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New York City - Summer 2005

Will Harper, Jeff Swearingen and myself outside the Original Improv Comedy Club. We had just performed as Mild Dementia, doing our "Smokey the Bear" number. I love these fools. Please do your best to disregard my unfortunate haircut in this photo. (NYC- August 2005)

The long lournal entries below were first posted on my LiveJournal during the summer of this adventure.

NYC - Part I (8/14/2005)

Swearingen and I have come to New York for the big-ass New York International Fringe Festival. I'm directing, producing and coordinating. He's acting in the one-man piece. The show is called THE LAST CASTRATO. It is about a man born without a penis who falls in love with a girl whose skin is inside out. And while the girl has a beautiful singing voice to compensate for her deformity, the man has no talents to make up for his lack of member. So it's a sellable show.

Both Swearingen and myself have been up to our necks in creative projects this summer. This trip signifies the tail end of a summer of ass-kicking amounts of activities. We rehearsed it pretty intensely for about two and half weeks and now here we are… in NYC.

We flew in Thursday August 11. The Lithuanian drove us to the airport and that set the tone for the trip so far. We were late. We missed our original flight and had to take one an hour and half later. But that time was well spent at 11 AM in the morning downing domestic beers at one of the airports many fine bars.

Incidentally, The Lithuanian did come through in a major way. Swearingen tweaked his back rehearsing Monday last, and was in pain most of the week. We started to get really concerned about the show, which is very physical (it is a near-hour-long one-man show where Swearingen plays like seven characters and does a few falls, rolls and other stunts). The Lithuanian had some Vicadin (sp?) and some muscle relaxers. We found out about this as she drove us to the airport. She said she'd over night the drugs to us AND SHE DID! A felony if caught, but she sent them via fake name to AV Phibes and Swearingen and I picked them up the next day in Brooklyn. They did the trick. Super shout out to The Lithuanian.

We got to LaGuardia after a long flight where Swearingen got the window seat and rode bitch in the aisle with a grey-shirted fat man on the other side of me. We headed down to Woodside Queens, where we have stayed this first weekend. Rawley, from the FCDs, set me up with an old buddy of his who does comedy out here in NYC. Thanks to the Rawley. His friend's name is Rory. Rory left us keys to his decent-sized flat, though we didn't meet him in person for another day and a half. His roommates were gone… an Irish guy who stays all the time with his fiancé in Manhattan and a Scottish lesbian who has returned for a short visit to her homeland. Rory was not coming home Thursday night since he was staying with his girlfriend in the city. So Swearingen and I got the run of the place. I took the lesbian's room. Familiarity and all…

Swearingen and I ditched our bags and such and headed into the city. Brief stop at Times Square to see where to avoid when visiting New York and then down to the village to check into the FringeNYC. Based loosely in design on the Edinburgh Fringe, the New York International Fringe Festival is the largest multi-arts festival in the North American continent. Over 16 days 200 or so puppet, sketch comedy, performance art, experimental musical and theatre companies converge on locations all over Greenwich Village. It is a big-ass party and there is a lot of shows that you'll never see in Dallas (or anywhere else for that matter). I have been in the Fringe before: in 2000 with a show called SLICK KADMON V. GOD and then in 2001 with a show I wrote called RED PAJAMA BLUES. It is nice to be back in the FringeNYC. It is the big table for small companies.

Swearingen and I met up with Will Harper and we ate at one of David Mamet's old haunts, the Café Reggio. Then we went and drank too-expensive beers at the White Horse Tavern (where Dylan Thomas once drank himself to death with 18 whiskeys). Rachel McMahon, a Dallasite who was in a play I directed a few years ago and who now lives in NYC, joined us and brought her friend Susie. Rachel kinda had a thing for Swearingen and that was kinda fun to watch the two dance around the possible booty-call situation. Mostly, Rachel and her friend were very "Sex In The City" kind of gals which was not altogether charming. I wandered away from the table and struck up a conversation with a group of Italians who looked to be my age (cute girl with accent greeted me with those European kisses on each side of the face) and who were very friendly and sure could drink.

Swearingen and I split company with the Harper and headed back to Woodside. Day one over.

Friday we had our tech at our venue. We woke relatively early (9 AM) and hauled our truck and suitcase full of props into the city. It was good to stop carrying around those damn props. They can stay stored at the theatre for the next two weeks. The tech went well. We open Sunday. I ran over to the Container Store on 6th Avenue and picked up the shelves we'd need to assemble one of our tables. I work at the Container Store in Dallas and get a 40% discount. I also took back a lot of things to get a bunch of merchandise credit before I left and so was covered. The shelves were nearly free. I'll take them back before I leave town and get the merchandise credit back again. That's how I roll…

After our tech we met Rory at his office and made a copy of his key and said we'd see him later.

A quick jaunt to the Evil Kid Productions HQ out in Green Point, Brooklyn to see AV Phibes. Phibes is an old friend of mine (we were cartoonists on the college paper in Santa Fe years ago). She did our postcard design, which I'm really proud of. Her place is uber trendy and very décor-stylish in pink and black. Her apartment is kinda like Warhol's Factory. There is a main room with several Macs, two interns working for her, and Evil Kid stuff everywhere. You can buy her stuff at Gadzooks. Her assistant/galpal Molly Crabapple was delightful and a wonderful illustrator in her own right. Molly is in charge of Phibes' PR and gets her press coverage, gallery showings and other essentials. I have to say, AV Phibes is kind of an inspiration to me. We paralleled for a while out of college. I stopped drawing comics and went into the theatre and have taken hits but am slowly putting together a career as a Theatre Artist. I'm still busting ass in Dallas and am semi-broke most of the time. She dropped out of college and kept drawing, developed a style all her own and now is on her way to being one of the first artistic self-made millionaires I know. A shrew businesswoman and creative graphic designer, self-taught completely, she has made a career for herself already and it is thriving. Plus, she used to be a sideshow performer, opening for bands in New York. She billed herself as Vulnavia, Queen of Nails and ate fire, did a straitjacket strip-tease, laid on beds of nails, and hammered nails up her nose. She's retired now from performing as I am from cartooning. We left her place promising to meet up later in the week for cocktails and trouble.

Swearingen and I decided to get cleaned up and check out a FringeNYC show. We saw a funk gibberish musical loosely based on the Jungle Book that kicked ass. Let that sink in. A funk musical done completely in gibberish. You will not get that in Dallas. Since Swearingen and I are participants we get the $15 tickets to all shows for only $5. Since we were in the Lower East Side we wandered over to Ludlow and bar hopped (I wish the Epley had been here… she would have had a ball!). Swearingen and I struck up conversations with lovely New York ladies wherever we went. The first bar had a go-go dancer in the store-front window and we just sat in there and soaked up the atmosphere.

After spending too much money on beers and hanging with the trendy crowd, we headed back to Woodside. This was 2:45 AM and we were just going to call it a day. A word here about Woodside, Queens. It is made up of lots and lots of Irish and Scottish people. There are five Irish pubs within a three block radius of Rory's. We passed a place called Sean Og's and it was thumping. I mean when most bars in Dallas would be closed this place looked packed. Already drunk, I told Swearingen "I think we should get a beer in here." He agreed and we drank with the throbbing Irish mob. The guys all looked like soccer hooligans or young dock workers, which is to say they looked like me (i.e. no pretentious arts-types, no hip and trendy "rockers"), and the girls… my God, the girls… heaven-sent and all with that lilt in their voices. The dance floor in the back pumped with old-school hip hop and funk (Parliament, Thriller, etc.) and I, at one point, was amidst six gorgeous Irish lasses grinding and moving. Felt like a King.

At 4:30 AM Swearingen and I stumbled to Rory's, vowing to go back to Sean Og's.

Saturday we saw a Dada show from Chicago. Weird and brilliant. It was what Mild Dementia sometimes was and more often aspired to be. Funny, offbeat, fully committed to by the performers. Drank over-priced beers at the Cedar Tavern where Jackson Pollock and cohorts used to hang out.

Rained a little, that hot humid tropical sticky NY rain. It is entirely too damn hot here and I have become adjusted to being sweat-drenched throughout the day.

Drank with Rory and talked comedy most of the evening (he may get Swearingen, Harper and I a spot at the Gotham City Improv on Tuesday to do our MD classic "The Smokey The Bear Rap") and then pub-crawled around Woodside, ending up back at Sean Og's. I was cozy with one brunette from Belfast, but she wandered away on me when her gaggle of friends left. No love from a snooty black-haired girl from Dublin either, but Swearingen made good friends with an Irish girl before the night ended. Will Harper came over and was the only black guy at the bar. It was good to have him there. He's just a fun, cool guy. I love the Harper. After making mixed progress with several other young ladies, I finally told Will I had had enough. I have never been so drunk in my life. I was already a dozen or so beers into the evening before we hit the pubs. By the time I left Sean Og's and stumbled to Rory's (and stumbled is the operative word) I was a mess. Bull in a china shop. I slurred to Will that I had passed that point of being drunk and charming (oh how liquor loosens up my natural shyness and inhibitions) and had gotten to the point of being semi-non-functional. I passed out as soon as I got to the lesbian bed. 'Sokay. I came to NYC to do theatre not get laid by Irish girls (though that would have just been a nice bonus). Swearingen enjoyed the Sean Ogs.

It is now Sunday. We open later this evening. It may rain today. It is good to be back in New York.

NYC - Post II (8/23/2005)

Swearingen and I had our first show of THE LAST CASTRATO here in New York a week ago Sunday… that is Sunday August 14 at 5:45 PM. Unfortunately it rained very very heavily until around 5:30 PM that day and our opening evening (afternoon?) crowd was about twelve or fifteen people. The house only seats 40, but, really, a dozen people…

Swearingen did a solid show, though he dropped some lines and his nerves showed a bit. His back was also a concern. He's a trouper though. My notes afterwards were that his performance was slightly "one note" and he failed to really win the audience over at the beginning (he came off sort of bitter from the beginning, leaving him no place to go). Without the highs and lows of the piece it can seem overly stylized. Here's what our lone review says (we've had several reps from the press at the shows, but I think they just want to see the show for free, since no one's writing anything)…

THE LAST CASTRATO

reviewed by Kaipo Schwab - nytheatre.com

"When I was six, I was the only child who had dolls that were anatomically correct," remarks Joseph, the lead character in Andy Eninger's The Last Castrato, as he begins his appeal in front of a parole board hearing. He wants us to understand how he got locked up and so he tells us his life story.

You see, Joseph was born without a penis. His father, ashamed of his son (how could he play baseball without balls?) enrolls him in a school for "special needs" children where he is treated like an idiot until they realize he can read-after which they "upgrade" him to idiot savant and send him to Paris, where idiot savants are considered artistes. There, Joseph meets Elena, a woman born without skin-she lives in a specially sealed contraption to protect her vital organs and only her head is visible. Elena's talent is that she sings like an angel. Joseph's talent is that he has no talent (he even fails at writing simple haikus) except to look normal (with clothes on, of course). The two fall in love at first sight and Elena's parents suggest that he market himself as one of those rare Italian Castrati of old-boys or men who purposely cut off their manhood so as to reach those musical high notes. But, since Joseph can't hold a tune, he enlists Elena to sing for him as he lip-synchs in front of the crowd. Naturally, Joseph becomes a huge star-so much so that he receives 30 penises a day from wannabe admirers who castrate themselves to be like him. To reveal any more of the story would be unfair. At the very least, I have to leave you wondering just how did Joseph end up in the aforementioned prison?

Joseph is energetically portrayed by our solo performer, Jeff Swearingen (who looks like he could be Viggo Mortensen's younger brother). Perhaps too energetically: Swearingen leaps, rolls, kicks, and rips around the stage like the Tasmanian Devil (a chair on stage broke in half after one such out-of-control maneuver, leaving awkward remnants of itself in later scenes.) I sat through most of these gymnastics hoping he would calm down so I could just listen to him. At times I also wished that he and his director, Brad McEntire, would have toned down some of the acting choices (the broad style employed bordered on indicating) so the audience could follow the story more easily. Eninger has written a solid tale with a complex character at the heart of it, but each time the story began to move us Swearingen (perhaps by McEntire's direction) would overplay the bit, distracting us from the moment.

Lighting, sound, and set (two simple suitcases filled with assorted props and sometimes doubling as characters) complement the action on stage nicely.

Perhaps with a few more performances under its belt, The Last Castrato will hit more of those high notes. The story certainly warrants the effort.

On Monday we met up with Will Harper and his nice girlfriend Brooke. Swearingen and I were trying to meet them out in front of PS 122 to see the Dada show again, but we took a wrong turn out of the subway and arrived late. Another show was starting down the street, a choose-your-own-adventure play. Since the French Club Dropouts had explored this format in improv ever-so-briefly I figured It'd be cool to check out. So the audience could vote on which direction the play would progress. Neat.

It was called PROFESSOR DILEXI PRESENTS DRAMATIS PERSONAE OF THE APOCRYPHAL MENAGERIE. Put on by an all-girl theatre company out of Philly called Uncut Pages Theatre. It was awlful. The worst play I have ever seen (with the possible exception of that one at Expanded Arts with the naked people and the gong where they kept chanting "…and then the rains came."). I leaned over next to Will and muttered "I'm sorry" about ten minutes into it. I felt jealous of the people who sat on the edges in the front rows who snuck out mid-play. Professor Dilexi stole an hour and half or my life!

As we exited, we got about a block away before the four of us started crackin' the jokes. If you read this and ever see me in person ask me about Professor Dilexi. It is miles of hilarious material…

Brooke went home to Roosevelt Island with a slight headache (again, Professor Dilexi) and Will, Swearingen and I hit a bar beneath the Roosevelt Island Tram Station. Do you have a group of friends who crack you up more than anybody else? In my world, when you get Swearingen, Will Harper and myself together and put a few beers in us at some point in the evening people wind up on the floor in laughter. And so it was and I went home with my head abuzz with alcohol and my gut hurting with laughing so hard.

Tuesday August we slept in really late and did trivial things like eat Chinese take-out and do laundry. Swearingen and I tried to hit a workshop at FringeCentral about Self-Promotion, but it proved to be bunk and the presenter seemed to be promoting herself more than telling us how to self-promote. That night we were invited by Rory, the fellow we'd stayed with in Queens the weekend before, to play at a variety night at the Original Improv Comedy Club (Rory was the host for the evening of acts). You know the 1980s show "Evening At The Improv" with the brick wall and the word IMPROV on the back. That's where we were!

Swearingen, Harper and I did the old Mild Dementia staple "Smokey the Bear" and brought the house down! Kicked ass. It felt good, in an old-school kind of way because Swearingen and I had not performed with Will since last October. It was a fitting farewell to the old times of Mild Dementia when the three of us were a comedic force to be reckoned with.

What struck me was the particularly low quality of the rest of the comedy that night. This is the New York comedy scene? For God Sakes, I don't see crap like this in Dallas.

After the Improv, Harper, Swearingen and I drank more. Said goodnight to Will and as Swaeringen and I headed down to the Southside Sea Port by Wall Street to meet up with Dempsky. Tim Dempsky moved to NYC about a year ago and now works during the day for a lay firm as a clerk. We had beers at a little café under the Brooklyn Bridge. He loves New York, but hasn't done any acting since he arrived. Too expensive. Money most important thing. On the flip side, NYC has mellowed him. Dempsky used to be the personification of frat-boy mentality which I could only stomach in small doses. He seems to have calmed a bit, like the world has beat some sense into him a bit. It was good to see him. Deep down he's a good guy. He had some fiends with him. A guy named Newton, from Dallas who had worked as an actor at Kitchen Dog and Undermain and his girlfriend JC from Colorado. Newton also didn't seem to be acting any longer, but now also worked as a clerk and dabbles in music.

Swearingen headed off to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn to hang some more with Dempsky while I headed back to the sublet at 2 AM that night.

Wednesday I ventured out and saw three Fringe shows while Swearingen was on his own. Saw two one-person shows (SHUTTER about Peter Beard and Andy Warhol and ELEMENTS OF STYLE about a copy editor at Conde Nast) and a puppet play where all the puppets were made of trash (delightful... called BASURA). Really neat stuff. Loads of ideas from the day. Swearingen and I ventured out for some beers and on the way back to our sublet he said let's walk by Hustler. It seems Larry Flint's Hustler Club is literally right around the corner from our sublet. There were erotically-trashy looking strippers hanging out out front and nine foot bohunk doormen. Swearingen and I figured we may need to visit this fine establishment before we head back to Texas.

Incidentally, the Daily Show is at the other end of the block in our neighborhood and a block and half over is the headquarters to Tromo Films.

That's all for now. More in the next post…

NYC - Part III (8/28-2005)

I am flying back to Dallas tomorrow so I figured I'd put another post about the NYC trip… trying to kinda round it out before I am writing the very last post from my cozy efficiency in north Dallas.

Let's see… Thursday August 18 Swearingen and I saw about four shows… BYIUOO (the funk gibberish musical) again because, yes, it was that good; a juggling show with teenagers called THREE OF CLUBS; a kick-ass Kafka piece called AMERIKA; and a silent film homage called LOVE IS IN THE AIR which had my pal Kyle Knauf in it (kick-ass dude from old days who is now in Grad school at Columbia). Went out drinking after the play marathon and caught up with Kyle and met a talkative New York playwright named Mike.

Swearingen went off for a booty call in Grammercy Park that ended up not happening. Kyle's baby girl is well and he says his wife, Megan is good, too. I miss talking with that dude.

Friday we had another show of the CASTRATO. Went well. Better than the first show. Andy the playwright had flown in from Chicago and he came to the show. He gave us a thumbs up on our interpretation of the show. We had pitas with him (though Swearingen seemed uncomfortable and kept wandering off to smoke outside or talk on his cell) and I drilled Andy about the solo improv format he invented "Sybil." He is one cool dude. He also had two other shows in the FringeNYC. A show he was acting in called WEDDINGS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (he's a founding performer with Second City's GayCo) and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PARODY which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. He wrote, composed and directed that one. Cool dude.

Friday night was the first night we stumbled into McManus Bar on 7th Avenue and 19th. We were suppose to hook up with Tim Dempsky and go to some rooftop party out in Brooklyn, but he never bothered to tell us his address. As we walked around the Flatiron District and then into Chelsea, we decided just to quit walking and stop at the next bar. Beer was needed. Saturday night in NYC and we can't find the fuckin' party. McManus was where we stopped and it was a winner. Cheap beers ($3), pretty girls (who kept checking me out as opposed to the wee darling Swearingen… slightly to his consternation), friendly and gruff bartenders, a gorgeous waitress, and a bunch of fools talking comedy all around us. The waitress bought us a round and chatted with me for a while. Her name is Natasha and she does comedy in NYC. We told her about our little moment of glory at the improv. She said she'd written freelance for Conan O'Brian and had performed a lot at the UCB Theatre. In fact, the bar was filled with Upright Citizen Brigade comics, improvisors and students. I got her e-mail. She invited us back to the bar. Swearingen and I grabbed some pizza-by-the-slice about 4 AM and crashed.

Saturday August 20: I slept most the day which is code for trying not to spend much money. Didn't see anything, but did a CASTRATO show that night. Third night of ho-hum audiences (maybe between ten and 18 people). I really wish we'd had bigger audiences. Swearingen and I began to realize, though our show was offbeat and charming, it was a small fish in a big pond here at the Fringe. The biggest sellers were SILENCE! THE MUSICAL (based on Silence of the Lambs), the Neo-Futurists THE LAST TWO MINUTES OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HENRIK IBSEN, and THE RUDE PUNDIT (based on some semi-famous blog). Here's what one of our other reviews said:

The Last Castrato: Hits High Notes Despite Something Missing

Sunday was a matinee show. Small crowd again. I shopped a bit and then Swearingen and I met up with AV Phibes out in her native Green Point Brooklyn. We went to a hip little dinner and talked of worldly matters over ginger-tinged fried chicken sandwiches. Then we went back to her place and met up with her boyfriend, the delightful and large Richard, and drank margaritas with Midori in them. She gave Swearingen and I some Evil Kid swag to spread the good word Evil Kid and made us watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force on her computer (one of three computers, one of twenty downloaded episodes). I had not seen an episode before. I laughed hard.

Monday I slept most of the day again. Hell, I'm on vacation! Woke up in time to see a sketch group present a sold-out show called THE MAGNIFICENT HOUR. The premise was pretty good. For one hour murder was completely legal… as long as you filled out the proper government forms. Shows was pretty good, though it was inspiring in that "hell, I could do that…" sort of way.

Tuesday August 23 Swearingen had a script over-nighted to him from Dallas. He's been cast in a national touring production of Dallas Children's Theatre's STINKY CHEESE MAN as, yes, the Stinky Cheese Man. It is a musical for kids and Swearingen will have steady work, pay and travel for the next eight months. But he has to learn the script because he'll have like nine days before it opens when he gets back to Dallas. The script was sent to Phibes, but the FedEx guy missed her and we trekked way the hell out to Queens to the FedEx office to get it. Swearingen and I walked for what must have factually been four miles after the forty minute train trip out to Queens. After walking for half an hour solid and finding ourselves beside a cemetery on a patch of road without a sidewalk I turned to Swearingen and said "I hope there's a swamp next." To which we laughed and then almost cried.

Her got his STINKY CHEESE MAN script and I missed the show I was going to see. Swearingen went to meet up with the delightful Julie Reinagel, his on-again-off-again squeeze who had flow to town to see him (and the show… and me her former director). I went off to see that murder hour show and met up with them later as we drank the night away at the McManus Bar. Again, very hospitable place. Natasha slapped me on the ass and was friendly and I was hoping I was going to get a chance to talk shop with her (and honestly, maybe even take her home…sigh… but that could have been compounded by Swearingen and Julie being all lovey-dovey). I was drinking whiskey and light beers. At one point I thought she waved at me, but I didn't go over to her. I thought, I'll get a chance later. But she darted off in a cab and was gone into the night. Oh well, once again.

Wednesday I slept in and visited the Drama Book Shop (oh holy mecca of a place for theatre-theory/literature geeks like myself). CASTRATO show that night. Went well, really well. I headed off to see the free student show at UCB (Kick-ass improv!) afterwards and then met up with Swearingen and Julie after that. After many beers which Julie was mostly buying (God Bless her!), I headed back to the sublet via cab, one of the only times I took a taxi while in NYC. I also flirted a bit with a dark-haired European girl slightly at one of the bars. I have to admit, as much as I like the social quality of libations and am quick to note flirting and such in these NYC posts, I am not too comfortable with the meat-market vibe at most New York bars. I like to have a good time and I like to flirt a bit, but if I were going out to score every time, like many of the people at these bars, I'd just stay home and cry. There's an undercurrent of desperation and peacockiness here in New York. It must be hard to really fall in love here.

Thursday I saw more FringeNYC shows: HALF-LIFE (not so great… about a child-molester trying to put his life back together after his prison senternce), FLUFFY BUNNIES IN A FIELD OF DAISIES (which kicked royal amounts of ass!) and THE LAST TWO MINUTES OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HENRIK IBSEN which did have an amusing retelling of one obscure Ibsen play performed with condiments. I went out drinking with the FLUFFY BUNNIES cast and made some good contacts. One actress, named Jenna Mattison, was extremely friendly and delightful. I found out after some conversation she produced the movie FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE. As I left that bar, the writer/director of FLUFFY BUNNIES was chatting with a Broadway producer about options on his play. Ah, the Fringe and it's sometimes success stories. Back that night to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre to see their version of the Cage Match. $5 to get in. Ours in Texas is $10 and one has to pay to park. Good improv all around. All long-form.

Swearingen and I met up at McManus and I found out that Natasha had rushed off Tuesday before because she got engaged that night. I congratulated her. And I was suddenly glad I didn't blatantly hit on her a few days earlier. She was sorry for not making the show Wednesday night. She kissed me on the cheek and wished Swearingen and I good luck in our future endeavors. I'll definitely e-mail her when I get back to Texas. Swearingen and I talked deep into the wee hours about our trip to NYC, about women and theatre and life. Good bar talk…

The last weekend in NYC and the last show of THE LAST CASTRATO in the last post which will not be right now. I'm heading back to Texas tomorrow…

Final NYC post - Pt. IV (9/2/2005)

Reckoning back… Friday August 26. Slept really late. Saw one play at FringeNYC. It was a Witkiewicz play called THE CRAZY LOCOMOTIVE. I am generally a fan of the Polish playwright Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, having appeared in DAINTY SHAPES AND HAIRY APES and read a few of his other works (I'm considering directing THE PRAGMATISTS some of these days). But I was not familiar with this one, brought to New York by Chicago's Trap Door Theatre. I'm a fan of the weird and bizarre and non-linear, but I had no idea what was going on in this play. None. I can't tell if the artists who were presenting it did or not either…

Met up with Swearingen, Will Harper and the ever-joyful Brooke and enjoyed $2 beers at Bar None on 13th Street and Third Avenue. A dude came up to Will and appeared to be a friend of his. He looked like a young, white Che Gueverra. I introduced myself and he said he knew me. It was a guy named Harrison who I went to college with, briefly (he was a freshman during the one semester I was in Santa Fe as a senior, before heading off to London). He said he'd broken up with the theatre and was now bitter and heartbroken about performing plays. Comedy was okay. He now works in television and writes plays in his spare time. He wandered off to met a friend who was coming into town and Swearingen, Brooke, Will and I continued to enjoy $2 drafts.

I mentioned that a young brunette by the bar was very attractive and the next thing I know Swearingen and Will are over there by her and her friend dishing out bullshit about me, pointing back to the table where I'm drinking and trying not to acknowledge that I know them. "See that guy, the big charming furry guy? He's a nationally-produced playwright. Worked off-Broadway and shit. The ladies call him the Texas Teddy Bear. He sent us over because he's shy. He wants you to know that he thinks you are an extremely beautiful woman…"

Swearingen muttered other bullshit, but that was the gist of it. They came back laughing. I turned red. Well, redder than my natural red. Later as I crossed the bar to the mens' room, I stopped and apologized for my friends.

"You're the Texas Teddy Bear."

"um… yeah. Listen, I'm sorry for my friends behavior, they've been drinking…"

"You are sorta cute." The brunette's friend agreed.

"Uh… You, too. Have a beer on me, ladies, and the great state of Texas."

I laid down enough cash on the bar for the brunette her friend to get some drinks and wishing to leave on a good note, and quite drunk and for some reason abnormally bashful, I kissed both their hands and walked back to my own table. Harrison came back with his friend, a young lady named Shelley who also went to college with me (and high school) who was several years behind me in school and was about to move from Chicago to New York. After countless $2 beers, we all decided to go next door to a burger joint called Nine Burger. Fuckin' great cheese burger!

As we were leaving the bar, I walked back by the Brunette and her friend (their names were actually Alexa and Julia) and said goodnight. I received a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and left feeling warm and buzzy. Simple little encounters…

After burgers we hit another fine drinking establishment called something like Beauty Bar. Very hip and trendy. Drinks were not $2. Will proceeded to crack our shit up though. I love the Will Harper. That dude is the balls.

Home late, with the obligatory pizza-by-the-slice on the way, and tucked in my sublet bed around 3:30 AM.

Saturday August 27: Last full day in New York. Slept in again. Really, I thought, when I get back to Texas and have responsibilities again, I won't be able to sleep late. So, while on vacation…

Went and saw GayCo's WEDDINGS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Andy, the playwright of LAST CASTRATO is a founding member of GayCo (an off-shoot of Chicago's Second City. All the members are, well, gay). Really good show. Sketch comedy with heavy doses of music, mostly revolving around gay and lesbian relationships. Extremely talented cast and the material was brilliant. A friend of mine in Dallas put together a gay-themed musical sketch show called QUEERTOWN. There was a slight discrepancy in the quality, performance talent and on-targetness of the material if you were to compare WEDDINGS with it's Dallas counterpart. Let's not do that…

THE LAST CASTRATO went up one last time in New York Saturday night at 7:15. I knew a lot of the audience. Andy was there again, Will, Brooke, Shelley and Harrison. My friend Pete who artistic directed New York's Nosedive Productions (kind of an Audacity-east company) was there. My friend Kyle made it out.

Afterwards I went drinking with them all at a bar called Slane's there on MacDougal Street. Harrison and I had a great argument over the theme "The Theatre is Dying." (it's not… it's just slow). Swearingen snuck off by himself to have a cappuccino at Café Reggio (his way of saying goodbye to the city, I think).

We headed back to the sublet by midnight. We stopped for a pizza slice and walked solemnly by Hustler.

The next day, Sunday, I rose early went to the Player's Theatre while Swearingen slept, got our props, returned the shelves for credit at the Container Store I had bought two weeks earlier and took a cab back up to 52nd Street. I got back and Jeff was just waking. We packed our stuff leisurely (how had I acquired so much more shit that I came to New York with?) and called a town car to take us to LaGuardia. The town car cost $56 (gratuity was automatically added…).

The flight was long and uneventful. I slept and read my Peter Brook biograghy. It was good to see the Texas sky at sunset as the plane landed. My dad picked us up.

Swearingen and I shook hands and he thanked me for the adventure. I said, "Until the next one, my friend…" and we parted ways. Artistic adventurers in far off lands in search of glory and experience. Real life started again the next day. Oh well…

It was a good trip to New York.

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