It's easy for me to get lost in things, and to forget how they work. So sometimes I have to strip the richer subtleties away and look at the bones, so I remember.

Usually I'll start by going to Visions in Huntsville, which is the only gentleman's club worth going to in that town. Lots of nice/funny/interesting girls there, many of them quite beautiful. But I like to watch human desire at its crudest and most explicit: the men there need to feel less lonely, to use whatever means necessary to pursue something curvy and bright and lovely, and to be rewarded at least in some small way. They need to believe that there's a point to the chase. And by they, of couse I mean we. I was there, too.

And the girls. They need money, and they will use their curviness and brightness and loveliness to get it. Maybe they even enjoy dancing for the occasional man. No one there resents anyone else there for such displays of selfish motivation; everyone knows exactly where they stand, because you don't have to constantly keep in mind that this is how it works. And that's totally okay; I just forget it sometimes.

Really, I've only been struck by this "bones of things" ideas because it occurred to me two nights in a row in two wildly unrelated contexts. Tonight I went to Cornerstone Christian Academy's (Rainsville, AL) spring musical that the kids put on because my sister Joy attends there, and because in it she performed her debut speaking role. I might add, as a piece of free information, that she was by far the most wonderful excellent marvelous kid there. FYI.

Anyway, I love how the bones of theatre (and by extension, all English language entertainment) show through in kids' productions. The characters are broadly written enough so that kids can understand them at least thoroughly enough to portray them, so the "lead" and the "sidekick" and the "comic relief" are so aggressively obvious as to be violent. Songs and dances are arranged in only the most perfunctory of ways; without the distraction of being much entertained, we can see why things which are entertaining manage to be so. There's even a nod in-script to prima-donnaism: each character is named, even if they have only a single throw-away line. Each child's character is called by name so that the audience can know them, notice them, that they are there. All in all, quite the engaging theatrical experience.

Matthew Taheri, Jake Harris, and myself began rehearsing last night for our upcoming reboot of our The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) which we performed at Northeast Alabama Community College theatre two years ago. It's one of the most brilliant fucking plays ever written, and I'll tell you why: because it's only partly written.

The only reason theatre still exists is that each performance has little nuances which are completely unique, which will exist only in the moment they happen, sparkle up, then fade away and be gone forever. This show takes that to its extreme by demanding that its performers adapt the script to their current respective sociopolitical climates. Issues and references which were current when we did the show in the summer of 2007 simply won't work anymore. There's been quite the historic election, Heath Ledger died, there's swine flu. We'll be joking about that stuff now, with the cheerful consent of the authors. And I think that's awesome.

Last night, we rehearsed at Matthew's parents' house in Rainsville, and his father, Bejan, cooked a magnificent dinner, of rice and meat kebobs and fruit and salad. We'll be rehearsing, as last night, on our own time in our own spaces this week, as the director of theatre at NACC (Mark Webb, a scholar and a gentleman) is on well-deserved vacation. I like starting with such a feeling of unity, of three people conspiring as if to commit a crime. Except it's to stage a hilarious play.

The power went out a little while ago. I went out on the porch and drank my first sixer of Samuel Adam's Boston Lager. I've been resisting it for some time, probably something about my ridiculous aversion to overly popular things. But it really is delicious, credit where it's due. I'd love to taste a hefeweizen made by this company.

Speaking of which, anybody out there with thoughts on the wheat beer? Eh?

I have to go to Railroad Bazaar in the morning. My two weeks will be up a week from Wednesday, and then I'll be more free. Until then I'll still have to go to sleep early and post blogs which aren't very well thought-out or edited much. Adieu, adieu.