Listening to the first read of the play on Thursday night revealed a number of truths. One is that a great play pales on the page by comparison to having actors express it, even at the raw level of unfamiliar, misguided, occasionally on-the-spot reading aloud. I thought I loved the hell out of this show before, but when I heard the actors I cast commit it to spoken language, the air around our table simply sparkled.
One of the things that appeals to me about doing theater, and even writing fiction (for that matter), is getting the chance to create genuine moments. Revealing core truths, human connection, and life with its clothes off is quite satisfying. Often times these moments are shared in the confines of rehearsal, but when stars fully align they can be shared with an audience. Even though there are great distinctions between my first two plays, one intriguing similarity is that first meetings and the banter of strangers pervaded both pieces. Each contained myriad lonely people, seeking connection and warmth.
If the first two shows were about strangers than the new piece is about longevity, in all of its glory, misery, and in between. There is an intriguing depth and shorthand had between people who've known one another for a long time. The fact that this play deals with those who have lost touch with the above adds all sorts of interesting challenges for me and my cast of strangers. I can tell that the arms length beginnings of the interactions between the actors will steadily grow into something more and more acclimated and familiar. And I can hope that after they've stopped squirming in their seats and the laughter has quieted, we'll have found some morsel of truth for everyone to take away. They'll be heard and say yeah, that's what it's like.
30 July 2011
29 July 2011
table five
All of the hard work is starting to show results. The whole cast met for the first time at our first group read-through of the script. I have cast at least three of them against type, so several were surprised by which character they were offered and likewise some of the actors were taken aback by who they would be working across. This is just the right combination of comfort and unease about the casting, as well as the raunchy material that I feel is necessary for each to find the show challenging but still completely surmountable. Things are underway and the excitement is growing.
27 July 2011
breaking bread.
Hollywood has been having a field day, raping the childhoods of those who spent theirs in the mid-seventies and eighties. Remakes on the big screen have been an aspect of silver screen enjoyment since the beginning, whether it was the multitude of Wizard of Oz flicks, the infamous Gaslight scenario, or Hitchcock remaking his own The Man who Knew too Much. These days it's gotten much worse, and more notably the source material has unexpected co-ownership by the reams of kids who grew up on it. Hollywood does not own the rights to our childhoods. Yet a new Footloose, a new Karate Kid, and even a rehash of Indiana Jones exists.
Remakes in music have always had a different tone, because they come and go. Classical music became the pieces struggling pianists would learn, beat by beat, to have in their own oeuvre. Much of classic jazz and vocal music would become standards, which is code for 'remake me'. Purists have original music in their hearts and were the first to react when hip-hop reached into the vaults of their nostalgia, taking their backseat prom memories out of context, and looping them into oblivion. Musical remakes are much easier to by-pass. A huge percentage of them do little more than overlay their different voice over the same general structure, like phoned-in karaoke. Therefore, most remakes sound like Smashing Pumpkins doing 'Landslide' and not Placebo doing 'Running Up that Hill'.
Plays are designed to be performed by one company after another. Playwrights can only hope for the wide-reaches of the world to meet their characters, hear their words, and react to the depth of their thought. In a way, this is one of the things that has attracted me to doing theater. At a primitive level, it's the fourth grade all over again. We are all assigned a project, but we each approach it differently. The script is the recipe, but every cook knows that recipes are but an outline, a jumping off point, contingent about the available ingredients, mood, and out-and-out instinct.
Putting together my dinner amongst sordid friends play that I am doing right now has followed similar themes. My behind the scenes support grows by leaps and bounds every few days. My on-stage performers have been much, much harder to gather up. The preceding show has a cast of baker's dozen. The theater across town is dropping RENT on the stodgy old-timers. I knew the pick-ins would be slim. However, much like that improvised recipe, you have to be able to use what you've got. I knew last week I could not present the show with the combination of actors I had found. Much like a marriage being only as good as how the correlation between the two operates and always at the threat of combining like that murky brown-black color that happens to paint on a palette, my ensemble cast needed a certain combined verve and energy. To me, that came in the form of an actor who came out for my third night of auditions on Monday, who would add just the right color to the show.
Now I have a cast. I have confirmed with everyone involved. Everything about this process and its result has felt like combating a new video game level. Now this one is replete with its own challenges, such as a stage manager who I had to gently wheedle out of performing in the aforementioned preceding show and many an actor's scheduling conflicts, such as one who will be gone for two weeks come this Friday. I feel that my first play had its own share of duress, so I feel completely undeterred by these hurdles. I have a solid cast put together. That's something toast worthy!
Remakes in music have always had a different tone, because they come and go. Classical music became the pieces struggling pianists would learn, beat by beat, to have in their own oeuvre. Much of classic jazz and vocal music would become standards, which is code for 'remake me'. Purists have original music in their hearts and were the first to react when hip-hop reached into the vaults of their nostalgia, taking their backseat prom memories out of context, and looping them into oblivion. Musical remakes are much easier to by-pass. A huge percentage of them do little more than overlay their different voice over the same general structure, like phoned-in karaoke. Therefore, most remakes sound like Smashing Pumpkins doing 'Landslide' and not Placebo doing 'Running Up that Hill'.
Plays are designed to be performed by one company after another. Playwrights can only hope for the wide-reaches of the world to meet their characters, hear their words, and react to the depth of their thought. In a way, this is one of the things that has attracted me to doing theater. At a primitive level, it's the fourth grade all over again. We are all assigned a project, but we each approach it differently. The script is the recipe, but every cook knows that recipes are but an outline, a jumping off point, contingent about the available ingredients, mood, and out-and-out instinct.
Putting together my dinner amongst sordid friends play that I am doing right now has followed similar themes. My behind the scenes support grows by leaps and bounds every few days. My on-stage performers have been much, much harder to gather up. The preceding show has a cast of baker's dozen. The theater across town is dropping RENT on the stodgy old-timers. I knew the pick-ins would be slim. However, much like that improvised recipe, you have to be able to use what you've got. I knew last week I could not present the show with the combination of actors I had found. Much like a marriage being only as good as how the correlation between the two operates and always at the threat of combining like that murky brown-black color that happens to paint on a palette, my ensemble cast needed a certain combined verve and energy. To me, that came in the form of an actor who came out for my third night of auditions on Monday, who would add just the right color to the show.
Now I have a cast. I have confirmed with everyone involved. Everything about this process and its result has felt like combating a new video game level. Now this one is replete with its own challenges, such as a stage manager who I had to gently wheedle out of performing in the aforementioned preceding show and many an actor's scheduling conflicts, such as one who will be gone for two weeks come this Friday. I feel that my first play had its own share of duress, so I feel completely undeterred by these hurdles. I have a solid cast put together. That's something toast worthy!
24 July 2011
23 July 2011
baker's dozen
My horoscope from Tuesday, July 19th:
The official auditions were a major disappointment, to be certain. But the production itself has been in full swing for some weeks now, as the behind the scenes team has been underway with work, ideas, and steadily building the show's momentum. Given the material, it seems apropos to allow it to morph organically.
Aesthetically the skeletal structure of the animal that encompasses this play's production team is growing thick and sturdy. As for the meat and the heart of the production, I am feeling set on half of my cast - both of which were in one manner of speaking or another, personally hand-picked and not due to the open call. Communications back and forth with my (tentatively) other two cast member considerations has been with ease, but less frequent than I would hope it to be.
Today marks two months until the show opens.
This makes me a little uneasy, given how challenging this material may be to pull off. My last show was assembled in just shy of three months rehearsal. By comparison, most of the production credits did change hand about five weeks out. The show was about unstable mental states, which certainly accounted for a lot of the dramas that went down outside of production.
This show is about core needs, like sex, eating, and music. A party, by comparison.
If a recent project isn't turning out the way you'd anticipated, it's time to use your built-in escape route. Implement Plan B like the brilliant superhero you know are. A great opportunity is coming soon -- flex your flexibility!
The official auditions were a major disappointment, to be certain. But the production itself has been in full swing for some weeks now, as the behind the scenes team has been underway with work, ideas, and steadily building the show's momentum. Given the material, it seems apropos to allow it to morph organically.
Aesthetically the skeletal structure of the animal that encompasses this play's production team is growing thick and sturdy. As for the meat and the heart of the production, I am feeling set on half of my cast - both of which were in one manner of speaking or another, personally hand-picked and not due to the open call. Communications back and forth with my (tentatively) other two cast member considerations has been with ease, but less frequent than I would hope it to be.
Today marks two months until the show opens.
This makes me a little uneasy, given how challenging this material may be to pull off. My last show was assembled in just shy of three months rehearsal. By comparison, most of the production credits did change hand about five weeks out. The show was about unstable mental states, which certainly accounted for a lot of the dramas that went down outside of production.
This show is about core needs, like sex, eating, and music. A party, by comparison.
22 July 2011
added spice.
I have heard time and again from people excited to see my upcoming play. The little bit they know is quick to whet their theatre-going appetites. I have even heard from folks who aren't regularly interested in plays throwing their own ideas into the fire, as they suppose what the show might be from the small amount of gristle I have given out. That said, the need to properly cast is amped up with this sort of buzz. Fortunately my intincts were true, and I am slowly assembling a third set of auditions, tentatively more of a specially scheduled event rather than a mass cattle call. Despite, the off-set antics of my first play, this one is the closest I have come to putting together an ensemble cast, so which element each actor brings to the stage will help determine the right combination for a tasty evening for all who see it.
21 July 2011
second (re)course.
if I only could be running up that hill- kate bush
with no problems...
My show can not move forward with any variation of the five people who came to audition. As the producer and director of this show, I should feel resolved with this understanding. Part of me worries that they are my only available casting options. They all bring their own bag of tricks. I will afford them that, however the two months I have until open won't allow me to teach the weakest among them to act, much less bring what's necessary to give this fine play its due.
As soon as I realized that my auditions would consist of one phone-in, one slummin'-it, and three pity parties, I resolved to personally contact specific actors from the Facebook event list who had indicated their likely or Facebook-definitive attendance. It is certainly an act of desperation, but being at the helm of such a fantastic show that the theatre is riding a thousand dollars and one month's rent on, to say little of my own need to deliver certain production quality, it is a harsh necessity. The personal, intimate touch has often been a trademark of my productions, so I hope my cold-call (if you will) e-mails aren't too off putting. But what other choice have I?
20 July 2011
feast. famine.
After the meager turn-out for the first night of auditions, desperate times called for adjacent measures. I decided to drop an e-mail to one of the directors of this past season. There were a lot of creative choices left unmade and leisure instead of focus in the on-stage results in their show, but I knew I could hone the skills of a couple of the actors in it - in a pinch.
I asked if they'd be amenable to getting the word out about my second night of auditions to their cast. I didn't say which cast, since desperation doesn't need to be without discretion. I am truly glad I did, since that director, and two of that show's cast made up seventy-five percent of my second night's gleaming hope.
The final quarter was held by an old friend of mine, who I have known for six years now and who I have directed before, but who really phoned in the audition. If I didn't know him, it would appear as if he didn't give an in-flight fuck about my show. My friendship with this guy is not exactly a casualty of the nuclear fall-out from the divorce, but it's taken injury and hasn't been the same since. His personality suggests diplomacy, but his attitude proves his favoring of my late-other-half.
One friend of mine, who is very supportive of this show, said to me: I don't envy you having to cast this show. I know they didn't mean: because practically no one is going to come out for it. I know this is a fantastic play, I feel intensely good about the direction I am going with it, and my previous shows hold a positive history amongst local theatre-knowers. I could go crazy if I continue to try and discern why the party was such a bust. So, I'll resist the opportunity.
I asked if they'd be amenable to getting the word out about my second night of auditions to their cast. I didn't say which cast, since desperation doesn't need to be without discretion. I am truly glad I did, since that director, and two of that show's cast made up seventy-five percent of my second night's gleaming hope.
The final quarter was held by an old friend of mine, who I have known for six years now and who I have directed before, but who really phoned in the audition. If I didn't know him, it would appear as if he didn't give an in-flight fuck about my show. My friendship with this guy is not exactly a casualty of the nuclear fall-out from the divorce, but it's taken injury and hasn't been the same since. His personality suggests diplomacy, but his attitude proves his favoring of my late-other-half.
One friend of mine, who is very supportive of this show, said to me: I don't envy you having to cast this show. I know they didn't mean: because practically no one is going to come out for it. I know this is a fantastic play, I feel intensely good about the direction I am going with it, and my previous shows hold a positive history amongst local theatre-knowers. I could go crazy if I continue to try and discern why the party was such a bust. So, I'll resist the opportunity.
19 July 2011
the gathering.
And we're not little children- talking heads, road to nowhere
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out
The fifteen month journey since the last time I stepped into my theatre as a creative entity and last night's audition session has been one fraught with life altering forward momentum and unexpected discovery. There is a beautiful correlation between the synthesis of the current fabric of my life at present and the organic manner in which I am approaching the new show's production.
I hadn't even read the play's script until after I had submitted it as my selection for the season. I scoured the web for plays, reading through or about hundreds of shows, honing my mind toward shows of specific cast size and offering certain key ingredients that I find key for nailing a show at this most intimate theatre space. Everything I was reading about the show, and the few pages I was able to see while I awaited my Amazon.com delivery held my interest, excited my instincts, and whet my creative appetites. The previous shows I directed had the security blanket of film versions. I never allowed my cast or myself to refer to them, but isn't it nice to have such an out?
This show allowed me a creative freefall, which is quite indicative of the distance I have come since putting together the last show, two years ago. All of the personal and professional growth that has transpired in that time leads me to undertake such weighty material. It's a very challenging show that finds the humorous gravity amidst deep held human viscera.
Since my last show, the theatre itself has been through a great transition in leadership and visually, as it heads toward the professional workplace I had always deemed it to be. My shows were often the anomaly for this reason, but now that the bar is moving in my direction, I am ready to step up my own game, if you will. It was truly invigorating to be back within its scarred, cobwebbed, whispering walls. Even more exciting was finally getting to share this second home with my girlfriend.
She and a few others were in attendance for the first night of auditions. There was a lot of lightness and humor in the air, and an excitement for plenty of things to come. I even had an unexpected visitor in a friend of mine who just dropped in to say hello, which is truly an unfortunate rarity these days.
Then like something out of 200 Cigarettes, the showing for actual auditioners was embodied by one unexpected soul, who is better known to commit blood, sweat, and tears to the other, far more funded, safe theatre. I have no idea what drove her to consider this show, but there we are: one audition down, one more to go. I can only hope that tonight proves more fruitful. It's an amazing show, whose backstage production value is coming together fluidly. I can only wish for some actors to embody this attractive skeletal structure we're assembling.
18 July 2011
hunt. peck.
The first of two nights of casting auditions is happening tonight. I am headed over to the theater in just a few hours, crossing my fingers that the swelling of buzz around the show causes a multitude of people to come out.
I tossed and turned a bit last night in anticipation of this first round of monologues, meetings, and meandering artist types. One of my favorite aspects of working in the arts is the recidivism of that first day of school anxiety. Every new show, every hurdle therein, every opening night, and every finale is rife with creatively charged nerves. There's little else like it.
Each of the plays I selected to direct have been desperately demanding on everyone involved. The first show had two nights of auditions and then a week and a half of waiting to finalize the cast, since I was holding out for my preferred pick who was busy deciding whether or not our theater shone the right color on her resume. That show's follow-up took three open auditions to cast, and it involved me taking an extra special gamble on a couple of weaker actors. With the work we put in, everyone was quite able to hold their own by show's open.
This new play again asks a ton of everyone involved, at every level. I suppose I have some semblance of a sadistic streak in me, at least when it comes to what I expect of others, and certainly an audience. But many know that I put just as many demands on myself, so I hardly get away scot-free. What's the point of waking up each day if you're making no effort to stretch yourself and strain the limitations of your disposition, your perspective, and your core being? As much as this show is an intensely twisted comedy that edges farther and farther, pushing the proverbial envelope more and more, at its core there is a relatable story of mortality and meaning.
I tossed and turned a bit last night in anticipation of this first round of monologues, meetings, and meandering artist types. One of my favorite aspects of working in the arts is the recidivism of that first day of school anxiety. Every new show, every hurdle therein, every opening night, and every finale is rife with creatively charged nerves. There's little else like it.
Each of the plays I selected to direct have been desperately demanding on everyone involved. The first show had two nights of auditions and then a week and a half of waiting to finalize the cast, since I was holding out for my preferred pick who was busy deciding whether or not our theater shone the right color on her resume. That show's follow-up took three open auditions to cast, and it involved me taking an extra special gamble on a couple of weaker actors. With the work we put in, everyone was quite able to hold their own by show's open.
This new play again asks a ton of everyone involved, at every level. I suppose I have some semblance of a sadistic streak in me, at least when it comes to what I expect of others, and certainly an audience. But many know that I put just as many demands on myself, so I hardly get away scot-free. What's the point of waking up each day if you're making no effort to stretch yourself and strain the limitations of your disposition, your perspective, and your core being? As much as this show is an intensely twisted comedy that edges farther and farther, pushing the proverbial envelope more and more, at its core there is a relatable story of mortality and meaning.
06 July 2011
21 June 2011
seasons change.
Today is June 21st. It is the official start of the summer season this year. The thermometer is expected to gauge at least 100 degrees. I expect this to be in the shade, given the all too frequent inaccuracy of meteorologists.
After exhausting my options I have decided on a stage manager for my show. This is possibly the most important position on a show, and the selection of one should not be taken lightly. For the past several weeks, I have been on the hunt for anyone to work on the show at all, which has in itself been an uphill battle.
The stage manager role takes an extra level of importance in my mind. Given the variety of duties and expectations demanded by a production, the stage manager needs to be someone with whom the director can trust. I am scheduled to meet with her today to grab some coffee and talk over some more specific details about the show. With the first fully committed member of the team on-board, I realize the show is now underway, inching toward opening night. Given the way I have found my life flowing with the currents of life as it passes, it doesn't surprise me in the least that production begins on the first day of summer and will cease when our show opens on the first day of autumn.
It has become customary for a number of the shows at my theater to film one or two performances to keep for prosperity's sake, as well as the cast and crew. Unfortunately one of the longest running jokes seems to be the unlikely event that the tapes would ever become DVD due to some creative flakiness of one or two folks who will go unmentioned. When I directed my first show there I vowed to break that cycle, however, against my better ability I have still been unable to find a way to get those DVDs knocked out by those with proper equipment. I am sure there's a curse over the process.
I have gotten close on my most recent show. I was scheduled to meet today with the production guy who was helping me out with one edit. Through details too boring to share I know that this will be an incomplete copy, but it's a version none the less. I figured we would add the missing footage and call it a day. It would appear that as I rev up the new show, there will be very little looking back, since I have just learned that his hard drive crashed YESTERDAY. It's what it is.
Harnessing live theater is like that. Those shaky VHS copies of silly school performances friend's parents used to film never really captured it. Live performance is special. It has its moment and then it's gone. It echoes life in that way. I look back (briefly - shut up Don Henley) on the productions I have been involved in over the years and each one drifts off in its own bubble, never duplicated, never really returned to.
Life is full of forward momentum. Glaring cliché or not, life that has passed has passed. I see it pass on Facebook as friends I once had show up in friends of friends pictures, or as I share the room or dine at opposite ends of a friend-filled table with people who once had significance in my life and now have none. There's no controlling it. There's no mastering it. There's only allowing yourself the chance to flow with the current, through the seasons as they progress, and hoping that each will improve on the past.
After exhausting my options I have decided on a stage manager for my show. This is possibly the most important position on a show, and the selection of one should not be taken lightly. For the past several weeks, I have been on the hunt for anyone to work on the show at all, which has in itself been an uphill battle.
The stage manager role takes an extra level of importance in my mind. Given the variety of duties and expectations demanded by a production, the stage manager needs to be someone with whom the director can trust. I am scheduled to meet with her today to grab some coffee and talk over some more specific details about the show. With the first fully committed member of the team on-board, I realize the show is now underway, inching toward opening night. Given the way I have found my life flowing with the currents of life as it passes, it doesn't surprise me in the least that production begins on the first day of summer and will cease when our show opens on the first day of autumn.
It has become customary for a number of the shows at my theater to film one or two performances to keep for prosperity's sake, as well as the cast and crew. Unfortunately one of the longest running jokes seems to be the unlikely event that the tapes would ever become DVD due to some creative flakiness of one or two folks who will go unmentioned. When I directed my first show there I vowed to break that cycle, however, against my better ability I have still been unable to find a way to get those DVDs knocked out by those with proper equipment. I am sure there's a curse over the process.
I have gotten close on my most recent show. I was scheduled to meet today with the production guy who was helping me out with one edit. Through details too boring to share I know that this will be an incomplete copy, but it's a version none the less. I figured we would add the missing footage and call it a day. It would appear that as I rev up the new show, there will be very little looking back, since I have just learned that his hard drive crashed YESTERDAY. It's what it is.
Harnessing live theater is like that. Those shaky VHS copies of silly school performances friend's parents used to film never really captured it. Live performance is special. It has its moment and then it's gone. It echoes life in that way. I look back (briefly - shut up Don Henley) on the productions I have been involved in over the years and each one drifts off in its own bubble, never duplicated, never really returned to.
Life is full of forward momentum. Glaring cliché or not, life that has passed has passed. I see it pass on Facebook as friends I once had show up in friends of friends pictures, or as I share the room or dine at opposite ends of a friend-filled table with people who once had significance in my life and now have none. There's no controlling it. There's no mastering it. There's only allowing yourself the chance to flow with the current, through the seasons as they progress, and hoping that each will improve on the past.
12 June 2011
miracle marketing
Recently I decided to undertake another play at the theater I have been involved with for the past five years. I had briefly considered submitting a show to direct last season, but I thought better of it given all of the myriad transitional crap that was going on in my life. In many ways a production becomes a short-lived marriage. To pull it off properly you briefly assemble a creative family with whom you live and breathe the piece, and the presentation - whether play, film, or exhibit - becomes an intensely vulnerable housewarming.
Putting together the creative team on my first show was comparatively easy to how my last one ultimately came together. Much like the life that surrounded it, the production was fraught with challenge and precarious dramas.
For all intents and purposes I had to fire two of my friends who were in notable positions but never lifted a finger. My original stage manager broke up with my lead actor and promptly quit the show, leaving us without a co-captain. The assistant stage manager left due to distress and unsettled personal matters between herself and the actor whose baby she was carrying. My lighting designer completely dropped the ball during the last few weeks of production, leaving a scramble to find a replacement that ultimately may have done a better job. For a show with so much demand for it, our effects make-up artist was indeed a late find. To say little of certain key props and set pieces which were still being mimed until the last week of rehearsal.
Yet the show came together for the audience with such overwhelming aplomb that we received unsolicited reviews as far out as Jacksonville and were told it was the best show done in Gainesville in a long time. It was intensely demanding on cast, crew, and in many cases the audience.
So here I am again - back at the bottom of the hill. Anything worth doing has its share of challenge. With the current climate that has followed such a drastic change of social orbit and the ensuing circumstantial dissolution of many a friendship, I have found myself with the thankless task of attempting to cull together a team for my new show from fragments of the ones that came before and plenty of individuals I barely know and ones who I am hoping will emerge from the woodwork.
The process is slow going, but steady. The auditions are in one month. The show opens in fourteen weeks.
Putting together the creative team on my first show was comparatively easy to how my last one ultimately came together. Much like the life that surrounded it, the production was fraught with challenge and precarious dramas.
For all intents and purposes I had to fire two of my friends who were in notable positions but never lifted a finger. My original stage manager broke up with my lead actor and promptly quit the show, leaving us without a co-captain. The assistant stage manager left due to distress and unsettled personal matters between herself and the actor whose baby she was carrying. My lighting designer completely dropped the ball during the last few weeks of production, leaving a scramble to find a replacement that ultimately may have done a better job. For a show with so much demand for it, our effects make-up artist was indeed a late find. To say little of certain key props and set pieces which were still being mimed until the last week of rehearsal.
Yet the show came together for the audience with such overwhelming aplomb that we received unsolicited reviews as far out as Jacksonville and were told it was the best show done in Gainesville in a long time. It was intensely demanding on cast, crew, and in many cases the audience.
So here I am again - back at the bottom of the hill. Anything worth doing has its share of challenge. With the current climate that has followed such a drastic change of social orbit and the ensuing circumstantial dissolution of many a friendship, I have found myself with the thankless task of attempting to cull together a team for my new show from fragments of the ones that came before and plenty of individuals I barely know and ones who I am hoping will emerge from the woodwork.
The process is slow going, but steady. The auditions are in one month. The show opens in fourteen weeks.
invisible man.
Twenty days have passed since my last post. This is an especially long time, given the frequency of my writing over the past six months. It has been an exhaustive stretch of time, over the course of which I have been doing my damnedest to keep ahead of the proverbial eight ball.
The demands of working at a corporate business that is open seven days a week and continues to add obtuse requirements to every customer interaction and is quick to put jobs on the line can put its strain upon anyone's shoulders. Add in the desperately under-staffed aspect that has become the condition of the last five weeks at my location and it's no wonder one day is hard to distinguish from the next.
Toss in zero recognition for all of the ways I have helped to keep things together during this Lord of the Flies period while our figurehead and accidental pseudo-manager (think President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica) has stumbled through operational bits and bauble with his usual blinders on. I have seen the numbers. I know that I have been doing far more than my share of the work with no notice.
It's enough to wear a guy down.
The demands of working at a corporate business that is open seven days a week and continues to add obtuse requirements to every customer interaction and is quick to put jobs on the line can put its strain upon anyone's shoulders. Add in the desperately under-staffed aspect that has become the condition of the last five weeks at my location and it's no wonder one day is hard to distinguish from the next.
Toss in zero recognition for all of the ways I have helped to keep things together during this Lord of the Flies period while our figurehead and accidental pseudo-manager (think President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica) has stumbled through operational bits and bauble with his usual blinders on. I have seen the numbers. I know that I have been doing far more than my share of the work with no notice.
It's enough to wear a guy down.
23 May 2011
me time.
There's a scene in the second season of the TV show Dexter, wherein Dexter's detective sister sits anxiously and uncomfortably while Keith Carradine's superior officer character slowly pieces together his lunch from his brown bag. He sits there on the edge of the dock, feet dangling in the cool water while she grows more and more impatient to continue working. He tells her that work will always be there. It's time to eat.
Life can get to us - the demands others apply to us, the ones we put upon ourselves and on and on. With so few days off of late, I have grown to cherish more and more the time I spend alone before I open up the store. I plug in the iPod, steadily getting things set for the day by the dim overnight lights, watching the occasional anxious customer rattling the front door and suspiciously scan the store hours for discrepancy.
I ease into the day. It makes me feel a bit more in control of how it goes. We all need that power over our situation. When it occurs, I try to have my lunch half-hour - disappointingly rushed timeframe as it is - flow in similar fashion. I sit in the car, windows open under the shade of the trees, watching the traffic flow past north to south and south to north along Main Street, watching the brief montage of the world moving along. I enjoy the disconnection from all of the phone ringing, all of the voices, all of the conflicting TVs, radios, and the Sirius Radio sounds. The single drive to do little more than sit, ponder, and doze is crucial to my daily sanity.
What's part of yours?
Life can get to us - the demands others apply to us, the ones we put upon ourselves and on and on. With so few days off of late, I have grown to cherish more and more the time I spend alone before I open up the store. I plug in the iPod, steadily getting things set for the day by the dim overnight lights, watching the occasional anxious customer rattling the front door and suspiciously scan the store hours for discrepancy.
I ease into the day. It makes me feel a bit more in control of how it goes. We all need that power over our situation. When it occurs, I try to have my lunch half-hour - disappointingly rushed timeframe as it is - flow in similar fashion. I sit in the car, windows open under the shade of the trees, watching the traffic flow past north to south and south to north along Main Street, watching the brief montage of the world moving along. I enjoy the disconnection from all of the phone ringing, all of the voices, all of the conflicting TVs, radios, and the Sirius Radio sounds. The single drive to do little more than sit, ponder, and doze is crucial to my daily sanity.
What's part of yours?
22 May 2011
charmed third.
Fortunately I have found another project to focus my waning energy and attention. My other recent endeavors have been limited to two cameraman gigs over the past year. They were both differently exciting projects, but they merely whet the artistic appetite. I have also nearly doubled my blog activity from during the preceding four years in that time, focusing on writing more and certainly working out my photographic muscles with the digital posts seen here, those left unpublished, and innumerable exciting new-style Polaroid snatches.
Two weeks ago I submitted a show for the upcoming season at a local theater - one of only three not associated with the college (unless the cafeteria-like setting of at least one of the regional towns counts). If we subtract the paid professional theater and remove the one that services the geriatric demands of the predictable, albeit well-funded community theater then do the math, this is the only place for someone like me.
But there's still a submission process and even there I have had to do a hard sell. I have batted there two for two critically and according to audience response, but only after fighting to get my shows on the stage. My first two were plays that became movies I saw and adored for one reason or another. The first show became hexed by art reflecting life and its counterpoint and the second almost nearly imploded as the burden of life committed itself to my production like an angry cancer.
My new show was selected by me sight unseen - hence, a new approach. I knew I wanted to avoid the film from play aspect. There is an intense strain and stress of selecting a show to marry. You don't know it 'til you've been there. I feel I know my strengths and weaknesses very well, and I found a means to bring that to making my choice.
The show is my first comedy. Yes, dark. In fact, it's pitch black comedy with tongue firmly in cheek, dripping with satiric blood. And there are plenty of screwball moments available therein. I have always been drawn to dark material. I am sure it says something about my soul. And I am comfortable with that. My first show was called an emotional horror show by one playgoer, the second is accurately defined as a psychological horror show, and this one is a bit like a Food Network show as hosted by a Stepford wife.
Two weeks ago I submitted a show for the upcoming season at a local theater - one of only three not associated with the college (unless the cafeteria-like setting of at least one of the regional towns counts). If we subtract the paid professional theater and remove the one that services the geriatric demands of the predictable, albeit well-funded community theater then do the math, this is the only place for someone like me.
But there's still a submission process and even there I have had to do a hard sell. I have batted there two for two critically and according to audience response, but only after fighting to get my shows on the stage. My first two were plays that became movies I saw and adored for one reason or another. The first show became hexed by art reflecting life and its counterpoint and the second almost nearly imploded as the burden of life committed itself to my production like an angry cancer.
My new show was selected by me sight unseen - hence, a new approach. I knew I wanted to avoid the film from play aspect. There is an intense strain and stress of selecting a show to marry. You don't know it 'til you've been there. I feel I know my strengths and weaknesses very well, and I found a means to bring that to making my choice.
The show is my first comedy. Yes, dark. In fact, it's pitch black comedy with tongue firmly in cheek, dripping with satiric blood. And there are plenty of screwball moments available therein. I have always been drawn to dark material. I am sure it says something about my soul. And I am comfortable with that. My first show was called an emotional horror show by one playgoer, the second is accurately defined as a psychological horror show, and this one is a bit like a Food Network show as hosted by a Stepford wife.
training wheels.
I work for Radio $hack.
When my acquaintance-friend first recommended I apply my knee-jerk reaction was wow, are they still in business? It took plenty of willpower and trust in myself that I would be able to harness my innate ability to find diamonds where only shit and zirconium exist.
Even a cursory search through Yelp or other citizen review pages shows the conceit that company's reputation is miserable at best. The job itself is constantly in the war zone. For some, we are hated on par with car salesmen and telemarketers. The huge turnover rate is well known and the store I work is no exception. I have seen the passage of three of the original employees who pre-dated me, five others in the meanwhile, and we're awaiting the introduction of our third store manager. A desperate hunt is underway after the complete burn-out of one and the legally questionable activities of another.
We are the skeleton crew with a figurehead of a quickly promoted co-worker who has my tenure beat by only four or five months. I have plenty reason to believe I might do a better job. All of my recent work horoscopes I get from my horoscope e-mail newsletter of choice have suggested I resurrect the ol' resume and keep in mind the bigger picture implications of my present situation . . . .
When my acquaintance-friend first recommended I apply my knee-jerk reaction was wow, are they still in business? It took plenty of willpower and trust in myself that I would be able to harness my innate ability to find diamonds where only shit and zirconium exist.
Even a cursory search through Yelp or other citizen review pages shows the conceit that company's reputation is miserable at best. The job itself is constantly in the war zone. For some, we are hated on par with car salesmen and telemarketers. The huge turnover rate is well known and the store I work is no exception. I have seen the passage of three of the original employees who pre-dated me, five others in the meanwhile, and we're awaiting the introduction of our third store manager. A desperate hunt is underway after the complete burn-out of one and the legally questionable activities of another.
We are the skeleton crew with a figurehead of a quickly promoted co-worker who has my tenure beat by only four or five months. I have plenty reason to believe I might do a better job. All of my recent work horoscopes I get from my horoscope e-mail newsletter of choice have suggested I resurrect the ol' resume and keep in mind the bigger picture implications of my present situation . . . .
21 May 2011
mix tape.
My 30 Post Song Challenge is complete. Much like my previous 30 I have a list of unpublished topics that tipped the scales beyond thirty. I will revisit these later, but for now I'll call it complete. Each of my posts contained one or more songs and each was titled after one, so it seems reasonable to a person like me to put it all together:
Santify Yourself - Simple Minds (1985)
Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung (1984)
Hands Clean - Alanis Morissette (2002)
Entre Nous - Rush (1980)
Hallelujah Chorus - Mormon Tabernacle Choir (trad.)
Lover's Spit - Broken Social Scene (2004)
The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen (1984)
Warm Sound - Zero 7 (2004)
La Golondrina - Plácido Domingo
Laugh, Laugh - The Beau Brummels (1965)
Creepin' Midnight - Sea Train (1970)
Last Child - Aerosmith (1976)
Speedfreak Lullaby - Kelly Hogan (2001)
Original Sin - INXS (1984)
Don't Panic - Coldplay (2000)
The Changeling - The Doors (1971)
Half Moon - Janis Joplin & the Full Tilt Boogie (1970)
Happy Together - The Turtles (1967)
Angry Johnny - Poe (1995)
Third Prelude - Oscar Levant (1945)
Kid Fears - Indigo Girls feat. Michael Stipe (1989)
Double Vision - Foreigner (1978)
The Name Game - Shirley Ellis (1965)
New Favorite - Alison Krauss + Union Station (2001)
Sad Clown - Sarah McLachlan (1989)
In Between Days - The Cure (1985)
#1 Crush - Garbage (1996)
Counting Backwards - Throwing Muses (1991)
Awkward Age - Joe Jackson (2003)
Santify Yourself - Simple Minds (1985)
Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung (1984)
Dance This Mess Around - The B-52s (1979)
Hands Clean - Alanis Morissette (2002)
You've Made Me So Very Happy - Blood, Sweat, & Tears (1969)
Right Down the Line - Gerry Rafferty (1977)
Punk Rock Girl - Dead Milkmen (1988)
Closer - Nine Inch Nails (1994)
We Didn't Start the Fire - Billy Joel (1989)
Grease Medley - John Travola, Olivia Newton-John, & Cast (1978)
Entre Nous - Rush (1980)
Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2009)
Me & U - Cassie feat. (2006)
Cosmic Love - Florence & the Machine (2009)
Hallelujah Chorus - Mormon Tabernacle Choir (trad.)
Pump it Up - Elvis Costello (1978)
Lover's Spit - Broken Social Scene (2004)
Drink You Pretty - Placebo (2003)
Down by the Water - PJ Harvey (1995)
The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen (1984)
Red Right Hand - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (1994)
Warm Sound - Zero 7 (2004)
September - Earth, Wind, & Fire (1978)
La Golondrina - Plácido Domingo
Purple Rain - Prince & the Revolution (1984)
Goodbye Horses - Q. Lazzarus (1988)
Over the Hills and Far Away - Led Zeppelin (1973)
Laugh, Laugh - The Beau Brummels (1965)
Country Death Song - Violent Femmes (1984)
Know Your Chicken - Cibo Matto (1996)
Creepin' Midnight - Sea Train (1970)
'97 Bonnie & Clyde - Tori Amos (2001)
Clean - Sneaker Pimps (1996)
Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us - Robert Plant/Alison Krauss (2007)
Last Child - Aerosmith (1976)
Everything She Wants - Wham! (1984)
Speedfreak Lullaby - Kelly Hogan (2001)
No Excuses - Alice in Chains (1993)
Original Sin - INXS (1984)
Bloodletting (Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde (1990)
Don't Panic - Coldplay (2000)
Bury My Lovely - October Project (1993)
The Changeling - The Doors (1971)
Hotel California - The Eagles (1976)
Half Moon - Janis Joplin & the Full Tilt Boogie (1970)
Happy Together - The Turtles (1967)
Don't Change - INXS (1982)
Angry Johnny - Poe (1995)
Third Prelude - Oscar Levant (1945)
Play Me - Neil Diamond (1972)
Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty (1977)
Angels We Have Heard on High - Sixpence None the Richer (2008)
Indiana Jones Theme (Raiders) - John Williams (1981)
Chopsticks - Traditional
Sweetest Perfection - Depeche Mode (1990)
King of Pain - The Police (1983)
Kid Fears - Indigo Girls feat. Michael Stipe (1989)
In Too Deep - Genesis (1986)
Double Vision - Foreigner (1978)
Shoe Box - Barenaked Ladies (1996)
The Highwayman (live) - Loreena McKennitt (1999)
Kool Thing - Sonic Youth (1990)
Dance Anthem of the 80s - Regina Specktor (2009)
The Name Game - Shirley Ellis (1965)
Jòga - Björk (1997)
Carnival - Natalie Merchant (1995)
Bravado - Rush (1991)
Sinequanon - Hybrid feat. Soon E MC (1999)
New Favorite - Alison Krauss + Union Station (2001)
Sad Clown - Sarah McLachlan (1989)
Break Your Heart - Natalie Merchant feat. N'Dea Davenport (1998)
And So it Goes - Billy Joel (1989)
Eyes without a Face - Billy Idol (1983)
My Immortal - Evanescence (2003)
Holding Back the Years - Simply Red (1985)
When it Don't Come Easy - Patty Griffin (2004)
Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday (1941)
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday - Boyz II Men (1991)
A White Shade of Pale - Procol Harum (1967)
Lost Cause - Beck (2002)
If I Were Smart - Shelby Lynne (2003)
Landslide - Fleetwood Mac (1975)
All the Wild Horses - Ray LaMontagne (2004)
Why? - Annie Lennox (1992)
In Between Days - The Cure (1985)
Thunderstruck - AC/DC (1990)
#1 Crush - Garbage (1996)
American Girl - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (1976)
Counting Backwards - Throwing Muses (1991)
Awkward Age - Joe Jackson (2003)
More Than This - Roxy Music (1982)
Oh, Well (Live) - Fleetwood Mac (1980)
Sanctified - Nine Inch Nails (1989)
awkward age
a song that describes you as a teenager
In this culture, the teenage experience seems so prevalent. Examples of this seem entirely unnecessary. Are we to assume it's the only universal? They like to say high school is the best time of your life. It wasn't. Even when I was waist deep within it, I knew it was a trap and a means to maintain horny kids in pens and give them excessive restrictions and barriers whilst feeding them full of false hope. The summer between my tenth and eleventh grade I was several months into my first job. Even though it was flipping burgers, dropping fries, and deflecting sexual harassment from my boss, I felt this huge charge inside me that proved that school had nothing on reality, on working for a living. Somehow I stayed in school, keeping up my grades in courses I gave a fuck about. But I knew there was more going on outside that eight foot chain link fence that lined the high school property.
It was a time of trying hard to express myself honestly and rarely if ever being heard doing it, as if the language I was utilizing was not only foreign but equally not worth the time of those in my vicinity. If I could talk to then me now I would reassure him that this was something to be embraced and not fought against. I questioned and propositioned alternate points of view than I was being fed and was building the genesis of intellectual, personal, and spiritual independence. Logic and rationale were often at odds. I ended up at church through coercion and after much objection, finding there lasting lessons that were far from the ones that were taught, like rich kids do a lot of drugs, church-going teens are total hypocrites, and Pretty Hate Machine sounds really good headed north on I-95 in a fogged up church van.
In this culture, the teenage experience seems so prevalent. Examples of this seem entirely unnecessary. Are we to assume it's the only universal? They like to say high school is the best time of your life. It wasn't. Even when I was waist deep within it, I knew it was a trap and a means to maintain horny kids in pens and give them excessive restrictions and barriers whilst feeding them full of false hope. The summer between my tenth and eleventh grade I was several months into my first job. Even though it was flipping burgers, dropping fries, and deflecting sexual harassment from my boss, I felt this huge charge inside me that proved that school had nothing on reality, on working for a living. Somehow I stayed in school, keeping up my grades in courses I gave a fuck about. But I knew there was more going on outside that eight foot chain link fence that lined the high school property.
It was a time of trying hard to express myself honestly and rarely if ever being heard doing it, as if the language I was utilizing was not only foreign but equally not worth the time of those in my vicinity. If I could talk to then me now I would reassure him that this was something to be embraced and not fought against. I questioned and propositioned alternate points of view than I was being fed and was building the genesis of intellectual, personal, and spiritual independence. Logic and rationale were often at odds. I ended up at church through coercion and after much objection, finding there lasting lessons that were far from the ones that were taught, like rich kids do a lot of drugs, church-going teens are total hypocrites, and Pretty Hate Machine sounds really good headed north on I-95 in a fogged up church van.
14 May 2011
counting backwards
a song that you used to love but now hate
You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home...
Tom Hanks (as Jim Lovell) in Apollo 13
I used to frequent a website called ruinedmusic.com, which was a reader submitted blog spotlighting those tunes that have been in some way marred by life and experience.
Music surrounds us. It envelopes us. It wafts through the window and penetrates our eardrums, and strokes our ear canals. It expresses and over-expresses things to us, and it alters our mood. And we can quickly own it. When we hear something that amazes and excites, much like a lost virginity of sorts, we put a mental post-it on everything about that situation, or the surrounding incidents. In some cases, an unraveling of said situation can forever alter future experience with that music.
Advertisers try to force their hand at this phenomenon, selling us Revolution in a bottle or The Turtles in a bowl of cereal. Movies do this with better results. It becomes the unfair idea of, I can barely hear x-y-z without thinking of a-b-c.
Break-ups are always the big ones with this concept. After my last one, I found myself again. Returned. I discovered myself while peeling back so many years of a different guise. Many of my choices, tastes, and self was pro-rated from fifteen years earlier, as if my life had diverted so far off-track. Who I was and who I really was had gotten muddled. My iPod makes a ton of sense to me, but a percentage of my iTunes started to not.
This isn't all bad. I'm not being a total downer about all of those years, but I do know that certain tunes, artists, and even genres have become un-listenable. Time and experience change all. I don't even think it's productive to post examples, because I suspect everyone who reads this knows that sensation. For me, it could be entire playlists, or anything that created a co-ownership, or in some cases a complete co-opt, and now it represents a person called not-me.
12 May 2011
#1 crush
a song that reminds you of your first crush
I got into the whole opposite sex interest at a very early age. Pre-school and kindergarten were a veritable girl haven for me. Modesty aside, I considered nearly every female my girlfriend except for that bitch whose name I couldn't pronounce. Generally I wasn't as confounded by girls as most of my compatriots were. I was faux-married by first grade, into older third grade girls soon afterward, and crushing on camp counselor cum swim instructor Melissa by the summer between third and fourth grade. But that said, I can't for the life of me remember my first crush. I remember the early grade school girlfriends, flames, and random hookups through the years, but my memory hits the spin cycle very fast after that. That doesn't mean I don't know what it feels like to me. I would say Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' American Girl is tangled up in melodrama, sun drenched spirit, and misunderstanding that feels exactly like young love to me. The song is the stuff of urban legend, Silence of the Lambs, and a revelation toward youthful romantic longing.
I got into the whole opposite sex interest at a very early age. Pre-school and kindergarten were a veritable girl haven for me. Modesty aside, I considered nearly every female my girlfriend except for that bitch whose name I couldn't pronounce. Generally I wasn't as confounded by girls as most of my compatriots were. I was faux-married by first grade, into older third grade girls soon afterward, and crushing on camp counselor cum swim instructor Melissa by the summer between third and fourth grade. But that said, I can't for the life of me remember my first crush. I remember the early grade school girlfriends, flames, and random hookups through the years, but my memory hits the spin cycle very fast after that. That doesn't mean I don't know what it feels like to me. I would say Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' American Girl is tangled up in melodrama, sun drenched spirit, and misunderstanding that feels exactly like young love to me. The song is the stuff of urban legend, Silence of the Lambs, and a revelation toward youthful romantic longing.
inbetween days.
a song that reminds you of middle school
Middle school. Purgatory. The above picture is emblematic of that period in my life and the still life it contains offers a metaphor for my psychological state at the time. All told we hold on to so many items, trinkets, and whatnot to remind ourselves of days gone by when very little will do the trick. AC/DC's Thunderstruck has the sound of rumbling revolution and brimming, under-pronounced sexuality drenched in sweat that couldn't help but speak to the thirteen-year-old version of me.
Middle school. Purgatory. The above picture is emblematic of that period in my life and the still life it contains offers a metaphor for my psychological state at the time. All told we hold on to so many items, trinkets, and whatnot to remind ourselves of days gone by when very little will do the trick. AC/DC's Thunderstruck has the sound of rumbling revolution and brimming, under-pronounced sexuality drenched in sweat that couldn't help but speak to the thirteen-year-old version of me.
03 May 2011
sad clown
a song that you listen to when you’re sad
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.”
Teenagers are typically moody. The transition from youthful innocence and ignorant bliss quickly became full realization that I was caught in the stranglehold of my uncomfortable body and the prison of my household. I wanted escape from 85% of my circumstances, but had zero ability to get beyond the vicinity of my environs much like a tightly chained dog might feel in the backyard as it watches other neighbor dogs exploring and enjoying themselves. From situations like this, one can build up an astounding patience with a reserve for later.
Zip ahead ten years. Real world events create a ripple effect that incites a bi-polar response. The immediate fear, sadness, and rage of September 11th 2001 likewise inspired patriotic union both false and genuine like I had never witnessed before. The prospect of the whole matter was much too hard to harness and everything felt completely out of control. It's that teenager response infinitely magnified.
Though the circumstances are world's apart, each one of us comes uniquely equipped or ill-equipped for each and every step in our lives, entirely contingent upon what has come before and in many ways based on our response at each pot-hole and each proverbial earthquake. Hope reminds us that the negative situations we become enveloped within are not permanent. Positive thinking at its best fills that empty glass for us, whether or not we choose to drink from it.
Bak skyene er himmelen alltid blå.
-Norwegian Proverb, meaning:
Behind the clouds the sky is always blue.
Sadness comes in a variety of packages.
These days I sing too much, laugh too hard, and live and love too intensely to allow myself to get bogged down with much sadness. So, instead of focusing on music I listen to when I am sad, I feel it would be more appropriate to suggest some tunes that I think get it right.
Break Your Heart
And So it Goes
Eyes Without a Face
My Immortal
Holding Back the Years
When it Don't Come Easy
Gloomy Sunday
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Lost Cause
If I Were Smart
Landslide
All the Wild Horses
Why?
.
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.”
–Carl Jung
Teenagers are typically moody. The transition from youthful innocence and ignorant bliss quickly became full realization that I was caught in the stranglehold of my uncomfortable body and the prison of my household. I wanted escape from 85% of my circumstances, but had zero ability to get beyond the vicinity of my environs much like a tightly chained dog might feel in the backyard as it watches other neighbor dogs exploring and enjoying themselves. From situations like this, one can build up an astounding patience with a reserve for later.
Zip ahead ten years. Real world events create a ripple effect that incites a bi-polar response. The immediate fear, sadness, and rage of September 11th 2001 likewise inspired patriotic union both false and genuine like I had never witnessed before. The prospect of the whole matter was much too hard to harness and everything felt completely out of control. It's that teenager response infinitely magnified.
Though the circumstances are world's apart, each one of us comes uniquely equipped or ill-equipped for each and every step in our lives, entirely contingent upon what has come before and in many ways based on our response at each pot-hole and each proverbial earthquake. Hope reminds us that the negative situations we become enveloped within are not permanent. Positive thinking at its best fills that empty glass for us, whether or not we choose to drink from it.
Bak skyene er himmelen alltid blå.
-Norwegian Proverb, meaning:
Behind the clouds the sky is always blue.
Sadness comes in a variety of packages.
These days I sing too much, laugh too hard, and live and love too intensely to allow myself to get bogged down with much sadness. So, instead of focusing on music I listen to when I am sad, I feel it would be more appropriate to suggest some tunes that I think get it right.
Break Your Heart
And So it Goes
Eyes Without a Face
My Immortal
Holding Back the Years
When it Don't Come Easy
Gloomy Sunday
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Lost Cause
If I Were Smart
Landslide
All the Wild Horses
Why?
.
02 May 2011
new favorite.
a song from your favorite album
What music lover in their right mind would have a favorite album?
I don't have a favorite song. I don't have a favorite band. I don't even have a favorite style of music. So, why would I have a favorite album? I out and out refuse!
It is completely impossible to select. And even harder to stay committed to the answer. This doesn't mean I haven't been taking a musical tour through my head, through my iTunes, with quite the trip down musical memory highways and byways. The trouble arises when all you find yourself left with are musical beginnings, the influences, those records that you couldn't help but discover when you did. They are the albums that had impact on your life because of when you and they crossed paths.
(1.) I can't help that I discovered the brilliance of Led Zeppelin with their multi-named and often generically referred to fourth record. Every single tune is a classic, but it's not their best album and it's not my favorite of theirs either. It's probably their most influential and their most reviled, but it's got nothing on Physical Graffiti.
(2.) There have been times that I could listen to Pink Floyd The Wall front to back until I was ready to flip it back over and start again like a musical möbius strip, listening to all of the textures of composition, unsettling audio samples, and orchestral pretentiousness, and others when I could hear nothing more than ninety minutes of depression that reminded me of an Alan Parker film I once saw.
(3.) Sometimes my ears are craving the lyricism and looseness of guest musician laden Graceland, Paul Simon's 1986 ode to his time in Africa with what presumably had a layover in New Orleans. It won oodles of Grammy's and is a crowning achievement, but sometimes I want to dig deeper into the library than what somebody's tone deaf Aunt is spinning.
(4.) Eddie Vedder and his brethren showed up just in time for my libido and angst to hit full boil in 1991, when they put the semi-ironically titled eleven song album Ten in my sophomoric hands. As time passes and Cobain worship goes through predictable waves, I continue to maintain that Pearl Jam were a far superior band and this album is musically more interesting and mature than anything Nirvana put out.
(5.) Despite the radio raping and eighties nighting of several of its prominent singles, I love every single beat, phrase, silence, and lyric on Depeche Mode's Violator, but it might not be the best thing in my music library. Or is it?
For someone who decreed themselves a purist for so long, and actually spent a number of years avoiding the early use of burned CDs for wish of their store bought companions filled with artwork, lyrics, and sometimes liner notes, I have become Mr. Random, digesting the first two or three seconds of hundreds of songs a day through iTune and iPod usage.
I consider a lot of music in the favorite category. I hear a song that overpowers me with its beauty or with its spot-on emotional outburst and I immediately need to own it on my top 5, top 10, top 25, top any random number just to harness it a little bit more than my ears can attempt. Sometimes I feel like Cusack's character in High Fidelity, but that's really it. I could go on and on, writing and re-writing this blog without ever reaching anything the least bit conclusive. Music fuels my passion for living, and finding the specifics for why a love exists can only kill it slow and hard.
What music lover in their right mind would have a favorite album?
I don't have a favorite song. I don't have a favorite band. I don't even have a favorite style of music. So, why would I have a favorite album? I out and out refuse!
It is completely impossible to select. And even harder to stay committed to the answer. This doesn't mean I haven't been taking a musical tour through my head, through my iTunes, with quite the trip down musical memory highways and byways. The trouble arises when all you find yourself left with are musical beginnings, the influences, those records that you couldn't help but discover when you did. They are the albums that had impact on your life because of when you and they crossed paths.
(1.) I can't help that I discovered the brilliance of Led Zeppelin with their multi-named and often generically referred to fourth record. Every single tune is a classic, but it's not their best album and it's not my favorite of theirs either. It's probably their most influential and their most reviled, but it's got nothing on Physical Graffiti.
(2.) There have been times that I could listen to Pink Floyd The Wall front to back until I was ready to flip it back over and start again like a musical möbius strip, listening to all of the textures of composition, unsettling audio samples, and orchestral pretentiousness, and others when I could hear nothing more than ninety minutes of depression that reminded me of an Alan Parker film I once saw.
(3.) Sometimes my ears are craving the lyricism and looseness of guest musician laden Graceland, Paul Simon's 1986 ode to his time in Africa with what presumably had a layover in New Orleans. It won oodles of Grammy's and is a crowning achievement, but sometimes I want to dig deeper into the library than what somebody's tone deaf Aunt is spinning.
(4.) Eddie Vedder and his brethren showed up just in time for my libido and angst to hit full boil in 1991, when they put the semi-ironically titled eleven song album Ten in my sophomoric hands. As time passes and Cobain worship goes through predictable waves, I continue to maintain that Pearl Jam were a far superior band and this album is musically more interesting and mature than anything Nirvana put out.
(5.) Despite the radio raping and eighties nighting of several of its prominent singles, I love every single beat, phrase, silence, and lyric on Depeche Mode's Violator, but it might not be the best thing in my music library. Or is it?
For someone who decreed themselves a purist for so long, and actually spent a number of years avoiding the early use of burned CDs for wish of their store bought companions filled with artwork, lyrics, and sometimes liner notes, I have become Mr. Random, digesting the first two or three seconds of hundreds of songs a day through iTune and iPod usage.
I consider a lot of music in the favorite category. I hear a song that overpowers me with its beauty or with its spot-on emotional outburst and I immediately need to own it on my top 5, top 10, top 25, top any random number just to harness it a little bit more than my ears can attempt. Sometimes I feel like Cusack's character in High Fidelity, but that's really it. I could go on and on, writing and re-writing this blog without ever reaching anything the least bit conclusive. Music fuels my passion for living, and finding the specifics for why a love exists can only kill it slow and hard.
name game
a song whose title is a name you would want to have
I like my name. I enjoy having it.
My first instinct would be to say I like it and I have never wanted to change it, but I suppose that is only partially accurate. As a child I used to loathe my last name because the French spelling always seemed like a misspelling, something to point your nose at, or even just a frustrating Spelling Bee played with strangers. My comfort with my middle name was an even worse childhood embarrassment offense, as it seemed each substitute teacher seemed destined to become perplexed by my three first names and offer them all at once, revealing that middle mistake. I ultimately decided to buy back that affront toward my childhood by first professional and now personal use of my middle initial, because I find it balances out things nicely.
Nicknames have never stuck to me. Only two or three people have ever really attempted to drop them on me. One by an old friend from the fourth grade who grew up with me through all sorts of awkward years and would give me the inside joke of a name in the tenth grade after, you guessed it, a substitute teacher thought my name was Jamaal. Another few short-lived nicknames arose during my early years of college while I was sowing the oats in downtown Orlando and throughout UCF. These were names that implied that I was rather misunderstood, but nonetheless suggestive of something special, and were given by people whose faces are vague memories and whose names are unlikely to be recalled today.
I suppose on-line handles such as the one I have here that was inspired by a B-52s song or the film noir homage one that I once wore all across IMDB.com are the closest things to nicknames I have been able to muster in my first thirty-some-odd years. Now maybe someone will say something in passing. Recently a few have tried to ease up some of the duplicate name energy at my workplace, but with very little luck.
I think people, including myself, have really come to realize that my name just fits.
Sage advice teaches us to never go back and to look back only in guidance. I say, for the most part, why would we ever want to? I know enough movie paradox twists to recognize when the outcome is always poor if not outright cataclysmic. I can't think of a more fitting name than the one I have. This is maybe one of the best things I gained from my parents. I sometimes feel hard-pressed to find other things I have gladly inherited from them. I wouldn't say guidance was always their strong suit. I could say I got a name that makes me proud and a hundred examples of how I don't want to live my life - sad as that sounds.
But half of the fun with this exercise is to link to some fine tunes, so let's not disappoint. I wish I were called:
Jòga Carnival Bravado Sinequanon
--
jòga
In my estimation the nerve slicing, intensely dramatic and consequently romantic second track on 1997's Homogenic stands out as Björk's most powerful and most organic song. Only a special sort of musical work evokes emotions and a visceral response by the mere thought of it. For me, this is one example. The song has a hell of a lot of meaning for me, and as an innocent bystander to its sheer measure of beauty, it has seeped into my depths and knocks me over with an emotional sucker punch.
CARNIVAL
I was given a 35mm camera as a high school graduation gift. It was the most apropos present I had received up to that point. Everything about my direction in life and where I found myself fitting was wrapped up in the concept of art, composition, and observation. I loved that camera! It became a bit of a companion. Unfortunately these were the days that pre-dated digital cameras by many years, which not only interfered with the finances a lot more, but I find that people were far less receptive to being on camera than they are nowadays.
That summer estranged 10,000 Maniacs lead singer and songstress Natalie Merchant released her debut solo record, whose release kicked off with the meandering single Carnival. The perhaps overly literal, but visually striking video is shot in black and white and follows Natalie through the side streets of New York City, professional grade camera in hand, taking gorgeous shots of the oddities and regulars found in the everyday. This song and its corresponding video express so much romanticism for New York and for life in general, and both genuinely speak to me.
BRAVADO
n. defiant or swaggering behavior
a pretense of courage; a false show of bravery.
Overtime very few have understood my connection to the oft-maligned Rush. According to their terrific 2010 documentary, Beyond the Lighted Stage, they are the third highest selling band of all time, just shy of the Beatles and the Stones. But as singer/bassist Geddy Lee jests, they are the world's most popular cult band. No one admits to liking them in the least, but many are quick to express their dislike. And many others I've come across would say they've never even heard of them. One evening last year, I was surprised to find myself in a detailed Rush conversation with an attractive Goth girl who expressed to me that they are her favorite band.
They are the band for the closet fan. They were never in the least cool, except to their fans and, much like the moody idiots who drool over the Smiths or those who can't get enough fuckin' Dead, Rush fans also have their stereotype. They are commonly understood to be socially awkward IT types who can't get dates. I, for one, am none of those things. Yet I own nineteen of their albums. Sure I've only seen them live once, which isn't particularly hardcore. Even though they released their last studio album in 2007 and are due a new one this year, since they formed in 1969 and put out their first couple albums in 1974, they are frequently considered classic rock. However, even the local classic rock station can't see beyond playing one or two predictable tracks.
Their loss, I say.
SINEQUANON
si·ne qua non
n. an essential element or condition
And finally, we have Sinequanon by Hybrid, that unappreciated British electronic act whose music is caught somewhere between the club and the concert hall. This track especially has the peculiar distinction of including not only Hybrid's brand of very listenable classical trance, but its paired with an extensive rap - in French. It's strangely beautiful to me, even though I don't understand word one. But the song's title cuts straight to my core. I feel we can all hope to be indispensable and necessary in our lives and in the world. Perhaps the goal is lofty. Maybe it's shrouded in vanity, but I think it's an integral part to striving to wake up everyday.
--
I like my name. I enjoy having it.
My first instinct would be to say I like it and I have never wanted to change it, but I suppose that is only partially accurate. As a child I used to loathe my last name because the French spelling always seemed like a misspelling, something to point your nose at, or even just a frustrating Spelling Bee played with strangers. My comfort with my middle name was an even worse childhood embarrassment offense, as it seemed each substitute teacher seemed destined to become perplexed by my three first names and offer them all at once, revealing that middle mistake. I ultimately decided to buy back that affront toward my childhood by first professional and now personal use of my middle initial, because I find it balances out things nicely.
Nicknames have never stuck to me. Only two or three people have ever really attempted to drop them on me. One by an old friend from the fourth grade who grew up with me through all sorts of awkward years and would give me the inside joke of a name in the tenth grade after, you guessed it, a substitute teacher thought my name was Jamaal. Another few short-lived nicknames arose during my early years of college while I was sowing the oats in downtown Orlando and throughout UCF. These were names that implied that I was rather misunderstood, but nonetheless suggestive of something special, and were given by people whose faces are vague memories and whose names are unlikely to be recalled today.
I suppose on-line handles such as the one I have here that was inspired by a B-52s song or the film noir homage one that I once wore all across IMDB.com are the closest things to nicknames I have been able to muster in my first thirty-some-odd years. Now maybe someone will say something in passing. Recently a few have tried to ease up some of the duplicate name energy at my workplace, but with very little luck.
I think people, including myself, have really come to realize that my name just fits.
Sage advice teaches us to never go back and to look back only in guidance. I say, for the most part, why would we ever want to? I know enough movie paradox twists to recognize when the outcome is always poor if not outright cataclysmic. I can't think of a more fitting name than the one I have. This is maybe one of the best things I gained from my parents. I sometimes feel hard-pressed to find other things I have gladly inherited from them. I wouldn't say guidance was always their strong suit. I could say I got a name that makes me proud and a hundred examples of how I don't want to live my life - sad as that sounds.
But half of the fun with this exercise is to link to some fine tunes, so let's not disappoint. I wish I were called:
Jòga Carnival Bravado Sinequanon
--
In my estimation the nerve slicing, intensely dramatic and consequently romantic second track on 1997's Homogenic stands out as Björk's most powerful and most organic song. Only a special sort of musical work evokes emotions and a visceral response by the mere thought of it. For me, this is one example. The song has a hell of a lot of meaning for me, and as an innocent bystander to its sheer measure of beauty, it has seeped into my depths and knocks me over with an emotional sucker punch.
I was given a 35mm camera as a high school graduation gift. It was the most apropos present I had received up to that point. Everything about my direction in life and where I found myself fitting was wrapped up in the concept of art, composition, and observation. I loved that camera! It became a bit of a companion. Unfortunately these were the days that pre-dated digital cameras by many years, which not only interfered with the finances a lot more, but I find that people were far less receptive to being on camera than they are nowadays.
That summer estranged 10,000 Maniacs lead singer and songstress Natalie Merchant released her debut solo record, whose release kicked off with the meandering single Carnival. The perhaps overly literal, but visually striking video is shot in black and white and follows Natalie through the side streets of New York City, professional grade camera in hand, taking gorgeous shots of the oddities and regulars found in the everyday. This song and its corresponding video express so much romanticism for New York and for life in general, and both genuinely speak to me.
n. defiant or swaggering behavior
a pretense of courage; a false show of bravery.
Overtime very few have understood my connection to the oft-maligned Rush. According to their terrific 2010 documentary, Beyond the Lighted Stage, they are the third highest selling band of all time, just shy of the Beatles and the Stones. But as singer/bassist Geddy Lee jests, they are the world's most popular cult band. No one admits to liking them in the least, but many are quick to express their dislike. And many others I've come across would say they've never even heard of them. One evening last year, I was surprised to find myself in a detailed Rush conversation with an attractive Goth girl who expressed to me that they are her favorite band.
They are the band for the closet fan. They were never in the least cool, except to their fans and, much like the moody idiots who drool over the Smiths or those who can't get enough fuckin' Dead, Rush fans also have their stereotype. They are commonly understood to be socially awkward IT types who can't get dates. I, for one, am none of those things. Yet I own nineteen of their albums. Sure I've only seen them live once, which isn't particularly hardcore. Even though they released their last studio album in 2007 and are due a new one this year, since they formed in 1969 and put out their first couple albums in 1974, they are frequently considered classic rock. However, even the local classic rock station can't see beyond playing one or two predictable tracks.
Their loss, I say.
SINEQUANON
si·ne qua non
n. an essential element or condition
And finally, we have Sinequanon by Hybrid, that unappreciated British electronic act whose music is caught somewhere between the club and the concert hall. This track especially has the peculiar distinction of including not only Hybrid's brand of very listenable classical trance, but its paired with an extensive rap - in French. It's strangely beautiful to me, even though I don't understand word one. But the song's title cuts straight to my core. I feel we can all hope to be indispensable and necessary in our lives and in the world. Perhaps the goal is lofty. Maybe it's shrouded in vanity, but I think it's an integral part to striving to wake up everyday.
--
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