January 2007
25 LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
19 I DON'T WANT TOSLEEP WITH...
HARD TIMES
Hello;
The moment of true is very close; the moment when Bless would be unveils to the rest of the world at least to rest of the world of Switzerland. And we are working from the morning to the end of the evening. Like today, we have been at Ticcino Theatre rehearsing in the morning. I actually went there at nine thirty and I had breakfast and then we started to work in the Butcher of Tijuana. We worked in the butcher of Tijuana for the whole morning and it was painful. I fell really fragile with all the tings I do for this show my confidence is below zero so the only thing I can do is just to do what the director tells me to do.
But the thing is that we had a meeting yesterday and I said that I fell completely out from the show. I am the missing link. I have not had a thing done for me that I could use properly in this show. My theory is that everything is well written for the other three and now all my staff would have to be crow in.
The character that I am playing is a character that does not really exist. It is one sketch character that does not have anything. I am giving the space for people to draw it for me, which it is the way that we have been working until now. I have the felling that I am going to have to write it myself from the moment we open the show. It is going to be a struggle and I am going to have many hard times ahead of me.
I see everybody having a very good time while doing the show and while playing what he or she has been told to play. I see everybody like that and I see myself in a big dark hole that seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time. The more I start to know about the show the less I know of why I do the things I do. What I mean is, in the beginning of the show I do a competition with Mother Theresa and I do not know why I do it. Was Mr Murdston the one that told me to do that? If I fight with her in the beginning of the show and she punches me then why I do not carry on fighting with her in the next one? There are many other things that do not make sense to me so I cannot see a clear path in front of me to add things.
And it goes from one side of the pond to the other side of the pond very fast, you think that things are going well and then you think that you are not going to have enough time to make a good show ever.
Have fun.SWITZERLAND
Hello;
I thought I heard something at dinner. We have arrived to Switzerland to do the new Spymonkey show for the first time. We were having dinner and Cal told Petra in a very low voice “ this is going to be your show” “you could see it in the run we did on Friday”. I did not like to hear that. I always want to be the main character of the show and in away everybody wants s to be very good in the shows. Perhaps in this one I am felling useless. We have had many problems and those things have really put me off and blocked completely with the work.
And then when you are felling completely down and thinking that there is not way that you are going to be able to come out of it. Suddenly, to hear the people that it is the pillar of the work that we do telling something like that really distress me.
But perhaps they did not say that, perhaps it is my imagination that thinks that everything is going against me. And most probably is that Cal is putting his magic to work. He is starting to manipulate our minds to make us come up with our hearts in the palm of out hands to make the show great and full of honesty.
And here we are in Switzerland ready to do the first last leg of the creation of the show, with a date put in the opening night, and with gig to play in the next month and I am not completely in love with what we are doing. I believe there is something really funny and really good in trying to do a respectful and sensitive show about religion. At the same time the show has to be stupid and self-mocking and the way to achieve that is by finding a fantastic idea that drives and is the fuel for the show.
And Switzerland and Christina and Andy and Ulli and everybody here have received us with big and open arms. Their generosity and kindness is so big. They are an over whelming bunch of people. I talked to them and they say to me that we are talking now as if we never stopped seeing each other's and know of each other's. My hears is with them because as it seems to be the subject of this year they come along with us from such a long way that it is a little bit scary.
I am still block and I do not have much faith or even hope for this show. I am sure it has happened to me the same thing in the pass but I do not remember. That is my biggest problem that I never remember the bad things I just remember the good things. I am sure I should stop being so selective and make sure I remember some of the things that were really bad for me in the pass but I have not been able until now.
I fell cheap while I play some of the gags of the show and I would like to blame the director but that would not be fair because a performer always has to take responsibility from his own work so… I cannot wait to see what is going to be the reaction of the audience when we do the show. SHIT, I am scare of shit.
Have fun.BACK IN LONDON
Hello;
Lately, since I came back from Las Vegas London is for me a very small amount of things. Funnily enough I have not being here properly, with time to spare and see friends from the pass since before we went to work in America.
So those things apart from dear friends of Spymonkey and Cal are Hayley, Paul and Paul Millican.
I met Hayley many years ago now. Antonio Gil Martinez invited us to a game of softball in Regents Park and there she was. We become friends immediately and then we made our friendship stronger the time we spent working together in Sheffield. She is a great actress. I like seeing her on the stage as much as I can and I would like to work in a show with her in the future. I went to see a show at the Lyric were she was playing the daughter of Cymbeline. The show was very good and she was great. I like Hayley very much and we have been now friends for many years so I wish her the best and every time I come to London I try to see her.
Then Paul Hunter is another of my oldest friends in London. We met at an audition for a Gargoyle show in a church in Angel. At that time my English was non-existent and we could not talk much. Then he gave me the opportunity of working in Sheffield in a show that he was doing and thou we did not have the time to get closer there we did a show in Bilbao together for a company I had created.
Paul has an amazing spirit. He is enthusiastic about almost everything and he works all the time. The show we did in Bilbao did not succeeded but we had a great time working together. As I always have said after that we did not do a very good show but we laughed a lot. Now he has directed many show and I would love to work with him again.
My other anchor while in London is Paul Millican thou I have not seen him since last Christmas. Paul Millican used to be the administrator of Philippe Gaulier School while in London. After many years they split up but I kept my friendship with Paul. He has an amazing dry sense of humour and he is very well educated and knows lots of things. In the beginning of my time in England he was always there to help and I am very grateful for it. He has come a couple of times to Bilbao and every time I have some time in London I like to call him and go for dinner and to drink wine. He is as silly as me with wine and with food so we have fantastic times together.
London is some friends some cinemas and more than anything many theatres. I love coming here to see shows and then meet up with people to talk about them. It is the capital of the world for theatre, at least for my theatre. I know I should say Brighton because that is where Spymonkey is based but I prefer London.
Have fun.THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
Hello;
We went to see the movie the other day. Stephan, Petra, Miren and me arrived there after the Saturday rehearsal. We pretended that it was a couples date. So everything that Miren and me would do Petra and Stephan would have to do too. Stephan was really happy but Petra did not like the idea very much so we stopped doing the thing.
For all of you who do not know the movie are about the life of Idi Amin, the famous dictator of Nigeria. I am not sure if that one is the country. Sorry, but anyway it was one African country and he was very popular president until he killed 300.000 people of his own and a cup the tet put him out of government sending him to the exile where he died some years later.
The movie is based in a novel and I think it has the same title. I am terrible today because I am not giving any of the right information. Anyway in the novel to tell the story of Idi the writer creates this character, a doctor, who lives with Idi Amin all the first years of his presidency until the crisis of the plane highjacked by the OLP.
Idi Amin like Scotland very much so he used to call himself like that, the last king of Scotland. He even created a group of his army who had as uniform the famous Scottish kilt.
The movie is very good. The actors play very well and the story is so compelling and exciting that you are grip into the action easily and all the time. Miren said that it was a little bit too long for her. In the movie the relationship of the Doctor and Idi Amin gets establish quite early and then stays the same for quite a while so thou I said that I disagreed with her at the time I am going to share her opinion at this point.
I said that everybody should go and see it for two reasons; one Forrest Whitaker. He does an amazing job playing the dictator. The first moment he appears in the movie is when he goes to give a speech after gaining power. For seconds the only thing we see on the screen is a big crowd of people jumping and moving with excitement and the back of the president that is dancing and moving like the people waiting to hear what he has to say. The scene goes on for a while and then you see the face of Idi Amin and his expression is amazing. He has so much pleasure and fun. He talks to the people and everybody dances and is very happy. I will say that just for this scene is worthy to see this movie.
Then the other moment is almost at the end of the movie when Idi Amin gives a party. He gives the most amazing party with costumes music and dancing and there are four women, four go-go girls that at one point they take their brass off and dance around the fire. Well, they are gorgeous. They way they are shoot make them even more beautiful. I like breasts so I will go back to see the movie just to see those breasts once again.
Have fun.
MONTPELLIER STREET
Hello;
In Brighton close to hove, and close to Waitrosse in a very pretty area there is street called Montpellier Street. It is very easy not to find it or get confuse while going to find it because around the area there are many street called Montpellier. You could find Montpellier Way, Road, Corner, Terrace, Meadows and Street. In that last one is the house where we are staying until we go to Switzerland.
The house belongs to a performing artist and her husband or what ever relationship they have. They went on holydays to Malaysia and so they house was taken care they rented to us. They know Lisa Wolf our great general manager or something like that. Now we have more people than ever before working for us is very difficult to know what is the title that they hold. Lisa is the person that organised Spymonkey at the moment and the one that makes it possible.
The house is a real star. It is probably the best house we have been while rehearsing. It has three different floors for our use. The fourth one has been kept close and we are not allowed to go up there. We have not been up there so I cannot tell you anything about that part of the house.
The basement is where the kitchen lives. It is connected to a dining room and living room with a big plasma TV. A long the kitchen there are some windows to a closed patio. That is the place where all the smokers go for a puff because it is forbidden to smoke inside the house. The cooker in the kitchen is fantastic and is allowing us to have great meal here.
The ground floor has the office and a rehearsal room with big mirrors a piano and wood floors that we are using to work on Saturdays when we do not have the room at the University. We double up that room by one of us sleeping there. In the very beginning it was I but now is Stephan.
The first floor has the bathroom, a toilet and two rooms. One of them is the master room and it is really great. When Cal stays in the house he is the one that sleeps there but when he goes I have been using it. The other one is the guests room and Stephan stayed there in the beginning and then Andy our new technician, the Wolfgang and I have slept there a couple of night too.
The house is really close to Western Road so we have lots of shops and places to go really fast. It is in the middle of town so we can walk to the station to go to rehearsals in the University. It is really nice house so the pain and tiredness of creating a show is more bearable when you have a place as nice as the one we have.
I am not going to say what number of house is the one that we have rented so all of you who read the blog and are thinking on going out and steal in a house would not get tempted so…
Have fun.
FIRST BLESS RUN THROUG
Hello;
Here we are at the Garden Arts Centre where it is really cold because the weather in the world is really mad at the moment and you go in a couple of days from really warm to really cold and all the south of Europe is suffering a blitz storm.
The heaters are at full blast and we are trying to put all the scenes we have in an order that may make sense. I fell really far away from this show. I wander if that makes me happy.
In any case there it goes the first draft;
Bishop, Toby's intro, Mother Teresa Competition, Toby's criminal speech, Cherubin song, Circus dogs, Toby speech, Bernardette, Joan of Arch, Dancing Priests, The Butcher of Tijuana, Mother Teresa, Christian Folk, John the Baptist.
The show has lasted ninety minutes. We have to cut it to sixty to make it proper for the kind of things that we need to do. To have a sixty minutes show does not take us to a bigger theatres but it would allow us to have more work in the future.
But then let me tell you my impressions about the run through. First as it seems to happen to me every time we do a show I do not like it very much, that is at least what I told Miren the other times we did show together. The show seems to be funny and wild but it does not have any edge and we need the edge to be able to deal with a delicate subject with subtlety and elegance. It is an arguable point but for me that is the difference between a very good show and an average show.
We have many scenes with fights, nudity, and singing and we have to find the dancing routine and the possible puppet show that I think there was a good idea from Toby of doing it with the bamboos. The idea is to make a puppet with the bamboo sticks. The puppet will be the executioner of John the Baptist and after we have animated the puppet will die when he has chopped the head of John the Baptist. I think is a good idea and worthy to try.
Also we have been talking about many things that could be the line through of the show but nobody seems really convince of how to do them.
I did not like at all my participation in the run. I was very unfunny and I did not have pleasure at all. I felt I was doing things for not reason, and I did not fell very happy. I know what it put me off in the beginning was the fight with Santa Teresa. The fight was really wild and I did not play anything apart from fighting really hard. Then from there it all went down hill in my head.
Do I fear a flop? I do not think show, I have flopped many times in the pass and it is not nice but thanks to the flop I have been able to find many things about myself and about the work I like doing. It means that in Switzerland we will not get as many laughs as we have got in the pass and that may be a little bit painful but now that Cal is coming to Canada we will have more time to finish the show properly.
Have fun.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Hello;
After a long walk through the darkness I can see a clear light and I am heading towards there with thirst for lightness. The have been months of black thought and pessimistic moods that have affected my whole persona.
The hair in my body has started to take the grey and white colour that introduce the years of down. The years where we all became what we always were, dust.
I grab my pennies in the morning with one hand. I look down and the jacket of my pyjama does not allow me to see the neck of my pennies, I can see the helmet. I aim to the centre of the toilet and I hit it right in the middle. I press the jacket against my body and bush of white pubic hair that was never there has appeared there like during the night while I was sleeping a big snow storm have whitened all the pubic area.
Then the hair in other parts of my body have also lightened and it does not make me really happy.
But when it comes to the time of rehearsals we are making a very nice piece of Bernadette the Operetta. The music that Toby has written plus the words that we all wrote together and the direction of Cal and the fact that we have done it all together has made possible to have a nice piece.
There has been also great progress with the John the Baptist. It has started as a performing arts piece mixed with story telling. The fact of the matter is that we play the story of Iocanan and the horrible dead that he had. When Salome is forced by her mother to ask for his head to the King of Galilee, Herod. The piece has lots of fantastic theatre moments and many moments of comedy where we make fun of the way theatre is view now.
And we all are laughing a lot, and we all are being happy being stupid in front of each other's and the atmosphere at world is really good and exciting.
We will be going to Switzerland to do first try outs of the work and that is going to be great because there is not going any time of dissipation and everything will go around Bless, as it should be.
Either we have arrived to the end of the tunnel or someone switched the light on or we just arrived to the end exit or like everybody says here the Elephant has left room or we have killed the elephant that was bothering all of us before.
Please do not kill elephants the expression up there it is just a metaphor.
Have fun.GRIM
Hello,
A bog cloud of black smoke has appeared this morning around my big head. I discovered it immediately after I woke up. While I was in bed I thought that I had not woken up properly so scratched my eyes and the cloud of black smoke was still there.
(I have to ask how do you spell Grim and Petra told me how) I went down to the kitchen and the cloud followed me all the way down. The black cloud was at that time was a little bit behind, the black cloud could not anticipate my movements as the black cloud managed to do later in the day. It was a very surprising experience. The dark cloud got fixed to the back of my head like a big halo of the world of darkness.
At lunch I had to wait for hours to get my food and I think it was just because the girls in the counter cold see the dark cloud surrounding my head. So went I go my soup the dark cloud had managed to surround my head and did not allowed anyone that was close to me.
After lunch we went back to rehears and no one of my colleges could see my dark cloud so they did not worried or asked about anything. I could not see any of them so I fell from the stage a couple of time for the amusement of my friends. I got almost knock down, for split seconds I did not see the dark cloud but beautiful stars. And then when I though I was free the dark cloud covers my face and my head like a big dark knight mask from the Arthurian round table.
I really wanted to go to bed. I wanted the day to end so that the dark cloud that now did not allow me to see what was happening in front of me will disappeared. But I was trapped in rehearsals and there was nothing I could do apart of carry on working and trying to see trough
We did some work in lip sinking to some Chorus Line the musical and it was really funny bit the dark cloud was dancing with me through my play back of the tap dancing number of the show. I was so fast in my movements that I did managed once more to leave the dark cloud behind me.
Then Petra did a great improvisation about flamenco dancing. We laughed for quite a while because she was in top form. We laughed for a while and I could see some clear air in front of me. I suppose it was the laugh that kills all the dark cloud for a while. Then the dark cloud surrounded my head to the point that I could not even breathe and it was scary. The thing is that then the rehearsal finished and I went home and I went to bed and I slept and then I woke up the next day and I was fine a dandy ready to face the world and fall in love all over again.
MEREDITH MONK
Hello;
Meredith Monk is a singer and composer. I am sure many of you are not familiar with her work. Her work is very abstract, very abstract indeed. When you listen to some of her music you do not really know for sure if she is singing real music or she has just made it up on the spot. I have to say I can listen to it for a little while but then that's it.
Miren left in the morning and I got sad, very sad suddenly. I felt sad because I knew I was not going to see her for a very long time and I got use to have her around. She is not an easy person but she is my favourite person.
We said good-bye at the door in Montpellier Street and I started walking up the hill. I turned around and there she was checking her wallet because she thought she had forgotten something. I looked at her and she saw me. She waved good-bye and I waved back at her then I turned and walked really fast away from there because I was felling really sad.
During a very long day of rehearsals we went through different things. Early in the morning we presented for Cal the piece that we have created about John the Baptist. He seemed to like it and we started to work in detail so we could have a much better piece to present in front of an audience.
Stephan and me were put aside to create choreography to the music of the marvellous Meredith Monk. It was fun to take the piss of the music for a while but then when we had to create proper vanguard choreography we did get really bored. We did not flop completely but we flop.
Then the rest of the day went by doing silly things that could make people laugh. The high light of the day was Petra dancing flamenco. It was very funny indeed. She started to call her ancestors that she said come from Spain and then with the castanets and her flamenco dress she danced and danced. It was very funny every time she tried singing the ay typical of the flamenco singing. We were really pissing ourselves. It is nice to see something really funny in rehearsals. We have had a fruitful rehearsal period but there are not incredible moments that we think are going to be very funny in the show. I am scared this is going to be a flop show of Spymonkey.
At night we all went separated way because we have spent at least ten hours together and we all have had enough of each other's. Mañana would be another day of trying and searching for the funniest show on earth.
Have fun.PHYSICAL THEATRE
Hello;
Monday by us it is never easy but I have to admit that to live without Cal it is quite refreshing. He is great and we have lots of fun with him but today were a good day without him.
Like all the other Mondays of this month we have been creating our own thing. Cal left on Friday and it was up to us to work on Saturday and then Monday.
The task today was to create a scene of Physical Theatre. The theme was John the Baptist.
Many years ago while studying with Philippe we tried to make a show. We were some students from many parts of the world that liked each other's. We have spent the last year together and now it was time to create a show. We wanted to be a funny show and we choose a serious play that had a legend before the play. We choose John the Baptist.
In the pass Toby has suggested that story for the company to do a show with. I do not like it I have to say. I do not like before and I do not like it now but we all have to have something that we like and something that we do not like as this one is the one that Toby likes.
We decided to have the whole thing ready for when Cal comes and it would be play in the most Physical Theatre style. So we all work as a chorus for a while playing all the moments when Salome the real heroine of the story of John the Baptist meets our hero in the waters of the river Jordan.
That is not were legendary they really met. In the legend they never met it was Salome's mum that had a heat for the prophet and the one that made Salome to ask Herod for John's head in a silver plate.
Petra did not feel very well so she left and Any took over. She is very pretty and has an amazing body so for the three old and leachy men is a pleasure to come up with material where we can play with the young girl.
At the end of the day we have created fifteen minutes that we know will become five. Lucy has created amazing costumes for the soldiers to do a vanguard dance for the king. The costumes look amazing but little we know that they will never make it to the show.
Between the five of us have come out in one afternoon with the number for the show. Petra and Cal will come afterwards and will kill the seriousness of the number plus they will make it look very logic and funny.
We are going home to rest. I have left Bilbao 20 days ago and Miren is waiting for me in the flat. I am going to see a movie with her and perhaps make love after. She is leaving tomorrow and I am going to miss her a lot.
Have fun.
DINNER PARTY
Hello;
Peter, Lisa, Tanya, Hike, Toby, Roger, Miren, Andy, Lucy that had an incident during the night when she could not find the keys for her house after a party. The theme for the party was the eighties and she had chosen Cher as her fancy dress. So she was on the fish net body stocking and the wig and the cannon of Chers 1989 video when she found out that she did not have her keys and that she was going to have to spend the night at the entrance of her building. She was cold and thirsty and she needed the toilet badly. She had to do the first thing in can that she took out of the rubbish bin and then the second thing she did it in a paper hat that she had used for the party. It was not nice. Graeme was the one that brought the meat. He bought a big piece of pork from his butcher and he cooked it during the whole day and then when we ate it with the apple souse and the gravy it was brilliant. Flo, Stephan, Petra and me were all the people at the party.
It was really nice to be all together having dinner and relaxing. We drank very nice wines. We drank too much. We ate too much. Everything got clean up and nice before we went to bed. It was not too late when we were ready to die in our beds. We wake up very early to have the house ready for everybody and to have enough time to enjoy the only free day of the week.
It is quite difficult to know exactly how things have to be in order to have a great dinner party. And the solution that comes to me is like when you cook a nice meal you have to put the right ingredients and you have to put the entire right amount and cook them for the exact time and then hope for the best. Of course you should never stop monitoring the whole thing because at any given moment the whole thing could go all over the place.
In these case I was so happy to have my lovely girl around me, then everybody lese was a friend and was not expecting anything apart from having something to eat with nice friends and have some drinks while you let the steam go and you enjoy each others company.
It was nice and I had a great time and I hope that everybody felt the same way.
Have fun.
SALES
Hello;
Whenever there are sales I feel trap to spend my money in things that are in sale. I got into a shop and I see something that was X price and now because it is the sales is cheaper I feel inside myself this urge to go and buy it because if I do not do that I will be missing a fantastic opportunity. It is that thing of being and living the moment, it is just right now or never.
I have to do this huge mental effort where the engine of reason starts to work slowly but steadily and very firm to avoid the spending of my money in something that probably I already have and I do not need at all.
Usually the urge fights back and this time comes with more power. It bring things like “fucked, I like it so why should I not buy it”” I am sure there is going to be a time in the future when I am going to need it and then is going to be very expensive and I am not going to be able to afford it”. You see reason plays both ways. At this moment is when I usually am at the biggest risk of purchasing the bargain.
Then I go into the shop and I look closer the item I am whiling to buy. This simple action of observing closely the item of my desires make me most of the times to leave the place and take the reasonable side and walk away from the object of my desires.
Sometimes it ends there but many others specially in the beginning of the sales I go for a walk and some time later I come back to the same place to contemplate the piece from a safe distance.
In this time, thou I look safe are when I am in my most dangerous position. This is because if feel safe. I can see the piece fat away so I let my mind dream with the idea of this really is a bargain and you get the felling that the whole felling is starting all over again. And that is exactly what it happens but this time everything seems to be going in double speed.
Once the process has finished I am walking away with a bag that says in big letters sale.
If I have been really strong is because someone was with me at the time and make the effort to take me to the right side of the shopping world.
Or I have had an attack of sense and I have made myself walk out of the shop with an inner monologue like “ well this is stupid, I have one like that in another colour. Do not be silly; you are not working in Las Vegas anymore. So just fuck off and keep you wallet close”.
The worst thing that can happen is that the pieces of your desires is something that you can qualified as a collecting item. Then the whole fight is more difficult and you have to be double strong. And I have to say than more than fifteen per cent of the times I come out unsuccessful. This is the only reason why I can explain my one hundred pair of vans trainers.
Have fun.I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP WITH…
Hello.
“You until we're married, I don't want to share your bed” We were all dressed in white with our wigs and our jewel.
Petra does her solo at the drums and her solo for the camera. Her smile is enormous and she keep singing again and again “I don't want to sleep with you…” She does look like a big made up puppet that was told to look pretty and play the drums at the same time. In her genius vacant look we believe she is trying to decide what is more important to play the drums or to look pretty.
Stephan works professionally his guitar and strums the cords and keep the rhythm while try to do funny things for the camera. He is in his own element because all of all of us he is the closer by age to the moment that we are trying to recreate.
Toby is very much the director, the leader of the band, the one that wrote the song and the one who answers the question in the press relise of the Long Play. He looks as if he is very much in love with all the girls who fancy him and who would like to take him to bed. He wrote this song for all of them and he is going to make sure that hit the top of the pops and no one in the world will sleep with the lover before they are fully wed.
I look like the fat one that has the bass and has brought everybody in his car to shooting. I look as if I did not suppose to be in the band but if I was not there then all the touring would not have happen. My curly head and my big stomach made me look unfashionable even getting dressed as the most fashion group of the season. I decide to wear a piece of silver hanging from my neck so I will be the most excited.
Lights. Rolling and action and the song gets out through the speakers at the same time than the band starts to move with the rhythm of the music and sing a long the words with a deep message.
The groupies and the entire technical team are dancing along avoiding the eye of the camera. The band plays away as if there would be a million fans watching.
The different shoots get set and the song sounds again through the speakers. The costumes get change and the song sounds again through the speakers. The close up shoots get set and the song sounds again through the speakers. The middle shoot gets set and the song sounds again through the speakers. The long shot gets set and the song sounds again through the speakers. The special shoot gets set and the song sounds again through the speakers. By them everybody in the entire building and probably in the whole town is singing “I do not want to sleep with you until we are married”.
It is Friday and the band goes to the pub after the shoot is finished. For the first time in many days there is a common sense that still is possible to have and do a good show with this idea that we have been working for the last three days. We just have a couple because tomorrow there is more work to do.
Have fun.COMEDY CUTS
Hello;
At ten fifty five the TV was on ITV 2 and the new comedy series and Spymonkey is in it. We shot “Love sounds the Alarm” as I told you in another written piece. It was quite a day because it was raining all the time and we were naked in the middle of the forest.
Nut that is another story that has been already told. The one I am going to tell you now are called the “shutup” story.
In these story there is one main character and many characters playing very small parts. I am going to call the main character Mr. Shutup and the rest of the character will have fictitious names. The only name I will keep truly is going to be my own name.
We were recording “I do not want to sleep with you ‘till we are married” until very late and we have made a date to all have dinner together and then watch the show on TV. Aitor was going to cook but because he had to be singing until really late everybody decided that the food would be take away.
Aitor arrived home and he had a bagel for himself. He could not wait any longer and knowing the crow he was completely sure everybody was having wine. When everybody arrived there was not food in the house and everybody was a little bit drunk and hungry to the point that were losing his or her sense of humour. Mr Shutup was specially pissed off because he had bee talking for a very long time with Morgana and she was getting on his tits. The rest of the gang were getting a little bit pissed off with Mr Shut up because he was behaving really bad.
Missy was trying to order pizza on the net but was not working and Pitty was stocked on Big Brother. That was the time when the fat blonde pig was being very racist with the lovely Indian actress.
So the atmosphere in the room was bad and getting really bad. Food did not look like as if was going to come really soon and the worst thing is that there were many people waiting for it. Aitor went upstairs to wait for the pizza. Pitty had stopped watching Big Brother to order the pizza and paid for it and she was not even eating. Mr Shutup had relaxed a little bit but the best was about to come.
The Comedy Cuts started and the things that we were watching on TV were not very good so many small conversations from Morgana to Missy were starting to make the listening to the show. At one point Mr Shutup shouted really loud SHUT UP. Everybody froze and broke into a hysteric laugh because Mr Shutup had gone finally mad.
Spymonkey made a fool of them in the episode. They had a very funny number that once again by doing it on the TV had been completely destroyed. The number was shit it looked really bad because it had been super bad edited. It really was embarrassing.
Have fun.PENITENTIARY
Hello,
That is a break through. It is a break through for Bless to have a place where you do your show and from where you are going to be developing our story. The most important thing is that it is going to give us a place from where we can play hopefully more freely with the subject that matters for the show.
It is a fucking difficult show to write because for all of us who have been brought up Catholics. I say, Stephan, Cal and me and then every body have had some religion upbringing. Me myself I even went fro a while to a Catholic high school and then I did my three years in a Jesuits University. When you have had as much time as that in a catholic environment you have had enough time to make all the possible jokes that there are about the catholic religion.
A not to mention that the subject has endless opportunities for cheap material that you do want to try to avoid.
So, today like out of nowhere this idea of the Penitentiary came up we all felt really realise. You need to have an angle if you want to do such stupid things, as we like to do. If you want to have three Hasidic Jews kicking each other in the ass then you really have to have a good angle.
This time is going to be the world of prisons. The world where people work really hard to became better than what they are. A world where people can be strange freely because many times they have ended up there precisely for that reason.
So we have three prisoners, a prison guard and a priest.
The father has gathered all the inmates so they can redeem themselves by doing well. Of course what they want the most is to stop living inside the prison but while that comes they have to try to live the best they can and to do a show it is like a good pastime. They have been put in prison for the most horrible crimes, murder, rape and steal from poor people. Father Forbes believes the teachings of the almighty will make these three poor souls to become better people. Of course if father Forbes manages to perform the change then he will be a better person too. Egos and faith and the power to do good will are fighting head to head with the power to do bad because that is what they have been doing until now.
We have found a great place to start to write the angle of the show and hopefully this will give a great show or at least as great as the ones we have done before.
And now I am going to fuck off because I am really bored of telling you things that you will find out
Have fun.
MAGIC
Hello;
Wolfgang the magician that came from Vienna did a display of his magic. He spent the day with us showing us what is it that we can do magic. He seems to know lots about magic and illusions but he did not have the drive to sell it to us the people that had to buy it. Cal arrived a little bit later because there had been a big accident and the train had been stopped for some time. We had worked in our own way in some numbers and have put together a small magic show. We saw it with not very much success and then Cal like a good animal tamer through the piece of meat to the animal of magic. The lion did not move. He had put a piece of chicken and the lion did not even blink. It looked as if he has telling either you give me a big piece of beef or I am not interested. Then Cal told him “listen, what would you like to do? What do you think would be good for the show? What magic trick you think it would work good in the show?” He did not blink either.
The magician has a name and I am not mentioning ageing because I think we are probably a little bit intimidating and it is not very easy to work with us but nevertheless there is so much we can do to make someone comfortable. You know your trade and you want to show it to the world.
The Magician stayed the rest of day sitting in a chair watching us doing silly things. He laughed to many of the things that we were doing but he did not come up with any other suggestions.
I could fell that something was going on when we left the building at night walking along the hero of the day and everybody else was walking some metros behind talking about the day. The vibe was not great but he was brought up to the Spymonkey Valley to deliver fantastic magical tricks and he did not deliver any.
I had the chance to talk to him and I could fell that he is one of those guys who need time to meet with people. These kinds of people that became better with time and the problem is that we do not have time either money to buy more time with anyone.
Another thing is that perhaps we need to know exactly what we want before we bring someone to teach us what we want. But if you call someone to surprise you it is very difficult to get any surprises when you are expecting to be surprised, especially with magic.
And then there is the fact that we do magic but we do magic or illusions in our own way. We have small silly theatrical illusions that some people find amazing and give us theatricality to whatever we are trying to do.
So the magician came to pub and drank beers with us but he is not coming the next day. This is the cruel and hard world of show business.
Have fun.
MONDAY BY OURSELVES
Hello;
The day is Monday and the people working is us and there is not much that we are going to do apart from creating something that the director could make sense with afterwards.
There is this new way of working, it is the budget, in which Cal comes from Tuesday to Friday and work with all of us and then from Saturday to Monday we work alone. We surf and sale through the waters of our own creativity trying to arrive to a good port with a fantastic catch that our main cook could grill properly.
The waters are really choppy. You see how the strong currents and the winds do let the waters to relax so the sun can make them warm and calm.
The Spymonkey boat has been sailing the whole week and everybody is very tired. We do not have a captain at the moment and that sum to the fact that the sea is unsteady make the journey even more difficult than it is.
Firs the crew gathers on the main deck. Some of the crew have been working during the night and is shows in their faces the rest of the people will have to pull for the tired ones.
Operations starts at usual and there is a sense of going forward. We check the horizon to see if there is any company around and but the only things we can see is the sun going up on the sky.
The compass of the ship leads us to the right direction. All of us have a rough idea of where are we going and we just have to keep cheeking the compass until the captain awake.
He like his drink so after nights and days of work he likes to have drink and that is what he did yesterday. He had to go and rest short of speaking
The ship is moving from side to side. All at once have pulled the force to try to gather momentum and manage to govern the boat.
We are not looking for anything special. Any kind of catch would do where we are going they will take anything that we can catch. In some places around the world anything could do to kill their hunger for comedy.
After the whole morning we have managed to arrange just a successions of silly things that as soon as the captains wakes up from his siesta he would have to stir the boat on the right directions and also will tell us a couple of things about how thing will have to be done next time.
Times passes slowly when you are in the middle of a sea of comedy. The waters may be choppy and unsteady but the fishing of jokes and fun staff is the same thing than if the sea is cal.
At down we have managed to advance just two sea miles. Most of the crew goes back to bed to a deserved rest next day is another day and it is going to be as hard and tough as the day that passed.
Captain McCrystal will be fine in the morning and he will want the whole thing shining like silver and many minutes of laugh.
Have fun.LILO
Hello;
Well, I tried to hold on to my sheets but since we are rehearsing I always have the urge to do things even if I do not do them. There is not apparent reason why I do not do them. I have the time and I have everything around me to do them. The only reason why I think I do not do them it is just because I don't fell like doing it.
The whole thing starts like this; I have to pick up the blankets for Wolfgang the magician that is coming from Vienna to teach us some tricks. Well, when I was told if I could do that I said, yes of course. And I planned in my head that I was going to do that. So I went to Singing in Campbell Road and when I had finished and I had left the house I realised that I had forgotten the blankets. Did I go back? I was just one hundred metros away from the house. Well I did not, I kept walking while drawing this amazing plan about how I was going to go back to Campbell Road to pick up the blankets.
Next day I woke up still very optimistic about doing things and going to pick up the blankets. I went shopping I red the papers, I wrote blogs; I prepared the Butcher of Tijuana and then Lisa and Peter, her now husband came. The have come all the way from the other side of Brighton to deliver a lilo for Wolfgang to sleep.
I could feel the danger I was starting to relax. I had to use Lisa and Peter to leave the house and go to Toby's to do what I had to do. But when they left I was still at home and I had to had shower and I was doing things in my computer and I said to myself, I will have lunch and then I will go over to Toby a little bit later.
A little bit later the fact to the blankets was still going through my head and I was not in the mood for going anywhere. I did not go anywhere at the end as you have worked out by now. I stayed in the house, under the influence of the nice hitting of the house and digesting the great lunch that I just had. My head was bubbling with guiltiness trying to develop a plan that will allow me to pick up the blankets from Toby so when they are needed they are there.
This is something that happens to me all the time. It is my personal war with myself. My expectations block me. I can function once I have planned that everything is going to be great and then it is not. This time was just blankets but other times are more important things. There have been times in the pass where I have been cured but the whole things come back and I cannot work out why.
So now I have not picked up the blankets yet and I will pick them up later on but they have given me the fucking weekend. Or was it my brain? I do not know. Lisa and Peter came for a visit and a beer and a coffee and they are really nice. I know they read the blog so…
Have fun.
SINGING AT CAMPBELL ROAD
Hello;
Look forward to what ever is happening next and always try to fight your expectations because life is full of surprises of far too many different kinds.
I wrote that up there. I know that it looks like the kind of advice that you nice grandfather gives you in a cold afternoon in front of the fire. I said your nice grandfather because when there is one nice there is another one that is nasty. I just had one so he was nice and nasty in the same proportion.
The streets of Brighton are full with young people. They live their houses in the weekends to enjoy life. I saw a guy that looked exactly like D'Artagnag from the three Mosqueters. He was walking at the Lanes with his kid. I could not hide while looking at him but he did not even notice. He had this big long moustache and was dressed in a kind of old contemporary way but he was not looking weirder than other people next to me.
At one o'clock we were going to rehears the songs of the show at Toby's house. I did a little bit of retail therapy and I bought a watch. I do not know if I like it very much but am really cool. It was retail therapy.
There was a light “Sirimiri” and I walked slowly to Campbell Road. In my head I thought about why did I not go out with the rest of the gang? The night before everybody went to a concert at the Komedia Theatre. I felt so tired after work that the only thing I wanted to do was to go home and watch TV and clear my mind for next week. And that is exactly what I did.
Noah and Maia were playing in the sofa as I came into the room. Very nice kids they have become and Toby had just arrived from the cinema with them offered me lunch. I said no but accepted a coffee. I neither was feeling very social. Joanna came a little bit later. She was going to have lunch with the family and then take the kids for a walk while we were working.
Lucy and Petra with a big hang over appeared shortly after and stormed in the house celebrating the fact that free and already made lunch was on their way. I put myself in the list and we had a great fry up.
The kids and the granny left for the museum of dead animals and we started to work in “Cherubim, Seraphim”, “The butcher of Tijuana” and “Ave Maria”.
We do work very well together. I do not know why but it does not really surprise me. It has been a long process during all these years and now we know very well that the reason why we are all together is to work so that is what we do when we are together.
Toby led the work and we did sing for three hours. At the end of the session I could not control my voice anymore. I was singing “Ave Maria” and it was sounding really bad. Toby came out with a great harmony that is going to sound very pretty in the show.
Petra had left a little bit earlier and had gone back to London for the Sunday. Cal left on Friday like Stephan. He was going back to Vienna to see his family.
I am here working because I do not have a family. For how long I am going to be able to resist the solitude of my job? I wandered about that while walking home. I have had a good day of work and I was ready for a nice glass of wine to say farewell to another Saturday in Brighton.
Have fun.
FORBES vs. JOHN THE BAPTIST
Hello;
The package of the show is the most important thing to create a Spymonkey show. We have spent at least one day and two hours searching about what is it going t be the package of the show we have decided to a call Bless.
The show is about the war between good and evil, the modern life miracles and the lives of the good Samaritans that populate this world, we think. There are so many implications of doing a show about religion because you get completely trap in tons of cheap gags, all those cheap gags that have been getting accumulated in out brains from our catholic up bringing.
I do think do that the reason why Mr. Murdston does the show is because after years touring he wants to make the jump to the movie business. So he has gone into the “do good kind of movie” that big majors like Disney and Fox could by with their eyes close. He thinks they have send spotters to see his work and his agent will call him very soon with an offer from LA.
I think he could be very paranoiac about the whole project and that would be very funny.
Now, let me tell you that I have been told off. And I think they are right to tell me of because it is true that if you are trying something on the stage and one of your fellow performers is looking at the screen of his computer while you are trying to make him laugh it is not very nice. So my apologies and I will not do that ever again.
I have to say that to be in rehearsals with my laptop it was great because it was very inspiring but it is upsetting for everybody. Still I think it is going to be a funny idea to think that the secret idea is that he is trying to cut a deal with a major from Hollywood. Also I think it will be very funny that Mr Murdston has an agent now. And he is doing these things because his agent has told him. There is something very stupid I think about having an agent. If you are an agent and you are reading thins do not miss understand me I think is great to agent but some times actors talk about their agent as if they are God and what ever they say they are always right.
Then the agent and Forbes have created this show so they can get into the very lucrative market of the Christian fundamentalist. They love going to the movies that they have produce so that will make him very popular at the end of the day that is the main goal of Mr Murdston to be big and famous. He has been quite successful lately with his latest production COOPED. He did not make it to the West End but almost and there were many talks of going to America so now he is ready for the big time. His great mind has been having these dreams for a while and he is ready to make them come true.
He would be famous around the world for levitating the chopped head of John The Baptist like David Copperfield made disappeared the statue of Liberty but this time with very good acting too.
A.P.T.
Hello;
After Personal Trainer, it will be the limestone of the first part of the rehearsal period of the new show of Spymonkey. “I am thinking of becoming a personal trainer” and the meeting with John Plowman at the BBC. In a matter of eight hours tow people have told us that we are very bad writers and that we need help.
¡¡I would not have need any of that to know that I am not a very good writer of comedy!!
But never the less there is not one thing where you cannot learn. So everything is always for the best, I hope. But it is quite funny that some one can tell you that you do not know how to write comedy. All a long the history people have told to other people you do not know how to or you cannot do that so go and leave this and do something else.
I believe the four Spymonkeys have heard many times you cannot do that and you are not good at so it is better if you try to do something else.
This is our complication, the complication of our lives, because people always try to tell you what you should not do and what you should do.
I have never been a good actor and better than that is that someone told me you should not act because you are not good. The best thing of acting is that you can like to anybody. There are always different audiences for any thing.
Perhaps my favourite thing is to hear in my face “you do not know how to write comedy”, twice in one day when we have been doing comedy all our lives.
The show is starting his way forward, his journey towards the many places that will go around the world. We are creating a show that could travel because there are many different places where we already go with in the show. The first thing is that we go to France, then we go to Calcutta and then we go to Tijuana. I hope this will open the doors for us to other places of the world that want to have an anthropological knowledge of these cultures that we are exploring.
Costumers for the show, and looking like Matrix generation and that will make us very big and important. We think of dressing father Forbes as the master of Matrix, Orpheus. He will appear on the stage like levitating in dry ice and then he would be the driver of the world of emotion and religion.
The audiences like members of a special church will hear the speeches of Father Forbes. With eyes wide open and mouths wide open they gasp from the discovery that believe in anything supernatural exists is not true. You think that you came to see the glorification of believing in possible Gods and now someone comes and said that is not true.
Go home and be yourself and do not ever accept to be told anything about whom you are and what you are just do it.
Have fun.HOT SITS
Hello;
Let me explain you how this works. This is probably the best exercise to write a show in the world.
Petra depress for a couple of days. Cal and Spymonkey in a quest to try to work and come up with material in a different way. All of us doubt full. Our ideas and leadership of the work were not great and we all were not ready to work with each others because we respect each others work because it is completely different and everybody has their own exclusive place.
So the director called for the mother of all the exercises “Petra, hot sits”. She sat there and on the break of tears confessed us that she was thinking of becoming a personal trainer and give up acting because personal trainer is easier life. Petra cried, Toby cried, Stephan laughed, I laughed and Cal carried working.
Very fast the whole ting become clear, we all knew what the problem was, we all knew that everything had to be change. We had to cut the way were doing things and we had to go back to old system. The end of the experiment had arrived. For her own happiness and ours Petra did put all the cards on the table.
After that there were not many thing else to do. We all felt really tired, a mixture between tiredness and relief. We did some lip sinking and we left to London. We did not know we were going to be told that we are very bad writers for the second time in a row.
“You have to listen to a different kind of laugh. It is sacred kind of laugh.
There is always something really mysterious about creating a show together.
The big architect of the show and the company's artistic style is Cal. He is the director.
There is so much you can know before you go on the stage to be funny and that is in our case nothing.
You do not need to know anything about anything”.
On the train the mood had already changed. On arrival to the BBC we all sat in the hall waiting to be surprised with good news. Glynnis came in and delivered bad news. John called her in the afternoon and told her that he did not like the staff we have recorded. Blum, brom, blum, bluom my hear felt all the way to my ankles. At the end of the day the only thing I can have when I am creating something is my expectations that it is going to be good and that everybody is going to like it. That does not mean that I think everything we do is good.
So we met the big guy and he told us many things that we were agree with. He did tell us that we are going forward. He has not given up on us, what is good. What potentially could have been a big disaster it ended up in a possible the best way forward.
We went back home and we dinned and I got lost in Brighton waling back home.
“I hate stupid people” Kristine Landon-Smith. She said those words related to some people I like. She is a clever woman and I like her.
Have fun.
INTIMIDATING
Hello;
Perhaps that is what is all about, to go through the felling of being humiliated and felling ridiculous that make us be funny. Perhaps the clue to the whole thing that we do is that the audience “laugh at us” and also “laugh with us”. But what is it that prevents us to be completely free? What is it that is blocking us to come up with good things?
I have not been able to relax, I have enjoyed while rehearsing and having fun with the gang but at the question of Cal, what is your passion for this show? I do not have a big answer. I like to do things that I have done in the pass but more developed. I think I want to do a big physical scene of slapstick where food is involved. And once I have come up with the idea I have to believe in it.
The most important thing about having an idea is having it and then defends it as much as possible and with all you heart because that will make the idea good. It will make it good and stupid to defend your idea in front of people and also to try to explain it.
But it is not just that, it is also about the fact that the people that you are delivering the idea accept like someone thirsty a glass of water in the middle of the desert and tick all the right keys that wakes up the world of their imagination.
The actors will have their imagination working to keep the jokes running for a very long time and what ever comes to their scenes they will make work for a while.
In the Spymonkey world we all have our places where we belong and they are the places where we have to stay. We do not put in those places by ourselves and we do but it is the interaction with the others that put us in that place. It is also someone's view of who we are and I believe that we all can be many other things.
So I fell intimidated by the fact that when ever I give an idea to this people they are not going to like it. We have been working many years and it is very difficult to change and surprise the other people.
At the end I have presented ten ideas and no one of them have been successful but I am not blaming myself or I should say just myself thou all these people would say that that the ideas were not very inspired and I do not agree. I would agree thou that I was not inspiring at all. I felt really intimidating. What the fuck am I doing presenting an idea when my director is there? I cannot do that. I like him very much. He is very good director and I like very much the way he directs thou I do not like every thing he does or that he thinks is funny.
So I have to get many more ideas to present and I am not going to let myself being intimidated by anyone. Intimidating is funny thing especially when you are having funny shows but not when you are trying to create and funny show.
Have fun.
ARRETE BERNARDETTE
Hello;
And like a ship without a captain we sail through the waters of our new show, sailing away towards the opening night in Brighton in something like two months. It is a new experience not to have Cal here with us all the time. The truth of the matter is that we cannot afford him anymore. Still he works with us and that is great.
We are working with him four days a week and weekends and Mondays it is all up to us doing everything by ourselves.
My felling is that at this point of time this way of working it is just fine but later on in the rehearsal period it is going to be quite important to have Cal here to lead the whole putting up of the play with a strong hand.
So we have written an Operetta about the life of Bernadette. Bernadette is that girl from France that one day walking in the countryside went to rest into a grotto and the Virgin Marie appeared to her and told her to dig. She dug and water came out from that little stream of water where people afterwards got cured from the most incredible illness. These events made Bernadette a Saint. The event s that we are talking about happened in the beginning of the nine teen century.
So we have written the story in English. Then we have translated to French and then we have created all the music that will go with the number. We rehears ed the whole thing for many hours getting ready to face the flop that we are going to have next day when we present it to Cal, our director.
We are nervous and the funny thing is that it is completely clear that we are unable to direct each other because we do not like each other's ideas and also because we have very distinctive views of how we think it should be. Out of respect and consideration for the others we do not try to impose our view in any body so we never end up doing anything that we like. I mean if my distinct view does not go in is very difficult to defend it.
Because we are actors that have become clowns to work with Cal and because we like to make people laugh. So for us to try to direct ourselves it is a little difficult, and I am being just a nice guy and I want to say that it is a desperation to work together suggesting ideas that are not going to go anywhere.
Nevertheless I have to say I have enjoyed very much, I am enjoying very much working together with my friends but I am sure I am not good at creating my own material when I work with this group of people, my dear Spymonkey.
Have fun
WHAT WOMEN WANT
Hello;
The level of potato head of my Sunday is. The other movie I watched was “Ritchie Rich” with this actor called McCauley Caulking. Of course the movie was not very good, it actually was very bad but it is really great to see a movie on the telly that is not difficult and that was done just to take kids to the cinema and keep them there and quite for as long as possible.
But I needed of something like that, for as long as possible to be quite and to take my mind from everything.
Here in Brighton we are staying in a really nice house. It belongs to a performing arts performer and her partner. They left last week for holydays in Malaysia for a month. This suits us perfect because they are coming back one week after we are gone.
The house has three floors, no four floors but we can use just three. In the basement there is a studio living room, a toilet and an office, when you go downstairs they have a small patio with a big room that doubles up as living dining kitchen room and it is my favourite room of the house.
On the second floor there are two rooms and one toilet and the bathroom. The most upsetting thing of the house is that they do not have a shower. How do they do it? I do not get why English people in general do not have showers in their houses.
The house is really comfortable and we are very well there. Cal sleeps there three nights a week and the rest of the time he goes back home. So the house belongs to Stephan a me most of the time.
I lay in the sofa for the two hours that the movie lasted. Stephan cooked eggs and ham for lunch and I have already had enough food for the rest of the day. My digestion was going quite well but the movie had finished and I did not want to do any other thing apart from watching TV. I flipped through the channels and I could not find anything but I had to blog for a while so I put myself to it.
At eight o'clock after considering the possibility of going to the local cinema to waist my time in a way that looked productable I discovered that the Mel Gibson movie was starting. I have not ever seen it before and it was another one of those movies designed to keep low IQ people away from their relatives or gangs of people a little bit more clever that want to spend some time on the cinema seeing something that they can make jokes about it afterwards about how bad it was. Stephan came into the room from time to time and he really bullied me in a very vile way.
I am a very big couch potato and there is nothing I can do against it,
Have fun.
SAUTRDAY WORKING
Hello;
There is something insane about doing things that you not suppose to do the moments you should not suppose to do them. So when someone works on Saturday things do not fell right or in the right place. Also to work on a day that you should work just have of the day it is not even normal because your brain and your body need to adjust. Spymonkey worked on Saturday the 6 th of January 2007 and that it is going to bring lots of nasty implications.
First of all a big Barrera has been broken. I mean the one that said that we do not work week ends unless it is very close to the opening night of the show. This time Spymonkey's new show is not going to be open until the beginning of February. It is true that there is not much time but it is a question of priorities.
Second of all this means that Spymonkey is going into a boucle of desperation rehearsal that will go against the creative desperations moments that will come once they are about to open the show.
And third the bulling that a non-done yet show does to the performers of the show is bigger if you care too much for it. So the rule says that when ever you fell that the show is trying to use dark and dirty tricks on you instead of collaborate you stamp your foot against the ground and say NO.
The rehearsal that we are denouncing here took place at the office of Spymonkey in the middle of Brighton. There was an small musical warm up in the house of clean at 20 Montpellier Road but then all the machines needed for the work where at the office so the whole team travelled really slowly to the office mentioned before.
The company worked there for three to four hours and when the air in the room got too hot and the tea breaks were happening every two minutes the team captain decided that was the time to stop and start the weekend. The news were received with joy and happiness and in a matter of second all the members of the team where in their houses resting and having dinners.
I know for a fact that two of the members of the team had fish and chip but this is not am important information for the investigation that we are conducting here.
The important matter is that thou it was needed the team worked on Saturday and that is not right. No worker with a clear mind will accept to work on a free day, on a leisure day, on Saturday.
Have fun.
THE TEAM
Hello;
The Spymonkey team is getting bigger with every different and single production and there are wonderful new members. Some of the old member s is not around any more. Angela was not needed for this production and Petter either. Petter is the most hurtful miss. We did not want to ask Petter to do the lights this time because the Brighton Festival experience was not very good and because he did not want to travel. He has been and he is we hope a very good friend and has been very important for the company.
But the new members are very new. I do not want to get over excited because we do not know them very well yet.
There is a new stage manager. Her name is Tania Roberts and I am sure I am missing spelling her name but that is how it is. She was highly recommended and had worked with Graeme and Toby in the pass. She is very efficient and she seems to have a very nice sense of humour. She does something funny with the fingers of her hand pointing at you every time she is saying things to you. She works all the time in papers and organisation shit. And even when she is not there it seems as if she is checking up on us, to see if we are doing what we said we were going to do.
There is a new technical manager called Andy. He is ginger and has lots of experience and lives in London. We have met him once. He seems very nice and he did work with Frantic Assembly for who we do have lots of respect. He also has done work for lots of other companies. Hopefully he would be the person that we have been looking for many years. Someone that would allow us to concentrate just in what we like to do which is acting.
Then there is Kathryn; she is going to do the design of the lights. She seemed nice when I saw her at rehearsals but that does not mean much when you have to do the lights for our work. The other thing is that she may be an artist and that is not very good for what we do.
Then there is Annie, she is Cal's assistant and she is doing work for us that will allow her to be involved in the creation of the show. I really do not know exactly yet what is what she likes. I imagine that is directing, devising and comedy but I could not really tell. She is really sweet and very nice and it is really good fun to have her around.
So that is the team now. I have mention Lisa in the pass and also we have now a big team of managers that sell our staff all over the world so we can relax and be rich and buy new houses and spend our time travelling around and enjoying the time we spend with our wives and families. I do not think this ever will happen because for us to be rich and famous and be able to travel and not do any shows on the stage we have to have done lots of TV and films that will pay us lots of royalties and repeats. So now we are old and I do think there is enough time left for us to be as rich as we would like to be and then have enough time to spend the money we have made.
So welcome to all the new collaborators of Spymonkey and see you later to all the old ones that are not with us for this project. Sorry and for the things that will go wrong and lets have fun.
Have fun.
AT THE GARDEN ARTS
Hello;
As I write a song is in the I-pod “this may be the last time I do not know”
This may be the last time we will every work at the Garden Arts centre in Brighton because in the spring is closing as theatre forever. It is a real pity but it happens some times. The theatre is very cool and it is fantastic with all the fields around it and it has lots of possibilities but is not working. I will say I will have made a better café and bar. They are really shit.
This may be the last time we do a show about religion theme. It creates so many problems for us because it creates many troubles in other people's minds and that is really upsetting. We do not want to create problems perhaps the problem of having to laugh too much.
This may be the last time we have to cope with a grand that is not coming with all the money that we should. Yes, we put an application we got the money and then an organisation that promised us fifteen thousand pounds did not give us the money. The organisation is called Made in Brighton. They said they will help us because the aim of the organisation is to help to promote Brighton and his arts all around the world so we travel all over the world they should try to help us mainly because there are not many other Brighton based companies that work as much as all over the world. Well, they said yes first and then they said not. And now we really have a problem of fifteen thousand pounds.
This may be the last time I leave my house on the second of January. I am not very convince about this statement because if it is not the second I am sure it is going to be the third or the fourth. I work for an English company and they do not celebrate anything after the first of January so… there is not option.
This may be the last time I listen to electronic music. How could I know something like that? Well, I do know this because the older I get the least I like that kind of music so why would I bother? My time is running out and I should use getting staff of the music that I like and nothing else.
This may be the last time I fly by plane to London. I read this article in the guardian were they said that you can be in London from Bilbao in ten hours. You can do Bilbao- Biarritz – Paris – London. This will take ten hours and is from the centre of one town to the centre of the other.
This may be the last time that when I am in Bilbao I do not go into the water. It was so cold I could not get inn. But this has to end because every time you get inside the sea is so great and you fell so full of everything that I have to do it again and again.
This may be the last time that I make up a blog like this because I know that there is one person who reads all the blogs and I own to that person to be original and not repeat myself.
Have fun.
“AND IN THE END…”
Hello;
“And in the end, the love we take, is equal to the love we make” this is part of a Beatles song and I have received this quote from someone in Las Vegas and surprise surprise he woks at Love the show based on the Beatles music that Cirque du Soleil does in Las Vegas.
But I like the quote because it helps me to deal with explaining to all of you the first day of rehearsals with Cal and the whole team. I was scared and everybody was. We all wanted to work and get along fine and do what we need to do but there were unfinished business from before Christmas and no one knew what was going to happen. And then we all met in the Café shop and everything seemed to click during the whole day.
We proposed things but never the less Cal was leading and that is how it should be. He is the leader of the gang and he cannot give the power back to the people because theatre is. The ideas were not flowing but we were having fun being together. This of course was my perception, I had been hunted during the Christmas holydays by the ghost of the rehearsal time in Brixton and I was not sure if we were going to be able to make it.
The other thing to say is that we had funny numbers ready to go and to be done. Cal to Graeme suggested one. He told him to do a number of puppets but behaving like a very bad puppeteer so he will always take the focus away from the puppet and every time the audience will be looking at him he will get really angry.
The other one came out of all of us creating a circus show. We had the circus master, the fakir, the juggler, the acrobats, the clowns and the animal tamer. The wild dogs and the beauty, and of course you do know who may be who in Spymonkey. The beauty was Petra and the three dogs Stephan, Toby and Aitor. We were naked or better we were wearing small pieces of clothes that little by little will get ripped off. At one point after the dogs have done part of their show routine they will run after the trainer and try to rape her. The beauty lost all her beauties being moved around by the raping dogs.
Lisa, Tanya, Any, Cal and Lucy were laughing really hard and that was a really nice felling for all of us. It is good to be on the stage and making people laugh really hard.
So we have to leave at five thirty and we all went for a beer.
Someone said once “ if it is not broken do not change” and now and even before that sentence was said something have got broken by life, just by use as my mum said every time I did not want to get rid of my favourite old shoes.
I am sure it is going to be for the best.
Have fun.
SAD TO LEAVE
Hello;
You do know what I mean by that sentence? Don't you? I seem to be living in an endless contradiction. Always, but really always when I am going to do something I want to do the opposite. So if I choose the while chocolate I am longing for the dark one. So then I ask myself why did I not choose the dark one instead of the white one? Very simple, because if I will have choose the dark one I will have want the white one.
This is what it makes a person unhappy. Am I unhappy? I do not think show. Sometimes I have downs but that is like everybody else in the world.
I am in the airport in Bilbao. I am about to get my fly to London and then I will be in Brighton in the afternoon ready to start to work tomorrow. I am happy to go to work because we have been waiting to do this show for so many years that to know that we have the money and the right team to do what we always wanted to do is really great.
On the other hand Christmas holydays have not finished and I have the feeling of having unfinished business here.
I was telling you about more food yesterday but it is part of the process of having Christmas here. By the 5 th of January you have stopped eating and the food sleeps on the table because nobody takes her for a dance. It will end up frozen and eaten during the month of January. We have spent all our money for the festivities and the only food we will be eating until next pay is the left over. And it does not matter because to eat left over is like looking to black and white photographs. You know them and you fell lots of nostalgic but not sadness.
My family and my and I want to lie down and make big digestions with them while talking about all the things of this life. I want to go for walks a long the sea and go the see in late nights showings the festivals movies of this season with my girl.
Still I have to work and I want to work but I fell a battle of desires bigger than ever before that is about to take place inside my should.
Is it that I have lost face in the Spymonkey project? Is it that I do not want to do that show? Is it that my roll with in that group is changing and I am suffering for those changes?
I do not know the only thing I know is that I want to go back home and I am going to London. And I want to go to London because I am going to be doing what I like to the most in the world that is to do shows with Spymonkey.
This sea of questions that is not helping me at all. Should I have a glass of wine in the bar? No, I have been drinking too much wine lately. Well, yes but I am not going to drink very nice wine for a while¡¡ Oh, take fucking decisions and stand by them¡¡¡ That is what I have to do. I can see a really horrible year ahead of me.
Have fun.1st January 2007
MORE FOOD
Hello;
Have you very seen the sky jumping competition on the first of January? Well I did this year. I vaguely remember watching them when I was really young and the most exciting thing to do that day was to watch TV. I think it was just to be lying more than watching TV because the whole thing is very unexciting.
Well, we look at the guys jumping really far. This year seemed to be particularly horrible because the weather was really bad and they had to cancel the event for a while. You could see the faces of the jumpers. They had taken off their helmets and goggles and you could see their faces. They were really young people. They are really brave. They will have to jump as far as they can after sliding through a very steep platform and then jump to the show and the sea of human heads underneath. The problem this year is that there was not snow what so ever. It look really sad a horrible. Those places were building to look good with snow and with sun but never in between. The melting snow makes everything look dirty and untidy.
So that is for exercise this morning and now let ‘s eat again. We did not managed to wake up for the concert and we managed to see a little bit of Austria with the sky jumping.
I am tired and physically tired of eating and drinking. And it is not that I have never been private of food in my life and now is the time to recuperate the time so if it happens again I am ready. Still I eat with so much pleasure that is becoming a little bit sinful. I love the pieces of cured jam with the toasted bread that I eat every day for breakfast and I can see in the table just right now. My mouth water by looking at the asparagus in the glass plate swimming with wonderful vinaigrette.
The seafood just got killed and is resting like a broken body in their trays. Their legs on one side their arms on the other. The bodies are in the middle of together looking like turtles. They are upside down and their meat in have been mixed with other substances that do not look very promising but as soon as you deep you spoon inside all those smells of sea and rocks come into your mouth and you get transported to the middle of the Atlantic and it is nice.
The cold meat is here everyday, the pork, the goat cheese and the meaty tomatoes but today they all got dressed for the New Year and look amazing.
While I am not hungry I am felling compelled to try every single thing on the table while I try to pair every bite going into my mouth with the most adequate wine there is. It is working fine and I should slow down so I can have a go to the fish of the day and then to the meat.
The parade of desert will be in a couple of hours and then I will be ready to leave to another country to work in a show and to do what I do.
Have fun.
