Dispatch, Week One - 07.07.2014 - 13.07.2014

DATELINE: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014

It had happened on the first day, the very first day, goddamn it. It was supposed to be at least a little smoother than this. After finding the perfect occasion, a nearly twelve-hour flight from San Francisco to Aukland, New Zealand, to finally be able to actually sleep on an airplane, and getting through customs without a hitch (it appears that going through the wrong line and seeming mildly stupid to the exasperated agent may be an asset, here), I found the shuttle train into downtown Sydney with ease, then the bus to the home in Birchgrove where I was being hosted with even more ease. I had arrived. I was on my way. Nine months, around the world. Here we go. With a strong sense of “New Chapter Beginning!” swelling between my ears, I knocked on the door.

And, nothing.

No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I double-checked the address; yes, right house. I walked around, and found another door. Still, nothing. No one was home. Despair. As I trudged to find a cafe with wi-fi so I could email my host, with my gargantuan bag aiding and abetting gravity's wickedness on my shoulders, all of my fears curb-stomped my positivity into dust blown towards oblivion. Now, I hadn’t been so deluded to assume that I was going to go on a nine-month trip around the world and not run into a single problem overseas, had not been such a Pollyanna that I discounted any possibility of any obstacle presenting itself, but on the first day? In an English-speaking country? Less than two hours after I had arrived? This was already a disaster, and had nine months of a nightmare pregnancy followed by giving birth to a demon of self-loathing and regret written all over it.

In the Charlotte Cafe, after I had emailed my host (my phone service had already been disconnected, how naive had I been? Did they make a rube more stupid than I was? Just because I said, "than I" that didn't mean I wasn't stupid...), I drank cappuccino and fretted. Where was I going to stay? What was I going to do? Was the future going to be this difficult? Was it an omen, a clear sign this all had been a terribly misguided notion? Should I just turn around, take the bus and then the train and then the plane right back to the States? No matter; I was probably going to die, right there in the Charlotte Cafe, wasn’t I?

I heard my name. “Bill?” the counterwoman asked me. I nodded. “Your friend is coming here to pick you up and drive you back to her house.”

“Wow,” I said, relief filling my lungs like oxygen. “She doesn’t have to make such an effort. I can manage.”

The counterwoman shook her head and smiled. “You’re in Australia, Bill,” she said.

And so I am. Sydney is lovely, and strikes me as so naturally and effortlessly hip that a hipster couldn’t possibly create it on a drawing board if he had a lifetime and an endless supply of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon, a ripping pair of block-framed glasses, and the coolest muttonchops since Jeff Tweedy. I keep being reminded of New Orleans’s French Quarter combined with the beach cities of the South Bay in Los Angeles. To me, it combines a sophisticated, modern downtown, with all the fresh, sparkling glass and metal of Vancouver, with neighborhoods that have stood the test of time, their buildings not torn down but reutilized and revitalized until they look like something out of “Lovely Quirkitude” magazine (copyright pending). The city has caused me to begin work on a theory that a bustling and effective ferry transportation system is essential to a cool city. I’ve taken a million pictures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, and I feel like that hasn’t been nearly enough. I’ve gotten my coffee at the Charlotte every morning - “You’re the American. I remember you.” - and have walked the city’s neighborhoods every day. I’ve hit four museums in as many days, strolled the Botanical Gardens, watched kids learning to play rugby, and failed only in my quest to find a pub that was showing the World Cup Final. The businessmen wear black suits and bright shirts with no ties and the businesswomen wear long, straight hair and off-white raincoats. Everyone has a confidence and most everyone walks, and I try not to catalog every single difference I note with chagrin between this town and Los Angeles. I merely smile to myself whenever anyone apologizes for the city's public transportation system.

There are concerns, of course. With natural hipness comes expense. I have my morning coffee at the Charlotte despite clenching my teeth each time at hearing the price, and I try to limit my drinking to one or two pints per evening. I keep telling myself, “You’ll save money in India. You’ll save money in India. You’ll save money in India,” to the point where I’ve hypnotized myself to convulse should I have to even open my wallet in Mumbai. But while sharing the bar at the London Hotel in Balmain Friday with a man who claimed to have traveled the Earth “more than a few times,” the man advised, “Don’t pay attention to a budget. Don’t pay attention to an itinerary. Just live and have fun until the money runs out.” Which is great, provided the money doesn’t run out before I board the train for Melbourne on Wednesday (it won’t).

Everyone I tell my plans to here not only doesn’t laugh at me, but is encouraging and pleasantly envious and occasionally even claim to be inspired themselves, continuing the wonderful energy everyone back home (and presumably, you who are reading this) gave me to the point where I can’t possibly thank you all enough. No one save one or two of you (the “I hope it works out,” with a shrug hilarious in its solitude) has been anything other than magnificent in your encouragement of this idea, to the point where I wonder just how fucked up I was, how much of a desperate mid-life Hail Mary this might be, that everyone who knows me thinks this is just the solution for what ails me…

If you're reading this, chances are excellent that I miss you specifically, and chances are only slightly less excellent that I miss you enough that it aches.

I hope you’ll indulge some of my thoughts regarding how this trip treats me in order to get some of the more basic details and the pictures. I hope you’ll endure the running gags. People keep telling me this trip will change me. We’ll see, and you’ll read, I guess. So thanks for reading, too. I don’t want this to be so masturbatory that it turns everyone off, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see what effect this whole thing has…

Whatever. It’s too late for me to wonder or worry about that. You’re in Australia, Bill.

#RogueTripPlaylette - 13.07.2014

EXT. STREET - AFTERNOON

BILL approaches an OLD MAN.
BILL: Excuse me, sir? Do you know where I can find Parramatta?
OLD MAN: Parramatta? Ah, Jesus, you're not even close. You're miles away!
BILL: (frowning) Really? Parramatta Road?
OLD MAN: Oh, Parramatta Road. (points) That's right down there, about a  hundred yards.
BILL: (stares) Thank you.

#RogueTripSOTD - 13.07.2014

National Gallery, Sydney, Australia - 12.07.2014, 11a

#RogueTripPOTD - 13.07.2014

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia - 12.07.2014, 12n

#RogueTripWMWD - 12.07.2014

Dick's Hotel Public Bar - Balmain, Sydney, Australia - 12.07.2014, 4pm

Wrote every day this week...

#RogueTripSOTD - 12.07.2014

Darling Harbour Ferry - Sydney, Australia - 12.07.2014, 10:30am

#RogueTripPOTD - 12.07.2014

The London Hotel Public Bar - Balmain, Sydney, Australia - 12.07.2014, 10am

SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIP #2©

“When traveling, never ignore advice. In particular, never ignore advice from your bowels.”

A year of so ago, I was discussing the evolution of quantum mechanics vis-a-vis the politics of the scientific community in post-World War II Great Britain with a friend of mine when suddenly, I had to fart. Then a minute or so later, I had to fart again. With the third fart came the recollection of an epiphany I once had. 

So I asked my friend, “Say, Friend. How old were you when you connected the fact that you were farting a lot with the knowledge that you would soon have to take a crap?” I might've said, "dump?"

“I dunno,” he replied. He thought. “Eight? Nine?”

“So, not forty-four?” I asked.

He laughed, then looked at me quizzically. “No,” he said. “Not forty-four.”

I was reminded of this conversation on Wednesday morning while I was waiting for a bus in downtown Sydney, as I casually backed near the wall of a bank and surreptitiously passed gas. The reminder caused me to immediately start searching for a bathroom. It wasn’t easy; in these situations, it never is. I am convinced the God in which I believe simply wills me to require to take a shit in public (bookstores inspire a notoriously Pavlovian reaction in me; thank Him that they’re disappearing), and then does everything in His power to prevent me from finding a john. In this case, there was a mall, but it was far down the street and it was disguised as a church. There was a bathroom in the churchmall, but its one stall (one?!? I was in the First World, no?) was occupied. Finally, the doddering fool who was occupying the space I so desperately wanted finished INFINITE JEST, stood up, flushed, and after taking an hour to figure out how to button his pants (I’m speculating), he stumbled out of the stall as I shoved past him, slung off my monstrous sack, and did my business. I had made it.

But, a close call. Every call in these circumstances is invariably a close one. Because in the movie of life, if flatulence is the plot point in Act One, you don’t have to be Syd Field to know where Act Two is going, and where the climax in Act Three might end up. Further, while traveling in unknown cities, the movies seem to go much, much faster and pack in far much, much more action, and the obstacles to the goal of the hero seem much, much more pressing.

Decipher this metaphor as you will. 

So, to economize, “Broken Wind = Break Into a Trot”. Do not wait. Perhaps this requires three sentence fragments. Do. Not. Wait. A traveler must be prepared to instantly drop what he’s doing and adapt to a new agenda to drop what he’s doing. If “I didn’t have to go then,” is an tolerable defense against the accusation, “You should’ve gone before we left!” the first fart while walking on a city street disqualifies any further excuses. Walk into the nearest coffee shop, restaurant, mall store, church, or bank, and pretend with hand signals and stammered English that you plan to purchase something, light a candle, or take out a home loan as soon as your most urgent need is satiated. And, never stop moving. With earbuds in, a fifty-pound backpack strapped to your shoulders, and an utter ignorance when it comes to where the nearest men’s room is in a foreign city, you procrastinate at your peril.

*SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIPS© are meant to be for entertainment purposes only. The title of the tips, the tips themselves, and in fact the sobriquet “Sophisticated Rogue” itself are meant to be ironic, wry, and in no way literal, and if you don’t know that by now, well, (sigh), Jesus, c’mon, dude…

#RogueTripWMWD - "The World Is My Writing Desk" - 11.07.2014

Wrote today...

Charlotte Cafe, Birchgrove, Sydney, Australia - 11.07.2014, 12pm

Rogue Trip Playlette - "Charlotte Cafe - 11.07.2014"

INT. CHARLOTTE CAFE, BIRCHGROVE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - 12:45pm

BILL approaches the counter.

COUNTERWOMAN: (smiling) You’re the American. I remember you.

#RogueTripMGW - MY NEWEST, EARTH-SHATTERING ARTISTIC PROJECT

Here's a photographic series I've let marinate in my brain for a while, that I can finally - finally - bring to fruition. Sometimes you have an idea that you simply know in your bones will change everything. Everything. This trip will finally give me a chance to give it life, to allow it to breathe, to burst into your consciousness, forever altering your ideas about art, about the appreciation of art, about strolling through a permanent structure oblivious to the moving parts within. As I travel, I'll go to as many world-renowned museums (art, history, etc.) as I can, and as I look at some of the many masterpieces that have been created and preserved throughout mankind, I'll take spontaneous, both permitted and stolen, and organic pictures...of the people who guard them. Behold, William Norrett's photographic series, "Museum Guards of the World".

Today's installation is entitled:
"Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014. Morning."

"Alana* No. 1 ('Please, sir - carry your backpack either with your hand or strapped to your front side.')" -Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014

"Alana* No. 2. ('Yea, people seem to have a lack of self-awareness when they carry it on their back.')" -Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014

"Lachlan* No. 1 ('Please, sir - carry your backpack either with your,  yes, that's right. Thank you.')" -Syndey Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014

"Oliver* No. 1 (Post-Directing Mother/Child to Nearest Restroom)" -Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014

"Lachlan* No. 2 ('No, s'all right, I'm just trying to get a shot of this, myself.')" -Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 10.07.2014

*All names are aliases, obviously. Yeah, like I went up to them and asked them for their real names. (eye roll) But I do feel whatever their true sobriquets are, the names I've given them fit much, much more fitting.

#RogueTripWMWD - "The World Is My Writing Desk" - 10.07.2014

Wrote today...

Sports Fields, Birchgrove, Syndey, Australia - 10.07.2014, 8am

#RogueTripSOTD - 10.07.2014

"Tabaimo - Mekurumeko" Exhibit, Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art - 10.07.2014, 11am

#RogueTripPOTD - 10.07.2014

Birchgrove, Sydney, Australia - 10.07.2014, 7am

Rogue Trip Playlette - Sydney, Australia, 10.07.2014

EXT. BIRCHGROVE FERRY STOP, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - 8:54am

BILL stands on the worn wooden dock, waiting for the 9am ferry to Circular Quay. He puts his earbuds in; Radiohead plays softly. He looks around at the green hills surrounding the water. An OLD MAN walks down the steep stone staircase to join him on the dock. Wearing a blue flannel shirt tucked into grey gym shorts and a large straw gardening hat, the MAN acknowledges Bill with a slight pivot of his forehead before stepping aside to let a BUSINESSMAN pass by him. The businessman, sporting a shaved head, wearing a shiny black suit and burgundy shirt with no belt, stands between Bill and the old man. The wind from the south pushes gently on the water Bill’s face as the sun’s heat sneaks in from the east, bouncing off the inside of his sunglasses’ lenses. Bill spies the ferry approaching. He watches it. Radiohead might’ve been a little on the nose. Bill smiles anyway.

#RogueTripSOTD - 09.07.14

Enjoying a pint at Fortune of War, Sydney's oldest pub. Sydney, Australia - 09.07.2014, 3pm

Rogue Trip - #POTD - 09.07.14

Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia - 09.07.2014, 7pm

Rogue Trip Playlette - "Sydney, Australia, 09.07.2014 - 11am

INT. 441 BUS - BIRCHGROVE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - 11am

BILL sits on a bus, trying to keep his backpack from falling off its seat while he watches a Chinese-Australian MOTHER, who sits between her son (9?) and daughter (8?) in the “Priority Seating” up front. The SON presses both hands repeatedly against the bus window, checking the prints his hands leave, while the DAUGHTER, wearing a page haircut, a purple hoodie with pink & silver butterflies on the front, and big, black, block eyeglasses, tugs at her mother’s fleece.

DAUGHTER: Mommy, I want an iPad. I need an iPad. I need it. I know you said it’s gonna hypnotize me. But it won’t hypnotize me. It won’t, Mommy. It’s not gonna hypnotize me. I won’t let it hypnotize me. I won’t. Mommy. Mommy. It will not hypnotize me. Don’t worry.

The mother, staring straight ahead, says nothing.

The World Is My Writing Desk - 09.07.2014

Wrote today...
#RogueTripWMWD

Air New Zealand #NZ101, Aukland to Sydney, July 9, 2014 - 7am

#RogueTripSOTD - 07.07.2014

Union Square, San Francisco, CA - 2pm

#RogueTripPOTD - 07.07.2014

Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA - 3pm

“Do You Know the Way Out of San Jose?”

DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO. MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014

I’m screwed.

I’m about to take a long trip. The trip is part of a larger plan about getting more work done, taking risks, life fulfillment, blah blah stopBillyfortheloveofPetestop. Anyway. It’s a big move, one I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and my realizations and expectations for the journey have been hitting me ever since I finally committed to it in my mind, ever since I finally said to myself, “You’re doing this,” last fall.

One of those expectations is, I’m expecting to be in a lot of places-

(This blog is gonna have a lot of obvious statements. Endure them, please.)

-and it’s a given that there will be times when I’m in a certain place, and I’m lost. For Chrissakes-

(This blog is gonna have swearing. I would ask you to endure it, but I honestly feel you should get over it, and actually, that you should enjoy it. (shrug))

(This blog is gonna have stage directions.)

-for Chrissakes, part of the reason I’m taking this trip in the first place is, I’m lost. So I knew I would be in exotic cities around the world, cities like Singapore and Beijing and Dubai and Barcelona and Buenos Aires and, uh, Monterrey, Mexico, and I needed to get used to feeling lost and feeling okay with being lost, that I wouldn’t be able to know where I was or where I was going every single moment in every single city through which I travelled…

I didn’t expect, however, the first city where I was beset with that feeling to be frickin’ San Jose, California, United States of America.

(eye roll) Jesus.

I flew into San Jose after a lovely visit with my brother and his family in Boise, with the plan to take public transportation to San Francisco. I wanted to spend a nice evening in one of my favorite cities, an American city I knew, before I embarked on this journey and found myself in places of which I knew nothing for the next nine months. I wanted to take a walk alone, find a nice, quiet restaurant to have dinner by myself, and simply relax before the adventure began, all in a city that gave me comfort…

…and I did, more than an hour later than planned, because I can’t a)read a goddamn sign or b)distinguish my left from my right.

First, I got onto a light-rail train in uh, “downtown” San Jose and went south when I should’ve gone north, prompting the first innovation this journey has prompted - there should be a corollary to the “walk of shame” (don’t pretend you don’t know) called the “disembark of shame” for when someone gets on at one train stop, only to get off at the next stop so he can walk across the tracks and go right back in the direction from whence he came. So that cost me forty minutes.

Second, I almost got on the right bus going in the wrong direction until the bus driver convinced me that he actually knew more about the bus’s route than I did. By the time he had me persuaded, by pointing at the bus stopped RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from where I was, I had missed that bus - that departed RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET - and that cost me another half-hour. Which brings me to what I hope to be a regular feature of this blog:

SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIP #1©*:

“Chances are excellent that the bus driver knows more about where you’re going than you do.”

and its sub-tip…

SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIP #1a©:

“Arguing with the bus driver is frequently counterproductive.”

I can’t even make it forty miles in the Bay Area without getting lost. I’m gonna be able to handle India and Ecuador? (sigh, rubs forehead) 

So. I’m screwed. Pray for me. Include it in your prayers to get me to stop swearing, if you wish.

Eventually, I did get to San Francisco, got my walk, got my dinner, and got my first, “Wait? You just up and quit your fuckin’ job?” from a skeptical bartender. So I will call yesterday a measured success. My desire is for that judgment to hold for the next nine months.

For those interested, my goal for this trip is to travel around the world. Deliberately, I’ve made only three “hard points” for the trip - well, I guess five “hard points”, including the beginning and end points, which I guess one cannot avoid when taking a trip. I’m thinking of them as clothespins hanging the trip on a line, perhaps a dirty clothesline tied between two tenement buildings high over a street in a cartoon taking place in Depression-Era New York City. (shrug) Whatever helps, dude.

First clothespin is San Francisco. Tonight I leave SFO - that’s AIRPORT CODE for San Francisco Airport - for the second clothespin, Sydney, Australia. The image of me sitting still in an enclosed space for fifteen hours should amuse many of you who once employed and/or dated me. I plan to purchase a third and fourth clothespin in the form of a flight from Lisbon, Portugal to Rio de Janeiro on February 1, 2015. So basically, I’ll need to figure out a way to get from Sydney to Lisbon in seven months. Fifth and final clothespin is, I’d like to have a birthday dinner (April 17, 2015) at this restaurant in New Orleans, Gautreau’s, mainly ‘cause it has a bench outside a picture window and I want a cool-ass picture taken of me sitting on said bench.

Gautreau's Restaurant

A needlessly romantic imagined image to go with a needlessly romantic and overambitious plan, to be certain. A plan which I’ll fail to achieve in its conceived schematic, no doubt. But whatever. We’ll see what happens. Every creative project becomes something different from its imagined form, is what I’ve found and grown to enjoy over the years. This is no different. I enter into this with the hope that when it is done, it’s a creative project of meaning.

Logistics:

-This is the website. You’re here, obviously. I dunno, bookmark it? Don’t mind that you can’t comment on posts? Cherish it?

-I have started a Twitter account specifically for the trip: @Rogue_Trip. Don't forget the underscore. Follow that for updates, notifications, little random tidbits and mini-bites, etc., and holy shit, please tell other people to follow it. My God, if a couple months go by and I’m trying find free wi-fi in the jungle in order to post stuff for a mere 53 people, I might just disappear into the Indian Ocean (or the Pacific Ocean, or the fourth dimension, YOU DON’T KNOW IT COULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED, DO  YOU?) like that Malaysian Air jet (not a legitimate threat). I may be re-tweeting links from @Rogue_Trip, but I will not be posting trip-related stuff on my personal Twitter account.

-If you haven’t “liked” the Sophisticated Rogue Media Facebook page, please do that. I’m looking to use that more than my personal page, for updates related to the trip. Don’t give me that look; that’s branding, buddy. Yeah, I’ve got a plan for that. My personal Facebook page is most likely gonna be less-used, at this point.

So if you’re up for it, please follow along. I’m excited about this, and it’d be nice if you read this blog as I go. I’ve got some ideas for what form it will take, but married to nothing other than maintaining it in a regular way. So keep checking back to see just how it begins to form, please.

Take care. I have to make sure getting to SFO is a straight shot on the BART…

*SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIPS© are meant to be for entertainment purposes only. The title of the tips, the tips themselves, and in fact the sobriquet “Sophisticated Rogue” itself are meant to be ironic, wry, and in no way literal, and if you don’t know that by now, well, (sigh), Jesus, c’mon, dude…

The World is My Writing Desk, 07.07.2014

Wrote today...

San Francisco Hilton, San Francisco, CA - 10am
#RogueTripWMWD

T-47 Days & Counting - PRESIDENTIAL SUITE Rehearsals Begin

When I was a teenager, I had a brief and wildly unsuccessful stint on my high school’s speech & debate team. My category was Extemporaneous Speech (“Extemp”), where each competitor is given a current events question (e.g., “How has the Reagan Administration’s economic policies affected the morale of major American cities versus the American farmer?”), and then given a mere fifteen minutes or so to prepare, write, and rehearse a seven minute speech. The competitor then delivers that speech to between one and three already bored parents of other speech & debate club members, parents who sit in uncomfortable desk-chairs resenting the loss of their Saturday trapped in a dusty classroom deprived of air conditioning, forced to listen to a teenager who is not their own.

As mentioned, be it due to my relative lack of skill (the “common” wisdom) or to the insular, political world of high school speech & debate which championed only cliquish insiders and oppressed an outsider who participated only due to being cut from the J.V. basketball team (my interpretation), I was wildly unsuccessful at “Extemp”. But over the course of two years finishing fifth in heats of seven and failing to move onto any final rounds, ever, I did discover a modus operandi for beginning my speeches, an M.O. that I consider genius, and an M.O. that I’ve carried with me throughout my growth as an artist.

Back in 1986, most “Extemp” combatants went into battle with accordion folders stuffed with reams of clipped articles from the Daily Mail or archived issues of The Economist magazine (I imagine that now, the arsenal consists of an iPad). Upon receiving their question, they would scurry to a cafeteria table, spread out their research material, and feverishly begin to outline their speech with facts and statistics. Once the outline was complete, they would begin pacing the room, mumbling to themselves, rehearsing their speech in its entirety.

I would spend most of my preparation coming up with the perfect sports analogy.

That was my M.O. I began every “Extemp” speech with a sport analogy. It was my style, much like Bob Dylan playing acoustic or Spike Lee doing that conveyer belt thing with a character in every single one of his joints. Sports analogies in “Extemp” speeches was my thing. I did it every single time. Perhaps it was due to some deep-seeded resentment of having to participate in speech & debate rather than play on the basketball team. More likely, it was because sports was something that not only I knew, but knew could always be used as a metaphor, a metaphor for anything.

So I would spend much of my rehearsal time linking the fall of the Ferdinand Marcos regime in mid-80s Philippines to the responsibility Lou Carnesecca bore for the lackluster play of St. John’s in the Big East, or describing the military buildup of the the Soviet Union in the allegorical form of New York Giants linebacking corps, or making the clearly air-tight comparison between Chilean General Augusto Pinochet to George Steinbrenner. Sure, sure, I got into details eventually. I had a reasonable grasp on current events. I read U.S. News & World Report every week; I even enjoyed it. But my sports analogies were my signature. When the moment came to deliver my speech, I would stand up in front of the classroom full of parents and launch myself into Extemporaneous Speech eccentricity by saying something like, “Sino-Soviet relations could learn a lot from the rivalry between the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadians.” I figured that by relating even the most subtle of world affairs to an aspect of sports, I was making a connection that would be seen by the judges as at once astute and relatable.

Wildly unsuccessful. Occasionally as I launched into explaining why Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry were exactly like George Schultz and Alexander Haig, I could see a bored father raise an eyebrow, intrigued simply by names he recognized. But most of the time, I could tell the small scowls on the faces of the mothers were pans of my efforts, and most of the time, the fathers’ eyebrows were raised in skepticism or even disdain. The crass, unserious world of sports had no place in the lofty realm of world affairs, even if it was only in the opening of a slapdash “Extemp” speech by a kid wearing khakis too baggy, a tie too long, a delivery too rushed, and a part of hair too much in the middle of his head.

But I still love sports analogies, precisely for the same reason. It’s trite and has been hammered to death by every columnist from Red Smith to Jay Mariotti, but trite is truth. The sports world is a microcosm for the rest of the world, for the real world. The sports world is perfect as an allegory for the real world because it contains all the same issues, the same ambiguity, the same human beings, but it also most times can provide some sort of an answer, a definition, a scoreboard.

So I use sports analogies still, and as I grew older and began writing, acting, and directing, the comparisons come even easier. If you try to create, and work with others trying to create together, it’s obvious that the parallels to an athletic team are not only simple to envision, but true. Working on a film, writing a script with someone, or acting in a play with a cast, all are team efforts where the same concepts hold true as they do in sports. A success becomes when you are submerging yourself for the good of the group, when you realize that the strength of the performance is only as good as the weakest link, when you trust in the others you’re on stage with or sitting in front of a computer with, when you can see that teamwork materialize before everyone’s eyes, when everyone’s listening, playing, committing, enjoying. Working.

This is quite a long-winded way of saying: I’m really excited about the team I’m working with right now.

Rehearsals for Presidential Suite began last week. The show’s got a large cast, thirteen, and with the composer and me, it’s a bigger roster than any NBA team's. All during the writing of the script, people warned me, “That’s a really big cast. You’re gonna have trouble filling the cast. You’re gonna have trouble getting ‘em all on the same page.” People told Matthew and me to cut the number of roles down, to make it simpler, to lessen the risk that something might not work. We didn’t do that, because we thought it did the story a disservice. People shook their heads. People said we’d be sorry.

But much like New York Jets’ quarterback Mark Sanchez, people are all too-often inaccurate. I like my team.

What I’ve been thrilled to discover over the past week is that the team that my partners and I have assembled is full of members who are talented, professional, and enthusiastic, full of players who make me smile everyday at something they do that’s a discovery to me. I might just have the 1970 New York Knicks. I might just have a team I’d be excited to use as an analogy in order to bore the parent of a high-school speech club member.

Or bore someone reading this blog. Whatever. I like my team. And when we open on September 27th, I don’t think we’re finishing fifth.

PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - T-52 Days & Counting

Things continue apace with Presidential Suite as we move towards the start of rehearsals this Saturday, August 10th. Here you can check out our first illustration, for the web-only, which we think gives a nice sense of the whimsical fun to be had during the show.

As the week progresses, I'm working on nailing down rehearsal time/space, listing, lining up, and hunting down the props and costumes that we're gonna need, and trying to rest up so I can be prepared for the next two months. Looking at my schedule, it does NOT appear as if I'm going to have much time to relax before we open on Friday, September 27th.

Every day seems to bring with it a different fire to put out, a different challenge to overcome, or a different obstacle to be avoided. But I'm determined during this process to take each thing as it comes, to roll with the punches and inevitable dramas that arise. I've committed to not reacting when something arises, to taking a step back, a deep breath, and a positive eye...Bets on how long that'll last?

T-60 DAYS & COUNTING - a Presidential Suite Update

Just a little update on how the World Premiere Production of Presidential Suite is going; I’ll try to post something at least once a week. On Saturday, we held the first cast table read of the script and if I may say, it went well enough and I had enough fun watching it that I’ve been able to stuff my self-loathing deep inside me for the time being (it’ll be back. Oh, oh, oh, yes! -pause- It will be back.) The entire cast was on hand for introductions to each other and to David, Matthew, and me, and the biggest issue all afternoon were those pesky parking meters on Lankershim Boulevard. An hour limit on Saturdays? That's crap.

Now, watching a cast read words that you’ve (a collective you’ve, in this instance) written can be a harrowing experience. I’ve figured out that the equation is:

[(X)*moments of genuine joy]/

[[(Y)*moments of horrible, horrible shame] +

(standard derivation of my own self-loathing)]*

*When dealing with an original play, take the quotient and square that sucker.

...And I can't speak for my co-writers, but it often times reduces me to a fraction of your normal self, a wee decimal point stuck between your confidence and your positive attitude. But Saturday seemed to go well: actual laughs (plural) from the cast, nobody fell asleep, and no one has texted me long after I’ve gone to sleep begging out of the production. I may or may not have changed my number.

Thus, a measured success.

I had more fun on Saturday than I’ve had in a long, long time. So, I'll amend that. A success.

So thanks to the cast, to David, and to Matthew, for that. Speaking of the cast, I'm already convinced they're going to make this play the best it can be. We rounded up a bunch of talented talents, funny funnies, amassed ourselves a nice little set of baseball cards that are gonna look nice in two months.

Now, onto all the work that has to be done. Gotta figure out the set, gotta start work on the costumes. Gotta check in with the space...Uh-oh, the self-loathing. I feel it bubbling up....

T-64 Days & Counting - PRESIDENTIAL SUITE UPDATE

Matthew and I hope the summer finds you well and not yet melted into a pool of DNA drippings. We wanted to give you an update on the status of the World Premiere Production of Presidential Suite. Things have begun to move forward in earnest. In addition to setting the WHEN - we open Friday, September 27th and run Friday/Saturday/Sunday(matinee) through Sunday, October 27th - and the WHERE (the Whitmore at the Whitmore-Lindley in North Hollywood), we have now latched upon the WHO.

That’s right, we’ve finally “casted up”. After holding a round of auditions and a round of call-backs, and determining the best analogy to casting a show is - running around a schoolyard, trying to collect the perfect set of baseball cards as they blow across the asphalt during a brisk wind -

“(picks up card) No, this Tony Gwynn’s not mine...(trots, picks up card) Nah, I’ve already got a Tom Seaver...Ooh, is that a Greg Maddux?...(runs, picks up card) Nope...(runs, scrapes fingernails on asphalt). We can’t use anyone on steroids...Sigh, this Robin Yount can’t do half the postseason...”

-we now have a full cast for Presidential Suite. Continuing the analogy, it’s a great set of cards we’re putting in plastic, closing up in our Trapper Keeper binder, and we’re not letting that jerkface Mikey Wyatt get his grubby fingers anywhere near it. We believe we’ve got a terrific cast that’s going to make this show something special. Confirmation of how great we are at casting will begin this Saturday night, when the cast meets to conduct the first table read of the script.

So we’ve got the what, the who, the when, and the where. We’ll update you more as the production continues, as we built up the HOW. But let us now thank you again for all your support, monetarily and otherwise, towards helping get Presidential Suite up off the ground and speeding forward towards the end of September and its World Premiere.

Check out our Facebook page and feel free to email us with any questions you may have about how things are progressing. But we’ll talk again soon.

bill

PS: Matthew, here. Although I dabbled in baseball card trading as a youth, it was never really my thing.  I probably would have described the casting process as herding feral cats.  See, I made it my own by adding "feral" and making it about cats.  That's why Bill and I work so well together.  Different interests but shared sensibilities. That said, I couldn't be more thrilled with our cast and full of excitement about mounting this production.Thanks again for your support and I look forward to seeing you at the theatre.

Beach Reading Special - Get The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription ebook Free...

...for the next five days (starting Friday, July 19th), I'll be offering The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription ebook for Amazon Kindle free. Free is good. Free is nice. Free, it's even fun to say.

Say it with me: "Free."

If you own a Kindle and have an Amazon Prime Membership, go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000739811 and borrow The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription for free - I can't stop saying it - your free copy.

For all others, the cost of an ebook copy of The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription has been lowered to $1.99. Not free, but not bad either: www.amazon.com/dp/B008F9FAH6

However you download the novel, after you read it, I would appreciate it if you posted an honest review, and spread the word to all you know.

Free. Free. Free.

I See a Forest. But Yes. Yes - I See Trees, Too.

Almost exactly a year ago, I self-published my first novel, The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription. It was the hardest thing I’ve done in my creative life so far. But as I got closer to putting the book out into the world, I knew there had to be a point in the process where it got easier. There had to be. At each stage before I released it - writing it, re-writing it, proofreading it, formatting it - I kept assuring myself that once the novel was published, once it was out there for people to purchase, to read, to hopefully enjoy, the hard part would be over.

Thus occurred the set-up for the punch line of that particular lesson.

A month or so after I released The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription, I was chatting online with a longtime friend of mine. She asked how sales of the novel were going (everyone, everyone, always wants to know how sales are going). I admitted that I wished they were going a little better. She typed, “Well, you’re sure to get at least 337 sales, aren’t you?” To me it was an oddly specific number; I asked how she could predict that. She typed back, “Isn’t that how many Facebook friends you have?”

And as Elaine Benes once said in Seinfeld, “And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed...”

The hard part of writing a novel - well, it’s all hard parts. But the hard part that comes with a sense of having absolutely no control is the part after you put it out there. Trying to get people to notice it, to pay attention to it, to drop “good money” on it, to read it, to recommend it to others, that has been more difficult only because I’m not the only one involved in the attempt. If writing a novel is like climbing a mountain, then self-publishing and self-promoting and self-marketing it is like reaching the top of that first mountain only to realize it’s part of an entire range of mountains, a range full of mountains that move and duck and scoff at you, mountains that ask if there’s a discount for mountains that are friends, mountains that claim they don’t read and whose eyes glaze over while they wait to tell you what they, the mountain, is up to...

...Not to mention the mountains that you create yourself. Publishing a novel has been a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t change for anything, but it’s also brought to the forefront of my mind the millions of different ways I avoid moving forward. There’s no need to get into the psychological swamp that is my self-loathing nor the psychological desert that is my motivation, but if the past year has taught me anything, it’s that I’ll seize the smallest reason I can to keep myself from pushing myself to become a better writer, a better artist.

Which brings me back to Facebook.

I enjoy Facebook. I enjoy posting things on Facebook and if I do say so myself, if you’ve wandered over to this blog to check out this essay I considered titling, “No I Am NOT Pouting!” you’ve enjoyed some of the things I’ve posted on Facebook, too. Being able to conceive of a short joke, a slight comic confection in the form of a “Facebook Playlet,” to put it out there for my friends to see and enjoy, has been gratifying. But I’m going to stop posting anything save for strictly business over there, and start putting my “pieces,” as they were, over here. Because it’s become another mountain.

Molehill? No. Facebook is a wonderful medium for connection and for expressing oneself. But for me, it’s become another lily pad in the swamp or another mirage in the desert* that keeps me from pushing myself as a writer. I find myself growing frustrated with the format before realizing it’s the format I’m given, and if it frustrates me, I need to find another one. But more importantly, leaving that work for this blog might push me towards making those pieces better, more ambitious, and more permanent as work. It might push me to create work people seek out, recommend, and not take for granted. I deserve that. Even if I don’t deserve that, I deserve to push myself to get that. Finally, I think if I’m to grow as a writer I need to start striving to gain fans, not friends. If that makes sense.

Chances are excellent you couldn’t give a shit about any of this. Fine. But it’s my blog. if you have enjoyed my “stuff” on Facebook in the past, please start checking in over here. I’m committing to making this a more professional enterprise. And if I do say so, I need to make this more professional for me most of all. So, if you’ve enjoyed my Facebook work - for as slight as it may be, I want it to be considered my work - spread the word. For Chrissakes - if you help me get more fans, I’ll be your best friend.

*Not a mixed metaphor - the metaphor was topological ecosystems overall, including mountain ranges.

Presidential Suite - Auditions

We will be holding auditions for _Presidential Suite on Saturday, July 6th and Sunday, July 7th, from 10a-3p. If you're interested, email me privately and I'll fill you in on details.

Presidential Suite - SHOW DATES ANNOUNCED

Okay, so here we go. The time has come. The future is now.

Well, the future is in late-September. But still, it’s pretty cool.

There are now official show dates for PRESIDENTIAL SUITE, the hilarious comic musical written by Matthew Hoffman & me, with amazing music by David Johnson. The World Premiere of PRESIDENTIAL SUITE will run from Friday, September 27th for five weekends, through Sunday, October 27th, at the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre, 11006 Magnolia Boulevard, in the wonderful NoHo Arts District.

Now, production is just revving up. But we wanted to keep you posted. Like our page:

https://www.facebook.com/MVPthemusical?ref=ts&fref=ts

Tell your friends to like the Facebook page, demand your co-workers and the baristas who sell you your morning venti soy latte and the bartenders who serve your evening beer ALSO like the Facebook page, and tell THEIR friends, and so on and so forth. Also be sure to keep checking this blog for updates and diary entries and my exultations and my whining and my conspiracy theories and my pleading and occasionally, my poetry.

Just kidding about the poetry. MY POETRY’S PRIVATE.

But hey. I’m excited about this. I hope you are to. Or I hope you will be. So keep your eyes here. We’re proud of this one.

Boise Readings

Hello, everyone - just to provide an update on some upcoming events I have in the great city of Boise, Idaho...

On Monday, April 29th, I will be reading from my novel The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription at a private event for a book club. This is my first reading without the help of my fellow Los Chupacabras. I'm doing it all by my lonesome, so chances are slight that I'll collapse from the pressure. As it's a private event, hopefully the fallout will be minimal.

On Tuesday, April 30th, at 6:30 p.m. MDT I will be reading from and signing copies of The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription at The Rediscovered Bookshop - 180 N. 8th Street in downtown Boise. This is my first reading at a bookstore and I'm extremely excited - though the chances that I'll collapse from the pressure are, I would estimate, slightly higher.

If on the off-chance you want to attend the Monday event, email me and I'll see what I can do. If you can make it to Rediscovered on Tuesday, come up and say hello, then yell at me for not posting enough on this blog.

As always, the novel's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and here on this site. Click on the book at the right.

A VGP Review & My First On-Line Interview...

A belated Happy New Year, everyone. A couple of developments on The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription front. First, Candi at the blog acrimereadersblog was kind enough to post of review of the novel, one which was certainly nice to wake up to on a Sunday morning. Also, I participated in my first online interview with Mandy for her website withfivequestions - where I tried to strike the perfect balance between "serious analysis" and "self-deprecating wit." Go check it out and then let me know how far off I was...

Now, I know you've been a little distracted reading this post. And I know what you're worried about. You're worried:

"This Amazon gift card I got for Christmas/Hanukkah that's cluttering up my wallet. What on Earth am I going to use that on?"

Well, I'm here to help. The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription is available there in paperback and on Kindle. It's a great way to use your gift, support the arts, and clean up the clutter in your wallet. And don't worry, using a gift card is almost like not supporting me directly at all. You can always tell someone who spots the book deep in your closet, "Ugh. I got that as a gift, dude."

Hope to be posting more often as the weeks go by, updating you all on M.V.P. developments and other artistic sundries. Now. Throw out your Christmas tree or menorah*, already.

*Only if it's made of pine needles...