I just had a fairly strange evening, strange enough to motivate some writing for the first time in a long while...
It’s the little anecdotes like this one that I find are more easily forgotten - the details, at least, lost with time - which is why I’ve often had a triplog of some sort during my travels (and why I suppose many people keep diaries). More than anything, I do it so I can look back and maintain a fullness to these otherwise fickle memories, but of course I also hope a few other people will enjoy some of my writings. Even if no one else, my mom will love them.
So, mom, I’d like to dedicate this to me, but I’m glad you enjoy it, too.
To give a bit of context:
I'm currently living in Medellín, Colombia, considered by many to be the coolest place in the country. Infamous in the 1980s for being 'the most violent city in the world’ due to the urban war surrounding the massive drug cartel based here, it has since risen from that darker period to become the top industrial city in Colombia, the site of unusually progressive urban development projects, and home to one of the more impressive public transit systems I've seen in the world. Sadly, it is mostly famous among travellers for its supposedly high concentration of hot girls.
The weather today is like the weather every day of the year: somewhere between 15° and high-20°s, chance of rain (some parts of the year have slightly more rain than others; that's what they call 'seasons' here). Hence the sobriquet 'City of the Eternal Spring'. I actually had a conversation recently with a guy who, when inquiring about Canada, asked: "And then, what's that season called? The one with the coloured leaves? Autumn! Right! That sounds so cool!" He wasn't asking for the English word, either - I taught a Colombian the word 'otoño'. I'm used to the people who have never seen snow before, but... I digress.
Amongst the many impressive investments undertaken by the city was the 16 million dollar project to overhaul and renovate the private botanical garden here, which it continues to fund annually in order to make it free to the public. It's a lovely public space to wander around in, and it also hosts a variety of events, yoga classes, markets, as well as a symphony that now has a practice space thanks to the donation of a building inside. It is also the first place for which I've ever had an official permit to busk (that is, to play music and collect money). I tend to busk on this little boardwalk in the forest, a wonderfully shaded, green, tranquil space which is perfect for the halo.
While I play, I am of course regularly approached by people asking what my strange instrument is. I also fairly regularly get people telling me I should do some sort of project with them such as playing music for their dance/film/community group/etc. Most such offers never get past the ‘it would be cool if’ discussion, however. Given the number of them, I tend to leave the ball in other people’s court and let them contact me (a simple purging mechanism). Naturally, they tend not to. There are only a couple of proposals that I wished I had been able to follow up on myself as they could have been really cool, but for the most part, I take any lack of an update as an indication that the original discussion wasn’t all that serious.
This lesson was reinforced in Lima, where a tremendously enthusiastic Michael Allin, writer of Enter the Dragon (not a movie noted for its writing, admittedly, but still... Bruce Lee), had wooed me with talk of doing music for his next Hollywood film with Sigourney Weaver. Obviously, I took down his information and persisted in calling him almost every day. I was like a pathetic school girl trying to hang out with her crush. To be fair, he kept telling me things like “Yeah, I sent an e-mail to Hollywood... But today’s no good, I’m just completely swamped. I’m sorry - shall we try to meet tomorrow? Thanks for keeping after me, I know I’m all over the place, but please, keep after me!” So I did - but it was all one-sided, of course, and after about a week of this, it got annoying, so I just decided he was a douchebag and moved on. (besides, it’s not like his movie was noted for its writing...)
A few days ago, on the other hand, I received a follow-up e-mail from someone asking me to do live music for his play which already had a date and time booked at a small but well known local theatre space. The timing worked quite well for me, and it seemed like a reassuringly concrete and established thing, so I gave him a call.
Lucho was his name, and he showed up at our meeting spot right on time - not exactly the norm around here, and so a reassuring start. He looked like an old hippy - roughly in his fifties, tall, white (both he and about half of his beard), wearing some sort of dark blue hawaiian buttoned shirt and grey shorts, dirty, shaggy, lively, and friendly. Perhaps fifteen seconds later, after the “hola”s, “que tál”s, and hugs were exchanged, he asked me if I smoked marijuana, reinforcing the hippy image further. “Pues, de vez en cuando...” I replied, thinking I’m either in for a very chill night of artistic exchange and creation, or, potentially, a big waste of time. It turns out it was neither.
“At least he doesn’t beat around the bush”, I thought to myself. In terms of working collectively on a project, I tend to think that the ability to be sufficiently frank is key. Too much sugar coating or political correctness can be an obnoxious detriment to moving forward, and this is particularly true in theatre. On the other hand, the fact that his coarse, boorish mannerisms - and even his appearance - reminded me of my most unpleasant sailboat captain, Sylvain, was not so comforting.
During the walk to obtain the aforementioned herb, he told me that he had fled from Cuba fourteen years ago and lived in various places around South America ever since, finally settling and getting married in Colombia three years ago. When I asked about his wife, he clarified that the marriage was simply part of a business deal, a process to get out of his then illegal status in the country. Suffice it to say, he was an interesting person.
He then told me that his theatre company currently consisted of himself, the A/V guy, and now me. I began to worry again. I’ve seen a lot of great ‘one man shows’, but I’ve also seen some terrible ones, and Lucho had so far failed to give me the impression that he was an accomplished actor. The sketchy nature of this so-called theatre company was not helping his cause, either. Still, how could I know at that point, so I tried to withhold any judgment until I could see the play.
Then he revealed that this was, in fact, a puppet show, one that he had put on many times before. Since it was much easier to believe that he had dexterous puppeteer skills rather than acting talent alongside his indecorous personality, I became cautiously optimistic.
Not cautiously enough, it turns out. The stage and puppets he set up before me (while he hauled on a sizeable joint) looked fairly decent, but when it came to the actual show, he simply wasn’t any good. Not at all. Not only did his puppet handling fail to demonstrate any sort of proficiency - you or I could easily have done as well with a few minutes of practice - but he also managed to drag out his empty, trite, and senseless scenes, repeating the same awkward and unconvincing movements far too many times... I was trying to play along with some music and improvise a soundtrack, but it was all so seemingly random that I just couldn’t make it work. He later acknowledged that apart from a general path, it is largely improvised. In any case, it was brutal. It was the kind of thing you might applaud a 5-year-old for.
That is, at least, until the three minute long rape scene.
Although, again, he did not have the deftness to show any actions particularly accurately, and the puppets in question were, thankfully, some sort of amorphous spirits anyways, he still managed to put on a tremendously unpleasant, completely uninspired, and plainly offensive scene. After the awkward preliminaries, he was eventually alternating between a bass voice groaning “¡Si, si, si..!” and falsettoed “¡No, no, no!” cry as he flew the two humping sheets of shiny fabric around his small stage. He did this over and over again until on one pass, the unending assault floated along followed closely by four little baby spirits.
It was around this point that I realized I was unconsciously providing a soothing halo musical score to puppet rape.
Clearly, I needed to get out of this.
Sitting next to me was Alex, ‘the A/V guy’, a contrastingly charming and tactful Colombian in his early thirties who does his own theatre projects and had simply offered to help Lucho with this production. He was also seeing the show for the first time, and was equally at a loss for words when the scene ended and Lucho asked us for our opinions - or, more specifically, ‘why we were looking at him like that’.
Alex just shook his head slightly, softly repeating “Lucho... Lucho...”, as if trying to determine where to begin explaining everything that was wrong with the scene.
When Lucho asked me directly for the second or third time, I finally managed to stammer out some sort of response: “Well... Why... Uh... It’s just that, to me, it seemed like a really long and unpleasant rape scene, man. I mean, it was in fact very obviously that, without a doubt. I think it seriously needs to be changed.”
“Oh, the frigid Canadian!” he responded, laughing at what he perceived to be my excessive prudishness.
“Lucho,” interjected Alex, “it was a rape scene, was it not?”
“Guys, come on, it’s a joke!” responded Lucho, beginning to feel cornered.
After a slight pause, Alex asked: “How can we give it more of a funny flavour?”
“No, look, I’m not changing it. Let’s just do the next scene.” said Lucho as he walked out of the room to go get a cigarette.
Alex and I looked at each other. We said nothing, but it was clear we felt the same way. He smiled and shrugged. I shrugged and smiled. Lucho re-entered, smoking, and we started the next scene.
We eventually got through the whole play. There was nothing else nearly as offensive as the rape scene; it went back to being just plain boring: more unfocused, unclear movements, still repeated far too often, all leading up to a couple of weak visual gags. I never thought I’d say this, but the highlight was probably when one puppet farted fire. When it was all over (the real highlight, and not nearly soon enough), I managed to assert that it wasn’t really my style of theatre, and that I would not be participating. When he asked me if I’d at least go see the show on Friday, I didn’t have the constitution to say no to that too, so I agreed. More than anything, I’m just glad I’ll be sitting with the audience rather than on stage, but I’m also quite curious as to what the reaction will be - again, apparently he’s already done this show many times, and yet somehow Alex and I seemed to be the first people to express discomfort with some of his work.
In any case, this Friday night I will not be providing the musical score for a puppet rape scene. This whole incident did connect me with Alex, however, with whom I’ll be working on a much more interesting movement, dance, theatre, and music project.
In the end, it was a fruitful and undeniably unique evening.
...two days later:
I have to admit, I really did feel strangely towards Lucho, and I’ve painted him in a harshly negative light in this anecdote, but the truth is that aside from our rather divergent opinions concerning his art, he has consistently proven to be a really a pleasant, amicable guy. He made it very easy for us to have that open dialogue, took my ‘rejection’ incredibly smoothly, and continued to be just as warm and friendly when I showed up at his place a couple of days later for a rehearsal with Alex.
I’m sure there’s a moral to this story.
Carry on.
It’s the little anecdotes like this one that I find are more easily forgotten - the details, at least, lost with time - which is why I’ve often had a triplog of some sort during my travels (and why I suppose many people keep diaries). More than anything, I do it so I can look back and maintain a fullness to these otherwise fickle memories, but of course I also hope a few other people will enjoy some of my writings. Even if no one else, my mom will love them.
So, mom, I’d like to dedicate this to me, but I’m glad you enjoy it, too.
To give a bit of context:
I'm currently living in Medellín, Colombia, considered by many to be the coolest place in the country. Infamous in the 1980s for being 'the most violent city in the world’ due to the urban war surrounding the massive drug cartel based here, it has since risen from that darker period to become the top industrial city in Colombia, the site of unusually progressive urban development projects, and home to one of the more impressive public transit systems I've seen in the world. Sadly, it is mostly famous among travellers for its supposedly high concentration of hot girls.
The weather today is like the weather every day of the year: somewhere between 15° and high-20°s, chance of rain (some parts of the year have slightly more rain than others; that's what they call 'seasons' here). Hence the sobriquet 'City of the Eternal Spring'. I actually had a conversation recently with a guy who, when inquiring about Canada, asked: "And then, what's that season called? The one with the coloured leaves? Autumn! Right! That sounds so cool!" He wasn't asking for the English word, either - I taught a Colombian the word 'otoño'. I'm used to the people who have never seen snow before, but... I digress.
Amongst the many impressive investments undertaken by the city was the 16 million dollar project to overhaul and renovate the private botanical garden here, which it continues to fund annually in order to make it free to the public. It's a lovely public space to wander around in, and it also hosts a variety of events, yoga classes, markets, as well as a symphony that now has a practice space thanks to the donation of a building inside. It is also the first place for which I've ever had an official permit to busk (that is, to play music and collect money). I tend to busk on this little boardwalk in the forest, a wonderfully shaded, green, tranquil space which is perfect for the halo.
While I play, I am of course regularly approached by people asking what my strange instrument is. I also fairly regularly get people telling me I should do some sort of project with them such as playing music for their dance/film/community group/etc. Most such offers never get past the ‘it would be cool if’ discussion, however. Given the number of them, I tend to leave the ball in other people’s court and let them contact me (a simple purging mechanism). Naturally, they tend not to. There are only a couple of proposals that I wished I had been able to follow up on myself as they could have been really cool, but for the most part, I take any lack of an update as an indication that the original discussion wasn’t all that serious.
This lesson was reinforced in Lima, where a tremendously enthusiastic Michael Allin, writer of Enter the Dragon (not a movie noted for its writing, admittedly, but still... Bruce Lee), had wooed me with talk of doing music for his next Hollywood film with Sigourney Weaver. Obviously, I took down his information and persisted in calling him almost every day. I was like a pathetic school girl trying to hang out with her crush. To be fair, he kept telling me things like “Yeah, I sent an e-mail to Hollywood... But today’s no good, I’m just completely swamped. I’m sorry - shall we try to meet tomorrow? Thanks for keeping after me, I know I’m all over the place, but please, keep after me!” So I did - but it was all one-sided, of course, and after about a week of this, it got annoying, so I just decided he was a douchebag and moved on. (besides, it’s not like his movie was noted for its writing...)
A few days ago, on the other hand, I received a follow-up e-mail from someone asking me to do live music for his play which already had a date and time booked at a small but well known local theatre space. The timing worked quite well for me, and it seemed like a reassuringly concrete and established thing, so I gave him a call.
Lucho was his name, and he showed up at our meeting spot right on time - not exactly the norm around here, and so a reassuring start. He looked like an old hippy - roughly in his fifties, tall, white (both he and about half of his beard), wearing some sort of dark blue hawaiian buttoned shirt and grey shorts, dirty, shaggy, lively, and friendly. Perhaps fifteen seconds later, after the “hola”s, “que tál”s, and hugs were exchanged, he asked me if I smoked marijuana, reinforcing the hippy image further. “Pues, de vez en cuando...” I replied, thinking I’m either in for a very chill night of artistic exchange and creation, or, potentially, a big waste of time. It turns out it was neither.
“At least he doesn’t beat around the bush”, I thought to myself. In terms of working collectively on a project, I tend to think that the ability to be sufficiently frank is key. Too much sugar coating or political correctness can be an obnoxious detriment to moving forward, and this is particularly true in theatre. On the other hand, the fact that his coarse, boorish mannerisms - and even his appearance - reminded me of my most unpleasant sailboat captain, Sylvain, was not so comforting.
During the walk to obtain the aforementioned herb, he told me that he had fled from Cuba fourteen years ago and lived in various places around South America ever since, finally settling and getting married in Colombia three years ago. When I asked about his wife, he clarified that the marriage was simply part of a business deal, a process to get out of his then illegal status in the country. Suffice it to say, he was an interesting person.
He then told me that his theatre company currently consisted of himself, the A/V guy, and now me. I began to worry again. I’ve seen a lot of great ‘one man shows’, but I’ve also seen some terrible ones, and Lucho had so far failed to give me the impression that he was an accomplished actor. The sketchy nature of this so-called theatre company was not helping his cause, either. Still, how could I know at that point, so I tried to withhold any judgment until I could see the play.
Then he revealed that this was, in fact, a puppet show, one that he had put on many times before. Since it was much easier to believe that he had dexterous puppeteer skills rather than acting talent alongside his indecorous personality, I became cautiously optimistic.
Not cautiously enough, it turns out. The stage and puppets he set up before me (while he hauled on a sizeable joint) looked fairly decent, but when it came to the actual show, he simply wasn’t any good. Not at all. Not only did his puppet handling fail to demonstrate any sort of proficiency - you or I could easily have done as well with a few minutes of practice - but he also managed to drag out his empty, trite, and senseless scenes, repeating the same awkward and unconvincing movements far too many times... I was trying to play along with some music and improvise a soundtrack, but it was all so seemingly random that I just couldn’t make it work. He later acknowledged that apart from a general path, it is largely improvised. In any case, it was brutal. It was the kind of thing you might applaud a 5-year-old for.
That is, at least, until the three minute long rape scene.
Although, again, he did not have the deftness to show any actions particularly accurately, and the puppets in question were, thankfully, some sort of amorphous spirits anyways, he still managed to put on a tremendously unpleasant, completely uninspired, and plainly offensive scene. After the awkward preliminaries, he was eventually alternating between a bass voice groaning “¡Si, si, si..!” and falsettoed “¡No, no, no!” cry as he flew the two humping sheets of shiny fabric around his small stage. He did this over and over again until on one pass, the unending assault floated along followed closely by four little baby spirits.
It was around this point that I realized I was unconsciously providing a soothing halo musical score to puppet rape.
Clearly, I needed to get out of this.
Sitting next to me was Alex, ‘the A/V guy’, a contrastingly charming and tactful Colombian in his early thirties who does his own theatre projects and had simply offered to help Lucho with this production. He was also seeing the show for the first time, and was equally at a loss for words when the scene ended and Lucho asked us for our opinions - or, more specifically, ‘why we were looking at him like that’.
Alex just shook his head slightly, softly repeating “Lucho... Lucho...”, as if trying to determine where to begin explaining everything that was wrong with the scene.
When Lucho asked me directly for the second or third time, I finally managed to stammer out some sort of response: “Well... Why... Uh... It’s just that, to me, it seemed like a really long and unpleasant rape scene, man. I mean, it was in fact very obviously that, without a doubt. I think it seriously needs to be changed.”
“Oh, the frigid Canadian!” he responded, laughing at what he perceived to be my excessive prudishness.
“Lucho,” interjected Alex, “it was a rape scene, was it not?”
“Guys, come on, it’s a joke!” responded Lucho, beginning to feel cornered.
After a slight pause, Alex asked: “How can we give it more of a funny flavour?”
“No, look, I’m not changing it. Let’s just do the next scene.” said Lucho as he walked out of the room to go get a cigarette.
Alex and I looked at each other. We said nothing, but it was clear we felt the same way. He smiled and shrugged. I shrugged and smiled. Lucho re-entered, smoking, and we started the next scene.
We eventually got through the whole play. There was nothing else nearly as offensive as the rape scene; it went back to being just plain boring: more unfocused, unclear movements, still repeated far too often, all leading up to a couple of weak visual gags. I never thought I’d say this, but the highlight was probably when one puppet farted fire. When it was all over (the real highlight, and not nearly soon enough), I managed to assert that it wasn’t really my style of theatre, and that I would not be participating. When he asked me if I’d at least go see the show on Friday, I didn’t have the constitution to say no to that too, so I agreed. More than anything, I’m just glad I’ll be sitting with the audience rather than on stage, but I’m also quite curious as to what the reaction will be - again, apparently he’s already done this show many times, and yet somehow Alex and I seemed to be the first people to express discomfort with some of his work.
In any case, this Friday night I will not be providing the musical score for a puppet rape scene. This whole incident did connect me with Alex, however, with whom I’ll be working on a much more interesting movement, dance, theatre, and music project.
In the end, it was a fruitful and undeniably unique evening.
...two days later:
I have to admit, I really did feel strangely towards Lucho, and I’ve painted him in a harshly negative light in this anecdote, but the truth is that aside from our rather divergent opinions concerning his art, he has consistently proven to be a really a pleasant, amicable guy. He made it very easy for us to have that open dialogue, took my ‘rejection’ incredibly smoothly, and continued to be just as warm and friendly when I showed up at his place a couple of days later for a rehearsal with Alex.
I’m sure there’s a moral to this story.
Carry on.
...another two days later, just back from the play:
If you’re familiar with the 'interpretive dance' scene from The Big Lebowski, you can begin to imagine the situation in the theatre last night, only I didn’t have the benefits of a distracting conversation. And - I can’t stress this enough - puppet rape (though he did shorten that scene considerably, at least).
Take a terrible puppet show, then add some seemingly random lighting changes, the same song on repeat three or four times during each senseless, unconnected scene, and an audience made up entirely of invited guests - I think only one poor sap actually paid for the show, a point made awkwardly public when the theatre host went up on stage before the show and announced that since basically nobody paid to get in, they’d be passing a hat around afterwards.
Unlike approximately half of the audience, I stayed until the end of the play. I did, however, leave precisely as the hat in question hit my table. There was nothing there I wanted to encourage, and I particularly dislike the approach of guilting people into supporting you.
A short run had me catch the last train home on which some guys were playing music: some guitar, some bongos, and some singing. So I pulled out a flute...
“All’s well that ends well.”
