4th of July

I don't like Independence Day. It's my least favorite holiday of all, and I dislike a lot of holidays. I have nothing nice to say about today, and I've run out of mean things too, so I'm going to shut up now.

Yesterday (which is actually earlier today since I haven't gone to bed yet) I took a break from my short story and went to the coffee shop with a book and a legal pad and a pen. I read a lot, then did some free writing when I felt like doing it. I ended up writing a whole lot, and some if not all of that is going to end up here.

That's all.

Thoughts about Singing (and Life)

When I was in high school, I was training to be a classical singer. I was a baritone with a few more high notes than other baritones, giving me hopes that one day I could become a tenor. Tenors were badly needed, so that my director put me in the tenor section, hoping that I would be a good contribution.

I wanted so badly to be a tenor, because most of the leading male parts in musicals are tenors. Most of my favorite male singers were tenors. Having the potential to become one, I worked so hard trying to strengthen and expand my high register. I would try too hard to hit the notes and end up flatting. I would get sick constantly, and it would take forever for my voice to recover due to the strains I put on it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I spent most of each year coughing.

Fortunately, any damage I had done to my voice when I was younger didn't last permanently--it was great to be that young. But if there was one advice somebody could have given me then, it would be this: Relax, kid! You're in fucking high school. You have your whole life ahead of you. Your voice is still changing, and will continue to change for a very long time. And it will change however it wants to change; no matter how hard you force it, it is out of your control.

Harder than I worked to be a tenor, I worked to resist being a baritone. Most of the time I insisted on trapping myself in my head voice, trying to sound pretty to avoid developing that warm baritone sound. I turned out to be a nasally, mousy singer who sharped and flatted constantly because I didn't use proper techniques. I never developed I great classical voice suitable for operas. I spent those years hating myself for the bad singer that I was. Had I embraced my baritone self, I might have felt better about myself, and life could have turned out differently.

I'm not writing this because I feel sorry for myself that I didn't become an opera singer. I have found other things in life that I enjoy so much more. I'm writing this because I spent many years thinking a lot about my voice, and from time to time I still do. It is still my source of creativity, and I incorporate it into so many things that I do. Thinking about this today makes me realize the importance of accepting who you are and living in the moment. I have found an art form wherein I can be myself and use everything that I have. Realizing what you have and learning to use it is very necessary. For a long time I felt useless, but now I know that I'm not--I just chose to trap myself and my talents instead of letting it evolve. Once I learned to embrace myself, I realized my full potential, and it's fun.

Get a bike, kids!

For the past couple of months biking has been my main form of transportation. For somebody who has spent most of his life being physically inactive (except for the brief periods when I used to go to the gym 3-5 days a week), I have to say I feel much healthier and happier now. Biking is great for me on many levels. 1) it helps me to save money from taking public transportation; 2) it saves me from having to deal with the drama that comes with taking public transportation; 3) it is good for my body, and; 4) it is good for my mind.

I have to commute between my home in the SE and Downtown almost everyday. It used to cost me $4 every time I commute. The monthly bus pass, which is $75, helped me to save money a little bit, but very little. Now it costs me $0 to commute.

I was always bad with scheduling my life around the bus schedules. Oftentimes I used to miss the bus by a hair, and ended up having to wait a long time for the next one. After a long night of working in the shows, I often had to wait between 15-50 minutes for a bus to take me home. While on the bus I often got motion sickness. All of that is gone. It takes slightly more time for me to bike home, but not having to wait for the bus means that it actually takes much less time for me to actually get myself home. I don't get sick while I'm biking, and I don't have to schedule my life around anything. My bike is always there for me.

I feel so energized after a bike ride. I get to use my whole body, while at the same time enjoy the scenery and the fresh air. Because I'm always so busy, setting aside the time to work out has been really difficult. Now I do it everyday without having to make an effort to. Biking is not just productive for the body but also for my schedule.

I think of biking as a form of meditation. I have to focus on what I'm doing, and it keeps me from thinking of bothersome things. I get to relax my head when I don't have the time to meditate.

I'm getting all of these benefits everyday, and they're all for free and they're all for me. These alone are enough to keep me going on this bike path, not to mention how good it is for the environment. If you're driving, think about how much money you spend on gas, parking, car insurance, etc. Think how much you would be saving if you were to get a bike. Then think about the benefits you'll also be getting from biking.

I often find myself having opinions that are different from other people's about some people in my life. I learned that there is no use in arguing. Everybody knows we teach other people differently, based on numerous factors. But what some people neglect is the fact that others also treat you differently because of who you are. When you are, in any way/shape/form, different from other members in your community, you are bound to be treated differently by some people. For most of my life I am the only immigrant, the only gay man, the youngest person, and/or the only non-white person in the community I'm in. This subjects me to various degrees of treatments that others, more "normal" members are exempt from.

There is this tendency for people to teach, judge, patronize others they find inferior. But how can we assume anybody is inferior if we don't let them talk and hear them speak. I find that a lot of people, myself included, feel the need to act like we have wisdom to offer, like we have meditated opinions about something to add to the conversation. Perhaps we do it because we want to appear smart, or we want to be a part of the conversation, which we think will lead us to being a part of the community. We don't recognize these things in ourselves--if we did we would probably never do such a thing--but it is easy to see this in others. Nobody can pretend to be smart. Even smart people sometimes seem stupid. When we try to be smart, we completely expose our stupidity to the world. It's sad to see, and frightening to think that there might be time when you are in the exact position.

I know people who get so excited in what they have to say they don't realize that they're saying what other people in the circle had just said merely seconds before. They get so excited that they have this knowledge, and they think they're the only one that has it, so that have to dole it out and be the wise guy. I also know people who are such good listeners they take everything in and don't say anything throughout the conversation unless pressed to do so. I find a lot of people's voices beautiful, but the act of listening much more beautiful. When the speaker is somebody I truly respect, it isn't hard for me to focus on what they have to say--I have people in my life whose every word I hang on to. But I think to be a good listener you can't be selective. Like I said earlier, you don't know the value of the person until you hear what they have to say. I have often been surprised by the wisdom offered to me by people from whom I never expect to hear such wise words. It is an eye-opening experience as well as a humbling one.

Note to self: Be a better listener; talk less; respect more.

Things you can do while watching "Glee"

(Left: "Emeril's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies." Right: "Pecan Sandies")

I always try to find productive things to do while watching TV shows, because TV shows are stupid wastes of time. Sometimes I fold laundry, iron shirts, or tidy up my room. Sometimes I bake.

Check out this link for 31 very easy cookie recipes you can do while watching TV. I did one of these during an episode of "Glee." The other I did while watching "Clash of the Titans" and drooling over Harry Hamlin.

I used to bake all the time, but I've been so lazy lately. I'm also afraid of ending up eating all my goods and getting out of shape, but I'm going to give them away tomorrow.

"Primal Compulsion" and what it means to me

I'm doing lights for this long-form show at the Brody. Actually, I do lights for a lot of shows at the Brody, but this is the first show for which I was officially asked to do this particularly task. It makes me happy for two reasons: 1) I feel much more confident with what I'm doing after getting to know exactly what the director actually wants from me, and; 2) The rehearsals so far have been some of the funniest moments I have ever spent at the theater or anywhere in my life. I get a great abs workout during every one of them from laughing so hard. I really believe in this show; I think anybody who has never been to the Brody before will keep coming back after seeing this one, which is why I'm trying so hard to get people to come see the show despite not being on stage myself.

I am also very grateful to my friend Manuel Hall, the director of the show, for giving me this opportunity, which came at the time when I needed it most. There was a guy that I liked, who probably had zero interest in me. I was in a state of mild depression combined with significant loneliness and a sense of worthlessness I hadn't felt it a while. Getting to do the show meant that I was busier and had less time to think about negative things, and my focus was taken away by something that I enjoyed and the people that I loved being around. In some ways it saved my life by filling me with a lot of happiness.

I offered to make the poster for the show, simply because I had the time and had been aching to do something like this again. I used to make a whole lot of posters and fliers for the Queer Resource Center, back when I was in college and volunteering for them regularly. Recently I've been appreciation certain skills, such as poster making, that I have learned and developed when I was younger, as they are still useful in my services for others. I enjoyed making this poster a lot, and hope you all like it too.

Bitchin' About Improv

Doing improv sometimes makes me feel like a genius, sometimes a complete idiot. I don't know if I'm good at it or bad or what. There is so much to learn, and so far it feels like all the successes I have had big and small are accidental; I happened to make the right move that one time, and a lot of times I don't. The more education and practice I have the more confused I am, but perhaps that's what true knowledge is supposed to be like.

Improv challenges my brain and feeds my soul. Sometimes it does one more than the other. Right now my brain is tired and my soul is starving. I've lost my appreciation for the laughter and applause from the audience, because I do the work to improve myself, not to gain their approval. And saying that out loud or writing it down make it sound really wrong. I guess I feel more like a student now than a performer.