From: kenyatta cheese
To: Sheila Callaghan
Date: Nov 22, 2005 7:47 AM
Subject: Breakfast @ Denny's
I'm having breakfast @ a Denny's in Culver City @ 4.35 in the morning.
I thought I'd take a picture of it for you. ;)
-kc.
See that new book thar? The one with the green-and-yeller neon and all the fancy playwrights inside?
See that feller in the lower right corner, all blurry and bespectacled?
That's my husband. Hee.
Now go buy it.
When I was in Louisville I went out to dinner with a bunch of my MFA students, and one of them brought her six-month-old baby. The baby was a screechy happy thing, all big-eyed and slack-jawed and kicky. As we were fawning, the baby grabbed a full glass of iced tea and dumped it all over her mom and the floor.
That night I dreamed I gave birth to a breakfast sausage link. I didn't know whether to nurture it or to eat it. Ultimately, I bit into it and felt terribly guilty afterwards.
My subconscious COULD be more subtle about my motherhood fears...
Off topic: Did you know that this man...
... has one of these?
Well he does. Go read it.
Okay so we did get ONE crappy review from a tiny local paper... It was really pissy, one of those reviews that says more about the person reviewing than it does about the show. I told a friend of mine in LA about it, and so as a joke she wrote to the critic under a pseudonym. She forwarded the exchange to me.
* * * *
Mr. X,Your review of Crumble at LATC was appalling. You are a terrible writer and have no business printing reviews of plays. Please find another job ASAP.
THANKS.
-JF* * * * Dear JF:
As a publisher and long time writer I doubt that I will take your attempt at censorship to heart. But not liking my review is fine. You come off as narrow minded and limited to only one view. Please go join the Far Right in Washington if you wish to promote ideas of suspending the right of a free press. Oh and BTW, Crumble was sheer trash theater. I feel so sorry for you, your lack of knowledge about our rights as Americans, and your narrow focus in life.
Warm regards,
X* * * * Dear X,
For the record I very much believe in free speech and value it deeply. I DON'T believe in reactionary, lazy reviewing and lousy, sensationalist journalism.
Thanks for your reply.
-JF
* * * * ROFL.
So you like calling me a lazy Mexican. My people and I have had to stand up to the likes of you and your kind a very long time. Shame on you, but then I assume you have no shame.
You are a very sad person. Please get well soon. The bi-polor [sic] bit goes just so far. No wonder you liked the play.
-X
I updated my press quotes. Go look at them. Please. I need to know that what I produce on this end has direct, immediate, and correlative stat activity. It makes up for not getting paid.
In other news... you should probably go buy this. The first one's my favorite..
Conversation between my 3-minute-ago self and my present self:
3-minute-ago self: So, are you happy about that bowl of Lucky Charms you just ate?present self: No.
3-minute-ago self: Ha! I knew you'd feel gross. Especially after such a healthy dinner of soy nuggets and fake duck.
present self: Yeah, well. I couldn't help it.
3-minute-ago self: Um, yes you could.
present self: Look, YOU'RE the one who poured the bowl in the first place.
3-minute-ago self: No one forced you to eat that.
present self: But they have a new charm.
3-minute-ago self: I know, I saw. What the hell is up with that, anyway?
present self: What do you mean, it's a cloud.
3-minute-ago self: But how does a "cloud" relate to anything even vaguely Irish or charming or lucky?
present self: It doesn't.
3-minute-ago self: The others do. Pot-o-gold, lucky star...
present self: But it's magic.
3-minute-ago self: It's not magic, it's a tiny chalky disgusting little piece of sugar. They call it a cloud because the factory ran out of dye and they needed something quick and easy to boost sales.
present self: It's MAGIC, you fool.
3-minute-ago self: You, my friend, are blinded by your addiction.
present self: Um, NO, because when you moisten the cloud it changes color. But YOU wouldn't know that, because you were in such a goddamn rush that you didn't bother to add milk to the bowl before I dug in.
3-minute-ago self: You could have added milk yourself, you know.
(pause.)
present self: Touché, my fine fellow. Next time.
3-minute-ago self: Why must there be a next time? Milk or no milk, you'll still feel like barfing when you're done.
(pause. quietly.)
present self: It's an addiction--
3-minute-ago self: You're pathetic.
thanks, la ketch...
Did you match your shirt to the pilows and binders, or was that luck?
ONE: See CRUMBLE in LA. The production is fierce, and got a pretty ridiculous review in the Times. It's been extended until Nov. 19th.
TWO: Read Palmer's new blog. She kills me.
THREE: Hey Boston! Go to MIT on Sunday afternoon and catch a free concert of "contemporary political music"... Soph has a piece in it.
FOUR: Me and Soph are playing at Salon-Saloon #3 for The Theatre of a Two-headed Calf. Lisa D'Amour will be doing some stuff, along with some other great folk. Come.
FIVE: Whatever you do. Don't get these.
Being back never felt so strange and strong and good. Like the taste of coffee after you've sworn it off for three months. New York is not a friendly beast, but it's kin.
Here's a song to get you through your day. It's getting me through mine.
Come back from San Francisco.
It can't be all that pretty,
When all of New York City misses you.
Should pretty boys in discos
Distract you from your novel,
Remember I'm awful in love with you.
You need me like the wind needs the trees
To blow in.
Like the moon needs poetry
You need me.
Come back from San Francisco
And kiss me, I've quit smoking.
I miss doing the wild thing with you.
Will you stay? I don't think so,
But all I do is worry
Pack bags, call cabs, and hurry home to me.
You need me like the wind needs the trees
To blow in.
Like the moon needs poetry
You need me.
When you betray me, betray me with a kiss.
Damn you. I've never stayed up as late as this.
--The Magnetic Fields
who am I when I'm not with you
a slack vague, a long strung. the non.
a palm at the end of the mind--your hand
it is surely yours
but not-- how is it drawn?
or this: a thin tire on a wet street
an: infamous ancestor
a pinched hip
(she can't get it right)
a thin wanting played out on a wet sheet
in the hour before shedding
if you hear something, a strain--
name me
I won't be there.
Still in Louisville. Getting bludgeoned by work and work and work. Some catch-up stuff for my day job, some new stuff for my teaching gig... But this is a great and special gig down here. I love it, even though it is an INSANE schedule. Meetings at 8am, workshops at 9, readings, plenaries, more readings, lectures... Most meals are provided for, which is MINT. The generosity here is palpable.
I think I'm the youngest faculty member here. People keep mistaking me for a student. The other night I sat down to dinner with some students and this round grumpy balding fellow glanced at me and growled, "you must be excited to be here, coming straight from high school." As I was about to ask him to clarify he said, "excuse my open hostility, I have trouble with young attractive people." To which I responded, "don't worry, I'm not as pretty as I look." Later I overheard someone tell him I was faculty. He seemed shocked. Vindicating, but it doesn't change the fact that I nearly burst into tears with my mouth full of Asian pork when I realized he was insulting me.
That is not a good story. Here's a random observation about my presence in Kentucky: the busier I get, the harder it is for me to relate to other people, and the more I drop things and fall over. Yesterday I flew from JFK to Rochester and back for my last class, and last night I went to sleep at 1:30am after working on design crap for hours, and woke up at 4:30am for a plane back to Louisville for my workshop this morning. I dropped my wallet, two coffees, two sets of keys, my phone, a book, my gloves, a cup of water, a bottle of advil, and a lipstick. I fell coming out of an elevator and walking on the tarmack. I woke up yesterday morning in my own bed yelling "what the fuck what the fuck" because I didn't know where I was or how I got there.
That's not a good story either. I should tell you the pink sweater story. But when?
Nevermind. Instead, here's a game. Guess which one of these statements is true?
1. Once in college a football player offered to sleep with me in exchange for me writing his biology paper for him.
2. When I was 24, I tried to come out to my mother in a Perkins Pancake house over eggs benedict.
3. I was cast on the pilot of a reality TV show about sex, which I turned down.
4. As a child I forced my brother and sister to learn how to play the spoons so we could all go on tour as a travelling spoon-playing family.
5. I spend many formative years of my childhood hanging out in a sports bar that my father owned, stealing pickles and befriending drunks and watching cheech and chong movies.
6. I did acid at the Limelight once and lost the ability to read for half a day.
7. One Thanksgiving I walked in on a roommate masturbating in the living room.
8. When I lived in Nottingham I dated an English skater boy who paid back his school loans by selling hallucinogenics to his classmates.
9. A female magician once seduced me in the bathroom of a bar on Sunset Blvd.
10. I can do a back-dive.
(Hint: All of them are true.)
