Filed by Lance at 2:53 pm under Fightin' Words, General, Pop Culture, Stuff to Read, The Arts
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This is, of course, the only appropriate music to accompany this post:

Thanks to all the time I have riding the ‘L,’ I recently finished Homer’s Illiad for the first time (I didn’t actually read it in high school when I was supposed to… did you?) I kept being impressed by Diomedes’ epithet: “Diomedes of the great war-cry.” In ancient warfare, when it wasn’t just click-and-dead, you had to really want to kill the other guy, that is, had to really want to take a piece of bronze or iron and cut the other guy’s skin off his bones. A war-cry was an essential part of keeping the veterans focused, and the young guys from wetting themselves and running. Or at least from running.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 5:22 pm under Shameless Plugs
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You can’t possibly be sick of hearing about this yet. The rehearsal process has been way too short. But don’t be scared: this production kicks some serious ass. All if it. I’m thrilled to be part of it.

We are open as of tonight! Check it out!

http://www.dreamtheatrecompany.com

Filed by Bil at 11:22 pm under Homophobia, Politics
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Who is this guy and where did he come from?

Congressman Patrick J. Murphy - Rep. Patrick Murphy, Veterans Announce Efforts to Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

I’m appalled by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but I am neither gay nor in the military, so it’s easy not to listen to me. Here’s a congressman who, while not gay, actually was in the military and, in fact, was in Iraq and earned a Bronze Star for being awesome. He’s an elected official from some blue-collar district in Pennsylvania. These facts – because he’s a decorated Iraq vet, because he’s from a socially conservative district, and because he’s NOT gay – make him perhaps the least likely and the best advocate for getting rid of a stupid, small-minded policy that directly affects our national security.

And don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those guys who goes around worrying about national security. It’s a political potato, and something I find boring after two seconds. But seriously, what’s a bigger threat: having gays in the military or having a military with 13,000 fewer individuals? Think about that one.

And keep your eye on Pat Murphy. He’s a mover and a shaker.

Filed by Bil at 11:41 am under Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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My current project is a set of short comedies with the Dream Theatre Company. Something about this process disturbs me: we are less than two weeks from opening, and my lines are not memorized. Luckily, the script is only 7 pages or so, and I have several train rides between now and tech week. Maybe I’ll even work on it here at home. After this blog post. Wait…I’m hungry now. Okay, after this blog post I’ll eat lunch, and then after that, I’ll clean the dishes, and if I have some good cleaning momentum going, maybe I’ll clean the whole kitchen and then the TV/Wii room…My apartment is a finite space, so surely I will eventually clean it all. Then, after that’s done, I’ll get to studying my lines.

I’m the “straight man” in the piece I’m working on for Somewhere in Texas, which is probably where I belong in a comedy, but that’s not to say I have to relax and let someone else take the spotlight. The best straight-man characters aren’t “the not-funny one,” but rather a (somewhat more) normative foil to their socially-unfit counterpart. And all the while I struggle with death and growing up and moving on and all kinds of sad, heavy things that probably shouldn’t be funny.

Even though it’s short, this is going to be significant acting challenge…

Come see if I fail or not! We open July 16.

There’s a lot more to ruminate on…this blog post could have been huge. But, like I said: I’m hungry now.