thehefner | Crisis of Infinite Hefners (well, just two, anyway)

Ah Boulder, CO: where in a week, you can see about five million dreadlocks but only two black people.

Mom and I arrived in Boulder with four hours of sleep and a transfer flight under out belt even before we hit the thin Denver air, a climate that would eventually be capable of destroying us with a single beer and a flight of stairs. It all came off to a promising start: I was no longer the newbie outsider, for this time I had experience with a previous out-of-town Festival, and there were people who knew and liked me already waiting here.

Plus, for the first time ever, I went up for the one-minute preview, the very first one of the evening, and I actually didn't suck! People remembered me for days after!

Man, one of these days I'm gonna have to learn to do this show with a mike. I mean, if I ever plan to bring it to bigger houses.

When I was briefly interviewed by Boulder's emcee extraordinaire, Eddy the Eskimo (whose motto and talk show is called C.R.A.B.: "Constantly Risking Absurdity, Baby"), I decided to take the opportunity to briefly attempt to people the fact that I--indeed--am Hugh Hefner's cousin. I did this because I've discovered that most people didn't know this, that they didn't catch on by my title nor my tagline ("How do you make a name for yourself when someone else already has"), and that often times nowadays, I actually have to bluntly tell people point-blank that, yes, I am related, yes, it's a connection. This has been troubling, as I've been wanting to use that name as my "in" without outright exploiting it.

To which Eddy remarked, "Ah, so you're just trying to exploit it enough." Big laughs.

I could have been my typically self-conscious self that that, but the people were actually really cool. I mean, comparatively. Polite, friendly, supportive and seemingly interested. Hell, they even used turn signals! Which, I understand from

jellied is bizarrely *not* Bouldierite behavior. Perhaps people were acting especially weird because of the weather.

You see, it was thunderstorming that weekend. Hard, cold, see-your-breath-steam rain all three August days. Allowing the possibility that this was just Boulder, I didn't initially understand how it was actually the unusual opposite, not even as I noticed that the vast majority of the people walking in the rain didn't have umbrellas. In fact, on Saturday when I was to go volunteer at the Fringe's booth at the Farmer's Market, they canceled the event because they "didn't own an umbrella." Think about that for a second. Not have. Own.

So really, I was fully expecting the rain to result in a small-to-nonexistent audience on my first night, but to my surprise, I actually had about twenty people! Not bad for the newbie who was scheduled to perform not at the main hub of theaters, but a mile away at the Trident Booksellers and Cafe, the local hub of hipster douchebaggery with a black box theatre in back. The show was rusty and frigid, but by the time I got to the "Drunk in London" story (formerly known as "Drunk in Bath") I'd found the old magic again. I was firing on all cylinders and took the audience with me every step of the way. The official Fringe photographer and her husband became prime among my new fans, which meant a lot to me.

When Monday night rolled around, and my audience size reduced to about ten people, I took it in stride for a number of reasons: I was still unknown, plus it's the Trident, plus is was Monday and Mondays always suck. Even Garfield knew that. Then Wednesday's audience was even smaller, about six people, but I chalked that up to all the above factors plus the fact that it was orientation time at all the schools 'round town, which sucked up a huge theatergoer demographic (or maybe it was just Boulder's desired demographic). But I continued to take it in stride because I had met some amazing people--particularly this one solo performer named Melissa who might prove to be the best person I'd met there, for a number of reasons--and also because the weekend was still to come. Maybe my final Sunday evening show would be a bit tricky, but I still had one on Saturday at 7pm. Primo fucking placement.

So I took it a bit harder than usual when only four people showed up on Saturday, and all of them were fellow artists, thus meaning they got in for free. Not to mention one of the artists was a particularly experienced type far more interested in critiquing (constructively!) and analyzing than actually enjoying, if you dig. Shit felt more like an audition than a performance. That didn't help. I mean, it helped, but... yeah.

And, it turned out, there was many factors to account for this. That night was both the finale for the Olympics and the start (?) of the DNC, not to mention that there was a huge music festival going on just out of town. As a result, and make no mistake, EVERYONE suffered at Boulder Fringe. Even the most popular shows had low or lower-than-usual attendance, even on that weekend. It seemed that the Boulder Fringe people didn't actually market their own shows, didn't really whip up press attention to the festival, didn't even make posters. We talked with average Boulderites who'd heard about the festival but had no idea when it was or thought it was actually over already. I don't know the full story, but something is seriously wrong here.

But to top it off, I discovered the hard way that while the Trident is one of the main Fringe venues--the very place where one of the most popular and famous among my fellow solo performers actually performed in a previous year!--no one who ever came to the Trident gave a shit about theater. These were book people, coffee people, sit-at-a-table-with-your-laptop-for-three-hours people. Not the sort of people to give a good goddamn about your little postcard. Not the sort of people who'd even make a move when they hear, "Hey, I'll be performing THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES in five minutes, and it's *free* for all Trident customers! Come on in!"

So I can't take it too personally, or blame myself, right? I mean, I still felt like crap, but at least I wasn't at fault, right?

Later on, I went to the Scotch bar--the main hangout for the performers, a far classier upgrade from the Beer Tent in Orlando--to commiserate with the other artists, which was where I struck up a conversation this bespectacled and pretty young woman who helped out with the Fringe as an unofficial assistant. I remembered her from the Fringe preview, where Melissa coaxed the girl on stage to help with a bit. The girl, who had a broad smile permanently affixed to her face, was clearly reluctant to go on stage, but Melissa's charm and drive managed to pull her up. Melissa just asked her to deliver one line, just stand there and deliver one simple line, to which the girl said, still smiling but clearly without mirth or humor, "I didn't ask to be up here."

It's a testament to Melissa as a performer that she rolled with this beautifully, even while you could feel the audience reeling with a slapped, "OOOOOH!"

While discussing my difficulty in getting audiences, the bespectacled girl said that she didn't care for solo shows in particular. She said that she--and perhaps others as well--frankly found them boring, tedious, too self-involved, too unimportant. I said, "But it's art. We're all up here creating, and even though most of us are talking about personal stories, the best of us make it utterly relatable. We're talking about our experiences and lives."

To which she said, "Yeah, but everyone can get that just by living."

I got a flashback to something one of my best friends said to me early on in the process, just months before THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES premiered in CapFringe '07. She basically said that no one would be interested. That no one cared about the life stories of some nobody talking about things that happened to him, that (as I always deep-down feared) nobody cares about but him. That disbelief and discouragement--however well-intentioned and protective as it may have been--never fails to sting when I think about it, which I've since found myself doing on a weekly basis.

I thought, no, what I need is to talk shop with an actual solo performer, see what they think, and I found one guy in particular. I liked and respected this artist and his show, a good guy, good head on his shoulders (who was very sorry his schedule didn't allow him to actually see THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES), and definitely a performer to watch. Best as I can recall from my blasted state, he basically said that I needed to exploit the Hefner name more.

He said that while my poster image (me with the mouth full of rose petals) is great, nothing about my postcard nor poster command attention and say "LOOK AT ME." It's great, but not iconic (it isn't? Fuck, what more do you want?). He said that I'm sitting on a potential gold mine with the Hefner name, and that I need to be using that. Then he gave the dreaded advice that I'd already heard from a couple other people over the past year:

"Maybe there should be a photo of you in a bunny suit. Or just bunny ears."

And here's the crux of the matter.

Like I said, it wasn't the first time someone had said that, or something like that. But every single one of those people who say that have not seen my show. I talked with some folks who had--solo artists and the photographer with her husband--who said, "Fuck that, your show doesn't need that, it's an awesome show and you don't need to stoop to such things."

And yet, what if I do?

I hate to think about it, but the fact is that even though such advice comes from people who haven't seen my show, who don't really know or get what my show's about, they still come from the every-bit-as-legitimate status of outsiders looking at what I'm offering and finding it "meh." Unremarkable against the flood of other performers. The average potential audience member's perspective.

Bunny ears. Fucking bunny ears. Such a little thing, all in the name of getting that attention. Yet there are few things in my life against which I am so violently opposed.

When I started out with this, I actually asked you folks here in LJLand early on how much (or if at all) I should exploit the Hugh Hefner connection. Some saw it was essential, that it's cutthroat enough out there and that this is my best--or perhaps only--real card to play, and I'd be a fool not to use it.

At the same time, I believe it was

chickenhat who essentially said... actually, I don't remember what he said exactly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was something like, "You don't want to have to wonder if the only reason you made it was because of that name." God, it's been so long, I don't remember what he said, just that it was enough to galvanize me against directly ever exploiting the Hugh Hefner connection. No bunny costumes. No smoking jackets. No pipe. No PJs. I felt resolved, and what's more, I felt clean.

Besides, I figured, I already had the name and the title in big bold letters: HEFNER. As I'd spent my whole life with random strangers instantly making the connection, I figured that would be sufficient to get attention. It walked that fine line: capturing people's knowledge of Hugh Hefner but still being entirely and solely about me. But that's already been proved to not work, at least the way I've been going about it.

Shit, even the people who see my show still wonder if it's real! They wonder if the story was true! Fuck, immediately after one show, as I'm walking off stage, one audience member asked me (I swear to god): "So are you Hef?" I'm like, DIDN'T YOU JUST SEE THE SHOW?!?!

The cynic would say that people are fucking stupid and that, yes, I do need to beat them over the head with the connection. But I so deeply, seriously, absolutely do not want to use such tactics, because they go against the whole point of why I'm trying to do this show. I'm trying... I *need* to establish my own voice, my own presence, and not ride the coat-tails of someone to whom I have absolutely zero connection outside the name and the bloodline.

The solo artist advised, "Just lead them in using the Hugh Hefner thing, it doesn't matter whether or not it's really a big part of the show because it'll get their attention. Then when they actually see your show, you can switch it around on them and they'll leave knowing you." But that guy is making that theory purely in regards to the people who actually *would* see THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES in the first place.

The fact is, more people are going to see my marketing than will ever see my show. I don't want to be known as "that guy with the bunny ears, oh yeah, the low-rent Hefner." If I ride on that name, in their eyes, I might as well be Jim Belushi. Given the choice, I'd much rather be "that weird nobody with the bowler derby." I'd like to think that people wouldn't think like that, but haven't we already established that people are possibly idiots in the first place?

One way or another, I realize that by my steadfast refusal to make even the tiniest explicit exploitative reference to Hugh Hefner, I may be denying myself the surest chance at success. I'm sure some of you will agree and think I should go for it, and most of my being doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to hear that that might be what I'll need to do, or I'll fail.

And you know, there's a part of me that wants to be converted. There's a part of me that wants someone to come up with an idea of how to make it work, to convince me of a way to actually, tastefully employ Hugh Hefner exploitation into my marketing and public image. The solo artist who was giving me all this advice, the one who hadn't seen my show, he said that I need to find a way to do that without selling my soul. He understood that this was a crisis for me, as I sat there on the verge of tears as I often do when confronted with a huge glaring possible-truth in the face of everything I know and want in my heart, and he said it's what I need to do.

So some part of me--whether it's my weakness, my impatience for instant success, my common sense, or my sense of what I know is right--wants for someone to convert me. Even as the rest of me wants to resist that at all costs. I don't have many outright principles, but when it comes to what I'm trying to do here, this is one of the closest I have.

I thought, "Fuck, no one else here is riding on someone else's name, so how is it that they have successful shows?" For some, it's a simple matter of home-field advantage. Like me with DC, these people have local friends and supporters, and those people can spread the word to others. But for others, like the out-of-town hit Jimmy Hogg, perhaps the biggest solo performer on the circuit that I've seen so far, it amounts to two things: the fact that he's been doing this for years, and the fact that he's fucking charismatic and charming as all hell.

Jimmy stands around for hours at the venues, spending times before, after, and between shows (seeing a ton) handing out postcards and pimping his show. Sometimes, he'll strike up conversation with people, just talking and running his spiel. Sometimes, he does nothing more than just hand them out as people walk by, and if they turn him down, no worries, onto the next. It has nothing to do with the quality of his show (which is pretty damn good). He knows how to sell himself purely on personality.

And me...? I eventually discovered that even one of the volunteers at Fringe knew that John Hefner was "a nice guy, but too shy to be an effective self-promoter." Not an exact quote, you understand, just the gist. "Too shy," that was the exact quote.

Now don't get me wrong, I've gotten a *lot* better since Orlando. I can actually hand cards out to fifteen people at a time and endure about four or even six rejections before I feel like I've been personally insulted, stabbed in the kidneys, and need to go hyperventilate somewhere in the corner. But ultimately, I realize, I'm still coming off as meek and shy, more asking people to see my show rather than telling them, making them feel like they need it, that it's such an awesome show that they'd be fools to go this whole Festival without experiencing the awesome wonder and power that is THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES.

No, if anything needs to change, if anything is going to really bring me success or cause me to fail, it all hinges on that. For the Fringe Festivals, anyway, at least until such time as I need to try and break away to bigger things. It's purely, expressly that.

Melissa, the aforementioned solo performer, was filled with enough talent, insight, and bouncy optimism to fuel me to the next two Fringe Festivals, and she told me that I needed to believe in myself. That my show was awesome, and that I needed to believe that, because once I did, others would too. She said the strength of my show (and I've heard this elsewhere) was my heart, the fact that I was so open, honest, sincere, and genuine in ways that even some of the most popular solo performers are not.

(Tangent: if I'm so genuine, and if that's so unusual, could that be why some people think I'm making the stories up? That it's all an act, at least partially fictional? How bizarre that would be. Maybe I should market the show as "AN UNBELIEVABLY TRUE STORY!")

Believe in myself. It's what I need to do. But if I have to resort to outright exploiting Hugh Hefner and riding those coat-tails, I know I won't believe in myself anymore. This has to be me, all me, and the only way I'm going to truly make that work is to believe in myself. Thus why it's a perfect time to premiere this icon, I guess.

At that point in the evening, though... after the four-person audience, the barrage of advice, and the nagging feeling that I'd need to compromise something deeply personal to me if I have any hope of getting attention... I didn't much believe in myself anymore. I did try to flier and pimp some more, but I'm such a transparent person anyway that I just thought, no, those people would see right through to the miserable sad-sack I was at that moment.

The funk I was already in had increased tenfold. When I arrived earlier at the Scotch Bar, I was actually going to give an impromptu encore performance of "Drunk in London," for a couple people who didn't/couldn't see my show and for the photographer woman, but I was feeling so beat down and depressed that I just thought I didn't have it in me.

But then there was one girl, a techie from Orlando who missed my show the first time around and wouldn't be able to see it this time because she was too busy being a techie. She was a sexy, caustic, no-nonsense gal with a perpetually raised eyebrow and a "fuck 'em all" attitude, and she wanted me to tell the story after all. I said that I just couldn't summon the spirit to perform, not in that state and not in that bar. Lord knows I used to do that in Bennigans with the Rudes on hand, but those were my best friends, and here I again felt alone and isolated.

"So what?" she said, a hard smile fixed as her eyes held me firm. "If that's how you feel, wouldn't your doing this now make that all the more impressive? Wouldn't that be all the more reason to fucking do it?"

And while some part of me wanting nothing more than to find a corner and be miserable, that girl's eyes and words burned into me. Fuck 'em all indeed. Forcing myself forward, we grabbed an impromptu group of four or five people--including the photographer and her husband--and I did the story.

And I mean I did the story. I had thought I would tone it down, being in a public place and all, but before too long I got sucked right into it again and I completely and utterly let loose. I was dancing, I was flailing my arms, I was jumping and singing and spasming, holding onto the other chairs for support, flying all over the place, pounding and yelling and screaming that I had the "HUGEST! FUCKING! ERECTIOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!" until there wasn't a single person in that bar who wasn't at least glancing over at what I was doing. They may not have understood, and the bartenders were three seconds away from tranquilizing my ass and throwing me out, but for those ten minutes, I had them, and I was on top of the fucking world. "THAT," I wanted to tell Eddy, "THAT is risking absurdity, BABY!"

And then I got to the big denouement, where I came to the epiphany that I had beaten the odds and emerged from this misadventure, finally and truly, as a complete human being, as an adult, whereupon the tech girl--the girl who whipped me into this shape, the one who said "fuck 'em all," the one who pulled me up at my lowest moment into this utter display of my pride and dignity--she derisively snorted, "Oh come on."

... it...

... I...

Stabbed.

Right in the kidneys.

And really, thank god I have my mother. Anybody else would hear that and go, "Oh fuck, ow, that sucks!" but Mom just looked at me in stunned silence, then burst out in tearful, roll-around-on-the-bed laughter. Because IT WAS SO FUCKING HEFNERIAN.

In doing so, Mom saved me that night. Now, she actually is starting to seriously lean toward Hugh Hefner exploitation, not exactly because of how successful it could/would be, but because she's worried about me. She's worried that something like that night is going to hurt me so badly that I'm going to abandon this dream. She's worried that even if I do keep at the Fringe Festivals, I'm going to become so disillusioned and hurt that I'll abandon THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES, that show specifically.

If I've kept going this long, it's because of people like Mom, Melissa, and you folks here who believe in me. I could not have kept it going if you didn't. Now I need to believe in myself too. Because right now, I have a hard time doing that. I struggle to believe in myself as I stand there, hunched and nervous, trying to get folks to see my show. My faith wavers as I pass out postcards to indifferent people and triple-check the places where I left cards to see if anyone has taken one. I replace the postcard balanced on top of the men's room urinal when it falls into the bowl, and I find myself wondering if I should leave it there where people will see it and just let them piss on my face. Any inklings of my budding self-confidence can be destroyed with a simple, "No, thank you." I'm getting better, and I need to get better still.

But when I went up on that stage for the final time on Sunday night... when I performed my last show to ten people, newly fueled by all the above that had shaken my sense of identity and worth and funneled that directly into the old-but-ever-relevant stories, all ultimately culminating in the best goddamn performance of my entire Boulder run... that was when I finally realized that I did believe in myself. At that moment, the moment I must hold on to and take to heart... I believed in John Hefner.

I'd like to think that's fucking heroic. Maybe I will.

Okay, how's this sound:

Instead of the rose-petals-in-the-mouth "How do you make a name for yourself when someone else already has?" tagline for the posters and postcards, I go with my HOW HEFNERIAN image:

"

With the new tagline, "Meet the black sheep of the white bunny family."

Better?

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Cabin John, MD
Current Music: "Someone Saved my Life Tonight," Elton John

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

princessebee.livejournal.com

I like it!

The process is a rough one. My experience in theatre is limited (though it's something I'm thinking of expanding on soon) but I would shamelessly exploit the connection. Does it matter how you make it as long as you make it? Artistic integrity is all very well and good but with three billion starving actors all fighting for their name, it's also somewhat masochistic. Maybe needlessly so. Maybe exploiting the name is a good way to get things rolling. Do you really need to wonder if you make it just because of the name if you have faith in yourself and your show?

But maybe I'm just cynical and ruthless.

At any rate, you're having pretty amazing experiences. Enough to make a whole new show out of. XD

From:

Cursing Reed Richards Since 2002

Crisis of Infinite Hefners (well, just two, anyway)

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