The Road So Far...

This week's post comes to you courtesy of bullshit. I really didn't have time to think up anything meaningful to write about, but before I sat down to just hammer the keys into decently-formed sentences and see what happened, I realized that I never explained to you readers what occurred in my life between my hiatus and the blog's revival, and after all, if you're bothering to read anything I post, you all just wanna know everything about me. So here we go: my life from January 2013 until September 2013.

And you're required to play this while you read:

JANUARY

When I left you all I had been talking about how I was recently cast in a production of RENT as Roger, and was then desperately looking for employment. Well, since I had a long wait ahead of me until RENT started I decided to try out for the annual production of Jesus Christ Superstar here in Syracuse. I went in, sang "I Want to Break Free" from the musical We Will Rock You, and secured a nice role in the ensemble. I wanted to play Judas or Simon, but considering the talents of the guys who did land those parts I wasn't too bummed in the end. I did get a cool solo as a Priest in "This Jesus Must Die," one of my favorite songs from the show. But wait: a last minute recasting brought in Tony-nominee Philip Boykin to fill in as Caiaphas, meaning I would get to be on stage with him in that song and singing to him. A Broadway dude. So that was awesome. He's a real nice guy. Also, my killer beard made a grand return to my face for the show.
Oh, and somewhere in that time period I got a job as a host at an Olive Garden. I'd like to forget that experience as much as possible so we'll leave it at that.

FEBRUARY

Um...not much. Single Awareness Day came and went. I did my usual act of listening to The Smiths and wallowing in single despair. Alone. Oh, and the Groundhog Day marathon on Groundhog Day. That was awesome.
Jesus Christ Superstar rehearsals still going on.
Still at Olive Garden. Hadn't yet gone postal.

MARCH

Woohoo more theatre auditions!!! I tried out for a bunch of shows at the Red House Arts Center received multiple callbacks for further readings and singings. Jesus Christ Superstar had its one and only performance on the 31st and was awesome as expected. I managed to make some new friends out of the show and had an all around great time in one of my favorite shows.

APRIL

Red House got back to me and I learned I was cast in their productions of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Dog Sees God as ensemble and Matt, respectively. Also, that SyFy Channel film Battledogs I worked on last fall had its television premiere, and my background cameo was in plain sight. It's also streaming on Netflix currently; look for me around the 14 minute mark. I'm wearing black scrubs and looking cold.
Later this month I managed to catch a show starring my good friend Amanda called Suds, a '60s jukebox musical. She was fantastic, of course. She always is. Girl's gonna be famous.

                                                   Yeah, we're cooler than you. Deal with it.

MAY

I went up to Buffalo to celebrate my birthday for the night. One of the few things I remember is almost lighting the bartender on fire. I spent the next day with the girls moaning and writhing on the floor and couches before driving home.
Also I was offered my old position at W.B. Mason back so I quit Olive Garden faster than you can say...like, anything. However, my shifts go from 6:00am 'til when-the-fuck-ever. So...that catches up with you.

JUNE

I start rehearsals for RENT, and that and work become my life from now through...

JULY

...until...

AUGUST

And I wish I had the time to properly explain just how amazing the experience was, but I don't, so here's a picture.

                                                That's me in the pants. You know which pants.

I tell you, I've been in a lot of shows, but the people in this cast were some of the best people I've ever been lucky to meet, let alone perform on stage with. It was a time I'll never forget. Also every show was sold out, so that fucking rocked.

SEPTEMBER

I restarted the blog and started rehearsals for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. So that gets us all caught up, really. And now I can actually say I'm sticking to my one-post-a-week promise. So, it's win/win, right? Now, let's see if I can stick to that policy next week when I start my 12 hour weekend rehearsals. I really can't promise anything, so...hey, find something else to read.


Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog,
Tyler


P.S. Idris Elba is the fucking man and if you disagree I will fight you.

Wake Me in Time to Be Lonely and Sad

Good morning readers! It's not morning when I write this, and it may or may not be morning when you read this, but someone somewhere is just waking up, I know it. My plan for my Blog Comeback Tour was to write a new post every Sunday night. However, tomorrow night I begin rehearsals for the next show I'm in, "Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson," and once that starts I will only be half-existing in the conscious world until October. See, rehearsals go until 10-11 at night, and it takes me 45 minutes to drive home after, and I get up at 4:30-5 Mondays through Fridays for work, and will be going straight to rehearsals after my shifts now, so...if you see me on the street just don't talk to me unless I have a cup of coffee in my hand.

                                                        This will be me on a good day.

But this post is not about my slow, painful death from exhaustion. No, today we're going to talk about escaping from that shit. One of my very first posts was about my dreams and how beyond fucked up they are. This post will be a sort of continuation of that one, but on a different theme entirely. You see, I may complain about how my subconscious makes me question my sanity, and how I'll unfortunately never be able to try LSD for fear of my head having a Scanners moment, but at the end of the day I love my dreams because they're not my real life.

You're confused? You stupid motherfucker, I'll explain it, then. Most of the time when I'm dreaming, I'm not even in the dream, if that makes any sense. It's just my eyes watching something unfold in my mind, like watching a movie that no one else could ever write because they wouldn't even know how to have it make sense. I see characters that either I thought up, have seen in other movies, or that I know personally, and they're all running around from monsters or shooting each other or just doing cool shit. And where am I during all of this? Up in the air, gliding over all, watching these scenes unfold.

                                                           "Aw man, I wanna play too!"

So what? you may be asking. So you get to watch cool movies in your sleep. My dreams do that too sometimes. Yeah, but I'm not saying that I'm the only guy who does it. Maybe I do it best, but I can't be the only one who has dreams like that. What I'm saying is those dreams are really cool because they defy what is available to us in the real world. Those dream movies are perfect because they are everything I want in entertainment without the restrictions of money or special effects or actor availability. They are an escape from our earthly limitations, a brief moment of perfection. And isn't that just wonderful when we can get it?

I'm not saying I'd rather live in my dreams than in reality, but I kind of am. It's just, I've been very, very unlucky in my affections throughout my life, and whenever I get a dream where I'm spending some time with a girl or kissing her or fighting off monsters with her, it's one that I'm just devastated to wake up from. I've mentioned before that I never have sex dreams per-say, but what I have is so much better in the long run, I think. I'll dream about a girl I like and we'll just be hanging out somewhere, getting dinner or a drink and just talking. I'll kiss her maybe, and that's just the fucking best because it'll feel so real. Then when I wake up I remember that whoever I just dreamed about is not my girlfriend, whether she was a friend or a celebrity.

For example, the other night I had a dream that I was hanging around with Lea Michele, 'cause we knew each other somehow (it's a dream, reasons be damned). She was sad about something so I hugged her in a comforting manner, and the next thing you know we're locking lips. It was amazing, and now I suddenly have a crush on Lea Michele. I mean, before I just thought she was hot, but it's different now.

                                                      I love a girl with coffee in her hand.

I've had another dream similar to that one, although there was no making out at the end of it. It involved myself and some friends including a girl I'd just met, and we were all hanging out in some big park at night. The girl and I broke away from the group because she needed to talk to me about something I don't remember, but it was just the two of us walking through this park in the dark with the little path lights glowing around us. I don't remember what we talked about, I just remember being there with her and not wanting to leave. In the end, as my dreams seem to show me, more than a relationship I just want to be able to be there for someone I care about when she needs someone.

Before things get too serious, though, some of the girls I've completely dreamt up have been pretty awesome dream-girlfriends too. There was Dawn, the super hot Asian girl who I was in a group of freedom fighters with, and Krystal, a princess who I rescued from some weird mutant guy in a shopping mall (after various failed attempts. I died a lot in that dream). I started to make things happen with this one girl in my infamous post-apocalyptic LARP quest dream until a treacherous Steve Buscemi started some shit. Seriously guys, if you want some hilarious and spine-tingling entertainment you need to check out my Dream Logs I used to post on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/tyler.ianuzi/notes

There are a lot of them, I know, but they're good. You'll wish you had my dreams, too.

As with all forms of escapism, though, these little excursions all must come to an end. I wake up from these magnificent visions and I'm still in my bed at home, about to go to work and continue my boring, single life. But hey, there's always the chance for another one the next night, right? Lately I've been having dreams featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, though, so the jury's still out on the significance of that.

                                                 "Oh stop pretending you don't like it, Tyler."

Hopefully I'll be able to write something for next week too, but there can be no promises. This is going to be one busy theatre guy for a while. But hey, living the dream, right?

Dream until your dreams come true,
Tyler

P.S. So Breaking Bad last week. Holy shit, right?

I'll Never Turn Back Time

I don't mean to generalize or make assumptions, but I think you're lying if you think the following isn't true: we all have those moments or entire years we feel we'd like to go back and do better on. I, for instance, wish that I had been a goth in high school. I loved the color black and always thought the gothic style was really cool. Plus, I had a thing for goth chicks. However, I never really had the gothic mentality, or money to spend on the clothes/chains. But hey, gothic or not, teenage me was still pretty cool.

                                                                    Coolness

In all seriousness though, while it's fun to imagine being a completely different person all those years ago, there isn't much I'd want to change. I had a great group of people in my circle and was able to do more or less all of the things I wanted to do in high school. I can't look back on my high school years with any real regret. Even my awful bummer of a senior year I believe helped mature me into who I am now. Although, if I could do it all again, I definitely would have at least asked that girl out.

Or would I have?
Now wait a minute, Tyler -- yes, I'm talking to myself but bear with me -- don't you still have trouble asking girls out to this day? What makes you think you'll have any better luck finding the balls to ask her out the second time around?
Well, I...I...don't know. I just figured the second time's a charm, you know? That's what second chances are all about, aren't they?

It's easy to think that way, though. We convince ourselves that, had we just gotten one more chance to do something over, we would've done it right. We tell ourselves: "if I could go back to high school I would bury my face in my books and get into a better college," or "if I could do college again I would focus only on my classes and then get a better job than the one I have now." Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, no, you wouldn't, because the minute you touch back down into your high school or college years, you'd have the exact same feelings about work you did back then. You'd sit down to read that textbook when your buddies call you up to go bowling, and just like the first go round out the door you go, leaving the reading for another day. You get back to your dorm and decide to get a head start on that 8-pager due at the end of the month when you get a text: "yo dawg we hittin up teh bars lol lets get krunked brah!!1!". Yeah, you're going drinking, 'cause fuck that paper, you'll write it tomorrow, or the night before it's due, you don't care. You're young and will live forever. When you're older you'll look back fondly on the fun you had and not the papers you bullshitted, 'cause that was how you were in your school atmosphere. You could go back in time with the knowledge you have now and try to do it different, but when placed back in the same place with the same homework and the same friends inviting you out for another night of your life, you'll do exactly what you did all those years ago. It wouldn't be you if you did anything else.

                                                         This still would've happened.

I'm not proud of a lot of things in my past, but knowing that there's no other way they could've played at least makes me feel better about what happens now. There's more I could've done but there were reasons why I didn't, and those reasons don't change the second time around. I didn't ask that girl out in high school because I was scared of being rejected, and I didn't study harder because I simply wasn't interested. I spent more time with the theatre club at college than focusing on my major because I was frankly more interested in that. Also drinking. But put me on the spot in front of that girl today and I'd still chicken out and I'd still say "fuck it" to that essay and go get cast in a play or something. To quote one of my favorite songs by Green Day:

"The regrets are useless in my mind."

And that's really the truth, because there is no going back in time. There are no do overs. Whatever happened happened and you acted accordingly with what you thought was right (or wrong but fun anyways) at the time. Your strengths and your flaws can be traced back to that time but that's you now and you're stuck with it. Do I think some things would be better in my life had I done things a little differently? Absolutely. But would I be any better? Who can say? But I'm satisfied with myself. I'm smarter now from the mistakes I've made, and I'm driven more now to do the things I didn't do before. Life, unfortunately, is one giant learning curve, and the prize at the end is self-satisfaction (the good kind). I won't ever have the chance to ask that girl out now, but you know what? Since then I've asked many girls out, and...still nothing, but at least I've tried, dammit, and that's more than that 15 year-old dork with the stupid Anton Chigurh haircut ever did. But it could've been worse, I think. I could've endured some terrible relationships and come out a bitter, misogynistic jerk off like some people I know. Am I sad that I've been unlucky in my many affections? Yes, but never bitter. And girls dig that, I think.

So in short, "forget regret, or life is yours to miss." And there's no such thing as time travel so quit actin' a bitch and move on.

See you in another world, brotha,
Tyler

P.S. If you're really my friend you should have a leather jacket.

Don't Feel Bad for Me, I Want You to Know

Hello again. Some of you may remember that sometime last fall I started a weekly blog and then inexplicably stopped after a few months. Well, here's an explanation at last. If you new readers go back far enough to my first post, you'll get a real good idea of why I started the blog in the first place, as a coping mechanism for that depression thing I was doing in my spare time. After a while my life started to really pick up and I realized I just didn't need the blog anymore to get through the once rough days. Well, fear not, loyal readers, for the blog MUST RETURN!

No, I'm not depressed again. Well...no, nothing's definite, but there have been many a great change in my life since I shut the blog down and many more ch-ch-changes to come in the near-future, and with them the need to chronicle them. Also, it's good practice for my writing, which I've been slacking on, so maybe a weekly exercise like this will help get me back on track. And since I'm a bit of a shut-in, this will help you all continue to get to know me better when we're not Skype-drinking, or drinking downtown, or having a couple beers while...boy I drink a lot, huh? 

So you old readers may notice this blog has a new name. I decided to change it 'cause fuck that old name. I'm using my soon-to-be-old Tumblr name, once I actually take the time to delete my profile and never return to that God forsaken site. I may blog about my new crusade against Tumblr in future posts, but for now I just wanted to write an introduction to PHASE 2 of my blogging. This way I'll have no choice but to post again soon. Seriously, I've been trying to start this up again for the past month but always lost focus. Writing's hard, brah. 

To satisfy you until my first official new post, please enjoy this video of the best thing ever:

                              

                                                   Do you got the moves like Jagger?

Good night Denise!

Tyler

P.S. I'm now the proud owner of a pair of red plaid skinny jeans. And honey, you should see me in 'em.