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.  

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 "Señora, ¿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."

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.  

Earl D. Unitas

A quick one.  

Top Ten Geographically-Inspired Band Names:

1. Chicago

2. Kansas

3. Alabama

4. Boston

5. Europe

6. America

7. Asia

8. Rammstein

9. Cypress Hill

10. Bay City Rollers

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. 

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.

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?  

I'm out of my freakin' mind.  

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.

Lynn Cohn-Pajou or Dr. Finn Gersnum, D.D.S.

When people think of me, generally the first descriptions that come to mind DO NOT include the following:

*Sex Machine

*Contortionist

*Olympic and World 200m Butterfly Record-Holder

*Humanitarian

I did make an attempt recently, mind you, to change one of these things.  And no, I do not have any business relationships with Koreans and my last name is not "Phelps" (I do, however, have extraordinary hip flexibility).  

My boss recently asked me if I wanted to be involved with a "Make Your Mark" event, essentially the corporate coffee version of tax-deductible volunteer work.  I had always gathered that such events involved doing some Habitat for Humanity-type home-building or refurbishing; mainly some kind of honest day's work for a "needy" family or some such organization that helps "needy" families.  While conjuring up images of myself wearing a tool-belt wielding an enormous steel mallet, I heartily agreed to be a part of it.

"Good," she said.  "It's going to be over at the Lincoln Park Zoo."

Oh.

"What kind of...work is it?" I replied.

"I think it's, like, manning an arts and crafts table or something."

Oh.

The next Tuesday I arrived half-an-hour late to the main pavilion at the zoo to find several "partners" from the corporate coffee house a few blocks up the street from mine and two "partners" from my store, along with a few zoo staffers.  There were many pairs of scissors and hole-punchers strewn about a plastic utility table which was, at least, in the shade.  

I tried to make the best of it.  

"So guys, what are we doing today?" I declared with faux enthusiasm.    

One of the zoo people answered: "Oh, are you another person from (name of national coffee chain)?  Great!  We're making jaguar masks!"

Oh.

"Why don't you grab a pair of scissors?"

The picture began to come together: one person was cutting out heavy card-stock kitten faces, while another X-acto knifed the eye and mouth holes, while still another hole-punched the black and white faces and tied on elastic string.  At the far side were Rubbermaid bins filled to the brim with oft-used crayons. 

"We've got to get a good set of these together before the next camp group shows up!"

For the next three-and-a-half hours I sat in the midst of dozens of children and their inexplicably off-work Lincoln Park parents while feverishly slicing generic baby feline masks.  The "jaguar" term was used in loose affiliation with the flippantly declared "South America Day" at the zoo, which did not necessarily accredit the activity (though there was a fairly decent Flamenco band with the according Flamenco dancers to serenade/distract us).  

I think I neglected to say at the beginning that there are two other things that I don't usually hear to describe me: 

*Dr. Spock Protege

*New/Old Money

Or any kind of money, really...except maybe "Dead Money" at the poker table.  

After the last of the tap-tap-tapping from the Flamenco dancers, and the applause from the two-dozen or so in the "crowd," the actually pleasant LPZ employee directed us to tidy up.  She thanked us for our help in preparing for the next day: "South America Day 2: The South Goes North."  

I kept waiting for the "...and go get yourselves a free lunch from the concessions with this voucher!" part of the speech, but that strangely didn't happen.  They didn't even have those awesome animal-shaped fries of my youth...just overpriced pommes frites.  As I walked toward Lincoln Park West and my store (where I was closing that night), I felt as if I were still holding that pair of scissors.  I caressed my right index finger with my right thumb...no feeling in one spot.

It is three days later.  While better, the sensitivity on that portion of my finger is "light" at best.  I'm sure I'd still be aching from swinging a huge piece of metal through a door or something, but at least I'd have been able to SWING A HUGE PIECE OF METAL THROUGH A DOOR.  And, well, maybe a family crying and hugging me, thanking me for my devotion to helping people, and asking me if I wanted to be their swaddled child's godfather.  

Instead, I get a numb finger.  You know what?  Fuck corporate responsibility.

I'm never "helping" anyone again. 

 

Laverneus Itallone

Ah, a day with nothing and everything to do.  Once again.

The nature of this "business" is strange.  I use "business" loosely at this point, seeing how I'm rarely paid and frequently passed over in my young career.  It's something I have to keep telling myself: it is, indeed, young.  I've really only been at it a year or so, and I'm already a Clio award-winning actor and have been well-paid in a few productions.  But...yeah.  Call it the human propensity toward wanting more, but I do.  

Yet, I keep working.  I seriously cannot complain because I am busy.  And I'm meeting people, right?  That's the way it's supposed to be.  I'm supposed to be destitute and ill-fed.  I'll tell you what:  I'd much rather be a well-fed artist.  I keep hoping that my persistence will pay off.  That when I'm still doing this at thirty, as Louie Anderson says in Coming To America, "That's when the big bucks start rolling in!"

More later.  Now to tidy up my room and get ready to rock some serious one-act play festivaling.  AGAIN!

Victor "The Barbarous" Gardeña

What sucks is that I've been awake since 7:30am...on a Saturday...when I didn't have to work. I had rehearsal for the aforementioned n.u.f.a.n. ensemble project at 10, went 'til 12:30, and sat on the phone for an hour hitting redial to make an appointment for a general.

I'll take a moment here for some deserved griping. For those of you unaware, major Chicago theatres ("r" before "e" for pretense, you see) are glorious sadists. They take pleasure in torturing the already tortured and destitute Chicago actor by making him/her call in at specific times on specific dates to make general audition appointments. Our poor actor is forced to dial the same number (frequently specified as "never call this number at any other time for any other reason") incessantly as he receives busy signal after busy signal. Meanwhile all of the other poor actors in Chicago are dialing at the same time, receiving the same busy signals. Not only does this colossal waste of energy, phone minutes and neurons take usually at least an hour before one can get through to a human voice, but it breeds such contempt and frustration at the entire scenario that it usually takes another hour to calm down.

...it does for me, at least. Now, I cannot be the only one who has had it with this technique. "Well, you better have your date-book cleared between 12 and 3 on July 23rd. You're gonna be on the phone a while!" Please, who do you think you are? Have we learned nothing from the cable repair/installation industry? And as if I wouldn't be the lap-dog that I am, do you think that not being able to make an appointment is going to stop me from "crashing" your non-equity general? Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure I've made appointments via e-mail before. I've also made appointments by postal mail. Or by phone, at (gasp) any given time during business hours! No fuss. Casting directors are respondent and courteous in these practices as well...why can't the number-three theatre company in Chicago take my e-mail/letter/phone call? We know it's already on your terms; you're the hiring company and a great company to work for. Must we be demoralized semi-annually by fighting not only your phone lines but essentially each other even before we audition? Be a sport, will ya? Just once, tell me a date when I can contact you, and in my best chronological abilities I will do so. Not really that hard. Just let me know when I can drop you a line and when I don't have to win the game of "Best Auto-dialer." This ain't just for these generals either...you're all on notice.

Well, that was more than a moment of griping I suppose. I just can't believe nobody else gets pissed off about this waste-of-day exercise that happens for every big company every summer. That being said, I did indeed get through eventually. Now for the whole other hill of beans in getting ready for the actual audition. I should be calmed down by then. Should.

And now, for birthday food of my heritage: Schnitzels and Sauerbräten.

"Whittlin'" Willie Simpkins, Master of Ceremonies and Retired Cartographer

Sometimes I just enjoy creating nicknames for nonexistent people.  Really makes you wish there was such a person, eh?  

I'm supposed to be memorizing lines right now, per the n.u.f.a.n. ensemble 7 plays in 7 days festival this monday that I was randomly roped into.  But I'm much more amused by my new, quasi-newsprint-but-not-html-savvy-enough-to-make-it-look-like-newsprint blog.  Ta-dah.

Because I must temper my newfound enthusiasm for browser-embedded text-editing with the knowledge of awake-ness in the short term, I will make this inaugural posting brief, yet dutifully poignant.

I cannot be the only sports news savvy web trawler to be fascinated by the overwhelming news of ethics these days in sports.  The ongoing persona-non-grata Barry Bonds, the boorish Michael Vick, Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson (both nicknames strangely reminiscent of Atari 2600), 'Roids in Golf, and the breaking NBA referee betting scandal are all wonderful news to the avid sports fan.  My question is: Has it always been like this?  I don't think that in the sixties Arnold Palmer was juicing to drive five-hundred yards whilst tutoring a litter of pit bulls and stockpiling assault rifles.  Or maybe he was.  Maybe the news media was giving him the ol' Roosevelt treatment because of his status as reigning golf demigod.  Granted my choice of athlete is a bit silly, but even his contemporaries' issues (Wilt Chamberlain, Dick Butkus) never ranged beyond the basic verbal gaffe or sexual indiscretion.  It makes me wonder what we'd be able to know if our current Internet media capabilities were applied to that time, or previous eras.  God help me if I knew more about Babe Ruth or Johnny Weissmuller.

Whatever the hypotheticals, I need to focus on what makes sports, well, sports.  I'm watching these men (or ladies...I find women's basketball mildly entertaining) not as a moral Miss America, but because I want to be entertained by the game.  I must admit, to this point (sans Barry) I find a lot of the ethical stuff just as entertaining.  It's only when the "good" guys screw up, the Rafael Palmieros whom you'd think would never sully the sport, that the fleeting gossip fun ends.  It's fun to give a Nelson "Ha Ha!" to the guys you already hate, but it breaks your heart to see how deep the ethics issue in sports truly runs.