Bitter Honey: Underperformed and Neverperformed Bogosiana

Okay folks, get ready:

Eric will be reading extremely RARE material, so rare you have never heard it before, as a benefit forLAByrinth Theater company! Two nights only!

LAByrinth Theater Company
presents
A Benefit Reading by
ERIC BOGOSIAN
BITTER HONEY
Underperformed & Neverperformed Bogosiana


Eric Bogosian will read monologues that you've never heard.



His underperformed material is from This is Now!, a collaboration with Elliot Sharp, which has only been heard twice.



His neverperformed material was cut from early versions of the solo shows Sex, Drugs & Rock & Roll, Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead, and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee -- but these monologues can't remain unheard any longer.



He's neverperformed them before. He may neverperform them again. Buytickets now.




All proceeds go to LAByrinth Theater Company: "What theater could be, should be and will be. A company that is deeply devoted to their craft and to one another. It doesn't get any better than LAB," Eric Bogosian, LAByrinth Company Member since 2005.



TO BUY TICKETS:
PHONE: 212 513 1012
ONLINE: http://www. LABtheater. org (on sale monday may 5th)

Two Nights Only
May 21 & 22, 2008 at 8pm

General Admission -- $25
Unreserved seating.



Sweet Seats -- $125
Get the best seats and support LAByrinth.


Guarantee yourself reserved seating and tote home a swag bag, filled with an autographed playbill, a Bitter Honey poster, an archival DVD of Sex, Drugs & Rock & Roll, and more ($100 is tax-deductible).



A limited number of $25 Rush Tickets will be available for purchase 1 hour prior to each performance. Cash only. Limit 2 per person.



Please note: tickets are only available directly from LAByrinth Theater Company, NOT from our hosts at The Public Theater Box Office.



Performing in The Anspacher Hall at
The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (by Astor Place )
May 21 and 22, at 8pm

See you there! And hold on to your hats for more happenings later this summer.



Bogosiana Forever,
Nikole
The sweet & sour assistant

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a letter from eric

Dear Myspace Friends,

Thank you so much for your emails, especially those
that pertain to CI, since I don't read the official
blogs and I like the fact that someone out there
notices "Danny Ross." I like Danny, I like playing
Danny and the CI set is much fun with a great bunch
of actors and crew.

Currently I am in final edits on a new novel (simon &
schuster) that will appear in your bookstores,
hopefully, next January. I am very very happy with
this book.

Also, recently got the good news that a new play of
mine, "1+1" will be part of the New York Stage & Film
summer series at Vassar.

We return to shooting Law & Order at the end of the
month. Again, thanks for the input. I appreciate it.
Continue to do good work out there and have fun.

Yours - E

11:31 AM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

31 Ejaculations No.8- No.10 (Salon.com June 2000)

31 Ejaculations: No. 8
If kissing was like sailing on a silken sea, this was like burning rubber in the Indy 500.

By Eric Bogosian

June 12, 2000 | It could've been something more romantic -- windowpane, mushrooms, even "Strawberry Fields" -- but it wasn't. It was some run-of-the-mill, ugly purple stuff that looked like a miniature lump of Play-Doh. "Purple barrels." But it was acid, all right. And it worked. Just taking the shit was like going up the big hill on the roller coaster. Clickety-clack, up we go! Once we go over the top, who knows? Over the top and down the rabbit hole, past the point of no return. Anything was possible. You could fly. You could lose your mind. You could enter another dimension. The adrenaline hit the system and the mouth went dry and the knees buckled and down you fell.

B. and I spent so much time hanging around, waiting for the LSD to lock onto our neural receptors, we forgot to fuck. But not completely. We kind of sailed off the edge of the universe, dropped down into Wonderland and then started to kiss. That felt good. It felt like a dream kiss, like instead of something prefatory, we were in the thing itself -- the kissing. That was all we had to do, forever. This mouth, I had never tasted anything so good. So amazing. If the Grand Canyon were made of wet rock candy, it wouldn't be this good. So we kissed, for what seemed like years. My arms and legs were foreign countries. Colors. Trails. Anything more specific than "I am in a room, on a bed, kissing" was an impossible thought.

But then she must have touched me. Or we got the amazing idea: "Let's take our clothes off!" What an exciting, revolutionary concept! So we did that. Now skin was touching skin. If kissing was like sailing on a silken sea, this was like burning rubber in the Indy 500. Sparkles and sparks ran over every trippy square inch of dermic geography. And even though I had no idea where my prick was, where she was, where my mind was, I was/am consumed in this nuclear bomb of color and orgasm. Yes, orgasm, every stroke is an orgasm. And now I'm coming. Overhead the fireworks are blossoming and beside me rides the entire regiment. We're on horses charging down into the valley. GERONIMO!!!
------------------------------------------------------------

No. 9
I felt like my body was filled with neon and she was lighting me up.


June 13, 2000 | I guess I grew up with only one way of thinking about sex: "Make the first move." Kind of like laying siege to a castle or something. The girl is supposed to act like she doesn't really want to and then you've got to convince her that she does. Or the girl has to act a little shy or something. And you have to prove yourself to her. And then she gets into it.

But this was different. I was standing there in the middle of the room, we had spent all day together and had ended up back at her place near Venice Beach and I was in a nothing, mellow frame of mind. We knew we liked each other a lot -- it was just a matter of "when." So I wasn't thinking about anything, was actually thinking about taking a piss, when she pushed me up against a wall and kissed me. Not aggressively, more like absorbing me into her aura, surrounding me with herself. The sun was setting and everything was getting dim, and in the gloom all I could see were her eyes glittering. And then she just smiled and moved in on me and I let go. I let her. I felt like my body was filled with neon and she was lighting me up.

We fell into this thing together, except we didn't tear each other's clothes off. No. We didn't fall into bed. We didn't do anything more than kiss. We just stayed in that space for a long time. And then her boyfriend showed up, so we never did have sex. I didn't come. But it was the most intense sexual experience I've ever had.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. 10
A part of my body is inside her body.

June 14, 2000 | When I lost my virginity I didn't have an orgasm. I got nervous because I kept thinking my mom was coming home. We were in my folks' house; we had nowhere else to go. I kept thinking I could hear a car in the driveway. So Naomi and I, we're kind of struggling around on my parents' bed, on this kind of slippery shiny material, and I'm thinking, so this is what a girl feels like. But I'm kind of numb because I know my mom is coming home from the mall any minute. I'm wondering, will she be able to tell we did it on her bedspread? I glance up and our Savior is looking down on me, all white and tortured on a wooden cross over the headboard. I look to my right and my grandma's sepia-tinted picture is on the nightstand next to the ashtray I made for Mom in seventh-grade pottery class. (Mom didn't even smoke!) And in the midst of all this, my girlfriend, who is a kind of alien in this environment, is nude and having sex with me. A part of my body is inside her body. Which felt completely abnormal and definitely was not something I should have been doing at this place in time. So I didn't come. I faked it.

9:02 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

31 Ejaculations No. 6 & No. 7 (Salon.com June 2000)

31 Ejaculations: No. 6
Coming is dying. Dogs come. Flies come. It is an end. Instead, let's stay here awhile.

By Eric Bogosian
June 8, 2000

All men think about sex all the time. But very few men really want to have sex. It's too much trouble. Men like to come, and they like to fantasize about screwing, and they like to brag about conquests, but they don't actually like engaging in the act. It has nothing to do with romance. Romance is some construct men made up because it makes them feel secure. Women like romance, but they also like the chaos of real sex. They want to walk on the wild side. They want their bottoms licked and their toes tickled, their nipples bit and their muffs ruffled. In other words, they want pure sex, which is too much trouble for most men. Maybe it's because men don't have that part of the brain that's the really intelligent part. The part that says loving is better than fighting. Given a choice, men will kill each other every time. Which obviously isn't logical. Women, on the other hand, are conceptual beings. They are wise. They see into the future. They see into the "now." In fact, a concept can turn them on as much as or more than anything else. That is why they like all the fooling around. Coming? Coming is dying. Dogs come. Flies come. It is an end. Instead, let's stay here awhile. Let's linger in life.

So there was this widow, she was very lusty because her husband had died a couple of years back and she had pretty much got over mourning. I had tea with her. And she was telling me how guilty she felt that she was so horny. And I said, fine, you don't have to feel guilty, I promise you we will just kiss. And that is what we did. Not hard, not intensely, but in a schoolyard, behind-the-fence kind of way. We "made out." On and on, for a long time. All over her body. And she started to shake after about 45 minutes of this. She wanted to break the vow. She wanted me to go further. Because by this point we were completely naked like little babies and everything had been kissed and touched and smoothed and stroked so we were feeling very comfortable with one another. Pretty high actually. But the last thing had not happened. And she was burning like a hot water bottle. Because I had made a promise. And I kept it. She became really excited, got out of control and raped me.

I know it doesn't seem possible that a woman can rape a man but it happened. As I came into her, she blushed, first from her face and then all over her body. And then she relaxed. It was like a big bell of joy clanging.

31 Ejaculations: No. 7
All of a sudden this guy with long hair, long as a girl's, is walking toward me, and I knew what was going to happen.

By Eric Bogosian
June 9, 2000

I would hide these muscle magazines under my bed. My mother wanted to know why I had the muscle magazines and I'd say, "I want to be muscular." Which kind of made sense because I was very skinny.
And one day I was walking around in Greenwich Village, in the late '60s. Actually, I was hanging around because I wanted to find a hippie. I thought hippies were cool and Greenwich Village was where they hung out.

So I'm just walking around these little streets. I had no idea where I was. I had gone to Washington Square Park, no hippies there, so I find myself walking down this street, turns out to be Christopher Street. All of a sudden, this guy with long hair, long as a girl's, is walking toward me.

And he's looking me right in the eyes. My nipples felt like someone was pinching them. He said hello to me, I said hello to him. Then I think he said something like, "Nice day for something." Which I didn't quite understand at the time. But I said "Yeah, it is." So then he asked me if I was thirsty. And I thought, that's a weird question, why is this guy who I don't even know asking me if I'm thirsty? But in a way, I didn't care because he was so cute! He looked just like the guy on "Mod Squad" except he had straight hair. Long straight hair and a headband. A genuine 100 percent hippie. Yeah, he was into free love all right.

My heart was racing because I knew what was going to happen. I knew and I didn't know, at the same time. I was into denial basically. So we go into this bar ... I'm 17, but I could pass for 18. So I order a beer. And before the beer even comes, he's like, "Come here." And I follow him, we go into this back room and there's a men's room back there. I remember thinking how clean everything was. So I'm like, "What?" and he's "Shhh" and then he kisses me. And like, I'd been on two dates in high school and no girl ever kissed me like that.

Tongue in my mouth, wow! Then he starts unbuttoning my shirt ... down to my pants, undoes my belt buckle, opens my fly and as they say, SCHWING! I'm ready. I'd been ready for years.

He got on his knees and put my thing in his mouth and it was like on "Star Trek," when they go, "Beam me up, Scotty!" I was BEAMED! And, uh, I guess that was when I realized the truth.

The weird thing is I think my whole family already knew. Like my dad, ever since I was 6 years old every time he saw me he would ask me: "You have a girlfriend yet?" Back when I was 6 I would just say, "Oh, Dad!" and leave it at that. But ever since I started shaving he had been getting kind of insistent and angry about it. And then he stopped asking.

So anyway, this hippie, whose name I didn't even know, sucked me off, I blew my load and like they say, it was the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius."

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31 Ejaculations No. 4 & No. 5 (Salon.com June 2000)

31 Ejaculations: No. 4
Her skin and her hair were like something you could eat.

By Eric Bogosian
June 6, 2000

We were hiking I guess. Along this stream that cuts through this part of the New Hampshire hills. Water's probably flowed here for thousands of years, maybe millions. All I know is that the stream is banked with sand and lots of little round stones about the size of cherries. I said, "Why don't we stop and just take it all in?" So we did. I pulled out a joint and lit it. She took a little toke, but she never really liked pot. I did. I liked it a lot. The sunshine turned into this warm invisible syrup flowing over me. And then I smelled her. She was always so clean. Her skin and her hair were like something you could eat. I was suddenly so stoned and I looked over at her and she was giving me one of those hippie smiles that said, come on, finish the joint and let's snuggle and kiss. I pushed the joint into the sand, pulled her to me and licked her lips. Hmmmn. It was like I was coming already. Everything was so nice, better than nice. And we just did it on the bank of the stream, the smell of the water and the woods and the sand and her body all mingling together, both of us naked in the sunshine. Of course, afterward we had sand all over us and I guess the pebbles weren't the most comfortable thing in the world. I dunno. Laughing, we splashed the freezing water onto goose-pimpled skin. Then we drank some and it felt so good.

No. 5
I don't know what you call what I am
June 7, 2000

I don't know what you call what I am; I think some people have names for it. All I know is I am who I am. Like last weekend. I walk into the party, smile at someone I kind of know and then scan the women there. I can walk into a party anywhere and find people like me in minutes. We know who we are. People who don't know anything about us think that the women with the low-cut halters and the red lipstick are part of our clan, but far from it. No. People like me stay hidden. But we know each other. I just let my eyes meet the eyes out there and in minutes I know. I "see" her and she "sees" me.

This one last weekend is in a way typical. Petite. Brunet. Really cute with big eyes. Nice breasts, very round. Hiding in a corner reading magazines. I know women who are one of us have to be very careful. They don't want to mix with amateurs; they only want me and my ilk. They don't want stories being told about them around the water cooler on Monday. Nah-uh. They just want to do the deed. And so we find each other. I found her. She was flipping through a copy of the Economist, nibbling on a crab cake.

I said, "Those crab cakes are amazing, aren't they?" And she knew. She looked up, said nothing, just smiled. The next step is usually "Where?" And we're out the door, usually separately. But we find each other. We do. In a stairwell, on a rooftop, in a car. And that's all we want.

The crab cake girl and I actually went back to her place. Her teeth chattered when she came. I guess I'm supposed to be ashamed about the way I live. But like this girl last weekend said, "Dance or get off the floor. Life is too short."

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31 Ejaculations (1-3: Three snapshots of sexual encounters) Salon.com June 2000

31 Ejaculations was written By Eric Bogosian for Salon.com in 2000

(I will be posting them in sections, but before i post the first few, here is the intro and a complete list of all you have to look forward to...)

First of all, if you are a kid or you're offended by graphic descriptions of sex, please don't read these pieces.


I'm not going to try to explain what I'm getting at here, because if you don't get it, there's no point. But I'm not trying to shock or disgust anybody and if it isn't your cup of tea, just stop reading.

I believe that God made sex as a kind of unsolvable Rubik's cube so that we could have something to do while we're killing time here on Earth. So on these pages I present you with a few twists of the cube from my perspective.

I put the first version of these together for a performance at Saint Mark's Poetry Project about four years ago. They are fiction. I have substantially revised them for this Salon project.

The dictionary defines an ejaculation as: "e-jac-u-la-tion n. 1.an abrupt, exclamatory utterance. 2. the act or process of ejaculating, esp. the discharge of semen." (from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language). In case you wanted to know.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Complete list

Nos. 1-3: Three snapshots of sexual encounters.

No. 4: Her skin and her hair were like something you could eat.

No. 5: I don't know what you call what I am.

No. 6: Coming is dying. Dogs come. Flies come. It is an end. Instead, let's stay here awhile.

No. 7: All of a sudden this guy with long hair, long as a girl's, is walking toward me, and I knew what was going to happen.

No. 8: If kissing was like sailing on a silken sea, this was like burning rubber in the Indy 500.

No. 9: I felt like my body was filled with neon and she was lighting me up.

No. 10: A part of my body is inside her body.

No. 11: Just the two of you wandering in your own secret garden where no one else is allowed in.

No. 12: Red lipstick, olive skin, smoking a Parliament.

No. 13: I get up in the morning and my balls are so blue I almost can't walk.

No. 14: Me and Betty and Veronica from the Archie Comics were hanging out.

No. 15: I came and she went.

No. 16: I knew she was wearing a thong. And she knew I knew it.

No. 17: Of course my stoned little dirty mind is fibrillating with the naughtiness of the whole thing.

No. 18: I just get hard the minute they screw the metal clamps around my penis.

No. 19: I know the woman across the way sits in the darkness of her place and watches me.

No. 20: It's not that long, only about 6 or so inches, but it's got the dimensions of a Pepsi can.

No. 21: The film of sweat makes the electricity between us tingle.

No. 22: It's so much like coming, you don't have to come anymore.

No. 23: It's just because my cool is beyond sex.

No. 24: In the big world I'm small, but here I'm big.

No. 25: I walk in. Everybody's naked. I can do this.

No. 26: If I take my eyes off the TV, I might die.

No. 27: The first thing I did was lick her.

No. 28: Redheads are always a little crazy.

No. 29: She was the ur-woman in my life, and when she came to me now, I would finally be happy.

No. 30: It's like Paul Newman said ...

No. 31: This is good -- let's pause for a while.

No.1
Hair spreading all over the place like seaweed underwater. Skin hot. Breath. And, what? Is that perfume? Pillow. Sheet. Sheet around my foot. In. In. In. Yeah. OK. She just said something? "What?" "Huh?" "What did you just say?" "Do that." What did I do? "What?" "Hold my butt like that." Hold her ass. Smooth. No muscles, well, kind of muscles. Just right. Soft. I like soft, must be why I'm heterosexual, men don't have asses like this. Ohhh, shit, not yet, don't ... Sheet's around my foot. Shake it off. Shake off. Fucking sheet. In. In. In. Keep it going there, champ! Fucking, sheet. There! It's off. Cramp. Owwww! Shit! Is she coming? What was that? Oh, she's talking to me. "What's a matter?" "Nothing, just a cramp." "A cramp? Where?" "Shhhh, it's OK." "You want...?" "Shhhh." In. In. In. In. Oh yeah. She must think I'm a jerk. How can I be thinking about this? In. In. Well, she likes me cause I'm kind of jerky. That turns her on. I'm unthreatening. Not a pig asshole like her ex-husband. If only she knew what I was really thinking. What am I thinking? Why am I thinking? Ohhh, here it comes. This is good. This is a good one. It's gonna be a good one. Oh yeah!!!! She smells good. I smell her pits. Good. Hold her hands over her head. Does she think this is kinky? Oh, wow, I can smell her ass on my fingers. Not bad. In. In. In. Bite her nipples. Like little erasers. And how cliched is that? Forget it, just enjoy the damn things you fuckwit! In. In. In. I wonder if she likes this? She just said "Oh." She likes it. Oh, she's moving faster. All right. Let's go. Rocky Mountain sleigh ride. Where did that come from? Maybe endorphins make you think different things than usual? Maybe I should slow down, let her do the work. Wow, where did that ripple of pleasure come from? Man! Fuck oh, oh, hair, sweat, breath, hair sweat, my eyes are closed. God she feels good. She feels the best. My eyes are open, her little soft ear, the pillow, what time is it? What difference what time is it! Why do you always think about things when you're fucking? No one else thinks about things like "What time is it?" Oh, shit, what was that? Is that her finger? Her finger is in my asshole. Am I up for this? Oh, no, here it comes. She's coming. Yes. She did. She is. My eyes are closed. Oh God, this is intense. I'm yours baby, I'm all yours. Let's fall, let's fall. I'm swimming. I'm swimming. I'm falling. My skin is on fire. Oh no, here I go, she's biting me. I'm going, here I go, I'm going, now, uh-huh, oh shit. I just said "oh shit." Wait. In. In. In. Not yet. Here we go. Here we go little girl. Here we go little lady. You're getting fucked and I'm fucking you. Over the edge, uh-huh. All of you. You belong to me, all of you. All ... you ... naked ... fucking ... inside ... oh shit. OH SHIT... la-la-la-la-la ... OH JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN FUCK FUCK FUCK ... I'm coming ... good-bye.

No.2
Me and Randy used to talk to each other about once a week. She was the receptionist at my accountant's office. Somewhere in Long Island. But I think she came from New Jersey. "Hey, how's it going?" "Great, how's it goin' with you?" I didn't have a clue what she looked like, but what a voice! Low, with a big smile. "Great, great. You know." "Yeah." "What'd you do this weekend?" "Nothing, you know, stayed in." "What about your boyfriend? I bet he came over." "Get outta here, I'll get Ron for you." This goes on for months. I'm always asking her about her boyfriend, after awhile she starts calling me her boyfriend, joking you know? I mean I'm married. It's not like we're gonna get together. I'm wondering what she looks like, ask my accountant. And he's like, "Oh, very cute. Very sweet. I thought you were married?" So that ends that conversation. So now I'm her boyfriend, and I keep flirting with her. "What are you wearing?" "This mohair sweater." "Yeah? And what's under that?" Like where do I get off asking her this shit? "And under that?" She's laughing like I'm the funniest guy she's ever met. It's all a joke. Next thing I know she's asking me what I'm wearing. Somehow she starts asking about my dick. And it's like, I can play this game, sure. We're just joking. So I start telling her how big my dick is and how hard it is and stuff. And we're laughing harder and harder. It's like the Howard Stern show on the phone. Obviously she's bored out of her brains in that office. And then it happened. Somehow I started asking her about her pussy and whether it was wet and then what I was gonna do to it and stuff and somehow we started fucking, right there on the phone. It was like the end of the day and each of us was all alone. Maybe we had been planning this all along. Who knows? But we did it. I came, that's for sure. And she sure sounded like she did. It was pretty amazing actually. Real "safe sex."

No.3
She entered my office smelling of aromatic soap and powder wearing layers and layers of clothes. Thick wools sandwiched silk with leather and fur. The effect was an expensive package, waiting to be opened. I knew what was underneath; she was my patient. I had examined her many times.

But today was different because today she had her 14-year-old daughter with her. I'm a medical professional by trade, not a teacher, but I've been around long enough that I instantly recognize certain "situations." Mother, daughter. Doctor's office. Of course, she wanted her pubescent child taught the facts of life in the most explicit manner possible.

But I explained to this perfectly shorn, perfectly dressed, powdered and perfumed pillar of up-market society that much as I'd like to be of service, as much as I'd like to bang her tight little daughter right there on top of my examining table (because I knew that was what she wanted me to do), such behavior was strictly against my mandated professional ethics -- not to mention the law. No, I cannot "do" your sweet little daughter. I have a practice to protect.

This "Vanity Fair" subscriber, Starbucks imbiber, dauber of Estee Lauder, owner of Volvos and Cuisinarts, didn't protest. She simply touched her daughter's shoulder and turned crestfallen for the door. My God, I thought to myself, have some pity!!! Her life isn't easy. That private school is so expensive, and so is that Donna Karan suit and that trip to St. Barts. Cut her some slack. Give her a break. Do something.

"Wait" I said. "Don't go. Maybe I can help."

She turned, the coolness of her eyes shading into warm hope.

Her daughter watched me warily from the corner of the examining room as I took her mother's hand and led her to the paper-covered table. "Lie down and loosen your clothes," I said with gentle firmness.

Some women taste like fruit, some women taste like a freshly opened oyster. Mother had obviously been in heat for some time, because when I tugged her lace panties down over her knees, I was instantly wrapped in the aura of love. The cloth over the crotch of my Gap 501's (I'm a very casual doctor) stretched to drum tautness.

I took off my glasses, gently separated her knees and lowered my face into her muff. My tongue danced over and into her wet sluice, her belly bounced as I moved my hands up to cup her breasts. In moments she was moaning "Yes! Yes!"

I looked over toward the corner where the daughter stood, her eyes wide with excitement, her mouth slightly open, forming inaudible words. Suddenly I realized how beautiful this girl was. Like some pre-Raphaelite nymph. And I thought, "We're on this earth for such a short time. So I lose my license? Fuck it." I beckoned to her: "Yes, yes, come here. I'll have you both. That's it, slide out of those nasty clothes like a good girl and come to Doctor. That's it, now..."

OH! OH! OH! SHIT! DAMN! MAN!!!!! Phew. Where's the fuckin' Kleenex

11:56 AM - 2 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

IN MEMORIAM, ROBERT ALTMAN

I worked with Bob Altman on the TV movie version of "The Caine Mutiny Court Marshall" in the fall of 1987. I played Lieutenant Greenberg alongside Jeff Daniels, Peter Gallagher, Michael Murphy and the late Brad Davis. I had just come off a four month run as "Barry Champlain" in "Talk Radio" at the Public Theater and soon would be making the film, although I didn't know that at the time.

Bob was a tremendous presence with whom to work. My previous experience had been with Larry Cohen on a low budget film called "Special Effects". Larry was known for his previous films "It's Alive!" and "Q" and others which he had written and directed. This was a few years before the "independent film" movement arrived in full force. Larry would script the films (he's a successful screenwriter in Hollywood), throw in about four hundred thousand of his own money and direct and distribute on his own. This was a totally non-union film with very long hours and a dangerous set and a very unorthodox director. Larry would expect us to work as long as 23 hours straight, expect me to do my own stunts. Larry was fun in his insane way but when we finished shooting I signed up with SAG ASAP. No more stuntwork for me.

With that experience under my belt, I was invited to star as Lt. Barney Greenberg in "Caine Mutiny". Working with Robert Altman meant I would be working with one of my film heroes. I was pretty green when I got to set in Port Townsend, Washington (on the Puget Sound). Fortunately Jeff Daniels and Peter Gallagher took me under their wing. They also kicked my ass. I was very full of myself at the time, thought I needed to give everyone "notes" on what they were doing. They set me straight.

Bob was only interested in one thing from his actors: truth. He wanted us to do what felt right. In that way he was a behavioristic director, always encouraging the actors to inhabit the role. He didn't want anything to get in the way. He didn't want marks on the floor, he didn't want pre-set blocking. He told his camera team it was their job to capture what we were doing.





Bob said one thing to me at the time and I live by his words: "Life is too short to make anything I don't want to make." At the time, Bob was reaping the rewards of doing what he loved but in a bad way. He was shooting television movies because he had been essentially blackballed out of the film business. He had been blackballed for screwing with the studios, particularly on "Buffalo Bill and the Indians". Following that film with an extremely self-indulgent "Three Women" and the non-starter "Popeye" assured his exile to movie Siberia.

Now that he's dead, everyone pays lip service to how much he was respected and revered, but by the mid-nineteen-eighties, Bob was not having an easy time finding work. Perhaps he never did. The story goes that they tried to fire him off the M.A.S.H. set. But a few years after we did "Caine Mutiny" he directed "The Player" and "Short Cuts" and he was back in the game. He was a gambler from way back.

When Bob died, the pundits wrote their requisite articles summing up his life. They discussed his "successes" and "failures" but of course for Bob Altman, all his films were successes, because he was not looking at his work from a
critic's perspective, he was not looking at his work from the "outside in." Once he was in the swing of making films, he made films from the inside out. His signature style was a function of the process of his method, his playfulness, he wove his curiosity into the very fabric of his films.

Altman may have been ornery, but he took risks. Taking risks takes guts and it takes faith. Work made from a vantage of fear results in conservative work. Fascists are fearful, they depend on "shock and awe" to make an impression. They cannot make courageous work because they have no faith in what they're doing. Bob was a revolutionary. Unlike controlling (anal) artists, a revolutionary steps into fear. Bob was thrilled by the unknown. He didn't worry about the results, (although he had faith that he would always end up with something worth watching), because he was facinated by the process.





Critics have a fascist curve in their spine because they view and comment on art from an outside perspective. They tend to disregard process as a valid part of artmaking because they have to focus on box office and numbers. (If they don't, they will soon be standing in the unemployment line.) (Did you just utter the name "Pauline Kael"? That was a long time ago.) "Numbers" are intrinsically fascist because they reduce art to quantity.

At best, critics recognize a successful art gesture because it reminds them of something that was successful in the past. That's why most of the things critics laud have a very short shelf life. The work is not actually original, it just looks like something else that was original. Once.

The critics need to annoint artists like Altman "geniuses" because they can't understand them or their process. By labeling something a work of "genius", the critic, as a spokesperson for the status quo, can undercut the communal nature of the art enterprise. The idea of "genius" is decadent because it is romantic. Capitalist society reveres the notion of genius because it is the greatest manifestation of the "individual." Art for centuries and centuries was a communal enterprise. Now we are meant to be on the look-out for "genius." But true genius cannot be seen (from outside) it can only be experienced. To label Altman a genius is to try to circumvent his active collecting of actors and writers and camera people.

The only people Bob didn't like were the producers. He had no time for them. He told me that he employed the moving camera/contiuous shots so that once he had the take he liked it would be uneditable by the powers-that-be. (Standard master/close-up edits can always be re-edited by the producer. Long takes pretty much can't be.)

A group enterprise, this was the Altman game. On location. he showed dailies to his cast and crew every day. He and his wife Kat threw a party at least once a week to bring the cast and crew together, so we could eat and enjoy one another's company. I visited him when he was editing "Short Cuts". This was still in the old Steenbeck days, when





cutting film meant physically cutting film. He had three Steenbeck's running simultaneously and played the edits with his editors like Bach at a cathedral organ.

Of course had Robert Altman's films never made money, the critics who are attempting a post-mortem dissection would have no use for him now. But they did. And they extended beyond that. They provided a window into the working method of a true revolutionary.

As it turns out, though Bob said "life is too short", his life was long. His last words to me, two years ago, was "Being old sucks." He made that statement at a premiere for his latest work. He never stopped working, because he wasn't trying to prove anything. He was simply living the best way he knew how.

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY interview with Eric: Oct. 2006

Eric Bogosian on moving back into ''subUrbia.'' The actor-writer tells EW's Aubry Anne D'Arminio about his revived play's relevance in 2006, how he writes, and his role on ''L&O''

You thought Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead sounded rough. At age 53, Eric Bogosian has just entered one of the busiest seasons of his career: His play subUrbia is back Off Broadway; a revival of Talk Radio, starring Liev Schreiber, hits Broadway in February; and Bogosian is currently livening up Law and Order: Criminal Intent as the team's new captain. The actor-playwright took a breather talk to EW.com about multitasking.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You started writing subUrbia in 1986, then the play and the movie were produced in the mid-'90s. How does it connect in 2006?

ERIC BOGOSIAN: I don't think that things have changed so much. There is this reality of the world you live in: with your family, your friends, and your workplace. And then there is this other world where all the celebrities live, where they make movies, TV shows, recorded music. It's all very exciting-looking, even more so today. We have people like Paris Hilton, who actually have no discernable talents, but because they live in that world they're fascinating to somebody. But not to me .. I actually made a movie [2003's Wonderland] with Paris years ago.

EW: Who are these kids in subUrbia, hanging around outside a 7-Eleven?

EB: They're young people who have aspirations to move beyond the limits of their small town, yet they do not really have the information they need in order to do that. I work with young city kids, and you'll get guys who are 20 years old and they've just gotten out of jail. You ask them what they're gonna do with their life and they say they are gonna be a hip-hop recording star. Everybody can't be a hip-hop recording star; in fact, very few people can. And so, where does that lead you?

EW: They're confused. And then you say they become conservative.

EB: There is a short interchange [in subUrbia] between Jeff and his girlfriend when he says, ''Idealism is guilty, middle-class bulls---,'' and she says ''Cynicism is bulls---.'' It's hard to maintain an open and engaged relationship with the world if you're being shut down, and in some ways that creates conservatism. These guys, who are about 20 .. up to this point everything has sort of been figured out for them. Including that they are going to college. Then you get there and it starts to fall apart. It's like, ''This isn't what I thought it was going to be. So now what do I do?'' There is no plan B for a lot of people .. therefore, you're a loser. If you're not toeing the line with this sort of step-by-step approach, then you're some kind of loser, which I don't agree with.

EW:The women in subUrbia are actually more open-minded, and the men are the ones closing into themselves.

EB: Well, I think women are smarter than men. So I suppose I wasn't consciously understanding what I was doing. The most affable character in the play is Buff [now played by Kieran Culkin], and he doesn't have any concern for his fellow man. The person who ends up in the most tragic circumstances is Bee-Bee [Halley Feiffer], and she does more for other people than any of them do. I think [women] are more empathetic and just generally better people. I like women; I don't like men.

EW: What about Barry Champlain, your character in Talk Radio?

EB: Well, I am a man. I have to live with all the contradictions built into being a man and Barry is part of that.

EW: Tell me a little about how you work as a playwright. Do you write for character, or for dialogue?

EB: I have to find characters who are at the cross hairs of something I'm interested in. In the case of Barry, he has this tremendous need to be appreciated and he's found this way to do it, and as a result he's getting into quicksand. So from there I can step off. As far as writing dialogue or monologue, I just write and write and write and write and write, and then I edit. There may be some writers who on the first pass get what they want. I'm pretty much at, well .. 50 to 60 to 70 percent of what I write has to be thrown out before the finished project.

EW: What kind of theater are you drawn to?

EB: I saw two plays this year that I liked very much .. one was very old and one was very new. Goethe's Faust, Part I, which they did at CSC [New York's Classic Stage Company], was incredible. The new play was Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp and I loved that too. I stayed interested. I think all I really want to do is stay interested. Theater is an event, so when you write for theater you've got to keep the event exciting, otherwise you're just writing words. And if it was just about words, you could read it. That's the secret of successful theater.

EW: How did you end up on television?

EB: I'm a theater person, but I grew up on TV and I've always liked movies. I don't watch a lot of TV now, but if I do, I watch shows that emphasize acting .. very chew-the-scenery-type acting, because that's what I love.... The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire.

EW: And Law & Order?

EB: The tradition of Law & Order is part of that. It's always featured New York actors, because that's where it's located. [They're] always looking for terrific actors to come on and do guest spots. It's very analogous to the old black-and-white Twilight Zones. Now we look back and say, ''Oh my god, there's Burgess Meredith!'' ''There's so-and-so!'' They were good actors. Everybody who was watching didn't know [their] names, but it's what gave those shows their torque.

EW: Did Criminal Intent call you, or did you approach them?

EB: I had put the word out for years that I wanted to do something on Law & Order, but somehow that information didn't get to Law & Order. This very old friend of mine, [playwright] Warren Leight, is now running Criminal Intent, and he arranged for me to meet with [fellow exec producer] Dick Wolf. This is a type of acting that's of real interest to me, because it's not necessarily that visible to the audience. At the end of the day, I hope the audience enjoys the show more because I'm on it. But it's a far cry from what I did on Talk Radio or Under Siege 2, where the whole point is to be like fireworks every time I'm on screen. This is the opposite.

Performances of subUrbia run through Oct. 29 at Second Stage in New York (tickets: 212-246-4422).

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Introduction to How To Talk Dirty and Influence People. Lenny Bruce

As long as I can remember, Ive liked the work of Lenny Bruce. I liked him before Id even heard of him, before Id heard his routines. How is that possible? Because Lenny was always there. His dark, sexy, idealistic, smirking humor was there when my parents were drinking martinis, doing the cha-cha and flirting with their suburban neighbors.

It was there when I was driving cross-country, chain smoking joints, eating black beauties, and grooving to Coltrane and Hendrix on the eight-track.

It was there when I was doing the punk rock death trip in thee dark canyons of Manhattan.

Lenny was there through it all, the spirit of Hipness past, present and future. Saint Lenny, I should call him; he died for our sins. As the pendulum slowly shifts, we are back in such conservative times as those that spawned him in the first place, and so now is the time to read him.


Attitude is what Lenny Bruce is all about. He was the genius of attitude. If you dig Lenny, you dig the attitude. Lenny was one of the bridges existing between post-war African-American culture and the counterculture culture of the 60s and 70s. Just as the Rolling Stones and the Animals ripped off R & B, or MTV absorbed rap music, Lenny hooked into the jazz mentality.

Growing up in the suburbs I got to know Lenny through his albums and primarily through How to Talk Dirty This book was part of a secret collection of sacred texts that unlocked the doors of hipness and rebellion. In 1970, if you were hip to Lenny Bruce, you were hip. As the years have gone by, Lenny has become more an icon than a force. Everyone has an idea of what Lenny Bruce stood for, but it is vague and general (He wasyou knowdark, cool, hip). (I am often compared to Lenny Bruce. People even say I look like him. I say, I dont look anything like Lenny Bruce, I look like Dustin Hoffman in the movie Lenny)

If youre like me, Lenny has been an influence, good and bad. By the mid 70s, the Lenny-as-martyr mythology was solidly in place ( Albert Goldmans cynical biography Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce!! and the Julian Barry play Lenny only served to make the foundation more secure). The Vietnam War had become an experience in the past tense and little did anyone know that America was soon to be engulfed in the postmodern fantastic antics of the Reaganites. In the 70s, the idea of the 60s got cleaned up and polished. Everyone had long hair, everyone had been against the war, men were becoming more sensitive, black people were wonderful, it was cool to b gayyadda yadda yadda (as Lenny would say). In the 70s everyone wanted to be cool. And no one wanted to grow up.

The new attitudes turned out to be mostly veneer, but we believed that we believed them. And presiding over our glorious and heartfelt beliefs (untested by lifes problems) were the saints of the New Attitude. Among the saints were, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Abbie Hoffman, Lenny Bruce. Basically a lot of white men. White men on drugs with groupies (Plus ca change..)

Central to the philosophy of the New Attitude was the notion that a Big Bad daddy Government was suppressing and repressing all of us. (Easy to believe after Vietnam and Watergate.) We wanted more and better political action (without the complexities of politics) and we needed more and better freedom (without the dangers of overdose, venereal disease, or poverty). Money was out, lifestyle was in. We wanted a brave new world that was founded on utopian principles; where there would be no hypocrisy; where love would rule and wars would be banished. Where everyone would be nice to each other, and we could be high all day, and no one would work at anything they didnt feel like doing and no one ever got sick or died.

We just had to get away from Big Bad Daddy. We had to get out of the house. And we wanted the keys to the car.



Lenny was a worker. He wanted it (to quote his character Buddy Bob the car salesman). And he gigged and he gigged in toilets, jazz clubs, everywhere, and anywhere. As he said himself, he was only too happy to sell out. That meant appearances on TV. But he didnt mesh with such a tidy commercial environment. He developed jazz habits: enjoying ones work, doing it for the sake of expression and fun, exploring new ground, taking chances. These were jaz laws, and Lenny brought them to comedy. (Also check out Lord Buckley, Jonathan Winters, Redd Foxx.) He also brought the attitude of minority culture with its endless self put-down and riffing about the Man and its conspiratorial posture of thee inside joke, using codes and phrases (Lenny somehow melded Black and Yiddish vernacular).

(A couple of years ago I paid homage to Lenny by dropping by one of his favorite spots in San Francisco, the Hungry i. Its now a strip joint and when I poked my head in the door the woman at the counted said Can I help you with something? I said, I just want to take a look at the place, someone I know used to play here. She said Whats his name? I said Lenny Bruce She said What instrument does he play?)

The attitude of rebellion and new-found freedom was genuine for a young Jewish guy in the late 50s or a Black in the 60s. It was becoming OK, even cool, to admit to being Jewish or black. (Lenny mentions that in the armed forces, as late a WWII, being a Jew was almost always noticed and remarked upon.) As minorities these groups, brought together in Lennys jazz-yiddish lingo, had genuine gripes. The civil rights battles were heating up down South. The stereotyped Southern Racist or Northern Full-of-Shit Liberal were perfect targets for Lennys underdog politics. And a perfect expression of rebellion for the millions of well-to-do suburban youth who wanted out of Daddy and Mommys house so they could do their thing.

The saints of the Church of Attitude built a solid foundation of idealism for my generation with their full-tilt pacificism, their love of life, their belief in tolerance for all people, their put-down of hate. To be truthful, if you dig deeply enough, a morality lies under the ideas of Lenny Bruce. Albert Goldman pointed out in his biography that even though the libertine hippies of the 60s championed Lenny Bruce, Lenny did not dream of a wold of anarchy where everybody did whatever he or she wanted. No, Lenny dreamed of a world of love and order where justice prevailed. He died with that dream on his lips. And in his death, like so many rock stars after him, he was sainted.

Lenny discovered as he developed (and his autobiography marks the beginning of the highest plateau Lenny occupied during his short life) that full-blown idealism in his art was his secret weapon. By riffing the same way that he and his buddies did privately backstage or in cheapo coffee shops, but before a paying audience, he could blow peoples minds. People wanted to hear more of the New Attitude. They wanted to question organized religion, sexual mores, capitalism, and war. The economy was expanding yearly and people wanted to shake off their dusty clothes and take a bath in idealism. Kennedy was elected on a platform of adolescent high hopes just as Lenny was reaching his peak, and Lenny found it appropriate to endorse Camelot. With this presidential candidate, even Lenny sheathed his sword.

And that sword was sharp. Lenny set the all-time high standard for an entertainer observing and dissecting his own society and culture. Like a surgeon he probed and sliced, always on the lookout for inconsistency or misguided emotion or jingoism or greed or vanity. He attacked our self-satisfaction and our well-meaning hypocrisy. And he did it through funny stories and characters. Because he was always experimenting he often went astray of substance, but no one has hit the bulls eye the way he did. His description of Jesus and Moses visiting Saint Patricks Cathedral or his impersonation of a white liberal entertaining his colored friend or his simple description of the Lone Rangers loneliness are classic. And as sick or funky as he was, he spoke his words with love and generosity.

We, the 60s generation, copped all this good stuff. But, we also inherited some dubious stuff. Because if youre going to adopt the attitude of a bunch of backstage, marijuana-smoking beatnicks, youre going to inherit a few flaws.

First of all, these bohemians had a real commitment to noncommitment; they had a mania for irresponsibility. This was part of the New Attitude as well, and a part that was harmless, even constructive at the time. In How To Talk Dirty Lenny blithely describes rip-offs and hustles, white lies and put-ons, goof-ups and escapades, promiscuity and intoxicated bouts more fitting to the behavior of a teenager hanging out at Coney Island than that of a 38 year old with a wife and a daughter. Photos from that time show Lenny repeatedly getting arrested with a look on his face like Get this! Lifes just a joke, right?

If you have an affection toward Lenny as I do, then perhaps you want your dose straight, without the mystification and blurriness that come with the passing down of a legend. So here he is, Lenny in his own words, words that mean almost more today in this age of Jesse Helms and George Bush than when they were first uttered. I love Lenny Bruce because he put himself out there. Because he wasnt perfect, but he tried. Because he was vulnerable.

He was a big kid, but a big kid with a heart and a mind and a mouth. He gave us a great gift, a vision we may never attain, but one we must never loose sight of: a world of love.

-Eric Bogosian
December 1991
Introduction to HOW TO TALK DIRTY AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE.

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April 2006 CHARACTER (from Dramatists Magazine)

April, 2006 CHARACTER (for Dramatists Magazine)

Think "Nora" or "Willy Loman" or "Hamlet" or "Romeo" or "Big Daddy" or "Ricky Roma" and you are immediately thrown into the specific theatrical reality. That is because ours is a psychological theater, invented long before Freud. For four hundred years, since Shakespeare in fact, we have witnessed the lusts, machinations and anguish of a long parade of individuals. For the Christians and Jews of the Capitalist west, the sense of oneself as an individual has been the ultimate driving force. A succession of kings and presidents, explorers and inventors, "genius" composers, artists and generals has been enpowered by the primacy of the individual. And so, when we make theater, we make theater about individuals, we make theater about characters. Theater is a model of the space between our ears. It is populated with the same archtypical personae who populate our imagination.

Willy Loman is not about naturalism. Willy Loman is about the way Americans thought about themselves in the late 20th century. This imagined man, imagined by Arthur Miller, struck a chord, and still resonates. His presence in "Death of A Salesman" makes this play great because we know this man. And when I say "know" I mean "know" in a sense of "think" we think this man. When we watch the action of the play, we recognize our own thinking. I make this almost obvious point because as the academy (the universities and the not-for-profit theaters) urges theater into displays of dissection rather than eventful explosions, there is a growing emphasis on everything but character. Which may mean that a new kind of theater is being born or it may mean that were not putting our best foot foreward when we make theater today. Call me old-fashioned, I'm still trying to write theater with characters as engines. I don't really understand nor am I deeply moved by any other kind of theater. (Topical theater, surprise-ending theater, dance theater, spectacle theater, documentary theater, science theater).

So the question naturally comes up, where do these characters come from? Do we go looking for them somewhere? Should we go hang out in subways or AA meetings or debutante balls? Well, you can do that. And you can write a theater "about" something. The pundits love that. Then they can explain to everyone what the play is about. Thats why post-show Q & A's are so popular in the regional theaters. Because everyone wants to know what the play is "about." It's a great way of avoiding what a play is. Do we really need a Q & A about George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?" Indeed, who is capable of explaining this amazing play? The very essential nature of Albees characters, their ability to push our buttons, is a non-explainable thing. It is the mystery of character, or personality, of being human. I go to the theater to watch actors, humans, make believe they are other humans. To do that creates a mystery within a mystery that is the essences of art.

So where do characters come from? If you're doing anthropological research, yeah, you might go to the South Sea Islands and watch people and write down everything you see. You might even fashion a little drama for people to watch so they can get an idea of how South Sea Islanders act. But that's not theater. That's not character. That's reportage. The truly great characters are composite. Just as a bit of sand in an oyster becomes a pearl, life experiences live within the playwright for years before becoming characters. O'Neill, Chekhov, Williams, Albee all took their deeply felt personal experiences, digested them and reformed them into theatrical constructions. Only then, after these characters were born from within could they step out onto the stage.

Like the electron, which is simultaneously "there" and "not there" at the same time, (an approximate state that is simultaneously energy and mass), the personality is something that changes as it is being observed. The observer has as much to do with what is seen as the observed. Ergo the mystical aspects of character and personality. Ergo the fantastic tension between playwright/actor/audience. It does you no good as a writer to think you can scientifically create a character. Such a character will have as much life as a robot. It will speak and act, but it will not be alive. Personality, despite the theories of Freud, is not mechanical and it does us no good to think that way, to think we can "deconstruct" the personality. The truth is much more elusive. We cannot parse personality, yet we can know when we are "right on" and when were not. Shakespeare is great because he understood personality as deeply as he did. Long before Freud, Shakespeare laid out classic psychological types and states. He simply "knew" character, probably through endless observation.

So how to begin? Simply by making an inventory of the characters who live within you already. And they are there. In fact, there are no "real" characters or personalities in the world. There is only behavior which means nothing outside our interpretation of it. Only when we process what we have experienced are characters born. Within us. So when looking for character, don't look outside yourself, look within. Here the characters have been ready-made for your picking. Think of someone very important to you. Particularly someone with whom you have an ongoing power struggle. A parent for instance. This person is very well-defined within you. Let's use a Freudian term to describe this inner character. Let's call the inner character the "imago." (I'm not sure if this is exactly what Freud meant when he used the term, but it works.) I think of the Imago as the little person you have created in your head to represent, say in this case, your father. For your mental needs, this little imago/father holds all the traits you find important about the guy (authority, bossiness, intelligence) and you have left out whatever isn't useful for your mind-play (for example, how Dad feels about the color blue). This imago/father is a distillation. A character who follows the rules you have set for him. He's like a chess piece. He behaves in a particular way and with him you can play out scenarios in your head, play out little plays.

You think you don't do this? Imagine you're back in high school and you're out late with friends. You "know" that you're going to catch hell when you get home at 3 am. How do you know this? Because you have already staged the scene with your imago/father character in your head. You have written it and you have watched it. You know what he's going to do. That's why youre surprised when you get home and he's asleep. He's not doing what your "play" says he would do. So begin by grabbing up some of these imagos and put them into play. Create a situation, any situation. Like Pinter has said, "two people in a room." Take your imago/father and your imago/sister and put them in a room together. Get them talking. What makes these people interesting to you will be interesting to any audience. Don't think about what the audience wants, think about what you want from these characters. When we set the character into a larger context, when we transpose the characteristics of people we know onto people in our play (whether it be the ambition of a king or the petty squabbling of a childless couple) real drama is born. But without the building blocks of true character, the play will never be a great play.

A playwright is successful when he or she has dredged a character up from the depths of his or her soul and presented this character to an audience and the audience in unison exclaims, "Yes, we know that guy!".

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