#Twilight

            Okay so like a month or so ago, Josh and Tony and I went to Breaking Dawn. I don’t really remember it. Have you ever tried marshmallow vodka? It tastes like sugar plum fairies. You can literally hear them screaming as they slide down your throat to their death. Well we decided that we certainly weren’t going to see this god-awful movie sober. Then, I thought it would be a good idea to live tweet during the entire show. As it turns out fairies have mind erase powers so I didn’t remember that I had wrote any of this until the next day. But here it is. Each scene of Breaking Dawn summed up in 160 characters or less.

1.     Drunk live Tweeting Breaking Dawn. This is a porno starring Dawn, right? #Twilight

2.     Live tweet. The hunger games uses a lot of special effects for a movie about anorexia. #Twilight

3.     Live tweet. Edward has bears at his bachelor party? #Justsaying #Twilight

4.     Live tweet. Bella really had to pee but then she saw Edward and she was like, “It’s whatever.” #Twilight

5.     Live tweet. WHAT! The invalid from Grey’s Anatomy is in this movie! I guess she learned how to talk like a person… #Twilight

6.     Drunk whatever. Comparing biceps with Josh. #Gay #Twilight

7.     Live. White sheets were the worst idea ever. Jesus, Edward. #Twilight

8.     THAT’S ALL WE GET?! #Goddammit #Twilight

9.     LIVE. Is this a domestic abuse campaign? #Twilight

10. Magneto’s mother is in this movie? #Twilight?

11. Good mood food.

12. Bella has a razor. She’s so retro. #Twilight

13. Aww shit. #Twilight

14. HOLY SHIT

15. Oh it’s just a baby. Laaame

16. Ohmygod Bella wake up foR my fracking sake. The acting. It’s just too terrible.

17. Oh my God. Imprinting. So Deep.

18. Emmet is doing pretty good for being the retarded one. Oh my god. Retard is saved on my phone?

19. Throwback special effects from the first movie love it. #Twilight

20. I MADE IT THROUGH! I MADE IT THROUGH! #TWILIGHT

21. Live!!!! That was like a tenacious Survivor combined with Mormon propaganda combined with marshmellow vodka. BREAKING DAWN! THE BEST POR…

22. Jesus. The best porno ever. #Goddammit. …#Twilight

23. Ohmyfucking God. I have a final tomorrow. Twilight.

What can we learn from these tweets? BREAKING DAWN PART TWO: 2012 APOCALYPSE. It’s gonna be great. 

Monorail Pub Crawl

The monorail at Disney World is beloved and hated by all. People love it because they don’t have to worry about transportation, it’s free, and kids think it’s the best. Others hate it because it smells of permanent BO, someone is always crying, and no matter where you are on the train, you always get stuck next the obese guy who doesn’t really smell (you just imagine he does) or some person who takes up the space of three people because they’re in a goddamn scooter that they can’t even control. The HoverRound should be easy to use. It really should. They made that one old lady spin around in circles for hours while filming the commercial and if she can do it I’m convinced anyone else can.

              Anyway. The monorail is like thirty or forty feet in the air or something and it runs on a big slab of concrete and one of the conductors crashed it a couple of years ago and killed himself. I always imagine him suffering the breakup of his girlfriend (boyfriend if we’re being real; it’s Disney, people). He lights a cigarette and decides to end it all… by crashing the monorail. He takes a swig from his flask and says, “Let the fuckin’ memories begin.” BOOM!

The monorail looks like this-

And it transports people to the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, the Transportation and Ticket Center, and the three of the best resort hotels surrounding the lake in front of the MK. It’s quite sexual, actually because it’s this big, phallic object that goes right through the Contemporary Hotel’s vaginal opening.

              Well, I actually really like the monorail. There is always a 5-year-old princess on board and the view from that high is supa cool. I know I keep going on tangents but I have one more. Okay. So my favorite thing in the world INTHEWORLD is when little girls dress up as Disney Princesses. They think they’re hot shit and it’s hilarious. The best part is, they forget that their outfit wasn’t made especially for them and that there isn’t just one Cinderella in the Kingdom that day. So these girls will be walking around the park with their parents and one Jasmine will meet ANOTHER Jasmine. Holy Shit Balls. It’s like Toddlers in Tiaras meets the Big Bang. Not the show but the actual beginning of the universe. They look at each other up and down, evaluating every aspect of the other’s quality as a princess, literally learning how to be bitches. The Very Best Part is when a Middle Eastern Jasmine meets a white Jasmine. Or a black Tiana meets an Asian Tiana. I’m surprised their heads don’t explode from the looks on their faces.

              Black Tiana looks at White Tiana like, “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing but struggling worse than a Leper in the McDonald’s Play Place ball pit.”

White Tiana looks at Black Tiana like, “Wait that girl’s wearing my dres- oh shit she looks like the real Tiana! Look away! Look away!”

So there’s this thing that my friend Jordan (not her real name but I don’t want her to get in trouble) told me about called the Monorail Pub Crawl. Jordan is a fabulous mother of two who trained me at Fantasmic, looks like a Stepford Wife, and is the best person ever. She’s apparently participated in several Monorail Pub Crawls and was the leader on this adventure. Our friends, Ryan and Tyler went with as well. Tyler is like the all American boy and is super great and Ryan is really soft spoken and sweet and also super great. So the plan is to start at the Contemporary and have a drink. Then, we get on the monorail and go to the Polynesian and get a drink. Then, we go to the Grand Floridian and… get a drink! Then, we do it all over again!

Jordan also has these little cards that carries with her that are basically dares for people to perform in case things get too boring. Just keep that in mind. So we go the Contemporary and meet Ryan, and I get a long island. Next, is the Polynesian and we meet Tyler and I get something called a Slippery Seal and it’s delicious. Finally, it’s about eleven and we head over to Disney’s pride and joy hotel, the Grand Floridian. The Grand Floridian looks like this-

And it’s the most expensive hotel on Disney property so you can only imagine how strict they are about rules there. The bar is on the second level and in front of the bar is a small area set up for a band to play so the first thing that you see when you look up when you walk in the front entrance is the band on the second floor balcony. I addition, those rules apply even more to me because I was a cast member and I can’t make the company look bad.

So we’re all walking towards the bar and I see the band set up and I can’t help myself so I touch one of the microphones and it was on. Deciding that we need to finish our evening before I act like a crazy person, we all get chocolate martinis. Jordan decides that she’s bored so she pulls out a little card out of her baggy and Tyler’s dare is to approach a stranger and ask them what their favorite type of ice cream is. Tyler picks the unassuming old lady at the bar and little did he know that he would end up talking to her for over an hour.

Tyler: Hi! I’m Tyler. What’s your name?

Old Lady: (Old Lady says her name but I have no idea what it is)

Tyler: Oh, well it’s nice to meet you. Say, I was wondering, um, what’s your favorite kind of ice cream?

Old Lady: Oh, I really like pistachio.

Tyler: Pistachio, okay.

Old Lady: Yes, I really like the nuts… But not as much as I like my husband’s!

… It was already the best day and it wasn’t even nearly over. Tyler talked to the Old Lady and her husband for over an hour about who knows what. It’s funny because Tyler is the nicest person in the world and he clearly wanted to come back and sit with his friends but he wasn’t about to be rude the kind old couple who have no personal space.

                By this time I had had another long island and it was time for my debut performance at the Grand Floridian. Everyone runs and hides from me because I’m totally doing something that I could get fired for and I hop over the little velvet rope and clear my throat. I coon, “Hello, hello baby you called, I can’t hear a thing. I have got no service in the club you see, you see…” It was so great. IT WAS SO GREAT! I sang the entire acoustic version of telephone for the entire Grand Floridian Lobby and no one even stopped me. At least twenty people had stopped to watch me. I like to think that they were all laughing because I was so good and not because I was a drunk, sun burnt fool singing Lady Gaga. I finish the song and I look around and no one looks like they’re about to stop me so I decide to sing acoustic Bad Romance. I get one lyric in and the security guard shows up. Into the microphone I said, “I’m leaving,” and I got down and he was nice enough to escort us out to the monorail.

                So we’re laughing and I think I’m hilarious, and we get on the monorail with the plan to call it a night. We’re standing there and I assumed everyone else was irritated with us because they were tired from a long day at the parks and we’re loud and obnoxious and whatnot. But the monorail wasn’t leaving and people were clearly annoyed that we hadn’t started moving yet so somehow we start singing, “Just a small town girl, spent a day at Disney World. She took the monorail that’s goin’ nowhere.” What happened next was like an apocalypse. Somehow our entire car, at least thirty people were all shouting/singing with us, “Don’t stop believin’! This monorail isn’t leavin’! Magic Kingdom peopllllllllllleee!” It was seriously magical. Everyone loved us and I had two different audiences that night and I thought it was just the best thing ever. Everyone cheered and clapped and it was the perfect ending to our night.

                What can we learn from this adventure? Don’t go into the McDonald’s Play Place ball pit because you never know if a leper left his arm in it.

                

Writing for Special People: A Blog Genesis

So I’m in a class called specialized writing but I like to call it writing for special people. It’s funny. Basically the class consists of writing editorials and things like that. Well we have to have a blog and I said to myself, “Brad,” I said, “this is the perfect opportunity to blog more.” So here we are! I think today, I will post something that I wrote four years ago.

            I’m in this thing called forensics. You have to talk in front of people and “act” and make up speeches on the spot and shit like that. I once described it to Josh as being “very liberal” and he said, “You think that a group of people walking around in suits, talking about things that aren’t too radical, with people judging you the whole time is liberal?” … Meow. (Pronounced mee-aahh.)

            There is an even called ADS which stands for Afternoon DelightS and you basically have to create a ten minute persuasive speech that’s funny. This is the one I wrote my freshman year that isn’t necessarily good but I like it. That’s how a lot of my freshman year went. People hated on me and I said, “whateva” and they said, “but seriously” and I said, “I do me.” So here it is. 

"Last October I found this fabulous leopard print shirt on ebay for only 12 dollars minus shipping from Japan. I. Was. Ecstatic. But before I could buy it I had to convince myself that I needed it. Then. I realized. I still needed a shirt to wear with my shimmery red tie. I strutted into that next Gustavus Adolphus speech tournament wearing my Japanese leopard print like a lion… disguised as a leopard. My coach was thrilled. I think her face looked something like this. (at this point I make a horrified face.) Then- she tells me that there’s no place for leopards in speech… and while I’m at that I should cut of my lion mane. Apparently there’s no room for big pussies in forensics. My heart nearly broke. But then I remembered reading in the Courier mail on my weekend trip to Australia that the true goal of criticism is to become the best that they can be.

So why are people such little wussy babies who can’t take criticism. Well, we want to see the good in ourselves and we hope that others see the same. When someone tells Britney not to shave her head and someone tells me that I should, we become hurt and upset rather than evaluating their opinions to see if there is any truth behind it. So today we will see why we need to toughen up and embrace criticism by first looking at the causes of our oversensitivity, observing the effects of this touchy feely dilemma, and finally, by growing a pair… generating some solutions.

In order to understand what causes our oversensitivity we can explore the theoretical concept of face work; before looking at some everyday occurrences of face maintenance. To begin, we can see that people are concerned about their face. Yeah. You. You should get that looked at. Actually by face I referring to Erving Goffman who defines face in his 1955 essay “On Facework” as, “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself.” So if we base value on the way that people perceive us then little Kavan Rogness must be dirt poor. According to the book Managing Conflict through communication by Dudley D. Kahn and Ruth Anna Abigail, “Face is fundamental to who we think we are.” Most people want what is called a positive face, which means that they want others to like and respect them. When someone says something to us that hurts our feelings, we imagine that what they have said ruins our face. Ow. Chiseled cheekbones. The image that we want others to perceive of us is tarnished and we’ll do anything to keep that from happening.

One of the Key ways that people maintain face in their everyday lives is to subconsciously create a society that feels the need to feel good all the time like with Dora in Mehico where everything is clean and no one steals and everything is happy all the time. The result of Dora is that we never learn to effectively navigate the tension between self and other perceptions. We are constantly taking pills, adding entertainment, and finding something that can make us clap our hands. I think that some of us took the song if you’re happy and you know it a little too seriously. For example more people watch ADS than CA. That’s because CA is for the extemp kids that don’t have any friends. (extemp is an event that the poorly dressed kids participate in) And according to thinkprogress.org 2006, “NBC’s Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq and compared to 3 minutes and thirteen seconds compared to when Anna Nicole died. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522% more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse- 708% more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq.” We are clearly ignoring what’s depressing and focusing on what’s entertaining… Because entertainment is defined as washed up drugged up toh up fro da flo up celebrities that OD and die and leave their child in the middle of a tugga war contest.

Like Britney Spears’ album, our life is like a circus. To live in our circus we feel the need to compartmentalize that bad issues in their own little ring, the one by the strong man and the bearded lady. While focusing only on the center ring where lions are riding on elephants. On elephants!

Our society is clearly focused on entertainment and not issues that could, oh I don’t know, concern us? So now that we know why Mary gets upset when I say that she smells like hobo dick cheese, we can look at the effects that oversensitivity has on our society as a whole. The effects of our oversensitivity are may be summed up in two points. First we are more fragile than a lightbulb shoved up a butthole and second, we have become less honest with others and ourselves.

To begin, we can start this paragraph in typical annoying PA fashion. But first. People get effing worked up over everything. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine 2006 about her movie Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Sienna Miller describes the city as, “Shittsburgh.” Well, the citizens were so appalled that someone would say that about their city that she publicly apologized the day after the article was released. Did anyone pause long enough to realize that Pittsburgh is uh-scusting? Was she wrong about what she said? We didn’t even make God apologize for Dr. Phil. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and the Dixie Chicks have all been pressured to apologize for their views. They aren’t ready to make nice. Instead of evaluating opinions to find possibilities for change, people are wasting their time being mad that their bubble of good feelings has been popped.

Not only are we raising our blood pressure, but we are becoming less honest. We are so thin skinned that we are afraid to say what we actually think for fear of offending others. According to progressiveu.org, last updated December 30^th 2008, “people find it difficult to say things straight forward. They’ve become so worried about saying almost anything. Having an opinion seems almost dangerous now.” Being so careful prevents us from meaning what we say and saying what we mean. For example I could say, “Hey uh, Christopher, have you ever used axe deodorant? It’s awesome… you turn into chocolate and girls eat you.” Or I could say, “God Christopher. You smell bad.” Which is more effective? Still not buying that honesty is the best policy? Let’s say that I get an ADS ballot saying that the judge thinks I had an off round. Now substitute that comment for this one, “Your humor is ineffective for the topic.” Which comment is more likely to get me to change the humor that I put in my speech?

After understanding the causes and effects of being so oversensitive, we can now turn to some solutions. So how can society make Christopher smell better? We need to embrace the things that make us feel bad, because sometimes it’s their job. This focus on the feelings of others emphasizes the good and pushes away the bad. Because we are constantly made to feel good we don’t realize that feeling bad may be necessary. For starters we need to quit with all of the participatory awards. Look at some of the tournaments that we compete at! Seventh place, out of seven, in ADS receiving an extra trophy that we just had laying around goes to… well I hope not me, because that’s embarrassing. However, I can take that bad feeling and use it to improve my speech. So judges, give us constructive criticism! If you’re going to give me a five tell me why!

Bad feelings are necessary because we learn from them and we can use these feelings to make better decisions for the future. For example, when we encounter a bad feeling like guilt over ignoring a friendship because we’re gone hanging out with speech nerds all weekend, we feel more motivated to pick up the phone a nurture that friendship. Kenneth Burke refers to this as the guilt redemption cycle. And who better to know about guilt than a raging alcoholic? Our emotional reactions say something about others and ourselves, we need to critically reflect about what that something is.

So now we know why we need to look at criticism effectively. But second, once we confront what makes us feel bad, we need to reframe it. In the book, Difficult conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, reframing is defined as, “taking the essence of what the other person says and ‘translating it’ into concepts that are more helpful…” So if someone said that I’m an obnoxiously flamboyant, bitchy, stuck up, ken doll who only cares about fashion, Britney, Starbucks, and himself, I should respond by thinking two things before deciding to accept or reject what you have just said. First was what you said valid? That pretty much sums it up. Yes. Second why would you say this to me? Chances are I’ll just ignore you but maybe I’ll listen and learn from your comment. And you probably just said this because you’re jeal of my fabulosity. This reframing of other’s criticism is exactly the type of critical reflection in which we need to engage.

Today we have looked at why we need grow a pair, how thin skin ruins my life, and that we should consider what people say and then let it roll off our shoulders. People are going to say mean things to and about you and especially you (and then I would point at someone, it was hilarious) for the rest of your life. Dealing with what they say is what society needs to work towards… So my coach and I agreed to a compromise. She got her way by not dancing about the issue and I got my way by upgrading myself. I’m sorry about what I said to you before. Really. You don’t look that bad. I can see that you definitely tried. But if you’re still mad at me then you can get over it and so will I."

Basically, the inspiration for You Don't Take Criticism Very Well. My how I've changed.