J Matt's Winter Vacation-Happy Christmas

A message from moi:




Cheers,

J

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Days 5-7

This is a big country.

And I have been doing some serious driving.

on Thursday (four days ago) I went from Santa Fe, through Vegas.

All I can say is the high southwest desert is absolutely gorgeous.

And I HATE the way I feel when I drive through Native American reservations.

Why? Because these people really were routed from their land and forced into these patches of expansive, desolate land. And then in order to survive they have to trade on the general public opinion of what an Indian is.

Examples:





Anyway. That aside, on the road from Santa Fe to the City of Sin, I met some really nice, kind, giving people. I also stopped in this Pueblo:



(the Pueblo of Laguna) in western New Mexico to get gas, then found myself doing some shopping. My family has a strong native side, one of which my mom is really proud of, so I stopped to pick her up some stuff. I was struck at how much this Pueblo, and many of the other Pueblos in New Mexico feel like they belong in the third world. They are still the homes of many different tribes, yet they feel like archaeological sites in some ways. Beautiful, but also kind of sad. And in their own way, they made me appreciate my native heritage more than I have in the past.

Anyway, the drive to Vegas pretty much looked like this along the way:



One highlight was passing the Continental Divide, where rainfall divides equally in draining toward the Pacific and Atlantic oceans:



Then I passed by one major anomaly in the desert landscape: The Meteor Crater in central AZ. Millions of years ago, a meteor (of which this rock here is a fragment of):



crashed into the desert, blacking out the sky, and sending debris around a five-mile radius. The crater itself is about 1000 feet deep, and over a mile across. And here it is:



And here I am at the bottom of it:



OK, not really. Due to the delicate nature of the site, you aren't allowed to hike on the crater, or down into it, for that matter. But what you can do is take a photo in the museum with the bottom of the crater as the background. You can tell from the blatant overhead lighting on my face that it's an obvious fake. Otherwise I'd tell you about how I "totally was a badass and broke the rules to totally run to the bottom of the crater, where I fought the crater protecting ninja brigade to the death...."

So much for my plan.

Then it was further east to Flagstaff, and into Nevada and Hoover Dam. Mind you, I hit Hoover at the twelve-hour mark, so my mental state was somewhat...altered. This video will attest to that:



Now, I KNOW Hoover Dam is named after President Hoover. At the time, however, my brain was at about a third-grade level, so there you go.

Then I made it to Vegas:



where I had the largest beer of my life at the Hoffbraus House:



Mmm. Beer.

Then on the road again to California. Which meant 6 more hours of driving through the desert, where I continued a tradition that my friend Rob and I started on our Vegas trips from years past: whenever in the desert as the sun is rising, you must pull over and listen to songs from Radiohead's OK Computer:



However, the desert eventually gave way to farmland near Bakersfield, CA, and some pretty damn adorable sheep:



Yep. Frickin' cute.

After the farmland I hit the highway where James Dean had his ill-fated car crash that took his life. Here's the memorial to him at the spot of the crash in Chalome, California:



Almost at the coast, I come across one of the funniest images I've ever seen in the Salinas Valley...just use your imagination:



Finally, at 5:00 in the evening on Saturday, December 15th, I arrived at Monterey and Carmel Beach just in time for the sunset:



I miss living here.

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 3/Day 4

Santa Fe.

Yeah, I could get used to this life...staying in a beautiful house I don't pay for, eating fantastic food, bumming around in museums, hiking canyons, going to archaeological sites, reading plays and novels, writing in my journal...

...yep. That's been my life the past 2.5 days.

But sadly, this must, like all things, end.

I'm in my last night in Santa Fe, drinking a margarita or two and reporting to you, my friends, the trip thus far.

Yesterday I bummed around Santa Fe's plaza area. Checked out an Egyptian exhibit at the Art Museum and an exhibit on the "disappeared" (political prisoners, refugees, victims, etc.) in Nicaragua, as well as a gallery of paintings reflecting the Native American opinion of war at the Native American Cultural Museum. The plaza was cool...lots of Native American craftsman selling their wares, and a bulk of historic buildings. And for lunch I had possibly the best damn meal I've had in a long time:



Green Chile Stew, Pozole (a type of corn simmered in chiles and pork), and an enchilada. Totally spicy, totally awesome.

Then I continued my tour of interesting places in Santa Fe. I found one: the oldest church structure in the United States, the Church of San Miguel:



Even cooler though, was Loretto Chapel, which contains a "miraculous" staircase. According to legend, this stair case stood erect by the will of God alone (there used to be no anchors holding the stair case in place. It spiraled from the ground to the choir loft in a double helix without support--a feat apparently impossible according to the laws of engineering).

And here it is, decorated for your Christmas pleasure:




Cool? When I asked the woman working in the chapel why it was anchored now, she simply said that it was for decoration only, that it wasn't "really" anchored to the adjoining pillars.

God Bless, then.

So that was yesterday.

Then today I went on a bit of an adventure. I drove southwest to Tent Rocks National Monument, where I hiked around these bizarre volcanic formations, as well as into a slot canyon. This chilly winter hike was, well, gorgeous. Just look:



Then I drove a loop through the back country between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I was driving through snow covered trees, and once again...gorgeous. Just look:




I ended up at Bandeliere National Monument, home to cliff dwelling ruins of the ancient Pueblo Indians. Yep. I even managed to get my archaeology fix on this trip. Who knew?





So, now it's further west. Arizona to Vegas to Cali. More to come.

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 2/Day 3 Begins.

Whew.

Made it to Santa Fe.

Day two was spent driving through The Last Great Midwestern Ice Storm, 2007.

Yeah. Good times.

A common theme along the road was my screaming "Ohhhhhh.....SHIT!" and swerving.

A Video Sampling:





Another common theme was the countless big rigs that were sliding, flipping, and jack-knifing all over the place.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

And as for Oklahoma and northern Texas, well, this speaks for itself:



However, 11 hours after leaving Tulsa, OK, I have arrived. And Santa Fe is great.

I wandered around the plaza last night, and found a cool little restaurant called "The Shed", and had the hottest yet most flavorful enchiladas I have ever had. No joke. Even started taking notes/roughing out a draft for an indie film. We'll see where it goes.

Then I went back to my aunt and uncle's vacation home and promptly passed out after reading a chapter in "The Sun Also Rises", by my man Hemingway.

And today I woke up to this:





Yeah. It's gonna be a good trip. : )

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 1

So, I left Champaign at about noon today, and have arrived at my first stop (of necessity, mind you--not pleasure): Tulsa, OK. The drive here was shitty. The weather: shitty. The drivers in the 9-hour ice storm: Shitty. The people I actually interacted with in person: quite the opposite of shitty.

Because most of the trip so far was in the familiar desolate mid-western winter landscape we all know and loathe (or was in pitch black), I have but one photo to share with you, taken from the side of the road in Joplin, Missouri:




Yep. That's what it says.

The really funny part is that it's an automotive factory.

They make shock absorbers.

Perfect.

Anyway, onward to Santa Fe tomorrow...wish me luck.

Cheerio,

J

Remember, Remember, The Month of December...

Hiya.

So, it's December. Peace, love, joy, cheer, blah-de-blah.

Point is, it is time for my annual visit home to the holy lands of California.

Except this time I'm driving.

I leave Sunday December 9th. I'll be stopping in Santa Fe, New Mexico, possibly Las Vegas, then up to Monterey, CA. I'll be there from about December 15th-20th, then driving down the coast and over to Bakersfield. I'll probably camp in Big Sur on the way down. I'll be in Bakersfield from 22-27th, then in So Cal (L.A./San Diego) through 27th-January 10th. Then I drive back to good ole' Illinois.

I figured I needed a big epic road trip this winter. A little soul searching. A little time doing whatever I feel like for a month.

I look forward to hearing from/seeing all of you that I can on my trip West.

Peace (for real),

J

Blogging is for poor people...

...or for people with more time than I've had lately. Or more time to actually do things like, you know, write about what's going on in my life.

Truth is, I've been a bit under most peoples' radar. On purpose. I mean, I deleted my Myspace in order to get away from, well, everyone.

Why? Well, essentially the past couple of months have been, in a word, dark. I've done a relatively good job of putting up appearances for everyone, even those nearest and dearest to me. But eventually, the walls come crashing down, something has to give, and you end up at the bottom of a well looking towards what you hope is a shaft of light.

I attribute a lot of it to the second year of training here at grad school. The training has been intense, and the emotional "well" has been stirred up quite a bit lately. Every single thing I've been hiding, ignoring, or regretting in my life has been bubbling up--therefore every single thing that may remind me of anything that I have been hiding, ignoring, or regretting in my life has been taking its toll.

Yep. I have some shit. I suppose that's why I'm an actor. Hooray for cliches.

I won't go into the things that have been weighing me down. We'll talk about them freely if I see any of you in person in the future. What I will go into is that I am at least aware of my flaws, my problems, and my burgeoning neurosis...and that will only help me be healthier and happier in the long run. And I'm also pretty sure that it'll help my acting and writing to deepen...it's all a matter of letting the time go by at its own rate to let that maturity happen.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. And an even grander providence in that sparrow rising again.

At least, I hope so.

Blessings,

J

29

Is four years longer than I planned on living.

Aint that a bitch?

Really. 25. A blaze of glory. That's when/how I was gonna go.

Instead, I'm now in my second year of grad school drunk on French Pinot Noir, looking through my friends' various photo albums posted online, thinking "gee, that looks great...I wish I was there", or "gee, I feel like I've been replaced", or "gee, I miss that beach", or "gee, I seem like a distant memory to these people."

I have, in a sense, become displaced from my old life. California? Yeah. I used to live there. New York? It still feels equally homey and fracturally distant. My friends' lives seem to accelerate. Marriages. Engagements. New loves.

And I'm just looking for the next job and someone I can tolerate that can tolerate me to go along for the ride.

At 29.

I have become translucent to those I miss most.

I have become a victim of identity theft, not of the credit variety but of the soul.

I have become overtly critical of the very art form I intend to become great at and wealthy from.

I have become bored with my work to the point of death.

But I can't give up on the next job.

I preach hope in my classes yet can find little in the mirror.

I'm good, yet fear I won't get better.

I fear I'm better but won't get good.

I'm lonely.

I'm repulsed.

I listen to the blues. They cheer me up...to scream along with someone else's pain.

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Or is it?

What is the question?

Does the question have to appear now?

It's not appearing.

Apparently.

Good night sweet prince.

There's always the bar.

At 29.

You can try to save some one's life, as long as it isn't your own.

Thanks, Central Park.

NYC in winter.

Alone.

Thanks, East Village.

I'm not myself.

Because I'm trying to help you.

I'd help myself...

...but that's not the point.

This could be a poem...

...too bad it's not.

And if it was a poem...

...it would suck.

Hell(o) cornfields...

...18 months to go.

Then back to New York.

This time in Fall.

Where it will be different.

But the feelings won't be.

The chill of hope.

The smell of the leaves.

The flame of optimism.

May it not blow out.

Out, out brief candle,

Life's but a walking shadow.

It is within the shadows that we regret to trespass.

Don't tread on me.

At 29.

The drugs are not working.

But something else is.

What it is, I know not.

At 29.

The play's the thing.

At 29.

Transatlanticsm.

I learned it from loving you.

At 27.

At 25.

When I should have stopped.

But I keep on.

And will do so.

Because I must.

At 29.

All I have left.

Is what lies before me.

Someday I'll break my staff.

But before that I'll avenge my father's death.

And then I'll conquer France.

And then I'll contemplate in solitude.

And then I'll be on screen.

And then you'll tell me you loved me.

Yet it will be too late.

For I'll be past 29.

In Central Park.

In the autumn.

When the air is chilled.

Yet I'll still stay warm.

There it is.

At 29.

The Sun Also Rises...

Lately, I've been obsessed with Ryan Adam's latest record, 'Easy Tiger'...particularly the track called "The Sun Also Sets". Essentially, it reminds us just how close we are to death, destruction, ruin--all those good happy things. "Gee...really great, Justin...", you may be thinking, "Really, could you maybe be a bit more melancholy? Can you do that for us?" But actually, if you look at the song the way that it is written:

"There it is...we are only one push from the nest...
There it is...we are only one argument from death...
There it is...the sun rises, but the sun also sets..."

it actually reminds us that maybe, just maybe we should start, you know, living in the NOW for a change. Maybe we should start looking for those golden nuggets of hope out there. Maybe we should start finding the joy in our life and work, because at any given moment, that joy can be eradicated. "Live in the now", as they say. Whomever they are.

Oh, and the song title is also a pun on Ernest Hemingway's first novel, which happens to be the title of this blog. For those of you out there, you know, keeping score.

So yes. Basically, things are better. I'm starting to enjoy my work again...which I've not fully done in God knows how long.

I have a lot of work ahead of me for the remainder of this semester. Auditions for summer work, for next season at Krannert, memorization for my two acting classes that I have prevented myself from doing because, you know, I hated acting for awhile there...yeah. I have some things to do.

But at least I feel good about it.

Thanks to my friends for putting up with my bullshit. And for helping me see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Which was pretty far off for some time.

Game on.

Rocks in my pockets...

I've been back at school for about a month and some change. I've not been having a good time. I am disinterested. I am apathetic. I fluctuate between anger and fear, and then back again. Somebody has stolen my idol and not thrown me a whip. I've been struck down, and have not become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. I am unable to leap tall buildings with a single bound. I am not the goddamn Batman.

The heroes of my childhood, the myths I used to personalize as a kid, the origins of my imagination that quietly guided me on my path to becoming an actor...they are...gone. And here I am: blank. My imagination, my capacity to create seems to have died, or has been sealed behind a concrete wall.

In short, I used to love acting. LOVE it. I felt invincible. Somehow, somewhere along the line I have stopped loving it. I have begun, instead, to succumb to a gnawing emptiness bred from reflecting on the sacrifices I have made for the sake of my art, contrasting with the poor choices I have made that have gotten "in the way" of my perceived "greatness".

Therein lies the rub: my self-perception.

Have I been a good, competent actor who got his job done consistently? Yes. But then I began to hide behind that persona. I stopped making choices. Stopped taking risks. I became safe. I encased myself in a suit of psychological armor...armor so thick it stems from within, leeching through my pores and covering my body. I have become a shell.

In acting class, I am beginning to crack apart that shell, and in doing so, I have somehow reached a point where I believe in my heart of hearts that I am, indeed, crap.

And if I am crap, why am I doing this?

So here I am: nude, clueless, afraid.

I told one of my coaches I felt like I had sunk to the bottom of a pool with rocks in my pockets.

She told me to simply try to take a rock out each day, and see how I do.

So I'm gonna do that.

And once I finally breathe again, maybe I'll re-discover the joy I once had in doing this...because at the very least, I do know that I still want to do nothing more than be an artist in the theatre.

Even if right now I hate it, and that hatred is drowning me.

Here. Take this rock...I don't want it anymore.

Why hello there, Grown Up Man Child. Welcome to the show...

Maybe it's all of the fresh air and sun I've been getting (or the lack of oxygen due to the relatively high altitude I'm at here in Utah), but I've been going through a great deal of reminiscence/recollection/retrospection/what-you-will. I've been thinking a lot about ex-girlfriends, ex-friends, family members who have passed on, and generally everyone and everything that I either miss or which holds some pang of regret in the deep recesses of my mind.

Now, with this healthy (it's healthy, right?) dose of nostalgia rushing through my brain, I am also beginning to focus a bit on what's to (potentially come). Maybe I'm growing up, maybe I'm attaining wisdom, maybe I'm bored with where I'm at in life and I'm looking for a change. Maybe it's a bit of everything...the confluence of the rivers of my past and potential coming into one stream. Or something.

Many of my close friends are either married, damn close to getting married, or are in a pretty solid coupling of sorts.

And my mom is getting older. Sixty soon...it blows my mind. I don't want her to age. I want her to stay looking like my mom...and not like my grandmother. I want her to look like a grandmother when I have kids. Not before. And I want to be able to make her retirement comfortable at the same time. Me. Who still on occassion acts like a brash 18 year-old living off a trust fund.

Yeah. Me. My friend Lara has a nickname for me: Crazy Uncle Justin. I'm going to be the single guy constantly hanging around his married friends, playing with their kids while fielding their questions as to when he's going get married, constantly being farmed out to all of their single friends in the hopes that one of them will work out...you know, like Bobby in Companyfor those theatrical folk out there keeping score.

However, I'd like that to change. And I'm sure that it will, eventually. I guess it just seems like the Wild Oats have been MORE than sowed in my case. Time for some substance.

I also think this line of thought is stemming from the recognition that I may need to amp up my artistic discipline a little. Year One of grad school fried my brain a bit, and then I jumped into this great job at Utah Shakes...which has led me to realize that the acting part of the life is easy...maintaining the ability to continue to act is the hard part. It all goes back to the analogy that my acting coach at Illinois used in class one day: "If you want to be a brilliant painter, you have to love cleaning your brushes."

So, maybe it'll reach the point in this dense head of mine that I'll start paying more attention to maintaining my art, and as a consequence my life will begin to take care of itself. We shall see.

In the meantime, hiking is good. Hooray.

Half-Way Point

Well, I've reached the half-way point with my performance schedule at the Festival. Half. Way.

Neat.

Half of my shows are now complete, and I have a little over a month left here in Cedar City. Then it's back to school. Papers to write, classes to teach and take, and a whole lot of "What's next?" to think about.

Change is in the air. And that's a good thing.

I'm trying to process everything that I think I am learning about myself and my work while here in Utah, but unfortunately everything is moving so fast that the processing won't be complete til I am back at school, sitting in the cafe near Krannert, when BAM! It'll all hit me.

Or so I hope.

Until then, I have a month. A month of performances, a month of work, and a month of hiking. Time to drink up the light.

Where is my mind?

I can't concentrate today. At all. I'm trying to cram lines for my understudy assignments...it ain't working. I'm trying to read a book...not happening. I keep jumping from article to article online, everything from the new Batman costume in 'The Dark Knight' to what is wrong with democracy according to Al Gore. I have the day off...I managed to work out and get to a costume fitting on time. I made dinner. I bought wine. I looked up Festival people to add to my various online friends lists. But I couldn't concentrate on anything of vital importance. Maybe it is because I am, as the Dane once said, "too much i'th'sun." Literally. Maybe I have some sort of new-fangled type of sun-stroke, which keeps me from concentrating on anything other than the mundane.

Oh, and I like a girl.

But that isn't it either. I am perfectly able to function, sans girl. I'm not even sure that if I were to have a girlfriend at home or abroad that I would be in a different mental state than I am now: which, in effect, is one of rambling.

Wine is good. The third glass isn't helping the concentration factor though. I may kill the bottle tonight in my quest for clarity (which we all know won't happen, but it's nice to dream).

Oh, and I've been drinking said wine all alone.

That's statistically bad, isn't it?

Ahh, free-association. It's the rage.

Speaking of rage, Shakespeare's been getting cut out of school programs. Terrible.

Ivan the Terrible was Russian, I believe.

My grandfather was Russian (by decent).

I am not. As I am not his biological grandson.

I'm biologically Welsh.

Welsh are drunkards.

Ergo, I am a drunkard.

.....

Took a break. Ran some lines. Then there was a firework show across the street.

I'm not kidding.

But somebody is.

Who?

Yes.

OK. This blog is dead and so are my brain cells.

Brain. Sells. Sell your brain to science. You are produced.

In vino veritas!

Wow...

WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) -- A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.

Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival.

"It was Gertruda that saved me, and I'll never forget it," Grzebski told news channel TVN24.

"For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections," Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as saying.

"When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol lines were everywhere," Grzebski told TVN24, describing his recollections of the communist system's economic collapse.

"Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."

Grzebski awoke to find his four children had all married and produced 11 grandchildren during his years in hospital.

He said he vaguely recalled the family gatherings he was taken to while in a coma and his wife and children trying to communicate with him.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

that's all I'm sayin...WOW.

I want to hold the hands of Gods.

Is that really too lofty a goal?

For a long time now, I have been searching for the confluence of who I am as an individual with who I am/want to be as an artist.

The search continues, but the darkness that I have been seeing before me now as a pin-point of light beaming through the tunnel.

Why? I'd imagine that being in full-time training mode has something to do with it, as well as a somewhat voluntary exile into the mountains and deserts of Southern Utah. Here, cut off from my closest friends and the structure of a university, here I am finding myself juxtaposed between two forces: a hotbed of theatrical creativity and the serenity and purification of something those of us who spend far too much time within a city or suburb sorely lack: nature.

Yes, it must be these two forces at work. Day and night, Monday through Saturday, I work alongside some of the best actors in the regional theatre circuit, if not the country. I recognize that their processes aren't drastically different from my own, and yet they are so advanced in their art that I am definitely reminded of a frequent coaching we get back at U of I: "You're going to suck before you can get better."

Yep. No matter how well I feel I have played in larger roles elsewhere, being the minority in a strong company such as USF definitely makes me agree. I'm sucking. I'm going to get better.

I see these actors work. I get melancholic. But then I get inspired. And I think, 'hmm...I am HERE, though, right?' And then I feel better. Monday through Saturday. This is what I go through. And I love/hate it.

Then, on Sunday, inevitably I hit the trails of Zion, or Bryce Canyon, or some other remote yet tangible location. I look at the beauty that has been forged around me through time...and I feel at peace. I am reminded: beauty takes time. In nature. In art. In the self.

I exhaust myself in the absorption of nature, I press my body to the limit. I purge the fear and doubt. Beauty takes time.

So here I am. Two ideologies converging on one another. The summer break is here, I am working on my art, and I am ever still in the seat of training.

Someday I'll get to hold hands with the Gods.

But I have to suck before I can get better.

I have to stay ugly to become beautiful.

Gettin' Elizabethan on your Ass

Yeah, yeah...it's been a couple of weeks, I know.

But I've been busy.

Real fast:

Where I work:




Where I hang out on Sundays:




In short: Life is good.

I really don't have much else to report. Rehearsals for 'Coriolanus' go extremely well, and 'Lend Me a Tenor: The Musical' is proving to be an interesting process (it's a premiere of a new musical...so everything in its creation is extremely organic...the composer and librettist are in the room everyday, making changes on the fly...it's really pretty amazing), and I have my understudy assignments--Tullus Aufidius in 'Coriolanus' and Horace Vandergelder in 'The Matchmaker'...which is pretty funny considering Vandergelder is, you know, sixty...and I, as of yet, am not. Both roles are sizable and will keep me occupied in my off-time.

What else? I bought a bike...I haven't owned a bike in years, but I'm enjoying the exercise everyday as I bike to rehearsal (and save money on gas...it's about $3.40/gallon here in the great South West).

At any rate...that's life.

Hope all is well...

Excelsior!

PS: Mormons are nice people.

PPS: I'm obsessed with Warner Brothers' marketing campaign for the 'Batman Begins' sequel, 'The Dark Knight'. They have a campaign website for Harvey Dent, which reveals this poster:



As well as a mock website that the Joker put up, which looks like this:



Revealing the first shot of Heath Ledger's Joker, per Christopher Nolan and Company:



Effin' scary, yes? Can't wait to see the full get-up on screen...

Ok...bye bye now...

I Have Arrived...

...in Cedar City!



After 1600 miles in 2.5 days, I am finally here. The trip was pretty crappy...terrible weather (tornado watches in Nebraska, sudden ice storms, rain, and blizzards in Colorado), and long, long, long open roads...



...but I am here, and relatively unscathed. I did get into a minor accident in the Rockies when a snow storm literally materialized out of NO WHERE. Good times.



My car is a little banged up...but no major damage...just a chunk of my fender taken out by the headlights. Gotta love plastic cars.



As I got deeper into Utah, I noticed that they, too, have an Elsinore. I think we should build a castle there, as there isn't one. I checked. We could do Hamlet 24/7. "You are welcome, sirs, to Elsinore...UTAH ::Mormon Choir Shouts in Background::We'll teach you to drink caffeine-free ere you depart."



So, I'm settled into my hotel (the Stratford Court, naturally) for the next three days til the festival has my apartment ready. I've already ran into an old colleage from my Pac Rep days who is also doing the festival...I'm pretty much stoked to begin rehearsals.

So, I leave you now to go prep for the week to come. Be good!

In Vino Veritas!

Nebraska? Yeah, it's flat. Thank God for Natalie P!

Well friends and neighbors, Leg One of the trip to Utah is complete. I am currently in Kearney Nebraska, which is about 680 miles from Champaign/Urbana. At least Natalie Portman agreed to roadtrip out here with me. I don't know WHAT I'd do with out her.

I mean, I just ran into her on the street and I was all, "Hey, Nat, I haven't seen you in forever...wanna roadtrip with me?"

And she was all, "Hell yeah! You're the best company a gal can have!"



So there it is!

Unfortunately, she didn't like the hotel room we had to get out here in the middle of nowhere, so she was pretty pissed.



Oh well.

Shut up. I'm tired. I was hallucinating around mile 500.

I head further West tomorrow, and should hit Western Colorado or Eastern Utah by the end of the day. Hopefully I'll have something better to report...

In Vino Veritas!

To die and go we know not where...

…shouldn’t matter, as long as in life we lived with love.

This may sound folksy and/or precious to you out there, but I had to say it. And here’s why:

I have been relatively numb to the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I read the articles, shook my head, said a prayer, commented on the insanity of the very idea of it all, asked why there has to be people like Cho Seung-Hui, tried to put myself in the situation, since I too go to a major university, and enacted and spoke all the typical rites you would expect an isolated urban-turned-suburban white male to enact and speak.

And then I went about my life, safe in my little bubble here in Illinois.

And then I read the news today, since I seldom have time during the week to read the news beyond the daily headlines. And this is what I found on a news blotter that directed me to CBS News:

The families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre may not be able to grieve in peace at the funerals of those they lost. An anti-gay religious group known for protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq is planning on appearing at services for those killed on Monday as well.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims’ funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.

The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other “sins of the flesh.” Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians…

…“The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Phelps-Roper said. “You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.”

Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student responsible for the killings who took his own life after the shootings, was sent by God to punish those he killed, and America as a whole, for moral decline, said Phelps-Roper, while adding that she believes Cho is also in hell for violating God’s commandment to not kill.

“He is in hell,” Phelps-Roper said. “But he was also fulfilling the word of God.”

God does not to that to His servants…those people are in hell…Cho Seung-Hui is in hell (no shit)…but he was doing God’s will.Yeah. About that:

I’m pretty sure I’m unaware of anything in Christian mythology that dictates God sending forth a divine messenger to eradicate college students, staff and faculty that some right-wing branch of psychopaths in Topeka fucking Kansas has deemed as heathen. You may as well say that because those that follow the Jewish faith do not follow Christ that Hitler was a messenger from God and that the Holocaust was a tidy bit of housecleaning. Of course if you did say that, not only would you be a complete fucking moron, you’d also be Mel Gibson…and I’m not sure which of those is worse: total, all-encompassing idiocy, or being Mel Gibson.

Also, I’m pretty sure that if God sends you forth to do His work, it wouldn’t involve, you know, MURDERING LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE, and furthermore, I seriously doubt He would send you to hell for doing anything that He commanded.

“Jay?”

“Yes, God?”

“Jay, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Sure, God…what is it?”

“I need you to kill as many people in your college as possible.”

“Gee, God…that’s…umm…why?”

“Because I can’t get the Mets game on the TV today. I need something to watch.”

“Um, but, don’t you command us to not kill one another?”

“Steve, I’m God! I can command you to do anything!”

“Um, but, if I kill all those people in your name, won’t I go to hell?”

“…”

“God?”

“…”

“Can you just get Mel Gibson to do it?”

I mean, come on! I know Christian doctrine and mythos is completely convoluted, but for a faith whose inspiration stems from the compassionate teachings of a man from Nazareth, how can anyone who is rational even deign to conclude that mass killing is the will of God? It makes me sick. Sick that we live in this world, sick that because I choose to believe in what Christ had to say that I have to share a common thread with every wacko who has ever chosen to bend those teachings to something twisted and dim. They shouldn’t dare to call themselves Christian. Then again, I’m an alcoholic womanizing artist who’s had plenty of sex before marriage, eats meat on Friday, believes in a woman’s right to choose, who doesn’t really mind the idea of gay marriage, goes to church irregularly and questions the origins of many of the passages that constitute our bible. So what do I know?

I will tell you:

That Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are pathetic, sniveling cowards who will one day find what hell truly is, when they are punished for their own crimes against the liberty and humanity of others, when they are punished for using the grief of the unfortunate to advance their own twisted agenda, when they are punished for turning the teachings of a man who taught from a ministry based in love, compassion and hope into an excuse to mock and mar the lives of others, when they are punished for being just what they are: depraved animals who haven’t used the sense God gave them, but instead used the free will endowed in us all to preach hate.

Write letters to congress. Write letters to the anti-defamation league. Write letters to shut these horrible people down. THAT, in my opinion, is God’s will.

Let them burn with Cho Seung-Hui. I’m sure they can all have a great chat with their pal Adolf when they get there.

Fuckers.

The Pillowman is NIgh!

The Pillowman is coming! This weekend at the Armory Free Theatre, come see the story of a writer and the writers brother. 'The Pillowman' by Martin McDonagh is a brilliantly crafted dark comedy revolving around a writer in a totalitarian state under interrogation for the gruesome content of his short stories, and the stories' similarities to a number of child murders that are happening in his town.

The show is directed by Drew Shirley, and features Corey Allen, Anthony Bianco, Christopher Blim, Detroit Dunwood, Justin Gordon, Christa Sablic, Jake Szczepaniak, Marko Tomic, and Ron Thomas.Show times are:Friday April 13th, 7:30 pm and MidnightSatuday April 14th, 7:30 pmInvited Dress: Thursday, April 12th, 7:30Come support free theatre at the Armory!

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Dark Play? Great Mood!

So I have been giving a lot of though to my last post, about, you know, letting go of the past, moving forward, conquering the demons of the past to relish in the angels of the future, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…I suppose that because I'm doing 'The Pillowman' I am in a sort of perpetual state of contemplation and darkness...however, I'm feeling pretty positive lately, and this concept of 'live and let die', apart from being a great Wings song and terrible Bond film, is something I can sort of see myself sticking too...

And here’s what I’m thinking:

You really can’t escape the past. You can, however, learn from the mistakes you made and look to avoid such mishaps in the future.

Do you have an issue with how you and a certain ex parted ways?

Too bad. Next time, make sure you deal with it in the moment, because no amount of whining your snotty head off now is going to make you feel better about not telling her you loved her and that you know it could work, blah-de-blah.

Do you have an issue with where you ended up going to undergrad?

Too bad. Next time, well, there won’t be one. But guess what: if you have kids, instill in them a belief that anything is possible and encourage them to shoot for the moon. Guess what, Juggo, you CAN afford Harvard…

Do you have an issue with the way you look? Change it.

Evolve. Let the chips fall where they may.

Nada Surf has an album called “The Weight is a Gift.”

You know what? The weight of your past CAN be a gift. It’s a gift in that you have the means to propel onward in a more positive light. The gift of experience, I suppose.

Yep, it’s Spring. Bring on the cheer.

Upward Over the Mountain!

I had a thought while in the shower today…and no, it wasn’t anything that had to do with anything, with being naked and soapy or happy to be naked and soapy or anything, but I did have a thought, and the thought was this: I really need to let go of the past.

I mean, I have claimed to “let go” of things past many times, only to realize further down the road that no, in fact, I have not let go of said past, but rather I have only tightened my grip on it, and in doing so systematically shoved it down into a deep dark corner of my heart, or soul, or wherever the poetic place to suppress my emotional/physical/meta-physical magna cum baggage is these days.

So, there I was, in the shower, enjoying my refreshing Axe body scrub, Jeff Buckley is playing on the radio, and his song, “Morning Theft” came on. Now, “Morning Theft” is a great song—tragically beautiful in the way that Jeff Buckley could be, with lyrics such as ‘time takes care of the wounds, or so I can believe’, as well as, ‘I miss my beautiful friend, I had to send her away to bring her back again’, and so on and so-forth.

Unfortunately for me, “Morning Theft” is intrinsically linked to an abundance of over-active romanticism I once felt back in New York, before the Dark Times, before the Cornfields. Long story short, the world back then was full of a sense of promise, of love, of hope, blah blah blah, and even though every little bit of moxy and optimism I felt back then was certainly real in the moment, I have sense come to look back on those days of wine and roses and think, “Madre de dios! What was I smoking?! Where can I get some more?

Yeah, back in the day I was in love with a girl, this aforementioned love made me believe I was an indestructible God of Possibility, and when life showed me its just yet cruel hand and said girl went into the ether, I buried my embarrassment and shame in many pints of beer and many miles of running through Central Park, and eventually I was back to my normal Dark Prince self.

Then I got into grad school here at the good ol’ land of the Illini (which isn’t a real Indian tribe and all of you who think it is should be shot out of ignorance—okay, okay, maybe not shot, per se, but at least given a thorough education on racial stereotypes and all that lovely post-1492 brough-ha-ha we have to deal with). How’s that for a rant? Let’s go back:

Then I got into grad school here in the good of’ land of the Illi—um, the good ol’ LAND OF LINCOLN (better), and began to systematically live each moment of NYC like it would be my last. Which was fun…although somewhat exhausting and somewhat cruel and misguided for those in the city who wanted me to stick around…I should have been more, well, something. What that is, I’m not sure. I’m losing ground here. Let me regroup.

Okay, officially regrouped now.

Once I got to U of I, I went into survival mode, and life became pretty much about my work, with a dash of partying on the side. Unfortunately, I was continuing to bury every single regret, wound, et al that I never dealed with in New York, as well as every previous bit of angst from my “unconventional” childhood.

I started to consider therapy…but…where would I ever find THAT kind of time?

So, here I am today, on Friday 23 of March, and after a shower and a bit of Jeff Buckley, I have realized the following: the best to just let it all go, the past, deal with things like a man, and move forward. Because where I see things going in life right now is far more exciting than what’s happened in the past.

We’ll see how that works.

Angry Welshman, signing off…Excelsior!

The Face Basement

So, as some of you out there may know, I'm currently in rehearsals for a production of 'The Pillowman' by Martin McDonagh. In this production, I play a writer by the name of Katurian who writes gruesome short stories sprung from his twisted imagination, an imagination that was forged during a rather unconventional and "torturous" childhood.

During the course of the play, we hear several of Katurian's stories, many of them pretty sick, with titles such as "The Pillowman", "The Little Jesus", "The Little Applemen", "The Tale of the Town on the River", etc. There are also several stories which we never hear--we only hear the titles. As a character excercise, I wrote one of these stories as Katurian, a story known as 'The Face Basement'.

I think I need therapy.

Enjoy:

Once upon a time in a far away town atop a tree-covered hill lived a little boy who did not look like all of the other children in his woodland home. No, this little child was different, for where there should have been the face of a young, handsome and healthy young man, there lay instead the grotesque, deformed, and scarred face of a living corpse, all mangled and torn flesh, with deep sunken eyes and a hole where there should have been a nose. However, this child was not always so horrible to look at—in fact, he was born the loveliest of all children in the land, a fact that the child’s cruel and less-than idyllically beautiful mother and father could not bear.
Out of their peevish and hostile jealousy, the little boy’s parents would, on a nightly basis beginning on his fourth birthday, come into the little boy’s room as he slept and cover his little cherubic face with honey, and when he would awake to question his parents, they would silence him and tell him that they were helping him to remain forever beautiful. Then, once giving the little boy a healthy dose of laudanum to force him back to sleep, the parents would then bring in a box of fire ants from the woods behind their house, only to release them onto the honey-dripped face of their angelic son so that they may gnaw and infect his porcelain flesh with their venom-soaked pinchers.
Every morning, the boy would then awake in terrible agony, his face a mass of smoldering diseased tissue, all scabs and erupting pustules. As the boy would cry out in misery for something to cool his wounded visage, his cruel and horrible parents would come in offering comfort…comfort in the form of more laudanum. This cycle of torture and doping went on for seven consecutive years, until one day the parents were called away on business, leaving their now adolescent son lashed to his bed in a feverish coma…a coma from which, in their absence and subsequent failure to re-drug their son, was therefore broken.
For the first time that he could ever remember, he felt no pain. As his thin, malnourished wrists slid gingerly out of his bonds, he left his bedchamber for the first time…and wandered through the large home that he had yet to know. As he wandered the dark and shadowy canyons that comprised the hallways, he found himself before a small, non-descript door with a worn copper handle. As the boy fumbled with the knob for a moment, he pushed the door open to find a dimly lit staircase leading ever downward…a staircase he followed with an almost primal curiosity.
As he spiraled ever-down into the heated and humid depths of his parents basement, he found, to his horror, a row of dummies against the moldy brick walls, each with a pinned photograph where the face should be…pinned photographs which showed the chronology of what he would learn was the devolution of his own face, once angelic and pure, now mangled and putrid. Once the horrible truth was realized, the little boy sought revenge. He waited in the dank musk of the basement for his parents to return. Which they soon did.
As they entered their dungeon of experimentation, the little boy, who was now not as little as he once was, knocked each of his parents on the head from behind. As they lay in a state of protracted sleep on the damp clay floor of their basement, the little boy proceeded to carve off the top layer of each of their faces with an exacto-knife. He then placed each face in a jar of alcohol, setting them atop the dummies that flanked the final dummy which showed his own mangled face. Then he waited. Waited for his parents to awake. Which they soon did…
…in terrible, revolting pain. Their little corpse then proceeded to show them their reflections in a looking glass, reflections in which he boasted, “See…now you look like you should be my parents….” And once the parents fully took in the effect of what their little angel had shown them, he proceeded to hack them to bits with a rusty meat clever, burying their quartered remains in the woods behind his newly inherited mansion.
As the boy realized that he was now on his own and would have to fend for himself, he knew he would have to go into public. But due to his ugly face, he would have to hide it...it was in this moment that he saw his mother’s sliced off face in the alcohol jar and decided to slip it on. However, he didn’t quite like the way it looked…so he went out into the town below and found a child whose face he liked. And he followed this child, killed this child in a dark alley, removed the child’s face and took it for his very own. He liked it so well that he continued to do this on a weekly basis—finding a face he enjoyed, killing and slicing the face off of his unassuming victim, and then storing the faces in jars atop dummies in his parent’s former basement, which was now, of course, his basement. Finally the boy had a collection of about three-hundred and sixty-five faces. Which he thought was just swell.
Now, whenever the angelic little boy wished to leave his home for the outside world, he simply went to his basement, which he now termed his “Face Basement”, unscrewed one of the jars atop his dummies, and prepared himself to face the day…

…The End.