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To contribute, email your review to WelfareLine@Yahoo.com and add how you want it signed if at all

(good as well as bad will be posted here--perhaps edited for brevity, and perhaps they'll be used for my promotional material)

"Erika babe! Thank you it could not have gone any better, you were amazing, you inspired me to start writing zines again...you are just too rockin' i can't think of enuff good adjectives!" --Nahal at Rutgers, a school full of a lot of Jersey girl and boy smarty pants

Erika, we would LOVE to have you here....my cousin in NYC just wrote me about the show and she said you have fucking out done yourself!...we NEED you to come here...im not afraid to bribe you....there are some great theater spaces here that would be so happy to welcome you! please let me know if this would be possible or else im going to have to spare change and/or hitch to see you somewhere else. please consider coming to detroit.
-liz

"I was really struck by how integral your show has been in whipping up a sense of hope (in the form of an idea for her future) -- something that really hasn't happened in way too many years. Just wanted you to know what an impact you can have on people. --always in your thrall, April in NYC"

"April, so, i went to the show again and ... well, about 1/3 into it....erika forgot a part!!!! she had to dig her way out!! she started off announcing to the room that "this is nina...now stand up,nina....nina gets to be an honorary welfare queen 'cause she's the best audience member".....so i stood up and waved to all the white oregon beavers........back to the screw up.... she kept lookin' at me and sayin' shit but i couldn't think of anything reASSuring so i just kept smilin' and sayin' your fine...blah blah.... and one of the hosts in the back helped her find her place the others chimed in and she cracked some jokes and brought it all full circle again....oooh i was so scared for erika!...

.... its cool that she fucked up, though....she said that was her worst fear come true...i'm happy to have shared such a big moment in her life..i'd like to write to her but i think she might think that i was stalking her since i went to 2 shows in a row and sat in the very front in the same seat...and i still couldn't think of anything smart or funny to say....

....and is she in fact really poor? how does she afford living in san fran? did she make all those stories up? can i borrow her motorcycle? oh, and ask erika if she has a spare room if she's really not poor and just made all that shit up........i'll still come to her shows and sit in the front and be a good audience member......life is too hard, april -- Nina

“Hi! You are incredible! There are no words that are adequate to describe your talent. I hope you were kidding when you commented on suicide. If you were not kidding I hope you access a support system. I really enjoyed your show. You remind me of why I live in the Bay Area. --Your fan, Dara”

“Hello, That was so fun. When you said that thing about puffy infant vaginas I nearly wet my pants. It was just so wrong that it killed me. I imagined that you were going to be towering and intimidating. When the light first hit you looked very nice and friendly like we could all crawl in your lap and demand that you tell us a story and you would. Anyway, that was a great show. Thanks again, Clare”

*

“Dear Erika, My friend and I saw and enjoyed your show Saturday night. You have a lot to say and you have a bright and clever way of making your points. I'm thrilled to have been able to get a Welfare Queen T-Shirt, as well. Should be a big hit here in Southern Marin. BTW I have been on food stamps and once threatened to put out a cookbook on 700 ways to use government cheese. Presently, I write for the Chronicle. I think the show would be more effective if you cut about 20 minutes and add more singing(fabulous!). Yeh! I know Lily Tomlin and wonder if she has seen your show. Any plans for L.A.?--GraceAnn Walden”

“Your performance....ah....so intense and purposeful. You are incredibly talented, you have a gorgeous voice. Your metaphors and story telling are both brilliant....geez I will say that your performance was even life changing, indeed.

“With that, my dear Mrs. Lopez, I will say that your performance presented a very important and creative perspective that I think the WHOLE WORLD should know. It was brilliant. And you are brilliant. I see you, Mrs. Lopez, and I see GIANT. Your work needs to reach the whole world. Pray "Oh God, let me reach the whole world for you." Because Mrs. Lopez, your art, in all forms, whether it be writing, drawing, singing, performing is IMPORTANT and INSPIRING and BEAUTIFUL and YOU ARE MAGICAL AND IN ALL YOUR ART YOU HAVE MESSAGES.

“In fact, I wandered the streets for a bit before I left, contemplating all that you had presented in your show. My heart was even feeling a bit heavy for you because every word that you spoke I know and I had those feeling all over again, but at the same time I felt a triumphant spirit for you because you are taking a yucky situation and turning it into art.”

“erika!
you roct the other night. thanx for being a constant source of inspiration by continuing to push yerself in nu creative directions. i myself have been contemplatin this one freak show idea for a while but no juevos. and you made me feel like it was a lil more possible as well as impressing me with yer genius and ability to memorize it as well as deliver it. i brought my boss who is a producer. we both cract up, love the suicide shoes.
xo
lynnee” --Lynn Breedlove

Nicole

***

Your reviews are so much more important to me than those of pro reviewers, and here's an explanation of why:

So first I write this piece which was first called, "Going Down in Flames: The Rise and Fall of Erika Lopez," and I'm trying to publish it, but since the publicist and Simon & Schuster had kept my last book a secret, sales were so low on "Hoochie Mama:The Other White Meat," no one was gonna take a chance on my latest book idea about failing miserably in life. Go figure. It's just as well: the kind of folks who read my book share and borrow it and if I had a penny for every person who's written me about friends not returning books, I'd have five dollars. And what can you get with five dollars? A burrito. So keep on sharing and going to the library. Besides, I prefer the stories of friends not returning books and hearing how they get returned decades later. That's better than getting a penny or my little baby royalties. I do better if you buy from me, so if your group needs another book, click here.

Anyhow, so I decide to turn my book into a show. Why? I really can't remember now. When you're going down in flames and trying to whistle "Taps" at the same time, life gets to being a blur. I'm pretty sure it was someone else's idea 'cause my ass has gotten so big from sitting through my entire twenties and writing books, I'm not exactly clamoring for more attention that a writer with a smaller ass might. It's a mighty white world out there and until the Africans are running Hollywood with those big, suckling, floppy tits, it's all about the little flat ass that looks like a couple of knuckles after working out. So yeah, it was actually Duca's idea at Rhino Theatre that I hit the stage myself. That's probably what happened. And since I was control freak enough not to know anyone else who could say my words how I wanted them to be said, I relented. However, now that I've memorized the whole show, I see that Melissa Shimkovitz in NYC would've been the one to do it. If only I'd known then.

Before I did my bit at Rhino, I was too afraid to go it alone. Mr. Amy went up with me and we sang the welfare show. Then at our last show, Amy's girlfriend was on stage and stopped the show when her ring got caught in her fishnets. Mary Guzman, film director of "Desi's Looking for a New Girl" said on her way out, "You all need direction. I'll help."

Amy soon bailed in the interest of remodeling her bathroom. Mary and I re-wrote/edited for a solo show and so I spent a month memorizing for Rhino Theatre and while some folks really liked it, here's what the press said:

From the SF Bay Guardian: "Erika Lopez – author of the brilliant and inspiring Tomato Rodriguez trilogy, illustrator and wordsmith extraordinaire who gave us the irreverent and penetratingly sharp Flaming Iguanas – is in a rut. She's back on welfare, and the stories she has to tell about it aren't pretty. Unfortunately, instead of targeting the forces that helped put her there – like the publishing industry – or criticizing the welfare system itself for all its problems (including making it nearly impossible to get benefits in the first place), she spends most of her time disparaging other welfare recipients and the people who work behind the counter in the welfare office. Whereas Lopez's literary rants have poured forth with insightful, wry humor, her first onstage performance proceeds awkwardly, without raucous energy and with too little wit to sweeten its bitterness. For all the pleasure she has given us in the past, let's just hope Lopez hasn't given up her literary career for the stage." --Lara Shalson

Hmm...I'm a local author with books they never even reviewed--hell, if they'd reviewed them I wouldn't have to take to the stage in the first place!-- and they want me to bitch about Simon & Schuster and to keep writing books that no one ever knows about???

Even though I talk about S&S, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here. They gave me a lot and let me get away with a lot. I'm not going to memorize a rant about them. Memorization is hard and you'd better be verrry careful what you put into your head

So then I vowed never to personally invite critics ever again to anything I did. It was like breaking into my little girl bedroom and spooging on my awkard, adolescent diary. And after a Jewish New Yorker visited Mark Lammers, complaining in a funny way, I realized this was not a show for chirpy, politically correct Californians. There was no room for my crankiness in California. I'd have to run back east....back home....where all the days are hardly sunny and you don't sigh and passively say, "Well, I guess if it was meant to be, it was meant to be."

It was time to go back home to the safety of a bad attitude. And besides, wasn't I tired of the constant flabby, self-indulgent and boring sex-sex-sex attitude of San Francisco? I was becoming wildly homophobic--lesbian businesswomen like Kim Corsarso of "The Bay Times" were back to screwing me and I was pretty damn tired of folks staring at their own crotches and wondering who or WHAT should be there.

But I digress-- back to critics: "Didn't critics have a right to save the paying public from crap?" I asked myself. Yes, I answered. It's rare that it actually happens, but that's the general "pubic service" idea and I can respect that. However, unfulfilled and frustrated critics go out of their way to be smarmy and I'd had enough of parading my vulnerabilities in front of critics like a pole dancer realizing she's been dancing in front of her therapist for the last half-hour.

So I decided to follow the D.I.Y. (Do-It-Yourself) way, remain in wonderfully crusty and cheap theatres and charge so little (no more than $10 if possible), critics would stay away as sure as if I'd sprayed "Raid."

But I still want reviews so potential audience members can make an economic decision and blow their ten bucks on Hollywood crap if they so desire. I also want to be sure that I'm doing relevant things for you all. I'm not wanting to be in a self-indulgent vaccuum! So send your own reviews to: WelfareLine@Yahoo.com and I will put them online in batches. I wish I was set up so you could put them on here directly like Amazon or how folks write 'em in at fringe festivals, but this'll have to do. I'll include bad ones as well. Just be clever if you're gonna be mean, and include how you want it signed. I may edit them or use them for publicity and promotion. Even the bad ones, if they're funny enough and not simply mean, which I've been lucky enough to never ever get. I have the nicest people who pay attention.

Thanks a lot for making this life as an artist pretty damn good and worth it. Thanks for giving a damn!

--Erika

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Erika Lopez P.O. Box 410011 / San Francisco, CA 94141