END OF DECEMBER 2009

As the new year dawns I attempt to save my blog from total dissolution by embracing my love of pop music and celebrating my merry-go-round of recordings. Alphabetically. Incidentally, my shin keeps vibrating like a cell phone waiting to be answered. Just thought I'd mention it. So anyway, I am on the letter 'T'. It took me over a year to listen to artists that began with the letter 'S', listening to roughly 3 or 4 albums, records, cds, etc. a week. I swooned with Siouxsie, sashayed with Spirit, sensamilioned with smokin' Santana, and snacked with Steely Dan. I am so full of S.

I've accumulated a horde of 45rpm records and this past holiday weekend I listened to one of my favorite blue-eyed soul 45s, 1970's MA BELLE AMIE, by The Tee Set, (Colossus CS 107). Ah, what a record. A cascading organ scaling the earthy vocals backed by an impetuous wedding march beat, from a guy so in love with maybe a prostitute, it hurts, (use a lubricant, dear). Like The Beatles' Michelle, it includes just enough French language lyrics to sniff a neck by. B-side ANGELS COMING IN THE HOLY NIGHT, is the hyper-kinetic honeymoon of said wedding march, with Hans Van Eijck's organ again prominently figured. The Tee Set came out of Delft, Holland and scored an international hit with Ma Belle Amie, reaching #5 on the American charts in early 1970. Fairly much a one-hit-wonder in the U.S., their second single, She Likes Weeds, was a Number 1 hit in The Netherlands, but was banned in the States, as it was believed to be a reference to drug use. Lead singer Peter Tetteroo, co-writer of Ma Belle Amie, died in 2002 from liver cancer. My GOOD copy of MA BELLE AMIE has a market value of about 3 bucks. I mention this only because I love my penny ante marketplace.

Teenage Fanclub

My Teenage Fanclub CD-EP, 1992, rare though it may be is worth about 3 dollars. If the lukewarm, amateur pop band from Tom Hanks' film, That Thing You Do progressed to a bigger bullet on the charts instead of the one-hit wonder depicted, it may have sounded a lot like Teenage Fanclub from Scotland. Modest playing of juvenile pop junk, as adolescent as teen musicians with guitar an amp and a drum practicing in a garage with no more than a 6-pack of Coca-Cola to infuse the atmosphere. Kurt Cobain cited them as a major influence, but they're more like The Archies in real life than Nirvana. This four song CD single boasts disposable music with titles like B-SIDE, and FILLER, the latter being a short and tight drum and guitar infused rock and roller ending with an unremarkable roll on the drums, the former a dreary but magnetic Christmas song throwaway you might find on the b-side of a Sonny and Cher or Beach Boys 45 rpm circa 1966. WHAT YOU DO TO ME is the lead song and has much in common; catchy hook, cheery guitar strumming, with the title song from Hanks' film.

Japanese punk recorded live in the studio directly onto 4-track sounds as crude as the dullest needle on the oldest phonograph. Japan's TEENGENERATE, "Get Action!", Crypt CD-048, 1994, strikes that raw primal nerve I experienced when I first heard punk music coming out of England in the 1970s. Fast and furious punk, (is that a tongue in their cheek?), with the only absence of musical expertise being the lo-fi shadowy technology, which gives the sound a live and liberated blast. With member names like Fink, Fifi, Sammy, Suck and original drummer Shoe, TEENGENERATE seems on the verge of comedy, but this is serious punk with a serious smirk. The out of print "Get Action" CD has a market value of about 5 bucks.

LATE SUMMER

I love to feel the rain in the summertime,

I love to feel the rain on my face - The Alarm

A blog is like a sliver in your finger. You can't ignore it and it's painful to confront.

I saw Elvis Costello at The Chautauqua Institution Amphitheatre a couple of Saturdays ago. He played with the Sugarcanes in promotion of Costello's latest, SECRET, PROFANE, & SUGARCANE, a bluegrass influenced album that finds him a master of American folk narrative. The show was extraordinary, a drum-less set of fiddle, bass, accordion, mandolin, and electric guitar, with a huge selection of songs off the new album, and an equal amount of classic Costello with a bluegrass spin, including several off his first album, the rockabilly spirited MY AIM IS TRUE, which lent itself well to the down-home but electrified music of the evening. "Blame It on Cain", and "Allison" seemed born to bluegrass, and there was a bit of a roar when he played, "(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes". The absolute highlights were, "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding", from ARMED FORCES, and "Hidden Shame" from the new album, a mournful ballad about a boy who murders his best friend, sounding a bit like Springsteen's NEBRASKA. Damned though, if there weren't at least two songs the entire crowd seemed to recognize that I had never heard.

I did some theatre work this late summer with Hamburg Theatre Under The Stars' inaugural production of PICNIC. We played four shows over the Labor Day weekend, in the village park on an existing stage with an inclined wooden roof. The village and the producers, (Jon & Greg Premier Events), did well promoting the production and we had over 2,000 audiences members over the 4-day run. Free admission surely helped. I got to wag my tail in a role I had a lot of fun with. The Mayor of Hamburg visited rehearsals regularly, as he was assuring the production was a success, in an effort to boost Hamburg's walking district of shops, restaurants and bars. At the post-production cast party he came up to me and said he had a story to tell me. It seems during rehearsals, he received a call from a concerned resident, reporting a suspicious man lurking around the cast and stage. The caller was convinced the stranger was stalking the production and possibly a cast member. So the mayor checked out the report and well, there I am, in the back of the park, long before my entrance in Act II, pacing and talking to myself while rehearsing my lines.

No ordinary sage-1st!
Roycroft Mag. circa 1908 -1st!




Book of Roses - 3rd

I hastily entered five items in The Chautauqua County Fair and came home with five ribbons, three blues, a red and a yellow.

Best Coleus-fierce competition! Collection of Movie Sheet Music -2nd!

I want to clutch the green grass and hold onto summer.

HIGH SUMMER

I may jump out the door drenched in sun-screen, with a beach ball and a towel, a plastic inflated water toy around my waist, rubber flip-flops, and make like Frankie and Annette down to the beach, and shiver in the chilled air, just to remind myself this cold rainy season is indeed summer.

I hereby proclaim the summer as not being splendid. I know I'm in a bit of a rut when I check Facebook daily. When I choose Turner Classic Movies over The Italian Festival. When I seriously consider Twitter-ing.

My brother is part owner of a horse racing stable and one of his horses, Minister's Appeal, is spending his summer 40 minutes away from me racing at the track in Presque Isle, Pennsylvania. So a caravan of family and friends drive down every few weeks and gamble our money, hit the slots, and the buffet, and generally leave defeated but spirited. Minister's Appeal managed at least one third place finish so far this summer. The horse is like a member of the family, and when he finished third, we hooped and hollered, and slapped high-fives, and behaved just short of popping a champagne bottle and filling glasses. Any passer-byes would have thought we hit the jackpot, or were having a collective nervous breakdown.



























My new landlord is a ghost hunter. He is the son of my previous landlord who died recently. I groaned when he asked me if I still sell records on eBay, because he has some records he's thinking of selling and he'll split the profits with me. I'm like, poor misguided fool. I was forced to explain vinyl records, in and of themselves, are of little value and only a small handful are significantly desired. I get this from people. They think because a record or book is old it is therefore valuable. Old books and records may be rare, but they are rarely valuable. He's like, well I think what I got is pretty collectible, and he hands me a mint copy of The Beatles' White Album in pure white color vinyl with the accompanying pristine poster, (He unfortunately didn't have the four pin-up pics that also came with this edition of the album). He says he only played it once when it first came out just to tape it. I played it and it is beautiful. Now I'm like, fighting saliva drippings, can I see the rest of your record collection?



























In exchanging emails, his was suggestive of ghost-hunting, and I found out he is a committed ghost chaser, and an expert in evp, (electronic voice phenomena), with a fantastic web page.





I read LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel, a wonderful book about a god-loving boy from India who finds himself aboard a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with a wild Bengal tiger. Think Moby Dick meets Curious George. It was perfect summer reading.





























Some years ago a friend asked me to give him a ride to The Chautauqua County Fair. He had some things he wanted to enter into competition. I'm thinking, is he going to put a live goat in my back seat? Maybe a prize winning potato? The world's largest squash? Instead he packed my back seat with boxes and boxes of assorted stuff; old war posters, a collection of beer bottles, a Catholic bronze holy water container, ... delectable, precious junk. He was entering them into competition as antiques and collectibles in The Chautauqua County Fair. I didn't know you could enter anything but pigs and such in the county fair. When the fair was over I gave him a ride to pick up his junk, ...um, entries, and he walked off with all these blue, red and yellow ribbons and a modest bank check for his efforts.



Hell, I got junk. I have a signed leather-bound first edition of a Joyce Carol Oates novel. I have my father's old fishing poles. I have old bottles I unearthed out of my garden. I have an attic of things I've collected over the years. Am I to understand someone would pay me for possessing these things, things that mostly, I couldn't pay someone to take from me?



So there I am the following year, picking up my blue, red and yellow ribbons, and of course, the bank check, for my winning entries. Me and my friend Karl, have a friendly competition every year, finding ourselves competing in some of the same hundreds of categories. He doesn't realize deep in my heart, I'd kill to win. In no time, my Remington western print won 'the blue' in the Print category, ( his second place commemorative 1812 war poster paled in comparison). My 1915 nursery rhyme book blew the others out of the water in the Antique Children's Book category. My Jackson 5 Greatest Hits Picture Disc LP dominated and simply frowned upon the others in the Item from The Seventies category ...

















Apache Ambush by Frederick Remington. 'The Blue'!

And now I have a box in the attic somewhere full of blue, red and yellow ribbons. And I'm a county fair buff. You can find me watching the pig competition muttering to myself that pig number three was clearly the better pig. Standing outside a locked barn asking security when the tractor museum opens. I go to the quaint and innocent Chautauqua County Fair harness horse race every year, and the first year I went, dumb cluck that I am, I asked a Norman Rockwell-ish group of horse people where one bets on the harness race. I learned one does not bet on the county fair harness race. I thought they were going to drag me somewhere and lynch me.

I had county fair fever. I became very competitive. I was scouring my apartment for anything that might produce a blue ribbon. I was envying the farmers with their prized sheep, cows and corn, truly worthy of the great county fair ribbons. Ridiculous thoughts like, do I dare try and bake a blueberry pie? How do you go about raising rabbits? Is the cereal bowl I'm eating from made before 1940, and if so, is there a Best Cereal Bowl category? No, but there is a Buffalo China category which that very cereal bowl won a blue ribbon!

The red and yellow ribbons, (2nd and 3rd Place) were nice but the blue was the gold. One year the judges gave me only an honorable mention for an entry. I could have scowled in their faces, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is a one-of-a-kind Roy Rogers comic book with allegedly Trigger's hoof print on the back cover!".

One year, on a whim, on the day I was to enter my stuff, I took a flowering plant out of my crude and simple garden which is out the door of my apartment, and I asked it, are you worth a blue ribbon? It was a purple shamrock which happened to bloom beautifully that year. With my eye on the prize I entered it into the more traditional category of of horticulture. On opening day I went to the fair to check my entries, (read: count my blue ribbons), and my flower was adorned with a gold medal, three ribbons of blue, red and yellow and a banner streamed across it - BEST OF SHOW. I won the frickin' Academy Award of county fair ribbons!!!

I'm jaded, man. I reached the pinnacle. I am an urban cowboy. I'm doing the Rocky punch at the top of the stairs at City Hall. There wasn't a farmer in all of Chautauqua County with a better rose than my shamrock.

So I merely started to mention this Saturday is the day I enter my stuff in the fair. I'm actually finally depleted of blue ribbon quality stuff to enter. I have some sage in the garden which looks like common sage to me, but what do I know about blue ribbon quality sage? I'll enter my few meager offerings if for no other reason than to see which farmer has the best goat. I get a free fair pass just for entering. I'll hook up with Karl and hopefully we'll find ourselves standing in line at the close of the fair, picking up our checks for the winning entries. Several competitors refuse the check and donate it back to the fair, but not me and Karl. We snatch those checks up and hit the beer tent, and boast nostalgia of blue ribbon victory.

As I'm writing this I got a call that I have a role in a play I auditioned for. I don't know if that ends the summer or begins it.

THE ARTIE AWARDS 2009

I went to the 19th Annual Artie Awards at The Town Ballroom in Buffalo on Monday night somewhat reluctantly, being a little sore at The Arties Committee for ignoring my off-stage voice/stage manager position in DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, WITH YOU, this season. Do they have any idea what it's like to read a script in the dark, manipulate sound and lights, and speak into a microphone, all at the same time? Not to mention remaining alert to any theatrical catastrophe that might occur; staying mindful of terrorism; glaring at the audience as someones' cell phone goes off; reaching for a kleenix with one hand on the sound board and the other on the light board as I'm about to sneeze into the microphone? Where's the nomination for Outstanding All-Around Guy? What the hell is wrong with those people?

Mary Loftus, center, with friends prior to receivieng The Artie

I took three pics with my camera, one an accidental but not inappropriate snap of a half-filled cocktail glass, before the batteries died and the new batteries I brought were the wrong damn batteries. Fortunately, one of the pics were of four time nominated, and soon to be 2009 Artie winner Mary Loftus, for her supporting role in THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE.

There was a memorial segment just like in The Academy Awards, where we clap for dead people as their faces are projected on a screen. I hate that. How is it that one dead person can get a bigger applause than another dead person?

Over cocktails, I'm shaking hands with Richard Lambert, Executive Director of The New Phoenix Theatre, accepting an offer to stage manage a production this fall at his theatre. I'm thinking, Jesus, it's just like being at Cannes.

Another champ-ale, my funky friend?

(Best Actor Nominee Richard Lambert with his brother whose name I've forgotten)

Glitz, glamor and Buffalo buffoonery. Cat-calls between the audience and the stage on a first name basis were commonplace.

Host Norm Sham asked award recipient Mary Loftus, as she handled the microphone and put her mouth close to it, "When have you had it so good, Mary?". She quipped, "yesterday".

Some short and gracious acceptance speeches. No long-winded ones.

Outstanding and most enchanted musical performance from the nominated musicals came from the cast of Theatre of Youth's GO DOG GO.

More than once I heard the network TV familiar, "so and so couldn't be here tonight and he's asked me to accept this award on his behalf...". So and so was probably not filming in Spain.

For ten bucks admittance at the door, this show was a real deal. Artvoice should promote it more heavily in other media, as an entertainment in itself. I wonder the chances of having it broadcast on local television.

A complete listing of the 2009 Artie Award winners can be found here.

TOO ABSURD!

Subversive Theatre asked me to play elevator man for patrons of their TOO ABSURD! production, consisting of two 'Theatre of The Absurd" plays on Friday night. I transport audience who can't surmount the three flights of cold hard stairs, on a freight elevator to Subversive's home space on the third floor of The Great Arrow Building, a mostly empty, sprawling industrial complex that once housed The Pierce Arrow Corporation, a manufacturer of luxury cars circa 1910. The building now provides cocooned space to theatre, (Alt Theatre is also in residence there), and sparsely set offices.

Upon boarding the ancient steel and wood freight elevator, that looks like a certain death trap, but glides with the gentleness of a paper airplane, I always yell to the mostly elderly riders, "GOING UP!", to absolutely on one's amusement. Indeed, when the steel gated frame locks us in with a crash, and the heavy wooden doors are slammed shut, and suddenly I can't get the damn thing to go up or down, the look on the concerned faces seem to say, next stop hell.

I stayed for the show. The theatre space was trashed with old newspapers discarded on the floor under and around the seats of the audience. I don't know why, except to say it was absurd. The subsequent plays seemed to have nothing in common with old newspapers.

The first play, absurdist dramatist Eugene Ionesco's "The Lesson", directed by Drew McCabe, finds a maniacal academic professor, (James Wild), badgering a pupil, (Jessica Wegzryn), into submission under the guise of tutoring. The lesson taught involves simple arithmetic, a breeze for the excited and hopeful student, and subtraction, to which she is inept. It evolves into a lesson on sub-languages of Spanish. The play is fun and thought provokingly tragic, and not illogical in it's portrait of an intellectual dominance over the illiterate. Wild paces and stalks the stage like a schizophrenic caged leopard on meds, and Wegzryn's harried student suffers an empathetic breakdown under the weight of a math equation. Both actors take this absurdist play and dance merrily around the logic of Darwin's theory of survival.

"On The Sea", by Polish writer, Slawomir Mrozek, directed here by Mark Tattenbaum, certainly inspired Monty Python's Flying Circus' classic sketch of cannibalistic sailors at sea, ("I wish you'd all quit bickering and eat ME!"). The fun reference to Python is in cold contrast to a notoriety in writer Mrozek's life. In 1953, during the reign of Stalinism in Poland, Mrozek participated in the signing of a letter to Polish authorities, groundlessly accusing three Catholic priests of treason. The priests were condemned to death but never executed.

The director of the first production of "On The Sea", in Poland in 1961, was in attendance at this performance. Three men, a fat one, (Kurt Erb, not nearly fat), a thin one, (Matt Nerber), and a medium one, (David Utter), as listed in the program, are adrift at sea without food and determine their only means of survival is for one of them to be eaten by the others. They draw lots, stage a democratic election, and finally two conspire to eat the third. The play is a lighter absurdity than it's predecessor, with the medium man daintily setting a makeshift dinner table, ("Does the little fork go on the right or left?"), and the unfortunate object of dinner scrambling to find a way out of his predicament, ("I am poisoned,...I have an infected liver,...one leg is shorter than the other"). They are briefly joined by two women, a post woman, (Jennabeth Stockman), and a maid, (Kelsey Arlen), who swim aboard to report news from land, ("You have a message on your cell phone"), certainly an update of the original script. The play was odd and funny, beginning with a ridiculous ukelele strummed Hawaiian novelty song, sung quite well by the three men, and ending with the proclamation of individual rights by the soon to be eaten dinner guest.

Both plays offer not a frustrating wonderment, but insightful, albeit absurd comments on the privileged gentry eating alive the common man.

SUBVERSIVE SHORTS

I went to a play but I didn't stay for Act 2.

Why not?

The program said, Act 2, same as Act 1.




Subversive Theatre got a bad rap from The Buffalo News in a review for their production of SUBVERSIVE SHORTS 2009. I saw the final installation of this collection of short plays from around the country at the closing performance Sunday night, a four and a half hour marathon, where all 10 plays were presented. The plays were previously presented as two seperate performances on alternating evenings. I could only stay for seven of the plays, and what I saw certainly contradicts the dismal one and a half star rating offered from The News. Some broad humor, some subtle nuance, a sprinkle of dark politics, a dash of intrigue and some truly dramatic and edgy moments were all thrown into this pot of political stew, resulting in a most satisfying evening of new theatre. Heather Fangsrud gives a fine and moving solo performance as the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, professing her father's psychological injuries in SOUTHPAW STANCE, and Donald Capers and Jacqueline Jordan bring a hopeful glow to the war minded absurdity of NORMAL IS A COUNTRY, about the recovery of a recently disabled vet.





So I went to a play but I couldn't stay for Act 2.

Why not?

The program said, Act 2, two weeks later, and I didn't have that much time.


The Arties nominations have been announced and I'm glad that the two plays I served as stage manager for at The New Phoenix received Best Actor and Actress nods for Lorraine O'Donnell in DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, WITH YOU, and Richard Lambert in BLACKBIRD. DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, WITH YOU, penned by Richard Lambert, also received a nomination for Best New Play.

Daggers in your teeth, everybody.

TENTATIVE ARTIE NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

Artvoice newsweekly's Artie Award nominations, honoring outstanding achievement in local theatre productions, were announced Sunday night at 'Q' on Allen Street, although nominations in the categories of Actress and Supporting Actress in a play, have yet to be announced.

Not surprisingly, Musicalfare in Amherst, which produces musicals exclusively, received the most nominations with 27 mentions, tripling the nine nominations the next most nominated theatre, The Kavinoky, received. *( 5/21/09 -A late posting of the actress categories tallies The Irish Classical Theatre with 9 nominations as well.).

Alleyway Theatre's HELL HOLE HONEYS, and Musicalfare's JAMESTOWN GALS and SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, received the most nominations for a musical with eight each. The Kavinoky Theatre's THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION, Aaron Sorkin's examination of the advent of television, received the most nominations of a play with five, including Best Production.

The Katherine Cornell Award for Outstanding Contribution by a Visiting Artist, have also yet to be announced.

The 19th Annual Artie Awards will be held on June 1 at The Town Ballroom in Buffalo. All benefits from the ceremony will go to The Benedict House, an AIDS related charity.

For a listing of the announced nominees, go to artieawards.webs.com/

EASY LISTENING

Man, I couldn't wait for this hiatus, this dawn and twilight, this home sweet hell, when I had no theatre commitments, and I could just come home from work, and do as I please for the foreseeable future. And now that I've had such freedom for a few weeks, I have to admit I'm a little bored. It sort of sucks to drive 60 miles to and from Buffalo after work, as I do when I'm with a show, but I'm reminded, in my freedom, the joy and sorrow in debating whether to watch THE AMAZING RACE, or THE APPRENTICE, on a given Sunday night. Truth be told, I've never seen either of those programs. My family was discussing the merits of both at Mother's Day dinner on Sunday. But you get the idea. I can work on my epic poem for just so long.

For readers of this blog, both of you, it may be newsworthy to know I've had to backtrack in my alphabetized listening of music. Right between SOUNDGARDEN, and The Soundtrack to SPIDERMAN, I came across some records I bought and stashed in a closet, and promptly forgot about. So I've spent the last few months going through them listening to letters M, through letter S. It's an alphabet fetish. The music is secondary.

It's a fine line between worthwhile listening and pure junk in the world of old records. This weekend was decidedly easy listening. First up was "101 Strings, The Soul of Spain". If you know old vinyl records, you know 101 Strings. They were, and still are, a European based orchestra, that produces luscious arrangements of current pop hits, movie scores, and other thematic music. These records were bountiful in the 1960s, owing much to the fact they were always considerably cheaper than any other record albums in the record store. If albums were $1.89 in 1969, the 101 Strings albums were 59 cents. They are now a staple in Salvation Army store record bins. I remember being about 10 years old and my friend up the street came home with a brand new Beatles album, which shouted from the cover, THE BEATLES! THE BEATLES! THE BEATLES! We put it on the record player, and to our horror, out the speakers came beautiful, beatle-less schlock. And if you looked carefully again at the record cover, at the top in fine print it said, '101 Strings Play', and then boldly, THE BEATLES! THE BEATLES! THE BEATLES!. What a chump.

101 STRINGS, THE SOUL OF SPAIN, is very conquistador-like, a lot of marimbas, castanets and strings. Picture European conquerors and dancing senoritas. Speaking of strings, I also listened to SINATRA & STRINGS, (1961 Reprise - 1004). This pre-Beatles era recording features Frank Sinatra crooning standards like Misty, Night and Day, and Stardust. It seemed to me Sinatra without strings would have been a better listen, as the swarming violins do little for the stark, soulful, and blues based arrangements of songs. But it's Frank Sinatra, so who cares? Bagpipes and a kazoo wouldn't dampen that voice. Another glass of sherry, my funky friend?


Speaking of knock-off record labels, I listened to ARTIE SHAW, MR. CLARINET, on Tops Records (9755). Tops Records were infamous for confusing the record buying public with versions of current top hits, by session vocalists. So if you were looking for "Splish-Splash", by Bobby

Darin, you may have purchased Splish-Splash by Joe the plumber. But any lover of vintage vinyl will tip a hat to Tops Records. Any recording company that started off selling used jukebox singles out of crates in grocery stores, and hiring a then unknown Lou Reed as a session vocalist, certainly has something to offer. They can also boast releasing early records by then unknowns, Lena Horne, The Ink Spots, and several others, under there soon to be famous names. ARTIE SHAW, MR. CLARINET, is a typical Tops record with ridiculous statements on the cover like, "DUO-RANGE STEREO", and "TOPS STAR SERIES". Generally 'Tops Star Series', meant music by once established popular musicians, whose work had fallen into public domain, or were an easy purchase, and Duo-Ranged Stereo, meant not mono. It is interesting to hear the Artie Shaw of the Big-Band era, with jazzy and improvisational arrangements, evolving into a Lawrence Welk-like platitude, edging along the shifting preferences of the record buying public. There is a smashing female vocal of MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY here, but like one can expect from a slapdash Tops record, the singer is uncredited. Shaw was considered the finest clarinetist of his day, and while fronting his popular orchestra in the 1930s, he was the first Caucasian Big Band leader to hire a featured black female vocalist, none other than Billie Holiday, who eventually excused herself from the position after pressure from record company executives, and southern audiences.

And in the mail yesterday came the book, TOP POP SINGLES, 1955-2002, by Joel Whitburn, which contains a listing for every record single which broke into Billboard's Top 100, in the rock and roll era, between the years 1955 and 2002. I'm drooling.

And I'm poking my blog with a stick with another inane entry. It's time to watch the whole page light up with my spell check.

BLACKBIRD SINGING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

From L to R, Director Kelli Bocock Natale, husband and
show mentor Joe Natale, Cast members Richard Lambert, Candice
Kogut, and blog author.


We closed BLACKBIRD last night.

The audiences were consistently enthusiastic and constant, although never a full house, there was rarely less than 30 patrons, more often as many as 40-45. The controversial subject of child molestation certainly kept some away.




From L to R in back, Kelli Bocock-Natale, Joe Natale, Richard Lambert, House Manager Tom Scahill, cast member Dolly Goodman, and Center, Candice Kogut.




At work, I put a flyer up on the company bulletin board advertising the play, and it was unceremoniously taken down after surviving there for several weeks. I suspect the well promoted theme of child molestation ruffled the feathers of the blue collar company I work for. Actually, I was surprised no one drew a rude mustache on the pic of Candice.

I always try to hustle people from work to come see a play I'm involved in. BLACKBIRD is the first time anyone actually showed up. How I wish I would have snapped a pic of my wonderful friend and co-worker Allison, and her three gorgeous daughters from Canissius College, who were dressed to the hilt, and came to Friday night's performance. They became emotionally and vocally involved in the show, just short of hissing the villainy of reformed child abductor, Peter.

The night before I could distinctly hear my brother in the audience mutter, "you bastard", when the drama of the play suggested the reformed child molester, was still molesting.

God bless my 79 year old mother who fawned over DUSTY SPRINGFIELD ... WITH YOU!, earlier this season, but was only disturbed by BLACKBIRD.

A lot of friends and relatives who would normally come to a show I'm with, declined the offer to watch a play concerning child molestation. It's understandable.

Only one scathing incident that I can account for during the production, aside from some minor cue flaws. Tom, the house manager and I were leaving the theatre in my car one night, I was backing out of a parking space, we were talking, when he suddenly started yelling and screaming. I'm thinking, "Why the hell are you screaming?" If he had verbalized his scream I would have understood I was about to hit a parked car.

and 'crunch!'.

'F'

Tom may argue that he clearly said "You are about to hit a parked car!".

Some minor damage. And some major damage. Certainly I didn't cause all that other damage to the door of the car!?? I took some pics and put a note on the car. Local residents came out of their boroughs and after asking if we were all right proceeded to take down my license plate number, and casually interrogate me. No I'm not drunk, oh civic duty, get back in your houses, can't you see I'm doing all I can about this?

So I'm worried all night and day that some opportunist is going to claim the damage was more severe than it was. In my worst paranoia, I pictured a minor evildoer making it a habit of parking his car exactly where it was, and certainly some a-hole from the theatre will back into it. That's where the other damage must have come from.

The next day, our lead actress, Candice said, "That was my car you hit." Thank god, I said.

Not to suggest Candice drives a greatly damaged car. But it was evident. My damage was a cute little bump by the headlight.

Our lead actor and Executive Director of The New Phoenix, Richard Lambert, and his partner Mark, threw us a party after the show at their place. They really know how to throw together a nice little romp, and I made it a point not to get so loaded I'd pass out on the floor of their bedroom, as I did at the last party. That time I was saved by their would be Saint Bernard, Buddy, who is actually a Basset Hound, who stubbornly licked me back to consciousness. No wooden keg of sherry to greet me, though. And, as it turned out, Joan, who I met at the last party, is not the sexy and gorgeous party girl that Richard and Mark hired to add flamboyance to any room she is in, but simply a neighbor of theirs. I would have wagered otherwise.

And gifts. Damn, I should have bought gifts. Richard gave me a very cool collectible mechanical wind-up robot, that now walks across my kitchen table. He said it was for my robotic-like skills at the boards, (Oh God, I wasn't fluid enough!). He couldn't possibly know that at age 6, I did NOT get the mechanical robot I had begged for at Christmas, and it has been a deep recessive psychosis in me ever since. And jeeze, our dear and talented juvenile actress Dolly Goodman, gave me a box of Antoinette's chocolates and a chocolate rose, that barely survived the ride home. Beer and chocolate, yummy!

And as I was walking out the door of the party, saying goodnight and waving goodbye, I then turned to go and walked directly into the bathroom. It reminded laughing Richard of an episode of the Norman Lear sitcom, MAUDE, (loved it), and that's when he told me Bea Arthur had just died.


God will get you for that, Walter.

TODAY'S DILIGENCE

Well, I think I'll go home and work on my play.

You're writing a play?

No, I'm reading one.

THE ODD COUPLE

I'm a member of The Springville Center For The Arts, and I've worked with both actors who play Felix and Oscar in their current production of THE ODD COUPLE, so I took a drive out on sunny Sunday to catch the show. I've also worked with the assistant director, the set designer, costume person, stage manager, the hostess who served the wine, the guy who gave me my ticket, someone who waved to me on the street, blah, blah, blah, - it's community theatre, where everyone's an usher, and a star at heart.
The Odd Couple, Dave Danielson, left, (Oscar Madison) and
Ted Pinneli, (Felix Unger)



The play was spirited and fun with a very able and enthusiastic cast charming a friendly and receptive full-house audience, (there had to be upwards of a hundred people in attendance!). Neil Simon's zingers were delivered with the aim of an archer; the direction, clear, crisp and lively; the set design - a bright and perfect picture of a bowling alley influenced bachelor pad circa 1960's, and those tiny finger sandwiches they served at intermission, (crab?), were as scrumptious as anything out of Felix Unger's kitchen.





Good show, guys! With cast members Sean Farrell, back right, and Gwendolyn and Cecily Pigeon.

NOTES ON STAGE MANAGING "BLACKBIRD" AT THE NEW PHOENIX

During tech week rehearsal, I think I'm not exaggerating to say I was almost killed. I was helping the lighting designer construct lights above the stage, he was atop a tall ladder, I was standing on the stage, sort of just minding my own business, when a large and heavy light fixture suddenly abandoned its support and came crashing to the stage, breaking apart with a thud and a crash, five feet from where I was standing. I gulped and said, "I'm glad I wasn't standing right there", and the lighting designer agreed. It was like a scene out of MURDER SHE WROTE.



The crowds for the show have been sparse. I think it's the subject matter of child molestation that has kept them away this Easter weekend. As the house manager said last night, - everyone is concentrating on the crucifixion of Jesus. No more room for sorrow.



I'm still a neophyte in the workings of the theatre. After being asked to serve as stage manager at The New Phoenix this season, I could be found at home with a big book in my lap, entitled, HOW TO BE A STAGE MANAGER. It didn't really help. It is my understanding the stage manager is responsible for nothing, when everything goes well, and everything, when nothing goes well.



Our director, Kelli Bocock-Natale, gave me a card on opening night that read, in part, "Stage Manager, the show is now in your hands!". It was news to me.



I don't necessarily believe in ghosts, although I've always fancied the thought. Truth be told, I attend a ghost hunt in Lilydale, New York every summer, but I like to think I keep it in check. In all the nights I've roamed dark woods and buildings with other would-be ghost hunters, armed with the most pedestrian digital equiptment, (apparently any camera will suffice, according to the brochure), I've never seen evidence. But if they do exist, one most certainly haunts, or befriends The New Phoenix Theatre. Just a feeling I get when I'm poised over the sound board during a show, ready for the next cue, and there's a creak from the wooden stairs just outside the door, and I turn to see who it is, and there is no one there. Or alone in the theatre, subtle sounds and voices, that I can't discern to be within or outside the building, softly richocheting around the room like echoes out of The Shining. One night walking to my car after locking up, I looked back at the theatre, the perfect picture of a haunted building with it's tall gothic arches against a moonlit sky, and I noticed in a window on the third floor, a working neon 'Open' light. Where the 'F' did that come from? So I went back into the theatre, and instead of fumbling around in the darkness looking for the light switches, I walked to the third floor in the dark, pulled the plug on the neon light, and found my way, Helen Keller style, back down the stairs. I was crossing the big dancing studio on the second floor, when maybe a headlight from a car outside, caused the room to be momentarily illuminated, and I saw, or thought I saw, someone standing at the mirrored wall, staring at his reflection. It put a chill right through me. I stood there, a bit reasonable, a bit mortified, and as if out of a movie script, I called out to the empty room, "Is there somebody there?".



If anything had answered, I almost certainly would have had a heart attack.

BLACKBIRD

I'm the stage manager for BLACKBIRD, the current production at The New Phoenix Theatre On The Park in Buffalo. The play concerns the victims of child molestation. We received an excellent review from The Buffalo News, that I hope to print here. When the run is over, at the end of this month, I'll blog more about it.

3 FILMS

I'm watching a lot of Netflix instant movies on the internet. It's a great service with hundreds of titles of movies and TV, both vintage and new.

While I've watched some classic favorite films there; Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, To Kill A Mockingbird, and tons of third rate westerns from the 1930's and 1940's, starring the likes of John Wayne, Gene Autry, Lash LaRue, and somebody known as The Whiplash Kid, and piles of newer films that I hoped would offer a bit of a pleasing tease, - "Three Girls in A Jeep", anyone? - "Teenage Catgirls In Heat"? - none give me more satisfaction than the obscure little film which delivers a rich movie experience. Here are two films that grabbed my attention, one like a vice grip, the other like a warm massage, and a classic favorite from the 1970's, that I've seen many times, but never expected to appreciate on my tiny computer screen.


THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOUGH, (1964), is a French film directed by Jacques Demy, the middle film of his 'romantic' trilogy that includes, Lola (1961), and The Young Girls of Rocheforte (1967). The film starts modestly with a young dating couple, (Catherine Deneuve and Nino Costelnuovo), sparkling with love and affection, and whose troubles are standard to romantic movies; mom doesn't approve, they want to elope, where's a good back seat to screw around in? But here's the thing - all the dialogue is sung rather than spoken by the characters, no matter how inconsequential. This is not a musical, but what seems, looking back on the film, a natural language. Everybody sings. When a post man delivers the morning mail, and announces a quick how-do-you-do, he too sings a few words. At first, this gimmick is jarring and ridiculous, but as you follow the film, you hardly notice you are listening to a music. It becomes as natural as a French accent. A few quick plot turns and this film stands up and says hello. Call it post-French new wave cinema, with brightly lit urban night life awash in shocking fresh painted color, and stylish and electrified sets becoming bleaker as the threat from The Algerian War looms, (Algeria gained independence from France in 1962). The ending is sad and profound with commentary on love and survival and human nature, compromised by a symbol of American commercialism, as if regarding the oncoming tide of a Big Mac and fries onslaught from the west, with a song.


KISS ME DEADLY, is a 1955 classic film noir from a Mickey Spillane novel featuring private detective Mike Hammer. Tough dick Hammer, (Ralph Meeker), picks up a young and, except for a trenchcoat, naked female hitchhiker, (Chloris Leachman), in his cool convertable and realizes the demented girl, who just escaped from a nuthouse, may not be as nutty and paranoid as she seems when he's forced off the road and over a cliff by a group of cars chasing her. He wakes up in a room in the asylum where the girl is being tortured for information. very cool black and white low budget potboiler, with ace detective Hammer, (love his cool L.A. pad with a 1955 answering machine), displaying a brutish and suave decadence, in that his main souce of detective income, prior to this atomic maltese falcon case, is clients with cheating spouses whom he juggles and bribes for the best price between them. When he knocks a punk around, which is often, he's looking to dislodge a brain. Uncompromising United Artists release where even the girl Friday secretaty is the most untrustworthy bit of flash and trash this side of Chicago. The original ending of the film, a great bit of cold war symbolism, and an exciting scene in it's own right, had been destroyed decades ago in the original negative of the film, altering the last 60 seconds dramatically. It is restored here thanks to a 1997 film restoration project.







I've always loved the film, KLUTE, (1971). Along with The French Connection and The Exorcist, it's one of my favorite films from the 1970s. Jane Fonda plays a New York City prostitute who hooks up with, (pun so intended), a hired cop from Pennsylvania, John Klute, (Donald Sutherland), who is searching for a missing executive, who may have been a client of Bree's, (Fonda). The film crawls with low-key suspense as the dangerous world of a mid-level New York City hooker, is made eerie by such common frights as a phone hang-up call, and a lurker above a rooftop apartment skylight. Classify KLUTE a thriller, but it also serves well as a genuine and thoughtful love story, and relevant social commentary, with brilliant direction from Alan J. Pakula, swathing a path through 1971 New York City to reveal a touch of humanity among the junkies, prostitutes, and perverts. Perfectly assembled, tension mounting musical score by Michael Small.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

MusicalFare

Directed by Randall Kramer

Cast: Paschal Frisina III, Jean Stafford, Doug Crane, Sheila McCarthy, Debbie Pappas, Jeffrey Coyle, Louis Colaiacovo, Steve Copps, Anne Ronaldi, Leah Russo, Nicole Marrale Cimato, Amy Jakiel, Kelly Jakiel, Kevin R. Kenndy, Robert J. Cooke

All the bells and whistles of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in The Park With George", were evident in MusicalFare's production of the musical speculating on the life of 19th Century French artist Georges Seurat and his masterwork, A Sunday Afternoon on The Isle of La Grande Jette, a painting that now resides in The Art Institute of Chicago. A simple beam of light provides a transfer of the painting to an onstage mesh screen, and is reversed with elements of the painting missing, when seen as a work in progress. A framed image of an earlier Seurat work, Bathers at Asnieres, is wheeled onto the stage, with actors within the frame of the painting, portraying animated sun bathers, a particularly well executed scene. Life sized cardboard cut-out figures of Seurat, as portrayed by Pascal Frisina III, during an artists' cocktail reception, in various poses for comedic effect in Act II, were as professionally mounted as the Broadway production. The monstrous 20th Century artwork, Chromolume 7, seen as a companion piece and an atrocity to Seurat's work, and devised for the musical from James Lapine's book, was effeciently created with pseudo-laser lights and electrical sparks and flash. Dog and monkey silhouettes are grounded to the stage, and then easily walked off by exiting actors, depicting a 19th Century amusement, and an inanimate tree changes position mid-scene, at a sketching artist's request. It seemed to me, if MusicalFare is to take on the task of producing this sometimes lavish, sometimes minimalist production, they needed to get the props right, and the creative and frugal effort displayed here, or maybe the price tag, paid off handsomely.

The 15 member cast is an accomplished troupe of actors and singers, each taking a dual role in the second act. Paschal Frisina III, as subject George Seurat, displays a fine batitone and offers depth and clarity to the struggling artist syndrome. Jean Stafford, as his lover Dot, merely channels Bernadette Peters Broadway preformance of the role, but with such expertise, the character shines through. The remainder of the cast are excellent with standout performances from all, notably Doug Crane, as competing artist Jules, eying and circling Seurat's painting, as if determining how to kill a threatening insect, and Sheila McCarthy as The Old Lady, casting a reserved mothering instinct across the stage, which looms like the shadow of death.

At approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, the musical runs a little long, but is never dull, and far be it length over a scene cut. At times the fluidity is altered by the stringency of the proceedings, with the cast appearing a bit rushed at times, a bit hesitant at others. But as a fan of Sondheim, and a lover of this particular show, I was quite impressed and entertained.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE, Theatre Review

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE

The New Phoenix on The Park

Directed by Joeseph Natale

Cast: Betsy Bittar, Mary Loftus, John Kruezer, Eric Rawski

I saw this play a month ago and here's a short review.

Betsy Bittar commands the stage with her voluptuous and frightening presence, and Mary Loftus is perfectly pathetic as a victim of elder abuse in The New Phoenix Theatre On The Park's production of Martin McDonaugh's black comedy, "The Beauty Queen Of Leenane", a play where Tennessee Williams meets Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes.

Bittar plays Maureen Folan, a 40 year old Irishwoman whose last chance at romance may be spoiled by her scheming and senile mother, (Loftus); senile in that she pours pails of urine down the kitchen sink and serves tea immediately afterwards.

Nasty stuff, this, and if it weren't for the cast delivering performances that made this vile Irish corner of the world believable, a striking inanity would prevail. Spinster fears her mother will ruin her last chance at marriage, so spinster torments and physically abuses the old girl. Stop, stop, you're killing me.

Loftus is fascinating as a woman secure with manipulative control yet fearful of the genuinely threatening world around her. She's physically apt as well, taking a believable spill to the floor in one scene.

EVERYTHING MUST GO

Steely Dan's EVERYTHING MUST GO, from 2003, their most recent disc, has pretty much sat on my shelf since its release. I saw this tour in Albany, New York in 2003, and it left an itching for the introduced songs from the album, especially, "Things I Miss The Most". I also got a new Steely Dan T-shirt, ("I got the Steely Dan T-shirt!"), and this CD.

But my interest in the CD waned over the subsequent years, and it was not a disc I played much. 1972's CAN'T BUY A THRILL, still sparkles with cheery melody and hooks, and 1974's PRETZEL LOGIC, still caused me to appreciate a dark low cloud hanging over my head, but EVERYTHING MUST GO, moved as slowly as a Monday morning on Tylenol PM. With this successor to the 2001 Grammy winning TWO AGAINST NATURE, I was hoping The Dan would return to a rock-pop roots, say the garage rock meets high art sophistication of 1973's COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY, or maybe a smooth and disturbing KATY LIED, (1975), for a post 9-11 world. But you go back Jack, and do it again. The sound here is similiar to the agreeable but bland light jazz of TWO AGAINST NATURE, which was released after a hiatus of 20 years. After 20 years, most rock acts would be dead, or signed to Ringo Starr's All Star Band.

With EVERYTHING MUST GO, maybe fans like myself were tired of the passive and retired Steely Dan, churning out agreeable jazz-pop ditties as effortlessly as one would burp after drinking a can of Dr. Pepper. As of this writing, EVERYTHING MUST GO is the only one of Steely Dan's nine albums to not reach at least gold record status. In comparison, just a few years before, TWO AGAINST NATURE, scored double-platinum sales.

But recently, I was in dire need of a music to patch up some holes in my heart. Nothing special, just a basic "I hate your guts and I want to see you rot in hell" sort of melody. I know of no better pill for vengeance than Steely Dan's COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY. And man, it worked. Every skipped heartbeat, every saddened gulp, every clenched fist, was remedied, indeed glorified in a victorious and mean spirited way by Steely Dan's biting, blood trickling, sardonic break-up album. Take that, bitch.

Amazed at how the right music can truly soothe the soul, and in this case, comfort the nagging memory of a ruined relationship, I re-explored Steely Dan's entire catalogue, finally landing on the ignored EVERYTHING MUST GO. Indeed, I know these albums by heart, but they sounded so alive hearing them again, as if I was back in my teen hood marveling to COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY, with enough weed consumed on that album alone to finance a new Hyundai.

It's that first song on EVERYTHING MUST GO that throws me off. "The Last Mall", is a simple and tiresome song that initiates the album's theme of equating a financial and global ruin with the break-up of a relationship. It sounds as tedious as it's tenure of pushing a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel through a store. An apocalyptic, new age, store-is-closing sale where, "the tools for survival, and the medicine for the blues, sweet treats and surprises, for the little buckeroos", are to be greedily gobbled up by survivalist consumers.

But the songs get better, and "The Last Mall", in all it's easy irony may pave the way for the solid spoils of collapse that follow. "Things I Miss The Most", detailing life after divorce, is where one can forgive Steely Dan the velvety smooth slickness, just short of a xylophone solo and a bubble making machine, because they do it so well. Upbeat yet resigned piano keys court bluesy guitar and muffled sax in a touching, if thirsty, tribute to a marriage - "The talk, the sex, somebody to trust, the Audi TT, the house on the vineyard, the house on the gulf coast, these are the things I miss the most".

I hated the exhaustible "Blues Beach", when I first heard it and now I love it. It's that damn Steely Dan hook - gets me every time. It pushes the boundaries of familiar pleasantry, (think "Peg"), until you surrender to it's hypnotic bounce because it's taken up residence in the most musical and vulnerable part of your brain. An escape to 'blues beach' is a fantasy 'getting away from it all' for the middle aged set, - "I was scraping bottom, gropin' in the dark, it takes a crusty punk, to really beat the mean streets of medicine park". Only lyricist, singer Donald Fagen can say he's "chillin' at the Manatee Bar", and not sound like a total dweeb. It's also got those Dan signature hushed and exotic female backing vocals, which is always a nice touch, and a male falsetto, something new.

"Godwhacker", is Steely Dan funk, their most predictable and dull musical style; ("Josie" from AJA). It's a dark foray into a planet and mind cleansing from the schizophrenic threatening powers that be, - "Be very, very quiet, clock everything you see, little things might matter later, at the start of the end of history".

"Slang of Ages" is the first time Walter Becker, one half of Steely Dan, generally the composing half, provides lead vocals on a Dan studio album, and he possesses an effortless and handsome style, with just a hint of vocal prowess, already proven on his impeccably lush "Book of Liars", from 1995's live ALIVE IN AMERICA. Again it's a smoother than fresh taffy richness that slides through Becker's half spoken vocals and Fagen's sharp and funny lyrics delivered to a newly hatched pop generation diva, - "Now did you say you were from the Netherlands, or was that Netherworld?, if you grew up in Amsterdam, then I'm the Duke of Earl".

"Green Book" is an ominous reference to film noir and atomic holocaust, (it name drops the classic Mickey Spillane film, "Kiss Me Deadly"), in a night through an urban underworld of shadowy alleys and dangerous downstairs bars, where "my coat is black and the moon is yellow", and "the new cashier looks like Jill St. John".

"Pixaleen" is a catchy and nasty number about a pixilated and genuine teen superstar running amok in an action packed, terrorist backed digital film. OK, maybe not, but it sounds like this, - "And when Abu rams the clip in the mingles, up on the catwalk inside the warehouse, you whip a knife from the top of your go-go boots, with just a hint of spectacular thigh".

"Lunch with Gina" sounds like a dreaded meeting with your ex-partner, - "The waiter never comes, God knows the service could be better, lunch with Gina is forever".

You could slow-dance with your soon departed mate in title track, "Everything Must Go", a sweet and resigned kiss off to a major deal gone bad, be it marriage, business, or a pissed off god with a breath of global warming. It strangely mirrors today's corporate financial disaster with a horde of fresh bankroll for the recipients of the spoils of war, -"It was sweet up at the top, 'til that ill wind started blowing, now it's cozy down below, 'cause we're going out of business, everything must go".

While starting off as a meek Steely Dan album, (I'd add THE ROYAL SCAM to that list), EVERYTHING MUST GO, recently became my favorite bit of music, finding regular rotation in my player and in my mind, six years after first hearing it. While COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY allowed me to express frustration and exorcise demons, and stopped me just short of visiting a shrink, or taking a clandestine meeting with an expert in voodoo doll culture, (the thought barely crossed my mind), EVERYTHING MUST GO is the cool comedown. A reminder that life goes on with or without a companionable world around you. You got to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go get blitzed. Better yet, go chill in a beach bar in the southern hemisphere. Watch some porn.