Moon/Saloon: a play in nine innings

-- Jaques Barzun, God's Country and Mine    

A play I did

Through Axiom, I met a colorful denizen of the East Villiage, a man by the name of David Watkins. He heckled some of my stuff at the Axiom Holiday Party back in December '01, but then Julia shut him up. Later on, he invited Her, Jeremy and myself to be in his play. I though, "what the hell, I'll give it a read."

Jeremy as Capt. Lon Laird, the square one. We got the jumpsuits at Canal Jeans, added some flags and wings and little-league patches. They're now our official "rockin' suits."

The script was interesting. It's a surreal science fiction comedy about people in the future on the moon who listen to baseball on the radio to alleviate boredom and people in the present day who don't have it so good. I think the overriding theme is the importance of overcoming the fear and uglyness in the world and seeing the simple beauty all around you. There's also lots of shamelessly irresponsible liberalism... so I kind of dug it, and I thought it would be a fun way to meet some people of another generation.

The show itself was a total fiasco. Watkins simply doesn't have his shit together, which is sad because he's a smart guy. I stayed up all night with him a week before we opened doing cocaine, and I got a glimpse into the inner workings of his mind. It's what got me started thinking about how intelligence can be a highly frustrating and self-defeating attribure.

Anyway, we had performances dispite needing more and better rehearsals, lost a bunch of money, but had a pretty good time doing it. I met some really great people (Ronnie, Nick, Kelsey, Jennifer) and got to act with Julia for the first time. I got to stay up late painting the set with Sam. I got a cool jumpsuit out of the deal. I had something to do in the evenings for a couple months. It's art. It's my calling. Even when it's a complete clusterfuck I still love it.