A good cause

My favorite blog, Tomato Nation, is participating in the DonorsChoose Blog Challenge, where bloggers challenge their readers to raise money to fund projects in low-income school districts.

The contest is supposed to last 31 days. The readers of Tomato Nation met their goal of $35,000 in less than 2 days (about $28,000 ahead of the next highest group), and are currently most of the way to their first bonus goal of $5000 (which leads to the blogger dancing the "Angela Dance" from "My So-Called Life" around 30 Rockerfeller Place in a giant tomato costume). Due to this bonus challenge, Claire Danes has already volunteered to donate $5000 additional if this group makes it to the $50,000 mark.

So, if you've got $10 or $50 laying around that you'd like to donate to needy school kids (and WHO DOESN'T?), head on over to the Challenge.

ETA: Those crazy people have already hit the $40,000, and $50,000 marks so they're on to the next challenge and the $75,000 mark.

If you do donate, let me know in the comments, so I can give you a big hug when I see you.

a confession

I'm about to make a confession here that I fear may lose me the respect of some of my friends. But, really, I feel the need to clear the air.

I do not listen to NPR. I do not listen to public radio at all. Ever. Except when I'm in a cab, sometimes.

It seems like everyone I know listens to NPR, and talks about what they've heard with the same assumption that everyone knows what they're talking about that was once reserved only for episodes of "Friends." I do not know these radio programs that you speak of. Those hosts' names mean nothing to me.

I'm sure NPR is great, and interesting and educational. I just can't listen to talk radio. I am the opposite of aural. Listening to people talk, without any visuals, bores me to tears. I love to have music on as background, but I am unable to listen to people just talking. I have great difficulty listening to people lecture, too. I hate talking on the phone, because I'll forget half of what I'm told. Send me the same information in an email, and I'll stick in my brain. I can read anything and remember it - but listening to voices, talking and talking...

zzzzzzz

Anyway. I just wanted to get this out there, so that I can stop nodding when people talk about NPR, and just admit that I have no idea what they're talking about.

the cause for rebels

Don Hall blogged this morning about the "blandization" of theater, asking where the outlaws willing to push the envelope have gone.

Try and name one "cool" character in history who was conformist and law abiding. Even Jesus Christ was a complete fringe rebel fighting the conformist dogma of the day, so don't hand me some right wing conservative nonsense about being a good, obedient Christian.

Where did that kid with all the self-respect and independence go?

The common picture is that he grew up and out of his child-like ways. That today's liberal progressive anti-government long hair just needs to get a job, make some money, have some kids and he will naturally become conservative in his thinking. This equates conformism and materialism with adulthood and wisdom but does not bear out empirically. Mahatma Gandhi was a rule-breaker; Churchill was a rebel; John Brown might have been insane but he was right.

Where DID they all go? Is the rebel slowly fading out of existance? Not just in theater, but everywhere? Why? What's happening?

Is our process of education to blame? It makes me think about what I've seen in CPS schools. Kids required to walk everywhere in striaght, silent lines. Teachers who work and work to break the rebels into compliance, forcing them to sit in corners and stare at walls, sending them to the principal instead of finding a way to challenge them or engage them.

Is our prescription drug culture to blame? Are all the rebels being Prozaced out of existance? Most of the artists and thinkers and rebels were a little crazy. Are we stunting that creativity and those outlaw personalities with drugs so that our children can "do well" in school and "fit in" and get a "good job"? (according to whose standards?)

Is the American Dream to blame? America is one of the few countries where we believe that everyone can "make it" if only they work hard enough. Nothing is ever good enough, and we're sold this idea that we have to work harder and get more, achieve some success that is always just out of reach. But that "success" that we're being sold - it's someone else's ideal, not our own. The skinny models, the muscular bodies, the yacht, the mansion, the corner office - it's a manufactured want, and for so many, it drowns out their real wants, and worse, causes them to judge the wants of others. People who want the simple, or the fringe, are made to feel like failures by friends and family and society, for not wanting what the masses can understand. Many give up, and they join in mocking the rebels, maybe partially out of jealousy that they aren't one any longer.

Putting on a good show isn't "success" in the eyes of the masses. It's not "how good was the show?" but "how much did you make?" that is the question on everyone's lips. It's not "how many students did you help this year?" but "how many days of vacation do you get?"

I can blame myself a little. I'm not much of a rebel. I chose not to pursue theater because I wanted health insurance and a steady paycheck. I wish I had more of Don's rebelliousness in me, didn't have this need for security. Instead, I rebel in small ways, I cheer for the rebels, do my best to make them feel less alone in a world that wants to put them in the corner and break them into compliance.