experimenting

I just heard the phrase "experimenting with drugs" in a movie from 2001. I mention the year because it's not like something from the 60's or 70's. The phrase is probably still in use. The movie is Series 7: The Contenders. It's an interesting sort of commentary on TV violence and reality shows. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251031/
Anyway, I'm thinking about that phrase "experimenting with drugs". But do people really experiment with drugs? Don't people just basically try drugs or take drugs (or continue to take drugs)? I'm not used to hearing about kids "experimenting" with cigarettes or alcohol or sex...well, maybe with homosexuality.
So if it's something that's legal or "the norm" for adults but undesirable for kids, then it's something kids get into, involved with, whatever. But if it's drugs or maybe homosexuality, then the kids are "experimenting"? Why the difference? Is it the hope on the part of parents or other adults that once the experiment is done, the behavior will stop, whereas drinking, smoking and straight sex are fine in the long run?

saving the world...or not

I just had a thought about saving the world and not saving the world.

Right-wing Christian fundamentalist types, who believe in the “literal word of the bible” (or it’s standard traditional interpretation) and all that jazz, have no incentive to reduce/reuse/recycle or reduce carbon emissions or conserve non-renewable resources or develop alternative energy sources or anything else that might allow life to continue on this planet. Nor have they any incentive to strive for peace among nations or any of the things that I would imagine a “reasonable” person to want in regard to sustaining life on this planet.

They’re too busy looking forward to the rapture, because they know it’s gonna happen in our time. So why should they bother? In fact, maybe they should do anything they can to hurry it along so they can all party in paradise with the Jesus…and the 72 virgins.

Wait, am I mixing my religions?

trailer

This morning I saw an appalling movie trailer. The movie is Machete. The trailer consisted mostly of a guy chopping off a bunch of people’s heads in various clips from the movie. It’s a real movie. I looked it up. There are other trailers that are “approved for appropriate audiences” (the green band previews) that are still pretty violent. But the one I saw this morning showed heads coming off and blades going into bodies, an explosion or two and a bare ass. (I hope it was a red band trailer… “mature audiences only”.)  It kept coming up as a 15-second ad before other videos.

I’m not generally squeamish about movie violence, but this was just violence…no context. I didn’t know if this was a good guy violently avenging wrong, saving the lives of innocents, whatever OR some crazy psycho bad guy just killing people for kicks. Now, having looked at one of the other trailers, I have some idea of the context. And this first trailer I saw was probably a compilation of the most violent 15 seconds from throughout the movie. So it’s not just a feature-length film full of creative beheadings.

It was truly disturbing, especially because it kept coming up every time I tried to watch some other video. I’m not a fan of censorship, but if you’re gonna do it (and we do) that sort of glorification of violence has got to be more damaging than a graphic realistic-looking sex scene, which I’ve rarely seen in a commercial movie and never in a trailer. Who would put together a trailer like that? Who is the target audience? Seriously, what…the…fuck!?

The so-so Lebowski

I watched The Big Lebowski last night. I'd seen at least some of it before, but I think I didn't make it through it. I guess I just didn't get it. I didn't find any of the characters likable or interesting. The dialogue seemed as if it was trying to be witty and clever, but I didn't find it so. Well, John Turturro's character was kinda interesting. And he perhaps the only funny line in the movie: "...Nobody fucks with the Jesus." And it's not all that funny. Ostensibly the movie is a comedy.
It was playing somewhere in town "on the big screen". I know a few folks who went, but I didn't. I watched it at home instantly on the netfix. I remember not liking it especially when I watched (part of) it before, so I had no interest in going out and paying money to watch something I don't really care for while surrounded by people who love it, who have this reverence for it, like it's such a great film and somehow deep and meaningful.
I gave it 2 stars, meaning "I didn't like it". I give most things I watch on the netflix 2, 3, or 4 stars. 1 star means it was awful and I couldn't get through it. 5 stars means I loved it and would watch it again several times (not right away; that would be an extremely rare thing). Movies like Glory, The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy...you know, anything with Morgan Freeman...those get 5 stars. Okay, just kidding about Morgan Freeman, although I usually love him. I think I give 5 stars more often than 1, but I'm sure there are lots of 1-star-worthy movies that I'd never even consider watching long enough to give it a star.
Now I'm curios to see exactly what all I've given a 5 star rating. Maybe I'll check it out and make a list. I'm a little crazy like that.
Anyway...
My feeling about The Big Lebowski is not unlike my feeling about Office Space, but I like Office Space a bit more. it might get 3 stars, which for me is not "I liked it" but rather "It's okay". I've heard people speak of Office Space like it could be this life-changing thing. It's not. It's sort of amusing. Of course, I've never worked in an office, so maybe I don't have the necessary background to truly appreciate it.
When I was in high school I worked a couple of summers at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. During college I worked 2 summers as a camp counselor and I worked a couple of semesters part-time sitting at a desk at a student center making sure people signed in and didn't do anything crazy while they were there. Other than that, as an adult, I've never had a "regular" sort of job: never worked in an office or a restaurant or a store; never answered phones or sold Amway products or had a internet business or anything like that; never even temped. Since college, actually it started while I was in college, I've made a living as a musician. I guess that's pretty rare. I have no interest in finding a "regular" job and have no obvious, practical experience if I wanted to apply for one. If I were injured somehow and couldn't play the piano anymore, I'd sort of be fucked. Also, I have no insurance, so I'd really be fucked.


I made a list.

5-star

An Inconvenient Truth

Camp

The Aristocrats

Knocked Up

Borat

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Shortbus

Big Love: Season 1

This Film is Not Yet Rated

The Five Pennies

Hamlet 2

Rome: Season 2

Star Trek (the newest film)

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Spaced: The Complete Series

Blood Moon

10 Items or Less

The Office: Series 2 (BBC)

The Office Special (BBC)

The Office: Season 1 (US)

Dorothy Dandridge: An American Beauty

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968, royal Shakespeare Company)

I Love Sarah Jane

What Would Jesus Buy?

Weeds: Season 1

Heroes: Season 3

Earth 2 (TV series)

Coupling: Season 1, 2 & 3

Regarding Henry

Grease 2

Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (BBC documentary)

The League of Gentlemen: Series 1 (BBC)

The Celluloid Closet

Bill Cosby: Himself

The Education of Shelby Knox

My Favorite Year

Paper Clips (WATCH THIS)

The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie

Holiday Inn

Gentleman’s Agreement

Park

Walk hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Unbreakable

The Dark Crystal

Farscape: Season 1, 2 & 3

The Fifth Element

Eddie Izard: Dressed to Kill

Daniel Tosh: Completely Serious

Good Night, and Good Luck

Casablanca

The Glenn Miller Story

Sliders: Season 1 & 2 (went steadily downhill after that, if there’d been a Season 6: 1-star)

Dr. Strangelove

Godzilla (1998, Matthew Broderick)

Enemy Mine

The Color of Magic

Sex Drive

Chaplin: The Movie

Seven Pounds

Penelope

Arrested Development: Season 1 & 2

Better Off ted: Season 1

The IT Crowd: Series 1 & 2

Kidnapped (series)

A Clockwork Orange

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

WALL-E

Dune

The Guild: Season 1, 2 & 3

Avatar: The Last Airbender: (the series…really great, and I’m not an anime fan)

Pushing Daisies: Season 1

Skins: Volume 1

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Sweet Land

I rated these 5-star, but probably shouldn’t have

Little Miss Sunshine

The F-Bomb: A Documentary (I don’t even remember this)

The Producers (that has to be wrong)

100 Girls

1 star

Vegas in Space

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

Delta of Venus

The Last Kennedy

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

Day of Wrath

Specimen

Drew Hastings: Irked and Miffed

Sizzle Beach, USA (early Kevin Costner)

The Breakup Artist

Vampires Anonymous

Sinners

Cyber Wars

Girls will Be Girls

Nature’s grave

The Girlfriend Experience

Warlock

House of Voices

The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell

Flesh for Frankenstain

Ratko: The Dictator’s Son

Severed: Forest of the Dead

Rampage

The Devil’s Tomb

Life Blood

Thr3e

If I was a sculptor…but then again, no

Often lately when I’m writing it feels like I’m sculpting. I’ve never sculpted. Well, maybe I did in some elementary school art class, but who can remember that? Not me. I don’t know how to sculpt. But this feeling I have lately is what I imagine sculpting to be like. It may happen when I’m working on a big script or, more likely, when I’m composing.

The feeling is that of having a big chunk of material that I’m chipping away at to create something. I don’t mean I’m literally looking at all the possible words or notes that I could use, then I eliminate the ones I won’t use until I have a speech or melody. It’s more that I have a certain amount of material that I have to write, and I chip away at it little by little as I write more and more.

With a script, it’s a result of the “pre-writing” I do. My first major step with a new piece is to write a lot about the idea, the characters, the story, etc. So by the time I start writing the first real draft, I already know the story, the scenes are, what happens in each; if it’s a musical I know where the songs happen, what they’re about, who sings them, and what basic type each song is: ballad; up-tempo; charm song; something dancy. I may not know exactly how long the piece will end up being, but I know I have certain things I’ll have to write before I have a complete draft of the script. That doesn’t mean I don’t find new ideas or surprises as I write. I do, and I embrace them, and they sometimes lead to great things.

I’ve tried writing the other way: starting with a blank page and some germ of an idea; supposedly discovering what it’s all about as I write it. But it seems to produce a confused jumble of a piece that I have a hard time making sense of. It’s not a very satisfying process for me. I think I have a strong left- and right-brain: I’m organized and creative. In those quizzes you can take that show a result of a brain with a spot somewhere representing where you fall on the left-brain/right-brain thing, my result is almost right in the center, on more than one test. So I think my pre-writing method satisfies both hemispheres, both tendencies.

I don’t really pre-write music in that same way. However, since all I really write anymore is songs and other material for musicals, I always have the framework of lyrics and character and dramatic situation. Often as I write music, the lyrics will change, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, but the basics—subject matter, character, situation— generally stay.

 The sculpting feeling is even stronger with the music. Although I often have (sometimes very clear) ideas of what the music will sound like as I’m writing lyrics, I generally don’t really work on the music until I have a good draft of the script done. So just like with the pre-writing and the script, I know when I start on the music that I have a certain amount of things I have to write before I have a complete draft of the score. So in the larger sense, I’m chipping away at the score, song by song, and with each song I’m chipping away at it, section by section, phrases by phrase, occasionally even note by note.

So, today I will return to sculpting. I’ve been working for a while this summer on a new show. I’ve written a lot this summer: a 10-minute play; a 10-minute musical; another play and a musical each about 15 minutes or so; a one-act play which I think is done, for now anyway; a one-act musical for a young audience (first draft of script done, needs a lot of work, more story development—guess I didn’t do enough pre-writing—no music yet); and this musical I’m focusing on now—a long one-act, an hour, maybe 70 minutes or so. If I really work at it the rest of this week and next, I could have a mostly complete draft of the score soon.

Mmmuffins

I've always loved blueberries. I know it started in childhood with Boo Berry® cereal. It was my favorite. Last fall there was a store where I lived near Mobile that carried it. Of course I bought some, and it's still good.
http://www.bofads.com/pictures/boo.jpg

I'm not as big a fan as other berries. I think it's that they seem more tart than sweet, where blueberries are a little more even in the tart/sweet balance.
I saw my friend Mara's post about blueberries and jamming this morning. It reminded me that I'd bought blueberries last time I was at the grocery store, and they were sitting in my frig waiting, as patiently as possible, to be used. Blueberries goal in life, their raison d'être, is not, as you might have read in some book on biology or genetics or such like (I've certainly read such like), but rather to find a medium through which to enter my belly. The medium may be a cobbler, or a store brand equivalent to the Cheerios®, or, occasionally, my hand popping a few berries right into my mouth.
Well, today the medium is muffins. I've often made muffins from a box, typically Betty Crocker® Wild Blueberry. If you can find the ones with 2 cans of blueberries, that's the best. I haven't seen them for a few years now.
But today, it was blueberry muffins "from scratch". (That phrase originally meant to start from the beginning with no advantage, from the starting line scratched into the ground. It was a sports term.) I tried once before and ended up with what can only be described as mini-cobblers. they tasted fine, but were pretty messy. What they needed was to have been made in their own little bowls, or other containers. Like single serve pies (Yes, I was watching Pushing Daisies Season 2recently.) Today's turned out wonderfully. In both cases I used recipes I found online, but last time I forgot to add baking powder until the wet and dry ingredients were already blended. I figure that had something to do with the result.
I used a different recipe today, and altered it a little. The biggest difference is that I added cinnamon. Here's my altered recipe:

Basic Blueberry Muffins “from scratch”

(based on a recipe I found online: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blueberry-Muffins-I/Detail.aspx)

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

a few dashes of ground cinnamon

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

3/4 cup fresh blueberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease muffin pan.

Rinse blueberries. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together. Mix wet and dry together. If it seems too dry, add a little more milk. Add blueberries. Spoon into muffin pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, or longer if needed. 

And here's the result:

They're very tasty. And I have plenty left.
Two years ago, when I was doing Into the Woods at Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia and was totally in love with April, who played the witch, I made a lot of muffins and shared them with her in what I later called our "blueberry muffin mornings" (it's a lyric in a song I wrote).
Sadly, I have no one, friend or otherwise, with whom I can share a blueberry muffin morning or, at this point, afternoon. So, if anyone's hungry, let me know. I'll be eating these for the next couple of days.

for Mara

My friend Mara, who is going to be the Next Food Network Star, has a blog (“Sing For Your Supper” –she’s also a singer) where she posts videos of her cooking. So I thought in her honor, I’d just post this picture of what I made tonight.

Stir-fry beef & vegetables with rice. It’s Variation # whatever of Chris’s basic recipe.