Beta!

Please note that I have converted this blog to the new beta version. What does this mean for you, the discerning reader? I'm not quite sure yet, but one thing I know it means is that I have post labels now--look over to the left, and you will see all posts organized into a few handy categories. Want to indulge in the sybaritic pleasure of reading all my sermons at once? Just click "sermons." Want to bathe your cones and rods in photographic glory? Click "pictures." And so on.

Just another sign of how much I love each and every one of you.

My Life--The Early Years

By the time you read this, it will be October 27th--my birthday. Yes, 39 years ago, I was brought into this world. Given that this is a blog and all, I thought that I would present for posterity the record of my tumultuous life so far, accompanied by pictiographic evidence, so none may doubt the veracity of my tale. Today, I'll cover the early years of my life (the late 60s and the 70s)--Saturday and Sunday will see my Middle (80s and early 90s) and Late (mid 90s to the present) years exposed for your edification. Please be warned that every word you are about to read is the unvarnished truth, as troubling as that may be for you to believe.

The Early Years: Prodigy and Peril

October 27th, 1967. In a small hospital in Chicago, I am born.
While I may look innocent enough, these are actually the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. Within mere hours of my birth, I kill two innocent wildfowl who somehow wandered into the pediatric unit. These birds were brought home from the hospital with me--my first trophies.
Slaughtering confused game birds, however, was not to be my calling. Filled with world-weary ennui,
I soon (once I could walk, that is) embarked on a wild cross-country adventure, taking jobs wherever I could find them. I worked as a farmer,
a fisherman,
lifeguard,
dairyman,
big game hunter,
merchant marine,
crusading superhero,

and pro caddy.
This picaresque adventure, however, came to a crashing halt when I was informed that I could not be a cowboy.
Angry at the world, I lashed out at authority, eventually landing in prison.
While I was living and loving my way across America, however, my parents brought my sister Claudine into the world. The instant I broke out of the joint, I made my way back to Chicago to see her. I found a kindred spirit.


Family had brought me home--I decided to quell the wanderlust in my soul and stay put for a while. I soon found that a new career awaited me: fashion icon.






While I lived the jet-set life, winging from New York to Milan and back again, my folks were hard at work. My brother, Ken, was born in 1972. Again, I found a kindred spirit.
The three T. children proved to be a unstoppable force, storming the pop music world with a string of number one hits.
We also found time to pursue our other hobbies.
In short, while the late 60s and 70s were a tumultuous time for me, I moved through them with the aplomb and respect for others that have defined my character to this day.
Through it all, I never forgot my friends.
Stay tuned!

More Alton Brown! And Knives!

I posted my tribute to Alton Brown a while ago, but here is some YouTube goodness for you....

Today's Sermon--The Neo-futurists

(I'll have you know that I started this entry on Sunday, but circumstances prevented me from posting till now--however, I still consider it a valid Sermon Sunday post. So there.)
As you know, not every sermon I share with you concerns some awful pet peeve I want to rant about--I like to inspire as well as admonish. Today I'd like to give voice to a paean to the Neo-futurists.

Today (Sunday), I took a group of my Intro to Theatre students to the Neo-futurarium to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. I am very pleased to report that they were flabbergasted and amazed by the show. I've been going to TMLMTBGB for over ten years now, and I never (well, hardly ever) hesitate to send my students to it because I always know that they will have an experience unlike any they have had before. Most of them made a point of telling me that they are going again, and that they are going to take along their boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend/parent.

I like theatre best when it does things that movies can't do. Face it--movies do realism better than theatre can. They have bigger budgets. They have glam stars. The best way for live theatre to compete is to give audiences an experience that they can't have at the movies. It should take advantage of the contact, spontenaity, and intimacy possible with actors that are right there in front of you! TMLMTBGB does this with a vengeance. Last night (Sunday), my students were involved in the show, brought right up on stage and made part of the action.

Every visit to the Neo-futurarium brings new experience, new laughs, new poignant moments--new good stuff, in other words, that I could not have gotten from seeing the latest Hollywood "blockbuster." Don't get me wrong, I love movies. But I love theatre more, because of the immediacy and power that it has that, for me, dwarfs what any cinematic (or televisual, for that matter) experience could.

I won't describe in more detail what the Neo-futurists do because their website does a much better job than I could. Just know that, if you haven't been yet, you need to go. If you are out of town, I will more than likely drag you bodily to a show at the first opportunity when you do come into town. You might, like David and Carrie, be dragged onstage by the actors and made into spectacle (in David and Carrie's case, you might have to make out between each short play.) You will also see something you have never seen before.

Moral: I love the Neo-futurists--you should too.

Further deponent sayeth not. Go forth and sin no more.

Postscript: You can be part of the Neo-futurist experience even if you aren't in Chicago! Greg Allen, the Founding Director (he came up with the idea for TMLMTBGB) is writing a new play for their "prime-time" season called You Asked For It! He is surveying people to find out what they most (or least) want to see in a play, then writing the script based on the responses. I've already taken the survey--you should too! Go here to let Greg know what you, the finicky potential audience member, wants to see.

All the Great Books--Look, pictures!

As promised, here are some pictures from my production of All the Great Books. This first picture is from the Don Quixote section of the play--Phil, in the foreground, is translating (badly) the dramatized version performed in the original Spanish.

Here, Jason and Phil attack the Cyclopes, in the Odyssey section of the play.

Look out--Huck Finn coming through!


The Trojan Horse sneaks toward its destiny.

From The Iliad and The Odyssey to Ulysses by James Joyce, as Coach Shay, Phil, and Jason expertly express this 20th century masterpiece.

Look out--it is the Battle of Borodino from War and Peace! No magnanimity to the enemy!

This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but I spent half an hour writing in actual text from War and Peace on this prop book--all for something that was open all of five seconds to the audience. Why?--because it was a book, of course! The only regret I have is that I didn't write in text from further on in the book in the cut-out section (which hid a copy of the Spark Notes for War and Peace) .

Hope you enjoy these shots--I had a lot of fun with this show, mainly because I had three great actors and a great production staff (and stage manager!)

Today's Sermon--Three Coins in a Fountain

I'd like to speak today on one of my pet peeves--the habit Americans have of throwing coins in fountains, wells.... Hell, any still body of water short of a puddle in the street is likely to have been infested with hundreds of idly tossed coins. Malls, plazas, hotels, hospitals, parks, lobbies, train stations, airports, palazzos, winter gardens, libraries, colleges, museums--it doesn't matter the context, if there is a man-made body of water in it, some moron will throw a coin into it.

Case in point--the Egypt exhibit at the Field Museum features a small mock-up of the Nile, used to educate viewers on the role the Nile played in Egyptian culture and farming habits. It is clearly not a fountain or wishing well. Nonetheless, it usually sports a thick bed of American coins, nestled among the faux-papyrus and stuffed waterfowl. This monetary refuse does not add to the ambiance.

Why do people do this? When I've asked I've received answers such as "It goes to charity, doesn't it?" (How would you know?) "The {fill in the name of the location victimized here} takes them as a donation, I think..." (I have to believe that a lot of places pay more money to clean this crap up than they get from the pennies you've just flung from your meaty, sweaty hand into that fountain.) It seems to be some gut-level instinctual response, much like the post-mortem jerking of a frog's leg. I know Americans hate change, but does it really need to go to this level? If you were at Trevi Fountain trying to ensure your return to Rome, I could understand it, but who needs to ensure that they will return to Oak Brook Mall?

Moral: Please people, keep your damn coins in your damn pocket.

Further, deponent sayeth not. Go forth and sin no more.

My USA--a pre-sermon warm-up

I came across this neat website that allows you to post a map of the U.S. states you have visited. While I'm sadly deficient in the Northeast and South, this still isn't bad coverage. The only states listed here that I haven't driven to or through are Texas, North Carolina and Alaska, by the way, so this isn't just a map of airport connections I've made.

create your own personalized map of the USA

Look, a picture! (double shot)

Twice the production shot fun today--this time a shot from last year's production of Dinner With Friends--the only scene where all four characters appear. Trust me--they aren't always this happy.

Look, a picture! (Shakespearean edition)

Here is a shot from my production of The Tempest from year before last. This was one of my favorite moments from the play, as Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian are confronted by the spirits led by Ariel and Prospero.

New Horrors! New Horrors!

Well, I've just realized that I haven't had a single post in October yet and it is nearly halfway through the month. Not the thing to do if you actually want to have people hanging breathlessly on your every word. Then again, as in the ketchup commercial, perhaps I have simply heightened the anticipation. So, what gives?

In a word, I've been a bit depressed lately. One of the things I promised myself when I started this blog is that it wouldn't not become a confessional, self-pitiying "emo" blog. I intend to keep that promise (sorry emo fans!), so I didn't really have a lot to talk about. Coming hard on the heels of the madness and hecticity (hey--a new word! Who says I don't give bang for your buck....) of the show, I haven't been able to come up with anything I would consider interesting--which, of course, is already questionable even when I aren't busy/feeling blue.

So, let me bring you up-to-date. All the Great Books closed last Sunday. I was very pleased with the show (I'll post some pictures from it once the disc comes from the photographer), and was very gratified by all the hard work put in by the actors, crew, and design team. It seems strange that I won't be directing anything in the near future--heck, depending on how the scheduling goes, I might end up not directing anything in all of 2007! Perhaps I need to look for some professional opportunities, but it is hard to contemplate this with the other responsibilities that I have.

It looks like I might be performing again soon, though--I will most likely be in the Heritage Theatre's Christmas show, playing a variety of roles. (Heritage Theatre is the alumni theatre company at Lewis.) Could be fun--I'll have more details when the time comes.

I've found the Mark Foley scandal very amusing--here's hoping it still has legs in a couple of weeks and helps to overcome whatever dirty tricks the G.O.P. has in store for early November. I'd feel better if more Democrats were showing more spine in opposition to, say, legalized torture, but we don't live in some sort of socialist Utopia, do we? Considering that popular opinion seems to have finally swung against this idiotic war, I really think that the Dems in D.C. could be doing more to bang the anti-war drum. Man, I am really looking forward to the investigations that will be launched if the Dems to manage to take back the House!

I'll have a new picture (maybe a couple) up tomorrow, and a new sermon on Sunday. I'm thinking of tackling one of my pet peeves--other than ketchup.

Look, a picture! (yet more Alaska!)

I thought that I would continue with the Alaska theme this week. This picture (taken by my father) is from the top of the Mt. Alyeska ski run just south of Anchorage. A few moments after this photo was taken, paragliders started flinging themselves off the top of the mountain.

BTW, I know that I missed my last sermon entry, and you poor souls have now gone two weeks without my words of wisdom. I'll make up for it this weekend. In the meantime, stay on the meds.

Look, a picture! (less past, more blast)

This picture is from about nine years ago (hard to believe), during my second trip to Alaska for dissertation research. It was taken in beautiful Sitka, AK, sometime early in December during my winter break from UO. I'm looking southeast along the shoreline back toward Sitka itself. I originally took these pictures with my old one-shot kodak camera and had them developed by Seattle FilmWorks, which at that time also sent back the pictures in a propietary format, which I have converted to jpeg here. (Aren't you all proud of me?)

No Sermon Today

No Sermon today--it is tech weekend, and I am just too tired. Watch the Olbermann commentary again instead.

Olbermann on the anniversary of 9-11

Well said, Keith. This administration has squandered every ounce of good will to come out of the tragedy that was 9/11 with a web of lies and deceit. Our children and our children's children will be paying the price--let us pray it is not too high.

Look, a picture! (request edition)

Never let it be said that I don't try and please my adoring public (such as they are.) As requested, another blast from the past--Christmas 1972, to be exact. Yes, that is a purple velour leisure suit. No, the years of therapy haven't yet helped me cope with this--thanks for dragging up painful memories. I may have to self-medicate--I hope I have enough scotch for drowning this image out tonight.

This will be the last "blast from the past" on Picture Day for a while--I don't want to go to the well too often, and all these ancient pictures are making me feel like I was born in another century....oh, crap. I was born in another century....

All the Great Books--Coming Soon

Well, All the Great Books is coming soon, so I thought I'd better post something about it so the throngs of adoring fans who flock to this blog can make their plans to come to see it. I know that making the trip to Romeoville every year to see one of my shows is the equivalent of a hegira to Mecca for many of you, so start preparing now!

The show runs 9/22-9/24, then 9/28-10/1. Thurs. through Saturday, there are evening shows at 8:00. The Sunday matinee is at 2:30. We have added a Saturday matinee for the second weekend this year at 4:00. If you would like to come see the show, which I think will be pretty funny, let me know, and I'll reserve you some tickets. If you want to see me after the show, don't come on Sunday, as I have show responsibilities after each show. I'll also have an adjudicator for the American College Theatre Festival coming in at some point, and I wouldn't be available after that show either--I'll try to post in the comment section as to when that will occur. I'm sure you will all be waiting with bated breath!

Today's Sermon--Jack Benny

I'd like to discuss another of my heroes for this Sunday's sermon--Jack Benny. Although our lives barely overlap, Jack has been an enormous influence on me. In fact, his portrait was the first I bought for the "Hall of Fame" that I'm still putting together for my office. The title of today's sermon: "On Making Everyone Else Funny--Jack Benny."

I discovered Jack Benny when I was still in grade school. I have always loved old radio programs. I owned (and still own) recordings of radio shows like "The Shadow," "The Green Hornet," "Jack Armstrong--All-American Boy," "Quiet, Please," "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," "Dimension X," "X Minus 1," and many others. I would ride my bike to the Oak Lawn library, which had a better selection than my own, and check out tapes of old shows. It was in this way that I discovered Jack Benny.

It can be very hard for comedy to preserve its laughs over the years. Comedy is usually very topical, very dependant on references and events. Benny's show still made me laugh (still makes me laugh) forty to sixty years later.

Jack had a gift for the slow burn, for the reaction"shot", and an impeccable timing that made him a consummate performer. What really puts him on my Wall of Fame is his willingness to share the spotlight, to make others around him funny. Benny often plays the straight man to his cast of characters, or makes himself the but of the joke. His skinflint, fussy, cowardly, miserly, petty persona--so lovingly cultivated on the show--was completely the opposite from the real Jack. Benny understood that the real key to comedy, particularly in an ensemble, is giving gifts to others, setting up the people around you. I learned first hand how important this was when I was training in improv, and it is the first and most important lesson that I try to impart to my students today.

Moral: The great performer, like the great person, is a generous performer.

Further deponent sayeth not. Go forth and sin no more.

Look, a picture! (A blast from the past....)

This week's picture harkens back to the early 1970s--yes, kids, the "olden times." That is me on the far right, with my mom, my sister Claudine, and my brother Ken (who doesn't seem to be enjoying that lollipop.) Only extensive therapy has allowed me to get over the psychic scars left by years of plaid pants....

Today's Sermon--Ketchup

"Sermon Sunday" once again comes late this week--blame the holiday. Today, I shall sound off against one of the great ills of our society: ketchup (or catsup, I don't care.) The title of today's sermon: "On How I Learned to Stop Kowtowing to Society and Hate Ketchup."


Ketchup, my friends, is evil. There, I said it. Money has been said to be the root of all evil--it is as nothing compared to the festering sinkhole of corruption and calumny which is catsup.

Now some among you may think that I am expressing a hate of tomatoes, or of vinegar, two hapless, helpless participants in the perfidy which is ketchup. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love tomatoes: red, green, heirloom, I don't care. (And I love tomato juice, which has the same relationship to ketchup that a pure, sweet drink of spring water has to a swig of carbolic acid.) I have a cooler relationship with vinegar--we have a nodding aquaintance, mostly confined to salad dressings and the occasional shake of the malt variety over fried fish and chips. Vinegar is always welcome at my table...as long as it behaves itself.

Ketchup, however, embodies everything I dislike about our culture. It is applied, without wit or consideration, to foodstuffs that can survive perfectly well, nay, thrive, without it--often in heaping amounts. Its cloying, sickly sweet taste overwhelms and eradicates the savour of anything it is applied to. It stands as the fervent symbol of the "ugly American," who hastens to cover the slightest soupçon of unfamilar flavor with a red viscous shroud of pat routine. In short, if any condiment is emblematic of the soft bigotry of lowered culinary expectations which pervades this country, it is ketchup.

Therefore, I implore you, dear readers--set your french fries free! Cover your burgers no longer with a layer of the red devil! Apply it not to your fried fish, to your onion rings, to--sin of all sins, calumny of calumnies--your hot dogs! Banish ketchup (and catsup) to the nether reaches of the furthest, darkest, hottest circle of Hell!

Further, deponent sayeth not--go forth and sin no more.

Look, a picture! (Part Deux)

Another picture from my vast digital hoard. This is another selection drawn from my time on the Orkneys--The "Old Man of Hoy," a seastack (no, not sleestak) on the north coast of the island of, you guessed it, Hoy. I had a very pleasant hike to this sight--what you can't see are some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, which I am perched on at the moment this is taken (as opposed to hiding behind the Old Man.)

Today's Sermon--Alton Brown

I intend to make each Sunday "Sermon Sunday," with preaching (of a sort) on a favorite subject of mine. I missed this Sunday by a hour or so, but I wanted to start the tradition nonetheless. The title of this Sunday's Sermon is...."On Alton Brown--My Hero."

I've always loved cooking shows. Not just because I love food (probably too much), or because I love cooking (although not enough to do it for myself as much as I should), but because they made the cryptic and inscrutable--the alchemy which is cooking--understandable and, well, scrutable. Half of cooking is technique--"how do I make that?" as opposed to "what is in that?"--and great cooking shows make it all look easy. (Of course, what looks easy on the screen may not be easy in the kitchen, but more on that later.) They also tend to revolve around personalities: I know that Julia herself, with all her jollity and can-do-itiveness, was a big attraction to me (and to Dan Ayckroyd, to judge by his affectionate satire.) Sometimes even more so than the food.

When Food Network came on the air, I fell first for Emeril, and I'm sure personality was the culprit (although most of the recipes I've cooked up have been excellent!) Emeril is big, engaging, funny--and incredibly repetitive after the first ten kajillion times you have heard him bam or exclaim about pork fat. (Hey, I love it too, but come on!) Then Rachael Ray caught my eye, mainly because she is cute. Her schtick became even more annoying twice as quickly, however. (Concerning her travel shows--Does she love everything she puts in her mouth? {insert dirty joke here}) I despaired of finding a guru of the same level of dear, departed Julia.

Then, one day, I saw Good Eats for the first time.

What do I love about Alton? Let me count the ways.....

• he makes things scrutable, but with science! Seriously, I like to know not only about the technique called for in preparing a particular dish, but why is that technique is called for, what does it do? Or, why those ingredients (in that order?) With Alton, I get the whys and wherefores. He talks about why foods behave certain ways, chemically, and I feel like this helps me understand and perform the techniques he is teaching more effectively. His books do the same thing. I like knowing why I'm doing something a particular way--he tells me.
  
• he is funny, in a genuine way. I'm not just talking about the jokes on the show, but his whole demeanor. On his newest show, Feasting on Asphalt (now sadly at an end after only four episodes), he takes a spill on his motorcycle. As he lay there in the road, in pain from a broken clavicle, he made a joke about his motorcycle mirror.
  
• he seems like a guy you (okay, I) would want to pal around with. Watching his "Making of" special, it looked like his employees like working with him, that he is good to them. He seems like a guy you could have a great conversation with on a bunch of topics--and he could keep up with any turn in the flow that might occur.
• I keep thinking of more friends who would love his show if they had cable or watched cooking shows. I don't know if this says more about Alton or about the friends I choose (or who choose me), but--I know they would love it!

In any event, such is my paean to Alton Brown, my new food guru. Moral--you should be watching him!

Further, deponent sayeth not--go forth and sin no more.

Old School for Pre-School!

This video makes me very happy. Who knew that Dipsy could shake it old school like this? Don't hurt 'em, Dips!

Look, a picture!

I will post a picture from my vast store of digital images each week. Here is this week's image--feast your eyes! It was taken on the beautiful Orkney Islands last summer. I'm hiding behind one of the Standing Stones of Stenness, which sit in the middle of a sheep field--oh, I am such a scamp! Beyond the frame, several of said sheep are looking at the idiot American bemusedly.

Raison d'etre

After horrible, horrible, unspoken and imaginary pressure by certain parties who shall remain nameless (darn you, Ronda!), I have decided to start this blog, despite the fact that I really should be finishing up some things for school right now. (Okay, probably because I should be finishing up some things for school right now. Never let it be said that I couldn't cop to my prediliction for procrastination.) I have no idea how often I will update it, and I offer no promises as to how entertaining it might be. It is, however, less creepy (to me) than putting up a profile on MySpace.

A note on this blog's title: I am, at present, forced to include a disclaimer on my answering machine's outgoing message that I am not a particular Kevin T--an author of a popular book on supposed herbal cures and a convicted felon on fraud charges (are the two linked? who can say....without opening oneself to libel charges, at least....). I was forced to take this step, as well as ordering caller ID, once I started to receive two to three calls a day looking for this idiot, who also happens to reside in the same area as I do. He, happily for him, has an unlisted number. I don't, so I regularly get complaint calls and e-mails (some quite abusive) intended for him. Let me just say that I have a white-hot burning disdain for the individual who has the bad fortune (for me!) of sharing my name....may he suffer the discomfort of a hundred paper cuts! Rubbed with lemon! And salt! With no band-aid in sight! And only nasty stinging Bactine to clean the cuts!

I shall say no more on this subject.