Just Wrought

Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.

  • “The Ending Gate”: Chapter 12 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    “The Ending Gate”: Chapter 12 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    In what I can only describe as an attempt to kick my own butt with a leap of faith, I started publically reading chapters from The Starting Gate at The St. Andrews Bar and Grill in Green Lake long before I had finished the book.  Now it’s a year later, a strong first draft is finished, and there are only two chapters left to present. Will you consider joining me as I read “The Ending Gate”, the twelfth chapter? This chapter tells the story of what happened to me and my brother when our home away from home burned out of existence, and threw us forward, for better or worse, into the rest of our lives.

    Here’s a little taste:

    Back in 1985, neither my brother nor I had any strong theories on how the fire happened, but one fact quickly dawned on both of us, and I have to assume nearly everyone in town. The Starting Gate stood there, condemned and vacant, but also packed with thousands of dollars’ worth of liquor, some, if not most, of it salvageable. This fact must have dawned on John too, because within days of the fire, photocopies of this posting went up all around the property:


    ANYONE FOUND HERE AT NIGHT
    WILL BE FOUND HERE IN THE MORNING.

    Here are the details:

    When: Monday, February 9, at 8pm

    Where: The St. Andrews Bar, 7406 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98103

    Who: Me, and you, and probably a few others you know

    How: Quick and dirty, the readings rarely last longer than 25 minutes.

    Why: Why not?

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • The Poster is ready for OPENLY WE CARRY / CARRY WE OPENLY

    The Poster is ready for OPENLY WE CARRY / CARRY WE OPENLY

    Oh, I know I’ve said it before, but I can only hope to say it again and again: there is nothing like that new poster smell!

    It says, “Oh, this is coming, baby!  Coming fast!”

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • “Confession at St. Andrews”: Chapter 11 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    “Confession at St. Andrews”: Chapter 11 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    We’re getting close now.  I finished my book, The Starting Gate, a month or so ago. And now we’re even coming up on the end of my public chapter readings at the St. Andrews Bar and Grill. There are only three left now.

    So I hope you’ll  consider joining me as I read “Confession at St. Andrews”, the eleventh chapter of my book, about my favorite bar in Seattle.

    I’m at the St. Andrew’s.

    It doesn’t matter when. Unlike the Starting Gate the St. Andrew’s still exists in what I’m currently calling the present, and so there’s a changelessness to the time I spend here.

    The bartender Mark, who also happens to be one of the owners, is again holding court, again stringing along some beer and food salesmen, who sit a few stools down from me. Mark has told me that he has the vendors come in only on Thursdays, which is his day to open the bar. He’ll listen to their sales spiels, but they in turn have to listen to his shtick: his filthy stories, his dumb dirty jokes, and his cutting critiques of the products they’re hawking.

    I sit on the corner so I can watch both the stage (i.e behind the bar) and audience, (i.e the bar stools.) It’s an old trick from my playwright days. Always watch the audience. Mark knows I’m watching and he knows that I plan someday to write about this place, so his performance takes on an extra enthusiasm. I’m waiting for him to say something utterly filthy and outrageous. Something designed to shock the salesmen and even me. It’ll be tough. Together we make a pretty jaded crowd.

    “These young guys, come in here, trying to score some hot chick their age. I say, ‘Let me give you some advice.’”

    Okay, here we go. This should be good.

    Here are the details:

    When: Monday, January 12, at 8pm

    Where: The St. Andrews Bar, 7406 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98103

    Who: Me, and you, and probably a few others you know

    How: Quick and dirty, the readings rarely last longer than 25 minutes.

    Why: Why not?

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • Jesus Hat

    On the downtown 358.

    In the city I’ll catch the light rail to Beacon Hill where I’ll sit zazen at the temple plus listen to a dharma talk. Should be out by around 8:15, latest. From there, I’ll take the light rail back in to King Street Station and walk to Central Tavern in Pioneer Square, where I’ll chat with Bama, who bounces there, and maybe mooch a beer, or pay for it if I have to.

    Just witnessed the strangest interaction right in front of me. Burnout-looking white dude with one of those hipster hats of knitted wool with ear flaps, comes back and says “Excuse me, sir” to the Hispanic dude with a long goatee and a baseball cap that says “Jesus” in silver Gothic letters. The dude’s halfway into a heroin nod or maybe just really drunk.

    Hipster Hat says it again, real polite, “Excuse me, sir.”

    Guy with Jesus hat opens his eyes.

    “I’m just wondering if you’d like this soda.” And he holds out a paper cup of fountain soda, some sort of dark cola, Coke or Dr. Pepper, near full, complete with plastic lid and straw. Hipster Hat explains that Jesus Hat looks pretty out of it and so he thought he could use a pick me up.

    Jesus Hat says, “I’m fine…. Just tired, man.”

    “Okay. Well, here have this soda.”

    Jesus Hat takes it. “Thanks, man.”

    They fist bump. Then Hipster Hat dude shakes Jesus Hat’s hand.

    “Hey, you want this cigarette?” And Hipster pulls a droopy cigarette from his ear. Jesus Hat takes it between two tentative fingers.

    “You just looked really sleepy to me, man.”

    “Bless you,” says Jesus, and closes his eyes as he tucks the cigarette behind his own ear.

    And the glassy-eyed white dude in the hipster hat sort of lurches with the turns of the bus, back to his seat right behind the driver.

    So what was with all that?

    I mean, here’s the thing: Jesus Hat was shitfaced. A minute or so later I watched him lift himself with considerable effort and stumble to the door to get off in Belltown.

    I got up to get off when we reached downtown a couple stops later. And as I walked to the front of the bus, I saw that the hipster had a bunch of grungy plastic bags stuffed under his seat. He was homeless, and likely a bit crazy.

    After I stepped off the bus, I went down into the light rail tunnel to catch my train to temple.

    Mystery solved. Had to be the hat.

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • “I was the One at Home”: Chapter 10 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    “I was the One at Home”: Chapter 10 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    I finished a solid first draft of The Starting Gate about a month ago. Then I spent another two weeks putting a polish on it, rewrote the ending on some excellent advice from a good friend, and sent it under his cover to a literary agent in New York. The reply was surprisingly prompt, but, not surprisingly, discouraging. Apparently the book’s “candor and soul, art and wit” are “admirable”, but alas, the work is too “quiet and thoughtful… insufficiently sensational” to attract a publisher. If I were famous enough, maybe; but since I am not, no dice.

    Since I honestly don’t know what to do next, I am going to do what I’ve already promised myself to do: read the next chapter, as scheduled, at The St. Andrew’s Bar And Grill next Monday night. So would you please consider joining me as I read “I was the One at Home”, the tenth chapter of my book The Starting Gate? It’s about the night in the house on Sweet Air Road when it was just me, my step-dad, and his massive left hemisphere stroke.

    Here’s a quickie excerpt:

    …. He reaches out his hand, grasping for things on the table that aren’t there. “Do you want me to get you something write with?” I ask. He nods vigorously. I get him a ballpoint and a small pad with some advertisement on the banner. He begins scrawling, but it looks funny. I turn the pad around to read it.

    “Call your mother.”

    “Dad, mom’s in Towson.” Towson is 10 miles away. “I should call 911. Let me call 911.”

    He shakes his head more furiously than before. He taps fiercely on that pad with his fat forefinger. (The same meaty hand that slaps our faces, heavy and fast.) So I call my mom at the real estate office, where she’s manning the phones in the hopes of picking up a loose lead. Mom needs loose leads. She’s not exactly a born sales woman. But there’s another reason she volunteers to work essentially unpaid for three or four hours nearly every evening. It gets her out of the house at the time when my Dad’s most likely to be drunk.

    Mom answers the phone at the real estate office. I tell her the situation and ask her to let me call 911. “I’m pretty sure he’s having a stroke, Mom.”

    “Oh Paul, how can you know that?”

    “He’s not talking, Mom.”

    “Well let me talk to him.”

    “Mom, I can’t let you talk to him. HE CAN’T TALK.”

    And here are the details:

    When: Monday, December 1, at 8pm

    Where: The St. Andrews Bar, 7406 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98103

    Who: Me, and you, and probably a few others you know

    How: Quick and dirty, the readings rarely last longer than 25 minutes.

    Why: Why not?

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • We Can All Die like This

    We Can All Die like This

    Swimming in slanting light
    the sky’s blue scrubbed
    pale of summer’s fullness.

    Don’t imagine these blazing leaves
    are grieving. Don’t imagine
    you will be either.

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • Only Took Me 22 Years to Get My Poetry on Buses

    Only Took Me 22 Years to Get My Poetry on Buses

     

    Poetry on Buses is a program currently hosted by King County Metro and curated by 4Culture. It began in 1992 as a presentation of poetry from the Seattle community on the placards found above the bus seats. Says the  website, “The poems are written by that person across the aisle, that kid in the back, or the professional poet.”

    I remember being a young man and new to Seattle and seeing these poems on the buses I rode, my sole mode of transportation at the time. Back then, in the early 1990s, I was so impressed and enamored of the verse I read just above the heads of my fellow riders sitting across from me that I rushed to send in some of my own work. This I did again and again; and again and again I received polite rejection letters from the program. Here is a couple of the poems I sent in through the years: 

    Word Problem:

    How many

    drops

    of rain

    are falling

    at this moment
    on this city
    in this storm

    How many

    on this patch of asphalt

    from now to now

    Count them

    And…

    Seattle

    Gull-angels sculpt the sound winds
    that tunnel through the buildings. Crying wild,
    in wide circles searching, they carve
    a city’s formless redemption; omens of torture and belief.

    What’s to ignore?
    What’s to deny?
    If a transparent pain falls shattering

    on you, what beautiful views?
    What?
    What grays, what greener than greens?


    Looking back through 20/20 critical hindsight lenses: no, I no longer think these pieces are my strongest work. But I still recognize the impulses behind them. And I still stand by those impulses. In other words, I like where my younger self is going. The impulse to create poetry in the context of a city is almost always worthwhile.

    I’m still primarily a bus rider. It’s my only way of commuting to work, since my family only has the one mini-van, which I drive maybe once or twice a week, on errands.

    The Poetry on Buses program went on hiatus for a few years, but I was excited to see on a friend’s Facebook page a few months back that it had returned and new poems were being solicited on the theme of “writing home.” I immediately sent in my piece, “Instant Messenger” and was utterly charmed and delighted when I got the news that it had been selected as one of the poems that would be shared on selected buses. All 365 poems will be showcased on the Poetry on Buses site, a new poem for each day of the year. My day next year will be August 24, 2015. Additionally, each week, a new portrait of a featured poet and an audio poem will offer you an extra look and a listen. (And, happily I do believe “Instant Messenger” is one of these poems as well.) 125 of the 365 poems will also appear on select RapidRide buses or stations. Some onboard our four RapidRide Poetry Buses and others as discrete poems throughout the RapidRide fleet. The bus and station poems will offer an on-the-spot poetic experience, and also invite visits to the online collection.

    More fun is coming up very soon! The Poetry on Buses launch party will be held November 10, 2014 at the Moore Theater. It’s free and all ages: a vast and necessary celebration of poetry and music, including:  

    • Readings by 36 local poets in English, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese. (I’ll be one of the poets reading!)
    • Live music by Love City Love.
    • Special appearances by Seattle Fandango Project, Marianna and Youth Speaks Seattle.
    • The premiere of the Writing Home Collection – all 365 poems!  

    I hope I see you there!

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • “Bars: A User’s Guide”: Chapter 9 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    “Bars: A User’s Guide”: Chapter 9 of THE STARTING GATE at St. Andrews

    Next Monday I’ll be reading the ninth chapter of my book The Starting Gate at St. Andrews Bar And Grill in Green Lake. This chapter is titled “Bars: A User’s Guide”, and offers a brief review of the rules everyone should know when availing themselves of that venerated technology, the public house. As reward for close attention paid, I will offer a bonus virtual visit to the Zig Zag in the time of the incomparable Murray Stenson, the most perfect cocktail experience anyone could hope for.

    Here’s a quickie excerpt:

    Just as there are certain poems that can only be best understood once you have learned more basic poems, Murray will strike the uninitiated as a rather average bartender, friendly, unimposing, as eager to pull you a draft as he is to stir you a handcrafted cocktail. In fact, Murray has a joke he loves to tell:

    A few years back a bunch of guys, maybe five, came into the Zig Zag after a Seahawks game. The first four all ordered different fancy cocktails. The fifth guy asks for a Jack and Coke. His friends erupt in outrage. “You can’t do that here. Don’t you know what this place is? This is that place for fancy cocktails. The Zig Zag. And that’s Murray.

    “Oh, okay, okay,” the guy says, throwing up his hands in surrender. “In that case, I’ll take a Crown and Coke.”

    Murray tells that story, I’m sure, to deflate a little of the pomposity that has blown up around the cocktail scene over the last decade or so, but also to let you know unequivocally that, if you order a Jack and Coke, he’ll happily make you the best goddamned Jack and Coke you’ve ever had.

    And here are the details:

    When: Monday, November 3, at 8pm
    Where:     The St. Andrews Bar, 7406 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98103
    Who: Me, and you, and probably a few others you know
    How: Quick and dirty, the readings rarely last longer than 25 minutes.
    Why: Why not?

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • A Delightfully Disorienting Video Sneak Peak at the French SLOTIN SONATA

    A Delightfully Disorienting Video Sneak Peak at the French SLOTIN SONATA

    When I decided to travel to Quebec to see this upcoming production of Louis Slotin Sonata translated into French, I thought to myself, “Well, this experience will certainly be new, but what will it be like?” I had so little idea that, even though I wanted to write about it in advance, I couldn’t.

    And then came this trailer…

    What I love about it is that its director trusts the play so much that he leans exclusively into the power of the words, and the power of the actors to speak them, to sell it to a potential audience. Of course, because there are no “staging landmarks” for me to follow, I am delightfully disoriented. On my first watching of it, I only really gained my bearings when an actor started speaking Hebrew. Ironically, once he heard the Mourner’s Kaddish, this born-and-raised Irish Catholic boy felt on familiar ground.

    It’s a fundamental and powerful truth of theatre that the spoken word is orders of magnitude more primal than the written. Plays are not literature. They are an altogether different form of art.

    Seeing my words transformed into another language, and then transformed again back into life by these captivating actors, gives me chills. The good kind.

    I can’t wait to see the whole thing. Live!

    French Slotin Poster

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

  • Saturday Morning Cartoons LIVE!

    Saturday Morning Cartoons LIVE!

    Death of an Institution

    You may not have noticed, but just a few weeks ago a beloved American institution died the death of a ragdoll; and no less of an American institution itself than The Washington Post announced the passing in its recent article “Saturday Morning Cartoons are No More.” The Post lamented the last holdout:

    This past Saturday, the CW became the last broadcast television network to cut Saturday morning cartoons. The CW is replacing its Saturday cartoon programming, called “The Vortexx,” with “One Magnificent Morning,” a five-hour bloc of non-animated TV geared towards teens and their families.

    Those of us who remember the age of three and only three networks, also recall fondly that, once upon a time the only way you could watch animated cartoons was to wake up on Saturday morning and catch what ABC, NBC or CBS had on offer. Here is what a typical Saturday line up looked like when I was my son Keelans’ age. It includes classics like Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker mixed in with more circa 70’s fair, like The Scooby Doo/Dynamutt Hour, and a personal favorite, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which came on so late, 12 noon, that my mom was usually hectoring me by that time to get outside because I had already wasted too much of “perfectly nice day” watching that “idiot box.”

    “But Mom! It’s Fat Albert!”

    Birth of an Institution

    Happily, theatre—as specifically embodied by director/producer Jim Jewell— did not let the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons go gently into the good night.  Instead, Jewell saw the demise coming, and made a plan to fill the gap with short plays written by teams of local Northwest playwrights and their kids. “Saturday mornings used to belong to kids,” says Jewell. “I remember waiting all week for that one day I could binge on cartoons for hours. So, we wanted to try and create that same feeling with some fun live theater, and what better way to understand what kind of art kids want to see than engaging them in the creation of it?”

    The results of Jewell’s brainstorm will be making their world premiere over three Saturdays this November, at the Pocket Theatre [http://thepocket.org/] on Phinney Ridge in Seattle.

    Saturday Morning cartoons logo

    My sons, Declan and Keelan, and I teamed up to write “Magical Man and the Space Needle of Hideousness”, just one episode in the continuing adventures of Magical Man and his million-plus year sojourn in our paltry four palpable dimensions.

    MAGICAL MAN: I call myself Magical Man. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t say my actual name in your universe. There aren’t enough dimensions.

    I’ve been in your world for one million very, VERY boring years.

    Today I will do what I have waited all those years to accomplish. Confront Roger Wickersham, bring him to justice for his transgressions. . . .

    It certainly doesn’t hurt that Cody Smith and Samuel Hagen will be staring as Magical Man and Roger Wickersham, Evil PhD, respectively.

    Other playwright/kid combinations include:

    • “Don’t Touch That Dial!” by Penelope Venturini and Marcy Rodenborn
    • “Roderick Saves the World (or at least the Day)” by Finn Judd and Maria Glanz
    • “Feline Fitness” by Olivia and Jim Jewell
    • “The Family Jynx” by Jack and Joe Zavadil

    The plays will be brought to life by a talented ensemble, including Val Brunetto, Sam Hagen, D’Arcy Harrison, Cole Hornaday, Kacey Shiflet, and Cody Smith, with a special guest appearance by Paul Shipp. Co-directed by Shawn Belyea and Jim Jewell.

    Here are the details broken out real simple like:

    What?     Saturday Morning Cartoons – Live!

    Who?     B-Sides & Rarities, a Partner Project of The 14/48 Projects, in association with Pocket Theater

    Where?    The Pocket Theater, 8312 Greenwood Ave N

    When?     November 8, 15, 22 @ 10:30am 

    How?     Tickets for Saturday Morning Cartoons are available at The Pocket Theater website (http://thepocket.org/see/) and are $10 adults/$5 kids online (or $14/$7 at the door). Seating is general admission and all children MUST be accompanied by an adult

    Parents, I promise you a good time will be had by all!

    Posted at 4:55 PM in The Starting Gate, Writing | Comments (0)

    Tags: bars, memoir, Paul Mullin, St. Andrews Bar and Grill, The Ending Gate, The Starting Gate, working

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