Healthy Book Club

It's Kind Of Like Frogger, But With The Superego...

2009-05-14T12:05:00.001-07:00

Jeannie didn't necessarily want breast implants. She, like most affluent urbanites in their mid-twenties, was lumbering towards a ubiquitous sense of symmetry, and her breasts -- analogous to her lack of punctuality or pronounced speaking voice -- were coral in a sea of personal bullet points that needed remedying. She sipped her Kombucha, not quite assimilated to the briny taste. The condescension dripping southward in mini-armadas all across the bottle transfered to her hands with each woeful gulp, and so on and so forth the keyboard on her laptop computer soon collected it's own mini-oases over non-related letters and numbers.

She didn't mind the research so much, kind of made her feel industrious and on the ball. But Symmetry: piece of mind, oneness, this pendulous coupling of zen was monstrously expensive, upwards of eight grand of which she had 526 dollars to her name. Hmm, let's see she thought: sell the record player? No, tethered too tight to my personal aesthetics. Get a second job? Nah, If I'm gone all the time I can't mop up these other solipsistic maladies. Maybe something homeopathic? Meditating? Incantations? Find a Shaman who specializes in Augmentations of all shapes and sizes (pun sadly not recognized)? Maybe...

Her cell phone rang, it was an old model, another source of insecurity and consumerist rung on the ladder to enlightenment. It was her manager from the restaurant. One of the dishwashers found, while cleaning out all the employees lockers -- a bi-yearly event advertised weeks in advanced, in the name of cleanliness mostly -- a vial of cocaine, half-full. And Rosco would have kept it for himself if not for the Manger, Eugene, to have fortuitously walked through at that very moment. Eugene, a born-again something, Jeannie couldn't really recall, was fuming. She was asked, well, told to resign or face criminal prosecution. In effect, she was fired. The money train derailed.

She hit the END button on her shitty phone, tossing it haphazardly against the wall, uncaring of its fate. And, in a biting lachrymose moment that would haunt her for the next 15 or so days, she took one last look online at the perfect pair of Breasts she'd hoped to make her own, and logged off the internet.

Gone Fishin'

2009-05-01T10:34:00.001-07:00

Healthy Book Club will return to it's regularly scheduled programming next Monday, May 4th. In the subsequent days I shall be moving, and working, and packing and scrambling and lifting heavy things, and trying not to feel too hungover, and lamenting superfluous drug-use at times where I should sort of be an adult.

But -- in a Melrose Place -esque cliffhanger, now that my relocation is happening, content will start getting very interesting, and our little project, these ideas we are cultivating will grow some legs and stroll around the city, yours and mine.

Be Ready, Be Steady, Hold Your Head To Your Hands

And Breath...

-m

Pilsen Migration and the Fallow Conflagration

2009-04-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

Tuesday! I'm moving, in-city, by Sunday! My epic search (epic in the way Michael Bay's Armageddon was epic, so not really) has concluded, waving the peripatetic white flag at Racine Ave in Chicago's Pilsen Neighborhood. Ironically, I grew up in Racine, WI, and while it's tempting to make some sort of tarot-card connect the dots/coming full-circle sort of thing -- I have FAR bigger issues to attend to, like: Do I have my own can-opener?

That's right folks -- it's Scavenger Hunt time. I've been living with one of my Best Mates for the past year -- riding the Gravy Train in his posh condo -- and my things have, sort of assimilated or just generally disappeared. So, when you imagine me cultivating new ideas in my fecundate, fallow setting, the duality of being entrenched in an unflagging internal debate/inventory over functionality, quality of life VS complete minimal living will be a constant, but it's a good thing, really. It's a fairly malleable space I can mold into one giant office -- a Healthy Book Club Headquarters if you will, and if that's a little too Fight Club for you I'll spare you the details on the uniforms.

There's a spare bedroom, and, if I'm so inclined I could rent said space out: on the cheap! Maybe I could auction it off on the Blog here: an international essay contest as to why you feel you'd make the best roommate: prettier, smell nicer, constant flow of drugs, you like all the same coffee/tea/fine groceries i do, we can read to each other at night -- anything!

In other news, per blog-inspiration, my Pirates VS Drug Lords West Side Story redux will be staged @ Second City in our show come August: Southwest Side Story. Thank you current events!

So you may infer I'm lacking in ideas/focus/general shit to talk about today. Can't someone else entertain you? Yes! Check out some friends' blogs:

Bad Sandwich Chronicles

Car Accident Observation Deck

Also friends -- I'm in no way Blog Savvy w/r/t other cool blogs out there, so if you've got something you deem as The Bees Knees please send it my way.

xoxoxoxox

Your Own Montage, Your Own Swine Pandemic. How Will You Escape, What Catalyst Will Set It?

2009-04-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, and Happy Last Week Of April...

Today we're going to focus once again on Character w/r/t narrative, but tie-in, seamlessly a common thread, an omnipresent plot-point: The Turn Upwards. We could also label this: Dude gets his/her shit together. If we, to be gloriously ahead of the curve, were to make a film over something as inglorious as the Swine Flu -- The Turn Upwards could be, hypothetically, the time, say 70% through the story, where our Protagonist team of Scientists bands together, flexing their cortical might to once and for all banish this vile villainous virus to bacteria heaven. But, the proper or better example is in Character-Driven stories where the hero figures it out and works towards the Synthesis of what's missing in his/her life. Hence: The Montage. Oh the feeling of Hey! the worst is over and now it's time to kick this Conflict's Ass and realize my potential! is always a joy for the viewer, for the reader, because we ALL in some facet are trekking through the maelstrom of some romantic goal, digging ourselves out of a hole, turning our lurid surroundings into gold. Even if we aren't there yet, a tiny sect in our consciousness is satiated watching another character, fictional or otherwise, fight the Good Fight.

But, getting all meta-fictional on you, these individualized Mecca's, these compartmentalized Sojourns beg some interesting questions themselves: At what point do we grow up? What moves us to buckle down and embrace self-actualization? Does nepotism or an overtly-coddling family mar, or invigorate one's ability to find such self-success?

And perhaps the most vexing: When does my Own Little Montage commence?

Why do so many turn the Key only to hear the frightening chortle of the Engine Stall? Is this happening to you, at this very moment? Or, unsheathing your sword have you bested this process, felled your psychic enemy to experience the Promise of Your Premise? While chatting with a friend late last night I was lamenting (in hilarious self-deprecatory fashion) my abjectly abysmal Time Management -- which of course permeates me work, keeps me from things, from Apartment Hunting to other, far greater Screenplays/Projects/Opportunities -- and ultimately this boils down to you. Because, with my own effete Key igniting my Engine I'm unable to reach out to you, to share the Entertainment/Affirmation I've to offer. Nobody wins in this situation. And if you think I'm being self-lauding, patting my future accomplishments on the ole back: this shit Weighs on me. Which brings to my question: is it really Time Management? Or, is it something darker, more subversive. Do we, subconsciously, seek the Damage Energy to light our creative fires? I can't do this anymore. I'm refuting all that stands in my way. Now what?

Where do you measure success? Am I making you uncomfortable?

xoxox

-m

An Eviction Notice For Your New Lease On Life

2009-04-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

Have there been too many I should have's orbiting around this week? Do you find yourself keeping an oversized rubber mallet handy to bludgeon the Listless Gopher -- intermittently emerging to cough up spores of wavering regret into your psychic atmosphere.

Would you say, at least entertain, a precognition of admittance, that you've noticed a stark, subversive, wraith-like brevity to your passion. Are you sleeping well? Are you sleeping alone? Do you sleep well with your current partner, lover, husband, wife? Is there a ubiquitous solution to the stuck arm while cuddling with your loved one? Even in the throes of sleep, do you find yourselves reconfiguring with ease, a cohesive unit? While walking today, outside, in public, will a smile erect itself across your visage, prompting the curiosity of passers-by?

Perhaps the armadas of self-doubt have sailed superfluously for too long? And if you're expecting a metaphor analogous to docking said ship why don't we aim higher and simply sink the fucker? Let's make it past-tense, tense-no-more, more or less a reset button, a bailout, time to bribe your local notary public and shred your new lease on life: because, trapped underneath your unpaid bills and sale papers, the Alderman's latest witch-hunt and the poor soul inquiring if you have, in fact, seen him or her? -- there's better documentation to carry yourself in accordance to. Amidst the enervating errands and obligations, you'll find, even in sporadic bursts of light, a tangible passion, a plausible beauty. And you'll want - - so very badly -- to hold on to it, to exploit it, to explore it. So Magellan: in your travels today I'm going to humbly ask you have a one on one with your trusted cartographer and put a moratorium on his trajectory, because brother: it ain't workin'.

Running Errands, Running Gags

2009-04-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

There I was -- 9:30 a.m. wearing a deep v-neck, royal blue short-shorts, and rubber gloves. I was cleaning. I'm a good housewife. My ex-girlfriend came back from NYC this afternoon and, being in the top 1 percentile of house-sitters this city has to offer, had to make the place sparkle. I sort of forgot to change the cat litter for most of the week, because while we were dating, she manned the Kitty-Lavatory-Station. Needless to say it wasn't pretty. Actually, supplanting beauty or lack thereof was the the full-on litter transfer. By the end of it I was choking on Clay Litter Fumes, in tandem with the pungent vinegar-knives of cat piss repeatedly stabbing me in the eye.

Slow news day in Healthy Book Club you ask? Not so much, just beat-down from the myriad of errands appearing and reappearing: it's really cutting down on my looking at myself in the mirror time. I do, in fact, look at myself in the mirror far too much. I have a psychological issue that defies Narcissism.

I'm actually stealing an idea -- from myself -- and writing a song about Mexican Drug Lords battling Somali Pirates in the vein of West Side Story. Primarily, the music focuses on Jet's Song and America. Are there Zombies? Of course there are!

I'm afraid we're out of time: I have a hair appointment @ 2. Soon I'll be astride Blue Velvet, burning up the Chicago streets, hopefully not getting hit by open car doors post-park. The taste of hummus in my mouth has overstayed its welcome.

xoxox,

The Downward Slope

2009-04-22T10:45:00.001-07:00

" What the fuck is his deal?" He didn't pinpoint who exactly said it, but it was real, out there, in the open. Tate: black hooded-sweatshirt, ill-fitting derby har, was bending over, at the waist to reveal: faded carpenter pants, in tandem with belt, hugging the downward slope of his buttocks. Like a large-breasted woman tying a belt over her dress, directly under her, and accentuating, her pendulous twosome, only reversed. He had flashed paisley boxer-briefs -- whose claim was staked by GAP -- to the entirety of the coffee shop, all for a copy of the Red Eye. None of the patrons would ever be the same again -- for at least the next ten minutes or so.

Take crinkled his chapped lips into something of a smile and ambulated out the front entrance, the pre-pubescent spring air greeting him with a hue of passivity. He didn't dress like this normally, or have any similar proclivities to such sartorial horror. Tate was an actor. If you'd lend him your ears he may tell you he was the 7th to maybe like the 11th best actor in the Greater Chicago Area -- maybe. A few weeks back he'd earned the role of Hitman Hank in Take The Alleyway To My Heart: an indie-film being shot in Printers Row over the month of May. Per steadfast ritual of living the role before Principal Photography, Tate had been walkin' in Hank's Shoes for nearly ten days, filming to commence in the coming weekend. There was, it would soon be discovered, a little snafu: Tate had been called by mistake. He hadn't won the role. Thanks to the shoddy paperwork of a possibly too-stoned film student intern, his information was jumbled with the real (and despite an unctuous explanation/groveling from the Director, never to be) Hitman Hank, up-and-coming actor Maximus Tellery Johansson: a Scandinavian alpha-male type still well under 30.

Tragically -- at least in a bridge-burning-in-the-neighborhoods-you-hang-out-in social-sense -- Tate had bemused or outright offended a handful of people while purportedly in-character, as was Hank's true nature, an incorrigibly callous fellow. Hitman Hank was a caucasian hip-hop phenom, propelled by a string of now-legendary, mix-tapes that circulated the NYC underground until he was , serendipitously, discovered by prolific producer Thunderhawk "bizzy ben" Benson. He had been rapping, for one one in particular, but in very dramatic fashion, on the basketball court of a city park in Chicago's South Side. Rumor has it there was a pretty heated game of 2-on-2 going taking place simultaneously, but that theory has been challenged before....But, long story short: Hank was an inveterate eBay addict and, in a pronounced and perhaps too formulaic fall from grace, found himself in trouble with the Wrong People following an auction for an $11,000 bundle of authentic Samurai Swords he had hoped to sell, but hadn't the cash for in the first place. He refers to it as his Rapper fail-safe Insurance Plan to love interest Black Cherry Starling in one of the more poignant scenes in the script.

The story takes kind of a science fiction-esque turn halfway through, some scenes told entirely in subtitles of binary code; at its crest, Hank has to mine a great deal of Chromium so he can travel back in time to thwart himself betting on the auction. But it was never to be, at least for Tate.

Bottleneck-Brace Yourselves

2009-04-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday. And yes, that's a squab next to the nuclear-reactor-sized sandwich.

After my cereal-coffee combo (tragically leftover metropolis light-roast, and as much as I love said roaster, it's the dry-hump of quality beans) I, erroneously made my wheat-grass banana-ginkgo-boloba smoothie too soon, and am consequently, uncomfortably full. Let's compare this to (for men at least): when a pronounced need for urinating befalls you just before sex. Sometimes, even in my sexy voice, "Baby I have to pee, I'll be right back!" when things are hot and heavy is in no way conducive to what's about to go down, which, usually would be me in light of my sense-of-bladder-urgency. So, while our hypothetical-dude is making sweet, sweet love as only he can, while having to micturate, it still, of course, feels good, but there's a contingent of his sensors/nerve-endings/consciousness split-off from the coital-euphoria that, not unlike Rainman keeps uttering, "I gotta pee! I gotta pee! I GOTTA PEE!"

I suppose my low-brow situation is analogous to a myriad of activity and superfluous riff-raff we stuff into our day: I'm totally guilty of this. To be more accurate, more incisive w/r/t myself said multi-tasking could be one of my greatest inhibitors as a writer. And -- if anyone is so very bold, I'll offer here and now for someone to fashion some sort of chain/leash/harness I can attach to my desk. So the next time I get the urge to merge/splurge/converge 35 things at once I'll be pleasantly reminded via whiplash or an S&M-worthy welt, where exactly my priorities lie: to The Page.

Speaking of The Page: per my maudlin commentary, my tenure in the Second City Writing Program is coming to a close. We have 2 more classes and then, the final class, is producing a Revue (sketch-comedy show for you philistines out there -- totally joking, I didn't know either before I signed-up). Said revue won't be until August -- which, if you listen closely, is giving me a tremendous, tumescent, distended sigh of relief, because I can finally finish Apartment Hunting and move on to other projects: like promoting the living shit out of this blog!

So The Challenge/Contest/Surreptitious Attempt To Harness Your Talents:

I want to make Healthy Book Club stickers, but, for all my lovable literary goodness I have zero photoshop skills. So if you're out there, if anyone is out there, who feels the pang of awesomeness in their respective loins:

Please design a template using the typewriter on the page
Obviously Healthy Book Club and the website...
And my neato tagline(s): Let's Go Get Some Payback! OR Don't you deserve to feel Good about yourself?
Oh! And come derivation of Courier Font

I will give said individual a veritable Balloon-Drop's worth of credit and unyielding glory -- and you're work will be all over the City of Chicago, thus inching me further to omnipotent-stardom. That being said, I'm going to throw my clothes in the dryer.

xoxoxo,

-m

Second City Blues

2009-04-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone. There'll be -- surely causing lamentations -- no post today. I have to finish some work for second city and avoid the existential tsunami hovering above it all. If you want some racy private info/insight into my day, I'm going to order a Lox Bagel from a neighboring coffee shop pretty soon. This will be my lunch.

I feel like the gentleman in the white raincoat here...

xo,

Michael

Plywood Utopia in the Plaster of Paris

2009-04-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

Friday. It was move-in day all right, but, well, Maria hadn't exactly been forthcoming with me: was I in the house on the left, or the pseudo-squalid-possibly-foreclosed abode on the right, or gauche as she said, her diction an amalgamation of french (canadian-born, raised in Paris from an early age, moved to Chicago last year, on her 28th birthday: does this make her French Canadian?) and english. Occasionally, when we'd sleep together, as undulations hastened and intensity swelled, she'd moan these sexual commentaries en francais as she came -- despite the language barrier I found this terribly Hot.

Come to think of it, the very last time we were intimate (she'll only refer to it as fucking: we fucked; the last time we fucked; while you were fucking me: I found this, in tandem to her nondescript bilingual utterances while inside her, to be very alluring) is how this all started. We were at my place, boxes stacked like the most downtrodden game of tetris you'll ever play, and, as she so lovingly puts it: Fucking. All that remained was my king-sized mattress, taking up a majority of the room; a crowded train with 2 empty seats; a portly man in a petite bath tub. And we, inadvertently blowing a little too much cocaine at Fred's Intermittently Racy House of Burlesque (A dive bar down Armitage Ave., Fred was a College Dropout in some intense Creative Writing program at Cornell some years back -- this was his sardonic revenge), were really going at it. A primal element washed over us and a new, heightened physicality, pronounced itself. At it's peak -- we finished together this time -- I was behind her, she was balancing herself on the fortress of my varied belongings, and in some post-coital shock wave the boxes came tumbling down. Maria, nude, pinned supine on the floor, bested by a box of old Dwell and The Atlantic magazines, laughed, her full, exquisitely symmetrical breasts pushed up towards her chin. I found myself laughing with her, my heart still racing from the blow, from my effusive orgasm, and I helped free her from the shackled of stale periodicals. We lied on the floor, spooning, shaped like two SS's, me from behind, cupping her right breast with my left hand, intermittently kissing the slope of her neck.

She inquired why I was moving. I told her my roommate, who owned the condo (she found it to be cookie-cutter, I conceded it was enervating my writing in a furtive, subversive manner) had recently converted to Judaism with a woman he had met on match.com, and they were embarking on a Spiritual Journey through Israel. Thus: all belongings were to be sold off, condo notwithstanding. I had a solid three weeks to find a place, but, in my dedication to The Page I resigned myself to profligate not having my shit together and didn't exactly, um, well, look. Henry Miller told me, via his work at least, I needed to bang out 5000-words a day if I even wanted to label myself a writer: so who has the time to look for an apartment?

Thankfully she found this an entertaining yarn, and chose not to call me out on my gaping, plot-hole in the narrative of being an Adult, and offered me a room in the house she had just closed on. It was somewhere in the Southside, between Pilsen and Bridgeport: I knew this area like I know Quantam Physics/The ins-and-outs of Dubai Nightlife/if the Sun-Times is actually a real newspaper, um, you get it -- I didn't know my way around. But it's my time now. Literary Greatness has caught my scent, and a previously-thought obscure locale would be just what the Doctor (I really hate this phrase, and must voice my insecurity and bizarre compulsion to use it) ordered.

And here I am, Uhaul chocked-full of my belongings, the new chapter in my peripatetic sojourn, grinning, but: there's two houses. One living, one dead, light and dark, good versus evil. I immediately felt my heart slam against my sternum, like an angry god. Tunnel-vision ensued, sound escaping me. I passed out; and now, on the verge of my greatest, no!, my real accomplishment, my first novel published, here I am lying on the floor in my Agent's office, a vessel, abuzz with a new, realized-energy, and this all I can think about.

Something was escaping me...

Help Us End Piracy...Or Was it Spread Literacy...?

2009-04-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

Stand up. Stretch. Reach for the Cocktail of vitamins and potentially illegal performance enhancing drugs -- and wash it down the enriched wheat-grass-protein smoothie sitting on the desk.

The Time is Now my friends. Warm-Up. Do some calisthenics, unsheathe the Saber resting so quiescently, inert, flaccid over your mantle. In a cinema-worthy montage, to your favorite upbeat tunes I need you to Don all brightly-colored, poofy garments -- Bandanas are a must -- some sort of gender-bending boots as well, and: Let's Go Hunt Some Pirates!

If I -- in all my infinite fictional wisdom (I mean Wisdom pertaining to creating Fiction, so you Sardonic Sally's can suck-it) -- were to write a screenplay based on current events, it would go like this:

Just as U.N. forces had the Somali Pirates (SP's) cornered, their assets frozen, their armaments seemingly cut-off...an unholy alliance was formed: The Mexican Drug Lords (MDL's) come, unrelentingly, to their rescue. But little did anyone know the Radioactive Waste the Somali's were harboring, and when United States forces intervene, hot on the MDL's trail: The Shit hits the Fan. This Summer, the Navy Seals face their greatest threat: Mutant Somali-Mexican-Pirate-Drug-Lords...and this time, It's PERSONAL!

And there we are! Michael Bay: I'll take my paycheck now. I'm sure we could tie-in a War On Drugs message, maybe something silly like all of us doing Blow and smoking Weed here in the States are somehow strengthening, Emboldening the mutants. So, in one fell swoop, we could thwart an international crisis and rid the U.S. of A. of it's pesky Drug Addiction. Of course there'd be a sequel... but we'll save that for next time.

And for the record: If you participated in any Tea Party Protests you are a complete, repugnant, devolving Tool. I'm sure you went home afterwards, watched your favorite episode of Two And A Half Men, cranked the Fox News Channel, ordered pizza, trimmed your goatee, maybe took your truck to the car wash and then to Wal-Mart because your oh-so-sophisticated Household has run perilously low on Corn-Based Snacks, and felt like a real, live, Revolutionary. Fuck off, please.

This is it: my last week of Second City, well, in their Writing Program. We make our final submissions for The Show (the culminating Sketch Revue written by us) this Monday. Afterwards we audition actors and go into production. It all feels terribly anticlimactic to be honest -- I'm not sure what this implies. I suppose the answer is It's the Journey, not the Destination-type didactic axiom -- or perhaps if I watch myself do push-ups in the mirror it will reveal the same thing (a breathtaking sight I might add). No: I fault myself for lack of focus, and I fault my teacher for the Anticlimactic Atmosphere. There's a difference in Coasting, with a group of Writers who know the drill and being cognizant of their talents (or lack thereof for some), and general up-to-speed-ness of how the whole thing works while continuing to teach and prepare them for what comes next. And what, my Pirate-Slaying Friends is exactly, Next? It could be anything really. Some of us (like moi) will go on to mega-stardom and adorn the culture of entertainment and literature with a cornucopia of ornate filigree and bombastic hyper-poignant tales -- and others will go back to their jobs more accomplished, well-spoken and generally more apt people. But this -- this is where the Instructor can Shine! He/She can Pontificate like no one's ever pontificated because the stage is set, these students have jumped through hoops and leapt over hurdles to be here for, something(?) and they can be malleable, squishy puddy in your pedagogical hands.

But, no, we've got the equivalent, meek-minded rhetoric of a small-town Jane Austen Book Club where everyone's too embarrassed to pick at the subtext and obvious Homosexual Allegories in her work (God I hope people get that joke).

Sometimes we have to be our own, engine, spark our own fervor, Impale our own Mutant-Pirate-Drug-Lord...you know?

xoxox,

michael

Post-Easter Window Teaser

2009-04-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

He didn't feel like doing much of anything. In the morning there was a blanket of gray unfurling itself in the sky. You could say there was a fog, a haze, the imminent chance of rain -- but he just called it shitty, and standing his ground, didn't care to do much of anything. But there was coffee: he had to smuggle it from home, force of habit, and said force gestated from an Obsessive-Compulsive need for constant, consistent, ever-demanding morning routine -- centered around food and drink, mostly drink, and in this case, in most cases, it was coffee. Taking another sip, quietly slurping (he always apologized, or brought his slurping to light mid-conversation), the combination of dark, full flavors/nuances washing over his palate, he realized he left his toothbrush at home, safe and sound in his little porcelain giraffe, residing on the shelf above his toilet. It was Easter Sunday -- he was condo-sitting for some old friends, a married couple: he had known the groom since College. He imagined actually sitting on the condo, if that were possible, the same way a hen sits on her eggs. No one could penetrate the forcefield while he was sitting atop, coffee in hand, feeling a pointed apathy outside of the immediate task at hand, making sure the condo doesn't disappear, spontaneously combust, immolate itself in a dark desperation as its true owners are off galavanting with their family, in Pennsylvania.

He leaned, bracing himself over the counter: his grinder, travel french-press (plastic, ugh!) bag of whole-bean coffee, and tiny ovular tupperware of raw sugar strewn about, so he could feel some inkling of stability while the rest of him couldn't focus or find the energy/care to much of anything. But he had no toothbrush. He muttered: lame, so fucking lame, and thought to raid his friend's washroom for some anonymous mouthwash. Circling around the island countertop towards the bathroom, a pair of window-washers, dutifully scrubbing the urban sludge along the adjacent condos caught his eye. He decided to go in for a closer look, pressing his forehead against the glass sliding-door to the patio, his visage absorbing the cold almost instantaneously.

The workers hung there, inert, in stasis. He smiled, strangely comforted. It had been almost a year since his divorce, since he'd last published, since he'd sold the rights of his last book to that obscure cable channel he'd never heard of. There was a moment where he couldn't tell if he was happy, starting to heal, or just now, on Easter, experiencing the rush that he'll never have to see any of this, or her, again.

Some Phone Etiquette Fo' That'Ass!

2009-04-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's Friday -- The Good Friday we've all been hearing about, the same one the Internet's been abuzz over since a sect of Americans started refuting Daily Pleasures for this Lent character. Maybe I've been too self-involved to notice.

And fuck-fucking-fuck Apartment Hunting, like my screenplay Apartment Hunting sure is draining: a Domesticated Wraith sucking the life force from pressing need to relocate. I'm supposed to find a place in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood by May 1st in conjunction with a restaurant opening I'll be part of. I'm trying to go the sublet route because I, for many reasons I'll relay in future posts, want to move to LA in six months. However with the totally tubular convergence of my abjectly repugnant credit score, finding a good deal to save some cash, and having to deal with Stranger roommates it's been a smidge more arduous than I'd like.

And what's with the Goddamn Credit History Sanctimonious Bullshit!!!!!!!!?

I, yes, I, Me, the terrific Urban Dandy who speaks so beautifully, Royally fucked up my credit somewhere in the vicinity of 9 years ago, and everything since has been heaped on my irresponsible, pariah-of-the-economy Pile ever since. This makes finding an apartment less than stellar. I'm actually an awesome tenant, living-wise and always pay rent on time-wise, but in the eyes of those damning property owners: I'm the lowest of the low -- I'm Robert Downey Junior in the late 90's drug-user-outcast-from-Hollywood low. Oh hey! you have good references, great rental history: We don't give a fuck!

And then, from these Gems of Society that just happen to own some real estate, I find a social-retardness like few interactions I've the displeasure to come by in my days, weeks, months:

Here's a phone call I attempted to make w/r/t a potentially great apartment:

Me: Hi, may I speak with Debbie please?

Debbie (5 second pause, and out of breath) umm, yeah, this is she? (she sounds confused)

Me: (laughing) OK? Well I'm calling in reference to the apartment I saw on Craigslist.

Debbie: (pause again, like she's being interrupted, or just having sex, or taking a shit): OK.

Me: (bewildered) Is it available for May 1st?

Debbie: (irritated, very blue-collar sounding): Well it's available now [It's April 10th mind you] but I guess I could do May 1st...?

Me: You know what, you're not being very professional I don't think I'd want to rent from you.

Debbie: (upbeat) OK!

Me: If you want to rent an apartment you should really learn to speak properly and professionally on the phone.

Click.

Are you fucking kidding me? This was an Ad on Craigslist, with pictures, and Debbie's phone number instructing people to call, ostensibly, to rent the Goddamn apartment, and this is the way you carry yourself? I Guarantee you this woman is slovenly, overweight and homely, but I, I with my bad credit -- I'm the Asshole.

Get your Couches ready, your Futons unfurled, your floors dusted: I'm surfing the righteous waves of homelessness, and it's high tide.

xoxoxoxox,

Michael

Shout-Outs to Nowhere, Accolades to No One, Convivial Nonetheless

2009-04-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Carousing on Wednesday, the sentry of late-entries, I can't go on, I must go on...

I'll go on. And if you like Samuel Beckett references I have a 287-page screenplay in homage: An erratic, borderline derelict Gentleman named Herschel, sashays around Whole Foods deciding exactly what cereal and dairy-alternative milk best suits him and reflects his socioeconomic status. There's very little dialogue.

I remember, and this is 3+ years ago, being let down by 'The Unnamable,' the last novel in his Trilogy. It squandered the opportunities, or at least I felt it did, to forge a succinct metafictional connection between the three novels. The beginning takes place in some sort of afterlife, or primal consciousness further down the spiritual trajectory than you and I, which I suppose could be summed up in afterlife thus negating the rest of this sentence, Hm... But said letdown-ness is fickle, however I've not the capaciousness allotted to take another stab -- and it would be 100X if I could read them in French, the way they were written/intended. There's something so very chic about an author who ditches his native tongue (English) to cavort with the literary oligarchy en Francais: it's Daniel Day Lewis-worthy in the Cool department.

And it's cool, to me at least, because said Departure represents another notch in the Nature VS Nurture quarrel which the Former clearly emerged as Victor in my life. Now that I think of it though, at 29 y/o, I'd like to/strive for a family in the not-too-distant future, and my familial megalomania envisions a cultured, purposeful, succinct (count 'em two for succinct today) and generally awesome environment to raise my children in. So then I ask you, o' faithful reader, am I hypocritical in my backing Nature when I'm gearing my faculties, my totally awesome salvo of personality/life experience, to be mainlined into my offspring?

Am I looking to switch to the Nurture team? Does Nature/Nurture skip generations? Am I completely full of shit? Am I self-lauding/delusive/domestically brazen to even think I'll be such an incomparably stellar parent?

Well, I need to get my work out there and do the whole Get-Famous-And-Wealthy thing before I start procreating, at least ostensibly, because I seem to have enough calamity battling ADD and the inexorable Restaurant work to factor in children to the equation.

The crux of my tangent: my children, courtesy of my future-awesome-devastatingly-beautiful wife, will be a tiny race of Superbeings. Genuflect now mere mortals!

I'm listening to the new Junior Boys album Begone Dull Care while I'm writing this, and, sadly, my first reaction is kind of meh? but, hopefully, more listens will garner a stronger reaction

In the next few hours I'll be be back @ The Metro catching The Presets, reports to follow, and by follow I mean tomorrow.

I'm gonna go do some situps now.

-m

On Goonies, Plot Holes and Pilots

2009-04-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Fiction-Science: the high-falutin' and fun way to say you're messin' with shit.

A friend of mine, while I was over helping set up her new Macbook Pro (such a sexy machine, the computer, not my friend, silly goose!), had The Goonies on network television. It was the third act, they'd just discovered Willy's Ship. And in a relatively serious analysis, she began breaking down all the Plot Holes, Unrealities and generally Farcical elements of the story. It was gold -- Fucking Comedic Gold. Par Example:

- Why'd they let the ship sail away with all the treasure?

- The authorities would never let them keep any of the treasure just cause they found it!

I encouraged her to write Richard Donner to tell him what a pile of Horseshit his film was.

And while this begs the question, or perhaps the call to mine the endless tunnels of potential of picking apart my generations favorite childhood films (Labyrinth I hear you calling!), I'll keep it simple and leave you with this premise for a sequel:

The Goonies 2: After capturing One-Eyed Willy's Ship twenty years after it set sail, our protagonists and their families are locked in an intense courtroom battle on who exactly gets to keep the treasure -- and that's it. That's right, 2 and a half hours of John Grisham-y, Law & Order-y courtroom melodrama. The kids appear finished: the local museum threatening to seize all treasure via some silly laws, until, Sloth, in an intense montage, passes the Bar Exam and jumps on board to save the day, reborn as a bad-ass, take-no-prisoners Attorney at Law.

No Whimsy, No Adventure...Just Hardcore Litigation.

Genius right? Can you imagine how pissed people would be if this was marketed incorrectly just to get people in the theater? It's bliss, pure unadulterated bliss.

In other news, as a summer project, I'm going to write a Television Pilot. I feel the medium, with the advent of neato interweb hijinks, is a strong environment to invest in. Totally in the embryonic stages. If anyone has any ideas I can swap for yard work or if you'd fancy I read you your favorite book in my sexy voice as you drift into otherwordly rest, I'm totally down.

No Mas Por Hoy!

xoxoxoox

And Start West Part 2: Skeleton Key

2009-04-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

"-- it is the breath of the Forbidden Wing...essence of all the still figures waiting for him inside, daring him to enter and find a secret he cannot survive."

- Thomas Pynchon

Happy Monday! Did you enjoy the weekend? Did you fall in Love, in Like, in Lust, in abject Apathy towards one, or perhaps, if you're a contemptuously ambitious individual, many things. I stand, unrelenting in my belief of the myriad of truths hidden in the fallow fields of dissatisfaction, so if you are the latter ilk: Go For It!

And if you want me to take myself less seriously -- this was part of my brunch @ The Publican yesterday:

- Large Bowl of Frites, 2 fried eggs on top, volcanic side of Garlic Aioli

I practice what I preach and breach no contracts in the process -- and take solace you'll have full access, safe-passage, socioeconomic asylum to assuage any redacted mishaps and happenstance.

Film. Believe it or not I fall in ruts/stints/patterns of virtually no viewings. But I'm no historian, as Henry Miller would espouse we need to live before we try and make some sort of contribution, at least in this field. Last night I watched The Double Life Of Veronique circa 1991: a tale 2 women, one Polish, one French, twin identities, dual life-essence, split in half; and there's much to be said over a Spiritual Bond as this. Please watch this film -- I've a feeling it will you make you smile.

And I too want to make you smile, every, single, last one of you. Which brings us to the subject of Today: Motivations. The Skeleton Key allowing entry to all the deep-seeded compulsions to do, exactly what it is, we want to do. And yes, I want to make you smile

I want, no, no, I need to make you feel good about yourselves...

Why Film? And why has 10 years passed, come full-circle, leading me to face the unreality, the inexorable vocational tractor-beam such as this...?

For so much of my life, and this isn't deriding anyone, anything any social situation I've had the pleasure of participating in, but there's been insurmountable evidence, facilitated by the cinematic style my thoughts come into being, of something lackluster, less-than, perhaps failure isn't the best word, but it's the first word that comes to mind (I'm aping Palahniuk on that last one). Now, I'm not eschewing the truly sublime moments of my experience, not in the least, but I'll ask you now to focus, to harness the residual feelings of every important talk, every apical chapter in your life, every time you had something so powerful, so devastating to tell someone and your once mighty Lightning Bolt sent priority mail from Mount Olympus fell flat, effete, static electricity amidst the contents of your dryer.

It didn't turn out the way you'd hoped, did it? Where was your catharsis, your answers, your spiritual portage between rivers? I know this feeling and this, this is what I want to eschew in my work. The simple fact, truths, maxims quietly convey these moments are simply few and far between, and the confluence of all parties investing themselves on similar wavelengths is perhaps a path less traversable then we originally thought, hoped, longed for.

And this is OK. Our self-worth is not damaged, gilded by any means, not one shred. But Film, film!, in this world we can play by our rules, make things as we see fit. Every break-up, every feeling of alienation, blissful aftershocks of connection can be done a very real, exacting justice. And this isn't fiction: it's the way we all think, feel, and it deserves to be recognized, given its proper credence. The inside-joke, the omnipresent need for something Relatable transcends/permeates Drama, Comedy, Horror, Action: nothing has to be pigeonholed, ever. I want to edify, confirm the swirling mass of feelings, unnamable self-induced, self-promoted themes you perhaps found yourself at a loss to share with others.

This is the Human Condition -- and it must be requited. My promulgation or proclivities to be a proponent of such are nothing new. People like: David Foster Wallace, Haruki Murakami, Henry Miller, Bret Easton Ellis have championed such abstruse causes and literally forged a better life for people like me.

Don't you deserve to feel good about yourself?

xoxoxoo,

-m

I Should've Been A Rockstar...

2009-04-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday Y'all -- yep, i just said y'all. Because today I'm fancy-free, a hint of whimsy, a spirited spring in my step. So, yesterday I saw Junior Boys (pictured) @ The Metro here in my lovely city of Chicago, and it rekindled a firm belief of a fallow ability I never quite pursued: I should have been a Rockstar. Junior Boys is an electro-pop duo with sultry, soulful vocals (good music to have sex to you salacious, lecherous readers of mine...and I can throw prurient in there too) and while they were good there was an element of stage presence and proper live-show track selection (from their small, but fantastic library) missing from the evening. The lead singer had some quiet, sort of discernible banter, w/r/t their touring drummer Twittering all day -- ho-hum. This is where he could've tagged me for some supplemental awesomeness. I actually have a good voice, defined taste in music and the ability to articulate my thoughts on different sounds/aesthetics/genres, but, and this is an obese, driving around the suburbs, working in an office and under NO circumstance exercising BUT : I never learned music theory, I've flaked about 3 times trying to play instruments (guitar, bass, and my stint DJ'ing -- I actually wish I still had that equipment), and never took the time to educate myself. I have a tremendous respect for musicians and people that actually got off their asses and made it work.

Other highlights of the evening:

- The complete wanna-be-hipster-sardonic-jack-black's-character-from-high-fidelity Guy checking ID's for Bracelets so we can Booze. If by chance you read this -- you are a Tool to such staggering heights I actually think you were faking it, an actor perhaps, practicing some Asshole character. The reality: this guy gets his authoritative jollies/kicks off of having a power-trip, checking ID's -- yeah...

- The austere, immovable Security Guards: very humorous, and their faces have to hurt for clenching them in such manly positions for hours on end.

- While I was in the middle of the floor a Peculiar Diaper Smell wafted around for about 30 seconds -- disappearing into the night.

- Seeing the lovely ladies from my Salon: Esther and Nikki: VIP and beautiful.

- Seeing my old friend Daniel: thou rocketh!

- Hearing Birthday live (Swoon!)

And that's it for the week: it's been fun! Have a safe, making-out-laden, generally racy time out there in the world. I'm going to shower and play the part of a Charming Waiter for the evening, and yes, I do parties, private parties, but there's a deposit required ;-)

Cheers!

-M

Transcontinental Soliloquy

2009-04-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

Marianne stuffed the letter into her pocket. A few minutes prior, reading/rereading/consuming the four handwritten paragraphs, enamored, elated, she painstakingly folded the paper seven times so it would fit just...right. She checked her mug: oversized porcelain with a Unicorn being led by a piece of dental floss, and alas, she was out of coffee. At this interval, on most days, she would practice lines in front of the standing mirror in the foyer. Her roommate, unwittingly, through some osmosis of the performing arts had also memorized Marianne's various monologues given the shoddy, no where near soundproof confines of the apartment. But this wasn't most days. And -- fighting off the urge to reread the letter yet again, her concept of what Most Days alluded to may have to be reassessed, or better yet, improved, fully realized.

A response had been attempted, cryogenically frozen on her computer screen -- she had abysmal handwriting -- but only one line composed, a single diner, cautiously sipping his Cote Rotie in an empty restaurant:

My Love,

How is Los Angeles treating you today?

Staring her in the face, taunting, demanding something far more emphatic. In the tenure of her acting career she'd spun yarns at auditions and improv shows of Dickens-like proportions stemming from a slew of nonsensical origin, but here, in the trenches, in the substrata she found herself at a loss, overcome. Out comes the letter, expertly unfolded, maternal, placed gently on the desk. She rummaged through the photos in her computer, finding an outdoor shot -- of nothing in particular -- of Silverlake, her favorite neighborhood in L.A. she'd visited within the last year, formatting it as the Wallpaper on her monitor. There -- ostentatious sunshine, staggered multi-green flora, houses on hills; the whole scenario looked warm and inviting. She smiled, her shoulders relaxed, releasing the tension for the first time all morning, unknowingly. Something was percolating. One fell swoop and she deletes her response, opens up a voice-program she often used to record herself performing monologues, rehearsing lines, a very useful tool, and, still smiling, but something was different, she opened up a new file. She picked up her office chair -- loose wheel in the back, so irritating, gave herself a little space to maneuver and hit RECORD. An exhalation:

Darling, Joeseph, I tried to write you and found something

obsolete, effete, my whole efforts enervating --

Her roommate, just arrived, unbeknownst to Marianne, compelled, eavesdrops behind her door.

I needed, no, I, something's changed -- and, please don't mistake me, it's beautiful -- I've allowed myself the chance to imagine my life, your life, Los Angeles, and I get these flourishes, sparks, intermittent pangs of something better and I find myself aroused, the chill up my spine letting me know I'm human, or rather I'm doing something right. I look at myself, what I'm doing, and you, baby you know, you get to a point and maybe I've taken this, or this place, this city, nearly as far as it's gonna go, you know? What I mean, and, well [laughing] after reading your letter like 25 times, is that I deserve this, I deserve you, I deserve to be happy and not something to be sent away for, part-time, on goddamn layaway -- I deserve the chance to create, I'm owed this opportunity for self-actualization and nothing will convince me otherwise--

The roommate's eyes widen, realizing she's holding her breath, nearly dropping her bag of groceries. She swallows slowly, methodically, listening:

And look: I'm on another monstrous tangent, my god, could you imagine if I'd actually written a letter? You'd have had to take a week away from work just to hear me say Thank You. Thank you for reminding me of my self-worth, something so dear to me, but we put things off, make reasons why we can't do things, get bogged down in pragmatics -- so absurd! But I'll see you soon, my resolve like totally refreshed, emboldened because I know the right answer. I know I can imagine a life with you, a reality yielding so many cherished memories, god I sound so fucking corny, but it's true. I envision even run-of-the-mill garden variety activities, shopping, going to the beach, making dinner at home, all this shit flooding, frying my circuits with these pangs of warmth and possibility and that yes, I am, doing something right.

Yours, Marianne.

She hits STOP, her heart racing, realizing she hadn't actually seen anything for the last three minutes, a blur, an impressionistic painting of her apartment orbiting her vision. As she placed a DVD inside her computer and hit BURN DISC a textured CRASH came from outside her room, the door swinging open.

English Patients, Double Agents...And You!

2009-04-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

I had an idea late last year of a scenario, a town hall meeting, where concerned citizens stepped forward to voice their opinion on the U.S. Economic Bailout Plan -- only to find everyone misunderstood what Bailout meant exactly, the marquee example: a forlorn film fanatic who thought Bailout was a Christian Bale Fanclub: Baleout!

I had an idea, I've had several, and occasionally we still miss the point, don't we? We bend the fractious remains, with the fervor of stoner college kids trying oh so desperately to invoke MacGyver and repair their broken Bong. But in the end our logic twisted, enmeshed in nonsensical, embellished intentions: my relationship's ended -- and perhaps more disrupting to the space-time continuum: I've shaved my Mustache.

And if you think I'm getting all Sex And The City on you -- go wrestle a platypus, in your underwear.

I'm single, clean-shaven and most likely will treat myself to sushi today and the green-flavored Kombucha -- then have a glass of champagne at work. Afterwards I'll read Raymond Carver short stories and fall asleep in a pile of my own tears, wearing a custom-fitted snorkel so not to drown, in my own tears that is, not emotional bile taking the Glass Elevator out of the Chocolate Factory -- right through the Goddamned Roof.

I'm gonna have a celebrity car wash fundraiser to get together the capital to film a recap of our Happiest Memory, and then sell it on ebay, but ironically, I'll only offer UPS Ground Shipping with NO tracking or delivery confirmation. I'm out there, pioneering, fled west, manning the Oregon Trail in a Zeppelin sipping Bourbon, laughing, because I know the rules, and the projects, stories, screenplays once thought quiescent will have their say, and it will be incisive, pointed, timeless.

I started working on Apartment Hunting once again: the characters through me a Welcome Back Shindig, but didn't spring for any party decorations when they knew how much I loved festooning open spaces with garishly gaudy shit. I'm going to take a chance and keep it a short film as well, because at this point I need finished work, I need to write; afterwards, if well-received I can always blow it up to a feature. It's going to be a blast -- stay tuned.

xoxox

-m

The Portland St. Spa

2009-03-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, today, but first I'm going to refer to yesterday: I was riding my bicycle home from Second City (writing class, sketch comedy), head buried, back forcefully arched, asserting myself against the cold. Fairing well, I crossed the domain of a 1,000 unattended potholes, as common in Chicago as Highways are in L.A., when a Shortcut crossed my eye: Portland Street. At the time, amidst the potholes, I was riding through an industrial business park and I'd never noticed this offshoot from the arterial street of Cortland, but there it, was. Portland Street followed a northwest/southeast trajectory, fortuitously where I needed to be, so I gave Blue Velvet (my bicycle) a gentle push and we were off.

The Potholes were getting worse; with each rotation of my pedals I had to divert my attention from the street to the road, street and road, and back again. I'm seeing things like one views a flipbook, and a sense of dread washes over me. I catch an aluminum rendering plant to my left, a freight door ajar, but there was no one working, only a stage, three feet high, where a man in a white tailored suit was captivating an audience of no more than seven laborers, pamphlets in their hands, smiling unabashedly. Another pothole: I hit this one and I'm a goner, cash in my life insurance policy...if I had one, a singing telegram to my primary beneficiary of my recent demise, but it's only a practice run. I dodge the pothole, my lungs aching from the cold. Flashes of catapults, the size of houses, find their way into my thoughts, and I feel like I'm going to cry. How far does this street go? And why aren't there any cars?

Steadfast, I continue pedaling, the tendons in my right knee threaten to go on strike, take a sabbatical to some Biological Resort where I'm not on the guest list this evening. To my left I notice three consecutive offices for Social Workers with cascading, unmistakably similar names I imagined came packaged together and discounted for purchasing the entire set. The middle office was Warren something, all lights aflutter and no less than 4 patients waiting in the lobby and I wonder how many people, if any, I'd helped that day, if I'd made anyone feel worthwhile, treated anything/anyone as sacrosanct, just generally gave a shit, and --

It was too late. Black. I was falling, subsumed in darkness. I lurched and threw Blue Velvet to make way for my fall. The patients in the Office, had they seen me? Did Portland Street swallow me up. No. I had, taken myself, self-propulsion, bicycle and all, into a pothole the size of a Trailer Park. And to them, interspersed with their problems, addictions, domestic disputes and obligations to the State and the Parole Board -- I was no more.

There was no drop in the pit of my stomach and the once encroaching sense of dread supplanted by a somnolent hum, the kind we feel just before falling asleep when we know there's no other option and our thoughts can only grow to be innocuous at best. Wait...I see, light? Halogen lights, and I'm getting warmer, my heartbeat increasing, am I dead?, and... Water. Clean, chlorinated water, I knew this smell, in my formative years I was a competitive swimmer -- the chemicals used to mar my bleached blonde hair and I was forced to wear a swimcap with a turtle on both sides. I'd reached the bottom, and though my clothes, layered and voluminous, were sodden I felt no weight, no pull, and ascended to the surface. There I was greeted by a wall of lavender, the succinct march of incense -- too much to count -- wafted all around me and I saw her: olive skin, black hair in a bob, lab coat, sea-foam greet high heels, couldn't be much older than myself. She flashed a calm, unassuming smile and approached with a clipboard. I tried to ask how many others had plummeted from the sky but my mouth was still partly submerged and I choked on water, the chlorine burning my nose. She was hot, and it was embarrassing, but her disposition was warm and still status-quo. Where the hell was I and--? She'd pointed to the stairs in the shallow end of the pool. My sense of time and space percolating, slowly gaining my wits about me and I swam to the edge. The lavender was nearly too much. She offered me a towel and a white robe, eerily my size, and craning my neck I noticed an alabaster statue of a woman, nude, holding a sword, bookshelves protruding from the firebrick walls, a sequential series of massage table portraits, next to, you guessed it, a nearly ostentatiously ornate Massage Table.

She laughed and told me to cut the trans-dimensional-wonderment-thing I had going on. Her name as Chenelle, and she was terrifyingly attractive up close. She told me I'd found The Portland Street spa, and as far as she could tell, documentation-wise, I'd had an appointment from a few months back, confirmed by email and telephone. But? No matter, Id just come from Second City, and I can improvise the shit out of any situation, and dude, she was really hot, like keep you awake at night Hot. Near the farthest bookshelf, which oddly was stocked with Raymond Carver novels and antiquated issues of Time Magazine, there was a curtain for me to change. Call it arrogance, or intended voyeurism, but I left a slit open so she could see me if she was so inclined. She wasn't. She was preparing something at the massage table and I continued to change, to clean myself off. There was an unmarked bottle I took as body lotion and I applied it liberally, feeling instantly better, reinvigorated, reborn. Lady Lazarus called to check if I was OK...I gave a sure thing! wave and leapt out shortly thereafter.

With the brazenness of an anticipated first date I trotted to the massage table, she motioned, reading over some forms on her clipboard, not even making eye contact with me. Hello? Do you see this body, pay attention to me! But, well, I disrobed, full-on nude, grabbed a hand towel and lay supine, the smell of lavender dissipating, and I felt warm, nebulous, increasingly drowsy but an undercurrent of coherent thoughts orbited my consciousness. This is what happens when you take GHB. She told me what I thought was body lotion was a precursor to the process, aligning my brainwaves via a chemical I can't pronounce, to assimilate with The Receiver: Chenelle, her official position at the Spa. An esoteric, something near-erotic body buzz enmeshed itself around me before I could question the nature of this visit, or, where the hell Blue Velvet had landed: I just bought that bike.

She sipped what I think was tea, pursing her lips and taking it in slowly, it must've been very hot, and with an immediate pang of clarity like we feel after that first gulp of coffee, that first line of cocaine, she casually patted the inside of my left ankle and said it's time to begin. The halogen lights dimmed, almost indiscernibly, or maybe I was hallucinating.

I still wasn't used to the sound of her voice: resonant but rounded and alluringly feminine in peaks and intermittent syllables joining together.

- Do you think people are easily disposed of?

I want to ask for clarification, but I feel I know what she's getting at, and I feel the sense of dread reforming, gestating somewhere just under the surface. I tell her no, flat out. But, in my experience there's a mutual respect between two people, lovers, participants in a relationship that needs to be sacrosanct (why am I saying that so much today?). I tell her, no, I challenge her to tell me what actions to take when two people have Peaked, when a relationship has run its course? But I don't give her time to respond. I feel tears well up, disproportionately in my left eye. Closing my eyes, I tell her we can still believe in each other, but bereft of passion we need to cut our losses and recognize what we had, what we were able to create, what we came away with, and that counts for something. My right fist begins to clench, but the body buzz, the somnolent hum, is overpowering. Regaining my cosmic, floating-in-space composure, shutting my eyes tight to focus, I implore her to connect the dots, the salient qualities of people and what the advent of new relationships, now that we're ready, hold the promise of the premise of what were trying to achieve in the first place. I asked her what Primal meant to her -- how necessary it was for two people to connect, to flesh-out something meaningful, and then tell me who exactly it is I'm disposing of. Yeah, take that.

Feeling mighty proud of my answer, and somewhat relived for reasons I would come to understand in the days to follow. Nothing. No response. I open my eyes like what the hell man? to move along this whole psychic-interrogation, but I was alone, in my bed, 5 a.m. in the morning, nude. I started to cry and the somnolent hum slowly gave way, vanished. It was Tuesday.

And if you think dreams are a cop-out, well...

Tropic of Can't, Sir...

2009-03-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday Life-Affirmers!

I just chugged my wheat grass smoothie with a few Gingko pills -- and I feel like I'm about to start hallucinating. So I'm at a bar called The Whistler in Logan Square with a few friends, on the flank of the main stretch of the bar, the place is packed, and I see two women around my age (I'm 29 if anyone lacks said info), one who catches my eye, and I do what I normally do in spontaneous stranger mode: I -- in Elementary School Fashion -- stick out my tongue.

Big deal, right? I've done this, and have a myriad of stock social experiments to pull off on strangers, and this one in particular usually yields hilarious results for both parties. However, this chick had a Goddamn Existential Crisis over the whole interaction. Well, I did it on the sly, and directly afterwards, seamlessly, went on talking to my company making sure I was audible, and made a point to speak succinctly and intersperse big-boy words so this person would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, infer I was a functioning, intelligent individual and my tongue-protruding-anomaly was innocuous and playful. Nope. Not the case. She got all Meryl Streep on me. Boring.

Directly after this I have to write a song for Second City: The Break-Up Song, I'm calling it. Other choices, in true Michael Simon fashion, were convoluted/high-falutin' but this requires something simple/succinct/relatable. And who can't related to breaking-up? What I'm doing though, is adding a slew of pragmatic details in both parties decision-making w/r/t not splitting up: the creature-comforts that have superseded passion in many respects. It should lend itself well humor-wise, but it's too close for comfort for many couples that'll even be in the audience I'm sure. If I shoot-up some Brain Tonic and find a way to display PDFs I'll display my sketches weekly.

Henry Miller: a kindred spirit if there ever was one. Tropic of Capricorn, Cancer, and I can't, sir, extricate myself from his core beliefs/timeline/passion/disillusionment. In fact, I'm about the same age he was when he said Fuck This! and left NYC for Paris in 1929. This is Nature beating the ever-living shit out of Nurture -- and it elates me to vertiginous heights. I want to start a Book Club (yes, a Healthy one at that)/Writing/Art-Collective where we not only examine this works -- but find a way to incorporate their salient qualities in our work/daily lives. There's an enter index of Red Tape, of reasons, of people, of mental obstacles obstructing our latent potential, our inherent power as individuals, and they're going to assign reasons How and Why we can't do the things we want, live the way we feel, shape our lives as we, see, fit: this is the Great Lie. When you're out today, perhaps inside, reading a magazine, talking to a loved one, practicing your craft, and you feel that pull in your stomach, the wave of sensory-overload wash over your spine, and you see yourself, your life for what it is, or better, what it could be, what it should be, your skin crawls, your eyes well up, and for a moment, a secular moment of clarity, perhaps the finest moment of the entire day, the real honesty we're not taught growing up -- and you want to hold on to this feeling....

I need you to hold on, amass all your anger, your infinite frustrations, your misguided passions devolving into hinderances, and simply, focus yourself, let it all out, all of it. Amidst explosions and foreign lands, the fearful uncertainties and fictionist futures we never wanted any part of, because today is the best day of your life -- and you will have what you want, what you've always wanted, what you deserve. And they're not going to go down easy, oh no, they'll stand in your way, but it's time we start hitting back. No more will you settle for mediocrity and the delusive unrealities you never asked for in the first place. So stand up, dust yourself off, pick out your favorite shirt: and Let's Go Get Some Payback!

And Start West...

2009-03-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Cheers to you Friday and everyone knowingly participating. But, be apprised: I don't quite have the same sense of week as a result of several years working in restaurants. This isn't an obscure outlet to seem different -- off to the left if you will -- merely I've been divorced from the standard Monday-Friday go apeshit on the weekends sort of thing: which I dig, absolutely.

I'm sneezing, nose leaking, pumped full of antibiotics and West Coast dreaming. My coffee is at the point where the French Press Sludge coagulates with the far less viscous consumable coffee, and it's just OK.

I have to work on a Song-based Sketch for Second City today. For the most part, I've settled on a community meeting of concerned Chicagoans over exactly where the bailout money is headed? And one confused attendee things Bailout is a Christian Bale fan club: priceless I know. Lorne Michaels, if you're reading this, sign me up, I can be in NYC by Monday. Actually I have received an offer/opportunity to move to NYC come fall. And then the next I thing I tell people is, "But I don't think I can afford it," blah blah blah. However upon mentioning this to a lovely woman whose origins shall remain a mystery, she casually (and by casual I mean I thought it was kinda hot) countered with the pragmatic, yet starkly poetic notion of -- work harder, adapt to said challenges/requirements/price-tags and everything will come up Milhouse. Simple, yes, but I found over the course of the day the idea really dug its nails in my person, sort of subversive to the complacent/compartmentalized blinders-at-my-peripheries self, and it filled me with a sense of warmth.

Where has Apartment Hunting been you ask (or perhaps this was the last question you had)? Dead. Dormant. Second city sapping my poor Time Management and Focus, but that's not a bad thing as SC's been been a fanciful proponent of improving my writing in general. A quandary I found myself having, on my birthday spectacular last month, came via my pal -- and very talented writer -- Brendan Kelly: Bad Sandwich Chronicles

Brendan is also an aspiring screenwriter and has made some headway with representation and getting his work out there to some very pertinent people. Let's put it this way, if I was in his situation I'd be throwing Internet Balloon Drops for all you fuckers and IM'ing 7-11 Big Gulps of Champagne. Digressing! So Brendan asked me about Apartment Hunting, which is around 40-50 pages projected, and if it could be a feature-length work. I responded pointedly (I was pumped full of adderall and booze) sure! Why Not! And I went on to expound on said enthusiasm by confiding I have 2 other feature ideas I was dying to get to after Apartment Hunting, and this project was sort-of-not-really-but-yes relegated to getting my bearings in the medium. He countered (my word for the day I guess?) with a very good point: A majority of films, in terms of having a career in the field, are feature-based, this is the template necessary to play in the Big-Boy Sandbox. I want to swan dive in this Sandbox -- I really, really do. Brendan is (one reason you have to fucking love the guy) a modest cat, and suffixed his advice with something like Then again I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about. But, he's right. And -- I can extend Apartment Hunting into a feature-length work. The crater-sized caveat I'm having is I JUST tailored this Baby to be 40-50 pages and it's been a cathartic experience for me. So the preface of going back to the development phase is a little daunting, because for as much as I like it -- and I do! like it -- I'm itching to write, well, not literally itching, that'd be gross. Feel free to chime in!

Enjoy your respective weekends: eat good food, make-out with someone (or several people), sit down and read a book, write your congressman, dress up like a zombie and EAT your congressman?

Xxoxox

Character Shell and the Template of Doom

2009-03-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday.

Things about my personal life: I'm getting a hair cut after this. I prefer one side to be longer than the other, asymmetrical. I generally have a glass of wine during my stay at the salon, and we laugh. It's nice out today and I'm going to ride my bicycle: blue velvet. I love her. Yesterday, because I have toe clips on my pedals, I found riding in my pointy black boots a thing of ease, a feat of natural, luminous beauty.

And today the subject is: Character. Any writers out there? Anyone who cares to maneuver with an increasing deft whilst dealing with others, despite their waggling, omnipresent daft?

Where do the lines of Extrovert and Introvert blur? How far does the seamy underbelly of selfishness really go? Let's examine the social autopsy of two individuals: Person Alpha and Person Omega. Gender is obsolete for now...

Person Alpha and Omega both share similar traits: extroverts/social butterflies, capable, determined and generally good people, with the capacity to identify and coddle the Human Condition and countenance this spark in others.

On their own, on this social platform some may find the two indiscernible. But this is not the case, and the greater question is why.

Person Omega forms friendships, takes lovers, falls inextricably tied to another, ruminating in this notion of what love could be, could mean, and here is the change, the variable in Character: Person Omega Invests his/her consciousness, ego, capaciousness to exist with another, and takes on this responsibility not always seamlessly or just, but with an ironclad credulity serving as the backbone to this relationship. It's the investment, the act of giving and trusting another individual with this power. Simple? You think so? Ask yourself how far you go, or are willing to travel when these connections arise? Be honest, please. What's the average distance you're willing to stray from your myriad of Comfort Zone to be subsumed in a relationship, friend or lover? Well, Person Omega goes and runs with it, and while the next obvious answer may be vulnerability, be apprised there's something else, a potential psychic trauma far more rooted than a surface act like Betrayal. Person Omega, when things go awry, is immolated in the question of closeness, of being there, blissfully inside another individual, resolve never greater, and it still, falls, apart. How could this happen? How could Person Omega fashion such a traversable bridge to his/her person and still be let so gloriously down?

Person Alpha acts as a social hub, a streaming constant others find themselves inexorably linked to. And all the while, amongst the sycophants, neurasthenics, alcoholics, cokeheads, and generally good people, Personal Alpha maintains a strong self-image, a personal edifice further driving those around him/her to seek their counsel, their company, confide something, hell, anything for a smattering of reassurance, of repose only someone of this magnitude can bequeath.

But Person Alpha, like most of us, contains a most damning Paradox: the inability, in the trenches of the Human Condition, in its most stripped down iteration, to communicate with others. And thus, in relationships, friend or lover, there's a fracture, a divide, an intense dichotomy of what is disseminated to the participating individual, and what scenes, salient or not, fall on the Editing Room Floor, cut to pieces, missing, vacant, vacuous. The easy question is: How does Person Alpha ultimately relate to anybody? But this logic is fickle and flawed, as Person Alpha offers some things, many things people need, desire and there's the glimmer, the undulating spark of soul, of a living/breathing entity staring you in the face. And thus, the relationship continues, and the participating individual, unaware what's being held back by Person Alpha, what's missing.

And then it ends.

-m

A Call To Arms, A Phantom Limb

2009-03-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday. I'm at my Girlfriend's kitchen table (my makeshift desk when I stay here), our breakfast a thing of the recent past, the coffee waning. Purposefully I place a pillow on the back of the chair as for lumbar support. I cross my legs: right leg pendulously swinging over left knee, left leg firmly planted on the ground. And as I begin, one thing is clear: my left testicle is awkwardly compromised in my casual positioning, my insouciant posturing.

And here, we...go!

Last night at work (restaurant work for those lacking my autobiography, server, fine-dining restaurant) I, despite emanating a slew of pleasantries and generally being an affable fellow, found myself voicing a pointedly dour opinion, "I fucking hate this place!" to my coworker towards the end of the evening. What sent me over the composed-person edge was our lack of business: this means less money and almost worse equates to us sitting around with various objects and body parts crammed up our asses. And me, at 29 years of age, I for the most part have a handle on the duel identities of artist and indentured servant. But, and apparently this is a deal-breaker for somnambulists and other delicate folk: I just can't be complacent or not vocalize when we're in the middle of a seemingly unnecessary shitstorm. And I do, I vocalize the shit out of showing up for work, standing around all evening, and then having the privilege/obligation to wait on some oblivious fucking people, who want to dine in an empty restaurant, further drawing out my evening in both time and now, lack of funds.

So what? This is your job isn't it? No one put a gun to your head to do this, right? Be humble in victory and graceful in defeat, isn't that what they say?

Well: fuck all of you, fuck you right in your ear. Because again, let's extricate ourselves that people, like myself are cognizant of these vocational platitudes. And so, for putting it out there, the absurdity of our situation, I'm deemed as NEGATIVE. For those that don't have the pleasure of knowing my real-time, living and breathing self, I've found through experience that my energy/disposition is one that, when my magic wand is waved, either embolden/enlighten/energize or bring-every-motherfucker's demeanor down. I prefer to use my powers for good, and being cognizant of this fact, if I'm methodically pointing out the bogusness of a situation I do it in a way where I've extricated myself, and the nuclear reactor of kinetic energy I can transpose on everyone else, and merely powerpoint-presentation the faults I see. But, I admit, I broke a little bit yesterday. And my coworker, sarah, immediately slapped me with sanctions for being a negative-nancy.

Here's my issue -- and finally -- my point: complacency is evil, and seductive, a cancer that pragmatists and other normally capable fellows often fall victim too. No shit we're in an economic disaster and I'm lucky to have a job. I know these things! But the premise of not questioning your situation, in hopes it should improve, that we can do better, is completely FUCKED. Even as a 3-time college dropout (last time I simply couldn't afford it, and was earning all A's) if I didn't question a myriad of situations both personal/professional, both aesthetic/pragmatic, I'd have nothing -- I can't even deal with the notion of where I'd be. I pity these people in their microcosms, pointer-fingers lodged in their ears, "Oh no, no! Don't bring that point to light, I need to get through my day, I'm fragile, this is all I can take!"

And now, in the ultra-paradoxical phase, I turn the interrogation lamp on myself. With the conviction and borderline sanctimoniousness I've released, where, oh where is this conviction for my true work, for my writing, my screenwriting, my acting. And friends, I hold nothing back, there's a myriad of situations-to-be-improved, and yes, I've improved and I'm ready to do battle on these mediums, here I am: still bitching about Restaurant Maladies, still working (or rather I STOPPED working around my birthday LAST month) with an Unfinished Screenplay (a damn good one) all tagged and boarded above my desk, still with NO agent w/r/t acting (and subsequently less/no work), still NOT using my potential, still holding back, yet here I am, telling others to shed these sorry clothes and get out into the world.

How did I fall into such an absurd and torpid quandary...is anyone out there?

-m

Assaulted In My Sleep!

2009-03-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Bang!

So I wake up around 8ish to a cacophony of muscular discord in my back, just behind my left shoulder. Sort of like:

- I was doing Yoga in my sleep, and fucked up really bad.

- I was in some sort of multi-gang brawl and bludgeoned with 2X4 from that dilapidated church down the street.

- Tiny little people are waging war against one another, using my muscles for some sort of makeshift trenches

Point being it's pretty fucking bizarre.

So our Music Workshop encompassed all of class yesterday: no vampire sketch just yet. But, all in all the Workshop was helpful for sure, and my comedic musical-proclivities will find new breadth, a renewed vigor and focus. Now that I've got a template down I can circumvent my pathetic lack of Music Theory knowledge.

So, before I journeyed off to sleep last night, I'm reading Adbusters. You can laugh, or maybe you're a fan, I'm an intermittent reader and do admittedly enjoy the periodical for the most part (the messages get a smidge repetitive) but it's Goddamn Depressing to read, and NOT I repeat not for the content. There's an underlying malaise or sanctimoniousness akin to some White-Dude-With-Dreads in his early to mid-20's pontificating on every political/globalized subject under the sun austerity about it that irks me. You know the kid: the sad sack who couldn't bring himself to laugh at that rollerblader who fell down over the broken mailbox, because people are suffering in Darfur. And I'm not being irreverent or insensitive to any genocide or culture under oppression, but the only way I can function in this day and age is to extricate myself -- to an extent -- from the myriad of depressing fodder out there sodden with the portents of a 1000 potentially bleak future outcomes. I'd actually love to hangout with the Adbusters staff for a week to be proven right/wrong, make some friends/enemies/frienemies/future make-out partners. Maybe if Adbusters accepts a contribution from me (within the week) I'll change my tune ;-)

The Music: My Bloody Valentine 'Loveless' (someone really really really really needs to fucking remaster this album, please, it sounds terrible for being such a sonic achievement)

xoxoxo

What Vampires Talk About When They Talk About Love

2009-03-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's Monday:

I'm hungover, smelly, eyes adorned with fallen bacteria hardened by the harsh room temperatures. I just chugged a wheat-grass smoothie (detox pills, ginseng, blueberries, banana, rice milk) and am on the road to recovery -- whatever that means. And, so you can keep tabs on Me throughout the week: Today (or this evening rather) is when I have my writing class for Second City.

I believe we have a Song-Writing Workshop today which I'm fairly stoked about because, in the cavernous realm of Sketch Comedy, working with music (or raps!) is definitely one of my strong points. But, and this is is a glorious But, there's some formatting issues I need apprising of, and my complete lack of music theory knowledge doesn't help matters any.

My skit this week, not music related: What Vampires Talk About When They Talk About Love. This is actually a 2nd draft, but more or less a complete overhaul of the last iteration. The premise is a Married Vampire Couple (one pure-bred, one newly made) wrestle with the fact their Relationship is showing the patina of wedlock. The title is an homage to Raymond Carvers Excellent short-story compilation: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. And for all you literary nerds out there (this is Healthy Book Club after all) this is definitely a must-read.

But the sketch! The Husband Vladimir is a 300+. pure-bred vampire, and investment banker in the vein of AIG, arguing with his wife Charlotte (liberal creative writing MFA from NYU, vampire for 5 years) over having to return bonuses from his firm as per current happenings in the U S of A. As they get into it, Corliss The Vampire -- a knockoff of Kriss Angel/David Blaine -- tries to sneak out in his undies: he has been banging Charlotte, promising to turn her back human, a simple lie just to get in her pants. And it goes on from there.

If there was a copy and paste (from other documents) option I would post a PDF of the sketch, but alas. Or, I just don't know what the hell I'm doing which is always a plausible outcome.

The Tunes:

- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

- Phillip Glass Radio Station on Pandora

The Aggravating Pragmatic Decisions:

- Should I move to West Town or Pilsen, where my new job happens to be?

The Lofty Life-Altering Decision :

- Should I move to NYC this fall?

xoxoxoxo

-m

xoxoxoxox

Mysterious Machinations In The Heart Of Crazytown

2009-03-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Come away with me, gentle Internet readers, and witness the deconstruction of a lively, affable fellow, ambulating along a nondescript thoroughfare -- in the heart, of Crazytown.

Seemingly capable people wearing capes of finest brocade and thinking to themselves, "Is this really where I planned on being today? Haven't I done this before? In a dream perhaps!"

And then she woke up: face down, legs splayed, perpendicular to an obese and under-groomed (but no less loveable) cat. It was Friday and Melissa was bored, broken, boyfriend sleeping on the couch per an esoteric quarrel after the bar late, last, night. Cycling coffee and breakfast options while doing her damndest not to wake our furry friend, she remembered, in that ominous and unabashedly-admonishing moment of clarity -- her purse, was gone. And now, at a surprisingly mature sixteen years-old, Donald Pickens, waiting for the bus to school (a very reputable Charter School mind you) faced a moral quandary on how to return Melissa's missing item, tucked neatly behind a bush as it was thrown the previous evening, and what exactly to do with the half-ounce of cocaine, tucked inside: a sticker of a giraffe wearing roller skates adorning the small, plastic, baggy. The Boyfriend's phone number was written underneath. Donald flashed a crooked smile, biting on the inside of his left cheek as he tended to do in situations of petty megalomania, and dialed the number, slowly, carefully, and here, we, go...

An open letter to the screenwriter of Watchmen:

2009-03-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends. I've been planning on posting my monumental disappointment to the film Watchmen but through some fortuitous something or other, was afforded a more entertaining chance. Earlier this week Aintitcoolnews.com posted an open letter from one of Watchmen's screenwriters David Hayter: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40409

This was my response, sent today to Harry Knowles, let's see if he publishes it. And if you want to be extra rad devotees you'll email him: Harry@aintitcool.com and tell him what the Public wants.

And here, we, go:

Harry,

In response to Mr. Hayter's unctuous call-to-arms in repeat viewings of Watchmen, I have the following. If you use this, please call me Fiction Science.

It's been 9 days since my midnight showing of Watchmen at the Navy Pier Imax and I'm (and my friends) still pissed-off. I'll be upfront that everyone in attendance read the GN within the last 6-9 months in preparation for the film, but, for me something else happened: : 'Watchmen' was seamless in quality, scope and size with my normal reading, around the same time consisting of such books as 'House of Leaves' and 'Gravity's Rainbow.' And before you tell me I'm waggling some Literary Cock (and you can fuck off accordingly) in your faces, my only intent is to shower praise on 'Watchmen,' because this fucker moved me, and it's the Catalyst, the Kinetic Energy of such Thematic and Character-Laced magnitude that generally moves people: this, devastatingly, was absent from the film. (Not surprisingly, this also equates to poor word of mouth.)

Maybe if we take something as vapid as Starship Troopers, oddly enough in your list of comparisons of some films that, oh, maybe, shouldn't be listed with Watchmen we'll start to scratch the surface. In short: you were complicit in taking a Work that is mostly backstory and character development, suck the salient qualities right out of its narrative bone marrow, and throw the Pretty, Vacuous, and yes sometimes entertaining shell, right on the silver screen: kind of like...Starship Troopers. I'm going to pump the brakes here and address the following: I understand this was a massive undertaking, aesthetically many things are beautiful and spot-on, and -- in its own remarkable victory -- Watchmen made it through development and studio-tinkering largely untouched. Bravo (and I'm not being facetious). But Mr. Hayter: How do you Nail all those things and fall so short on the Fundamentals of Narrative???!

Narrative. Character. These are the reasons The Dark Knight (and to a lesser extent Iron Man) made buckets of cash and were a big Love-Fest critically, trickling down to word of mouth. When I saw TDK I was Most taken with the scope of the Narrative, permeated by Themes of morality/chaos/the ugly side of heroics -- and do you know what these elements afforded the film: iconic, deeply-moving moments that made the performances and imagery POP! because they had real Weight attached to them. None of this (save for Jackie Earle Haley's raw/dominant performance, which is really a foreign element , orbiting around a benign film) was present in Watchmen. And, you can call me an asshole, negative-nacny whatever, but now -- You have a Box-Office Quandary and are relegated to rallying the internet-troops via AICN to promulgate the idea that there's some silver living to your mercurial, maddeningly uneven film.

And I'm no Armchair Quarterback sir: I would love to take your job. Here's a thought: A) start the film with the Comedian's murder. B) Don't cut-away with recaps set to Very distracting Bob Dylan tunes because people like Succinct storytelling. C) This is a big one, Adapt the narrative to your benefit: take Hollis Mason's 'Under The Hood' and make it the spine/backbone of the initial story/exposition so the viewers see the History of the Superhero movement, and the, oh I don't know, take a little narrative glue and segue into his take on the 2nd Generation of heroes and their respective backstories. this way we can have Thematic Cake and Eye-Candy too. And this way important elements of the story like just about everything w/r/t Ozymandias, Tales Of The Black Freighter (which , if you're really a fan or understand the GN you'll see is a necessary element to Ozymandias' character/machinations), The Newsstand with Bernie and Bernard, The New Frontiersman, and yes, the Island and the Squid, don't have to be left out.

When you choose to fragment a film, or have the Hubris to think you can give it to us in pieces -- like The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions -- it never works. Quality over Quantity in the end, Mr. Hayter, but nothing ends, nothing ever ends.

Slumdog Maudlin-aire

2009-03-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome to March--belated I know. I've let my work fall of the wagon in a fashion akin to the worst, most Damning fate of perennial computer fav The Oregon Trail. The oscars came and went in a sea of inexorable politics and globalization: Gays and Indians tangoing down the red carpet, forming some sort of Worldly Voltron and waggling it's multi-tiered member in our oh-so-earnestly voyeuristic faces.

In short: Slumdog is great, raw, and just a smidge overrated--and Mickey Rourke was robbed. Oh and the blind-eye to The Dark Knight's technical achievements is appalling to say the least, and eye-gougingly vexing to say the most.

The ceremony was kind of old-school in way with the homo-erotic/Tony Award-Winning Dance numbers, bare-bones recession-cognizant fare, but I felt something missing: lust. During the awards I couldn't help but notice a going-through-the-motions w/r/t many of the films, and a lack of honesty intermittently promulgated by the likes of works like The Wrestler. My point is if we're to scale the Ceremony itself back for these tough economic times then let's reassess the Salient qualities in Story in Character that's supposed to be the foundation of this whole shebang in the fist place. I'm speaking ideologically now and it's even boring me. You have to understand the searing pathos/shame I feel watching this shit, because I should be there, not out of ego, but I know, I know I'm beyond capable and my work could be a very pronounced proponent of the medium. And when it comes down to it: I want to help people, I want to entertain the living shit out of them, and make a very tangible human connection. I want people to feel less lonely, less shitty about themselves, their misdirected lives, whatever. It's hard for me regardless.

After the Oscars I contracted a stye in my left eye: it's still here...kind of. For a majority of last week I looked like a very handsome, in-shape Sloth from The Goonies. In tandem with working 8/9 days due to a tourist-y maelstrom called Restaurant Week here in Chicago I allowed myself to get very stressed out and behind in my work. My other anchor was my lovely Girlfriend's birthday, and mastering the learning curve of her present: audiophile turntable. She was very pleased and we're very happy. But there's something missing, maybe not missing, but quiescent in a way that should not fucking be quiescent: creative-amnesiac-pitfalls in tandem with way too much unused creative energy in some sort of fugue state. In short, by ignoring my work I'm quasi-neglecting the salient personality traits catalyzing us falling in love in the first place.

And Maudlin-aire: In a defiantly weak undercurrent I've seen complacency rear its nettlesome visage and whispered sweet nothings in my ear w/r/t forgoing all this craziness and moving on with my life via some restaurateur/bar related omnipresence. I just threw up in my mouth typing this. Spurring this on too, I'm waiting on a third interview for a second-job in a soon-to-open very trendy and vaunted restaurant in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Why does this matter: well, it'll be a good opportunity, but openings take time and you can see how tenuous my gossamer-wrapped psyche is with too-much-day-job-ness.

My Second City class (the penultimate class of the program) starts next Monday and it couldn't come any sooner. I need an anchor very badly right now. In other news I received a call from very nice gentleman looking to start an adjunct sketch-comedy troupe for his D.C. faction right here in Chicago....

That's it: no special ending today. I'm going to eat some hard-boiled eggs.

How To Completely Disappear

2009-02-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon.

The week is melting in to the next and I've had some fun--like the Super Ego & Id dirty-dancing off of a cliff, only to land in some sort of ball-pit, but then sinking through, deep underground, to the depths of the Earth's Core and there, we find ourselves accosted, encroached by Creatures you'd think would be living in said conditions: leathery skin, pointy ears, terrible saw-tooth fangs. And, at the zenith of our fear, one of them, Harrison, pulls me aside and tells me despite the fire, lava, and inexplicable bones scattered about, they succumbed to the same anxieties and self-loathing that afflicted us Surface Dwellers. After a few cocktails, we exchanged facebook friendships and they, in a very direct altruism, purchased a few bus tickets and sent us on our way.

I haven't done anything all week relating to Apartment Hunting and it's wearing on me. We're busy at my restaurant and I need the income (for specific purposes: writing class, girlfriend's birthday, very good friend coming in to Chicago next week), but I feel detached from my real work and I'm trying to keep it from becoming corrosive.

And I'm out of time:

-I have to work-out (30 minutes)

-Get ready for work (30 minutes)

-Commute Downtown (one hour)

-Run back-and-forth in a restaurant (9 hours)

-Pass out at my girlfriend's (?)

Maudlin Recaps don't suit me well, I know.

-m

29 rhymes with um...Plenty Lime? Yeah...

2009-02-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

So--if you're of the Detective-Savvy Ilk, you may've pieced together (that, and it's in my previous post) that today is my 29th Birthday--or I suppose was given it's almost midnight.

The Pleasantries:

- Waking up with my girlfriend

- Breakfast: Lox on sprouted-wheat bagels, cream-cheese, tomato, cucumber, red onion, olive oil (I use olive oil on just about everything--Peanut Butter & Jelly included)

- My girlfriend bought me a neat pair of shoes (Dress Shoes: I have an interview [second job--server] tomorrow and like a child I didn't have proper attire)

- Very intense cellular-detox sea-salt bath: You fuckers can laugh, but I DARE you to try it, correctly, and not feel yesteryear's booze, amphetamines, impurities just fly away

- Shaved my beard into a moustache: You fuckers can make ironic-hipster-jokes, but I DARE you not to look at me and feel a mighty pang O' joy gestate in your heart

And despite everything--it didn't feel too "Hey-it's-my-birthday!"-ish because I've deferred all celebratory hullabaloo until tomorrow.

But I'm behind, I'm falling more and more behind on Apartment Hunting I still don't even have my treatment done--which sort of makes me an asshole. If you want 'In' on one of my major neuroses as a writer, it's the out of sight, out of mind syndrome: forgetting where to connect scenes at the perfect thoroughfare, absent-mindedly leaving out this joke, or this particular flashback; I can tell you, for me at least in all my ADD-addled glory that it's important to be succinct and consistent.

Did I need to watch 10 episodes of 30-Rock with my Girlfriend (in a span before and after she was working) and fill the temporal gaps with other Housewife duties (I'm a spectacular housewife, or househusband if you will) ? Well no, but, and I'll be transparently honest, the very person I want to--need to--get my professional-shit together for so we can have a future (NOTE: I of course, want the same fantastical-limitless-potential-tapping-inspiring-the-masses future, but I hope you can appreciate my sense of urgency and domestic-pangs), is the same individual I have a kids-at-recess-flummoxed-and-crestfallen-that-mid-game-kickball-has-to-end-because-recess-has-concluded attachment to. Either way, I'm awful bored with masturbating.

The Tunes: Miles Davis' Bitches Brew

The Anxiety: That I'm somehow going to fall ill and relay to the 50 or so people I invited to my Birthday Shindig that, yes, my immune system failed me once again

The Early-March-Social-Anchor: Watchmen midnight-showing tickets at the IMAX

xoxoxoxo,

-michael

That Reckless Transatlantic

2009-02-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday Everyone--except You (points wrathfully)...

Pardon my Deadbeat-Dad-intermittent-posting-consistency, please... I'd blame it on the residuals of performance enhancing drugs, but I'm not privy to the existence of a Screenwriting Federation that regulates Adderall, Ginkgo Biloba and coffeee (and some pretty swanky meditation in front of my hand-carved Buddha, but now I'm veering off into the Braggart Zone).

My Girlfriend came back from Pittsburgh a week ago and, like the Relationship VS Person post (see below) I fell off the wagon of that sweet, sweet consistency we know and love i.e. me sitting at my desk giggling to myself in front of my monitor...

So--you can't blame a guy for being in love--well, unless it's someone you were in love with prior to my being in love with her. In this case, we shall duel at sundown, Navy Pier, and if I could have a moment to switch the primary beneficiary of my life insurance that would be oh so radical.

And then there's Apartment Hunting--it's looming above, as I type this, an embryonic God waiting for safe transport into this, the Modern World. I'm finally into the Treatment phase (a shortened, prose-like summation of the plot that's generally 5-10X shorter than the script--however I do an OVERVIEW, CHARACTER SET-UP, PLOT, section(s) because it's the sexier way to go about things) and for having never (or been to obstinate) having done one before I can say it's a MAJOR necessity because if you're work's not up-to-snuff, it's gonna show, like cum-stains in blacklight, and then it's back to the drawing board you go. Thankfully, like effusive-southern-baptist-church Thankfully, the script is where it needs to be because thematically and plot-wise it's flowing beautifully. And by 'flowing' I mean the Treatment will pique your curiosity to pick up the actual Script and give it a whirl.

So--I'm calling myself out here--I will not make my 2-16-09 (my 29th birthday) deadline, but rather be delayed by a week or so....However to see this thing gestate, and assume a formidable shape is freaking me out--in that fantastic sort of way, like when you feel the Ex or mushrooms start to take hold in the pit of your stomach. But trite drug-use analogies aside it's where it needs to be: 100%. And taking this term off from Second City was a masterstroke (now I suppose you want trite masturbation analogies?); and in perfect timing, this draft will be more than ready by the time classes (advanced writing program) start again mid-march.

The title of the post? Ah, well, I'm STILL reading Gravity's Rainbow from Pynchon and 'That Reckless Transatlantic' was inspired by a nickname given to Tyrone Slothrop, one of main characters who may, or may not have the ability to make Rockets fall where he chooses. This book makes me Wet all over, but I read slow and this is all the way over on the dense side. My favorite novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (rip) took so long the book was tattered and torn (carrying it around chicago) by the time I was finished.

(BTW the more people subscribe to this blog the more I'll feel the neurotic pressure/motivation to post--sort of like when you were a kid and demanded your parent watched you do a trick in the local swimming pool.)

OK: back to the Treatment I go.

The Coffee: Metropolis

The Music: Fennesz

The Cardigan: Vintage Orvis cashmere

Merriweather Notecard Euphoria

2009-01-28T17:12:00.000-08:00

Good Evening!

Per the title: Merriweather Post Pavilion, the new album from Animal Collective is absolutely destroying me. This is a very good, very defined band hitting apotheosis--this is their Kid A, and I couldn't be happier for the challenge. Buy this as soon as humanly possible.

I'm into the Boarding phase on Apartment Hunting: this is where I take my Scene Log and convert each individual scene into notecards (NC's). The NC's not only delineate location, but short and extended descriptions, specific conflicts (further demarcated by +'s and -'s, ><, conflict is an important backbone even in the less harrowing scenes) and other important tidbits. Then--I'll arrange them chronologically on a large tack-board (divided into act 1, 2 and 3) hanging on the wall directly in front of my desk. This is totally the Bees-Knees of Screenwriting tools serving a myriad of purpose: I can make sure everything is flowing succinctly, where there's gaps in the story, if certain parts of story are too Top-Heavy (what Blake Snyder calls Laying Too Much Pipe) and generally just see the Story for what it is BEFORE we get into the writing process. Because immersing yourself in the writing before having all this shit sorted out, then going back to the drawing board is the equivalent of locking your keys in the car, in a less than desirable neighborhood, wearing a sandwich-board covered in racial epithets... So afterwards I'll go into the Treatment phase and then the actual writing will begin. For fans of the word Pang, there can be Pangs of redundancy orbiting around, but I find it essential (and fun) to hammer out the Fictional-Culture you're willingly obsessively-compulsively building, brick by narrative brick.

As we're less than three weeks (my 29th Birthday, February 16th) from the first complete (by complete I mean one that will be registered with the Writers Guild and sent out for critique) draft, I'm going to (for fucks' sake I hope more consistently) include some entries on me and my personal backstory/motivations/tastes when it comes to film. But for now, I have some notecards to fill out.

Cheers!

xoxoxoxo

Relationship>Person

2009-01-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

Good Evening! I just ate a mediocre dinner: toast, wasabi mayonnaise, 2 tomato slices sprinkled with sea salt, 2 eggs sunnyside up, and on top of that some left over sprouted-wheat pasta and shelled edamame. At least it was kind of healthy. Im an incorrigible Obsessive-Compulsive when it comes to my diet, eating healthy, balanced, and the like. Before I get back to work on Apartment Hunting I, after some aberrations in my behavior, wanted to postulate one of the central themes of the screenplay: Relationships trump the individual (R>P).

In the story the protagonist Thomas, against all his faculties and general common sense, pushes on to search for an Apartment with his girlfriend Jane amidst the convergence of death threats, stalkers and a very pressing deadline at his high-profile job (lead game designer for a fictional video game company). Why not just put it off, sort things out? Because the innate needs/wants to rush-in, domesticate, make this Relationship bona fide has twisted our hero's logic...

Do we get lost in the idea or habitual comforts of the Union that the salient qualities of our parters, of our loved ones, are obfuscated beyond repair? Are we inexorably tethered to each other by familiarity: sexual, olfactory, conversational--whatever, but where do You end and I begin? Be apprised I'm not trying to rain a Pessimistic Shit-Storm on our romantic picnics on the beach, but the fear, the torrential anxiety arising when something goes wrong, when mistakes are made, after hurtful things are said: are we salvaging the Individual or the idea/reality of being in this Relationship? I love my Girlfriend but I'd be pulling your collective Leg if I didn't admit our Union/quality of life/day-to-day lifestyle wasn't nestled in the back of my mind when the Seas of Love find themselves less than traversable.

Back to the lab I go. And Congratulations to President Obama!

Sad Sack

2009-01-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

This is usually how it begins: some interruption/event/mini-catastrophe/bender-gone-wrong and the creative slate is wiped clean, before it can truly blossom. If you'd prefer we can correlate this with depression, although I feel said prognosis is a slippery-slope. But the disruption rears it's head from that crawl space underneath the porch you never found the time to fix. And if you find my analogy prosaic: fuck you. Because The Disruption is a real, tangible entity. My qualms with the depression-lumping--at least 100%--is I don't necessarily feel it's one's happiness, or stability per se, but your credulity, your focus; I could drone on, but the paramount factor here is the ardor and wherewithal to visualize your transformation, your improvement, your great leap in this field, this aesthetic--and somewhere, there's a connection, there's a trajectory manifesting itself around you, but it's not always enough, not omnipresent like we need. And you're left with this vision, and for sanity's sake's hopefully percolating into some remnant of a belief, a creative ethos, and the layers coalesce, coagulate, correspond and gestate into the fecundate self-culture/self-reality you so desperately need.

Well kids, nothing's constant, and everyone's a little/lot fearful; in all my self-assertions and supposedly protean abilities I too find myself reprising the role of Big, Giant, Quivering, PUSSY. These varnish-stripping proclivities and left-brain/right-brain civil-wars are what's prosaic for you earlier critics of my pedestrian analogy. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go take a bath...

-m

Z-Pack is the Free Pack!

2009-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

Fever...holy Fucking Fuck did I have an ambitious fever/sinus infection/Bonaroo-like 3-day-Bacteria-Music-Festival inside my body--it was ugly. And while relegated to an infantile state my mind--fever induced--was at the loquacious state when one does too much blow; the point being I couldn't sleep, just lie there and feel the way Roland Burris must feel all the time now...

My Girlfriend (yes, we're back together in a very awesome way) saved me with a combination of meticulous care and the "Z-Pack": a 5-day antibiotic course which I'm a big fan of.

I even missed work yesterday--first shift in 11 days due to Holiday Break. This means I have, literally, no money. I'm supposed to pay for the latter half of my writing class @ Second City this week...gonna have to wait. I did ask one of my closest friends to borrow some cash, which makes me feel as worthwhile as the Chicago Traffic Authority employees (people in neon vests who yell and wave orange sticks at cars, even though there's these crazy gadgets called stoplights looming above them) feel when their day comes to a close. It's moments like this that make plunging myself--egregiously--into the restaurant industry (I'm a part-time waiter who's sadly very talented in fine/contemporary dining ) more attractive. And by attractive I mean the venue to exercise some potential--albeit the whole dramatic 'this isn't what I want to do with my life!' potential--and have a modicum of stability. Thankfully I'm in it to win it, as they say.

But I feel unscathed for the most part. Apartment Hunting is shaping up better than it ever was intended on being and I'm confident putting several eggs in this basket. The sense of urgency however is at its limit--I need to move forward with my life and it's tethered to this Project. In just over a month I'm going to be 29 years-old and the Talent/Potential/Age-ratio is getting too close for comfort.

In other, more light-hearted news, I've recently been wooed by an animated series called Frisky Dingo of Adult Swim fame: absolutely brilliant! Their (the creators) previous effort was 'Sealab 2021' which made a ginormous impact on me earlier in the decade (feels neat to say that...decade).

Cheers!

xoxoxo

One Nation, Under Cod...

2009-01-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! Somewhat belated, but just in time to send the temporal shout-out with Roland Burris being blocked from the Senate floor and Benazir Bhutto's daughter releasing a Rap-Tribute to her Mother. A rap-tribute. There's a primal, almost bloodlust-worthy satisfaction if someone, anyone, made a Rap-Tribute, for any reason, for me. Yes.

It's 2009 folks, the year of years, the optimist's 1st-prize-shopping-spree through the Candy Store, and a call to arms for this guy (pointing to myself, well rhetorically, because i need both hands to type). I've, for what it's worth, actually got Apartment Hunting on track, in a very good way. I sort of ripped the whole thing apart, like one of those We'll remodel your shitty house for you for the sake of good, poignant Television programs--because when it came down to it the skeleton was unnecessarily antiquated to my original idea/purpose for the whole project. And the masturbatory stigma is looming in the foothills, setting up shop, but as stated, this Beast is read, being fit for Armor as we speak. This will be finished by my 29th Birthday, February 16th, 2009. There, the proverbial gauntlet has been thrown, and if I don't live up to it, we can throw a parade of shame down Milwaukee Ave., from Bucktown to West Town.

My film-watching has been hustling and bustling, and a full review of Oscar-y stuff will be posted soon. But on the home video front, I caught Labyrinth the other day with my girl, and while the Nostalgia washed over me in an awesome wave (brett easton ellis, 'American Psycho') I noticed one small, or not so small, thing: The Bulge in David Bowie's tights is larger-than-life. I mean little cod pieces could orbit around this thing. For as hot as Jennifer Connelly is now, she HAD to have noticed/been turned-on/intimidated...something. Or Jim Henson, The Producers, The Director...anyone? This puts me to shame in a lovingly acceptable way, because who doesn't love David Bowie. So I've been polling all my friends about 'The Bulge' and apparently it's ubiquitously loved/acknowledged/engraved in the pantheon of tangential-movie-factotum. If it wasn't between his legs we'd have a tumor worthy of The Mayo Clinic.

That is all...

Apparently I'm Glenn Close!

2008-12-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

So during a playful conversation earlier this morning my ex-girlfriend--who's an incorrigible empty-quirky-threat-dispenser ("I'm gonna kill you!" she says with a smile on her face)--told me I was more apt to take it to the next level of Fatal Attraction-like behavior. So I did what any cool guy of my caliber would do...and I boiled her two cats while she was out getting coffee. Well no, I love those furry little guys, but I did say she sounds more like Michael Douglas than I do; that reference is better if you've heard her speak.

The point of the whole thing was we're at least very comfortable with each other.

And: Our fucking Governor was ARRESTED this morning by Federal Agents for trying to sell the Senate chair vacated by our President-Elect! HA! Really?! I wonder what some of the going rates were? Was it just money? Or was it other tangible goods? Like a free subscription to Dwell--for life? Or maybe a gift card to Whole Foods that never expires? An autographed poster of Twilight by the dreamy lead actor (can't remember the dudes name)? Well, if we were still using Phrenology Rod B. totally looks like a Scheister.

I was just called off from work (part-time server--yeah, im that guy) mid-blog here, so now this rainy, nebulous afternoon is my oyster, albeit a financially-challenged one. I really need to write some cover letters and promo packs to send to agents (Acting)--you'd be shocked at my abject laziness on this matter. I'd rather film an infomercial about myself inviting agents, casting directors--hell, anybody, to come check me out.

Blech,

-michael s.

Chicago, IL

Spurious Snow Boots and the Parachute of Doom!

2008-12-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Drum Roll: Hasty internet purchases have led me astray. Apparently my much vaunted/lauded/anticipated snow boots are, in fact, Rain Boots. A group of us (from my writing class) fortuitously ended up at the Annoyance Theater to catch a very mediocre show (more on that soon!)--and in all-new-social-situation glitz and glamour proceed to drink...a lot, and my buddy Brendan (from the class) handed me one of the most oblique, dejecting, hilarious talking-to's...maybe ever? Outside of my outfit wigging him out: members only-looking suede jacket, black skinny levi's, aviator scarf and finally, a pair of rubber boots from Hunter, purportedly snow boots per my inept search on zappos.com, he incisively, like a goddamned surgeon shattered my entire logic and delusive state behind such an erroneous choice in winter wear. And, he's right: they're not insulated, because they're fucking rain boots. I'm new to the whole Snow Boot Game, and at 28 years old I've not the faculties to discern something that should have been an easy call. Granted I was a few delerium/bourbon to the wind with a ginseng/pot-cookie chaser, so my sartorial-audacity hit much harder; the really rewarding part though: it was really fucking funny. Hilarious.

I asked him, "So where do we go from here?" And I meant it, because what does one do at this point. I could have ran to the nearest computer, to ebay, some virtual-merchant and righted my wrong--but perhaps there's a better solution? Nope.

I'm of a very confident ilk, and I can in kind of a...refreshingly defeated way, say I will not longer wear these boots. This man made his point so well, without attacking, and some semblance of caring, that I find myself unable to look at them, walk in their direction or even hide them in their box, in great denial of my own idiocy.

"So what happens now?"

Dating continues its obtuseness in the wake of my breakup. It's a little like eating a gourmet meal using only a fork and a straw to slurp my wine; and then there's some little impish creatures stabbing me with a homemade shiv, repeatedly, in the kidneys, and I'm not afforded to he luxury of reacting, or telling them to stop, nope, just keep taking it. We''ve entered what I call the True Break-Up: the intermittent gaps in contact increasing, their breadth taking on new portents yet unseen in the purgatory/possible-reconciliation stage. Reality. And while there's no rejection involved when it comes down to it--refutation more like it--I can't help but feel my competitive strings being plucked, repeatedly; my own personal retribution, a mosaic, a fail-safe. Jesus Christ, I really hope I don't sound like John Updike, do I?

So this show: the best thing I can say was...It's a SHOW! They put on a cohesive show, replete with costume changes and musical numbers; there were multiple characters; there were accents being employed; there was music (one of the better aspects!); there was swearing, and other such dirty humor. My issue, albeit a very encouraging/motivating one: it wasn't very good. But hey! it was packed and people laughed, not us so much, but they have show @ The Annoyance on like a 7-week run--this is terrific news!!!!! Sign us up, now! And I'll put my money where my virtual-blogging-mouth is, I'll put the my life savings and power of attorney to my estate (stop laughing!) on it too: because this is a viable, potentially major outlet I hadn't fully considered. And if you think I'm brazenly handing myself some opportunistic torch in a fugue state of arrogance: you're right...save for the 'fugue' part.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxxooxoxoxoxoox

-m

Student Matinee

2008-12-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

As I'm typing this the Big 3 are in Washington D.C. clamoring for cash, expounding why they just need a little fix till the next big score. Yeah. This is to the tune of 34 Billion. I don't know another industry that gets rewarded for a complete lack of innovation/priorities/aesthetics/pragmatism. You could argue the Banking Industry was more aloof/greedy what have you, but American cars, for the most part, are complete balls.

So we had the penultimate class of the term @ Second City, and, for having 12 (out of 13, which is too much) students there, vying for time, it was, for the most part, harmonious. My sketch--husband and wife @ marriage counseling while the therapist incisively plots to bang the bride--went over very well, and far more interesting was the pulling-it-out-of-my-ass-ness while still nailing the fundamentals of the whole thing. I suppose it's a sign of experience now, but this sketch was so close to not even happening...Arguing with my EX, and the whole still having palpable feelings for her hacked a wedge into my day once again. When this happens it's nearly impossible for me to concentrate--even worse than my normal ADD. But the skit was good, and we're almost there. The final assignment is taking a trigger (meaning idea for a sketch, derived from pretty much anything) from a dream--which I think is pretty lame, and I already did a sketch about someone dreaming @ a sleep-test facility, but if I've learned anything (and I have) this term it's not to take the trigger lightly, or the source at least. The next class (writing 4) is all rewrites, segueing into the show we put on in writing 5--a full-on revue--and we (the more talented of the group) are ready for it. Even better: two of the more irritating/poor writers of the class are not continuing. Score! One of them, a blowhard to blow all hard, somehow offended gay men and all asians in one solid half an hour. His sketch was actually so bad it created this twilight zone-esque time-vacuum where I pondered the power of something as jarring and cyanide-pill inducing as poor-writing can be--it's really an untapped comic resource. In my upcoming Terrain Vague (a semi-autobiographical/fictional take on my life) script I really want to include a scene of poor sketches read, and exploit them for their comedic gold.

After class, my two closest friends from the program and I discussed pitching our own revue sometime next year @ Donny's Skybox Stage--totally feasible and vast potential for something really awesome. And this medium--sketch comedy show (revue)--is the medium I enjoy most on stage, I've not really the boner for improv that some of my peers possess.

Even more serendipitous, we have a full Month Off after our final class next week. Apartment Hunting is a sure thing, more so in tandem with the first week of January free and clear from any soul-sucking restaurant work. The Gauntlet is totally thrown down--yay!

December!

2008-12-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

Post-Holiday has been a return to form after the psychic unraveling I put myself through. It's pretty silly/superfluous that in this current incarnation I'm still susceptible to frying my circuits via Stress.

I had drinks at my buddy Brendan's bar with an old friend; there was a confluence of Blanton's Bourbon and Great Lakes Christmas Ale. I'm just go apeshit over most Christmas Ales--so, so tasty.

There's a trip to NYC the first week of January in the works. I'd be visiting/staying with my very good friend/ex Meredith, and I'm ready, because there's a Metropolitan void in my life not having done NYC properly in any way shape or form.

Which means I have less than a month to finish Apartment Hunting. And the deeper I reconstruct, the more I'm kinda, sorta starting over, but it's for the greater good.

Meh...

(The New) Black Friday

2008-11-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

It's over! I've slain another Thanksgiving--though it was trying at times. And it's pretty apparent that I'm becoming a bona fide weirdo when the Holidays strike. Plans fell through with my ex, because, well, she's my ex, and after that I didn't feel like participating. And the fucked up reality is: it was far more trying not to play along. I don't mean some emotional fuck-fest where I required some familial company or anything, but my roommate had her family over (for 12 hours; I can't do anything for 12 hours, much less have a handful of company in my small condo) and despite my efforts to vacate, they remained, for a long, long time. I took off, a rebel without a crew, to get stoned and see some films (Mlk, and Slumdog Millionaire), had some sushi, snuck a large delirium Noel in the theater--and they remained. I return, 7 hours after they had just arrived, and they were AT the fucking dinner table. This is certainly their right, but in my sociopathic need to not participate I'm relegated to weirdo in his room for like another five hours before they left. Along the way I flaked on about 4-5 other offers, and I should've taken one. I'm broke, had to work all day wednesday, didn't have time to shop or cook really.

It was so much more of an effort to not play. But I remain firm.

There were others: there's this slob that comes into my restaurant, the bar really, this is a frightening 40-something restaurant-lifer who lives with his parents in the burbs (i told you it was scary) and on wednesday, when everyone repeatedly asks, "Hey! What are you doing tomorrow?" his reply was, "to be as invisible as possible." This makes me sure I'm doing something right. Now don't get me wrong--if you're going to a friend's family, girlfriend/boyfriend, whatever--it's one thing to be a guest and mingle with folks you may never see (or want to see) again, but to see you're family and have that angst-laden of a response, if you're goddamn forties? Buddy! I have some news for you: don't fucking go! Don't do it! No one has a gun to your head, imploring you, violently, to play along. To think, someone at this age, doesn't have the wherewithal to plan an alternate route of escape exposes the dichotomy of people who do this shit year after year.

Be with friends, hell anyone, where you can muster the least bit of credulity, some venue offering tangible camaraderie and brotherhood, and if it causes those numbers, those gatherings to shrink: GREAT!

Quality over Quantity. And if it appears--I know it does--that I'm being sanctimonious I feel I've the right to be, because this shit is waggled in front of me, brandished like a battle-ax in a slew of questions from friends, co-workers, strangers, and for such a hot commodity it seems like a vast majority of people are missing the point.

Whew! Yeah, but in much more life-affirming issues I got my first pair of adult snow boots! They're from Hunter, a UK based outfit, and they slide all the way to my knee, waterproof and all. Bring on the snow, I'm totally ready. When I see that first accumulation I'm going to let out a mighty battle cry and stuff my skinny jeans inside.

In the news: Terrorist attacks have devastated Mumbai, India. Ironically I just saw Slumdog Millionaire, and a peaceful Mumbai, yesterday. So far 125+ people have been killed...

Apartment Hunting has been dormant most of the week, to resume over the weekend. I see these gaps and gaping holes in my attentiveness to this project and others like it, and I can't really answer 'why?', the days just pile up. It's all very boring really.

Redux and Heart-Thrusts

2008-11-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

Apartment Hunting made some strides yesterday, strides including rethinking a great deal of the plot, which, given the lull on this piece, is only natural. Some of the key scenes, after all this time, aren't really necessary anymore to be honest, which opened up the plot in a whole new way. The restaurant where I work (NAHA) is going to be closed the first week of January (take that financial freedom!) so my general goal is still very doable.

BOOKS: I finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, and I have to say, he impressed me, I sort of rebelled against reading this book (I don't remember why), but I feel it had something to do with lumping him in with Nick Hornby...? I started coming back when he (eggers) wrote a fantastic intro to the 10th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest...and how can I fault someone who loves DFW as much as I? So today, it begins, gauntlet is being thrown and I'm starting Gravity's Rainbow from Thomas Pynchon. I've yet to read any of his works, but grabbed GR, along with The Recognitions from William Gaddis in an attempt to connect with DFW's predecessors.

I'm going to see Synecdoche, New York tonight, and while I'm inexorably linked to anything Kaufman does, I'm hoping this doesn't breach the self-indulgent vibe I'm getting from the film.

Spacy, jesus christ I'm spaced-out, a xanax hangover...not fun.

-m

Post Hair-Sex

2008-11-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Weekend(s):

This past Saturday I--around 1p.m.-- discovered there was a cattle call audition @ Lily's Talent Agency. This entails stuffing whatever advertised demographic they need into their office for a quick one-line, meet and headshot dropping off process that is, in fact, much like herding cattle--opportunistic, self-absorbed, wistful little cattle. On this particular day, they need On-Camera kids and adults. So I'm there, gussied up and gleaming, tethered between a flock of weather-worn mothers whoring their children for a crack at some kind stardom; a fabled, better life. But it's really fucking funny: there's cranky mothers; there's hyperactive and misbehaving, miscreant little ninnies; we have twenty-something employees of the agency (almost exclusively female) cordially guiding us from point A to point B over there to point--I felt they were especially nice to me; there's one lines to memorize! One-liners are the crux of product placement commercials i.e., "I ate Quaker Outs for 30 days--took my cholesterol down 10 points! QUAKER OATS, warms your body, and soul."

I'm finally upstairs, towards the end of this I-really-need-an-agent-but-am-too-lazy-to-mail-shit Sojourn, I have 2(!) of these one-liner deals memorized. There's been patience--Gandhi-like Patience towards this mother and her 2 offspring--3 and 5 respectively--who in union harness this uncanny ability to disrupt yet intrigue everyone around them. This woman, around my age, maybe a little older, early 30's or something, she's engaged in this unyielding, imminent threat of her kids just going completely ape-shit, and there's no progress, no solution, no ultimatum, because-- She's having them memorize one-lines. Of course. That's why they're present, but these ones...these compact, little Bastions of the American Dream, they'd hear keys in the corner and most likely combust, poof!, up in flames from excitement. Overstimulation.

But we're near. I've placed more emphasis on an American Express jingle I feel better suits calculated, distinct affect of my voice, of certain pronunciations that would obviously place me in the upper-crust of anyone who can even form words or syllables, propelling me to exclusive representation.

I fuck it up. Yeah...they were so memorized once I started delivering the line, I felt a shard of cloudiness and panicked; I was shocked by my memory failing me. I still finished the line, and this was in the office, the finishing-line, in front of 2 ladies and 2 guys, both gay I believe, and, 'Thanks!' was the feedback. I grabbed my bag in the adjacent room, my jacket, and trotted downstairs, laughing, more than likely still, representing, myself.

Saturday evening there was a party. People dancing--many not to the music, by that I mean out-of-sync; people watching me spew these political harangues on the "Intellectual Divide in this country,"; one party-goer carried an oppressive odor about him.

Sunday there was a medley of detoxification. There was thai food and tim spent laughing, lying supine.

Now I'm weighing out the relationships of Thomas and Jane, the two main characters in Apartment Hunting. While the overall calamity remains in tact (you'll have to wait to read what said calamity is) the real question, even in a dark-comedy, how emotional do we want to get? It's a narrative tug-of-war because the relatable aspects people cling to will, in ways, bleed into the absurdist comedic elements too. There is a balance. But there is a need to keep it primal, especially in a short film, less time to meander. Lessons learned find themselves a smidge more palpable in these situations as well. Thomas' humanity would reverberate louder against the sillier humor too, I hope.

Made cous-cous combined with oatmeal for breakfast; in the end, it was dry and unseasoned.

Welcome Back!

2008-11-22T10:23:00.000-08:00

So welcome back...and it's been nearly a month! The world has changed, we've moved forward in every facet imaginable and elected Barack Obama President, well President-Elect at least. It feels so good saying that. The first day after the election, there was a ubiquitous weight-off-our-chests elation permeating the city of Chicago and it's been electric every since--save the for the whole financial crisis thing, which has even trickled down to my silly restaurant job.

We've arrived at the Holidays and coming off of an unexpected and gut-wrenching break-up I'm actually, factually, breach-of-contractually not depressed out of my skull--scurrying to the nearest ledge, causing Fire Departments to rumble. This is refreshing. I totally recommend it.

But to pull a corny line from The Matrix 'I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end; I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.' So, in our Grand Reopening here at Healthy Book Club everything is priced to sell:

- The script for Apartment Hunting is back in the lab and will be finished by the year's end.

- A website of the same Moniker is in the incipient stages as well.

As promised, once Apartment Hunting gets back in the lab you'll get a detailed, step-by-step of the whole racket. I now have 3 feature-length ideas in the works so there's a lot riding on this.

Focus on the process...

Movies: I just had the intense, hey-I-found-20-dollars-in-an-old-jacket! pleasure of seeing Let The Right One In. In a nutshell this is an indie flick from Sweden where 2 adolescents find each other in a dreary suburb of Stockholm . The hook: one of them (Eli, the girl) is a vampire. This deftly and with a subtle sweetness missing from so many movies today, turns the whole Vampire Genre on its head and were all better off for it. There's no origin stories, villains, epic prophecies etc., rather a simple film on loneliness, morality and companionship. The performances--primarily the kids--are pitch-perfect, and in their quiet embrace all pretensions of the plot make sense and work for the general purpose of the story. I needed to be inspired, to focus on film once again.

In other news: BBC has just reported that Somali Pirates have been paid more than $150 million in ransom per the Kenyan Foreign Ministry. I'm very curious how modern-day Pirating plays out: are there theatrics? Are there costumes? Do they have some sort of Pirate Lingo? A logo? Do people even take them seriously at first glance?

Obama is efficiently putting his Cabinet together, and the advent of Hillary Clinton as Madame Secretary of State looks like a go. I'm very pleased with this. I just hope the entire economy hasn't been flushed down the toilet by the time he gets in office. I may be giving copies of Apartment Hunting away on street corners for a bagel and a box to sleep in.

Welcome back; it's time to party...

-m

2008-11-21T11:54:00.001-08:00

Aggressive Will Now Be Palatable

2008-10-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

Class yesterday was partly infuriating and exactly what we need: an aggressive, crowded, higher-stakes version of what we've sort of been spoon-fed thus far. While with more peers (12 students--too many for our time frame/template) there comes the occasional blowhard (he's with cacophonous bells on) but for the greater good--this format will work nicely.

My sketch went over well--and got zero laughs. People were digging it, but going in I knew it wasn't a laugh-out-loud guffawing affair, so perhaps I benefitted more from the process and execution than the aftermath. So as I was pissed off in the cold, in the wind riding home--this is exactly what I want, even if i didn't realize it for a dozen hours or so.

I spent the night at my girlfriends and found myself in strange, constipated limbo this morning. Taking a few hour break to head home I popped into my friend's bar in Bucktown--where after gleefully consuming 2 beers and a complimentary shot of Basil Hayden, I, unbeknownst to me, see my checking is overdrafted, again. So it's funny, yes, I feel like sort of a scuzbag--suppose this is how Henry Miller felt the entire time he was in France, mooching off people, trying to find a "touch" as he called it. All this does is ring the "sense of urgency" bell. Acting in my insignificant show at Second City has marvelously fucked me in the pocket book. Understand I only work part-time to begin with--which I have stasis with, but subtracting from such a precarious plan of action has had an insidious effect.

And you also have to understand how much I LOATHE thinking so pragmatically--because all in all it's so fucking boring, and I frankly don't care. Yeah.

The Drudge Report is claiming, front and center, that McCain volunteer was robbed and someone carved a "B" in her cheek. Yet, she refused medical attention. I saw a picture and it looks very fake. Now if this guy {points to himself} was uh, mutilated, especially in the vicinity of my pretty face, you sure as fucking shit would bet I'd appreciate some medical attention, to the "Nth" degree. Come the fuck on?! When people at McCain/Palin rallies were inciting the crowd to yell "Kill Him" "Terrorist" etc., it was totally kosher. I can't wait for this election to end. All I'm feeling left with is a resounding sense of hope, and an exacting anger towards right-wingers who find this permissible. Not to mention the intellectual divide in this country that begs a series of ugly questions to the relevance of a decent portion of the population here.

Ick.

I sleep now.

A Finite Jest?

2008-10-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

I've yet to dress myself, in big boy clothes I mean, but I take a very specific solace in my domestic uniform. Today it's long underwear with short-shorts over the top, and a button down henley thing where the buttons traverse close to my navel.

I have class tonight (writing @ Second City) and for once finished my assignment early: celebration! It's polished to the point I don't need to hem and haw any more--it is just a first draft. This week we had to take anything from any (assuming the primary) living room we grew up in. Being an auspicious child of divorce (age 2) and a slew of moving around the post industrial wasteland of Racine, WI--this was overall refuted at first. As sharp as my retention is there's whole worlds of my childhood I simply can't remember. I settled on "The Bed in the Living Room." This was a one-bedroom apartment after my mother left Tom something(can't remember the name), whom she was engaged too, for discovery of cocaine I believe. Given how much of a square my Mother is she may have found a 20 bag and flipped her proverbial lid (a square lid of course). But the bed, yes, so--as became a frugal habit--I took the bedroom and she slept in the living room.

This particular incarnation we had a twin-sized bed in the space a couch would normally inhabit. It was a hodgepodge, as was most everything then. This is circa 1988-89-ish. A year or so later I attended a reputable private school, on scholarship of course, and the purgatorial trainwreck of meshing with a group of rich kids provided the back end for the sketch. Two boys playing Nintendo on a bed in a living room, and the guest, a rich kid, can't wrap his head around the decorative anomaly.

I've gotta hand it to Nancy(our instructor): I enjoyed the hell out of the assignment. Crafting something personal and character driven without tapping into my eccentric-simpsonesque-surreality was def worthwhile, and there's a succinctness to it that may not be

laugh-out-loud funny, but whole emotional hook angle is a necessary angle in this medium (sketch comedy).

So I'm totally riding the high and self-lauding of being able to extrapolate something substantial from an assignment I scoffed at. We'll see what the reaction is in a few hours.

Apartment Hunting has been dormant for week... as has been the case with Second City--but the gloves are off. This HAS to be finished by December 1st...

Meeting People Is Easy...

2008-10-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Michael Simon, and I'm pleased to meet your acquaintance. I divide my time between acting and writing, ostensibly...

I'm 28 years old.

I'm going to record the process and everything surrounding my completion of a screenplay entitled: Apartment Hunting. I believe I'm approaching my final year in Chicago.