If you feed them, they will come

99Seats has a post that started out being about the Digital Age but wound up talking about food. There's also mention of orgies.

This conversation, although currently seeming to wrestle with the purpose of theatre in the age of Twitter and iPhone, reminds me of some ideas I offered up a while back about how to get more butts in seats. Nevertheless, I find it's still relevant because what I hinted at (without really knowing it) was putting the liveness of theatre front and center instead of merely making it TV or film with four walls.

For me, debating whether our wired world is friend or foe to theater is sort of moot. We are in a wired world. That's it. There's nothing anyone can say to really change that (unless what you're going to say is, "I've invented a time machine, and it works.").

I'm more interested in figuring out how to take the world as it is to create new possibilities - which is what theatre does anyway. Like cgeye, I'm inclined to believe that "we have to start renegotiating the tacit contracts we've made with our audiences, and I don't know if we want to do that."

What are the "rules" we've set up for the actual act of going to see a play (no tardiness, no food, no walking around, no talking, no cell phones, no cameras - funny how these rules are all things you're not supposed to do)? What happens if we break them? What other live art forms can we take inspiration from (concerts, perhaps)? What other communal activities can we learn from (for example, church)?

I'll let you in on a little secret. I love going to the movies with a predominantly non-White audience - especially horror movies*. Know why? Because it's not just a movie. It's an event. If I just want to see the images on the screen, I'd be better served by watching it on DVD at home. But I want the full experience, and that experience includes popcorn, soda, candy - and people talking to the screen. To be very honest, sometimes the audience makes a shitty movie good just by their reaction. And sometimes a great movie becomes phenomenal when you get an "Oooooh, shit!" or a "Daaaaaaamn!" tossed in there. The third (fourth?) time I saw Return of the King was by far my favorite because of how people were reacting to it. The jokes some audience members were cracking had me laughing so hard, you would've thought I was watching Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

(* This is why MST3K never caught on with me - I did that shit anyway, although without the robots. Although I had toys. Did that count?)

But it's not just the audience either - it's the popcorn too! Things just don't feel complete without a little bag of corn-flavored air and grease to stuff into my mouth, followed by chocolate, Twizzlers, "fruit" candy, or some other high-calorie, low-nutrition substance. It doesn't have to be junk food per se - just something to eat. For some reason, perhaps because I'm a closet foodie or something, being without food and drink at a movie just feels wrong, so wrong that it's hard for me to focus on the movie because I keep thinking about how nice a bag or tub of buttery goodness followed by high fructose corn syrup with water in it. I can't figure out why that is, but I think it might be worth rooting it out.

Since Burton was such a disappointment . . .

I'll be reviewing Alice in Slasherland for Stage and Cinema.

New Media Investment - read now

Read this shit right now. Then do it.

Seriously? Is this sexy?

"The Remasculization of the American Man" (even though Pattinson is British - h/t Womanist Musings and Sociological Images).

Depersonalized female bodies - are they really that sexy? Really? Even as someone who likes women, I don't get it. Really. I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Is a playwright's work ever done?

Matt Freeman asks some pretty interesting questions to us playwrights over at his blog. A few things to mull over:

Finished.

That's not a phrase I hear very often, in the collaboration heavy/development happy world of theater. A playscript can often feel, unless it is published, in a constant state of flux. During any production of a play of mine (I don't mean workshop, I mean production) I will receive unsolicited advice quite often on what the next draft of the play should look like, what could or should be changed. The assumption is, I believe, that a play is a moving target, and is never truly finished. I think playwrights have, more often than not, accepted that view of their work.

I'd love to see the term "finished" used more by writers and by those who work in development. There is no piece of work that can satisfy all eyes, all audiences, all metrics. But a writer, and those that he or she trusts, can find a point where they say...not "this is good" but "this is finished."

I also think it's healthy for playwrights to say "this is a finished work." Then, the discussion can evolve. The lectures and lessons from laypersons and professionals alike can end, and a discussion of each play as a fully formed piece of art can emerge.

Yoink! Playwrights and artistic power

Isaac tries (and fails -hahahahaha!) to raise hell by suggesting that the way we think about plays focuses too much on the text/writer. Isaac, perhaps you should try referencing the spontaneous growth of genitalia. At the very least you can insist that not agreeing with you make you un-American - which means you are a terrorist.

Anyway, part of what I like about theatre (as opposed to film) is that it's more democratic than other art forms. There isn't (or rather, doesn't have to be) a central authority figure who makes all the "important" decisions about the play. I like not having complete control over the process. I like the unpredictability of it, how the story and characters in my head can be given a life I never imagined while still using the same base ingredients (my words on the page - whether dialogue or stage directions).

When I write, I deliberately leave space there for an actor, director, or designer to play with. Sure, the story and the words are mine but the performance, the play? Not so much.

I'm inclined to imagine that this sort of "demand" for knowing who's boss at all times comes from the fact that for most of us born in the latter half of the 20th century, film (including television) has been our default dramatic medium. That world is extremely hierarchal and authoritarian, with the director wielding the most power over a performance. I'm certainly not making any sort of value judgment whatsoever about that since film is what it is - a completely different medium that demands different things from its creators and audiences. But the fact remains that, in film at least, it's a medium that puts directors on top of the creative process.

So, I see Isaac's point, which I want to refine a bit. It's not that there's too much focus on the script. It's that people expect the script to do too much. Several comments in response to Isaac's post hint at that, particularly J. Holtham (99 Seats):

I never really understand why we need to parse it out so much, to what end. I was just talking to Matt Freeman about this the other day and he quoted the old saw about being a playwright and how, if everyone loves the play, they'll credit you, but if no one loves the play, they'll blame you. Every play changes in rehearsal, in performance, has limitations that are fixed by the actors or directors, sometimes in the actual words on the page, sometimes in the performing. We all know this, we've all gone through production, but the attitude is still it's all about the playwright. Which, I think, puts undue pressure on playwrights and adds to the frenzy for The Right Play.

As a writer, I've never understood the "need" to create "actor-proof" or "director-immune" scripts. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just there to get the damn story on paper. My duties are pretty simple. Let my collaborators know who is doing what onstage. That's it. Whether that takes the form of a coherent narrative with more-or-less natural dialogue or is a shifting series of images and/or sounds is anybody's guess. But as far as I'm concerned, that's all I'm there to do.

Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" - now with less flying poop

Now that I've had a chance to think about it (and see it again - yes, I'm a sucker. I wanna make sure I didn't like it), I can kinda sorta pinpoint why Burton's Alice in Wonderland left me cold.

As in a lot of films (as Joshua James would tell you), the weakness was story.

Burton's Alice in Wonderland is one of those rare film failures that combines two contradictory mistakes: too much story and not enough story.

Carroll's books don't make sense. Why does this happen? What does that mean? Who the fuck knows - that's the point! You're supposed to be swept up in this crazy world where you never know what will happen next or who will cross your path. That's why it's called, you know, Wonderland. Talking caterpillars smoking hooka on a mushroom. Queens and cards and flamingo croquet. Mad Hatters at tea parties with March Hares. And so on and so forth. Alice in Wonderland is supposed to make about as much sense as this . . .



Ladies and Gentleman, you can't have a coherent linear narrative of Alice in Wonderland because "It. Does. Not. Make. Sense!" You hear me? It. Does. Not. Make. Sense!!!

OK, OK, fine. So you want to have an actual story with characters and such. Fine. But if you're going to do that, do something we haven't seen before with it. Take an approach we don't see all the time. And here is where Burton's Alice in Wonderland pisses me off. I don't mean a little bit irritated. I mean genuinely pissed off - pissed off at George Lucas for the Star Wars prequels pissed off.

Why? Because like George Lucas, Tim Burton - a director whose work I used to look forward to because he creates such amazing worlds - doesn't know what the fuck to do with actors. And he's married to one of them! So he really has no fucking excuse.

The only things keeping this movie from being a colossal socket-fuck of a disaster are the performances by Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. They do what they can with their limited material - it's not like they can up and say, "You know what, Tim? Fuck this. Who wrote this shit? Was it you? C'mere you little maggot! MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!?!?!?! Look at this. I said look at it! Is this the best you can do? Is this the most interesting story you can tell with these characters? Stop looking at Johnny Depp - he won't save you! Is this the best you can do? Now you listen to me, you fucking hack. Every page that sucks is going right down your goddamn throat. Do you hear me? Hm? Good. Don't. Fuck. With. Me."

Remember when I said that Burton's Alice in Wonderland makes too much sense? Right, now here is where it does the Chewbacca Defense all wrong by making sense in the most predictable way possible.

If you haven't seen the movie you might want to stop reading this now if you don't want it spoiled. But if you've seen a Disney movie before, there's little I can do to spoil this movie for you because you already know the formula. In other words: whatever.

Let me take off my vulgar snark hat for a minute and talk about what I gathered from the story here. Then maybe you can see why it pissed me off.

The driving element of the film's narrative is the conflict between the Red and White Queens. Fuck Alice and her name in the title. The two queens are the engines beneath the hood.

These two characters are ideals and political philosophies as much as they are individuals. And I don't mean something as pedestrian as the typical Good (White Queen) vs. Evil (Red Queen) conflict.

The film touches on the question of whether it is better for people in power to be feared (Red Queen) or loved (White Queen). There's also lots of potential for Freudian and Jungian goodness too. Alice/Mad Hatter as Anima/Animus. Red Queen/Alice/White Queen as Id/Ego/Superego. There are tons of possibilities there and the performers hint at it too.

Carter and Hathaway add a touch of something in their performances that make these characters more like a yin-yang than simple dichotomies. Carter injects a self-awareness into the Red Queen that turns her into a tragic character. She's more Richard III than Wicked Witch of the West (pre-Wicked). Hathaway peels away at the White Queen's saintly demeanor, hinting at something far more sinister at work. She's less Glinda the Good Witch and more Palpatine.

With those subtleties in their performances, there's a lot of real potential to explore some mature ideas and themes in an interesting and entertaining way.

The problem? We don't see it.

I'm not John Huston here, but there is something I tend to believe about What Makes a Good Director. This is about as close as I get to an aesthetic philosophy, at least as it applies to film.

If you're directing a film or play that re-envisions a well-known classic, if you have someone - a performer, perhaps - willing to invest that sort of energy and creativity into a role that, on the surface, is pretty fucking bland . . .

 . . . PUT THAT SHIT IN THE GODDAMN FUCKING MOVIE FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!

But you want to know why we don't see that? Because of Burton's perpetual hard-on for Johnny Depp. Not the Johnny Depp the versatile actor, but Johnny Depp the quirky outsider. The Mad Hatter was a periphery character in the books, and the movies would've fared better if they followed suit. A cameo would've sufficed nicely. Again, Burton's priapism with regards to Johnny Depp gets in the way.

Allow me to present for you a hypothetical situation. Let's say I was producing/directing/writing this for the stage. I'm collaborating with the same performers. Anne Hathaway comes to me and says, "Maybe there's something about her whole Nice Queen routine that's an act. Maybe she's afraid of her own capacity for violence and cruelty and is creating this saccharine world as a way of repressing that."

My response, "Cool! Now how about we take that further? What is she really like underneath? What does the strain of that performance do to her? What is she really feeling about herself, about the people around her, about the world she lives in? To what extent is her act a part of her nature and to what extent is it a tool to manipulate people? Is her becoming queen really a good thing?"

If you think about it, there are hints of Luke and Vader in the relationship between the White and Red Queens. "I am your father" means that the bad guy isn't some monster you can kill because whatever is inside them is also inside you. In the White Queen's case, things could actually get worse than when the Red Queen is in charge because people want to do her bidding. Let's see, an entire country driven to commit horrible acts based on the persuasiveness of a charismatic leader without a conscience (or worse - one who sincerely believes in some seriously stinky bullshit). Where have we seen that before?

I would fucking rewrite the script if someone brought something so potentially mind-shatteringly awesome to my work. Think about what's more interesting to explore:

• Alice caught in a conflict between two women of power, each representing different approaches to using that power = the shit.
• Alice forming her own identity and encountering two monarchs who represent opposing yet linked impulses = the shit.
• Alice coming into her own power based on what she learned from her journey to Wonderland = the shit.
• Alice driven by childish sentimentality for a side character in her first journey = the suck.

So we could've had something on par with the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings trilogies.

But what do we get? Flatterwackin'.

My kinda show

I'm gonna save up my pennies to go see Vampire Cowboys' Alice in Slasherland. Why? Because it's fucking Alice in Slasherland, that's why. It's like asking "Why Frank Sinatra?" Because it's fucking Frank Sinatra!. Do you really need any other reason?

After this serious turn with Anne&Me is over, I'm gonna see about writing a D&D game as a script using genre-savvy characters. Or my personal favorite - a horror story for smart people. Imagine:

SCENE: Woods. Late night.

CAMPER 1: What's the name of this place again?
CAMPER 2: Crystal Lake.
CAMPER 1: Why does that sound f - hey, ain't this where all those people got cut up?
CAMPER 2: Yeah, but it was a long time ago. Hey, where you going?
CAMPER 1: Home. I'll just watch Animal Planet or something.

SCENE: Big-assed house in upstate New York.

1ST HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: This is so cool! And it's only $2,000. This is amazing!
2ND HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: Yeah, and in this economy with our credit score.
1ST HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: I know!
2ND HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: Too bad we can't stay.
SCARY VOICE: (Whispering) Get. Out.
1ST HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: I heard the South Bronx is really nice this time of year.
2ND HALF OF LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE: If we sell one of the kids I think we could scrape by in Williamsburg.

Or maybe something like . . .

Something to think about, something I relate to

White "Privilege" (via SeeLight - bold mine):

It took me, in fact, until I was past thirty to really feel like I could speak up in confidence and dispute other people -- particularly white men -- without getting hysterical or feeling smacked down. And I still get over-aggressive. Over-aggression is the reaction of someone who is afraid that she will be unsupported and attacked when she speaks up. And that fear is justified: it was my usual experience for the first thirty years of my life, and it's only because I'm a natural assertive loudmouth that I was able to (mostly) overcome it.


(Think about that the next time you think a POC is being overly loud, angry, assertive, aggressive, or just generally hysterical. Maybe they are. And maybe they need to be, to speak up at all. And the POC you'll see speaking up and taking leadership positions are often (not always) people who, like me, are natural assertive loudmouths who reconnected with their voices after discovering that they were externally silenced for political reasons. It makes for an explosive kind of leadership.)

After seeing "Alice in Wonderland" (2010) . . .

Fuck you, Tim Burton! I have a new surrealist god-king!

Intersections: Race, Gender, Sexuality, Class

African Americans First Gay Couple to Marry in Washington

I think that it is important that all see this video. There is so much talk about homophobia in the Black community, that those who are same gender loving, who are both gay and Black are erased. Their stories and their truth is ignored and silenced in order to push the grand narrative. Let their love stand as a testimony that gay rights are an issue for people of colour because Black gays and lesbians are affected by homophobia.

LGBT Athletes of Color: Intersections of Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism

Addressing discrimination and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) athletes and coaches requires an understanding of how other identities besides sexual orientation or gender identity affect LGBT experience. Every athlete and coach is more than their sexual orientation or gender identity. Race, economic class and religion are among the many other aspects of social identity that add to the complexities of addressing discrimination and prejudice in athletics. The interactions of these identities complicate the experiences of LGBT people in athletics and make the experiences of individual LGBT athletes and coaches different from each other.

Is Homophobia the Same as Racism-Sexism?

For example, at the University of Texas at Austin, I had a roommate who took a race relations class. He was white. For some reason the professor brought in a young gay male who stated that he knew what it was like to be black because he was homosexual. I assume that he would probably argue that he knows what it is like to be a woman as well. That is problematic for me because I do not think he knows what it is like to be an African-American or a woman. Likewise, I do not know what it is like to be gay. It is easy to think that racism is just like sexism, homophobia, and classism. That is an easy way to think about the problems of discrimination. Then we do not have to think about the distinctions in those persons due to whatever unique characteristics he/she possesses. In academia people are taking the easy way out. What is easy politically can be intellectually dishonest.

The Other Black Unwoman (at TransGriot)

One of the things I thought about was how Black women are considered by society as the 'unwoman'.

Black women aren't considered beautiful vis a vis the vanilla tinged beauty standard. We're considered 'angry ' just for speaking our minds, less than intelligent despite having advanced degrees earned with summa cum laude grades, and when we excel in athletic endeavors we're presumed to have either cheated or it's dismissed because of 'natural ability'.

Black feminism wiki article

Homophobia and racism: the failed policy of ranking oppressions

The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom

African Ancestral Lesbians United for Social Change

Anti-Racism for Progressive White People

How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority

What I find fascinating, however, is how much the new racial conflict surprises white people. Specifically, white liberals. I remember six or seven years ago, I never used to see eye to eye with white liberals. Even though they were sympathetic, they still had an underlying faith in the American system that would drive me crazy. They wanted racial problems to be solved, but they believed that if you just patiently dealt with the structures that existed ­ circulate a petition, apply for a grant, get out and vote ­ the planets would realign and the system would change for you. I always felt, deep down inside, that those efforts were ultimately futile. When you're branded as a racial other, you know that every court is a kangaroo court, every election an exercise in fraud, every grievance process a sham performance. It used to be, before the Clinton impeachment, that white liberals would find my cynicism off-putting. They would find me cold. Ultimately they would feel that I wasn't giving them or their ideals a chance. Partly, these impasses came about because white liberals wanted to believe that white people were good at heart, and if they were presented with sound logic and a real chance, they would be tolerant.

Tiffany, Friend of People of Color: White Investments in Anti-Racism

In the struggle to keep whiteness off-center in this essay, I violate several scholarly practices. Not only have I not framed the issues in terms of a review of the literature, but I have specifically avoided offering implications for practice. I have also troubled the scholarly preference for linearity and foundationalism. Educational journals generally look for a seamless text in which each paragraph either builds on a previous paragraph or follows a predictable path (as in the APA introduction-method-results-discussion format). Because I want to underscore the whiteness of our desire for safety, blamelessness, and certainty, I have avoided laying a foundation and building on it. Instead, I have organized the paper in terms of the constellation of places to which we as white teachers and students continually retreat; in effect, I have tried to follow the white reader and myself to those places of retreat.

The White Liberal Conundrum

Anti-racism is a rewarding but grueling journey which must be consciously undertaken and intrepidly pursued (both inwardly and outwardly) if one hopes to make serious progress along its twisting passageways and steep inclines. There's no static end-condition at which an anti-racist can arrive and definitively declare, "Hallelujah! I am Not A Racist!" Rather, it's a lifelong process of historical education, vigilant self-interrogation, personal growth, and socio-political agitation. Racism fractures our world and our own intactness; anti-racism seeks to proactively treat these bleeding wounds and restore the integrity of our humanity.

Why I hate white "anti-racists"

Good heavens! Don’t those black people understand that they should be grateful that a Well Intentioned White Woman like Rankin has come to tell them what racism is all about? Because she knows it more intimately and has a deeper understanding of it as a white person whose life has been affected by racism.

Black People Love Us!

Blackboard Reading Series and Agent 99

Went to the Blackboard Reading Series last night. Had a blast, met some great actors, came away feeling vindicated about the opening scene of Anne&Me (still hoping for death threats).

And 99 Seats does not turn a discussion about theatre into a chest-thumping roar about how Scott doesn't know what he's talking about. To which I ask: Where's the fun in that?

Not-Scott keeps making sense. He needs to stop.

Scott says something at Guy's blog that I found particularly apt for my current script. (bold mine)

the point I was trying to make was not about telling people what to do as much as telling them to imagine work from the viewpoint of a non-specialist. Your Hamlet example is a good one -- you mention theatre people look at you like you're nuts if you do Hamlet without an experimental hook, but if they take of their specialist glasses they will remember that there are a LOT of people -- a LOT of people -- who have never seen Hamlet before. For them, it is a new story. And if we overlay some weird interp because we think just doing the play isn't enough, then they come away confused. It is one thing to do plays with artist-specialists in mind, and another to do plays for the regular audience. Theatre people have a tendency to try to wow their friends, rather than reach an audience of non-specialists, and I think that is a shame.

Perhaps this is where my lack of a theatre gene is a blessing in disguise. So much as I'd enjoy having the respect of Important Theatre People, I don't write for them. So all this talk about holding the audience in contempt and all that? Not about me. In fact, it's often been non-specialists who've shared the most insightful opinions about my work. There is an openness to their approach that is too often lacking in Theatre People and other experts.

Funny that.

Making like a pair of Nike's (aka pimping the Black Ice project)

The project I'm working on is making steady progress, for which I'm grateful. While the scope is smaller than I initially anticipated (3 writers putting up 2 one-acts and a full-length), I think that's just right to get things off the ground. Not to mention, we've remained committed to the initial idea, and that's always most important for getting shit done.

The vision of the group is nearly identical to 13P, but with the emphasis on producing works by new playwrights of color. The idea is to use our shared passion for theater and our status as Othered to empower us when it comes to gathering resources and reaching out to potential audiences and creative partners. We're committed to giving people theatre by and about us that challenges what people assume we stand for and/or are interested in.

This is not just another reading group. We want performances of our work. Rather than sitting around submitting our plays to all these places and waiting for other people to decide our work is worth doing, we're doing it ourselves. We definitely read each other's work. However, our feedback process is geared less towards reviewing our pieces and more towards uncovering the performance possibilities of the scripts and giving the each other a better understanding of how our works . . . work. In other words, instead of trying to rewrite the plays, the group is there to help writers figure out what their plays are capable of and finding the way to make sure that happens - as inspired by the Liz Lerman method of critical response.
Since we're geared toward development and production, we don't do the typical writers' group thing of reading a snippet of a play out loud during a meeting then giving 15 to 30 minutes of instant feedback.

So far we've built a great rapport around digging into and understanding each other's works. Our next meeting is on March 17, and by then we should have completed drafts of our scripts. From there, we can shift to a more pragmatic angle of understanding our works (ie, staging, casting, etc.) Yes, we churned it out very quickly. It's not about quality right now. It's about just doing the damn thing - which is apparently the hardest thing to do.

At the moment, we're going for an early summer show, although that could be pushed to mid- or late summer depending on what we have to work with. Fall might be pushing it too late, considering school and work commitments. We're shooting for a bare bones production (which I'm calling a naked production because that sounds cooler and might get people to come hoping to see nudity). No design or technical elements whatsoever, just actors off-book. I should probably write more about it in a bit since I think that offers something really valuable to performers in particular.

Right now we are looking for venues, organizations, and individuals interested in being a part of our project. If you know of directors, actors, designers, producers, or even marketing and PR people who would be interested in our "naked" production, please feel free to send them our way. We'd love to work with them!

Against my better judgment

I know I shouldn't. I know it's a bad idea. But I can't help it. It's all Don's fault (and Scott's for being a censor)

So when I wrote this, I was Twittering about shoe shopping (which, naturally, I made unavailable).

Which is a fucking lie. Not just a lie, but a dumb lie. Anybody who's actually met me knows that shoe shopping isn't high enough on my agenda to talk about. Makes me wonder why the poor guy thinks people would believe that shit. Oh, right! That's what women do! Go shoe-shopping (like this one)! Nevermind that I just started my day job and had no income to buy shoes with after rent, food, and utilities. Oh, snap! That's right! Black women spend money they don't have on dumb shit, which is why their credit is all fucked up!

Then again, I am neurotic, so I guess all that bullshit is supposed to make sense.

I'm glad we sussed that out. Otherwise it was starting to look like Mr. Whatshisname is not only a racist, sexist asshole, but a lying racist, sexist asshole.

Whew, glad we got that out of the way.

Now that we're done with that, anybody wanna take bets on how long it'll take up my hater to drudge up "evidence", which then makes him into a lying racist, sexist, stalker asshole?

What it boils down to

Womanist Musings breaks it down and helps you "Get Your 101 On":

When you grow in a racist, patriarchal, homophobic, classist, sexist culture your way of thinking becomes infused with ideas that are necessarily counter to freedom and basic human respect. Even the most conscious amongst us will continually revert to patterns of behaviour, thought, or speech, that are counter to our stated beliefs. Due to a constant desire to privilege our experience and our existence over another often we do not even recognize these lapses.

In other words - it's less mustache-twirling villainy and more about the banality of evil. It's less a matter of individuals deliberately going out of their way to making other individuals miserable and more a matter of people being complicit in an environment that harms the Other (however that is defined) in both overt (legal, economic) and covert (psychological, social) ways.

RIP Scott (The truth is out there)

Scott admits he's wrong about something. Like, twice.

I think it's now time to mount a full investigation to alien abductions, for it is clear that Scott Walters has been replaced by one of the pod people. To what purpose the aliens have made off with our favorite cantankerous professor out there in the boonies, I do not know. But I am certain that it must indeed be a nefarious plot by the NYLACHI powers that be.

Scott needs help

He's not raising hell like he's supposed to. Check out this post over at Theatre Ideas. And look at this post. Where's the indignation? Where's the outrage? Where's the call to tear down NYLACHI domination of American theater?

*shakes head*

Scott, you're losing your touch. I'ma pray for you.

Next thing you know, Don's gonna stop telling people to grow balls.