Beam Camp: Morning News Promo

Have I mentioned that this is what I get paid to do?  A little promo video I made for "Good Morning, Beam!" -- a live morning talk show we'll be hosting here tonight.

A Christmas Video for my Loved Ones

Live from an internet café in Antigua.

Beam Camp: A Review

Things accomplished / happening since arriving at Beam Camp:

• Named my bunk, along with my co-counselor Andrew, “We Live Here” and designed accordingly.

The boys' names are written onto each arrow.

• Realized the importance of reflection (below: the before bunk shot I use for mine, immediately after leading our daily hysteric cabin cleanups).

• Learned the names, histories and interpersonal dynamics of 71 children.
• Hosted the first ever Beamapalooza 2011 along with an inimitable 11-year old camper.

What's brown and sticky? A stick!

• Performed Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” at the piano at Beamapalooza 2011, dressed as Lady Gaga.

I invited some kids up at the
end to join me on the final choruses.

• Realized how important 9 hours of sleep is.
• Conceptualized a fashion show and hosted as my new alter ego, Hans Werner, a designer with an ambiguous and fluctuating accent.
• Planted 5 tree groves on the campgrounds.

• Welded together about 50 links of chain (with about 1100 to go), in order to construct a ship made entirely out of welded chain.
• Participated in a song parody of Beyoncé's Single Ladies, entitled Singing Chickens. Choice lyrics: "If you liked it then you shoulda laid an egg on it."
• Made exciting discoveries with Cassie, staff director.

• Lead evening activities, including rousing renditions of Salad Bowl, Weird Al Scoop (a song parody activity), and Human Puppetry (writing plays for others to perform). 
• Along with my 10 cabin boys and Andrew, created a composting system for BeamCamp.

• Lead(ing) a course entitled 1-5-6-4 (which is filled to capacity!) on the structure of pop music and how to forge connections between popular music and poetry (including composing pop mash-ups, authoring prose and poetry inspired by those mash-ups, and setting contemporary poetry to music).  It was during the domain presentation (where course leaders describe their courses, or "domains") that I unveiled my mash-up: A Teenage Dream Where You Don't Stop Believing 'til the World Ends and I Love You Just the Way You Are: A Fireworked Bad Romance.
• Bore witness to one of the most beautiful Fourth of July Celebrations: 72 Campers, in absolute silence, setting 72 origami boats afloat on Big Willey, each containing a single tea light, as the sun sank slowly behind the mountains.

• Lead impromptu rain-induced choral concerts at the piano (Rolling in the Deep, Forget You, Someone Like You, Born This Way, Don't Stop Believing, Firework).
• Created unparalled friendships with my fellow co-counselors.

Manda, de Australia.

Bojan, de Providence.

• Basically feeling complete and utterly full in my life.

Oh, Daniel

Oh, Daniel from Jeremy Hawkins on Vimeo.

So I just started learning guitar 2 months ago.  I figured I need to be the coolest camp counselor possible -- and I can't very well lug my piano out to the campfire.  So I've been teaching myself on my mom's old acoustic (while she teaches herself piano on my keyboard).  Here's my first foray into songwriting via guitar -- inspiration provided by, well, Daniel.  Oh, Daniel.

Thanksgiving Redux

My brother was unable to make it home for Thanksgiving this year, so this photo-, cinema-, and orthographic recounting of the day’s triumphs and failures is dedicated to him.  Until Christmas, hermano. 

In The Beginning...

There were ingredients.  And they were beautiful.  Multi-grain and country loaves from Seven Stars Bakery; butternut squash from Allen’s Farm in Westport, MA; honey from Farmacy Herbs.  This was my first year prepping in collaboration with my mom.  I felt so...adult.

And The Ingredients Became Digestible (well, most of them)...

My dishes:

1) Homemade stuffing made with diced apples, onion, rosemary, local honey, kosher salt and pepper.  Oh, and lots of butter.  My one gripe: I didn’t have any fresh rosemary on hand to use in this dish, like I did when I made this dish for Friendsgiving last week (to much approbation).  I substituted this dried rosemary/garlic blend instead and I wasn’t cray-cray about the results.  Neither were my relatives.  It made the stuffing taste...empty?  Lesson learned.

2) Butternut squash with local honey, nutmeg, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, and my secret ingredient: cayenne pepper. This was a hit, with a  kick.

3) Hummus from scratch (chick peas, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, tahini).  Another hit.

4) Sigur Rós, which I introduced to my mom and we spent the whole day enjoying. If five years ago you had told me that one day I would be listening to Icelandic post-rock in my mother’s kitchen while we cooked Thanksgiving dinner together, well, I  just may have believed you.  But, nonetheless, it was pretty smashing to mellow, create, and confect with mom. 

My mom took care of the rest of the spread (her juiciest turkey to date, thanks to a new tip about how to slice; spinach casserole, a personal fav; plain stuffing for my dad because he won't eat anything remotely exotic/creative; creamed corn; and pumpkin mousse from her culinary bible: Cooking Light magazine (this is not to be confused with her actual bible, which is a King  James)). Clearly she bore the brunt of the work. But we had fun, and my participation in the preparation precluded me from cleaning up 
afterwards (sorry Dad!) (sorry NY Times Style Guide!).

Being Gay in 2011

This past Friday, I had the honor of attending the Youth Pride Fundraiser, Living Out Loud, at the Biltmore Hotel. This event – unbeknownst to me until my boss called me into her office on Tuesday with, “Jeremy, I don’t mean to engage in any profiling here, but would you like to attend this fundraiser on Friday night?” – was one of the highlights of my week.

Youth Pride, Inc. has always been this sort of nebulous beast for me – partially because groups like it did not exist in my pastoral suburban sphere growing up – and while I’ve sought to get involved, nothing ever really materialized. But being present at the event on Friday, meeting some of the pillars of Providence’s LGBTQQ community, and chatting with youth for whom YPI is a vital support, has galvanized me to reach out and connect to the community of which I should be an active vibrant member.

And if attending Living Out Loud was one of my highlights of the week, my highlight of the night was without question making the public debut of my breakdancing moves, to the unadulterated support of the YPI teens. Thanks gals and guys, for not judging a fledgling.

Some great folks I met (all photography by Krista Handfield):

Mark & Mark (& me)

Russell Ferri & Michael Fornier

Delia Kovac & Sarah

The YPI Crew

Poetry via Pop: Fire Bomb

Fire Bomb

It's not the ululations of this
swollen pumping mess
that concern me anymore,
nor the uncertainty of a spark
nor dream's banality

but this warm blood coddling me
again
crashing through tissue flaps --
these sanguine apertures

oxygen again flowing,
ebbing toward an inner shore
where once there stood a you

i'm alien, no longer frozen,
burning through a helluva memento
and i don't even own a microwave anymore.

[ jh ]