so i've been tinkering with my website [ daveulrich.net ] for quite awhile now, and i think it's locked into place. i changed the underpinnings to wordpress and redsigned the look.

it now opens to a news page/blog type thing, which will include rants, links, news, and short stories from my reckless years. there's also a nice sidebar where you can find links and recommendations of books with my writing, bound plays i've written, things friends have had published, and other things i simply like.

the writing page now includes my two full length plays only (short plays may later be offered as a collection). all are free of course, but a bound version of "the passionates" is available for purchase.

the portfolio page needs a lot of work, but it does exist.

and there's a new contact page if you want to drop a line while you're there.

too bad i never will.

the editor will be a contextual nightmare spin -- if they show any of it at all.

Clinton on Fox News

a friend of mine dropped a rant on his blog with the title "Global warming... yeah, that's actually bullshit." having been known to rant from time to time as well, i had to respond. here's what i wrote:

i truly believe that without the environmentalist lobby, absolutely nothing would have been accomplished in this country that would have made joe average even begin to think about the consumption of fossil fuels. and despite the environmentalists existence, very little has happened anyway. there are countless alternative methods for powering vehicles that date back decades... all have been surpressed. the only one that has slipped through has been hybrid cars because they still use oil, don't make that much of an impact, have an inflated ticket price and the truly effective ones look like jokes that concept car engineers drew up just to crack each other up.

so you say 70% of the environmental lobby's funding is spent on fundraising... well i think that's because it is imperative that they continue to exist, even though they're not making much (what no profits? that's treason!). they need to exist so they can try keeping our ruthless "profit makes right" economists at least slightly uncomfortable. if they are using false data, yes that is horrid. if they are using fear-mongering, that's not cool. but they aren't. global warming is a reality, and while we may not be the lone cause, we need to stop being passive doubters about who's to blame and start standing up to the special interests that don't want us to even think about the issue.

when i was in grade school in the late seventies, my teacher told us that there are a limited amount of fossil fuels on this planet and we are using them very rapidly. we'll need to find another source "one day." and that qualifying "one day" has carried us for a long, long time. kept us off the hook because that one day will come after i'm dead... right?

and you strap the word "agenda" on environmentalists knowing full well that "agenda" is this yucky disgusting evil word for corrupt political dealings. well as i began before, their "agenda" is to push for responsibility from our nation, our leaders, and ourselves. ask us to be a little kinder to the world because it's the right thing to do. no one in the environmental lobby is getting rich, none of them are working to obtain power. in fact, their pushes for action usually just make them the butt of jokes, and friendliness to them has been a death blow to many a politician.

but the oil companies have gotten so insanely reckless and arrogant that people are finally talking about looking for alternatives for fuel anyway. despite the ineffectiveness of the environmental lobby and despite the cleverness, wealth, and power of the oil industry.

and the only thing we have to stop ourselves in this magic time of conscientiousness, is people who take one of the few positive things happening lately and attack it, beat it down with arguable arguments that can be argued, and then argued... until we get tired of arguing, and just move on to the next issue like not letting gays do something or other, and debating if we should let the government put tracking chips in our necks FOR OUR OWN SAFETY.

but that's the behaviour that allowed things to get so out of control in the first place and what has led us to become stuck with this current administration... because they worked hard to make us tired, scared, distracted and trained to attack each other. taking the bait, jumping on the little cues these propagandists spread across the internet, the tv, and put in the mouths of "experts" in perfect karl rovian viral marketing. all leading us to adopt the negative, and doubt the truth.

it's exactly what they hope we'll do when they insert this doubt, when they provoke the arguments, and when they start the character assasinations. because we always believe the negative. because we read "Global Warming? Yeah...that's actually bullshit." and wipe our brow with a big "whew!" and carry on. because we always buy the strong arm that crushes the weak little do-gooders and their sky-is-falling stories just because pieces of the sky happen to be falling. after all, several people have concluded that that is not, in fact, actual sky. and it should be noted, sky-like substance has been falling for thousands of years. and the person who told you about it simply doesn't like the fact that people make a lot of money from damage caused by falling 'sky' that's not actually sky because they are bitter and trying to raise funds for their little club of whiny anti-sky falling do-gooders.

we all know that conservation is the right thing to do. we all know that fossil fuels are a retarded avenue that leads to bloodshed and leaves us tethered to a deeply rooted global corruption. even your rant says we should be respectful of the earth. so why don't we stop bickering about just how important it is to create real change -- which only leads to refusal to get started for another 30 years until every fact is proven indisputable by even the scientist for hire)... and just get started? why not?

because that's positive lovey dovey do-good bull crap. who cares! why should i listen to those whiny crapbags wasting my time with their made up b.s... just as soon as gas drops back down to the low, low price of $3 a gallon. maybe they'll shut up again. hey honey, check out this rant. says global warming is bullshit. man, that guy tells it like it is! 100%. right on!

Apple in its infinite coolness is bringing the unaltered & unbiased news to you free. Now, at the iTunes Music Store, in the Audiobooks section you can download the unedited 9/11 commission hearings for free. Of course there is a glaring absence of testimony from Bush & Cheney because... BUSH: "This commission? You know, I don't testify? I will be glad to visit with them."

finally got out to see it. holy shit. i knew what to expect and I certainly knew i was going to agree. after all, i've rattled on endlessly about the recklessness and cruelty of the bush administration. the subterfuge, the warped agenda, and the atrocities. i've been dismayed and angered by the media's coddling of this republican regime -- when even one of the hundreds of outrages rove & his cronies have committed would have been examined by an unforgiving panel and independent counsel... inevitably leading to the impeachment of a democrat. and so many people outrageously proclaim they won't see this film because they don't like michael moore. so fucking what! just what does that have to do with anything? the film is full of proven fact with a clear delineation of when moore is raising a personal question he wants answered that is related to those facts. or when he is expressing his own opinion. it is these facts that the media should have and will not acknowledge and explore. and it is these questions that they will not ask the current hijackers of our democracy that make us need a film like this. even if you disagree with his personality, his tactics, and his agenda... the facts alone should prevent most thoughtful people from even considering the idea of giving a vote to the elite club that is trying to enslave the public. how sad we have to take the route of an entertainment medium just to get these facts within this privately-owned-right-winged-media-controlled-world. please go see it, and urge others to do so. no matter what camp they are in, this movie is important. peace.

i've cranked it out. there will be the inevitable finessing, but it's mapped and laid down. hot damn. the passionates

new address, new look. not sure how long the look will last, though. www.daveulrich.net the plays are up there.

done! and i've figured out act two. i was going to drive up to big sur and get a cabin or something and pound it out this weekend... but then i remembered that i have to help karen move. ce la vie. wanna read it so far? here it is: the passionates - act one if you do... let me know what you think.

i've never been so taken with my own writing. hehe. i've really had an amazingly fun time writing this really whacked shit. it is the circus from hell and i think the world has really got to see it. one hitch, though. the first act is 96% done and i am happy... but i have no idea where it's going in act two... what's already out of control has to go even farther. damn. daunting. as soon as i finish that 4% i'm putting it online.

i fancy myself a music aficionado. i pay close attention to kcrw and chase down the music. i see live shit and i've got quite a tally running on the itunes music store. i've got months of music on my home computer, 20 gb on the ipod, and over a thousand songs on the laptop. i know odd crazy shit, and keep an eye on most genres. i keep my ears open for everything and have favorites from classics to hip hop even though i prefer trip hop and downbeat the most. i watch a lot of my music hit the mainstream and feel a sense of loss, i have others i'm glad aren't hitting and others still that i hope will hit just so they'll stick around. but how the hell did i miss modest mouse? when i went searching for "gravity rides everything" i found that not only did they have a hit starting to emerge with "float on" they've been making albums since 1996. so i've been buying it all up and there's a lot of good stuff. a lot of good stuff. just fyi.

i finished my first full length play last month after years of one acts and short plays. though i suspect i'm speaking into an empty breeze, the curious can find it here: the harvey project but having found my motivation and a muse that can't been seen by mere mortals, i've dived directly into a second play since the flow is flowing. while the first is a sweeping matryoshka doll of a play --with worlds within worlds -- mocking the theatre, making a case for life devoid of the god of the past, triumph over self-destructive patterns, and predestined love. the second play is much simpler -- and infinitely more difficult. it's called the passionates. it's a series of monologues aiming to provide a thorough argument from the perspective of people we open-minded east siders would believe to be fucked up lunatics. but because the theatre is so much preaching to the choir, a chance to let the enlightened glad hand one another -- i believe that putting these characters up there armed only with ironic contradictions for us to smirk at, or half-assed logic that's easily unraveled, would be a waste of audience time. after all, we can turn on the news if we just want to scoff. i think the only way for us to be truly frightened by the "passionates" potential is to be seduced into understanding where they are coming from, and then wake with a jolt -- recognizing the strength of conviction to be found in that foe. know your enemy in a way. so to give them fair voice i've had to bury my mind in turbulent and steely places to fish out the words to put in their mouths. and i couldn't do it tonight. after each monologue or chunk of a monologue, i find myself more exhausted than i ever have in post-writing session. but that, i suppose, is why i constantly write myself into the hardest corner... to see if i can get out. but not tonight. my heart swells for no apparent reason. maybe the moon. or the wine. i just want to wrap my arms around something.

here's where i'm at with music lately: the new zero 7 disappointed me. it's fine, but too much the same with less of the new shiny gloss of "holy fuck i've been lookin' for that sound," simple things had. i grabbed "channel surfing" from feature cast off the itms after i saw the ipod ad. great musically, but repetitious repeating the same one line relentlessly. i had manu chao's proxima estacion and was diggin' it. but i got clandestino and that's the shit. right now i'm on boozoo bajou. mellowdrone's "fashionably uninvited" has been a good blow steam song in the wake of latanya. can finally rap with "bugpowder dust" (bomb the bass) from kruder and dorfmeister. rewind, rewind, rewind that cd. speaking of which... on rewind! the stranglers cover of "golden brown" is nice. there, broke the post ice. now i'll have to shout into the void more often.