Somewhere in America...

There is no one else in the room, simply her. It's one of those muggy days, where nothing you do will allow momentary respite from boredom. The CD player just shuffled its last song, the book sits idly on her lap. Somewhere, the cat is snoozing.

seriously, stay away from the doorknob. I know it looks tempting, but it is deceiving. It will mock you in the end...

This thought, unbidden, seems to stir the stilted, musty air in the room. Involuntarily, her eyes fasten on the doorknob.

"you waaant meeee..."

She shakes her head. She did not hear the doorknob whisper, that's just ridiculous.

"cooome to meeee...I will treat you welllllll"

"Jesus," she mutters, "it's getting too warm in this room, I need to get out."

She spends a few minutes getting her things together. Purse, cigarettes, wallet, shoes, sunglasses. She steps out of the kitchen and faces the front door again. As if drawn by a magnet, her eyes settle on the knob again.

She feels a familiar internal shifting beneath her belly. "Why am I getting hot? What the--"

that's how the insidious thing works! while you are initially dubious, it gets under your skin, filling your mind with subliminal sexual images...

"Must have...door...knob. No! Yes. Must have it."

The illogic grips her, her loins are filled with a longing her logical mind simply cannot comprehend.

She approaches the knob and attempts to climb atop it.

She gasps as the knob's brassy touch sets off electromagnetic reactions within her, her nipples become erect and her breath is caught short. She gently rocks back and forth in faster and smaller gyrations.

"oh, doorknob," she moans throatily, "sweet sweet doorknob..."

Relationship Jive

Check out the letter/advice given by Heather Havrilesky (aka: the rabbit blog). Pretty silly shit here.

However, here's the bit I want to talk about, in the midst of Havrilesky's reply:

For some reason, it takes four or five men to determine when a woman isn't interested. I mean, sure, it takes the same number of female consultants to
weigh in on the total dead-enditude of a woman's relationship with a flinchy guy. But look, that's more difficult work.

Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to figure out if a woman is into him/her.

I'm not saying it's any harder than trying to wade through passive aggressive dick-ishness at the end of a relationship (and not like men have that market cornered), I'm saying they're one and the same thing. There's something about that desperation/denial that just takes hold of one's psyche...

This problem is not just endemic to men, women get it too, and it's also present if the woman/man in question is actually into you.

There's nothing as sadly comical as when we, as a collective species, are first in the throes of finding someone blindingly attractive. The problem is that some of us don't develop either a) effective coping mechanisms, or b) a trusty plan of action, all that quickly. Some never learn to do this at all.

We overthink things, our insecurities are magnified to the thousandth degree, and our behavior runs the extremes from Jerry Lewis "Frau Laven" franticness, to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction-levels of moodiness.

The key to all of this is to let the following bit of nonsense be your guide:

The squirrel always gets the pickle.

"Okay. The squirrel always gets the pickle, why?" Obviously, because the squirrel wants the pickle.

"Why does--" Shut up.

Look, I'm saying the squirrel wants the pickle, so the squirrel gets the pickle. The thing about pickles is that they're pretty much interchangeable, if you can't get the Vlasic, then the Claussen may do the trick. The idea is to not get bogged down with details, just get the damn pickle already.

Also, the pickle is not a necessity for the squirrel, so the squirrel may want the pickle, but it doesn't need the pickle...This frees you up, so you don't end up obsessing over one particular pickle (like the guy in the letter mentioned above), especially once you've crossed over into "I think of you as a friend," territory.

"So, the woman in this scenario...is a pickle?" Well, I didn't get gender specific about it, but, if what you're looking for is a woman, then yes.

"Isn't that, I don't know, kinda gay?" ...Next question.

"All right, you're so smart, how's your current love life going?" Shut up. Fuck off.

Reviews Redux

Okay, now that that's off my chest, I must confess: I wasn't always so secure and steadfast (nor blustery) about reviews.

I just learned my lesson the hard way, and, yes, I'm going to tell you how, and most of you are familiar with it, so if any of it sounds old hat, feel free to skip.

Coming up on three years ago, I performed a one man show, A Walk In The Dark. Without getting too much into that, let's just say that this review came out.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=11446

I knew that I shouldn't let it get to me, I knew that it was just a review (again, that term is used loosely), but it just killed me. Two days later, this came out.

http://www.tabletnewspaper.com/arts/48_walkinthedark.html

Now, here's the thing: Both critics came to the show on the same night. They saw the same performance, and these two completely different opinions came out of that. Who was right?
I like to say that it was the second review (and still think so, thank you).

What was I gonna do, though? I couldn't very well send the second link to the first guy and say "fucking neener, you dumb twat!" There was nothing to gain by doing that.

And thus, a new way of thinking...

TBO and The Review

As those who've lived in Seattle any amount of time will tell you: it's a pretty concentrated town. Particularly if you focus your time on one particular aspect of the town, whether it's the Arts scene, or the music scene, movies, whatever.

I've lived here for almost 13 years, and one of the blessings/curses related to this fact is that I can't walk down the street without running into someone else with whom I've either worked with, or met, or know from the scene.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty cool in some ways and exasperating in others. Let me tell you why:

If you haven't seen it already, my production of The Ritz has been slammed by The Stranger. That's it in a nutshell.

What has been pretty cool is hearing from folks who've seen the show and having them say either a) that they loved the show, had a blast, and that they'd spread the word; or b) that they had problems with the script being so dated, but that the cast was impressive, or they liked the use of the space, or just plain didn't like the show. This is fine.

What's been exasperating are the people who're apologetic or overly sympathetic about the one review (and, usually, they haven't seen the show yet). I mean, yes, thanks, I appreciate the sentiment, and you all are being very sweet, but come on!

It's the Stranger for one thing, it's what they do. This is a paper that had Frank Oz (yes, that Frank Oz, who really should know better) so pissed off, he threatened one of the writers. This is not to mention the various artists in Seattle who've been provoked to the point of apoplexy, and would then write in and vent their spleen. I can dig it, but in the long run, what's it do? Not a goddamn thing. It's just a lot of wasted energy spent at a bunch of people who just don't give a shit.

Why give them that power? They're putzes, pure and simple...I mean, great, every once in a while, one of them will deign to give a positive review of something, and that's always cool. However, when they pull shit like this particular review (and that's using the term loosely), it really is par for the course. C'est la guerre.

Also, by focusing on this one review, the other more positive ones are being ignored. Do they have no weight in this town? Why not? Or is it that we're so lazy that we don't bother with those? Seriously, people, get with it.

There's a whole rant I could get on, about there being only two reviewers who're worth a damn in this town, and of those two, only one gets sent on regular assignments, but who cares?

The big thing is this: I'm an artist; I do things that will be open to the public; with luck, the work I do will entertain, enrich, or both. The critics are paid to go out to these public venues, and report back on what they see. What they write may be predicated on their mood, their tastes, or any biases they've been told to write with. More often than not, these two parties will not see eye to eye. It is the artist's job not to give a shit and hope for the best, just as it is the critic's job to attempt to report in as concise, fair and objective a fashion as possible.

Even in the best of worlds, it can be a pretty advesarial relationship. Quite often, it's a lot like war, with the occasional detente.

Fuck The Stranger. Fuck The Weekly, the P-I, and the Times too, for that matter. This is war, people, you learn to live with it.

Life does, indeed, go on.

Yay!

http://hairshirt.blogspot.com/2005/06/star-is-born.html

Big, heartfelt congrats to the Schwilkes!