Tuesday, June 28, 2009 was another historic day for the fusion of arts and academia. After weeks of preparation, the day finally arrived for Chapman University students in my Theories of Personality class to gather at Command Studios in Santa Clarita to record a skit they wrote and produced, with Conrad playing a central role in the development of the skit and others pitching in with additional creative content. My students did most of the work, I just kicked back and waited in the wings with the engineers, Jimmy Hendrix, and James Brown in the wings. Next, Robert, the studio engineer with do some editing, he'll pass it to me. I'll add a musical recording of mine as a one-song soundtrack, and smooth everything out, and it will be ready to go. I'll post it hear so that other students and anybody else eager to learn or reinforce learning of the theories of personality can do so in a fun, engaging, non-threatening way. You see, this is what you get to do if you sign up for one of my classes. Fun and learning are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As you may notice, I forgot my good camera but I had some great subjects to work with, extraordinarily talented too.
Everyone would agree, we
couldn't have done it without
Conrad!
You like me, you really like me! I feel like Sally feels (Sally Fields)…but vith a pee noose. I gotta say, this project has been a great experience for me and has given me big time inspirations to not only continue to pursue a degree in psychology, but to continue to evolve as a writer as well. Nothing would be finer than to make a little loot from entertaining people through creativity, but it can be a lark without the loot to boot. It gives me great “joy” (CS Lewis) to produce laughter from people, and to gain their admiration through creating something that entertains them. Other than acting as the class clown (which mainly brought negative repercussions) in elementary and middle school (I dropped out the first semester of 9th grade), and entertaining the nice folks at the various dead end jobs I have worked at over the past 20 odd years, I never felt proud of my ability to be the comic relief. Although, back in middle school we were not practicing comedy skits in class, at least not the rest of the students. Back then I mainly dabbled in inappropriate talking, fake fart noises, and sometimes when the teacher would ask me to read out loud in class I would read in a funny joke voice, which would usually result in the whole class breaking into a fit of uproarious laughter. Sometimes I would even catch the teacher repressing a few uncontrollable chuckles but most of the time I was swiftly reprimanded by the proper authorities. Fortunately, I eventually matured and stopped all that joking around, except when it is the right time and place, which seems to be most places, most of the time, and god bless um, Dr. BLT actually promotes this type of creative expression in his class (without interrupting normal studies of coarse). I n what other psych class could a guy (or girl) with an inventory of at least 30 different novelty voices and dialects be able to not only utilize them for educational purposes, but to also gain experience and connections for future “voice over” endeavors? Dr. BLT’s class has been educational, inspirational, and perhaps even a bit therapeutic. I highly recommend this class to all human beings. No B.S.; this class rules!
PS: Likewise, I couldn’t have done it without Mayola, Ileane, Camarin, Ania, Barri, Michelle, Sally, Julie, Cathy, Lindsey (and baby), Kira, Katie, Dr. BLT, and the crew at command studios. Oh, and I would also like to thank “Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper”.
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