welcome to autopia

When I was a kid, there was this ride at Disneyland called Autopia. I'm not sure if it's still there. In all its brilliant glory, it offered me my own personal vehicle with control of my direction. When I depressed the accelerator, the car chugged forward and when I withdrew, it stopped. "Curves ahead!" warned the sign as I was putt-putting along. A simple turn of the steering wheel and the car went exactly where I pointed it. I was really in control, making choices and driving the car. What exhilaration, what power and command at such a young age! The experience of free will was wonderful - until that illuminating moment when exiting the car I noticed the concrete track in the pavement that had been directing my car in an inviolate and preset way. All the while I thought I was doing the driving...




So now I sit here, on my own personal concrete track. I may not have control over the final destination, but I can still decide to enjoy the ride. I hold power over the speed, and although I may not always see those signs, I can still decide how I take those curves. And that's okay with me.

who is the real perpetrator?

Victimization is most often the individual preyed upon by their own interpretation and memory of events perceived as negative and hurtful. It’s the holding and replaying of a memorialized and painful event infused with meaning and significance that threatens our own egoic stories. We then continue to victimize ourselves over and again by constantly replaying these memories, leading to regression and the reduction of our life. How is it that we have become perpetrators in the perpetuation of our own slow dissolution? We have taken over for the original victimizer and continue the flagellation, keeping the wounds alive.

We often offer absolution to others, forgetting to forgive ourselves. We feed this cycle of recrimination. There's no need.

lordy, lordy... rick is 40

Last night we had the
Most Devious and Surprising Roast of Rick Horner.



Rick will be 40 on the 19th. When I found this out a few weeks back, I got in touch with Alli, Liz and Pete and we set straight to work. We knew we wanted a party of some sort. Alli had been talking about wanting to do something special for Rick anyway. He's done so much for them with the Incubator and the Makeout Clinic. We figured that we'd use the Fakehouse... it's just so well suited to any celebration. Alli came up with a potluck. I thought it should be mexican themed. Liz came up with the idea that we should do a roast. Oh, it was on like Donkey Kong.

We decided to not tell him. I sent out the evite, and even created a special email address for the whole event. Let's just say people embraced the idea.

Alli and Liz coordinated on food, decorations and the pinata. Pete offered up locale, utensils and other necessities. I was put in charge of the roast.

I sent word out and got a nice turnout for speeches. Cubby Altobelli would serve as roastmaster. Accompanying me on the dais would be Jody Miller, Nathan Edmondson, Jen Toner, Jon Sales and Dennis DiClaudio.

Fast forward to last night. We get everyone in the Fakehouse in the main living area. A few of us Incubator regulars go out into the loft and start a warm up circle. So when Rick came up the stairs, we looked like just another Sunday night. Shortly after a quick round of zip-zap-zop, I suggested that we play good cop / bad cop with Rick and I as dual suspects. For that game, the suspects have to leave the room. So he walked right into our trap.

Rick walked into a darkened room and saw the silouhette of a room full of faces smiling at him. The room exploded with lights, camera flashes and screams of Surprise and Happy Birthday! I think we almost killed him. He stood there for a good minute in utter shock just looking from person to person.

We ate first and then the roast commenced. It was amazing! We had a big Morticia-style wicker chair for him. Next to it was his water bottle in a little Buzz Lightyear chair. Every speaker did such a great job.

Cubby started things off and then took it in turn to call on each speaker, making sure to hit the insults along the way.

Jody was dressed in black like a widow and was morning the loss of Rick after a fatal accident with his water bottle. It broke, and he landed in the puddle. His little arms and legs were to small and he sadly drowned. Great tears and a hell of a eulogy.

Nathan came up and started laying into everyone. He hit me nice and hard and did a nice serial killer / gay bit about Rick.

My turn. I laid it on people all over the room... nice and nasty.

Jen came up, hit Rick nicely and then talked about her upcoming breast reduction.

Her gift to Rick was a last look at the girls.

Jon launched into this crazy serial killer bit with costume, props, false evidence and all kinds of crazy stuff.

Dennis came up, told everyone off, talked about Philly and did some great inside stuff on Rick.

Finally Cubby bought it home with a beautifully scathing speech.

Then it was Rick's turn to offer his rebuttal, and oh he did. Totally impromptu and his rose to the challenge like a champ.

After the roast, Gabriel and Agatha came in as Slavoj Zizek Wet Dream and gave him a little song and dance. Rick then had the choice of 40 spanking from them, giving 40 spankings to Gabriel or 40 to Agatha.

Guess what he chose? Ha!

Then we partied through the night. Couldn't do the pinata as we didn't have rope to hang it. He was just in awe the whole time and you could tell he was so touched by all the effort everyone put forth. The night was a total success!

Here's my roast speech:

I’m sorry; Matt couldn’t be here tonight… so he sent me, clone #12.

Look at this turnout! It’s great that everyone came. It’s now apparent that the only way to lure people to the Fakehouse on Sunday is with the promise of insulting Rick. So obviously we’ll be instituting that going forward on a weekly basis.

Nathan Edmondson everyone! How about that? Can you tell we invited him to speak at the last minute?

No, it was really great the amount of support we received when putting the word out. Everyone seemed to want to be involved. Fling insults at Rick? Shit, I’ve seen shorter lines at the DMV.

Nathan, he really is a good guy though. And good looking. I mean, amongst all us improv geeks, he’s a sexy bastard. Honestly I’d fuck you with Rick’s dick… we know he’s not using it.

I’d like to thank Cubby for being roastmaster. You know, we were sitting there trying to think who could host this. What qualities would we want? Someone with character. Someone who could carry themselves with a certain air, certain esteem through the night. And then we got to thinking… hmmm… someone whose character includes a hoity non-descript accent good for all occasions. You sir were the first one we thought of.

Looking out, I see we’ve got a few familiar faces… Okay, who the fuck am I kidding? Almost two million people in the Philadelphia area and I see the same couple dozen people week in week out.

I see we’ve got Brandon Libby and Jessi Snow… so strange seeing you two together.

Oh and AJ, or “Milkshake.” Sorry, I almost didn’t recognize you as you didn’t start the evening out in a frozen pose.

And Mark Dames… thank God! Because we couldn’t possibly do anything funny without Mark there. Actually, Mark’s been taking a more active role lately. He’s in PHIT classes and doing great… which is actually bad news. You start performing and we’ve lost our audience base.

Also on the dais we have Dennis DiClaudio, who most of you know left us some time ago and moved to NYC. But I don’t think this trip back has been such a hard adjustment for him… We’ve got insults, alcohol, unauthentic Mexican food, Philly instituted a smoking ban and our cab fares have never been higher. You know, we need to slow the hell down ‘cause we’re a couple of heat wave blackouts and a naked cowboy away from getting that fucker back.

But tonight is about Rick. Everything’s always about Rick. If you we’re at last night’s show, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Now I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of things to say. I thought I could talk about how short he is… perhaps a little hypocritical. His glasses … nah. Goatee… again that hypocrisy. He tries to do too much… shit who am I fucking kidding? You’d think it’d be easy to insult you. But really it’s like a kid in a candy store. Too much damn inventory. Hard to focus.

So Rick works for Select Comfort… that’s the Sleep Number beds… where he’s been quite successful. Any why wouldn’t he be? It’s the only way he can get a woman into bed. No if you really think about it… it’s a hell of a gig. It’s one of the very few situations where a woman lies down and pays you. Of course out of work they lay down and he pays them… so I guess I’d call that a wash.

Rick makes a lot of big gestures with his hands. People tend to think that’s being expressive… but secretly he’s just always looking for the perfect reach-around. Just look out for that improv explosion he’s always talking about. He may just show you.

Rick never had a funny bone in his body until I fucked him in the ass. That was actually a joke from the roast of Chevy Chase. But that’s okay… we’ve seen your improv and know you are comfortable with recycled material.

All joking aside… A man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of this effort is his own personality… of which you have in spades. You’re hardworking, motivated, funny, tireless… a good natured and good friend. I’d say the wealth of your personality is in your character. And for all the characters I’ve seen onstage, none are so brilliant as the real one.

As they say, we only roast the one’s we love… and how do you not love someone who makes you feel so much fucking better about your own life?

Happy Birthday Buddy!

in fourteen hundred ninety-two...

Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't give credit for discovering an indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.

This is an excerpt from America: The Calendar (also America: The Book). I pull through the daily pages from the calendar, tossing the day before in the trash. Most make me chuckle or at least smile. And while this one did that... it also got me thinking about how misrepresented and over celebrated this man was. He was really quite evil by most standards...

In 1493 Columbus returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as Viceroy and Governor of and the Mainland of America (the Caribbean islands). Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa–ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery and systematic extermination against the native Taino population. Columbus's programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of the governor's departure in 1500. His policies, however, remained, with the result that by 1514 the Spanish census of the island showed barely 22,000 Indians remaining alive.

Folks... that's on par, if not greater than the toll of Jews obliterated by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler's slaughter houses and in percentages far greater that the estimated 75% erradication of European Jews. And we have festivals and parades and bank holidays. Nice.

The genocidal model for conquest and colonization established by Columbus was to a large extent replicated by others such as Cortez (in Mexico) and Pizarro (in Peru) during the following half-century. During the same period, expeditions such as those of Ponce de Leon in 1513, Coronado in 1540, and de Soto during the same year were launched with an eye towards effecting the same pattern on the North American continent proper. In the latter sphere the Spanish example was followed and in certain ways intensified by the British, beginning at Roanoake in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620. Overall the process of English colonization along the Atlantic Coast was marked by a series of massacres of native people as relentless and devastating as any perpetrated by the Spaniards.

Columbus: sailor, explorer, trendsetter.





[1] all figures were excerpted from Indians Are Us by Ward Churchill

nothing to do about the dolldrums

I am feeling really down today. Just a sad, self-effacing and pessimistic mood. I think I am going to spend a little time in the park this evening. Zoning out, people watching, maybe read. I don't know. I need distraction. I need to get away from life. These are the times when it's really hard that my best friends are spread across the world. I'd give anything to have Lindsay here right now.