one other thing

on a personal martial arts success note, I finally got kip ups down (when you roll backwards and then spring to your feet). I still have to use my hands right now, but if I actually start exercising again I should have my stomach muscles in shape enough to do it without hands in a couple months. Considering this is something I’ve struggled doing for quite a while I’m really psyched!

so where am i/what the heck has happened to me?

well most of it can be summed up in a single word: play. Actually there’s more to it than that, but the small summer theatre project has grown. And grown, and grown. And with it my role has increased. Originally I was simply supposed to be consulting on it & giving general artistic feedback. But that’s out the window and my days are spent at work (which has also heated up), from work heading to the theatre and then getting home pretty late. Oh and on Mondays and Wednesdays I squeeze Kung Fu in there some how. Oy.

So I unfortunately have had to give up a ton of things for a short period of time and blogging is one of them. Expect that I’ll be sorta back to normal by August 4 (the end of the play). Sorry bout this. And the worst part is I have lots of stuff to write about.

test.

I’ll be back to blog later…

quickies for today

I had a couple things I wanted to hit and I’m going to try to do all of them rapid fire…. here goes:

high school

I’m going to my 10-year high school reunion this weekend. I’m not sure what to expect. I’m looking forward to seeing people but the entire thing seems a little surreal. My plan is to watch Grosse Pointe Blank before I go. Hopefully I won’t have to kill anyone while at the shindig.

HELLO! Kitty

Joel had posted about the Hello Kitty ummm… massage product and thought it was some type of bootleg. Well, as it turns out, unlike the Hello Kitty Gat, it is an official Hello Kitty product. Thanks to Destroy All Monsters for the info about it. You can buy your own Hello Kitty “Back Massager” on eBay.

follow up thoughts on the rights and responsibilities of free speech

Thanks for all the feedback on that posting. Joel had asked if I thought the same was true for the visual arts and yes I do think it is. And I realize that it’s a slippery slope that we’re on. But it’s socially irresponsible for people to deny the pervasive conscious and unconscious effects of any form of media, especially on group behavior. I’m not advocating censorship (in fact, one of my favorite quotes is from the great supreme court Justice Black “Censorship is a sign of a society’s insecurity”). But for a photo editor at Vanity Fair, People, or Entertainment Weekly to suggest that they don’t influence our perceptions of beauty for example is ridiculous. The problem is, that once you admit this you become a party to it and most people don’t want to accept the implications of that responsibility. It’s easy to do anything when you don’t think you’re affecting anyone else.

Pledge of Allegiance

ummm… I’m going to save that one for another day. I just don’t have the time or patience right now to tackle that.

lighting seeds

sometimes I love kodak.com. I mean really love it. We just had a huge lighting storm hit rochester and a group of us, including the head of kodak.com, all gathered at the large windows in our office and stared to the west and watched the storm. It’s moments like that which make this place great.

i finally figured it out

it took a while but i recently realized what i don’t like about like about Eminem. For me he epitomizes our society’s desire to embrace “rights” without embracing the “responsibility” that goes along with them. A few days ago I had the chance to listen to a some stuff off of the new album, The Eminem Show and songs I heard all had a similar theme: “all I’m speakin’ is words and I’ve got a right to do that and my words don’t really effect what people do.” Sweet baby jebus, someone tell me when and where this idea that words don’t affect people’s behavior came from? Or what’s worse why every time the idea that words might have an effect on people is brought up the entire entertainment industry wraps itself in an American flag and starts wailing about First Amendment rights.

The funny thing about the First Amendment is it protects your right to speech (as it should) but it doesn’t protect you from the responsibility that right requires. It also doesn’t necessarily protect you from the results of your speech. I mean Em, or is it Mr Nem, you can’t seriously believe that your lyrics don’t affect the way that teens (let alone adults) think or act? I mean just about any form of communication is about affecting behavior. That’s the power of any mass media form of communication (why can the industry charge so much for Superbowl ads? Nah, advertising goal isn’t to influence behavior…. never).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that the First Amendment is a bad thing. In fact it’s a crucial part of our democratic republic (remember, we’re not a democracy). But for God sake, can people at least take responsibility for their words? ‘specially those moving some 3+ million albums in less than five weeks.