Another year has gone by and the Vancouver Fringe Festival is here!

Over the last few years I have been horribly disappointed by the quality of the shows I have seen at the Vancouver Fringe. There have been only ten or fifteen incredibly good shows and, the rest that I have seen, lacked something very important: story and script. I will admit, Fringe theatre can be experimental and exciting and often take chances that other shows would never dream of taking. But a show must have a story. There must be a reason to have it on stage otherwise it just becomes a series of jumbled images that do not make any sense!

This is not just happening in the Vancouver Fringe either. I have been following theatre in Vancouver and am quite involved in the theatre community - but people - please, stop making shows which are presented as "experimental theatre". Now, before you get angry with me let me say that I have against experimental theatre and I believe has a place in Vancouver. But not in every show.

There are a whole lot of shows that have come out in the last few years that lack a scripted story or, at least, a logical story arc. "Throwing it all together" is does not make for a quality show and wastes my time. If I go to a show billed as a "love story" then I want to see a love story - not a series of people running about the stage in different stages of undress and use single-word sentences. This does not make sense to me. Are theatre people getting lazy? Anyway, more story - less visual. Talk to me and don't try to confuse me in order to hide the fact no consideration was taken to create character, story, flow, and...script.

Hey, on a side note, did you notice that the Fringe website (hidden in the bottom right corner) has a system for blogging? I thought it was damn cool to have the performers (or others involved) blogging about their experiences. I am sure this is something that will become more common as time slips by.

Well, after all my ranting regarding theatre in Vancouver and the Fringe Festival, what are you all going to see? In no particular order, here is my list:

1. The Spice of Life (Ummm, my spouse is in it, so, I can't NOT see it.)
2. The Curse of the Trickster (Although, not his best work.)
3. One Man Lord of the Rings (Apparently, not as good as Star Wars)
4. My Brother Sings Like Roy Orbinson (HUGE expectations for this one.)
5. Patti Fredy in...The Hunt (Should be good.)

I am sure there will be others, but, I will keep you posted on what I see.

Tags: vancouver+fringe+festival, fringe

What makes a successful blog? The simple solution would be to just copy the way I run my blog and everything else will be cream cheese. (Just kidding!) I was reading on D. Keith Robinson's blog about what makes up a good blog. I think what he says makes sense for all web content. Check out his site but below are some highlights.

A successful blog (or blogger) is...

• Well written. Good content will make or break your blog. Period. This it the #1 thing that makes a blog successful in my book.
• Frequently updated. Unless you’re a guru of some sort you really need to stay on top of it. This can be a real challenge.
• Consistent. This is kind of a combination of the first two. I like sites that are able to maintain quality and frequency overtime.
• Open. I like to read people who are honest and willing to talk about tough issues in a free and open way.
• Responsive. Those who respond to feedback and try to adapt to the wants and needs of their audience get high marks from me.
• Well designed. Yes, I do judge a blog by its design. It's not the most important thing, but I’d be lying if I said it didn't matter at all.
• Aware of its audience. If you don’t know your audience it'll show.
• Varied in topic. I feel there are lots of people who would disagree with this, but I like sites that change the subject every once in awhile.
• Personal. I tend to enjoy a blog with a bit of a personality. I want to "get to know", to a certain degree, the person(s) behind the site. Tone and style have a lot to do with this.
• Thick skinned. With any successful site comes nay-sayers, trolls, pedant and spammers.
• Honest. Readers are smart and they can smell bullshit.
• Accountable. Mistakes are inevitable and there are times when it's best to fess up and admit where you're wrong.
• Funny. I like a blog that can make me laugh on occasion.

I think I pretty much know who my audience is: my mother.

I have quite a few people out there who come here and I am constantly trying to improve how I do things. So, if you read me on a regular basis, just drop me a note and tell me what you like or don't like or that you think I am a jerk! Don't be shy! Fess up!

But, seriously, there are a million ways to make a blog these days, but I find the focus on the tools dominate. Bloggers are always talking about the tools they use and the content somehow is lost in the typing. Things are beginning to settle down. Content will always be king on the Internet and I hope that there will always be writers out there willing to blab about anything. It is good practice to keep the old brain cells firing.

Did I mention that I am hot?

Once in a blue moon, I check out News of the Weird. It is a funny column that I have been reading for a long time. It was published in a few magazines but I am happy enough to read it online. This month's listing of weird news is disturbing:

McDonald's franchise's in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Brainerd, Minn., and Norwood, Mass., recently began outsourcing their drive-thru order-taking to a call center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Thus, a Big Mac order shouted into a microphone in Missouri gets typed into a computer in Colorado (and a digital photograph of the customer's car is taken in order to reduce errors) and then clicked back to the originating restaurant's kitchen, which has the order ready in less time (30 seconds less, on average, with fewer errors) than the average McDonald's takes. [International Herald Tribune-New York Times, 7-19-04]

From a technical point of view the solution is pretty cool. From a social point of view...weird, man.

Tags: mcdonalds, news+of+the+weird

I have been having a conversation with a few people regarding online personas. I have been trying to make sense of this one and I did a little searching and found this on Stay of Execution. She writes:

This is about someone trying to create an online identity, and going to surprising lengths to do so. That interests me. All of those of us who blog end up creating these online personas, sometimes deliberately and sometimes as a by-product of saying whatever it is we have to say. The interplay between the online identity and the "real" identity interests me. There are intelligent, articulate bloggers who I suspect of using their blogs as a way to imagine and promote a particular sense of self, and when I read those bloggers I'm less interested in who they are trying hard to convince me they are than in the little bits of who they are that slip past the carefully constructed voice. There are articulate, intelligent bloggers whose online voice reflects an identity that they may not wish to show in real-life, and so there's a ring of truth and authenticity even in blogs that mask the identity of their creators. But the artifice of using authentic voices of others, stolen without attribution, to create an online identity that isn't mapped to a real-world persona, well, it eludes me. I wonder what part of the story I'm missing.

The post on her blog is more concerned with people posting to their blogs text from other blogs and then claiming authorship. I am not so much interested in the plagiarization of blogs (another post maybe, but who would really copy a blog anyway?) but why people create imaginary personas. It is interesting that people would crate ficticious online people. I am trying to imagine what "gets the person off" to write a blog - but to write a fake blog must be quite the online drug. One thing I have noted is that a lot of blogs that are unique and generate a lot of traffic are, usually, really bizarre blogs. For example, the dullest blog in the world gets a lot of web traffic. That is, when they post.

So, what are the reasons? I don't think I have much of an online persona but I have never kept it a secret that I maintain a vague commentary regarding personal details. I don't give out details that I deem inappropriate to post. But, it wouldn't take long to find out where I live or anything of that nature. Just go ahead and Google me.

I did some more searching and found this article regarding Kaycee Nicole. Apparently, Kaycee Nicole was a ficticious character created by a parent and daughter team. The Kaycee character was a high school student dying from cancer and had an online blog. Now, what gets interesting is that the character and the character's mother were both blogging their cancer related stories.

There is also the event from earlier this year regarding Andy Kaufman returning from the dead. This caused quite the stir and it looks like "Andy" has gone back into hiding. Gee, darn it.

Now, the Kaycee and Kaufman stories point out that there really is a portion of bloggers or writers out there who are completely out to lunch. Ficticious people are created and written about all of the time. I suppose what is scary is that there is really no way to prove who is who online. There is really no certain procedure to follow.

What do you think?

Tags: online+persona