Blogstracted

The Funky Quill Forum Wants You!

2010-05-10T20:51:00.001-05:00

A new question awaits your response at the The Funky Quill:

If you could have any writing job, what would it be?

New Forum Post at The Funky Quill

2010-03-14T21:02:00.001-05:00

I'm still working on how to integrate these two websites.

In the mean time, please go to The Funky Quill Forum at http://thefunkyquill.com/Forum.html.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on a certain subject.

The New Website is Here!

2010-03-10T21:56:00.005-06:00

Take a look: www.thefunkyquill.com.

Several years of collected work from here and elsewhere. Read the writing and write to the Forum. Hopefully there will be words exchanged on the Forum and more articles from me and others. The Online Journal will be the "bloggy" part where I'll continue the work I started here. Finally, I'm very happy with my Links section. I know! A Links section!!!

Thanks again if you actually started to read my work here at this website. I hope you like the new website. Feel free to send feedback, criticisms, and crucifixtions to colin@thefunkyquill.com.

Next Set of Digs (and Drinks)

2010-02-21T22:01:00.003-06:00

I will have a new website opening soon. There will material from here as well as professional, portfolio-style things. If you've actually read my writing here, I thank you, and I hope that I will give you more to read at the new website. I may be contributing here still. I'll let you know. There's a bit more freedom here and less expectation. I can post a link to my writing about Unintentional Porn (on the sidebar to the right) without thinking, "I wonder if a potential employer might look negatively on that." In this place, I can think & write without an additional layer of second guessing. Plus, I made it my mission four years ago (yes, this blog has been around that long) for this to be the dive bar of blogs. My independent press to be read with a cheap beer. I still like that idea, but I've also developed a taste for a fine IPA. So while cheap beer is an important accessory to life, it's okay to order a bottle of the more sophisticated stuff once in a while.

These words make it sound like closing time. Maybe it is. Working the job search while day caring for my two children (ages two and 0.5) has taken most of my time from me. It's a stretch to devote the time I need to putting together something even remotely post-able. So maybe it's better to have all my shit, ahem, stuff (sorry, potential employers) in one spot and make it look nice. It's one more thing to show those who can give me salary.

But, as I know too well, I greatly value my freedom. So, if you are truly one of the precious few folk who actually read these cheap beer thoughts of mine, don't stop looking for me here unless I tell you to. And please do go to the new website when it's up. Look for it within the next week or so. I'm thinking of it as an expansion of my blog bar menu. Hopefully you'll have some draught writing to look at and maybe even a little something from the top shelf. Finally, I thank you for reading anything I've written. I'm lucky to have any audience at all. I hope you come back for another round.

The Job Market

2009-12-15T08:42:00.004-06:00

It's tough out there.

But there's always career advice:

Maybe I should look into selling encyclopedias.

Seasons

2009-12-07T22:14:00.003-06:00

It's come to this. It started here. Then continued here. Along the way, the unexpected happened. There was more. There were familiar foibles, hopes that rose and fell, and finally a closing up of a familiar pastime so that the next season relieves the last. I speak of baseball and my own life.

I thought things were a little too cozy and predictable. Predictions were overly favorable, which often leads to trouble. Some critical pieces didn't deliver as expected. This lead to losses. Other pieces did what was expected and leave hope alive at season's end. There's a sense of half-emptiness; good things happened but couldn't provide what was needed for success. This, too, is baseball and more.

Unfulfilled seasons and the events within them threaten to disgorge maudlin emotional writings. When baseball started, I had one child and a steady job. Now I have two children and no job. The lost job is a by-product of these economic times. My (former) company lost a lot of business and I was laid off with 49 others. I expected to work at that company for a long time. Looking back, I saw that this was too cozy and predictable. A critical piece didn't deliver as expected. Despite this, a brand new player emerged into this game. I have a daughter now. I have a son and a daughter.

These are beautiful facts. Yet I'm troubled because I need to provide for them. Luckily, I have an employed, capable, and insurance-providing spouse. I'm taking to my new position as full-time Child Provider Within Home Environment (Housewife) with fits and starts. I always knew being a homemaker was a hard job. I respected people who did it and built their lives around it. It's rough. Despite the benefits of happy children and earning Diaper Genie expertise, it's also something I don't feel totally committed to. It's because I don't feel like the best person for the job. I find these two little people I'm managing to be challenging in their behavioral habits and frequent emotional outbursts. Still, this is a unique time in their lives that I get to share in. They still break into huge smiles when they see me. It makes me glad, but I know that there's so many other people who are better at this than I am. I just hope these two don't figure that out too soon.

So, what's next for the offseason? Unloading disgruntled pieces? Re-thinking of strategy? Finding a left-handed bat? This is where the baseball and life analogy breaks down. I could draw parallels to this point, but the Cubs have a staff and a boatload of money to help them decide their future. I have no idea what I'm doing. Sure, I'm applying. I've been having beers with old friends Monster, C. Builder, Circle of Creative, and Chicago Reader. I've placed ads on Craigslist and other national web sites. Searching through my files reveals over 180 different cover letters. I've made over 50 applications in the past few months alone.

I have to wonder if anyone's listening. Or reading, or even looking. I want to think that I'm not simply feeding an online black hole that devours resumes. But I know it's bad out there. This is Winter. A very long, bitter Job Market Winter, perhaps. There's a lot of cold people out there. For now, my jacket still fits, the house is warm, everyone's fed, and we can maintain this for a while. Through Spring? Probably. Through the actual changing of this Season? We'll see.

Don't Have Time to Watch Anything? Me Neither, But I Watch These Anyway

2009-08-25T15:33:00.004-05:00

Back from hiatus with a healthy new daughter to show for it. So far, she's sleeping slightly better than her older brother, but that may not last. As such, I'm only able to watch what my DVR gives me, and I can only stay awake so long, so I have to be very careful with my choices. Here's my Sleepy New Parent Planning Guide for the precious few moments available for TV watching. Being less wakeful than usual, we've decided to re-watch an old favorite, follow two existing programs, and try one new thing. Breakdown:

OLD FAVORITE TO RE-WATCH: Deadwood. For this, I must thank channel 101 on DirecTV. Whatever blessed person decided to re-run this amazing HBO series has my undying gratitude. I love the show. I love listening to Shakespeare if he had put the nastiest derogatory language into his prose many times over. The ensemble is stocked with terrific actors. The writers make lyrical poetry with foul language fit into fascinating Old West historical drama. Meanwhile, creator David Milch and his directors steer the show perfectly. I've already seen every episode, but the show still hits me, even when I'm half asleep. That's how good Deadwood is.

TWO EXISTING PROGRAMS TO FOLLOW: The Soup and The Daily Show. Big advantage to these shows is that they're less than 30 minutes. If we're lucky, 60 minutes is about as much time and energy available for one sitting. Both these shows have smart humor and cover current events with sharp satire. Perfect TV candy.

THE ONE NEW THING: Mad Men. For this, I must thank a co-worker who lent me his DVDs (TV episodes on DVD is another blessing for the sleepy parent). I'd heard nothing but praise for this show the past few years. Two episodes into the first season, it's well deserved. I really like how Mad Men presents the perfectly coiffed exterior of 1950's American idealism while showing everything going wrong underneath. The setting of the biggest marketing firm in New York only makes it more appealing to me. Despite all the pretty pictures, misogyny runs rampant, co-workers smile through hateful statements, and people have lots of dirty secrets. Marketing can involve a lot of half-truths and masking of ugly reality, so the setting is perfect for the action. The series has barely started and I'm hooked. Can't wait to see more.

So for anyone dealing with nursing, changing diapers, burping, breast pumps, holding the wailing little ones, or if you're just missing sleep, I hope these help.

Hiatus Time

2009-07-20T08:50:00.002-05:00

Going to be going on leave for a bit. Hope to be writing more soon, probably in a few weeks. In the meantime, go see Dead Wrong at the Factory Theater and read the Factory Theater blog.

Dead Wrong - Opens June 26th

2009-06-24T09:09:00.003-05:00

It's getting closer. And closer.

Murder, mystery, and thrills done right. I've seen the previews and this'll give you the shakes as you try to figure out whodunnit. Brought to you by Chicago's Finest Theater, the Factory. Go to www.thefactorytheater.com. See if you can figure out who the killer is. Maybe you'll be right, but maybe you'll be DEAD WRONG.

Best of our Community

2009-06-18T16:26:00.006-05:00

Will Schutz was my friend. To my great regret, I hadn't seen him for years and I was unaware of how badly his health had deteriorated in the past six months. Will died of pancreatic cancer on May 25, just a few days before his 48th birthday. I'm very saddened by his death. There are many more who knew him better than I who feel the pain of his loss deeply. He was an integral member of the Chicago non-Equity theater community who gave everything he had to Chicago Theater because he loved it so much. I can safely say the feelings were mutual. Will illustrated many things about Chicago Theater in both his life and death.

I find the Chicago Theater community to be incredibly close yet scattered at the same time. We are a small group and many close bonds are formed during the course of rehearsals and performances. Though friendships remain, sometimes we lose close touch with each other over the years due to circumstances, life changes, and simply not being in shows together. We warmly greet each other when we do come in contact, regardless of the circumstances, but maintaining close contact with our castmates can be difficult, especially because plenty of us do so many shows all over the city. Regardless of circumstance, I feel I failed Will as someone I knew well when I did a show with him in 1999. I should have checked up on him better, especially when I discovered his health was worsening. However, Will was the kind of person, I believe, who would not begrudge me for lack of contact over the years. Within the community, losing touch over time isn't discounting anyone's friendships; part of that is the assumption that we'll always see each other later, and we usually do. Will was like that, but he was also a much, much better person than most. This was abundantly clear during his memorial service as a large contingent of Chicago's non-Equity theater community came to pay their respects.

Hundreds of people gathered in the Viaduct for a very moving service. This show of love plus an article by Catey Sullivan detailing Will's battle with cancer, and Kris Vire's Time Out article are just a few examples of how well regarded Will Schutz was in all he did. Will was someone who endeared himself to many and, through his prolific talents and work with many companies, ended up becoming a unifying force for Chicago Theater. Will's death brought our scattered, close-knit community together for one night to mourn and celebrate what he gave to us. I spoke to people I hadn't seen in years, renewing contact with old friends while sitting alongside my beloved Factory company members. In a way, it felt like Will was giving ME a parting gift, even though I owed him time and support I can no longer give. Will was a good guy that way. He'd give to everyone else first, and that's why he was among the best of our community.

Hope for Horror

2009-06-01T10:51:00.009-05:00

Metacritic, one of my favorite sites for entertainment reference, is making a strong case for Drag Me to Hell as a good flick, possibly one of the best horror movies in a long time. It always makes me happy to see positive reviews for horror movies as I'm a big fan of the genre. Sam Raimi, long before he was the excellent director of the Spider-Man movies, was the gloriously fun director of the Evil Dead horror franchise as well as a major part of the Xena: Warrior Princess series. Mr. Raimi understands the importance of action and humor, and he knows how to make good horror. Far from being a horror-only auteur, Raimi demonstrated his range as a director (see A Simple Plan), and his prolific resume shows major input on several franchises. I hope to see Drag Me to Hell in the theaters as having an audience to laugh and scream with is a major perk of this movie. Getting out is harder these days, but it increases the impact a theater or movie experience has on me. I'm still thinking about Red Noses, a fantastic production from Strawdog Theatre that just closed. I'm excited to see Dead Wrong from my own Factory Theater as it looks to deliver a few thrills and chills of its own. It's murder-mystery-horror, as only the Factory can do. Like Mr. Raimi, I believe the Factory knows the worth of a good laugh and the impact of a startled jump. We work from our guts. Good horror and humor are visceral experiences, so they should produced well and enjoyed to the fullest of their success. I hope Drag Me to Hell has a positive, lasting impact on the horror genre as it constantly needs a good hit to keep it alive. The Factory Theater is the same way. I believe in both.

Earth Is the New Goth

2009-05-22T10:19:00.005-05:00

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, which means my favorite season is drawing to a close. Luckily, summer is a close second. These times of the year are favored because of their pleasant familiarity. The weather's warm, sun dresses appear, being outside is a joy, I will cook meat and vegetables on my big charcoal grill, and I will be vexed and bouyed by baseball. These are familiar pleasures, but now I have new ones. These new pleasing activities stem from previously hated chores. Now that I have my own yard, I love being in it and working on it. A lifetime ago as an idiot teenager, I hated yardwork. I had better things to do, like listen to The Cure and Depeche Mode while brooding or simpering around in black clothing. What use was sunshine? Pulling weeds, caring for grass, or planting anything was enforced on my weekend agenda. Now, I look forward to what else I'm going to put into my piece of earth and the feel of grass between my fingers.

What the hell is wrong with me? It's warm, It's sunny, and I can't believe the things I love now.

As I get older and more verbose, I see constant reminders of time slipping away, so I'm learning that it's best not to overanalyze the contradictions with my past, especially with the happy stuff. Essentially, shut up and enjoy.

So screw it. When I'm crumbling away in my later years, I'll have a few affixed times in my head of happy yardwork as I still listen to the Cure and Depeche Mode, but now outside with soil blackening my skin instead of my corny outfit. My back yard now fills my goth needs. Getting older does have a few perks.

I'm About to Get Lyrical on Your Ass

2009-05-14T11:58:00.003-05:00

I've never trusted myself to write anything poetic. So, in a bit of switch, my best friend Mike and I collaborated on a song; him with music, me with lyrics. He sent me the tune and I whipped up some words. I like the tune he wrote and I tried to compliment it with words we both like. We're stretching ourselves a bit with something new, and while the finished tune is still in process, here's some initial lyrics (subject to change if either of us don't like 'em):

“Summer Girls” Lyrics

Let the sunlight bring out your skin
It’s been cold, frozen, wrong
The heat will begin, sun will come in
Light your bare legs, long
Show your sun dress, let your hair down
Shake yourself out, strong
Throw your neck out, feel the wind
Air cross your chest, song

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls

Wipe my eyes off, clear my face
This sight is much too fine
Colors lovely, never replace
This piece of you, mine
You dance, you romp, my heart it stomps
You boil my blood and mind
My eyes run races across and through you
Sun and air embrace you, divine

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls

[Breakdown]
[Instrumental verse]

See, I see, summer girls
Summer girls
It must be, summer girls
How I love summer girls

[fin]

Home and Atomic History

2009-05-08T16:18:00.003-05:00

Last year, I put up (in several parts) a piece I wrote for my graduate studies about one perspective on my hometown of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Recently, a TV crew was let into a bomb site in Nevada where over 900 nuclear bombs were tested, which led me to vce.com or atomcentral. This website details the history of atomic weaponry, which was central to the creation of Los Alamos. Sure enough, Los Alamos is prominently featured on the site.

I have a very strange relationship and mixed feelings about my hometown. These emotions led to my research and writing about Los Alamos during my grad studies. I guess something feels unresolved. I feel both pride and shame in my association with Los Alamos. While partly a place of great scientific accomplishment (and the origin of many of my memories), the city is also responsible for the deadliest weapon yet created that was used with horrifying results. While it could be argued that the atomic bombs prevented the loss of many lives by ending the war with Japan sooner than expected, there was still tremendous loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki plus the terrible effects of fallout that were felt in Japan and in the United States because of some nuclear tests. While I believe the city added to my development in many ways, it has always been a place that creates hard questions.

The VCE website is terrific. It has a great deal of well organized info plus some rarely seen photos. I wish I could have used it in my paper, but luckily, I had many other sources. Los Alamos will remain a place of conflicting emotions, but it is an integral part of my childhood and the subject of my first "play," although if you take the time to read what I put up here, you'll see that it's hardly a "play." It's not so easily defined, like the city itself. One thing I can say for sure is that I do not glow green at night. Yet.

Bipolar Baseball Fandom

2009-05-05T13:01:00.004-05:00

After the first week of the baseball season, I wrote that there would be some Baseball Bipolar Disorder to come. Dan Bernstein, one of my favorite sports commentators, recently said that Cubs fans look for reasons to be worried and White Sox fans look for reasons to be angry. I was already in agreement with that statement before the Cubs bullpen started looking awful and Carlos Zambrano went on the DL. Now I'm seeing lots of injuries, the Cubs two supposedly best relievers walking everything in sight, and the friggin Pirates in first place for a couple of days. At least the Pirates slid backwards as expected, but I had a feeling all of the prediction of the Cubs running away with the division was premature. It's not acting like 2004 yet when the Cubs were supposed to waltz to the World Series and all the silly entitlement went to their heads and they peed on their hands (literally, in Moises Alou's case). At the moment, I'm just agitated, mostly because the bullpen is shaky. There's other issues here and there with hitting and a few coughs in the starting pitchers, but I have faith (at this moment anyway) that those things will even out, but a bad bullpen is a killer. I'm including Cubs Baseball as part of Anxiety Mondays. A balm for anxiety, outside of Jack Bauer, is consistency; so far, White Sox fans are still angry and the Pirates are still going backwards, so that helps. Plus, I still get instant relief thinking about Reed Johnson's defense and looking at Kosuke Fukudome's April stats. Now can we get some more relief?

How to Write Good Ad Copy: Let Someone Else Write it for You

2009-04-21T13:18:00.002-05:00

My day job is write ad copy, so I know it ain't always easy to craft stuff that'll grab attention and speak well of a product. Still, I had to crap on the advertising for Southland after seeing one of its early ads. It's getting good ratings for the moment (being in the time slot after 30 Rock doesn't hurt) so maybe the show is better than its advertising. The show's reviews are generally positive, and the NBC advertising folks have been smart enough to let someone else's advertising speak for them. Now that it's called "Don't-Blink TV" thanks to Randee Dawn's review from the Hollywood Reporter, maybe some NBC advertising lunkheads won't get in trouble. They certainly should after initially picking the worst dialogue from the show and wrapping it up in a cloying, overblown, swelling-music ad package. At least they were astute enough to see someone else doing better advertising than they were and to spread that pilfered catchphrase on the video section of the show's site. I won't be able to watch much TV for the next few years (having children tends to fill a schedule), so I'll just hope that the reviews are deserved, because it's a terrible thing when poor advertising kills something that's genuinely good. The show-killing ad execs at NBC would be wise to offer Randee Dawn a job for crafting their ad campaign for them.

How to Become Beloved by Baseball Fans When You Don't Play Much (UPDATED)

2009-04-13T12:47:00.008-05:00

Do something like this...

(Sorry if the link dies. YouTube is run by Cardinals fans and depraved, self-centered exhibitionists; that's a redundant statement, I know. UPDATE: Sure enough, the link died. However, you may still be able to see the video here, but mlb.com has some video issues. Something this awesome should be much easier to see.)

Unless he becomes a pitcher and blows three saves in a row, Reed Johnson can now get away with just about anything. It was great fun listening the Show That Will Blow Your Pants Off afterwards and hear Nick say that Reed just blew everyone's pants off. Week one of Baseball is done. Good start. More Bipolar Disorder to come.

What Grad School Taught Me: Shut Up!

2009-04-08T13:56:00.002-05:00

I had a lovely time in grad school earning my Master's in English, the second most useless degree for making a living after my B.A. in theater. I figured I would just read a lot of pretty stories and then talk about them, plus I'd hopefully learn how to actually write something. But there was one major drawback. A lot of the required reading (Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, etc.) and all of the classroom dialogue tried waaaaay too hard to sound intelligent. An English degree, outside of teaching, is essentially useless in almost any business sense. So many academic writers try to offset their lack of useful skill by writing with big words and complex sentences, essentially putting up a language smokescreen that sounds important but ultimately is the same, simple message heard in other arenas. See how long it took me to say, "People talk big to avoid looking small?" I can be as bad as those I rail on. I'm working on curbing my verbosity. Honestly. But I gotta kick my vodka tonic habit first.

Anyway, I was very intimidated when I first went into graduate school because people were speaking English and I couldn't understand a word they said. They also used important metaphors for criticism like "The Gaze" and seeing life through a "[Insert critical theory] Lens" or some such crapola. Granted, it's very, very, very, very, very intelligent. It's cool to think about examining Queer Theory through a Marxist Lens using the Everyman Gaze. It's also mind-numbing. Most of all, it's inefficient thinking. It took me a little while to learn this and I'm still trying to put myself into efficient use of English in spoken and written form.

This is why I like busting the balls of inefficient writing, like the ad for the show replacing ER. First, I love sharing the chuckle-inducing text. Second, I get to be a massive hypocrite. I can indulge myself in the vice I criticize. Unlike the work I do for a living, busting the balls of bad language gives license to scribble. See? I'm already on my twenty-sixth line before getting to my point. My day job is to write ad copy that's quick, easy and attractive. I can't wax on, provide details or be the language blowhard I've been trained to be. My day job is good for me. It helps me learn to shut up more, which is what I should have been learning in grad school. Other stuff I work on (like the Dinosaur Novel/Stage Play for the Factory) needs to be like ad copy: slick and to the point. That work will boil down to the point of studying English or any language: be understood. I'll shut up now.

Baseball! And...SNOW?!

2009-04-06T07:28:00.002-05:00

At long last, Baseball Season is here. Chicago winter refuses to let go, however, as we got about an inch point five of slush. Par for the Chicago course, of course. Yes, I've moped several times about our weather. Guilty. Yes, the people in California and other constant climates are laughing, enjoying their warmth. That's fine. Those having a one-dimensional existence in California beg for days like today so they can justify the silly, overpriced place they live. Okay, you got yer day. I'll be laughing for months when the Chicago Spring feels so good and California is still smoggy, superficial, and fake.

So yeah, slush on Opening Day sucks, but it's part of living in Chicago. We got three inches last Saturday and it was gone by Monday. Same thing will happen this week. Good buddy Chas (a fellow Factory Blogger) reminded a lot of folks that we have gotten snow in Chicago much later than this. We deal with it. Hell, it was snowing on April 17, 2005 when I had my best ever seats at Wrigley seven rows up on the first base line. But now that Baseball is here, Spring will inevitably be here too. Meanwhile, there's ways to keep warm. It's all in the layering. Life in Chicago, unlike other places, has layers. Variety is tough, but worth it. Go Baseball and warm weather. Any minute now...

That's the Best you Could Write?

2009-04-02T21:58:00.005-05:00

I was in college when ER started. I remember it clearly because I was following Michael Crichton's (RIP) works having loved Jurassic Park. ER was played in the bar all the time at the pizza joint I worked. I watched it some the first year, but never watched after I moved to Chicago unless someone I knew was a guest star, which happened less than five times. So tonight, I'm watching the finale of a show I don't like that much but respect for its longevity. Thinking that a show lasting 15 friggin years would go out with a bang, I figured I'd take a look.

The finale wasn't a bang, but the real thud came from the advertisements for ER's replacement. It's pretty much an automatic death to take the spot of something that's been successful for so long. Anyone remember what replaced M.A.S.H., Happy Days, Cheers, or Friends? Didn't think so. NBC's marketing department poured a little more poison on the show starting the replacement show ad thusly: "As one great drama ends, another takes its place." This forces the replacement show to measure up to its predecessor's success, but the real marketing suicide happened in the dialogue chosen for the ad:

"You're a cop because you don't know how not to be one."

Hwa-ba-da-HUH?

Now I'm guilty of being verbose and nonsensical but come on. What's worse is that someone wrote that for TV, then someone else thought that was a great way to advertise the show, and no one stopped them. Too bad. I know some things in the marketing world can't be stopped and there are plenty of unstoppably bad ideas that somehow get approved. Maybe the show is actually good. Those involved better hope the marketing department just didn't promote the show well, because here's the final kicker: I can't even remember the name of the show that's replacing ER. The crap-ass dialogue was the only thing that made an impression on me. Best of luck.

Spring Choppingly Heads This Way

2009-04-01T11:31:00.003-05:00

Baseball Season is almost here. Almost. It's one of the many things I look forward to during the winter, along with the first sun dress and tank top I see; signs of warmth and sun sticking around. I will masochistically be following the Cubs again with high hopes. I do love them despite (or is it because of?) the pain they give. I registered for my place in line for season tickets about a year ago and I have moved up to 81,562. Yes!!!

Spring is my favorite time for it's rejuvenation and reawakening. With a one year-old running around and a sibling due to arrive soon, I need all the reawakening I can get. I hope to be writing more about sun and grass soon. In the mean time, I'm reading the Factory Theater Blog and going to see Mop Top Festival, which I'm proud to have been a part of behind the scenes. The writing for the other blog has slowed, but hopefully Mike and I will pick that up again eventually. No promises since he's also expecting a child, but we'll see.

Now back to my dinosaur novel (in between writing scintillating copy for marketing)...

Tough Winter

2009-01-22T13:48:00.002-06:00

Don'tcha think?

Here's some stats (along with scary global warning postulation) on the snowfall.

Here's some more, courtesy of the Brits, on the cold.

Baseball season can't get here soon enough.

Have you checked the other site I'm writing at yet?

Happy End of 2008

2008-12-31T14:35:00.003-06:00

Eventful times this year, to say the least. In small, personal ways and also in large, global ones. I'm thankful for the home my family is building, I'm thankful for all my time with my beloved Factory Theater, I'm thankful for the first steps and sounds my son is making, and I'm looking toward 2009 with a nervous excitement. Jack Bauer will be back to help ease Anxiety Mondays. We will have a new administration in the United States; right now, I'm profoundly happy for the change and hopeful that the Obama presidency justifies the immense amount of faith invested in it. There's great uncertainty about financial stability, there's many challenges and worries to face, and many good people were lost this year. But the days are getting longer, the temperatures will eventually start rising, and the calendar begins anew. Happy New Year and let's see what comes next.

Multi-Writing

2008-11-19T09:38:00.004-06:00

By the way, I'm writing on another site called Unintentional Porn. Go see. It's all about sexy stuff, but totally safe for work. I'm having a blast working on it, so enjoy!

The Next Great Factory Show: Bustin Out of The Hell!

2008-11-01T17:25:00.005-05:00

It's the final show in our 15th Anniversary Season and TONIGHT is the gala benefit! Come and see the show (I'm in this one; my first Factory show in over a year!) and then have lots of liquor and food fixins. The show is a blast and the same high energy, quality comedy, life-lovin romp that the Factory Theater is known for: CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS and come have a raucous romp through the afterlife! The show runs through December 6, so you got lots of time and no excuse. Bless you.

Coming Soon from the Factory...

2008-09-30T14:08:00.004-05:00

Opening right between Halloween and my birthday...

The Factory Theater's Bustin Out of the Hell...but first, THE LAUNCH PARTY.

Must be seen in person to be believed. So be there for the Cain Mutiny's fantastic tunes, a preview of the Factory take on the afterlife, and all the usual delicious food and drink from the incomparable Chief O'Neils pub. Bless them all.

Movie Catchup

2008-09-26T14:55:00.009-05:00

My Little Miss Sunshine review was the extent of my thoughts on oscar nominated movies of 2007, but I had promised to write a little more on other Best Picture nominees. Of 2007. Okay, I'm catching up a little slow (and I'm totally late for anything M80 was doing), but here goes.

Children of Men: Solid. A very compelling allegory about a world made sterile, literally and figuratively. The violence that permeates 90 minutes of the movie makes the one minute of silence brought by a wailing infant very powerful. People dealing with infertility will have a unique perspective on this movie. Worthy Best Picture nominee, but not the year's best.

Pan's Labyrinth: Visually spectacular, but maybe I saw it too late; the incredible number of glowing reviews I read made me think I was going to see one of the greatest movies of all time. It was definitely good and a worthy nominee but not the years best. I will say that the scene where the white thing chases the little girl down the hallway gave me nightmares.

Little Miss Sunshine was still the best of 2007 for me. In 2008, I fell far behind in my movie watching. Having a child does that; we've seen three movies in the theater since George was born (and about as many rentals) and he turns one next week. He's a pretty good picture in and of himself, though. I'm still trying to piece together what little movie thoughts I've had in 2008. Ratatouille and Juno were both excellent. No Country for Old Men was a welcome reacquaintance with classic Coen movies. Michael Clayton was overblown junk. Was that really all the movies I saw? Jeez. Maybe I can write more stuff for M80 in 2009.

Well, screw it. I saw The Dark Knight and it was fantastic, especially because old friend Mike Vieau had a very notable scene and almost the entire movie was filmed in Chicago. Hopefully there's a third Christopher Nolan Batman movie shot here and more worthy Chicago actors will get exposure.

Stay tuned for upcoming Factory Theater news, which where I happily spend the little free time I have.

A Real Nice, Six Month Long First Step

2008-09-23T13:18:00.003-05:00

The Cubs have clinched their division. It is exciting for an excitable Cubs fan like myself. Now to look back on what Uncle Lou has been exhorting most of the year so as to look ahead: it's a long season, don't let individual games stir you up too much, go out to play good fundamental baseball, and field the team that gives you the best chance to win regardless of players' salary, feelings, or any other distraction. The Cubs have busted their asses and busted them well for six months. A wonderful accomplishment to play consistently well for that length of time while constantly dodging and dealing with the Cubbie Curse talk and the whole 100 years thing. Well done and a great season. So far.

The real games begin next week. After this long and arduous season, it's time play for the real prize. Next week, the individual games matter a whole lot. They're the whole purpose behind the season so far. I get the feeling that the culture of Chicago Cubs baseball is changing. That the culture is concerned about winning baseball and less concerned about image. I hope I'm right. It's been a terrific team year; solid defense all around, excellent pitching and no true individual superstar (personally, I'm perfectly happy with six everyday position players hitting between .280 and .303 and three frequently used bench players hitting at the same clip with six players hitting between 19 and 30 home runs only; better the team bat well as a whole rather than rely on a couple of guys). On-base percentage is way up thanks to the Cubs suddenly enjoying the benefits of walks this year. Baserunning boners seem to be much further down. There's an assured feeling to the team, whether its "Cubbie Swagger" that Lou talks about or just playing better, smarter baseball.

All of that has been terrific this whole year. Now it has to continue. Just making it to the playoffs isn't good enough any more. The players believe that and so do the fans. Now the real season is about to begin.

I suggest reading a better-phrased and more professional take on this same subject from one of my favorite blogs.

Go Cubs. Really.

Homage to a Master

2008-08-17T21:52:00.009-05:00

"At the Movies" officially closed up shop this past weekend. This show, with Gene Siskel (later Richard Roeper) and Roger Ebert, provided thoughts on movies for 33 years. Over three decades. The show reached its "Jesus Birthday." It had life and love of movies. I'm connected to this show in two ways.

First, I love the movies and occasionally dabble in my own review and criticism of the medium (see sidebar at right). I've won an online contest for one review, but that's the limit of my accolades as a movie critic. Siskel & Ebert were the masters. They became one of the most recognized and legitimate standards of movie measurement for decades. They formed a unique love-hate relationship with the movies and each other (more on this later). Even after Siskel's untimely death, "At the Movies" continued for years with Richard Roeper. For my money, Siskel was better and the main reason the show kept its success was Ebert's ability and fame. Ebert can accept a teen sex comedy and horror movies for what they are and what they do, and he recognizes these types of movies when they do their work well and chastises them when they're only fluff. I don't think Roeper can appreciate a well-done horror movie. It's not high brow enough for him. That's his loss. See for yourself in his interview with Ebert on Chicago Tonight the next time it's replayed.

My second connection to "At the Movies" is from the Factory Theater's production of Siskel & Ebert Save Chicago which Roger Ebert himself came to watch and was kind enough to mention on his own site. I have love and respect for Roger Ebert because of his relationship with movies and his patronage of the Factory Theater. Ebert is a masterful writer and critic. Look no further than the eloquence personified from Ebert's own statement on the ending of his show (many thanks to good buddy Eric Roach from the Factory for sharing this). I felt several heart muscles rip as Ebert comes to the "time to awake from my daydream." That still hurts. I will be eagerly awaiting his next venture and I'm so happy for all he has given to movies.

On Sunday, I read an exceptional article from Christopher Borrelli at the Tribune. In case the Tribune link dies, here are some highlights to illustrate:

"[With the ending of 'At the Movies'] the informed movie review can be placed officially on the endangered species list. On TV, let's just declare it extinct."

"Siskel and Ebert said what they felt, and you never doubted their sincerity or honesty. Even today—especially today—this remains a radical idea. What Siskel and Ebert created is still the closest that television criticism has ever come to former New Yorker writer Pauline Kael's insistence that 'the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.'"

"...what chills the blood is that film criticism has been so diminished in recent years that Disney-ABC didn't even attempt to replace reputation with reputation, or continue what Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert started. "

"But I bet for the average everyday moviegoers who rarely think beyond 'I liked it' or "I hated it" and who rarely consider aesthetics or polemics or politics when they go to a multiplex, the end of the original incarnation of "At the Movies" will feel like the finale of film criticism itself. The argument has ended. And the argument, as "At the Movies" taught us, was the thing—that art itself was arguable, and that was OK."

"Indeed, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that for a generation or two of moviegoers, it was Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert who introduced the idea that good criticism is not about finality or consensus or putting your thumb up or down. It's about argument itself."

I'm in total agreement with Mr. Borrelli and I only want to add one thing. In addition to the arguments they generate, what makes movies and "At the Movies" so valuable are the relationships to the movie material and the people who are with you, whether you're discussing the movie together or watching it. Siskel and Ebert formed close relationships to their movies and a closer relationship with each other. These relationships were rocky (sometimes ugly), they were happy, and they were honest. A family of and about the movies plus all the sometimes awful, sometimes great dynamics that go with family. A family for 33 years, complete with arguments. It was good and it shall be missed.

My First Business Trip in Years (or, is Denver better than Oakbrook?)

2008-08-16T10:19:00.003-05:00

Just returned from a business trip to Denver yesterday. The final proof of my company's catalog is now set to print. The people at the company were terrific and they treated my boss and me to a nice dinner. Not a bad trip. I hadn't traveled for business since the '90s. Another cruel reminder of aging. Still, it was good to go back to Denver since I used to go there all the time while growing up in New Mexico. I hadn't been to Denver since the '80s; Cruel Aging Reminder #2. The mountains are still nice, but for the most part, Denver looks like Oakbrook, Illinois. A lot of strip malls and skinny, square business buildings. Not exactly attractive, but a mountain backdrop adds plenty: nice scenery to break up the strip mall setting and snow in August if you're above 10,000 feet. If all goes well, this will be an annual trip for work as we update our big catalog (meaning 1,500+ pages big) every year. I love seeing the mountains again, the company and its people are great, and I can deal with an Oakbrook style strip mall setting as long as I get one pint of Fat Tire to get me loopy for the whole evening. One drink at elevation 6,000 feet is plenty for someone my age (C.A.R. #3) but it's another way to beat Oakbrook; I'd need at least three beers there. Efficiency, scenery, and company; that's how Denver beats Oakbrook.

Just Because I Like Sheet Music...

2008-07-30T17:00:00.001-05:00

...and I miss singing in choir.

I Might Not Have Looked Close Enough

2008-07-21T09:17:00.005-05:00

Recently, I wrote a loving homage to Charlton Heston. In this writing, I opined that Charlton Heston was an expert at cheesy lines in movies and that I found his political stances strange given his body of work in film. I still stand by my view of his acting style in many movies: way over the top to the point of silliness sometimes. Still, he did the cheese so well and he was a powerful film personality with an impressive body of work. My second rumination was that I found it "strange that a guy who played so many roles portraying a struggle against an oppressive state would become such a staunch conservative after what conservatism has come to stand for politically in the past decade."

Clarification #1: I don't believe conservatism is an inherently bad thing; conservative (or liberal) governments that make a practice of removing rights granted to the populace make for an oppressive state. Movies like Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Touch of Evil, and even The Ten Commandments are some examples of the indomitable Mr. Heston fighting for the common folk against overdominating authority. Many of Heston's characters have this dynamic.

I was talking about Heston with a coworker and he bluntly told me I didn't know Heston well enough. This coworker was a little younger I am now when Heston was doing his major work in the late fifties through the sixties. To him, Heston is not equated with conservatism except indirectly through his staunch advocacy of the NRA. My coworker also said that Heston was defending an inalienable right from being taken away by the state. While I am not a fan of the availability of guns, it is true that this right was granted to the people for the purposes of defense from an oppressive government or exterior state. While I believe that this amendment to the constitution needs a reexamination for today's context, it is nonetheless one of the rights granted to the people whether I like it or not. Viewed this way, Mr. Heston's NRA stance actually stands with many of the characters he played; that of a man fighting to protect inalienable rights.

My coworker said that the media had misrepresented Charlton Heston toward the end of his life. I think my coworker may be right and I think I may have mischaracterized Mr. Heston's political stances. Upon further reflection, his connection between the people he played and how he acted in real life doesn't seem so strange after all.

The Factory Scores! And Adds More!

2008-07-11T10:55:00.008-05:00

Ren Faire! A Fistful of Ducats is both a Metromix pick and Highly Recommended by the Chicago Reader. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, along comes the next great Factory show, Shamless Shamuses!

The Factory is working third shift to bring more fantastic theater to the people. Follow the doings of Duck, Dodge & Hyde who have to solve the craziest case of their collective detective careers! Take the Three Stooges, drop in the Marx Brothers, unload the Ritz Brothers, introduce the Waldowsky Sisters and top off with mystery, mayhem, music, and plenty of fine jokes. Bring a brace for the shaking of your ribs.

I'm so proud and happy to be a part of this fantastic place.

Click here for tickets or go to www.thefactorytheater.com for more info.

Scandal Response Seminar

2008-06-27T15:09:00.004-05:00

Here's two ways of handling a scandalized reaction from the public. One is the right way, one is wrong.

Case A: You do a topless photo shoot where you don't even show your boobs but couldn't anyway since your fifteen and within said photo shoot are also somewhat creepy pictures with your Dad. Public is scandalized that you showed the world your bare back at the photo shoot curiously booked with a photographer known for creating controversial portraits, often of a sexualized nature. You work for one of the largest, supposedly "family friendly" corporations in the world and your purity image takes a hit; even without the half naked MySpace self-protraits revealing a great deal more skin that subsequently appear with less public outrage, you've got PR trouble. What do you do?

Response: it's the wrong one, but it's only one you can do. When you're a household name who stands to lose millions of dollars from the company with its own questionable ethics that employs you, your path is clear. You pretend that you were victimized, had some sort of total loss of reason for days, or were just so terribly hurt by this thing all along. I'm scandalized that I'm actually posting a link to Omg! News (especially since there's the incredibly appropriate link to other topless celebrity examples on the page), but it's such the perfect example of the wrong response. It hurts your credibility and the integrity of people who are supposed to be watching out for you as a teenager. Plus, it lets the moral hypocrisy of the righteous-outragists continue. Gotta admit though, I'd probably be bowing and scraping too if I was about to lose all those bags of money.

Case B: You've unleashed a rant at a live concert against a fan who threw something you. Said rant includes telling the fan that you'd butt fuck him if he threw anymore shit at you, calling the fan a faggot and pussy multiple times as well as a "dickless fucking turd."

Response: it's the more difficult and dangerous choice to make, but it's right one because of the respect you earn, if only for yourself. You tell the scandalized people to eloquently go fuck themselves. You address the fact that your remarks might be considered homophobic and turn the moral outrage back around to the accusers. A much more perilous path to walk, but if done correctly, could deflate anything brewing from the self-righteous. I especially appreciate the "PC lingo" sign-off. A little humor never hurts.

Ren Faire: The Next Great Factory Show

2008-06-25T13:01:00.005-05:00

The Factory Theater presents:

Think of a turf war between Renaissance Fair denizens and Old West stunt people in a West Side Story style, only funnier and with better song and dance. Verily, 'twill be some good fun, pardner.

Click here for tickets or go to www.thefactorytheater.com for more info. Now that the Factory website has been updated in a thoroughly modern style, you can see my mug there too, if you so desire. But you better be buying a ticket first or getting a drink from me as your bartender for this Saturday's gala performance. Cheers!

Another One Gone Too Soon

2008-06-23T10:02:00.002-05:00

Sigh. RIP to an icon.

He will be greatly missed by many. He will not be missed by the uptight who think he was only about being foul & filthy (too bad for them). But Carlin's value to humor, social criticism, and skewering the American obsession with perceived naughty speech cannot be understated. Carlin lived by free speech even when it got him into trouble and he did it funny. I thank him and I'll miss him.

'Nite, Night.

2008-06-13T16:04:00.004-05:00

It's been a really long time since I wrote anything movie related. A really, really long time. Damn. Movies are one of the great joys of my life, but home-buying and child-bearing (especially when done simultaneously) erase a lot of time that could be spent with movies. So here's some thoughts on something that also hasn't been around in a long time: a good movie by M. Night Shyamalan.

I have not seen The Happening and I'm not sure I will. The initial savage reviews are akin to the early bloodletting that The Lady in The Water received (I didn't see that movie either). With both movies, I was intrigued by some well-done previews and I don't think Shyamalan has ever lost his knack for creating some interesting premises. Sadly, based on reviews, it'll be three bads in a row for M. Night.

I can't speak for the success or failure of The Happening, but it is puzzling that such an incredibly successful and imaginative filmmaker could go from spectrum to opposite spectrum with his work. Maybe he doesn't give a damn what people think, maybe he's still convinced his movies are brilliant, maybe he just works for a paycheck like the rest of us; who knows?

The Sixth Sense is still a fantastic movie. The splashy twist at the end (does anyone not know by this point that Bruce Willis is a ghost?) created most of the buzz and played a large part in establishing Shyamalan's moviemaker identity, but the twist is not what makes The Sixth Sense so good. Toni Collette is a major reason why the movie succeeds so well. She terrifically plays her role of tortured mother struggling to care for her inexplicably and literally haunted son. Collette injects so much honest, raw emotion that she grounds the conflicts of the spiritual world into her own hard reality, making the movie's ghost story a real-life struggle. Shyamalan also did his best writing with The Sixth Sense. He's very good at creating an emotional investment in his characters and his movies. He's always been able to grab interest, and with The Sixth Sense, he made a valuable story of grieving people and family struggle to go along with a winning premise and the jaw dropper at the end.

Here's where it went wrong. Shyamalan wagered his success on making everyone's jaws drop lower. He figured that the basis for his success was fabricating the most amazing twist and basing his movies around the bait-and-switch. With the notable exception of Signs, Shyamalan's movies live and die by their twists. Signs didn't really have a "holy shit!" moment at the end, which is probably why Signs is Shyamalan's only other really good movie: Night got away from trying to bend his movies around their twists and simply wrote a good story about ordinary people struggling under extraordinary circumstances. The "holy shit!" moments kept coming in his other movies, but they weren't always a pleasant surprise.

The Village pissed me off. The first half of that movie is really good. Shyamalan created a fantastic medieval world with scary monsters running around an engaging love story between Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Howard (I refuse to validate that stupid three name thing popular among some actors unless you've earned those props through such kickass work as being Buffy The Vampire Slayer: S.M. Gellar [heh heh], you're worthy.) The twist of The Village is so ludicrous that it's insulting. Shyamalan devalued his entire movie with that stupid twist. It's a pity that the movie was based around trying to pull off the most amazing switcheroo. Problem is, people's jaws only drop so far, and if your only goal is to dislocate mandibles through surprise, you're going to miss more often than not.

The Happening may suffer because of that same instinct. If so, it's really a shame. M. N. Shyamalan is really a good writer and talented filmmaker. Maybe it would have been better had he not had such dizzying success with The Sixth Sense as his first movie. He might have had too many people telling him he's brilliant and how oh-so-amazed they were at the end of that movie. That might have made him forget why he was able to make a good movie through his characters' struggles. The twists aren't what made him a successful filmmaker. They certainly helped and my jaw was on the floor with everybody else's at the reveal of Bruce Willis' actual condition, but the movie was already good. I hope that Night puts his twisties to bed and wakes his basic storymaking skills back up; it's a question of whether that twisting instinct wants to go down or not.

An Emphatic, Resounding NO

2008-05-13T08:50:00.004-05:00

For the one or two people who may actually see and read my little corner of the internet, give a hand in saying no to a proposed ordinance in Chicago. This proposed ordinance (scheduled for a vote tomorrow) will negatively affect small entertainment venues such as my beloved Factory Theater. Here are the cliffnotes (thanks to Allison Cain who forwarded the savechicagoculture.org post detailing the ordinance):

The “Event Promoters” ordinance requires any event promoter to have a license from the city of Chicago and liability insurance of $300,000, but that’s just the start:

“Event Promoter” must be licensed and will pay $500 - $2000 depending on expected audience size.

To get the license, applicant must be over 21, get fingerprinted, submit to a background check, and jump over several other hurdles.

This ordinance seems targeted towards smaller venues, since those with 500+ permanent seats are exempt.

Police must be notified at least 7 days in advance of event.

There are many problems with this ordinance, which can be viewed in full at Jim DeRogatis' blog on the Chicago Sun-Times website. I'm specifically drawn to section A of 4-157-020 License–When required–Exclusions: "No person shall engage in the business of event promoter without first having obtained an event promoter license under this chapter." Basically, it's creating additional overhead and fees for smaller venues that are already struggling financially while not subjecting larger, richer venues to the same fees. Essentially taxing the poor while protecting the rich. The liability insurance is a valid requirement, but it seems like a small shield of legitimacy to hide behind while sneaking in additional fees (such as an Event Promoter License) for venues that already bear large financial burdens. This ordinance is being presented as something to combat illegitimate underground promotions, but it will hurt many small venues that are legitimate entertainment businesses that already have liability insurance and PPA (Public Place of Amusement) licenses. The language of this ordinance is unclear and it sets a very negative precedence of adding additional fees to entertainment venues.

Here's the latest update from Jim DeRogatis: a Q&A with Alderman Eugene Schulter, chairman of the city licensing committee. His responses are very poor, in my opinion. Here's an example:

Q [DeRogatis]. I think that many people in the music community don’t understand why a promoter’s license is necessary if you’re dealing with a venue that is already PPA-licensed.

A [Alderman Schulter]. The problem, Jim, is that you don’t know who is handling that part of the business. Unfortunately, we’ve had incidents in the city where people have been murdered, people have been accosted, there have been fights, and what we’re trying to do, our goal is not to hurt anybody, but to really help the promoter as well as the person in charge of the venue. Because right now, the only person that really is responsible is the person that runs the venue. I think that this gives a different status to the promoters, and I think that is a good and healthy thing. The community that these events are held in should know who’s hosting these events.

It's pretty bad form to jump to scare tactics (fights, accosting, murder, etc.) to push an extra layer of fees and administration on any venue. The community, the city, and anyone who is interested can check the paperwork to find who handles the PPA license, and why does "the community" need a controlling interest in who is hosting entertainment events? Entertainment is not being forced on anyone, and how will more fees and overhead protect "the community" from these vague references to violence?

I still don't see a valid response to these added fees for smaller venues, I don't see the need for adding an "Event Promoter" and I still believe this will be an extremely harmful measure. So, to the two or three (at most) people who read this, please make yourself heard if you don't agree with this ordinance.

1985 - A Good Year in Entertainment

2008-05-08T17:06:00.002-05:00

1985 was a really long time ago. Doesn't feel like it. I remember watching a lot of good entertainment that year. Back to the Future was '85, of course. Remember that little "We Are the World" collaboration? I'm also pretty sure 1985 was the first time my family got a VCR. Just so I can feel nice and dated, here's what I was watching a lot of in 1985:

Ah, Anime in the '80s...(love the theme songs)

Charlton Heston: No One Did Cheese Better

2008-04-10T16:15:00.007-05:00

The one reason I was sad to hear about Charlton Heston's death was because now the man who delivered some of the cheesest movie lines with such engrossing conviction is now gone. Plus, it makes me feel old to know that another actor from so many classic films has died. Touch of Evil is one of my favorite movies, and even though Charlton Heston was completey out of place (you know what I mean if you've ever seen this movie), he was still a major part of that film. Mr. Heston's body of film work speaks for itself. Okay, there's more than one reason why I'm saddened by the death of Charlton Heston. I won't miss his NRA endorsements, but I was watching Planet of the Apes on the Friday before Heston died and I remember who protected Val Kilmer in Tombstone. I'm not interested in debating the political ins and outs of his life, and though I give him credit for never wavering from his stance, I find it strange that a guy who played so many roles portraying a struggle against an oppressive state would become such a staunch conservative after what conservatism has come to stand for politically in the past decade. What I am interested in is celebrating cheese, and Heston was a master. So, for my pleasure (and yours) and a tribute to some damn fine movie roles, here's a brief Charlton Heston soundboard from

Soylent Green

and, of course, from Planet of the Apes.

Bloody Baboon!

Insane, Walking Pestilence!

You Led Me on a Leash!

A Madhouse!

You Damn Dirty Ape!

And, of course, the crowning achievement: Damn You All to Hell!!!

To see a better list of Charlton Heston stuff, go to The Charlton Heston Online Shrine page where I got these sounds.

RIP, Taylor.

Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis! ("Mi Casa") Continues. Part Six: Remember, New Perspective

2008-04-10T15:32:00.005-05:00

Continuing a piece about my home town, it's odd military history, and my position within.

PREVIOUSLY ON "Mi Casa":
PART ONE: History. A timeline of important dates in this project.
PART TWO: Introductions. In which the players of this one-act socialist analysis first pop up.
PART THREE: Flash Back-Flash Forward. Work on the top-secret project begins.
PART FOUR: Start Your Engines. The people start building the bomb (in more than one place).
PART FIVE: This Is More Than Just a Test. The first detonation of an atomic bomb at Trinity, New Mexico.

GREETER
Flashback to July 24, 1945, eight days after the Trinity test. At the Potsdam Conference, President Truman decides to tell Stalin that America has the bomb. (PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN and JOSEF STALIN walk on stage and pantomime the scene that GREETER describes.) However, unsure of how the dictator will react, Truman decides to make the announcement by a casual aside comment, telling Stalin that the United States has a powerful new weapon. Reports vary as to the exact reaction of Stalin when Truman made the comment, but most agree that Stalin looked impassive and did not seem overly concerned with the announcement. (HARRY S. TRUMAN goes to the side and watches STALIN closely.) Russian reports state that Stalin did this on purpose to protect Russia’s own nuclear program.

(STALIN looks off-stage and whistles loudly. IGOR KURCHATOV appears quickly.)

STALIN
(Whispers to KURCHATOV) Better hurry up. Or you will be shot.

(KURCHATOV exits in a flash. STALIN follows him.)

GREETER
By 1949, the Russians had detonated their own atomic bomb. On September 23, 1949, President Truman made the announcement.

PRESIDENT TRUMAN
We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R. (Exits.)

GREETER
The Cold War was in full swing and the Arms Race was on. Los Alamos played a critical role in the Cold War as the National Laboratory continued to be weapons development center. The town remained highly guarded and secretive due to the dangerous work being done in the Lab and the possibility of Russian spies stealing nuclear secrets. And there we have it. (Addresses COLIN MILROY) Mr. Milroy, you’ve had a chance to hear about the history of Los Alamos and share your own thoughts. What about looking at the town from a social perspective?

COLIN MILROY
For the first few years after I moved away from Los Alamos, people would ask me jokingly if I glowed in the dark from radiation upon hearing I grew up in Los Alamos. It was surprising that I got this same question from every part of the country I lived or visited. The Lab dominated employment at Los Alamos ever since the town began. As a result, Los Alamos is filled with scientists: physicists, engineers, biologists, and on and on. My father was an exception as he worked at the only hospital and was the only urologist in town. When I was growing up, all of my friends’ fathers were scientists. Most of their mothers, like mine, were homemakers when we were children. Due to the highly classified nature of the Lab’s work during the 1970s and 1980s, work at the Lab couldn’t be discussed. There were many elements of Los Alamos that gave it a militaristic identity that I simply accepted because I had not really been exposed to any other kind of town. A machine gun guard tower still stands in one of the three entrances to the town. The machine guns and guards are no longer there, but the tower stands as a stark reminder of the “secret city’s” way of life in the early 1940s. There are several areas surrounding both Los Alamos and White Rock that are fenced off with barbed wire fences and signs that read, “Keep out. Explosives.” Certain areas of the town were mined and fenced off when the town was built in case of invasion from German or Japanese forces. A vivid memory I have of my early childhood was playing football in the backyard with my friend Bobby Colston. As we played, there was a muffled boom and the earth shook slightly under our feet. This had happened before, and we did not concern ourselves because we had learned that it was just another underground bomb test and our moms had told us not to worry.

(JAMESON, BLOCH, LUKÁCS, RODCHENKO, TROTSKY, BRECHT, and MARX all give an exasperated sigh and shake their heads. COLIN MILROY looks nervous and self-conscious, as usual.)

GREETER
We're actually not interested in the social aspects of your life. History is over. This is analysis. Remember, the point is new perspective.

COLIN MILROY
I learned new things I didn’t know before.

GREETER
There’s more to perspective than facts.

JAMESON
Perhaps we can be of assistance.

GREETER
Very well. Let the Marxist critics share their thoughts.

JAMESON
Historicize. Los Alamos arose from World War II, a very desperate time. Los Alamos helped create and produce the most powerful weapon in the world at the time. The atomic bomb not only gave the United States unconditional surrender from the Japanese, but the ability to dictate terms to the world or face the threat of nuclear annihilation. Therefore, the world and production could be molded entirely through U.S. interests. The United States could also command the world through entirely new means. Traditional warfare no longer applied. The United States had a weapon that no one had ever seen before. It was also the most efficient weapon ever made. With just one bomb, tens of thousands of lives could be ended instantly. Warfare and global politics were revolutionized and the Cold War became the new conflict between Russia and the United States with no direct confrontation of each other’s forces. It could be argued that Los Alamos helped create the modern world. But compare what was being done in Los Alamos with military and political conflicts of the past. Did Los Alamos really do anything new or was it just holding to a form? Los Alamos developed superior weaponry for the United States to defeat its foes in warfare. Now think historically about the wars between England and France in the Middle Ages. English archers used the longbow to kill thousands of French soldiers and cavalry from a distance that was not thought possible. England developed superior weapons to defeat the French. Think of what the barbarian hordes must have thought when they saw organized Roman legions with iron shields and blades. The Roman Empire dominated Europe for centuries not only through superior organization and tactics, but also through superior weaponry. So Los Alamos was only holding true to form in creating superior weaponry for its ruling forces. And what was the point to building superior weaponry? To destroy the enemy more efficiently. To force the submission of opposing forces. To broaden an empire and impose a particular brand of social and political thinking. Los Alamos also helped get other countries started in copying the form, as Russia raced to build its own atomic weaponry to match the United States. England, France, India, Pakistan, and other countries would soon follow. Everybody wanted a piece of the new weapon, and they wanted it as fast as possible.

GREETER
You don’t seem to have quite the vocabulary that Fredric Jameson does.

JAMESON
In case the audience actually needs to be reminded, they are watching a play and I am not Fredric Jameson. I’m just as actor.

BRECHT
You’re watching a play, you’re watching a play, you’re watching a play!

GREETER
Thank you, Mr. Brecht.

BLOCH
I, for one, am fully supportive of this form of expression. Instead of having facts and testimonies read to them, the audience gets to see actors tell true stories. Not only that, the actors get to put their own thoughts and emotions behind the words that others spoke before them. Feel free to express!

LUKÁCS
Keep it simple!

BRECHT
You’re reading a play, you’re reading a play, you’re reading a play!

GREETER
Thank you, Mr. Brecht. Now, Mr. Trotsky, would you like to share your thoughts?

TROTSKY
Well, I’ve seen this all before. It’s all very dramatic and fascinating, but we’re looking at lives of individuals, not of groups. While this all may be very fine, I’m afraid that there is too much self-promotion here. We’ve seen individual lives, heard individual stories, and this play is entirely about one individual.

COLIN MILROY
Sorry.

TROTSKY
(To COLIN MILROY) Well, I guess it’s to be expected. You are deeply rooted into Los Alamos as a town because you grew up there. You also have been part of a privileged class. Meaning varies depending on your perspective. You’ve come from an insider’s perspective. I think you knew your perspective before you sought out to criticize. The question now is how will this contribute to society and the future? Are you building a bridge to anything?

COLIN MILROY
I’m still figuring that out.

RODCHENKO
Well, at least this is a paper in the form of a play. I like the idea of manipulating the form to get a new perspective. Looking at something differently.

GREETER
That’s quite enough simpering for appreciation, Mr. Rodchenko. Thank you.
(BRECHT gets ready to shout again, GREETER cuts him off.) Yes, they know.

BRECHT
Just wanted to make sure. Is everybody thinking yet?

GREETER
And now, members of the audience, (a drum roll starts, GREETER speaks in a booming voice) the granddaddy of them all, Karl Marx!

TROTSKY
Couldn’t resist the individual theatricality, could you?

GREETER
We all have our weaknesses and our perspectives. Mr. Marx, please.

MARX
Oppression. Think of the social dynamics of Los Alamos during the construction of the atomic bomb and the social dynamics created by the rise of nuclear power. From a macro and micro perspective, the privileged were asserting their will over the underprivileged. There were social hierarchies built into the Lab itself. Los Alamos gave the United States the most privileged status as a superpower in the world. It did so through uprooting individuals from their surroundings and remaking their areas in northern and southern New Mexico into a place of scientific and military consumption. If anything, Los Alamos has served as one of history’s strongest means of promoting Capitalist thought through military might. Those with the greatest means continue to protect their means to the detriment of those who have less.

COLIN MILROY
Rats.

MARX
Sorry, dude. That’s how it is. By the way, I also appreciate theatricality.

COLIN MILROY
Thanks, man!

GREETER
I believe that Mr. Trotsky made a good point. Are we on a bridge to anything? What do we do now? We’ve seen how Los Alamos serves as a means of creating domination. Domination for the privileged over the underprivileged. Many other fabrics of American society advocate these same means. How do defend the underprivileged and achieve social balance? How do we stop domination from being an acceptable social action? Mr. Milroy, what do we do now?

COLIN MILROY
Members of the audience and readers… (Long pause.) Remember to think, analyze and make choices for yourselves. The play is over.

END OF PLAY

CERES. The Next Factory Theater Show (Good Press Already Coming In...)

2008-03-26T09:11:00.014-05:00

Here's what the critics are saying about Ceres!

"...here's the rare anticorporate play that offers more than just the vantage point of the disgruntled, unappreciated workers on the bottom rung." **** (FOUR STARS) Time Out Chicago

"...high-octane energy..allows theatergoers to feel like privileged voyeurs in the lions' den of high-volatility investment brokers... leaves us with the message to question the beast even if it's lavishly feeding the cow." Centerstage Chicago

"...a solid cast...I was very impressed with several of the actors and the characters they brought to life." Steadstyle Chicago

Directed by: Angelina Martinez
Written by: Heather Tyler
Featuring: Rob Biesenbach, Gretchen Carter, Ruta James, Jen LaForte, Christopher Marcum, Alex Moore, Chelsea Paice, Missy Styles, & Chas Vrba
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm through Saturday April 26th
Tickets: $20.00
Factory Theater at the Prop Thtr 3502 N. Elston Ave.
Ordering Tickets: call 866.811.4111 or order online by clicking here.

Set against the backdrop of Chicago's Financial District and one broker's surreal subconscious, Ceres takes us into the lions' den of hot-shot investment insurance brokers, sneaking a glimpse into the dubious actions of clandestine Unit 57 and its Board of Directors. Inspired by the demise of one of our nation's oldest industries and those caught in the middle of a scandal that continues today, Ceres exposes moments of truth and volatility, camaraderie and outright betrayal, where the world of corporate governance permeates individual beliefs of what is ethical - and desirable - in business and in life.

I'm so proud of our little company. This is a show with a lot of fine work in writing, directing, production design, and acting. I love the distortions the play exposes in the business world and the story of one woman's struggles with identity while trying in that same cutthroat world. Don't take my word for it. Get your tickets & go see for yourself.

Baseball's "Opening" Day

2008-03-25T15:45:00.002-05:00

The BoSox defeat the A's in ten innings. In Japan. That's cool & all, but I feel bad for anyone who had to start watching baseball early in the morning. It's also going to be a lot of jet lag for the teams involved. Yes, bringing the international flavor to baseball is all well and good, but I'm going to feel more excited when the season starts here in a few days. It can't be here soon enough, especially since we got four inches of snow in Chicago on the first day of Spring.

Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis! ("Mi Casa") Continues. Part Five: This Is More Than Just a Test

2008-03-25T15:20:00.005-05:00

Continuing a piece about my home town, it's odd military history, and my position within.

PREVIOUSLY ON "Mi Casa":
PART ONE: History. A timeline of important dates in this project.
PART TWO: Introductions. In which the players of this one-act socialist analysis first pop up.
PART THREE: Flash Back-Flash Forward. Work on the top-secret project begins.
PART FOUR: Start Your Engines. The people start building the bomb (in more than one place).

GREETER
Back in America, work proceeded on the atomic bomb. Los Alamos was a fortress city and the work was protected with the highest levels of secrecy. Uranium was processed and supplied from a Manhattan Engineer District laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There was only enough uranium to build three bombs. The first was finally tested at Trinity, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945 at 5:29.45 AM. The deadly force of atomic energy was finally on display, in more ways than one. The explosion turned the desert sand into green glass, blasted dust and smoke thousands of feet into the air. People as far as fifty miles from the detonation sight suddenly were bathed in light brighter than sunlight. Some called it, “the day the sun rose twice.”

(Some of the Witnesses to the Bomb appear. JOHN R. LUGO, DOLLY ONSRUD, ROWENA BACA, EVELYN FITE TUNE, WILLIAM WRYE and HELEN WRYE all enter and stand in a line on stage. As each individual speaks, their placard is held up by an actor on the side of the stage. When the individual exits, their placard is dropped.)

JOHN R. LUGO (Placard reads, “U.S. Navy Aviator flying transport plane at 10,000 feet going to West Coast at time of detonation.”)
I saw this tremendous explosion to the south of me, roughly 55 miles from my position. My first impression was, like, the sun coming up in the south. What a ball of fire! It was so bright it lit up the cockpit of the plane. I radioed Albuquerque and got no explanation but was told to not fly south. (Exit.)

DOLLY ONSRUD (Placard reads, “Rancher living roughly 20 miles from Trinity, ground zero of test-site.”)
I woke up, looked out my window and saw a mushroom cloud rising from the other side of the mountains, right where my cattle used to graze before the U.S. Army took over my land three years earlier. They just blew it up. I never got any land returned to me, and I never got compensated for giving up my ranch out of patriotic duty. (Exit.)

ROWENA BACA (Placard reads, “Grandfather José Miera owned the Owl Bar, 35 miles from Trinity site)
The Owl Bar was a popular hangout for the area’s scientists and soldiers. The night of the test, friendly MPs went to my grandfather’s house, woke him up, and told him to stand in the street out front because he was going to see something he had never seen before. The sky suddenly turned red. It illuminated the inside of the house I was in, reflecting red off the walls and ceiling. My grandmother shoved me and my cousin under a bed because she thought it was the end of the world. (Exit.)

EVELYN FITE TUNE (Placard reads, “Lives on ranch 24 miles from Trinity.”)
My husband and I were away in Nevada when the blast went off. No one knew what was going on out there, and of course none of us ever heard of Los Alamos or the atomic bomb. Finally, on the way back we went to a movie house in Denver and watched the newsreel. When they showed the hills around the blast area, my husband said, “Hell, that’s our ranch!” My friends and I visited the test site soon after. We found the hole, we picked up the glass, we climbed the twisted and melted parts of the tower. All those people grew up and married and had kids. Nobody that I know of ever turned up sterile. (Exit.)

WILLIAM WRYE (Placard reads, “Lives in house 20 miles northeast of Trinity.”)
My wife and I were returning from Amarillo the night before the explosion. We got to Bingham and there were eight or ten vehicles and all kinds of lights shining up on the clouds. We were stopped by an MP and a flashing red light. After we told them who we were, they let us go on to the ranch. We were so tired we must have slept right through the blast. Next morning, we were eating breakfast when we saw a couple of soldiers with a little black box out by the stock tank. I went out there and asked what they were doing, and they said they were looking for radioactivity. Well, we had no idea what radioactivity was back then. I told them we didn’t even have the radio on. For four or five days after that, a white substance like flour settled on everything. It got on the posts of the corral and you couldn’t see it real well in the daylight, but at night it would glow. Before long, my whiskers stopped growing. Three or four months later, they came back, but they were white, then later, black. The cattle in the area grew white hair along the side that had been exposed to the blast and half the coat on my black cat turned white. (Exit.)

HELEN WRYE (Placard reads, “Lives in house 20 miles northeast of Trinity.”)
People weren’t afraid of the government then. It was a time of innocence. People were trusting. We had never heard of an atomic bomb. (Exit.)

GREETER
People directly involved with the project also have thoughts to share.

(BERLYN BRIXNER and RAEMER SCHREIBER enter.)

BERLYN BRIXNER (Placard reads, “Chief Photographer of Trinity test.”)
I was to shoot 16-millimeter black-and-white movies from every angle and distance and at every speed. There were bunkers at 10,000 meters or 6.2 miles north, east, south and west from the site. I was stationed at the bunker north of
the test site. I was one of the few people given permission to look directly at the bomb at the time. I had calculated for a ten-sun brightness like the theoretical people told me. When the bomb went off, the whole filter seemed to light up as bright as the sun. I was temporarily blinded. I looked to the side. The Oscura Mountains were as bright as day. I saw this tremendous ball of fire, and it was rising. I was just spellbound! I followed it as it rose. Then it dawned on me. I’m the photographer! I’ve gotta get that ball of fire. There was no sound. It all took place in absolute silence. (Exit.)

GREETER
The bomb proved amazingly effective at destruction. The effects of radiation would soon become known not only to people like William Wrye, but to a much fuller extent for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we flash forward in time for a brief moment, we can hear another inside perspective. This on the effects of radiation for a later bomb test.

RAEMER SCHREIBER (Placard reads, “Head of Core Assembly team for Operation Crossroads in May 1946.”)
Operation Crossroads was a postwar Navy show that destroyed a fleet of surplus warships by two atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. In May, the cores of the bombs for Operation Crossroads were being checked out in a Los Alamos testing lab. Ted Perlman and I were taking readings from the initiators at one side of the room, and Louis Slotin, who assembled the core of the Trinity bomb, was seated at a table twenty feet away with a plutonium assembly. All of a sudden, there was this flash and a clatter and Louis says, “Well, that does it.” He probably knew that he was a dead man. The core sat among a nested set of spheres of beryllium, a neutron reflector. What he did was to lower one of the hemispheres of beryllium over the core sitting in the bottom half and hold it open with a screwdriver. The idea was to lower it down to where there was just a small gap and, if it gets critical, then you could just stop it at that point. You could waggle the screwdriver and make it multiply or quit. But the screwdriver slipped. The thing dropped completely closed, and that made it super critical, prompt critical. It was stopped by the expansion of the core and beryllium, but it was enough to put out a lethal shot of radioactivity. Slotin opened the assembly with his bare hands. It stopped it from sitting there and cooking, which would have been a pretty sad mess. So it got Louis, and it didn’t do Al Graves any good. He was a little farther away. All that happened to him was that he lost his hair. We all got the hell out of there. We went back up around the corner in back of the shielding wall and Slotin and Graves proceeded to write down the events, to make a record of it. Slotin began to get nauseated and a little crazy. We were all taken to the hospital. We were all OK except Slotin, who died in agony nine days later. (Exit.)

END OF PART FIVE. TO BE CONTINUED...

Go to PART SIX: Remember, New Perspective

Returning to My Roots While Writing About My History

2008-03-12T09:23:00.002-05:00

Forgive the long, extended posts of the Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis. Once everything's up, I'll create better organization on the sidebar.

I'm returning to New Mexico this weekend for a visit. It's been over two years since I've been to my home state. I don't know if Los Alamos will be on the agenda since my family now lives in Santa Fe and the driving distance between towns in New Mexico is at least 45 minutes. New Mexico is a BIG state, where it's 45 minutes between every town, and it'll take a full eight hours to go from one end of the state to the other. Yet, New Mexico has as many people in the entire state as the population of Chicago. This is a hard reality for people from the east and midwest US to grasp.

It's also a strange difference to go from a place like Chicago where there is an large fresh water source right by the city to New Mexico, where there is no water. My family has to buy their water if their well doesn't get enough run-off from snowfall or the sparse rainfall. No leaving the sinks or showers running to wait for hot water, keep the toilet flushes down, and be prepared for chapped lips. In Chicago, there's never an issue of too many flushes or water being left on.

Since I'm writing my history and about to physically re-visit it, I wonder how it will look and feel having been away so long. Even if Los Alamos isn't a part of our visit, I can't help but wonder if the barbed wire fences put in to prevent a Nazi invasion in 1944 are still up in the canyons surrounding the city. I'll have to drive past the guard tower at the front of town to find out.

Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis! ("Mi Casa") Continues. Part Four: Start Your Engines

2008-03-12T09:04:00.007-05:00

Just to Break Things Up a Little...

2008-02-27T12:20:00.002-06:00

The Baseball Season can't start soon enough. Baseball symbolizes Spring, warmth, a well-earned reward from a shitty winter, and hopeful healthy competition alongside beer and peanuts. I recently wrote about my absurd quest to get baseball season tickets, and I have tickets for two games this year so far. The season won't start for another five weeks, but I'm so ready. Especially after our latest snowstorm, which gives us 51 inches so far in 2007-2008, placing this wretched winter in the top 20 of Chicago snowfalls. Yeesh. Oh, bring me baseball soon, and gimme a good season. (do not jinx, I pray)

Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis! ("Mi Casa") Continues. Part Three: Flash Back - Flash Forward

2008-02-27T11:43:00.010-06:00

Mad Cap Socialist Self Analysis! Continues ("Mi Casa") Part Two: Introductions

2008-02-15T13:48:00.014-06:00

Continuing a piece about my home town, it's odd military history, and my position within.

Incidentally, here's what my home town used to look like.

Now, back to the Blogzine...I'll call this series MCSSA or "Mi Casa" for short.

PREVIOUSLY ON MCSSA! ("Mi Casa"):
PART ONE: History. A timeline of important dates in this project

------

Part Two: Introductions

Setting: A theatre.

(As the audience walks into the theatre, they should see a placard mounted on an easel that says, “Welcome Into the Theatre! The Play Will Be Performed In Here.” Audience lights and stage lights are at the same level as the audience comes in and gets seated. As the audience comes in to be seated, the actors playing ERNST BLOCH, BERTOLT BRECHT, FREDRIC JAMESON, GEORG LUKÁCS, KARL MARX, ALEXANDER RODCHENKO, and LEON TROTSKY are waiting to help the audience to their seats. Each actor is wearing posterboard placards around their necks with their character’s names written in large letters. The placards should be large enough to cover the actors’ chests so their character names are the actor’s most noticeable feature. Other actors with names of other influential Marxists or Marxist critics will also be milling about the theatre, greeting the audience and helping them to their seats. When the play is ready to begin, the GREETER comes on stage, and the other actors congregate in a line in front of the stage.)

GREETER
Good evening, audience. Tonight you will be seeing a play, performed here in the theatre. We will be making this play together as we, the actors and technicians, will put a play on display for the purpose of getting a reaction out of you, the audience. Keep in mind that this is a play. The purpose of this play is to examine the identity of one town from a Marxist perspective. That town is Los Alamos, New Mexico. Some of you may be familiar with this town, some may not. We have provided everyone with historical handouts within their programs. Hopefully you’ve had ample time to examine them. These handouts detail the physical history of Los Alamos, New Mexico and its influence on the development of the atomic bomb. The handout also covers some of the effects of the development of nuclear weapons and the arms race as well as Los Alamos’s later role in the Cold War. Now, let’s bring the purpose of this play out to the stage so that the play can begin. Allow me to introduce Colin Milroy.

(COLIN MILROY walks on stage, looking shy and embarrassed. He waves sheepishly to the audience.)

GREETER
Members of the audience, the purpose of the play you are about to watch is for this man to understand his hometown better. To gain new perspectives from which he can critique. We will help him define his own perspective and give him new tools for examination

JAMESON
Historicize!

BLOCH
Artistic reality: feel free to express!

LUKÁCS
Artistic reality: keep it simple!

RODCHENKO
Look at this differently!

TROTSKY
Haven’t we seen this before?

BRECHT
You’re watching a play!

MARX(Gestures to the audience and speaks to the other actors) Would you quit oppressing them from your supposed position of superiority?

GREETER
(Trying to pacify things by settling the actors down) Now, now, let’s not get over-excited and act stereotypically. We have to think carefully. Get a new perspective. We have to re-examine, not oversimplify. Now, as I was saying, you may refer to your inserts for additional information as we give a short re-enactment of the history of Los Alamos. Mr. Milroy, please have a seat in the audience.

(The actors remove their placards and disperse throughout the stage. NOTE: As actors enter the stage to play their different roles during the re-enactment scenes, other actors on the sides of the stage will hold up placards with the characters’ names written in large letters. The side actors will keep holding up the placards for the duration of the scene.)

COLIN MILROY
This is a little confusing. (Goes and sits in a seat in the audience marked, “Reserved.”)

GREETER
The year is 1942. The United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan have all been investigating the possibility of building an atomic bomb since two German scientists first split the nucleus of uranium in 1938. Russia, initially unconcerned with the possibility of building an atomic bomb, started its research after Soviet spies intercept a report from the British MAUD committee in 1941 detailing England’s research into building atomic weapons. Igor Kurchatov is put in charge of researching the atomic bomb. In America, J. Robert Oppenheimer is put in charge of the American atomic bomb project, called the Manhattan Project. The location of the nuclear weapons deign laboratory is chosen. It will come to be known as Los Alamos National Laboratory, or “The Lab” for short.

(OPPENHEIMER comes on stage with GENERAL LESLIE GROVES)

J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (Placard reads, “Prestigious University of California Professor, Nobel Prize winner, picked by Groves to head Lab as general in army of scientists)
This place is perfect for the laboratory.

GEN. LESLIE GROVES (Placard reads, “Commander of Manhattan District Corps of Engineers)
Yes, this is better than Jemez Springs. We can control access to the town through the mesa’s main entry road and use the surrounding canyons for explosives tests.

MAJ. JOHN DUDLEY (Placard reads “Manhattan District staff in charge of finding suitable lab sites in western U.S.)
But there’s hardly any water!

OPPENHEIMER
Look how pretty it is. Look at the Sangre de Cristo mountain range! That’ll be good for morale.

GEN. GROVES
Yes, the military staff and commanders will need to be kept happy.

OPPENHEIMER
Military…? Excuse me?

DUDLEY
Fine, Eggheads. All I’ve had to work with is finding a place for a laboratory that’s building I don’t know what and having a staff size anywhere from 265 to
600. Jemez Springs was fine, but big Mr. Oppenheimer has to have final approval.

A.J. CONNELL (Placard reads, “Director of Los Alamos Ranch School”)
(Enters the stage with ASHLEY POND during previous conversation) Ahem. Excuse me, but I’m running a school here. This is a natural habitat where Troop 22 of the Boy Scouts of America can “learn by doing” in the outdoors, following good President Teddy Roosevelt’s ideal of a vigorous life.

(ROBERT PATTERSON enters.)

ROBERT PATTERSON (Placard reads, “Undersecretary of War”)
Sorry. I just approved the land’s acquisition. The military will be taking over the property and we’ll be using your buildings. The property is condemned. Signed and dated in a letter, December 1, 1942.

ASHLEY POND (Placard reads, “Owned land where Los Alamos Ranch School was built. Founded school.”)
Aaaaugh! I’ve owned this land since 1918! The air is clean and healthy here, perfect for outdoor wellness. We’ve been building up this school since 1920!

CONNELL
Yes, I’ve added college curriculum courses. We just had our highest ever enrollment of 47 students!

GEN. GROVES
We’ll use the Big House as bachelor quarters, that garage will become a fire station, the arts and crafts building can be used for housing and a nursery school…

DUDLEY
We’ll have to start digging immediately.

POND
So much for my peaceful, natural habitat.

(Current Los Alamos has landmark named for Ashley Pond)

CONNELL
We’ll have to close to the school. It can’t be transplanted out of this habitat. I’ll send a letter to the alumni. (To PATTERSON) At least allow us to finish our current term. We’ll work through Christmas vacation.

PATTERSON
When will the term end?

CONNELL
February 8, 1943.

OPPENHEIMER
February????!!!

PATTERSON
Very well. You may finish your term.

GEN. GROVES
What a beautiful military installation this will be!

OPPENHEIMER
Ahem, yes, about it being a “military” installation…

GEN. GROVES
(To OPPENHEIMER) Gather your scientists!

OPPENHEIMER
Yes, well, I’ve been talking to some of the best university professors all over the country…

GEN. GROVES
Excellent! Send me their measurements. We’ll start requisitioning their uniforms. (Exits along with PATTERSON, DUDLEY, CONNELL, and POND.)

OPPENHEIMER
Oh no…

END OF PART TWO. TO BE CONTINUED...

Go to PART THREE: Flash Back - Flash Forward
Go to PART FOUR: Start Your Engines
Go to PART FIVE: This Is More Than Just a Test
Go to PART SIX: Remember, New Perspective

I Got My Place in Line!

2008-02-11T15:46:00.000-06:00

Yes, I registered for Cubs Season Tickets. In actuality, I registered for a spot on the waiting list. So my current spot on the list is 81,627. Daunting? Hardly. I need that many people ahead of me so I have time to put together the dough to pay the fee. Once an amount of people over four times the size of my home town take their turn, I'll be ready. I can already smell the peanuts and beer from the ballpark.

Thank God spring training starts in two days. This has been a mean winter.

Back to the 'Zine: Mad Cap Socialist Self-Analysis! ("Mi Casa") Part One: History

2008-02-08T13:10:00.005-06:00

Back to the publishing aspect of this site, here's another composition. Socialist literary analysis and the odd military history of my hometown with a little self analysis to boot.

LOS ALAMOS AND THE BOMB
A Socialist Perspective in One Act

TIMELINE

December, 1938 – German scientists split the nucleus of uranium, demonstrating the ability to release energy from the nucleus.

September 1, 1939 – Nazi Germany invades Poland. World War II begins.

June 22, 1941 – Germany invades Russia.

July, 1941 – The MAUD Committee, a British agency, prints its final report on Britain’s research into atomic weaponry. Soviet agents intercept most of report and bring it back to Russia in September.

March, 1942 – In Russia, Lavrenti Beria writes a memo summarizing the intelligence he had collected from Britain and the United States. He recommends that the Soviets create a team to investigate building an atomic bomb.

October, 1942 – General Leslie Groves asks J. Robert Oppenheimer to head Project Y: the construction of a new laboratory specifically for designing and building atomic weapons

December 1, 1942 – Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson acquires land in and around the Los Alamos Ranch School for the new lab’s site. The Ranch School’s land is condemned and taken over by the military. The school is allowed to finish its final term.

January, 1943 – Construction of Los Alamos and the National Laboratory begin.

February 8, 1943 – The final term at Los Alamos Ranch School ends.

July 16, 1945 at 5:29.45 AM – The first atomic bomb test at Trinity, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Aug 6, 1945 - First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Aug 9, 1945 - Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan.

September 24, 1949 – President Truman says Russia has atomic weapons.

May, 1946 – Operation Crossroads: two atomic bombs detonated at Bikini Atoll.

November 3, 1972 – Colin Milroy is born.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Go to PART TWO: Introductions
Go to PART THREE: Flash Back - Flash Forward
Go to PART FOUR: Start Your Engines
Go to PART FIVE: This Is More Than Just a Test
Go to PART SIX: Remember, New Perspective

"Believe It or Not," Financial-Style

2008-02-03T10:23:00.001-06:00

A quick run-in with what to believe and the unbelieveable in my world of finance. Junk mail, both of the digital spam variety and the material snail mail, is an unavoidable reality. Mail and/or spam promises lots of credit cards or an unending supply of sexual enhancements. Sadly, no more Horny TEENage SLuTz wANNT me BAD bad. That must have been the 90's spam phenomenon before the male enhancement drug phenomenon. Mostly, junk mail spam is simply irksome. I've even had a wee little spam draped on to my writing in the comments of this post. On the one hand, at least I know that's a popular post because of the spamming attention it got; on the other hand, I don't do this for some fool to post their meaningless links here. Usually, no one reads this site, so I don't worry. That's sort of the anonymity I'd been able to settle into in my email and financial affairs existence. Any pre-approved credit notice I get is instantly trashed and any sort of enticing sweepstakes notice meets the same fate. Worldly and wise, no? I'm not going to be taken in by any half-baked scheme and I'm smart enough to research everything so I can avoid being victimized, right?

Not so fast. I got something through the mail, did my research, protected myself, and still got an unexpected little shock in a way I'd never imagined.

I received a statement in the mail detailing a court decision in my favor against many credit card companies. Naturally, I liked the looks of this mail, it did look like an official court document, and it says I'm entitled to money. That last part, of course, gives me pause because there isn't such a thing as free money. But this rather extensive statement says, in short, that a settlement (subject to final approval) has been reached in Antitrust Litigation against Visa, MasterCard, and Diners Club card brands because of foreign transactions between February 1, 1996 and November 8, 2006; if I made any overseas charges on those brands of credit cards during that time period, I'm entitled to some money. The letter and court documents came from www.ccfsettlement.com. I was skeptical. Through my research, I discovered I was not alone. I was satisfied that this mail was legitimate when I found an MSNBC article explaining the court decision. I did think that it would be easy for a dedicated web designer to fake all of this and I could be blindly submitting my info for anyone to receive. Granted I'm only providing my mailing address, but still; why give anyone any contact information anymore? I question what to believe in media since current technology has enough editing tools to create very believable fakes of people, places, and documents.

The problem was, while I was busy researching and supposedly protecting myself, I learned that my identity had already been stolen years ago, completely unnoticed.

I would never have known had I not started to look at buying property. Thanks to a real estate agent, I learned that my identity via my ss# was taken by a "Raymond Joe" in 2001 for a Sprint account. My financial identity is probably one of the last ones anyone would want to steal because I've done enough damage to own credit in the past and have had to build my financial self back up slowly over the past few years. I'm also lucky that I only got one small theft of my vested self, at least that I know of now. I don't have the first clue how anyone would get my ss# or why they would use it to only open a lousy Sprint account for a few months. Ironically, Raymond and Joe are both family names and Sprint fired my uncle during downsizing years ago.

It was odd putting up all my protection only to learn I had already been robbed. Strange thinking that anyone would be foolish enough to steal my identity, mostly because I didn't think it would get anyone very much, yet finding out it had already happened a long time ago, to my complete obliviousness. And to think someone took a little piece of me out there, looking to better himself. That's oddly flattering, but it's attention I can do without.

This wasn't a quick run-in at all.

This Link is Posted Mostly to Remind Me of Where to Go With Questions Like This (And I Make My First Horror Movie Reference in over Six Months)

2008-01-29T10:18:00.001-06:00

This is what's been on my mind a lot lately:

Whether to buy property or to continue renting.

A stressful but fun conundrum. Plus, I get to use all sorts of quirky economic calculators. Bad-case scenario: become a living version of the The Money Pit, only I don't have anywhere near the liquidity for Danny Aiello to bail my ass out. Best-case scenario: a nice looking place like the one in Poltergeist, but without the graveyard foundation and demonic spirits. Here's the problems. With buying, I can't help but think that something unforseen will rise to the surface and wreak havoc. Not ghosts or flying furniture, but water heaters that explode or a roof that was weaker than it appeared. On renting: I don't believe I have to answer to some outdated stereotype of being an "adult" by owning property. Also, if I'd been an "adult" and bought property a couple of years ago like many advised I should, I'd be rather up the crapper now financially. Renting is safer and more mobile, but it's also shitty. I'm tired of having so much of my environment out of my control. I'm tired of not being able to truly and totally work on my own space. I do want my own house just to have it be my own and make it into a home. I just don't want it to haunt me in the real and imagined sense.

Firewall's Still Being Nice...And This is About Music...in case anyone's watching

2008-01-28T11:27:00.000-06:00

Amazing. I can still write and post here. This will have to be hit and run because I'm working on four publications simultaneously and the firewall might bite me in the ass at any minute. For Edmond, my best friend (and anyone else who was alive and young in the '80s), what happens when you somehow revisit the music you couldn't get enough of during our teenage years? What happens when you listen and the past comes back up in images and feelings, or even lyrics? Take New Order, which I just heard on satellite radio, or The Cure (coming to Chicago in May), and other such favored "alternatives" that we listened to, or maybe the so-called "harder" stuff like Skinny Puppy, the Dead Kennedys, Boston, or eighties Metallica: what do you feel when you hear? I'm sometimes embarassed by the overwhelming dramatized cheese of the music in that era, because I flung myself full-force into some of those songs. Other times, I feel defensive and self-important. It was the 80's, dammit! That was my youth and that was the sweet time of goth-rock, hair bands who wore makeup, and other such androgyny. "That-was-my-time-and-I-loved-it-and-piss-on-anyone-who-doesn't-love-the-eighties-or-wasn't-alive-to-hear-the-coolness." Usually, head-shaking follows these thoughts. Still, I gotta feel the love, because of memory attached to music, regardless of cheese level. Wonder what imbedded attachments are being formed to this generation's crap? I hope Fall Out Boy never inspires a contemplative moment.

Whether It Will Last...

2008-01-25T13:31:00.001-06:00

My place of employment (where I am a copywriter; I'm actually being paid to write which astounds me) normally blocks Blogger through their firewall, but for whatever reason, I'm able to sign in during writing hours for the first time in months. No guarantee it will last, so I'll use this time for an update.

Biggest personal update: my wife and I welcomed our first child on October 1, 2007. He's beautiful and it's been utterly exhausting. There's no way to properly describe how tired one gets with a newborn, but I found I could function for 36 hours straight. Granted, I was irritable, exhausted, and insane but I was functional at a basic level. Luckily, the little guy is really good-looking and has a terrific personality. Other updates: the Factory Theater rolls on. Dirty Diamonds was a critical and commercial success. It was part of the Best of 2007 in the Chicago Tribune, selected as a Metromix pick, and received great attention from audiences and critics. Timeout also gave Siskel and Ebert a nice write-up alongside some history of the Factory. I'm very proud to be in the ensemble of such a fine company.

Having a newborn in the family has completely erased any semblance of my previous existence, but I guess that's sort of supposed to happen. He was a long and painful time coming, and adusting to him along with keeping other stuff in order takes a lot of time. Still, I try to keep abreast of writing, theater, and movies, but all of that has slipped back a bit. Best movie I can recommend now is Juno, but I haven't seen many, so there may be some good movies I'm missing. Writing-wise, Pulp Friday is being developed into a play, and Clarity in Amsterdam was never published but a few things can certainly be fixed within it.

Hopefully, there will be more entries here soon. What say you, firewall?

Coming to the Factory...

2007-10-25T10:48:00.001-05:00

The next production from the Factory Theater (my happy place of residence as Ensemble): a gritty bit of crime, trickery, and a hidden stash of loot. Sin in Vegas, guns in faces, and a femme fatale looking aces (or is it spades?) Oh, and I will be bartending Saturday for the benefit performance. Care to wager I pour you the best damn drink ever?

Here's a show teaser:

$30 bucks for a soon to be classic show, open bar, kick ass tunes, and partying with the one and only Factory Theater???

COME ON!

Further information on the Factory Theater

100th Post

2007-09-24T18:40:00.000-05:00

After a year and a half (and some REEEEEALLLY long gaps between writing), I've finally achieved my 100th post to this blog. Sadly, my motivation for writing this post comes from the end of an era. I was a (part-time) contributing writer to Like You Really Care and a long-time fan of the site. It was a healthy combination of political awareness, pop culture commentary, self-deprecating humor, silly fun, and a writing community. I was honored to be a contributor, and I'm sorry to say my contributions to that site fell sharply over the past year due to (among other things) my company firewall's blocking of Blogger and my own issues. Hell, I've barely contributed to this site for a while. With that said, I'm very sorry to see such a good blog go away. Arlo blogged long before blogging became as mainstream as it is today. Still, I'm inspired by Arlo's openness to change; it is good to move on to other things and I wish Arlo and the other contributors the best of success. Change has always made me jumpy, especially when unexpected, but Arlo is right that there are new things to be done now with online writing forums. Arlo's previous work and proactivity to start anew inspires me to finally take the plunge of building my own web domain; I have ideas and plenty of material, but I've never taken the time to register and write the HTML to make my own site. I think that LYRC gave me the feeling that I'd always have a public forum with other writers to work in, and that feeling, along with addressing my other priorities, made me complacent. Today, I took the first few steps to registering a domain and I am gathering material to put there once it's set up. I need a company firewall-proof domain in which to write, and Blogger ain't it. So thanks to Arlo for me letting play for a bit and thanks for Like You Really Care; it was very good while it lasted. Finally, thanks for getting me up. I've got tremendous changes coming momentarily in my own life, and not just in online writing. I plan on making a better online forum a significant part of those changes. And I hope people will come out to play.

Crazy Good Time Peace of Mind

2007-07-22T23:03:00.002-05:00

Holy cow, what a month. I've wanted to post more about the extraordinarily good time of Roger Ebert coming to see the Factory Theater (of which I am now a proud Ensemble member) and Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago. I'm so glad he came to see our little show and enjoyed himself. It's been a great run which will sadly end next week. Happily, though, we've added two extra shows on Sunday the 29th. Here's a little background and here's just a little more background behind the show. The Factory Theater is a damn fine place to call home, and credit an outstanding cast, whipcrack direction, indisputably exceptional stage managing, and a slickly smart playwriting mind as major components of the latest, greatest success. It's fair to say I love being a part. Tonight, we were graced by the Siskel family and some other terrific people who hopefully enjoyed our playful and sweetly vulgar show. Thanks all.

Would that my new job's firewall did not block Blogger or I'd be posting my gushing like a fiend. As it is, I'll put up my giddies whenever I can. I'll have to find means of coping with show withdrawl a week from now. It's painful to let a good thing go; I get sad and weepy throwing out old notebooks from classes I took 15 years ago. Memory is precious to me. I know it's abstract, but I remember many things physically, and I never feel I'm holding tight enough to the good stuff. That's the difficult part of closing a show since there's not many tactile reminders of the laughs, sweat, and work that's gone into months of work and good times. Being in a show like Siskel & Ebert Save Chicago (and doing theater in general) is a bit like having a security blanket; I value it so highly but I know it's something I have to give up eventually and move on. I'm very glad to be in the Factory Theater family because I know there will be more good times to come. Plus, I may just have access to video files of past shows so I can relive the magic. Still, nothing will replace running back and forth between scenes from backstage to the front of the house, sweating my guts off, working a scene or watching the Roller Girls, Socombie minions or shtickingly accurate portrayals of local media celebrities work their magic while we and the audience happily laugh in the fun. Memory scrapbook moments. I wish I had these comforting peaces of mind on paper protected by plastic, but quoting lines to myself and snickering aloud in public (not so silently) will just have to do. Thumbs up.

Holy Shit

2007-06-25T00:59:00.001-05:00

Tonight, for the Factory Theater's opening of Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago, Roger Ebert himself was in the audience. He apparently gave it a thumbs up and appeared to enjoy himself. Wow. That's so cool. Especially after all the other good buzz the show's been getting. I'll write more on this later. I have to go to sleep. Thanks, Roger!

What About Today?

2007-06-20T09:57:00.000-05:00

Slightly improved, although prospects for further cantankerousness remains high.

Still Using That Feature For My Own Site

2007-06-14T13:21:00.000-05:00

Current mood: still pretty damn grouchy.

I Don't Need MySpace to Use This Feature

2007-06-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

Current mood: sucks.

i'M NOW USiNG a mAC 4 mY POSTS...

2007-06-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

...and it's been a while since I've used a Mac for anything. It's like re-learning to drive stick shift. I'm getting the feel for the wheels and it's starting to be smooth. I will never, ever buy that friggin iPhone because I'll never be able to afford it, but I'll bet it's some of the finest shit ever. I wish I had the time and money to actually test all the Apple and Mac whores who go out of their way to point out their tool's superiority in my own life instead of my work life. I'm not saying the Jobs-Zombies are wrong (blah,blah,blah Bill Gates got really lucky that Xerox allowed him to have Windows and it always has its problems, etc. I know. I've been a PC technician for years, so I know) but now I can see a little better for myself. Any and all hints/shortcuts/Easter Eggs/tools/quirks about Macs are now welcome. So let me know.

UPDATE: Never mind. Me and my damned, stupid belief in the words "long-term" actually matching with "assignment" when I'm told so.

Coming Soon...

2007-05-31T13:40:00.002-05:00

From the Factory Theater, Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago. What if there were no more movies? What if secret shadowy agencies were trying to turn Chicago into a bland, one-dimensional entertainment black hole? What if there had to be serious laughs and ass-kicking fights to prevent all this? Go see this show and by God, you'll find out. I'm mostly playing parts associated with the shadowy agencies...

BONUS! There will be a ten minute serial series to open each of these shows working in three parts throughout the run. I'm lucky because I'm a fan of playing maniacal villains and the serial series format; this show allows me to do BOTH! Don't miss it.

The New Season of Anxiety at 24 Season's End

2007-05-29T12:47:00.001-05:00

I finally saw the 24 season finale. As seen in a previous post, my weeks usually start with Anxiety on Monday (yes, I know today’s Tuesday, but same rules apply no matter when the week starts), for which I have several balms. One of the most effective anxiety treatments I have is Jack Bauer. When my own everyday worries give me jitter-frenzy, either when I first wake up or during the midnight insomnia, I take comfort that I don’t have to make a world-changing decision every 50 minutes, I don’t have to execute anybody, and I haven’t spent two years in a Chinese prison. Somehow, my real-life worries take on smaller significance and I’m comforted. Jack Bauer’s world is violent, torture-filled, grief stricken, and so forth, but it is simple in terms of decision making. With his gravelly flair, Jack Bauer says give me what I want or I will maim/torture/kill you. I wish I had that kind of simplicity when it came to my own decision making, even if it is a little too absolute. The soothing, simple, completely irrational and overblown violence of one guy protecting the country from all threats is astonishingly oversimplified and unrealistic for dealing with everyday life, not to mention foreign policy. I just like the thought of someone, even an unreal someone, roving around just outside my complicated little world, ready to cut through everything with a snarl and sharp phrase, knowing what’s right and ready to kick whatever ass gets in the way. Real life is complicated, fantasy life is simple. Jack Bauer provides that nice slice of simplicity I need in a complicated, anxiety-filled life.

But not so fast. Without ruining anything for anyone who hasn’t seen the season, I can safely say that the latest season finale is much quieter than previous ones. Whereas most previous seasons ended with nail biting cliffhangers, this season ends in non-violent fashion with a long silence. No going out with a bang this time, just a hush. My initial reaction was anti-climactic disappointment. Where’s the huge crisis that’s going to lure me in for next season? Why should keep watching if I don’t know what’s coming? Gimme my splashy ending! But on second thoughts, I think this muted ending is even more terrifying than the usual exploding sendoff. Again, without giving too much away, Jack Bauer is left with nothing to fight and nowhere to go. There’s a sense of being at a crossroads of uncertainty, instead of the comforting assurance of immediate action. There’s no big, bad crisis looming. Everything’s smooth in the 24-Reality USA now, despite all the nuking, gassing, shooting, killing, and exploding that’s happened on US soil the past day. It’s as if Jack Bauer might have to deal with regular everyday choices now instead of fighting off evil hordes of terrorists. Direct and simple just became complicated and unsure.

The constant uncertainty of the everyday world keeps me up late and wakes me up early with the kind of fear that I normally reserve for a good horror movie or high altitude plunge. The thought of Jack Bauer dealing with the everyday world is something completely outside my comfort zone. Dispatching of obviously evil terrorists is well within his means, but the everyday world is beyond anyone’s control. I don’t want complicated decisions infringing on my easily digested action-packed soothing reality of Bauer. But on third thoughts, I wonder if this isn’t a smart move from the producers of 24. Taking a character outside a comfort zone can create growth, as long as care is taken to avoid proverbial shark-jumping. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll move on to my other anxiety balms. I just hope there’s a “DAMMIT!” and a “SHUT UP! (sticks gun in thug’s face) Now you listen to me…” coming next season. Where would I be without at least some comforting certainties like these?

Successful Followup

2007-04-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

Shaun of the Dead is easily the best horror-comedy since Saturday the 14th. I don’t count Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt because they are horror narratives that occasionally delve into comedy. Shaun of the Dead holds a special and unique place in movies for me because of its successful genre-crossover. It is definitely a horror movie, but it is also very funny. The plot is familiar; zombies destroy civilization while a few ragged survivors fight for their lives. The first big laughs come from the blissful obliviousness of the main characters as their world crumbles around them. The laughs continue as the well-directed cast of strong actors encounter and escape zombie peril while London crashes. Writer/star Simon Pegg, writer/director Edgar Wright, and co-star Nick Frost created a gem. Naturally, it’s exciting to see a reunion of these same principal minds (along with some of the Dead cast) to take on a new genre through a comedic lens. Hot Fuzz opened last weekend and I was there to see it.

It’s fun. Lots of fun. There’s much of the same successful formula. The comedy comes from good use of old jokes and jollying with the police-action movie genre. Yet Hot Fuzz never becomes straight parody along the lines of Airplane, Hot Shots, or The Naked Gun. As with Shaun of the Dead, Pegg and Wright respect their genre while playing around. There’s loud and impressive gun battles, splattery murders, and all-around good combat. There’s also an intriguing, if not overly complex murder-mystery plot. Simply put, Pegg (a hard-case London cop forcefully re-assigned to the rural country) must find out why so many back-woods Brits in a small, peaceful village are being suspiciously bumped off. Frost plays a bumbling member of local law-enforcement and Jim Broadbent (an accomplished actor in his own right) plays the forcefully docile local Chief of Police. The deaths are obviously murders, but the townsfolk are content to write everything off as quaint accidents. Pegg spends a large portion of the movie trying to convince the small-town yokels and himself that he’s not imagining everything.

This brings me to my one major complaint; the movie is about 10 minutes too long. There isn’t one scene or character or plot that needs to be chopped. Rather, a few small parts could be pared off throughout. There’s maybe a few too many minutes of overly simple-minded townsfolk, a couple of trim-able scenes of nearly catching the murderer again, and a bumbling moment or two to remove. This is not a crippling fault, but a slightly shorter running time would have helped. Something that works so well shouldn't be overdone. At least it's a good movie that's a little long. Comparing this movie to another consumable would be to say that it's more akin to eating too much good food rather than a good meal gone bad.

Having addressed an unexpected fault, here’s a pleasant surprise. Timothy Dalton is really good. He plays the clearly and savoringly evil big businessman taking advantage of the small town folk. In addition, he always shows up at crime scenes having made obviously incriminating remarks just before murders occur: “He’ll be in little bits tomorrow” and “I’d love to crack your skull open” are two choice examples. Dalton takes to his part with relish and he’s enjoyable to watch. Nice to see a less successful ex-Bond make good. The addled members of the local SWAT team and the hick townspeople make up an excellent ensemble. The story works, the movie flows well, and great genre-bending is in full effect. Pegg and Wright also take the time to develop their characters and create a sense of conflict and development for a larger story among the comedy, blood, and bullets. Pegg’s and Frost’s characters both have personal issues to solve, and the movie takes several turns that make the mystery and action more complex. The movie works really well in many ways, and I’m glad to say that the smart-minded folk behind Shaun of the Dead did themselves good again. I hope the movie gets wide release and this creative team gets it well-deserved due so that we can see more of their work.

On The Recent Terrible Event...

2007-04-18T13:02:00.000-05:00

My condolences to the students, faculty, friends and family of the dead and wounded at Virginia Tech. As a college teacher, even part-time & unemployed as I am, I feel for the horror that so many experienced on April 16 on the Virginia Tech campus. A terrible tragedy. Not much more can be said at this point, but I do have a few points about the reactions to this tragedy on the other blog I write for, in case anyone is interested. Regardless, my sympathies to those experiencing terrible pain and loss from this event.

Slathering on the Corporate Cheese

2007-04-12T12:28:00.000-05:00

My latest assignment to address bill paying involves looking at bright, fresh print ads for a major media conglomerate. I'm doing the same thing as I do in English class; look for grammar and spelling errors in composition as well as non-sensical layout. When I started this assignment, there was talk of some copywriting as well as working with new desktop publishing software. Thus far, it's been all error checking and layout repair with one notable exception.

This mega-powerful conglomerate is taking a page straight out of "The Dundies" episode of The Office by creating a ceremony with an Academy Awards theme. This ceremony presents awards to employees who promote diversity in the workplace. Rewarding employees by giving them a ceremony like they're movie stars is a nice, if derivative idea that should please many people. It's enjoyable to watch the creation of the show's program because I get to see some multimedia software at work (a part of modern technology I'm slowly catching up to) and I get to watch the assembly of the corporate award show veneer. The online and print program has appropriate glitz and glam to it and I was allowed to make one contribution beyond correcting horrendous spelling and inarticulate prose. The copywriter needed a small bit for the program and she asked me for my thoughts.

"I need a quote here and I'm not sure what to do," the copywriter said with a nervous fidget (the proof was due in an hour and printing a 50+ page Mac document with picture files takes at least an hour).

We needed this quote for space filler between two different sections of the awards. Other quotes sprinkled in the program involved standard congratulatory corporate rhetoric such as, "This team rolled up its sleeves," "His work pushed this account over the top," "She catapulted the project," etc. Since the filler space transitions between the individual awards and the group awards, I immediately thought of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of few, and tried to find a comparable catchphrase. With that in mind, I said, "We should have something really deep and cheesy and silly like..."

Pause. Then I finished my thought.

"The power of one adds to the powers of many."

The copywriter gasped with a smile on her face. "They'll eat that right UP!" she said and quickly filled the program space with my cheese; very likely the worst phrase I've ever composed, yet a phrase that seemed to fit so well.

My next thought pictured my phrase on the bottom of a huge wall poster showing a sweeping overhead shot of a tiny human rock climber, little fists raised in triumph, perched atop the highest mountaintop in a glorious range of forests and high granite peaks. Miserable corporate workers look at this poster, read my phrase, and curse me unknowingly for making their working lives worse by shoving treacle triteness in their faces, reminding them to be happy in their daily drudgery. The point of these imaginings, of course, is that I've copywritten, packaged, and sold my cheese trite phrase for a ton of cash and am busy spending as much of it as I can.

However, I am like the people I've made to suffer in my imaginings: I'm the corporate worker who looks for breaks and reveries to occupy my thoughts during the necessary drudgery of corporate business. Still, for one split second, I can feel like I've contributed to something larger. It's likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of people will be reading this phrase during the awards show (I'm working with one of the BIG conglomerates) so my phrase, this tiny and horrible part of my writing, will have the largest audience ever given to one of my compositions.

So, all you diversity award winners and audience members, I apologize for dropping this awful clause in your lap. However, I'm glad that so many people will read one of my sentences.

Clarity in Amsterdam, Part Seven (Conclusion)

2007-04-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

The final chapter from the revised version of travel writings from 2005.

If you're new this story, catch up by clicking on "PART ONE" below.

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX

We all take the last couple of days trying to justify ourselves as cultured tourists. We go to the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank house. We travel to Belgium to witness beer being made in the last brewery that uses natural yeast in the air for fermentation. Every other brewery in the world imports its yeast. I learn that beer is actually yeast piss. It doesn’t bother me.

We see the brilliant works of Rembrandt, the glory of the 16th century treasures from the lost Dutch empire, the mashing of modern and medieval architecture in Brussels; we are very, very stoned when we see these and many other beautiful works of culture, art, and life.

Mystique is part of the lure of Amsterdam, just as mystique holds the power to secrets. Imagination gives more power than reality. I love Amsterdam, but I find that I don’t want to debauch myself as much as I thought I would because there isn’t as much mystique or wonder for vices that are readily available, even for drugs and sex (although I still remind myself that I would not feel this way had I been to Amsterdam when I was five years younger). It was as if every piece of candy that I ever wanted was put in front of me, but it was the allure and not the action that held the mystique.

Returning home is very hard. The trip was a protective cocoon of sorts, isolating me from all the problems I face, but I have to come out from behind the shield. I still don’t know how to like myself more. I don’t feel any additional strength or wisdom. There is no clear path for me, no enlightenment that I so desperately wanted and expected. But there is no sense of waste or loss. I’ve gained something, but it may take a long time (if ever) to notice any real effects.

I hope to return to Holland soon, now that I can find my way in Amsterdam. I’ve kept my city map. I’ll bring it with me when I return, but I won’t need to look at it so much. On my first day, when I was lost, I did promise to stay at a hotel near the first canal off Damrak. There is that and many other things I want to do on the return trip, the first being a stop in the coffee shop to watch European football. There, the singing will start anew, and for a little while, I will again know perfect unison.

A Welcome Prize

2007-03-27T14:28:00.001-05:00

I'm pleased to report that my Little Miss Sunshine review won an online contest from m80 and I now have a sparkling new copy of Little Miss Sunshine (movie info) as a prize. Like my theater work, I don't expect to be compensated for writing, but I sure do appreciate any sort of pay when it does come. Ideally, of course, I'd be compensated commensurate to the time, sweat, blood, etc. I've put into the two crafts I love so dearly, but if I did either of these activities for the money, I'd have left them over ten years ago. So I will take a few seconds to bask in the appreciation of the moment.

'Kay. I'm done.

Regardless of contests or compensation, I firmly believe that Little Miss Sunshine was the best movie of the year last year. The Departed, Babel, The Devil Wears Prada were all fine movies, but did not fulfill as much as LMS did. I'll gladly post thoughts about those movies later to show their worth. I'm sure I'll write about Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men as well, but in the realm of storytelling, meaningful comedic reflection, and ensemble acting, nothing's touching LMS for a long time, if ever.

More reviews to see:
Hot Fuzz
The Descent
Musings on M. Night Shyamalan

Clarity in Amsterdam, Part Six.

2007-03-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

03/15/07 UPDATE: This piece was originally in five parts, but I've made changes. There will be one more post after this one to complete the revisions.

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE

We take many walks throughout the city to sample the different coffee shops; on the third walk of the third day, I decide to try the hashish hot chocolate, dubbed “Little Slice of Heaven” by our group. The mixture goes down easily enough, but after fifteen minutes, even standing and walking is an adventure. As I repeatedly demand to know if everyone is getting as high as I am, we somehow decide it’s time to return to the hotel for the evening.

The closer we get to the hotel, the higher I go. We stop off for dinner just before the Luxer. Like the lousy American I am, I’m stoned out of mind and behaving like an ass. During the meal, I watch Edmond float above the table, and I decide I need to see some great football (meaning soccer in Yank-speak) while I’m in Europe.

I don’t remember getting into my hotel room, but I’m lying on one of two single beds in the room and the TV’s showing great football. Edmond is my babysitter. We’re watching Manchester United versus Arsenal. As with all European football games, the crowd sings different songs throughout the match. I say, “Ooooohhhhhh my God, how do they all know what to sing at the same time? The fans are all singing the same song at once! It’s so beautiful! How do they do that?”

Edmond smiles and says nothing.

I continue gushing. “Do they have a choreographer who tells them what to sing when?”

I have never seen something as spectacular as this football game nor heard music as beautiful as the fans that sing in unison this night. Every pass is extraordinary. The game is close and the crowd swells in anticipation at every goal possibility. All is thrilling. I never freak out.

Eventually, my bed stops spinning beneath me and I feel like I’ve come down and taken enough of Edmond’s time. I tell him that I’m fine and feel great and that it was good of him to sit with me for a bit. He needs to get out so he can get as stoned as I am.

After Edmond leaves, I take a shower to help me get down enough so that I can go downstairs to the bar, get drunk, and talk to Jeff the bartender. Jeff is American and a former professional basketball player who has lived in Amsterdam since 1982. He’s good for conversation and getting guests in the bar to talk together. Jeff is a comfort bartender.

As I shower, the lights in the bathroom occasionally go to a blinding brilliance, sometimes accompanied by a soft crackling sound like the bulbs are shivering. I think about everything that’s happened over the past three years, yet I feel no pain, no embarrassment, no hate, no anger, no sadness. Just a relaxed objectivity of looking at events as facts and not how they affect me. I think about how my wife and I are living together again, that we’re talking about our problems and fighting constructively instead just throwing venom at each other. I think of reasons to be scared and reasons to be hopeful. I marvel at how easily all the hoarded hate and grief has washed off.

I’m standing still in the shower with my arms crossed. I look down and see my shadow washing its hair. My shadow has long, thick hair that billows and swirls. I think of Beauty and the Beast, of transforming into something that’s horrible yet beautiful. A voice from somewhere says, “You really need to like yourself better.”

I spend a nice long night in the bar, drinking heavily and smoking frequently. Sometimes I have company, sometimes I’m alone. I don’t have a sense of contentment or reassurance, but I’m not really actively looking.

To be concluded...

UPDATE: THE CONCLUSION

Another Quarter in the Bag

2007-03-13T18:49:00.000-05:00

My latest class are at an end except for the 700 pages of final papers I need to read. This was a good quarter in the land of Academia. Teaching three writing classes is difficult and tiring, but not the impossible task some would have you believe. Living on not knowing how you're paying rent and bills is an impossible task. However, it is also a task to be directly combatted. I loved teaching, I loved getting to meet and read more students, I loved practicing my teaching, and I've had interesting developments in work and pedagogy at my University (more on this later, especially if the strange political winds continue to blow, and even more especially if they continue to bring a smell I'm really not liking). My best friend has taken up the blogging torch to my great delight; he tells great stories and I'm looking forward to reading them. Spring is in the air, college basketball is in full fever pitch (sorry Mr. Hornby), and Chicago is the greatest city in the world to reside in during this time of year. Now if only I could put a few more quarters in my pocket.

I've watched it several times and it's still funny. What's with me?

2007-02-16T16:15:00.000-06:00

There's good reasons why Your Moment of Zen is one of my favorite blogs. First, I know that weirdo blogger personally and he's good eye for good stuff as well a fine acting talent. Second, he somehow finds stuff like "Closer to Spock." I don't know why I find it so funny and why it's funny every time I watch it. It probably has to do with nerd deconstruction, which I absolutely love. See for yourself.

Little Miss Sunshine (My second review, semi-requested)

2007-02-08T12:14:00.003-06:00

The Oscar race is heating up, and I have to push for Little Miss Sunshine. Why? Primarily because this could have been an awful movie. The script has very treacle content that could easily turn into emotionally overblown performances. Not that the writing is bad, but there is a high degree of sentimentality, requiring great skill of the directors and actors to avoid melodramatic pitfalls. Fortunately, the ensemble is blessed with gifted actors who can dance between the comedic and dramatic with enviable ease and directors who know how to showcase their actors.

This is the story of a family and the challenges to its unity. Make no mistake, this is a comedy (and an extremely funny one) but serious issues abound: family dissolution, suicide, lost love, bankruptcy, and exploitation. The joy of the movie for me was the continuing escape from the ever present threat of total family ruin. The family faces one crisis after another, yet as an audience, we're given the gift of invested detachment in the action as one thing after another goes wrong for the beautifully hapless family. We're given the ability to live that familiar crisis response trope of "one day we'll look back on this and laugh" from a safe distance. The action moves smoothly and the movie moves fluidly through its plot. The actors invest so much commitment and life to their characters that they're lovable even when life brings out the worst in them. We've known and faced the disappointments that the characters experience, and its refreshing to see their hilarious lack of a smooth, gracious response to life's problems. Family implosion under stress seen through honesty and humor is one of the many strengths of this movie.

The previously-mentioned strengths (sweet but not overly sentimental story, powerful cast, equal parts hilarity and gravity, smart directors) are enough to make this film an oscar-worthy jewel. However, the wonderfully funny satire of the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant is what catapults this movie to an elite place for me. The subtle commentary on perceptions of beauty and its disturbing influences is realized so well that I still hurt from laughing at it on my third viewing. This is a beautiful little movie of the highest quality. I hope it's rewarded as such.

UPDATE: This post won an award. A small one, but a reward nonetheless. Here's the details.

Revising a Draft

2007-02-07T13:32:00.000-06:00

It's been a good long time since I first published the "Clarity in Amsterdam" series here, and I've been revising and revamping it for a while now. I wanted to post the updated changes. There will be another part added eventually (part five is no longer the conclusion). So, if you've read it before, take another look and see if you like it better. If you've never read it, give it a first look-see. I'll be posting the conclusion soon.

I always sermonize to my students about the value of revision, so I'm doing my best to practice what I preach.

The series is posted in the sidebar or you can start reading here.

Other Developments in Local Stage Horror

2006-12-06T12:04:00.001-06:00

Time's rapidly dwindling to see Operation Infiltration at the Factory Theater. Just like my previous acting experience with the Factory Theater, I've immensely enjoyed the ensemble, the cast, and the process. It's been a welcome balm in a frustrating year. The past twelve months peppered life with heights and plummets, but the Factory shows stand out as powerfully good times.

Come and support my local mental balm.

Voodoo Moon: My First (and possibly last) Requested Review

2006-10-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

About a month ago, Mel Marchesseault from Anchor Bay Entertainment contacted me to see if I would give a little advertising and write a review for one of their new releases, Voodoo Moon, starring Eric Mabius and Charisma Carpenter. I'm very pleased that my little blogzine has attracted a bit of attention and I'm flattered that Mr. Marchesseault would contact me for my opinion on the film. I received the advance DVD copy a little over a week ago and gave it a look-see.

Here's the plot: a brother and sister are the only surviving members of Merrifield, Tennessee, a sleepy town that was wiped out twenty years earlier by a demonic onslaught. Brother Cole (Eric Mabius of Resident Evil) and sister Heather (Charisma Carpenter of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel) both have cloudy and somewhat unexplained psychic powers that they use to fight the devil (Rik Young), a dapper black-goateed fellow who is, as usual, preparing to unleash the apocalypse on poor old earth.

As for the production, I'm instantly in doubt anytime the opening credits finish with "Written, edited, produced and directed by [the same person]." That's a lot of hats to carry. The multitasker in this case is Kevin Van Hook, known for visual effects supervision in big-budget films, I, Robot and Daredevil to name just a couple. Voodoo Moon certainly has fancy light shows and the special effects level exceeds most low-budget horror fare. I got a particular kick out of a possessed priest flicking bullets out of mid-air to dispatch his hapless victim. Creating imaginative effects and scenarios to facilitate those effects are a strength of Van Hook's. However, writing and directing are not among Van Hook's strengths at this point; possibly the work load of four job titles was too much or nobody bothered to resolve the glaring script and directing problems. There are too many characters, too many unexplained and/or unnecessary plot lines and the pace is jerky and uneven. The smoothest parts of the movie are when the computer-generated effects are commanding the action, but effects without effective people and compelling stories to drive them ultimately don't satisfy.

In terms of performances, the clearly well-experienced cast delivers solid work, for the most part. Carpenter is her usual enjoyable bratty princess self, which is fine. The psychically connected rag-tag group of supporting fighters also have accomplished resumes, Jeffrey Combs and John Amos especially, but their connections to the plot are spotty and their characters aren't developed enough to warrant investment. Mabius, the lead defender against the apocalypse, is too monotone, seemingly relying on his (also unexplained) facial scar to emote tough and rebellious so he doesn't have to relate to his scene partners. One happy exception to this is a quiet healing scene, notably with no fancy effects whatsoever, that he shares with the very accomplished and horror-friendly Dee Wallace Stone (The Howling, Cujo). Stone understands that less is sometimes more and fancy sound and light shows will only carry an audience so far. Stone, seemingly like the script development and directing sessions, is unfortunately killed off far too early in the process and her grounding influence is missed.

Van Hook is clearly an able filmmaker and the amount of talented and accomplished actors in this film speaks well of his connections and workability within the industry. Van Hook should share the storymaking and storytelling workloads for his next project so that he can focus on his truest strength: crafting cool visual imagery. I admire the workload that Van Hook gave himself and I credit his ability to assemble an impressive ensemble, but he needs to fill in his writing and production ensemble as well as he does his actors. That way, the sounds and lights will have finer storytelling surroundings. Anyone who understands the technical requirements for CGI effects ought to translate that dedication of resources to writing and directing. Address the full process and good results will follow.

Awakening

2006-09-14T09:03:00.001-05:00

The large gap of time between the last post and this one comes from the many happenings during the gap. Late August-early September means classes start again and I have to write new syllabi, go over tons of classroom reading, ready quizzes, and basically take all my time to prepare for the Autumn quarter. Classes started last week: I'm teaching two writing courses and one reading course. Having a year of teaching under my belt really helps. I'm glad to be teaching the freshmen and also glad I feel less like a teaching freshman. It's an honor to meet and teach these young adults on their first day of college.

In addition, I've been cast in my second show with the Factory Theater, Operation Infiltration, a horror movie on stage. This is very much a work in progress. I'm interested to see how it develops; it's a bold theatrical move that'll be hard to pull off, but these are very creative people. I'm meeting some new folks and working again with some wonderfully familiar friends. It'll be an interesting ride, one that's been in the works for a while.

Autumn brings many shifts for students, teachers, and performers. This is full gear time and things are changing. Strange that so much comes to life at this time when the leaves fall, the flowers die, and the earth readies for winter slumber. I don't want the winter to be a big sleep. Luckily, with all the wonderful work going on, I feel like I'll be awake for months.

Back into Horror

2006-08-14T08:59:00.000-05:00

Can't get away from it, especially after seeing a truly fine example of the horror genre in The Descent. I've been moaning about the current state of horror movies as I see them and talking about some new developments in the genre, mostly from Asian cinema, but it had still been a long time since I genuinely got scared watching a movie. Not after this weekend.

When I first heard a commercial for The Descent, I thought it might be another shlockly gore-fest along the lines of Hostel or the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. The deep-voiced voice-over guy who reads copy for most horror commercials opens the commercial with (paraphrased), "People are concerned that amount of blood and gore in The Descent goes too far." The basic premise is that a group of young women into extreme sports adventure get together to try exploring a deep cave system in the remote Appalachian Mountains. The caves contain a few surprises (creepy creatures being only one of them) and so do the interactions between the characters. It is true that there is plenty of blood and gore, but, I know it sounds silly, the gore is purposeful. I'll continue to write about this while trying not to give too much away.

Along with purposeful gore, a reason The Descent works is because it successfully combines four primal human fears: enclosed spaces, heights, darkness, and monsters. The scariest parts of this movie don't even involve the monsters. While the beasties are scary (and provide the best jump moments), what is truly frightening is the suffocating feel that the caves create as the women delve further into the earth. Another reason the movie works (and this is where Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes remake failed miserably) is because the characters aren't stupid. They are people out of their element and their vulnerabilities are clearly exposed, but they don't have inconvenient stumbles while being chased or have overly convenient lapses in judgment. Furthermore, the protagonists are all women and they are all strong women, which I found a welcome approach. Writer/Director Neil Marshall gives his women just enough development into their character and excels at building the fear through vulnerable surroundings. The caves are dark, there are numerous places to fall far down into deep pits and narrow cracks where slim bodies can barely squeeze through or easily get stuck. Those surroundings are scary enough. Spice in some shadowy crawlers that tear flesh with their teeth and there are four deadly elements to create plenty of shivers and jumps.

Finally, to return to the gore, the movie works because the characters fight for survival against the elements and frightening predators that pitilessly kill just like any other animal or element. Animals eat people. When people get eaten, gory things happen. Thus, purposeful gore that is ripe for horror fodder, especially when paired with elemental combat against nature and somewhat supernatural nasties. The fight for survival is thrilling as the women descend into savagery to match their creature and nature antagonists. There is more than one Cro-Magnon moment that's very satisfying. The icing on the cake is the interactions between the characters and how their relationships break down or strengthen in the circumstances, especially between two characters with a history. I won't say more as it would spoil the richness.

So go to this movie. See it in the theater because you can share the inevitable titters with those around you as you experience fears and jumps together. If horror is your love, this is an exotic romance in a rich land with an alluring partner. Enjoy your night together.

Inbetween Days

2006-07-25T10:12:00.001-05:00

It's just about mid-summer, so it's an appropriate time for me to think about my own intervals. Mine is a heavy transition period: between jobs, between shows, listening to so many people complain about turning 30 when I've been past that for years, waiting on family, and being in the process of figuring out what to do next. As seen from earlier posts, I'm a big fan of nostalgia, especially since I'm transitioning right now. It's good to look back and think happily about recent history. To think of past and present, I'll occupy myself with text analysis of a contextual work in order to practice for the upcoming school year. Here's the opening stanza of a piece that I've liked for many years:

Yesterday I got so old
I felt like I could die
Yesterday I got so old
It made me want to cry

Text analysis: this piece is moving back and forth through time. Notice that the author says "Yesterday I got so old," meaning yesterday was the first day of getting so old that there's such a feeling of grief. There's the disconnect between the time of actual aging and the experience of aging. Feelings of yesterday and feelings of today can be radically different. Regardless, this experience creates a strong emotional response. For me, getting older is a process of letting go, something I hate to do. Youth, friends, possessions, expectations, philosophies, and many other things leave us through time. Getting older is about both growth and loss. Could this piece be a simple matter of acceptance or is there something more? What caused this sudden knowledge of age, and what will the feelings of tomorrow be? A later stanza of this piece shows more grief of loss:

Yesterday I got so scared
I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you
It froze me deep inside

We're still moving through time while talking about what happened yesterday. The author, while getting older, still feels the extreme fears of youth. Older, wiser, more experienced folk still shiver like children. So some things remain constant through our time. Past and present can still collide violently. We're also introduced to the "you" here. The loss of "you" (whatever that may be, person, place or thing) created this longing, and this loss may have come from choice, or perhaps a series of choices. Other stanzas talk about decisions and longing:

Go on go on
Just walk away
Go on go on
Your choice is made
Go on go on
And disappear
Go on go on
Away from here

Come back come back
Don't walk away
Come back come back
Come back today
Come back come back
Why can't you see
Come back come back
Come back to me

The contrast in these words (go on, come back) all feels familiar to me: fear, longing, looking back, coping with aging, hoping for a greater future, and so on. The remaining stanza helps give clarity and specificity:

And I know I was wrong
When I said it was true
That it couldn't be me and be her
Inbetween without you
Without you

There's a confusing line to follow here: "What I said before about how I couldn't be without you and have 'her' between us and something else: that was wrong." In my mind, the author is saying, it was wrong to think that I needed something from the past with me as I go to something new: I can make the transition to the future without holding on to everything from the past. At this point, I'm left wondering what "her inbetween" refers to. Could this "her" also be the "you?" How else could this piece be interpreted? Are "her" and "you" people or something else? These questions would be the homework assignment. End of lesson plan.

Yes, that's the song by The Cure (a past favorite of mine in 1985, a very good year) somewhat out of order from its original format. I'll happily use The Cure or whatever else for text analysis in my class. We can read Plato, Shakespeare, and Hemingway any time. The classics have their worth, but so do many contemporary works of multiple genres. The past and present both have their place. So does the time in between.

Pulp Friday Actually on Friday (PF9)

2006-07-21T10:06:00.000-05:00

I may actually stick to the Fridays, but we'll see. Pulp episodes continue...

Previously on Pulp Friday:

PF 1
PF 2
PF 3
PF 4
PF 5
PF 6
PF 7
PF 8

”It’s the last thing you did in Maui.”

H.P.’s words are still ringing in my head as he and the goons leave the court. I’m still not quite sure what he means yet, but I’ve got a nervous jitter in my veins that says it’ll come to me soon.

I’m still thinking about this when something obvious jolts me out of my reverie. As I watch H.P. and the goons walk across the baseball fields, it occurs to me that I should follow them.

I leave the tennis courts and walk toward my apartment and then stop behind the largest tree near the courts, hoping I’m stealthy enough.

I look out from behind the tree and see the three figures heading toward the gym parking garage. I walk parallel to them, but away from the sidewalk. The dusk has settled deep enough that the purple-pink glow from the sidewalk lampposts becomes the only available light in the park. I hope this will keep me unnoticed.

Keeping what I think is a safe distance from H.P.’s group, I follow for several minutes toward the gym garage. As they reach the garage, the three trench coats disappear into the stairway entrance. This allows me to make up the distance between us. I run up to the garage and enter through the vehicle entrance, running up the exit ramp as fast as I can.

It’s times like this that I’m thankful Jenny made me quit smoking. My lungs only burn slightly as I head up the first floor ramp to the second level. I listen for the stairway door’s echoing slam that’ll tell me when H.P.’s group has re-entered the garage. Hearing nothing yet, I decide to head up to the third level.

Seconds later, I hear a resounding creak of door hinges on the floor above me. They’ve moved faster than I expected. I move as fast as I can up the ramp to the third level.

As I near the top of the ramp, I hear the boom of the stairway door on the opposite side of the garage and the clopping of what seems like three pairs of feet. I get to the third level and head for the concrete dividing wall between the entrance and exit ramps of the garage, trying to tread lightly.

I reach the dividing wall in the middle of the garage and move quickly to the opening that will allow me to get to the entrance ramp on the other side of the garage where H.P. and his goons are. This will hopefully allow me to see where the getaway vehicle is parked.

Sure enough, I peer through the opening and see H.P. and the goons walking along the opposite wall of the garage. The parking lot is mostly full so I have plenty of vehicles to shield me.

There’s two lines of cars between me and the goons. I crouch low and follow parallel to them as they make their way to the corner of the garage. They stop at a glossy black sedan and H.P. takes keys out of his trench coat. I cross over one line of cars toward the group as H.P. fiddles with his very large key ring. I take up spying position a few cars down. Finally, the sedan gleeps twice at H.P., its slitted red taillight eyes flashing in sinister greeting.

Then, the car starts to lurch from side-to-side in a gentle rocking motion. The goon with the heavy, inexplicable accent barks out a laugh.

”I gersh that she’s avake nuw.”

”You’ll have some lively company for the ride back, then,” H.P. says in his soprano tone.

Weird Accent Goon opens the left-side passenger door and a pair of bound feet immediately appear through the opening. I can’t tell if they’re the same feet that were being dragged through my apartment door earlier today, but it seems like a safe bet.

I watch Weird Accent Goon palm the heels of the thrashing feet and gently lift them back into the car as he sits in the passenger seat. H.P. gets in the driver’s side and Lispy Trenchcoat enters the car opposite him. The three car doors shut simultaneously with a muffled thump and the black sedan is still.

Then the red slitted taillight eyes come to life again as the engine roars. The sedan whips backward toward the line of cars shielding me. I expect the sedan to come to a stop and make its exit. Instead, the sedan accelerates and smashes into the car parked in the row behind it, causing significant damage. Moving forward, the sedan takes a wide turn to the left as the accelerator roars again. The turn is wide enough to clip two more cars, leaving scratches and glass in the sedan’s wake.

As the sedan speeds off in a semi-straight line toward the exit ramp, I look at the license plate. There’s only three red numbers on the white plate: 924.

Normally, a license plate with only three numbers would be unusual, but not altogether strange. Instead, I ponder the weirdness of those three numbers being the same street address numbers of the apartment that Jenny and I bought just before we married. As I make note of this, the nervous jitter in my veins turns to a full jump when I realize what H.P. meant in his parting words to me.

The full implication of these words weighs down on me as I make the slow walk to my apartment, trying to decide what to do next.

This will continue…

Show Wrap Up

2006-07-17T09:26:00.002-05:00

Bittersweet weekend as the very successful run of GI's in Europe at the Factory Theater came to a close. Boy, did I enjoy that show. One of the best casts I've ever worked with, a killer crew that made everything on stage look good, and nice crowds throughout the run. I'm sad to be losing it. I'll miss the people and the exercise, but this show was a damn fine way to get back into the theater. Appropriate that there was a surreal ending to our celebrations on Saturday: upon closing Chief O'Neill's around 3 AM, all of us stumble outside to see Elston avenue drowning in a sea of bicycles heading northwest. Most likely this was an opening event for the Chicago Gay Games, but I never found out. There was no end in sight to this line of people whirring by. I don't know how many thousand people went past us, but we stood for several minutes while this river of cyclists clicked by at a leisurely pace, stirring the early morning air into our faces. The constant, high-pitched hum of thousands of bike chains and gears sounded almost like water running past. Maybe this was my need for a romantic moment of nostalgia, a unique snapshot to burn an image into my mind so I could hold on to the experience of the past few months and hold the people in my show a little tighter in memory. The evening was a swirl of the heartachey celebration of accomplishment and sadness of moving on to other things combined with quite a few vodka tonics: a guaranteed recipe for heavy maudlin. Still, this was a unique and happy moment, a feeling that moving on from this show is not a loss, and other fun, weirdly composed, and good experiences await. I must have been drinking happy vodka.

Factory Theater's next project: a horror movie on stage called Operation Infiltration. Oh yeah. See a trailer for the show here.

My next project: traveling to Minnesota and a taking a long winding road home through North and South Dakota. The Black Hills, Badlands, and Deadwood await. Then comes the final month of summer, new work for the fall, and who knows what else. I hope my next show comes soon and I'm so glad my spring and early summer were filled with GI's in Europe and the people of that show. There will always be happy memories and I suspect I'll still quote lines out-loud while at work and crack myself up. My co-workers have gotten used to my crazy person behavior of snickering to myself while saying non-sensical things. They know the source and they know why I laugh. A few of them even came to see what makes me laugh. It's enough for now for me to hold the memories and say the lines to myself. I hope there's more soon.

Greedy Hearts

2006-07-13T10:41:00.001-05:00

Reading one of my favorite blogs, I noticed my buddy and uber-successful blogger Deej write about greed touching the hearts of all men. Specifically, Deej references the train-wreck show "America's Got Talent" and comments on how the Screen Actor's Guild strike of 2000, the strike's resolution and subsequent writer's strike helped facilitate the boom of reality television. Deej points out some artists believe that network execs are to blame for the dumbing down of entertainment because train wreck reality shows have much lower talent fees since people voluntarily expose themselves to potential fame and/or humiliation. Deej also opines that creative unions and guilds make artists as corrupt as everyone else. These writings come on the blog's "Open Thread Thursday" and I believe Deej may create a fascinating discussion.

Two events in the year of the actor's strike stick out for me. The first was an offer to audition to be a Toyota spokesperson for a cool $50,000 for a few months work. This offer came from an agent who spent two years ignoring me, my work, and my mailings. As non-union talent, I was on a much lower rung, but I suddenly got the attention I'd been craving. After a good deal of thought, I turned down the audition, feeling that I would be less of a person if I took advantage of an actor's strike to further my career. After turning down this audition, I did not get any more calls from any agents. A few weeks later, the second notable event was upon me as I listened to a union actor friend of mine go on his soapbox about the trials of the striking actors. He bemoaned the fact that he actually had to get a temp job to support himself now that he was an actor on strike. I'd been supporting myself on lousy temp jobs for over five years while I tried to get paid acting work. It was a rude reality that I was very familiar with and I didn't appreciate the distaste that this actor showed on becoming a part of my reality. I certainly knew that it was wrong for the entertainment industry to try to make millions of dollars through shady deals and using new technologies like the internet and cable to take revenue away from working talent. However, I had no sympathy for striking actors who told me how awful my level of reality was and told me to fight for them so they could return to their higher plain and I could stay on the unpaid lower non-union rung. Supporting the actors on strike took potential revenue away from me, as well. Still, crossing the line to take advantage of labor unrest isn't something I could do. By the third month of the strike, I had dislike and distaste for both sides. Over the next few years, I focused more on theatrical acting; voluntarily unpaid work without messy labor issues that allowed me to further explore the craft I love so much.

Now, to the point that greed touches the hearts of all men. I've spent over fifteen years trying to find the job that balances the realities of artistic fulfillment and living wage income. I've yet to secure a permanent position in teaching, the job I believe best balances the realities. I would dearly love to be paid for the theater work I love so much. I would happily take paid TV, movie, radio, theater, or teaching work. I'm not willing to use labor unrest to further my acting career, nor do I want to debase myself for agents, casting directors, or the American television public to make a living. I'm greedy for the attention and fulfillment the theater world gives me. I'd love to be watched and adored by millions of people. I want to make as much money as possible, regardless of my career path, and if money and career were being taken away from me, I'd fight to keep it. However, for every single career, success depends on who you know. Every single long-term job I've gotten has come from a personal connection to the company or successful name dropping. So yes, greed does touch the hearts of all, but your level of greed depends on who you know.

UPDATE FOR 2009: I'm happy to say that I've found a theatrical home in the Factory Theater and that I've found some balance working as a writer. No way of saying for sure that these are the final paths and places for me, but for the past two years, it really feels like it was worth all the time (15+ years) spent searching. There certainly has been less personal labor unrest and a great deal of fulfillment. I'm glad I know who I know at the Factory and I'm fortunate to work where I do. Stay tuned.

The Joys of the Fringe

2006-06-20T16:38:00.001-05:00

Opening week has come and gone. The cast was spectacular, the crowds were good except for Sunday, and the theatre was hot. Really. Hot. The AC broke and we all had to sweat. This didn't dampen any enthusiasm and our audiences still laughed. One of our actresses nearly passed out after a particularly frenetic scene, but after a little heaving and some water, she was right back at it. Did I mention that I love everyone in the cast and crew? This past week only increased those feelings. Everyone threw themselves into their work with dedicated abandon, and I'd like to think that the results were really good. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the run. The AC will be fixed this week, friends and others are coming to see the show, and this has been as good a return to the active theatre as I could hope for. Find info on the show at this previous post, or go to the Factory Theater website directly by clicking on this bit of bold text. I'll have to update another previous post to document what's true about me online. Busy times, but I'm having a good time with these outside interests of mine. Now if only I could have some steady paycheck from a career I love (be it from teaching, writing, acting, or some combo of the three), a lack of anxiety every Monday morning, a successful & consistent composing ability, and the ability to have everything nice and orderly in a disorderly world. Yes, that unrealistic greed gets the best of me sometimes, but right now, I'm getting some satisfactory life time. This comes from mainly from rejoining a previous lifetime on the fringe non-union Chicago theatre, but as I attempt to create a career or two outside of the practical money-making career I used to have, and stubbornly believe that I can have a well-paid day job doing something I love, I feel like I'm making the most of life's outside edges. I'm also very grateful for what the fringe gives back to me. This will serve as my reminder post for when I get cranky and dissatisfied with the inevitable future fringe frustration. Here's hoping I'm cheering myself up in the future.

Pulp Friday Continues (PF 8)

2006-06-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

And it's actually on a Friday this time, just like when I started.

Previously on Pulp Friday:

PF 1
PF 2
PF 3
PF 4
PF 5
PF 6
PF 7

“Any worse?” I ask. “My wife is dead, I’m broke, and you and your goons just trashed the front part of my building, so how’s it going to get worse?”

“Oh, you should know by now never to say that, silly,” H.P. says. “You’re a desperate man. Desperate people do desperate things; things they would never normally do. You’ve already proven that.”

“So you say.”

“You’ve got the documentation right there in your hands. Don’t you think that a judge and jury wouldn’t come to the obvious conclusion? You killed George Dean, disposed of his body somewhere in Kihei, stole his checks and credit cards, perpetuated the fraud just long enough to finish your honeymoon and scram from Hawaii before you were discovered. It’s black and white, dear. Admit it.”

I’d really like to have a response to that.

The goon to the right of H.P. pipes up: “Yes, and there’s plenty more evidence besides that, sailor.” He speaks with a heavy lisp. I’d comment on how hissy he was if he couldn’t break my bones so easily.

The goon to the left of H.P. reinforces their point: “Yersh, ve harve burxes and burxes of errvidunce.” His accent is so thick I can’t tell what part of the earth he’s from. But again, faced with easily broken bones, I keep quiet.

“Be good little silent henchmen now,” H.P. says with a trace of irritation. “We have business to finish.”

Here comes the boom. I say, “Fine. What do you want?”

H.P. casually puts his left hand out and Lispy Trenchcoat puts a cigarette into his palm. “To clean up your mess, of course.”

As H.P. lights his cigarette and takes a long, comfy drag, that same smoke craving from this afternoon jumps right back on me. I swallow and try to hide my envy.

H.P. exhales a jetstream of blue-gray fog. “Since it’s your mess, you’ll be doing most of the cleaning. We’ll keep close to make sure that you’re being thorough. You’ll be going through each of your transgressions individually, gathering the pieces, and putting them to rest. Think of it as a labor-intensive confessional.”

“Does it matter that I haven’t done everything you claim I’ve done?”

“Come now, dearie,” H.P. says, “we’ve done our homework. You’ve done it all. It’s best to cease the denial and focus on the cleansing. Don’t you think Jenny wants that?”

“Jenny’s not a part of this.”

“Still with the denial,” H.P. says, “but Jenny’s very much a part of this. Always has been. Haven’t you been feeling her on the back of your neck when your conscience hurts you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

The Trenchcoats shake their heads and make tsk-ing noises.

H.P. says, “Don’t you? Well, you’ve only got your word. We’ve got more than that and it won’t be hard for anyone to connect the dots.”

No more use in arguing. Never was. I fix my eyes on the net and wait.

I hear H.P. take another long, crackling drag before he says, “Good. Now to cleansing. We want you to go back to your apartment and get something for us. We were trying to find it there when you barged in early. It was right at our fingertips. We even had someone who, though unwilling, was very helpful in the search. She knows a little about you and your life, you see. Still, we couldn’t very well transport both her and what we wanted with your badly timed return.”

“Who are you talking about?”

H.P. says, “Be patient, dearie. You’ll see. We decided to take her and let you transport what we wanted since you were so rude.”

That explains the pair of legs that were being dragged through my front door this afternoon. Doesn’t explain who she is, though.

“So, that means this little meeting is over. Time for you to be a porter.” H.P. and the Trenchcoats turn and begin to leave the court.

“What’s my cargo?” I ask their backs.

H.P. looks over his shoulder at me. “It’s the last thing you did in Maui. You'll know what I mean.”

Next on Pulp Friday: PF 9

I Gotta Be a Dope for Doing This...

2006-06-14T11:22:00.000-05:00

It's so silly for me to try to encode anything, but hey, this is my playground. My friend Roach hooked me up on Flixster, which is supposed to be a meet & greet place spot for people based on their feelings about movies. The meet & greet doesn't work so much for me (the majority of Flixster users appear to be teenage Canadians) but the site also allows for posting movie reviews, which works GREAT for me. How nice to have a shared forum for my movie pontification! At this site, you can be your own Roeper and give people crap about their reviews: an idea I like. So, back to the encoding, Flixster allows for a way to post my movie reviews to Blogger. I'm currently at 667 ratings with 84 written reviews, so I should share this body of work which I'm rapidly becoming addicted to and will surely grow. See the sidebar to check if my encoding worked or if I crashed the whole blog.

Opening Weekend!

2006-06-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

Yeah, baby! Here it comes. My first show in three years and it's gonna be a blast. It's been an exhausting and fulfilling week. I think everybody in the cast needed audiences a week ago and now we get them. Everything's going amazingly smooth, considering all the work and the set changes we learned this week. I gotta stop bungling shit up backstage when I move the flats and props. With a little more practice, I'll be like clockwork. I can't wait! What an incomparable thrill to be doing this again. It's my greatest love that I've missed so badly. The cast and crew are spectacular and I still laugh my ass off like an idiot every single night. We don't have a bad apple anywhere. Everyone and everything in this show kicks ass. Am I biased? You goddam betcha. But I'm also proud. Is this great American theatre? Hell, I dunno. It sure is fun, though. We won't open anyone's eyes to the AIDS crisis, we won't examine the critical undertones of the human psyche, and we won't be stirring up any political debate. But we're not supposed to. There are more than enough plays for that. This show is laughter and entertainment, which, in my view, are important and always relevant parts of the human psyche. Humor is critical. Well-made and smoothly produced theatre is to be emulated in other parts of life for its dedicated community, creativity, and skill. This is a show I hope many people see because they'll laugh, be entertained, and appreciate the fun. Kiss it, love it! If you see the show, you'll know what that means.

Nerd Note for Self-Serf

2006-06-06T09:06:00.000-05:00

How many times have I lost this damned icon and now there's an easy way to re-create it!

How to re-create the Show Desktop icon on the Quick Launch bar

The Show Desktop icon is not an ordinary program shortcut. If the icon is deleted, the procedure for re-creating the icon is not obvious. To re-create the Show Desktop icon, follow these steps:

1. Click Start , click Run, type notepad, and then click OK.
2. In Notepad, type the following text on individual lines:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
3. Click File, click Save As, and then save the file to your desktop as Show Desktop.scf.

Note Notepad may automatically append a .txt extension to the file name. Remove this extension if present. The file name should be Show Desktop.scf.

I'm not Douglas Coupland yet, but I've taken the first step in controlling my programming language future.
(I doubt there will be a second)

Old Time Radio

2006-06-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad that I found two sites to keep my mind occupied. The first site contains hundreds of old time radio programs. The other site contains synopses of every indexed old time radio program. Most of these programs are from the 1930s through the 1950s. I enjoy this dated form of entertainment. This medium was a predominant distraction for a generation. It's fun to hear the stereotypical '50s voices and ridiculously inaccurate foreign accents. The organ music during transition makes for goofy kitsch. Plus, there's a different form of writing and overexposition at work to create pictures for the audience: It's history, sociology, and entertainment rolled into one. On the one hand, it's amusing to hear expressions like "dope" have a totally different meaning. On the other hand, some lines give a wince or two: "I'm inclined to agree with Schopenhauer that women are an unscrupulous race." Thus, the socio-historical study, both the good and the bad. And they really did use the word "buddy" a lot.

Another good site is RadioLovers.com, where I first found old time radio programs. "Police Headquarters" is quite a hoot for its dated dialogue. But back the otr.net site, I've been listening to a lot of The Shadow for melodrama cheese, Sam Spade for the hard-boiled stuff and even silliness like "The Air Adventures of Jimmy Allen" and "Your Truly, Johnny Dollar." "Dragnet" is surprisingly dark, especially for a 1950s program that turned into a Dan Ackroyd-Tom Hanks buddy movie. Listen to shows like "The Whistler," "Hall of Fantasy," and "Murder at Midnight" and you can see (or rather hear) the roots of "Creepshow," "Tales From the Crypt," and "The Twilight Zone." It's a good distraction to go with menial work tasks. I don't know if I'm learning anything, but I feel a little like I'm in history class. It's still one of my favorite subjects.

Mind Text (Make Your Own Phrase)

2006-06-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

Try reading this several different ways (across, backward, diagonal, non-consecutively, etc.) and see what comes up. I know what I made, and there's more than one message.

Horrible Horrors

2006-06-01T11:14:00.001-05:00

Back to horror movies (a favorite subject):

What I want to do is think back to the primal and the viscerally terrifying within the cinema. That’s what modern Japanese horror movies have done. They're fresh. They draw upon the same instincts that make the older horror movies so scary: primal fear. Everything else is a copy or it’s gimmicky. Saw is cool, but it’s not based in primal fear: it's mind gimmicry. What makes The Exorcist so scary (like so many other successful horror movies, in my mind) is that it taps a most basic fear in many people: assault from the unknown and, even more, the unpredictable and unexplainable. Same with Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a movie about dreams: something we can’t totally explain or defend ourselves from. Technology and Science have made so many things much more controlled and predictable. Ghosts and demons are still scary, but they seem to have lost the edge. Buffy and The X-Files made those things more accessible while still leaving them scary, but familiarity drained the mystique. Same with cars breaking down in extra-rural America (i.e., out of cell phone range) where there are murderous hillbillies or truckers. Part of Stephen King’s success comes from his ability to mine something that so many people have thought about at one time or another: what if I get attacked by a vicious dog, what if my other pets decide to become uncontrollable animals and turn on me, what if that funny looking clown is actually evil, what if a super-sickness wipes out all of civilization, what if someone could predict exactly how & when other people are going to die, and so on and further.

Recently, there have been a couple of new things in horror movies, mainly from across the Pacific. Sure, a videotape that kills people is a rather silly and kitschy concept, but it was new, and the execution was spectacular. It tapped into the primal fear of something strange and deadly, just like other Japanese films have done with basic concepts such as curses or angry spirits. I’d like to find something that is contemporary but still retains that sense of the primal unknown/unpredictable that yanks the basic fear right out of your guts. The slap of cold water to your face that makes your innards grind before you feel the ice on your feet. All my boredom-numb blasted mind can come up with at the moment is something evil lurking on the Internet, but that won’t work. Fear Dot Com had the chance to do internet horror and failed convincingly. The idea of a malevolent website won’t work now. But maybe something that goes back to the wilderness, the primal, while still having to do with modern technology (not something Terminator-esque) will do. Maybe that's the ticket to contemporary horror, but maybe not. With all the re-makes going on, society is begging for something else.

In case you're interested, there's previous musings on horror movies here. What can I say? I love 'em.

Oh, and here's an example of a really good horror movie that works well with the primally and viscerally terrifying.

By the way, Dee Snider will be hosting "Fangoria Radio" on Sirius satellite radio channel 120 starting June 25. I'll be interested to hear that, though Dee will have to prove his horror knowledge. Here's hoping.

UPDATE: I listened to Fangoria radio and I liked. Dee's got his work cut out for him, but so far, so good. It airs Friday nights at 10PM ET on Sirius 102.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The "response" to this post was almost better than the original post itself. See below. I left in a really long post from another anonymous douchebag that you don't have to read; just skip to my comment immediately after. I'm glad that this post was my most trafficked one, and I still don't know why this particular post would seem to be a great place to post links. Maybe there's more people online looking for good horror movies than I thought.

Is this a term?

2006-05-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

Can one be "brain-fucked?" That's what I feel like staring at all of these cells of the spreadsheets that I compare/edit/contrast. For background on the subject, see this. The data is frying me brain. The cells are cooking the cells. I'm stepping outside now. God, I wish I still smoked. I need a different pollutant.

Curious. As I was writing this, one of the other temp workers here in the basement just had a meltdown with another worker. A meltdown over the terminology of "belt couplers." Either the spreadsheets are tainted with evil, or the company is pumping mind-altering drugs into our corner of the basement where this data project slowly strips all of our cerebral cells. Either way, fresh air will have to substitute for my comfort pollutant.

Quickie link

2006-05-09T12:45:00.000-05:00

Here's another one of my favorite Strong Bad emails. I'm debating whether to buy a t-shirt or something from their store to support the website. It's been around for years and was just basically a few people screwing around with Flash Player and their voices. No advertising, no real means of financial backing for a long time. Now it looks as if the site will pay for itself. Strong Bad emails are usually hit or miss. But when they hit, they're really good comedy. The link above is one of those hits for me.

Pulp Friday's next (PF 7)

2006-05-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know it's not Friday. I'm just maintaining the title for consistency of text, not consistency of time. I'm hoping to finalize the first installment of this series in ten entries (or so) here as a basis for something bigger. Again, useful comments are encouraged and appreciated from the three confirmed people I know who have seen this blog. Anybody new, you're also welcome to comment. Thanks.

Previously on Pulp Friday:

PF 1
PF 2
PF 3
PF 4
PF 5
PF 6

Knowing full well my dumb act won’t work, I ask, “What do you mean, what I did in Maui?”

“Please, dear,” High-Pitch Smirk says. He snaps his fingers and Trench Coats #2 and #3 withdraw manila envelopes from their coat interiors. They both whip the envelopes at me like Frisbees. They come sailing at me over the tennis court net so fast I barely have time to put my hands in front of my face. There’s a loud whack as both envelopes hit my hands and slap to the ground. I look at my hands, expecting to see puncture wounds.

“Pick those up and you’ll see everything you need. Be thankful the boys were tossing envelopes and not cinder blocks this time.”

At least now I know who to bill once my landlord Chung discovers the wreckage of his building’s front door.

I bend down to retrieve the envelopes, feeling very awkward. I stand back up and attempt to convey non-chalance.

“Fine, so you know everything about Maui. Why should I care?”

I try to rip open one of the envelopes and give myself a paper cut. My wince draws grins from the other side of the net.

“Honey, Maui was quite a mess. You’ve been getting away with murder since you got married.”

“Oh please,” I say, “If you really know everything about Maui, you know that I haven’t killed anybody.”

Smirkface keeps smiling.

”Fine, keep smiling,” I tone. “I’m no nun, but I haven’t committed murder.”

“You can keep that up as long as you want, but we know better. See for yourself. Hope your little finger doesn’t bleed on the evidence too much.”

I scowl and withdraw the contents of the first manila folder. Sure enough, they’ve got plenty of pictures. They’ve got pictures of me taking the cash out of safe deposit boxes, signing checks, and handing over credit cards for purchases. These pictures aren’t of concern until I get deeper into the folder’s contents. There are photocopies of bounced checks with my name and signature, rejected credit card notices (also from me), and copies of checks with questionable signatures. A long line of my payment and credit wreckage. The last page is a bank statement of a Mr. George Dean, showing a long list of fraudulent charges from Kihei (“Key-hay?” my neighbor Brian would say), Hawaii.

I stop sifting through the contents. “Good for you,“I say, still trying to affect aplomb. “You’ve documented my bad credit. I won’t charge any purchases to you.”

”You missed the last page, sweetie.”

I thumb back through the stack and discover what I skipped: a missing person’s report from Maui on a Mr. George Dean, filed three days after Jenny and I started our honeymoon there.

”Interesting coincidence that Mr. Dean disappears right around the time you started having money problems on your honeymoon. Even more interesting that you and Mr. Dean had a meeting the night before he disappeared and incredibly interesting considering you started using Mr. Dean’s checkbook and credit cards after he went missing.”

”That’s quite a stretch you’ve made there,” I say with no assurance.

“Open the second envelope, dear.”

I tear open the second folder without making myself look any sillier. Sure enough, the pictures in this folder show me and a man having an animated conversation; I’m gesticulating like a crazed Woody Allen character and the man has his arms folded.

High-Pitch Smirk sounds very smug. ”If Mr. Dean had known he’d have less than 24 hours to live, I doubt he would’ve been the calm one.”

I continue to flip through the pictures that H.P. Smirk and his Trench Coats have given me. They’ve been oily enough to include pictures of Jenny and me, happy and smiling on the beaches and patios of Maui, clinking glasses, gazing into each other’s eyes, Jenny jumping on my back and biting my ear, both of us sharing kisses with hands on each other’s faces, the surf wind blowing her hair through my fingers. Other photos paint a less happy picture: Jenny and I sitting far apart, worried looks on our faces, or Jenny and I engaging in angry conversation. The contrast between the honeymoon’s early-week and later-week photos.

”Looks like there was trouble in more than one place. Did Jenny know how bad your credit was? Did she ever find out how you solved your little money issues?”

They’ve got everything neatly arranged. I decide I’d better play along.

”What do you want?”

H.P. Smirk affects surprise. “Don’t you want to ask me about the photo that brought you here?”

”It’s a fake.”

”Actually, sweetie, it’s not. You should know that. We know you’ve been getting away with more than one murder. I just gave you the documentation of your first, and rest assured, we have plenty of documentation on the second.”

I take a few seconds to ponder this. “So what’s next?”

H.P. Smirk casually folds his hands together, demonstrating his own practiced aplomb. “I’m here to make sure your mess doesn’t get any worse.”

This will continue…

Next on Pulp Friday: PF 8
PF 9

Pulp Friday Comeback (PF 6)

2006-04-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

I've made some edits to the previous installments of the Pulp Friday series and I'm trying to pick it back up. Obviously, today isn't Friday, so I'll just try to keep updating this, regardless of the day. It's still going to be Pulpy and it'll still be called Friday to keep to its roots. Now, back to the series.

Previously on Pulp Friday:

PF 1
PF 2
PF 3
PF 4
PF 5

After giving Brian more bewilderment by abruptly leaving, I'm on my way to Welles Park, which is within 10 minutes walking distance of our building. Nice to know that whoever broke into my apartment hasn't gone far, but unsettling to get a call from them them right after receiving a photo of my dead wife mailed via cinder block delivery through front door.

The dusk is gathering as I walk east towards the park. The rain has stopped, but the gray still lingers and seems to latch on to the coming dark.

There’s very few people venturing out in this weather. Welles Park is huge and wide-open, but the drizzle will make this a pretty private meeting.

I’m hoping that, in the next few minutes, I’ll be able to make sense of what’s happened in the last half-hour. Getting smacked by my front door and finding a handkerchief with a photo of my (I think) dead wife sewn inside just before four cinder blocks crash through my apartment building’s front door is strange enough. Add that to my downstairs neighbor Brian overhearing a conversation I wish he hadn’t and a high-pitched voice telling me that I need to meet in Welles Park or something wouldn’t be good for my wife that I thought was dead. Top that with a photo of my wife (that I know is dead because I saw her die) attached to the cinder blocks and I can’t keep anything straight.

The street lights look purple instead of their usual dark pink. Is that from a blow to the head or the confusion of the events of today? Probably both. I could really use a little order and coherency at this point.

As I approach the tennis courts in Welles Park, I see three figures standing together in the center court. This would probably be the three people who broke into my apartment earlier today, but then I remember one person was being forcibly dragged out by the other two. Still hoping for order and sense.

I go through the gate to the courts. I head for the center court, where the three figures in black overcoats are standing with their heads down and their hands in their coat pockets. As I get to mid-court, one the figures says, “That’s far enough, dear.”

I stop and stare at the figures standing on the other side of the net, just beyond on the in-bounds line. No one says anything for a while. I wait for someone to serve.

I lose my patience and finally bark, “What’s this about?” I’d hoped to sound tough and intimidating, but when I say “about” my voice cracks like I’m the middle of puberty. I curse my genes for not making me taller, manlier, and more threatening.

The middle figure lifts its head a little bit, and I can see the same smirking mouth from earlier today.

The high-pitched voice coming from the smirking mouth says, “Well dear, it’s a little complicated. It was going to be easy, but somebody didn’t give me what I wanted and you broke with your normal work schedule. Both of you have made my work much too hard.”

I ponder how cryptic this is and say, “’Kay.” When none of the figures say anything, I add, “Sorry?”

The smirk gets a little wider. It says, “How sweet. But you know that won’t quite be enough, right?”

Hoping for a hard-biting, sardonic reply, I droll, “I didn’t expect so.” My latest attempt at toughness makes me sound like a stoner valley boy because I say “Ah didn’t expect so-wah.” Damn.

“Well, you’re a real pro then,” the sarcastic smirk says. “Here’s what I want from you.”

The two other figures take two steps toward the net and me, keeping the high-pitched smirking mouth between them. High-pitch smirk-mouth figure finally removes his hat, revealing a thin-faced, black-haired man with a daggered nose and wide ears. The smirk disappears and his face darkens. His formerly wide mouth now looks like a beak. It’s strange to see the full face matching the voice. Then he speaks again, and the pitch seems higher and more piercing, like a field mouse as talons sink into its flesh.

“You’re going to clean up the mess you made in Maui.”

I was afraid he’d say this. Depending on how much my neighbor Brian heard, I may have to kill him if I live through this.

This will continue...

Next on Pulp Friday: PF 7
PF 8
PF 9

First Spam!

2006-04-24T10:14:00.000-05:00

I just got my first spam on the blog! To think that someone searched and found this post and then put their crappy advertisement here. I'm so flattered. I wonder, did they just do a search for "shit," decide that tons of people would read this "shit" and then gloriously flock to their spam site? Wonders never cease. I feel like I've been put on the Prom court. I'm so excited.

Puns and Passing Time in the Corp-zone

2006-04-20T08:33:00.000-05:00

Checking the spelling and page numbers of a machine industrial parts catalog for eight hours a day necessitates plenty of mind wandering to pass the time. When I've run out of music, I finally stop acting like an anti-social a-hole and listen to what my co-workers in the adjoining cubes are saying. I discovered one co-worker passes time with puns. He demonstrates these puns for the other cube denizens. Example:

Person A: "I feel sad for those casters and bolts that can't find a home."

Person B: "The casters and bolts that can't find a home?"

Person A: "You know, the Pneumatic ones."

Gotta admire the continued use of lingual irony while the brain numbs from spreadsheet and PDF overexposure. These staffpersons pass their time on much more honest fashion than I. I've given myself five email boxes to check because checking email was not forbidden. Most likely, this composition is being watched through the mirroring and monitoring software, but I'm keeping it within break time length. Besides, it's good to exercise cognition during the brain-freeze tasks, whether by puns or meaningless electronic scribbling. Next break, I'll write about the creepy woods that surround this corporate compound. That'll keep my horror-movie imagination running; one my most prized mental possessions. I refuse to lose that level of my cognition. That would just be horror-ible.

The Sound of Brain Slowly Frying (UPDATED)

2006-04-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

History behind this post.

I gotta do hit & run posts with limited time. The temp job is well paid, but excruciatingly mind-numbing: comparing and correcting catalog entries for machine parts. I never knew there were ACME Threaded Rod Lubricants. Sounds porno, especially as it's listed next to the Threaded Studs and Acrylic Extruded Balls. Not a porn catalog, I swear. These parts are what keep our American industrial machine running. My eyes dry and my mind wanders; in the end, it's similar to grading papers but with much greater detail. It's a good way to kill time and pay bills, but I hope my mind wanders off into better territory when checking the spelling of Shaft Adapters.

UPDATE: I just discovered that this catalog also sells nipple wrenches. This is an industrial tool. My mind is doomed to filth.

2nd UPDATE: I was cruising along until I saw the catalog entry for prick punches. So much for a clean run.

I'm Still Here

2006-04-17T13:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's been a long frikkin' time, but there's been crazies in the life. I'll write very soon because I just started a hideously boring new job and I love to slack off. Don't tell anybody.

The Slippery Slope of Googling Oneself (Updated 2008)

2006-03-30T08:57:00.000-06:00

To my very happy surprise, several people I haven't seen or spoken to in years have found me through this blog (and haven't run screaming from the content). This blog shows up through a Google search on my name. Quite a few other things show up under a "Colin Milroy" google search, so I thought I should clarify what I've actually done.

Sadly, the very successful Canadian real estate agent is not me, nor am I on the Superintendent's Honor Roll at West Montgomery High School in North Carolina. 2008 UPDATE: There's another name thief in England! This fellow looks to be a successful engineer in England, further knocking down the Colin Milroy totem pole. But I have been able to earn the title of "awkward weirdo creepball" by one of my former students through the nice, anonymous Rate My Professor. Luckily, my other reviews are positive and I'm no longer teaching English.

I also did not place third in the South Jersey Jr. Honda (B Main) race of the Quarter Midgets of America. I'm not a successful real estate agent or quarter midget racer. However, I was in successful shows in Chicago such as A Clean Well-Lighted Place and Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago as a happy part of the Factory Theater ensemble (2008 Update) as well shows with Hi-Volt Theatre and several different shows with the Hypocrites theatre company as an actor and technician. I've done many shows with the Raven Theatre, I was part of Imagination Theatre, I worked as staff at the DePaul University's Theatre School, and I am a UIC alumni (scroll all the way down to the M's if you really want to see my academic identity). I'm very happy about most of the things that come up under Colin Milroy on Google because I actually earned some of these posts. However, I can't claim the fame of taking on the fog and turning upside down, but I love the "B" horror movie reference on that post. "B" horror and my name should always be synonymous.