Twunch

If you didn’t know it, a play that i wrote is going to be in the New York International Fringe Festival

This here is a trailer for that film- keep in mind i’ve got no moving pictures, no sound, no stills and just google images and an ocean of time at work to use…

New Facial Hair/videoblog broadside!!

New Facial Hair and Twunch Broadside.

Your next 1:30 broadside is happening over at the Twunch. 
Leave a comment this time, laddies and lasses.

New video at Twunch.

Have a looksee.
k

The Twunch Is On The Move.

I’m in the process of converting to video.

Here’s the first entry.

And here’s the URL:

http://twunch.blogspot.com

Keep an eye out.

The friendster blog will soon be phased out.

So here we are again. Now Feb 6, Ronald Reagan’s
birthday and I am jobless (Still and on purpose) and attempting to get
writing. Men are from mars womena are
from shitland is in pretty good shape. People
are starting to take an interest in its production. That should be encouraging and in fact it is
but there’s just that sense of the whip at my back to try to more to try and
make more interesting things happen. I
want to write more. I’m really good at
rewriting but the writing part always proves to be difficult. I think its that notion where you wrote and
you weren’t quite prepared and you feel like your bad writing massacred an
otherwise good idea.

Things that are filtering around my head today. Johnny had a script purchased. He asked me to help on that script and I told
him I couldn’t. He got paid and I didn’t. This is a case where my inability to help him
write something that was unpalatable to me cost me money. But that doesn’t really make to upset. Should it? I would love to have made some money and have a script in with New Line,
and who knows, perhaps we could have made it really good. But Johnny never showed me the script. Which also makes me suspicious. But I think the ultimate issue is that I’m trying
to do something very different than Johnny, which is specifically to talk about
something that is somehow truthful to me. I’m not making escapist stuff. Right now.

Talking about writing with people is always frustrating to
me. Because I don’t feel like I make a
whole lot of headway. Except in
sharpening the story I’m trying to tell by telling it to other people. But then I feel like I’ve prevailed upon
them, rather than giving them a story, they’ve given me an opportunity to tell
mine. That exchange of stories issue is
a big deal. Because of course I’d rather sit there and ask questions. I’d rather just suck stories out of other
people. But authentic boring, detailed
stories about life. More life. Rather than sit there and listen to us
discuss things like music and film and stuff like that. Pan’s Labrynth. I knew I was in trouble when that topic came
up, because all of a sudden I feel like I’m coming across as a world class
hater. And I really don’t like feeling
like I carry the entirety of the world’s negative energy in my brain. But when I discuss things that I didn’t like
I feel like I need to either have my opinion respected or to really make some
dents in the other persons opinion. They’ll remember me if for no other reason
than I just smashed what they think around.

Opinion as sledgehammer is a really interesting idea.

I have a play I have to write. This is my second DARE project, I swear to God if there were a way to make
T-Shirts with the DARE logo on them, I think we certainly should. That is a digression. The dare is straightforward. I think I’ve even lost the slip that the Dare
was written on (incidentally by dear friend and frequent collaborator Aaron
Kliner):

Write a ten minute play with ten lines of dialogue.

I love the dare. Within it are questions of what a play is, what dialogue is, why do we
talk, why does this task seem so daunting? How many ten line plays have their been?  If this were a film, the project would be very
very simple. Since words are the
currency of plays just as pictures are the currency of film having only ten
lines seems an exceptionally daunting task.

My last dare was to make sense of something nonsensical. Specifically to rectify the juxtaposition of
two words “tap dancer” and “broccoli’ into some rational thing. In that case it became a sort of Rorschach
test. What do you see when you look at
the tapdancing broccoli. And I was glad
because I used the entire dare including the misspelling and there was massive
misdirection and the play was over all quite sad.

So there are several options that I’ve come up with in
addressing this challenge. Namely the
challenge of telling a story with so few words.

1) CHEAT

- this option is to simply redefine the terms.  Suddenly
a line of dialogue comes to mean any length of dialogue. So a series of five monologues interrupted by
five little lines becomes the interpolation here permitting an entire story to
be told. The story is not what is being
said but the response to what is being said.

I think of Billy the Bellman and his relationship with his mother and how
horrible everything she says is and how powerless he is. There is not really a story here, not in the
sense of a protagonist- Billy doesn’t impact this story. He can’t. We like him because he survives this hellacious amount of guilt and
horrible story telling. I’d like to
tell this story.

The other story would be something based on the virginity
story.

2) FIND SOMETHING THAT WOULD PREVENT TALKING

this idea began as basically the ‘nudity’ idea which is
intended to mean that people would be disinclined toward speaking around
someone who was unexpectedly and inappropriately naked. The man who is fired from his office job
takes off all of his clothes as a method of protesting the unfairness of
things. There are whispers, muted speech
the audience can’t hear (doesn’t count, see?), plans being made to remove the
person. This does have a story, and perhaps
is the most conventionally satisfying of the ideas that I’ve happened on. It also has male nudity as a means of
creating audience discomfort.

Lots of things inhibit talking or even hearing. I think you could do an interesting piece
about hearing loss where you only hear ten lines of dialogue but there are many
more. That could be very trying to an
audience but very troubling. Also you
could replace the sounds of dialogue with other sounds.

3) Change the venue of story telling. Instead of avoiding blackouts, lets use
blackouts. I’d really like to try to
make people feel what torture is like. A
really horrible ten minutes. I’m going
to try to write that now.

He looked at his soup.
His stomach grumbled.
His tongue grumled back.
He thought,  "No more favors for millionaires."
And also, "No more shit sandwiches."
The stomach was insistent, not to be bargained with.  Still stretched out, swollen from last night’s debacle with the lousy 22 dollar pizza.  The soup looked like a job too easy to be bothered with.
But the gut wants what it wants.  The gut is not a body part to be bargained with.  The blade of the soup probed the reflective skim that skimmed the top of the paper soup bowl.
Slimy, tangs the tongue- crinkle their dry lids atop his dry eyes.  The lips darken at the corners.
The brain (peacemaker that he is) pipes in:
"Might be okay.  Remember the mussels from a couple nights ago?  They smelled like catshit and they were okay."
The stomach grumbles in agreement.  The stomach is capable of grumbling from several places at the same time and thereby sounding like a non-descript crowd murmuring assent. 
The tongue hears nothing.  The cat shit comment from the brain triggered a sense memory of stinky litterbox mussels in spicy catshit sauce and the tongue in response has chosen paralytic detachment.  The tongue has packed its bags for the rest of the day. 
The stomach says words like "watermelon" and "rutabaga" over and over again.  It will still get the food it needs, but without the tongue’s enthusiastic approbation the hand will only lazily move the spoon to the mouth and leisurely dump the contents there.  The opportunity for the urgent gorging to which the stomach feels entitled, to which the stomach has become accustomed seems all but gone.  The stomach is now pissed off.
The brain (arbiter in cases like these) steps in.  He announces that he will graciously cover for the tongue, operate the  hand, and placate the stomach.  He can do all of these things!  He’s a hero!  See how easy it can be to get along?
The brain waits for appreciative comments that will never come.
The brain sighs and swings the right hand into action.
The spoon breaks the skin of the lukewarm tomato soup.  The soup passes the lips slides across the tongue down the gullet to the skeptical and unsatisfied stomach.
"See! See?" says the brain. "It’s- whadyacallit- it’s- you know- salty!"
The tongue says nothing.  Only lies in the mouth looking off at the opening and closing teeth and lips and thinking of fresh baked blueberry muffins.

Theodicy is an odd word.  It seems like a combination of theology and idiocy.  However it means the search to rectify the issue of God’s omnipotence with the fact that bad things happen on earth.  An example, albeit skewed, of theodicy would be Jerry Falwell’s declaration after 9/11 that God had lifted his "veil of protection" from America owing to our godless, homosexual ways. 
Christianity is full of theodicians and hacks and scribes eager to parse the happenings on earth as the activities of a just and active God.
So, the other day I was at work and things were particularly slow and I realized I had no real sense for the theodicy of the Islamic world.  I mean if Allahu Ahkbar, why do bad things keep happening to good people? 
So I did a google search to pull up some Iraqi email addresses (about 125) and sent them the following email.

Dear new Islamic Friend,
    My name is Bob.  I am an American working at a hotel and I would like to understand more about the ways of Islam.  Specifically, I wonder if you could tell me your explanation of why a just Allah (may all praise his name) allows people to perish in catastrophes. 
Please choose only one of the following events and explain the justification for Allah’s (may his wonders never cease) behavior. 

• the 9/11 attacks
• Indonesian Tsunami
• Fires in Malibu
• The Iraq War
• Global Warming
• Hurricane Katrina

Thank you for your time.  If at all possible please include a photo with your response.
                                                                   Wa Salaam Alaikum,
                                                                                        Bob Saget.

P.S.  I’m dead serious.
P.P.S. When I say dead serious, I’m referring to including a picture and to only mentioning one of the events in question.

So, the thing that amazed me more than anything was the NUMBER of responses
I got to this sort of funny and random email.  Within twenty four hours, I had thirty responses.  Within 72 hours I had a hundred responses, many from countries other than Iraq.  It turns out people in  the Middle East were actually using my email as a sounding board for their feelings and emotions.  To be honest, I felt like a creep- because I was just sort of trying to entertain myself and I had all of these people reach out to me.  Incidentally, these translations can get a bit weird because I don’t speak Arabic and I had to use the google universal translator so if something didn’t make sense to me in a quote I placed a [sic] (latin for "thus") next to it.

911 was the one I got the most response about.
Khalid Najoyan of Indonesia wrote what a bunch of people said:
"Allah (may his enemies cower) behaved justly on 9/11 because while many died a great number of muslims were awoken to the greatness of Allah (blessings be upon his followers) and Durango [sic] of the Koran."

In the months following 9/11 there were massive earth quakes both in Iran and Pakistan, two remarkably Muslim countries.  Though not a specified topic Abdul-Alim Maalaki of Fallujah opined about it.                                                                     


"The actions of Allah in the great earthquakes
in Iran and Pakistan were justly ordained events because there were too many ‘good time Charlies’ jumping on the Islamist bandwagon simply because of recent successes.  While Allah is just and all powerful, He is extremely sensitive about fairweather followers."

I was perhaps most amazed  by the lone email I received from America.  A man who recently moved there who recently changed is name to Rahkman Rock’n'roll Ramallah
had this to say about the fires in Malibu.                               



"The fires in Malibu were simply a response to Malibu’s rejection of Allah’s messenger Mel Gibson!!
Be my Myspace friend!!"

If I have a little time, I’ll post a few more of these responses- but honest to God it was an eye opener about the power of the internet for me.  However, I was not willing to extend the privelege of Myspace friendship to Mr. Ramallah.

Incidentally, I recently asked if you knew the difference between Sunnis and Shias and since none of you responded during the course of the week, I’m going to explain it to you:

There it is.  Clear as an unmuddied lake.
Also Sunnis have beards.

Noah.  A story told in pictures.                                       

Soon enough chunks of ice will break off from glaciers to bury this world. 
Millions will die.  Weeks later, when the cable clicks back on the time will go from being referred to as tragic, to horrible, to just freaky. 
We are made to recover.  Human psyches are remarkably pliable that way.  I don’t know whether or not I’m rooting for the world to end in my lifetime.  Its sort of like having been there for a big event.  The ultimate response to your middle age friends who saw the Beatles in concert.  "Oh yeah?  I watched someone fry an egg on a sidewalk in Brooklyn in January!"

So, let’s look at it differently.  We now have limited time.  We always did.  But now we have limited time on a global scale.  There’s a wonderful two in the morning cable movie called "Last Night" with Sandra Oh about the world ending in Toronto.  It frequently cites the heroic work of the Utility companies who manage to keep the gas on right til the end. 
Noah.
Can I quote you a little scripture?

Noah was the first
      tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the
      wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham,
      the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told
      his two brothers outside.Then Shem and Japheth took a garment,
      laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked
backward and covered
      the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away,
      and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke
      from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
      he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be
      to his brothers." He also said, "Blessed by the LORD
      my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. God enlarge Japheth,
      and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his
      slave." After the flood Noah lived three hundred and fifty
      years. All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years;
      and he died.

Incidentally, this passage (genesis 9:19-28) represents the Biblical Justification for Slavery.  So just remember, if you or someone you know lost forty five percent of their ancestors in the middle passages or any of the unpleasantness since, it all stems from Ham’s observation of Noah’s Morning Wood, brought on by the first farming attempted on earth.

Have you taken time to learn the difference between Sunni and Shia yet?  And why not?  Racist?