Martin Kicks Arse

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

for the record...

Originally posted by Butterfly Man
... the bus you seek is in drydock here in Los Angeles ... it was retired from the Ben & Jerry's tour back in the late 90's ... it has a stage underneath that rolls out ... only two bedrooms though but a great kitchen and a huge fuckin' freezer (we used it for ice cream)... you should get in touch with Special Events Dept. @ Ben & Jerry's (or talk to Ben or Jerry) ...

will you change the rainbow and cow paint job to the more appropriate flyswatter/decapitated nun motif?

I still hold the record for most ice cream consumed on tour. I managed to put away a full commercial tub of mint chocolate chunk during my stint on that bus. The tour was three months long, I think. It was a magical time, with me, the Flying Robertini and Jeannie Wall, directed by Murph. Never laughed so much in my life. Mart, you`ll change the world, if you pull this one off.

[martin ewen]

Picking up hitchhikers and pretending to be deaf mutes

Thank God.
You have no idea karl, you jaunt off to stroll about the tropics and as if on fucking cue I start getting mildly agitated by some strange cult of tedium emanating from the british isles. Some non performing wannabe and some guy crippled by a unicycle who considers wearing trinkets on his head a qualification to insipidise the universe.
I swear if they were any dumber someone'd have to water them daily.
They are safely at a self imposed distance now, their posts a mere faint knocking on my otherwise pristine humourous universe.
Are you home yet, i have a small boil needs lancing.
This BUS thing is as serious as it gets.
You can come but NO ROCKS! It will affect our milage.

[firegirl]

OFF TOPIC, SORT OF

there is this park in san francisco - mclaren park - where if you wander about for long enough you will stumble upon this really cool ampitheatre which (for unknown reasons) is never really used for anything. there are weeds growing up in between the seats of the thing... there is amazing tree cover and such surrounding it... it looks pretty damn creepy at dusk, that's for sure!

my flat-mates and i were out walking various pooches in mclaren park and stumbled upon this site. one flat-mate (david hunt, aka - david did) and i spent a fair amount of time prancing upon the stage and remarking that it would be a perfect local for any sort of multi-variety show festival. as it is concrete, flat - lots of room... fairly sheltered from the wind... so much so that i stood there (on a rather blustery day) and held up a lit match - which didn't go out.

there is water close by, a power source (which we'd need to jimmy-rig, or get permits for) and thingies to hang banners off the back wall.

it's really as perfect an outdoor venue as i've EVER seen.

when you get this bus concept up and running, martin - you may want to consider stopping by sf... this venue would be a really cool place to stage some sort of "world series of variety performers" show...

just a thought.

peace out,
k

[martin ewen]

Venue acknowledged

Why scrimp and save, why not follow the money, suck at the teat of new development and use your idea and performance a vehicle for some sort of groovy technology to become known and desired.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you
ROBOTS

http://news.com.com/Photos+Tech+wonders+of+the+world+-+page+2/2009-7337_3-5625871-2.html?tag=st.next

I have a whole file on bots, many many bots.

[Doctor Eric]

Oh, good, it's another one of those genius ideas that starts with "I need a bus."
Why is it that the word "need" makes it so much worse? "We should get a bus" is fine, but as soon as it turns into a need, your !@#?ed.
Sure, the sex is great, the drugs are free, but suddenly, three weeks into it, you wind up between a tattooed clown and the four thugs that want to stab him with a handful of penknives outside of some !@#?hole club in Chicago, screaming at the top of your lungs "Just give them back the !@#?ing SOAP, Nostril!"

I'm in, even though I know better, my life's been a bit too safe lately.

BTW: !@#? Ice Cream, I hold the record for making the most people cry themselves to sleep on tour. Just ask Frack.

But I'm much better now...

[Cybele]

Martin, pleeeeeeeease let Karl bring his rocks.

I'm extraordinarily fond of Karl's rocks.

And Eric should bring his weapon, as long as he's shooting blanks.

[martin ewen]

I am not without bus stories

I was a roady in a small van driving down the Kiakoura coast in the middle of the night and the sadistic driver would not stop talking and we had not slept in days and we had begged and pleaded for him to shut up and he had just laughed and kept on talking shit and then we had all started punching him quite hard about the back of the head and it only encouraged him. Even after we'd drawn blood he'd just kept on prattling (remind you of anyone?) and then the guitarist had the first epileptic fit of his life and we had to pull over and drag him onto the road and watch him thrash.
The guitarist eventually cleaned up and is now a Yoga teacher with his own studio in Cuba mall overlooking one of the main pitches in Wellington.

We were 12, Stalker stilt theatre, antigravity theatre and a band called 'not really anything' (parts of whom went on to be the "headless chickens')
Rex Visible was our driver, Rob Maclaren who some might know was there also. David Clarkson was the leader of Stalker. We had travelled down the east coast of the north island, then east coast of the south island and were now making our way up the west coast of the south island. We'd been on the road over a month. Our prepublicity woman was always about a week ahead of us, arranging radio interviews, poster runs, confirming venues etc, She'd then leave a report somewhere outlining what she'd arranged and what we had to do re appointments with press etc. She was very organised and we we less so so she was always a little pissed at us but she also took that as part of her job. the alphas in our group (this is before I graduated) used to resent her and complain bitterly but they were intimidated by her also.
She had been my girlfriend a couple of years and had calmly ended our relationship just before the tour. So she would get me on the phone and complain about the specific inconsistancies in the crew and I would have to digest these talks so i could diplomatically relate them to our group in a way that was effective, and the crew would grumble and grumble about her criticisms and what they percieved to be her faults and i would have to translate those. I did all this because it was the only form of communication left to me between myself and someone i still loved desperately.
So I'm sitting in the open doorwell and the bus is tootling up the west coast and there are 2/300 foot cliffs a muscle spasm away. I sat there for some time toying with a fatal twitch but what saved me was my youth and my curiosity as to how much worse my life could get.

[jester]

I was on a bus, in my early twenties, with a group of people, most of whom were much older than I, of both sexes, with whom I had nothing in common. It was a long journey, over an hour each way and we were paid while we travelled.

There was another young man who could not do a thing right in anybodies eyes. He was the community scapegoat. Treated awfully, and stuck on this bus everyday for weeks on end he would try to keep his head down, read a book, listen to a walkman or whatever, but then he was anti-social, he wasn't even trying etc etc. Whatever he did just fueled the contempt of many while the milder people dared not speak up on his behalf.

One day we were on the bus, but he wasn't. He disappeared. I asked after him.

"Who cares." Was the answer. However everyday for about a month a woman called Anne could not resist having a dig at him in his absence. "When that shit finally comes back." "Knowing our luck he'll have been promoted." etc etc etc.

Funnily enough he was. Turns out he was a graduate employee learning the ropes at the bottom all along. So when he did return after several months he was a rather important player indeed.

To my surprise, he behaved as though nobody had ever been unkind to him. He simply moved the Foreman, who had tolerated and had indeed led the torment, into a position which the foreman found undignified. He said nothing, did nothing different, he did not work with them, he merely used the company bus. However, he used to simply look at Anne whenever Anne opened her mouth in derision and Anne being a true fuckwit, would carry on in her own inimitable way.

I remember one day Anne felt that I should be kept in my place, I just laughed and laughed everyday. Ironicly, the person who I had at first taken a dislike too, a woman called Leone, and who clearly disliked me immensely was the first person to pipe up and tell Anne to shut up. "Oh for fucks sake Anne. He doesn't do any harm."

Anne was the groups Alpha Bitch! However, her enduring contempt for life and life kind, her inability to let live and know just when to back off eventually got to everybody. Her alliences crumbled, her toadies were not strong enough friends to tell her when she should just leave it.

There came a day when a Schoolgirl on work experience with tons of attitude and enthusiasm and absolutely no vested interest in the social dynamics kicked her arse and humiliated her so comprehensively, that when Anne made the usual put downs about the housing estate she lived on, how she probably had a boyfriend with an Orange Capri with a matt black wing on the lawn of his garden and how her cider drinking parents were the natural inhabitants of the hedgerows in the park etc etc... that when she tried all of this, she could not understand why her allies were thinning out or indeed why the young miss celebrated her sexuality and shocked us all with:

"Yeah he's got a capri but I fuck him at home in my bedroom while my parents are out, it isn't difficult to do.. How old is YOUR daughter again? My dad knows and would call the police on him cos I'm underage, except he's more concerned about the family honour than he is about mine and he doesn't want to put me through any of that shit again, not after the last ABORTION I had cos my mum ran off with the milkman and it was him that got me pregnant in the first place but my dads just as bad....." I wish I could remember it all. A poetic montage of all the small minded judgemental bullshit she'd heard all her life about the fucked up people on her estate, all personified in her...

We all knew that none of this was true, but we just knew that some 15 year old girls have far more idea of what goes through our minds than we can ever know about theirs. It was the classiest insult and expose of bigotry I have ever heard in my life. I so admired the sweet little girl in her school uniform, in her ridiculous ill fitting fashion, and her eyes that were too old for a girl of her age, weathered and worn with a forehead that carried her families stresses and a face that said "It's not good asking me not to smoke."

Over the next few years, I came to understand and co-exist with all of the inhabitants of that bus except Anne. I used to feel sad about that. Then one day I saw her about 7 years after I stopped getting on that company bus. I asked how she was and if she still worked there. But after 7 years she was still angry that I never tugged my forlocks to her and was still trying to put me in my place in the short conversation we had.

I know she was a parent, but when she talked about her kids she never once expressed any pride in their humanity, but always boasted about their social status, her son the doctor, her daughter the Lawyer, her husband the Small Businessman, but never once heard her relate any humanity in her cosy middle class reactionary blameless life.

The pits came when somebody she disliked died of AIDS, and when she was told, everyone felt sorry and perhaps guilty for most of us did not like this individual, one of our unpleasant clients. Anne said "GOOD!" and I realised then that there are some people who are very very ill inside, who appear to be very strong. I will never know why Anne was as she was, something in her life disappointed her deeply. Still at least they never let her kick the cat.

[martin ewen]

Heel Eric Heel

Want, need, desire, would prefer, it all masks the same dangerous thing, the potential for disappointment. I need a bus because I'm just a raw throbbing wound of need and a bus will help the blood clot and distract me from the yawning futility, the cataclysmic indifference, the cancerous inhumanity that forms the base of a society we perversely help celebrate itself with our performances.
And because simply no-one has yet to successfully smother my inner funbaby. (It breaths shallowly but it WILL kick your arse.)
You could be useful Eric as a litmus. If Eric is a happy puppy then we know either we are being sufficiently dangerous or his dosage is out of whack.

[firegirl]

GOOD LORD! FRACK!

Originally posted by Doctor Eric

BTW: !@#? Ice Cream, I hold the record for making the most people cry themselves to sleep on tour. Just ask Frack.

But I'm much better now...

"But, really Eric. Are you?" says Kate as she raises one eyebrow and takes another shot of tequilla.

heh, heh!

FRACK! good lord! i almost forgot that frack went on tour with you guys... !! there is a name i haven't though of in, oh... two years...

martin - that bus story was quite poetic. a pleasant thing to read on a sunday morning. though the end of the post was very meloncholy - but, i identified with it... so... you know.

on the topic of buses - as we need two buses (quiet/loud) i was thinking about bread & puppet theatre (out of GLOVER, vt.)... they have a really cool refurbished school bus (painted all wacky and stuff... inside it's really nice - benches ripped out in favor of beds, tables to eat at, counter space at the back to prepare meals...) and, as b&p theatre is now defunct perhaps they would want to sell their bus. if it's not too hippiesque for the group... it could be the "loud" bus. as i imagine "loud" goes with "rambuncious & rowdy" - and, i don't think that there would be as much to damage in this bus as there would be in the beautious air stream which martin has first proposed.

just a thought.

later, taters...

message edited due to stupidity

[Doctor Eric]

Bread and Puppet is located in Glover, VT and they are FAR from defunct.

[firegirl]

B & P

right. glover. my bad.

according to their website they are no longer producing any new pagents. they have closed down their main area & aren't sending any shows out on tour.

this information was as of last december - i was looking into booking them for a school show.

but, i may be wrong - as i often am.

EDIT:

okay - i am PARTLY wrong.

http://www.pbpub.com/bread&puppet/bread.htm

they are still around - but, have downsized quite a bit. i searched their new homepage & it seems like they are only doing shows on the b&p farm in vermont.

anyone else have info?

i worked with them at kent state in 1993 & still consider it one of the better theatrical experiances i've had in my life.

yeah. well - further proof that i am half hippy.

now i'm late.

[Doctor Eric]

"they are still around - but, have downsized quite a bit. i searched their new homepage & it seems like they are only doing shows on the b&p farm in vermont."

That's pretty much all the info, they stopped performing for the general public after the 1999 pageant, but they were still doing a roadshow, their roadshow may be on hold, but they will probably pop out a new one eventually. Peter Schumann is a really wierd guy, and he's a bit secretive. You never know what he's going to do next, and he likes it that way. They used to print up batches of posters and fliers for the pageants and circuses that intentionally had the wrong dates printed on them. Don't trust any official news about them, the more official it is, the more likely it's a lie. My friend Forrest has been working with them on and off for years, I'll ask him if there's any word, I think he's planning on heading out to the farm soon anyway.

[Magrat2005]

*Yawns*

Martin, do me a favour, go bore some other thread with your banging bus, so we can get back to kicking your arse...that was fun

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Mmmm, speak for yourself there, kiddo. One of the things that pnet is, at its core, is a group of whirlwind personalities with potent imaginations. Every once in awhile, a member will attemp to harness these imaginations, or do it by accident, and these threads take on a life of their own. Sometimes, things like stories about bus rides and respectful rememberances of magical theater companies emerge.
The last thing I would want to see is someone whose entire life ocean is a petri dish among bowls on Martin's counter proclaim herself his equal and then presume to dictate the conversational flow, Amoeba girl.

Bread and Puppet had a strong impact on me, too, and there are examples of "cheap art" from them gracing my home even today... 'Drinks his coffee and says thank you, coffee' hangs in the kitchen.

Bread and Puppet accomplished far more than most performance groups, and helped give hordes of earth-loving types an emotional shot in the arm, while bringing important issues into headlines.

I remember marching on dc years ago. Bread and Puppet brought this giant puppet of a nicaraguan priest who had been killed, quietly assasinated. At a stoplight, they unfloded his twenty-foot arms, and this dead priest reached out in puppet form, supplicating, embracing, and as alive as anyone else there. Bread and Puppet dealt in magic.

And they still do. They've come full circle from the giant summer circus, and now perform weekly in Vermont, doing many community shows throughout New England. They continue to win grants, and publish books and paraphenalia.

And Cybele, I'll load up a few rocks when Mart's back is turned, or pick up some along the way.