bread crumbs.

Lately I've been struggling with how it is that I've been living my life. My "philosophy" if you will. Not to mince words, it's fairly simple: I find myself most easily coping with and most strongly throwing myself into tasks and things that are directly in front of me. I feel most comfortable and alive when I "live in the moment."

What about the future? What about my long distance relationships? What about the world with all its peoples and problems outside the sphere of my work?

I don't know.

Sometimes I simply won't focus -- can't focus -- on things that aren't right in front of my face. I get so absorbed in my work and feel like I need to put all %100 of myself in my current endeavours that I forget to give some of that energy to my friends, my family, my God, etc. Lately all of these things have become difficult. Family's a bit easier at the moment because I still currently live at home, but that will soon change. Prayer is becoming exceedingly difficult to focus on, I can barely bring myself to focus on a good 5 minutes of prayer a day. I feel like relationships in my life are suffering a bit because of my current theatrical endeavours ... endeavours I love and hardly consider "work" at all. Taking on a role in theatre becomes a very big deal in my head, probably bigger than it needs to be, and I feel like a very heavy weight is on my shoulders and I must do my best to carry it. That sounds like a very negative analogy but I assure you I love every minute of it.

How bad is it that I live so much in the moment? How bad is it that I'm simply not focusing at all on any part of my future past the current day I'm in? How bad is it I have no idea where I'm going but all I know is that my path will most likely just be the result of pursuing whatever it is that I happen to be in love with at the moment, day after day, until those days become years and those years become my life?

I dunno.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm just picking up God's bread crumbs day by day.

Sometimes, planning just seems like a lot of energy wasted on uncertainty.

Sometimes.
Corbin

I suppose there's nothing wrong with a little update

Hello.

So every once in a while I go on blog reading binges, where for a few days I do nothing but tirelessly comb through the blogs I've subscribed to looking for inspirational nuggets upon which to gorge myself and call it good. This isn't necessarily a good thing, because I don't subscribe to that many blogs and the ones I have subscribed to don't really update that much (you KNOW who you are). None the less, I have just read a post from one of my favorite blogs and it has, in a way, inspired me to shoot the shit here on the blogisphere.

To start, my favorite blogs (as exampled above) incorporate illustrations, the like of which are brilliant and hilarious. I wish with every part of my being that I could make an illustrated blog.

You know what? What's stopping me today?! Nothing. Therefore, for the remainder of the blog, I'm going to stop periodically and sketch out some of the crap. Why not? We have a scanner here at the bank! Let's go!

Ahem. I shall now attempt to recount one of the craziest, most traumatic scenarios I've ever been in: getting robbed. But I shall do it light heartedly, because as FUBAR as it was, it really wasn't all THAT bad.

LET US BEGIN.

Monday. July 25th. Mondays are typically pretty busy. Lots of deposits. I always find this humorous because typically Fridays are full of lots of withdrawals. So essentially people take a bunch of money out on Friday and then put a bunch of money in 3 days later. I've never understood.



Probably because I don't know what it's like to put money into a bank. I just use it all up til the magical paycheck rolls in and replenishes my account.

 But this particular Monday was especially slow. I was staring at my computer screen like a zombie (as is often the case) when a customer came in. We have a little door alarm thing that I only vaguely acknowledge in my subconscious whenever I go on a 9gag or stumbleupon binge. These binges occur more than I'd like to admit. A few hundred clicks and BAM, suddenly 3 hours have gone by and my day just got a whole lot shorter. Can anyone fault me for that?

...Probably.

Anyway, that customer came in, but he came in pretty quickly and without much acknowledgement to anyone. He grabbed a few deposit slips, said "This is all I need," and hastily made his exit. I only really know this because everyone else behind the counter with me pointed out its unusualness, especially one of our tellers who worriedly informed us that her husband told her he just had a dream our bank was going to get robbed.

I laughed it off, assuring her and everyone else the odds were ridiculous and that no one was going to rob this bank. The construction around here has created a variable labyrinth of round-a-bouts, detours, and orange cones that would make even the savviest stunt driver dizzy. Who would be dumb enough to rob this bank?

Minutes later (or longer, I can't really recall exactly) I would eat my own words as I came face to face with ...

My thoughts were a bit numerous. Mostly they were "Oh. We're getting robbed." Then it turned to "Look at the size of that fake beard. That thing is ridiculous. Who is this guy, Father Time?" Then it was "That gun is so not real. At least no one's going to get really hurt." But mostly it was the first one. "Oh. We're getting robbed." Fortunately, though, my expectations for getting robbed far exceeded what faced me at the moment.

Why Russians? Why not?

I assured myself the gun wasn't real and put my hands up like a good little hostage. I wondered if it would be possible to remain calm, despite the situation. After looking around at my poor co-workers faces -- faces painted with pure, unadulterated terror -- I knew the challenge had arisen to remain calm as a Hindu cow.

No, I didn't draw this one, but I couldn't resist putting at least one Meme in here.

And remain calm I did. As scary as the whole situation was, everyone involved handled the situation with as much calm and professionalism as could be asked out of any human being. As soon as he had collected what he came for (instead of just filling out a withdrawal slip like every other normal person) I whipped out my cell and dialed the authorities. Soon (but not soon enough to catch him) men with much bigger guns arrived and surrounded the place with blue, black, and badge-totin' security. No one was hurt, he didn't get away with much, and everyone was safe.

But the tremors of the traumatic event remain felt, and the emotional wounds left on some of those involved may never really go away. Myself included, to an extent. Every American has felt to one degree or another our nation's economic plight, and perhaps those in the deepest pits of disparity go to extreme degrees to doctor their putrefying sores of debt. Maybe this guy has a family to feed. Maybe this guy has a mother in the hospital. Maybe this guy runs a freaking orphanage and the children will get evicted if he doesn't come up with the cash, pronto.

Timy with only one "m", stop being so selfish.

Or maybe he's just a desperate lunatic supporting his drug habits who goes home to a shitty apartment, greeted by his mangy, flea infested mutt Reginald, barely coherent enough to take a shit in the morning and take a shower without forgetting to wash his hair.

I have no idea. Who am I to judge anyway. All I know is; it was a reckless, desperate act of stupidity and I won't let this guy ruin my day.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my first "illustrated blog". I doubt there will be any more in the future, but you never know.

Stay classy.
Corbin

Killing ourselves.

I know, I know -- I've been blogging a lot lately. I go through spells like this where my thoughts seem more clear than usual and my inner voice cries out to be written down coherently before its sentiments are lost in the mundane nature that life can sometimes take on... Anyway, I wanted to address something I've noticed about my life up to this point, although I'm not sure I'll come up with a conclusion. That being said, either skip to the end or walk away now.

Here we go?

[What follows is a personal history. It's more for my benefit than anyone else's -- masturbatory even. You can skip it if you'd like.
I've been told a handful of times in my life (hah) that I over-stretch myself. I suppose I can trace this back to as far as I can remember. I used to make claymation movies for hours as a kid, pain-stakingly creating little characters out of clay and legos, moving them half-inch by half-inch for hours, and after an entire day of working I'd have a 5 minute film, maybe. Then when I had access to better movie making technology I would spend hours filming and editing movies with my siblings and friends. Then I got into martial arts, and from a student I became a teacher, going straight from high school to karate school and staying until 10 o'clock every night. Everything up until karate were just fun things I occupied my time with, but with karate my hunger for working my ass off really started to over-power my better sense of judgement. At the tail end of my karate endeavours came theatre, which blind-sided me and re-directed my ravenous hunger to its bountiful table. Karate was one thing -- all the techniques, forms, teaching all kinds of students -- but theatre presented within itself seemingly endless varieties of work to be done. Lights, sound, acting, directing, props, costumes, stage managing -- and subcategories for each! -- there would always be something I could do! It fascinated me then and continues to fascinate me today.
Anyway, my parents had always tried to instill in me a strong work ethic in school, but nothing in school really interested me (besides the occasional English or Creative Writing class). Then, with karate and theatre, it was like the 15 years of dicking around in school reversed itself all at once. I became a machine. And I don't know if I've stopped running since.]

Where and when do we draw the line between being a hard worker and killing ourselves? How long will it take before I realize the sweat on my brow I'm so proud of might just be from all the digging I've been doing into a possible early grave? That's a little exaggerated, I know -- but there is truth in it. I see conflicting things and people all around me -- for example, I was reading the biography of the last days of Tom Dooley recently ... Here was a man who didn't even let cancer stop him from his world-wide humanitarian efforts. I think to myself, "Damn, if this guy had it in him to set up and run hospitals in third world countries while he was dying of cancer, I can certainly go without a few hours of sleep and a meal or two to help put up these shows for the good of the artist endeavours of theatre." Subsequently, one of the shows I've been working on -- "Proposals" by Neil Simon -- brings up an interesting point on "hard work". Burt Hines, the father of the family, destroyed his marriage with his hard work. He opened up shops retailing televisions, one after the other after the other, constantly on the road and away from his family, until his wife couldn't take it anymore and left him. Here's an excerpt from an argument between the divorced couple:

ANNIE: ...There was no way to stop you. The minute you had one store, you had to open another. Why wasn't it enough, Burt? Two, three stores would have been plenty. We had enough money. Why was eight stores so important?
BURT: Because I was good at it. If Babe Ruth could hit sixty home runs, why should he stop at fifteen? ... I wasn't as smart as the kids are today. I had no special gifts. The only talent I had was to put in the time.

A remarkable and admirable sentiment, but somehow flawed all the same. The question I've had to come face to face with recently has been simply: Just because I can do something, does it mean I should? When did life start becoming how high I could build my list of accomplishments? When did life get to the point where I didn't feel like my day was worth anything if I didn't crash into bed at an absurd hour absolutely exhausted? When did I turn my exhaustion and pain into pride and worthiness?

I just don't know anymore. We need hard workers for the society we've set up to function, don't we? We need Wal-Marts to be open 24 hours a day, we need late night fast food joints, we need warehouses to ship out products all day and night, we need stores to be open 365 days a year -- and yes, that means Thanksgiving, yes, that means Christmas, yes, that means Easter -- no sir, YOU have a happy holiday, because I actually have the day off, thank you.

Well, that just got really cynical really fast.

Anyway. Our work-a-holic society continues. I'll take a box of sleep deprivation, a carton of achy joints, and a twelve-pack of not-seeing-my-friends-and-family. That's the combo meal that comes with a feeling of self-worth, right? Supersize me.

Corbin

Taking yourself too seriously.

If you'll notice the top of this blog, the tag line is 'for thoughts that don't fit into a facebook status or twitter' (paraphrased.) I was going to try to sum these thoughts up in one of the aforementioned social medias, but I realized I couldn't really do it.

You know, if there's one piece of advice I give to myself and to others, it's to be confident. Even if you don't know what you're doing, compose yourself in such a manner that you at least appear like you do. Walk tall, act with conviction, use words only when necessary. I'm not always good at these things, in fact I'm terrible at almost all those things, but when I have a friend who's down or I'm down these are the things I advise them to do or try myself to do to help get their or my life in order. Be confident. At least be confident in yourself. You may not know what's going on, but you can sure as hell act like it.

But I think this ties in to taking yourself too seriously. See, I must act confident when I go and do theatre. If I don't, people will step all over me. ... On second thought, everyone does step all over me ... Anyway, when I go into auditions, I act confident, no matter how nervous I am, because what kind of director wants to cast a nervous actor? I buck up, do my thing, exit humbly, and cast or not-cast I never regret it. And then when I get on stage, I act confidently in my choices for my character, I don't make a choice wishy-washy. When my character does something, he does it, because I don't want my characters to seem wishy-washy and there isn't a director on the planet who wants an actor making wishy-washy choices.

Wishy-washy.

Just had to throw that one out there one more time.

Anyway, I'm finally coming to my point: Sometimes, I take myself too seriously. I make theatre some big, huge, important thing, practically like a god. It's so ARTISTIC, it's so DEEP, it's so IMPORTANT. Hey, theatre is important. But it's not life. It imitates life. If I spend my entire life doing theatre non-stop, when do I get to live the life that I'm supposed to be imitating? That's just a personal thing and it's neither here nor there, but what I'm trying to say is: just because there's something that you do, and just because you take it seriously, doesn't mean it's all that fucking important. I'm in a show? So what. I'm not gonna make my friends and family drive 30 or 45 minutes from Olathe to KC or wherever unless they really want to. I'm in a show? So what. I'm not gonna loose sleep over whether or not every little thing is going well. I'm in a show?

So what.

Now, I do take it seriously.
And I do love it.
And I always do my best.

But Theatre? It's a part of life. It isn't life itself.

And no matter what it is that you do in life that you take seriously? Keep that in mind as well.

lol. sorry. couldn't resist.

A friendly (or maybe not so friendly depending on how you take it) reminder that there are 6 billion people on this earth and probably only a handful of them actually give a damn about whatever it is that you take seriously and love. And no, that's not cynical. It just makes whoever it is that you do the things you do with that much more special.

Corbin

breathing in, breathing out, not necessarily in that order

I had a friend one time tell me in college that she didn't think adults ever knew what they were doing. We were discussing how lost we felt in that whole "growing up and figuring out what you're going to do with your life" thing that everyone goes through in college. She said it didn't matter how old we got, we're still never going to know what we're doing.

I was shocked. I told her of course we'd know what we were doing some day. I told her that after a certain number of years, surely we would have seen it all, and could react to any situation with wisdom and preparedness.

Right?

What I failed to realize at the time was that no, life never stops throwing new things at you. At every stage in your life, you're always learning something new, always coming up against forces you've never reckoned with. You're getting a new job or you're trying to get promoted; you're getting engaged then getting married, then having KIDS; you just became a PTA mom, a boy scout den leader, a Knight of Columbus, the head of the social committee at work; you buy a car, you buy a house, you get loans, you get debt -- it never stops, it never lets you figure it out, it never lets you pin anything down, YOU DON'T HAVE TIME to know, you don't have time to become master of anything, you're always just trying to keep it all in the air, you'll never be able to stop and hold them and make them your bitch, you'll never really know what you're doing.

My friend was much smarter than me and she still is. I feel like a chicken with my head cut off about 90% of my day, about 8 days a week, about 32 days in the month... I guess everyone does, or maybe they don't, or maybe no one does -- maybe everyone else feels the way I do but they don't have to cry and complain about it on the internet.

I dunno, maybe.

Corbin

I'm terrible at updating this thing...

Sup, foos? It's uh... me again!

Aight, so life is what it is at the moment, you know, pretty crazy. I've started my own business (www.amway.com/corbinh), the play I was in ("American Bear" by Larry Mitchell) changed from a full-on production to a staged reading, rehearsals started for "Proposals" by Neil Simon at Parkville, and She&Her Productions is about to run head first into their next season. This means lots of work ahead for me, but work I'm excited to do.

As all these things stack up on my shoulders, I can't help but pause and reflect on habits I've begun to pick up on.

My social life has suffered immeasurably. This cannot be helped, and that's why it sort of breaks my heart. I need this job, this 9-5 job, in order to survive. I need Theatre, these 6-10 rehearsals, in order to stay sane. This leaves little to no time seeing my friends and family. Fortunately, I have lots of friends in theatre, and even some friends at the bank. Sometimes, I have weekends free, which gives me time to see family and non-theatre folk more. But I have so many other friends in town that I haven't seen in months. Hm.

This is my lament. I'm sorry for being a shitty friend/son/brother. Even a shitty boyfriend, some times. I guess I'm still just trying to figure out how this whole "Adult" thing works.

How do people hold down a job, do fulfilling work, and find enough time to share with their loved ones?

Maybe some people get to have a fulfilling job. Maybe some people have better time management skills. Maybe some people don't sleep.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Come out and support the arts when you can, because Senator Sam Brownback just gave the arts a nice kick in the balls, and we're gonna need all the help we can get to stay afloat now.

Theater blog to be updated soon. Comparison/Contrast of 2 productions of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." Sweet action.

-Corbin

one of the most commited men i know

see this guy?

looks pretty clueless, doesn't he? well sometimes looks can be deceiving, but other times they can be spot on.

in this case, it's the latter.

so in my last post a little while ago, i decided to "take a break from acting". i turned down being in the next Bottom's Up Sketch Comedy show. i didn't audition for another show i was really interested in over in Parkville. but, well, things have their ways of tipping you off your axis...

i just accepted the role of Vinnie in Neil Simon's "Proposals" over in Parkville. no, i didn't audition, but good friends of mine asked me to take the part and i accepted. i'm helping them out and, let's face it, getting a lot out of it myself. i'm not gonna lie, i'm really stoked.

and as soon as i accepted the role... as soon as i woke up the next day and began to get ready for work... this sense of clarity came over me. clarity like i haven't had in a while. a sense of sharpness and keaness in my mind and vision i only get when i'm acting in a show.

and let me tell you... it feels really fucking good.

maybe this will end up biting me in the ass, financially or otherwise. but that's the risk we all take when we accept a role. in theatre, or otherwise.

time to steal the show.

Corbin.