A new Theater company to work for; The Aurora Theater, located next to Berkeley Rep... ... and this is my room. It's dark and doesn't flow. The fitting space isn't convenient or big enough... It really is the basement, but right now it FEELS like the basement... So tomorrow I will be working on making it a more hospitable place to habitate. I already bought a bunch of plastic storage bins and drawers for little things... so I'm actually pretty excited to be able to move everything around and make it all more beautiful. Hopefully an update will come later showing massive improvement.
Today was a day dreaded by all. The double show day in the middle of July is usually the hottest and most uncomfortable times at Cal Shakes. Today we were fortunate enough to have a show that was probably only 90 degrees, whereas in the past this time slot has been as hot as 120 on deck! Our leading man did not melt and our actors in hell (Don Juan in Hell... Shaw) made it through without heat stroke. There was a little frustration surrounding melting scenery and general personality conflicts magnified by the heat and potential heat stroke... but we've made it. One more show and then we're on to the next... I'll miss this cast though, they were quite lovely.
Yes another Leo Birthday (and one more to come). For those who do not know the handsome fellow on this post, he is one of my dearest friends in the whole world and I have now known him for twelve years! He is the other half of my brain which explains why I can get scattered at times (the other half of my brain lives in Hamburg) . His mother and I agree that he sometimes takes himself too seriously, but I think that he's been working on that a lot in the past decade. Alex is a brilliant scenic designer, a detail oriented artisan, a philosopher and has a sparkeling soul. Yay Alex! Wish I could take you out for a celebration today but I'm afraid my teleporter is on the fritz.
Notice the reving of the engine; Mercedes' safety feature here makes the airbag sensativity increase when the engine is at high speeds (or just revving like this)... ouch.
My Treasure Chest is filled with gold gold... gold... gold... Vagabond's gold and drifter's gold... worthless, priceless dreamer's gold... gold of the sunset... gold of the dawn gold of the shower trees on my lawn poet's gold and artist's gold gold that cannot be bought or sold... Gold. -Dan Blanding
You were a really cute little kid (creepy how much my baby pics look like yours)...
Sending a b-day card soon... just trying to get my act together... so it will be a real surprise when it gets there.
One of the best ways to start off a Sunday in Berkeley is by taking your friends to the Thai Buddhist Temple for brunch. They serve really good Thai food on Sundays and it is always packed full of people. First you get tokens in exchange for money and then exchange the tokens for food, I think it simplifies the server's jobs and reduces any pick pocketing. The line to get the food can be anywhere from a five to twenty minute wait. Usually I meet cool people there and on occasion there may be a celebration going on for whatever is going on in Thailand... so generally it's just a warm friendly environment where everybody is walking around feeling good from yummy food.
Most people my age will hear "boy bands" and think; Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, or InSynch (I think I misspelled that) and yea I do sorta. But today I uncovered a boy band that I remember with a little more fondness. Perhaps it was because I couldn't understand the lyrics. They may actually be just as dumb as those previously mentioned but I don't have to analyze the intelligence of the lyrics... all I have is the sound and the image. I remember sitting in the ISOMATA common room when it was suddenly invaded by Korean girls and the new video one of them had been sent from back home... I know you're thinking this is obvious, it's got to be Seo Taiji and Boys... of corse it is. It's the Korean super group that rapped their way into our hearts wearing ski gear and performing on a stage that seemed to always be a blaze with roman candles. Thanks to YouTube I can share Seo Taiji and Boys with the unfortunate ones who didn't have Korean class mates. Enjoy!
So Today I was trying to explain contractions to my friend from Yemen. "It's just squishing two words together to save time... we're speeding through, abbreviating, we're in American now, so we don't want to waste time with extra letters.... so instead of are not?.." "aren't" "and instead of could not..." "couldn't" "instead of I will..." "I'll?" "Good. Instead of would not" then she starts to strain a bit... "think, it's just like these others. We use the first word and then throw out the space and all the extra letters..." She gets it and writes down; "W't"
Now That is beyond expectation. Fully abbreviated... this is the American Way.
What better way to spend your day off than at a company picnic with all the people you work with... Here's Coeli (pronounced Chay-lee) out of the costume dungeon;
The man in this picture is shouting at me "Hi Alexae! Hi! Hi!" Yes. This is my boss. Our artistic Director. Endearing at times.
Nichole and Renee making "pretty faces" ...and now mugging for the camera Our chef for the day; Eric... The picture looks like it's just a guy grilling up some chicken, when in fact it is chipotle chicken, teriyaki chicken, blue cheese and carmelized onion burgers and chipotle burgers... Yum! He's cooking for everybody because it's fun. ... his charcoal-black griller's hands...
Sorry I forgot to get a picture of myself but I swear I was there behind the camera. No great insight to post today but I feel a need to post Something at least once a week. Hopefully something of more universal interest to come...
I took the night off of work to see Chris Cornell. For those unfamiliar with Chris, he was the lead singer and songwriter for Soundgarden, Audioslave, and Temple of the Dog, and now he has a solo career alongside current projects with Audioslave. In other words, he's a busy busy musician. The concert was at the Warfield which is pretty much the center of the Tenderloin (ie. San Francisco's rough neighborhood) but my friend Cheryl's boyfriend dropped us off at the beginning. Unfortunatley he had to be at work early and Cheryl underestimated the longevity of the concert... concert not over at 11pm and she leaves... yes I could have gone with them but I figured I would just clamp myself onto a group of people walking to BART and ask them to pretend that I was with them... which I did and it worked out just fine. I was not about to miss "Blackhole Sun" or "Can't Change Me" because I was afraid I couldn't tough it out a couple blocks with concert going strangers... This is one of my favorite Soundgarden songs;
The band was amazing. It was Chris plus three guitar players and a drummer, which amounted to a thick rich ROCK sound and Chris' live vocal was at least as good live as it is in recordings if not a little better. The spot ops, however, I wanted to throttle (warning;Technical jargon ahead) because they were bleeding when they had their shudders closed, they had sloppy gel changes and couldn't hold still... I think that the real spot ops must have had the night off and had been replaced by poorly trained monkeys. The crowd was mostly 25-30 year old white people (I'm not used to being in the majority at concerts I attend, so that was odd) and sadly they confirmed that many white people have no rythm. Chris Cornell actually has some complicated rythm structures where the guitar, the drums and the vocals are all on different counts so that may be a difficulty, but really you can just follow the bass player's head and you'll be fine. It's like a big bald conductor's baton. It also struck me tonight that the lyrics to these songs are unusually unrepetitive. Some of the older songs have chorus(es) but all the new stuff threw the chorus-verse-chorus format out the window... I love this guy! Next time I think I may actually try being a groundling because being up in the balcony for anything but a U2 concert seems to be pretty lame. At U2, every last person in the auditorium is standing and dancing and singing along, even if they are in the very farthest obstructed view seat... in this venue especially it's all people who mostly want to sit down in these uncomfortably close seats and kind of tap their feet... Lame! But despite lame people... I still had a great time.
I may be in a bit of a creative funk but I went to the Redwoods again for the third Monday in a row. On the other hand it did make me want to come back again but with pastels next time. I found a new trail called "Madrone" that was particularly beautiful and climbed at a Very steep angle both directions. At some points I was crawling up the canyon using my arms to pull me up along the hill.
I think that next Monday I will either go back again but with art supplies instead of an impatient dog, or I will go somewhere I can actually meet people. It was at least quite calming to be in the woods after a trying tech week that seemed like it would never end.
"In Most kinds of addiction the harm comes not from the substance itself but from the fact that the addiction distracts from other things we need; substances that nourish, experiences that feed and support and gratify us. This deprivation in turn reinforces addiction." --Phillip Slater, "Wealth Addiction"
---makes me think of tech week every time.
During tech, I go to work, then come home and have a listless night of "sleep", wake up and start paperwork for the next day of tech... then maybe I'll do some shopping for the show, head in early to get everything in order and back to the theater where we usually eat at odd times and sometimes food that is not what we need. We skip our yoga classes, we miss concerts, and graduations, we go in to work exhausted and sick, broken bones and all, our families and friends learn to expect to just not see us for at least a week solid ... and I do this at least once every three to six weeks (as do most theater people). Theater seems like a fun profession at times but at others it can be very unhealthy.
What do you do that is destructive but perpetual, "nessicary" or not?
The phrase is that something is easy as pie does not apply in my attempt to actually carve out time to make this pie. I bought rhubarb on Wednesday and it has been too chaotic to actually get to the kitchen and cut it up into pie size bits. I'm tired and mostly tired of the insanity at work this week, so instead of bringing it back home and plopping my baggage onto the internet, I thought I would just share how beautiful my pie finally turned out. It tasted just as good as it looks...
