MEme

Hey everyone out there who still finds it to this digital neck of the woods. It is dark, scary, but often worth the fear inducing trips. I haven't blogged regularly for sometime. This is due to a cyclical brain pattern that basically revolved around the theme of hatred for self-centered rhetoric. I began to think that so many people are interested in only producing there are little people left to consume. I guess this super-saturation of digital voyeurism is an economic principle. And as more people put out printed ego-massage less people will have time to view them so make yours good so others will want to read. That is all.

Baby pedals

This is a story I wrote for my storytelling class and I thought it might be fun to share with those who care.

Baby Pedals
by
Jeff Denison

This story begins like many stories, with a dare. This dare came from a certain Kenneth C. Denison, AKA destroyer of my universe, AKA hater of everything good, AKA my brother. Typical of brothers, we had a Whitney/Bobby thing going on. That is to say he was my enabler. In the summer of (Radio Edit) I had just turned six and for my birthday I received a brand new, dark blue, without training wheels bike. I loved that bike, it was like a transformative rite, moving me from babyhood to boyhood. I spent weeks with my mom and dad at my side trying to ride carefully, and not fall. Also trying to avoid the dreaded slime pond of Swazey Circle. This pond was lined with a mold previously unknown to man, I was sure. Because no matter what the temperature was, there was always a pond with that mold on Swazey Cirlce. Mold so powerful it was capable of making even grown men fall to their now drenched knees and then openly weep.
The dare previously alluded to was one that took me from my six-year old, six-block world to the great big world. It was to "ride your bike to Truman Elementary." Truman Elementary, TRUMAN ELEMENTARY, this was huge. Truman Elementary was my grade school and it was a mile away. To my six-year old brain, this was like going to Las Vegas, or California, it was practically in a foreign country. "Should I pack?" I thought,"No, I'm not going." But then that awful feeling came. I knew that if I didn't go, it meant that my brother was going to call me a baby until I was twenty-five. Unless I could just ride to my friend Chris' house and hang out there , then come back in ten or so hours. NO, he would want details. He would ask,"did you get past the pit bull O.K.?" I would freeze and then answer,"yes." Then laugh to diffuse the tension of the situation, like Michelangelo always did in TNMT. But he'd counter,"there is no scary dog, you never went, YOU'RE A BABY." My life would be over.
Resigned to my "Trail of Tears," I strapped on my new, white with confetti design bike helmet. I made my way to the big road. Cautiously, Slowly, shakily I rode my bike. I was doing it, I was going to make it to the grade school. I was a boy, no I was a big, brave boy, maybe even a man. Suddenly I looked with horror on a BIGGER street but, wasn't on the big street. How can there be a street bigger than the big street. I looked, I looked again. In my childhood wisdom, I decided, not only could I do this but that it would be safer to cross in the middle of this bigger street than the crosswalk. I could do this. I was basically a man minus the body hair.
So I followed Ronald's counsel as best I could. I planted my feet and looked both ways. Though wasn't really sure if I should look both ways for each of the seven lanes or just once. I decided I was riding my bike, Ronald gave no rules for that, so I'll make my own. I was going fast enough, so once should be sufficient. I looked, and looked, and I was off. Peddling, shakily I made it past one lane, two lanes and thre...I kept moving but now it was not just forward, but sideways and forward. Then my bike separated from my body, and I was flying and I thought, I'm not a man, minus the body hair, I'm superman and I'm flying and I'm pretty sure I can feel follicles growing in my armpits. I was alive, I was flying, I was falling. I was on the ground, my chin was on fire, my new, white with confetti design bike helmet was cracked.
"Are you O.K.?" asks a twenty-something, dark haired man asks as he exits the car that just hit me. Stunned, I'm not sure what I answered.
Sirens, that is what I remember next. A police officer queried, "Do you know your mother's name or your telephone number. Suddenly a familiar tune entered my mind. It was the safety kids. "I know my number, my telephone number 9-6-7-3-2-9-7" Funny, the safety kids don't really have a song warning you against riding across a busy road to prove your manhood. Even then I knew that was ironic.
"Hello," said my mother over the telephone.
"Yes, Mrs. Denison. I'm sorry to inform you but you're daughter has been hit by a car," replied the emergency dispatcher assigned to tell my mom about the incident.
"Really?"
This was perplexing to my mother because my three-old sister was taking a nap upstairs. After checking on my sister, my mother clarified,"Are you sure it's not my son?"
"Oh yeah, that's probably it. It's your son."
This was terrible. Not only was I not superman or a man minus the body hair. Now I was a girl.
I had been big and brave, sitting with the police and ambulance on the side of the road, refusing to cry. I wasn't hurt. I wasn't scared. That was until my mom showed up and then I can only equate my action to that of the tragic Teton Dam failure of the late seventies. My eyes rained enough to sustain a small Irish peat farm for at least two years.
I was taken by my mom to the hospital (I was too scared to ride in the ambulance) for stitches and then brought home. I was terrified, I hadn't made it to Truman Elementary, my brother was going to make fun of me. My Dad was going to kill me. But something strange happened. My Dad didn't yell at me and I wasn't a baby. I was cool because I had stitches and probably a scar. But you know, if it meant that I had to be hit by a car to prove I was a man. I was O.K. with being a boy.

Swine Flu? I just hope it's kosher.

Just musing to myself about how the swine flu is raising the pandemic level roof and I am sitting here not even worried about it because I have finals to prepare for. It's funny how goals have a way of shutting the rest of the world out. I just hope the swine flu doesn't interrupt my study schedule. Oh and PS this is not the first time the world has seen a swine pandemic. I refer you to cheesy PSAs on the matter as evidence.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a0NYYjUy._xo&refer=home

My fantasy on a grander scale

While in high school I would frequent a dining establishment. While eating there some friends and I become really excited about the prospect of choreographing a spontaneous song and dance number. We were going to do this by acquiring a blue print and setting up a replica to practice it in. Alas, this is about as far as we got into the planning process. I now offer a video which shows someone with the initiative to get their dreams accomplished. I find it so magical and would love to have been an unsuspecting audience member. Ok I love everything about it until it hits the techno and then I was like, "NOOOOO!You Blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"



P.S. Did you hear about John (John and Kate +8) with the unidentified woman? How Scandalous. Maybe he wanted to be with a woman that didn't treat him like he was one of the eight? Gotta love it. http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/04/jon-gosselin-on.html

P.P.S. CHeck out the trailer for "Where the wild things are. It looks so good!

Perpetuating American Stereotypes to our English Cousins or Sockdology Redux

This week the theater department at Utah State invited a company of actors to perform and give workshops about Shakespeare. The play they performed was, Much Ado about Nothing. This is the second production I have seen of it. The first being in London by the RSC back in 2002. The RSC production transplanted the setting to 1940s Tuscany. It was a beautiful production that was well acted and envisioned. I am always hesitant to see a play twice, especially when I have seen a good production of it. But, I figured there are so many ways one can interpret the bard so I would give it a chance.






The Actors of the London Stage, is exactly what it sounds like, a company of actors from "London" (One of the actors admitted he was from Birmingham). Yet, the begins of the company strangely originate in Indiana, Notre Dame to be precise.Intriguingly there were only five actors to perform the entire play. Now it sounds less natural then the actual presentation was but the five actors were able to, for the most part, effortlessly transition into playing multiple characters on a bare stage with relatively little props.




The five actors were decent with the exception of one woman. The actor who played Beatrice, Don John, Balthazar, and Dogberry's assistant was so enthralling I found myself developing a bit of an obsession with her. Now, that sounds unhealthy but, I think every now and again its OK to be intrigued by a highly talented individual. At least that's my justification and I'm sticking with it. I think the quality of her voice is what caused me to be most enamored with her acting. I can only describe it was honey for the ears. Her range was a deep alto. I am convinced that she could have made a script reading of the classic, bearable if not enjoyable. I guess she played Tash on Holby City for three years. Is that a big deal?
As is the case with heroes, idols, crushes, I needed to meet her but was to embarrassed to admit my infatuation to her. I didn't want her to think I was a stalker. So, after the show, I went down to the hallway where the dressing rooms that the actors would be exiting from were located. And then pretended to be looking for something. Then trying to act nonchalant I struck up conversations with other members of the theater department I saw in the hallway. I think there was a tone of desperation in my desire to talk because I could see it reflected in my co-conversationist's face.
"Oh let me introduce myself. I'm Jeff I'm in the department."
Then the various actors introduced themselves. The problem was I hadn't really thought out what to do next and it got quiet, real quiet. "Where are you from in England?" I ask. "We're from London," answers Jo one of the actors who plays Hero and Leonato.
"You Idiot!! They're the actors from the LONDON Stage. Then in an attempt to save everything I blurt out,"I went to England last summer, Northampton." This feeling sinks in, I've become that guy. The guy that makes everything about them and thinks they no everything about a place because they spent a month there last summer. I am surprised I didn't ask if they knew Amry and Dave. You know the type of people that find out you're from America and ask if you know someone in Ohio. The conversation slowly fizzled out and I left dejected. I didn't even get to talk to my crush. She just sat silent and aloof.
The next day I went to do taxes at the library. After finishing I started to walk to my car. It was a lovely evening and the sky was a burnt orange and to my right walking with a cigarette rested between two lips was the siren herself. As we approached the crossroads. I felt as if fate had created this moment. She didn't notice me or ignored me so I cupped my hand around my mouth and said "break a leg." She looked surprised at first and then smiled in a genuine and appreciative way. She said, "Thank you very much." Then we walked on to our separate destinies. And that was it. I felt good about our interaction and hoped she knew how much her performance had moved me.

I'm going to do it...I'm......going..........to.........BLOG!!!

Have you ever left a CD after overlistening to the songs? Now, havce you ever came back to a CD you put to the side and been reminded just how much you loved it and wondered how you could have ever gotten sick of it in the first place? Well, confession, I just had that experience.
Back in the fall I had just returned from my religious sabatical in COnnecticut. With much time on my hands and little music to fill it I went to a most unusual place to search for music...Target. I know right, who buys music from the same place you can buy toilet paper. Or is that saying that is commonly associated with jewelry anyway. I was browsing through the CDs when I saw one with this cover.



"Hmmm, I thought, who is this man Rilo Kiley and why is he making a visual allusion to Hilary Rodham Clinton's comic masterpiece, It Takes A Village." When I saw it was on sale for $9.99(the highest price I am willing to pay for a CD). I was sold and this crazy mans image. I got to the old teal toyota truck I was given as a present upon returning home and popped the CD into my tape deck. And by popping it into the tape deck I mean that I had to wait until I arrived at a friends house. I remember putting in the CD at Willey's and Crams' apartment and thinking that this Rilo Kiley had an unusually high voice, perhaps he was a castrato. Then I fell in love. I fell in love with the passion of, does he love you? Loving the clever wit of such lines as"we could be daytime drunks if we want to," and then wondering if Rilo was a lesbian, transexual, homosexual, or creep in, A man/me/ and jim, a complex narrative taking on the POV of three seperate people. In short I dodn't know who this Rilo was but I loved his music and was glad I had taken his impllicit challenge of being "more adventorous."

Yesterday, years after my first experience with the band Rilo Kiley. I know now that they are a band fronted by Jenny Lewis, Vixen of indie folk. Leaving the apartment I decided to grab a CDs I hadin't listened to in a while. Condensation exiting my body in the form of once global warming gases I got into my car, turned over the ignition, and put the much neglected "more adventerous," in my CD player. I was immediatley pooled in seretonin and felt euphoric. Its moments like those that make life a little more enjoyable.

Blog...

If someone blogs in the middle of the internet and no one reads, does (s)he really blog?