TEN THINGZ

It's a new year. So I'm going to try and do these "Ten Things" things now. 

Post the first one soon!

Travis 

Dreamz

As quickly as this all goes, I really don’t want to be the one with the last word but I raise my hand anyway. There’s dog with a dead squirrel in its mouth, standing right next to me. Instead of the dog barking, my professor barks. I look confused. He barks again.

Then I wake up in a cold sweat.

Travis' Tea & Ten Things

10.  Nelson Mandela Google Doodle 

With all the bad news yesterday, I think everyone should take a peek at this Google Doodle. 

9. ANDREW RANNELS AS HEDWIG

I WANT TO SEE THIS. THOSE EYEBROWS. 

8. Young(er) Elaine Stritch 

RIP to this Broadway legend. She was brash- bordering on pain in the ass- but she was a star. 

8. Less Young Elaine Stritch

Please Shoot Me is a delicate moving, auto-biography documentary. If you want to be an artist, I suggest you give this a gander. It's on Netflix. Give it a shot. 

7. No Flex Zone Remix Featuring Nicki Minaj

Pills N Potions is cute and all, but this is the dirty, some would say witty, Nicki, we love to hate. 

6. My Partner helping me feel better on a rough day. 

5. Lena Dunham Book Tour

It's completely sold out in Austin. I sent a link of me performing a 6 minute monologue. So I hope she likes it.

4.  Baby Animals Hugging

They cute!

3. The Read podcast

Hilarious & witty podcast.

2. Celoberities

1. Having my first play produced!

It was apart of a 24 hour play festival. It was 10 sweet minutes and I was very proud with the outcome.

Until next week!

Travis

Feline Enemies

I was walking down the street. In rush. Late for something. And I see this cat walk across the street. Like in my path. It was a nice cat. It wasn’t beaten up or anything. So I just keep walking. Like imagine, so it’s like dusk all around you.

Or dawn. I can’t remember.

Anyway, the sun’s halfway doing its thing. You’re walking. A cat! The cat stops. You keep on walking. The cat doesn’t keep walking. You’re walking, thinking the cat will eventually move.  And it doesn’t. So at 7 am, or 7 pm, you trip over a cat on the street. In broad daylight. I’m an adult male. I’m 24 and I just thought that this little kitty would move its ass out of the way.

The cat didn’t move. Even it’s known that stray little morning cats move out of the way.

Not even if they’re supposed to. Not even if you can just kick them really hard. And they go flying across the street like a thrown baseball. Nope.

I guess, I get a little discouraged when things, people, or the way the Earth rotates doesn’t go my way. It’s frustrated. Mostly, unexpected. Which makes it all the more frustrating. To not see it coming, it’s the worst.

You have to be able to not fall for the same game twice. The next day, I was walking. I thought the cat had learned its lesson. It didn’t.

You have to learn a lesson.

Next time, run the cat over with your car.

I haven't written in a long time. More to come.

One.

As my first year of “adulthood” is soon coming to a close, promenading on the annual anniversary of graduation from college, my head hurts and my hearts even worst. I, for some reason or another, thought that would be preparing for a different story than I’m preparing for now. There's some disappointment that aches on my shoulder, but mostly I’m content. And content-ness isn’t something that I completely enjoy. It’s nice and it pays the bills, but not my spiritual, soul abiding bills, just the central air conditioning and my downloading addiction. So over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what the value of my life is, not in the suicidey way, but in the way that one gets to measure the items, things, people, etc. in their life and places a value upon them. And then upon seeing the rambunctious play, Stop Hitting Yourself by the Rude Mechs, an Austin based theatre- collective that continues to blow my mind--I got to thinking, “What things or people, items, ice cream flavors, do I, Travis Tate, rank from valued to less valued?” I would like to say that the material things, my shiny new iPad and my Suri capable iPhone 4S, mean nothing to me but they do. I wouldn’t be able to drunk text people, or take pictures of people and things and wait for other people to like them so I feel better about myself. These things do mean something to me, they place me in some kind of societal hierarchy and gives me a ranking. But that’s not the reason I’ve begun to start valuing my possessions. Here are a few reasons: 1 or (!). They give me access to other things, ideas, platforms, and most importantly other people. 2. They give a sense of pride, because in the last year, I have worked to acquire the little toys I find suddenly necessary. So after watching this play which explored within the themes of greed and selfishness, ambition and goodness, I began to feel queasy and go over my usual self-deprecating routine. I couldn’t wash the feeling away. I couldn’t do what I suppose so many other people are good at.

death is like rain

there is a man  he is alone he can not see he is a mole

10. atlantis

sunken ships on my shore

tell of maiden voyages to my soul

locked in bounty

booty filled treasure chests

ancient stories retold

men of the west

lie on carved out stones

the names of the founders

not resting on the magic of the ground

to out speak them

to journey for the time

the angiush

the stories are told by the few

and the many lost

their spirits roam the towns

or the villages

and the ghettos

to impart widsom

grand like secular sugared coffee

grand like dave chappelle’s ending

grand like the time when I can be wistful

write words like

rites of passages

across the sea

scape the handcuffs

and then set me free.

I want my history to be written down in so many books that it will be hard for you to forget me.

I want to be written down in ink,

black and smudged so dark

that it stains your fingers.

I will be close to your heart and the stories of my valourous effort to save the world will be noted.

My At-Last-Is

My Atlantis

My Atlantis

Sunken into my heart

Forever grave digging into my soul

I want to be there for you

but I can’t

because you are gone.

Music Mondays

Jonas Brothers x Frank Ocean I'm burning up for you babe! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BJo7o6Y9l8

Still Into You- Paramore They're back and better than ever.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OblL026SvD4

Manners- Icona Pop Hopefully their next single.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-dKxGpBLg

Heart Attack- Demi Lovato Haters, beware, Demi is coming for you. This is a subtle remix, but works in all the good ways.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSTEWjkxlcI

Anddddddddddd, all the videos from Coachcella....if they haven't been taken down yet. 

9. A Prayer

Protect our hearts from the evil of this world.

  Protect our souls against the evildoers that will soon surround.

Wake my body and my soul.

Let me be attentive to your grace and the beauty of your creation.

Swim in me and flood the innards of our souls.

Protect my mind.

Protect my body.

Protect my soul.

7. a song

As I sit in this fog soaked missive

I dream about tender moments where we talk

And then I realize that they are only dreams.

I wake up to my own cold feet

So sick of being with each other

They try to escape the duvet prison

100 count bars locked over my chest.

I breath shallow.

The white ceiling calls my pupils to open.