THERE IS SO MUCH TO REPORT I AM JUST BURSTING AT THE SEAMS!
Last night we went to see Karen Finley in her latest First Lady incarnation. The venue certainly was an added challenge to her already alternative material in that it was just so main stream as to almost be distracting. Add to that the fact it is the place where my wife and I met and fell in love way back 10 eons ago when she was a bar tender/aspiring actress and I was an aspiring actor/construction worker. Proprietor of the Westbank Cafe, Steve Olsen graced our table with a visit; he remembered "Jay," as she was known back then, very fondly.
Also in the audience ingenue Rachel Weitz of "The Constant Gardener" film fame among others. Her entourage left after only five minutes of the performance piece, perhaps because they had sold-out tickets to "A Lie of the Mind" directed by Ethan Hawke across the street at Theater Row. Or perhaps Finley wasn't exactly what they expected. (Back to Ethan Hawke in a second.)
Finley's final performance of "The Jackie Look" was at times ridiculous and at others torturous as she not only opened mass wounds, but prodded and explored them using a barrage of multi-media, poetry, and primal scream therapy. Finley does an interesting impersonation of the icon, not the woman, and iconography is at the core of her thesis on Jackie O. I am not the scholar my wife is about to officially become, I only know that when Finley goes into her deeply maternal and sacred-feminine "You Know...You! NO!!" I was reduced to a puddle of man-goo. I heard people in the audience audibly try to console her. Jennifer commented that the piece doesn't sound "finished yet". I know what she means, but is anything a performance artist ever does "finished"?
On our way out of the Westbank, Jen spotted Steve and wanted to thank him for the complimentary Risotto balls he sent over to our table, which were fantastic by the way, along with the Stinky's of Brooklyn cheese plate we had. I found my self in the vestibule of the famed celebrity hang-out with none other than Ethan Hawke himself scratching his head under a blue and white ball cap. We exchanged pleasantries, may be it was intermission of the Sam Shepard play he directed, I recounted for him a moment 10 years earlier when we encountered on another on the street in Greenwich Village. He graciously shook my hand and allowed me to introduce myself. "I'm Mark Ransom," I said. "I'm Ethan Hawke," he said, as I presumptuously gushed "I know who you are," and now I think hey, wait a second, what did I say? Because I really don't know who he is. I only know the icon, which is what Finley was pointing out all night. But the one thing he said that makes me feel like we had a human exchange to day was "Until we meet again..." a positive and generous thing to say to a stranger such as myself, let there be no mistake, I am, people, strange.
HOWEVER...
Stars are lining up for us. By this time next week, Jennifer-Scott Mobley, my friend, my lover, my wife, will have been through her third exam, her dissertation defense and, if all goes well her panel of esteemed scholars will confer upon her the title: Doctor of Philosophy. When that happens...I think I will burst, into tears, into laughter, into the next chapter of our lives that has us publishing and performing. We are ready for our close-ups. So I want to spread this glorious energy into the world in an effort to counter the effects of earthquakes and war. Until we meet again...stay tuned! Hi to Paul Rebhan, whose recovery from Cancer is an inspiration to me, and urges me ever to fulfill my potential.
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