sundries

Today is another epic work day. I'm going to try to not come in tomorrow, so that I might actually clean my house before the house sitter arrives and do things I need to do to get ready for my trip. There's shopping, a haircut, and another video conference with Patty that all need to happen.

Remember the AWESOME shoes I bought for the NYMF opening party? I left them in a cab after the NYMF closing party. I'm trying to do the lost and found thing. I'm pretty annoyed with myself, but don't have the time to truly hate myself over it.

Yesterday Kali and I had an awesome writers meeting. The global banking crisis continues to be the metaphor that has enabled us to solve the whole book. We now have a structure for the whole thing; lots of background notes; most character names; a detailed 80% complete outline of the first half; a strategy for getting it done; and a few shitty opening paragraphs I wrote late last night.

Dogboy & Justine now has 33 backers who have pledged a total of $1,375 to the production. By the end of the day, the trajectory goals are such that we need to get to at least $1,450.

Hey. When I have to use a product I've never used before, sometimes I check online to see if it's gluten-free. That's because current US labeling laws address wheat but not gluten. And Googling it often faster than calling an 800-number where someone doesn't have the answer. That's why it's INCREDIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE when other people with my disease run to a celiac board every time you feel ill and blame it on a random product. Sometimes, even with celiac disease, OTHER STUFF WILL MAKE YOU SICK, because normal people get stomach upsets. Basically one person does this once, in like 2006, and it proliferates all over the Internet, and restricts me from a product I can actually use. Warnings from my fellow afflicted are good, but please think before you're all THIS WILL KILL YOU AND THIS COMPANY HATES YOU.

WWI is about to end (yes, WWI) as Germany pays the last of its reparations.

DADT reinstated.

Preserving gay film history.

Even cooler than the ClockTower: Seattle's pyramid.

Bob Guccione has died.

Wheelchairs for animals: look at the adorable sheep!

Theater Thursdays: navigating backstage stories, permission, and service

There's a certain delicious humor for me in the fact that one of the reasons Dogboy & Justine is happening right here, right now, in just this way is that I finally got the message about not waiting for permission through my thick skull. I mean, it's a show about dominatrices -- and that's a world that's all about waiting for permission.

But aside from the permission-induced giggle, there sure are a lot of other reasons why putting on a show and asking people for money are totally relevant to the world of the show. And I find it particularly satisfying that the backstage stories and on stage stories that are part of this echo each other.

In our Kickstarter video, I talk a little bit about how we see Dogboy & Justine as a backstage story, in that long tradition of musicals that are backstage stories (42nd Street and Kiss Me Kate to name just two of my personal favorites). After all, the women of Mistress Maybe's House of Sin wear funny costumes, lie about their names, and pretend to be in love with people they're not, all while working to make sure no one knows when they're having a bad day at the office. Just like theater, you've gotta put on the paint and put on a show like you haven't done it a hundred times before.

Of course though, these women are just doing an overt version of what we all do every day -- performing ourselves both in public and in private. In Dogboy & Justine we have actresses playing women playing dominatrices. But it's not like that extra layer of persona isn't present for the male characters as well -- it's just less consistent as our actors play men with private desires playing men who are trying to present a certain image to those whose services they're seeking.

Everyone, in short, both on-stage in this play and off-stage in actual life, is a whole lot of different people, and I really do hope it's that backstage story element that draws people into Dogboy & Justine's story. Not just because here is a tradition the audience understands (and so offers a balm about the potentially shocking environment of the show -- which isn't here to be an edgy gimmick, btw, it really is a world I'm interested in writing about).

Rather, I have this suspicion that backstage stories aren't just appealing, aren't just sexy, to audiences because most of us have had fantasies about being on stage or being a star or being connected to celebrity or artistry in some way. Rather, I think, we instinctually respond to the backstage story because we all have a backstage life, even if we're not performers -- or sex workers.

Everyone is someone when they get home. Someone who smiles differently than they do at the office. Someone who listens to music other than what is expected. Someone who has a different cadence of speech or whose housekeeping habits differ from how they keep their workplace desk. Everyone has a secret life, that even if it is seemingly mundane, is tantalizing to someone, because hey, secrets!

And that's the goal of Dogboy & Justine, to be tantalizing -- not because "oh hey, dominatrices" although yes, this is a show about navigating and negotiating sexualities, but because it's about persona, and stepping back through a series of public and private identities to look at who people are when they're at home and then subsequently consider which of our many individual lives we ultimately really want to live in.

I am, myself, a lot of different people. Y'all know that. I've had a lot of careers, chronologically and concurrently. I'm a girl, I'm a boy, I'm timid, and I am telling you right here and right now that anything is possible. I used to be paid, like the women of Dogboy & Justine to give people permission. And it took me going to a master class taught by an artist I admire to feel like I had permission to take the next step with this project, even if the message there was actually that the very idea of permission is a lie.

So here I am, several times a day, both saying "Fuck you all, we're putting on a show" and also down on my knees letting you know that, "Hey, without your $5, we don't actually have the logistical permission to make this show -- at least not in the way we've got it all planned out."

So it's weird. It's complicated. It's possibly even ironic. It's certainly funny. It's a whole set of perfect circles. It's a story I totally know the ending of. It's an adventure on which I have no idea what's going to happen. It's a journey that I'm going to have to coax people along on when I'm wearing the directing hat, but also when I'm wearing the fund raising hat and the promotions hat and probably some other hats I haven't thought of yet. And it's a story -- that is, the putting on a show part of it -- that I'm going to have to keep reminding myself is rightfully mine to be a part of telling.

Because no matter how much it's gorgeous when people do give you permission -- whether you're an artist with a plan or a man emptying his wallet to be on his knees -- a big part of growing up, not just as a person, but as a creator, is accepting that in a lot of arenas permission is really just a decorative accent. And you've got a whole lot to do in the meantime, preparing for a moment, that not only may never come, but also doesn't need to.

Getting away from that permission thing is hard. It's hard for me. So I'll offer you a slightly different piece of advice, although it comes from the same place and the same journey: serve yourself. You're at least as worthy as any other master or mistress you would choose. Trust me on this one. I know what I'm talking about. Up-close and personal. Onstage and off.

[ If you've enjoyed this post, please consider pledging funds to make Dogboy & Justine a reality. We need to meet our $6,000 pledge goal by December 21st or we'll receive no funds at all from the Kickstarter process. But, if you just want to hang out around here and talk theater or link other people to this post, we really, really like that too! ]

bullying and the 105%

Bullying happens for lots of reasons.

These include:
- bullies choosing to bully.
- cycles of abuse.
- biological impulses towards hierarchy.
- cultural glorification of violence.
- cultural shaming of various traits and interests.
- adults who look the other way.
- childhood and adult fears about identity and fitting in.
- features that people who are bullied can't change.
- features that people who are bullied shouldn't be asked to change.
- features that it may be reasonable to suggest people who are bullied address.

But when I was bullied as a kid, and prank calls came to my house calling a "cock-sucking whore," let me tell you the right response, when I was TWELVE and at an all-girls school, was not for my father to ask me what I had done to deserve this.

*

I'm one of those people who tries hard to live life at 105%. I realize that's a privilege to a given degree, but I do also think -- perhaps wrongly and ruthlessly -- that everyone's always got another tiny, extra sliver of fucking effort to give.

But it's not a damn obligation.

And while I am also always about strategy and pragmatism and survival, because those are my choices and my nature, victim-blaming is always wrong.

Which is why I find this post from theferrett upsetting. And his response to my (very possibly distressing for many) comment even more so.

*

I have made the choice, more literally than most people, over and over again, not to change my name, not to change my face, and not to run away from home.

Would you like me better if I was named Heather? How about Aleksandra? Andrea? Jenny? When I joined SAG, I thought long and hard about these things, and it was a terrible moment. Look, it's my actual job to make people like me.

You know who doesn't have that job? Some random eight-year-old who isn't beautiful, who has "weird" interests, who's a different race than her classmates, who has non-gender confirming hobbies, who's too smart, who has a difficult home life, who lives with a disability, etc., etc., etc.

So don't fucking tell me I didn't work hard enough not to be bullied. Or that I should have just worn a pretty dress. Or not been sick. Or tried not to learn things. Or made my parents name me something else.

I lived. That was, in this regard, all the work I was ever supposed to have to do.