scott cherney's etc.

No, Thank YOU!

2017-11-22T22:08:00.002-08:00

Now comes the time of year where we actually acknowledge those things in our lives for which we are indeed grateful because, Heaven forfend, we should do it a daily basis to counter-balance the seemingly endless avalanche of horrible stuff 'n nonsense we also have to contend with in this, what used to be known as the best of all possible worlds.

(Whew! At this age, even run-on sentences wear me out!)

As always, I am eternally thankful to win the life lottery with the family and friends that I have in this lifetime. I would say that it goes without saying, but they humble me into welcome submission every time. As time passes like a bullet train, I will proclaim love for my family until my dying breath. As for my friends, I still cherish our time together and long for more even as it becomes more impossible logistically.

As for my recent success with my plays, (alas, so much more lucrative than my books) my unprecedented fourth year has wrapped up this past Halloween. SONG OF THE CANYON KID was the grand finale of the summer melodrama program at the Mantorville Theatre Company in Minnesota, a group I had been trying to get my work into long before I began this journey. DEAD TUESDAY, my initial murder mystery featuring the inimitable froggy bon vivant Francois Fibian, got another run, this time in Illinois. And MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER received an amazing three separate productions in the aforementioned Illinois as well as with the San Luis Valley Theatre Company in Fort Garland, Colorado and Brickstreet Players in Clovis, New Mexico. That breaks my personal best of five productions in four different states.

It came with a price, though.

I discovered that THE FINAL FRONTIER had been staged without my knowledge or permission at the same time it was being presented in New mexico. I had been following up with some theaters that I had sent my script by checking their websites or Facebook pages when lo and behold, what do I see? MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER went on-and off-the boards the week before, exactly at the same time as the Brickstreet Players production on the other side of the country. It was then and there that I discovered the true meaning of the term "gob-smacked". The weird part was that the guilty party was a company that had produced DEAD TUESDAY earlier that year. The producer had read the script and expressed an interest in an October show, but didn't firm up any dates with me so I moved on to other matters. When I read about the show, all I could think was "Oh, no. Not again."

Submitting scripts to theaters can be dicey. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they don't. One can only hope they will do the honorable thing and not rip off the playwright especially since, gee whiz, it's against the law. I have to be extra vigilant by following up with those I've submitted to and checking their websites just in case something happens.

And, gosh darn it to heck, things do happen.

In the year 2000, a friend of mine congratulated me on the production LA RUE'S RETURN at the Gaslight Theater in Campbell, CA. I said, "Thank you. Wait a minute...WHAT????!!!" In the late 1980s, I had submitted this script to the Gaslight and never heard from them, even supplying them with SASE (look it up, kids) to return it upon rejection. They didn't. Instead, they tore off the title page that included the authors' names and scribbled the incorrect name THE RETURN OF LA RUE at the top of the next. Then they tossed into a box with a bunch of other scripts. Someone dug it out years later and said "Hey! Here's a melodrama we can do for free!". And so they did. I contacted my best friend, Ed Thorpe, who originated LA RUE and brought me on as a co-author, and he, understandably, hit the proverbial ceiling. Ed tore after the Gaslight like a rabid wolverine on meth and, thanks to his efforts, got us a nice settlement as well as, since the production was in full swing, an apology to the both of us enclosed in each and every program until its final curtain.

Cut to 2015 when MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER, then known as STAR TRUCK: THE WRATH OF COMIC-CON, was about to head into its first production with Mel O'Drama Theater in Nashville when another theater that I had solicited was about to do the very same show at their dinner theater in South Carolina without consent, written, verbal or even a nod of the head from me. But this time I didn't have a lift a finger since the long arm of the law slammed the door on this establishment and shut down the show before it opened. Oh, it wasn't for my benefit. It seems the owner/producer of this operation had sex with a 14 year old, who had been in one of his shows and could very well have been cast in mine. Said offender got caught with his pants down and, unfortunately, has since started another theater, though he could very well go into politics if recent events are any indication.

So I dodged another bullet until this year with the same damn show. When I contacted the producer, I got a string of apologies and a promise to pay what was owed. (My friend Ed thought I should charge them double for my trouble but I balked at that...this time) It was resolved in less than a week to clear up and the matter was settled. I won't mention the name of the group because they are going out of business at the end of this year and there's no reason for me to drag them through the mud. Strangely enough, all three of these violating theaters closed soon after their infractions, or in the case of the producer of the Pedophilia Follies in South Carolina, just before.

What still rankles me about this recent near-screw job, other than the obvious infraction, is that 5 shows in one year is a real accomplishment for me. As an independent playwright, I am marketing and soliciting my work all by my lonesome self, always on the look-out for anyone that will will want to put my babies on the boards. I am into this full time. It's like panning for gold and I have the nuggets to show for all my efforts. When I get the go ahead from a theater company, I have a tradition I perform every opening night. I have a glass boot, a gift from my step-daughter Tracey when she saw SONG OF THE CANYON KID at the Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville in in Oceano, CA. When a show opens, I fill the boot with a special craft beer and toast the theater as well as myself for the major personal victory it most certainly is. Unfortunately, I got robbed of that with this last show. I know, I know. Poor little me. But to have any score at all in the win column to is that spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. It's the balance that keeps me from falling over the edge, in the same manner my family and friends do as I mentioned above.

So much for all that spilt milk It's high time I put this behind me and hoist one high in the air to celebrate the five shows I have been fortunate to have produced in 2017 and to salute these fine theaters I have been honored to be associated with this year :

MANTORVILLE THEATRE COMPANY

SAN LUIS VALLEY THEATRE COMPANY

BRICKSTREET PLAYERS

Cheers to you, one and all.

As for the rest of you, Happy Thanksgiving. As we usually say at Christmas, why can't we act this way all year long?

A Double Shot of Ha-Ha

2017-11-12T13:26:00.002-08:00

Because I couldn't finish the year without publishing something and that I haven't gotten off my lazy ass to finish anything new (I beat myself up so often, I should file a restraining order against me), I hereby announce the arrival of a new bleedin' book. In the tradition (hah!) of my interactive murder mystery scripts compilation, A DOUBLE SHOT OF MURDER, now comes a pair o' my melodramas in one volume that I have oh-so-cleverly titled A DOUBLE SHOT OF HA-HA.

Contained within are:

THE LEGEND OF THE ROGUE or MASK ME NO QUESTIONS, my tribute to The Lone Ranger, Zorro and Marvel's Two Gun Kid is the classic origin story that tells the tale of a mid-mannered sheriff (Of course he's mild-mannered. What'd you expect- a crackhead with a badge?) who dons the guise of a masked hero as he rides to the rescue of an Indian tribe that is being terrorized by an ex-Confederate general. See the blog post from its initial publication:
THE LEGEND CONTINUES

The second script is what I call a tropical comedy adventure (because I didn't know what else to call it) known as ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS or THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SARONG. This is the story of a brave and beautiful island girl who has to contend with a lovesick witch doctor, a 1000 year goddess who has the hots for her boyfriend and a volcano with digestive problems. Is there a previous blog post about this? I'm glad you asked. ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS

So why are these two together for the very first time? Exposure, my friends. With the success I've had with SONG OF THE CANYON KID, LA RUE'S RETURN as well as the murder mysteries, DEAD TUESDAY and MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER, these two have fallen through the cracks.

THE ROGUE was my first solo effort after Ed Thorpe and I wrote LA RUE and premiered on the stage of the Palace Showboat Dinner Theater at Pollardville back in the early '80s. It hasn't seen the light of a stage since then though I've sent it out a few times. I think it still holds up and the new material I penned righted some previous wrongs in the original. But I don't have high hopes in this day and age. THE ROGUE's main antagonist is an ex-Confederate general. Recent events have undoubtedly negated this character's theatrical viability, even with what I consider the absolute brilliant name of Randolph Hitlear, still my favorite name for a melodrama villain.

As for ROXANNE, which I completed after several decades sitting in the "Incomplete" pile, I think the inclusion of a volcano may be holding it back. Haven't you people ever heard of creative scenic design? Gee whiz already. The witch doctor's name is Zhivago, for crying out loud! If you like MOANA, why not give ROXANNE a go?

Anyhoo, these two complete scripts are now in one volume for your edification in paperback at my online store (along with all my other swell books)
SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE
(Go now for a special 25% discount)
A DOUBLE SHOT OF HA-HA is also available in e-book at:: Apple, Nook, Kobo, Scribd and more.
HA-HA'S EBOOK LINKS

So these are my stories and I'm sticking to 'em.

Leftovers and Then Some

2017-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

As it rains Bengal tigers and Great Danes on this mid autumn Oregonian evening, I have some catching up to do. If I were to say "Here goes nothing", you have every right to turn this off right now. Instead, I'll press on like a cheap fake fingernail.

Not since Twin Peaks has there been a TV series right up Cherney alley like HBO's The Leftovers. I got hooked on this during a late summer vacay to Denver, though I only caught the first season, but this damn thing haunted me from the moment I feasted my eyes and brains upon it. Based on Tom Perotta's novel, this odd duck of a program about the aftermath of what could or could not have been The Rapture is everything I want in a show and more. At turns weird, dramatic, satirical, touching, maddening, funny, brutal, confusing and most of all melancholy, The Leftovers owes its success in my eyes to not several people. Naturally it begins with Perotta's source material, but enough cannot be said for the Herculean efforts of showrunner Damon Lindelof. The cast is absolutely magnificent with not a sour apple in the whole crazy bunch-Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, Amy Brennerman, my new girlfriend Ann Dowd and a career topping performance by Scott Glenn. I fell so madly in love with this, I headed to my nearest library for season two as soon as I returned from Colorado, then got HBO for a month for the grand fiinale. Totally worth it.

I've had a hankerin' (not g required) for some New Orleans fare for many a year. I don't know if I'll ever get

to that part of the world, but I've craved some of the delectable cuisine to the point that I considered running away with the circus until Ringling Brothers went out of business and Cirque du Soleil said "Non!" Anyway, I got my wish when my stepson Matt treated my wife and I to an evening at Acadia, a New Orleans bistro here in Portland. Oh cher, this was some good eatin' (again, sans g).

The barbecue shrimp starter about did me in as I dipped my bread in its devious broth of butter, pepper, lemon and white wine, filling me to the point that I was almost too stuffed for the entree. But i roughed it with an amazing jambalaya. My wife went for a soft shell blue crab and crawfish etoufee while Matt dug into a nice fat pork chop that would choke your mama if she had trouble chewin'. (no g spot here neither) Dessert was a bread pudding from heaven with a sauce to die for which justified the heaven reference. Top this off with some delicious (and potent) bar beverages and four star customer service, Acadia gave us the best dining experience in years.

I had the good fortune of having yet another theater group tackle one of my scripts, Murder: The Final Frontier. The Brickstreet Players of Clovis, New Mexico came in right after Song of the Canyon Kid closed in Minnesota to announce their desire to produce said murder mystery this October, making it the second production of this show this year. And it went right back to its roots as a Halloween offering. So thank you to Brickstreet as well as the Mantorville Theatre Company, San Luis Valley Theater Company and Sugar High Theatricals for a great year.

That's four shows in four different states. This is like the Electoral College. I could get elected this way.

Adventures in Low Budget: Under Arrest

2017-09-30T20:55:00.001-07:00

I have always wanted to be in the movies, a dream shared with billions of others, a number I do not feel is an over-estimate at this point in time. After all, the movies have been around for well over a century now (so have I) and, since their inception, inspired the dreams of oh-so-many as they continue to do day in and day out. For me, I wanted to be a movie star, plain and simple. This lifetime wish has made me no more significant than a grain of sand. However, if it had come true, I would have been an extremely famous grain of sand. And rich.

It took me a long while to fulfill any semblance of my silver screen dreams. Like real estate, it was a matter of location, location, location and Stockton, California wasn’t exactly the Entertainment Mecca of the Universe. But, as I mentioned in previous posts, major and minor productions did find their way from Hollywood to this hub of the San Joaquin Valley. I did what I could to hunt down them while they were in the area with mixed results.

Stanley Kramer, legendary producer/director of The Defiant Ones, Judgment at Nuremburg and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filmed a major motion picture disaster about student unrest called RPM at the University of the Pacific starring Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margaret. During a riot scene, I snuck onto the set and hid in the bushes, filming the entire thing from my vantage point with my Super 8. The footage turned out to be useless since it turned out to be nothing but feet and foliage. When I finally saw the finished product, I couldn't find me anywhere in the riot footage, so I was very well camouflaged. Well, maybe too camouflaged. If there was a trace of me in this piece of dung, it would have made up for wasting any time at all slogging through Kramer's krapfest.

Not long after, Quinn returned to Fat City, scouting locations for a feature he was developing to be shot, among other places, at Stockton Jr. High. I recall Zorba himself standing in the courtyard between classes, surrounded by admiring kids and signing autographs. Two guys my age, Paul Stewart and Jeff Passegi, were walking past when Paul called to his friend in a voice loud enough for the Oscar winning actor to hear, ”Hey, Passegi! That guy kinda looks like Anthony Quinn!” This sarcasm caused Quinn turn to my smart ass friend with a slow burn. Even though a pair of local girls had been cast in the leading roles, complete with a feature in the Stockton fish wrap, the movie fell through. I blame Paul.

It took me until after high school, but I finally made my way legitimately onto a working set as an extra in the TV movie, Senior Year(See post: Special Guest Star: Richard Donner) But I craved more and time was passing me by. Eventually, I had the good fortune to find my way into not one but three different shoots, not majors by any means, but minors of the memorable kind.

In 1981, I was deeply ensconced in Pollardville, an independent company arrived in the area for a film of unknown origin and content entitled Under Arrest. Thanks to Bill Humphreys, who had previously worked in television production down Los Angeles way in the 1970s, scored a casting gig on UA. This insured that most of us Pollardvillians were hired for roles big and small for this movie that was to be shot in locations in and around Stockton, Morada and Amador County, not to mention on the streets of our very own Pollardville Ghost Town.

A period piece of sorts, set in perhaps the late Thirties or early Forties, I was cast a newsboy (an honest to Buddha speaking role, no less!) who had to alert the main character, a small time thief, that the cops wuz watchin’ him. It had this Warner Brothers gangster vibe, so I affected some kind of a bastardized Bowery Boys accent that would have made Leo Gorcey wince. Little did I know that Under Arrest was a fabled Based on True Story and shot on the same locations where this tale actually unfolded. Therefore, my sequence was filmed in downtown Jackson in the foothills of Northern California, not the streets of Flatbush where I thought I belonged. Here I am, Frankie Darro’s long lost littler bruddah from Brooklyn in the middle of the Mother Lode. Oy.

I also managed to grab a couple of non-speaking roles as well. The first, a carnival barker (in appropriate disguise, of course) and as a double for my friend Ed Thorpe who had played a deputy to Bill’s country sheriff. (We went from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Mayberry in one fell swoop!) Ed had moved to Santa Barbara long before the crew returned for some re-shoots and pick ups, so I filled in as the deputy loping down the street calling for the sheriff in long shot.

Once completed, we were granted an advanced screening of the finished product at our very own Palace Showboat. Projection wasn’t an issue in our theater since Under Arrest was shot on 16mm, a format we could easily accommodate. A borrowed projector and a screen set center stage later, poof! Instant cinema!

Under Arrest turned out to be a revelation in more ways than one. First of all, it had the look and feel of a higher budgeted production. As a whole, we Palace Showboat Players came off quite nicely and we had every reason to be proud of what we did on screen, even me, not the Guys and Dolls reject I had imagined. (Our own D.W, Landingham like to kid that he had three lines as a shopkeeper robbed by the main character: “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”) The film’s main cast, while mostly unknowns, did include two actors we had no idea had been involved since their scenes were shot after we had all wrapped and may have been filmed in L.A. Richard Moll, only months shy of appearing as Bull in the Harry Anderson sitcom Night Courtwas totally unrecognizable at first glance since he sported a full head of hair, not the scalping he had on the show. The other cast member had been associated with another film, though not as the main character not as a performer. Billy Hayes was the subject of his own Based on a True Story,Midnight Express, all about the hash smuggler who spent time in Turkish prison, played in the film by Brad Davis. Hayes must have been dipping his toe in the acting game, though nothing much more came out of it after this movie. Hope he didn’t return to his wicked, wicked ways.

What really blew our minds was that Under Arrest turned out to be, not a period crime drama, but a faith based story. Based on the autobiography of Phil Thatcher, this story is a classic Bad Boy Meets Jesus and Makes Good story and, for a film of this nature, really didn’t seem particularly preachy. Maybe the director, William Fields, had something to do with this, downplaying what could have an infomercial for Christianity and taking a more subtle approach. To be sure, its message was effectively signed, sealed and delivered, only not with the usual sledgehammer to the soul. Overall, I gave Under Arrest the full Ebert.

What became of Under Arrest in the years that passed is open to speculation. Only an hour in length, it wouldn’t have a theatrical release. I imagine it was carted around the country and shown to church groups, maybe even with a Q and A with Mr. Thatcher himself. I found a VHS copy in a Christian bookstore around the turn of the century. When I saw it on the shelf, I placed it over one of Willie Aames’ Bibleman episodes because…well, do you have to ask? Over time, I’ve had difficulty finding it on DVD until recently. It seems that an outfit called New Liberty Videos, a company owned by the film’s editor, Brian Barkley, acquired it and changed the title to The Phil Thatcher Story, a title even more generic than the first, but at least it’s been rescued from obscurity. It's available with two other movies under a separate title, Free Indeed. Also, the Christian Film Database which lists the film on their site, has mistakenly credited Mr. Barkley as the director when it was helmed by William Fields. Still, the preview offered on CFDb, the new Liberty page as well as YouTube confirms that first impression I had those many years ago. It looks pretty damn good.

UNDER ARREST aka THE PHIL THATCHER STORY/FREE INDEED

From top to bottom, Under Arrest was a downright pleasant experience, virtually stress free to the point that it almost spoiled me. This movie was the polar opposite of the next two productions with which I became involved further down the road, not just in content, but behind the scenes as well. Divine Intervention, perhaps?

At the end of the day or the beginning or sometime late in the afternoon, I’m proud to have Under Arrest on my resume. After all, it’s responsible for my very first IMDb credit.

Newsboy: Scott Cherney.

For that, that is only thing for me to say:

Hallelujah!

Maybe that’ll get me on CMBb.

An Emmy of the People

2017-09-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts on this year's Emmy broadcast.

Was it too political? Of course it was. What would you expect? This is the environment we live in these days. The pontificating that occurred during the Emmys made the other award shows pale in comparison because, as it stands now, TV rules the roost and Hollywood loves a winner...unless that winner won last year's election. Besides, when you have an agenda, you're going to take every opportunity that arises to perpetuate your deep rooted passionate point of view and how are you going to pass up speaking to the entire world? Well, the entire world that wasn't watching something else on Sunday night. Stephen Colbert's one shot (I imagine) as Emmy host was more hit than miss. Some of his material could have been sharper. Could be the topical material grew what my mom used to call "tiresome'.

The winners all deserved their gold statues, I was sorry to see the sweeps of certain shows over others because I would have liked to seen it more spread out. I also dislike repeat winners since multiplicity breeds contempt in my book. But I don't begrudge any of those taking home their trophies with the exception of...

Alec Baldwin. I actually rooted against him taking the gold for his work on SNL this last year. It all boils down to what I consider to be a lousy impression. His Donald Trump is the worst kind of caricature, the kind everyone thinks they can do and usually, quite poorly. Now Baldwin is quite a good actor and has been exceptional on SNL several times in the past. But this time his politics have gotten in the way of his performance. His Trump doesn't come from a place of comedy. It comes from total hatred and it shows. Worse yet, it hurts. His ideology gives him no objectivity and muddies the waters, turning him into a mocking buffoon straight out of an Oliver Stone movie. (Anthony Atamanuik does a better Trump on his Comedy Central show.) Besides, I don't like how Baldwin's appearances on the show have taken away from more deserving cast members, actors that have to fight, beg and scrape for air time unless one of Lorne Michaels' pals wants steal the spotlight away from them.

On a more pleasant note, my girl Ann Dowd won a Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Handmaid's Tale, which I haven't seen, but I am crazy in love with this talented actress. She is part of a growing number of actresses, shall we say, of a certain age who are absolutely crushing it out there. Her fellow nominee, Jackie (Mamacita) Hoffman, not to mention Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon from this year's Feud are perfect evidence of this. Starting with Kathy Bates in absolutely everything (even Nelflix's Disjointed boodoggle) and carried on with Margo Martindale's recent successes not to mention Jean Smart, these women need to be celebrated more than they are already. Nicole Kidman can get up on stage and complain that there are no roles for older women, but the heavy lifting is being done by these fine actresses. Most of their fine work can be seen on television and that, dear people is what should be not only celebrated, but yelled from every rooftop in goddamn Hollywood.

The Emmys have the same problems as most shows of this ilk-inspid banter, nonsensical pre-recorded pieces that mostly tank and, of course, the over bearing length. But just like the Grammys, only the "major" awards make the big show, only about 15%. To hand out everything would take the same time as a Ken Burns documentary. But it's still too freaking long. Maybe if, when a series wins, the entire cast and crew aren't herded onto the stage, that is unless they use are some border collies to hustle their asses along.. Move your asses, people! As far as I'm concerned, we don't need to see the whole mishpucka.

So ends the Emmys. Enjoy your rest, folks. Awards season starts at the end of the year and everything old will be new again. Or not.

The Nutty Bloviator

2017-08-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

I have been remiss in my lack of acknowledgment about the death of Jerry Lewis. If you want to know the truth of it, I'm pretty ashamed of myself. Jerry was so a big part of my early lifer and as a supposed student comedy, I should get a failing grade.

Like so many Boomer kids, Jerry was THE MAN. I grew up in what was considered his golden age as a performer, the clown prince of Paramount Studios, culminating in his masterpiece, The Nutty Professor. Anything he did was dipped in comedy gold. With the passing years, I basically grew out of the Jerry Lewis brand of humor, just as I had Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. But I never turned my back on them. Why Jerry?

He didn't make it difficult, that's for sure. His massive ego kept getting in the way of what I liked best about him. Out of character, he preferred to explain the craft of comedy, taking it as a serious art form, which it very well can be but there this line of thinking also breaks a major role in funny: Don't explain the joke. But explain he did until he became the joke. It's been said that Jerry was never funnier than when he was dead serious. And I had to agree. Jerry had worn his pretention like a coat of armor and it fit like those undersized suits he used to wear. Perhaps he was more Buddy Love than Professor Kelp all along. The disdain I felt spurred my backlash-or turn, rather.

But Jerry Lewis was also one of the true giants of Old Time Show Business, much like the Don Rickles. I've always been a sucker that chintz even at its schmaltziest and Jerry didn't disappoint. How's a about a rousing rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone"? His work ethic was unsurpassed, performing at an age when he didn't have to any longer, but did so for the best reason of all: The pure love of it.

A few years ago, I became increasingly annoyed when Robin Williams' good name was sullied by talks of being passe' and basically over the hill, ignoring his contribution to the world of entertainment. Here I am, guilty of the same goddamn thing, another lame ass member of the fickle public, tossing history aside and joining the cool kids to mock this ridiculous dinosaur. Shame on me.

I know it's late,but I hereby apologize to Jerry Lewis for not giving you the salute you so deserve from someone who should have known better because you made him laugh hard and laugh often in my life. And you were a greater influence on my life than I truly realized. You inspired me. I wanted to do what you did and for awhile, I did, albeit on a much smaller scale. I got to write, direct and star in my own material and I have to give you some credit for that. I too found success in being a total idiot. And I won't deny it. It felt good.

Thanks, Jerry. Your mark on the world of comedy will always be huge, no matter what the cool kids say.

The Canyon Kid's Summer Vacation

2017-08-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

For the unprecedented (for me, anyway) FOURTH year in a row, my melodrama, Song of the Canyon Kid, is now playing at a theater near you, provided of course that you live in the southeastern part of Minnesota.

The Mantorville Theatre Company is running the saga of The Canyon Kid from August 18 through September 9, the last of their annual melodrama summer series. I am tickled pink to have my show on their stage. When I began sending the script out after the Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville Theater decided to produce it, the first since its initial Pollardville run, I researched other similar theaters across the country. One of the names that kept coming up was the Mantorville Theatre Co. So, I reached out to them and was graciously rejected with the the encouraging postscript to try again the next year. So I did. And I did. And I did. lo and behold, the fourth time was the charm. A Mantorville angel named Melisa Ferris guided me through all this, putting up with me every single time and helping The Canyon Kid to ride into Minnesota at long last.

The Mantorville Theatre Co. cast of Song of the Canyon Kid

This is the grand finale for my shows this year (unless somebody contacts me at the last minute for a late fall/early winter production of ... anything!) Dead Tuesday and Murder:The Final Frontier racked up some performances earlier this year in territories my plays have never been with Sugar High Theatricals in Illinois and the
San Luis Valley Theatre Company in Colorado. Along with the Mantorville Theatre Company in Minnesota, I am conquering the USA one state at a time. At least that's what I keep telling myself. (I know it's actually only one theater at a time, but whuddayagonnado? I could claim Egypt too since I'm also in denial.)

As I do with every opening night of my shows, I break out the glass boot mug my stepdaughter Tracey bought for me and fill it with a special frothy beverage. I then hoist it in the air and toast whatever theater is showcasing my work. This is going to be a two-fer toast. I most certainly salute the Mantorville Theatre Company, but since my beverage of choice is Dale's Pale Ale from Colorado, I tip my hat in total gratitude to my family in Denver where we recently spent a fine family reunion/vacation. I love you guys with all my heart. This two events together made this a summer to remember.

Cheers!

For more info about Song of the Canyon Kid, please visit my website:
WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY

Tales from the Ville: Hello, Ratcatcher, Hello

2017-07-30T15:21:00.001-07:00

Next month, I will have the great honor to have my melodrama, Song of the Canyon Kid-on stage at the Mantorville Theater in Mantorville, Minnesota. I have been courting them (or harassing them, whichever it states in the court documents) for four years now and I finally wore them down if, for nothing else, to shut me the hell up and leave them alone. Regardless of their reasons, the Mantorville Theatre Company is one of the most prestigious melodrama venues in the country, each summer offering up four shows from June to September. My melo finishes up their season and I couldn't be prouder. Ironically enough, the play that precedes The Canyon Kid is none other than Tim Kelly's The Ratcatcher's Daughter or Death Valley Daze, the best melodrama I appeared in back at the Ville. There is more than one reason why this became my personal favorite. Here 'tis.

I started with with a bang and damn near ended up with a whimper.

This is how I felt when my Orson Welles moment at the Ville crashed and burned like the Hindenburg of my soul. Oh, I was in bad shape. I had been given the keys to the kingdom and the first thing I do is break them in the lock. My first solo melodrama, Legend of the Rogue combined my directorial debut of the second half, Life is a Cabaret, was, in no uncertain terms, caa-caa. It had been the disastrous follow-up to the iconic game-changer known Seven Brides for Dracula/ Goodbye TV, Hello Burlesque and I damn near single-handily sent the whole place back to square one.

At least, that's how I felt. The hard truth was that I tried to do it all and couldn't. I was far too green and didn't want any help, but I needed all I could get. And when I got it, I pulled away. Reality is a bitter pill to swallow. It became a case of "I won't get mad. I'll just go away." While I contributed some material for the next two shows, I had turned myself into a pariah, not bothering to even audition for the next year, retreating instead to the safety of the Ghost Town. There I could at least mope in peace, a lonesome cowboy out on the Morada frontier.

I'll be damned if my old sparring partner D.W. Landingham didn't come to my rescue. Dennis and I had been fairly competitive in our days out in the Ghost Town. When it became Tule Flats, he had been named Entertainment Director, namely in charge of all the gunfights. I entered the picture just before the re-opening and was relegated to bit parts and minor walk-ons whereas years before, that was MY town. I didn't resent Dennis, but I felt held back. it wasn't long before before I took a giant step and got right back where I started from. While I didn't feel we were equals at that point, we did maintain a friendly rivalry. Soon, Dennis stepped down and I was offered the ED position. I was off and running and soon, he took a powder, showing up at the town only when he basically like it and he was always welcomed with open arms because he was one talented mofo.

Time passed and D.W. went back to the Showboat for The Chips are Down/Country on Parade. This was the show that elevated D.W.Landingham to the Pollardville Hall of Fame. Absolutely everything he touched turned to comedic gold in that show, especially his turn as the Oak Ridge Boys' "Elvira". As that show progressed, Dennis nabbed the directorial spot for the next melo and approached me of all people to be his AD. I felt like I had taken enough time off. A year had passed and I had already missed out on two shows. I graciously accepted the position after I put my big boy pants back on. What I had been wearing up to that point is beyond me. It might have been Underoos.

The first order of business was to do some re-working of the script Dennis had chosen, The Ratcatcher's Daughter by Tim Kelly. This was our modus operandi at the Ville. We found that we had to adapt established material for our stage, molding them as we saw fit to the format we had established over time. (We had to edit it for length as well) Given that I am a playwright myself, this seems hypocritical, but I'm very flexible with the melodramas and even the murder mysteries I write. It's the nature of those types of theater. In fact, when The Great American Melodrama produced Song of the Canyon Kid, they eliminated an entire character and added some of their own music. As long as I approve of the changes, I'm not gonna get all sue-y like Neil Simon or David Mamet.

Before we held auditions, we found out that Ray Rustigian would direct the second half of the show, a traditional olio presentation called Hello, Vaudeville, Hello with time-tested material complete with a George M. Cohan patriotic finale. Oh. This seemed to be a step backward for the theater to me at the time. That's because I hadn't learned my lesson.

Casting went absolutely swell and we ended with the best of the best: Cory Troxclair as the villainous Whiplash Snivel, Paula Stahley in the title role, Sweet Lotta Bliss and in his Palace Showboat debut, Scott Duns as the heroic Jack Sunshine. Connie Minter, who played Mimi in LaRue's Return, was Auntie Hush and K.T. Jarnigan as Lady Pilfer. The other roles was filled up by Karen Allen and Lori Ann Warren as the orphans, Ray played Feathertop, DW casts himself as Cuspidor and I took the part of Death Valley Dwayne, which Dennis and I switched genders from the original Death Valley Nell. I wore a badge that Goldie bought for me with red LED running lights that I would turn on when I announced that "I wuz the Sherf!" Stephen Merritt was our musical director and show pianist with the legendary Joel Warren on the drums and on bass guitar, the one and only Artis A.J. Joyce. Man, we were set.

Melo rehearsals moved along nicely and without incident, but I must admit that when Ray laid out the olios, I began to balk. It sure seemed like a lot of reruns. Then again, when had I ever performed them? I hadn't. I was thinking out of my ass again. Besides, Ray was willing to give me some choice material. Still, there was one sketch I didn't find so swell called "The Lasagna Brothers.", a circus act involving an acrobatic flea named Herman. I hated the ending (or the kicker as it is known) which I considered to be really tasteless and, dare I say, potentially offensive. Ray and I went around and around about it, but he let me have my way if I came up with a new ending and I did. Whether or not As a performer, I felt I had every right to object. I wasn't trying to be the arbiter of good taste for the theater. But I knew a bad thing when I saw it and I refused to be a part of it even if it had been done before on that very stage. Ray had no hard feelings about it or at least never expressed them to me.

The only other real glitch was a choreographer with a chip on her shoulder so large, it gave her scoliosis. It was difficult to fathom what this woman's problem was with us and the theater in general. After all, she worked at the Ville in the past more than once. Maybe something about us just pissed her off. On top of that 'tude of hers, she blew a whistle every time we missed a dance step, a fine device for a gym teacher, annoying as fuck for a choreographer. It became intimidating to some, annoying to others namely yours truly. Her whistle blowing became incessant, so each time she did, I feigned dribbling a basketball because I hold a doctorate in smart assiness. While she ended up doing an adequate job, we never saw her again after we opened. No brush-ups for her. She took the money and ran as we hoped the door hit the stick in her tight ass on the way out. Maybe she lost her whistle.

Despite the Dancing Queen, rehearsals went swimmingly and it became apparent that everyone in the cast

was going to get a chance to shine. Ray had given me a singing solo, the old Al Jolson number "Sonny Boy". As I sang, I was continually interrupted by Sonny Boy, a mean widdle kid played by Cory, sitting on my knee. I never would have been able to pull this off vocally with Steve Merritt's help and guidance. He gave me the necessary confidence I needed with this number and the rest of the numbers in this show, including the guys' number of "Hello Ma Baby/Baby Face" compilation, which included the band standing at one point and belting "Hello, my ragtime gal!" in perfect three part harmony.

With the melo set basically in stone, the olios were in place and then Hell Week hit us like a ton of bricks. Nothing, absolutely nothing worked. Technically it was a shambles and the cast, who had been rock solid up to this point, began to crumble like so much pumice. Final dress rehearsal was as miserable an experience as any of us had ever had on that or any other stage. We were shell-shocked. What the hell happened?

Opening night had been promoted heavily, more so than any show in recent memory, thanks to Steve Orr. He had arranged for Tim Kelly, the playwright of The Ratcatcher's Daughter, to make a special guest appearance with a press reception preceding the show. So no pressure here either.

Call it a miracle. Call it the theater gods smiling down upon us. Call it somehow pulling the whole thing out of our collective asses. But somehow, some way, it became a textbook case of "bad dress rehearsal, great opening night" as grand and glorious a performance as any I have ever experienced. It all worked beautifully, top to bottom. It set the tone from the entire run of the show.

After the curtain call and greeting the audience on the way out as we always did, I had still been so adrenalized that I was bouncing off the walls Roger Rabbit-style. I couldn't contain myself even when I went back to the dressing room. As I changed out of my costume, the man himself, Mr. Tim Kelly entered to meet the cast. And what was the first thing I did? I enthusiastically showed him my copy of his script and pointed out all the changes we had made.

"Look, we cut these page here, this monologue there. We cut this character out altogether because we didn't even need her! Then I re-wrote some of my own lines over here and as you can see, it turned out just great!"

He was dead silent as I handed him the well-worn script to autograph. Across the title page, he signed it merely, "Kelly" and handed it back before moving along. Oops.

From there, we were off and running. There wasn't a single performance in that six month run that I didn't love doing that show.. The melodrama was flat out fun The character of Death Valley Dwayne was an extension of some of what I learned in the Ghost Town and I ran with it. My first entrance involved a variation of the old Johnny Carson "How hot is it?" gag since it took place in the desert.
"It is so hot outside..."
Audience: "How hot is it?"
"I saw a scorpion crossing the desert.. He wuz goin' 'Ow! Ow! Ow! Hot ! Hot! Hot!'"

And that cast was solid, not a weak link in the bunch and so enjoyable to play with and against. More than once, we couldn't help but crack ourselves up during the show. At one point, all ten of us lost it. Breaking character wasn't a cardinal sin back then. One night, Cory dropped a wad of paper. Because I am so damn cool, I wanted clear the stage of this litter, so when I crossed on my next line, I kicked it into the orchestra. At that same moment, Joel had returned to his drum set and the paper wad popped him right in the face. He cocked his head and looked so hurt and offended by this, I totally lost it. Since I was the only one who had seen Joel's reaction, nobody knew why I was laughing, which busted me up even further. It took me awhile, but I finally got myself under control. Needless to say, I didn't dare look at Joel the rest of the night otherwise I might have kick-started my funny bone all over again.

The real revelation for me was Hello, Vaudeville, Hello. I had initially been opposed to going old school Pollardville, but that's because I never attended class before. As an young upstatrt, of course I knew everything. I didn't know nuttin'. I had jumped into the deep end of the pool a little prematurely. Was I merely treading water up to that point? No. I knew how to swim. I just didn't know how to dive, hence a belly flop from which I couldn't recover. The arrogance of youth tends to hold the past in disdain and I was guilty as charged. Not only did I learn the old style, I also discovered that they could also be done well, which this show definitely proved. This was the Pollardville lesson I needed to learn: I had to go back in order to move forward. Now I could do since I finally found the way.

For the next seven years, I was involved in every single production in one capacity or another. I wrote and directed the next three olios following Ratcatcher/Hello Vaudeville. Song of the Canyon Kid (then known as Song of the Lone Prairie) made its world premiere down the road and I had the great fortune to work alongside my mentor, Lou Nardi, when he graced our stage.

Thanks to both D.W. Landingham and Ray Rustigian, The Racatcher's Daughter/Hello, Vaudeville, Hello show gave me a chance for redemption. It served as a starting point for a prolific, productive and enormously creative period for me. It's when the Palace Showboat evolved into something more than a giant sandbox for which I could play.

It became a way of life.

The Mantorville Theatre Company production of The Ratcatcher's Daughter or Death Valley Daze by Tim Kelly is now playing on their stage in Mantorville, Minnesota until Aug. 13 followed by the debut of Song of the Canyon Kid or Poem on the Range from Aug 18 until September 9.

The Gang's All Here

2017-07-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

Summer re-runs are fun, aren't they? Here's one from a couple of years back.

With THE SOPRANOS becoming a distant memory and the next season of BOARDWALK EMPIRE months away, my appetite for gangland drama has been voracious as of late. I've been jonesing like a Droogie for a bit of the old ultraviolence, either cinematically or broadcastically.

JUSTIFIED really does fit the bill. Them country boys down in Butcher Holler (or whatever holler they holler in) are more than a barrel full of wiseguys with a side of grits. It's also fueled my interest in the written works of Elmore Leonard, creator of Raylan Givens and the rest of these dangerous hillbillies.But damn it, season 3's over and gone as well (with a super duper villain turn by Neil McDonough) and I need more more more as Andrea True once sang.

So I've delved into the international market. Yakuza (the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia) films always foot the bill, particularly those by Kenji Fukasaku whose work includes SYMPATHY FOR THE UNDERDOG and the five part saga BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY. I've been gaga for French crime mellers since the late great Jules Dassin's RIFIFI. My favorites among these have been Jacques Becker's TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (the English translation being DON'T TOUCH THE LOOT. Love it.) and Jean-Pierre Melville's LE CERCLE ROUGE. Oh, in case you didn't know: Jean Gabin is God. There's also the Danish mob as portrayed in DRIVE director Nicolas Winding Refn's sensational PUSHER trilogy, tales not for the squeamish but the squeamish shouldn't be here anyway. They should be watching TWILIGHT.

But lately, I've been caught up in Chinese director Johnny To's films about the Triad gangs, ELECTION and its immediate sequel TRIAD ELECTION. These two cold-blooded tales are intricate in their story telling as well as crash courses in modern Chinese culture, particularly since the end of the British occupation. They are also extremely devious by nature. At one point, you're almost led to believe that a main protagonist is quite benign and almost humane in his depiction as the story unravels until he suddenly becomes the most sadistic character of the bunch. Chilling, thrilling and always fascinating, Johnny To's movies always deliver. Also check out To's FULLTIME KILLER with Andy Lau and EXILED with one of the coolest of the cool, Simon Yam.

Give Johnny To's gangster dramas a look see and soon you'll be saying: "Leave the gun. Take the potstickers."

Tales from the Ville: Daddy Goose

2017-06-15T20:45:00.001-07:00

As Father's Day approaches, it's high time I pay tribute to the other significant pater familia in my life, the one, the only Daddy Goose.

Without going into a long list of my credits, I have to admit that the years I spent out at Pollardville were the most creatively prolific in my writing life with material that continue to pay off to this very day. But for all the melos, sketches and gags I wrote or re-wrote over time, there is one person I managed to short-change:

Me.

When I first ventured onto the Showboat stage in 1979, I had just come from the Ghost Town where I had been the entertainment director for much of the past season. Therefore, I was full of piss, vinegar, beans and hops and wanted to take the theater by storm after that most amazing of all years playing in the streets of the Ville's backyard. I had already co-written LA RUE'S RETURN a couple of years earlier. And Bob Gossett, who was to direct his first melodrama, a revival of DOWNFALL OF THE UPRISING or WHO DO THE VOODOO? written by Marian Larson, asked me to be his assistant and to help him punch up the script. Naturally, I wanted to do more, submitting many a gag for the vaudeville section only to be roundly shot down by olio director Phil DeAngelo. I did manage to squeeze in one piece which, coincidentally featured myself as a cowboy and his dancing bear which he accomplished by shooting at its feet. Later on, the tables were turned as the bear made the cowboy dance in the same matter. Goldie played the bear and I believe that was where our long friendship was cemented. (Kind of a metaphor, eh, wot?)

But as time passed, I wrote more and more for the greater good which turned out to be those talented individuals I worked with. If I ended up in the melo/sketch/blackout, it was usually an afterthought or happy accident. Don't get me wrong. I had some great roles, but sometimes it was by default. I was my brother, Charlie. I shoulda been looked out for me a little bit. (As I try to make a point, I make no sense. Sue me.)

Further down the road came the first total rock n' roll olios, ROCK N' VAUDEVILLE. Since GOODBYE TV, HELLO BURLESQUE's guys number, "Hot Patootie" from ROCKY HORROR SHOW, more and more vaudevilles had more contemporary numbers, including rock ' n roll, so why devote a whole show around it? We decided to have a DJ character set up in a side stage studio set and that's when I developed the character of Daddy Goose, a beatnik well past his prime. this piece was just a variation on the old FRACTURED FAIRY TALES segment from THE ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW. (Jay Ward, the creator of that show and GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE has always been and always will be a major influence) So, I wrote a new version of Cinderella called Cinderbaby. She was a Valley Girl who lived with her Step-Mommy, a riff on Flip Wilson's Geraldine character, and her two hideous stepsister-The Lee Sisters, Ugh and Home. With the help of her Fairy Godfather (and all it implies) Cinderbaby was able to go to the ball thrown by the Prince, Little Red Corvette and all. Since this was a all out assault on Mother Goose, I came up with some nursery rhymes as well. This pre-dated Andrew Dice Clay’s X-rated versions by at least of couple of years or at least my awareness of them.

Look at me! I'm a weiner!

This was the beginning of my very short-lived stand-up career. Playing Daddy G twice a week on the Pollardville stage gave me the confidence to give it a try outside my comfort zone. It all culminated in 1987 when I entered and won the one and only Stockton Comedy Competition. At the finals, I performed a truncated version of Daddy Goose. Winning that event in itself was one of the definitive moments in my life. If somebody ever plays a highlight clip reel when I die, that night will be included. Okay, so maybe there are those of you who don’t get it. Perhaps you think that this is a lame claim to fame and that winning first place in a stand-up competition in Stockton, California is the equivalent of say, being crowned Miss Picante Sauce at the Salsa Festival in West Cowpie, Texas. But you know what? This brief moment in the sun means the world to me and, in my life, I will always have this particular fame to claim.

After I won, I attempted to bring Daddy Goose into the clubs, but it didn't translate and died a thousand deaths, sometimes in one night. I began to lose faith in the Goose, doing about as far as I could with the character, so I put him up in mothballs. When Ray Rustigian booked outside variety show gigs for many of the Palace Players, he always requested I bring back the Goose. I resisted, preferring to go with newer material instead. Ray had more faith in Daddy Goose than I did. In retrospect, he might have been right, considering the audiences we played to during those shows who might have preferred the old over the new. .

When I appeared in ANGRY HOUSEWIVES at Stockton Civic Theater, board president Helen Kastner wanted to put together a series of separate variety shows on Sunday afternoons that summer. She asked if I would throw something together and so I took that Pepsi challenge. The all comedy revue entitled NOW THAT'S FUNNY! turned out better than I ever could have hoped. The cast, made up of some Ville alums and other theater friends, was a total dream and the show itself, a combination of some of my original material interspersed with some old vaudeville bits like Dr. Cure-All (featuring the one and only D. W. Landingham) as well as other kibbles and bits I gathered hither and tither, made for a damn decent show if I say so myself.

As MC, not to mention director of this one time only event, I took advantage of the situation. I performed some stand-up, cast myself in some sketches and made damn sure that Daddy Goose would make a grand entrance. I never had this much freedom of movement before. At the Ville, I was trapped on the side stage behind the KPOL set. Other times, I had to make due with a postage stamp size platform. But on the SCT stage, I felt unleashed. This is exactly how this bit was supposed to go, The end result was a personal triumph, probably the best performance of Cinderbaby I ever gave. I think for the very first time I totally owned Daddy Goose and it showed.

When I moved to Portland, I used snippets of the Goose for various audition pieces, mostly out of laziness so I wouldn't have to learn a new monologue. But I thought that was about the size of it until I put together a collection of my comedy sketches together for a book I titled NOW THAT'S FUNNY! (Hmm, that' sounds familiar...) Naturally, I included Daddy Goose,nursery rhymes and all, never thinking I would dust off the beret and shades again.

Then the Pollardville reunion reared its head in 2007 and when I was asked if I wanted to contribute to the show, naturally I had to bring back the Goose one...more...time. It had been 15 years since the last appearance of DG and I'm talking about from beginning to end. I rehearsed like a mofo at my Oregon home,until I made the trip back to the site of the Big Chicken in the Sky. Oh boy, was I outta shape and by the end, damn near outta gas as I plowed my way through the story of Cinderbaby and all her kin. I wasn't a hundred percent happy with the result and if you look at the tape, it ran a too long 14 and a half minutes. I also looked like a bloated hungover bus boy at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Bar and Grille.Once again, I felt handicapped by the space I was given, restricting my movements and quite frankly, I should have edited the piece. No one but me really gave two hoots in Hell if I told the whole damn story. I could have cut it short and ended with a Mick Jagger send-off which would have put a sweet exclamation point on the bit. But hindsight is 60/40 so I should quit my bitchin'. It wasn't meant to be all about me This was the last telling of this tale and I'm eternally grateful I got the chance. I did put my heart and soul into Daddy Goose's swan song in the place of his birth. It was a true homecoming, if only to say goodbye once and for all.

Daddy Goose is now retired, living in an assisted living yurt somewhere in Humboldt County, but his legend may continue. I may still do something with the character, perhaps an adaptation of Cinderbaby in some form or another. It would need an overhaul since much of the material is mired in 1980s culture. And the Fairy Godfather could use a makeover as well, not in the name of political correctness rather for the sake of evolution.

What can I say, Daddy? Not to get all Brokeback, but I just can't seem to quit you. Over the years, you've been good to me and I want to give you the respect you deserve with this overdue tribute at long last.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy Goose!

And to all of you fathers out there,

Peace, love, rock n' roll

MORE TALES FROM THE VILLE RIGHT CHER

2 Legit 2 Quit

2017-05-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

The Star Truck Innerthighs flies again!

In this, the fourth year of establishing myself as an independent playwright, an uphill road to say the very least, I had three very special surprises that keep the fires stoked when the flames begin to flicker.

First off, Melanie Delbridge of Sugar High Theatricals in Galesburg, Illinois contacted me after finding DEAD TUESDAYon my online storefront and wished to produce it, appropriately enough, on Fat Tuesday back in February. Alas, the date was postponed and rescheduled for April, adding two additional performances. First off, finding the play to begin with harkens back to what began this whole process for me when The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville discovered SONG OF THE CANYON KID back in 2012. After that, I met my angel and another Mel, Melanie Roady of Mel O'Drama Theater who commissioned me to pen my first murder mystery, THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS, a play I have since re-named DEAD TUESDAY, thanks to another angel, producer Jerri Wiseman of StageCoach Theatre.

Secondly, producer/director Roscoe of the San Luis Valley Theatre Company of Fort Garland, Colorado will present the second production of STAR TRUCK: THE WRATH OF COMIC-CON under its brand spanking new title MURDER-THE FINAL FRONTIER on the first weekend of June. Activate fist pump sequence...NOW!

If one of my plays is produced, I am obviously over the moon. However, I am in this for the long haul and prefer that these are not one night stands. In my insecure mind, one production is a fluke, but a second time around makes it legitimate. For example, SONG OF THE CANYON KID had its premiere at the late and legendary Palace Showboat Theatre in 1986. Once I put the script out there by self-publishing it, the second production did not occur until over 25 years later. The vindication for DEAD TUESDAY happened last year, two years after its initial offering. Now MURDER-THE FINAL FRONTIER becomes legit two years later as well.

Just to wrap this all up in a pretty bow, SONG OF THE CANYON KID will be the last production in series of melodramas this summer at the Mantorville Theatre Company in Minnesota, a group I have been soliciting every year since I first began marketing my plays. But thanks to Mantorville's Melisa Ferris pushing this through, my persistence-and pestering-has paid off.

There seems to be something about women named Mel that must transform them into theater angels. As for Jerri and Roscoe, I may have to call you Mel too. After all, who knows for whom the Mel tolls. It tolls for me.

On that note, I'll just exit, stage right.

Like these theater companies on Facebook, wouldja?
SUGAR HIGH THEATRICALS
SAN LUIS VALLEY THEATRE COMPANY
MANTORVILLE THEATRE COMPANY
STAGECOACH THEATRE COMPANY
MEL O'DRAMA THEATER

For more info about my plays, please visit SCOTT CHERNEY'S STOREFRONT or my website
WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY

See also: BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

The Future Mrs. Wiley

2017-04-17T19:10:00.000-07:00

As a gift to you, the Etc. reading public and anybody else that cares to weigh in and click on, I am hereby offering up an ages old short story of mine.

This tall tale, I hesitate to admit because I'm in denial about my age, is 40 years old. It was submitted and subsequently rejected by Playboy magazine as well as another publication that fortunately escapes me, probably some other lower-case stroke book like Adam or Dude or Nugget or Gent. Whoever it was gave it pass as well.

Here it is once again in all its failed glory and yes, based on a true story, I give to the world.

THE FUTURE MRS. WILEY by Scott Cherney

While you're on my website, click around a bit and see if there's anything else you like. Thanks for playing.

Goodbye, Dummy!

2017-04-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Mr. Warmth has passed away at the age of 90 years old.

To many of you, especially in this golden age of ageism, the only acceptable form of prejudice left in the world, his death is insignificant." So what? Another old fart croaked. What's on Netflix?" But since the majority of you have no sense of history beyond five minutes ago, you have no idea that there has been a major shift in the timeline as the end of an era has occurred.

But who cares. right? Time passes. So does wind.

The bottom line is that Don Rickles made me laugh longer and harder than anyone for my entire life. It's rare to find someone, especially in comedy, that you found funny when you were young that could still have the same effect years later. Look at Jerry Lewis. I was a rabid fan as a kid, but now, not so much. Maybe if I was French. The same holds true of Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges and well, the Peekaboo Game.

But Rickles fractured and slayed me every time. His appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or The Joey Bishop Show were major events that I anticipated with as much excitement as I would if The Beatles showed up on Ed Sullivan. (the show, not the man) Years later, he was just as hilarious on Letterman, Leno or Kimmel. Sure, he was slower, but his mind hit more cylinders than you and I will ever have. His insulting shtick was spontaneous and in the moment, relying more on improv than set material.

With Rickles gone, so too is the age of Show Biz Classic, a performer that wears a tuxedo un-ironically and gives 100% to an audience each and every time. Some of it came with a layer of schmaltz, but that was to soften whatever ill will that be be conceived from his act. The man had a work ethic that wouldn't quit, right up until the very end, just like the late Joan Rivers. Rickles has a talk show series in the can, did voice work for the next Toy Story and had bookings in Vegas as well as across the country he won't be able make, but would if he could. Now THAT's old school.

Don Rickles represented show business how I always wanted it to be, though I know full well the reality is a lot starker beyond the lights, tinsel and gloss. But so what? It kept the fantasy alive and the laughs right on a-comin'. And for me, that meant everything.

So long, ya hockey puck.

For more about Don Rickles, check out the Emmy winning documentary directed by John Landis,
Mr. Warmth: The Don Ricles Project
and the fantastic book, The Comedians: Drunks, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

Beauty Killed the Beast

2017-03-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

At the climax of the original KING KONG, a crowd gathers around the big ape's dead body after he fell from the top of the Empire State Building when a New York cop points states the obvious to Robert Armstrong's Carl Denham..

"Well, Denham, the airplanes got him."

(I guess his bullet-ridden corpse was a big clue.)

However, Denham contradicts him, proclaiming, "Oh no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

Then the gathered throng ad-libs, "Beauty?" "Beauty?" "What is he, drunk?" (Maybe I imagined that last line.)

So here we are in 2017 and King Kong lives again (must have been a flesh wound) in KONG: SKULL ISLAND, released a week before the new Disney live action version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.and naturally, controversy prevails in the atmosphere. KONG's alleged racial insensitivity is being recycled from Peter Jackson's ten year old version, so it barely registers a blip this time around. I guess #KONGLIVESDON'TMATTER. No, this time, the bonfire is burning at Disney over a ("GASP!") homosexual character perpetuating the gay agenda to influence and brainwash influential young minds around the world.

In new BATB, Josh Gad plays Le Fou, the goofball henchman of Gaston, the narcissistic heavy of the story To add a little garnsih to the character, Le Fou has a big crush on his handsome friend and ay, there's the rub.(For Le Fou, anyway)

It seems some people have a problem with this piece of whimsy, elevating it to this to an outrage of Def-Con 4 l proportions. "Homosexuals? In a family film? Not on my watch!" I find it amazing that we are having this conversation in this day and age of tolerance, acceptance and peaceful coexistence...oh, wait. That sort of thinking is so last year...

A drive-in theater owner in Alabama has refused to show the film. They released these statement on their website:

As of December 16th the Henagar Drive-In is under new ownership. Movies scheduled prior to that date and four weeks after this date were not scheduled by the new owners. That being said…It is with great sorrow that I have to tell our customers that we will not be showing Beauty and the Beast at the Henagar Drive-In when it comes out. When companies continually force their views on us we need to take a stand. We all make choices and I am making mine. For those that do not know Beauty and the Beast is “premiering” their first homosexual character. The producer also says at the end of the movie “there will be a surprise for same-sex couples”. If we can not take our 11 year old grand daughter and 8 year old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it. If I can’t sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it. I know there will be some that do not agree with this decision. That’s fine. We are first and foremost Christians. We will not compromise on what the Bible teaches. We will continue to show family oriented films so you can feel free to come watch wholesome movies without worrying about sex, nudity, homosexuality and foul language. Thank you for your support!

Russia actually considered a nationwide ban on BEAUTY, but has since decided to allow the film to be seen, now with a 16+ rating, meaning no Russkie young 'uns will have their minds polluted by Western gay propaganda. To pile on even further, a boycott has been threatened not only against the movie but also against the Disney corporation. Walt is spinning in his grave like a rottisserie chicken.

But what's all the hub-bub, bub? BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has a PG rating. How much hot man-on-man action can there really be? The MPAA really frowns upon anal sex, suggested or otherwise. And to make the whole brouhaha just a bit ironic...Josh Gad is straight while Luke Evans who plays Gaston is openly gay. Put that in your phallic-shaped pipe and smoke it, Henagar Drive-In.

I would support a boycott on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST for other reasons, like that Disney is regurgitating its own product back into society. A live action version of a cartoon remake makes my head spin at 78 rpm. This is, of course, the Disney way and basically always has been. Next up are live-action versions of THE LION KING and PINOCCHIO with Gepetto probably played by Morgan Freeman. The Mouse Factory is exactly that, a big soul-less machine cranking out widget after widget in the name of commerce first and foremost while creativity and originality have gone the way of the dinosaur (not a successful character in the Disney canon).This don't mean a fig to Disney acolytes around the globe who will flock to this because SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!

The Beauty/Beast story has been re-told cinematically over the ages, most recently in a 2014 French version with Vincent Cassel. Of course there's the Disney animated cover, a classic of the genre from the 1990s (yes, even with Robby Benson as the Beast). TV has its own versions in name only, the most popular being the 1980s series with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton in the New York sewer system. (How romantic!) Another rendition of the classic story was made for the small screen starring George C. Scott as the furry freak brother, who starred with his then-wife Trish Van Devere. It might have been more interesting with the first Mrs. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, though there might have been some confusion on who was playing The Beast. There have also been those low budget knock off variations on a theme like MERIDIAN and TANYA'S ISLAND. Though I don't know for sure, at some time there must have been a porn version called BOOTY AND THE BEAST. Boy, talk about your low-hanging fruit. So to speak.

Nothing, but nothing beats the spectacular Jean Cocteau masterpiece from 1946. a true work of art that occupies a space on my favorite films of all time. But hold on just a doggone minute....Cocteau was...GAY! Not only that, his lover was Jean Marais, the actor who played the Beast. Holy merde! Where does that leave Beauty in all this? Maybe they should have called it BEAUTY AND THE BEARD. (Ba-dump-bump!) I guess it really is a fairy tale after all, isn't it?

The bottom line (no pun intended unless you swing that way) is that I feel compelled to support a product I feel to be repellent, but for completely different reasons.. While I abhor this era of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings , building the cultural landfill to epic proportions that will eventually bury us all, I hate ignorance, intolerance and narrow-minded assholes even more. If I have to choose my battles, I'll take on the latter first because the threat is so immediate. The former has been a lifelong struggle that I will always rail against until the end of my time.

But who am I really kidding? I won't pay money to see the new BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. I'd sooner watch the cartoon again since it's the same goddamn movie. The Cocteau film is an even better bet. But if I choose to go out, I'll opt for the fun and games of KONG: SKULL ISLAND. Wait a minute, what? King Kong now identifies as gender non-binary?

Carl Denham might want to change his answer.

Oscar's Big Boner

2017-02-28T23:51:00.000-08:00

Well, hoo-ray for Hollywood!

The biggest event of the year in the entertainment capital of the world known as the Academy Awards was quite the hoot this go around. This shimmer has dimmed on Oscar, the Golden Boy in recent years thanks to an non-stop onslaught of awards shows, all of them televised to drive the point home that YES, MOVIES STILL MATTER. That is, despite the fact that cinemas are on the endangered species list with the massive swift toward home entertainment and that currently, TV rules the roost in the current Zeitgeist. (No, no the sequel to Poltergeist).

This year's circle jerk was more entertaining than usual thanks to the efforts of new producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd who took a page from the golden Globes and gave this old chestnut some much needed life with more of a party atmosphere. It began with a bang with Justin Timberlake's nominated song "Cant Stop the Feeling", a rousing little ditty that brought the crowd to its feet for the first time. While not one of my personal faves, JT did kick the show off quite nicely. This led to Jimmy Kimmel's entrance as this year's host and, quite frankly, he owned it. They have been looking for a more permanent host for awhile and Kimmel fit the bill near-perfectly, nearly as smooth as Bob Hope and Billy Crystal back in the day.

The general celebration actually muted the political posturing with less speechifying than I expected, which I was getting ready to dread due to political fatigue. When points were made, they were appropriately placed for the most part and carried more weight as a result, perhaps with the exception of Gael Garcia Bernal's ham-handed two cents on the Trump wall. It was awkward and unnecessary as he preached on before giving out the award for Best Animated Feature. Bad timing. Much better was the letter written by Iranian filmaker Asghar Farhadi (read by Anousheh Ansari) upon winning Best Foreign Film for THE SALESMAN, a strongly worded statement on the Trump travel ban. The other Trump digs during the night were more teasing in nature, especially Kimmels Tweet to the Donald "Meryl says hi." but it was obvious that knives were sharpened and ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.

As though Blake Edwards ran the show, this seemed to be a slapstick affair from the start with poor adorable Aul'i Cravalho getting smacked in the back the head during her otherwise quite excellent rendition of the nominated song from MOANA, Then Seth Rogen bonked his noggin climbing out of the Delorean with Michael J. Fox. And the usually somber In Memoriam segment (aka The Death Parade) included a tribute to Australian costume designer Janet Patterson. Well deserved to be sure, except they showed the wrong Australian- producer Janet Patterson who is alive and well at this writing, but I haven't checked today, Janet, you alright, sweetheart? Sorry the Academy killed you prematurely.

But it was still all fun and games until we hit the three and a half hour mark when the Best Picture was finally about to be announced by Hollywood icons Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway when...WHOOPSY-DAISY!

You know the story. LA LA LAND was mistakenly announced when MOONLIGHT was the actual winner.

Conspiracy theories have abounded hither and tither over this major gaffe, one including Leonardo DiCaprio, the other involving the Academy itself attempting to amp up the drama and prove they are good Liberals after all by taking the trophy out of the hands of LA LA's white privelege and handing it over to MOONLIGHT to prove without a doubt the BLACK LIVES MATTER. (But not as much as THE MOVIES.)

But that's not what I believe happened at all.

The Russians were behind it all. They hacked into Pricewaterhouse and successfully sabotaged the awards to denigrate this beloved American institution in front of the entire world. And Warren Beatty was in on it the entire time. Hold on a second. Isn't he like a Tinseltown Liberal god, second to none except maybe Babs Streisand herself? Well let me ask you something in return, Ivan, Didn't Warren Beatty write, direct and star in a movie called REDS? Hmmmmm? Look it up, comrades! The Russkies probably paid off the enormous debt accumulated by his recent flop RULES DON'T APPLY for his "cooperation". And the cherry on top of the entire shit sundae, President of the United States Donald Jabroni Trump, masterminding the entire debacle to humiliate those he hates just as much the Fake News organizations...and that is THE HOLLYWOOD ELITE. (On the other hand, Putin preferred FENCES. he loves him some Denzel.)

I rest my case. (Don't have a mike, so I'll just drop my pen)

So ends another fairy tale evening in LA LA LAND while basking in the MOONLIGHT.

See you next year!

February Fun Facts

2017-02-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

DID YOU KNOW...?

February is the shortest month of the year. Of course you did. You'd have to be a blithering idiot to date a check 2/30. That is, unless you were going to the dentist. Wait for it...

February is also the month when my first show of the year will be produced, a one night stand of DEAD TUESDAY (the play formerly known as THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS). Sugar High Theatricals of Galesburg, Illinois is staging this fairy tale murder mystery o' mine on the appropriate date...Feb. 28 which this year is Fat Tuesday, cher! Perfect for a Mardi Gras themed show such as this. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

The Welsh call February "y mis bach" which means "little month". Except no one can pronounce it. Except Tom Jones.

The best new show on TV currently is TABOO on FX starring my current favorite actor Tom Hardy. There is not a single false note in this brilliant show set in 19th century England, dark and dank as anything I've ever seen. Runners-up are Netflix's THE CROWN (Peter Morgan is a god) and STRANGER THINGS, the best Stephen King story not written by Stephen King. The latter includes my new favorite actress, Millie Bobby Brown, quite the recommendation since I generally never like child performers and she is positively extraordinary to the point that she may even be extra-terrestrial. On the other end of the spectrum, Netflix's SANTA CLARITA DIET is a stink bomb. Timothy Olyphant needs to be sedated and Drew Barrymore is putrid in this unfunny, unfocused sit-com that is getting raves from a very indiscriminate audience.

It is the third month of winter. In the Southern Hemisphere February is a summer month the equivalent of August. After this winter, the Southern hemisphere can kiss my frozen ass. (Sorry. The cold weather has made me cranky.)

My birthday movie this year was the much-lauded LA LA LAND, a wonderful choice if I do blog so myself. It's not perfect by any means, but there are moments that touch pure magic, such as the last ten minutes, that justify any kudos this has garnered thus far. It will indeed win a flock o' Oscars, much like its closest comparison, THE ARTIST, from a few years ago. But if I were to be perfectly honest, I would say that the similarly themed L.A. STORY, written and starring Steve Martin, is the better film. Regardless of that sleight, my movie-going experience was top notch especially when I decided to attend a single screen cinema in Portland instead of a dreaded multi-plex, a major reason my attendance has been so apathetic in the last few years. So dadgum it, I treated myself and will do so again. Nyah.

The largest American sporting event the Super Bowl, is held in February. Did I watch it? No, I totally boycotted the Super Bowl this year. Of course, I never watch it to begin with, so it's not that much of a stand. I did watch the half-time show on the YouTube and thought Lady Gaga crushed it. If you didn't like Gaga's performance or want to comment on her supposed belly fat, you can crowd in front of the Southern hemisphere and pucker up, you slimy trolls.

The Saxon term for the month, Sol-monath, means "cake month". This is because they offered cakes to the gods during this month.

So as the world continues to circle the drain, enjoy a piece of cake, Saxon-style. No, not in a Marie Antoinette way. Treat yourself. You need it. Maybe have some pie instead. Pie is good.

ChernFest 2017: All Altman, All the Time

2017-01-27T19:44:00.003-08:00

For this year's imaginary film festival (an off-shoot of my fantasy repertory movie house called Mind's Eye Cinema) in honor of my birthday (thank you all, by the way), I have decided to devote the entire schedule to my favorite Robert Altman films.

Altman's work made an instant impact on me. It spoke volumes to me in a voice that is loud and clear to this very day. The worlds he presented on screen were so rich with character and detail that even the lowliest extras seemed to have a story all their own. As such, I always felt immersed in an Altman film, as though I was a participant in the proceedings instead of a mere witness.

In my never-realized dream of becoming a film maker myself, I probably would have aped his style as so many others have attempted to do with varying levels of success. But in doing so, I believe that I would have found my own voice and perhaps spoken to another young neophyte much as myself, probably one who would have said, "Hey pal. You're no Robert Altman."

Regardless of all that, Altman remains in the top three of favorite film directors of all time. Therefore, why not feature a whole weekend of Altman movies for this, my birthday weekend. You will note that both M*A*S*H* and NASHVILLE missing from this list as are THE LONG GOODBYE and SHORT CUTS. They are only so many slots available, folks and as brilliant as I find them, I prefer these five. Hey, POPEYE didn't make the cut either.

Opening night will be BREWSTER MCCLOUD, the long neglected follow-up to M*A*S*H* (another reason for the latter's exclusion: those fucking asterisks). The simple story of a boy who wanted to fly, in this case on a pair of homemade wingsflapping inside of the Houston Astrodome, BREWSTER is so wonderfully off-beat that it is small wonder why it was shunned in its initial release, but amazes me that it hasn't been the cult classic I feel it deserves.

Next up is the Saturday matinee feature, CALIFORNIA SPLIT, Altman's ode to gambling that is a perfect companion piece to Karel Reisz and James Toback's THE GAMBLER released around the same time. While SPLIT is a more light-hearted buddy comedy with the genius pairing of George Segal and Elliott Gould, the two films deliver the same message and had the identical impact on me.

Saturday night is reserved for Altman's great fuck you to Hollywood, THE PLAYER which ironically, kick-started his career into a third act he might have been denied after a decade of one failure after another. But Altman was the Comeback Kid and the community he gleefully spits upon lowered their umbrellas to be soiled by the master as he pulled into the home stretch, galloping all the way.

Sunday afternoon seemed to be as good a place as any for Altman's last classic, GOSFORD PARK, another foray into the realm of murder mysteries. As written by Julian Fellowes, this precursor to DOWNTON ABBEY appeared to be an odd choice for the director, But once this multi-character tale began to unfold, it became all to obvious that Altman was the only director to properly tell it correctly with his distinctive and inimitable style.

Finally, closing night has to be what I consider his masterpiece, what has been termed his revisionist western, MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER. This was the one that clinched it for me. No other film until this point had the look, the feel, the mood of MCCABE. It played right into my emo wheelhouse as a moody dreamer, so mesmerized was I by absolutely everything from Vilmos Zsigmond's groundbreaking cinematography to the entrancing soundtrack filled with the music of Leonard Cohen. I found Warren Beatty to be such a lovable scamp that I could overlook the fact that John McCabe was basically an asshole. But at least he was a charming asshole. And Julie Christie...dear lord in heaven, did I ever have a major crush upon her after this film, the first screen love o' my life since the days of Diana Rigg in THE AVENGERS. It was the magical film that remained nearest to my heart. I took every opportunity to see it whenever I could. One particularly rainy night when I lived in the Bay Area, I took refuge in the Stage Door Theater for a double bill of MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER and JEREMIAH JOHNSON. This had been probably the tenth time I had seen MCCABE since it played at the Bijou in Stockton where I previously worked prior to moving to the Big City and sat through every showing. But the Stage Door presentation this Sunday night (coincidentally enough) was the last on the big screen. It had the same hypnotic effect on me that it did from the very beginning. I left the cinema that night in a melancholy stupor and walked the streets of San Francisco for hours now the rain had ceased, Leornard Cohen's WINTER LADY playing on an endless loop in my head and me living a beautiful dream.

So there you have it.
Thank you, Robert Altman.
And Happy birthday to me.

CHERNFEST 2016: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Feliz Año Nuevo

2017-01-07T18:39:00.001-08:00

Another year down. It's about time.

There's really no reason to recall the events of the past 12 months because, honestly, who the hell wants to go through THAT again? Since we continue to categorize and rate our lives in blocks of time (for what-convenience sake?), we can all pretty much agree on one basic fact while disagreeing on everything thing else in the known and unknown universe:

2016 sucked ass.

We lost a lot last year, not just people, celebrities, notable or otherwise, but parts of ourselves as well. When the MAIN EVENT of November, that shit show known as the Presidential election finally came to pass, the end result was despair for the defeated and barely a hoo-ray for the victors. It was a bloody, brutal battle that summed up the entire year in a microcosm and left us everyone, involved or not, more shell-shocked that we'll ever be able to admit. But there won't be any chance to heal because time marches on, and that, my friends, is the natural fact.

It wasn't all mud-slinging and brickbats. Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good in 2016 cuz what bleeds, leads and it so much easier to dwell on the worst of humanity, to revel in the pain because maybe, just maybe when we are exposed to an endless barrage of it, we'll be tough enough so that it won't bother us any longer. We won't be able to feel a thing. Remembering the good things of your life and the world around us might actually be your Achilles heel.

That may be the stupidest bullshit you read this year, but I doubt it. Hey, I just saw this "breaking news headline":

Need I add that this is a perfect example of fake news? I do? O Madre de Mios. Ignorance begets even more ignorance as Mike Judge's film IDIOCRACY looks more and more like a documentary. Maybe a few guillotines aren't such a bad idea. Many of you aren't using your heads anyway.

If nothing else, this 12 month pummeling should serve as a wake-up call to everybody everywhere. Pay attention, people. Those of you who lost your shit over the election results were probably half-asleep to begin with and are too goddamn cranky when you open your eyes for the first time. What did you think was going to happen? You have to be the dumbest ass in the entire free world if you thought-or still fucking believe-that the popular vote means anything. It doesn't. You losers underestimated the winner of everything since he begin his goose-step to the White House.

And as for the other side, to the victors go the spoils. You should know it since you spoiled it. For Christmas, I ordered the Basket of Deplorables from Harry and David-some rotten apples and a bunch of nuts. (Second time I used this joke. Gonna do it til I get it right.) I was worried about what you yahoos might do if Trump lost, what retaliation might occur. I should have been more concerned about what you Insane Clown Posses would do when he he won. Don't think you're going to get away with what you think you might do going forward. This is where the battle lines will be drawn. Civil War II, anybody?

For those who are not part of this angry mob, I hope for all our sake you made the right decision because it is one we will have to live with for the next four years. (Donaldo's not going to be a two-termer. He will get bored. You'll see.) Congratulations on your victory If you ever get over your hatred of Obama, Hillary and the rest of the opposing side, I hope you'll keep a close eye on your POTUS. Try to recall the doubts you had going into this. You need to wake the fuck up too. To get along, what say we keep an eye on extremists on all fronts. You keep your wackos in check, we'll keep our nut jobs in line as well. Couldn't hurt, which is probably the most positive suggestion of the day.

Now it's 2017. Feel any different? I didn't think so. Time is relative. In this case, it's that creepy drunken uncle who's all pervy hands when it's time to go to bed.

Pleasant dreams, America.

Happy New Year.

Carrie On

2016-12-31T14:45:00.000-08:00

Show of hands...
Who wants Death to take a holiday already?
Madre de dios, not sooner do we lose Carrie Fisher then we lose her mother, Debbie Reynolds the very next day?

2016's been a brutal year for celebrities, but I'm not about to do an In Memoriam post here. Leave it to the award shows, which are all running long this next year. What happened to the theory of 3? This year, it seems like they're dying in lots of 30.

The grief we feel over these icons, big and small, has only compounded the pain we've been feeling the entire 12 months...and every year that has led up to it. It make one want to shout:

"When are we going to be able to put something in the win column?"
But we have. Get a little perspective, would ya?
And for crying out loud, which you seem to be doing more often than not, stop being so goddamn over-sensitive? It ain't helping matters.
For example, when Carrie died this last week, Cinnabon posted this tweet that got underwear in a twist all around unsocial media.

The fact that it would have amused Carrie is beside the point.
It's YOUR feelings that matter.
(Portland's Voodoo Doughnuts also offered their salute to Princess Leia)
Then Steve Martin made some innocuous, but still heart-felt tweet of his own.

And people lost their minds all over again.
D.L. Hughley was next with this remark after Debbie kicked.

And Steve was able to get out of the line of fire so that D.L. could get lambasted.
That Twitter is the Devils Playground, people. Maybe there should be a Too Soon filter.
But before you get all crazy for much ado 'bout nuttin', know this.
Carrie Fisher wanted her own obituary to read that she "dirowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra."
Many outlets published it and I'm sure were drug over the coals.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/carrie-fishers-witty-memoir-showed-9524618

I myself used Carrie and William Shatner's feud as fodder for my 2015 murder mystery comedy STAR TRUCK-THE WRATH OF COMIC-CON (since re-titled MURDER-THE FINAL FRONTIER), which premiered with the Mel O'Drama Theater company in Nashville. I called my character Carrie Fishwich (oh, clever boy), described as a boozy, blowsy writer/actress who became a suspect in the murder of Star Truck star Wilson Chadwick. A second company in Colorado had offered to stage a second production this next summer, but that was before Carrie's heart attack. What now? It's up to them, of course. When I completed the first draft of the script, Leonard Nimoy bought the farm and the show went on as promised six months later. Should this continue after the demise of Princess Leia? Sure. Why the hell not? It's a parody. A spoof. A poke in the ribs. It's comedy. She understood it. So should everyone else.

2016 seemed to be a non-stop pummeling from beginning until end. People are understandably very touchy because we're all battered and bruised. Even those who won in 2016 are too sore to complete a victory lap.We lost a lot, including some beloved icons and several favorites right up until the every end. (It's currently 2pm PST...hang on everybody!) But most of what we're feeling is misplaced anger. Put it in the right direction, kids. It hurts everyone when your aim is off. It's called collateral damage.

Take a deep breath, world.

If it means anything, I wish you...and me..., a Happy New Year.

And believe it or not, I say this in all sincerity:

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

Happy Holidays Already

2016-12-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays.
It's a greeting.
You want to say Merry Christmas?
Do it.
But don't insist on the latter when anyone else who tells you the former.
As much as many of rail against it, this smacks of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
It's a big wide wonderful world out there with all kinds of people wanting to celebrate just like you do, maybe not in the same manner but for the same basic reason.
So let's drop all the pretense.
Someone is wishing you well when they say those words.
You should be grateful and if you're willing, wish them the same.
Now, and especially now, after the year we've all had, we can come together in spirit and give each other the thing we need most in this life...
PEACE.
Sorry. Didn't mean to yell.
peace
And Happy Holidays.

POTUS Envy

2016-11-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

As Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the worst of times, it was the worstiest of times."

My ballot sits before me. It's time to pull the band-aid off this year-old scab and hope it won't bleed too much. Oh, but rest assured, little ones. There will be blood.

You think this is all going to be over November 8? Not hardly. Once the results are in, the party continues with a useless recount (or two), accusations of voter fraud from the left, right and center, not to mention what follows. Calls for impeachment will begin almost immediately, hearings will commence along with court proceedings and this obscene circus will never leave town.Soon we will long for those halcyon days of Election 2000. "Remember the hanging chads? Those were such a hoot!"

Now we're all innocently shaking our heads and wondering, "How did we get in to this mess in the first place?". If you don't know the answer to that question or even dared to ask it in the first place, please jump off the nearest high rise into rush hour traffic. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's all been fun and games until someone called Last Call. That's when the lights are turned up and reality finally sets in. "Oh no....I'm going home with THAT?????"

There are two candidates of any consequence in this battle. At least, that's what's been shoved down our gullets. If there's a phrase that pays in this cycle it's "The system is rigged", someone trumpeted from both side of the aisle. That's what y'all call irony with a capital IRE. The system is indeed rigged in favor of this archaically damaging two party system. Want proof? Take a gander at the two at the top. The others don't stand a chance and never will because the powers that be will never allow it to occur. Therefore, this country is beholden to either one or the other but not another until the end of time or days, if you prefer.

You could very well indeed vote for one of the other candidates. However you will be vilified not only by your peers but by those who actually stood apart not months before. The beloved little cherub Bernie Sanders himself is scolding those who would dare make a protest vote. Hey, pal. They're all protest votes. You were a protest vote.Why are you spitting in the face of all your supporters who say you as a viable alternative against the Hillary machine? Why are you toeing the party so vehemently? Are you Berned-out? Unless...

CONSPIRACY THEORY #1
Bernie Sanders has been working for Hillary and/or the Democrats all along. He was never meant to win, only to gather support. Dear sweet Lady Macbeth has never skewed to a younger, hipper demographic, but that snow-haired firebrand Uncle Bernie got them all fired up like the rabble rousing Lefty he is what with his free college tuition promises, taking down the 1% and things that young people actually care about. Then when it came down to the wire, he rolled over way too easily, even after learning he had been screwed over by Team Clinton. Instead of standing his ground at the convention when could have actually made a difference, he told his constituents to vote for the candidate they hate as much as any Republican: HRC. The percentage of those who will indeed do as he asks may be enough to put her over. Good job, Bern. What were you promised-a cabinet post? Some much needed cash for your retirement? A rRascal to get around Wahington? Let's face facts, old son. You won't be back in 2020. Too bad. You might have taken home the bacon this time around. As it is, you can take that participation trophy the DNC handed you to display prominently on your mantel for all to see as you sit in your Barcalounger watching election reults on MSNBC.

On the Republican side, the tents went up on Cirque de Solame as the clown car pulled up during debate season inexplicably beginning in late 2015. to every debate. The masses were oh so amused by the hi jinx that ensued when those doors opened and these buffoons all toppled out in fill regalia. "Damn it, Chris Christie! Why do you always have to get in the car last? Rubio's getting crushed!" "Because I have to drive. I know a shortcut so we don't have to take the bridge." This the party that controls Congress and has held the country hostage all this time? Holy merde. Say hello to their best and brightest, a bigger pack of empty suits and nimrods the country has never seen. But hey, the American people ate it all up with a plastic spoon if the Nielsen ratings were any indication (and they are) of what kind of a pit we have fallen into voluntarily. And the media has only perpetuated this shameful spectacle and milked it for all that was worth. They run everything into the ground to get every last nickel they can no matter what damage has been done.

So who's in the running for the highest position of what is laughingly referred to as the Free World? Why, it's Hillary and The Donald for the POTUS championship belt, probably the worst main event in modern history.

Hill was crowned the Democratic nominee a long time ago in a backroom far, far away, probably back in 2008. The scenario could have been that she had been asked to graciously step aside because it was time for an African-American president, not a woman. "Don't worry, Mrs. Clinton. You're next. We'll see to that." "Don't call me Mrs. Clinton." So Barry O'Bam gets the nod and Hill gets to be Secretary of State. Whoopsy! Now she's an even tougher sell to the American voting public because, let's face it, Hilly is almost as reviled as the Trumpster. Her support stems from dyed in the wool Democratic sheep who would vote for a pile of dirty clothes if it had the right party affiliation, anyone and everyone wanting herstory to be made by electing the FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT (not Susan Sarandon who announced she doesn't vote with her vagina, giving new meaning to the term "ballot box") and every Trump hater who see her as more Presidential than the former star of THE APPRENTICE. But though Hillary may have the backing of Hollywood (the entertainment rag Variety has even announced their support, a first for the paper) with Beyonce, Jay-Z and Katy Perry singing their praises, she ain't beloved and never will be. Do you know why her slogan is "I'M WITH HER"? Because it's difficult to say her name in the same context. Try it. It'll get stuck in your throat. "I'm with HHHHHHHH....... I'm with HHHHiiiiiiiiiiiii...I'm with HHHHuuuuuuhhhhhh..... her."

As for for Benito Trumpilini. is there really anything more that needs to be said that wasn't self-evident the moment he threw his hate into the ring? For the love of God, people. This is the same fool who stood front and center with the Birther bullshit. I don't care if it originated with the Clinton camp. He became the goddamn spokesmodel for the product. Didn't watching his moronic reality send off any warning flares? Those Republican debates gave him the opportunity to be the Roastmaster General and he ran with it. After watching him skew everyone of his opponents, he was deemed the Washington outsider who shoots straight form the hip, no matter what the hell fall from his lips. After years and years of a non-productive government, he looked like the solution that the country really needs-to be shaken to its core so that we can start anew. Trump the Grump began spewing his ideas every chance the media gave him and that was constantly. The more outrageous the claims or accusations he made, the more the coverage he got. The fabled October Surprise of this election cycle was the Access Hollywood tape where he made despicable comments about women. Is this really a surprise in October or any other month? He's a pig. Shocking. Next. But that does bring up...

CONSPIRACY THEORY #2
Billy Bush leaked the tape himself, paid off handsomely by the Bush family, getting even with no only how Trump bullied Jeb but his humiliation of the entire family throughout the campaign. Don't fuck with the Bushes. They're ex-CIA. Barbara probably still wants to give him a hearty kick in the huevos for good measure..

The fallout left some chinks in Teflon Don's armor, but he was already insulated and reinforced by the plethora of hateful rhetoric regarding illegal immigrants, that insufferable wall and the rest of his playlist filtering into the cracks and crevices where lived the dregs of society aka the Basket of Deplorables (sounds like something I want to order for the holidays from Harry and David). These sewer rats clawed their way back into the sunlight again as the nation finally began to head in the right direction and their kind had been forced to not go away mad, just go away. Well, they're back and it going to be tougher to get rid of them because now they've re-organized. What's going to happen when he loses? Something tells they're going to be poor sports. Can you say Civil War II, the sequel nobody wants? Trump has been telling it like is, all righty. He's also been making it up as he goes along, a bull in a china shop that won't stop, win or lose, until the entire Great American Mall is reduced to a pile of rubble.

To use the 21st century version of a time-honored tradition of relating everything to 9/11, Hilly represents everything bad about America before 9/11 while Don-Don everything after. We're screwed either way. It's only a matter of time. With Clinton at the helm, it'll be a slow side into oblivion, stretching it out as long as possible, though as the campaign has progressed, the timeline might accelerate. President Trump will plunge us into disaster instantaneously.

So what to do? Does one pick one or the other? Would picking anyone else be a statement? What about leaving it blank? Do you dare throw your vote away? As for myself, I have picked the proverbial "lesser of two evils" in almost every election since I've begun voting. Now as I round the back turn and head into the home stretch, I find myself in a moral quandary, telling myself that every vote matters as it has been drummed into our heads since turning the legal age to cast a ballot, regardless of the Electoral College system that only the winners want to maintain, but I refuse to flip the coin, roll the dice or eeny-meeny-miney-mo it. The thing is, I'm an Independent. These are not my candidates. By Oregon law, I was not allowed to make a choice during the primaries (a state proposition that would have done so was shot in flames last time around. Thanks for working against us, two party system!) There's Clinton, Johnson, Stein and the choice of a new generation, None of the Above.

It's two days before the election. I had yet to fill out my ballot. Which ever way I decide, I'm going to vote with my conscience. If you do the same, I applaud you. A conscience is a precious commodity these days. Hang onto it as though your life depends on it.

It does.

A Double Shot of Murder

2016-10-23T19:06:00.003-07:00

At last! The world can now give a collective sigh of relief because I, in my benevolence has bestowed gifts

for all to enjoy! And what is this major accomplishment, you might ask, that is, if you gave a fig at all? .I have decided to publish my most recent scripts in paperback form because tangibility gives me legitimacy.

My two interactive murder mystery comedies DEAD TUESDAY ( the script formerly known as THE PERILS OF FRANCOIS) and MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER (aka STAR TRUCK: THE WRATH OF COMIC-CON) have been combined into one edition that I am cleverly calling A DOUBLE SHOT OF MURDER.

DEAD TUESDAY tells the strange tale of international playboy and bon vivant Francouis Fibian who becomes the only one who can solve the murder of a prominent New Orleans socialite during Mardi Gras, but he also has his own problems. Someone is trying to frame him for the crime and a voodooo curse is turning him into a frog. That's right. I said it.

Meanwhile at the sci-fi convention known Imaginacon, a reunion of the cult TV show Stra Truck comes to a dead end...lierally. The question on everyone's lips is...Who killed Captain Kork? Was it First Officer Mr. Spark? The blowsy actress from the rival franchise Star Boars? And what's the deal with that alien...is that a raygun in its pcket or is it just glad to be here? The answer to these questions and more (like WTF?) lie in MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER.

A DOUBLE SHOT OF MURDER is now on sale at SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE.

DEAD TUESDAY and MURDER: THE FINAL FRONTIER are also available for individual download

And my latest creation, the adventure comedy melodrama ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS OR THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SARONG (see previous posts) is now in paperback as well. Where, you ask? Why, at SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE of course.

And of course performance rights are available for these scripts as well as LA RUE'S RETURN, SONG OF THE CANYON KID and THE LEGEND OF THE ROGUE. For more info, contact yours truly at: writtenbysc@gmail.com. And they too can be found at SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE.

What's that? You say you want to read excerpts from these scripts and maybe even more for the rock bottom price of ABSOLUTELY FREE? Then head over to my website,

WRITTEN BY SCOTT CHERNEY.

You're welcome. It's what I do. I'm a giver.

The Magnificent Sven

2016-10-13T16:01:00.001-07:00

How Swede it is!

When I began writing my new melodrama ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS OR THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SARONG, I needed a distinctive character for the first mate of the sea captain hero, and found one that I had long wanted to incorporate into one of my shows. It has suddenly dawned on me that this guy and I go way back in time, all the way to a western ghost town far, far away. So let me introduce to you, the act you've known for all these years...

Sven Bjorn Bjord Gunther.

I didn't actually name him. A bunch of us use to watch The Muppet Show back in the day and I began to riff on The Swedish Chef, a favorite of all of all ours. In retrospect, it was probably as annoying as anyone and everyone who said "Excuse me!" in the worst Steve Martin impersonation ever. Anyway, my friend Greg came up with this name and it fit like a wooden shoe. (Yes, I know that's Dutch. Thanks you for your unnecessary correction)

At the same time, I had returned to the Pollardville Ghost Town (at that time re-named Tule Flats) for an extended stint as a weekend gunslinger. One of the gunfight skits we performed entitled "Poker Chip" featured a storekeeper character and, being the comic genius I purported to be, transformed him into Sven. By then, Sven had evolved, meaning that I ripped off another bit, that being Tim Conway's Mr. Tudball on The Carol Burnett Show. My, what a shameless thief I had been. Truth to tell, I stole a lot from Conway and I don't mind saying it. He has always been a major inspiration for me. During a Fourth of July celebration at the Ghost Town, we opted to have a mayoral election. Of course. Sven had to run and, of course, Sven lost. Ah well. That day, a customer told me that my accent was wonderful and wouldn't I like to meet their friend visiting from Stockholm? No, I didn't. I soon put Sven out to pasture before he overstayed his welcome.

But as soon as I started writing ROXANNE, Sven Bjorg Bjorg Gunther had to part of the cast, no ifs, ands or buts about it. He changed once more, becoming a little bit more like the great character actor John Qualen, a member of the John Ford stock company of players in good standing. Probably best remembered as Muley in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, he can also be seen in Ford's THE SEARCHERS and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE , but also poor Earl Williams in HIS GIRL FRIDAY. His role in THE LONG VOYAGE HOME is probably the closest to Sven himself, almost an exact role model.

So that's the story of the impact this Swedish meatball had on my life. In the words of The Swedish Chef himself...

BORK! BORK! BORK!

Whatever that means.

ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS OR THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SARONG is now available for download at SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE

Paperback comin soon. Performance rights are available. For more info, write: writtenbysc@gmail.com

Roxanne of the Islands

2016-09-27T21:01:00.003-07:00

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, kids of all ages...

It is with a great deal of pride and pleasure that introduce to the world, the latest love of my life.
Her name...
ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS.

Roxanne is the lead character in what I am calling a tropical adventure comedy melodrama, the full title of which is:

ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS
OR
THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SARONG

The story revolves around the brave and beautiful Roxanne on her home of Ooaheek Island in the South Pacific after World War II. Not only must she contend with a lovesick witch doctor named Zhivago and a 1000 year old goddess with daddy issues who's after her ship-wrecked sea captain boyfriend but also a volcano that just won't give a poor girl a break.

ROXANNE is based on a sub-genre of films from the late thirties-early forties set in far off islands in the South Seas, the more exotic, the better and accuracy be damned. Titles ranged from John Ford's THE HURRICANE to what became the norm, B-programmers like ALOMA OF THE SOUTH SEAS.

Both of these movies had another thing in common besides their theme and locale. They starred the enchanting and drop dead gorgeous Dorothy Lamour. Known mostly today as the foil of Hope and Crosby ROAD pictures, Lamour had quite a career prior to meeting the boys beginning as a big band singer in the 1930s. After moving to Hollywood, it wasn't long before she donned her first sarong in THE JUNGLE PRINCESS, which was such a hit for Paramount at the time, it type-cast from there on in. Dotty was major pin-up girl during WWII and sold so many war bonds she was nicknamed The Bombshell of Bombs.

I wanted to write a melodrama with a strong heroine, deviating from the damsel in distress normally seen in this type of show and one not dependent on being rescued by the handsome hero. Dorothy Lamour fit the bill for me.

While this is the first melodrama script I've completed since SONG OF THE CANYON KID (aka LONE PRAIRIE), it began its life back in the 1980s. Where the idea came from originally, I haven't a clue What I recall is that after I wrote LEGEND OF THE ROGUE, I had a series of ideas for melos set in various genres and locations. It always started with the title: DESMOND OF THE DESERT OR AN OASIS IN THE HOLE. STAN OF THE SEVEN SEAS OR 20,000 LEAKS UNDER THE SEA and MIKE OF THE MISSISSIPPI OR YOUNG MAN RIVER. (Yes, they all have subtitles) But initially, the script I leaned toward was JUNGLE FEVER OR B'WANA BUY A DUCK featuring the pith helmeted hero Congo Ted. It didn't fly, as much as I struggled with it and eventually went on to the next, that being ROXANNE. Besides, I wanted a strong female protagonist that could carry the whole story. I got about half way into it and...the engine stalled out. It ended up sitting in the front yard with the tires off, obviously going nowhere. Fortunately, I saved it because when I unearthed it over the years, I liked what I wrote so much that I couldn't dispose of it completely. While I considered placing Congo Ted into the mix, I resisted since he would have detracted the true main character, the brave and lovely Roxanne. It took quite a few years, but after my recent success with my other melos, I felt a moral imperative to complete this sucker after all this time and finally, I done did.

I drew a lot of inspiration, as I always do with my melos, from the cartoons of Jay Ward Productions, most famously the creators of Rocky and Bullwinkle, among others along with my own personal fave, GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE. Much of my humor stems from this deep well of brilliant absurdity. My penchant for titles and su-titles is straight out of a Rocky and Bullwinkle cliffhanger, many times my favorite part of an episode. ROXANNE itself is chock full o' references from the villain's name (Witch Doctor Zhivago) to Roxanne's sister,Fred ("Papa wanted a boy." "Close, but no cigar.") and the setting, Ooaheek Island, which is the sound a bird makes when it flies to close to the volcano.

What really fueled my muse was when I decided to add a couple of musical numbers including a swing dance number to open ACT II. I couldn't think of a better tune in the world than Benny Goodman's Big Band classic interpretation of Louis Prima's "Sing Sing Sing" with the incomparable Gene Krupa on the drums. I listened to this constantly and found that it really drove the project home.

So there you have it, kitty cats. That's the origin of ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS. The cast size is 5 men and 3 women with a running time of about 75 minutes w/musical numbers, 60 w/o. Performance rights are of course now available. Royalties are $30 per performance. For more info, write to me at:
writtenbysc@gmail.com

To read a copy of the script, ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS is available for sale in paperback and download right this very moment at: SCOTT CHERNEY'S STORE (What did ya expect-ChernMart?) Check out my other titles on that thar page and I'll be glad you did. Maybe you will too.

Oh, but you want something for free, don't you? Of course you do. Here's an excerpt of this silly story o'mine...and the cost to you? Absolutely zero.

ROXANNE EXCERPT

So it is with great pride and pleasure that I present to the world, ROXANNE OF THE ISLANDS.

Take a bow, Roxanne.

Summertime Catsup

2016-09-19T16:56:00.003-07:00

Summertime 2016, the livin' wasn't easy. Catfish weren't jumpin' and Dorothy Dandrige was nowhere to be found.

Besides The Big Move (see previous posts because I will never mention it again), the last few months have been filled, quite frankly, with plenty o' nothin', but nothin' wasn't plenty for me.I have no one to blame but myself. This is my pity party and I'll whine if I want to.

The high point was the opportunity to see my son Matt Silber perform his first ever stand-up set at Helium Comedy Club here in Portland. He had taken the Stand Up Comedy 101 course at the club taught by local comic Alex Falcone. The "graduation ceremony" involved performing in front of a live audience and quite frankly, Matt killed, as they say in the biz and I was proud as punch, as they say nowhere.

But other than that outing, I didn't venture very far and chose to be a shut-in for most of the season. Boo on me. I did manage to finish another play and made some headway on a long gestating project, but for the most part, I sat in front the TV so often, my ass skin nearly melded to the leather couch.

I caught up on a butt-load of movies, most notably THE BIG SHORT, SPOTLIGHT, DEADPOOL (almost too meta for its own good but when it worked, it was a nasty delight), CREED (a big and pleasant surprise), THE GIFT, a little British comedy called WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAY, HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS (not as cloying as expected and actually very moving in places, mostly thanks to Sally Field) and, best of all, BONE TOMAHAWK, a horror Western with a script that ran circles around Tarantino's bloated and disappointing HATEFUL 8. Add to the mix a slew of other book movies of varying quality-ANT MAN, BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON that I became numb after awhile.

What I found more enjoyable than those were my latest guilty pleasure, craptacular Lifetime movies, particularly those starring Eric Roberts. Here's a guy, a past Academy Award nominee whose career bumps should have propelled him deep into the Dreaded Depths of Despair, throwing caution to the wind and giving his all to wretched material, elevating them with performances so over the top, they are a joy to behold. Check out my personal favorite, STALKED BY MY DOCTOR, and believe me, you won't be sorry. (That is, unless, you're his sister, Julia.) Roberts has to be the modern incarnation John Carradine. His IMDB lists 443 movie roles, with over 50 in post or pre production over the next year at this writing. A man's gotta make a living, even one as bat shit crazy as this one.

And last night, the Emmy award show proved to be more enjoyable than it has been in years, mostly thanks to host Jimmy Kimmel. While the wins for The People vs OJ Simpson were glorious, I couldn't be happier for my girl, Tatiana Maslany picking up the Best Actress in a Drama Series award. ORPHAN BLACK, represent!

So even though I am sicker than Cujo with some rabid flu I picked up in the last couple of days, bring on the autumn, baby! This illness will pass and it's time to dive headfirst into the best season of the year.