Fri 24 Apr – Forward Into The Past...

The four or five crazy guys reunited in a one-off show in Monterey on Friday night, because a friend let them have the place for the night. No agents, no overhead. According to Ossman, they wanted to see if they could do it. And, they pulled it off brilliantly.

The two sets were re-tooled bits from all their older stuff and newer. I recognized parts of Don't Crush That Dwarf and Bozos and How Can You Be (including a properly abbreviated Nick Danger), including Giant Rat of Sumatra and Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death and even Boom Dot Bust. They finished with the wonderful train of thought sequence from How Can You Be...

Whew. And all of those are so dense with wordplay, cultural references, and general silliness that it was like a giant wave of genius repeatedly washing against your brain. And I mean that in a good way. 

In fact, at the end of both sets, when the ending began to recall the opening of the set, but reimagined, the coordinated chaotic layers of their writing and performing were so dense that I couldn't do more than tilt my head back, close my eyes with contented joy, let it all pour into my mind without thinking, and realize, yes, that it was as good as I remembered, yes, the sea. 

The sea. 

Crimson - sometimes like fire - and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes 
and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar 
as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain 
yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used 

or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought as well as well him as another 
and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes 

and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower 
and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes 
and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes....