A day with extra pith

Woke up this Sunday morning to the sounds of a jackhammer after only four? five? hours of sleep... opened up the ruby red grapefruit I was planning on eating this morning to find it all pith (and not vaguely ruby)... I've never seen such a sad grapefruit and I went to college in Ohio. Now I'm stumbling around trying to get my head straight... so much to do and yet no juice... so sad that my breakfast is looking like the metaphor for my week.

Yellow

That which covers all
Conquers souls
fills lungs
teaches eyeballs to fear

That which is inescapable and
Unbelievable.
Only truly understood by those
who have lived
under the tyranny,
of pine.


--My dear loved ones currently living in the pollen, I salute you.

Daily Minutes...

12am; load car for following day of fittings, trunk full, arrange blanket covering costumes in back seat to look more like a sleeping (or dead) body than costumes (hope that nobody breaks into car to hassle the corpse).
1:30ish; sleep?

6:02am; wake sharply with the feeling of having slept in and missed all appointments
6:11; convince self to go back to sleep
8:06; wake up again... decide that it's close enough to 7 hours of sleep to get up.
8:40; oatmeal
10:11; crap! I woke up two hours early and I'm already 15 min behind...

10:35; arrive at rental shop (located next to the methadone clinic) to find that nobody is answering the door.
10:40; make friends with locals
10:48; get into the rental shop
12:15pm; leave rental shop with a new 50lbs of costumes, haul it all back to the car stepping over puddles of unknown origins

12:30; arrive at Shakespeare offices...
1:55; haul another 40lbs of costumes to car
2:15; chicken wrap lunch

2:55; arrive at rehearsal hall and try to pull costumes from the bottom of the pile out into the top
3:30; still sorting fittings on the sidewalk
4:00; haul all costumes up to rehearsal hall in three batches
4:35; finished hauling
4:36; get asked if I "need any help"

5:30-7:50 fittings...
7:55; realize I've left a good 15lbs of costumes I was supposed to fit today in my f***g studio (rearrange fittings for later)
8:02; meeting with director
8:35; hurredly gather everything back into piles and have stage management and director help shove everything into car

9:15; left over pasta and a tangerine (wait for theatre crowd to leave the street my shop is on)

10:17; meet my lovely friend Alisha who helped me reload ALL of the costumes back into the shop

10:45; re-sort costumes for returns and re-load car for following day

10:55; return home.

12:33am; decide to blog because sleep isn't coming any time soon...
Wired.
Can't sleep.


**exact times are mostly guess work with the exception of 1st wake up time and blog time.

$325.

Once upon a time I lived in a two bedroom apartment all by myself. I could keep all of my work out of my bedroom and at the far end of the house. There was free heat and water and on sunny days the sunlight would stream in over my futon where I could nap between afternoon classes. The ceilings were quite high and the washer and dryer were free (although the basement they were in was rather creepy and gross)... I had a front and a back porch... all this for $325 a month.

Granted the down side of my apartment was that it was located in south west Ohio... Somedays while I am working in my bedroom and I find that all of my stuff is just all crammed together because there is no room to spread... and when I have to pay all of my utility bills and considerably more rent... I sigh a soft breath and miss my stupid Cincinnati apartment. Never again.

Brevity/shopping win

See this handsome man in his suit? Yea, I bought him that. I love it when actors buy the costumes I find for them.

Brevity/creativity in progress

I cannot reveal the full picture... but then that is the essence of where my latest show is right now. There are bits and bobs and we are working very hard to make them into a complete picture.

UPDATE:

How was the concert?

A: It was amazing.

That is how this exchange is supposed to go right?  It's like Q: How are you?  A: I'm fine.  It's a good way to ask a question that you don't really want an interesting answer to...

However; How was the U2 concert? 
Why I am so glad you asked!

Last week I went to my third U2 concert.  My first was in Louisville KY 2001, then in Oakland CA, 2005... Where to even begin about what it is like to attend a U2 concert?  I suppose part of it is linked to the connection I have with their music.  If you know me, you know that they are my favorite band and have been since about 1993.  Are they my favorite band because their concerts are so special or are their concerts so special because they are my favorite band?  I'd like to think that the two are not mutually exclusive.




The beauty of a U2 concert is unique.  U2 is not just about the music.  Each of the U2 shows I've been to, I've been far far in the back... they are usually a centimeter high from my perspective and yet they manage to make the place feel full.  The use of multi-media as a fifth member of the band helps. This tour features a giant 360º LED screen that expands and changes height.  The screen helps add elements that could not otherwise be achieved in mere reality.  What other rock group could/would integrate astronauts in their rock show?

Astronaut Mark Kelly did this for Oakland (and probably other cities on the tour... but we went crazy when this came up)


What other group could/would take down the audience to discuss matters of humanitarian importance?  I had no idea about the prisoners of conscience in Myanmar, now I do.  Every show is a teaching opportunity for the band who spend a lot of their non-rock-band time in humanitarian efforts.

U2 will build you up, will play you the greatest song you can imagine (yes this is a biased opinion I know), but then they want you to think about your privilege, to think about the suffering in the world and to do something about it.  Every show I see they are grateful for the crowd, grateful for their careers and mindful of others.  Every show, they thank the audience for being there.  They are not spoiled rock stars.  At this concert Bono thanked us for our patience (we did wait an extra year to see this because of Bono's injury last summer, it has been two years since the tickets originally went on sale).  Because of this thought provocation, every show is filled with happy, mindful and friendly people.

After the show, at least half of the Coliseum funneled back to BART (our rapid transit) in a sea of people... you will never see a happier mob in your life.  At the end there were people keeping others from loosing keys, clearing the way for those on crutches, fun banter with strangers and no panicked pushing (gentle pushing maybe). In any other crowd I would probably have been fully freaked out.

I do get out to see concerts whenever I can, but there is nothing like a U2 show.

Photo Perspective

I love looking at other people's vacation photos.  I like the photos of tourists holding up the tower of Pisa, them standing with crazy hair and exhausted beaming smiles in front of the Eiffel Tower... Moreso I love seeing the photos of odd details.  A friend of mine visited Versailles and took photos of the courtyard through the warped windows, another took amazing perspective shots of the Golden Gate Bridge from the base of the walk way...
When you are on vacation even iconic things can be new.

I love the odd detail shots; foreign toilets, supermarkets with funny brand names (An Aussie friend of mine thinks it is hilarious that we have "Drug Stores" in America).  Some photos are taken with specific people from back home in mind "ooh take a photo of me in front of the puppet shop!", others are taken so as not to forget... so much information just slips away.  I like the way these photos show the things that make you stop and gasp.  The photos that prove that you saw "That famous building", that you were "There" all the while most of us are aware that this snap shot can never capture the feeling of standing there.

I hear that some people don't enjoy looking at other people's vacation photos.  I contend that these people are looking at the wrong things.  Most of us know what the Pyramids at Giza look like, but it's amazing to see the care of memory and the excitement of the visitor... it is the world anew and we are so blessed to have the ability to share it.

Sing it brother...

"Sometimes you meet people who inspire you,
Sometimes you meet people you want to inspire,
and sometimes you just want to fucking stab yourself"
--Jamie Oliver on stubborn people.

Krakenhaus

It is very possible that I will be the only person on Earth who will find the bit of photoshopping I did here to be funny.

It involves; Harry Potter, Jules Verne, knowing a few German words, and things that you see rather than what there is...
Trust me... it was hilarious in my head at the time.

Brevity/distraction

Things that I need to buy;
1. Pants (old pants all too big)
2. Cell Phone (old phone is 5+ yrs old and starting to die)
3. Luggage (old luggage just about disintegrated traversing European cobblestones, but this can wait)
4. Postage Stamps (uh... you know because they don't take these things for free)
5. New Eye Liner (down to an inch nub)
6. oil change for the car

Things that I actually managed to purchase;
1. New headphones. 

Yep.  That's it. Shopping failure.

Apocalypse...

So the Pope gets a phone call.

As the Bishop hands him the phone, he tells the Pope; "So I've got some good news and some bad news"

"What is is?" the Pope asks.

"Well the good news is that Jesus is back and he's on the line"

"That's amazing!  Hand it over!"

"The bad news, sir, is that he's calling from Salt Lake City."

---ha ha ha---