Hell Is...

Listening to LA Theatreworks's broadcast of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest on loop... over and over and over again.

Nothing worse than listening to a bunch of smarmy British folk sitting around a drawing room being boring.

EISEGESIS

Eisegesis (n): is the process of misinterpreting a text in such a way that it introduces one's own ideas, reading into the text.

A man wakes up in a dark cell with no memory of how he got there or why he's being imprisoned. As two strangers relentlessly interrogate him, he is forced to memories that begin to explain what he may have done. How can mere thought be harmful?

I would like to formally invite all you Hootenanny-ers out there to my first Los Angeles play since the inception of this blog. :-) Eisegesis is part of The Blank Theatre Company's hugely successful 19th Annual Young Playwrights Festival. Eisegesis, like all plays in the YPF, was penned by a playwright under the age of 20- but it asks some surprisingly intriguing questions and touches on some very deep subject matter. What drew me to this play was the amount of suspense that layers this story...and the revelation at the end that sometimes searching for answers is just as dangerous as finding the answers.

We run from

Thursday, June 9- Sunday June 12.

All performances are at 8 pm, except for Sunday the 12th- which is at 2pm.

The Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood, CA.

Visit www.theblank.com for more information and to purchase tickets.

I'd love to see my beloved Hootenanny'ers there, ya'll!

Come Dare The Friendly Skies...

Think about it.

You're sitting in a metal tube

hurtling through the air at an average of 500 mph

somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 feet up

(roughly between 7 and 8 miles)...

Sounds like a dare doesn't it?

Last week, somewhere between Los Angeles and New Orleans and sometime after hearing of the giant hole that had ripped in the fuselage of one of Southwest Airline's fleet of Boeing 737-300s a few days before, I saw the image to the left whilst in the air:

Funny, no?

Kinda made me wish that the email that was sent to me the previous day from Southwest proudly informing me that I was on a Wi-Fi flight for a small fee of $5 had instead guaranteed me (or at least acknowledged the recent events) that my plane would not crack in two while hurtling through time and space.

You see, it's not quite so bad when you're up in the air and the sun is shining and everything is so smooth you start to forget that you are on a plane. No, no...the times that trouble me are when the turbulence begins to shake you like an older brother who has just found his younger sister's new Barbie doll and the dark clouds swirl in around your plane or that the Captain comes on the PA and says things like "Ladies and gentleman, uh, the Flight Attendants are going to serve you your in-flight drinks now but as the flight deteriorates we're going to have them sit down." (This has happened. Thank you, Alfy)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I don't care how calmly you say that, you just told me that the flight that I am on is "deteriorating"!!! And you're not even offering me a parachute so that I can decide whether or not I choose to stay and take my chances or whether I'd like to hurl my ass out of Door #2.

The numbers say that I am unreasonable to be afraid of flying. Especially when I have absolutely no fear of driving in cars, which is statistically more dangerous. But the thought of something going wrong and having 35,000 feet to consider that I am plummeting to certain death always somehow creeps into my head and makes my palms start to sweat.

Usually, cranking up my iPod to my Gospel section helps. At least I'll go out listenin' to hymns about the baby Jesus.

Though something recently gave me pause. I usually fly alone. On my latest business trip (which happened to be in my hometown of good ol' New Orleans), I flew with my good friend and boss, Aaron Fox- aka Alfy. With my friend by my side, I noticed my fears were pretty much completely absent. I got a bit tense on take-off, but they subsided almost as quickly as they came.

Which made me regard the notion that my fear really is more about dying alone. Or rather, dying around a bunch of strangers to whom I have no real connection. The idea of having time to contemplate my impending doom while having no one to hold onto, to turn to, to rely on at least to give me some comfort is perhaps what truly frightens me. When you think about it, it's a pretty understandable fear: the fear that in your final moments you're all alone and that is all you are going to know for the rest of your life. This is a pretty dark and lonesome fear, but it is a common one. It is a fear that certainly colors many of the decision we make- both large and small- on a daily basis.

But we keep flying.

That's the world we live in.

That's the risk we have to take if we're going to get out in this world and live a little.

Throughout history, the human spirit has shown that it naturally resists fear and the threat of conquer from internal and external forces- hence the success of stories like Rocky and The Fighter and even Stephen King's novels The Shining and Dolores Claiborne.

We ignore these fears, and we push ever forward to live our life on our own individual terms.

So pay no attention to the turbulence, forget the lighting a few hundred yards away, don't think about the fact that you can see daylight through the roof- just crank up your Mahalia Jackson a bit louder...

and relax.

Call me Nostradamus...

Perhaps you will recall this post from a while back...

The (Misguided) Choice Of A New (Fat) Generation

Well, Hootnanny-ers...it seems somebody out there in the Science World heard ol' Nate spouting his little gold nuggets of truth and decided to do some hypothesizing and gesticulatin' and see if there was anything to it.

I give you...

http://fashion.elle.com/beauty/2011/03/01/diet-soda-not-so-diet-after-all/?cid=el%3Aotb%3Adispatch%3ADiet-Soda-Not-So-%3FDiet%3F-After-All%3A

I ain't the kinda guy that says "I toldya so", but...

;-)

Stay tuned for more soon-to-be-proven scientific predictions!

Hell Is...

In my estimation, Hell must be driving behind an endless chain of Los Angeles Buses and Prius drivers on Santa Monica Boulevard between the Wilshire intersection and La Cienega Boulevard from 7 am-6pm on a rainy day.

Buses, I get.

They're big, they're slow, they have to stop for people every 10 feet.

But Prius drivers are one of the greatest mysteries of our universe. Neither science nor religion will ever be able to explain why Prius drivers lose their ability to function on a rational level once they buy this car. I am convinced Prius owners sign away not a part of their soul but rather a large part of their brain in order to own said vehicle. It takes every ounce of self-control that I have not to run through every environmentally-friendly yet small Prius with my gas-guzzling, yet large and imposing Jeep Wrangler as I drive behind them.

I'm an optimist. And as such, I must believe that one day operating an automobile on this planet will be logical. Hopefully in my lifetime...

Speaking of which... where are the flying cars I was promised in Back To The Future Part 2?

An Open Letter to Thieves in My Neighborhood

Dear Miserable Failure, aka The Guy Who Broke Into My Car Last Night:

I know why you chose my vehicle.

I drive a 2003 Jeep Wrangler Ragtop whose windows over the past year and a half have flown off due to, I suspect, faulty design. Wranglers, by design, are already among the easiest cars to break into. Take away 50% of the windows that protect the car from the elements and desperate vagrant, crack-whores like yourself and I suppose I cannot blame you too much for choosing my vehicle.

But, you see...I'm smarter than you are.

True, I don't know you, but by the simple virtue that you risked being caught and prosecuted to break into a car with virtually no security thinking that you would find some magic treasure that could thrust you back into the sophisticated social and professional pipelines of a decent and upstanding society (but most likely only to sustain you until your next fix), I know you are not a man of superior intellect.

What kind of fool would leave anything of value in a vehicle that offers no protection to said objects?

And what did you end up getting, sir (what a stretch to call you that)? You took my parking change. You took what probably amounted to $3.25 and in the process you did not shake my sense of security in either my neighborhood or my surroundings. You did not do anything but start out my ultimately productive and satisfying day with a bit of annoyance and make me decide to no longer carry my change in my car.

In that light, you did me a favor. And with that in mind, I thank you. Your actions stirred in me an interest in creating a self-designed replacement security system for the windows I have lost, a la MacGyver- the plans of which have already been sketched out I might add. Additionally, I made that $3.25 back on the write-off I will get next year from the Government half way into my drive to work and 15 minutes after I discovered your sad attempt at stealing from me.

So, really sir...what did you accomplish? Did that $3.25 get you anything besides a Coke? Did throwing all the papers I have in my glove box all over the place earn you anything except wasted time? Do you somehow feel better about your deluded, sad self? Was all that trouble and risk worth it?

After all, even if I don't erect my self-designed security system anytime soon and I leave my Jeep exposed to the elements and trash like yourself, do you truly believe from this point forth that I will even carry the $3.25 you took?

No sir.

So, do yourself a favor. Don't risk it next time. And stay the hell away from my car.

Bitch.

Yours,

An Intelligent, Employed, Upstanding Member of Society With a Future

Is That Bill Shakespeare Over There?

So recently, I was listening to the reading of a play. Now, this play has been produced before. And one would assume it has been edited and re-edited. I had to share with all you faithful Hootenanny patrons something I ran across in the script.

The following appears 3/4 of the way through the story. The 4 main characters are the only ones on stage and all have not only been introduced at this point but present throughout and crucial to the play's action.

In the middle of the dialogue, the Speaker is ranting and raving and listing faults of the other characters when the stage directions direct the Main Character:

Blah...blah...blah, emphatic dialogue (Pointing specifically to someone) blah blah blah....

Gotta love good writing.