It feels like I’ve been working on this fucking play forever.  I don’t remember when I started actually writing it.  It’s only been maybe a few months now, not that long really, but that doesn’t change how it feels.  I don’t know.  I’m pretty sure people think I’m lying about writing a play because nobody but Ashley has seen any of it, and even she has seen only bits and pieces, much of which I’ve probably destroyed since then.  Maybe it’s because I was thinking about it for so long before I ever committed words to paper that it seems like it’s been such a goddamn eternity.  I don’t mean it like this is the play that I was born to write and once I’ve written it I’ll be able to leave this life with a smile on my face, it’s not like that.  Fuck that.  If I ever write that play, my god.  But this one’s not that one.  It’s a pretty simple play really.  The story, the situations, the people, nothing about it is all that grand or epic or complex, but goddam, not one step of it has been at all easy.  Nothing effortless about it.  So much thinking and analyzing and agonizing and maybe if I just put on a different CD or do I want coffee or a glass of wine and then maybe I can finish a scene.  Maybe.  There are times, wonderful moments where the act of writing comes with zero effort.  It just goddam happens, like the devil is whispering the words into your ear at just the right pace for you to keep up and get them down without too many typos and always know what the next few words are and what’s going to happen next and after that and after that.  But not with this play, not very often.  It seems like it should be like that all the time, or at least most of the time, and when it’s not like that is when you just wanna toss the whole thing in the shitter.  I’m almost 80 pages in, even after throwing out twice that amount, and I think maybe there will be a first draft sometime soon.  And then…then…well, I don’t know.  Part of me wants to shut this thing down and leave it sitting in a folder on my laptop never to be seen again and just move on to something else.  But I don’t think I’ll do that.  I’ve done that too many times with too many ideas.  I think I’m gonna keep pushing this one on, coughing and sputtering its way to some sort of state of “completion.”  Whatever that means.  Fuck.

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Comments

Julie

2004-03-25T21:49:01.000Z

Really, that sounds horribly, horribly frustrating and I would have given up long ago, and so would most people.  But that makes you a giver-upper.  That’s the thing that makes you a playwright:  finishing.  Okay, that and writing.  And we all know plenty of people who talk about writing and never do.  But you do.  That’s why you are the coolest.  So keep your chin up and keep hacking at it and you’ll finish.  You can do it!  And then we’ll rip it out of your bleeding, blistered hands and put it on stage:)

I was born in McAllen, Texas down in the Rio Grande Valley.  Grew up in Houston.  Moved to Austin in 1994 where I still live.  I spent many of my summers in the Devil’s Backbone region of the Texas Hill Country between Canyon Lake and Wimberley.  I’ve visited every mission in and around San Antonio.  I think I’m qualified to call myself a Texan…and yet Texan culture sometimes makes me want to puke into the boots that I don’t own. 

Let me back up a bit.  I’m at the grocery store tonight.  Standing in line in the express lane with my 10 items or less, I’m perusing the magazine rack.  Amongst its offerings is Texas Monthly.  On its cover, George Strait is smiling his shit-eating sideways grin back at me, and the headline reads “50 Things Every Texan Should Do.”

Something inside me snapped.

Now let’s be clear, this is not about George Strait.  I really don’t have much of anything against George Strait. I won’t apologize for the fact that I know every word to “Amarillo By Morning” by heart, not to mention the fact that my mom loves his music, and anything that makes my mom happy can’t be all that bad.  No, this is bigger than George Strait or Texas Monthly.  Hell, I didn’t even read the stupid article.  This is about the fact that Texas culture and Texan-ness seems more and more to be defined by these stereotypes that we seem to cling to like a gun on a rack.  I’ll tell you what, I know full well that Texas is chock full of stereotypes, but these days, it seems like it’s not enough that the rest of the world thinks we all drive oversize trucks and carry guns hidden in our pants and get all giddy at the thought of an execution.  No no no, now we have to market this watered down faux cowboy crap right back at ourselves!  Well I’ll tell you something folks, I love Texas, but I don’t watch football.  I don’t own cowboy boots or a hat.  I have no desire to own a horse.  I don’t line dance. I’m anti death penalty.  I’ll drink a Lone Star, but I’ll follow it up with a Guiness.  I enjoy Willie Nelson, but right after that it might be Tricky or Pantera (also from Texas).  My point is not that I’m some eccentric weirdo in this land of cowboys, because a lot of my friends are like me in that they don’t fit into this mass-marketed Texas idea either.  To illustrate my point a little further, I’ve made up my own list of things that I think every Texan should do:

1. Vote non-Republican (not necessarily Democratic).
2. Run an SUV (not necessarily your own) off of a cliff. 
3. Try going to Mexico without being an asshole to the locals.
4. Buy a hybrid.
5. Drink some imported beer and then recycle the bottles.
6. Take a hike through the hill country and spend the night alone on top of a hill.
7. Melt down some guns and make them into lawn-art.
8. Take the hybrid you bought in step 4 and outfit it with a bumpin’ sound system and bullet proof glass, then drive through Vidor blaring N.W.A., Ice-T, Wu-Tang and of course Public Enemy. 
9. Go to the Renaissance Fest.
10. Zeroscape part or all of your lawn. 

That’s just a start, I’m sure there’s a lot more than that and I’m sure if you’re reading this you’ve probably got plenty of good suggestions of your own, and I tell you what, I’d love to hear ‘em.

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Comments

E.D.

2004-03-16T15:26:56.000Z

1.  Know Texas history

2.  Know that Texas history began long before Davy Crockett got his ass shot at the Alamo.

3.  Don’t bitch about “all those Mexicans”.  They were here before you were.  Deal with it.

4.  Know the difference between Tex-Mex food and Mexican food.

5.  Understand that Dubya is not a Texas.  He is a carpetbagger.

6.  Know the difference between cowboys and people who think they are cowboys.  Hint: If you do not encounter cow manure on a daily basis, you are not a cowboy. 

7.  If you want to go deer huntin’, you clean and butcher the kill yourself.  Only pussies get their game professionally processed.  Dropping your deer off at some shop to be turned into sausage is downright deplorable. 

8.  Take road trips around Texas as often as you can.  If you’ve never been stargazing in the Davis mountains, swam off the gulf coast, camped in Big Bend or Palo Duro, ran through a red dirt cotton field, or hollared your name from atop a mesquite covered mesa, then you haven’t experienced Texas to its fullest.

9.  Expand your pallet.  Salt, pepper, ketchup and Tabasco are not the only spices out there.

10.  Texans have a worldwide reputation for being good people.  Yes, it is based on a stereotype, but that doesn’t mean you should go and fuck it up.

Lee

2005-02-23T02:26:51.000Z

Stumbled on your post and enjoyed it. Got me thinking about my home town of Berkeley, CA (yes, that Berkeley). Couldn’t resist starting a similar post on my site. Take a look if you want to see how the other half live. http://www.shopinberkeley.com/news/index.php?cat=4

There’s this commercial, I think it’s for Wendy’s, some chicken strip thing they got, and in it, different guys keep showing up at some guy’s door ringing the doorbell asking if his daughter’s around.  Problem is, the beagle and the rat terrier that live here go nuts when they hear a doorbell ring, and they cannot discern between a real doorbell ring and a TV doorbell, so everytime this commercial comes on they’re both driven just about over the edge about to come outta their fur they’re so freaked out.  So me and Ash have gotten pretty quick with hitting the mute button.  There’s a Domino’s commercial that causes the same problem.

I would like it to be known that from this day forward I would like to be included on the list of people who prefer to keep business travel at an absolute absolute absolute minimum…at such time as any business travel may be required, I also require that my destination be to a cool and interesting place like, say, Toronto, which is where I was Monday and Tuesday of this week…on business. Should you require any kind of business travel to non-cool uninteresting places, please send someone else in my stead. Somebody need a demo in Kansas? Customer in Oklahoma needs training? Nah-ah. Send somebody else. Send Bill, or Bob, or Todd. Yeah, send Todd. He’s fresh outta college, eager to prove himself, has no spine. Send his dumbass…So, this was my first business trip, and I was honestly looking forward to it, seeing as how it was Toronto and, like many liberal minded Americans these days, I’ve been developing a bit of an interest in Canada ;) and I’ve heard good things about Toronto. Little did I know that when I arrived at customs in Toronto, after missing our connecting flight in Chicago and experiencing firsthand the beautiful sprawling joy that is O’Hare, I would inadvertently confess to violating NAFTA. Here’s what happened. I get up to the customs agent after standing in line for-goddamn-ever, and like all customs agents he is a surly bastard who drinks too much and hates his father and himself and has a secret stash of women’s clothing that he pulls out late at night and parades around his cramped shitty lonely apartment in, and gets a big fat hairy-knobbed thrill out of being a pain in the ass to weary travellers who have just spent two hours sitting in O’Hare waiting for the next flight to Toronto and just want to crash land on a pillow and sleep and dream and sleep some more. So this clown wants to know what the hell business I have in his country, breathing his air, drinking his beer, wearing his wigs, whatever…and I answer all his questions politely and accurately “I’m here to meet with a client…Honda Canada…a training demonstration…yes, we have a contract with them.” And he makes some marks on my customs slip and hands it back to me with my passport. I say “thank you” and he just rubs his eyes and laughs. I’m not kidding, he laughed. So I walk on through to the next customs agent who wants to see my form, specifically whatever marks Mr. Funnyman made on it. My boss, by the way, has already made it past this point and is standing just on the other side waiting for me. But instead of sending me on through, this lady deciphers the cryptic markings on my form and sends me off the other way to talk to yet another goddamn agent…this is getting scary! Not to mention the fact that NOBODY ELSE is getting sent off in this direction. What the hell did I do? Did he confuse me with Todd? So I go up there and talk to some lady who starts asking me the same exact questions, and I give the exact same answers…and then she wants to see an invoice. Well I don’t have an invoice, lady, but I am very tired, how’s that? At which point she whips out a booklet entitled “Temporary Entry to Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement.” They had highlighted the N, A, F, T, and A in red to emphasize the fact that this is NAFTA we’re dealing with here, by God, not some shitty little bullshit policy but muthafuckin NAFTA. She turns to page 6 and circles a section that tells me that, yes, according to muthafuckin NAFTA, I do need to provide copies of an invoice or a sales agreement of some kind. She dogears the page, hands me the booklet, and tells me to have a nice night. I can go now…and I know I should just hush and go, but I gotta ask, I say “you know, my boss just got waved right on through and she’s here for the same reason I am.” And the answer I get, this woman looks at me from her crappy little booth and says “yeah, well, we normally let people right on through, but every now and then…” and she shrugs. That’s my answer. A shrug. I still have the booklet if anyone’s interested, I kept the motherfucker as a souvenier.

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Comments

Tara

2004-02-05T07:46:12.000Z

I’ve never violated NAFTA before! I’m so proud of you!

So according to MSN, that font of accurate, up to date, unbiased, 100% relevant to the real world that we live in information that all of us care about ever so damn much, the following is a trait of a dangerous driver: —Do you hate driving behind SUVs or other large vehicles that obstruct your view? More than 60% of bad drivers say they are frustrated driving behind SUVs because they are wide and tall and block their vision. In fact, more than 70% believe SUVs should be required to drive in a separate lane on the highway. Fuck MSN. And the SUV they rode in on.

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Comments

Tim

2004-01-30T01:42:03.000Z

in the Austin Area, good drivers believe there is no such thing as a good SUV driver. Can someone point out that this was based upon asking biased questions of a miniscule sample population. I bet you probably would also find out some other interesting things about bad drivers: 73% of bad drivers of fat 95% of bad drivers are stupid 56% of bad drivers are fat and stupid 100% of msn.com readers don’t understand statistics and thus will have no problem with my argument.

I’m lying back in a chair with a bright light in my face and my jaw cranked open, and I’m voluntarily allowing a person I hardly know to poke around in my mouth with a variety of metal instruments. I’m referring, of course, to the dentist experience. It is because of this that my ass is slightly sore right now. You see, every time I go to the dentist and they’re working away at my tooths and gums with their off-putting little instruments, I become aware, from time to time, that my entire body has completely tensed up. This happens without my realizing it, completely unconsciously. I realize that my fingers are desperately gripped around the arm rests, my toes are curled into my feet, my back is as stiff as a board, and my ass, well, it’s clinched like i’m trying to hold a penny between me cheeks. I have to consciously send out signals to the various regions of my body to tell them that it’s okay to relax. Ease off. No need to be so high strung. But slowly now! Don’t want to go limp all at once while some woman, who’s probably distracted enough as it is with thoughts of why is little Billy failing math or whatever, is poking around in my precious mouth with hooks and spears and other stabby things. I manage to get all unclinched, but a few minutes later, while I’m staring up at the ceiling like some tired prostitute who just wants to go home, I realize I’m all tensed up again. It’s a viscious cycle. And now, my ass, is sore.

…and he wants me to tell you all to have a merry fucking Christmas!

I feel all safe now. Now about those pesky WMD’s, where the hell are those? Oh oh oh! And Osama bin Laden. With this kind of constant shift in our goals, you’d swear our government had ADD.

I am tingling all over. I missed them the last two times they were in Austin, the first time cuz I was doing tech on a show for a class for a grade, the second time cuz I was getting married the next day (shut up) and didn’t want to risk having a black eye. If only I’d known. The lesson here folks is don’t miss the deftones, or anything else for that matter, because of a silly wedding, even if (especially if) it’s your own. Oh, and I’m taking Tim with me.

Well, at least Vancouver, British Columbia. Got back this afternoon, too zonked to go into detail, but I love Canada. I love Canada. Vancouver. Go. See for yourself. Talk to you after breakfast.