Blue Canary in the Outlet By the Lightswitch

Hello there! I'm alive! Senior year is one of those things that just seem to speed by and take all of your time. That isn't much of an excuse, but again I've been living my life.

I turned 18 on April 15th, and got to thinking about what that actually means. It doesn't mean much fun things, but here's a list if you're keeping track:

• Register To Vote (check)
• Sign up for Selective Service (check)
• Buy a Lottery Ticket (check, and no it didn't win :P)
• Sign for medical/legal stuff (check, unfortunately)
• Drive past 11 (which honestly I'm rarely awake past 11 so....)

I'm sure there are other things (before you say tobacco and strip clubs, just stop) but that's what I made the list of. So family came over (it was weird not having my grandmother there, but I have a feeling she was... I'm not into that whole supernatural stuff, but I'm aware it exists) and we had cake and spaghetti and went our merry way. 

April 16th brought the They Might Be Giants Concert with Clay and my Aunt Marie. Well, Aunt Marie drove us there, but Clay had wanted me to come since they announced the concert. TMBG is a band that has been both quite largely followed and quite obscure. They've been around since the late 80s/early 90s and have a rather unique, quirky alternative sound I love. It was "an evening with" so they were their own opener. All in all, it was a great concert and they played for nearly 2 hours. Many thanks to both Clay and Aunt Marie for making that happen.

April 18th brought High School Musical. I can't say too much really (partially because I was partially deaf that day, and the other because I'm a cynic) except there were two main reasons I was there: Dan Doyle (The Actuary Gigabass), and Becca. I wanted to support my friends (mainly those two) and so I did. 

April 23rd brought a mock senate (which was fantastic!) and the Trib Total Media Dinner Thingy. I was named one of Trib Total Media's Top 50 Outstanding Young Citizens for the South and West Region. I don't talk about these sorts of things much, but this is an exception. Those who were selected were invited to a (really fancy) banquet out past the Airport. It is extremely rare that I feel REALLY out of place at social functions. I was surrounded by AAA and AAAA schools, and the tops of those schools, so it was intimidating and strange to say the least. They stuck us in the back corner of the room (and I think that's a good thing, because we were with a family from Chartiers-Valley who spent the whole night feeling like the riff-raff) and gave a lovely dinner that due to my illness I couldn't really taste. All in all, it was a pretty okay night, and I have a neat little certificate to go with it.

April 24th brought the Senior Project. As a graduation requirement, students in our district are required to complete a project detailing their profession of choice. It involves completing research on the career, doing a job shadow, and it culminates in a presentation and interview on a selected day. That day was the 24th, and my panel consisted of an elementary teacher I didn't know, my kindergarten teacher (yep, he got to start and end my high school career), and one of the high school computer teachers (I wrote a story about his sports marketing class for The Cougar Times). I passed, I think, but the kicker was I had lost my voice. I have been sick effectively for the past week (it's finally been diagnosed as a sinus infection and is being treated) and lost my voice entirely the day of the presentation. So I was lucky enough to whisper the entirety of my presentation to my panel....

This coming Tuesday I am going to be on a student panel about education at (WYEP-owned) WESA. As I said, we'll be talking education: the past, the present, and the future. They will record our little panel and then broadcast it at a later date (you better believe I'll be posting a link when I get it!). The panel itself will start at 7PM, and if you'd like to join us just register here: http://wesa.fm/post/905-wesa-present-life-learning-forum-april-28.

Upcoming events include: the last Court of Honor for troop 831 (ever) is tomorrow, the doom and gloom church meeting is tomorrow, and no doubt fun stuff awaits us next week. 

Until next time, I'll see you on the radio 

(I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT!!!)

We'll Name Our Children Jackie and Wilson and Raise 'Em on Rhythm and Blues

Hi! Long time no write. The title is from Hozier's "Jackie and Wilson" on his album which I bought yesterday and IT IS FANTASTIC! This is going to be quite disjointed. Sorry.

These past few Fridays I have been out and about with friends, and Saturdays have been spent for the most part doing assorted nonsense. Sundays are never good, which means I've neglected my blog for the past while.

It's really strange to be doing things on Friday Nights, especially with friends. For the longest time I've been the type to prefer a night in to anything else, but I have (some people may say FINALLY) come out of my shell. I'm now proposing to go out, and to get people together doing something. I guess that's what senior year does to you: the freeing from caring about consequences leads to more leaps of faith. Or something profound like that.

I'm going to try and run quickly through the latest developments and the sort so in the future I can look back and say "I didn't post because..."

• SHASDA Dinner - fancy dinner with administrators from area school districts where they invite once a year students from each district for a forum about education and the sort. Two main points: technology is coming to our classrooms and we should try and get on that as opposed to hoping it'll just wash over like a wave, AND I've found a new line about standardized testing that was met with applause (like really? since when does Alex Popichak get applause for things he thought of on his own. I usually get C papers for that) that new line being: "I think we should start building the test to fit the curriculum as opposed to trying to jam a curriculum to fit a test". Who accompanied me to this dinner? None other than our assistant principal. 
• Trib OYC Top 50 -  I was nominated for an award and invited to attend a dinner. Every year, the Tribune-Review sponsors an award called the Outstanding Youth Citizen award and they take nominations from schools and individuals for the area's Top 50. I am honored to be named one of the Top 50 in the West division. The winner of gold medals will be announced at the dinner, as will the winner of a $5000 scholarship. The dinner will be held in April and I have to get working on that scholarship app...
• Operation Alex Pays For College  - has commenced, and I'm working on trying to find a way to pay for college. The Point Park University Presidential Scholarship and Opportunity Grant are amazingly helpful, and after federal loans I'm down to a commitment roughly equal to room and board, which is manageable. When you think of how absolutely insanely expensive it is just to get a degree, I feel I am blessed to have worked this hard and get financial aid based on that. It's weird to be recognized for stuff, but I guess that happens? I don't know. How to be humble without being a jerk...

I think that sums up some of the bigger stuff. I don't know. Sorry if this was a disappointment to all three of you who read this...

This Has Been Alexander Popichak Speaking For The Carlynton Marching Band

Yesterday was the end of an era for me, it was Senior Night at Carlynton and with that, my last football game with the band.

Three years ago I signed up to be the announcer of the band. Since then, I've attended football games home and away, and more band festivals then I knew existed. It was a blast, honestly. What started as just something to do became a part of my life, and the gaining of a family I never expected. It was because of this that I was able to do three years of homecoming court bios, senior nights, a year of soccer, and emceeing three band festivals.

Last night I was given a gift by my section member (the section of the sectionless) Abbie (best friend to my girlfriend and all around amazing band manager) an awesome gift - a decorated hatbox for my crazy marching band helmet as well as a bag of Three Musketeers.

I again read (this time half) of senior night -  for my seniors, the class of 2015. Then it was my turn to have my name and biography read as I walked down the field. It was the first time I had ever walked down the middle of the field that I can remember, and I was met at the end by Mr. Obidowski, Mr. Loughren, and Mr. McAdoo. It was surreal to say the least. The band cheered, and then I was back to whatever it was I was doing. Back to the student section for one last time to cheer on one last Carlynton Loss.

We lost, but we cheered anyway. I hung by the band one last time with the people I had grown to appreciate, the people that had taken me in as their own.

I wrote two weeks ago about living in the moment, and about taking it in. I did, and it was fantastic. Nothing was different except the beginning and the end. I took along with me to the box Sara and Cassie. They had never been there, and I offered to any senior the chance to go. So I did my thing, and I added one thing to the end of my regular script:

"Thank you for supporting music in our schools, Thank you Mr. Obidowski and the entire Carlynton Marching Band for an amazing past three years as your announcer. This has been Alexander Popichak speaking for the Carlynton Golden Cougar Marching Band. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COUGARS!"

And that was it. They played Seven Nations' Army in the stands one last time, I must note, but that was the end of my band announcing (career?). Clay, Sara, Cassie, and I went to Kings and ran into a waitress that we had the night prior, and it was weird and surreal and wonderful.

I'm Gonna Fight Em Off, A Seven Nations' Army Couldn't Hold Me Back

It's a Friday Night and usually I don't post, but I found myself having enough time to do so. It's been a strange week, but a good one. I'm also wearing my duck shirt, so there's that.
</thedisjointedpart>
My favorite part about traveling week to week with the band over the past three years has been the music and the atmosphere. You really can't duplicate either, you're only in high school once and each game only happens once. I don't care that Carlynton is 0-6 on the season, they're still fun games.

Anytime they can, the marching band plays music - in between first downs, after kickoffs, after scores, quarter breaks - basically if there is a break in the action, there's music. By far my favorite stand tune is Seven Nation's army. It has this crazy deep bass riff, and, just listen to the song:

Anyway, I really like this song, and the band does it really well. Why am I telling you this? A while back, my senior adviser/WCHS adviser/Midsummer director/general advice-giver Ms. Longo told me when I was talking about realizing this is my senior football season to enjoy it, and take it in. She's right, there's no way to really capture these things (yes I have videoed the band playing Seven Nation). You can try your best to relive it, but in the end this is it, this is the time you need to own, and this is the time you need to live. So that's what I'm doing. 

I don't want to get sentimental, so I haven't done much to record it for that reason. I know that down the road I won't have anything to connect me to it, but I also remember what happened in NYC 2009. I was so focused on capturing it all that I didn't really live that moment. My exciting story comes from the thing I didn't capture: nightfall in Times Square. They say memory is unreliable, but I'd much rather have a memory to go off of where I lived and where I felt infinite than some passive documentary footage. And so it goes.

The Windowpane Makes a Show of Rain

That's from the chorus of the song "Reply" by the Spring Standards.

Last Friday I was again at a Riverhounds game and last Saturday I was again at a house concert to again see the AMAZING Spring Standards. I try and not be bitter about terms and conditions, but to save my own ranting/you having to deal with that I will not comment about the Riverhounds game except to say we won, and took a selfie with a camera guy (because we're nerds).

I can, however, talk about the Spring Standards. Basically, we were invited again by my aunt and uncle to listen to the Spring Standards live and acoustic. They were great as always and I have more music now after acquiring two CDs from them.

So this week was about squaring away summer work, Eagle project stuff, and some other miscellaneous things that came along the way. I have a date set for the Demolition work on the sign, Monday. Stay tuned, and I should be able to share more on it, but as for now I know that Monday we're removing stuff and smashing some stuff... this should be interesting.

I'm taking this as a lesson in brevity as I can't think of anything more really and cutting it off here. I start senior year in about two and a half weeks and quite frankly I'm nervous. I'm more nervous about getting summer work and this eagle project done before the first day than I am for senior year itself. I don't know.

As We Stumble Along, We're Off to See The Wizard

Complete Side Note: We pass Franklin Regional on our way to Slickville every Sunday. My heart goes out to them, I have no idea what they're going through but I admire their strength and resolve during this whole insanity. Stay Strong, FR.

So this week I did something I've never done: I saw two musicals two nights in a row. On Thursday I was at Bishop Canevin for their Drowsy Chaperone and I was at Carlynton for their production of The Wizard of Oz. Some background: the first Carlynton show I was in was Drowsy two years ago, and Oz was the first Carlynton Show I've had no involvement in since 2011's 42nd Street where I was an usher. 

Canevin's version of Drowsy was fantastic, and I may be biased because I know the show so well, but it was so nice to hear the music flood back. There's something to be said for watching a live show with a live orchestra, and to know the show word for word. I went for that reason: I never really saw Drowsy live because, well, I was in the show. 

On Friday I went to see Carlynton's The Wizard of Oz, which was AMAZING. Everyone (Clay, Greg, Maggie, Natalie, Mikaela, Andy V, Dave, so many more, all of you!) was great, and the show was technically done well. Overall it was an amazingly enjoyable experience, and everyone involved should be proud.

It donned on me Friday that I haven't actually sat through a production in the auditorium seats in about three years. Generally, I am either on tech for something, or I'm on stage for something. In one sense, it was nice to sit back and have it all handled, and have a seat that was assigned.

In another sense I was totally and hopelessly lost. This is my kingdom: this is the auditorium we clean, maintain, and do the best tech work we can. What can I say? I'm a control freak. I enjoy being a cog in the wheel, not the one reading the watch.

It wasn't necessarily bad that I wasn't a part of it, it was just strange not being a part of it all. After it all, I still (stressful as it always is) prefer the lighting stand or stage manager's stand to being in the audience. It's just how I am.

Saturday I took the ACT at Canevin. Another first: I've never been in a Canevin classroom until then.

I hope to get something out for Tuesday (Mon Anniversaire) or Friday (but you realize, this is going to be one crazy week for us... If I don't, Happy Easter to you all!). 

After Four Years and 14,000 Pageviews I Still Can't Consistently Title Stuff

Usually I am listening to some music while I write these, but I'm in a library so I don't posses that luxury. That music becomes the title, which I usually relate back to whatever I'm writing about. Unlike what Jamie just told me, I usually title first.

I'm at that point in the school year where everything is moving at hyper speed but the school day. As a result, you've begun to despise everyone around you while simultaneously the workload quadruples. If I miss a Friday (as I did last week... I don't usually skip whole weeks but I couldn't get a draft off the ground), I apologize, but that's why.

I'm also in the middle of planning for my Eagle Project. You'd think that redoing an outdoor sign would be a simple planning process and the challenges would stem from my inability lack of experience to do any sort of construction. Turns out it's the opposite. The goal is that by June I have something in stone and we start work.

And it's at this point the bell rings.

After this, and about a gap of ten hours, I'm back at it; typing away. I want to acknowledge that this site hit the 14,000 mark within the last week or two. I have to stop looking at these numbers. I spent a day working the numbers and if all goes on the track that it has been, I'll be at 23,000 or so by June of 2015. So that's cool. But really, why do I care?

I changed my across-the-emails signature recently. I noticed that a bunch of teachers and professionals I email have some deep and profound quote dotting the bottom of their signature. I've had this quote at the bottom of mine for a while now:

"I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got" – Walter Cronkite

I haven't really talked about success here, and I think there are two reasons for that: 1) I don't know that I truly understand what success is and 2) with all of the metacognition I've been toying with, the question usually goes into a why does society put such an emphasis on success? So I've decided to think about it for once. Webster is interesting with how it defines it. It first reads "the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame" and then "the correct or desired result of an attempt".

Why do I say interesting? If you recall from the latest installment of me gushing over F. Money Bojangles' Gatsby, I talked about a sense of superficial sense of authority. The rich have power merely because they have a wealth of resources. If success is measured by wealth or fame (which in a capitalist society makes the most sense) then we're all doomed. The rich merely get richer and the famous breed fame, leaving success to those who we respect and beyond that an oligarchy of sorts. Which I personally think is a bunch of baloney.

I prefer that second definition, or at least the inclusion of "desired result". Success is something defined by someone actively striving for something. What is the desired result of me writing here week after week? That's for me to define. Honestly, at this point it's to become a better writer, not necessarily to gain a following or gain accolades (in the past three weeks alone I've been added to four or five lists on twitter of "top bloggers" or "top designers". WHAT DOES IT MEAN?).

So again, thanks for following along, and joining me. Nothing personal, I'm just not sure why you're there. Nevertheless, I'm thankful you're there (a 60+/week readership is a great motivator).

One week from now I'll be in the audience of Carlynton's The Wizard of Oz. This is a show which, depending on the next two days, I might be assisting in the lighting design. Because you know I can't stay away from these things.

A Dangerous Idea... Almost Makes...Sense

I've been listening lately to the soundtrack for Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby. It's an interesting soundtrack, produced by Jay-Z including everything from this Jack White cover of a U2 song (Love is Blindness) to a songs from Andre 3000, Florence and the Machine, and a bunch of music you wouldn't expect to work together but it does.

This week has been quite stressful, and from about Tuesday on I've been sleep deprived. What have I learned? I have made it pretty far with what I want to do, yet I have miles and miles to go before I sleep (see? I can't even be original I've stooped to stealing from Robert Frost for heaven's sake!*).

Stress is an interesting thing for me. I produce some of my best work under deadlines and under crazy stress, but if I get past a certain point I just stop. Stop everything. It's really counterproductive, kills my grades, and drives those around me (family and my few close friends) into maddening confrontation. But unfortunately, like I said, I do some of my best work in my dizzying solitary stress circle.

Dizzying solitary stress circle? I like that, but it seems like one of those "writings of a madman" you'd see painted on the walls in a comic-sans-esque manner.

In Physics this week, we watched one of those Mechanical Universe videos. According to our physics teacher, these were originally on laser disk, and then migrated to VHS tape, and now is on DVD. It always (and I mean always) starts in a CalTech lecture room with the same guy explaining some physics concept and it fades off to some voiceover lady with 80s echo-synth background explaining math derivations. Every time they go to have some historical background, they cut to these historical dramatizations of Newton just creating things, and Keppler as a mathematical wanderer, and it goes on.

It was through this sort of bizarre historical dramatization that I learned that Newton went insane. Like, literally insane. Now I'm not sure how they determined this, or how he became insane, considering he was a solitary individual who was obsessed with math, gravity, and how it all coexists (I think he was insane the whole time, just good at hiding it...). Newton was brilliant, but he was still crazy.

In completely unrelated news, I am in talks with WYEP and Reimagine Media to start a podcast. We have already recorded at least one episode of it, but we are in the process of finding a home for it. Hopefully in a weeks time I'll have a link where you can listen in.

I'm in the middle of planning my eagle project as well as about ten thousand other projects. Sorry it's not all that coherent. Though I love writing, and I love posting here and talking with people (who never comment) about stuff I write about here, I have to have my priorities straight. My posting schedule and sanity suffers immensely for this.

*See what I did there? I cited the source, sort of.

To the Ends of the Earth Would You Follow Me?

Those are lyrics to a song called "Ends of the Earth" by a group called Lord Huron. If you listen to it and it sounds familiar, it's in some sort of Zales commercial with balloons...

We recently blocked the last bit of Arsenic and Old Lace. To those unfamiliar with theatre terminology, 'blocking' is the process of putting the lines in the script to actual motions and things on stage. It's an interesting process, albeit a sometimes tedious one. Nevertheless, it's all set.

Also that day I (along with most of the cast) was interviewed by Megan Guza of the Signal Item (Trib Total Media). It's very strange to be interviewed, not necessarily the whole having-a-conversation-with-someone-and-them-writing-it-down thing but the whole knowing-this-may-go-to-print thing. I'm perfectly comfortable with it all (I write a blog after all and have conducted interviews through WYEP a few times) it's just bizarre being on the other side.

Today I read that interview in the Signal Item... and it's so strange realizing that something you said was notable enough to put to print. If you're interested, you can read the full article here: http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourcarlynton/yourcarlyntonmore/5058234-74/senior-brewster-carlynton#axzz2lKuJwk1P.

I talked for about seven minutes with Megan Guza alongside Jeff Henke (Mr. Witherspoon) and Tyler Piper (Dr. Einstein). It was quite an interesting conversation, going everywhere from how Aidan convinced us all to try out for the play to where we plan on going. Though I do share some satisfaction in being the one that came up with the word camaraderie, which landed in the title of the piece.

Anyway, I'm posting this because I wanted to record what it felt like at the time - being interviewed, and capping off my first Carlynton play.

Shameless self-promotion:

Join the wildly talented Carlynton cast as they present Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace. What happens when you take two murderous little old ladies, mix in a dash of identity crisis, sprinkle in some dead bodies, and add just a hint of romance? The complete recipe calls for Brooklyn cops, wanna-be writers, a bugle, a window seat, and some elderberries. Don't miss your chance to find out why Aunt Martha and Aunt Abby have so many people simply dying to try the wine! Bring the whole family for a great evening of laughs and entertainment.

Cast (in order of appearance):
Abby Brewster- Marin Exler
Mrs. Harper- Cassie Clark
Teddy Brewster- Alex Popichak
Officer Brophy- Colin Henke
Officer Klein- Caleb Staker
Martha Brewster- Natalie Thomas
Elaine Harper- Angela Zucchero
Mortimer Brewster- Aidan Kalimon
Mr. Gibbs- Kassi Longstreth
Jonathan Brewster- Clay Bodnar
Dr. Einstein- Tyler Piper
Officer O'Hara- Jarod Latta
Lieutenant Rooney- Rachel Roach
Mr. Witherspoon- Jeff Henke

Tickets are available at the door. Price: students and seniors $5, adults $7.

No Matter What we Breed We Still are Made of Greed

**Note: I thought I had posted this when I wrote it - Friday the 8th. Apparently I had not**

The title consists of lyrics from Imagine Dragons' Demons. It has nothing to do with this post. However, I recommend their acoustic version, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PthxO_lRu9c

Anyway, my week was busy, but as the trend has gone lately, I've spent a lot of time at the high school and more specifically in the auditorium. I'm in a strange position that I personally love: that of a tech and of an actor. I'm involved with the winter play, Arsenic and Old Lace and it's quite a different experience from anything I've done thusfar.

This is the first 'role' I've had to date, and it's interesting having actual lines versus being in the ensemble of a musical or being cloaked in black with most tech... Though my heart still is very much laying in the shadows - in the dark - in the control rooms.

We did maintenance, our ragtag crew of an adviser that was all of our former band director, my brother, one of his friends, and another guy we've picked up along the way. Our adviser is new this calendar year, but has been involved in Carlynton Tech for years. Honestly, I'm quite thankful to have someone knowledgeable teach us the ropes, and over the past week alone I've learned so much - and fixed so much!

It's when there's nothing going on in the auditorium - no shows, no people, no performers, nothing - that I've learned to appreciate this hidden zen of silence. I like the control of running a light board, the knowledge of a rigging system, and above all else the magic that we can create. A good tech crew - which over the past year the group of us have become - can do so much, especially when we're passionate about it. I'm not saying we do an amazing job with everything, it's just we love what we do.

But acting - bringing to life the scenes and tech - creating the backdrops and illusions, are so different. I'm thankful for being able to do this all, and I don't care if it ever lands me anywhere. I just love doing it all.

Don't Use the Stars to Find Me, Don't Expect Them to Align

So those are lyrics from the song 'Only Skin' on the album yellow // gold by the amazing band The Spring Standards.

Why the introduction? Yesterday (8/7/13) I attended a house concert at my aunt and uncle's house in Dormont. And yes, this is the same aunt and uncle who let me go see JayScribble and KDKA and introduced me to WYEP.

The term 'house concert' sounds like some sort of stuffy thing for like crazy rich people who want to enslave classical music artists in their basements for personal concerts at each whim. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. The Spring Standards came because of some sort of deal they struck with my aunt and uncle through kickstarter or something... I don't know the details, but bottom line I was invited and I went.

Granted, unlike the Tally Hall excursion, I had about a week and a half's notice and actually did my homework and knew some of their songs (yay forward thinking!).

Half of the documentary film Crew

We walked in and were some of the first people there, and were immediately introduced to the fantastically nice James Cleare, Heather Robb, and James Smith, as well as Noah (the guy that plays drums but due to space limitations couldn't) and two documentary filmmakers.

I spent a long period of time talking to the documentary filmmakers about what they do, how it works, and what it's like being on tour with a band.

After a while we all sat down (we including the daughter of my former GATE teacher and Suzanne from WYEP) and the trio indulged us with a 16 to 18 song acoustic set. It was fabulous. They have a great sense of humor and were playing with a large cutout of Joe Biden (the story of which I learned later) for a bit:

Joe Biden!

The story behind the Joe Biden head involved a guy who's now in Boston but used to work at KDKA, Jim Lokay (follow him on twitter, he's hilarious!). He sent my aunt this for her birthday and the band got a hold of it, so that was fun.

After they were done with their set, they let us know that they could send us the entire recording of the night directly to our emails (I totally did that!) so we could remember it, and have the musics.

L-R: James Smith, Heather Robb, James Cleare
(I think I have that right...)

This is again the thing that I love about music. It brings awesome people together, and those of us who are musically challenged can really appreciate what these people can achieve with two guitars, and some harmonica-accordion thing (it looks like a kid's piano that had a kid with like a kazoo... it's bizarre, but sounds awesome.

Anyway, afterwards we got to talk to the band and I bought their latest album yellow // gold and they signed it, and obviously noticed how long I spent talking to the documentary filmmakers:

And like I said, they have a sense of humor. the one James (Leftmost James) told me that the photographers should be paying me to A) talk to the underlings and B) hold their lenses. Obviously Heather (the one who wrote the message) didn't mind too much. You should look them up, or better yet, buy their music, it's like the Lumineers meets the Band Perry meets Mumford & Sons, with less country and more folk...

Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoLEvg9QrGg&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLC189635CAA8D4E29

Meh, so goes the life of me. I was no doubt the youngest one there, but I loved it. Thanks to Aunt Marie and Uncle George for letting me come, and the Spring Standards for being great people.

Really Post-Post: My Aunt Marie also wrote about the evening from the hostess point of view. You should check that, and the rest of her blog out: http://blame-it-on-being-a-girl.blogspot.com/2013/08/in-which-some-thursdays-are-far-more.html

On Picking Songs and the Sort Apart

I came to the realization that if I wanted to quote a song I was listening to, its an instrumental so the title would be "*soft strings* *building strings with piano noises* *horns*" or something... and it wouldn't exactly describe anything pointing out the song as opposed to other ones. Nevertheless, if you want to listen to that instrumental, it's from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" which I haven't seen yet, but I've heard the soundtrack to.



Anyway, music has become a pretty big part of my life, ever since I first needed it as an inlet back during the Viva La Vida days. What I've learned is that there are three basic elements to a song: the music, lyrics, and  key its written in.

The Music and Key
This is the part that gets stuck in your head and you remember. A melody sticks in your head like your shirt to leather interior in a car. Whether or not you realize it, the song's key and melody is how the majority* of us interpret happy/sad songs. There's this really interesting article from NPR (National Public Radio)'s All Things Considered if you're interested how it all works, and a quirky experiment with an REM song right here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173832177/can-you-make-sad-songs-sound-happy-and-vice-versa

The Lyrics
This is the actual 'content' of the song... and it seems to me like this is comparable to a webpage where the content is what is actually pretty important, but everyone bases the mood of it off of the CSS or 'fancy stuff'.

SO where am I going with all of this? We did lyric analyses in English class as a sort of 'poetry analysis.' Now let me put this with all of the formatting I can put on here:

I Am Bad At Poetry

But I am pretty good with music. So I used my WYEP recording of Mark Dignam and the House of Song's performance at the Hootenanny... I was able to get through it, but here's what I learned about analyzing poetry. A note to any English majors or teachers... I'm not too qualified to say this. Remember that I'm a high school sophomore, and take my thoughts as you will.

• When searching for a deeper meaning, if it seems too hard, you're thinking too hard. 
• Frost poems usually have a deeper meaning, you're not trying hard enough.
• When writing poetry, keep to the rubric and then add flair afterwards.
• Finally, if you're a blogger attempting to do poetry, keep the poetry to a need-to basis, because I'm not good at this.

But the first point makes sense for a lot of things. Don't try searching for deeper meanings all of the time. Search a bit, look at something from a different perspective, but much like a game of Jenga, pull something too too much and the whole bloody tower may fall down.

Just some thoughts.

Is This the End or Something Really, Really Beautiful?

Tumblr Is Awesome

Those are lyrics to a Voxtrot song called "The Start of Something." I like this song for a few reasons... It's really mellow yet upbeat song that a friend showed me a while back. It's all about relationships and the sort, but I like that some of the lyrics are just about "the start of something really really beautiful" and that something could be literally anything.

This week has certainly been an interesting one. It's been one of new beginnings, and sometimes just a freshening of stuff. Monday brought the second inauguration of Barack Obama, and MLK day. It was an interesting combination, and one that the commentators on the major media networks (I'm sorry, only saw NBC and CBS Monday) took note of.

SOURCE: Telegraph.co.uk (Inauguration 2013)

The question they were asking was What is the Civil Rights Movement of Today? And they meant it in the sense of asking, what should we be focusing on as a nation that will define this generation.

Now if this were a year ago, I'd probably say the Occupy Movement, because it seemed like a movement towards something. Ultimately the issue was that "something" not being solidly defined. However, I like what Condoleezza Rice said. What it should be is education.

I emphasize "should" because at least to me it seems that pop culture leaning more towards Gay Rights and Gun Control. And yes, I think in the coming years these issues will be looked at and action will probably taken. I can't see into a crystal ball and tell you when in the eyes of the law the LGBT community will be considered equals with those outside of it, and minorities getting their equal rights, but I hope within the next decade that happens. I'm not going to touch gun control because, well, politics.

I think that Condoleezza Rice has a point, and in a nation that is considered the most wealthy, where we possess in our pockets a machine capable of summoning all of human knowledge that we should be capable of adding to that knowledge.

So why do I rant about this week after week? Because I'm trying to prove that I care, and that this generation is genuinely concerned with the quality of the world that we're inheriting.

I think the way of the future is collaboration via schools, communities, the internet, phones, everything. It's by combining two minds that you come up with something really beautiful, but you have to start it.

The Creatures' Gentle Glowing Never Lasts

Those are lyrics to a song by Laurena Segura, a Canadian girl that makes music on YouTube. This song in particular is called "Fireflies of Montreal" and is written more mellow than her song "Permafrost". I recommend checking her out, because her music has an acoustic folksy flair to it. 

There are so many things I could write about this week, be it a rant on having mid terms or RICK SEBAK VISITING MY BLOG, or seeing The Chief at the O'Reilly yesterday in Pittsburgh. But what I think is going to happen is that I'm just going to start somewhere and go from there.

I guess I should explain why I mentioned Rick Sebak. For those of you from Pittsburgh, you should know Rick Sebak's trademark scrapbook documentary style, and even those of you who watch public television (if you don't know what that is, you should probably leave the site. I'm all about public radio, television, and internets) could be familiar with his Breakfast and other assorted specials.

Anyway, in a crazy Sunday haze, I decided to send a link to some of the people I follow on twitter to this website. This included Jim Lokay, John Green, and Rick Sebak. I said something along the lines of "if anyone actually reads this, I will freak out". Mr. Sebak actually did that, and responded by telling me he also saw BBC 2 1/2 (REALLY old and abandoned project, circa late 2010). 

I think that it's amazing that someone actually reads this, and I want to thank Mr. Sebak for reading this, even if it is the blog of some crazy sophomore from the South Hills.

This week has been interesting in other respects, namely revisiting the cultural district to see The Chief. It's a pretty well written and EXTREMELY well acted one-man-play about Art Rooney Sr, founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I think I appreciate theater for a number of reasons, but part of it is that I've been in basically every element of it, except in a directing or writing capacity (and I don't EVER plan on going into that... seems too stressful). It's a magical place where for a little while you can escape the mountains of American Cultures homework, the headaches of the real world, and genuinely get lost in something.

Theater reminds me of music, something that people who are passionate about work really hard on and get lost in. It really says something when you see that someone throws himself into his or her work, and it loses the idea of being 'work'.

I'm off to WYEP again tomorrow (for the first time since the HOOTENANNY which you can listen to here: http://www.wyep.org/audio/wyeps-holiday-hootenanny-broadcast-2012) and no doubt will have some magic story to tell about down there. I guess radio and Re(imagine) work is what I get lost in. Only time will tell though. 

On a complete aside, I realized that I've been working on my troop site since January 10, 2009... meaning this is FOUR YEARS of doing this web designy thing... which is insane. Okay, back to reality.

Contrasts.

I'm not ready to talk about today's events; and I'm not sure I ever will. 

So yesterday I walked around my neighborhood as I usually do. I got a call from a neighbor to check out something that he had said was going over on his street. I go over and I see that there is an excavator tearing down a condemned house across the street from him.

For years, we had known this just as "Tom's House" a condemned house which we had deemed the monster house of the neighborhood. It had become a hotspot for drug users and other semi-illegal activity. It was a welcome sight to see it go down.

After I saw what was left of "Tom's House" I proceeded to go home and get ready for WYEP's Holiday Hootenanny, which is our annual fundraiser for our education department, and namely Re(imagine) Media.

There were two portions to the program: the VIP act featuring some of the bands from our Re(imagine) Media band competition, Re(imagiNATION) back in May. They performed for the VIP ticket holders, and then the general admission show started.

The general admission show consisted of three bands, Chet Vincent and the Big Bend, the Neighbors, and Mark Dignam and the House of Song. Each of these headlining bands played sets of 7 or so Christmas songs and featured local singers such as Emma Cox and Molly Alphabet.

The event was supposedly livestreamed to UStream, but I don't know because I was taking pictures for WYEP/Re(imagine) Media the whole time. When those are up, I will post a link. However, I have to clean them up a tad, since I was using a not-professional camera.

The entire station (or at least as many people that I know existed) showed up including our E&CE director Alexa, Sensei Matt, and my fellow Carlynton resident Mrs. Meyer. I was introduced to many amazing people, and it truly reminded me of a full-scale version of our Re(imagiNATION) back in May.

The idea that music brings people together seemed to be embodied by this event. Yeah, the people that were there were supporting us, but I think in a broader sense, it was something bigger than that. It truly was a 'holiday party' where all of us Re(imaginers) got to meet the people that make what we do possible. It's extremely humbling, and it was extremely awesome to be a part of.

And I think it's this togetherness that really makes me appreciate what we can do with a radio station, and with one another as creative people. it's a great feeling to feel so much support, and it felt like WYEP truly is more than a radio station - that we're a family of sorts. Some of us are distant, but we're still all together.

If you want to see our informational pieces, pictures of what we've done, or are just interested, check out our blog at reimaginemedia.blogspot.com

If you're interested in hearing the music that was the Holiday Hootenanny, you can listen to 91.3FM locally on Christmas Eve. If you don't live in Pittsburgh, go to WYEP.org on Christmas Eve.

Re(ImagiNATION) (a Two-Parter)

This part two of a two part post... see the one right before this to know what you missed (I doubt you missed much)

SO I wanted to reserve a separate post for my final thoughts on the first Re(ImagiNATION).

For those of you who don't know what that was, it was a high school band competition that my group at WYEP (Re(Imagine) Media) held back on May 5th 2012 at Schenley Plaza. I, as well as Neil, Mark, Ally, Alyssa, Sammie, Molly, Gabriela, Meg, and the rest of Re(Imagine) Media crew emceed the event introducing bands as well as putting into words what we do every other Saturday. Now you should be able to follow the rest.

Packing the Plaza

I got there about two hours before the start, and I am immediately handed this V-Neck t-shirt to wear as uniform for the event. Armed with this new-found (rather low-cut tshirt for my taste) uniform and some energy, I teamed up with one my friends to help publicize the event on the street with Frisbees. It was interesting, to say the least, explaining our event to people, however we packed the little gazebo-esque thing that is Schenley Plaza and began a freaking-awesome band competition.

T-B: Ripe For Theft,
Samj ft. Chuck Deze
Mos Lov, Jordan Montgomery, and
Jupiter Sampson
Hat Co.
Mount Royal

We kicked off with this group called Ripe For Theft with member Alex Zukoff (A friend of mine from WYEP as well as other places) and just like that all five acts flew by. We were entertained by a duo Samj ft. Chuck Deze whom I got to meet beforehand backstage. Chuck was a really nice guy, who gave me insight into his stage name. He had told me that in football, his nickname was "Chuck Diesel." One day, the gentleman who started it shortened it to just "Deze" and Chuck Deze was born.

We also met a group called Mount Royal (also quite nice) as well as rappers Jupiter Sampson and Jordan Montgomery and DJ MosLov. We met a school group called Hat Co from Hope Academy.

As all of this band awesomeness was going on, there were activities such as sidewalk chalk drawing, spray-painting a community canvas (Shoutout to Sammie for coming up with that one!) oh and there was a green room.

WYEP is a place that instead of being built of like bricks and stuff, is built of pure awesome. They built us a little WYEP tent to use at the plaza as a freaking GREEN ROOM! Essentially, us emcees got to hang out with the bands performing (did I mention these were bands that our group picked as a top 5 to play at this event to start with‽‽‽). To say the least, I was psyched.

The event's actual winnings was judged by professionals, and the winner receives a press kit, studio time to record a three song ep, and the title of first winner of the first-ever Re(ImagiNATION).

Mount Royal came out on top. However, each of the bands received a mentorship with a local artist.

I took turns co-emceeing with the fabulous Gabriela Latta as well as the always-bubbly and uplifting Ally Bair and overall, the event went very well.

The only way we were able to do this was through the generosity of WYEP, its listeners, and the amazing staff we have worked with since October-ish. I can't wait to see what's next from this group of people.

L-R: Alexa Belejac, Brett Bridges, Matt Spangler
Photo Taken By: Alex Popichak

Curious about the Bands? Check out the event page here.
To See more pictures of the event, click here.

Spending Some Time In The Studio

This past Saturday was spent hiking up yet another hill (This was a hill as opposed to the magical mountain of West Virginia (Wild and Wonderful) and then orienteering a bit followed by yet another trip to WYEP.

There's something amazing that happens when I am on a hike anywhere, call it a sort of awareness of what's around you or whatever, but bottom line, something amazing happens.

There's also something to be said for getting to a point where you have a map in the woods and need to decide how to get a group of eight people out of those woods and back to the cars from which they parked earlier. I don't know how to explain it, but something snaps and I go into this weird quasi-leadership mode, where I suddenly know more than I consciously realize.

After getting out of the woods, I hitched a ride down to the WYEP studios. I just love going down there. We start out in a conference room and then split off into groups working on the various projects that Re(Imagine) has taken on. We filmed a promo for the Re(ImagiNATION) contest that I am a part of, but (amazingly) I didn't make the video for.

Anyway, after helping take part in that, I went to one of their state-of-the-art recording studios with another Alex (not the Unicorn Alex, but another Alex) for about an hour just kicking around what will (Cross your fingers) become the podcast Alex Squared which will basically be our random podcast where we talk about stuff. It's still in EARLY development, but we're working on it.

There is something completely free, or possibly even carefree in radio that you don't have in television. Don't get me wrong, Television is absolutely amazing to work on. My point here is that you don't need to care about physical appearance to do radio.

Radio focuses solely on content, which I kind of like. Television and YouTube have this pressure of making things LOOK fancy as well as having good and short enough content to keep the viewer's attention, and it is stressful.

So keep tuned to our blog (moderated by me) at http://reimaginemedia.blogspot.com/ for more on our project.

Culture. Cultured. Culturing.

So I guess this week's "theme" if you will, was the arts. Tuesday morning I spent on Pittsburgh's North Side to see The Elephant Man (to be detailed later). Wednesday brought TIED to the arts. Today, well, I did the morning announcements — does that count? {The only reason I felt obliged to have three things in that sentence is because three-thing sentences are much better than two-thing sentences.}

Tuesday. So I went to Pittsburgh's North Side with my school's GATE group to watch The Elephant Man on stage. This group called the Prime Stage Tehater was putting this on at this neat little theatre called the New Hazlett. The show itself was about the true story of this man who was born horribly disfigured into a circus family (his mom was trampled by an elephant when she was pregnant-get it, elephant man?). Anyway, when I go to theatres I look at three things — the acting, the content, and the tech.

The acting was phenomenal. This theater is set in an intimate fashion, and the acting made you ask yourself whether or not they are talking to you, the audience, or to the offstage "public".

The content was not overly amazing, rather it was the way in which it was presented. Each scene was divided by a 30 second music break with a slide with a quote from the upcoming scene. The interesting thing about the set is that it started quite bland — Just a circle set with a drawing in the center. As the performance went on, things were added to the set — A Bathtub, a bed, a chair, a desk, etc. — But nothing was ever taken away. It was a unique technique, so that at the end of the show you saw this progression as well as what the final original set looked like.

On Wednesday, I took part in a Carlynton Event called TIED to the arts. Basically, it is a pep rally for the arts in our District. The chorus sings, the band plays, and the Musical — oh, the musical — Musicate. I have been on all ends of this event. This time, I was in the chorus and in the musical.

The chorus sang this lovely song about believing and whatnot, but I think the most interesting part from a Choral member standpoint is just how this whole song got put together. The High school learned our part, the Junior High theirs, the soloists theirs and the Elementary— well, theirs. It was only about an hour before our actual performance that we ran through the song all together— once. Amazingly, it was lovely and wonderful and all of those things that you don't hear choral directors say but parents told them to pass it on so they will... 

As for the musical, we performed one of the numbers in our show in our Musical Promo t-shirts as opposed to costumes; and sang unaided by microphones, or you know, a stage or orchestra. Check out the final performance April 19-22nd At Carlynton Jr. Sr. High school. Tell them the 2015Blogger sent you (that would actually be really cool, just to confuse the ticket people :-) ). 

It is very different to be on the other side of a performance. I think we all do something that has another end to it, it's just that we rarely get to be on that other side. If you get a chance, try it sometime.

Speeches

STAT: This blog is fast approaching 3800 pageviews! Amazing! Thanks to everyone!

In English class over the past two days, we presented speeches about what we thought were important to us. I picked three rather cliched topics - My writings (This site, WYEP Stuff, newspaper fails), the outdoors (scouting, the summit, biking), and videography (eugh... you lost me).

I gave my (horrid) speech, and then proceeded to listen to my classmates' speeches. I learned a lot about the people whom I pass in the hallways everyday. Granted, this was a scholars class that had grown close due to the smallness of our class and our school, but still we learned of each other.

There were gamers, dancers, indie music (TALLY HALL) lovers, travelers, cheerleaders, basketball players, baseball players, card trick wizard/relgionesque dude, and there was even an actress/artist/figure skater. It occurred to me that the true meaning to high school is CERTAINLY not learning something academically, but to learn about the people and relationships and interactions with those around us. It is only when one walks 10,000 steps in one's shoes that one can begin to comprehend the complexities behind that individual (and WOW is that cliched).

Anyway, I learned things about my class that quite frankly surprised me. I was told once that you are a person who is either creative or intellectual. There is the very small few who are both. She told me that I was both, but I constantly question how creative I am (Considering I come up with ideas that have already been done) and exactly how smart I am (Umm, I still can't find theme in most written pieces... forget finding one in my own). Regardless of my personal situation, there are definitely people in my class who posses the gift of both. Take the actress/artist/figure skater for example. She is perhaps the best novel interpreter (finds crazy literary stuff I can only hope to catch on to) that I know behind, like, professional novelists (shoutout to JayScribble!) and people who read Greg's comics (No Andrew you CANT Read "Carrot"). She also can draw quite well.

The thing that I indirectly stated in my speech is the fact that I absolutely loathe English Class writing assignments. I am one of those bratty writers who want to be completely freeform. You tell me to write a third person story about a magic toaster or something, and I can do it. Tell me that I need four paragraphs, the toaster is unpersonified, and I must use at least seven vocabulary words, then you take the story and squash it.

Finally, never are we given prompts about alpacas or toasters or anything good. It all must have a tie in to what we are doing, use some mechanism of the mind control that education has been instilling into us (umm, when am I going to be given a list of completely impractical vocabulary words and need to work them into, say, a blog post?) and then it gets sent off to be judged by someone.

I digress. Bottom line, I have learned more from my fellow classmates about life and reality in the short 60 minutes of speechifying than I have doing proofs in Geometry, or finding a specific theme in a short story written hundreds of years before I was born.

Literature only becomes irrelevant when one tries to look at it from a modern perspective and try and find modern aspects to it. If you'll excuse me now I am going to memorize some literary terms revolving around literary techniques for a midterm test.

Don't Unplug Me, and the P4A

I was inspired by the lyrics to ALL CAPS's song entitled "don't unplug me" in acoustic version on Grooveshark.com. If you have no clue what that is, you should open a new tab in Explorer or Safari or whatever and type in GROOVESHARK.COM. You can stream music from its website for free, and save it into a playlist. And yes, ALL CAPS is a DFTBA (#Nerdfighters)-written artist.

I haven't posted on this blog in about two weeks. Since then I have been busy on-stage as well as lighting stages. On stage, I have been performing with CHS's Guys Ensemble group. This is perhaps my favorite group to sing with. Honestly, we are there just to have fun.

So our director shows us the drifters version of "White Christmas" in Sheet music form. We all kind of look at her like she is absolutely crazy. She calls for some sort of weird falsetto thing (check out audio from the original here: http://dft.ba/-1gL6) and then two weeks before the concert she utters the words that bring bad mojo to any guy attempting to perform on stage: YOU WILL DANCE. I am going to eventually post a video, but it didn't end great.

Project For Awesome Press Kit Logo

This past Saturday was December 17th. It was the annual PROJECT 4 AWESOME on YouTube. For those who aren't aware, the Project for Awesome is a Youtube initiative where creators of content post (instead of their regular content) videos about Charities that they either support or have taken part in.

To those who say that Youtube doesn't care, boy it does. As of 12/22/2011 at 9:36PM EST, they had raised $71,348.30 USD. This doesn't put into account the fact that DFTBA artist Alex Day is releasing his single with the proceeds going to a P4A charity, and that John Green's new Zombie Novella is going to be released for the money going to the P4A Projects.

Another post coming soon... and sorry if this one didn't make too much sense. In other news, I got a twitter. Feel free to follow me @AlexPopichak. Thanks!