"Our Kiki" With Playwright Seth Tucker

Dan Rodandan is my name and I'm hot and sweaty as if I were on fire. It's the summer. It's the summer right now. It's very hot. It's very humid. It's awful. Every moment is agony. More so, I would say, than usual.

And unlike almost every, well, unlike every, well, not every, but close to every other podcast we've done, I am not in the Hawaiian Gardens area of Los Angeles. I am in the Los Angeles area of Los Angeles. I am on location with my iPod Touch, third generation, really bad camera. And I'm sitting across from my guest. I'm in a very comfortable chair for once. It made my mood pretty good. Feeling good. Happy to be here. Although it is blisteringly hot outside. Outside, I got a sunburn walking over here because they will not let me on the bus after what happened at the library, which I talked about before when I was covered in a child's urine.

But enough about me. I I'm here with a a good friend of mine. Somebody that I met uh somebody who is uh promoting himself. Somebody who's on the hustle, on the grind, grinding it out, using Grindr. Uh, what was your name again?

Seth Tucker. Seth Tucker. He is a playwright. He is a uh what else.

He's everything. He's a jack of all trades. He's making me, he's going to pepper your sauce, is what he says to the Hollywood community. Hey, look out for me. I'm Seth Tucker, and I'm going to pepper your sauce. I'm putting words in his mouth right now, which is probably not the first thing that's gone in his mouth since he's been here in Los Angeles. It's not the first thing that's been in my mouth either, because pepper by itself does not taste good. I tried the cinnamon challenge one time, put a whole spoonful of cinnamon in my mouth. I coughed, I vomited, and I did that at a methadone clinic.

So you have a play that you've written. What is the name of this play?

Does that have anything to do with Waikiki?

Yeah, the place, the island in the Pacific?

Waikiki, aloha. The reason I ask is because I'm very partial to the Hawaiian Islands, being from the Hawaiian Gardens area of Los Angeles.

That surprises me, because when I hear Our Kiki, I think Waikiki. I don't think anything else.

A kiki is a party?

Our kiki is our party?

Yes, correct. We're going to have a tea kiki with the gals.

A kickback. A kiki.

Yeah. Or a Tupperware kiki.

Yeah, because the word party isn't fun enough. You got to change it. It's kiki. You gotta turn it into like the name of a small animal or something like a rabbit or a ferret.

It's one that I've never heard. Yeah I saw a movie called The Party with Peter Sellers. Oh where he where he was he was pretty much in blackface the whole time. That was a weird one.

Uh so they should have named that the kiki. It um it's not like that. So if you have a so so you have blackface in this...

But people are gay face or what are they?

Being played by straight people or by gay people? Or have you asked?

Don't ask, don't tell. So this play's basically the army. But gay face.

I'm sorry, say that again? A gay farce?

I thought that was going to get weird. Farce. So what is a farce?

Switched identities?

So they come out of doors, they go out of doors?

So it's like a play about architecture.

People fall down. They fall down the stairs.

You don't have a moment where anybody falls down the stairs. Do you have two stories?

How can you fall down the stairs if you don't have any stairs? How can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat? That's what Pink Floyd said. Where are they going to be showing this play? Is it some high school somewhere?

So you live in New York City. You travel to Los Angeles. You've got a play going out of New York City.

Oh, international. More than one country. How many countries are we talking about here? Is it just this place in Canada, or how international is it?

Well, a dozen and 13 are very different numbers. You've got to be sure.

Yeah, you better do some investigating where the world is. Carmen San Diego. I think it's something I don't want to know about. Or Kiki. So what are you out here in Los Angeles for? What are you doing out here?

So you're just walking around, handing it out to people, hoping for the best. Doing the star tours thing, trying to throw that script out of the lawns at Kiefer Sutherland's house.

And Maya Rudolph, throwing it through the mail slot. Saying, hey, Fox Searchlight, get a load of me.

You've got a dentist appointment, a doctor's appointment, a salon appointment.

Yeah. Oh so you have meetings.

You're gonna be doing meetings.

How long have you been in the area?

You've been here for a week and you got meetings.

They were set up before you got. You hadn't even come to Los Angeles and you had meetings. That's uh that's uh yes that's that that's not the typical story of uh of this town which is which is a crusher. This town will kill you. But you live in New York. You have a play going up in New York.

Why not stay in New York? Why come why come to my neck of the my neck of the the woods.

It's not enough for in New York. You want more.

You know what Frank Sinatra said.

New York! If you can make it there, stay there! You know? Did he say that? He said that. He sang that. You're a singer, so you should know. And you do acting, too?

What have you done?

A tour of what?

What musical was it?

Martha Speaks.

Is that about a dog?

Oh, you've heard of it.

Yeah. Oh, I was in Martha Speaks. It's like it's no big deal. You're out here in L.A. doing meetings. How many meetings have you done?

You've done 15, 20 meetings so far. Did you meet with anybody who seemed interested, or did they all just say, oh, get out of here, get out of my office, what are you doing here? I don't respect you, I don't think you're an artist.

Yeah, it's not a good sign. That's usually when you get a lot of positive reaction when people are blowing you off. So keep that in mind when you have those meetings that you have. How many more do you have, do you think?

Halfway done?

So, 15 more meetings?

So, only 30 meetings?

How many days are you going to be here?

A week to go. You're right here in the middle of your Oreo, as it were. They would call it that. That's an industry term.

So, you're doing pretty well then, huh? You feel good about yourself.

You love it.

The city will kill you. A lot of stuff they don't tell you about L.A. when you're from New York.

A lot of gangs here.

A lot of murders. A lot of people getting murdered. A lot of drugs.

There's no such thing. You can get hit by a bus right now.

Yes. Buses can go through walls. They're very heavy. Anyway, the important thing is go home to New York, is what I'm saying. But on the other hand, you have a play going on in New York.

And you want to have something going on here in Los Angeles.

And you probably need two different casts for that, won't you? You'll need a New York cast and a Los Angeles cast. You want them to be running concurrently.

Yeah, there's probably a part for somebody, probably somebody like me.

Like a Rodandan type.

Yeah, we don't want to jinx it, but we do want to guarantee that I get a, get a role in this thing. I. Because right now, I hate to break this, this is going to go out over the airwaves, but you are coming across looking ugly. You don't seem like a nice guy. Right now you're coming off looking like a real asshole.

No, I'm so sorry. I know. Yeah, so you've got to make it right.

You've got to give me a role.

What's my part going to be?

Sure, here it is. I'm handing it to you. Let me have all of your information. I would. I'd like your cell phone number. I'd like your email address. I'd like your parents' address. Do you have any PO boxes? What's your social security number?

What if I gave you a back rub? Would that loosen you up a little bit? You feel a little bit more comfortable?

It would make things worse. What if I gave you a front rub?

No. You want an Indian leg wrestle? What kind of fun do you like to have in New York? What are the things you do?

But I'm here now. So cool if I stick around?

This is very, very cool in here compared to the rest of the...

What's your friend's name?

Jackson. That's a good name. When's Jackson coming home?

Great. So when he gets here, I'll talk to him about it. I'll talk about him about sticking around. It seems like he's cool with company now that he has you over.

I'll stick around here soon as he has a minute that he and I can powwow about the sitch.

I'll hang out here, you talk to him when he gets home. I'll drink some nice drink a glass of water. I don't know what you guys have here but I'll check the fridge and I'll sort of hunker down make myself at home if you will.

I know, that's why I'm not asking you. I'm going to wait to ask him. You have no authority here. You and I are on even footing.

Yeah you do that. Do that right now. Right now. We don't have to we can hang out together for a while. Do you like baseball?

Do you like Say Yes to the Dress?

Yes I will tag along.

Okay then I'll just hang out here.

Yeah so I'll go to the meeting with you. Dan Rodandan is my name and I'm going to go to my first big time Hollywood meeting.