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.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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.
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.
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