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I contributed songs to a series of 10 new one act plays called "Love Bites" which ran at the Neighborhood Playhouse tonight, Tuesday, May 17th, and last night. At first I thought the title referred to computer bytes because I remembered going to the Neighborhood Playhouse to see a reading of a musical about the love affairs of the computer dependent, among whom I count myself. No. These are hickeys, plain and simple, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed introducing each one with a song.

Patricia Watt produced the series and Steve Ditmyer directed it. Steve picked out the songs from a collection I assembled for the occasion. We chose "Absotively Posilutely (Through with Love)" to open and close the evening. That's the Keely Smith/Louie Prima style song that Owen Kalt and I wrote for our musical adaptation of "Next Stop Greenwich Village" in 1993.

On the first night, the show opened with the one man dream play, "Hymie's Angel" written and performed by Jamie Lorenzo. You could see him grow from his experiences in Hell's Kitchen as he relived them with us.

Dan Calloway sang "Never Too Sure," (1980) a kind of catch-all song about distant memory recognition relationships... "Haven't I seen you somewhere? Haven't we met before?" That introduced Craig Pospisil's devastatingly blunt inner monologues of four people misreading one another. Basically, although they yearn elsewhere, the two men give into the wills of their women companions. It establishes hell on earth for all, and in addition was a great acting vehicle for Jamie Bennett, Danny Cleary, Jane Petrov and Darcie Siciliano.

The play that promised to make the whole evening superficially obscene turned out to difuse itself into a subject worthy of awareness; and if you already examined the subject (I believe John Giorno has...), then this play would be a compendium of redundancy, since everthing anyone could imagine was imagined and/or assembled for us from modern art history by playwright David Brandon Harris. The characters were likeable, especially the bad Russian painter who spoke the word as a multispectrum woof: "Piss." I played incidental music (Doomy, Colonial Williamsburg and an instrumental Mountain Casino) during that. Dan introduced "Piss" with an excerpt from the aptly titled song "Golden Age," (1997) which includes the lines, "That stream is mine." and "Please put it away!" Stephanie Rose directed with all her heart. It featured Colette Bryce, Dan Callaway, Ben Hersey, Gregory Korostishevsky and Marina Kotovnikov.

The transfiguring "Almond Eyes" introduced "Rewind," a play by Renee Flemings about gameplaying childhood sweethearts who grow up to be parting lovers. Given that there is a real gun in the boy's house, it confirms the black girl's mother's quote that white people are scary. Erica Ash and Michale McEachran shared chemistry in the roles.

Darcy Siciliano sang the early song, a last minute inclusion, "Resume" (1979) to open the young man/older woman conversational exchange of hopes and dreams called "The Keeper of My Dignity." It could indeed be called The Keeper of My House, because the boy's family occupies the older woman's home and learns, and is nearly sucked into, all the past curses therein.

The next night opened with Craig Pospisil's "Whatever." He described it as a spinoff of Poe's Raven, but it seems to be about a needy, dependent woman (perhaps Megan Bryne) exerting her dominance over her inquisitive reality-checking friend (perhaps Cassandra Seidenfeld). They both recently lost boyfriends. They both stay in for the night.

Darcy sang an ominous "I Love You Much," (1979) introducing the monologue "Rebound" by Georgia Metz, performed by Helen Lantry which had attributed celebrity status to a descendent of Calvin Coolidge. The casual sex convincingly degenerates into anger.

"Never Too Sure," as a duet this time between Darcy and David Macaluso, opened Con Chapman's "Welcome to Endive." There's a long standing mountain restaurant in Danbury Connecticut called Ondine. Same restaurant? It was a full meal for three couples without the food featuring Margot Avery, God Engle, Barbara Halas, Christine Pedi and Joseph Schommer.

"Good Way to Be" opened Father Figure. Make no mistake, the truth can make you damned (A well-adjusted husband admits to his wife his approval of his childhood abuse by his father.). However, the instinctive protection a mother affords to her unborn child is what keeps us, the human race, alive over time. Thanks, mom. Michael Patterson and Colette Bryce played the husband and wife.

We used the "I've Come to Know Them" part of the song "Love them Both" (1997), changing the line "I've come to love them both," to "I've come to know the truth" as the opener for Bruce Jay Friedman's economical play The Trial, a powerful confrontation showing the triumph of the pure at heart. (His characterization of God in his play, "Steambath," made a lasting impression on me. ) Stephen Bradbury and Paul Haller saw themselves as interchangable in playing the two roles.

Singer David Macaluso's opera training allowed me to play a big piano accompaniment to the last song.

I did go out this weekend. I saw on Saturday "Music from a Sparkling Planet." It had a poignant production beautifully acted and staged at The Amateur Comedy Club, directed with all the non-sequitor challenges surmounted by Scott Glascock, whom I know as a fellow Lamb. This play explains why playwright Douglas Carter Beane wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Bewitched. It also alerts us to the volatility of the late baby boomers who had their deepest relationships with television. The bursting optimism of fictitious TV personality Tamara Tomorrow is stimulating. What will the future bring? There's a Manhattan public access guy who always says what Tamara says in the play, "I'll see You in the Future!" Anyway, as we learn about her past in the play, we observe three mid-life crisis fellows uncover her present whereabouts.

Oh Brave New World!

I didn't live in Phillie where Mr. Beane's fabulous construct is set. The days of neighborhood networks are past; well, we have Manhattan Neighborhood Network, but not those cartoons in syndication... I'm sure we do somewhere.

Do I regret that the highlight of my youth was the films or TV shows that I saw?

I currently also demand unrestricted access to foreign broadcasts.

The other highlight on Sunday was a film that followed the Arlene Grocery Picture Show Screening of "Songs from Prepare to Meet Your Maker #10." What followed was a film called "Farming with Stanley." It's an impressively paced family documentary about a fascinating topic, tobacco, a sticky big leaf plant with tar residue. I want to buy a pack of camels.

There is a feeling of Deja Vu about this film. I spoke with someone about this, perhaps the filmmaker, once before, probably at Anthology during the Dolemite event, and basically repeated the exact questions I asked today. Anyway, I'm glad David Hollander scheduled the two films back to back because it reminds me, I should really considered going to Philip Morris for PTMYM funding.

There was a Camel cigarette photograph, backlit for barroom placement, of a woman, complexion blue as death, with smoke escaping from her face, which caught my eye during our performances at SideWalk.

My noticing and remembering this ad better than a conversation I might have had two months ago is an indication of my late baby boomer status, where an artistic represention, even a Camel Cigarette poster, competes for the sum total of my human experience.

So the farming film is a reminder of how people commerce in the miracles of nature outside of the big cities. Obsessive drudgery is a trap for all, is all I have to say.

Please note, I'm feeling particularly self-centered and down on myself of late because of my abject failure as a husband.

Apparently, arts conventions begin with suites at a hotel, and eventually grow to move to the armory. The organizer, i.e., "divafair," rents the suites and subdivides them into exhibition booths, nice ones at that, with bathrooms... On Sunday, after a walk through the incongrous new Irish Hunger Excavation Site overlooking the majestic Hudson River (Does a speck of ancient construction exist within Battery Park City? I suppose everything there has to be new since it is built upon WTC landfill.), I went to the Embassy Suites Hotel. It is indeed filled with two room suites attached by a hallway that overlooks the lobby atrium, kind of a mini Time Square Marriott Marquis without the wrap around and the 50 floors. This one has six. The third and fourth floor were occupied from March 10th-13th, with the various digital video galleries who joined the divafair. That's Divafair.com, the digital video fair, and the winner is, from the curator of Williamsburg's First Two International Surrealist Film Festivals, who is ever partial to Wago Kreider's "Marvelous Creatures:"

Ivan Toth Depena's video, "Incidental Antinomies," which, for purposes of stimulating the memories of others who may have seen it, may be called "Trees Lit By Street Lamps."

Second Prize: Nomad, by Eva Koch

Alexandre Castonguay converted a Brownie Camera and used its lens. Honorable mention...

And it is always a pleasure to see further incendiary material from the Dada Changed My Life crew... What happened in Fallujah???

The fair was a tribute to the work of Bruce Nauman.

Was that Rudy Ray Moore on the phone?

From Dave Hollander: that was indeed, rudy ray. thanks for films peter and very nice to meet you. i look forward to watching what you gave us.
--------------------
On Wednesday, January 26th, Dave Hollander screened a DVD of “Dolemite,” at Anthology, not without first calling Rudy Ray and amplifying his permission and blessing over the P.A.

Rudy Ray is Dolemite. Is the 2005 Sundance’s “Hustle and Flow” a remake?

I learned a lesson in independent filmmaking from the directing. In framing your photoplay, use plenty of light with a mostly stationary camera observing the action from angles mostly unavailable to those seated in the audience of a stage play.

After an hour seated, neck craned, in the front row with Orin Buck, who invited me to this free alcohol/film submission event of which the screening of Dolemite was the centerpiece, I left to enjoy Steve Espinola, Jordan Corbin and Jon Berger at SideWalk. I left Orin, who wanted to vault at the opening credits, enthralled. I wonder how it ended. Well, for all, I hope, for the cast was exceedingly likeable. I stayed long enough to catch Rudy’s titanic rap. That was somehow a toast that gave birth to rap and hip hop. Jon Berger knew about Rudy Ray, as someone others reference. This was all news to me.

I repeat here that the film that comes foremost to mind at the mention of black seventies cinema is Ossie Davis’s, “Cotton Comes to Harlem.” (February 5, 2005, Why didn’t he direct more? He leaves behind a great legacy.)


From Orin: 1/29/2005 1:28:39 PM EST
I'm sorry to say that several people did not end happily -- the other black guy who tried to take over the club died in a hail of bullets. The mayor, after having an angry phonecall in the nude which grossed out the delicate members of the audience in the back, died trying to leave town, shot by the black FBI guy off the wing of his private jet. All in all, I think you were there for the most culturally revealing parts.

Reply . 1/29/2005 2:30:37 PM Eastern Standard Time
Yes, I thought as much. Shot from a jet. Watch out for that... When there is a battle between the bad and the not so bad, some will die. When there is a battle between the good and the not so good, some will live. Rudy Ray is famous for his toasts. I'm glad I caught his titanic rap.

The 80’s rappers owe, from the 70’s, Rudy Ray Moore, who owes, from the 60’s up until the present day, singer songwriter Steve Depass.

Yours truly,

Mantan Moreland.

I am my own grandpa.

As one of my songs runs through my head, I realize that I am a spokesperson for people in my position, including myself.
I'm my target audience.
I exist on two levels, as the creator of my universe, and as a character within it.