9/29/2006 08:23:00 AM|W|P|Chowie|W|P|Last night, Matty Boom Boom and myself performed the annual No Refunds inventory. Assisting us in this Most Important of projects was one 22oz. bottle of Boulder Brewing Co's. 25th Great American Beer Festival ale, and one 22oz. bottle of Avery's Maharaja Imperial IPA.
The following is a comprehensive list of our arsenal - with which we can take over the theatrical world, have a rummage sale, or remake a Muppet Movie onstage. And so, it begins:
35 blue KFH tee shirts8 old school Stinging Serpent Stance of Death tee shirts3 large kitchen knivesgrill forkSuper Size-O pizza cutterrubber Mr. T. maskbottle of Ultimate Odor Eliminator (Matt took this home with him)Breck School baseball jacketBlond wigKing's wigremote controlneon plastic sunglassesgrass skirtpair of nylons (black)skinny belt (white)hot pink/fuschia skrunchieset of gel braceletspair of women's dress shoes (black)pair of men's loafersbottle of Elmer's gluepair of women's dress shoes (zebra striped)white baseball capblue skrunchiemaroon slip coverinflatable microphoneski mask (black)4 inflatable beach ballshandful of plastic leispurse (black)short sleeve button down shirt worn by Sinclair in Zombiemaniarubber frog (donated to our cat Windy)4 tinted wine glasses - classy not gassy3 pairs drug store quality sunglasses1 devotional Kirk Cameron photo album (Matt wanted to take this home too, but I said no)brown paper bagempty pill bottlepair of roller skates (white)black windbreaker/pullovertiny red hockey jersey2 pairs parachute pantslampshade hatclown noseboom boxlong black wigextra small hip hop frog tee shirtdenim skortslarge remote controlpadded brarubber duckiesmall denim jeansgay el guapo sweaterbathrobered polo shirthamburgler jerseysmall red riding hoodbooger colored turtleneck sweaterlinen striped bed sheetBill Cosby's old Chaps pullover
And there you have it. Live in fear of the No Refunds Arsenal.
Happy Friday.|W|P|115953704504526756|W|P|Arsenal|W|P|chowie@norefundstheatre.com9/29/2006 09:03:31 AM|W|P|P|W|P|I want first dibs...
('specially on the old school "stinging serpent stance of death" and the black windbreaker...)
; )9/29/2006 09:11:29 AM|W|P|Chowie|W|P|You're more than welcome...though they might end up at Ragstock...I'll set one aside for ya.9/29/2006 07:30:59 PM|W|P|Shinobi-wan|W|P|WOW!!! That's quite the arsenal...we will totally take over the world now...9/24/2006 04:36:00 AM|W|P|Gabe|W|P|seriously, gabe, you leave, you don't call or write, you just up and disappear and now you're posting two new blogs in one night? whats up with that? is that supposed to make everything better? are we supposed to forgive you now?
well, you take your vacation videos and feed them to your mom. some of us are here working for a living, when you're off doing whatever it is you do in the witness protection program. you know, I heard that for you they had to rename it the JERK protection program!
no one is going to understand this post unless they read the one right before it anyway, so that just proves how stupid you are. And like anyone cares about the places you saw or where you live. Everyone here is so over you.
So post your stupid video and see if we even bother to watch it, because we won't because of how much we hate your sucky guts.
by the way, did you even hear that we got nominated for The Best Theatre Company on the callboard website? we came in second to last place, with only six votes, but hey, that's six more votes than you got when you ran for president of my ass!|W|P|115909132682541588|W|P|two posts in one night?|W|P|gllanas@gmail.com9/25/2006 08:03:25 AM|W|P|chowie|W|P|And the best thing is I didn't even have to nominate us!9/25/2006 08:03:39 AM|W|P|P|W|P|Yeah you do suck...How about posting more footage from GMIKFTH?!?!?! Huh? HUH!?!?!
Yeah. S'whutIthought...
Thanks for checking in, butt-nut.9/25/2006 02:29:57 PM|W|P|Gabe|W|P|great moments does deserve some more video posts, don't it.
way to make me feel guilty, jerkstore.9/25/2006 02:39:28 PM|W|P|P|W|P|You wanna feel worse?
At the No Refunds Post-Fringe gathering?
I ate your slice of pizza...
That's right.
But since misery loves company, I thought I should tell you that I ate MD's too.
BUHHWHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
(*It's too bad you can't be in town tonight. The Ivey's are on like Donkey Kong)9/24/2006 03:58:00 AM|W|P|Gabe|W|P|hey ya'll. so, I was forced to leave the cities as part of the witness protection program, and the FBI told me it would be a bad idea for me to post anymore blogs or else someone might be able to determine where I live and I will get whacked, which is why you've only heard from Matt and Chris lately (the FBI doesn't care if they get whacked).
But I figured it would be harmless to post the video of my road trip with my dad to my undisclosed location. This video is reflective of nothing I've learned since being at my undisclosed location, since it was all shot and edited before my undisclosed classes disclosed themselves.
Here is the first classified installment, and seriously if you're looking to whack me, any hints in this video as to my current location are merely clever camera tricks to throw you off my scent.
I make no apologies about the repetitive and self-indulgent nature of this video. It's about a very personal journey I took with my dad across the beautiful country of freedom and liberty called the United States of America, and if you don't like it, maybe you want the terrorists to win.
|W|P|115908902085396314|W|P|this blogpost is classified|W|P|gllanas@gmail.com9/13/2006 08:37:00 AM|W|P|Chowie|W|P|To think Keith Olbermann started on SportsCenter. Here is the text of his live commentary from Ground Zero this past Monday:
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.
Five years later this space is still empty.
Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country's wound is still open.
Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you. |W|P|115815495358705617|W|P|Courage|W|P|chowie@norefundstheatre.com9/13/2006 06:09:51 PM|W|P|Shinobi-wan|W|P|Wow!!2/24/2007 08:14:05 AM|W|P|Anonymous|W|P|NSU - 4efer, 5210 - rulez 9/13/2006 07:57:00 AM|W|P|Chowie|W|P|In the ongoing search for Truth, my dear Papa Howie directed me towards this telling of the Good News. Since I had just recently been married at the time, he asked me to pay particular attention to the epistles of Paul, specifically the instructions for marriage.
Ladies and gentlemen...and Matt, I give you:
The Brick Testament - The Bible in Lego|W|P|115815241503383893|W|P|Papa Howie's Signposts on the Road to Truth|W|P|chowie@norefundstheatre.com9/14/2006 08:04:00 AM|W|P|P|W|P|This was brilliant, yo.
Grazie!9/14/2006 10:19:13 AM|W|P|chowie|W|P|Prego.9/16/2006 01:14:23 PM|W|P|Shinobi-wan|W|P|Ragu9/13/2006 07:51:00 AM|W|P|Chowie|W|P|You don't want to be there. Really.
For the 9 days prior to this past Saturday, Roxette's "Listen to your heart" was playing in my little pea brain over and over and over again. For no reason whatsoever. I haven't heard that song since the summer of 1989, when I thought KDWB and Rick Dee's Top 40 was the coolest thing ever.
Then I went to Missouri Mouse with Katie, where the strains of Roxette were replaced by the warbling of Cher's "Do you belive in life after love" - or whatever the hell she's "singing".
Thankfully, during a dream last night, another part of my brain replaced these artists with William Shatner covering them in his inimitable spoken-word style.
Just imagine it. Don't pretend that you forgot the lyrics...now add in some Shatner and you're all set.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste.|W|P|115815220330991824|W|P|In My Head|W|P|chowie@norefundstheatre.com