Charybdis
Member
Profiles

Gregor Mortis

Andrew Bedno

Mike "H-Dog" Browarski

Mike "Four/4" Brunner

Regina Buccola

William Darkė
& The Psycho Circus

Rachel Decker

Defiant Theatre Company

John DeLeonardis

AJ Esbrook

Mark Faje

Dara Gannon

Geoffrey Fingerhut

Alan Gold

Carm Grisolia

Cathy Haibach

Tom Hickey

The Higgins Family

Gail Knox

Nikki Lopez

Cristie Mather

Ron Mather

Daniel Myers

David Myers

Brian Miller

Rich "Ram" Moore

Richard "Chip" Rosenthal

Daniel Rowley

Karl Sacksteder

Mikel Samson

Madeline Schwartz

Brian Shaw

Cynthia Simms

Joe Swain

David Trantina

Reverend J Vela

James "Jaz" Zoccoli



James 'JAZ' Zoccoli, picture by Evil Vince




James Zoccoli



"What kid has not made a megaphone from a toilet paper roll & told the world he just pooped?"

- JAZ



self-portrait by James






ON CHARYBDIS

The gluttonous girl, Charybdis.
Her vain sister, Scylla.
Zeus, the Omni-vengent.

Punished for their excesses,He transformed the maidens into an abstract manifesation of the vices they indulged.

Charybdis: a whirlpool to drink down the waters.
Scylla, a dragon with six beastly heads.

Always practical in His wisdom, Zeus decided to place them at a strategic point to challenge those who dare explore His world. He cast a spell on Scylla, giving her the appearance of a bluff to deceive the Explorers. Opposite her, He sank Charybdis to rage constantly as she drank the seas thrice daily & consumed all that succumbed to her torrents.

Circe the Comely Queen of Witches advised:
"Nay, draw very close to the cliff, and drive thy ship past quickly; for it is better far to mourn six comrades than all together."

Then...

Odysseus had to decide.

Force the crew to fight the current of the Cursed Whirlpool and risk every life, or Sacrifice six to the Hideous Hydra and carry on with the journey at a loss.

Calculated compromise.
All.
Naught.
The only options.
Overwhelming odds.

Well, Odysseus chose defy them all.
He armed his men to battle Scylla & attempted to avoid Charybdis altogether...

Well, they failed. Disastrously.
Scylla got a six free meals & Charybdis got the leftovers.

Sure, Odysseus & the few fellows who survived carried on, but the point is their story got overly complicated in Book Twelve.

The lesson?
Trust your people & know their strengths before you tempt the power of the Fates.

The reason?
The members of the Charybdis Arts Complex strive to create an environment for expression, the shop in which we work creatively, a place to market the products of our creativity & events to celebrate the process of creation.

We set standards higher than we could ever achieve & revel in the results.
Because the product of a failure is still wisdom.

We set wide boundaries & push those even farther.
Because the ground broken on a journey can determine the destination.

We set out upon a tumultuous sea…







WHY CHARYBDIS?

A place such as this had only existed in my imagination until the people of this organization came together.

"A theatre with a gallery? Studio with a stage? Cinema with half pipe?"

Nowhere else will you meet artists willing to share ideas, expend energy & devote time to one another & accomplish a mutual dream... or sacrifice all that to realize the dream they never knew they had.

"Should we put the stage here...or there? How about the cargo nets?"

We have all heard the call or seen that vision at a time when it seemed foolish to answer or a moment that flashed by obscurely...

"Write that down. Now."

Any creative voice you were too afraid to follow will be echoed by those around you & they will inspire you to lead them down that path you feared too dark to tread.

"So, you want to build a slide, too, huh? All right, then..."







TESTIMONY

The Spirit of the Creator is in all Artists & We are all Artists.

Manifested in an ability to see Potential beyond existent possiblities & a desire to realize those Visions.

The energy required to create with matter, sound & concept is our Sacrifice.

Our gift is the Time it takes to craft & compose.
Our reward is the Time it takes to look & listen.


"What kid has not made a megaphone from a toilet paper roll & told the world he just pooped?"







THEORY

Every single object has several uses.
Some intended, others that were never imagined.
That discovery is the job of every artist.

To utilize the mind, stretch the body, to play the instrument, to use the same tools, notes, language & colors in a truly different way







BIOGRAPHY

James in his favorite sweater, with his mother, Joy


Professional Baseball Player. Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Motivational Speaker. Criminal Defense Attorney. Faith Healer.

These are just a few of the dream careers James passed on to pursue art.

The theatre is his primary artistic playground, but he has always acted on his impulses to sketch, cartoon, illustrate, paint, collage, sculpt, design & build.

Still in training, most of his skills were aquired through a random process of bold experimention & terrible failure that he practices to this day.

A paragon of paradox, James is a reclusive socialite who will defend his wicked habits with righteous indignation. For a guy with a decent voice & a good vocabulary who loves to talk, he sure is a terrible communicator. Anyone who knows him will tell you that he hates the phone & rarely picks it up to call or answers it when they do because he is usually engrossed in some visual, literary or theatrical art project that has monopolized his puny human mind.

When he finally grows up, James wants to be a fine artist, a good cook & a great lover.







AFFILIATIONS

  • Ensemble Member of the Strawdog Theatre Company. Fight Evil...with Art!
  • Life Member of the National Rifle Association. Thanks, GrandDad.
  • Proud Member of the International PACKRATS.
    World Reunion Tour 2K4 may begin in Barcelona.





    ABOUT THE ART

    It is mostly garbage.
    Essentially, if not aesthetically.
    Every piece consists of materials that were refuse collected from home, work & out on the street over the course of the past twelve years or more.

    Many of the elements were handed to me with the question, "Would you put that in the trash?"
    As you can plainly see, my answer was, typically, "No."

    The beautifully ironic or ironically ugly fact about litter as a resource is that it is so abundant.

    My objective is to salvage that which has been deemed useless, prevent it from becoming fodder for the landfill & give it new life as art.







    POETRY



    Modern Movies


    it can no longer be
    the wink
    and the poison in the drink
    or the curl of the lip
    and the subtle slip
    it must be the chase
    and the spit in the face

    drama
    is not to throw things and yell
    but to drop them and not say a word

    let things lie and they break all the same



    jaz/1999.





    cats & kittens


    he started it

    she had the upper hand

    she need not have split
    she could easily have stuck around

    made him pay

    for fucking with her
    in the first place

    but she gave up
    cut her losses
    quit while she was ahead
    and sped off to the dish to get a bite to eat instead

    dissatisfied
    he gave chase
    got all up in her face

    but by then it was too late

    she was busy
    preoccupied
    he bored her

    so she won

    he had paid the price after all

    and it was all he could do
    to make a good show of it

    to return to his bed

    stylishly

    as stylishly as possible
    anyway

    so now
    he is up to it
    again
    back to his old tricks



    jaz/1999.





    Hey Pretty Girl


    is what this man said one day on the train
    to try to explain this woman
    who has just as much body as brain
    & even though his efforts were ultimately vain

    hey nothing ventured nothing gained right

    so there they were
    two perspectives through four eyes strained
    yet another first glance a second or two too long sustained
    for that comfortable ignorance to be maintained

    whether it is genuine
    appreciation or sexual
    intimidation or racial
    discrimination or spiritual inspiration

    it is simply impossible
    yet impossibly simple
    to know in a moment

    that she is more than just a pretty face or a pleasant view

    in fact she knows more
    about the quark than you
    & could teach us all a thing or two
    about marijuana as medicine

    but you would never guess
    from the way she looks
    in that cute little dress
    that underneath it all she is on a quest

    yes
    a different breed of cat lover
    making more than just trouble
    & dark coffee in my house as a guest

    also aware that substance defies objectification

    if you only knew how lucky that cigarette was
    the self conscious tremble when she walks in the room
    just going about her business would be replaced
    by a smile smacked across your face

    the way the poem falls onto the page
    or the sun wiggles up under your clothes
    if you slow down
    long enough to let it

    these stories seem absurd as mismatched socks
    willy loman meets holly golightly & fat rocks
    & green toenail polish & sweet dreams
    every nights sleep happily everlasting afterlife

    pretty girl


    jaz/1999.





    The meaningless lament of the honest hypocrite.


    act one

    a courier pigeon flew overhead with a message for anyone but him.
    so he thought.
    so he bought a ticket with the blood money
    freshly squeezed from the stone he found
    in the living room of his glass house.

    his plan was to escape.

    to quiet the dischord and quell the yearning.

    maybe tomorrow. never today it seemed.

    he dreamed the dream of the orphaned child
    suddenly remembered by remorseful parents
    who return to wake him from his fitful, sleepless turmoil.

    who was he?
    he believed he was the antithesis of his kind.
    the pinnacle of the paragon of animals.

    ironically, he was as mousy in nature as he was manly in stature
    with leonine features that a poacher tried capture on film.

    wordplay specialist. nondenominational moral perfectionist.
    inventor by default. documentarian by association
    taskmaster forced to twiddle his thumbs in early retirement.

    contrary to all his efforts, he was, in fact, the dictionary definition of a man: species. gender.

    he cringed every morning at the number
    of long ago forgotten observations that he had neglected
    to write down.

    the great thoughts always seemed to come at moments
    when, whether too tired or sick, too depressed or stimulated,
    he was unable to pick up the pen. tranquility. stupor. agony.

    at an impromptu critique of his poetry,
    a reviewer cited the works as having many brilliant fragments
    but too few in succession.
    life does, then, imitate art.

    pavlov would be proud to know
    that societal conditioning had seen to it
    that discouragement reached his doorstep
    to ward off the knock of opportunity.

    perhaps, by saving the paper the rejection letter is printed on,
    he was doing his part to reduce forest depletion.

    or so he thought.

    the coffee in this shop was diluted. not nearly as good as it was reputed to be.
    his concentration was weak as hell as well. too much so to suit his particular tastes.
    but he drank it down anyway lest it be a waste.

    he was late.

    but he walked because he had no faith
    in public transportation unless he could see the bus or train coming.
    otherwise, he feared, he may wait forever.

    he became frustrated at the woman and her daughter
    with arms full of laundry and groceries, took up the whole sidewalk.

    as he passed, the little girl asked her mother if she believed that god was the sun.

    difficult as it was, he altered his pace without coming to dead halt
    or looking otherwise obvious in his intention to overhear the response.

    nonchalantly, he looked back to see the moment.

    somehow, even though he had been so overtaken with the image
    that he had neglected to register the explanation, he knew that she had given the right answer.


    jaz/1999.





    on the job


    there seems to be some virtue
    in being a novice carpenter

    first day on the construction sight
    looking for some right thing to do

    the correct tool, the proper way
    to make sense of this overwhelming
    pile of disorder

    underfoot
    thereby discovering
    two heart shaped holes in the floorboards nearby

    one perfect and smaller but more obscure
    the other larger and more abstract but obvious

    amid these
    raw materials in an empty shell
    while watching the dust fall through these

    two heart shaped holes nearby

    thereby disovering
    underfoot
    that this is reality

    noone would believe these
    two heart shaped holes

    he cannot believe them himself these
    two heart shaped holes nearby
    but this is reality

    nature did this
    not man
    two heart shaped holes in the floorboards nearby

    "we'll just build over that..."

    so back to work
    but all the while he is lost
    in being a novice carpenter
    and wondering
    when the next conversation with his father will be
    as the other men
    consider lunch
    and the chatter of the dealer on the corner
    echoes through
    the hollowness around them all

    having little or no faith
    in mankind
    leaves him uncertain
    as to what kind of man he needs to be
    in order to preserve his structural integrity

    looking for signs
    to present themselves
    he finds only this:

    "warning.
    these premises are protected by trained attack dogs.
    survivors will be prosecuted."

    which is almost humorous
    but what saddens him
    even more than the fact

    (animals suborned such
    beautiful beasts bred souless
    solely to hound and haunt and guard
    raw materials in an empty shell)

    is the fiction


    jaz/2000.





    Those Cardinals


    Some birds stay despite the winter
    to build stronger nests, bury the vanishing seeds,
    rising to find the places that the heat goes.
    A little boy on his knees watches
    The vivid color of his vanity

    against the blank canvas of snow
    and sunflowers, stalks black
    with exhaustion that bend graciously
    to surrender their final offerings;
    The freshly frozen dust of the season

    He knows better than to take the hummingbird's
    sounds as encouragement. The boy hears the song
    of the woman he will love forever one day,
    the notes, the chords that make him fret
    even though he knows better.

    His sighs fog the glass. His fingers smudge the paint.
    Grandma orders the pantry properly
    & hangs the old curtains
    The other grandchildren are still in bed
    safe from the cold & the curses.

    The jealous cardinals peer in from the porch.
    They would agree with grandma.
    The dog should not be on the couch
    The boy should not be on the floor
    in his good clothes, but it is warm where they are.

    A lean coyote screams
    & the fat kittens will finally be gladdened.
    The cardinals fade above it all
    in their frigid slumber.


    jaz/2003.







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