THE MAGICIAN

First preview here in Edinburgh yesterday. A city full of magic of all sorts. Theatrical. Architectural. Historical. 

And the human variety. 

Human magic is the strangest of all the arcane arts, the most complex. At times, obvious as palming a coin behind your hand as you wow the locals with your prestidigitation. At others, murkier and more unpredictable than the weather in this ancient city that looks like it's the  bastard child of J.K. Rowling and William Shakespeare. I would say minus that sadder aspects of that comparison, the uglier sides of both of those writers world views. But I'd be lying. There is both wonder and sorrow here. Same as everywhere.

Yesterday, we were getting ready to debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. To say the cast and crew were exhilarated would be a great understatement. We started the day with a little press interview with Fringe Biscuit. Always exciting to discuss your show with the press. We went, pitched out show as charmingly as humanly possible, and ventured off. 

We had things to do. A run through of the play at one of our postage stamp sized flats. A mad search for some stools for the show. The usual madness that comes before a show opens, cramming a week into a day, a day into an hour, and hour into a moment.

And then it was time to get ready and head to the Royal Mile, where our theatre is.

Cooper, one of my dearest friends and also one of the leads in the show, and I decided to get some coffee, headed over, had some lattes made "take away", which is how they say to go here in Scotland. On the way back to our flats to meet the cast and walk, there was a commotion across the street. A couple of people were gathered around a woman sitting on the sidewalk, back against the ancient wall, not moving. Most of the people seemed either drunk or high or some combination. The emotions shot out from them in all directions like a volley of damaged arrows.

I wanted to walk on. I had a show to do. 

I couldn't.

I walk over to them, and one of the men tells me the woman is dead. The woman kneeling next to the body screams "she's breathing!" Another man asks me to help. Another man holds his dog back, who is barking to wake the devil. The devil may have woken, but the lady slept on. I ask the group what number to call for an ambulance, as I'm an American. Some of them throw up their arms in despair at this. An American? Now we are fucked for sure. But I get the number. 999. An upside Mark of the Beast. By now, another Fringe goer, a man named James, joins the fray. The 999 operator picks up, and I can barely hear her as things are spiraling quickly into a mad whirl. At every second, at least three people are yelling things at me about the state of the body. 

I should mention. The Lady of the Wall, the Sleeper Who Will Not Awake, She Who Had No Name, does indeed look dead to me. Her skin has turned grey. Her mouth hangs open. Her legs are stiff. 

I am frightened and falling through time and space but unable to be anywhere but right there. 

The operator somehow hears me. I give our location. She asks me if the Lady is dead. I say no. She asks me if I am sure. I am not, but I say yes, she's still alive because I think it will get the ambulance there quicker. 

James puts his hand over her jaw open mouth, says he can feel a breath. 

The operator asks me is the Lady is conscious. 

No.

She tells us to lay her out flat on the ground, head on the sidewalk, and for me to say "now" for every breath the Lady Takes, and I do.

Now. 

Now.

Now.

There are strange intervals of time between the breathes. The span between each breath a chasm of despair. The Lady's grey face seems a mystic death mask of a tragic queen. 

And the ambulance arrives, and people who know far better than I take over.

And in a miracle, The Lady Wakes.

One of the Howling Men turns to me, says thank you, tells me how most people don't stop. 

I know that. Like most of us, I have been The Person Who Doesn't Stop in other chapters of my life.

And then he says:

My names Michael, but they call me Magic. I'm a Magician, you see.

Then he leans in close, with the saddest face in the history of this moment, confesses to me:

I've been on smack for twenty years now.

I walk away, join Cooper, who has been there the whole time. Coop tells me he stayed to make sure I was okay, gives me a hug, and we journey on.

I suddenly feel like crying. I tell the cast to meet me at the theatre, head out.

And as I walk the lovely, lonely streets of this town, I think about what's important. What if anything has any meaning. Why do we do theatre, create stories and songs, dance with each other.

And the world opens up to me. Each step fills my soul with an intense love of this world. Each stranger seems a saint.

A kid handing out flyers for her show asks me if I want a strawberry. She says she's saving them for the cast, but that I can have one. 

I take it like communion, bless myself with a bit of kindness of strangers.

At the theatre, more madness. Running to and fro. No one sure what is going on.

And in the sweet darkness of the first blackout, we make our own magic.

IT'S A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

At the Newport Folk Fest, Jon Batiste said, many times, "this is not a concert, it's a spiritual practice." I think that applies to life. It is not a trial we endure, it's a journey we actively experience. These past few days, I've seen music, heard colors, felt smiles... I've leapt through the looking glass into the mad world of the now. 

And it's glorious.

I am a very lucky person. I know this. I think I always have been. Not to say I haven't had my share of tough times, tragedy, and turmoil. Times so bad I use alliteration when describing them. Still, I find this world so amazing. So magical. 

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the beginning of my first Edinburgh Fringe. So of course I am feeling good. Great. Grand. So wonderful I have to use alliteration to describe it. It's been about 48 hours so far. I've met many people. Walked many streets. Absorbed a lot of good mojo. 

And it feels right.

Do you ever get that feeling when you are somewhere, doing something, and you think "this is where Ia m supposed to be. Right now. Right here. 

Right.

Or Left, for my fellow left handed geniuses.

So much worry in the world. So much sorrow. So much to do. 

I think the sadness in the world necessitates the joy. We have to live well, to cherish this life, in order to defend it properly. We have to know love and wonder. We have to. We have to always remember how amazing it is to be alive. Particularly in tough times. 

And these are tough times.  The planet is clearly fucked, environmentally speaking. Fascism seems to be on the rise. War is raging in various countries. Constantly. There are shootings, almost daily, in America. And death waits for us all.

But that is why I find it so easy to celebrate life. 

I'm quite the preacher today. I imagine my happiness in a world gone mad can be quite annoying to folks.

Consider it my illness, my coping mechanism. 

I can't and won't change my love of life. Why should I? Every time I let myself be myself, life turns out fantastic. Every damn time. 

So. 

On with the journey. The spiritual practice. The show.

Here's a song. It's By and By by Caamp. And yes, I just wrote a sentence with three "by"s in it. Yahoo!

DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN

 Ever have one of those songs stick in your head but you only remember a tiny part of it? Happens to me all the time. And then I'll ask anyone and everyone: Do you know that songs that goes doo ba da do da da do da da-aa-ah?

And whomever I've asked will look at me like they think I just farted.

It's pretty much been that way my whole life.

A prime example. Fire on High by Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. It's this instrumental song that you'd hear on FM radio back in the day. It's sort of scary and awesome and not one you find on a lot of top 40 stations, but I always thought it was cool. It wasn't one of my favorite songs. Not one I'd put on a mix tape or anything. Just a song that lodged itself in my brain long ago, to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind and drive me to distraction.

That song came out in the other world known as the 1970s. Land of Happy Days, Viet Nam, Watergate, and leisure suits. A world I navigated on my bike and/or skateboard, traversing the streets of San Jose, obsessed with comic books, KISS, and after the Ralph Bashki animated version of it came out, the Lord of the Rings. I can recall hearing that song in my friend Chris Carver's family's garage. It had this backward tracking section that made you think maybe the devil could hear your thoughts while you listened to it. 

If there was such a thing as the devil. And ever since The Excorcist came out, we were all pretty sure there was.

So, the song was part of the fabric of my childhood.

Cut to many years later. I'm in NYC. I haven't thought of that song since forever. I'm a starving artist, waiting tables at Bryant Park Grill behind the main branch of the New York Library, doing theatre down town, struggling to make ends meet, having the time of my life. 

And that song pops into my head. Well, not the whole song. Just this one section where the orchestra goes: DUN DUN.... DUUUUUUUNNNNNN. 

I start asking people if they know it.

And I get the "did you fart?" look everytime.

Years go by. I'll be at a party. I'll meet someone who seems knowledgeable all things music. I'll ask the question. I'll get the standard response. 

Now, I was still drinking back then, so maybe my question was asked a bit more off key than I'd like, and a tad more garbled. At any rate, no one had a clue.

Was I mad? Had I invented this fake memory of this song with backwards tracks and a section that goes DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN?

Years go by. I'm driving a rental car back to NYC after going to a wedding up in Connecticut. It's summer, and some radio station is playing all things seventies. And the song comes on the radio. The song! Now this is before cell phones, and there wasn't a note pad in the car, and I was on a bridge over the Harlem River in very heavy traffic. And worse, the song was in a long set of songs with no interruptions. I waited and waited, praying to the radio gods that they'd say who it was. 

And they did! Finally, after what felt like hours. 

Fire on High! I said it out loud, over and over, making sure I'd remember. My girlfriend at the time, who was in the car with me, did not find this amusing, and told me so in no uncertain terms. 

So I stopped the car, opened the trunk, pulled out my backpack which had a notepad in it, and wrote the name of the song down. 

The cars behind me didn't appreciate this.

I didn't care. I had found the Great Lost Song of the 1970s. I had found a dimensional door to the Carver's garage, to bell bottom jeans and AC/DC before Bon Scott died. To a piece of me.

I collect those pieces, work them into my various projects, shows I direct, roles I perform, scripts I write.

It informs who I am.

A deranged seeker of lost moments, an Indiana Jones of my own soul.

Here's Fire on High, by ELO.

Bonus track:

Two things: First, I'm doing Rocky Horror Show with Organic Theatre up in Boulder this week end. Info Here: https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/organic-theater-dba-reel-kids-and-dba-boulder-music/64b20c8f3d38220e4092f78c

I'm taking a new show, Eigg the Musical, to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll be writing another blog on that next, but wanted to let you all know we have an Indiegogo campaign, raising funds to feed the actors, cover expenses, and all that. More info here: https://igg.me/at/eiggmusical/x/3385268#/

And here's one of the numbers from the show:

 

BIT BY BIT, PUTTING EIGG TOGETHER

Marching on, regardless. What choice do we have? Things are crazy, always.  World overheating. Unrest in Russia. Global Economy sort of uncertain. UFOs on their way. And most of us seem to pretend the shut down never happened, or was just some sort of nuisance that happened and is over.

Time for some musical theatre.

Which sounds a little crazy, I know, but that's how it is.

In October, I got approached by Heather Westenskow, a friend and frequent collaborator about directing a new show, EIGG THE MUSICAL,  that would be going to Edinburgh Fringe. That's the biggest theatre festival in the world. Thousands of shows from all over the world. And it's in Scotland, land of haunted castles and Nessie. I've wanted to go there forever. I became a playwright at the New York International Fringe Festival, which was modeled in large part of the Edinburgh Fringe, and had some of the best experiences of my life doing shows there. 

I with April Alsup, the show's composer, and she told me about the Isle of Eigg, a tiny speck on land in the Hebrides, which in 1997 became the first island to be bought by it's inhabitants from their overbearing landlord. Or Laird. So about five years ago, she teamed up with playwright Mark Sbani and they made a new musical all about it. I listened to the story, the music, the basic pitch, and said "yes, please".

I started gathering the cast. Had to be people who are super talented, funny, strange, and perfect for the show. I felt like Nick Fury, putting together the Avengers. Happily, being the Left Foot of Sasquatch Productions means I have worked with a lot of actors in the greater Denver area. Folks who I worked with on Addams Family, Sound of Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Wizard of Oz, to name just a few. Actors who I first worked with in high school shows up in Conifer at StageDoor or at the Denver JCC.  

I know people.

It's quite a treat to call someone you've worked with and say "Hey, want to do a show in Scotland?". 

Some of the cast I've worked with since they were in high school. Some I've met more recently. The criteria was simple. Be uber-talented and not crazy. If we are going to create a new show, fly across the ocean and spend two weeks together in Edinburgh, we need to all get along. One hundred percent. I have learned over my many years that surrounding yourself with people who challenge you, excite you, make laugh, and so on is not just something to say on an Instagram post, but the smartest thing you can do. Indeed, it's one of the guiding principles we use at Sasquatch.

And now, we are in the midst of it. Working out scenes and songs. Making those breakthroughs that come out of nowhere. Hitting those bumps in the road that frustrate to no end, only to find a way past them when we least expect it. Getting it together. 

And I love it.

Every now and then, no too often but enough to keep me going, the universe will open up and say "this is where you are supposed to be, and this is what you are supposed to do." The night I met my wife. The summer of 1994. Now. 

I lead a charmed life. I don't know why, but I'm not going to question it. 

I bring all this up because the next month is all about the Eigg. You will be hearing more about it. About our show, our Indiegogo campaign, which will be going live later this week. About our previews at the Vintage Theatre.

About all sorts of shit involving Eigg.

Here's a song. It's from one of my all time favorite musicals, Sunday in the Park with George. 

LOOKING FOR SOUL FOOD, TRYING TO BE LIKE BOY GENIUS

Having one of those mornings where I realize that what we really need to do, we writers, artists, thinkers, parents, children... is remember that we are human beings, first and foremost. We are at our best when we take care of each other, because that's part of the deal. When we deal with both the world we dream of and the one we live in now. When, on top of satisfying our immediate, usually no so brilliant needs like having a cookie or doom scrolling or whatever it is that isn't all that important and we know it isn't but still do it, we take a step back and deal with the here and now. We ourselves and each other. With both the pain and glory of life. And I know that seems simplistic, and of course it is-- super clear, obvious, a no shit Sherlock vibe-- 

And yet, I often forget that.

It's hard to not fret about the little things when you aren't sure what the little things are any more.

This happens to me all the damn time.

And then, also all the time but not quite as often, I'll remember that being alive is groovy. That I have lived a life, have friends, stories, moments in time. That I am genuine. That we all are. I do not subscribe to the idea that if everyone is special, no one is. That's a bullshit phrase born in fear and encouraged by people who want to sell you something that, according to them, is the thing you need to be special.

Fuck that.

I'm thinking on this for three main reasons.

Number One: I'm working on a show that's going to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe. Eigg.  (for more info on that, go HERE) And it's reminding me of why I chose to live the life I live. Because making theatre is hard, crazy, and at times, once in a while, magic. And the secret sauce to the magic is to just be in the moment, leaning in, using all the skills and structure while at the same time letting myself into the process- who I am, warts and all. And encouraging/celebrating everyone else in the show doing the same thing. We are doing that, kicking it in the ass, and having a hell of a time in the process. There will be come shows in Denver late July, then off to Scotland! More info will be on these pages soon.

Number Two: I just started work on a short film/proof of concept for Burning the Old Man with Tim McCracken. It's based on my play of the same name. Tim and I met for coffee, talked it over, and something in my brain exploded. I came home, started writing-- and I felt like some sort of magician, conjuring worlds and people. I haven't felt this creatively excited in a long time. A lot of writing is keeping structure in mind, format, using the logic of plot and all that. Which is vital. But I think without that spark that got you there in the first place, with out the vulnerable, strange me/you of it, whatever you're working on becomes a knock off, a bit of the same old thing, and not so exciting. I am finding the me/you in this. The words are flowing. More on this soon. 

Number Three: I saw a movie yesterday. A big Hollywood blockbuster kind of movie. And it was fun. But it didn't have that organic, specific and therefore universal moment, that made me believe. And I need that, both in what I watch and what I write. If there isn't some moment that makes it clear, on an emotional level, that this thing is being made not just to make money but to express some aspect of the artists life, why should I give a shit. 

Often, I find movies with flaws very inspiring. 

So. that's today. 

I plan to write more blog entries between now and Edinburgh. So stay tuned.

Here's a song that I think exemplifies sticking to the rules while not sticking to the rules, baring one's soul, and using the very specific to make the very universal. It's BoyGenius, who are fucking awesome, and the song is "Not Strong Enough".

IN PRAISE OF GHIDORAH

I watched a lot of monster movies growing up. Anything weird, scary, strange, and I was in. This included all the Godzilla movies. Not just the big guy, but Rodan, Gamora, Baby Godzilla, Mothra, and Ghidorah, the three headed monster sometimes just called Monster X. Very weird shit but I loved it. All of it. And Monster X was just... sort of like life. The three heads sort of flopped about, shot lazer beams every where, looked absurd, but managed to kick the living crap out of everyone and everything in its path. 

I think King Ghidorah eventually ended up living on the moon, like you do.

Of late, I think of the beast with three heads.

Because I lack focus, blaze a path of destruction, and feel like I live on the moon.

I just took over a job at one of the schools I work at, going from 4 hours a week to 32. I am directing a new show, EIGG the MUSICAL, that is going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. I have summer classes coming up at DCPA, StageDoor, and Reel Kids. I am finishing a new pilot that I hope to submit to the Austin Film Festival, which has a hard final deadline of May 25. (more on all those in future blogs)

AND I AM STUCK IN ACT THREE OF A FIVE ACT STRUCTURE.

Yes. I am Monster X. I wake up dazed and confused, looking at three things at once, roaring nonsense and dusting things up with Godzilla, Gamora, Mothra, and some unnamed monsters that look large but fuzzy at the edge of my peripheral vision.

And I love it. 

I am not able to sit still. It makes me anxious. I hear silence and I don't like it. I crave it at the same time. Silence.

Maybe that's why Ghidorah was always pissed off. It wanted and didn't want the same things at the same time, and was furious at those with seemingly simpler desires. 

Godzilla wanted to kick the shit out of some buildings and then go back to the sea. Baby Godzilla wants to blow smoke rings. Mothra wanted those miniature women to sing her theme song. What did Ghidorah want? Deep down inside its heart? Who can say? 

Also, did it have three hearts, one for each head?

I don't know. 

All I know is, like Bilbo, I am too little butter spread over too much bread, and I want to see mountains again, Gandalf.

We are all lost monsters, I think. 

So, that's it. My first blog entry of the year, I think. Better late than never.

Now I'm off to find Godzilla.

Here's a song. It's Mahra Mothra, and God Damn is it awesome.

PS: The classes I am teaching are:

Playwriting at DCPA, this June & July, evenings. 

https://storage.googleapis.com/dcpa/pdf/EDU23_Summer-Adult-Catalog_V4.pdf

Broadway Boot Camp at StageDoor Theatre in Conifer, June 5-9, days.

https://www.stagedoortheatre.org/

Web series, Acting Improv, and D&D at Reel Kids, June and July

https://www.myreelkids.com/projects-3