Don't ever complain again -- ever

Buddhist monks who run two marathons a day for 100 days straight.

Back from the brink

Well, just as Kev-kev the wrex has pointed out to me about quality over quantity (and my disappointment at not having as many daily updates from him - he's my portal to a political world!) I'm going to have to say "Wow! It has been awhile since I've written!"

There was so much going on for a few weeks there. I finished the remounting of Bat Boy, rehearsals and all. The show looked and felt more professional this year. It was also videotaped (4 nights worth) in HD and looks appropriately gorgeous thanks to lighting, set, actors, band, sound, everything and the upgrade in recording technology. I'm glad, though, to have more free time to focus on finishing up DVD projects and prepare for the holidays.

Like the stores who began playing Christmas music as of Halloween, or perhaps earlier, and have therefore are ruining the magic of a season by unabashedly turning it into a shopping holiday that begins before two fun-to-celebrate holidays have even passed, I too am beginning Christmas preparations rather early. Christmas can only beging, in my upbringing experience, after Thanksgiving. Any earlier and it is a chaotic mess of holidays, feelings, pressures. It is a caucaphony of images and reasons to celebrate that don't mix. Anyone else feel strong enough about this that we tell retailers as a whole to stop, so that we may bring all of us back from the brink of consumerist madness in which the impetus to shop and spend money is so important that there is no sense of order and decency? I know, I know the sense of decency has been gone for awhile and advertising is permeating more and more of our culture and private spaces.

Let us think, though, of a couple of examples of madness. We have the first example: Christmas season beginning before Halloween. My friend Justin told me that working in downtown SF he has heard x-mas music since before Halloween. I was in Old Navy on Halloween night and heard Christmas music. Case in point, anecdotal evidence. Retailers, corporations gone insane part one.

Second example: shootings, robberies, mobs at Playstation 3 releases, people camping out for days in order to be there at the moment they release "the product." I think it's completely bizarre (and yet oddly makes sense) that boys (and to be sure, these are largely groups of boys) will camp outside for days to buy something that will keep them indoors for months.

Ah yes, anyhow I began writing all of that and then I was whisked away to lunch. So now I'm back and can hardly remember the same thread of thought. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and this weekend. I'll be spending it in Napa with the Reids and I may just get the chance to bottle some wine! YES!