You have to give the City of Santa Monica credit for doing their utmost to protect their resident businesses. Last week’s emergency preparedness seminar covered every likely eventuality — right up to zombie attacks. (See bullet points below.)
I just got in from “ASAP Fables,” Moving Arts’ entry in the first annual Hollywood Fringe Festival. In our show, randomly assembled teams of Moving Artists created 8-minute fables built around a witches’ brew of strange ingredients
In our case, we were given:
And, you had to work in the quote “Be who you are, and say what you feel” (from Doctor Seuss). And you couldn’t spend more than ten bucks on your show. How much did we spend on our particular impromptu play, “Reach for the Sky?” Ten bucks. Glad the budget wasn’t nine, because we would’ve had a problem.
More about how we accomplished this, and about the overall event, tomorrow. This morning I taught my workshop, ran an errand, then got over to the church to figure out some last-minute logistics on our show with my three scene partners, then performed the show seven times. As a miserable crow, this meant lots of running around and cawing on my part. After that, it’s now time for drinks. So tomorrow I’ll let you know what we did.
But here’s my favorite audience line of the evening. One of the people who came to see the show was an older gentleman who’s been following us around almost since our inception 18 years ago. I saw him in the first group that came in and later in the courtyard he was waiting to talk to me.
“Hi, Walter,” I said.
He looked at me and said, “Lee. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“Yeah. It’s a lot of makeup.”
“No,” he replied. “I think since last time I saw you you’ve put on weight.”
Stan Lee on last night’s Craig Ferguson show. It’s nine minutes long, but well worth watching all of it. Stan is loose and funny and vainglorious and quick-witted — all of which must have been central to his success, and which almost must have driven his collaborators (I’m sorry, co-creators), to drink.
Last week I had my new suit fitted by a tailor. I don’t think she did a good job: the legs now ride too high and the waist is too expansive. But listening to this call in which President Johnson specifies precisely how he’d like his new pants to fit made me think that perhaps I wasn’t explicit enough. LBJ was someone who always knew exactly what he wanted, including extra room from the bunghole to the brass tacks.
Slate helps us understand why it cost Alvin Greene $10,440 to get on the South Carolina ballot.
Now if they could help us understand how an unemployed unknown who lives with his father came up with $10,440 — let alone winning the Democratic Senate primary — they’d really be providing a public service.
Here’s what it’s like to be one of the locals caught in the oil situation, where people are wrestling with their options: help in the clean up (but risk your health and sign away your rights), or sit it out and starve because the fishing industry is wiped out. Horrible options.
I also enjoy the PR show the lead local claims BP is putting on for the President every time he flies over, and the company’s inability to answer basic scientific questions about the aftereffects of the spill.
The end of this video, which is co-produced by Edward James Olmos, tells us to “visit the Gulf” rather than forget the people there, because they “need our help.” True. But I’m unclear how visiting them is going to help. And I can’t resist noting the awful irony that visiting them would mean consuming more petroleum — and it’s our consumption, ultimately, that led to the spill.
My theatre company, Moving Arts, is playing along with the Hollywood Fringe Festival this week. Our offering is called “A.S.A.P. Fables,” in which randomly formed teams of performers and writers concoct new fables drawn from audience-suggested fables.
Here’s the Moving Arts website for more information. If you’d like to come out and play, we’d love to have you. (The team meeting is this Thursday night.) If you’d just like to come watch, please come do that on Saturday at 5. We’ll be performing five of these fun little plays at different locations all around the historic Hollywood United Methodist Church.
In the meantime, here’s a fable you think you know, but don’t.
This tells you everything you need to know.
Want to guess what the statewide turnout was today in California’s primary election? 9.8%. In Los Angeles County, it was 5.5%. If someone you think “doesn’t represent the mainstream” gets in, you’ll know why.
On Sunday the Great Plains Theatre Conference wrapped up with a gala honoring Pulitzer prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, as well as Dr. Joanne McDowell, the former president of Omaha’s Metropolitan Community College, who created the conference five years ago. This was her 30th year of producing important playwright-oriented theatre conferences, so the recognition was deserved. Also in attendance were the business luminaries of Omaha, the board and administration of the college, plenty of theatre people, and me. This is a dress-up affair, where people come in evening wear and sample the incredible cuisine courtesy of the resident culinary academy.
On the way in, the conference photographer was taking portrait shots of workshop leaders, panelists, and special guests. While I’m waiting, I’m approached by one of the playwrights, a middle-aged man I’ve gotten to know just a little bit at this conference the past three years. While we’re talking, he asks if I’d like to have a copy of his book. I said I would, and he goes out to his car to get one. He brings it in and inscribes it to me and hands it over and then I saw the title: “Woman’s Orgasm: A Guide to Sexual Satisfaction.” Then I remember hearing that he’s a doctor with a practice in sexology. I take the book and walk in.
As I circulate the room, chatting with people, drinking drinks, tasting canapes, I start to realize that people are noticing that I’m carrying around a book entitled “Woman’s Orgasm.” When I sit at my table near the dais and within arms’ reach of the main luminaries and funders, I place the book onto the table. It’s got to go somewhere while I eat. So there, in the center of the table, is the book. A few people ask if they can look at it. They crack it open, read the inscription, then look at me and put it back. Finally I open the book and read it and here’s what it says in my personalized copy of “Woman’s Orgasm: A Guide to Sexual Satisfaction”: “Lee, Thank you for all your support. Ben.” Whereupon I start to take credit for all the research findings reported in the book.