Gabriel Boyer
Gabe and Jill wonder about the Pacific Northwest, running out of money, stumbling into dinner parties, working at a buritto shack during hempfest, attempting to spoon, and ultimately saying their final goodbyes. As we approach the end of our Bedroom Theater tour of America, Gabe and Jill have only succeeded in completely breaking each other's spirit in this penultimate episode of Welcome to Weltschmerz, USA
You can find Chapters 1 - 13 here.
How do you summarize a life? How do you conclude yourself? Where are you when the boulders come bouncing down the incline? Are you at home and gazing at the glowing screen with some excitement? Are you out on a hike with your long-suffering spouse? Do you have your fingers in many pies at the moment? Have you given up on ever being anything like yourself?
Are you alone in your room and realizing that you are always going to be alone in your room from now on as you nurse your gout-ridden foot? What about that you didn’t end up here because you slid into a giant trap door in the sky or because of some other deception of the scene and the people in it but more because of the general complications of being, some of which very much have nothing to do with you and who you are, and some of which very much do—you ended up here because you just couldn’t help yourself—whatever that means in your specific case—or because you didn’t have the courage to do it differently—or maybe you did and that’s why. ‘Here’ herein meaning wherever you happen to be at the moment.
Could of been you didn’t think it through. Or you just got lonely. Or your mother got sick and someone had to take of her and it ended up being you. Or there came a point in your marriage when nothing made sense any more and now you’ve been divorced for five years and it still doesn’t make sense.
This is where I am.
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Businessman and Apple
Jill and Gabe find themselves on an anarchist compound in Saginaw, OR. Do they actually have lamas? Gabe reminisces about the future, when he will one day indeed live on this compound while working as a wildland firefighter while Jill is nowhere to be found. Beer is procured and an anarchist musical is performed. Later, that musical will be filmed. You can view the results of this filming here and the final shot of the Kenny Rogers Rock Opera (also performed in Saginaw) can be found here. Eventually, Gabe gets a haircut. Everything ends in tragedy.
You can find Chapters 1 - 12 here.
Jill has cooked a delicious kale dinner for Boyer and co in Silicon Valley. A performance at a loft in Oakland goes terribly and Jill goes missing. They journey north, to a pebbly beach, a pizza shack and its lost waitress, through dreams of John C. Lilly, into the redwoods and the future of 20 years from now, and ultimately, to Riddle, Oregon.
You can find Chapters 1 - 11 here.
We here at Mutable have been venturing into the Far East and its vicinity for some time, and this most recent addition to our library of auditory delights comes from one of these forays. To Dharamshala and Cafe 129 where Mutable regular Gabriel Boyer was performing songs from various unreleased albums, and one or two you may have heard before but never like this. In this most intimate of concerts, at a venue perched high in the Himalayas and coming directly from the monastery he has been calling home for more than a year, Mr. Boyer sings songs of heartache in the Vietnam jungle and songs steeped in a wistfulness he wrote while living with the Tibetan monks of Northern India. Enjoy!
Boyer is in San Francisco, but his mind is wandering, from his childhood to the 90’s and being young in hacker houses at the turn of the century, or performance lofts, or somewhere in between, and somewhere in there, God plays a part. This chapter is more a rumination than a Bedroom Theater, although it does contain a smashing musical number from the forgotten classic, Free-Thinking Man as Commodity. And food is featured prominently.
You can find Chapters 1 - 10 here.
The truth is, I always loved you.
Oh, you false messiah, what do you have to offer our perpetually flooded, brokedown and generally speaking nonexistent universe—what platitudes and what shopping tips—and what will come of it when it comes—the suburbs turned into a no-man’s land between the scavenging riches of the liquefied and decomposing downtown and what wilds have grown beyond—the family dog murdered for its meat—an eye for an eye—and nothing but silence in between—all wrong place wrong time on account of some of us weren’t built to survive the apocalypse, but you think you’ll do just fine, don’t you?
You and me are you, my false messiah—who sit here pontificating in our cynicism, because—with the apocalypse just around the corner, all your favorite romantic comedies don’t do it for you anymore.
So—who are we? We’re the ones with our feet in two epochs, and our greatest hope is to get to the credits of this madcap comedy of a genocidal romp without being swept up in its killing fields. Many of us believe even now that the annihilation of everything and everyone will only happen on the far side of the globe from us, in the global south of our former vacation spots, but no one panics like a suburbanite, not to mention a mob of panicked suburbanites, armed with rifles and tiki torches.
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Boyer and Jill get swept up in the nightlife of LA and its lederhosen and stripper clowns. They have made it to the other side of America and celebrations are in order. Although, when they find themselves in a Danish wonderland Gabe can’t shake the feeling that they’re surrounded by rosy-cheeked elderly Satanists, and that night, his dreams are troubled and John C. Lilly plays a part.
You can find Chapters 1 - 9 here.
Twin Peaks will forever be my favorite show of all time. It’s weirdness is unprecedented. It sits both at the peak of David Lynch’s career and at this perfect point in history when television was still just trash and when you consumed it, you did with the same relish that you consumed Bagel Bites or Oreo O’s. It was a time when FOX was just getting started with shows like 90210 and Married With Children, when trashiness and disgustingness were hilarious, when Jerry Springer was both a genius and a charlatan, a world of satire and deadpan comedy that will never come again.
But in the sea change that came with the coming decades, new kinds of serialized video content began being produced. There are those shows everyone talks about: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones… The first two seasons of both True Detective and Westworld were a revelation. But these were all masterful works of genre, whereas with Dark something new came into the world that for once could rival Twin Peaks with its weirdness.
Dark raises questions of causality and plays with dichotomies like good and evil, but it also manipulates our expectations in an almost mathematical way. What is so mind-meltingly good about it isn’t the dialogue or the characters, but the puzzle of its narratological universe and the way in which this puzzle has been realized. In a streaming universe dominated by sequels and spin-offs, Dark is something of a miracle. It exists in a genre all its own, a genre that is distinct from science fiction, a kind of postmodern realism.
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Boyer and Jill have arrived in Flagstaff, and now the city of Flagstaff is putting out its feelers and rubbing all over them. Jill keeps vanishing, to the other side of town, and out with unknown persons, while Gabe loiters on streetcorners with Vietnam vets and reminisces about his inherently credulous nature. We learn about toothless mystics and the time Gabe was almost pimped out in Dublin. In a kind of terror they continue on into California.
You can find Chapters 1 - 8 here.
Hanoi is a mobius strip.
You think you are moving in one direction and then find yourself back round towards the intersection that started it all, except for somehow it’s changed in the interim. Like somehow you slipped into an alternate reality Hanoi. Or. There are parts of Hanoi that sing with remarkable birds and vegetation hangs out from every window, off of every balcony, and into these back streets, and there are parts of Hanoi that are tight walls of junk shoppery crammed with a river of angry motorbikes and their murmuring engines. Hanoi contains every possible version of Hanoi.
Or to put it another way. Hanoi is functioning as a stand-in for my mind at the moment and its many frustrations and confusions. It is what a broken mind looks like. A mind racing in many directions at once. A mind facing the inevitable end times and the games we play to avoid facing it.
We, the human race, are the greatest procrastinators. When faced with our own impending doom, our answer is always, “Not yet.” We watch the lava rolling over the lip of our front yard and think, “Maybe it’ll go away on its own.” We witness our neighbors in the furthest housing unit swept off into the sea and say, “It has nothing to do with me.” This is us.
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Boyer and Jill perform at a hostel, and then are off in search of the National Soul in Southwestern USA. John C. Lilly appears in Gabriel’s dreams, while Jill’s dreams are full of ex’s. A short play is enacted that involves murder. Steaks are enjoyed in the rain and somebody’s in denial about the state of his bank account. In the end, however, chipmunks have all the answers.
You can find Chapters 1 - 7 here.
You may or may not realize but there was a time when performances in loft spaces in and about Boston were a regular thing that drew a good-sized crowd. They were held in spaces that had been carved out by their inhabitants into a maze of drywall decorated in garish murals and filled with junk and treasures and junky treasures and treasure chests of junk.
There are still lofts like this in Boston. You just need to know where to dig. And several weeks ago, we here at Mutable, found ourselves off down the rabbit hole and into onesuch place as this. The techno was ever-present and the manikins had been accessorized.
Stephen Curo was the MC for the evening, and after the loading bay had been thoroughly cleansed of cigarette butts and the proper drapery put in place and lighting magic made from an upside-down lamp of some retro elegance, the crowd dribbled in. It was opening night at the Rabbit Hole.
As you can see above, the evening began with a few short plays read by select members of the audience, and was followed by a remarkable tale of supernatural terror, metalheads, and their Christian parents, written and performed by C. Atari-Bartok. This was followed by an equally unnerving little fable of what happens in the closets of children between cartoons, a story from the mind of Katherine Bergeron. The anecdotes of biting in adolescence by Stephen Curo, sadly were not recorded, but you can read all about them in his on-going memoirs, Reflects Poorly.
Then it was time for a break and off to sample some wine and crackers. The vibe was all ascots, waxed moustaches, and accompanying glitter nail varnish. Smokes were had out by the loading bay as the orange line rolled by, and then, with a snap Stephen Curo was calling our attention back to the stage for another chilling tale by Katherine Bergeron involving children. (Unfortunately, this second gem was also not filmed, but is available at Metastellar.)
And finally, Gabriel Boyer read an excerpt from his post-apocalyptic noir, Devil, EVerywhere I Look. You can watch his performance in its entirety below. Enjoy!
The apocalypse just got a whole hell of a lot more personal. It’s turned its face inside out and made itself into just one of the boys. It’s twisted your arm back and then back again—and back again—until the logjam of muscle memory is gone and you are nothing but %100 rubber, with a corkscrew of an appendage that twirls off comedically into the never-ending night. Welcome to Neverland.
The ups are very much going up and the downs are just around the corner, and they say that civil war is just around the corner, and Americans have always been good at cutting corners.
Neverland is a state of both never-becoming and never-having-been. It is the place where the future we dream of is a dream and the past we remember never was. It is a place where most of us live most of the time. And it itches.
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In this installment of Boyer’s audio memoir, Gabe and Jill continue deeper into the unknown, from Departure, TX, to Clines Corners and Santa Fe. Questions are asked, but will they be answered? Is it true that Santa Fe was built upon a mobius strip? Is it true that R. Crumb has an identical twin also named Robert? Jill and Gabe share a moment of wonder. What else can we ask of them? For indeed it is true that these dark days have come back again.
You can find Chapters 1 - 6 here.
It was something like the summer of 1998, and I was living in a warehouse by the Brooklyn Bridge—living illegally in a warehouse that filled with raw sewage one night—where the landlord cut the sewage access and electricity every so often—and the dry wall we’d put up didn’t reach to the ceiling eighteen feet above—and I never had electricity in my room. When I think of that summer, I always remember the time my roommate claimed that a stream of flame sporadically shot out of his upper arm while working construction earlier that day, and the time I met Wally Shawn while working at the Film Forum.
He’d come in to complain about the line. I remember how I chuckled and shrugged at his incorrigibly irritated self like a person presented with some rom com darling come to life. I couldn’t take him seriously because of the fact of him being him and all that goes along with that, but Wally Shawn should be taken seriously.
He is not just the Sicilian in the Princess Bride. He is not just Woody Allen’s foible in Annie Hall. My Dinner with Andre only scratches the surface of what he is capable of. Uncle Vanya does not do the many talents of Wally Shawn justice, brilliant piece of theater though it may be. These are valid and interesting faces of Mr. Shawn, but the point is that he has more than even these myriad faces, and the more you look for them, the deeper they go.
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This collection of Boyer’s songs is a spirited romp through the rubble of a deteriorating relationship and the memories that cloud vision. Most of it recorded live in a small house in Maine by a 6-piece ensemble of Mutable alumni, Different Directions is a spontaneous yet thoughtful musical interpretation of Boyer’s writing. The songs are unmistakably his, yet flow peacefully through popular motifs, and leave you feeling nostalgic, nostalgic for heartache perhaps. It is a semi-precious mess of sound and emotion distilled down to its purest essence and stirred into a soothing bath of melody and charm.
Lyrics written by Gabriel Boyer
Music written by Gabriel Boyer and Malcolm Felder
Performed by
Gabriel Boyer: Piano, Lead Vocals
Ben Bradford: Cornet, Percussion
Malcolm Felder: Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Jon Madden: Upright and Acoustic Bass
Kevin Micka: Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Adam Scotto: Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Engineered by Kevin Micka
Produced by Kevin Micka and Malcolm Felder
Mastered by Scott Craggs
Photos by Gabriel Boyer and Ben Bradford
Different Directions by Gabriel Boyer, released 22 February 2021 1. It's Alright Merry 2. Break in the Line 3. Different Directions 4. Hiding Out 5. Parent's Disease 6. Diplomat 7. Theme 8. Now and Here 9. Home 10. Insomnia 11.
In this installment of Boyer’s audio memoir, Gabe and Jill head into Texas where the strangeness continues and the van’s having none of it. Jill’s rash is continuing to be a nuisance and the Metaphysical VW Repair Shop is a locus for time travel. Over drinks ghosts, dreams, and pet sex are discussed. Later, Jill and Gabe continue on into West Texas, but nothing is resolved.
You can find Chapters 1 - 5 here.
In this installment of Boyer’s audio memoir, Gabe and Jill meet up with Jill’s parents in Tuscaloosa, and then it’s on to New Orleans, vampire tour guides, tarot cards, and mysterious rashes. Then the two head off on their own once again and into Texas, and a near death experience changes things.
You can find Chapters 1 - 4 here.
Chandler Bing has been on my mind a lot recently.
Or—to be more precise—Matthew Perry and the sitcom universe which he navigated, and what happens when that sitcom universe has its sitcom apocalypse. Like a stand-up comedian confessing to being a serial killer, or someone having a heart attack on SNL. Our illusions unravel.
Of course, our illusions are unraveling because a legitimate apocalypse is underfoot, and illusions cannot stand the unsettling of our world.
But also. Furthermore. To be clear, when I speak of apocalypse, I am speaking of an ending of things as they are. How the Mayans described the apocalypse or a Navajo understanding of the end of history. History never ends. It only has its psychotic break and then begins again somewhere earlier in the story. Maybe it’s agrarianism, or hunter gatherer with a smattering of bizarre tools that no one remembers how to make go anymore. It could also fragment, such that there are the Star Trekians living in orbit, when it’s all Dark Ages down below.
Who knows?
And it is specifically because we are facing this terrifying unknown that our world has lost its ability to dream anything but the most derivative of dreams. (We are the proverbial deer in the headlights and we have just proverbially shat ourselves.) And this inability to dream new dreams is fueling the unwinding of things in an endless cycle of imagination abuse. As in… Our panic makes us unable to imagine any solution, and our inability to imagine any solution fuels our panic. That sort of thing. And somewhere in there, we start intentionally using our imaginations in ways they weren’t meant to because we’ve forgotten what they’re there for.
Spoiler alert. Imaginations are a tool to help guide you through the universe. Not a blow-up doll to replace actual human contact.
(You may argue that an imagination can be used however the imaginer likes, including like a blow-up doll human replacement, but I think you’ll find it’s like trying to make love to a blow-up doll amoeba. It keeps frustrating your intent.)
So. We have all retreated into our sound stages and are televising our reactionary beliefs to a readymade audience of our peers. Our media universe has compartmentalized. Mitosis has begun.
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