Leo 6°

After realtors, I feel hotels in Provincetown should be the most willing, even though their rooms are taxed in such a way as to contribute to non-profit funds. I have written a slew of Provincetown hotels over the years asking if they would house an artist for two nights or even provide a little sanctuary for us, in town, as we need a place to change clothes and crash now that we live fifteen miles away. (Nobody wants to drive home after a night of producing shows.) Well here we are year seven and never once has a hotel in Provincetown offered us free accommodation for our artists, directors; they’ve not even offered a discount for audience we are bringing to town for the week. It’s weird, I’m sorry.

I don’t know the hotel people. Not that I know the realtors, who I largely find to be a different species from myself. For the large part they seem soulless or stupid or both. Hoteliers just seem avoidist. They largely just don’t respond to any carefully worded note or email. So I have a separate strategy with them. I’m going to hang around their offices and give them cards for artists and love them into loving us back. Maybe. I dunno.

I always had a fantasy of owning a hotel. Right now I’m staying at a private home in Maine that could easily be a bed and breakfast, at least, if not an inn that can seat, for meals, I would say, upwards of seventy five people at one sitting. The place belongs to a television actress of some renown and it is very specifically decorated. She had a thing for and a friendship with Sister Parrish, who thrived on this island just a mile away. And the house is a floral designed, pastel paradise of porcelain puppies and I’m sure very collectible items and furniture all on a frou-frou theme. It only has three bedrooms in the house but, as I say, with the living areas and the multiple outdoor space we could be turning over tables here at dinner and making a mint. Mint being just one of the prominent colors in this abode along with peach, red, pink, a variety of yellows, lavendar and puce.

I’m going to keep the hoteliers in Ptown close, I decided. They might just, unlike their realtor cousins, have souls.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

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Leo 5°

Don’t get me started on realtors. Or do. The realtors in Provincetown are all making money off selling houses, sometimes, and condos, mostly. The percentage of homes being sold that turn out to be second houses that sit empty or are rented out to a weekly series of tourists is staggering. Realtors profit from creating a sort of anonymous relationship with Provincetown, either way. Nobody moves to Provincetown yearround. So I feel that real estate agencies in Provincetown should be especial contributors to non-profit entities that are at risk of dying out due to this hands-off population being propigated in the town of P.

Now, you might think that I should probably find a nice way to convice realtors to contribute to a non-profit cause such as ours: preserving the tradition of being an incubator for fringe performance and progressive theater as befits Ptown’s birth right as the birth place of modern American theater. But believe me I have. And as a demographic I can safely say that not a single realtor in the town of Provincetown has ever donated a penny to our non-profit. Ironic, again, since they are the ones profiting from the kind of gentrification that could sound our death nell. And for the record I have tried the kind and cajoling approach for the last six years, now I feel like I have to take a tougher loving approach.

So come on realtors of Provincetown. You are making soooo much money on selling houses to people who rent them out weekly, in turn, making a profit, not of which we non-profits see in tax money. Hotel guests are taxed and that money goes toward great entities like the Visitors Service Bureau which offers grants to non-profits like ours. Number are down because more and more visitors are opting out of hotels and opting for weekly rentals or AirBnbs which don’t contribute to any non-profit cultural fund. That sucks. So back to you realtors. I’m going to be in your face to shake you down this year. And you’re going to thank me for it. You’re going to have a warm and fuzzy feeling you mightn’t otherwise have. If only as a result of a stinging gadfly chasing you all the way to the bank to release some funds our, and other non-profits’ way.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

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Leo 4°

Bridget Everett was on The Tonight Show the other night and it made me so happy. I always knew, and said aloud, that of all the artists we work with Bridget will be the one to (first!) have full-on mainstream success. Other artists we work with are surely as talented, sometimes even those with surplus talent, though, get in their own way in some manner or another. Not Bridget. She was always going to go all the way because she didn’t/doesn’t give a fuck about who thinks what about her or what she thinks of you. She has always been the consummate professional, naviagating her way with a triangular sail with three points—talent, humilty, hard work.

Which is why she was so natural on a program like the Tonight Show. She has been waiting to sit in that seat all her life, but surely not in any desperate way. Only in an obvious one, as if it was inevitable it would happen. She’s kind and she’s caring but she doesn’t put people on a pedestal. I watched the clip of her on the show a couple of times, once just watching Jimmy Fallon’s face. He was seeing something (someone) he’d never seen before; we’re used to people being amazing. Jimmy Fallon is used to stars coming on to advance some project. Bridget didn’t need anything from Jimmy or the show, even though she has two major movies happening right now, plus her touring, plus, I’m sure, offers pouring in. When does it happen in your forties that you have honed your creative skills to such a point where you know in your body and soul that the outcome of success and a little fame is just a natural occurance. That’s what I see with Bridget. It’s great.

Watch the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Ab-PuF1DY

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

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Leo 3°

Missionary Sponsors of the Afterglow Festival are local businesses or entities that donate just $500 and, for that amount, can put five people on our “Sparkler” list to receive half-price tickets to all shows. They also come as our guest to our opening night party. Meanwhile, they get to write off the donation. Last year we had an uptick in Missionary Sponsors. This year, as if someone called a meeting of Missionary Sponsors, they have all (after writing them multiple emails) opted out of supporting us. It really bothers me that I personally but also all our audience and artists make it a point to support these local businesses, year on year; and then they can’t so much as help us out that much even though we give them so much in return for their donation.

In the past few years Provincetown has seen a lot of new businesses coming to town and profiting on people of taste by offering goods and services that appeal to people of taste like ourselves. We tout the hell out of them and they give to us at first because we helped increase awareness. Then, I dunno, people get greedy, maybe. And they just want to make make make without giving. So I have written this, this year:

Afterglow Festival sponsorships traditionally start at the thousand dollar mark. And though we would never dissuade you from giving at that level, Afterglow seeks to penetrate the imaginative, supportive spirit of our kindest Provincetown and Cape Cod entrepreneurs and entities who are better able to sponsor the festival with a more modest donation. So we created an affordable sponsorship (that, in essence, pays you back in kind) for small and local businesses and enterprises—those with restaurants, inns, shops, products and services, which we already promote to our visiting festival-goers. Did you know that 85% of our audience comes from off-Cape?

Our MISSIONARY SPONSORSHIP at the $500 level is not only tax deductible to the full extent of the law, but it also entitles five employees and/or friends to half-price tickets to all Afterglow Festival shows (September 12-16, 2017). Afterglow simply forgoes its usual cut at the box office. So not only are you supporting Afterglow, now, when we need it, you’re also giving pals and those in your employ affordable access to the hottest, newest, most progressive performances to hit Provincetown in each year.

And that’s not all. The Afterglow Festival will feature your place of business on its website, in its newsletters and in any print programs, actively directing our audience to your doors. Plus, it gets better: As a Missionary Sponsor, you and your crew are guest-listed for our parties and events, including our Opening Night Drinks Party at the Harbor Lounge, followed by our Sponsor Sit Down at Baie, September 11, with visiting artists and fellow friends of the Afterglow Festival.

So let’s review: As little as five hundred clams you needn’t give to the government…as many as five happy employees and friends who see any and all Afterglow shows at half-price…your whole crew on our party guest lists…promotion via our website, eblasts and print literature…and, oh yeah, we almost forgot: that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from being part of and fostering, a community where art and commerce can work hand-in-hand to honor and champion Provincetown’s birthright as a cultural center for progressive live performing arts as befits its century old status as the birthplace of the modern American stage. How about that?

Our roster Missionary Sponsors have included Kiss & Makeup, The Canteen, Strangers & Saints, Fanizzi’s, The Waterford, The Shor, Roux, Ken Fulk, Mercedes Cab, TJO Home. Other local business sponsors include Salt Hotels, Ptown Bikes, The Art House.

www.afterglowfestival.org/sponsorships

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Leo 2°

Fittingly that night Penny Arcade took to the stage with her show Longing Lasts Longer which is a continual rant on the evils of gentrification and the rise of millenials. She is a true poet and I love this piece. The show was not a big seller but an entire cast of millenials from the main-stage musical American Repertory theater was rehearsing, were brought in to fill the mezzanine, making the show feel full. Which is a good thing because Penny is a visceral performer who draws on the energy of her audience. She is already on the floor mic in hand as you arrive, speaking to people and warming them and herself up. She probably has some key topics in her back pocket for this pre-show presentation; but she also directly converses with the audience trundling in, making comments, asking questions, and answering them before taking the stage for the show proper.

Penny inspires mixed feelings personally; but professionally she is the best babysitter ever; and I have been a fan of hers since moving to New York City in the late mid eighties when we first saw her show Bitch Dyke Faghag Whore the title of which is easy to remember once you realize each word follows alphabetically. She was a black leather clad corset wearing thigh high boot black hair and bangs dominatrix looking character back thirty years for that show, something which she still performs and probably will continue to perform knowing Penny. For this show, Longing Lasts Longer, which I’ve seen many times as we really had a hand in developing it at Afterglow in Ptown, she has had red, pink and, lately, white-blond hair (which given her lighting choices ends up all three colors anyway). As a performer she is totally reliable, not just in terms of her professionalism but also in that her stage persona is so knowing and spot-on and observant and speaks to things we have often thought. She mentions this one thing about walking down the street in New York: that we who have/had lived there for years know how to “dip” that is to say adjust for other people passing, from the front or rear, on the sidewalk. “As New Yorkers, we dip.” And how that mechanism was lost with “Sex and the City” which gave younger people coming up the impression, the misapprehension, that they could walk down the street four abreast. It’s a funny notion. And one that inspires trust not just in the artist but in the thinking creative person who makes that part of ones performance.

But Penny’s not fully like that in life. Well, she is half the time. But she also tends to act the diva in life when her persona on the stage would have you believe that she is anathema to such antics from an artist or a celebrity. Her stage character would have you believe she abhors fame, celebrities; and yet she acts more like a famous person than most people/performers I know, more than suggesting (again half the time) when you send her an email that you should be talking to her people (one person really, her producer) not her, that she’s too important. I hate that shit. And I don’t really take it from her, just as I don’t take it from Lady Bunny or anybody who is wont to play that game; and yet I’ve learned to say nothing, just to ignore it, hoping that behavior will fall away by its own weight, which I personally measure in eye rolls.

But some artists seem to need that kind of thing. And, in Penny’s case, anyway, the good far outweighs the bad. And she is one of the only artists I know who has made any effort to see our shows and to appreciate them (in every sense of the word). But it’s boring. And if there were to be a devolution in my opting to do this kind of thing—playing the “impressario”—certain behaviors on the part of artists that fall into the category of divadom will certainly have been a contributor.

But, push comes to shove, I’d be a liar if I didn’t say I love Penny. And that I even find her she-doth-protest-too-much stance not only on issues like gentriciation but also on her own status in the world as an artist versus entertainer, well, I find it funny and somewhat heartwarming. She can’t help but let you know she’s more this than Patti Smith or more that than Andy Warhol; she needs you to know she has a high opinion of herself and I respect that. But you can’t help tasting a little bit of sourgrapes in all of it. As if she should have been more famous than other people who are household names even as she attacks the notion of fame as a sickness from whence or civilization, or lack thereof, suffers.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Leo 1°

Well, I’ve finally made my way out of Cancer into Leo, for reals. Only ten days late but who is counting. At our new Glow Festival this past weekend in Cambridge, we had the pleasure of putting on Tammy Faye Starlite who channels Nico in her show Nico: Evening of Light. I expected it to be good but not being a huge fan of any kind of tribute shows I wasn’t expecting to love it more than Dixie Riddle Cups, but I did. The show began and then Tammy took a great long time to come to the stage, which I thought was funny (I was the only one actually laughing) and chalked it up to a choice to make Nico’s first impression someone who is late, probably, because she’s shooting up somewhere. When Tammy-Nico did finally take the stage she did so with a handbag which also made me laugh hysterically, but, again, pretty much on my own. But then she surprised us by saying that the first song was by John Cage…and then for the next hour and fifteen minutes she channeled that disaffected diva, pausing and punchlining her way through patter that punctuated a perfectly chosen roster of songs.

She was next to discuss Judy Collins who was a festival theme. It was such a relaxing show because the character of Nico is so subdued, however the performer was fully energized fueling the nonplussed personal she occupied. It wasn’t imitation but an intimation of Nico’s reality. I just loved it. Although it was something of a disjointed day. Stella hadn’t been well the night before. I was out until one and a bit bleary eyed. I slept late which always puts me off my mettle being the keeper of farmers hours that I am. I went for quite a long walk to the river and snaked my way back through the streets of Cambridge, flirting with Central and Inman squares alternatively. I was on the look out for some remnants of bohemia but all I found were beer joints and deniens toting whole foods shopping bags. The old holdout venues only made Cambridge seem a bit like a theme-park on the once liberal bastion of poltical leftness. Now it was becoming a strip mall of sorts, with expensive townhouses on either side.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

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Cancer 30°

The next performer to come to Cambridge this week, all the way from San Francisco, was Marga Gomez who performed a masterful comedy show called POUND. There are certain people on the planet whom you’ve never met but have heard about with whom you feel you will share a true connection. I felt Marga was one of these people. I truly enjoyed her show though I didn’t expect to relate to it, being billed as something very geared toward gay women. But that wasn’t the case at all. I loved the show and found it quite universally appealing. She is a precision artist and i loved watching her tear up the stage. I had to go it alone that night because Stella suddenly got some kind of flu bug and so she sadly had to miss it.

I forget how keyed up I get with festivals. Well I didn’t forget I just always think I’m going to be more relaxed and less frenetic than I am. I get very high from the energies of shows and then it takes me forever to come down from that. After Marga’s show I sent out to eat a late night pizza, the same pizza, actually that I had seven hours before. To be fair, they were individual pizzas, and I did end up sharing it with a bunch of other people.

According to the directors of the venue, I think those who attended our shows really enjoyed them. But strangely we already have more tickets sold to our Glowberon series, which we do September to May, then we had for these shows at present. Maybe the word festival puts people off. Or maybe people prefer to stay home and watch Netflix. I can’t expect everyone to have the same reaction I have to live performance which I find the most exciting form. And I’m not talking plays (although we do produce plays) and I’m not talking concerts (our shows must have more narrative than “patter”). What we put on is something unique; and since the beginning (of Afterglow) folks have been positively wowed on one hand by the incredible performances and negatively wowed on the other by the smallness of our audiences. I have to tell you that I’m getting to the point where I’m not going to be able to do this anymore unless people get more behind us, not less. Lately it we have been living under the law of diminishing returns.

Cancer 29°

The next performer on the new Glow roster was Brian King, who is from Boston. We didn’t include Brian for local flavor but because he is a superb talent who just happens to live in the area—Gloucester to be exact. He has one of the best voices on the planet and the particular show he wrote and performed, called Gravitational Fool, had its premier a few years back at Afterglow in Cambridge and it really is a piece of work that I love whole heartedly and would like to actually help develop and move to bigger venues and wider audiences. For Brian, we had a very good house of fellow performer friends of his. Another Boston idiosyncrasy: People turn out to see other area performers but don’t show up at all for those they don’t know. I did a great deal of promotion to the Boston people and they certainly didn’t need me to tell them about Brian and his band performing; and yet they only really showed up for him and no other performer, with few exceptions.

By the time Brian’s show began on Friday, I had already eaten two meals at this restaurant called Waypoint which is owned by the same chef who owns Alden & Harlow, this guy called Michael Scelso whose name I may be mispelling but I don’t care. We ended up eating most of our meals at both his restuarants because they are so close to the venue. We brought people there as well and would have spent upwards of two thousand bucks. You would think that my solciting this chef-owner (at whose restaurants I have over the years spent tens of thousands of dollars) for a tax-deductible donation would have resulted in some kind of forthcoming. But no. Again the greed that goes with the gentrification and the accutely Boston practice of chef-owners needing to populate their small portion of the planet while giving nothing back. If you Google this guy you get nothing but nightmare stories about him. A Boston Globe journalist told me “he is evil.”

One could never get away with that in New York. And what I might be learning in the process of all of this is that I need to focus back on places, like NYC which I called home for twenty years, instead of knocking my own block off trying to pioneer in a new city. There may be a reason why our artists have not played Boston over the years. People are cold, unfeeling, rather mercenary and have a huge chip on their shoulder, maybe, because they have never tried to make it in a place like New York. Who knows. Back to Brian:

The show is really great and is all about the character of The Fool in historical context, from the gleefully witless Tarot figure of the same name to Peirrot to the dunce to the jester, all of which is juxtaposed the character of the gay male in art, entertainment and media over the years. It’s a topic that could be hit or miss but Brian really made the connection between these two elements, triangulating them with personal stories of himself and his own journey as a gay man coming out in his youth in, yes, closed and conservative Gloucester where this would be unwelcome. And Brian really is the best singer. He is as good a singer as any singer we’ve ever had in festival, including Amber Martin or Bridget Barkan.

I think the show has legs and I love Brian who is very supportive and kind and I would do anything to help him succeed financially and with audiences.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

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Cancer 28°

Hard to believe it’s already Wednesday when last Thursday we headed to Cambridge for the first annual Glow Festival at the American Repertory Theater’s second stage. One of our dearest friends, the great performer Justin Vivian Bond, opened this new festival with two shows back to back Thursday evening. I was convinced that these shows would have sold out, but, alas, we had rather small turnouts; though the audience we had was quality, even though the quantity was lacking. I don’t really understand how a performer like JVB (and all our performers) who mostly make their home in New York City will sell out in cities all around the country and the world, enjoying the same large crowds they do in their home town, but when it comes to Boston, or more specifically, Cambridge, we experienced some degree of crickets.

Still one perseveres and the whole point of this new festival (just like the series we already do at ART/Oberon on season) is to create a home in this New England capital for our “brand of performers” and to make Boston a place where these artists can come and enjoy full houses of appreciative audiences. But Boston is weird. And perhaps there is a reason why our performers have felt alienated by this city, which is just three hours away by train, when they can show up in Manchester or Dublin or Sydney or Zagreb or Los Angeles or San Francisco or London or Rome or Vienna and find appreciative showgoers. Maybe Boston folks are too conservative, reticent, not to mention stingy with their time and money.

Even people I know in Boston were not forthcoming. I had to raise about fifteen thousand dollars to cover all aspects of this new venture and I raised about $250. I know that Boston has a pulse; and those audience members who did show up were pretty great folks, mainly from Somerville and Jamaica Plain. But there is a cultural anemia among the very rich in Boston where having wealth seems to go hand in hand with having zero personality. And then, on the other side, there are folks who live in Boston who seem so in love with their poverty. And even those who have “made it” like, say, Amanda Palmer (ok she’s the only one) won’t even make a donation of a few shekels. I suppose their too busy cultivating their own art of asking to understand the joy of giving.

So we shall see. I’m not going to pursue this festival if I continue to hit walls. I can’t afford it. And as it is I will end up owing the venue a good deal of (personal) money. Never mind the fact that it costs me to stay in a hotel and eat while in town doing something like this. I don’t mind dedicating my time and energy to helping great performers have wider audiences in places. But it just might be the case that Boston/Cambridge doesn’t want to know from our great artists and would rather go see Broadway knockoffs or the Blue Man Group.

I won’t say fuck you to Boston. Just yet. But that town better get it together or I’m going to cater to those who will.

The colors I chose for this new festival year, in honor of starting the new Glow in Cambridge, were pink, green and brick. Dear Justin Vivian Bond showed up in that color scheme. And with a band with whom we also play. I had the pleasure of introducing JVB to our and other’s great musical director Matt Ray and he and Viv and Nath Ann Carrera and Claudia Chopek and we did have the chance to have a littlbe brekkie the next day and catch up. We haven’t spent much friend-time with Viv in quite awhile and, as is true with good friends, we just picked up right where we left off.

Justin Vivian’s show was all about “slut shaming the Ladies of the Canyon” and there were great songs from Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell and Ronnie Blakely and the Mamas and Papas and even the Doors. It was musically right up our alley. Of course Nath Ann, who is the youngest old-soul I know and encyclopedic in his musical knowledge would have brought a lot of lore to the story. Like Joni’s song “Conversation” being about Stephen Stills and Judy Collins. As is true with all the festivals we have done in Provincetown certain themes tend to emerge; and we say this Stephen Stills and Judy Collins theme, specifically, and the overall theme of Laurel Canyon, also coming to light in another performer’s show over the weekend. Synchronicity is the order of the day when you make creative efforts. And one thing is for sure: we had great press for this festival despite the fact that obviously people in Boston don’t read newspapers or watch PBS arts programs or, if they do, it doesn’t inspire them to part with a few dollars to see something they would otherwise have to travel to New York City to witness. They just might need to take the train in the future.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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