 5:27 PM
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Thursday, January 25, 2007

 

Fish Update

I thought the fish were nipping at a wad of toilet paper, until I had a closer look. I realized they were picking clean the white skeleton of one of the pleckos. That brings the body count to four since the holidays. I remember the man who gave me the tank said:

You have to get used to the carnage…

What, like every few months?

Sure…

I hate fish.

Incidentally, pleckos have a surprisingly wide skull.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 5:40 PM
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

 

How to Answer a Question With More Questions

Because Isaac is an instigator, the topic of the writer’s process and theory bursts out of its inflamed bubo on Venal Scene. Consider yourself warned.

(If you want the full story Story So Far, start here and here; read this comments discussion; hit some responses from Matts J, F, and the irrepressible Comtois; wrap it all up with Isaac’s challenge. It’s a lot to wade through, but should cause a few synapses to fire, which staves off Alzheimer’s, if nothing else.)

As I told Isaac, I’m very protective of how I write plays. I’m a private person, and that’s why I come across as a little coy in the tell-all art form of the personal blog. As for George’s Organums: I found them disconcerting at first. I actually wondered if he was in good health. But honestly, I was only bothered by the fact that among the idols George smashed were a few totems I recognized from my own work, and at the risk of immodesty, I consider that work to be worthwhile.

The challenge posed by an aesthetic theory is almost an ethical one: if one has little theoretical underpinning behind one’s work, there’s the suggestion that the work is somehow corrupt. I think that’s what some react against. Me, I don’t have a theory that I can express as the foundation of my plays. But there is a something from which it all comes, something weird and wild, as Poe said, and best left a little unknown. So my plays often come forth as strikingly dissimilar beasts. As I raise them, I try to listen to their growls and feed them according to their desires.

I can tell you some questions that I often ask myself as I work. They aren’t dramaturgical questions, which are posed later. Some of them are cryptic. Some might seem pretentious. They aren’t to me.

• Music and plays come from the same place. The first sound is not a word but a note. The rhythm, the song, what is it?


• Where is my blood?


• Is that really true?


• Does this run toward fire, or away?


• How is this for bodies, in space, through time?


• Can I make left turns into oncoming traffic?


• If I fail to finish, will I die?


• Where be dragons?


• Am I leading or following?


• What tacks have I set on my own chair?


• Would this make Carolyn proud?


• Have I seen everyone naked?


• Is there something I can steal?


• At the end of the day, what?

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 4:06 PM
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Monday, January 22, 2007

 

The Deep

If someone offers you a 55 gallon aquarium complete with tropical fish and all the accoutrements, do not accept it. It’s a trick. The aquarium has destroyed their peace and well-being, and, like the monkey’s paw, they are trying to rid themselves of the cursed treasure by appealing to your own greed. For tropical fish.

Thus I preface my narrative.

These friends, parents with a son, were moving to Seattle, or so they claimed. Perhaps it was an elaborate ruse to unload the fish tank. I arrived at their apartment in the middle of a well-orchestrated false-move-fracas, and the father showed me the tank. It included two angelfish, a beta, two tetras, some mollys, as well a couple of boops and flarmas. The father warned me:

Listen, some of these fish are going to die. When you replace them, be sure to get community fish. They get along well.

What, don’t these fish get along?

Sure they get along...

At this point one fish ate another’s tail.

The process of bringing the aquarium to my apartment involved the usual zaniness of a transport-related activity in Manhattan. But when we finally got everything into the living room, and I had a look at what I needed to do to keep these small creatures alive and happy in this alien environment, I was taken ever so slightly aback. Did I want to be responsible for these fragile little aquatic lives? But there they were, swimming in place in Ziploc bags, and I realized that what I wanted was irrelevant. These were my responsibility -- as with my children – like it or not. I must be the gentle giant that nursemaids these tender charges from now on.

Tender charges, my hinder. After twelve hours it became clear that fish only think of two things: eating, and killing other fish. Some people say that they find aquariums relaxing. These people need to save themselves the costs of fish food and rent the “Saw” series, because they’ll find an equivalent level of “relaxation.” All the damn things do is chase each other around the tank, trying to bite each other’s eyes out. I find that I have some difficulty going to sleep, knowing that in the living room, seven little assassins without compassion, remorse or personality battle to the death.

The most interesting one is the bottom-feeder, a crawdad. But even though he seems to exhibit a kind of thought process, he’s as evil as the rest. He’s just funny about it. On his first day in the aquarium, he chases the small fish, attempting to catch them in his clumsy pincers. It was evil, and worse, pathetic in an unappealing way. Then he found the treasure chest we’d installed, the kind that opens when bubbles blow through it. He tried to use this as a kind of trap. He sat holding it open, with one claw on the lid, the other on the bottom, waiting for a fish to swim close enough. Then he tried to close the lid on the fish. But he is clumsy and slow, and only succeeded in catching his own claw. We have named him Wile E.

But there is no innocence in the tank, no road runner cheerily speeding by without a thought of harm. They are all killers. How morally barren are these creatures? The two largest, the angelfish, recently squirted a batch of eggs all over the miniature castle. We observed them standing (or swimming) guard by the eggs, chasing off other fish. My wife and I concluded that at least these angelfish fulfilled the biological imperative to protect offspring.

We were so young and naïve. If only we had known.

As soon as the first flickers of life began to stir in the eggs, the angelfish ate them.

Then they ate all the unviable eggs, presumably because the dead don’t taste as good as the living.

Then they spit remnants of the eggs into each other’s mouths.

Then they ate those remnants off each other’s fishy-lips.

Then they bit each other’s lips, and tried to kill each other.

I hate fish.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 6:03 PM
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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

 

My New Year's

You know what’s refreshing?

Having an early (9pm) New Year’s Eve. Having your four-year old daughter as Mistress of Ceremonies. Following her in a parade through the house with custom-designed banners. Watching her make up a New Years group-hug ritual on the spot.

You know what’s even more refreshing?

Looking at the clock at 9:30 pm on New Year’s Eve, and thinking, “F@ck it, I’m going to bed.”

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 6:06 PM
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Monday, December 18, 2006

 

Silence is better.

For me, sometimes. For work, anyway. When I’m busy here, it’s because I’ve reached a pause in my writing. This is a brief breath before I dive into rehearsals for the workshop of Talk of the Walk-Up, directed by the inimitable Isaac Butler and featuring mild-mannered superhero Mac Rogers.

I hate to call it a workshop, by the way. That can mean a lot of godawful, from a staged reading with awkward blocking, all the way up to a production with plausible denial. Talk will be closer to the latter than the former, but I wouldn’t call it full production. There will be a roughness to the performance because we will be toying with our beakers. Also, there is no entity financially behind it other than me. “Me Productions Presents” may be a little too DIY for this old fogey.

So what to call it. “The Rough Cut?” Perhaps.

The silence here is due to work, of course. Real work. There’s very little that satisfies me more than regular stretches of concentrated work on a script. Morning after morning spent with it. It’s soothing, it’s smooth menthol flavor, frankly. I wonder if the work isn’t a form of medication for me, necessary in part because of my suspicion of pharmaceuticals. When I’m idle, I’m difficult to be around. Petulant. That sometimes comes out here, because this is where I go when idle.

But I love you too, blog! Still, there’s nothing that can substitute for putting my head down and enjoying a silence with a script. I’ve followed many of the discussions going on with great interest. Ultimately I find myself able to contribute very little directly. My contribution is mostly in what I write. It’s the best way to put what I want from theatre. This isn’t to denigrate those who write extensively on their aesthetic. If the good Lord would only hold the sun in the sky for me a few hours each night.

And speaking of that contribution, here’s some great photos of my last production, Jingle Spree, shot by filmmaker and musician Marshal Serna. It starts on the last page of the archive, because the photo shoot reversed the order of the acts. Click the back arrow to see more.

Labels: photos, productions, true confessions

posted by Dan 11:57 AM
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Monday, November 13, 2006

 

Venal Scene: Now For Kids!!!

Imagine this adorable rhino plunging its horn through my chest.

That’s what NAPLWRIMO is doing to me: goring me, with big-eyed impunity. Between writing a play in one month, preparing for a workshop production in January, preparing a website, working, and something else…oh yeah, this, I am a bloody mess. But I brought it on myself.

I’m thirty pages into the play, and hoping to finish in two weeks. Does that seem likely?

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 3:49 PM
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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

 

Is It Wrong To Want To Scare The Crap Out Of Kids?

Seriously. Because I had a big 'ol time handing out candy on Halloween using my newly-developed Freak From the Hills Face, with a jutting lower jaw and eyes rolled back. A bit too much pleasure. Is it some weird miseries-of-childhood revenge thing?

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Garrett Eisler seems to enjoy it too, so I'm in good company. Or is that just making excuses? Maybe it's ickier that two grown men like to scare the wee ones.

I feel bad now. I think I'll make myself feel better by stealing my daughter's tootsie rolls.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 11:58 PM
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Friday, October 27, 2006

 

Dialogue Detritus

ME
You want to throw away this mezuzah?

HER
Yeah.

ME
It's so nice.

HER
I can't...it has an association with a religious philosophy that I don't practice.

ME
Oh yeah. I feel the same way about the Jesus nite-lite.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 4:05 PM
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

 

First Night

The Dramatists Guild fellows all met for the first time last night. We were immediately taught the secret Dramatists Handshake and sworn to eternal secrecy on our dark rituals.

Serously, the headshots of all those playwrights on the conference room wall, staring down at me like a host of ancient judges, made me nervous.

I'm not allowed to talk about our activities, but I can say that there is free pizza. Also, I played "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on Richard Rogers piano. Check one off the "To Do Before I Die" list.

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 12:31 PM
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Thursday, August 31, 2006

 

Latest Installment

Out helping my wife bring this young lady into the world.



Say hello to Daddy's theatre-weenie friends, Josie. Ga.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 11:25 PM
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

 

Ouch

In Oregon, where I changed the clock on my computer to PHT (Pacific Hangover Time). I think if I wasn't married, I'd be dead, because the moment I'm away from my wife, ginger-vodka shots + rum-saturated Sangria + Belgian White beer = AWESOME IDEA! Enjoy that sober, sober pregnancy while I'm gone, honey!

I'm a terrible human being.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 1:06 PM
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Friday, July 07, 2006

 

By the way

Yesterday was my birthday. One of these days, I'm going to throw a party. But right now I'm painting my daughter's room.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 1:43 PM
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Monday, May 22, 2006

 

About That Award

Adam Szymkowicz is wrong in his recollection. There was a trophy. He drank it.

Labels: true confessions

posted by Dan 1:56 PM
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

 

Disturbed

Tuesday night I saw Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter, thanks to the kindness of a free ticket from their publicity department (for those of you critical of my decision to take the schwag, please note the title of this blog). This was to be a big to-do with plenty of bloggers, and perhaps some excitement with the playwright and special guest. All of it added up to a promising Tuesday night, and perhaps an anecdote for this digital rag right here.

Or it would have, if I'd gone on the correct Tuesday night. The event is next week. You see, I screw up my own benefits.

I didn't realize this until I sat through the first act. And by then, I'd already had an experience worth a mention here. By coincidence, my mother-in-law was also in attendance that night. Not because she's a blogger. I don't think.

If you haven't heard, Red Light is a bit of a blue show, with Act One culminating in a simulation of the two-backed beast. For the plot's sake it's supposed to be short, but I'll tell you: it isn't short when your mother-in-law is sitting THREE ROWS BEHIND YOU. Then it is one million years long, with mind and body drawn and quartered by stimulation and...and Mother-In-Law. She's a lovely woman. I say that in all sincerity. But there are two people in the world that you don't want to watch a sex act anywhere near. Only slightly ahead of Mother-In-Law is Mother. Needless to say, I have gone blind.

But congratulations to Adam Rapp, cast and crew. I hope all goes well for you with that blogger night, that award thing, and thanks for helping to destroy my sex drive forever.

Labels: theatre, true confessions

posted by Dan 9:59 PM
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