"All the stages are worlds, And all the players extraordinary women and men; They have their comedies and their tragedies; And one audience in its time underwrites many plays, This act being greatly appreciated."
Of course I’m writing because I’m anxious and overwhelmed, trying to maintain any sense of connection to any continuum I’ve known if only for some sanity and identity- but I’ve been in that state since my socially acceptable betrayal in 2013, that’s a going on seven years of imposed and (relatively) solitary confinement without resources or community lead on all y’all who have yet to go two weeks, so as far as the loss as the foundation upon which to build is yanked away with a shrug I more than feel ya, so take my word, it’s yesterday no more and it’s not even a question of it being good or bad news, too much to do, to learn, to teach, to build. There’s still some old work to finish and plenty of new interesting work to begin just to discover how to earn again, for many. With time to practice a musical instrument.
In this socially acceptable over simplification there are two kinds of useful thing; toys and tools.
Growing up being raised by Great Depression era parents connects me faintly to the REAL [post civil war] “before times” which is why I think I believe this; The better toys prepare you to use tools and the better prepared you are to use a tool the more it feels like a toy, maybe then like a part of your body. That’s when mastery produces creativity.
From that point on for me in my primary theatrical craft I pretty much lost interest in toys that didn’t teach me something, though sometimes just for fleeting delight is still enough. The Exploratorium store toys were the best, my leather is naked without my Dizzy Pin.
I’ve long observed that popular toys/games serve no purpose beyond play (while stridently pretending otherwise) and tools in ill prepared hands can wound so this work and play stuff is serious. Frankly, there was a lot of bettering society work to do going undone before this hiatus and its neglect is now adding to the lack of overall preparedness everyone is likely feeling about everyone else on the verge of ?!! We all get to own our passivity contributing to our own and everyone elses unpreparedness anxiety.
We are supposed to mature, it being the nature of living dying beings and it’s perverse to prolong immaturity, just stating the should be obvious.
I hope in this suddenly idle and rudderless time, once some anxiety subsides or is normalized into a new tolerable, that the toys are put down and some tools are picked up and the results shared with prospective collaborators and critics. In one manner or another there is going to be a lot of shared rebuilding to do, the first chance we get. Before that maybe there could be some cooperatively getting prepared. Or I’d be interested in a counter argument because I feel like being a dick and knocking some sense into someone.
More unrepentant gushing love for my craft. I watched “Latin History for Morons” by John Leguizamo and then saw that there was a documentary so I watched that.
The play was directed by Tony Taccone, (the director of “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” by Dario Fo which gave me my first review as a designer in ’84) as well as this later thing you may have heard of called “Angels In America”.
There’s a scene where Tony describes what it’s like directing a one man show (after swearing he wouldn’t again) and knowing that Steve Spiro (UK Underdog) is a huge fan of John’s I started laughing because what Tony says is VERY much like what I heard working with Steve was like from our director, Ann Bronston. It’s really very sweet (with a loving slap) and reminded me why I so easily fall in love with the people in the shows I work on.
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Even if you’re just curious about what is possible all you have to do is come to the live corporate product demo next Friday or Saturday, Dec. 13 &14, at the Theater Concrete space at 550 Natoma, parking is available across the street, and visit sunz.com.
That’s “S” “U” “N” “Z” dot com. And you know what else is great about this opportunity, you’re in control of yourself, you keep your own hours, you listen as hard or as little as you want to and you’re free to come and go as you please. Now isn’t that the kind of entertainment we all want? You know the SONS OF ALIEN TECHNOLOGY can be your ticket to the American dream providing you with a step by step program that puts you on the hi-fi of success.
(shill audience member at the computer)
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(entrepreneurial spokesperson)
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(shill audience member at the computer)
It sure seems like the SUNZ have prepared us for everything.
(entrepreneurial spokesperson)
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So if you are at all curious abut what this all means to you and where you fit in, get the facts. Come to the live corporate product demo next Friday or Saturday, Dec. 13 &14, at the Theater Concrete space at 550 Natoma, for a nominal registration fee, or feel free to visit sunz.com. ITS FREE! You have absolutely nothing to lose and for all you know, this just could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Why don’t you give it a spin and I’ll be right back.
PART 2
(entrepreneurial spokesperson)
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(audience member at computer)
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(entrepreneurial spokesperson)
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(audience member at computer)
I can’t wait to see where I’m going to be in a year from now.
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(audience member at computer)
I’m a teacher and house wife and I’m excited about doing this. This is a great opportunity.
(entrepreneurial spokesperson)
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My only regret is the emphasis in “the news” on the booing, representing divisiveness, when what this moment more truly represents is the importance of a theatrical stage to give legitimacy to other points of view on subjects of common interest through the exploration of the human psyche. The boos were trivial compared to the earnestness of the short speech which I applaud as being wholly in keeping with the spirit of the obviously political play and a validation that theater is not merely diversionary entertainment but a means to bring acts of hope into life beyond the walls. Every play is a labor of love to bring a boon to the community. If you never knew that or have forgotten then put down your video distractions and go see a live play in an audience of other people, be in the same space with them while you appreciate what collaboration can accomplish.
Trump asking for an apology from the cast is absurd, demonstrates a knee-jerk reaction without any consideration. If he had instead embraced the plea and applauded the cast for being conscientiously engaged citizens he would have made an actual step towards being president. Instead, well, you know.
This was a certain to be historic moment in American Theater, speaking truth to power. I love my craft.
‘Hamilton’ Had Some Unscripted Lines for Pence. Trump Wasn’t Happy.
Bake Sale
written by Edmond Gaible
produced by Fifth Floor
Kenn Watt Director/Sound Design Michael Woody Composer/Sound Design
Sommer Ulrickson Choreographer
Alex Nichols Lights
John Flanagan as David Koresh
with Celia Shuman, Robert Parsons, Andrew Hurteau, Raquel Cion, Nina Gold, Liam Vincent, Sommer Ulrickson, Jason Wiener
Bake Sale was a collaborative high point for The Fifth Floor and experimental local theater that year in SF. After first receiving company acclaim for our first production of Chuck Mee’s Orestes the year before, Kenn, Ed and the crew started picking through the transcripts of the Waco fiasco through a Velvet Underground haze… and Bake Sale premiered at Cell Space November 1996 with Helen Shumaker in the role of Janet Reno. It had teeth and hopefully some of that comes through in this documentation from the second staging in 1997 at SOMAR with Celia Shuman as Janet Reno.
by 1995 I was an internet pioneer with The Sunz, trailblazing radical new ways for artist/producers and fan/supporters to cut out the middleman. Do your best to rollback 21 years ago to what the internet was like. We offered to sell the music independent of the medium of delivery for the first time ever. Full disclosure: done in anticipation of the CD product we posted demo tracks and 20 sec segments of Quicktime video.
We were on our way to producing a CD product but long before that now obsolete medium Hugh MacKenzie, Rob Strange and I were attempting to deliver audio and hints of video over 28k modems when there was only Navigator and IE, back at the start of the Browser Wars.
We saw what was coming at the very start of this nightmare in Teknowledgy from right at the center of the belly of the beast and managed to both rail against it and use it against itself in the process of exploiting it for our own purposes which were… many. Our songs were edgy and cranky and our Press Releases were too many layers of word play laying bare how we were playing with words to free your mind to be able to receive The TransMission, even eschewing a band name for pictographic iconography and adopting an Abductee Outreach Program marketing parody. A hoot.
The Sunz.com site evolved as the content developed leading to a “Website Release Party” in San Francisco in Dec, 1996 at Anon Salon in conjunction with our most recent live show Corporate Product Demonstration 2.0 and the premiere of our video Domino Falls on Dirk Dirksen’s cable access tv show.
Prior to that, by the end of 1995 I had a working Sunz website that showcased a technically sophisticated band of multimedia producers cutting the edge of a new paradigm. Needing to take it one step further I produced a mirror version of the Sunz site in Anaglyphic 3D.
Sunz of Alien Teknowledgy presents Abductee Outreach Program Website Release Party 1996
A busy week starting with this event and ending with me having my first anxiety attack and ultimately leaving my band.
I wrote scripts for three different characters, a slick salesman, a beautiful model and a father figure (who failed to perform for the camera). Each was a variation of the same pitch which was distilled from ads I studied promising nothing but glamour. Each promised that The Sunz knew what they needed and could deliver it before they knew they needed it. We kinda weren’t kidding about that. The crowd is comprised of 1996 tech hipsters LONG before anyone talked about bubbles bursting. Except for us, of course and we were singing about it in the vanguard!
In the video you’ll see the website being demonstrated by our shill Sommer Ulrickson who was well suited to prey on the willing to advance the cause of spreading our virus. She graces the Sunz CD product as guest vocalist in duet with me on Domino Falls, the best track by far to emerge from that era.
I was homeless the fall of 1982. I moved to San Francisco the summer of ’81 and spent that fall at City College studying Music, Physics (with Paul Hewitt!), U.S History in the 20th Cent. with a writing class for therapy. As long as I was in school my dad sent me $300 a month. I lived on 14th between Irving and Judah with three young women, one was my best friend, Cathie Boise. I walked home from The Mab.
After a couple of months volunteering at One Act Theater on Mason I knew I was going to have to work full time before I was going to begin earning anything so after one semester I gave up my dad’s money and took up Stagecraft as a vocation.
I was earnest enough that once I found the Magic Theatre they saw me for the “enthusiast” I was and started working me regularly, making me staff sound engineer by 1983. None of it would have been possible without the late Terry Hunter, the reigning Sound Designer for New Theater who took me as an apprentice and showed me the ropes back in the day when it could be practiced as a career.
No one wanted me to be on the street so this odd document showed up one day to bail me out. One of the architects of the deal was the wife of the Sheriff of San Francisco, Mike Hennessy.
This is a very special thing, the trust, the naivete, the blatant disregard for authority in the form of a contract that couldn’t hold water. I have always wanted to be worthy of the trust people have had in me. This is one fine example from 34 years ago. If that’s not enough proof of my theater slut cred you can always ask Mary Jane Amato Touran De Anda Nat Fast and Scott McKinney Gibbs who were all accessories before, during and after the fact.
I lived illegally at the Magic Theatre, sleeping in the Northside booth until starting the coffee for the House Manager, running crew for a show in one of the theaters and then being handy man through the night until the office crew arrived in the morning. I bathed in the sink at the top of the stairs and shoplifted butter and smokes from the Marina Safeway after midnight by propping the door open at the top of the Southside fire escape. And I did have one or two guests join me for the night after raiding the House Managers wine cellar.
It lasted close to five months (not just one) and violated every rule Fort Mason and the SFPD had but John Lion knew about it and with his stamp of approval I was living the life “not for everybody” inside The Magic Theatre. Being a fan of Hermann Hesse I enjoyed this immensely!
As the stories fade, I may have heard one that John O’Keefe slept at the Magic when it was still in Berkeley. John and I have many Magic connections which I treasure.
Which reminds me, when is someone going to make a documentary about The Blake Street Hawkeyes?
The collaboration I had with Robert Strange and Huge K that led to the creation of SUNZ of Alien Teknowledgy stands as unique among our kind, in our many and varied crafts with the interests and skills we pursued to express the messages we found compelling as we witnessed the very beginnings of the tech revolution now plaguing us all. We were a compassionate and passionate group including the other musicians and content producers we enlisted via our Abductee Outreach Program.
It started with the music but once the lyrics started to line up with tunes it was apparent that themes were emerging. To some extent we were conscious of that and so the songs became quite eclectic.
To the extent we were conscious of it we collectively decided to remain anonymous as long as possible to focus the attention onto the larger themes of the lyrics. To that end we constructed a “band” persona as just another “tech startup venture” in San Francisco in 1995, one (albeit facetiously) in a sea among thousands with vulture capitalists circling overhead looking for snacks.
Our music was “product” and we pioneered the delivery of our “product”online as independent of recorded medium back when IUMA was the only game in town – before mp3s and WinAmp destroyed the world.
Our multimedia concert events were “corporate product demonstrations” complete with marketing hacks and spokespeople explaining/demystifying the madness that was bringing everyone to San Francisco, the very migration that has finally made the city unlivable to any of the people who made it interesting to be a resident, the ones not living for the sake of money alone.
On August 11 1995, the SUNZ had their first gig as a complete band with all members present. Here is the proof, perhaps the best document of us at our tightest. The contributors include John Gordon, Robert Bole, Geoff Pond, Geoff Linder, Valentino, Carla.
Theater Punk 