Holy crud, we done it! - Lords of the Board, Performance One

I awoke yesterday to a lovely day for photos. Overcast days give photos that nice, hazy, filtered light effect that makes everyone look supermodel-style airbrushed. It was the kind of day that makes you want to go out and produce a costumed human chess game from scratch...or at least that was the effect it had on me.

Keith and his giant truck arrived on schedule to pick up the board. It was up in the air whether we'd actually be able to transport the 12 foot tall metal birdcage (that once belonged to a stripper) in order to jail our performances who were captured during the chess game. The thing looks so huge, I thought we'd need a flatbed truck and a crane or something. Keith's truck laughed at my misgivings by being THE PERFECT SIZE to hold the board and the cage. Awesome.

Jinx had selflessly agreed to pick up flyers and coffee for us and met us at Courthouse Square to set up, mochas in hand, and one large SUV brimming over with costumes.

The first hitch of the day came when we were trying to assemble the (dance) surface of the birdcage. The panels supposed to slide easily together and interlock...but after years of abuse and extreme temperatures in our dank garage it didn't really feel like sliding together all that much. It took all of the crew kicking and pulling and cursing at the thing with all our might to get it together, but in the end, it was humans - 1, and board - nothing. Ha ha, take that, stupid wood! Even better, Gargoyle Ben #1, Ben Arent, the one person who'd ever helped assemble the birdcage in the past fortuitously showed up. He quickly volunteered to climb the ladder and screw the poles. There were many lewd jokes made, as you can imagine. Best to get 'em out before the kids arrive.

There was a scary moment when we realized Gargoyle Ben #2, Ben Kraemer, had his birthday the night before...and most of the crew had been up 'til 4am forcing toxic concoctions into their hardy livers. All of the hungover and groggy performers assembled like a motley crew of bandits in the morning fog by about 10:45...except Birthday Ben. But we didn't have time to worry because Caitlyn and Sean had arrived with the costume tent, and like a circus, that thing required at least a team of a thousand able bodied workers to assemble. (Warning: I'm prone to gross exaggeration. I'm not good with numbers.)

The board was assembled at the foot of the outdoor stage, the cage stood proudly to the right of it, and the tip jar stood ready for change on the left. People piled into the tent and the clothing flew...yet somehow they all managed to get in the right costumes without impregnating each other in the process, I hope. We were ready, but one thing was missing...the audience. Oh, and Ben. Ben finally stumbled into the square full of energy, ready to give the performance of his life, still drunk from the night before. He used the un-sober lack of inhibitions and muscle control to sway and crouch and growl so convincingly, I was tempted to suggest all of our performers drink beforehand. The audience, too, filtered in one by one, and pretty soon we had a small group of curiously confused onlookers ready to be amazed by how exciting watching two kids play chess can be.

The kids arrived onstage and the players lined up behind the tent to grab a smoke and chug their coffee while they still could. Antonia furiously whipped makeup onto the actors at the last second as they lined up to go on, and still managed to make them look stupendous. I turned on my megaphone and began barking last minute orders at them like a crazy, pink haired drill sergeant. "Remember to react! Project your voices! Keep it G-rated, you &%*$#s!" Noon rolled around and uber-pianist Win Meyerson hit the keyboard with some truly epic opening music. The groggy performers marched out took their places on the squares, sure of only one thing...they were a group of thirty-two, 18 to 20-somethings standing on a giant chessboard in the middle of downtown Santa Rosa dressed in full costume on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, the humanity!
The first pair of kids, Rahuul and Freddie, sat down to play the first round. The other kids waiting to play sat around them, barely trying to contain their own thoughts about what THEY would do if THEY were playing. Yet they all managed to smile and have a good time watching the performers try to deliver their goofy lines over the roar of the fountains and Win's music. Win had different theme songs ready to play when each side moved a piece...he threw in the Star Wars and Harry Potter themes, Ironman, Smoke on the Water, and my favorite creepy song from Twin Peaks. The actors were truly brilliant, and improv-ed some great moments.


Kat as the White Queen was possibly the brightest star of the day, delivering her lines with verve and remaining in character even while she was just standing there, polishing her queenly nails, or looking petulant in her white dress and powdered wig. She and Nate as the White King would banter back and forth like a true snobbish royal couple, so cool. The Grim Reapers Sean and Kevin lurched across the board, furvently delivering their lines in gravelly voices, as Nate, the White King, demanded that someone bring him a beverage. Joe the Viking got a few great zingers in too, and everything is funnier from a man in horns. Matt threw his crown down and crumpled in defeat when he was checkmated, but he still looked freaking awesome in his badass steampunk outfit and shiny red guitar. The twenty or so parents and people in the audience ate up every word and interaction they could make out, but I think we may need mics or something to really get them heard. I hate that some gemlike performance moments were missed because of bad auditory timing.

A lot of the actors didn't get too many chances to move. Matlock, as one of the geriatric Wizards, said at one point "I think I need an Ex-lax, I haven't had a movement in a while!"

The first game went really long. The two boys were evenly matched and we didn't really account for how long each move would take. The actors improvised brilliantly during the downtimes. Freddie really held out 'til the end, but finally Rahuul put him in checkmate, and the crowd went wild. During the break, I was interviewed by a photographer from the Press Democrat, while several costumed performers went off to imbibe some hair-of-the-dog grog over at Stout Brothers.
Eventually, everyone stumbled back in line and we went for it again, this time with Dane and Elijah playing the game. This time, the game went faster, and nine year old Dane gave 12 year old Elijah a run for his money, finally putting him in checkmate and winning the game. I was super impressed at how well the all kids handled both winning and losing, they all just seemed happy to be there.

We took another break and the crowd wandered off again. I finally got a chance to have a clove and down some badly needed coffee of my own. My throat was getting hurty from all the yelling of chess moves into the megaphone, so I figured I'd soothe it with acidic coffee and smoke. It didn't work.

Back for round three, the crew assembled again, probably ready for the day to be over. Michael and the ever enthusiastic Zack played this time, and I made the mistake of suggesting the kids used their first guesses, that their first thought is usually right...so of course one of the kids blamed me when he made a bad move. Uh oh. It all worked out though and Zack won the game. The crew assembled onstage for the award procession and sadly, the medals were no where to be found. Luckily, Matlock stepped in and had the kings from each side knight the kids.

Afterwards, Keith, still dressed as the Black Knight, went over and spent some time with one of the kids, Freddie, and his mom told me it made him really feel special. All the kids at his school were jealous today, he kind of got celebrity status for being part of this. We got awesome photos and everyone seemed really happy to be a part of the event, even the hungover actors and overstressed moms and dads. Some people on Facebook called us nerds for doing a chess event, but I say, darn it, why not celebrate being smart? These kids are probably picked sometimes on for being brainy chess geeks, and now they got a little confidence boost for being in what was possible the most exciting game of hardcore, heavy metal chess ever. Nerds rule.

The Great Paint Disaster 2009

Dateline: 10 days until performance. The crew has declared mutiny and we're all out of oranges. The actors rehearsed their lines as the costumers furiously sewed, painted, poked and ripped things. We painted white coat one of the chessboard. Thusly, I am too tired to write a blog tonight...yawn. Here's some pictures, they're worth at least a thousand words each:

BOARD out of our MINDS!

It's t-minus 11 days until our first human chess performance.

I rolled out of bed around 2pm today and immediately started texting tha crew. I made the announcement last night that I'd be hosting work parties at my house EVERY NIGHT until the show, so everyone now has an open invitation to lounge about my house and work on exciting, fulfilling artitstic projects. My dream come true...art commune, here we come!

James was the first to show up today, then Megan arrived with her FUR BOX! (No, it's not just another of my inappropriately lewd innuendos...she walked up my driveway carrying a large box full of fake fur for our various Viking needs. Okay, it was another of my lewd innuendos. Sue me.) She also brought magically thick gold and silver spraypaint for gilding the king's armor (read: plastic junk I found around the house that I sprayed until it gleamed with golden uber-coolness.)


Zack graciously gathered supplies on his way home from work and showed up around six o'clock with armloads of primer, masking tape, marking pencils and a very large carpenter's square (I think he's overcompensating.) He then proceeded to measure, mark out the gridlines, and number each and every board...all 18 of them. He's a true and dedicated supporter of the arts, that's fo' shizzle. He arrogantly flaunted his superior chessboard making skills for several hours with only ONE break, as he pointed out to us at every opportunity. Show off.

As he was marking them up, the rest of us were throwing 'em down, masking 'em off, and spray bombing the hell out of each other, the front yard, and possibly the neighbor's houses. Sorry, ozone layer! While we let them dry, the fume-drunk crew wandered throughout the house making costume parts, eating pizza, drinking beer and being generally as productive as slacker artists can be.


SEVEN HOURS LATER...the board has been completely primed and is ready for tomorrow and Round Two...a day I am pre-naming the Great Paint Disaster of 2009. So far, I have lost 3,657 brain cells due to inhaling paint overspray, and, thusly, am now high enough to be excited about tomorrows fume-party. YAY!

ART GO HOME!

True to our collective nature, a few, proud operatives showed their mastodonic cahones today in a satirical display of false protest. I had read about doing a fake protest early on while researching performance art ideas for our motley crew to produce, and liked it immediately. I thought it would be fun to draw attention to our involvement in the festival in a way that would confuse people who couldn't see the irony in our actions. Mwahaha.

I sprung the idea on the group and was greeted on Facebook by enthusiastic catch phrases that some of our clever operatives wanted to tout on their signs: "Art Go Home!" "My Brain is Exit Only!" "GOD HATES ART" "I want a desk job!" and my personal favorite that wouldn't fit on a sign..."I got into Art, and all I could do was make this sign..in cross-hatched ink and gouache, 3-dimensional calligraphy type!"

Through the magic of texting, I assembled a small but hardy team of operatives in front of the Arts Council building to take part in this new activist movement. Jinx, James, Keith, Matlock and I all piled our materials up on the hood of my car and scrawled our angry protests against the atrocity of the notion of art in lovely ink onto our poster boards. I think we took our sweet time drawing out our posters in order to work up the nerve to face the public riot we knew would be stirred by our moving protest.

Matlock joyously scribbled "Boobies belong on TV, not in paintings" on his poster. Jinx, in my opinion, won hands down in the style department, her neat lettering made a pretty sweet looking poster. Mine were hastily scrawled in childlike scratches so I could pause to take some truly excellent pictures of our process, save for my opus poster "Art is Dum!" that I had painted on my handmade cardboard art portfolio the night before. Ah, irony. Keith bravely attempted the ultimately fruitless task of securing our floppy signs to tiny bamboo sticks I had grabbed from our backyards as signpoles, a feat which even pounds of scotch tape and staples could not surmount. James grabbed some Arts Sonoma Festival brochures and our Human Chess flyers to bring, just in case we aroused anyone's interest. In retrospect, I think people were afraid to ask what all the crazy screaming was about, because I think we only handed one out the whole half hour we were on the street, and even that, I think we had to force into her hand.

After much giggling, self-congratulation and downright procrastinating, the time had arrived to thrust our loathsome opinion of art onto the unsuspecting 5 o'clock drive time traffic on Mendocino Avenue. The second I lifted my huge, high contrast "Art is Dum!" poster up over my head while facing traffic, a cop drove by. He didn't stop, which I took as a blessing bestowed upon us by the great social satirists and performance artists that had gone on before us to the great city street in the sky.

We raised our signs to that very sky and marched down the street, loudly chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, self-expression has got to go!" which echoed eerily off the surrounding buildings. A few people stepped out of shop doors to see what was going on, and possibly to frown in confusion. I barely noticed them, euphoric in my engagement in this pathological public display. I glided down the street like a prom queen atop a parade float, gleefully shouting and waving my sign like an insane person. I believe James said "I feel like an idiot" at some point amidst the yelling. However, he was also giggling and smiling, probably because he cleverly avoided carrying one of the signs along with us. His reputation was safe. The rest of us were not so lucky.

We chanted and yelled snarky comments at every open car window that passed us. I even danced a little with the sign on my head on Mendocino and 3rd, the busiest corner in town. Matlock started chanting "2, 4, 6, 8, what do we appreciate? Not art!" *clap clap* "Not art!" *clap clap* In our ecstasy we even shrieked "shamona" like Michael Jackson between the beats in our made-up war cries.

People stared. Some laughed. Several frowned, the irony lost on them. About five, more sophisticated drivers honked and yelled phrases of support like "Yeah! Fuck art!" to which we responded with high pitched shrieks of glee. My proudest moment was standing in the crosswalk and shouting "What do we want?" to which the other brave operatives answered "Nothing!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" It was very nihilistic, and epitomized the heart of our protest.


At some point, we decided our voices and egos hurt too much to carry on. We started on the last leg of our strike, charging back toward home base at the Arts Council building. We each ad-libbed some of our own cheeky phrases to passing pedestrians, taking the last chance to make our stand known. With no less fanaticism for our fake war on art, we yelled even louder and with more feeling now, knowing we'd soon be safe in our cars, peeling away from the site of our possible public humiliation.

With a sigh, we collapsed on the car, hoarse but happy. We had made a difference. What that difference was, we weren't sure. Did anyone get it? In my opinion, causing even the slightest bit of confusion in the brain of some suit driving home to his wife, to whom he would share the story "Honey, I saw the weirdest thing on the way home from the office..." made it all worthwhile. Art lives on, much to our (fake) dismay.

I'm so proud of us. Cheers.