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.