Break a Leg

A couple blogs ago, I wrote about my experiences with a certain company and a workshop I attended therein.  My blog was largely negative, and slighting on a personal level to the proprietors of this company.

I would like to formally apologize for that blog.

It was angry and short-sighted.

Not all theater methods, or even ways of life are for everyone, but it is not for any individual to slight the life philosophies of any other member of society.  I was judgemental where I had no call to be.

The blog that I wrote was degrading and insulting...two things which I try never to be, but as a human being, occasionally find myself resorting to just to make myself feel better.

I feel that each person's opinions are, in fact, their own, but how we voice those opinions should be taken with care, because A) opnions are like assholes, and B) not all opinions are sound because, hey, somebody was of the opinion that being a Nazi was a pretty good idea.

So, to Conrad of the Independant Eye: I apologize for the slander, and I wish you luck and fortune in all your endeavors.

And I post under a seudonym because people on this sight know me as such, not because I'm trying to hide my identity.

Chad

So, things have been pretty crazy around here.

I just got done doing my annual performance of The Nutcracker with the Stapleton School of Ballet.  And you might find yourself thinking: "Jennifer does ballet? Shocker."  It not really dancing, though: it's just choreographed movement mixed in with some snazzy magic tricks.  It's a lot of fun.  And it pays well.  So yay + yay = hooray.

Then, last night I had an audition for The Greatest Books (Abridged) and I got a call back from the theater today saying that they want me in the show, jthey just haven't decided which part they want to give me.  Now, I think this is pretty sweet.  It's like they're saying I'm so amzaingly versitile that I could fit any role and only when they find somebody less versitile than me will they decide where they need my expertise and skill.  Boo-yah.  So I'll be gettin gready for that.  The show doesn't actually go up until next summer, but it will be nice to get a head-start on the script.

And, of course, there's all this holiday stuff going on: all the family and friends gathering at various times, so much to do and cook and prepare and buys and eat and drink and stuff.  Good times.

The holidays are also a time to visit home...which brings me to my topic for the day.

I have a roommate name Sophia who is from Taiwan.  She left last night to fly home for a month.  Behind her she left a miniature doberman pincher...a NEEDY mini doberman pincher.  A SQUEAKY mini doberman pincher. 

As I have already mentioned, and as I'm sure you already know what with the hectic schedules of your own, that this is a pretty busy time of year.  I work all day and I have things to do in the evening.  Things that become very difficult to do if I am constantly chasing after this psychotic rat that thinks my sofa is just one big chew toy.  So, I put the dog in Sophia's room and close the door.  The dog proceeds to hurl itself at the door.  This is getting on my nerves.  So I put the dog in it's cage  It proceeds to whine and whine and whine until I let it out.  Then it runs around the house, chewing on everything, lifting used tampons out of the bathroom garbage, and being generally fucking annoying.  The cycle repeats itself.

The alternative to this was Sophia giving some guy who thinks he's her boyfriend a key to my house so that he could come hang out with the dog for a couple hours a day and think that Sophia had indentured herself to him for doing so.  Bugger that.  So I agreed to watch over the dog. 

Today is the 10th of December.  Sophia returns on the 15th of January.  I'm really beginning to wonder if the little weasel fodder is going to make it.  I DO know that as an early Christmas present, it's getting a shock collar.

On a final note, this year on December 16th, we will celebrate the anniversary of the death of Gregori Rasputin (according to the Gregorian Calendar).  This means you wear red, drink vodka, and listen to gypsy music.  My friends and I will actually be observing International Rasputin Day on Saturday the 13th, and I invite you all to take part and spread the word of this new and exciting celebration, if not with me, then with your own friends wherever you are.

Happy Jenday!

I was recently invited to attend an acting workshop for a new version of Shakespeare's The Tempest.  It was run by an independent theater company in Sebastopol caled The Independent Eye.  Now, one thing you should know about Sebastopol is that it is where alll the hippies went.  They have signs posted banning nuklear weapons and styrofoam within city limits.  The Whole Foods there is always crowded.  On average, the men have longer hair than the women.  It's that kind of place.

The concept for this workshop was to mix Shakespeare and puppetry.  Now, puppetry can be pretty interesting to watch - if done right.  I think there is a convention in a lot of theater to over-embelish actions and charicatures, where you feel like the fact that it's a surealistic sort of genre is basically crammed down the collective throat of the audience, and that it is easier to do this when working with puppets than it is when it's just people and a set.  Additionally, I think it takes a certain kind of outlook to resist the instinct to over-act.

The people running the workshop didn't have this kind of outlook.

One of the things that always makes me squeemish about theater is the word "experimental".  Now, I understand that no progress can be gained without trying new things, but there have got to be times when somebody looks at what is being tried and says "Just because we can doesn't mean we should."

The space that the workshop was being held in was basically a garage converted into...well, a workshop, with the walls painted black and the floor carpetted.  Half the space was filled with racks and boxes holding various puppets, which were pretty much just heads with a draped cloth "body".

The workshop was being run by Connor and Elizabeth, who introduced themselves as "life partners".  At first, this threw me a little bit because I usually only hear the term in regards to gay couples.  I mean, I just didn't think it was necessary.  It was obvious they were living together.  It's like two people walking hand in hand and pointing out to people "this is my boyfriend."  Good for you.  How is this relevent?  Connor has long, white, bushy hair always slightly in disarray.  Elizabeth has blonde hair and that sort of weathered look that only a truly organic lifestyle can provide.  Both were extremely soft-spoken, which to some people, to me, is just fucking annoying.  They had us do several vocal and physical warm-ups which involved moving randomly and making sounds that supported the movement, which I have always hated, but always tolerated because it's just part of theater.  I have my own ways of warming up.  For instance, on that day, I had just come from an hour and a half of ballet practice.  I was pretty friggin warm.  SO, eventually we had 10 people in a tiny space moaning and flailing all over the place like a pack of possessed epileptics.  We did one other excercise where we had to think of a traumatic moment in our lives and speak out loud to the circle things we would like to say to that moment or like to hear from that moment.  Then we had to improvise one of the other actors moments without quite knowing the context and that actor got to direct how they wanted the moment to have happened rather than how it did.

Finally, we got into some basic puppet technique, which was pretty interesting.  But that was the last half hour of the 3 that the workshop had been scheduled for.  Now I'm all for learning new things and trying new stuff, but when I show up to a 3-hour class and I'm looking at my watch before 10 minutes has passed, I begin to consider the possibility that maybe this isn't quite one of the chances I should have taken.  Of course, the Catch-22 there is: you'll never find out that you shouldn't have gone unless you go.

There are supposed to be about 12 more of these workshops that will then lead into the actual production of The Tempest.  Right now this process threatens to contain a lot of the things I hate about theater.  The dinger here is that there are some people involved that I really enjoy working with and would feel somewhat bad about leaving them to put up with that stuff by themselves.  I'll have to think about it.

Happy Jenday

So, I work in a sign shop.  My primary position is as a graphic designer, but I also serve as a secondary salesman.  Our shop is set up so that when people come into the show room, they encounter the two primary salespeople.  I sit in a section in back where I can see the show room through a window.  If there aren't enough people up front, I step up to help with customers, either in person or on the phone. 

Every so often we get somebody that comes into the shop that is nearly beyond help.  I had one of these today.

Our showroom has a pretty wide variety of the kinds of signs we make.  For instance: there are samples of all the different A-Frame signs we make.  These samples have the prices clearly printed on them.  So, when this one lady came in asking about the A-Frame prices I politely pointed to the signs and pointed out that the prices for each sign were listed there.  The lady proceeded to walk over to one, point at it adn ask "So how much is this one?"

Ah, one of those.

English was obviously her second language, so I could understand a bit of a communication barrier there.  But it wasn't so bad that I didn't think she couldn't understand what I was saying. I told her that the sign was $x, just as it said on the sign.  She pointed at another one and asked how much that one was.  I told her, still as polite as I could be, that it was $n, just like it said on the sign.  She then went into relating a tale of wonder and woe to me that she had called earlier and asked about the price of a sign and whoever she had talked to said they were around $37 or so, and why was the price I was giving her now so much different from what she was told over the phone.  The way she was talking about that conversation suggested to me that prehaps whoever she had talked to on the phone may have misunderstood what she was talking about, so I, in turn, suggested the same to her. 

Just one other saleperson and myself were at the counter at the time, and she asked if it was either one of us that she had talked to.  We quickly established that it wasn't, and maybe the guy she had talked to was at lunch.  She then demanded to know why he would give her a price that was so inconsistent with the information she was currently being given.  I stated that not having been party to their conversation, I could only suggest, again, that perhaps they other salesperson had misunderstood what she was asking about.  It happens.  Simple mistake.

She went back over to the signs that we had already determined by spoken testament and by the printed text on the signs themselves had cost $x and $n respectively, and she repeated her request for the cost of each sign.  I repeated that, just as the signs said, they cost $x or $n, or perhaps even $q if she wanted extra options.  She repeated the story about the phone call, then demanded to know where our wayward salesperson may be off to, and why had he given her erroneous information.

This went on for a while.  Finally, satisfied (or not, as it were) that the prices weren't what she expected and weren't apparently going to change anytime soon, she wandered off.  I went back to my desk.

Then she came back in.

The other salesman got to deal with her this time.  I tried to stay out of her sight just so I wouldn't have to deal with her, though, with her powers of observation, there wasn't much risk of her noticing me, even if I was standing on her head.

I have a hard time fathoming how it is that people like this have successful business careers.  Is it luck?  Is it the fact that people get so annoyed with them that they just give up and give them what they want?  It's people like this that make me feel that we have too many safety laws in this country.  We have almost completely managed to do away with natural sellection, and people like this are allowed to breed.  We need more chlorine in the gene pool!  Darwin must be rolling over in his grave.  Maybe if their was a higher chance of death inherent in our lives we would learn to enjoy life a little more and not focus on all the stupid bullshit.

Or maybe people would scrabble even harder to get their stupid, greedy, little hands on everything in their reach.

Either way, there would surely be shorter lines at the DMV.

Happy Jenday!

Well,  I did it.  I voted.   Go, Democracy.

I will admit that this is my first time voting even though I have been eligible for a couple other elections.  Yes, I know: I'm a bad American.  But here's the thing: I have never had any interest in politics - partially because I didn't understand them and partially because they bored me to tears.  And I've always held that an uninformed voter isn't necessarily a good thing.  As the addage goes: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  And I've always been scared of voting.  What if I vote for what I think is right and it comes to pass and brings ruination to us all.  I don't want that on my conscience.  Everybody walking around saying "This is all your fault."

Plus, I hate lines.  That's right: I wasn't voting for the same reason that I don't like going to amusement parks or concerts.

But we're going through some pretty rocky times around here, and I decided that I couldn't afford to remain uninformed and uninterested in the world around me anymore.  I couldn't afford to be scared of making the wrong choices any more.  I couldn't afford to hate lines anymore.  I couldn't afford not to try to stop the bullshit that has been going on for the last 8 years.  What is a country, after all, but a huge gathering of people all trying to live together...kinda like The Brady Bunch.  And I'm a people.  So I have to do my share of the chores just like everybody else...more so since all Marsha does is brush her hair and fawn after football guys and all Jan can do is complain about it.  Stupid bitches.

So, I went and voted for the first time.  And you know, it wasn't bad at all.

They were holding the polls in a church a couple blocks from my house.  So I got off early from work (which is to say I stopped looking at webcomics all day because business is pretty slow in the sign-making market this time of year), I drove home and parked, and took a little stroll down the street.  Now, I was slightly concerned about the status of my voter registration because I didn't receive my card in the mail.  But I walked in, there was one guy in front of me, they had my name, they gave me my ballot, I made my choices, and 10 minutes later I was back home thinking about the closest place to get some fetuccini alfredo.  Painless, quick, easy, and I did the most patriotic thing I've ever done...except for that 4 years in the Army. 

And yes, I guess I do feel some sense of civic pride...or that could just be the hunger for the fetuccini.

Happy Jenday!