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Comedy: Theater: Books: Wine:
You
Asked the Questions Greg Proops, best know for his hilarious comedy on ABC's Whose Line Is Anyway, visits Eugene this week with the rest of the show's cast to raise the roof at the Hult Center. We asked you, our dear readers, if you had any questions you wanted to ask Greg. And you did. 251 questions to be exact. We picked a few, and Greg answered by email. Here's what the man himself has to say.
Who inspired you to become a comedian and why? I loved the comics I saw on TV and the movies. I listened to comedy albums growing up, Bill Cosby, Alan Sherman and Albert Brooks. When I got to be a teen, comedy was exploding. George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Monty Python, SNL were all huge. Mostly I always wanted to do it. I love Groucho, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and all the screwball comedies. Go seek them out and learn to laugh again. How many ducks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? In Eugene, four. One to find a bulb, one to get some micro brewed beer and two to hold the bong. If you were an undercover agent on a secret mission and could choose your mission and your character, what would they be? My mission would be to stop all governments from ruining everyone's life. My character would be Gerry the Diplomatic Wombat. What is the worst thing to say or do at an airport security checkpoint? Oh, by the will of Allah, how forgetful I am. I wore my exploding shoes. What shouldn't you say at a gynecologist's office? A little to the right, Doc. That's it, pow! Have you ever thought about using livestock in your improv? You pervert. A chipmunk, maybe. Who is your favorite Smurf? The blue lady with the white hair. Hot. Is there anything that you will not joke about and, if so, what would that be? Anyone who cannot defend themselves. The President and the rich and celebrated have a platform. They are fair game. Everything is funny in context. If you and your fellow comedians started "The Comedians Political Party," how would your policies differ from the Democrats and Republicans? Less meetings. More drinking. No voting, everything done by applause. Everyone do what you want. Keep to your time. If you could spend an evening with anyone, living or dead, who would that be? My wife. In Paris, France. If the world was coming to an abrupt end and all you were allowed to bring into heaven was one pair of shoes, which pair of your shoes would you choose? My brown suede Fratelli lace-ups. Divine comfort for the afterworld. What do you love about doing improv? The freedom. Hanging with the boys. We are pals. If you could select one comedian to serve as President of the United States, who would it be and why? Al Franken. Because he is an informed, intelligent humanist. Margaret Cho as VP. Lewis Black as Secretary of State. Dave Chappelle as Secretary of Defense. George Carlin as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall as first Ladyman. And Bill Hicks as spiritual advisor. Then you got Pro-Choice Jews, Asians, Queers and troublemaking dope smoking Black people running the show the way the Lord really wants. The Lord called me and told me he is tired of over-entitled, corporate lapdog white guys.
Telling
It Like It Is The casual cruelty of middle- and high-schoolers has been well documented by Hollywood. One need only read the local paper, with stories of in-school attacks and racial and gender conflict, for more proof.
It takes something profound to transform an auditorium full of sixth- and seventh-graders from tough-acting pre-teens to a large, sniffling group in need of Kleenex and a hug. But The Courageous Kids Troupe, a group of a dozen or so high school students, brings about that transformation on a regular basis. Because when you're in middle or high school and you imagine what it would be like to lose your brother, sister, mother, dad or another family member, it shakes up what tenuous stability you thought your world has. As 12-year-old Malia Satison filed out of the auditorium at Briggs Middle School in Springfield after a performance in April, she stuck close by her two friends, as if there were safety in numbers. "It made me think about if me and my Mom had a fight and I tell her that I hate her," she said. "And then, what if she died and I never got to tell her I love her? And those could be my last words." From the moment the performers walked on stage, the show packed a whollop like a punch to the gut. The four performers stood with their backs to the audience. "Turn around if your Dad died." Three turned around. "Turn around if you felt like you were going insane." One turned around. The Simon Says game continued through a series of scenarios, and each time different actors turned to face the audience. "Turn around if you learned something positive from it." The full group stood facing the auditorium. "Turn around if you think you'll ever get over it." No one moved. Using humor that at times had the entire audience roaring with laughter, the teens used skits to explore some of the ways the death of their family member has affected them. The director of the troupe, Lauren Chandler, participated last year as a performer even though she's an adult. "My Mom died when I was 12," she explained. "I came to a rehearsal and was so blown away I really wanted to be involved. And the kids said, 'Just do it. We don't care how old you are.'It was a push for me, and incredibly powerful because I remember how isolated I felt when my Mom died." The theater troupe is the newest component of a larger organization, Courageous Kids, and is run through Sacred Heart Medical Center. Courageous Kids was founded 10 years ago by a hospice nurse after two of her children's grandparents died within a few months of each other. The organization offers weekly grief support meetings for children and teens ages 6-18 in addition to a four-day summer camp. So far this year, the troupe has given six performances. The students write their own skits based on their personal experiences, so every year, it's a different show. Most of the performers have already gone through the Courageous Kids bereavement support program and have come to a place where they're ready to share their experiences publicly. "I know I wouldn't have been able to do this earlier," said Justine Lee, a 15-year-old sophomore at South Eugene High School. "Earlier on, my Mom tried to get me to talk about it and I wouldn't." Much of what they do on stage is improvised around an outline. "I actually planned to say more," said Hannah Chamness, 14. "But sometimes it's just too hard to say." That's why the Courageous Kids get up in front of hundreds of students every year: To say the things we don't know how to talk about. "Unless you've had the experience, you have no idea what it's like to go back to school and walk through those doors for the first time," Chandler said. "We're breaking the taboo around grief, especially in middle and high school where people feel like they have to have a smile on their face all the time. Everybody expects you to be yourself, and that's really hard because you feel different."
You
Missed Out You missed out on me entering the 6th grade
An
Unusual Responsibility Living Among Headstones: Life in a Country Cemetery, memoir by Shannon Applegate. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005. Hardcover, $24.95 Shannon Applegate's memoir begins, "When I told my father I would take responsibility for the cemetery I did not reckon on having to bury my friends. There is a hollow place in the pit of my stomach." With these two brief sentences, Apple-gate's tone is set: Pragmatic and straightforward, she's also deeply in touch with the emotions that she sets gently on the page, even through the stranger, sadder parts of her life as a cemetery sexton.
In 1997, Applegate became responsible for a small pioneer cemetery in Yoncalla, in Douglas County. It had passed through her family for years, and though Colonel Applegate, Shannon's father, had tried to get the city to take over, the strange job of sexton fell to Shannon. As sexton, Applegate is part caretaker, part manager and part student of the rituals of death. She sells plots, trims trees and speaks to families whose attitudes run from grateful to irate, all the while reflecting on her own friends and family — those who come to the cemetery to help, and those whose plots she carefully marks and maintains. What makes this tale exceptionally interesting is not, as one might expect, the descriptions of the varied and intricate rituals and practices associated with death, but Applegate's empathy for and understanding of the grief of her neighbors. As she writes about her dealings within "The Industry," as one of her friends refers to cemetery and mortuary work, Applegate is precise, intelligent and sympathetic, an involved observer making sense of each piece of new information. Applegate is new to this world. What she's clearly familiar with is small-town Oregon, the history of her long-standing pioneer family and their relationship with the land. When she writes about pruning the ancient trees in the cemetery, about a conversation with the friends of a teenage boy who's just committed suicide, or about her long-gone relatives whose marble headstone she polishes with meticulous care, Applegate's narration lights up. She captures the diverse personalities of Yoncalla's residents unhesitatingly and fairly, from a piano-playing elderly neighbor about to undergo treatment for breast cancer to the family of a man who makes ugly late-night phone calls. While Applegate certainly loves one better than the other, she's ultimately thoughtful and understanding with both. This is her strength and her gift, both as a writer and as a person trying to bring some peace and grace to those experiencing a strange and grief-laden part of life. Living Among Headstones is, as a quote from Kirkus Reviews notes on the jacket, "fresh and interesting." It's also frustrating, though not necessarily through any fault of the author's: Applegate deserved a better editor, one who would have corrected the small errors that dot the text. A stronger editor might have strengthened the threads connecting the sometimes anecdotal chapters. Authors don't turn in perfect manuscripts, but editors owe it to their authors to make those manuscripts as close to perfect as humanly possibly before they go to press. Hopefully Applegate's next book will get the careful editorial hand such an original story deserves. Shannon Applegate reads at 7pm Monday, June 6 at the UO's Knight Library.
BOOK NOTES John Daniel reads from Rogue River Journal at 7:30 pm 6/2 at Powell's on Hawthorne, Portland … Hugo Award-winning science fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold reads from Hallowed Hunt at 7 pm 6/7 at Powell's Books, Beaverton … Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest winners Rebecca Merritt Lundgren, Steve Radosevich, Kristen Rudestam and Caroline Cummins read, 7 pm 6/8 at the Alumni Lounge in Gerlinger Hall, UO … Anne Giardini, daughter of novelist Carol Shields, reads from The Sad Truth About Happiness at 7:30 pm 6/8 at Powell's on Burnside, Portland … Nick Hornby reads from his new novel A Long Way Down at 7:30 pm 6/15 at the First Unitarian Church, Portland … William L. Sullivan discusses and shows slides for 100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades, 7 pm 6/16 at Barnes & Noble.
A
Toast to Pipelandistan On a beautiful Eugene spring day, I was strolling the back paths of LCC on my way home, fuming about the latest Bush-mania: The proposal to close 33 homeland military bases. I happened to connect with a colleague, Laurie, and vented some frustration: "Protecting America? Closing bases that protect American cities while building dozens of new bases in the Middle East and Central Asia? Huge new base in Biskek, Kyrgyzstan? And Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan …?" Laurie piped in, "Bisquikistan." I almost rolled on the ground, then came back with "Spamivania." Laurie busted up, but we knew it wasn't funny. Where's next? Such strategic spots as Petrolandia, Pipelandistan, Velveetia, Hodgepodgistan? We're gonna need a LOT of wine to get through the next three years of the Reign of Bush. Luckily, in wine at least, we still have choices. I rarely rave about Oregon's "second" wine, the dry white pinot gris. In fact, not too many years ago I was no fan at all. But lately we're seeing super gris at gimme prices. And whereas the gris of yesteryear was often tart and austerely metallic, the new gris is grand. Case in point comes thanks to our pal Dale Duvall. He's chums with the Stuarts, owners of tiny Lumos Wine Company in McMinnville. Dale laid on me a bottle each of Lumos 2002 and 2003 Pinot Gris ($12.50 at Broadway Market). Both these wines were lip-smackin', with pure character, round, ripe flavors of pears and Fuji apple, so balanced you coulda stood 'em on a razor blade. Production is teeny, and the folks do their own marketing. So you might have to place your order and hold your water. But do not miss this beauty, especially if you're grillin' some salmon or might wok a stir-fry. Another pretty gris comes in the guise of High Pass 2002 Pinot Gris ($9), maybe not quite as bold as Lumos but clean and crisp and found in the right place, at a right price. High Pass is another small producer doing its own sales and distribution, so the label doesn't show up in superstores. The only place we've tracked it down so far is at Fisherman's Market on Seventh — serendipitous because for a mere ten bux they'll grill a fillet of fresh wild salmon with white beans and rice and pull the cork for you and even provide some swell plastic "crystal" for the best bargain seafood dining in the South Willamette Valley. 'Course another option might be to snag some lively Dungeness crab, dash home and pop the top on Cougar Crest 2003 Viognier ($18). This little beauty hails from the Walla Walla Valley in that weird state north of us, but it delivers charming peach, tropical fruit and white flower aromas and flavors on a finely structured framework, just intelligently designed to hook up with fresh crab any style you chef it. Want mo' power? Abacela Vineyards (Umpqua Valley) is rapidly emerging as one of our state's premier producers, and Abacela 2002 Viognier ($20), while pricey, can compete for flavors and textures with anybody's viognier from anywhere. It's worth every cent, rich and complex as white wine gets. Gotta be a picnic in your future, right? And there's sun and heat and the Republicans are in the Bahamas and all's better in the world? Time for nibble noshing and a friendly, unpretentious rosé: Trader Ho's stocks La Tour du Prévot 2004 Costieres de Nimes ($6), just a typically simple French rosé: bright and fresh with strawberry and cherry notes with a sprinkling of pepper spiciness, tasty with 'Q, cold meats and cheeses and best served cooled down but not frosty. Th-th-that's all, folks. All we can do for now is hang on to our hats and hopes, post copies of the Bill of Rights in our yards and prepare to defend the Constitution against madcap Reich-wingers and the outraged peoples of Goofistan or whatever other place Bush has offended. Keep your corkscrews handy.
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