Hedda Hedda

So, it has been forever since I last blogged and I apologize for that. My life has been a little chaotic since I got back from Minnesota December 30th. But things are finally back on track. I've had some good auditions and hopefully will have some more good ones in the next couple of weeks, and I am starting bartending school February 9th, which should be interesting since I don't really drink much and can maybe name a total of 10 drinks, 9 of which i have never tried! However, i was somewhat comforted when i sat in on part of a class and one girl didn't know what was in a Jack & Coke!!!! At least I won't be the biggest idiot in the class!

Anyways, back to the theater world. I told you crazy things happen backstage and at auditions in theater that an outsider would never know occurs. Roundabout Theatre Company has just opened a revival of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. It stars most notably Mary Louise Parker (Weeds) and Peter Stormare (Recall the woodchipper scene in Fargo). Anyways, the show has universally been reviewed as a disaster. But what led it to this fate? Famous Broadway gossip columnist for the New York Post, Michael Riedel, lends us some insight. Check out his article here. I guarantee you'll find it very interesting. http://www.nypost.com/seven/01282009/entertainment/theater/not_all_right_in_the_hedda_152376.htm

2 Things I've Fallen In Love With

So, this is a rarity, but in just the last 2 days, I've fallen in love with 2 new things in the entertainment industry. One music video, and one TV show.

First, lets go with the music video.

At the end of each year, pitchforkmedia.com does their 40 best videos of the year article, where you can watch each video. Last night, I went through each video and one stood out. The song is called Toe Jam by The BPA. The BPA is Fatboy Slim's new project. The song features Dizzee Rascal (I'm not really into rap and hip-hop so I have no idea who that is), and David Byrne. Yes that David Byrne of The Talking Heads! Every year there is one amazing video that comes out that just totally enhances a song, that is usually already pretty darn good by itself. Think Weezer's Buddy Holly or Beastie Boy's Sabotage. Well The BPA's Toe Jam is that video for 2008. Basically there is a large group of young men and women who look like they are from the 70s who strip down naked for what seems to be a swingers "gathering". For most people, this is already pretty enticing. However, those pesky black csensor bars are up covering all the essential bits. What is amazing is that the director choreographed everything so those balck censor bars "dance" throughout the video. I don't really know how to explain it, but check it out. Here's a link:  http://www.keithschofield.com   you'll see a link for the video in the upper left corner: 

The other thing I fell in love with was a new TV show. To preface, there was this awesome underground game we played in High School called Assassination, about 200-500 or so students would play depending on who was organizing. Whoever organizes the game, takes all the people registered to play, and organizes their name in one giant circle or loop. Whoever's name is in front of theirs is who they are trying to assassinate (with water) and nobody knows who each other has going after them. So player A tries to assassinate player B, B is after C, C is after D, etc. Once player A gets B he gets all of C's cards and goes after his target. Lets say A just assassinated B, and B had already assassinated C and D. Now A would be going after player E. The game goes on until the final two players try to assassinate each other to win all the money. The game is so much fun and for those couple of months a quarter of the student body is absolutely paranoid, trying not to be assassinated. Anyways, I was flipping through channels 2 nights ago when I hear on the Sci Fi network (which I never watch) they are playing a real-live action video game to win over 25,000 dollars,, called Cha$e. Instantly, I was hooked. The premise of the game is similar to Assassination, which hooked me even more. Their are 10 contestants called runners. They are let loose in part of a city, ie the warehouse district of LA, or Universal Studios in LA. Throughout the next hour, they are being tracked down by Hunters, who try to tag them. If they last for the first 55 minutes or so (only a few of the 10 do) the finish gate opens, and whoever gets their first wins the game and the money. That may not sound interesting to you, but watch one episode, I never have seen a gameshow that is so intense! Watch episodes for free here: http://www.hulu.com/chae

Help a Friend Out

So, my friend and MFA classmate Rony Sheer has started his own business.  He has created a Judaica t-shirt company.  That's a terrible way of me to put it because that doesn't sound interesting.  However, his Judaica t-shirt company is very interesting.  He is just starting out and only has a few designs as of now, but they are sooooo clever and funny.  If you aren't Jewish the t-shirts may not make sense, so let me explain them briefly.  Two of the t-shirts are clever asides on how Judaism is helpful to the enviorment.  The holiday of Chanukah is based off of when the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem they only found oil to keep the holy candles lit for 1 day, but the miracle was the oil lasted 8 days.  So Rony made a Chanuakah t-shirt about how Chanukah is celebrating fuel efficiency for over 2000 years!    The other enviornment friendly shirt he came up with is about the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat).  Traditionally, Jewish people are not supposed to use any electricity on the Sabbath, so Rony came up with "Shabbat: Prevents Global Warming" and "Shabbat: For a Smaller Carbon Footprint" organic t-shirts.  

His other design is a "I'll challah at you later" t-shirt with a big loaf of challah where the word would be!

These are really creative.  Check them out at www.cool4shul.com   and order them if you like.  They also come in sweatshirts, long sleeve, etc.

CEOs Make Me Want To Have A Nasty Catharsis...(Puke)

So, as I've mentioned before, I love sports. Playing, watching, reading, keeping stats, etc. My favorite writer is Bill Simmons...aka: The Sports Guy. He writes about sports, obviuosly, but does so with creativity and wit. One of my favorite things he has come up with is the slightly racist group called The Reggie Cleveland All-Stars, caucasion athletes who sound like they have black names. Slightly racist, pretty funny. He also writes about pop-culture...ie The Hills, and The Road-Rules Real-World Challenge which he has proposed to take over the slot of the 4th major American sport...from hockey.
My second favorite sports writer is Gregg Easterbrook...aka: Tuesday Morning Quarterback, who I have quoted on my blog before. Every Tuesday he writes a very in depth article about what happened the previous weekend in football, mostly pro, and some college. He also has a Christmas Creep section where fans get to write in about when they see Christmas things, ie sales and decorations in stores, way too early...As in September and October when they should be focused on Halloween. Possibly because I'm Jewish, this has always been a pet peave of mine, and I find it hilarious Easterbrook has his fans writing in about it. He also delves into astronomy a lot, and other serious topics such as economy and politics.
This week a section of Easterbrook's article was on CEOs and their spoiledness and hypocrasy. If everything Easterbrook wrote about CEOs is true, their actions made me soooooo angry I had to post this part of his article. It is long but worth reading all of it. Here it is:

The Corporate Security Hustle: When they come to Washington again Tuesday to appeal for subsidies, the Detroit automaker CEOs are likely to travel by Greyhound, if not hitchhiking. What possible excuse did they have to fly in private jets the first time? "Like many corporations, [the Big Three] have policies requiring their CEOs to travel in private jets for safety," CNN reported. Safety? That cannot mean crash safety -- U.S. commercial airline fatality rates are so phenomenally low that you're safer aboard a big commercial jet in bad weather than you are riding a bicycle in the park on a sunny day. By "safety," corporations mean security from terrorism: not being aboard a commercial airliner that might be hijacked. General Motors "requires top executives to fly on company planes for their security," the Washington Post added. But the odds a person will board a jetliner that is hijacked are substantially lower than the odds any given person will drown, yet no big companies forbid their CEOs to swim. Even taking into account the horror of 9/11, over the past decade the chance that a regularly scheduled U.S. airline departure would be involved in a terrorism incident was about one in 25 million, while the chance of being struck by lighting in the same period was about one in 700,000. So do corporations require their CEOs to wear lightning rods?
The real reason CEOs demand private jets is to stroke their egos. Private jet travel is luxurious, there's no waiting in line with the unwashed, no crowding on the plane, no security checks. At most airports a limo can drive right up to the door of a private jet parked in the general-aviation area. Security is the cover story for CEO airborne luxury. No corporate leader needs to fly a private jet to be safe. They do so to feel important and lord over others. The suspicious "requirement" that CEOs "must" travel by private jet is usually imposed by boards of directors composed largely of people who are themselves CEOs, and who know that inventing a private jet rule at one company creates a justification for the same luxury at their own companies. If 9/11 had never occurred, CEOs would be saying, "I must fly in a luxury private jet for protection against climate change."
Security is being used as the cover story for all manner of CEO perquisites, including armored chauffeur-driven SUVs, that have little to do with protection of life and everything to do with granting CEOs a visiting royalty treatment at the expense of shareholders and workers. Recently Joann Lublin of the Wall Street Journal reported Occidental Petroleum spent about $775,000 in 2007 on security for its CEO, much of this money for bodyguards. No CEO actually needs bodyguards, but the guards lend an illusion the CEO is some kind of world leader. ("Make way, make way, VIP coming through.") The Journal reported Oracle spent about $1.7 million in 2007 on bodyguards and other security for CEO Larry Ellison, while Limited Brands spent about $1.2 million to protect its CEO. Macy's approved $87,000 last year for CEO Terry Lundgren for "a specially equipped SUV driven by a security professional for his commute and his personal use." Driver, take me to the golf course, where I will boldly play a round of golf in defiance of these terrorists.
It may well be there is an inverse relationship between top-management pay and corporate success -- the more CEOs are overpaid and treated like little kings, the less they care about the real-world concerns of shareholders, workers, and most of all, customers. Corporate America has experienced meltdown after meltdown in the past decade -- the very period in which CEO pay has skyrocketed and costly luxuries such as private jets have become considered by top management as necessities. The CEO can't stand in line at the airport like everyone else, the CEO is a little king! Perhaps the overpay and the perks are causative factors in the meltdowns.
Government officials are now also using security to justify spending that could never pass the giggle test otherwise. The independent Project on Government Procurement recently reported that the Air Force wants to divert $16.2 million from counter-terrorism funds to build personal comfort "capsules" for senior officers traveling in its transport planes. Most military transport aircraft have austere seating, plus it's much louder inside than in a commercial airliner. But there's a difference between adding decent seats for soldiers and providing luxury for generals -- the latter is what the Air Force wants. The Project on Government Procurement reports the Air Force has already spent $2.7 million building the first luxury capsule, a unit that can be loaded into the open area of a cargo plane: it has leather chairs, a 37-inch flat screen television and other luxo touches. Supposedly, generals need more comfort in order to focus their minds on fighting terrorism.

Later he goes on about AIG CEO Edward Liddy:
Note 2: AIG, which has been shoveled $152 billion of your children's money without accountability, announced last week that new CEO Edward Liddy will work for $1 a year and receive no bonus. Sounds good, and media reports were favorable. But buried in the announcement is that Liddy is also receiving stock ("equity grants"). The announcement mysteriously does not say how much. With AIG selling for $2 a share -- the strike price of the grant would be the price when awarded -- even if the shares rose only to $5, a large block of stock acquired at $2 could be quite valuable. So how come AIG doesn't disclose how much taxpayer-subsidized stock its CEO is pocketing?
Also buried: Liddy "may be eligible for a special bonus for extraordinary performance." Have you ever read anything more transparently phony? A good guess is that no matter how the current CEO does, the board will find he deserves a "special bonus" that won't be announced until media attention has shifted to whatever the next scandal is. Sadly, reader Melanie Cleten of Providence, R.I., notes, "AIG's management has tricked taxpayers into handing the company $152 billion. What other corporate executives in history have brought in so much cash so quickly? Maybe they do deserve bonuses, unless we are fools." She leaves it there.

The Music Man

So, no, unfortunately, I did not get cast in a touring production of The Music Man. This has absolutely nothing to do with The Music Man. This is all about music, as in music one listens to on the radio.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, even in my couple of disgruntled years as a vocal performance major at the University of Illinois.
My love of music all started when my parents used to sing to me when I was very young. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember always liking when they would sing Camptown Races. The imagery of those horses was mindblowing at the age of 2!
As I got older, I got a hold of some cassette tapes of Raffi, Ella Jenkins, Tom Chapin (the brother of Harry Chapin of Cats in the Cradle fame). My whole life I never have known lyrics to songs, even my favorite ones. i just don't pay close enough attention. However, I can still sing you bits of songs by these artists 20 some years later.
At around the age of 7 or so, I got a hold of my dad's old records (yes, that's right...records. We actually had two record players at the time. 1 nice once with great surround sound speakers, and a kids fisher price one, which i got to use!) and instantly fell in love with The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, along with some other random surf bands. My first experience of rock music. And probably my influence in always being a wannabe surfer (despite my terribly huge dislike of swimming). The songs were catchy, fun, and beautiful. Dead Man's Curve scared me to death, which I loved. And Sloop John B is still a personal favorite today. There has never been a song with better falsetto harmonizing.
This discovery led me to the oldies stations where I fell in love with a wider range of music. From folk...The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary - to psychadelic...Jefferson Airplane, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Iron Butterfly - to faux psychadelic...The Lemon Pipers, some of the Monkees stuff. But it was those crazy brits that really got me...Crispin St. Peters, Herman's Hermits, and most importantly The Beatles. Every song I heard by the Beatles completely opened my ears. When I first heard the song Yesterday, i had an immediate cathartic meltdown. Instantly learned the lyrics and would not stop singing the song, with a bad British accent. My oldies phase started when I was around 7 and still goes strong today.
I hit a rough period when I hit my teens. I was actually a happy teenager, it wasn't rough in that way. Musically I hit a bit of a bad spell where I had no idea what type of music I liked. This is exemplified by the fact that my first two CDs ever purchased were Public Enemy's The Muse Sick In Our Mess Age, and The Lion King soundtrack. Whoa! Other band's I'm proud to say I enjoyed at the time were 4 Non Blondes, Right Said Fred, The Proclaimers, Expose, Tony Toni Tone, Paperboy, The Real McCoy, Erasure, Snoop and Dre, Garth Brooks, John Michael Montgomery. We have a little of everything folks, and most of it is not that good!
Thank God Weezer came around when I was in 7th grade and got me on the right track.
Finally, my senior year of high school i was listening to the top 25 indie songs of the year on a little local radio station at New Years time. And around number 8 on that list was a song I now consider my favorite song ever. Cathedrals by Jump Little Children. The most beautiful song ever written. The lead singers voice is a better sounding, less dramatic Rufus Wainwright, and the instrumentation is complex and harmonious. I followed that band for 6 years liking nearly every single song they wrote. Unfortunately at the end of 2006 they sadly broke up...for now. If you haven't listened to Jump Little Children find them and listen to them now!!!
I immediately had to start to look for a new band. In the past year, I found some whole new styles of music that I never knew existed. Bands that are playing with crazy rhythms and harmonies and time signatures and layering. Some favorites are Battles, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Cloud Cult, Josh Ritter. Priscilla Ahn, is my new favorite singer songwriter. She records her voice live, then harmoniezes with her just recorded voice then layers that, and harmonizes again, and keeps layering, but she does it all live. Crazy!!! I just found the band Mates of State which I can not get out of my head. A fun husband and wife team. The wife playing the organ, the husband playing the drums. Their tunes are catchy, super fun, with tight harmonizing. And just by listening you can hear their loving chemistry. My new current favorite band (nobody will ever beat Jump Little Children) is a group called Menomena. I first listened to them, and just didn't get it. It sounded kinda awful. The music is so complex and weird, that I think my ears didn't know what hit them. They never heard anything like it, so it just sounded bad. Just like a tritone sounded bad (dubbed: the devil's interval) when it first started to be used. Anyways, as my ears got used to Menomena I just can't stop listening to them. They are that good.
I have no idea why I just wrote all of that for you all to read. There was really no point. Maybe you can check out some of this music and be inspired by them as much as I am!

What Is Going On?

So, I'm shocked and utterly confused about the economy. After this huge bailout for businesses, along with General Motors recently asking for money, it was announced today that Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Phoenix...yes the cities...are asking for the govt. to bail them out. Supposedly more businesses are going to follow soon. Are people thinking they can take advantage of a new soon to be president, that he will just keep handing them money? Maybe, maybe not, I have no clue what is going on? I don't understand a whole lot about this issue. I was at first against the initial bailout because it seemed like way to much money that could be going to things that help out people that are actually in need of it immediately. For God's sake, with the amount of money given out, you could build a homeless shelter that would be as nice as one of the Trump Towers. That would actually be beneficial to society! Then, I went on board with the bailout because all the insiders said it was necessary for an immediate fix. Since then, it doesn't seem to have done anything, and more and more people are asking for money.
American citizens were up in arms when it was rumored that Barack Obama was secretly Socialist. However, when Capitalism starts to fail, people start crying that the Government should equal them out, like what happens in a Socialist country. Sooooo hypocritical.
My Father's business finally is closing shop after 94 years of existence. It has provided our family very well over the years. However, when suits became more exclusive in wear, and then with the economic situation, and with my dad and uncle getting closer to retirement age, to my understanding it wasn't worth keeping the business around. Never once did my family complain, never once did my family ask the government to help them out. That is the way Capitalism works. It is a sink or swim...or a get out when your riding the high wave type of game.
This leaves me wondering why AIG, Lehmann Bros, GM, etc., and these cities are crying right now. If anyone knows the fundamentals of Capitalism, it is these bigwig corporations. And in my totally uneducated guess, is if these corporations fail, new ones will come up after some years.
Again, I know very little about economics (however i did get a big 3 on my AP econ. test), and I'm an idiot and hate dealing with money (unless i'm playing monopoly), so I'm probably completely wrong about everything I've said above, but really. America is supposed to be a tough country. So let's do our John Wayne impression: be strong and stop whining for more when we really haven't earned it!

Migraines

So, I get migraines a few times a year. I just recently came to the conclussion that they were being triggered by caffeine. About 12-24 hours after i had a cup of coffee I would get nasty nasty migraines. So I one hundred percent stopped drinking caffeniated coffee, and 95% stopped drinking decaf coffee. Last Wednesday, before rehearsal for Stormy Weather I decided to get a hot chocolate. It was freezing cold outside so I got a venti (large). Did that turn out to be a mistake. I got the worst migraine over my right eye that I ever had. I got my usual blind spots about an hour before the headache while i was at work Thursday morning. I immediately left work and went home. There my head just started killing me. If i went under the sheets to make the room as dark as possible it was too dark and i need a little light. The second i got the light, I needed dark. I couldn't keep my eyes open, yet, it was also too painful to keep my eyes shut. It hurt under my eyelid, it hurt above my eye on my forehead, it hurt on the side of my head above my ear, and it hurt in the back of my head. Then the nausea kicked in. Things started spinning. I felt like I had an empty stomach (Like completely empty, like hollow). I'm dry heaving. My nose got all congested. And I had a big zit on my head that already hurt before the migraine started!!! I was in bed the whole evening minus about 20 minutes when i got up to eat and go to the bathroom. The next day I told people I feel like I just got knocked out by Mike Tyson.
Move ahead three days. I finish rehearsal and start eating dinner with Lauren. I start feeling extremely fatigued. Like I'm going to fall asleep on the spot, no control over the matter. Then the blindspots hit, and I couldn't believe I was getting another Migraine. No trigger!!!! I was so tired i couldn't really control it and immediately fell asleep. I woke up shortly after with a terrible headache over my left side this time. I had Lauren help me out with the lights and blinds and then went to sleep for the rest of the night, not getting out of bed until 8:45 the following morning.
Here I am now at work with the worst Migraine "hangover" ever. I just felt like I was in a 12 round slugfest that immediately followed me running the New York marathon. I am so fatigued I can barely sit up at my desk at work. I still have a bit of a headache especially when i bend over. I'm dizzy. My motor skills suck. There is a time delay between me telling me to do something, ie moving my limbs, and actually doing so. Oh and did I say I'm exhausted.
It's going to be a long day as I have to finish 4.5 more hours of work and then go for three hours of physical rehearsal and an hour sub ride home.
Oh boy, thank God that i can at least daydream of my bed!!!!