Greg Owens

U S Blues Greg Owens

This collection includes 11 comedic short plays: AT THE INTERSECTION OF AGE AND RAGE, THE BASTARD CHILD OF EVEL KNIEVEL, BUFFALO ROAM, EXTREME CUSTOMER SERVICE, FISH BABY DREAMING, THE LEPER VALLEY CONDO ASSOCIATION, PABLO PICASSO TEACHES HIGH SCHOOL, PASTIME, POETS ANONYMOUS, THE ROAD IS AN ASPHALT HOSTESS, and WHITE TRASH BINGO. AT THE INTERSECTION OF AGE AND RAGE: Angry youth meets pedantic elder at stoplight. Mutual understanding does not ensue. THE BASTARD CHILD OF EVEL KNIEVEL: A young girl and her mother watch Evel Knievel fail to jump Snake River Canyon while her dad leaves them both for his girlfriend. BUFFALO ROAM: Working stiffs Nick and Stan watch a gigantic herd of buffalo run wild through the streets of the city below as they ponder the meaning of these events and life itself. EXTREME CUSTOMER SERVICE: Aren't tech support operators supposed to wait for you to call them? Not at Computer Cult. FISH BABY DREAMING: A woman dreams of catching swimming babies from a tank with a plunger. THE LEPER VALLEY CONDO ASSOCIATION: Two Yuppies disguise themselves as lepers to try to get a sweet condo. PABLO PICASSO TEACHES HIGH SCHOOL: Even though he's still alive and looking for work, the greatest artist of the twentieth century can't get hired as a substitute high-school art teacher because he isn't certified. PASTIME: A surreal meditation on America's pastime, involving a bat and a whole lot of skulls. POETS ANONYMOUS: Romance. Longing. Amateur verse of questionable quality. At Bud's I-90 Truck Stop Casino Poetry Discussion Group in western Montana. THE ROAD IS AN ASPHALT HOSTESS: A prose poem about the road. WHITE TRASH BINGO: A trailer park, a tattered bathrobe, a sixteen-year-old pregnant daughter, pork rinds, and ... a winning lottery ticket? PASTIME ..". worthy of the long-forgotten sadism of Faulkner's Jason Compson: real, brutal, and funny ... something Hunter S. Thompson might have thought up on a hallucinogenic trip in a stolen Caddie Vegas. Great stuff." -Jeff Rice, Ryder Magazine THE ROAD IS AN ASPHALT HOSTESS ..". a welcome return to the American folk tradition of storytelling." -Gabrielle Kaplan, Chicago Reader WHITE TRASH BINGO ..". a tasteless and derivative study of low brow caricatures ... with no seeming purpose other than to make fun of their exaggerated egregiousness." -T S Kerrigan, Drama-Logue