No Mistakes

My Life as an Internet Celebrity: Part Four

2011-02-07T18:27:00.003-06:00

Several videos have gone live. And I’ve been recognized—but only in the hallways of the Sears office building where I work.

In an elevator or a hallway: “Hey, it’s Corey!”

And I smile and nod. Because frankly, I’m not sure what I should say in the ensuing silence.

“Thanks! They’re a blast to do!”
“I hope you’re taking my advice! Just kidding!!”
“Ha ha, I’m not really Corey. It’s a character I’m playing!”

However, I don’t think anyone else in the world is watching these things. It’s a core group of Sears employees and a few of my friends. And my parents.

Each new video that goes up on Facebook gets a couple of responses underneath it, but a couple seconds of research reveals that the commenters all work at Sears.

The people who have watched them have had positive things to say, and it’s fun to be delivering some comic material. But I think it’s a lot of work being put into a secret. A viral campaign that has been successfully contained.

A friend of mine is the host of the new Chicago version of Cash Cab, and she posted on Facebook, with some amount of pride, that she had already been called a slut in the comments of her trailer on YouTube. No one cares enough about Corey to call him a slut.

But, we’re winding down. This is the final week before Valentine’s Day, and soon I will be able to shave off this scruffy beard I’ve grown for the project. I’ll be happy to be rid of it.

The finale has caused a little controversy.

What’s supposed to happen—and this was the plan from the beginning, even back when I auditioned—is that Corey loses his mind and takes a bunch of Craftsman® power tools and destroys a bunch of Sears Valentine’s merchandise.

Last week, we got word that the heads of the various Sears departments weren’t too keen on that ending. Which is understandable. A little late in the game, but understandable.

I’m not sure what will happen instead. It has to be figured out pretty darn soon. But there is talk, for some reason, of a bear costume.

Oh, and I’m finally a video game character.

My Life as an Internet Celebrity: Part Three

2011-01-24T17:56:00.002-06:00

The twelfth floor of my work building is a merry-go-round of shitting guys.

I work on the eleventh, but one Wednesday I had to go upstairs to try on Corey’s outfits for the videos. The art directors/costumers had raided the Sears across the street and picked out a series of outfits that documented my character’s story arc. I had to try each outfit one to make sure they all fit (and get my pic taken in each one for reference/presentation purposes). So I had to go change in a men’s room stall something like six or eight times.

Literally, every single time, at least one of the stalls was occupied.

I wasn’t offended or anything. I was the one who was using the stalls for the wrong purpose. But I entered the restroom hoping for a little privacy and was thwarted every time by this eternal fugue of scatology.

I wonder how often one of my fellow occupants noticed with horror that I left the bathroom without washing my hands.

In any case, the two wardrobe women poked, prodded, and zhuzhed me, then I stood in a hallway and had my picture taken. People would appear around the corner, startled and confused, until I waved them past.

This was my second fashion show. A week earlier, I actually stood against the fake wood paneling of the Sears dressing room and tried on clothes that had just been lifted off the displays outside. Sometimes the women would break off an inconvenient tag. I wasn’t sure if that was kosher, but hardly anyone else came in during the escapade.

I’m glad I’m not a model. My day-to-day confusion about what to do with my arms and legs is intensified under the magnifying glass of the camera lens. Do I just stand there and present my clothing? Do I smile? Do I glower in character?

The first few videos are up already, so I’m not spoiling anything when I say this Valentine Expert gets dumped the night before his Valentine’s Day blog goes live. We follow him from devastation to bitterness to rage as he tries valiantly to keep putting forth tips for how to have a great romantic experience.

Meanwhile, I am going to be a video game character.

Shortly after I got the part, one of the people in charge of the project waved me over. Based on a couple of photos I provided, someone made a little flash caricature of me. I think the idea is that Corey is so bitter that he’s trying to avoid the romantic items that are falling from the sky. I don’t know. Should be fun.

I’m not writing any of the videos, but the trick in writing them is to make them entertaining and let the character be bitter and sardonic, but not to let it go so far as to be flippant about Sears and its products. It is a marketing site, after all. Similarly, the challenge in performing them is to be sincere about how useful these products are while still conveying depression of fury about the way things have gone down.

There were a couple snags. For example, the legal department at Sears declared that we couldn’t use the name “Corey Fowler,” because there’s a chance that someone out there is actually named Corey Fowler, and that person could conceivably sue us for using his name. That seem very odd—does every piece of fiction have to get all the characters’ names cleared? Legal provided some alternate, whimsical names that they deemed acceptable. (One of them—I am not making this up—was “Mr. VD.” I was not going to have my image plastered on the internet above the name “Mr. VD.”)

Eventually, they came up with a plan that we’d find a Sears employee named Corey, pay that person some nominal fee to use his name, and we’d be set, legally; a specific Corey had allowed us the use of his name. (As for the last name, Corey no longer has one.)

The other snag was that they initially set up a fake Facebook account for Corey Fowler. As people “friended” him, they could follow his relationship through status updates, and a change from “in a relationship” to “single.” I happened to know this, and so did the creatives at Sears, but that’s an inappropriate use of a Facebook account—you can’t create a profile of a fake person.

Initially, there was a renegade “What are they gonna do, arrest us?” attitude, but Sears has a healthy working relationship with Facebook, so that attitude was short-lived. We had to set up a business account, which took away a little of the verisimilitude, but without any real setbacks, in my opinion. (Unfortunately, they made this decision after we’d already set up the Corey Fowler personal account, so the handful of friends we gathered had to be sent over to the new link.)

Soon the first couple of scripts came in, and I was memorizing lines like I used to.

Last night, the trains were swollen with people.

2011-01-12T12:47:00.001-06:00

I waited on the platform at Madison and Wabash, and the first Brown Line that arrived had no seats open and barely any standing room. I was in no hurry, so I let it pass and waited for the next one. I was a little bewildered, because it seemed late enough that the rush would have died down, but whatever.

A long time passed before the next Brown Line. It too was packed. I looked in the window to see which conductor was driving it. It was a guy I recognized: big doughy sphere of a head, thin film of stubble on his scalp. He wasn’t one of the conductors who annoy me with their driving or announcing habits, so I figured, screw it—I’m getting on.

I was in the front car, as usual. (I get off all the way up at Kimball, so it pays to be in the front car at the end of my evening commute.) I stood with my back to the door that leads to the conductor’s cockpit.

I thought I’d try to read, but the crowd filled in to the point where there was no room to hold my book in front of me without bothering everyone. So I switched to playing Bejeweled on my phone, but I kept losing. Frustrated, I put away all my self-distractions and settled in for a dull, annoying trip.

I found out why the trains were so few and far between, because the conductor kept announcing the story, over and over again. “Once again passengers sorry for the delay we had a train go off the tracks at Kedzie and had to return to Kimball against traffic I apologize for any delay or inconvenience we’re running on schedule now.”

Another one of those catastrophes (for others) that leads to an inconvenience (for me).

So we lurched our way, shoulder to shoulder, up from the Loop. At Belmont, there was a knock behind me on the door against which I was leaning. The conductor opened it.

“Seriously?” I thought. “He’s going to make his rounds through the train when it’s this crowded?”

But no: He said, “Maybe we can get a little breathing room here.”

Belmont was the last stop for a while where he needed to look out the left-hand window. So he opened up the little front area and shut himself into the smaller portion on the right-hand side. It was actually quite thoughtful of him.

At first, all I did was back up, so that instead of having my back to the door, I had my back to the window at the front of the train.

But then I realized: I’m at a window at the front of the train!

I turned around and watched the commute from an angle I’d never seen before. This is a trip I’d observed through the side window countless times. Through the back window, the scenery receding, several times too. But I don’t think I’d ever had a head-on view before, houses and streets and stations approaching constantly.

The curves were the best. Between Belmont and Southport, between Paulina and Addison, and especially between Montrose and Damen, where a swirl of snow blew off an overhanging tree, and we passed through it as through a glittery fog.

Oncoming trains’ headlights. Never-seen CTA traffic lights I didn’t know how to decipher. Arcs of footprints in the snow at each platform outlining ghosts of the trains that had come before.

I switched my iPod to “The Gentle Side of John Coltrane” and watched the snowy city approach me from two stories up.

I took out my camera phone and snapped a few pictures. I felt a little self-conscious about it until I noticed another guy next to me doing the same thing.I knew that Rockwell would be the next stop for which the conductor would need the left window, so I moved back into the (now much roomier) body of the train one stop earlier, at Western. Sure enough, the conductor lurched out and shooed away my fellow photographer soon afterwards. The front pocket of the train was once again sealed off from the passengers.

You never know what the meaningless little decisions you make during the course of the day will bring you. Take a train, or let it pass. The infinity of it all can give you vertigo. It’s rare that it occurs to me to notice the results of these decisions, even rarer that I am able to enjoy one of them.

My Life as an Internet Celebrity: Part Two

2011-01-11T13:12:00.000-06:00

The callback took place the Thursday before Christmas. I was given another script, this one from later in the character’s breakdown, that would run closer to Valentine’s Day.

While the first guy auditioned, I waited outside the conference room with the other guy who was up for the part. Turns out he was one of the copywriters on the Valentine’s project (CONFLICT OF INTEREST), and we shot the breeze and discussed the nature of copywriting.

Then it was my turn. We were told to interpret freely, improvise a little if we wanted to. There was a portion where I was supposed to sing a line from some depressing Emo song I’d never heard of, but I replaced it with a phrase or two from “All By Myself.” The auditor sitting next to me looked away with a jerk and laughed into her hand, which was nice—it meant my instincts were hitting. (For my first audition, I didn’t manage to get a single laugh.)

They asked if I wanted to do it again, but I figured my first take was about as good as I could offer. If they didn’t like that one, they weren’t going to want me. So I thanked them and left it at that.

The great part about all this was that I had very little stake in it. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if I didn’t get it; it was just a lark. So I was able to enjoy the Christmas weekend without a lot of obsessing.

The following Tuesday morning, I got word that I’d been selected.

I had a very nicely calibrated positive response to it. Is that underwhelming? I was definitely happy (an opportunity to do some comic acting!), but I was able to temper it (I had just beaten out a bunch of non-actors for an opportunity to shill products in a backwater corner of the internet).

Or maybe it was my stomach that kept my joy in check.

Gradually, starting about mid-morning, I began to feel worse and worse with some sort of food poisoning or stomach bug. It all came to a horrifying climax about 4:30 pm, and I spent the next three days thinking about my brush not with viral celebrity, but with viral calamity.

I recovered in time for the new year—to begin the next phase toward becoming an internet celebrity: the grooming.

NEXT: a whirlwind fashion shopping montage!

My Life as an Internet Celebrity: Part One

2011-01-06T09:29:00.003-06:00

I have been writing copy for Sears Holdings Corporation for about two months. I moved here from a dining loyalty program company called Rewards Network.

One of the first things I wrote at Rewards Network that got a lot of attention was a Halloween email written from the point of view of a zombie. It was kind of my Mona Lisa over there.

I was offered the Sears job in mid-October and gave my two weeks. Shortly thereafter, Sears started running a zombie-themed “viral” campaign. Two different Rewards Network co-workers sent me the link and asked if I had already been contributing to the Sears site.

Anyway. I’m here at Sears now, and a few weeks ago I heard through the grapevine that UX team (“User Experience”) was planning on following up the zombie thing with a Valentine’s Day thing. The plot: a Sears Valentine’s Day Expert is going to post web videos on how to plan the perfect Valentine’s Day. But as the project develops, real life starts to intrude. Comedy, as they say, ensues.

The audition notice (which was surreptitiously forwarded to me) specified that they were looking for a “male between the ages of 20 - 35 (sorry, ladies and elder gentlemen).” Don’t tell Sears: I am 37. But I pride myself on being able to look 35 when I need to.

They gave me a script, four or five other guys and I filed into a conference room. While one of us performed in front of a video camera, the rest of us waited out in the hall. It was a surreal place to experience the déjà vu from my acting days, milling around and muttering lines to myself, anxiously waiting to be judged.

I was the only one milling around and muttering, by the way. Everyone else just shot the breeze. Amateurs.

By the end of the day, I found that I was one of three people called back for a second audition. Internet Celebrity was so close, I could almost feel its warm glow on my face.

Histories

2011-01-03T23:08:00.004-06:00

I’ve taken to reading books to Jen at night. Chapter by chapter, we make our way through books I happen to have. We did The Billionaire’s Vinegar, a gift to Jen from my brother. Then, we read Contested Will, a book I bought after hearing the author speak at the Newberry Library. (He adheres to the controversial theory that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him.)

I just finished reading her our first fiction work, A History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes.

I’d read it several years ago and loved it, but I was amazed at how much I didn’t remember. It’s a lovely book. Essentially, it’s a novel disguised as a collection of short stories. And I suppose each chapter could each be read on its own, as a separate story. But taken all together, it’s a theme and variations, a musing on love, fate, free will, religion, art, death, rebirth, passion, and the cycles history takes us through. Starting with Noah’s flood, images gather and recur and spin into each other like a snowball rolling and growing. And burrowing through the book like a woodworm is—well, a woodworm.

It’s very inspiring to see the way he pieces the symbolism together. Sometimes I wondered if it was too ham-fisted, like you could see the strings. But I enjoyed watching him do it so much. It made me want to find an image or two and screw around with it from multiple angles.

Next up: A History of the World in Six Glasses, a Christmas present from my brother. That ought to cover our historical studies nicely.

Sure, Why Not?

2010-12-18T09:13:00.002-06:00

A better re-signing than Steve Trachsel, anyway.

Surely, You Should Have Played It Serious

2010-12-04T12:15:00.001-06:00

Leslie Nielsen died this week.

One thing I always found frustrating about him was that he got too goofy. The reason he works so well in the first movies in the “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun!” franchises (and of course in “Police Squad!”) was that he was a serious actor. He brought his silver-haired gravity to the ridiculousness, and that’s why he’s hilarious in those projects.

But at some point, he seemed to realize, “Hey, I’m getting all these comic roles. I should act more funny!” Compare the steely, stone-faced doctor in “Airplane!” to the wide-eyed double-taking police officer in “The Naked Gun 33-1/3.” (Actually, don’t.)

It doesn’t help that his material kept getting worse and worse. To be honest, I stopped watching the Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker movies (and the even worse imitators) a long time ago. Part of me wondered if that style of comedy—genre parodies with everything-but-the-kitchen-sink gags thrown in—was just dated. But no, I believe the first movies in those series (as well as, to a lesser extent, “Top Secret!”) hold up.

The last time I watched “Airplane!” something dawned on me. The gags, as random as they were, were pulled along by a plot, as much of an afterthought as it was. There was a story—a screw-up’s attempt at redemption, a terrified group of people battling food poisoning and uncertainty—that was strong enough a clothesline for the jokes to hang on. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore, with the “____ Movie” series and the Mike Meyers movies and the like. It’s more a parade of—not even jokes—references. “I recognize that! It’s here for no reason, and there isn’t even an attempt at commentary, but I know what you’re referring to! I shall reward you with laughter!”

When “33-1/3” came out, I was still faithful, even though I found “2-1/2” to be a letdown. Sometime between the release of the movie and the time I saw it, O.J. Simpson, who plays Nordberg in all three movies, was arrested as a murder suspect.

The movie had been out for a while, I think. In any case, there were literally two people in the theatre: me and some stranger. The movie flickered and echoed in this cavernous, empty space, and I’m not sure either of us mustered up much of a laugh the whole time.

One of the subplots was that Nordberg’s wife was pregnant. At the end, she gives birth, but he walks into the wrong hospital room and sees a newborn white baby. He flies into a murderous rage and chases one of his white follow cops down the hall. I think that might even have been the closing image of the movie.

It would have been uncomfortable, even if there were laughs to be had during the hour and a half leading up to it.

In conclusion, RIP Leslie Nielsen

Our Obama Portrait

2010-11-18T21:13:00.017-06:00

I may as well admit this. I’ve fantasized about getting my work on the wall in the Hall of Presidents at the Neo-Futurarium.

Probably the first time I walked through there and saw the patchwork quilt of portraits, each president portrayed by a different artist, I wondered what criteria they used to pick the contributors. (This would have been back during the Clinton administration.)

But I was an amateur cartoonist, not a prominent artist, so I figured no opportunity would present itself.

I’m foggy on how exactly the idea for “Magnetic Personality” came up. Jen thinks we arrived at it together, but I think it was mainly her brainchild. Once the idea existed, we bounced it around and honed it. I’m pleased with the approach; not only is it fun, it’s also a cool metaphor for this presidency. You see whatever you long for or whatever you fear.

Like I said, this was Jen’s baby, but the main thing she needed from me was a caricature of Obama that reflected the style of the Wooly Willy drawing. One evening, I sat on the back deck, my laptop featuring three or four photos of Obama for reference, and I sketched.

This was the first thing I came up with:It kind of sucked. I’ve tried to draw Obama before, but for some reason I never managed to get hold of him. But I thought there were a few points in this attempt to grab hold of. I knew what to keep and what to discard in my next draft, and how to fit him into the cartoony style I was after:
Jen approved, so I inked it and photocopied a bunch of miniatures so we could test out the different personas Obama would take on. Then I scanned the full size version so Jen could work her magic.
The no-brainers were Hitler and Lincoln. Two well-worn comparisons, two easily recognized hairstyles.

Jesus was tough. I tried him with a beard, but it was just too much. I decided the halo on its own was simple and clean, and it got the point across.

The Secret Muslim had its own problems. It was tough to draw an all-black turban without it looking like a big head of hair. We tried a fez, a burqua, and a bunch of different turban styles. I finally figured out (hoped) that a certain black shape, with a clean white line traversing it, set at just the right spot above the ears, would read (as long as it was accompanied by the white-streaked Osama bin Laden beard.)

For the fifth and final character we settled on, I tried to do a Black Panther, with the beret and the sunglasses. Then I tried to do Malcolm X, with the severe, close-cropped hair, the thin goatee, and the horn-rimmed glasses. They both had the same problem: the Obama caricature has a big, broad smile. You can’t portray a Black Panther or Malcolm X with a big, broad smile. In each case, he ended up looking like a 60s jazz musician between sets.
We settled on an afro and a pair of sunglasses. I thought it worked well, in that it wasn’t so much an Angry Black Man as just a black guy with his African American features blown out a little bit. I liked that this character could be seen as a positive or a negative, depending on the viewer. A black kid could see a President who finally looks kind of like him. A racist Tea-Party type could see a threat to what’s pure and lost about the country.

So: Two Positives (Lincoln, Jesus), Two Negatives (Terrorist, Hitler), and One Rorschach Test.

(A discarded archetype was the Communist. Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky have pretty specific hairstyles, but Trotsky ended up looking like Don King, and Marx looked like Santa Claus or Henrik Ibsen.)

Meanwhile, Jen laid out the picture electronically, based on an actual Wooly Willy picture. She blew it up and used some kind of art magic to give herself a rough outline on a big piece of poster board canvas. She bought a bunch of Wooly Willy-like toys and extracted their iron filings. She destroyed a refrigerator magnet and a makeup tube to make the magnetic stick. And she bought one of those labeled pill containers that old people use to keep track of all their medications, because the rectangular plastic package was about the right size to form the front cover.

It was important to her that the piece was functional. You can give Obama a little Hitler mustache of you want to (as long as you place the painting on a horizontal plane).

The painting was due to the Neo-Futurists Friday afternoon. Thursday night, Jen settled in with her paints and her glue for a long, long night of art.

I finally said goodnight to her around 11. She was pretty sure she was going to work until daybreak.

• • •

We had a howling rainstorm that night. I drifted awake a few times. In the wee hours of the morning, I heard the back door to the deck open and shut. I figured Jen just needed some fresh air, and to gaze out at something far away for a while. Either that or she had gone insane and wandered out in the rain to walk into the Lake.

• • •

I woke up the next morning. At some point, Jen had slipped into bed, and she was immersed in fathomless sleep. I walked into the hall and looked into the kitchen.

For some reason, my new gas grill was standing in the kitchen. Jen had brought it in from the back deck.

Maybe she had gone insane.

Then I noticed all the furniture on the deck was turned on its side, the hammock was unhooked, and the metal shelving was supine. She wanted to protect everything from the wind.

I finally caught sight of the painting. It wasn’t completely done, but it was beautiful. It was well on its way to being fully realized, just the way we’d imagined it.

I can’t remember if I woke her up before I left for work. I think I just let her sleep and emailed her how great it looked.

• • •

Jen texted me later that she had finally finished it. Then she took a nap. Then she set out in a mad scramble to submit the portrait by its 5pm deadline and got there with 15 minutes to spare.

She wasn’t the last entrant to show up.

• • •

According to the submission info, we would hear by October 1 if our entry was a finalist. October 1 arrived, and we heard nothing. Jen texted me that afternoon that she didn’t think we’d made it. We would have heard by then.

Silence.

I got home that night, and Jen pulled herself into my arms and cried. She was sad at the prospect that we weren’t finalists, but underneath that was humiliation. She felt stupid for having entered, like her work didn’t belong in the company of real artists, and they were all rolling their eyes at her.

I put that to rest as best I could. And I assured her that we would show up at the fundraiser and bid on “Magnetic Personality” and bring it home to hang it.

A few days passed, and the contest passed out of our thoughts. Until the following Wednesday, when Jen sent me a text:

“Holy shit, we’re finalists.”

The Neo-Futurists’ had sent her an email that our painting was one of six finalists. I have no idea why we heard so late, but suddenly the world had twisted another 180 degrees.

• • •

The way you voted was to show up to a performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and fill out your ballot. All the paintings were on display in the lobby: the six finalists, as well as all the other entries (which you could write in if you were moved to). I went by myself one night when Jen was otherwise engaged.

There were a lot of great entries. One of them (not a finalist) touched on a similar theme to ours—a caricature of Obama, faceless, in the Oval Office as if he were giving a State of the Union Address. You the viewer projected the face of his presidency onto it. I liked it quite a bit.

All the finalists were great, but one stuck out. “Baby Obama,” featuring a portrait of Barack Obama as a little kid, probably five or six, smiling as if for a class photo. Around him, on the border of the painting, were tiny, postage-stamp-sized portraits of the 43 presidents who preceded him.

It was such a joyous, layered work. Staid, stolid white men forming the frame for the future leader of the free world. Rebirth, change, youth, optimism, evolution, all in a beautiful package. Jen, who saw the show the following weekend, pointed out part of the metaphor: the stamp-like portraits around the border had an inherent “old media” aspect to them, bringing the newness of Obama into even more relief.

In a surge of ridiculous optimism, I saw “Magnetic Personality” and “Baby Obama” as the frontrunners.

(I should also mention my other favorite, an intricate black-and-white piece by Lee Arjona. I had a hunch its small size would work against it, though.)

All the while, remembering Jen’s earlier disappointment, I made sure she was on board with this philosophy: It Was Okay If We Didn’t Win. She agreed. Being a finalist was the glory she sought.

• • •

The winner was to be announced at a fundraiser on October 28. Food, drinks, and performances, plus auctions of all the entries. Jen and I, as finalists, received free admission.

At the fundraiser, the six finalists were revealed one by one, auctioned off inversely to the number of votes they got. The plan was for the auctions to be spaced out over the course of the evening, so that the runner-up and winner would be revealed at the end.

Numbers six, five, four, and three were taken down from the wall, and the bidding was spirited and profitable. As I predicted, “Magnetic Personality” and “Baby Obama” were the top two.

And then something odd happened. Greg Allen, who was in charge of the auctions, lost track of how many finalists he had revealed. It was still early in the night, and there were two paintings left, and suddenly I looked over Jen’s shoulder and noticed that they were taking “Baby Obama” off the wall to be auctioned.

I turned around and looked toward our portrait on the opposite wall. It still hung there, untouched.

“Baby, don’t look now, but I think we won,” I said.

Sure enough, when the staff tried to hand “Baby Obama” to Greg, he tried to wave them away, worried that they had brought up the wrong painting. After a long, protracted conversation, he finally realized that there were not three finalists left, but only two.

And he had just accidentally revealed which of them had come in second, and therefore, which of them had won.

The early revelation may not have been as dramatic as intended, but Jen and I watched the rest of the evening’s entertainment at ease and happy. At the end of the evening, the now-ruined surprise was revealed: “Magnetic Personality” had won. We were handed a giant novelty check and our picture was taken.

As of this writing, I don’t think it’s hanging in the theatre yet. Jen stopped by and made a couple of touch-ups on Tuesday. But before too long, it will be part of the official Neo-Futurist record of the country’s history.

My Obsession Refuses to Die

2010-10-20T16:58:00.002-05:00

So AMC is starting a new show about the Zombie Apocalypse called The Walking Dead.

I have waded through some schlock in pursuit of zombies, but I have high hopes for this. The previews look awesome. Cinematography, special effects, etc. And it’s based on a highly regarded, long-running comic book series. I have not read it, but earlier this year I found myself flipping through it. There was a drawing of a gnawed-away, rotting, reanimated corpse that was pretty disturbing even as a black and white line drawing.

They did a pretty amazing makeup job reproducing her in the TV show.
I even bought the entire season through iTunes ahead of time, in the absence of cable. So, I’m in it for the long haul I guess.

I Don't Get It

2010-10-14T10:09:00.006-05:00

The Banksy Simpsons opening credits sequence has gotten a lot of play. Can someone explain it to me?

At first, I thought it was a guerilla project—like Banksy imitated the Simpsons style of animation and made an unlicensed short film to highlight the cruelty of outsourcing, or American colonialist practices in service of our cravings for shallow entertainment, or something. Which would have been pretty brilliant.

But then I realized it was an official opening that actually aired. So … is it just a joke?

If it’s genuinely making light of a serious problem (or serious accusations that have been leveled at 20th Century Fox), that seems kind of crass.

Continuing a loathsome practice, but making a joke about it, feels like a lazy attempt to shrug off the accusations by making a humorous acknowledgement and dressing it up as satire. It’s like George W. Bush doing his "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere!" bit.

The attitude they're hoping for seems to be, “Well, they’re admitting it. I guess they’re good eggs after all, and I can sit back and watch the cartoons.”

The other possibility is that it’s all a joke. Maybe conditions are luxurious for the Korean animators, and this is just a jab at the idea that The Simpsons treats them horribly. But then what does an underground, subversive street artist have to do with it at all?

I don’t know the real story behind the animation department, but apparently this very sequence was delayed because they threatened a walkout over it.
- - - - -"This is what you get when you outsource," joked The Simpsons executive producer Al Jean.- - - - -
What the— They’re doing it again!

So can someone clue me in? It’s very dark, definitely, but I’d like some explanation as to some of the thinking behind it.

Campaigning for (Our) Obama

2010-10-13T10:06:00.005-05:00

So the Neo-Futurists have a Hall of Presidents in their theatre. Each U.S. President has been represented by a portrait—43 portraits, 43 artists. Now that we're a couple years into Obama's administration, they've decided to add a 44th portrait.

They invited artists to submit their interpretations. Jen and I collaborated on one that reflects our impressions of Obama—not so much who he is, but how the country sees him and uses him.

It's called “Magnetic Personality,” and it was chosen as one of six finalists out of over 35 submissions.

This is where you come in.

The winner will be chosen by voting. To vote, you have to go see “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” and cast your ballot for us. It's a great show, very creative, lots of shouting and humor and pathos and truthing. All the submissions, including the six finalists, are on display in the theatre. You’ll recognize ours by my drawing style and Jen’s brilliance.

I won’t show you the whole thing here—I want you to go and see it (and vote for it). But here’s a taste:(This drawing represents part 6 of a 500-part process to create the portrait. The final product is evolved from this. Jen was up until 5 a.m. working on it.)

I want to be clear: I don’t want you to vote for it because you think it’s the best entry. I want you to vote for it because you know us, and I am asking you to. In the interest of the Neo-Futurists’ policy of “no pretense,” I am being honest here: I am stumping for votes.

Want me to make you dinner or something? I will make you dinner.

The winner will be revealed live at a celebration on 10/28. Wouldn’t it be great to attend the party, see the results of your labor when “Magnetic Personality” is unveiled, and give me a thumbs-up and a wink from across the room? I’m getting chills.

To sum up: See TMLMTBGB. Vote for “Magnetic Personality.” Give me a thumbs-up. Eat the food I make for you. That’s it!

(NOTE: There are a lot of great entries. And not just the finalists—there are great ones that did not get selected, and they are on display too, and you can even vote for them as write-ins. So yeah, vote for the one you think is best. But please think ours is best.)

Thanks!

Mixed Message

2010-10-07T15:24:00.004-05:00

This ad was on my train car the other day:
It's an important and somber message about how it's our responsibility as citizens to stop the cycle of violence.

Unfortunately, it was positioned right next to this ad for the movie Red.
Identical color scheme. Eerily similar typeface. Much bigger ad.

Plus, a mother holding a photo of her dead son is not going to compete with Helen Mirren holding a motherfucking bazooka.(Or whatever that weapon is.)

Yesterday's Winning Caption

2010-10-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

WHAT'S THIS 70's BUSINESS? I THOUGHT THIS WAS CARNAVAL!

(sic.)

Have I Become a Comedy Curmudgeon?

2010-10-06T15:51:00.002-05:00

This photo was sent around via interoffice email today. We're supposed to come up with "the funniest caption." I guess one of the other offices had a "70s Day," and this is a new manager dressed up for it.It's a lousy photo for a caption contest. It's just a guy standing there in a funny outfit. There's nothing to caption.

If we were laughing loudly, or taking a huge swig of a drink, or talking to someone else, or doing anything, there might be something a caption could add. But he's literally just standing there with his arms at his sides, grinning at the camera. No one is going to come up with a caption that will make his clothes funnier.

The email was sent to the entire Chicago office, so I fully expect to be the recipient of a few dozen "reply alls." I'll let you know if anyone proves me wrong.

Pariah Review, Part Two

2010-10-04T11:08:00.008-05:00

Fingerman is a comic book artist by trade, and I don't know his work. But if this book is any indication, he's one of those writers who think that being sardonic and sarcastic means you're being satirical. The book is filled with these smirky asides that are meant to be wry but just make me have to look away from the book for a few seconds to I can rub the bridge of my nose in exasperation.

There are a few genuinely scary sequences in the book, and they involve people from the apartment building going down to street level and walking amidst the zombies. (Sadly, the first of these scenes doesn't begin until page 300 of this 365-page novel.) The characters have been watching the zombies from the safety of their apartment building, but thanks to some form of protection or another, they gain the ability to set out among the undead. They see the crowd close-up for the first time.

Alan (a heroic artist!) discovers that if he covers himself completely (several layers of clothing, hoods, goggles), the zombies can't sense him, and he can walk among them undetected. It's a genuinely creepy sequence: he feels them jostle against him, glance at him as they shuffle past, casually grasp him; and his goggles gradually steam up and his visibility dwindles. But Fingerman undermines himself:

- - - - -To combat fear he kept his thoughts clinical. He'd absorb the detail he couldn't see from his window for future studies in watercolor and oils. Their skin was matte, but with oily patches, the pigment bleached or discolored. The white zombies were pasty yellow, the black ones gray and ashy. Even the matter underneath their shredded derma, the fasciae, peeled to reveal brown muscle tissue and dried bone. Everything looked desiccated. What you guys need is a good moisturizer, Alan thought. Some Oil of Olay or some Neutrogena. Something with a high SPF rating. I mean, look at you guys.- - - - -
That's keeping his thoughts clinical to avoid fear? He makes a bunch of artist's observations, which keeps with his artistic personality and is a nice touch. But then a completely out-of-character joke about skin care?

Earlier, a character named Eddie sets out into the world, gets overconfident, and gets eaten. This is not a spoiler, even though it happens less than 20 pages from the end. Eddie is an asshole, a sexist, a racist, and a Republican. He refers to himself in the third person by his college hockey nickname, "the Comet." He's violent, hypocritical, dumb, cowardly, and a homophobic closeted homosexual. There is no shading to his personality; every single thing he does, says, or thinks pounds home what a horrible person he is. The first time we meet him, he is talking about beating up his neighbor Mike so he can keep Mike's wife as a sex slave. Later, for good measure, he remorselessly rapes and murders an old woman. There is no way this book is going to end without Eddie being eaten by zombies.

His death scene takes place after he's run out of bullets in an abandoned bookstore:

- - - - -He looked over in the direction Mona had been to find empty wall. The fuck? Confusion followed by the incomparable sensation of jagged teeth bearing down on bare shoulder meat. His.- - - - -
Oh, "his"? Thanks for clarifying whose shoulder he feels getting bitten.

I need to point something out: I am not a zombie expert. I think they're fascinating. But I am not steeped in the lore. So maybe I'm wrong when I say that generally the rule is that you turn into a zombie if you get bitten by a zombie. I thought that of all the malleable rules and regulations about how modern zombieism works, that was pretty standard: you have to have a point of infection. But that's not the case in Pariah. Three different people die of non-zombie causes and end up being reanimated. So apparently all you have to do to become a zombie is die.

I was surprised at this choice, but I was willing to go along if it served some kind of purpose. But that purpose never came. The three reanimated corpses don't do anything to make the story much different; as reanimated corpses go, they are pretty much nonentities. So why introduce that detail?

(This is shutting the barn doors after the horses have left, but: Spoiler Alert.)

Ellen gets pregnant. Faced with the thought of bringing a child into a horrible world like this, she decides she should take a dose of RU-486 and induce a miscarriage. Something awesome and terrible started to occur to me…

What if she took the pill and killed her fetus… and then, since any human who dies becomes a zombie, the unborn child in her womb became reanimated and ate its way out of her body??

It is sick and wrong and wicked, but it would have been delightful. But as soon as it occurred to me, I knew Fingerman would not do it. First of all, Ellen, despite having no redeeming qualities to speak of, is supposed to be someone the reader likes, and Fingerman wouldn't let something that gruesome happen to her. And second, at this point the fetus would be a cluster of cells no bigger than a jellybean. (The mouth doesn't even begin to develop until Week Four, and the ability to devour flesh even later.)

Anyway. I have let myself get too obsessed with how frustrating the book was. After all, I did finish it. I could have set it down and picked up For Whom the Bell Tolls at any point, but I kept going.

I guess I thought, this once, I could trust Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, who called this the "thinking man's zombie novel." But it didn't have enough terror to be enjoyed as a horror novel, nor was it well-written enough to justify the lack of terror.

Your Daily Dose of Vertigo

2010-09-30T15:14:00.003-05:00

Horizonless ManhattanFrom Flowing Data via The Big Picture.

Another Zombie Novel

2010-09-21T20:06:00.009-05:00

So, I found World War Z to be flawed but cool. But flawed. Recently, I spied a new zombie novel on the shelves: Pariah, by Bob Fingerman.

The copy on its cover describes the tale as a group of Zombie Apocalypse survivors holed up in their Manhattan apartment building. The streets below are a river of shoulder-to-shoulder zombies, and the residents are running out of supplies.

It's a cool scenario with a lot of cool possibilities. But I hesitated when I noticed that nearly every author who provided a positive blurb was an author of another zombie novel.

Finally, my birthday rolled around, and Jen bought it for me, knowing that I had been hemming and hawing about it. I finished reading it today.

It's flawed.

• • •

When I was a freshman in college, I was in the midst of a Stephen King kick. One book that came out that year was Four Past Midnight, a collection of four short novels. One of the novellas was called "The Langoliers," and it was pretty freaking stupid. A plane flies through a fissure in the space/time continuum, and the passengers wind up trapped in yesterday. They encounter a bunch of ferocious red and black beach balls with teeth whose function is to eat the past. Spoiler alert.

Anyway, there is a character named Nick Hopewell, and even as an eighteen-year-old I was annoyed by the way he was written.

He's English. And King makes sure that you are reminded of that every time he opens his mouth. His dialogue is peppered with bloodys and mateys and bugger-alls. This is an actual line from the book:

- - - - -“Maybe you’d better go first. In case my loudmouthed friend decides to cut up rough about the unscheduled stop again.” He pronounced unscheduled as un-shed-youled.
- - - - -
Pariah has that same issue, except replace "English" with "Jewish." There's an old couple, Abe and Ruth Fogelhut. Here's how we are introduced to them, as Ruth pokes Abe awake:

- - - - -"You asleep?"
…
"Who sleeps around here? Especially…" Pause for a brief dry-throated coughing fit. "…with you torturing me all through the night. Sleep? What is this thing you call sleep? I should be so lucky to sleep. Even a nightmare is preferable to your constant mutchering."

"You don't have to be so unpleasant, Abraham."

"Is that supposed to chasten me, 'Abraham'? What, I'm a five-year-old and saying my whole name is a scold I'll abide? Abe, Abraham, call me whatever you like. Call me Ishmael, for all I care. Sleep. Sleep's a sweet memory."
- - - - -And so on.

• • •

The book also features some poorly written female characters. One of the biggest problems a male writer can succumb to when writing for women is thinking of it as "writing for women." The goal ceases to be creating an interesting character and instead becomes a constant question of, "What would a woman do in this scenario?" You can't do that without artificially limiting your worldview. And so we have Ellen, who defines herself over and over (and in so many words) as a wife to a dead husband and a mother to a dead daughter. And then when a teenage girl stumbles on the scene, she's overcome with jealousy that a younger and more attractive female has arrived.

And then there's Ruth. One night she takes a break from muttering Ucch and falls asleep, and her glorious dream finds her cleaning her apartment with the really good cleansers.

But those are just scraps of the flawed quilt. This post is getting too long, so I'm going to save some of this for another post.

Okay, I Just Had One of Those Ridiculous Coincidences

2010-09-20T21:51:00.005-05:00

I used to dabble in Photoshop contests. I also used to frequent a Cubs blog called Hire Jim Essian. In fact, before I built up the nerve to submit Photoshops to Fark, I got my feet wet on HJE.

Today, for no reason except that I noticed the site in my bookmarks, I visited HJE. And for the hell of it, I thought I’d revisit my old Photoshop submissions.

At some point in the 2008 season, the guy who runs HJE got a cease and desist from WGN, telling them to stop using their logo. His challenge to his readers that week was to design a new WGN logo he could use.

I submitted this:…back on June 13, 2008.

Tonight as I looked at that thread for the first time in over two years, I got to the bottom and noticed that someone had replied:I didn’t remember ever seeing that reply, so I glanced at when it was left there.

Today.

Two and a quarter years later, and I happened to look at the thread the day the comment was left.

ETA:
Oh yeah. I posted under the nickname "Brick." Named after a character in a play I wrote nine years ago.

Hell. Yes.

2010-09-17T11:46:00.002-05:00

NotNits Nitpicks

2010-09-16T11:44:00.003-05:00

My Pissy Language Pet Peeves

You called something an “acronym” when it’s actually an initialism.

You just used “i.e.” where you should have used “e.g.”

For names and singular nouns, ending in an S doesn’t get you out of needing an apostrophe-S to become possessive. As stupid as it may look, “my boss’s wedding” is correct.

The phrase is “due diligence,” not “do diligence.” “I think we really did diligence” is nonsensical.

AsteriSK. Not asteriKS.

Don’t say “soundtrack” when you mean “cast album.”

The eminent politician faces an imminent assassination attempt.

George Carlin said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” A fun quote, and point taken, but “average” is not the same as “median.”

Chip-OAT-lay, not chip-OL-tay.

“Racial epithet,” not “racial epitaph.”

“Nonplussed” does not mean “unimpressed.”

“In lieu of” does not mean “in light of.”

You “flush out” quails. You “flesh out” ideas.

I don’t know why “it” doesn’t get an apostrophe when it becomes possessive. I just know that it doesn’t.

Make sure your apostrophe is not an open single quote.

“Begging the question” is not the same as “raising the question.” Frankly, I have read multiple explanations of “begging the question,” and I still don’t understand it fully, so I avoid the phrase entirely.

This Is Not Me

2010-08-17T12:32:00.001-05:00

I rode Bike the Drive back in May.

There’s a company called Brightroom that photographs the event. Afterwards, they go through all their photos, and they keep track of the race numbers that show up.

Then they send an email to everyone on Bike the Drive’s email list. It contains a link to the photos in which your number shows up, and you can purchase them.

They keep emailing me photos of this woman and claiming she is me. They want me to buy these photos.

I’m not going to.

Don’t Roll Your Eyes At Me, Young Lady

2010-08-11T22:54:00.003-05:00

By now, we’ve all seen the Palin footage.

The issue for me is not the eye-roll itself, though that is loathsome. (And yes, at the very least, she gave her daughter a sidelong “Get a load of the brainiac!” look.) But it’s part of a larger problem. Palin saw someone who disagreed with her, and she walked over and started slathering defensive sarcasm all over the place.

The protester criticizes Palin for leaving her office prematurely. Instead of spewing any of the talking points she’s had a year to come up with, Palin replies:

“Oh you wanted me to be your governor! I’m honored! Thank you!”

Does that address the issue? No. Does that put the protester in her place? No. Does it trick the protester into admitting that she actually likes Sarah Palin? No.

It’s a clumsy playground sleight of hand, a “made ya look” gag of the type that would make you want to beat the crap out of an eight-year-old.

And she doesn’t even do it well. She and her daughter are pretty much indistinguishable in the clip, as far as the level of rhetoric goes. It’s all high-pitched, fakey-smile condescension. Actually, more like attempted condescension, since I can’t imagine anyone being fooled into thinking Palin actually scored points with it.

This doesn’t make Palin a horrible person; we all have our petulant moments. But it sure as hell makes her a horrible politician.

Someone who dwells in such a shallow pool of discourse should not be a leader. And pulling this bullshit out against a civilian—not a political opponent but a citizen in peaceful protest—just reeks of someone who is mentally incapable of deeper thought or strategy.

How would this tactic be used against, say, a terrorist threat? “Oh gee, for someone who claims to hate America, you sure do pay a whole heap of attention to us!”

But, of course, the problem is that people were fooled into thinking Palin scored some points. And focusing on the eye-roll instead of on the vacant mind behind the eye-roll just gives her defenders something to lash out against, leading to people pointing out the eye-rolls of the people who point out the eye-roll.

I’m on record as not caring how Bush pronounced “nuclear.” It’s an accent. It’s a soundbite. It doesn’t matter.

I don’t care that Palin tweeted the portmanteau “refudiate.” She confused a couple words in a tweet (a tweet, for crying out loud) and played it off afterwards. So what? If tweets were combed through for spelling errors, no one with a Twitter account would escape refudiation.

But by taking that little morsel and attacking it ravenously, we give her (and her supporters) ammunition. “Look at these left-wingers, picking on our girl’s typo! Circle your wagons! We’re taking the White House!”

That’s why she’s harder to kill than you’d think. There are a lot of people who feel sneered at instead of reached out to, and they like what they see in her. She sneers right back, so they’ll carry her flag. The woman has been through a lot of ridicule and embarrassment on a national level, and still her undead political career is lurching and shambling around, searching for brains to roll its eyes at.

Some day in the not-too-distant future, she may be rolling her eyes in the Oval Office.

Seafood: Yes. See Food: No.

2010-08-09T15:07:00.001-05:00

Copyranter hates these ads, but he hates everything.

I like them. Both campaigns sell seafood without actually showing any seafood. I think they’re playful and attention-getting. (Well, I admit to getting a little creeped out by WebWoman.)

In the Company of Shrews

2010-07-01T09:45:00.001-05:00

I saw The Taming of the Shrew about a month ago, the one at Chicago Shakespeare. It was a quality production delivered in a shitty envelope.

In an effort to contextualize or subvert this baggage-laden play, someone had the idea to bring in Neil LaBute to write an exoskeleton, a play-outside-the-play following the trials and tribulations of the company that’s performing it. Specifically, we watch a lesbian couple, one of whom is directing Shrew, the other of whom is playing Kate.

The actress has a wandering eye and is consistently unfaithful to the director. (Apparently, every single play they do together features some sweet young lesbian in the cast with whom the actress can cheat on her girlfriend.) So we begin to see (or rather, the characters begin to declare) that the director has cast the actress in this particular play to “control” her, putting her in her place.

Let’s set aside the fact that this is an idiotic and inefficient strategy to get your girlfriend to stop cheating on you. The external play is just poorly written. Stilted dialogue abounds, including a dreadful “public breakdown” speech by the director, who finds herself confessing all her relationship problems to the opening night audience during intermission.

When it comes time for Kate to set her hand beneath Petruchio’s foot, the actress declares, “Fuck this,” and storms off stage.

What are we to take from this? Women are just as capable as men of subjugating women? Shrews of all types—even those who repeatedly cheat on their lovers—should not be tamed? Monogamy is a form of spirit-breaking torture? The theatre can (or rather, can’t) be a powerful tool in shaping real life? I’m not sure a play full of horny, vindictive lipstick lesbians is much of a giant leap for feminism. And if it were about adding a feminist slant (and I’m not sure it is), mightn’t it have been a clearer message to find a female playwright to see what she could do with it?

All that said, when the LaBute contributions fall away, and Shakespeare’s play is allowed to take center stage, the results are much better. It is for the most part a solid, funny production. But you just know the meta-theatrical bullshit is just waiting around the corner, which makes it harder to enjoy the enjoyable parts.

My New Phone

2010-06-29T21:55:00.002-05:00

I’m going to Italy soon, so I bought a new phone.

The last time I went to Italy, in 2006, my Motorola Razr was useless. I wanted to be a bit more connected this time around, so I walked into the T-Mobile store downtown and asked specifically for a phone I could use overseas. I was directed by the chipper, friendly girl to a t139. It was cheap, it made calls and sent texts, and it had no particular bells or whistles.

“And I’ll be able to use this in Italy, right?”

“Yes,” she assured me. “Just call the number here and activate your international roaming.”

A couple days later, I made the call. The guy I spoke to showed some concern that the phone was not in my name. My dad had bought me that old Razr, my first-ever cell phone, as a birthday present, and I’d just never bothered to change it over to my name. In order to sell me the roaming plan, he’d have to speak to my dad.

But it ended up not mattering, because the t139 was not going to work in Italy after all.

I was irritated—this was another stupid obstacle of the sort that seemed to keep popping up in the planning of this trip. The guy on the phone was apologetic. (Despite this one screw-up, I have to say the customer service from T-Mobile is actually quite lovely.)

Anyway, on Sunday I was able to exchange it for something the clerk described to me as a “Samsung Smiley Face.”

It’s actually called the :)™.

It’s more expensive, and I don’t like how wide it is, but it has a qwerty keyboard, and it would (seriously this time) work in Italy.

I got home that oppressively hot evening and was tinkering around with the phone on my back deck. Suddenly, it began chiming in my hand. It was my mom calling.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m all right,” she answered. “Your father’s in the hospital with an infection.”

• • •

Just a couple days earlier, I was joking around with Jen about being sixty together, and I threatened to bite her with my dentures.

“Dentures?” she asked. “Your parents are sixty-five!”

Well, that’s true. Sixty is not old and frail and toothless. My dad rides “Bike the Drive” every summer, bicycling thirty-some miles up and down Lake Shore Drive. My mom joins him for half of it. They walk, they travel, they cook. Yeah, they watch their diet and take blood pressure medicine, but they’re sharp and they look great.

I look to them as a reason to be optimistic about aging.

• • •

My mom was in the hospital with my dad. She mentioned that he had a high fever and some convulsive chills the previous night, and that he had emailed his doctor about it, and his doctor had directed him to the emergency room. Dad had spent the night there.

Then Mom handed the phone to him. In a low, creaky voice he mentioned that he felt a lot better, and that he suspected everyone was overreacting. The doctor thought the infection might have been a reaction to a biopsy he’d recently had, a rare occurrence that is anticipated with a preventative dose of antibiotics before the procedure, but that sometimes happens anyway.

Hold on a second. Biopsy?

Suddenly, the infection wasn’t the scary part.

“What was the biopsy for?” I asked.

“Oh, my prostate,” he responded. “Once you hit fifty, you have all kinds of tests every year, and the result of this one test had suddenly jumped two or three times what it had been the last several times I had it.”

I asked when the results of the biopsy would come.

Not until the day before I leave for Italy.

• • •

They seemed aware but nonchalant. They expected my dad to be home the next day. We said goodbye, and I went back to fiddling with my phone, distracted. It chimed again: a text from Jen that she was running late. She asked me to chop some onions.

I’m not sure I’d ever really chopped up an onion before. It’s not just a comedy trope; tears were streaming down my face.

Jen arrived, and I filled her in. I was determined to take a cue from my parents and take it easy, not worry, not panic.

But over dinner, anxiety kept splashing coldly on me. My parents are sixty-five. Suddenly, my old fears about growing old, my terror at the passage of time, came rushing back. And even more so now; Jen has brought a lot of happiness to my life, and as a result I see life as a lot more valuable and fragile. I’ve never in my life been able to experience happiness without some counterweight of fear, but it’s easy to dismiss that as some harmless neurosis until something comes along to sideswipe you.

The fact is, I care now more than I have in a long time whether I live or die. And I have someone else in my life who cares whether I live or die. It’s a lot of pressure.

Jen noticed me staring off. My tear ducts had been opened already that evening, so I was having difficulty clenching them shut.

She drew me to her, and suddenly I was wracked with sobs. It was unexpected. Something had been punctured in me. I had not cried like that in I don’t know how long. What was I crying over? Worry for my dad? Worry for my mom? Self-pity? Some sickly combination of all of that?

• • •

Years ago, a friend of mine was killed in a freak car accident. She and I weren’t all that close, but we had acted in some plays one summer in the early 90s, and our families went to the same church. Her husband was driving, and she was in the passenger seat. A truck in the oncoming lane had jumped the curb. If I remember correctly, something the truck had been hauling came loose and crashed through the windshield. Her husband and their young daughter in the backseat were unhurt.

I went to the funeral, and I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was unmoved, even irritated at having to be there. But something clicked at the end, as I saw her parents walking up the aisle on the way out after the service, and suddenly I was inconsolable. I had to leave. I walked the block home and lay on my bed, sobbing, even wailing.

My dad came home to find me. I told him that the episode had taken me by surprise. He told me that was typical of Stinton men. We tend to be pretty even-keeled, emotionally, until something comes along to crack that open. That makes us uncomfortable, so we avoid those situations. He told me that my grandfather was unable to bring himself to attend my great-grandfather’s funeral.

He convinced me to return to the church, where the waterworks started up again, and I made an ass of myself trying to give my condolences to my friend’s parents.

• • •

I don’t know why I’m writing all of this, except to get it all down. Intellectually, I’m not panicked about my dad. But there’s an emotional side of me, a side I’ve always been on chilly terms with, that seems to be hanging around more than I’ve allowed it to in the past.

• • •

UPDATE: Biopsy came back all clear. Phew. It's nice to be back to worrying about dumb things instead.

I Don’t Hate Cardinals Fans

2010-06-16T15:45:00.003-05:00

What I hate are assholes.

There is some overlap between those two groups.

Even before this baseball season started, I couldn’t get myself excited about it. Which is heartbreaking. Generally, even if I have no hopes for a Cubs season, the first hint of warm weather gets me excited about baseball.

This year, I just don’t give a shit.

I have been to one game this year, back on May 11. It was your standard-issue dismal, lifeless 2010 Cubs loss. (I now have a personal losing streak of 4 in games I’ve attended, going back a year.)

But, whatever. They have bison dogs at Wrigley now. I had two. They were pretty good.

So Jen and I shuffled back toward the train after the game, surrounded by similarly lethargic Cubs fans. I heard the unmistakable sound of a drunken douchebag ahead.

[loud] “Let’s! Go!” [softer, hesitant] “Card! Nals!”

Clap! Clap! Clap-clap-clap!

Fantastic.

I continued walking, and the guy came into view. His friends tried to get him to quiet down. He would have none of it. “What? It’s not my fault the Cubs suck!”

He wore no Cardinals insignia on his person, apparently having decided it would be a better move to wait and see if the Cubs lost before announcing his allegiances. And it wasn’t even a Cubs/Cards game—it was the Marlins who were in town.

The douchebag spotted me. “Cubs suck!” he declared.

I nodded curtly and kept walking. He fell into step beside me; he had more to say.

“How many championships do you have? We have ten!”

He held up all of his fingers to demonstrate. I looked at him. Was he really walking up to a stranger on the street and bragging about this?

“Seriously?” I asked him.

“Yeah! Ten!”

His buddies muttered to him. “Chris. Come on.”

Chris would not be contained. “What? Cubs suck! I’m just havin’ fun!”

“Chris, knock it off,” his friends said.

I kept walking, and so did Jen. Jen was wearing a plaid coat, and when Chris saw it, he shouted, “Plaid!”

The man was an idiot. And in a situation like that, there’s nothing to be gained from a confrontation. Still, even as I assured myself of that, I immediately fell victim to l'esprit de l'escalier. Oh, you know what I should have said? “They better not win another championship, you’re out of fingers!” Or better yet, “I bet you’re the first in your family with enough fingers to count all of them!”

I tried with all my might, and I couldn’t stop imagining putting him in his place, through words or deeds. In my mind, I belittled him, insulted him, cracked his skull with a tire iron. His brand of bullshit just sticks in my craw.

It shouldn’t. It does.

The next day, I was having lunch with Jen downtown. Our conversation found its way to the previous night's experience, and Jen mentioned something Chris said that I hadn’t heard.

“He said, ‘It’s not like I asked to fuck your girlfriend.’”

She’d shrugged it off, found it annoying and pathetic.

But my anger, which had all but drained away, came gushing back. It’s real easy to say something like this after the fact, but if I had heard that, I might have been compelled to wheel around and call him out on it.

What would that have led to? No idea. I’ve never been in a fight. And Chris’s friends, who seemed so embarrassed about him, would immediately spring to his defense if I had thrown a punch. It would end in my slinking away, humiliated, or getting into some kind of bullshit shoving match, or staggering off with a broken nose. There would have been no good outcome.

So, it’s good that I didn’t hear that until the next day.

Meanwhile, Chris? I’m writing a poem about the experience. I need a good rhyme for “world’s greatest fans.”

Jen's Birthday, 2009

2010-06-09T19:10:00.007-05:00

For no pressing reason other than to generate some content, I’m transcribing a journal entry I wrote on a trip Jen and I took to New York during the week of Thanksgiving, 2009.

It’s November 27, 2009. The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. I’m in the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Midtown Manhattan, still basking in having provided my girlfriend with the best birthday she’s ever had.

Jen is sleeping in room 210. I’ll get as much of this down as I can before she wakes up.

My family has been coming to New York for Thanksgiving for ten years or so. Jen, whose birthday is 11/25 (the day before Thanksgiving, this year), accepted my invitation to join us. We envisioned a few days of sightseeing and playgoing, punctuated by some birthday celebration and some turkey.

But it turned out that my parents wouldn’t come this year. So Jen and I decided to make a week of it, and we arrived Tuesday night. We checked in and wandered the neighborhood until we found a deserted and friendly Italian restaurant where we split an appetizer and an entrée and began to plan our week, which was quite open.

A couple weeks earlier, Jen brought over a DVD of a concert performance of Louis CK. He’s one of her favorite comedians, and she’s been introducing him to me. I laughed my ass off. The next day, out of curiosity, I checked his website to see if he was touring.

Turned out, he was performing a show. In New York. On November 25. Jen’s birthday. It worked out so perfectly that it was as if I’d called in a bunch of favors to arrange it. Jen was ecstatically on board, so one piece of the puzzle was in place—a 10 pm show at Caroline’s comedy club.

Then I talked to my brother Matt, who is the manager of a restaurant in Manhattan called Hearth. We arranged a 7pm dinner.

But we had a full day to fill before 7.

So we woke up Wednesday morning in a very leisurely manner until we got enough drive to find the fitness center. We ran on the treadmills for a half hour, then showered.

Jen decided she wanted to see the Museum of Modern Art. I looked it up online and found that, not only was it a few blocks from the hotel, but they were running a Tim Burton exhibit. Jen and I have similar opinions of Burton—brilliant visual artist, very flawed storyteller. In fact, other than Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Ed Wood, I’m not sure there’s a movie of his that I actively like.

But the exhibit would be all art and no story—take the best and leave the rest. I ordered tickets for us to enter the exhibit at 1 pm.

We had some time to kill, and Jen got an idea that she wanted a good donut. She found a place called the Cupcake Café that had gotten rave reviews (the second best donut in New York, apparently), and we set off for a snack. Satisfied that the full day was locked and loaded, we set off on foot toward the Cupcake Café, down from 57th street to 41st.

A few blocks later, I realized that there was no way to make the journey and get back in time, at least not without my ruining everything with my obsessive anxiety. We changed plans.

We found a restaurant called the Hummus Kitchen and ordered some falafel, hummus, and the like. There was a drink on the menu called a “lemon arak.” Based on the description, Jen decided to make it her birthday drink.

It arrived, looking nothing like what either of us imagined. A squat glass overflowing with lime green liquid, built up to a creamy pyramid. A straw emerged from it.

It was delicious. And right up Jen’s alley—fresh, foresty, earthy. There was lemon and mint and arak, a Middle Eastern aniseed-flavored liqueur. We planned on returning later in the week for another.My Israeli beer was pretty good too.

We made our way to MoMA, and after some trouble picking up our tickets (their record had me listed as “David Stinto”), we were in the slow-moving, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of patrons gawking at Burtonalia.

It was fascinating. There was everything from drawings he made in high school (which reminded me of the doodles I drew in high school) to actual props, costumes, and stop-motion animation models from his movies. Being embedded in a glacier of humanity was frustrating, but it was a great exposé of how detailed his vision is and how fully realized the world of his movies is.

And I think “world,” singular, is appropriate. All of his movies belong in the same visual family. There is darkness, dementia, and whimsy, and there are swirls and stripes, and you increase or decrease each of those ingredients to calibrate the mood of each movie and put it in its rightful place on the spectrum.

Eventually, Burton-fatigue set in, and we wandered the rest of the museum. Fascinatingly, other exhibits kept reminding us of Tim Burton. A Bauhaus exhibit was filled with whimsical furniture and small, quirky sculptures. The rest of the museum featured figurines and demented, off-kilter portraits. Some of the effect might have been the result of training our eyes to see everything underscored with a faint Danny Elfman soundtrack, but Jen pointed out that it demonstrated the genuine artistry in Burton’s designs. He doesn’t just create his spirals and shades of purple in a vacuum—he knows what he’s drawing from. His work belongs under the same roof as everything else we saw.

We were just deciding to leave the museum and head back to the hotel room when Jen gasped. Through a doorway, in the next room, she spotted a wooden stool with an inverted bicycle wheel emerging from the top of it. A Duchamp sculpture—one of his “readymades.”

Jen burst into tears.

Duchamp is one of her idols, her major artistic influences, and she had no idea she’d be running into his work. She was overcome. We embraced for a couple minutes, and we entered the room.

I think this is when Jen started feeling like the day was shaping up to be very special for her. She had no idea we’d be seeing this piece of art, and the fact that such a planned-out day could still hold wonderful surprises was invigorating.

We left the museum and headed south toward the donut shop we’d abandoned. It was a long walk—longer even than I’d anticipated—and I was glad we waited until after our museum reservation to find it. The neighborhoods got less touristy and more filled with locals. The sidewalks were filled with torrents of pedestrians. The streets were at a near standstill with Thanksgiving Eve traffic. Darkness loomed as late afternoon set in. It was a different city from the bright, friendly one we’d started out in a few hours earlier.

Finally, there it was, across the street, in the industrial-feeling neighborhood: The Cupcake Café. We entered a small, makeshift restaurant. There was no menu posted—just some donuts and unlabeled cupcakes below glass lids. I immediately went into panic mode—what if I order wrong and ask a dumb question? But Jen remained calm, and we successfully ordered two donuts and two cups of coffee.

The donuts were plain but good. I think they were just what Jen was after.

We made our way back to the hotel, and soon it was time to head down to Hearth. We got a secluded table in the corner, and my brother casually mentioned that we could simply order from the menu, or he could “make something happen.”

He left us to think for a moment, and I looked at the menu, unable to choose.

Jen said, “I think he wants to take care of us.”

This was interesting, because I didn’t want to impose. I figured it would be easier just to order. But Jen saw something in the way he offered that made her think he wanted to show off a bit. So when he returned, we told him we wanted him to guide us.

It was the right decision. He sent out a series of small plates, each with a wine specially paired with it. Seafood with crisp whites, lamb with bold reds, and my first Madeira, which I would have gladly drunk a bottle of then and there. Two and a half hours later, we still weren’t done, and I was beginning to worry about the Louis CK show.

I mentioned to Matt that we’d have to get going. He admitted that he’d forgotten about the concert, and that he had a couple more courses planned. Reluctantly, we made our move to get up from the table. (Matt slipped a couple last-second desserts in front of us before we quite managed to leave—mini s’mores and some tiny scoops of sorbet.) It was a wonderful, decadent experience, and Jen was definitely right—Matt was in his element and having almost as good a time as we were. It would be great to return for the full four-hour plan.

We hopped in a cab to get back up to Midtown and Caroline’s. We were already quite tipsy on wine, and the show had a two-drink minimum. I began to fear for the hangover that awaited us.

At Caroline’s, we headed downstairs into a waiting area. Around us, there were tables of disappointing-looking fried food, the remnants of the optional pre-show dinner that Caroline’s offers for people who order priority seating. We were very happy that we dined elsewhere.

Finally, we were seated, with a great view of the microphone. I suppose that Caroline’s probably had ginger ale, but I was in such a giddy and tipsy mood that I ordered a couple of beers. Jen, in possibly an even more irresponsible move, ordered vodka tonics.

Louis CK was phenomenal. I am pretty sure I’ve never laughed that hard for that long—it was almost an act of violence. Jen and I were probably the loudest ones there.

We walked back to the hotel afterwards, drunk, exhausted, happy. We stopped at a drugstore for some water, I think—the trip was so wavery and disorienting in my sight that it seemed like a dream. But we got back to our room and collapsed into bed.

For the rest of the week, Jen couldn’t stop remarking on how great the day was. Running, a new and delicious drink, Burton, Bauhaus, Duchamp, authentic donuts, a brilliant and intoxicating feast, and for dessert, laughing until it was physically painful.

I have to say, I’m pretty proud of orchestrating that day.

Rhyming Takes Timing

2010-06-08T10:46:00.001-05:00

So I’m making a return to acting, in 365 Sketches. I haven’t been on stage since a similar evening two years ago, Raw.

Two years. I used to act all the time. It brought me a lot of joy.

But this post isn’t about the lost joys of acting. It’s about the lost joys of writing.

Joe Janes set himself an assignment: “I’m going to write a comedy sketch a day for a year.” And he did it. It’s a monster act of perseverance and stamina. There must have been stretches when he came close to losing his mind. But he completed his task.

Then today Dennis Frymire declared he was going to do something similar: a piece of flash fiction every day for 397 days.

I started thinking to myself, “Why don’t I try something like that?”

And then I realized, “Oh yeah.”

In fact, I set myself an assignment within that fiction blog. I was going to write a short story inspired by each of Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations. One a week. ONE A WEEK.

I wrote two. More than a month passed between the first and the second. And a year—and counting—has passed between the second and now. Had I stuck to my original schedule, I would be long finished with the assignment.

The thing is, I’ve had a partially baked idea for the most recent situation, “All Sacrificed for a Passion,” for about a year now. It’s a poem, which might be part of the problem. I’m trying to make it rhyme, which tends to toss speed bumps in your way.

In my way. I didn’t mean to indict you. This is all on me.

How Theatre Failed Dad

2010-05-04T22:01:00.005-05:00

I went to see monologist Mike Daisey’s piece How Theatre Failed America on Saturday.

From a storytelling standpoint, it was very good. The guy is compelling, if a little mannered and affected, and I was never bored. A couple of anecdotes didn’t quite fit into the overall point. (A long detour about his midnight visits to an icy lake and his coaching of a high school drama team was great to listen to. But he seemed to need to force-fit it into a larger statement about “high, low, and average” experiences in the theatre, and the connection wasn’t quite earned.)

And one overarching issue I had was that the theatre he’s describing had little to do with the theatre I know. I have never been involved with a theatre company that had a lavish lobby in a new building, or that had its funding threatened if it didn’t perform certain plays in its season, or that brought in actors or directors from out of town, or that had a staff of full-time administrators and marketers working in cubicles. His points about those theatres were valid, I’m sure. (On the way into the upstairs space at the Biograph, I did indeed turn to Jen and compliment the lobby.) But he was railing against something that I have never touched as a theatre artist.

But a couple of moments really hit home for me.

One was about how he started his own misguided theatre company in western Maine. One of the plays they put up in their first and only season was Speed-the-Plow. Daisey wryly observed (paraphrasing here), “Because that’s what the residents of a resort town in western Maine are asking themselves! ‘What’s on Hollywood studio executives’ minds, and what do they think of postmodern literature?’”

Good point. Is that what Speed-the-Plow is “about”? Well, no, I’d argue it’s “about” betrayal, male friendship, living up to your ideals, and using sex as a weapon. And everyone—western Maine or not—can relate to those themes.

But the plot is Studio Execs, and What They Think of Postmodern Literature. And if the plot means nothing to the audience, the audience won’t care what it’s about.

The other moment concerned Daisey's mindset in the nights after a hilarious, disastrous, and probably pornographic moment in a Seattle production of The Balcony. Long story short, he reached a point in a performance where something went wrong, and he couldn’t come up with anything to do on stage other than what he had been blocked to do. In the ensuing weeks, a light went on for him: He was not invested enough in the project to do anything in the moment. He had to travel along his track like an automaton. And that went against a lot of what he loved about performing.

So he made up his mind from then on to do only projects that he was “100%” on.

And since those projects don’t really exist, he decided to start writing and performing his own monologues.

I had a similar moment several years ago.

I went to see a production of a Chekhov play. I am no Chekhov fan, but I figured it was about time to better myself.

This was the middle of a Chicago summer heat wave. And the air conditioning was broken in the theatre. And the performance was lousy.

There was a wide range of talent on display, from mediocre to bad. And the play was long.

I would have left at intermission, but the house was so small to begin with. I knew every absence would be noted by the cast, and I can’t bring myself to hurt actors’ feelings. I want them to succeed. What they do is tough, whether or not I hate it.

So I stuck around until the bitter, sweaty end. The curtain call finally, finally arrived, and after taking their bows, the cast applauded the audience. I don’t think it’s something they did every night. I think they realized how hard it was to sit through eleven hours of Chekhov when you’d rather be up to your neck in ice water.

But while the play was still going on, my mind wandered: What if I had been in this play, instead of in the audience? I imagined my parents sitting where I was sitting, bored out of their skulls. I would have felt guilty—I’d have taken a summer night away from them. It wouldn’t have been something they’d see if they hadn’t been obligated by their own flesh and blood.

I was there by myself, and I didn’t know anyone in the cast. I didn’t have to be there.

But my parents would be trapped. The play would mean nothing to them—nothing but interminable heat and humidity.

I made up my mind that night that I would only write plays my dad would be interested in seeing.

Is that anti-intellectual? I don’t think so. What is anti-intellectual about making sure your story means something to the audience who has come to see it?

A lot of hay is made about entertainment vs. art. There’s no feud between them, in my opinion. They are not mutually exclusive. “Entertaining” does not mean “frivolous.” In fact, if you’re going to “teach me something,” you’d better make it entertaining. If I find myself sitting in a seat in your theatre out of obligation, whether it’s an obligation to better myself or an obligation to support my son, you have your work cut out for you. Reach out to me. Entertain me.

Can that be abused? Of course. Fuck Avatar. Fuck Mamma Mia.

But also? Fuck that production of The Balcony.

All Sizzle, No Steak

2010-04-25T18:59:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about the brilliant, bizarre and wonderful Folgers ad I posted about the other day. Anyone else find it frustrating when an awesome commercial is used to sell a disappointing product?

Two others immediately sprung to mind. This hilarious ad about branching out from the crowd and doing something different—like ordering a Miller.

And this magnificent tour of Chicago from the elevated train, which apparently aims to put you in the mood for a nice cold Bud.

What other awesome ads for lame products can you think of?

Essential Cinema

2010-04-15T17:25:00.002-05:00

The Yahoo! Movies Editorial Staff has created a list of “100 Movies to See Before You Die” in the category “Modern Classics.” These were released in the last twenty years.

Some of them I take issue with. (Anchorman?)

But it’s a fun scorecard. I’ve seen 61. (There were plenty I intended to see. Does that count?)

And the comments under the entry for WALL-E even contain a warning about the dangers of improperly used prepositional phrases.

Awesome Ad

2010-04-13T08:32:00.001-05:00

This almost makes me want to go out and purchase the product.

Those Are My Stories, and I’m Sticking to Them

2010-03-22T11:02:00.001-05:00

So, I’m doing this.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing something with my short stories. I have quite a collection backlogged, and I’ve begun thinking it would be cool to have them in some kind of book format. I thought about Lulu, but I’ve heard some people are frustrated by it… If I remember correctly, the disappointments they had involved distribution and bookstores and other things I’m not really interested in.

My thought was simply, maybe I could give bound copies of some of my stories to people as (egotistical) Christmas presents.

But hey, here’s an actual publisher that’s looking for short stories.

I’ve perused their current titles. They’re mainly poetry collections. And something tells me they might be a little too brainy/literary for me. (Or more accurately, I might not be brainy/literary enough for them.)

But there’s nothing to lose. The only submission fee is that you have to buy one of their books, so I placed my order over the weekend. At the very worst, I have a book.

Well, at the very worst, they hate my submission so much that they devote a microsite to my ridicule. With little Flash games where you shoot rejection-letter-paper-airplanes at me until one of them slashes my throat and I bleed to death while everyone laughs.

On second thought, I should probably not submit anything.

And just like that...

2010-03-10T14:23:00.001-06:00

...OK Go becomes even more homemade and name-drops Pomplamoose in the process. Maybe they are watching.

Building an Awesomer Mousetrap

2010-03-09T13:09:00.003-06:00

You’ve probably seen this already. If you’re like me, you’ve probably seen it about a dozen times.

If you haven’t, watch it now. Seriously. I’ll wait.

OK Go, “This Too Shall Pass”

Did you watch it?

Really? What was your favorite part?

You fucking liar. Watch. It.

The first time I saw it (actually, the first three times), the hair stood up on the back of my neck. It’s such a thrilling video. Not only is it a four-minute Rube Goldberg device. (If you knocked over the dominoes and left the room to get coffee, it would still be going when you got back!) It also follows the music. The events rise and fall with what the song is doing. Things happen with the beat.

The machine even contributes music.
It’s not just a cool gadget, it’s a piece of theatre.

I can’t even imagine the work that went into conceiving it. Much less figuring it out. Much less building it so it would work. Then choreographing the band members around it and mapping a path for the cameraman to record the whole thing.

Millions of tiny things could go wrong, and undoubtedly did. (Notice all the busted pianos and televisions littering the corners of the warehouse, presumably from previous takes.)

Frankly, it makes this commercial look like it was thrown together by chimps.

Stuff like this creates a longing in me. I’ve been out of the writing game for a long time, and I haven’t set foot on a stage in forever. Seeing stuff like this makes me want to create.

And it inspires me much more effectively than reading a novel or seeing a movie can. It’s the homemade nature of it all. (One article quoted singer Damian Kulash, “The whole time I was telling the team, ‘No, this is too good. You have to theoretically be able to build this at home.’”)

This kind of thing is perfect for the internet. People setting challenges for themselves and tinkering around and showing off the cool things they do.

Like these folks, making videos of themselves playing music in their house according to a strict set of self-imposed rules. Or this guy, throwing himself into a grueling yearlong task and sharing the results live. Or the poster child for them all.

I don’t want to sound too corny or melodramatic or anything about it, but it’s invigorating. These are real people you can reach out to, and maybe get to look at your cool thing.

I will never create a two-story four-minute Rube Goldberg machine. But I honestly feel that if I created something cool enough, I could get OK Go to take a look at it.

I used to have a cool thing I did pretty regularly online. (No, not the live StripChats. That was a bad idea.) I see things like these, and I want to get back into the creative portions of my life.

Let’s Get Pucked Up

2010-02-26T09:59:00.005-06:00

The Canadian women’s hockey team is under investigation for holding an impromptu soirée on the ice after winning the gold last night.

"A number of players, including 18-year-old superstar Marie-Philip Poulin, were drinking alcohol on the ice following the team's 2-0 defeat of the United States. (The legal drinking age in British Columbia is 19.) Players lingered for more than 70 minutes after the awards ceremony reveling in the arena, which was empty except for media and arena staff."

First of all, they’re Canadian. I think new mothers’ breasts are filled with Labatt’s up there. (Poulin is old enough to drink in neighboring Alberta, where the team trains, but the moment she set foot in Vancouver, she became one month too young to drink.)

Second… 70 minutes? If loitering on the ice like teens in a Hasty Market parking lot was a problem, shouldn’t someone have mentioned something to them, you know, within the first hour? “Ladies, take it back to the hotel, eh? We have to bring out the Zamboni.”

Third, these pictures are freaking awesome. They’re like a spread from Canadian Maxim.

Short Notice

2010-02-24T12:52:00.001-06:00

The Oscar nominated short films are running at the Landmark in Chicago for the next several days. There are two separate programs, animated and live action. I saw them all last night, and it was a great experience. Go see.

Animated

French Roast (France)
A funny, beautiful, patient, nearly wordless little story about the exploits of a businessman at a coffee shop who is too embarrassed to admit that he has misplaced his wallet. Great character work.

Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (Ireland)
What happens to a bedtime story when it’s told by a grandmother too disillusioned and bitter to believe in fairy tales? This short is hilarious, and it feels like the dialogue may have been semi-improvised by a gifted comedienne. It wasn’t a brilliant story so much as a funny and well-animated monologue.

The Lady and the Reaper (Spain)
This was as sweet and funny as a story about the death of an old woman can be. Life and Death battle over the Lady with a series of physical (and metaphysical) comedy gags. It takes a little while to build up a good pace—I would have loved to see a bit more Tex Avery at the battle’s outset—but once it gets going, it’s very funny and watchable.

Logorama (France)
Amazing. It’s the story of a couple of Los Angeles cops tracking down a psychotic killer. But all the characters, flora, fauna, architecture, landscape … everything in this world is made entirely of corporate logos. I have no idea how they were able to do this legally. Heck, the technical achievement is impressive enough without the legal tiptoeing that must have taken place. As for the story itself, the dialogue and plot were not quite up to the sheer creative and technical achievement. But that’s okay, because there is plenty of wit on display in every frame.

A Matter of Loaf and Death (United Kingdom)
A very disappointing Wallace & Gromit short. I loved the W&G movie, and other than the awkward first step “A Grand Day Out,” I’ve loved the previous shorts. But this didn’t have the wit and charm I’ve come to expect. Gromit strikes me as a bit less of a Jeeves type, and the puns are a bit heavier-footed than I’d have expected. And it’s just not as funny.

The program featured several shorts that were not nominated but were highly acclaimed, and I would have taken any of them over “A Matter of Loaf and Death.”

Partly Cloudy (USA)
This Pixar short originally preceded “Up” in theatres. Beautiful, funny, heartwarming.

The Kinematograph (Poland)
Absolutely gorgeous visuals. But the dialogue was maddeningly wooden. I wish it had been in a foreign language. It’s set about a century ago, and we follow the trials of an elderly photographer/inventor as he tries to perfect color and sound motion pictures. Meanwhile, his wife secretly suffers from tuberculosis. The closing moment of this piece was the most haunting visual of the program.

Runaway (Canada)
This was the only traditionally animated short on the bill. A passenger train takes off out of control, despite the best efforts of passengers and crew. Lots of slapstick, lots of commentary on class differences. But finally, entertainment for entertainment’s sake, done well.

Live Action

Kavi (India)
This follows a family of modern-day slave laborers in India as they toil making bricks in view of a nearby boarding school. Effective use of warm vs. cool colors—though almost too heavy handed. And the net result was more of a PSA than a film. But a soulful performance by the young boy in the lead.

The New Tenants (USA/Denmark)
Funny, witty and arch story of a couple whose moving-in day is caught in a crossfire of infidelity, drugs and murder. David Rakoff adapted the script and stars in the film—you’ll recognize his voice if you’ve listened to any three consecutive episodes of “This American Life”—and he’s very funny and charming. In fact, the whole cast is very effective in what is essentially a violent wind-up toy of a plot.

Miracle Fish (Australia)
A kid falls asleep in the nurse’s office at school one day and wakes up to a very different world. I hesitate to describe too much of this one, because I found it very frightening, coming in with no idea what it was about. The horror is unfolded in a very sure-handed, natural way.

The Door (Ireland)
A gloomy and moving look at the aftermath of Chernobyl. The visuals weigh on you with their plodding pessimism, but the story relies too much on narration and children-in-peril. Still, it leaves you feeling horrifically depressed.

Instead of Abracadabra (Sweden)
There is no way this one will win, but I was glad it was here to end the proceedings on an up note. A hilarious and charming story of a hapless wannabe magician as he tries to impress the girl next door. Brilliant comic performances and direction. It allows you to simultaneously ridicule and love the main character.

Cheesecake Shots

2010-02-21T08:16:00.015-06:00

How to Make a Cheesecake from Items You Probably Have Around the House

I own this book.
Recently, I decided to dust off the old spingform pan and make a cheesecake.

My weakness is anything sweet. One of my sub-weaknesses is chocolate and peanut butter. This book actually has two separate recipes, 45 pages apart, called the “Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake” and the “Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake,” respectively.

I chose the former and set to work.

The crust is made of Oreos and butter.
The cream cheese batter is divided into two parts, the peanut butter portion and the chocolate portion. Each of them perfectly suitable for eating straight out of the bowl.
The batters are then layered: peanut butter, chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate.
Here’s one I prepared earlier.
That? Oh, that’s the hot peanut butter fudge topping.
I just now noticed you can see a Cadbury chocolate bar in this picture. I guess that’s for dessert.
Jen found it so delicious she briefly let down her guard and revealed that she is an evil robot from the future.
My god…
What have I done…

A Seven-Year-Old's Subterfuge

2010-02-18T16:15:00.001-06:00

When I was in second grade, I had a great idea for a bit of subterfuge.

I would show up to school dressed as a sheik.

Flowing robes, full beard, everything.

And I’d sit at my normal desk, and no one would recognize me. But of course everyone would immediately jump to my defense. “That’s David’s desk! You can’t sit there!”

I would look around shyly and wait for the teacher to come in.

When she showed up, I would introduce myself, in gruff, broken English, as a new student who’d recently moved to suburban Illinois from Southern Arabia. She would, of course, be fascinated, and she’d ask me all sorts of questions about my homeland. I’d explain that school was very different there. Instead of sitting at desks all day, we went outside and communed with nature, walking along the sidewalks and pointing out the different kinds of plants we noticed.

Schooling in Southern Arabia was a lot more liberal than in suburban Illinois.

I imagined myself calmly, beatifically leading the other kids and the teacher under a sunny sky, and getting out of an entire day’s worth of school.

I can’t remember if I ever had an ending to the fantasy.

Who Will Save Your Sole?

2010-02-14T09:46:00.002-06:00

I bought a new pair of running shoes a few weeks ago at Fleet Feet in Lincoln Square. They were only the second pair of running shoes I’d ever bought. I’d been using my first pair since 2002, give or take a year.

To give you some perspective, the rule of thumb is to get a new pair every six months.

The old pair had started hurting the arch of my left foot, chafing it until it was raw. The insole was ragged in an area corresponding to the pain, so I figured I’d just worn the shoe out, and it was having its revenge.

So I bought the new pair, and they felt great the first couple times I ran. But then I started having the same horrible chafing in the same place on my left foot. Even worse, I started getting it in the same place on my right foot.

Wrapping my foot in gauze, a bandage, and a second sock did little to help the situation. I was beginning to resign myself to putting up with debilitating pain every time I ran until the next pair of running shoes I bought. (Ideally, by August. More likely, by 2018.)

But yesterday I stopped in at Fleet Feet and told them my issue, on the off chance that they had some kind of insert that would keep the pain tolerable. The clerk recommended a special kind of sock and some stuff to rub on my feet before running.

I was skeptical. I figured I had some ill-fitting shoes, and these naïve little items weren’t going to do anything to solve that. But I plunked down $17 for them anyway.

I rubbed the stuff on my foot. “Body Glide anti-chafe balm.” It comes in a little container like a deodorant stick. Then I put on the socks. Balega brand, composed of 79% “Drynamix Polyester.”

I ran.

No pain whatsoever. Worked like a charm.

So I hereby throw my support and endorsement behind Body Glide anti-chafe balm and Balega running socks. They’re the Drynamixest!!!

2010-02-11T15:58:00.000-06:00

Beware Homophones

2010-02-06T15:45:00.002-06:00

A Slippery Slope

2010-02-05T15:52:00.006-06:00

There’s a Shakesville brouhaha about Lindsey Vonn’s appearance on the cover of the current Sports Illustrated.Melissa’s description essentially claims that, if you are a woman, no matter how powerful, talented or successful you are, “they can still put you in your place.”

By, you know, putting you on the cover of a national sports magazine and proclaiming you the best.

“That the shot is angled with the slope is not incidental either,” she adds. I don’t quite know what she means, except maybe to imply that Vonn’s butt pointing upward somehow makes it more objectifying a pose. This seems to be reinforced by a subsequent comment, from deeky:
no, it's not accidental. and look at her hair: it's pretty clear she didn't actually pose with her ass in the air like that.

It’s true. By the hang of her hair, you can tell that she was photographed on a flat surface, and that the photograph was tilted. Was this to put her in her place as a plaything of the patriarchy?

Of fucking course not. It was to simulate the “downhill” part of her sport, “downhill skiing.” But putting her on an actual diagonal plane would have been problematic, because she’d keep sliding down. And rubber cementing her skis to the floor, or devising an elaborate system of pulleys that would be Photoshopped out in post, were probably deemed too baroque.

SKM chimes in:
I wonder if they told her that the picture (which was obviously shot on a flat surface) would be tilted ass-up?

I doubt it.

Okay, SKM, so your theory is that Lindsey Vonn thought she was going to appear on the cover doubled over horizontally, like someone whose chest has been velcroed to her thighs. Noted.

The idea that this poor woman was tricked or shamed into posing with a smile, and that tilting the picture was part of a way to make her seem more sexually vulnerable, is ridiculous, a complex conspiracy theory to explain a very straightforward picture. I’m surprised they didn’t raise objections to the humiliating skin-tight fetish costume they made her wear.

Continuing our journey through the comments, we come upon Scott Madin:
Heh heh, and her boots say "head," too, amiriteguyz? heh heh. (Yes, it's a perfectly legitimate brand of ski gear, of course, but the cover is composed so that the word "head" is right there on the diagonal line along the "slope," which the eye automatically follows from "Meet Team USA" to "America's Best Woman Skier Ever." I don't think that's an accident.)

Okay, we’re headed into Wilson Bryan Key territory. He wrote a book in the 70s about subliminal advertising that claimed, among other things, that the word “SEX” was hidden in the topography of Ritz crackers, so your tongue would be overcome with lust and you’d buy more of them.

Key would be nodding furiously at the idea that the brand name of Vonn’s shoes was deliberately positioned to form the sentence “Meet Team USA Head America’s Best Woman Skier Ever,” which is apparently some kind of clarion call to approach her for oral sex.

Meanwhile, I, a heterosexual male by no means immune to the charms of a sexy image, had to be informed of the presence of this message by a feminist blog.

Scott Madin continues:
I don't have the patience to go look for lots of old SI covers, so this is just sort of an impressionistic guess, but aren't male athletes usually, or at least quite often, portrayed in action instead of posed?

First of all, if you’re too lazy to do any research to support your assumptions, it’s probably best not to advertise that fact. But since you brought it up, no, you’re quite likely to see a male athlete posed in a studio or in action on the field of play.

But he has a point. Imagine the outcry if Michael Phelps had posed on the cover in a white, sopping-wet shirt that exposed and objectified his—

Oh.

We don’t shy away from the idea of the male athlete as gorgeous specimen of humanity. Almost by definition, athletes are hot.

I think the problem is that she’s grinning, not gritty. She looks kind of “cute,” and maybe cute doesn’t always cut it as a portrayal of an athlete. Her hair’s got a bit of a Pantene ad thing going on.

But the response. The certainty that “they” are out to get women…

sparklepants
I saw the cover yesterday or the day before and it just made me so uncomfortable. I almost couldn't look at it, it made me so uncomfortable.

kay7
I hope she feels ok about it and not embarrassed.

TheSeaHag
Every time I see something like this done to a woman who is famous and strong and in some way powerful (and usually has a fair amount of privilege--white, thin, cis, straight, "pretty"--some combination of those), I feel creeped out and threatened. And that's why they keep doing it, to keep us feeling off balance, unsafe, afraid. As Liss said, to keep us in our place.

I think the most sinister conspiracy you can legitimately accuse SI of is a conspiracy to sell magazines. She’s attractive and athletic. It seems her star is about to rise. Yes, she competes in Spandex. She makes a good cover.

But a conspiracy to keep TheSeaHag off balance and afraid? I don’t buy it.

It Looked Good on Paper

2010-01-27T16:34:00.006-06:00

I simultaneously envy and pity those marketers who have to advertise toilet paper.

On one hand, once you’ve exhausted “softness,” “absorbency,” and “number of plies,” what the hell do you talk about? Any more in-depth descriptions, and you veer into horrifying territory.

On the other hand, this restriction may open up new vistas of creativity as you tiptoe around what the product actually does.

The Cottonelle Roll Poll is a fun look at how people interact with the product. Does it demonstrate the superiority of Cottonelle over any other brand of toilet paper? Not in the slightest. But it gets the name out there, which is about as best you can hope for in this category.

Do you roll the paper under or over? Live displays show updated figures for your city!
You’re encouraged to vote on Facebook!
On Twitter!
In outdoor ads on plazas!
In train stations!
And in fun, environment-specific ads on public transpor—
Aha. Maybe you could hack away at one more draft of that line.

Toward a More Perfect Onion

2010-01-25T18:09:00.004-06:00

A couple of very recent articles on The Onion have made me start to wonder about my own personal limits as to what is funny.

I know The Onion has a philosophy—and I think this is very true—that people enjoy offensive humor as long as they’re not the ones being offended. Every time someone reacts with “That’s not funny! That crosses the line!” there’s a good chance that he or she has already cackled merrily at something equally off-limits to someone else.

(Here was my first “That crosses the line!” moment.)

First I present this article. It’s a guest editorial by “Rush Limbaugh” that portrays him as an awful, closed-minded bastard while endowing him with more capacity for self-loathing than he probably has in real life. It’s very cathartic and very funny.

But here’s the part I take issue with:
You know what? I wish someone would just kill me. I'm serious… Put me out of my misery. I wouldn't make a fuss. I wouldn't even humiliate myself by saying goodbye. For the first time in my odious, pitiful life, I'd accept my fate with quiet dignity.

This is where I think it crosses the line from cathartic satire into unfunny cruelty and a potential legal issue. It reads like an attempt to inspire some whack-job to show up at the studio with a shotgun.

Do we need to write everything with an eye toward how whack-jobs will respond? No, of course not. But artistically, there’s not a compelling reason to slip over that border. It doesn’t really add anything to the article. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the least funny part of it, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

A few months ago, The Onion ran video story that was strikingly similar. That time, the target was Glenn Beck. ("Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck.")

In my opinion, it was handled with just as much hatred toward its target, but with a lot more wit. And instead of (inching toward) calling for the target’s death, the disgust was put in the mouths of other people in the template of what people say in the wake of a tragedy. It's brilliant.

But you know, what offends me is going to delight someone else, and vice versa.

This is a much tougher sell for me. As far as I can tell, it’s a joke about how Childress looks kind of skeevy. (If there’s more to the joke that I just don’t get, let me know. Shit, the guy has four kids.)

I subscribe to “The Onion Radio News” as a podcast, and I think its quality has been plummeting recently. I used to think it was hilarious, but its writing level has been barely above high school humor for the last couple of months or so, and I haven’t cracked a smile at it in quite a while. Maybe all the good writers have left to work on the ONN video sequences, which I think are generally brilliant.

The Onion has shown great skill in its comedic balancing act. But there have been some bewildering missteps recently.

I'm An Ordinary Man

2010-01-24T14:58:00.001-06:00

So Jen’s moving in.

I have lived by myself for a decade. I’ve gotten into my habits and mapped out my territory. I’m sure there are lots of things I take for granted that I won’t realize are being altered until they actually are.

But Jen and I have hit it off in a way I don’t think either of us expected. And when it feels as right as it does, you have to start asking yourself why you’d wait.

Her lease ends February first, so rather than sign another lease and pour another year’s worth of rent into her apartment, she’s going to move into my Albany Park bachelor pad.

Take a look at what happens when a girlfriend moves in:Wait. My mistake. She hasn’t moved in yet.

So you see where there might be some trepidation. I have a lot of crap in my life, and there’s barely room for me to tiptoe around it all. Add one more life to the mix, and it can feel very intimidating.

She doesn’t have much in the way of furniture, but there will soon be twice as many couches in my life than there have ever been before. There are also various tables and appliances and objets d’art. And the books. Oh, the books. Our combined libraries might cause my building to sink an inch or so into the ground.

But underneath the anxiety there runs a current of happiness. This will all find equilibrium eventually, and when it does, my life will be the better for it.

So: Onward!

It's Like You've Known Me My Whole Life!

2010-01-14T20:04:00.002-06:00

Ethical

2010-01-14T10:13:00.002-06:00

I’m filling out an evaluation for my manager at work. This is one of the things I’m supposed to rate him on.Welcome to Ethical Manor. You will be dealt with… FAIRLY.

Mwaaah-hah-hah-hah-haaaaa!

Is it too late to make a new decade’s resolution?

2010-01-03T14:24:00.003-06:00

Or maybe too early?

As a rule, I avoid internet arguments. I used to let myself get entangled in them, but I came to realize that no one ever wins them. No matter how right you are, and however wrong the other person is, nothing happens except anger and abuse. I firmly believe that no one has ever changed his or her mind based on an online argument.

Not that I’m not tempted by them. But nowadays I’m usually able to stop, take a deep breath, and let go, knowing that I’ll be happier that way.

A friend of mine recently posted this on her Facebook page:
I would like to see this answered please. A decade is a measurement of time, ten years even. When we speak of the "current" decade it is assumed that we are going off the recognized decade, but as far as I knew that started 1-01-01, leaving this decade to end 12-31-10...right?

We all know this argument. There was no year zero, blah blah blah, people who celebrated the arrival of the new millennium on January 1, 2000 are wrong. Several people piped up on my friend’s Facebook page to that effect: The “new decade” doesn’t start until January 1, 2011.

An example, from a guy I don’t know named Geoffrey:
yes! you are correct. Scientists, historians and even theologians agree with you. Zero is not a number, and you don't start counting with a '0'. The 21st century, and the first decade thereof started in 2001.

I get it. Frankly, I think everyone gets it.

But I’ve always thought that people who make a point of saying “Nope, technically you have to wait another year” were the pissy, smug folks standing with their backs to the walls and smirking at all the ignoramuses dancing and making out at the party.

I decided to post this answer:
The way I see it, there was no "year one" either, except in retrospect. In other words, there was never a time when people were like, "Nuts, I'm still writing 1 B.C. on my checks." So in the course of two millennia, 365 days (which weren't even designated until well after the fact) don't make me want to tell people that 2000 was still part of the 90s. Suck on that, calendar nerds!

Now, this is not an internet argument. Not yet. I think I put forth my take on the issue with a bit of a sense of humor. That was my intent, anyway. If someone calls you a “calendar nerd,” I guarantee you it is not with any legitimate maliciousness.

But the next morning, I found that Geoffrey had responded:
woohoo!!! let's continue to promote ignorance!!! Irregardless is now a word! The US Civil War was about slavery!!! Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time!!!

Okay. All right. Let’s see.

There were several things going on here. First of all, he used Giant Sarcasm, which is one of the most idiotic argument tactics you can use. I mean, it really infuriates me. It allows you to score imaginary points off your opponent without the pressure of actually responding to what he’s saying. It’s nothing more than a straw man strategy.

(I’m guilty of using sarcasm in arguments myself. And I don’t think it’s off limits. The problem comes when, instead of using sarcasm to support your point, you use it instead of making a point at all.)

He also made a huge, cartoonish leap from my claim (there’s no harm in saying that 2010 is the first year of the decade) to a bunch of other completely unrelated and moronic claims that present demonstrable, everyday problems if people believe them.

But—maybe he saw my “calendar nerds” post as an insulting attack. I didn’t intend it that way, but this is the internet, and he and I are complete strangers. Further, maybe he did understand the lighthearted nature of my post, and I was the one misinterpreting his lighthearted response as an attack.

And I found myself in that familiar place, where I had to decide whether or not to respond to a bit of a personal insult. And if so, how to respond.

I could, and maybe should, have just left it. But I decided to post one more thing:
My point is, the numbers we assign to a trip around the sun are going to be arbitrary to some extent, so why not make them arbitrary in a way that’s convenient? If you see it on the same level as grammar and war, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I wish you a happy new decade, and I hope you’ll do the same for me in a year!

I thought I did a pretty decent job of crafting something that could be interpreted on whatever level Geoffrey was inhabiting. If he meant his response as a bit of goofing around, my response could read that way. If he meant his as a middle finger, my response could read that way.

As of press time, no further responses. My poor friend would probably benefit from deleting the thread entirely, rather than have two acquaintances of hers duke it out on her page.

And yes, I know this is lame. I actually have a pet peeve about other people's pet peeve.

But the reason people celebrate new decades, etc., is because of the excitement of more than one number flipping over as you enter a new year. It’s, “Cool, now there’s a zero at the end!” and not, “Cool, another parcel of ten years has passed since an arbitrary year one!”

And what is a decade except a period of ten years, whether 2000-2009 or 2001-2010 or 2005-2014? The one that’s fun and easy to celebrate is the one that brings a new zero in that last spot.

If you infer from that that I think cavemen rode around on dinosaurs, then so be it. I will celebrate the new decade, irregardless of your censure.

Year In Review

2009-12-30T22:49:00.003-06:00

I did this last year. It’s the first line from each month of my blog.

There was a lot less content this year. Less than a third the number of posts compared to 2008. The first month so far to have had zero activity. And three different months’ first posts (March, May, October) were about trying to write on this blog more regularly.

January
I walked to the grocery store yesterday morning in search of coffee.

February
So I just gave the cast of my play a bunch of cuts.

March
Well, this one has.

April
When I was in grade school, I was into April Fool’s Day.

May
I'm trying to jumpstart my various blogs.

June
I don’t know why I am so obsessed with zombies.

July
Am I the only one who had to read this headline three times before I realized what it was saying?

August
"I just realized something.”

September
There were no posts in September.

October
New job: Going well.

November
You want to let your shoppers know that you're there for them in these tough economic times.

December
I had never watched more than a few minutes of Mythbusters, but in our hotel room last week Jen and I got engrossed in a marathon.

But remember this post? It was about how I got so angry that I (accidentally) put my foot through a wall at work.

It was posted on April 18, 2008. I had no idea that less than a year later I would have escaped that job.

Before I left, I took this picture of the hole’s eventual repair.It's as good an image as any to summarize 2009.

I Think These Ads Are Brilliant

2009-12-29T09:23:00.006-06:00

They’re highly creative, and I think very brave. It’s not unusual to show sickly people in ads for cold medicine, but usually they’re the “before” images. Here are people intended to demonstrate the product’s benefit, but they have weary eyes, and noses that have been rubbed red. You don’t want to feel like they look.

But there’s a striking and immediately recognizable dichotomy; they’re smiling and able and empowered.

There’s an insightful truth to these ads, which are all over O'Hare and public transportation here in Chicago. Even when you’re using an effective medicine to battle a cold, you don’t feel healthy, or normal, or un-sick. You never forget that your body is toiling. But a good product lets you feel like you can tackle the day despite that. Thus the heroic tone of the copy and the skyward gazes of the people.

And the memorable touches, down to the saturated photography and the headlines that look like they’re made of Halls. (I think that font is “lozenge oblique.”)

This time of year, everyone who sees them gets the message immediately. And everybody in Chicago either feels like that, has just gotten over feeling like that, or knows that they’re soon going to feel like that.

Lasagna with the Parents

2009-12-24T09:13:00.006-06:00

(Cross-posted on Such Grape Heights.)

I went to Italy in the summer of 2006. While there, my friends and I hit a wine museum in Siena, where I bought my dad a bottle that was personally recommended by the guy behind the counter.(I wrote about the trip in detail here.)

The bottle was a 2001 Dievole Chianti Classico, the “Dieulele Riserva.” It’s a beautiful bottle. I gave it to Dad for Father’s Day.

Wine Spectator had this to say about it: “This is beautiful and balanced with berry, vanilla and milk chocolate aromas and flavors. Full-bodied, soft and round with a long finish. Drink now. 375 cases made.”

“Drink now” is a little worrisome, since the review was written in 2005.

• • •

Not long ago, -j-j- had an idea that we should head over to my parents’ place and cook lasagna for them. The recipe: A butternut squash and spicy sausage lasagna I learned how to make at the Chopping Block back in 2003.

We arrived at my parents’ place, and to my surprise, my dad brought out the Dievole. I didn’t know he was going to do it, but hey, Italian wine and Italian cuisine. What would be a better time?

So Jen and I began creating.
Jen made some bruschetta…
…and I hunched my back and set into the lasagna…
The finished lasagna was pretty good if I may say so, much better than the only other time I tried to make it. (By the way, I bought the spicy sausage at Panozzo’s Italian Market in the South Loop. Go there—it’s a wonderful place with Italian meats, cheeses, groceries, wine and pre-made dishes.)

We opened the wine. It was excellent—very dark and inky, and sweet without being cloying. And it had a bit of a kick to it. I wish I could remember more—this was almost two months ago, and I didn’t take notes.

As for whether it went with the lasagna, I have to reluctantly say it didn’t, really. The sweetness kind of fought with the lasagna’s sweetness, and the spiciness of the wine was intensified by the spiciness of the sausage. They weren’t bad together, but they did come into conflict a little.

I was able to enjoy both by consuming them separately. I drank some water and let a little time pass between each bite of the lasagna and each sip of the wine. But I am thrilled that my dad remembered the bottle and deemed this a special enough occasion to open it.

• • •

I have noticed that nice bottle of wine is an intimidating possession. When I bring home a bottle that might be a little more expensive than I normally buy, or one that was a gift from someone, or one that I bought after having really enjoyed it in a tasting, I become reluctant to open it. I have to wait for the right moment, or serve it with the right food, so it sits forever, off-limits.

There was a story on NPR of a community that holds a party every year where people bring in the bottles they’ve been sitting on and open them up. The thinking is, “If you’re waiting for a special occasion, fine: here’s your special occasion. Open those bottles.”

The moral of “Toy Story 2” comes into play here. Toys are meant to be played with.

It’s Christmas Eve. I fully expect to be on the receiving end of a bottle or two. I still have the Riesling my brother gave me last Christmas, and the Riesling he gave me the year before that. (To be fair, the 2007 gift was specifically meant to cellar for several years. I believe Matt referred to it as a “cornerstone” wine.)

I almost have to make specific trips to buy wine that doesn’t mean a lot to me, just so I have something to drink.

So maybe the Dievole wasn’t perfect with the lasagna. But there’s no way to know that without cracking open the bottle.

And in hindsight, they look pretty good together.

Anyone for Tens?

2009-12-22T10:08:00.000-06:00

A lot of hay was made a decade ago about how we'd refer to the years 2000-2009. The Aughts? The Ohs?

I don't remember it being much of a big deal. I think it's because we didn't have much reason to refer to the decade as a group while it was still happening. Now we should start worrying about it, I guess, since we'll start commenting on those ten years as a package. "That's such an eighties outfit." "I've been listening to a lot of nineties music." "Remember the aughts, when we were all so obsessed with covers of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'?"

While they were happening, we just referred to the year. "Are you ready for oh-four?" "This television series ran from oh-six to oh-eight."

But I started noticing a bug at my old job. When we mapped out marketing strategies that straddled a couple different calendar years, we'd say things like "This budget is for oh-seven/oh-eight." But at the end of the decade I kept hearing people say things like "This campaign is for oh-nine/oh-ten."

"Oh-ten." Obviously, it's wrong. But "oh-nine/ten" feels odd, like it's missing a leg.

How will we refer to years? "I'm attending the sixteen Olympics"? "The centerfielder got a contract extension through nineteen"?

I'm not looking forward to this.

Cold Snap

2009-12-11T10:55:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I saw a mother pulling her young son along a sidewalk in downtown Chicago. He had a pained look on his face and one gloved hand planted across his forehead.

It's the first cold snap of the winter here. Possibly the first time this kid realized that weather can hurt.

There were no tears. It's possible they were frozen in their ducts, but I prefer to think that he grew into an adult very suddenly. It was a very mature expression of anguish on his face.

Welcome, kid. Now you know where you live. We are all making that face in our hearts.

Soap Scum Revisited

2009-12-08T11:58:00.004-06:00

An update to yesterday's post about the Shakesville/Ad Age showdown.

An editorial just appeared in Ad Age, both in print and online, entitled "Quit Looking for Offense in Every Single Commercial." Generally, it proposes that Concerned Citizens are spending too much time poring over every ad in search of something to be infuriated about, and as a result, creative agencies have become timid. Specifically, it levels its irritation at Shakesville's successful efforts against the Shiny Suds spot.

Shakesville's response is here.

The folks at Shakesville are particularly vexed at the idea that feminists look for stuff to get mad about, and they address it in the essay, "Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About." But the fact is, some do. And not just feminists—every passionate group has people who delight in getting offended. It's a very alluring emotion, because you get to take a deep swig of righteousness.

Especially in online communities. Offense is a form of currency, and there's often a land-grab to find some galling item that no one else has pointed out yet.

Case in point. Shakesville recently posted at length about the James Lipton PSAs in which Lipton bestows the power of thoughtfulness (via his beard) on teens to prevent them from behaving badly or irresponsibly via social media.

According to Shakesville, every beat of every ad in the campaign is sexist, racist, transphobic, victim-blaming, and/or insensitive to survivors of sexual abuse. I won't go point-by-point through the criticisms. Suffice it to say that I find some of them valid (the meowing is pretty sexist, and it goes on way too long) and some of them not (putting James Lipton's beard on a teen girl is not making fun of transsexuals).

But the meat of the matter is in the comments, post #31 or so. A user who goes by "PharaohKatt" writes:
This might seem like a small thing, but I'm wondering if anyone else picked up on it. The boys in the clips all "had a thought" or "a thought came" to them. The girls "got to thinking". This gives me the impression that thoughts are just things that happen to boys, whereas girls have to actively try to think.

That, my friends, is looking for stuff to get mad about.

The commercials had been strip mined of all the more obvious offenses, so PharaohKatt parsed individual sentences in search of something no one else had claimed yet. And when she found it, she put her flag in it: "I'm wondering if anyone else picked up on it."

Frankly, I think the ads are funny and bizarre and memorable. And I think they speak to teens pretty well.

When I was in high school, I spent many hours reading my Matt Groening books, and I think it's "School Is Hell" that has a list of reasons why a teen should not commit suicide. The most compelling item on the list, and the only item that I remember today, was something like "The other kids will make jokes about you."

Talk all you want about the pain it would cause your family or the fact that your current problems will seem so small someday. The idea of the other kids making fun of a kid's suicide—and that kid being unable to do anything to stop it—puts a damper on any teen's fantasies about "showing them all" or "making them regret how badly they treat me."

"A possibly criminal violation of [your] trust and privacy" is not an effective warning for a teen. "Other people will see your dick" is.

Later in the comments, a poster named "Zhana" writes:
What's really bad is that I watched these commercials before and saw nothing wrong with them. Further proof that you need a decent understanding of the issues of the world to truly get when things are offensive :(

Gaahhh.

(I promise to find something else to post about for a while.)

Soap Scum

2009-12-07T22:19:00.005-06:00

There was another hullabaloo at Shakesville recently that caught my eye. It’s a three-parter, the latest in a recurring series of posts entitled “Today in Rape Culture,” in which participants post examples of items they feel condone rape.

The third section of the post concerns this commercial. It was created by a company called Method, which manufactures cleaning products. The commercial lobbies for more up-front labeling of potentially toxic ingredients in household cleaners, and the general idea is, “Know what you’re using to clean your house; it may be less benign than you think.”
Shakesville condemned the ad. They began a letter-writing campaign to Method demanding that they take the ad down from their website and stop running it. After an initial flurry of “We’re sorry you’re offended, we certainly don’t mean it that way” responses, Method finally took down the ad.

Afterwards, a columnist at Ad Age bemoaned that a “vocal minority” was able to bully Method into discontinuing a highly creative ad. And I agree that the ad is creative. And funny.

It’s also inappropriate.

It would make much better late-night comedy sketch than an ad. It’s a funny idea, and it’s well executed. But it gets cruel, well beyond the message it’s supposed to convey.

So, I actually agree with Shakesville to a point. I'm not sure they’d agree with my fix, though, which is simply that the commercial should end about 30 seconds earlier. The woman opens the shower curtain the next day. She is shocked to find the bubbles are still there. She considers the prospect of showering in front of them.

The end.

You don’t have to walk us through what happens next. Does she take the shower? Does she leave the bathroom altogether? Does she wake up from a horrifying nightmare? Leaving it open-ended allows for the message to hit home without being so blatant, and it engages us by letting us fill in some details.

But the longer we see the woman uncomfortably trying to cover herself in front of all the leering eyes, the crueler the commercial gets, until my concern for this humiliated woman actually outweighs my concern for what I have sprayed in my bathtub.

Chop off the last 30 seconds, and the commercial is less ham-fisted, it’s more focused, and I bet it barely inspires a ripple of controversy.

(Of course, I’m sure Method has gotten a lot more publicity thanks to the controversy than it would have gotten otherwise. In a way, Shakesville’s campaign probably backfired, in that a whole lot more people will see the ad than would have otherwise, and most of them will roll their eyes at how oversensitive some people are. But that’s a whole separate can of worms.)

Also, I’m pretty sure that's not a loofah.

Piece Out

2009-12-06T10:00:00.003-06:00

Peace. Warranties aim to give you peace of mind. And when you use the wrong homophone, it make me give you a piece of my mind.

2009-12-05T09:58:00.000-06:00

Myth Interpretation

2009-12-04T16:58:00.001-06:00

I had never watched more than a few minutes of Mythbusters, but in our hotel room last week Jen and I got engrossed in a marathon. A couple days later, I had a Mythbusters dream.

In the dream, there had been a car accident. Someone had been weaving in and out of traffic while driving a pickup truck, and at some point he spun out of control and crashed. The Mythbusters were called in to determine if it was the driver's fault, or some flaw in the road, or some defect in the truck.

For some reason, to recreate the conditions of the accident, they had to hang a live cow by its hind legs from the ceiling and have it vomit through the sunroof into the cab of a pickup truck. I don't know if this helped set the weight of the truck or the driver's circumstances or what. But one of the co-hosts was in the front seat, draped in plastic, grimacing under the torrent of cow vomit.

I woke up before they reached their conclusion.

Isn't It Rich?

2009-11-30T06:40:00.004-06:00

Jen and I are nearing the end of a weeklong vacation in New York. It started out with her birthday and Thanksgiving, then trailed into various adventures and plays.

We saw "A Little Night Music" on Friday. I love Sondheim, and I love that musical in particular, so I was excited that it was getting a Broadway revival, even if it was only in previews. After we decided to see it, we discovered that Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones would be in it.

I get a little uneasy when celebrities are cast in shows I want to see. It tends to become less an opportunity to see a play and more an opportunity to be in the same room as a famous person. I especially hate when a play is disrupted at length by the applause that awaits the celebrity upon her first entrance. These audience members are not applauding the script, the plot, or the characters, so there is no question that they've left the world of the play.

But, Lansbury is a Sondheim veteran, and Zeta-Jones was pretty awesome in "Chicago," so my fears were soothed a bit. This isn't like Adam Lambert portraying Sweeney Todd.

We arrived at the theatre, and they hadn't opened the doors yet, so there was a line around the side of the building. As with any long line, some people exhibited doubt as to what it was for, and a woman approached me to ask. (I have a friendly face that inspires people to ask directions. This is vexing, because I usually have no idea where anything is.)

So this woman picks me out of the crowd and asks, "Is this the line for Catherine-Zeta Jones?"

It was a preview performance, but I don't think that is enough to justify the unsatisfying nature of the show. Lansbury was very sharp, but even she went up on her lines a few times. ("Liaisons" must be a bitch of a song to remember the lyrics to.) Zeta-Jones was serviceable, but not as magnetic as Desiree needs to be. And overall, I didn't really buy any of the relationships. Why would anyone fall in love with Anne when she's so silly and shrill and giggly? (Jen referred to the actress as "a bag full of jingle bells.") The fact that two men, a father and a son, are both hopelessly in her thrall is a keystone of the play.

That question led me to wonder how much of it was the off-putting performance of the actress and how much was a flaw in the script itself. And soon I was questioning all the attractions. What do any of these people see in any of the others?

The net result is, I began to wonder if I really liked the show itself that much after all. The dialogue is not great, and I doubt there are many people who would say it is. It gets us from one song to the next, which is really the best thing a book to a Sondheim show can do. Meanwhile, it is filled with a collection of hit-and-miss bon mots and zingers.

But then I began questioning the songs. There are a few moments where the characters seem to have more awareness of their flaws than I feel is right. (A couple of phrases sung in unison in "A Weekend in the Country" are examples... "So inactive that one has to lie down" and "where we're twice as upset as in town," for example, seem to come as arch critiques from outside observers, rather than from this group of people who shouldn't realize how ridiculous they're being.) And there are some segments that seem to be showing off some (admittedly delightful) rhymes rather than moving the plot forward. Now, the delightful rhymes are what drew me to Sondheim in the first place, so I am hesitant to criticize them. But maybe he isn't as unassailable as I have thought he was all these years.

But I have seen and loved this play so many times during those years, so I know the show is capable of satisfying me. I think more nimble direction and performances would have me paying attention to the plot instead of searching for cracks in the plaster.

Again, it was a preview. But I'm worried it's a preview for a celebrity concert instead of a performance of a Sondheim musical. And right now I'm a little resentful that it's making me question how good that Sondheim musical really is.

Left Thigh

2009-11-20T14:39:00.004-06:00

I'm at my dermatologist's, to get a wart removed.

I'm being interviewed by the nurse. She's looking through my folder.

"Any history of skin cancer in your family?" she asks.

"My dad had some, on his forehead."

"Was it [some kind of skin thing] or [some other kind of skin thing]?"

"I don't know. Sorry."

"Have you ever had anything removed?"

I am in the middle of saying "No," when she interrupts me by saying "Yes."

She flips to the back page of my folder. "From your left thigh," she says.

I am befuddled. "N… no," I say.

"It says here you had something removed from your left thigh. In 2009?"

I rack my brain. "No," I say.

"You're David Stinton?"

"Yes."

"What's your birth date?"

"September first, 1973."

"It says you had something removed from your left thigh. A biopsy."

"This year?"

"Yes."

I ransack my memory again. This doesn't even sound familiar to me. I'm sure I look like a moron, furrowing my brow with my mouth hanging open, unable to remember something being cut out of my body. "Am I crazy?" I ask. "I don't remember this at all."

She looks at me.

I ask her, "How was it removed? Does it say?"

"It was cut out. You don’t remember? No one gave you anesthetic?"

"No," I say.

She seems skeptical, but she indulges me. "I'll look into it," she says.

I get my wart sprayed with liquid nitrogen, but the biopsy doesn't come up again. I am still quite positive I never had anything removed from my left thigh. That's the kind of thing that would stay in my memory, as I'm a bit of a cancer-phobe.

One of two things has been thrown into doubt: My memory or my dermatologist's staff.

A Staggering Display

2009-11-18T17:11:00.004-06:00

A recent article in the New Yorker discusses the polarization that's prevalent in the world of online communities. The Internet makes a huge amount of sheer information available, and you might imagine this would expose people to all manner of different viewpoints. But the reality is that people are more polarized than ever. They migrate to communities full of people they already agree with, and their preconceived notions, far from being challenged, are reinforced.

Every once in a while, I check in on a feminist website called Shakesville that I think illustrates this phenomenon in a way that kind of obsesses me. It's set up as a safe place, not just for women, but for all manner of marginalized groups: gays, transsexuals, the overweight, the disabled. But sometimes, in the process, they end up sounding like a caricature of a PC college campus in the mid-90s.

I want to preface this by saying I don't think the entire site is ridiculous. In fact, one of their frequent commenters recently did something really cool that affected the real world. But all too often, visiting the site is like visiting a heavily guarded alternate dimension.

A recent thread is a perfect example. The post is by a frequent commenter who goes by the handle "GimliGirl," a 25-year-old education student. She writes, in a post entitled "A Staggering Display of Privilege"…

"Today in my Science/Social Science class I came up against such a staggering display of male privilege that I was literally left jaw agape and shaking. We had been discussing the gang rape that happened in Richmond, which naturally led into discussion of rape in general…"

At this point, I braced myself for the worst. Some asshole must have said something like "Well, it may not have been a rape-rape," or "People, we don't know what the girl was doing, so we can't be sure what her role might have been." Grimacing, I read on:

"We began to discuss the media influence vs. parent influence on what sexual assault is… As a part of the discussion, I brought up the repeated and persistent commoditization and objectification of women through the media and society in general… the headless women in advertising being used to sell everything from makeup to cars to their very selves, and how we're seen as nothing but an object to be consumed, and how important it is for us, as future teachers, to be all in with our students and our community, to be good role models. I reiterated the objectification and commodification of women point and finished.

"A young man that I've butted heads with a few times already this semester raised his hand and he was given the floor. He said 'I don't think that's true. I don't think that the objectification of women is as widespread as that. That's not true.' My jaw, if it could have, would have literally hit the floor."

Hold on. That's what dropped your jaw? A guy disagreed with you? GimliGirl continued:

"I wanted to leap out of my seat and shout at him 'WHAT?! Are you stupid?! BULLSHIT!' But I didn't. I've already set myself quite apart from my classmates through other discussions and don't really need to become completely alienated. Instead I said, loudly, 'I respectfully disagree.'"

GimliGirl goes on to say that she was so livid she had to leave the room, and that even hours later, as she typed up her experience, she was "still shaking."

It sucks to be disagreed with, especially about a topic that hits so close to your heart. But no matter how strongly I feel about something, it is not off limits for you to say, "I don't think that's true." A difference of opinion does not constitute a staggering display of anything.

But in GimliGirl's eyes, she has been called a liar. And not just her, but women everywhere:

"Through his one comment, 'That's not true.' he attempted to wipe out the experiences, thoughts and feelings, of thousands of people. He called everyone who didn't agree with him a liar.

"One thing I am not is a liar, and I know Liss [the founder of Shakesville] is not a liar, and I know Shakers [the blog's community of readers/participants] aren't liars. Our words are too precious to be used to lie … we are truth-tellers in a world that hates the truth, that doesn't want to hear it…"

The idea that anyone's words are "too precious to be used to lie" is ridiculous. Anyone can lie, and the idea that somebody's status, background, or experiences, whatever they may be, are capable of giving him or her the mantle of unquestionable truth is borderline dangerous.

And even that argument only needs to come into play if you are accused of lying. Which she was not. She was merely disagreed with.

Further, in the ensuing comments below the post, there is generally a chorus of agreement that the guy in question was obviously an ignorant chauvinist. But every so often, someone will say something that contradicts the general tone:

"Disagreement == privilege?"

…or even suggest, in a civil manner, a tack other than leaving the room in a huff:

"I'm not going to try to tell you to calm down. What I will propose is that you cut some pictures out of, say three magazines for a particular month. Choose these magazines carefully (or not), and demonstrate that, even within such a small sample of media, the problem exists (some number) of times."

…and that person will be jumped on and accused of trolling. There's a real "agree with the party line or find somewhere else to post" attitude at Shakesville. And yes, it may create a safe area where people can express things that they don't feel they can express elsewhere. But if you think you're having a discussion or a conversation in that kind of environment, think again. That can only happen if you're willing to interact with someone who disagrees with you.

Are there sites where angry men gather and complain about their treatment at the hands of a society full of women? Oh, hell yes. I'll probably talk about one of those soon.

Dispatches from the Fictional City

2009-11-11T21:25:00.007-06:00

Jen sent me a Facebook message: John Hodgman was going to perform Tuesday night at the Second City e.t.c stage. Admission: Free with book.

(Anyone with a copy of “The Areas of My Expertise” or “More Information Than You Require” would get in free. At first, I was uneasy about having to purchase a book to attend a free show, but I decided to think of it as seeing a $16 show with a free book, and my mood lightened considerably.)

So Jen and I showed up, she with her “Expertise” and I with my “Information,” and got some pretty kickass seats in the second row, house right. So close that when Hodgman emerged high-fiving everyone at the foot of the stage, mine was the last palm he slapped.

For an hour, he stood before us, quaffing Malört and oozing erudite condescension.

Near the end of his set, Hodgman called to the stage a man who had been sitting a few rows behind me. He was Peter Sagal, host of the Chicago-based NPR quiz show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” They chatted onstage for a spell and interacted with the audience, very funny, very witty, just how you’d expect.

In fact, it was a little … too familiar.

You see, barely a month ago, I saw Jonathan Coulton in a concert that conflicted with a They Might Be Giants show. Not just any show, but a “Flood show,” in which TMBG was to play “Flood” in its entirety.

(It’s okay; I saw TMBG's afternoon show, a kids’ matinee drawing largely from their catalog of children’s songs. Jen also attended, which kept me from feeling creepy about it.)

Knowing that the two fan bases overlapped so thoroughly that it might be inaccurate to refer to them as “two fan bases,” Coulton decided to do a Flood show of his own. Paul and Storm opened with a truncated set. Then Coulton joined them, and the three of them almost banterlessly performed “Flood” fore to aft. Then Coulton performed a full set all to himself. The show was three hours long.

And who was in attendance? Peter Sagal. Who introduced the show. Then sat a few rows behind me. Then appeared onstage to recite the spoken portions of the song “They Might Be Giants” (Hang on, hang on tighter…).

Eerie? Just wait.

I tweeted about it. (Yes, I tweet.)

Peter Sagal keeps sitting behind me at John-themed comedy shows, then jumping up onstage to join the performers. Knock it off, Peter Sagal!

Then later:

First at a Jonathan Coulton concert (John #1) where Coulton covered TMBG (2 and 3), then last night at John Hodgman (4).

We all had a good laugh and thought nothing of it. But then, from @petersagal himself:

@DaveStinton Never. See you at the John Mayer concert of John Denver songs.

Is he stalking me? Or I him??Eerie.
(Oh, if you’d like one more coincidence: The first time I saw Hodgman at e.t.c., I accidentally left a plastic container that used to contain a salad under my chair. Last night, I left a travel coffee mug.)

By the way... Nerd quota for Q4 09: Met.

Does Nobody Read These Things?

2009-11-02T20:02:00.005-06:00

You want to let your shoppers know that you're there for them in these tough economic times. Holiday shopping can get people down, so inform them that your grocery store will provide them not just great deals, but an invigorating experience.

There are certain words you should avoid invoking.

What, Me Jury?

2009-10-22T22:29:00.003-05:00

I got called for jury duty. I was one of the lucky twelve to be chosen on Friday of last week, and today I completed my fourth day of the trial.

I’d never been on a jury before. Never even been called in, except for one time when I was able to prove that I lived in Champaign and therefore couldn’t serve in Chicago. (I had to get a new driver’s license for that.)

It’s fascinating.

I am not allowed to “discuss” it until it’s over, but I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I say it’s a medical negligence case. (Both lawyers repeatedly let us know that they don’t like the term “malpractice.” I think “malpractice” implies a deliberate, evil, premeditated deed, whereas the actual accusation is that the defending doctor dropped the ball. We all are guilty of negligence here and there throughout our lives. But we’d probably bristle at being accused of malpractice.)

I also don’t think I’m sharing too much to reveal that I have come to loathe my fellow jurors. One girl in particular, with her silly giggling and her reading aloud of the Red Eye and her insipid and interminable talking. She’s that type of person with no customs official between her brain and her mouth.

And it’s infectious. Between sessions of cross-examination, the thirteen of us (twelve jurors and one reserve juror) are crammed into a small room barely big enough to hold us and the table we’re seated around. A lot of the others have taken to egging her on, cracking jokes to tease her and see if they can get her to laugh. Asking her to read the sex advice column aloud from the Glamour someone left in there.

This is irritating enough. But the room can’t possibly be soundproof, and on the other side of the door is the courtroom, and in that courtroom are people who are in the process of having their lives and shortcomings trotted out, with ridiculously high stakes.

What must they think to hear the giggling from the other side of the door, from the people they are trusting to make the right decision about a large amount of money and reputation? We’ve been hearing some potentially humiliating details about both plaintiff and defendant. The least we can do is not guffaw every time we’re even partway out of the courtroom.

Anyway. The judge has estimated that we’ll hear our last witness Monday and begin deliberating on Tuesday. I don’t think it will take more than the one day to reach a conclusion, but I’ve never done this before.

One thing that strikes me is how theatrical the proceedings are. It actually does resemble trials you see on television, though not quite as dramatic or neatly put together. I’ll go into more detail once I am no longer legally obligated not to.

Art & Copy

2009-10-10T10:30:00.004-05:00

I saw the documentary “Art & Copy” a few weeks ago. I toil in the outskirts of the advertising business, so I was pretty intrigued by the trailer. I hoped it would be a semi-affectionate, semi-cynical look at an industry that I myself kind of love and loathe.

It was crap.

Seriously, it may be the worst documentary I have ever seen. There was no legitimate cynicism about the industry, there was very little in the way of an in-depth look at the creative process, there wasn’t even much more than a glimpse of the history of advertising. Instead, we were treated to an hour and a half of crack-licking. Interview after interview with the lions of the business talking about why their campaigns were so great. Often, the documentary would just show television commercials in their entirety.

No one was challenged, no one was taken down a peg. It was just assumed that these people were geniuses, and that advertising was a game of brilliant minds creating works that changed the face of society.

There were two gimmicks that ran throughout the movie that seemed to be attempts to lift the film into something more than it was.

First, there were snippets of an interview with a guy whose job was to change billboards out. Every couple weeks, he and his team rolled up and took down these huge ads so the ads could be rotated around different locations throughout the city. We heard his story – his dad did it too, and his son might also. We saw his home and heard about his day-to-day life.

But it illuminated nothing. We didn’t see how advertising affected him. We didn’t hear his opinion of the messages he was interacting with. I got the feeling that we were supposed to be moved by the film’s juxtaposition of the white collar creative minds, in their cool office buildings with basketball courts and quirky cubicles, alongside this blue collar dude going about his everyday business. But frankly, this guy’s job had nothing to do with advertising. He might have been putting up and taking down stop signs.

And second, every so often the filmmakers would flash some statistic on the screen. “In 1970, the average person was exposed to X advertising messages per day. By 2005, that number had risen to Y.” But again: Nothing was illuminated or illustrated by these factoids. They were just there.

What was infuriating about both of those through-lines was a sense that the filmmakers had nothing, so they just set some stimulus down and said, “The meaning of it all is in here. You figure it out.” It was supremely lazy.

There were flashes of potential. I liked hearing about the origins of the “Got Milk?” campaign. Earlier milk ads were all about health and fitness. One person described the approach as showing a guy winning a marathon, then chugging a carton of milk. That’s not how people interact with the product.

So they opted for a more realistic route. At a brainstorming meeting, the first thing someone wrote on the pad was “got milk?” And the more they brainstormed, the more they realized that this two-word phrase encompassed everything they were trying to get across.

But show me some of the bad ads. Critique them. Tell me what you would have done differently. There were plenty of interviewees bemoaning how much shitty advertising there is out there, but the film never showed examples.

But of course, it couldn’t. Because chances are, another of the brilliant creatives being interviewed created those shitty ads. Or works for an agency that’s owned by a company that owns the agency that created those shitty ads. If you want to interview these great minds, you can’t risk offending them. It’s the classic dilemma: Don’t piss off the advertisers.

All told, the film was a big production celebrating its subject’s greatness, illustrated by a few barely pertinent facts, but lacking any legitimate attempts to back up its claims. What does that have to do with adver—

Wait a minute.

Let's Get This Blog Started Again

2009-10-06T10:22:00.003-05:00

New job: Going well. I started at Rewards Network six months ago, and three of those months were spent completely revamping the brand. One reason they hired me was because they wanted to go from a fairly cold, corporate personality to something more irreverent and funny—to use an overused term, "edgy." Many, many late nights later, iDine finally launched on September 27. And my workload is approaching a level of manageability that I had forgotten existed.

At its most frustrating, this job would keep me in the office until 10 p.m. wondering if I made the right decision, switching jobs. I never stayed anywhere near that late working on projects before. But I'd always come back to this truth: As stressed as I become at my current job, it is a stress I feel I'm suited for.

I didn't belong in my last job. There were parts of that job I was good at, and parts I just couldn't get a handle on. (I can write well all day long. But coming up with cool tent events in the parking lots of Walmarts to demonstrate shampoo to Gen-Y girls was an area I never felt at home in.)

The current job has plenty of challenges, but they're challenges I'm equipped to handle. And my work is well received here.

New girl: Going even better. I started dating -j-j- the very day I was offered this job, back in late March. (I was practically a different person at the end of that day from who I was when I woke up that morning.) The fact is, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I was done dating. Not in a sad or self-pitying way (well, not entirely), but just as a matter of fact. But suddenly I am overwhelmed by the amount of love that has welled up in me for this other person. And every new thing I learn about her makes it clearer and clearer how perfectly matched we are. It's a little scary, but I am in.

~~New~~ condo: I recently celebrated my third anniversary of being a homeowner. I have settled into it nicely. The roof has been repaired and the water damage fixed. (No more crapcicles dangling from my windowsills.) The shock of the monthly payments has worn off, but I still live in embarrassment (over how messy the place is) and fear (that the water heater is going to explode). But I continue to love my neighborhood, and I just finished my third summer of lounging on my back deck.

The fact is, I am an incredibly lucky person. I'm prone to panic, anger, fear and pessimism, so I need to remind myself of my luck pretty constantly. I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

Eighteen Years

2009-08-11T08:41:00.002-05:00

"I just realized something. You and I have known each other for eighteen years."

"Eighteen years? Seriously?"

"Yup. We met freshman year of college."

"That's incredible."

"A kid born the day we met is old enough to vote now."

"Wow. I feel old."

"But it's okay. He can't drink legally yet."

"True."

"As long as he hasn't reached drinking age, I think we can still consider ourselves young."

(pause)

"We must find that kid and kill him."

And so began the best summer ever.

Celebrity Status?

2009-07-21T16:50:00.001-05:00

Overheard a few feet away from me at work, in regards to this story:

FEMALE CO-WORKER
I guarantee none of these athletes raped these girls, because they could get any woman they wanted, willingly.

MALE CO-WORKER
Hm?

FEMALE CO-WORKER
What?

MALE CO-WORKER
Huh?

FEMALE CO-WORKER
What?

MALE CO-WORKER
What’d you say?

FEMALE CO-WORKER
These guys didn’t rape these girls. Look at them. You know how many girls would do that? For celebrity status, for money, for anything?

Ad from the 7/6-7/13 New Yorker

2009-07-04T10:37:00.002-05:00

Am I the only one who had to read this headline three times before I realized what it was saying?

The Value of Stolen Bases

2009-06-20T13:24:00.003-05:00

From Flip Flop Fly Ball.How much money Major League Baseball would lose if all the stolen bases were actually stolen.

More awesome charts at the link.

2009-06-14T11:56:00.003-05:00

Putting the ‘Z’ in ‘Zeitgeist’

2009-06-02T21:41:00.010-05:00

I don’t know why I am so obsessed with zombies.

I’m not a horror movie person. In fact, I can only think of two zombie movies I have seen. One is “Shaun of the Dead,” and the other is “28 Days Later.” One parody, one postmodern.

But at some point I noticed that zombies were the monster du jour, and I started paying attention. Something fascinates me about them, these creatures that used to be human but are now malicious, hijacked corpses.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how it’s the perfect monster for our times, but I don’t know. It seems like a lot of that kind of thinking is based on justification and after-the-fact analysis.

As opposed to something you could have predicted. “Say, if there’s an impotent and corrupt war on terror, plus a recession, what monster do you think will be in vogue?” “Oh, zombies, no doubt. Zombies or the chupacabra.”

I’m reading a book called World War Z. It’s pretty cool – it’s constructed as if it’s an oral history of a worldwide zombie infestation that nearly wiped out the human race, the kind of collection of interviews Studs Terkel would have assembled (and still may, someday).

It’s an addictive read. Max Brooks does a good job going beyond the infection-n-cannibalism (though there is plenty of that) and analyzes how the world would react to and deal with such a bizarre thing. What places would be safest? What kind of opportunistic nutjobs would crawl out of the woodwork? What would (and wouldn’t) the various governments tell their citizens?

The only real issue I have is that Brooks isn’t a real great writer of dialogue. Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue, but this is supposed to be a series of transcripts of oral interviews. Most of the time, his characters speak too completely and clearly, construct sentences that are too complex, shade their stories with too much background info. It takes me out of the mood just a little bit. But on the other hand, there are a lot of genuinely scary and creepy segments.

I like the zombie rules he’s decided on. This isn’t a rage virus, it isn’t a voodoo curse, and the victims don’t mumble “braaains.” It’s basically a severe rabies-ish disease that is highly contagious and 100% fatal. Oh, and makes your corpse want to eat living flesh. (He didn’t invent all these rules, but he picked and chose which ones to set down for himself in his lead-in book, The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s cool to see those parameters trickle in throughout these interviews.)

I find myself looking around – at work, on the train, walking through the neighborhood – and wondering what my plan would be if I looked up and saw victims of the walking plague shuffling toward me.

So that’s what’s been on my mind.

Zombie Roll
Zombies are the topic of one of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs.

Here’s a story I wrote a few years ago.

Zombies are the very floor of this diagram of the Uncanny Valley.

Here’s an old Photoshop contest entry I did. The theme was “Making the Best of a Bad Situation.”
And finally, a cartoon I came up with a while ago.
Zombies.

Goodbye, Cholera!

2009-05-28T10:11:00.001-05:00

From an email at work today:

Good AM:

I am happy to report that the City of Chicago Water Department has tested the building water and confirmed that it is again safe for drinking.

Come On

2009-05-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

This is from the Sports Illustrated web page. "In lieu of"? Really? Do you not have people over there who know what that means?

In the Absence of New Material...

2009-05-20T08:11:00.002-05:00

...here's some OLD material.

A friend of mine just dug up a list of band names that a bunch of us college friends put together back in the day. (I think "observed in nature" meant that it was a phrase that came up in conversation or that we otherwise saw or heard somewhere.)

Smokin’ Band Names

1) Fuzzy Mullet*
2) Three-Storee Squeegee*
3) The Satanic Implements of Husbandry
4) Crusty Beer Hair*
5) Slut-o-Matic*
6) Mr. Big Swingin’ Dick*
7) Funky Ca-Ca
8) The Cheeky Monkeys
9) The X-2000’s*
10) The MTS 90-kilonewton Capacity Servo-Hydraulic Test Frames (with Swivel Pin Grips)*
11) Happy Being Lindsey*
12) 14:1 Compression Ratio
13) The Mucous Plugs
14) ~~Motley Crue~~ taken
15) Tender Nipples*
16) Bucket o’ Sunshine
17) Marshmallow Juggernaut
18) Sows in Labor
19) Extra Parsley*
20) Lap Full of Cookies*
21) Swedish Christmas*
22) This Asinine Mess
23) Smell My Hairs*
24) Asthma Sherbet*
25) The Sparkling Conversers*

* observed in nature

Situation Dramedy

2009-05-11T14:43:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to jumpstart my various blogs. I have a copy of Georges Polti's The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. Each week, I plan to draw a number at random, post the corresponding situation on a Monday, then post a story that Friday on my fiction blog.

Wish me luck.

Note to TNT: In the Current Economic Climate...

2009-04-19T07:54:00.003-05:00

...you might want to watch the placement of the "PLAY" button on your Facebook banner ads.

There Are More Updates About My Job, But...

2009-04-13T06:37:00.002-05:00

...I just wanted to offer to have Reed Johnson's children.

It All Comes Down To This

2009-04-03T10:40:00.002-05:00

Today is my last day at this job.

I’ve been with this company for over eleven years. I started under the Clinton administration.

I am not taking any kind of break between the end of this job and the beginning of the next – I’m starting at the new place Monday morning. I offered two weeks notice, which my current employer accepted. I had a feeling they would, since I’m the only writer on my accounts, and there are a few things up in the air. I think I could have offered less time, but that would have been a bit of a dick move. I genuinely like the people I work with (my occasional complaints notwithstanding), and I did not want to screw them over.

As it happens, there is a hiring freeze at my current agency. There has been for a while. It seems like fairly sound logic that the freeze would be thawed when a company loses an employee. Simple algebra dictates that you now have a gap that needs filling. But apparently it’s not that simple. They’re going to borrow already-overworked writers from other accounts to take on the projects I’ll be abandoning.

Frankly, I’m glad it’s not for me to bother myself with.

In this industry, in this city, in this economy, I bet they could throw open the front door and announce that they need a copywriter. A line would form around the block. But not so fast.

Anyway, I haven’t really needed a break between jobs. It’s been a fairly laid-back couple of weeks. My projects are all in kind of a quiet period. So I’ve had a lot of free time. (This past week alone I bought myself some shoes and a couple bottles of wine in the middle of consecutive afternoons. Sometimes I can leave the office for an hour or so and return to find that no one has tried to get hold of me.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been fielding compliments. “We’ll miss you,” “I’m so jealous,” “We’re going to be screwed without you,” that sort of thing. It’s been good for my ego.

And it’s been kind of boozy. (NOT during work hours – nights and weekends.) I’ve been treating myself to celebratory beers and glasses of wine. I’ve been tossing around money like crazy. I think I’ve had sushi three or four times in the last week.

Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten that there is in fact another job waiting for me at the end of these two weeks of celebration. I’ve been living like I’m done working forever, like I’ve won the lottery and this is my life now.

Well, that’s fine. I’ll enjoy it for the next couple days.

I will miss the people. I’m sure I’ll meet new wry, sarcastic, friendly, quality people at the new place, but there’s a certain comfort in interacting with people you’ve come to know.

I’ll also miss being surrounded by beautiful women every day. The new office is a bit of a sausage fest.

My exit interview’s in about an hour. I think I’ll bring that up.

April Fool

2009-04-01T11:43:00.000-05:00

When I was in grade school, I was into April Fool’s Day. In the closing days of March one year, probably when I was in fourth or fifth grade, I decided it would be cool if there were some kind of official April Fool’s celebration at school.

I decided to spearhead this.

I brought up the idea to my teacher, who seemed a little wary. She sent me to talk to the principal, Mr. DeGrazia.

I sat in his office.

“So, what exactly would happen during this April Fool’s Day party?” he asked me.

Not having developed any thorough plans, I shrugged. “Like maybe someone could paint pupils on his eyelids, so it would look like his eyes were open even when they were closed.”

I must have seen this trick on television at some point. It was the only thing I could think of.

Mr. DeGrazia nodded. “I’d like you to read something.”

He handed me a newspaper clipping about some prank gone horribly wrong. I don’t remember what the joke was, but I’m pretty sure some kid died as a result of it.

“So you see, sometimes jokes can get out of hand,” Mr. DeGrazia told me. “I think it’s probably better not to bring April Fool’s Day into school.”

I nodded. All the air had gone out of my mood.

As I walked back to my classroom, I tried to figure out why my idea of painting eyeballs on somebody’s eyelids might result in death. Why the principal would jump to the conclusion that tragedy would be inevitable.

Years later, I think I found out that this news story was actually an urban legend.

Changing Out of a Suit in a Bathroom Stall

2009-03-22T22:50:00.000-05:00

Friday morning, I found myself crammed in a bathroom stall at Union Station in downtown Chicago, changing out of a grey suit and into jeans and a casual button-down shirt.

I balanced myself against the wall and stood on toes planted inside my still-tied dress shoes as I lifted my legs out of my slacks while trying not to brush any part of my body or clothes against the gobs of spit on the floor. In the stall to my left, a man sniffed loud, guttural sniffs, spaced out at intervals of three to five seconds.

I had just emerged from a job interview. But I couldn’t show up to my current job in a suit. Next to me in the stall was a piece of carry-on luggage from which I pulled my street clothes and into which I crammed my jacket and dress pants. I tried to keep my coat from slipping off the hook in the door, and I reminded myself not to knock my portfolio off the toilet paper dispenser and into the toilet. The whole process took a ridiculously long time.

It was my second interview with a company that needed an in-house copywriter for web communication. A friend of mine is an art director there, and he put in a good word for me. My first interview, on Monday, was with the marketing guys, but this one was with the account people. More of the business side, less of the creative.

Three women. I turned on the charm. Poor things didn’t stand a chance.

Eventually, I found myself dragging my luggage across the downtown streets, then riding an elevator up to my office. A piece of carry-on luggage might inspire some questions from co-workers, but I had some noncommittal answers ready. “You traveling?” “Yeah, I’m headed to my parents’ after work tonight. Last-minute plans to visit relatives. Sorry I was late, did I miss anything?”

A suit, on the other hand? Not a whole lot of explanations for a suit, other than “I just came from a job interview.”

As it happens, no one noticed my luggage. As the day progressed, I slipped into some well-worn fantasies about quitting.

I knock on my boss’s door one morning,

“Hey, do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure. Come in.”

I close the door and sit down.

“I’ve accepted a job at another company. So I’m giving notice.”

(NOTE: Sometimes “I’ve accepted a job at another company” is replaced with “I’ve won the lottery.”)

My boss slumps his shoulders and grins wryly, and we discuss how much notice I should give and how to let the other team members know. Sometimes he makes a counter offer, and I respond by explaining that it’s not a matter of money, but of finding a job that’s a better fit for me. Sometimes I admit that I have accepted a pay cut in order to leave, and I watch a flutter of hurt scurry across his face.

But he understands. And he’s sad to see me go.

At about 5:30 Friday evening, I received a call. The company I’ve interviewed with decided to extend me an offer. And to my surprise, it’s actually a bit of a salary increase.

I’ve spent the weekend trying to gear myself up for the fact that my job-quitting fantasy is going to take some sort of real form on Monday morning. I’m filled with anxiety, excitement, guilt, buyer’s remorse, you name it. I have no idea if they’ll ask for a full two weeks or if they’ll just tell me to clean out my desk and leave then and there.

“The Lost Shakespeare Play” Continues Apace

2009-03-17T16:58:00.012-05:00

I suppose I should feel guilty – the play has gone through two full weekends of performances, and I haven’t posted word one about how they’ve gone.

Answer: great. Opening weekend, we had huge, responsive crowds on Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately, this was followed by a matinee on a rain-heavy Sunday afternoon for which no audience showed up, so it was canceled.

Thursday, things picked back up with a pretty full, but eerily silent, house. Friday was our first (and to date our only) sell-out. I had to sit in the booth with Abbie, the producer.Photo taken mid-show by Dianna,
the light/sound operator and stage manager.
Saturday gave us possibly our most responsive crowd, laughing at moments other audiences didn’t react vocally to.

Sunday, I had some potentially significant stuff to work on, stuff I will keep silent about for the time being, so I missed Sunday’s matinee. Abbie had an interesting take – she felt it was an older audience that took the side of 55-year-old Edmond Malone over that of 19-year-old William-Henry Ireland. (The play is set up as a debate between these two characters.) I wish I had been present to experience what that was like.

Over all, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. The cast is fantastic, and even better, they seem to enjoy being a part of the play. They’ve bonded with each other, too.

The script gets fed through my head over and over, and I find all sorts of things that need fixing. There are scenes that last too long, even by an exchange or two. Some lines are redundant. And I did my best to weed these out, but there are still a few moments in the play where I feel like I’m showing off my research instead of telling a story.

But all of these things needed this full production to come to light. I can sit in a coffee shop mouthing these lines to myself until I’m blue in the face, but nothing compares to getting a group of actors to devote their time and talent to a script. It’s incredibly illuminating.

Now I have to figure out what’s next. The most immediate thing is a semi-staged reading series in Cincinnati. Abbie’s friend is in charge of it, and they’re going to do LSP as one of three scripts next month.

I’d love to go, to get a look at what an entirely different group of people will do with the script. I do know that, thanks to the presence of Procter & Gamble, it is ridiculously expensive to fly to Cincy. But I’ll see if I can get a cheap flight.

Beyond that, who knows? Maybe I’ll send it out to Shakespeare festivals again. I did that several years ago, and I didn’t get any bites. But now there’s been a production, and the script is much improved. Couldn’t hurt.

Also, people have been asking me what I’m going to write next. I haven’t the foggiest. There is another fascinating historical story I’ve been toying with for a long time. And Jen, the director of LSP, is resurrecting a project that fell by the wayside a couple years ago.

But for now, I’m just basking. It’s been a while since I felt like an active theatre artist. This is a three-week run, on the other side of the city, that hasn’t really gotten any press. But some of those old, intoxicating feelings of panic and pride have returned, and maybe I’m back in for a while.

My Blog Has Suffered

2009-03-05T15:26:00.008-06:00

Well, this one has.

I’m still keeping my short streak alive over at Sketch War.

The most recent themes have been:

“Game Shows”

“Social Networking”

and “Turn a TV Show into a Movie Trailer”

All of these have been winding up on my fiction blog as well.

Other than that, my evenings and worries have been on the emotional roller coaster that is tech week. This play opens tomorrow:
Here are a few stills:

William-Henry Ireland and Samuel Ireland.

The elusive Mr. H.

Mr. Barrymore, exhibiting his swordwork.

Last night was a fantastic rehearsal. Things clicked in a way that proves the value of all the work the actors and director have done, and demonstrates how welcome an audience will finally be. Tonight is an informal preview, and I think we may have a few outsiders taking a look for the first time.

I’m doubled over with anxiety, but in a good way.

My Play Feels Even More Official Now

2009-02-20T08:22:00.003-06:00

Costume designs, by Emily Morgan Deangelis.(Click for bigger pic.)

The Word “Hero” is Tossed Around A Lot These Days

2009-02-19T16:31:00.004-06:00

I just stopped a little kid from stealing candy.

I was in the candy aisle at Walgreens, and there was a little girl (5 or 6 years old) who approached the shelves like a little cartoon character. She glanced up at her mom, who was distracted and looking in the opposite direction, and she inched toward the candy and reached out her hand in a way that kept it hidden by her coat. She picked up a bag of chocolate coins.

I just watched all this happen.

It finally occurred to the girl to glance around and make sure the coast was clear on all sides. She locked eyes with me, and I smiled. She smiled back and casually dropped the candy. Then she backed away from the shelf so far that she actually bumped into the opposite shelf.

Once again, candy is safe.

For now.

In other news, Sketch War has yet another new home on the web. This time, the interface is WordPress. Turns out I hate WordPress. You learn something new every day.

This week, the somewhat esoteric assignment was to write a vehicle for Brent Spiner and Stephen Fry.

My entry.

Longtime listeners might recognize a few things.

Spirited Crushes, Crushed Spirits

2009-02-13T15:02:00.002-06:00

Two sketch wars in a row!

I’m back, baby!

This week’s theme was “Pimp My TV.” The idea was to take an actual television show that has not yet been made into a movie. Then write a movie trailer for the adaptation. Yes, I went gimmicky.

Work this week has been a cosmic ballet of pains in the ass. The kind of workweek where the world is one big Rube Goldberg device springing perfectly timed obstacles into my path. My trip with the Most Beautiful Woman Ever to Walk the Earth was the only highlight.

The place where we spent Monday was a good 45-minute drive from the airport. We arrived Sunday evening, and she drove our rented car to the hotel. Between segments of small talk, we sat in the close proximity of the front seat, the skies darkening silently all around us. There was something kind of exhilarating about it.

Throughout the trip, I amused myself by watching other men’s reactions to her. We’d walk through the airport, and I’d pay attention to the guy walking toward us. His eyes would swivel toward her, and his face would go absentmindedly slack for a second or two. It was a good sign that I am not insane.

I tried not to be a nuisance in her presence. On the flight back to Chicago, she was seated several rows in front of me. I had a bag that I had to wait for on the ramp, and she didn’t, so before we took off I told her I’d probably just see her at work. I didn’t want to be a drag, so I gave her an escape route.

We landed, and when I got out of the plane, she was waiting on the ramp. “Do you want me to wait?”

“Oh, no, that’s all right!” I responded. She went on her way, and I awaited my bag.

This assured that for the rest of my life I will wonder why she offered to wait.

In all likelihood, she was wondering if we should share a cab back into town. Save our company some money.

Stupid brain. I fucking hate my brain!

And on cue, Valentine’s Day is upon us. I have never hated it, whether I was single or in a relationship. (Last year notwithstanding.) It’s just there, like Arbor Day.

But I recently found this article outlining all the scientific evidence that being single sets you on a path to being a loathed outcast. (Okay, so I’m not in the habit of browsing scientific publications from Rutgers. I found the study through an article on Cracked.com.) It isn’t pretty.

A couple weeks ago, I had to gently extricate myself from a girl I met through the internet. Oof. That ain’t easy either.

Online dating is the Uncanny Valley of relationships. You sit down with someone at a coffee shop. You size each other up for compatibility. It looks a lot like a date. But it’s all so staged. No matter how real it looks, you know it isn’t.

Well, “30 Rock” was great last night. So I got that going for me.

I think “30 Rock” is just as joke-dense as “Arrested Development” was. Funny situations inspire hilarious throwaway lines later in the episode. Lines that seem to be throwaway lines end up being setups for huge payoffs. And many hilarious directions are juggled in the same episode, even in the same scene.

Show me a girlfriend who can do that.

Unexpected Influences: Urinetown

2009-02-12T16:39:00.005-06:00

I wrote a musical many years ago, in 2001. It was called “Statuette.” I don’t revisit it much, but each time I do, I like it less.

Many aspects were wonderful – the performances, direction, costuming, set, music (by my friend Jeffrey Hepker). The problem was my script. I’d simply bitten off more than I could chew.

It was based on a book called Best Actress. It was a mystery novel of sorts, about murder and intrigue at the Oscars. I’d wanted to try my hand at a musical for years, and here was a story that combined a lot of things I happened to enjoy. (At the time, I was pretty into the Oscars. I also liked movies, Shakespeare, dark comedy, and making fun of actors. When I found the book at Borders shortly after arriving in Chicago, it was kind of a perfect storm.)

But the play was way too long (2 and a half hours? Maybe even 2:45?), and it wanted to be both a dark satire and a campy romp, not quite fully managing either.

The dialogue had its moments. The real weakness, in my opinion, was my lyrics. I think I was trying to be Sondheim, so the songs were filled with a lot of what I thought were impressive words and impressive rhymes. But I didn’t quite get it – the rhymes got in the way of the songs instead of supporting them. The result was a score full of leaden, self-conscious songs.

(There is one exception. A song called “Spin.” It moved the plot forward, developed its characters, and contained a lot of sung dialogue instead of just soliloquies set to music. I still think it’s a pretty good musical theatre song.)

A couple of years later, in 2003, I was part of a team of writers on a show called “Dirty Bible Stories.” Six of the more violent and/or vulgar stories from the Bible were reinterpreted through modern genres. I chose the story of Josiah, an Old Testament King of Judah who embarked on a campaign to slaughter everyone in his realm who worshipped the wrong god. I thought it would make a good Disney musical.

This was to be a very short piece, as close to ten minutes long as possible. So it had to be handled with a much lighter and nimbler touch that I’d managed in “Statuette.” I turned away from Sondheim and toward Urinetown.

This is from the Urinetown song, “We’re Not Sorry”:

You who make dough
From debasing
Need erasing
Need the knife!

Let their blood flow
Like Campari
We’re not sorry
Hey, that’s life!

These are poor, desperate, impoverished citizens in the midst of a crippling drought, and yet they effortlessly drop a Campari reference into their revenge song.
Sondheim would never, ever do this. But that doesn’t mean it’s a weakness or a shortcoming in “Urinetown.” It’s part of the personality of the show. There’s a very “Why the hell not?” approach to the lyrics.

This is one of my lyrics from “Josiah.” A prophetess is channeling the word of God, and God is letting Josiah know what’s wrong in the kingdom:

You’re the product of a line of kings
Who have made a royal mess of things,
And their idolizing underlings
Are out of hand.

I have often told them I’m their Lord,
Even threatening to use my sword,
But they rolled their eyes and plum ignored
My reprimand.

That makes me angry,
So very annoyingly angry,
So kingdom-destroyingly angry
Upon your land.

I would not have used the word “kingdom-destroyingly” in “Statuette.” But it worked for “Josiah.” That mini-musical ended up being a very tight piece of work that in many ways I feel was a more successful venture for me.

Be Bold

2009-02-08T12:55:00.004-06:00

So I just gave the cast of my play a bunch of cuts. Literally, I am sitting in a rehearsal right now in the moments after they have been walked through the changes.

Some of the changes were individual sentences, even words. Some of them were big swaths of dialogue. The fact is, the play is too long. I think if it weren't, I probably would have been fine keeping it the way it is. But I had to make some hard decisions and hack away.

(In the postmortem email my company sent out after the layoffs a couple weeks ago, they mentioned the tough decisions that went into getting rid of people. At one point, they wrote "We had to be bold." That turned my stomach a bit. It might not be the best morale-building tactic to play up how heroic you were in letting your workforce go.)

I'm very self-conscious about the script cuts. I worry that I've betrayed the actors, or that I disrupted their chemistry, or that they're looking at the speed bumps I've just placed in their memorization processes, wondering just how the resulting play is any better than it was a half hour ago.

In other news, I wrote a new post on my fiction blog, for Sketch War. It was my first post in three months. The topic was "Advertising." And in other-other news, Sketch War has its own blog now, where six(!) writers will post their entries each week. So check it out!

And in a few hours, I am off on a business trip. Just me and the Most Beautiful Woman Ever to Walk the Earth. I can't wait for my brain to freeze and my tongue to become useless!

2009-01-31T13:31:00.001-06:00

Count Your Blessings

2009-01-28T18:10:00.002-06:00

I guess there were a lot of layoffs at my work today.

I was not one of them.

Current Mood: ???

The Style of Elements

2009-01-23T09:44:00.007-06:00

I have been neglectful of my various and sundry blogs lately. So I’m going to post something I’m kind of proud of.

There’s an upcoming Fark Photoshop contest that’s actually a cycle of contests. Four consecutive themes have been announced: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They’ll go live at 4-hour intervals on Tuesday.

I thought it would be cool to connect my entries to each other. I decided it would be fun to move each element over one notch, i.e., show earth where air should be, air where fire should be, etc.

These are what I came up with. I didn’t explain my entries, but I did label them “one of four,” “two of four,” etc. I hope people get the gimmick.

The Shitty Meeting

2009-01-14T15:44:00.001-06:00

I think I’m about to have a really shitty meeting.

I’m trying to enjoy the moments of calm beforehand.

“I have not yet had that shitty meeting. How pleasant not to have had it yet.”

UPDATE
It wasn't so bad. It was more "lousy."

Dave and Dave

2009-01-11T00:21:00.003-06:00

I went through stacks of old photos Saturday. I'm doing a little bit of scanning coupled with a lot of nostalgiafying, rediscovering pics I'd long forgotten I had.

I'm building up an arsenal of "The History of Dave On Stage" photos that I plan to unleash on my Facebook friends. If they stick around after that, then I will know our Facebookfriendship is true and deep.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share this. It is 1989, and I'm just shy of sixteen. I am meeting Dave Barry at the Printer's Row Book Fair, having him sign a copy of his just-published book "Dave Barry Slept Here." I am rocking a calculator watch.

First Read-Through

2009-01-08T12:12:00.001-06:00

We had the first read-through of my play Tuesday night.24 hours earlier, we finally cast the last open role. A total of four people we planned to cast had to drop out for various reasons, and it sent us scrambling. But we’re all in place now. *knocks on wood*

There’s something about having a roomful of strangers read your work aloud that causes waves of self-consciousness to crash down on you. This play has never had a full production, but it has had two previous incarnations – an actors-sitting-in-a-circle reading in 2003 and a semi-staged reading in ’06. For both of those, the cast was nearly 100% friends of mine.

For this production, there’s only one actor I knew beforehand. So I became hyper-aware during the read-through. “What are they thinking?” “Do they think that line is lame?” “Are they pissed that they haven’t had a scene yet?”

They’ve never interacted with me outside of the context of this play, so the script is the only way they have to judge me. And I sit quietly in the corner the whole time.

It’s too long. That’s one thing that the alien nature of the read-through brought home for me. I couldn’t help but hypothesize what the play looked like through their eyes. The first third of the play drags.

Afterwards, I had to duck out quickly. First of all, a friend of mine needed me for a last-minute voiceover project he was working on. And second, I was terrified of riding the elevator down with some of the cast members.

From Work to Play

2009-01-04T22:34:00.004-06:00

The writing of my play continues.

It’s based on a true story from a couple centuries ago. I’ve been writing it, on and off, for about seven and a half years.

In summer of 2001, I went to the Stratford Festival of Canada. It was a relaxing week in an agonizingly quaint little Canadian town, with absolutely nothing on my schedule except a handful of plays. To save money, I stayed in a motel a good twenty-minute walk from the center of town, but it was okay because it felt great not to be in any kind of hurry.

The first play I saw was Twelfth Night, set, I believe, in 1920s Greece. It was such a great production that Twelfth Night immediately became my favorite Shakespeare comedy. A negative side effect was that in the four years I attended, only one other play (the following year’s King Lear) came close to it.

Anyway, I was very early to a matinee one day. So early that the theatre hadn’t opened yet. It was starting to drizzle, so I ducked into a used bookstore a block away.

There was a stack of dusty paperbacks just inside the door. On the top of this stack was a book that must have been about great hoaxes in history, or something like that. I picked it up and opened it to a random page and found a couple of paragraphs about William-Henry Ireland, a teenager who, in the 1790s, forged a series of Shakespearean documents.

He started off small (signatures, letters) and eventually worked his way up to a complete play, supposedly buried for 200 years. As suspicions arose, he even managed to forge evidence to support the play’s validity.

I thought, well, this should be my next play.

It wasn’t. Several other plays and playlets have been conceived, written, and performed since then. But The Lost Shakespeare Play has always been sitting there in the back of my brain, rearing up and making me feel guilty whenever something reminds me how long it’s been since I did any serious work on it.

Along the way, it has had an unstaged reading and a semi-staged reading, each with its own stack of notes and reactions from their respective audience members. Somewhere in a closet, I still have all the forms that viewers filled out, telling me what they liked and didn’t, what was clear and wasn’t. But the sad fact is, I don’t work well without a deadline.

My brilliant friend Abbie has been getting her Masters in Performing Arts Management, and she got the okay to produce my play as her thesis, which was excellent news. Further excellent news was my other brilliant friend Jen was available and willing to direct. Jen and I have collaborated together on a bunch of things, and I particularly love when she directs stuff that I’ve written. (One of the plays that had its entire lifespan during the writing of LSP is Let There Be Light, which Jen and I wrote together and she directed. It was one of my favorite writing experiences, and it went to the damn New York International Fringe Festival in 2004.)

I’ve spent the last two days in a coffee shop and a bar, working on the ending. I won’t get into all the reasons, but the ending of the play has always been a tough sequence. But thanks to a couple very enlightening conversations with Jen, I think I’ve cracked it open, and managed to address some other questions and topics. I’ve been making small tweaks for so long, it’s very satisfying to wrestle something new into existence. Also, it feels good to see that I’m still capable of getting excited about writing a play.

I just shared my new scene with Jen, and she had some positive feedback and some great suggestions. It’s starting to feel like a work in progress again.

(And it’s a good thing. Our first rehearsal is Tuesday.)

(And it opens in March.)

(And I believe there’s still one role that needs to be cast.)

I'm at the Library...

2009-01-03T14:54:00.003-06:00

...and there's a guy across the room from me wearing a black beret, a twirly mustache, and a black and white horizontal striped shirt.

He's been there for at least an hour, just looking at his laptop.

I wish I had the means (and the courage) to take a photo of him.

He must be a performance artist of some sort. Right?

EDIT:
Yes, a little bit like this:

Eugene Park, New Year's Day

2009-01-02T09:37:00.006-06:00

I walked to the grocery store yesterday morning in search of coffee. My friends George and Morna were hosting our annual New Year's Day PorkFest, a giant morning-after day-long breakfast extravaganza.

I took my camera along for some reason, and got some photos of a frozen-over Eugene Park.

Year In Review

2008-12-31T12:40:00.001-06:00

So I started this blog, theoretically, with an eye toward self-improvement. My plan was to take a look at all the things I do wrong with my life, all my self-sabotages, and address them.

I kept it up for a while, listing my mistakes and trying to unlock the secrets to solving them. But that fell apart and was replaced with a bunch of “here are things I think are funny” posts and “here’s what’s depressing me today” posts.

I can’t figure out if I should try to get back on track or just let this thing take the course it wants to. Because I don’t think I succeeded in making 2008 a whole lot better than 2007.

I do plan on trying Wrath-Lent again. In 2008, I gave up wrath. In ’09, I think I’ll give up fury. Maybe I’ll have more success.

Anyway. I seem to remember seeing a meme where people posted the first lines from each month of their blogs over the previous year. Here are mine:

• I bought a new garbage can a few days ago, and friend, it is one of the wisest purchases I have made in a long time.

• I saw the Court Theatre's production of Titus Andronicus yesterday afternoon.

• I think I might be a rage addict.

• This is Natasha Minsk.

• At about 10pm Wednesday night, I got home from a rehearsal.

• I crossed Western Avenue walking home from Lincoln Square yesterday afternoon.

• For the 4th, all the Major League baseball teams wore stars-and-stripes variations on their logos.

• There, I said it.

• A year and a half ago, I went to a wine festival at the Chicago Botanic Garden with the ex-girlfriend I’ll call “2003 Ex.”

• Come On, You Fuckers

• As I write this, Ben Affleck is doing a drop-dead miserable Olbermann impersonation on SNL.

• When I was in New York, I spent an afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If there’s a pattern, it’s that all but three sentences contain the word “I.” But I suppose that makes sense. It is, after all, a blog, the most navel-gazing thing you can do short of actually gazing at your navel. The real surprise is the three sentences that aren’t about me.

Anyhoo. Happy New Year.