Snowed Last Night

Three words to describe it:

It's so fluffy!

Adult House

If you remember a while back I posted pictures of my new apartment. Here's a new picture.

As you can see we have since painted the wall (yes it's textured), gotten a fancy rug, were given book shelves, put up a tree for the holidays and GOT A CAT!

Kitty's name is Olive. She's probably about 5 months now. Maybe. She's a stray so we're not sure how old she was when she came to us. BUT SHE IS SOOOOOO CUTE.

Anyway....

Our apartment looks so much more on purpose now, doesn't it?

Winter Wear

Winter has absolutely, undeniable come to New York City. And with it all the coats and coat accessories and coat check hazards. Despite all the coat wearing by the population of Manhattan and the outer boroughs people still don't seem to realize that the giant X carelessly stitched in on to their coattails to hold them together, is SUPPOSED TO BE REMOVED.

You heard me New York, grab your scissors, your exacto-knives, your flower clippers, your bread knife or your nail clippers and cut open your coat tails. You all look like morons from Southern California who've never worn a coat before. Just open up those puppies. I'm sure your coat will fit better.

Thank you

Religion and Belief

Does this mean that the more you know about religions the less you believe?

I think "Nothing in particular" is the pc way of saying "apathetic, but I know I'm supposed to believe in God I just can't believe based on what I've been told; and I'm just not smart enough to be Agonistic".

*data and chart image is from http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religon-Knowledge-Survey.aspx

Two Decades Ago

Two decades ago I started kindergarten and met a number of girls who I am still friends with. Crazy to think I've had friendships that have already lasted 20 years. I'm so grateful for all their love, support and silliness over that time.

Here's to 20 more.

Itty Bitty Kitty goes to the Soccer Game

Education

Despite the fact that I know I'm so hopelessly and fruitlessly over educated I can't help but feel that I'm not well read or I'm not deeply knowledgeable or not a thought provoking conversationalist. I feel like there are vast galaxies of knowledge, filled with dust clouds of thoughts and meteors of arguments, that I've never even heard of.
Does a person ever feel well read the way they feel the cold? Do they feel deeply knowledgeable the way they feel their heart beat? Can an answer even be imaged by the most brilliant of think tanks?

a poem

a poem I wrote for a friend recently. that might be loosely based on events that might have happened to someone else. maybe.



YOUNG PEOPLE THINGS

i think it would be a super awesome concert. she's such a show woman
and i think i've been off my meds for a while
i left chiara's bday to go to atlantic city
and i got really high
really high
like so fucking high

in a ferriswheel
not really
about the ferriswheel

also the trip was totally unplanned
i went without a bra
no seriously
no bra

we also didn't sleep
like no sleep
and no bra

they gambled a lot
a lot
i thought it would be bad to gamble while high
and no bra
but the dealer kept staring at my nipples
cause it was cold
really cold
really really cold
so fucking cold

oooo a puppy

right.

my blog.

hi!

I promise I'll pay more attention to you. When my life gets less exciting again.

Funny isn't it how when you actually have stuff to write about you don't have time to write.

hmmmmmm.


I was reading an article about the gulf diaster - ya know, like everyone else on the planet earth who can read - and they mentioned a boat called "a whale". Yes, seriously. As in a small child is looking at boats passing and says to his mummy "look mummy, a whale". (this child has a british accent, if you were wondering) and his mummy looks up from her Harlequinn novel and says "no dear that's a boat" and she returns to her book. He insists, tugging at her lounging sweater, "no mummy, it's a whale, really it is". Without looking up from the lurid sex scene in her book she says, "no moron it's a boat, there's no blow hole." From that point on the poor little boy is both terribly confused about the difference between whales and boats, and will never point out anything he finds interesting to his mother every again. Much to her delight.

Mother's Day!

While neither my sister or I like to admit how similar we are, there are times when it stares us in the face and we can no longer deny it.

Yes, we sent our Mother the same card for Mother's Day. No, we did not plan it.

Why I Went MIA

In addition to a number of crazy things that have demanded my time and attention, including, but not limited to: buying a washer and dryer, struggling to get them to my apartment and then installed (please don't ask about this process it kills me, it's my Waterloo).

I got a promotion. Seriously, I'm going to be in charge of things. And people doing things. Who'd a thought you could be a restuarant manager without having any server experience. Not me that's for sure. But the boss likes me, so who am I to question those decisions when it entails a full time pay check, health insurance and a corp gym membership. sweet.

I am still writing other things too. My writer's group started up again, so I have a reason to kick my butt into gear and turn out some words. In addition to applying to every theater company attached writer's group in NYC. I can't tell if that's a good idea to apply all in the same year or a horrendeous idea. I think I'm banking on the fact that if I do get in anywhere there is no way I'd get in to a second one.

Well back to work.

If you have time today

A friend - Jesse - theater's company, the puppet-tastic Sinking Ship Productions, is entered into a small business competition to win $5,000 by getting people to vote on a short video. Their video is way better than everyone else's, and I'm not being biased. They have puppets. Other small businesses have, um. Webcams? HR departments?

Anyway!

You can watch their entry here: http://newdeal.verticalresponse.com/index.php?page=11&utm_source=tweet-this&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=story-promotion

BONUS: There is live action footage of Jess puppeteering a blue-footed boobie!

If you have time to register and vote for them, that would be AWESOME! They're getting beat by like Antique Tractors R Us right now, and that's just sad. Plus if they win they will use the money to put on a show about the guy who wrote the Looney Toons music. What are the other businesses going to do? Probably buy staplers or something. TO KILL PUPPIES WITH.

Please help support theatre. It will only take a minute of your time.

Play Reading

My play MORE THAN BREAKFAST is being given a staged reading by eyeBLINK on March 31 at 7pm at Where Eagles Dare, 347 west 36th Street, 13th floor, Blackbird Stage. That's in NYC. Hope to see you there.

New House

I just moved apartments - an in with Kevin and Theresa - and am in the middle of working to set everything up. Needless to say I've been busy. But the apartment is beautiful. It's in Long Island City, Queens. So I'm now living in my third - and probably final - borough. I doubt I'll ever move to the Bronx or Staten Island.

I did make my second trip to Staten Island this weekend to pick up a washer and dryer. That's right folks. I now own fancy big appliances. And as soon as I can get them up the stairs, everything will be great.

BEFORE WE MOVED IN.

AFTER WE MOVED IN.

TODAY

MY ROOM TODAY

THERESA'S BOOKS IN THE LIVING ROOM

Tempestuous

The Tempest
The Bridge Project at BAM
Directed by Sam Mendes

This is the second year of the Bridge Project, a joint production between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Old Vic Theatre in London. The show is also scheduled to tour in Asia and Europe. Last year I was able to catch both Bridge Project productions – The Cherry Orchard and A Winter’s Tale - at the Old Vic. I’m not a Chekov fan and this production did not change my mind, but I was pleased. A Winter’s Tale, however, was stunning, beautiful and finely nuanced.

The Tempest is one of my absolute favorite of Shakespeare’s plays – the other two being Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth - and my hopes were high for this production.

The Tempest is playing in BAM’s Harvey Theater. I’d been to the space before, quite a few years ago, but had forgotten the feel of it. The theatre has intentionally been left in a dilapidated state. There are cracks in the cement, the paint is wearing thin on the walls, and even the speakers look like they’ve been though an earthquake or two. It gives you the feeling that you are trespassing into a building that could fall down around you at any moment. Your presence feels like an intrusion, so does the performance. The entire experience feels taboo.

At first glance the set looks like a production manager’s nightmare: a pool of water and a pit of sand. On second glance it was confirmed as a production manager’s nightmare. In order to get from both upstage doors to center stage the actors had to walk through the pool of water. Everyone, minus Prospero and Miranda, had wet feet all night.

The main playing area is a fifteen foot diameter pit of sand. None of the characters, spare Prospero and Ariel, said any lines outside this space. They also never exited the stage. I saw what Sam Mendes was doing. I understood it on an intellectual level. I liked it on an intellectual level. It just did not work. I knew the sand pit was Prospero’s sphere of influence and everything that happened inside of it was caused by him. But Prospero never felt like he was in possession of magic power. I understood that when the characters sat in chairs in the pool of water they were waiting for the puppet master to call them forward to take on their role. But I kept worrying they were going to catch cold just sitting there.

The Tempest begins with a mighty sea storm splintering a ship before the audience’s very eyes, and ends just after a fanciful pageant celebrating the future marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand. The eponymous Tempest, in an attempt to show how the storm was controlled by Prospero and Ariel, lacked an element of ferocity or fear. The revels of the end of the play, which can be just as joyful as the storm is dangerous, also fell short of being the entertainment Prospero promises. Juliet Rylance played a very matured, courtly Miranda, which is contrary to the fifteen year old girl raised on a deserted island whom Shakespeare wrote. Stephen Dillane’s Prospero felt like a tottering old man plotting an ancient revenge, not a man who can conjure up sea storms or visions of pageants. The one highlight was Anthony O’Donnell’s Trinculo, who brought an energy to the stage, which was lacking from everyone else. He was a little life, in a production otherwise rounded by sleep.

This is concept Shakespeare at its most contrived and ill executed. I would advise Shakespeare fans to skip this production.

HOME

I haven't felt it in a while. That urgent pang in the bottom of my heart. A deep desire to go home and hide. But the problem remains, I don't like anywhere is home.

As I wait for the results on an apartment application, I hope this new place will be the place my mind conjures up when I just need to hide from the world for a while, regain my composure, inhale without an audience. These are the desires that make me question whether NYC is really the place for me. I haven't learned how to close my eyes and block out all those people when I need to, I haven't learned how to cry on a crowded subway car. And as the man at the closed book store said, I'm too nice to be a New Yorker. But then again maybe my generation of New Yorker's are nicer.

Then you go to Queens, or Brooklyn, or even walk out along the piers on the West Side Highway and you look back at the glowing skyline, reaching up and conquering the stars. You pick out the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, the UN, the gap in the skyline where you know Times Square hides. And it hits you, 'I live here'. I live in this crazy city. People all over the world dream, love, hate, visit and fantasize about this place, but I get to live here. And according to some one's set of rules, I'm making it.

As the day comes to a close, the sun sinks and Broadway turns up it's lights, you seek a way to pass the time in a new bar. And in the most unlikely of places, on that smooth white brick just above the toilet bowl, you find your answer.

It doesn't really matter where you are, but this place is home.

Accomplishing Life

In the last month or so I've have learned how people go about their daily lives and reach retirement - a time to "reflect on life" - and realize they've never accomplished anything. But the truth is they might have. It's enough to be happy and to love and be loved and care for the people around you. It's enough to just lead a good life.

Doesn't mean I'm still not reaching for the stars. In the words of the Pussy Cat Dolls (yes, I realize quoting Burlesque acts doesn't really legitimize my observations) "When I grow up I wanna be famous".

With that in mind, I'm writing like mad. Writing, writing, writing words, words, words. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."

This Kid Jacked my Name!

So I was busy googling myself at work the other day - because I'm allowed to, particularly when the phone isn't ringing. And what do I find? I find some punk ass kid in the Cook Islands with my name. That's right. He stole my name. The bugger. I've been going along assuming that I'm the only Callan Stout on this planet, but lo and behold there's another one sullying the water, turning up google hits which have nothing to do with me. Further more... well I supposed I can't actually rip on his personality, he's only a wee pint of about 11 years or so. But by golly it's my name and I won't have it paddling around the Cook Islands. If I could, I'd send him AND his parents a cease and desist order. Make the little brat find another name. It's mine and I don't want to share.

He's the one on the left. Bastard. At least he's on a junior outrigger canoe team that seems to win a lot of competitions. But still. GR!!!