Now I'm Being Pedantic

R: Excuse me, may i ask you a kind of direct question?

A: Uh... Okay...

R: Are you an artist, or are you just trying to look cool?

A: Why i never! of all the- Am i an artist?! Harumpf harumpf harumpf!

R: Well, which is it.

A: I am an artist. I like to think so.

R: What art do you do? Is it good? How much of your time is spent doing that art? How much money does that art earn you? ANd you still think you're an artist? What are you planning on doing with this art? What did you go to school for? Where are your earning most of your money? Are you sure you're an artist?

[these questions continue, with responses all condensed from multiple interviews with hipster looking strangers, until it reaches this point:]

A: Alright, asshole, let me ask you, are YOU an artist?

R: Sure.

A: Well, what is your medium?

R: Society.

A: Society?

R: Yes. I seek to manipulate individuals within our society in order to reshape it according to my wishes.

A: and how do you intend to do that?

R: By developing a new mode of production and gaining hegemonic dominance of the fastest growing sector of our economy.

A: You are going to "gain hegemonic dominance" of what?

R: The fastest growing sector of the economy.

A: How you gonna do that?

R: By controlling the production and distribution of the goods that will be in highest demand in that sector.

A: What are you talking about?

R: If i control the most desired arts and entertainment products, then i will dominate the arts and entertainment industry, which is the fastest growing sector of the economy.

 A: Well, how are you going to do that?

R: If i gain control of tomorrow's assets while they are being neglected by todays establishment, then i can easily wedge the establishment out when tomorrow comes and the assets i control become the most highly valued.

A: and then what?

R: then it's merely a matter of time before the efficiencies i've discovered in arts production transfer to other industries. When the economic foundations of our society have been altered, then all other social institutions will follow directly.

A: You sure about that?

R: That's how it goes historically.

A: Okay, so what are "tomorrow's assets" you're talking about?

R: Live performance. Theatre.

A: Theatre? You mean, like Shakespeare n shit? What makes you think theatre is going to be any kind of asset?

R: New technologies have allowed the democratization and infinite free reproduction of artistic mediums that the capitalist arts and entertainment industry have been able to commodify and thus specialize in. This democratization is leading inevitably to mediocrity. Audience demands and economic might are going to shift to those mediums which offer more than dull home entertainment, and which cannot be mass produced at no cost, that is mediums based on experiences. Live performance. Theatre.

A: And you are going to be king of live performance?

R: Me and my associates and allies, yes.

A: And then...

R: and then the first step of my art project will be completed.

A: and you think this will actually happen?

R: I don't see why not.

A: But, you're really banking on a lot, aren't you?

R: Some people would say it is the artist's job to predict the future.

A: Who says that?

R: Marshall McLuhan.

A: Marshall McLuhan said a lot of crazy shit.

R: you still don't beleive me?

A: No.

R: Well, you don't have to, you'll see my project unfold soon enough.

A: But, what if i'd like to believe you, and i'd like to participate in the project, i'm just too pessimistic and pre-occupied with... with...

R: with trying to look cool?

A: I guess.

R: then i should try a harder to convince you to participate directly.

A: How can you do that?

R: Perhaps if we were lying naked next to each other?

A: Perhaps.

(they strip, lay down, spooning)

R: Now do you see?

A: Yes, actually... So, what do we do now?

R: create a whole lot of the very best theatre we can.

FADE TO BLACK

The end.

My intention with all these activities is to construct an aparatus that will allow you and I and others to do these things more often, more sustainably, and eventually free us all from the necessity to perform soul sucking tasks that trap us in the crushing black in the first place. To create a situation in which all we do is make art and our cells never have to stop working properly. That is the goal, and becoming recognized and legitimate are (perhaps unfortunately) necessary steps to achieving that goal.

There is an entire economic groundwork that needs to be built to make this happen, it's an amazingly large task, but we are not alone in it. There are many many people participating, people we haven't met, people working in all mediums, people all around this world, and we don't even know that we're participating in the same revolution (which is what makes it a genuine revolution, it's decentralized, spontaneous and radical) I'm confident that we all can succeed and I'm very excited to have committed my life to contributing to that success.

I know I can get caught up in the process sometimes, but really, this isn't about my ego or about Insurgent Theatre being hot shit, it's about making good theatre and revolutionizing society. Getting shit done.

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I see insurgent theatre as a small part of a huge movement that is going to cause revolutionary changes in our whole society. I want to participate in that movement to the fullest extent possible, and a major step is for artists to negotiate the transition from hobbies to sustainable businesses, but not standard capitalist businesses. Our mission is to find a new economics for the creation of art.

If this is going to be more than a hobby we need:

Audience that goes beyond our friends and family
Press that recognizes us as more than a bunch of kids having fun
Payment for actors and techs that goes beyond a pittance
Presence in the theatre community (The more I think about this it's not because I want their audiences- their audiences are near-dead old people. What I want is for them to know we're nipping at their heels, that we are getting the audiences THEY want, and that when their ship finally sinks the lifeboats are gonna say INSURGENT on the side.)

To achieve those goals we need to do one of two things:
1. create a critical mass of good theatre, in the street, on the stage, and in your face.
2. Go legal, raise funds through patronage, and basically con the bourgeoisie so we can buy the attention we can’t earn.

I'm all for conning the bourgeoisie as long as there’s no compromises. I’m willing to try and play Comrade Schweik if I have to, but I don’t think I’d be good at it. I’m too honest. So for now, I'm going to focus on creating that critical mass of theatre.

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Rex Winsome wants to eat the world, and you aren't going to stop me. Shaw says that "The Reasonable Man adapts himself to the world while The Unreasonable Man insists on adapting the world to himself, therefore all progress depends upon The Unreasonable Man." 

This is for you- you Masters of The Artworld.

You morticians in search of a corpse.

You've administered to the dying art of theatre long enough. We are taking that body out of your hands and when we are done she will be up, dancing and fucking in the street.

We will leave you empty handed and teary eyed, staring in disbelief at your cold bare slab and at the obscene joys of your galvanized bride.

Your time is up, we no longer need your patronage, your modes of production, or your traditions. We have proven you hopelessly obsolete and it's a matter of mere years before we will rampage into your theatres, pull the seats out of your auditoriums, tear the pages from your plays, gouge the eyes out of your audience and cut the tongues out of your actors.

There is a war coming.

For too long have your defenses- your piles of the dead bodies of high culture, failed against the entertainment industry's rising tide. Your theatre is waterlogged, and you are prune-fingered and futile. Dead on your feet.

Get out of the way. How can we dismantle the capitalist entertainment machine while you- the picture of docility, appease them? You aren't here for the future. You only hope that the bourgeoisie will continue to play at aristocracy until you personally are ready to retire. That makes you useless to us.

No more. Your replacement is ready, I am here, on the street, performing and panhandling in your lobby, breaking down the barriers you base your bullshit career on.

The Army of the Arts is on the march, and we are coming for you.

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Ben is a Jerk
Performed at Darling Hall in November of 2006.

I don’t want to fight. I didn’t come here to talk about how I’m not polite enough or modest enough for you. I want to produce good theatre, I want to make us more effective at producing good theatre and I want to make the theatre we produce more prominent in our community. If you want to talk about how I’m a jerk, you can arrange your own meeting. I’d love to talk about that sometime, on your terms... send me an e-mail, or don’t. I imagine you enjoy more having that talk while I’m not present. Right now, I’m going to talk about production and we’re going to talk about that on my terms.

We all fail. Our feelings, our relationships, our problems, the fun we have and the joys in our lives... none of those count. Production: the creation of value through labor, is the only thing. I don’t care about any of the rest of it. So, I’m a jerk. Because, you’re right, I don’t respect you. I don’t respect mediocrity, shoddy craftsmanship, or resorting to camp when quality is too hard for you to find.

I need to measure my life objectively. You can just walk around making capricious choices based on your whims or your heavy emotional baggage. But, that’s bullshit. It’s an excuse- a justification for not contributing positively to the social sculpture that is human progress. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is no reason to do anything other than our most immediate fancy, than to simply do what our feelings or our chemicals tell us to do. Maybe listening to your heart is the right way. Fine, listen to your fucking heart, but that’s a choice. You have to make that choice and commit to it: live short and sweet and burn out. Make these next few years your last... but don’t fucking tell me I have to listen to your heart too.

We don’t need your two-faced passive friendship, and we don’t need your hurt feelings. By ‘we’ I mean all of us. This is important. This thing we’re trying to do trumps any inter-personal relationships, it trumps being cool with each other. It’s more important that our resumes, our social lives, or our feelings. It’s more important than our egos.

This is the contribution we can make. You see, the only thing that counts is production. When I measure my life objectively the only ruler I have is the pile of things I have produced. Those are the only things that are real. You can’t measure your life in love, there’s no measuring there, no visible standard. There’s no meaning in love. That fucking sucks, but it’s true. That realization- that the only thing that counts is what we’ve built- it’s made me bitter and it’s ruined my personality... It’s ruined my relationships, relationships that are important, the loss of which hurt and destroy and cause me to suck the mop. But, that realization has also kept me alive, and it’s the only thing that has ever really done that.

But, we’re not good enough. We are failing. We’re all going to die some day and I don’t want to live the whole of my life in this shit world our fathers have built for us. That’s too bad, because it isn’t going to change until we all start to make a contribution to the change, until we stop worrying about how we’re going to cope with this shit and start working to replace it.

I sat in a room full of artists and one of them asked me what I do, am I a full-time artist? I laughed and said "no, I have a full-time office job." “It’s wonderful that you’re so not-bitter” she says. I tried to say “Oh, I am bitter.” But they didn’t want to hear that. They wanted to be inspired, and what I should have said is:

“You have a responsibility! We all have a responsibility. We have the same responsibility the bourgeoisie had to capitalism. It is our responsibility to be the insurgent class, to develop new means of production, to create greater value more efficiently than those who came before us. We are to rise between the capitalists and the proletariat as the bourgeoisie rose between the lords and the serfs. Between the morons and the less-offs. But you artists are still seeking patronage. You are one and a half revolutions behind and the only reason you have food on the table- what little food you have on the table, is because so many others are back there with you. You’re about to lose that too, because the bourgeoisie is realizing that they don’t want to be the aristocracy, and that is why you are failing.”

Why am I failing? Because I have not convinced you about the contribution it is your responsibility to make. Because I can’t make you understand ego. You act like I’m out of line because I’m proud of what I do, but the real ego problem here is you. You, thinking I’m supposed to let you get in my way. But I can’t let you and your bullshit get in my way, because I do understand the contribution I’ve got to make.

See, I’ve tried to tear down this shit world by shouting at crowds, educating myself, debating at people to change their minds one capitalist slave at a time. I’ve fought against ignorance, waste and destruction. I’ve raised thousands for the political solution. None of that comes to anything. None of it has an external, a real world effect. The only benefit of years of study, reading your books and cherishing your ideals was my realization of our hypocrisy and the necessity to lead by example. That has only erased some portion of the costs, the detriment I am to humanity. So, now I eat right and I still work a dull office job, but it’s for a non-profit devoted to saving people’s lives. All that amounts to is, at best, something approaching zero. The shouting at crowds, lobbying the government and debating with assholes amounts to nothing. I want to waste my breath telling a republican how insane blocking stem cell research and gay marriage is, I want to beat the shit out of that republican, hopefully cripple him on election day- but, while I’d be doing more than you or the whole fucking democratic party, that is hardly a worthy standard to hold myself to. The solution, the contribution is not political. It must be economic first. So, your emotions can serve nothing but your art. Your friendships should serve nothing but your art. Your self-indulgences, your celebrations, your struggles, your love... only if it serves your art, and only if your art is serving the revolution.   

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