hiatus HIATUS 2

My last alleged theatre hiatus -- a year ago -- only lasted about three months, under the guise of only doing pit orchestra gigs which would require less dedication of time. But what I ended up doing was committing to more, smaller projects rather than a few large ones.

Still, I regret nothing, and I had fun. I enjoyed the coffeehouse gigs with Kim and Mike (and the requisite rehearsals, which I dubbed "Caraffi's Piano Bar"). And of course, I very much enjoyed being in Company, during which I had to stretch myself as an actor. Plus, as I've said before, meeting new people and making new friends are large reasons why I enjoy doing it.

But let us not lose sight of getting my sh!t together before I'm 30. I've achieved goal #2, moving out of my parents' house, and #6, stopping chewing my fingers. Goal #1 is... sort of there. I mean, I wouldn't have moved out otherwise. But now that I've plunged myself into "the real world" (if that's what you want to call it), that raises the bar a little for what is "modestly comfortable." That's a backward and euphemistic way of saying I'm still working on the whole career thing -- but as we all know, employment is a taboo topic for personal blogs.

Which brings me to my current theatre hiatus. Today was the last performance of Grease at Magnificat, which fulfills all the shows I'd already agreed to for 2008 back in June when I started itching for this break. Aside from the aforementioned focus-on-my-career thing, I also hope to make 2009 the Year of the Coaster, in some capacity. Finances permitting, I'll sample a few new parks with friends, particularly ones in the Cedar Fair chain which I get into for free with my season pass. The idea is that these will be brief weekend or extended weekend trips, whilst strategically mooching off friends who live in those cities for lodging when possible. It's very difficult to plan such adventures when every weekend is tied up with one gig or another.

That doesn't mean, of course, that I won't take on the occasional job should something cool come along. If someone wants me to play for The Last Five Years, I'll be there. And I will do Magnificat again if they want me, because it's a good gig and I enjoy working there.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a graphics project to work on, because apparently I'm not on an art hiatus.

toooooo early

My friend Laurie is nuts about Christmas, and sure enough, she had Stu out there this weekend hanging the lights and setting up the inflatable whatsit in the front yard.

My family had a tradition of setting up a small-ish artificial tree either the night of Thanksgiving (after post-meal naps) or the day after, to kick off the Christmas season. Aside from growing up with that tradition, I simply don't want to steal any thunder from Thanksgiving, which is one of my favorite holidays. It pained me to see Christmas crap in the seasonal section at Target next to the Halloween stuff when I was shopping for pumpkin carving tools.

As I said in 2005:

In many ways, I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas. Thanksgiving doesn't have nearly the hype that December 25th holiday brings. One often finds more hospitable weather -- and more hospitable attitudes of the general public -- on the fourth Thursday of November. The day comes without gobs of money spent on gifts no one really needs; instead, the day is unabashedly devoted to food we don't need.

[...]

Thanksgiving also ushers in the season of Christmas, and despite the best efforts of the retail industry, it provides a barrier to keep us from diving into The Holiday Season™ too quickly. Christmas hypes up the gift exchange with lights and trees and carols and parties and alleged goodwill toward all, only to have it all come crashing down within a few hours' time on December 25th. Thanksgiving isn't nearly so pretentious, and thus isn't such a letdown when it's over.

This will be a different shopping season for me. Now that I'm living on my own, I have significantly less disposable income to spend on such things. And speaking of spending money on Christmas, I'd like to get an artificial tree for my apartment, but I won't even have room for it if I don't finish unpacking -- or at the very least, resign to stacking boxes in a semi-out-of-the-way place, which is a gateway drug to clutter and apathy. I know; I grew up in such a house. I really don't want to go down that path.

(Apparently, I'd rather live in denial and continue walking around the boxes in the mistaken belief that if they're in my way, I'll eventually be annoyed enough to unpack them. As if that weren't a gateway drug to apathy. Argh! It's starting already!)

Edited to add: I'm not Scroogish about Christmas, though. I was reminded of something else that was a de facto tradition in the Bird household. Since my parents were both teachers, certain aspects of our lives were aligned to the school year. As I said, we'd put up the artificial tree on Thanksgiving night, but we didn't assemble a live tree in the living room until a few days or a week before Christmas.

For one, that ensured it was still fresh and piney-smelling for the 25th. For another, it meant we got to enjoy it through New Year's and the end of winter break. So not only did Thanksgiving get its due in November, we got to enjoy Christmas for a few weeks in January as well.

I know people who chuck the tree out on the curb on the 26th; I just can't imagine doing that. Such an act is not even in my vocabulary. (Moot in my case since live Christmas trees aren't allowed in my apartment.)

another op'nin', another gig

Next Monday I will be performing in From Ohio to Broadway, a half hour program chronicling Ohio composers and lyricists whose work has made it to the Great White Way. Here is the description from the presenter:

Come hear the stories and songs FROM OHIO TO BROADWAY on Monday, November 17 at 7 p.m. at the Renaissance Center, 26376 John Rd. in Olmsted Township. This program takes a look at the works of composers and lyricists from Ohio whose works have been performed on Broadway and will be performed by Pianist Bryan Bird and Narrator Bette Lou Higgins. This performance will be free and open to the public. For further information, call the center at 440-235-7111.

For a complete schedule of Eden Valley Events check out our calendar page at www.edenvalleyenterprises.org.

In addition to playing, I'm also singing about half the songs, including "Brotherhood of Man," "A Lot of Livin' to Do," "De-Lovely," and... appropriately... "Ohio" from Wonderful Town.

Grease, for which I'm playing at Magnificat High School, opens this Friday and runs for two weekends. Fridays and Saturdays are at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 4:00 p.m. Nov. 14-16, 21-23. Tickets can now be purchased online with a credit card, or via phone at 440-331-1572 ext. 277 for cash and check sales. Magnificat is located at 20770 Hillard Blvd, Rocky River (although the Performing Arts Center entrance is most easily accessed off Wagar Road).

After that is the start of my allegèd theatre hiatus... That doesn't mean I can't be called out for something really good, of course...

pepsi decides to put the 'ugly' in 'fugly'

My new favorite blog -- which satisfies the logo/identity design geek in me -- is the Brand New section at Under Consideration. That's where I discovered the abominable travesty that is the new Pepsi logo (or should I say, pepsi, lowercase?).

Aside from the stark and self-diminishing logotype, I'm not sure what they're trying to get across with the variety of swooshes. I guess the idea is that diet has a smaller white swoosh because it has fewer calories, but Pepsi Max has a larger swoosh because it has more calories than regular Pepsi... oh wait. Well, maybe it has more flavor than Pepsi...?

The new Mountain Dew logo literally made me laugh. I saw that logo online last week, and actually thought it was an old one from the '70s. I sort of see the "M" giving the idea of mountains, and it then being flipped around for the "w," but the whole thing strikes me as clunky.

The Sierra Mist design looks like something I designed in 1996 when I first discovered the Photoshop blur filter. The word "sierra" uses a typeface which bears no personality or anything significantly different from the "generic store brand" king, Helvetica (although even Helvetica can be nice when used properly). Even the new "pepsi" type has unique letterforms -- including the bar of the e, which, ironically, mimics the swoosh on the former Pepsi logo -- and that font might have worked just as well here, too. However, the can design as a whole redeems itself with the green tree silhouette against the yellow sky.

Along with what was apparently a bid to keep graphic designers like me employed, Pepsico also gave new branding to the Tropicana line. I don't mind those as much; they look up-to-date, fresh, and -- it almost pains me to use the term -- "Web 2.0-ish."

I feel similarly about the new Holiday Inn logo, even though I agree with this person who said,

The Holiday Inn logo reminds me of any or all of the following:

• Gum
• Paper towels
• Bleach

I admit the new logo brings to my mind fabric softener or pre-packaged salad greens at first glance rather than a hotel. I enjoyed the previous "brushed metal" look that freshened up the identity while incorporating the old script that is ingrained on the public's mind.

But what's nice about the new one is that they can build a brand off of the green "H" by itself, which means eventually they will no longer need the words "Holiday Inn" at all -- much like the Nike® swoosh™ obsolesced the word "Nike" from their branding -- and it will give them more options for its use. (We toyed with a similar idea at work when we merged earlier this year, creating an "LM" logo in addition to the name fully spelled out, to use in places where we might not have room for the complete name; but so far we haven't used it or promoted it.)

Fortunately for brands like Pepsi and Holiday Inn, they are popular enough that they can roll out new identities like this without losing customers to confusion. I'm guessing that's the reason Holiday Inn previously had stuck with the familiar script letters for so long. This time, they've moved to a more contemporary and (I believe) friendly and clean lime green, after decades of pool table felt.

Meanwhile, Mountain Dew has done exactly the opposite, going from the bright nuclear green that stood out on shelves and in advertising, to some sort of stodgy forest green -- though I admit it sort of goes along with the "pine trees on a mountain" theme they've got going on in the background of the new label. And who knows, maybe Pepsico is just on some cutting edge, and every logo in the world will look like these in a couple years. We'll see.

So, who am I to be critiquing these logos? Well, I'm a graphic designer, but a pretty lowly one at that, so I won't flaunt that in this post. (And if you read the comments on Under Consideration, you'll find I'm far from the snootiest designer out there.) I'm just a consumer of these brands expressing his initial reactions. It also happens that brand identity is a particular interest of mine, so I enjoy following things like this. Don't ask me why.

And now, back to real life.

smells like onions

I highly recommend checking out The Onion today. A few select headlines:

Nation Finally Sh!tty Enough To Make Social Progress

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

Hillary Clinton Resumes Attacking Obama

McCain Gets Hammered At Local VFW

Republican Party, Average Working Joe Bid One Another Adieu Until 2012

Magical Voting Booth Transforms Clearheaded Americans Into Reactionist Morons

I voted today

From last Sunday's episode: Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama

This was my first time voting in Strongsville, so I wasn't sure what to expect. In Elyria, we used to use punch cards, then after 2004 moved to electronic touch-screen machines with a paper printout. I usually voted before work, and never waited more than 10 minutes.

I got in line to vote at the Strongsville library at 7:01 and was voting 20 minutes later. It took just over 10 minutes to fill out the ballot because it was two pages, double-sided, and you had to color in little ovals with a ballpoint pen on a hard, non-angled metal writing surface with poor lighting. By the end I realized it would go faster if I turned the ballot sideways to color in the oval, because the hand can more naturally fill it in vertically than horizontally. It would have taken longer if I knew anything about the dozen or so "non-partisan" judge races; I left them all blank. I had researched the state issues, and even the local ones, but not the fifty billion Court of Common Pleas judges.

Afterward, we stood in another line to insert our ballots into the counting machine, so anyone standing near me could probably see how I voted on certain races since it's not easy to obscure an entire legal-size double-sided sheet of paper. I found the whole process a little more awkward than Lorain County's system, but it was fairly straightforward and painless.

I've been waiting four years for this day, and I'm glad my civic duty is done.