The View From Here #83: Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas Everybody!

I've been enjoying a respite from the road for the past few weeks. A chance to dig in and sort through the piles of papers that accumulate and accomplish things that are actually impossible on the road, like getting something written.

I've caught up, and fallen behind again on e-mails, and I'm sure you all will understand that if I can't even keep up with the e-mails that go flying about without even the benefit of a stamp or envelope, that there's no way I'll get to Christmas cards. Of course, you guys get to read the equivalent of my "Christmas Letter Home" about every two or three weeks, and would probably just as soon NOT get any new photocopied pages from me. Ha! Just see me confining my annual report to one side of a single-spaced page of text. Only if they invent the one-point font size!

By the way, don't forget to sign up for the listserv at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/viewfromhere/ . I'll continue doing the e-mails for a few more issues, but signing up now will guarantee that you don't miss any issues. Or maybe that's not an incentive.

Anyway, bookings for the spring are falling into place more or less. Things will be on the thin side through January and February, but come on like a house on fire in March. I've scheduled a performance of "Criteria" at Chiesa Nuova in Chicago for Sunday, January 30 at 3 p.m., so for those who have been insisting that I have to schedule that one in town, please mark that date now. I've also broken down and, following a three-month break this time next year, plotted out a tour that will carry me through May of 2006.

Summer of 2005 will of course, find me doing Fringe Festivals again, although, my hopes were dashed by not being picked high enough in the Edmonton Lottery, alas. (I'll miss you, Emma!) Instead, I'm working on the new Boulder Fringe Festival.

Meanwhile, I'm rehearsing "Karaoke Knights, a One-Man Rock Opera" as much as I can. Music is undergoing finishing touches by Ray Lewis in Rochester; David Jensen is working on another illustration; Debby Reelitz is putting together another bit of calligraphy, this one for the "Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre," and all of it will go to a new brochure that I am preparing, the tagline of which is: "One Man. Three Genres. Three Plays. Three Nights." (I'm readying myself for a booking conference in January, where I'll be pushing the shows, alongside Llysa from "theater simple" in
Seattle.)

And somewhere in there, I started work on a new book (writing, not reading). This one is an entirely new venture: a personal development, self-help tome, called "Currency." I woke up from a dream three weeks ago realizing that this was my one window of opportunity to write the thing, a project which has been on my mind for about six months or so. I write an hour a day, first thing every morning, which I intend to keep up for 30 days, or 30 chapters. So far it's all brilliant stuff. Of course, I haven't gone back to reread anything.

I'm continuing to work out, and my weight has edged back downwards by three pounds. Tomorrow's dinner will probably erase any and all progress. I'll close now, with yet another song from "Karaoke Knights, a One-Man Rock Opera," continuing to tease those Vancouver audiences who will have to wait all the way to September to actually see the show. Since last issue I enclosed the Opening Number, this time around I'll attach the Closing Number, thus killing any possible surprise you might enjoy from seeing the performance. It does, however, come about as close as my writing comes to Christmas Eve mood. So, maybe you should save it for midnight and read it aloud.

As Gandalf said: "Look for me when you least expect me."

Love,
Tim

Simply Nothing

LIGHTS UP on TIM and a chair in the single upstage light. A star pattern gradually warms on the back drape. TIM sits for the first two verses, wanders through the audience for verses four and five, returns to sit, and eventually exits through an upstage "sliding door."

There's simply nothing that could happen
On a night that's got this late;
There's no eleventh hour redemption
There's no unthought of twist of fate.
As all the bars by now have closed
And I am home upon my porch,
The crystal sky reveals the way
The distant stars all burn and scorch.

There's simply nothing that could happen
There's not a condo burning lights
I am the only one who's up,
Just like all of those other nights.
The chilly night makes all the stars
More vivid and yet more serene
The puny earthling stares on up,
And feels more petty, small and mean.

There's simply nothing that could happen
To me at least, in one man's life;
My being doesn't balance on
The edge of some unsettled knife.
While somewhere else perhaps there are
Disruptions, conflagrations, riots
For me, the biggest danger is
That late at night I break my diets.

There's simply nothing that could happen
When everyone has all gone down
Here in this complex, on this block,
This neighborhood, this little town.
At three a.m. the only calls
Are ones that you don't want to take
The visitors that you might get,
Are ones that you don't want awake.

There's simply nothing that could happen
In any part of this small world
That could make me need to stay up
To see the story be unfurled.
But up there maybe something's up
Amid the zillion little stars
In places where they stay awake,
And don't go closing down their bars.

There's simply nothing that could happen,
I pale in insignificance
There's me, and there's the universe,
In all of its magnificence.
There's naught to do but to record
The fact there's nothing here to say
One man, a bunch of stars and just
The start of yet another day.

There's simply nothing that could happen
On a night that's got this late;
There's no eleventh hour redemption
There's no unthought of twist of fate.
There's simply nothing that could happen
It's all been done and all been said.
There's nothing left here for the doing,
Perhaps at last it's time for bed.

BLACKOUT.
Copyright, 2002-2004
By Tim Mooney (Music by Ray Lewis)

The View From Here #82: The Internet

Following a week of poring over ALL OF THE BACK ISSUES of "The View FromHere," (360 single-spaced pages and growing) I now have everything, to date, loaded onto the Yahoo Groups website. If, for whatever reason, you joined in the middle of the tour, you are now welcome to go back and read tales of my misadventures to your heart's content. Or until you fall asleep. Which may be the same moment.

AND SO, rather than running The View From Here as a straightforward e-mail, I'm now going to be running it as a "listserv" which means that I'll send it to Yahoo, and Yahoo will forward it to you as an e-mail. This means that sudden crashes of my computer will be unable to destroy my address book. I'll also be loading photos and calendar information onto the website, so there will be other fun things available. (Downside: Yahoo will attach advertising to the beginnings of these e-mails. Please just ignore this. These are not products that I endorse in any way.)

Thus, IN ORDER TO CONTINUE RECEIVING "The View From Here," you will need to follow these instructions one time only. (I am told that a monkey can do it, in less than five minutes.)Point your web browser to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/viewfromhere/. (Probably just clicking on that address will take you there.) From this site you click on the button that says "Join This Group," and that will take you to a page where you answer a handful of questions. (This is "safe." I signed up a month ago and have not gotten spammed by it.)

I will continue to send the next couple of issues out via regular e-mail to those who have not signed up, but will phase that out very soon.In case you're not confused enough, parallel to this, I have begun a "Blog" (short for "weblog"). It will contain all of the same material from The View From Here, but will be accessed in different ways, probably by a whole different set of people. If you'd like to visit the weblog (still in its developing phases) you can go to: http://timmooneyrep.blogspot.com/.

AND EVENTUALLY, all of this will link up to a NEW WEBSITE that we are developing. There is nothing (worth looking at) loaded onto that site yet, so I'll refrain from giving you that web address for the moment! This website, however, will be the Master Website featuring the Tim Mooney Repertory Theatre, from which the public will be able to connect to "Moliere Than Thou," "Criteria," "Karaoke Knights," and other theatrical booking opportunities.

I know, I know, "Shut up before you confuse us any further."BUT FIRST, let me just note that my weblog is already linked to the Vancouver Fringe Web Page, and so I expect the Vancouver audience of the View From Here and potentially, my show this coming summer, is growing already. As such, and since I don't have any new performances to report on today, I want to TEASE those curious Vancouver readers with salacious selections of the show!Here, therefore, is the OPENING NUMBER for "Karaoke Knights, a One-Man Rock Opera:" "I'm Looking for a Groupie" (For now it's just lyrics; Probably, at some point, I'll get MP3s of the music on-line.)

Looking For A Groupie

I'm looking for a groupie,
No soul-mate quite for me,
A woman who looks better
Than I deserve to see.
A lover in the thrall
Of what I say and do,
Oh, how I'd hypnotize her
Bed and wed her ere I'm through.

I've got to find that groupie,
Who can't hold herself back
But when I'm done
Performing comes on
With her attack.
I'd need no introduction
Except my probing eyes,
There'd be no competition
She'd just give me the prize.

Oh Lord, bring me a groupie
Who's way above my league
Who's thrilled with my performance
And looks for some intrigue
For while she watches what I do
She might not give a damn
About the way I tend to look,
Or who I really am.

And if I should find that groupie
Backstage or in a bar
She'd be my tender
Plaything and I
Would be her star.
We'd feed each other's needs,
It's perfect, though, in fact,
The toughest part would be that I
Could never drop the act!

Big finish; big bow. LIGHTS out.
Copyright, 2002-2004 By Tim Mooney (Music by Ray Lewis)