Marc Spitz

I think that if I wasn’t writing this blog, I’d probably finish more of my new play today. I added about twenty pages yesterday to the ten pages I started a few weeks ago and now that I’m on a roll, it’s probably all that I should be working on. Especially since I really have fuck all to say here. But I vowed to not let too many days to go by without blogging here so… what do you want to talk about? I saw the Who Shot Rock N’ Roll exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum over weekend. That was inspiring. To be a part of chronicling rock n’ roll is to have done something important, I think. The biography of Orson Welles that I am “reading” (on my iPod) is making me wonder what the Bowie book would have been like if Bowie granted me several interviews AND let me basically write what I wanted. Obviously, much, much better. No way it could not have been, but that scenario (which the author Barbara Learning had with Welles twenty five years ago) almost never happens. You basically have to commit and go with it, without dining at Ma Maison with your subject and his little dog. One Welles quote that I derived from the book (which is 22 hours long in audio form) made me smile and feel validated for the style choices my editor and I made with Bowie (i.e. putting myself into the thing). “There’s no biography so interesting as the one which the biographer is present.” Welles encouraged Learning to put herself in the book, which she does, but only in the intro. I’m not an expert on Welles’ work but he has always fascinated me. I would like to see that new Linklater movie about him but I’m chained to the desk. Have jury duty this week and am determined to finish a first draft of the new play before I head in. You have to set deadlines for yourself if you’re doing the S.E. hustle otherwise nothing gets done.

Having at least a first draft of something new finished is tantamount to a red and white cord, firmly affixed to some stump on the shore. I can drift out deep, there’s never really a risk of drowning cause… well, there’s the theater. I really envy people like the guys at the Brick who can do the stage work every day. I suppose I could pursue that life. Invest in a theater space and do a calendar of events. I have enough plays at this point, plays of my own, that I could start reviving them. There’s no rhyme or reason like that. No individual organized enough to put me on that road and I’m not going to do it on my own because, well, when would I drink and watch TV? But I would like to do another play sooner than later, and if I start the new book sooner than later, it’s a necessary ventilator. Mick Jagger says everybody needs some kinda one… of those. He looked pretty good on the rock n’ roll hall of fame concert thing last night. Sounded really good. That U2 song was perfect for him to sing. I kind of went through the broadcast on FF. The Springsteen/Tom Morello thing was the high point if you ask me. That was shit hot. It weird how some artists can sing their old songs note perfect (Sam Moore, Aretha, Bono, Sting) and others sound like old drunks leaning on the jukebox. Also, here’s a thought: Jackson Browne is only four years younger than Stephen Stills. Look at those two cats together. Is that just… genetic good fortune? Browne looks about 40 and Still looks and sounds like a wheelbarrow full of bricks rolling backwards. I saw enough photos of pretty, young rockers this weekend to know that if you don’t die, like Brian Jones, and aren’t Prince, rock n’ roll makes you freakin’ squirrely. And the Just for Men brown has never, ever looked natural.