MY BULLSKIT EXPERIENCE

Last Saturday marked the final performance of the year for the Red Deer Comedy Troupe Bullskit. This marked the second year of Bullskit which was started by my good friends Jenna Goldade and Amy Erlandson. This year marked my first appearance with the troupe although I have been involved with their improv workshops almost since the beginning.

My first time appearing on stage for them came last June when Bullskit was invited to perform for Nestfest in Edmonton. I came in sort of as a pinch hitter, I performed in sketches that were already originated by other actors, but it was fun to say the least and I like to think I put my own spin on it.

I actually thought that experience was going to be my one and only time performing with the Bullskit group, I'm someone who doesn't think too far ahead as to what my next gig will be. When September came around, Jenna sent me a message saying they were starting improv again, and that always interested me so I came back to the workshops.

On the first day back, Serge Belliveau, our workshop leader and troupe member thought I might be interested in writing for the group. I was very interested, I always like to find new ways to write different things and I though sketch comedy could be fun.

Suddenly after the first workshop of the season, I was on board as a writer. The first sketch I pitched for the season was an infomercial for "The Laughtrack 3000", a device that attaches to the television which has a built in laughtrack for sitcoms like "The Office" or "30 Rock" that don't have any. It was fun to write the sketch, and see it performed, I must say I think I learned a lot from that experience just to hear what sort of jokes did or did not get a response from the audience.

The first show for Bullskit was in November, I still wasn't a troupe member, but I was in the improv portion of the show. Jenna approached me with an idea for me to do a little filler material. She had this idea of a CHCA newsman (CHCA was Red Deer's local news which was cancelled back in October). The idea was the newsman was out of work but still sticking around Red Deer to get a bunch of news stories that didn't really matter. Jenna said I only needed about two minutes of material and like that the character of Lawrence Cameron was born. I spent the first show as Lawrence Cameron interviewing Chip the teacup from Red Deer College's production of "Beauty and the Beast", and then I interviewed Jenna who was a nurse afraid of contracting swine flu.

It was fun, and suddenly I was asked to be a part of the comedy troupe, this way I would be performing and also writing and directing some of the sketches.

After a brief hiatus in December, I joined Bullskit back in January and performed in each month of their shows until the final one this past week. I wrote 7 sketches in total, some of which I'm not entirely proud of but I loved the process.

I think the thing I loved most about Bullskit was working with an ensemble, we all worked together, we put our egos aside and took suggestions. Sometimes there were disagreements with what the show should be, but I don't think we ever had arguments, we all were trying to achieve the same goal, to make the best show possible.

But I suppose the best thing about it was Bullskit was always fun, sometimes I would come into rehearsals not wanting to be there, but it always ended with us having a lot of laughs, and forgetting our troubles. I remember in February and March in particular where I had many money problems, going into a Bullskit rehearsal would cheer me up and forget about my problems for just a little while.



Because of Bullskit I was able to let loose more than I was used to on stage. I can honestly say I got to do and say things on stage I never I would. I think I'm a stronger actor because of Bullskit, I was able to experience a type of fearlessness I never had before. It's that fearlessness of not worrying about looking like an idiot, or not worrying about whether or not the audience will laugh at you, and once you can get past all that you're just having fun, and for that I was reminded why I wanted to be an actor in the first place.

I'm not sure if I'll be doing Bullskit again next year, who knows, but if last Saturday was my last time on stage doing it, I would say I was grateful for the experience and I thank the people responsible for releasing my inner clown.

Blogging at 1:30 in the morning

What does one have to say at 1:30 in the morning, I'm about to find out. I'm a little wired right now, so I don't feel like sleeping just yet. I am a little tired, and I'm sure I will fall asleep if I close my eyes right now, but I don't really want to fall asleep just yet.

Today consisted of me sleeping in, so for me I don't think I got enough out of my day than I should've, this has concluded with me staying up late. When I got out of bed I had an audition to go to at the college. I arrived an hour early, I went to the library to print out a copy of my acting resume. Afterwards I had an hour to kill so I spent in perusing books in the library. There was a book of film criticism by Jonathan Rosenbaum that looked interesting, I may sign that out later.

After going through the library I found a copy of the latest "Sight and Sound" film magazine, I spent the last few minutes of my free time going through that. There was an interesting article on the future of movies and how many people think studios are making way for the end independent movies forever.

After that I proceeded to the arts centre for my audition, it was for the lead part in a staged reading of new play by a local writer. The play was called "Tumaini", about a teacher who goes through a life changing experience after visiting Africa. I know very little about the play, and knew little about the audition, I only found out about it the night before when Tanya, my former teacher asked me to come in and audition. Jeff Woodward was the other chap auditioning, we greeted eachother in the hallway, we had no animosity between the two of us despite the fact we were up for the same part. Jeff went in first, a few minutes later I went it, I did my piece, then did a cold read, was thanked for my troubles then I left.

At home I thought of watching a movie, but I decided against it. I picked up my copy of "Moby Dick" which I was in the middle of reading and read a few chapters before going to my rehearsal for "Bullskit". At about 4:45, I stopped reading "Moby Dick" and went to get something to eat, I stopped at Quiznos which was a mistake, (I need to get groceries tomorrow).

At about 5:12, I started towards the Matchbox theatre for my Bullskit rehearsal. When I got there Jenna, Matt, and Serge were all there. The people using the theatre before us were cleaning up.

We got into the theatre approximately at 5:30 when rehearsal was to officially start. We did a check it, did a few warm up games and rehearsed our sketches. We ended everything at about 9:10, I went home and went on Facebook, how addictive Facebook it, I also went on Twitter. I Facebooked and Tweeted two different status updates to give people more things to read about me.

I went downstairs at around 10:00, watched a half hour of television, went back upstairs, took out "Moby Dick", and proceeded to read until 1:15. I thought I was tired enough to go to bed but not quite. I didn't write anything in either of my respective blogs so I figured why not write something right now? And this is where you came it, that was my day, looking back at it, the one thing I can say about it is I paid a lot of attention to the time.

And Now a poem

Everything I want to say only I'm not as eloquent a writer nor a speaker.

The Power to Read

I've been having an obsession of books over the past week. Books have been on my mind, they are usually on my mind, but this week they have been more so. I am amazed at the power of what the written word can do to a person. Books can inspire, they can change your perspective, they can take you away. A single sentence in a book can be magical if an author knows how to use it the right way, I would compare it to a sequence or a shot in a movie that could have that same effect. Words when brought together in a certain way can become poetry.

I haven't gotten the written word and how important it really is until only recently, there's something special in wanting to read, I think it is a need in all of us, to learn something more. Perhaps the best book I can think of on the importance of books that I have ever read is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The book takes place in a not too distant future where reading has become outlawed, people have become slaves to prescription drugs and television. The fire department are no longer people who fight fires, but actually are the ones who are sent to burn books hidden by other people, the temperature a book needs to be at to burn is 451 hence the title. I read the book about five years ago and I still remember it, just recently I saw the film version for the first time which was directed by one of my favorite director's Francois Truffaut.

For anyone who knows anything about Truffaut, he loved books as much as he loved films. His version of Fahrenheit 451 is less a science fiction story than it is a love letter to the written word. In the most touching scene, the hero, a fireman named Montag opens a book for the first time to see what it is he sets on fire. In the scene you can see the exhilaration felt for opening the book and reading those words on the page, it's poetry in motion which to me is what a great film does. It also didn't hurt that the book Montag chose to read was Dickens' "David Copperfield", which if people who pay attention to this blog was my first Dickens book I ever read, and it brought me back to the time when I opened that book for the first time and read that first sentence, so on that note the film connected to me on a very personal level.

After viewing the film, I started looking at my library of books that I still had to read, I picked one out at random, it was "Moby Dick", which I'm in the middle of right now, and find it hard sometimes to put down.

I often wonder if the power of reading is getting lost somewhere in today's world. Sometimes I don't feel that way, I remember when every child was reading some "Harry Potter" book, it made me glad that they were reading even something. But still there is that nagging feeling that reading has become out of date, and too many people refer to people on television for their information. These are the people I hold contempt for, they use words, but they twist them in a way meant to confuse from the real point. To them, words are used as fear tactics and steer the viewer away from the truth. Just recently there was an uproar for the United States' new healthcare plan. The opposers of the bill tried to twist the words of that in order to make something out of it that wasn't there, to the public's credit, they didn't buy it, and this is what gives me hope.

I wonder how close we are to Bradbury's vision of the future, or if actually outlawing the written word will ever become illegal, I don't ever see it going that far, personally I think I would be lost without it, books helps us in sharing our human experience, they can bring us back to feelings we have felt before, and they can make us feel a little less lonely when we are alone. I know I can be alone for hours with a book I love, yet it would feel as if time had stood still. I think this is why I try to write in this blog as much as I can, it's trying to communicate something through the written word, isn't it wonderful to be able to express something that way?

Those Big Questions or What happens when I have coffee with my mom

I think this has been a recurring theme with me, but I honestly feel we are all some how connected. For reasons unfathomable to me, I got into a theological discussion today with non other than my mother. We had coffee, we started talking about our lives, our jobs, money, our worries. She asked me about why I love Charles Dickens, I tried to explain to no avail, then out of all that we started talking about God.

Before I get into the specifics of that conversation a little bit of background is in order. I may have said this earlier but I grew up with a somewhat lackadaisical upbringing on religion. God was never forced on me or my brother while we were growing up, but the whole christian religion was implied for us to follow to the best of our ability. This meant going to church on Sundays when we as a family could all get up early enough not to be late. We weren't a model christian family, but in the end I would say we survived better than the so-called Christians did.

Religion in our family has become a little non-existent, we have a few reminders but it's no longer the occasional ritual it once was. My mother is probably the most religious of all of us, this has to do with the fact that she came from a family where religion was forced on her. One of her sisters married a minister and another one of her sisters plays the piano for her church congregation every Sunday. I could never say my mom was indoctrinated as far into religion as her sisters, and I thank God for it. Ironically my mom's family is also that of my Uncle who converted to Buddhism in later life. My mom still is very spiritual and she does feel guilt about not going to church every Sunday and not leading the normal Christian life as her sisters. I remain philosophical about the whole thing, but I suppose this lead to our conversation we had about religion today.

I like talking to my mom sometimes about religion because she has a very open mind when it comes to those things, and I sense she wants to understand more than she may know. I'm no theologian myself, I've pretty much adopted my own religion over the years after some personal experiences, but basically my mom asked me a question she never quite asked before. "What do you think about God"?

One of the things I love is philosophy, because through philosophy you get to ask questions, and the great thing about these questions is they can all have different answers considering who is answering them. I'm still a young person, my perceptions of life change with every new experience I encounter, I can't say what kind of a man I will be when I'm 90 years old, I like to think I have an idea, but today at 29 I am a very different person than who I thought I would be when I was 10. Much of this has to do with my idea of God.

Do I believe in God? That is a very interesting question. There are people who do believe in God, the one preached about in church, the one we are told to follow, the one who is in the bible, is this the right God? This I'm not sure. I look at the God from the Old Testament and then I look at the God from The New Testament, to me they are two completely different entities yet they come from the same book. We are told they are the same being, the difference is one is very vengeful and the other is very forgiving. "For God So Loved The World he gave his only son", is this the same God who loved the world so much, he decided to flood it in order to wipe away all the evil? The flood came first, then he decided to sacrifice his only son for it, how that for a mixed message?

I remember as a kid I had these kinds of questions all the time, I would ask a Youth councillor from our church. They usually took me out for ice cream probably to soften me up, but I was always skeptical about what was in the bible compared to what was in real life. One thing that bugged me was how God created animals on one day and then created man the next. Now if dinosaurs are considered animals, and they came over 65 million years before mankind, how could you count that as one day? The reason I got from this is in God's universe, to him one day is like a million years or something like that, at the time, that was good enough to swallow. Of course in Christianity we are asked to take a lot of things on faith, in fact that is what religion is all about: faith, to believe in something that has no proof, I get that, I truly do, and I think that's a wonderful thing, it's the physical versus the metaphysical. I don't think there is anything wrong with faith, just like I don't think there is anything wrong with questioning it. Where was I? Oh yes, how do I feel about God?

I have been asked many times about my views on God, does he exist, doesn't he, I don't have the answer, and many people tell me I should have the answer, either he exists for me or he doesn't. Here's what it comes down to, I believe, I believe in something, I don't believe in nothing, therefore in that way I am not an atheist, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. What I love to do is trying to know the unknowable, trying to find the mysteries of the universe, what's the meaning of life, why are we here. We aren't meant to know the answer but I think it's worthwhile to pursue the question, it's what keeps us learning, and if we stop learning, then there really isn't any point to anything.

Okay let's get back on topic, because I feel I've rambled on and on about nothing in particular. For me the God that is preached in Sunday schools, in churches, in cathedrals, by the Bishops, The Pope, The President, and the media, that God has been diluted, bastardized if you will into something that no longer exists for me. What does exist for me is something that is intangible, that no one can see, perhaps even fathom. Is this a spirit, a ghost, a living being, an entity? I don't know what it is, does it keep order in the universe, I'm also not sure, but for me there has to be something more than what I see with my own eyes, I can't say it's a presence that has presented itself to me in some spiritual way, call it a feeling, or an intuition, call it whatever you like. It's a possibility, it's a certain kind of faith.

How are We Going to Save This Generation Or A Little Bit Of Soul Goes a Long Way

Where did my youth go? I don't even think I had one, I jumped right into old man status, I'm the oldest 29 year old you'll ever meet. Look at my tastes in movies, music, and books. Even my clothes are out of date, but I don't care, you know what, I think I was meant to be born decades ago, but destiny screwed up and put me in a very uninspired, corporate owned decade. Movies are boring, music is boring, even the way we listen to music is boring, (A turntable is way cooler than an IPod), film is better than digital.

This isn't my fault I'm so retro, I was born that way, I worked my way from the past to the present, I'd rather be in the past.

Let's look at music today shall we? It sucks, it just plain sucks, it's all nice and pretty, glossed with neatly produced melodies without any edge. Where's the music with soul? Where's the music that makes you wanna shout and holler? In other words, where the rebellion? Do you know what I see when I look at the musicians of today? They're a bunch of pussies, they dress up to work with the establishment, they don't have an original thought in their pretty little heads. They sing into the microphones with no personality, until the producer and music executives are happy.

I'm talking to the people who make rock and roll, yes you people, you so and so's who are supposed to be the heirs to Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Who etc.... Somebody take the freakin mantle already.

You know what we need? We need another Kurt Cobain already! We've been waiting long enough, where is he already? Do you know what kids are growing up with these days? Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, isn't that sad? That is sad, it's sad and it's dull, we are making dull children. These are dull children who are sitting in their rooms listening to Hannah Montana, reading about how vampires aren't scary, but sexy, and watching movies about vampires that aren't scary but sexy.

Pretty soon those children will grow up and they are going to be dull, they are going to be boring, and they are going to make your life a living hell.

We need to put the soul back in these people, they've been sucked dry by Hannah Montana and sexy vampires.



For you people who have children who you fear are going to be dull, don't worry, there is still time. First of all confiscate their IPod and lend them your old turntable. Second, take out one of your old vinyls circa 1965-69 (I recommend a large dose of "The Beach Boys Pet Sounds", followed by Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde", and "The Beatles Abbey Road").

After you expose your child to this, you might find a change in them, they might become a bit rebellious, don't worry, this is natural. The child is now ready for "The Nuggets Collection: Original Artifacts from the first phsycedelic Era". You can get either the album, or the four disc box set. This set is full of many garage bands from the sixties such as Love, The Kingsmen, and Captain Beefheart to name a few.

Once your child is exposed to this, the Hannah Montana spell should be broken, if not, drastic measures such as 70s punk rock, 80s new wave, and 90s grunge should be taken. After awhile your child should be rejecting The Disney Channel altogether, and vampires will again seem scary and not sexy anymore.

The one warning to this is your child might want to invest in an electric guitar and a garage for his/her band to play in, but don't worry, with any luck your child will develop talent and have the power to change the world/music industry forever.

It's a long and winding road, but the benefits will be worth it, the world will thank you, music will thank you, the future will thank you, I will thank you. All we have in this world to keep us separate from others is our individuality, don't let Hannah Montana crush that.