Puma Perl and Big Mike: Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets

Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets is a sort of "signature piece" for me and Big Mike. It's a tight five, doesn't require any special props except for a simple costume, and is our most popular video. I wrote it after watching several versions of Dr. Zhivago with Big Mike. Coincidentally, the English remake, starring Keira Knight was on last night.

I had wanted to do a new piece based on the murdered Portuguese gay activist/journalist, and his boyfriend, who cut off his balls with a corkscrew in a midtown hotel. I didn't know about the corkscrew, or that the young would-be model boyfriend is now claiming that his act was an effort to "cure" the older man of his homosexuality. The story gets better and better. Big Mike feels that the Yippie Cafe stage is too small for the piece, which involves a lot of movement, and that we should save it for RevJen's antislam at the Bowery and we haven't done Dr. Z in a long time. I'd been promising that we'd reprise it when the video reached 750 views, and it's only at 730, might be at 750 by 1/17, I guess.

The Dr. Z piece seemed so daring the first time we did it, which was at Viviana Grell's yearly midtown show at some comedy club. She remarked afterward, "That's what you get from people with no boundaries," which was funny at the time. I don't even know if Big Mike pulled my bra down in order to write a poem on my upper body. This was before we took the "scissors series" to the ultimate level, or maybe we haven't reached the ultimate level yet.

See Dr. Zhivago Monday, 1/17/11, Yippie Museum Cafe, 9 Bleecker bet Bowery & Elizabeth, 6:30-8:30, free with a suggested donation of whatever you can afford to support the space.
This month's show is called We Have A Dream and features Elizabeth Amato, Francesca Sphinx, Erica Miriam Fabri and Robin Andre (The Lady Poet and the Robin) and Faux Maux.