Extremism comes to Maryland.

My son's school bus driver is a surly old man who never even acknowledges anyone's existence, despite the numerous times I've said "good morning" to him. (And no, he isn't hard of hearing, because I have had a conversation with him, once.) This morning, he gave me another reason to dislike him: he was wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with "Minute Man Project."

For those who don't know the ins and outs of the Minutemen, who are a vigilante group dedicated to "protecting" the U.S. border with Mexico (and who may or may not be the reason the number of border crossing deaths spiked last year), I recommend perusing David Neiwert's blog.

What I find most interesting is the clear connection between the Minutemen and white power/white supremacist groups... and that D's bus driver is African-American.

Update: Right after I wrote this, I caught up with some leftover Washington Post vodcasts that I had downloaded a few weeks ago, including this one, an excellent overview of the new Minutemen chapter in Maryland, as well as the whole "day laborer" issue. Well worth a look.

Lo, the ache/Hath invaded mine guts.

After the third performance of Noises Off (a matinee on Sunday), I went home absolutely ravenous, but surprisingly awake, considering I had been up 'til past midnight every night this week, and running proverbial (possibly literal) miles in the course of playing the part.

K made a delicious dinner, and I took two or three bites, and my body said, "OK, we finally have sustenance. Time to shut down." I nearly fell asleep at the dinner table, and in fact did go to bed at 6:30.

By all rights, I should be relieved for the time off (we don't perform again 'til Friday), but the cast has become such a part of my life I find myself wishing I was still rehearsing. Yes, I'm lonely. Pathetic! And if I'm this lonely now, how will I feel after the show closes on the 25th?

Theater is so frappin' ephemeral. And it causes me so much pain after it ends! I need to grow up, damn it, and stop acting like a lovesick teenager.

Why, it almost sounds like 2002!

When I act in plays I don't get sleep; when I don't get sleep I get depressed; when I get depressed I get bitchy; when I get bitchy I take it out on my wife and kids. So every time I do a play, I take my life into my own hands.

So why do I do plays? Back when I was doing it for money, the answer was obvious: money. Of course, the enjoyment factor was far less than now, because now I'm acting, and when I was getting paid it tended to be backstage work. But really, are there any tangible benefits? Why do I do community theater?

I suppose one reason is that I'm pretty good at it. It's a lot of fun to be a big fish in a small pond. I'm not nearly good enough to make it as a paid actor (and most non-Equity theaters I could work at don't do plays I'm interested in anyway). But I can shine in the community theater scene.

Two is the people. This group I'm working with now seems to be a bunch of folks who know what they're doing and take it just seriously enough. In other words, they recognize that there is a whole world out there to which theatre is utterly irrelevant, and maybe that's the way it should be.

Three is the pressure, or lack thereof. One reason I couldn't hack it as a professional actor is that I utterly hate doing the cattle-call auditions where you have to prepare a two-minute monologue, etc.; but that's a major part of getting your foot in the paid door. But most community theaters do cold readings from the script, which I've always been pretty good at.

But is it worth it, for two or three weekends of glory that few people will see anyway? I don't know. I'll tell you in three weekends.

But there is one, awful awful aspect of every show I do, which continually threatens to ruin my life, or at the very least send me into a deep pool of high-school-esque angst. What is it? Well, unfortunately I can't talk about it, because this is a family blog (that is, a blog read by my family), and too much pain would result. So you'll just have to use your imagination.

All parts covered except one.

Today's Post on International Women's Day:

President Bush accused Iran, North Korea and Burma of suppressing women's rights, and said, "America will help women stand up for their freedom, no matter where they live."

So I guess we can expect a massive invasion of South Dakota sometime soon, George?

Trust me on this.

Listen to this song. You won't regret it. (via theynow)

How to fool several million iPod nuts.

Niiiiiice...

Let us now praise the iPod.

How else could you listen to every song in your library in alphabetical order, but through an iPod (or other digital music player)? How else would you discover how many songs you own that begin with the word "surf," and what they sound like back-to-back? (Hint: "Surfin' Bird" kicks "Surfer Girl"'s ass.)

Unfortunately, all things must pass, and so I sold both of my old iPods* and got a new iPod video about a week ago.

Which means, naturally...

* Actually, a pretty good story: I bought a broken iPod off eBay, replaced the hard drive cable, and enjoyed it for a while, what with hacking Linux and stuff. Then, I sold it for a $50 profit.

My mini is supposedly sold, too, but the buyer has not sent payment, two weeks later, and is not responding to emails or eBay messages. So, methinks it will be re-listed soon.

What I'm trying to say.

Kevin Drum:

I just want to make something super clear here. If jumping on the Dubai hysteria bandwagon merely hurt George Bush politically and prompted some additional interest in port security, I'd be all for it. What do I care if the DPW/P&O deal goes through? But the whole thing feeds on a mindless anti-Arab jingoism that's genuinely dangerous, and that's why I'm not joining the fun. As liberals, we're either serious about engaging with the Muslim world in a serious, non-hysterical way or we're not. Which is it?

Damn!

I can only pass on the following from my friend Pat without comment:

Zach -

This is, without a doubt, the best use of Beatle music by anybody ever.

http://www.chrisbliss.com/videopresskit.html

Click on "The Big Finale."

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

I gotta say, I'm getting pretty discouraged by all the one-star reviews for my vodcast on iTunes. I mean, sure, it's probably just a bunch of 13-year-old boys--not exactly my target audience--but to click over there, as I did, after spending several days putting a vodcast together, and read that some poor person's IQ dropped by ten points after they watched my show--well, it makes me feel bad, and not just because I'm contributing to the dumbing down of America.

Maybe I just need more gross-out and bloody humor. Amputation jokes are funny, aren't they?

Sigh...

(My star rating is down to two on iTunes. I'll keep you updated as more one-star reviews come in.)

On the stupidity of vodcasting.

Next week, I'm just gonna do a bouncing ball, damn it. What was I thinking?

They Might Be Ringtones

Call connected thru the NSA
Complete transmission thru the NSA
Suspending your rights for the duration of the permanent war...

The recycling bin of history.

Another week with K in Florida, and therefore Me and The Kids alone. Yesterday was a bittersweet day--I made good progress on cleaning out a bookshelf scheduled for Goodwill, but in the process I had to Let Go Of My Youth. You see, I have a whole bunch of manuscripts from friends who, like me, fancied themselves playwrights or authors (well, in fairness, I fancied myself one--they still are), and yesterday I bit the bullet and threw them all out. (Sorry, Clarence! I'll still read your stuff, though...) I drew the line at throwing my own manuscripts away, but everything else went--old plots and scripts for lighting designs, programs from plays I've seen (except for No Man's Land signed by Harold Pinter himself) and performed in... but there comes a point where one just has to admit, one will never read or look at such things again, will one?

Will one?

Argh, what an idiot! How am I going to be remembered without any artifacts of myself? What will D and E pore over to gain clues about their tragically misunderstood father? Where will historians of the future be without papers for the Zachary F. Brewster-Geisz Reading Room at my alma mater?

Come back! Come back, recycling truck! All is forgiven!

As close as I get to live-blogging.

Is Mick Jagger really sounding like Porky Pig, or is it just me?

I can't get no
Satisfaction
I can't get no
Satisfaction
But I twy
And I twy
Lord I twy
Lord I twy...

Why Batgirl?

Get a job. Sha na na na, sha na na na na...

It's very striking to note how completely I fall apart when my wife is away on business. Well, not just me--though there's certainly an element of depression in it--but how my ability to keep house deteriorates. Invariably things wind up scattered, out of place; the kids miss elementary things like homework, cleanup time, baths; and on the day she comes home I scramble to straighten things up to a semblance of, y'know, and all. (I also lose my admittedly atrophied ability to write coherently.)

She goes away on business a goodly amount of time, usually to Florida. And in truth I go away a good amount of time as well, though not for business reasons (unless I were to make a business out of going to comic/3D conventions and film festivals). And even if I spend less time away overnight, I definitely spend more nights away, what with rehearsals and so on, whereas she remains home most every night whether I'm there or not.

Yet, she somehow manages to keep herself, and us, together. And I just can't manage to do that. Maybe it has something to do with getting decent amounts of sleep. For some reason, I always stay up 'til midnight or later when she's gone, even if it isn't my intention. It just happens. And I am not at my best when I'm tired. Whereas as far as I can tell, K just goes to bed when she needs to.

Whatever the reason, K is going to come home around 11 tonight to an absolute pigsty, unless I get my crap together and clean up the house. It makes me wonder: how much do I rely on her on a regular basis, and why have I become so dependent? There's always a certain amount of dependency in marriage, but if there's very little disruption when I'm gone, and huge amounts when she's gone, then what does she depend on me for?

I suppose behind all this is the neverending fear, common to all children of divorced parents I suspect (if not everyone), that she'll suddenly figure out what a fraud I am and take off. Granted, we've already been married longer than my parents were, but that means little. One of my best friends got a divorce after 13+ years of happy spousitude. A friend from college's parents waited until all the kids were out of the house before they split. Now I don't think we're in any danger of splitting, but if we did, how--not just in terms of romance, but in the basic, getting food on the plate and a roof over the head sense--would I live without her?

This is about something specific.

They ain't payin' me enough for this crap.

Too much.

The renovations to our house are finally done, and I've been frantically trying to paint the new rooms so that can be crossed off my to-do list and I can get back to my life.

I have a project which is overdue, and for which people are depending on me. (Boy, that was an awkwardly constructed sentence.) I also have a more personal project, which isn't really on a deadline, but I promised some friends it would be done in November. And of course I have my vodcast which I do each week. There are about six hundred fifty people subscribed to it, so I guess that's people depending on me too (although six hundred fifty wouldn't mean as much to me as five or six people I actually care about). What a time to be sick, have a birthday (last Wednesday), and be tied up in painting and inspections.

So the question is, how can I work all this into a funny animation for next Wednesday? Suggestions welcome. (Yes, I'm talking to [i]you[/i], Clarence and Godfrey.)

Sigh...

Right.. *
by killin for cookies

HAHA lmao
very
freaking
funny
NOT
these are the worst podcasts on iTunes.
horrible
not funny at all
stupid
waste of a MB on your iPod
----
Was this review helpful? Yes / No

And so the Universe ended.

Well, my vodcast is no longer on the front page of the iTunes podcast directory. Ah well. It was fun while it lasted. Now I can begin hemorrhaging viewers, no doubt.