Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Archives for May 2011

Ride or Be Thrown

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Life keeps happening, even after I dig in my heels and insist it is not going to happen anymore, and won’t it just hold still for a second while I catch up on sleep or even take a minute to fix that weird thing my hair keeps doing.

It’s a stubborn beast, life. Like some sort of angry bull you can try all you want to wrangle and ride, but will ultimately head in the direction it was planning to head before you ever climbed aboard.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Which begs the question – couldn’t you just ride a cow instead?

(I actually asked someone that this weekend. Are there riding cows? Or, if someone sits on their backs do their udders drag on the ground getting snagged on rocks and stuff? This is how little I know about the natural world.)

(In the same conversation we decided my autobiography would be entitled, Flowers are Bullshit, which I think is an accurate depiction of both my general ignorance of the natural world as well as my aforementioned naïve and/or stubborn attempts to wrangle the non-cow of life in any direction that suits me.)

This past month the raging bull of life has been on a rampage. Actually, it’s been a sort of a bull fight as we’ve intersected with other lives along the way. We reconnected with forgotten friends, gained an unexpected roommate, and admitted that both our house and band situations are permanent fixtures in our lives so it was time to start treating them that way.

I feel like E and I have largely been in our own rodeo for this first year of the house. Sure, we worked, rehearsed, and showed up for a requisite amount of dinners and shows with our friends. Yet all of that was a part of our own narrative, our own bull ride. We never got in too deep with anyone else. We were busy wrangling and trying not to get thrown.

At point in the last two weeks my stomach has actually felt like this - meaning either that I felt like I was going through it at the time, or it was happening INSIDE OF my stomach.

Well, these past few weeks we got deep. Bulls have locked horns.

Last Wednesday we went to dinner with a friend we’ve literally never hung out with one on one. I’ve known him for twelve years! Yet, this was the first time we sat together at a table together and traded stories over dinner. Did we know he remodeled his kitchen from the floor to the rafters at the same time he built the new South Street Bridge? Um, that seems like something we couldn’t help but know, yet we didn’t.

Different bulls.

Two Wednesdays ago we got a call from E’s brother, four days out of his Freshman year of college. Could he stay with us? Like, for the weekend, right? No, actually, he had to move back to Philly because he landed a job counseling a theatre camp for the summer. Oh, and an understudy role at the oldest theatre in the country.

Arguably the one person E and I make the most effort to keep up with, and we had no idea he had a job, an audition, and a need to camp on the futon in Arcati Crisis studios.

That is bullshit.

So here I am, fresh from setting up our new PA system, rehearsing, dining out in Manayunk, playing a show in Manayunk, replotting the wiring of Arcati Crisis studios, rehearsing more, attending (and playing) a wedding, driving 150 miles in a single day, reorganizing Arcati Crisis studios slash our brother’s bedroom, and conducting nightly three-hour Rock Band 3 harmony singing sessions – and heading into another dinner in Manayunk, more rehearsals, recording my first new solo tracks in a year-and-a-half, and more (likely including more nightly Rock Band 3 in harmony mode, because I don’t have a harmony-singing little brother living in our recording studio all the time – just for the summer).

The bull keeps raging. Life keeps happening.

Try not to get thrown.

Grading #TheVoice – Battle Round #2

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Here are my first reaction thoughts to tonight’s The Voice Battle Round!

I made my first notes listening totally blind, although tonight it was easy to tell the voices apart. I then went back for a single watch before picking my victor. I didn’t peek at the judges picks until after I made my own.

Here we go! The rankings I list are based on my original team breakdowns from last week.

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Team Cee Lo: Tje Austin (#4) against Nakia (#6) on “Closer”

In my original breakdown of Cee Lo’s team I said Tje had a lot of raw awesome, while Nakia was a sweetheart and a showman, but not the best singer.

Did my opinion hold up? Read more…

Advantage: Tje.
Cee Lo Picked: Nakia

What this means: First, that Cee Lo is a moron. Nakia is a cool interpreter, but he is not the voice. Second, I doubt Vicci will have any problems heading to the finals for team Cee Lo.

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Team Blake: Jared Blake (#5) v. Elowen (#8) on “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

First of all this is one of the best songs of all time – props to Blake for picking a classic suitable for multiple voices. Second of all, I wanted to kick out all three people in this hot mess before the round even started, so I’m not going in with a lot of positive feelings. Read more…

Advantage: Jared
Blake Picked: Jared

What this means: Almost nothing. Jared will never best Patrick, and many of the women left for Blake to pick can probably slip past him as well.

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Team Adam: Javier Colon (#1) v. Angela Wolff (#4) on “Stand By Me”

Adam blew it by not using Angela last week so she could wind up in his final four. Should poor Angela have even bothered to sing against the breakout star of the show so far? Javier would have to fall dead on stage for her to win this, right?

Maybe. If we were judging just on this fight, I think she has a shot. Read more…

Advantage: Tie! Tiebreak to Javier.
Adam picks: Javier

What this means: Adam’s other two picks will be Jeff and Rebecca. Devon might do well on his song against Rebecca, but Adam shouldn’t risk an ostensibly cute boy against the homlier (but better) Jeff.

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Team Christina: Beverly McClellan (#4) v. Justin Grennan (#6) on “Baba O’Riley”

You have no idea how excited I am to see Beverly sing “Baba O’Riley.” Not only is it an amazing pick for her, but it means Christina is taking Beverly very seriously as a competitor even if she’s a little older than the average contestant. Meanwhile, Justin was a token boy for the team, and didn’t do much to prove himself in his teeny audition clip. Read more…

Advantage: Beverly
Christina Picked: Beverly

What this means: Christina will have a big ol’ wildcard spot left on her team after she snaps up Julia, and it could justifiably go to anyone other than the awful Lily Elise.

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This week was lighter on the must buzzed-about contestants (Javier, and to a lesser extent Nakia), but it was full of solid matches that weren’t as puzzling as last week’s. Each judge is left with a clear roadmap for the next two rounds, unless they do something as stupid as Adam did last week or Cee Lo did this week.

So far I think the odds favor Javier on Adam’s team and Vicci on Cee Lo’s, with Patrick likely lasting to the end for Blake. I don’t think X-Tina has her champion yet – Frenchie will make a deep run, but I don’t think she’s destined to be our final winner.

I’ll be back in the coming days with a full recap of the episode!

Hot Yoga, Good Omens, & Happy Endings

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A year ago if you told me I would willingly lock myself in a room heated to 105 degrees with 40% humidity to do 90 minutes of extreme stretches with a gaggle of nearly nude hipsters, dancers, and absurdly ripped gay men, all dripping with sweat…

Actually, I have no idea what I would have done if you told me that a year ago. There’s really no way to predict past me’s response. Maybe I would have asked you to mix me a stronger drink.

I have surprisingly awful balance, but I actually managed to strike this pose twice last night. The first time I promptly fell on my ass due to my complete and utter shock at getting into it. Oh, and the sweat.

Yet, there I was last night at my first Bikram Yoga class, dripping with sweat (a rarity!) and also nearly nude. Nearly nude in public! I like to wear t-shirts to the beach, people. The only time I get naked in front of other people is under carefully controlled conditions on the internet.

That was a joke; I haven’t been naked on the internet for, like, a decade.

After a few months of yoga classes at work I pestered my two fittest co-workers to tag along to a class in the outside world. Possibly as part of some form of ongoing hazing, they suggested I come with them to Bikram yoga.

There I was, half naked and sweating, at one point dropping out of a triangle pose because I was about to faint. I think at some point I also prayed to an undetermined god of yoga to strike me down where I stood. But I stuck with it the full 90 minutes.

(Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this. This might become a blog about homeownership or television shows from time to time, and it’s always a blog about OCD and slight social awkardness, but I swear it’s not going to turn into a blog about yoga. None of us wants to read that.)

(Unless it has to do with slight social awkwardness, in which case it is fair game.)

Nearly ten years ago I was in my first student run theatre production (and my last piece of theatre at Drexel). Being student-run means we had to do everything ourselves – sets, promotion, makeup – everything. And at the time the idea of choosing what to wear onstage seemed a bit beyond me. It had to be what my character would wear, but also say something about him.

Luckily, we had a fantastic advisor, Michelle, a Drexel administrator working on her Fashion degree. I talked out my character ideas with her, and we settled on what I ought to wear.

It turned out fine. The first time E ever saw me was onstage in that show, wearing those clothes.

Later, I had graduated and was living with E, and I decided it was time to get better at singing. I found a voice instructor I wanted to try, and headed to his house on the train. Who was sitting next to me? Michelle, who I hadn’t seen for years, and her daughter.

It turned out fine. That voice instructor didn’t work out (he was creepy), but I came away knowing what I wanted. I eventually found the ideal coach for me. My voice blossomed. My singing became healthier. Now I can rehearse two nights a week with rock bands and not get the slightest bit hoarse.

Last night. I was lying next to the window of the Bikram studio in my dri-fit shirt, already desperately sweating. I’m the kind of sweater that has to bring a second shirt to a wedding, because I will be dripping with sweat on the dancefloor … a dancefloor that’s not heated to 105 degrees or approaching some form of medieval torture.

A man laid his mat next to mine, and I was relieved to see he was not a dancer or absurdly ripped, but a normal dude in a dri-fit shirt like me. He smiled hello and set out a second mat. “For my wife,” he said, so he wasn’t gay either.

Michelle does not typically have wings or appear in a Tony Kushner play, but she still may be my guardian angel.

That put me at ease, even as I mopped the sweat from my brow for the first time and laid back into Savasana (AKA corpse pose, and even that was hard to do in the heat). When I finally emerged from it to start the class, a women’s voice called from off to the right.

“Peter?”

Yes, Michelle was in my yoga class, sitting next to her husband, the normal dude in the shirt.

Despite at points thinking I really was going to pass from this life onto the next, Bikram yoga turned out fine. I stuck it out in the room the entire time, emerging with a new appreciation of 80-degree weather, drenched in sweat on a crazy endorphin high.

Though I hugged Michelle goodbye, I’m starting to think she isn’t real. I mean, I definitely touched her (I wasn’t that high on yoga), but what other explanation is there for her appearing at important junctures in my life to signal that a major decision lies ahead, and it will turn out fine.

Even if she isn’t a Roma Downey-style angel, she’s definitely a good omen.