PUTOVANI S URNOU & JANUS

Two things to tell you about today.  First, a production of Burning the Old Man just opened in Pardubice, Czech Rebpublic, produced by Divadlo Exil.  This is the second production I've had done in the Czech Republic- and I am thrilled.  They have been fantastic, and by all accounts, the production is awesome.  Just check out this trailer they've made:

Burning the Old Man is probably my most successful play to date.  It won the 2005 NYIT Award for Outstanding Full Length Script, has been published by NYTE, Applause, and Smith & Kraus; and has been produced in Boomerang Theatre Company, Divadlo na Zabradli of Prague, and the aforementioned Divadlo Exil.  This past fall, Harvardwood did a reading of a screenplay based on the script, and it looks like there will be another production sometime this year in Brazil.

I am of course very proud of that.  I also encourage you to buy your own digital copy of it from Indie Theater Now, for about a buck fifty!

The second thing I want to tell you more about my play Some Unfortunate Hour- which is also available from Indie Theater Now for the same low price.  The play is a funny, savage, and sad story about love and desire and being lost.  There is a monologue at the end of the play that I think would be a great audition piece for an actress.  In it, Janus- the smart ass bartender, finally comes clean with how she feels to Tom, the guy who comes to her bar every night to complain about pretty much everything.  Janus has loved Tom for a long time, and they even made love one drunken evening.  But she has never told him the depth of her feelings- hoping that he would figure things out and come to her.  Here's the monologue, with a little bit of Tom.  I hope you dig it:

JANUS

You are such a fucking stupid asshole!  Just shut up and let it go.  Come over tonight.  Come home.  You can just sleep.  I don't care.  I'll take care of you tonight.  You owe me that much.

 TOM

What do you mean, I owe you?

 JANUS

I love you, you stupid son of a bitch!  Okay?  Get it?  You're it.  What did you just say about love?  I care about you more than anything in the world, mother fucker.  In the entire world.  Me.  Anything.  Including- especially me!  I worship you. I don't know why- you're an asshole. But I do.  I fucking hate it, but I absolutely adore you.  We're meant for each other, you stupid motherfucker.  Open your eyes!  Who listens to your crazy shit?  Who takes care of you?  Who was there when the shit hit the fan and your so called friends couldn't be bothered?  Me, you colossal asshole! I'm good for you.  God damn it, I'm fucking great for you, and you know it!  You know I am.  I'm hope.  I'm your only fucking hope, you stupid asshole!  Grow a pair, you fucking Mary!  Oh my fucking God!  God Damn you!  You parade your stupid shit, your bullshit little boy bullshit, in front of my face like I'm not there.  Do I like her line?  Do I like her fucking line?  Fuck you!  Fuck you twice and stick it in your ass.  You're hurting me.  I fucking hurt.  We were good that time.  We were! How can we have had that and not be? You cried on my stomach!  You cried on my stomach and I knew.  I saw it clearly.  I'm- I'm home.  I'm your home.  Let me be your home.  I love you.

 TOM

(pause) I know.

 JANUS

Why can't I be your home?  Why can't you come home?  Tell me.  Tell me right fucking now!

Well, that's all I have to say.

Now GET YOUR THEATRE ON

Shake It Up

Seriously. Shake it up. Not to honor the old song by The Cars, though there's nothing wrong with that notion, but to get the proverbial juices flowing. Get out there and do something different for a moment, an hour, a day. Twist the scenery of your daily pageant and taste something new. Order a different drink at the bar, add cream to your black coffee or salt to your grapefruit.

That's right, salt your damn grapefruit. This has become a blog of daily confirmations, exhortations, and exhilaration. Why not? We let the world say the same old thing, day in and day out, every freaking day- and I have had enough.

More things that we all should do:

Buy the album Vinyl by D'Haene- up and coming band, will rock your soul.
Go to Prague and see my show, Cesta Horiciho Muze- because Prague rocks, and so does my show.
Talk to a total stranger. That's right- even if they have candy.

This isn't a new idea, I know- but it's one of those things we manage to learn and forget over and over, ad infinitum.

Example: this past week, my good friend Jack- resident genius of Jersey City's Art House Productions- came to visit. One of the many great things about company is that it forces us to change our routine, to vary the daily grind- you know, to shake things up.

So shake we did, along with some rattling and rolling, and good times were had by all. Amoung the many excellent things I/we experienced this past week was some great art at the Denver Art Museum. An entire room painted red, with grey foxes running wild. A strangely serene painting of a little girl that supposedly haunts the sixth floor of the North Building- at least that's what the security guards tell me. And this installation by Bjorn Melhus that was friggin' amazing. He basically took a bunch of sound bytes, mostly from Star Trek, and created this Beckett like series of vignettes, with three characters standing on a desolate planet pondering life, love, and our eventual deaths. Very funny, unique, and ultimately moving. And, we got to watch the whole thing while sitting on bean bag chairs.

It was one of those little moments in life that I knew, as it was happening, was for some unknown reason, important to my thread of being. I know that, years from now, I'll think of that artwork and smile, perhaps even be inspired in something I am working on, to new levels of brilliance.

All because of a slight variation in schedule.

Shake it up, baby, with all you've got.

And then see where the paint spatters have landed.

iMcAllister- Chapter One

I McAllister. I write blog. Today first blog in life. I think I like. Don't really get why I is "i" these days, but what Hell? i go with flow. Talk like Sasquatch sometime. Great book, you should all read. Call something like "Bigfoot, i not dead".
Good news- i liberal commie and i think we win this November.
Why?
McCain-Palin are Bridge to Nowhere.
Serious.
Okay, now i will stop talking like that.
But this really is my first blog. Many more to come, i assure you.
i intend to write about whatever floats into my head each time i get in front of the computer. Sometimes, it'll be about politics and why i think the GOP is a cabal set on the destruction of civilization as we know it. Other times, it'll be about my life- like how my dog barks too much or how i always boil my coffee when i reheat it. Often, i'll be trying to use this blog to get word out about something going on that i want people to know about.
Like the fact the my play Burning the Old Man is going to be produced in Prague this April at the theatre Vaclav Havel did most of his plays at. It's already translated into Czech. Putovani S Urnou. That's the title in Czech. Prague is called the City of Magic, and is the capital of Bohemia, and is also where i got married. It's really beautiful, and i think you should go there. Say, April next year. And while there, go to the theatre. In fact, go to Divadlo na Zabradli.

So, I guess you can surmise I am a commie pinko leftist bleeding heart who is sort of ego-centric.
And yes, I do believe in Bigfoot, UFO's, and ghosts. Doesn't everybody?