The Songs of Johnny Go

I hate to say this--to be the ONLY person I've seen so far to say this--but "meh."

I'm actually at that point of superhero exhaustion where the Avengers trailer does absolutely nothing for me aside from that bit of the Hulk saving Tony and Loki's snazzy new outfit. I never wanted to feel this way, but ugh, I just can't muster up anything close to enthusiasm for it. At this point, it feels like being excited for the next big event storyline, all hype and gimmick, which has almost certainly been overly-produced by committee until all life has been mushed out, just as Iron Man 2 was. There's too much at stake with this film for there to be much anything in the way of breathing space, creatively-speaking. And whatever there is will be coming from Joss Whedon, whose dialogue and creative bad habits I absolutely loathe.

In more intriguing-to-me news which will only be relevant to the more hardcore geeks amongst you:



God, he's so magnificently hubristacular. Also, I love that the format for the film is a TED Talk. I don't know why, but that touch makes me ridiculously happy.

That said, some people are taking Ridley Scott at his word that Weyland will be the one and only connection between Prometheus and Alien/Aliens (there are no other movies! None!). This is patently not true, considering that the also-awesome trailer clearly showed the same ship and "space jockey" room from the beginning of Alien. So either Ridley's gone Lucas-levels of delusional on us or--more likely--he's fibbin' to try and keep a few surprises secret.

I can't imagine that we won't see ONE glimpse of a Xenomorph, even something as small as an egg. But even still, I don't need that. I like that they're fleshing out the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in of itself. I think that'll add some nice extra enjoyment to the older movies.

Of course, the question now is whether nor not Aliens VS Predator is continuity, since Lance Henricksen played Mr. Weyland. People are already speculating that Lance and Guy could be uncle/nephew or something. I like the idea that Guy!Weyland designed the Bishops after his uncle. Of course, that would mean that he's the same guy who's in Alien³ WHICH DOESN'T EXIST LALALALA NEVER MIND.

And just to bring this back full circle, I feel it worth reminding the world that Joss Whedon wrote Alien Resurrection. While I love me some Marvel comics, I think I'll be putting all my intrigue on the side of Prometheus.

Never mind that Prometheus is being co-written by one of the main writers for Lost, so your own mileage may vary there. Hopefully Ridley's creative control with counteract any of Lindleof's bad habits.

Earlier tonight, I was ready to destroy the world because someone posted a key spoilery screenshot of the Breaking Bad season finale. Seriously, I was ready to spread destruction across the globe in my fury, as I'd been waiting all week and all night for the episode to pop up on SOME site, since I couldn't watch it when it aired due to fatherly duties. So when I saw that screenshot, I was in full-on KILL ALL HUMANS mode. I instantly knew that it was one of those moments that, had I seen it in the episode itself, would have utterly floored me in the way that Breaking Bad has floored me in ways that no one show in recent memory has, and I was furious that such a rare viewing experience was stolen from me.

But having seen the episode, even that jaw-dropping awesomeness was nothing, nothing compared to that last shot. In that instant, all my excitement was tempered with a bone-chilling twist in my gut that I must exorcise.

I know that most people haven't seen Breaking Bad (Best show that no one is watching? Probably), but I NEED to hash out that ending with people. If you haven't seen the show yet, please, for the love of god, don't click the cut-tag, don't read the comments, basically abandon this post entirely and either rent the series or watch it on Netflix Instant.

( SPOILERS SPOILERS OH MY GOD HUGE SPOILERS FOR ***EVERYTHING*** BEHIND THE CUT )

"Good art doesn’t and shouldn’t give me the answer. At its best it might bring you painfully into awareness of how unanswerable the question is."
— Jonathan Franzen, from his interview in today's Calgary Herald-Sun.

That is one of the most cynical goddamn things I’ve ever read. Thank you, Mr. Franzen, for perfectly encapsulating the mentality that makes it impossible for me to find any enjoyment in the art and literary world.

Do I think art should be a mirror for reality, even the ugliest and harshest bits? Fuck yes I do. But if your “at best” scenario is a crushing view of impotence and impossibility, then fuck you, give me superheroes and fairy tales and detective noir and anything else from the so-called “escapist” genres over your version of “art.”

Look, life is hard anyway, and I don’t need my art to just give me a clearer, more eloquent understanding of just HOW hard it is. Great art reminds me of why we keep going, even through the worst humanity and the universe have to offer. Dostoevsky and Shakespeare both understood these extremes, which is why they’re Fucking Dostoevsky and Motherfucking Shakespeare.

Art doesn’t and shouldn’t “give” you actual answers, he’s right about that. But great art can give you hope. And hope is the single greatest non-answer answer that we humans possess.

...

...

This is one of those times where I REALLY should just limit my response to a couple tight, punchy sentences, something that destroys Franzen's soundbite as effectively as the way he said it in the first place. But fuck that, I'm so fed up with that mentality that it just makes me want to spew Red Lantern rage, all the more so after I actually read that interview and discovered what his latest book was about:

In his latest novel Freedom, the cerulean warbler is a symbol of life's personal and political complexities, part of a sprawling plot about a liberal middle-class family imploding with the pressures of teenage rebellion, infidelity, regret and professional frustration.

... Fuck it, I'm macroing this shit. Mr. Cobblepot, your opinion?

I missed seeing two of my favorite comedians from my favorite comedy troupe performing live. One of them in particular is a performer I'd love to have in my own audience, someone with whom I suspect we share a wavelength, and someone I'd dearly enjoy taking out for drinks. At the very least, seeing him live would have been a personal thrill.

I missed and am missing Baltimore Comic Con, where I could have seen a rare, painfully rare panel appearance of my favorite creative team in comics, and subsequently I missed out on finally meeting my favorite among them, a man who happens to be my favorite comic writer. I was ready to finally tell him what I thought of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, a book which he charged me to read when we briefly corresponded in his blog's comments thread. I actually would have had something to talk about with this guy whose work has meant so much to me for almost twenty years. That's not even to mention the fact that I might have been able to finally get a drawing from a man who isn't just one of the finest creative minds at DC Comics, but also those closest thing there is to an official Two-Face artist. Owning a Harvey sketch from him would have been a crowning achievement.

I missed and am missing my favorite Fringe Festival, having made the unprecedented and horrible decision to cancel with just a week's notice. This is a Fringe populated by some of my best friends in the business, one in particular above all others, and the audiences are of the fleeting kind that remind me why I still do this. After a year of frustrating festivals, of disappointments both great (a couple) and small (too many), Indy Fringe would have felt like going back to the well and diving in headfirst. I didn't just want to be there. In some days, I needed it. I still need it.

I know that, if I had done the third, I couldn't have done the first and second favorite things. And yet, here they all are. All at once, these things which are more than diversions but events which are important to me on a personal level of all that drives me as a passionate fan and artist, separated from me only by a little bit of time and a little bit of money. Neither of which I have right now, or at least, neither of which I can spare. So here they are, yes. There they go. And there they've gone.

And yet... and yet again...

Instead of all that, I just spent the last hour with the main (but far from only) cause for why I missed all these things. This same cause ripped me out of my sleep yet again, screamed in my goddamn ears yet again, and puked up upon me yet again. And then I held him. And fed him. And heard his cries recede, his squirms settle down like head on a beer, as he stared up at me with that wide-eyed wonder he has as I read aloud some Harlan Ellison. After I couple pages, I glanced down to check on him, and saw that the pacifier had dropped out of his mouth, because his smile was just too damn big to hold it in.

Goddammit, Universe. You win. Worth it.

Ever since Henchgirl started getting me into Star Trek: The Original Series, we've been waiting for Netflix to put it on Instant, which they finally did just in time for the comings months of sleep-deprived babydom! But in a Hefnerian twist, it's only the remastered version with new CGI bits added in.

Is there anybody else out there that finds this to be like a more distractingly annoying version than George Lucas' "remastered" Star Wars editions? Because apparently, no one else seems to HATE this the way Henchgirl and I do. I just don't get why anyone saw the need to do this. The new effects won't make any of the other crappy effects look not-crappy. You can make the Enterprise all slick and panaroamic as you like, but that's still papier-mâché on the walls in the next scene.

Besides, from what I can tell based on the episodes of TOS I've seen so far, the effects aren't the point. It's the writing. It's the characters. It's the ideas. If you tried sprucing up The Twilight Zone with CGI, you'd be missing the point the same way. You're not going to make the Gremlin (On. The. WingofthePLANE.) look any less silly, and the silliness never kept the episode from being considered an all-time classic in the first place, so why bother? Who are you trying to impress? What are you trying to improve? It's the exact same thing with the remastered TOS.

As time has gone by, TOS honestly looks strangely not-dated, as if taking place in its very own special point in the past, with only the occasional female character's hairstyle giving the 60's-ness away. The CGI, on the other hand, screams 2007, and thus instantly dates this version of an increasingly timeless show.

Saddest part of all? We watched some of Star Trek: The Next Generation and found that the 20+ year old effects actually hold up WAY better than the CGI remastered TOS episodes, if only because the effects are consistent within the aesthetic of the show.

... And to think, I started writing this post with the intent to do a major Triple/Quadruple Feature essay on the TOS episode "The Doomsday Machine," compared to TNG's "Chain of Command, Pt. 1," (comparing Decker to Jellico and the sometimes-forgotten militaristic themes in ST), followed by a second essay which would compare "Chain of Command, Pt. 2" and the Babylon 5 episode, "Intersections in Real Time" (two of Sci-Fi's all-time great examinations at interrogation and torture).

That's what I meant to write, but yeah, didn't happen. How can I explain why in a way that's thematic appropriate to this post?





Ahhh yeah, that's the stuff.

I think that one of the reasons I became a writer (as if it was an actual choice and not an ingrained compulsion) was due to a lifetime of feeling like I'm unable to communicate with people. Even now, I'm struggling to explain how I've struggled to explain for as long as I can recall. It's like having writer's block in your everyday life.

When you're a kid, you don't have the perspective to really convey how you're terrified by things which seem inconsequential to others. Adults can't read your mind, and others kids are little sociopaths who don't give a shit anyway, so you struggle and fumble and feel utterly impotent to get them to understand what you simply cannot put into words. In some ways, I feel like I haven't grown out of that.

I've gotten better, sure, but I had to go through alternate outlets. Being a withdrawn child who was extroverted only to those interested enough to offer their attention, I think that I pretty much gained the entirety of my socialization through movies, comics, and The Simpsons. I don't think I'm the only one to work this way. Geeks have a hidden language all our own, where we can hold whole conversations with other people's quotes.

Like many geeks, that still meant that I was still socially lopsided with everyone else in the world. That part still hasn't changed. Put me in a room with non-geeks, and I'll still gravitate towards some corner or find a way to vanish entirely, even if it's within myself. I've always identified with the song "Mr. Cellophane" from Chicago, and there are often times when I feel like that's not such a bad thing.

Maybe it just happened out of necessity, but I came to enjoy my solitude. I mean, as long as I had the internet, where I can lurk and hide and then choose to make myself visible on my own terms. But that's been getting harder and harder of late. The geek landscape is changing into something that's as socially alien and unwelcoming to me as any neighborhood block party or distant-family reunion. For months now, I've been trying to explain the sense of loss and detachment I feel from comics and geek communities, how I increasingly don't recognize those who should be my kind, how my safe space has been renovated and redecorated when I wasn't looking, and co-opted by people who are only superficially my peers. Maybe it's always been like this. Maybe I've only noticed it now that I have the courage to reach out and try to mingle, rather than keeping to my own corner of geekdom.

...Damn, that's what I've been doing, isn't it? Keeping to my corner again. Dash it all, I liked my corner! It was safe, it was fun, it was a place to put all my issues (ha-ha, pun)! But I can't go back. I've gotten too big for it.

So I tried to go out and make a new corner, but this one would be in real life (well, theatre life, so only halfway real), and might actually make me money. Fringe Festivals have been amazing experiences which have forced me to interact with people, to summon up the courage to face a machine-gun blast of rejection whenever I hand out fliers for my solo comedy to a group of people lined up for an experimental dance show, with the hope that maybe one person might be interested and then I could afford dinner. It's been great, and I'm dedicated to doing it as long as I can.

But I still haven't quite learned how to turn off the invisibility switch. Four years in, and I'm still struggling to get audiences. It's not because my shows are bad, as I've gotten way more positive than negative reviews. Every festival seems to have another handful of audience members who love my shows and do everything in their power to talk me up to others. So yes, I'm very well-liked... when people actually see me. The problem is getting the interest in the first place. Four years, and I'm still flying under the radar. Lately, I'm just feeling weighed down by the utter lack of interest in anything I have to offer, and I don't know how to market myself better. I've learned so much, and yet it seems like Mr. Cellophane is too ingrained.

But I still perform. I have to. Garrison Keillor said it best: "If you're lucky enough to stay in it for a while, you realize that [storytelling is] a performance art in which the purpose is to gain intimacy with people whom you will never, ever know. To become intimate with strangers." To me, those words felt like an uppercut of truth. Thing is, Keillor meant it for older people like himself, saying that intimacy was "easier" for young bucks like me. God, I hope not. Don't tell me that this gets harder.

And it is hard, harder than I can get anybody to fully understand. Like, I so need to communicate what I've been going through over the past year, to cleanse myself of all these events with words, preferably funny words. But to do so, I'd need a book's worth of words to describe the whole picture. I've been trying for months now to explain how tired I've been, and the exact WAYS I've been tired. Trying and failing. It's not just the pregnancy thing, and even that alone hasn't been your typical experience for impending parenthood. There's the traveling, the RV situation, the moving, the writing, the not-writing, the death of a pet, all these things which most people have some experience, but not ours. Not mine. And if I can't get them to understand, I feel like I have no one to blame but myself.

... Oh, duh. God, I'm so stupid. Of course this is yet another thing that goes back to being the child of an alcoholic and mentally ill parent, isn't it? The inability to get people to understand something in which they have no basis of comparison. The desperate, burning need to communicate with a language that no one speaks. Not unless you've been in the area.

So thank god for Henchgirl. She gets it. She gets it better than I ever thought anyone else could get it. And I mean, all of it, everything from the parental stuff to the geek passion and all the invisible, intangible things that fly under my own radar, but are still there, still present, still represented. She gets it. Regular geeks speak the same language, but Henchgirl and I speak the same dialect.

We're the sole survivors of the same neighborhood in the same city in the same country of the same planet. And over two years, we've experienced the same way, suffered the same way, laughed the same way, complained the same way, been bored the same way, freaked out the same way, gone delightfully BONKERS the same way, and loved the same way. We've carved out our own little corner, but now--against all odds and reason--we're trying/having to make room for a third.

Don't get me wrong, it's fucking scary to bring someone else into our corner just when it seemed like we get everything just the way we wanted it. It's terrifying, and sometimes don't even seem fair. But even corners aren't meant to be static. Even if you try to keep everything as it was, you just end up like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Your corners change with you and they change around you. And you can have more than one corner, like I have at least one for comics thanks to about_faces, and like I shall continue to cultivate at Fringe Festivals for as long as possible. And eventually, you find someone else to share your corner, someone who likes the decor and digs the atmosphere enough to stick around. Then, if you're really lucky (at least I think it's luck), you can create your own corner together.

So that's what we'll do. That's what we're doing. That's the only way I can really describe it without photos, pie charts, PowerPoint, a few hundred thousand words, and probably Smell-O-Vision. So we'll continue to develop our corner and try keeping up with how it develops around us. And in the meantime, I'll keep trying to learn the language of strangers.

Why did the Green Lantern movie suck so much? The answer, according to one source, may be exactly as I feared:


One thing I feel needs mentioning: this is not Martin Campbell’s cut of the film, but the studio’s. I live in New Orleans where it was shot, I read the shooting script, all of which was painstakingly filmed with intense research, and all of that was left on the cutting room floor — a sort of combination of what happened to Daredevil and Watchmen, respectively — character development sacrificed for CG, scenes made irrelevant by removing their setup. The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring. Ten minutes of childhood Hal, Carol, and Hector that sets up Hal’s first ring construct is reduced to an awkwardly placed flashback in the middle of another scene. The training with the ring is almost completely excised except for one minor scene. Most appallingly, the ending completely deletes the fact that Kilowog, Sinestro, and Toma-Re arrive at the end and help Hal defeat Parallax. Not to mention Parallax was supposed to be a 3rd act reveal after we spend the film worried about Hammond going evil, not the main villain for the entire film. I sincerely hope we get a director’s cut or at least all the deleted scenes on the video release.


Very interesting. Even if we do get a director's cut, I wonder how much of this bittersweetly-hilarious list will still hold true.

I don't know to what extent the source is to be believed, but it certainly jives with the finished product we saw on the screen. It sounds like Daredevil all over again, where a studio hacks apart of decent enough film and turns it into a franchise-kneecapping disaster unloved by audiences and critics alike. The Daredevil: Director's Cut is a far more watchable and enjoyable film, just shy of the first Spider-Man film in terms of quality, but the was already done. Put it another way, I still haven't watched the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which was also hacked apart by the studio, because I just don't care enough. Who'll care enough about the director's cut of GL when it's so universally panned and has actively pissed off fandom?

I fear that the character of Hal Jordan--already one of the most controversial and LOATHED characters in fandom--will never recover from this. The only thing keeping him going will be the stubbornness of Geoff Johns and DC who refuse to believe that anyone couldn't dislike the character. It hurts a vital part of me deep inside to admit that even I no longer like Hal Jordan. Not as he is. Maybe not even as he ever actually was, but rather just the version I always WANTED him to be back when he was replaced by Kyle "Poochie Parker" Rayner. This is a very distressing thing to consider as a fan.

Looks like my only hope left for a quality GL adaptation rests entirely where I least expected it:





Much as I dislike CGI shows, I have to remind myself that Bruce Timm is producing. Maybe it won't suck. Maybe maybe maybe.

For a movie that's getting so much praise as to be called "second only to The Dark Knight", X-Men: First Class was far more dumb, annoying, and frustrating than I was expecting. Oh, make no mistake, there's a lot that is excellent about it too. Pretty much everything with Magneto. Unsurprisingly. I mean, duh. But until I can do a full, spoiler-riddled review for discussion with others who've seen it, all I can say is that so much of it is stupider than I think most critics seem to be talking about.

I'm reminded of how some people called Thor and Iron Man "dumb action movies," even when they meant that as praise, whereas the stupid in X-M:FC far out-stupids those films. Hell, I'm further reminded of how people dismissed Iron Man's status as a great film opposite The Dark Knight, which was clearly the better superhero film for no other reason than because it was so dark and serious. I'm getting seriously sick of people, especially comic fans, equating "fun" with "stupid." I guess even geeks are guilty of the Oscar mentality that a comedy or action/drama with comedic elements can't be a Capital-G "Great" Movie.

Tangent: But it goes more deeply than that as far as geeks are concerned. Some time back, I read an essay that posited a theory that many geeks are deeply insecure about their passions, mainly after years of being told that the things they love are juvenile, only for kids, and that they need to grow out of it. To compensate, they want their superheroes and their cartoon adaptations to be dark, gritty, SERIOUS, so that they can feel like they're enjoying "adult" entertainment. Thus, we get a tone-deaf, blindly stupid Transformers film, which somehow removes all sense of enjoyment out of a huge-budget film about giant robots hitting each other.

Second tangent: Thor was also, coincidentally, called "The next Dark Knight by io9.com. Not only has this proved not to be the resounding case with movie or comic fans alike, but it's also an obnoxious reminder of how TDK remains flawless in the general esteem of fans and critics. When's the last time any of them have seen it on a TV screen, where the problems with that film are so much more evident? Seriously, if somebody really wants to earn my respect and interest in a superhero film they're espousing, call it "the next Batman: Mask of the Phantasm instead.

As I await my final show tonight in this year's frustrating and lonely experience at Orlando Fringe Festival, it feels somewhat bittersweet that perhaps the utter highlight of my fourteen days here is that my host with let me play Portal 2. I could only do it a couple hours at a time, and I would spend the rest of the day OBSESSED with the game, dying to finish it.

Now, I'm not a gamer, and that's purely out of necessity. The internet alone is a huuuuuge distraction that keeps me from getting any work done, but you give me a video game and it's like giving a case of Jack to a recovering alcoholic. But as anybody who's played Portal and/or Portal 2 know, these games are different from your average games. Frankly, these are games which I wish could be experienced by many of my non-gamer friends, people like tompurdue, fiveseconddelay, and box_in_the_box. It plays on

It's not only because the portal puzzles are great fun (to the point that some people find themselves still thinking in portals long after they play the game), but--far more importantly for me--these games are exceedingly well-written. This may sound like a basic virtue until you realize that the writing on almost all video games is fucking ABYSMAL. Because writing isn't the point. Writing isn't what designers focus upon, nor is it what gamers care about. Graphics and playability rule all, it seems. That's probably why, when it comes to stupid obnoxiousness, many gamers actually beat out the worst of comics fandom.

But the Portal games are exceptional in the neglected gaming areas of great writing and acting. As I lacked any console or PC, when the original Portal came out, I just watched the entire game on YouTube walkthrough videos. It actually held up as incredibly fun and funny viewing experience:



Of course, just watching gameplay is probably considered blasphemy by gamers. And in truth, it's not the same as actually playing Portal, as it lacks the immense satisfaction you get from FINALLY figuring out a particularly tricky puzzle. Henchgirl is still battle-scarred from the first game, and is known to shudder at the mere mention of Portal and curse, "FUCKING MOMENTUM." I am bloody dying to watch her play Portal 2, in the event that we're actually stupid enough to get a console.

But again, fun and adrenalicious as the puzzles are, the real joy for me in this game was the writing and vocal performances of the characters. There's something about Portal 2 which puts it comfortably around the similar realms of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the more "Science!" aspects of The Venture Bros. But then, that all could just be the pre-recorded messages of J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, who's sort of like if J. Jonah Jameson voiced Stan Lee becoming Rusty Venture:



And then, of course, there's GLaDOS, the dryly passive-aggressive HAL 9000 guide/antagonist from the first game, about whom much has been said. Here, she actually gets a surprisingly great deal of character development, as does your affable new sidekick Wheatley, a bumbling British robot who saves your life at the game's start and proves to be INCREDIBLY helpful and informative throughout the game:



One of the finest moments between the two characters happens when he helps you finally confront GLaDOS, in this SERIOUSLY SPOILERY sequence which is plenty entertaining to watch for those of you who don't mind being spoiled. That's several minutes where you can't do anything, where there's no gameplay, and yet it's entertaining and riveting as hell!

Problem with falling in love with Portal 2 halfway into the game was that there was no one with whom I talk about the game. People who played the game were incapable of keeping spoilers from me, in that even "Oh, I can't talk about that yet!" is kind of a spoiler itself. Shit, the fact that I'm posting all this means I'm probably going to alter the gaming (or viewing) experience for anyone who hasn't played the games! I'm no better. At the same time, I've spent the past couple days trying and failing to explain the game and quote lines to people whom I KNOW would love Portal 2, but it means nothing out of context. You can't quote Simpsons or Monty Python's Flying Circus to anyone who hasn't seen the episodes in question.

Portal 2's the same damn way. And yet, it still under my skin, still playing in my head, and those characters now already feel like old friends to me to the point that... welp, here I am. Just can't help myself. Maybe I'm just throwing myself into this post because I don't want to think about IRL things, like what the hell kind of turnout I'm going to have in tonight's last show, or going to the Fringe after-party, or how it'll still be two and a half more days of work and driving before I can see Henchgirl again. Besides about_faces, that game has given this non-gamer a welcome relief in these past two weeks (what feels like two months) of blahness.

I'm in Orlando for the Fringe, and I am alone. Sans Henchgirl. And it shall be this way until the end of the month. For those who remember the Hamilton Fringe debacle where Henchgirl and I were separated by our own billet, it's like that, but now the billet is GOD. But there's no way she could be here, as was confirmed to me yesterday as I spent three hours in the Orlando sun.

Last night, I won a Feldman Award for best solo show! I should mention that the Feldman Awards are handed out at random, before the festival even started. So between that and my coveted Patron's Pick award from 2009 (which I won by default of being the ONLY show in my venue, and therefore was the best-selling), I'm now the king of meaningless awards at Orlando Fringe! I wonder if I can use either of them in press materials without feeling like a fraud. I don't feel like I'm beloved by the people here enough to pull off something quite that shameless.

Opening night is tomorrow, and I'm terrified. The tech rehearsal went a little TOO well. It's a trick, get an axe. For now, I'm just going to market like a motherfucker, handing out fliers and testing to see how much stronger my tolerance for rejection has gotten over the years. Of course, if the world does up and end this Saturday, I either won't have to worry about getting audiences, or it'll just be me with the heathens. Which, of course, is pretty much everybody at the Orlando Fringe Festival. We can start our own self-sufficient community, performing experimental theatre for food! Really, how is that any different from what I'm making now?