splattworks

The Year of Living Tentatively

2012-01-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

I think I took last year off.

I’m just coming to this realization. Mind you, it wasn’t intentional, nor was I entirely idle. I picked up a guitar nearly every day and practiced my ass off (because it was incredibly fun). Not that I improved all that much, but I still did it, damn it. I managed to make serious progress on the guitar book—wrote probably 120 pages, and roughed out a good portion of the book proposal (and I hate writing proposals). Cleaned up a bunch of plays, getting them in better shape. Did a load of theatre market research. In fact, I ended up doing a bunch of things I wanted to do. Writing or staging plays just wasn’t one of them.

The year started out so damned well. The staged reading of “Immaterial Matters” was probably one of the best of my career, and I was ready to roll big with that piece and a number of other, recent plays begging world premieres, scaling the theatrical battlements with cutlass and eyepatch.

And then...2011 happened. Not just to me, but to almost everybody I knew. It was like everyone took a long, elegant launch off the board...and then hit the water with a stunning belly flop, that immediately emptied the lungs and sent them sinking into the deep end.

In my case, I got sick. Some stomach virus or something that turned into three months of nausea and stomach pain, frightening weight loss, lots of tests, and too many doctors, all which amounted to...nothing. It just worked itself out. Then, just about the time I was starting to feel better physically, my dog died. Wham. The whole goddamn year was like that famous old sports footage of the football player who fumbles, and then keeps kicking the ball farther away each time he reaches for it. You'd wake up, stretch, reach for the door...and the doorknob would come off in your hand.

I have to admit: I generally do a lot of stuff, keep a lot of plates spinning. Always have; just the way I’m put together, I guess. I’ve often had people say: “I don’t know how you do it.” Which I kind of take a certain pride in, because I don’t really know how I do it either, other than: I just do it. Admittedly, there have been times when I’ve felt “I can’t keep doing this. Not at this pace.” But then I’d get another wind, another project, and I’d be off in another direction.

This was the year that didn’t happen. I couldn’t do it. And I didn’t.

Everybody seemed to be there. Pulling back. Retrenching. Fighting this or that thing, with a wobbly economy generally freaking the hell out of everyone. A very nervous year. All the surprises seemed to be bad. So the year became defined by things I didn’t do. I didn’t write new plays. I didn’t take new photographs. I didn’t have productions. I didn’t write much on the blog (which you may have noticed). I barely gardened, just letting the damned thing grow itself. The Northwest weather didn’t help. It wasn’t that it rained and was gray: it was that it rained and was gray more or less straight through to July. The weather seemed to imbue even hardcore, indestructible Oregonians with a besieged aura. What now? What next?

Finally, somewhere around the middle of September, I began to feel like I was getting a little mojo back. I wrote a few lyrics. I sent a few plays out. I took a few pictures. It was all kind of half-hearted, like I was forcing myself. Eventually, it started to feel more natural. I started to get ideas again. Jeff Beck came to town and inspired the hell out of me. (As Buddy Guy gave me a shot in the arm in early July--a memory I kept coming back to when I felt I was backsliding.) I figure I’ll be working on a new something theatrical fairly soon—the kind of piece that takes off, and then you’re running to keep up with it. I’m thinking about pictures again, looking back at old projects. I checked a gardening book out of the library. They're all baby steps, which still make me a little edgy, but there’s a big difference between butterflies and straight-up dread.

Time to dig out Muddy Waters’ “Hard Again” album, the great man’s ninth-inning comeback, to see if I hear it differently. Last time I listened to it, in early 2011, man, it was just the blues.

You Ever Wonder About Old Reporters?

2011-11-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Irreverent? I suppose. But I don't think Andy Rooney would have minded too much. CBS announced the longtime 60 Minutes essayist has died at age 92. He seemed like a grumpy old guy when I was a kid, and I'm not a kid anymore.

He took a lot of ribbing over the years, particularly for his apparently left-field topics, often using small issues to make bigger points. ("You ever wonder about paperclips? Nowadays, they come with this plastic covering. I don't know what that's for. When I was growing up, we were happy with plain metal....") That's parody...but not too far from reality sometimes. I'd look forward to the left/right editorial counterpoints at the end of 60 Minutes, then feel let down when they'd announce there would be no counterpoint--just Andy Rooney's commentary. It felt like getting stuck at the Thanksgiving table with that uncle who never stopped talking...except about some mysterious part of his past that no one wanted to talk about. You felt affection for him, but sometimes you wanted to get a word or two in.

In time, Rooney became a kind of institution, the way longtime columnists do. Like Mike Royko or Art Buchwald, it didn't matter that their best work was behind as much as that they weere still there doing it. Rooney stepped down from 60 Minutes earlier this year, and I got that "uh-oh" feeling because I figured he was one of those guys who'd go out keeling over in the CBS lunchroom. When I heard he went into the hospital for surgery a couple of weeks ago, I could hear the curtain rustle.

He got it wrong sometimes (and he was honest enough to admit it...sometimes). He got it right too, even when it was pleasant to hear. But mostly, he just got it, said it, and left it up to you to do what you would with it. That's admirable, as is that even if he occasionally apologized for what he said, he never apologized for being Andy Rooney.

Here's something you might now know about him, and, like that uncle who won't shut up (but has a past), it might add a little more depth to him. During World War II, Andy Rooney served as a reporter for the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. He wrote about U.S. soldiers living and dying, and, in doing so, went where they went. Where they lived. Where they died. He rode along on a daylight bombing mission over Germany where one-third of the bombers never came back. He won the Bronze Star for covering the horrendous fighting around St. Lo, France, where the allies broke through the German lines after D-Day, beginning the end of the Third Reich. Like a lot of those guys, he didn't talk about it much. At least not much in his commentaries. That just wasn't the way it was done, and, besides, he had so much else to talk about. I'm sure if you asked him, straight out, he would have told you he'd been terrified and sickened by the war, and then he probably would have said he was lucky to be there. That's not a soldier talking--that's a newsman.

With time, I became more fond of him, even when sometimes you'd feel like, c'mon, Rooney...give it up and go plant some flowers or catch some trout. But he was a reporter (none of that fancy "journalist" stuff for him), and, obviously, he loved it. Even when he didn't have much to say, he found an entertaining way to tell you: "Today, I got nothin'."

Today, we got nothin'. Or at least a little less. And I think Rooney would be okay with that. Anyway, he's going to have to be. And so are we.

Feeling Gravity's Pull

2011-09-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

R.E.M. -- 1980 to 2011

now you've worked it out
and you see it all

Worlds Changed

2011-09-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

Simply, to get it out of the way:

I started the car, turned on the radio, and NPR said the World Trade Center had caught fire. I kind of rolled my eyes, thinking of the car bomb that had been set off in the parking garage a few years before. By the time I got to the freeway onramp, I'd learned it had been struck by a plane, and I shook my head, said out loud: "What a hard-luck building that's become." By the time I got to work, I understood the extent of my understatement. A couple hours later, when both tower had fallen, I realized I understood not at all.

Not long after, a co-worker was the first I heard say "from now on, everything has changed." Which felt like the truth, but made me uneasy. I wondered if I wasn't in denial--there certainly was an element of that: but I couldn't help but feel that world had and would abide, blithely indifferent to the ants crawling across its surface. I do remember thinking with grim certainty, drawing, I suppose, from what I knew about war and politics, having written of both, that, down the road, someone would be on the receiving end of a shitstorm.

But the "everything has changed" refrain haunted me. For myself, it was dramatically true: on September 13, 2001, my mother had a stroke which left her partially paralyzed, and began a long, slow slide that ended with her death six years later. My September 11th seemed to last a decade, though it's nothing compared to those who lost someone in attacks. I'm still sorting out how much that changed my world.

In that, though, I find the truth and fallacy of "everything's changed." The World Trade Center attacks injected a before and after into our narratives, regardless of who we are and what we believe. It was not the world that had changed--though it would, politically and economically, in ways we're still paying for--but our worlds, those of each of us. September 11th served as a cue ball. It struck the rack, and the balls cracked and spun out unpredictably. The trajectory of the game changed, as happens when history shifts.

Still, we continue to be the same mass of contradictory intentions: never saints, but seldom entirely sinners. I admit to feeling a certain satisfaction that Osama Bin Laden ended his journey with bullet through the eye. It's a feeling akin to knowing Hitler faced that instant when he faced the gun he held to his head and knew he would pull trigger: badly played cards led to an inevitable conclusion. These people never seem to learn from each other, but, when you're on that kind of an ego trip, you apparently believe you really are exempt. That or you're so committed to your destiny that somehow it all makes sense to you.

That we can be so flawed sombers us. That others--firemen, policemen, soldiers, doctors, and war correspondents--can risk their lives (and sometimes lose them) in service to others helps balance out the darkness, though all of them have their individual rationales for their actions and do not always live up to our highest ideals. Still, they try, and they are to be recognized for putting the greater good beyond their own. I certainly don't think I could do that; so I try to observe, not judge.

It's very difficult to resist, but I think it's valuable not to let nostalgia for those moments when we all stood to together blind us to our shortcomings--that it's as important to remember that we're as likely to make mistakes as we are to succeed. But it doesn't hurt to take a moment to recall the instant we all ceased to be civilians.

Though nothing pleases most soldiers more than they day they can take off their uniforms, they often miss living in comradery, not mired down by "civilian bullshit" (even if they're mired down in military bullshit, mostly consisting of officers and paperwork...and the possibility that they might be killed any time). Life during wartime can take on a startling clarity, which tends to fade the farther one gets from the sounds of bombs and small arms fire. It may not be the reason why one volunteers for hazardous duty, but it can be a reason why some people come back to it. I've had a little taste of it, covering a couple exciting stories or delving into the lives of soldiers and war correspondents, and it's seductive. When you're running around with a camera, you feel a little invulnerable, even though you're chasing something that can easily snuff you out.

After ten years of sorrow, blood, and fury, what have we learned? That, under duress, we can love one another. Or at least feel compassion and a common humanity. It's a shame that we need a Bin Laden or Hitler to remind us of it. Since we have paid a very high price for that insight, it's worth hanging onto when we're bogged down in our particular bullshit flavor for that day. Taking off forever feels a little spookier, and a smooth landing feels a little sweeter.

Everything changes, except for a few things that make everything worthwhile.

Coolness, Thy Name is Portland

2011-09-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

The New York Times, located in the center of the known universe, continues it's sordid love affair with Portland, OR...where those of the true hip reside in a glaze of neverending satori (excepting me).

36 Hours in Portland, Ore.

Speaking of History's Unstoppable Power...

2011-08-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

...though events in Libya and Tripoli have twists and turns to go before the country moves into its next phase, this is what the irresistable wave of history looks like as it crests. For the sake of Libya's people, here's hoping events take a different course than the second act of "Bombardment."

Bombardment, Episode 21: Everything Stops

2011-08-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

Splattworks concludes its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson.

Thank you all, over these last couple of weeks, for reading, for your support, and for your gracious comments. It has been a terrific pleasure watching the play's readership rise and expand far beyond its humble beginnings, and it's been great fun for me to spend time with the play again. Your comments, observations, etc., are welcome. If you would like to reach me off the blog, my e-mail is splatterson@mindspring.com

[EPISODE 21]

The wind dies down. Lights gradually rise. CARMELITA and PLACID hunch over, hanging on the lines like prisoners shot at the stake. ARETHA and CORNO stand with their backs to the audience.

ARETHA/CORNO: Hello? Hello? Anyone there? Hello?

ARETHA and CORNO face the audience. Their shades are gone, their eye sockets hollow. Blood streams down their faces. They stagger forward, fingers outstretched, becoming caught in the lines.

ARETHA/CORNO: Hello? Can you hear me? Can you help me? I can't see. Help me, I'm caught. I need help. Please. I'm caught. Please, please, please….

They continue calling “please” as they struggle with the cords. Their calls take on a synchronous, mechanical quality. A chant. An incantation. The sounds of planes begin, steadily rising. Chant and airplanes rise to crescendo. Blackout. Everything stops.

End of play.

Bombardment, Episode 20: A Cloud from Above

2011-08-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments could arrive a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 20]

CARMELITA: Not me!
PLACID: Yes! Yes, you do! Remember? Remember his smile? His hair? Think how he felt. Filling up a room. How he kept you warm. How you were never cold.
CARMELITA: This is what we fought against. What we fought to stop.
ARETHA: My wrath.
PLACID: His smell. His taste. How he infected your senses. Remember how he playfully tugged your hair? Whispered your name into your neck? All the times you wondered if he loved you, if he loved you or was just pretending. Those lips told the answer.
CARMELITA: You don't know what you're doing. Stay away! We don't want you!
CORNO: My lips on her neck.
PLACID: And the others. The ones who let you down. Who seduced you and used you. For your body. For your kindness. For your good will. Was he one of those?
CARMELITA: You weren't there!
PLACID: Did he abandon you? Lead you into disaster? Knock you up and take your money? Take your pride? Leave you strung out in the tenement hotel room? Trust me, baby. Trust me. I love you. Look into your eyes and lie, lie, lie.
CARMELITA: We're free of them, Placid! Don't throw it away!
PLACID: Lying eyes. Lying lips. Lying tongues. Licking your hands. Licking your face. Probing your inner crevices. Your private secrets.
CARMELITA: Placid!
PLACID: What everybody wanted. What all the world wanted.
ARETHA: All the world.
PLACID: His touch saved. His touch relieved. Turned to fire. Turned to light. Steam. Wind. Feel it! Feel it, Carmelita!
CARMELITA: Don't touch me!
PLACID: The swelling of your breasts. The trembling of your leg. The clenching of your calf.
ARETHA: The clenching of the calf.
PLACID: It's there. It's still there. You want him. You want him still.
ARETHA: You want him. I can feel it.
PLACID: His lips on your neck. His hands on your breasts.
CARMELITA: No, Corno--Placid! No, Placid!
CORNO: My hands on your breasts. My smile in your eyes.
PLACID: His weight and his scent, a cloud from above, and your body making way, moving on its own. Guided by his will. Beyond your control. Your legs spreading wide. At a touch. You can't stop it. At a touch. He's inside you! He's inside you now!
CARMELITA: (Screaming) No!

Lights out.

[Next…the conclusion]

Boombardment, Episode 19: Dying Without Your Grace

2011-08-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments could arrive a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 19]

CARMELITA: You'll fight the killers and crazies and soldiers with their guns? You'll fight the mothers defending children? Urchins with bony, grimy fingers? Beggars and blown up men on scooterboards? You'll fight and fight 'til there's no one left to fight?

The cords wind around them, sewing them into their armchairs. Lights begin to flash. Wind rises.

PLACID: It's. . .life. It's time. The way it goes.
CARMELITA: It's not the way it goes. You can break it. You can let them in.
PLACID: I know them. They'll kill me.
CARMELITA: You have to lead them, Placid. You’re like them. Understand them. They’ll sense that. Trust you. They'll be grateful.
PLACID: It's been going on so long!
CARMELITA: Time means nothing to a leader. They'll crown your head with laurels. They'll give you all you want in a way that you deserve. Out of gratitude. Out of love. Reward them, Placid. And they'll reward you. Give them not the back of your hand, but your palm.
PLACID: (Looks down at the cords.) It's too late.
CARMELITA: It's not too late. Get up. Lead them.

PLACID makes a move but the cords tie him in. Lights flash faster. Wind grows louder.

CARMELITA: Placid? Placid!
PLACID: It's the law!
CARMELITA: It's a lie, Placid. It means nothing. You can do it.
PLACID: It's too hard!
CARMELITA: No, Placid. It's so easy.
PLACID: They'll kill us! I'm afraid!
CARMELITA: Don't say it!
PLACID: It's too scary! We need them!
CARMELITA: Don't say that! Don't let them know!
PLACID: It's too hard! It's too scary! We need them back!
ARETHA/CORNO: We don't want to come back.
CARMELITA: They don't want to come back.
ARETHA/CORNO: We been wrong too long.
PLACID: You have to come back! They'll kill us if you don't!
ARETHA/CORNO: We've come. We've gone.
CARMELITA: This is wrong, Placid!
PLACID: We're scared! You have to take care of us!
ARETHA/CORNO: We can't see the way for you.
PLACID: You have to! We'll die! We'll die without you!
ARETHA/CORNO: We have ended.
PLACID: We'll die without your grace!
ARETHA/CORNO: We want but silence.
PLACID: But they'll get in! They'll get your stuff! Your dress and your pipe!
ARETHA: My dress.
PLACID: They'll carry it off! Cut it up for bandages!
CARMELITA: Placid!
CORNO: My pipe.
PLACID: Your pipe and your shoes! Come look at your shoes!

Lights flash violently. Wind howls.

CORNO: My suit. My tie.
PLACID: It's yours! See? Come back and take it!
CARMELITA: This is wrong! This is crazy!
PLACID: But you want him.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 18: Five Feet Off the Ground, Heels Clickin'

2011-08-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments could arrive a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 18]

PLACID: You call it yours, they want it. They want these chairs and that pipe, that knife and this paper. Your bracelet, your necklace. They'll rip it from you, never mind the cuts. That dress. Gone. They'll steal the underwear right off your ass. And they want this space. That’s what they want most of all. The dry air. The heat. Feel it. Nice and warm. Not like outdoors. Warm in winter, cool in summer. What they dream of. Out there. Freezing. Faces breathing on the glass. Lips open. Teeth yellow. All you can see are eyes. Glowing. They see in the dark. Fly through the air. Breathe under water. They'll do anything to get what you have.
CARMELITA: It's not true.
PLACID: The hell you say.
CARMELITA: Not the poor. I know the poor. They're too busy staying alive.
PLACID: That's what they want you to think. They're so vibrant! So alive! They make couture out of dishrags! Turn plate scraping's into high cuisine! Give 'em two spoons and a empty oatmeal box, and you got an orchestra! And they love! How they love! Love, love, love all the time. In a way we'll never know. In a way we can't imagine! I've heard it all!

PLACID backs CARMELITA onto an armchair.

PLACID: I've heard it, and it's a lie. Like all shows of respect are a lie. Yes, sir. No, sir. You know best, sir. I know because I've done it. Said it. Felt the cut. You say it because you have to. Because you don't want your raise jerked. Your job jerked. Your life jerked. There's a cord ‘round your neck, and all it takes is a tug, whoop, you're five feet off the ground, heels clickin'. You want to know why? You really want to know why? Because at the heart of it, it's gimme'. Gimme' your house, gimme' your job, gimme' your position. Your leverage. Gimme' one little thing, and I'll take the rest. Because, babe, I'll never be satisfied. The second I'm satisfied, the rest of them catch up. You're lucky. You just wander past the outstretched hands, and wonder why everyone acts the way they do. I'll tell you. We're animals. All of us. Whether we're rich or poor, whether we hide it or not. That's all there is. And I like it. I'm good at it. It's why I breathe, why I eat, why I get up in the morning. Gimme', gimme', gimme'!

PLACID kisses her savagely.

CARMELITA: Placid, that's not it at all. We should open the doors.

PLACID: You're crazy!
CARMELITA: Let those people in. It's cold out there.
PLACID: They'd strip us out in five seconds!
CARMELITA: We can break it. Can't you see? It's a cycle. It goes on and on until someone puts a stop to it.
PLACID: Let someone else put a stop to it! I'm gonna' live!
CARMELITA: How long can you live like that?
PLACID: I'm livin' to be old and rich.

CARMELITA: Are you? You said it yourself: they're all struggling to get in. You think you can keep them out forever?
PLACID: I’ll fight ‘em.
CARMELITA: Every single one, Placid? You'll fight them all at once?
PLACID: If I have to.
CARMELITA: All the time? When you're sick? When you're sleeping? You want to be rich. You want to grow old. How will you fight them then? When your bones snap if you fall, and the fat hangs over your belt, and you can't catch your breath? You're fight every man Jack of them? Young guys? Guys as strong as you are now?

Like an old man, PLACID sags down in an armchair.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 17: A Bomb Finds Its X

2011-08-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments could arrive a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 17]

CARMELITA: So?
PLACID: Now it's us. We got the stuff, and all them hustlers and upstarts want what we got. They're the ones gunning for us. Plotting. Closing in. Checking out the scene.
CARMELITA: There's something here, Placid. But I don’t think--
PLACID: You can't see them. Not ‘till they're ready to make their move. Remember back? Remember us?
CARMELITA: I never planned any moves.
PLACID: Don't be funny.
CARMELITA: I'm not being funny. I never planned.
PLACID: You never?
CARMELITA: What would I plan for?
PLACID: You can't mean that. Of course you planned.
CARMELITA: I haven't planned a thing since the day I was born, and someone planned that for me.
PLACID: I save and plot and eat shit. You just go along, and it happens?
CARMELITA: Don't feel bad. Please don't feel bad. It could of gone the other way. Easy. Oh, Placid.
PLACID: Makes me feel like a moron.
CARMELITA: It's luck, that's all. It has nothing to do with being dumb or smart. You’re smart. You're just not lucky yet.
PLACID: Yet?
CARMELITA: Luck comes. Because you haven't had it before doesn't mean it can't find you. Look how smart you must be, getting here without luck. You must be the smartest person I know.
PLACID: Smarter than Mr. Corno?
CARMELITA: I don't know a Mr. Corno. Not anymore. I knew him once, but that was then. We sent him away! We did. With your smarts and my luck! You think I could have done that by myself? You think I could have planned it?
PLACID: Would you have?
CARMELITA: How do you mean?
PLACID: I don't know that you would have without me.
CARMELITA: Well, Placid, what I would or wouldn't do doesn't matter much, because we did, didn't we?
PLACID: That's what you don't understand.
CARMELITA: See? You gotta' be smart, the way you can talk at something without saying it.
PLACID: There are a lot more like me out there than there are like you.
CARMELITA: How do you mean?

In the background, ARETHA and CORNO mirror each other with slow rhythmic movements.

PLACID: They're out there. Millions of them. They've been raised to want it. It's all they know and all they want to know. Like a missile, they're preprogrammed. Until they reach that target, you're either in their way or out of it. A clock tells time, it don't ask what time is. A bomb finds its X, it don't care who's standing there.

ARETHA's and CORNO's movements gradually propel them forward. As they advance, thin cords unspool from them like webs from a spider. They begin to circle PLACID and CARMELITA, drawing them into the lines.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 16: Sometimes a Pipe is Just a Pipe

2011-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments could arrive a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 16]

CARMELITA: I see him on his boat. Wearing his thick sweater, his plush woolen trousers. His hands upon the wheel. Steering. Turning. The prow cutting the waves. The spray. He's standing in the sun. He's standing in the sun, and he's got that smile. Wind catching his hair, but he's got that smile. The brilliant, too-large teeth. The trembling lips. His eyes squinting at the sun, at the wind, and you see through his eyes. You see tomorrow. It's bright and it glistens in the wind, sharp and brilliant with promise. Oh yes. It's right there in his eyes. In his smile. It's there. There. It is right there. It's still there. Oh god, it's still there. Here. It's here. He's still here! Dear lord, he's still here!

CARMELITA's breath breaks into moans. PLACID continues reading. In the background and from opposite ends of the stage, ARETHA and CORNO slowly emerge from darkness. Dressed like PLACID and CARMELITA in Act I. Distant. Cool in shades. They are invisible to PLACID and CARMELITA. Everyone should be in place just as CARMELITA is about to orgasm. Suddenly, she stands.

CARMELITA: No! No.

Carefully, she places the pipe back in the rack. She grabs the carving knife.

CARMELITA: It’s here. The beast is here. I can smell it. Thought the smell was something else. Placid. Placid!

CARMELITA walks in front of PLACID, and cuts his paper in half.

PLACID: What the hell was that?
CARMELITA: Stock split.
PLACID: You know what that was? That was the newspaper. That was the last newspaper. There won't be any more. That means we're out of news. We won't know what's going on.
CARMELITA: What’s happening is--
PLACID: Wind.
CARMELITA: Wind? What wind?
PLACID: Winds of change. Yeah. Winds of change blowing. We got to be ready. Gotta be prepared.
CARMELITA: Or what?
PLACID: Or else we get blown away, babe. Plain and simple.
CARMELITA: A regular hurricane.
PLACID: That's right. We're right in the eyes and--
CARMELITA: Eye.
PLACID: Huh?
CARMELITA: Eye. Hurricane's only have one eye. Go ahead.
PLACID: We're right in that eye. Here, it's calm. Real calm. But out there, right out there, it's the worst midnight on the worst road of the worst winter. Believe you me. Right out that door it's trees pulled out of the ground, roof tiles flying like hatchets, little girls and their dogs carried off.
CARMELITA: So we stay in the eye? We never move because of this hurricane?
PLACID: No. The hurricane shifts. Today it's here, tomorrow it's over there. And the eye moves with it. The stuff. We got this stuff now.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 15: Phosphorescent Love Lines

2011-08-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 15]

CARMELITA's handling of the pipe becomes a caress.

CARMELITA: Corno. What a name. Cornpone. Cornball. Quick with a joke. Oh yeah. That time in her bed. Some joke. Guess he treated me decent. Decent as she did. She could be nice. On occasion. Course, she needed me. She had everything she wanted, everything she thought she needed. She ended up more alone than she'd ever been. Blindsided by the unanticipated: she didn't need a maid. She needed a friend. Oh, but Corno. He couldn't let that go. What if, finding a companion, she didn't need him? What if she found other ways to be? Found the conduct she revered was as arbitrary and capricious as that she disdained. Why the very foundations of this house might tremble! So Corno just. . .rearranged the players. Put you over there, me over here. Did what he did best. What we all loved him for. He “took care” of things. Problem was, we loved him best when he “took care” of someone else.

CARMELITA begins rubbing pipe against her face, her neck.

CARMELITA: The way she looked at him in those days, Placid. You should have seen her. Her eyes, alive. Had to see him. All of him. He knew it. He had the thing. The magic. He knew and wasn't afraid to show he knew. Not like ones who never knew, or ones who kept it inside. He shone. In a way that said we all could shine. As long as he shone brightest. I still smell him. His library, his den. His smell through the carpets, books. This pipe smells of him. Not his tobacco. Him. I imagine his hand against the bowl. The way his hand loved the things he held. The way love glowed trailed from his fingertips. Phosphorescent love lines drawn upon all he touched. Upon my skin. When he touched me.

CARMELITA slips the pipe down her neck. Lower. She slowly sinks behind PLACID'S armchair.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 14: Thoughts Traveling in Straight, Efficient Lines

2011-08-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 14]

CARMELITA: What am I worried about? We got all this stuff! Got a hacksaw and a tire iron and a hi-res panel screen and a convertible and a wet bar and a garlic press and a Lear Jet and all of David Bowie's records. Got Classics comics and Cliff Notes. Got a flutter in my left anterior ventricle, so I get to take these purple and white pills that make me feel nice and everybody treats me gentle. Got government bonds and municipal bonds and junk bonds, the whole collection. IRA, ERA, MIA, CIA, PCP, EI, EI, O. Let's do something! For God's sake, let's do anything! Let's. . .go somewhere, see something, get into trouble, save ourselves, make love, make war, make extended negotiations leading to partition of our shared territory, wait twenty years, and reunify amid much fanfare! Let's do something, do something, do something! Wall Street sucks! Wall Street sucks! (Screams.)
PLACID: The market's shaky.

CARMELITA repeatedly stabs the air with the knife. Takes off her shoes, places them side-by-side on the table, and stabs the knife into the table so it stands between the toes of the pumps.

CARMELITA: Die, die, die, beast!

CARMELITA picks up CORNO's pipe.

CARMELITA: Maybe I should take up the pipe. What do you think? A woman smoking a pipe, that's rare. A mark of distinction. Women acting like men, stretching boundaries of freedom. Suit. Bowler and arm garters. Yass, yass. I think I feel different already. Forceful. Controlled. Thoughts travel in straight, efficient lines. Not muddled up with curves and loops. Why, there's so much I can do with this pipe. Conduct a meeting. Declare closure. Shred documents. Paint out faces. Rearrange atoms. Nullify time. Why, there's nothing I can't do with this pipe. Nothing except. . .things I would have no interest in doing anyway. You there! Bend over and grab those ankles!

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 13: Peace, How We've Longed for You

2011-08-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 13]

ACT II

SCENE I

PLACID and CARMELITA sit in the armchairs. CARMELITA's shopping cart is overturned, her stuff spread all over the stage--balloons, trinkets, gobs of colorful, wadded paper: a toy chest emptied for Mardi Gras. PLACID and CARMELITA have exchanged clothes with ARETHA and CORNO. PLACID reads the newspaper. CARMELITA curls up in her armchair. She has PLACID's bag of surprises beside her. No matter what she does, PLACID does not react. CARMELITA takes out a pair of pruning shears, plays that they are shark jaws.

CARMELITA: (Singing “Mack the Knife”) Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear/And he keeps them pearly white. . .. (Rummages, rummages. Comes up with a banana. Swims it past her. Singing "Sub-Mission" by the Sex Pistols) I'm on a submarine mission for you, bay-bee. . .. (CARMELITA makes bubble sounds as the banana "submerges." Puts it back. Takes out a hacksaw. Puts it to her throat.) No. . .please. I'll tell you where the treasure is! I will! Just don't. . .don't. . . arrrghghghghghh. (Her head falls forward. Lets it hang.) Arrrghghgh? (CARMELITA puts the saw away. Takes out an awl, and pretends to tie her arm off and shoot up, but can't stomach it.) Awful. (CARMELITA returns the awl to the bag. Very slowly pulls out the long carving knife.) Oh, it is a long way to Tipperary. Just an extremely long way. No matter how you try to get there. Whether walking or flying or swimming like a fish. It's an extremely long, difficult way to go. Wherever the hell Tipperary is. Know where Tipperary is, Placid? Well, I'll tell you. Tipperary is nowhere. Maybe it was somewhere once, but it's nowhere now. It's a song. It's in songland, and not even a song people know anymore. It's in the Lower Slobbovia of songland. Peace. How we've longed for you. Listening, Placid? (She pricks her finger with the knife.) Ow! Shit. (She gets up, slips into a pair of pumps with stiletto heels. Picks up the knife.) I’m stalking. I’m stalking the beast. Oh, it’s a fierce beast. Got long, jagged teeth. Scaly skin. And, and…it’s invisible! It can eat you, and you’ll never see it. Even when the teeth tear into your flesh. Oh, you see the holes ripping, the blood. You’ll feel it. Definitely. But you’ll never see it, even after you’ve been eaten. Even when you’re deep in its guts. You’ll just dissolve. Become part of it. Then you’ll be invisible too.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 12: Worst Hangover of Your Life

2011-08-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 12]

ARETHA: You struck me!
CARMELITA grabs her hair and twists.

CARMELITA: Kneel! You want to stop the planes?
ARETHA: Yes!

CARMELITA: You really want to stop the planes? Or just want to save your ass?
ARETHA: You're hurting me!

CARMELITA drops to her knees in front of ARETHA. She grabs both sides of her head.

CARMELITA: Shut up.
ARETHA: I can't with--
CARMELITA: Shut or die.

ARETHA gasps.

CARMELITA: Empty your head.
ARETHA: How?
CARMELITA: It's been empty all your life. The only thing in there has been shoved inside, and you don't need it.

CARMELITA clamps her hand over ARETHA's mouth. She moves her face close. During her monologue, the noise of the planes slowly fades as bits of paper, glitter, and rose petals descend, or lights simulate a similar effect.

CARMELITA: Empty it. Close it down. Let the power ebb, the wheels slow. Gears grind. Stop. Ringing fades. Heat goes from metal. Ice blooms on factory windows. Snow falls. White flakes. Huge flakes. Circle in the wind. Flakes upon your face, eyes. Watch flakes descend. Are they falling? Maybe you’re rising. Blown here, blown there. Blown across the sky. You're falling and falling, one of millions, and you can't touch down.

ARETHA grows calm. CARMELITA takes her hand from ARETHA's mouth. The lights have become more naturalistic. All is silent.

ARETHA: Where are we?
CARMELITA: The real world.

CORNO moans, doubles over, and coughs. ARETHA goes to him. He's alive, but cannot speak. ARETHA helps him up, begins walking him around. PLACID stirs, groans, pulls himself up on all fours. CARMELITA helps him into an armchair.

CARMELITA: How you feel?
PLACID: Worst hangover of my life.

ARETHA and CORNO face one another. They caress one another, movements mirrored. They embrace. PLACID puts his hand on CARMELITA's. She picks up her apron and slips it around ARETHA. Puts PLACID’s hat on CORNO. No response from ARETHA or CORNO. CARMELITA draws a pistol from her coat pocket. She shoots ARETHA and CORNO, killing them. PLACID crosses to CORNO. He takes a roll of bills from CORNO's pocket and begins counting them as CARMELITA watches. The sound of planes returns, rising and cresting. Lights/sound abruptly.

End of Act I.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 11: Mirrors with Beveled Edges

2011-08-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 11]

CARMELITA: No, ma'am.
ARETHA: Yes, you did! Don't argue with me! You killed him!

ARETHA begins striking CARMELITA.

ARETHA: Unfaithful bitch! I let you in, but you're treacherous! All of you! Let you into my home, my life! Rescued you from dirt, disease, rivers rotting with corpses! Gave you a room! Gave you pink wallpaper with curlicues, white enamel vanity, mirrors with beveled edges! Perfumes, powders, oils! What do you give me? How do you pay me back?

ARETHA grabs CARMELITA's coat.

ARETHA: Give me this! My coat! From my animals! My skins! Without me, you wouldn't know which arm goes where!

In trying to escape the blows, CARMELITA lets ARETHA have the coat. ARETHA catches her by the throat. Forces her to her knees.

ARETHA: This is ours! We give you a little! Pacify you! Your peace, our profit! But don't think we can't take it away! If we don't get back what we put in! We'll just give it to another! Fresh meat! A body that hasn't learned to think!

ARETHA throws her on stage. Grabs the tire iron.

ARETHA: Spoiled trifle. Put your eye to the keyhole. Seen what you couldn't imagine, but now you want. Once that germ takes hold, you can't be trusted, you or your whole fucking people, and you ought to be wiped from the planet!

ARETHA raises tire iron to strike. Deafening sound of planes, screaming in.

The sound paralyzes ARETHA. CARMELITA crawls away, grabbing her coat and wrapping herself.

ARETHA: They're coming! God, they're coming back! What are we going to do? Don't you hear them? Once they let the bombs loose, they fall everywhere. They don't just fall on me. They fall on everyone. They fall on everything.
CARMELITA: There's nothing you can do.
ARETHA: No! Before I took you in, you survived!
CARMELITA: Lie down. The shrapnel might go over your head. Everything else has.
ARETHA: I rescued you. From dirt, disease. Rotting bodies floating in the river. Pink wallpaper with curlicue patterns. Table. Desk. Perfumes. Powders. I rescued you? Or did someone rescue me? Someone took my hand. But what happened--

CARMELITA backhands ARETHA.

CARMELITA: Kneel.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 10: Orange Dust Obscures the Sun

2011-08-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 10]

ARETHA: Well! I must look a horror, playing tag with death, and then tangled up with the like of you. Draw my bath. And not so hot this time! Nearly scorched my skin loose last time. Can’t have loose…. It isn’t is it? Do you see loose skin, Carmelita? Can you see my skin’s on tight?
CARMELITA: I can’t see, ma’am, that a thing has changed.
ARETHA: Relief! Change is so disquieting. Must gather oneself. So much to do, you couldn’t possibly imagine.

ARETHA tries to rise, but she's too weak.

ARETHA: Carmelita. My legs. There’s something wrong with them. Are they supposed to bend this way? I can't stand. Carmelita, I can’t stand! Help! Help me! I'm so. . .alone! Mr. Corno--
CARMELITA: Corno sleeps.
ARETHA: You. Of all people. Could be cruel to me.
CARMELITA: I have been taught so well.
ARETHA: You don’t under…. I can’t…trust. Everything’s a cross, double, triple-cross. Was it always thus? Why? What happened? This can’t be what we…. I don’t understand. I’m so small.

CARMELITA hesitates, helps her to her feet. ARETHA clings to her. CARMELITA brushes her hair back.

CARMELITA: Once, this face was kind.
ARETHA: Was it? I can’t…. It seems like a nice thing. To be way. But, too, it feel dangerous.
CARMELITA: Right now, face to face? This seems like danger?
ARETHA: Well, no. Of course. Yes. A little. Perhaps much. I’m getting littler, Carmelita.
CARMELITA: It’s as safe--or dangerous--as you choose to make it.

Pause, and then ARETHA melts into her. They hug, rocking back and forth, and, in a burst of exuberance, genuine joy, spin around until they trip over CORNO.

ARETHA: Corno!

ARETHA drops to her knees. As CARMELITA narrates, ARETHA reacts to her words.

CARMELITA: First is disbelief. Refusal to accept. As if doing so prohibits tragedy. “I can't believe it.” “You must be joking.” “Tell me you're joking.” This stage can last the rest of your life. Second is numbness. Stupefaction. Your arms are stupid. Your legs are stupid. Your toes and fingers forget how to work in concert. Your skin dries, cracks like burnt paper. Your chest shrinks, a buckskin drum rattling rice. Scent of oysters in the wind. On the horizon, orange dust obscures the sun. Third, there is anger.

ARETHA rises.

ARETHA: You did this!

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 9: Oozing and Open

2011-08-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 9]

ARETHA: You what?
CARMELITA: You were so unhappy! So weary! To help, to ease your suffering, I…put them in your brandy, Aretha.
ARETHA: Do not speak my name!

Slaps CARMELITA hard.

CARMELITA: As you wish. Ma’am.
ARETHA: My question. You are here. In my bed. Now. Barely dressed. Explain this.
CARMELITA: Yes. After the…in the. . .night. You try to sleep, your eyes closed. Your head side-to-side. Your breath fitful. All you can do is call Corno. Mr. Corno. Come home. Finally, sleep descends, easing round the castle. Servants sigh. Dab their eyes. Prepare their own beds. Then the cook says, the phone! If the phone rings! So we run to your room, and your head is thrown back, your mouth is open, your skin is blue! Behind your eyelids, your eyes flicked back and forth! Panicked. Searching. Dreaming. She's dreaming, says the cook! She's dreaming of Mr. Corno! She's chasing him in her dreams! Chasing after love! Quiet her, Carmelita. Quiet her before her heart bursts. How do I do this? What do I do? The servants, they grab me. They pull from me my uniform. Force me into bed. Beside you. I say this is wrong! I am soiled! But you are cold! Frozen cold! The touch--my touch--does something. Warms you. Calms you. Quiets you. Your breath turns to fuchsia. Your spirit to green. Stars return. Here. At this intersection of dream and desire. Your sweat blending with mine. Our tears. Our breath. For a moment…peace.
ARETHA: I see. How very creative of you. But I know. Why you’re here. Who you wait for. You exploit my confidence, poison me with your drink and medicines, and your perfect tales of selflessness. Then have the gall to wait, an orchid, oozing and open, for him. Blooming beside my rapidly cooling corpse.
CARMELITA: No, ma’am. I would never--
ARETHA: You already have. Remove your oily stench from my bed. And conceal your hideousness. At once.

CARMELITA rises.

CARMELITA: As you command, ma’am.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 8: Terms and Conditions

2011-08-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 8]

CARMELITA: Exposed to unrelenting cold, the body's spring unwinds. Heat slips from the head and limbs to maintain the essential machinery of the torso. Fingers and toes freeze first, so solid they can be snapped like dry twigs. Hold them over an open fire, they cook. That's why rescue teams work with the safest source of heat they carry: their own bodies.

ARETHA moans.

CARMELITA: They strip naked and lie with their stricken companions until the warmth passes from one body to the other, forming a reciprocal circuit. Life ensnaring life. Reeling it back. A wet kite, drawn home on a fraying thread.

ARETHA cries in pain and begins coughing. CARMELITA shifts so she cradles her. Above, a star field appears.

CARMELITA: Feel the air, sharp, filled with glass? I tried to warn you.

ARETHA coughs hard, coming to consciousness as CARMELITA rocks her.

ARETHA: It's so cold.
CARMELITA: Not now.
ARETHA: I can't feel my limbs.
CARMELITA: Then feel mine.
ARETHA: I'm floating.
CARMELITA: We call that life.
ARETHA: There are pinwheels. Sparklers.
CARMELITA: Good blood from our hearts.
ARETHA: Weight. Heaviness.
CARMELITA: Terms and conditions.
ARETHA: Who are you?

CARMELITA becomes subservient. She sits up, concealing herself with the coat. The stars fade.

CARMELITA: Just the maid, ma'am.
ARETHA: Speak up.
CARMELITA: The maid, ma’am. Your lady in waiting.
ARETHA: What are you doing in my bed?
CARMELITA: The phone ma'am--I shut the phone off. I didn't want you disturbed.
ARETHA: I requested this?
CARMELITA: You asked for sleep.
ARETHA: So you took the initiative, on your own, to remove the phone from its cradle. Genius. Suppose the call came? Suppose Corno called, asking for…for…needing help. Needing coffee? Pipe tobacco? You know what it means, should he run out of pipe tobacco? What could happen? Driven from the castle. Lost in the storm. Tracked by assassins, some maniac with a tire iron. Enemies hide everywhere. In the faces of children. The whispers of innocents.
CARMELITA: Ma’am…you were so…tired.
ARETHA: You presume!
CARMELITA: Dead tired. You must remember.
ARETHA: Of course, I…. I need not remember every little thing. That’s we have staff. Report!
CARMELITA: Mr. Corno, gone, as you say. Gone in the cold. And you unable to sleep, unable to rest. All the household hears you pace. We try not to listen, but your heels ripple like drums.
ARETHA: You were…concerned? For me?
CARMELITA: All were! The butler chews his nails. The footman paces. The cook sniffles. Trying to hide it, he blames the onions. And me, most of all! That's why. . ..
ARETHA: Why? (ARETHA touches CARMELITA's lips.) You love me. Oh. Carmelita.
CARMELITA: The red capsules. I took them from the medicine cabinet.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 7: Clouding the Issue

2011-08-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 7]

ACT, SCENE III

CARMELITA enters, pushing a shopping cart full of balloons, costumes, junk. Dressed like some kind of arctic ragpicker. Figures on stage appear dead, heaped over one another as though tossed about.

CARMELITA: During wartime, you get used to seeing corpses. But you never get used to seeing corpses that appear to have been dropped from high altitudes.

CARMELITA pulls the cap from her head. Her hair is a vibrant, untamed mass. The impact should be one of going from drab formlessness to startling beauty. CARMELITA checks the bodies. First PLACID, then CORNO, pulling him off ARETHA.

CARMELITA: In town, the disruption of bombs provides a ready distraction. Rubble blocks the streets. Water mains rupture. Hence, the official media concentrate on that which still functions. Fire trucks, for example. Fire trucks are reassuring. They're very colorful, and the lines of water arching into a flame provide an image of control in the midst of chaos. But a twelve-year-old eviscerated by a shattered soda bottle, a spinster impaled on her own walker, a tiny scalp nestled in an otherwise empty bassinet: these can be nothing but chaos. And. . .we simply can't have that.

CARMELITA pauses in checking ARETHA. Puts her ear to ARETHA's chest. Rises.

CARMELITA: This clouds the issue. This does. Because the road awaits, the road away from. . ..

CARMELITA kneels and addresses ARETHA directly.

CARMELITA: You cause me grief, little one. You're broken. Cracked. It's pain for you. Pain if you open your eyes. Do what's best, little kitten. Be wise. Let go of your beating. Release that stubborn notion. This is no life. Scheming. Fearful. Not even sure you can trust the sky. Relinquish. Escape. And return. Revised in a fresh, better form. Perhaps. How exciting! You'll do this? I’ll touch your heart, and you'll release it? Slip me its strength. It'll power my legs, my spirit. We'll both get away, hearts entwined in synergy. Then these games can fade to silence. The pain ends. Here. Forever. Yes? You're ready, little heart? You're ready to let go? All right. I'll touch you, and you'll let go. Ready? Right now. I'm touching you. Now. (Lays hands upon her. Waits. Nothing.) No. I suppose not.

CARMELITA rises. Takes off her scarves and rolls them into a pillow for ARETHA's head. CARMELITA takes off her coat and places it over ARETHA. Underneath, CARMELITA wears a maid's uniform. As she disrobes, she throws her clothes atop ARETHA before dashing under the pile with her.

[To be continued]

Bombardment Gets a Little Ink

2011-08-05T10:50:00.001-07:00

Oregon Arts Watch, courtesy of Barry Johnson, gives the "Bombardment" experiment a little ink. Good stuff.

A Pause for Station Identification

2011-08-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Smile for the damned birdie.

The Internet is a strange little butterfly: you never know where it might land next. Out of all the blather I've poured into this blog, one of the all-time favorite posts (with the most views), is Photography + Music = Art, a handful of photographs I took in my guitar studio, marrying two of my passions, music and photography.

I don't whether it's the music, the photography, or the chemistry between the two, but, if it's the photography, I should mention that splattworks has a companion blog, splattsights, which addresses my photo work. I've been taking photographs for years, almost as long as I've been writing, and had stuff published, hung in galleries, etc. If anyone wants to check out what I've been up to there. It need to get back to the program and put up some new stuff; like most photographers, I have an embarassing number of images in the files. (Obviously, I need to take more pictures of guitars.)

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...tune in this evening for Bombardment: Episode 7.

thx/sp

Bombardment Episode 6: A Glittering, Crystal Price Tag

2011-08-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 6]

CORNO: Evening, dear. You look a fright. Nothing to say? You? The old silent treatment? What could I have done? Too much time at the office? Neglected your delicate filigree of need? Philandering? Me? Come now. Why would I want anyone else? You're a goddess. Very nearly. (Sits beside her.) Perhaps you weren’t always a goddess. Maybe I wasn’t always a god. Even those born to it must be proven. As must those, my dear, who have risen to their esteemed positions through more circuitous routes. Through sweat or marriage or combinations of the two. Perhaps you feared, from experience, that you could be replaced by firmer flesh and more malleable aspirations. A tactical error. Happens when one brings intrigue into nostalgia. If anything about that formless creature attracted me, it was her resemblance you! Ah, strike that. Um, well, um…the wench had already been paid for! I was supposed to let that go to waste? You know how you feel about waste. I did as expected. As taught. If a grape dangles above one's mouth, one eats. With savor. Ever seeking perfection. It’s right there. Waiting. Dangling. A glittering, crystal price tag. Hell. Let us simply kill the damned servants and start anew! No shame in admitting a mistake! There’s plenty to pick from, and they cost a pittance! A nice polished skein of muscle for you! And for me. . .for me, a creature of…ice. Whose very touch would freeze. Who is there but to look upon, as to say: as perfect as you are, you’ll never come even this close to my true desire! My purest love! That’s you, dear. There is a time for a man to grow up. Accept his place. I have arrived at that crossroads, and realize I was…perhaps miscalculating. So just. . .pull yourself together. We'll go on as we've always gone. The choice is yours. That’s an order. Get up, Aretha. Quit playing around! (Shakes her.) Get up, goddamn it! It's morning! It's past-morning! I'm not lying to you! (Pulls her into his arms. She's limp.) Goddamn, woman, this just isn't done! Sleeping in all day! What will that cook say? Only one for breakfast, sir? What about the guests? They'll long to see you. You know how they are. The way they talk. Then the pictures. The rumors. Rot in the magazines. Goddamn it! I can't do this alone!

CORNO shakes her. She doesn’t respond. He lets her sink down. Lights fade to silhouette the players. In the background, the sounds of planes return.

CORNO: Ah. That will be fine. Your services are no longer required. Presently. (Planes louder.) Abort your mission. That’s your commander-in-chief talking. (Planes louder.) I said your presence…. Hello? Will no one in this kingdom play the slightest attention to their…? Those are my planes? Surely a radio problem. A failure to communicate. Misplaced coordinates. Friendlies about to correct their…. (Planes deafening.) Or. Perhaps not.

Lights out. Rolling thunder of airstrike. Planes and bombs fade out.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 5: True Sport Knows No Mercy

2011-08-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 5]

ACT I, SCENE II

Lights up. CORNO sits. Behind him, ARETHA and PLACID lay limp, twisted, broken. CORNO pulls a pipe and packet of tobacco from his coat pocket. As he speaks, he breaks down the pipe, cleans it, puts it back together, pretends to load it.

CORNO: My house. I’ll smoke if I want. Used to smoke cigarettes. Playing Bogart. Man, how he could roll a ciggie, turning it in the flame. The measured inhale, squinting against the smoke. Exhale seeping between his lips. Pure love. Love flowing between his fingers and heading toward heaven. Love even in the way he squinted through the smoke. You knew she was looking back. Plus it kills you. With every single breath, you're one step closer. One man's stupidity is another man's defiance. I smoke! I choose! That cloud above my head declares: I live!

CORNO lights his pipe, draws, and sits back, savoring the experience. Exhales demonstrably. There's no visible smoke.

CORNO: For now.

CORNO rises and inspects the bodies.

CORNO: My kingdom. My subjects. Do you hear dissent? They dream of peace. Have they not been pacified? (To the audience.) Ah. You look at me, fixing me in the crosshairs of your judgment. Behind the chintz curtain you call conscience. A good king would never bomb his own people. Never turn his troops and machine guns against the hungry and the ill. Naïveté as a yardstick. You only see the smallest piece. Can only compare it to your limited morality, circumscribed by law. My law. Thus, you who counsel mercy for others condemn me with a glance.

CORNO drifts back toward PLACID. Rolls him onto his back with his shoe. CORNO looks through the weapons bag. Picks up the tire iron. Handles it like a golf club.

CORNO: There was a time when I was a mighty feared man on the green. Yes, yes, we made some deals out there. They thought a pampered boy like me wouldn't hold up, my butler shooting all the toughies. Hah. We learned for sport. True sport knows not mercy. What makes it fun. Poor bastards never had a chance. (CORNO steadies PLACID's head with his shoe. Eyes the shot.) Rough lie on this one. I think maybe a nine-iron. A gamble in this wind, but you only live once. Or twice. Knees bent. Elbows cocked. Measuring the green. (And. . .he can't do it.) Well, bub, you play this through without me.

CORNO Drops the iron with a clang. Ambles over to ARETHA.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 4: Dallas Style

2011-08-02T17:56:00.001-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 4]

PLACID: Do it right! Make him come to you! Feign penance. Face behind a veil. So he’s sure he’s won. Accepting your proffered hand in his grand benevolence.
ARETHA: Humiliated.
PLACID: Does a spider humiliate? No. She waits. For the prey to relax.
ARETHA: Then strike.
PLACID: Why you need me. The most loyal of loyal. The only one--present company excepted--that he trusts. The one who’s borne the blood. Who’s bashed the heads to pieces. Slit the throats. He slinks home for you. On his knees. Pleading mock repentance. Until my shadow crosses his.
ARETHA: I know this gore and violence thrills you, but must your willie stick up my ass?

PLACID stands her up.

PLACID: Sorry, babe! Got a little excited! Excited…for your triumph!
ARETHA: Sit.

He sits. ARETHA paces.

ARETHA: Ah god.

She sits down and puts her head between her knees.

PLACID: Babe…you okay?

She sits back, obviously pained. CORNO rises from hiding place, vaguely concerned.

ARETHA: Comes in waves, the agony. My eyes. Seeing him. Them. He's kisses her hair, her neck. She clenches her calves. She drops the platter. It rattles on parquet tiles, oysters splashing. She reaches back. Bunches the pleats of his woolen trousers. Fingers spreading flat. Trembling. . .. In my bed, Placid! My bed! I need murder. Tell me murder!

CORNO eases from one spot to another.

PLACID: Sweet. (Rises. Goes to bag. Takes out a tire iron.) Eh?
ARETHA: Kitchen to garage. Better. He loves his cars. Men love to go fast. Why they always do.
PLACID: Yeah, I love this fucker. Nice and heavy, but a point, too. Let it hang by your side. Come up behind him. Jam! Right through the back of his head!

PLACID demonstrates. ARETHA winces.

PLACID: Skull frags everywhere! Dallas style! Busted pottery! Or. . .--hwack!-- uppercut! Hook that soft spot 'neath the jaw! Give a twist, snap, whole trache rips out! Blood like a Rorschach! Beautiful.
ARETHA: I don't the implement is properly. . .stylish.
PLACID: This gonna’ be a murder or a tea party?
ARETHA: What about something with a point that doesn't have to mutilate? A pin? A dart?

PLACID rummages, comes up with a drill.

ARETHA: I believe you need a cord.
PLACID: (Buzzes it.) Batteries.
ARETHA: So…intrusive.
PLACID: You know what? You still love the bastard.
ARETHA: I do not.
PLACID: Yes, you do. You hate him as much as you say, you'd cut his head off--(pulls a hacksaw out of the bag and waves it around)-- never mind the glop. Shit. Why don't you just feed him a cute little Seconal brandy?
CORNO: Prefer coffee.

ARETHA leaps out of her seat. Enraged, she lunges toward him. The lights flicker. Planes return. Bombs fall, thundering. Shatteringly loud. Strobe lights. ARETHA, PLACID, and CORNO all hit the deck and cover up.

CORNO: Aretha? Aretha!

Admist the bombardment, one bomb falls with an especially piercing whine. Lights out with a shattering concussion. Silence.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 3: Just Speakin' Colorful

2011-08-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 3]

ARETHA: How do you plan to conduct the administrative action?
PLACID: Well, it’s funny. On one hand, living things are a bitch to kill. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you end up just bashing ‘em till they come apart. But, if you got a little knowledge, get inside, snap the right wire, the whole gimmick goes…click. That's what we're shooting for. The right wire. Now. (Reaches into bag, pulls out a carving knife.) Standard number. Sharp, long enough to get to the juicy stuff. Strong, won't break on bone. Drawback is. . .it's been done. Million times. Kind of thing a housewife uses to whack her hubby when he's dipping his wick on the side.
ARETHA: Be very careful.
PLACID: No offense. Just speaking colorful.
ARETHA: Nothing with domestic connotations.
CORNO: Say, could I get some coffee?

The two on stage look up, pause, then go back to what they're doing.

PLACID: This wouldn't work then?

Holds up a nutcracker. ARETHA shakes her head.

PLACID: Bummer.

Puts knife, nutcracker on floor. Takes out an icepick.

ARETHA: What did I tell you?
PLACID: Could be a wet bar. Some swanky lounge.
ARETHA: No.
PLACID: Camping?
CORNO: Please, it's chilly out here. Let's get a cup for all these good people.
ARETHA: Where do you find it?
CORNO: Just a warm-up. For my loyal, loving subjects.
ARETHA: You find it in a kitchen drawer, right along with the corn skewers and the garlic press.
PLACID: Garlic press. . ..
CORNO: Don't need any cream! Black is fine!
ARETHA: (Leaping to her feet.) Shut up! Shut up, you bastard! I will not serve you! I will not! Think who I am! Think who you compare me to! I could kill you with my bare hands!

ARETHA lunges for him, but PLACID jumps up, grabs her round the waist. Holds her tight as she struggles to get into audience.

PLACID: No, no, shh. Do it proper.
ARETHA: To hell with proper!
PLACID: You can’t mean it.
ARETHA: Gouge out his eyes!
PLACID: No. Aretha.
ARETHA: With a grapefruit spoon! Pluck 'em out! Stamp ‘em on the ground!

She furiously stamps the stage while PLACID holds her in place. He finally wrenches her back. They both end up in an chair, ARETHA planted on PLACID's lap.

[To be continued]

Bombardment, Episode 2

2011-07-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

Splattworks continues its presentation of Bombardment, a two-act drama by Steve Patterson. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

[EPISODE 2]

ARETHA: Is this is how you want me to be? Or is this how you want to be? I can be anything required. Rich. Beautiful. Bathed in seals' milk. Sipping the blood of a freshly slain virgin from a Midori martini glass. My breath scented with opium. Underarms of honeysuckle. A kiss that can lift you to Valhalla, a whimper that can drop you to Siberia. Able to have anyone and anything. . .but you. (ARETHA sits.) My God. What I wouldn’t do for a knife to carve the features from my face. I won't lecture you on the burdens of nobility. Any disadvantages we experience are more than compensated. Despite our pretensions, we understand this, particularly those who have experienced vicissitudes in attaining one’s position. In exchange, all I relinquish is control of my appearance, speech, public behavior. Otherwise, I am free. Further, in compensation I am granted control of all behavioral codes within these walls, this world. Not just for the footmen, serving maids, culinary technicians, but for all whose adherence to the rules insures the seamless, untroubled continuation of our. . .. Ones' servants do not lay hands upon ones' person! Not without invitation! And, in exchange, one lays ones' hands upon ones' servants with utmost discretion. One does not whisper in thy servants ear at table! One does not surreptitiously tease thy servant's thigh with spouse so close as to hear thy servant's breath quicken! One does not corrupt thy servant in the boudoir of thy wife! He had to be disciplined! Do not think I do not suffer for this decision! His very absence emphasizes the nature of his violation! The thought of his hands upon her skin cooks the very eyes within my skull! He betrays his place! My station! The very boundaries of reality have been violated! My double, carved of the same hard fruit. We cannot fit swelling to hollow with others. Not with the same exquisite perfection, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. But if he cannot be brought to rein, and all cannot be set as it was, I will sacrifice him! Not in vengeance, o sweet, sweet drug. For order. Stability. Such as he taught me.

PLACID enters. Carries a bag. Sets down the bag and opens it.
PLACID: But I do the sacrificing? Right?
ARETHA: On my order.
PLACID: Yeah, but chopping him, opening him up. I get to do that?
ARETHA: If I didn't want him dead, I wouldn't pay you. If I didn't pay, you wouldn't do it.
PLACID: Babe, I do it for you. For your love. Your love is my money. Your lips my municipal bonds.
ARETHA: Body. It’s either cost or commodity. Do your job. You'll be compensated. Understand the nature of the transaction. What matters is Corno's fate. Not yours. Death matters. When he's dead, he'll know what love means.
PLACID: It'll look like love backed right over him. Repeatedly.

[To be continued]

Opening the Bomb Bay Doors

2011-07-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

Splattworks now presents Bombardment, a two-act drama. Given the brief space appropriate for a blog, the play will be serialized in about 26 installments. The author will attempt to post an installment each day, but, if events intercede, installments may occur a day or so apart. So please be patient.

Thanks.

Steve Patterson

Bombardment premiered in 1991, produced by Stark Raving Theatre (Portland, Oregon, USA). Directed by Kyle Evans, the original cast included: Phil Baker as Corno, R. Marquam Krantz and Placid, Mary Jo AbiNader as Aretha, and Michelle Guthrie as Carmelita. Lights and sound design by Michael Delves. Special thanks to Rich Burroughs, EJ Westlake, Rod Harrel, Myra Donnelly, Dave Demke, Linda Grimm, and Greg Tozian.

----------

BOMBARDMENT
A Drama in Two Acts by Steve Patterson

Copyright © 1998 by Steve Patterson

CHARACTERS

CORNO: A political strongman.
PLACID: Corno's enforcer.
ARETHA: Corno's wife.
CARMELITA: Aretha's maid.

SCENE: A Deteriorating Mansion Outside the City

TIME: Outside of Time

“No vehicle had entered the town since the gates were closed. From that day onwards one had the impression that all cars were moving in circles.” -- Albert Camus, The Plague

[EPISODE 1]

ACT I

SCENE I

SETTING: Something between a throne room and a living room. A ruined city can be seen in the distance. Two large chairs at center, a table with an ashtray and pipe rack between them. AT RISE: Lights on CORNO, seated. In background, CARMELITA stands in a maid’s uniform.

CORNO: I used to be king. Born to it. Used to be lord of imponderables. If I wanted something, I didn't command it. All I had to do was picture it, and someone brought it to me. A hint of thirst, and a glass materialized in my hand. I had the strength of ten, vitality of twenty. An enormous furnace burned within my chest, and it took all of life to keep it roaring. I ate a roast a day, and my arteries stayed clear and strong, the seams bulging with blood. There was never enough to sustain me. Not enough power, not enough brandy, not enough women. I raced boats and crashed balloons and juggled Thompson submachine guns. I wrestled land grading machines, silenced incorruptible senators, floored my Lamborghini in the bike lanes. When I walked down a country road, trees moved their branches to hold me in a steady flow of sunlight.

Drawn backward into darkness, CARMELITA exits.

CORNO: I don't feel like that now. I feel two-hundred and fourteen. I can't feel my legs. I slowly blink, and my lids scrape against my eyes. My heart drags its twisted foot. I'm tired. Tired, tired, and I don't know how it happened. I woke one morning to a strange woman's scent. My possessions lost their loving familiarity. I didn't know what to do. I opened the blinds, and the color drained from the sun.

The distant drone of airplanes, soft but slowly growing louder.

CORNO: Imperceptively, that which has so perfectly been balanced for so long…wavers. Clocks… hesitate. Deep within the machine, where even the designers can’t understand the construction, something stirs. Eases into consciousness. At first, confused. But, as it remembers where it is, what it is, what it does, and what it needs…the hunger begins.

Planes appear to pass overhead. Bombs rumble and lights flash. The bombardment grows in intensity. CORNO reacts with fear, shock, pain. The lights go out, concussion of the bombs continuing. The barrage ends, planes fade. CORNO's armchair is empty. PLACID comes tramping in. Wears a distinctive hat. Hesitates when he sees CORNO's empty armchair. Approaches it carefully. Sits, trying it on for size. Enjoys sitting there, but can't lose the sense that he's being watched, that he'll be caught. Uneasily, he rises, slinks off. CORNO enters from the rear of the theater and takes a seat in the audience reserved for him. Immediately takes the character of someone excitable and late for the performance. If a man is next to him, CORNO begins hard-luck story about needing gas money; if it's a woman, he begins flirting. Lights shift, and CORNO begins shushing everyone around him. Sinks down, trying to look inconspicuous. ARETHA enters.

[To be continued]

The Night before the Flight

2011-07-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

Here we are, just about to launch the serialization of my play Bombardment. It’s kind of like the night before the mission. Which means I need to speak with the troops.

So. To my potential readers, I hope you have fun. It’s a weird kind of fun, but still….

As for potential theatre-makers who read it, I know that by publishing the play through a blog, I’m more or less giving it away. But, for what it’s worth, here are my ground rules, which admittedly operate on the honor system (not particularly appropriate for our times, but one can hope).

I own the copyright on this thing, flat out. If some of you actually want to do something with it--put it on as a reading or production--you can do so royalty-free. I do ask that you inform me first of the production, and, if comes to pass, I’d appreciate your sending me reviews, playbills, publicity materials, and the like (electronic documents will be fine). If you put it on, make a few dollars, and want to share some with the playwright, great--that would be kind and gracious. Not because I’m greedy or expect to ever make money off this play, but because artists of all levels deserve to be compensated for their work.

What I ask you not to do is this: don’t produce the play under a different title or with a different author’s name; don’t produce it without citing me as the author; and don’t change the words or scenes.

Use of the play does not extend to film or broadcast. Plays are meant to be performed. Live. In front of a live audience. If you shoot a short segment for Youtube or the like, say for publicizing the play, please contact me first, and please don’t run it without my permission. And if anyone’s crazy enough to try to film this monster, we need to talk.

Finally, Bombardment is play for mature audiences, given its language, ideas, and imagery (particularly its violence, sexual content, and nudity). If you’re underage, really, you shouldn’t be producing it. If you must, please first consult with a responsible adult. And, not to sound pretentious or make the play sound overly important, if you’re an artist living under a repressive regime, please use caution before committing to the play. I don’t think it could get anybody busted, but I’d feel like hell if it did. It’s just a play. (Sort of.)

In other words, I hereby waive any responsibility for any trouble this play gets you into. Seriously.

If you have questions or want to send me comments, I can be reached at splatterson@mindspring.com

I guess that’s it. Tune in tomorrow, when the Bombardment commences. The engines are warmed up.

[To be continued]

Closing in on the Target

2011-07-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

As I announced a couple days ago, Splattworks, over the next few weeks, will be serializing my drama Bombardment in bite-sized installments. It’s not an entirely new idea: Dickens serialized many of his novels before publishing them as the books we know today. Technology now allows me to do the same—amazingly—all around the world. Because I know you’re out there, in L.A. and Savannah and Hong Kong and Jordan and Brisbane and Berlin and….

Why this play now? The last decade has been so turbulent, terrible, and sometimes downright bizarre, that it’s come to feel like one, long, unbroken disaster, where one never knows when or where the next airstrike’s coming in. Every day makes history; some days are just bigger and more unsettling than others. Lately, they all have been.

It also feels like we’re coming up on one of those decisive moments, where we can pull up at the last minute or disappear into darkness, where the disparity between rich and poor has grown so great that society’s seams are splintering. Not just in the United States, where I live, but everywhere. The planet itself seems to be shaking and baking itself to pieces. The future, to me, has never felt so unknowable. The times, it seems, have caught up with Bombardment. So I hope readers find something in the piece that they can keep for themselves, even if it’s just an image or a line here and there.

To me, the play still seems a wild child. With time and experience, I can see a younger writer trying to find his way. Like a musician coming to competence, he has to try a little bit of everything and work through his influences. So there’s some Beckett here, along with some Ionesco and Albee, a touch of Brecht, and whole hell of a lot of Shepard, particularly in those epic monologues. I was still learning to let characters talk to each other.

If nothing else, I hope Bombardment’s a diverting read. I’m just happy to take a breath and let it off the reins. Maybe something interesting will happen. Or maybe it’ll just run over the top of the hill, and never be seen again. Putting it out there feels a little…edgy. Exciting. Kind of like an opening night. And that’s what theatre…and all art…should be about.

One more bit of business, and then the play should begin on Saturday. Thanks.

[To be continued]

Commencing Bombardment

2011-07-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

Back in the early Nineties, we had ourselves a perfect little pocket war, known as Operation Desert Shield, the only U.S. war, so far, to sound like a feminine hygiene product. It was a swift, unforgettable thing, with CNN broadcasting live footage of Scud missiles falling on Tel Aviv, our wealthy friends, the Kuwaitis, getting looted by another one of our wealthy friends, one Saddam Hussein. Back during the Cold War, we weren’t always too choosy about who we took up with, and, as often happens, some of our relationships ended badly.

Seriously, it was a terrible war, with real bombs, blood, and bodies, and there was nothing amusing about it. I keenly remember feeling an awful sense of despair, as it became readily apparent the violence was inevitable, with no true certainty how it would turn out. Just as with its sequel, Operation Desert Storm (like most sequels, even more of a bummer), there were legitimate fears the war would set the entirely Middle East ablaze and completely destabilize the world economy. We’d have to wait another decade for that to happen.

History felt like an irresistible wave, a tsunami that rolled over everyone, no matter where they lived and how much money they did or didn’t have. The sense of fear and helplessness haunted me long after we’d tucked everyone back in their boxes, and I dealt with it the way writers do: I picked up the pen. In this case, I wrote a two-act drama called Bombardment.

At that time, I’d become friends with some wickedly clever artists running a new Portland Theatre Company, Stark Raving Theatre, and I asked them if they’d take a look at it. You know, just to see what they thought. They said, sure. And the next thing I knew, we were building a set. That’s the way theatre ought to be done--by the seat of your pants, with absolutely no idea what you’re getting yourself into.

The four-actor play--two men, two women--was directed by the very talented Kyle Evans, and ran for six weeks. It took a typical trajectory for a new play by a then-unknown playwright: a great opening (when everybody’s friends and family showed up), struggling weeknights, but stronger weekends. Reviewers were puzzled, dismissive, or both, but word got around that the play was a wild little beast, and really different from anything else running in town. Weekend audiences began to grow, and we closed strongly.

A year later, I tried to hide myself in a plush theatre seat at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony (Oregon’s top literary prize), absolutely terrified that Bombardment, one of three Finalists, might actually win, and I’d have to say something in front of a bunch of writers much more distinguished than myself.

It didn’t win (it’d be almost 20 years before I’d finally bring the OBA home for Lost Wavelengths), but the Bombardment experience really set the hook: I wanted to keep writing plays. For good or ill (depending on who you ask), I’ve been doing it ever since.

So I’ve always had kind of a soft spot for Bombardment, even though it totally screwed up my life. The play was just so . . . out there. I was so new to playwriting, I didn’t even know how many rules I’d blithely shattered. Bombardment was like letting the horse loose, holding on, and just marveling at its power while trying not to worry about getting killed.

Over the years, as I’ve honed my craft (supposedly), I’d dig the play out of the files, work on it a bit, maybe shop it around to a few theatres, maybe put it back in the folder. I came to accept it just wasn’t the kind of play for bigger theatres--the kind afraid of possibly alienating their subscription base. It was just too jagged, non-linear, brutal, and, frankly, weird. It’s a play for theatrical buccaneers.

And that’s why we’re here.

[To be continued]

Blame it on Radiohead

2011-07-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Kris Kristofferson used to do a song called “Blame it on the Stones,” back when moms and dads worried about the Rolling Stones destroying Western Civilization™ and running off with their daughters. All that trouble and mess and uncomfortable dinner conversation, it was all because of some damned artists.

That was some time ago; so, to stay a little more current, we’ll go with Radiohead to blame pointlessly, even though they're more likely to discuss Western Civilization™ in depth over a nice cup of Earl Grey.

They have been a bit…subversive, however, in launching their last couple albums. The gorgeous In Rainbows was offered on a pay-what-you-will basis through their Website www.radiohead.com. The recent lush, wonderfully strange King of Limbs sells similarly through the Web, for a straight-up $6.00 U.S., and, shortly after release, the band threw in a couple extra songs (which, refreshingly, are very good).

So. In the spirit of skipping the middleman and gatekeepers, and going straight to the people who matter--the audience, I’m serializing one of my plays, a full-length drama in its entirety, right here on Splattworks. For free.

I’ll be presenting further details over the next few days, but here's the news:

Splattworks will publish sequential excepts from my somewhat experimental, very dark, and brutally surreal drama BOMBARDMENT, an Oregon Book Award Finalist. (Above is a production still from the 1991 world premiere.)

Why that play released at this time will be explained. Paraphrasing a better-known playwright, also writing about one of his plays, there actually is a method to the madness...if a little madness to the method.

But, for now...blame it on Radiohead. Or, as Radiohead might say, blame it on the Black Star...which is where this play definitely lives. On that, more tomorrow.

[To be continued]

WATCH THIS SPACE

2011-07-25T07:51:00.001-07:00

A new, exciting (or at least perhaps engaging), slight demented adventure begins tomorrow on Splattworks. Don't change the channel....

Another Shade of Dark

2011-05-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

My plays have never been known for being especially frothy. Blue is, apparently, my favored color--in clothing, language, and music. I suppose that reflects my outlook. Humor, however, serves an an antidote to the blues, on-stage and in life, so I try to find it even in the heaviest work. Another requisite in tackling the serious is to do it very, very well. I don't know that I've succeeded in that, but, believe me, I have tried. Serious themes deserves the best, and I've spent many sleepless nights wondering if I've done the work justice.

The last few years, I've largely focused more on the fantastic: plays exploring the psyche or utilizing magic realism or alternate realities, and I'm turning, also, to exploring the human condition through our relations to the arts, of late writing about music and photography. But, for a good number of years, I was known as the "war guy."

That is, I wrote a series of plays--four in all--about war and its aftermath. Three explore the subject through the characters of journalists: Waiting on Sean Flynn (Vietnam); Liberation (Bosnia); and Depth of Field (Liberia, Sierra Leone, and 9/11). Reporters, serving as our eyes and ears during conflicts open a breathtaking, immediate window into war narratives. Plus I used to be a reporter--never a war correspondent, though (I get asked)--and I have great admiration for those who put themselves at risk to the show the world the cruelties of which we are capable. They're also damned interesting people, which makes them fun to write about.

Flynn and Liberation have been successfully produced multiple times (and Liberation has been published by Original Works Publishing). Depth of Field remains in progress. I've finished a number of drafts, but I still haven't quite cracked the code on that one. I haven't given up, either.

The fourth play, Next of Kin, stands as a sort of coda to the trilogy, shifting the focus from reporters to soldiers and their families, whose vital stories I felt remained somewhat unaddressed by the other plays. Next of Kin, looking at Iraq, is also the most contemporary work. It's a good, strong play, I think, which had a very successful staged reading last year with the splendid folks at Portland Theatre Works; I'm currently shopping the premiere to theatres around the country.

Though I never planned it, the plays developed their own arc. Flynn asks why we've come to war, and whether we should stay or go? Liberation, acknowledging we're trapped in war, asks how much do we sacrifice to tell the story? Depth of Field asks whether, after surviving war and paying the price, why return. And Next of Kin asks what we do and who we are when its over.

Writing these plays has been, I think, a substantial, unique accomplishment. (I have kind of a dream of having them collected in a single volume someday. Maybe it'll happen, though it's hard to say, given the state of both theatre and publishing these days.) I didn't set out to do it: it just happened. They've made me a few bucks along the way--not very much. But they have rewarded me, however, so richly in terms of experience, introducing me to people and places I'll never forget (and never want to, even when the memories are ghastly).

They've given me a chance to work with brilliant directors, actors, and designers on a subject that seems to bond artists they way soldiers and reporters bond in the field: everyone knows this is a serious, important issue that demands our best, and the subject tends to strip away our bullshit because, let's face it, it's about living or dying, killing or being killed. When you work like that, you get down to the core of your collaborators, exposing who you really are, and it's one of the primary reasons I have such deep affection and admiration for those who work in this tough, sometimes ephemeral business. If you're lucky, you'll learn to like your colleagues, and they become your friends; if you're really lucky, you'll come to love them.

The plays have also afforded me some of the most intense audience interactions of my career. During ther performance, the theatre feels beyond electric, the air supercharged. Total strangers, speaking to me after shows, have told me stories they may have never told their families. After a performance of Liberation, a Bosnian woman told me how she walked, barefoot, away from her hometown as its men and boys were being systematically slaughtered. And then she thanked me for having the courage to tell the truth. Never, ever have I felt so simultaneously honored and humbled. That moment remains a treasure I will carry to my end.

Finally, this subject has allowed me to talk to and exchange letters and e-mails with with veterans and war correspondents, which has been worth every minute of sweating through the work, worry, and heartache that comes with making theatre.

I feel these plays have deepened my soul. When I pick up the morning newspaper and read so-and-so many have been killed or wounded wherever they've been killed or wounded this day, the pictures and feelings that come to my mind may be different than yours. Not better or worse, just...different. If you have a heart, you can't write about war without it changing you, and you can't write about war effectively if you don't have a heart. Sometimes I think it's damaged me, you know? Just a little. Knowing a little too much about the worst humans can be and the most terrible things that can happen to us. Whatever I've learned and kept inside, It's nothing compared to those who have been there, and it's paid me back more than I could ever imagine.

This Memorial Day, as we approach the 10th anniversary of September 11th, I just want to take a moment thank all those who have served--and those who have reported the world's self-inflicted catastrophes--for putting your very lives at risk. That's it. A small and quiet acknowledgement that's but a pebble in the ocean compared with your experience. With a special thanks, from as deep as I can reach, for those who have been so gracious to share your best and worst stories with me.

Here's to the day when all our work becomes obsolete.

Dylan at 70

2011-05-24T12:49:00.001-07:00

Bob Dylan turns 70 today. All I can say is: thanks, Mr. Dylan. Here's to many more years of songs, poetry, and wicked insights.

Still the real deal.

Seeing Around Corners

2011-05-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

The unmistakable clean, sharp cutting guitar tone, with just a little hair on it. Enough to catch. Hook. The sound of Robbie Robertson's new album, "How to Become Clairvoyant."

A very cryptic title, that one. Honestly, I didn't care for it when I first heard of it. It sounded just a little...corny. The title song, it turns out, is stone brilliant, and you don't get to it until the next-to-last song. Robertson doesn't give it up just like that. Like a good writer, he knows to make you wait.

The last song is a tribute to Django Reinhardt, who, along with Robert Johnson, seems to vie for the ultimate guitarist's guitarist (even Les Paul bowed to him). This song bears close listening, particularly the end. And no, I'm not telling why.

I've liked all of Robertson's post-Band albums, some more than others, as with all artists. "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" and "Skinwalker" are among Robertson's best songs--a very high bar when you consider what he's written.

This album, though, reflects a mature artist both living in the present and looking back with clear eyes. He never was The Band's strongest singer--then again, the other guys were some of the best singers in popular music--but he has his own, distinctive tone and phrasing, and here he's comfortable with what he can and can't do, using his strenghts. Eric Clapton plays on about half the tracks (and co-wrote a couple, plus one instrumental's all his writing), and Robertson seems to bring out the best in Clapton, who's an artist who seems to thrive when collaborating.

A couple songs slip into cliches lyrically, but Robertson, like Bob Dylan, seems keenly aware of those cliches, and uses them as tools rather than crutches. There are enough songs full of original writing that there's no fear Robertson's slacking. Rather, he's having fun. If you take those songs that way, you will too.

Besides the title cut, some of the killers here are "He Don't Live Here No More," "Won't Be Back," and, especially, "This is Where I Get Off." The latter reflects the end of The Band, which, over the years, has prompted some resentments toward Robertson, particularly in Levon Helm's very good autobiography.

It's tough when you separate from an artistic collaborators. Close artistic partners usually have to become friends just to survive together, much less accomplish anything. You spend substantial time with them, sometimes under great pressure, and you learn their strengths and weaknesses, which you rely on or compensate for (as they do with you), resulting in a unique, complex affection. You can hear that tenderness--and pain through severance--in Robertson's vocal. I think it's fair to assume he misses what The Band could do as much as his listeners, but he knows it belongs to the past, especially as Richard Manuel and Rick Danko have passed on.

There's a hint, though, of Manuel's ghost in "This is Where I Get Off." The album's strong backup singers, particularly on that cut, echo The Band's great harmonies without imitating them, including a haunting falsetto counterpoint to Robertson that recalls Manuel's gorgeous voice, which could pull off a falsetto as well as the best Motown singers. It doesn't come in until that song's powerful, final chorus, and Robertson's too careful and smart an artist for it to be coincidence. It's heard but briefly, leaving Robertson to finish the song alone.

As it should be.

Quiet Genius

2011-04-19T10:00:00.001-07:00

There's this comic strip, Cul-de-Sac, which is simply...wonderful. Because it's weird and charming and doesn't want to be anything more than it is, which is weird and charming. A guy named Richard Thompson writes it--not the guitarist--and his drawings are weird. And charming. And the whole thing is a bright spot on the comics page. (Props to "Pearls Before Swine" too.)

Turns out Mr. Thompson maintains a humble blog through blogspot. Guess what? It's weird and charming.

Richards Poor Almanac

Congratulations, Mr. Thompson: you do good work. Please keep doing it.

Object Coming Into View

2011-02-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

Radiohead releases their new album this weekend:

King of Limbs

If you want a traditional CD, you'll have to wait until late March. It's always an adventure to see where these artists have been traveling.

Welcome of the 21st Century, etc.

2011-02-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

Good news. My play Liberation, published by Original Works Publishing, is now available electronically through Amazon. Kindles to conquer! You now can easily pick up my happy-go-lucky, laugh-a-minute play about the Bosnian War. Buy it for your mom.

(Note: the latter in intended as gallows humor...which characterizes the play, actually. It's deadly serious stuff, but, I think, works. It definitely seems to pack a punch. People saw it, cried, walked out of the theatre holding hands. Critics praised it, etc. It's for artistically committed theatres with nerve and passion...so buy it for your local, artistically committed thatre with nerve and passion.)

In short, I'm quite pleased about this. Thanks, Original Works. You can also license performances through them.

To check it out, go to:

Liberation

Walking Through Fertile Grounds

2011-02-09T15:23:00.001-08:00

So. Fertile Ground. Yes.

For those outside Portland, the Fertile Ground Festival presents all-new work over a two-week period, written and produced in Portland. Damn, there a lot of good writers, directors, and actors in this town. In all, 68 pieces were featured in Fertile Ground, and it received national coverage from American Theatre Magazine. You're going to be hearing a lot about Fertile Ground in years to come. Tricia Pancio Mead especially deserves credit for helping the ball get rolling.

I managed to see Sue Mach’s The Shadow Testament, Nick Zagone’s The Missing Pieces, Ellen Margolis’ Elsewhere, and Andrea Stolowitz’s Antartikos. They were all good, all richly imagined, and all completely different. All deserve further production, you producer types out there.

I probably would have seen other shows--there were at least three or more I would have liked to have caught--but I was in an accelerated rehearsal schedule for my own play, Immaterial Matters, which won CoHo Productions’ New by Northwest New Works Contest, with part of the prize being a staged reading of the play during Fertile Ground. My director, Brenda Hubbard, was sharp as hell, made great decisions, and was ruthlessly funny--which helps when you’re staging a play. And my cast was definitely the A-team: Torrey Cornwell, Jim Davis, Adrienne Flagg, Ritah Parrish, Andrew Shanks, and Ebbe Roe Smith. I list them alphabetically because they were all equal in strength and served the work so selflessly.

And the play, Immaterial Matters. I’ve written a bunch of plays at this point. Around 25 full-lengths, I think. I have to say this one has kind of a weird, golden quality about it. Writing it was a delight; every time I put my pen to paper, the words were there. (And to answer possible questions, yeah, I write first drafts in longhand, then type them up into a word processing program, usually editing as I go.)

The play came a deep, personal place, which I think I can talk about now that the play has been through its paces. In 2007, my mom died after a protracted illness. For some time afterward, not surprisingly, I was deep in a dimly lighted tunnel called grief. For both my parents, actually: my father died in 1994, but now I was facing life as a sort of orphan. Every day was like waking up underwater: everything seemed normal until you took your first breath, and then it was a struggle to the surface, and you’d spend the rest of the day treading water, trying not to sink down.

Finally, I said I’d deal with this death monster by looking directly at it, feelings be damned. So I did: my main character was an orphan who, by happenstance, falls into making post-mortem portraiture in the 1880s (it was a vogue at the time). I’ve been a photographer; so I know how the camera serves as a framing device, somehow placing one outside the picture at the same you’re focusing closely. It seemed like an apt metaphor for way one compartmentalizes one’s feelings; so they can be dealt with piece by piece. (If you try to deal with them altogether, it just crushes you.)

I thought it was a strong, unique play, but I wasn’t prepared by the avalanche of praise it received. I mean, if there were folks who didn’t like it, I wasn’t hearing from them. Entirely possible, but people will usually let you know…whether you want to hear it or not. I didn’t receive the usual “I didn’t understand the part” or “I thought may you should change….“ What I did receive was a lot of knowing looks, smiles, and nods, especially from professionals. If you could bottle and sell that feeling, you’d put smack out of business tomorrow.

The piece has such a weird, nighttime texture. It’s a discovery play that builds slowly, the longer the character keeps making the pictures, with each assignment another step in this weird journey until the weight of grief and inevitability of death overwhelm him, including his own loss of his parents. And, at the same time, it’s funny…audiences were definitely laughing. Which seems as it should be: that life is serious as a heart attack and still stupidly hilarious. Maybe especially when you’re having a heart attack.

Anyway, I ended up as pleased as I could be, and a couple theatres are already considering the piece, with a couple more agreeing to look at it. (And, just to prove it’s not invulnerable, one has shot it down already.) I hope all my plays get produced, of course. (Why else would I write them?) But this one I especially look forward to seeing realized, because I think it’s original and says something without preaching. And that’s not an easy trick. And I just want to go see it--which is why I got into writing plays in the first place.

Not long ago, my mom showed up in a dream--a rare guest appearance. She was her rascally self--complaining and full of problems, but funny and endearing, a way I hadn’t seen for a number of years, due to her illness. And I lay in bed for a long while upon waking, not doing anything, but feeling like some kind of debt had been paid, and some kind of separate peace had been achieved. It felt good and complex. Very Zen. Some kind of gift I’d given myself or received from elsewhere.

This has been Fertile Ground’s third year. I’ve participated in both previous years, and had a hell of a lot of fun. But this one, for me, have definitely been the best.

A Word from the Wiseguys

2011-01-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

CoHo Productions' reading of
"Immaterial Matters" gets itself a thumbs-up from the Portland Oregonian's Marty Hughley...

Fertile Ground festival: more promising picks for new theater and dance

...and from uber-script wizard and all-around theatrical demigod Mead Hunter....

Fertile Ground 2011 opens….any minute now!

So I may be biased (a smidgen), but these guys you can trust. Their word is bond.

Thanks, guys!

Steve

Me Knees is Getting Wobbly...

2011-01-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

...but in a good way.

My play "Immaterial Matters" plays Sunday and Monday night at 7:30. Forget me...please come see it for the incredible cast and director.

The problem is that grief blinds. People think different when the burying’s over. A soul’s just leaving, you do anything to keep hold of them. Once they’re done with ashes to ashes and paying off the doctor and the undertaker and the grave diggers and the preacher, the last thing they want to remember is the dying.-Reilly O’Rourke, Immaterial Matters

Immaterial Matters by Steve Patterson

The Abyss Looks Back

2011-01-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

Portland’s a relatively peaceful place. I say relatively because, if you read the Metro section of The Oregonian, you’ll be treated to semi-regular tales of family members murdering each other, meth freak antics, weird suicides, and robberies gone awry—the dark background music that’s long been a part of American society. Some oldsters will tell you it used to be different, you didn’t used to lock your doors, left your key in your car, and so on; others will share a penetrating look and tell you it’s always been this way, but people just didn’t talk about it.

History tends to bear out the latter view. A read of David Lesy’s “Wisconsin Death Trip”—a collection of 1880s newspaper clippings and photographs from a small, Midwest town—is a surreal, numbing litany of murder, madness, suicide, and disease. If anything, you might come away thinking things have improved. Maybe they did for awhile in the 1950s…unless you were black, gay, female, or weird.

And then Jared Loughner—Travis Bickle made flesh—stares out from the newspaper or the Web. (Anybody who’s spent time on listservs or message boards know Web is a more appropriate term than Internet.)

Around 1993, Portland had one its perfect spring-into-summer days, and I took a break from work to go for a walk, relax, and drink it in. My mind was channel surfing, the way it will when you’ve been concentrating for awhile and let the brain off the leash to run. I vaguely registered a tall, lanky man in a stocking cap passing, and a bum note registered as to why someone would wear a stocking cap on a balmy day.

Then my head exploded with sudden pressure, and my vision briefly went black. I recovered almost instantly, and, as I straightened, I saw the man in the stocking cap flick his fist out at a bystander. It was an absent, dismissive gesture, as though swatting flies. He was just walking down the street, randomly hitting people. He missed the person ahead, but he’d popped me on the left cheekbone. It stung and surprised, but did no physical damage. I didn’t even bruise. Other people were solicitous, caring, but I and another guy took off after the man. I was angry, but I also didn’t want to see others hurt. He disappeared at some point. I spoke with a concerned, professional police officer, who took my information and phone number. Directly thereafter, I pretty much fell apart.

I was contacted a couple of days later, and the police informed me the man was apprehended, that he was familiar to downtown officers, suffered from mental illness, and had gone off his medication. He was under treatment again. I declined charges, both out of empathy and knowing the outcome would largely be the same. The incident lingered—I had occasional flashbacks—but times, good and bad, eventually washed the incident away (though I can still feel it if I remember—such is the power of violence upon memory).

The last few months, I’ve been seeing an older, tall, lanky man on the streets. He swears at unseen people and occasionally strikes empty air. Menace and foreboding surround him. I don’t know if he’s the same guy, but the similarities are strong enough that it’s brought back the Great Cheekbone Bashing of 1993. My assailant caught my eye for just an instant that day, staring out from the same infinite darkness you can see in Jared Loughner’s gaze. I sometimes wonder if I should do something about the man who fights demons only he can see, but I’ve asked, and he’s well known to local merchants and, I’m sure, the police. I just discreetly avoid him.

Right-wingers are playing defense as Loughner shot a Democrat and has used some far-right, anti-government rhetoric; they’re also probably relieved that he appears to be out of his mind. But I recently heard a small-time, right-wing talker use a fallacious argument that shows how deeply the inflammatory set have been shaken by the recent shooting.

He blamed liberals for turning mental inmates out of asylums and endangering society. It’s true that compassionate mental health advocates pushed from more humane treatment of disturbed people, which included moving them from institutions to halfway houses and outpatient treatment, where, with medication and counseling, they could be woven back into society’s fabric.

The movement gained traction during Jimmy Carter’s administration, a framework put in place. What the talk show host won’t—and can’t—say is the process accelerated under Ronald Reagan, using a budget-cutting rationale, while his administration cut spending for treatment. As a friend of mine put it: “Reagan turned the whole country into an outdoor asylum, then blamed the chaos on bleeding-heart liberals.”

Which is damned cunning politics, but not particularly good for society. Analogies may be apt, but reality is always more complex; there’s more than enough blame to go around on this issue, from politicians to the medical establishment to insurance companies. But an echo of that sentiment resonates today. In short, given that politicians and commentators have played with fire, it’s not surprising they’re feeling singed. And they can’t back down because we’re talking about political leverage here, and an industry built on jacking listeners’ adrenaline levels. Getting angry, oddly enough, is fun. It reinforces belief systems, whether you’re in agreement or disagreement. People get hooked on the rush (no pun intended, seriously), come back for more, ratings go up, and merchants buy ads. It’s more profitable and secure than selling heroin.

But it’s dangerous. Out of the most perfect spring days, storms erupt.

Jared Loughner, on the day of the Tucson shooting, wore a hooded sweatshirt, possibly to keep his shaven head warm. He could just as easily have worn a stocking cap.

Dead.Air.Space

2011-01-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

Radiohead has, appropriately, a delightfully weird and irreverent Website.

Dead Air Space

Weirdness: Butter for the Writer's Bread

2010-12-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Research leads in many wry and byway paths. To wit, a bit of reading about Lord Byron (famously: mad, bad, and dangerous to know) led me, by hook and crook, to an anecdote about Mary Shelley, wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, heroic romantic poet, who, like all good heroic romantic poets, died heroically and stupidly...but most of all mysteriously. His boat sank and he washed up on shore, and per the quarantine rules of the time, they cremated him on the beach. Sorry, chap.

However, many years later, after Mary died of an apparent brain tumor (not as good as drowning, but exploding heads have their allure), the Shelley's opened a box in Mary's desk and found a silk parcel, which was wrapped in Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Adonaïs" and contained locks of her dead childrens' hair along with a fragment of Percy's heart. Yeah, his actual phsycial heart, apparently swiped from the pyre. These Romantics knew how to do it right.

Flash forward to to 1969, and the Stones play a free concert in Swinging London's Hyde Park, as a tribute to the recently expired Brian Jones (who heroically and stupidly drowned in his swimming pool...under mysterious circumstances), during which Mick Jagger reads an excerpt from "Adonaïs" while butterflies are released. Jagger wears a little girl's dress. Nice touch. And then Mick Taylor, Jones' replacement on guitar, comes out and burns the place down.

A pretty bunch, all of them.

Here's the excerpt; Shelley and Byron would have been proud:

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep
He hath awakened from the dream of life
'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. — We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled! — Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

Crossing Points

2010-11-30T08:39:00.000-08:00

You search and search for a way in, for what are commonly termed “ideas,” but what are really doorways into the word room. And then, when they come, you resist because you know, if they really take off, you belong to the words, and there’s nothing you can do but see where they take you. If you find a title, forget it. Especially if it’s a good one. You might as well snap on the handcuffs because it’s gone from “writing” to “being a piece.” And you just have to hang on for the ride.

I have a title. Or it has me.

Of course, you can short-circuit this at any time, just by telling someone what the title is. It automatically dissipates the magic, your attention flags, and you’re free to get on with normal life. For example, I could just tell you the title is....

But...then I wouldn’t have anything to write, and I’d have to start searching again.

This is a weird business I'm in.

That Last Waltz

2010-11-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

Thirty-four years ago, tomorrow, four Canadians and a wiry guy from Arkansas played their final concert as The Band at Winterland. Martin Scorcese made a magnificent concert film of the proceeding—perhaps the best rock’n’roll film ever. The Band played their own funny, heartbreaking songs ("It Makes No Difference"; "The Shape I'm In" (pouring out of Richard Manuel); "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (maybe Levon Helm's finest moment); and a transcendent "The Weight" along with The Staple Singers, who inspired The Band's multipart vocals), then blithely served as some of the world’s greatest sidemen to a parade of defining voices of the era: Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Dr. John, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, and others, including a guy named Dylan, who gave The Band a break when they were billed as The Hawks, having split as Ronnie Hawkins’ backup band.

Not too long ago, a four-CD set from the concert was released, and it’s filled with wonderful pieces never included in the film or the original, three-LP concert album. Listening to it now, with distance and time, the choice of material is striking: nearly every song can be viewed as a reflection on time’s passing. The Sixties were done, consciousness expansion gone in a blur of Quaaludes, coke, and smack. The world had certainly changed, but the revolution failed, done in by Nixon, Vietnam, oil shocks, recession, and its own, inherent contradictions.

Even the music, once so high and wild, had degenerated into shadows of itself; the same year The Last Waltz celebrated what had been, The Ramones were busy burying it three chords at a time.

What you do hear in The Last Waltz is the blues. Blues and R&B underlies most of the cuts and The Band’s sound. Muddy Waters' time onstage is all too brief. The Sixties may have been a bright flare that had burned itself out, but the blues are forever, relevant, and timeless. And the blues still have the power to cut through rock industry bullshit and coked up egos.

Still, just a look at the song titles, played in addition to The Band’s songs (which gloriously reflected the past as in a funhouse mirror), carry the sense of an era’s closing: “Such a Night”; “Down South in New Orleans” (one of the simplest, best songs ever written: ‘my ship’s at anchor/my suitcase packed/got a one-way ticket/ain’t comin’ back’); “All Our Past Times”; “Further on Up the Road”; “Helpless”; “Furry Sings the Blues”; "Tura Lura Lura"; and “Forever Young.”

And the closer. Everybody came out to sing it. Ringo sat in on drums, Ronnie Wood on lead guitar—respectively representing the Beatles and the Stones. You don’t get much more iconic than that, unless you could drag out Lennon and Jagger (not bloody likely). It was a song from The Basement Tapes, when Dylan had dropped off the circuit and holed up in Woodstock, New York. Informally, he would get together with his neighbors, The Band, and they would have a few drinks, roll the tape, and see what happened. It’s amusing to wonder what Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson thought one apocryphal evening when Bob Dylan unfolded a piece of paper and said something like: “Uh…I got this thing called ‘I Shall Be Released.’ Wanna’ try it?”

It was, as they say, a long time ago. A lot of those folks—Muddy, Butterfield, Bill Graham, Bobby Charles, Danko, and…oh man…Richard Manuel—are no longer with us. Everything had gone to hell and was fucked up. Everybody was fucked up. Everything’s still fucked up. But, if you angle your head just right and look down into yourself, you can still see your reflection somewhere so high above that wall.

In which your hero wins one for the home team...

2010-11-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

Looks like I up and won CoHo Productions New by Northwest play contest with "Immaterial Matters"...my somewhat gentle, period piece about death, photography, and, uh...death.

Smile for the camera.

CoHo Productions Presents Steve Patterson's IMMATERIAL MATTERS, 1/23-24

Utter Horror and Other Forms of Entertainment

2010-11-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

There’s an election tomorrow. You might have heard that. The conventional wisdom is that Democrats are going to get whacked. And they likely will, but there’s something in me that’s not quite buying the polls. Maybe I’m in denial. Still, the one thing that seems to be distinguishing the polls—other than they’re terrifying Democrats—is that they’re all over the place. One week they show Republican momentum, another week they show a Democratic momentum…and now the Republicans are back.

As usual, it’ll come down to local politics and who’s got the best ground game. Rather than get into a whole big analysis, which seems a little pointless when the numbers are all over, I’ll just trot out my predictions, and we’ll see how it rolls tomorrow.

Republicans take back the House. Why? It’s the one thing polls seem to hold together, it’s an anti-incumbent year, largely because unemployment is so high. Since Democrats have more seats, they’re likely to take the biggest share of the blame. (Never mind that the Republicans have no idea how to get out of the economic mess other than “cut taxes”…which won’t work.)

The Senate’s going to be close. Boxer will probably hold onto her seat. Harry Reid will likely lose his, even though his opponent is arguably insane. I think the Dems will probably lose Kentucky and Pennsylvania too. God only knows what’ll happen in Alaska, though I’d hedge my bets on Murkowski—she’s a known quantity and Miller seems less and less stable. But who knows? Miller may be a protest vote. I think it’s arguable that a lot of Republicans will pick up seats as protests. Looks like Feingold’s over in Wisconsin; and it’s worth saying that the last couple of years, Feingold has been something of an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, and that may be partly why his opponent leads.

Brown probably wins the governorship in California. That’s cool. I like the Jerry. He’s a much less conventional politician than he seems, and California could use his experience. The real question marks are here in the Pacific Northwest. Patty Murray’s running a bare fisted fight with Dino Rossi, and this might finally be the year than Rossi wins one, for the aforementioned reasons. But Murray’s really pretty well liked, and Rossi’s a perennial loser, albeit by close margins. This one probably won’t be settled until the next day or later. It’ll likely come down to how the vote breaks in Puget Sound.

Close to home, we have a nail biter between Kitzhaber and Dudley for governor of Oregon. Dudley actually has a shot, as a moderate Republican in the mold of Atiyeh, and economic times are very similar to those when Atiyeh was elected. Kitzhaber’s a good, smart guy, but he burned a few bridges when he was governor, and folks may feel he’s had his shot. It’ll basically come down to Democratic turnout in Portland and Eugene…as it usually does in Oregon.

And California’s Proposition 19, legalizing marijuana? It’s been a fascinating ride on this one, but marijuana measures tend to run strong, then fade, which is what the polls indicate here. On the other hand, a lot of people who might turn out to vote on Prop 19 might be off the pollsters’ radar, so it’s not over. My general feeling is: I’ll believe it when I see it, but, after you’ve watched a president resign, guys walk on the moon, the Berlin Wall come down, and an African-American win the presidency, you hedge your bets. So Prop 19, maybe…but probably not.

Finally, if the Republicans actually win this thing like some pollsters are saying, then they’re going to have to govern. Which they suck at. And that’s where it gets entertaining, because voters don’t seem to be so much for Republicans as they are against Democrats. Entertaining, that is, unless they don’t usher in a second Great Depression with total gridlock and general insanity. Good times…not so much.

From the Stewart Rally

2010-11-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

Note: this is the first time in the history of this blog that "sanity" has been a keyword.

The Flood

2010-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

nights walking Eugene, Oregon, steam from the streets
New York crisp in autumn, posters peeling from the buildings
strolling a cigar through New Orleans dusk with the lights coming up
birds sing all night in the trees round Jackson Square
the Portland downpour soaking the soul
Rome glittering with scooters
California slides into chablis

Not Much Matters but Everything

2010-10-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hit-and-run victim was quiet and dependable, co-workers say

Now he tells me!

2010-09-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

So here I just had a birthday, and it never occurred to me that a splatterson should own a Splattercaster. Man. It's not too late, loyal readers....*

*Not to be taken seriously.

Exiles

2010-09-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

It’s just a place. Like any other. You’re there, and then you’re elsewhere. After awhile, you end up with a lot of elsewheres. A lifetime of elsewheres. Some places put a hook in you because of their beauty or strangeness or because they resonate with something inside. Some places are just home.

Home is difficult, partly because you take it for granted when you’re there. it’s only after you’ve left that you feel its absence. it’s really only when you can never go back. Homes give out on us or we on them. Before we feel too sorry for ourselves, there are whole peoples who can’t go home, who have been forced to leave, who carry the deepest of wounds because their home has been taken from them.

But homes are taken from all of us. Sometimes very quickly. One day, you turn around…and that’s it. There’s no going back. Then where are you?

Where you are now, I suppose. The home waiting to be lost. The place that will someday belong only to memory. With time, the memories belong to a smaller and smaller pool of people. Eventually, they’re gone, and those homes are forever erased.

Some deal, huh? It’s weirdly beautiful, though. Perfect in its imperfect way. Time is not our friend, but it does grant us a store of experience, which becomes all that much more precious as it gathers attendant loss. Eventually, we pay for it. Forever moving forward. But the past follows, and as painful as it can be, bearing its weight, we should be grateful for the things we’re allowed carry. Because they belong only to us, until we must relinquish them, and they cease, altogether, to exist.

That's when they take us with them.

Uh Oh

2010-09-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

I was strolling to work this morning when I idly thought, hey, a great name for a band would be "Difficult Listening Hour"...then you could get away with playing any kind of crazy shit.

And then the chill went down my spine.

Dear Readers...

2010-08-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

...I've been buried, of late, with a play opening in July, then two more in August. But I'm digging out. Slowly. Here's hoping to do some fresh blog scribbling in September.

Steve

Good Way to Start a Morning

2010-08-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

So I sit down with my coffee, and the paper's already been opened to the Performance section of the Portland Oregonian's Arts & Entertainment section, and there's "Next of Kin" with a #1 pick on the Performance "High Five" list for shows to pick out.

Now that's a way to start the day.

Given that they gave Chris's show "Fishing for My Father" a pick last week, my batting average has been running pretty good.

Another show tonight and tomorrow night. I'm digging this.

So Many Theatre Openings, So Little Time

2010-08-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

So the other show I'm involved in and is opening August 19th is Fishing For My Father; because Next of Kin and Fishing open the same night, I'm going to have to wait a week to see Fishing...which is a pleasurable sort of dilemma.

Fishing for My Father really isn't my show. It's actor/producer/playwright/wunderkind Chris Harder's (with whom I co-wrote The Centering a couple years ago). I just contributed to some monologues that served as a jumping off point for Chris's extravagantly versatile imagination. I can't wait to see what he's come up with, in company with some of Portland's most talented theatre makers (except yours truly, who's kind of the Rain Man of the bunch). Details follow below.

Break a leg, Mr. Theatre Wizard....

-------

Fishing For My Father
Playing at the CoHo Theatre
August 19, 2010 through August 29, 2010

A family fishing trip turns adventure as an outdoorsman struggles to discover the meaning of fatherhood.

This inventive solo show is packed with traditional monologues, impressionistic dance and surreal clown antics, along with original music and recorded interviews from the community. A fast-paced, funny and heartwarming world premier you won't want to miss!

Devised with some of Portland's top theatre makers, Chris Harder collaborates with Jonathan Walters (Hand2Mouth Theatre), Philip Cuomo (Third Rail Rep), Steve Patterson (Oregon Book Award), Christine Calfas (Dance/Movement), Gretchen Corbett (Third Rail Rep), Rebecca Martinez (Sojourn Theatre), Tim Stapleton (Set), Jim Davis and Jonathan Kreitler (Music).

Upcoming New Play: "Next of Kin"

2010-08-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

Last year, Portland Theatre Works won a RACC grant to workshop my two-act drama "Next of Kin." Currently, we're hard at work on that project, and there will be three nights of public, staged readings on August 19, 20, and 21. The process is going well, the director and cast are excellent, and the play is beginning to feel very, very good; so I wanted to take a moment to put it on your radar. Below is some information on the play and production.

"Next of Kin"--typically for me--is dark, intense, and for mature audiences (due to language and subject matter), but I'm hoping it has its share of humor too. We're having a kick working on it, and here's hoping you can share the results with us.

Best,

Steve

-------------

Portland Theatre Works
http://www.ptwks.org/

Summer LabWorks Explores Duty and Family

Portland Theatre Works is excited to present Steve Patterson's play Next of Kin for three workshop performances August 19-21 at Theater!Theatre! in SE Portland. Next of Kin was read in Portland Theatre Works' FreshWorks series in October of 2008 and selected for our more intensive LabWorks program for further development.

Mike is a Marine Casualty Assistance Officer who informs parents and spouses their loved one has been killed. Mike's brother Rich is a Marine recruiter trying to fill his quotas. Their sister Angie was left at home to care for their father, a Vietnam Vet and former Marine, who now lies in a coma having attempted to kill himself. Reuniting over their father's deathbed, they are forced to face the complex relationships they have with each other as they pick up the pieces their father left behind.

Portland Theatre Works has an on-going relationship with Steve and his work. In one of our very early FreshWorks reading in May 2006 we presented Lost Wavelengths, which was subsequently selected for that summer's JAW Festival at Portland Center Stage, and later won the 2008 Oregon Book Award's Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama. We're very happy to be able to revisit Next of Kin and to give further support to the development of this play.

The cast includes Tony Cull, Lindsay Matteson, and Casey McFeron. The director is Andrew Golla.

Steve Patterson has written over 50 plays, with works staged in Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Austin, Tampa, and other U.S. cities as well as in Canada and New Zealand. His full-length works include Waiting on Sean Flynn, Malaria, Altered States of America, The Continuing Adventures of Mr. Grandamnus, Turquoise and Obsidian, Bombardment, and Delusion of Darkness. In 2006, his play Lost Wavelengths was a mainstage selection at Portland Center Stage's JAW/West festival. The Centering, a one-man play he co-wrote with Portland actor Chris Harder, has been featured at the Edmonton Fringe Festival and the Boulder Fringe Festival, and, in 2007, Mr. Harder won a Drammy Award for Best Actor for his work in the play. Mr. Patterson’s play Liberation was published by Original Works Publishing in 2008. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and former member of Portland Center Stage's PlayGroup playwriting workshop. His play Lost Wavelengths won the 2008 Oregon Book Award, and, in 2009, and, in 1997, he was the inaugural recipient of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild Fellowship. In 2009, he became the Dramatists Guild's co-representative for Oregon. He is a founding member of a new Portland theatre company, Playwrights West.

Portland Theatre Works is dedicated to developing new work for the theatre by energetically supporting those who create that work. The FreshWorks series offers monthly staged readings of developing scripts followed by a mediated audience talk-back. LabWorks offers rehearsed workshops that bring the playwright into a sustained collaboration with directors, dramaturges, actors, and audience--with everyone helping the script develop toward a full production. The actors will give a fully staged, script-in-hand, performance with minimal costumes, props, and set pieces.

Next of Kin by Steve Patterson
7:30 p.m., Thu.-Sat., August 19th, 20th, and 21st
Profile Theater space at Theater!Theatre! (3430 SE Belmont St., Portland, OR)
Tickets: $10 General Admission, $5 Students/Seniors
Tickets available at the door.

This workshop of Next of Kin is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Work for Art.

This project is also funded by contributions to Portland Theatre Works. All Portland Theatre Works programs, including FreshWorks and LabWorks, are substantially supported by our contributing members. Without these contributions we would cease to exist. Please consider becoming a contributing member!

Goodbye to the Real Deal

2010-07-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a weird country called the United States, there lived a devious, a paranoid president named Richard Nixon, who nobody really liked and who really never liked anybody, and who was so criminally insane that kept a secret list of “enemies”—those he felt were out to get him and his administration.

And, once upon a time, being a journalist on such a list was considered a badge of honor because it meant that you had the fortitude and integrity to stand up to a man who would practically stop at nothing to control the flow or shape of information, and did things like threaten to jail journalists and sent burglars to ransack a psychiatrist’s office to defame an “enemy” or the rooms of his political opponents at Washington D.C.’s Watergate Hotel and whose National Guard troops blew away students at Kent State with M-16s.

One of those guys sufficiently fearless and fierce to land themselves on Nixon’s enemies list was Daniel Schorr, who never let up, and pretty much always called them as he saw them. Today, he filed his last dispatch at age 93. That’s a pretty good run for anybody, but especially for a tough old guy in a witheringly tough business.

We’ll miss him.

Whistling Through the Graveyard of Forgotten Vinyl

2010-06-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

In downtown Grants Pass, Oregon, not far from Dirty Bird Sporting Goods (notable for the cartoon vulture in its logo and advertising), where you could purchase most firearms known to man, was the Trading Post, but a few long blocks’ walk in the rain. A narrow, slightly stooped building with weathered siding that gave it the look of an old west outpost (very popular in the new west of a certain period), mostly it was a junk shop. They’d also sell you a firearm or two, of mostly untraceable origin, but I was a regular for the used records. Rows and rows of plastic mike crates full of orphan vinyl.

Long before there was an alternative anything, the Trading Post offered up a parallel history of popular American music: the formerly known, also rans, third-tier, never heard from agains. Radio-only pressings never broadcast. Small-label bankrupters. Vanity projects with cover art done by a relative. Just out of the law of averages, a gem or two could be had for a dollar or less, which was pretty much my budget.

Maybe it was just one or two songs—the ones that probably clinched the contract—but someone had poured their aspirations into those recordings, and you could find wonderfully weird music you’d never hear on the radio. That is, unless you’d tuned into some alien AM signal reflecting back broadcasts sent a couple decades earlier.

I particularly fell for the swinging bachelor pad music, the best know purveyor of such being Esquivel (one name long before Cher or Sting), but the real magic came from those trying to make their mark by ripping off Esquivel. I suppose it made sense at the time, at least for 15 or 20 minutes. The covers always looked like a Jetsons outtake, wrapped around a come-hither catalog model with a mid-thigh skirt, hair a half-undone beehive, and a martini in each hand. (One for me…and one for you.) If you searched through the Trading Post’s clothing and accessories sections, you could probably find the quilted smoking jacket, cigarette holder, and chrome-plated ashtray to go with the record. The ladies would no doubt follow, though, when I attempted to sway young women friends with Esquivel’s pre-synth swoops and whooshes, the humor didn’t make the translation, and they’d ask if I owned any Pablo Cruise. I did not. If we couldn’t bridge the distance with The Doors, the evening was pretty much over.

After awhile, the scratches and pops became part of the sound—you memorized the songs with surface noise intact—and you would wonder who had so well played such obscure records. Cowboy songs, swingin’ hep jazz, generically handsome crooners, and doo-wop groups no one had ever heard of, but someone still managed to gouge a skip or grunge up the vinyl with unknown substances that had to be carefully scraped off with a fingernail. Drop the needle, and suddenly it was all orange western skies and ten-gallon hats and neon cocktail signs (the martini glass flashing back and forth) and backyard barbeques with fireworks and folding nylon-webbed chaise lounges and huge convertibles with fins running red lights and empty longnecks flying out and shattering on yield signs and satin sheets and TV dinners and rabbit ears and Brownie cameras and yellowed family pictures with serrated edges, and a country of the upwardly mobile losing altitude—the blood barely dried on their uncles and cousins who never came home from Guadalcanal or Inchon.

The Dirty Bird’s gone now, replaced with a furniture store or something equally forgettable. So’s the Trading Post, refinished with appropriately vinyl siding and turned into some business no one needs. But it once served as an assisted living facility for lost American dreams, and I prefer to remember it with an ill-fitting wig and a martini in each hand. Come up, sometime, and listen to my hi-fi, baby.

All in brand-new, glorious stereo.

art = photography + music

2010-06-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

A couple images from my recent artistic passion (all shots taken with a Canon G10)...

It may be ceremonial...

2010-06-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

...but it's weirdly moving. It will also make some of us feel awfully old.

Nothing Else Needs to be Said

2010-05-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

Goodnight to a Legend

2010-05-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it: I had such a crush on her when I was a kid. It wasn't until I became older that I came to admire and appreciate her and the barriers she broke, the burdens she carried. There was, and will only be, one Lena Horne.

Today, the world is just a little less glamourous.
Lena Horne, Singer and Actress, Dies at 92

So long...

2010-05-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

...Georgie Girl.

Lynn Redgrave Dead: Actress Dies At 67

No Words...

2010-05-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

...currently can adequately express my heart's turmoil over the Gulf oil spill. So, for now, I offer this.

S

Ah...screw it, man...

2010-04-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'm just gonna be sick.

Fuel smell wafts over New Orleans area

Reasons to be a Playwright, #457

2010-04-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

We all get bad reviews. Sometimes we get good reviews (you get to keep those forever). But once in awhile, you get stupid, shitbird reviews from stupid, shitbird reviewers who, basically, couldn't find their own balls in the dark without a flashlight. It's weirdly heartening to know playgods such as Sam Shepard aren't immune. I include the review of Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class" in total, just for the peek-through-the-fingers at the car crash value.

Dear Daily Californian, please fire this lame fucker.

Yours,

Steve

'Starving Class' Suffers From Lackluster Material
By Nick Moore

Few word pairings carry potential for horror like "community theater." They can connote offensively bad productions, fiascos on an epic scale. Take "Revolutionary Road," in which Richard Yates uses a failed community theater production to frame over 300 pages of violent marital unhappiness.

But typically, we associate community theater with modest mess-ups and comical delights derived from watching others attempt to produce something appealing despite the disadvantages of low budgets and inexperience.

"Curse of the Starving Class," the new Actors Ensemble of Berkeley production, did have some of those features. As the audience took its seats, an unidentified man clambered awkwardly onto the stage, delivering a disjointed monologue and brandishing a t-shirt like a bullfighter's muleta. For a moment it seemed like the play was beginning, but a few seconds clarified that he was actually only trying to sell Live Oak Theater t-shirts.

The irony here was that the production's biggest flaw laid not in a cheap set or amateurish acting (this production had neither), but in Sam Shepard's truly terrible script. Set somewhere in relatively rural California in the 1970s, it tells the story of a family that, justifiably it seems, believes it is cursed. Not in the paranormal sense, but in the impoverished, dysfunctional, father-is-a-drunk-who-can't-hold-down-a-job sense.

The father, Weston (Andy Shapiro), doesn't appear until the end of the first act, when he stumbles in through the gaping hole left by the missing front door, which he had previously destroyed in a drunken rage. He proceeds to tell his son Wesley (Thomas Arndt) about his plans to sell their shabby house and large lot, unaware that his wife is attempting to pull off the same scheme.

The father-son relationship is strained. Wesley's unconsciously expressive face is more telling then anything he says or does, and recalls the angsty protagonist from "Dazed and Confused." The father, who behaves more like a schizophrenic than a drunk, casts a fearful shadow even when he's offstage.

Though the pair is solid, some poorly written sequences simply can't be resuscitated. In one scene, the father gravely but loudly laments the poison that infects him, and warns his son that someday this poison will affect him too. The poison metaphor is really just embarrassing, especially considering the straight-faced delivery. If Shepard was aiming for satire, he's too obvious.

One of Shepard's more redeeming characters is the daughter (Sionne Tollefsrud), a witty counterpoint to her stubborn brother. Tollefsrud, whose age is frustratingly ambiguous, masters the posture of a perpetually exasperated tween.

The script's freely flying barbs necessitate the constant preservation of these aggressive poses. During the confrontation between the father and his equally conniving wife, each uses shouting and gestures as tools of intimidation, though neither succeeds. The scene devolves into an animated argument over property rights, which is amusing but also bemusing, because neither side seems to have even a basic knowledge of the relevant laws. It's evocative of a Coen brothers movie, with everyone vehemently invested in his or her plan without actually having any idea what they're doing.

Despite the tension, an inexplicable force keeps this dysfunctional family together. Trying to pinpoint it is difficult, but one of the play's better aspects is this mystery. The actors themselves seem uncertain, as though discovering the characters for themselves. Without slick production, the genuine effort of trying to act-especially with dialogue as overly exaggerated as Shepard's-really comes across. Enjoying the show takes effort, specifically the lowering of standards, but this collaborative effort seems implied in the word community.

Sean Flynn and Dana Stone Still Missing in Action

2010-04-27T08:36:00.001-07:00

Well, the forensics have been run, and it looks like the bones recently discovered in Cambodia were of "non-caucasian" origin. In other words, they were probably those of some of the one million people killed by the Khmer Rouge when Nixon and Kissinger had their Excellent Adventure in Cambodia.

Here's reality:

War reporters pay tribute to Cambodia lost

To Stone and Flynn--gents, goodnight and travel well.

S

Uh....

2010-04-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

I'm conflicted about this in so many ways that I can't count them. (Is it good? Is it bad? Is it cool? Is it lame? Good for theatre? A sign of the apocalypse?) So I just offer it up for your inspection. Good luck.

Co-presented by Tom Hulce. Somehow that part seems perfect.

Stomping Onto Broadway With a Punk Temper Tantrum

Darkness, Visible

2010-04-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

"In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words." -- William Styron --

Sign of the Times

2010-04-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

James Bond, downsized....

Next James Bond Film Suspended Indefinitely

Stone Oregon Genius

2010-04-13T10:28:00.001-07:00

Once in a while, we live up to our local motto.

Outcrazying The Crazy: How A Prankster Plans To Infiltrate And Destroy The Tea Party Movement

Rules, but of course, Meant to be Broken

2010-04-10T00:31:00.000-07:00

When I first started fooling around with guitar, I found myself disappointed with tone. I mean, I loved (and still love) my beat-up little Squier Strat, in all its Fiesta Red Korean funkiness, but I was playing it through the only amp I had, a very good Roland, but, still, a keyboard amp. At least I couldn't complain about it not being clean.

So I talked to the folks at Portland Music, and they steered me to a Digitech RP50, which was an awful lot of bang for the buck (thank you, Doug). It was only much later, when I'd invested in some more specialized pedals, that I began to realize both the RP50's versatility and limitations. It basically rolls a whole pedalboard into a compact unit and includes a drum machine.

My mistake was buying a used Boss DD-6 delay, and I suddenly fell in love with the wonders that are effects pedals. Though I could do some cool delays with the RP50, it was nothing like the wide range offered by the Boss, plus its wonderful clarity.

With time, I ended up buying probably more pedals than I needed, but, what the hell, they're relatively inexpensive used, and they're fun. But it kind of left the RP50 the odd man out. I still wanted to keep it in the chain as the drum machine come in handy, but where, exactly, should it go? I ended up putting it after the delay and before the reverb, so the delay wouldn't double or triple the drumbeats, but, as far as using it for guitar effects, it just added mud. I programmed one patch as neutral as possible, and pretty much left it there. (You can bypass it completely, but you can't use the drums in bypass.)

But...a month or so ago, we had a prematurely springy evening, so I sat out back with the guitar and the RP50, as you can run headphones through it, and it serves as kind of a mini-amp, and I was startled by how cool some of the settings sounded. Really sweet and clear. So I started moving it around in the chain, trying it here, there. Nothing worked, and I was still up against the delay screwing up the drums. And then, on a whim, I put it at the very end of the chain, right before the amp and in front of everything...and it sounded great. This makes no sense at all: common wisdom is that modulation effects, such as flangers and phasers, go before delays and reverbs...but...there it was. And, for some weird reason, it seems to actually enhance the clarity of the more specialized (and expensive) effects before it.

I have no explanation. Whatsoever. I'm just pleased. Maybe, being my first guitar add-on, the RP50 just needed some TLC and wanted to be back in the game. Whatever. It's where it's not supposed to be, and it sounds great. And, suddenly, it's like I just added ten new pedals to the chain.

The inner sound geek is happy. And the RP is home again.

Flynn

2010-04-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, the news broke big that a couple investigators may have found Sean Flynn’s remains in Cambodia. As quickly as the story arose, doubts began. Tim Page, Flynn’s close friend, expressed his doubts, backpedaling began, and conflicting reports arose. The bones are headed for a forensic laboratory. Perhaps we’ll have an answer. Perhaps not. Here’s a link to one of the better stories on the discovery (by the very talented journalist Tim King, who’s put in his own time in war zones):

Sean Flynn's Remains Possibly Found in Cambodia

It’s fitting somehow, this blurring, part of a story with so many reflections, fading memories, wishful thinking. What we do know is that in 1970, Sean Flynn, Errol Flynn’s son, was working as a photojournalist covering war in Cambodia along with fellow photojournalist Dana Stone. They sped down a road on red motorcycles, and they never came back. The rest is hearsay.

I learned about Flynn and Stone from Michael Herr’s brilliant book “Dispatches.” Years later, I had a sudden idea for a play juxtaposing Flynn’s story with the fall of Saigon. The result was a two-act drama, “Waiting on Sean Flynn” which went on to be produced in Chicago, Portland, Tampa, and Detroit. Though not readily apparent, the title was a play on “Waiting for Godot”; like Godot, Sean never returns.

Flynn’s sudden reappearance in the news has left me conflicted. I never knew the man—he disappeared when I was 10 years old—though I’ve spoken or corresponded with many who have known him. (And thanks again, to all of you, for sharing your time and stories.) But, in writing a play, you immerse yourself, creating a world in your head that feels, tastes, smells real, and it does you a strange kind of damage. You come out the other side changed. Some plays more than others.

“Waiting on Sean Flynn” was one of those plays. The world it created became so real to me that sometimes I pine for it. I find myself missing Flynn, which makes no sense at all, but the sense of loss and grief is real, a credit to the power of the imagination. Whatever I wrote is but a wisp of smoke compared to the accounts written by those who were there, such as Page, Herr, and Perry Deane Young, who wrote the very good “Two of the Missing.” Their Flynn breaks my heart, but it’s my Flynn that twists inside my chest when I see those familiar pictures of the handsome young guy in the boonie hat. That’s the trade-off you get for the gift of, for a moment, opening the doorway.

I hope the remains turn out to be Flynn’s or Stone’s, for the sake of their friends and family. But my Flynn will never be found. He’s forever riding that motorcycle down that road. He always disappears in a barrage of explosions and smoke.

And then the lights fade.

Happy Easter!

2010-03-31T13:57:00.001-07:00

Summing Up the Day

2010-03-30T15:54:00.001-07:00

Another Reason I Miss Being a Journalist

2010-03-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

Can't really blame the guy too much...you'd want to have a few drinks before attempting this. Those chest compressions aren't pretty.

Police: Drunk Pa. man tried to revive dead opossum
March 26, 2010 - 7:48pm

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) - Police say they charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway.

State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.

The Associated Press could not locate a home telephone number for Wolfe.

Attention Playwrights

2010-03-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

The nice folks at the Bloomington Playwrights Project asked me to post a notice announcing their call for scripts--you'd think they'd have better stuff to do than read gibberish like splattworks--but they were kind and charming and help playwrights...so here's the info (plus, kudos, there's no fee, and, if you win, you might get a chance to hang out with Craig Wright and pester him with Six Feet Under questions):

National Playwriting Contest

The Bloomington Playwrights Project is now accepting ten-minute play submissions pertaining to its AwareFest theme, “A Green World.” The BPP literary committee will narrow down the submissions to a list of 5 finalists. From those finalists the Producing Artistic Director will select the top 3 who will be acknowledged in the local newspaper and receive two complimentary tickets to the production (transportation is not provided). The 1st place winner will have their play produced in the festival alongside many prominent playwrights and receive a $100 prize. Currently negotiations are underway for the likely possibility that the winner’s
play will be professionally published as well. The winning playwright will also be invited to participate in the audience talkback which will take place after the first Saturday evening production.

The winning play will be produced alongside such nationally renowned playwrights as:
Craig Wright - Emmy nominee for Six Feet Under, Lost, Dirty Sexy Money, Brothers & Sisters, The Pavilion (ATCA Best New Play nominee)
Jon Marans - Pulitzer-Prize finalist for Old Wicked Songs, The Temperamentals (currently off-Broadway)
Wendy MacLeod - The House of Yes (starring Parker Posey), playwright in residence at Kenyon College
Israel Horovitz – Line (longest running off-off-Broadway play of all time), most produced American playwright in French theatre history, two-time OBIE winner
Michael Healey - Governor General’s Award for The Drawer Boy, Chalmers Award, multiple Dora Awards

Requirements: The play must be no longer than ten pages and have an environmental issue as a central theme. No more than 6 actors may be used. Although dealing with an important and weighty issue, the plays should aim to be entertaining and void of feeling like an educational video. Preference will be given to scripts that bring up valuable questions but do not preach solutions. Please feel free to pick any environmental issue you feel is pertinent. Some suggestions for topics are: Sustainable Living, Alternative/Renewable Energy Sources, Water Conservation, Carbon Footprints, Air Pollution, Recycling, Organizations, Kyoto Protocol, Green Vehicles, Wildlife Risks, Intensive Farming, Environmental Degradation, Nuclear Power, Resource Depletion.

The due date for submissions is May 14, 2010 by 5pm. The winning playwright must be
willing to make revisions and work on a second draft over the summer. Plays must be submitted via e-mail to Josie Gingrich, Literary Manager, at literarymanager@newplays.org by May 14. Please include a brief bio and full contact
information with your submission and mark clearly at the top of the script which environmental issue your play is about. No fee for submission. Maximum of 2 submissions per playwright.

www.newplays.org

And...

2010-03-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

...because we still can't live without snark: God bless Joe Biden. Just...just... just because. Take a listen to his eternally fresh command of the English language:

GO JOE! Heh heh. Wanker.

The Deed is Done

2010-03-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

For the many who have fought for health care reform so many years, especially for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and, personally, for my mom, Jean Patterson, who fought all her life for patients' rights, particularly those of our veterans, and would have been so proud if she could have been here to see this: savor this day.

And for those who oppose the bill, there's much work to be done for our future. Please step forward for the country where we agree and express yourself openly and with dignity where we do not, but let us work together.

Seeing history made is a moving and humbling experience.

Onward.

Alex Chilton, 1950-2010

2010-03-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Nuns to Bishop's Four, Check

2010-03-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting one. In the midst of the poltical strum und drang over health care reform, a group representing Catholic nuns (and, yes, there are other kinds) stepped forward to endorse Obama's legislation in defiance of the nation's Catholic bishops, who oppose the legislation saying it would open the door to taxpayers funding abortions. Sayeth the Sisters:

"Despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions. It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments — $250 million — in support of pregnant women," wrote the nuns, in a letter released by Network, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby. "This is the REAL pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it."

Health Bill Gains Ground with Weekend Vote Likely

The endorsement reflected a division within the church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposes the Senate-passed legislation, contending it would, in fact, permit the use of federal funds for elective abortions.

Ow. Could be a tense dinner at the rectory this evening. "Could you please ask Mother Superior to pass the boiled carrots?" "Mother Superior, Father James would like you to--" "Shut up, pinhead. I heard the old goat."

Hilarity ensues.

Chasing Tone

2010-03-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

Last night was "let's experiment." Rearranged some furniture so I could set the amp atop a table--read where it greatly improves the Vox's tone--and it did seem much more resonant. Also made it easier to get to the controls. Fooled around with a few settings I'd seen Voxheads post on the Net; a couple of them were worth writing down in my guitar notebook, which is filled with arcane notes about gain, level, and tone.

Found just a beautiful combination of reverb, chorus, slight overdrive, light delay, and the "Blackface" amp (emulates a Fender Twin Reverb). Perfect for the Epiphone and the blues, a haunting, shimmering American roadhouse sound that reminds me of Ry Cooder's "Paris, Texas" soundtrack. Just makes you want to slowly play chords unitl you drift away. You can almost hear the oil pumps clanking in the distance.

Got a little writing done too. Not a bad day in the Art Ghetto.

S

Hip Birds

2010-02-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

Sounds remarkably like Jandek.

Brain Dump

2010-02-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

I guess it's spring. I've been on one of those "sorting, throwing out, wondering what this thing is and why I have it" fire sales. Partly it's because I want to get back on the play submission routine, which usually consists of setting unrealistic expectations, then getting depressed when I can't live up to them and/or the rejections roll in. (And, yes, beginning writers: I've been at this for years and still get bounced all the time. There's no escape.)

Things have been on this sort of mad tilt-o-whirl ever since the beginning of the year, so this is just one of those, sweep it up and get it over with posts. "Everything's a dollar/In this box."

Fertile Ground...Portland's big new works theatre festival...came in like some kind of overwhelming force, flattening everything in front of it. At the same time, I was helping Playwrights West get up and rolling, which meant not only having a play read, but sending out press on the event, hurriedly getting a Web site up and rolling, producing programs, posters, photographs, etc. Concurrently, "The Rewrite Man" had a reading at Pulp Diction, so I found myself with two plays/events going up in the same week. It sounds exciting--and I guess it was--but it was also thoroughly exhausting. The Playwrights West gig went extremely well: we sold out, raised our profile nicely in the Portland theatre community, and had a solid, professional production that people seemed to enjoy. Now the heavy lifting begins: fundraising, business matters, and other such challenging fare. Stay tuned.

"The Rewrite Man"...well, it was pretty decently attended, given that it was 10:30 on a Tuesday night. The Pulp Diction people were terrific, and the cast and crew did a spirited production of the play. As to the work itself, ironically enough, it needs a rewrite, and I found myself getting kind of unwound by it. Nothing to do with the production: it's just that a lot of work went into plotting and figuring out angles--the play is almost entirely a series of bank shots that attempt to top each other. Somewhere in there, I kind of feel like I lost the heart: I began to feel like I was watching some kind of game instead of a play. Plus there was a bunch of stuff that needs to be cut, simply places where I repeated myself and where the gambits didn't live up to what I was shooting for. I love bending the audience's collective mind, but I think my talent for that lies more in surrealism. Anyway, vaguely unsatisfied by the whole thing, and I think "The Rewrite Man" goes into a drawer for awhile. Thinking about it reminds me of a still lake under overcast skies.

Rushed to finished a rewrite of "Farmhouse," which is another mindbender that I've found altogether more satisfying. Right now is kind of one of those waiting periods, where you know there's stuff out there being considered, and you know theatres are soon announcing their seasons, and that means you will, mostly likely, be disappointed. It's the way the game goes. Sometimes you're surprised, which is more or less why we keep at this stuff.

Everybody I know is hellishly busy, and it's hard to get together with friends. The whole politics/economy/employment/staying alive/keeping projects in the air scene seems to be draining folks. I've found myself missing friends of late and trying not to take their silence personal. (And, if it is personal, honestly, there's not much I can do about it.) The zeitgeist seems to be churning, a little chaotic, with flashes of hope mixed in with the change blenderizer. I think we're all ready for winter to end.

The Day Job: busy. Very.

The guitar continues to be huge fun, partly because it doesn't mean anything. When you've been a professional artist for most of your adult life, it's really, really nice to have an art that you can just plain suck at and have a kick with. Last night, I spent the evening cranking the distortion and volume to insane levels and absurdly working over the Strat's tremelo arm and wah-wah pedal into psychdelic blather. Awful, awful, awful. And just fun as hell. Attempting to resist the pulls of effects pedals: at this point, I can pretty much make any guitar sound I can imagine, and a lot I don't want to imagine, but they still have this...weird...hypnotic...power. What would happen if I bought this and plugged it into...this?

And, if I do decide to write about guitar, I don't feel like it'll take away from the forget-the-world freedom it brings: playing guitar has become a fine kind of meditation.

I have to finish some monologues I promised for a friend, and then I have to get the ball rolling for a workshop production of a play and the rewrite that'll require. Other than that and researching the book, I'm kind of blissfully free from writing at the moment. Having written three full-length plays in two years, I feel like I'm due a breather. And then some other stupid idea will come along, and off we go.

So that's what I've been doing. Well. That's wasn't too bad. Time to be domestic, throw the laundry in, and maybe go futz around in the garden, because the plants are waiting for me. The fruit trees are blooming. The daphne is in full flower and spreading its incredible scent across the patio, and new leaves are unfurling among the oriental poppies, sedums, and so many more. I attempted to sit down with a gardening magazine the other day, but it's still too early. But, soon enough, Portland Nursery will be calling my name, and I'll find the car driving itself there. And there won't a thing I can do to stop it.

And just because I can, a shout out to my friends: I love you crazy bastards. Here's to better days.

Midnight Lightning

2010-02-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

In doing research for my super secret special guitar writing project, which I may or may not get around to talking about at some point (depending how it goes), I’ve been reading Crosstown Traffic, Charles Shaar Murray’s rather good book on Jimi Hendrix. Writing about guitar without spending time with Jimi makes as much sense as writing about the blues without listening to Robert Johnson.

And, of course, it’s impossible to even think about Hendrix without a certain overhanging grief, tortured by what-might-have-beens. It’s like imagining what would have happened if Dylan really had died in his post-Blonde on Blonde motorcycle accident (to some people, he did). Sure, we’d have been spared Down in the Groove or Empire Burlesque, but we’d also never have had Blood on the Tracks, The Basement Tapes, his fantastic resurgence since Time Out of Mind, or, for that matter, John Wesley Hardin and, consequently, Jimi, All Along the Watchtower.

On the other hand, we were spared watching hard living wreck Hendrix or seeing him end up playing Purple Haze at state fairs, but, assuming he’d kept it together, one can’t wonder where Hendrix would have taken us with today’s technology. Jimi Hendrix recording with a Parker Dragonfly, a Mesa Boogie Mark V, Pro Tools, and a still inquisitive mind.

Look far enough west, and you come up 'round the east again.

“Maybe creativity will become fashionable again.”
--Adrian Belew--

Blog Status

2010-02-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Too much work, not enough time. I'll shoot for next week.

Thanks for your patience readers,

Steve

Now THIS...

2010-01-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

...this is a political attack ad. Mind, it's Louisiana politics--particularly New Orleans--and the rest of the country's still toddling around in diapers compared to these folks.

behold...and tremble.

And Then There's Crazy

2010-01-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

Play readings are very seldom reviewed--they usually only happen once, so there's no "consumer reporting" to be had ("go," "don't go," "I don't care if you go 'cause I had a few drinks before I saw this and I can't remember what happens"). Which is good because you're generally presenting a reading to test what works and what doesn't. But "The Rewrite Man"-- presented by Pulp Diction on Tuesday as part of the Portland Fertile Ground New Works Festival--actually snagged a mini-review by the Willamette Week. They dubbed it "occasionally mystifying"--which, given that it's meant to be occasionally mystifying, I'll keep...whether they meant it the way I intended or not.

And if I haven't said it already, many thanks to Matt Haynes, Brian Allard, the splendid cast, and all the crew at the Pulp Diction. You guys did a great job.

Pulp Diction Presents: The Rewrite Man
Everyone has something to hide in this occasionally mystifying reading of a new spy thriller, written by Oregon Book Award winner Steve Patterson and delivered with a splash of neo-noir. “There’s cloak and dagger, and then there’s crazy,” announces WWII vet Frank Anderson (Brian Allard, director) to the intelligence officer tailing him (played by Andrew Bray), accurately summarizing the essence of this piece, in which Anderson attempts to grapple with his loss of wartime memory and wariness of all fellow characters. The trusty bartender Leo (Beau Brousseau) suddenly seems not so trustworthy, therapist Dr. Miles (Megan Murphy Ruckman) appears to have some shady advice, and mystery woman Wanda (Erin Shannon) couldn’t possibly be up to any good in a drama that ends with a flustered Frank accusing each character of ulterior motives in a doubt-filled, gun-pointing frenzy. Before and after the reading, alluring drag queen Phaedra Knight graced the stage, delivering witty quips and lip-synching Ani Difranco’s “Overlap”. This was one of a handful of unique particulars, the intimate nature of the Brody Theater (and the fact that it has a bar) being another, that serve as additional incentive to return for the subsequent showings of this week’s Pulp Diction late night series. Matt Haynes’ “The Night I Died,” an adventurous piece directed by Paul Angelo, will be showing Wednesday. “The Go-Girls,” written by Anna Sahlstrom and directed by Micki Selvitella, will be performed in anticipated hilarity on Thursday. The Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway., 224-2227. 10:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Jan. 27-28. $15.

'Night, Don

2010-01-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

You probably didn't know him. But you should have. And I did. He was my boss back in New York days, maybe the best I've ever had. He was a gentleman of fine Scotch and cigars, and better stories than anybody. He loved writers and the difficult business of writing. He was an original's original. And I let him down, to my everlasting regret.

Travel well, sir. And thank you.

Don Congdon, Longtime Literary Agent for Ray Bradbury, Dies at 91

December 4, 2009

Don Congdon, a literary agent who spotted the talent of Ray Bradbury early in both their careers and whose long list of celebrated authors also included William Styron, Jack Finney, Evan S. Connell, William L. Shirer and David Sedaris, died on Monday at his home in Brooklyn Heights. He was 91. The death was confirmed by his son, Michael.

Mr. Congdon, who started out as a messenger at a small New York agency, developed an enviable reputation as a skilled editor, tough negotiator and shrewd judge of talent. While still a young editor at Simon & Schuster, he tuned in to the early stories of Ray Bradbury, who became one of his first clients after he set up as a full-time literary agent in 1947.

In 1966 he caused a stir in the publishing world, and precipitated a celebrated lawsuit by Jacqueline Kennedy, when, after spirited bargaining, he sold Look magazine the serial rights to “The Death of a President,” William Manchester’s study of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, for more than $600,000.

The sum, staggering for the time, added to Mrs. Kennedy’s fears that the book would bring unwanted publicity to her family and delve too deeply into personal matters. She filed suit against Mr. Manchester, Look and Harper & Row, the book’s publisher, for breach of contract and sought an injunction to halt publication. After negotiating with Look and Harper & Row for changes in the magazine excerpts and the book, Mrs. Kennedy dropped her suit.

Donald Keith Congdon was born on Jan. 7, 1918, in Crawford, Pa. His father was a railroad worker and his mother ran the family’s boardinghouse, which the bank seized during the Depression.

With $8 in his pocket, Mr. Congdon moved to New York in 1935, when he was just out of high school, and found work with the Lurton Blassingame Literary Agency, where he delivered manuscripts to publishers in Midtown, picking up the rejects on return trips. By 1940 he was secretary to Mr. Blassingame, and had begun building his own list of authors.

In 1944 an editor at Collier’s, impressed by the editing Mr. Congdon had done on several stories the magazine had bought, hired him as an associate fiction editor. A year and a half later he was hired by Simon & Schuster as an editor for its Venture Press, recently established to introduce new writers and published writers whose work had been neglected.

In 1947 Mr. Congdon joined the Harold Matson agency, where he got off to a flying start by signing Mr. Bradbury. He went on to represent Mr. Bradbury for more than a half-century.

“I married Don Congdon the same month I married my wife,” Mr. Bradbury said in a speech to the National Book Foundation in 2000. “So I had 53 years of being spoiled by my wife and by Don Congdon. We’ve never had a fight or an argument during that time because he’s always been out on the road ahead of me clearing away the dragons and the monsters and the fakes.” Mr. Bradbury dedicated his novel “Fahrenheit 451” to Mr. Congdon.

In 1983 Mr. Congdon started his own agency, Don Congdon Associates, which is now run by his son, Michael.

In addition to Michael, who lives in Brooklyn, he is survived by a sister, Dorothy Glenn of Erie, Pa.; a daughter, Wendy Stanton of Greenwich, Conn.; and six grandchildren.

Besides representing his clients, Mr. Congdon edited many serious paperback anthologies of mystery and horror stories, tales of romance and war reporting. These included “The Wild Sweet Wine: Superb Stories of Sensual Love” (1958), “Stories for the Dead of Night” (1957) and “Combat: Pacific Theater, World War II” (1959).

Paging Franny and Zooey...please meet your party at the gate....

2010-01-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

J. D. Salinger, Enigmatic Author, Dies at 91

2010-01-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

Tonight....

The Rewrite Man

written by Steve Patterson
directed by Brian Allard

Frank Anderson is a rewrite editor for a wire service in 1953 San Francisco. A former WWII vet who worked as an armorer, he has nearly a two-year gap in his memory that haunts him. A trail of intrigue, spying, and the difficulty of discerning the real from the imagined, all churned together in 1950s paranoia, is set in motion when a femme fatale enlists Frank's help finding her cousin, and an "army buddy" of Frank's shows up---of whom Frank has no recollection. Is anyone, including Frank's bartender or his shrink, who they say they are? Is Frank who he thinks he is? When people start get tailed and guns start showing up, who can Frank trust? Ian Fleming meets Phillip K. Dick in this thriller that is sure to leave you checking over your shoulder on the way home.

Flashback: 2007

2010-01-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

So what does it feel like to sell the place you grew up?

Where you woke up morning after morning, wondering what the day held? Where you fell asleep to Christmas lights flashing outside your window? Where you sat in the red pickup truck, rain spattering the windshield, until "Witchita Lineman" faded from the radio? Where you wandered beneath a summer Milky Way so close you could reach and touch it? Where your father shouted "Come right here! Watch this!" and you rushed in to watch helicopters fall from the decks of U.S. aircraft carriers off of Saigon? Where you and your mother laughed about politics on early mornings as the coffee kicked in? Where you whacked tennis balls for your favorite dog to chase? Where he and your other pets are buried? Where you sat outside on a cold night, alone and in total silence, smoking a cigar and feeling the ghosts whisper past?

A place that now only exists in photographs?

Something like this. Times ten. On acid.

Genius

2010-01-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

Bobby Charles, 1938-2010...

2010-01-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

See you later, alligator.

RIP Bobby Charles: Americana Legend

Giving to Haiti

2010-01-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

There are a number of avenues available to donate aid to Haiti; the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders are two of the best. But you can also go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a bipartisan effort brokered by President Obama and administered by former presidents Clinton and Bush. Here's info on the fund:

The earthquake that rocked the coast of Haiti killed or injured a devastating number of people. Even more were left in need of aid, making this is one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas. In the aftermath of the disaster, President Barack Obama asked President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush to raise funds for immediate relief and long-term recovery efforts to help those who are most in need of food, water, shelter, medical care, and support. In response, the two Presidents established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (CBHF) to identify and fulfill unmet needs in the region, foster economic opportunity, improve the quality of life of those affected over the long term, and assist the people of Haiti as they rebuild their lives and country. Presidents Clinton and Bush oversee the CBHF through their respective nonprofit organizations, the William J. Clinton Foundation and Communities Foundation of Texas. One hundred percent of the donations made to the Clinton Foundation go directly to relief efforts. Ninety-nine percent of the donations made to the Communities Foundation of Texas go directly to relief efforts.

And you can go to their page here:

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

Steve

At the risk of whining...

2010-01-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

...these are the kinds of attitudes playwrights are up against:

'Outrageous Fortune': Playwright book full of whine and din

Please say this with me, in your best Neil Young impression: "All we want is to be paid enough to able to write at least part-time. We don't even care about health insurance or retirement."

I know. It's disgusting of us to say such things. I hereby apologize for all playwrights everywhere and for all time.

P.S.: No insult intended to Mr. Young, whose work I very much enjoy.

P.P.S: No insult intended, either, to all critics, some of whose work I very much enjoy.