This is the vibe. This is the jacket. RAINS. Barbara Harris and I are in these coats this winter. Mortal Kombat. I will own this jacket. I will own it. The last samurai.
I’m sitting in Pain Quotidien on 7th Ave near FIT, because I booked a bunch of rehearsal space at the National Opera Center — they have a Happy Hour special where rehearsal space is like 5 dollars an hour. So I can afford that.
And it’s nice to not rehearse at my house, it’s nice to have a designated space to go and just be. I don’t know what to say, as I wasn’t expecting to feel elated after the first time I’ve rehearsed in like — 20 years. I mean, I was mostly just there, beginning to play around. I was thinking out loud in there, that who cares if you suck? You know what I mean? Who cares? Dare to suck.
I worked on Angelica Leibowitz, of course, thinking I would need to get into costume fast, early, now. I need a cap, I need to exit the confines of who SHE IS actually, as I’m doing something else, also, I’m going to have to find her inside of me. I worked on her etat, or state, in French, not really understanding why people went SO INSANE about Barbara Harris being GIFTED at states, truly. BUT DID SHE KNOW? Amazing predicament, no?
In any case, I began to tackle the beast of her, listened to Lady in Red, thought about her dances in her bedroom, “yeah, Maria, love, Maria, LOVE,” tried to capture that vowel in Portuguese, so it came back. “Love,” nothing but “love, Maria love…” I can’t not laugh when I impersonate her. “MARIA,” her demonic mask, was extremely affective, and it’s working already. Like Tom Cruise said, it just sort of sucks to feel like I have to start crawling at 39, he’s gotta learn how to crawl, then walk, then run, and he surrenders to the fact of it. So I’m learning how to crawl.
I worked on her, Lady in Red, deep and necessary. I worked on her TELLING ME, you see, TELLING ME, what this bitch said, my mother, rape. I have to, at this point, at least, just let it be what it is, just because a white person believes everything south of California is Mexico. So we will let it be. I have to absorb Brazil, again, so I’m going to a Brazilian soiree this weekend, I just gotta absorb. I have to bathe in it.
I started listening to people making fun of Brazilians, how they say things which is basically to add CHATCH-KEY — after every word. “BRAD PITT—CHI CHI” lol. THIS WOMAN — OKAY? — NICE FAKE SMILE on her FACE — took me home. And she’s going to come to LIFE. IN ME. THROUGH ME.
I just felt a bit lost, but you have to search through that part, everyone does, so I decided to sit down and just type a minute. I am in the rehearsal room now. It’s been four months, counting, so I’m at this point, where, for the next two months, I just booked rehearsal space in advance. It’s done. I worked on a MOTH story for next Tuesday. I can do that at home.
I don’t know why I felt Ed Norton energy, and I have to laugh, but he appeared in my mind and told me to start IN SCENE.
I thought, wow, I don’t know WHY Edward Norton is coming to my mind right now with clear direction for me, but it sounded correct. THE POINT is that I make this decision for that guy, I thought. Right right. I’m going to make a sacrifice, right, because that’s the theme of the evening, so I’m going to have to organize the story around the decision I make for this guy, and why. I suppose I don’t have to approach it that way, but I broke out of literality, I started in SCENE, and it made sense as to how that’s going to help me. I’m the only one there, for real, onstage, and I can talk to as many characters as I want, I don’t need to go INSIDE the building, literally, necessarily. I just find it hilarious that the spontaneous thought of Ed Norton brought me so much clarity. I have to laugh. So there you go. Funny thought proess.
“START IN SCENE.”
I’m going to spend a few days preparing the story, and it doesn’t have to be FIVE minutes, either, I’m going to get up there and try to tell a satisfying slice, and I can do it at an open mic if I want to. I’ll keep going, I think, but I’m moving into storytelling land, now, since that’s what I was seeking to explore, whether there’s a show… I can do. I just don’t know what it is yet. It could have elements of comedy. I have to keep figuring out HOW to do it in the comedy space, too. I have to go and see shows now. See one-person shows. It’s the easiest approach at this point. We’ll see.
I’m not trying to decide anything yet, actually, I’m just exploring her, her character, ANGELICA LEIBOWITZ, because she can EXIST on the comedy stage, sure. I even impersonated the Hollywood GURU, so will it be a series of characters? MOMS?
“All my Mothers,” you know what I mean? I don’t know. I’m going to have to explore for a momen and just see what begins to happen and take it from there. Just Angelica Leibowitz, living and breathing in space, turning herself on. “LOVE, Maria, LOVE.” She can’t get over how great sex is, lol. I laughed and cried, no? I remembered that, today, in that rehearsal rom. HOW she said love. Love, love. nothing but love. I’ll probably try a scene where I don’t know HOW to act.
HOW was I supposed to act? You know? HOW? And I’ll explore a scene like that. Was I supposed to be broken? For you? You know what I mean? I’ll just have to keep going, I have a basic block, which is, I haven’t acted in — ever, in Leonardo di Caprio’s mind — or, in a very long time. Sure sure, I did little things here and there, but that’s not acting, to me, sorry. I’ve done a couple things. I’m IN that JACKET, I’m a ninja, not someone who fluffs pullows for a living. No pillow fluffing.
I got a little — wonky — afterwards, walking down the steps, so I wanted to ground and regroup before I moved onto something else at Pain Quotidien, but I feel positive about it. I feel energized. I feel frustrated sometimes when I think about the ROUND and AROUND, the course of my life. How MUCH it hasn’t registered, can’t register to people — that I don’t know if my own father violated me… before I could talk, exactly. That a man, on SKYPE, a sexual trauma specialist, is telling me, “LOOK IN THIS CASE, YOURS,” he’s seeing the possiblities are ENDLESS here. “Your mother was so sexually unhinged…” I mean, I’ll sort through all this, to classical music at Pain Quotidien, but I can’t really handle his comment about 0-4, that there were the years between ZERO and FOUR, so I could have been abused at any point back there. And I’m thinking, people get abused as babies????????? Please! I needed a second. I did. Please. Like, I have to ask him, look, how, um, do you know people who were abused that young? I mean, I don’t know what to do with that.
Anyway, now, looking over here — away from the screen. I’m on the other side of something, I got to the other side. As if I died and I’m still alive. The world looks the same, meaning the basic architecture of it, but it’s not the same world at all. I can’t totally grasp it, explain it, but again, I’ll talk to this specialist tomorrow. I’ll keep talking to him. Even the guru, you see, he should LOOK at himself, as he got his panties in a TWIST over that story, literally, his panties in a twist, so — he exercised a manipulative hand. He did. In all this. I just don’t know what that all means.
Anyway, I understand now how someone could want to murder someone. My parents. I could murder them. Kill. Sure. I’m not going to kill Dr. J, but in a movie I could. I would kill the shit out of this woman. My father — kill. Kill. That’s what that’s like. If that turns out to have been TRUE? And the thing is, okay, right now, no one knows the story, but hopefully I’ll get it published as a book, and I assure you, by the end of that story, you’re not going to know what to do at all because I don’t know WHAT I’m looking at. It’s sick, for sure. But no one reading that story is going to go, “yeah, he didn’t do it,” or something. It was so insane, so I can’t quite understand people’s understanding— because it was that crazy, it can’t be that crazy. So I don’t know what to do with that.
I pray, in a sense, every day that it’s not true, I just don’t know what I went through. That’s all.
I could murder Dr. J, murder Ghomi, murder my father, murder, so I could go there, for sure, at least as a character. No problem. “Mummy.” Even. “Hello MUMMY.”
I’ll have to explore Joker’s daughter, a state, for sure, where the dark becomes good, something, where you might as well put cartoon birds around real people when it comes to this subject. “YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I’m SAYING that I do not know if my PARENTS abused me when I was FOUR.” Right now. I’m just trying to get on my feet because I don’t know what happened to me. Like I wasn’t behind the wheel. So that’s shocking, sometimes. But art, you know, I have an outlet, I can explore, the beauty of just giving myself a couple of months is simply that — room to explore. I’ll go to these screenings, (so funny, right?), and I’ll keep navigating and just figuring out who I am, what I’d like to do, and what I can do…
I don’t feel like I’m an impossible person. I don’t think anything is impossible, that’s not how I see things, I just didn’t need the sci-fi shit. Where I’m confused as to why this guru thinks that’s my problem, when I hadn’t even begun. But HE’s a reflection of a basic obstacle, which was the story, my personality, my looks? Can’t totally tell. I went dark, you see, like, nope, nope, in loose pants. I’m staying far far far away — from you. SURE it wasn’t about that, wink, GARY was like, “look weird dudes. YUP, confessing his love, OKAY? Over an I TANYA DVD, but it’s your father,” he cannot KEEP UP. “It’s about THE DISAPPOINTMENT…” and it’s like, WHY AM I HERE? Jesus Christ. Wow, that guy was problematic. That guy had problems. I did, clearly, because I was STUCK, psychologically, like WHY is this happening? WHY does he THINK I don’t think i’m SPECIAL, he kept saying that.
“You’re special, and I intend to keep my perspective…”
It was an I TANYA DVD. That my roommate lost. I’m feeling boyfriend energy, sure, “like who is this guy?” WOW. That’s worse than a woman — MAKING UP that you’re cheating on her based on —nothing. WELL WHEN YOU SAID THIS, no… YOU MEANT… no. WHEN I SAID MY ROOMMATE LOST THE I TANYA DVD, that’s basically it. I was upset, of course, because I didn’t want to lose his goddamn DVD. And he’s looking at me as if I were a TV SHOW.
Most likely, as he confessed his love to me in a strange manner after this while role playing my father…I have no idea what this was, looking back on it, the SUBTEXT might have been: “I’m in love with you, so who gives a SHIT about the I TANYA DVD?” But the moment you say it, the spell, whatever that was, just punctures. It was not real.
Not unless it’s real.
“You cannot disappoint me,” he said so dramatically, “you have my looveeee….”
That was the weirdest exchange I ever had. Well, there was Dr. J, of course. Of course. To classical music, the violins at Au Bon Pain. It should be.
I’m happy that I’m giving myself a chance, a real chance, you never know, it’s really true. And “the unbelievable can happen to you,” you know, so I could take it on tour, Fleabag began as a fringe show, there’s nothing but possiblities, so I’m solid on that one. Sure, you might not hear about the journey, but ONE BIG TOE, right? Kill Bill.
She’s starting with HER TOE. That’s step one.
Anyway, I feel great, now, I got through rehearsal one. I just needed to process through — old stuff. It’s fine, I had a bit of an ENNUI problem, where I could shut down, unconsciously, really unconsciously, just start shut down instead of TURNING ON. That’s fine, that’s just something I need to get over, once you understand what’s actually holding you back, you can deal with it.
And look, I just started, and I’m getting —hey, you’re good, actually, do you want to come in and read a scene? Yeah, obviously. So that’s encouraging, that I am getting a response, immediately, so I’m just going to continue to trust that, I’m going to hopefully see this new friend of mine tomorrow, who wants to make her own work too, so maybe we can align. I want to do 1800-Im-psychic. I want to do the call-in psychic, on call, at all times. LOOK — in line. Staring at glue, just shaking my head, because it’s behind the counter. “You just had sex with a guy, didn’t you?”
OHHHH.
“OH MY GOD, how did you know?”
“I’m psychic, you see.”
“Now you wanna know the future with this dude? Already? Okay.”
“Let me tell you what’s what…” walking out the door.
“It’s not going to go well.”
“Now,” in my ninja jacket, “now what? It’s going to FAIL, END, NOW WHAT?”
“Do you keep going? Will you OPEN,” opening the sliding door, “the possibility that you can take it STEP BY STEP?”
“Yes, yes, I understand, yes yes, I’m sure you heard about me, yes yes, people generally do, have breakthroughs…”
“Just take that… it’s going to go terribly wrong… I want you to… go down that road, and then, call me back, when YOU feel you have the answer it is that you seek…”