Hello again from the midst of Rogue-Booze-Central! I probably would have chosen BarfingOutFresno, had I known that the pursuit of art would lead to drinking so much damn gin! I mean, I kinda gave America a mulligan on it due to prohibition, but after chasing phantoms in our own show and severely violating my Hobbit Hole rule to see as many awesome folks shake their ass as possible...I've discovered that it's far easier to grab a wee dram of libation and move on than it is to sit down and grind down comestible components by which to turn into poo. Shorthand, I've damn near been on a fruit of the grain fast for a week running, short of a pork frenzy on Ash Wednesday.
Speaking of religious observances, you'll be doing pennance if you don't wedge yourself out of your shotgun shack and get your ass down to the Tower for the FINAL FUCKING EVER performance of Cap'n Scurvy's Ragnarok Hootenanny Jamboree! Times listed in the link or just get to the Million on Friday at 7:00 or eat some acid and try to keep up with the penultimate show at Diana's on Saturday at 8:30, and I can't even describe how much farther it's going to go on that last night before Randy Macho Man Savage puts the final Flying Elbow into the old girl and we set her longboat on fire.
But there's still much more Rogue badassery to badtouch your eyes with! First off is Katherine Glover's Burning Brothels. We loved her sass and openness at the Slam. But Brothels is a much more steady affair. It's a frank and honest look at the world's oldest profession without a hackneyed message either way. She shows human respect to her characters and a wry sense of humor throughout, but doesn't bludgeon you to feel one way or the other about her characters. Which ultimately makes me love them. Even the bastards who are the essential quasi villians in the show. The mobster pimp with the heart of gold, competing with the plucky prostitute beauty pageant winner as best characterizations. And on a venue note: If the dick behind the bar keeps making drinks in the middle of the show to serve to his one eyed limbing homeless indigent girlfriend during your performance of the show, throw a fucking chair at his head! (Don't really do that............thats alot of periods..........hopefully enough to establish irony in the legal sense)
And the story goes on. Archy and Mehitabel both must have experienced many periods, as they have claimed to have led many lives before winding up in the body of a cockroach and pussy cat, respectively. Archy, portrayed by a sudden spotlight and a resitance to his nature of scuttling away to the darkness and wincing pincering tone...is a budding communist in his flowering, post overthrow of the Tsars. Mehitabel is a bohemian, riding on the coattails of the French enlightenment and the simple excuse of being a selfish artist, whose art is herself....and she's a cat.
The blending of the characters by change of stance and countenance is a bit striking to an inexperianced audience. And the care and preservation of the turn of the century language can be confusing to those who don't know that well heeled folks of the nineteen'teens chopped nanners into banans, or that the banana peel joke was a real problem during the period of the writing. And really the best part is in the wrap up after you've delved into Arch and Meh's lives and their dreams. As the show closes and you get to meet the man behind the nuisance creatures, he lets us know that he's a Canuk reintroducing an American writer back to Americans.
And so, I'm going to get off my ass and read some of Don Marquis articles and reacquaint myself with an American author that may well have paved the cultural way for art and novels that have helped influence me.
Oh yeah, food stuff. Had snacks at Starline Grill. They were slammed but my food was hot and they were very gracious about being slammed. So, all artsy bitchiness aside, they shined pretty well during festival weekend. They were triple staffed, and I never went thirsy. So props to Rogue Central and their staff. Thanks for putting up with our bullshit!
-Pook
