Work, work, work with Rita Andreeva…

Editor:  What’s our Rita been up to?  I saw her at the most recent WARP Production with a new video camera.  So I figured she might have come into some money.  She didn’t answer that query, but here is her reply:

Time to go!

“…planning to move frantically and sporadically…”

Well, I’m still planning to move soon, very soon, so I don’t have time for anything else but planning to move frantically and sporadically. Probably to cheaper South. Why is South always cheaper in all the cities, do you know? It’s not that much hotter… Although, there is like a common theory that sophisticated and intelligent go north, and those who stay south basically eat bananas, drink margaritas and laze around so they aren’t as cool… and north is cool because it is colder and motivates you to be busy and invent technology.  So all the cool new technology is up north, like Redmond, and all the losers are down in Kent and Auburn, so I’ll be joining them soon and talking with a southern drawl (or is it drool?) and probably join KKK. – Rita Andreeva

Editor again:  By the way… If you are interested in Rita’s musings on the Meaning of Existence, attend her Church of the Eternal Mind, right here:  http://churchofeternalmind.blogspot.com/2012/08/does-your-religion-of-choice-discount.html#more 

Photo by Carl Nelson

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Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Even Broke Artists Have to Get Away Once in a While

 

Rita Takes a Short Vacation

“I got help from above (literally) and caught the eclipse on videoafter I have almost given up and was waiting to board the bus to Seattle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQcTlUR_bf4

I am sure it took some divine intervention to thin out the clouds just in the right spot at the right moment, since I only was able to film a few seconds of it after walking around Wenatchee completely disgusted for hours. Every time I looked at the sky it was overcast and raining.

Just before boarding the bus back to Seattle I texted Eva saying that I wasted the trip for nothing, but she said, “It’s doing it now!” So I climbed up the stairs to the parking lot with a good view of the sky and sure enough – clouds parted just for a few moments so I could film the eclipse and be happy! No one else on my bus was able to catch it, I was the only one.

My trip started out not so good. I ordered a ticket to Leavenworth, because that was the only place the weather report said was going to be cloudy, partially sunny. First thing, as I got to the train station at about 8 am I had 50 min to kill and I was hungry and went to the only coffee shop around there that was open, but there was a huge bunch of school kids that ran up to order stuff before me, so I did indeed kill the 50 minutes, since that’s how long it took for that whole class to get their lattes. And to make the matters worse, the barista made a latte for a guy who was after me in line before I got mine. So I expected problems to continue. Sure enough, when I got off the bus in Leavenworth the sky was just as overcast as in Seattle. So I paid additional $26 and got back on the bus to Wenatchee.

I hated Wenatchee right away: first, a ditsy blond almost ran me over as I was crossing the street on the Walk light. Then I couldn’t find anything opened except a church where everyone was Mexican and everything was in Spanish. I kept walking, and finally found a restaurant that was open, and I had a long lunch. The soup was good, but the rest of the food was way horrible and way overpriced. I walked around downtown and on river trail after lunch. It was very overcast there too and started raining as I was just starting to enjoy my walk and filming the art exhibit. I went to the Wenatchee library to check my email and encountered the most disorganized and incompetent librarian on this planet. When I finally, after 3 times of coming back to the librarian’s desk and explaining to them how it would really be nice if they printed the guest access code on a little piece of paper with some instructions instead of just giving one a code that never worked, I finally got on line, but left immediately, because it smelled horribly of sweaty feet, booze and puke. There were no alternatives, everything in historic downtown Wenatchee was closed. I walked around enjoying the most stupid display windows I’ve ever seen hand painted sloppily on the glass. Like: “It’s good as gold but dirt cheap” and “Childrens clothing and tobacco” and “Tax tax can’t pay it sale”.

I did get involved for a few minutes in a treasure hunt game. I sat first at an outside table at a cafe that was closed, of course. And a minute later a woman sat down with a kid. They were a part of the game. There were 4 teams of kids. When they reached us a woman gave them a piece of paper with further instructions which said: “Take a penny and trade it for something bigger and better from a total stranger.” I was the only stranger for miles. So I ended up trading 3 pennies for 3 teams for nickles. In the case of the fourth team I gave them the useless map of Wenatchee. They were losing too, but because the map was bigger, and then they traded it for birch log from a bum who pulled it out of some display thing, they won that round, since it was the biggest damned thing that anyone dragged in. I wasn’t paying much attention, but, thinking back on it, I wish I filmed it all. It was so stupid, it was funny. There were no strangers anywhere on the avenue. I should have guessed! I was the only stranger in town. Well, it was purely by accident that I gave those kids the map. I got it at the library, but had no use for it and had no more nickles left.

I guess, looking back, I did have fun, even though, at the time, I didn’t think I did. I thought I was lonely and stuck somewhere weird. But as I was watching the mountains passing by my bus window, watching the trees and the old snow and the river go by, I realized how much I lived and experienced from 7 am until 7 pm. And how full of life and energy I was as compared to doing nothing, staying at home. Even though I was tired, when I got home, I was still energized, and still am at 1:25 am. I discovered a bit of truth about life as I followed through with my trip, determined that I was going to have fun, no, to be alive and present. And even though I lapsed into occasional self-pity, I still lived more fully than if I hadn’t done it at all.

So I discovered that it’s okay to be sad about unfulfilled stuff, but if one were truly opened, god opened up the clouds and let me have a few seconds of what I came here for – a shot of the eclipse. And everything was all right then, and the sight of the black circle creeping over the sun was awesome, even if it only lasted a couple of seconds.

The main thing I got out of it was: we need to venture out and have adventures. Being stuck in a rut is the worst thing ever. And the only thing we will regret on our deathbed is not making mistakes, but not making enough mistakes!”  – Rita

Photo by Carl Nelson

Seattle Celebrity News!

Jorj plays the fighter in John Ruoff’s “Half Moon Inn”

Jorj Savage is Onstage Again!

Continuing his successful relationship with WARP Theater in Seattle, Jorj Savage appears in another ‘knock-out’ play by John Ruoff.   And this is only one-tenth of what is offered in WARP’s current production of 10 Short Plays in May.  Old standby writers such as John and Rita and Jorj, himself, deliver the goods.  But there are also several new, and very promising upstarts – judging from the plays we’ve seen here, such as: Bryan Harthorne, Betsy Geller and John Paul Sharp.  It’s a rarely shared fact, but a large portion of the playwrights who later went on to garner major productions in the equity theaters around town, first passed through WARP (or its predecessor, DAMN) on their way to the big leagues.  Maybe you ought to save some money and catch them on their way up!  There’s still room (I hope.)  The run continues tonight and tomorrow.  For more information go to: http://www.seattlecenter.com/events/event_detail.aspx?eid=418896

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Having Trouble Making Your Rent?  Buy a House!

What’s Rita up to now?  “I bid on a HUD house. The house is in Tacoma, and I won the bid. So what then? I guess I only won the bid because I was stupid. Now I’m supposed to buy it. So I guess I’m buying a house in Tacoma. The house is pretty cute, and it is supposedly cheap. Big yard, and two bedrooms upstairs and a room downstairs. I am thinking of making it a commune.”

Sounds good.  How do you arrange the financing?  “Oh yes, financing… Well, you get two bank accounts. You get some of those credit card offers with 0% interest for a year and deposit a few thousand into acct 1. Then you transfer it to bank 2. Then you use bank 2 acct for downpayment. All the loan officer asks is the statement showing where the money came from to bank 2. He hasn’t asked about bank 1.   And Hud usually pays all the closing costs.

I started a blog to help poor people to buy a house, lots is explained in it:  http://homebuyerwa.blogspot.com ”

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Losing Focus

“I don’t know if that’s because I’m certifiably insane or there is another reason, but every time I have a few glasses of vino, this thought pops into my mind, that I have a higher purpose, a special destiny. That I’m very special,  and my destiny is huge, enormous, all encompassing, the mankind saving kind.  And I pause between about the 3rd and the 6th glass wondering where the fuck this thought comes from.
I try to slow down and chew down on that thought like on a juicy leaf and get no sense out of it still, but the juice is somehow absorbed into my blood and I start getting impressions, feelings of being timeless, being forever, and having something to accomplish somehow in the mean while. I grind down on that juicy and seductive thought, lusting for its essence, for information.
Time becomes relative, and I think back on the Einstein theory I tried to understand at school, I still don’t understand it. But I feel it may be indeed relative, and the way it all darkens outside the window and the voices of kids playing a block away seem closer and louder, and the air seems to smell fresher. Everything becomes way funner. Is it the alcohol? Shit, I drank like a fish for half a century, that’s not it.
Oh, my daughter says, “funner is not a word,” but here it is, I typed it, and it doesn’t give me the wavy misspell line, so I guess, my daughter is behind times now, was, when she said it was not a word, because it must have become a word in the mean while.
Some guy said to me once, “You can say anything, any stupid thing, and you make if feel like candy in your mouth.” Is it an important talent to say nothing in a way that makes one interested? Does the world need it? Don’t we have enough BS?
I try to talk about things that I think matter to the world, then I get depressed when no one cares. The important things like politics, religion, taxes. I try then to say those important things in seemingly unimportant context, it helps – if people can’t connect it right away to anything important they just have fun and enjoy what I’m saying. They don’t get all righteous on me then and start criticizing what I said. Not right off the bat. Because it takes them a while to realize I’m actually saying something important. Of course, once they do, they find everything wrong with it.
There is a way a story should flow, I feel it in my bones. It should pick you up and carry you along to where you want to know where it’s going, and when it drops you into place like a round peg into a square hole, you should feel no adjustment pain.
I wonder if it hurts the caterpillar when it is inside its cocoon changing shape. Does it feel pain? And if it does, does the butterfly remember the pain?
I feel, we humans are transforming daily like the butterflies, by smaller degrees, and we do feel pain every time. What I want to know – what do we emerge as? Is there an emergence, not to be confused with an emergency, mind you, but an emergence – a new step in a state of being? How many emergences (Hey, that’s not a word yet – the computer underlined it in red squiggly line. But how else do you say emergence in plural? Why doesn’t it exist? Does no one think one can successfully emerge more than once?) are there?”  – Rita

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Loopholes

“I have a serious bone to pick with American justice. It is so stretchable and adjustable, that at this point I don’t think there’s any meat left in its body, it’s pulled so tight and full of holes, officially called ‘loop holes’, to make them look slightly better than just holes.

If you were following my roommates’ saga, I called the cops on the last one a couple of times. The last time I had a friend over to be a witness. So when Ben the roommate walked through the living room to go to the kitchen, I had my feet up on a chair blocking the way. As he neared the natural barrier he frowned and growled, “I’m going thru,” and I said, “Ask politely and say ‘please'”, but he replied, “Fuck you,” pushed my feet off the chair and went to the kitchen. My friend exclaimed, “Assault! Physical contact!” So I called the cops. One of the cops said, “There is a provision in the law – you’re allowed to move someone out of your way,” and the cops didn’t do anything and left. Well, a few days later, my friend tried to explain to the policeman who came to arrest him at his place of residence why he shoved his roommate, “I was only moving her out of the way. The policeman in Central District told me it was allowed.” The law adjustment in CD didn’t work in North Seattle, and my friend had to spend the night in jail.”  – Rita

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Rita’s Life Further Dramatized

"American Roomates"

 As if Rita’s life were not dramatic enough, it has now been further ‘dramatized’ into a short play, “American Roomates”.  To read this roman de clef, go to: http://ritasplays.blogspot.com/2012/03/just-finished-now-american-roommates.html 

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Editor:  And!  If you’ve been wondering what Rita has been up to:

Rita Tries to Stay Calm and Act in an Even-Handed Way, But…

“My last roommate was Jewish. You see after I had a schizophrenic roommate who thought Jews were after him, I decided to find a Jewish roommate. Because if a race of people is after conspiracy theorists like that guy, than they all must be good people. Well, now I understand why the Germans were so easily persuaded by Hitler during the World War II.

My first mistake was not making him fill out a rental agreement, where I’d have to specify EVERYTHING – like: he inspected everything very carefully and is happy with the conditions of the place and the price, he promises to vacate immediately in case of conflict, he promises to clean up after himself or vacate without argument, etc.

The first morning of his stay he started bickering about the price! He argued relentlessly and managed to get the price down a whole $50. Even when I pointed out that I don’t think we’ll get along, because he, obviously, didn’t respect me, since he didn’t clean up after himself the very first morning, which is why I don’t want to rent to him at all, no matter at what price, he still stayed and got the discount! (Anyone knows how I can join Arial Brotherhood?)

During his stay he’d argue and argue and argue about everything until you give in, or get mad and call the cops, who will only make you feel like a fool and tell you that you should grin and bear it and go in your room and let him make messes with my stuff, because he has the legal right to stay and use the kitchen until you legally go through eviction process. So the cops left, and B. continued to spill grease and crumbs all over the stove and kitchen counters, to never clean the toilet or the manly urine fog forming on the wall by the toilet (now, he said his contribution to the bathroom cleaning was that he never took showers),  he’d decide to cook at 11pm and make noises and disgusting food smells, and he kept me up all night until 4am discussing stupid stuff, then he kept my guest up all night talking to him until 4am, which totally ruined my plans for the evening. 

And thus he lived on, cooking smelly, greasy meats and sausages, waking me up by the smell and noise as early as 7am and taking forever, like 3 whole hours to cook and eat his breakfast! He kept on using my toilet paper and napkins for two month, until I finally had to ask him to buy his own and keep yours where he can’t get to it. 
He showed me no respect for being his elder and better educated, and he would not be able to take constructing criticism at all, trying to make me look bad instead, like: “What do you mean your cookie sheet is covered with grease and black thick soot? where? Oh, that, oh it’s nothing. Why do you make such a big deal of a little thing like that! You are unreasonably picky! So what i didn’t notice it. What’s the big deal….” These conversations could go on until the cows come home, until I stopped talking to him and went to my near-room. Naturally, I preferred avoiding him and leaving him notes: “Please flush the toilet, you left poop in it second day in a row… You left crumbs and grease on the kitchen counter again!” to which he emailed me, “Stop leaving me stupid notes, I’m not going to read them anyway.”
He thinks he is god’s gift to women. Ugh. So he brought wine over one evening and tried to get me drunk, in the hope that I’d see him the way he sees himself after a few glasses. I don’t know what he’d do if I actually got drunk, I never got that far and kept my wits about, nursing the same glass, but I sure wouldn’t want to find out… He got drunk, however, and proceeded to take off his shirt, saying, “I want you’re woman’s opinion, is the hair on my back attractive?” and posed his upper half, with a 3/4 turn and flexing his biceps. I was actually diplomatic in my response, “Just because I hate hairy backs doesn’t mean that there are women out there who love them.” Eventually, at about 2am I ran out of patience and had to yell at him and threaten to call the cops to chase him away from me and into his room.

He finally left yesterday morning, not without a great fuss and ado the night before about some plastic measuring cups of his that I hid, and that I was a bitch, and a wretched woman, so I called the cops, who were very annoyed with me for calling them again and made me pay B. $3 for the cups. I stayed up all night listening to music, drinking beer and smoking, hoping it would disturb his last night’s sleep a little. After a while I felt a little bad, and put a rolled up towel under his door. I shouldn’t have bothered – he didn’t notice or didn’t care, and was his usual asshole self in the morning.

I can’t believe he’d actually fix his stupid breakfast despite the fact that I sat next to the kitchen smoking a cigarette! Any normal human being would just leave and splurge on eating out this one time.

He left a broken egg on the kitchen floor, refusing to clean it up on purpose, and played a fucked up head game with me about whether he would return my keys or not while he cooked his crap.

What is it about all those minority groups – they bitch when you stereotype them, but then behave in the exact manner they so hate people to accuse them of?”  – Rita

Photo by Carl Nelson

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Rita Starts Church

"How Intelligent Is a Single Cell?" http://churchofeternalmind.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-intelligent-is-single-cell.html

Rita explains it all… (or most of it, once she gets around to it.  It takes time!)

Catch it at:   http://churchofeternalmind.blogspot.com/

Photo by Carl Nelson of a professional actor/model.

Work, work, work… with Rita Andreeva

Editor:  I ask Rita if she had something for us, for Christmas.  She replied that she was busy sending cards and making presents.  But then offered us this link to her “Learn Russian like a native…” website – and a story about a Christmas Tree.

I Meet a Christmas Tree

How Big of a Tree Do We Want?

http://learnrussianlikeanative.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-meet-christmas-tree.html#more

Photo by Carl Nelson