Monday, January 19, 2009

Screaming

Que el agua ya esta caliente! Que ya hirvio el agua!

Phone rings

Hi, oh my God! That’s awful. When did it happen? Oh, jeez
Yes, it’s true, we all gonna die
Okay, we’ll talk later

Screaming again

It’s dead now! The water is dead. It’s true, we waste too much water. And who cares about your stupid bath anyway?
I could be representing so many things at this mment. I could be meaning something
Have you been reading about mental illness lately? Do you know how it works? No, you don’t. Nobody does
We hope not to starve right?
Not to be tortured
Not suffer from illness, pain, injustice, heart break
We all gonna die anyway, but those two minutes that we are alive we want to be free. And the people around us to be free too. Happy, we are all happy
I prefer not to be killed harrased, tortured, sentenced to death,. And do not send me to war, cause I am not gonna fight
I stopped believing in God and I am running out of future, so I don’t believe in the future anymore
But everytime the sun comes up a new day starts and we feel hope again
Unless we’ve been devoured by the darkness already
I have
I used to be happy like a child
But we are dying, they are killing us, one by one
But I am here to make you happy, to give you faith in art and love and new forms
I want to be so post post modern
And I don’t want to be screaming. I want to murmur in your ear and make love
Let me give you some consolation. You don’t have to do anything. Stop accomplishing. You don’t have to accomplish anything
Look, the new thing in acting is to not act
The new thing about me is that you’ll never know which one is me

I am not acting, I am really dying, right here, in front of you
I tried before to kill myself, then I changed my mind. I am not just going to die, not kill myself, but stop existing

Ay estos latinos, mi dios, que tragicos que son, que melodramaticos!

- What are you trying to do? To make me feel guilty? Fuck you, fuck you. Go die in your basement!. I don’t need to see this

It’s too crowded in my basement. We are all dying in the basement! Nobody is going to notice if I die there!

Gosh it’s fun in there, we fuck and dance
How did I make it all the way here? I am free. It’s true, I shouldn’t be ungrateful. It’s thank to you that I am here
No, I don’t do drugs
I don’t pray, I don’t fast
There’s a lot of people marching. They are all leaving their homes and joining the huge march to end the wars, they are screaming and runing at last
I don’t want to die without seeing it. We talked too long already. They torture animals and people, even a flooding sounds better
They even believe in rapture. Their rapture
They took everything from us, god, earth, what is in here and what is in there
And who is them anyway? Who’s us?
I am the one cleaning your ass
No, I am not a nurse. But I should. To see you dying. Or them? Okay, them
I want you to hate me and throw stones at me
It’s you an me and 5 millions who don’t give a shit

I am going to dance to elevate your soul. I will show you my craft. I will prove you how beautiful a human being can be. I am healthy. I am alive. I am screaming and you are listening. There’s so much literature already. I am iliterate. I can’t even speak properly. And so what? You’ll go home and think, what’s next? And we all know so well what’s next. It’s all lined up for us. Waiting
One sip at the time. It’s just one more day at work, then we’ll take a break. There’s no more time for philosophy. Don’t analize me, we’ll march until we die. Because it’s all mashed up together.
It’s desperation I am talking about. It’s all the people out there, waiting. For us to do something about it. To help them. Do you know what is like to suffer and nobody knows? Nobody comes to help you. Nobody can hear you. Maybe we do. Maybe we can hear them. And that’s what’s making us sick, inside

Outside the realm of human-
people are different from humans. Gente es diferente de los animales

The bowel movement
The women’s movement
The dance movement

I am telling you, poetry dies when you are happy
I am telling you, it dies when you don’t care anymore
Or you have no more to say and you start repeating the same
Or when you feel burned out., no more. Did you make any change? So why do you continue?
I’ve been talking to you the whole time
I’ve been talking to you the whole time
It doesn’t matter if you don’t listen. Or if you are there at all
The important thing is
Actually, there’s no important thing
The thing is
There’s no importan thing
But it’s funny, it takes a lot of work to make you laugh
And what do I care if you laugh?
And who are you anyway?
It doesn’t matter as long as you love me or you hate me
Really, it doesn’t matter. This is actually about me
About me talking to you. Listen. Listen. I am no philosopher. I am no nothing. I walk. I walk. That’s what I do. I get tired. Phisically tired. Not even emotionally tired anymore. Everything goes so fast. When I was younger things wer moving slowly I thought. The old people, the children, everything was in one place as it was
Everything was more permanent, they were old, we were young. Then everything starts moving faster. People die, people grow, everything changes so fast, nothing stays in one place. We are not really much of anything. It makes sense to care you know. It makes sense. Break the space. Open a hole. For beauty, art. Come-on, scream, it’s art, it’s a protest, you are protesting now, and you are creating art, come on this is new york. I have to confess, I love New York. I have to confess, I…. mmm… should I say that? Snobby, pretentious piece of shit

Language! What a marvelous thing language
I am sure it’s knowledge that you are producing, poetry, politics maybe. Don’t mix up everything. We are here to witness the disaster.
The chaos, the disgusting injustice. And do nothing about it
It feels so burgeois to be thinking and acting and writing. If we would believe that this little moment that we are sharing. This little instant between you and me. If we believe that this little moment it’s important. If we believe in this instant, then we wouldn’t let it pass. We wouldn’t let it go. Now. Right now. In this little moment, we are being part of the universe. And we are together. For good or for worse, we are together. If I would tell you exactly what I think
It’s so good to learn how to lie, very useful
Let me tell you exactly what hapenned

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I wanted to write a play about the rights of animals
but people told me, why do you care about animals? There's children dying of hunger in the world, you know?
So I started writing a play about children dying of hunger in the world
And they told me, what about the war?
so I started writing about the war
but they were upset you don't care about the death penalty then?
so I wrote about the death penalty
Aren't you a lesbian?
okay, I'll write about lesbians
Who cares about lesbians, there's homeless people you know?
okay, I'll write about homeless lesbians then
What makes you think that you can make any change with your plays?
so I didn’t even try to make a change
who goes to see your plays anyway?
It's true, I should get more audience
Aren't you preaching to the converted?
Maybe I should preach to the non-converted
Why, you think the converted need no support, no preaching?
You are right, I'll write shows for my community then
You obviously can't leave your ghetto
Ok, I'll write about everybody
You just don't get it. Do you really think all those problems are isolated but they are really only one: Capitalism
Get it, we need a revolution
okay, I'll write for the revolution
Are you sure this revolution is for us too? We are queer remember?
ok, I'll write for the queer revolution
All you need is love
I'll do some abstract dance

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Lost or never had it

This is a scene from The Fraud. During the play the characters think they lost something, they actually did, but then they think they didn’t, they think they never had it

ANDREA – Oh, my God, where are the kids?
JO – What kids?
ANDREA – My kids…
SAM – They were here
ANDREA - Wait , what’s wrong with me. I don’t have kids
JO – You do
ANDREA – Really? Where are they?
JO – I don’t know, but I know you have kids
Noah – I want to have kids too
JO – She has kids already
MARTA – You guys are going crazy
ANDREA – Why are you saying that?
MARTA – Because you are losing touch with reality, you are imagining things
ADELO – That’s not what crazy means
MARTA – Yes, crazy means that you are losing touch with reality
ADELO – What reality?
MARTA – The reality
SAM – I thought it was creative to imagine things
ANDREA – You can also lose touch with reality with a good meditation and I think that’s good
ADELO – What reality?
MARTA – You don’t know what reality means?
ADELO – I know what it means, I don’t know which one are you referring to
ANDREA – There’s plenty
MARTA – No, there’s one
ADELO – There’s more than one
MARTA – No, I can touch it. This is the reality. Touch it it’s over there (she touches the wall)
JO – That is the wall it’s not the reality
MARTA – It’s real, it’s over there. You can touch it, it’s the only thing you can touch
JO – I can touch you
MARTA– Yes, because I am real
SAM – Can I kiss you?
MARTA– No
SAM – So you are not real
MARTA – Not to you
SAM – real to her, not to me
ADELO - There’s more than the walls in here, and all those things are real
ANDREA - What do you mean?
ADELO - There’s plenty of stuff going on in here. For one thing we are talking
JO - Right, ok. There’s the talking. Touch my talking
ADELO -There’s words, there’s language, there’s history
ANDREA - So, it’s the wall plus everything we are saying
JO – Plus Marta. I touched her
ANDREA - Plus Marta
SAM - Not only Marta. I am here too
ANDREA - Plus her
ADELO - Let’s say all of us, plus the wall, plus what we are saying
MARTA- I could use a TV, or a radio
Noah - That would be too much

The Fraud was presented at WOW café after the 2000 elections in the U.S. Written and directed by Susana Cook. Original music Julian Mesri. Performers: Mistah, Imani Henry, Alison Duncan, Saira, Nora, Migdalia Gimenez and Susana Cook