OLD BLOG: Xmas (abridged)

Thursday, November 20, 2008

I used to find it irritating to see Christmas stuff this early. This year I was seeing stuff in mid-October. I wasn’t even thinking about Halloween yet in mid-October. I've been seeing Christmas commercials on television lately: basically Santa telling us to start buying stuff. I find the whole thing beyond irritating. It's offensive, even possibly immoral. I’m becoming less and less tolerant of commercialism in general, even before the current economic crisis.
There’s a documentary called What Would Jesus Buy? It follows this guy, Reverend Billy, and his choir on their cross country "crusade" to spread the "gospel" of not shopping. I don't think he is a real reverend but more of an activist. The way that we live, you can't really get along without buying some things. But we're not just addicted to oil in this country. We're addicted to buying stuff. Mostly stuff we don't need. There's nothing really good about buying stuff.
Why isn't someone saying, "Hey you don't have to keep buying so much crap!"? Why can't we just make corporations be more responsible: make things that aren't gonna break down and need to be replaced in a year when the warrantee expires? Make decent quality stuff we actually need, and a few nice special things for fun and whatever, but stop with all the crap. What have we as a people become, that we've let this happen? 

OLD BLOG: a fun little story (abridged)

September 05, 2008

Hey guys, here's a fun little story for you:
Some of you may be aware of my tendency to be naked. It's "liberating". (Okay, that's just rhetoric.) But I have come to be comfortable this way. AND it's economical, when the weather is warm enough. If you're not wearing any clothes during the summer, you don't have to run the air conditioning as high, thereby saving money and electricity, and thereby saving the earth. Plus, if you're not wearing clothes all day, you probably don't have to wash them quite as often. Maybe that's not a big difference, but when it comes to saving the earth, every little bit helps, right?
I am currently staying in a theatre’s actor housing. The summer season is over, and I've been the only person here the past week-and-a-half since the last show closed. I have my own bathroom and kitchenette in my room, but I've been keeping ice cream in one of the freezers downstairs in the big kitchen, 'cause the little freezer in my room just doesn't keep it ice creamy. And I go down there to get ice in the evenings, when I'm drinking to keep the voices quiet. (Just kidding—about the voices.)
I've been naked pretty much all summer here in my room. Well, last week I figured since nobody else was here and I'd only be down there for a minute or 2 at a time, I'd just go on down without putting anything on. No big deal, right? And over the weekend I did the same during the day 'cause, again, no one would see me.
This past Monday morning I decided to do a load of laundry, and I didn't put anything on. Since it was Labor Day, I figured the woman who comes in to clean wouldn't be here. Well, I was wrong. She was just sitting in front of the elevator where I happened to walk by. I stopped and apologized and said I didn't realize anyone was here and went and put on some pants. I apologized again when I went by with pants on. She didn't seem upset or traumatized. I think she must have thought everyone was gone too, because she seemed startled more than anything.
I guess I should make sure exactly when the next cast gets here. I mean, I don't have a problem with people seeing me naked. But I realize some people may have a problem with it. I just don't want to accidentally flash a whole cast full of strangers. That's not the best way to start off their experience at a new theatre, right?

OLD BLOG: NYC blog 13: (hey, that’s an unlucky number—interesting)

April 17, 2008 

My car was broken into sometime between Tuesday evening and this morning. I know a suitcase was stolen. It had a jacket in it, which was still there. It probably wasn't the right style. I'm not sure if there was anything else in it. And I don't know exactly what all is in my car, so I don't know for sure if anything else was taken. Some boxesand the glove compartmetn were dumped out into the seats and floor.
When I was living in Astoria I kept expecting my car to have been broken into or damaged or stolen while parked on the street, but it never happened. Then when I moved to Washington Heights—in not the cleanest neighborhood, by the way—I started thinking about that kind of thing again. I figured it was even more likely here, because I'm leaving a lot of stuff in my car (there's just no room where I'm subletting). And it's more of a stereotypical "urban New York City" neighborhood. But I haven't thought about it lately. I've also stopped wondering if I'm going to get mugged (in NYC, not specifically this neighborhood), so let's hope that doesn't happen.
It's not such a big deal that someone took a suitcase. I can get another suitcase—maybe one with wheels. Mainly it pisses me off that someone would be so rude. Did they have to dump stuff out of those little boxes? Can't they tell that it's a cheap car and whoever owns it isn't likely to have anything of value in it?
I don't have any real major racial hang-ups, and I don't want that to change. But this is a mostly Latino area. I knew a guy in college who was uncomfortable with black men, because he'd been attacked by one while he was working at a convenience store. (He also didn't like people coming up behind him—same reason.) I used to look at the groups of people hanging out on the streets around here with a sort of pleasant wistfulness—even with a sense of admiration and maybe jealousy. It would be nice to belong to a community and know everyone and say hi as you pass on the street. But now I'm pretty sure I'll look with suspicion and perhaps distain at the teens and young adults hanging around. I'm sure it wasn't the whole neighborhood that broke into my car. But the sad truth is that, I will now look around at the people here and wonder who it was. I'll feel differently about living here. I hate that. It's the saddest part about this.