Okay I have 20 minutes before the close of today so I better get a post out!

My current musical obsession: Green Day’s American Idiot! And yes it’s a musical! It has opened to great reviews and will be on the must see list come summer when I make a trip to the great white way. Cast album has been released, and I have been jamming out like the little punk rocker-showtuner I am. 21 Guns though is a great rendition of the original. The broad vocals and harmonies typical of a broadway inspired rock musical really mesh well with Green Day’s alternative/punk styling. Of course, Green Day composed the original American Idiot album as a story, so it only fitting it made it to stage. I understand that there are strong political overtones to the music/lyrics and now musical, but I feel all in all, the story is one generally relatable: the trials and tribulations of youth in revolt, coming into age. The story has been told on the musical stage many times, not too unlike Hair or Spring Awakening, which hit the stage with such force a few years ago. I think American Idiot will indeed be the next chapter in this book of coming of age/rock musicals, and speak more accurately to post-9/11 adolescence and consciousness. It should do well too, both because of the popularity of Green Day’s American Idiot album, the accuracy the show’s music portrays to the original album, and the fact that audiences are craving darker, rawer, more emotionally charged, and even politically challenging theater these days. It definitely has bode well for shows like Rent, Next To Normal, Spring Awakening and more recently, the revival of Hair.

My weekend was spent shooting the Claudia Morales/Aaron Schaff wedding in Norman. I wanted to send a big shout out to the happily married couple. The wedding was beautifully simple and elegant, held outside on the greens of the Cobblestone Creek Golf Club in Norman, with reception in the clubhouse. There was great food, spirits, and of course music carried us away until the wee hours. I was honored to be their photographer throughout the experience, starting with their engagement shots back in the fall (which are featured on my photography site: www.andydutyphotography.com). Here is a stunning shot from our bridal session two days before the wedding. I can’t go wrong with a great model like Claudia! Best wishes guys, I am so proud of you!

I continue the month working with our clients at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, or OMRF. This is actually home for me, spending 8 years here prior to leaving for my current job. It’s also where my PhD lab was so it’s so good to be home. I am working with our client, renown autoimmune researcher and physician, Judy James, and look forward to several projects which will have a more clinical focus in autoimmunity, specially Lupus. More to come as I get more invested here.

Hope Monday all! Keep rockin’ my Jesus-es of Suburbia!

3 com

A more serious post this morning, as I send my love, respect, thoughts, and affirmations to the victims, survivors and their families of April 19, 1995.

Today is the memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing, an event that most of us who grew up in Oklahoma around that time will never forget. It, like September 11, impacted the nation in such a profound way, and it goes without saying that even though the tragedy of the WTC was so great in numbers compared to the 168 that were lost in OKC, the impact to the quiet, small and anonymous city of Oklahoma City was even more profound. I believe I heard one statistic shortly after the event that stated over 1/3rd of OKC’s population had some sort of direct connection to at least one of the victims of the Murrah building.

I was a senior in high school on April 19, 1995. Already a memorable year, the bombing imprinted my last year of secondary school in a way I feel few probably could appreciate. I remember driving the short 2 hour drive from my hometown to the bombing site shortly after the event, getting to see the chaos first hand before the remains were imploded and the area cleared. Seeing anything of that nature is eerie obviously. To know that kind of destruction, death, pain, and evil intention existed in the world was devastating to a psyche that had been built on a notion that “all good things come to those…..” Well, I was about to head to college so I guess it was only right that my bubble was starting to crack some.

I was an attendance clerk assistant at 9:02am on April 19. Many people remember where they were. I remember that day as the day that the attendance clerk decided not to go outside and smoke her Marlboro Reds and then ask for a back rub, (which was the usual activity after a smoke…oh what I had to endure in HS). At first people were only mentioning it in passing, saying there must have been a gas explosion in OKC, but it wasn’t long before we all knew the real story. It wasn’t long before we were tuning not only to our local channels 9 and 4, but to Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, reporting live. I remember we got dismissed home from school early that day. Not out of mourning necessarily, but due to the bomb threat our school received. Many schools received them that day, across the nation. Really?? There are some real winners in the world.

In the end, we sit here 15 years later, which is so hard to believe (because it also means it’s been 15 years since I graduated) and remember the victims and honor the lives. OKC built probably one of the best memorials in the country and really is worth a visit if you are ever traveling through. The city itself has also rebuilt. Not only physically, even though the bombing didn’t physically change the entire cityscape (many buildings though were damaged), but more in reputation and stature. The city decided not to become a city of tragedy but chose to honor the victims in a way that would cause the world to remember this place as a place that triumphs over tragedy. The city went on a massive re-urbanization. A tax increase that for the last 15+ years the citizens of OKC continue to applaud and approve. That’s impressive for a country in a recession. There’s no recession here though. We have changed our city’s landscape. Brought activity, entertainment, life back to a quiet place. Where are we? Fifteen years later, I just watched our city’s NBA team play the LA Lakers in the play-offs. I just spent the morning rowing on our river that 7 years ago was a dry riverbed, mowed three times a year, and now is the site for the US Olympic High Performance Center for rowing. I looked at our Health Sciences Center with cranes littering the skyline, preparing the openings of the new children’s hospital, cancer center, diabetes center, OMRF research tower, OU college expansions and PHF research park expansions. The city is building a new downtown. The entertainment district is growing. The city just approved money for a new convention center, central park, and light rail system, and there’s much more. It really boggles the mind considering where the city was 15 years ago.

OKC probably would have re-built anyway, but the caliber and speed that it has been doing it now may have never happened if it hadn’t been for that fateful day in April, and all of it in the name of those who suffered so greatly. What a memorial!

It’s not that OKC is perfect. I still have my gripes. There’s still much room for improvement, but I don’t know of anyplace in the world that has done it like this. Well, out of tragedy comes greatness, and I am very proud of the progress of my city. I think it goes without saying, that you are doing fine Oklahoma! (City) and my heart goes out to you!

Go Thunder!

2 com

Do you dream in musicals? Do you envision the great moments of your life in song, with a full set orchestra, musical themes, reprises and accompanying choreography. Holy crap I do. I don’t know why, but I have always been that way. Surprise! Sometimes the songs are so loud though that I can’t even concentrate on my real job.

And my real job, oh god, my real job. It is so not a musical. Lab science is a lot of things, but an entertaining piece of stage show is not one of them. So here I am, stuck in a tedious and serious world with head full of my life’s showtunes.

How did I get here? Somewhere in my young post college life I chose to seek out a long and ball-busting PhD. I know, I know. I-so-craziee. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I didn’t want it. I did. I do, and now, I have one. Yay me. Nor am I trying to ignore the effects of my left brain. I have one of those too. A big one. It’s so analytical and logical. Sexy, I know

Oh, I definitely made the right decision for a career. I wouldn’t have lasted as a starving artist. I needed job security; I needed career growth; I needed money to buy things… and of course, having a hand in finding the cure to things like cancer is cool too. I mean, I will always have the “movie in my mind” to satisfy the performer in me. (Ten points if you can name that show)

So what is “the science of showtunes”? Well, for lack of a better explanation, it’s my brain. It’s the constant tension of my right and left brains: the analytical and the artistic. It’s the mental reality that I daily experience. It’s the part of me that looks at petri dishes full of cells and wishes they could tap dance. Seriously.

It’s also a new and extremely exerted effort on my part to be more forthcoming (well at least in my blogging) about who I am and what I am feeling. I mean, don’t worry. I am not some extremist that will offend everyone with my “inner” thoughts even if my inner thoughts come from way out in left field. Oh but I might cuss. Sorry.

So what all this means is that I am now going to introduce you to the show playing out in my brain. Sometimes it’s like “Chicago”, you know sassy with an awkward tap dance by Richard Gere; sometimes it’s like “Wicked”, you know popular with a green twist; sometimes it’s like “Oklahoma!”, you know outdated and overdone, yet, still arousing; and sometimes it’s like “Rent”, you know edgy with cheesy overtones and dying drag queens. Oooh you should definitely buy tickets to this. Call the box office.

Thus, the stage is set and the curtain is going up. The orchestra is swelling and the performers are in position.

So could I please get some applause…dammit!

Love ya,
Happy Reading!

Barnum Photo by Trisha Dean Heddlesten

5 com