Chumbawumba's Motto

I got knocked down.
But I'll get up again.
You're never gonna keep me down.

That said, I'm sure I'll still be pissin' the night away sometime in the near future.

As it happens, life has taken a jackhammer to my plans and a lot of things are changing. It's funny, because fall is always a time of year that I feel things are pretty solid and unmoving. Now, the ground shakes like a fat man's burping belly, smelling equally as foul and pungent. Smell that? It's the smell of transitions.

The life jukebox spins another record I didn't see coming. What's up on the playlist?

New York: Thought I was moving back to New York. Thought I had a job in the city, doing theater professionally again. Thought too soon and now I have to wait. I'm told the job is still out there and that management is simply looking for a way I can fit in, financially and in what capacity my work will be focused on. But I'm not sitting around waiting; if it comes, great. If not, life to be lived.

Jobs: Don't think just because I didn't get the NY job doesn't mean that I'm staying with SOE (or as we've come to call it "It SO Easy!) for the hours and pay they are asking. I'm actually trading in SOE for SEO, heading back to the Law Offices of MAP. This makes me happy, truth be told. I'll be writing most of the day, hanging out with Kevin and crew, and getting paid more which always makes my life easier. Come Tuesday of next week, it is back to the bloggosphere of personal injury.

Girls, ETC: Sara and I are going are separate ways next week. When New York was put into the question -- and even after it never came to fruition -- she had made up her mind to move home. I can honestly say that, yes, I'm truly sad she is leaving. On the other hand, it feels nice to not be bitter at someone with whom you've shared a relationship with for two plus years. She's going to be with her family, happy, and kept in a realm of comfort I can only dream of. There's a life out there that she wants to live and I'll be damned if I stand in the way.

So Say We All: Aside from being broke, SSWA is going really well. Our last show, Scared Shitless, brought in a huge crowd and we delivered on the content side. It really came together and I've enjoyed doing the shows more lately. Especially looking forward to My Friend Dahmer getting the SSWA treatment. I'm playing Derf, Jen is directing, and Justin is taking producer/tech coordinator on this one. Lots of memorizing -- that's the only rub. Other than that, looking forward to soiling your pants come Halloween.



And that's the news. Oh, Danny boy!

Scare Them Kids

I really believe this reporter nailed the idea that kids today are not being toughened up for a cruel and harsh world. I hate to say it, but it is true. Though I don't think Where The Wild Things Are is going to scare the crap outta any one (sorry, it already looks like it is going to be my favorite movie this year), I do think it is good to challenge kids. However, that being said, my parents had a taped operatic version of the book and played it for me once because I got so freaked out by it. Yet here I write before you today, a well-rounded, if not a little worse for ware, full functioning adult. And I plan on seeing the movie as many times as possible.



Parents, take heed:

While the chatter about this Friday’s release of Where the Wild Things Are hasn’t exactly reached wild rumpus-like proportions, the filmmakers did their best to spark a little brushfire of controversy in Newsweek today. Jonze, Eggers, and Sendak gathered in Sendak’s living room for what was supposed to be a free-flowing conversation about what it was like for three geniuses to harmonically converge on one project. But at eighty years old, Sendak had no interest in spoon-feeding platitudes to the press. Instead, he and Jonze and Eggers lamented how vanilla childhood in America has become. Worrywart parents aren’t doing their kids any favors by depriving them of their right to get scared out of their minds watching movies or reading books. Scarytales are character building and virtually guarantees a stormy artistic temperament if not a legit career as an artist. This rant made me stop and think about how I spent most of my childhood watching wildly inappropriate movies like the deeply-creepy futuristic cannibalism-tinged Soylent Green. I still can’t forget the image of the big bulldozers rolling through city streets and scooping up fleeing crowds of people to turn them into nutritious biscuits. Nothing that happened to me in real life came close to keeping me up at night the way that and other movies did. But now I wonder if my mom didn’t do me a favor by setting me up for that kind of terror. If these guys are to be believed, the only thing we have to fear for our children is the lack of fear itself. I gotta say, I kind of agree that we’re short changing kids by letting them fill their minds with Disney schmaltz instead of quality filmmaking.

-- Christine Spines