One Act Play: Pillowman - A Partial Success Story of Love, Lust, Drama and Triumph (part twoozie of all of dem)

yo brudda dis is part two of a two part blog so if you aint done read da firs part i suggest you finna scroll yo pretty self down a couple entries and edumacate yoself

On the bus ride home, we got to read all three of our ballots. Or really, I got to suck each ballot bone dry with my ffervently scanning eyes, only sparing morsels of information to my starving cast mates when my obsessive compulsive-esque critique hunt had been satisfactorily quenched. Myself being the only actor in both of the scenes of our one-act play, I naturally received the most criticisms, all of which I drilled into my brain. However many criticisms we may have gotten however, we had exponentially more effusive praises. The entire ensemble was showered with compliments, and one woman who was apparently very taken with our piece recommended that we simply "do not grow tired of the piece on your way to All-State!", which is sort of a huge freaking compliment to receive at districts.

With all this said, there were still many changes to make. Our next rehearsal, Mr. Hayes did not pander in niceties. He immediately set us to watching film of our performance, which is a slightly disheartening process. Many things which feel totally natural while performing end up looking very awkward on tape, and a lot of line delivery and intonation sound completely different when recorded than they do in your head when you're saying them. As uncomfortable a process it may be, however, it's also a very helpful one, and I as well as the rest of my cast took very thorough notes on the documentation.

With two weeks until state, we were steadily improving. We were working out the kinks and further developing our characters, and all in all I felt we were creating a very strong show. All that watched it seemed to be very receptive, and I couldn't help but feel optimistic. Rehearsals stacked up and suddenly it was the eve of state competition. That night, we had by far our best practice thus far, prompting Mr. Hayes', whom usually curbs his enthusiasm to proclaim that he could not wait for all the tweaks we'd make coming into all-state. OH NO HE DIDN'T.

Oh, no he didn't. I will to this day never figure out what went wrong that day. We were all incredibly excited in the minutes preceding, we were beyond focused, and absolutely everything seemed to be in place. But we just came out flat. The energy was bleh, the timing was off, and the show was mediocre by our standards. Up until that point, we had never timed under thirty four minutes and thirty seconds, a close cut to the thirty five minute time limit that we rode like badasses. But that performance, Mr. Hayes came up to us after that show and said with a shred of unconcealable sadness that at least we made good time, clocking in at thirty one minutes and forty seconds. Though it was masqueraded as a good thing by our director, this of course was an awful thing meaning that we somehow had cut three minutes off our usual runtime without skipping any lines; pointing to a rushed show and broken timing.

 I was furious. This was my first chance to make all-state on my own merit, hands absent the clenching of any coattails; and we had blown it. I sat in a corner and sulked for an hour or so, being coaxed by encouraging peers that our show hadn't been any worse than usual. My anger was settled a bit and I began to truly believe that it had all been in my head. The score sheets were posted a couple hours later, and then I really lost it. One of our judges had given us a 2, the inferior ranking, almost certainly blowing any chance we'd have at All-State. I made quite a spectacle of myself at that moment, punching the paper bearing such unfortunate news before yelling out a blood curdling scream and drop kicking by bag way across the room. Seriously, it must have traveled a hundred feet. 

I eventually gathered my self, but I'd continue to be horribly upset about that one for weeks, expressing my disappointment to anyone who would listen at any given opportunity. When we received our judges ballots, my fate was all but sealed. In order to make All-State, at least two of your judges must give you a nomination; that meaning that only a small portion of the acts that receive "1" rankings from all judges will advance. All three ballots had been fairly scathing and were largely absent any of the warm fuzzies I had grown accustomed to, and I had essentially lost hope. I was now pretty okay with the fact that I would not be advancing.

When All-State nominations were posted, I scrolled down quickly to find if my improv team had been given a performing nomination (we did), but something caught my eye. It couldn't have been... But it was. Mother freaking Pillowman, from John F. Kennedy Highschool. I screamed, danced, then cried.

I Like Football. It Is Neat.

Myself being the astute intellectual that I am, find myself in a range of complicating situations as a result of my affinity towards organized sports, which many deem decidedly non-intellectual. Okay, that never happens, but exploring that muddled grey area in society between the "jocks" and the "nerds" certainly makes for some fascinating literature, does it not? It sure does! Great idea, me! We'll go out for pancakes later as a reward!

For the most part, I find myself mainly dabbling in the culture of the cerebral douchebag; that being blogging, television of the "not Two and a Half Men" variety, cinema, literature and the occasional odd poetry slam. But there is one deep passion I hold that separates me from my horn-rimmed glasses wearing bretheren, I fuggin' love football.

Most of the friends in whom I share a lot of common interests with seem unable to comprehend my obsession with the sport. Sports, at their core, are pretty stupid. What the appeal is in a bunch of men running and hurting each other to score made-up points, I am not particularly sure, but it has had me by the cuff for most of my life. In terms of athleticism, I would consider myself average, perhaps a bit above average. At best. What I'm trying to say is, my immense talent on the field in the sport of football is probably not playing a big role in my penchant for the game.

Instead, I think that football is given a bad wrap. Though it is a sport carried out by some of the most bumbling of physical freaks and mental dumbasses, looking down from the press boxes, football is really the world's most complex game of chess. I think what really fascinates me about the sport is the strategy, the match-ups, the scheming. There is both a serious science and art that comes with analyzing, drafting and developing college level talent, assembling a playbook that best suits your squad's strengths and weaknesses, and calling the plays that best take advantage of your opponent. Sure, it may be a game of brutes at the surface, but I feel if you give any self-proclaimed nerd an Xbox controller hooked up to a copy of Madden '12 hacked to replace all of the football-centric polygons with dragons and knights, they would totally be like woah this is super gnarly man. Definitely.

Whatever the Opposite of Retrospect Is

I did a blog entry last term on thinking in retrospect. For those not familiar with the term, allow me to hack away at my word count with a detailed explanation. Retrospect, which is essentially "retroactive" "speculation", which would literally come out to something around the lines of thinking about the past. Thinking in retrospect is when you sit there and worry about all of the things you could have done differently in life, in specific situations, in life paths, in vital decisions; any of that, despite the fact that it's essentially pointless to do so given that there's nothing you can do about it at that point. In retrospect, I probably should have written more blog entries in the first half of the term, but there's nothing I can do about it now, so I'll just power-shit out random thoughts like this one.

Now that I've comprehensively defined retrospect, let me tell you about a different idea. Instead of wishful thinking towards your past, I find myself constantly guilty of quite the opposite. I've dubbed it anterospect, which utilizes the root word for the future that I just googled the heck out of. Anterospect, in my life, being that I spend copious amounts of time thinking about all of the fantastic things I'm going to do one day. I'm finally going to apply myself to my studies. Finally going to go on that week long roadtrip. Finally going to finish that novella I've written 5 pages of.

I don't ever get around to it. It's so easy to look at the things you hate right now, and think quite decisively that you want them to be different. It's comforting to look at the future, a beautiful, long, untarnished white slate that you can paint your wildest fantasies on. Or in my case, my reasonable expectations. But I don't get around to it, ever, because I'm a lazy turd. The moral of this story is to never expect things from yourself because you will only be disappointing one more person in your life; yourself. Read that one to your kids, bitches.

I Have an Untapped Well of Creativity in My Soul and I Forgot Where I Left It - or - Why I Feel Modern Education Underutilizes Children's Creative Potential

I hate to begin blog posts, conversations, letters, death threats.. anything, with something to the effect of "when I was young..", because I'm fully aware that I am still very much so a young person and that at the age of 17 nostalgia in practice is arbitrary. However, though I aspire to live at least 3 or 4 more times my current age, I don't feel I'm speaking under any sort of delusion when I venture to say that this portion of my life may very well be the most important one. As much as I've grown weary of hearing shit about the awkward years of adolescence and their immeasurable bearing on my life as a whole, I think I'm starting to recognize the validity to such statements. These years, along with possibly more importantly, your first couple of years away from home off in college or in the workforce, literally shape us as human beings. Well, not literally shape us. But they literally shape us. They're important.

Yet it seems like in today's society, so much of these years is entirely spent preparing for adulthood. With good reason, obviously; it's very important that we know how to operate in the real world at that we set ourselves up for the best success. But you look at classes, school systems, these days.. every student is dropped into an assembly line where they are essentially prodded to either "Have a Good Life" (i.e., take an assload of AP Classes and essentially spend four years prepping a college resume) or "Work at McDonalds" (i.e., anyone who doesn't stack their schedule in order to hold in best possible academic standing). So much attention is placed on AP Classes, which has an exponentially growing presence in high schools around America, that kids literally just can't be afforded to take a liberal arts course.

As absolutely fantastic it is, and understood I'm definitely not arguing otherwise, that students are given so many chances to get a leg up on their futures, it's stunting the growth of students just as much as it's "maturing" them. This is a crucial mistake to inflict upon people in a stage in their life that, as I've already elaborated, is incredibly important to them; as well as who they become. When I was a child, all the way up until middle school, I was bursting with creativity.

(this is going to run the risk of sounding reaaallly conceited, but it's not as if my writing style didn't make me sound pretentious already, right?)

I drew every day; I was damn good at it, I'm just going to be honest. I'd make drawings for everyone in my classes and people would huddle around my doodles. Not only that, but as my mother is an artist for a living, she helped me hone my craft, and I grew to unconditionally love it. I also loved the hell out of film. Lots of kids at my age put together little YouTube videos, usually "stunt videos" or something to that effect, and in that regard I was among many. But I would write scripts, set up multiple camera angles, splice audio, montage clips and seriously make movies! This passion consumed most of my middle school tenure and recording and editing these videos were some of the happiest times of my life, without a doubt. For most of my years leading up to high school, however, the one thing I really thought I'd be doing with my life was writing. Creative writing. I freaking loved it. I wrote stories all the time, for funzies. This was a passion and it was also skill, a legitimate talent. Some will probably liken my dream to that pretty good white high school basketball player saying he was going to play in the NBA, but I seriously believe to this day that it was something I could have done with my life. Was.

(youtube jacked my audio, used to have Better Days by Citizen King in the back... twas cool; from 7th grade)

When I was young, I felt brilliant. I felt utilized, I felt like I knew my talent and I knew what I wanted to do with it. I was a very happy round peg. Then I got to high school, and they whittled off my edges until I fit the square hole. Sure, I make a fine square peg, I'm not an idiot. But everyone has a talent, a calling in life, and instead of building a hole for the triangles, the trapezoids, the circles and the stars, we are, during the fucking most important stage in our lives, told that either we'll have to shed some weight and fit the square hole, everyone's ideal blueprint to everyone's perfect life, or that we'll get thrown in the trash bin and we'll have to overcome the odds to climb out. What the hell do you think any smart kid is going to do? No one wants to be a fuck up. Here's a conversation I run through every month or so.

Person: What are you going to do in life?

Me: Go to business school.

Person: You don't want to write?

Me: No.

Person: Anyone can do business! Don't you want to do something different? Don't you want to love what you do?

Me: No. For every Steven Speilberg there are a thousand broke kids wandering Hollywood. For every Van Gogh there are a thousand deadbeat artists. For every New York Bestseller, there are a thousand starving poets. I think business will do me just fine.

Person: Smart kid! I bet your parents are real proud of you.

What in god's name is that? I believe everything I just wrote there. That's not me reciting lines, I've grown to understand the logic of the world. The world has battered us down to the point where not believing in myself is the intelligent thing to do. There are risk-takers in the world, and they are the stupid ones. Unless they make it, then they are the genius ones. A lot is made by ornery underachievers of the fact that men like Steve Jobs were drop outs. Most of this is just said by lazy-asses looking for some slack, but there is serious intrigue to the idea. Some of the most successful people in the world, some of society's most brilliant innovators, took a risk, took faith in themselves and made a difference.

Who knows, Jobs (rest in peace) may have made a damn fine accountant. He was smart enough, maybe he'd have managed a law firm all his life, made $200k+ a year. Bet his parents would have been real proud of him. But he took a huge shit on society's blue print and said

"I am something special and I will make a difference in this world whether it be by the book or by my own means". And he changed the freaking world.

I'm not saying I'm Richard Branson, Michael Dell or Steve Jobs. I will never be as smart, cutting, determined or talented as those guys. But if I feel like I'm being oppressed by modern education, then I'd assume I'm not the only one. Furthermore, I'd assume that there are far more that are being beleaguered by the incessant chanting of the well-intentioned parents, friends, faculty... And though some like Jobs took the leap of fatih, who knows who else we're holding back? That guy with the nice house in the middle-class neighborhood might be more than content with his life, but maybe that guy could have been the next one that changed the world. But he, but all of us, have been given the mindset that our peak is greatness. People settle for mediocrity because we've been told it's unrealistic, risky, reckless.. to shoot for exceptional.

Mediocrity. That was the word I was looking for. Today, I feel mediocre. I don't get to draw anymore. I haven't touched a video camera in years. I wanted to take a drawing class, but I dropped it to make room in my schedule for classes colleges would give two spits about. I was signed up for a creative writing class, but I had to drop it because I was so swamped with AP coursework. Our education system has the best possible intentions for us, but by guiding everyone how to work for greatness, we've closed the door for the unprecedented.

When I was young... I was going to be something. I was going to do what I loved and I was going to harness my talent in the best possible way, and I was going to be something. I never even gave it a second thought. Why wouldn't I?

Today, I already know what I'm going to do. I'm going to eventually get my business degree, and I'm going to do my best to secure a high-level, consistent income. I'll probably be very happy with my life. It kills me how okay I am with that.

One Act Play: Pillowman - A Partial Success Story of Love, Lust, Drama and Triumph (part uno of deaux)

Since being unintentionally cast in Kennedy's speech program my freshman year (an experience I was initially not very pleased with), my passion for theater and drama has grown immensely. My first year at this lovely high school, my best friend Andrew Hanzelka dragged me to watch a practice for a group mime he had been enrolled in by the even more lovely Danny Yuska, strictly to spectate. However, when I got there it became apparent after some time that Andrew's fellow mime-r was not going to show up for practice that evening. I stepped in, just for one practice, to keep the natural flow of things... We made performing all-state that year, an incredibly distinct honor that I did not recognize the magnitude of at the time. The next year, I was cast as the supporting role in an ensemble acting, again with my friend Andrew, and again we made all-state. My first taste of spoken acting since being the lead in my 5th grade play was incredibly sweet, but I couldn't help but be unsatisfied with my role. I wanted to be a damn lead more than anything.

i get roughed up a lot.

This year, I got my opportunity. I was cast as the lead, Katurian Katurian, in a one-act adaptation of Martin McDonagh's Pillowman. I was absolutely ecstatic; upon reading the script I was euphoric. It was an absolutely fantastic piece and I already felt I knew exactly how I was going to play the character. And sooner than later, things got underway. Practices began, slowly at first, and we didn't have our lines memorized until the week before districts, but it began to come together beautifully. Sophomore Matt Larson, who played my mentally challenged brother incredibly tactfully and movingly, and I developed fantastic chemistry. Juniors Luke Gibbs and Jonah Heskje were phenomenal in their roles as detectives in the play's first scene. All I had to do was put it together myself.

It wasn't immediately easy. It was clear to my director, Mr. Hayes, who was so freaking great at what he did, that I was in my first lead role; though with new theater regime this year I had done my very best to avoid letting him discover this. I had to learn to speak more concisely, slow down my delivery, and really get myself comfortable. It didn't happen overnight, hell, it didn't happen for a while. I'm not even sure if Mr. Hayes thought we could put it together that night before districts, which is usually an incredibly shallow hurdle for most Kennedy speech events on the way to state. I wouldn't have been, we had been inconsistent at best, consistently mediocre at best. But it did come together, and at districts, in how often seems to be the case, we delivered our best performance to date. We received straight 1 ratings from the judges, not really an altogether impressive feat for districts, but encouraging none-the-less. We still had work to do.

TO BE CONTINUED, GOT-DAYUM.

Parks and Recreation

Until now, I've done a damn fine job of keeping my blogs free of any specific media debaucheries that I so desperately wanted to indulge in, instead pushing myself to find interest in the broader aspects of life (that being toilets, vulgarity, music and poop, namely). However, there is one current product of network television that can not possibly justify not having an entry on my blog any longer. Ladies and gentlemen, Parks and Recreation.

I'm not a huge fan of most of what's on TV these days. Big Bang Theory is drivel to me, How I Met Your Mother is kind of funny but fails to keep me watching, The Office turned into a caricature of itself and Community got cancelled. The one show that I consistently find myself engaged in, unable to miss another episode of, is Parks and Rec. The show gets so many things right that are totally missing from modern television, and I absolutely adore tuning in every week.

ron fuggin swanson

The thing that really separates Parks and Recreation from other shows is the character development. It's phenomenal. No, you don't think that'd be important in a comedy (or at least no writers do anymore) but when you watch the show often enough, it pays freaking massive comic dividends. The writing on the show is so strong and focused that absolutely every character on the show has notable depth, different eccentricities, certain qualities that make you love them that make you legitimately care about each one of them. Perhaps in a dyslexic interpretation of the Always Sunny in Philadelphia model, every single character is horrifyingly likable. Not only does this make the show more engaging, but it makes it a lot funnier to the acquainted viewer. There is no bigger payoff than developing Ron Swanson as a no-nonsense Tea Party badass only to reveal he loves riddles; when he giggled in support of this notion during this year's Valentines Day episode I absolutely lost it.

Perhaps similarly to this blog entry, esoteric content sometimes struggles to hit the mark for everyone. I've had trouble watching this show with people with very similar senses of humor to mine, but whom had largely been unexposed to Parks and Rec in the past very much for this reason. But to that I say, fine! It gets by in the ratings because once you start watching it, you don't stop, and if it's not broke don't fix it. Please. 30 Rock already delivers your 30 minute high-quality punchline avalanche, let me have my beautiful town of Pawnee to follow like a slightly more time-budgeted middle-aged unemployed lady and her soaps.

Be Happy

Life is stressful. I haven't blogged in a while, probably because I'm a lazy turd. For this return to the blogosphere, I'm going to temporarily set aside my anecdotal writing style (and my barrage of witty parenthetical asides [damnit] ) and seriously just write what's been on my mind.

For someone who is as frequently sardonic and douchey as I, many would be surprised to realize how really happy of a person I am. In fact, at times I worry I'm too damn happy. When I see people get horribly upset, say they're stressed out, or barrage my Twitter timeline with impassioned "FML"s, I can't empathize. Sometimes, I even want to, know what it's like to care about other things more than yourself. But I'm a self-serving, egomaniac who loves so very many things, and I just can't help but be happy.

At it's core, life is beautiful. I'm not a devout believer in any greater good or higher moral compass, but instead think life is a natural process meant to be strip-mined and exploited of all the euphoric joy, raw emotion, simple pleasures and general contentedness possible. So much time is spent worrying instead of doing, acting. Life will take its toll eventually so the best course of action is to simply love it while it's there, and I do everything I can to fulfill this mindset.

For most, high school is likely your last opportunity to engage in extracurricular activities, yet I see so many people doing things they hate. Athletes playing sports they hate, students too nervous to try out for the club they've always wanted to be a part of... You're already doing shit you hate in school, how can you not embrace an opportunity to be a part of things you love?

Be happy, and make the world a happy place. Do things for others. I guarantee it'll make you feel good. Be who you are an associate with who makes you happy. Your life will change once you stop trying to be everything you think you should be and start being everything you are. Just be happy. This sounds cheesy, but I mean every word. Be happy!

Clothes (or: why I enjoy fashion but still like girls [or: how i learned to inflate my blog entry count] )

There is something fantastic about looking dapper. It’s often said that you look the way you feel, and though you’d assume that this is some outer reflection of how you are feeling emotionally on the inside, it can very much be the very inverse. That being, sometimes looking damn good on the outside makes you feel damn good on the inside. Once upon a time, I was deeply emasculated by my penchant for nice clothes. I worried that perhaps if I matched those shoes with my shirt too well, I might like boys. When puberty took me and my manhood (I mean that in more than one way) by the reigns, and my fondness for high fashion held true, I decided to embrace it shamelessly. Or at least, it was shameless, until I started writing this blog. Whose idea was this? I like girls. Pinky swear.

I’m seriously wondering what I’m going to write for the remainder of this blog now that I got my zippy intro out of the way. Mrs. A doesn’t read these, and I’m already 200 words in so I might as well seal the deal. Stream of consciousness? Go, go, and go (I had go, go, go but Microsoft Word told me it wasn’t grammatically correct). I like looking different than other people. Not just because I’m a douchebag hipster wannabe, although mind you that is absolutely what I am, but because the way most people dress is total poop and I like to look neat. I kiss girls sometimes so I'm still manly just reminding you. There’s also something real coolio about looking mighty fine in a nice dress clothes ensemble. I’m currently wearing a super snazzy blazer I purchased from Goodwill along with an exceptionally stylish shirt and tie, with vans on my feet to make it casual. That really illustrates my point, right? Right. 300 words. I like clothes. Wowza thanks for stopping by, you’re all the bomb! Don't forget that I like girls!

Valentines Day - Why I Like it an Awful Lot

I don't deny that Valentines Day is absolutely arbitrary. I have heard a million schpiels from a million lonely people about how Halmark invented the holiday to increase their card sales, and I understand that is very true. But who gives a poop? Columbus landed in the wrong place and took horrible advantage of the indigenous population and we get a school day off; is it that awful that we celebrate love for a day?

I love love. It sounds lame, sure, but absolute, unconditional adoration for someone is by far the sweetest sentiment humans are capable of. Love doesn't have to be about your boo thang. I love a lot of people in my life. I love my parents, I love my sister, I love my dog, I love my girlfriend, I love my best friends. The oft-expressed concept that "love" is a once in a lifetime feeling that people hand out far too easily is total bullshit. Love is a chemical attatchment in your brain that can come about between any two people that make each other infinitely happy, and like any other "high", it makes you feel fantastic. You can fall in love one hundred times in a lifetime. You might never fall in love (though you have to go out of your way to be narrcasistic asshole to accomplish this feat). It's still freaking fantastic.

For someone as hopelessly self-involved as me, it continues to astonish me how much pure joy I get out of making others happy. Almost every decision I make in my life has some alterior motive, or self-serving cause. But I legitimately love the feeling I get from doing something wonderful for someone. It's disarming and reassuring to realize that at the core of me, there actually is some genuine sweetness. And no holiday brings out this feeling more than Valentines Day. So yes, I'm going to set up an elaborate chain of gifts for my beautiful girlfriend and yes I'm going to write her a goopy letter and yes I'm going to shower her in cheesy compliments. Yes, I'm going to tell my parents I love them, and yes I'm going to give my best friend a hug and yes I'm going to call my sister tonight. And yes, I'm going to be fully aware February 14th is just another day of 365, and yes I'm going to care too much and yes I'm going to feel like a character out of a bad rom-com. I'm going to do all of that. And I'm going to love it.

I Wish I Could Play Guitar

Upon my conception, those dastardly genetic fairies played a very cruel trick on me. Perhaps they had a bad day at the fairy office, or didn't get done with all their TPS reports, but for whatever reason they deemed it necessary to pull a real dick-move on an the unsuspecting fetus occupying my mother's womb (how's that for imagery?). When Martin Alosha Robinson II was birthed in the fine town of Columbia, Missouri, out came a child who loved nothing in the world as much as he loved music. At the same time, out came a child who was completely incapable of carrying any semblance of a musical tune, horrifyingly unable to schematically grasp music in its simplest form. I'm not talking about two different babies.

Although music in most all forms appeals to me, to unspeakable lengths, my true passion is rock. Rock is a very broad term, an all-encompassing mega-genre. When it began, rock was Elvis Presley knocking down barriers to the thrumming of guitar with his arousing hip-thrusts. Later, it was the Beatles popping ecstasy like aspirin plucking their acoustic guitars like foreign objects and on their better days upstaging Mr. Christ. Now, rock can be just about anything. Like a weird, dysfunctional family with overbearing parents, rock and roll has ceased to be a recognizable name and has instead diverged into bizarre, likely completely unrecognizable subgenres if not for the fact that they all carry their parents' trademark cleft lip. (that was a WAY better analogy in my head) 

Tool and Phish thrash their guitar and scream obscenity laden somethings at the top of their lungs. Blink 182 and Sum 41 mix hard rock ideals with poppy vocals, melodic guitar hooks and catchy choruses. Neutral Milk Hotel and Pavement combine intentionally shaky, too-cool-to-sing-conventionally mumblings with non-sequitur lyrics and confusing unaligned guitar strumming. Although I am more taken with some of the aforementioned sub-genres than others, they are all tolerable in their own capacity. They are united, however, by the guitar. I love the guitar.

I've tried to learn the guitar. It's not happening. Not only is it way more work than I will probably ever bring myself to accomplish solely on the empty fumes of self-motivation, but I can't do it. My hands fumble clumsily over the strings and my muscle memory fails me every time I attempt to deftly switch chords. If I one day by some miracle figured out how to play a song that doesn't begin with "Smoke" and end with "Water", it'd be pointless anyway because I'd have to carry around an aptly-voiced singer on my back at all times if I wished to put together any sort of performance. I do have a pretty big backpack...

Boo. I seriously want to play guitar.

The KFC Famous Bowl (Patterns of Development 3 - Definition)

I’ve had a hard day. Both of my parents just passed away in a tragic rhino accident, the lower half of my body has just been lost in a horrifying encounter with a paper shredder and they officially cancelled “Community” on NBC. What I need… is a pick me up. What I need… is a Kentucky Fried Chicken® “Famous Bowl”.


I remember my first famous bowl like it was yesterday (it wasn’t). I had just suffered an extraneous kick and yelling session at Tae Kwon Doe, and I was clearly completely drained both physically and emotionally. My agony must have been clear to my father, because when he picked me up, he decided to do something that would change my life.


We pulled up into the KFC drive-thru, and I was at awe with the poorly illuminated display laid before me. At first, I feared I may become lost in this world of seemingly endless fried chickens and might not be able to make a decision, but suddenly something caught my eye. The Famous Bowl.


Although I had planned to eat it at home, the aroma was overwhelming, and I succumbed to it’s deliciousness. What I tasted next was the most the most fantastic thing my tongue and I had ever been a part of (and yes, I thought of that and I stand by the sentiment).


Encapsulated in this little plastic sealed bowl is the most fabulous concoction ever known to man. First, savory, buttery, mashedy mashed potatoes are slopped onto the bottom of the bowl. Next, the fun begins. On top of these potatoes, in what I can only assume is a highly revered, perhaps even religious process, steaming, deliciously flavorful  brown chicken gravy is drizzled upon the potatoes with expert care. As the gravy is distributed in generous helpings, simultaneously, the popcorn chicken is artfully tossed about the forming man-sundae. Piping hot chicken breast, deep-fried to perfection and then rolled playfully about in an assemblage of the world’s finest salts, spices and breading before taking another lucky trip to the fryer. The colonel’s recipe at work. When it seems this meal possibly attain a higher level of succelentity, the unthinkable is done. Shredded cheese is sprinkled thoughtfully upon the melting-pot of culinary diversity, and the accumulated heat melds the cheddar goodness all upon the chicken, potato and gravy. Each spoonful is a spiritual experience. This… is food.


This… is the Famous Bowl.

Superman vs. Average American (Patterns of Development Part 2– Compare and Contrast)

Many long-lived questions have tugged at the human psyche since the dawn of time. Is there extraterrestrial life on other planets in our solar system? What will happen to us after we pass on? Is there a greater meaning to life as we know it? However, there is one other question equally ripe for discussion, perhaps the most unexplored psychological playground of all. What are the similarities and differences between Superman and an average human being?


At the surface, Superman and an average human being are quite similar! Perhaps even remarkably so! However, the deeper down you drill, the more you will discover about how truly different Superman and an average human being really are!


Appearance-wise, their correlations draw a mixed bag. Though Superman and an average man both are host to classic features such as noses, eyes, ears, mouths, torsos, legs, arms, hair, feet, hands, and with some leap of faith, reproductive organs, there are several key aesthetic differences as well. Although an average man traditionally dresses in classic 21^st century garb; jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, perhaps for some average men formal wear, Superman is usually outfitted in a drastically unalike get-up. Superman prefers to go about in a vibrant blue, red and yellow costume that hugs his incredibly rugged, sculpted physique, equipped with a giant letter “S” plastered across his chest, and a cape draped about his shoulders.  Average man, in most cases, is notably without said cape.


In terms of natural ability, there are similar parallels to be drawn, though once again there is an eventual fork in the figurative road. While an average human and Superman are both quite similar in the fact that they are both sentient beings who thrive off of such essential processes such as respiration, and both are capable of communication through such hallmarks of the homosapien as talking, there is a surprisingly stark contrast between the two beyond this point. While average man is capable of such feats as leaping several feet in a single bound, operating within the normal confines of time and space, and lifting things a bit heavier than themselves; Superman is capable of completing tasks like flying, turning back time and destroying several-thousand pound metal vehicles with  his hands.


All in all, I feel it is hard to come to a conclusion as to a clear “superior” between an average human being and Superman. Both entities are with their areas of expertise, and their obvious flaws. Although I feel I’ve done a proper job here of addressing all possible vantage points of the infamous question, I think people will probably battle with its answer until the dawn of time.

How to BS an AP Lang Blog Entry (Patterns of Development Part 1 – Process Analysis)

The AP Language Comprehension offered course plays an incredibly vital role in the sculpting of a proficient language arts student.  One necessity entailed by enrollment in this class (AP Language Comprehension, for those who forgot) is the routine maintenance and completion of an AP Language Comprehension “blog”. This is essentially an expansive collection of different writing samples that both show off your writing skills and hopefully fulfill course requirements while simultaneously generating thoroughly entertaining literature for your readers while applying the immensely important terms of language expected to be learned by aspiring scholars participating in AP Language Comprehension. In the following article I will give a comprehensive breakdown of the imperative abilities and concepts that you should attempt to grasp if seeking  to be prosperous in the class of AP Language Comprehension.

·         Have a long drawn out introduction paragraph. This not only demonstrates an incredibly impressive understanding of the ever-popular “beginning, middle, end” model employed in many articles of writing, especially in AP Language Comprehension, but it also is very effective in knocking out some of that much maligned word count minimum enforced by your likely fabulous instructor in the course of AP Language Comprehension.

·         Use the largest words at your immediate disposal. If you have a massive arsenal of vocabulary words at your disposal, using the most obnoxiously descriptive, yet still applicable term is a great way to make your teacher in AP Language Comprehension, and potential readers go, “Wow! This guy is a total douche!”. Not only that, but this practice can also give writers additional, deeper emotional insight into your life, perhaps allowing your most adept fans to infer from the sentence “I valiantly removed myself from divan and acquired a beaker of aqua, afore hesitating to scuff my irritated anus, which was urgently without a scuff prior to such event” not only that you got out of bed and scratched your ass, but connoting that your probably own a thesaurus.

·         Reiterate yourself as much as possible. Repeat yourself as many times as you can without it coming off as horribly obvious that you are just attempting to drain your word count. Always use the longest possible variant of each word; never NY, New York. In the class of AP Language Comprehension, it is very important to know these tricks of the trade.

·         Never write more than you have to. Set yourself a word limit, and once achieved, simply