EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD!

I don't want a pickle

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:13:22 GMT

This song is called Alice's Restaurant
It's about Alice
And the restaurant
But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song
And that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on--
Two years ago on Thanksgiving
When my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant
But Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant
In the bell tower
With her husband Ray
And Fascha the dog
And livin in the bell tower like that
They got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in
And havin all that room, seein as how they took out all the pews
They decided they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time...

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there
And we decided it'd be a
Friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the City Dump

So we took the half a ton of garbage
Put it in the back of a red VW Microbus
Took shovels and rakes and implements of de-struction
And headed on toward the City Dump.

Well we got there, and there was a big sign and a chain across the dump sayin "Closed on Thanksgiving" and
We had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before
And with tears in our eyes, we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one...

'Til we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road
Was another fifteen foot cliff
And at the bottom of the cliff was another pile of garbage

And we decided that one big pile was better than two little piles
And rather than bring that one up, we decided to throw ours down
That's what we did...

Drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
Went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning
When we got a phone call from Officer Obie.

Said "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it."

and I said "Yes sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie,
I put that envelope under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the Truth of The Matter
and said that we had to go down and pick the garbage
and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police Officer's Station, so we got into the red VW Microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of de-struction
and headed on towards the Police Officer's Station.

Now friends, there was only one of two things that Obie coulda done at the Police Station
And the first was that he could've give us a medal for bein so brave and honest on the telephone
which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it
And the other thing was that he could've bawled us out and told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again
Which is what we expected

But when we got to the Police Officer's Station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon
And we was both immediately arrested.
Handcuffed.
And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on"
He said "Shut up, kid, and get in the back of the patrol car"
And that's what we did
We sat in the patrol car
And drove to the quote
Scene Of The Crime
Unquote

I want to tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here
They got three stop signs, two police officers and one po-lice car
But when we got to the Scene Of The Crime
There was five police officers, three police cars
Bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it
And they was usin' up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the Police Officer's Station
They was takin' plaster tire tracks
Footprints
Dog smellin' prints
And they took twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs
With circles and arrows
And a paragraph on the back of each one
Explainin' what each one was
To be used as evidence against us.

Took pictures of the approach, the getaway
The northwest corner and southwest corner
And that's not to mention the aerial photography...

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail
Obie said he was gonna put us in the cell
Said "Kid, I'm gonna put you in the cell
I want your wallet and your belt."
And I said "Obie, I can understand you wantin' my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell
But what do you want my belt for?"
And he said "Kid, we don't want any hangings."
Said "Obie, did you think I was gonna hang myself for littering?"

Obie said he was makin sure and friends, Obie was
Because he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown
And he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars
Roll out -- roll the toilet paper out the window
Slide down the roll
And have an e-scape

Obie was makin sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice

Remember Alice?
It's a song about Alice.

Alice came by
And with a few nasty words to Obie on the side
Bailed us out of jail

And we went back to the church
Had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat
And didn't get up until the next morning
When we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down
Obie came in with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one
Sat down

Man came in, said "All rise", we all stood up and Obie stood up
With the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures
And the judge walked in, sat down
With a seeing-eye dog, and he sat down
We sat down
Obie looked at the seeing-eye dog.
And then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.
And looked at the seeing-eye dog.
And then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
Cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice
And there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, explainin what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage in the snow
But that's not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft...

Got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street
Where you walk in and you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected
I went down to get my physical examination one day
I walked in, sat down
Got good and drunk the night before so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning
Cause I wanted to look like the All-American Kid from New York City
Man, I wanted-- I wanted to feel like the All--
I wanted to be the All-American Kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down,
I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things
And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper and said "Kid,
See the psychiatrist in Room 604."
And I went up there, said "Shrink,
I wanna kill.
I mean, I wanna - I wanna kill.
Kill.
I wanna-- I wanna see-- I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth, eat dead burnt bodies
I mean, kill...
Kill?
Kill?!
KILL!!
And I started jumpin up and down yelling "KILL!! KILL?!"
And he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumpin up and down yellin "KILL!! KILL!!"
And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it...

Proceeded on down the hall, gettin more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they were doing to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours,

I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leavin no part untouched.

Proceeded through, and I finally came to see the very last man
I walked in, walked in, sat down after a whole big thing there
And I walked up and said "Whaddya want?"
And he said "Kid, we only got one question...

...have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacree with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that and he stopped me right there and said "Kid,

Did you ever go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said "Kid,
I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says Group W...
NOW, Kid!"

...

And I-- I walked over to--
To the bench there
And there's -- there's Group W
Is where they--
Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the Army after committin' your special crime
And there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly lookin people on the bench there...
There's mother rapers...
Father stabbers...
Father rapers...
Father rapers sittin right there on the bench next to me!

And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime type guys was sittin there on the bench
And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one,
The meanest father raper of them all was comin over to me
And he was mean and ugly and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things
And he sat down next to me and said "Kid,
What'd you get?"
Said "I didn't get nothin, I had to pay fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage."
He said "What were you arrested for, Kid?"

And I said "Littering..."

And they all moved away from me on the bench there
And the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things
Until I said "...and creatin' a nuisance"

And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench
Talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench
And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things
Until the sergeant came over
Had some paper in his hand
Held it up, and said "Kids...

This-piece-of-paper's-got-forty-seven-words-thirty-seven-sentences-fifty-eight-words-we-want-to-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say"

And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said
But we had fun fillin out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there
I filled out the Massacree with the four-part harmony and wrote it down there, just like it was
And everything was fine, and I put down my pencil and I turned over the piece of paper

And there
There on the other side
In the middle of the other side
Away from everything else on the other side
In parentheses
Capital letters
Quotated
Read the following words:

( "KID,
HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?" )

I went over to the Sergeant and said "Sergeant,
You got a lot of damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean
I mean,
I mean,
I'm sittin here on the bench,
I mean, I'm sittin here on the Group W Bench
Cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the Army
And burn women, kids, houses, and villages
After being a litterbug..."

And looked at me and said "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington" and friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder
Is a study in black and white of my fingerprints
And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation
Or you may be in a similar situation
And if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do
Walk into the shrink wherever you are
Just walk in, say "Shrink...

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant."

And walk out...

You know, if one person-- just one person does it
They may think he's really sick and they won't take him

And if two people, two people do it
In harmony
They may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them

And if three people do it...
Three -- can you imagine three people walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out,
They may think it's an organization

And can you -- can you imagine fifty people a day,
I said fifty people a day
Walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out
And friends, they may think it's a movement

And that's what it is:
The Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement
And all you gotta do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar
With feelin...
So we'll wait til it comes around on the guitar here
And sing it when it does
Here it comes...

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

That was horrible.

If you wanna end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.

You could put a lot-- I've been singing this song now for twenty-five minutes
I could sing for another twenty-five minutes
I'm not proud...
or tired...

So we'll wait til it comes around again
And this time with four-part harmony and feeling...

We're just waiting for it to come around is what we're doing...

All right now?

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Said walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

La da da da da da da dum
At Alice's
Restaurant

-- Arlo Guthrie

tags: roxy, usher, pants, porter

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:59:38 GMT

Someday, I swear, I'll finish this piece I started long ago on the Roxy Theatre in New York City. Since putting the project aside for a bit I've made a lot of new friends, and wanted to make sure I shared the drafts I had so far with you. Hope you like it.

1. Sic Transit Gloria
2. Let There Be Light

The next part's to be The Boys and the Girls of the Roxy, but the last part would be the saddest, about its decline and stuff. Not so much fun to chronicle, but hey. Anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving, and I assure you the tradition 'round these parts is on its way soon.

Last outbound train to Alewife

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:43:37 GMT

(The RED LINE TRAIN pulls into the DAVIS station.)

DRUNKEN YOUNGSTER: DAAAAAAAVIS! DAAAVISHQUAYAH IS NEXT!!
DRUNKEN YOUNGSTER'S FRIEND: He has a future in announcing.

He yodels! He jumps around to music!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:10:08 GMT

Not sure why I didn't see this one go round the first time out, but here's a (really really crummy watermarked version; sorry, couldn't find the clip anywhere else w/o resorting to Hulu) clip of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's recent appearance on Saturday Night Live where, for his monologue, he performs Make 'Em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain.

Did I mention he gives it the full-on Donald O'Connor treatment?

Yes, with that part.
Oh and yes, with that part too.

And you can tell he is about the happiest fella ever by the end of the number. As well as the most exhausted. Given the nature of live TV and the backstage hustling, I sure hope he had a few moments to catch his breath before his next sketch.

"He's posting a joke! I better take him seriously!"

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:46:13 GMT

Okay, guys, fun's fun, but the joke's done.

And I appreciate all the hard work that obviously went in to setting up the entire world so that when I woke up one day in November, I hear this new tech buzzword being bantered around like it's been here all along. That's hilarious! You know I like creating fake companies, towns and concepts, and "cloud computing" sure sounds like something I could've come up with. It's great. And it came out of the blue. Just like clouds! I get it! How long did it take you guys to come up with all this?

But let's be serious for a moment here. Jokes have a shelf life, and this one is definitely past its own. Let's get back to mocking, you know, real buzzwords.

Countdown to YHBT in 5... 4... 3...

Didn't Lude and Lucidious collaborate on a single in 03?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:53:47 GMT

Ah, Wikipedia, I love it when you fail in such a wonderful fashion:

She ran away again in 1969, this time ending up in Detroit, arrested by the FBI for crossing into the US, wearing no bra, and sporting a white beret, "in danger of leading a lude and lucidious life."

The lovely thing is that the textbrick of bad writin' has apparently been there since 2008. Nobody wants to touch it with the exception of some fellow in the Talk page whose logic for editing the article isn't just because it needs a bit of red pen, but that it's longer than Bono's biography article.

Well we just can't have that, now, can we?

Ladies and gentlemen, let's have another hand for Lex Concord and his Minutemen

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:21:27 GMT

The Big Broadcast's curtain call music was performed by the Byfar Hour house band, Lex Concord and the Minutemen (as expertly played by Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band.) They played a real high-energy stompin' kind of number which was perfect to get us all out onstage, take quick bows, Recognize everybody involved in the show, and then dance up the aisles and out of the house. The band would continue the number as exit music, and then wrap for the night. They helped bring the energy right up for everybody and we loved 'em for it.

Our last Saturday show was loose and fun for many different reasons. Last show energy, sleep deprivation, second show of the day so we're all a little punchier, all that. And once we were finished, the Minutemen turned back into the ENSMB, finished the exit music, and then and decided to stay onstage to celebrate and have some more fun.

By jamming to SexyBack.

(I saw them do this at Honk! and it was fantastic; seeing it at BB1938 was even greater.)

That YouTube video marks the exact very very end of the BB1938 production on stage. It is bittersweet for me to watch, but at the same time it's absolutely wonderful. I can't say enough nice things about ENSMB and:

Their full-on enthusiasm for the show and love for the music of the period
The way they got right into their Minutemen characters and, in doing so, getting one of the biggest laughs in the show
Their accessibility, and their healthy sense of fun (they taught Michael Simon, who played Lex Concord, how to conduct and I'm told that at certain times, he really was leading the band)
The way they can play it hot
The playful energy they gave to that side of the stage during the Byfar Hour and the nervous moods they created for the WotW numbers -- who knew cobwebby dance standards could create such tension?
Their copious amounts of Awesome, which they shared liberally with the entire show

They added an amazing dimension to the show and by sounding good, they made us all sound good. See? I mean it. I'd run out of adjectives and reasons before I felt it necessary to wrap things up.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:48:05 GMT

Was going over my electronic bank statement this morning and noticed one of the nicer things they finally did was show you what charges are currently on hold or otherwise pending clearance. Sure, all that's doing is eliminating the paper trail and a leetle detective work on my part, but it sure is nice.

Except I saw that one of the pending charges read

SUBWAY DAVIS SQ. $15.00

And I got a little unnerved. I hadn't eaten at that Subway in ages! And when I do go, I never spend more than $10 anyway, I mean, you go for the $5 sandwich deal. Who the hell spent $15.00 in my name on sandwiches, or is the store pulling some nefarious deed? And when had I not gone and paid cash? The hell, people?

I bet the locals can guess where this is going.

Yeah, it was actually the charge from the MBTA for a 7-day linkpass, purchased at the Davis Square subway station. I'll laugh about this once my blood pressure goes back down.

Wodda wayta starta day.

Finances and me are not very good friends. We are tolerable acquaintances if anything.

It's Information Time!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:10:49 GMT

HOW ARE WE LIKING OUR GIRLS?

15% - In the morning
40% - In the evening
25% - Two at a time
10% - With new wave hairdos
5% - Smiling at White Castle
4% - Smiling at the Nile
<1% - Jocking Mike D to my dismay

Results based on a study conducted by the firm Horovitz, Diamond and Yauch with assistance from Dr. Lee, Ph.D.

(And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is to be!)

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:31:47 GMT

To those of you recently (I think about two or three) who pointed me in the direction of Slings & Arrows:

Man, thank you very much.

Two episodes in and I am very much taken by it. Am very interested to see how the storylines develop from here.

I done writ a lot this weekending

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:01:44 GMT

I find myself working on two concurrent pieces about the Byfar Hour -- one regarding the improvisational aspects of the pre-show (and that pizza!) and one in response to an interesting post by woodwardiocom regarding the levels of metafiction in the Byfar Hour and The Big Broadcast as a whole. There's a lot of questions to be answered, some of which I'm perfectly happy letting people answer for themselves, but there were other artistic goals which I think it necessary to explain.

Then there's the annotations I'm already making for the inevitable commentary track should our recordings turn out all right (no multi-track mixer on site meant either a single channel bootleg off the sound board or a omni recorder dangling on a boom off the balcony) and stuff. Beyond that I can't say anything more about release plans because there's a lot of things to iron out there and I don't wish to make any more presumptions about future merch. :P

There's also a surprise which I'm almost finished with for those on the PMRP current mailing list. It, uh, ties up a loose end or two (which we'd always meant to keep untied, mind you.) You'll see.

Now is the time when we also start planning for Red Shift's yearly Arisia show in January. Michael Simon is joining our writing team for reals yo, and I hope we'll start work on the story this week. Unfortunately the PMRP won't be part of First Night this year due to budgetary problems on their side. While that is a real shame considering we did so well for 'em last year, it gives us actual time this year to actually work on a Red Shift script rather than whip one up in a week and a half. The last time we had the luxury to really work out a script, it was for Havoc over Holowood and it turned out to be one of our best scripts yet. I'm looking forward to figuring out what we do this time around.

There's also the notion that Frank, Amelia, Lex, Jenny, Charley and the gang will return sometime next year, but those cards will be kept very close until I've finalized more details. No cryptic promises or teasing here, honest. I do think I've found a new character to write in, though.

I was supposed to catch up on Mad Men, Venture Bros, and hell even 30 Rock this weekend, but I kept typing and typing and typing and then dealing with the cat every 5 minutes which derailed my train of thought more than I'd care to admit, so I got very frustrated and not everything got done. But the Byfar yammering will come next, I'm sure.

Gypsies, Tramps and Revolutionaries

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:52:40 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, Cher Guevara.

I think you're welcome.

all I wanted to hear was HONK, HONK, HONK

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:31 GMT

One of the Byfar Hour scenes I had the most fun writing was the scene in which the cast takes the host Frank Cyrano to task for overpromising and underdelivering. Frank always promises big name stars on the show but there's always some horribly contrived reason why the celebrity in question couldn't show up: Clark Gable's train, for instance, was apparently ambushed in New Haven by a girl gang of autograph bandits. There's also this exchange:

LEX CONCORD: And what about the time you said we were going to have one of the Marx Brothers on the program?

FRANK CYRANO: (DEFENSIVELY) But we did! Harpo was a very funny guest.

I enjoyed that bit, as well as the third excuse (Charlie McCarthy backed out at the last minute because he had termites) but what most people don't know is that we almost did have Harpo on the show Saturday night, but that opportunity petered out in a fashion appropriate to the program.

It's inevitable that people show up to a Halloween night show in costume (I ran the World's Most Ad Hoc Costume Contest during the first Saturday intermission because A. I noticed a whole lot of people out in costume, B. we typically ran costume contests during one Tomes show each run, and C. the show wasn't running long enough anyway.) We had people show up every night in costume, including some wonderful friends of the radio who came in full 30s garb and everything, but Halloween was the biggest night.

At about 10 minutes before we opened the house and began the on-stage atmospherics, someone ran backstage and told me that there was a Harpo Marx in the lobby in full-on trenchcoat and horn getup and everything. I was thrilled, mostly because a Harpo costume is an automatic winner no matter what (even without a mask, it gives you artistic license to do a lot of crazy things you may not do in your civvies) but also because it meant I could pull something really groovy and possibly get back at the unknown prankster who ordered a pizza to be delivered onstage at Friday night's show.

(Yes, the pizza stunt really happened and no, I still have no idea who was fully behind it. The recipient of the pizza was the band's drummer and all he had to say about it was "Well, I was hungry..." Meanwhile, I stood at the mic trying to come up with a useful adlib but was too busy wondering if pizza existed in '38. I'll save the rest of this story for the bit I'm writing about our improvisational goof-offery.)

"Oh my god," I said, hurrying out into the house. "Run out to the lobby. Go get Harpo. Bring him into the house. I want him in the show. We'll have him chase a cigarette girl across the stage and back." I was prepared to comp him -- out of my own pocket, even -- if he was willing to play along. Someone from the staff went out to the lobby to find him while I started thinking: Harpo had a fondness for blondes... which is the blondest cigarette girl we've got? Failing that, who can shriek the best? And where will we cue him? Off the Harpo line in the scene? Before that? After? Should I cop one of Groucho's cracks when it happens ("Looks like the 8:17 is right on time. You can always set your watch by the Lehigh Valley") or ad-lib something different?

Then the staffer came back in and said Harpo was gone. He hadn't come by to see the show; he apparently was on his way to other Halloween shenanigans and had stopped by the Somerville lobby to show off for a bit. Probably stopped at other places around Davis, too, and hopefully got a few free drinks for his troubles. Sounded like he had the best darn Harpo costume around, too.

Ah, well. The Saturday show went wonderfully without a Marx interruption, which is probably for the best. I know at least two people who would have gone apopleptic if I let Byfar run any longer, but I also know one person in the back who would have fallen out of his chair in laughter and that's the reaction I wanted.

But boy, that would've added to the numerous stories and legends that have come out of this production.

More About Editing The Byfar Hour Than You Ever Wanted To Know

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:55:56 GMT

This was originally written in response to a post by prog about the length of The Big Broadcast. It was a very long show and there were definite spots which could have used, or outright demanded, editing for length and time. Not surprisingly, everybody has their own opinions on exactly where those spots were. prog thought that the Byfar Hour was perfectly paced, and others felt it dragged in parts. I feel exactly the same way. Both ways. The show could have been tightened, but given the time we had, what we presented on stage was the absolute best that it could be at that point.

Anyway, the full text of the comment is below. Ironically, I was unable to post it as a comment because it ran over the character limit. (That meant it was more than just a simple comment response anyway and demanded its own post.)

I can only speak for the Byfar Hour, considering, but I'll tell you it was the most challenging thing I have ever had to write given the nature of the show, dwindling time, emergency show structure changes, and life issues which aren't worth getting into here.

The production time was the biggest challenge for me, mostly because of those unexpected revelations that always seem to come out of nowhere. The Byfar Hour as a whole was constantly changing and the script went through many permutations as a result. It was seriously gutted two weeks before the August auditions due to major re-thinking with regards to the music and our potential audition pool. The vocalist was originally written as a male Irish tenor in the style of Kenny Baker and Dennis Day. (There were no Putnam Sisters, either, because the original version was set in a hotel ballroom.)

I didn't like it once I'd looked it over. The FCBH cast was seriously gender imbalanced (I'll be the first to say that the end result still wasn't perfect, but it certainly was much better.) I also knew our usual audition pools always had an insane number of talented women singers, and it wasn't fair to preclude their musical participation. Out went Billy Brennan and in came Jenny. The overall character was improved, too. Jenny was still as naive and as charming as Billy, but now I could give her some of Gracie Allen's sense of sideways logic and her scenes turned out wonderful.

The Putnam Sisters came shortly afterwards, and that made auditions much better. Casting four women in different voice ranges was going to be a lot easier than finding one guy, in our extended audition circles at least, with the right combination of youth and vocal range. This also led to Neil's idea of using the vocal trio for the Martian calls, Jeff Wayne-style, and that gave an amazing new dimension to the show. There's even been demand for Martian call ringtones, and I think it's gonna happen. Watch this space.

The first Byfar Hour reading draft wasn't very good. It didn't flow right and everybody was just a little too mean to each other (the aforementioned life issues and passive-aggressive transference seem to have been the culprit there.) But first drafts ain't nohow permanent, and there's always major edits after the first table read.

The first table read provides the absolute best feedback for the editing process and not just because there are many more eyes looking at the script, but because it's the first transition from the written word to the spoken. Some lines look great on paper but when you hear them out loud, man are they awkward and difficult. I always want to make sure my actors are completely comfortable with the lines they've been given. (In Red Shift, difficult lines are sometimes referred to "Jesus, Rob!" lines after a particularly expressive outburst by Mare during a table read.)

I retooled a lot of the jokes, softened the characters and cut big glaring hunks of chaff. Michael McAfee gladly helped reword some of the worst clunkers and gave me great advice for other sections. His help is invaluable and I'm always grateful for it. More editing came during rehearsals, with revisions being compiled every time pencil edits became too numerous. I'm happy to hear suggestions from my actors and other readers. I promise to respect their speaking up and not take any remarks personally, provided they're respectful in their suggestions and that they respect my decision if I refuse. On the whole, though, most suggestions and ideas are incorporated into the script.

Where was I? Oh yes. Digressing. The final performance draft went out a little over two weeks to go after re-arranging the Chowderhouse Gang sequence to go out on Willie's scene, which had proven to be the strongest. And even then there were still more pencil edits, but nothing really substantial.

This editing process would not work if we'd staged this as a traditional theatrical production. The radio/audio drama format is a staged reading at its core, so we perform with scripts in hand without worrying about line memorization. That's one hell of a luxury for both performer and writer.

A lot of that work, though, is polish. Editing down would have taken a lot more time. The Byfar Hour script could have definitely used some tightening for The Big Broadcast, and I can see those spots. But by the time we got to figuring out those spots, there just wasn't enough time for it all to get sorted out.

However, I think what we ended up with was a completely amazing show, and I am very proud of the script, the characters, the band, the crew, and my wonderful cast who ably rose to every challenge. There is room for improvement, and that improvement will most likely be seen in the next Byfar Hour script.

I learned a lot of things from this experience and gained an amazing amount of respect for the radio people who had to routinely accomplish in five or six days' time what took us four months to produce. The overall project time was well over a year, what with research and technical groundwork, but I'm considering the weekly radio show's process as "Write the script, compose and arrange the music, rehearse the material and edit as you go, then stage and perform it." We also had to create the entire show from scratch in our four months, but that makes the weekly process no less impressive.

Man, that was long. But I ain't editing it so there.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:52:21 GMT

It's nearing 6:00 and I just woke up. I am still exhausted, I have no voice, there's a nice welt on one of my fingers I have absolutely no idea where it came from, and I am so tired that I just fed the cat a third of a can of tuna because his dry food is out and I have no energy to actually go out and get him more right now.

Honestly it's what I expected today to be like, so all in all it was a pretty successful weekend.

Our motto

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:18:48 GMT

And therein lies the magic.
Tens of thousands of people out there, listening,
Each envisioning their own motion picture of the mind.

And that is what we give our audience... we give them dreams.
We give them towers and landscapes, secrets and revelations.
We give them a warm hearth in the dark, or a cold shiver up their spine.

And we do it all here, live, on the sparest of threadbare budgets
With a troupe of actors who, underpaid and under-rehearsed and overwhelmed,
Have yet to learn that this
Simply
Cannot
Be done.

Victor Comstock, Remember WENN

(right over there)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:20:40 GMT

Frank Cyrano stopped by tonight and demanded he get his picture taken in my bathroom. Unable to refuse a simple request from a simple radio personality, I gave him a camera and told him to do it his damn self. So apparently he did.

He'll be appearing live on WPM Radio this Thursday, Friday and Saturday with all his pals: the sardonic Amelia Adams, the happy-go-lucky bandleader Lex Concord, rich baritone announcer Charley Kendall, the sweetly daffy vocalist Jenny Brennan, and the colorful gang of regulars over at the Hub of the Universe Chowderhouse. Frank keeps telling me Bela Lugosi is also going to show up, but as Amelia always says, we'll believe it when we see it.

A quick Soupy joke

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:18:26 GMT

One of the best and corniest jokes they did on the late 70s version of
the Soupy Sales ahow involved Dick Van Patten. If memory serves, it
was a cold opening and the sketch involved variants on the old
"Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!" gag.

Van Patten played the customer and Soupy played the waiter. They went
through the joke a few times, each time with Van Patten setting up the
joke in a different emotional state, as shown on a title card: #1 -
Scared. #2 - Enraged. #3 - Nervous, etc. Soupy would give a different
punchline every time. Finally, though, Van Patten got fed up with the
routine and refused to perform joke #9.

"Why don't you want to do the ninth joke?" Soupy asked.

And of course, Dick Van Patten replied "...because eight is enough!"

If that punchline had been used on any other comedy show (and it
probably was, to the point of overkill) it wouldn't have worked. But
on Soupy's show, and especially after a setup which was entertaining
in its own right, it was great.

1926-2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:16:10 GMT

Soupy Sales is dead. In case you don't know who Soupy was, he was the dignified, sophisticated children's show host as seen below:

I don't have time for a proper writeup on the man right now, but I do know that when reached for comment, a disconsolate White Fang said "Reh reh. Reh reh reah. Reh reah reh-reh reaaaaah."

So instead of the story of the time Soupy got away with socking Frank Sinatra in the face with a pie, please feel free to do The Mouse all you want with Soupy Sales.

Hey! Do the Mouse, yeah!
Hey! You can do it in your house, yeah!
On the rug or on the wall
If your folks get bugged, do it in the hall
Do the Mouse, yeah!
Let's do the Mouse, c'mon and do the Mouse with me!

ok now this is awesome

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:04:12 GMT

IT'S THE DOCTOR WHO CAKE CHALLENGE GAME

Beginner Level: Make a cake in the shape of the TARDIS.

Intermediate Level: Make a cake in the shape of the TARDIS that looks like the TARDIS.

Expert Level: Make a cake in the shape of the TARDIS using a specific design from a specific era.

Insane Level: Make a cake in the shape of the TARDIS that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

if not more so

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:32:39 GMT

Courtesy an SA goon:

There are a few more that I could send to you -- provided, as Jean Shepherd used to say, you are over twenty-one and a legitimate art student.

Jean Shepherd Quote of the Day

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:42:40 GMT

On life: "It's all gallimaufry and a yard wide."

I think I may have a new motto.

Much like WC Fields, Shep was fond of the word gallimaufry and occasionally waged a one-man campaign to bring the word back into common usage. I won't go so far as to spearhead a new campaign 30 years later, but by gum I'll use it every chance I get.

can't win wednesdays

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:48:13 GMT

I got home tonight in very low spirits and walked into the den just completely exhausted and deflated and dejected and I felt very lonely.

The cat, who is known for his occasional bouts of empathy, walked in and said "I'll be your friend!" and sat down near me.

Then I accidentally stepped on his tail and he yowled and ran out of the room.

This story is not allegorical, but feels like it almost should be.

90,000 shills you haven't met

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:19:32 GMT

The MBTA started running ads from the Aruba tourism board a few months ago. Each subway ad features someone from Aruba (a nature guide, two windsurfer kids and a rich white guy who owns a spa) and what is presumably a hand-written note from each, though apparently everyone in Aruba likes punctuating their notes with drawings of shells and stars and whatnot. All that was missing were little hearts over each lower-case i.

Anyway, the letters in the ads described how much of a great time these folks were having living in Aruba and what a great time the tourists have and how happy they are to meet all the tourists and they probably arrange pen pal programs all the time now or I don't know.

I guess it wasn't working all that well or perhaps Aruba realized that maybe advertising "friendly locals" to Bostonians was a bit of a stretch. The ads have returned but in an altered state: Now, each hand-written note tells you what AMAZING OFFERS (caps and emphasis theirs) you can get by visiting the official website.

How sad! I mean, okay, it was always obvious that the ads were hand-written by someone in PR (probably drafted in committee) and that the Nature Guide really doesn't doodle plants and animals all over his written correspondence, but geez, it wasn't so damn transparent. Now, instead of telling a story about teaching a tourist all their awesome windsurfing tricks, the kids now just tell you that you can find AWESOME DEALS over on the website.

Someone thought this was a good idea. I dunno. Maybe I just like my T ads with more narrative structure, or at least a little bof fri fleu.

When there's trouble, you call DW

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:00:23 GMT

Well, well, what have we here? It's the new Doctor Who logo (thanks, thebitterguy!)

You know, for the most part, I actually prefer it (in spite of the now ubiquitous Darkwing Duck jokes) over the most recent crazy orange cat's eye kinda thingy logo, which had no presence and looked better suited for a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie Presentation. This one at least has some nice stylin' art to it. Kinda dig the TARDIS-lookin initials, but the logo itself is also nice. Not as over the top as the beloved diamond logo and not as cheesy as JNT's neon one, but ... nice.

Later on today I saw a publicity shot of the new Doctor and his new companion and they both looked so young that I thought "Huh, I didn't know the Doctor was getting two companions..."

Honestly, the guy's a good-lookin' fellow and I can appreciate that but geez-o-pete, he looks like he's Jamie McCrimmon's age.

Still, I am holding out faith in Stephen Moffat. I'm hoping he'll balance out the Cutie Boy Angle with some Damn Fine Science-Fiction.