Trying to move the underground above ground

By Andrew Fersch

Seems like most everyone these days seems to fashion themselves some sort of artist or musician. And when you’re seeing high priced hookers on TV claiming that they moved to New York originally to sing, that might be where you have to draw the line. Then again, mainstream music these days is often filled with disappointing high priced folks who have prostituted their integrity to get where they are. So, maybe a 22 year old in the oldest profession who has a penchant for hooking high powered politicians would have something new to offer. At the very least, there could be one funny song about Eliot Spitzer’s junk.

As it stands though, both are bound to disappoint. Unsigned folks who appear on MySpace and whose crowds at shows consist of three slightly disappointed family members and one very ugly drunk blonde woman past her prime are no worse than a Snoop Dog who plays to packed arenas, shows up late and high as a kite, and performs as well on stage as the elephant man would in a beauty contest.

That’s where Sage Francis comes in. Well, Sage Francis and a plethora of other guys you probably have never heard of it you don’t know much about rap music that hasn’t made it on the radio.

Underground hip hop has long been a fixture in the Boston scene; never has it come so close in such a glorious way to UMD though as it is with Sage Francis. Housed in Providence, Paul “Sage” Francis is writing the rap music that record labels don’t believe you are smart enough to hear. It’s like a teacher telling you that you would prefer a McGraw-Hill history textbook to Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” an insult to your intelligence.

Francis is one of many rappers these days coming out with truly intelligent music and he is doing it his way, refusing to succumb to pressure to sell-out in any fashion whatsoever. Owning his own record label while being a huge part of a burgeoning music scene, Francis still finds time to co-run a website with fellow artist B. Dolan called knowmore.org. This site is where they deal with issues ranging from environmental concerns to human rights abuses.

Attempting to educate the masses through uncommonly intelligent lyrics and some pretty amazing music, spending their free time dedicated to important global and local causes, and yet, chances are, you haven’t heard of them. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong is who is deciding what it is you are exposed to. You won’t see a Sage Francis on TV, even though parents opposed to rap music would probably be able to feel some connection to his feelings on the war, or the state of our country today. So why, if parents don’t like Snoop, and his music is truly sub-par, does he end up plastered all over TV and the radio while Sage and the rest of the intelligentsia are playing college shows to a fraction of the audience?

Maybe it’s because Sage doesn’t like the idea of living with the sacrifices he would make by prostituting himself to get a deal like that, or maybe it is only because you haven’t heard him yet. Although you probably will not become the head of MTV and get Sage his own TV show anytime soon or get him a multi-million dollar record deal, you owe it to yourself to give him a listen.

See him: April 21, 2008 at Harper’s Ferry, Allston, Mass. Opening for (the absolutely legendary genius of rap) KRS-ONE with B. Dolan and Prolyphic. www.harpersferry.com for more info. Listen to him: Strange Famous Records (www.strangefamousrecords.com) Be like him (belief wise at least): Knowmore (www.knowmore.org)

Write for life

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass.—New Bedford author Claudia Grace invitesyou to join in the conversation about “The Place of Poetry in Our Lives” at Baker Books on Saturday, April 12, from 2 to 4p.m.

Ms. Grace will read from “The Other Side of Where I Used to Live,” praised by poet Michael Harper as a book of “…bountiful generosity and prolixity….an impulse for community and voices is the strong point where the people are real and hard to contain”.

The author will also discuss the dynamics of the “Write for Life” process, which has evolved from her popular course (taught at diverse sites including UMD Continuing Ed.) into an instructional manual in creative writing.

Ms. Grace has worked with print/ broadcast media and theater, produced cultural documentaries, and holds M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Brown University and a B.A. in English from UMD. (formerly SMU) where she was a co-founder of “Siren: A Woman’s Journal.” She has earned recognition both for her own work and as artistic director for nonprofit A.C.C.E.S.S. Art Corp International. She is also a writer for the American Institutes for Research and teaches with the PEN Freedom-to-Write Project.

Discover why the “Write for Life” process has been called “inoculation against writer’s block” as it works for all writing genres from a poetic foundation.

Dealing with dumping: What have you learned from your breakup?

By Andrew Fersch

“Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me”

Edited by Ben Karlin with Stephen Colbert, Bob Odenkirk, et al. Grand Central Publishing

It’s true, being funny does not mean that you are shielded from the sadness of heartbreak in this world. It does, however, mean that you are more likely to look at the humorous side of things and then, God willing, be asked to write a short story for a compilation of short stories, which is then published and gives its readers many, many laughs at your misfortune. And thanks to Ben Karlin, these personal un-triumphs of human dignity are now fodder for the general public’s delight at how, at least in one way, real (and pseudo) celebrities have to deal with the same situations we do when it comes to love.

Karlin, the former executive producer of the “Daily Show” and the “Colbert Report” has a mother who thinks he’s a mighty fine catch and a plethora of friends who have managed to gather a number of some of the funniest losing love stories ever written. Calling on some of the funniest names in comedy today, Karlin has succeeded in humanizing (at least some of) the people who make us laugh.

Of the 31 short stories in “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me,” there are so many stand outs that it would be as unfair to choose favorites as it would be to turn a grudge into a work of art (as Andy Selsberg does in “A Grudge Can Be Art”). It would be ridiculous to say that only a few of these writers have lived through some pretty ridiculous situations, as ridiculous as someone actually ejaculating on their cat (as Neil Pollack relates he did in “Don’t Come On Your Cat”). The fact of the matter is, some of them are far more entertaining than others, and yes, they tend to be the ones where something really outrageous happened.

Heartbreak is painful, and these gentlemen share all different types of pain, in their very different types of stories. Patton Oswalt shares the terribly believable, (while for most of us guys, not livable), differences between his wife and his stripper ex-girlfriend in “Dating a Stripper Is a Recipe for Perspective.”

David Wain brings to the table the horribly awkward and realistic task of trying to understand women who are potentially un-understandable in the quite clever “Persistence is for Suckers.” And renowned newspaper columnist Dan Savage adds the familiarly confused effort at trying to fit in with “I Am a Gay Man.”

Sure, not every story is comic genius. There’s the uncomfortable and creepy tale by Larry Wilmore’s about his daughter, “Women Are Never Too Young to Mess with Your Head.” Thanks to Rodney Rothman, there is also the overly lame “I Still Like Jessica,” which proves little more than that being a “grown man” has little to do with being grown up.

All humor aside though, love can lead to devastating events, and even though a good majority of the writers here are poking fun at their own experiences, they are doing it in such a heartfelt way that it’s hard not to be able to empathize with them. Damian Kulash, Jr., lead singer of OK Go, wins the reminiscent of real life award with “A Dog Is No Reason to Stay Together.”

Whether you have had fifty ex’s, or married your first love, some part of this will relate to feelings you have felt. These just happen to be a whole lot more humorous when you hear about them having happened to someone else.

Interview with David Rees about “Get Dumped Before It Matters”

Fersch: You claim a “never- having been dumped” status, yet then say that you were dumped by your girlfriend in high-school, got back together with her, and dumped her. How do you justify saying you were never dumped, then?

Rees: I claim that getting dumped, resuscitating the relationship, and then dumping the girlfriend, cancels out her dumping me. As long as my high-school girlfriend and I dumped each other the same amount of times, my net balance of dumps carrying over into the next relationship equals ZERO.

Fersch: If you didn’t learn all these supposed lessons from women when you were younger, what lessons have you actually learned from your wife about women?

Rees: All the lessons mentioned in the essay (the lessons I never learned from girlfriends) are actual problems my wife and I had to work on — actually, problems I had to work on, on my own: staying productive and motivated during the day; not slipping into a lazy, depressing lifestyle (we cut the part about me hitting refresh on talkingpointsmemo.com all day); spending time in the kitchen preparing meals; not wasting every night in front of the television. The point of the essay was, if I had learned these lessons before I met my wife, they wouldn’t have been a burden in my marriage (which they were).

Fersch: What do you have against frozen bagels made by robots, sweatpants? And do you really believe they could lead you to “getting [expletive] divorced”?

Rees: When I wrote this essay, my wife and I honestly were having problems in our marriage, most of which could be traced to my entropic, depressing attitude. I am pleased to say that things have much improved, and that these days I am getting out more, cooking and baking bread again, and trying to have a brighter outlook towards life. Also, I no longer wear sweatpants around the house! Most days I even go the extra mile and put on a collared shirt. I wish I could take credit for the line “Frozen bagels made by robots,” but that was a suggestion made by the editor of the book, Ben Karlin. He’s creative that way.

Fersch: What would you recommend to make sure they [other men] learn these valuable lessons that you never got to learn?

Rees: Read my essay over and over again, until its profound truths become second nature. Then, express their gratitude to me by depositing enormous sums of money into my bank account.

Interview with Dan Savage about “I Am a Gay Man”

Fersch: How does it feel to get dumped by a woman you seemingly were never going out with, especially when you don’t even like women? Ever happened with a guy since then? (Being dumped without ever really “dating” them, that is).

Savage: Well, we were sort of going out, and one of us had to do the dumping. Better her, I think. If I had dumped her it would’ve been taken as proof that I really wasn’t interested in [expletive], otherwise why would I dump Wendy? And the whole point of Wendy was convincing friends and family that I wasn’t gay, that I had a deep and burning desire for [expletive], so it simply wasn’t possible for me to dump her. So... man...if she hadn’t dumped me, there’s a chance I could still be with her to this day. Which would be a tragedy for all concerned.

I’ve never been dumped by a guy I wasn’t officially seeing. I have, however, been dumped by a guy that I was about to dump. I was like, “No, wait —not fair. I was so totally going to dump you!”

Fersch: If you already knew you were gay, what is it exactly that you learned from your multiple sexual encounters with Wendy and subsequent dumping?

Savage: That I could fake it, physically. But that I couldn’t fake it emotionally. I didn’t have the stomach for a life of Larry-Craig style deception.

Fersch: Do you prefer writing short stories or your column?

Savage: I really enjoyed working on that story. I’d love to write more of ‘em. But, man, I love writing my column —I have the best job in North America.

20 Cent does a ‘play’ on Hamlet

Ros and Guil may be dead, but 20 Cent Fiction is reborn

By Allison Reitz

If you’re like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, you may have difficulty remembering what you had for breakfast, much less anything that happened before Spring Break. But if you really concentrate, you may recall that 20 Cent Fiction staged a production of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz andGuildenstern Are Dead.”

The existential comedy follows the skewed philosophical musings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or is that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz?) as they try to glean what afflicts the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet. Though the two are barely competent enough to remember their names, they find themselves tackling much weightier subject matter: existence, mortality, and the meaning of it all.

Bill Levasseur and John Softcheck were brilliant as the title characters. Levasseur presented a delightfully silly and dim-witted Rosencrantz. His performance captured all the emotional nuances of the character — from sensitive to incensed, ridiculous to distressed.

Likewise, Softcheck mastered his role as the mentally superior side of the duo, Guildenstern. His performance was reminiscent of Ricky Gervais (“Extras”) in his ability to play the comedic straight man who is exasperated by ridiculous circumstances (and friends).

The casting was perfected with Megan Smith thrown into the mix as the devilish Player. She was dynamic on stage, especially in her interactions with the other players, as well as Ros and Guil. Smith conveyed her character well, complete with impish expressions and coquettish delivery of dialogue.

Levasseur, Softcheck and Smith showed a firm understanding and mastery of the often perplexing and dense dialogue. The actors’ ability to deliver even the most difficult dialogue with the correct tones and expressions made the performance accessible and comprehensible to the average audience member.

These strong performances sustained audience interest, despite the show’s almost three-hour runtime. Stoppard’s heavy subject matter can bog down at times, especially with little on-stage action, but all the actors kept their energy high and kept the show on track.

20 Cent also did well with the construction of their set and costumes. The stage designs were simple, yet made good use of on-stage space, allowing for some creative blocking of scenes. The costumes looked expertly done and fit the characters not only in body but in spirit, as well.

But beyond showing a firm command of weighty material and an ability to make it all visually appealing, 20 Cent’s production was impressive for another reason. The “alternative theatre” company has historically preferred vulgar and juvenile performances that fed the group’s reputation for being, well, trashy.

However, in choosing “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” the current members showed a sense of restraint and, dare I say it, good taste while reviving the group’s original sense of acerbic wit and dark humor. Kevin Bates was brave to direct such a formidable body of work, but it paid off — not only allowing Bates to attain a personal goal, but continuing to show the diversity and talent of 20 Cent’s members.

With an equally impressive dramatic performance lined up for May 8-11 (the blockbuster thriller “Wait Until Dark”), 20 Cent is already on its way to repairing a somewhat tarnished reputation and establishing itself as a true “alternative” for on-campus performances.