Bam!

Yesterday was my return to the world of the creative. And it wasn't in just one area. I had a great session with a Professor on some Shakespeare monologues, which I'm quite excited about. This began the day. From there, I went with a friend to move some more of my stuff to my new place, including my Bongo drums, which I haven't touched in more than a month. Then I managed to pump out a few more pages of a screenplay that I'm itching to finish. And after that, I saw a play that reminded me why I do theatre. It was spectacular. It was a Department 509 workshop in which a very good friend of mine (the amazing Miss Dieter) played the lead role. She was absolutely awesome, and the play (Quake) was great. After a couple of months of stress and creative block, it was wonderful to get out of the funk and get moving again. And then I went to the midnight showing of Where the Wild Things Are with a bunch of people, including my wonderful girlfriend.

The movie was great. And from a technical perspective, it was refreshing. It proved that anything you envision can truly be realized on the screen. An exciting thought as I move forward with my writing.

Today, after going in to negotiate my contract with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for this winter and discuss my budget and hiring a staff, I will be (hopefully) back on the writing train. I've got a little homework to do, but after that, I've got an evening free to write to my little hearts content

5 months

So yes, it's been about 5 months since my last post. OY. There have been a whole slew of reasons for it, whether it was being too busy writing, too busy not writing (generally how I think of my time spent these days: writing or not writing), visiting Los Angeles, falling back on the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for a job and being rewarded for my hardwork with some advancement and a snazzy job and title (this is the Head of Audience Services for CSF speaking) and school beginning once again, with yours truly transitioning into classes followed by rehearsals without a grace period. There have been all sorts of highs (rekindling a friendship with someone who has very similar goals to myself, with whom collaboration is imminent, invevitable and exciting) and some lows as well (receiving an eviction notice on opening night of the play I was in). A very busy 5 months with too much to fully update. This post will take (and has already taken) a more personal tone than the previous ones, but the details won't get too gory.

Basically, this is a post about my feelings about my creative output (took long enough to get to the point, geez David!). While I'm majoring in Theatre Performance, sometimes it kills me. I love working on scenes and monologues and all that stuff, but the plays destroy me. The rehearsal process if fun (for a while), but my patience wears thin. By the time the show actually comes around, adding an audience rejuvinates me, but not enough to last me through a run. And these runs are only two weekend, eight performance stretches. I can't imagine doing a month-long run, or doing eight shows a week like they do in the big leagues. While I love the theatre and live performance, I don't think it will be where I end up. I like getting things right and then moving on. It's one of the reasons I like writing. Work on a project, but eventually finish it and begin the next one.

The other problem I've been having, is that school and rehearsals are getting in the way of my writing time. I even approached my very approachable advisor about this, asking if she could reccomend easy classes for the next semester so I could spend as much time as possible writing. This, apparently, was the question that advisors 'hate to hear,' but I have an excellent reason for asking it. I want to put what I've learned thus far in my life--not just college--to use and put all the ideas that I think are brilliant onto some pages. Hopefully she changes her mind and has some suggestions for me, because I'm pretty sure it would be much more valuable for me to produce more material, than to take another class full of busy-work. I promise I don't consider myself to be 'better than college,' I just have gotten what I can out of it at this point, and I am more than ready to move on. I need the degree (mostly so I don't get disowned), but I also need the time.

Anyway, after having an awesome talk with this friend of mine (the one I mentioned earlier) over cigars on the beautiful Pearl Street, I'm even more excited to be able to get back to writing. It energizes me, and I'm excited to actually finish some of these things I've got my brain-feelers into at the moment. There's the pilot and spec-script that Evan and I still have to finish, the screenplay that I want to bust out by Thanksgiving (with a re-write or two in there), the ideas I have for some funny short films, and all sorts of other things. I just need school to calm down a bit, because I want to get all of this stuff done. I know I've got all the time in the world, but I want to see some of this stuff come to fruition. Writing is perfect for me, because it'll help me develop some patience.

I already know that once Thankgiving gets here, my time will be severely cut short again, so I want to have a super-creative and productive next six weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to call them a success. Fortunately, I set my goals high enough that I can still be successful if I don't achieve all of them. It's just hard to accept sometimes.

David's personal goal for the rest of the month: Focus more on what you do accomplish than what you don't

I Believe...

Here's a quick manifesto from me:

I believe everyone should question what they're told before they accept it as truth.

It's quick, clean, and desperately important. Why are people so trusting? Trust is a good thing, but it needs to be earned, not asked for. While this sounds like a relationship advice column all of a sudden, I'm talking about a different kind of trust. What makes an expert an expert? Unfortunately, these days it doesn't take much. Everyone is an expert, or at least a self-proclaimed expert. The real problem is that people don't question their expertise. You'd think people would remember the whole "check your sources" lessons we learned in school. I guess its just easier to repeat things one reads on the internet or hears on TV without thinking about or questioning those things.

Here is a post from another blog that is related to this issue. This is scary stuff. I know this blogger, and he is someone who believes in the manifesto I mentioned in the beginning (or at least a very similar one).

http://sheriffonduty.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-autism-ridiculousness-on-cnn.html

Anyway, I hope this can shed some light on this issue. I plead with all of you, think about why the people who tell you things or make claims are qualified to do so. If they're not, don't ignore them, but remember that there's a very good chance that they don't know what they're talking about.

And if you are wondering why I am qualified to blog about this, I'll tell you: I am a dedicated skeptic. Being a skeptic isn't a bad thing, unless you're also a pessimist, which I am not. A skeptic is someone who merely questions everything around himself, which is what everybody should do. If everybody was a bit more skeptical, the world would be a much better and well-informed place.

The State of Education Today - Part 1

This is the first installment of what will be an ongoing thing/series of essays/rant (etc...).

What happened? We used to have an amazing education system in this country, right? Where did it go? And, more importantly, why haven't more people realized that the system isn't working? Anyone who doesn't think that education (both the system and the culture around it) needs a serious overhaul is kidding themselves. From the ground up, the system is failing: from the attitudes about learning at the earliest of ages, to the system of evaluation in every level of schooling, to the "rewards" for working and learning and everything in between. I'll do my best to identify and concisely discuss each of these issues and at least one solution, because whats the point in complaining/criticizing if you're not constructive about it?

Learning doesn't start with school. Everything that children come in contact with teaches them something, and they need to be encouraged to explore and read as much as possible. Learning really is the most exciting thing a person can do. Too many kids enter school with an aversion to learning, right from the start. It starts at home, with the kinds of things children are watching, listening to and reading (or not reading). Taking kids to events or performances or exhibits aimed at young people is an excellent way to get kids interested in learning. Zoos and Aquariums are great places to interest kids in learning about the world around them. Theatre produced for children can get them interested in literature and the arts. Science museums tend to have a lot of fun activities and exhibits specifically for children that is are great for developing an interest in the sciences. The most important thing is to get children excited about learning because its interesting, not because they have to.

This is the biggest problem in the education system and the culture surrounding it: incentive. People of all ages should want to learn because learning is exciting, not because they're being given a grade. The fact that parents have to bribe their children to do their homework to get good grades with privileges, toys and money is an obvious sign that there's a huge problem. It is both a result of the attitudes surrounding learning, and a partial cause of them.

Part of the problem is that learning just isn't interest enough in most schools, but that's something I'll address at a later date. But the attitudes around learning need to be changed from the bottom up. People (including children) shouldn't just be content with learning what's thrown at them in school, they should be seeking interesting things out. Reading needs to be a priority for people again, and nearly all of the people who are readers as adults were the ones who read a lot as children. Right now we're creating a generation of people who don't know about the world around them and have little interest in learning about it. How can we expect to grow as a society (at least in this country) if we're not collectively and individually striving for knowledge?

Again, this is just the first wave in my assault on the education system, so I will continue to pick it apart in the future. But that was Part One; because we have to start somewhere.

Fashion "Statements"

So, I was waiting at a bus stop on Sunday (for a bus) and I noticed an extremely interesting person walking by. Well, I cannot actually know if he was interesting or not, but I can say that he did have an interesting feature on his face. He had half-stache, which is to say he had half of a mustache. There were the beginnings of a fu-man-shu (sp.) on his left side, and just past his philtrum, there was nothing. He was clean shaven on the right. I did a double-take, because I'd never seen anything like it before (although I have experimented whilst shaving, I always finish the job). I found it to be pretty ridiculous, which of course led me to ask the great question, "why?"

Now, people will do some pretty extreme things to "stand out," though it usually involves dressing in the exact same manner as other people who want to do the very same thing. The idea of "standing out" is an interesting notion to begin with. How can one be different? Well, simply put, one cannot be different. In the grand scheme of things, we're all the same. One might be able to, by wearing a half-mustache, appear different than those immediately surrounding him, but somebody will have done it first. At this point in human history, the chance that any one person can do something original, something that no significant number of people have ever done is about the same chance that this blog post will change someone's life.

Thank goodness for "Shaun of the Dead"

I love great parodies. But they have to be great, not like the "Scary Movie" series that has plagued us recently. These movies are simply stupid; not clever, not interesting and cannot stand alone as their own movie, apart from their references to the genre films they mock. If one wants to see a good parody, watch any Mel Brooks film. His movies are not only brilliant and clever parodies, but each can stand alone as a great movie. Another thing that separates Brooks' parodies from many others, is the intelligence with which he implements his humor, even when the jokes are low-brow.

This brings me back to the title of the post: thank goodness for "Shaun of the Dead." Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the last few years have made "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," two of the best true parodies to come out in a long time. They are clever, well written movies that poke a lot of fun at zombie films and police movies respectively, yet also stand alone as great films in each of those classifications. It's a good sign, people, a very good sign.

As a society, our intelligence level has dropped dramatically when it comes to humor. It is painful for me to see the kind of things being produced and what is becoming popular. After people like Brooks and those zany Pythoners, it's very depressing to see something like Scary Movie make any money at all. But with these new, intelligent parodies coming out now, there might still be hope for us after all.

A (not so) Big Change

So my good ol' 17" Dell laptop finally died. Its funny, I call it a laptop but the thing weighed so much that it rarely left my room. Over the years it had developed screen problems, wireless card problems, speaker problems and finally, the cherry on top of the malfunctioning sundae, the mouse pad and buttons all died. Therefore, it was time, after four years, for me to get a new computer.

After price shopping, discount comparing and some deliberating with my Father, I purchased a snazzy new MacBook. I am now an "Apple Guy." I've always been a PC guy, whether it was an HP, a Compaq, the aforementioned Dell, or something homemade. I have embarked upon a new era of my life.

Now I'm not unfamiliar with Macs; I use them almost every day in the computer lab in the Theatre building at CU, and I have friends that are Mac people. My own parents even purchased one a few months ago for the house in Connecticut, which I used for a few weeks. Therefore, the adjustment isn't all that big.

There are things that I have to get used to. For instance, I have been doing almost all of my homework, which means most of my typing, on my dell, which has a slightly different keyboard than the Mac. I also will miss the keypad and the delete button. Otherwise, I think all the other new stuff will be in the software. I think it'll be a pretty smooth transition, mostly because I don't think Macs are that much better than PCs. Of course, I may discover that my new computer is that much better than my old one, and if that happens I'll be sure to let you know.

Answer To Monday's Question

Monday's question was whether or not there was a catchier movie theme song than the one from The Great Escape. It turns out there is one that I'd forgotten about. It comes from another great war movie, Bridge Over the River Kwai.

I now have both of these theme songs stuck in my head. It turns out it was a pretty stupid question to ask. At least I like both songs.

Too Healthy?

Generally, most people are misguided. I don't claim to know better than everybody, but I try to examine my opinions to make sure they're valid. This will probably be a recurring theme in this blog.

Today's topic: Cleanliness.

In my opinion (one I've held for many years now), people are too health conscious. This post isn't about foods or eating habits, it's about the other stuff. People have become too afraid of dirt, scum, muck, mud and bacteria. This is a bad thing. ESPECIALLY for babies and young children. The little ones need this stuff early and often. Our immune system needs to be exposed to bacteria early so that it can build up resistances. There hadn't been many studies to back this up, but this Public Health article in the NY Times finally has some data: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

This concept applies to all sorts of areas. For example, studies are beginning to show a link between children who grew up in houses with air filters and higher rates of asthma and upper respiratory illnesses. Misguided folks who aren't thinking things through.

Now I'm not talking about not putting a jacket on your kids when they go out in the cold. I mean the parents who constantly lysol their kids toys and try to keep them from playing in the mud. Let them play outside, get dirty, breathe the air and taste the dirt. It's a part of growing up, and it's more important than people give it credit for. Don't people question why more people have asthma and allergies these days?

This is related to the "helicopter parents" that exist today as well. People who are too involved in their kids' lives. Let the kids live, let them experience the worlds without your constant hand-sanitizing and reprimands for getting dirty. I'll address these over-involved parents more later. They are their own, very misguided category.

And a final thought for the day:
Trail mix inherently has the perfect ratio of nuts to m&ms to raisins. WHY DO PEOPLE GO AND MESS IT UP?!?!?! Don't scavenge the trail mix. It's not cool. There's a reason why the people who buy trail mix don't just go out and buy a big bag of m&ms. The nuts and raisins and chocolate are meant to be snacked on in perfect harmony, so just leave it be. If you don't like one of the essential ingredients, don't eat it.

Creativity is a funny thing

So I generally do not think of myself as a creative person, but I'm beginning to believe that this is because I don't give myself many opportunities in which I can be creative. That's part of why I started to blog, as it were. It is another outlet for my creativity. Recently, I've discovered that I am actually much more creative than I have led myself to believe. I'm not bragging. Who knows if my creative ventures contain any shreds of quality or if they are at all worthwhile. That isn't the point though. I've been told by many people that when it comes to something creative, like writing, that discipline is better than genius. My interpretation of this is that quantity breeds quality. I'll make a sports reference to this at a later date (I'll make sports references to just about everything, it's my "thing").

I'll leave everybody with this thought:

Is there a movie with a catchier theme song than The Great Escape?

So I like sports

I like sports a lot. I'm a big fan. Competition brings out peoples true colors, and it's always fun to watch.

The sport that this post will concern is women's college basketball. I absolutely love women's basketball. It's not all about athleticism and out jumping the other guy, it's about technique and form and team chemistry and adhering to offensive and defensive schemes. It exemplifies the basic fundamentals of sports. I'll discuss this more at a later time.

Right now I'm going to focus on something my Mom and I were talking about today. Having lived in Connecticut (My Mom still lives there), we both follow the UCONN women's basketball team. This spectacular team, coached by the brilliant Geno Auriemma, is the best college team in the country this year and is consistently one of the top teams in the nation. Sure, one can attribute this to its great players, like Maya Moore or Renee Montgomery. One can attribute this to the fact that it plays in the Big East, the best conference for women's basketball. But what this season for the UCONN Huskies has shown me is that their advantage is exceptional coaching. Their team was just as good last year, but what they have demonstrated this year is consistency. They have consistently beaten every team that they have played, and won every game thus far by double figures. They turn on the jets and don't ever let up. They play hard against every opponent, no matter how good or how highly ranked. That is what great coaching can do for a team.

Coach Auriemma has them prepared night in and night out to play at the highest level no matter who is sitting on the other bench. Many top teams do not do this, and this ends up killing them as the season goes on. Not this team. I will be very surprised if they do not win the national championship. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they have two national player of the year candidates playing in every game. The main reason that I believe they will again be crowned national champions this season, however, is because of their coach.

If you are a sports fan, you want the coach of your favorite teams to read up on Coach Auriemma. He's one of the best out there, in any sport. I just wish my other teams had coaches who could get their players to perform consistently and consistently well like the Huskies do.

Completely Addicted

So I'm not normally a big fan of television, let alone Sitcoms, but there is one that I have become very attached to. CBS's How I Met Your Mother. It just has something that appeals to me, whether it be finely crafted and intertwined storylines, great characters or phenomenal acting. The characters are goofy and silly, while also being deep and complicated. Not many shows capture realistic goofiness in a character, but this one does. As a very goofy person, this appeals to me quite a bit. The fact that the characters will laugh at each others jokes is another thing that I love. Lots of sitcoms ignore joke-telling part of life.

I think overall How I Met Your Mother just seems more realistic to me as a comedy than most television shows. Yes, some of the characters are more ridiculous than most people are, but the comedy is not. That is why the show appeals to me.

What you should expect

I cannot actually answer any questions regarding what you, the hypothetical reader, should expect. What I can tell you is that I will attempt to "blog" on a relatively consistent basis (yes, I'm keeping this as vague as possible), and that what you will read are, in fact, my thoughts/beliefs/ideas/ramblings. I find myself very interesting and entertaining, so hopefully you will too.