Show 98: The Pangea House, Minot, North Dakota

TURNOUT: 12

MONEYS: $50

INJURIES: I fell on my head. Normally, I'm supposed to fall on one knee, then my butt, then my shoulder, but instead, for some reason i can't remember, this time my head went directly to the floor. Hard. Hard enough that i saw stars.

STORIES: Why not Minot? Probably because everyone assumes that a little town in the middle of North Dakota is a dumb place to try and make an infoshop or visit on a tour. Everyone is wrong. Minot rocks.

The show started out with a song circle, everyone taking turns playing songs on keyboards or acoustic guitars, sad songs, funny songs, covers. It had a real friendly community feel. Seriously, it was nice. Then it was time for Peter to play his harsh drooly loud set and for us to perform our messy violent play about powerlessness and futility. Suffice to say we felt uncomfortable and a little out of place.

But, we needn't have worried, cuz people loved the show, and we had a great group discussion about confronting empire and building radical alternatives. We learned a lot from the Minot kids, apparently North Dakota is one of few places in the US that didn't get too badly ruined by the financial collapse. Of course, oil speculators and real estate brokers are now moving in and blowing the economy up into a nice unstable bubble, with the help of the local government. Tearing down low income housing while a bunch of oil workers move into town driving up rents and tearing up the landscape to get at oil trapped in shale. Yes, neoliberalism seems to be targetting North Dakota. I'm hoping the kids we met might be able to convince the people of Minot that this money flowing into the community will even more rapidly flow out to big banks and corporations, that the inevitable bubble-bust is the fault of capital, not the minorities and non-xtians the right will surely blame, and that local politicians are working for the banks, against the people. We'll see.

Also, the Minot folks warned us that Fargo is a tough place to try and play. Their warnings proved justified. There will be no show report from Fargo, because nobody promoted the Fargo show, and thus nobody turned out. All we did was eat shitty over-priced taco salad and fill up with silent hate, then get back in the car and drive to Minneapolis.

Hiwayku:

This drive was very

long and very boring and

we had some soup too.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it. We'd love to hear it becuase we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 86: Prescott AZ, Catalyst Infoshop

TURNOUT: 15

MONEYS: $56 + $10 merch

INJURY: I will not cease to hit Ben in the head with the gun, on the other hand, he does not cease turning his head the wrong way right into the gun. Also, someone gave Ben a noogie at the end of the show.

STORIES: So, we pulled into catalyst infoshop, dropping Nicole off, and met some very friendly folks. This trait seemed to persit throughout the night. I always get a little nervous performing the show for friendly, welcoming people, don't want to scare them off or anything like that. We performed outside, in the driveway with motion lights, which occasionally turned off at dramatic moments. After the show there was a great discussion about the end of the play getting into morality and the many ways it can be defined. Speaking of morality, there were also a lot of dogs.

Peter played his acoustic set this time due to the outsideness. In the middle of it, dogs began fighting right in front of the table which Peter enjoyed. It was really nice to hear music and the outdoor noises at once, paying attention to the oddities of both.

Highwayku:

Through desert plateaus

we crossed the marble canyon with

mean three dollar gas

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 79: Louisville, Patchwork House

Turnout: 7

Donations: 10

Personal Injury Report: I almost smashed the radio in furiousness.

Show Description: Living room show at the Patchwork House. The Patchwork house is an Intentional Community that we'd visited and gotten to know before, so going back there was a treat.

Most everyone was out of town so it was a small crowd, which led to a great discussion. The performance on my part was one of the lower down on the list ones. The radio cut out part way through and so I had to cover for it by doing this slow confusing tape jiggery stuff. I was pretty angry throughout, which made me mess up a line, this making me, in turn, more angry.

The discussion went on for quite a while and I really enjoyed it. It was pretty somber at first but warmed up nicely.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 78: Lake Worth, The Night Heron

Turnout: 22

Monetary Votes of Support: 87.50 (7 in merch, 20 to The Night Heron)

Personal Injury Report: In one of the few parts where Ben is supposed to be responding to what I say, he forgot and just sat there. Fortunately, immediately afterward was the part where I slap him around, so I gave him some extras.

Show Description: Woo! There was a small child in the crowd. Wildcard. This kid has genuine sympathy and also genuine dis-concern, it was refreshing. Banjo and guitar music warmed up the night, which I tried to cry to to warm up for the cry-y parts of the show. It sort of worked, until I thought people saw me and I stopped. The discussion went well and we got to see a bunch of snakes later on at the canew house. I helped fix their onion peel afflicted fridge fan and we got to sleep in a shack in what felt like a jungle.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 77: Miami, The Firefly

Turnout: 22

Monetary Support: 126 (106 door, 20 merch)

Personal Injury Report: Ben lost his shoe and I broke my sweatshirt zipper.

Show Description: The firefly hosted us in this great ceilingless room outside that I, sadly, didn't take a picture of. In place of a picture of the nicely graffitied cement walls with mango tree branches shading the open roof-hole to the windy sky. I offer this humble picture of myself taken as I realilized I'd forgotten.

This show has me thinking about two things: One of them being how the play's grim content can eclipse its more hopeful production values. We need to do a better job of talking about how the theatre company works as an example of non-capitalist relations and about alternatives to capitalist production in general as possible economic solutions to the grimness of the play.

The second thing it has me thinking about is the way mosh pits work, as they happen differently all over the place. Florida has its own style. The "more clit in the pit" saying was spray painted on the wall where we played.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 75: Gainseville FL, CMC

Turnout: 10

Monetary Votes of Support: 24 door, 47 merch, 25 donation

Personal Injury Report: I slapped Ben's head too hard he tells me. It sounded good though.

Show Description: Back in Gainseville at the Civic Media Center for the second time. I really like the wide openness of the CMC, makes you want to jump around in it, play tag or something. Glad to be back.

We had a smaller turnout than last time but had a great discussion afterwards. It kept on going until almost midnight and covered subjects ranging from capitalism's mediation of human relationships to the benefits and possible drawbacks of hook worm.

The next day we came back to host a discussion on the sort of theatre we do and how it can aid in a life that attempts to distribute power non-heirarchicly. Here is our diagram:

Afterwards we went to Niel's house for some greens and grits, good talk and disturbed cat viewing. Sounds like a good time right? We haven't left Gainseville yet!

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

show 66: Buffalo, NY Rust Belt Books

Turnout: 11

Money: $24 (our cut)

Personal Injury Report: Reverse! My back was really sore before the show, and felt great afterward. Maybe I'll create a new form of tie-yourself-to-a-chair yoga!

Show Report: Rust Belt Books is an awesome huge bookstore, full of old rare and radical stuff. They've got a beautiful little intimate space in the back for performances. It's really nice playing the show in small spaces with focused lights (and focused audience) every once in a while (most actors don't know how spoiled they are).

I think the performance went really well. I messed up the communication with Rust Belt, and let them think we were coming Friday, when we were actually there Saturday. Fortunately, they let us perform anyway, and the turnout somehow didn't totally suck in spite of the confusion. A decent discussion with enthusiastic young people (one of whom was doing a report for his theatre class).

We went to Nobody's for a concert afterward, but didn't feel much like shaking our booties. Ended up sucking the mop late into the night. Which I guess is unavoidable every once in a while in this line of work.

Did you see this show? If you did write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 63: Philadelphia, Wooden Shoe

Turnout: 7

Monetary Votes of Support: 42 (32 door, 10 merch)

Personal Injury Report: Unscathed!

Show Description: Snowstorm everywhere! This made for exciting driving and a very intimate show for those who came out to the Wooden Shoe. The discussion afterward was lively and, much like the experience of driving in the city, it swerved about often. I really liked this performance, one of the better on my list of already solidly performed shows.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Here are two small pictures...

Show 56: Urbana, UC-IMC

Turnout: 21

Monetary Votes of Support: $66

Personal Injury Report: nothin'

Show Description: I felt really good about our performances, and really enjoyed having a larger audience than we have in the past when performing in Urbana. Also, the opportunity to see our friend Mark perform was priceless. Great playful yet heavy experimental acoustic stuff. We're always glad to come to Urbana, there are lots of experienced artists and activists here, and we look forward to the challenging and energizing post-show discussions.

This time the discussion left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths. It's great when the discussion is long, thorough and critical, but it's hard to not feel like we've gone through a wringer when we get certain kinds of reactions. I don't want to discard the fact that this was a great show with some great discussion, but I'd also like to use this space to muddle out some thoughts on these reactions.

The first troubling reaction comes when we've offended people. That means we've failed somewhere (the error is either in the writing, performance, introduction, or in the invitation of offendable folks to our show). This reaction is especially troubling because it makes me worry about some of the people who don't talk to us afterward, what they're thinking. Some of the people in Urbana mentioned being sick of being "sucker punched" by performance artists. Sucker-punching, offending, or otherwise shocking our audience is not at all our intention. We're trying to honestly present something that is discomforting, to manifest that discomfort without disrespecting the audience. When this fails, it is our failure, we must take responsibility for it. But like any challenge worth pursuing, such failure is only completely avoidable by ceasing to try. I like to think of John Schneider's response to the show as a goal: "their generous, even tender, care for their audiences, reflect a passionate commitment to learning, a faith in the value of theatrical communion, and a desire to help this country rise to its best."

The second troubling reaction is when some members of an audience get downright condescending in their responses. In Urbana the best example of this is a man who said, with exaggerated surprise "wait, are you telling me this actually works?" It's difficult to maintain one's composure when taking in such a dismissive assessment of something we're putting our entire lives into. Especially when somewhat exhausted from performing, and especially when coming from someone who was otherwise acting quite arrogant (not only toward us but toward the rest of the audience). I couldn't help but grin at his sheltered liberal ignorance, but managed to briefly describe some of the types of people who do find the play engaging, relevant, and successful, or even who disliked the play for directly opposite reasons he did. I didn't go into detail of what these people might think of him (or what some of them might do to him in a dark street) but it wouldn't have mattered, because he dismissed them just as condescendingly as he had us.

This guy doesn't deserve to be singled out, and actually the numbers of people who feel similarly but walk away without communicating at all bother me much more. Such reactions, while unfortunate, are expected and unavoidable. We won't let this slow us down.

Did you see this show? If you did, please write a review, ask us some questions or comment on it, because we love artistic transparency.

Show 55: Louisville, Brycchouse

Turnout: 9 Support: $97 ($50 donation, $26 hat, $21 merch)

Personal Injury Report: Some doors don't have functioning pneumatic slow-closing mechanisms. Kate slams these doors on her thumb.

Description: A good show in the Brycc House, a DIY community center in Louisville. Between trouble with circuit breakers and a small late-coming audience, things were looking rocky at first, but ended up working out marvelously. Once we got started with the show a few more people arrived, and afterwards we segued nicely into discussion. There was a video camera set up, so we might have some clips to share soon.

We get to add another house to our tour of cooperatives, we spent our two nights in Louisville at at a large unnamed (unless i missed the name) townhouse in Old Louisville. We met a bunch of wonderful folks, including trainees and specialists in the whole gamut of DIY and radical healthcare (from street medics to deep woods EMTs to abortion escorts and health-access activists). Also an excitable but lovable dog named Lucifer Jane.

On Thursday we visited a Nazi Eugenics exhibit at the U of L Health and Sciences Library and also watched a documentary about the "evacuation" of Japanese Americans from the west coast after Pearl Harbor. Contrasting the American vs Nazi approach to concentration camps was an insightful and depressing yet pleasant way to spend our accidental Thursday off. Then Friday morning before departing for Urbana, we caught a cheap matinée of the Romanian crime comedy "Police, Adjective" which, unlike American comedies, was actually funny.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 52: Iron Rail, New Orleans

NO PICTURE

SECURITY CULTURE!

Turnout: 9 Support: $17

Personal injury report: A mysterious and annoying flesh wound on the middle knuckle of my middle finger on my right hand.

Description: Another disappointing turn-out in New Orleans. Maybe we need to incorporate a marching band into the play. Or at least a banjo.

Kate channeled her frustrations (pre-show quote: "presbyterian housewives who've done NOTHING with their lives are better at community organizing than this") into her performance, resulting in a furious and intense iteration of the play. Some audience members seemed to consider this too emotional, unstable, "weepy" even. It didn't jive with their romantic notion of unflappable anarchist heroes. That's fine, cuz we're not into mythological heroics. We suspect their role is to provide symbols one can project their desires for resistance onto (thus sublimating the desires). We hope to present a flawed character enacting a flawed plan, we encourage examination, and the development of something viably actionable.

We know better than to talk any more shit over the internet than this and most of what we could say would come across as broad generalizations that don't apply to everyone in the audience, or in the city. Suffice to say: much of the conversation on the way to Memphis was about how to respectfully and constructively express these frustrations and criticisms of the anarchist mileau during the discussions.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show Report 50: Sedition Books

Turn out: 14

Monetary Votes of Support: $112 ($82 hat, $30 merch)

Personal Injury Report: Kate pinched me uneccessarily at least 5 times, once when I was supposed to be unconscious and therefore could not yelp.

Show Description: Great show! The evening started with good spoken word about shooting Shakespeare from a poet named Alex (we lost his last name and contact info), followed by strong political songs from The Deconstruction Crew. Then we performed. Then there was an involved and unique discussion.

It's generally hard for me to get really excited about spoken word and poetry, but Alex surprised me with some really great lines, interesting ideas and powerful delivery. I really enjoyed the fact that Alex and the guys in Deconstruction Crew introduced each of their peices in something like the same manner we do. There's something about art that explains itself or prepares the audience that I really like. Many artists object to this insisting that the work should speak for itself, or that their work needs no introduction, or even that they don't understand their own intentions and therefore can't explain their work. I can see the attraction of that kind of approach, but I can't help but feel like it's often a posture adopted to mystify art and fetishize artists. I recognize how introductions can be pedantic, or hierarchical, telling the audience what they're supposed to think, too. I hope we can instead try to explain ourselves, but also remain open to others' interpretations and understandings.

Anyway, we really enjoyed the show and the discussion afterward. The performances felt good, but different. It's always interesting performing after a few days off, some things get missed, but others get discovered, or re-discovered. This was the 50th performance of this play, and we're really happy to see it continuing to develop and grow. We've got a few dozen more shows booked already, and will probably be doing this play through next fall. This kind of extensive touring with performances in very different spaces and different cities highlights theatre's living and growing character.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 48: Tallahassee @ Free Radicals

Turnout: 20

Suggested Don. at Door: 38, Merch: 20, Hat: 24

Personal Injury Report: Just the standard bruises and welts.

Show Description: Oh, before I talk about the show, I should mention that today was the day that we brought a large, huge, owl-bird to death by tire. It swooped down from the trees in the rainstorm that we were making our way through and wacked the windshield of the van in front of us and then flew backwards off the van's roof smack-dab into our path. And we ran it over. Ugh.

The show went well. Two punk bands, one of them Cody's who set up the show, opened for a somewhat damp from the rain audience who seemed to, at the end, like what we did. Good times. There were even some folks who'd heard about the show from people who'd seen it in St. Augustine. Florida seems to be good like that. Cody also gave us some great music for the road. Much appreciated. Just of note, there were cops everywhere. From when we pulled in to when we left. Lurkers.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 47: Gainesville, FL

Turnout: 30

Support: $69 1/2 of door (CMC also got $69) $26 donations, $81 merch. I think this is the most we've made on a single show.

Personal injury report: I figured out that the strange welt on my left wrist I got in St Augustine was a rope burn, because I got another one right next to it at this show. Concrete floor #6 in a row, but Kate's knees are fine, so it doesn't really matter.

Look at that picture. CMC has so many books! The person with the red and black checked shirt is Jimmy, who is awesome, works for the CMC, and lives on a farm. The person wearing the red sweatshirt with the white ties is Eric, who is awesome, he not only has continental philosopher trading cards, but can speak intelligently about them, and about coupons. He is married to Saara. The person sitting next to Eric, who you can't see cuz some dork in a grey suit is standing in the way is Saara, she is awesome and used to live in Milwaukee. She can speak intelligently about television, poetry and many other things. We stayed with Eric and Saara, which was super awesome nice and comfortable. The person on the other side with the grey shirt helped untie me and asked insightful questions about sexual violence (some others asked less insightful questions about sexual violence, but i won't point them out).

A totally wonderful kickass show. Everyone in Florida seems to want us to come back. So we will. Hopefully sooner rather than later, and when we can maybe also swim, and play Fort Worth and Pensacola and the other nice places we didn't play this time.

Did you see this show? If you did, write a review, comment on it, or ask us some questions. We'd love to hear from you because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show Report 37: Bluestockings, New York

Turnout: 35

Monetary Votes of Support: $43.45 (Bluestockings passed a hat for themselves as well)

Personal Injury Report: None for us. There was a very attentive and excited 7 year old who might have gotten nightmares.

Show Description: Great turnout at the wonderful Bluestockings bookstore. Excellent people, great selection of books, very friendly atmosphere, attentive audience, some of whom just happened in off the street.

We're really relieved to have the first show of tour out of the way, especially considering the number of stupid technical problems we had. No dropped lines or anything that ruined stuff, but we forgot the hood in our dryer back in Philly (had to use a lucky back-up, which was too loose and fell off easily) we lost one of the ropes mid-performance and forgot to hand out the programs (which probably makes the land of the dead part even more confusing).

Funny story: so Bluestockings is in the middle of Manhattan, and Kate used the front door as the exit. Which means twice she walked out onto Allen St with a realistic looking holstered handgun, startling passersby, who she just smiled at until they either felt comfortable, or walked the other way, wide eyed.

We were really nervous and uncomfortable and kind of botched the transition from play to discussion, which is really too bad. We had a couple good individual conversations, but I look forward to infoshop and bookstore shows as opportunities to have real group discussions. Plus, I guess Trey recognized Howard Zinn in the audience.

Did you see this show? If you did, please comment here. Write a review, share your thoughts, ask questions, we'd love to hear from you because we beleive in artistic transparency.

Show 33: Columbus OH @ Spore

Turnout: 8

Monetary Votes of Support: 32 Merch: 28

Personal Injury Report: That old lady's feelings.

Show Description: Second time at Spore. The first time had a much better turnout, this time was kind of weird, between the two guys at the computer who were kind of distracting, to the older woman noting whenever someone came in late, it was a bit hard to concentrate. Nonetheless, the discussion after the show was good to have, it was biographical and personal in a way that we haven't had with other audience members up until this point.

We also found out from the older woman that bicycles are harmful and utterly useless because they cannot carry goods or families and will never be able to replace autos, whereas these human powered vehicles made from space age materials are good for all these things bicycles aren't. Also, these vehicles will utilize the only thing bicycles have ever been good for, that is, bike paths. Anyway...

Did you see this show? If you did, comment on it, write a review, or ask us some questions. We'd like to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

Show 8: Colombus, OH

Turnout: 20

Monetary Votes of Support: 49.50

Personal Injury Report: Unscathed !

Show Description: We had been looking forward to doing the show at Spore and it turned out just as well as we had hoped. The crowd was great, the show went well, there were no injuries, good discussions, and the house (see picture) we stayed at afterwards, a communal living space, had front and backyard gardens, a bee hive, gray water sinks and a kitchen packed with bulk goods. The house itself and the people staying there were the most interesting things about being in Columbus. It's good to see places like that. And I would like live in one in the near future, so seeing this one in action was useful for getting a clearer picture of the areas where communal living does well and challenges it faces and how to approach them.

Kate also learned how to do this double pushup acrobatic move after the show.

Did you see this show? If you did, comment on it, write a review, or ask us some questions if you've got 'em. We'd like to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.