Forget Shorter Showers

Sura Faraj cued me into this article by Derrick Jensen. Read it, and he's my response:

I agree with the gist of what Jensen is saying here, but have two responses:

1. Industrial economy is not a machine running for it's own purpose, it fuels and profits from consumerism. So, yes, me living simply has negligible direct effect, but living simply is also a boycott of all the products of the industrial economy. Businesses run their machines to produce the shit we over-consume, general reduction, toward elimination of over-consumption will leave them running machines with less profit. Which results in them needing to turn off some of the machines. Living simply has an indirect effect of slowing the entire industrial economy. We should celebrate this collapse, but we can't, cuz the collapse also hurts us, our friends, our families.

2. Nazi Germany, antebellum US, Tsarist Russia are not comparable to "industrial economy" we're talking about fighting capitalism, a global system. This is much much bigger than those other things. "Voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting" are the equivalent of entering this fight armed with a featherduster the opponent has provided you with. Even altering or abolishing the government (which will require fighting with something A LOT stronger than these featherdusters) is an exclusively political approach.

Jensen is buying into the separation of politics from economics. As a result he doesn't recognize how growing a garden is more than "harm reduction" it is the creation of a non-capitalist economy.

So, he's right, we need to stop thinking of personal changes as political because of their harm reduction. We need to think of them as political because of their autonomy production.

Abolishionists did not own slaves. Nazis thrived because they saved the German economy and were defeated by mostly non-Germans and by Germans who could expect to live in post-Nazi Germany. Revolutionaries are only successful when they are fighting from outside of the system they fight against. What post-industrial, post-capitalist economy is there for us to fight for? Where is there an outside for us to fight from? As long as we depend upon the industrial economy, we break ourselves when we break it.

It is only from a position of autonomy that we can truly begin to fight, where the tactics and objectives become clear because they are based upon defending what we've built. Here we can celebrate the collapse of that destructive economy without also suffering in it's decline. It is through the personal individual choices Jensen is discarding that we build this position of autonomy. It's a herculean task, so we can't waste our time with feather dusters and directionless confrontations.

ACTION!

You wouldn't know it if you read the journal, but MILWAUKEE THEATRE IS BLOWING UP!! HOLY SHIT!

I'm gonna have to eat light, cuz i'm about to drop almost 1/4 of my monthly budget on seeing the gianormous slew of new and exciting theatre happening in this town this month, and i'm very happy about it. It's amazing! Check out my schedule of upcoming activities, google anything you're not familiar with, or just email me asking for details, and i'll send em your way. If you go on the same day as me, you get a special offer: the opportunity to say "hi" or spit at me (if you're one of those people).

Don't waste your summer with nothing but lazy afternoons and bbq! THEATRE!!! SUMMER! DO IT!

1. TONIGHT: Kick Balls resevoir park 6:30 we like it to win. (also, every tuesday hereafter) Followed by Public Enemies at the oriental at 10:10, gonna see Kish get blown away in the first scene!

2. FRIDAY: Krapp's Last Tape at Rooms Gallery in Chicago. Preceeded by dinner and followed by To Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind at the Neo-Futurists (also in Chicago)

3. SATURDAY 11th- David's Red Haired Death. Youngblood Theatre. NEW! AMBITIOUS! EXCITING!

4. SUNDAY 12th- Pain in the Park (ultimate frisbee) Riverside park, 11am. Followed by Someone to Watch Over Me, cuz i'd like to pay money to see Pink Banana botch up political theatre out of spite. SPITE! at the BTC

5. THURDSAY 16th- Sexual Perversity in Chicago at The Alchemist. Kick ASS.

6. FRIDAY 17th- Beauty's Daughter at the BTC. UPROOTED! ALSO NEW! ALSO EXCITING! Not quite as ambitious. Youngblood is opening 3 shows in one month. That's kind of unmatchable ambition, sorry.

7. MONDAY 20th- Savage in Limbo at The Landfill. YOUNGBLOOD

8. FRIDAY 31st- God Bridge at kennilworth YOUNGBLOOD

9. SAT Aug 1st- Dead Man's Carnival at Stonefly (we're performing butoh! You wanna butoh too? TELL ME!!)

10. SAT Aug 8th Sweeny Todd at Off the Wall - Hope to get a group discount or something, cuz $25 is TOO MUCH.

The Coming Insurrection

"The Coming Insurrection" is the book i'm currently reading. This guy is terrified of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCU4psxF_L4&feature=player_embedded

I can't wait to see what happens when he actually reads it, cuz it's some dense philosophical shit that you need at least a passing understanding of critical theory, marxism, post-modernism, etc in order to begin to understand. I especially wonder what he'll think of the parts where they attack the left and call for its destruction.

I don't agree with most of what the book says, a lot of it is a bourgeois complaint about alienation, romantic notions about what pre-capitalism was (or even what pre-civilization was), way too much focus on the negative and tactics that are mostly still too conventionally political (they're looking for excuses to break shit when really we need to work on building shit).

But, i do love the way that even the pull quotes this reactionary fox news guy chose include some of the ideas i find valuable in the book. Things like "the elaboration of collective self-organized forms of life" does that really sound negative to anyone? I mean, "collective self-organized form of life" sure makes for a more reasonable definition of "freedom" than the average american is generally able to muster. What will happen when conservatives need to respond to this definition of communism?

It's kind of like the hypothetical: what would've happened if Marx hadn't dumbed it down for the manifesto in order to inspire the masses into a premature revolution? What if all communists were smart?

Curious?
Read The Coming Insurrection yourself.

Curious but too busy to read all that?
Read CALL (which i actually like more).

Curious but too busy to read even that?
Then you'll just have to keep scratching your head in bewilderment when shit like Greece starts happening everywhere all the time. Cuz this is where those people are coming from.

Arts Advocacy Breakfast

I'm going to keep this breif, because I'm starting to lose my temper a little bit, and i've got a tour to book.

Went to the breakfast in the park that Johnathan West organized. There's going to be another one of these in two weeks, and i intend to go to that one too.

From my experience studying and participating in political action, i offer the following reccomendations.

There is one thing that will make this work: combined forces.

Here's how to combine forces successfully:

1. Connect with the remnants of past efforts.
2. Balance the present individual acute problem with broader future efforts.
3. devise two transparent processes one to develop actionable responses to acute problems and one to develop and strengthen a proactive long term presense.
4. hold frequent real life meetings that produce results.

More details on these things.

1. It was very good to see people from MARN and Arts Inc there. This kind of action is cyclical, if you're not building on the efforts of previous advocates, then you're spinning your wheels and going nowhere. MARN seems like it used to do more agressive advocacy (brenner) and now it's more network focused. This is a good thing, cuz MARN's failures in advocacy probably came from too limited a network. This is an opportunity to bring performing artists into MARN, and use the resources they've already built to pursue advocacy.

2. Skylight cannot hyjack the proceedings. Before the next meeting the aggreived members of Skylight ought to develop and two things to present the larger group: first, a consise report on exactly what happened and why. Second, an action plan, what they'd like the broader community to do to support them. It is then essential that Skylight people participate in, make room for and listen to other greivances as well. I'm only using Skylight as an example here because it is the current acute problem, not because i think musical theatre actors are self-dramatizing divas with short attention spans.

3. the first process has to start with what i just described above. The group needs to establish a lean, effective standard proceedure for raising issues, and recommending action. We can't spend the whole meeting time brainstorming ideas, the ideas should be prepared ahead of time and presented. To some degree, the right process was already happening today, but if we have twice or three times as big a group in two weeks, it's gotta happen more to make things effective.

The second process also already started today, some very goal oriented stuff was discussed, both short term and long term goals. Paula mentioned building enough clout to get a seat at the table for artists when the big fancy people are meeting behind their closed doors, she also mentioned influencing elections. These are good ideas. Prioritize them and develop them into either actions (volunteering for arts friendly politicians) or demands ("Hey GMC! if you want any of these 4000 artists to help realize your fancy-pants creative development plan, you've gotta save a seat for us at your meetings from now on, and you've gotta let us elect the person who sits in that seat").

4. If something like these reccomendations are followed, and actions are employed, this group can get results. If the procedures and discussions are made public, then this will grow.

These are my reccomendations, as a scholar of political activism, not my personal feelings (i'm not really a fan of political activism). My personal feelings are: let the 38 people who don't know each other on the board of the skylight pay half attention while eric dillner burns the company down, and then sing and dance in the ashes. Form new companies, use new models, skip that 501c3 bullshit. But, my personal feelings aren't very useful to people who wanna do showtunes, so in the meantime, i'll help you guys do your best to empower artists within the old models.

I am more excited about this than any of the other milwaukee artist community stuff that's been going on. This art advocacy is different than the coalition's, the CA's or the GMC's. This is transparent, personal and grassroots. When Johnathan says "arts advocacy" he seems to mean something more like "artist advocacy". This distinction is important, "arts advocacy" tends to be much more careful, shallow and empty, advocating the arts as an idea, which can perversely undermine art by empowering arts administrators who have no respect for artists. Creative coalition stuff strikes me as a bunch of meetings where people decide who should talk about making plans on how to create the outline of a map for doing things in a way that makes sure they'll not fail, cuz that might make the GMC look bad. Johnathan's is grassroots, transparent, unafraid of getting dirty, and puts the artists first.

Radical Practices and Basic Macroeconomics.

Oh, the internet, it is a web! I touched it and now i'm tangled again. Fuck. I've got a tour to book!

But Kurt Hartwig cued me into some cool shit, which has me thinking more about this stuff.

My initial response to this cool shit, and Kurt's assertion that what i'm doing has been done before, would be that merchantilism, that transition period between feudalism and capitalism took a LONG time. Our transition might take just as long, and be just as start-stop and bizarre.

But, more specifically, i'd say the 90s (when his RAT example went down) were a boom time for capitalism, if the RAT happened now, during a bust, the infestation would be much easier. I've seen work from Theatre in My Basement, performed at Salvage Vangaurd, perused the Rat Sass blog, so i know at least some these groups still exist today. Lets make something happen now when the time is right.

But, I wonder... it seems (and i might be wrong here) there's an unfortunate correlation that frustrates my central claim here. Seems like radical Theatre is strongest when the economy is also strongest. Which means radical theatre is most present when it is least likely to succeed. This makes sense; theatre (even poor theatre) is something like a luxury for audiences, and something like an expensive hobby for the artists. In hard times we're too busy trying to eat to make or see a whole lot of radical theatre. Hurns.

But, this adversity is a challenge! An opportunity. It only means we need the discipline to aggressively pursue our "hobbies" even though we increasingly can't afford them. It'll be a tough slog, but i'm ready for it!

BUT... there's also the flipside of the correlation, the other causal relationship that kind of makes sense. Radical artists working extra hard to succeed in bad economic conditions will, like any hard working entrepreneurs, eventually contribute to ending the bust and reinvigorating the economy. Then the mainstream theatres with funding will siphon off talent and audiences (just like corporations with investment capital siphon talent and customers off the entrepreneurs). The architects of the reconstruction will be crippled and marginalized by their own success. Hurns. Major fucking hurns.

Well, then fuck it. Looks like compromising, communicating with, working with, or in anyway helping the establishment theatres is inherently against our interest. I withdraw my advice, the BTC can fuck off and die, the sooner and the more completely, the better.

Sheesh! That makes me a tactless asshole, doesn't it. A bitter, curmudgeonly, negative vibe merchant. But, really, i'm not. I've met some very nice well-intentioned people who work at the BTC, people who started with Theatre X's help, and then accidentally dug X's grave. Lots of people i know or could hope might come see my shows probably also know someone who knows someone who works there. Really, only surly punks like someone who says anyone else "can fuck off and die" like i just did, and surly punks mostly spend their money on cheap beer, not theatre. Looks like I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, feining ignorance, saying "oh, Skylight, oh, BTC renters, i feel your pain" and then privately celebrating their demise, and capitalizing on their absence.

But... that feels really dishonest. It feels like pretending i don't know my own interests. That i don't know something in order to better use my knowledge to my advantage later. I'm uncomfortable with that, cuz i might be an asshole, but i'm not a creep or a liar. (I'm fucking terrible at it). Maybe i shouldn't be. Maybe i should take a certain friend's advice and get better at lying. I mean, this is basically what the Skylight did to Theatre X to get that building in the first place, isn't it? They have it coming.

Except maybe their ignorance wasn't feined. Maybe they really didn't realize they were fucking X over. Maybe they had good intentions and just didn't realize what the long term effects of their actions would be. Maybe they don't understand how economic necessity undermines even the best of intentions.

So, then, seems like the proper tactic is to be completely open, lay everything out on the table. Make it so no one can pretend not to know. Maybe i oughta write an open statement to every established non-profit theatre in the country during this trying time, here's a rough draft:

"Hey mainstream theatre establishment! I'm about to commit the next ten years of my life to rebuilding theatre in america. I'm gonna live out of my car producing theatre for free in basements, bars, classrooms and alleyways for audiences that you can't even begin to tap now but who'll probably be ready to subscribe after they settle down and squirt out some babies. I'm gonna burn myself out doing it, (i'm already 30, so i've got a late fucking start) and when i'm done, i'll have contributed some small portion to a rebirth of theatre as an art form (and a growing economy.)

I know full well that once that rebirth happens there'll be a moment when you have the leverage to buy me out. If I've been successful, you'll be ready to buy out everyone I've surrounded myself with, you'll buy out my actors, my audiences, my techs (shit, you're already are buying them out now). If I've been really successful, you'll kiss my ass and talk about how much you love and respect me, and you'll frame the buy-out in terms that make it sound like an opportunity. But, i know that if i take that opportunity it's a devil's deal, it'll break my organization, and it'll leave me begging for scrap roles in your shitty shows. I'll turn you down, and everyone will think i'm a stubborn irrelevant shithead.

Except that now i've written this. I've taught you and everyone else how the economics works, how your well-intentioned offers of opportunities, community, networking, are actually a bad fucking deal. I know it, and I've told you, so you can't pretend not to know it. I've also told my friends, my actors and my audiences. When these people look at your intentions and ask themselves if you're being deceitful, or ignorant, they'll know that if you're ignorant, you've chosen to be ignorant. Willful ignorance is feigned ignorance, it's deceit."

Hmmm... seems viable. The success of the revolution depends on everyone better understanding economics. What's the best way to teach? Demonstration. By looking at Theatre X's history from a distance, in terms of how the economics played out between the institutions, the organizational structures, not how the specific individuals acted under these economic pressures, i'm able to learn things that might apply to me, that help me avoid the situations under which the bad decisions that broke that company up look reasonable. Same applies for every failed revolution of every kind. If we're always learning, learning, learning then nothing anyone has done was for naught.

ULYSSES' CREWEN

This show has been a different process for me. We're rehearsing without a director, on three random afternoons a week, in our dining room. The cast is me and my room mate. The set and props are so minimal that it hardly feels like we're in the middle of production, except when we're rehearsing. It feels much more organic, a natural part of our lives, not something that we go elsewhere and meet with people that we don't regularly otherwise see to do.

But it is the middle of production. Local shows are booked. Press releases sent out. Tour booking is underway. Our test audience rehearsal (instead of a director, we're showing it to a handful of friends) will probably be in a couple weeks. Tonight i'm burning silk screens for the poster. Expect to see some beautiful brown and black and white images around the city starting next week (unless i fuck something up). This afternoon Jason Hames uploaded the preview video to YouTube. This is really, finally going to happen, and i am beyond excited about it.

Advice from a Communist

Artsy Schmartsy is making me a liar with his great coverage of the Skylight disaster. Thanks Jonathan! Also, Kurt Hartwig's making my dreams come true with more and more coverage on his blog.

Check out their recent posts for details, then come back here for my perspective:

I urge everyone who is upset about this to look beyond this individual instance and observe the broader institutional transition that Skylight's actions are merely a symptom of.

There is a major shift in how theatre is produced underway today. Depending on how you look at it* it's been underway for decades, or it's just starting now. Either way, the dominant model of theatre production (non-profit corporations / regional repertory theatre system) is on it's way out.**

So let's look at what's going on here, in the abstract.

First, we have a class of big non-profit theatre who function under the obsolete model. This class needs A. new life and energy. B. a navagible route to gradually acheive radical innovations without disrupting their institutions, interrupting their services, or sacrificing their employee's livelyhood.

Second, we have a class of upstart theatre companies functioning under new models who, like all new models, are rough, and need time to develop, work out the kinks and perfect the formula.

Way i see it, things can go down one of two ways:

1. The big companies can batten down the hatches, dig into their bunker boardrooms, make draconian cuts and hope they'll weather the storm. They won't. Cuz this storm (and the upstarts) will reshape the entire landscape. There will never be a good time to come out of the bunker boardrooms, and the institutions will die there.

2. The big companies can reach out to the upstarts, bring them to the table, give them the support, resources, networks they need to experiment and develop their model. In return, they'll gain infusions of new talent and audience and have a chance to chart their own route of a more gradual carful adaptation along the trails the upstarts blaze.

Now, as a communist, I'd call option 2 "recouperation" and "appropriation of small innovators by established institutions" and / or say that the small innovators have "sold out". I'd prefer to struggle through the figuring out new models on my own and dance on the grave that the establishment's bunkers have become.

But, as a pragmatist i can't help but notice that option 2 sure seems a lot more pleasant, and more likely to work, at least sometime in my lifetime.

Fortunately for the rep, skylight and the companies at the BTC, I'm probably the only communist in the theatre scene, and even i can be pragmatic at times. (and i'm going to be spending much less time in milwaukee starting this fall). Unfortunately for the big companies, they seem mostly ignorant or uninterested in option 2. Which means the communist in me stands to win some support from the other small companies, right? Lets band together, get disciplined and smash the motherfucking establishment! Right? uh... oh. okay, i guess we're not quite at that point yet. Hurns.

*Tangent 1: My understanding of the history of this transition: The broad arch of it started decades ago, by the 60's radical practices had grown enough to challenge the establishment, but where then appropriated, absorbed, and relegated to the margins, where they exist today. But now the acute rapid part of this transition begins. Now the establishment is collapsing under it's own weight, if (when) radical practices emerge as powerful as they did in the 60's replacing these already crippled institutions will be simple. This history applies to all sectors of the economy, not just the theatre arts. It's called reasoned optimism people, catch it!

**Tangent 2: as to Kurt's disagreement that the non-profit model is increasingly obsolete, here's some interesting stuff to look at: theatre tribes, Mike Daisey. Neither go as far as i do, but you can find more of my thoughts by perusing my blog archive.