wheattoast's blog

First things first: congratulations to the winning three. Al, Glynn, Rebecca, you´ve been just great through this whole thang. Now get out there and make some top-notch radio for us to enjoy. Can´t wait to see how your futures unfold.

And of course thanks to all y´all who voted for and commented on my work in these past months. I´m really, really touched and flattered. As a puppet guy, I´ve always been the shadowy figure behind the scenes, and only entered this contest because I somehow thought that even if I won the first round, I could still remain safely behind the scenes. Having been forced to become a public internet figure (however fleetingly) I was so pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be such a lovely experience..thanks to you all. Really, you people have been just great to me (especially in light of some of the perfectly awful moments in my entries, to which you responded with firm yet loving criticism).

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Making a demo was a remarkably difficult task; much harder than I'd anticipated. There were certain not-insurmountable practical challenges -- working out of a suitcase, recording in noisy boarding houses and hotels, hastily learning how to properly edit a radio show, coaxing my a battered old laptop through it all -- but the real struggle was deciding how to present the essence of my show in five wee minutes. I've never really heard a demo for a radio show before, but I figured it's form is pretty simple; just play material from the actual show, and when necessary, do a little voice-over explanation. Actually squeezing that into five minutes, however, was no picnic.

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Greetings, all. It's been a crazy couple of weeks here in Buenos Aires. I thought life would calm down a bit once the show got underway, but so many seemingly once in a lifetime opportunities have come up that I just couldn't let myself rest. I've been out at late night puppet cabarets, La Bomba de Tiempo shows (a massive percussion orchestra), and been roused from sleep numerous times by the drums and fireworks of (often) club-wielding protesters. (There are traffic-choking protests every day in the center of BsAs). Been mulling over inscrutable Borges passages with gourds of steaming mate, which is best when it tastes like a handful of earth. Off to my friend Oscar's favorite so-called "underground" dance hall for "Evil Tango", in which a 10+ piece orchestra rips Gardel and Piazzolla classics to pieces. Some swilling of Malbec at touristy (yet still delightful enough) tango shows. Had my camera stolen by crackheads (I think). Sampled, semi-accidentally, grilled brains and glands, before bussing out into the pampas (the grasslands of central Argentina) where I was set upon by bottle rocket frenzied teenagers and stray dogs (there are packs of dogs everywhere here). Still walking for miles through the city at night with my digital recorder capturing sounds and meditating on my radio show ideas, and struggling, struggling with this lightning fast Spanish.

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Half a day's passed since I got word that I was still in the running here at the talent quest and I've scarcely had time to process it. Of course, upon receiving Izzy's call I did a little jig around my hotel room (in spite of the $2/minute my cell provider was soaking me for at the time), but within 15 minutes I had to run back to the theater where the rest of my grueling thirteen hour day awaited me. I know, I know, you're thinking "How hard can a puppet-wiggling trip to Buenos Aires be?", but my numerous bruises and utter exhaustion will testify to the madness: 8500 lbs. of water, tons of rigging, hundreds of puppets, a hundred-plus lights (well shielded and GFCI'ed, thank heavens, as we five puppeteers splash a hundred gallons a night all over them), endless hours of rehearsal/tech in an unheated building soaked head to toe in ice-cold water (it's winter here, remember), swinging in harnesses through the darkness, hands swinging metal rods and sharp abstract plastic objects. The show itself is a crazy-enough, intensely frenzied hour-long aerobic workout, but these days of prep for opening day (tonight) have been as bad as the worst days I ever spent on any construction job. No, honestly, this week has been tougher than any construction job I've ever done. Maybe, though, I'm just getting older. I have been doing this show for ten years now, and was probably a lot more spry when I was 26.

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When the Round Three challenge was announced I was very excited, knowing that it would yield some pretty great entries. The first thing I had to figure out was, of course, who to interview. I have some interesting friends and acquaintances to whom I would have naturally turned, but the rules stated that we had to interview someone we didn't know. As a somewhat regular guy without any clout with which to attract a famous (or even semi-famous) person, I turned to my friends to see if they could suggest any non-mutual friends whose story would be of "national interest" (another requirement of the challenge).

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So today I set up a mic in my bedroom, turned off the noisy A/C, and recorded my round two live challenges. I can't say that it went smashingly. I'd hoped that the reading exercise would be first, giving me a chance to get relax a bit in front of the mic, but we started with the free association, and challenge which I'd been dreading somewhat since it was announced. The first word offered was "suitcase" (which I now see was one of Jim's suggestions, posted on the prtq message boards!), and I passed on that, thus being stuck with whatever was offered next. It turned out to be "Who do you trust?" Not a bad topic at all, but my nervousness and coffee jitters got the best of me. Being the cynical type, I immediately thought of who I didn't trust, and with labored breaths I self-consciously muttered on about doctors. Ugh.

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I got into puppetry back in the mid nineties as the result of a baby-sitting gig. A woman had hung a poster at my college which advertised an opening for a babysitter, explicitly of the freaky, geeky, and artistically unhinged variety. A zebra-striped Plymouth full of us confusingly-coiffed and bookishly angst ridden nerds showed up at her place, were hired on the spot and soon moved on to her farm. The poster turned out to be Jeanne, the director of the New York City Village Halloween Parade, a mother of a gifted child whose brain for the following years we saturated with Lord Buckley, Sufism, Devo and what-have-you.

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Been out in the Texas hill country for a bit, relaxing with the Mrs. in a wireless-less cottage (feeling my laptop's absence like a phantom limb).

Upon returning to Austin, I found the round two challenge had been announced and to be quite honest, I'm a bit spooked about the two minute free association. I know I can passably ramble on for two minutes, but to produce two minutes of solidly good work with no preparation, two minutes that will be rated against skilled competitors, some of whom have been in the biz for years, that's gonna be tough.

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So I got an email today from the prtq staff informing me that I've been given blog space as well as a nook in the forum. As as slacker, I'm fairly daunted by the audio challenges to come, but being conscripted as a blogger and a forum moderator has got me positively wigged. And, okay, a little bit revved. Since I've got two places to ramble on, I figure it's sensible to have some topical division, so the strategy I've arrived at is to use the blog to post about the mundane absurdities of my life, and to use the forum as a place to discuss artistic, quest-related topics. (This explanatory intro is cross-posted, but will be the last such dual entry).

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