Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wednesday Night

A few weeks ago, I found a Meet-up Site for Folk Music and wanting something different than the increasingly stupid open mic night I was going to on Wednesday, I got excited about this place and the thought of doing an Irish music jam in a real pub. The first Wednesday was fun, and bunch of people showed and we played together and it was very disorganized. The organizer put up music for the next one the following Wednesday. It rained a bit and the organizer canceled it. Four of showed up anyway. The organizer disappeared- probably done in by pissed musicians. Anyway, so I encouraged everyone to try one more time and we get there to find that the space we were to use is being remodeled. I hadn't thought to call the pub. I assumed if they agreed, they agreed to host it. The manager said he had no where else for us to jam.
All of this wasn't helped by a very large headed blonde hostess told me immediately that we couldn't meet and that I should call Annie. (Who had disappeared.) I had also made plans to meet people for dinner there before jam. Two of the folk that were going to join us stood us up. The waitress wanted to move us to a smaller table, after we sat there for twenty minutes. The food was over priced for what we got. And after talking to the manager it was apparent that he had no plans to accommodate anything. So I went home.
This was our organizer- very cute. I think she didn't get what she wanted so she flaked. Or worse, she's handled by the Irish Mafia and its curtains. Had a nice voice...
I've just contacted a place about starting the group I had imagined. Let you know if it happens.


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Beginning Step

Daydee -the outline

Daydee, a forty year old hooker from New Orleans, clicking on her heels on arrival in Paris Illinois in her dated fashionable clothes, off the bus with luggage. Winston, a friendly guy in his seventies who was her mother’s friend, was supposed to meet her, but isn’t there.  She tries to find directions to the apartment building she has inherited. She checks her bags unto a locker and starts out to walk. Winston finds her walking through the downtown.  He takes her to the apartment.
Winston takes her to the local breakfast place in the morning and introduces her around. Preacher, who went to high school with Daydde, is there.  Winston takes her to cemetery to her mother’s fresh grave.  Winston knows The Preacher will run off to see the Lawyer, who was another classmate from the high school- big local football hero.
Winston shows her around the cemetery, takes her by the house and back to the apartment. He takes her to see the Accountant. And then back to the apartment, They rifle all of her mother’s things and find all the paper they can find. Daydee starts to make a list. Winston bows out to leave trying to convince her to leave it all with the accountant to sort out when she leaves. Then he realizes she is not leaving.
He goes to the Lawyer with the Preacher to tell him that she is not leaving.
She has a list of all the properties in the morning. She throws up. (She knows she’s pregnant- this is where the reader finds out.)
Winston takes her out to the farm and the little property with the oil well. She wonders about the farm that her great grandmother owned. They drive by- its being farmed. And the big house- it’s a medical doctor’s office.  Winston tells her what he knows. They go to the deserted house in town and break in because no one knows where the key is. There is evidence that people have been in the house.
Winston takes her with him to visit his Alzheimer wife in a nursing home.
She goes to see the lawyer –because he owns her great-grandmother’s farm now. Is told the story about the murder investigation – the lawyer represented her mother in the investigation of the murder of her father- in exchange for the land.
Winston lies to her about everything at this point.
She is awakened by a bomb thrown through her front window at midnight. Whore is written across the front of her apartment in red paint. 
There is a death for the cemetery in the morning. She must figure out what to do. The Preacher helps her with the opening and closing of the grave. She digs through the cemetery records and realizes the “big” problems.  She finds the removed gravestone that the widow couldn’t pay for.  The napkins of records. The burial vaults sold that don’t exist. She goes to The Accountant for help. It turns out he is not gay as she originally thought, but a TV and married. She trades her indulgence of his fantasies for accounting help. Winston accidently visits and discovers that she is all accepting and begins, later to try to confess all of his sins to her.
She finds her real father living in the bushes by the small property, totally deranged.
She tells Winston about this and it blows the dam. He had killed the man that was buried in Daydee’s father’s grave. Because her mother wanted it and he was her mother’s lover. We learn about the junkie stuff etc.
Daydee tries moving her father into the open shed at the back of the cemetery, but he disappears again. He will not enter a building, so he can’t be brought inside anywhere.
Preacher is opening and closing graves for her. She finds him trying to remove the shovel off of her backhoe and realizes he is trying to make her dependant on him.  She fires him.
In trying to practice with the back hoe, digging around on the back side of the cemetery, she digs up human skeletons. Finds artifact which implies that the dead person was Mexican.
She and Winston go to church where she meets the Preacher’s wife- who hates her on sight. Daydee’s told she doesn’t belong here. Winston is praying more and more, wants salvation for all of his bad deeds.
Lawyer and Preacher hassle him, try to scare him.
Daydee figures out that the Lawyer is using her deserted house for a way station for illegal farm workers coming down from Canada or going up to Canada.
Sheriff useless.  Denies that anything is going on in town. Pick-up truck from the cemetery has the tires slashed.
Lawyer tries buying out Daydee. Offering lots of money if she’ll go away. She refuses.
Lawyer tries to put Winston up to killing Daydee. He refuses- they fight.
Lawyer and Preacher are chasing Winston to kill him- he runs to Daydee and they run to the cemetery where there is a shotgun. In the shoot-out at the cemetery, Daydee learns the truth about why they have been out to get her.  (The three of them gang raped her in high school when Winston was Football Coach and Lawyer & Preacher were players- she was so stoned she has no memory of it. ) Her crazy father appears and distracts the lawyer or stops him and she kills the lawyer. The preacher runs away.
Sheriff called- wants to arrest Daydee since she shot the Lawyer. Winston confesses and is locked up instead.
Daydee’s water breaks at the end and goes to the little Paris clinic to have her baby- She finds her baby in the middle of the night.
 She and baby return to the church. The Preacher does sermon badly. His wife is confused. She confronts The Preacher and tells him he needs to give the sheriff the facts.  She leaves without telling anyone anything.
Something about the Preacher’s flock deserting him.
Winston confesses to everything. Tells the Sheriff all.
Daydee waiting with the baby at the bus station for the father of the child to arrive. He has been prison all this time.  He was an alcoholic, but has tried to reform.

 No Title yet, and these things never never ever turn out like they are imagined at the beginning.




Monday, March 28, 2011

Secret Blog #?4?

There's me in the back at my first Square Dance dance since High School. The other guy almost as big as me is a mathematician from RAND. The caller was doing silly stuff and we were sort of doing a conga line, if you can do a conga line in a square dance. Good exercise. The entire group is older than we are, so it makes you feel young. Or maybe I just think that they are older than we are. I'm still only 22.
Some of the stuff they teach us, requires good engineering skills to pull off.


Friday, March 25, 2011

Stupid Parent Tricks #2

One of the bears was doing AP Art in High School. I decided I needed to discuss "Significant Form" with her and made her cry. Took her out on the back deck at night and discussed how to capture the essence of things. It was really about my own problems I've had with my own ability to paint anything meaningful. I also kibitzed through on a piece of artwork she was working on and added my own twist to it. Never do any of this at home.


And one should probably not read books about the theory of art written by someone who is not an artist.
But what do I know- painting has always been very difficult for me. (I was born with an older brother who had more talent than I did, although he never did anything with it.) This was the bear with the natural eye for "Significant Form."

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The littlest biker

It's funny the way thing turn out. The one that I didn't ever get taught how to ride a bike, is the only one that does it as a grown thing. Hours and trips to different parks and practice and different approaches and none of it worked. And then one day, long after I gave up, she walks out and starts teaching herself how to ride the bike. I need to get her a bigger bike.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Actor's Studio

Well, I finally hooked up with the guy. Apparently, every Monday might, there is a staged, directed reading of members' plays before a group of writers and directors and you get feedback. And of course this is for very experienced writers with very experienced work and he dropped a couple of recognizable movie director names. I told him I was looking for a group of actors to work with. That I've already passed up a similar group in Santa Monica which was the same concept (thou on a much smaller scale) and the play has already been work-shopped with writers. Actually I did belong to a group that met over in the valley very similar to the concept but finally gave up because they were a bunch of idiots with nothing much to say of value about my stuff and you were expected to appear every week, if you wanted to see your stuff done once a month. At that rate, you might finish one project in 5 years. I told him I would pass.
Onward.

Submitting the play- round two

Sarah,

Thanks for your patience. I did about seven on-line submissions yesterday, thinking that I'd start with those first. I am still mulling over the ending and haven't written a synopsis as of yet. I really want to work in a cooperative setting with actors where the play could earn its molding and accents. I've been told by someone that has not read the play that I've written a play about a child molester. Should I decide I need to do a synopsis and submit it formally like so many theater companies seem to want, I may resubmit it to you. At this point it feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy-  I know what your readers reaction will be to the synopsis, so why bother?

The characters need to speak to the audience or the readers, no?

Thanks again

Dan McNay

On 3/23/2011 2:02 PM, The Blank Office Manager wrote:
Hi Dan,

I am sorry, but because we receive so many submissions each week, we request
that the submission package include those 3 items. We do not dismiss
anything because of a synopsis, rather, it helps our readers have an
understanding of the play since they are only reading 20 pages. 

Sarah A. Bauer
Office Manager
info@theblank.com 

The Blank Theatre Company
P.O. BOX 38756
Hollywood, CA 90038
(323) 871-8018 office
(323) 661-9827 ticket line
www.TheBlank.com

Submitting The Play

 
I was sending the play out yesterday to groups that would accept email submissions. There were quite a few that wanted what these folks want. I've been doing this crap with my novel for the last year without success and am beginning to think the process is warped and unkind to the author. This is the play that a friend has told me (without reading it, of course) that I have written a play about a child molester.  

The Actor's Studio West info says to call so and so to get information about submission guidelines. I leave a message. He calls me back and I miss him and he leaves me a message. Now we have connected twice and both times, he has told me he will call me back, but then doesn't do so when he says he will and calls me right after 12:00 when most folks go to lunch. I'll keep you posted on this one.

 
 
Dear Sarah,

I am reticent to provide a synopsis of the play because I think the subject matter will lend itself to a quick dismissal of the work. Please accept that there is a character list at the beginning of the play and if you decide after five-ten pages, you don't like it, so be it. If you don't want to review it in this fashion, please discard it and let me know. I am really interested in work-shopping this with actors at this point and can assist in production work with your theater since I'm a carpenter and a fine artist as well. The play is very strong.

Thanks

Dan McNay

On 3/23/2011 1:17 PM, The Blank Office Manager wrote:
Dear Dan,

Thank you for submitting your script to The Blank Theatre Company.

Due to the high volume of script submissions that we receive, we request
that you first send us a submission package with the following:

.    a one to two page synopsis of your play (story and themes)
.    a character breakdown list (including ages and gender)
.    twenty-page writing sample (representative/best ten pages of the
play and first ten pages)

Please e-mail your submission package as a Word or PDF fiile to:
info@theblank.com.
The synopsis need not include every plot detail, but it should cover the
setup, what's at stake, and how the story resolves in the last act.

The work submitted must be entirely the property of the author. Reworks or
adaptations of plays by other authors will be considered only if you control
the rights or if the material is in the public domain. No phone calls or
personal deliveries will be accepted.

If your material looks right for us, we will then read the full manuscript.

Thanks and good luck!

Sincerely,
Sarah Bauer
Script Submission Coordinator
The Blank Theatre Company


_____________________
Office Manager
info@theblank.com

The Blank Theatre Company
P.O. BOX 38756
Hollywood, CA 90038
(323) 871-8018 office
(323) 661-9827 ticket line
www.TheBlank.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Dan McNay [mailto:mcnay@mosis.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 3:13 PM
To: info@theblank.com
Subject: Submission of "Spoonful Of Sugar"

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I'm submitting my full length play "Spoonful of Sugar" for your
consideration. It is designed for a low budget production and only requires
two sets. (And could be produced in the courtyard of any stucco apartment
building in Los Angeles.) I would love to workshop this into the real world.

Thanks

Dan McNay
310-448-8215
310-337-7229

mcnay@usc.edu
mcnay@mosis.com
Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com>
Business Manager/ Export Manager
The MOSIS Service

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Saturday's Adventure

In Long Beach across from the Queen Mary. We had lunch here.

On the ferry to Balboa Island

Where we started from- behind the Lutheran Church in Westchester. Three flat tires and a few scrapes and a pedal that keep falling off. Ten guys and four great white leaders. Left at 9 and got there at 6:30. Had pizza and sleep in tents on the lagoon beach and got picked up in the morning just as a deluge began that lasted all day Sunday. 54 miles. A drop in the bucket.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Me Again




The oddest thing- this was uploaded to You Tube and ended up fading to black there about a third of the way through the video. I put it up again and it seems fine, though there are some that would think it was better without having to look at me. Some might think its better without sound as well.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Brave New World

This is what I just sent out to my band mates. Composition by Public Discourse. The whole world can watch, but its highly unlikely they will. They sat in my living room and rewrote the very first song I wrote and all of the changes were great. Until you get to the level of genius, it is a collaborative game. The people with you make this happen. I'm almost 59. Who the hell cares if somebody steals my words. The music is an expression of your personality, it will take on and be yours no matter what anyone does to it. I can and have for a long time been able to listen to a song and tell you who wrote it, if I've familiar with the songwriter at all. It's same with paintings or prose.  

Hi,

Here are the words and chords for the four songs I'm written. I edited the two longer ones to shorten them. I've recorded these four and put them up to You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/danmcnay#p/a/u/0/Y7xueJrhPNc

http://www.youtube.com/user/danmcnay#p/a/u/1/auablkpSw4Q

http://www.youtube.com/user/danmcnay#p/a/u/2/EnVVhMcRgp0

http://www.youtube.com/user/danmcnay#p/u/3/Jo4RytpdQJI

I'll put up the one we rewrote the music for "Little Sister" but I need to practice the Am and C chords we added. I put the C chords into the Chorus on "For My Lost Daughter" that Marla suggested. Have at these.

I may resist some things, but what you guys came up with for Little Sister was great. I've changed the byline of that one to Words by Dan McNay, Music by Rhubarb Meringue Pie.

I could in theory write words to somebody else's music. Or we could write music to somebody else's words. (Hint, hint: Renata)

This is all great fun! If you want to send me any suggestions before next month, please do.

Dan

Friday, March 18, 2011

Off Down South

Off to Newport Dunes tomorrow morning at 8:00. 50 miles with about 20 Boy Scouts. Gonna camp overnight on a beach on a lagoon.
Where I'm sleeping.

Where I been:

We met up at Ye Ole King's Head Inn in Santa Monica on Wednesday to organize a folk song thingie. The organizer wants all these Irish folk songs. A chance to learn some the songs I've been listening to forever. Man, did it feel like a real pub. (There were only two of us drinking- and I was the only one drinking real beer.) 

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

After Yesterday

After posting that list here yesterday, I realized that each of the items were told to me by a woman, except the one "That I'm not ready" I've never had much of a mother figure issue. I had a couple of good mothers- as far as mothers under fire go. My grandmother lived next door. She was overindulgent and neurotic, and was married to an alcoholic. My mother stayed home and ran a grocery store in the front part of house and was abused and ravaged by my father who was pretty crazy. That we all survived is a testament to the natural forces of life. So I never had the face in the sky telling me anything. I never felt I needed approval- I already had in some kind of way.

Of course, when I pass judgment on people, I seldom express it directly to them. It shouldn't be done. None of us are experts. I guess that's the problem I've had with judgmental people and shrinks and doctors and "experts" and bosses that think they are "experts" and girl friends/wives that know better.

Criticism is for fools to spout, really. I might make suggestions to folks about how they might write better, but that really is my only true vice. I'm very aware when I have lapsed- once with one of the bears artwork (which I will regret until I die) and once with the other bear's writing.    

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

I just love

being told that I'm wrong.

1. That I should wear a helmet when I ride my bike.
2. That I should play banjo with my pinky firmly planted on the skin below the strings.
3. That I should use a capo
4. That I should publish my book with a real publisher
5. That I should write in a cast of thousands into my little low budget theater play. (I didn't have enough policemen on stage for it to be realistic.)
6. That I write about child molestors
7. That I should kiss ass
8. That I don't really believe in god (I don't- )
9. That Republicans are stupid people
10. That I don't do what the doctor ordered
11. That I cut up photos of women to create colleges because I hate women
12. That men who want to express feminine behavior hate women
13. That because your wife has joined a cult, you are the oppressor
14. That I've written a book that tells you the end at the beginning
15. That I've written a book that's hard to read
16. That I'm not ready yet
17. That I'm too big

That's probably enough for now.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Found Art

Spent all day Saturday working on a Boy Scout Eagle Project at a church in Westchester. We pulled up an old fence and dug trenches and worked like dogs. We had this pile of the old fence and the junk that had been with it.
I suggested to the father of the scout that we carry it over to Venice Circle in Venice:
 And put a plaque on it -given in appreciation to the residents of Venice California- and entitle it "Trash" and leave it.

 This was the scuplture that was added there recently- its by the late Robert Graham, who was a resident of Venice with his wife Angelica Houston. Before his addition, it looked like the above for years. Seems like there had been another sculpture there, but I can'trecall what it was.
I don't think they were going to do it.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Used to Whistle

In my twenties when I was hitch-hiking about, there were songs that I would sing to myself on the shoulder of the road to entertain myself as I waiting for a ride. This song I had first heard on a Michael Parks album spin-off from the "Then Came Bronson" TV show that was one for a year while I was still in high school. I started whistling it. And got pretty good at it I think. Anyway there were several Leonard Cohen songs and "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor and a Kingston Trio song "Bout This Time Of Day I Get To Feeling Low" -all good theme songs for hitch-hiking. Later in Northern California, they translated well to songs that could be sung on a motorcycle. I've been practicing whistling to this song today. I could do a whistle solo in the next jam me thinks.

Aside, when we took the littlest bear back to Great Barrington to check out the college for her, we heard the stories about James Taylor being in the mental hospital in Stockbridge, and one story was that he wrote the song on a bus as they were transferring him to a hospital in Boston. I was greatly offended by that story. How dare they take my hitch-hiking song away.

Singing on the highway is a lot like singing in the shower. The acoustics was wonderful.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Stupid Parent Tricks

When one of the bears was in elementary school, I took it on myself to try to force her to drink milk. The other two drank milk. I drank milk. I even allowed them lousy cardboard sugar coated cereal so they could pour milk over it. She didn't like it. So I choose my battleground as a late sleep-in Saturday morning  Poured her a glass (a small glass) and asked her to drink it. Then I told her to drink it. Then I told her she had to sit there until she drank it. Then I recalled why I never did this. I hated it when my mother made us sit at the table until we finished something on our plate that we didn't like. -as the horrid food is getting colder and yuckier because you won't touch it and it makes you gag. I realized the error of my ways and scooped ice cream into the milk to see if that would help the situation. She nibbled at the ice cream floating there like a dead soldier in the river. Finally we gave up. She doesn't drink milk to this day.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Word Pictures #1

We were camping down south - on the way to Camp Pendleton - at a first come first serve state park because the camping guru for the Boy Scout Troop hadn't made arrangements for that month. So there was this long nature trail up into the hills about the campgrounds. We went up for a long hike and then started down. The boy bear was along with his arm in a cast. He had broken it doing tricks on his razor scooter, on the eve of being chosen for the park basketball all-star team. He and the rest of the guys are heading down the hill ahead of us and the guys started to run. He's about a quarter mile ahead of me, running down the hill, waving his cast in the air. I scream at him to "Stop!" and he did.

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Current Writer's Group

So for Sunday, we have:
Laura's "Stranger Things"
E. J.'s _The_Journey_ , Chapters Seventeen & Eighteen, and _The_Good_Earth_Village_, Chapter One
Rosaliene's Chapter Sixteen
Takiko's Chapter Two
Barry's "A Puzzle at the Pub"
Shelley's "Salmon Steaks"


Daniel B.'s Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen

Not to mention my stuff, which I've not even submitted because I wasn't going to be at the meeting. 

This amounts to about 100 pages to read between now and Sunday. Some of the folks are just writing endlessly without any interest in honing their craft. Some think they are brilliant (like me) and no one can tell them anything. Takiko says she's really not rewritten this chapter very much. I think I'm tired. And I don't feel like I'm getting much out of the group and I feel like only one or two of them hear me when I talk about their stuff. I'm about ready to start putting together the scenes for the new novel. Do I really want to spend my spare time reading the beginners' stuff? What are the alternatives?

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Friday, March 4, 2011

Paul Tonight at McCabe's

Gonna see if I can get the front piece of my novel signed by him.
He's got two copies of the book signed by me
And he didn't even charge me.