Episode 10- Out of the Watersian Shadows & Into The Light!

As you might have guessed from my last Blog (Episode 9--Springtime in Baltimore, Springtime at Last!), lately I had been feeling that the absurdist, "Watersian" and "Seinfeldian" elements in my life had gotten more than a bit out-of-hand.

When I left town for a very brief overnight visit in NYC two weekends ago, before staying with my folks a few days in Rockland County, NY, I saw this as my big chance to briefly escape such things.

Silly me. I should have recognized that in a place like NYC, avoiding "Seinfeldian" or "Watersian" elements would be a nearly impossible thing for a strange artsy chic like myself to do. Really, how ridiculous--who could escape Seinfeld's spirit in NYC? Plus, what with the two Waters productions running also on Broadway (both "Cry-Baby" and "Hairspray") these days, John Waters' influence is pervasive there too.

Here was my first sign: a block away from a dinner party in the Village for one of my closest friends, I practically stumbled across the set of a new Woody Allen movie-in-the-making starring Larry David (co-creator, head writer & exec producer of Seinfeld, and creator & star of the Seinfeldian HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, for those of you who don't know).

If I really wanted to miss the Seinfeldian-inspired absurdities almost sure to follow, that would have been my cue to skip the party and head for my hotel. Or at least, cut out before the start of the comedy show I was to drop in on thereafter, at which a friend was scheduled to perform.

But I have never, in my life, deliberately skipped a friend's party; nor have I ever willingly missed a performer-friend's show. So really, I do not see what I could have done to avoid a sequence of super-"Seinfeldian" strangeness that did, thereafter, unravel before my eyes.

Even so, it has taken me a while to recover from the NYC stuff.

For a while to be honest, since returning to Baltimore, I have been laying low. Meanwhile, people all around me had been reporting "John Waters" sightings for weeks. In the last few days, these have been increasing to a fever pitch. And lately, so many folks I meet, hang out, or work on community projects with seems to be inextricably entwined not merely in my life, but also in JW's.

I have reason to be cautious. One might say that this is a sort of "Witching Hour for Watersian-inspired weirdness." This period, which started I'd say around April 22nd (John Waters' birthday), lasting at least through the end of Maryland Film Fest (which kicks off Thurs, May 1st & ends Sun, May 4th) is surely when JW's weird influence here is strongest - and when Baltimore is sure to be at its most bizarre.

Well, I have decided I must not hide from my strange Blog-life, or JW's legacy, or from "zany" Baltimore's influence generally, anymore. I could try hibernating at home, but I doubt it would do much good. Somehow, I think, Baltimorean, "Watersian"-inspired strangeness would find me, even hiding under the bed.

And no matter what, I would not miss the Maryland Film Fest for anything.

So I have decided: I will throw caution to the wind.

Rather than hiding, I will meet JW on his own turf: when he presides over his favorite film pick at The Charles Theatre on Friday for the FilmFest. It will be, appropriately enough, Story of Women, a "provocative" French film.

To mark the occasion, I will have with me a sort of posse of some of my favorite gal-pals & female Blog-Superstars. And we will meet and talk with JW, I suspect, of this strange legacy he has passed on to us, and also I would guess of many other queer and peculiar 'Watersian' happenings too.

All in all, I am quite sure the experience will be both Super-Blogworthy & Superstrange.

So please buy your tix early and stop by if you can. And definitely, keep "tuning" in for many more strange, weird, & zany 'Watersian' & 'Seinfeldian' adventures in & around 'artsy, grassrootsy, socially oriented Bmore' to come.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

The pic, as I mentioned, is one a friend took on 4/18 in NYC of Woody Allen directing his new (yet unnamed) movie starring Larry David. We celebrated & drank much wine at my friend Kal's birthday at Le Belle Vie (a really nice, & very reasonably-priced restaurant in the Village) while WA continued to direct & shoot the film about a block away.

So much is going on here in Baltimore right now. I will only try to mention a few important things coming up in the next few days.

First & foremost, there is Maryland's FilmFest. It kicks off with an opening shorts program, hosted by Bmore film legend Barry Levinson, tomorrow night (Thursday, May 1st).

Friday, May 2nd, movies run from 11 AM to 10:30 PM in three locations (Charles Theatre, UB Student Center, & MICA Brown Center) in Mt. Vernon, Baltimore. John Waters will be there to present his "film pick" at The Charles, which will be shown starting at 7 PM. I was there last year for his last pick; that film was phenomenal, and John was charming, easy-going, and incredibly funny. So I have high expectations for this Fri. Buy your tix in advance, I would be surprised if they didn't sell out. Ticket cost: $10.

More wonderful films run Sat & Sunday May 3-4th. To check shedule, view film descriptions, and order tix, go to the MD Film Fest main site. For reviews and more info, visit The City Paper's spread here.

Other big weekend things on my radar:

1) Fri, May 2nd - Sat, May 3rd (11 AM - 8 PM both days) is Flowermart, as usual at Mt. Vernon around the Washington Monument, Baltimore's 91st! For more details see the main site. Stop by & see my GreenCityBaltimore partner Doug Retzler's Paisley Green Roof display at Parks & People's Urban Forest (S of the Washington Monument).

2) Fri, May 2nd (7-10 pm)- "Bicycle/ tricycle art" & live music event at Velocipide Bike Project Opening Reception. "A Study of The Trike" at 4 Lanvale Street, Baltimore. (Exhibit runs May 2-25th.) With performances by Yeveto & Orion Rigel Dommissee. $5 Donation suggested. More info at: http://www.velocipedebikeproject.org/

3) Baltimore's 10th Kinetic Sculpture Race- Sat, May 3rd - race starts with opening ceremonies at the American Visionary Art Museum, on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in central Maryland. The eight-hour race covers 15 miles—mostly on pavement, but also including a trip into the Chesapeake Bay and through mud and sand.

4) Sat, May 3rd (10 am - 6 pm) & Sun, May 4th (10 am - 2 pm) - Rock Fight Against Lymphoma & Leukemia - 25 bands - music/ charity event at Huckas at 2324 Boston Street, MD. For more info see: http://www.myspace.com/rockfightpattersonpark (note, event venue no longer at Patterson Park anymore). Donations (I think of $10 pp) recommended.

5) Sat, May 3rd (7 pm) - Baltimore Songwriter's Association showcase of recently released juried CD "Songs from a Charmed City" - a Baltimore Live Music Meetup event at the Unitarian Unviersalists of Fallston! For more info or to sign up, click here.

**Check out our Flickr photos of Doug Retzler's "Visions of a Healthy City" Chalk-In project, one of his & GreenCityBaltimore's contributions to Baltimore's Ecofest (soon to be added to our photo sets here).

GreenCityBaltimore sponsored this to publicize Doug's "Art in Common/ Art for GreenSpaces" initiative, to build support for various eco-friendly & sustainable art projects in parks throughout Baltimore City. More info will be available in the future at www.artincommon.org . Upcoming GreenCityBaltimore events & "green" Baltimore info available at http://www.greencitybaltimore.org/ .

Ecofest on Sat, April 26th was HUGE this year BTW, thanks to all of the GreenWeek organizers, volunteers, participants & sponsors for making it such a great success! Baltimore Green Week events continue through Friday, May 2nd. More details at http://www.baltimoregreenweek.org/ .

Episode 8- Missing Baltimore, Finding Displaced Souls of NY Friends

On Wed night I dropped in on David Morreale to catch him at the "open mic" he hosts regularly at Ryan's Daughter, a great casual-but-upscale roomy Irish restaurant/bar in Belvedere Square.

David is the musician who plays the third song in my "LoisLife Baltimore Blogshow Playlist" (found to the right of this episode), titled "Missing Baltimore."

Unlike many of the sadly-themed songs with "Baltimore" in their titles highlighted in a recent article by Sam Sessa of the Baltimore Sun, and discussed by local HFS DJs Kirk and Mark next day, David's focuses not on Baltimore's too-obvious problems, but on his vast love for Baltimore and his longing to return during much-regretted absences, to which sentiments I strongly relate.

In meeting David I found, to my surprise, that he quite vividly resembled--both in looks and in personality--one of my oldest, and closest friends from New York, a very talented musician and all-around "renaissance man" Kal.

This was so startling and unexpected that I had to remind myself not to stare. Before he performed, we hung out some and talked and I noticed so many eerie similarities not only in his mannerisms but the kinds of stories he told and the jokes he made, right down to the occasional whimsically-crafted fib. Really these things put me so much in mind of my friend Kal, I would have found his presence positively unnerving were he not so funny and 'Kal-lishly' easy-going, too.

Then he sang and strummed some tunes including the 'Missing Baltimore' one, alternating both humorous and romantic themes and tales along with the songs, and this was also so very 'Kal-like' at times I wondered if this were not all a dream, and I were not somehow magically transported North to a small coffeeshop in Allendale, NJ (Beantown, where Kal regularly plays) rather than a largish Baltimorean Irish brew pub.

Now this would all have seemed strange enough, even without any premonition that I would experience something strangely similar two nights later, at Tony Calato's "Tony Unplugged" show at Tyson's Tavern. I came out to the show that night with my cousin Lori and friends and new acquaintances from the recently-formed 'Charm City Social Club' Meetup group, which had gathered quite a large mass of people actually to see and hear Tony perform.

I had met Tony at least twice before and recognized something warmly-familiar in him, but it was only while hearing him sing and strum his guitar for the first time that I realized, quite suddenly, just what it was.

The thing of it was, Tony reminded me of another of my very close, musical friends from New York--actually, a close friend of Kal's and mine both--Brian, who is also a comedian often enough (and sometimes a trickster, and a skilled impressionist too), though at other times, I have often thought, the far dreamier, more contemplative one.

The longer I watched and observed Tony, both during his performance and during the ride back in one of the organizer's cars (he treated us to many colorful expressions of his appreciation for an unfortunate towing incident involving his car, which forced him to 'hitch' a ride along with us too)--the more I felt, however unlikely, that I was in the company somehow of one of my oldest and most fiercely loyal childhood friends.

Now this is just one of those 'Seinfeldian' and also 'Watersian' circumstances that I really could not--and still can not--for the life of me, explain. That is, how it should fall out that I would meet up with two very new Baltimorean musician-acquaintances, in the space of a week, seemingly possessed with the spirits and essences of two of my closest, long-time New York friends.

For Kal and Brian have, for the longest time, been the 'Jerry' and 'George' to my 'Elaine,' and though I have been many places and met many people in the years since high school, this sort of thing has really never happened before.

In the sobering light of a Monday morning, I am not quite sure what it all means. Except I think that it may have something to do with the strange vortex I have opened as I burrow more deeply into the crevices of this very peculiar town and its local music-and-arts scene.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

The pic is of some folks I snapped at yesterday's Baltimore St. Paddy's Day Parade as I headed across Mt. Vernon Square to drag my poor exercise-deprived body to the gym.

More Bmore St. Paddy's Day Parade pics, and also some I took of historic and picturesque buildings on my south-bound walk to my gym on Cathedral Street Sunday (to avoid the crowds), can be viewed at the Lois.Life Flickr account or by clicking here. You can also see the photos I uploaded from the City Paper's Cosmic Cocktail Party March 6th (that incredible orgy of fun, food, drink & dance for only $30-what an incredibly smashing deal!), link to this set is here.

Tonight (Mon, March 17th) I will be at my friend Woody Lissauer's St. Paddy's Day concert at Tyson's Tavern, 2112 Fleet Street. I will be there as the Assistant Organizer for the Baltimore Live Music Meetup btwn 8:30 pm- 12 am, if you come by please be sure to stop by and say 'hi!'

Guess what?! LoisLife is now on MySpace! Find many of your favorite local Baltimore musicians, performers, and other favorite "LoisLife" characters right here! Check out pics, profiles, music, videos, concert dates & more. Don't forget to "friend" us, say "hi," & send us more cool, fun, creative ideas! ;)

Episode 4- Lois Finds Love at The Ottobar with Trixie Little, The Evil Hate Monkey, & Scotty The Blue Bunny

On Sat night I brought a few friends and my cousin Lori to the Ottobar to see Trixie Little and The Evil Hate Monkey, Baltimore's long-time "beloved acrobatic burlesque superduo" of whom I had heard so much. The show was called "High Brow" - "A Night Of Intellectually Sophisticated Low Brow Entertainment."

Indeed Trixie, Monkey, and several other performers delivered all and more that was promised. While I have no true acting ability, I have a deep love for actors and for performers of all sorts, as well as the many quirky, funky art students who fill the city (no shortage of which were also there last night) and among whom I rather like to mingle and emulate and disguise.

Like Trixie, I am also on the "vertically-challenged" side of things (clocking in under five feet tall), my last name begins with "T," I tend gravitate to the vivid, the sparkly, and the outrageous, and I also enjoy (when they allow me) to vent my occasional frustrations with men in the tried-and-true "Elaine of Seinfeld" way--that is, to "whack" male friends every now & again--playfully, of course, it is I suppose a sort of special license of women who call themselves spunky and small. And so my reasons for feeling a special bond with Trixie, "the sassy burlesque superstar" known also as "Tiny T," embued not only with "super-human spanking powers" but also a special brand of Bawlmorean quirkiness to call her own, are various.

During the show, I found myself riveted, like everyone else in the crowd, also by the show's MC ("Scotty the Blue Bunny")--so named for his blue latex-clad and bunny-eared attire, whose charm, sense of humor, and taller-than-7-foot-height-in-heels impressed everyone. By the end of the night, indeed, I found myself relating ever more to Scotty, whose jokes and stories about his own Jewish Mom from New York and her angst about his chosen career and life path rather echoed my own.

Really the show was extremely witty and fun and entertaining. Although, as I stood in the crowd of overwhelmingly "goth"-inspired folk (my friends and I had really, by & large, not worn the properly dark or outrageously coordinated attire worn by the typical "Ottobarian" participant), the emotion I found myself nearly overcome by was love.

It struck me while watching Trixie and Monkey perform their final rites of acrobatics and intimacy on the swing (see pic above, more in the Flickr slideshow display on the right side), that really only in such settings as this, and those mostly in Baltimore, have I felt truly thrilled and fulfilled. While I have experienced pleasure and even wonder at times in various places in which I have lived, it is really only in Baltimore where I have felt deeply and soul-drenchingly happy, truly at home in my own skin, and comfortable and accepted by a populace which by and large not only accepts difference & individuality & full-fledged creativity but treasures these commodities far above money or material things.

And so all at once I felt all the doubts and fears and anxieties of last week dissolve (see last week's Episode 3--"Sweatin' Over My Choices at The Charles"). I understood, quite clearly then, that I have given my whole heart and soul now to Baltimore, and since that is done really my choices have been made already.

For better or worse, the only dreams possible to me now are those of a particularly Baltimorean sort, and further committing myself to Baltimore--and to the romantic notion I have of it--is the only path I can and must traverse. And so even if (as I worried last week) all I can succeed at in the end in making with my life is "cannabilistic meat pies," then so be it, I swear I will make the most delectable, most savory and most spectacular "cannibalistic meat pies" in town.

If you also love burlesque but missed Trixie last Saturday, you can take in some tonight at The Sex Workers Art Show, to be held at 7 pm at The Creative Alliance at The Patterson--more details here and in the "LoisLife Calendar" of events found at the bottom left of my Blog. Trixie and Monkey themselves will be back performing live also at The Creative Alliance on Thurs-Fri, March 28 and 29th at 8 pm.

Can't get enough Trixie? Check out her Blog, "The Adventures of Trixie Little." You'll find many stories and pics of Trixie and her friends working seriously at circus school, as well as partying it up equally hard.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

Episode 2--'The Goldbergs,' and 'That Other Real-Life Jewish TV Sitcom Family from New York'

If you happened to be in B-town this weekend and desperately tracking my Blog like the other three fervid LoisLife fans ;), you would have noticed 2 things:

1. I did not Blog on Sunday, as I'd promised to do two weeks ago, and

2. there was an especially strong, freezing wind that blew through this Martin Luther King holiday weekend, such as rarely hits Baltimore, even in January.

If you marveled at these strange events, marvel no more! Such things can be explained quite simply. My parents were in town, having "blown in" as it were from the North--from Rockland County, New York, actually--and when they came in, they brought the usual rush of frigid air in their wake.

As is our tradition, my folks came in to Baltimore over the MLK, Jr. holiday weekend and stayed with me over that time. Given that my parents (especially my Mom) are basically a whirling vortex of energy and then some, I am generally, during this time, caught--trapped, some might say--somewhere between the eye and the eye wall of a hurricane.

My Mom loves to say that she is just like anyone else's Mom--but really, there is no one quite like her, she is very much a unique sitcom-type character all unto herself. When my family gets together, it is guaranteed to be a very 'Seinfeldian sitcom-y family experience' in the nature of a Costanza family reuinion. If you've ever watched Seinfeld, you might imagine this to be a tad--well, exhausting, to say the least. And though I meant to Blog yesterday, somehow, when my 'rents left town, I didn't quite feel up to it, needing as it were the entire day just to recover.

Now really I had planned to skip mention of my own real-life New York based Jewish "sitcom type family's" visit entirely, but it occured to me that a connection might be drawn somewhat between my family's visit, this Blogshow, and a certain TV sitcom I just learned about a few days ago called "The Goldbergs." This was a show which aired some time ago, back in 1949.

It was in fact the first TV sitcom ever--the original situation comedy show "about nothing"--long before Jerry Seinfeld dreamed of his or, in fact, before he himself was even the slightest glimmer in his parents' eye. It broadcast the adventures of a fictitious Jewish family residing, at the start of the series, in a lower East side tenement in New York City. And though I am told (for I have never actually seen the show) that it incorporated various stereotypes about Jews, immigrants, and poor people living in such communities, it was nonetheless generally the first show to portray such groups in a positive light.

It was all the brainchild of one woman, Gertrude Berg, a veritable mega multi-media pioneeress who not only created the show but starred in it and carried it through and past the transition from radio to TV for a breathtaking 17-year run, plus managed to spin this off into a Broadway play besides.*

These days some might say that Gertrude had a "face and a body built for radio," but she surely must have been something--she undoubtedly must have possessed a a talent, vision, and personality bold and large enough to sweep all else aside. For Gertrude Berg's TV sitcom was both widely and wildly popular, and it surely paved the way for so much entertainment to come--from Jerry Seinfeld's "little show about nothing" to so many other situation comedies and dramas besides. Not to mention, the sort of multi-media mega-fame that other actress/writer/visionaries (like Oprah, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Rosanne Barre, etc.) since achieved.

And I suppose, in some small way, I, and my my little self-styled "Baltimore Blogshow" with its sitcom type episodes--might be said to be in Gertie's debt too.

So I just wanted to say "Thank you" to Gertie, and for her remarkable achievement in creating this new artform and for daring to use this new media to help bring people together, to accomplish much social good, and help many folks see themselves and those around them, through the combined power and magic of art, humor, and mass distribution of entertainment via new technology, in a bit of new light.

As for my particular "real life TV sitcom-style family," they did leave the greater DC-Baltimore area after taking in many of its primary cultural attractions and highlights: the Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in DC on Saturday, as well as the Sculpture Garden and ice skating rink just outside of it and a movie (The Savages) at Landmark's E Street Cinema not far away, then Cafe Hon and the Poe birthday celebration here in Baltimore on Sunday.**

And while they might have left the city itself, and some of its residents, a bit "shaken and shivering," on the whole I think they left it more or less intact. And they did arrive back safely in New York, as I am sure that my little "Blogshow's audience" will be happy to hear--leaving me, ultimately, free to recover and once again, write.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

*To learn more about Gertrude Berg and other Jewish American entertainers and notables, catch Jewish Americans: Home, airing here on Maryland Public TV at 9 PM Wed, Jan 23rd and on Maryland Public TV-Select Digital at 9 PM Sat, Jan 26th.

**The "spooky Poe headstone" photo I've posted to this Blog was actually taken at last year's Poe birthday celebration. Photos from this year's Poe birthday celebration, which took place Jan 19-20th in Westminster Hall, can be viewed at the 'Meet 4 Fun' social networking website here. To track upcoming Poe events here in Baltimore, click here. Note that 2009 is the Bicentennial of Poe's birthday. Look out for details on the City's, and the Society's, plans for a dizzying array of Poe events to celebrate this momentous occasion in 'the monumental city' as they become available.

Prologue

Long before I thought--or was prodded by circumstance--to delve somewhat into the mystery of the disappearing single men finally (See "Episode 1--The Man Eating Plant") or to summon a crack team of Baltimore cops to come and investigate the matter, I realized that my life had reached a certain tipping-point beyond its 'normal' degree of 'garden-variety cheerful zaniness' into 'sitcom-inspired surrealistic full-throttle strangeness' of a peculiarly Baltimorean ("Bawlmorean") sort.

For one thing, over the last year or so, I realized that I had actually lived through practically every single episode of almost every sitcom that I cared to watch, and which had also gone into re-run available to me on late-night, non-cable TV. You name it: 'Friends,' 'The Drew Carey Show,' 'Girlfriends,' 'Living Single,' 'Sex and the City,' and 'Seinfeld' of course.

Trust me, those are a LOT of episodes to live through real-time, even over a lifetime but surely through many of the latter over the course of a year! I got to the point of staying up late simply scouting new sitcoms I could relate to or reference, trying to make some sense of my so-called 'real life'...given that I'm too cheap to spring for cable, this could be hard to do.

Quite apart from this, I had the 'John Waters problem.' Although I have lived in 'Waters-land' for only a relatively short space of time (two years), in less than that time I have already met, and come to regularly interact and work and socialize with, perhaps far too many of the kinds of zany characters who populate his films 'fictionally.'

Even without having watched all of John Waters' films–and also without living or spending very much ‘real-time’ in his wacky neighborhood of Hampden–I have nonetheless inherited a very ‘John Waters’ legacy of Baltimorean folk to call my own, with all their strange peculiarities, eccentricities, and antics.

In fact, I fear, I am well on my way (if not there already) toward becoming one of these very special 'John Watersian' characters myself.

For Baltimore is not, I have realized, what some out-of-towners might imagine...simply some sort of a sleepy medium-sized Southern backwater-seeming "anytown" with an unfortunately high crime statistic attached. Nor is it merely a stopping-point somewhere between much more often-noted NY and DC. Rather, it is a vortex to which an unusual number of peculiarly quirky, eccentric, often wonderfully gifted/ creative, but almost always ‘patently peculiar’ sort of people are drawn. Here they are drawn–often unawares, as if by a mysterious force–and here, quite often–like the strange single men who have sometimes strayed similarly unknowing into the vicinity of my apartment–they stay.

Nor do I view John Waters himself anymore in the way he is often portrayed, as some sort of crack-wacky visionary bringing to life this entire town of unusually strange, but quite often fictionalized characters from his own very peculiarly unique head. Rather, I see him more along the lines of a very gifted reporter/ film documentarian, one who has shown a particular talent for closely observing, then relating and filming tales of this strange special breed of Baltimore inhabitant and the town itself in all their zany, wacky, peculiarly 3-d brand of craziness.

For life in Baltimore was surely, in John Waters' time here, strange and zany and peculiarly wonderful; in mine, it is all of these things still.

So without further ado (or more "virtual ink,") let me get you to the "meat" of my Blogshow, and my strange, strange Bawlmorean life.

For while I can personally rest assured tonight knowing that so much more of my wacky zany Bawlmorean crazy life will be there to greet me in the morning, I need to bear in mind that the rest of the world, perhaps, is not quite 'tuned' everyday to the same channel. --Though popping in one of John Waters' films, or catching yet another of Jerry Seinfeld's pervasive sitcom re-runs, might nonetheless help to set the stage.

Copyright 2008 by Lois