Mysteries of Pittsburgh

When we were going through undergrad together, Mike Darling and I would spend evenings reading Michael Chabon, alternately praising and cursing him, convinced he's left absolutely nothing to write about Pittsburgh -- or much else for that matter. We were young. We were, often times, drunk. We were always reminded of him walking to and from Carnegie Library as newly minted clouds were released from the stacks down by the Bat Cave. I think about the Cloud Factory a lot now, living, as I am, 2700 miles from Pittsburgh. The only clouds here are made by planes flying in and out of the Sacramento Airport. Even the water upstream in the American River is clear. It hasn't rained in the month I've been living here. This is not Pittsburgh. This is not the place I'm only now realizing was/is worthy of being lionized in writing. I want to sing you a love song, Pittsburgh. I miss you and your filthy rivers and streets and people and buildings. I miss your Dirty Eagles and dirty Souf' Oakland, yo. But most of all, I miss the shambling lot attending the University, drugged as they are on the abysmal weather that swirls around the top of the Cathedral like crazed Falcons bashed senselessly by a deranged Chancellor high on power. I miss all of my friends and classmates. Dearer to me now than family and scattered to the wind just as effectively. Can any of you hear the siren song of Pittsburgh? Can you feel the pull back to that place? Or have we all lashed ourselves to the masts and are sailing quickly past? There are mysteries in Pittsburgh and there are mysteries in us that we now carry with us. Look for me some day, sitting on the secret staircase watching the clouds rise from the smoke stacks, in the rain.

Justin Honard

Justin Honard, a righteous freak by all rights, had this quote in his profile and I think it's quite good; freakishly good, if you will.


"But I think the term "freak" has to be reclaimed as well. A freak is somebody who is unusual, stared at, upsetting, revealing by their difference what is wrong with the status quo. When a freak appears, the world is instantly divided into gawkers and the unique and solitary individual who has given them pause. There are those who cannot hide their shameful or alarming attributes, and those otherwise apparently normal people who love them. The cloak of the exile falls upon them as well, because their eyes and hearts have persuaded them to be loyal to people who are shunned. Freaks are entertainers, jesters, satirists, artists, beautiful in a way that few can endure or savor, intelligent in a way that makes others angry. If you don't want to be a gawker, you've gotta join the circus. Goddess knows I wish I could run away to one."

Patrick Califia

The Age of Taurus

So a friend of mine posted this thing on Myspace that has a break down of what people, according to their Zodiac sign are like. In general, these things are fallacious at best, but I liked what this one had to say. Of course, I also enjoy having my ego stroked. But then, who doesn't? I just thought there was a bit of truth in these ... plural, since I'm on the cusp of Aries and Taurus (depending on what you're looking at).

TAURUS- The Cutie
MOST AMAZING KISSER. Very high appeal. Love is one of a kind. Very romantic. Most caring person you will ever meet! Entirely creative. Extremely random and proud of it. Freak. Spontaneous. Great at telling Stories. Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out if it comes down to it. Someone you should hold on to. The most gorgeous people on Earth (only a few) but can be recognized easily.

ARIES- Irresistible
Nice Love is one of a kind. Great listeners Very Good in bed... Lover not a fighter, but will still knock you out. Trustworthy. Always happy. Loud. Talkative. Outgoing VERY FORGIVING. Loves to make out. Has a beautiful smile. Generous. Strong. THE MOST IRRESISTIBLE.

Just something amusing. Anyway.

So I'm moving in three weeks. Exciting! Say hella cool, California. Dude.

Please, if I start talking like that, shoot me.

Iconoclasts

Tonight, after a rather upseting evening at the office -- read, theatre -- I watched a little Shear Design with Abbie. After she went to bed I watched a little more TV waiting for my blood pressure to come down to a reasonable level without the help of drugs or alcohol. In the process I ate something and watched more TV. Only this time I tuned in on Iconoclasts ... it was Baryishnikov and Alice Waters.

For those of you not born in the 50s like my soul was, Alice Waters opened a little bistro in Berkley, CA in the 70s using nothing but organic produce grown locally. Her entire menu was and remains entirely seasonal. Walking in there, you never know what's going to be on the menu from day to day, month to month. Thus, the menu and the chefs are constantly evolving, growing, changing ... organically. So it rained for a month and your patch got squash rot, a very irritating thing to be sure ... so what does on use instead? How does a dish that relies on squash changed to accomodate another ingredient that IS available?

To say that I identified more with Alice than I did Barishnykov (or however you splee it), is not unsurprising as I fancy myself pretty damn good cook and a budding chef with aspirations of greatness with a modicum of talent to build on.

But anywho.

Barishynkov has opened a building in New York where all sorts of artists can work and interact with one another ... specifically it was about the dancing, but still ... the The Hell's Kitchen Dancers, with Big Balls B, went on a tour ... and yes, you guessed it, went to Berkley where Alice and her chefs (mostly the chefs, Alice is too busy giving talks about Land Stewardship, organic produce, etc, etc.) made them a meal. In the 45 minutes that this show was going on, I nearly cried three times.

1) I've never been so glad that I am in the arts, nor have I been so motivated to just do what I love and do it to the best of my ability and share it with others.

2) I've spent my life reading books written in the sixties and seventies, living with parents who went through it, dreaming about and identifying with legion characters living, loving and dying nearly three thousand miles away in California ... a seeming promised land of love and beauty ... and now I'm finally moving there, even if it's only for four months. I was talking to one of my friends from freshman year of college today. I told him I was leaving in three weeks and more than likely, aside from that week in July, won't be back to Pittsburgh for, at minimum, three years. And he said that now he has a reason to come to California. And so does my best friend, Bummy. And I had this image in my mind of the three of us standing on Alcatraz Island, the San Francisco Bay and the city behind us and we're smiling and it's so beautiful ... so fucking beautiful. My two closest friends and I in the one city I've wanted to visit my entire life. And what's more, I'll be so close to Berkley when I'm in Sacramento. I just want to rent a motorcycle, a Harley, and ride from Berkley, down through Oakland, across the bridge into San Fran ... or whatever the run was the Hell's Angels did in Hunter S. Thompson's book of the same name. But mostly I want to be in California, eating great food in the sun on a different coast as adults with my two best friends ... and damnit, I'm crying again.

3) I'm really going. I'm really going to start my life. My real life.

Wow. Originally I meant to sit down and write something about why my blood pressure was so high and I wound up writing more about dreams coming true. Guess I'm growing up. When two bitchy ass queens in a booth on headset acting all of 13 with their catty comments and snide remarks about people you know and love ... just being completely judgemental and "superior" (if that's even for these people to be in actuality despite what they may think) ... Ugh. Fuckers.

The philosopher, Spinoza, once said, "I'm not a moral man, but I'm an ethical man." When I first heard that in Dr. Judy's class, one of many classes I took with that most amazingly brilliant teacher, I realized that it was totally a quote I could relate to. I'll take a lot of shit from people, but I will not tolerate ANY about people I know, care about, am friends with ... LEAST OF ALL I'm friends with. I would end a life if it meant saving any one of my friends ... who, when they are a friend, are really more like family to me. And I would slaughter a village of kittens without batting an eye for any one of my blood relations.

I have no moral qualms about killing you if it's ethically justifiable. Don't fuck with my friends. And don't think you can call me out about my ability to inflict pain. Especially if you're an outsider. But it's now two am and I'm losing cohesion ... and frankly, I'm more touched and excited about California than I am some Jihad against two Point Park queens with a life relegated to petty snipping because they are intrinsically annoying people who are ugly at heart.

To be gay is to be happy ... classically. Why does being gay now so often have attached to it the stigma of bitter and jaded? Frankly, why is anyone under thirty bitter and jaded? What point is there in that. You're just missing the smell of roses and jasmine and ... if you're me ... garlic cooking in olive oil.

Sniff the oil!! SNIFF THE OIL!!!!!

Fuck Finals!

Fuck finals with a capital FUCK! It's Monday, I have one presentation to give and one paper to write ... one of the two will be done by 9pm. This is the most wonderful feeling ever! I'm SOOOOO close to done with the fucking degree and with Pittsburgh and cannot wait to start my life over again somewhere new. Most people this week will hate finals, will find the idea of leaving for another summer bittersweet ... if they're leaving that is ... or all their friends are. But you know what, it's better to be a leaver than a levee. Leavee? Leavie ... Leavey. Whatever. Come on 6pm. I can't wait to embarass myself with this presentation and then blow out of there like a gail force wind ... much like the ones whiping around the Cathedral today.

Look out Sacramento, here I come. Boston, consider yourself warned. Gentlemen, gird your loins.

Three Cheers!

Chick: I am not eating somewhere with a misplaced apostrophe in its menu.

--Columbia

Overheard by: Ladle

-------->That is for god damn sure! Way to be a part of the moral majority who refuse to have their hash slung in a restaurant with incorrect punctuation ... grammar ... syntax ... misplaced or, even worse, DANGLING modifiers.

-------->UP with Grammarians ... DOWN with hasty proofing!

The terror of being an only child...

Picture it, North Carolina, last Wednesday ... you're driving to Atlanta, Georgia for a conference and you call home to tell your mom what you're doing for spring break since she wrote you a nice little note with a bunch of stamps so you can have your aunt do your taxes for you. She answers the phone and you have a quick chat. Things are fine; she's gotten over her nasty head cold and can finally breathe and talk without sounding like she's got the grill of a Buick Skylark rammed up her nasal passages.

Picture it, the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, this past Saturday ... interviews have gone well, the sun is shining and it's warm out. You call home to gloat that it's nice and warm and springish out and the phone's busy. Oh well, you think, probably on the computer. You call later, hours later, still, the phone is busy. Then you realize it's strange that the voice mail doesn't interceed ... so you get baked instead.

Picture it, somewhere between Atlanta and Pittsburgh, this past Sunday ... still the phone is busy.

Picture it, a bus stop on Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, today ... still the phone is busy, still no fucking voice mail intercession ... WT Fuck!? You call your cousin in North Carolina because you don't have your Aunt's new home phone number to have her send out the hounds; you call your other Aunt, who's just had plastic surgury on her face -- and is quite drugged up at the mo' -- to try to get ahold of mom. Then you call your neighbors who live across the street and have them go over and bang on the door and tell them to call their fucking son who's been trying to get ahold of them for days.

Jesus. Re-fucking-diculous. Needless to say, I may possibly have overreacted ... but frankly, the situation was so out of the norm I think it called for a little panic. But things are fine. The dog has Lyme Disease but is being treated and has stopped limping.

Blah. Fucking ridiculous.

So, let that be a lesson ... ALWAYS FUCKING KEEP YOUR CELL PHONE ON AND WITH YOU AND KNOW HOW TO FUCKING USE IT!!!!!

And without much ado, the quote, again, from Overheardinnewyork.com:

Wailing six-year-old boy: But whyyy?!
Mom: Well, I know, honey, but kick him in the shins, don't kick him in the balls!

A Wasted Day Makes You Exceedingly Gay

Ok, so this makes two post so far where exceedingly corny puns are the bread and butter of the title. My most sincere and heartfelt apologies. However, I believe that I have an exceeding good reason: I'm watching the 1973 movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Mel Gibson has nothing on on this movie. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. The depiction of the Pharisies or however you splee it... very interesting to say the least. But enough baiting of the Jews.

Personally, the constant refrains of "Jesus Christ, Superstar" make me want to puke. However, that said, I still very much enjoy the song, "Everything's Alright." It's got a fantastic groove. Oh JC! I should post this little stanza of lyric without Much Ado and flip the station before this shit has me doing Liza impersonations.

"Surely you're not saying we have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling.
Look at the good things you've got.
Think while you still have me!
Move while you still see me!
You'll be lost, and you'll be sorry when I'm gone."

GILWAD

"I asked a male friend what it is about the word [daddy] that gets guys so hot, and he thinks it’s in the same psychosexual family as getting turned on by cumming inside a girl. Men are just genetically coded to want to be fathers, even while your ankles are on their shoulders."

from here: http://collegecallgirl.blogspot.com/2007/03/fathers-and-daughters.html

Tori Amos makes me wish I were famous...

Ok, so shoot me, it was a horrible thing I did playing on rhyme; Shakespeare, if he existed, is probably spinning in his shallow grave like a top. But anyway. I think I'm going to rededicate this blog to awesome things I read and feel the need to quote. So here you go, installment one:

"I don't make singles, I make albums. I don't shoot just one crotch shot -- that's not what I do. I'll give you the crotch shot -- but at least put me in a pair of Louboutin high heels. "

--Tori Amos, from her interview with Alan Light, Tori Amos:Past Songs, Perfectionism and Problems with iTunes for MSN Music --> http://music.msn.com/music/remasters

Grad School Personal Statement

This personal statement is dedicated to the Technical Director of Pitt Rep; Lou, you're a brilliant man and a wonderful person to talk to about anything and everything. You always have a word of wisdom.

So more than likely, this will be sent tomorrow to UC, San Diego and hopefully, they'll want to talk to me and then admit me and then throw money at me.!! Hopefully.

--J

Sound, specifically music, is the most basic of all forms of communication. It has an immediate power to communicate emotion. And it is because of sound’s specific application in the theatre that I find sound design endlessly engaging. Always when I read a book, I am listening to music. And, as a writer, I cannot begin to compose a short story without music. The music I listen to directly influences the characters I create. And this is particularly true of the theatre, where actors bring a text to life and the careful articulation of mood and atmosphere through sound envelops the audience, bringing them fully into the world of the play.

Sound design requires a careful and thoughtful attention to the primary text as well as a felicity for its emotional impact on potential audiences. My work as a sound designer aims always to articulate a certain sympathy for the goals of the text as well as the director and fellow design team members, always keeping in mind the directorial concept and running with it to a creative and effective end.

With A Toothache & A Plague & A Dog, each one-act, conceptually, required a different and unique design that flowed from one to the next. For the opening of A Toothache, I worked with the entire cast to create a Stomp! routine that presented the audience with a dynamic opening and introduction to the cast and the world of the play. Using objects found at the local Flea Market which, with the help of the scenic designer, could be worked into the aesthetic of the set, I lead drum circles during early rehearsals so that cast members could learn to listen to one another and improvise. My preshow sound design included the ambient noises of pedestrians, street traffic, as well as music in order to create a world inhabited by street performers existing on fringes of society, particularly under bridges and overpasses.

As with A Toothache & A Plague & A Dog, the play Nocturnal Wanderer required extensive mixing of sound effects and music in order to create the dream world of the play. Using Audacity, Sound Forge, Peak G4 as well a more unorthodox application of Soundtrack Pro, I was able to create individual sound files that combined prerecorded sound effects, voiceovers and music seamlessly. In contrast, my work on other projects shows a marked facility for the technological tools used in the theatre for sound production, amplification, and reinforcement. Most notably, my work as an Assistant Sound Designer on Vinegar Tom required augmenting a pre-existing sound system to include drop microphones and auxiliary stage needed to be hung, wired and labled neatly.

In all of my work, both at the University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre as well as professional theatre companies, it is my continued goal to demonstrate my ability to think with a text and provide creative conceptualizations of the world being described. I approach each production with exuberance because they provide new opportunities for independent learning and growth, furthering my creative and technical skills in the field of Sound Design. Continued study in this field, I have no doubt, will only enhance my skills.