xtcian

2/15/03 Day LVI of the

2/15/03

Day LVI of the Not Since the Days of Erasmus Has Drama Been Turned Upside Down Road Trip of Lord Chip Chapman Stooping to American Theatre

Chapel Hill, NC

I rarely have to be anywhere by 7am, which made this morning's call time for directors particularly excruciating. And since I stopped drinking both coffee and Coke, getting through the morning at Chapel Hill's first-ever rendition of the 24 Hour Plays took an act of will not seen since I survived Mr. Sims' morning Government '84 seminar without toppling to the floor.

As directors, we got to choose one play (out of six) the same way pledges rush sororities: we picked our top three, and got the play that wanted us the most. Mine was called "Mr. Nice Guy," which was a sweet, violent, surreal little ditty that was one man's revenge on a tap-dancing insult comic. My actors were off book pretty early, and nailed it at the performance. The only person that missed a line, of course, was me - I was supposed to introduce one of the characters from offstage, and totally forgot. Oh well.

Ross, Nelson and Lizzie doing a last-minute runthrough of our play

Tessa's hilarious, chatty depiction of a bisexual dating party was a crowd favorite, and had me beaming the whole time. But the true pice de magnifique resistance was the triumphant return of His Very Reverend Sir Lord Chip Chapman to the American stage, where he portrayed an anchorman living in the brain of a college boy, detailing his romantic progress with a hot girl in the dorm. Sure, Woody Allen had explored the idea before, but Monsieur Chapman provided just the right sprinkle of panache to elevate the material into the night's easy favorite.

Chip, at left, shows us all how it's done

We all gathered at Henry's for a while afterwards, and talked about all the UNC folks we dug they have a good gaggle of artistes, this present crop of Tar Heels. Further proof was to be found at Mill Creek apartments, where the techie folks were hosting the cast party. I thought it would be the usual Chapel Hill apartment party: loud, undulating, sweaty, prefab shithole with broken towel racks and 145 people, all smoking, all saying something stupid.

Instead, it was a spotless, technophilic, gorgeous little pad with Barbra Streisand albums, "Flaming Queen" bathroom soap, Dave Brubeck on the stereo, and lots of great theater conversation over games of Spades. Yay for gay college students!

at Henry's after the show: Matt, Tessa, Chip, Sean, Lindsay, Jordana, me, Scott, Carrie

2/14/03 Day 55 of the

2/14/03

Day 55 of the Better Think Quick Road Trip of No Time to Get in Your Own Way

Chapel Hill, NC

I must keep this brief, as I will be required to wake up in about five hours' time to direct my first 24 Hour Play - I've written two of them on different continents, and attended several, but this will be my first directing since Pink House reshoots last September. I'm psyched, especially since Tessa is over in Hamilton 100 right now, staying up all night to write her 10-minute play. The Carolina kids we met tonight were all fabulous, all gregarious, genuinely funny, outgoing sorts who made me really miss being down here. God, there was never an outlet like this for us; I hope they take advantage of it. The only wet blanket was this one chick who wanted us not to make fun of Jesus, but I'm sure we could work that one out. She says she wants to be an actress, but would not make it past the pretzel guy at the Port Authority if she ever came to New York.

Lindsay Bowen doing his impersonation of Charles Foster Kane

We ran into Susan Comfort today downtown, which was great, since she was carrying her new baby! Lesbian moms are the best, I swear. At least that's one kid that won't end up clamoring for World War III.

Oh, and I got a haircut. Whaddya think?

Whaddya mean, it makes me look fat?

2/13/03 Day 54 of the

2/13/03

Day 54 of the Scattered Emotions Over a Mackerel Sky Road Trip of Our Coats of Many Colors

Chapel Hill, NC

First, the good news: apparently I am made of such stuff that actually does get nauseous - for 24 straight hours - from half a Cuban cigar. I woke up fine, which is cool because I don't have the Norwalk Virus or anything, but is uncool because apparently I now have to cross off one of the Simple Joys of Being an Elder Man. I always thought I'd eventually take up cigars, and fetishize them like subscribers to Cigar Aficionado Magazine and have a walk-in humidor and all that. Clearly, cigars have joined Rumplemintz shots on the list of Shit I Can't Do No Mo'.

Secondly (which apparently isn't a word): I scanned several pages of my baby book while at my mom's place in Mt. View, and one of them dealt with the issues of the day, you know, what the country's zeitgeist was while I was being born. It being 1967, she mentioned mini skirts, paisley and sticky tape.

detail from the baby book

So I thought I'd share another kind of sticky tape for Zeitgeist 2003; namely, the batches of the shit being bought by Americans trying to protect their houses from chemical or radiological terrorism. There has been a run on plastic sheets, batteries, water and flashlights around the country over the last few days, which would be really depressing if we weren't so beleagueredly used to it by now.

I saw a local news report tonight of a woman in a army surplus store buying gas masks for her family; the 3-year-old took the pacifier out of her mouth, tried on a mask and yelped "I want this one, mommy!" Then, of course, the requisite shot of a kook in Virginia who has cloaked the entire outside of his house in plastic painter's sheeting, exclaiming, "I gotta do something with all this anxiety, man!"

Frankly, the problem with all this talk is that it is ultimately unsustainable with other "hunkering down" situations like a hurricane, we have a weather report, radar, and a good estimation of when it will hit, and how long it will last. The shit we're wading though now, however, has the ineffable quality of dreams, the ungraspable horizon of paragraphs without periods.

Besides, anyone who has done any research on the subject knows that short of an actual nuclear weapon (highly unlikely), the next terrorist attack will only kill the unlucky sots who happen to be on that train, in that mall, at that sporting event, or through Times Square that afternoon. The rest is all anxiety, hearsay, speculation on the internet, and endless stories about how you were right in that spot two weeks ago.

Tessa says that the Bush Administration issues these warnings and tries to couple Iraq with Al-Qaeda for one purpose: the instillation of fear silences questioning, and the lack of questioning feeds their power. It's hard for me to even venture a guess at the inner workings of the intelligence community; I think it's really just a litmus test for your own cynicism. Believe what you want to believe. But I do feel sorry for new mothers, writing in their baby books today about the zeitgeist of America during their child's infancy. I hope all this crap including entries like today's blog – degenerate into a cute I-can't-believe-we-were-so-freaked-out-by-that reminder of times gone by, but here in the meniscus, it's a lot to take.

2/12/03 Day 53 of the

2/12/03

Day 53 of the Vagus Nerve Road Trip of Esophagal Agony

Jasper, GA to Chapel Hill, NC

Well, I'd like to correct something from my last entry... apparently a little bit of Scotch and half a Cuban cigar is not what I need right now. I'll spare you the details, but after writing last night's blog, I spent eight hours in the bathroom throwing up.

I'd had episodes like this before with tobacco once, while visiting Duke University with the Pate twins, I tried "dipping" for the first time, and puked all over the Bryan Center. But I've had plenty of cigars before, so this one hit me from left field. In fact, this wave of nausea is so bad and long-lasting that I worry it might be the stomach flu.

This I do know: today was one of the worst seven hours on an American highway I have ever spent. We were trying to push it in order to make it to the Virginia game at the Dean Dome and I arrived, bedraggled, matted with cold sweat and greenfaced. Sweet Tessa, who dealt with my moaning misery all night, had to help me up the stairs to the Dean E. Smith Center.

There were only nine minutes left in the game, but it was worth it. For nine whole minutes and even a time out or two – the nausea subsided, and all was right with the world.

2/11/03 Day 52 of the

2/11/03

Day 52 of the Pickens County's Finest Steakhouse Road Trip of All U Can Eat Soft Serv Ice Cream

New Orleans, LA to Jasper, GA

In a day full of terrible news, most of it centered on a war nobody wants and a looming terrorist threat over the city my loved ones and I call home, the only true therapy lies in visiting your oldest friends on top of a mountain, emotional light years away from the troubles that beset your brain. I've needed lots of Celexa and a healthy bushel of therapy to get through the last year-and-a-half of anxiety (for reasons well-documented here) but perhaps a few more Cuban cigars and a tiny snifter of 18-year-old Scotch on Salem's porch would help just as much.

Finally, we got to Jasper at a decent hour the last three times we've come to this sleepy little town in the Georgia Appalachians, it was 2am and all the kids were asleep. This time, we ate dinner with them and got to enjoy the surreal humor of McColl (no doubt cribbed from Salem himself), and the gentle, sensitive beauty of Victoria (courtesy of her mother Elizabeth). Lillie-Anne, the baby, was asleep in her crib all night, but I snuck in and held her hand for a few seconds, as she yawned and nodded in a swimmingly good baby dream.

me, Tessa, Victoria, Elizabeth, Salem and McColl

I could live in a town like this for a while; Tessa and I could take room a somewhere, as long as it had a fireplace and a good chair for writing. Salem and Elizabeth are considering another house up the mountain a million-dollar estate that is being sold for almost nothing. It has an indoor basketball court, which would make a winter's respite here so obvious as to be a total "duh-ruh!!!"

2/10/03 Day 51 of the

2/10/03

Day 51 of the Deep, Salty Bayou Brackish Backwater Road Trip of Spanish Moss and Still Live Oak

New Orleans, LA to Convent, LA

I'll be amazed if this blog posting works we are truly as In the Deep Buttocks of Nowhere as one gets in America, here in the salty marshlands of Convent, LA (which is just outside Gramercy, LA – which is a long drive into the mangrove reeds from New Orleans). We're staying at the Poche Plantation, the Civil War home of perhaps the war's greatest diarist, and what it lacks in opulence, it makes up in cool vibes. The phone, however, is a different story; it only allows me to connect to the internet through a phone card, and only at pre-Apple][ speeds.

These old plantations on the banks of the Mississippi must have been in a world of hurt sometime in the 1900s the river was rising into their living rooms, but a levee would (and does) block the view of the only reason to live here. Now the plantation looks at the side of a huge hill, the lack of a vista being its longterm survival. I wonder if I'll have to make one of those awful decisions one day.

New Orleans bade us goodbye in a sea of crawfish and beignets we sadly trod off from our new gay bed & breakfast sated with the fruits du mer of my favorite nonsensical town. It was good to be here when we were. You could feel the great machinery of Mardi Gras beginning to open its liquor-soaked maw of howling rednecks and naked, slightly-overweight Tri-Delts from Ole Miss - and once was enough for me, thanks.

2/9/03 Day 50 of the

2/9/03

Day 50 of the Blackened Crawfish Etouff Redfish Shrimp Muffelata Delight Road Trip of N'Awlins – She'll Get Ya

I'd like to start out with a retraction on yesterday's blog, where I offhandedly insinuated that Commander's Palace was not worth the hullabaloo. I'd like to further state that Commander's Palace is definitely worth the hullabaloo, as well as the rim-rams, the Chattahoochie Falls, and the squit-diddly-dorfenpeppers. Simply, put the place in incredible.

If I may backtrack... Tessa and I were given $100 cash to read a script in November 2000, a script so bad that even the title spurred paroxysms of fitful laughter (I'd say which script it was, but this blog has gotten me into enough trouble this week already). I completely whiffed on it, but Tessa actually took the time to write detailed analyses on its many shortcomings. When we got the cash, I put it in an envelope and said that we'd spend it on a dinner in New Orleans, if we were ever there together.

Well, now we're engaged, and we're here together (for the third time), and we finally remembered about that cash in the envelope, so we took it to Commander's Palace and said "give us the best ya got." Two hours later, after a jalapeo shrimp glaze, a pecan almondine redfish plate, duck gumbo and a Creole bread pudding the size of your head, we sat back in a soporific post-sexual haze and thanked the writer of that awful script for giving us such a wonderful night two years later.

The day itself in New Orleans was overcast, gray and sprinkly, but we managed to do most of the things I love I bought four pounds of hot crawfish, visited the place on Foucher Street where we used to live, and most importantly, recreated the picture at Audubon Park that Bud, Chip and Jon and I started in 1987:

The picture series includes 1987, 92, 95, 97, 2001 and now this year. This year's photo had to be angled much more towards the water, since I was running out of room on the other side. I'll string them together in Photoshop when I get back so you can see what the hell I'm talking about.

Tonight's dinner reminded me of how many things in America are still bound by the rule "you get what you pay for." It's generally true for computer equipment, cold cereal and boxer shorts, but the attention and good humor lavished on us by the folks at Commander's Palace was truly stunning. It makes the rest of the trip's many sour faces at Taco Bell seem somehow more bearable.