this just in

hour two of three how does it look to you?

up to the minute thanksgivblogging

it's a sunny t-day in la, so they tell me- this is where we are as of 2:31 pm PST

giving thanks going shopping

one year ago we were in crawford

two years ago we were at food 4 less hollywood

tonight in tinseltown

R2 M-Not

SOUR DEATH BALLS !!!!!!!

Finally available online, Jessica Yu's Sour Death Balls.

impeached yet?

"...while many high-ranking officials, such as Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Howard Dean, say the Democratic Party will not pursue impeachment as the majority party, but Holtzman and other Democrats said the same back in 1974. "

fridee nite rant

i'm really trying to exorcise this lingering friday night work poison so's i can get on with gettin' on

i am drinking a rolling rock

cassandra is ordering sushi TO BE DELIVERED

we have to write stuff tonight to perform tomorrow night, on the same bill with some rabid mofo conservative whom i shall try not to eviscerate with my improvised witty verbiage- but I'm going to try try try to not let it get me down



Hey- the GHOSTHUNTERS came to work and interviewed me- ME of all people canyoubelieveit but i'm going to come off as the skeptic because I haven't seen a ghost there...

and i've been doing this improv class but it's been really good not the crappy improv that everybody pretends to like because they're programmed to because of those Christopher Guest movies and Whose Line Is It Anyhow and every single god-damned Robin Williams talk show appearance

and on Halloween i worked another day on an ABC sitcom, as a THESPIAN, which was nice- shot a scene on the New York Street set on the Paramount lot and i felt fancy

and raymi left a comment on my blog which makes me feel fancy too


and the DEMOCRATS have gained control of the Congress... i don't even have the words- just a weary smile and a deep breath

WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO IF WE ARE GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM OURSELVES

Stop this war
impeach both of those devils
President Pelosi? I might not have voted for her, but maybe this country needs a woman to heal us now...actually, I might have voted for her...I likes me some SAN FRANCISCO VALUES!

it's friday

my buzz is coming on

i think i stink a little- but I've earned it

boo

i voted, i think

here in Hollywood I went down to my usual polling place at the gay and lesbian community center (how do you like that, red staters?) and there was a full-on haus frau tussle going on between the lady who thinks she should be in charge and the lady that says she's in charge, all about this InkaVote ballot checking equipment


but before I get to that I have to tell you that one of the younger volunteers had her little boy there behind the sign-in desk- the little darling took one look at me and said:

"ooh, mama- he looks just like The Undertaker"

(I thought about offering to embalm the little fucker, but kids will be kids)

so the yammering went on while I tried to concentrate on voting- i checked my little black dots and all looked right, but i really wanted to try this electronic ballot checking machine

which is on another floor. hence the confusion- we at the orange table apparently needed the volunteers to draw a small orange "o" on the back of our ballot before we went downstairs to check the ballot in the (democracy-killing) gizmotron

(this explains why i heard one of the whip-smart volunteers yelling into her cell phone "i been volunteering for 12 years - they didn't tell me at the training nothing about no stairs! now she comin' in here tellin' me what to do- I don't work for her- i'm suppose to tell HER when my peoples are going to lunch? and I aint stayin' here late- no way!")

so i go downstairs and look for the StInkaVote machine- I stuck my ballot in the slot marked INSERT BALLOT HERE and ...nothin'

I notice the touch screen is on a "test" page, and I see the EXIT button- but I figured the volunteers must know what they're doing- the first lady called over some dude- he proceeded, from the "test" page - to touch all of the "test" options

(at this point I'm dying to reach over and tap the EXIT button)

he looks at me and tells me "it's not working" -then the BOSS LADY comes over- the one that caused the lady upstairs to go into her caniption fit- and SHE starts touching all of the "test" buttons

finally, I spoke up- "how about we hit the EXIT key until we get to the start page?"

that worked- good God- three volunteers hovering around this infernal machine and I fixed it

I mean, God bless these people, but I doubt they know how to use an ATM , let alone protect our democratic rights

so in goes the ballot- zip- and boss lady cheerily tells me "that's it!"

well where did my ballot go?

into the machine

what?

(the machine spits out a receipt, which I reach for)

no that's not for you- that's a test receipt

now I thought, since I didn't vote for Senator (f-u! Feinstein- hope your granddaughter doesn't have to go to Iraq!) that that might show up as an "error"

nope- the machine just ate it right up... thank god it has an orange "o" on the back!

so I think i voted...

UPDATE: I went to www.lavote.net to find the # to call to CRY "FOUL!" and found this here pdf that explains to me that the gizmotron is actually the pbr and that it did what it was supposed to do... (unless there's a shredder in that god damned thing)

Happy Voting, SUCKERS!

-The Undertaker

vote, you sons of bitches, VOTE!!!!!

well I'm not in Colorado, but I sure wish i could vote for this one...

i'll be voting early tommorrow- and keeping an eye out for the next big STEAL

if the repugs maintain control of the us congress tomorrow, then I swear to god they stole it, and it's TIME

time for the real thing- revolution in the streets...however that manifests itself

here in LA people will probably just bitch about the impeded traffic and welcome Imperial Governor Moff Schwarzenegger's draconian death squads/traffic cops...

we'll see...

Bush Jokes About Missing WMD in Iraq

Thought about making something like this in the wake of the Kerry "botched joke"

Someone beat me to it- here it is. Bush got away with this in 2004- I don't know how.

How many of those laughing in the audience feel like they "support out troops"?

Makes me sick

elegiac

William Styron has died.

His Darkness Visible changed my life at a crucial time, and Confessions of Nat Turner is just great.

Norman Mailer, the writer and essayist, told The New York Times: "No other American writer of my generation has had so omnipresent and exquisite a sense of the elegiac. That is no mean virtue in these years."

And I learned a new word.

mcpumpkin!!!!!

you know, cut and pasting crap from BoingBoing isn't really blogging...


aw, leave me alone... how can I resist the Big Mac pumpkin? I just wanted to share it with whomsoever might be dropping by

oh, your fans?

who let you in here?

i'm always here you're not

look, i'm busy, and there so much crap going on i just don't have the juice to bloviate about it all here- like bush's creepy confidence about the mid-terms- i'm expecting him to just blow it any day now and say:

" look, I know we're going to win because the electronic voting machines in key districts are preprogrammed to deliver a republican win. so i know we're going to win. next question- stretch- is that your good suit?"

"mr. president, did you just say that the elections are rigged to guarantee a republican win?

"i'm not going to engage in this kind spec-u-lay-tive rhetor-tortical exercising..."

something like that... naw, I can't ... not right now... i'll just share some boing boing

*sigh*

hurry up, he's dead

Bootsy? Nope, it's Iraq's Minster of Sewage
(link)

what the hell- do you eat this thing?

I've got family living in Australia.

Is this what those aussies are feeding them?

Write your own caption...

Foley: I like them weenies teeny

Bush: Naw, I learned when I wuz goin' through hazing at Skull and Bones that yer gonna need something 'round about this... so you really feel it...

(crooks and liars)

Grrrreat... I've got JIMMY LEGS!

Do you get those weird feelings in your legs? The RLS the pharmaceutical companies are talking about?

Well I got em... I got the Jimmy Legs...

mac test blog

sunday night using the powerbook g4 to blog

we watched part of how i won the war... she bailed to watch that race show


we didn't do much this weekend, sorry sportsfans, but i was genuinelly excited earlier to read up on the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, and Fall Line... I like history and how geography and history and development all intertwine


now she's starting catch 22- i hope it doesn't freak her out

she's been sick- let's see- we went to the library, sushi, carl's jr., and i-hop this weekend


rockstars

i wanna see these

remind me (and yourself) to check out these new films:

IRAQ FOR SALE

MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY

and the forthcoming:

The Path to The Path to 9/11:

How Disney Tried to Swing the Midterms with a Right-Wing Fairy Tale

camp casey august 2006 photos

cassandra and I are back from crawford texas, recovering

a lot of good was done- Mark Wilkerson was supported by IVAW as he returned to duty at Fort Hood after 19 months AWOL...

people from Camp Casey handed out information on the GI Rights Hotline outside of Fort Hood, and Camp Casey hosted 2 screenings of the excellent documentary Sir, No Sir! in Killeen for active duty service men and women...

cindy sheehan spent most of the time recuperating, but came to camp from time to time

that's ava of www.peacetakescourage.com doing a little freewayblogging

rebekah, midge and elliot (of veterans for peace) at the picnic at Camp Casey II

giant ghandi didn't eat much- he was looking for volunteers: ghandi peace brigade

carolyn wonderland completely and utterly rocks

See you in Crawford...

turn that picture

i am so sorry i left that picture crooked on my blog for so long... i just was too lazy... and i know you came here and not only were dissappointed that I hadn't blogged, but you were also irritated that i hadn't bothered to fix that crooked picture

you did come here, didn't you?

i've been little johnny hollywood lately- in one week i worked on an ABC show as an actor, then on a Comedy Central show as a special effects producer... and i puppeteered a play on the weekends

(any of you seeking the superman behind the dutchman's clark kent ought to have enough clues by now... )

my wife is out of town, and I've been having a torrid affair with ...



Firefly, the tv series.


A puppeteer loaned me the dvds of the series...

i have watched all of them but the last, and I picked up Serenity at the 20/20 on my way home down filthy, tawdry, stained and sunny Sunset Blvd.


i am already grieving the fact that for late old me, i have only three hours of Firelfy left to experience for the first time


this f-ing show is everything I've wanted in a tv show- it's the tv show i would make if i was the kind of guy who had the gumption and position to say "i make tv shows I would want to watch" and then made them...

it always... always bothered me that for a freighter, the millenium falcon seems to have an impressive lack of actual cargo space.


the serenity makes sense- part of it is a WARHEOUSE... and the doors to the crew quarters are cool... the cockpit seems kind of roomy and weird to me... is Wash sitting to one side , in the back of a larger cockpit "room"... ?

but there's the acting, the actors, and the writing... even though the specific 1800s designs make you wonder why cultural elements that are arcane to us would somehow experience such a specific revival some 500 years in the future... the way they pull it off is so much better than the multiple... multiple episodes of star trek(s) and other sci-fi shows that seems to jump the shark with an obligitory wild west episode


the show was executed with such a great spirit of FUN that it's infectious...


i'm a little sad that it's almost over for me...

sunday in la

Reviews in for "Kitsune no Chochin"

First, here's today's LA Times:

THEATER BEAT
Puppets star in tale of feudal Japan


By Lynne Heffley, Times Staff Writer

A farmer's quest to rescue his samurai son's demon-snared soul, a contemporary subtext about the true cost of war: There's nothing childish about Triumvirate Pi Theatre Company's modest but effective family puppet play, "Kitsune No Cho-Chin" (The Fox Lantern). Inside the social hall of the Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo, on a countertop stage flanked by wood-and-paper screens, the cast of small, frozen-faced, loose-limbed actors is coaxed into silent eloquence by hooded puppeteers in black.

Created by writer-director Leslie K. Gray and puppet designer Sam Hoji Hale, with puppeteers Michael Oosterom, Eli Presser and Janet Song, this tale of ghosts and demons, duty and loss, war and redemption in feudal Japan unfolds through shadow puppetry, projections and Bunraku-style execution.Wisely, Gray forgoes dialogue, allowing the puppeteers' subtle manipulations, Kathi O'Donohue's deft lighting and composer George Abe's live performance of his ambient score — bamboo flutes, bells, brass cymbals and taiko drums — to speak for themselves in this pocket-sized production.


"Kitsune No Cho-Chin" (The Fox Lantern), Centenary United Methodist Church, 300 S. Central Ave., L.A. 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 4 p.m. Sundays, except no 2 p.m. show this Saturday and no shows Aug. 13. Ends Aug. 20. $10, adults; $5, ages 10 and younger and full-time students. (213) 617-9097 or www.tri-pi.org. Running time: 45 minutes.


And here's ReviewPlays.com:

The Fox Lantern

KITSUNE NO CHO-CHIN

Centenary United Methodist Church

A little over a year ago we reviewed The Triumvirate Pi Theatre Company’s and Leslie K. Gray’s The Pink Dress and commented about the impact simple puppets can have when they are the protagonists in a compelling story.

The Fox Lantern is Leslie K. Gray’s most recent work, incorporating Japanese motifs from the Kabuki Theatre, Banraku Puppet Theatre and Japanese folklore. This is a story about the abuse of government power, the loyalty of a son and the love of a father.

Set in the Sengoku Jidai era (around mid 15^th century to 17^th century), an arrogant government official visits a poor rice farmer one day and orders the farmer’s son to go off to battle. Having respect for authority, they comply, but before leaving, the father passes on his metal helmet to and sword to his son for protection. Alas, the battle was too fierce and the son is killed, leaving the father stricken with grief.

A former Samurai, the father cuts off his topknot (signifying he relinquishes his life of war to prayer and meditation), but his sadness is eventually guided by a magical fox woman who leads him in a determined quest to save the soul of his son. Following his spiritual guide, the father travels far, encountering spirits who try to stop him, but his determination triumphs and in the end, the son and the father are seen together – joined in spirit.

Telling such a story with puppets only is quite a challenge, but when it’s told entirely without words, accompanied by an original score of Taiko drumming and shakuhachi music (bamboo flute) by composer – performer George Abe, then it becomes transcendental.

The beautifully carved and delicately adorned puppets created by artist Sam Koji Hale almost breathe as they are brought to life by puppeteers Michael Oosterom, Eli Presser and Janet Song, all of whom are draped in black to signify they should not be noticed as they actually handle the puppets and maneuver their hands, their feet and their heads giving them realistic movements.

There is a sub-text, as is the case with most plays, and this one is not too hard to discern – it’s government sending young men to battle to advance its own agenda. Is there a parallel here?

Part of the Annual Nisei Week Festival which spans from August 12 to the 20th, the play runs at the Centenary United Methodist Church at 300 South Central Avenue in Little Tokyo. Call (213) 617-9097 for Ticket Information.

Nisei week also commemorates Hiroshima Remembrance Day, August 6, 1945, when the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb killing over 140,000 people. Whatever political reasons people have, war seems to change the sensibilities and values of those involved.

i swerve for jesus

http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/14/

dirty white tuxedo pants

tonight in LA we hope to see:

Dirty White Tuxedo Pants (and a brown plastic bag)

friends of ours are making theater- the show involves and benefits members of New Directions, Inc. - a long-term drug and alcohol treatment program providing housing, food, clothing, counseling, job training and psychiatric services for more than 800 homeless veterans a year.

http://www.newdirectionsinc.org/

Kudos to MM, Jo, and Commander Vinvok- and thanks to all the Vets!

Peace!

crosby stills nash and young at the bowl

yeah, that was great

csn AND y

we're going to a concert tonight

i haven't gone to a concert in a long time...

this will be fun


csny at the hollywood bowl


summertime in los angeles isn't bad at all

is it august or july or what?

yeah, that's how busy I am... I keep hearing about parties that happened and people are in town after they've left because I am:


busy all day and night

work is just a big deal grind and freak out all the time (i'm doing fine, really, but everyday is just a cluster F until this saturday when this thing shoots) but if i'm not at work i'm puppeteering in a class or rehearsal and it's nuts

good nuts

dear reader, I wish I had more to tell you ... here's a picture:














the foot of my father


my sister moved to australia for three years

ww3 broke out

cassandra blogged and it is heartbreaking, especially if you love her like i do


i'm listening to Neil's Living With War and that's what it's all about

there is a war on- my country, my country... what are you doing...

wild geese by mary oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

didn't know I was so evil

You Are 42% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?