The Making of The Muchacho

Many have asked what the origin of "Beefy Muchacho" is, and I must admit...

It's not all that glamorous.

From 2003 to 2006 I worked for a "Do-it-Yourself" web design company as a tech support associate. One of the things we were tasked with as IT guys was to create our own websites in order to both familiarize ourselves with the system, and also help with troubleshooting problems.

My buddy Alan had an e-mail address that involved the name "Brawny Hombre". This is essentially an ironic self-glossing, as he's wiry (sinewy?) and very, very white. So, you know... calling himself the Brawny Hombre in an e-mail address was funny to him. Still is.

Anyway, when it came time for him to make HIS website, he thought it through for a grand total of 30 seconds and settled upon BrawnyHombre.com. This made me laugh, and we were good pals, and we thought it would be cool if there was some sort of internal consistency. I mean... nobody would ever see these websites besides us. So, I went to a thesaurus and searched for synonyms for "Brawny".

"Beefy" seemed to be the funniest choice (and less ironic for me than Brawny is for him), and I thought it just went well with "Muchacho".

BeefyMuchacho.com was born.

That's... pretty much it. I just thought it was funny, and I've sort of built it from there, and run with it far more than any truly sane person. In the meantime, I've created logos and personas and had my car personalized, and my shoes...

Alan and I were talking earlier (Still very good friends), and he brought up how funny it is how it started with his lark of an e-mail address, and it really doesn't have any hidden meaning.

It could have been him.

I then made the analogy that he's like the Winklevoss twins, and I'm Mark Zuckerberg. He maybe had the idea, but I  ran with it.

Maybe perhaps I've run with it past a sane degree... Evidence of that?

I just got my Beefy Muchacho tattoo.

I figure that being the Beefy Muchacho has been very good to me, so even if it fades into obscurity at some point, I'll be glad to remember the days of The Beefy Muchacho.

Here's a time lapse film of the tattooing itself. Enjoy!

Improving on the Silence

This past weekend, The Tofu Muchacha and I ventured to the delightfully temperate and not-at-all humid North of Southern Michigan for the First Annual Three Oaks Creativity Weekend.

This event was organized and hosted by the great Gregg and Caroline Fraley. They invited creative minds from around the country (and the world, really) including myself and the TM, and had 19 of us RSVP. I admit to feeling a bit of trepidation about the weekend in the time leading up to it. I like to think of myself as being creative, but there's a big different between a self-gloss and being thrown into a group of people who make their livings being creative and teaching other people to be creative. It's daunting.

Well... I can say unequivocally that while it WAS intimidating at different points, when I was confronted with something truly profound (I'll get to it), it was also the most warm and encouraging group I've been a part of in a really long time. If there was ever a group in which to take some big risks in creation, this was it.

TM and I did a cold read of a small portion of a play we're thinking about presenting to our local theatre group, and we got truly invaluable feedback, support, and suggestions. I feel that we now have a much clearer direction in terms of how to make this, basically unpolished, play work for a real audience. In that completely selfish way I really couldn't be more grateful.

Aside from our personal contribution to the group, we also experienced some really interesting workshops. Units presented by people at the absolute peak of their creative fields.

I will talk about what I feel I can fairly discuss without betraying the privacy of the proceedings...

I learned, on an extremely basic level, how to paint on water or "Suminagashi". Let me tell you that this is something that BLOWS MY MIND. I am so drawn to it as an art form, and yet after seeing the advanced, amazing professional prints by our teacher (Amy Lee Segami) I realize it's an art form where there is no pending mastery. I have the basic idea of it, and yet I look at her work and think "How in the hell did she even start to do that?". That's the kind of art I want to be a part of. I have already ordered my first bottle of Sumi Ink.... It's just the combination of technical, beautiful, metaphorical, and meditative that I really seek in an art I want to work at. I really look forward to e-mailing Amy with my questions and continuing to explore the world of suminagashi.

I learned about the brainstorming technique known as the "Cafe". It's a method of creating a dialogue that is less about solving an ultimate problem, but coming up with as many possible factors. I like that the interpretation of ideas and more of a dialogue ABOUT ideas. I don't know that I'm really explaining it in any real coherent way, but I really found the freedom of dialogue without being tasked to find solution very liberating. This was led by Paula Rosch, who was there with her husband Frank... two of the nicest people I've met in quite a long time, and both of home contributed a great deal to my experience over the weekend.

I have never been much of a meditation guy... I have a very difficult time leaving my mind out of my mind.. if that makes sense. I have a tough time clearing my head. Well... I met a guy named Joe (from New Jersey... I wish I got his last name... I hate being inconsistent), who is essentially an expert at meditation, with his preferred vehicle for it being the Labyrinth. There are many kinds of Labyrinths... Gregg and Caroline have one (originally laid out by Joe himself) on their farm. TM and I missed the initial "Lab" session on Friday because of a long drive after work, but I had one of the most interesting meditation sessions I've ever had the next day in what was more of a quadrant labyrinth. Joe has this interesting way of starting the process, that I found more effective than any other I've tried... Basically putting yourself into the labyrinth and then taking yourself back out of it. I know that doesn't make sense on the page, but it worked. I found myself working into some real moments of clarity. I think the process Joe laid out really engaged a more logical part of my brain by breaking down the meditation into steps. I'd not experienced that before, and I found it very useful..

Perhaps the most interesting experience I had was the one I can probably discuss the specifics of the least. Mark D'Alessio was someone I would have liked to talk to more over the course of the weekend, as he nearly always said something of value, but spoke about half as much as anyone else. Maybe he's the smart one. Mark, it also should be noted, seems to get a lot out of Silence retreats. Something I'm not sure I could do at all. He's getting ready to do an 8-day retreat, and I wish him luck. Anyway... He introduced us to a method of problem solving that is so simple, you feel like it's been around for hundreds of years... Oh wait... It HAS been around for hundreds of years. He introduced us to the Quaker concept of the "Committee". The most simple explanation is that a person with a decision, problem, question, issue selects a "committee" of his/her peers to essentially act as interrogators, without the interrogation. The committee is only permitted to ask "honest" questions, which means that they are questions for which the asker has no agenda and doesn't already know the answer. The questioning is intentionally paced with pauses for silence and the Focus Person has the option to take as much time as needed to answer (or not answer). There are never any suggestions or opinions given. It's primarily intended to provide the person with the problem with the means to work out the problem on their own, using questions asked of them that have no agenda and no desired response. It was incredibly powerful as a way to work out a problem, and I found it really interesting. I can't go into the specifics of this particular experience, but I hope to have another opportunity to be a part of it.

I'm leaving people out, and experiences out, but it's late and I'm not sure I could really get more in depth even if I wanted to... I'm still processing a lot of it.

It was a really interesting and valuable weekend, and I hope that I justified my spot in the group in some small way... I hope to get a chance to go to another of these in the future, and experience the full retreat. Good times. Good times.

Oh...and the picture at the top is the result of a group painting exercise presented by the very interesting Whitney Ferre... She didn't arrive until they day we left, and I wish she'd arrived sooner. She seems to have a really interesting viewpoint on the place of art in the overall creative process.

Well done Cincinnati. Well done.

Once again, my hometown city of Cincinnati has done me proud. Cincinnati... home of race riots, and Mapplethorpe protests, and possibly racially motivated killings by police. The place so out-of-touch Mark Twain once quipped that if the world ended, he wanted to be in Cincinnati, because it wouldn't happen here for another 20 years.

Once again I'm super pumped to be from such an enlightened place.

The world renowned political artist Shepard Fairey is here in town. There will be a retrospective of his 20 years of work at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, and as a part of his show, he's been installing some of his political murals around the Cincinnati area.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to see one of his more controversial pieces up close and personal when he installed it directly across the street from the theater where I was directing A Piece of My Heart...




So there it is.

Clearly Shepard Fairey is a flaming racist. Right? Clearly by posting this mural containing the word "OBEY" in a predominantly African American neighborhood, he's trying to subjugate black people. Right?

Apparently there were a number of people who would agree with the above statements, because almost immediately after the mural was completed on May 20th, there were loads of people in the neighborhood threatening to deface it or paint over it, because they feel discriminated against somehow.

Oh... then there were the white people who apparently walked by and assumed the artist was black. They threatened to paint over it too. Because they didn't want to be the victims of reverse racism.

(For the record, Shepard Fairey is a 40 year old white man.)

Now... I spent a pretty good amount of time taking in this particular mural... I've searched and searched for a single anti-black image. I've searched for a single anti-WHITE image.

What I did see was images of peace (note the guns with the flowers). I saw commentary on the power of propaganda. I saw an ironic statement about listening to the masses instead of trusting our own eyes.

I really dug it.

Sadly, it's no more. The above image is what you'd see today if you drove past. Some fucking ignorant idiot painted over it last night. They don't know who did it. It was just as easily a white person as a black person. Just as easily a man as a woman. One thing we do know is that the person who did it is far more close-minded and foolish than the artist they believe they are silencing.

When the Tofu Muchacha told me about the painting-over, I found myself profoundly sad. It's so typical of this fucking town to knee jerk to this level. Then I come to find out that it's the SECOND of his murals to be defaced in the area in the past 2 weeks. I mean... GOD DAMNIT.

Please people... before you make fools of yourself by "protecting" the populace from this supposed racism, maybe you should look up the statements of the artist.... I dunno... crazy.

Oh... it should also be mentioned that aside from this horribly racist, anti-black mural, Shepard Fairey is also the artist responsible for the Barack Obama "HOPE" posted. What a bigot! Am I right?

Anyway, I don't want to go on and on. I just want to congratulate my city for embarrassing itself... yet again.

Kudos Cincinnati.


PS... I haven't even gone into the whole part about how the defacing of the mural is, in itself, a crime... you know... since the mural was on private property, and it itself has value due to the artist being a hugely famous dude. So... not only did the idiots miss the point. Not only did they kill art. They also will probably go to jail for it. Good protesting folks!

Ignorance in Perpetuity

Sometime very soon, I'll post a full blog about my opinions of Spring Awakening, which I saw for the first time last night. I can say honestly that it was one of the more profound theatre-going experiences I've had. Hold that thought, though.

People left at intermission.

I have some issues with this. Allow me to expand...

Excluding illness or emergency, I don't understand how any person can leave any show. Ever. I recognize that not every show is everyone's bag. That is fine. That is understandable. I've sat through a whole lot of shows that I didn't particularly enjoy. What I don't understand is having enough disregard for art and the artist that you can't at least have the courtesy to view the whole work.

This is different for movies and books and television. It's even different for art like photography or painting or other "gallery" type art. Those pieces don't have the one thing that makes live theatre unique... the fact of it being LIVE. The artists are there, creating in person. They see you leave. They see the tears and emotions of the audience. The book is already printed. The television show has already been filmed. There's always the chance of picking it up the book again when you feel better prepared, or Netflixing the movie if you change your mind. The beauty of a play is that it's fleeting. It's never exactly the same. You may see another production of Spring Awakening some time in the future, but it will never have the exact same resonance as it would in that moment. It's a one-off.

And yes... that's a concept that is vaguely esoteric and possibly not everyone's cup of tea, so let me break it down for you in a simpler way.

These people on the stage, whether it's a show like Spring Awakening or a show like Barefoot in the Park... these people are sweating for your entertainment. These people are working hard, doing their jobs, to create art. Much like you go to a mechanic and let them finish working on your car before you drive off the lot, you owe it to yourself to allow these people to complete their job before you evaluate the value of their work.

I personally would not PAY to see Mamma Mia. I just don't think it's that interesting, and I don't think it's that fun... but I know that were I to go see it, I'd be there til the end. The people on the stage are owed that tiny modicum of courtesy. That's really all it comes down to. Respect.

There's another factor at play here, though, and it bothers me far more than the public's general lack of respect.

I know of people who left just because the play and subject matter were "darker" than they expected. There are a couple of things wrong with this, as far as I'm concerned....

1) My understanding is that all season ticket holders were notified prior to purchasing tickets for this show that it was of an adult nature, and included dark subject matter. They were even given the opportunity to purchase a package without this show in it.

2) Even if they somehow missed the notification, there were all of the following signs that this show may not be Legally Blonde-esque:
a) The poster looks like this: Note the teenagers being all sexual and whatnot. Note the decided lack of frilly colors and text. Red and black doesn't exactly indicate a freewheeling ride through the flowers. Let's look at the Legally Blonde poster for counter reference:

Note the Reese Witherspoon lookalike. Note the cute little puppy. Note the smile. These things are not accidents.
B) If you missed the notice and the poster, you also had giant signs in the lobby with MORE WARNINGS. Adult themes. Adult Language. Sexual Content. Partial Nudity.
C) If you missed all of those things, the fucking shirts they were selling in the lobby literally said the words "You're Fucked" on the back.

I mean... come on people.

And so the fuck what? Are you saying that you literally can't sit through a musical that isn't the toe-tapping, rollicking good time that is Singin' in the Rain? You're so vapid and unable to feel any sort of emotion aside from "Giggle giggle" that you won't even allow yourself to be challenged.

On the way out, I heard a man say "I didn't like that play. It was different."

I'm dead serious. Like... his only reason that he didn't like it was that it wasn't just like fucking Oklahoma, which (excuse me for saying so) is pretty fucking disturbing in its own right. Judd is KILLED. There are fires and attempted rapes. It wasn't the feel-good hit of 1952 everyone has glossed t. I mean... West Side Story is about a gang war and murder. Carousel is about robbery and murder and morality. It's possible that Spring Awakening is a bit more overt in its telling, but it's no darker than The Who's Tommy (drugs, sex, child molestation) or Ragtime (murder, sex, racism, terrorism, child slavery) or Les Mis (Prostitution, murder, theft, identity fraud, war, grave robbery) or Rent (Prostitution, homosexuality, drugs, sex).

I wonder if it would have been more palatable to the elitist, ignorant snobs who essentially discarded this as a bunch of Gen Y Tripe if they'd realized that it was based on a German book written in 1891. Would that give it more resonance with the over washed masses? With the delicate, over-shielded philistines that just simply couldn't watch this "dark" show.

I really could go on all day about it, but I want to get to post about the show itself, and not about how I don't understand the mentality of these dickfaces who spend the money to sit in the front, but don't have a single inkling that what they're seeing might be more than just the status of their ticket stub. What's the old saying?

You can put a pig in a dress, but it's still just a fucking pig.

The only solace I can take away from the whole business is that there is a great irony hidden here, in this particular case...

The theme of Spring Awakening is that you can't hide from the dirty parts of life, because they're there whether you acknowledge them or not.

The people who left the show were doing exactly that. Hiding from the dirty parts.

Viva El Beefy Muchacho!!

Hey Folks-

I have a lot of blogging to do in the upcoming weeks, so I wasn't planning on blogging much before the Countdown to Disney blogs start up on Monday. Was just gonna lay looowwwww.

Little did I know that something wonderful would happen today...

My buddy Tony "The Awesomest Dude Ever" Doench is an incredible artist, and I'd asked him a while back for a Beefy Muchacho logo for the blog and the site and for my general Beefy Muchacho needs... Well...the guy came through with something amazing. Something so fantastic, that I had to put it up right away.

So... without further ado... I give you the new Standard. The "Coat of Arms" if you will...

The Beefy Muchacho!! Pretty effing awesome, no?

So anyway, now that I have A Muchacho of my own, I shall be working to re-vamp the blog layout (some people hate the white on black) and the website and everything.

Mostly, though, for the moment, I just want to thank Tony for doing such an amazing job. I couldn't be happier.

Good, but not TOOO Good.

Simon Cowell has just about the toughest job in the world. I mean that. I know what you're thinking...

"Muchacho! How can you say that? He's rich and he gets to be mean and people expect nothing else from him!"

And well yeah... that's true. But here's the thing... well...a couple of things..

1) I actually don't think he IS mean. You can sort of tell when you watch that he does actually like people, and he's never afraid to compliment someone if they actually deserve it. It's not his fault (well... probably it is because he's the boss) that he's the only judge really allowed or able to give actual, realistic opinions. I mean c'mon... Randy is a doof, Paula is Paula, and Kara just... I had high hopes that she'd be the legit female Simon and whatnot. A current songwriter with actual recent success, and she often sounds less coherant than Paula Abdul. So no... Simon's only mean in comparison to the cotton candy unicorns that the rest of them perpetrate on us every fucking week.

2) Simon's soul IS black and cold, true, but not why you'd think. And here's where I begin to explain my thesis... I think it's the worst thing in the world to know better and to understand nuance and levels, and yet feel compelled to ignore them based on forces that are not only outside of your personal control, but also soul-crushing. I think that's the situation Simon finds himself in... I think it's completely plausible that there are people they've had on that show who Simon actually might respect artistically, or really personally enjoy as an entertainer, but who he's destroyed them in critiques. Why? Because he knows that his comments do actually have an affect on voting, and his biggest nightmare is if someone wins who isn't readily marketable. It's not personal. It's not about his personal preferences. He wants to make money and Taylor Hicks ultimately makes him no money.

NOTE: Taylor Hicks is the perfect example here. He sort of captivated the idiot masses for a short time (due to the schtick), but in the long run went super, super stale very quickly. He's the only American Idol winner who was really more the winner of a reality show, and less a winner of a competition for entertainers. It's not that he was bad at what he does, because he's not, but he's a niche guy. More on that later. But I digress...

Simon's soul is black because it has to kill him to toss people under the bus who he probably finds more interesting in favor of pimping the safer bets. By "safer", I mean more generally marketable. I think Simon subscribes (as all people who want to make money over art should) to the Michael Eisner model (well.. early Eisner). Hit singles and doubles and take the sure things. If you play for the homerun, you strike out a lot more. It's probably less interesting on a creative level, but it's a way surer thing when it comes to making money.

3) He's got the finest line to walk when it comes the advice and criticisms he doles out. Everything he says is calculated to drive the person he WANTS to win toward winning. He knows that his target audience is middle America. The Average Joes who would rather listen comfortably to Nickleback than to be challenged by Radiohead. There's a reason why Radiohead wins Grammy's while Nickleback is the best selling group in the world right now. Simon knows this. His challenge every week is to subliminally lead America toward NOT voting out the people who combine being interesting/current/polished/skilled/versatile while also not being tooooo interesting/current/polished/skilled/versatile. There's a reason Michael Sarver will be on the tour. America eats that shit up. A current pair that stands out to me is Kris Allen (who I can barely ever remember) and Adam Lambert (who I can hardly stop listening to).

Two weeks ago, Adam Lambert did this crazy-ass rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". I personally loved it. Simon "hated" it. He called it "Horrific" and "self-indulgent". I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "Bullshit". I don't know if he liked it or not, and that's really irrelevant. I think that what Adam did was not by any measure "horrific". Possibly self-indulgent, but it wasn't his arrangement so whatever. Anyway... what I think happened was this: Adam did this wacky thing and it was during country week, which happens to be an important demographic, and Simon REALLY wants this dude to stick around so he dinged him a little. Like... "Get back a little closer to the middle and you'll win this thing." Adam wasn't in any real danger of going home THAT week because there were too many people less popular so it was the perfect time to "knock him down a peg" and get him to understand that it's okay to be different (David Cook's "Billie Jean") but not okay to be TOO different (Sanjaya...anything). It's great to be good (Jordin Sparks), but it's a little touchier to be GREAT (can't think of anyone right now, which is sort of the point... Maybe Jennifer Hudson or Melinda Dolittle (but then that's another thing altogether)).

Then you have silly Kris Allen who this week, during the Motown theme, sang some song or other... (I literally can't remember, because he's so fucking boring). Now Kris is the exact opposite of Adam Lambert in almost every way, but he's getting the same sort of push from the other direction. Kris is more than serviceable. He's talented. He's got the looks that girls plaster their rooms with and he can sing and play guitar, which pretty much makes him a walking dollar sign. The thing is... he's also kinda forgettable. He's so nice and simple and wholesome. He's like the Osmonds... Got the skills and the looks and whatnot, but you're still hungry for more when they're done assaulting you with their Book of Mormon or their songs or whatever. So what does Simon do? Simon knows that Kris is safe...the teen girls will save him for a while longer for sure... so he says the exact opposite thing he tells Adam "be more interesting. Have more swagger. Do something self indulgent."

It's a fine, fine line. Adam Lambert is great. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but there is absolutely no room for debate that he's a singular talent. He's totally unpredictable, even down to the modulations within his songs. This scares Simon, because it excites him at the possibilities, but it also doesn't always translate into sales. On the other hand Kris Allen is as predictable as a McDonalds McNugget. The same every time. He's got talent, but people also want to remember your concert five minutes after it's over. One of them Simon tries to rein in. One he tries to set loose a little. It's a fascinating balancing act to watch as he coaxes two front runners. Can't be too negative too often or the voters will start picking up on it and will follow suit (the only one this didn't work with was Taylor, and turns out Simon was right.) Can't be too positive or there'll be a "bandwagon backlash".

I was thinking about this a lot, and I am trying really really hard to think of a music icon who would have been a safe bet from the start. I can't think of one. This leads me to hypothesize that you can't predict the all-timers. You can predict the solid stars and the giant failures (usually), but it's nearly impossible to predict the ones that are the absolute grand-slam home runs, and so chasing them isn't a good business model (again with the Eisner singles and doubles.)

Elvis? Some people say he's the most influential entertainer of the 20th Century (I say Walt Disney, but whatever). That said, how do you predict a white boy from Mississippi who sings gospel and rock-a-billy becoming the biggest celebrity in the world based on this wacky new music?

Madonna? She's essentially a dancer with a serviceable voice (at best). If a music producer told me that they'd signed a dancer with a serviceable voice to a record deal and said that some day she'd be the richest, most successful female singer of all time, I'd tell them that I'm not a leprechaun and that I don't grant wishes. She basically become a star through sheer force of will and charisma. Not something quantifiable.

Michael Jackson? Now...he's a special case, because he was a star as a kid before he had any control over her personna and whatever, but let's say a completely unknown Michael Jackson showed up at Motown Records in 1983 or whatever and he was all "Salutations friends. I'm gonna be the most famous person on Earth in 2 years! Send me your chimps and small children!" I'm pretty sure that record executive calls the cops.

Anyway... It's a tough job Simon has is all I'm saying. You can't predict the legends. In fact, it's more a matter of not fucking up the sure things and hoping for the best.

Alan and I were discussing whether or not the mediocre ones know they're mediocre and merely playing to the middle... and I honestly don't know. Part of me wants to think that Nickelback knows that what they're doing is fluff and that they're okay with it, because they do their side projects to satiate their artistic insides and then they go tour and they bang really really hot dumb girls and roll around on their mattresses stuffed with cash. They are not without talent. I don't honestly believe you can be a success without having at least some talent.

The difference between them and a John Lennon is that the dudes in Nickelback are at peace with (at the least) or even embrace (more likely) their middle of the road confomity and they suckle at that teet until it runs dry. I do think there's probably some delusion in there too... like they probably occasionally write a song where they're all "This is it! This is the one where the artistic and the mainstream finally collide and we take it to that iconic level" and it's just another one of the 50 songs that sound exactly the same as all the others. On the other hand, I have no problem seeing John Lennon thinking that every song he ever wrote was total shit, and he pops out Imagine or Yesterday. Or even one of the 50 other legendary songs.

I guess my extremely long-winded point is that Simon Cowell's goal isn't to find the next John Lennon or Elvis. His goal is to find the next Nickelback. That may kill him every day, and it may just make him seem awfully mean to guys like Kris Allen who have the talent but no personality, so they just need a little nudge to be truly commercially viable. And it may kill him worse to kinda ding Adam Lambert who artistically is an unknown on this type of show and possibly has the ability to do amazing things, but might just be a little too scary for general American consumption in his current form.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is it possible to predict greatness? Discuss...

Rent

Hey Folks-

So the great musical, "Rent" closed on Broadway last week after a 12 year run. This show means as much or more to me as any other, and my cousin reminded me of a blog that I wrote a couple of years ago, as the movie was coming out. I read through it... I still think it perfectly sums up my thoughts, so... thanks Abbey.

Here's that original blog.

Here it is so that you don't have to click. From October 29, 2005.

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I've decided to write about Rent, the movie, the musical, the music...not in the prepared way I've been working on for a week, but just kind of from the heart, which may make for bad writing, but who cares?

My grandmother bought me my first copy of the soundtrack for Rent. I was 16. That was December of 1996, and the show had already won Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize. I remember a lot about that night. First, it was Hanukah, and the first one that the family had in my grandparent's new condo. They had lived in a small suburb called Roselawn since 1962, and they decided to move, because the once ethnically diverse neighborhood was falling into ruin, and they had had too many neighbors have their homes violated. They didn't want to be the next ones.

Anyway... I loved that house. I had many great moments there. I saw the Reds win the World Series there. It also housed almost all of my most precious times with my grandmother. I'll never forget the smell of that place. I'll never forget how much I looked forward to off-days at school when I was a young teen, and looking forward to the spoiling I'd have at the hands of my gramma. I loved her immensely. It's because of her, that I gave Rent a chance.

I was absolutely against it at the time it came out. Not because of any reason that was any good. Just because it was popular, and trendy, and I was 16 right? So..screw trendy. When she gave me that double disc soundtrack, I smiled and hugged her, and was kinda disappointed, because...well...like I said..against it. Still, there was something inherently wrong about not giving a gramma gift a chance, so I did. I've never heard a single soundtrack...hell...a single song since then without thinking about how it compares with the way I felt the first time I listened to Rent all of the way through.

Rent makes me think of my Grandmother Marilyn. When she died in January of 2000, I lost a great deal. I think about her every time I listen.

When I hear Rent, I think about the Summer before my senior year of high school, and being in the show Big River, and how listening to that album with a few of the coolest people I'd ever met, made me feel cool for the first time. People like Andy Hare and Justin Schwartz and Heidi Deuter. When I hear Rent, I think of Heidi. I also think about that night when I stayed out too late with those same folks, and got myself kicked out of my mother's house for good. I was 17. I think about sitting in the car with my friend Charlie, and just raging away at "Living in America" as loud as we could, and I think about how I had a hard time with the high notes then. That Summer was amazing, and it was framed by Rent.

When I hear Rent, I think about riding up to Wright State for my audition with my dad, and talking to him about how great it would be to go there. I think about the first time I sang in front of people as a full fledged WSU Musical Theatre major, when a group of the us sang "Seasons of Love" for a fund raiser. I think about being asked to leave after my freshman year. Maybe that wasn't so great, but I still think about Rent.

I think of the few good times with my roommate Ian, who really isn't such a bad dude.Whenever

I hear Rent, I think of the best first date ever, and how at that moment, I believed that I could achieve happiness again after a long bout with sadness.

I think about the friendships I've gained (and occasionally lost). I think about people who've gone away.

Rent makes me think about all of those things, and yet...I don't know if any of those matter as much as this: Whenever I hear Rent, I think about how much can be done when you push and drive and search and fight for what you love and believe in. I am not a songwriter like Jonathan Larson. I am not a playwrite like Lee Blessing or John Guare. I am not an artist like my friend Paul, or an author like my uncle[s]. I don't know exactly what I am. I do know that whenever I hear Rent, I feel like there's got to be more for me. There's a hope that fills me, that tells me my life will be remembered after I'm gone. I know I've got plenty of time, but there's never more of an aching than when I hear Rent. I think Roger says it best: "One Song. Glory. One song before I go. Glory. One song to leave behind."

The first time I saw the new Rent trailer, and heard the voice over guy say "The musical that defined a generation", I laughed. It's exactly what those guys always say.

But...now, I'm not sure it's wrong. The more I think about it, the more I realize that whether or not it defined my generation, it's definitely defined me, and I owe that to the late Jonathan Larson, and my Gramma.
################

Coming tomorrow, the first Wednesdays With Walt.

My Favorite Theory. (A reprise)

Here's another one from the vault.

Original Subject: The Theory of Artistic Masturbation
Original Posting Date: 8/30/2005
Original Posting Site: Xanga

The Theory of Artistic Masturbation.

I know...I know...it sounds so scandalous, but really it isn't. I had a professor in college who told me that all literature was based on a combination of 3 things: Sex, Death, and Food. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. Look back at all of the great works of literature in the history of the world, and you'll realize it's true...Hamlet? All three. The Odyssey? All three. The Bible? All Three...(I can defend if necessary.)

My theory has little to do with any of those things on a literal level, but I do believe that giving my theory a sex-related title makes people more likely to read about it.

So...here it is:


All art falls along a spectrum. Now, please remember that this is not a value judgement. All art has value and merit in it's own way. It just falls along a line. On one end of the spectrum there is art that I like to refer to as "Masturbatory Art" and on the other end there is art I call "Hooker Art".

The premise for this concept is that all art is categorized based on the relative affect it has on it's audience and on the artist. It's really that simple.

If a piece of art is more fulfilling to the audience than it is for the artist, that art leans toward the "Hooker Art" side of the spectrum. If a piece of art is more fulfilling for the artist than it is for the audience, that art is closer to the "Masturbatory Art" side.

What is masturbation? It's an act of self satisfaction. That's it. Some would call it a sin, some would call it a necessary part of life, and for the most part, everyone is right. It's a little bit sinful, and it's a little bit necessary, and the same goes for "masturbatory art". Whether I like it, or you like it, it's necessary in it's way. The tried and true example I've always used for this side of the spectrum is performance art.

For those who don't know, performance art is a genre of art where, more often than not, the artist is the medium for the piece. For example, I once saw a performance art "installation" that featured the artist taking his clothes off, and then writing racial slurs all over himself with a thick black sharpie marker. Oh...did I mention that the stage was dark, so you really couldn't see what he was doing or what he was writing?

Well...yeah...

See...this is what I'd call artistic masturbation. The artist trying to make himself feel better about the world, and trying to convince himself that he was deep and meaningful, and the audience being a true outsider to both the reasoning and the process. This was for him and him alone, and it really didn't matter if there even was an audience, because it's not for them anyway. It was a solitary act of...artistic catharsis, and it really isn't for me to interpret anyway.

Perhaps my favorite example of Masturbatory Art occured while I was visiting an artist friend of mine in Chicago. His name is Paul. He and I were walking toward his dorm in downtown Chicago, and we passed by this homeless person who was panhandling for money. I reached into my pocket for some change, because this was truly the homeless-est homeless person I had ever seen. Paul stopped me and said: "Don't give her any money."

This kind of threw me a little for 2 reasons..first, Paul had always been very generous with the homeless in the past, and second, I was pretty sure that the homeless person was a guy, and not a "Her" as he referenced.

I asked Paul about this, and this is what he told me: "You shouldn't give her any money, because she isn't homeless. That's a graduate student in performance art at SAIC (School at the Art Institute of Chicago), and she's doing her thesis."

Clearly this sounds crazy, but this girl got up at 6:30 every morning, put on the nastiest clothes she could find, covered herself in garbage and dirt and feces, and applied a fake beard, and commenced to pretend to be homeless for 8 hours a day. THIS WAS HER THESIS!!! For a while after this experience, I joked around about it, and I got a little indignant about it too, like "you can go to school for this? You can get a masters degree in this?" The anger has left me now, and has been replaced with appreciation, because I now have the greatest example of artistic masturbation EVER. The audience for her piece didn't even realize there was a piece. They just thought she was homeless. There wasn't any statement the audience was getting...they just got a whiff of stink. So...who benefitted from the art? Clearly, it wasn't the audience. I'm a firmly believe an audience can only appreciate art when they know there is art to be appreciated.

Now..."Hooker Art". What is the meaning of "Hooker Art"? Well, basically I had to come up with a term that would convey the polar opposite artistic value to Mastubatory art. A hooker is a person whose job, in it's entirety, is to please others, without any regard to themselves being fulfilled. I also like the second layer of meaning here, where money becomes the motivator for the artist, as opposed to the joy of making art.

In my theory, "Hooker Art" is art where the artist derives little fulfillment from the creation of that art. It's typically impersonal. Typically homogenized.

Some examples? Wedding photography, sitcoms, school portraits, pop music. "Hooker Art" is art that is ready for mass human consumption. Again, this isn't a value judgement of the artist. There are some amazing photographers who make a great living taking wedding photos, and even some of those wedding photos can be very beautiful. There is some really fun, catchy pop music. However, few wedding photographers would claim to be artistically fulfilled by it. Ask Jason Alexander (George Costanza in Seinfeld), why he did Seinfeld, and he'll say..."Well, I wasn't making any money starring on Broadway." Sitcoms are probably the most universal example of this form of art. There's nothing too deep or challenging, but the audience LOVES it, and the paycheck can't be beat. You'll see sitcom stars in other things, just absolutely killing themselves with effort, and perhaps they may get more spiritually, but nothing compares with that sitcom paycheck. Are we getting the idea?

Art for the artist = artistic masturbation

Art for the audience = artistic prostitution

Somewhere in the middle lies the ideal ground (in my opinion), where the artist and the audience both are satisfied equally. You'll often find things like "Shawshank Redemption" and The Rolling Stones and "Harry Potter" in this area. ****SEE NOTE **** The artist hasn't compromised their art, but the audience devours it anyway. I haven't found a good, universally acceptible term for the middle. As any theory, it's a theory in progress.

Ironically, since no one ever seems to read these things I write, I suppose this very essay would fall into the masturbatory category.


**** In the 3 years since I wrote this, I have since changed my mind about Harry Potter. I still like it. I'm still entertained. It's also created for the masses, and I do think Rowling compromised more than she'll admit. ****