2ndclepunkbuddha

It's now the end of the year, and it is once again time to wax poetic and reflect on the lessons of this past year.  2014 had its ups and downs as most recent years have been, but unlike last year, I face the new year with more hope than the last year brought me and all of us. The biggest accomplishments of this year were in educational, professional and artistic achievements.  I finally finished the degree and made it through the machine of CSU.  It was a rough road, one that I did not anticipate would be as such but I learned as everyone else does when they start down the path.  The last two classes were taken, the last assignments were graded and submitted, and, at last, the degree was earned.  It's easy to see why it is that people drop out of the place because they make it so hard for you to actually graduate from the institution, you get so frustrated with the changing and the nagging.  If there is one thing I can tell anyone out there who is curre...

The day had at last come for me to once again to do my part for the film.  The director, cast and crew had been working diligently despite all the slings and arrows to make it happen, all were dedicated and the ones who had proven themselves unreliable had long since disappeared.  I arrived at the art school a few weeks ago to do the first phase of the bit agreed upon.  Here the camera was rigged onto a platform where I was to be on display.  Still photographs as well were displayed on the secret Facebook page, and I allowed two of them to be published.  In one I was covered in a makeshift sheet / kimono, in the other I was hidden behind the snapping board that the crew uses to announce takes and reel numbers.  This time, however, I was in a more obvious situation.  I took everything off and put on a robe and flip flops, as did J.  We were to be models in an art class, sitting upon a platform on the second floor.  J laid back so we were ...

Earlier today, I regret to inform, a member of the tribe past was lost.  Mary Campbell Nir was a truly wonderful person, and that's not just nostalgia talking either.  I knew her when she was a kid, but her qualities were felt and enhanced as she went towards adulthood.  Not even the most talented of writers of trashy books or soap operas could have come up with her life story, and her story should be remembered. Mary was an adopted child.  If this story about her adoption and discovery is true or if some of this is myth and legend, perhaps, but this was the story I was told.  Baby Mary was found in the back of a church in a laundry basket somewhere on the west side of Cleveland one day in 1978 (or thereabouts).  The only documentation about her birth came in the form of a hand written note from her birth mother, explaining how and why this came to be.  According to the fabled note, Mary's birth mother and father were college students who were no lon...

During this past year, I was taken out to a few comedy nights to see amateur stand up comedians perform their acts before an audience.  I fully admit, this was never something that I had patronized in the past, but these experiences left me with a sense of what comedy really is.  Like the tragic and happy masks that are the symbol of theater, this went into these realms.  In all happiness is sadness, and all sadness is happiness.  Yin and yang.  The first few rounds definitely had their share of sadness.  We were in the basement of a building which doubled as a bowling alley / rock club with chairs assembled around a makeshift stage.  Here the amateur, hipster comics would step onto the dimly lit stage, depending on their height would be brushing an air duct pipe with their heads, and entertain the modest group before them.  As they were amateurs, their material was not delivered the best way possible, and more often then not their efforts we...

It's now been several weeks since starting my teaching career officially.  While the experience has had just about a million and one stories and personal growth factors, far too many to be named in this meager medium with the right amount of description, one thing that is certainly different since my day is this aspect of Character Building.  With the kindergarteners it's easy, since there is a great amount of Social Vocabulary and Life Skills which are to be built with kids that young.  Upon chatting with the kindergarten teachers about exactly what they do in the first few weeks or days, their primary concern with kids that young is to teach them social skills.  Here we watch cartoon videos who are performing basic interactions of greetings, handshakes and saying "Nice to meet you.  My name is Bob."  From there, I always assumed that the basic interactions would be said and done with.  Not true.  From first until eleventh grade (as the place whe...

Slowly but surely the movie is coming to fruition after a variety of set backs.  Everyone involved is working hard as their schedules and finances permit.  I knew that the director would one day call out of the blue and say "today's the day" and I would be off to the studio.  Fortunately I am in a position where my schedule will be fairly flexible and free for the next few weeks until I go back to work, so this is not a problem.  And since I am free like the bird, I will help in the causes around me and not make excuses for not doing said things.  I got notice from the director that the big day was coming to include me all of a sudden tomorrow.  However, I did not check my email until about 2 in the morning.  Oh no, tomorrow?!  Timing and scheduling was not a problem, I was free and able to be with them as long as possible with whatever needed to be done and I was willing.  It just so happened I had a problem with my presentation. When I ar...

My esteemed colleague E contacted me through Facebook recently with a proposition.  We had met last year on the MegaBus on the way to Chicago for Durandemonium 2013.  After recently moving to my city, she asked if I wanted an extra ticket to Blossom to see the Vans Warped Tour.  I laughed for a moment when this was put before me.  For those of you who are not familiar, the Vans Warped Tour is a touring music festival that has been going across America, primarily featuring punk rock music on a variety of stages rather than just one, sponsored, of course, by the shoe manufacturer Vans, which appeals to skateboarders.  This year is the nineteenth anniversary of said festival, and I had never been to it before due to schedule conflicts, one thing or another, and, quite honestly, I was never into skating.  Also, at some point, one realizes that they are a bit too old to do certain things; and, skateboarding is one of those things that one gets too old to do quic...

I read a wonderful quote from Kurt Cobain not too long ago.  It really has nothing to do with who said it, but it was one of those moments when it just makes sense to you all of a sudden : "Thank you for the tragedy, I needed it for my art."  Much of art, whatever medium you choose, is really motivated by tragedy.  Songs are written about broken hearts, paintings and drawings are created depicting innermost feelings and thoughts, and a variety of writings are dedicated to such illustrations.  There is a lot of meaning in that little symbol of the yinyang, which is like those two classic masks depicting happiness and sadness as it applies to theater arts.  Just as much is motivated by joy and happiness, to be sure, but most there is more to be found in the darker sides of life.  Recently, I have become a tagalong for one new venue in which to display one's art, and it's usually a tragic one : comedy. I have seen many people who think that they ar...

The movie has yet to come to fruition in which I will be posing naked within.  Making movies is not cheap and finances are tight, plus the director's car was broken into and much of the footage already shot not containing me was stolen.  Fortunately for him the majority of his students have saved the information in bits and pieces, but it all has to be spliced together.  Until further notice, my participation in the movie has been put on the back burner.  With that being said, there happened to be a few opportunities since then that have appeared since that have pushed me into the foreground of being naked for the sake of art.  Deciding it would be best to ease oneself into the process rather than jump into the icy pond full force, I accepted the offers.  I was even paid $20 for my time.  Appropriately enough, the first time it happened was in a house which was in a state of disrepair in a sketchy neighborhood, but I was not a situation where I was b...

I had read in a David Sedaris story years ago, appropriately enough called "Naked" in a collection of short stories by the same name, that it is disconcerting to be talking to someone on the phone knowing they are naked.  Circumstance sometimes interferes with things, as he referenced when they say "You caught me on the way to / as I was just getting out of the shower".  In this instance, he was talking to a man at a reservations desk at a clothing optional resort in which he was about to make his reservation for a stay there.  Of this I have no immediate plans to do so; but, as I have been looking at the proverbial Bucket List (although I hate that term for a goal list) as of late since I am staring at age 40 on the horizon, I began to think of nudity and situations in which I have been. My experiences with nudity have been few and far between, most certainly, outside of the ordinary situation.  Though I have a few friends who enjoy going to pagan nudie ...

After six years, I have at last come to the end of my time at Cleveland State University (or CSU as it's known), and I will have that degree coming in the mail soon.  It's been a long road, no question, full of many twists and turns.  I changed my mind a few times about the direction I wanted to go in, I questioned the universe, I had many doubts and insecurities, and I even considered quitting at some point or another.  But no, like everything else, we push on.  It's been a rough road, and yet it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. I had many doubts when I started down this path in 2008.  I was 34 years old, I was too old to go back to university life as a full time student, I thought.  But no, I realized that I was given a message.  The old career had bottomed out completely as it was populated by losers who didn't bother to learn their jobs and business and industry (what there is left of it now) had become a hostage crisis....

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the day that Kurt Cobain shot himself in the greenhouse of his Seattle home.  My, much has happened since then.  I was a snot nosed 90s hipster at the tender age of 19 when he died, I thought I knew everything.  Part of that came from being in college radio and thinking I was much cooler than everyone else because I knew about some obscure band or other when no one else did.  The me today laughs at that, but like everything else you didn't know until later how wrong you are.  It's hard to imagine that world anymore.  This was the dawn of the Internet and yet we barely touched it.  There was no social media, no text messaging, cell phones were the size of walkie talkies and were only found in cars or among the elite.  Everything just kind of went silent that day, no one was around.  This was, of course, my moment in youth culture as this was my era, The Grunge Years.  Bar...

As Valentine's Day approaches, there are a million things that people will do and say about love because that's what we do on Valentine's Day.  We will either spend a bundle on candy and flowers (for ourselves or someone else), or do the whole "I hate Valentine's Day" routine.  We will show what rebels we are by not buying said candy and flowers and whining about it, aren't we punk rock?  Ha ha ha ...  What can I possibly say about it that has not already been written before or since, by me or another party on this most sordid of sordid topics?  I wish I could, even after rereading my past materials on this site and others'.  Perhaps I will reflect upon this sordid topic in a new way ... Love gets harder as you get older, the reasons are many.  When we are between age 18-24, no matter what your life experience, it seems that people think that we are supposed to immediately move onto the next phase in life.  This can include many things, from mov...

One of my resolutions for this year was to never mention IT again, but as we are barely a week or two into the new year, here I am breaking it already.  I made a few resolutions which everyone does (work out everyday, loose weight, not eat so many carbs, etc.), and those are not outrageous by any means.  It's also not outrageous to break any of them after a few days either.  Still, this is something that has lingered within my mind for a long time.  When I got down to my high school weight in 06, I no longer suffered from the condition.  However, the only way in my case that I can completely keep the condition under control is to not eat any more than 800 calories a day, which is nearly impossible for anyone to do.  Someone brought it up recently, and I think I have been obsessing about it ever since.  I am far from the only one who suffers from this condition, so if someone else is out there who happens to read this, know that I feel the pain of ...