One-Act-A-Week

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[oneactaweek]

WEEK 52 - LandmanLand Closed For The Season

Welp. Here it is. My VERY LAST one-act for this project. 

Seems like I just started this yesterday. It really goes to show how fast time catches up with you. Which is kind of where the basic idea of this entry lands.

I’ve got a few sad smell-ya’-laters after you’ve read through the thing. But until then, here are a few things to keep in mind about my last one-act:

• PRETENTIOUS, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POMPOSITY

Okay, I wouldn’t go as far as Morrissey here (although I tend to agree with him about his own importance). But pretentiousness is pretty much what this play is about. It’s also what I’ve been building up to for 52 weeks. Because what’s the point in writing this much if you can’t leave a little bit of yourself behind?

• WHAT’S REAL & WHAT’S NOT

I had a small bucket list of what I wanted to include. Some of it made it in the final draft, some of it didn’t. But I can assure you that everything happened as-is.* Why did I cry in Ikea? Only one gal knows for sure. Why didn’t I include Jeffrey Larry getting killed by a Coke machine? Because there was enough blood in this already. Poor Rex. 

* Except for the stuff I made up.

• ALMOST DYING, GETTING OLD & REALLY DYING

I had a heart attack a little over halfway through this project. And it obviously put a zap on my head, as well as my lifestyle choices. The point being, it made me hyperaware of where I was going on this cold, dead rock & what’ll happen once I’m gone. This play explores a little of that.

• CHARLIE KAUFMAN’S “SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK”

If you’ve never seen this film, holy F, get on that. (HERE’S THE TRAILER to give you a taste.) It’s a funny, unsettling, heartbreaking, meta flick like no other. And my half-assed version here only scratches the surface of what Kaufman accomplished with “Synecdoche.” 

But it’s as close as I could get in a week.

• WHERE WE GO FROM HERE &/or WHAT HAPPENS NOW

I used to be part of a two-man dealy. And I think it’s about time for me to do things the way I’ve always done them: all by my lonesome. So, in 2016, I’m revealing LandmanLand. Not sure exactly what it’ll be. Although I’ll definitely be putting out comedy, plays, performance art, music & whatever the F I wanna do. 

Remember the name:

Until then, here’s WEEK 52′s “LandmanLand Closed For The Season.”

Cheers!

So, I won’t put too fine a point on it. No long good-byes. No heavy handed adieus. Just a farewell until next time. 

Maybe I’ll dump some stuff in here occasionally. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just leave it as it is. 

I don’t know. The future’s not written in stone. Except for LandmanLand.

Peace out, err’body. And let’s make 2016 better than 2015, huh?

Luv, SamL Playwright, One-Act-A-Week Mayor of LandmanLand

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 51 - Vile & The Family Unit

It’s getting down to the wire at 10:45 pm on a Monday night. This may be the closest I’ve come to missing my deadline during all of 2015.

Anyhoo, I’ve gotta make this quick, I guess.

So, the main thing you need to know about this is something I’m not sure I’ve communicated in the past few weeks.

Like most of my one-acts, this one’s got a LOT larger life ahead of it than this 20 or so pages. 

There’s more to this than what’s here. It’s not just what you’re reading. 

In other words, it may not seem like there’s much finality to it because that’s exactly the point.

I’m basically saying that this is just the blueprint to something bigger. A simple roadmap to a further destination.

Doesn’t matter. Fuck explaining it. I don’t have time. Simply go with whatever I’ve cooked up as usual & you’ll be cool.

This is an extension of a story I’ve been writing for a few years now called “I Hope I Get Laid Before I Have To Save The Universe.” And that means NOTHING to anybody but me. 

What YOU need to know is that the character of NOWON wears a powder blue tuxedo (in a non ironic way)

& LOKUSTE resembles Genesis-era Peter Gabriel.

But all of that is basically set dressing.

And lastly, if you want to follow along with the correct soundtrack, there’s a Spotify playlist you can access HERE.

Enjoy “Vile & The Family Unit.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 50 - Echo Valley b/w Byzantine Spasms

As with previous OAAW entries, this week’s had a few sources of inspiration. I’ll explain the easier one first.

A little while back, I stumbled onto this site:

This guy maintains a few sites dedicated to his love of 45 records. Sites that each have different musical styles to them. The one I became fixated the most with was THIS one:

And it’s not just the choice of 45′s he picked. It’s the way he’s categorized them.

Needless to say, I was intrigues, mostly by the very first category: Abundant echo. And that’s the basic soundtrack to this one-act. 

Now, onto the second source of inspiration.

What you’re looking at here is the set design I have in mind. The character of PEG (left) inhabits what appears to be a bathroom.

She lies on the floor, as if we’re looking down at her from the ceiling. (How this is achieved is in the script.) 

The character of WENDELL (right) is inside of a miniature house.

He’s shoved in there, as if he fits in there perfectly. I’d be lying if I didn’t take a little bit of this from my pal Steve Lewis’ Tamiflu commercial. 

It was just a matter of where I was going to use it.  

Then put those together with the fact that I had this thing when I was a kid, where I enjoyed squeezing into spaces that were only slightly larger than me.

AND the fact that even today I sometimes let the water run, while I lie on the floor. 

So, yeah. There’s allllllllllllllllll that.

Lastly, here’s MOST of the playlist, if you care to follow along:

Dean Carr - “I Was A Fool” Curly Sanders & the Santones - “Walking Blues” Del Rey & the Roamers - “La Macarena (The Bull Fight Song)” Lou Smith - “I’ll Be The One” Whitey Pullen - “I Won The Day I Lost You” Gary Smith - “The Twilight Zone” Johnny Williams - “Another Love” The Desert Rats - “Sohonie” The Skyscrapers - “My Lost Dreams” Stan with the Marauders - “Echo Valley”

Enjoy “Echo Valley b/w Byzantine Spasms.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 49 - Damocles

Well, I’ve spent most of the past two days finishing this overly ambitious one-act, so I’m keeping this short & sweet. 

The two cultural touchpoints of this week’s entry are as follows:

1) POLYBIUS

Part video game urban legend, part deceptive truth. Whether or not it actually happened, it hasn’t stopped people from recreating the gameplay from memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiJIhrLadVI

Depending on who you listen to, this video game either existed & seriously fucked kids up in the name of government research or it didn’t exist & it doesn’t really matter, since people have already adopted it as truth.

The right people have paid tribute in their own ways.

2) CAPTAIN MURPHY

Listen, if you haven’t experienced the hip-hop madness of Flying Lotus’ alter-ego, PLEASE GET ON THIS BY CLICKING HERE. Your life will be changed for the better. Or warped for the worse. 

Regardless, it’s not so much Captain Murphy as it is the Heaven’s Gate cult.

These fuckers were just wacky. And the way they went out was fucking BALLER.

So, if none of this sounds familiar to you (because you happened to be, say, too young to have experienced any of this) here’s your homework.

Consult your local library about the following topics before reading my little magnum opus:

• Polybius (video games) • Captain Murphy (CDs) • Heaven’s Gate (periodicals) 

Or at least Google this shit. Damn. 

(Polybius alone will blow your mind.)

Lastly, the characters of CLYDE & MELVIN are younger versions of the two guys from WEEK 22′s “Telephone Line,” which are roughly based on me & my best friend J’Mel.

I like to think that this is the way we would’ve acted if we’d known each other back in the 80′s. AND he’d worked at Century Plaza’s Aladdin’s Castle.

Anyhoo, enjoy “Damocles.” 

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 48 - Thela Hun Ginjeet

If you recognize the title, you already know what this one-act is about. 

Well, roughly.

It’s not necessarily ABOUT King Crimson. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. 

Mostly it’s a story about two friends growing up in Southern California. An adaptation of a story from this anthology:

That’s right. This is a book full of stories about various writers’ experiences with the flamboyantly complicated, intricately dorky genre of rock called Prog.

Probably the geekiest book I’ve read in quite awhile and it’s incredibly satisfying. If anything, I don’t want it to end.

So, this particular one-act is adapted from a story called “The Sartori Underground” written by John Albert. It’s the most revealing story in the compilation, full of heart & vulnerability. And as soon as I read it, I knew I wanted to drop it into a OAAW format.

A few things before we jump in:

• Not sure why I made the main character anonymous. It just worked out that way.

• If I could write everything from now on in a “timeless narrator” voice, I totally would. Seriously? Yes. EVERYTHING.

• There was a whole subplot about how the narrator loved The Germs, but it got cut out. However, there are still glimpses of it in there.

• Circle C was a real place, right across from Smith Middle School, where I went from 6th to 8th grade. The motorcycle helmet event actually happened to a kid I knew named Barry Key. Dude was fucking tough.

• I caught shit from haters for going too granular about The Smiths in my MN Fringe show, “Pretty Girls Make Graves.” If you’re one of those haters, just stop reading now. This play will break your peanut brain.

• If you’re a hardcore King Crimson fan, this is basically for you. Although you don’t have to be. 

So, that’s it, I suppose.

Enjoy “Thela Hun Ginjeet.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 47 - Space Barbers

Yep. You read that right.

SPACE. BARBERS.

And the worst part is that I actually started this 40 weeks ago.

I remember starting it & not being too sure exactly WHY I was writing it. So, other ideas jumped in the queue in front of it. 

It comes down to something I actually have trouble with. An inner struggle I’m constantly fighting against: IS THIS IDEA WORTH WRITING DOWN?

Well, what I’ve learned over the past year is that EVERY IDEA IS WORTH WRITING DOWN. That’s why I’ve returned to something as seemingly ludicrous as “Space Barbers.”

And to be fair, it started out as a NOTHING idea, inspired by the episode of TNG, where Picard gets trapped on the Enterprise & winds up telling these hijackers that he’s the ship’s barber, Mot.

And although I’ve seen most of TNG, I haven’t actually seen the episode with the actual Mr. Mot in it.

Maybe that’s a good thing. The original mention of him was enough. And it got me thinking about and entire sitcom about a barbershop on a spaceship. Mostly nothing happens, but when things do, it’s usually something weird & cool.

Kind of like a sci-fi version of “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

(Quite possibly the most brilliant/underrated Coen Brothers film to date.)

Anyhoo, as I wrote this, I saw all of the aliens as a mix between the ones in “Life of Brian,”

whatever the hell David Lynch was trying to do with “Dune,”

whatever the hell Jodorowsky was trying to do with “Dune”

& elements from David Bowie’s “Loving The Alien” video.

(Seriously. If ANYBODY can reasonably explain what the F is going on in this beautifully nutty video, you’ll get a fabulous OAAW No-Prize.) 

At the end of the day, this started out as an excuse to come up with wacky, made-up words & experiment with a goofy, Farscape-esque sci-fi script.

Lastly, as if it wasn’t obvious, the ending came 40 weeks later. But once I retrofitted it, I wound up digging what this thing became.

Enjoy “Space Barbers.” (And yes, after 40 weeks I never came up with a better title.)

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 46 - Rubato

There are two layers to this. When those layers mesh together, you’ll get WEEK 46′s one-act.  

LAYER ONE: So, this is David.

I spent nearly 10 weeks with him, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what his last name is. 

You see, we have one thing in common: we both had heart attacks. Which meant we were required to attend THIS PLACE once we got out of the hospital.

So, that’s what happened. 

I got up every Monday, Wednesday & Friday morning at 6:30, threw on my workout gear, arrived shortly before the session, strapped a gaudy EKG pack on & did my damnedest to sweat my ass off.

Meanwhile, David showed up in clothes he probably bought while in his 20′s and didn’t squeeze out drop one. 

It was uncanny, like some mutant superpower. 

Yeah, I know, I know. 

I’m putting David out there because he’s HALF of Mervyn Flowergate’s character in this story. Specifically, the physicality of portraying him.

All FIVE Mervyn Flowergates, that is. 

(You’ll understand what that means once you dig in.)

LAYER TWO: So, on the left is Billy Mullaney.

He’s dressed like Mr. Rogers because he performed an episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” at Open Eye Figure Theatre back in August.

It was part of an “Uncreativity Festival” he’d spearheaded. 

I’ll be honest. I went in not expecting much. I mean, the guy was simply performing a live version of a Mr. Rogers episode verbatim.

But I was left sort of spellbound. It was engaging, touching & absolutely hypnotic in places.

And it got me thinking about experimenting with that seemingly mundane & rarely travelled space between acting & NOT acting.

That’s not to say that Billy WASN’T acting. Far from it.

If anything, he was doing something much, much harder up on that stage. He was blurring the line between performance & non-performance, taking a character we’d known & cherished from our childhoods & portraying him in the most honest way possible. 

Best of all, he wasn’t doing some parody of Mr. Rogers.

He’d boiled every speech pattern & mannerism down to its essence & offered it to us. Which I found fascinating. 

So, yeah. That’s where I was at with this one-act. Sort of a non-performance, which is the OTHER HALF of Mervyn Flowergate’s character in this story. Specifically, the technique of portraying him.

This is also a first for One-Act-A-Week. It’s basically a companion piece to last week’s one-act, “Ostinato.”

Not saying they have to be performed together or will combine to become a full play or even need to be seen/read to understand the other one. 

But they use the exact same set, so technically you could do both in the same venue. You know, whatever that’s worth.

A few more things:

• Although this was based heavily on the mannerisms & speech patterns of David, some of his misadventures were also based on a woman in our class & her bizarre tales of her dog.

As well as Crispin Glover’s awkward explanation for his odd behavior on David Letterman. 

• All of Mervyn (Poet’s) lines are lyrics from obscure 80′s singles by post-punk bands from LA. Here’s the order of ones I used:

- Null & Void - A Party Filled with Thieves - Shadow Minstrels - Great Expectations - Rand Kennedy - Enorma Jones - Suburban Lawns - Janitor - Green On Red - Two Bibles - 17 Pygmies - Words Never Said

And if for some reason you might wanna hear these songs, here’s the comp they’re from. IT’S A FREE DOWNLOAD.

Okay, so that’s it, I think.

Enjoy “Rubato.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 45 - Ostinato

This New York Times article was the flashpoint:

It’s a long, incredibly poignant story about a guy who slipped between the cracks, beneath heaps & heaps & pounds & pounds of his life.

It’s also about the men who walked into his apartment after his death to piece it all together. 

It’s both uplifting & depressing at the same time. Well worth a read.

Splice that together with a book I’ve been reading lately:

Given, you REALLY have to like Zappa to appreciate it. 

See, I’ve been taking a SHIT-TON of annotations from this thing:

And that’s how I came to this point. Somewhere in the middle of this book was a word I just couldn’t shake:

Okay, zoom in a little bit:

But when it’s all said & done, this really only cemented the title of the thing. And sometimes that’s enough to pull it all together.

Here’s the thing though.

There are a LOT of details in the George Bell article that are absolutely infinite in their intricacies. But I wasn’t set on writing a procedural, so I made up my own set of rules & day-in/day-out trappings.

Besides, I wasn’t writing a staged adaptation of the New York Times article. I had to put my own spin on it. 

This wasn’t about George Bell.

It was about Mr. Flowergate. And like a lot of these one-acts, I had no idea who he was or where this was going until it ended.

Apart from a few familiar names (like Grillz Foreman from WEEK 31), it was all new territory. 

And that’s how we arrived here. Oh, and if you’re wondering how it’s all supposed to come together, here’s an initial set design I sketched out.

Also, to any director brave enough to figure out how to stage that last scene, I owe you a Coke. 

I just write ‘em, folks. Staging ‘em’s YOUR problem.

Enjoy “Ostinato.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 44 - Dipshit

I kind of hinted at this on WEEK 42, I think it was.

Right around the time I dropped into the Twin Cities, I started this project called “Dipshit.” 

It was basically writing a scene for 2 pages, then jumping to another one. In this case, I used a character named Larry to link them all. 

Let’s just say that back then I wasn’t much of a writer. But “Dipshit” helped me write just enough to feel like I was. 

So, this week I dug out a few notebooks that I’ve been dragging around with me since the mid 90′s.

The bulk of unfinished, aborted projects are in these two things. Shit I would write while I was being inspired on tour in Memphis bars, truck stops in Illinois & by watching reruns of “The Real World” in shitty Super 8 Motels.

That’s what we’ve got right here. Albeit with a SHITLOAD of tweaks & retooling. And I’ll be the first to admit that this might seem like filler. But the truth of the matter is, some of this material is nearly 20 years old.

So, take that for what you will.

A few things before we dive in:

• The DAD scene at the beginning was a dream I had. Seriously, I woke up practically screaming. REALLY scared the shit out of me.

• I was on tour with a guy who told me he used to have recurring nightmares about that one part of “The Wizard of Oz” described below.

• BIRTHDAY GIRL is real. She’s actually a Twin Cities actress. One of the first ones I met when I moved here. All but the sex really happened.

• I’ve always wondered about Tom Petty vs. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, BTW. If anybody’s got an answer, hit a brother up.

• DAVEY HATTRICK was a character I always wanted to do something more with. Unfortunately, I didn’t do much with him here.

• PACKET is based on a guy I was on a theater tour with named Mike Wiley, a dude who now writes his own plays & produces his own films. Most of the conversation here happened verbatim in a shitty, Southern nightclub.

• LARRY talks about his parents because this character has a massive storyline in my “Alter Egos” superhero play cycle. Don’t ask.

• The whole SHIVA section was originally called “The Taxi Dancer.” I wrote most of it in 1997 & sat on it. Then “Venus In Fur” comes out in 2010. So, I continued to sit on it, obviously. 

• BARREL in that last scene is a character from all the way back in WEEK 3′s “Dream County.” (I honestly think that’s where I peaked. It’s been full-on plateau from then on.)

Okay, I guess that’s it, for anybody who cares. Enjoy “Dipshit.” 

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 43 - Clay

Once again, this was another one that I just kept putting off. But once I stuck the landing, it came pouring out. 

First off, this started as a dream I had after doing research on the strange life & death of writer Yukio Mishima.

The dream was basically him pounding away at a typewriter, working on a 1960′s sitcom. All the while, his dead grandfather appears to him, scolding him for not following in the footsteps of his ancestors. 

Then I had the dream again. Except this time, it was my actor pal Carolyn Pool taking Yukio’s place. For some reason, it took on a much more dramatic tone, as she played Florence Nightengale.

Then I had the dream AGAIN & it was that French detective, Poirot. Except instead of a detective, he was some kind of wacky baker,

dropping all of the cakes he’d carefully baked on the floor, over & over.

Well, once I got back on track with the original idea, this thing wound up being sort of a mashup of a warped “Andy Griffith Show” episode 

& one of the weirdest horror films ever made, “House” (AKA “Hausu”).

Although not nearly as freaky. 

Well, Happy Halloween, everybody. Enjoy “Clay.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 42 - Alter Egos: Masks

So, question for the week (rhetorical):

If you’ve set down a bunch of self-imposed rules for yourself, where you’re basically the only one both doling them out & adhering to them, should you feel guilty when you break one of these rules?

Exactly. It DOESN’T matter to anybody but me that I feel like a failure because I’m doing yet another “Alter Egos” installment for the second week in a row.

I know, I know. It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m keeping this thing going. In fact, I have so many ideas ready to go, but a combination of things kicked me in the ass this past week:

• Depression • Getting sick • Depression • A couple of acting gigs • Depression • Lack of employment

Normally I’m the writer who “writes through all that.” But what can I say? These things REALLY built a condo on my back. Good news is, here I am on the other side.

Yeah.

Anyway, this is something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. It all started back in the early aughts when I came up with something called “Dipshit.”

BASIC PREMISE FOR “DIPSHIT” • Set a page limit for every scene you write (let’s say it’s 2) • When that page limit is up, start a new scene with new characters • After you’ve got 20 or so pages, shuffle the scene order • Try to combine them all with with new, connective scenes

(And BTW, the answer is YES. The first line in that picture above IS “corpse-stacking dream.”)

Well, the truth of the matter is, I didn’t get too far into the “Dipshit” project. Although it did fuel me to toss together a Dipshit-style format for the odds & ends I have from my “Alter Egos” crimefighter play cycle.

So, that’s what I did this week. 

Although some of these I either passed on or decided to post earlier in OAAW, for the most part I was able to finish stray threads that’ve just been sitting in this Super Friends notebook for nearly a decade.

I see it as my truncated version of Zappa’s “Läther” album.

For those of you who get that reference, you rock. For those of you who don’t, here’s the basic gist: 

A lot of the stuff in this week’s post showed up in projects I wound up writing later on: turns of phrase, scenarios, characters, etc.

So, there you are. 

Lastly, I’d like to thank Albert Brooks for allowing me to channel him for the following line:

Well, enjoy “Alter Egos: Masks.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 41 - Alter Egos: Right Click

This was yet another stopgap solution for a one-act I’d originally planned to write, but bitched out of. Originally, WEEK 41 was going to be based on a dream I had recently. 

A young Japanese writer pounds out an episode of a 1960′s TV show. 

His grandfather is dying, occasionally appearing to him from across the sea. And all the while, his Americanized TV characters pull him farther away from his hometown of Hiroshima. 

As it turns out, I was dreaming about Yukio Mishima, who I was doing some research on at the time. 

Let’s just say that if you know anything about Mishima’s amazing life & strange death, this would’ve been quite a heavy one-act. Well, I decided to put that one on the back burner (for next week maybe?) & go with something I’d started on several years ago instead. 

It was originally called “Left Click” back in 2002. When I didn’t even own a computer, much less know the difference between left clicking & right clicking. (Not that it really matters to the story anyway.) 

And when I mention that they’re working on an iMac, I’m referencing the G3.

Not sure when this is supposed to take place, but I like the idea that Loyalist hasn’t touched this supervillain database in over 10 years, so it’s on some antiquated computer.

And since I always envisioned the Freedom Committee as an arm of the Defense Department, they’re probably housed in an antique mansion, surrounded by a lot of antiquated equipment. 

Anyhoo, this was initially meant to be a way to clean house of characters I’d created, but never did much with.

Some of these guys were in previous Army of Evil one-acts, but most were just “extras” that were supposed to be killed in a short film called “Alter Egos: The Super” that we shot in 2006, but somehow never got finished.

Lastly, this isn’t the only appearance by Jetlag. I wrote a one-act called “Jetlag Cereal,” which my Pommelhorse partner Matthew Glover & I performed for a podcast called “You Are Hear,” hosted by Brian Beatty (below).

If you want to give it a listen, HERE YOU GO.

Well, I guess that’s it. Enjoy “Alter Egos: Right Click.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 40 - I Dream Of Bees

When Glover & I finally put a play we wrote on its feet for the first time, it was pretty exhilarating.

Because as shabby & rough-around-the-edges as the finished product was, it was a MASSIVE leap from its humble beginnings.  

Those Post-It Notes there might look pretty big, but they’re actually the smallest ones 3M makes. And that’s what a majority of our first play was written on. 

See, my day job was working at a standardized test facility at the time.

And instead of ruining your children’s futures, 

our first week consisted of sitting there, while new candidates were being trained by our boss. And all we were armed with were pens & - you guessed it - scads of the tiniest Post-It-Notes known to man.

So, I wrote a shitload of random, stream-of-consciousness scenes between two guys due to sheer boredom & the abundance of Post-It Notes. 

My creative output during that 40-hour workweek easily exceeded the amount of stuff I’d written in 10 years up to that point. 

Once I had a stack of these things staring back at me, I got tired of calling the characters “A” & “B”, so I gave them names:

Fab & Gunner, 

named after two cruddy guys from two despicable rock duos.

Then I brought THIS guy into it,

who wound up writing a bunch of his own scenes, which I tossed into the mix.

And from that point on, I edited our favorites down into a slightly chaotic form, which I eventually linked with even more random monologues: thoughts that these two characters would speak to an audience, but not be able to verbalize with the other guy.

(This one happened to provide us with a title for the play.)

Long story short, let’s just say that it all seemed to work somehow. 

We got some nice press,

the tagline we came up with kept any haters from confusing it with Shakespeare,

we produced it a couple of times (including at Austin’s Frontera Fest)

& it turned us into what basically became the dorky comedy team known as Pommelhorse.

So, why am I explaining all of this? Who gives a shit, right?

Well, the whole point of this is, once we chopped all the material down to a cozy 60 minutes, there was a LOT of stuff we either cut or decided to pass on. 

And that’s where these three notebooks come in. For every blue tab you see here, there’s another Fab & Gunner scene or monologue.

That being said, you could consider this the long-lost sequel to "Feelgood Hits Of The 70′s.” But since nobody reading this probably saw the original show to compare it with, I’ll set the stage:

• THERE’S NO CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS WEEK’S & LAST WEEK’S

Week 39′s one-act had “hornet” in the title & this week’s has “bees” in it. Backstory: every monologue I wrote had a title. Honestly, this could’ve been called “Itty Bitty Titty Committee” or “Lick It Up.” Let’s say I took the high road.

• NEITHER OF THE THESE GUYS ARE EXACTLY HEROES

The first thing you might notice is that they’re just a couple of idiotic rubes. Nothing redeeming about either of their personalities. They’re superficial &, at times, misogynistic, but they’re unabashedly who they are. The end.

• MOST OF THIS WAS CLEARLY WRITTEN A DECADE AGO

I was a different person & we lived in different times in 2005. A LOT of this has been cleaned up or revamped to be more palatable for the dainty sensibilities of 2015. And believe it or not, there’s still stuff I left out. Be thankful for that.

• A SHOW THAT’S REALLY ABOUT NOTHING FOR REALSIES

That whole “No subtext, no growth, no future” thing is big with me. “Feelgood Hits” as well as this really embrace the idea that there’s no real arc with these characters. Nothing really happens, per se. And I like it like that. 

• NONE OF THIS MATERIAL IS MATTHEW GLOVER’S

As egotistical as that may sound, I’m saying it for non-egotistical reasons. First off, these are from my notebooks, so clearly it’s just my scaps. Secondly, I wouldn’t pin this potentially tasteless material on him. I love the guy too much.

• THAT LAST BIT AT THE END ABOUT “THE BROWN BUNNY”

If you’ve never seen this Vincent Gallo flick, do yourself a favor & watch it (probably not on Netflix). What a glorious “fuck you” of cinema. Anyhoo, this was always an in-joke with me & Glover & it’s the only new material in this.

• LET’S SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THE 250 (?) PEOPLE WHO SAW FGH70S

First of all, you’re a rare breed. You should start some kind of post-traumatic therapy group or something. Anyhoo, this takes place directly after the end of “Feelgood Hits of the 70′s.” You know, for what it’s worth to whoever. 

And lastly, here’s a tiny Spotify playlist that accompanies the front & back of it.

Okay, so enough of my yakking. Here’s “I Dream Of Bees.” 

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 39 - Hornets Attack Victor Mature

I’ll admit it. This one almost beat me.

Almost. 

I mean, my track record should’ve told me that picking up something after 24 weeks of letting it stagnate was gonna be thorny. 

It’s the same reason I’ve never finished my one-act reaction to “Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play.”

Once I saw that thing, I immediately started knocking out a play based on a beloved cartoon from my childhood known as “Jabberjaw.” 

My hope was that I’d be able to do it right, the way a play based on a cartoon should ACTUALLY work. But alas, I doubt “Aquadelphia” will ever see the light of day. 

Yeah, I’m realistic. 

The point is, yes, this thing almost fucking beat me this week. I finally understand what writers mean when they say they’re struggling. And when people who aren’t writers say stupid shit like, “Writing is hard.”

Waaaaa-waaaaa-waaaaa. Anyhoo, enough of that. 

Here’s where I landed on this 24-week-old idea. But a few things before we jump in:

• Regardless of the title, this ISN’T a one-act about REM

Although it IS about music. Still, I stole the title from a fake band name REM used whenever they wanted to play a secret gig.

At one point, the title was gonna mean something. But somewhere along the way, it just became the title. 

• The characters of Izzy & So are based on two gal pals of mine

Beth & Lorra were basically the girlfriends I didn’t have back in high school. 

Okay, that came out wrong. 

They were INCREDIBLY close friends of mine, who just happened to be girls. 

And some of the events detailed in here actually happened to me. 

(Except for the guy being killed by his college professor, which actually happened, but had nothing to do with Beth or Lorra.) 

• The character of Clyde is clearly me

Yep, trying to be somewhere between punk & post-punk as much as possible, yet a glaring contradiction. I wore Members Only jackets over anything that could possibly resemble anarchy.

And then there’s THIS:

Yes. Band dork with a half-shaved head. How very punk.

Well, this is where the band jackets came in with the two gals anyway. 

• Damn all those songs to hell

I knew that once I started, it would slow the whole process down. But the thing is, I can hear how each song needs to be done, samples & all. These are sample loops I’ve been saving for years.

• Casting Samantha Veldhouse

I’ve been wanting to work with this Twin Cities actress for awhile now. Then I found out that she played flute, so she pretty much became Izzy in this thing.

• Fluorescent lights & dry cleaners

Yeah, it’s another instance where I was inspired by an actual location. It’s this dry cleaner on Larpenteur in Falcon Heights. 

There’s just something about the crappy, outdoor fluorescent lights beneath the overhang of this place at night that just put a zap on my head. It just flowed out of me from there.

Alright, I guess that’s it. Well, except for the fact that this one comes with its own Spotify playlist. Click HERE to get started & just follow the prompts.

But for the record, you should look up these tracks that I originally had in the thing, but couldn’t work them in. 

Well, enjoy “Hornets Attack Victor Mature.”

Cheers! 

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 38 - Alter Egos: Cloudmaster

I’ll admit it. I’m a fucking quitter. I’m also a lazy-ass. 

Okay, let me explain.

So, you see this?

THIS was gonna this week’s entry. As you can see, I’ve been working on it since, what, April? 

Well, I’ve had a week to punch it into shape, but it just didn’t happen. So, I turned to an old chestnut that I had in a notebook.

Something from WAYYYYYY back in 2001. And 2002. But also in another notebook for some reason.

From 2004. 

But by the time I tracked these down, there was quite a bit of hype around a little Marvel character named Squirrel Girl, created by Steve Ditko.* 

The point is, I changed the name of my guy (Squirrel Boy) to Flying Squirrel. 

I’ll also add that the crimefighter at the beginning was named Loyalist, but I went with Lurker, since I’d used him on WEEK 16′s “Alter Egos: Dying Crane.” 

Also, this was part of an admittedly sad era where I couldn’t resist from dropping the stupidest pop cultural references when they had NOTHING to do with what was going on in the piece.

So, to recap: • I’m a lazy-ass quitter • I was once a half-ass Tarantino • I’m THIS close to plagiarizing Ditko

Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy yet another part of my superhero play cycle, “Alter Egos: Cloudmaster.”

Cheers! 

* Sure, you can argue that her very first appearance was in 1992, but I sure as hell didn’t know about her until the aughts. 

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 37 - Snackadelphia

Okay, so I’m not going too deep into this. 

What I will say is that what you’re about to read was inspired by a two completely separate yet equally important sources:

• DIRECTOR YASUJIRO OZU’S “PILLOW SHOTS” (<<<< click)

• SIMON HANSELMANN’S “MEGAHEX” SERIES

Okay, I should also mention that I’ve had a serious food mascot fetish for years. 

Add all that into the fact that this is basically the first one-act I’ve written since my heart attack & here we are!

Oh, wait! 

Before you jump in, here are incredibly rough preliminary sketches of the main characters. It might help you envision where I’m going with this shit:

AND I’ve got another accompanying Spotify soundtrack cued up for your consideration. (Hope you like 311 & Bohren & Der Club Of Gore.) 

Click HERE to dig into the tunage for the complete experience. 

Alright. Enough of my yapping. Here’s “Snackadelphia.”

Cheers!

[oneactaweek]

WEEK 36 - Army of Evil: The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.

I used to write SO MANY of these superhero/supervillain one-acts as part of my “Alter Egos” play cycle, I’d eventually lose track. I seem to keep finding more of them that I’d start & never finish.

This one’s goofy though.

Started in 2003, amended in 2004. A couple of things have changed since then:

• Crimson Claw was called the Black Hand early on  • For some reason, this was originally titled “The Caterer” (no idea why) • Rodrigo was once going to be a villain called Mano Rojo, who was Black Hand’s supervillain rival 

Okay, so level set. Being a comic book dork, I was well aware that there was already a villain known as Black Hand.

He’d been a fairly innocuous foe of Green Lantern’s for decades at that point. And I think I always meant to change his name, but never got around to it. 

I’d also like to point out that I wrote this at least 6 years before the “Blackest Night” storyline turned him from a punchline into the perfect mixture of awesome & horrifying. 

Then there’s the whole u-turn I took, where I’d written an almost complete play on the right & a newer version with a female character on the left.

Not sure what I was thinking at the time. But once I read through both unfinished pieces, I had an idea that didn’t occur to me back in the day. One that was pretty obvious now that I think about it. So, I went with it.

Lastly, I wanted to include a bunch of country & western songs from the 1970′s. Couldn’t really tell you why. 

Maybe it’s because every time I write something, I include music I generally dig, so I wanted to go a different direction this time.

And here’s what I did for you, dear reader. I’ve composed a simple Spotify playlist that accompanies this little magnum opus (click HERE to access it). Just treat it like one of those old Book & Record sets from back in the day.

Okay, so there’s no “DING! Turn the page” involved, but you can play each song as the script dictates. Although, in theory, you can start with Danny O’Keefe’s “Good time Charlie’s Got The Blues” & just let the playlist play all the way through. 

My timing might not be perfect, but it should work out pretty close to how I intended it.

And by the way, there’s only ONE correct answer to the Roper vs. Furley question. 

Well, enjoy “Army of Evil: The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.”

Cheers!