The Vaginas are BACK! (And Original songs by A Child of the '90s!)
Not that they ever went anywhere. Your vagina. My vagina. You really couldn't lose the thing if you tried but no, I'm talking about Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues."
Coming to The Empty Space the show's being directed by Bob Kempf and Krista Whipple. It's opening this weekend with a special benefit performance for the Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.
You may remember last year's show, if you actually got in to see it. It was a little crazy as the folks at the Space got a chance to feel what it was like to be the popular kids in town for a month. Ashley Bretz directed it. She gets credit for being the first person to ever put on a V-Day show that got shut down by Eve Ensler.
It was literally, too hot for LA.
I'll be interviewing Guienevre Park-Hall from The Empty Space about the show and the event on KBAK TV's Daybreak Thursday morning, plus you can read all about it (of course!) in Thursday's Eye on Entertainment.
Also on Thursday you can read all about what radio stations are hot and which ones are not. And WOTS has written an ode to "Places Where You Find Love." WOTS loves writing poems. I like writing poems. Yet another thing me and my imaginary alter ego have in common. That and song parodies.
I wrote my first song parody around the time when Johnny Gill's hit "My, My, My" came out. I was still excited over parodies, loving Weird Al and I rewrote it so it was about fried chicken. And since I sang my fake version ad nauseum to my sisters I still have it committed to memory. It's corny, but it will give you insight on what I thought was funny in the 6th grade.
Like-to-here-it? Here-it-go!
"My, My, My" (The Fried Chicken version) by Danielle C. Belton, age 12
Put on your Nike tennis shoes
Let's get in our red car
We're gonna drive on down
And get us some KCF
Get some hot wings
And some chicken legs
That I want to share with you
Just me and you
Because today will be a special day
For us and our chicken legs
And I want to share this chicken with you
Cause we don't want no green ham and eggs
My, my, my, my, my, my, my
This fried chicken sho' taste good
(It's so divine)
Oh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Pass another drumstick if you could
(That would be so fine)
I would later, at age 13, write my first original song which I wrote for Johnny Gill (um ... I really like Johnny Gill). It bordered between seriousness and humor because at the time I didn't quite know the difference. It was called "Wondrous Love" and I'm not worried about anyone stealing it because it's crap. But it does prove that even at 13 I had an inante sense of what made crappy pop songs work. I could have been Diane Warren, man. Check it out!
"Wondrous Love" (written in the style of Johnny Gill) by Daniell C. Belton, age 13
If you had heart
You'd probably lose it
If you had a mind
You'd probably abuse it
If you had a head you'd go crazy
Over me, baby
Maybe?
Maybe you would
Maybe you wouldn't
Maybe I should
Maybe I shouldn't
Even if love's not true
Baby I'm still in love with you
A wondrous love is what we'd have
Because not seeing you is making me sad
A wondrous love ... affair
A wondrous love affair
Only one chance we'd have to take
How really harder must you make
This wondrous love ... affair
This wondrous love affair
God, I can still hear my feeble plinks on the piano as I created this melody. Alas, I was never able to develop my piano skills freely (I studied classical piano for several years at a youth) because it was in such close proximity to the TV in the family room which I was under orders not to be louder than. Hence, rather than learn how to write my own music (which would have taken hours upon hours of annoying noise making), I focused on writing and artwork. This actually makes me sad because despite the utter crappiness of the first two songs I ever wrote I think it would have been nice to actually be able to play music with the songs I still write and make up in my head to this day. After all, I only learned how to write song lyrics so I wouldn't forget the piano melodies I came up with as a kids (since I couldn't make noise. Heaven forbid we interrupt the Cowboys game with LEARNING.)
Anyway, enough of that. That was about to turn into one of those childhood bitch rants and we don't want to go there ...
Coming to The Empty Space the show's being directed by Bob Kempf and Krista Whipple. It's opening this weekend with a special benefit performance for the Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.
You may remember last year's show, if you actually got in to see it. It was a little crazy as the folks at the Space got a chance to feel what it was like to be the popular kids in town for a month. Ashley Bretz directed it. She gets credit for being the first person to ever put on a V-Day show that got shut down by Eve Ensler.
It was literally, too hot for LA.
I'll be interviewing Guienevre Park-Hall from The Empty Space about the show and the event on KBAK TV's Daybreak Thursday morning, plus you can read all about it (of course!) in Thursday's Eye on Entertainment.
Also on Thursday you can read all about what radio stations are hot and which ones are not. And WOTS has written an ode to "Places Where You Find Love." WOTS loves writing poems. I like writing poems. Yet another thing me and my imaginary alter ego have in common. That and song parodies.
I wrote my first song parody around the time when Johnny Gill's hit "My, My, My" came out. I was still excited over parodies, loving Weird Al and I rewrote it so it was about fried chicken. And since I sang my fake version ad nauseum to my sisters I still have it committed to memory. It's corny, but it will give you insight on what I thought was funny in the 6th grade.
Like-to-here-it? Here-it-go!
"My, My, My" (The Fried Chicken version) by Danielle C. Belton, age 12
Put on your Nike tennis shoes
Let's get in our red car
We're gonna drive on down
And get us some KCF
Get some hot wings
And some chicken legs
That I want to share with you
Just me and you
Because today will be a special day
For us and our chicken legs
And I want to share this chicken with you
Cause we don't want no green ham and eggs
My, my, my, my, my, my, my
This fried chicken sho' taste good
(It's so divine)
Oh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Pass another drumstick if you could
(That would be so fine)
I would later, at age 13, write my first original song which I wrote for Johnny Gill (um ... I really like Johnny Gill). It bordered between seriousness and humor because at the time I didn't quite know the difference. It was called "Wondrous Love" and I'm not worried about anyone stealing it because it's crap. But it does prove that even at 13 I had an inante sense of what made crappy pop songs work. I could have been Diane Warren, man. Check it out!
"Wondrous Love" (written in the style of Johnny Gill) by Daniell C. Belton, age 13
If you had heart
You'd probably lose it
If you had a mind
You'd probably abuse it
If you had a head you'd go crazy
Over me, baby
Maybe?
Maybe you would
Maybe you wouldn't
Maybe I should
Maybe I shouldn't
Even if love's not true
Baby I'm still in love with you
A wondrous love is what we'd have
Because not seeing you is making me sad
A wondrous love ... affair
A wondrous love affair
Only one chance we'd have to take
How really harder must you make
This wondrous love ... affair
This wondrous love affair
God, I can still hear my feeble plinks on the piano as I created this melody. Alas, I was never able to develop my piano skills freely (I studied classical piano for several years at a youth) because it was in such close proximity to the TV in the family room which I was under orders not to be louder than. Hence, rather than learn how to write my own music (which would have taken hours upon hours of annoying noise making), I focused on writing and artwork. This actually makes me sad because despite the utter crappiness of the first two songs I ever wrote I think it would have been nice to actually be able to play music with the songs I still write and make up in my head to this day. After all, I only learned how to write song lyrics so I wouldn't forget the piano melodies I came up with as a kids (since I couldn't make noise. Heaven forbid we interrupt the Cowboys game with LEARNING.)
Anyway, enough of that. That was about to turn into one of those childhood bitch rants and we don't want to go there ...
posted by Danielle Belton @ 11:03 AM
4 Comments:
At 10:51 PM,
Anonymous said…
lol... my god, is the stuff about ashley's show going to go on forever? it got shut down because she violated the ideas of the author! while this may not seem like a big deal to some, it's a big deal to a writer (unless you are like stephen king or michael crichton and you don't mind your writing butchered). i've heard the rumblings about how this year's production doesn't match up to the oh so famous production that got shut down in l.a. (oh, and being shut down is not something to be PROUD of... it means you were doing something wrong despite all your talk to the contrary) but rather than worry about poor ashley, i think of all those poor women she convinced were going to be doing the show in l.a. when she knew she had a cease and desist order the day after the benefit performance closed! she kept them going until opening night! the women who performed this weekend deserve some respect and credit for their courageous work without having to live up to the past... or live it down!
At 12:20 AM,
Anonymous said…
"He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak."
- Michel de Montaigne
At 10:09 AM,
Danielle Belton said…
Well, to Senor or Senoritta anonymous, I can understand the whole drama from both a struggling writer and a struggling artist's perspective. And Eve Ensler is neither. I'd argue that she's doing pretty nicely.
But it is her play and Eve can do whatever she wants with it and if she wanted to shut a show down she is within rights to do it.
Was it awful that a bunch of actress lost out on what they thought would be a chance of a lifetime? Yes.
Was it sad that Ashley lost a ton of money going back and forth with Dramatists Play Services (who hold the rights to Eve's show)? Yes.
Did she do something wrong? That depends on who you ask. Some folks loved the show. Some folks did not. Eve Ensler was one of them. I pretty much only know Ashley in a professional capacity, but it sounds like what she did was take a big, crazy risk and well, that's what art is about. Doing stuff that could potentially get you fired. If you play it safe your entire life you might find yourself in the same place your entire life.
She took a risk and lost some money. A bunch of actresses didn't get to perform what they worked so hard on. That's the breaks.
As for this year's show, I think it's pretty good, but c'mon, everyone loves a good drama and you can't mention the lovely drama of this year's show without mentioning the crazy drama of last year's show. They're married to each other now. The dirt is so sexy you even had to post to it anonymously because obviously, you're still talking about it too.
That's how good drama is. There are things and people that my friends and I still talk about because the drama was so juicy, so outrageous that it can never be lived down. That what makes good drama. People get all mad over it. But let's keep it real. Everyone loves good drama. And that's what my website is about!
Mo drama, fo' ya moms. All day, everyday!
At 11:58 PM,
Anonymous said…
HERE! HERE! SISTA!
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