stew sez

i was just getting started when all i saw were hands waving hysterically (director/stage managers) urging me to wind it up.
wished we coulda kept rockin’ and just gone to commercial.
rockus interuptus.
though i must admit i never thought i’d hear our band name (TNP) uttered on national television.
i think back on all the uptight clubs that wouldn’t book us because of our name.
thanks to ms. walters and ms. goldberg for giving our weird little play some SERIOUS love.
but geez, medleys are a motherfucker.
/s

1.
it so bizarre to see that the last time i posted was january.
on that day when the cameras came to film our rehearsal.
in many ways thats right when the madness began.
2.
i can’t describe here what has happened between then and now.
but thank god i’ve been taking notes.
one day i will write it all down.
Heidi said all this we are going through now is probably best
looked back on rather than experienced. Because there is no way we can
possibly grasp it all in real time. That is the wisest thing that anyone has ever said
about what we’re going through. Most people say: “enjoy it while it’s happening.”
That’s bullshit. I guess when you sky dive for the 80th time you probably can “enjoy it while its happening.”
But the first 79 times i’d just be thinking: “whoa shit, i’m skydiving. I’m crazy.”
3.
i’ve been operating under the radar for my entire career.
and enjoying it.
i’ve never tried to write a top 40 melody or carve out a lyric
that i thought would be easy for lots of people to understand.
i’ve always tried to write only what i would like to hear.
not what i thought you wanted to hear.
i wanted to write the song that nobody else was writing.
i never thought goodness or greatness had anything to do with mass appeal.
which is why it’s so lost twilight zone episode #527 that i am now, after 30 years of
being underground and loving it, now living in a world (albeit temporarily) where mass appeal
is the name of the game.
i’m not comfortable with it.
4.
don’t get me wrong:
when we (band/actors) are doing our thing: creating in real time, grooving, communing,
stretching and connecting i feel like broadway is a really cool job.
but when we are doing all of the above
and not getting back that call and response love
that comes so easily in the club
i, because i am not an actor, can sometimes get a little testy.
my punk rock club-rat instinct comes out
and it can be somewhat unsightly
as such behavior is decidely inappropriate for broadway
and has nothing to do with the great white way
entertainer’s credo that seems to be
“please love me, i am desperately trying to entertain you
as i look skyward and sing mock sincerely
like some pathetic dork that you’d run screaming from after 2 minutes
if they behaved like this in real life…”
5.
the weird thing here is that we are not pretending to play
rock music nor are we pretending to be rock musicians:
we really are rock musicians.
and that means sometimes the aggression that comes with playing that music
and being that real person has to come out. And sometimes it feels as absurd as being
a Shakesperean actor going into CBGS and saying: “ok everybody, shut the fuck up while i
rock some Hamlet monologues.” Actually, come to think of it, i’ve known some rock audiences that were
cool enough to handle that. If it was mixed with the appropriate amount of bass.
6.
tonight i got aggressive at the end of the show because i felt the crowd was unresponsive and kinda dead
throughout the entire show. But afterwards every single person who came backstage or who i met
waiting outside said that the crowd was actually quite stunned and moved and that they were just taking it
all in. And there is alot to take in. There’s about a million more things to take in in this play than in your
average broadway musical. All the musicals i’ve seen are pretty simple. I don’t mean that as a diss. I just mean you could understand them even if you were deaf and couldn’t read lips. But my point is I ended up feeling bad about having gotten so pissy once I learned that the crowd actually dug the show. I guess the standing ovation should have been a tip off.

7.
performing in a rock club is like making love: you know how good yer doing every second.
but if a lover responds to your kissing like a cold fish but then afterwards
gives you a standing ovation, what does that mean? I guess they could say “There was alot
to take in.”

…and the word is:

Acceptance.

now that we’re on broadway i get to have an assistant (Mike) but what’s really fun is having an understudy…his name is David and I watched him perform today and i was in heaven…
/s

…filming us rehearse…interviewing us…we gave them a taste of the Real…

STEW
ok,
so we didn’t exactly update the blog in what you could call a “daily” manner.

TOM
Ok, see you Tuesday…

TRIPP asks inappropriate question…

MIKE
Do you know why that is?

STEW
Yes, it is because blogs are unnatural. If it were an analog journal…actually, I don’t update those either.
And by the way, in ear monitors are great idea for the whole family.

MIKE
that’s true: parents could control the volume of their children…and guests.

STEW
Mike, what is wrong with your generation?

TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO GET MIKE’S ANSWER

Hello,
this is the first in a daily - YES DAILY - series of internet communications with you, dear reader.

MIKE
Daily until when? Forever?

STEW
Yes.

/s

the berlin snow having missed her christmas cue by a week comes in late and stumbling as if having partied all night spilling packages everywhere and with her usual sense of calender conscious bravado our seasonal drama queen makes her big entrance into the capital of the last century on new years day.

And its all Capra-esque right now.

the backyard
(see the back of guest host *)
looks like a glamorous movie star’s flat
from some 30s movie

Or like Iowa:
Everything is white

Mimi (my daughters cat) and I stare out onto the falling whiteness, hypnotized.
We share the same opinion of snow:
Its a miraculous inconvenience…

My daughter was supposed to have cleaned the cat box yesterday.
But Mimi prefers to go in the wild.
And right now its a big cold cat box out there.
And Mimi is ready to bust a move.

Besides, shes far more curious about snow than i am
She probably doesn’t even remember it from last year
…i do…

My daughter and her friends roamed the streets of Berlin last night
Freezing cold and deliriously happy
Just like me and mine did many years ago.

We start band rehearsals on Thursday.
I will go directly from Newark airport to the rehearsal hall.

My resolution is to be in a Broadway musical.

1.1.08

/s

*sorry, i don’t know how to create links

He figured the wide screen perspective would set the scene for an epiphany that would finally make sense of this place and his place in it. So he gazed over the expanse, inhaling the suspense. But LA, always in character, refused to make sense. Yet, when the dawn came calling his thoughts congealed into a whole: “It’s morning in America. Sunrise in the fishbowl.”

…head fulla all kindsa crazy ideas ’bout life and oh dont know what jus’ always questionin’ everythang that didn’t have an answer…