Jeff Tweedy's kind of an "AABA" guy...sometimes "AABAC."

21 August 2007

Ace Habam, Producer and Master Electrician

It's plug time.

I'm doing this show down at EP Theatre on the southside.  It's called Resident Alien (no, I don't play the alien).  It's being produced by my friends at Shabam! Productions.  Check it out if you can.  Click the link, it will gloriously provide you with all the necessary information, also information about the other two shows (in rep?) that we're performing with.  

More tomorrow.  


17 August 2007

Ju "Fella" Myriad

I run into somebody I know at random every single day in the city.  Not just the regulars at my work, but people I knew in high school, college, strange inter-collegiate and inter-scholastic extra curricular activities.  

But most frequently at work.  I ran into a girl who was involved in theater from my high school, and is getting her graduate degree in music from DePaul.  She was a senior and barely recognized me.  I must have devastated her with my refined, chiseled physique and sharp features.  I was, after all, a freshman when I knew her.  

The weird one was a couple of weeks ago.  In the middle of the afternoon, I'm usually pretty freakin' bored.  So when a customer comes in, I dish it fast and hard: 

"Hi, how ya doin'?  Can I get a drink started for ya?  How about something to eat?  An espresso machine?  What about twelve [Italian for Twenty] [trademarked blended coffee and milk concoction]s?"

A guy whom I don't recognize comes in.  I go in for said spiel and stop dead.  

"Terry?"

"Mike?"

Handshake.

I smile.  "What's up man, I haven't seen you in years."  

I hadn't.  This guy (whose name I'm masking with a pseudonym) was an acquaintance in my elementary school years through high school.  We were always cool with each other as I recall and I always found his antics amusing.  The last actual memory I can recall of him was in our junior year, when he mercilessly tortured our Spanish III teacher by bombarding her with phrases like "SeƱora, ¿fuma drogas?"

"Do you live up here now, Terry?"  Here, of course, being Lincoln Park.

"Yeah, man.  I'm managing for this construction company."

"So, you're like a foreman or something?"

"Yeah," he says, with a slight smirk.

I grab his drink for him and ring him up.  A pivotal moment:  Does he get it for free?  A discount?  Full price?  

The reasoning is difficult.  One could say for old times' sake he should get it for free.  It's also possible that I could get freakin' canned if I give out too many freebies.  But, even that could be a good thing (I do often fantasize about being fired for some reason or another).

Before I can decide, however, he says "So what are you doing here?"

"Well...just...auditioning, you know.  Trying to be an actor," I reply trepidatiously.  

"...cool."

He had that slimy "Well, look at that kid who was in all of the AP classes working at a coffee shop" tone.  

Suddenly, I have a flash of memory from junior high.  Him sitting at the large dining room table at my house with a bunch of other young guys.  Wearing blue shirts.  It's a Sunday night meeting for my Webelos den.  My mom is the den mother.  She's talking about an upcoming camp trip...and Terry makes a smart-ass remark under his breath about packing double the food...  

...for my mom.

I lift my head from the register...and give him my own patented smirk.

"That'll be $3.58."

09 August 2007

J. Ignatius "Iggy" Ling

Boy acting's hard.

I just spent four hours at the local coffee shop memorizing lines...and I'm not done yet.  I guess memorizing is never actually done, but I've got at least another half act to memorize.  Play's only an hour or so but I still have a little less than half the lines in it.  Which, of course, is good for raising-of-profile purposes.  Bad for the actual memorizing of.  Good thing I'm a quick study...even though I've had the script for going on two weeks (Hey, I kinda got thrown into the process.  Give me a break). 

Though I can pat myself on the back for the work I've accomplished, I can punch myself in the face repeatedly for the things to do.  Laurel resting was never my forte (pronounced "fort," not "four-tay."  Then of course, I sound like the idiot when I say it right).  I've already done a "shit I gotta do list" this week, so I'll refrain from doing that again for fear of your "close-window" clicking potential.

But, I haven't done 'em.  I just...I get really tired. 

Okay, I'm not really paying attention to this post right now.  Gotta be honest.  I'm pretty scatterbrained at the moment...I think I should let the five of you reading this right now know that you're all essentially the guinea pigs of my world at the moment.  I started this blog because I am trying to write.  At least, to pretend I am anyway.  I'm trying to figure out how to power through my laziness level and put words to page, and consistently posting and updating a blog seems like the best way to do it.

I do have ideas, you know.  I have plays I want to write, novels to lay out.  I just...maybe undiagnosed ADD?  Sure.  I should be so lucky for an excuse.  

You know that 82% of Americans dream of writing a book one day?  82%.  I wonder if the same amount actually thinks they can put together two to three hundred pages of text about one subject, let alone a fiction piece, let alone that it would be coherent enough for anyone to actually read the damn thing, let alone that anyone would actually publish it...after all of that, I'd say less than 5% could actually do it.  And I'm including all book genres, fiction and non-fiction.  And I'm not necessarily including myself in that 5%, but I gotta be in the 80th percentile or better.  

Gar...I think that I'm having an identity crisis about just being an actor.  I've always felt slightly devalued in the artistic realm because what I do is so fleeting, so intangible.  Dancers might feel the same way, but they have their physical training to show their aptitude.  Writers have books; painters have paintings.  I'm trying to show you how I feel for a living.  And you're supposed to pay me.

I've definitely romanticized about being a writer of some kind most of all...

My Top 5 Romanticized Professions (That I don't necessarily have a desire to do):

1. Journalist
2. Fiction Author
3. University Department Chairman
4. Choreographer
5. Shop Owner

I think I fancy myself some kind of ambulance-driving, lion-hunting, Key West-dwelling, self-pointing shotgun-wielding neo-Hemingway or something.  It's quite easy to forget, however, that he was also pretty good at writing.  I always picture journalists and writers flying all over the world and...I don't now...doing stuff.  For...writing.  

The work I do is so private most of the time.  The hour or so of stage time I happen to get has about 10 hours of rehearsal and memorization behind it.  I won't lie...it's rewarding when I get the chuckle or the big laugh or the big gasp.  But the idea that it's just talent is pervasive and often belittling.  Just because you can't see my brushstrokes doesn't mean I haven't put them on the painting.  

What the hell am I getting at...I'm trying to write because I'm a creative soul and I want to create as much as I possibly can.  But...the respect end has to come too.  I can look over this entire post and pick at my grammatical and hyperbolic trends (too many parenthetical asides, ellipses, and a penchant for hyphenation not withstanding).  I can't just look at it as a blog.

The character in the play I'm working on seems preoccupied with the idea that "there has to be something else."  I empathize...he's a lot like me.  Probably why I was cast.  Anyway, I feel like this has to be something else, and so do I.  I said it already; I'm not a laurel-rester.  I work best with a full plate.  So I have to keep doing what I'm doing until I figure out why it's not working and fix it.  

And nobody can clean a full plate like this guy.  

08 August 2007

Earl D. Unitas

A quick one.  

Top Ten Geographically-Inspired Band Names:

4. Boston
5. Europe
7. Asia

Okay, so the last two are kind of a stretch, but Cypress Hill is in California and Bay City is, of course, in Michigan (which is inherently strange, seeing as how they are a Scottish band).  

Also, astonishingly enough, these bands all have official websites with the exception of the Bay City Rollers (but their lead singer has one).  I think if we all get together and sign a petition, we can get these guys back together for another Live at Budokan AND an official website! 

I'll let someone else handle that.

But my Top Ten is pretty solid, I think.  Please let me know if I've made any glaring geo-band omissions, or if you take issue with one of my ranking choices.  I'm open to suggestions, but accepting them is at my discretion.

...punk. 


03 August 2007

Turandot DeNoyes and Delisi Friedan

My dear, close friend Eli has flirted with internet celebrity before.  You can see his Food Network video here, and his subsequent interview on Inside Edition here.  The first video, notice, has over half-a-million views.

However, he's now entered the realm of local celebrity in his own burg.  He lives in downtown Naperville, and for those of you unfamiliar, Naperville is an affluent suburb southwest of Chicago (an area where we are both originally from).  He's been living in an apartment there for a few years.  This entry on his blog seems to sum up the entire situation nicely.  

In brief, he lobbied the city government to enforce noise ordinance laws downtown, where the live amplification of Beatles cover bands in d-bag bars is almost deafening in his apartment.  His cries fell on deaf ears (aren't I clever?), and after posting yet another YouTube video (which got about 2,000 views before he took it down), citations were issued to several of the offending bars.  He has since been featured on the cover of the local newspaper.  But some of the residents were none-too-happy, accusing Eli of essentially ruining live music downtown.  Follow his dialogue with this strangely voracious lot in his blog entries over the last week or so.

I'm not entirely peeved at his ease in garnering celebrity, per se.  In fact, I'm pleased.  But this...this is something which I will never experience.  Someone among these Eli-decriers has made a shirt in his honor.  

The jealousy...bubbles.

And, of course, the pleasure that my friend is a celebrity in two arenas.  But...dammit.  I'M the actor.  Have you SEEN my Altoids ad?  HRM???  And all he has to be is a socially active neighbor.  You can't buy that kind of publicity.  And I really mean you can't buy it; YouTube is completely free as I recall.  

My advice to you all: the next time your neighbor's dog poops in your lawn, tape it and YouTube it.  You could be on the front page of the Sun Times (You thought Tribune?  Ha!).

Despite my bitterness, please support my pal and tell him how wonderful he is.  He's really just way cooler than me.  I'm starting to come to terms with it.

02 August 2007

Bucky Goldstein's Sweat House

Well my darlings, I feel like I've been out to pasture over the last week and I'm just returning from a cattle-drive.  Yee-haw!  I'm a fine arts cowboy, ridin' and ropin' abstract concepts so you can chow down on thick, juicy, socially critical tenderloins at your table tonight.

I think I'm going to let that grievously mixed metaphor go, for fear of eliciting any Brokeback responses.  

In some measure of seriousness, however, I feel exceptionally disconnected from the world around me over the last week.  It's probably because I haven't had as much time to diddle with my atrocious Fantasy Baseball team (is it sad that I took a break just then to diddle with said team?), peruse the latest offbeat news articles on Fark.com, or to keep up on The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.  

Could it be that...(gasp) I'm BUSY?

Boy, it has been a WEEK, dearies. Auditions and auditions and working and eating sometimes and apartment hunting and rehearsing and scheduling more auditions and rehearsing and attending impromptu social events and moving people and apartment hunting and rehearsing and nibbling on olives.

I usually don't have a hard time keeping up on these things; it's only in times of reflection that I notice really how much I've done.  And suddenly it's early August.  Jesus, I'll be wearing fashionable sport jackets and hoodies in a month-and-a-half.  I'll have another show under my belt, and hopefully will have another to do.  Maybe a vacation.  

But that is SO FAR AWAY now.  My itinerary for just TODAY includes:

*Finalizing an apartment application and laying down a security deposit for said apartment
*Critical laundry-doing
*Assisting friend in preparing for theater/re benefit
*Submitting headshots to reputable small theater/re companies
*Don smart-looking suit and masculine-smelling hair grease
*Meeting lady-friend in Lakeview, then proceeding to said theater/re benefit
*Alcohol-induced blindness

Is it disconnection I'm experiencing or possibly...hyperconnection?  I'm so goddamned plugged-in that I've overloaded my dutifully multitasking internal circuit-breaker, leading to a system-wide power failure.  The answer to that supposition would then clearly be...sleep.  Which begs the question: why am I here, awake at 5:30 in the morning, writing this?  


It's time to get one of those bulleted items taken care of, my children.  

Oh, and finally I would like to ask all of you for your prayers.  My future roommate and I discovered the most wonderful apartment I've ever seen in my four years in Chicago yesterday.  I won't say much about it for fear of jinxing, but I'll say this: it has a sauna.  You will all be invited over for schvitzing and cocktails if we get it.  Wish me luck.