Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The absolute low point of my writing career.




I am a damn good writer. I know this, the four of you know this, my professors and patrons of my theatrical efforts know this, and most importantly I know this. Yet Saturday night, I was beaten in a writing competition, the alterna-ending play slam I mentioned earlier. "Sure," you may say. "You can't take it personally because there are plenty of good writers in New Orleans and it is good that you have competition and it makes you better yadda yadda yadda." However, I was not beaten by a good writer. I was beaten, in fact, by the supposed and irrepressible cuteness of a longtime enemy of this blog. That's right, you guessed it.





AAAAW.....Ohhh....look at the widdle kitten....






I am not just speaking of cats like the one you see above. I am speaking ALSO of the musical atrocity dumped upon us by that maniac Andrew Lloyd Webber. That's right, Cats. The musical. The only thing I hate more than cats are completely humorless self-aggrandizing pieces of shit musicals that take themselves too goddamn seriously. The two combined is like combining...small children and shitty rap music. Like Lil' Bow Wow. Or Juicy Coutore. Gross, AND pretentious. Two things I really hate, other than my own lewdness and outward pretension. But, I don't want to see it on your ass, miss Kappa Kappa Kappa.






Ok, I take it back. That is kinda hot.


In any case, I wrote a play. It was awesome. And people throwing cats onstage to the sound of Cats in the background beat me. I had great actors, I had costumes, I had so much fun doing it, and I wanted that goddamn 100 dollars at Whole Foods to celebrate with my cast and buy expensive booze.


This all harkens back to my previous post: people like dumb things and always will. I like them too, I seek them out, but can't a "New Play Bacchanal" for once be about talent and not gimmick? For once? Can one thing in our lives value intelligence over cuteness and the repetition of that cuteness? PLLEEEEEEEASE? I find it so maddening.


I could cater to this, I could throw in a bunch of bullshit into my next play, I certainly certainly could. But I am just not going to.



Sorry, keyboard cat. You really are the only cat i could ever love.





What I am going to do, is attempt to creatively push an intellectual revolution on the masses. I am going to write good theater, and direct intelligent plays. I am not going to waver or direct down to an audience. They will understand, and if they don't they will look up what they miss. My plays will be whimsical, throbbing with emotion and heart, and decidedly high brow, and if I am misunderstood I will get over it. I love art, and I want to make it for the rest of my life.


Well...unless of course this guy auditions.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GWPOPSXGYI




SWEET MOTHER OF GOD THAT IS ADORABLE!!!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

As a white member of the middle class, I feel alienated.



This shit is about to get real.


Okay, I can't fucking take this anymore. Americans are just dumb, and don't know what is funny. Conan O'Brien is off of the Tonight Show, Arrested Development only had 2.5 seasons, I still wait patiently for a television offer of my own, and NOTHING. What is wrong with people? Why is "funny" just not funny anymore?

I realize I sounded a bit like Carrie Bradshaw there. But I am losing my mind. This is becoming ever clearer as I attempt to write a script for the Southern Rep Theater Alterna-Ending Play Slam. What is that obnoxiously titled competition, you ask? Well, it happens to be a competition to re-write the ending of a play and compete with other alternate endings and then someone wins and we all resent that person because they are 100 dollars richer and get to feel superior. I mainly am going after the feeling superior part, because that is really my number one jam.

The point is, I worry, as I write, that what I find funny will be universally un-lauded by the public and the only possibility for types of laughter will be nervous. I think, sometime in my lifetime, what became funny to me and funny to the general public shifted, and the sarcastic cynicism, sardonic quips and public shouting of the sexually awkward that I so love and practice was not what others found funny. I was raised on Seinfeld and the Simpsons, love the darkly comic and feel that there is simply nothing funnier than sex. Yet I can't bring myself to watch what people currently find funny because it is so lacking all of those things. My generation loves Scrubs. I love scrubs fifteen minutes in, until it becomes dripping with sentimentality and Zach Braff has an unlikely but inevitable realization that will help him not be quite so doofy in the future.

SNOOOOOREGASM.

Can't things just be crass anymore? Can't things just be random and weird and goofy and tragically comic? CAN'T THE HORNY MANATEE REIGN SUPREME!!???!


Oh yeah. That's it right there.

Sentimentality in comedy just isn't funny. I am sorry. I like a good rom-com as much as the next person, but during the canned climax I always zone out and play the chinese restaurant episode of Seinfeld in my head, or perhaps the marble rye...I feel like I am most like Elaine but the things that happen to George is the kind of shit that would happen to me...hmm...have they kissed or gotten married yet so I can leave?

To add a touch of class and intellectualism to this blog post, I must quote the late, great Samuel Beckett. "There is simply nothing funnier than unhappiness, or in some cases, Jersey-guido-trash."


This man loved him some Snookie.

So the last part of that quote maybe a little disputed, but it brings me to the fact that the only thing I really find funny on television anymore, save re-runs, is trashy people acting completely fucking ridiculous. Well-off women fighting like middle-schoolers, men acting like juiced-up gorillas. It is hilarious because it isn't me, and no matter the ridiculous times I have partook in they aren't on television, which leaves me free to judge. It is titillating because it is voyeuristic. We watch it like we are watching Nascar, waiting for the crash to happen, waiting for the fight, waiting for someone to cry over something irrelevant...waiting for the unhappiness. Waiting for women to act like we know they can (but hope in real life they won't) and waiting for men to act stupider than seems possible. Smart people don't really exist in popular culture anymore, and when they do they are usually making fun of the aforementioned "hos" and meat-heads (a la Chelsea Handler and Joe McHale). Smart, witty people get cancelled and/or moved to cable (Conan and Bill Maher, respectively) and more episodes of the Bachelor are shat out and eaten up. It's upsetting, but I can't stop watching. It's upsetting because it does nothing to progress society, or stir dialog, or even make people just stop and think for a second. And it certainly does nothing for art, does not give us any inspiration to create something wonderful or be someone new. I remember watching Lucille Ball on Nick at Night when I was little and knowing that that was the person I wanted to be, the art I wanted to create. Who do kids have now? Miley Cyrus?

As a friend puts it, the cast of the Jersey Shore is "slowing the process of evolution." But I cannot say that when those fucking guidettes start whining, there is anywhere else I want to be but in front of the television.