World-Building is a viable option

James Kochalka, The Horrible Truth About Comics

I'm filled with ideas lately. Maybe it was the cruise.

Either way, I've been thinking about how I create art lately. After the delightful process of putting together the appetizer-size play RASPBERRY FIZZ, I was struck with two thoughts...

1.) I am one of those folks that is not progressing the culture since I am as guilty as the rest of my generation of making the past a fetish. As outlined in this Kurt Andersen Esquire article.

"For most of the last century, America’s cultural landscape—its fashion, art, music, design, entertainment—changed dramatically every 20 years or so. But these days, even as technological and scientific leaps have continued to revolutionize life, popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new.

~ from Kurt Andersen's "You Say You Want a Devolution?" Esquire Jan. 2012 

Illustration by James Taylor

 

2.) I have always gone about my art, particularly comics and plays (and improv to a large extent) in a linear fashion. Even when I play with the linear structure, it comes from a basis of story-telling... events happening over time that effect each other. Only recently have I started to think of how open the process of art-making could become if I was creating a space, instead of exploring sequential events over time.

Besides just being aware of the first point, there is not much I can actively do about it.

For the second thought, though, I stumbled upon a great essay by Dylan Horrocks called The Perfect Planet. In it, he talks about "world-building" as another approach to making art. 

Worth a read if you're looking for inspiration, too.

ANESTHESIOLOGIST poster

I totally dig the poster put together by director Bryan Ortiz for the upcoming production of my play FOR THE LOVE OF AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST at San Antonio's Overtime Theatre.

Announcing Volume One of DONNIE ROCKET TOASTER-FACE!

Hot off the presses and ready for purchase at Amazon.com. Every few copies printed off comes with a blank page in the middle of the book. I don't know why it does this. just a quirk of print-on-demand, I guess. If you contact me, I'll pay your postage to send it to me, I'll draw an original comic for you and only you, sign it, and send it back. Anyway... Only $9.99... BARGAIN!

Seriously, This slim book of comics represents the weekly culmination of idea and artwork over the course of an entire year and a half. Get one. Read and enjoy. Post a review on Amazon. Accept my continuing gratitude and appreciation for your support.

Get it here!

ANESTHESIOLOGIST in rehearsals: Swordfight

Girls learning to swordfight. Sweet!

Another delightful RASPBERRY FIZZ review

Theater review: Raspberry Fizz at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in Addison

PegasusNews.com - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - by Mary L. Clark of John Garcia's The Column 

In the continuing saga of the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, I journeyed back over to Addison Theatre Center to see two individual theatre's one-acts. A gusty, cloudy evening made for perfect play watching in their Studio Theatre.

First up was Audacity Theatre Lab and what was described as "A Sweet New Play" by local playwright and founder of Audacity, Brad McEntire. Entitled Raspberry Fizz (playing once more on March 9), a sweet play it was, set in 1949, when Truman was president and minimum wage was going up to 75 cents an hour. Dubble Bubble was the gum of choice, that fizzy soda was only 5 cents, and the worst thing you would ever say to someone was "Go suck an egg!"

A mysterious street corner barker sits in front of a record player and a taped up box. At intervals, he puts the needle on the record and tells passersby to witness "the expected, the unsuspected." Reciting short tales of unusual events, oddities, like those in the back of sensation rags, the barker then returns to his stool and paper.

Ellison has come to that same corner for the last five days, in particular to the stoop where high school friend Samantha has been, with an important question to ask her. But the "cat's got his tongue" and he just can't muster up the courage. Talking about what they want to be when they grow up, "Sam" teases "Ellie," calls him a sap and a square, and generally they both pass the time. Samantha is a flirt who gets poor Ellison to buy her things. As he leaves to purchase gum, he passes the barker, asks him what he's up to, and the con begins. In what McEntire describes as "a heart-warming exploration of expectations and the potentialities of the unmapped future tied up in ... an encounter between two young adolescents in small town America, Raspberry Fizz reminds us of an innocence we'll never see again.

All three actors used their talents to take the audience to that more innocent time -- when dreams were made on the steps of a stoop instead of playing the lottery or getting on a reality TV show. Your future or fortunes could change for just a nickel.

Shane Beeson played the barker with the friendly yet smarmy personality a good con artist needs. Both older than their characters, Natalie Young and Jeff Swearingen played that bygone era's youth with sincerity. Not trying to fake younger, they instead relied on the emotions of great potential all Americans felt coming out of World War II. Young was all smart-alecky, gum chewing, and kidding around as Sam. Swearingen made use of his natural clown/comic facial and body gestures to portray put upon Ellison as a true sad sack.

A thoughtful conception piece, a fun trip down a memory lane I traveled a bit of, and a sweet slice-of-life, coming-of-age play made Raspberry Fizz a tiny wonderment.

original post here.

Honeymoon in Caribbean

Ruth and I just took a much-needed vacation on Norwegian Cruise Line's "Norwegian Spirit" dashing around the western Caribbean. Great adventures and very relaxing.

Swimming with dolphins in Cozumel

After taking in a show on board the Norwegian Spirit

At the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben outside Costa Maya, Mexico

Cozumel, Mexico

Roatan Island, Honduras