Me talk pretty one day...

...but not on a 90 degree day when I'm drunk and in a mermaid costume.

Luckily Kim has plenty of experience trying to make sense while drunk and picked up me and Joey's slack...of which there was PLENTY.

Viva Sweden

So I've been freaking the fuck out about our one set piece. The bed. Yes, as far as sets go we are often quite minimal. Last time we went to Edinburgh we got by with rolling up the black curtain that was serving as crossover masking, setting two rolling chairs on the stage and hanging this metal grate thing on the back wall. I think we found that on the floor in the space. Low maintenance.

This show has no less than 25 hand props, 3 musical instruments, 2 costumes per person, 3 body mics, and a large rolling bed. So the issue comes up of how the hell to get all of this stuff to Scotland.

Well, the props can go in luggage. One of the instruments we will have to buy over there, the costumes go in the luggage, the body mics go in the hand luggage. And the bed. Oh the bed.

See, we're doing a short run here at 59e59 that ends the day before we go. So using something here and then shipping it is not really an option. If we can use it and then stuff it in a suitcase, well that works, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to get a bed to fold down into a small square. I wish I was as ingenious as Banana Bag and Bodice who, when faced with the prospect of doing The Sewers in Dublin without their stunning set that included 3 detailed walls, a roof, and a million doors, holes, and secret openings of magic, decided to recreate their entire set out of CARDBOARD. Cardboard that FOLDED DOWN AND FIT INTO A SUITCASE.

Shit.

Not only do we need a bed that rolls, but we need it to be structurally sound enough to carry the weight of at least 5 people while rolling. It should also have some prop storage underneath. Oh and beautiful. Let it be beautiful.

I sat here, on the futon, late one night, searching UK websites, actually looking for cots or something to stick in our flat in Edinburgh (we are just a couple of beds short of appropriate boundaries). I cruised Argos and Tescoe and finally found my way to Ikea.

Ikea.

IKEA.

Of course. They have Ikea. We have Ikea. Every country has roughly the same shit at their Ikea. I could buy the bed here, we could make the set, it could be amazing, and when we get to Edinburgh we can buy the same bed at their Ikea, build the rest of it there and we will have the exact same set piece.

Which is how on Tuesday Curtis and I found ourselves on a New Jersey Transit operation heading towards what can only be described as the promised land. Curtis is a brilliant opera designer and painter and he is a constant source of support for The Shalimar. He has let us rent out corners of his studio before for cheap. He has taken me paint shopping and taught me to goldleaf, which is the best thing ever ever EVER. He created the floor design for the recent production of stirring and then he came in and PAINTED IT. He and his amazing wife Julie come to our parties, donate to our cause, and laugh at all our jokes. They are good people. And Curtis agreed to come to Ikea with me to make sure I didn't buy a bed made out of tinker toys because it was the cheapest one they had.

We found a bed. And for my part, my pathetic little part, I worked on Curtis' artist statement for him. He's in the midst of making this beautiful series of dictator-based self-portraits and had hit a bit of a wall with his statement. It happens. So while he sketched pictures of beds and took measurements, I thought up innovative ways to explain the man behind the art.

It was a good day.

And now I'm off to buy lumber.

day job

I'm having one of those fucking days at work where I need to snarl at every customer. And they look at me like I am an absolute troll because they have asked me for coffee and instead of smiling and bouncing over to the machine I instead ignore them for 10-20 seconds, look at them like they are deeply inconveniencing me (hello, I'm searching slutty tops on ebay), ignore their requests for decaf, skim, soy, vanilla, splenda, or whatever bullshit they want to ruin their coffee with, and make their drinks with a look of total disgust/boredom/homicidal rage on my face. I'm lucky enough to work at a place where this actually passes for great customer service.

And the customers look at me with a mixture of fear (mission accomplished!) and bewilderment. Do I not know that it is my duty to serve them coffee and baked goods with an assholey smile on my face? Did I not realize when I woke up this morning that my only important task this day would be to make them their fucking half-caf three shot skim iced latte, just fill the cup 1/3 of the way with ice please because otherwise it, like, melts and my drink ends up all watery, you know?

Hey lady, you're drinking 16 ounces of skim milk. Your drink is going to taste like water no matter how much ice I put in it, YOU KNOW?

Today, as has been the case many times for the last few months, all I want to do is grab these customers and scream at them "THIS IS NOT WHAT I DO!" I will reach across the counter and grab them by the collar, pulling their face close to mine, "THIS IS NOT WHAT I AM!"

They will stammer and stutter, terrified of the sociopath behind the counter with butter knives a mere arms length away. They will atttempt to reason with me, "But you're the barista. This is your job. To make the coffee."

I roar. Possibly my face turns entirely red, my mouth opens to three times its normal size andn my eyeballs spin (we watched Evil Dead 2 last night). "I AM NOT A FUCKING BARISTA. I AM A WRITER. I DIRECT PLAYS. I MAKE THEATER. I HAVE IDEAS. I HAVE AN EDUCATION."

They are shaking, wishing they hadn't stepped out for their coffee break, wishing they had indulged in a machine-made hot chocolate in the break room of the company where they do tech support. Or develop websites. Or micro-manage other people who do those things. And I see their fear and their ultimate dissatisfaction with the lives they chose, and I set them down gently. I release their collar. I pour their coffee. They stare at me warily. As I hand it to them I say,

"You don't know me. You don't know what I can do. You don't know how talented I am. I am not just someone who makes coffee so do not look so surprised that I am fucking miserable to be standing behind this counter. This is six hours out of my day that I cannot be doing what I love, what I am good at, that I cannot contribute to society in the way I am supposed to. Do not look at me with the expectation that simply because I stand here and you stand there, I am a servant with a servant's mentality."

They are looking at their feet. They are a bit ashamed. Other people in the cafe are staring. So I smile at them, the big smile, the REAL smile, the smile that breaks across my face the minute I walk through this door out onto the street, away from the necessity of working for hourly pocket change, and I ask them, "Did you want anything else today?"



6/22/07
I need to make a slight ammendment to the above post. I must mention that I have many a regular customer whom I truly adore. There are customers who brighten my day every time they come in. A short list of them would be Rex, Frank, Bill, Curtis, Strummer Joe, The King of Spain and his wife, Food Dude, Jesse, Gerry, Erik, and a whole bunch more whose names I don't know. It's just that for every great customer who really takes an interest, there is one who treats me like dirt. Similar to bartenders, for every amazingly interesting drunk who is full of wonderful stories, humor, and compassion, there is a bachelorette party from Long Island demanding that you make blow job shots and dance on the bar.

Williamsburg

We sat out on Bedford all weekend, selling our earthly goods. And it was good! We sold stuff! But we still have mad stuff left. Clothes, my TV/VCR combo (forty dollah! good deal!), movies, books, panini presses, other amazing items. We'll be out on Saturday again.

Jen and Kim and I were manning the goods when my friend Dave showed up. He and I walked down the street so I could pee at some coffee shop (where I had the worst public restroom experience of my life...another story for another day) and as we were walking back Dave said, "Did you hear about this bodybuilder professional weight lifter guy who was shooting steroids?"

"No."

"Yeah," Dave continued. "He kept shooting steroids into his arms. Like over and over. And his arms kept getting bigger and bigger. But he was sort of careless about it. He kept using the same needles and the same holes. So his arms got infected."

"Of course."

"Of course. So they're infected and they start getting bigger and bigger, but he keeps shooting the 'roids, and they keep getting bigger and bigger, like HUGE, because they're all infected and then they burst. They explode."

"Ew."

"And THAT'S Williamsburg."

Buy Our Shit

The Shalimar will be stationed on Bedford Avenue this weekend selling our earthly posessions to raise money for our Edinburgh show this August.

We need to raise some money!

We have great stuff!

Come buy it!

Seriously, we have clothes (vintage and brand new!), shoes, jewelry, TVs, books, very useful appliances, movies, theater tickets, and a lot of totally indescribable and very important items (including taxidermy!)

So come buy it! You'll be doing your part for the future of American theater and you will walk away with some bitchin goods.

And if you don't want to buy anything, at least come by and say HI!
We'll be on Bedford, probably near North 11th
Sat & Sun 10am-7pm

Just look for us. We'll be the drunk sunburned theater company with lots of stuff on the ground. If you can't find us, call Shoni at 917 292 5738.

See you this weekend!
The Shalimar loves YOU!

nightmare

So right before I woke up this morning (for a phone appointment with our general manager, SCAMP) I had a wee nightmare. In this evil dream, we were all getting on the plane to Edinburgh. We had our suitcases, we were all on the same flight, we were ready. Except it was June 29th instead of July 29th. We were going over a month early. And for some reason I didn't realize this (and nor did anyone else) until we were on the plane. When we were halfway over the Atlantic I started panicking. We haven't rehearsed the show! Our apartment isn't going to be available! We didn't buy any of the sound equipment we needed to buy in America because it's cheaper there! We have performances in New York starting July 24th! What have we done!

When we got off the plane I had a voicemail from Adam Rapp. It said, "Hey Shoni. I really want to donate to your show but I hear you guys left already. A month early. What the fuck are you thinking?"

Then we headed to our flat, even though by now I knew we were screwed. When we got there it was empty but people's stuff was in all the rooms. Clothes, books, bedding...we just sort of wandered from room to room. Joey started moving a bed. I was like, we HAVE to fly back to New York. We can't stay here. SCAMP showed up and were like, Shoni, what have you done?

Other recent dreams:

Gary (baker of all things delicious) recently had a dream about me. I got very excited when he told me this, but it wasn't that kind of dream. Basically he and Joey were out of town and I was staying in their place. And they had this yummy cheesecake with berries on it in the fridge. And I ate the whole thing except for one bit which I left out on the table to rot. They found this when they came home as well as a bunch of little ramekins of chewed up food that I had left out all over the place. So Gary called me and was yelling at me that this was unacceptable to which my response was, "This CONVERSATION is unacceptable."

Hm.

I had dinner with Camilo tonight at Ariba!Ariba! and he told me that I was recently in his dream too. In this dream he was in a play but didn't know any of his lines. He kept having to run offstage to look at his script. But that's not the climax of the dream. No, the climax of this hateful dream is AFTER that when he sat me down and said, "Shoni, we need to talk." Apparently it was very serious and dramatic and he said to me, "I really hate it when you and Kim come over and go through my fridge and eat all my food."

End of dream.

What the fuck. Who knew these gays had so much hostility building towards me and my eating habits.

And will I continue to have panic dreams about Edinburgh up until the festival? Maybe. Though they are totally unfounded. I woke up from my Edinburgh nightmare, had some coffee, and had a lovely phone meeting with SCAMP. I then emailed a bunch of stuff to our UK Press Rep and bought our plane tickets. Really all is right with the world.

So why am I afraid to go to sleep?

research

I felt I should point out that besides frantically raising money, The Shalimar also makes plays. In case I haven't physically shaken you in hopes that money will fall from your pockets and screamed in your ear how great this show is, let me tell you a little about LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son. It's about America. And celebrity. And the fact that our country is at war yet we obsess over Shilo Jolie-Pitt and whether or not Lindsay Lohan has fucking died yet. Seriously, when will she just die? The play is based on Phaedra, so there is also some good old fashioned incest and religious guilt. Really it's about what happens here in America when our men go to war. So here are the videos I'm watching as inspiration. I will warn that they are not all for the faint of heart.

(Sidebar. It's pretty interesting to me what people post on youtube. It's interesting that I can't see the war on the news but anyone, including my seven year old brother, can watch it on the fucking internet.)