So why did I come back?  There is a long, complicated answer to that question, and there is also a really short, ridiculous answer.

I’ll give you the short, ridiculous answer:

I want to, nay, need to write a blog about my t-shirts.

For the past month or two months or perhaps from the onset of my birth in this blue-green world, I have had this nagging urge to write about my t-shirts.  Specifically, the retiring of certain t-shirts as I buy new t-shirts.  I don’t know why this is.  I cannot tell you why.  I have resisted, I have resisted so hard to write this blog, because it sounds boring, trite, ridiculous, stupid, and yet, here I am, crawling back to you, dear blog, so that I may construct a discourse on fabric that covers my torso.  That sometimes has funny pictures and/or sayings on it.

Specifically, I am writing about a Changing of the Guard.  My life is one built on laziness and resistance to change.  Thus, I have some shirts that I’ve worn for, oh, like six years.  When I moved to Portland I made this Decision that I would only buy band shirts, and wear band shirts around, and when pretty girls came up to me² they would say, “Are you wearing a band shirt?” and I would say, “Why, yes, I am,” and they would say, “What band?” and I would say, “Operation Ass Explosion,” and they would say “Cool,” in that way that hipsters smoking cigarettes in cigarette holders would say, and then we’d make out underneath a bridge but she would somehow be reading Tolstoy behind me at the same time.  I would know but I wouldn’t care, because I’m cool like that³.

One of these shirts that I’ve had for a long time is my Dragon Punch shirt.  Here is a photo for reference:

Actually that one doesn’t really show it at all.  Let’s try this one:

That is my friend Erin, she is pointing at me and probably saying “Hey, it’s That Guy!”

So there’s the shirt.  Very simple, I bought it online at some geek t-shirt website, and this photo was uploaded to Erin’s facebook on May 15th, 2006.  I still own this shirt.  It’s sitting in my closet right now, hanging there, looking at me like a dog that somehow gained the intelligence to know that it was about to be put down.  I’m sorry, Dragon Punch Shirt, this is the way it must be.

A story about this shirt: I once was part of an art installation.  The piece was called “What Does A Human Being Do When There is Nothing to be Done?”  There was a couch and some balloons with cartoon characters on it (no I don’t know why).  The piece needed a person to sit and do nothing, and so guess who they called?  That’s right, the Theatre Majors.  The people said “Act like you’re doing nothing,” and we said “Okay,” and then we all went there and slept because we were so tired from doing shit all day.  See, the art piece was a little misleading, mainly because if there is nothing to do, humans generally do one of two things: sleep, or go find something to do.  And since we were in an art piece and we couldn’t leave the art piece, we all slept.  Except for the weird theatre majors, they just did weird things like stare at the wall or do the splits of whatever.

Anyway, I arrived at the Boise Art Museum ready to sleep in my day clothes and the lady in the gift shop noticed my shirt and she said, “Why does your shirt say ‘dragon punch’ on it?”  She was a really beautiful Asian lady and so of course I stammered and said, “It’s from a video game,” and she was like, ohhhhkay and that was it, but the important thing is that she knew what the shirt said without knowing what the shirt meant!  I thought that was pretty neat.

The point of this story really is that I’ve had this shirt for four years and I need to get rid of it.  I mean, it still fits, it still looks decent, it’s one of the few shirts that I have not spilled food on, but it must go.  And so I’ve made this decision that whenever I buy a new shirt, I will get rid of an old shirt, until I’ve rotated out all of my old shirts⁴.

Then I found shirt.woot.com.  And it was like a baby was born without us even having sex.  And that baby was made out of shirts.

Shirt.woot is like what Threadless was five years ago: relatively unknown, but still pretty cool.  Now everyone and their got damn mother wears Threadless shirts, you know?  If I see one more dude wearing that Refridgerator Haiku t-shirt at a party I am going to haikick them right in the balls.

This is the part of the blog where I start to rethink my idea of writing a blog about my t-shirts.  I mean, what now?  Do I show you what t-shirts I’ve bought?  Do I launch into a diatribe about the philosophical nature of t-shirts?  Do I piss my pants?!

Here’s the deal: I bought a t-shirt that had a hieroglyphic-looking image of Mario, Mario Bros style, on the front.  And then I bought another shirt more recently of a turtle that shot down a rabbit with some sweet guns on its shell.  It’s a … reference to that … fable.  Yeah.

Oh my god this blog post is over.

jello puddin pops

Here is a picture of me from New Years Eve.  The caption is there because sometimes, in the right light, I look like I’m doing a Bill Cosby impression.

Here are a few updates from my life:

1. I have started running.  By “started” I mean I literally started today; I ran/walked for about 20 minutes.  I have started a blog about this, and you can read it here: Josh Goes A’Running.  I won’t write about it here, though.  This blog is for self-deprecation and my strange mental patterns.

2. February Album Writing Month is next month (obviously), and I am participating.  I suggest that if you want to listen to the songs I create, you head to my profile there, as I am not going to update my blog about it, because that just seems redundant.  Also, if you are a songwriter or have ever wanted to be a songwriter, I suggest you sign up!  It’s an amazing community full of professionals and amateurs (and people like me, somewhere in the middle), who are all extremely helpful and kind.  It’s almost annoying how nice they are!  If you do sign up, say hello on my soundboard thingy and I will certainly listen or read your stuff!

3. I’m thinking about dumping the joshuabelville.com website.  This will be done because it seems awkward to run two completely separate websites, when all of the good stuff is here on this site.  My new plan is to merge the webspace together (as I had separated it earlier) and just forward joshbelville.com to zornog.net, or perhaps to a subdomain on zornog.net.  What do you think?  Do you even give a shit?¹

4. There is no four.

I said that I would update this blog more and I have been lax about even that, and I apologize.  Truth is, not much is going on in my life right now besides working and watching every episode of 30 Rock on Netflix.  C’est la vie!

So let’s talk about resolutions.  What I resolve to do in this year.  I looked at my resolutions for 2009 and I’ve failed every single one of them.  It’s never been that bad before.  I don’t know what happened, but by becoming less rooted in Boise, I have become more introverted in Portland.

I really only have two resolutions: work out and rock out.  The work out part is self-explanatory: I, like every other unhealthy person in America, am going to attempt to get back into shape.  Right now this is difficult because I have no desire to do this whatsoever.  Quite the opposite — I want to drink soda and eat burgers all day.  Some say people battle depression by drinking alcohol, but for me it’s soda.  In a way it’s good because it means I don’t get to become an alcoholic, but it’s also dangerous because I’ll get diabetes.  So, yeah.

The rock out part is just a funny way of saying I’m going to try and play more music, whether it be live or not.  I really haven’t been feeling creative lately, and it sucks.

I also resolve to update this blog more often, which could be dangerous because I don’t do anything blog-worthy.  Unless you want entries about how good Bioshock is², then maybe a few blogs a month is good enough.

I’m not going to go into detail about why I feel shitty.  That’s the stuff of LiveJournals and other locked away journals.  This blog is about the good stuff going on in my life, stuff that people want to read about.  So I should probably just delete this entry and move along.

But I won’t.  Cause I promised I’d update.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Maybe that sounds pretentious.  I don’t care.  It was my experience, not yours, and I don’t expect you to understand how I felt at the time.  After being in the Rose City for a year and trying desperately to call it home, I finally felt home that night, and it felt good.

With that said, I promise I will blog more.

I am doing the Most Nerdiest Thing right now: DMing a D&D game.  It’s a lot of fun so far.  If you want to read more about it (and the custom campaign setting I’m developing), I suggest you head to our Obsidian Portal site.  If you’re into that sort of thing.

I love you all, thank you for reading and listening and being my friend.  It means a lot to me!

Before I begin, you have prerequisite reading: The Empty Spaces, or, How Theatre Failed America, an essay from the Seattle Stranger by Mike Daisey.  You must read this before you continue.  Don’t worry, I can wait.

…

Ready?  Okay.So a question has been laid on the table: How do we save theatre?  Well first, let’s think about what theatre is.  I’m not talking about some fancy Webster’s dictionary definition¹, I’m talking about the essence of what it means to go on stage every night for six days a week.  No, it’s not money.  No, it’s not success.  It’s not fame.  It’s your soul.

Art is putting your soul out there for people to see and appreciate.  Theatre is doing that by creating a story.  Painters do it by putting brushes to canvas.  Dancers dance.  Singers sing.  Writers write.  And we all do roughly the same things: a musician, for example, has twelve notes² to utilize.  You’ve heard a million songs in the chord progression I – IV – V, from the Beatles to blues to rock to folk, etc etc ad nauseum.  But it never gets old.  Why?  Because of the persons giving you the music.  The Beatles would never be the Beatles without John, Paul, George and Ringo, period.  The Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would be nothing.  Carrie by Stephen King would be different if written by someone else.  This is just how it is.

One of the great things about theatre is that it inverts the concept of creation: with music, it’s usually one act creating many songs, or one artists making many paintings, but in theatre, it’s one play inhabited by thousands of actors.  Imagine all of the people who have played Hamlet.  I guess from an actor’s point of view it’s one person becoming a thousand people, but still.  Every play is like a cover band.

So what is the problem with theatre?  A couple of things.  One, it’s becoming too commercialized.  Regional theatres are becoming national theatres in the sense that, instead of hiring brilliant regional actors, they’re outsourcing to New York, which is a silly, stupid idea.  Regional actors are who regional people want to see, plain and simple.  I’m going to talk about the Boise theatre scene for a second because it’s so small it’s laughable, but also because I know more about it than anywhere else.  Boise has two big theatre companies: the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and Boise Contemporary Theater.  The former does summerstock, or theatre in the summer, in an outdoor venue.  They do maybe one Shakespeare show just so they can keep the title, and then do other shows. A couple of years ago they did Arsenic and Old Lace, which I actually thought was pretty gutsy of them, considering Arsenic is almost exclusively a community theatre play.  But mainly they are a “spectacle” theatre: fancy sets and costumes, boisterous actors, physical comedy — stuff to entertain the masses.  Style without substance.  One of the crutches of theatre is that people assume the script is the substance, but it’s not.  The substance of theatre is the play happening on stage (and, to a lesser extent, to the rehearsal process).

Anyway, ISF outsources to New York, especially for their musicals, which is a fucking travesty because we have an enormous group of very talented singers, dancers, and actors at Boise State who would love to be a part of that experience.  Here’s where the “regional” aspect comes in … some of the non-outsourced actors have been there for several years, and that’s part of the charm of it all: patrons keep coming to the theatre to see the shows, but also to see their favorite actors performing.  They look for nuances in each performance.  They grade the actor based on past experiences.  These actors aren’t celebrities, they’re almost part of a family.  Unfortunately, it’s a family that only rich, white people can see.

This would be okay if ISF also didn’t make it look like they were raising young actors to eventually be a part of their stage.  As with all theatres, they have youth classes and whatnot, and one of those classes is the Apprentice program, wherein a bunch of rich kids pay a lot of money to get taught by the ISF staff over the summer, taking “master classes” (I fucking hate that term) and being glorified stagehands and extras.  They become part of this “family” that’s really just a clever money pit, because once these kids are too old to be a part of the program anymore, they either get the illustrious job of being assistant stage managers (read: stagehands), or they go to college and major in theatre because they’re so full of the spirit of it all, and get their degree and audition for the artistic director in an audition that can only be called a favor to the department chair, only to be told that they need a graduate degree.  And that’s frustrating, but fuck it, they’ll go to graduate school, do their two years learning how to become a puppet of corporate theatre, and then finally get into ISF — a theatre company they gave their hearts to eight years ago — only to be in a shitty version of Midsummer Night’s Dream set in Studio 54.  Oh, the audiences will eat it up; Puck is dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever!, the “magic potion” given to Titania and Lysander is actually cocaine!, everyone does the electric slide at the end!  Congratulations, you just sold your soul in a way you never thought you could.

Well … I didn’t expect to go on such a rant right there.  I just really dislike the Apprentice program.  For the record, I never participated in the program; my family was too poor.

The other theatre company, BCT, fares a little better.  They do occasionally bring in the out-of-state actor (or, say, Lauren Weedman for her one woman shows … but of course that’s understandable).  Their shows are small and intimate, usually three to four actors, which is nice.  And they’re trying to reach out to the actors in the city, with staged readings and other internships and whatnot, but they still cast the same actors in every show.  Which is good, because they’re local actors and they’re very good, and like I said earlier, audiences like to see the same actors, but it just means no opportunities for fresh faces.

They’re also having a “Season Opening Celebration” which is a thinly veiled fundraiser.  How much does it cost to get in?  $100.  Fucking ridiculous.  Contrast that with the Manor of Art, a week long event here in Portland, right across the street from my house, with I believe eight to twelve bands, a ton of art in about three hundred rooms, all of it incredible, and how much did it cost to get in?

Suggested donation.  That’s how much it cost.

Theatre is not the fucking Freemasons.  It’s not some secret club that has a special handshake that you need to know to get in.  It’s a collaborative art form that includes the AUDIENCE as part of the collaboration.  It’s not a rich white people society, where white-haired old ladies watch August Wilson’s “Fences” only to talk about slavery on the drive home, totally missing the point, and perhaps the plot, of the entire play.  And it certainly, certainly should not cost one hundred dollars to go to a theatre opening celebration.  That’s fucked up, plain and simple.

I’m getting a little off topic, and I apologize.  But to all my actor friends in Boise (those who aren’t in ISF or BCT) I implore you to leave.  Move away.  Go to a city that has more theatre opportunities.  Get some gigs under your belt.  Then maybe come back.

So the answer to the big question: how do we save theatre?  First and foremost, cut ticket prices across the board.  Plays cost anywhere from $20 to $60 these days, while movies only cost $10, and people always complain about the cost of a movie.  Theatre is not more “special” than a movie.  It’s a different experience, sure, but they’re essentially the same medium (an audience watching actors), and one should not cost more than the other.  Make theatre tickets $10, maybe $5 for senior citizens.  No one is turned away then. We live in an age where a few people make a lot of money, but most people don’t, and those people don’t want to have to choose between a play, or groceries.  If you’re wondering why so many people watch TV, this is one of the big reasons: because they can’t afford to go to anything else³.

This will invariably lead to budget cuts for costumes, props, lighting, etc.  This is a good thing.  The old theatre adage is “Keep it simple, stupid.”  Yet if you look at Broadway these days, or any of the big theatre companies, you see this is clearly not what they’re thinking.  And so what happens is that the story gets bogged down by spectacle, by style, by exuberance of novelty.  I think — I hope — that we’re finally reaching a point in our society where this is starting to die down.  Probably not, but you never know.  Unfortunately, keeping prices low will mean more audience members, but less money overall, but that’s a good thing!  It means you have to A) innovate, and B) act better! so that people will say “Oh that play was great!” vs “Oh that set was pretty!”

This is a good thing, I promise you.  I know that the costume designers and set designers out there will feel left out by this proposition, but I assure you, it’s a good thing.

Another obvious solution is to not spend so much money on equity actors in New York, and instead spend slightly less on, you guessed it, regional actors!  I suppose artistic directors think that this diminishes the quality of the theatre they produce, but I guarantee you it doesn’t.  This is what auditions are for, to weed out the shit actors from the good ones.  Unfortunately acting is all about “networking” now, which is a business way of saying “kissing ass.”  They call it networking because it obviously is not making friends.

I know, I know, you theatre companies have children to feed and houses to pay for.  I understand all of that.  We all do, because we all have rent and children and dogs, etc etc.  But we all share a common bond: we all love theatre.  We love giving a piece of ourselves for the good of the community.  We love an engaging story that brings the audience to a feeling of higher consciousness.  We love making people laugh.  We love making them cry.  It’s not manipulation, it’s storytelling, and we’re going along with them.  But stories should be for everyone, not just the privileged few who can afford it.

Ultimately, the ticket prices is just one aspect of theatre that we can control.  We can’t control the motion of our culture, the fact that young people would rather watch the stupidity of Transformers 2 than the brilliance of, say, Eric Bogosian. Or Mamet.  You think kids would love Mamet, buuut no.  They want to be dumb.  They are being funneled into mindless job drones, carefully manipulated into getting a job doing the same stupid shit eight hours a day until they die.  Honestly, I think art is what is going to fix this country.  I wish other people felt the same.

Sorry for rambling, I tend to do that a lot.  I just don’t want my college education to go to waste.  I think we could easily save the American theatre, but doing so will require a huge sacrifice — by everyone.  Money, first, time, second.  And if you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear your opinions too. 

So how’s it been?  It’s been good, mostly.  It’s been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of homesickness, a lot of contemplating very seriously whether or not I should move back to Boise.  My friend Paul said, “Give  it a year.  You have to live here at least a year.”  And at the time I thought, Oh, maybe … but now it’s been a year.  And I feel alright.  Not great, but not terrible.  I’ve felt both of these this past year, and both of those feelings were a little scary.  I miss my friends back in Boise.  I wish I had more friends here.  I have yet to find a group of people here that I can relate to the same was I relate to my friends back home.  No offense to my friends here, you’re all great people, but you’re just not the same, and it’s my responsibility to acknowledge that and say, Hey, it’s time to make new friends.

The most important thing here so far is that I’m making money, more money than I’ve ever made before, doing something relatively menial, with a company that sometimes drives me up the wall, but is usually pretty cool.  I got myself wrapped up with a movement that I never really wanted to be a part of, but fortunately they’re all cool people who understand that and allow me to be as close to, or as far away from, said movement as I’d like to be.

So for starters, I want to thank my brother Russ and my sister-in-law Iva for taking me in (they continue to take me in, since I live with them) and helping me get a job and all that.

Secondly, I’d like to thank Paul, Missy, Guin, Jeff, Shelby, uhhhh … Gabby, I suppose, the two Nates, Emyli, Kaitlynn, Megan!, and everyone who lives around these parts (or in Seattle) and who also I guess is on /orate (except for Megan), for being awesome friends and giving me the boost I needed to stay here in the first place.  Honestly, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you guys, you unknowingly helped me tackle my homesickness by being around and getting me out to see shows and just do stuff.

My life in Portland has been one of good beer, good food, and good shows.  I have a job, I was in a play that paid me more money than I’ve EVER been paid for acting.  I just did a commercial.  The jobs are trickling in but I have a feeling they’ll start increasing.  The only problem now is me: I need to get out there and Get Shit Done.  But all in good time, I say.

I forget where the hell I was going with this blog post.  This is not uncommon.

Anyway, I no longer feel freaked out living here.  I’ve settled.  I have a routine now.  Bus, work, bus, home.  Rinse, repeat.  Sometimes eat a burger.  It’s not perfect but at least it’s something.  Next step: apartment, bicycle, maybe a car.  Girlfriend?  No, mustn’t say that — a watched pot never boils.

Okay this is wavering into “pretentious blog” territory.  Good night all, and here’s too another year in Stumptown.

Of course, I’m not a proponent of smoking — it nearly killed my father.  But I am a proponent of civil liberties, and the concept of being able to do whatever you want with your bodies, so long as it harms no one else (without their consent; if you want to be harmed, you’d better say so first).  Smoking only harms other people when it’s inside a building.  That I think we can all agree on.  The smoke accumulates and after a while we’re all smoking what you’re smoking.  But outside, there’s this wonderful device called Wind, which picks up the smoke and pushes it away from you.  Or, if it pushes it toward you, there’s another device called Legs, which carry you to a location where the smoke is not.  Crazy, but it works.

But no, Boise State had to buckle under the pressure of whatever hoity toity North End millionaires decided that smoking is bad, mmkay.  After the jump is an article from the Arbiter, the BSU newspaper; a Q&A about the smoking ban.  I’ve included some comments in the quotes themselves; they are in [brackets].

In October of 2008, Boise State announced its decision to become a smoke-free university. There will be no smoking in buildings, around buildings or anywhere on campus, period. Since the announcement, students have been talking and The Arbiter has been listening. With some frequently asked questions in mind, I walked through campus to the office of Ferdinand Schlapper, the Executive Director of University Health Services [AND OBVIOUSLY A FAKE NAME]. Below are the questions posed to and the responses from Mr. Schlapper [Oh god I wish his name was Richard].

[Okay, just for the sake of journalism ... this is an awful opening paragraph in general. If you're wondering why print media is dying, this is it.]

Administration

Q “What were some of the steps taken to achieve the smoking ban and for about how long has this process been in effect?” [I don't know why they decided to put these in quotes, it really doesn't make sense.]

A “What the President’s cabinet came back to us with was saying that we don’t want to necessarily review this policy change piecemeal, incrementally. Let’s look at where are we going eventually with this and how do we take steps toward that. The directive we were given was to collect data on campus. Look at surveying our students, our faculty and staff as to their current smoking behaviors, their attitudes, their perceptions of smoking on campus, then to collect data about the harmful impact of smoking. And then the other piece was to try and get the major governing bodies on campus to see at what level would they support moving forward with us being smoke free. So ASBSU, faculty, senate, professional staff assembly and the classified employee senate.”

So, in other words, it never was a question of “if” you were going to ban smoking entirely, it was more a question of “when.”  It was one of those data collections to see how much of an impact creating a smoking ban would have, rather than to discern if it was a good idea in the first place.  Top notch investigating there!

New Students

Q “Is there anything in particular you would want to have communicated to the new students here on campus?”

A “Well, one of the things we have found is that this is a great recruiting tool to come to campus. In the sense of promoting Boise State as an active, vibrant, dynamic campus, creating an environment that is conducive to their success and student learning. That research is showing that exposure to second-hand smoke and that if you’re a smoker yourself, that can really cause problems. [<-- THE WORST SENTENCE EVER CONSTRUCTED.] This is for all students, faculty and staff to create that healthy environment.”

Hmm, this smells of segregation. I would have an issue with this sentence: “That research is showing that exposure to second-hand smoke and that if you’re a smoker yourself, that can really cause problems”, but honestly, I don’t know what the fuck it means. Current college students, I implore you: DON’T SLEEP THROUGH YOUR ENGLISH CLASSES.

But seriously, how is this a great recruiting tool?  Was Sally Freshman wavering on the idea of coming to BSU until the smoking ban passed?  What about schools like, say, Harvard, which do not implement a smoking ban¹?  Do people say, “Well, I was going to go to Harvard, but there were some gritty kids outside smoking cigarettes, and that chaffed my drawers something fierce!”  Don’t be stupid.  People don’t choose schools because of their health ideology.  They choose schools because of their a) curriculum, and b) if they can afford it.  Period.

Control

Q “Are there any punitive systems or mechanisms in place for students who are not compliant?”

A “The overwhelming effectiveness of compliance and enforcement has to do with that change of the culture in the area, and that peer pressure. When you have a very clear policy and everyone knows where you can and cannot smoke and if you know if you’re violating it and everyone around you knows that you’re violating it, there’s a self-enforcement within the community that will step up.”

Oh, great, so now we’re going to see a bunch of “hall/grass monitors” standing around, waiting to see someone light up so they can be the new campus pet.  It’s kind of ridiculous how college is becoming more like high school, while high school is becoming more like college.  I hear that if you’re caught smoking at BSU, you get challenged to a rumble at the flagpole after class.  Loser gets to salute their shorts.

I also love how Dick Schlapper did not actually answer the question, except to say that it will be self-enforced, which is an intentionally vague statement because they have no way to enforce it.  This means that no one will do anything about it, except for said goody two-shoes² who will basically piss off everyone on campus, kind of like those parking grunts who would slap a Boot on any car they could get their grubby mitts on. In other words, no one will do anything.

Implementation

Q “How do you plan to make the change actually happen, to go from ideas and paper to practice?”

A “The are several steps involved. First and foremost is an extensive promotional campaign and educational campaign.

Okay, stop here. I think “promotional” is the wrong word usage.  The McRib is a promotional campaign.  Transformers 2 action figures are a promotional campaign.  A smoking ban is not a promotional campaign.

We been doing that since the policy was passed and the press release came out last October. We were doing promotions in the Fall and we’ve been doing them in the Spring. A combination of notices, announcements, articles in The Arbiter, talking with ASBSU, we’ve got posters on campus and we’ve got a website up. Signage will be going up all around campus. We wanted to put the signs up very close to when the policy goes into effect. The timing is important. Those will be going up around the perimeter of the campus to let everyone know they are entering a smoke-free zone, and then around key, strategic places around the campus.”

Again, you can’t promote something that people have NO CHOICE OVER.  To continue the above examples, it’s like promoting the McRib sandwich and then shoving the fucker down someone’s throat.

Findings

Q “What were some of the findings you were able to located through surveys and the data you collected on the research?”

A “We had all the research data to show the harmful effect to your health but now there’s also research that shows it also impacts academic success. Smokers had lower grade point averages than non-smokers, even lower than high-risk drinkers, binge drinkers. It affects the brain chemistry also as far as depression and suicide ideation and so forth, which is a big concern for us on campus. Smokers have a five times higher rate of ’suicidality,’ or thoughts of suicide.”

This last question is just the bees knees.  As Megan pointed out³, correlation does not equal causation.  It’s tricky, I know, cause it looks like it does, but it doesn’t.  There are a lot, a LOT, of factors which determine grade point average.  I’m talking outside of school.  Smoking is not one of them.

ALERT, ALERT, WE HAVE TWO FANCY PSYCHOBABBLE WORDS HERE: “ideation” and “suicidality,” both of which mean nothing, but are trying to mean, “Smokers think about committing suicide more often than non-smokers,” which, again, has nothing to do with anything.  How is that related to school?  Are you saying that “promoting” a smoke-free environment is magically going to make these people happier?  Are you fucking kidding me?  If anything it’s going to make them SHOOT THEMSELVES because they’re desperate for a cigarette!  Nice work, Boise State, you’ve caused a bunch of smokers to kill themselves.  How’s that for causation, bitches?

So, in conclusion⁴, the smoking ban sucks turkey balls.  The end.

In true Josh Belville fashion, I will be bucking the trend of playing pleasant hippie jams, stunning normally docile cannabis smokers with tales of murder, revenge, and binge drinking.  They could only give me 20 minutes because if they gave me any more time, I would rock their faces off. And people generally enjoy having faces.

It’s totally free, and it’s all ages, so if you’re not doing anything at 12:50 on September 12th, come by and check out my set, say hello, grab a CD (I’m going to have some free CD-Rs to pimp give out.  Hopefully this will be the launching point for a lot more gigs and open mics, something that I should’ve started a year ago, but, well … I had to settle in, first.

Now for fun adventure news!  Last Thursday I got a free Threadless shirt!  Here’s the shirt:

that's a lot of words

It’s a nifty little shirt about a missing bike, very apropos of Portland, whose residents take bicycling very seriously.

I got the shirt following  a tweet from PDXPipeline, a website devoted to letting Portlanders know what’s Going On Tonight.  They’re a great site, and in a way are better tweeters, since blogs can only do so much, but tweets can go right to your phone, telling you things immediately.  Anyway, I got the tweet while at work, right before my lunch break.  It led to this blog post from Threadless, which explains the whole thing.  As I scrolled down the list of shirt locations, I noticed SE 16th and Pine, which is right by my work!  Hastily I ran down the couple of blocks to the location, and sure enough, there was the poster, still intact.  I ripped it down and had my lunchmate snap a photo:

look at my serious hitchhiker's thumb...

We both then realized that we were 15 minutes into our 30 minute lunch break, and hauled ass to the Greek deli.

That night I went to the Rifftrax live event.  It wasn’t live on the west coast (stupid tape delay), but it was still a blast.  Honestly, I hadn’t seen Rifftrax and hadn’t really watched MST3K in ages.  I was wondering if I would still find it funny.  In a way it was funnier.  The whole event was really cool, if a bit slapdash. Veronica Belmont is hot, of course (and sounds like she should belong in a Castlevania game).  Jonathon Coulton was great; I did not give him the respect he deserves when I first heard the Thing-A-Week songs (also the Portal song is awesome), but now I know better.  And the guys, Mike, Bill, and Kevin, still have it.  Even though Plan-9 is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, it’s the worst kind of fish, and the shooting is oh-so sweet.  I found myself laughing constantly — sometimes at the movie itself¹.

And now it’s Saturday.  Last night was good late night Mexican food (I think I’m beginning to tolerate cilantro now …).  Today is massive housecleaning followed by finally going to see the Manor of Art exhibit at Milepost 5, which is literally across the street from my house.  It’s been going on for a week and I haven’t checked it out yet.  That’s just not right.

Stay tuned for more updates.  I have a plan for a Friday music podcast just as soon as I can figure out how Audacity works.

So I’m at a D’s concert, obviously, in a big, wide outdoor arena.  I was with friends, but I don’t remember who they were.  We got front row but way left, all the way to the edge. Yet, Colin was still somewhat center of me. Oh well.

They come out, people cheer. They start to play Hazards, but the song is all gibberish (in my head). Somehow my POV switches to a person’s video camera, which Colin has noticed and begins to sing to. It’s kind of fisheye-y.  As he sings, you can see he’s a little out of it, and he starts forgetting lyrics.  Then, out of the blue, he stops playing.  The whole band stops.  He says, “I’m sorry, but something’s not right” to the audience, then he and the other D’s proceed to pull Jenny’s organ station and Moen’s drums closer to the stage, basically putting the whole thing closer to the audience.  We erupt in cheers.

Then they start playing a really, really weird, psychedelic version of Hazards.  Everyone’s like, cool, but it’s barely audible through the speakers. So everyone starts shouting, “Turn it up!” and pointing their index fingers to the sky². There might’ve been booing involved, I don’t remember; what I do remember is Nate Query throwing his bass down, doing one of those loud whistles where you put your fingers in the corners of your mouth, and shouting, “You know what? FUCK YOU” and then leaving the stage.  I remember him wearing a weird black barbershop quartet hat, but it was black and had a lot of shiny jangly jangles on it — something, I assume, John Popper would wear.  Anyway, the rest of the band follows him offstage.

At this point I’m confused.  I turn and notice that my friends — and mostly everyone else — has left, marching in a giant swarm of humanoids towards the ticket office to demand a refund.  I hurry after them.  But about halfway there, I turn and look at the stage — and notice the D’s going back onstage and grabbing their instruments to play.  So I shout, “Looks like they’re coming back!” and suddenly there’s a stampede as everyone rushes back to the stage.  I’m running my ass off, thinking I’m gonna lose my sweet spot!

As I’m running I pass by a giant, gnarled foot, draped in a blue and yellow sundress (flowery pattern, I think) down to the ankle. I’m supposing this belonged to some giant woman, but I can’t confirm this because my alarm clock went off and woke me up.  And that’s my dream.

Me: So I’m thinking about getting something to eat…
Person: Oh yeah?  Where are you going?
Me: I dunno, I was thinking East Burn?
Person: OH. MY. GOD. THAT PLACE IS SO. GOOD.
Me: Uh, yeah, it’s pretty tasty.

Or:

Me: So I’m thinking about getting something to eat…
Person: Have you ever been to Mama Mia?
Me: Mama Mia? Nope.
Person: OH. MY. GOD. IT IS SO. GOOD.
Me: Oh yeah?

Or:

Person: Have you tried the new Rogue ale?
Me: Nope. Let me guess, is it good?
Person: OH. MY. GOD. IT IS … SOGOOD.

Or:

Me: I’m thinking about heading to Powells to–
Person: OH MY GOD, I. LOVE. POWELLS.
Me: Yeah, everyone does, it’s–
Person: IT’S A BLOCK OF BOOKS.
Me: I know.
Person: SO. GOOD.

Or:

Me: Have you heard of this band?
Person: SO. GOOD.

Or:

Person: We should go to Ground Kontrol tonight. THAT PLACE IS SO. AWESOME.

Or:

Me: Have you been–
Person: SO. GOOD.
Me: I haven’t even said–
Person: AWESOME, THEIR SUSHI IS TO. DIE. FOR.
Me: It’s not sushi!
Person: I GOTTA GO.

Or:

Me: Have you been to that baby-strangling place?
Person: OH. MY. GOD. BEST BABY STRANGLING PLACE EVER.

My point being — the city is apparently the best place ever, but the people are a little two-dimensional.  When you ask people what they do for a living, they say something like, “I’m a vegan” or “I have tattoos.”  They pierce their septum or wear bright neon spandex or ride bicycles everywhere.  They read Nietzsche and Marx and quote them in an attempt to seem cool, but when you try to have a conversation with them it all falls into mush.  They love pop culture “ironically” (read: they really just love pop culture), and they like bands so obscure they probably just made them up on the spot.

I always thought that I wanted to be a part of the hipster community, but now that I see it face-to-face, I really, really don’t.