Jerad Tomasino's White Hall...lyrics

Recorded live on Monday afternoon August 16, 2010 at White Hall, UMKC...released this week...genius.

Jerad sent his lyrics to me to share...


All The Difference

I'm putting on my shoes again,
I got no where
I got no when
I'm calling here a place to begin
I'm starting...

My memory is paved,
full of roads.
I forget sometimes just where they go,
so, I'm heading down this trail alone,
I'm starting...

I'm starting,
I'm starting,
I'm starting,
I'm starting on my way...

The Best of It

I'll look in your eyes,
tell you, you're right
if you want to be right
because, for me, it's just not worth the fight…

Come, show me your guns
tell me to run.
shoot with the truth
or just shoot
and maybe
I'll be as holy as you…

Call me crazy,
idealistic maybe,
but I guess I thought
perforated or not
I could be your friend.

I know how to talk
I learned how to walk when I was a kid
so what gives?
why do you feel
like I need you to think for me?

Call me crazy.
I don't mean, maybe,
I know I know who I am
and that's not you..
just leave the worst
and embrace the better side of life
and all there is.
just take the best of it.

Two Kids

Two kids just lying in the grass,
Best friends, playing in the summer.
making shapes in the clouds...
singing songs in the sunshine...
two little kids- they have each other.

she said, "I love the sun and I love this game...
can we do this everyday?"
he said, "yeah, I'm having so much fun. I will meet you here... tomorrow."

"time goes as time goes..."
so her mother told her.
his father told him, "son,
-old friends: they just get older..."

So they packed up their things and moved away,
he went west,
she went east coast...
Came back on holidays,
saw each other at a party...

she said, "hey you, it's been awhile... so what do you do now?"
he said, "it's hard to explain... we work with lots of companies..."
she said, "doesn't that sound nice..."

They flew into town on the same day,
she had conference on second street,
he was speaking at third and main,
both went to the same cafe',
she was making shapes in her coffee,
he put down his brief case,
she looked at him with a smile,
and he sat down next to her...

she said, "Oh, what a surprise! I wish we could do this everyday.."
he said,"yeah, that would be nice... you know… I'm in town for the weekend..."
she said, "that's wonderful! I happen to be as well..."
he said, "that's perfect... I will meet you here... tomorrow."

Fools Gold

There's gas in my car,
I chose to ignite it.
There's a problem in the air,
I chose not to fight it.
There's a pain in my heart,
I chose to oblige it-
things can only get worse (right?)

There's a plane in the sky,
carrying my family.
There's hair on my head,
but I think I am balding.
The world, as I've known it,
is changing around me.
God's little joke; A kaleidoscope we're in...

Oh, life is a mess-
just got to give it your best.
I am . . . I am?

There's a diner in town,
where I chose to get fatter
and argue about things
that will never matter.
There's a hungry child somewhere
that fills us with chatter
but never a purpose
our pity just dies
there(s)
a gun on my hip
but I chose to not use it.
There's a point on my tongue
but I chose to not prove it.
We're more common than not,
but could never admit it-
So stuck in our ways,
enjoying our own company...

Oh, life is absurd.
I think that's the word I was looking for...

There's a stone in my hand,
I chose to just hold it.
There's a story there, somewhere,
how I wish to unfold it...
Thinking: who was the first-
to polish or throw it?
Neither survived that which they thought they controlled...
And so, here we are:
to choose
to fight
to live
to believe
to love
to marry
to die
to sleep...
from nothing to something?
from something to nothing?
how can it be?

Oh, life is a dream... just do as you please.



American Folk Psalms

1-1 "Bless me, father, 'for I have sinned..."
...I know I have- I know I will again.
So, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing-
here... here...
Am I asking for forgiveness, or am I simply running from fear?

1-2 A summer's heat and in the gardens be-
all the less-than-happy housewives turning their tears into trees.
And sorrow sows some shade: relief-
of some kind... of some kind...
They say, "It's not who is leaving us, but what we leave behind."

1-3 I tell myself that I'm not running scared.
I tell myself that life is playing fair.
I keep my senses well impaired.
I lie... I lie...
I figure it's a fluke that we're feeling, but a fact that someday we'll die.

1-4 A shape in playful, cloudy night.
A weightless winter in starry, summer sky.
A firmament for birds to fly-
free...free...
I guess we all have our place of peace and that's where we should be.

1-5 I often wonder about wandering souls-
and where they go. I guess that no one knows...
I like to pretend that they all go home...
and are welcome... and warm....
Oh let our souls all be pardoned and let them be free from harm.

let them be... pardoned... pardon... let them... let me be...


2-1 A darkness dwelling deep within...
feeding, burning, filling- to the brim.
Hell has always wanted in...
war...war...
I guess it's not IF you're fighting, but more what you're fighting for.

2-2 The dirt is drenched with our brother's blood.
Those with much fuck those without enough.
And God is brewing one more flood...
to cleanse... to cleanse...
Oh, beings that be here! Why can't we just be friends?

2-3 She keeps her distance at arms length.
She's a single, city-girl who's traded joy for strength.
I fear someday she'll feel the sting-
of love lost... love lost...
Cause it's not what you pay for, but the final cost.

2-4 Oh, sagacious moon I come to you-
in the darkest times of man for wind of calming news.
Your silence is my song, my muse.
mmm...mmm...
I feel for the first time hopeful for what could come...

2-5 I sense my father and my mom-
in every little thing that I have ever done.
It's in my brothers and I that they'll live on...
it's a circle... a circle...
Well I haven't made my mind up about Jesus, but I love a good miracle.

Oh how I love... how I… I love… how I… I am loved...


3-1 Now, she's dying quickly- take my hand...
It was just last week that she was making plans.
Oh, God, I'll never understand!
It's nonsense...nonsense...
That for her last words you've penned such a death sentence.

3-2 So, I plant some peppers... she plants some flowers.
We cross our fingers and hope for April showers.
...I play for hours my growing song-
it's soothing... that the beauty...
is not in the topsoil, but what is underneath.

3-3 I don't want to be a preachers son-
destined to hold the stage for someone else's tongue.
I'd rather tell what I have done...
a parable... so normal...
Yeah, it's just my real life, but I think that it's magical.

3-4 I blur the Sun in a rainbow glare.
A burst of colors far too bright to bare.
If I was God I'd keep my secrets there...
shielded from the eyes... of all human kind...
So, to find the meaning of life we first must go blind.

3-5 It's life and death and love and rest.
It's all the worst of days and all the best.
ascension. ceremonial dress...
the kingdom... the kingdom...
I guess it's not what we are but what we hope, someday, will become.

Will the kingdom come?

I know... I know... I can... I can change...

WikiLeaks: drips without a narrative

The emerging body of diplomatic dispatches presented by WikiLeaks has journalists gainfully employed writing about the numerous vignettes of exchanges. An insight into how foreign policy works? Personalities of world leaders? Reasons behind decisions? Interesting reading but to a point. Our attention span will wane soon due to the lack of a narrative.

After all, this is history. All of this has happened. Plenty of room for revisionist history as we look back. Interesting too is the scramble to be the first to piece the pieces together in a way that makes sense. Consider how this site is a “dot oh R gee” seeking support with a donate button on the PayPal platform.

There’s a wealth (maybe that’s not the right word, although this must be helping many make their house payment) of information but what’s missing is a cohesive story; one that no one will write. Why? People do not have the attention span nor interest in connecting the dots. The leaks will provide a great deal of entertainment and voyeuristic curiosity, however.

We do not understand what our State Department does. What is their charter? Why all these embassies? After almost ten years of war, diplomacy has become background noise. Do we have a cohesive foreign policy? Is diplomacy effective in this conflicted world?

I think that sensitive diplomatic communications serve a good purpose in that lines of communication are inherently good. When people can talk frankly, they’re not doing things otherwise damaging. But frank is frank and frank can be blunt and rather human; flawed, self-serving, and awkward in a public forum. Embassies gather information as well as represent. Gathering is spying. The people doing the gathering have various motives and charters. Embassies are interesting places rarely covered in the press. Wars and the winds thereof are more exciting to cover and read.

A result of these leaks could be a new interest in diplomacy…but I doubt that. Like other leaks, these numerous drips without narrative will soon fall by the public discussion wayside and soon be left to flow into the distant reservoir of our national consciousness. Without a narrative, more importantly without people concertedly working to make sense of it, these dispatches, cables, and emails will find their way to an archive; great stuff for historians some day. This recent history is much too recent and too voluminous, the journalistic field too depleted and overloaded, the media too distracted.

Take the time however to consider your Department of State. Examine the effectiveness of the diplomatic strength of our nation in light of the strong arm of defense. Appreciate that in order to conduct diplomacy, people talk (in lieu of shooting).

Nathan sings...Wed Dec 8th...Jardine's, 7 and 9pm

Alriiiiiight !

Responsible writers for the MET's program next week

words by Jane Austen, Dylan Thomas, and Harold Pinter

at the MET

Access ... Artistry ... Innovation ... Excellence

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre

3614 Main, KCMO 64111

816. 569. 3226

office@metkc.org

Preview...Christel Highland's Pistol Threads Line

See it this First Friday at JavaPort Gallery...

208 West 19th Street
Kansas City, MO 64108-2002
(816) 994-7311

Thursdays in December

Singers who write what they sing for you... :-)

Government: a growth (non)industry in Kansas City, MO

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report (dated 29 Sep 2010) notes that government employment rose 1.2% over the course of a year while other “Non-farm” employment categories declined. The report does not breakdown the government employee statistics into sub-categories (Federal, State, local). In August of 2009 the government employed 88,600 people; in August 2010, 89,700 in Kansas City, MO.

With the public discussion centering upon taxation (including deductions and exemptions), revenue, and services it’s interesting to ponder the implications of this small set of facts. Yet, before the pondering begins, consider how people disagree about facts before reaching any conclusions.

What facts say to you depends upon where you sit in the discussion. But this simple fact of government (non)industry growth, when all other categories reflect loss, makes it hard for public servants to argue for more tax revenue. They can and they will, though.

The Gator Pit

What if you had the opportunity to interrogate anyone, living or dead? Who would you select? Three interrogators and their supervisor attempt to extract the truth from The Prisoner and his Betrayer. In the process, they discover that the toughest subject to interrogate is the self.

What is truth? What do you want to know? What do you need to know?

Decentralize Kansas City

Kansas City is really a collection of areas and neighborhoods. Given the complexity of our city government and the multiple layers of area government, the hierarchical structure of our governance model has citizens and businesses distanced from government. What if we re-structured our city governance model to a more decentralized system?

Why do we need a mayor without power and a weak portfolio? Why have a city council? Why not leverage our existing, interesting, and diverse defined areas to allow for more representational accountable decentralized governance? Why not facilitate healthy competition?

The centralized model seems to have run its unsustainable course. In a practical sense, centralized services like police have become an area constabulary with no motivation to connect with neighborhoods. The argument for continued centralization was once efficiency, but that argument dims daily. A change like this may seem like a huge idea too big to comprehend and may have some worrying about their Kansas City identity symbolized via corporate sports gear. But to go one step further…

This model could extend across the State border and help ease the economic border war tensions.

Citizens deserve closer connection with their elected representatives. City service providers need closer connections to those whom they service. Service employees from the areas they service would serve better when serving their neighbors.

We cannot control what some people call sprawl, but we can adjust to the natural freedoms of choice that space provides. A layered (vertical) governance structure with unnecessary layers of redundant entities and taxes does not seem logical with our expansive horizontal geography.

This is not a call for revolutionary change, but rather a suggestion to begin a conversation, a civic and civil one, because now the winds of an economic border war loom on the horizon, and that conflict has government pitted against government; businesses betting on a winner, and citizens stymied without a voice, wallets at the ready to reluctantly pay. This conflict needs a treaty very soon.

How does a heated tale of winter stay warm after 75 years?

Sam Cordes plays Ralph

When Clifford Odets’ play Awake and Sing opened in New York, the yet-to-be-named Great Depression was six years old. When the play opened last week on Main Street Kansas City at the MET, the atmosphere and timing felt timeless. The reviews are in; one here by Robert Trussell and another here by Libby Hanssen nicely summarize the performances. Beware of the spoilers. This is not a review.

Art of its time, created in the time and place has a way of capturing a time when done well. Art of a certain time can become a museum piece; placed under glass, air tight, preserved as a remembrance Often an otherwise “period piece” makes connections with the present tense of life. Richard Yates’ novel (and the film) Revolutionary road grabbed me like that; on one level pulling me back in time to the time of my parents’ 1950s with a subsequent quick reeling in to today. I’m not sure how that happens.

Our present tense may seem strained and unsettled. Cheerleaders cheer for swagger and better days; a diminished pot of revenue has more salivating advisors, consultants pointing to their purse. Uncertain times. With the uncertainty, hints of fear and loathing.

Yet, there’s a great deal for which to be thankful on this Thanksgiving Day. Make a list right after you start that holiday gift list The choices for entertainment, a bounty this long-ish weekend. You may desire to escape via retail wandering and a fun film; a chance to travel outside the reality of yourself a bit. Stop by one of our museums. Show the out-of-town friends and family those warm magical Plaza lights, why dontchya.

But if you have an inkling to stare reality straight in the eye, block out a few hours; awake and sing and “…do what is in your heart and carry in yourself a revolution”. Timeless art makes you feel…timeless.

gratitude

A nice word...one to keep in my pocket every day...applies in so many ways. Happy Thanksgiving Day.

Artillery rules on the Korean Peninsula

Military professionals, with first-hand experience in Korea, know that artillery is the effective weapon of choice, especially for the North Korean Army. Years of targeting, stock-piling, and practice combined with the rugged terrain makes the artillery piece the reliable “AK-47” stalwart of this potential theater of war. We’ll read about troop levels, nuclear weapons development, air and naval power but as today illustrated, “The King of Battle” (artillery) is king on the Korean Peninsula.

The complexity of the situation has decision-makers and analysts, diplomats and journalists scurrying to back issues of National Geographic to review this part of the world. We hope for diplomacy as the strategic element of power choice to solve the current crisis. Economics and the need for food in North Korea, is a bargaining chip capable of drawing non-governmental business players to a bargaining table. A new North Korean leader stands in the wings with more than a few of his countrymen and women wishing him ill will. Our national will, our appetite for further foreign military forays, wanes in the face of our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. With a few (supposedly undeliverable at this time) nukes, North Korea has the world’s undivided attention. Or does it?

Could North Korea deliver nuclear weapons with artillery? I’m confident our Defense Department has this low-tech possibility on their high-tech radar. If this escalates, North Korea’s escalation strategy will lead with their very tactical, reliable, mechanical, and overwhelmingly efficient arsenal of artillery with a target list 57 years in the making.

Artillery rules on the Korean Peninsula.

Mutiny about the Bounty

The word bounty conjures images of Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh, Tahiti, and a long voyage. The HMS Bounty’s mission was to investigate sources of breadfruit for the Royal Navy’s crews. I wonder if there’s a good breadfruit recipe out there? The latex, a product of the tree and good for caulking, had the potential for sealing leaky hulls. Somehow, bounty as in a plentiful harvest of chow, sits in the shadow of the HMS Bounty for me.

And Captain Bligh, the mean guy, really has received a bum rap over the years having to co-star with Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson. Bligh was a hearty chap, a tough experienced sailor. After the mutiny in April of 1789, Christian dumped Bligh and 18 loyal crew on a longboat, 23 feet long with two small sails. They made a voyage of about 3600 miles from Tofua in the South Pacific to Timor in the open sea. Everyone made it. Pretty amazing feat.

Bligh, a veteran of one of Captain Cook’s voyages (actually the last one) served as a cartographer, a master in the art of navigation with sextant and chronometer. On that voyage, one day, he was the officer on deck while Cook went ashore to try to negotiate with the tribal leader at the area we now call Kalakaua on the big island, Hawaii. Bligh watched helplessly out of range while angry warriors beat Captain Cook to death. Story goes that a marine on a longboat right offshore, fired his musket frightening the warriors.

Bligh was cold, Christian an idealist perhaps, and the Bounty's crew probably bored stiff seeking a bounty of breadfruit. All that traveling for starch. That mutiny over a bounty that never came to be.

All of this Bounty stuff has absolutely nothing to do with the bounties of the season. Words have a way of working their own magic, though, with suggestions out of our control. For me, the word bounty has a suggestion of harvest, a mere suggestion because I’ve never harvested a crop but rather been the beneficiary of others harvesting type work. I have no mutinous feelings about bounty. Our Thanksgiving traditions give me an appreciation for family, friends, and the concept of gratitude. I admire people who grow food and nurture the land.

These are lean times, leaner for many who’ve known lean before the lean times. It’s a worry, for things do not seem to be getting better. Yet in these lean times, personally I’m finding that people have a gentler nature, taking care of one another. That connectedness, that kindness in the face of an unkind economic atmosphere, the mutual concern could be the real bounty right under our noses.

Borrowing 40 cents for every dollar we spend

The current deficit situation is personal for me like it is for you. The strategic, global picture mirrors the individual one. We’re trying to balance our budgets while feeling insecure. Despite foreign conflicts and threats from people with terror as their technique, our SecDef has advised his Commander-in-Chief that this debt is our greatest threat to our nations national security. But you understand this because it’s hitting very close to home; yours.

This week, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson appeared on the Charlie Rose Show. These appointed co-chairs of the President's Bipartisan Deficit Commission presented their case and plan. Here’s their 50 slides.

We have our own slides, though. I realize there’s great distance between you and your government given the numbers. A few readers here often accuse me of flying at 30,000 feet; too strategic and out of touch with the details. Take some time to relate your details to this commission proposal. Political hot potato? For certain.

Writers tend to parse issues, treating them individually, with a microscope. We need that attention to detail. But what we also deserve is a wider picture. You can take it. You make the connections on your own, You have excellent peripheral vision.

You do not need an Erskine or a Simpson to convince you that the time for deficit denial is over, but it’s interesting to hear this discussion and ponder the personal as well as the strategic. For every dollar we spend, we’re borrowing 40 cents. You’ve been making cuts on your own. Watch as the cuts come over the coming years. Observe how the government will face decreasing revenue. Witness how government, federal and local, will either cut taxes or face expulsion.

People experience the Flint Hill wonders

I often wonder why people travel so far to see wondrous landscapes when we have the Flint Hills a short drive west from Kansas City. This expanse of grass and wildlife, rolling hills once at the bottom of an ancient sea still resonates with a liquid quality now an ocean of waves that grow from roots twelve feet deep. And the meaning is deeper.

Deeper for those who live there and love the land, deep for us that have the opportunity to hear the grasses swoosh. People need to see this like they need to breathe but they only realize that when they stand on a hill at look at those Flint Hills. People who live there are as much a part of this as the prairie grass for you’ll not find a more loving people devoted to the land, not their land, the land, for it is and they are here to nurture it while it nurtures them.

Flint Hills Overland Wagon Train tour company recently took a group of local Girl Scouts on a jaunt through the waves, cooked meals, told stories, and opened many young eyes to this wonder of our world. Simple pleasures of friendship, tastes, aromas, wind, the feel of ancient grasses, the sound of birds, the stillness in this immense scale of land. Authenticity as a word is over-used, but in this case those who use it may be humbled to utter it in this setting. People of the land, as D.H. Lawrence learned, speak infrequently because their words pale in the presence of land that speaks volumes in a more articulate way.

Times are lean all around. In the Flint Hills, small business shrinks, too. The land will always be there, standing patient like the people who live there. Both beckon. Both have something grand to share. Do something authentic….drive west and keep your eyes wide open.

Have a look at this wonderful slideshow by Rachael Jane...

Courage to create: Pistol Threads part III

An incredible, flowing silk gown: sheer slits with a hem that seems to move when standing still. Virgin colorless fabric dyed the color of the Caribbean. And now she prepares to paint it. Yes paint.

Painters usually paint upon canvas stretched tight on frames. Canvas often painted with a neutral color (sometimes not as in a friend who begins with a red canvas). But this canvas took three weeks to assemble, not counting the dream-time beforehand to design the dream. Calling this a canvas is a bit of stretch, but this designer who also assembles, becomes painter on a chilly November Thursday in her studio. Chicken and noodles simmer on the stove, the aroma comforting. Vivian the cat sits and stares at her studio companion, Christel Highland.

The painting begins. Six shades of blue-ish purple dye with a hint of green. She starts with the lightest hue. She starts…tentative. A stroke here, there, around the dress. It’s quiet. This is not the time for an interview. Observe this. She admits her fear, fearing she has no clue what she’s doing. But it’s in those times of an empty mind, when one has no clue, when art comes forth. And here it comes. She channels Jackson Pollock, maybe, splashing, flinging paint. When do you know when you’re done? She smiles.

In the background, racks of recent creations in the final approach of completion. Chrystal buttons. Some of the virgin cotton fabric will stay virgin like my favorite shirt in the line. A black one would be cool. I'm missing Laura Brody, Christel's recent collaborator who's now back home in LA. Laura would be beaming right now.

In the foreground, Christel’s done. She knows. Lunch is ready. Time to talk about this…this authentic line of Americana threads with olde-world crafting, this spectrum of design from elegance to incredible utility (the denim shirts rock)…this painted dress, picturing a barefoot woman on a yacht in the harbour of Monaco, cooking chicken and noodles for friends. My friend says time for lunch. Delicious comfort food contrasts with the tummy turning fear, uncertainty, that’s really called courage, having no idea what you’re doing.

Christel will unveil her line at the JavaPort gallery this coming First Friday, December 3…

Awake and Sing: the stage taking shape

Glad Dollar Fox is Close to Home

Tommy Donoho writes songs that sketch the familiar edgy geography of places like the Missouri River, the house around your corner, roads, this city; the Bottoms on up top and west to the Flint Hills. I’m glad Tommy and Dollar Fox stay close to home with their art, but I suspect that the tugging kinship of Nashville and Austin and roads in-between will see Dollar Fox taking this sound and their stories on a few journeys.

That’s OK. Foxes are territorial and this Dollar one seems anchored to Kansas City but with a long chain. Their release party, this past first Friday at the Good Ju Ju was really good. They played amid the vintage furniture, brick a brack, the bricks, with weird green balls hung over them. They shared this album of eight songs for the first half of the show. Sangria in big pitchers, spicy dip, cheese, Tommy’s Mom smiling and swaying in the front row, kids runnin’ around, and the warmth of a ton of friends. They ended with a fun cover of my favorite river song, "London Calling"...we do "live by the river", after all... phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust, thankfully.

Recorded at the “Good Ju Ju” in the West Bottoms, their new release “Close to Home” has a crisp sound that reeks of the dusty bricks in the old Columbia Burlap building that built bags for all of that Kansas wheat flour. Try to label this music, if you can. I think T Bone Burnett and Jim Lauderdale would find this authentic taste familiar Americana vintage young wine fresh for sippin’ from a front porch with a whiskey chaser and a half a pack of cigarettes without a filter.

Music can be too filtered, the sound too mastered. Produced, recorded and mixed by versatile Dollar Fox band member, Justin Perry and mastered by Patrick Meagher, these eight songs have an authentic sound; no tricks, no affectation…just “look-you-in-the-ear” honesty mixed with courage. The poetry comes through clear with Tommy’s vocals and the band blends like delicious stew, warm. Pass the whiskey, but don’t pass by Dollar Fox. Give their new record a spin.

“We let that old record spin
Again and again and again…
Let all their words
Say the ones we couldn’t find
…this is my favorite part…
Listen close and you can hear my heart”

From Words in the Dark by Tommy Donoho
_________________________________

Dollar Fox is Ethan Taylor, Justin Penney, Nick Dothage, Ryan Watkins, and Tommy Donoho III

...this album is dedicated to the memory of their fan, Jerry Donoho

Awake and Sing will resonate and open at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, November 18

You do not require a preview. You may be living this now or perhaps you know someone presently barely living month to month, a multi-generational family packed into a limited living space packed with dreams of better days in the future. Times are tough even if times are manageably leaner for you. Foreclosures, unemployment, desperation, lost investments, people holding on to what remnants of dignity they can muster, political divisions that may have you feeling as if a revolution brews.

This play by Clifford Odets, set in New York’s Bronx of 1933, saw its first production at the Belasco Theatre in 1935. A 2006 reprise at the same theatre in 2006 won a Tony© award for best revival. No doubt, the subject matter had something to do with that. But when you experience this play, you’ll realize a greater personal reward in meeting some interesting people like you as you travel back to another time that informs this time.

I read the script recently and watched director Karen Paisley’s first run-through with her “Berger family and friends” cast last week. I could only stay for the first act. What an act. What a story. But you know this story well. You’ll recognize these people. Maybe you’ve seen one of them in the mirror. This may seem too hard for you to see, too painful to hear.

If you feel numb, this will awaken you. If you feel distanced, this could connect you. If you’re a grandparent, Jacob may say things you’ve only thought. You may have been a Hennie Berger once. Your teenage children should meet Ralph Berger. If you’re a parent, Bessie and Myron Berger could have you shaking your head with amazement but more likely familiarity. Everybody knows a Moe Axelrod; a tough wise damaged veteran. You may be wishing for a rich uncle but you may not like Uncle Morty. Recently-emigrated Sam, like you perhaps, desires to fit into this America. And we all feel like the janitor, Schlosser, at one time or another.

After the play, stay a bit and meet these people at the MET. This is a theatre where despite the magic, you'll feel like you're at home; where you may get a hug from the director and the actors won't be acting when you shake their hand.

I forgot that you don’t need a preview and you're busy. Like Jacob, you probably have things to do, books to read, music you'd like to hear, and a revolution to plan. Jacob will be taking the dog, Tootsie, to their Bronx apartment building walk-up roof for a constitutional. Hopefully, he scoops because Schlosser’s tired of cleaning up after Tootsie.

Awake and Sing. Have a pleasant day and when you do, do what’s in your heart.

Did anyone feed the dog today?

___________________________________


12 opportunities to “Awake and Sing”
November 18 – 21 (Thu – Sun), 26 – 29 (Fri – Mon), and December 2 – 5 (Thu – Sun)

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
3614 Main, KCMO 64111
816. 569. 3226
office@metkc.org

Somethin’ happenin’ here

And in the case it’s quite clear. Local Kansas City songwriters are writing great songs, home-growing a sound, performing frequently, and recording on their own. Look out Austin. Take notice, Nashville.

We receive tastes of this buzz often in our Kansas City Star from Tim Finn who champions our authentic music here. Michael Byars, your morning announcer on KCUR, is a loyal follower who documents performances with his photography. These two music lovers will agree that we have a rich tapestry of sound downtown, MidTown, and in Westport. Beneath the shadow of the Sprint Center, the Midland, the Lyric, the Folly, and the rising Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, there’s a strong steady stream of troubadours hard at work, courageously telling their stories, crafting an art form.

What does this matter in this age of YouTube and internet sounds? Why bother with a live performance when you can shuffle your tunes at will? Why do these people do what they do at open mic nights, for pittance at a club without a door fee?

I’m learning that they have to do it. Seriously, like some people have to eat and sleep, they have to write and sing. Some people have to paint and sculpt, dance, write, weave, design, and cook. What they must do is something that you can enjoy and be transported by. These are real people you can meet. It’s not a question of whether the music matters. The music is…

There’s something happening here, right here in Kansas City, right beneath your nose, accessible with free parking, a stone’s throw away from the stage where the Stones may reappear, where Mellencamp recently camped…

A few names… Farrand, Regnier, Bryan, Ashby, Tomasino, Paludan, Iceberg, Easterday, Hankel, Stremel, Ladesich, Harshbarger, Freling, Hamil, Wyoming, Beers, McMilian, Hendersen, Sprawl, Donoho, McKenna, Folkicide, Shoare, Kates, Hrabko, Smith, Stevenson, Keck, Griebel, Martin, Frame, Tummons, May, Davis, Carr, McMullan, Lowrey, Hamil, Southerland, Shapiro, Granner…there’s more, always more.

This is not a commercial or a shout out. It’s a sketch of what is, people who are real, music that is of this place, this time. This is art as artistic as any opera, ballet, symphony, or out-of-town overpriced roadshow that may have you ga-ga for a ticket and bragging rights. When the semi’s roll out of town this stuff sticks. Hello, Kansas City.

The Oil Boiler’s musical heat: a recorded furnace

The Oil Boiler premiered at the Living Room at the Pearl in May of this year. A collective of artists transported many to an atmospheric smoky club called the Juggler (like a vein) with their music, acting, visual art, lighting, and sets.

Holly Red exhaled silken sensual songs in, what else, a red dress. The Preacher preached some, but did more singing. God gave some directions but received a few rebukes. Zoey orchestrated a puppet show. Manchester Gravy poured molten lava-like thoughts into our head. Karen Heritage caught a bullet. Leon Nesrac, the hit man, hit hard and got hit harder. The Dead Ringers served up a musical backdrop along the way under the direction of Victor California.

This Friday, the Oil Boiler Collective, this accomplished crew of collaborators and friends offers their recorded version of this experience in the form of a CD, with a live performance reprise, at the very same site where Karen got whacked. This is not supposed to make sense. This music feels like a hot curtain of smouldering fire to warm the cockles of your whatever in the coming cold days. Have a listen to these compositions by Jeff Freling and Christian Hankel. This ain’t no Mongol beach party, nor a disco. This ain’t no foolin’ around.

I’m not sure what sort of oil their burning here. Jazz? Lounge lizard tunes. Whiskey River induced swing? Is Suggo Tarasov sprinkling this score with Russian influences and vodka fumes? Is Jimmy Golconda the real lead in this trip, plonking his acoustic bass? Has Tortuga Dientes something hidden behind his drum kit? Only God knows and he’s not tellin’.

This recording will take you back if you saw the show. If you didn’t see the show, catch the CD release party this Friday (Nov 12) 9:30pm, at the Living Room. If you want to see the full up show, corner the Preacher and give him a piece of what mind you have left after the show. Ask Zoey to pull out her puppets. Drop two bits into Victor’s cup so the band can have a drink. Stay clear of Holly. Check your wallet after shaking hands with Manchester. Advise Holly to duck during the next performance. Buy Leon a drink and call him a taxi at 2, please.

This makes no sense, but this is what happens when passionate people have no idea what they’re doing…they create art.


Victor California and the Dead Ringers:
Shay Estes - vocals
Jeff Freling - guitar
Jeffrey Rukaman - piano
Johnny Hamil - bass
Kent Burnham - drums
with:
Cody Wyoming - vocals
Erin McGrane, Katie Gilchrist, Walter Coppage and Christian Hankel - spoken pieces

Things taking shape: Yeston, Sawyer, Whitener, Twain and Safdie

My first taste of Mark Twain was reading Tom Sawyer in its Classics Illustrated version when I was six or seven. Do you remember these comic-like books? The format made literature come alive, approachable for young readers. Later, in the fifth grade, Sister Asunta (an Irish immigrant with a musical brogue) had us read the book. But I remember her reading the book out loud to us, while she acted out the parts with funny voices, making it come alive and take shape.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a book about a boy. There’s tension from the first page when Aunt Polly shouts for Tom to come in the house. There’s tension when Tom fights the new rich boy. There’s tension in the shabby little town of St. Petersburg. There’s fun too; intrigue, love, friendship, murder, and fence that gets a whitewashing.

This and more swirled in my mind yesterday when choreographer William Whitener and composer Maury Yeston unveiled the banner for their new ballet “Tom Sawyer” to premier in October 2011 at the emerging Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. They announced this new work in the Webster House, built in 1885, once a school, a fitting setting for channelling Samuel Clemens’ cigar-smoking spirit and a few of his characters. Thoughts about students who may have read the book there while Tom Sawyer was still a boy in the young state of Missouri. Thoughts about the impact of the performance spaces taking shape as I heard the announcement, watching cranes move slowly from the north-facing windows upstairs at the Webster. Things taking shape in more than an architectural, engineering sense.

Maury played a bit of the score on the grand piano. Dancers in the audience, legs twitching to dance. Ballet benefactors, leaders, and fans daydreaming. Bill Whitener's humble restrained description of an exciting first season in the Kauffman, his collaborative creative brain spinning while he absorbed the moment and helped us peer into the future.

Ballet is an art form where many forms of creativity blend. Reflect upon this list of ingredients: a great story, an accomplished composer with a new score, a courageous choreographer crafting his first 3 act ballet, talented artful dancers, artists whose palette is light, fabric, paint, canvas...theatre staff, a glorious orchestra, Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly, Becky, and a brief appearance from Huck. Ballet is an art form that gives you space to dream and imagine; space to fill in the spaces with your personal space without words.

Yesterday, there were many “architects” in the room; people with the vision and the discipline to bring vision to reality. Moshe Safdie was not there but his shining reality on the hill shined in the sun. Twain wrote a book. Sawyer took us on a few adventures. Yeston’s shaping his score and shared a few bars. Whitener sees movement, crafting the poetry that only a choreographer can create without a single word. Things taking shape.

Have look at yesterdays event here…an artful slideshow created by Rachael Jane.

The Lyric Opera’s filling Bellini

Bellini is not the name for an Italian delicacy or dish, but after experiencing his opera “Norma”, I came away feeling as if I’d consumed a seven course feast for the soul. The combined ingredients of the complex score, the performing artists with their incredible instruments of voice, the orchestras nuanced precision, elegant atmospheric sets, the resonant narrative of an occupying Roman Army and the occupied people of Gaul, and the subtle lighting offered a rich sensory experience.

This was my first Bellini. Pieces of the music sounded familiar. I didn’t worry about not having a full appreciation for the “bel canto” style of Opera. I just gave in, sat, relaxed and allowed myself to be transported and fed along the way.

It’s unusual to have the opportunity to hear this opera. It’s difficult and stretches the vocal instruments. Before its first performance, Bellini had to convince the lead, Giuditta Pasta, to give the role of Norma a go. He coached her personally past her intimidation. Maria Callas and Dame Joan Sutherland performed amazing Normas. Brenda Harris is here in Kansas City to offer her stunning performance and interpretation.

You may be intimidated by opera. Too long, too old (this one first performed in 1831), irrelevant and you may not speak Italian. But opera can be an approachable art form. Consider the artistic continuity that extends back from your favorite Broadway musical back to Vincenzo Bellini’s time. You may consider this music the stuff for the mythical upper class but it’s actually music for the masses. I remember hearing my first opera, The Barber of Seville, from a record my mother purchased with a coupon at the local A&P foodstore. The colors of Caruso’s voice were familiar sounds in the industrial row houses in my neighborhood.

In this day of diets and light low calorie foods, familiar three chord popular music, when Broadway has become Las Vegas East, you deserve a bit of richness. This opera reminded me of my favorite painting at our Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Caravaggio’s St. John the Baptist. There’s a great deal going on in that painting. I come away each time wanting to go back again. Bellini’s Norma made me feel the same way. Art makes you feel…rich in a way that transcends numbers.

Go ahead. Have a Bellini at our Lyric Opera.

Photographs of the production by Karen Almond courtesy of the Lyric Opera.

The Hindu and the Cowboy…and others: free theatre at the Kansas City Public Library

Recently, I read Donna W. Ziegenhorn’s script called “The Hindu and the Cowboy”. While we are a country with diverse people, some call it a melting-pot, before things melt, before people mix, they confront one another. This dramatic tableau one-act play of drama and music will see two performances at our Kansas City Public Library with the first being tomorrow, Sunday at 2pm at the Plaza Branch.

This show, a production of the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (the MET) and directed by Karen Paisley, sounds interesting. Set in present time, this post 9/11 atmosphere of ours, we will meet people with personal stories that have as a common theme the power of history and origin of us. How does who we were, shape who we are? How do we reconcile what we believe with what are as a society? How do we fit? How does what we do define who we are?

I think of how this living library of characters fits so well in the setting of a library. While each character seems to speak volumes about their life and stories, those stories reside in books and film, audio files, and downloadable text in our city’s library branches. Like this free production, the content is free. Like the free materials, we’re free to experience this with people and take that freedom to the street, too.

The script doesn’t sound preachy but rather expository. The characters do not possess agendas but instead long for life. Their motivation to tell, to expose and to be understood. Sounds pretty fair to me.

This is not a provincial city. This is not a provincial script. Ziegenhorn has written what she heard, interviewing real people, listening. There’s rich local authenticity to her characters, people from real local places right around your corner.

Great theatre transports you. Actors act to affect you by affecting themselves. The stage is a world but also a mirror. This reads like a wide-angle lens on our community, where you’ll see a piece of yourself while meeting multiple pieces of others. It will be a bit of a puzzle with pieces that may not fit together right now.

The Kansas City Chiefs will begin their stomp upon the Raiders tomorrow at around 4 our time. So you have time to stroll or ride to the Plaza Library to catch this play. If the pre-game snack preparation gets busy, pencil yourself in for the Monday encore performance.

This is such a cool city, this Kansas City of ours. Our library system, one of our community gems, continues to offer an abundance of programs that inject us with enriching food for the heart and mind. It’s an open forum, with beautiful public spaces that offer private nooks for learning and reflection. And this public space has theatre, too.

Go Chiefs!

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The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre and Festival of Faiths of Kansas City present The Hindu and the Cowboy, a one-act play inspired by the stories of Kansas City residents, on Sunday, November 7, 2010, at 2 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St.

An encore performance takes place on Monday, November 8, at 7 p.m. at the Plaza Branch.

Among the stories are those of a young Muslim and his surprise encounter with New York City fire fighters after 9/11, an African-American pastor and the enslaved grandmother he will never forget, and the Hindu and the cowboy who came face to face over the fate of land.

The idea for the play was sparked by the Mosaic Life Stories Project, undertaken in 2002 by a group of volunteers seeking to foster interfaith encounters and promote the power of stories. The project encouraged people to share stories that have affected them in a visceral way.

A reception hosted by Saint Andrew Christian Church follows each performance. After the reception, the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre will present a preview of new stories.

November - singer/songwriters at the Czar Bar