This is a video I made with Zillah Glory. Zillah is a virtuoso actor who recently played Valerie in The Weir at the San Jose Rep. Here we are working together.

I believe these "performances" to be a kind of mask. They are a way for the subconscious to be revealed, so the work is honest, yet disguised through character and physical constraint. It is adolescent in quality and should grow with attention and care. Ultimately, clear communication between the soul and the public persona is possible.

August 8 2007
Pedro Tochas, Edinburgh International Airport, Scotland
He was heading to Burlington, Vermont and I home to Boston.

August 1 2007
Dan Holtzman, Juneau International Airport, Alaska
I was returning from the Southeast Alaska State Fair home to Boston and he was returning to San Francisco from Holland America Cruise Lines.

March 26 2007
Al Millar, San Francisco International Airport
We were scheduled on the same final leg of our itineraries, his from Sydney, mine from Auckland.

January 2001
Sut Jhally, Founder of the Media Education Foundation, on a flight from London, UK to Boston.
He was sitting across the isle.

It must have been 2001. I was on the West End of Quincy Market in Boston performing street shows. There was a camera crew opposite my performance spot, not an uncommon event at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It was unclear what they were filming.

I was between shows and glancing over. Soon a publicist approached me to ask if I'd not mind starting a show because they had wanted to film and they needed a crowd in the background. She hadn't really asked. It was more of a order. It is not uncommon, also, for a street performer to be taken for granted, as certainly someone who performs on the street has no value or consciousness or discretion or authority and is desperate to be recognized by anyone important.

Revealing my disinterest in the publicist's plot she emphasized, "It's Mikhail Gorbachev." I said I would be starting another show soon and laughed as I realized the former President of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, had been wandering about the marketplace unnoticed with a camera in front of him. It occurred to me it wasn't so much that people hadn't seen him, it was more that they weren't interested.

I gathered a front edge of pedestrians and the film crew shot Mr. Gorbachev walking the length of my audience. Then it was over and I continued my act. Reflecting, I thought, On that day a fresh young street performer had gathered an audience for a former head of state.

It was a slow night at The Comedy Studio during the world series when the Red Sox were playing well. On stage, I thanked the few for coming and mentioned that if I weren't performing I would be at the opening night of the James Bond film Casino Royale, to which a couple replied, "Sold out!".

the wind plays
all day but takes me away
instantly

a tree puts
a building to waste gently
pushing for a thousand years