at times, i like to post the stuffs emails i send out as part of my ongoing, inconsistent, and underwhelming  ”promotional efforts”. so, below is what i sent out on May 29th. a fairly good summary…

in the meantime, T minus ten. crap…

From: Samantha Chanse <schanse@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:49 AM
Subject: this weekend & more stuffs.
To: sam@whiskeyandacigarette.org

hey all,

yet another email this month, but it’s May & API heritage month, or something like that, and you know how we Asians get when heritage is involved (i don’t even know what that means; the day still feels early yet, just bear with me, or nod and smile, & let’s move on).

i have a few announcements of stuffs upcoming. then i won’t send another email out for a few weeks, huzzah! so, i feel quite justified in tapping this one out:

1. Friday & Saturday, May 29 & 30th; 8pm (tonight & tomorrow, yes)
Story Jam @ SomArts (934 Brannan Street, bet 8th & 9th sts, SF)
featuring Eth-Noh-Tec, Noemi Sohn, Samantha Chanse, Brenda Wong Aoki & Mark Izu of First Voice, Coke Tani Nakamoto
some tales told, in various formats, including but not limited to: kinetic storytelling, dance, performance, music, &reading shit off a few pieces of paper on a music stand.
we like music stands, though; they have that whole stillness quality about them, and they suggest order & discipline, even in the absence of both.
$14 at door, $10 in advance
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/66338

2. Friday & Saturday, June 19 & 20th; 8pm
Back to the Graveyard @ Shotwell Studios (3252-A 19th Street, @ Shotwell, SF)
part of an Artist In Motion residency with Footloose at Shotwell Studios
a solo show - comedy with embedded tragedy, tragedy with embedded comedy, etc.
my last Graveyard performance before i move my shit cross-country! and the bay area breathes a collective sigh of relief…
$10-15
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/68708

3. Saturday, June 20th; 9pm-1am (following 6/20 performance of Graveyard)
Laundry Party Public & Celebration of Impending Transition to My Bicoastal Lifestyle
Featuring performances/readings/presentations by Mahru Elahi, Isaac Hill, The Matinees, Cathlin Goulding, Daniel Heath, The Invisible Cities, Dan Weil, and others
Also featuring drinking & eating & celebratory goodness.
Free, although donations of drink and/or cold hard cash and/or cold hard checks to underwrite the celebratory goodness and/or my move/graduate education much appreciated.
stop by and say “happy cross-country driving” or “don’t fuck this up” or “good riddance” or your send-off greeting of choice to me.
Info: http://www.whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php?op=view&id=288

4. Tuesday, June 23rd; 8pm
Love, Death & Comedy @ KSW (PariSoma, 1436 Howard St., bet 10th & 11th sts)
Featuring Allan Manalo, Linda Park, Yasmine Gomez, Jon Yang, Chuck Lacson, and Cathlin Goulding
An evening of readings, performances, & presentations developed in KSW’s comedy workshop with Samantha Chanse.
Aiya, my students reading! so proud, so proud (i am NOT reading/performing at this event, although i’ll be introducing peoples, so i’m sure i can fuck something up, at some point in the evening).
Cost: unsure; i suspect it’s a suggested donation of $5, though.
Info eventually here: http://www.kearnystreet.org

5. Friday, June 26th; 8pm
Comedy Marathon @ the Purple Onion (140 Columbus Ave, SF)
Night of standup comedy featuring Susan Alexander (Host), Nancy Lee, Caitlin Gill, Sandy Stec, Samantha Chanse, Chris Burns.
$20
Email: reservations@5funnyfemales.com; info: http://www.5funnyfemales.com

6. Wednesday, August 26th; 7.30pm
Lydia’s Funeral Video @ The Marsh (1062 Valencia St, SF)
A solo play. oh, and look, i’m in SF again; guess that collective sigh of relief in (2) was premature.
even if you already saw this, please to come & help me sell out this show; i have gained incalculable Wisdom and Experience in the year since the 2008 production, so it will be As If You Never Saw It Before. or something like that.
$10 - 15
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/57749

thanks for reading. hope you’re all well -

and if you’d like to be removed from this list, feel free to send me a passive aggressive email suggesting i reconsider the content/tone/frequency of my stuffs emails without actually mentioning that you’d like to be removed. or you can be direct about it, your choice. in any case, i’ll be offended and hurt, but after promptly removing you, will eventually get over it and move on; know that your rejection will have contributed immensely to my ongoing Character Building Project (CBP).

happy weekend,

sam

so a few things that i want to talk about, in typically erratic fashion:

1. back to the graveyard -

this is a new solo show i’ve been working on, the first live-performance draft of which took place in September 2008, but which i’ve performed in various incarnations since at Footloose’s Shotwell Studios (January 2009), Bindlestiff Studio’s Single Shots at Thick House (April 2009), and APICC’s festival at SomArts (May 2009). i’ll be doing graveyard again June 19 - 20th 2009 as part of an Artist In Motion residency at Footloose’s Shotwell Studios. Look here’s a link for info: http://whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php?op=view&id=288

i’ve been gratified by the positive and enthusiastic response i’ve received for this show - it’s a completely different solo show than my solo play Lydia’s Funeral Video, and it’s been fun and exciting to work on the new project at various venues & with different audiences. i also had the chance to work with directors Ellen Sebastian Chang & Pamela Wu Kochiyama on the most recent incarnation of the show, and before that i had input from Allan Manalo, the artistic director at Bindlestiff, and others - anyway, it’s an ongoing process, and i’m looking forward to doing the show again in June. which leads me to:

2. Laundry Party -

this is an artist salon series that my friend & musician Sadie Contini and i started in January 2009 - the idea was to gather artists/people-who-do-stuffs in various disciplines (including music, theater, writing, film, photography, website development, microphone-cable-making, cooking…), give us all a mini-deadline to generate material to present, and hang out. (the “laundry” part really has nothing to do with it - it was a good name in search of an event, but its meaning is open to interpretation; basically like the name version of a rorschach test.) so far we’ve had 10 Laundry Parties, and 2 LP publics, and we will be having another LP Public on Saturday, June 20th, at Shotwell Studios. (i already provided the link, but here it is again: http://whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php?op=view&id=288)

LP will run from 9pm - 1am, since it will still involve the party part, this one somewhat self-centeredly serving as an LP Public & Celebration for my new bicoastal, grad student lifestyle (that’s number 3, but before we go to that) -

LP has been enormously helpful in terms of generating work - i will be reading three pieces written/developed for/by LP this Friday & Saturday (5/28 & 5/29) as part of Eth-Noh-Tec’s story jam event at SomArts. look, here is a link: http://whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php?op=view&id=271

LP will also be expanded to include NY peoples/events/parties. yay.

3. re-positioning myself

i am re-positioning myself, and my way of communicating the way in which i am re-positioning myself. i’ve mentioned in earlier rambles that i am moving my corporeal self to NYC to pursue an MFA in playwriting at columbia. while this remains the case, it is ALSO true that i will remain SF-based in spirit and, sometimes, in action. so i am re-positioning my message of re-positioning to emphasize that i am embarking on a bicoastal lifestyle - i will be in sf & nyc, and will continue to think of myself as an sf-based writer & performer, as well as, now, a nyc-based writer & performer. this understanding is very important to me! i’m madly enamored with the communities and peoples with whom i work & play (sometimes, often, there is little distinction) here in the bay area, and i simply can’t bring myself to truly leave, period. so, i’m merely expanding my sphere of activity.

okay, glad i got that all of my chest. and now onto experiencing the rest of memorial day

I have run out of coffee. In running out of coffee, I realize again that I drink too much of it, probably more than even a typical caffeine-addict, and that I’ve come to think of coffee as a sort of brewed magical elixir that fortifies my spirit. This can’t be true; especially not of the cheap tasteless sludge I’ve been drinking of late - but I still imagine it’s true, and somehow that fiction makes my day better. If that’s the case, then I suppose the lies I’ve been telling myself actually assume a truth of their own, wielding incredible powers in the world of Me. At certain times, these are the only truths that matter.

[note: the following is the content of an email i sent out earlier]

hey all,

a few announcements, some of which you may find of interest.(*if you have no interest, please scroll down to asterisk at end of email to view !Helpful Fun Hint!)

Performance stuffs:
1. April 23 - May 2: Single Shots @ the Thick House, 1695 18th Street @ Arkansas, San Francisco
a program of 4 solo performances.
http://www.whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php?op=view&id=272

2. May 9: Laundry Party @ Socha,  3235 Mission street, at Valencia, San Francisco
a multidisciplinary artist salon series, sorta, goes public for a night.
http://www.whiskeyandacigarette.org/calendar/index.php

3. May 22 - 30: United States of Asian America festival @ SomArts, 934 Brannan Street, @ 9th Street, San Francisco
all asian american performers, all the time (for a few weeks, anyway)
http://www.apiculturalcenter.org/

Other news:
1. my corporeal self is moving to new york and getting degree-ified (”degree-ified” is a word, google spellcheck…).
no, really, this time i really am moving; i’ve been accepted into a graduate program at Columbia University, and will be pursuing an MFA degree in playwriting come fall 2009. i expect to be moving in the summer, although i expect, as well, to be back regularly in the bay area, as much of my heart is here. (awww. no really; it’s true).

2. i’ve updated my website.
uh, okay, i always update my website, at least the calendar part, and there’s no major design change - it remains the impressive design work of Derek Chung, and my rarely-updated blog was recently rescued from mysterious 500 configuration server error by music & programming geek sadie contini of the Invisible Cities - but i’ve added in the last few months some video/audio if you’re interested in seeing lowfi recordings of a few relatively recent performances. also, i’ve slightly updated the Frequently Asked Questions section of the site.

3. i’m teaching a class.
for writing & performing artists, primarily - about identifying & applying principles of comedy in creative work. or noncreative work, as you will. i’ll be doing this only if enough people sign up, so if you know of anyone who’d be interested in a fairly experimental but engaging class, please to forward info on; begins april 21 for 8 weeks, and the description is here:
http://www.kearnystreet.org/programs/calendar/calendarindex2.php#sam

Other cool events i’m affiliated with (but not as a presenting artist)
1. Kearny Street Workshop’s Poker Fundraiser, May 9th
PariSoma, 1436 Howard, @ 10th street, SF
support a beloved arts organization, of which i am a board member, artist/teacher, and former staff
organization’s website: http://www.kearnystreet.org

2. Best of PlayGround Festival, May 7 - 31st
Thick House, 1695 18th Street, @ Carolina, SF
a festival of new plays from PlayGround, where i’m a member playwright and communications director
organization’s website: http://www.playground-sf.org

* !Helpful Fun Hint!
if you’ve no interest in sam’s announcements, feel free to reply to this email and change the subject line to: “for the love of god, please remove me from this list.”** if you’d like to use your own words to convey the same meaning, go ahead; just avoid being so abstract and poetic about it that i miss the request entirely. [Note: !Helpful Fun Hint! has absolutely no relevance to those of you reading this online]

** !Totally Uninteresting Technical Note!
it’s not actually a list, it’s a group in my gmail contacts.

thanks for reading,

sam

ooh, so very excitingly, i’ve finally caught up with technology from five years ago and now have figured out how to easily display audio on my website.

so now you can hear ! totally new 2009 standup material! from a february show at the purple onion - this same info is also on the images/audio/video link on the site, but since i’m having so much fun with  this, it’s redundantly below, as well:

Click here to have a listen.

thanks to sadie, the rambles aka my crappy blog is now log-inable (that is a name) to me; i am now free to once again post sporadically and unreliably. yay.

so last night i watched an interview on larry king live with joel & victoria osteen. apparently, though, this interview aired on december 8, 2008, but never you mind -

i was so entertained i kept watching and was late for a tasty pho dinner, which is totally out of character for me.
if you don’t know, joel osteen is a preacher based in houston, and his wife victoria does a fair amount of public god-speaking too. apparently, people pay thousands of dollars a seat to be at one of their public sermons.

i think what impressed me was how utterly unconvincing a person can be in an unscripted interview - yes, shades of palin, so i know it’s nothing new - but this is someone who makes a living speaking. so you’d think he could spin an argument better. even i can come up with a more christianly satisfying answer to the question “is faith all you need?” than “Well, I think you need faith to believe, you know.” uh. i guess. and you need to breathe in order to inhale. plus, you need to make sense in order to communicate clearly.

there’s a choice excerpt of the full transcript below - a highlight is when larry asks joel if he thinks marriage is a civil right, and joel responds: “Yes. I don’t — I’m not — I’m not sure I’m up to speed on it. What do you mean by that?”  it’s also fun when victoria reassures us that the gay people who come through their doors are nice people.

i know it’s too easy to talk shit about the famous celebrity preacher, but they kind of pissed me off while fascinating me at the same time. if you can, watch the interview - joel has a way of constantly smiling while he’s talking, and victoria starts to get a very tense look as the interview continues…
excerpt from full transcript:

KING: OK. In another area, the new issue of “Newsweek” — I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet — but it discusses the Proposition 8 study in California and the defeat of the proposal to allow marriage among gays. And it claims that the bible has many, many, many marriages among gays and that it does not come down on it. How do you feel about it?

J. OSTEEN: Well, the way I feel about it is I’m an…

KING: It’s an interesting article, though.

J. OSTEEN: Sure.

KING: You ought to read it.

J. OSTEEN: I have this…

KING: It’s very — written in depth.

J. OSTEEN: Sure. I’d love to read it. I’m not for gay marriage. Every — in the bible, I see that a marriage is between a male and a female. Now, I don’t know — I haven’t read this new one that you’re talking about. I’m not against anybody. I’m not against gay people or anybody else. But I just think that, you know, that’s — my faith is based off the scripture and that’s what I see in the bible that it should be between (INAUDIBLE).

KING: But this gives you other scripture to think about. I mean, it’s very interesting…

J. OSTEEN: Yes. I’d love to see it.

KING: …the new issue.

J. OSTEEN: I’d love to see it.

KING: Do you think it’s a civil right, though, marriage?

J. OSTEEN: Yes. I don’t — I’m not — I’m not sure I’m up to speed on it. What do you mean by that?

KING: Do people have the right to marry whom they wish to marry? You know, for a time in this country, blacks couldn’t marry whites in the South.

J. OSTEEN: Oh, yes. Yes, oh, I think — absolutely. I think anybody should be able to…

KING: But not gays?

J. OSTEEN: Well, I just don’t think that — you know, I don’t think that’s God’s best. And, no, I don’t think that’s — that’s (INAUDIBLE).

KING: Do you think that gay is a choice?

J. OSTEEN: I think that it is a choice. I do think it’s a choice. I can’t say that I understand it all, but I believe it’s a choice.

KING: Do you minister to gay people?

J. OSTEEN: Absolutely. Anybody that comes through the doors.

KING: Do they come and ask you questions?

J. OSTEEN: I’m sure…

KING: Or do they have difficulty dealing with a theology that runs against them?

J. OSTEEN: No. I think — anybody is welcome to come. They know what I believe. But it doesn’t mean that, you know, that the scripture can’t help them. And, you know, our church is not a place for perfect people. There’s not — you know, I can’t say nobody…

KING: Then I can’t go.

(LAUGHTER)

J. OSTEEN: Well, you know what I mean. So, there’s plenty of people that come in and have difficulties and have issues. And, you know, we probably all have something. But we’re open and, you know, want it to be a place of hope and healing.

KING: How do you feel, Victoria, about the gay question?

V. OSTEEN: Well, you know, I just — I believe marriage should between a man and a woman. And we do have gay people in our church. And then they’re wonderful people. They’re nice people. It’s just that we just don’t believe in that.

also, i have mentioned it before, but to remind myself, even: a friend and i now maintain an equally irregularly updated blog, jealous gods. sometimes i post there, usually when i’m feeling less inclined to visit whiskey.

I have, for the last couple months, been building mad character as a recluse. The recluse part fully intentional; the character building not so much (”character-building” being, of course, a euphemism for other things; I leave it to the gentle or not-so-gentle [you know who you are, whores] readers out there to imagine what other things I might be alluding to).

Anyway. some interesting things to report, since it’s been a while, and I am now planning on embarking upon my emergence from Spell of Seclusion:

First, two quick announcements -

1. After many months of quietly DIY-recording & mixing, bantercut will finally be releasing two long overdue albums of songs. We’re not sure exactly when they’ll be out, although we imagine sometime within month or two. More info on that soon, but the albums are called “leave the bodies that you buried” and “this is where the magic happens.”
2. I’m performing a few times in January 2009:

• January 23: KSW’s Shifted Focus at the De Young Museum (NEW MATERIAL)
• January 29, 30, & 31st: Women on the Way Festival at Shotwell Studios (NEW MATERIAL, adapted from new material at APAture 2008)

More on both of those to come.

And now, some random thoughts, for your perusing pleasure or displeasure.

In no particular order:
1. Holy shit, you can actually learn something by taking the GRE! As I did, in fact, do, not five weeks ago. From my skewed vantage point of self-imposed exile, peeking out from my cave and squinting into the light, I reasoned taking a four-hour standardized test would be fun, and why NOT throw a hundred and forty bucks to ETS when I don’t even have health insurance? Anyway, I ended up learning a new word, “friable,” which doesn’t have too many practical applications in my particular life, but at least I’m now pronouncing it correctly (when I saw it on the test I thought “FRY-uhble” but it’s actually “FRAY-uhble” - who knew? [probably most people]). The best part (if not failing the GRE is a “best part”) is that I guessed correctly on the meaning (ahem: easily crumbled or reduced to powder; crumbly: friable rock). Lesson learned? I can find a silver lining in ANYthing. My stubborn optimism, while often cloaked in hyper-pessimism, is NOT FRIABLE.

2. Feeling good about taking the GRE, while better than feeling bad, on some level, is probably an indication of a disturbingly fractured perspective, due to self-imposed exile.

3.  I find comfort in penning endless sentences, chock full of unnecessary (yet somehow infinitely satisfying) asides, parentheticals, dashes, and all other grammatical (or not-so-grammatical) manner of circumventing the actual end of the sentence in question, even when I am fully aware that the comfort/satisfaction I take is certainly not shared by the vast majority of my (easily numbered) readers. I think my writing of such sentences just might be a metaphor for the way I live my life. That shit was so profound I could barely wrap my brain around it.

4.  I need an editor in many cases (but who doesn’t).

5.  There are good writerly souls out there kind enough to have helped me out in this respect, in recent months (thanks).

6. Even while living in exile, it is possible to appreciate the finer things. Two nights ago, for instance, was treated in my KSW board member capacity to a very memorable evening of musical performances by Goh Nakamura, Art Hirahara, and Vienna Teng; I just wanted to express my gratitude to them and others in the last few months who’ve unknowingly given cause for soul-upliftment.

7.  Santa Ramen, especially on a particularly cold day, is also cause for soul upliftment.

i know! i thought i was the only one who actually visited whiskeyandacigarette (dot org) from time to time, but apparently: I AM NOT ALONE.

it IS kind of eerie. how can i feel confident in spilling my rambling, incoherent guts knowing full well that another Human is actually reading along, every so often? i tell you, it’s unnerving.

so how do i know? what is the evidence?

i actually got a NON-robo piece of hate mail just 6 days ago! here it is, in all its totally Human glory:

so why are you back all of a sudden? we’ve gotten used to your neglectful ways regarding the practically defunct Whiskey and A Cigarette, and now we’re expected to set aside our theatre desires to make room for your triumphant return to Playground-hood? and even start marking our 2009 itineraries for a De Young Museum event?! my advice: get employed, get main-stream, and forget your unique, poetic and even at times poignant individualism. comic-rockstar, my ass…

thank you, anonymous hate mail sender. now i will have to actually update the totally outdate hatemail page on this site.
in other news: i’m participating in a series of new play readings! including my own! in North Beach! i’m a bit frightened, and am still writing the script, but i will be joined by theater artists extraordinaire Acquenetta Summers-Wong, Leon Goetzen, and Dan Weil, who will make me look good. November 6th and 8th (series runs November 1 - 8).

other playwrights on the bill are Adam Chanzit, Christopher Chen, Ignacio Zulueta, & David Bernbaum.