Friday, November 26, 2010

what are the holidays for, anyway?

So we've got the holidays, right? Those Red Letter Days. Those days that people love because they don't have work, or they get out of work early, so they can spend time alone, or with their families, or whatever. Relax, chill out! If we worked every day of the year we'd die, right? How would we handle our stresses? etc etc etc

Well not everyone does get a day off. What about all those live television shows on Thanksgiving and Christmas? All those football games or basketball games or whatever? Why? Do we really need television 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? Granted I don't know everything there is to know about television stations -- maybe they do take days off, after all, could they just program one day's TV in, hit play, and walk away? -- but still, TV stations make a great effort to let everyone know that they're the ones playing something special on these holidays. But so what? Why don't we as Americans say to ourselves and to every working man and woman around us, "Hey, we deserve a day off, all of us, so how about we all just relax at home with our families or with ourselves and take a well deserved break?"

Every. Single. One of us. And then, the next day, just get back to work.

I guess I just don't understand how a few days a year can't be taken off in some respects. I guess there are probably examples of people who literally cannot take breaks -- emergency personel, etc -- but other than that, it just seems like money-gubbing-greed. Most of us have families -- and if we don't, we still deserve a break every once in a while.

This seems so pointless after I wrote it all out. Oh well. I guess I just had to ask myself the question and it wouldn't shut up in my head until I wrote down something that slightly resembled answers. Who are the holidays for if not everyone can relax?

The lucky ones, I guess.

Corbin

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

the sad and scary truth

Ok my friends. How the hell did you all do it? How? I know you, out there: YEAH, YOU! The one who in highschool had a job that paid $300 a week, and had bought your own car, and had made good grades, and so you were set for life. How'd you do it?! I made $300 a MONTH and worked my ass off, and I couldn't buy a car, there wasn't enough money and ... and ... and...!!

Basically, my problem is as such: I'm a college graduate who is buying a car, and so, very soon, I will have car payments, insurance payments, and student loans to pay. So how the hell am I gonna be able to move out of the house?! I can't get another job because I work all day into the night where I proceed to go directly to rehearsal. I don't know how I'd ever make ends meet if I had my $10/hr job to pay for rent, car, insurance...?! How the...!??!?!?
Whew. Ok. I just wanted to ask you how you did it. If I could gone back and tell my younger self what to do, it would've been "Buy a car in high school", or at least in college. This whole thing just seems so ridiculous. And freaking impossible.

Anyway. That's my life right now. This was just a violent outburst, though, because I'm very happy right now. I just get caught up in thinking about how I'll ever be able to get out of my house. I swear that sometimes it feels impossible and I wonder how anybody else does it in the first place.

Updated my theatre blog. Go read it now.

k thnx bai.
c-dubs.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

like mountains beyond mountains

Ok, this is bad. I'm bored and so I'm making a blog post. This probably won't end well.

I guess I do have one kind of interesting thing to say. A good friend of mine informed me of an old habit he had in college that I'm thinking of picking up. Every morning he would take 5-10 minutes and spill out his thoughts onto paper as soon as he woke up. This fascinates me, because I really don't think much as soon as I wake up. I just wonder if I have time enough to hit the snooze alarm, or I just go into zen-prepare-self-for-day mode. I would really like to find out what would happen if I tried this.

My second thought about it is this: my handwriting is attrocious, and I can't imagine it would be any better as soon as I wake my sorry self up bright and early, so should I just make it a regular entry on my blog? Wake up, go straight to my computer with the entry blank and waiting, type for 5 minutes, post it, and go? Sounds like it could either be fun or a total waste of space on the internet.

I think I'm going to try and do it on paper. My thoughts unfettered and unedited that early in the morning might not be shareable with the entire world. Hm. Sorry if that let anyone down. I doubt it did, though...

Anyway. I'm going to go back to reading "The Invention of Love" by Tom Stoppard. I've been reading it for about a month on-and-off because it's really, really hard to get through... Can't say I enjoy it too terribly much but it is rich and sort of interesting... It's a "smart person play" and as you can tell, I'm really not one of those people. Oh well.

In case you're unaware, I started a new theatre blog. Find it at god-of-the-theatre.blogspot.com.

Thanks for your pains,
Corb

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Veteran's Day post (sorry, this is a long one.)

So today is Verteran's day, AKA, "Oh yeah, didn't my grandpa or like, an uncle or something fight in a war once...?" to a lot of Americans. But to a lot of others, it's a time to remember and give thanks for someone they know and love who has fought, died, or is currently involved in the war going on right now in the Middle East, or any other war for that matter. I just want to give a quick shout out to everyone I know in the armed forces: My deceased grandfather, Bill; Bob Wicks, family friend; Nick Suddarth, long time friend and martial arts companion; Krystal Heib, aaannd... I'm sure I'm missing at least one or two other people, so thank you all and your families for your service.

As a result of today, the bank in which I am currently making this post from is quite dead. Yes, very much so. I've made 2 transactions today. I've spent most my time doing other things on the computer.

The reason it's dead could be very simple: that everyone knows we're on Friday's business day anyway and that we have been since 4 o'clock yesterday... But I like to think that maybe it's dead because people are really using it as a day of rest and remembrance for all of our awesome men and women in the armed forces. That's a nice thought, I'll keep rolling with that one.

A time like this also serves as a personal reflection on my part, where I remember a time a while ago, back in high school, when I wanted to join the Army instead of going to college. I wanted to be a part of something larger than myself: to serve my country and my loved ones in a way that I could be proud of for the rest of my life. Back then, "College" just looked to me like one big drunken state of debachery. Movies and television bombarded me with images of frat parties, substance abuse, and, ultimately, unhappiness. I never wanted to go to college.

But things changed. My parents convinced me to do otherwise. I listened. I went. I've ranted for hours and hours and pages and pages about my college experience so I won't go into that... But deep down inside I've always wanted to join the Army.

My most recent brush in with a veteran, however, frightened me in a way I can't really describe. I was at America's Pub in Westport, talking sports, politics, etc with a friend of mine, and the bartender spoke up. The place was completely dead, so he mixed himself a drink while he non-chalantly explained that he used to be a Green Beret -- that his job entailed training guerrilla armies to overthrow governments, that his job entailed throwing bombs disguised as food rations to children, that he had killed many, many people and that he didn't feel sorry for it one bit.

And then when you read about those soldiers who killed innocent civilians for sport, and just to see if they could get away with it...

What would I have done if I had witnessed some of these things? Would I have tried to put a stop to it? To do something about it? To do the right thing?

Jeeze. I dunno.

Life's scary.

But I don't mean in any way to lessen the value of our armed forces. Thanks again, guys and gals, for all your work and service. I'm indebted to you in a way I can't put a price on. Thank you.

-Corbin

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

angry much?

Ok. Sometimes, I get angry. Anger isn't a bad thing, but in my case, it usually is. I have a hard time being angry "in moderation."

Anyone who knows me knows that I can be passionate. Very passionate. When I love something? I love it. When I hate something? I hate it. I. Hate. It. I really, really do. And right now, I'm kinda angry.

I'm angry at facebook. Ever since I saw the movie about facebook, "The Social Network," I've had a chip on my shoulder about the whole thing.

[Just an fyi, from now on, I'm not paying attention to capitalization, I'm grabbing another beer so you can all just forget about that shit.]

so facebook. guess what, america? we've just handed over thousands of gigabytes of our personal lives to one company. one private company that can do whatever the hell they want with it. wonder why the facebook adds are so "accurate"? ever wonder why as soon as you've switched your relationship status over to "single" how all of a sudden all your adds shout out you about "singles" sites? guess what? mark zuckerberg sold you out. your personal info? sold out.

uhg. what bull shit. why the hell am i even...? i don't know...

i'll be honest with you. what pisses me off about facebook is that people take it too seriously. news flash: we are not our facebooks. we are us. i am me. you are you. if i'm not "friends with you on facebook", it doesn't mean i hate you. don't get me wrong, it could mean that, but sometimes it doesn't. maybe it means i don't need all your mindless internet dribble all over my news feed. maybe it means i don't want you seeing certain shit i put on the internet. maybe it means i don't freaking know you, so leave me alone, or get to know me better.

it's been a few months since i graduated college. there are people i knew at college that i don't really care about anymore. at all. whatsoever. in fact, in hind-sight, i guess i never really gave a damn about them. but here we are. friends on facebook. and i don't. give. a damn. about them.

so just unfriend them, corbin? no, no, my friend, it's not that simple. if only life was that simple. but people take this shit so personally. so seriously.

i know what you're thinking. 'buck up and just do it. who gives a fuck what other people think? it's your facebook and you can do whatever you want with it.'

yeah.

you're right.

but.

i probably won't do it.

oh well.

bye.

corbin