The Pirate's Life for Me

bloodinthestone

2011-07-08T13:19:00.000-04:00

http://bloodinthestone.wordpress.com/

I've moved!

2009-04-18T00:24:00.002-04:00

Hey everybody, I have a new website, more playwright-y, less blog-y. Anyhow, check out my recent play-doings at timjlord.wordpress.com. Hope to see you there.

Don't mean to make fun of a serious issue...

2008-11-02T19:55:00.002-05:00

...but check out that first headline:

Yeah, it's supposed to be "flood."

2008-08-12T07:28:00.001-04:00

"Bush warns Russia; Medvedev orders halt to action"

Now that's a headline. I don't know which of those "actions" by their respective "world leaders" is more meaningless.

2008-06-05T12:10:00.001-04:00

Photo by Todd Heisler of The Rocky Mountain News

"Prince Harry Withdrawn from Afghanistan"

2008-02-29T11:54:00.002-05:00

And he's getting out by the quickest, safest means available...

"I do say, olde chap, might one push harder. And mayhaps a bit faster?"

This Sunday...

2008-02-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

2008-01-28T00:22:00.000-05:00

I don't know what possessed me either to go looking for this or to share it here because god knows I haven't posted in months and I'm sure no one's reading anymore, but as an epilogue to my post about the "11 Hills" production last spring I found another review. And I, basically, totally agree with it.

Here it is:

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: ‘11 HILLS OF SAN FRANCISCO’
by David Noble Dandridge
The Vital Voice Newspaper
03-12-2007

The Hills Are Alive: ‘11 Hills of San Francisco’

-Written by Tim Lord
-Presented by HotCity Theatre’s GreenHouse Series

Early in the play “11 Hills of San Francisco,” Joan, something of a literary gun moll to 1950s Bay area poets, is coy when young writer and recent sexual conquest Nick asks her personal questions. She tells him she doesn’t want to be another character in his writing. She senses that Nick has traveled to the west coast from Missouri to suck the marrow out of San Francisco for the sake of his poetry and that anyone he encounters along the way is fair game to be consumed and discarded. She seeks to keep the writer’s interest by retaining her mystery.

It’s a sharp observation by playwright Tim Lord, and something of a big idea in a play that’s not so much about big ideas as it is about the people who have them, search for them and need them. Nick has written one very good poem but needs to write more in order to know whether or not the initial poem was a fluke. He desperately wants to be recognized by his mentor, Terrance, and be included in a poetry reading that Terrance is planning. Things get complicated when Nick’s high school English teacher arrives, having come to San Francisco from Kansas City to profess his love for Nick. The play takes a step toward magical realism when Nick encounters Echo (named simply “The Girl” in the play’s program) a muse who has no voice of her own but can only speak through poetry. She communicates with Nick using the words of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, and when she spouts poetry that Nick can’t readily identify, he soon recognizes it as his own work that he has not yet written.

The entire piece takes place in Nick’s apartment. Act One unfolds as a series of dialogues between Nick and the other characters, some sharply written and some that grow tedious before they’re over. The play really gets going once Nick has finally met Echo. Act Two flows better than Act One, but it takes a tragic turn near the end that feels a bit forced.

The appealing cast is able to smooth over the play’s unevenness. John Pierson is particularly good as Louis, the hopelessly square school teacher. Pierson’s openness and vulnerability generate sympathy for the somewhat pathetic character. Rory Lipede is fittingly ethereal in the role of Echo, a character that it would have been easy to get wrong. She’s so ethereal, in fact, that the other-worldly music that accompanies practically her every word soon becomes unnecessary.

Julie Layton and Nick Cutelli do a fine job of lending reality and depth to Joan and Terrance, keeping them from becoming beat generation clichés. Layton (who was so amazing in last season’s GreenHouse production of “Skin in Flames”) with her dark hair, pale skin and slender physique seems almost typecast as a hep cat. Luckily director Michael Jokerst resisted the temptation to give her a beret and a cigarette holder.

The center of the play is, of course, Nick, and young Adam Flores can’t quite hold up that center. His line readings are often flat and he lacks the charisma that the rest of the characters keep assuring us that Nick exudes. When Nick’s nice-guy personal abruptly cracks toward the end of the play, the writing doesn’t do the actor any favors and Flores can’t quite pull off the transformation.

John Armstrong’s lighting cues are subtle and when necessary, poignant. Mark Hambrecht’s apartment set is simple and effective, the star of which is an antique typewriter so beautiful that I actually was worried when Nick seemed ready to toss it in frustration. Since this is a GreenHouse rather than main stage production, I’ll forgive the stark white walls of Nick’s apartment, although a coat of paint would have made it feel more lived in, and would have cut down on the glare from the lights. Perhaps the white walls are supposed to symbolize the blank page. Or perhaps I’m thinking about it too much.

Although the results here are uneven as was the case with this season’s previous GreenHouse production, “Demons… (and other Blunt Objects),” neither play could be described as boring or unworthy of attention. I have to applaud HotCity for finding a place for new work that perhaps wouldn’t fit its main stage season but commands more than a simple staged reading.

"What's everybody whining about?"

2007-09-03T11:44:00.001-04:00

This place is great. I love Iraq. Not one person has taken a shot at me. And look at Condy & Bobby over there. Don't they look happy? They should, they totally hooked up during the flight and now we can't separate 'em. Who saw that one comin'?! Not this guy!

Another Head for the Wall

2007-08-27T10:05:00.000-04:00

Well, he lasted longer than I expected him to. But word has come down at last: So long, Gonzo.

Why I Still Love NASA

2007-08-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

As a kid I loved space and space travel. I was seriously in love with Star Wars, of course. Had a hard time getting around the cheesy special effects of the original Star Trek--I was spoiled by, of course, Star Wars--but when Star Trek: the Next Generation came along, I was well and truly hooked into the franchise. So naturally as a kid I wanted to be an astronaut and I learned all kinds of info about NASA. I even went to Space Camp.

It's the god's honest truth though. I was there. I was Mission Specialist 1 on one of my sims. We completed our task and didn't get trapped outside the hangar bay thus causing us to burn up on reentry, or rather to NOT burn up on reentry because we completed our mission and got back inside the shuttle in time.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

Anyhow, I loved NASA as a kid and i know there's been some negative press lately...

And I know my friend and former roommate Jamie who's an oceanographer would chide me for the money being wasted on space exploration when we've really only scratched the surface when it comes to exploring out own oceans...

(That's his "chiding face.")

But I still love NASA. And in recent weeks they've given give me two reasons to be currently excited and one reminder of how cool they have been in the past.

First off, isn't this just a gorgeous picture?

That's a picture of NASA's latest mission to Mars, Phoenix, blasting off. Phoenix is going to perform a soft landing near Mars' northern ice cap in order to dig for and analyze the ice that scientists know is just below the surface. Hopefully this could also yield signs of life, either past or present. You can check out the mission's website here.

Secondly, it got almost none of the press but the current shuttle mission includes the first 'Teacher in Space.' Two weeks ago today NASA finally picked up where Challenger left off when teacher Barbara Morgan made it into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. I remember the challenger explosion like it was yesterday and I've found it be one of those moments that people remember in the way our parents remember the Kennedy assassination: you know exactly where you were when you heard it. So it's nice to know that there's a bit of closure here, even if there wasn't nearly the amount of fanfare that Christa McAuliffe and Challenger received. Interestingly here, Ms. Morgan was actually selected as McAuliffe's back-up and ended up leaving teaching to become a full-time astronaut. More interesting, and I'm sure not coincidental, is that Endeavour is the shuttle that was built to replace Challenger.

The shuttle has thus far had a pretty successful mission to the International Space Station, where Barbara Morgan was set to teach some classes from space, and will be returning to the planet soon.

Finally, it was 30 years ago this summer that Voyagers 1 & 2 were originally launched in order to get close-up shots of Jupiter and Saturn. And they're still out there, still going, still sending back data. Pretty damn cool. Even cooler is that they include care packages for any sentient life that may find them. Greetings from our planet to any extraterrestials that may find them. There was a great story on NPR last weekend, specifically about the LPs on board which contain music from all over the globe.

Yes, I'm a big nerd, but what're you going to do? Go NASA.

Giant Heads Over North America

2007-08-20T22:32:00.000-04:00

Sculptors revealed plans today for Mt. Rushmore 2 - Freedom Unleashed. It promises to be bigger and badder than the old Rushmore...

(...euuggh. I think I managed to gross myself out.)

Getting Caught Up

2007-08-19T14:27:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

I've been back from mt Great Western Excursion for just over 2 weeks and haven't really done anything to get back into the blogging swing of things. Hopefully all that will change over the course of this week as I'll have more time to devote to non-job pursuits. Jobs ruin everything, don't they?

So if you haven't been checking back regularly due to my absence you can start to again. Wahey! You know you've missed me.

Hope the readership is well. All 3 of you.

Tim

"Now can we indict him? huh? pretty please?

2007-08-13T07:47:00.000-04:00

He's gone, folks. The Rove is leaving the building. So, somebody, please throw him in prison before he can do anymore damage.

Back in NYC

2007-08-04T13:28:00.000-04:00

Lots to report on my trip west. But in the meantime here's the biggest thing coming up in my "post-grad school, livin' the dream in New York" life. Get your tix in advance as seating is limited and these shows sell out on a regular basis.

Where I'm Headed

2007-07-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned I won't be posting for the rest of July (most likely) because I'm about to take off on a massive roadtrip through the American West. I probably don't need to call it "the American West" but I like saying "the American West," I like typing it, I like thinking about, breathing it, you name it, I probably enjoy it if it somehow involves "the American West."

Anyhow, the pic above is going to be the high point of the trip, literally. That's Mt. Whitney and not only is it a pretty awesome-looking mountain but it's also the highest peak in the Lower 48 states at 14,496 ft. Yikes, eh? But it's got a trail all the way to the top that doesn't require ropes or any particular special skills. Just a permit. And permits are very hard to come by due to the quota and the lottery to make it into the quota. But we got one this year and a bunch of us are going. I think all of these people will be undertaking the trek...

...as well as a few others. I can't wait. I'll be doing a lot of this while I'm traversing the Sierras:

(I'm laying the groundcloth for my tent.)

I'll also be visiting Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. My friend Chris is playing the role of Juliet in a little known play by a long dead British playwright, but, hey, you know, you gotta support your friends.

Also, I think we're very likely going to visit Crater Lake.

Can you say, " I can't wait?"

There will be a bunch of other stops on the way and lots of pics. I'll be sure to give the full report once I'm back from the great American West.

Who says there's no theater happening in New York in the summer?

2007-07-05T20:33:00.001-04:00

HERE Arts Center in New York has a little thing every summer called The American Living Room Festival and this year West Hyler and I will finally be realizing a project we've been working on for a while. The piece is called "We Declare You a Terrorist" and it's an examination of the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege and the ongoing conflict in Chechnya (as mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

Here are the details. Hope you all can make it out:

"We Declare You a Terrorist"
by Tim J. Lord
directed by West Hyler
at HERE Arts Center
On a shared bill with The Passion of St. Thomas More
August 22-23
8:30pm

In October 2002, forty heavily armed men and women took a Moscow theatre hostage, demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. Seventy-two hours later all the Chechens and 129 hostages had died during the Russians’ operation to retake the theater. Five years on the conflict in Chechnya is still raging. What justifies one country’s right to subjugate another? What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist?

Tix = $15

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. (between Spring and Broome)
NY, NY 10013
212-352-3101
www.here.org

This work is presented as part of The American Living Room Festival, which provides artist fees, marketing and technical support.

The American Living Room Festival
July 26-September 2, 2007

38 days of arts experimentation and cold beer! Join HERE for NYC's longest-running summer festival, as we outfit our theater with comfy couches, easy chairs, and an eclectic potpourri of programming for your enjoyment.

This year, more than thirty cultural events (directing projects, performance works, puppetry pieces, new musical compositions, new dance theatre) will be presented, involving approximately 300 emerging artists/thinkers. THE AMERICAN LIVING ROOM is a space to risk -- a forum in which artists can surprise themselves and awaken audiences while having all the comforts of home.

On the Road

2007-07-02T15:15:00.000-04:00

That's where I'll be very soon. But where the hell have I been? Busy as hell. Anyhow, I'm off to St. louis for a few days before hitting the wild places west of the 100th meridian. Stay tuned for a preview of my upcoming adventures (to be posted later ths week) before I sign off--intentionally this time--until some time in early August.

Hope you're all having a great summer

In the Room

2007-06-07T21:54:00.000-04:00

It's where I love to be.

Specifically here I'm referring to the rehearsal room for a play. And that's where I was tonight. For those of you out there who don't know, my latest, The View from Mt. Langley, is getting a reading at Spring Theatreworks in Brooklyn. I'm working with director-friend Joe Ward (other half of the famed duo: Lord & Ward) and we've got about ten hours in the room to explore this play. After the 11 Hills… debacle of last March, I have to admit to being a little wary of working with actors who were completely unknown to me--though that was offset substantially by Joe's trusted involvement. However, after our first rehearsal, I'm very happy and very excited to see this play on its feet and breathing. For those of you who don't know, it's a totally different experience hearing your play take life. When actors, particularly smart actors, inhabit your characters you begin to see the play in entirely new ways.

I love it. And I'm so thankful to have the opportunity with this play.

If you happen to be in New York here are the details. (And if you aren't in New York but go out of your way to make it, I'm totally buying you a drink after the reading.)

The View from Mt. Langley
--a reading of a new play--
by Tim J. Lord
Directed by Joe Ward
June 9 @ 8pm

Spring Theatreworks
DUMBO, Brooklyn
25 Jay Street, #203
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(F to York St.)

Leigh is on the verge of leaving her small California town for college, but she's feeling reluctant as she tries to pick up the pieces from her mother's death years ago. Her father Matthew has yet to really deal with his wife's loss and is pulling farther and farther away from his daughter, leaving Leigh to undertake a journey of epic proportions, one that will eventually span the range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Dispatches from a New New Yorker #1

2007-06-06T17:12:00.004-04:00

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, THE CITY SO NICE IT GOT ME TWICE
by Tim J. Lord, Columnist

So, moreso than ever before in my life, since coming to New York I’ve been running into people who insist that we’ve met before:

-Have we met before? I feel like we’ve met before.
-No, I don’t think so.
-No, I’m sure we’ve worked on something together. Yeah, we did that thing together at P.S. 122, last April.
-I moved here in September.
-Huh. Where else have you worked?
-Um…Providence?
-No.
-San Diego?
-Nuh uh.
-You’ve probably got me mistaken for someone else.
-No. Where else?
-St. Louis?
(head shake)
-We can go way back: Kansas City?
-No.
-Well, that’s all I got.
-Huh. Maybe you’ve got “one of those faces.”

Well, maybe I do. In my life I’ve been told I look like the following celebrities. And I swear to you this list is 100% genuine.

Michael J. Fox
Stephen King
A combination of Michael J. Fox and Stephen King
No, not Michael J. Fox, but that guy who played Skippy on Family Ties.
Robin Williams
Nathan Lane
Peter Saarsgaard
and Billy Dee Williams
(All right, that one’s made up. I just wish I looked like Billy Dee. Who doesn’t want to be able to flash that smile he shoots Princess Leia in Empire?)

Now, is it just me, or do none of these people look like each other? It makes me think that people have seen me before, met me, even if we haven’t. So it only makes sense to conclude that I have finally landed in the same city as my doppelgänger.

That’s right: doppelgänger: an apparition or double of a living person.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from German, literally ‘double-goer.’

From About.com:
“Guy de Maupassant, the French novelist and short story writer, claimed to have been haunted by his doppelgänger near the end of his life. On one occasion, he said, his double entered his room, took a seat opposite him and began to dictate what de Maupassant was writing. He wrote about this experience in his short story ‘Lui.’

“Percy Bysshe Shelley, encountered his doppelgänger in Italy. The phantom silently pointed toward the Mediterranean Sea. Not long after, and shortly before his 30th birthday in 1822, Shelley died in a sailing accident - drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Queen Elizabeth I of England was shocked to see her doppelganger laid out on her bed. The queen died shortly thereafter.”

Yikes! Keep this creep away from me!

I came close the other day. There was a crackle in the air, the hair on my arms stood up, a faint whiff of sulphur:

-Hey, Tim. This is Tim J. Lord, the Playwright
(I’ve got the guys I work with acting as my personal agents, making sure that I’m not confused for an actual technician. They’re sweet like that. They’re also taking the piss.)
-Tim J. Lord, this is Tim. He writes plays too.
-I’m sorry, what?

That’s right, another techie named Tim—not unusual; we are practically our own union. But another techie named Tim who writes plays? Scandalous. Granted we looked nothing like one another. No matter how much my face might be “one of those” it was not one of his. Turns out that this other techie, play writing Tim was mostly a carpenter—disaster adverted. But real close.

Then there’s this other take on doppelgangers:

“In a case that suggests that doppelgangers might have something to do with time or dimensional shifts, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18th century German poet, confronted his doppelganger while riding on the road to Drusenheim. Riding toward him was his exact double, but wearing a gray suit trimmed in gold. Eight years later, Goethe was again traveling on the same road, but in the opposite direction. He then realized he was wearing the very gray suit trimmed in gold that he had seen on his double eight years earlier! Had Goethe seen his future self?”

Or maybe he was just German and into symbolism or whatever smarty crap Germans are into.

Personally I think doppelgängers are more like anti-yous. Not that they’re necessarily evil (or necessarily good if you’re more of an evil person) but the two copies can’t exist together, like matter and anti-matter, and if they meet each other, only the strongest survives—to my mind it’s more of a battle than a simple canceling out.

So then, if all this is true, what the hell do I do about it?

1. Try Not to Think About It.
Or in New York-ese: Fuhgeddaboudit. It’s a big city after all and despite the fact that every other weekend I run into someone I haven’t seen in years the chances are we might never cross paths. But I’m not gonna buy that because every other I weekend I run into someone I haven’t seen in years. I ran into Holly for cryin’ outloud! Holly! the director who was a senior when I was a freshman in college and this happened WHILE I was having a conversation about how you can just run into people in New York whom you haven’t seen in years. Literally, I was standing outside Classic Stage talking with two friends about this very New York phenomenon and I had to interrupt it to go say hi to this person who essentially WAS the conversation we were having.

Back on the pro side of this possible solution, I have considered that no one has yet to say, “No, I’m sure we did something together. It was just last week.” So maybe he’s since cleared out of the city. But what if he’s just on sabbatical? What if he comes back on vacation? I’d rather be prepared, alert. Don’t want to get blind-sided.

2. Head for the Hills.
It’s a big world, right? I’ve gone thirty years in other parts of the States, the globe without having this issue, so let him have New York. I can get along fine somewhere else. We can both live in peace, apart from each other.

Well, I don’t know what this Doppelganger Tim’s thing is, but I’m a playwright, goddammit and I’m required to be in New York, making a go of it. (Or something.) God knows that at the very least I’ve put work into this city and I can’t just go giving up now.

3. Negotiate.
Try and make nice. Maybe we can work together, right? Aren’t two heads better than one? Don’t you always wish you could be two places at once?

Yeah, well, fuck that. Know what one of my favorite movies is? Highlander. That’s right, there can be only one, bitches. I’m usually a live and let live kinda guy but I’m even uncomfortable with other people who have my first name. It’s no accident that I don’t have any close friends named Tim. I’m a greedy, jealous Tim. Back the fuck off my name. No “Tim Jr.’s” in my future even. (Assuming the doppelgänger doesn’t get me before I can procreate.)

So I guess I’m screwed. About as screwed as we’re all going to be when the zombies finally come, leaving only one course of action: Get strong. That’s the New York attitude anyway, right? Prepare to take this guy’s ass so that when the confrontation finally comes I’m ready, I can prevail. I don’t know what exactly that entails, because I don’t what to expect from this “double-goer,” but when I’m done with him, I promise you this:

He’ll look nothing like Billy Dee Williams.

Correction re: Monica Goodling

2007-05-23T14:38:00.001-04:00

Turns out my earlier picture of Monica Goodling was NOT Monica Goodling. This is Monica Goodling:

However, my earlier statement that I would "totally do Monica Goodling" is, if anything, perhaps more true than before. So, Monica, if you're out there reading this and they don't throw you in the slammer, call me.

Tim J. Lord - Columnist

2007-05-21T01:29:00.000-04:00

Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Well, for that reason alone I'm going to try writing a weekly "column" portion to this here blog. I'm also starting this because I've become aware of the fact that New York and I are, well, we're kind of like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. So it's time to extend the olive branch, air our grievances, and get our butts into rehab/prison. Hence these columns will be titled "Dispatches from a New New Yorker." And they're going to be HILARIOUS. I hope. If I were truly cool these would take the form of a video podcast, à la Ask a Ninja, but I don't have the means and I'm just not that cool. Yet. Maybe one day. (And this is not meant as a slight to Ask a Ninja. I'm actually a huge fan.) Plus, it'll be good for me to add some regularity--and humor--to my writing life. Did I mention that my Dispatches are going to be HILARIOUS?

Anyhow, all this is just a preview, a preamble even. Tune in later this week for my first actual dispatch.

I would totally do Monica Goodling

2007-05-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

According to one web source this a picture of Monica Goodling. No, she's the kind of cute one on the right.

Now maybe it's just that every other woman tied up in the Bush Administration isn't attractive and so by comparison Ms. Goodling stands out; but, yeah, I'd hit that.

The Fall Guy

2007-05-15T00:30:00.000-04:00

As a kid I loved watching The Fall Guy. It starred Lee Majors.

And now that I'm grown up I still love watching the Fall Guy. Except now he looks like this...

That's Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, Gonzo's Number 2 in the DOJ, and the latest member of the Bush Administration to resign because--well, in truth because his boss won't quit even though Republicans are calling for Gonzales' resignation. That's not to say that McNulty wasn't involved in this whole mess, but he was at least more forthcoming about the truth behind these firings. Somehow this feels a lot like how the Army dealt with Brigadier General Janis Karpinski who was in charge of Abu Ghraib prison. She may have been involved but good, American soldiers only follow the orders of their superiors, right? And didn't Rummy mention something about torture being okay or at least somewhat necessary? But did that get him fired? No. Somehow, the Republicans losing the House and Senate got him fired, which was a strategic snafu that should've gotten Karl Rove fired, as should his leaking of the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative, but that got "Scooter" Libby fired. And isn't Karl supposed to have been involved in this whole DOJ mess? Oh right, Paul McNulty said that one of the US Attorneys fired was done so in order to give the job to a protege of Karl's.

So, how many people have to get fired--excuse me, resign--before the root of all these problems is forced out? And perhaps a better question: How many votes is it going to take in 2008 to pull the entire administration out by its roots?

Look out, Syria, she's coming for you.

2007-05-03T08:37:00.000-04:00

"Fuck you. I love America."

A Long Overdue Post-Mortem

2007-05-03T00:55:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to get this out there for a while: How the production of 11 Hills of San Francisco went down in St. Louis back in March.

Better late than never, right?

My plane landed on Wednesday, March 14, and Wednesday just happens to be the day that reviews typically come out in St. Louis. I wasn't expecting good things from the Post-Dispatch (St. Louis' daily) because Judy Newmark is a moron and a star-fucker; whereas, my play is pretty smart and I'm no star. So I decided to start with the Riverfront Times (the free weekly paper). I don't want to quote the entire review but here are some highlights from Dennis Brown's review:

"I saw better-written, better-structured plays than this three weeks ago at the WiseWrite Festival, and those scripts were by fifth graders. At least the kids had been taught that a good play has to be about something."

"Companies like GreenHouse like to utter noble sentiments about the importance of staging new plays. But who benefits from this production? Not the viewers, not the actors, not even the playwright — who will learn precious little about where to go from here."

Thanks, Dennis, I was wondering whether or not it was going to be worth my while to do this play in St. Louis.

Judy's opinion would suggest that I shouldn't have:

"Written by Tim Lord and directed by Michael Jokerst, it's a sentimental Beat-era romance that won HotCity's New Play Festival's Jury Prize last year. It's not yet a prestigious award."

"It all goes exactly where you think it will, with a lot of quoting of poetry along the way. This is usually a red flag in a play. In "11 Hills," it's more of a stop sign. It brings action and whatever original feeling the characters may have to a screeching halt."

Yeeouch! Welcome home, eh?

But my response was jovial. I'd never before been so viciously panned and the responses were so extreme that I didn't put much stock in them. No I didn't get angry until I actually saw the production myself the following night and walked out of the theater appalled, unable to comprehend just how badly my play had been screwed up after it went over so well when the same company had done a staged reading of it back in August with the same director.

I could go on and on about all the problems but I'll just give you abbreviated version:
-The guy (notice I didn't refer to him as an actor) playing Nick (the lead) was just plain awful . He didn't have a fucking clue about what he was doing onstage or what he was supposed to care about; nor did he have any sort of idea about what to do with the language of the play, which is, at times, yes, poetic, but it's not as if it's Shakespearean verse.

-The actor playing Louis was miscast. He was a very fine actor but totally wrong for the role and as a result you just couldn't love Louis as much as you should.

-The actor playing Terence played him as your straight-up, no holds barred gay stereotype. Totally fey and limp-wristed--the kind of joke you did in high school. This is appropriate neither historically nor dramatically. In short, it was NOT the character I wrote.

And worst of all...

-The director gave up. He was unhappy with his choice of cast, couldn't get them to gel together as well as the August cast and gave up. I realized this after I saw the play a second time (I don't know how I managed to sustain so much torture). At the end of the play, when things start to fall apart for our heroes, the action onstage became completely unintelligible. Actors were stepping on each other lines, running around without any seeming idea of where they were supposed to be, throwing away important lines-- It was a complete mess.

So then, what did I learn from this experience?
Yes, you sir, in the back.

"St. Louis isn't ready for your work?"

I disagree. Maybe it's me being optimistic about my hometown but I don't think 11 Hills... is beyond the people of St. Louis. In fact, quite a few people commented on how much they enjoyed play. There was even one man who asked for my email address so he could request a copy of the play in order to enjoy it again at leisure.

Yes, you there.

"Maybe that this company sucks?"

No. Not at all. Back when I was living in the Lou I worked with HotCity (then known as HotHouse) and we always did very fine work. They do new plays, but they're an actor-based company so they tend to do plays that have a proven track record, hence the exciting possibility of starting up a new play series, their Greenhouse (a name that made more sense when the company was called HotHouse. But I digress...) So I don't blame HotCity directly. Rather, the bulk of my frustration lies with the series director, Jason Cannon. Jason speaks very nobly and eloquently about creating a home for new plays. He also speaks very pompously, actually saying that believes this little new play festival could be a new Humana. Really? I mean, it's good to have goals and all, but maybe you should start with getting a real budget for the "full productions" as well as finding a real theater space to perform them in.

He should also take a lesson from Marc Masterson, artistic director of ATL and the Humana Festival and actually be present. Not once, during the weekend I was in St. Louis did Jason show up. You know why? He was doing his own, independent production of Hamlet elsewhere in the city.

All right, one more try. Go.

"'Freebird' rocks!"

'Freebird' does rock, but I already knew that. Here's what I learned:

1. In a theater community like St. Louis it's more important for the playwright to be there for auditions than for rehearsals. I believe this partially because the casting for my play was such a nightmare, and there was an actor who was being considered for Nick who I absolutely would have insisted upon had I been there. In fact, I would not have allowed the play to happen with the guy we took had I seen him earlier on. (I should quickly point out that casting wasn't a complete nightmare; the 2 women in the play were very good.) The other reason I would rather have been in auditions (v. rehearsals) is that the actors didn't know what to do with me in the rehearsal room. It was an experience they were so unused to, I felt like extra baggage. Were I living in St. Louis I would strive to teach them, but I'm not so I don't really have the time or ability to do so. Maybe one day...

2. And this speaks to what did piss me off about my shitty reviews. As I said, I really didn't mind getting panned--ask my parents, my closest friends--I laughed for days; but I did mind that 'new plays' were being treated so roughly by a press that didn't have the intelligence to see through a crappy production. Allow me to quote again one of the things Mr. Brown said about my play in his RFT review:

"Companies like GreenHouse like to utter noble sentiments about the importance of staging new plays. But who benefits from this production? Not the viewers, not the actors, not even the playwright — who will learn precious little about where to go from here."

With support like that, a young playwright trying to do something a little different is going to learn exactly where s/he should go from here: THE HELL AWAY FROM ST. LOUIS. I am certainly not the first writer to leave St. Louis in hopes of finding a more supportive artistic environment elsewhere, and with pompous jackasses like Dennis Brown allowed to declare what is and is not good new theater I won't be the last.

Fortunately for St. Louis though, I may be an emerging playwright who has yet to receive a professional production of one of his plays, but I am not a young playwright who's going to tuck my tail and run. Fuck you, Dennis Brown. Doing new plays is not a "noble sentiment." It's the only thing we've got if the theater's to remain vital. I'm not giving up on St. Louis--or HotCity--and I look forward to you seeing and reviewing more of my plays in the future (if you're even still around).

Truth

2007-04-30T01:21:00.000-04:00

I don't know why or wherefore, but I look at this picture--taken by me, late July 2006. west of Lone Pine, CA--and I think, "This is it. There's something true about this." That wasn't my thought when I snapped the shot; I just stopped my car and took the picture. But now, I look at it, and everything makes sense.

I could be oversimplifying, but I do believe in this view.

What say you, Blogosphere? And don't just agree with me. Give me a substantiated yea or nea on this picture.

I've gotta move to Oregon

2007-04-23T23:10:00.000-04:00

I knew it!

2007-04-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

I always knew that I didn't deserve my nice guy reputation. Now I have proof:

You Are 62% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.

Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

It may not be scientific, but look at that girl's face. She's scary lookin'. Or she would be...if I weren't so evil.

Start fearing me, bitches!

Fuck "Under 30"

2007-04-11T01:34:00.000-04:00

I recently received this solicitation from an email list I'm on:

"University of Kentucky Department of Theatre James W. Rodgers Playwriting Competition 2007.

"Competition is open to playwrights who are 30 years old or younger by the deadline date. Candidates must indicate their birth date in the application form. Candidates born before August 1, 1976 are ineligible.

"Plays submitted must be the original work of the playwright (adaptations and translations will not be considered) and must be previously unpublished and never fully produced (plays that have been developed in readings/workshops will be considered). Only one play per applicant will be considered.

"In considering the plays, the adjudication committee will follow Dr. Rodgers desire that plays should 'reflect creativity, discipline and insight…celebrating the human spirit and its potential.'

"Awards:
Competition Winner: Full production in the Spring 2008 University of Kentucky Theatre Season (April 2008) and the playwright will receive a $500 honorarium."

Time for a playwriting/theater-based rant...

Never really thought that I'd be in this position, but why "Under 30?" Why "Candidates born before August 1, 1976 are ineligible?" Really, what the fuck is that about? Not that I'm dying to get $500 and a full production at the University of Kentucky, but I've seen a few "Under 30" solicitations at this point, and as someone who is 6 months too old to submit to this competition, I suddenly find myself questioning why I should be excluded--Can't I too write plays that “reflect creativity, discipline and insight…celebrating the human spirit and its potential?” Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a good description of ALL of my plays. (Not that that's saying much. You could argue it's a good description of most plays--most good plays anyhow.)

I guess I understand the desire to help out and recognize younger writers who haven't yet made a name for themselves as well as writers who are more likely (in theory, I guess) to write roles for younger, say, college-aged actors, but if that's the case then maybe the competition should be for 'emerging' playwrights, or playwrights who haven't yet had a professional production. And if they get plays from 60 year-olds that don't have the 'youth' they're looking for, well, don't give the 60 year-olds the prize. But "Under 30"?! Jordan Harrison could submit to this contest and I can't. Jordan who has been a Jerome fellow twice over, has received a McKnight grant, had 2 plays at Humana, 1 at Berkeley Rep, 1 coming up at Playwrights Horizons, has commissions from....everywhere, and is currently a member of New Dramatists. And I don't say any of this with bitterness. I know Jordan. He's a friend of mine. But because of this ridiculous criterion, he can submit to this. He won't of course, but he could. I have none of that and would hardly sneer at an extra $500 and so might consider submitting to something like this.

But I can't because I was born six months too early.

Does this make any sense?

Why are there no pictures of Monica Goodling?

2007-04-07T19:58:00.000-04:00

If you've been following the mess that is the U.S. Justice Department--I'm sorry, I mean the mess that the DOJ is currently embroiled in--you'll no doubt have heard the name Monica Goodling. If you haven't been following things, Ms. Goodling is the aide who was acting as liaison between the DOJ and the White House which put her right in the midst of the brouhaha

But whether or not you've heard of Monica Goodling, I'll bet good money that you haven't seen a picture of her.

Why is that? She's been all over the news for weeks, she took the 5th for crying outloud and no one has taken her picture? You can find all sorts of pictures of everyone else involved, why not her? Seriously, do a Google image search on Monica. You'll find a bunch of possibilities, but nothing definitive.

Clearly this is some sort of conspiracy and once we've taken care of Gonzales I want an investigation into this.

I miss Joshua Tree SO much...

2007-03-25T21:47:00.000-04:00

...that I am literally sick over it. It's the only explanation for I why I feel so utterly shite. (No! I don't want to hear about "viruses.") You see, every year for the last three years I have taken advantage of a). the UCSD spring break and b). San Diego's close proximity to Joshua Tree National Park to spend said spring break in aforementioned Joshua Tree National Park. And I did this come hell or highwater (neither of which I actually faced). Were I still in San Diego this annual expedition would have begun today--

Okay, in truth, I would have planned for it to start today but something would have inevitably happened, like, I would have been out too late partying after yesterday's graduation (Congrats Class of 2007!), or there would be some other end of quarter/pre-spring break hoo-ha that I wouldn't have wanted to miss, or I might just have wanted to sleep in and not deal with packing, and, really, I'd rather leave tomorrow because I'd want to get stuck behind the cross-country bike trip which starts in San Diego and ends...somewhere on the east coast and which I somehow always managed to get stuck behind on my way across the San Jacinto Mountains. Our timing was THAT good. Except for last year actually where I didn't get stuck behind the cyclists because we took the faster, more direct, but totally less exciting route via I-15. However! I did get stuck behind the cyclists because I took my mom out to Anza-Borrego Desert for a hike BEFORE the Joshua Tree trip. I even once got stuck behind that very same bike trip in Missouri in July or August 2005 (I think). So three years of dealing with those slow bastards also down the drain--

In truth then, Joshua Tree 2007 would have started tomorrow. But let's not get squabble over technicalities, okay? Because here how it's gone down.

First though, let's look at another picture...

(This is from JT '06 when I had the good fortune and great delight of going to Joshua Tree with 3 amazing friends. From left: Caleb Levengood, Josh Tobiessen, me, & Nikki Black. Not pictured: Steve. We spent three days hiking, drinking, and taking rockstar photos of ourselves (as above). If only we had an actual band. Cheers, amigos!)

Back to the present: So Thursday night I started coughing and feeling achy. Friday I woke up feeling worse. Come Friday night it was a full blown fever, and it's just gotten worse from there. I mean, today hasn't been so bad. Or it wasn't until I realized that tomorrow I WOULD NOT BE IN JOSHUA TREE. And guess what happened after realizing that? Fever came back.

So there it is. Body, smarter than mind, saw this coming and now it's in mourning. Or else, so depressed that a JT trip wasn't going to happen this year it let down its defenses and, blahblahblah, virus--but that's the only "virus" explanation I will accept.

I need another picture...

(Ah... "Grizzly Tim points out the way." Joshua Tree 2005.)

One final piece of evidence to prove my "no JT=sick as a dog" theory, and I swear to you this is 100% true. At the start of the very first trip, Joshua Tree 2004, even before I'd left San Diego, I started feeling a bit dodgy--almost like I was getting sick. But there in San Diego we were in the midst of an early bout of May Gray, and I couldn't stand to not see the sun and I wanted so badly to go to Joshua Tree. So I said fuck it, and just started driving. And let me tell you, encountering those slow-ass cyclists gave me lots of opportunities to consider turning back, and I did consider that very thing. But I pressed on. And by the time I'd arrived amongst the Joshua trees and those crazy rock formations...

I was cured. True story.

So then, two more theories: My body, remembering that incident, is sticking it to me now in retaliation. OR that was one vindictive motherfucking virus that stuck around all this time just waiting for the key moment to strike. If so, Curse you virus. May your time inside my body be...really annoying. For you, I mean.

Lots of options. Log in and register your vote on which one you think is right.

And to those of you out there moaning about me once again using this blog to moan about not being in California and how much I miss California, well, suck it. It's my blog. Plus I heard this great theory today about how Jack Kerouac needed to suffer to do his thing. And by extension I would say, maybe not all, but most artists, myself included, because gods know (forgive me, I've been watching BSG) if I could just go hiking all the time I'd never get a lick of writing done. More importantly I wouldn't feel the need to write; I'd tell myself, "Forget about writing about life...Man. You're out there. Living it." Or something.

So to all my detractors, let me suffer, and let me write about that suffering here on these pages. Eventually, I'll either produce something worthy of the moaning. Or else give up and become hobo, wandering the mountains that create the spine of California and, indeed, the whole of the West Coast.

(That's almost worthy of one of Carpenter's howls...)

CARPENTER (to the coyote):
I need senses like yours. Maybe I would’ve seen this coming.
But it’s this fuckin’ place. Doesn’t know what it is.
Green canyons and million dollar homes, sure…

But we’re in the middle of a desert.
It’s got me all screwed up.

Maybe we should’ve just gone with him.

No. Fuck that. You and I’ll do it together. When the time is right.
You get me outta here, lead me to the real desert,
And I’ll shed this human skin. Become like you…
And you and I’ll be brothers from now on.

(from Santa Ana Winds. ©2007 Tim J. Lord. All rights reserved.)

Vive la Revolution!

2007-03-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

The last time we saw this many heads rolling, they called it the French Revolution...

(at least by association)

And then there was that Walter Reed businesss...

Didn't the director of the FBI get in trouble too?

And our latest...

When I went to bed last night Alberto was saying, "I will not resign," and when I woke up this morning he was saying, "Well, you know, whatever the president wants." It took Rummy years to make that leap. At this rate we'll have a new attorney general by Friday.

Someone out there with Photoshop should put Nancy Pelosi's head...

...on Marianne:

Beat the Bop! Bop the Beat!

2007-03-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

My dear readers (all 3 of you),

I figured if there's anything worth posting this was. Back in 2005 I was a second year at the University of California, San Diego, and we had just started rehearsals on my play 11 Hills of San Francisco. The production, to my mind, was a fabulous success and a very exciting moment as it was the first time that I'd really seen a full-length play of mine through an entire process. "From page to stage," as they say (much as I find I dislike that phrase).

Well, tonight in St. Louis, that very play returns to the stage as part of HotCity Theatre's Greenhouse Series. It's a small production--limited budget, short rehearsal period and all--but it's the first time one of my grad school plays is seeing life in the professional world, and that's pretty darn cool.

If you're in or near St. Louis and want to check it out for yourself, the details are below.

11 HILLS OF SAN FRANCISCO
by Tim J. Lord
Directed by Michael Jokerst

March 8th - March 18th, 2007
Thurs-Sat @ 8pm; Sun @ 7pm
The Centene Center For The Arts
3547 Olive St., St. Louis, MO 63103
www.hotcitytheatre.org

Winner of the 2006 Greenhouse New Play Festival jury prize, Myth meets "The Beat" in this '50s tragic tale. Escaping from midwest boredom to San Francisco bohemia, Nick, a young poet obsessed with his work, hunts for true inspiration. As the new boy in town, Nick finds himself in the center of an exciting and sordid world where he discovers pure pleasure in his work and his lovers. Then, a mysterious girl appears. Is she the divine voice he's been searching for or the fate of his tragic destiny?

I got a birthday present from the Sierras

2007-02-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

Alas, I wasn't there to receive it but the Sierras created this scene on February 24, my birthday. This is Lone Pine Peak. It sits in the Eastern Sierra Nevada just below its much taller neighbor Mt. Whitney and just above the town of Lone Pine where much of my most recently completed play is set.

It's a pretty rockin' picture.

I found it at a favorite website of mine: SummitPost.org

Something to Share

2007-02-13T17:02:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to share this picture I saw on NYTimes.com because I thought it was gorgeous. (And no, I didn't feel that way because I'm from St. Louis and love to see Chicago suffer. I do love to see Chicago suffer, but that's not why I think this picture is gorgeous.)

Thanks to Charles Rex Arbogast at the Associated Press, who snapped this pic.

Picture = 1,000 words

2007-02-12T10:34:00.001-05:00

So I don't have any real comment to add here. Here's the New York Times story where I found this pic.

(All right, I do have to say that I'd like to reintroduce one of these guys into the food chain.)

(But not before giving him a history lesson: "Wolves arrived in North America 700,000 years ago; greedy, destructive white men arrived 500 years ago. Now who's the fucking 'illegal immigrant,' you ignorant son of a bitch? Oops. Sorry. That's offensive to the wolves.")

And because the nerdy-looking guy is too smart to make a simple yet catchy, effective sign, I feel the need to interpret what his sign is trying to say.

"Idaho's wolves are wildlife too."
Pretty self-explanatory.

"You kill more ungulates for sport...than I do to survive."
What the hell is an 'ungulate?' I didn't know either so I looked it up. An ungulate is a 'hoofed mammal.' So what we're reading here is the wolf speaking to the hunters who want to kill wolves because they claim that the success of reintroduced wolf populations is making it harder for them to hunt, specifically, elk. Here's the quote from the NYTimes article: "Research shows that when they are stalked by wolves, elk behave more like wild animals than livestock. They are more alert and spook easier and so hunting is more difficult." No shit. Really? In other words, you have to be a real hunter and not some drunken dickhead with a gun. Hm. Who knew?

Boo hoo. Learn to kill for real or shutup.

What the hell have I been up to?

2007-02-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

And why haven't I been posting?

The answer there lies in the fact that I've been writing, working on my plays. The completion of The View from Mt. Langley was followed close on by a rewrite of 11 Hills of San Francisco which, I'm excited to say, has finally got what I hope is the clearer ending that I've been meaning to write for about a year and a half.

What am I going to be up to?

The rewrite of 11 Hills... was inspired by an upcoming workshop production of said play in St. Louis at HotCity Theatre, a company I used to work with back when I was livin' there. Incidentally, I'll be going back for the first few rehearsals next week, so don't expect too many posts next week either.

On 24 February, 2007, I'll be turning--wait for it--thirty-one. Put another way, that's 31. Only just getting used to thirty and suddenly I have to deal with being "thirty-something." Remember that show? Yeah, neither do I. You wanna know why? It aired when I was 11, and I thought thirtysomething-year olds were boring. And now I'm one of them.

But what about my writing? What's next?

Well, there's the long road of whipping Langley into shape. (A public reading is potentially in the works there. Stay tuned...)

In the very immediate future (next week?) I intend to do a polish on the new draft of Santa Ana Winds that I completed back in December so that I can start sending the play around. Very excited to do that and finally send another fledgling out into the big bad world.

Somewhere right around the corner I'll be writing at least one (and maybe upwards of three) puppet plays. Oh yeah. Strange bit of fate as to how this is coming about. Last September, I was in Scotland for some friends' wedding. Shortly before leaving for the bonny country I had learned that another friend of mine from back in my Providence days was living there, having married his longtime Scottish girlfriend. I knew he was living in Glasgow but was unable to get hold of his contact info. "Rats," I thought. "Would've been nice to see Andy & Kirsty." Fast forward to the day after the wedding. Incredibly hungover I'm contemplating how best to get from the tiny border town of Gretna to Glasgow because the train tracks are being worked on. I end up getting a car to the English city of Carlisle where I will be able to catch a train to Glasgow. Long story made...less long, there in the station is my friend Andy. He'd been in Newcastle (in Northeastern England) and was also rerouted due to the track maintenance. Wild. We rode the train to Glasgow and I supped and slept at his flat. The point of all this is that it turns out that Andy has started his own puppetry company--mostly stuff for kids, but he wants to start doing adult shows and we've been emailing about collaborating on something. I'm very excited about this. More details as the script(s) develop.

And finally, I'm already at work on my next full-length, but it's way too early in the process to talk about it much. No real idea of story or character. I just have some research and my landscapes and metaphors and images (where landscape and metaphor meet?). I can say that it will have something to do with geology and ancient mountain ranges and will most likely be set in Upstate New York and (possibly) Brooklyn. Yes, I know, barely six months in the city and I'm already contemplating a New York play. But never fear, I will come at it in a decidedly Tim J. Lord fashion.

So there you have it, now you know: If I'm not posting it's (hopefully) because I'm doing legitimate creative work.

That's right, blog! I just slagged you off big-time!

(This post brought to you by the Society to Introduce (More) Parentheticals to the (Everyday) Use of the (English) Language.)

Wahey!

2007-01-31T00:43:00.000-05:00

It's raise-a-glass time. I finished the first draft of my play The View from Mt. Langley. Crazy. It remained, basically, completely based in realism. Crazier. And though, as I post this, it's officially January 31 here on the east coast, I finished the play with about thirty minutes of January 30 to spare. And July 30 was the last time I personally climbed Mt. Langley. So, for those of you not inclined to do the math (I wouldn't be either), that's six months to the day. Craziest.

Drink 'em if you've got 'em!

I'd like to dedicate this moment to my ex-roomie Jamie and D-Rock & Marissa--all of whom have shared the view on at least one occasion.

Cheers!

Is anyone else surprised by this?

2007-01-30T21:02:00.000-05:00

From the BBC comes news of the passing of the floppy disk. Now, that's not particularly surprising, but what I find almost unfathomable is that this is only just now happening. When was the last time anyone used a floppy, and what were they using it for?

"Dude, I've got a song you have to hear. If you take the files from these three floppies you might be able to reconstruct it..."

Fascinating.

The death of VHS was declared late last year (you can read about it on Alex Lewin's "Peculiar River"), an event that was also not unforeseen, but retrospectively I would have expected floppies to be laid to rest long before VHS. A movie's a movie, regardless of the format. A floppy's a… I mean, come on. It's called a floppy for cryin' outloud.

Nothin' But Net

2007-01-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

"Let's see. How does one use this--what does one call it--a 'basketball?'"

From the New York Times:
"Handed the ball in the middle of the key, the prince bounced it once, twice, then attempted a one-handed shot that hit nothing but net (literally — the ball peaked about a foot below the rim).

"He tried again and sank the shot off the backboard. The children cheered wildly."

You go, Chuck.

Shoot Me Now

2007-01-24T14:24:00.000-05:00

"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by Al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country, and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."

Really, Mr. President? Is that so? Wow. Who knew?

Oh right, everyone who had a brain back in 2003 when you started sowing the seeds of this nightmare.

So close...

2007-01-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

This pictures makes me want so badly to see Brain K. Vaughan's comic Y: The Last Man become a reality.

At least inside the walls of Congress last night. Or maybe just up on that podium. And in the ensuing chaos while Laura was grieving wildly from the balcony and Hilary was thinking, "Eh," maybe Hilary could slug Laura and say, "You sucked as First Lady."

My New Job

2007-01-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

Because I find myself doing this on a semi-regular basis these days, I'm officially dubbing myself, "Stupid Headline Watchdog." Here's the latest transgressor from Reuters:

U.S. denies British rumors on Bush climate change

I'm sorry, what?

Are the Brits spreading rumors about climate change in the Australian Outback? the African wilderness? And if so, why is the U.S. denying these rumors? (Especially considering that our president doesn't even believe in climate change.) Or could it be that Bush's climate is changing? Maybe he's pulling a Schwarzenegger and his "climate" is becoming more liberal?

No, that's probably not it.

The only way this headline is successful is that I had to read the article to find out what the hell they were trying to report.

Well, at least they remembered to capitalize "Bush."

My "Duh" Thought of the Day: Don't Get Too Comfortable

2007-01-13T20:50:00.000-05:00

I'm serious. Don't do it. Look what comfortability did to George Lucas.

Star Wars when he was young and forced to work within the confines the studio placed on him? Legendary. Star Wars when he was rich and powerful beyond your wildest dreams? Crap.

Sting when he was a young punk rock wannabe, making a living as a substitute teacher? Rockstar Extraordinaire. Sting after his parents died? Musician/Poet Spectacular. Sting as the happily married guy living in a castle with his own recording studio? Adult Contemporary. He's almost too soft for soft rock stations now.

And me? I've been living in New York for less than five months and, having never done so prior, I've fallen asleep on the Subway twice in the last two weeks, adding a solid hour to my return journeys both times.

Okay, not as serious a misstep as Lucas' & Sting's, but I was pretty damn comfortable.

On Behalf of Those Who Want Their Winter Back

2007-01-06T20:05:00.000-05:00

These gentlemen are part of the Coney Island Polar Bears Club.

They go swimming in the ocean when it's stupidly cold out.

It's isn't stupidly cold and hasn't been for some time, so they're staging a silent protest against the warm weather.

Meteorologists are saying it isn't global warming, it's El Niño. "It's El Niño! It's El Niño!" I say, bullshit; they blame everything on El Niño. I think they're all part of the conspiracy to debunk global warming. These temperatures are ridiculous and affecting a huge part of the world and the meteorologists want to feel important. They want to say, "Listen to us. We know what's wrong. It's El Niño."

Hey, morons! Have you heard that a lot of scientists see a pretty significant connection between global warming and the increase in the number of El Niños we've seen in recent years? Shut up and quit taking steam away from Al Gore.

Gentlemen of the Coney Island Polar Bears Club, I applaud you. I wish more of us were this brave.

Holy shit! When did I become a Realist?

2007-01-03T20:33:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished the first act of my new play, The View from Mt. Langley, and I realized, "Wow. This play dwells completely within the world of 'the real.'" Now, if you don't know my work, you may be thinking, "Yeah? So? Big deal." But if you do, you'll understand the significance of this realization.

My plays tend to exist in a world that is anywhere from slightly to substantially heightened from the everyday. Here's a good example of my typical spectrum:

At one end there's Better Homes & Homelands, a fantastic world surrounding a fictionalized version of Brenda Talent (wife of the former Missouri Senator) where letters from Brenda's subdivision committee arrive from the sky, Brenda's kids are played by Cabbage Patch Kids®, and a demonic plant conspires to help Brenda break out of her suburban prison.

At the other end of this spectrum is Santa Ana Winds (mentioned here of late as a result of a recently completed new draft). This play is, in many ways, quite realistic. Except that it isn't. Mike & Josephine appear to summon forces that will either destroy or redeem. Carpenter is turning into a coyote.

But Langley... there isn't really a single, remotely impossible thing. Does it mark a new chapter in the Tim J. Play? Is it part of the natural order of things? Fuck if I know. Stay tuned to find out. 'Cause you never know...everything could fall apart in Act 2.

(And, yes, I have intentionally capitalized "realist.")

Holidaze

2006-12-29T13:45:00.000-05:00

In case anyone's actually wondering, I've decided to take a holiday break from the blog. I just officially decided this right now, but I'm making it retroactive to the last time I posted. So deal with it. I'll be back, more regular and all (thank you, All-Bran) come 2007.

Happy New Year!

The World Smiles & Shits On Me

2006-12-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it shits and smiles. Sometimes it smiles and shits. What's the difference? You tell me.

Twice I've had grandparents die when I was stuck in a really difficult place, and their deaths have, ironically, helped me out. And right now, in Oregon, there is something happening which is very similar to one of the central events in the play I'm writing.

I never know how to fell about moments like this. I know how I'm supposed to feel. But I feel a lot of other stuff too.

You can kill hours playing with this:

2006-12-13T20:27:00.000-05:00

While I'm sure my friend, former classmate, and international traveler extraordinaire would know who they are, I had to look them up.

Thabo Mbeki is the president of South Africa.
Paavo Lipponen is the prime minister of Finland.
Patrick Swayze is the High Chancellor of Lichtenstein.

But ask me, just ask me, who I'm most excited about. All right Sean is pretty cool, but Edmund Hillary? That guy's, like, a total fuckin' hero of mine.

Tootin' My Own Horn

2006-12-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

(Please curb your jokes about farts and self-fellating.)

This past August, my play 11 Hills of San Francisco was one of 4 plays included in the first annual Greenhouse New Play Festival at HotCity Theatre in St. Louis, MO. The play was voted best of the festival and thereby earned itself a full-on production for March 2007.

If you go here, you can see the play's official announcement.

HotCity is a small, limited Equity waiver kind of theater I used to work with back when I lived in the Lou. But it's, uh… It's kinda cool…

Let's get political.

2006-12-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

In addition to everything else I'm currently working on I'm also back at work on a project with my directing collaborator West Hyler. Back in 2003 we started to develop a theatrical piece based on the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege. Remember that? 22 Chechen men and 19 Chechen women took a theater in Moscow hostage and threatened to blow it up if the Russian government didn't pull out of Chechnya. It almost ended well (for the Russians) when the FSB (the KGB's successor) flooded the theater with a powerful sleeping gas rendering the bombers and the hostages unconscious. FSB's Alpha Force was then able to storm the theater and take out the gunmen. But the gas proved too powerful and the evacuation of the theater was dreadfully botched. Unconscious hostages were dragged outside, left lying on their backs, and there weren't enough medics to administer an antidote. Consequently, 129 of the hostages died, choking on their own vomit or swallowing their tongues.

Way to go, FSB.

Delving back into this world has, somewhat conversely, put me more in touch with what's going on currently. And I'm not talking exclusively about the incompetency of the Russian Government. The Chechen's struggle for independence is still going on. It started in 1994 and was briefly successful in 1997. However, Russia really didn't want to let it go; and in 1999, after a series of unexplained explosions in Moscow apartment blocks, which the Russians blamed on Chechen separatists, the Kremlin has its excuse to reinvade. And this time the Chechens lost.

The war last made headlines in this country with the 2004 Beslan School Siege. (Another horrific incident on the parts of both the Chechens and the Russians.)

That is until former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died from radiation poisoning recently, and this is actually what I'm trying to get at with this post. There's been a ridiculous amount of reporting on the intrigue surrounding Litvinenko's death, but there's been almost no reporting on the reason he was killed. (Because, come on, there's no one out there who seriously believes he was accidentally exposed to this radiation.) Litvinenko was an outspoken opponent of Putin's government and specifically of the conflict in Chechnya. It's believed by some of his friends that he converted to Islam on his deathbed and asked that his remains one day be buried in Chechnya. I don't want to get into an argument about whether Putin or the FSB were directly involved in his death, but his criticism of how his country is wiping out Chechnya all for its personal gain is why he's dead.

And no one in the mainstream media is doing any serious reporting on this.

Everyone is caught up in the cloak and dagger aspects of how it was done and who did it. But no one is asking why. The Russian media isn't allowed to report on Chechnya and Litvinenko isn't the first to be assassinated as a result of this. Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also an outspoken critic of the war, was gunned down in her apartment building. There's obviously a lot of possible debate over the the whole conflict in Chechnya and the tactics being used by the Chechens to win independence, but there's considerably less debate to be had over the abuse they're suffering at the hands of the Russian government.

If you'd like to know more about what's going on. Check out these links...

Here is the last article Anna Politkovskaya wrote for the Russian paper Novaya Gaeta. (Incidentally, this is the one of the few recent reports on Chechnya I've seen in mainstream media, and I would hardly have called it a "headline.")

And here is a documentary called Chechnya: The Dirty War, made by BBC 4 in July 2005, streaming free courtesy of the interweb, which gives both a great overview of the Chechnyan conflict and a brutal insight into the current state of things. And the really scary thing this documentary points out is how Chechnya has become a rallying cry for extremist muslims; not just against the Russian government but against all the western countries that have ignored Chechnya.

Season's Beatings

2006-12-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

In addition to NPR, I've also become a fan of the folks over at Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency with their daily helpings of literary silliness. (And no, it's not just because McSweeney and I share the same first name. Though that it is part of it. A tiny, wee, little part...)

Here's a particularly fun one just in time for the holiday season.

Well worth your time...

2006-12-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

At least if you're a nerd. And I am.

And you can see all 4 episodes of "Chad Vader" at the Blame Society Productions website.

The strange capital of Intrepid Tuesday

2006-12-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

Any of you out there who use Yahoo! mail probably know that they have headlines on the mail homepage. You also may have noticed that the headlines are crap. The stories themselves are usually fine as they're just posted from AP, but I'm pretty certain that someone else is writing the headlines, and I just want to tell that person or persons, "You suck." Take for instance this one...

"New York hopes to free Intrepid Tuesday"

Now I'm no journalist, just a news reading civilian, but wouldn't you expect this to be a story about the city or state of New York hoping to arrange the release of someone or something called "Intrepid Tuesday?" But no, what they're trying to say is "New York hopes to free Intrepid ON Tuesday." The "Intrepid being an aircraft carrier turned museum that's long been mired in the New York Harbor and "Tuesday" being a day of the week, specifically, today.

Now I'm not advocating putting that "on" into the headline. I just want this headline writer to know how/when to capitalize. A headline is like any old title. You capitalize the important words. Don't believe me, check out the New York Times.

Now, maybe you're saying, "Yes, but that's not a universal in the journalistic world," and to that I respond, "What? There's a world beyond the New York Times?"

Just joking. My latest attempt to "be a New Yorker."

But seriously, apply some sensible capitalization and see what that would do for this particular, dodgy headline:

"New York Hopes to Free Intrepid Tuesday."

Just capitalizing "hopes" and "free" makes one look at the headline differently. You're not nearly as likely to combine Intrepid Tuesday into one entity.

And this is an issue I take on a larger scale. Is it important? Probably not. Is it pressing? More and more I have to believe it is. What am I talking about?

Faulty capitalization.

I was taught that in a title you always capitalize the first word and the last word, all nouns and verbs, and most modifiers, e.g. "Happy" or "Sad." Take for instance this song title by one of my favorite bands, American Music Club—one of my faves both because they make great music with awesome titles and they know to capitalize those titles.

"What Godzilla Said to God When His Name Wasn't Found in the Book of Life"

Too often nowadays, people just capitalize every word in a title. How dumb would this title be if it was rendered thus:

"What Godzilla Said To God When His Name Wasn't Found In The Book Of Life"

Capitalizing prepositions is something I can occasionally tolerate, but you never, never capitalize "the" (or "a" or "an") unless it's the first word of the title. "The God Botherers," "A View from the Bridge," "A Separate Peace." But not "Death Of A Salesman." No one would ever consider producing "Death Of A Salesman." Trust me.

This isn't to say I'm against creative capitalization. R.E.M. for one used this to great success on the album Reckoning, or should I say reckoning: "HarborcOat," "so. Central Rain," "little america." (My spellcheck is freaking out over the concept of an uncapitalized "america." How awesome is that?)

Call me crazy for going on about this, but faulty capitalization is just one more step down the slippery road that is the obliteration and obfuscation of our language. So be smart about your capitalization. Think about it before you blindly submit to what's easiest. And if it's about standards, then rewrite the headline so you don't leave me feeling disappointed that the story I'm about to read is about some stupid old aircraft carrier and not about someone with a wicked cool name.

I want to get a pet now and name that pet "Intrepid Tuesday."

Hmm…

2006-11-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

This is Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft. He's really pumped because Microsoft is finally releasing a new operating system and he got to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange today. Way to go, Steve!

But I can't help thinking, when Howard Dean behaved like this, he lost the Democratic presidential nomination.

Post-Thanksgiving nibblin's

2006-11-28T12:15:00.000-05:00

"You're my fuckin' hero, you know that? I mean, when I want to kill people I have to start a war and stage joke trials…"

"And… Cue music.
Go on 'Stayin' Alive.' "

Dialect-ic

2006-11-20T12:34:00.000-05:00

There's a part of me that really wants to be this guy. His name is Don Kroodsma and he spends a lot of time riding his bicycle all over the country recording birdsong. Brilliant.

He's the subject of an NPR story from June 2005 that I was recently reminded of. Fascinating stuff.

Check it, yo.

Moving on

2006-11-20T01:18:00.000-05:00

I've been of a desert mindset lately in order to complete my Santa Ana rewrite, but now it's time to turn my attention and energy towards my new play, The View from Mt. Langley. To help me accomplish this I hereby post the monologue what opens the play.

Enjoy!

(And feel free to comment. Specifically, what excites you? What would your hopes and imaginings be for the play begun in such a way? etc.)

*******************

(LEIGH stands alone onstage. There is a table nearby with maps, hiking guidebooks, a compass, a notepad, a pencil.

(A domestic setting, but the light is strangely airy, crystalline. And also, at times, shadowy, as if clouds are passing by quickly overhead.

(She speaks to us.)

LEIGH:
I have a picture of my parents.
They’re standing on the summit of Mt. Langley, a peak
In the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. It’s a big one.
Fourteen thousand twenty-six feet above sea level.
The two of them
with their backs to the camera, looking off towards Mt. Whitney in the north.
Looking at this picture, you get the impression
that they’re the only people in the world
though clearly someone else was there,
holding the camera.

And I have two other photos they took of each other.
The one is my mother with the western slope of the Sierras
falling away from her, dramatically, but gently.
High peaks and green forests and untouched mountain lakes
Fed by spring meltwater.
The other is my father with the eastern slope behind him.
You can’t see the eastern slope, of course, because it plunges away,
thousands of feet disappear with a single step. So what you see
is this lonely figure with the Owens Valley seemingly right behind him
and in the distance: the Panamint Mountains
the mountains that form the western wall of Death Valley.

My mother is looking straight into the camera. Huge smile.
My dad is looking sort of down and away. Uncomfortable
with the camera’s scrutiny.

For a long time I kept these pictures all together, a trio.
But recently, I hung the picture of my mother on the western wall of my room
And the picture of my dad on the eastern wall.
And I was left standing there, looking back and forth between them.

I’m the same age now that my mother was then
When she and my father first climbed Mt. Langley.
It’s the southernmost peak in a string of peaks over 14,000 feet—
Most climbers, myself included, call them “fourteeners.”
It’s a hell of a ridgeline:
Mt. Tyndall, Mt. Muir, Mt. Russell, Mt. Williamson.
And Mt. Whitney—the highest of these.

But none of these is as special as Langley—which
Is only just barely fourteener—
Because the view from the top is…

Well, I can’t say actually.
Not because it’s beyond description (though it probably is)
but because I don’t know. I’ve never been. Not in person.
I’m not allowed.
But I imagine that view all the time.
I have these pictures to help
And maps.
I have a lot of maps. Of all the Sierras.
And I’ve used these maps to visit Mt. Langley in my dreams.
And I have books about the geology of the Sierras.
I can tell you anything you want to know.
I can tell you that the Sierras were formed as a result of faults
lifting up from the Earth’s crust. It’s hard to explain,
but if you imagine lifting up one side of a table so that the top
is at, say, a 30 degree angle, that’s sort of what happened.

(She does as she’s described. The table’s contents go crashing to the ground.)

Mess included. You don’t shift the land like that without creating a huge mess.
The part where your hands are, that’s the fault, the eastern slope.
That’s why the Sierras are much more dramatic to see from the east.
It’s also the reason that everything east from the Sierras is desert,
because this immense uplifting of the land catches all the moisture
and creates a rain shadow that spreads hundreds of miles eastward—
basically all the way to Colorado.

But back on the west side of the Sierras, all that captured moisture
is why the western slope is so pleasant and inviting. Green
with tall trees: white fir, yellow pine, incense cedar,
and the giant sequoias—the largest trees on the planet.
Some of them are more than 3,000 years old and weigh
more than two million pounds and their bark is resistant to fire.

The western side, that’s where we started. Me and my family.
And the eastern side is where we are now.
And Mt. Langley looks down on both of them.
Or so I imagine. So I hope.

It occured to me…

2006-11-17T12:58:00.000-05:00

…that it's November of 2006. Big whoop, right? But that reminded me that it was just about a year ago (1 year, 5 days) that I had this awesome excursion in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California with my former roomie Jamie and his Scripps pals. In celebration of that I now present a link to Jamie's webpage where you will find Jamie's narrative and the corresponding photos from said trip.

What you will not see/read that may require explanation:

That really was my finger and the spider really did jump onto my arm. We did glorious combat. It was a draw. The spider and I parted, perhaps not friends but respectful of one another.
There was wine, I was indeed happy, but there was also whisky. Who can stop themselves from climbing a hill and singing when they've been drinking whisky in the desert?
Yes, I nearly died during that sketchy, steep descent.

I love NPR

2006-11-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

I've become a huge NPR junkie and this is one particular reason why. If you know me and my writing at all you have to know that stumbling upon this report—a real accident. I only just happened to tune in to All Things Considered this evening—was an act of the divine.

I left immediately for the bookshop near my apartment to check out Barry Lopez's Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. They had it and I would have bought it were it not $30. What can I say? I'm poor and Christmas is only just over a month away. I skimmed through the book and it's beautiful. Replete with old illustrations. This is like a sacred text for me, because, despite this very 21st century persona of mine which you're reading right now, I am very much of the old world. I love words and place and their particular intersection. To illustrate, here is my favorite quote from the interview with Barry Lopez:

"To not be able to speak definitively and evocatively about your relationship to your place is potentially a great loss."

Amen.

Done

2006-11-16T21:14:00.000-05:00

I have at long last finished my rewrite of Santa Ana Winds. I've also at long last figured out how to embed links in my blog. I really wish I had a bottle of this to celebrate. (It's a desert thing.) But I don't, so I'll have to settle for some of this, instead.

Won't you join me in a toast?

I don't remember this at all!

2006-11-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

Huge things are afoot as I approach the ending of my "Santa Ana Winds" rewrite. Take for instance the following scene. (This will, of course, only be significant to those already familiar with the script. Sorry.)

***********************

Scene 14.
JOSIE is alone. She looks around her.
She looks at her hand. It is shaking faintly.
In the distance, coyotes can be heard howling.
Then silence. JOSIE looks at her hand again.
It is shaking more visibly.

JOSIE:
Carpenter!
Carpenter, where the fuck are you?
I need a drink and you’ve got the Jim Beam.
Mother fucker.
(silence)
(A shadowy figure slips up behind JOSIE.)
Carpenter! How long can it take to piss?

JOSEPHINE:
He didn’t look like he was comin’ back.

JOSIE:
What the—?!
(pause)
Shit, Kiddo. It’s you.

JOSEPHINE:
Yeah.

(silence)

JOSIE:
You’ve grown up a lot since I last you.

JOSEPHINE:
Yeah, you know. Puberty and all that.

JOSIE:
Sure.
Carpenter and I were just lookin’ for you.
And your brother. I guess we’re close, huh?

JOSEPHINE:
Relatively.

JOSIE:
We just had some…some unfinished business.

JOSEPHINE;
Please don’t bullshit me.

JOSIE:
Yeah.
Okay.
Truth is, I’ve had some pretty bloody thoughts lately.
Got myself a gun even.

JOSEPHINE;
You gonna kill us?

JOSIE:
I hadn’t really thought about you, Kiddo.
I know we never got along—

JOSEPHINE:
You killed my cat—

JOSIE:
A coyote killed your cat—

JOSEPHINE:
You let my cat out of the apartment.

(beat)

JOSIE:
True enough. But it really was an accident.
Even though I hated that mangy fuckin’ thing—

JOSEPHINE;
So you’re gonna kill Mike?

JOSIE:
I don’t know actually. And please
don’t go thinkin’ that’s got anything to do with you.

JOSEPHINE:
What if he kills you first?

JOSIE:
He can’t do that.

JOSEPHINE;
But you can kill him?

JOSIE;
You know what you should’ve learned from me?
I can do any-fuckin-thing I want to. You could too.
I mean that.

JOSEPHINE:
Well, I want you to leave us alone forever—

JOSIE:
Just wantin’s not enough. You gotta do somethin’
to make what you want happen.

JOSEPHINE:
So what is it you want to make happen to my brother?

JOSIE:
I want him to suffer like I suffered the last two years.
I want him to know what it is to think you’re life is over
even though you’re still walkin’ around.
And I made it out, I crawled my way back into some semblance of life
But I don’t want him to come out of it. Not ever.

JOSEPHINE:
And then you’ll be happy?

JOSIE:
I’ll be satisfied.

JOSEPHINE:
Then it isn’t my brother you have to kill.

(pause)

JOSIE:
What do you—?
(pause)
Shit, Kiddo. You’re right.

(JOSIE digs the gun out of her bag.)

End of scene.

Music to write a desert play by

2006-11-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

(As I continue to work on the rewrite of my play "Santa Ana Winds," here's some of what I'm listening to, as selected by my Apple-devised music-playing device (they OWN us, they really do) from a playlist of my creation...)

Neko Case, "Things That Scare Me"
The Sadies, "Mile Over Mecca"
The Sadies, "Stories Often Told"
Neko Case, "Dirty Knife"
Yo La Tengo, "I Heard You Looking"
The Sadies, "A Steep Climb"
Neko Case, "If You Knew"
Jay Farrar, "Greenwich Time"
Neko Case, "The Needle Has Landed"
Calexico, "Close Behind"
Calexico, (a track that was given to me on a mix cd, so I don't know what it's called, but it sounds like something Ennio Morricone could have composed)
Calexico, "Across the Wire"
The Sadies, "Oak Ridges"
Jay Farrar, "Barstow"
Beth Orton, "Stolen Car"
Neko Case, "At Last"
Willie Nelson, "We Don't Run"
Calexico, "Service & Repair
Neko Case, "The Tigers Have Spoken"

For good or for ill...

2006-11-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

...the Democrats' control of the Senate hangs partially in this man's hands.

And you said we weren't living in the End Times.

As if you didn't need another reason to hate Broadway...

2006-11-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's THAT "High Fidelity."

"I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart"

2006-11-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

Governor Jeb Bush
1999-2007
RIP
(and good riddance)

Do the right thing today, Florida!

First of the Month...fuck

2006-10-31T19:03:00.000-05:00

Here on the east coast we're 5 hours from 1 November, 2006. And I say,

"Fuck."

Now, I'm normally a fan of November, especially now that I'm back in a state that experiences a "Late fall, early winter." But first of month = rent and bills and other such shite.

Shit.

Even just typing that made me about ten times more depressed than when I had the urge to post this.

So then, to raise my spirits, I'm going to think of happy things. And right now, the thought of November--a real November, my first real November in 3 years--puts me in mind of my play "Peloponnesus," specifically its epilogue. Which isn't at all happy in terms of content, but I like it as a piece of writing. It can pretty much stand on its own in all its...poetic glory--or whatever. So I post it here for you now, with thanks to the dead (and thankfully public domain-ionized) Mr. Aeschylus.

Enjoy. (Personally, I'm already 10 times less depressed than I was, but I don't want to bias you...)

***********************

JARED:
I miss the Midwest most in the fall.
I start to mutter words like,
“yearn”
and “desire”
and “loss”.

And maybe it’s because I lost both my parents in the fall, but I always felt the dead most present with me in September…

And October…

And November…

November. It sounds like a longlost word for communing with the dead.
But now I know why I feel them most at this time of year…

There’s a quality to the light and the air.
And there’s this smell that’s indescribable.
I suppose it comes from the straw and carved-out pumpkins and fires lit
against the coming cold.

But mostly it comes from the leaves on the ground, decaying.
So it’s a smell of death, but it doesn’t smell like death.
It smells like life…unbound.
And the dead crowd around.

Trying to recapture that smell.

The dead, though,
know nothing of these sensations.
All they have are their memories.

So the closest thing to feeling those sensations again,

the best way to feel alive again,
is to revisit that part of your life where you felt most alive.

And, for me, when my time comes, it was that year, right before the end, I felt most alive.
Now I’m less like a living person. I commune with the dead, following the sun as it races towards the western horizon.
Jared (cont’d):
And when it gets away from me, I like being in the forest…

There’s a stillness just before the sun goes down
And once it’s dropped below the horizon, there’s a wind
spreads all through the trees. It starts
where the sunlight leaves first, and so,
ripples across the world…

Forever.
Because there’s always someplace on this globe that the sun is leavin’ behind.
And that’s when you hear ’em best:

“I’d like a few words more, a kind of dirge,
it is my own. I pray to the sun,
the last light I’ll see”
And to the wind…

One,

last

perfect
breath

before the onset of night.

10 places I love

2006-10-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

In no particular order:

Babler State Park, Missouri
The Decatur Lounge, Providence, RI
Dun Flodigarry Hostel, in the village of Flodigarry on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
Linken Lake, near Independence Pass, Colorado
Whale Peak and vicinty, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California
Lincoln Woods State Park, Rhode Island
Owens Valley, near Lone Pine, CA
Badwater Salt Flats, Death Valley National Park
San Francisco
My friend Hannah's street in Independence, KS

(n.b. There's a lot I love about New York, but it's still too new to pick any one place. Stay tuned…)

Who knew Albert was such a wicked breakdancer?

2006-10-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

JEFF WEAVER, says,
"I always knew. Albert's a big guy but he has got magic on the dance floor....er....ball field. That's why we decided to put on a show, especially with a national stage and all. And it was real cool of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver to lay down the beats."

Dedicated to Alex and Mets fans everywhere, but mostly to my fellow St. Louisans

2006-10-28T05:38:00.000-04:00

My friend Alex recently posted on his blog/emailed me:

"Well, my Mets lost. Twice they left the bases loaded. I admit it: The better team won. Kudos to you, Cardinals...
"The Tigers will be the instrument of my brutal and merciless vengeance."

Sorry, A.L., (how apropos) you lose again, in what would have been a 4 game sweep were it not for a certain illegal substance applied to certain baseballs by a certain Tigers pitcher who was certainly cheating.

To all Cards fans out there who remember the stings of '85 and '86, '87, '89, '00 and that god-forsaken '04...
The wait has paid off.

Time Has Come Today

2006-10-25T23:07:00.000-04:00

Random rant, dated 25-10-2006:

Where does the time go in this city? I swear it just disappears. Or maybe you have to pay to get more of it. Everything else costs an arm and a leg; why shouldn't we have to pay for extra time too? Or maybe it's the shorter days as fall rapidly wanes. I don't know, but I want some time back. Here's a poem sort of about time by my friend James...

**************************

Per Day, Per Century

Barely an hour before a new year, we heard a personal
protection alarm turn on, screeching the loud and proper note to knead
our brains like bread. We lay in bed beneath blankets
to kill what cold slipped
through basement apartment seams
with popcorn and beer and TV:
Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Outside

black sirens snapped and sang beneath streetlights,
"Hey!
This noise
ain't no prank but a body
down in the grass between homes
squeezing some small plastic button
like gold. Like gold."
I stood up for a glass of water,

reminded forces work
against us. They build up.
Murder rate. Mass
transit. A rebuilt plant in Tennessee
to replenish old nuclear cores. Tides
turned around to slow down our planet's spin.
And even that's
insidious: we learned in third grade science
the moon "exerts its considerable influence"
on their daily drops and rises. AP staff assure
only "milliseconds slower, one to three per day per century." Still
someone on the coast felt fear enough
to name an International Earth Rotation Service.
They add a second for balance in years we slow too much, twenty
since Nineteen Seventy-Two. All this, and I said to you,

"I'm going to find midnight outside tonight."
Blue lights somewhere sick and fine
swooned in bedspins down our street.
I watched that extra second
rolling up the sky
like a ceiling of clouds, or the night
and clouds, or clouds. Across the world,
folks must have kissed and screamed for the whole mad
instant of it. White coats rolled watches back,
accounted in logbooks for tidal lag. We moved inside.

On TV: celebrations from earlier in
Tokyo. A monk struck the Zojoji temple bell
one hundred eight times
"to dispel evil and usher in good luck."
No compensatory strikes. I set my watch
to match official atomic time. Across the table
we expected nothing more
from this new year
building steam above.

******************************

You can check out his blog by looking somewhere off to the right and perhaps above. It's called Boarding Parties.

And here's something I'm working on. Poem? monologue? Who knows. But if you know my play "Santa Ana Winds" you might know who speaks it. And there's more to come. This is only just the beginning. I'm dedicating this segment to my friend Alex who may or may not be writing a desert play of his own. Rock it, Dude! Go there.

peace out, yo.

******************************

“Salton Seasong”

The desert
Doesn’t give up its secrets lightly
Keeps them close
Waits for winter rains
And sudden spring blooms

The answers printed on the flora that have found
The way to live there

Cottonwood and cholla
Smoke tree, ocotillo
Creosote

And in the sounds that follow
You across distances

Endless, whipping winds
The coyotes’ howls
The stillness

And in the Salton Sea

Not a sea
but a strange oasis
Though not for the likes of man
But birds
Who flock here in winter
And the desert world draws moisture
From. Life
In this seemingly dead place
Not the terraformed lands to the south
Farms in the desert
Whose runoff keeps Salton salty
And keeps fish out.

They killed the fish, you know
The white beaches
Aren’t Colorado River sand
But the ground-up bones of all the fish
Who came here
To this body of water
To die.

Hipster Fun in Williamsburg

2006-10-22T16:30:00.000-04:00

(All right, somehow this 'blog' is turning out more bloggy than I planned. Oh well...)

I officially broke into the Brooklyn music scene last night seeing a show in the Universal Center of All Hipness (this is both a plus and a minus): Williamsburg. The venue was this place called Union Pool and the performance space is pretty rad--that's good rad. Anyhow, I saw a stripped downversion of The Silent League, a band of which my friend Shannon is a part. They were good but I yearn to see them in all their 9-10 piece glory. www.silentleague.com

Next was Nicole Atkins, a Jersey Girl with killer pipes. (That means she can sing.) And she's how do you say...? Pretty fucking charismatic. I was reminded of Janis Joplin and Neko Case and Rufus Wainwright and all sorts of other great singers. And apparently she just signed some big fuck-off contract with Columbia. Bring me the full-length record! www.nicoleatkins.com

Finally (at least for me. There was some band after, but Shannon, his wife Sayda and I got outta there) was the band Hopewell. If you like Rush, you'll get into Hopewell. I don't like like Rush but I loved Hopewell. They were noisy and rockin'--or perhaps, rawkin'?--and just plain awesome. Check that shit out... www.hopewell.tv

And today I went for a walk through my fair Brooklyn listening to some old school Tears for Fears. Come on, you know you miss those guys. All you have to do is pick up their greatest hits album to get the fix you need, and you can probably do that on the cheap courtesy of any number of used cd stores or Amazon. So go on. What are you waiting for?

Revisiting the desert

2006-10-16T13:59:00.000-04:00

Having spent 3 years living in Southern California, I quickly became infatuated wit the desert; and now that the temperatures are dropping towards that freezing cold season I remember to be called "winter," I'm reminded of the fact that the temperatures have also dropped in Southern California which means it's desert season again.

During my third year at UCSD I wrote a play that was a sort of lovesong to that strange and wonderful desert landscape. I'm working on a rewrite of it now. The play is called "Santa Ana Winds," and below you can find the first scene.

(And need I remind you all that this text is
©2006. Tim J. Lord. All rights reserved.
And yadda yadda yadda...)

************

Act 1

Scene 1.
A small one-story house in a town just north of Los Angeles, located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains on the edge of the desert. The house was built in the 50s or 60s, and the decor hasn’t changed since the 80s. Visible is the kitchen and living room area.

MIKE stands at the front door. Josie is just outside

JOSIE:
The fuck you doin’ here?

MIKE:
I could ask you the same.

JOSIE:
I heard you were shacked up in your dad’s place.

MIKE:
It’s mine now. He’s dead.

JOSIE:
That was a lucky break.

MIKE:
My dad died.

JOSIE:
Dear old dad.
(silence)
You gonna—?

MIKE:
No.

JOSIE:
Mikey—

MIKE:
You’re not welcome here.

JOSIE:
Not even for a drink?
(beat)
Just one drink?
(MIKE looks over his shoulder to the rest of the house.)
It’s all right if you didn’t have time to clean up.

MIKE:
I just…

JOSIE:
Where’s your sister?

MIKE:
What do you want from us, Josie?

JOSIE:
Never got a chance to say goodbye. Then I heard you were…
I missed you.

(pause)

MIKE:
One drink. Then you need to go.

(MIKE moves away from the door.
JOSIE follows him in.)

JOSIE:
Okay. But I reserve the right to stay should you find you want to keep me around.

MIKE:
(single laugh)

JOSIE:
You laugh now—

MIKE (wheeling on her):
I’m serious, Josie. One drink and then you’re gone. Forever.
You and me are quits. If my sister—
I don’t want her seein’ you here.

JOSIE:
Yes, sir!

MIKE:
One drink.

JOSIE:
One drink.

(MIKE gets a bottle of bourbon and a glass.
He sets them on the kitchen counter, then sits on the couch.
There’s a newspaper there which he tries to thumb through, as
JOSIE sits at the counter, pours herself a drink.
Whenever she nears empty, she replenishes.)

JOSIE:
The fuck you doin’ in Palmdale?

MIKE:
Too expensive in LA.

JOSIE:
But there’s no— This place is soulless.

MIKE:
And LA?

JOSIE:
There’s life there.

MIKE:
And where have you been?

JOSIE:
Barstow.

MIKE:
You hate Barstow.

JOSIE:
It’s better than Palmdale.

MIKE:
How’d you end up out there?

JOSIE:
LA wasn’t the same without you.

(beat)

MIKE:
Palmdale’s cheap.

JOSIE:
Especially when you’ve got someplace to stay for free.

MIKE:
So what if I do?

(pause)

JOSIE:
Good newspaper?

MIKE:
I’m tryin’ to work here.

JOSIE:
Excuse me.

MIKE:
You weren’t exactly invited.

JOSIE:
No. I sort of invited myself, I guess.

MIKE:
Nothin’ new there, I guess.

JOSIE:
I thought so…

MIKE:
Huh…

JOSIE:
You’re happy to see me.

MIKE:
(single laugh)

JOSIE:
Yes you are. You’ve missed me.

MIKE:
I’m fine without you.

JOSIE:
Doesn’t mean you haven’t missed me.

MIKE:
Yes it does.

(JOSIE grabs a lone men’s magazine that lies near her on the counter.)

JOSIE:
I guess you’ve got your lady friends here to keep you company.

MIKE:
Isn’t mine.

JOSIE:
Doesn’t mean they can’t keep you company.
—Wow, this girl is really hot.
(silence)
You’re lookin’ good.

MIKE:
I see you’re still drinking.

JOSIE:
Yeah. The human body is mostly water.

MIKE:
Yeah. I guess so.

JOSIE:
I’m serious, though. You look good.
You been workin’ out?

MIKE:
What’s that supposed to mean?

JOSIE:
You’re lookin’ good.
You lost weight.

MIKE:
Wallet’s been light.

JOSIE:
But not anymore?

(MIKE looks her in the eye.)

MIKE:
…fuck sake.

JOSIE:
What?

MIKE:
You.

JOSIE:
What?

(beat)

MIKE:
Nothin’. Just…

JOSIE:
Come on, Mike. Look me in the eyes. Like you just did.
Mike?

MIKE:
What?

JOSIE:
Do it. Look me in the eyes.
(He does.)
I meant what I said: I’ve missed you.

MIKE:
I’ll bet.

JOSIE:
We were always good together. You an’ me.

MIKE:
No we weren’t.

JOSIE:
Mike…

MIKE:
We were a very bad idea.

JOSIE:
All right. So we shouldn’t’a ever got married. Had that little house.
We shouldn’t’a had kids—

MIKE:
We didn’t do any of that.

JOSIE:
Thank fuckin’ god. Don’t mean we weren’t good together.

(silence)

MIKE:
…maybe…

JOSIE:
You never could say no to me.

MIKE:
Whereas you could never say no to anybody.

JOSIE:
Now-now, we’re talkin’ about you, Mikey.

MIKE:
I’ve changed.

JOSIE:
Not that much—

MIKE:
That life—what we had together—
That’s the past. Ancient fuckin’ history.
I’ve moved on. And you should’a got that into your head by now.

JOSIE:
…Oh. I see.
(MIKE goes back to the newspaper.)
So, what is it’s so interesting in that newspaper?

(pause)

MIKE:
I’m sellin’ this place.

JOSIE:
Didn’t you just move in?

MIKE:
How is it you know so much about my life of late?

JOSIE:
I made…
(stress on the 2nd syllable:)
in-qui-ries.
(silence)
So why’re you leavin’ already?

MIKE:
The money I can get for it’s more useful.
And it’s his place. He wanted it all to himself, why should I stick around?

JOSIE:
So if you haven’t been hidin’ out here with your dad,
where have you been the last two years?

(pause)

MIKE:
Around.

JOSIE:
You broke my heart when you left me like that, you know.

MIKE:
Fuck you, Josie.

JOSIE:
Is it so hard to believe?

MIKE:
Yes.

JOSIE:
Well it’s true.
(gesturing to her heart:)
Split. Right down the middle.

MIKE:
Bullshit.

JOSIE:
Well at the very least, your leavin’ the way you did left me in a very bad position.
Those guys could’ve killed me—

MIKE:
You seem to have come out of it all right.

JOSIE:
Nothin’ that two years alone,
and broke and stuck in a shithole like Barstow couldn’t fix, right?

MIKE:
Is that how you ended up out there?
Were you hiding?

JOSIE:
Hiding?
Fuck you! I was gathering new strength.

MIKE:
Whatever you want to call it_

JOSIE:
Things are all better now. No more troubles botherin’ me.
(beat)
Except you.

MIKE:
How was I botherin’ you?

JOSIE:
You left me. No word. Just gone.
And you knew I needed you if things went wrong.

MIKE:
You knew they were gonna go wrong.
That’s why I left. I was tired of playing that particular game.

JOSIE:
Maybe you just found a different game.
(beat)
I mean, you’re lookin’ to deal in real estate now. Feelin’ legit?
Feelin’ like a goddamn citizen?

MIKE:
I got family to provide for—

JOSIE:
I am you family! That’s what we said, right?

MIKE:
She’s my sister, Josie—

JOSIE:
“She’s my sister—“

MIKE:
She needed me.

JOSIE:
So did I!

MIKE:
You never—

JOSIE:
Fuck you, I did!

(silence)

MIKE:
You’re still good. I almost believed that.
You should leave now—

JOSIE:
It’s not too late for us. We could get back together.

(She tries to kiss MIKE.
MIKE moves away from her.)

MIKE:
That’s not what you—

JOSIE:
What do I have to do to prove to you that I need you in my life?

(pause)

MIKE:
There’s no way I could trust you.

JOSIE:
Then try trusting yourself.
Don’t you feel it? Deep down?
Isn’t something eating at you?
It’s more than desire, Mike. It’s a need.
It’s that thing that I do for you. And
you can tell yourself that takin’ care of your sister’s enough.
But it doesn’t answer that little voice eatin’ at you.
Only I can do that.
I know. Because I hear it too. It takes a piece of me
every day.
And every night—

MIKE:
Do you have dreams?

JOSIE:
I have the same one over and over.
I come home to our apartment in LA, and you’re sittin’ out on our little balcony.
And there’s that view. That westward view out over
filthy streets and two-story buildings. The road
might just go all the way to the ocean.
And the sun is goin’ down, so there’s that
golden light pourin’ through the windows all over your body and the room.
And I start to walk towards you, but I stop…

MIKE:
Why?

JOSIE:
…There’s someone else, sitting behind you, in your shadow.
I can’t make out the face, but I know that this person is staring at me. And
I just stand there looking at this shadowy figure, trying to make out the eyes,
until the sun goes down.
And then I wake up.
It’s the only dream I have anymore, and I can’t figure out what it means.
I can’t figure out whose eyes are staring at me.
(JOSIE finally manages to get close to MIKE.)
Sound familiar?

(pause)

MIKE:
…maybe
(silence)
The Santa Anas have started up.

JOSIE:
It’ll be hot in the Basin.
Makes me think of some of our better nights—

MIKE:
You mean the nights you weren’t off fucking someone else.

JOSIE:
I always came back.
That was the rule, wasn’t it?

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOSIE:
And I always honored it, didn’t I?
And it was always great when I came back. Maybe even better than it was before I left.
It was, wasn’t it?

MIKE:
Yeah.

JOSIE:
So let’s forget about whatever made you walk out two years ago.
Let’s start clean. You can sell this place. We can move back to LA—

MIKE:
We could call up Carpenter—

JOSIE:
Carpenter… Yeah.

MIKE:
Have you seen him at all?

(pause)

JOSIE:
Just did actually.

MIKE:
He still in San Diego?

JOSIE:
Yeah, but…

MIKE:
What?

(beat)

JOSIE:
He’s lost his shit.

MIKE:
Huh?

JOSIE:
He’s lost his shit. Completely.

MIKE:
How do you—?

JOSIE:
He’s crazy. Totally nuts. He’s…a “rabid coyote.”

MIKE:
That’s funny—

JOSIE:
Those were his words. “I’m a rabid coyote.”

MIKE:
What the fuck’s that mean?
(silence)
Well? What does it mean?

JOSIE:
(shrugs)

MIKE:
So what’d he say—besides the coyote thing?

JOSIE:
“Hi, Josie, long time no see.”

MIKE:
When was this?
Is he the one who told you about me?

JOSIE:
Why do you care?

MIKE:
What did you to Carpenter?

JOSIE:
What if I told you we’ve been fucking for the last six months?

MIKE:
You’d never be that kind to Crappie.

JOSIE:
No, I suppose not. I always reserved that particular kindness for you, didn’t I?
(JOSIE manages to get really close to MIKE.)
But if you did think Carpenter and I had been fucking…what would that do for you?
What would that do to you? What if I told you he was really into me, and you were going to have to fuck him up to get me back because he’s got ways of keepin’ a girl around? What if all that meant that we could walk away from him and his huge house with a big chunk of cash and you could go back to having me every night. All to yourself.
At least until the money ran out and I had to find some other sap who you could watch me seduce. Because that was always the part you liked best. Wasn’t it?
(She looks down to Mike’s crotch.)
Yeah. That’s what I thought.

MIKE:
I’d never play that game with Carpenter.

JOSIE:
But maybe one of his parents’ friends? That’s an expensive neighborhood he lives in.

MIKE:
Yeah. Maybe.

(MIKE goes for JOSIE, but
she punches him in the gut. Hard.
He doubles up.)

MIKE:
Jesus-fuck, Josie!

JOSIE:
You want that? Fine.
But you have to get rid of your sister.

MIKE:
She’s fourteen.
Where’s she supposed to go?

JOSIE:
That’s what foster homes are for.

MIKE:
No.

JOSIE:
No? Just like that you’re gonna toss this off.
We coulda gone on like we did. Things would’ve been the same if she
hadn’t’a come along. But instead, we’ve both been eatin’ shit for two years.
You did that. That’s your fault.

MIKE:
Maybe. But that’s what I chose.

JOSIE:
Yeah. That’s what you chose.
(pause)
What if I told you the real reason I’m here is to kill your fucking little sister?
(beat)
Choose her or me. But there can’t be the two of us.

(pause)

MIKE:
You’re not—

JOSIE:
I might just be.
(pause)
So what would say if I told you that’s why I’m here?

(pause)

MIKE:
I’d say you’ve had too much to drink.
I’d say you don’t have it in you.
You might be angry enough to think you could kill someone…
But you’ve never had the real drive to do it.
And you know the drive I’m talkin’ about.
You’ve seen it firsthand. From someone standin’ real near you now.
And you know that if you ever tried…anything—

JOSIE:
There he is. That’s the guy I’ve been missin’—

MIKE:
He doesn’t belong to you anymore.

JOSIE:
He’ll always belong to me. Isn’t that what you’ve been sayin’?
That you can’t be him and take care of your sister.
But you enjoy it too much to leave it behind. And if you were ever
to kill me…then what would there be left to sate that hunger
that you’re feeelin’ right now?

(There is a silence as MIKE considers this…
Followed by a sound offstage.
MIKE backs down, worried about the sound’s source.)

JOSIE:
Is that her?

MIKE:
I don’t—
I don’t think so.

JOSIE:
She’s never seen this side of you, has she?
It’s probably something you keep from her.
Maybe I don’t have to kill her. Maybe she just needs to see the real you.
Not that I was ever really going to kill her. You’re right of course.
That’s not my style.

MIKE:
Get out.

JOSIE:
Ah, Mike, you know me well enough to know when I’m joking—

MIKE:
Go.

JOSIE:
You can’t throw me out. I’ve got nowhere to go.
Besides, all I was doing was offering you some other options.
You left so quick we never got the chance to discuss…options.
Because there are always options, aren’t there?
Couldn’t we find a way?

MIKE:
I don’t know. Maybe.

JOSIE:
I’m not here to hurt you, Mike.
I only want to save you.
(silence)
I need another drink.
(MIKE goes to the bottle.)
Pour yourself one too.

MIKE:
I don’t drink whisky anymore.

JOSIE:
Now I know you’ve gone soft.

(A silence as MIKE & JOSIE lock eyes for a bit.)

JOSIE: MIKE:
You’re all confused, aren’t you? If you need a place to crash—

(silence)

MIKE:
What were you—?

JOSIE:
Oh nothing. Just… It seems like you don’t know if you’re comin’ or goin’.
I guess you’re a little torn up, what with your dad dyin’ and all.

(pause)

MIKE:
Yeah. Maybe.

JOSIE:
I’m real sorry about that, Baby.
Anyhow, I believe you were offerin’ me a place to stay.

(beat)

MIKE:
Sure.

JOSIE:
I accept.

MIKE:
There’s a spare room.

JOSIE:
That’s ok. Won’t need it.

MIKE:
You’re not sleepin’ with me.

JOSIE:
That’s ok. I don’t sleep.

Holy Shit! I live in New York now!

2006-10-04T13:07:00.000-04:00

It's true. I absolutely do. And what am I doing?
Trying to figure out how to make a go of it as a playwright.

Currently, that includes:

-Submitting to every festival/workshop/development opprtunity under the sun

-Working towards writing a first draft of a new play called, "The View from Mt. Langley" (see pic above for your own view from Mt. Langley)

-Starting a rewrite of my 2006 Baldwin New Play Festival play, "Santa Ana Winds."

-Leaving New York for weeks at a time to force myself into missing it. (Actually, I've just had weddings to attend. I imagine the leaving will stop soon for to save my rapidly disappearing funds. Unless of course I try going to Massachusetts next weekend...)

-Trying to organize a reading of my play "11 Hills of San Francisco"

-Saving money (and losing weight--unless that's the result of some freakish tapeworm picked up by drinking unfiltered New York tap water) by eating less, but, strangely, not by drinking less beer. Hmm...

And if you're interested in checking out any of the above mentioned plays, post a comment with info about how you can be contacted.

2006-07-17T00:38:00.000-04:00

This is me and my graduating class from UCSD. I already miss these guys.

I swear to whatever beneficent force you may or may not believe in that I will get you all work as soon as I can.

Just Under 3 Weeks to the Return to the Real World

2006-05-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

I'm about to graduate from the University of California, San Diego, with an MFA in Theater for Playwriting. Ah! Another useless degree to hang on the wall. But I like writing plays and I like being able to call myself a playwright. And I hope to work for many, many years as a playwright. Let's see if I can't use this blogging phenomenon to aid me in that endeavor.