The journal of David Fair

Please help me help Hurricane Katrina victims

2006-02-15T06:47:35Z

Hello family and friends,

I'm writing to share something very exciting with you all! I've just found out that I am about to embark on a wonderfully unique and extraordinary opportunity! University of Maryland's Hillel, the Jewish Center on Campus, is sponsoring a trip to the U.S. Gulf Coast to assist in relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims and clean-up efforts. The trip is taking place during our Spring Break: Monday, March 19th through Friday, March 24th.

The trip is going to be, no doubt, absolutely life-changing! However, because Hillel is paying for our transportation, food, and places to sleep, there are expenses. On March 1st, I am required to pay Maryland Hillel a total of $450. Hillel will match up to $150 for students who fundraise from other sources such as local synagogues, Jewish Federations, letter writing campaign to friends and family, etc.

Donating any amount of money would be incredibly helpful. Everyone donating as little as $10 would help me out immensely! Any extra money I can accumulate would be used for extra food, keepsakes from the trip, and paying for schoolbooks that I haven't yet been able to afford.

If you could be so gracious as to donate funds, please send it to the following address:

David Fair

8000 Boteler Lane #515

College Park , MD 20740

Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer me!

dfair @ 2005-07-23T12:40:00

2005-07-23T16:40:40Z

You can now catch future David posts at http://davidscastle.blogspot.com/

If you ever want to leave a comment, just make yourself anonymous and write your name at the end so I know who you are. See you there!

Race -- it's stupid

2005-07-12T03:54:04Z

I took my family (Dad, Mom, Grandma, cousin, brother, me) to a restaurant tonight and my Dad was reeeealllly uncomfortable, before we even sat down, and wanted to leave. I couldn't understand why. Here's the reason: we were at a white restaurant and Dad's black. It was the farthest thing from my mind as to why on Earth he was so uncomfortable. See, I'm not a race. But my Dad is. Black men feel very uncomfortable in an all white establishment (and to be with a white woman was also something to add to the fire). This wasn't something I was really aware of. All my life my Mom and brothers and I went out to eat at restaurants all the time -- usually chain restaurants but not always. Dad never went with us. I never gave it much thought as to why. I just assumed he was always tired or just a grumpy person in general who felt most comfortable in his house. Whenever the very rare occasion came along to eat out, it was to a chinese restaurant or a chain like Uno's or TGIFridays or something like that. I took our family to a non-chain independent place in Catonsville, a white town. I didn't think twice about it. I read a review of the restaurant and thought it sounded nice. I've never been conscious of something like a racial restaurant. I look for things like are the waitors nice and dressed well, are the tables nicely furnished, is the dinnerware clean, are there affordable prices -- never ever race. See, I don't feel uncomfortable with race, I'm both white AND black (or shall I say NEITHER white nor black?). My Dad got through the meal alright but I felt terrible afterwards when I asked my Mom why Dad was so uncomfortable. When she explained it I felt so ignorant and naive. But you don't understand, I want us to live in a world where race doesn't matter. Where anyone of any skin color can feel comfortable eating and living anywhere without someone making racial remarks or giving them looks. How can we create that world if everyone is scared and no takes the first step? "There's a lot of horror in this world and there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of hatred. One way to get a world that doesn't have this horror and this fear and this hatred is to imagine a world without horror and fear and hatred." Ayre Gross said that in the cast interviews in the bonus features of the DVD Big Eden. If black people continue to not patronize white establishments, things will never change. Same goes for if white people continue to not patronize black establishments. It's like when black students started going to white high schools. Racial segregation is NOT something we should be comfortable with in this world. It's stupid. RACE is stupid. It's all stupidly illogical. It's just skin color. I highlighted my hair. Am I a different person now? Are you better or worse then me? There should be a play where in a white town everyone with brown/brunette hair could go to all the finest restaurants and theaters and all the blonds and red heads couldn't go to these place or had to sit in the "light hair only" sections. It would explain how stupid race really is in our society.

There may not be laws about it anymore, but racial segregation is still alive and well in our society.

dfair @ 2005-07-03T11:59:00

2005-07-03T16:01:17Z

Come see me as the calypso singing brother, Naphtali, in...

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

at River Hill High School in Clarksville, Maryland

Shows: July 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16 @ 7:30 pm and July 10 at 2:30pm

$12 General Admission $10 Students and Seniors

Tickets available at the Music & Arts in Chatham Station in Ellicott City

or online at www.ticketleap.com

or from ME! Proceeds go to benefit Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland and Prepare for Success

dfair @ 2005-06-22T11:45:00

2005-06-22T15:46:24Z

Well Live Journalers, it's time to say farewell. I have decided to switch blogs hosts to the ever popular and much much better Blogger. You can now catch future David posts at http://davidscastle.blogspot.com/

If you ever want to leave a comment, just make yourself anonymous and write your name at the end so I know who you are. See you there!

dfair @ 2005-06-21T03:24:00

2005-06-21T07:55:04Z

Oh gosh. Here I am at 3:24 at night and I think it's time I made an entry in my journal. I've had a few days of mildly interesting events. But today I took my favorite othodox Jewish girl friend to tour UMD. She's an incoming freshman. I think I really did a mitzvah. She was so grateful and I think I really eased her apprehension. I wish I had had a friend like me when I was an incoming freshman. I've been thinking about writing the great American novel. And by great American novel I mean my auto-biography.

Whenever I think back to my childhood a smile begins to form in my mind which spreads to my lips. I have a million memories that include my 2 little brothers and my Mom. I remember happy colorful adventures that included trips to feed the ducks at Woodlawn cemetery, trips to the playgrounds, games in the house like sleeping monster, and all sorts of fun fun times. It was a time of innocence and naiveness and bliss.

I remember the day the blind bliss ended. I was in the 9th grade. The theater kids, who I thought could be my friends, made up a lie to get me not to come to the mall with them after school. I was devastated beyond belief. I admired and worshipped their self-confidence and self-assurance. I wanted to be just as socially comfortable and happy as they (appeared to be). Of course now I've matured and learned what terribly empty sad people the ring leaders of them were. I've learned so much since then about the way humans interact socially with each other. It's fascinating. I left that world behind and became an entirely new happy human being.

It's so funny. When I tell people I didn't have any friends until after college began, they look at me very incredulously. Nobody was interested in being my friend pre-College -- and frankly, I can understand a little why. I attribute most of it to not having come out of the closet until about October of my Freshman college year. I couldn't give myself to people. It's amazing how much one's sexuality is a part of who they are. Meh. I deserved friends at some point and they finally arrived. I win friends very effortlessly now and I attribute it to my positivity and openness. Giving your real outgoing personality to people does a whole lot.

Right now I'm learning to be the best singer ever. I'm a very competitive person by nature and I'm determined to be the best singier I can be. I want to be able to sing any high note I want. Is that all there is singing the best? Of course not, but I believe right now that's what's stopping me but advancing further. Because learning to sing high notes will improve my technique all around as well as open a few doors. I'm not ready for the big time yet. I have no doubt at this point I could make it big if I really tried and I could make my wildest dreams come true. But I'm determined to get my degree and expand my mind a little more.

Age 21

dfair @ 2005-06-17T22:02:00

2005-06-18T02:10:12Z

Today I coersed Justin into coming to services to see me be the Cantor, and you know, he really enjoyed himself! I was very worried about him because he has been becoming more and more removed from social Judaism over the years. He even said he wanted to come next week! I think what did it is that the music was so great and lively and the congregants all wanted to meet him and say hello. Yey.

We went home and I'm cooking Shabbos dinner, he and I -- candle blessing and all. I'm making penne and sauce and garlic bread. I'm such a good hermano.

My wonderful Dexter

2005-06-18T02:01:34Z

You all, my cat, Dexter, died. Dexter is the first pet I've ever become extremely emotionally attached to that has died. I loved him very much. Today at services Justin and I said the mourner's Kaddish for him. He was terrific.

dfair @ 2005-06-16T04:10:00

2005-06-16T08:13:07Z

Here are some qualities about me that I think make me great:

I'm open-minded, supportive of almost everyone, I'm nice and am easily approachable, I'm kind. I'm human and I make mistakes. I have the ability and learn and grow. I'm not arrogant, yet, I know when I'm right. I try to help others and most of the time, I care about other people's happiness above my own.

Today I will try to reason with a person who's maturity level I'm not quite sure of. I will be as tactful and I can in the moment and try to not get angry.

dfair @ 2005-06-15T04:29:00

2005-06-15T08:29:46Z

This page is great!!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919991/board/flat/19811349

P.S. You'll need to create a user name but it's totally free and just takes a second. Believe me, you'll get a good chuckle.

P.P.S. I'm Lyrischertenor

My embarrasment

2005-06-15T06:38:52Z

Have you ever found out a long time afterwards, that someone who you had a crush on actually KNEW you had a crush on them! Well this has happened to me.

I always had this idea that I was the stealthiest crusher ever. What I mean is, that I could like someone (who's straight) and they'd never know it. Well I have found that I am terribly wrong. See, when I went to Israel, out of the 80 something kids from UMD that went, I decided to switch buses. I was on a bus with Univ of Kansas people and maybe 7 UMD kids. I felt weird and alone. I didn't feel I was making friends and I was scard shitless that I wouldn't and the trip would be awful. So I asked to switch onto one of the 2 exclusively UMD buses. One bus has people I sorta knew and all these really attractive people. So the bus of choosing was not a hard one. One of these attractive people was a boy named Alan, a freshman. In our 9 days together I was crushing very hard on him, but knowing the differences in sexualities, knew that my crush could go only so far. So I decided I was going to make a good acquaintance out of him, which I did. WELL!! Tonight I bumped into a friend I made in Israel from UMD, Megan. She tells that a few days into the trip, Alan comes up to her and asks "Does David have a crush on me or something?" She says yeah. And he said, "Well that's fine. He knows I'm straight, right?" Can I tell you all how mortifiedly embarassed I am to hear of this! I'm sooooooo embarrased. Apparently he would catch me staring at him! Megan says she would see me glaring at him and he would look at me and I apparently, being so sick and tired while in Israel, would keep looking at him WHILE he was looking at me staring at him. I WANT TO DIE! On hearing this news, Megan says my face turned a bright tomato red. I can believe it! But Megan says Alan was totally cool about it. I thought Alan and I were making a casual acquaintanceship with each other and nothing more to that. I can't believe my crush was so apparent! Had I known he knew, I would have made sure to avoid him. Then again, I'm glad to be told this now as opposed to in Israel, cause the awkwardness of me knowing he knew would have made me soooo uncomfortable.

I know this entry is stupid, but I'm sureone of you in Blog Land has a relatable experience!

dfair @ 2005-06-13T15:34:00

2005-06-13T19:36:07Z

Does anyone remember the artist, Josh Kelly? I remember him. Remember he wrote this song called "Amazing." I think I may buy this CD.

Kristy!

2005-06-13T01:45:22Z

I would like to take this time to say how much I love my dear friend Kristy. She's a spectacularly unique and sweet girl who's just absolutely awesome. Last Saturday I went to a pool with Kristy and her bf and yesterday I saw a movie with her and her bf and her bf's brother and her bf's brother's friend. I do hope I get to see her more often this summer. She's certainly swell!

From left to right: My favorite Michael, the amazingly wonderful Kristy, and Sami, Kristy's very sweet bf

dfair @ 2005-06-11T17:41:00

2005-06-11T21:56:09Z

So it turns out my cellphone had fallen on our front lawn and Dad found it. I can't tell you all what a relief it was. I have been wonderfully hanging out with my buddy Sami and his gf these past two days. They live in the city. Ohhhh. In a great little part called Mt. Washington. Mt. Washington and Roland Park are kinda expensive to live. It's one of the few spots in the City where white folk live in abundance. It's very hilly and has a lot of nice scenery. Twas fun driving there. Yesterday we went swimming and tonight we're seeing a movie. Yey for friends!

JUST SOME GREAT PICTURES I FOUND AROUND MY PARENTS' HOUSE:

dfair @ 2005-06-10T21:10:00

2005-06-11T01:13:35Z

My cellphone is SOMEWHERE in my room at my parents house, but it's unlocatable. I keep calling it and I hear a very very faint ringing around my bed, but I still can't find it. I'm worried that I'll call so often that I'll make the battery run out of power and then I'll be unable to find it. This is horrible. What if I can never find it? Getting a new phone would be soooo aggrivating! The worst part about this whole thing is that I do not know my friends' phone numbers. And if they call me they won't get me. What on Earth am I going to do??

dfair @ 2005-06-09T00:04:00

2005-06-09T04:23:27Z

I'm getting a new computer! Yey! You wanna know why? Because if you buy your computer at Best Buy and then take it back for repairs four times, they give you a brand new computer! Yey! Not so yey though. It's quite annoying actually. Now I have to back up my files AGAIN (which is a bitch!) and I'll be out of a computer for weeks. Technology. How aggrivating!

It's time for me to do something with my life and stop brooding around here worrying about courtdates and immature friends and my lack of fun. Maybe all I need is some chocolate cake. Delicioso chocolate cake. Yum.

dfair @ 2005-06-08T14:26:00

2005-06-08T18:42:13Z

I'm annoyed to have to live in this apartment because my roommates are just neanderthals. They don't care about bad smells, lots of trash bags, messiness, ugly sophomoric posters everywhere, it's gross. But there is one thing I like about this apartment -- it's that my window has a perfect close sightline to the pool. Every afternoon I wake up and look outside and I get a perfect close sightline to all the well-muscled college boys in there bathing suits sun-bathing. There's the very tall, tan lifeguard who walks around all day bored to death. And right there the bleach-blond California surfer looking guy that reads his book everyday. And over to the left is our star-soccer player who I always see swimming laps in the pool. Life is good. Perhaps later on I'll join them. First, I need to buy a pair of sunglasses. I am famous for never wanting to buy sunglasses because for the life of me I can't keep them for more than a week. I always leave them places and I guess people steal them. I'd love to sit there and read Jane Eyre but I'll be too distracted by that damn attractive lifeguard.

Some fun pics

2005-06-07T05:11:41Z

I thought I would take this opportunity to post three random pictures from Israel:

Me and my favorite Black Jew. I forget her name, but she had her Bar Mitzvah in Israel while we were at Mount Massada. It was a dream.

This is us in a cave that the Maccabees dug. This excavation was one of the most amazing things I've experienced in my life. So much fun!!!

Me and Alan. My big freshman straight boy crush. Let's hope to God he doesn't find this blog.

Bewitched

2005-06-05T07:08:16Z

The Bewitched movie is coming out later this month and I'm really worried and upset that it'll be bad and terrible. I CANNOT have a bad Bewitched movie. I'm hoping that because Nicole Kidman is doing it it'll be good. I've never seen a bad Nicole Kidman movie. She's gold. She's absolutely amazing. I think she's on the best actresses of our generation.

dfair @ 2005-05-29T20:40:00

2005-05-30T00:43:35Z

Here I am at Grandma's house. It's not as fun without Mom. Aunt Lynda would have also been fun. Haps per I'll see a movie with Sam. Sam will be 14 in less than a month and he's looked and acted the same since he was about 9. Pauvre Sam. It's like he's stuck in time. Every mother wants their little boys to stay little forever but this is a little riduculous.

A Saturday that didn't feel like a Saturday because school's out and I lose all sense of space&time

2005-05-29T04:37:01Z

So tomorrow morn (Sunday), number two and I are headed off to Ile longue. (That's Long Island for all you non-French speakers out there.) You'll notice that I won't be blogging nor IM'ing for hopefully only two weeks. My computer is being fixed. I hope they find a problem. I hate money. I want to live on a kibbutz and live in a cooperative and not have to use money ever again. Speaking of that, I saw an amazing film today call "Walk on Water" at this historic movie theater in Greenbelt. It's an Israeli film that contains a lot of English. A good time I had. Twas money and time well spent. Everybody go see it. I will see Grandmère in less than 12 hours! Yeyyyy!!!

I have several friends that I will miss over this summer. But I refuse to call friend after friend and desperately leave messages saying "Hey, thought you might wanna see a movie sometime. Talk to you soon! Bye!) NO! I am not doing that. I did that all last Spring break and Winter break and Summer break and I'm sick of it! They'll have to contact me.

Oh, and I've decided to write off men. I'm finished with them and I'm finished with looking for romance and ass. There are a lot more worthy things in life to occupy my mind with.

Jamie died.

2005-05-24T07:36:31Z

I'm devastated. The Last Five Years has been cancelled. The producer didn't get the rights from Musical Theater Internation to perform the show before she cast it! They couldn't give us teh rights because theater companies have bought exclusivity rights through January! I can't believe this. I had already invested so much time into learning this music and thinking about Jamie. I had really planned on doing this show. I had become emotionally invested and really...well... looking forward to it! You don't understand, this was a plan I had seen myself in. It's like getting ready to get married and then you break off the engagement. And yes, it IS that serious. You had seen yourself going through this and being married and living this life. And this is not a relief. It's more like your fiance dies before the wedding. My whole character died. I will not be able to perform him. This same thing happened many years ago when I was a young teen. The JCC was suppose to produced Kiss Me Kate and we had even started rehearsing when they told us they couldn't get the rights. It's a devastating feeling. I'm devastated. This was my summer plan. It was going to give meaning to it all. Now what am I going to do with my summer. I hate this. I just hate this.

Why.

Star Wars

2005-05-23T23:06:56Z

You can tell that none of the celebrities in Star Wars actually care about Star Wars. What's his face just thought each of these celebrities "fit the part" well and cast them. Some are good actors like McGregor and Jackson, but I just didnt' see the passion within them to be true to the characters and most of all, the saga of Star Wars. They all have these big careers behind them and just don't look like they really CARE about Star Wars. And by care, I mean they need to look and by a little obsessed themselves with Star Wars. But they aren't. I always kinda looked at them and thought, "I bet they're not really sci-fi geeks." Cause that's what you need to be! I'm serious! I don't have a doubt that every actor in the Harry Potter movies are not crazy about Harry Potter. Same with Lord of the Rings. But Star Wars... not so much. Jackson especially. He just doesn't look like he hs anything invested in this! I mean, the acting is deep and all, but there's nothing behind it. I would have rather seen no name actors that were trying desperately to do a good job and be true to the story and the characters and pleasing the audience, then this garbage. I mean, it was really whatshisname's mistake casting big time celebrities. And Christensen is terrible. He's not even a good actor. I mean he's good, but he's not great. James Gardiner or Sean Hoagland or any of our other good actors would've been more compelling to watch. And he's not even that good looking. And the writting could really have been better. It was just a little better in the first two but these one was just disgraceful. I'm watching the episode 2 as i write this. I had forgotten so much and the third one just didn't make any sense. The first two are much slower and take there time telling us the story. You can really pause and observe and think. I think I'm going to buy the first two episodes used. This third one moves so fast and it's really too much. Even the acting is better in the first two. And Carrie Fisher could kick Natalie Portman's ass anyday.

The only guys I thought were good were the lead Sith dude and that dude who was also in LOTR.

I think part of the problem with the acting is that they all had to acting with computer images. Jackson especially has to work with a computer image of Yoda. They should've stuck with Jim Hensen's creations. They were cooler anyway to look at, thinking "Wow! Look! It's something they really made that looks cool and I can't believe they made that and it's tangible!!" I mean, remember how in Episode four Leah was chained that that gross big monster creature. In fact, I think if computers hadn't been the primary tool in special effects, everything would be much cooler. They would've advnace real TANGIBLE objects and their abilities to do cool things. THAT's more impressive to me than watching computer graphics on my tv. I'm not like "WOW LOOK AT THE TECHNOLOGY and what they can do with it!!" Poor whatshisface.

dfair @ 2005-05-21T21:55:00

2005-05-22T01:56:04Z

Whats does your personality rate from 1-10? by morning_prayer
Your first full name
Your personality rates a	its low...
your best quality is	youre a sweetheart
your worst quality is	nothing bad i can see...
this is because	you were born this way

Quiz created with MemeGen!

Friday night

2005-05-21T09:33:40Z

Oh what a miraculous night I had. It actually started not so good. See, when I woke up I decided that I didn't have anything to do with my Friday night so perhaps Hillel would be a splendid plan --friends, prayer, and food. So I called up Hillel and paid $10 for a Shabbas meal (I know, what a rip-off, right?!) Then I went and I was uncomfortable. My favorite best Hillel friends had left CP already and gone back home. So as I awkwardly awaiting the beginning of services, I decided that this was not for me, so I left. But I still had this feeling of wanting to go to Friday night services. So I decided to go to Greenbelt to this synagogue that I had been to two times a few years ago with a friend. I remembered it thought it was kinda cute. Let me tell you, I loved it! The service felt just like the old Beth Israel. Plus I knew ALL the melodies and all the prayers. It couldn't have better. And the sermon was great and they even did discussion (in which I participated). There was only 11 congregants presents. But they all were very very sweet and nice and introduced themselves and made conversation with me. They made me feel very home and welcome. I'm definitely going there more this summer.

On the drive home, I saw this very cute historic looking shopping center. I decided to get out and take a look around. There was a an old movie theater that was still very kept up and always showed one independent film (there was the cutest little old lady working the ticket window), and a very hippie type co-op cafe/coffee house (I am always searching for cafes like this -- much like College Perk but but without the nasty cashiers yelling at me for ordering food everynight right before the kitchen closes.) And guess who I see sitting outside drawing: Adrian!! Adrian is my good friend I met at Perk one night a few months ago! I like him so much.

After sitting a few hours at New Deal Cafe chatting with friends and such and having fun, the cafe closed. So Adrian walked about Greenbelt for probably an hour. Then Adrian took me into this magical forest path that surrounded Greenbelt Lake. I have never had such a great magical adventurous relaxing evening in my life. We talked and bonded and I become one with nature and a friend. We had lots of fun. We also found a really great playground. Adrian even breathed into me doing mouth-to-mouth. I breathed someone else's air. I used his lungs. It was great. We stayed there maybe until 3 or something. Then we went to a 24 hour diner and got some breakfast. Since Adrian sleeps in his car every night, I invited him to sleep at my place, where we are now. Tomorrow I have an 9:30 rehearsal for Joseph that Adrian's coming to and then we're off to hit up the Ellicott City yards sales then see a movie. Maybe Star Wars. Good morning, world!