fire away

suddenly realised that comments had been accidentally turned off for my recent post secret of someone's success, so i turned them back on and if you got something to say you can say it now...
walk good.

religious logic is oxymoronic

yesterday my shakespeare gig performed+workshopped @ berman hebrew academy in rockville. now berman has been negatively mentioned in these here parts before because we got publicly prayed against, so as repeat offenders they now get called out by name for being the overprivileged brats they are. my 2nd experience with them was the day i worked with the girls probation house, but since there were more egregious happenings that day than berman's piss-poor behaviour i neglected to mention it.
so yesterday i arrived already sour because we were to perform, then sit around and wait a half-hour to workshop because they had scheduled prayers; why they didn't just book us so that they didn't need to pray in the middle is beyond me- you'd think they could find an uninterrupted 2hour-block somewhere in their school year (we book november-july) but apparently not. at least we were warned, right?
we arrived to find the stage neither clean nor lit as requested in our contract (and considering that that's all we request, from at least 15minutes pre-show to set props+costumes and fight call, it's amazing how seldom we get it) and the students as ignorant and poorly-behaved as i remembered. we cleared the stage ourselves while the teacher kept up an annoying stream of chatter about nothing.
we started the show and their lack of broughtupcy became clearer with every passing second. i hated them already when the annoying teacher came backstage and stopped our show (literally pulled us all aside offstage so that nothing was happening onstage for the audience) to inform us that their orthodoxy extends to rules of no touching or mention of body parts, and thus, by extension, no murder. now romeo+juliet alone violates all 3, and shakespeare is, as we all know, almost entirely about sex+violence, so we skipped some stuff and did an abbreviated version of our last scene, which is the murder of banquo from macbeth, but we do it as a western and it's funny, so somehow the rules didn't apply. our manager gently reminded annoying teacher (much more diplomatically than i would've) that such concerns on the part of institutions is why the contract comes with a list of what we're performing, with play, act+scene notation. annoying teacher came back with, "well, that doesn't mean we know what's in them...", which made me red one time:
1. anybody who knows even a little about shakespeare knows that the plays are about sex+violence, and a teacher should know enough to know that much.
2. everybody knows romeo and juliet die ("with a kiss" if one is even marginally more informed) whether they've seen/read the play or movie, or have no direct experience with the text @ all. it's common knowledge in any place where people have the time+resources that the name shakespeare is common knowledge.
3. most important- isn't it the responsibility of educators to familiarise themselves with any material they're exposing students to, especially when the material is being presented by an outside source?
4. if you know your organisation follows rules not followed by mainstream society, isn't it in your best interest to say so and thus ensure beforehand that these things don't happen?
5. an addition to #4- schools seek our show out and not vice versa, so berman's not checking on this shit seems like the equivalent of calling an acquaintance to accept an open invitation and saying you'd like to come for dinner, without mentioning to your host that you're vegan...
6. last season we performed @ berman with 2 dudes kissing as pyramus+thisbe from midsummer and tybalt killing mercutio followed by romeo killing tybalt and they didn't seem to care. the justification for allowing the pyramus+thisbe kiss is that it's "through the hole of this vile wall" and they "kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all", but that's just like taking it up the ass for jesus (this chick in college was christian and insisted on the virgin-until-marriage thing, but would let her boyfriend fuck her in the ass instead, as if the rules only apply to vaginas and no other orifices, or as if god just can't see past the 1st hole or there's some asshole-loophole, any of which diminish the religion by making its god dumb, blind, and/or easily lassoed by loopholes- we referred to her as the girl who took it up the ass for jesus, and i called her "holy hymen" in my mind).
7. she didn't just cause dead air onstage; she talked to us like undesirables.
so basically, i lost all respect for them as religious people and as educators. and the sad truth is, we get shit like that all the time- in various shows, i've been asked if we could do macbeth without the witches because we shouldn't give youths nightmares and ideas of the occult, and been told that romeo+juliet is too violent and the tempest teaches students to be drunk and lecherous.
on top of all this, after they prayed for their half-hour the students returned for the workshop without a single teacher- whoever usually teaches them in that timeslot decided to have a free period instead and left us alone to handle nearly 60 of their little brats (well over the student-limit on our workshops) who were so bad that for the 1st time in the 5years i've had this gig, we put someone out of our workshop- admittedly, more for not knowing when to stop than for extreme behaviour, but still...it was ridiculous. i hated them with every fibre of my being and wished we could only work with those who deserve it, but couldn't help wondering if maybe forbidding touching arrests the development of socialised, empathetic humans.
and as a helpful hint to anybody out there who believes in these rules about not touching, perhaps it's time to accept that theatre's just not that compatible with your limitations, and make a choice about whether restriction or education is more important- when we asked berman students if people were allowed to touch to help each other when in danger (in our workshop we help them stage the scene from r+j when the friar tries to get juliet out of the tomb before she sees dead romeo but fails and she refuses to leave, risking her life) they said, only in real danger and since everything in a play is acting it doesn't count...
psa for orthodox jews (at least, those of the specific form of orthodoxy practised @ berman hebrew academy in rockville, md): theatre with absolutely no physical contact is rare; art imitates life, and in this case "life" means "experiences shared by most of humanity".
walk good.
ps: full disclosure for anyone interested in just how much berman allowed us to offend them before stopping our show, we opened with the tempest, which features drinking (but of 'mocha cappucino' instead of 'liquor' because schools have complained in the past) and 2dudes hiding under a 'gaberdine' laying one-atop-the-other, followed with r+j and pyramus+thisbe (contrast of exact same story used for tragic, then comic, effect) which features romeo killing paris over juliet's prostrate body then kissing dead-asleep-juliet and her kissing dead-romeo then killing herself with the dagger that she pulls out of dead-paris after romeo previously stuck it in there then pyramus drinking poison and stabbing himself with the dagger he pulls out of dead-juliet then accidentally smothering thisbe when she tries to lift his dead body, and followed with comedy of errors which features unfavourable (but funny) comparison of a woman's facial features to different countries, which they viewed as "mention of unspeakable body parts", apparently after confusing teeth with breasts...

ibid.

when itunes is shuffling it's supposed to be random but we've heard it play 2tracks from the same album back-to-back and it definitely pulls from the same resources in the library day after day, even for stuff that's not "most played" or in any other way significant; are these "errors" an inherent part of the randomness of shuffle-selection?
walk good.

our research shows...

...that the average male or female isn't turned off by the image of 2 women being physically intimate, but the average male or female is turned off by the image of 2 men being physically intimate; does this mean that women are fundamentally more attractive than men?
walk good.

secret of someone's success

for most of my life, i saw sesame street as the epitome of creative success. when they called they were asking you to be an inspiration for the future- maya angelou, itzhak perlman, michael j. fox, bill cosby, paul simon, carol channing, arthur ashe, sheryl crow, robin williams, herbie hancock, james earl jones, tracy chapman, ray charles, johnny cash, julie andrews, perry como, celia cruz, lucille ball, yo yo ma, savion glover, martin short, billy dee williams, harry belafonte, tony bennett, bela fleck, placido flamingo, en vogue, lena horne, elton john, little richard, smokey robinson, patti labelle, ziggy marley, bobby mcferrin, cyndi lauper, cheech marin, willie nelson, queen latifah, diana ross, b.b. king, james taylor, stevie wonder, ladysmith black mambazo, menudo (couldn't resist them), the harlem globetrotters, the temptations, ryan stiles, morgan freeman, leonard nimoy, suzanne farrell, denzel washington, marsalis brothers...but we bought discovery's planet earth which is all voiced by sigourney weaver and i just realised sean astin's narrating meerkat manor, and sesame street's never been the same since the advent of elmo and gina- i actively dislike the new shows and am waiting to be able to buy old episodes- so i'm wondering if now the epitome of success is when they ask you to voice over natural science documentaries...or go on the daily show, although not everybody on the daily show is there for that reason.
walk good.
ps: i must admit that while there was no rhyme nor reason i chose these particular names to list- i gave the ones that jumped out @ me when i researched- there were definitely some names i would've included if it didn't say next to them that they appeared with elmo. i may have included some people that did, but wasn't reminded of that fact when i remembered or read of their appearance. and while i'm admitting stuff, sesame street had me believing for years that polly darton was her real name, ed grimley was his own person and guy smiley was real too...

i guess he showed me

driving...somewhere, i forget, i got stuck behind a police who cut me off in the 1st damn place. he drove so fucking slow i was ready to cry. after blocks of torture we got to my corner just in time to miss the green because his police ass drove so fucking slow, and he didn't pull up to the crosswalk enough for me to pass the parked cars and make my (legal in d.c.) right turn on red. i was cursing him and all his ancestors, when our light changed and he didn't step on it and i had to curse him anew as a schoolbus rushed through the intersection when its light had to be red because of the decided greenness of our own. police finally got out of my way to pull over the schoolbus, siren blaring. my tax dollars at work.
walk good.

unexpected delays

i thought i'da posted again the day after my previous, to say how the marleys were. but i was torn and stalled for days, and now can't stand it anymore because the backlog of unwritten thoughts is driving me beserk, but my mental archivist won't let me skip ahead. the show was amazing, but my hands were tied because i couldn't say so without also saying that the crowd was shit, and i didn't feel like talking about the assholes. the truth is, that the crowd @ the marley show was unexpected, annoying, and complete with attitude that seemed the polar oppossite of the vibes the show shoulda had. i wished them all dead, even as i loved the music and tried to stay in my head with the marleys and not in the club with the assholes.
ultimately, this is why i stopped going to clubs in the usa. it's something i don't like to have to get into, but: americans don't know how to party. the amount that i used to enjoy any night @ a club was inversely proportional to how many americans were in the dance and when the odds were too far against me i stopped going altogether, and now stick with trini fetes/shows except for theatre and the occasional musical act (manu chao, june23, merriweather, fuck yes) that i consider unmissable. the marley show just made me wish i was seeing them back @ home, and i prob'ly will (seen them there before). i'm not sorry i went, but i'd pay twice the price to have been there without most of the others.
we had a good, fierce little crew, though, so we held our own, even though my instinct on entering was to not try to deal with the crowd. i was wisely convinced that we could take them, and we did, even with 2 almost-fights that thankfully stayed verbal...i think abby may have told that chick she'd bite her something off, though...
but the performances were great. my only complaint would be that they coulda done more of their own, newer stuff and interspersed less bob; but at the same time, it hard to complain about having bob's work performed live by his youths. is just that they have albums to be proud of and do for their fans and i felt like we didn't hear a lot of tunes we were looking forward to. but the band and backups were as tight as always, the flagman hold it down as always, and the marleys were the hotness. always.
some of the other shit rattling around my brain for the past week:
coincidentally, they re-running this jon stewart episode on comedy central right now, but last monday night jon stewart's daily show and the colbert report both used the same line- 1st john oliver said that the 1st republican debate showcased the usa's multiculturalism/ethnicities/something-like-that, in all shades "from eggshell to bone", then stephen colbert said the same thing, but "from eggshell to ivory"- it irked me more than i expected. i felt cheated of funny metaphor when colbert said it, preceded by that particularly frustrating deja-vu that you know is about to ruin a punchline.
speaking of which, we saw the heidi chronicles yesterday- covey was lovely in it, especially the character with moustache and high-waisted highwaters- and it was as dated (not in a bad way) as one should expect, knowing it's specifically set from the 60's to late 80's, but i was saddened to realise that the play just isn't as well-written as i'd remembered. it lacks subtlety. part of the problem is that it's written like a sitcom, so each joke/revelation is completely predictable, but it's also mostly populated by 2-dimensional characters so that having lived through the decades since the end of the piece's range makes their stereotypes too obvious from the second they enter. there was not a delicate or surprising second in the piece. it didn't help that the leading lady was so weak that her heidi appeared devoid of personality, leaving me to question how the people in her world could think so highly of her. the 2 main male characters were better drawn (and performed), which might be explained by wasserstein's point that heidi seems to others like a strong, vibrant woman, but feels more like an observer, but if that's the case, when heidi puts on her brave face the audience needs to see that it's a mask, covering some emptiness, rather than seeing a woman blithely traipse through a life that she complains verbally about being an observer in while appearing unaffected and not taking action to maintain involvement- we can't care about that woman.
when that play came out we theatre people (and the pulitzer prize people and some other awards committees, apparently) thought it was groundbreaking, and it was, but isn't timeless, the way, say, angels in america seems to be...it was disappointing to know that it just wasn't that well-written, but i'm not that subtle so if i crave subtlety from a script, that says something. the other issues i had with the show are the ones i have with every show i see @ arena stage's fichandler space- i hated the blocking and i find the scene changes lacking a sense of urgency. i know that theatre in the round is harder to block but i have no sympathy because they've had years to figure that shit out, plus, i been in 2 different plays in the round in the last 6months plus several prior and know it's not that hard to do cleanly. and they need to stop thinking that if they have scene-change-music it's cool to take their time moving set pieces and have no uniformity among asm's/stagehands.
speaking of which, i've been watching quite the lineup on reruns of alfred hitchcock presents in the last week-and-a-half; yaphet kotto was amazing, as was joaquin phoenix (playing a deaf boy who hires a hitman to kill his pops, so young that he's still credited as "leaf"), barbara hershey and martin sheen were great, jessica tandy and arsenio hall were on too, but steve mcqueen was a letdown (i expected him to be much sexier, in the way that luke perry wanted to be in 90210) and even what i think was an amusing tony danza sighting in a crowd of reporters couldn't save a shoulda-been-interesting episode from mcqueen's awfully lame performance. but alfred hitchcock's still the bomb, especially since i don't get any channel that still shows columbo reruns anymore and twilight zone (thankfully on today) and tales from the darkside are only @ sci-fi's whim.
and speaking of whims, i saw a piece on discovery or hgtv or somewhere about people building the world biggest popcorn statue. at first i was just mildly annoyed by the pointlessness of setting and/or trying to break the world record for the biggest popcorn statue, but then i saw how much corn was used (read: wasted) and my heart broke- they could've planted so much and fed so many with that corn, instead of popping it to make a fucking statue.
talk about a sign of the times...
walk good.
ps: thanks, bella.

afrobella+music=happytrini

in spite of being an actor, i hate makeup. i only ever wear it onstage and even then, it's minimal, unless i can avoid it altogether. so when i ran into afrobella (permanent on sidebar) i checked it out because i know her from highschool, but didn't expect to become a regular reader, since beauty products and cosmetics in general are not my thing and i don't care enough to spend time reading about them. but my girl is excellent- the blog covers more than just products (music, interviews, organic remedies, things-trini) and i find myself reading every post, whether it's about makeup or not.
so when i decided to get caught up i went all the way back to her november 2006 archives because i didn't want to miss anything- needless to say, she's also very prolific, so i've been catching up on her blog for days. literally. and am only up to february...
but so worthwhile.
today i big-up this afrobella post (3months old, to the date) addressing an aspect of trini music that i've had a hard time explaining in d.c.- religious party music. after you read here, i suggest you take the time to watch all the videos she's linked.
now i'm completely irreligious, myself. i'd call myself a lapsed catholic, but wouldn't want to give my mother hope of my return to the church. so let's say i don't care about god(s)- i try to do the right thing and enjoy the gift of life, and assume that any deity in charge of shit will respect my good life in its aftermath, regardless of beliefs or lack thereof. so i don't really think about anything but energy- cannot be created or destroyed but only changed from one form into another- sounds pretty omnipotent to me.
but trinis are a traditionally religious people, in the way that every post-slavery society i know of is, except that we're more encompassing and don't stick to variations on christianity because of our very mixed culture. much of the music i listen and dance to references jah, right alongside deities considered part of the orisa/shango/hindu/other canons because of our multireligious nature- the country gets public holidays for not just christmas, but divali, eid-ul-fitr, shouter baptist day, etc. and many of us celebrate them all. religious content is often heard in the dancehall to varying degrees, and the phenomenon afrobella mentions, of a whole crowd at a huge, loud concert with drinks in hands swaying to david rudder's high mas in a seemingly religious experience is something i experienced (and still do) @ every rudder show (and i go to every one i possibly can), every andre tanker show (not leaving out contraband who i hope to find still playing, in spite of our losing tanker), every time i heard ella andall's voice live- it's the closest i ever feel to any god of any sort, which brings me to the featured video in her post: isaac blackman.
isaac is the younger brother of sheldon blackman (also on sidebar) and their family is near+dear to my heart- wife (claudette) and children of the late great ras shorty i, who left the carnality of soca to make music dedicated to jah.
i'm pausing for a second to apologise for any disjointedness in this post- i often forget how just thoughts of shorty bring tears, and i feel them rising (we lost him the same year that we lost lord kitchener and john isaacs) so i cannot vouch for the coherence of the rest of this post but it's important to me to post it before tonight, which i'll explain shortly, so i'll come back tomorrow and fix anything that's a mess.
in bishops, scrawn briefly called me ras shorty i because i'm short with glasses and dreadlocks, but that was well behind me by the time i met him. i actually met sheldon 1st and he took me home to piparo (in the bush, as we say, "behind god back", but in this case it seems inappropriate) where i met the rest of the family (23 kids, i know about 10) who immediately adopted me- ironically, i look like i could be part of their family; when i go anywhere with them, others assume that i am. they brought me home, fed me, let me sit in while they rehearsed and created music, and i became a fan+friend for life. i don't know anybody like them (their family stage name is the love circle and most of the youths also make their own music- each of them sings hauntingly, writes and plays at least 1 instrument, some play many)- they're beautiful, amazing, welcoming, strong, god-loving people and their almost-entirely-religious music (called jamoo, for jah music) is always on my favourites-list. i know every single lyric and sing along with them about god's love and how important it is in their lives and i come so close to believing- the part of me that doesn't cross the line into religious belief is still rewarded and made to feel loved as i dance. my lack of belief does nothing to dilute the impact the lyrics have, i never feel left out, and quite frankly, i'm happy to consider the music itself my religion. they're so good live, too, i dance from start to stop. when i met isaac (the baby) he was making bamboo jewellery (which i still wear) as well as music, and way too cute for one still underage, but like i said, they're all beautiful- if i could look like mom claudette after having that many children...but i digress- i've watched isaac grow into a confident and successful young man and his music has grown with him. the last time i saw him in trini my jaw dropped at how mannish he'd become while i was in d.c., and i love knowing that he's making a name for himself the way sheldon did (you should use the sidebar to listen to sheldon's album- he's incredible and deserves a post of his own) while being pleased to see him stay true to his roots- most of the people in that video are his family, and the black+white shirt you see in some shots is part of the jamoo clothing line started by older sister and bass player avion. (my jamoo dress is about 10years old, and still every time i wear it people ask where they can get one. while in parentheses, another aside: i noticed the name "rembunction" @ the bottom of the video screen and swear i saw my boy remy in the video, so big-up remy for working with the best and bringing our talent into the open for others to see/hear.)
there are few things that move me the way ras shorty i's who god bless does, except perhaps hearing sheldon/love circle sing it, or mavis john sing it, or ataklan's rapso remake featuring sheldon singing it...
i wanted to link afrobella's post and throw in my few words about the idea that music can be religious and still be partied to because tonight i go to the stephen+damian "jr.gong" marley concert, where i will dance for personal deities.
the workers of iniquity
dig a pit for me
now they waiting for me to fall in
trying to take mih bread an butter
with lies and propaganda
but they foolin
they only foolin
i shall not be afraid of what man can do to me
man you see is only vanity
who god bless no man curse
he shall never hunger or thirst
who god bless no man shall ever curse
he shall be first...
who god bless, ras shorty i
walk good.
ps: afrobella also mentions that david rudder is often considered the trini bob marley, which is true, but in keeping with the theme, i admit that i call him by his other title, the high priest of calypso/soca. the sound on the high mas video (her post) isn't great, but i recommend listening to (if you can find) hallelujah, the ganges and the nile, the hammer, haiti, song for a lonely soul, calypso rising, 1990, another day in paradise, trini 2 de bone- and anything else he's done- not all jah-referential, but all amazing tunes.
and on that tip, anything by andre tanker (check out the youthful photo of him with that link) especially bassment party, forward home- actually, there's way too many to list, but anything by tanker will make you dance and bring you closer to that supreme energy. trust.

armageddon?

or something- the unthinkable has happened- i just got spam. from myself. in the same email account.
it's been real.
walk good.

friday

clearly, catching up on my favourite blogs is keeping me too occupied to maintain my own...
but i must mention friday's success: it started sadly, with the need to acquire a glass pipe for a friend- he'd had 2, and managed to break both within 24hours (don't waste time with the obvious joke that perhaps it's a sign that he should smoke less grass- it's already been made, and doesn't quite work since it's not the point- what he needs is a rug in his new apartment so the little table doesn't rock enough to spill contents onto a tiled floor).
but we decided to make an adventure of d.c.'s few mini-head-shops, knowing 3places offhand where we could get a stopgap until his boy had time to blow him some new glass, expecting to find nothing amazing; this was a strictly need-based run.
while @ the 1st place (which was so good to us that we never hit the other 2) i realised that selecting smoking paraphernalia is like choosing sex toys- each person needs to feel out what pleases in terms of size, weight, hole-sizes+proportions, flame-face-distance, and aesthetics- i saw lovely pieces just small enough to worry me about singeing eyebrows, and pieces that looked too obzockie (trini dictionary on sidebar for the uninitiated) to enjoy smoking from, and one piece that i absolutely loved until we noticed that what we thought was red was actually brown- but he got something i'd have bought myself if he didn't need it more (and it smokes beautifully) and i'm thrilled with my small cobalt bong and very cool pipe that i can't wait to test-drive in trini (anything we smoke or stash with in d.c. will, of course, be left behind to avoid travel issues).
and just as i was feeling on top of the world because this place also had randy's rolling papers and glass "screens" for our new bowls, we had another stroke of fortune- i finally found the miniscule cash-only szechuan bakery in chinatown that sells pows! well, what they actually sell are "roast pork buns" while a (trinistyle)pow is steamed, but since i've always known you can get them steamed somewhere in chinatown and this szechuan bakery felt it necessary to stipulate that theirs were roasted (they don't speak enough english for me to know anything other than what's on the glass-case-labels and what we can determine by the point+nod-system) plus the fact that they had steamed veggie pows (a paltry 4, but they were there) i believe that some days, i may be able to get what i consider to be a real pow. i might even get lucky and have to ask what different meats the different coloured dots on the pows mean... corner of 6th+h st. nw, if you're interested.
pipes, plus pows for the munchies- if i had the digits, i woulda called ice-cube and chris tucker, it was such a good friday.
walk good.