RE: RAT COLUMBINE

["Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com>]

I knew it! 

I should have said "scary, challenging and wierd".

All I'm saying is I like it when intelligent people say things I don't agree
with. I didn't like what Aileen said because it seemed to justify homocide
which I am always against. But there is a truth to what she says also. A
truth that, because it will never be said on The Today Show, because it
makes me uncomfortable, is....challenging and scary. 

When someone expresses something challenging and scary people will shoot
them down. They may be wrong. But I want to hear it. If we don't go down the
road less travelled who will.

Now I'm rambling with no coherent point. You like that better?

When I was going to college we had these shanty town protests against South
Africa on campus. The campus radicals lived in these shacks outside of the
presidents office and they protested and stuff. One time they followed the
tresurer of the University home and threw rocks at him.

They threw rocks at the treasurer of the board of a University that has some
of its money invested in some companies that do some business in South
Africa which had some policies that were racist.

Not mature, not rational, not fair and not something that I supported.

Then at graduation, the speaker, Strobe Talbot, addressed this issue. He
said "When I was here we protested against Viet Nam. We were partly right
but we weren't completely right." He was commenting on the self
righteousness of the Apartheid protesters. A lot of my friends bought it but
not me.  I'm not a radical and I think to be a radical you have to shut down
your rationality. Its stupid to a certain degree. Yet, at the same time ONLY
through radical attacks on the status quo does the status quo change. Only
because there were people willing to die for racial equality in this country
do we have what little we have today. 

Strobe Talbot was saying: "Don't be too radical, you'll look silly and
you'll regret it when you're older."

I say "Fuck you old man, let the kids be radical. What do you think stopped
the Viet Nam war? Why was Nelson Mandela president three or four years
later? Because reasonable people quietly did the reasonable thing? I don't
think so.

Why does a writer write? Why does an actor act? Why do we start these crazy
never-make-any-money-take-up-all-your-time organizations. Because we're
reasonable people quietly doing the reasonable thing?

"It's that very knee-jerk, rah-rah, fuck'em-all
attitude that makes most alternative theatre so
boring, boorish and irrelevant."

No, its thinking that the fuck'em-all attitude is all you need that makes
alternative theater so boring, boorish and irrelevant. Good acting, good
direction, good writing and good design is important too. But if I didn't
have a little bit of a fuck'em-all attitude mixed in with my profound,
unconscious desire to be looked at and liked (hell I'm being honest here!)
than I certainly could find some easier ways to spend my evenings.

Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry and make 'em think. Its most effective in that
order.

Notice that Make 'em uncomfortable and Make 'em feel guilty and Make 'em
hate you is not on that list. Neither is Make 'em bored, Make 'em look at an
ugly set or Make 'em squint. You can do those things but its been done and
the charm has worn off.

Aileen made me think. She also made me uncomfortable. But I'm not a paying
audience member so its okay. Maybe someone can take the debate here and turn
it into something that will make'em do all the good things and make'em think
and so on.  

That's why I said its about time. 

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Audie McCall [SMTP:audiemccall@yahoo.com]
> Sent:	Friday, April 23, 1999 12:45 PM
> To:	rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> Subject:	RE: RAT COLUMBINE
> 
> --- "Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com> wrote:
> > The turn that this thread has taken is disturbing,
> > offensive and
> > disrespectful.
> > 
> > Its about time.
> 
> Oh, come on, Johnny.  What the hell does that mean? 
> Please tell me you can do more (for I know full well
> you can) than praise the "disturbing, offensive and
> disrespectful" for their own sake.
> 
> It's that very knee-jerk, rah-rah, fuck'em-all
> attitude that makes most alternative theatre so
> boring, boorish and irrelevant.
> 
> Personally, I like your thoughts better when you
> ramble on and on and on.  It's kinda fun to search for
> the needle-like insights in the haystack.  
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