About the Blog
I’m Derek, and I am responsible for the blog you now browse. I hope that you find the site interesting, and that you will return to browse it again during future web-surfing sessions. Or maybe you’ll add my feed to your RSS reader - whatever you like, it works for me.
When I began this blog, I recall that I viewed it to a large extent as a means of keeping family and friends abreast of what was going on with me. I imagine that many others who have tackled the task of catching up on personal emails have found themselves thinking the same thing I did: “I’m having to write the same stuff about what I’m up to in so many different emails that I might as well just start a blog.” It was eminently sensible. Or rather, it would have been; as it turned out, this blog came to be comprised primarily of my perspectives on the world around me, with very little reportage on the events of my own life. The best-laid plans of mice and men, yadda yadda yadda.
The central subject of the blog is best stated as one of my original post categories: “America?” The question mark is operative, i.e., I write about the never-ending stream of conditions and events in my nation that surprise and befuddle me, or arouse my passions in some way that seems to warrant expression in print. In sifting through the complexities of our culture, experience has trained me not to expect to discover fully intact, definitive answers to society’s problems. America is a magnum opus, an expansive human tapestry of discord and rhyme, far too unwieldy to be distilled into a single line of arithmetic or a catchy epigram. How could it be otherwise? Human nature is endlessly complex, and man-made institutions that seek to contain it by imposing dogmatic absolutes pave the way for repression and suffering. The most humane societies are those whose structures reflect the variation and complexity of the people that comprise them.
If I were to say what one thing my blog is about, that would be it: America, the glorious mess. Really, though, it’s not about one single thing. A quick examination of my tag cloud reveals a handful of other subjects that I touch upon regularly. Here are a few key ones, with brief elaborations:
- Words. As George Carlin said, “There are no bad words. There are bad thoughts. Bad intentions.” I love language. Its use (and misuse) reveals so much about the speaker.
- Politics. I considered making this a completely apolitical blog, but decided that it would be too restrictive. I sincerely hope that readers who disagree with my political opinions will not reflexively click away, never to return, and that they instead post their disagreement in a comment. I value discussion and debate very, very highly, and want to encourage all viewpoints to express themselves. My webmastering scalpel will only be unsheathed for blatant trolls, or in the distasteful event of a flame war (and for comment spam - but that’s another subject altogether).
- Movies. Love ‘em. Love. ‘Em. All kinds, and all genres. Some have declared that I tend to like a lot of “depressing” movies. My standard response is that Roger Ebert put it best when he said, “No good movie is depressing, but all bad movies are depressing.
- Ignorance is one of the few things that I find inexcusable. The worst thing about ignorance is the cheap, convenient “bliss” it provides, which is why it has become so commonplace.
- Coffee. The elixir of life. It’s my one food item that I’m snobbish about - you know, with some other people it’s wine, or beer, or sushi or whatever. I worked at a really great bakery/coffeehouse during high school, and it ruined me forever for cheap coffee.
- Bush. It no longer feels sufficient to merely say that I disagree with the Bush administration, or that I oppose their policies. With all that has happened (and continues to happen), I don’t think I can ever forgive the Bush administration for what they have done to our country. Never in my most cynical dystopian nightmares did I ever imagine that I see an American President conduct the affairs of the nation with such shallow hubris, ideological blindness, mendacity, incompetence, monarchical arrogance… such out-and-out criminal incompetence. The Bush administration is a stain upon the honor of our nation. They are, in the purest sense, disgraceful.
- (in)humanity. See third paragraph, above. The opposite nature of these two terms is my point, i.e., humanity, or the lack thereof; for this reason, I didn’t want to separate them out as keywords. We’ll see whether this hurts me SEO-wise, but whatever.
About the Blogger
Derek grew up in Palo Alto, California. Although obsessed with sports as a young boy, at the age of 13 he got involved in theatre and thus found his calling. The stage proved to be ideally suited for the adolescent Derek’s day-to-day priority, which of course was showing off in order to impress girls; whereas in normal settings this activity and its desired result tended to be mutually exclusive, in the theatre they had the exact cause-and-effect relationship that he had originally envisioned. One could simply say that at the outset, he did it for the chicks*.
A graduate of Palo Alto High School and the University of California at Irvine, Derek has studied acting and musical theatre with teachers including Uta Hagen, Robert Cohen, Helen Gallagher, Buzz Miller, Andy Gale and Ron Melrose. His credits include The Royal Family at the American Conservatory Theatre, Aldo and the Magic Lamp off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre, and Forever Plaid. Derek is currently a member of Theatre Neo, where he has appeared in Once In a Lifetime and Mall America.
Derek lives in Los Angeles with his dog, Bella.
* Nowadays he does it for a handful of reasons, with chicks about fourth or fifth in line.
