clownin' 'round

i'm proud of our show that we opened this weekend. again, i'm not really doin all that much in it, but my couple scenes are pretty cool. it takes a fair amount of energy to bring myself to the place i need to be for larry (curtis). i'm focusing not on mugging, but allowing the character to be so dumb, so eager, that all of the reactions come from who this person is: a lonely fuck who can't get it together. the clowns really are the saddest people in the room.

you're full of cowardice

this week has been flying along at breakneck speeds dangerously close to the ground, grazing the heads of innocent bystanders. it has been long days at the theatre, tours (which have gone remarkably well (save discussions about what perfection is. how does one have a perfect show? not fumble lines? what about exploring space and text and moments and objectives? there are some people whom i tour with who build a crafted performance and they're convinced that it's the best they can do. i want to tell them that you have no idea if you've made the best choice until you've played in they abyss and found out everything that doesn't work. we're smart; use the text and the characters to keep finding specifics and different moments. dont' just say your lines perfectly. who are you helping? don't be a coward.) and now we're in the midst of what looks to be a very shaky tech process for 'taming of the shrew'. another thanksgiving for me will be spent away from family (3rd year running) and it's gonna be a bit of a stressful one because we open the aforementioned Shakespearean comedy the following day. i would love to just drink an entire bottle of cabernet and eat pounds of turkey and take a meat nap, and i hope to do so without this show looming in the distance.
sara palin has a book out, and boy is there buzz !!! here is the best way to read it. or if you would just to read christopher buckley's interpretation of the index, go here. both are, i'm guessing farily accurately, far better than the actual book. even in reading short excerpts from the book, i'm convinced she has the intelligence (and perhaps the temperament and fighting stance) of an Alaskan king crab. just briefly, in the first three pages, she refers to metaphorical train (which fast becomes a mixed metaphor in the next paragraph) as being 'increasingly derailed'.
but i know not much more about it than what i read about it.
speaking of reading, i'm re-reading 'lolita'. boy do i enjoy reading about a page worth of descriptive prose about humbert humbert's erections. if i could write, i would write like nabakov. he's so self-aware and witty and verbose and poppy and effete and daring

until later

its evolution, baby

i'm doin away with capitalization today to show how i can be all savvy and detached. people don't capitalize when they don't want to be taken all too seriously, i think, and i'm pretty sure i don't want to be taken seriously. non-capitalization (or, "typin' all tiny like") implies a sort of off-the-cuff nonchalance that i can get behind. and then, it offsets and pairs nicely with some propperly written prose. ha, as if one expected poor grammar and sentence structure because of this anti-caps legislation.

the arcade fire's "neon bible" just keeps growing on me like a cute fungal infection. pushed in part by watching their dvd "miroir noir", i listened to the album a lot recently and it's a perfect example of a band evolving: less four to the floor dance/pop and more gradual building with songs. they've changed their lyrical content to explore a wider array of topics, looking outward, and relying on new sounds, (organs, found acoustical tones), and regine's voice is way more prominant in this, and that adds so much diversity to their already eclectic sound.

business will be theme of the next week. back to touring more and lots of rehearsal and tech at the end of the week. we're puttin up another show.

also... there's something here at this company that's odd: offering to be nice to people is like a threat. or it's not takin at face value. or it's not trusted. it's confusing.

until later

The Glen Beck of TV = The Human Wrecking Balls

The leaves are crisp and dead on the ground, winter's chilly visage is just around the bend, and the Packers are disappointing, then it must be the time of year where I slowly get caught up on Top Chef, my achilles heel when it comes to reality TV. As sort of a warm up I went on Hulu and watched and old episode from last season. Brought back fond memories, made me hungry and remorseful that I really only cook on my George Foreman, reinstated my crush on Jamie. But then I saw this.

Before I get into that---

I was already reading today about how Glen Beck is becoming an idiom in his own right, (i.e. The Glen Beck of culinary arts = Guy Fieri, or the Glen Beck of music = Toby Keith ( Further, I must share with you this little quote from the Bio of Toby Kieth on the CMT.com website:

That all changed in 2002 when he recorded "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," a response to September 11 that became one of country's most highly charged political statements since Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee""

"Okie From Muskogee" is a fucking satire, and Merle Haggard admitted he wrote it as such, and jesus, you think that's a charged political statement? Putting one's boot in someone's ass? "Boy, that ol' Mahmud Ahmadinejad , I'm gonna give that sawn bitch a knuckle sandwich to show him what for." There's my highly charged political statement, CMT, give me my Country Music Award. Now. I want it right fucking now. )) and how in some cases it may not be fair because Mr. Beck is such a giant pile of crudely plucked ass hair who should only be compared to, well, a giant pile of etc... Guy Fieri was quoted as being "a very nice guy in person" and "charming", but that's not Mr. Beck's m.o.; it's appealing to the lowest common denominator, the people who want chicken little stories with clear binary problems and solutions. Nothing new, I know. But I really think it's an award (no CMA, to be sure) to become part of this new colloquialism.

Therefore I, Jeremy Dana Larson, in accordance with the international "Cause I'm Right, That's Why, Sir" social critique 'festo, hereby declare The Glen Beck of TV to be "The Human Wrecking Balls"And I'm aware of the redundancy.

Now, that link to the preview and a couple short videos on Youtube is all I saw, because I didn't want to write this and seem uninformed. But now that I am informed, I can safely say this is the dumbest, basest, most ignorant thing on TV. And while a little part of me wanted to watch, the majority of me knew that these two brothers (who used the phrases "Get some" and "This is the rockstar dream, baby!" ) are representing something that is truly depressing. Someone at G4 (men's answer to Lifetime, another equally appalling and sexist channel of truly horrible programming) had to greenlight this, knowing that there's a gathering of people who would just love to watch goateed, bleached hair, giant men smashing things with their bodies.

I'd extrapolate more, but it's almost too easy to follow this to the inevitable punchline. Congratulations, the brothers Pumphrey, you win.

Until later, just remember, white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all.

The 24U

Monday. A day off.

Almost.

All's Well That Ends Well has one week left in its run. If I never have to wear medical adhesive for a fake mustache again, I will die a happy man. On Saturday's performance, a friend of mine gave me a note about what I was doing in the background on stage, saying that I was being too loud in my peas and carrots dialogue.

Firstly, no one, ever, is watching what is going on upstage of anyone who is talking. It's definitely one of those parts where you gotta say to yourself "Ok, I'm rarely , if ever, driving the scene here. Let's just go onstage and not distract people." But if I am playing an ancillary character in a show, I do get very excited about being able to create something that can be really ridiculous and interesting for me to play that absolutely no one knows or cares about. Because trust me, it gets fucking boring up there after a while. Last year, I was in a show where I played a servant who fell asleep standing up. That was my choice after a while. It came from a very real place.

CSC is one of the few resident ensemble companies in the US, and I feel very blessed to be apart of it. I believe that it is one of the only ways to develop a theatre for a community, serve that community, and be comfortable knowing each other on stage and feel safe to risk, fail, and risk again. However, 4 months in, there are downfalls. Your co-workers are your friends are your family are your drinking buddies are your confidants are your bosses are your roommates. Incestuous describes all too well what it's like. And, hell, if this was a artist commune where we all did acid and benzedrine and stayed up late writing manifestos (hereafter " 'festos ") and creating new exciting challenging pieces of art, that would be just dandy. But a classical theatre company (read also: business) lends itself to some inherit limitations, insecurities, and a general shield that can permeate and perhaps stifle a creative flow. At least, I feel like I'm not part of the flow. Maybe it's like Reaganomics trickle-down theatre. I'm gettin the juicy run-off of the higher-ups... I want the fruit that's at the top of the tree, man.

I'm going to work now with less of a censor over me now. I'm living in the now, the idealism, the pragmatic, the 24, and not trying to adopt a specific set ethos that can permeate the theatre. Maintain my beliefs, be open to others', and kick ass.

I'll leave with you with some of what I want to work with. Buckley live.

Until then.

To Varying Degrees

I find that, to varying degrees, people, generally speaking, (and this is to say that perhaps more often than not), seem to have the tendency oftentimes -- no, I should clarify and do away with certain vague notions and say 'are', forever waxing and waning towards, (and I say the following with a scientific certainty unparalleled in any pedagogical or professional institution and hope to eschew any previous linguistic transparencies, euphemisms, or abstract syntax) being utter, unmitigated, pure douchebags.

Meditation

I'm up in the woods

I'm down on my mind

I'm building a still

To slow down the time

I wish music would make me laugh more often.

Thank you ODB, Sage Francis, The Darkness, Lil Wayne, They Might Be Giants, Talking Heads, *live* Jeff Buckley, Dragonforce

No Thank yous to Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliot Smith, Bon Iver 99% of other bands

Against All Odds

So, as previously mentioned, this blog will have some training wheels on it. Oh, I don't think I'm ready to review songs every day, or every blog post. Writing thoughts on songs I'm not attached to is not something that I or anyone wants to get involved with. I'm not credible on things I'm not familiar with or passionate about. But today, I had an experience with a song. A revelation. A little diddy called "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins. I don't know what it is about his voice... A dash of Sting, a little bit of Rod Stewart...a snare drum that sounds like a handgun (see every 80s ballad), and then the just utter honesty of it? It's so dumb, the chord progressions are so predictable, when it goes to that Cmaj/D chord on "empty space", it's that musical theatre chord, it's all over the place in Steven Schwartz songs, and it manipulated me. The lyrics are are terrible at points. "We've shared the laughter and the pain/we've even shared the tears." But the chorus. Jesus. I could listen to it over and over again. It's stadium, it's epic, it's absolutely draining. He stole god's mic and plugged in to the speakers of the universe. It's the most massive purging of emotion in a song that I've listened to (lately). And what makes it all the better is that Phil was just this balding, 30something, short brit who played the drums and sang. He's coming from a marginalized place in pop-rock, as if who the fuck should care about his recent divorce with his wife, he dives in, no apologies, and lets us know their ain't a betting chance she's coming back, but he's gonna stand there and take a barrage of internal emotional warfare.

While listening, I regressed to being on the bus in middle school listening to that Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men song "One Sweet Day" while trying to hit on Jessica Chase. (Fruitless, even when she asked me to go out the ski-lift with her). This has happened to me before, just something triggering this listen-fest, as if my heart just opened for the first time. Camus said

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

I don't know what it is about fuckin "Against All Odds", but I tried to describe it here.

Tomorrow I start rehearsing my second play proper with CSC, The Taming of the Shrew. I'm playing Curtis, who will be inspired by Larry Fine. That should prove interesting... I'm never really good at doing that kind of outside-->inside stuff, so it will be good new challenge. The sense that I get is that's how a lot of people work here. I wouldn't know, because as an actor as you get older, you stop talking about your process with people mostly for the better but sometimes for the worse. I hope to understand throughout this year what "ensemble" work is about. So far, I have glimpses of an ensemble idea, and moments of light cracking through, but it's still not cohesive. It gets better every time though, and that's partly me getting my bearings in the company. It's like being a freshman all over again...feeling young, but not knowing really how to flaunt my youth.

Lord, to be 17 forever.....

Until then