From The Big Malibu: Beyond The Sea

(...a large piano crate descends from the ceiling on wires with the words “Willem Dasheill Mouse 1975-2006” painted across the front. DADDY SHINE: THE BROKEN LIZARD takes the stage. He is the MC and Holy Man of The Big Malibu and should be dressed appropriately. Perhaps in a velvet tuxedo. Perhaps in nothing but a fur coat and socks. Perhaps he is the spitting image of Gram Parsons. Perhaps he is Death, dressed as a beekeeper. Regardless of his appearance, he has a bible with him. He takes the microphone and addresses the audience. )


DADDY SHINE: THE BROKEN LIZARD
There’s a radio god that lives in the sky. That radio god transmits illusions of good times and happiness from his radio friendly land. He transmits illusions that all people are real; that people are not just shadows that splash from one song to the next. That radio god has built a wall in the sky so our souls won’t escape until we die. I’d like to believe in that radio god, but I don’t. And I won’t. Not when men die at a young age. Not when good men like Billy Mouse die in youth. (Red smoke begins to rise from the stage.) It’s nice to see you all here today. It’s nice to see that you all paid full admission. It’s nice to get out of your chair, it’s nice to get out of your bed, it’s nice to get out of your bungalow and come to this fine and clean establishment and look out upon the pretty people and say good bye to one of our closest and dear patrons, a patriot of men, a patriot of the human soul. It’s nice to have a place you can go to, a place where you can have a drink, a nice cold beverage on a hot-hot day, and sing a few songs, speak The Good Lords words, and eat fried clams for $7.99. It’s nice to come here and get a moderately priced hand jobs, or rim jobs, or blowjobs, or a rusty trombone. It’s nice to come here and get a dirty Sanchez, or a Roman war helmet, or Pearl Harbor, or a Bismarck, if that is what you prefer, or my personal favorite the Cleveland steamer, and worship God under the same roof. It’s nice to wake every morning and feel safe and comfortable in the fact that we have The Big Malibu to take away our blues. Billy Mouse knew of what I speak. Billy Mouse was a mountain of a man. Stood eight foot three and weighed in at 527 pounds of sculpted man meat. No fat on them bones of Billy Mouse, no sir. And he had a shock of red hair that could burn a hole in the sun. Monday to Friday he labored a 9 to 5 schedule at the butter factory just up the road, blending the finest creams to make the most delicious butters on the Pacific Coast. If known for only one thing, Billy Mouse could churn butter. Every night when he punched that time clock, and he punched it good, Billy Mouse hopped into his Escalade and drove on down to pray and drink and smoke and thank The Good Lord for another fine day. Billy Mouse would sit in that very chair, that chair right there and eat forty-two clams, drink twenty-one Tecates, and sing one gentle song just to grace the world with his tender tenor. Billy Mouse was a man you could believe in. It’s been a hard goin’ of late. Botched elections, hurricanes, mad cow disease, the Rev. Fred Phelps and his filthy fag fearin’ fuckers, Big Bad Bush and his killin’ kin shootin’ guns with a cock full of cum and fire in his eyes after the big bang came down upon New York City on that very special Tuesday. And we said “Golly, will this be the death of us all?” Kobe Bryant! Kobe Bryant raped a teenage lass and broke-up the Lakers. Sent Shaq to South Beach. What kind of man sends Shaq to South Beach? How many championship rings went down the drain the day they sent Shaq to South Beach? It makes me sad. I know not what to do with my sorrow. All I want to do is drink and screw and sing and eat baked clams, just like Billy Mouse. Today we have a new special. I am sad to say it has been dubbed the Billy Mouse special. All that I have said and more for $12.99 from five o’clock to seven o’clock. Just ask your waitress for assistance, they’ll help you out, that is what they are here for. Buy what you will, take what you want, take the leftovers home to your cats. The way Billy Mouse did.

Gadzooks. Will Big Bad Bush kill us all with his big-big guns that turn sand into glass at the blink of an eyelash? Will the tsunamis come and wash us all away? When I eat at Taco Bell, or Pizza Hut, or Burger King I ask myself “What is this meat? Is it cow? Is it elk? Is it something more human? When Billy Mouse was with us, these questions didn’t haunt me so. When Billy Mouse was with us I knew that no matter who was elected to office, no matter what wars were fought, no matter what stars exploded in the sky, there was one man on The Good Lord’s green earth with integrity, with scruples, with gumption. There was at least a man with both hands on his steering wheel, obeying The Good Lords traffic laws. Billy Mouse was at that very door you all came through this evening not more than two weeks ago and told me he had to leave the grocery store. He had to leave the grocery store because a Phil Colins song came over the loud speaker. Billy Mouse left his groceries in aisle 6 because a Phil Colins song came crashing down upon him and the fine citizens at the QVC and he wouldn’t tolerate it. That was the kind of man Billy Mouse was, and the kind o’ man I hope my young boy, Griffin, grows to become. Billy Mouse believed in the radio god that lives in the sky. I hope that our children grow to be tall and mighty. I hope that our children of this world follow in the footsteps of our dearly departed amigo, Billy Mouse.
Billy Mouse had his favorite songs, and he would sing them with glee. And I would like to sing one of those songs for you now. But first, the owner of a powder blue Ford Taurus, your lights are on. Owner of a powder blue Ford Taurus with Idaho plates, your lights are on.
(Two planted audience members leave as the music of Silver Tongued Devil and I by Kris Kristofferson begins to play. The lyrics of the song can be seen on the television screens.)
Ladies and gentlemen, let us all have a good time tonight in the name of Billy Mouse, and do what ye will. I know you won’t break the rules. At The Big Malibu, there aren’t any!

In this section you will find a few of my plays. If you wish to perform the work, or if you wish to view more pieces, please go to the Contact page on this site.

An Introduction to The Big Malibu

The Big Malibu:Why Does The Devil Have All The Good Music?

The Big Malibu: Interrmezzo

The Big Malibu: Beyond The Sea

Written and developed at the MacDowell Colony, Edward AlbeeFoundation , Robert MacNamara Foundation, and Ucross Foundation with closed readings and workshops at The Den, The New Group, HERE Arts Center, Under The Volcano, and Target Margin Theater in New York and Brooklyn. Named a "Risk Is This" project by The Cutting Ball in San Francisco.

 

Robert MacNamara Foundation

Trigger Happy Jack: A Sound Opera Built With Nouns

Written and developed at the Edward Albee Foundation with a reading at The Den in New York. First perfromance at HERE Arts Center, August 2007. Southwestern debut at FronteraFest, 2008

Savages

First performed at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York, June, 2003.

Mirrorball

First performance at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, October, 2004 with second performance by AndHow! Theatre in New York, June, 2007. Published by Quay Arts Journal.

Zozobra

Written and developed at the Columbia University's Oscar Hammerstien Center, with open readings and workshops at The Flea and The Blue Heron in New York, and The Asylum in Las Vegas. Named a "Risk Is This" project by The Cutting Ball in San Francisco.

Hollywoodland

Written and performed at the Columbia University's Oscar Hammerstien Center, with additional readings and workshops at HERE Arts Center in New York.

The Story of Jacob Murakami, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Realized Sacred Cows Make The Finest Cheeseburgers

Concept and script developed at the Blue Mountain Center and Anderson Center For The Interdisciplinary Studies. First public presentaion in Dialogue '07 with Andhow! Theater Company in Brooklyn, NY. Will be featured on this website by fall of 2008.

Angelina

Written and developed at the Columbia University's Oscar Hammerstien Center, with open readings and workshops at The Blue Heron and HERE Arts Center in New York.

Work(s) in Progress

The "Lone Star Plays" will be a series of one-act and sound pieces devoted to twelve different days, during twelve different months, in twelve different Texan towns. The setting of each play will change from beauty pageants, to beauty parlors, to rodeos, to tattoo parlors, but all will start at a bone colored dawn. These plays are in the beginning stages of development and will appear on this website over the course of the next three years as they are constructed.

 

A Penny Arcade Portrait of a Busby Berkely Dream (Based on the Joseph Cornell box of a somewhat similar name)

Written and developed at The Flea and Ontolgical-Hysteric Theatre in New York, with first production at HERE Arts Center in New York, July 2004.

Plays

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