Miss Saturn!

My delightful inamorato is posting a series of pieces on modern vaudevillians he has featured on the stage of his American Vaudeville Theatre in honor of its 15th anniversary and the attendant FringeNYC show celebrating this occasion.

Today's post is all about the lovely Miss Saturn, so I decided to pull a sketch I did a few years ago out of the archives.

Jasper Jaxon at Dixon Place and a Minor Ode To the Forgotten Pinup Girls of Yore

It's sometimes a sad old world, isn't it?

Last month, 1959 Playboy Playmate (July if you're curious) and B-movie actress Yvette Vickers was found dead in her house by a neighbor. Now, don't get the wrong idea, there was no scandal per se, she died of heart failure at the age of 82 or so. The thing is, she's been dead for nearly a year the medical examiner said, as her body was actually mummified.

Which, in a startling segue, leads me to my inamorato (the man self-styled Trav S.D.) and his performance of The Ballad of Jasper Jaxon at Dixon Place. The performance was lovely, if I do say so. Jasper Jaxon is based on real life bank robber Elmer McCurdy, who upon his death in 1911 was over-embalmed and was displayed in various traveling side-shows and theater lobbies with various purposes until it was forgotten who this fellow had been or even that he was an actual mummified person and not just a prop. Like all great true American stories it is both tragic and hilarious.

Along with her Playmate of the Month fame, Miss Vickers had a pretty impressive monster movie career. She has the typical career of small roles in big pictures (her debut was in Sunset Boulevard!) and big roles in small pictures. Most well known for her role in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, she worked in television through the 1970s and appeared in other B horror movies, including Attack of the Giant Leeches, whose wonderful poster you can see below.

The Ballad of Jasper Jaxon is a long, rambling and extremely catchy song in the style of Woody Guthrie with definite shades of Bob Dylan. There's a certain species of Americana that seems to have fallen out of favor recently in our glittery techno present, and it's an awful shame mostly. In general, a sense of history is slowly being eroded. The internet in some ways both helps and hinders. There's such wonderful access to nearly everything, but the ease of finding whatever piece of whatever what puzzle one comes across, also serves to flatten it somewhat. The screen with which we view everything can decontextualize nearly everything until it's all just floating in a digital present.

Yvette Vickers cheerfully attended film festivals around the country in her old age. The fact that she could have disappeared for so long without anyone noticing breaks one's heart a little. The world is a lonely place for so many people, and one of my biggest fears, as it is for so many childless people, is that an end like that of Miss Vickers awaits us in the future. Both Yvette Vickers and the hapless crook Jasper Jaxon lived strange, picaresque and particularly American lives, only to wind up mummified, stuck in the parts of the newspapers designated for the weird and the uncanny, ready made to be turned, as all good American stories should be, into folk songs and B movies.

The Ballad of Jasper Jaxon will go on, no doubt and I will be sure to let you know of an recordings or return engagements.

Trav S.D.'s Tent Show Tetragrammaton

The premier of Trav S.D.'s Tent Show Tetragrammaton is rapidly sneaking (or, really, trampling) upon us, and with its thrilling approach has come a distinct lack of sleep and lots of hard work here at The Cabinet's (now happily shared) Headquarters.

But it's all in the name of excitement and wonder, so who can complain? Not I! Ape men! Realistic fighting! Music of ALL KINDS! VooDoo! Hope Cartelli (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant, so WHO KNOWS what will occur!)! ALL of Piper McKenzie! Mummies! A Baby Grandma Witch! Fortune telling! And spaghetti! For a delightful teaser, see below.

And if this isn't a hard enough sell : yours truly is directing one of the pieces contained within!

But enough of this hyperbole. The man who has self-styled himself Trav S. D. has written a couple of lovely and illuminating blog posts about two of the short plays contained in the Tetragrammaton: The Strange Case of Grippo the Ape Man and The Universal Rundle which are well worth a read.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I read and write about fairy and folk tales an awful lot. I'm not a particularly huge fan of the ultra-literal. I heartily believe that aping the details of everyday life doesn't make something particularly more like life. In other words, just because something isn't real, doesn't mean it's not true. Trav's offerings all live in that place, the liminal spaces that exist somewhere in the boarderland of history and myth . Dripping with Americana, music and folk tradition.

I'm also so beyond thrilled to be involved in a show at LaMama. I feel that there are all these odd lineages in New York Theater, and mine feels so directly tied to the work and people that sprung out of the Caffe Cino back in the 60s. I've been working away in the realms of Downtown Theater for what feels like a lifetime, and to be doing something in the House that Ellen Stewart built is an honor and a thrill.

Information and tickets can be found here.

Spotted Dick!

A week ago Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending Jack the Ripper's Holiday Spectacular at the Bowery Poetry Club. It was a thoroughly enjoyable outing, and I wish I had footage of Jack himself to show you, but as the past century has more than proved, he is a slippery fellow who cleverly eludes the camera's glare. This is surprising, as Jack's alter ego - the always silky Mr. Trav S.D. likes the limelight very much. So, if any footage should emerge, I will be sure to post it. In the meantime, here is the always entertaining Miss Lorinne Lampert performing "Spotted Dick (Is a Pudding)" with Mr. Albert Garzon accompanying her on piano.



Merry Christmas, everyone! And may you all have the pudding of your choice!

Crow's Nest and... Added Bonus Video!

Don't misunderstand me. I love my little gentrified corner of Brooklyn. We have freaking awesome pastries, a giant park and a blog covering it all. We also have the freakiest weather this side of Dorothy's Kansas, but that's a blog post for another day. What we don't have much of are performance venues. I mean, if you have a band, there's Southpaw. But if you happen to be more of a performance/theater/ burlesque person, you're getting on the F Train and going to Manhattan, or getting in the infernal G and heading to Williamsburg. Yeah, I know. First world problems. But you (unless you happen to be Trav S.D.) weren't with me the night it took FOUR FUCKING TRAINS to get home from Williamsburg, which is just completely outrageous.

Which brings me to Wednesday night, and my first time at Zora Art Space on 4th Avenue. They sell coffee and wine and snacks, there's art on the wall, and a nice little performance space in the back. And best of all, there was Esther Crow, debuting her variety night, Crow's Nest. I'm just going with the idea that it's the first of many, as there really should be more. She hosted in the guise of her hilarious Mrs. Goldblatt (see left) who reminds me of the lady that used to run the multi-purpose room in my elementary school in West Egg. It was a particularly well curated night, and completely entertaining. Amongst the acts were Anna Copa Cabanna who played her xylophone and sang a cover of Enter Sandman and a song about Ludlow Street. I've been wanting to catch her act for a while, so I'm glad I finally got to see her, as she was great. Charming and sweet and ditsy wearing a tiger-striped one-strap leotard (or body-suit as we used to call them in elementary school in West Egg). I also got to see Roger Nasser's (of Crispie Treat fame) ten minute, one man A Streetcar Named Desire (finally. Roger's the best), some hilarious sock puppet improv from Afternoon Playland (really, really funny), burlesque performer Foxxx Trot (after whose act the only word that popped into my head was "forceps". Catch her act, and you'll understand why), and most wonderfully, the inimitable Trav S.D. (okay. I'm totally biased). My always charming companion told two surreal and brilliant stories with the indefinable charm of the Great and Wonderful Oz, if the GaWO hailed from Williamsburg via Rhode Island, instead of Omaha. I mean that in the most exceedingly complementary way possible. It was a completely enjoyable evening, and for once, I could simply walk home.

Esther Crow also fronts The Electric Mess whose newest video was posted today. It was directed by Piper McKenzie (who were in the Crow's Nest audience in their Hope Cartelli and Jeff Lewonczyk disguises). You will likely recognize some special guests.



(Photo Credit: Angela Wieland Photography)

Nine Years Later

Saturday, the smartest man I know, posted a blog post in which he wondered if any living, American dramatic artists possess the scope and seriousness to really take on 9-11. I don't have anything resembling an answer, but I can dredge up a pretty solid maybe. Angels in America. Cabaret. So many truly great pieces of art that cover war and tragedy with the humanity and depth and humor and seriousness that is required. Is the problem with theater and movies about 9-11 a problem with the event itself? Does it not effectively lend itself to theater or film? I don't know, I don't know anything. It happened in an instant. From NYC's point of view there were no villains on stage. No one to fight, nothing to do. The world stage seemed blank and empty. In movies the President comes on TV to reassure a frightened nation, played by some deep voiced second rate actor. In real life there was no President on TV. He was hiding in some bunker somewhere. Everything was like this, and then it was another way. And then things went back to normal. But not really. We were a city of Flitcrafts.

I didn't see the play the man known as Trav S.D. saw, but I saw the film and thought it seemed as if it had been written by a 12 year old (okay. I said chimps. But that's incredibly mean.). I also reviewed a Fringe show a couple of weeks ago, The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival, written by a New Orleans native, that did a simply beautiful job of showing what that experience was like for five residents of that great and blighted city. Maybe we need a something done documentary style, maybe someone like Spike Lee. Maybe something by someone like Art Spiegelman. Maybe the problem is the artists working in the subject are so resoundingly second rate. We need something better.