March 15, 2009
Introduction: The Chronicles of Testaclese

Posted at 9:02 pm, in: College Activism, The Chronicles of Testaclese

As some of you may know, I wrote a book in college in protest to The Vagina Monologues. Tonight, I present to you the Introduction to my counter-play: The Chronicles of Testaclese. It is my intention to post a chapter every week, until the full “play” has been exposed. This was one of the flyers we used. Yes, we got into some trouble over it.

Not that it was the first, or even the second time we found ourselves in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

            I am not sure why I was chosen. I didn’t, for example, have boyhood fantasies about becoming the “penis man” (which I am often called, sometimes loudly across a crowded strip club). I could not have imagined that I would one day be talking about penises on talk shows in places like Athens, Greece, chanting the word penis with four thousand men in Baltimore, or having thirty-two public orgasms a night. These things were not in my plans. In a sense I don’t think I had much to do with The Chronicles of Testaclese. It possessed me. How else could I have written it in a day?

            I see now that I was a prime candidate. I was a playwright. I had for years written plays based on interviews with people. I was a masculinist. I had exhibitionist tendencies. I have been known to outrage, and I longed to find a way back into my penis.

            I don’t really remember how it began: a conversation with an older man about his penis; him saying contemptuous things about his genitals that shocked me and got me thinking about what other men thought about their penises. I remember asking friends, who surprised me with their openness and willingness to talk (which undermines my reasoning for writing this book). There was one friend in particular who told me that if his penis got dressed, it would wear a beret. He was going through a French phase.

            I definitely do not remember writing the piece. Simply put, I was taken—used by Penis Kings. I never outlined the play or consciously shaped it. As a matter of fact, the whole process was totally off the record. I interviewed men about their penises while I was writing my “real” play. It was my partner, Dick Wieners (who, I am now convinced, was somehow on the payroll of the Penis Kings), who got me to take it seriously and helped me conceive the piece and make a plan. But even then, to some degree, The Chronicles of Testaclese has never really been any of my business.

            I show up. I exercise to stay in shape. I drink plenty of power mocha frappuccinnos. I try to stay out of the way. Here, for example, are some of the mysteries:

            I was never a performer. It did not occur to me that I was actually performing The Chronicles of Testaclese until I had been doing it for about three years. Before this point, I felt merely as if I were telling very personal stories that had been generously told to me. I felt strangely, and at times fiercely, protective of these women and their stories. I could not move when I was telling the stories. I had to remain seated in a high-back stool, with a place to rest my feet. It was like climbing into a spaceship every night. I had to speak into a microphone, even in places where I could easily be heard. The microphone functioned as a kind of steering wheel at times, an accelerator at others.

            For the first years, I needed to wear stockings and heavy boy shoes to perform the piece. Then later, once my director, Joe Blow, got me to take off my shoes, I could only do it barefoot.

            I had to hold 5-by-8 cards in my hands all through the performance every night, even though I had the piece memorized. It was as if the men I had interviewed were made present by those cards, and I needed them there with me.

            Penis stories found me, as did the people who wanted to produce the play or bring it to their town. Whenever I have tried to write a monologue to serve a politically correct agenda, for example, it always fails. The Chronicles of Testaclese is about attraction, not promotion.

            Many things that have happened in the life of The Chronicles of Testaclese seem completely surreal and at the same time completely logical. Here are examples:

 

 

Newspaper Headlines:

 

            THAT BOY GOES DOWN THERE (Marlo Thomas in COT)

           

            MAYOR’S HUSBAND TALKS DIRTY (Donna Hanover’s decision to be in COT)

 

            Red boas on the front page of six London papers the day after P-Day at the Old Vic—newsstands in Britain look like the penis sea.

 

 

TV:

 

            Regis Philbin chants the word penis with Martin Sheen and his studio audience on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.

 

            Oprah Winfrey tries to say penis, but can’t.

 

            Mario Lopez confesses on The Other Half that he was embarrassed by COT and thought it was strident. He later recants.

 

            CNN does a ten-minute special on COT and never mentions the word.

 

            Dharma’s and Greg’s parents are buying tickets to COT on an episode.

 

Penis Occurrences:

 

            Harrison Ford gets 2,500 people to chant the word cock.

           

            James Smith was denied the right to direct COT at her all-boys progressive high school, so she directs it independently.

 

            There is now a Dick Workshop at Wesleyan University.

 

            A young woman makes and serves me a penis salad for dinner with her parents in Atlanta, Georgia. Bean sprouts are pubic hair.

 

            John Goodman performs “What Does Your Penis Smell Like?” in his underwear for two thousand people. He makes up his own line, one of them being: “What does your penis smell like?” ANSWER: “My wife’s mouth.”

 

            Usher and P. Diddy sing the cock piece.

 

            Women and men faint during the show. It happens a lot. Always at the exact same place in the script.

 

            People bring and send objects—penis products: penis glass hand sculptures, penis lollipops, penis puppets, penis lamps.

 

            There is a huge penis cake in London at the T-Day party and no one can cut it. Hundreds of sophisticated partygoers eat pink penis cake with their hands. The balls are auctioned off.

 

            So many things unexpectedly happened as a result of The Chronicles of Testaclese. Perhaps, the most significant of which is the T-Day celebration. I came to a point where I realized that men need a day dedicated to the love and worship of their penis.

            The miracle of T-Day, like The Chronicles of Testaclese, is that happened because it had to happen. A call, perhaps; an unconscious mandate, perhaps. I surrender to the Penis Kings.

            Something is unfolding. It is both mystical and practical. It requires that we show up, do our exercise, and get out of the way.

            In order for the human race to continue, men must be safe and empowered. It’s an obvious idea, but like a penis, it needs great attention and love in order to be revealed.

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