Painter William Wray is opening his latest showing this Saturday night at a gallery in Monrovia, here in Southern California. Here’s information on the gallery and its friendly and knowledgeable owner, Laura Segil, and here’s info on the artist, and above is one of his paintings.

Some of us are more familiar with some other William Wray art. It’s the art he signs as Bill Wray, and includes animation and print work on Hellboy, Batman, and Ren & Stimpy. Here’s that Wray’s site, and here’s a representative illustration. (Although when he does, say, Bugs Bunny, it’s with a gentler touch.)

So I ask you: Which is the serious art?

The answer is: both.

I like that William Wray is both a fine-art painter and a commercial/comic illustrator. I like that my friend Gerald Locklin writes accessible poems that are also packed with meaning. I write marketing copy as well as plays, and I enjoy them both (although in different ways). Shakespeare wrote for the masses, but somehow wound up being artistic. Samuel Beckett, the doyen of litterateurs, loved detective thrillers (and I’m sure if he could have written one, would have).

We have this false notion that there is “low” art and “high” art. I don’t think so. I think there’s “good” art and “bad” art, and there’s art that’s more accessible (because the references are more easily understood by more people) and there’s art that’s less accessible. Moreover, I often wonder if the advocates of “high art” aren’t a little too interested in keeping more people from scaling their towers and gaining access.

Recently a colleague from USC came to see one of my plays and told me afterward how glad he was to see so many people laughing. (Intentionally: It’s a comedy.) For decades, he’s suffered the slings and arrows of a certain slice of the academy, where lighter material is frowned upon, and to be funny isn’t to be any good. (And we wonder what happened to the audience for poetry.)

So I celebrate William Wray and his alter ego Bill Wray. And early this Saturday evening I may drive out to Monrovia to meet them.

Nothing has been left undamaged by presidency Bush.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Congratulations to my friend (and former student) EM (Ellen) Lewis on winning the Primus Prize for her play “Heads.” This is a significant award, and I couldn’t be prouder of Ellen, and for being there at the birth. (The play was written in my workshop.) She’s an enormously talented writer, and also a wonderful human being.

No idea if we get the Planet Green channel at my house (last time I really checked such things, the TV had a top dial that went up to 12, and then U, after which we you had to turn to the bottom dial, which went up to 83).

But if we don’t get Planet Green I guess I’ll see if I can add these episodes to my Netflix cue, because this piece on Slate has me very interested in seeing the new “reality” show starring Ed Begley, Jr. To wit:

If Alter Eco is Planet Green’s Entourage, Living With Ed, which first aired on HGTV, is its Curb Your Enthusiasm. Actor Ed Begley Jr., who boasts of having owned an electric car as early as the 1970s, is the cranky head of household; his wife, Rachelle, is the spouse battered by her own embarrassment. The show would have us believe that a typical morning at the Begley home sees Ed riding a stationary bike for two hours to generate the energy to make toast. Rachelle scoffs at this and then tosses her Los Angeles Times in the garbage can, and then Ed scolds her and heads up to the roof to spend time with his solar panels. Living With Ed is clearly the most phony and least enlightening show yet devised about the home lives of celebrities, and I include Keeping Up With the Kardashians in that count.

I’ve met many a “cranky” environmentalist myself, and would offer all of them this advice: You might do a better job of achieving your mission if you’d come down off your high horse once in a while to meet all of the rest of us, who are equally concerned about the planet as you but don’t have all your time, or money, or desperate need to seem superior.

I’m very happy with how my one-act play, “About the Deep Woods Killer,” has turned out in the 2008 Moving Arts Premiere One-Act Festival. It’s a tribute to the cast, to everyone involved in the production, and especially to the director, Mark Kinsey Stephenson. Mark really understands the undercurrents in the play and has worked with the actors to express them. If you’ve never had a bad or mediocre production (and I have), you can’t fully understand how invaluable it is to have a director who understands your play and, in Mark’s case, your overall body of work — and who also has the talents to bring that vision to the stage. I’m grateful. Mark and I have been doing theatre together for 15 years; he’s directed my plays before, has acted in my plays, and I’ve directed him several times, as well as producing plays he’s been in. We’re a good match. If I’m lucky we’ll be doing theatre together for another 15 years, and beyond.

In the same festival, I think Terence Anthony’s play “Tangled” is a standout (and is a play I’m going to blog about later today or this weekend, when I have a chance), and I’m quite taken with “Compression of a Casualty,” which marries an Ionesco-esque device with  contemporary CNN coverage of the death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, to great effect and, to my immense thrill, into an indictment of the timid and celebrity-obsessed mainstream media. I’m glad we’re doing that play, and I’m delighted to see the inestimably talented Michael Shutt prove, yet again, that he’s among the most versatile theatre artists I know.

The festival runs three more weeks. Here’s more info, including ticket information.

Slate has a brief but valuable piece on Werner Herzog’s forthcoming documentary, which you can read by clicking here. The film’s called “Encounters at the End of the World” — but it seems to me that that could have been the title of almost all the Herzog films. To wit:

• “Aguirre, Wrath of God” — in which would-be conquistadors run up against the savagery of the undeveloped new world (a nice riposte to the quaint green notion that nature is bucolic and enriching, when those of us who grew up in it know that when it’s not boring it’s deadly)
• “Grizzly Man” — in which an intrepid naturalist deep in the wild finds himself literally consumed by his passion
• “Lessons of Darkness,” which blends CNN footage and Herzog-shot footage of the burning oil wells of Kuwait into a science-fictional vision of the rapacities of humankind and the destructive force of a wounded environment
• “Even Dwarfs Started Small” — which features a group of deranged dwarfs evidently far cut off from civilizing forces convene chaos onto their benighted habitat
• “Fitzcarraldo” — in which a mad visionary is ultimately defeated in his quest by the unrelenting realities of the Amazonian jungle and a treacherously independent river

I could easily go on. The Herzog films that don’t star an extreme exterior location are concerned with an extremely bizarre interior condition; par example: the two films featuring Bruno S., an odd and mentally limited man whose ineffable motivations perfectly match with Herzog’s interests. Bruno is either a very bad actor, an idiot savant who is utterly convincing in his stunted abilities, or simultaneously both; he is also eminently watchable in “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” where he is perfectly cast as a strange man released into polite society with utterly no suitable training for the experience.

According to Slate, here’s the narrative of the new Herzog film, which I await with relish:

It’s a loosely bound collection of miscellany filmed at the McMurdo Station, a 1,000-person settlement of researchers in Antarctica, during the five-month “austral summer” of round-the-clock sunlight. Herzog was sent to Antarctica by the National Science Foundation with carte blanche to make whatever movie he wanted—all he could tell them for sure was that it wouldn’t involve penguins. What he returned with is a lyrical group portrait of McMurdo’s motley crew of scientists, technicians, and lifelong travelers—men and women whom one local labels “professional dreamers” and whom those of us who live on more populated continents might affectionately call “crackpots.”

You see the recurrent theme: extreme environment is met by crackpot theorists.

For those who care about these things and will be lucky enough to be in Los Angeles next February, Herzog will be speaking (as well as performing a concert of some sort) as part of the UCLA Live spoken word series. Here’s the link. I will be there.

You’re invited to join me (but you’ll have to get tickets):

1. On Wednesday evening I’m attending the opening of “Pippin” at East West Players with terrific playwright friend Dorinne Kondo. As regular readers of this blog know, I’m not much for musicals (even though I did see four in one month recently), but EWP routinely does some of the best theatre in town, and this piece in today’s LA Times further whetted my appetite.

2. On Thursday night I’ll be slinging my axe, virtually, in Koreatown when I take on “Guitar Hero” as part of Moving Arts’ one-act festival fundraiser. Ten bucks gets you pizza, snacks, a drink, and all the humiliation you can take. Here’s the Evite; hope you can make it and hope it’s a full Rock Band set-up (guitar, keyboards, drums, vocals) because I sing a mean “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

3. On Friday night I’m seeing “Trying” at the Colony. This is a show I’m dearly anticipating. I missed it last year during its first run; now it’s back for two weeks only. Here’s the press release. The play stars Alan Mandell, an actor I dearly love and one I’ve seen I don’t know how many times on stage and on screen. There are two reasons I’ve seen him so often on stage: He is a legendary actor of Beckett’s plays (and my mission, upon arriving in Los Angeles 20 years ago, was to see as many plays by Beckett, Pinter, Albee, and Ionesco as possible, because their availability in southern New Jersey was scant), a personal friend and collaborator of the playwright and a co-founder of the San Quentin Drama Workshop (in 1958!). And he’s performed countless times with some of the most inventive small-theatre practitioners in town. On screen, he pops up in “Shortbus” (where he’s The Mayor, a character clearly, um, influenced by Ed Koch) He’s a wonderful actor and seemingly tireless at age 80; but, given that 80 is indeed 80, now is the time to see him. (And below, you can see him appear in a trash can as Nagg in Beckett’s “Endgame.”)

4. No tickets needed for this one. On Saturday I’m emceeing a political event for area Democrats. Here’s the link for more information. The press release reads (and you’ll note we’ll be doing voter registration, so this provides another opportunity to test Frank Rich’s theory):

Come hear the candidates and gobble some BBQ!

This year the Burbank Democrats’ annual family picnic joins up with the Glendale and Northeast L.A. Dems for a pre-June 3 primary event with politicos from the tri-club area.

Currently confirmed to speak and take questions are U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of the 29th, and Democratic challenger Russ Warner of the 26th; retiring state Sen. Jack Scott of the 21st District and Carol Liu, contending to replace him; former Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer; and Assembly members Paul Krekorian (43rd) and Anthony Portantino (44th). Judicial and central committee candidates will also be in the mix. Not confirmed yet are U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (27th), State Assembly Member Kevin deLeon (45th) and state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo (22nd)… or the chance of a surprise or two.

Keynoter will be Rick Jacobs of Courage Campaign; Burbank founding president/Truman Award winner Lee Wochner will emcee. Voter registration before the May 19 cut-off will be available.

Please note! Meat and side dishes are provided, but please bring your favorite salad or desserts as pot-luck.

For more info and updates, see www.burbankdemocraticclub.com or call 818-288-2649.

5. On Sunday I’ll be running 3 miles in Santa Monica, testing out the $250-worth of running and hydration gear guaranteed to make me run better. I don’t expect to see you there. And don’t expect to see me here immediately afterward.

In general, I don’t care too much about film directors — I’m more interested in theatre and literature, and the auteurs I follow are writers as well as directors: Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Paul Schrader… and Werner Herzog, who is in a class by himself.

As I’ve remarked before, Herzog’s films are simultaneously wonderful and bad. He always seems to miss precisely the shot he needs to convey the story. In fact, entire scenes seem to go missing, with plot threads dangling in the wind. At the same time, every single one of his films is loaded with individual moments so startling, so compelling and odd, that it will never leave you. In “Aguirre, Wrath of God,” one of those moments is the little raft that gets caught in a pool of turbulence, eventually drowning part of the expedition. (Which, in typical Herzog form, almost actually happened to a member or two of the cast.) In “Fitzcarraldo,” it’s Klaus Kinski’s character awakening to find that the riverboat he’s on is careening toward a waterfall. In “Grizzly Man,” it’s the shot of the supremely naive Timothy Treadwell swimming serenely with one of his bear brethren and then seeing that bear swing about to take a swipe at him in an awful premonition of Treadwell’s ultimate fate. These films, plus “Rescue Dawn,” “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” “Where the Green Ants Dream,” “My Best Fiend,” and several Herzog short subjects have given me hours of delight (mixed with frustration over the errant storytelling.

But who knows what delights await me in this boxed set, pictured above, which arrived just today, new and unopened and for about forty bucks? (Thank you, eBay.)  The set includes  “The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser,” “Even Dwarfs Started Small,” “Fata Morgana,” “Lessons Of Darkness,” “Heart Of Glass,” “Strozsek,” and “And Little Dieter Needs To Fly.” I imagine many hours of enjoyable late-night viewing by myself.

Why by myself? Except for two close friends whose schedules rarely match with my own, and a third friend who lives on the East Coast, I can’t think of anyone who’d like to come watch these. (And I’m not even sure that two of those three would enjoy these. In fact, sometimes I’m not sure I “enjoy” Herzog’s films — I’m just compelled by them.)

A story I’d like to share. Several months ago, “Where the Green Ants Dream” arrived at my house, courtesy of Netflix. My wife and I were both home that night (a rarity), and as we lay in bed, she wondered aloud what had come from Netflix. Now usually, Valorie rips open my Netflix envelope, reads the sleeve, shakes her head and sighs and slips the disk back into the envelope. At least, that’s what our son Lex reports. I’ve offered to set up her own queue of things she’d like to see, but she’s not interested, so the queue is entirely my own and it’s not generally things found at your local cineplex four months ago. My tastes range from obscure documentaries to obsessive narratives courtesy of German directors. This time, though, she thought why not, and agreed to watch “Where the Green Ants Dream.” In this film, a mining company is blowing up whole landscapes of the Australian outback — at least until a group of Aborigines set up camp expressly to block further dynamiting. From there, not much happens, except an old woman pulls up a lawn chair and waits patiently for her dog to emerge, said dog having entered the system of artificial caves. Much later, either the dog returns or Herzog simply forgets about it — I can’t remember which. We start watching this film at about a quarter after midnight, in bed, both of us wondering what if anything is going to happen. Finally, Valorie sits up and announces that she’s going to do the laundry. At 1 a.m. And she did. After watching half the movie and already being in bed.

To me, this episode speaks volumes about why I’ll be enjoying the Herzog oeuvre alone.

I’ve never cared for or about musicals. This may be a bias picked up from my father, who tended toward the literal and couldn’t figure out why a guy in a movie would break out into a song while getting drenched in the process. (“Hey, dummy — get outta the rain!”) It’s surprising to say the least that I’m seeing three musicals this month: “1776” (which I already saw, at Actors Co-Op, and loved), “Sweeney Todd” (seen last Friday night at the Ahmanson. in a not-good production), and, this Friday night, “The Dead” at Open Fist in Hollywood. I saw “The Dead” about five years ago at, again, the Ahmanson, and although my seats were somewhere up on the surface of the moon, I was completely drawn in to this musicalization of the story by James Joyce; it was utterly moving without being sentimental. (Treacly sentiment being one of those things that tend to keep me away from musicals.) I hear that production by Open Fist is good, and I’m greatly looking forward to it. But three musicals in one month, and all by choice? That’s unprecedented.

And actually, it winds up being FOUR, if you count this one: