i found this rather heartwarming and honest...hats off to you Mr Olbermann!

just watch

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

This past weekend was wonderful.  I took a week of vacation; finally, from my job before hell season…I mean football season begins and went out west.  I’ve never been farther west that Chicago for anything more than a layover.  It was time. 

I went to the hub of it all…LA, California.  Yup.  I saw 14 lane highways, ate at In and Out, had my second worst hangover ever, celebrated my 35^th birthday by touring Blizzard Entertainment’s headquarters, had my first turkey burger, saw the La Brea Tar Pits, watched an adorable man in his 80’s walk past me carrying a ladder and a huge bunch of balloons, met amazing people that just welcomed me into their lives as though they had known me for years, encountered REAL traffic, reconnected with long lost acquaintances, went to a bar owned by the drummer for Social Distortion, saw a sculpture of a naked surfer, went to the actual Samuel French bookstore, ate incredible Thai food, saw the obligatory celebrity whose identity still eludes me, baked and froze within the space of an hour, missed an earthquake by 20 hours, and had a hell of a good time…

 Now…with the good, inevitably comes the bad, and in honesty there was very little of the bad…but what I’m about to mention is worth mentioning.

 The friend I was staying with was part of a one-act festival that opened the Friday I was there.  It was a collection of plays called “The Seven Deadly Sins”.  As you have probably already guessed, there are 7 one act plays in this show, each one being a ‘world premiere’.  No problems…as of yet.  We get to the show and it begins.  I’m not going to comment on anything but the opening monologue of the show.  And I can sum it up in one word. 

 Plagiarism.

 The opening monologue, is really just for one of the plays, but really sets up the whole show.  I have no problem with this, as I like it when festivals of small plays have a through line that links them all together aside from just their content…so the monologue begins…and the first thing that sets of warning bells in my head is this line…”two sides of the same coin.” 

 I blinked and said, in my head, “…the fuck?”

 The monologue continued…

 After the show, I scoured the program for anything that mentioned anything, anything at all about Tom Stoppard or Samuel French…nothing.  All it said was the title of that particular piece and the author/director of it.  Now I’m furious…not just because “Ros and Guil” is my favorite play, but because the pure audacity to use someone else’s work in an environment where someone is sure to recognize it…it’s like robbing a donut shop…you just don’t do it!

 So…I was upset.  Really upset.  I talked to my little group of friends I was with about it, but didn’t want to ruin everyone’s opening night bliss with accusations and dramatic scenes…although, try as the shows did, it would have been nice to see some real drama that night…alas, I refrained and thought about the best way to deal with this.  Tempted as I am, I have yet to contact Samuel French.  I feel the company itself should be able to fix this problem without everyone suffering the wrath of corporate lawyers and what not.  This problem really only exists with one person, the author/director of that one piece.  The others are truly just working well within the legal limits of their profession.  So, I sent a polite, non threatening letter to the company explaining what I noticed and how if I noticed it on opening night, with 14 more performances left, someone else WILL notice it.

 I was well aware of how the process of this particular play was put up and that the actors themselves didn’t even get a copy of the script until the Saturday of tech week.  Yes.  5 days to learn the script.  Aside from that stupidity and the stress and lack of concern for your actors, Mr. Director/Author…I’m guessing, this means no one on the board or with any real power saw this script, at all.  So here it is…I know most of you that read this are involved with theatre in some aspect, and some of you are even artistic directors of theatres…Would you EVER allow anything on your stage, or with your name on it without first having read it?

 If this were to get back to Sam French, the ramifications could be catastrophic for the company as a whole.  What on Earth are they thinking?  A case study in how to not run a theatre.

 My second question is this…If they don’t do anything about this, without killing this performance (which may be a mercy in and of itself) and the company, who does a person tell?  I’ve yet to hear back from the company and won’t know until Friday if anything has been changed.  I guess it’s kind of a moral quandary, what does one do if they balk at this and allow blatant plagiarism? 

 Something I never thought I’d see in professional theatre…but the rest of my trip was simply phenomenal...I can't wait to go back.

If you know me, know me at all, know that what you will read may shock you to your very core...

so…a funny thing happened over the past two days.  my friend, joe, came back from his vacation in California (that’s not the funny thing)…while we were at our local diner he challenged me to be a vegetarian for a month…i laughed and said, it wouldn’t happen because food is one of the few pleasures i know i can get and came up with a few more excuses on the spot as well…

fast forward to this morning…

as i was showering i got to thinking about how bad it would be…and decided what the hell…but i wasn’t going to do it alone.  i told Joe that i would do it IF he gave up smoking and drinking for the same month…it kinda shocked me, but he agreed.

so, for the month of August, i will be a vegetarian.  the more i thought about doing this the more excited i got for it.  no lie, i think this could be the hardest thing i’ve done since basic training…but all it can do is good for me.  i’m trying to get into better shape and watch what i eat as it is, so not being so reliant on red meat will only help me out, and will force me to keep trying new foods and recipes.

so, any of you vegetarians out there that can give a die hard carnivore some advice, recipes, do’s and don’t’s, or anything…i will be forever grateful.  while i don’t see myself as a vegetarian for life, not that that couldn’t change, i am looking at this as a way to modify my current lifestyle into a more healthy and maybe even socially conscious existence…

some of the parameters i’m gonna be living by…

no meat.  no fish, poultry, pork, or beef.  i’m going to try to limit my dairy and egg intake as to not shift directly from meat to eggs and what not.  i also am going to avoid, as much as i can, the really nasty processed foods that i’m sure adorn my kitchen, pantry and diet as it is…

i’m actually pretty excited for this…and with Joe giving up smoking and drinking, at least we’ll have each other to gripe to….

A couple days ago I went to  Wayne State University to talk to the head of their PhD program and to get a feel for the University.  The meeting was at 10am so I made sure to get there early.  I did, surprisingly enough, get there at the exact time I was planning…met up with Jim Costello, some of you may know him…a whiz when it comes to stage lighting…and he showed me where Dr. Thomas’ office was.  The meeting went well enough, I suppose.  I realized just how underprepared I was for such a meeting.  I thought I spent enough time figuring out what questions to ask so I wouldn’t look like a total tool…turns out he answered all of them before I had a chance to ask them…that was the first five minutes.  Then we just started talking and here’s where it got real interesting and why I really like what WSU has to offer. 

The PhD program they teach is a broad based scholar/director program catered to develop scholars to fit into the state sized university level where the prof would be required to where several different hats…while they have several specialized faculty on hand, it’s not the type of degree program they offer, hence a very marketable degree.  I also like the concentration on directing.  Dr. Thomas was saying that there is only one other University in America with a scholar/director program and that is at Stanford…and even still, at WSU the doctoral students direct a full length, fully supported play each year, whereas at Stanford, according to what I was told, the directing emphasis is in the classroom and on scenework.  So…I really like what WSU has to offer on that level…it really is a curriculum that I think would fit me.

They have a lighting lab.  A room the size of EMU’s lab theater dedicated to lighting.  I wanted so badly to play.  A room for sound editing.  A room full of 40x60 heavy duty drafting tables BEGGING for someone to stretch a piece of velum out on and create…and apparently they have something called a budget that lets them actually afford to do things.  Yeah, I was drooling…especially when Jim said they just got $40,000 worth of color scrollers in…nice.

The area is definitely a culture shock for me.  Not so much for all the people around but all the traffic.  I’m such a doofus when it comes to navigating around Detroit, and had no idea that WSU is literally right on Woodward.  After my meeting I was waiting for Jim to give me a ‘tour’ of the facilities and the inside scoop on the University (which has a rather impressive police force might I add)…so yeah, while I was waiting, I went for a brief walk around campus.  I made one turn and thought, “hey, that building looks familiar.”  Yup, it was the DIA.  For some reason, that really floored me.  I stopped by a really awesome art supply store that I had wanted to visit for years, Utrecht.  Very nice…a real artist’s haven.  I could spend a lot of money there.

I never realized just how big WSU is.  I don’t think I’ll be able to make it in this year…as much as I’d like to, I have too much prep work to do before I’ll even consider myself ready.  So…now to begin.  There are still other universities to look at, but for what I feel I want to do, this is the best fit I’ve found so far.

Aside from that, work is getting a little more tolerable now that my summer help is here and I’m not working 11 days in a row…I need to pick my running back up.  I’m trying now to run in the mornings.  Get up around 6, start running by 630, back by 7-730, shower, eat a HEALTHY breakfast, relax for a few, come to work ready and awake…did that today, and I’d like to think I’ll continue to do so.  Got at least one 5k this month, maybe another that I’d like to run…waiting to hear back from my trainer on that.  So, yeah.  One day at a time, one step at a time…I’m not even sure if I’m looking for a finish line, just gonna enjoy the view as long as there is one.

b-ri