Active!!

So here is an update on the moobs (man-boobs)... I gotta say that I am still a solid "A Cup" but the moobs should be scared!!

Jeremie and I started the South Beach Diet last week. It is rough and it takes A LOT of work and a lot of shopping!! I have never eaten so many vegetables in one week in my entire life!! It seems like I spend all of my times preparing meals because they are all chock full of vegetables so I have to spend a year and a day cutting, steaming, sautee-ing and what not. The work is worth it though! I lost 6 pounds in one week and I am already down another 2 pounds in week 2! Next monday we get to move on to Phase II of the diet which reintroduces bread. Most people are excited about that and while I LOVE bread I have found that I miss sugar the most! I don't only miss it... I have intense cravings for it! I dream of sugar, sugar, sugar!! We can have Splenda or sugar substitutes, but it just isn't the same. =( As much as I miss it I just think of my results over the past week and that helps keep things in focus!

So... many of you know about my love/hate relationship with my Wii Fit game. It is good times and I really do enjoy it, but there is only so many times that you can take little Japanese child voices telling you that you are obese before you get a massive complex!! Not only do they call you obese but it has a really condescending tone and your little Mii character gets squatty and fat when they say it. Plus... when you step on the balance board for the first time... it. groans. IT GROANS!! Like I am some giant whale that is going to break it because I way 16 tons!!

Anyhoo... I got the Wii Active for super cheap at Costco the other day and tried it for the first time. It took less time than the regular workout on the Fit and I sweat a million times more! I put it on the low impact setting, but got the perfect workout for somemone as out of shape as I am! Plus.. the trainers are very encouraging throughout and I know that it is dumb, but sometimes it is nice to hear that you are doing a good job as opposed to being snickerd at behind your back by Japanese children.

So... MOOBS WATCH OUT! I am on the 30 day challenge on the Active and the diet has produced incredible results thus far. Your days are numbered moobs. Mark my words, your days are numbered!

Hibernation....

Well... It's that time again!! The Olympics are on again so I will be going into hibernation for the next 2 weeks!!

I don't know why I enjoy the Olympics so much, but they have been something I have looked forward to ever since I can remember. I think it has something to do with the fact that my father is a sports nut and he always enjoyed the Olympics so I was exposed to them at a very young age, but more to do with the fact that I am ultra competitive!! =)

I get kind of annoyed when I remember that I had to read in a book... when I was in SECOND grade... that my own first cousin was an Olympian and one of the elite divers of the world in his day. No one ever told me that and that is kind of lame. You'd think that would be something that is mentioned every now and again, but no. I had to read about it in school. Anyhoo... he was also the US Diving judge at the Beijing Olympics so the tradition continues and gives me a personal connection to the olympics.

I am sure that I will really geek out about something that I see or read about in the next two weeks that I will post here so stay tuned for Dave's Super-Duper-Olympic-Geek Blog for the next 2 weeks.

Red, Silk Petticoat

Last night was Oscar night! If you didn't know already, Jeremie and I, along with our friend Joey, are watching every movie that has won best picture in order starting from the beginning!! It is a pretty daunting task and it is probably going to take us about 5 years to complete considering our schedules and the fact that there are over 80 movies!

I have been dreading last night's movie because I saw it in the movie theaters in a re-release about 10 years ago and was so bored that I wanted to gnaw my own hand off just to give me something to do. Since then I have done nothing but trash talk this movie which has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way because, apparently, it's like EVERYONE's favorite movie EVER and people talk about it with a reverence usually reserved for scripture! You guessed it. The movie was...



This post may get a little long in the spirit of the movie. I spent 3 hours and 40 minutes watching this movie so you may spend the same time reading this blog post!!

The thing that amazed me most was the difference a decade makes when you watch a movie. This is true for better or worse. There are movies that I LOVED and would watch over and over and over and over as a child or a teenager that I can't even stomach 10 minutes of now. I was a very different person when I saw this movie for the first time so it was two different people that watched the movie. One that had already seen it whose mind was clouded with the judgement administered ages ago, and one that had learned at least a little patience and appreciate and other things that adults are supposed to be.

The company really helped. We were joined by our good friend Terre and two more of Joey's friends who LOVE this movie (see above). Terre is a MASSIVE fan of GWTW. He isn't participating in oscar night with us, but he works in Joey's salon so he is in the know. He has been eyeing last night ravenously as he declared months ago he was joining us and he would provide the movie as Joey got him this amazing, red velvet, 638 disk set for Christmas. He was so excited and such a fan of the movie that it was hard not to get wrapped up in his excitement!!

Normally, I hate it when people talk during a movie, but the crowd last night was one of those amazing groups of movie watchers that knows when it is okay to throw in a comment or two and knows when you should be quiet. Total side note.. but the best casts of actors I ever worked with had the same skill. Terre provided jokes and trivia aobut the movie throughout and I loved it! It was like Pop Up Video GWTW style. For instance... at the beginning of the movie we see Mammy tying Scarlet's corset super tight. Then she throws on this green dress and when you see it pulled down over Scarlett's head the bodice of the dress is magically sinched and perfect.



Let me give you some historical information about GWTW. It took over 3 years to make. No one had seen spectacle of this magnitude. It was rife with set backs. The first director quit. The second director had a nervous breakdown, was replaced, and then came back. The producer, David O. Selznick, had a highly publicised search for the actress to play the iconic role of Scarlett O'Hara. All this for the, then unheard of, bank-busting price of 4 million dollars!!! Gossip of the day called the movie "Selznick's Folly."

Gone With the Wind premiered on December 15, 1939, at Atlanta's Fox Theatre. The mayor gave all civic employees and school kids the day off and over 300,000 people showed up at the theatre. A gallop poll indicated that 56.5 million people were anticipating the release of this film. Let's put that into some perspective. The population of the US was, roughly, 130 million at the time so that means that OVER A THIRD OF THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WANTED TO SEE THIS MOVIE! The anticipation had reached such a fever pitch that New York Times' Frank S. Nugent wrote, "Anyway, 'it' has arrived at last, and we cannot get over the shock of not being disappointed; we had almost been looking forward to that." (Total side note.. what an egotistical douche. Sorry honey, only the queen should speak in terms of "we")

The New York Times weren't the only ones to gush. The movie was an overnight sensation and it received nearly unanimous, and magnanimous, praise from critics! The box office haul was an unprecedented $198,676,459. Perspective time again... the average movie ticket in 1939 was 23 CENTS!!! Adjusting for inflation moves that total to over 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS domestically! Eat your heart out Avatar! In the all time list of box office grosses that have been adjusted for inflation, Avatar is a paltry 21st place. More perspective, the movie came out in 1939 when the great depression still gripped the country.

And the love just kept rolling in! Come Oscar time, the movie had been nominated for Just about everything! It won Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Interior Decoration (that was a category back then), Best Cinematography Color (they split this into B/W and Color back then), Best Editing. It broke the record for nominations (13) and wins (8). Parallel history: GWTW beat, among others, the Wizard of Oz for best picture that year. At the Oscars, Judy Garland won a special award and miniature Oscar for best youth performer at 17 years old. Garland also treated the crowd to a performance of Over the Rainbow at the ceremonies. Now, the ceremonies that year were being filmed for a documentary and so everyone showed up dressed to the 9's! Apparently the female crowd was just dropping with ermine, mink, silk, and diamonds. So.. GWTW, Judy Garland, Bette Davis as another nominee, Spencer Tracy handing out awards,furs, bling.. complete homo overload and it's like Hollywood peaked in 1939 and the stars couldn't shine any brighter! (I'm breathless thinking about it all)

Interesting Oscar trivia: The winning screenwriter, Sidney Howard, was run over by a tractor on his farm in Massachusetts and became the first postumous Oscar winner. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, was the first African American to win an Oscar! This was 1939 over 20 years before the climax of the civil rights movement. When her name was announced the guests heard a "hallelujah" shouted from the back of the room! Her speech; however, was pre-prepared by the studio but McDaniel was obviously touched and had to end her speech with a chocked "thank you," after which she rushed back to her table crying with her face buried in her hands. I get a bit chocked up when I think about the HISTORY of it all, because she gives a truly once-in-a-lifetime performance. Her performance was the ONLY think that enjoyed the first time around. I enjoyed it so much that I raved about it for days afterwards.



It would be over 20 years before another African American won an Oscar (Sidney Potier in Lilies of the Field) and another FIFTY years before another African American actress won an Oscar (Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost). Revolutionary!

McDaniel's co-star and fellow nominee Olivia de Haviland, quickly left her table (she was sitting in the front with the producer Selznik while McDaniel was sitting at the back of the room) and went to the kitchens to cry. The producers wife had to tell her to grow up and go congratulate McDaniel. Funny, de Haviland plays a selfless saint in GWTW, but couldn't muster the personal fortitude to suck it up and congratulate the monumental acheivement of her co-star. Silly Hollywood phonies. Who am I to talk though, if I was nominated for an oscar and didn't win I am sure that I would cry like a girl and actively try to destroy winner. =)

So, now that my inner trivia geek has been satiated, I can say that I loved the movie this time around. The most facinating part of this process is seeing the development of filmmaking as a craft. The stories have gotten better, the direction more clear, the acting more truthful, the cinemetography more dynamic. In short, "better!" Now with GWTW, and Wizard of Oz, etc. you throw color into the mix and this year Hollywood took a GIANT leap forward.

The first time I saw it, Vivienne Leigh was annoying to me. Scarlett O'Hara is NOT a likable woman and I didn't like Vivienne Leigh. Looking back, I think I didn't like her because it was like watching the version of myself then parading on the screen. I was so selfish, arrogant, and worldly but I didn't know it just like Scarlett. It is never fun to have a 40 foot mirror reflecting all of your flaws for the world to see. This time around, I enjoyed every minuted of her performance. She's in almost every single minute of the movie so that is a lot of enjoyment going on!! I think Terre summed it up best when he said "mmmmm... the world lives and dies on that eyebrow," after one of Scarlett's signature looks of judgement. I have that same eyebrow and have now embraced the ugly parts of me. Scarlett O'Hara and me, were the bitchy ones in the corner of a party that sit judging everything going on in front of us. We don't care if we mingle because we are having too much fun at your expense. Like I said... I have embraced the ugly side of me. =)

My emotional vocabulary is much deeper which helped me enjoy the movie even more. I know how it feels to be consumed by the idea of love for a person and the agonizing pangs of the heart that induces. I know what it is like to realize your mistakes to late. What I found annoying before, became resonant, touching, and sometimes painful. Like I said, what a difference a decade makes!

If you haven't seen Gone With the Wind, you really must. So much of the movie is in our pop culture lexicon that after watching it, you will realize that you finally get the punchline of jokes you have heard for 30 years!

So there is my oversized post for an oversized movie!



Clark Gable... VERY good in this movie.



Olivia de Havilland... good, but so sickeningly sweet and selfless that you want to slap her.



"I don't know nothin' bout birthin' no babies!" BEST MOVIE LINE EVER!

Funk

I'm in a funk right now. I don't know why. The rose colored glasses have come off and I don't like it when that happens. I start focusing on the negative side of things and that is not a good thing. I see a fight or a challenge in everything. I prepare long, eloquent arguments that I will be able to rattle off like a scene in a movie if someone gets on the wrong nerve. Or I go off on someone unexpectedly and without reason. No good.

I just need to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.

A night at the Symphony

Jeremie and I, along with our friends Laura, Marquita, and Brian, purchased a 4 show pass for the Phoenix Symphony this year. It was kind of pricey ($80 per person), but that equals about $20 per show, which is not that bad of a price when you consider how much theatre or the like tickets run nowadays!!

Our first show was back in fjlrjkejl and was Beethoven's 9th symphony (the one with Ode to Joy in it!) and was amazing. Like, for real amazing. When the chorus started belting out the climax of the final movement I really felt like jumping out of my seat. I felt like my mother wanting to get out of the van to run across a flowered meadow on the way to the grand canyon... that's how good it was!

Anyhoo... last night was the Eight Seasons. The conductor, Michael Christie who does this funny butt dance sometimes when he is really into the conducting of a piece, paired Vivaldi's 4 seasons, with Piazzolla's 4 Seasons of Buenos Aires. It's kind of like classical 17th century baroque music meeds a dirty, sultry mash up of classical music and tango. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!!!

First we had dinner at Hanny's downtown which is starting to make some major blips on our favorite restaurant radar. It has great food and great style and the amount of pretension is just right. It is a nice occasion restaurant, but you don't feel like you have to make a million dollars to not be sneered at. =) I had to include this picture becuase it is too freakin cool! Here is a picture of their coat room:

It has a glass floor so you can see down to the levels below. =)

The concert didn't include the whole symphony because Vivaldi wrote his 4 Seasons before the concept of the symphony was created. It only included the strings and a harpsacord... which is the first time I have ever heard a harpsacord live! =) Because of the smaller group of musicians the concert was held at the Orpheum downtown instead of symphony hall. If you haven't been there... the Orpheum is GORGEOUS!! Here are some pictures...





As I said before... there were two pieces mashed into one: Vivaldi and Piazzolla. The Vivaldi was nice, but the Piazzolla was AMAZING!! Very different music like I said. The Vivaldi had some hoity toidy soloist that teaches at Yale... that SUCKED! I know nothing about the violin or violin performance, but I know that this guy was trash! He played a bit out of tune and his bow squeaked up and down the strings as he struggled to not butcher some incredibly difficult violin solos. He wasn't very successful. The Piazzolla, on the other hand, had this soloist named Karen Gomyo that BLEW MY MIND!! She was playing these really intense tango rythms and employing some really crazy techniques like playing ugly notes on purpose below the bridge and slapping her hand on the board to make a percussion sound. She was snaking her head and body in time with the music. At times she seemed angry at the music and was spanking her violin (a rare "Ex Faulis" Stradavarius from 1703 BTW) with her bow to teach it a lesson. At one point she had broken several strings on her bow and without missing a beat she ripped off the broken strings of the bow and continued her masterful performance!! I was breathless watching and I keep making typos now because I am so excited remembering how amazing she was!!!!!

We have had such an amazing time thus far (2 more shows to go... Mozart's Requiem and American Masters) that we have already decided to buy the same for next year. Y'all should buy tickets and come with us!!! Let me know if you want to join and I will le you know when we buy tickets again! =)

Impasse....

I view the world through rose colored glasses. I know that I shouldn't, but I can't help it. I always have. Things are not so bad. They will get better. Part of the rose glasses curse is that I have to make sure that people are happy.

Actually it is a deeply rooted, psychological, OCD-like need to make people feel better or give them a new perspective that will open up a pathway to be happy. If I can't do it I will fixate on it until Iknow that things are better. Jeremie calls it blowing sunshine up people's A**es.

Someone I know and love more than anything is hurting and is not very happy, but they refuse to let me blow sunshine. They are wired opposite from me and need to bear tough feelings alone. What this person does't realize is that I just want to blow the sunshine becuase I love them so much that their pain is my pain. What I am having difficulty realizing is that my need to blow sunshine is a selfish need. It sucks. I am at an impasse...

All this after a fight with another person I love.... what is going on??! This week is effed up. I blame Republicans. It can't have anything to do with me, right?!

Theatre....

Jeremie and I saw a show last night. It was not good. In fact, it was really quite bad which is kind of infuriating. Yes, I am out of the game so I realize that I am armchair theatre critiquing here, but the training and experience I gained in the theatre don't go away. Nor do the expectations. I have seen about 20 productions from this same theatre company. Most of their shows have been excellent. A few have been superb. Very few have been bad.

This one was really bad, and it didn't have to be. They had the script and the talent to make for an incredible evening of theatre. Unfortunately, the director had the entire cast standing in a straight line shoulder to shoulder for 3 hours. I couldn't help but cringe and remember all of the times I had been screamed at by various directors for getting caught standing in a line. As and actor I became VERY conscious of the line and I avoided it like the plague. Imagine my disgust and utter disbelief when I realized that a cast of 5 had actually been BLOCKED to stand in a straight line. Unforgivable. A sophomore in high school could have done a better job directing.

The director of the show was obviously out of his depth to the point that I had to wonder if he had EVER directed a show before. Kind of like the movie Ed Wood where the producers of the Christian movie ask Ed Wood if he knows anything at all about the art of movie making.

I feel very bad for the cast. Cast -- know that you are great. Director -- I don't even know what to say. Unforgivable! Your audience has an expectation for your theatre's shows. You should have the self awareness to realize that you should not have directed this show.