SHORT:
Women in Europe (even old ones) wear pig tail buns and ppl take them seriously.
I think that’s beautiful.
The U.S. doesn’t know what the eff it’s doing.
MEDIUM:
I’m back from Scotland where I saw 3 dozen plays and comedy shows.
Every single one was called something like Bonk! There Goes My Arse! and (spiritually or actually) had lines like, “To fart or not to fart? That’s the bloody question!”
I loved it.
Tomorrow I have a reading of a bad play that I wrote on the 7 hour plane ride back.
It’s called Lesbian Jesus Is Pregnant With Vibes, but it actually has nothing to do with Jesus, so, in many ways, it’s kinda like… why did I even call it that… ?
I should’ve just called it “Bonk Fart”.
Nobody would ask questions about the “extended metaphor”.
It would just… “be”.
What is “is”.
LONG:
The U.S. sucks, but I’m happy to no longer be living in a camper van that people walk by at night and whisper “Hey Ruben, should we scream and scare the people inside?”
A lot of men in Scotland are named “Ruben”. Even (and especially) the men you wouldn’t think…
Why?
Next year I’ll return to Edinburgh and ask everyone on The Royal Mile if their name is Ruben
And why not? if it isn’t.
That’ll be my solo show.
Anyway.
Huge thank you to all my newsletter readers who came to the Fringe show I directed. By “all”, I mean the 2 of u!
2 can = all!
Also thank you to my grandma’s friend who came to see the show and in the middle, audibly told her husband to “sit up”. Love you. And love that your husband immediately followed your command. Thank you for coming to an 11pm gay show after being in the highlands all day.
I want to go back to Europe and go to the highlands and Berlin and Ireland and Leeds…
I met so many people in Europe who wear brown pants, have a palpable hunk of inner peace, and do something like “teach movement” in Leeds.
Why don’t I do that?
Why am I an anal retentive who lives in NY when I could be a person who “does movement” in Leeds?
In space buns?
And grow old
surrounded by greenery
and still have people respect me
in my old age
despite the fact that I’ve piled two little things of hair
up on either side of my head
and secured them with little clips?
god
it’s such a good place…
the UK…
That being said,
while on the bus,
I also saw three men get in a drunken fight where they started punching each other in the head.
And a toddler kept screaming “rock paper scissors knife!”
So I guess,
wherever you go,
even if they take old women with space buns seriously,
there’s gonna go ahead and be violence too.
I must stop writing this newsletter to go work on my bad after-school-special play where everyone speaks either like they’re Tony Soprano or a Kindergarten teacher for no discernible reason.
I keep being like “I promise I write well, I promise I can write good plays” to everyone I know and even people I don’t know — but never have an example I can point to.
Hm.
Kinda cool!
Maybe I suck but just need to keep going.
Maybe art can just be bad and i should #leave the channel open or whatever that one famous artist said in her letter to the other famous artist.
this is the thing i’m referring to — a cool musician sent it to me — and now of course i read it every morning like gospel — do you read gospel in the morning? — isn’t gospel a music thing? — god i’m so jewish and dumb
c u next tuesday
(unless i die of embarrassment tomorrow at the reading)
Thank you for subscribing. If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes it’s funny. And sometimes it’s not. It’s a lot like when someone slips and falls on ice.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
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