Gothic Nightmare or Surreal Dream?

I went to see The Black Rider - The Casting of the 12 Magic Bullets with Kevin, Joel and two of Joel's friends last night. The only thing I knew about this play was that the music had been composed by Tom Waits, the words came from William Burroughs and the direction from Robert Wilson. And I knew Marianne Faithful was in it.

I did not know that the play was a musical, a surrealistic goth-romp with characters straight out of a demented Charlie Chaplin piece, the music composed by demons who travel the country with their demented carnivals, the costumes made out of something resembling paper, or a futuristic synthetic fibre. The orchestra sat in a pit below the stage, playing the oddest types of instruments. One of the instruments consisted of bowls of glass wet with water, perfurated, which produced an eeiry sound as a man rubbed his fingers on it. Death with a megaphone introduced the play. His megaphone projected light onto his face. Then a giant black box slowly slid to the centre of the stage, opened up, spewed dry-ice, and let Marianne Faithful come to us. I never knew how much I liked the smell of dry-ice.

All the symbols used in the musical had a manic child-like power to them. Scary tree-trunks in a forest became cushions to jump on. A murdering rifle shot birds in the sky that resembled a game in the cheapest funfair. Weddings were performed by zombies. Lovers floated in the sky as they sang about strangling a rose. Madness, Madness, Beautiful Madness.

If you live in London, or near London, you have no excuse to avoid this. The play/musical is on until the middle of June and I highly recommend this to everyone. The cheapest ticket, which I got, is 18 pounds. The great thing is that there really isn't a bad seat - The Barbican is set up in a manner which everyone gets a good view of the stage.

The writer Will Self was sitting near me. I wonder if he was reviewing it for The Independent.

Groom Highjack Under Way

Dudes! Dudettes! It's like, yo, boring here. And I'm like, yo, internerding when no fools around. I'm down like dat.

Going home to my bitch tonight. Sorting out some popcorn and watching Big Bro. Keepin' it real. Sort out some boozage too, and some lotion for my dry bum.

Wow! Hardcore. Shit fucking hard to work. Feeling the burn.

Gotta give it to da man. So good to have no "Friends" on tv. That shit disturbing. Wanna watch that joker dude, Jim Carrey, tomorrow. His movie is da shit!

Yo, I suck doing accents. I don't even know what I'm imitating. One thing I do know:

Nobody can imitate me.

Whither America?

Professor Paul Krugman, an economist, gave a lecture recently in the London School of Economics about the state of the American economy. What was interesting were his questions about whether America is in the process of changing into a vastly undemocratic country, specially because of the tax cuts pushed forward by the Republicans.

If you feel like learning a little bit about why the American people have been duped, here's a link to an interesting talk.