broken luck

The Hawk.

The Hawk saga continues!

SO...my lovely friend Roblin from Alaska showed up out of the blue (NYC is turning out to be a GREAT place to connect with friends from EVERYWHERE as they're always passing through), and we went to Prospect Park and I showed him the site of the Hawk attack AND the Hawk showed up! And THEN the Hawk found a dead rat within 10 feet of us and went and got it and then went up in a tree and gutted it as I took pictures and tried not to get hit with rat fur and tried to get the image of my Peaknuckle getting gutted out of my head.
Roblin was like, cool...
I squeeled.

SO! here's a picture of a rat (NOT MY PEAKNUCKLE!) getting gutted in Brooklyn. You can kinda see the back feet and tail of the rat, hanging over the branch.

!!

March Update

Well. sigh. (wow, I exhale and relax just thinking of Juneau and all of you and the mist and the green and the trees...hmmm).

I felt it necessary after that first email, full of hawk attacks, cramped quarters and impersonal gotham-ness, to let you all know that Peaknuckle and I are not only safe...we're enjoying ourselves. The city is opening to us and in many ways opening us. Pea is shedding like crazy, as the earth warms prematurely. And the city is taking me and tearing me open in a wondrous, somewhat miraculous way (yes. I've always been dramatic).

First off, I got the very coveted and sought after job of Hospital Clown, with the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit!!! My job, my JOB (I LOVE saying that), is to show up with another Clown from the Unit and make sick kids happy. The organization is Amazing...trainings, monthly 'emotional hygiene' sessions aka group therapy and an unforgettable Clown Conference in the Berkshires that I attended last week with 65 other huge hearted folks from all over the country (the Circus has something like 100 clowns doing this in Seattle, Miami, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago and Boston). Their were clowns there who'd been doing this for over twenty years and on average people'd been doing this for about ten years. Now imagine all of these folks in one room sharing juggling, dancing, magical, musical and oddball talents with each other, or sharing their stories around the dinner table- my favorite was from one of the pioneers of the job from way back when they were making all the mistakes. He was walking around with two fake legs (adding up to four), and showed up in a room of two little girls where conjoined twins (attached at the head). He went pale and scared (which I've done more than twice already), and the twins started cackling at him, taking turns (only one could face him at a time) pointing and insulting him. That's our job he said. To lower our status, so that these victims of the medical establishment can have a little power over their situation.

I wish I could share all my stories with you, with the whole world, and I'll probably start Blogging, but one room (in addition to clinics, pre Op and post Op, we do in-patient rooms) there was a little girl with burn over her whole body, as in, all that I could recognize as human was eyes and teeth. (I'm seeing younger humans in these sort of dramatic situations each time I go- and each time, I get a little pale and quesy- getting my 'hospital legs" is what they call it, I think, and each time my "supervisor" saves my life-and the life of the kid, in way, by pulling me into a game). So the game with the little girl was to do a silly Elmo song as we shuffled along on a line (we didn't want to go out of her line of sight) and dance and be silly. I don't know how I saw it or were I saw it...there was nothing left of her face to do it...she smiled. We goofed, she smiled, I was transformed (and it's been a LONG time since I've used language like that). And these sort of stories happen every time I go (about once a week). And this is my JOB! WhaHOO!

And speaking of transformation: My second job, as a theatre teacher in Brownsville is also transforming me. I teach K through 4th grade in a school where I'm one of THREE white people in the whole after school program. Literally. It's 99% black and a depressed part of town. Lots of fights, yelling and kids who are...well...thugs in training. I had quit the job last week (gave my two weeks notice) and when I went in this week a miracle happened (maybe because I'd 'given up'?). The 3rd grade class was un-usually loud, mean and disrespectful
and I yelled (I never yell). I basically alpha-ed them and put it straight. I told them that there will NEVER be yelling again in my class, that if they get five checks (to get a check they have to be quiet and put out their thumbs when I put mine out), they get to do whatever game they want for the last five minutes of class. The class was all giving checks. They actually played my games, enjoyed it and when it was time to cash in their checks, they picked "Talent Show," a game I'd never played with them, but was more than happy to see them play, as their Theatre Teacher and all. All they did for five glorious minutes was to go on stage one at a time and be silly, weird and goofy! Thugs in training! Being silly! Being kids! I was transformed.

And now my house. The one that I reported last time as way too cramped. Well. I'm still in my teeny room, but I've tricked it out...with curtain rods up high to hang clothes and towels and lots of coat hooks on the wall and drawers under the bed to optimize the up and down space. That's why the skyline in Manhattan is so freakish. When there's no space just create it. Pies in the sky. And I love all my roommates. There's a saxaphonist from Switzerland, a jazz singer with a lovely little boy, a flutist and old time banjo player who plays with another roommate- my Apple Computer Store hook up - and they make it sound like folk fest every other day, and then there's the den mother who owns the house who plays the piano and runs around in bizarre burlesque numbers.

AND! Sophie (my Ladyfriend) and I are making a wholesome burlesque show called:
Peg + Ass = Us

A tale of boy-meets-girl, but the whole involves much more than the sum of their parts! Puppetry and song bring a fantastical analysis of fetish vs. preference, queer vs. straight, wrong vs.

oh-so-right...

The show will be a vaudevillian revelation of sexual practices that poke holes in rigid notions of gender and sexuality, but are still full of the good old, wholesome awkwardness that is part of the journey from the bar to the bedroom. Pegasus will have good doses of educational information, song, dance, drag, puppetry and of course, mythical creatures.

SO there you have it.

OH WAIT! TWO more things...I have a new number (on my new iPhone! I know, I'm SO New Yawk):

(347) 244 - 1815
You all should use it, I love walking around talking to people who aren't next to me like a crazy person!

Hawks and Such

I'd better communicate with you all sooner than later to make sure you know that I've

moved to New York City .

and...
my first day in NYC, on my 1/3 of a 99 year old birthday is marked with...lots of irony and intrigue.

1. Let's just say that I am hesitant to email my new address, as I don't really like it. Yet. It's a flop house for international artists and aside from a perfect location and perfect cheap price ($600) it's less than perfect and wasn't stocked with TP my first night.

And then the bed. the room is SUPER SMALL with a bed that's narrower than sleeping on a fence. I knew the room was going to be small...but the bed is REALLY small and slanted...but at least it slants INTO the wall so that i stay in the bed.

2. And then there's the maiden 'walk in the park' with my chihuahua- who has lived for seven years in ALASKA without an eagle incident. So I'm walking with him across a large field (in Prospect Park , Brooklyn ) and I see the shadow of a bird flying over us and I think to myself..."I must be a crow, huh, wait, it's coming quite close, but there's no EAGLES here, wait! that HAWK is going for my little DOG!"

So I Scream at it and run at it and it flies up to a tree. I pick Peaknuckle up, hold him, look around to make sure I AM in NYC and then put him down to get my leash out and the F'ing hawk starts out of the tree towards us again. And so i carry Pea out of the park until we reach the safety of the pavement...

!

!

What the?!

3. Then I get a call that the gig that i had had for monday cancels on me. Flakes out really. But I could do it in March if I'd like.

4. The bike shop that has my bike and was going to have my bike ready for me by this morning has had it's gate down all morning...the ONE thing that I wanted to have for my B-day...my favorite bike.

5. It's only 2:25pm. thank GOD there's not a #5 yet. I feel crammed, crooked, small and alone. But I'm made of rubber. I will bounce.

So. thanks for reading. Venting is the only thing that i can do to stay sane in a very big city with a very small vulnerable little dog on my birthday.

sigh.
i miss the alaskan ease.

john

Eccentric Dance Gold Medalist

Well, you’re now reading the blog of a New York Clown Theatre Festival, Clown Olympics GOLD MEDAL winner in the Eccentric Dance Event with a more than perfect score of 31 (out of 30). I keep saying it in my head, trying to shorten it somehow so I can fit it on my poster. I keep saying it in my head, trying to fit it into a hyper-self critical mind that is doesn’t want to accept that I could be really good at something. I keep saying it in my head, figuring out what it means that I could be really good at something, and that I could possibly get paid for what I do.

My first weekend here, while taking a bouffon workshop, I bombed. I bombed big. “You want to move to NYC? This city’s gonna eat you alive.” The teacher knew just which button to push. The next day, I sucked it up and rocked it. I was on top. My competitive spirit was working for me. Then a few days later I performed at a cabaret at the festival and bombed. Big. A few people said they “liked it” but I knew. The Clown Big Wigs who come to every show and have blogs and teach and Write Books on the subject, well they ignored me. When a Clown bit is bombing there’s no way around it, but through it…and I wasn’t going through it. I was trying to ignore that I was sucking, which, as one clown friend said is a good sign, “at least you were aware that you were sucking.” In the aftermath of my big NY debut bomb, my friends and fellow clown compatriots have been lovely and inspiring. And then one of the festival organizers asked if I was doing something in the Olympics. My iddy biddy shiddy committee told me she’d asked because they were desperate. BUT, I’m here in NYC now. And my competitive spirit knew that I had, HAD to get back on the horse.

Fast forward to me in the theatre’s tiny bathroom, minutes before my event, peeing my brains out (when I’m nervous before a show I usually drink a gallon of water). And I remember what my Clown friend Jane Chen from San Fran said to me a month ago when she was helping me with my show. Each time’s gotta be the first time. What is THIS show, THIS performance about? For ME, in THIS moment. And so, I thought about all the people out in the audience, half of whom saw me bomb the week earlier. And I thought about all my friends up in Alaska, all the supportive faces, all the faces that I’ve been seeing, playing with and sharing with for the past seven years. And then I think about the Clown Olympic Judges who have Wrote Books on the subject (and no, they do NOT wear big wigs and shoes). And then I get even more scared. And then I finished peeing and a calm came over me. Maybe the calm was because I’d had to pee so bad, but I’m trying to think that admitting to the thing that scares me the most gives me some power. Not in a “Power Over My Fear” woo-woo kinda way. It’s more like I’m going into the barrel of the canon not fighting. As Ronlin Foreman (my Clown teacher from Dell ‘Arte) said, it’s admitting your poverty, your cross to bare. My alternating drive to win and acknowledgement that I’m worse than slime, somehow fueled a pretty darn good show. Of course, having a little dog in the show who does dumb tricks helps too. BUT, I felt like I had the audience. I could See Them. Flying through the air, crapping my pants and I could make out their faces and their eyes. These strangers and these fancy pants Clowns became familiar, friendly even
2007 New York Clown Olympics, GOLD MEDALALIST in Eccentric Dance (31 out of 30 poss. points)

ps. The extra point was from my bribing one of the judges with money. (I’d tried to butter her up before the show with compliments and charm, but she directed me to an ATM down the street).

NYC part I

And so I sit, looking out at Manhattan through a parrot cage (a real one), from the 42nd floor north and west from 42nd street. Out in the distance are small bumps in New Jersey that are probably geographic features made of earth, but I don’t believe it. More real is eighth avenue stretching north, which from up here reveals it’s intelligence, gulping calculated bites of taxi’s, trucks and buses, sending goods and people where goods and people are needed. The brain needs that suit who is in that taxicab. Those shoes must make it to that store to get on the feet of that fashionista. The white blood cells in that ambulance nudging cross town must make it to save that gasping old woman who feeds the pigeons in the park.
And there’s me, the Alaskan Clown sitting in a lent apartment, parrots preening, a small dog on my right, a grey kitty on my left.
My first night I stood on the balcony and got the worst vertigo ever.

“The world’s got me dizzy again, you think after 22 years, I’d be used to the spin, but it only feels worse when I stay in one place, so I’m always pacing around or walkin’ away” Land Locked Blues, Bright Eyes.

And so you don’t. You don’t stay in one place. That was me when I arrived. Afraid of the beast. I’m making friends with it, now. I’ve ridden the edge. Like when my video camera was needed to tape that woman’s solo show and I was half an hour late and was going to cause that woman’s director to be late. Pushing east and then north from Brooklyn through the plod of rush hour, my bike became a hymn that I sung out through open eyes, narrowed psyche. That bus doesn’t want it enough, it slowed for that mother, and so I’m off, soaring, weaving through the drifting Midwesterners of Times Square, the foreign bodies that the city engulfs and dazzles with lights and height, and then picks up with Pedicabs. Because I’m so pushy with the city, the little dog gets to pee, everyone makes it to the solo show with plenty of time to schmooze, and the city lets out a sigh.

Funny that everyone personifies this city so much. It seems the only way to relate with something so inhuman, so unnatural, yet made by human madness and muscle.

September 20 to October 1 New Orleans

Alluring and Repulsive. The two adjectives that I read on the placard in the swamp, the two adjectives that the forest interpreters have chosen to describe the incredible wetness and vibrancy of the bayou. Two words that they give us Dry Land folks from the North to hold on to. The two adjectives become words that I use to interpret, to make sense of what I see. Smell. Taste. And feel. Like the man that Amy and I follow on out of the bayou, a sweet man with a thick accent who’d grown up hunting everything in the bayou for meat: ‘gatrs, d’r, sqr’l’ (what hpp’n t’ll th vw’ls dn suth?). He walked along on soft feet like a tracker and found us turtle egg nests and huge spiders along the way. The repulsive part? His cologne. Amy, thought it disgusting and hung way back. It reminded me of my dad and so I followed close.

Other repulsive/alluring things about New Orleans:
The Paupers Cemetery in City Park, with all of its crooked and broken (mostly handmade) markers (not many were stone…many were cement or plywood).

Bourbon Street. Perhaps more repulsive and less alluring than the Cemetery. Every other bar was an odd neon open-faced fun-house filled with swirling daiquiri mixes and blaring dumb music way too loud. The other half of the bars were filled with more dumb live music, either CCR covers or postcard versions of Cajun music. Oh. Also, plenty of pictures of naked ladies and an occasion scantily clad lady, encouraging passersbys to come in.

The Clover Grill. At the end of Bourbon Street. Small, cheap and disgusting greasy spoon. I was looking for a bookstore and asked my waiter if he knew of any nearby. You’re not in the right place for ‘intellectual ‘ pursuits his reply.

Frenchmen Street. Much more alluring. In fact there wasn’t anything repulsive about it at all. Every night, instead of returning home to flip through the TV channels, we walked down Frenchmen street trying to decide between Brass Band music, French Django-esque Jazz, Washboard Chaz and his funky blues (he let me play my Saw on a tune).

Second Line. One of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen. A mini Mardi Gras that happens every Sunday year round. The Second Lines are put on by Pleasure Clubs and are basically marching bands surrounded by dancing folks (98% black) that surge through the city for four or five hours, dancing around cars, stopping traffic and generally causing everyone who is nearby to smile. I have not been around such pure buoyancy before. MmmHmm.
It was especially bittersweet as we danced down streets that seemed much more affected by Katrina than other areas. The smell of Death was all over the city (literally), but we were hopping and sidestepping and grooving along, trying to clear it up, psychically.

The Condo-fication of NOLA. Repulsive, there’s big changes in N’awlins. Developers have bought up all the wreckage and are turning it all into way expensive places to live and driving up rents. Half of the people I’ve met down here have just moved here.
A friend down here told me rents used to be $200 to $300. Now it’s more like $800 to $900. The tourist parts of the city seem bustling. Most people can’t afford to come back to a city that is SO RICH culturally, artistically, Soulfully. The city, full of seemingly empty condos, is at 40% population.

The Calliope. From a mile away you can hear this musical instrument. And it is the apidomie of alluring and repulsive. Take a look and listen.

My Last Show. Performed by last show of the tour tonight. My favorite show so far. It was electric. The last show always has this sort of energy and it both pisses me off and gives me hope. Before the show, I had been thinking, maybe I’m done with this show, maybe it’s lost it’s allure to me, and that’d be okay, it’s been a great run. But during the show, I threw all of it out the window (‘it’ being ‘knowing’ what I’m doing), and connected fully with myself and with the material.
Also what was different tonight, besides it being the last show, was my warm up: I played songs that energized me and got me moving, but also looked for songs that evoked strong memories that are long gone. Also, I took time to lay down with my dog and do some eye gazing with the most special creature in my life. More than my Best Friend, he’s been my Best Coworker, and Peaknuckle does all of it so that he’ll be near me (and so that I’ll give him tasty beef T-R-E-A-T-S shhh! he might hear me think the word).

So. It’s important to remember that with a form like Theatrical Clown, I’ve got to come on stage Each Time like it’s the last, like my life depends on it, like, like I don’t know. Because I don’t, and when ever I think I do, I’m lying.
MmmmHmmm.�