Jimmy Slonina: Instructor

When Anthony Gatto asks you to do something, you should probably do it. Anthony and I collaborated on a grassroots Barack Obama ad right before the elections. It was such a success, that CNN called to enter it in their contest at the time, and it made it into the top 20 (it was robbed from winning if you ask me). That vid can be seen here.

Then a few months ago, Anthony approached me to do a pratfall how-to video. I wasn't convinced at first that A) I was the right guy for the job or B) that an instructional video of that kind was possible or marketable. Anthony was creating juggling how-to videos himself, and he wanted to expand it to include other circus skills, effectively providing a suite of instructional vids to would-be circus performers. After seeing his instruction style, I could see how to piece together and break down several basic pratfalls--funny or stage combat--into a tutorial.

Here's the result! Thanks to Gatto's keen sense of fancy directing and editing, for a measly $12 you can own a download of a slick video of how to pratfall effectively. I think we did a pretty good job of it.

Hope you enjoy, and please forward to anyone you might think would be interested. Thanks!

CLICK HERE FOR GATTO'S DOWNLOAD PAGE.

Unfriend

Yesterday I was hostilely 'unfriended' on Facebook for the third time in six months, that I know of. If it wasn't so unsettling, I would wear that sort of thing as a badge of honor. Pissing people off is what gets people laid, better salaries, and generally more interesting lives. But it just made me ponder the difference between unfriending on Facebook and unfriending in real life.

It's so much more devastating to be unfriended on Facebook. It's a light switch that gets thrown off. Whereas in real life, you're never really sure where you stand in friendship status even after a heated argument. None of these unfriending Facebook friends were really my friends in real life. In fact, I'm surprised some of them accepted my friend request in the first place. I shouldn't feel sad that any of them have gone, but the "off" position of that light switch is a pretty effective knife to the gut.

The word "unfriending" calls to mind Orwell's Newspeak--removing words with opposite meaning because they're redundant. Ungood. There have been calls to add an "Unlike/Dislike" button in addition to the "Like" button on Facebook. How about an "Enemy" status? Might be nice to have a social network of everyone you hate. All would get together and call each other names and send each other bile-laden apps to each other. Instead of "Poke", one could "Give the Finger".

These unfriending experiences also really broadened my circle of awareness. Chicago was such a warm, comfy blanket of community. Even some people I didn't like somehow remained close friends. Since leaving it, the rest of the world reared it's ugly head. In real life, as well as in cyberspace. My mom was right. There ARE people out to get you. There ARE people only looking out for themselves. There ARE people who are jealous, spiteful, and insecure, and they're not looking to be my 'friend'.

Since I left the comfy blanket in my mid-thirties and didn't really explore the world in my youth, the shock of these "unfriendlies" is still big. I'm still trying to grapple how to move on and take it in stride.

UPDATE: Huh! Apt: 'Unfriend' Picked Oxford Dictionary's 'Word of the Year'

Gotta Love the Germans

If there's anything I've learned of what Germans like, it's the Hoff, my lipsync videos, and this!

Leo Robert

It's great to be a dad!

I know it's been a while since I posted, after promising myself I would write a little something everyday. But life just takes its turns, ya know? Speaking of...

Leo Robert Slonina gets himself born on December 17, 2009 in Whittier, CA after a 44-hour laborious labor process (more on that story later). And in the few weeks he's been around, the concept of fatherhood really starts to set in. I kinda just take everything in life in stride and try not to make a big deal out of anything, for better or worse. Even during Robin's pregnancy, I went along with everything as I do with most things in my life, without too much emotion one way or the other. Just doing my job as dad-to-be and helping her out wherever needed. In the last few weeks of pregnancy though, things get pretty ramped up. Anticipation gets the better of you, and pretty soon you get anxious to see the little guy already!

And once the final moments of pregnancy into actual birth rolls around, practicality and level-headedness gets thrown to the wind. And the real meaning of life and the cycle of the universe washes over you like a raging, warm waterfall. I'm not an emotional guy, so I can't imagine what more emotional guys go through when they see their first born coming into the world. Cuz I was an ecstatic wreck!

Now that Leo is here, practicality sets back in. We had some friends over yesterday with their 4 year old. And the dad said he didn't really feel a 'bonding' with his boy for the first four months. Then, when he saw his son smile and laugh at his jokes and really connect, that's when the bonding hit hardcore.

It made me think about how I'm bonding with Leo. I'm not even sure what that means. I'm sure when this four month mark hits (which everybody talks about), I'll hit another level of connection and elation with the little guy. But for now, I'm loving every minute--even when he cries mysteriously after being fed, changed and burped, or he stinks up his 40th diaper of the day. There's something about his face that's perennially irresistible.

Looking forward to it actually getting better!

I fall down

Every muscle in my body hurts. It really is an eye-opener how out of shape I am. I really get a good perspective about how my body gets used to the twist and turns and bangs I have in the show everyday. I don't get sore from all of that, but once I do anything new and strenuous, I get sore beyond all comprehension. I can't believe I got on with the show today.

Yesterday, master juggler Anthony Gatto and I worked on a collaboration for his suite of circus skills instructional videos. Anthony asked me to put together a stage pratfalls how-to. I was reluctant at first, thinking it's really not my thing. But really, when Gatto asks you to do something like this, you can't turn him down.

I've seen his videos for how to juggle three balls and seven balls. Quite a leap between the disciplines, I know, but both are marketed to very different groups of people, obviously. I was able to get a sense of his teaching style, which is very thorough and accessible, and it's fun to watch. So it was easy to tap into his style for my own how-to.

I spent a few days writing out how to physically fall down on stage--super strange--keeping in mind that I would be going back and forth between showing the moves and talking about the moves in front of a green screen.

He's editing it together now, and he hopes to have it done by mid-October. Stay tuned!

I can't go on, I'll go on

I received a sad email today from Ernest Hemmings of Test Market announcing the end of the Las Vegas' Annual Samuel Beckett Festival.

In 2007, Robin and I decided to officially collaborate on our first theatrical production as LionHeart Theatrics at the 5th Annual Fest. We produced Act Without Words I & II. It was very successful and a delight to work with Ernest, his wife, Fran, and all the other collaborators that year. That experience brought back floods of great memories of my time in Chicago with Defiant Theatre--working in dusty, cold, less-than-desirable conditions in order to produce something very special and meaningful for our audiences and ourselves. In the attached letter, I feel Ernest comes down hard on himself, but my wife quickly and deftly tries to pick him back up. Her response follows his letter.

I can't go on.

I've learned a lot from former President GW Bush. You won't hear many people say that, which is a shame because he made enough mistakes to educate everyone on how to avoid causing multiple disasters. The main disaster that comes to mind is the multi-trillion dollar cluster-fuck we've come to know and love as the Iraq War. Completely high on the idea of American righteousness, he refused to listen to the U.N. Inspectors and instead took the warhawk advice from Dick "The Penguin" Cheney, and invaded the nation with enough shock and awe to give the U.S. complete access to the sleeping scorpion. Weeks into the invasion it was clear that the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" didn't exist and the hundreds of lives and billions of dollars were a waste.

Now, at this point, Former (I love saying that) President G.W.Bush could have stepped back a few feet from the situation, realized that he was lied to about the supposed "smoking gun", turned to the American people, and simply stated "there is no point in going any further, we were wrong" and, like Catholic birth control, pulled out. He would have saved 5000+ U.S. soldiers' lives, 100,000+ Iraqi civilians' lives, and trillions of dollars (which, by the way, would have paid for Single Payer Health Care for the next 30 years). Instead of shedding his own ego, taking the political blows, and dealing with the very real situation that there would be no end in sight, he arrogantly trudged the nation deeper and deeper into an ever-expanding problem that he agitated with each passing minute. At the end of the day, even the chest-thumping Glen Beck fans have to wonder if it was all worth it.

It is no coincidence that active battle is refered to as "theater" in the military.

The Annual Samuel Beckett Festival started out as a challenge between two friends who were bored to death of producing comedy...or, more accurately, it was a demonstration of skill to keep both of us (Test Market is a two person opperation) from being cemented into the "comedy" category. It was a one-night only performance stunt in a junk yard (aka The KGPA) witnessed by a total of 30 random strangers. The lighting "system" consisted of two par cans tied (literally) to 2X4s, and the "stage" was the concrete slab that happened to be in front of a trailer on the property. 6 years later we found ourselves in a 20k square foot warehouse, producing multiple shows over a period of four weeks and operating at an average loss of 10k per year. Prior to Holland Hemmings' arrival into this world we (Test Market) chalked up the losses as "collateral damage" and, like former President Bush, trudged forward, even when all signs pointed to "crazy".

Is it still worth it? Should I double down on stupid? Spending 2 months away from my family is equivilent to abondoning them (I am amazed that single mothers don't go complete batshit). To what nitwit purpose will all this serve in the end aside from expanding the entertainment options in this town by one? As I begin to re-learn Endgame and make frantic phone calls to fill roles in this and other plays, I'm kept awake at night asking myself these questions over and over.

No. It's not.

The beginning is at the end? Quite possibly. In any case it seems that I would be able to contribute more to the art community by buying art than producing the 7th installment of the Iraq War. So this is me pulling the plug. This is me admitting that there are no weapons of mass destruction and making my troops go back home. A non-traditionalist creating a tradition seems absurd enough on its own, but moving forward for the sake of ego is (as the Weatherman/Negativland would say) totally stupid.

So this is the end. We appreciate your support of this enormous effort, but we have to close the doors and narrow our vision. I'm sure you can understand.

Kind Regards,

Ernest Hemmings

Test Market

And Robin's response...

RIP Beckett Festival!!!!  You will be missed...

Ernest, I truly wish some cushy sponsorship would pop up to make it a winning situation for you, your family and and your audience, but that does not seem forthcoming, alas!

The only thing I don't agree with in your statement is when you said you would have kept it going for ego.  You are more like Obama than Bush, my friend, if we must beat the presidential analogy senseless, and I believe your mission was an altruistic (not egotistic) one: to give the gift of theater to your neon-dazzled Vegas community.  I was the lucky recipient of that gift, as well as a participant.  Taking part in the Beckett Festival with you, Fran, Wes, Andy, the musicians, and my man Jimmy was a supreme highlight of my time in Vegas, and I cherish the memory.  Hell, even my camper van had a drive-on role!  It was pure, hard-core, underground, messy, artful magic.  I left a bit of my heart in that dusty warehouse, and Jim literally left his blood on the stage.  I thank you for your time and love and dedication, and the memories will be with us forever.

Much love to you and the family and blessings on all your future endeavors!

~Robin 

 

Kooza Prep

At this point, I've performed about 500 shows of Kooza. And this is how I start every day of work.