Response From a Local Community Member to "Toward a Gonzo Theatre..." Unedited

This local theatre community member graciously permitted me to share her response to my opinion piece under protection of anonymity. The following is her response unedited. Thanks to her for participating in the discussion. 

Shit Zac.  So much to unpack here.  I will say, on the mobile app, that the blog only started with Part 6.  I wasn’t until I got to a computer that I was able to read Parts 1-5.  Which is crucial to understanding Parts 6-12.

Ok, I’m biting.  Part 1 talks about an issue that really grinds my gears:  the virtue signaling of woke, wight, privileged folks, who, in their desire for wokeness, actually forget to call in and ask the BIPOC folks what they actually want and need.  I don’t get to tell black people what they need.  What I get to do is ask them.  And if that makes someone uncomfortable, so be it.  In Part 2, where you talk about substantive justice……makes sense, but impact is always greater than intent.  Whether it should be that way makes no difference to the fact that it is.  BUT, I’ve come to learn over decades of therapy and 12 step programs that if I am going to be OK with my feelings on a situation, I have to realize that another person’s actions probably have nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.  I am not the end-all be-all.  It actually isn’t all about me.  “The theatre must challenge everything in its view in order to function at all. It’s not smooth……It’s not comfortable. It’s not safe for the ego. It’s not a place for the faint of heart, nor for anyone who would want to set systems in stone. The theatre is a place of openings. It’s a living organism.”  Ah, and if it were not a living organism, we’d call it a Boomer and set it on a shelf.  “Without the right to fuck up, theatre makers would never make any kind of decent work.”  Isn’t this true of us all?

Part 3, The Rehearsal Room.  Where feelings get hurt.  Or as you say, where these conversations must be unavoidable.  Dude, I fuck up a lot.  I say the wrong thing.  A lot.  And I rely on my friends to call me out when I do so.  And they rely on me to say “sorry” and change my behavior.  Because that’s all we’re trying to do.  Well, some of us.  To get better and to learn.  But there has got to be space for grace and for nuance.  Otherwise this whole shit and shebang is pointless.

Part 4.  Now you’re making me uncomfortable, buddy.  Because I don’t want to look at myself.  It hurts, it’s messy, it’s ugly, and most of all, because I don’t know who I am without my trauma to define me.  So…..what if there’s no one on the other side?  But therein lies the problem.  What if there is?  I have to have the courage to walk through that.  You talked about abusers controlling, through me putting them in that situation……this is a lesson I started to unpack at 34.  I went for 34 years, making every decision in life based on the opposite of what I thought my mother would do.  Except guess what? That meant that I was still putting her in that position of power to dictate how I lived my life. There’s that stupid-ass meme going around, something alone the lines of ‘a drug addict has two sons, one never used drugs because of his father, and one became an addict because of his father’.  I forget what the shitty punchline is supposed to be.  But that’s my point:  when my abuser quits abusing me, either actively or subconsciously because of the role that I give them in my head, and I base my life’s decisions on that relationship, said abuser is still in control.  I mean, what if I just learned how to make my own decisions?  But that doesn’t come until I start unpacking this shit.

But let’s do talk about the issue of safety.  We do all deserve to feel safe, most especially physically, but the reality is, it’s not going to always happen emotionally.  Shit happens, people are people, and we get triggered.  I’m not responsible for my own first thought, but I am responsible for my next action.  I sometimes get super triggered, not even knowing why I am triggered, react badly, and am shitty to those that I love.  But it’s still not that person’s fault for triggering some part of my trauma that A) they did not know about and 2) to be honest….I didn’t really know about either.  Trauma is a tricky thing when there are years and decades to work through.  I’ve noticed during Covid, that weird things are triggering me…..things that I had no idea were there.  And if I don’t know that they’re there, those around me damn sure don’t.  I mean, I was recently triggered for being asked to wear a headlamp.  No seriously, this is real.  And I completely lost my shit.  Except, how could anyone have known that that was a trigger?  Most don’t know that I am a recovered addict who used to be domestic violenced based on the amount of lights in my house after dark (this is a real thing, paranoia is a mother f87ker).  In any case, my reaction and how I treated the other person afterwards was my own.  I was at fault.  And now I have to do something about it.  Lest we have more PSPSs and I need a headlamp 🥴.  “And don’t take it personally.”  “Being honest with yourself is the act of accepting what is the reality of a situation or the world or an issue, and releasing your attachment to how you think it should have gone.”

“Your trauma is just that: Yours. You have made the choice (not the same thing as a decision. A decision is a move against, whereas a choice is a direct action toward) to carry that trauma through your life. It sits there, in the cue, waiting for triggers to flare it up so that you can continue your story of oppression; a story that you are somehow less capable, less valuable, less viable as a human being in this life than others. A story that you need a parent, some outside force, to discipline the world who is bullying you because you are incapable of defending yourself.”

I don’t like this Zac.  Not one damn bit.  I have an ACES score of 10.  Always wanted to be a winner, never meant for it to be winning at trauma.  But no matter how much I don’t like it, it’s invariably true.  Like I said earlier, I didn’t know who I was without my trauma.  And I did use it for years to continue that same sad story of oppression.  But shit, I grew tired of continually victimizing myself, either directly, or by choosing to have the same sorts of people in my life.  If I am always a victim of my trauma or my abusers, then I am never empowered to do something about it.  I can’t change them.  But I can change me.  And that is powerful.  “Your traumatizers have forgotten about you long ago. What they did to you doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to you.”---cannot stress enough how much I love this line.  This one too---"You can’t have it both ways: you can’t be a victim and control how your victimizers abuse you.”

On Louis CK---I remember that post.  It wasn’t triggering to me at the time because I had no idea what the controversy was.  Even this morning, I had forgotten.  But after reading your essay, I went back and read the Vox article on it.  And he’s a bad guy, Zac.  He’s a real bad guy.  Not for having a kink or a fetish (who doesn’t?!) but for the power he wielded over those women with whom he had a professional relationship.  A very similar thing just happened to me.  Eight weeks ago.  And it has been pure hell.  But even having had a very similar thing just happen to me…..I’m not going to run around and cancel every single artist in the world.  Because a good portion of them are garbage.  As are humans.  But if I cancel all artists who are garbage……then we have no art.  And that just won’t do.  I give zero f87ks that you think Louis CK is a great comedian.  I am sure that he is.  He is also a garbage human.  Neither of those exist in a vacuum.  He can be both.

Ok I am done.  Well, almost.  I see comments saying that your piece comes off as aggressive…..I don’t see that at all Zac.  It sounds like a sincere cry for help for a community that you love, that you see eating itself alive.  This community claims to be inclusive, but I can promise you that I haven’t ever felt included.  I was never the right “enough” of whatever that super-special-theatre-unicorn-sprinkling shit is supposed to be.  I know that other fellow cast mates feel the same---felt ostracized for not fitting into a group that feels the need to define who gets to be in the group, therefore the opposite of inclusion.  I see other posts in that group from people who want to scream from the rooftops “USE THE RIGHT WORDS!” But continue to shit on marginalized groups….with their words.  It’s frustrating, and it’s disheartening.  I commend you for at least trying Zac.  You gave it the old college try.  And for me, that is enough.

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Conclusion

 Conclusion

I’m wracking my brain to see if I’ve covered everything. Well, hell. If I missed anything I’ll just add it in later and republish it. This is a living document anyway. 

I’ve really talked a lot here, haven’t I? Here I was, just blabbing away and I didn’t get a chance to hear your point of view. Sorry about that. I’ll try to listen better the next time we jaw.  

We’ve covered the dangers of Newspeakianism (George Orwell), Rhetorical vs. Substantive Justice, the Rehearsal Room, a whole lot of psychology, taking radical responsibility for our mental health, honesty, curiosity, work ethic, not taking things personally, bullying, generational differences in the woke movement. We had a hard talk about trauma, and I hope you weren’t offended by my take on that. I don’t like it when people are mad at me. It’s silly of me to care, but I do. We had a little history lesson on the generations, a couple of anecdotes from my own experience. We talked about how a regenerative theatre must go Gonzo. That about cover it?

Oh! I told you your show sucked. How rude. I didn’t even see your show. How would I know?

Let’s see… I gave some ideas that I have floating around in my head for ways to move us into the future. I’m sure you have a bunch of your own and you’re screaming in your head, “Why didn’t he include that obvious thing that I’ve been thinking about for years!?” Well, email me and I’ll write about it. Or you go write on it, how about that? If you tell me where it is, I'll read it.

Boiled down, we have a steep hill to climb, and like Sysephus, as soon as we get to the top something will roll our boulder back down. That’s just the way of life on this planet. We can get depressed about it and quit. Or we can say, “I don’t do this for anyone else to approve of. I want to do it, and so I will.” And that’s enough. There are no wrong choices in this life. Only choices that make us less or more comfortable, increase or decrease our enjoyment of our extremely limited time on this earth, are more or less efficient by some arbitrary standard, etc… Who cares? Just do what you like and try not to get in other peoples’ ways. Try not to be a dick. Oh, you’ll be a dick. I promise you’ll be a dick. But notice when you’re a dick and say sorry. This is what “Do Better” should mean. Just do your best. 

Don’t put up with bullshit. But don’t let other people’s bullshit derail you. It’ll be your fault if you do. Don’t say yes when the answer is no. Free yourself from rules. Blaze your own trail and fuck the haters, of which there will be plenty, my friend. Especially when they see you’re on your own path, not following the rules they thought were set in stone. They’ll come out of the woodwork to hate on you for your strength of character. You don’t have to engage in that hate, but you can facilitate their freeing themselves by listening and being curious. Ironic, isn't it? Haha. 

I hope I didn’t paint too dark a picture. There is real hope for some breathtaking theatre coming out of this difficult last century. We’re the ones who’ll make it. We’d better get after it. Time’s a wastin’.

Zack Preston Rouse

June 21st, 2021

Eureka, CA

ziggidyone@gmail.com

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 11 - Ideas for a Regenerative Practice

 Ideas for a Regenerative Practice

All what’s behind us in this essay are the description of our problem areas, and a couple ideas for solutions to them. That said, I will outline some ideas for how a regenerative theatre might look in practice. None of this is meant to create an industry jargon or a dogma that people can worship. We need another religion like we need another ice age. NOT AT ALL. Some of these things will come as second-nature. Use what you will and enjoy the journey.

A Note on Hierarchy

Sometimes it is necessary for a production’s success or the success of a company to maintain a Producer/Director hierarchy. I suggest that even in a hierarchical structure, you put in place the understanding that a Director or a Producer plays a specific role in the ensemble and that role serves the production and the group. No role is better than another, and no one should be motivated to take a position in order to accumulate power or accolades. If anyone attempts to use these positions for that purpose, or defaults to that modality by force of habit, this becomes an unavoidable conversation that might very well lead to a change in the position to someone who is perhaps a little more intimately in touch with their virtuous attributes. In any case, it’s a great opportunity for dialogue and growth within the group. 

A worker-owned cooperative model is highly suggested when putting a company together. Thus, if a particular production is deemed to need a hierarchy, the Director answers directly to the members of the cooperative, keeping their role cemented as subservient to the group’s needs. 

All the members of the cooperative have an equal say in the choice-making process, and all major actions are taken by a simple majority vote (democracy). These organizations can be set up in any manner of ways, usually have a board of directors who oversee the grand plan of the company, and people naturally fall into leadership positions as their personalities dictate. Note that a worker-owned cooperative doesn’t stop corruption or a charismatic leader from accumulating social power, as mentioned above. All organizational types are social by definition and therefore are subject to any of the entrapments of a society, including power grabs, corruption, lingoism or jargonism, sycophantism, and celebrity-style worship. In a worker-owned model, as in every other model, each member must be diligent in the protection of their own self as equal stakeholder in the company, and like all social structures, the group will (whether by nature or policy) set the social rules to keep order for the betterment of the group over the comfort of the individual. 

Some Ideas To Chew on

Look at your rehearsal room as a sacred, spiritual space. Theatre is a parallel art to religion. It requires ritual. It’s free of dogma when done right. Spiritualism is an element of our nature. Dogma/religion is a set of rules designed to control people. A regenerative theatre discards the concept of genius and stupidity, and naturally regards everyone as having unique talents that contribute perfectly to the whole experience of humanity and its cultural endeavors. 

Set the room up so that it is warm, inviting, and comfortable. Often we have to rehearse in the back room of an old defunct school where the floor tiles are cold, the lighting is institutional, the chairs uncomfortable, and it smells like a ditto machine and rotten milk. Let’s work to make our rehearsal rooms more like yoga studios. Let’s put carpet down, bring in some warm lamps, pillows and fabric, make it feel more like a living room than a surgery theater. Let’s make it a sensual place to hang out for hours and hours and work out the problems of a script and our personalities.

Build camaraderie. Bring food and drinks for your people. Set up regular potlucks for cast and crew. Go out together. Go camping if you can. You’re building a family. Period. It’s either going to be a functional family, or a dysfunctional one. Do your damndest to make it a functional one. That’s your greatest chance to make a great show. 

Set the tone for honesty. Demand at the outset that people be honest about how they’re feeling. The last thing you want is someone saying yes when they really mean no. If you sense that someone is doing that, ask them if they want to discuss it publicly or in private. Do what they need and listen. Don’t try to lead. Just shut the fuck up for a second and listen to someone outside yourself. You’ll learn something new, I promise. 

Ban phones in the rehearsal room. Get people focused on the project, which is more interesting and fun than some app or game anyway. 

Every production has an Eeyore and/or a Karen. Nip those in the bud right away. They’ll take your whole enterprise and throw it in the gutter, all with a wry grin on their face. This can be a tough one. Your job as a leader or an ensemble is to hold the space for everyone, not just a couple of squeaky wheels. Have a counseling session where you listen well and give sympathy. Ask them what they need. Then make it crystal clear what the collective expectations are. If it seems like they’re going to be a problem, ask them clearly if they’re going to be able to meet them. If they give a vague answer or a no, they’re gone. Nicely, but they’re out. No time for that nonsense. That’s them trying to make you a part of their trauma game. Don’t play it for one second or you could lose your whole production, and it won’t be their fault, as they’re unable to see their own behavior. 

Prioritize the conversations that need to be had. Some conversations are more important than others. Your job is to choose which ones to see to fully, which ones require a little attention, and which ones are a waste of everyone’s time. You’ll know right away whether an issue could unravel the production. Deal with that fire first. Get everyone lovingly on the same page. Everyone doesn’t have to agree with each other! It’s okay for people to get offended as long as they don’t use that to be offended by a whole person (in other words to write someone off entirely for a disagreement) or to derail their mental health. 

Again, in the making of a regenerative theatre, we can’t allow for trauma to dictate our work. We’ll never get anything done. Make sure that those who are traumatized feel listened to, but make it clear that their trauma is theirs to deal with and they can do that on their own time, or leave the production to deal with it. The therapy of the theatre is in the assembly of a healthy community to do a great show. That’s it. Anyone who can’t participate in that must go. 

Conflict resolution can be hard if everyone is working with their own system and/or at cross purposes. Make sure the group has a protocol, however loose or tight, that effectively addresses interpersonal conflict. And not by avoiding it or glancing at it and then moving on. People are not going to get along all the time. That’s the nature of humanity. Some people are going to plainly dislike each other. Rarely, it can come to blows. Resist at all costs the urge to undercut, cannive, backstab, build a case, build a clique, use exclusionary tactics, or reduce relationships to good and evil. Save it for the stage. Leave personality differences in the dust and work on the logistical and psychological problems of the piece. Find that common “enemy” in the challenge at-hand and you’ll build a partnership to defeat it that will supersede your personality differences. 

The act of creating theatre is a sacred responsibility. Do your best to be good, and don’t require others to parent you. You’re a grown-ass person. Be your own parent so that others don’t have to parent you, and so that you can be an example to those who are learning that lesson after you.

Emphasize curiosity. There is a remarkable lack of curiosity in our society today. Have you noticed it? Because of the fact that we are being constantly barraged with information, most of it crap, there is a natural tendency to shut down the curiosity function. A regenerative theatre practice requires a robust curiosity from its participants. There are so many ideas that have yet to be discovered. There are so many relationship dynamics that have yet to be invented. There are so many new styles, genres, archetypes and storylines that are waiting in the ethers to be pulled down. And who else is going to do it? We are the ones! Find ways to encourage curiosity in your ensemble, and institutionalize its practice so that it becomes second-nature again. 

There was a time when humans didn’t know what was around the bend. We need to get back to that place in order to make great theatre again, and as well in order to survive the coming mega-crises that threaten the planet and our species. 

Collaborate with artists of all media. If you have the idea strike you that a painting would go great in the piece, find an artist to collaborate with. Same with music! There’s a powerful genre of theatre called New Music Theatre, wherein music plays an elemental role in the movement of a story narrative. It’s not the same as a musical, in which a song stops the action in order to make itself known, or that a plot is haphazardly weaved around established songs. Musicals are wonderful for what they are and we love them, of course. New Music Theatre is a genre that seamlessly weaves story and music together. Find musicians to collaborate with from the beginning to make an amazing piece of theatre. Execute collaborations that make a new genre happen. Build something that you yourself can’t pigeon-hole with a label. 

Do plays in the forest. 

Do plays in a house.

Do plays in a restaurant at dinner time. 

Do plays in a bar. 

Do plays at a park.

Do plays in the dark. 

Do plays with green eggs and ham in your mouth. I digress.

Figure out your marketing strategy. One of the most critical elements of a regenerative model for theatre makers is getting butts in seats. This is more complicated than it might seem. You must find out from your roommates, your relatives, your coworkers, questionnaires, woman on the street interviews, etc… what would people leave their couch to watch in a room full of strangers post-COVID. People go to see some all-CGI Star Wars movie (again, know when you’re the product) that took three months to make. What do people want to watch? Is Forum Theatre successful in your area? Improv? Free sandwiches? Are you in a college town? A retirement community? What are the demographics of your community and how can you leverage them to maximize interest in your material? Advertise. You can’t survive without people knowing what you’re doing, learning that they’re interested in it, and how they can get into it. Advertise. Advertise. Find free publicity wherever possible. 

And try like hell to stop relying on grants. Again, this is back to taking responsibility for yourself and your work and your worth. If we are reliant on outside sources of sustenance that don’t directly relate to the work we are creating, we are doomed to fail. Make work that your community wants to participate in, and watch your community support and grow you. Ask questions that will make your community think. Support your community in a whole, adult way rather than as a beggar on the corner, and you’ll see better results. The sad-sack narrative for small theatre companies has never worked.

Get away from a scavenger mentality with your organization. Be proactive, be industrious. Find sources of money and materials that are earned and not gifted. Our society is built on rugged individualism. Become a rugged organization that makes its successes out of producing work and services that people in the community are willing to pay for, with whatever “money” the community uses. 

Moving past capitalism should be the goal for all of us at this point, and that’s fantastic. If we want to move past a monied paradigm, we’ll need to think about how people can pay us to do the work we do for them in the theatre. Is it food? Drink? Do we get paid in toiletries? Space and time in a building? For many of us who make theatre, we have another source of income which allows us a little bit of time to do theatre for free. If we want to create full-time employment in the theatre, other solutions have to be found. Again, go into the community and ask the community what it wants from you. Decide if you are willing or able to provide that to your community. If you’re not, you have your answer. If you are, enlist those community members who support your efforts to help you get butts in seats. 

Consider rehearsing a show until it’s ready before marketing it to the public. Too often in our fast-paced society, we are prone to setting deadlines and opening dates, and conforming our project to those timelines. But how often is a show ready for its opening date? Never? Ten percent of the time? Consider rehearsing a show until it’s at its peak of effectiveness and quality. Then, choose a run schedule, do the marketing, book the venue, sell the tickets and run the thing. 

I’ll be honest with you: most theatre sucks. That’s partly why people don’t go to it. Oh, I know you’re attached to this role or that relationship or that theatre you worked in. It has a sentimental value to you, so you feel like it was a good show. Nope. It sucked. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Your show blew. You want to know why? Because you didn’t spend enough time on it, the people involved weren’t skilled enough, the budget suffered, you couldn’t find the cast it needed… It takes months to put a show together. Just a show. Not a good one. Just any show. Months. Look at the next project you want to tackle, and then envision spending 5 months working on it. Now, envision spending ten months or a year developing it. Double your time investment and the quality level will improve vastly. 

Have talkbacks at every performance. Even if it’s Mama Mia. Your audience wants to hear from the people who worked so hard to put together the thing they just experienced. It involves the community in the event. It creates buy-in for your main support structure: your community. And if the show tackled any issues of substance, you get the invaluable opportunity to engage in a live, open dialogue around the issue. 

Stop doing the same tired shit. You think that Much Ado will pull people in because it’s known. I will submit to you that the reason your theater is half full is that you’re doing the same tired shit. Make new work. Take the time to invent new stories that threaten the mainstream cultural narratives. It should be entertaining, of course. Take the time to make a show. I’m not oversimplifying, here. Take the time that it takes to make a show where there was none before. Maybe do ONE cover in your season. It’ll sell out, right? Maybe. Make new work. Do playwriting contests and ask for submissions. Develop work with a troupe of actor/creators who have an imagination and who are curious. Stop paying royalties to Samuel French in order to do theatre. Make new work.

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 10 - Where To Now?

 Where To Now?

The BIPOC community has always known that the American Dream represented a false promise for them. It was never built for them in the first place. Policing itself was invented to stop black people from attaining equal status in society, and it still serves this function today. It has taken us ghosties a couple hundred years to start feeling the same pain that our more pigmented sisters and brothers have always been navigating, and it took the state failing to do it. In other words, we’re all in the same boat now. Now that the economy has finally failed for white people, these issues of race inequality, non-binary performers’ rights, inclusive casting principles, selection of material that expands beyond Neil Simon, a voice for the marginalized in leadership… all these issues are now front and center because white people are on the same page. Our eyes are open.

Here’s the rub: White people are of mixed race too. None of us is white. None of us is black. We’re all just people with complicated genetic paths that made us, and we make it more complicated with every generation that slides down the tube. (What are you?) So, truly, moving past color is going to be the ultimate success for us all. Evolution takes time, and we’re working on it. I’d like to caution again against the sinner narrative. All it will accomplish is more division.

So: What are we going to do about it? Are we going to yell at each other over some platform that relishes in our cultural demise? Or are we going to walk the walk, finally? 

My advice to all of us, is this. Focus on listening more. Try to prove yourself less (you’re already valid. You’re in the room. Your insecurities aren’t helpful). Take notes and feedback with an open ear and a grain of salt. Take nothing personally. Take control of your mental health. Don’t let others control your mood. Fight for substantive justice. Learn to ask questions that will help you find out what people’s intent is. Find a reason to be curious. Refrain from buying into a punishment ethos. Look for common ground. Stop engaging in social media witch hunts. Be aware when you’re the product. And adhere to the Golden Rule, as my Grandfather, the Prespyterian minister Harry Preston Walrond taught us: 

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Then do it! Actually do that that’s in that sentence you just read. Just do that and things will be at least a little better for us all.

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 9 - A Little Story

 A LIttle Story:

My father (a Baby Boomer) is a distinguished and extremely well-regarded (retired) investigative journalist. I’ll refrain from outing him by name. He worked at a number of newspapers around the country during his career. He broke some huge stories and his focus was always on protecting those who could not protect themselves. One of the stories he broke in the 1980’s was how asbestos in insulation was making people get lung cancer when it broke loose of plumbing pipes or as it aged out in walls. He broke the story of cigarette manufacturers who used asbestos in their filters, killing hundreds if not thousands of their factory workers who made these cigarettes in the fifties and sixties. He broke the story of ATV safety and how the major ATV manufacturers are largely immune to safety regulations that car manufacturers are required to adhere to, thereby allowing them to build vehicles that were top-heavy and would roll over and cut your arm off.

Enough said, right? He is in many ways a juggernaut force for good in making people safer and better taken care of by our society. 

Well, when my dad retired from newspaper work, he wasn’t ready to call it quits. He’s a bulldog and needs to be helping as long as he’s able. He started a news site that engaged in original reporting around consumer affairs. He operated this tiny outfit with the help of a few younger, engaging journalists who were passionate about the mission of protecting the public from corporate malfeasance. It was a struggle from day one. In the media landscape of infotainment, fake news and the death of the newspaper, finding money to run a news operation of 500k a year or something was incredibly difficult. But guess what? He did it anyway. He went to everyone he knew with a little money and got them to contribute to the cause. And it worked. Well, fast forward to nearly ten years later, and he’s ready to retire. His organization has a set mission of consumer affairs reporting, which intertwines but doesn’t focus directly on issues regarding equity for marginalized people. He interviews a younger reporter for an editing job. After not being offered the position, this younger reporter posts to his 30k followers on Twitter that this man, who has worked tirelessly over forty years to protect those who need protection from big business, is racist and non-inclusive in his organization for not agreeing to change the organization’s mission statement to suit this privileged, white, bitter tweetstar.

POOF. Whole enterprise gone in a tweet. Now, think about this for a second, and if you really want to know the details you can probably find the information without me giving it away. Does this seem right to you? At whatever age or generation you are. Does this seem like the right and proper way to go about changing our society? To throw an ally under the bus to virtue signal your fan base? End of Story

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 8 - A Word to Our Younger Generations

 A Word to Our Younger Generations

A Context

When I talk about the “younger generations”, I’m referring to Millennials, Gen Z and all the subsequent lemmings who fall in love with a life in the theatre. I’m from Generation X, which is largely ignored these days, or called “Boomer”. Boomers are actually our parents’ generation. They’re the generation who were the children of the “Greatest Generation”, of the Great Depression era just post-WWII. When the soldiers came home from World War Two in the late 1940’s, they missed their wives somethin’ fierce. And from that reunification came a whole lot of babies. That’s why it’s called the Baby Boom. That is my parents’ generation. Thus, I’m Gen X. Some of you will already know this, but a lot of people don’t have a context for where the generations came from in time, and it's an important context to have. 

When I was a kid in the late ‘70’s into the ‘80’s, we were just past the Vietnam War era. TV shows were Taxi, Barney Miller, Mash, All in the Family… shows that tackled hard issues of family, sexism, racism, and more. These shows largely focused on domestic issues and left world politics to the politicians (with the notable exception of Mash). But they were great about how they discussed these issues. They were honest, direct, and they didn’t pretend to know all the answers. They asked questions of their audiences that were difficult and with a bent toward progress. This was the TV of that day. I highly suggest getting on some nostalgia tv network and watching Barney Miller and Taxi. It will blow your mind what these shows were tackling with such alacrity (brisk and cheery enthusiasm). 

Because cable TV was in its infancy during my childhood, I got the best of all worlds. I got to see the shows of my youth at the time they were airing: A-Team, Knight Rider, McGiver, Magnum PI, Family Ties, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Three’s Company, etc... and all the shows that came before me, in the first rounds of reruns. The shows of my youth were already veering away from substantive justice toward straight entertainment products. Some were still looking at issues of family health, but now they began to take on a kind of fluffiness that would protect all sponsors equally. It wasn’t as bad as it is now, but as the Ronald Reagan years took hold, a distinct change in our cultural willingness to look at ourselves was pivoting us away from self-awareness and toward a culture of consumption. Needless to say, this hurt our arts communities deeply. This is when advertising truly took over our airwaves and we as audience members became the product. The shows were now simply vehicles to deliver us to the companies selling laundry soap. 

For a little more mind-blowing context, I didn’t have my first cell phone until after I was out of college. When I was in college in the 1990’s there was no internet. My junior year I was given an “email” address for the intranet which was the university web server. It ended in .exe.

The younger generations have been born and raised with this consumption culture from day one. I can see that it would be very challenging for them to know what to talk about when it’s time to activate and make change. You work with what you know, and the incredibly important progress of the MeToo, LGBTQ+ and BLM movements has created a momentum for our younger generations to grab onto. I love this so much. At the same time, there is a lack of nuts-and-bolts awareness of things past, movements that came before, the reasons for these movements, and how effective change can be made without reinventing the wheel. And so we who identify as liberal or progressive are stuck in the Rhetorical Justice model that I outlined above. It may be hard to wrap our minds around getting away from a lexical dogma as the way to institute change, but it’s really important that we learn the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. 

I notice a lot of Gen X’ers like myself, and Boomers, talking trash about our young people these days. I’ve been guilty of it, too. I admit that. I’ve seen a lot of what I refer to as a lack of interest in hard work. It’s called “work ethic”, and I’ve bitched about Millennials and Gen Z’ers having none of it. I’ve noticed a willingness to bail on booked commitments, and a seeming lack of concern for the wasting of other people’s time or money. 

But I think I get it, too. I think our younger citizens are seeing our society implode and they understand something that we don’t yet: The US is on its way out. Why waste 40 hours a week for a crappy wage at a stuntingly dull occupation? They’d rather live at home until 30, start a tik tok empire, or couch surf than kill their soul in an office with a half-hour lunch break. (I feel the same way, and always have. I became a Realtor as my backup occupation and it works great for me because I don’t have office hours or a desk I’m mandated to sit at for constant hours.)

When my parents’ generation was out in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they knew that when they were done with that exercise in what we’ve now jadedly come to realize as a futile one, there would be a steady, 9-5 job waiting for them back home. They could be anything: an accountant, an engineer, an artist, a teacher… When I came of age in the early 1990’s, that possibility had all but dried up. I saw, sarcastically, the opportunity to work somewhere twenty years just to be laid off or fired right before I could collect benefits. It was already a different landscape. 

Imagine how seniors must be feeling right now about all of this wokeness. It must be hard to have been raised in a world where if you had a job, you could have a car and a house (if you were white). It must be hard to have a certain way of talking about things, and all of a sudden you’re told you are wrong, that’s the wrong word or the wrong way to think. It must be very difficult to be an ally of marginalized communities, having been on the streets with your brothers and sisters protesting the most evil war in the history of our country (as of then), or in the civil rights struggles of the late sixties, only to have the younger generations tell you that you’re the problem; that you need to instantly fix all of the cultural problems that exist in our society. That your age, your color, your economic status are all proof that you are endemically a sinner in need of repent (Wait a minute! Am I in church again?). That you need to shut up and take the firehose of complaints from everyone who has ever been wronged in our society, and commit social hara kiri this instant.

That’s what our current cultural landscape looks like to the older generations. We need more listening and compassion across the board.

Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 7 - Social Media

 Facebook and The Rest

Get the fuck off of it. 

It’s entirely unproductive. That platform should have become a central online meeting place for people to gather and share in-depth conversations about issues that are near and dear, invite people to your house for parties, share wedding photos and support people who are in need. Instead it’s the Jerry Springer of the internet. Here’s the slugline: Your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is coming for you. Right here, right now, in front of everyone. And she’s looking for blood, “bike racks three o’clock” style. You’re about to lose some hair, bitch.

Seriously: social media is a place for people who are afraid of real life, are socially awkward, loathe actual interaction, and want to lash out at phantoms, continuing their trauma cycles. Not that everyone on there is this way; it’s just that those people own the public discourse with their bullshit. Don’t play that game. 

I’ll relay a little story to you about the trigger event that caused me to abandon that platform. 

I’m a Louis CK fan. There. I said it. Did that trigger you? That I said I’m a Louis CK fan? It’s my opinion. I maintain my right to have that opinion. 

Last year, I posted something on my facebook feed about Louis CK’s show, “Better Things”, a series that he co-wrote and produced with his friend and colleague Rebecca Adlon. She’s incredibly talented and was also in the “Louis” show as a woman that Louis is infatuated with and who won’t give him the time of day. “Better Things” is a show about a working actor (Adlon) who is also a single mother, living in LA and trying to work in the Hollywood industry while raising her three precocious, woke teenagers. The show is excellent. I highly recommend you watch it. 

Okay, that’s the background. Now, against the backdrop of the cancellation of Louis CK for masturbating in front of young comediennes who later took umbrage, and for masturbating on the other side of the phone on a business call (highly inappropriate activities but not rape and not illegal), I posted this to my facebook page:

“Fuck the Haters. Louis CK is great, and Better Things is a feminist show.”

I own that. That’s what I said. It was late at night, I’d had a few glasses of wine, and I’d been bingeing Better Things. I was jazzed on that show! And I wanted to open a dialogue about cancel culture. Boy, did I get what I asked for. 

Now, there’s a couple of ways to look at this.

One way you could look at this statement is pretty uncontroversial: people are hating on LCK and this dude likes him. He has an opinion that the comedian is a good one, and that the show he made has a feminist bent. Dude is stating his opinion on his own page on facebook. A conversation can ensue with anyone who wants to about the quality of the man’s work, whether the show actually is feministic in its bent, and if you want to get into the weeds, whether we as a society should/can choose to separate a person from their work. All kinds of weird people do great work in their field. Pete Rose comes to mind. Myriad jazz giants. Pablo Picaso. This list is a mile long. 

A second way to look at it goes something like this: Wow, what an asshole. This guy is kicking the people who LCK abused while they’re down. He’s supporting a member of the white elite ruling class who act with impunity. He’s supporting white patriarchy and believes rape and sex trafficking are okay. 

And the third: You triggered me! I’ve been abused and you are abusing me now too. You are the devil. 

Those, as far as I can tell, are the three ways you could interpret what I posted. Bear in mind that I’m not defending my choice of wording. It was controversial, there is no doubt. I said Fuck the Haters. If I was to post it now, I might word it differently. But I didn’t. I said what I said and that’s that. 

The Screaming Woke of facebook chose a hybrid between the second and third interpretations. Note that in our current cultural climate, intent is decided by the interpreter, who has zero curiosity about the author or his actual intent. This is the Consequential model for justice, which Jordan Peterson talks about. No questions are asked for clarification of said intent. No interest in understanding why the commentator likes this publicly masturbating comedic giant or his show about professional women’s issues. People came out of the woodwork to attempt to assassinate my character. My “commitment to Sparkle Motion” was questioned (Donny Darko film reference). I was called before a tribunal of local theatre community leaders to discuss whether I should be stricken from participating in leadership activities henceforth. I was likened to the comedian himself for saying that I like him publicly. I was now a rapist sympathizer, which might as well make me a rapist myself--despite the fact that the person in question isn’t even a rapist. 

This isn’t at all a “woe is me” kind of story. I own what I wrote and I fully recognize that the wording was controversial. And I’m not telling you this story to somehow vindicate myself. If you thought I was an asshole then, you still think I’m an asshole now. 

Here’s the takeaway: The content of my post was completely ignored, and my words were used by a handful of rabid anti socialites to force a popular narrative forward that I didn’t conform to. That’s a perfect example of Newspeakianism in action. Brow-beat people who don’t fall in line until they go silent or conform. That’s fascism. 

You’ve had something very similar happen to you, I’m certain of it. Everyone has put something on that platform that some swarm of piranha ate you alive for and it’s into the history of that website; it’s on display for everyone to see forever. You can never redeem yourself from it. All that can happen now is some fresh meat will show up and your faux pas will be forgotten in the frantic effort to obliterate someone else’s social standing. And so it goes: we move from bike rack to bike rack, just like Jerry Springer. 

Now. To The actual meaning of my words: People are railing against LCK and lumping him into the same category as Jeffrey Epstein (a convicted child sex trafficker and pedophile), Harvey Weinstein (a convicted rapist) and Kevin Spacey (a child rapist). LCK is none of those things. He’s a weirdo. He masturbates in front of people. That’s a fetish. He is a famous comedian, arguably the Michael Jordan of comedy. He has access to mates everywhere he goes. It’s not like it’s hard for him to find a woman to sleep with. Yet he chooses to do this weird activity instead. It’s his kink. That ain’t rape. It’s not child sex trafficking. And it’s not illegal. It’s just weird, and maybe, it could be interpreted as an abuse of power, and only by those involved. Secondly, he made a show with a long-time collaborator who happens to be a strong female actor in Hollywood. Their show is feminist in its nature, and it’s really good. 

Agree or don’t. Argue with me about whether it is feminist, or if he’s a good comedian. Tell me you think what I said was crass and I should not have used the f bomb on the f page. But don’t use my words to advance your conform-or-die social bullying platform. You’ll always, every time, turn your allies into enemies engaging in that behavior. 

Social media is good for one thing and one thing only, in my estimation: publicity. Use it to post events that you are hosting from your professional page. That’s it. And try your hardest not to get swept up into some smackdown. Go to rehearsal instead.