06.20.08:

Sam Gold has just yelled at me. He is so insane sometimes! I mean, I understand the need to make someone cry when they make a mistake, but does he have to keep punching holes in the wall, and smashing paintings over people’s heads?

Even Captain Clamp is a little scared of Sam Gold. They say Sam got involved with theater while he was in a prison camp in Croatia. They say he used to work for Slobodan Milosevic, but somehow escaped war crimes trial because of family connections. They say the first play he ever directed involved unleashing live attack dogs on fellow prisoners, as an amusement for his captors, with whom he then gained favor.

Sam Gold is like a character from fiction; the closest I’ll ever come to knowing pure evil. I think he did a pretty good job with this show, though.

06.18.08:

Captain Clamp is so touched by all the positive reviews for his show. I was afraid it would feed into his ego, and make him act up, but he seems so grateful, humbled even. He has shown increasing interest in taking some Adult Literacy classes, in order to learn to read, so he can read the reviews all by himself.

There is something tender about Captain Clamp at times. I was confused for a while how he could have raped as many women as they say, given his small size, and laughable strength. But I can understand how a woman could WANT TO BE raped by him (does that sound weird?) just to make him happy. It clearly means so much to him, to be in control, to be feared … as a pirate, and as a man. I feel almost maternal towards the captain sometimes, and out of that affection, I feel a desire to yield to him completely.

I probably should keep this to myself, but I have nothing else to blog about right now.

06.05.08:

Captain Clamp refuses to leave the theater between shows. He has been forcibly ejected from 3 hotels already and is apparently no longer willing to endure the “humiliation.”

What he did to be kicked out of the last hotel I’m not sure about; I heard that he forced himself on a maid entering his room (he claims he thought she was a “harlot gratis)”, also he challenged the elevator man to a duel, and there was something about setting up a “kissing booth” in the women’s sauna in the hotel gym.

Oh Captain…

So now he’s roaming our administrative offices 24-7. We keep encouraging him to go out and see more of New York, but he’s not quite the museum type and motion pictures he considers “voodoo.” Of course it’s left to me and the other interns to entertain him, and the other interns aren’t as high up in the intern ladder to be trusted like I am, so it’s almost always me. Jason Eagan asks me to take him out somewhere, because he’s making too much noise, or smelling up the place, so I basically have to take the Captain for “walks.”

Tomorrow, I’m going to take him on the Circle Line Cruise for a tour around Manhattan. I’m no doctor, but I feel like it will be good for him to be back on water again, in his element, so to speak… and while he’s out, Emily Shooltz is going to have his clothes cleaned and try to do something about the fleas in the green room sofa.

05.29.08:

Dan Smith, the guitar lesson guy, showed up today!

He was threatening to sue Ars Nova for libel, for their altering of his ads to promote the Jollyship show. (They changed it to read “Captain Clamp will Teach You Guitar, but with Captain Clamp’s face).

Dan Smith was very angry. He also was carrying 3 or 4 guitars with him, so I’m pretty sure he really does know about guitars (he also was carrying a skateboard, but a lot of people do that - it doesn’t prove anything).

Captain Clamp murdered Dan Smith. Now I have to deal with disposing of this body. It sucks to be an intern!

05.27.08:

Captain Clamp has gotten in the regrettable habit of giving unsolicited advice to people, not only regarding nautical matters which he may (debatably) claim some expertise, but also about acting, theater, and what constitutes great literature. This is irksome because he is illiterate, but tolerated because he is a star and because he is insane. Truthfully, we are all very concerned whether or not Captain Clamp will ever learn his lines; Sam Gold the director has tried to talk to him, but he always brushes him off, saying “true theater relies not on words, but the magic which happens when emotion and feeling collide.”

Clamp also has started to make threatening comments directed at more established members of the theater community. He says Tracey Letts is a “little pipsqueak,” and keeps pantomiming what he’d do to him in a fight if they ever met on the street. I don’t think he knows anything about Letts or his work, other than the fact that his show has much bigger ads in the papers. He was also carrying on for a while about what he’d do to David Mamet, but one day he got a mysterious phone call, and ever since then, he’s been quiet and respectful towards Mamet.