The Vs. Studio Blog

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand. -Neil Armstrong

“When people lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster. When people do not fear worldly power, a greater power will arrive. Do not limit the view of yourself. Do not despise the conditions of your birth. Do not resist the natural course of your life. In this way you will never weary of this world.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu

“Why stay in bed when you could be high-fiving the sunrise? Human awe is an endangered species. Do not let your astonishment go extinct. Go wild for the wildness of your being. Sing off key and call it a yet-to-be-invented note.” –The Birds Wrote Me A Poem by Andrea Gibson

Today, July 26th, marks the 56th anniversary of Apollo 11 setting out on its mission to land an astronaut on the moon. Neil Armstrong would accomplish the mission 4 days later on July 20th, 1969. Click Here to view some of that footage.

Every single time I look up at the moon, I’m amazed that we humans have walked on it. Incredible. Unbelievable. Astonishing.

Say “Yes!” to your mystery.

Say “Yes!” to your awe and wonder.

Say “Yes!” to your childlike curiosity.

Say “Yes!” to your belief that you can do incredible things.

Say “Yes!” to your imagination of a better world.

In honor of Andrea Gibson, who sadly passed away yesterday, I’ll leave you with the poem SAY YES. (H/t to Sue Gisser who introduced me to Andrea’s work five years ago and did a remarkable reading of it last night on our Vs. “Bring Your Art” night. Thank you Sue.)

Say Yes by Andrea Gibson

When two violins are placed in a room if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
If this is your definition of hope
This is for you
The ones who know how powerful we are
Who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings
for the ones who sing life into broken wings
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving
Spare those intent on proving god is dead

For you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart
so it will beat faster
For the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
For the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky
This is for you

This is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom
Who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light
For the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full

This is for women
And for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon
but there are men who cry when women bleed
men who bleed from women’s wounds
and this is for that moon
on the nights she seems hung by a noose
For the people who cut her loose
and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn
about to learn they have scissors in their hands

This is for the man who showed me
the hardest thing about having nothing
is having nothing to give
Who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away
So this is for the day we’ll quit or jobs and work for something real
We’ll feel for sunshine in the shadows
look for sunrays in the shade

This is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built
and for the ones who didn’t know the filth until tonight
But right now are beginning songs that sound something like
people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home

This is for all the shit we own
and for the day we’ll learn how much we have
when we learn to give that shit away
This is for doubt becoming faith
For falling from grace and climbing back up
For trading our silver platters for something that matters
like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other

This is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass
to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree
where the fruit would grow to laugh
For the ones who know the math of war
has always been subtraction
so they live like an action of addition
For you when you give like every star is wishing on you
and for the people still wishing on stars
this is for you too

This is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn’t have to
For the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful
This is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful
For the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance
cause what’s the chance of everyone moving from right to left
if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS

This is for the no becoming yes
For scars becoming breath
For saying I love you to people who will never say it to us
For scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine
For the dime you gave away when you didn’t have a penny
For the many beautiful things we do
For every song we’ve ever sung
For refusing to believe in miracles
because miracles are the impossible coming true
and everything is possible

This is for the possibility that guides us
and for the possibilities still waiting to sing
and spread their wings inside us
‘Cause tonight saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that whatever song we’ve been singing we sing even more
The world needs us right now more than it ever has before
Pull all your strings
Play every chord
If you’re writing letters to the prisoners
start tearing down the bars
If you’re handing our flashlights in the dark
start handing our stars
Never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart
Play loud
Play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken
and you’re their last chance for sun
Play like there’s no time for hoping brighter days will come
Play like the apocalypse is only 4…3…2
but you have a drum in your chest that could save us
You have a song like a breath that could raise us
like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue
Play like you know we won’t survive if you don’t
but we will if you do
Play like saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that we give every single breath
this is for saying–yes
This is for saying yes

In addition to recapping my end of year favorites (films, plays, books, albums, etc.) I thought for 2025, I’d share each month. Without further adieu and in no particular order, here are some May favorites (Better late than never!)…

FILMS:

It Happened One Night directed by Frank Capra – A masterpiece, pre-Code screwball comedy, and then some. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are at the peak of their powers. Their chemistry is electric. Considered one of the greatest films ever made and was the first of only three films (along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Silence of the Lambs) to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Bernice Bobs Her Hair directed by Joan Micklin Silver – A 1976 short film made for the legendary PBS series “The American Short Story.” It was adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the same title. Shelly Duvall is sublime.

Who Am I This Time? directed by Jonathan Demme – Another short film. Another one based on a short story, this time from Kurt Vonnegut. Another one courtesy of PBS. From 1982 and part of the legendary series “American Playhouse.”…(A quick PSA, please urge your representatives not to strip away public media. It’s a vital force and is needed now more than ever.)…Christopher Walken plays Harry Nash, a shy hardware store clerk, who comes out of his shell in community theatre performances, but then retreats back in after the show is done. Susan Sarandon plays Helene Shaw, a visiting telephone company billing expert, who’s only in town for a few weeks, but gets persuaded to audition for the role of Stella by the director. Sparks fly between Walken’s Stanley and Sarandon’s Stella. You can stream for free on the Hoopla app (just need a library card).

PLAYS (Live, In Person):

Corktown ’39 written by John Fazakerley – A phenomenal Rogue Machine Theatre production featuring several Vs. friends and artists – Ann Noble, JD Cullum and Thomas Vincent Kelley – all part of a top notch ensemble. The design elements were also first rate. Thrilled to have done a Vs. Theatre Club outing to see it.

Hambone written by Javon Johnson – A Cops and Friends Of Cops Reunion Night! (See pics below.) Our Cops brother and Vs. artist, Rolando Boyce, absolutely crushed it. He and the ensemble were fantastic. Also, be sure to check out future events at The Mark Theater which you can do so Here.  Markietha Ka’Von is the founder and opening The Mark is a dream come true for her. (She made a beautiful curtain speech about the decades-long undertaking.)  The space is amazing with state of the art equipment and flexible for all types of rentals.  You can check it out Here.  

Fostered written by Chaya Doswell – Another great and fun Vs. Theatre Club Night at Pacific Resident Theatre. The show has extended multiple times since our May outing. It closes this weekend, July 20th. Definitely check it out!

ALBUMS:

The Smiths – “Louder Than Bombs”

The Counting Crows – “Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!” – One of their best in years. (H/t to my friend JB for mentioning to me.)

PODCASTS:

Freakonomics – “How Is Live Theatre Still Alive” – An incredibly detailed and transparent analysis of what it takes to put on a Broadway production. Click Here to listen to all 3 parts. Riveting and you will learn a ton. (H/t to my friend Gary for mentioning to me.)

Ken Mattingly: You started on a procedure?
John Aaron, EECOM Arthur: Well, the engineers have tried, but, I mean, it’s your ship. We gotta get you in there.
Ken Mattingly: Okay. Frank, I need the sim cold and dark. Give me the exact same conditions they’ve got in there now. And I need, uh, present status of every instrument.
Frank Borman: You got it.
Ken Mattingly: I need a flashlight.
[one is offered]
Ken Mattingly: That’s not what they have up there. Don’t give me anything they don’t have on board. -scene from the film Apollo 13

“”Building is thinking…It is always possible to prototype something you are interested in…A prototype is not a thought experiment; it must involve a physical experience in the world.” -Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, book Designing Your Life

Remember the scene in Apollo 13 where Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) is trying to solve the “20 amps or less problem” that the three astronauts in space–Jack Swigert, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise–are faced with? Even though Mattingly is back at Houston control, he’s trying to put himself under the exact same conditions that the astronauts are. Otherwise, any solution he comes up will not be helpful to them.

In a way, you could say Mattingly was prototyping.

You can apply this to any kind of career or change you’re thinking about making. Do a dry run. Take it for a test drive. Put yourself under the exact same conditions as someone doing what it is you’re thinking of doing. For as much and as long as you possibly can. That way, you can make an informed choice if this is the path for you. Here’s an excerpt from the “Prototyping” chapter in Design Your Life (It’s a book I highly recommend, especially for younger people starting out on their career path. Makes for a great graduation present!)

When you are trying to solve a problem, any problem, you typically start with what you know about the problem: you start with the data. You need enough data so that you can understand what causes what, and what is likely to happen when something else happens.

Unfortunately, when you are designing your life, you don’t have a lot of data available, especially reliable data about your future. You have to accept that this is the kind of messy problem in which traditional cause-and-effect thinking won’t work. Luckily, designers have come up with a way of sneaking up on the future through prototyping.

When we use the term “prototyping” in design thinking, we do not mean making something to check whether your solution is right. We don’t mean creating a representation of a completed design, nor do we mean making just one thing (designers make lots of prototypes—never just a prototype). Prototyping the life design way is all about asking good questions, outing our hidden biases and assumptions, iterating rapidly, and creating momentum for a path we’d like to try out.

Prototypes should be designed to ask a question and get some data about something that you’re interested in. Good prototypes isolate one aspect of a problem and design an experience that allows you to “try out” some version of a potentially interesting future. Prototypes help you visualize alternatives in a very experiential way. That allows you to imagine your future as if you are already living it. Creating new experiences through prototyping will give you an opportunity to understand what a new career path might feel like, even if only for an hour or a day. And prototyping helps you involve others early and helps build a community of folks who are interested in your journey and your life design. Prototypes are a great way to start a conversation, and, more often than not, one thing typically leads to another. Prototypes frequently turn into unexpected opportunities—they help serendipity happen. Finally, prototypes allow you to try and fail rapidly without overinvesting in a path before you have any data.

Our philosophy is that it is always possible to prototype something you are interested in. The best way to get started is to keep your first few prototypes very low-resolution and very simple. You want to isolate one variable and design a prototype to answer that one question. Use what you have available or can ask for, and be prepared to iterate quickly. And remember that a prototype is not a thought experiment; it must involve a physical experience in the world. The data to make good decisions are found in the real world, and prototyping is the best way to engage that world and get the data you need to move forward.

Prototyping is also about building empathy and understanding. Our prototyping process inevitably requires collaboration, working with others. Everyone is on a journey, and your prototype encounters with others will reveal their life designs and give you ideas for your own life.

So—we prototype to ask good questions, create experiences, reveal our assumptions, fail fast, fail forward, sneak up on the future, and build empathy for ourselves and others. Once you accept that this is really the only way to get the data you need, prototyping becomes an integral part of your life design process. Not only is it true that doing prototyping is a good idea; it’s equally true that not prototyping is a bad and sometimes very costly idea.

“Over time I learned that I can choose how to respond to the past. I can be miserable, or I can be hopeful—I can be depressed, or I can be happy. We always have that choice, that opportunity for control. I’m here, this is now, I have learned to tell myself, over and over, until the panicky feeling begins to ease…We can’t choose to vanish the dark, but we can choose to kindle the light.” -Dr. Edith Eger, book The Choice

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Feeling guilty has never helped a single person in all of human history. And never will.

Taking a positive corrective action in response to a guilty feeling has and will.

“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them…The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Bom bom bom bompa bom
Sail the ship, bompa bom
Chop the tree, bompa bom
Skip the rope, bompa bom
Look at me -song “All Together Now” by The Beatles

Preparation leads to Attention.

Attention leads to Interest.

Interest leads to Concentration.

Concentration leads to Focus.

Focus leads to Confidence.

Confidence leads to Trust.

Trust leads to Risk.

Risk leads to Letting Go

Letting Go leads to Flow.

All Together Now!

Preparation leads to Attention.

Attention leads to Interest.

Interest leads to Concentration.

Concentration leads to Focus.

Focus leads to Confidence.

Confidence leads to Trust.

Trust leads to Risk.

Risk leads to Letting Go

Letting Go leads to Flow.

Once more with feeling!!

Preparation leads to Focus…

“The problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future it to solve, is how to be one’s self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one’s own characteristic qualities.” -Emma Goldman

“If you have resonance with a certain medium and you feel you can express yourself through it, then you must move with it.” -Tess Guinery

“Three-quarters of all college grads don’t end up working in a career related to their majors…In truth, most people are passionate about many different things, and the only way to know what they want to do is to prototype some potential lives, try them out, and see what really resonates with them.” -Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

Find something you’re passionate about and then give yourself to it.
Find people you’re passionate about and then give yourself to them.
Don’t give in to demands to live in a way that’s out of sync with yourself.
Study with passion and learn like crazy.
Travel widely and mindfully to where you want, and need, to go.
Embrace your feelings and share them freely and joyfully with the world.
Laugh a lot, especially with those you love.
Believe in anything big you do, or don’t bother doing it.
Always hope for the best and have fun in the process.
Be generous of spirit and everything else.
Bring love, passion, poetry, and the flavor of great cheese (figuratively if not literally) to everything you do.
Own your life! -recipe for “Owning One’s Life” by Ari Zingerman

For the young person just starting out or the mid career person looking to make a switch…

One of the most valuable exercises you can do is to find someone who is doing what you might want to do with your life and then gather as much info as you can about their day to day. Not the movie version. Not the glory version. Not the puff- piece magazine version. The actual, granular, day to day version. (If you have the opportunity to speak to that person, ask a lot of questions, including what a typical day is like for them.

Billy Oppenheimer in his excellent weekly newsletter recently shared this insightful story…

The psychologist and writer Adam Mastroianni meets a lot of people who are unhappy with their jobs. When he asks them what they think they’d be happier doing, many of them say something like, I’d really love to run a little coffee shop. “If I’m feeling mischievous that day,” Mastroianni writes, “I ask them…Where would you get the coffee beans? Which kind of coffee mug is best? How much does a La Marzocco espresso machine cost? Would you bake your blueberry muffins in-house or would you buy them from a third party? What software do you want to use for your point-of-sale system? What about for scheduling shifts? What do you do when your assistant manager calls you at 6am and says they can’t come into work because they have diarrhea?” The point of the Coffee Beans Procedure is to unpack the vague, idyllic fantasy of running a little coffee shop into its actual day-to-day details and challenges. If you can’t answer those questions and/or find them interesting, “you should not open a coffee shop, because this is how you will spend your days as a cafe owner. You will not be sitting droopy-lidded in an easy chair, sipping a latte and greeting your regulars as you page through Anna Karenina.”

If, after learning everything you can about your potential career and work–the good and the bad, the exciting and the mundane, the joyous and the suck–and you’re still curious and excited, then you know you’re on the right track. Go forward and good luck!

“Never shirk the proper dispatch of your duty, no matter if you are freezing or hot, groggy or well-rested, vilified or praised, not even if dying or pressed by other demands. Even dying is one of the important assignments of life and, in this as in all else, make the most of your resources to do well the duty at hand.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

When you were young
And your heart was an open book
You used to say, “Live and let live”
(You know you did
You know you did
You know you did)
But if this ever-changing world in which we’re livin’
Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die
(Live and let die)
Live and let die
(Live and let die) -song, “Live And Let Die” by Wings

Do the right thing, do the right thing (do the right thing)
Do it all the time, do it all the time (do it all the time)
Make yourself right, never mind them (do it all the time)
Don’t you know you’re not the only one suffering

I hear a higher calling
Better here than there I guess
So long, so long -song, “Diversionary (Do The Right Thing) by Ages and Ages

“I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.” -William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

My dad passed away about two years ago and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. In addition to being my dad, he was my hero and my best friend.

For all the many lessons he taught me about how to live, perhaps the greatest lesson he ever taught me was how to die.

That no matter what, right up until the very end, you still have a choice. You can still do your duty. You can still maintain your dignity. You can still be good to others. You can still do the right thing.

My dad suffered tremendously for a very long time because of skin cancer. His last few years were especially rough as he was in constant pain. Nevertheless, he treated every doctor, nurse and caregiver with absolute grace and kindness. He took an interest in them, cracked jokes, gave out golf tips, exchanged recipes and always thanked them. (Even when they had to change his head dressing for a large open wound which caused him extreme agony.) I’ll never forget one caregiver who was also a Nun, stopped me outside as I was visiting him…She grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye and said, “You do know your father is a saint, right?”

Yes he was.

I miss you a ton dad. But I’m so grateful for all our time together.

Thank you for teaching me how to live.

And teaching me how to die.

You were the greatest of the greatest. Love you big guy.

For the actor…

Feel like you got nothing?

Start there. Be honest. Don’t deny it.

Bring that no-thing into the rehearsal room. Make it a part of your character.

If you can have the guts to do that rather than force what you think “it should be”, then before you know it, you’ll have something. Something surprising and magical and glorious and awesome.

P.S. – This advice applies to any art form. Writing, painting, making music, etc…Perhaps any pursuit, really.

Love life. The ups and the downs.

Love yourself and others. Flaws and all.

Love what you do. Independent of reward or external validation.

If you can love like this, then you are truly free.

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” -Jeremy Bentham

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” -Tony Robbins

“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Someone once asked Somerset Maughham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Skinner’s Law is a core tool in your fight against someday. Someday I’ll write that book. Someday I’ll start that business. Someday I’ll find that partner. Someday I’ll take that leap of faith…Stop saying someday. Someday is the enemy…Make someday today. Do the thing.” -Sahil Bloom

Once you learn the Region Beta Paradox, you then understand why we all tend to procrastinate.

The antidote to procrastination?

Try utilizing Skinner’s Law.

Which (per Sahil Bloom’s excellent post) states that:

To get yourself to do something, you need to either:

• Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it, or
• Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it

I encourage you to read Sahil’s full post. He details several ways you can hack your motivation. The key is trying out different tactics until you find the one that works best for you and your personality.

Remember, the Resistance is real. And it’s a motherf-cker. You need all the help you can to fight it.