Teatro Triste del Clown

In cleaning my apartment, I came across a notebook from 1996. Here's more stuff that was written in it.

The Readiness is All! The Red-y-ness is Hall. All in the family. Family Affair. Oedipus Complex. Not as complex as you might think I'm crazy. Crazy as a fox. Foxy Lady. Lady of Spain I adore you. Je t'adore, mademoiselle. Petite Juene Fille. Thank Heavens For Little Girls. Little Boy blue come blow your horn. Blow my horn. Wear the horns of a cuckold. Cuc Old. Cold Weather. Whether or not here I come. Tonight she comes. I look at other women out of habit. Bad habit. Of the Baltimore Tears. Baltimore Stallions. Father Owner Coach. Home from school for the holidays - a long trip, frequent flier miles. Miles from nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, you and me got a bad disease. Why is my mind clogged with mental garbage all that comes down to the paper sometimes is song quotes and questions with no answers. What am I looking for? How deep must I dive? Is there anywhere to dive? My mind is a tide pool, Tadpole, big dry frog buddy. Buddy ol' pal ol' friend. Friend of P's then your friends with me. What if I was Hamlet? Do stories repeat themselves? What do we see Hamlet do? He thinks for four acts then finally acts. Not Acts, but Thinks. He is ready to act in the Queen's boudoir and kills the wrong man. Kills an intruder in his mom's room. Who is the real intruder? Penetrate try not to hate don't suffocate on your own hate. I see this on a sunny afternoon birds flying from the trees full of liceitching into my scalp burning on my head bursting into my brain itching down like acid 'til there's nothing left but pus and my head still works like nothing happened - I am not my head! Hamlet learns that he is not his brain - he is a pawn - we all must play our part and that is all we must do - we are part of a divine clock, a celestial glockenspiel and His hand is in all things in all things. The King is a Thing. Thinking is not an action. Deciding is an action - Action Jackson. Michael doesn't live here anymore. Michael's thing. Cousin It. What is it?

Who is it? What are we waiting for - I don't know, but I'm ready for it, whatever it is.

We know Hamlet's story because Horatio lived to tell it.

So he doesn't know he's Hamlet. All the choices he thinks he's made in his life lead up to this moment. This instant. and now, suddenly, he realizes that fate has made him Hamlet, not on the stage, but in real life and he refuses to accept it. There is not fate in '96, no God, no divine plan, but he sees in every moment, every second indications that he's wrong. God exists, and the readiness to play your part in His plan really is all. In God's plan, he's to kill and then die. Its as simple as that. The subject is acceptence that there is something greater than the human mind, the intellect, the head. He cannot see it, but it shows itself to him every day. That's just the way it is.

Hamlet has a dead (murdered) father, a mother married to his father's (murderer) brother, a crazy girlfriend, an adoring but critical best friend, a rival who wants him dead, a thing for live theatre, a touch of the playwright and a dilema.

Fortinbras and Laertes are Hamlet parrallels.
Polonius, Claudius compare to his dad.
Opehlia's madness contrasts his ruse.

We don't believe in ghosts or God
We don't have Kings and an associated chain of power.
Polonius is a psychiatrist
We don't have a unified view of the cosmos
Women have more rights now
We don't have courtiers (but we do have brown nosers)
We have more effective weapons
We have better police/detective work
Pre-marital sex is more acceptable
Homosexuality is more accepted
Our society is less homogeneous
Attending a University is not unusual
We don't have Jesters in the Shakespearian sense
News travels faster now
Illicit drugs are more readily available
We don't have the same kind of traveling players
We have other forms of entertainment
R+G only exist to die

Comment in 2004: I think I might have been thinking of writing a modern adapatation of Hamlet

February Fourteen Nineteen Ninety-Six

(I believe this was a series of automatic writing thingies)

The flower of Western Culture blooms inside my nose. Get me a toothpick, then, Boda lives. Shave your great big forearm with my petite blossom. When it flies from my nose into the handkerchief of desire, I…

Flower of Western Culture
Blossoms
Beavis and Butthead
Dumb + Dumber
Selectively targeted art
Target marketing
Solidarity through diversity
Small world
Disneyland
Goofy
Fuckin Goofy
Minnie Mouse
Mouseketeer
Tears of a Clown
Clown Eyes
Sad Eyes
Velvet Clown Print
Self-Publishing
Masturbation
Doing it by hand
Hand jive
Jibe Talking
Talking About a Revolution
No. 9
Channel no. 5
Love Potion no. 9
No No Nannette
Rocket Man
Maneater
Eat me
Eat this
Take that, villain
Contagious
Addicted to Love
Love Potion no. 9
Do you believe in love?
What is love?
What is the meaning of this?
What do I have to do?
Do Do Run Run Run
Run Run Away
Away she goes.
Go Ask Alice
Alice’s Adventures on the Moon
Adventure Magazine
Magazine Girl
Stripper
Nude
Clothes Make the Man
Man of Many Hats
Hat Makes the Man
Make you love me
Love Love Me Do
Do You Love Me?
I Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do
Say Say Say
Paul and Michael
Beavis and Butthead

Culture is a living thing – Nobody can own a living thing (should own?) – ergo Nobody should own culture – throat culture – ENT – I’m dynamite – Dyn-No-Mite – Mighty Mite Mighty Mouse Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – To Live and Die in L.A. L.A. Woman – Woman o’ my dreams dream a little dream of me dream weaver. Sufi weavers – incorporate the mistakes into the overall pattern – doomed to repeat them – Rewind Fast Forward into the future – future tense.

Life can never be exactly as we want it to be. Or not to be. I’ll make a bee line for you baby – See me coming? Like a cannonball right in the middle of your eyes – bury your face in me – inhale my essence – Do you smell what I smell? Smell. Scratch and sniff my soul – one little cut and the odor pours out – the surface is so thin – you can see the fish below the ice. Fishbowl in through your soul – Soul is cold as ice. I’m having green thoughts about this feeling. I feel like something big is happening but I can’t tell what – Just outside the realm of my sense, though the corner of my eye – it rises out of the ocean, proud, and with a single massive swat destroys all that came before – a cultural Armageddon.