The Foolishness of Righteousness, The Problem with Men

All this self righteous talk about grown men having sex with boys.

I am not being glib. It is a crime. It needs to be dealt with, of course. What it does to the victims is horrendous. It’s good that stuff comes to light and it is taken care of.

All true.

But what a waste of time to point at an obvious disaster and say, “You’re so wrong! You’re so wrong! How could you have done that?”

This might make the self righteous feel better, but my question is always, “What on earth does self righteousness actually DO?”

Listen up ladies and parents of twelve year olds:

Men are insane. They are led by their sexual desires. If they were not, there would be no prom dates and no babies. Now, for some awful reason, men tend to LOCK IN on an object of desire at a certain time in their life.  Sometimes it’s girls. Sometimes it’s boys. Sometimes it’s rubber spatulas. Sometimes it’s shoes.  Sometimes, as they grow up, they get stuck on something from an earlier time. I have no idea why. I am simply grateful that I am garden variety grown up gay.

But this is the situation. Why aren’t we figuring out why men get hooked in like this? And why are we not taking down the stories of pedophiles, no matter how repellant, and then use them to figure out how to stop future men from becoming pedophiles, if this is possible?

And ethically, if you can somehow figure out how to figure out how a man goes down this path, maybe you can stop it?

I don’t know.

And then, if you could… would you then try to control other forms of sexuality?

It’s so tricky. 

But let’s get back to the real problem here.  This must be stopped and men are wired the way they are wired and somehow this all gets horribly screwed up and someone has to get on top of this problem. Yelling that it’s wrong is like saying fire is hot.

What about figuring out how this happens?  And then trying to ameliorate?

Or is it just too much fucking fun to have your crimes and your self righteous horror reactions to it?

People. Come on. You’re smarter than this.

Assuming that people are all normal and everything is going to be okay is naïve.  This world is not safe for your children. Scream all you want, I guess. But get scientific and solve your troubles. Please.

Call me a totalitarian (but the Socialist kind), but there is a way to manage society. Pay attention. Take notes. Find trends. Change the path.

In the meantime, Good luck.

Thank You, New York Times (Again and Again)

EDITORIAL

The Defense of Marriage Act, Exposed

Published: June 10, 2012

A federal district judge in New York ruled last week that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the Constitution by requiring the plaintiff to pay federal estate tax on her same-sex spouse’s estate, even though opposite-sex spouses are exempt. It follows a string of other rulings striking down the law in a federal appeals court, two federal district courts and a bankruptcy court.

With the Obama administration’s decision in 2011 not to defend the law, that task has been taken up with relish by the Republicans in Congress. Last week in California, their lawyers filed a brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit challenging a district court ruling that the law violates the Constitution by denying health benefits to the same-sex spouse of a federal lawyer.

The brief makes the claim that the law’s goals are to maintain consistency in allocating federal benefits and encourage relationships “that most frequently result in the begetting and raising of children.” But in fact, the law thwarts consistency by accepting some state definitions of marriage and rejecting others. And the Republicans offer no real evidence that expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex spouses affects the ability of opposite-sex couples to marry or have children.

The federal courts that have reviewed this law since 2010 have found that it fails to meet the most elementary test of constitutionality. Under this “rational basis” test, a statute will be upheld — even when groups are treated differently — if the law has some reasonable relationship to a legitimate government purpose.

The Republican brief says the statute “merely reaffirmed what Congress has always meant” when it refers to marriage: “a traditional male-female couple.” The federal trial court in California explained, however, that “tradition, standing alone, does not provide a rational basis for the law.”

The court also cogently argued that the act should be subject to a higher standard of scrutiny because it discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. But even under the most forgiving standard, the Defense of Marriage Act clearly violates equal protection.

Editing Box

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/box-editing-to-the-finish-2/

Financial Planning

Today, while sitting across from a financial planner who was trying to sell us some sort of instrument, projecting 18 years into our future, I got this funny feeling that went something like this: “I hate you.”

Something about turning the rest of my life into an action that is going to fill the columns of an excel sheet is not exactly what I had in mind.

Why can’t old people just live in one little room with young people under the same roof? Wouldn’t that be the easiest way to go? Then everyone wouldn’t have to have millions in order to be so independent in the gray years.

If everyone needs fewer millions, we could shrink the efforts of the working years, burn less fuel, and attend fewer wars in order to grab every damn thing we can so that we can each live alone in our own castles as we hurtle toward death.

I do not mind so much the idea of having less money when I am older. I do not like the idea of being alone when I am ancient.  So why not marry the two?

My financial plan?  Increase income, decrease expenses. Save as much as you can. Eat your vegetables. Good fucking luck.

Box at Cinegear

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/cinegear/

Hungarians Speaking Chinese

The Common Good might be for everyone to be free to compete and grab as much as they can as their might and cleverness allows…

But this annoying wall between PC’s and Macs simply must stop.

I know, I know---I’m a philistine for pounding my hairy paws hard on the right click button of the mouse for my pc.  The Macs are sleeker. The whole experience a sort of gated community for sound and vision epicureans.   But I’m no high end aesthete, or am I? Not really. Kind of. But hell…I like it easy and cheap, too.

I was a mac fiend for many years.  But during the OS 9 into OS X era, when they partitioned between the two operating systems, I felt annoyingly bifurcated. I believe in LookBacks, forever. Plus, I had a lemon iMac that needed constant patching. It did not work well with my peripherals (or with my profiteroles) no matter how much gum and duct tape I applied.  So I walked (with the chiding of my easily-moseying-along-PC-clad- not-yet-husband).  I walked away from mac about ten or eleven years ago…  

Of course, it followed me everywhere. At jobs. As iPhones. I just shot this movie and you pretty much have to have a mac in post.  And I mean it. One needs all those QuickTime files to speak intelligently to the editor, composer, sound mixer, Jesus.

So this is what I did. I need to have my dailies easily accessible for constant viewing. But the official external hard drive is mac formatted, naturally, and large and precious and cannot be flying around and certainly cannot be plugged into a PC for fear of being completely reformatted. I bought a Seagate GoFlex that prides itself on being able to be read by Macs and PC’s.  One does stand in the aisles of Best Buy and one often mutters, “Yeah, right.”

But I had to give it a shot.  A 1 Terabite drive for 100 bucks that can be read by both formats?  YES!  Give me it!  Problems solved for maybe an eternity.

Home. Excitement. Plug and play you say?  No such luck.

The mac (my cousin/God Son is here with his mac, so we are rolling with that)---continued to see the Seagate as a read only. So you couldn’t write to it. Then, often, the hard drive wouldn’t mount---meaning, an icon for it would not show up. Though, if you went deep into utilities, you did see that it was there. Unplugging and plugging it in sometimes would pull up an icon. Using disk repair in utilities rendered it useful on the mac, but not on the pc. War!

After much reformatting…wiping it out, reloading the software onto the mac (its default really is PC), reloading the factory software onto the external drive, rinse, repeat, plug and plug again…until somehow, magically, both computers can read the drive…I was able to start my copying.

And it is working.

But there is no way of knowing why it didn’t work right away. There is the pain of the two systems attacking each other. And then, there’s the middle pain of the Seagate who promises so much, an easy bi-platform world—that totally did not work and had to be tinkered into reality to match what it advertised. Fuck Seagate and its lying boxes.

Blech.

I think the future is in buying a Mac and having it run windows, too.  This way, you get it all. (You can run windows on a mac. PC’s won’t run Mac OS at all.)

How are we feeling about a Chrome Operating system?   I might be all for it.  Blow up the dreaded PC/Mac war that has been going on forever. Haven’t we experienced enough of those two little ego-boys and their personal war?

It's Fleet Week and Boy are My Eyes Tired

Fleet week brings a certain flutter to NYC. It always has. No one thinks of war. They just stare and sigh. In my case, I also can't believe the small waist lines. I remember having that sort of thing.

Uniforms are sexy. I guess because they remove personality and showcase simplicity. One can project almost anything onto a form that stands in uniform.

It also feels very old fashioned. This tradition of sailors coming to NYC for much needed R&R on the shores of Manhattan.

My brother was a sailor. On a destroyer. He would have to announce to any visitors, "I cannot confirm or deny there are nuclear weapons on this ship."  Something like that.  Which meant, of course, that there were plenty.

War is ugly. Young men in uniform are not.

Mosaic with Husband, Baltimore Museum, 2012

Mosaics with Husband, Baltimore, 2012

Baltimore says COME on DOWN!

It is a lucky life when trains become your main mode of transportation.

Movies are Time Consuming

Strangely, I have not been blogging much.

This is exciting because I have been pretty steady with it for seven years and what this means is, other things are getting big enough to eclipse this rolling rave.

Time does fly when you’re blogging fun.

I have always had a premonition that when things got super busy creatively in other areas that the blog would suffer.

And so it has.

Not to mention—blogging is starting to feel so earth shoes and puca beads historical.

(For you young readers…that was even before the height of Donna Summer’s career.)

Maybe what will infuse new energy into the blog will be some curious new way of looking at things.

I’ll keep you posted.

Plays and movies and books to be birthed or buried. But Blogs, they are eternal. That’s the beauty of them. Oh Open Trench…you’re a pal.

I Have Fallen in Love Once Again...

With Sfogliatelle

The Dailies are In!

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/sound-and-picture-are-synced-2/

Highland Falls: A true Story

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/a-true-story-from-the-owner-of-our-highland-falls-ny-location-on-may-5/

Box: The Professional Stills

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/box-the-professional-stills/

Offa Box and Onto Obama

I have stories to tell about the making of BOX…but right now, there is this---

Obama, we applaud you for coming out. Thank you. Will it help your campaign?

One wonders.  (Wim Wenders.)

Box: Three Days of Stills and a Wrap

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/box-shots-day-1-57/ 

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/box-shots-day-2-86/ 

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/box-shots-day-3-and-a-wrap/

Box Pics 1 & 2

2 Days Shot
1 to Go
Heading North.
http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/box-shots-day-1-57/
http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/box-shots-day-2-86/

8 Hours Left...and Sony Tweets

8 Hours left www.indiegogo.com/box
And Sony is Tweeting:
Sony Super 35mm Facebook: http://on.fb.me/JuO9On
Sony Pro USA Facebook: http://on.fb.me/KZEa9K
Sony Pro USA Google+: http://bit.ly/J00ifF

One Last Chance

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/less-than-twenty-four-hours-2/

(Or Maybe they'll be more...)    Wink.

Our Sony F65 Camera

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/our-camera-the-sony-f65-will-shoot-box/

BOX: FOUR DAYS LEFT

http://www.indiegogo.com/box

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/box-the-cast-7/

BOX Principal Photography Begins on FRIDAY!

www.indiegogo.com/box

Hello great friends,

Keeping you updated and also, this is our last plea for the final truth:

Principal photography begins on Friday and this movie is going to cost $25,000.

We have little time left to raise cash on IndieGoGo, so this is what we are suggesting to everyone we’ve been badgering, requesting from, looking deep into their eyes and wallets:

GIVE

and/or  

POST THIS LINK anywhere you can:  www.indiegogo.com/box

and then/or

Never read another one of my blog posts again?

Going to raise 9,000 more American greenbacks before Wednesday.

We can do it. (Or we can go get jobs at Chase Manhattan Bank--)

So here we are. Humbly asking you.  One little more time.  Give, Post, Block, Repeat.

www.indiegogo.com/box

__________________________________________________________

And now, The BOX NEWS:

First of all, the little town of Highland Falls has gotten into the movie madness and they are going to put on their parking meter socks so we can have a load of free street parking at our warehouse.

It’s cute there.

But even better, we have an amazing cast for BOX and here they are: 

Marsha Dietlein Bennett, Dylan Chalfy, Lou Liberatore, Mink Stole and Alfred Damm

See the wonderful faces of these great talents, here:

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/box-the-cast-7/

_________________________________________________________________

134 of you, to be exact, have already donated to the making of BOX, along with our Corporate Angel, SONY. We are so grateful.  Thank you so much!

And now for Camera news:

With much aid from our extremely talented Director of photography, we have acquired the use of the SONY F65 camera! Along with a camera package (lenses, etc.), that requires a truck to haul the many cases. Our DP is so respected and admired that she and Sony have partnered and Sony will be using footage from BOX to promote this camera, along with making a behind-the-scenes movie of the making-of-the-movie. We are one of the earliest short films to be given this opportunity. Mr. M. Night Shyamalan is shooting his current feature film on the Sony F65 right now. Increased depth of field and many new features will make the Sony F65 the industry standard for digital movie making. (Until something else comes along, one imagines…)

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-highend/resource.solutions.bbsccms-assets-show-highend-F65.shtml

This movie got kinda buzzy and we could not scrimp on staff nor design…and we are not. The top notch crew is working for peanuts. But those allergens add up…25,000 dollars worth of them to be exact.

www.indiegogo.com/box

  

Our Story

BOX is a short film about people craving intimacy. How they suffer when intimacy is lost. How they succeed when they live inside of it. And how, possibly, the ones who are good at it can help the ones who are not so good.

Zak and Paula are married but they barely understand each other.  Zak has an appointment with Peter, a man in a gender neutral outfit, who attempts to help him.

Helen works with Peter to help Zak find his way and lends her special magic to all she encounters. Will Helen and Peter’s simple gift of a Box  reveal a new way forward for Paula? Maybe…

All in eleven minutes at three locations. (A kitchen, a warehouse and a beautiful Seventeenth Century Dutch Stone Farmhouse on Five Acres with a pond and gardens.)

www.indiegogo.com/box

A shout of gratitude to Mink Stole of John Waters fame and Lou Liberatore from the original Broadway cast of Burn This who are playing Helen and Peter. To our leads, Marsha Dietlein Bennett and Dylan Chalfy, who are playing Paula and Zak, a wildly talented pair. To extremely talented newcomer, Andreas Damm. To Jendra Jarnagin, our wonderful Director of Photography, Sony darling, whose work can be seen in the above video. Chrissy Conant, installation artist and painter, will be our production designer. Micah Bloomberg, the fantastic Indie Film Sound King (Frozen River, Martha Marcy May Marlene) has joined our crew. Mark Repasky, editor at large at Showtime, will pull it all together in post. As Associate Producer, Rebecca Israel is going to keep us all on track the days of the shoot, the first week of May along with Co-Producer Matthew Weiner and Assistant Director, Darren Bartlett.  And, you! We want you to be a part of this process.

This budget will cover:

Five Actors

CoProducer

Associate Producer

Assistant Director

Director of Photography

First Assistant Camera

Second Assistant Camera

Sound

Gaffer (lights)

Grip (muscle)

Swing (Gaffer and Grip helper)

3 PA’s

Production Designer

Two Set Dressers/Props

Wardrobe

Casting Director

Rental space for Casting

Sets-Props

Hair-Makeup

Script Supervisor

D.I.T. (Digital management)

Hard Drives

Transportation (Passenger Van, Cube truck)

Steadicam

Equipment rental

Food

Editor

Sound Mixer

Insurance

DVD copies

And SOME festival fees 

(Feel free to use this list to make your own movie!)

Everyone involved is a full career level professional who is joining this project based on the script and on us.

Movies can’t make themselves. Come in. Get Close. Open your Box.

May you have everything you desire.

Thanks,

Chris and Don

CONTRIBUTE HERE:

www.indiegogo.com/box

or POST this Link:

www.indiegogo.com/box

www.indiegogo.com/box

www.boxthemovie.wordpress.com

www.facebook.com/boxthemovie

www.twitter.com/boxthemovie

ANDREAS DAMM JOINS BOX

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/welcome-andreas-damm-as-alfred-in-box-4/

WHO is IN the BOX?

To Mink Stole and Lou Liberatore, just add:

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/dylan-chalfy-stars-in-box/

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/marsha-dietlein-bennett-stars-in-box/

And one kid, almost chosen,

And you have the CAST of BOX.

Ten Days Left---I know, I know. Dig Deep BOX

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/last-call-heading-toward-19k-free-state-of-the-art-sony-camera/

SIZE MATTERS

Check out this link.

I knew we were all living on the quantum foam---I just didn't realize how small it was.

Get down to it!

The Scale of the Universe

And then go in the opposite direction.

Who needs marijuana after something like this?

Physics. Poetry. Your days before the birth canal. Your nights of worry.

Eh.

The Scale of the Universe

Friends: We're getting there. Jump on. Contribute. Link. Help. FREE NEW SONY CAM!

www.indiegogo.com/box 

Hello great friends,

So many of you have been so generous, it is rather ridiculous. THANK YOU! 113 of you, to be exact, have donated to the making of Box, along with our Corporate Angel, SONY. We are so grateful.

OUR COSTS have ballooned to 19K because of some great news. We have acquired from Sony the use of the SONY F65 camera! And a camera package (lenses, etc.). It’s kinda nuts-lucky. Our Director of Photography is so respected and admired, that she and Sony have partnered and Sony will be using footage from BOX to promote this camera. We are one of the earliest short films to be given this opportunity. Mr. M. Night Shyamalan is shooting his current feature film on the Sony F65 right now. Increased depth of field and many new features will make the Sony F65 the industry standard for digital movie making. (Until something else comes along, one imagines…)

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-highend/resource.solutions.bbsccms-assets-show-highend-F65.shtml

So, we can’t scrimp on staff and design…and we are not. The crew is top notch and everyone is working for peanuts. But those allergens add up…and it has become clear, with our actualized budget, that we need 19,000 dollars worth of those peanuts. 

We are two weeks away from closing out this successful campaign, but we still need help getting there.

Many of you have contributed already. So thank you again! Perhaps you would consider forwarding this email to a few fun friends or post this link on one of your many cool social sites:

www.indiegogo.com/box

Or send another five bucks.

Some of you are feeling the pinch of these silly economic times…and we totally get it and we thank you for being so positive and supportive in your enthusiasm for our movie. Would you please post this link on one of your many cool social sites?

www.indiegogo.com/box

And those of you who have considered contributing but have not gotten around to it yet, please jump on and push us toward that 19K mark. We need you!

Is this link getting repetitive? :

www.indiegogo.com/box

Our Story

BOX is a short film about people craving intimacy. How they suffer when intimacy is lost. How they succeed when they live inside of it. And how, possibly, the ones who are good at it can help the ones who are not so good.

Zak and Paula are married but they barely understand each other.  Zak has an appointment with Peter, a man in a gender neutral outfit, who attempts to help him.

Helen works with Peter to help Zak find his way and lends her special magic to all she encounters. Will Helen and Peter’s simple gift of a Box  reveal a new way forward for Paula? Maybe…

All in eleven minutes at three locations. (A kitchen, a warehouse and a beautiful Seventeenth Century Dutch Stone Farmhouse on Five Acres with a pond and gardens.)

What We Need & What You Get

OUR GOAL

 is to shoot this movie with great artistic integrity. To that end, we are surrounding ourselves with professional talent of the highest caliber, from actors to the director of photography. To pay everyone, down to the newest PA who has just arrived in town. To submit to festivals. And to develop and produce more films with intelligence and sensitivity.

Short movies do not get made by studios. They get made by people like you. By people like us. We need your help. 

We have a full crew and the beginnings of a great cast. A shout of gratitude to Mink Stole of John Waters fame and Lou Liberatore from the original Broadway cast of Burn This (with John Malkovich and Joan Allen), who are playing Helen and Peter. To Cindi Rush, casting director, who is working on offers to name talent for Zak and Paula. To Jendra Jarnagin, our wonderful Director of Photography, Sony darling, whose work can be seen in the above video. Chrissy Conant, installation artist and painter, will be our production designer. Micah Bloomberg, the fantastic Indie Film Sound King (Frozen River, Martha Marcy May Marlene) has joined our crew. Mark Repasky, editor at large at Showtime, will pull it all together in post. As Associate Producer, Rebecca Israel is going to keep us all on track the days of the shoot, the first week of May. And, you! We want you to be a part of this process.

This budget will cover:

Five Actors

Associate Producer

Assistant Director

Director of Photography

First Assistant Camera

Second Assistant Camera

Sound

Gaffer (lights)

Grip (muscle)

Swing (Gaffer and Grip helper)

2 PA’s

Production Designer

Set Dresser and Props

Wardrobe

Casting Director

Rental space for Casting

Sets-Props

Hair-Makeup

Script Supervisor

D.I.T. (Digital management)

Hard Drives

Transportation (Passenger Van, Cube truck)

Steadicam

Equipment rental

Food

Editor

Sound Mixer

Insurance

DVD copies

And SOME festival fees 

(Feel free to use this list to make your own movie!)

Everyone involved is a full career level professional who is joining this project based on the script and on us. Your money will be stretched, paying 1970s fees (the golden age of cinema) for a present day movie.

Movies can’t make themselves. Come in. Get Close. Open your Box.

May you have everything you desire.

Thanks,

Chris and Don

CONTRIBUTE HERE:

www.indiegogo.com/box

or POST this Link:

www.indiegogo.com/box

www.boxthemovie.wordpress.com

www.facebook.com/boxthemovie

www.twitter.com/boxthemovie

Funny Pages: Park Slope, Thursday Night. Another Great Reason to Visit Brooklyn

 Thursday April 19, 2012, 8PM

Brooklyn Reading Works presents 

Funny Pages 

A Night of Humor

Curated by Marian Fontana

At the Old Stone House                                             

Author Marian Fontana knows funny and she is bringing together a great group of comic writers for this night of hilarity with Don Cummings, Blair Fell, Ellen Ferguson, Billy Frolick, Gianna Messina & Marian Fontana

 . 

BIOS OF THE PERFORMERS:

DON CUMMINGS' critically acclaimed plays have been produced on both coasts: His play, The Fat of the Land was a semifinalist for the Kaufman & Hart Award for new American comedy. A Good Smoke was a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill theater conference. It had a reading at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep and Debra Monk and has been optioned for Broadway. Piss Play is about Minorities so it's Really Important was produced in the Summer Cringe Festival of 2009 where it received the Golden Pineapple award for best play. His latest play, Live Work Space, opens soon in Los Angeles. His collection of nonfiction essays are loosely held together in his yet-to-be-published memoir, Open Trench, named after his blog. He has acted in a lot of plays and been on a lot of sitcoms and writes movies and TV shows. Mr. Cummings is a graduate of Tufts University, The Neighborhood Playhouse and a member of The Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theater Writer's Unit.   www.doncummings.net

I WILL BE READING  "The Front Row"---a story about choosing the wrong best friends out of convenience.


BLAIR FELL has written for the television series Queer As Folk, and the emmy-award winning Public Television show California Connected. His plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun, From The Hip, Bargains and Blood, The Ballad of Little Girl Jesus et al have been performed around the world and have received numerous
awards.  He has written charity and award show speeches for hundreds of celebrities, as well as the GLAAD Awards, Vimeo Awards and The Trevor Project.  Along with writing for a number of pop culture websites, he writes a fiction blog called subwaysaints.com and the web series Burninghabits.com. His work can also be seen on blairfell.com.

ELLEN FERGUSON writes the "Diversity in the News" column for McSweeney's, and her nonfiction has also been published in Diversity Prep, Publisher's Weekly, and SPY.  Her McSweeney's column has been widely reprinted online.  Her poetry can be found online on identitytheory and the Brooklyn Reading Works, and in print in Long Island Quarterly.  Before she started teaching English, Satire and Nonfiction in New Jersey and New Hampshire, she worked at The New Yorker Magazine and SPY.

MARIAN FONTANA has been a writer and performer for over 20 years. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and most recently in the Guardian and on  Salon.com. Her memoir, A Widows Walk published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster, was chosen as the Top Ten Great Reads of 2005 by People magazine and the Washington Post's Book Raves of 2005. She most recently completedher second memoir, The Middle of the Bed.   Her essays have appeared in the anthologies Money Changes Everything and The Time of My Life for Random House. She is currently collaborating on a musical.

BILLY FROLICK'S screenwriting credits include DreamWorks Animation's MADAGASCAR.  He has written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and Salon.com, and is the author of four book-length parodies, including The Ditches of Edison County, a national bestseller.

GIANNA MESSINA is a writer, producer and comedian who got her start as a baby model. Her work has appeared in  Dossier and Atlanta Style & Design magazine. She has performed stand-up at the Punchline in Atlanta and at the Metropolitan Room in New York and co-hosted the No Rules radio show with comedian Stu Levine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University Crouse College of Art and the High School for the Performing Arts where she majored in Drama. Gianna lives with her cat Clementine in Brooklyn in order to be closer to good bread and cannoli. She is gluten-free intolerant, enjoys the 3rdperson format of biographies and blogging on giannamessina.com.

 EXPERIENCE Brooklyn Reading Works, the reading series that has been called "The best place to chase fiction with a bit of history" by Conde Nast Traveler.  "Once a month you can hear writers discuss themes ranging from "Make Mine a Double" - on women and  drinking -  to books by war veterans." 

BRW is a great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging authors, and meet others who enjoy the same. 

A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine. 

The Old Stone House

336 Third Street

Between Fifth and Fourth Avenues

Park Slope, Brooklyn NY  11215

Due to construction in the park, enter from the Fourth Avenue side of the house. 

Seminar

Seminar, the play by Theresa Rebeck, that I finally went to see---is trite but well acted and funny at times.

It is both a screed against the vanity of writers and a celebration of their spirit.

There is not much going on in this play. But I do like the use of language.

A choice was made to not hear any of the writing being talked about. Too bad. So much could have been written on the written-but-never-read pages that would have revealed character.

I think this play wants to be profound. However, it has the soul of a sitcom.

On the other hand, it is intelligent enough to be better than a lot of other things we are forced to sit through in midtown.

Jeff Goldblum is good. So are Jerry O’Connell, Justin Long, Zoe Lister-Jones and Hettienne Park.

Sam Gold directs it very clearly and very well.

Scene transitions were weak. Not dark enough and the actors were not still enough for the comic quick lights up bumps to work.

In the end, there is a happy ending.  Too bad. It gets so soft, one realizes there was nothing hard there to begin with, even though it pretended to be so.

A bunny in tarantula’s clothing.

Of course, I’m jealous. But isn’t the root of all criticism competition?

I want to sauerkraut wrestle with Theresa Rebeck. But I’d let her win. Because she’s a girl.  (I think she’d get this joke…)

Funded but yet not...

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/funded-but-yet-not-7/

Jesus Christ Superstar

We saw it.

We loved it.

We watched him die and then rise from the dead.

Singing the whole time.

Look---

It was the night before Easter and all through the house

Not a savior was stirring, I just have to grouse,

The eggs were not dyed, nor was ham in the air,

We went and got twofers, at the booth in Times Square…

I’ll stop now because it is 3AM and I have to drag my tired lapsed ass to bed.

(Can something that never really was be lapsed?)

Okay, I have to drag my familial historical Catholic ass to bed.

But before I do, let me say this—

These wacky talented Canadians, via La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Des McAnuff, most of them making their Broadway debuts, were frigging fabulous.

The set was like the inside of a black and silver Motorola Android phone. Big on the Superstar part. Jesus countdown news crawling across a horizontal crawler (in lights, you know, like news)…fun as hell. (As heaven?)

Jesus played it all caged animal-like.

Judas was played by the understudy. Amazing voice.

Jesus, too---amazing singer.

Mary M, not as well.

I loved this music as a kid and I still do. It’s modern chords, with rock music and it’s sort of nasty good crucifixion fun.

As Joan Didion penned, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

At the end of the play, the words of the Gospels, lit up, crawled all over the set, moving across so you could almost read them, filling the walls. Like, this Jesus death set the tongue waggers on fire. It was powerful, moving. Not just for the Gospels but because, fundamentally, people must write and say so much stuff in order to craft their way out of the madness.

But moving away from Joan and Jesus, really---it’s about the music. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (Who once asked a friend, “Why do people take an immediate dislike to me?” and the friend answered, “Because it saves time.”)—Sir A.L.W., in my opinion, wrote his best music here, mostly because the chords here are closer and the rhythm structures more contrapuntal than in anything else he has put together.

Jesus be damned, I like a good rock opera. Ann Margaret rolling in beans, what-have-you…

Go.

 http://www.superstaronbroadway.com/

Tis the Season to Eat Brisket, Fa la la la la la la la la

May your Easters, Passovers, Full Moons, Tulip Worshiping Days be full of color and surprising shenanigans.

I, for one, am not eating peeps nor waiting around for Easter Bunnies. Though we are going to a Seder where the dress code is "barnyard animal attire."

Thank goodness I have a closet full of moo-moos.

May Christ rise over your house and drop a bucket of money on it.

And remember: though there are a myriad of belief systems, they all boil down to one thing:  Brisket.

Except for the Islamic Peoples. But that could change.

ONCE

We saw ONCE tonight.

http://oncemusical.com/

Deal is, we love the movie. The simplicity. And they did not muck it up beyond atrocious. Though, they did change the “Girl” role into a plucky pixie savior in a much more obvious way than the movie did. Like Santorum, the powers-that-be mucked with the integrity of the woman more than the man.

Remember when you used to say, “I loved the book. The movie wasn’t as good?”

Now it’s, “I loved the movie. But I didn’t like the musical as much.”

The play grew on me by the middle of Act II. It’s always fantastic to hear extremely talented musicians musish.

The actors on stage played all the instruments, and well. Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti as the leads were lovely, if not really in any way that hot for each other.

The new musical arrangements worked well for a live audience. I did not enjoy the silly dancing here and there…part River Dance, part Spring Awakening.

Is it worth seeing? I don’t know…  It’s slow. Maybe a little too slow. I actually would not have minded the slowness had the director and writers brought out more of the true dilemma of these two…which would be real vulnerability in a tough world and the tough situation they have with each other, not being available for relationship while falling in love. The writers (producers?) forced gag lines into the first act, pandering to the audience, which did not help to develop the tone they needed to make this truly effective. Sad, that.

There were some really bad jokes about potatoes and other Irishy stuff. Too bad. Wasn't needed at all.

But I don’t go to musicals for the play or for the acting, both of which are often cartoonish. It’s about the music. And in this case, the music is pretty superb so I am glad I went.

And since I am 3/8 Irish, I feel these sorts of things in a real way. At least I feel about 3/8 of it.

Ultimately, the movie was better. But you knew that even before you started reading this.

Topic of Discussion

Big Oil is neither Big nor Oil.

Discuss.

Greetings from Pleasant Florida

Words Heard

While standing under these Cherry Blossoms in the park, I heard this from a nasal-strong woman power-walker telling her friend in a triumphant and dismissive tone:

His enhanced earnings are going to be phenomenal, so he's not suffering. 

They're Everywhere

Winter is back. But that Mini-mid-March-Spring left its mark in non-fruiting pear trees all over the city.

Enjoy this one from Central Park.

A Goat Visitation

Friday Night, we went for a walk and someone was walking their goat. They were entering Central Park at Columbus Circle. The goat had a leash, but at this point it was off-leash.

It makes sense to bring your goat into the park when you are in midtown. I mostly wondered where they came from. Queens? And they took the subway in?

The goat was very calm. Since I do love goats, I was very happy.

We Have FILLED the BOX: But Do Keep With Us

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BOX: 89% funded, but we seem to have Stalled

SO if you are READING this....maybe click the LINK Below...

Have a Nice Day. From the Bottom Up.

With Gratitude and Curiosity.

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Early and Lovely

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Spring List

Sometimes, you want to get all clever when you blog, grab onto an attitude and then “go for it.”

I have noticed in my, yes, seven years of blogging (it feels like seven months, but then, I have no concept of time) that people relate more to the things that are less thought out and more to the stuff that is off the cuff.

Of course, it’s because people are DYING for honesty of any kind. And honesty happens more frequently when you are not so well thought out.

With that introduction, I bring you one of my “lists” that really has no need for introduction.

1)      As much as I like warm days in late winter, I prefer it when the temperature is 48 degrees and it’s a little misty. It feels fresh, like Paris, and the light is so good. More of that cool mist, please.

2)      As we are raising money for our indie short, BOX, I cannot believe how quickly and generously people have jumped up and jumped in. I am so grateful. Money may not be love---and it sure is, partially, time---but really, it’s faith. I am so honored that people have faith in what we are doing. Thank you.

      http://www.indiegogo.com/box

3)      And now, I feel highly responsible to use those dollars wisely. So I don’t sleep. But this is not to push around any bad feelings. I never sleep. Until I do.

4)      I love the daffodils in Central Park. Not only because they are a jaunty yellow, but also because of their impermanence and their yearly reappearance.

5)      I never had children and I simply don’t care.

6)      I mean it.

7)      Jesus Christ Superstar is back on Broadway. I remember hearing that album for the first time. My father got it for free from some General Motors work thing. I loved it. The dissonance and exuberance. I can’t wait to see it again. I played certain songs over and over. My high school choir teacher was the original Mary Magdalene with Ben Vereen when it started in Philadelphia. She says she quit the play because she wanted to be a teacher. ___________  Fill in that blank. I was at a wedding ceremony once at the Hotel Bel-Air. Ben Vereen officiated.

8)      I love my husband. But that’s only because he’s so loveable.

9)      Come on Ugandan Episcopalians! Do something else!

10)   I wonder why Conservatives are so regressive in the name of fiscal austerity and personal morality. Poor dears. I understand not wanting to waste money. I understand doing the right thing.  So why did we spend all that money invading countries and killing all those people? And for the first time in history, lowered taxes instead of raising them while we did the killing?

Only Fifty Days Left

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An Epidemic of Bald Vaginas

So this is what I found out tonight.

The young girls today are keeping it all shaved, all the way, all the time, down in their natural area.

I was surprised to learn this.  Not so much because I thought it was weird, but because it seems that I was the last one to know.

Trends are funny. I mean, I have had the same nest of hair (shrinking) and tattoo free body since the Sixties. I know, I know, hard to believe I've been around since then...but if you can't admit to a little bit o' the Johnson administration in your life, and you are a blog reader of mine, then you are probably lying.

But back to these vaginas. I would like to know---is it more about shaving or more about waxing?

And is it something that is smart to do so you can tell more what it is you are navigating into, a kind of practical practice? Or is it simply a sexy-visual thing?

Perhaps both?

God bless the vaginas. Whatever state they are in.

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FRIENDS

We are 35% funded in just 1 Week.

Thank you.

♥

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Box News

FRIENDS!  We have reached 12% of our goal in just two days. Exciting? Yes.
Check out all the latest news at our links below.

And Remember: Donation BOX is open 24 hours/Day at  www.indiegogo.com/box.

Have a good weekend.

:)
Don

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Someone Told Me

I am having a reading of A Good Smoke, once more, in New York for producers, etc. on Thursday.

An actor in the cast sent me an email telling me my play reminded him of the following poem.

I was flattered.

I am very glad that my play, after much noodling, still reminds someone of poetry.

I do like this poem.



                          POEM ENDING WITH A LINE
                                         FROM DANTE
                 
                      Snow coming in parallel to the street,
     a cab spinning its tires (a rising whine
     like a domestic argument, and then
     the words get said that never get forgot),

     slush and backed-up runoff waters at each
     corner, clogged buses smelling of wet wool . . .
         The acrid anger of the homeless swells
     like wet rice.  This slop is where I live, bitch,

     a sogged panhandler shrieks to whom it may
     concern.  None who can hear him stall or turn,
     there's someone's misery in all we earn.
     But like a burr in a dog's coat his rage

     has borrowed legs.  We bring it home.  It lives
     like kin among the angers of the house,
             and has the same sad zinc taste in the mouth:
     And I have told you this to make you grieve.

                                                                     – WILLIAM MATTHEWS

Wardrobe Choices

What are you wearing on Super Tuesday?

I think I’ll put on my cross-gender, carbon neutral, socialist leaning condom dress brought to you by Obamacare with a pouch for higher learning.