Friday, September 03, 2004

Courtney Love is Better than Me

If you're like me, you stay up all night wondering what sort of drug-induced antics that wacky woman Courtney Love is up to. Will she be dangling little Francis Bean by her ankles so as not to be out-done by that other very special uber-celebrity ? Will she be getting drunk and punching the Dali Lama out ? If nothing crazy like this is covered, I can take comfort in the knowledge that we'll be treated to an article about the clothes Courtney is wearing this season. (Did you see that amazing article on the cover the Vancouver Sun arts section a couple weeks ago ? It was so awesome !! Yeah Courtney wears some crazy clothes alright.)

Sarcastic tone off.

I've spent the last three weeks trying to get press for my show DISLOCATED LIPS. I've emailed every media outlet under the sun and have gotten some interest from (drum roll please)... nobody. Well I failed to do any follow up calls so perhaps I didn't do everything I could have but I was hoping for a tiny little inkling of interest from somebody. I included in my press release that I've co-written and acted in a short comedy that was sold to CBC's ZED TV. "Love Flush" was shown twice on national television and has been viewed by almost 10, 000 people over the Internet. I also mentioned that six of my short, short stories were featured in an excellent arts site called
scene360.com. I'm also going to be working on a collection of short stories that will come out with accompanying illustrations. (Some of my art will be on post-cards that will be sold at the Book-ware House, starting mid-September.) Whew. So what's a guy supposed to do to get some interest from the press ? All that's left for me to do is pray that I will someday wake up and magically be transformed into Courtney Love.

Sour Grapes tone off.

Okay whatever this is my first time around as a writer-performer at the Fringe Festival and there are some very talented people who have done this for years and years and they still haven't got the level of exposure they deserve. So who am I to complain ?

Conciliatory tone off.

Oh but how I wish I could be Courtney Love



MALKOVICH'S HOLE

"But I really don't see her point I think there are many..." Toshimitsu cocks his head at an angle in a pained expression. In his head the language barrier has barbed wire and whenever he gets caught on a word, his entire being gets snagged. Something sharp is piercing him on the inside.

"Don't sweat it man, let's just listen to the tape again," his instructor Sam explains. Today is listening in Sam's SDPD class and he has a tape recording of a conversation between his friends about the movie Being John Malkovich. He presses the arrow-headed play button.

"It was just way too uneven. There were retard jokes in amongst all these profound questions that were under-cut by the geeky puppet guy but then we're expected to take those very questions seriously at the end ?" Sam presses stop on the tape recorder.

"So what do you think is her main criticism of the movie," Sam asks a class that is mostly lost in thought of lunch or emails home to Japan or Korea. The only student who's really sticking it out is Toshimitsu who's grown used to grappling daily with the intricacies of English. He wants to understand this conversation about Malchovitch's Hole (the Japanese title of the movie) between Sam's friends.

"I think she wants to make us question..." Toshimitsu is once again nodding off into a tortured inner struggle between sharp Japanese words and his desire to leap over the language barrier.

Sam smiles. He can't wait to tell his friends about this latest batch of student's who seem to be weirder than the last group. Sam spends most of his time with friends telling stories about the mistakes and quirks of his Japanese and Korean students. When the conversation veers off in other directions, he secretly tapes his friends and then uses that as material in his ESL class.

He's got it made, he thinks to himself, not realizing that in three days he may get fired for what he's doing.

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