Filed by Bil at 9:22 pm under General
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I’m both extraordinarily tired and highly motivated these days. I want to do too much and I have neither the time nor the energy. It’s quite the conundrum.

Currently, I am in rehearsals for “The Devilish Children and the Civilizing Process” over at Dream Theatre. Rehearsals are turning out to be as much fun as I have had with a show in a long time. This particular rehearsal process is a little more interesting than usual, and this cast is a riot.

However, all this rehearsing on top of a full-time day job leaves little room for anything else, and certainly doesn’t leave me with much energy to make the time. But there is so much else I want to do…

And do I shall. I don’t have any Dream Theatre shows lined up right away after “Devilish Children” and I have plans of all sizes I’m eager to start working on.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 6:38 pm under Fightin' Words, Love, The Arts
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I’ll say this for having a day job: it provides a lot of food for an actor. And I don’t just mean people food. I mean artistic food. As both an actor and a human being, I would like to be able to step into any job and kick ass at it. I know that’s not really possible with just any job as a human being – I would never trust myself with open heart surgery – but as an actor I should be able to pull it off. And with a day job, I actually get to execute this challenge.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 8:12 am under Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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That’s right, world, Dream Theatre’s “Theatre of Women 5″ is this Saturday, and I will once again be writing. Lance will once again be directing. Excitement abounds.

This particular annual festival is unique in that it contains only female actors. The whole point is to offer roles to strong actresses who don’t get to perform the type of role they really, really want, because of things like unfortunate typecasting or a simple lack of juicy available roles for women in this town. And let’s face it, really good, really interesting roles for women are comparatively rare. It’s the sad state of the world.

So this festival attempts to correct that, getting some intense and quirky playwrights to come up with something specifically for these actresses. This year, we even asked them what kind of role they’d really like, and the playwrights will cater to that.

I can’t wait to get started. All the actresses that have been assigned to me have all asked for roles using the adjectives “crazy,” “sexy,” and “ugly.”

This is gonna be gnarly.

Even awesomer than usual: the director assigned to my play will be Right Brain Project Artistic Director Nathan Robbel, and the playwright to which Lance will be assigned is Dream Theatre member/perennial favorite John Enright. This is like pairing the finest wine with gourmet meals Coca-Cola with In-N-Out burgers.

Tickets please.

Filed by Bil at 9:29 pm under Shameless Plugs
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I’d been putting it off for some time now because I thought it would be a big pain in the ass, but (as you may or may not have noticed) tipyourwaiter.org now has those handy-dandy little buttons to share on all your favorite time-wasters.

Apparently, this is just about the easiest thing you can do for your blog. Thanks, ShareThis!

This is also comes with analytics, so we can see exactly how ineffective we truly are. Analytics are something that I have a very, very keen interest in. It’s a scientific curiosity, and has a lot to do with how to make your business succeed using the internet. That’s the coolest part about my current day job - I get to learn about these things all the time. SEO, social media marketing, etc. I’m hoping this knowledge will help me out later on when I do NOT have a day job, because when that happens, I’m gonna need to work all the advantages I have. (Hint: business savvy and personal finance management are NOT some of my advantages.) Of course, if I check those analytics later and find that this post has more shares than any before or after it, I’m going to throw a fit.

In the meantime, though, here’s a music video.

Filed by Bil at 5:49 pm under The Arts
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Sometimes I want to be a professional photographer. I think it would suit my rock & roll lifestyle…at least, it would suit the rock & roll lifestyle I would create around being a professional photographer. I wouldn’t mind the paperwork or the fact that I’d probably be doing mainly weddings and family portraits to make ends meet. The occasional rock show would be SO worth it.

Also, I think I know enough now about internet marketing (as well as actual social interaction) that I think I could move somewhere and take over the scene. But I wouldn’t want to try it in Chicago, because I’m already established as this guy with one little camera who’ll gladly photograph anything for anyone for free.

The photo above is from a show I had the honor and pleasure to shoot - the CD release party for Diana & the Dishes. This was back in August. I’m not sure how their CD sales are doing, but their CD is amazing, so if you haven’t bought it yet, please buy it now. Right now. The album is called “Take A Picture” and you can purchase it on iTunes or CDbaby or Amazon, or if you’re old school like me, you can get an actual physical CD from her website.

Filed by Bil at 4:15 pm under The Arts, The South
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Before we get to our monthly activities recording the unbridled hatred of our anonymous friends and strangers tomorrow, I’d like to just give a shout-out to what surely must be the best blog in the world. There’s a recording of a reading of one of his posts with some psychedelic, spaghetti-western guitar beneath it, and seriously…it’s amazing.

You can close your eyes and just listen.

Filed by Lance at 3:48 pm under General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs
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…if we only gave you one thing to do with your hate.

Here are two:
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 7:25 pm under Fightin' Words, Love, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, The Science
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I read a New York Times Opinion article recently about our human tendency to anthropomorphize machines and assign the badge “Artificial Intelligence” to robots that simply aren’t intelligent. (I suspect he’s referring to articles like this one.) The opinion article is a great read, but it’s kinda long and it seems to conclude in a different place than it starts out, so if I were a high school English teacher, I’d give the essay a B.

At its core, this piece is a warning to us humans not to infuse our technological advancements with religious or philosophical ideologies. And I must say, I completely agree with that statement. My favorite point the author makes is this:

In fact, the nuts and bolts of A.I. research can often be more usefully interpreted without the concept of A.I. at all. For example, I.B.M. scientists recently unveiled a “question answering” machine that is designed to play the TV quiz show “Jeopardy.” Suppose I.B.M. had dispensed with the theatrics, declared it had done Google one better and come up with a new phrase-based search engine. This framing of exactly the same technology would have gained I.B.M.’s team as much (deserved) recognition as the claim of an artificial intelligence, but would also have educated the public about how such a technology might actually be used most effectively.

It punctuates exactly what he’s trying to state before going on to make grander observations about religious wars and the concept of personhood.

However, it did get me thinking – not so much about personhood or religion, but about the meaning of intelligence.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Lance at 4:40 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts
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Through my work with the Bite Size Arts Ensemble, I came up with this idea to get kids actively involved in creating theater.

I came up with a simple “script,” really just a bullet point list of the flow of a scene. I usually based this off of some ideas they had, or fleshed out a story they told me. I then came up with a list of assignments, i.e., Director, Art Director, Cinematographer, Actors, and gave them specific assignments, then turned them loose, guiding them and making suggestions as the “Producer.”

Here’s the results, I’m really proud of these kids:

Filed by Lance at 2:01 pm under General, Hatemail, Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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Start time: 1:00 PM
Media Personnel in attendance: 1
Pounds of Flesh consumed: 15
Kegs we polished off: 1, plus how many bottles??
Hatemail pieces we recorded: about 5
Pounds of vegetables we grilled: 6
True stories about Kelsey Grammer I heard: 1
New friends I made: 3 or 4
Friendships I deepened: several
Cups of coffee we served: 20
Cups of coffee I drank: 3
Twitter updates we sent: 7
End time: I left Trevor’s at about 1:30 AM

Congrats to you, Bil, and to you, Trevor, our gracious host, for another amazing Hatemail Recording Session! The next one takes place just before my birthday, Sunday, August 29th. Be there! Add to the numbers!