I'm not dead...

...I'm just on summer vacation. Until next week. Then school starts, and I'm back on a real schedule. Or as real as a blogging schedule ever truly gets. So, art will have to wait for my thoughts for another week. There's a lot to wrap up from the summer, and I promise it will all be coming at you pronto!

But, if you're in the hood, you might want to join me and friends for some laughs tonight. When I say tonight I mean, Tuesday, August 26. When I say "the hood", I mean Bay View, WI.

Tonight I receive the greatest honor of my life. Read the invite below that I've been circulating and you'll understand.

As if my life wasn't great enough already, this Tuesday it will reach a new level of awesomeness. Somehow, I was elected as one of the Neighbors of The Night for The Bay View Neighborhood Association's "Chill On The Hill" in Humboldt Park. My honored night is this Tuesday, August 26, and I'm hoping you can come and party in the park with me and other pals.

Here's the low down. It's a free concert in the park starting at 6:30. I will be at the park at about 6:00 or 6:15. As a Neighbor of The Night I get priority seating (look for the GREEN TENT) and some free Miller Chill. I also believe I get to wear a crown and give a speech, and you can only imagine what that's doing to my ego right now.

The band that night is the superb SWING NOVEAU. And since my good pal Tom Lueck is the lead singer for that band, I'm conspiring to sing with the band (tapping into my Sinatra alter ego even as I write). It should be a great night of fun tunes in the Humboldt Park (just North of Oklahoma Avenue on Howell Avenue), and I certainly hope you can make it out for some good end of summer revelry.

Hope to see you there! Bring a blanket, a bottle of vino, some noshes and your party shoes.

Fonz? Hmmmmm.....

I saw the Bronze Fonz statue via a snapshot online today (I'm vacationing, hence the reason for no updates folks) and I gotta say this, mind you, as a supporter of the venture...



IT SUCKS-AMUNDO!

If I was Henry Winkler it would have been hard for me to hide my shame over this image. It's just damn freaky.

Nuff said. Let's move on. And now, let's get behind something important: THE NEW BRONZE STATUE FOR THE RIVERWALK!

I vote for Frank Pecoraro, aka The Pepperoni Cannoli man. Let's give the river back to the people.

Your vote? Tough to top me, right?

Late breaking news...there's a shopping cart full of booze that's yours for the taking!

Those Insurgent Theatre kids. They are nothing if not crafty.

Tonight they are having a fundraiser at Art Bar, 722 E. Burleigh, called Bars for the Arts to raise some moola for their upcoming East Coast tour of Rex Winsome's PAINT THE TOWN. And as part of said fundraiser, you can win a shopping cart full of booze by purchasing a raffle ticket.

Good prize, if you ask me. Think of the things you could do with that:

1. Have a party with all your friends.
2. Have a pity party all by yourself.
3. Drink it all in one sitting and actually start to understand Insurgent Theatre's plays (just fuckin' with you Insurgents!)

If you're an Insurgent fan this is your chance to help them realize their touring dream. If you're no fan of Insurgency in theater, think of this fundraiser as a chance to send them out of town packing. Either way, win-win, right?

Go. Buy. Drink.

Oh, and tomorrow night at 5:30 in the alley beside Fuel Cafe, the Insurgents will perform PAINT THE TOWN. Nothing I like more than theatre in an alley. Well, actually maybe there's a thousand things I like more than theatre in an alley, but I applaud that kind of pluck and it's a free show so it doesn't hurt nothing.

UNMASKED & ANONYMOUS (Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture)

I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Wednesday for the press preview of UNMASKED & ANONYMOUS: Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture. For some reason the good people at MAM keep confusing me for someone with journalistic talents.

In any event, more about that experience in a moment, but first something important about my life. It's all about me, you know.

I bought a camera on Tuesday. A Canon PowerShot SX100 IS that I decided was the thing for me and my family after some "Consumer Reports" deliberation and hand testing to see if it felt good in my paw. It was time to replace my old Olympus after dropping it on concrete and watching it shatter into a few pieces. The stares of the onlookers who witnessed my gaffe as I was taking photos of my daughter completing a kids' triathlon (I know, madness that a five-year-old participates in something like this, but tear inducing nonetheless) seemed to say, "You poor dumb bastard. That's gonna cost you."

It did cost me. No doubt. A couple hundred bucks. But more than that, it cost me a heap of time worrying anxiously over whether or not I could retrieve the final photos I had taken from my old battered camera. Irreplaceable moments in time were locked on that camera and I was bound to feel like a real asshole if I was responsible for ruining that record of historic achievement for a five-year-old athlete.

The good news was, I did get the pictures out the camera. I was able to download a final shot of my kid being a tough triathlete. Forever, I will have an image of my girlie girl child snarling like a bad ass, and that makes me happy.

But now, it's all about the new camera. I can take movies with the thing. Photograph the tip of a pencil with razor sharp accuracy or take a snapshot of my entire South Side white trash city block with the panoramic view function. The possibilities are endless.

And this is what I was thinking about when I got to MAM to meet Johnie and Julie, as everyone calls them. That and the fact that my new camera wasn't working.

Yep. My new camera was jammed. Busted it seemed. The lens had some error, and try as I might, I couldn't get the damn thing to take a picture. And there I was in the midst of an exhibit all about photography and camera work. It was like being artistically waterboarded.

But I go with the flow. I needed to clear all that personal crap away so I could be free to start my art education. It is my professed goal to learn more about how to look at art, and here was a perfect opportunity to self educate alongside two artists in an intimate setting giving me and a group of media types inside info on their exhibit. I keep telling everyone that I want to be a sponge for art learning. The responsible thing to do in a situation like that is to focus. Focus on learning about art.

So I was forced to obsess instead. Learning schmearning. Obsession grabs me by the lapels, says, "Look at me!" and there ain't nothing I can do about it. There were two things I chose to obsess about during my time with Johnie and Julie. The first obsession du jour was their faces.



That's a photo I've grafted from their Flickr page. Okay, I'm not obsessing so much about their faces, as I am about the frames around their eyes. My hard crush on Johnny and Julie began the moment I saw those glasses. Bold, impenetrable frames that told me immediately that these two artists were life lovers. I know what it takes to wear eyeglasses like the ones the Johnie and Julie sport. You gotta love looking at life to carry something as heavy and prominent as that on your nose.

Yes, I was listening to Johnny and Julie as they talked about photos in the exhibit. And, yes, I was looking at and loving their photos and the ones that they had decided should be showcased in this exhibit from others artists in the MAM's collection. But those glasses were doing me in. I wondered to myself if Johnie and Julie were as obsessive and protective of their glasses as I am of mine. I wondered if they could tell you the brand name of their glasses like I can (I sport the SRO 145's, if you were wondering). I wondered if they too sometimes feel like wearing the glasses that they wear is a way to tell the world, "I'm here in front of you, but my glasses make it easy for me to daydream myself away to another time and place."

The second obsession that was playing on my mind during the gallery talk was the request I had from the MAM management to remove my backpack when I entered the gallery. It was no little thing, this momentary obsession. I start from a place of feeling completely out of place at any media event (Don't these people know I'm nothing but a hack writer!), so anything that draws attention to me, like the request to basically disrobe by taking off my backpack, sets me off on a hyper kinetic anxiety attack. I felt like I was a black teenager driving through a rich suburb pulled over by a middle aged white cop because I just didn't look like I belonged.

That was me at the Johnie and Julie show. I came in wanting to fill a notebook with ideas on how to view art, but instead I obsessed over eyewear and the lack of my security clutch. And I didn't even carry a notebook, so obsessed was I. But, at least obsessing over a couple of new things let me take a break from obsessing over my new camera's broke down status. Well, for 45 minutes at least.

As soon as I got out of the museum, I seemed to go back to my old place of worrying about the new camera. I had just shelled out what I consider a lot of dough for a piece of electronic gadgetry. And the damn thing wouldn't work.

Fuck. That's all I could think, was fuck.

I scrambled home and thought I'd try the camera again. I braced myself for the worst. I just knew, hope against hope, that when that camera hit my hands, malfunction was bound to be the order of business for the rest of the day.

But, no. I popped the power button and the lens slide in to position and a pleasing chime piped out to the camera body. And I was ready to document the world around me. And something possessed me to do that right away.

People and time. I remembered immediately that was what Johnie and Julie had been talking about during our short walk through their work. Their love of portraiture was all about capturing people in time. In a particular time with all the stories of the world around them projected on a photo frozen face.

Simple. My art education has begun. Look at life. Put your image out there for the rest of the world to see. Duh. The simplicity of this idea embarrasses me, but it's also kind of beautiful, don't you think?

My first shots on my new camera weren't of flowers in a vase. They weren't of squirrels cracking nuts in my backyard. They were of the people in my life. Portraits of my family. I look at the shots of Carmela...



And Dorothea...



And Paula...



And I don't just see my family. I see the story of my day. Of their day. Of the days of all the men and women they came into contact with during the course of their travels to get in front of my digital camera lens.

You probably want to know what I think of Johnie and Julie's show, right? There's a lot to like. A lot. I don't think it's because they know how to hold a camera. I think it's more about their love of people and time. They have their own obsessions, and taking a look at them hanging on the wall's of MAM makes you love everything they see.

UNMASKED & ANONYMOUS: Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture is worth a closer look if you ask me. And if you need to borrow my glasses to see what I'm talking about, too bad. Take your own set of eyes. Johnie and Julie would have it that way.

My racist Olympaholic daughter

My five-year-old daughter Dorothea was watching Olympics gymnastics the other night and started laughing. Giggling, really. Like a five-year-old does. We asked, "Sweetie, what's so funny?" She demurely glanced away from the television and said, "Isn't it funny how they all look the same!"

I was horrified. My daughter was watching the prepubescent Chinese Olympic gymnastic squad dominate all their twisting and twirling.



It was clear. My daughter is a racist.

Then the Americans started grabbing and bending. And Dorothea continued to laugh.

She was laughing at the Americans, too, because she claimed, "See, they all look alike!"



Thank God she's not a complete racist. She just isn't into groups of chicks with pony tails and spandex.

Good God, does this mean she's a homophobe?

My first day of art school...hope I don't puke.

It's my first day of art school today. I'm eating a light breakfast because I don't want to throw up on any artist shoes. Retching on the the first day of school runs in my family, you see.

Every year when my daughter approaches the first day of school she gets a little nervous. At some point during the lead up to back-to-school her nerves translate into a good, all-out purge. One puke and she's ready, eager and thrilled to get back to school.

Me, I'm not so keen on tossing to prep myself for my first day of art school. I'm starting my adult art education, my quest to feel more equipped looking at visual art, at none other than The Milwaukee Art Museum. Once again the powers-that-be over at MAM have confused me for a member of the press and have invited me to to the media preview of Unmasked & Anonymous: Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture.

Here's one of the shots I'll get to see today. It's called "Ann in Her Kitchen (No.2), Madison, WI, 1999".



I'll take the advice of quite a few artists who responded to my plea for help understanding art and simply try to like what I like, and not like what I don't like.

If you're wondering, me like Ann's kitchen. Muchly.

Olympian thoughts

I don't know which was scarier.

Goose stepping soldiers at the opening ceremonies.



Or Bush yawning.

Here he is asking Misty May-Treanor how she keeps her bikini from crawling completely up her ass during beach volleyball matches.



My dad, silent wit that he is, slyly referred to the women's beach volleyball as "The Nude Olympics". All they need is beer bongs and 25 cent tacos, and that Olympic beach volleyball dealio would totally seal its fate as Olympic porn.

Phony=Artist

All artists are phonies, right?

Okay, maybe phony is kind of a strong word. And surely phony baloney is a strong meat. But Jeffrey Lewis' fabu blog entry "Rip-Off Artist" in the NYT's Measure for Measure blog on music makes a kind of good point.

How many truly original ideas are there?

Isn't it true that all artists are simply ripping off ideas they see around them?

I was once told by a theatrical director that I should try to watch other people audition as much as I could, steal all of their best ideas, and present my work as something that only I could do. It was the best advice I think I ever got as an auditioning actor. But it does make me feel a little cheap and dirty.

If you're a true innovator, or you know of other artists who are incapable of grafting any idea from other art because they are so pure, do tell, do tell.

But don't fret if you can't honestly think of these examples. I'm a fan of the phony artist who happily admits to being influenced by tons of factors when creating art. It helps me know better as an artist myself where to look for the best stealable ideas.

Grilled Cheese Nation Is Forming! Be a part of THE SOLUTION!

I don't take my Wisconsin State Fair Grilled Cheese superiority over the lardy, doughy Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff alone.

With comments like these, I suggest the Wisconsin State Fair Organizers beware. I know we've got them on the run. I can feel it.

"I see the grilled cheese as the iconic sandwich of Milwaukee. Pig farmers add some bacon. Ag farmers add a tomato. Germans ... well wait a minute what is a Rueben but a grilled cheese with some German stuff?" - Dan M.

".......keep up your quest for the the beloved grilled cheese." - Kendall P.

"I agree with you- The grilled cheese is the most superior sandwich on the planet." - Andy W.

"All I've heard about are these cream puffs...someone brought me one last year and I thought it was gross." - Brenda Lee J.

"I just want you to know that I am also a big fan of Grilled Cheese (cream puff not so much)..." - Niky M.

If you want to be a part of The Grilled Cheese Solution, write a letter to the Wisconsin State Fair organizers urging them to get behind the heavy promotion of the world's greatest sandwich right now and give it a rest on the cream puffs. Put pen to paper and send your missive to Wisconsin State Fair, 640 South 84th Street, West Allis, Wis. 53214.

Friday fun provided by Shutterbugs

This is no Cubby Bernstein, but Shutterbugs must be seen. Enjoy. Really funny. Really, really funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

And they're off! This weekend's big openings!

The Milwaukee theater season never really stops now that Dale Gutzman is doggedly producing shows like THE FROGS during the summer months, and Insurgent Theatre and Pink Banana show us that youth and industry produces many plays. But the emotional "back-to-school" toil of the theater season kicks off today at the Broadway Theater Center with those early birds, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.

WELL is their season debut this year. It's a newish play by performer writer Lia Kron (she starred in the New York production at The Public Theater) about getting on with a show but having to deal with her ailing mother. Her mother who won't leave the stage. There's other characters that float in and out of the piece, but mom is the immovable rock.

Here's Travis A. Knight, Tami Workentin, Angela Iannone (as the writer's alter ego Lisa) and Ruth Schudson (as the writer's on-stage mom Ann) in one of Mark Frohna's dazzling production photos. Love the shock of peroxided locks Angela.



The 411 on WELL is that you can catch it tonight through August 24 at The Broadway Theater Center Cabot Theater, 158 N. Broadway. For more info call 414-291-7800 or visit www.chamber-theatre.com.

Not feeling WELL? Okay, you're bound to laugh harder than you are right now at my cornball attempt at humor at The Milwaukee Sketch and Improv Festival, celebrating three years running of making asses laugh themselves off.



What this event is is pure unadulterated fun with 22 groups from all over the Midwest descending on Milwaukee for three high octane days of madness (one can only imagine there is more drinking in more bars surrounding the festival during these three days). The whole event is organized by younger-than-springtime impresario Matt Kemple, and I dare say he is a name to watch in the Milwaukee theater scene for anyone who wants a job someday (remember I said that Mr. Kemple when I come groveling to you on my knees someday).

Check out The Milwaukee Sketch and Improv Festival now through Saturday (yep, it did start yesterday, and I apologize to you funny bone for the late notice) at The Off-Broadway Theater, 342 N. Water Street. For more info call (414) 698-8991 or visit www.milwaukeesketchfest.com.

A response from the Cream Puff Promoters

This just in from The Wisconsin State Fair Organizers. I say, "It's Wisconsin State Fair Throw Down Time!" I've edited my prior post as they have requested, but this story is not over. Send your letters, grill your cheese, stuff your puff. It's going to be a dairy way between me and the Wisconsin State Fair!

Dear Jonathan,

While we appreciate your enthusiasm about the Grilled Cheese Sandwich, the Cream Puff will remain the icon of the Wisconsin State Fair for many years to come. It is the longest selling item in the history of the Fair and was originally created to promote the wheat and dairy industries back in the early 1920s.


We appreciate your desire to have your followers contact the Fair however, due to the limits of our email box we would request that you only ask them to submit written request via the postal service. I would also request that you take our executive director’s phone number off of you site as we are in the midst of the Fair and our inboxes only can receive so many messages and should any of your followers decide to call and inundate his mailbox with their feedback and he is unable to receive more pressing messages it could interfere with more pressing situations.


Thank you,

Patrice Harris
Public Relations & Communications Director
Wisconsin State Fair Park
Patrice.Harris@wisconsin.gov

Wisco Puff vs. Grill

This is the Wisconsin State Fair iconic food item.



One of those tasteless, hard-to-eat, artery clogging mothers costs $3.50.

This is the food item that should be the new emblem of belly gorging at the Wisconsin State Fair.



The humble grilled cheese sandwich at the Wisconsin State Fair is made with real Wisconsin Cheese, comes in cheddar or swiss, is a snap to eat, and is artery clogging, too (if you're in to that kind of thing). You can also get three of these beauties for five bucks.

The choice is clear in my book. I think it's time to change the fat-people-getting-fatter ways of the Wisconsin State Fair and push the Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff into a supporting role and showcase the Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Sandwich for what it really is: THE GREATEST SANDWICH ON THE PLANET.

Help me lean into the Wisconsin State Fair powers-that-be. You can write them at 640 South 84th Street
West Allis, Wis. 53214. And feel free to use the letter I'm posting below. When I discovered this eating disparity at the Wisconsin State Fair yesterday, a new obsession was born. It's time to give the Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Sandwich it's day,salute the cream puff, and then tell it to move aside.

Here's my letter. Craft it anyway you like and send it off as part of Mission: Cream Puff Ouster.

Dear Wisconsin State Fair Organizers,

I would like to bring to your attention a matter which requires serious deliberation and, in my estimation, immediate action on the part of the Wisconsin State Fair Organizers. It has to do with the issue of The Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff and it's dominance as the signature food item of the Wisconsin State Fair. I feel there is a much worthier and equally decadent food favorite that is getting short shrift in the face of some marketing initiative to always make the Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff the heartthrob of the gluttonous masses attending the Fair.

My candidate for the new signature food item of The Wisconsin State Fair? A concoction so simple and perfect in its form and execution that it defies explanation of how it tastes so darned good. I speak, of course, of The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Sandwich.

There really is no comparison. The Wisconsin State Fair Grilled Cheese Sandwich packs intense flavor into it's four-sided frame. It is a food that makes even hardened men and women think about a sweet mom sliding some freshly grilled, melty sandwiches on paper plates for neighborhood friends to share on a simple summer day. The Wisconsin State Fair Grilled Cheese Sandwich can be eaten on the run, enjoyed as a snack or a full meal, presented with fruit or a side salad as a sit-down triumph, or just savored as an olfactory delight by huddled masses who want to smell butter, bread and cheese warmed to a perfect conflagration of tastiosity. The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese sandwich is a super star.

The Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff, on the other hand, is unwieldy, strangely lacking in an addictive sugar additives, and the responsible party in far too many Wisconsin pants splitting episodes to even mention.

I will not bash The Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff. I know it has it's fans. But, I believe that if a popular vote were held today, The Wisconsin State Fair Grilled Cheese Sandwich would carry the day by a wide margin. I urge you to promote the Wisconsin State Fair Grilled Cheese Sandwich with the vigor which it deserves before there is rioting in the streets, and a civic overthrow of good eating at the Fair.

Please, also think about adding more "Kids From Wisconsin" shows. Any youth group that does a show which includes a tribute to both Toto and Styx deserves more stage time.

Yours truly,

Jonathan West

My squandered youth, and why I want to learn more about art

Yesterday, I posted a plea for artists to help me learn about visual art. I asked art men and women to help me be less of a moron when thinking about going to a gallery or a museum. The response to my request was immediate and copious. I'm overwhelmed by the generous sharing of ideas and advice local artists have already given me. I want to begin saying thanks to the dozens of men and women with paint stains on their shirts, camera strapped around their necks, and clay stuck to their foreheads who have come forth to help me with my art education. I'll be starting soon when I work out scheduling details with these artist folks.

But today I thought I would write about something that might help to explain my sudden desire to become more well versed in the visual arts. My shame. My derailed interest in art. My squandered youth.

Though I am now something of a dullard when it comes to looking at or talking about visual art, I was once something of a prodigy. In my boyhood days I excelled as an art student. In grade school, Vernon Kemp saw that I was handy with a paint brush and knew my way around a grease pencil as a grade schooler at Roosevelt Elementary School. Bill Brueske, my junior high school art teacher, took a shine to me and made me one of his three "special students." This meant we worked alone on advanced projects while our peers drew bowls of fruit. I remember a bath tub full of wood pieces that I was trying to bend for a sculpture I was working on with my fellow advanced art pals, such was the heady stuff we were working on. I was such a fine visual artist that my own mother grafted some of my artwork and submitted it as her own for a university class she was taking when I was a high school student.

What happened? Why did the art train come off the track so hard? Why am I embarrassed to even begin to write about visual art on this self proclaimed blog about "art for everyday people?"

It was that nasty bitch's fault. You know her. The theatre. She is to blame for my stunted attempt to be the next Julian Schnabel (we have the same girlish frame and ability to grow forest thick beards, you know).

Around the time pencil sets and easels became less important to me than girls and being the life of the party, I discovered the narcotic called the theater. As a teenager I struggled like all kids do to find my place. I had my share of friends as a kid, but I still remember the numbing pain of wanting to be a truly special part of any group but not having the language to do it. Then as I entered the seventh grade, I did perhaps the bravest thing I have ever done in my life. I tried out for a play. I think I threw my parents for a loop because I was prior to my entrance into the theater world in a spectacular musical theatre extravaganza called "Take Me Back To Manhattan", a shy enough kid who was quiet, reserved and compliant. I was a teacher's dream in class because I did my work and didn't talk back. But the theater changed all that.

The theater allowed me to become the big mouth I longed to be. It gave me the ability to have opinions, to embrace challenge and to buck convention. I no longer had to create my own language. I was handed a rosetta stone on how to be cool, engaging, and funny with every new script I would absorb. Incrementally my life on-stage morphed into my life off stage and I became what I had always hoped to become: a memorable personality.

But in the past week or so, something snapped in my head. I have become a creature of the theater. I don't really know how to do anything else. This is not to say that I have lost my love for the theater and my place in it. Au contraire. I adore the theater. Simply love it. But I want to expand my life experience as I approach middle age. I want to recapture the spark of youth associated with my long ago passionate dalliance with visual art that I somehow recalled the other day when doing an art project with my children. I want to once again possess the eyes for art that my ten-year-old self once had. I want to learn again how to appreciate art as a wonderful expression of the soul and mind that manifests itself in something hanging on a wall, sitting on a plaza, or taking up place on a mantle. And I want to be able to talk about it with other people in a manner that makes me happy.

I don't need to become a turtle neck wearing art critic. Actually, I would hate that. I just want to be able to talk about art like I talk about theater, food, my kids, my wife, THE WIRE, Facebook and the card game Quiddler: with great love and enthusiasm. I know that art is important, but today I don't really know why. I once did, and hanging with artists is my path towards recharging my art appreciation batteries.

I may have become one of "the play gays" and drifted away from my love of art, but I know that had I been able to throw a perfect spiral and become the captain of the football team, I would be writing a similar story. This is my story of wanting to reconnect to something memorable and life affirming from my youth. You may have your own, and I would love to hear it. I would love to have many travelers with me on my art education journey. If you want to ride the bus with me, by all means let me know and I'll make room for you. There seems to be a huge network of generous spirits willing to help me make this passage, and I'm already grateful to the artists and educators who have come forth to say, "we'll help you be a boy once again."

And if there's anyone out there willing to show me how to throw a perfect spiral, I'm open to a little training camp. The regrets and desires of approaching middle age weigh heavy on my mind these days.

I want to learn about art!

You would think that someone who describes himself as a blogger who writes about art for everyday people would be something of a noted scholar on the subject.

Not me. I'm an idiot when it comes to art. A total moron.

But I'm too old to go to some Ivy league school to dress demurely and get a degree in Art History. I'm also too impatient and too broke to do that. I want to learn something about art from the people that make it.

Here's what I want. I want some real live artists to take me under their wings and teach me how to look at art. I will go to galleries with artists, I will look over their shoulders, I will wash their paint brushes. I just am eager to be more informed when it comes to visual art. And since I'm such an idiot on the subject, I believe the learning curve will be quick.

I will write about my experiences with visual artists here at the old Artsy Schmartsy blog so you dedicated readers can join me in "art school of the streets." Think of it as an on-line course that reads like a bodice ripper (I'll try my best).

Can you help me? Do you know people who can? Have them e-mail me at jonathanwest@artsyschmartsy.com. Let's get ready to have some fun and get some paint on my shoes.

How Not To Run a Theater: The Girlfriend Factor

Here's another installment in my occasional treatise on how to save yourself from pain and suffering by understanding how to not run a theater. I know you won't listen. No one does. Everyone thinks they can do it differently. Suckers. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Today's topic: THE GIRLFRIEND FACTOR

So, you've decided that you want to run a theater company. Fine. You were obviously dropped on your head as a child if you, like the countless other men before you, state emphatically that you want to start a theater company to tell stories in a simple intense way that brings a greater understanding of the human condition front and center in the laps of your audience (which obviously will be large because you alone will finally be fulfilling the needs of an audience hungry of cutting edge work in your community).

I'm not being sexist when I say "like the countless other MEN before you". I'm just stating a simple truth. Very few women start theater companies. They're smarter than that and are able to admit that pain is undesirable without experiencing it. The gals who do start theater companies usually start them more as hobbies. They could take up knitting just as easily, but instead they decide to produce plays. The stakes are just as high for ladies who like to start theatrical ventures, though, and often they will also knit, so there is usually at least a scarf involved in a lady run theatrical start up.

But you, alpha male. You're different, right? Or so you think.

Come on. Admit it to yourself. You're starting a theater company for one reason and one reason only. You want to meet girls.

Girls (and I mean the ones who will sleep with you after a few drinks and the promise of a role in one of those important pieces of drama you'll be producing) are the Achilles heel of so many young Turks bent on changing the world through comedy and tragedy that one might believe that a possible requirement of starting a theater company would be mandatory castration. Truth be told it is hard to do plays without girls. Lots of playwrights like to write roles for girls (especially the girl playwrights, who do seem to have loads of talent). And this isn't Elizabethan England we're talking about here. You can't just throw some hairless boy on-stage and call him a girl. Besides, you're an important theatrical pioneer, right? You don't want a hairless young boy to be your girlfriend. You want some crazy chick to dig you.

And yes, your girlfriend ill-begotten from your prominence as an upstart theater founder will be crazy. Crazy nuts. Kooky bird kind of stuff. She'll be the kind of lady who will want to play every role in every play that is available for any woman of any age. If she's a 19-year-old blondie, she'll be begging you to play Martha in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?. If she's a thirty something lady with womanly curves, she'll convince you to cast her as Juliet. And if she is one of those fitness nuts who also convinces you to take up jogging or stop smoking, she'll make you believe that casting her as Willy Loman in DEATH OF A SALESMAN is a really bold idea.

It would be nice to believe that "The Girlfriend Factor" can be avoided, but this element of starting a theater company is one absolutely unavoidable consequence of the select torture involved with this type of foolhardy endeavor. The best thing to do when dealing with "The Girlfriend Factor" is to acknowledge it. Embrace it. Have fun with it. But, there are some guidelines that should be followed to ensure the minimum level of psychological anguish. Heed the following advice and "The Girlfriend Factor" can be a thoroughly satisfying romp through one of the touchstones of running a theater company from scratch.

GIRLFRIEND FACTOR GUIDELINES

1. Realize something about yourself. You need this woman. Someone needs to stroke your ego when you get your bad review for your nudist colony production of OUR TOWN. She'll be there to tell you that you're brilliant.
2. "The Girlfriend Factor" is all about experiment and experience. This means you have a great chance doing all those naughty sex things you've always dreamed about. Go for it. If she balks, just say it's for show research. She'll understand. If she balks at your research lie, just mutter the name Grotowski. Muttering the name Gorotowski will bring her to her knees every time.
3. Make certain that you never meet any parents attached to your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend. These parents will see you for what you really are: a loser opportunistic no-talent who can't get hired by any real theater company. They'll also ask you, "So what do you do for money?" Your time with your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend is not about real life. It's about drama. And drama is better when it's all made up.
4. Make sure you forget about special dates, birthdays, and lovers' holidays when you are in a relationship with your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend. This will enrage your girlfriend privately, but to the rest of the world your girlfriend will say, "He's so busy changing theater for everyone, I totally understand." She'll give you great PR even though she could kill you for leaving her waiting at a table for two reading a copy of Brecht's poetry when you're running an hour late because you're auditioning kids for a revolutionary production of KING LEAR.
5. Break up with your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend only between rehearsals for projects happening with your company, and never during your process. Your process will be interrupted if you have to hear from others that your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend was seen crying at her day job clutching a newspaper clipping of a press preview of your upcoming show. You don't need these distractions when you're creating stunning theatrical impressions that will thrill and delight audiences. Besides, you'll have much more time for that just "broken-up-booty-call-visit" that your "Girlfriend Factor" girlfriend will initiate if you're not working on a play.

Art this weekend...in my old hood!

This weekend, you should check out Tosa's Firefly Art Fair. You'll get loads of art from loads of artists and you'll get it in a quaint suburban setting. Art in quaint suburban settings is so sweet, don't you think.

Wauwatosa, oh dear, dear Wauwatosa. My boyhood hood. The place I cut my artsy teeth as President of The Tosa East Players. The place I pranced around at football games in a big red flannel American Indian outfit offending everyone as my high school's mascot. Great place by a greater place by a great lake is that old Tosa home of mine.



Here's art from Marie Scott. Ohhh! Ahhh!



She'll be at the Firefly Art Fair! Now you know you should be, too, right?

When and where: August 2-3. Kneeland-Walker House & Gardens, 7406 Hillcrest Drive. Call 414-774-8672 or visit www.wauwatosahistoricalsociety.org for more details.

You did it! $1,000 bucks! Now on to the million dollar challenge!

Well, it happened. I raised $1,000 by July 31 with your help. Most of it was through Chip In, but a few "checks in the mail" are coming my way to make the total real. I'm humbled by your generosity. Now on to something more ridiculous that offers a possible stunning reward for some lucky Milwaukee artist.

I turn 40 on September 4, 2010. I hope to be a millionaire by then (so I can safely go to my next high school reunion and be all braggy). You can help me do that, and I will then in turn, help someone else.

If I raise $1,000,000 by September 4, 2010, I will give some Milwaukee based artist (who will have to enter their name in an eventual lottery) $100,000 of that million bucks. So, in essence, I'm asking to be a millionaire for a day and make some poor artsy gal or guy really happy for a good long while.

Chip In only lets you do events one year out, so I'm doing a chip in for $500,000 now. Then I'll change it when the year is up.

And, yes, I'm deadly serious about this. And yes, I will be back to writing about the arts and stuff as soon as I get this out of my system today.

Come on, what the hell? Tell your friends and if enough people throw in $5, this could actually happen. Make it viral. Some lucky Milwaukee artist could have a really good day in a couple of years if this all works out.