#11-HOOKED IN

Tuning in to a new phase of creativity can be a challenge. It's clearing all the pathways of mass media muck and disciplining yourself to be quiet for more than 10 minutes at a time. The rat prattle of the world comes in and barrages you in a way that stops you from listening. It's our challenge in life to remain clear to our ultimate purpose. What are we here? Once that question is answered everything about what we do about everyday must be in pursuit of this goal.

No. People say no. They say it a lot. They say it when we're little. No! Don't touch that. Don't eat that. Don't speak too loud. Stop. Don't be weird. Beeeee normal. Fit in. We grow up and suddenly our bodies do things we have no control over. This makes us mad and crazy. Afraid. We have no control over how we look...to a certain point. Puberty is a nightmare. This is when we stop looking like everyone else and we become what we are supposed to be. But what do we do? We squeeze into small jeans. We lay on a ton of cosmetics. We grease and gel our hair. We pluck and tweeze and tame and stop whatever makes us different. Whatever makes us stand out. We shun those who stay true to themselves and claim that we are DOWN...TO...EARTH. The nerve we have.

I sit here on/in Cape Cod trying to leave the city behind. That which has inspired me most I have left to itself and I sit here in a loft of a barn seeking my muse. I am developing a piece inspired by "the scene" I have discovered and find myself having to dig very deep. To rile up the essence of this world and get to the core of it very quickly. It's itching at me...it's bubbling up. I'm impatient because living in NYC makes me that way...but I can't rush process.

I ask myself what it is that brings me there. What is it that sends me to open mics and shows that last well into the wee hours of the morning when I have auditions and jobs to tend to? Why am I energized when I wake up even after a beer or two? Why aren't I spent and drained?

As I've talked to each one of these artists I have learned a bit about their lives. Jobs, kids, relationships...just like anyone else. They congregate more than once a week at the various performance venues they've taken over and that is where many of them remain. They don't know about places I've been performing in all of these years just as I didn't know about their shows. They perform together so much they even perform each others work for each other and even perform pieces that reference each other...like celebrities. A friend of mine who came to a show commented on a piece performed by one of the regulars. It was about how this performer was going to wrestle another on of the performers on some other night. She referred to he wrestling partner as if we would all know who that was. Of course I knew who it was...but my friend didn't. Neither did her husband who was also there. I thought this was FABULOUS! The best part is it didn't even occur to me they wouldn't know what this woman was talking about because I have been so sucked into this group...well to me they are celebrities. Everyone should know who these people are. That's crazy and AMAZING!

I have been in the main stream as on offbeat personality for some time. I've produced shows for the general public for years and years. Universality and common understanding has been a goal of mine. It's a way for me to bring very different people to a common ground they didn't know they shared. We are all one. That's what my work does. It makes us all on the same playing ground. I love this idea that the "Art Stars" and stars in their own right and speak of each other as if their world is every ones world. Not in an exclusive way. It's "IN-clusive". It draws you in. You WANT to know these people immediately. It's like coming into the SOPRANOS mid season. You have no idea who anyone is but once your friend gives you the 5 minute run down you're HOOKED! That's these people!

I'm slowly getting it. I am. By the time I'm back home I will have one kick ass monologue ready...and it will HOOK everyone in.The same way they're hooked me.