55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs, and Audience Participation.

Howard Lieberman and Loren Niemi's storytelling tour de force plants its tent pole deep in the territory of 1970s mythos, with the two men improvising earthy tales that are hilarious yet strangely melancholy. Some of the anecdotes undeniably hint at a nostalgia for a freer, hippie past -- of the four stories the two men unspooled, three described incidents involving sex-and-LSD drenched communes. Of the pair, Niemi, a craggy-faced, ponytail caparisoned character actor, tells more deeply introspective stories about drug use and an innocent romance, while Lieberman assays the persona of a neurotic Jewish intellectual as he describes his first (near) homosexual experience and his loss of virginity to a beautiful she-hippie. These two are fascinating performers who manage to whip up a theatrical experience from little more than their mouths and imaginations. ComedySportzLA, Ballroom Studio Theatre, 733 Seward St., Hlywd.; June 22-27, hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/54 (Paul Birchall/L.A. Weekly)

Can You Hear Me Now?

The DMV waiting room provides the comic fodder for playwright Phoebe Neidhardt's workmanlike series of character portraits of the denizens and customers at the government office where the author has gone to get a new license photo. The problem is that the real wackos waiting in line at the DMV are inevitably more interesting and engaging than these generic denizens of the government office. Neidhardt depicts the prissy gay DMV license photographer, a hard boiled female casting agent (with a yeast infection), a child's nanny (who inexplicably talks like Holly Hunter), and a cheerful Latino desk clerk. While the actress is commendably versatile, the characterizations lack the context and dramatic heft to emerge as anything more than the briefest of routine snapshots. Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood; June 26, 8 p.m. hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/161. (Paul Birchall/L.A. Weekly)

921 F (For Feces)

Today was the day I came into the library to learn that a scoundrel had snuck into the biography section and smeared several whole shelves of books with his feces. It actually happened on Wednesday, and, in the aftermath, the entire section had been sealed off from the public by a Hazmat team and the vandalized books had been removed and bagged. The librarians had gone through the books to see which were salvageable, and which were, sadly, lost causes. When I arrived on Friday, much of the mess had been cleared up and attempts had been made to fill in the shelves, at least with a few books.

People who do not work in libraries may be shocked at the astonishing number of appalling incidents of this type that take place in locations that are supposedly meant for leisure and the betterment of the community at large. But, you see, the library is open and available to everyone -- and that means that anyone can come in and do whatever they desire. You may think that a library is like a social club, or a dignified place of quiet and peace, when, really, it is much more like a bus station waiting room or city park lavatory (with books on the wall). Although thousands and thousands of visitors are decent, respectful, and well intentioned users of the library, it only takes a comparative few wicked souls to ruin it quite well for many of them. And that, of course, is why they do it. You can either become famous by being the President or by killing the President – guess which one is easier to do?

A nice librarian snuck me into the top secret Reference Office to see the pile of salvaged books. They were mostly 921s – biographies for those of you who do not knew the Dewey Decimal System. And there were some Russian history books in the 890s, as well – those would be the books in the shelf on the other side of the biography section. The librarian I chatted with was somewhat curious as to the decision to vandalize biographies and wondered whether it had something to do with some particular obsession on the part of vandal. However, “if that was the case,” the librarian opined, “I would have thought he would have smeared feces over the 200s.” The 200s, as you may or may not know, is the section about religion.

The librarians were, as you can imagine, disgusted and rather depressed by the vandalism, which, in fact, was accomplished in a decidedly wily and careful way – calculated to destroy books that were, not only, frequently used but which also just happened to be shelved in a part of the building that is out of the sightline of the reference desk. No one saw the feces being smeared or thrown – the first anyone knew of it was when a patron reported that there appeared to be “chocolate” smeared all over some book shelves.

In the library work room, we all spent many minutes debating how the act had been accomplished. One security guard suggested that the feces had merely been hidden inside a plastic baggy and smeared along the shelves. Another page believed that the offensive ordure had been liquefied and stored in a squirt bottle for easy pouring and squirting on the books. This made sense to me, as I had seen on many episodes of my beloved MSNBC TV series “Lock Up” that convicts often create water bottles of feces to throw at the guards in the hopes of infecting them with Hepatitis.

In any case, the incident caused quite a stir at an establishment that doesn’t want for excitement. If you had told me, when I started working at the library, I would pretty much find myself working at a madhouse, I would not have believed you. But this isn’t even my first library incident involving feces! It’s something like the second or third. And today’s feces didn’t even represent the last exciting event of the afternoon. As I was heading out of the Computer Commons at the end of my shift, one of the security guards approached me to say that he had just escorted a library regular, a mentally unstable fellow known for his stench and the billowing white scarf he wears day and night, out of the building for masturbating in the fiction section – which, it turns out, is the favored section for homeless masturbation sessions. It seems to me they should rename the two sections of the library really. You want Steven King? Why, you can search for him in the masturbation section. You want a book about cats or a biography of Mozart? Check out the feces section.

Skylight at the Fremont Theater Center (reprinted from the LA Weekly)

Along with his works Plenty and The Secret Rapture, David Hare's 1995 drama is one of his "Big Lady" plays, in which a strong willed female protagonist is ultimately hoisted by the petard of her own glittering ideals. In this case, the woman in question is sensitive Kyra (Erin Shaver), who has broken up with her former restaurant tycoon lover Tom (Stuart W. Howard), after his wife found out about their affair. Kyra, now punishing herself by living in a frosty flat in an unfashionable part of London, where she ekes out a living teaching inner city schoolkids, is unexpectedly visited by Tom, who, now that his wife has died of cancer, is eager to rekindle their flame. The romantic sparks start to sputter, though, when the piece sidelines into a fiery debate about the principles and flaws of Capitalism and Liberalism, which, frankly, is Hare's real concern. It's possible that in a few weeks director Ken Meseroll's stodgy production of the seething drama will gel to reflect the play's subtle emotional shifts and nuances in a more involving way. At this point, though, Meseroll's staging is merely workmanlike with flat line readings and stiff blocking, while also missing the psychological edge and layering implied by Hare's delicate, yet fiercely intelligent script. Shaver offers a likable, if emotionally restrained turn as Kyra, while Howard is nicely oily and pompous as Tom. However, it's hard to believe for a moment that the pair would have had an affair. In addition, the performers are often so hamstrung by their attempts to wrestle with the British dialect, you almost wish they had jettisoned it entirely. Set designer Joel Daavid crafts a beautifully detailed, warm, and intimate living room set which nevertheless feels utterly at odds with the frigid description of the location in the play itself. Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave, South Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru June 20. (866) 811-4111. (Paul Birchall)

It Ain't All Confetti! (Reprinted from the LA Weekly)

"Rip Taylor? Isn't he dead?" opined an unkind family member upon learning that this weekend I was reviewing the new one man show written and starring Rip Taylor, the legendary comedian and popular culture "character." TV viewers of A Certain Age (and older) will doubtless recall Taylor, an omnipresent fixture of the 1970s, familiar from countless appearances on game shows like Match Game and Password, and also a Vegas go-to opening act for stars like Sammy Davis Jr., Judy Garland, and Eleanor Powell. With his masterfully mugging shtick, bugging eyes, waggling tongue, and silly one liners, Taylor's style wasn't for anyone - and it was easy to dismiss his "character" as a rube. And, yet, as his solo effort (directed by David Galligan) aptly indicates, any performer who has managed to have as huge career for as many decades as he has clearly possesses a mighty amount of talent, and steel willpower. In the opening moments of Galligan's fast moving, intimate production, Taylor strides onto the stage, clearly somewhat frail but still every inch the showman. His flapping toupee perches hilariously askew, as his pointy mustache waves. Next, he whips out a thick pile of file cards, each containing an individual one liner - and, in a dizzying display of jaw-dropping gagsmanship, he goes through every one, over 80 in all, within the first 10 minutes. From there, Taylor rips off his toupee, tosses it behind him, and switches over to more serious subject matter (with barely a joke in sight), as he describes his troubled childhood, his early successes as an MC at the Atlantic City strip club circuit, his subsequent discovery for the Ed Sullivan Show while performing at the Catskills, and the gradual honing of his carefully calculated stage persona, which has been his bread and butter for over half a century. Many of Taylor's revelations are fairly surface level, dealing with his interactions with the stars he's come across - and he often seems so in control over what he's saying, you could starve to death waiting for any "behind the mask" information about the performer. Yet, the show is ultimately a compelling presentation of a life - and it's as much a must see for students and historians of the comedy of a certain era as it is for folks who just want to share a warm laugh with a thoroughly amiable performer. El Portal Theatre, 11206 Waddington Street, North Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru June 6. www.elportaltheatre.com (866) 811-4111. (Paul Birchall)

Sex In The City Part Two -- A Review Without Having Seen The Movie.

I am sure you would say that I am not entitled to an opinion, since I have no intention of going to see the movie and really I have only seen one or two episodes of the series, but I just think that this new “Sex in the City” film is just absurd. How old are these gals now, anyway? Sixty? Seventy five? Ten thousand and five? Why are the characters tromping about in their short skirts and push up bustiers when they should be holding onto walkers and swigging Geritol from the flask instead of Appletinis?

A waggish queen I know of joked that he thought he was watching an episode of The Golden Girls when he saw the movie, but I disagreed: Betty White, who is now so hip after that TV commercial and her appearance on Saturday Night Live, is far more sexy and hip then those four caterwauling hags on SITC, as its fans call it. These days, when the lunching foursome get together, the ladies need to hire the valet to park their broomsticks. The thing is, Sex in the City is a period piece. It’s the 1990s! Trying to go to the well once again in an attempt to recreate the magic of that pre-9/11, pre-recession age really is not going to work well.

Many years ago, I was working at a megalithic movie studio somewhere in the LA area. And one of the things they did regularly was bring in trend analysts to talk to us about where they thought the movie biz was heading in the next years. Most of the other Readers in the department sniggered and didn’t take the meetings seriously. They would ridicule and sneer at them, believing that it was the sort of dopey naïve silliness that gives the movie business a bad name. However, I have to admit that I found them intriguing.

Anyway, what the analyst said at the time, was that movie audiences love “growing old” with the performers they see in the movies. They love how, say, over the decades, John Travolta ages from a hot young stud in Saturday Night Fever to a doughy Jabba the Hutt-like jello mold with glaring eyes and sharp white teeth, which is how he appears in almost every movie he’s in nowadays. Or we love how Clint Eastwood gets more and more wrinkles, in his latest movies he essentially turns into a dehydrated piece of beef jerky with eyeballs.

I daresay, my point is, we are pleased to grow old with the stars we watch. It’s probably because we feel they are “our” stars from “our” particular crystallized moment in time. And, yet, the problem with this “Sex In The City” movie is that the women have grown older, but their characters have not. Can you imagine how much more appealing the movie would be if the writers had decided to address the various issues of what it’s like to be an unabashedly middle aged lady living in Manhattan? There are plenty of them, to be sure.

The writers could have described the characters’ menopause, the abrupt discovery that men are finding them less desirable, their realization that the spotlight of men’s attentions are just starting to pass them by. There’s a lot of potential drama to be had – and it would be peculiarly realistic and, yet, sympathetic, because the characters arrive with all the familiarity and affection of the years on TV. Instead, though, I expect they decided to portray the four friends basically as dolls, doing the exact same things they did on the series, even though the people playing them were now a decade older. It strikes me as unsuitable – and also rather sad and debasing. But, then again, since I am not really in the movie business any more – and I certainly am not going to watch the darn thing – I should probably just fall silent at this point.

Roboquiz.

I can hardly believe that I just took my first quiz in 20 years. Can you imagine such a thing? But it’s true. The last time I took a quiz I was still deep in my undergraduate career at the University of Chicago. What class was I taking at the time of the quiz? I can hardly remember. It might have been Chinese Pottery. Or it might have been Death and Dying, the tutorial on the ancient burial mounds of Etruscan Italy. It’s hard to recall. But I do know this: It was before there were computers! Or, rather, it was just before computers started being available for all and sundry. Computers were available for NORAD and the CIA and whatnot , just not for students.

In the olden days, quizzes were on Xeroxed or mimeographed paper, and you had a little pencil. You would write on the paper – or maybe you would write on some scratch paper and not on the test itself, as the test might need to be recycled for the next class. You would scribble at top speed, and the back of your hand would the same color of the ink as it shlooped through the lines you were writing (remember, I am left handed). And you would get the dreaded writer’s cramp!

At the end of the hour, the pointy nosed professor (or proctor) would yell, “Time! Please pass your papers up to the front of each row!” And you would. After that, if you had a particularly lazy and silly professor, he/she would shuffle the papers and then pass them out again, and you would grade someone else’s paper.

However, nowadays, things have just gotten so dag-nabbit computerized. The professor sends you a little e-mail to say that the quiz will be available for a certain amount of time and that you will have two hours to do it when you sign on. Worse, you will have only one attempt, and if something goes wrong, you do not get to try again. What if I am doing the quiz at a Wifi-equipped café and the power goes out? Everything will be lost! One thing that the modern era has done is craft a whole new spin on the Dog Ate My Homework excuse. Now it’s “the Wifi went down and caused Blackboard to crash!”

So there I was. Last night, I was so apprehensive, I created this whole outline of the chapters I was supposed to read in the TOTALLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE MANAGEMENT TEXTBOOK. The outline was tied to page numbers so, during the quiz, I would be able to find the proper part of the chapter quickly by looking at the outline first and then going to the book. (Librarian joke: I had created Metadata for the chapters!)

Anyway, after my lunch of chili at Amelia’s Café on Main Street, I decided that I would take my quiz at the tiny Ocean Park Branch of the Santa Monica Public Library. Although this branch is a delightful place to read and study, I must confess it was a risky proposition, as I realized that it was only too possible that the Wifi signal would fail midway through and I would be shut out of the “one time only” access to the quiz. But I figured that it would be worth the challenge to take the test in pleasant environs.

I clicked on the “Enter Quiz!” page and was forwarded to another page, warning me that I had only ONE chance to open the page. How I trembled with terror! I swear I just sat there for two minutes, saying to myself , “Oh my stars! I can’t do this! I can’t do this!” My finger kept inching towards the “yes!” button – but then I snatched it back. It was the elemental “leap into the cold water of the swimming pool” moment made flesh. Of course, I finally girded my worthless loins and entered the quiz.

Quizzes nowadays are kind of funny. There’s one question per page, and you must answer it and click “save and proceed” to get onto the next question. Only once did I press a button and this horrifying balloon appeared on the screen, yowling, “STOP! DO YOU MEAN TO SUBMIT THIS TEST? YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED QUESTIONS 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 AND 15! KEEP PRESSING THIS BUTTON IF YOU WISH TO SUBMIT!” You see, of course I had pressed the “exit” button by mistake. I hurriedly clicked “no”, of course, and returned to my work.

Really, I must wonder when they decided all tests need to be like “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” It was all multiple choice, and I have to confess that my outline was definitely the way to go. The most horrible thing, though, was when I finally pressed “submit” and sent the test away. Within 10 seconds, maybe less, I received a bleep from the computer, telling me that the thing had already been graded! I did all right, I must admit – 14 out of 15. But I have decided that, in this online grad school thing, my professor is a robot. How could she be otherwise?