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Dreams and Inward Journeys... The Non-Plagiarized Title Edition
Thursday, June 2nd
June second was important for a couple of reasons, which is why I'm including it here. But let's start in the morning, when I woke up from two weird dreams. The first I will call the King Lear: The Musical dream. Now I have NEVER had an "Actor's Nightmare" dream before... where I don't know the play and 'oh no, what do I do?' I've never had one of those. Apparently until now. My dream started with me backstage for King Lear. I believe it was Miss Mann who told me that I had five minutes. I asked her until what, and she said until we did King Lear. Instead of freaking out, I kind of just asked "Why are we doing King Lear? We haven't rehearsed it in a year." Yeah, apparently it didn't really both me that we hadn't rehearsed in a year. And I knew that I had time before I needed to go on, because Mike and Andy's song was first. That brings a "what?" to normal, waking John... but sleeping John was still trying to figure out my first lines. I've always thought that if you can remember your first lines to a play or scene, all the other lines will fall into place. So I spent some time trying to think about what my first line was... and as Mike and Andy's song ended to thunderous applause, and I was shoved on stage, I still hadn't figured out what I was supposed to say. And the set wasn't the King Lear set, it was the On The Razzle store set... kind of. And Brittany, the really nice young lady in the Euphonics, was there in a yellow dress... and she ordered some turkey. I, being the great store clerk I am, said I would get her turkey and then handed her chocolate. I then sang her a turkey song (a musical, remember?). I wish I could remember the lyrics... but I forgot them almost as soon as I wrote down that I had this weird dream. I do remember that I had a southern accent for no reason... and that the harmony for the song came from off-stage (it sounded like Chelsey singing).
Speaking of Chelsey, I left that dream and had what I call the Dirt Bike dream. Chelse was watching a tv in what looked a lot like my parents' TV room. I told her that she could see everything from the monitor... and then I walked out the door onto a dirt bike course. What followed was some smack talking by the leaders to two rival dirt bike gangs (I was not one of the leaders... I was probably a toady) which ended in a bet: the race would be "winner take all!" I know this sounds lame to the max (gang sign), but I was asleep... give me a break. I don't remember much of the race, but I do know my team won (I didn't win, but my team/gang did)... so the dream ended when I went back to Chelsey in that room and was trying to figure out what to do with the other gangs bikes. I don't know why I told you that.
When I woke up, I was interested to see the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN. Now, bitter John of old hated all these kids for being smarter and better than he was. For some reason, older less-bitter (really?!) John rooted for everyone. EVERYONE! (at first anyway) The first thing I noticed about the contestants was that many of them had four or five names (instead of what I thought to be the common three). Is this to what parents are now reduced? The only way to separate their children from everyone else is to give them ridiculous and long names? Please! But I didn't blame the kids for that... I actually pitied them. Poor, soon-to-be-beat-up-daily kids. And, when they got down to only four spellers I had a different thought: Where are the white kids? Um... no where to be found near the end of the bee. Let's face it, fellow crackers, everyone else is better than us at everything. What do white people still have? Golf? Hello Tiger and Vijay. Hockey? Those are Canadians, and barely count. White-Collar crime? Ha! We WROTE that book! Regardless, I was rooting for everyone except for the smart-ass little seventh grade kid who was trying too hard to look smart (Oh I ALWAYS get the French words... Boo Hoo!). Then something funny happened: The "S" fell off the board. It became the "cripps National Spelling Bee." This is funny for two reasons: 1) The name of the bee is now misspelled; 2) I don't think that the Crips would sponsor a spelling bee. The Blood might... they've always been the more philanthropic of the two gangs.
Anyway, I wanted to share with you a whole list of fun words I learn from the bee. Cool, huh? Here we go: Peccavi - A confession of sin.
Onomasiologic - (relating to onomasiolgy - the study of names or naming; also, a branch of semantics concerned with related words and their meanings)
Hodiernal - Of this day; belonging to the present day.
Onychophagy - The habit of nail biting.
Epideictic - Serving to show forth, explain, or exhibit; -- applied by the Greeks to a kind of oratory, which, by full amplification, seeks to persuade.
Fun stuff, huh? NO?! How about making fun of me for something else. Like this...
Mock me, will you? Here is an article about how Sherlock Holmes is being written by modern-day American authors and is appearing in new books. With a couple of novels already commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate on the way, Sherlock Holmes is set to make an American comeback. Could this new interest be a sign of things to come? Could this finally mean that I get a chance to mock Holmes myself in a hilarious and outrageous parody of my own creation? Could rhetorical questions come from me in rapid succession as if I actually cared what you were thinking? The world may never know.
And now, the real reason I'm posting about this day: My first Level 2 Conservatory class. My instructor for this level is the same as my Level 1 class: Gellman. Now, if you'll recall, Gellman gives it to you straight. Perhaps too straight, at times. And, seeing as I hadn't actually done improvisation in one full month, I was rusty. And I got it. I got it handed to me. Improv is NOT forgiving... and neither is Gellman. I will give him one thing--in this level more than the last--you can tell that he's not going to ALLOW us to fail. He approaches the teaching with the desperation of someone who thinks that he will fail if we fail. While that's refreshing, I wasn't mentally (or physically) prepared for how hard it was going to be to be back doing improv. It basically kicked the living sh*t out of me for about two hours and fifty-seven minutes. At the very end of class, Fernando and I did a scene where he found a bottle in my room. I had just quit drinking... but what was this bottle doing in my room? I had to admit to him that I needed his help. It wasn't a funny scene, but it was the first "good" scene I had done in a month or two.
Epilogue: John was awarded three dirt bikes in winning the challenge. He sold them all to pay for his new-found musical habit.
All children from the Spelling Bee were beaten up right after the competition, as they ran into the National Bully Convention in the next ball-room over.
The Level 2 class continues to kick John's ass.