It being the last day of the year I thought it would be fitting to take some time and reflect on the events of the past year, both good and bad. Also, I thought it might be good to describe the view as I peer over the edge into the chasm that is my next year. BUT....as irony would have it, I dont have time to reflect right now. So I will get on that in the next week or so.

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!(Lets make it a good one!)

From here to there,

Matt

Observation(s):

I got my hair cut yesterday and noticed that it has been a long time since the person cutting my hair(lets call them a stylist) has had to use the pneumatic-air-lift function of the barbers chair while I've been sitting in it. I wonder why that is.

You can't imagine the week I've had.

My heart aches, breaks and elates.

This past weekend we closed the show that I've been working on for the past month and a half. It was a great success and I am proud and it is over. Amidst the joys and frustrations of a show my head is lost in feelings.

This past weekend a very close friend's girlfriend broke up with him. He is heartbroken. I ache.

I caught news that one of the most foundational men in my life was caught in an affair with a 17 year old. I cry for him, for his family. I love him and his family.

I just heard news of two separate engagements. Two of my good friends(one here in Lincoln, one in Romania) just got engaged to be married. Both weddings set for next August. My heart leaps for joy.

This past weekend the girl I like, that I loved told me that I am everything she has ever looked for in a guy but something just isnt right. My heart breaks, again.

I have so many projects and tests and things to do that I barely have time to "deal" with any of these feelings.

At times like these I feel that I run out of emotions to give, to have. As an artist, as a person I feel the need to feel. I feel empty. Run out of any emotion. I feel no motivation. Yet still I push forward cause I am sure that there is something else out there. Something of value. Something to run for.

FORGE!!!

24 by Switchfoot is playing in the background.

"Is there no hope?" A question that I find myself asking alot. I have to believe that there is. Even if I (pause) I dont know what to write.

After 7 hours of Burn This (the play I am working on) tonight I don't have the energy anymore.

Somethings were unshakeable. I know now that nothing is safe. There has to be hope.

"Without hope consequences mean nothing." -Brenda Council

Pastor Mike, I love you. I believe in you. I would hug you if I were there.

Everything by Lifehouse is playing now.

I find "artists" illogical who wish to deny the impact and influence of the christian church on art.

prax·is ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prkss)n. pl. prax·es (prksz)
Practical application or exercise of a branch of learning.
Habitual or established practice; custom.

To borrow a quote from one of The Greats of our American past; "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."
-Forrest Gump

I agree completely and furthermore would say that Life IS a box of chocolates. And you truly never know what you're gonna get. Sometimes you get the chocolate cream, or the caramel pecan or whatever. But then there's those times where you get that chewy, pink nougat stuff. (What is that anyway, "nougat"?) Usually the time that you get these undesireables is when you get near the ends of your precious Russell Stover box, somewhere in between wanting to gobble up all of the chocolate and wanting to throw the remainders away. Thats when it happens.

How can you not see that this applies to life. Dang, that Forrest was brilliant. Heres to ya! Where ever you are, Keep on Running man!

Rant!

It frustrates me when "open-minded" liberals demand tolerance and open-mindedness, when they themselves are so judgemental of "conservatives" who they consider to be close minded. In my opinion this is something that both conservatives and liberals need to work on. A sort of meeting in the middle. How can anybody expect someone else to take seriously their philosophy if you are not first willing to think about and accept their theory. I dunno, I dont want to exonerate tolerance, but we need to be able to dialogue, to listen to understand before we can criticize.

Go out and extend someone that courtesy today. Dare to be offended, then dare to speak your mind, as you believe it. Don't mince words.

Peace,

matt

p.s. - ahhhhhhhhhh...

You know you're busy when-

Your alarm clock goes off in the morning and it feels more like a "gun-shot start" to a race than an alarm clock.

You spend less than 5 minutes eating a meal, more than twice a day. That is if you eat at all.

You leave your room at 7:30 am and dont get back till nearly 11:30pm.

You find yourself catching up on reading as you walk from class to class.

While standing in the shower for the first time in 3 days you realize that you havent showered for three days.

and others, but I am too busy to think of them right now and because you get the idea.

today is perfect weather for Norah Jones.

A 10-time Grammy Award Winner sat next to me this afternoon.

-------Later that evening.

Picture the Lied Center stage empty with the exception of 4 monitors, a chair, a bottle of water, a man and a single spotlight. ONE MAN and probably one of the best concerts I have ever been to.

Bobby Mcferrin is probably best know for the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" which he improved in a studio about 2o years ago! IMPROVED!!!

So bare, so powerful, so raw, so....personable. Earlier in the day he had been in an Intro to Theatre class that I attended just to hear him. He wore, a pair of light blue jeans, a somewhat faded dark purple t-shirt and a pair of black shoes. The same thing he was wearing before the crowd at the Lied hours later.

He sat on stage, vocalizing one of Beethoven's preludes while the crowd sang the Ave Marie. One of the most spiritual moments I have ever experienced right behind getting saved, getting baptized and walking into the Orthodox Church in Galati, Romania.

I say "vocalizing" because I dont really know how else to describe it. Sarah, said that "it was basically scatting." But it was in like 4 parts, he himself. It was as if this beautifully harmonious sound was eminating from his entire body, and not just his mouth. Amazing.

He performed The Wizard of Oz in about 5 minutes. Starting with the tornado, Complete with "Ding dong, the witch is dead" and "Wee-oww" capped off by him splashing water on himself from his water bottle and melting to the floor.

If you have a chance to hear Bobby Mcferrin, do so.

"Where is my mind?"
--(Where is my mind?, The Pixies)



"Why is Superman dead?...Doesn't anybody ever know that the world's a subway?"
--(Superman's Dead, Our Lady Peace.)


"Revolution is just a word. That loses more each time it's heard. Won't mean a thing until it hurts. Is anyone out there?"
--(This Love, Stavesacre)


"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
--(Lenin, not a song)


"Everyone thinks of changing humanity and no one thinks of changing himself."
--(Leo Tolstoy, also not a song)


----------
Ivan - "What do you see as the difference between "art" and "entertainment?"...
Dan - "Art is what occurs when something's whole becomes more than the total sum of its individual parts."
Matt - "Perhaps, "art" is expression while "entertainment" is manipulation."

Ivan - "...Charlie Kaufman?...The Village? I mean, M. Night?"
---------


"I don't want to die without any scars."
--(Tyler Durden, Fight Club)


I dont want to die without any scars.


"Well whatever, nevermind."
--(Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana)


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Check out this link.
www.playbill.com/news/article/86917.html

Today is brought to you by the song: Im afraid of Americans by David Bowie and NIN.

I love how my posts are getting more and more cryptic, and by cryptic I mean short.

Props to the Bush team and their Victory(this posted before the winner was announced)

Regrets to the Electoral College, I mean all my respect but it cant be this difficult.

Iam out.

So a mutant lady bug landed in my turtles tank whose name happens to be Haiduc and my turtle hunted that stinkin lady bug and ate it like nothing else it was awesome like a live screening of animal planet or something

Redemption.

Just as I was about to sit down here and rip into how bad Team America: World Police was, I took a quick tour of a few friends online journals and happened across this...knockout of beautiful proportions. Words of wisdom from Ivan Lovegren, the first paragraph apparently from Matt Landis a local actor/artist.

------
Nothing is more encouraging than to open up one's email in the morning and find these words, courtesy of Matt Landis:

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body... but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming: WOW! What a Ride!!"

The only better motto I can think of is the ever popular, "Today's a good day to die." I believe that quote is attributed to Crazy Horse. So often people misinterpret that quote as an outpouring of depression or anger. WRONG!!! It is a response to the capitalist have-all-get-more attitude of miscontent. If I am not ready to die today, how can I imagine that I am living today? If you haven't already, read "The Count of Monte Cristo."

And, as always, Project 86 will never die.
------

Now I hope I dont get sued for copyright infringement or plagiarism but for me if they manufactured "Inspiration-in-a-can" that would be its package.

How many activities can one man find to delay having to write a paper?

The numerical answer to that I do not know. But I do know that writing this is actually one of those activities, others have included today watching football, sleeping, eating amd watching Mythbusters are among the contestants vying for my errant attention.

So the past few weeks has seen for me a slew of theatrical shows and I just wanted to share some of these with you. (in chronological order of my attendance)
Kusari- A movement piece here at the University. Energetic movement without spoken word. The narrative was driven entirely by lighting, music and the actors body movement. This being my first movement piece it was intriguing at least, but ultimately I didnt enjoy the show mainly because of it lack of interconnectedness.
Metamorphoses- Expertly adapted by The Mary Zimmerman from the ancient works of Ovid. This is the telling of 10 mythical stories. The words, the script of this show are amazing. Another incredible aspect of this show making it unlike anything I've seen before is that the stage is a 10 foot by 10 foot by 2.5 foot pool of water. The depth and the feeling that this gave the the show I thought, was incredible.
Rent- The original Broadway musical staged right here on the Lied Center stage. I was stunned, I was amazed. This was my first encounter with Rent and yeah, I thought everything was wonderful, the music, the acting, the set. Wow.
Medea- Again University main stage. The staging of this ancient Greek tragedy was terrific. The set, the door, the statue, the fire pit, the scrim(for those of you who saw it) was in my opinion very impressive. The acting, all the actors were masked again a first for me, so that was new and intriguing but what the mask does is actually to inhibit the ability for the actor to convey feeling through the face, Next stop -- the body. This perfomance I would say was fairly athletically demanding and ended up wearing on me as well. I felt completely and overly exhausted after this show.
Finally, Neccesary Targets- The story of two american reporters who are assigned to post war bosnia in hopes of writing a book on what they see. 5 Bosnian women make their aquaintance and follows the confusion and inconsideration that ensues. The young and mostly inexperienced cast made this one difficult for me to swallow. I liked the script but thought that it would require a much larger scale to complete. Also, the nearly minute long scene changes were the breaking factor in moving this show along.

Thats it. Other than that, not much. Life has been crazy busy. A time of moving on. I have a few big projects and papers due this week, will hopefully be going to see my best friend in KC this coming weekend and then I start stage managing for a show called Burn This! the next weekend. Pray for me.

Have I ever told you how much it frustrates me when a professor doesnt show up for class. Yes, yes I understand that this is college and that sort of thing happens. But its not supposed to happen for an 8am class when I have two more classes that day. So I cant even go home and sleep.....grrrrr.

Anywho, life is nutty man. One day you think you have the world figured out, the next I ask myself the question of "The world?!?" I have in the past few weeks been wondering whether or not I should take some more time off of school. Which if I take another semester off it would be my 4th and I dont know that I can do that. But...I was thinking that it might just be great if I found an internship in NYC. Think about it, I could work somewhere maybe even on or behind a stage and then at night go see all the broadway shows that I could ever want...or probably more realistically as many as my wallet would allow...which if we're still thinking realistically would be like 1 maybe 2.

So I dunno. UNL is just beggining to wear on me. I am frustrated by all the "same thinking" that goes on here. It seems that most people are here to get by if anything. Not to excel and in closing it is my firm belief that you dont get ahead by not excelling! Anyone disagree?

Do you ever feel that you have just been a complete and total jerk to someone?
I do.

Ripping my heart apart for just a moments bliss.

I've told a number of my friends today that "I am going crazy." To ease some of the awkward tension that creates I quickly and nervously quote Will Ferrell's character from Zoolander "I feel like Im taking crazy pills." Heh heh. chuckle chuckle. Desired affect accomplished.

From there and with a somber look on my face I entreat them to agree that if they see me chew my shoe, please admit me to an insane asylum.

Ok, Im not really going crazy. But then again how am I supposed to know that. No one thinks that they are the one who will go crazy. Then it happens to them. Smack- out of the blue.

This week has been a rough one. A lack of sleep coupled with and caused by too many projects being due and one too many exams. I havent been feeling well. Perhaps that is because I am running on 3.5 hours of sleep at the moment and am about to go perform a monologue of a man in a Lebanese prison that has been there for 2 months and has himself begun to go insane. Does he know that he is going crazy? Does he have that consious thought or does it just happen to him.

After that I am off to the computer lab to finish a screenplay about a washed up superhero who is just looking to fit in. I dont even know my characters anymore.

Later tonight and as a bright spot on the otherwise shiny horizon, I am going to see a professional perfomance of 'Rent' at the Lied. I am excited for that. After? I dont know, perhaps I will collapse, perhaps I will...

I'd like to thank my roomate Ivan for the inspiration to post today.

SMILING, THROUGH MY WOUND.

I realize that it has been over 4 months since my last post, so in an atempt to be more transparent with my life I hope to make this worthwhile. If you have any questions, concerns or would just like to talk please email me at halfpastnormal@yahoo.com.

***

I never realized that a "search for truth" could be so tiring.

Seriously. It has been over a year now since I took a "step back," of sorts from my faith based following(Christianity) of nearly 4 years. My reason: confusion, my motivation: questions, and my purpose: to find TRUTH. The verse in the Bible that entreats us to Ask, Seek and Knock has been a sort of mission statement of mine for about the past year.

The main question asked that begged my attention late last summer was "How does a good God allow evil?" an answer that I think any person strong in their faith could answer fairly quickly. But for myself I had a problem, I couldn't say that I believed the answer that was given.

I think that one important component of just about any religion is 'faith.' This is another term on which I have stumbled for the past year. I think that for any religion to complete its true purpose must surpass mere religion and find itself in a person to be their spiritual belief. To believe takes faith.

Am I making things more complicated than they need to be?

Sometimes it all seems so elementary. At times I've had the thought to simply create a spiritual dart-board. Something at which I could toss a few darts and come up with some irrecognizable form of a religion in which I could believe. Essentially, there have been times that I have felt that it would be easier to just give up and pick the easiest choice and pretend to "believe" that it is truth(and some would suggest this to be a feasible method - "What can it hurt to try?" has been asked of me.) I guess that just seems like a short-cut.

If there is one thing of which I am certain; "Truth, being questioned and once the dust settles Truth will remain standing."

Every time I say this to myself or someone I think of Mount Rushmore. I think about how at one point it was one large amorphous rock. Then one day a guy came along with a crew of other guys and thought "Hey, it might be cool to make some faces out of this rock." The finished result is what I would compare to "the truth." Similarly, with truth you can widdle away at it, but at some point no more will chip away. For me that is when you sit back, let the dust settle and begin to inspect the Final work. So where is this elusive truth?

I've heard there's joy in the journey. Wanna find out with me?

Hey, everybody. I hope that all finds all in good health and conditions concerning life and the surrounding circumstances related to the subject of life. Good!

So hey, yeah, that which has become the standard for the begginging of these long overdue emails. I am sorry for the length of time that hath transpired between this and my last update email. I guess if there is an explanation it would be that I prefer not to "flap my yap" if it is not absolutley neccesary. But now there are a few things which need updating, so I shall proceed as such.

School; IS OVER! One full year down and with very acceptable grades to boast as well (All A's and B's for the year!) Also, I must say something here about school that at the beggining of the year I never would have thought would darken the doorway of my lips, but I do miss some of the guys from school. Call me crazy but I think that Matt is growing a soft spot in his heart. :-)

Since I have been back in town it has been a wonderful time of relaxing and trying to reconnect with as many friends as possible. I feel that thus far it has been comparable a whirlwind publicity tour and I dont feel that I have had much time to spend with many individuals. So that is something I look forward to in the next weeks and months.

This Summer: hmmm...I guess that is the question that lies on everyones collective mind. What Am I doing? Well, it looks that I will be filling the position of summer intern at the Hope Center. For those of you who are not familiar with the Hope Center, it is an outreach ministry to North Omaha. A center who, by title and objective is seeking to infuse a community with hope, a community that may not normally see that emotion but more likely that of desperation and dispair. What that means for me is that I will be assisting the already full-time staff in the activities and programs that they run for the youth of this city. I think that this will be a great growing opportunity for me as a person as I learn with these wonderful boys and girls.

Another opportunity that greets me with a certain amount of delight would be a little film that is going to be put together this summer, right here in Omaha. Some of you Omaha-ites may remember a former youth pastor from Trinity by the name of Jeff Saxton. Jeff has since moved to Minneapolis, MN to follow his calling. He is a visionary and seeks to fulfill that vision through the media arts. As I understand he has written a number of feature length scripts and has recently had a few of them optioned(picked up) by small production companies(I say small in comparison to big LA productions, but they really are big compared to what Jeff had envisioned.) So we will be shooting his film "Heart of the City" right here in Omaha, NE. This June 12-26th. For more information you can check out the website heartofthecitymovie.com. What that means for me is that I will be the boom mic operator for the shoot. What that means is that I will be standing around for numerous hours a day holding a "boom mic" above my head and down low to the ground and many other compromising positions. I am really looking forward to working on this set.

Other than that, not much. I guess I am still looking for another part time job to kind of fill in the cracks of what I need to make financially this summer, so it anyone knows of someone or somewhere where I could work I would be more than happy to entertain the possibility.

Thank you guys so much for contributing so much to my life. I cant thank you enough for that.

peace,

matt

p.s.- If the length of time between my update emails is driving you mad and you just cant stand it, then you should check out my online web journal at halfpastnormal.blogspot.com and it is there that you can fulfill your "Matt Fix" for the day or the week.