Latent Photo Essay

This is a parking garage or some similar spiral structure for driving upwards. I saw this from an El stop in Chicago and thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

Below are three views from the top of a San Francisco hill. There are so many beautiful views everywhere you look in that city: it wins my Buena Vista Award.


And uh-oh! Here's a big silly thing! Wat's wong wif dis pitsure!


And finally, a few sculptures and installations from the Portland Art Museum.

Structure meets painterly! Roy Lichtenstein!


It's been fun, I'll be home soon.

It's Nice to Go Travelin' - Frank Sinatra

Rock over Chicago, rock on Detroit
Gillette, the best a man can get

The Bennies!

Last night, I saw No Exit at the Imago Theater here in Portland, and realized that it would be the last show (the last of 18) that I would see on my trip. So here today, for you all, I will recount them all and pick favorites in arbitrary fields.

DC

• Picture of Dorian Gray
• Black Pearl Sings
• Ferdinand the Bull
• Measure for Measure

New York

• Next to Normal
• The 39 Steps
• Eye of God

Boston

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• The Long and Winding Road
• 2.5 Minute Ride

Chicago

• Heroes
• Death of a Salesman
• The Man who was Thursday

San Francisco

• Tommy
• November

Portland

• Orphee
• Fiction
• No Exit

Best Actor: George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Best Actress: Linda in Fiction
Best Supporting Actor: The valet in No Exit
Best Supporting Actress: The little person in Measure for Measure
Best Production: Heroes (chalk this one up to Stoppard's script and two great performers)
Worst Everything Else: Measure for Measure was unpolished, Eye of God was a mess, The Long and Winding Road was meandering (relish the pun), Death of a Salesman was a devastating disappointment, Tommy was lifeless, November was two-dimensional, and Orphee was in French

Trend of mortality in theater

Plays in which a major character dies: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Eye of God, Death of a Salesman, Orphee, Fiction)
Plays in which a major character kills someone: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, The 39 Steps, Eye of God, Tommy, Orphee)
Plays in which a major character struggles with mortality: 14/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Ferdinand the Bull, Measure for Measure, Next to Normal, The 39 Steps, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Long and Winding Road, 2.5 Minute Ride, Heroes, Death of a Salesman, The Man who was Thursday, Orphee, Fiction, No Exit)
Plays in which a minor character dies: 6/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Measure for Measure, The 39 Steps, Eye of God, Tommy, Orphee)
Plays in which an unseen character dies: 5/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Black Pearl Sings, Measure for Measure, The Long and Winding Road, Heroes)
Plays featuring suicide: 6/18 (Picture of Dorian Gray, Next to Normal, Eye of God, Death of a Salesman, Orphee, No Exit)

The number of plays not appearing in any of the previous categories: 1. November by David Mamet, which does feature two dead turkeys, a stereotype of an American Indian threatening to kill the president, and a woman with a very bad cold.


Some shows with unique takes on mortality

• Ferdinand the Bull: Yes, even in children's theatre we see bull fighters who just want to dance and bulls who just want to plant flowers struggle with death and murder.
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: George and Martha's imaginary boy-child gets "killed" coming home from school at the age of twenty. Apparently a stand-in for the real child they could never have.
  
• Next to Normal: Manic-depressive mother cannot accept that her (now 18-year-old) son has been dead since he was an infant. Not totally unlike George and Martha's case, in fact...
  
• The Long and Winding Road: 60-year-old Maureen McGovern struggles with being 60, including detailing the deaths of her father, and various friends who contracted AIDS.
  
• Orphee: Features movement back and forth through life and the afterlife. All one needs are special gloves and a mirror.
• No Exit: Everyone's already dead.

Listen to: Bishop Allen. You can visit their website, here, and download a handful of their songs for free. Yesterday, as I left the Imago theater where I saw No Exit, I stumbled across a venue where they were performing so I saw them on a whim. Fun fun band.

Click Click Click Click - Bishop Allen
Corazon - Bishop Allen
Like Castanets - Bishop Allen

Rock over Portland, rock on Seattle
MasterCard - There are some things money can't buy: for everything else, there's MasterCard

Merry Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXW9b9O9S6A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCPC63zSdk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yon2YuXssvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dV8P9u-EV8&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQQnpTwaPyQ&feature=fvsr

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4267/saturday-night-live-its-a-wonderful-life-lost-ending

http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/christmas#watch%3Dv500970hjFaKBGn

http://www.uprightcitizens.org/19/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QnO3s7xJCc

http://www.joost.com/180000a/t/Santa-Claus-Conquers-The-Martians#id=180000a

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3423420646593881609#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVNHX9QZlYs&feature=related

http://www.guba.com/watch/3000024620/Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD7BeutpkS4

I'm in Portland, but this is unrelated

On Monday, October 26th, the Writer's Almanac (a daily e-newsletter from Garrison Keillor) reported the following:

Today is the 50th birthday of medical doctor and anthropologist Paul Farmer — born in North Adams, Massachusetts (1959) — the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tracy Kidder's (books by this author) recent book: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003). He specializes in infectious diseases, and sets up hospitals and community health centers to provide free health care to the world's poor.

He got started 26 years ago by treating patients in Haiti when still a student. There, he gave HIV-positive pregnant women antiretroviral drugs so that HIV would not be transmitted to their unborn babies. He also set up community-based treatment programs in Peru for virulent tuberculosis; the TB strain was once considered a death sentence, but his treatment method cured 80 percent of infected patients. He set up a program for treating the sick in Russian prisons, and other programs in Lesotho and Malawi. Paul Farmer now resides much of the year in Rwanda, where he and the organization he co-founded, Partners in Health, are working with the Rwandan government and the Clinton Foundation to set up an ambitious national health program.

Paul Farmer has written more than 100 scholarly publications; among his books are AIDS and Accusation (1992), Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (1998), and Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (2003), in which he wrote, "In an age of explosive development in the realm of medical technology, it is unnerving to find that the discoveries of Salk, Sabin, and even Pasteur remain irrelevant to much of humanity."

On November 1 -- six days later -- I found a copy of the book on the sidewalk in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, amidst a pile of garbage. If you know me well enough, you know I picked up that book. The synchronicity was too much to bypass, and I am eager to start reading it, as soon as I find some way to disinfect it.

Subscribe to the Writer's Almanac here.

On the Bus Mall - the Decemberists

Rock over Portland, rock on Port-au-Prince
Maxwell House - good to the last drop

The Big Frisky

(credit goes to Emily for the title of the post)

There's something hypnotizing about this place. You forget yourself walking around here. In a sense this is a big American metropolis like any other, but the people on the streets don't seem to be striving for something else, something out-of-reach. California is a destination, the sought-after land of milk and honey, of manifest destiny, the call of gold in the hills. It's appropriate to me that it's always earlier over here too. When Chicagoans wake up for work, San Franciscans are sleeping soundly, and when New Yorkers retire to bed, Californians have three hours over eternally temperate evening to enjoy.

However, what's missing for me is the sense of urgency that keeps one striving to push on and achieve something great. Also, when it's cold and rainy, or dry and blistering, or snowing and windy, it reminds me I'm alive. Perhaps this is appealing to my Midwestern, who am I to find something better? Lake Wobegon mentality, but as horrible as last winter was in Chicago, I don't know what I'd do with a winter without snow.

Come Back From San Francisco - the Magnetic Fields

Rock over St. Paul, Rock on Minneapolis
Staples - yeah, we've got that

FRISCO

Everyone's so laid back here, I can't believe it's where Sam Bertken's from.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Chicago (but I was Afraid to Post)

How is the Theatre in Chicago?

Bustlin'. Obviously, Chicago is a huge theatre city and, while District of Columbians like to say the title goes to them, one could argue it's second-biggest theatre city in America (first being New York City).. I must say, however, that I saw a couple of stinkers in Chicago. This, however, makes me think it would be easier to break into theatre there and, considering at least two shows currently on Broadway are Chicago transplants, as well as the biggest hit of last season (August Osage County), Chicago could also be a gateway to New York. Wishful thinking.

I saw my first production of Death of a Salesman, and it didn't make the impression on me that Virginia Woolf did. The set was heavy and masterfully built -- at curtain, it was the front of a house, which Willy Loman pulled open like barn doors, each side rotating on a turntable, revealing the interior of the house -- but the set eclipsed the performances in a truly acting-driven play. However, with a sparse set, the performances would have fallen flat on their own. The actor playing Biff pulled off some nice moments in the climax of the show, but it felt mostly miscast over all. Willy Loman was a grinning little wiener, and played the role as completely nuts from open to close.

An original adaptation of the novel The Man Who Was Thursday was another problematic production I saw. Presented mostly in one room, where two cast droogs had the audience rise at times to reset the benches to accommodate the staging of the subsequent scene somewhere else in the room. The innovative staging was interesting, though slow and sloppy at times, and many of the scenes, pressed against walls in the small space or in direct contact with the the light and sound table made me wonder if it was worth the adventurous staging. Another problem in the production was the forced combination of high-minded, often philosophical text, and silly, light-hearted whimsy. The clever script was written entirely in heightened language, much of which was lost by some of the weaker performers, one terrible British accent, and the guerrilla-attack nature in which the show began (in the lobby, before we were seated). If there was subtler humor or wordplay in the script, it was eclipsed by performances ranging from dead-serious realist to cartoonishly over-the-top silliness and by era-spanning costumes ranging from Cyrano de Bergerac-ish to Al Caponesque. They all wore Converse All-Stars. If these motley costumes were an artistic choice, the reasoning of the designer was not clear. From beginning to end, I never knew how seriously I was supposed to take the performance. Usually, if the entire cast donned Chuck Taylors, I'd think not too seriously, but the script suggested otherwise. In the end, the most engaging part of this production was the story, which is to be credited to novelist G. K. Chesterton, assuming the playwright remained mostly true to the original story. However, it was engaging enough that I would happily see another production, in the hands of another company.

The playwright who combines high language, philosophical thought, and very silly humor with unmatched mastery is Tom Stoppard, whose 2005 translation (Heroes) of Gérald Sibleyras' play (titled in its original French The Wind in the Poplars) had all the wit, heart and charm of any Stoppard original. It was a fantastic production, with two outstanding performances, and despite cheesy set and sound designs, and a very perplexing stagehand in a nun's habit who did the scene changes in low light, the production stood out as one of the finest I've seen so far.

What about Chicago comedy?

Chicago is the top of the list of cities to go to for improv and sketch. Both Second City and iO (the birthplace of longform improv comedy) are centered in Chicago, along with several other venues specifically geared towards sketch and improv, including the Playground, the Annoyance theater, and Chemically Imbalanced Comedy.

How is the deck stacked for Chicago?

It's all in Chicago's favor, I've come to realize. On the Theatre Scene/Comedy Scene matrix, I think Chicago is number 1. Maybe New York is number 1, but when you add the third dimension of cost of living, Chicago very easily takes the lead over New York. Then still once you venture into the fourth dimension of convenience, it's a cheap train ride back to Michigan, I have one, count 'em, one sister living there, and I've already got an oral contract with a friend who will find a place to live with me.

...

I'm in San Francisco, it's 62 degrees, and I'm talking about moving to Chicago.

Rock over Chicago, Rock over Frisco
United Airlines, It's Time to Fly (this is not an endorsement of United, they're terrible)

Also, I have one sweet picture from Chicago that I'll post soon

Small World part II And Requests for Pictures

Thus is Ryan Douglass


These are the flipflops he left out for me to shower with


This is Boston, MA

I've seen a three plays here, as I did in NY and DC, and now I'ma gonna talk about 'em! The first show I saw was A Long and Winding Road at the Calderwood Pavillion, pictured below.


This production was an autobiographical one-woman show effortlessly performed by the Oscar-winning musician Maureen McGovern, loosely about coming to terms with turning 60 years old. The narrative was loose, meandering and anecdotal, but the 60's and 70's era songs arranged for the production she sang beautifully and for almost 2 hours without an intermission. The scenic design was a slew of projections cast onto flowing gray silks at the back of the stage and coming from the wings, which gave the audience something to look at other than the performer as she plodded through her blocking, but it was not enough to keep the audience engaged. Mostly pictures of her in her youth, laced with iconic people and events of the time. Biggest disappointment - not featured in the production is the song from which the show gets its title.

The next production I saw was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the same theatre complex as Road but in a small black box venue. This is the only production of the landmark Albee play I've seen, and my God was I impressed. The actors playing George and Martha captured a unique dynamic of a couple who've been together for thirty years and exercised a constant power struggle of who's smarter, stronger and better. As if eclipsed by the former, the actors playing Nick and Honey paled in ability. And while little is required of Honey, a cypher of a character who spends much time off-stage throwing up brandy and a fair amount of her onstage time being shushed by the rest of the cast, the gravity of Nick's role could not be so easily passed off by an amateur. However, all considered, I would strongly recommend seeing this production! This goes to my expansive group followers in the New England area.

Finally, I saw 2.5 Minute Ride last night at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown. To those unfamiliar with it, 2.5 Minute Ride is one of the solo performance pieces written by Kalamazoo College Theatre Alum and poster child Lisa Kron, whose successful Tony-nominated Well landed her a teaching job at Yale, despite having never received her undergraduate degree for lack of one science credit. Much to my surprise upon reading the program did I find that the Artistic Director at the Theatre and the performer filling in for Lisa were both Kalamazoo College graduates as well. Small damn world. The production was good, though it seems strange to me to have someone step in to play the playwright in such a personal piece. The difference with Well, I would argue, is that the play already deals with themes of identity and has actors playing their characters as well as themselves at times. The production was good but left me longing to see a production starring Lisa herself.

Rock over Cambridge, Rock on Allston (where I bought a second-hand coat yesterday)
ABC Warehouse, the Closest Thing to Wholesale

Small World

Since arriving in Boston, I've passed two Kalamazoo College graduates on the street and run into an astonishing number of Ryan's Boston acquaintances. This certainly lends credence to his often unbelievably coincidental stories. However, the strangest encounter I've had so far was at a quaint festival in Cambridge. Ryan and I were discussing the evening's plans over free cans of Venom energy drink -- which comes in a grenade-shaped bottle and tastes like industrial runoff -- when someone tapped me on the arm. The guy, who I would later find out is named Chris, I had met less than a week earlier on 54th street and Broadway in the heart of the theatre district in Manhattan. He was passing out fliers about the 39 Steps, and as I was planning on seeing it already, I stopped to talk to him. He told me he was living in NY and trying to make it as an actor, when I told him I was doing the same thing, he suggested finding a job (like the one he was doing) that had amply flexible hours so one could take off a day at the last minute to do an audition or even a full week to fly out to LA. He was visiting a friend at Boston University and happened to run into me in Cambridge. He told me it's happened before, once with a woman in Montreal. I'm pretty sure I was pretty uncool about the whole thing because it was just so weird to run into that guy again, I couldn't believe it.

Many parts of Boston remind me of the city layout in Strasbourg, France. Narrow, winding brick roads leading up and down hills, where a side street that seemed an unassuming alleyway would prove to be an offshoot of more interesting shops and cafes. However, of course no American city would match the class of Europe's beautiful burgs: I told Ryan it was like a bunch of Americans had forcibly overtaken a French village.

Big thanks to Chris for his help! Listen to Robby Roadsteamer at Roadsteamer.com
Rock over Boston, Rock over LA (sorry Red Sox)
Motel 6, We'll leave a light on for you

Making a Go of It

In the past few days I've had a chance to meet with a few friends and friends of friends to discuss the ins and outs of trying to get by as an actor in NYC. Lisa's friend Alena talked to me about the pros and cons of joining Actor's Equity immediately or biding your time, as well as where to find a flexible job that will let you take off time for auditions, rehearsals and shows. (This was reinforced by an actor I met on the street working one of those jobs; handing out fliers for the show The 39 Steps, which was a very fun and silly spoof of the Alfred Hitchcock movie) Then I met up with my old friend Mike from Middle School who's just been cast in a two-month tour of Seussical.

As I was leaving meeting with him, I got a call from another old friend, Bryon, who had heard about a movie that was looking to cast a college-aged lovable dumbass, and were scouring the agentless, unrepresented fresh faces for someone they hadn't seen before. 14 hours later I was reading for the role of Jerry, in White Irish Drinkers, written by John Gray, creator of the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle The Ghost Whisperer. The character is described as Zach Galifianakis-esque. He's a college dropout who is excited to become a garbage man, for the perks and benefits. They were impressed that I had memorized the side in less than a day and I think they chuckled softly once or twice! Just like that I've got an NY audition and a film audition under my belt.

I'm Alive, I'm Alive, I Am So Alive

My time in New York is more than half over now. I just got home from seeing my second show. The first, which I saw yesterday as a Sunday matinee, was Eye of God by Tim Blake Nelson (Delmar from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?) which was lacking is so many fields. I believe the production would be considered off-Broadway (the venue contained 99-500 seats) but the facility, the seats the quality of the set were all great. However, the design was impractical and some of it was very poorly executed. A landscape printed on a cyc that comprised half the scenery was pixely and the positioning of the tables and chairs were huge sightline issues. Particular favorites of mine were when one character referred to his new cash register, then proceeded to slap around blindly offstage while cash register noises played and the classic phone hung on the wall by a bracket with its chord TIED TO IT making no attempt to disguise it as real.
At the end of the first act, it is revealed that the main character gets killed. The rest of the show is a plodding march towards the event actually occurring. The 12-year-old kid in the play wanted me to slip into a coma, as did the fresh blood stains on his shirt, which were clearly dry and dye. This was interesting to see just how ubiquitous bad theatre is; existing even here in the heart of commercia Americanl theatre. (Brief side note: there is a show out called Rock of Ages which is some juke box musical featuring all the classic rock songs you here blaring out of tow trucks and construction sites. Plot? I doubt there is one, but this might be Jon Reeves' new favorite show)

Now the show I just got home from is the talk of the town. It's called Next to Normal. While the story really grasped me only in a few particular instances, it did it very well, but much of the story arc didn't resonate with me -- perhaps because my student rush ticket was in the very first row and I could only pick out 1/5 of the stage at a time to focus on and anything occurring on the top two levels of the set were secrets kept from me. A perfectly-timed standing ovation might've left a bowing actor with a bloody nose. Seriously. However, the true heart of this piece was the performances as well as the subject matter they tackled, which I found particularly germain in a world of reliance on the uncertain field pharmo-psychology.

After the the show, I shook one actor's hand and told him it must be a dream come true. He agreed, and stared me in the eye and gave me a long firm handshake like I was interviewing him for a job. I hope he thinks about that, what I said to him though, because what he's doing is the dream of so many people, myself included, and it's something to keep in perspective and be grateful for.

You Look Like That Guy Who Died Recently...

I've been told I look like three celebrities in my time: Brian Dennehy, Robin Williams, and Ludwig von Beethoven. As of this morning, add to the list Patrick Swayze. Thoughts on that?

Below are two skylines you can see from the room of Lisa's apartment. Here's Brooklyn...


and here's Manhattan...


and here's breakfast muffins! Pumpkin Apple Walnut and Carrot Blueberry Sour Cream from Blue Sky Muffins.


So I'm 22 now. I had quite the Seinfeld night last night. I was with Lisa, house sitting, and in one night, we broke two glasses, flooded the basement twice trying to take advantage of free laundry machines and opened a bottle of the homeowner's wine. Also, we left a Taboo card on his desk that had "John F. Kennedy, jr." on one side and "Hustler" on the other.

Being 22 is much like being 21, but I no longer feel like I'm barely eking by when someone checks my ID. I bought a $4 6-pack at Trader Joe's and the woman at the counter said happy birthday to me and told me to tell my friends to get me drunk. This responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of Lisa and Joe, according to the Facebook event.

Lisa and I were saying that once you turn 21, there are no more exciting ages to turn. The only ones we could come up with were 25 - rent a car, which I might not be able to afford and 35 - run for president, which most definitely won't be able to afford. Also, listing other exciting ages, when we got to 18, she said "you can vote" and I said "you can smoke" at the same time. Hardeeharhar

Happy birthday to Kevin Richardson, Gwen Stefani, Gore Vidal and Neve Campbell

A Beautiful Night in Oslo - Billie the Vision & the Dancers
When Yer 22 - The Flaming Lips
I Want it that Way - the Backstreet Boys
Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stafani (ft. Gore Vidal)

Thanks to Lisa, Ryan, Nicole and Nicole for hanging out with me on my birthday so far!
Rock over Brooklyn, Rock on Chicago
AT&T - Your world, delivered

The big crazy apple

I got into New York City today by bus and was immediately overwhelmed, despite my knowledge of the city. Coming back to this city is like being hit by a big wave. Sticky buns sticky buns sticky buns. I got some time to look through some free newspapers and check out what sort of shows are coming up, but the reality of New York City is that there is more theatre going on here at any time than a paper can really keep up with. That said, it's not like I'll be able to see anywhere near all of it, so... I'll find some cheaper off-Broadway stuff. Sticky buns sticky buns sticky buns. Also, there are several improv theaters out here, which is something D.C. didn't have to offer, so hopefully I'll be able to check out all of them. Sour cream glaze.

I'm staying with my friend Lisa, a fellow Kalamazoo College graduate Theatre Major who in recent years decided that her true passion is for food. Pictured above is a batch of her pumpkin cinnamon rolls with sour cream glaze that she made for her video cooking blog. Check out her newest post here and be sure to tune in next week, when her special guest will be ME.

Hard Times in New York - Bob Dylan
Talkin' New York - Bob Dylan
Bleeker Street - Simon & Garfunkel

Rock over London, Rock over New York
Stouffer's, nothing comes closer to home

I think I like this city

Nothing I ever create could be complete without some spooktacularly foreboding religious imagery.


Or without a little smirk to undermine it. Confessions by appointment? Let's see if I can squeeze one in if I bump up lunch at the Club...

St. Patrick's, ladies and gentlemen (New York's is bigger)

So here's what's up, I've seen a handful of shows since I've gotten to D.C., and I have to say I'm beginning to like this city more and more. There's a lot going on and it seems like there's a lot of opportunities. If my descriptions of what I've seen don't live up to that comment about liking the city, don't think much of it. I would compliment myself on having an astute, critical eye. Now allow me to tear into this shit.

The first thing I attended was a sit-in of a spacing rehearsal (when the actors are fit the blocking they've learned in a studio space onto the stage with the full set for the first time) at the National Shakespeare Company. The production was of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. I found this opportunity through Terry's theater, and I assumed it would be attended by a few local actors interested in seeing a professional rehearsal - I cannot understand what else anyone might get out of attending one of these. To my surprise, however, the theater was packed with wealthy D.C. dilettantes. The people on my right were complaining about their seats, of all things. We're watching a slow, tedious rehearsal, not a performance, my lovelies. And those on my left were getting upset when actors missed certain brand new pieces of blocking. Believe me, it's not so easy keeping blocking in mind while reciting memorized classical text on a new set in front of 200 gawking porpoises. And, much to my wonderment, the voyeurs thought everything the director said was a joke. Before the first run, he asked the lead actor if it would be easier for him to enter if the sliding door was already open. The crowd went wild. Not a joke, crew. Brain-dead white collars aside, the experience was a good one and certainly made me want to see the production, unfortunately I'll be in NYC by the time it opens.

That same afternoon I went to see an adaptation of A Picture of Dorian Gray at the Roundhouse in Bethesda, which had been written up in several papers as being graphic, explicit, and crossing every line. It lived up to all of that. Much of it's graphic nature was effective, though some of the violence was over-the-top if not gimmicky. What really fell flat for me was the depiction of the portrait itself. Even early on, it's built up for half of a scene to be the artist's finest work, but when revealed to the audience, is little more than an apt depiction of Gray. Of the three subsequent reveals of the portrait as it ages grotesquely, one of them fires on all cylinders and is very effective but the others don't live up to the status granted them by the text.

Later that night I met a friend at a concert. He works at an old folks home now, which he loves because, as he puts it, "old folks don't have stress: all their deadlines are passed." The concert, unbeknown to me, was part of the Sonic Circuits Festival; a tour of sound artists that I would hesitate to call musicians, and perhaps they would too. The first duo made me want to die. The second act, one man, a keyboard, and a laptop, was more listenable, but I suspected he was just playing Minesweeper up there. The third group (and the last I saw) was a group called Health, from California, whose contagious and unflagging energy pulled me in despite their noise-rock sound, which is not my thing. In the end I had a very enjoyable time. Imagine Bjork singing backup for Metallica doing island covers of Animal Collective songs.

Finally, just this evening I went to see Black Pearl Sings! at Ford's Theater (where Lincoln was killed, yes that Ford's Theater), a show that should not have an exclamation mark, with a new friend, one of Terry's fellow apprentices, Rachel, who will forever remember me as the person who can astonishingly drink a 20 oz. pop in one sitting. The story was about a music historian in the 1930's trying to document old folk songs ("every time someone dies a library is destroyed," or something, she says. That probably shouldn't be in quotation marks. Oh, well. Sorry, playwright Frank Higgins) and finds a veritable gold mine in the incarcerated "Pearl" Johnson. Much of the dialogue was awkward: both characters talked a lot about what they wanted and laid exposition like floor tiles. However, both women gave exceptional performances and God damn can Tonya Perkins sing!

Music =
City by Billie the Vision & the Dancers
something by Health (check them on YouTube - seeing them is all the fun)
something by Faust (the headliners of Sonic Circuits, whom I missed)

Today, TBWCYL said to go without addictive substances and, while I did have coffee and soda, I refrained from crack, meth, heroin, and cocaine.

Rock over Atlanta, rock on Chicago
Beggin' Strips, Dogs don't know it's not bacon.

Arlington Nat'l Cemetery

A few days ago, I had the chance to tote my computer around Arlington in my shoulder bag. Pictured below is the view from Kennedy's memorial. If you have eagle vision, you can see the Washington monument against the pale sky.


And here is RFK's marker - always the modest one.


And no cemetery would be complete without a Grecian amphitheater.


The disturbing parts of the cemetery were the vast open plots of land; eerie harbingers of wars to come and future dead soldiers. God willing, may this ground never be broken.

A dark post for TBWCYL. Listen to The Cemetery by Architecture in Helsinki.

Regarding the ironic appropriateness of the last post's heading

The last post was titled "Delusions of Adequacy" as a reference to my book (TBWCYL) which wanted me to write the iconic opening line of my great novel today, offering such examples as "Call me Ishmael" and "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." And while I do not have a first line for my book, I have long held a title (Delusions of Adequacy) for my memoir. Ironically, the title on that post implied a disturbed dissatisfaction with the American government, which may well be true, but I'm not about to ramble about it on my blog. How passe.

But, to be sporting, here's my shot at the first line for Delusions of Adequacy: The Life and Times of Ben Harpe:

"The day I was born, I had my whole life ahead of me."

And here's my band name and first album, while I'm at it:

Clamp Your Hands and Stop Your Feet! by the California Cash Refund

Delusions of Adequacy

Three vital things about DC

1. People carry themselves with some weird sense of importance but move with no meaning or urgency. Is this why political progress in America occurs so infrequently?

2. At Nationals' games, four dudes with giant fake heads made to look like the Mt. Rushmore presidents race around the ballpark (one is pictured above, dancing). Roosevelt's never won.

3. Outside the fence around the White House's national yard, there's a small monument reading, "point for the measurement of distances from Washington on highways of the United States," so prominently stationed, it's as if it's designed to trick non-English-speaking tourists into photographing themselves with it.

D.C. Continued

Thankfully, one of the common threads so far through my trip to Washington has been cute animals. This is important, and may be a sign. Pictured above is a bird that was hopping and playing in Detroit Metro Airport. Also, I called to a cat on a street and it came to me which I found very weird.


And then at a Washington Nationals game, I saw this owl.


Are owls the Nationals' mascot? No.

But unfortunately, Washington D.C. is not all cute animals and predatory birds. There's also scummy parks. This park, Meridian Park, features a prominent statue of James Buchanan who, next to Pierce, is the most immemorable president. The park became a haven for drug dealers in the 70s and 80s and has since become unofficially known as Malcolm X Park.

Here is a photo of the view from the top of the park.

On a clear day, you can see the tip of the Washington Monument over that office building in the back. This is why the French hate tall buildings.

Listen:
The Magnetic Fields - Washington D.C.

Hope I'm doing this frequently enough for you, mom.
Rock over DC, Rock over Baltimore.
Sara Lee baked goods. Nobody does it like Sara Lee.

The Heart of America('s Ego)

D.C., this is where it all goes down. Or, what goes down, as minute and occasionally as that happens, it happens here. I spent some time in the D.C. proper before meeting Terry (my lovely host) in Bethesda, MD for lunch/dinner meal. Pictured above are Joe Biden and Michelle Obama going for a stroll.

TBWCYL wants me to throw away something I like today, but since I'm traveling, I don't have much with me I could part with. SO, I'll find something I like on the Metro and throw that away.

Holler at my boy Terry, what a man.
Rock over Bethesda, Rock over D.C.
Kix cereal, kid tested, mother approved

The Great Peregrination

Let's All Go Change Our Lives Now Hooray!

I've been meaning to start this blog for a while but have been waiting for something interesting to pop up that might be worth writing about. Here's a little blip about who I am and why my life over the next year might be worth following. I'm a recent graduate of Kalamazoo College -- a small, Liberal Arts School in Southwestern Michigan -- having studied Theatre, Art, and Media Studies. So, I've been ready for four years to leap out of college and land in a sizzling pot of indefinite unemployment. Thus, more prepared than the average unemployed 2009 college graduate, I'm hoping to use this to my advantage. As long as no one's expecting me to get a job, I'm going to spend the next two months traveling across America, staying with friends and checking out 6 (maybe 7) of America's great cities (including one in Oregon - the one state with greater rate of unemployment than Michigan's), and capping it all off in Lawrence, Kansas for a laugh. My ultimate goal by the end of this trip is to pick a city and move there. In Planes, Trains, and Automobiles style, this whirlwind tour will get me back home just in time for Thanksgiving dinner with my horrifying specter of an 80's wife and three kids. This is particularly appropriate because I am a perfect cross between Steve Martin and John Candy (RIP John Hughes)

The other tasks I'll be 85%-heartedly undertaking this year are laid out in a book I was gifted for my high school graduation called This Book Will Change Your Life. It offers a task a day for a full year including take a pregnancy test, demand a free drink at a bar, and get a celebrity autograph (three randomly selected pages). I say 85%, because some of them are really asinine, like dig at the end of the rainbow, and others of them are simply rude, like cut in line. That's not what Johnsteve Cartin's all about. If it's immediately apparently life-changing, I'll throw it up on this blog here too.

And here's day 1 -- not life-changing, but I'll write about it today because it's the first. They offered 20 possible options for the day from do one press-up to nickname you genitals, both of which I'm sure we've all done. So I opted to do a striptease. Not life-changing, but I did learn a little something from it, so here's my advice to impart for your first striptease:

1. put music on (even if you can't dance, it'd be better than total silence, let alone sad little humming and dum-dum-dums).
2. clear enough room for yourself.
3. take your socks off ahead of time.

Laura, you didn't miss anything: it was a mess.

Well, I leave for Washington, D.C. tomorrow morning at 4:30 AM, so I'd better pack. But check back in, you can expect to see silly pictures, deep ruminations, and a list of tracks that would be in the video posts if I were able to upload video onto my computer. Here's today's:

Summer Days - Bob Dylan
Travelin' Man - Bob Seger
All I Want - Joni Mitchell
Ticket to Ride - The Beatles

This one's to Lo for the computer and D for the tech support.

Rock over Kalamazoo, Rock over Rochester Hills.
State Farm Insurance. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.