Fade to Black Presents:

Part III of III

Tell me about your one man show?

Jerusalem Syndrome. The mother of all one man shows. 

Jerusalem Syndrome is actually a rare psychological condition that occurs to some visitors to the Middle East. They get to Israel and just snap. They think they are a biblical character like Moses, Jesus, or Allah. Some think that they are in a direct communication with God on a one to one level. Some think that their being in the Middle East is one of the keys that unlocks the final unfolding or Armageddon as we call it. 

The premise of the show is that I've always had Jerusalem Syndrome. The show moves through the most cathartic periods of my life in the guise of a mystical and spiritual quest. From Jack Kerouac's grave and an early attempt at astral projection to the cocaine saturated Comedy Store Hollywood period in the late eighties during which I hear voices on to the Phillip Morris Factory and the corporate revelation of the spiritual faith of brand loyalty and ultimately to Israel where I get caught in the middle of a battle between good and evil which manifests itself as a struggle between my concept of God and my malfunctioning SONY camcorder. The show ends on an altar in the ancient city of Petra in the Jordanian desert. 

I originally improvised the entire show, which had its drawbacks. The original version, performed at PS122 last year at the Toyota Comedy festival, ran two hours and fifteen minutes. The show is comprised of personal stories and abstract paranoid manic insights into my own personal search for mystical insight. Over the last year I honed it down to an hour for the Aspen Comedy  Festival and now, after a year, I actually have a script.  

As a comic who often improvises on stage how difficult is it to do a one man show where you more or less have to stick the script? 

I created the script from actual transcripts of several improvised versions  of the show. There's always room for a bit of improvisation. I can't seem to help it. The script allows me to really hit certain beats and maintain a  certain lyrical language that I wouldn't do if I were just improvising. It  takes a discipline, which I innately avoid at all costs, so it's good for me. You know, the growth thing.  

What are you reading these days and is there one particular author who influenced your comedy the most? 

I just finished reading The Information Bomb by Paul Virilio and a book of  short stories by my friend Sam Lipsyte called Venus Drive. I like reading  anything by my friend Jack Boulware. My friend Devon Jackson's book  Conspiranoia is essential reading for all humans at this point in history. 

Literary Influences: William Burroughs, Baudelaire, Don Delillo, Terry  Southern, William Blake, Nick Tosches, Martin Buber, Robert Anton Wilson,  Hunter S. Thompson, H.L. Mencken, Bill Wilson and Rilke. 

You have always discussed drugs in your act. With the current "Just Say No" decade we are in and the passing of Timothy Leary and most recently Terence McKenna who have been outspoken about the positive aspects of drug use, do you see the pendulum swinging the other way? Do you think as society we will be able to seriously discuss the possible positive effects of hallucinogens in the near future? 

I'm not completely sure we aren't all living in a hallucination now. I'm sad to see the passing of the great drug warriors. I certainly did my part in that battle and I don't regret any of it. It seems people are more willing to let other people control their minds now and recreational drug use doesn't seem to have that same renegade sense of adventure that it once did. There were a lot of casualties. Things change and drugs change. The Internet has usurped the collective unconscious and access to cosmic consciousness has become difficult and almost primitive. It seems that the drugs have become more focused in their applications and less romanticized. I don't know if that discussion will ever be relevant again.  

Do you think we are evolving as a species?

The next evolutionary step is into the screen.     

Continue

[ Home ] [ Part I ]  [ Part II ]  [ Part III ] 
[ Related Links ] [Return to F2B Interviews ]