Thursday, November 19, 2009

A Sad Thought


“If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?” Going Rogue, page 133.

Sarah Palin...she just isn't going to go away for awhile, is she? Not until she flames out like some kind of right-wing supernova...or Britney. Stumbling out of her book tour limo with no panties....

No, no. It's too terrible to think about.

Also.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Holidays on Acid

The weirdest freakin' thing you will see this holiday season. Outside of your own house. Thank you, Uncle Bob Dylan. I think.

How come I never get invited to these Christmas parties?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Taste of "Immaterial Matters"


From the new play....

REILLY thrusts the paper at CRANE.

REILLY
Read!

CRANE warily takes the paper.

CRANE
"Three fires of incendiary origin--"

REILLY
The other column.

CRANE
"Clifford Beekly has been diagnosed with acute insanity--"

REILLY
Further down.

CRANE
"An unknown man found hanging in Mr. Wilson Crowley's barn--"

REILLY
Below the fold, Crane.

CRANE
There's nothing below the fold but obituaries.

REILLY
Wrong. There's nothing below the fold but customers.

Riding with the King....

Tonight, boys and girls. Believe it.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

More of, well...me

Why people are at all interested in hearing what I have to say about...anything, I'll never know, but Zack Calhoon has an interview with me about plays and playwriting on his excellent Web site, Visible Soul. You can check it out at:

People You Should Know

Thanks, Zack!

Steve

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The New Thing


I’ve been away from the blog for awhile for (I think) a reasonable reason: I’ve been writing. Seriously.

I took the morning off from writing and spent some time reading my friend Jack Boulware’s very sharp and funny book Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day. You should check it out: it’ll make you want to immediately dye your hair green and stick a safety pin through your cheek.

I felt like I had the carte blanche to blow off the muse for the morning because yesterday I finished typing up Immaterial Matters, a new, full-length drama with which I am very, very pleased. I’m never a very good judge of my own work. First off, you’re always in love with a play when you’re writing it, even if it’s putting you through fits. Second, others often really like the stuff I end up a little indifferent to, and the work I become besotted with tends to be the stuff that generates an “eh” from others. I have no explanation for this, other than I have perverse taste. Sometimes, it ends up being vindicated; sometimes it just stays perverse.

But this one feels a little different. Writing’s generally hard, hard work, even when it goes well, but this thing was just a breeze from beginning to end. In fact, it was coming so easily that it began to freak me out—like I’d inevitably sit down with the notebook one day and be suddenly dry, dry, dry. Never happened. It was always there for me when I called upon it, which is a joy. It continually surprised me—another good sign—and, when I was typing it up (I write all my drafts in longhand, then type them, revising as I go), I’d slightly change a line, then pause and change it back to the original. This almost never happens.

So I don’t know. But I’m guardedly optimistic. As to the play itself: it’s set in 1880s, and it’s about a photographer, death, and a ghost.

And that’s about all I’m saying for now.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

That Thing I Said Before....

...you can pretty much forget what I said, because I now own this (the Vox, not the Les Paul or the Marshall):