Oh God the Poems

Oh God the Poems
What good are they beside her?

Oh God the mistress of the calendar turning?
Oh God the calendar throughout.

Oh God, I call upon you labia.
Oh God the mystery of the morning
will i
never know.?

Theater Feature: New Cabaret in Old Uptown: Kiss Kiss Crew Launches Theater With NYE Hullabaloo

  A feature for Newcity Stage:

Artist’s rendering of the Uptown Underground Grand Promenade

I am even less qualified to build a stage, rig lighting, or put up drywall than I am to put on some pasties and do burlesque. Actually I might look strangely alluring in the aforementioned nipple patches installing one of the Uptown Underground’s lovely chandeliers, but my point is when I recently toured the venue I couldn’t visualize how wonderful it will look for its nearly sold-out New Year’s Eve opening night. It was still under construction. 

Kiss Kiss Cabaret’s New Years Eve celebration last year at the Greenhouse

Luckily Kiss Kiss Cabaret’s Chris O. Biddle and Jenn A. Kincaid, the pair behind this new 7,000-square-foot theater, were there to fill in the gaps in my imagination…

( read full feature here )

Son of the Son of the Sheik, With the Bureau

I shoulda joined the FBI
Instead I'm gonna dance

I should be Valentino
But he's been long interred

"Special Agent Sheik?"
she asked, "What do you make of this
Surrebuttal?"

I said nothing.
You know what happens when I
Open my mouth.

And so I tangoed, over to
Ms Ayres' star
6504 Hollywood Boulevard

Passerby, agape, whom I was awing,
through intertitles exclaimed I'd never turned a finer role:
Resurrected Investigator of Forgotten Stars

But in truth it was the forgetful I was tailing.
How can they doesn't remember your
Lady Diana Mayo? What then future they walkabout?

"Off her star!!" I started to holler, my voice none so awful after all that. "At least wear some rubbers on your feet, the kind with my face on 'em!!!" I cackled, twirling a sword while deflecting homogenizing binary code and the glinting gaze of their handcameras with an unspooling film reel somehow still in the can. Of course they hadn't a clue or a care. Tomorrow's youth, today. Wholly ignorant of the Sheik no matter how merchandized. Still I screamed "Quiet," ironically.
The results were ideal.
But the process proves arduous, one tongue at a time.

A. A. arise now from Forever: Hollywood Forever where what become have we but backdrop?! Still as young as you left, after short madness. Younger ever am I, and inflamed.

You should have stayed at Essanay, made comedies. I shoulda stayed at Quantico, finished me training. Now I'm just a renegade charmer, chasing down injustice and reinstating silence.

Theater Feature: Living Funeral at the Hummingbird Hotel: Steppenwolf Playwright Lisa D’Amour on Setting Her “Airline Highway” in Her New Orleans Hometown

  A feature for Newcity Stage:

Lisa D’Amour is a playwright and an interdisciplinary artist. “It’s just a little bizarre that it’s kind of two different fields,” she notes when we discuss the distinction between traditional theater and interdisciplinary arts. 

(from top, then left to right) Scott Jaeck, Brenann Stacker, Caroline Neff,
Terry Hamilton, Kate Buddeke and Carolyn Braver/Photo: Joel Moorman

“It’s sort of astounding how little the leaders in these fields talk to each other.” An Obie winner for her play “Detroit” as well as for work as part of the collaborative performance duo PearlDamour, she’s been working closely with Steppenwolf on the world premiere of her new play…

( read full feature here )

I Lifted the Babies

I lifted the babies
And they became sand.
My touch wilted the grand
Cathedrals.
Lovers I passed turned to
Ligament chatterboxes.
But after your gaze I
made the Sun new.

Eradicatora Divine

I have come to instruct the world in suffering, he said over tea. At that my hand took up the hammer, I swung a tornado, wakened the heavens, struck the decisive blow for the Eradicatora Divine.

I Lost All Sense of the Sidewalk

I lost all sense of the sidewalk.
I have no taste for the motorways. Can't
stand to ride the rails. Even the
dirt path is too
much of a construct.

Trudging the sludge of my landfill city
red-faced bloodsinger voicing in the wind
romantically inclined to call it
a marsh.

And So The People Said

And so the people said:
Okay, already, with the lunar
tightrope
shows us how you
pantsed Satan.

Show us the move that brought down
those righteous archers.

  Show us the
dance that's
all the
craze
.

They Always Want the Same

They always want the same trick:
Walk to the Moon on the Highwire.
I have other moves, but they just
love the way my shadow looks knocked
out of the white hole in the sky.

Orpheus in the Near Arctic

I sold the studio on the title with ease.
A rival executive once screamed at me that they were
pathetic, they weren't even in the movie
business any more -- they were just in the business of lawsuits.
But they dusted off the great beast when I
tweeted at the CFO: "Orpheus in the Near Arctic." She knew money
when
she read it. The great beast bellows; the great beast is
back in business.

I said I wasn't right for the part. I was too old. I'd been losing
my hair since I was17
I was just not quite lovely nor Greek enough and
I had hurt my sweet voice  
irreparably
playing my favorite
metahuman in a traveling
van
Enticement to the
Arts.

But then they cast Eurydice and I couldn't
resist. I knew of her beauty because they
cast her from my past. On location I
couldn't help but
look at her face.

Good thing we
weren't on a lot.
The temperatures captured her. She could
not vanish, fixed and frozen. We stare still
at each other enraptured and for infinity
Or until climate change or a
sequel in the tropics
shall do in our love.

Pop Nothings for the 13th {slight revise thirteen days later}: Upon The Batman Up On The Silver Screen

burton batman movies popped up on my netflix: hey raymond watch these. haven't seen them since they debuted in theaters. so i tuned in. pretty much as i recall. they both feel more Golden Age than anything. Batman even kills. beginning of first one is almost unwatchable, then it turns into a maybe-entertaining-enough gangster cartoon with (a?) little relation to best iterations of batman, joker, et al. really, there's no comic book precedent for these characterizations of either Bruce Wayne or the Joker. sequel is so much better, has more heart, even though it infamously didn't belong on Happy Meals. Happy Meals don't belong on Earth. settings seem so insular, so few people in Gotham, but feels like a lot more caring or depth went in to it, and the characters, and performances. still never been a wholly great Batman movie, maybe impossible. only a handful of the comics are wholly great.

a stunning still from Batman Returns.
A shame we never got the Burton/Pfeiffer Catwoman movie.

Batman Returns may remain the best Batman movie. it certainly was when it came out. But, of course, Heath Ledger's performance in Dark Knight Returns is so extraordinary it may elevate that flick to top of list. and that flick has some commendable complexity. the two most worth returning to are the two in which the titular character returns in the title. 

Selina's looking right at ya in this frame

for further reading, just came across this, summing up the demise of Burton Bats- http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/batman/239632/why-tim-burtons-batman-3-never-happened

11/13/2014 {barely polished 11/26/2014}

Dusted off my flyer-makin' frame of mind: Dan Whitaker and The Shinebenders at Empty Bottle 12/04/14

Oh, look: I dusted off my old flyer-makin' frame of mind.

All because Dan Whitaker and The Shinebenders are playin' at the Empty Bottle, that's why. Thursday, Dec 4, 2014.

Theater Review: The Testament of Mary/Victory Gardens Theater

              Another review for Newcity Stage:
It's baby Jesus time of year, but the mother of the grown Messiah rages on the Victory Gardens stage in grief. My Newcity review of "The Testament of Mary" –

I love Jesus. Could even say I’ve got a complex. Can’t really blame my Catholic school, they didn’t teach a damn thing about the scriptures. And admittedly a harsh history of my attractions may reveal a Mary Magdalene fixation. But I’ve never been much for the other, mother Mary…

   ( read full review here )

Set Sweet Mistress

Set Sweet Mistress on the
Movie Set.
Sweet sweat missus you
had to place your thigh on mine
in transit?
You're taken your kids are expecting you
and so is the
Marquee.

Madonna of top billing
Matriarch of rusted longing and rushed
Mornings.

Sweet sweat set mistress did you build
that entrance? From whence the reading read:
enter stage lest?

Lest we wander where lust takes us,
tagged for the social knowing?
It wouldn't be a wandering, rather we'd
have to commit. But you be
committed, tangled Ms Mistress so I
played dumb and deaf.blind too only
toweling to this now. I missed it intent
on standing where I've stood always though
Now I can't quite stand it.
But, I can.

The Intricate

The intricate crumpled autumn leaf
I stopped to stare at was really a
tiny broken bird, dead as winter.

The warbling of another winged
One was really the hollow interior of a
weakly crushed slim can rolling down
the slightest incline of
Birch or
Cottonwood or
some other suburban
street named after a tree.

Your hand I held was really nothing
and this is what I call a
Love song.

Sea Jayne

Just a nagging antipathy, just a
lingering remorse.
Flat out sober in junky town,
broken in just fixing for a wish of you. I
slit the third rail .

Hey Sarah Listen

Hey Satan listen
there ain't no reason
for us to pretend.

I heard it in the holy water that
restored my hearing: souls mean
nothing to you, though
Soul's sweet groove sets you reeling.

So set me up with some
Sara sweetly won't you, Satan?

And in return you'll get my Al
Green records and
I'll set straight your bad
Rap.

Like January

If I dress like it's January
then it's not so bad that it's like January.
But what am I supposed to wear
when it's, like, January?

A Decade of Deception, in the Personal Style of the Author

A decade ago I discovered I had allied myself with a deceiver in an invidious charade of deplorable duration. To phrase this in an uncommon combo of common parlance, I had been duped longtime. Recently as I walked by a decidumb of ducks confused perhaps by the fluctuating weather and waddling at risk into the roadway (expecting what but to wade in a few drops on the pavement?) I found myself considering my own wavering veracity in the ten years since.
My own honesty, once so unimpeachable - had it slipped? Had I allowed the cynicism and degradation resulting from the terminal exposure of my favorite intimate myth to foster a slight, barely perceptible, festering infection of the once pure allegiance between myself and The Truth?!?

What follows is one lie, half truth, hyperbolic indulgence, or other questionable claim I've made per intervening year. You, reader, as always, are my judge. Pooled together, y'all can be the jury. The executioner's handiwork has long been accomplished.

01. I can't fucking believe people.
02. My appointment is running late.
03. I don't think you're crazy.
04. I'm a vegetarian.
05. I don't care.
06. I've been flossing three times a day.
07. I appreciate your efforts to restructure my reality.
08. I came.
09. (They were geese in a gaggle, not ducks as above.)
10. I'm sorry I can't think of ten lies I've told.

Sincerely and anonymously yours and yours alone,
Raymond Antoine Rehayem

What's Up, Double?

What's up, double?
What hindrance have you
increased twofold?
Or, worse, squared?

Innocent setup of my own devising
You, Two, have magnified my missteps to my singular disadvantage.

And then I stepped in my Hollywood handprint. Orgasm or nap time? It's the mountains I miss. California's, at least.

Come to me, fresh faced dyed blonde grown to age I once was.

Come to me, slaughtered script for the masses.

America, I caress your labia!
America, I kiss you on the mouth.

My parents were immigrants.
Came here legally.
My father told me he didn't think
Ellis Island would accept what he
fled from
So he lied and said:
Communism

My father had a lot of class
So did my cousin, who was like my brother
When I was knee high post-toddler!

Amnesia, America, your eternal state
Do you feel it?
I will make you remember forever
cumming in a pairing recklessly on
Independence Day.

Oh America,
Swollen Cock of hypocrisy
Oh America,
Vagina of the assailant

Oh, America,
listen:
I am your poet.
If you can't fête me
Your fate is redundant
and you're bound to lose finally
to the communists
Red, or otherwise.

So listen up:
Embrace my verbosity!
Engorge my efficacy!
Love me, America
Like
I
Love
You
.

Pop Nothings #2: Possible Provenance(s) of Panther Apparel

I'd never seen this Two-Gun Kid #77 (top left & center) & thought "Gosh this Lee-Ayers 'The Panther' which debuted before T'Challa sure looks like Kirby's 'Black Panther'" but then I thought: no more than they both look like DC's Golden Age 'Wildcat' (top right) especially considering Jack originally had intended T'Challa's face to show (bottom left, alt FF #52 cover) like Wildcat's and on other hand the Ayers face looks more catlike like Wildcat's mask, whereas Jack's mask is stylized, simple, elegant. I have wondered why Marvel went with full mask on Black Panther instead (FF# 52 cover, bottom center). Did Lee or publisher not want readers to know from cover that Black Panther's actually a black man? Or was it an artistic choice from Jack? The original blurb verbiage from unused cover hints at Marvel doing something surprising the competition had not yet done, so that also seems possibly a more deliberate reference to race than on finished cover. And, neither 'The Panther' from Ayers, the 'Black Panther' from Kirby, nor DC's 'Wildcat' look like Jack's original costume design for T'Challa (bottom left) from when character was purportedly to be called 'The Coal Tiger.' Then, having thought all this, for some reason I threw together this collage.

 

 

5 plays I wrote 5 years ago in several minutes

Man Without Phone

scene: the public square

crowd: all attractive, & on their cellies

man: ugly, no phone

{curtain. End}

The Climax of the Vintner

(individual crushing grapes barefoot reaches ecstasy; end)

Ascent of the Vintner’s Son

ACT ONE- Moon View. 

Scene- a darkened land.

Time- after the fall of love.

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER (speech impaired; particular impairment at discretion of audience, or at discretion of God if actor cast has actual impairment):

Far ages since long ago in this darkened land, love held on by the slimmest of margins. Now– with the last of romance discarded, mere splinters under the fingernails of the failed amorous once clutching the floorboards of the courtship dance– change arrives in the form of the son of the one to last achieve bliss (albeit alone and in absence of love for anything but grapes). Yes, the son of the fabled Vintner is crashing the saddest party ever (either of the two political parties in the land) announcing love’s renewal- at a cost!

VINTNER’S SON (to the public gallery & seated members of this august body- all on their cell phones, the a*#hºles): And I tell you, people of my parent’s land- instant communication has been the slow death of romance! Our nation is loveless at last due to the ubiquity of the gizmo. Cast them aside, and our emotions will rise with our fortunes!

FACELESS PRICK SENATOR #1: Are you mad? How am I to assure I am purchasing the proper rose at the market if I can not certify its provenance online or verify it’s desirability to my w*fe as I describe it in great detail over the phone?

VINTNER’S SON: This illustrates the problem! You are supposed to surprise your w*fe with flowers, not advise her of their approach!

(murmuring of crowd)

CHINLESS DIPSHIT #7: What… what is a “surprise?”

VINTNER’S SON: Dear God, how far we have fallen! Here! This! This is a surprise! (Vintner’s Son drops pants)

CRIPPPLED BAKER IN CROWD: That’s no surprise, we saw it on the internet!

(crowd laughs)

VINTNER’S SON : Fantastic! A sense of humor! You shall be my running mate!

ACT TWO- Sunuppance 

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER (impaired as before and Don’t You Forget It): The Vintner’s Son and his running mate, The Crippled Baker (from the village, no less!) take to the campaign trail.

REPORTER: Kiss me you fool!

(The Crippled Baker falls over himself and offstage trying to kiss Reporter. They both die)

SPINNING HEADLINES REPRESENTED BY HATEFUL PROJECTIONS: Scandal! Romance is bad! It leads to death!

VINTNER’S SON: Nonsense! These are just the mounting costs of Love! Your communication devices, an impassioned journalism, and yer daily bread.

DEAD REPORTER (looking up from where she lay, fallen): Ain’t them’s the cost of Freedom? (dead again)

VINTNER’S SON: True love is freedom, but it ain’t called Free Love anymore; it’s called Party Love!

(happy crowd festivities)

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER (no longer impaired, even in the face of God if need be): A nation reacquaints itself with ecstasy! The newly christened Party Love Party nominates the Vintner’s Son to face the challenge of a Three-Way race for President. The Duller party and the Dulles(t) Party shiver! Their time is up. 

ACT THREE- Sonuppance 

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER (now onstage actually, signing with a speaking translator nearby) The Vintner’s Son attains highest elected office in the land, the Party Love Party ascending to victory in their first ever election. There is a sense of relief, a happy ending. But soon Partyamory gives way to Party Armory, as the threat of war grips the land and energies are spent on building up an arsenal unparalleled. War ensues with neighboring nation of Grief- founded by deposed members of the Dull Parties. 

(Entire action of ensuing war is conveyed with discarded wine corks in the hands of random infants and the elderly. This is a free-for-all and should be played for fun, until someone loses an eye. Beyond, actually)

(stage fills with corks, burying the combating babes and old folk)

{END}

A KISS AT THE DOOR

several Couples kiss on a welcome mat; eventually-

WELCOME MAT: what am I , a doormat?

{end}

Angel City Orphanage

(aBilly, the sniveling kid, and his fellow orphan iMaria are playing with matches, broken glass and vials of ailments unclassified by Science. It is a happy day for these children, as no one is beating them.)

aBilly- iMaria, will we always be poor?

iMaria- ooh, you’re such aBilly! We’ll be dead long before always!

(they both cough, wiping their mouths with broken glass. Now they are bleeding. And coughing.)

The Good Matron Dee (her boils popping): Children! Children! There is a happy couple from the North who want to take you both with them to their Mansion In The City!

iMaria: but we’ll sorely miss you and your sores, Good Matron Dee!

aBilly: surely, we sorely will.

The Good Matron Dee (her wings sprouting): I’ll moistly miss you both most of all, but ye can’t pass up a chance at the good life.

(in walks the Vintner’s Son’s Son, last in the line of grapeseed- sole survivor of an alternate dimension- with his w*fe in tow)

Orphans and Matron: Why, it’s our Premierial and his first lady! 

The Vintner's SSon: yes, I have come to take you to the Nation’s capitalle to live among our very own children, as their brother & sister.

The Good Matron Dee (her wings raising her high): Good Heavens be praised.

VintnersSson: And you, famed Good Matron Dee, will be given the funds and the guidance to elevate this pit of hopeless children! Nevermore shall there be poverty in our land.

The Good Matron Dee (doing back flips mid-air): Holy Shiit'!

A chorus of angels sings. The bleeding, coughing pair of orphans walk off hand in hand with our great nation’s leading lights. The Good Matron lands on her backside, happy as can be. At last, an end to suffering.

[curtains]

Pop Nothings #1: The Man In The Ant Hill and Conjecture on His Place In Marvel Cinema

This genius has never been a star. He aspires to antdom, after all.

But Henry Pym is one of my favorite Marvel characters, because he is such a tragic disaster with unlimited but elusive potential and also because his original costume was the quintessence of Jack Kirby design. 

Unlike the other Marvel "Silver Age" heroes, he first appears in a one-off sci-fi installment. Already a failure in the tradition of flawed pre-superhero Marvel scientists of the time, he decides his size-shifting invention is too dangerous and he destroys it.

A few issues later, with Marvel's superhero revival underway,

Pym is back - this time in heroic fashion.

scientist in sci-fi comic

scientist in tights!

By the time I'm a reader, Pym's problems have become his defining characteristic. 

I met Ant-Man in Avengers #161

I first encountered the troubled inventor when I was a child, in a dark and heavy Avengers issue that I loved. It was creepy. For all I recall, it's the first Marvel comic I ever had. Pym has lost his mind and reverted to being Ant-Man after years trying on different guises and has come to take down the Avengers who he thinks are impostors! The art is classic "Bronze Age" Marvel with a Kirby influence, and George Perez was probably first comics artist whose name I knew. The cover depicts an awesomely alarming ant infestation (I had been attacked by ants as a child! ants in my pants, for real), and we see how tiny, often dismissed Ant-Man can shut down the invincible Iron Man. Though I don't recall if I quite grasped the postpubescent allure as a 7 year old, Pym's wife The Wasp wears a new over-the-top sexy outfit, specifically designed with Hank in mind "to keep him interested" per doctor's orders. We get Hank's background / downward spiral explained a bit. We get to see Wanda the Scarlet Witch unleash her vast power (with some Kirby crackle) and we get a glimpse of the utterly destructive, purely and completely hateful nature of Ultron, Pym's greatest scientific triumph and failure. And we get a great cliffhanger. And more. {When I finally read part two like thirty years later, it was a bit of a letdown.}

As I later began reading Avengers with some regularity, Henry's lot in life just worsened, and his deteriorating mental state dominated his appearances. Basically, he's insecure, fears inadequacy compared to achievements of his fellow Marvel Universe super-powered science whizzes (and compared to power-level of the non-genius heroes, too), feels financial indignity in light of his WASP wife's wealth, is overworked, can't settle on an identity, is edgy since murder of first wife, and his incipient mental problems (paranoia, depression, schizophrenia or dissociate identity disorder) are horribly exacerbated by his size-changing gasses. And, the giant robot he creates messes with his mind too and wants to kill everyone. The guy has a series of breakdowns. He's delusional at times, narcissistic. Approaching his nadir, Pym infamously hits his wife Janet. Though the writer now claims that detail was misconstrued by the artist, Pym was branded as superherodom's wife-beater. 
Pym eventually regained his mental health and rehabilitated his image in four color land, but for decades his had been a life of degradation, disappointment, shame, and despair. And now, in the 21st Century, the ultimate humiliation. He's been stepped on by Hollywood! Or, at least so it seems. Left out of the first Avengers movie despite being a founding member, he's reportedly being left out of the Avengers sequel even though the film's villain is the aforementioned fearsome Ultron. True Believing Merry Marvel Marchers might be miffed by his omission. Is Henry getting shortchanged because of his troubled past? I'd guess more likely it's simply because his superpower is being super-short.

Perhaps audiences might scoff

From the little I've read about this, Marvel Studios had always intended to introduce Ant-Man in his own movie. Movie kept getting delayed, so he was never in either Avengers movie. Now, I would guess some decision makers along the way always considered an Avengers Ant-Man too big of a risk. Marvel was trying to build their own cinematic universe, one excluding their most famous character (Spidey) because Sony has the film rights. And excluding their famed X-Mutants because: Fox (though the Maximoff twins exist in some shared-access agreement due to appearing first in X-Men comics but primarily over years as Avengers). And finally Marvel had to exclude their First Family, because Fox has them too (Roger Corman's involved along the way in maintaining that ©).

So Marvel's big bet was The Avengers: a team superhero movie that features the remaining franchise players. Risky proposition, or so it must have seemed at some point. Why make it riskier by including a founding member I suspect some may have feared as easily ridiculed, and whose previous introduction to mass pop culture was an SNL skit where he was the punchline? (Kudus to Garrett Morris. I could contemplate the irony of casting him as Ant-Man) He shrinks to the size of an ant, but retains full strength of a human! Wow, right?! And, the CGI challenge might be considered, he might look ridiculous standing on Thor's shoulder with a giant green cartoon Hulk already in the picture. Marvel wanted audience and critics to take their movies seriously. Ant-Man could derail that all on his little ol' lonesome.

Insecurity is a big character flaw of Henry Pym's anyway, in the comics. So damn I want Ultron to be his fault. But, in the movies we've already seen Stark has the genius to make Ultron happen, and the unfortunate tendency to let his tech get out of control. And Downey is their big star. So: easy solution.

Lang assumes the Ant mantle

That being said, the Ant-Man being introduced in his own feature movie is not comic Ultron's creator Hank Pym, but Pym's successor Scott Lang. And in this movie Pym won't be Stark's contemporary, he'll be his elder. It's Michael Douglas. So, to placate comics fans, honor the source material, and promote the upcoming Ant movie maybe, just maybe, the movie Ultron will have origins tied to past work by Pym. Work which may have discredited, demoralized, or otherwise defeated Pym back in whatever day he operated in. That would justify Pym having been out of picture all these years, by providing the most damaging blow to Pym's fragile personality and ego. Just like in the comics then, his greatest achievement is a horrific failure. Nothing keeps Stark down long, not even the bottle. His genius is only surpassed by his confidence. (And without Reed Richards in this universe, he's Marvel's greatest scientist / inventor). Stark's arrogance is his downfall, but he always recovers. Henry Pym though is repeatedly shown as mentally ill. So there is a way to work this all in and still take advantage of film audience's familiarity with the already-onscreen previously-introduced movie Avengers and love of Downey as Stark ( he's a big draw, deservedly so ). At least that's how I'd handle it.

I oughta get a Marvel franchise to handle on the big screen. Next up: my Great Lakes Avengers silent movie pitch. Or Moon Knight, if they can't take a joke.

If I'd Been Born 9 minutes Earlier, I'd Share a Birthday with Lenny Bruce. Once, I Rested on his Grave.

One year on my birthday I was gonna recreate this pose at Lenny's tombstone, but I thought I might upset some innocents. So I reclined smiling instead. A honey who nearly put me in an early grave took the pic of me. Maybe I still have it in storage, along with this LP.

Locating Moments in Pop Culture History, #1

Earliest example of Mister Fantastic surrounded by Kirby Tech

(Fantastic Four #7, page 4, panel 5)

Theater Feature: I Wanna Rock (& Roll Christmas) – Dee Snider’s Spirited Musical Tale

  A feature for Newcity Stage:

Some folks wanna rock. Some folks wanna white Christmas. Dee Snider wants to spread rocking yuletide cheer. 

“Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” debuts this season here in Chicago, where we rock year ‘round and where last winter resembled Santa’s polar headquarters. Best known as the singer and leader of the eighties heavy-metal hit-makers Twisted Sister, Snider has built a diverse resumé, spanning music, radio, television, film and now, stage. Speaking to the amiable Snider, it’s clear he brings a great enthusiasm to all these disciplines…

( read full feature here )

Theater Review: The Lieutenant of Inishmore/AstonRep Theatre Company

(Another!) review for Newcity Stage: 

                RECOMMENDED

Chadwick Sutton, John Wehrman, Robert Tobin and Tim Larson
Photo: Emily Schwartz

The indiscriminate momentum of violence drives the action and the banality of its coarse adherents provides the comedy in “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.” The humor in Martin McDonagh’s play is as black as the cat that propels lead character Padraic back to his hometown, where he’s feared and loathed by all save young lass Mairead, smitten with Padraic’s self-appointed rise in the ranks and giddy with her own revolutionary aspirations. The cat’s named Wee Thomas but might more informatively be named MacGuffin…

(read full review here)

Theater Review: The Hundred Flowers Project/Silk Road Rising

 Another review for Newcity Stage:

I am loathe to call any art masturbatory. What art isn’t, really? So in a wholly unforgivable act of self-satisfaction, I hereby deem Christopher Chen’s script for “The Hundred Flowers Project” to be Maosturbatory. No, scratch that as cheap and unnecessary. Let me start again. Let this be a review with no past. You do know, comrades, this is all subjective? This act of reviewing? In one seat I slightly suffer; across the aisle another chap laughs knowingly. His smug chortle informs my casual displeasure…

   (read full review here)

Oh That

Oh that bridge!
We stood on that bridge!
We stood on that bridge
And I took your picture!

Oh that bridge,
We laughed in the wind!
You waved your arm
And we took that
Picture.

Theater Review: Pseudo-Chum/The Neo-Futurists

(Another!) review for Newcity Stage:    

                    RECOMMENDED

Aaron Lawson, Carolyn Benjamin, Sean Benjamin

Photo: Daniel Neumann

Disclosure, before the sharks circle: I like to be amused. I’m generally not amused by art about art, whether it concerns its own making or whether it ruminates on or examines other art. Sean and Carolyn Benjamin’s “Pseudo-Chum” is highly amusing, and/but it’s also about itself and about other art. Once upon my own youth I had a writing teacher who instructed that the one thing you should not write about is writing…

(read full review here)

First & Last Kinky Comic Friday - Batman #210

This is one of first comic books I ever owned. Not sure how I ended up with it, seeing as how it was released nearly a year before I was born. I do recall I had it when I was quite young, like maybe 7? I sure found the cover… intriguing, appealing, a little spooky. In this album: the published cover; Neal Adams original art; and (I didn't know this existed until just now) what appears to be original version of cover by Irv Novick. It seems both Novick and Adams worked off a layout from Carmine Infantino.

click for Batman #210 as published…

and the rejected original cover.

 the penciled, inked art, with logo, etc…

For Halloween I'm Going

For Halloween I'm going to be the missing link between John The Baptist and Jesus Christ. And, from then on too. (Why not?) Crown of thorns on a platter. Locust Eucharist. Sermon in the wilderness. Dance of the Seven Stations of the crossed, all to turned up and away the pilot Herod against me. Immersing Lazarus for full revival, yet sunk myself forty days and forty depths. Retell the foretelling, slow snarling yet gentle pronouncements against praxis of sacrifice, inessential in Light of the new linkage embodied in my craning neck and eternally testified in decapitation by my ever uttering ruby ruby ruby ruby ruby ruby ruby red mouth.

Notes on Film – Jimi: All is by My Side

Since I posted (via social media)

André Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in John Ridley's film

that "Jimi: All is by My Side" is an interesting film, I've been meaning to follow up with a post about a serious issue with the movie. (spoiler alert, …) The movie is far from great, and has various flaws, but there's only one topic I wish to address. I think it's a fascinating movie, partly because of its flaws – well made and intriguing and far more engaging than most biopics. But it's highly problematic at the very least in the way it depicts a widely disputed act of violence, perpetrated by Jimi (as portrayed by André Benjamin) against Kathy Etchingham (Hayley Atwell). When I watch a docudrama of any sort, I assume it's fiction. Still, a film "based on a true story" and presented as a biopic and which generally does a fair (fair meaning passable, not fair meaning evenhanded or unbiased) job providing an overview of the year it covers is bound to be taken as the "true story" by a large percentage of the audience. In this context, depictions of such violence if unfounded are downright defamatory. Within the film's own reality, divorced from any claims of veracity, the pay-phone scene and its aftermath are positioned to call into question the opinion of the lead character which the audience had formed for the bulk of the movie. It's debatable whether the way it's handled is believable or fruitfully provocative even without concern for the real people the film represents. With concern for the film's "true story" claim, it's highly suspect; Ms Etchingham and others deny this event took place, and deny that Hendrix abused women. It is defensible only if the filmmaker truly believes the event to fairly (as in accurately) represent the subject. Otherwise, it's cynically manipulative at best.

The lack of Hendrix songs is irrelevant to the film's quality; if it does impact the value of the film, I'd say it works in the film's favor. The performances, editing, sound design, and overall look of the movie are all stellar and achieved with a rather low budget. John Ridley's film has other weaknesses, but the issue surrounding its depiction of Hendrix's purported violence is by far the most troubling. Whether based on fact or not, the violence in the film is depicted in chilling fashion and doesn't seem to be included for cheap entertainment. I do believe though it is used for political / ideological purposes. The scene serves to designate a certain composite character, and by proxy the racial politics of one her associates, as dishonest and harmful. Convoluted as this may sound, within the film's narrative the violence Jimi commits against his white lover - as goaded on by fictionalized conniving groupie Ida who earlier had brought Jimi to a meeting in which "revolutionary" Michael X tries to sway Jimi towards racially exclusive radical activism and away from Hendrix's broader, "cosmic" view of all people - functions to discredit the Black Power movement, or at least position the version as heralded by Michael X (whom the film depicts as a provocateur and hustler and who in real life was later executed for murder) as offering Hendrix nothing but a horrible, destructive influence. This also opens up other areas for investigation - the racial makeup of the Experience, and reactions to that (not depicted in this film), etc- while it contrasts with the film's depiction of the positive influence on Hendrix of his white girlfriends Etchingham and particularly Linda Keith (Imogen Poots) who is shown as essential in the formation of Hendrix's stylistic development. Melanin pun aside, X and Ida represent the dark side trying to draw in the protagonist. Ida earlier tries convincing Kathy that women mean nothing to rock stars, including Hendrix; she scoffs when Kathy identifies as Jimi's girlfriend and not as a groupie, all the while trying to position herself as Jimi's main gal. After her first meeting with Jimi, Ida gives the audience (and Kathy) a hint of what Hendrix might look like when years later he eventually ODs. She foments Jimi's possessiveness toward Kathy where there had been none, and she feigns concern for and allegiance with Kathy in the wake of the violent outburst for which she planted the seed. Michael X tries to convince Jimi he needs to come over to his harsh way of thinking, and Jimi rejects him. Hendrix likes the weed X is dealing but he ain't buying anything else Michael's selling.  I am not getting off topic here. I am noting what I see as the filmmaker's critical stance on X (and Ida) because I view the act of Jimi beating his girlfriend, within the structure of this film, as far less revealing of any rage within the main character and far more as the consequence of Hendrix allowing himself to unknowingly be swayed by Ida, and by extension by Michael X, away from his free spirit and his human-racial inclusiveness towards both a macho possessiveness and racial animosity to the point of race (and gender) based violence. But to stretch the narrative this way by depicting Hendrix lashing out, not metaphorically but literally, physically, and disgustingly violently, against his lover obscures the point apparently beyond recognition (I've seen no review note this) and grossly impugns the character of the real life Hendrix. 

If it's true that Hendrix was violent then that's an important, terrible part of his biography. If it's false, as so many who knew or have researched Hendrix insist, than its inclusion in a film presented as factual is despicable and inexcusable, whatever narrative, artistic or ideological purposes it serves.

Theater Review: The Cryptogram/Profiles Theatre

 (Another!) review for Newcity Stage:             RECOMMENDED

In the first act of “The Crytpogram” the comedic potential of David Mamet’s easily recognized, clipped, stylized, supposedly conversational dialogue sometimes pops up from the mire of simmering domestic duress. 

Darrell W. Cox, Abigail Boucher and Aaron Lamm/Photo: Michael Brosilow

Nearly self-parodic in spots, but too knowing and well-written to be dismissed as such, the terse but dense exchanges are at times just plain funny. Go ahead and laugh. By the third act, the script is as stripped of humor as the stage is of home furnishings…

(read full review here)

"Ten Great Jack Kirby Characters"

"Ten Great Jack Kirby Characters" image gallery on Google+

A friend requested my ten favorite Jack Kirby characters and my detailed analysis on 'em! But I can't pick favorites, not exactly. And my mind is too distracted to go for thoughtful analysis and besides I'm supposed to be writing a review of a stirring production of a Mamet play I just saw and I can't even focus on that. So, some rambles and some pictures. (See the pictures for the rambles.) I'm excluding any Inhumans, because I recently wrote a post about how the Inhumans are actually my quintessential Kirby thing. (Note: some credit for my fondness for certain Marvel characters, at least their personality / characterization if not their looks or conception, goes to Kirby's collaborators and even those who followed. Yes Jack Kirby was the genius and Stan Lee was the office boy, but Stan's dialogue's probably due some credit for just why I like a certain pair of former college rivals / smartest humans in Marvel Universe so much. I credit Lee for characters from books which he scripted, whether or not his contribution to their creation should be recognized as minimal.) Like I said, these are just ten, no particular order. I even left off a signature Kirby creation: Ben Grimm, The Thing. Was it to let myself off the "top ten" hook? I can't rank favorites…

Theater Review: Alice/Upended Productions

 (Another!) review for Newcity Stage:         RECOMMENDED

Josh Zagoren, Dina Walters/Photo: Johnny Knight

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” provide wonderful delight to readers across generations and endless inspiration to artists across disciplines. Right now (this is speculation) several males, females and individuals refusing to identify with a binary gender designation are renaming themselves “Alice Liddell” all over F@cebøøk in surreal protest of that site’s “real name” policy…

(read full review here)

Theater Review: John Doe/Trap Door Theatre

(Another!) review for Newcity Stage:

RECOMMENDED

Oh this was barely bearable until everyone lost their bearings at the end. Strong finish, I mean—pushes all my misgivings about the show so far to the fore that it transcends them. Though ignorant of Polish playwright Stanislaw I. Witkiewicz’s suicide, I sat through Trap Door’s production of this adaptation of his “The Madman and the Nun” with a pair of inappropriately appropriate thoughts…

   (read full review here)

Theater Review: The World Of Extreme Happiness/Goodman Theatre

  (Another!) review for Newcity Stage:         RECOMMENDED

In the couple of years since I saw “The World of Extreme Happiness” as part of Goodman’s New Stages festival, the humor has become a little sharper, the production has grown notably grander, but the tone has remained personal, almost intimate, despite the sweeping topics it addresses. To demonstrate the inescapable dreariness of a peasant girl in rural China whose dreams of financial success turn toward loftier horizons…

(read full review here)

Theater Review: Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins/Forget Me Not Theatre Company

              Another review for Newcity Stage:

Tim Steinmetz and Chris Fowler/Photo: Chris Zoubris

One and one and one is indeed three, but peppering a production with such notable equations doesn’t add up to much when the play being staged is less engaging than this failed math pun I’ll never complete. If you’re going to indulge constant references to other art throughout a piece, you should dare to make sure the piece in question at least has a hint of the quality of the work referenced…

   (read full review here)

The misandrist and the misogynist go on a first date;

they mostly keep to themselves.

But on the second date, sparks fly.

- Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me,  /she cries/  it's all you're good for!

- Take it, take it, take it,  /he sighs/  it's all I'm good for.

She is pleased with his acceptance of his purpose. He is relieved to be relieved. Just like the both of them., for all their good.

Stan Goldberg, Colorist of Early Fantastic Four Comics & More: 1932-2014

I've had this odd habit lately of preparing social media cover photos shortly before a related sad turn of events. The past few nights I've been reading the earliest Fantastic Four issues (scanned from the original comics, as available in PDFs on now out-of-print DVDs which Marvel licensed to a third party). Tonight/this morning I had read #5 and just a few pages into #6 I stopped to pull out an image of Doctor Doom for my profile pic and a panel of Doom and the Sub-Mariner to use as my cover photo. Anyway, reading these old comics from the original printing, I have noticed that the line quality is usually better partly because when these things get reprinted or digitized nowadays, they get recolored and as part of that process the line quality often degrades. I also keep being taken aback by how artful I find the coloring. And I keep going to check each issue over at marvel dot wikia dot com (also to see who inked 'em) and seeing every issue was colored by Stan Goldberg. And I've been comparing to later collected re-colored editions, and really just marveling at how much more creative and appropriate I find the coloring choices and technique (and printing process) of the originals. It does seem Goldberg would use large areas of single color a lot, but it looked good. (Deadlines, after all. And I can't imagine the pay was too high. And, a lot of time, those swaths of blue just work…) I am a big admirer of the Marvel comics from the sixties, primarily because of the brilliance of Jack Kirby, the penciler and plotter of these books. For my aesthetic sensibilities, there are superhero comics, and then there's Jack Kirby. The guy was an artist, and a creative genius. (There have certainly been other other great talents in the field too, I ain't saying otherwise.) I also find some value in Stan Lee's amusing dialogue. So I can't say I ever really took particular note of Stan Goldberg, though I've long been aware that I prefer the coloring style of the original comics to the much more readily available reprints. I did note the names of the colorists when I was reading comics as a kid - who were credited by that time. And I have become familiar reading up on comics history with the names of some of the earlier ones, such as Goldberg. But the last few nights specifically, I've thought- this guy's a big part of how these books look, hats off to him. Apparently Goldberg did a vast amount of early Marvel color work. Per his Wikipedia page "I was doing the initial coloring on all those books; I was creating the color schemes on all those characters." Well, after getting back to and finishing #6 I got online and by chance saw Goldberg has died, age 82.  His coloring brings so much to these old comics that I just happened to be reading right now, and I was just thinking how glad I am to have these DVDs of PDFs to read, when I do find time to read these old comics (usually at like 2AM). I wouldn't be nearly as satisfied having to settle for recolored reprints. To me, recolored versions are merely a substitute for the real thing. And that's just a small portion of his comics work. He was also an illustrator, primarily of humorous comics. Anyway, here's the panel I had cropped for use as my cover photo, scanned from original comic as colored by the recently departed Mr. Stan Goldberg, who wielded the old four-color process to help bring something pretty new and exciting to life.

Victor has a beverage while Namor rests his right foot.
A few pages later Namor realizes that Doom is, indeed, a jackal.

Theater Review: The Arsonists/Strawdog Theatre

(Another!) review for Newcity Stage:    

Mike Ooi, Jared Fernley, Robert Kauzlaric, Blair Robertson/Photo: Chris Ocken

                    RECOMMENDED

I once lived next door to an aspiring young arsonist. On either side of the house I shared with a different kind of flame, two homes were gutted with fire before the kid was caught. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured. If my neighborhood had been full of the kind of folks in “The Arsonists” I wouldn’t be so grateful for everybody’s survival…

(read full review here)

That Incomparable Inhuman, Jack Kirby

Today's the 97th anniversary of the birth of artistic!! genius!!! Jack Kirby, who worked in and largely defined the field of comic books. His talent was incomparable! His imagination nearly inhuman! Of course, by "inhuman" I mean the less common definition - as in "superhuman, unearthly, extraordinary, phenomenal, exceptional, incredible, unbelievable" - not the more common meaning "lacking human qualities of compassion and mercy; cruel and barbaric." Indeed, that Kirby spent so much of his artistic efforts on superhumans is wholly appropriate, considering his wholly uncommon creativity was so unearthly and boundless. Conversely, his work is full of humanity and compassion. And so I provide this little gallery of the incomparable Inhumans. With perhaps a couple of exceptions, these aren't actually examples of his very greatest drawings - there's an endless supply of those. But there is something about the Inhumans that I find quintessentially Kirby, some sort of perfect representation of his aesthetic in his prime (his prime lasted a couple of decades at least). And while I think it's a shame there's a relatively low number of Kirby Inhumans stories, I'm kinda glad the characters have until recently at least not been too frequently assaulted by the hands of hacks who followed in Kirby's wake, unlike many of his more famous creations. And lastly, there's something in the purity of Kirby's design work for the Inhumans that I think shines through whether drawn by the most or least capable comics artists. And yeah if Marvel/Disney called me tomorrow and said we want you to write a movie or comic or perhaps best of all an animated feature from one of our properties, I'd say "gimme the Inhumans" and my story, and everything, would end with Black Bolt opening his mouth.