B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

little triggers.
Benjones' lent me David Ives' ALL IN THE TIMING. Between that and a lackluster performance of Matt Freeman's THE GREAT ESCAPE (which I'm glad of for totally selfish reasons, since it let me focus on the dialouge by thinking of it as a good reading of an amazing script), I think I know what I'm doing with this play thing. I'm four pages in, with another six to go depending on how well the "one page equals one minute" rule holds. There's still the editing and ripping apart process that happens before anything of mine sees daylight, but for now I'm just happy to be moving forward.

The problem I'm hitting so far is sort of a form vs. Function issue: I'm writing it for Third Man Productions Barhoppers series, and it isn't a very happy story. People don't go to bars to see a play in the first place, and they sure as hell aren't going to be depressed, which means working a lot of dark humor in without sacrificing the overall story. The trick seems to be tweaking my characters upa few notches to sarcastic assholes. Which, now that I've got them on paper and talking, seems to be the direction they were heading anyway.

The only rule of playwriting I really stopped to learn was that if there's a gun in the first act, it has to go off by the third. With LITTLE TRIGGERS (name subject to change, if any of you have any better ideas), I'm trying pull off that same build up of tension but with my characters. Girl shows up late for drinks with guy, guy's mad because she was with her husband. Girl doesn't know what she wants, guy's growing more and more jealous and wants her to pick one or the other. The gun isn't important, the explosion is.

I'm playing with the idea of having a gun present on the table, obvious to the audience but invisible to the actors till the end. Lots of traps that way, like coming off to precious or the gimmick over taking the story. I've got two months to work it though, so.

stumbling after.
STUMBLING AFTER is drinks and cigarettes and talking about girls. It's the stupid shit we do for other people, the loss of the difference between "in love" and the real thing. Reaching for something out of your grasp is something I come back to a lot, mostly because I haven't really worked it out for myself yet. I know my limits but I don't care; I make stupid promises that sometimes go off in my face. This is two months told in bits the way memory comes back the morning after, someone trying to keep up with a girl not just out of his league but playing an entirely different sport.

Gosh, that sounds important.

The biggest problem I'm having now is execution, as usual. I need to work on getting over my fuck-I'm-clever impulses faster so I can get on with just telling the damn story.

the stranger nyc.
I went through the test balloon first issue with a black pen and came out with four pages of notes towards massive changes. I showed up late and a little drunk Friday to meet with Frank at Kate's, smelling like dust and sweat from fighting Peter's air conditioner and muttering something about lovely strangers with gin 'n' tonics. And now I'm handling submissions, copy editing, and design layout for issue two.

I don't understand how things work. I never shot through the axis of college and career because I couldn't afford to, or I was lazy, or something about it never jived with me. I started Off Camera instead. I pitched to Bleedmusic and stuck around for the launch of New Noise. Somewhere along the way I'm sure there's a proffessional side to all this, complete with memos and teleconfrences and backstabbings that I can't keep ducking forever. In the meantime there's this thing, and the difference between wanting to and actually doing it apparently is just a matter of wording.

Ameliah asked how I got where to be where I am right now - New York from Huntsville, the magazine, etc - and I almost had to draw a map on the kitchen counter. I don't know. I taught myself to say yes and not fall down so much. I started talking and after a while, people started listening.

TSNYC #2 is going to be a hundred pages of words and full color photos, a slab of new culture for less than a McDonald's value meal. Give us two months and me not fucking up too terribly.

...
And when the sun goes down and the traffic slows to a trickle, when there's nothing on the street but me and a headful of crush songs, none of it matters. There's the slow panic need of a day job, the drama walked out of halfway through the second act on the opposite end of the country. There's the bullshit print turf war that's already building with a release date yet to be announced. None of it is real, none of it matters. Street light hits pavement, turning it gold as the Undertones drift out of a bar. Teenage kicks last all through the night.

posted by chris  # 11:33 PM