Kevin Swatek - Always On Stage

Moving...

2010-07-06T08:34:00.002-05:00

...again.

And it's all too weirdly familiar.

Friend called me out of the blue this past Saturday. Knows the bombshelter. A mutual friend sharing a room at her pad doesn't use it much anymore. Lease is up August 1. Rent's cheaper here, though digital cable and utilities kinda even it out. Gotta kitchen, though, straight-on 1960s nostalgia complete with dual-oven range, but there's a full-size fridge, dishwasher, and room enough to seat 5 at the breakfast table. In fact, the whole place's palatial. I remember moving them in. I remember helping her girlfriend deliver their new bed. It's got the longest hallway I've ever seen in an apartment. On-site laundry, a luxury I've lived without since Evanston. And two dogs who have known me for six years already. I've crashed at that place. It's closer to the highway. Met up with many friends there. It comes with pre-packaged ghosts.

Last time I was invited by friends to live with them was sophomore year, college.
Last time I lived in a multi-room apartment was 5 years ago, Ukranian Village, Chicago.
Last time I lived above ground was 2 years ago, Villas at Rob Roy, Prospect Heights.

...

Where can one go but up from a bombshelter?

September 1 begins a completely different chapter for me.

...just need to keep feeding the feeling that this is the greatest gift in the world.

Although, in ways, it feels like a step back, like reverting to college life, like reverting to 20-something finding-yourself-all-over-again-ism,... hell, I liked life more during those times. And I liked myself more.

Off-street parking's a total bitch, though. :)

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Now playing: Death Cab For Cutie - Start Again

Hard to Find

2010-06-27T15:13:00.002-05:00

A friend at work was cheering me up the other day. She told me, "Good men are hard to find."

Damn right we are.

I'd go as far to say I'm one of the better men.

And sometimes, I'm the only man.

:)

M.B.

2010-06-24T10:21:00.001-05:00

I miss you. So much. It's hard to believe it's only been so long since I fell crazy in love with you.
And now here we are. And I'm still crazy in love. And I don't want to leave...

Bet that's probably a bit much coming from me. Probably not. I was like that from the start. You didn't expect any of this, you told me so. But I won you over. And it was great. We felt really good together. You made me feel gooey. Like, gooey. I've been with lots of girls, and not many make me feel gooey anymore. Oh, I craved it. Any chance I could, I would want to be with you. The sex was great (what you got should be bottled and sold on the black market), but I really just loved being with you. The more I learned about you, the more I wanted to learn. And we're so different! There's so much to explore! I felt like I was given the greatest Christmas present ever. And I thought you were feeling the same thing.

Maybe you were. I do believe it. But I know I couldn't give time to it. My life went out the window when I took that second job. But I needed to. I needed to take responsibility for myself. And things are working out, barely. But I never see you. And when I do I'm burnt out. And that's not the way things are supposed to be. I have been trying very hard to accommodate you for us, but you refuse. And then you leave. And then you lie. And I wish you didn't. I wish you could trust me. I don't know why you don't. I guess I'm a fool for doing what I do. I already called myself out as Mr. Rebound, even though you shusshed me on that. In fact, you're the one who's pulling this along. Why? Why are you holding on to me? And why won't you hold onto me tighter?

I get so confused lately. I really don't know how to act around you anymore. All I know to do that does well is to continue to love you. And forgive you. Because I can't have this fall apart like everything else does. And when you look at me, I still see some hope. And for once, I want to ride that wave more than anything. So, this may be the only way I can communicate my true feelings for you. On a blog you don't care about. Where I can say my heart's desire and not fuck everything up. And where I can maintain some control again and ride out this global pattern until it comes around again.

Is this emo? Nah, not bloody enough...

You say I try too hard. Well, wouldn't it be nice if all of us tried just a little bit harder?

Om Mani Padme Hung

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Now playing: Death Cab For Cutie - You Can Do Better Than Me

Mental Health Day

2010-06-17T22:49:00.002-05:00

Nope.
No way am I setting foot inside work today.
Mm-mmm.
The results would be disastrous.
For everyone.
I need this.
Today.
Friday I can't.
Now or never.
Just one day.
I can afford it.
'Cause if I don't...

...

Thanks. I needed that.

----------------
Now playing: Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser

New June Moon

2010-06-12T22:45:00.004-05:00

I have lost sight of who I am.

This past New Year I wished to have a brand new everything.
Wasn't specific, just new everything.
And I think I may have gotten just that.

My career, it echoes the old but reeks of new
New duties, new stress, new headaches
My second job, it's recycled, now a different beast
Less responsibilites, more hustle
My car, once my King and best investment, has become a zombie
Prone to dying anywhere, controlled by its own whim
My bombshelter, once novelty, has become a relic
Static, stoic, dependable but staid
My friends, so exciting years ago, are now de rigueur
Dependable but monotone, a place to get lost
My artistic life, like my spiritual life, is all but gone
No shows, no walks, no spark, no go

My current girlfriend, whom I adore, touches me like only few can
Three or four before have done it
And she follows suit
Even up to the gritty end
But is it the end?
?
She says its not
But then, why am I stuck in reruns?

New Years is one of my favorite holidays, and I wanted every day this year to be a Happy New Year.
So let's start all over again.
With this New Moon, the last New Moon of the first half of the year, may familiarity and control re-enter my life
May I use the lessons of the past to navigate the future
May I accept the opportunities that life flings at me
May I once again realize that all things happen for a reason
May I live up to the birthright I fought so hard to earn
And may I learn to count my blessings before my failures
I deserve the best. I work too damn hard to accept otherwise. And it's time to collect.

If you do spend some time sending good vibes to others, please send a thought or two my way. I could use it.
I promise to spend more time thinking of you.
And I swear, things get better from here.
They have to.

Happy New Moon, everyone.

----------------
Now playing: Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness

Sonnet

2010-06-01T00:47:00.002-05:00

They say I am the nicest guy they know
A perfect gent, the near-extinct "great catch"
Some lucky girls who took me for a ride
Will gush, "He's such a crush! Damn, what a match!"
They say I rule the turf, a righteous dude
Who cruises smoothly 'round without a trace
He's sly, he's wry, an intellect'al prude
Who speaks eloquence right into your face
They say I play some game, a master quilt
I weave and pull directly o'er your eyes
They say some stunt I pulled went full atilt
They say they know me; still there's no surprise
Well, I don't know 'bout them, but you'll agree:
Our moment merely makes it up for me

Sonnet

2010-06-01T00:39:00.002-05:00

This time, this time, no more the dreaded thoughts,
No ghastly synapses shall haunt the brain
No fear, no doubt, no dank depressive droughts
Shall ever darken this bright soul again
Why does the mighty soul trap its own foot
Or find blockades when only freedom 'bounds?
Why burn your bridge before you've set your boot
Or mourn your luck whene'er the trumpet sounds?
This fear, this doubt, 'tis fables made of bile
And wo'ry a lie spun by a loaded tail
This beast, this wraith, this oily, dripping smile
Unsummon thee, thy most miniscule scale!
Don't taunt the raging boil; cast it 'neath
Its spite brings might, a white-hot knight unsheathed

Sonnet

2010-05-30T15:17:00.003-05:00

for Melissa

No tutored soul could ready me for this,
A girl with whom I partake great delights
This myth, this creature fills my mortal bliss
With endless days and ever-ready nights
But myth alone fills thimbles of desire,
A thready light meant to make life complete
Our playful tale begins and ends with fire,
A burning want, yet burned twice in defeat
I've held her in my arms, I know her touch;
A dream from which I never want to wake
To offer her, though seems I haven't much,
Mere men mess up the miracles I make
My love, you leave, and when you leave, know true:
Though myth to some, I trust in all that's you.

No New Tale To Tell

2009-10-03T00:07:00.000-05:00

If anyone believes that life doesn't move in circles, I gladly buy you a drink and prove you wrong.

In the midst of this struggling economy I've been able to score a new career. Actually, an old career with a new face. I've been accepted for a position as a Psychiatric Case Worker at a long-term care facility in Evanston, mere blocks from where I live. It's a step up from any Psych position I've had before, in that I'll be directly in charge of the treatment plans of 30 residents, leading groups in therapy, holding office hours. It's a nice combo of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Mental Health and Deafness, all in one position. Plus, the pay is equitable to my old positions, with opportunities for job advancement and/or grad school.

I kinda sorta feel, at this point, that my life's been given back to me. That one point in October 2000, 9 years ago, when everything fell apart and unraveled into bedlam, has now had its foundations restored. Like then, I was living in the basement of retired people on the outskirts of a Big 10 college town, immersed in my Psych career and wishing of being a writer. Instead of a tenuous relationship with an estranged artistic girlfriend, I maintain a tentative schedule with an obscure art museum; I find I love them equally dearly. But now I am older, wiser, armed with journeyman experience. Things returned to center, but they can only get better from here.

If anyone believes that life isn't circular, I will gladly buy you a drink and prove you wrong.

----------------
Now playing: Indigo Girls - Least Complicated

Re-tired

2009-10-02T23:59:00.000-05:00

When was it? Tuesday night, September 29th... Went to help a friend from Starbucks move to his new apartment. As I left my place to get there, a black cat crossed the path of my car. Now, I'm a brighter bulb than most, and I know fact from superstition, but damn if the coincidence of it didn't linger with me. Kept me a bit more hyperaware, especially in his new neighborhood. Devon and Western is a bit more ghetto than most. We get done and he invites me in to chill. There's no parking for blocks around, so he allows me to park in the building's space, this gated-in little piece of driveway instead of the dozens of tiny garages that line the alleyway. As I maneuver Hermann in to the cramped gated nook, my tire catches the iron latches and digs them right into this minute tear in my sidewall, puncturing and deflating my rear driver side tire with a quick, classic PFFFFFT!

As bad as that was, I was able to chuckle it off, which is good because things got worse before better.

Marcos, my buddy, and his roommates came out to help with the tire, but none of us could get it off. First, the jack was not cooperating with the ground beneath it, its handle jamming into stones every second revolution. Once a replacement jack was found and Herman lifted, no one could get the lug nuts off. They had rusted on too tight. I attempted to call a tow truck but the dude couldn't speak English well enough, so I balked. The guys allowed me to crash there that evening and we'd deal with it in the morning.

It's funny; the things I'll do for weed when I can't afford it.

After a lopsided night on a folded futon, the morning went better than expected. There was an auto mechanic nearby, two blocks away via alleys, so I could take my time and not block traffic while riding my rim at 2 miles an hour. Even with a torque gun the tire was nigh-impossible to get off, but with some lube, a half-hour wait, and $20 later the spare sat comfortably on the rear axle. I was an hour late than I was scheduled at the Block Museum, but I volunteered to come in on my day off to cover hours, so it ended up being win-win. 6 extra hours of pay, and I was able to explain my new job situation and scheduling issues in person. I believe they will make concessions for me. Then off to Peter Pan rehearsal, mindful to steer clear of expressways, and nailed dance practice so well they changed choreography to accomodate me.

Crisi-tunity incarnate.

I think that was probably the best outcome to that situation.

----------------
Now playing: Death Cab For Cutie - No Sunlight

Citation Needed?

2009-09-07T14:05:00.000-05:00

I did something that needed to be done.

Proofread, anyone?

Entropy

The Secret Integration

Thank you.
Go read Inherent Vice.

Year of the Hangover

2009-08-24T11:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen the movie Kids since college when it was first released. Still haven't seent it since, but I remember the last line of the film. It's always resonated with me.

After the scenes of skateboarding teens, of awkward latchkey survival, of late-night hideaways and social explorations, of drunken drug-crazed basements of iniquity, of lonely boys wailing in bathtubs and perky girls squealing like adults, of cock-slappingly snuff-induced violations of AIDS-infested statutory pedophilic fun, our infected adolescent serial cherry-popping antihero shakes his hazy head on the morning after and mutters:

"Jesus Christ, what happened?"

Welcome to 2009.
After last year's self-aggrandizing vacation, the wheel of fortune hath spun another turn and now demands remittance. This isn't to say that progress hasn't been made or joy not achieved, but in light of last year the price has increased exponentially.
2009 has become the Year of the Hangover.
Not literally.
But you know the feeling.
I won't bore you with specifics or mealy-mouthed self-pity, but it's kinda, sorta like this:
As you set to scale a prodigious rock formation, you dream of the challenge, the bite of stone cutting your ankles and the numb callus that will soon become your hands, all made with gusto just to claim the jutting apex of the mountain for yourself, the champion taste of mineral saline ringing your lips and searing the scrapes on exposed skin when, without warning, the elevated climb cuts short, abrupt and violently placid, s,ooth and expansive, planar and monotonous, your marathon-stride muscles downshift unexpectedly to victory lap as you crawl upon the top of the plateau, its still oxygen-rich air filling your lungs with crestfallen awe as you stare at the towering peaks around you, proud and respectable, iconic and taunting, still a distant desire, leaving you behind on this plateau, this stable and routine plateau, its tabletop stretching on an on into an unrugged, dependable, predictable, no-nonsense, self-maintained, milquetoast flatline.

Perhaps this is a good thing.
It certainly isn't bad.
But I want MOAR.
The sky's the limit.
But the road stopped rising to meet me.
And I grow weary of waiting.
Ow, my fucking head hurts.

I had a year like this in high school: 1994. Many bittersweet memories. Had lost some weight and took the only school picture I've ever been proud of. But my grades were the worst that year. Got chosen for my first mainstage play, but I had no lines and died in the first scene. My grandmother died that year to bone cancer and her brother, my great-uncle, died months later. Both were fixtures in my childhood. Threw off everything I knew about myself. I remember drawing labyrinthine sketches with signs for the next year above every way out.

So, on the plus side, I'm so geared up for 2010. It's gonna be a year of opportunity.

----------------
Now playing: Bob Dylan - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Right Now...

2009-06-23T01:57:00.000-05:00

My life has changed drastically in the past few weeks.

I recently moved all my business to Evanston and work and life are all centralized.

New location's a 20-minute walk from my place.
I can walk to the beach on my breaks.
And pass by kudzu-covered mansions.

Even scored myself a second position.
At Northwestern University.
At the Art Museum.

I know. Me neither.

It's small and part-time, but has such great potential.
Especially their cinema program.
It's all almost like starting school all over again.

Good and bad.

All the friends and acquaintances I've built up for years are gone.
Again.
My once magnetic personality doesn't appear to be attracting anyone.
At work or in town.
I'm so busy I rarely get a day off anymore.
And when I do I don't want to do anything.

And the 19-year-old I've been kinda, sorta seeing for the past few months
Dropped me to be with one of her old friends.

*chuckles*
Happy New Moon

Blackout

2009-06-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

I was meeting a friend for lunch. The weekend with Melissa was a bust. So glad that's over. Sorta been skipping out on this friend for months, so I thought I'd finally man up and chat with him. We were headed to the Yard House, patio, nice sunny Sunday. After he arrived and the waitress started paying attention (Mmmm... a tall, thready blonde with a sharp sense of humor and a cute swagger), we started in on the first of a good half-dozen pints, after only four in did we add on Jim Beam shots. This is good, I thought, as I was still murky from the weekend's hangover, a twelve pack of Amstel Light Melissa and I shared. Mostly me. The alcohol unhazed and loosened up everything. Dude and I teared through a stacked-up California roll, let the stories drip from our tongues, and sweet-talked every waitress we could (who all turned out to be lesbians; amazing how a guy can do that to a girl). I was feeling no pain and no worry. Why should I? Got a $50 in my wallet to pay the bill and 10 singles for a fresh pack of smokes. We got there at 2 and I remember checking the clock at some point and seeing we had been there for 4 hours. Dude had a basketball game to go to, but he chose to stick around. We had to step away from the patio to smoke and end up making our scene at the fire hydrant outside the movie theaters. Little Miss Thready Sharp-Tongued Blonde starts telling us that the giraffe we were hanging around actually got run over by some driver before. It's hot but it's breezy and I don't wear my hat in the shade, sorta counterintuitive I guess, but I like the way my bald head fee-

I remember waking up. It felt time to. Faint thunder rattled the pane, and I saw the clock read 4:13. Dark. Early. I'm laying face up in my bed, completely tucked in.
I am fully clothed.
My shoes are off.
I can only shift slightly but notice I'm laying on my wallet. Inside are a $10 dollar bill and an ATM receipt for $62.75 at 8:11pm.
Next to my bed is a fresh unopened pack of Camel Ultra Lights.
Inside the apartment everything that's supposed to be unplugged is.
In the bathroom my face is beet red, my jaw hurts, and I find the receipt for the cigarettes and a charge of $1.95 for Groceries from the corner gas station blocks from me, last oasis before returning home. Receipt says I was there 8:13 last night.
There's a can of energy drink on my dining room table.
I remember that there's tree pruning going on this morning on the street out front. Can't park out there, or you'll get towed. I put on a sweatshirt and head out the door. And it was locked.
And it was locked.
I step outside my building and realize I have no idea where I parked. Nor how I even got home. But the car's not where it's not supposed to be. I walk very awkwardly around and find Hermann expertly tucked behind an SUV next block over, within allowed parking signs, not needing permits, no tickets left on him.
Not a scratch of new damage either.
On my passenger side floor is a spent package of Strawberry Nilla Wafer Cakesters, pricemarked $0.99.

*shudder*

End of the Honeymoon

2009-05-28T10:35:00.000-05:00

A rumpled red construction paper cutout of a heart
Dotted with glue and dusted with sparkles
Adorned with five crayon letters:
I-L-V-Y-U
Held aloft between index and thumb nails
And with a single match
Burned in effigy

Your feet are too cold
That joke isn't funny anymore
You've had a headache for two months now
I never liked your pot roast
You used to be so much fun
Why are you staying out so late?
Don't start that again
Pick up your own dry cleaning
Mother said you were bad news
Whose hair is this?
I'm too old for this shit.

First Chakra: Work

2009-05-05T09:40:00.001-05:00

De-de-de-de... De-de-de-de... De-de-de-de...
Alarm clock.
But not the usual one.
I ignore it. My eyes open. Early sunlight seeping in hits the TV screen, stuck on the DVD menu which has been looping ad nauseaum for too many hours. A hand brushes my shoulder. I start to glance, and suddenly a bounding elephant charges from behind the couch and lumbers down the hall. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM slam! a bedroom door closes.
Christ, the kids are awake?
Sandpapery mouth, my head hits the armrest as I reach above me to turn off the travel alarm clock sitting on the endtable. Got an hour before staff arrives. Much work to do.
First thing to do is ditch the evidence. The bottle and any remnants of cork are gathered and taken out to the car; put in the trunk next to the paraphenalia ditched the night before. Then check the kids. All of them in their beds, splayed in every direction, gaping mouths drooling, snoring like buzzsaws. All except one: a neat egg-shaped mound enrobed in a perfectly turned-down comforter.
Now we clean. Everything. In essence, at least...
Laundry switched from washer to dryer. Bathrooms look okay, and they'll be cleaned three more times today. Dishes left over from last night's snack. Floors? Meh. Same goes to vacuuming.
And now the paperwork. Sleep checklists, med sheets, activity reports. Nothing out of the ordinary to report, right? No nightmares, blow-ups, emergencies? No, I would've remembered...
Set the morning meds out, too. Just to be nice.
As I'm calling in the shift report, the Overnight Sleep staff (the one paid specifically to do just that) leaves unceremoniously. And then Robin shows up, early, as usual. With her around I excuse myself to grab a quick shower.
The hangover persists as I rouse the kids up and get their day started. Some wake up with the slightest bed shake, some are so medicated it'll take two hours and a bulldozer to get them up, if at all. The egg-shaped mound takes a shake, pause, shake, and unzips seamlessly from the comforter, fully-dressed, wry smile on his face, plodding down the hall to breakfast. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom.
Big, tall, strong kid. They're bad when they blow up. But you can expect it and prepare. It's the scrawny medium-sized ones that are worst. Never know what sets them off, and they're relentless.
The AM shift is rather rigidly structured. After breakfast, hygiene, and Morning Tasks, the day students arrive. Then it's down into the basement for calisthenics. Everything the kids do is set to a point system. Waking, cleaning, going to class, good behavior, eating, participating, working with their behavior program, taking meds, pooping, not getting out of line. The more points they earn, the more freedoms they receive. And no one wants to be put on Restriction. Or sent to the Hospital for medwash.
My title is Mental Health Professional. Really I'm a babysitter/Teacher's Aide with an appropriate degree. My job, aside from observing and recording notes on half the house's residents, spans from preparing meals and meds to leading a lesson plan in American History to driving the kids to and fro wherever they're supposed to go to talking them down when they get agitated. And be a role model. Ever a role model. Because these kids are a diverse cocktail of Abnormal Psych diagnoses: Schizophrenia, Autism, Bi-polar Affective Disorder, CHARGE Syndrome. Heartbreaking histories of neglect, abuse. Plenty of sexual assault stories, and only some are victims. The remainder had the choice of prison or here. Most of the kids here are 21 and under, with a couple older ones slipping through cracks, the oldest being one year younger than I am now.
Many of them will never live independently.
A couple of them have no family, not even parents.
And all of them are Deaf.
Robin's hands fly effortlessly as she lays out the directives for the day. She's very good, a dedicated Deaf Ed graduate with her first full-time teaching job out of school. Hearing people without Deaf relatives who get involved with Deaf Culture fascinate me. I always have to ask why, and I rarely remember their answers. Her's didn't really matter, though, after you saw how much she loved her job. A short Aries brunette, but oh, so much presence. Sharp eyes, a winning smile, and a can-do attitude who saw promise in all the kids, no matter how complex. I was a dark brooding Libra, her complete opposite, so we worked well off each other that year.
Never in my life have I done so much signing. Every day at work was like living in a country where the primary language is ASL. Hearing people were, in fact, the minority in the house. Even with what I know I find myself floundering for a long time, at first getting used to rhythm and regularity after living brother-free in Iowa forever, not to mention all the new technical jargon the DSM-IV has to offer, to later figuring out how to present Algebra and Poetry lessons at moment's notice. Just the kind of issues total immersion is meant for.
After Morning Classes and breaks for Snacks and Lunch, we may go outside for games if the weather's good, or we stay inside for an activity. By that time the day students are starting to be bussed back home and the residents wind down with homework or free time while staff discusses behavior, tallies up points, and gets to the ubiquitous paperwork. Here, now, and at lunch, are probably the times when the division between Hearing and Deaf are at their most evident. Staff, mostly Hearing, band together and discuss how the kids did without them knowing. Deaf Staff are addressed to discuss vague bits and pieces, but they never get the full discussion, especially when the subject spreads off-topic. Which it does often. Sometimes, just because it can. It's inadvertent but undeniable.
The day's scheduled to end at 3:30. Subject to change at any time. Which it does. But no one got violent and had to be taken down. And paperwork might just get done on time. And replacement staff is showing up just as planned.
At this house, anyway.
The phone rings just as I hang up from my second shift report of the day.
It's the head office.
Someone didn't show up at House II.
Would anyone there care for a double?
Robin's going out to pick china patterns with her fiance.
The other staff have returned to their care facilities.
I got NOTHING better to do tonight.
And extra money sounds good with my rent-free lifestyle.
Besides, PMs are much easier.
I accept and get in my car to head on over.
The clients we care for are split up by age and level of functionality, spread out over three houses in a North Chicagoland suburban village. In these houses the kids do everything: School, Work, and Everyday Life. If they're on Restriction they never leave, needing to earn enough points just to step onto the back patio. Three undisclosed, unsuspecting cookie-cutter homes. Could've been living right next to you. In fact, if there were no registered sex offenders in the house, the neighbors needn't know a single thing. Which, I believe, is the point of the whole program.
The house I left was older kids (aged 13-21) with high-level functioning (remedial to mainstream intellect, self-regulatory, low dependence), and I was driving to the low-level functioning older kids (mental retardation/autistic, developmentally delayed, high-dependence). As I walk in the front door I am treated like a rockstar. These boys were all bussed to my house earlier today, Robin being the sole teacher for both houses. They're both confused and overjoyed at the fact I'm here right now. And Jesse breathes a sigh of relief as well. She's the other staff, the one who showed up. The boys adore her, and why shouldn't they? She's profoundly Deaf herself and quite gorgeous. Plus, unbeknownst to them, she's an actress and a lesbian. She and I did a show together last year. And she makes the most seductive throaty sounds without ever knowing it.
PM shifts are more free-form, more laissez-faire. Homework gets finished up, and the kitchen gets prepared for dinner. The houses get catered food for every meal, but the boys have a budget for groceries and usually cook for themselves. It's good for them, and the food is usually better than whatever gets sent to us. After dinner and Evening Tasks is Free Time, either video games, a movie, or activities inside, or games outside. Tonight a client from House III, where I started my day, comes over. It's Mr. Egg-Shaped Mound, wry smile and all, basketball in hand, wanting to shoot hoops in the backyard. So he and another client step out the sliding door, Boom b-boom b-boom b-boom, Jesse following along to monitor them, while I sit in the living room watching TV and starting on paperwork.
During the course of the evening things on the back patio get loud. Mr. Egg-Shape, who stands 6'3" and weighs as much as I do, is getting pissed off. He's winning, but his lower-functioning counterpart is getting away with flagrant fouls, and Jesse's not calling anything. His yells shudder the glass of the sliding doors. I get up from the couch and cross over to the threshold, open the door and stand, not blocking the entrance, hands folded by my waist in front of me, still keeping an eye on the kids watching the movie. This is non-violent crisis management in action. We get him to stop the tirade and express his feelings. Between Jesse and I, we talk him down from agitation to mature discussion. He's responding well to his behavior program, and is able to talk things out without resorting to violence. This is subtle but it is progress. In fact, relative to his case study, it's profound progress. He won't earn the maximum points for the evening, but he won't lose many. And that's good enough.
The movie's winding down, as is the scene outside. Dusk settled in nicely, stars are starting to twinkle, and the House III staff arrives to take Eggy back home. Crisis averted. Perhaps this mild flurry of late-day activity will help him sleep through the whole night. Right after he leaves another one of the residents picks up the phone receiver and places it on the TTY.
NO SORRY CAN'T USE PHONE NOW, I sign.
CALL DAD NOW
TOO-LATE
I point to a piece of paper taped on the wall near the phone.
RULES SAY USE PHONE AFTER DINNER. TOO-LATE NOW. TIME BED.
MUST CALL DAD NOW. ALWAYS CALL DAD EVERY-NIGHT.
SORRY TOO-LATE. TIME READY BED. HANG-UP-PHONE PLEASE.
And the kid loses it. In one motion he screams, slams his hand on the kitchen table, picks up a chair and heaves it, metal legs whizzing by my face, almost hitting a resident behind me and breaking a window. Then he charges me. His wiry arm and hand reaches up and smacks the shock off my face. The other clients panic and scatter, not leaving the room, shouting or cowering behind pillows. Jesse hops on the TTY, tapping out pages for backup. The kid gets a good couple shots in on me before I get my head in the game. He misses a connection and, while off-balance, I get behind him and secure both arms, take his knee out with mine so we both drop slowly to the floor on our butts, him sitting in front of me facing away like teammates in a bobsled. I wrap his arms around him like a straitjacket does, loosely but firmly, and slip my legs over his to keep them both spread apart. This move is called a basket hold. It's usually meant for younger kids small enough for one person to restrain them. His head comes up to my shoulders, so it's effective in subduing him, but he refuses to give up, ramming the back of his head into my chest. On one of his backswings I tuck my chin into my chest, using the top of my head to press against the back of his, stopping the blows. I can hear Jesse, now off the phone, hands slapping together rapidly, trying to calm him down. He can't sign back; I've got his arms pinned against him, and right now he's too tense and agitated for me to let up. After about 10 minutes of this the Night Supervisor shows up with the Nurse and one PM Staff from House III. Like a game of Improv Freeze Tag I get tapped out and everyone except Nurse take over restraints. I stand next to Nurse and he mediates a breakdown of the incident between the kid and me. It's all formulaic song-and-dance. When he's calm enough he can count out of restraints one limb at a time. Once he can sign we enter the Incident Questionnaire:
WHAT HAPPEN?
THAT FOLLOW RULES?
WHAT YOU DO?
IS APPROPRIATE?
WHAT IS APPROPRIATE?
WHAT YOU DO NEXT-TIME?
FEEL SORRY?
WANT TELL STAFF SORRY? TELL CLIENT SORRY?
Stock apologies given all around. This whole rigamarole takes two hours. Nurse tells me he'll be on Restriction here on out but doesn't tell the kid that. With his evening meds he's given his PRN for agitation. Then it's calm-down time for the house. I go out to the front lawn for a cigarette. Nurse joins me.
"Whoa, sorry about that, Kevin. That's quite a scuffle you had there. You okay?"
Yeah. I'm not bleedin'. Got a couple good shots in on me.
"Still got a hand outline on your face. Get you some ice for that."
Thanks.
"Hey, hate to do this to you, but we had a call out at House I for overnight. It's Sleep Staff, though."
Overnight Sleep Staff. $50 to crash at one of the houses as passive back-up, for worst-case scenarios. Rarely ever used in that capacity.
"You think you might...?"
I got NOTHING better to do tonight.
$50 is $50, and an easy $50 at that.
Sure. Why not?
"You're the best, Kevin. The Best."
Yeah. Thanks.
Still got paperwork to do, though.
Now more than usual.
It's well after midnight when I get out of there. House I is all young kids (ages 6-13) with assorted functionalities. There's even a girl or two living there. All of the residents were put to bed hours ago. Only Anton, the Hearing Overnight Awake Staff, is awake. He's very hip, a tall gangly soul dressed all in black, very mystic, very austere. He has no Deaf affiliation but has worked many care facilities before. He's well-read in occult subjects, something I'm quickly gaining interest in, and he has done Tarot card readings for me before at work.
"Heard you were coming. Was very pleased. Rough day, huh?"
I start to recount the evening when Anton's face pulls sharply away from me, to the stairs behind me.
No, he signs weakly, time bed. go room.
Th-thoom th-thoom th-thoom, the little feet pound the steps unknowingly, down to our level, stopping right behind me sitting on the couch. Before I can turn around to see I feel a small hand pat me on the head gently. Then immediately a leather belt whips from behind the couch around my throat and is held there, loosely but firmly, for a few long seconds. Just as danger registers in my brain the belt slowly, smoothly retracts back behind the couch, th-thoom th-thoom th-thoom from behind around the side, now facing Anton and me.
His toothy, beaming grin is one of the most adorable I've ever seen. Two foot tall, pajama bottoms with the booties sewn on, Chicago Bears T-shirt, glisten of drool round his lips, wide sparkly eyes. And that smile. This 6-year-old's so cute he could hawk Gerber Baby Food.
The leather belt lays limp in his hands like a dead snake.
The same belt wrapped around my neck just now.
His chart will make you weep.
And make you fighting mad.
"He likes you," Anton chortles to me.
I stare blankly.
go bed, Anton signs. now.
The 6-year-old chuckles like a cherub, th-thoom th-thoom th-thoom up the stairs, belt dragging behind him, all the way down the hall upstairs until he gets swallowed by the blackness of his room.
I bury my head in my hands.
"C'mon," Anton says, "let's step outside."
Two more are already on the front lawn, PM staff from Houses I and III. Anton grabs the glass pipe between them and reloads it from the stash in his pocket. It's usually weed, but Anton has been known to bring opium before. A couple rounds between the four of us, and fingers start flying wildly, as well as a general disregard for volume control; stories from today, war stories from before, general bullshit. Why should we care? No one in the house can hear, they'll sleep through the night without consequences. Out on the lawn all we need is a keg, some cups, a few other people, and it'd be just like most college house parties I've been to. An unsavory scene, yet nothing feels more familiar than this.
One more puff and the whole day catches up with me. My head feels like a throbbing brick, and my muscles are made of molten lead. I excuse myself.
"All right, brother. I'll be watching Highlander if you care to join."
Grab my overnight bag and head to the basement. It's been recently redone, and the cool cement walls feel welcoming. A rickety second-hand futon sits in the corner, my nest for the night. Don't trust the frame, so I pull off the mattress, very like an untenderized slab of chuck steak, and lay it on the bare cement floor. Travel alarm clock set for one hour before work tomorrow. I've got Mr. Egg-Shape and Mr. Restriction to look forward to come daylight.
That's the last thought going through my mind as I drift off into narcotic slumber.

Last Rites

2009-03-24T03:00:00.000-05:00

When my spirit leaves my body,

I want as much as possible to be given up for organ donation.

Then I would prefer the remainder to be given to science, to be used as a gross anatomy cadaver or for organ biopsies.

Then I should like my skeleton to hang in a pathology lab, or in a magic store, or get blown up by Mythbusters. Or any museum's BodyWorks exhibit.

Whatever is left, please cremate and spread in the River Trails Woods in Mt. Prospect, IL, or the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Gardens in Vancouver, BC, Canada, or on the Japanese Island in the Chicago Botanic Gardens, or along the Left Bank of the Iowa River in Iowa City, IA, or perhaps a touch in all four.

If you think of it, sprinkle a little bit if you're ever near la Cathedrale de Notre-Dame in Paris.

Aw hell, I'll probably end up going out like Donny.

Just don't get too much of me on The Dude's face.

First Chakra: My Room

2009-03-15T18:04:00.001-05:00

If ever you get lost, here is where you always end up.

Green.

Yellow.

Green.

Yellow.

Green.

Yellow
Green
Yellow
Green
Yellowgreenyellowgreen

The straining stirs of the remote clicking channels down the hall, sports, news, sitcoms, so quiet you can only make out the canned laughter, filter into the room like thready fog, the only light in the whole downstairs coming from the television as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling watching the walls spin around me, green, yellow, green, yellow, each wall painted a Hallmark-y pastel version of the primary:

Green: Orchard Pear
Yellow: Pale Plantain
Green: Lilypad
Yellow: Butter Creme
...and Roenick takes the puck around the net...
...fair and cloudy with a high of 45...
...what'chyoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?...

This room used to be ours, then it was hers and I moved next door and it was hers forever, then it was no one's, now it's mine again, her color scheme still attached, I haven't slept here since 2nd, 3rd grade, my stuff feels clumsy in here, had to fight with the outlets to get everything placed right, underneath the two transom-like windows which look out ground-level with our driveway sits my altar, a small bit of nothingness which I barely sit at, and then assorted appliances and lights circling the perimeter with my bed facing away from the hallway, using the wall as a headboard, both sides of the bed away from any other walls which I've never done with a bed before, floating like an island, untethered and spinning like a turd circling the drain...

Green
sweet pea
Yellow
...can be yours for 3 easy installments of $49.95...
autumn sunrise
Green
irish spring
...things you can say to your dog but not your girlfriend...
Yellow
golden shower
Green
...shot at the buzzerrrrrrraaaaand IT'S NO GOOD!...
leprechaun puke
Yellow
stale urine
...six were killed in the brutal fire. More to follow...

I am waiting, I am waiting for my father to go to sleep, waiting for him to turn off the TV and go upstairs to bed so I can sneak out to the patio and smoke a cigarette or a bowl or finish my drink or all three, usually all three, my feet hanging over the side shuffle about and hit the spent beer and wine bottles underneath me, my hand shifts under the pillow and knocks into the well-used lube and cock pump, the wallet jutting out of my back pocket with a razor blade digging into my ass, I can't get to sleep yet all I dream about is grade school and weird stories with people I haven't known in years, and her, always her, every hour, awake or not, always reviewing the events of last year, what happened, why, how could I have been different, better, perfect for her, why wasn't I perfect for her, how did it all go wrong, life was so perfect so perfect everything was going to work perfectly but it didnt why didnt it why why why cant i get it out of my head why cant she see her mistake why did i lose everything why did i end up back here why isnt she going through the same shit why do i have to do this all on my own why
...USA Up! All Night...
green biting envy
...starts tomorrow everywhere...
yellow crippling jaundice
...sponsored in part by...
green rotting carrion
...Act now!...
yellow sebaceous pus
...fair and cloudy with a--
*click*

Or maybe it's not like that.

Maybe the TV's off, been off for hours. Maybe I drifted off already, stirring out of an alpha-wave nap. Maybe I had a real busy day, worked a double-shift or hit the gym for an hour or two afterwards; couple miles on the elliptical, kicking ass on the rowing machine, some weights, abs. Maybe I kept myself to less than 5 cigarettes today and passed up the liquor store on my way home. Maybe I meditated to stave off the jonesing and fell into a trance. Maybe I sat up waiting and fell asleep of my own accord. Maybe I can drift back off with no provocation, without the thoughts, and get a natural night's sleep so I can start tomorrow with a fresh new beginning.
Maybe.
It doesn't really matter.
Since it's still now I walk out to the kitchen downstairs, find my father's hidden bourbon bottle, pour myself a healthy glass and pour water into the bottle. I tell myself I am helping him. No lights on but I don't bump into anything, a practiced swerve, as I move to the sliding glass door, unlatch it, and flow out onto the patio. Over to the seldom-used gardening hutch, open a drawer, and pluck out the half-filled bowl. And then it's me and the patio. I look out over the prairie land stretching beyond and beneath the developing subdivisions and golf courses. And I think about what it might have been once, the busy street bordering our backyard like some tributary of the Mississippi. And I'll venture onto the lawn, littered with cigarette butts like mutant snowflakes. And I lay down staring up. And I bellow and scream. Drink way too much. Recite π to 45 places, the alphabet backwards, my own poetry. Break bottles. Hurl lighters. Curse the world and everyone on it. Sometimes I go up the stairs. On the deck. It's just a short hop to the roof. And I'm on. Every inch of it. Fixing the dent in the chimney. Dancing right above my sleeping parents. Jut right against the edge like Stallone in Cliffhanger. Blearily looking out onto the crisp clearness, the night so beautiful it sucks everything in and never says a word.
But only sometimes.
Usually I just sit silently on the steps rocking. And I think. And wonder.
Why.
Her.
Why
why why
for hours.
Just like leaving Iowa.
I'm so strung out.
My circadian rhythm's gone to shit.
I'll be hungover bad tomorrow for work.
Probably still drunk.
The staff'll know.
So will the kids.

This becomes what I look forward to every day.
I'll come to base my schedule around it.

When I've had my fill outside I'll come inside the patio doors and cool down in the living room watching some TV. The only television in the house with cable is downstairs, and I used to spend childhood evenings waiting for my Dad to go to sleep so I could surf the channels after hours. I would grab the cable guide right when it came in the mail and search the movie listings in back for anything marked Brief Nudity, Nudity, or Strong Sexual Content. Then I'd stay up until 3 in the morning waiting for flashes of boobs or soft-core grinding, and exploring myself. But always wary, always anxious, thumb forever circling the Power button, ready to strike at the slightest sound of a floorboard creak upstairs. At any second Mom or Dad could come down those stairs. "Kevin, honey, is that you?" Heavy breathing, flesh on-screen, me holding parts of myself; how could I explain that? So, every time, the volume hovering over nothing, blanket strategically in place, ready to shut off at the slightest sound.
Even though I know better.
Back in high school I was playing with a candle late at night when I threw a spent match into my garbage can and set it on fire. In a panic I tried to bring water from the bathroom down the hall to put it out but it just got bigger, so I brought the garbage can to the bathroom. Smoke alarm goes off. I extinguish the flame and cut my finger snapping the 9-volt battery out of the casing. Then I shoved the can in my closet and sat, rocking, shuddering, wondering what I was going to say to my parents when they arrived. But they never did. Nor did my sister sleeping next door. Didn't mention anything the next morning, either.
Every day since, whether I'm getting blitzed under the deck, dancing on the rooftops, or touching myself in the living room, the same thought pops into mind:
Thank God they sleep like logs.

[untitled]

2009-02-14T11:25:00.001-06:00

Compulsive thoughts enter my head
Of sliver-thin silver strips
Sharpened to a point and scratched across skin
A crimson trail left in its wake and a sucking gasp
of peace released
No admission of fraility but a boast of virility
A vermillion victory stripe
A tribal tattoo of tenacity
Severed skin shows my strength

These thoughts enter
Again and again and again
And my face just ends in a grin

Theoretical thoughts put to practice
Transplanted from the danger zone to further on top
My shoulder is a tangle of scar tissue slits
Aiming every which way

Too bad I heal fast, for my fair skin turns them phantom
Too fast

The Harsh Light of Sobriety

2009-02-07T16:00:00.002-06:00

I am
atilt
a simmer
aloof
& alit

Restless in bed,

but getting more sleep,

and dreaming vividly.

eVerY LitTle thiNg BUgS mE.

SnapPInG rotTweILer iNside,
aNd out, a hOT shEet of iCe.

people do nothing but stoke my fire

Sharpness stings,

clarity kills,

avarice avails,

and mundaneness murmurs moribund

into a goo of chaotic good.

God, it's all crap

nothing sounds right
everything feels prickly
but the heavens assure me
all is as it should be

thank you?

----------------
Now playing: Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry

My Ideal Girl

2009-01-29T11:18:00.000-06:00

11/7/01
My ideal girl would be very comfortable with her natural beauty.
She would explain to me what it's like to menstrate.
She would have a beautiful tummy and wide, ample hips, and know how to enjoy a good meal.
She would love to wear long, flowing skirts, Chuck Taylor Sneakers, 1970s TV-character t-shirts and costume jewelry; sometimes in the same outfit.
11/11/01
She must like to be sung to.
She must be able to regress into a four-year-old for playtime and exploration.
She must like oral sex, show and tell me how to do it right for her, and beg me for it.
She must like hugs.
She must glance over at me with knowing eyes, speak a silent language only the two of us know.

Prologue: Year Zero II

2009-01-25T15:01:00.000-06:00

“So this is what Death feels like...”

Yesterday, July 29, 2001. Bloomingdale, IL. Stratford Square Mall. 12:06 p.m. Sitting outside the Food Court staring at children tossing pennies into the indoor fountain
This is exactly where I was when I realized what death was.
Numerologically, for me the day was a 7, indicative of its time in a nine-day cycle to get in touch with divinity and to be alone and ponderous. It was also a Sunday, sacred to Wiccans and other magickians as the day to praise Saturn, the Roman god of death. For most of the rest of America, Sunday also represents the end of the week, the day to sober up from the frivolities of the weekend and ready themselves for the work week ahead. Even God himself stopped creating life on Sunday and took time to look back over all he hath done.
Spiritually and culturally, everything was in place.
And there I sat, in the middle of a temple of suburban overdeveloped commercialism, watching snot-nosed suburban Abercrombie & Fitch kids toss shiny pennies into the timed choreographed blasts of an upward-shooting Disney-imagineer-styled indoor fountain, and the clearest thought that entered my head was,
“So this is what Death feels like...”
Seventh chakra fully open and glowing. The pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy attained.
Self-actualization.
White light. White heat.
White noise.
All else droned out.
“So this is what Death feels like...”

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm twenty-three years old. I have spent the last six years of my life living alone and independently in a college town. Iowa City. “The Athens of the Midwest.” The first four-and-a-half of those years I spend studying towards a B.A. in psychology, which I attained. I also, through that time, acquired a huge circle of diverse and close-knit friends, held a salaried position as a nursing assistant in the psychiatric ward of the University of Iowa hospital, and met my officially first and hoped-to-be-final girlfriend.
I was deliriously happy.
The latter year-and-a-half I had free time to pursue other interests. My eternal desire to be an actor. A burgeoning desire for screenwriting and film. Performing my own monologues and poetry in front of a crowd. Moving in with my girlfriend and planning to follow her to Pennsylvania for grad school once she finally got out of college.
Nothing in life could seem to be better.
Then, all of a sudden, right around October of 2000, a 7 month for me, things began to change, to die. My girlfriend and I re-evaluated our relationship and decided that at our youthful age, we could maintain our devotion to one another (under the same roof) and start to venture out to try new terrain. She was in school. I was a working stiff. She had my car, my attention, my resources, all donated to help her get through school easier. I had a 40-minute walk to work at 6:00 am most days from a basement apartment located 25 minutes walking from anywhere social in town, friends still in school whose schedules were incompatible from my erratic non-9-to-5-Monday-through-Friday work times, and a growing sense of ignorance from her. I gripped harder, she shunned stronger.
She had study sessions, alcohol and flirtations galore.
I had a basement, alcohol, and independent films to relate to.
Things didn't work out.
We eventually grew so much tension between us that we both moved out to go our own way. Both living alone. She grew closer to her cultish new friends and even developed a new love interest. I grew deeper and deeper into myself, studying Taoism, Numerology, Chakras, and dreaming of going off into the world to strike it out on my own.
Everything in Iowa City reminded me of her.
Every CD in my collection reminded me of her.
Every book I read reminded me of her.
Everything I wrote was based off my memories of her
(including this)
Somehow we still kept in touch
Albeit rather painfully at times.
Depression set in. Low-grade alcohol dependence. Increased marijuana use. Stolen barbituates from the hospital. Panic attacks. St. John's Wort, Kava Kava. A pack-and-a-half a day smoking habit. Four-and-a-half hour conversations with myself in my secluded one-room apartment. Shaven head. Meditation. Insomnia. Money spent frivilously on myself to buy happiness; New clothes, good food, pot, Daily six-packs of Milwaukee's Best. A failed relationship with an immature, guarded 19-year-old. Impotence. Mental breakdown.
I was beginning to resemble the psychotic patients I took care of.
I should have known. Numerologically her destiny number is a 7. She's a Pisces, too flighty and idealistic for a grounded Libra like me.
I broke. Hit a dead end.
Nothing to do but go back to the place that bore me.

So yesterday I sat, three days after I moved back in with my parents. Sat categorically broke, with less than $150 to my name and no independent savings. Sat in an area of the country I was so happy to leave, an area based on brand names, strip malls, SUVs, ritzy designer homes, snobby upwardly-mobile families with more money than they can deal with. Sat in this testament to consumerism watching this water fountain, this antithesis of a fireworks display. Sat without a friend to call my own save the two people who were about to beg me to move back in. Sat with my crumbled dream 240 miles away with friends I froze up too much within myself to enjoy during our last weeks together. Sat numb in a web of overlapping villages where every restaurant advertises a children's special and a senior discount daily. Sat without guidance, an art-house theater, a community acting troupe, or any kind of burgeoning bohemian underground. Sat in a land of career mobility, fluorescent lights, resumés, aggressive office mentality, softball Friday nights, corporate mentality, and automation. Sat in a target audience I was too old, too young, and too intellectual for.
Mid-twenties breakdown.
Ground zero.
“So this is what Death feels like...”

Thing is, I still love her even though I can't bear to speak to her. She will still be the death of me.

Poem: Won

2009-01-21T17:18:00.000-06:00

I am wan.

Pale-faced and shrivled, nothing left but a hole
Alone with myself, a figure of solitude
Fully encased in a thick, constrictive shell, meek as a mite
While inside my mind inflames to the strenuous strain
Grating away as I compress down low to rest

Break the flow of pain, let it wash out
My self begins to emit a change, magnified by a
mere roar
A magnificent change, a time to begin myself
Shhh-out against the pain to force a break

Wrest myself up high as I come, pressed with great
Strength stemming from my mind aflame with wise wile
Might like a mean, well-constructed truck driven in a caged fool
Too, solid, my figure alone
Whole, yet left everything shifted and facing no pale

I am one.

Compassion For Boxing Lessons

2009-01-18T21:54:00.000-06:00

Thoughts turn to vapor before their conception
Is it Zen or apathy?
I hear music, but it won't invoke anything
It stays static in the air
Won't give a spark, won't stir the coals
Just lingers in the air
As if it liquefies into water and slides off my oily mind
But even my oiled mind won't set into motion
Insert coin here
Turn the crank
Hook up the cables and give it a boost
Nothing
Quiet
Dormant
Stationary
I am aware of
Bad pop music on the jukebox
The smattering of people among the rather vacant booths
The fact that I've have half an hour before rehearsal and I've done nothing really practical today
The fifth-rate prose I've written after months of a dry spell
The day feels frivolously wasted
I'm not even daydreaming, a scary thought
Is it worth it?
Is this a much-needed rest, or am I succumbing to my Libran laziness?
I should exercise
I should try to work up an appetite today
I should make the day worthwhile somehow
I should go out and do something
But I don't feel like it.
Angsty
Desireless
Pensive about wanting to be pensive
Frustrated
I want to sleep and start the day, the year all over again
Fucking time won't allow
Unidirectional bastard
I want to do nothing and have everything completed
But it's not happening
Broken responsibilities
Casting off necessary ballast
Piece-of-shit goddamn motherfucker
Fucking with my head
Making me feel useless
Unworthy
Stupid
Like a goddamn boil on the face of humanity
Pissed-off
I want to break something
I want to smash plates on the floor and listen to every delicious crash
I want to beat the shit out of a random passerby
I want to come home bruised, bloody, scarred and satisfied
Fuck guns; What a pussy way to inflict pain
Let's tussle on the ground, pull hair, tear skin, dig in nails until blood pours out
Punch in the gut and make him deflate and melt into a puddle on the pavement
Stand over him and just cackle as I kick him in the ribs until something snaps
No remorse
Not one fucking ounce of remorse
Walk away proud, content, and ready for more with the biggest grin on my face
As if I just came into a virgin who fought back
Walk around and have people not respect but fear me
Know that I have such power over them
Never take anything back
Never worry about the consequences tomorrow
Never be scared anymore
Fuck up someone's face until their Mom doesn't even care to know him
Make it deliberate, unrepairable, permanent
And sing arias all while it's happening
I have wanted to smash a guy's nose into my knee
Drive bone into bone into brain
Leave a crimson butterfly stain on my pant leg
Not smack someone across the head but emboss my knuckles into their cheek
I'm just pissed off and frustrated
Repressed, I guess
It's been so long since I've regularly been a part of my friends' lives
Since I've been a part of someone's intimate life
Since I've been a part of her life
I miss her. A whole fucking lot
But I don't like what she's become
A selfish drunken tart with no sense of object permanence
She daily hangs off the elbow of that alcoholic asshole author
And still, for reasons only Allah knows, she floods messages on my answering machine
And like a goddamned dog, I hear the beeps and salivate
Let her mop up the floor with me
Ask for nothing in return, even plead for no remittance
Stupid-ass weak-kneed motherfucking pussy
I'm way too good
Not only for her but for most everyone else I know
I'm too good for my own good
Need to be like every other 23-year-old
Need to learn to play by the rules, even if the rules were written by the largest group of freeloading retarded monkeys
Motherfucking psychotic hedonistic meat puppets
Apparently, the true love doesn't enter life until your 30s
Any earlier and it's a mutation, an anomaly, a freak of human nature
“You haven't experienced enough to really know what true love is.”
The biggest lump of pure Grade-D bullshit I've heard
Motherfucking puritanical dribble copout
Music again
The same fucking song I heard twice over when I was in here earlier today
Ate too much too fast
Getting too tired to be rageful
Blah
Nothing
If I were a cartoon, a black scribble cloud would form over my head
Good Motherfucking Grief, Charlie Brown
I'm not happy
I haven't really been genuinely happy since things were going wonderfully with her.
I know she's happy. Weirdly happy. My fucking eye.
The girl could find happiness in a motherfucking scratch on the wall to stare at.
I wouldn't be bothered as much, but everything's happening right under my goddamn nose
I worry to death when I don't know, I beat myself up when I do know
I want to not care
I've overpaid my dues and there's no fucking rebate
Time to punch the clock and return to me
And what a mess I am
I don't understand...much, really. I like to think I do, but it all comes back in my face and I end up looking and feeling like an idiotic fool
Self-esteem shot through the basement
Happens way too often
Can't really shut it off
Listening without digestion or reaction; a fool's game
I've lost sight of how others see me
I reinvent myself every day
Consistency for shit
I need to buy a strong, steadfast personality and implant it into my spine
Right now I can be anyone at all
Right now people want someone for the moment
I don't match
I have become cumbersome to this world
Clunky and tangled, a child's scribble of impotence
Even my dick agrees
Male sensitivity isn't supposed to be inborn, it's supposed to emerge from the female in your life
She can “change” him for the better
Uh-huh
My ass.
This is who I am, and I can't hide from it.
Right now I hate the situation, but, God help me, I can't pass on just yet
I want a lot of what I haven't got
I'd gladly trade
Two pounds of sensitivity for two of aggression
A good listening ear for an everpresent libido
Compassion for boxing lessons
All who I am for a girl to want me
Fuck shit goddamn pissant cocksucking bastard
I feel
Unacceptable
Rejected
Disposable
Unnecessary
Stuffed into a shoebox and shoved on the top shelf of a guest room closet
Saved for later
I need an expiration date
Mold away, decompose and help form other, better things

Poem: Know This Is True

2009-01-14T22:48:00.001-06:00

For The Girl

When I dream I can see...

An essence of beauty, so wholly complete
So perfect in my eyes that none can compete
A modern Pygmalion, Helen of Troy
Could wish to achieve this though devious ploy
Skin smooth as chenille spun by a silkworm
Botticelli body, heavenly and firm
Hair finer than spiders' webs, softer than down
Great ocean of red locks where one prays to drown
Her eyes grey as stone; a flint with sparks afire
Her talented hands teach muses to inspire

When I dream I can see...

Her back is a magnet my hands cannot leave
A tailored embrace, fit like arms through a sleeve
The sight of her causes mens' knees to collapse
One scent and a woozy drool, heartbeats in lapse
Her smile, a porcelain glow filled with pride
But brighter much more is the light from inside
Wisdom and intelligence beyond all scope
A strong, driven, undying beacon of hope
Her quest for fulfillment is, itself, an art
A six-year-old spirit dwells within her heart

When I dream I can see...

One day not far off when we'll stand together
White lace and black suitcoat, bouquet of heather
A nervous ascent toward symbolic Oneness
A family-filled hall, tear-strained with happiness
I'll promise I'll love you through all that will come
You'll know this vow holds; already it's been done
Our hands will be bound in a gauze made of trust
We'll not be 'part through whate'er's to come of us
Then they will congratulate with wine and song
Though I can't help but know I've felt this all 'long

When I wake I can see...

It's not just a vision, my dream is alive
All that I would want is laying by my side
As if desires formed in my sleepy head
Flowed out, made a wish, crafted her in this bed
But she is reluctant, she won't hear my praise
She thinks that the world casts a cold, mocking gaze
My voice has gone hoarse in attempts to persuade
Her of her majesty: Shadows in the shade.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Please know this is true, dear: That you are divine
None less than your quality claim hearts like mine
Ere will I be true so long as you accept
The mirror's reflection, a benchmark done set
Appreciate all who you are in my eyes
Not just my beloved; a sought-after prize
Believe that you are the One, out and within
For when this light hits you, our love can begin

Monologue: The Last Word

2009-01-11T19:36:00.000-06:00

(Open on a man sitting on a bench reading a newspaper)
Heh heh heh. Get this shit. “Small-town lawyer appointed to President's National Legal Board. Attorney vows to bring sensibility to government”, (turns page) “Firefighter receives medal for valiant rescue of woman from South Side inferno.” (looks further down page) “Local Girl Wins Talent Search: Filming slated for 2012” (puts paper aside) What a waste of newsprint. (addresses audience as if passerby) Am I right? I mean , do you really wanna wake up in the morning with your cup of decaf and your Egg McMuffin and read this? Just like you woke up yesterday and read the same crap, and tomorrow you'll wake up and find the exact same paper on your doorstep. 'Course not, man, you expect something better. You read the paper 'cause it's the daily diary of history and you don't wanna read all about how she's always got a crush on this guy in biology class, do ya? NO, you wanna read about how she got to second base in the back of her Dad's Cadillac. You wanna read about how she's terrified of askin' her father for a ride to the abortion clinic, huh? You wanna skip that basket of bread and butter and go right for the veal scallopini. Am I right? 'Course I'm right, you know that.
(holds up paper)
Now these people, they're the crush. They think they're making a difference, but they're nothing but a drop of water in the bucket of history. Just like a high school crush. You know what a crush is, don't you? It's a whole lot of time and energy and nervous posturing that results in a brush of hands in the hallway of life. Just like these people. They're nothing. (opens up paper again) Look at these stories. The lawyer out to shake the system. Great, another blood-sucking shyster with “good” intentions goes out to take on Big Brother. You know what they say about good intentions, right? He's gonna end up a patch of asphalt on Highway 666. Ans how many of the government know-it-alls started out the same way as Mr. Smith here? All of 'em, every single last one of them. Once he gets a taste of the power and knows how the game is played, he's gonna take off the sheepskin, too. A recipe for disaster, that's what you got on the front page of your morning news. What a way to start your day. You deserve something better.
(turns page)
Here's that fireman. Hey, you ever get a medal for just doin' your job? 'Course not. You slave away 40 hours a week doin' what's expected of you. (points and talks directly to people in audience) When's the last time you got a certificate for landing that million-dollar deal? Does the mayor come to your house and shake your hand 'cause you did that oil change on Mrs. Jones' car? Or how about a simple thank you for bringing out that guy's coffee hot with two creams like he asked? Nope. Doesn't happen. Am I right? Now, what's a fireman do? He fights fires and saves people, right? Guy does something in his line of work that's right for once and now we gotta stop the city and hold a ticker-tape parade just 'cause he didn't screw up? Is that justice? But you're gonna say, “Oh, but he saved a life. That's important!” Lemme bring something else to mind: What if that lady he saved is a crackwhore and her freebasing started the whole blaze in the first place? Great, now we got a guy not screwing up at work and all he does is keep a drug addict and arsonist back on the street ready to torch another building. And what does the city do? They pat him on the back, give him a hunk of gold, and tell him to do it all over again. It's not right and it's not fair. Not fair to you, am I right?
(looks back at paper)
Oh, the talent search. Don't get me started on this one. Hollywood is such a cesspool nowadays. All TV and movies do anymore is turn kids' minds to goo and make them beat up their best friend. Do we really gotta exploit more chances to raise brain-dead children who kill each other? It's mindless prattle begetting mindless prattle. “Oh, but she worked so hard to fulfill her dream! That's important!” Yeah, she worked real hard. She probably spent lots of time running in place in her room in front of the mirror, eating only a salad a week just to get that “perfect look”. She probably spent lots of her Daddy's money getting cheek lifts and tummy tucks and a boob job just to get that “perfect look”. Any of us got that “perfect look”? 'Course not. We don't got the time or money. We accept our overgrown stomachs, our flabby arms, our imperfect nose. And what do they do with her? They congratulate her self-inflicted torture and frivilous waste of money with a pedestal to present us with another idiotic example of values we cannot attain. She's not changing history. She's killing herself and telling our kids to kill each other. Should we stick her right in the middle of our Monday morning seach for the meaning of life? Please. Now she's becoming a waste of your time and your money. (puts paper aside)
Now I want you all to stop me if I'm not making a lick of sense, but are these the people you want going out to change the world? 'Course not, 'cause they're the wrong people. You know what their problem is? They're delusional people with too much going for them and they haven't a clue how to deal with it. They're the “lucky” ones, born with a high IQ, money to burn, an exciting life, great hair, perfect teeth, so-called talent. They're elitist scum and they think they got what it takes to tell us what to do. Friends, I've read history and I know the ones who actually make a difference are the ones who start off with nothing and then learn the secrets which they share with everyone. That's were true history comes from: Average people who rise up and speak the truth. Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, Rush Limbaugh. Average everyday people. Like us. (points to audience) Like you. Like you. Like me. I got nothing. I'm an ugly son-of-a-bitch with no job, no money, no home, no girl, nothing. But I've been learning. I'm at the library readin' and studin' every day, and I know the truth. And I look around me and all I see are lies, dirty stinking greasy-palmed lies. Am I right? 'Course I'm right. And I'm sick of it. Somebody's got to do something to save the world from the monotonous parade of dangerous deception, and it's up to us, us regular people, to stand up and do something about it. We gotta turn the tide of history.
That's why I'm here today. I'm sittin' on this platform, waiting for the 5:15 because my destiny, our destiny awaits on that train. Today is the beginning of a new era of history, and we're all at the ground zero of a new way of life. No more will we be spoon-fed the lies of society for the sake of conformity. Today our minds will be open to the truth, and everyone will understand our crusade and the news everywhere will ring of a new way of thinking, a new way of life: How things should be. And it's all gonna happen on this train. With us. With you. With me. (pulls out pistol) With this. 'Cause you know what the biggest problem in this world is, huh? Overpopulation, am I right? We got 6 billion people squeezed on this tiny planet and there's so much crap going on. People are starving, everyone's fighting wars, there's not enough food, the rich bastards hoard all the money, the oxygen's getting polluted by too many cars, you can't walk down the street without being mugged or attacked, babies can't dream of becoming President. Our world is becoming hell. And who are the people in the driver's seat? (holds up paper) These crazy pompous asses! They think just 'cause they're so damn special they can write the rules for the rest of us. Today no more. Today we cast off the unnecessary flotsam. Today we thin the herd of the sickly and unjust. Today we make the world a better place. Everyone gets a piece of the pie. Everyone gets their moment to shine. The rules will be rewritten for us by us. We are the future. The future is now.
(looks off Stage Right) Right on time. (puts gun back into pocket) I'm so excited I could burst. Finally we reclaim our birthright. And it all starts with me. (walks forward as if boarding train, but pauses, addresses crowd) See you on the other side.
(holds onto pole on subway train. A couple beats, then he pulls out the gun and holds it barrel pointing to the ceiling)
All right, everyone! Today we're gonna give the world something to read about!
(Gunshots sound)

End.

Prologue: Year Zero

2009-01-09T11:06:00.002-06:00

Early October 2000

It was autumn. Shortly after my birthday. Kid A by Radiohead was released just the week before, and a ton of us stood outside Record Collector during the Midnight Sale like a bunch of slackjawed fanboys, a delightful little gift to myself. The Ped Mall downtown was usually a bustle of activity: Students rushing to classes or drunkenly shuffling around aimlessly, townies shopping locally from pushcart vendors, and the occasional vagrant playing music for pocket change. Any time of day, round the clock. But this was 5 in the evening. Dinner time. For a good hour and a half, the wide expanse of brick-paved walkways and gazebos line with newly-renovated benches gave way to a Brigadoon-like period of stasis. AdSheets rolling around like tumbleweeds. None but a straggler walking to and fro amongst the fallen leaves.

The Tobacco Bowl was almost as empty as outside. I was inside, sitting, tending to my projects. Since graduation I wanted to get back to my creative roots, and I was spending my time constructing at first a screenplay and then a series of monologues about the price of fame. My girlfriend, The Girl, walks in and gives me a clipping about a new release in books. It's a history of the Second City, stories and interviews from the people who gave it life and made it big. Complete with a 2-disc set of classic routines culled from live recordings. She asked me what I thought of it.
I loved improv. I practiced on my own and even tried to break into a local improv troupe. But I wasn't in a good mood. Especially with her. We had started to drift apart. She was still in school, I was a graduated working stiff. Her life is lively, mine is mundane. I never saw her at home anymore. I didn't like the guy she was hanging out with, a long-haired hard-drinking intellectual English major who captivated her just a little too much too easily.
I said the book was alright. Nice idea, but I don't know how much of a market there is for it. I wouldn't spend money on it.
She looked hurt. I didn't really care. I went back to my monologues. She disappeared. A few minutes later she came back in, left a plastic bag on the table, and walked out. Inside was a brand-new copy of the Second City book from the article. And the receipt.

I knew it wasn't going to end well.

----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Everything in Its Right Place

Monologue: A Cup Of Coffee

2009-01-03T22:30:00.000-06:00

Honey! Honey! Quick, turn on the news!
(grabs a chair and sits down)
Have you heard yet? Oh, it was amazing!... Shh! Quiet, quiet! Here it is! (stares at imaginary television) There! There's me! See me?... There's the kid. Yeah! No, it's true. It's all true. It was amazing, it all happened so fast. I wasn't even thinking. It was like a reaction, like an instinct, y'know? I just... did it. Oh honey, sit down, I gotta tell ya all about it! (adjusts chair to be more conversational with wife)
So, I'm workin' at the site, right? And you know we're putting up that new hotel, that 900- room deal right next to the stadium downtown. And this camera crew from Channel 4 Neighborhood News comes by this morning and they're filmin' the site, 'cause this hotel's gonna be, like, the hugest in the state or something. It's big. So they're settin' up all their stuff and there's lights and camera and wires everywhere and I'm on the ground mixing concrete, and I can't do my job good 'cause every time I stir, my ass bumps into this huge ('scuse my French) lamp the set up right behind me. And those suckers get hot! Jeez! I think I gotta hole back there, you may gotta fix.
But anyway, so I'm tryin' to work and this crew's comin' 'round askin' the guys on the site what they think the hotel's gonna mean to the community. I'm tryin' to work without burnin' my ass and this broad in a suit and this guy with a camera for a head come up to me and she shoves a microphone in my face and she says, “Do you think this hotel's a good thing for the city?” And you know me, honey, I ain't the most eloquent speaker in the world, so I clam up 'cause I don't know what to say and I don't wanna sound stupid or nothin', but I gotta say somethin', so I just open my mouth and I say, “Yeah, It's a good thing. Keeps me workin', keeps my kids fed, keeps my wife in fancy clothes, and maybe more people'll come see the Blackcats play some roundball.” Yeah, sounded pretty good to me, too. The broad liked it, too. So, we got done, they thanked me, and they moved on to the next guy.
So they get done interviewin' a bunch of the guys and they give us a huge thank you and start packin' up their stuff. And it's about 10 now and I haven't had a cup of coffee all mornin', and I'm gettin' dog-tired. So I tells Jack to make sure the cement don't set and I head off to the cart to get some coffee. And this is where it all happens, honey. Ya better sit down 'cause here it comes.
Okay, so I'm going to the cart for some coffee and you know that cart's right by Shepard Street, and you know how busy that street gets. So I'm walkin' to the cart, and I see this little kid, gotta be only about four or five, playin' with a ball by the curb all by hisself. And I'm thinkin' to myself that's crazy. Who in their right mind would leave a kid alone all by hisself near a busy street like that? So I'm walkin' to the cart and I'm keepin' an eye out for the parents, y'know, maybe they're nearby and I can tell 'em where their kid's at, 'cause I don't wanna see the kid get hurt or nothin'. But, I don't see no one nowhere and I'm lookin' everywhere. And then it happens. I still can't believe it, it's like a movie goin' slow-motion over and over in my head, I can't stop it. You sittin', honey? Awright.
The ball bounces on the curb and goes into the street, and the kid just goes into the street after it, don't look both ways or nothin'. Just goes right into the street. And the light's changin, and the cars are startin' to tear down the street, right at this little kid. And... I don't know. I just reacted, like an instinct, like I said before. I ran after the kid. Just dropped everything and ran. I ran down to the street, into the street, grabbed the kid by the arm, and pulled him outta the way just as this Chevy Nova was gonna plow into him. Guy didn't even see the kid. If I wasn't 'round, kid would've been roadkill. And all I was thin' to myself was, y'know, what if that kid was my kid, huh? I mean, I don't want that to happen to anyone's kid, but what if that kid was mine? And I just ran after him, on instinct, y'know?
(Beat)
Lemme tell ya, I didn't need no coffee no more. I was so wired I could run a marathon. Kid was fine, though. He didn't even know what was goin' on. I asked if he was okay, and all he could do was stare at the street, lookin' for the ball. But he was fine. And, all of a sudden the broad with the suit runs over to us and asks if we're okay. I couldn't say nothin', but I nodded, and she says they got the whole thing on tape and they wanna do a story on it, right there, right now. Serious, honey, they wanted to do a whole news story on me and the kid. So Camerahead comes back and they test their equipment and whatever and then this broad's just asking questions and stickin' that microphone in my face. And I couldn't unnerstan' a thing she was sayin', the whole thing's playin' over in my head, so when the mic comes, I'm just like, “Uh huh... mm hmmm... “, and like that, y'know? So she asks a bunch questions and we get done, and the broad thanks me and calls me a hero. I said getouttahere, but she said no, that I'm a real hero. I ain't no hero, the kid was just lucky. But she asks my number and tell me they want me to come on their morning show later this week. Y'know, that Four in the Morning? They wanna talk to me on live TV. Can you believe that? And everyone watches that show. I'm gonna be a celebrity. Then she gives me her card, tells me to watch the six o'clock news, tells me to keep in touch, and then they take off...
Yeah, I'm gonna do the show. I gotta take a day offa work, but I'm gonna do it. An opportunity to be on TV don't just fall in your lap. And we gotta tell everyone to watch, tell 'em I'm gonna be on TV. I'm gonna be famous!
The kid? No, the kid's fine. No one could find his parents or nothin', but the police came by and they took the kid and said they were gonna help him, so he's gonna be alright.
Oh, I gotta tell you what happened next. This is great! So the crew's gone and everything died down and I'm just standin' there dazed 'cause all this stuff just happened, and I just start wanderin' over by the cart, 'cause that's the last thing I was doin' before the kid and everything, and the guy at the cart says he saw the whole thing and he gives me a hot dog with everything and a Coke for free. So I gotta free lunch outta this. And another guy standin' at the cart says he saw the whole thing, too, and he gives me a card and says I can have free dry cleaning for life, whenever I want. So I'm already doin' the celebrity thing now. And all the guys at the site were congratulatin' me and pattin' me on the back, tellin' me what a good job I did, and they all pitched in, and I didn't have to do no more heavy liftin' for the rest of the day. So, yeah, it's been a real amazin' day. Yeah.
Thank you, honey. I'm proud of me, too, but I was just doin' what anyone would've done in that situation. I just didn't wanna see the kid get hurt.
(knock at the door) 'Scuse me, honey. (walks over to door and opens it) Johnny! Hey, man, how ya doin'? You see that? Jesus, it's been an excitin' day. I gotta tell ya all about it.
(End.)

New Moon

2008-12-27T17:50:00.000-06:00

Today is the last New Moon of 2008.
The last New Moon of the last seven years.
The last chance to start a lunar cycle before the New Year.

And this timely stretch of warm weather makes opportunities seem infinite.

So, a wish...

May the mistakes of the past propel the success of the future.

And, a few predictions...

Within this coming year:
- I will start a new career path that I will stick with for awhile
- I will have at least one piece of mine featured in a professional publication
- I will move into a spacious new dwelling but stay within Evanston
- I will be in the company of friends I haven't known in forever
- I will be with a woman who makes me happy

Finally, a request...

May 2009 find you hungrily fighting for that which you truly want, a crusade for your heart's desire.

Om Namaha Shivaya
Om Mani Padme Hung

Salutations to that which you are capable of being.
The jewel is in the lotus

Thank you for still reading
We will see each other soon

----------------
Now playing: Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction

What Do You Want?

2008-12-04T11:25:00.000-06:00

Been wanting to ask this all year.

I do my thing, you sit quietly and lurk. Rarely do you say anything, unless provoked. Sometimes I am very deliberate, sometimes not. Either way, you stay silent. But you keep coming back.

So what is it?
What works?
What doesn't?
Is it spellbinding?
Or a train wreck?
Am I an attention whore?
Or do I make sense?
What would you like from me?
What can I do for you?

I like to think doing this is the best way I can express myself, and
I'd appreciate getting to know you better.

I will tell you what I want:

I want someone to champion me.

Sketchpad Afterword: Caveat

2008-11-16T16:53:00.001-06:00

This is written for those who should read it.

What I have put down for the past seven years of my life thus far is nowhere near a finished product. Many great stories, not even hinted at, were skipped over for the sake of time and progress. Emotion was the main engine that drove the memories and the writing, which made things exciting if not incredibly inconsistent. I write with an audience in mind. I always have, even when I started my first diary 20 years ago. I always figured that if I left this incredibly personal book somewhere (which I have) and some random passerby picked it up and read it (which they have), they should at least have some good, entertaining writing to muse about, something I myself would like to look through. Books like Go Ask Alice by Anonymous and The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, Naked by David Sedaris and Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk, were very influential to me, books that were captivating, unflinching, and true. And spoken from the author's own voice. If they weren't afraid to live life iconoclastically and tell about it, why can't we?

That being said, it feels very natural to have a blog. Being as unfettered with my language as I am and as comfortable with sharing as I can be, the ability to post my life on such a public bulletin board is too enticing an opportunity to pass up. But, blogs ain't diaries. They can act as such, with similar security devices and the free reign to explore anything, but not the way I use them. This isn't just some forgotten book left in a routinely visited area. Nor is it a highly lauded tome one can easily pass by at the book store or library. This is an open forum held aloft for the world to view, and I have done little to keep myself inaccessible on the Internet. I am hardly the most happening dude on the block, but I do know how to turn a dull, flat idea into something more legendary. And I am rarely the only person involved in the stories I write, and oftimes not the one most affected. I have gone through great pains and put much time and effort into ensuring that what I write is as honest and as all-encompassing as I can remember. Even so, that don't make it the truth. I am reminded of a great, wise bumper sticker which read, "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one, and they all stink." I am also reminded of the small amount of vastly silent yet strongly supportive readers who do stop by, some of whom the stories do affect, and the few of those who let me know how much (which they do).

This seven-year experiment is completed. As proud as I am of sticking with the whole damn thing, it's left me this challenge of making sense of what it was I just went through. Might be better off figuring out which chicken spawned the first egg, or vice versa. Still, it's rewarding to write about and it's a better use of my time than any number of bad habits I could easily fall into. I still have all my journals, even the ones from before the experiment, even the one from 20 years ago. But I rarely open any of them, including the seven dayplanners covered with copiously scribbled notes. Maybe for fact-checking purposes, but never for reminiscing. I find there's little need. All of it still resides inside me right here right now, every day there's some stimulus that will spark off a flurry of memories and emotions, unearthed and hurtling from left field, tinting the colors of the world I pass through. They can't be stopped or changed; they can only be helped along their path. The past cannot be relived, the future has yet to be experienced. All we have is Now. Now is one of the most real things you have, for it never leaves you. But Now never stays the same. Today's Now feels so different from last year's Now, from yesterday's Now. And next year's Now, tomorrow's Now, next moment's Now relies on what you do with right now's Now.
And it is this Now through which I filter my stories.
They will morph and flex through every tinkering, and eventually will be hastily abandoned into something considered, "finished." May take months, may take years. And everything I've done and have yet to do will continue to bend and mold them into shape. Such is the process I've bequeathed to myself. So, as you scroll through these words and find something familiar, something askew, something bald-faced wrong, know one thing:
This Now is not the final Now.

Thank you for reading.
I hope you understand a little better.

And now, on to the rewrites...

Seventh Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-11-09T17:02:00.003-06:00

XD

I can't help but laugh.

Or cry.

Opposite sides of the same coin, aren't they?

Last year I got a fortune cookie fortune: "A good laugh and a good cry both clear the mind."

Amen to that.

2008. 2 and 8, the numbers of relationships and godhead, respectfully. 2 + 8 = a perfect 10. Or you can revert it back to a 1, the very beginning. 10 - 7 chakras = 3, the magic number. 2 is also the cube root of 8, bringing up another 3. 8 - 2 = 6, the number of foresight. 8 / 2 = 4, the number of love. And 8 x 2 = 16; subtract the 1 from the 6 and get the experimental 5, or add them and it leads us back to the divine 7.
If you look hard enough, you can find that everything connects to everything.

I surrendered.
I submitted.
The whole year.
Everything I knew was a riddle which answered itself.
So I let it be.
I stopped trying.
I dropped everything.
Writing, reading, acting, loving, working, doing, meditating, caring, voting.
You name it.
I didn't do it.
A leaf on the wind, I was.
God created the Earth in six days
And rested on the Seventh,
Right?
This year was my Sunday, 52 weeks of holiday.
Ooh, I was full of myself this year.
So monarch-like.
I found an archetype I fit quite well:
I am the Absent Companion, I am The One Who Got Away
I am Something You Can Never Have
I enjoyed my own company.
More than the company of others.
And I pissed everyone off.
I didn't talk.
I never responded.
I spoke bitterly about them.
And I wrecked rooms.
To the last teacup.
And sometimes, I really meant it.
You can't completely blame me.
You helped me do it.
All your praise, your love, your attention, your returned visits and multiple texts, your long periods of silence, your thinly-veiled coded messages, your showy displays of aggression, your imitation of me, your deliberate absence, your Google searches, your obvious lies.
Your letting me get away with all this shit.
It's like Heisenberg.
Except just a simple thought in my direction altered my power.
If anything went wrong this year,
You're vested in for at least half.
Don't forget that.

Last year I had one night which made my whole entire year. The Girl, the one I divorced, she met someone else throughout all this, became engaged, and got married. Had been trying for a while to regain contact, drop the hatchet, and just be her friend again. Across The Universe allowed for that. The movie is totally her, and we set up an evening to see it together. To be there in that theater, watching this ultracool film, eating a box of Pocky, sitting next to the person who sent me on this 7-year road, not an adversary but an equal, well, my Third and Fourth chakras were twinkling that night. This year, 'twas all Hallowe'en. After years of trying and failing, I finally hit a live screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. A dozen friends from work and wherever tore up the Music Box Theater with hundreds of others, toilet paper streaming everywhere, screaming "Asshole!" and "Slut!" a million times, paper plates whizzing by your ears, a mostly-all-female cast re-enacting everything on stage, and I kissed my virginity away and got the certificate to prove it.
If you haven't ever, do. 33 years of tradition put into this, and the story of your night will make jaws hit the floor.

You all now know about Melissa. The Deaf Girl. Such a supernova. Yesterday she was here, now, who knows? And I was the one who let go. Why? Why do I let such an amazing person slip through my fingers? Was it the story she told me? Not at all. Is it the fact that I'm a complete idiot? I won't deny that.
Then what? What is your eminent reason, Kevin?
Here's an epilogue for you.
We hung out one more time after she told me her story. She was cute, plain and demure, a green dress and comfortable shoes. I was grungy and unkempt. We spent the evening playing card games: Go Fish, Crazy Eights. Two grown adults caught up in children's games, getting stuck in simple gambits, knowing each other's complete hand. It was so ludicrous we couldn't stop laughing. She said she wanted to keep hanging out like this. That she wanted me to be her friend, that friends last longer. And those words hit like a landmine. I fell in love with her. Right from the start. And I bit my tongue for months trying to get to know her first. And for all that, the best I can hope to achieve is to be her friend. Hell no. It's a trap. It's not enough for me. I'd rather she hated me than I stall out at being a friend.
Hence, the stories I wrote.
Which I know she's read.
Multiple times.
And I know she's nearing completion of her second book of poetry.
And that she's going to Hawaii next year
As an Eco-Tour guide
On a cruise composed primarily of Deaf staff and vacationers.
Any way you slice that...
Still the coolest thing on two legs.

Gotta finish up the story about Tchotchke. Although there's not much left to say. Last time she directly communicated with me was an e-mail from early May last year, where she promised to send an update but never followed up. She did do well, however, to ignore my attempts to say hi. Then there was the errant text message on New Year's Day this year that might've been her, but also might've been some random 773 number. And then, nothing. Except, maybe, the occasional second-hand rumor. Word on the street is, she's gone back to church and met a new guy with a familiar moniker, gotten engaged, and, according to a recent Mary Schmich article in the Chicago Tribune, just recently tied the knot. All in less time than our whole relationship together.
Got a hell of a track record, don't I?
Ladies, take note: Dating me will only greatly improve your life in the aftermath of our break-up.
Congratulations, Tchotchke. Best of luck.
Have you been pooping?

I was loudly celibate this year. Perhaps too much so. Nothing was happening no matter how hard I tried, so I gave in to it. Makes everything pretty easy, I'll tell you. When I go to a party, I know exactly how the evening will end up. Less pressure, less worry, I can just sit back and be myself. Sure, there's frustration, but that's why I write. And smoke up so often. Problem is, it gets to be too easy. Just when you think no one's interested, people start slamming you over the head with signals. But, since I'm not on the market, I miss every offer. And the confusion between me and everyone reached epic proportions. In hindsight, I tossed aside gorgeous women from all walks of life, and more than a handful of men. And, honestly, I'm the worst person at reading sexual signals. I tried to explain it to an acquaintance of mine thusly: Imagine horniness as a starving predator stalking some meek, innocent prey. The prey is cornered, helpless, and the predator slashes with its claw, rendering the prey stunned but alive, an easy target. Staring at the trembling prey, drool pouring from its mouth, the predator suddenly finds itself motionless, paralyzed. A quandry hits its head: Do I feed on the prey and satisfy my desire, or do I nurse this poor creature, whom I hurt, back to health? Both of them forever standing there, never moving, neither one able to make a decision either way.
And I lasted two years thinking like this.
Sort of.
Not quite.
One brief pass at dinner Monday night, a grand mal epiphany on Election Day, and I'm afraid I'm not as innocent as I loudly proclaimed.

Children of a Lesser God was the pinnacle of my acting career to date. If you didn't see it, it's really a shame. Rarely was I off-stage, and since I was the lead and the main translator for the audience, I had to memorize both my lines and the lead actress' lines, which is easily a good 3/4 of the script. In two languages. A DVD of the show exists somewhere, but I haven't seen it. In fact, I'm one of the few people involved with the production who never saw my performance. I have no personal basis on how my performance was, except for how I was feeling the time of the show. The rehearsal almost literally tore me apart. Working full-time and exploring the depths of a character whose interactions with the Deaf are so antiquated it makes my brain hurt, the whole preparation process ate at me for the way I behave with my brothers. I really began to hate myself hard-core. And the cast knew it. I couldn't hide in that theater. Because it was my second show there that season, and because I had worked with many of the Deaf actors before, I felt the whole room change as soon as I walked into it. If I was light and bouncy, everyone could have a good time. If I was tired and bitchy, no one would be able to relax. After that I was called back in by Chicago Overcoat to shoot some 2nd unit scenes. Nothing special, dressed up as Policeman #3, but I got to drive a cop car in a couple scenes. Talked my way into a chorus role in The Full Monty at the same Oak Park theater, but with Jennifer and her family coming back home from Texas, I opted out to play uncle and godfather. Nothing else was lined up, and I was surrendering to the whim of whatever, so I pretty much remain retired from show business. No performances, no auditions, no desire. In search of something new for myself this summer, I discovered a guitar in the basement of our condo. Brian had bought one years ago to teach himself to play by vibration, and there it sat collecting dust. After getting hooked on Guitar Hero at a friend's house and no game console of my own to practice on, I asked him if I could tinker around on it. Nine years of violin and an ear for music got me up and running pretty quick, and with the help of some piano books from yesteryear, I learned a couple songs from REM's Automatic for the People. Played everywhere: Held impromptu concerts outside of work during my lunch break, or I'd just pull up for a couple hours on my day off. Got about a dozen chords down and a good handful of recognizable tunes. Didn't bring any of it to my Open Mic Night this past May, though. 'Twas all my writing, with a couple other featured performers, to a relatively empty room. Still, I had to know it could be done. Since then, it's all been writing. This chakra project, plus some spur-of-the-moment pieces scattered here and there. People may look at their favorite novel and think it must flow so easily out of the author, that the book practically writes itself. But, if you've ever written a paper for school you know how agonizing and time-consuming it can be to put out even a simple 5-page thesis. Every spare moment I'm not working or cleaning or sleeping, I have to devote to writing. Right now I'm at one of my weekend jobs writing this in-between handling customers. If I don't, nothing will come of this. And this thing I got coming out of me may be just the thing that saves me. So, for that alone, it takes precedent above all other forms of leisure time.

The biggest problem with Self-Actualization is that it's lonely at the top. Anything, everything you see before you has just given up its secrets and lays there like a road map, a nursery rhyme, a bowl of after-dinner mints. One step short of omnipotence, it is. Problem is, the view you have is strictly a singularity. To you it is crystal clear, but all others see is a pitch dark blackness, an enigma sucking all meaning into complete nothingness. It's easier to explain string theory than it is to tell people the truth of what's going on. And even when it's laid out so even a 4-year old can digest it, there's no guarantee anyone will believe it. This is the strange nexus where faith and belief intertwine. One must believe in one's self that what they know is right, and one must have faith that other people will accept and fall into line. Until then, the burden lies completely with one's self, sitting tight all solipsistic, hoping that illumination will finally spread out. And really, it's very funny the place you find yourself when that light hits you. Strange loop hierarchies, fractal patterns in the course of life, a snake eating its own tail, all of it converging into a superdense point and erupting in a flash of belly laughter. After changing careers from Psychology to Theater to Coffee to Fashion Retail and back, I find myself working two customer service jobs well below my education, working too damn hard and earning a fraction of previous salaries, the lion's share of which goes straight to bills and loans. People look at me and, if they don't know me, see a struggling student still wet behind the ears, and if they do know me, they shake their heads day after day wondering what the hell I'm doing still slinging coffee when they know I can do more. After years of working so hard to get out of the shadow of my parents' home and searching for my own voice, starting in a basement apartment in Iowa and going to my parent's basement, a Canadian hostel, a West End Vancouver tenement, a hip Chicago apartment, and a suburban golf course condo, I find myself back at the start. I recently moved to Evanston, a city which speaks to me whenever I went to visit. I live in a garden apartment oddly reminiscent of the basement of Buck and Nettie's in Goosetown, that unknown neighborhood in Iowa City, that basement where The Girl and I divorced so many years ago. It's bomb shelter-riffic, sorta like camping indoors all year round. But it all works. And it's all mine. And it's the perfect place to sit and plot out the next couple years of my life. Because, if there's one lesson I learned time and time again throughout this whole journey, it's how to rebuild myself into something stronger when the world around me has crumbled away.

But where to go from here... Seven is the number of chakras in the subtle body, located within the Being itself. Some texts speak of an eighth chakra hovering about a foot above the top of the crown, the first connection with the Spiritual Other, the godhead. Others speak of dividing the body into 12 or 16 chakras, each having specific vibrations of their own. Then there's the aforementioned mystical MerKaBa, which describes six chakras located around outside the body and can actually initiate out-of-body experiences or time travel. Does the story end here and now, or will year 8 and 9 bring upon necessary changes?

Well, we can't answer that now, can we? ;)

The seventh chakra is purple, regal, and sits at the crown of the head, that flat part at the back of your skull where the hair spirals out. It controls death, regeneration, release, transformation, self-actualization. Its energy can be controlled by Fluoride, Quartz, Diamond. Once the go pieces saturate the board, there can only be one outcome between Being and Every Other Being. The game is over, each being learning new things about themselves and the other. The only thing left to do is to shake hands in good sportsmanship and clean up. Being and Every Other Being will meet again, their lives marked by this initial encounter, and strategies will be different, communication will alter, emotions will flux, the self will reflect change, desire will wax and wane, and competition will start anew. In the meantime, enjoy the cleanup and aftermath. Have yourself a nice dinner, drink an expensive bottle of wine, share in some excellent stories, and take the rest of the week off. After all you've gone through, you deserve it. Celebrate the journey, learn your mistakes, and rest up. Because, sooner then you'll ever know, the game starts all over again. And no matter how much you think you know, you know nothing of what's next.

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Now playing: Pearl Jam - Life Wasted

Sixth Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-10-25T17:12:00.000-05:00

2007 was, perhaps, the most closely documented year online and, in my opinion, my most successful year of the group. After the crap ending of last year a lot of my priorities changed concerning my future. Acting was pretty much out of the picture. I was dealing with the separation from Tchotchke and attempted to get myself out of corporate coffee and into a career more suited to my abilities and education. Talked to anyone and everyone about getting a better job. Searched heavily in the healthcare field, as is where most of my professional experience lies, but no one was biting. Almost scored a position at Highland Park Hospital, almost. Didn't matter, though, 'cause HP came calling later when a chance encounter and an overheard conversation led me to becoming Executive Assistant to the Store Manager of the Highland Park Saks Fifth Avenue. Felt really remorseful about losing Tchotchke and very bolstered by the new position, so much so that I made an impassionate plea to get her back and was shut out. This led to a snot-nosed teary-eyed semi-breakdown in my kitchen while trying to cook a grilled cheese sandwich. Couldn't go through another break-up like I did the last one, with years of self destruction and pain, so, for a rare moment in my life, I sought out help and started up therapy. Once a week I'd meet with this social worker, suit jacket slumped on the sofa, and cry in my tie for an hour talking about how much I missed her and what I thought she thought of me. And it helped. For a little. Since I'd been through this before, I was making great progress, if only for the fact that I had someone else to listen to me bitch and moan. But I was writing, too, and that was getting the demons out as well. And then everyone was reading it, not just Little Miss Social Worker. So our hour got longer and the stories got less about Tchotchke and more about me. And I'm shelling out money for this? Decided writing was more fruitful and less costly, so I ended it.

Didn't end Corporate Coffee, though. Was kicking my ass seven days a week, Saks Monday through Friday, Coffee Saturday and Sunday. The "weekend" was from 5pm Friday night, when I ended Saks, to 2pm Saturday afternoon, when Coffee started. Coffee actually became a joy. It was automatic and the only stage I had, so I played with it as much as I could. Ooh, and I hated Mondays. Closed Sunday night and Monday was nothing but payroll. The cosmetic ladies and sales associates knew to keep their distance and speak cautiously. Y'know, I've had some experience doing clerical work, but I had little idea what I was doing in that clothing store. And even less interest in doing so. But I made it look damn good. And I must've been doing something right, 'cause they invested a lot in me. Even allowed me to make a business trip. It's a very sexy feeling, stepping out of a limo at the airport, a well-dressed professional young man, bag of high-fashion merchandise, reading an oft-talked-about modern classic of American fiction, waiting for the flight to Chicago.
You would think.
Couldn't close a deal to save my life, so to speak. Went on many dates, but they remained dates. I didn't... I couldn't. And I don't know why. Well, I sorta know why. I just left Tchotchke, a relationship unbalanced. I'm totally not ready to give balance to another relationship, and I don't want to put anyone else through the pain of a breakup. I need to put myself together before I attach with someone else. Something like that. It made sense at one point. So I didn't. And I couldn't.
When I wasn't working I maximized my relaxation time, very often doing nothing. When the weather was warm I sat on my roof and chatted with Buddha, oriented myself with the world, contemplating my surroundings. The sky erupted into brilliant lightning storms that summer. The only days off I had I had to schedule months in advance, and they were usually for flights. I flew more this single year than the previous three years combined. In Detroit I steamrolled years of work experience into a day and raised the public appreciation for Saks Fifth Avenue staff. In New Orleans I traded tour stories with a band at Jazz Fest and tricked a whole beer tent into thinking I was an Aussie from Scotland. Texas was a roadie gig helping Sis move, the moving truck breaking down on the way and just making the flight back within hours. It all got to be too much, really. I gained a new appreciation for fashion but I couldn't get behind my product. $500 for a sweater? Plus I'm dealing with the North Shore on two fronts, clothing and coffee. The higher the price, the louder they bellow. I don't wear the clothes, I wouldn't shop there, and I'm not happy with where the path leads: 70-hour workweeks and "fabulously" high blood pressures. I'm working three full-time positions and being paid chicken feed. And they're grooming me for more of this. I can't. I have to leave before I get in deeper. Five months after I started, I did.

And the most amazing thing happened. I cut out all auditions except for Blue Man Group this year. Really wanted to ride on the coattails of last year's baby steps. Practiced for months beforehand, drumming my arms numb. Got rubbed out right at the start. Wanted to pack it all up until I got a call about a callback audition for a little theater in Oak Park I auditioned for the previous year for the Buddy Holly Story. This play they were hyping was brand-new. My absolute last day at Saks Fifth Avenue I drove from the Far North suburbs through the city to the west suburbs to spend a couple minutes doing a monkey dance for someone. And they bit. 'Course I was one of two guys young enough with an open schedule to fit the parts, but accepted I was. And it paid, too. And the rest of the season with the theater held a lot of promise as well. But, if you've been reading all this so far, you know this already.

Spiritually I was reaching a major crossroads, the mixing of conscious and subconsicous. Things were falling into place very well for me. My altar was modest but proud. My meditation was sporadic but fulfilling. And my journal was filling up right quick one page at a time. But I know this path I'm on. And I know what's supposed to happen next year. Seventh Chakra: Death and release. The end of the road. I'd been at this for so long I felt totally immersed in it. But, this path sorta made me so removed from many people I knew, especially my family. They're strongly Roman Catholic, as I was raised, and they've invited me back to church dozens of times for multiple reasons. I had left the church years ago, mostly due to ennui and frustration with the dogma, and taken myself upon this path as a way to soothe my depression. Some things changed inside me, some didn't. Was what I was doing the right thing? I didn't know. The only way I knew to be sure was to stop what I was doing and go back to what once was. You only understand half of the effect someone or something important to you is when you're connected to them. The other half comes when you don't have them anymore, when you have to deal with the hole they left in you. So I took out everything Buddhist in my life: My malas, my altar, my Buddha rubber duckie in the bathroom. Went back to church a couple times. Was even asked to be an altar boy right around Christmas. Long story, tell you later. My view of Jesus Christ changed from a kind, sweet man who taught wisdom and kept his friends close to a bloody tortured soul nailed to two pieces of wood. And I saw people flooding buildings every week to kneel at his feet. Was this inviting enough for me to come back? Not really. So I left the year sorta floating tetherlessly, a leaf on the wind.

There's so much more to write. Search the archives or check out the zoomshare website to catch up. I see no need to regurgitate more of this now. And this coming year makes me laugh so hard I feel compelled to start in on it. Though I will leave you with this: One should never read Henry Miller while exercising at the gym. Those who don't understand just scratch their heads, but those who do cast the most discerning glares. Skeevish perverted fun.

The sixth chakra is indigo, mysterious, and is located at the forehead, the Third Eye. It directly correlates with the location of the pineal gland, an organ which, like its cousin the pituitary gland, controls hormone balance and, unlike the latter, is said to be connected with paranormal and parapsychological ability. The sixth chakra controls foresight, imagination, problem-solving. Its energy can be channelled by Lapis Lazuli. Now that Being and Every Other Being are communicating with each other, every message they transmit sparks another message in the other. Even absence of message transmit a spark, if the two beings are connected. Both beings are pieces on a go board. If one moves here, the other cannot, and their next move dictates how the rest of the game goes. That's all this is; just a game. And like all games, every one comes to an end.

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Now playing: Fall Out Boy - The Carpal Tunnel of Love

Fifth Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-10-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

2006 was, hands down, the most challenging year of the septumvirate. I always consider myself to be less an instigator than an alleviator in a relationship, but this year I felt encouraged to become more vocal. I have plans and goals, and instead of always pushing mine aside to make way for others, as is my wont, I decided to stand steadfast. My plans are just as valid as yours, and I plan to go ahead with them regardless. Not only does it take a lot of teeth-grinding and hand-wringing to have me stand my ground, it takes much more to endure the frowns and harsh tones of others when I defy them. But, that's under normal circumstances. This year the teeth-grinding and hand-wringing were replaced with a clear mind and a stomach full of molten lead. God, it about murdered me.

This year was, perhaps, the most realistic in terms of my acting career. True pounding the pavement, true juggling of artistic dreams and keeping my bread-and-butter. In other words, my track record went down the tubes. Chicago is a great market for a beginning actor because there are so many projects going on at any time which don't require unions or agents to hook up with. I started marketing myself hardcore, talking to old friends who were well-established in the Chicago theater scene, sending out PR packets to anyone and everyone, Finally landed a legitimate agent, but I was already scheduling about three auditions a week for myself at that point anyway. Striking out, striking out, striking out: I realize an actor has to learn to love the audition process, but rejection never ends being a tough pill to swallow. Did score some paying gigs, but it was just too amazing how every time I collected a paycheck my car suffered some malady which cost EXACTLY the same amount of money. A lot of my energy was spent working on an original script with three other friends, our own foray into life in a coffee house. A script of this still exists somewhere. My greatest failure was a drop-of-a-hat cattle call for Blue Man Group which got me a callback just based on my week-old self-taught drumming skills. My experience with those last two projects made me rethink my whole dedication to this acting thing. I know I'm good, people tell me I'm good, so why do I run myself ragged grasping at straws for a small role in someone else's monkey show? I got my own monkey show which is better than theirs, and I deserve to put my energy towards myself. So, after months and months and dozens of failed attempts, I decided to cease all that crap and focus more on my own talents and strengths. I wanted to be creative for my own sake, never someone else's.

Tchotchke and I become more honest with each other this year. With her help and encouragement, I was the cleanest and most sober than I can ever remember being. A couple seasons of no cigarettes, no weed, no alcohol, I even stopped drinking coffee for a few weeks. Boy, did I get argumentative. We took multiple breaks from each other, no contact, a few days here, a week or so there. Things got really hit-or-miss. She knew how talented I was but she didn't approve of the artistic collaboration with friends, seeing it as a waste of time, and eventually she became a wedge which help split apart everything. Her career was taking off and flourishing, and grad school brought on more promise, so when was I gonna buckle down and find a more secure place with my profession? I may be a great guy, but where was my future going? I could never give an answer which held much weight. Why? Because, with what I wanted to do, even I didn't know. At this point, the little things took over. Every little thing that irked me, that got under my skin and became unbearable, that I looked the other way from because I knew she was so much better than that, it all added up. After two years of this, I knew that nothing I could do would change her, and I didn't want to regret the whole relationship. I motioned to break things off in late September. We still saw each other for previously-made commitments and some social things. Our last time together was December 26. Boxing Day, Dana's going-away party at CJ's. She was radiant, straigtened hair, sharp grey skirt, black heels. She was the most classically beautiful girl I ever dated, and one of the best friends I ever had the pleasure of knowing. She had many reasons to question my loyalty and fidelity, but I never once cheated on her, and that's one thing I can take from all of this with a clear conscience. I loved her, but I didn't love her as much as she loved me, and there's no justice in a relationship based upon that.
Dear God, even necessary breakups suck.

I was two years into living in my apartment downtown, a three-bedroom flat in the Ukranian Village. This was my old neighborhood: The first house I grew up in was literally around the corner, my mom used to work overnights at nearby St. Mary's of Nazareth Hospital, and the building I lived in was owned by my grandparents. My aunt and uncle used to be up in that third-floor flat, and I remember being a kid playing in those same rooms with my cousins, the rooms I now occupied with my girlfriend and roommates. The living room was nice and spacious, a darkwood hutch built into the wall made for a classy touch, and the room was left relatively vacant, a perfect space for rehearsal and working out monologues. The sunporch was my favorite room, outfitted with a scrapped clawfoot bathtub left over from renovation. Perfect for those Jim Morrison moments. I fixed up the whole room with colored running lights, lava lamps, and posters for a groovy hang-out space, the first thing you see as you come up the main staircase. It reeked of my childhood and bolstered my future, but something happened that Fall. Tim's girlfriend was living with both my brothers in my parents' condo close to the family house. She had a hard time that October with the memory of her late brother's passing, and she did something desperate. Luckily, it failed, but that incident mixed with stories of hostile altercations in the past warranted my parents to restructure the household, with her sent to a care facility and him moving back in with my parents. Brian was living by himself, and it was a wild card as to who would occupy the other rooms. My parents invited me to move into the condo, to be a support for Brian and to block off any unexpected move-ins. I left a good deal in Chicago to come back into the fold. The condo is not without any modern charms, but it's not me. I figured I was doing them a favor, my parents and my uncle/landlord, whose relationship with I felt I was endangering every time we met at family functions by throwing business into the mix. Part of the hard line I drew for myself two years prior was that I would never move back into my parents' house again, and this was as close a jump back as I was willing to make.

At this point in my meditation I had a pretty strong blueprint of my ritual. I had procured a VHS copy of Lama Surya Das, an American-born Buddhist monk, performing and explaining aspects of Dzogchen Buddhist Meditation, and I adorned it with little personal interests of my own. One major aspect of Dzogchen meditation is to keep eyes and ears, all senses open while breathing through the motions, a challenging feat for anyone to try. The Lama, in all his enlightened enthusiasm and Wisconsin-bred flatlandery, still solidified a strong foundation in me, a routine I memorized back to front: Incense, chimes, calling the spirits, grounding one's self, chanting "aa", grounding, "Sky-gazing", grounding, chanting "om mani padme hung", closing the circle, bowing to the Buddha inside yourself. Sometimes I would skip sky-gazing and insert a techinque I learned called "rebreathing", which incorporated sacred geometry in the body, exterior chakras, creating a MerKaBa, and twenty short breaths. Sound way out there? Yeah, still is to me, but it helped. At the end of each session I would chant out "Om Namaha Shivaya", which translates out to "Salutations to that which I am capable of being." and during that, I would envision where I wanted to be, a solitary figure on a stage, floodlit face, stool, single microphone, and a full house in front of me. Moving back to the suburbs brought me back to my most favored of Sunday walk retreats, the River Trails woods. I've explored every inch of the inside of those woods on my own: The bramble patches, the clearings where people bunked for however long in secrecy, the protected prairie reserves. Picked up all the rubbish I could find, including spend alcohol bottles, used condoms, and appliances exploded with firecrackers. And this year the blue element was made by making knots out of blue hemp and tying them as beads. That, and I found some lapis lazuli looking beads to make a compliment mala for the year.

Other exciting stuff happened this year. I was the official mascot for Irish Fest in Milwaukee for a two-hour shift. Me and Tchotchke trolloped all around the fairgrounds entertaining drunks and children, and I even got goosed by some unknown. Translated two rock concerts for Deaf attendees: Styx and Foreigner at Northerly Island in Chicago, and Def Leppard and Journey at the Marcus Amphitheatre in Milwaukee. Lost my car during the process, but how awesome to command a crowd of that level, even taking attention away from the bands. After Tchotchke and I separated in September, I waited three months until I tried to play rebound. Her name was Christine. She was a customer. We had a night of drinks and billiards in Andersonville and then back to my place. The next morning she sat around drinking coffee while I packed up the Chicago apartment and listened to NPR. That was December 22. That was the last time I was with a woman, last time I was with anyone. I didn't come.

The fifth chakra is blue, bubbly, and located at the throat, the larynx. It controls communication, personal expression, experimentation, and is the first major step in the direct relationship between the Being and Every Other Being. After the Being recognizes that it and Every Other Being share the same journey to get to their present situation, it will compare and contrast all the ways the two are alike. Feeling a need to explain itself, the Being has to relay information to Every Other Being. About itself, its wants and needs, its desires and opinions, how the Being sees the world. And Every Other Being will accept and reciprocate. Or not. How it reciprocates and the to-and-fro between the Beings begins with infinite possibilities but quickly whittles down to a finite set of parameters, much like a game of go.

Brilliant Ultimatium

2008-10-08T19:11:00.004-05:00

When I move I move slow. Couple boxes at a time. Been lucky enough to have places cool enough to let me do so. Less stress over deadlines and rental vehicles.

Because of such, Year Five is taking longer than imagined. Too much real life to do. The writing isn't compelling me enough to sit down and let it pour out. To quote Kevin Smith, "I don't get writer's block, I get writer's laze."*

In the meantime...

I've been struck with this wonderful idea for a project. It's not so much a storyline or a plot as it is a foundation or launching pad for any kind of genre. Sorta like an environmental MacGuffin.
It hinges on current events.
It comes into fruition early next year.
It has everything to do with the Government.
It has nothing to do with the oncoming election.
It can attach to most any developing storyline to add further depth and suspense.
It must be jumped upon immediately.
It affects everyone in the country.
And there ain't one damn chakra anywhere near it.

It's screaming for a pitch session. A couple of people sitting 'round a room bouncing ideas off of it to see what sticks.
I don't want to spill more beans until the time is right, but I need a handful of bright, energetic, talented, dedicated people to share bullshit with.

Which is why I'm asking you.

Wha'dya say?
I can't ignore it, so I have to nurture it.
It's a real good idea.
Honest Injun.
Wanna get in on the ground floor of a really great journey?

Please somebody respond in e-mail. You'll be glad you did.

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Quotations:

*: Smith, Kevin, An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder, Disc 1: Toronto, Sony Pictures, 2006

Fourth Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-09-21T16:30:00.001-05:00

The fourth chakra is green, verdant, and located at the chest, the sternum. It controls love and empathy, charity and catharsis, fraternity and belonging, jealousy and contempt. Its energy can be controlled by the stones Jade, Rose Quartz, and Malachite. After the being accepts that, even with all its faults and benefits, it is a complete and whole entity, it looks out into the rest of the world and sees Every Other Being. Every Other Being, like the first being, has gone through the exact same struggle: Primal creation to passion to contentment, and must be respected as much as the first being respects itself, no matter how much Every Other Being might differ from first being in appearance, personality, or disposition.

A parable was created this year to help in explaining the Fourth Chakra process:

1. One Fires, They All Fire: The Fourth Chakra operates like cardiac muscle. Unlike smooth muscle, which is basically just tubular sphincters used to transport fluid and whatever down a corridor, and although very similar to striated muscle, which contains protein striations which attach to each other and push and pull against each other to manipulate bones and extrabodily matter, the striations in cardiac muscle go in-between muscle cells so that the striations of one cell connect to every other cell in the heart. When electrical impulses transfer from the SA node to the AV node, the spark hits one cardiac muscle cell and sets off a chain reaction to the others like a ping-pong ball in a mousetrap factory. This synchronized display of strength generates the energy needed for the heart to pump blood throughout the entire body through miles of vascular tubing. In other words, when your Fourth Chakra is open, the love you feel for the world goes out to everyone in the world. You cannot hold back because of one person or group of people. It doesn't work that way. Even the most despicable, odious person who maligned you the the worst way possible deserves your time and attention and love. You love one, you love all. Or you love none.

I'm supposed to be writing about Tchotchke, the girl who permeates most of the second half of this journey. I'm supposed to be writing about the many trips we had this year, road trips and flights, Arizona and St. Louis, and oh so many to her alma mater in Milwaukee. Supposed to be waxing nostalgic about our Tuesday Date Nights in the Glen, appetizers and a Six Pack, sneaking candy into the movies for the double features at the Wilmette Theater, cooking "Zucch-anoes" for me, and dinner at Culver's every chance we could. Supposed to be writing about her battle with endometriosis, going to support groups together, my reaction after her decisive laparotomy, and her, bandaged and recovering, sitting front row at one of my shows. Writing about the epic arguments, the phone calls three, four, five, six times a day, the constant fact-checking behind every decision I made, her intense reactionary temper and fabled Irish drinking skills. About family gatherings, her golden impression upon my huge family, her small, intimate holiday affairs, her genuine interest into the world of the Deaf, and what to do when the vegetarian has to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. And too much more to give her complete justice on paper.
But I'm not ready to do that right now.

This year was my most successful as a professional actor. Six auditions, four gigs, two of them paid, and one allowed me to travel. First was an improv show through Second City. I hesitate to mention it was through the Training Center, as most people stop caring after they hear that. At audition we had one scene where we reacted to a run-over cat, and dear me, someone had to play the cat, right? Damn skippy! Second, a horror movie shot out of Milwaukee. One of the few gigs I knew I had nailed right from the audition. The commute was purgatory, shooting schedule worse than hell, but I had my first feature film under my belt less than two years out of school, and I was proud. There was that fruity little insect parade for some small theater downtown, but that's not really worth regurgitating, at least not in great detail. Third was a script my then-roommate wrote and self-produced. I don't get many leading roles and was damn happy to oblige, yet I yearned for something edgier than a story straight out of DC's Elseworlds universe. Held a summer internship with a monologue festival where I got to work with Frank Caliendo's girlfriend, hold the keys for the old ComedySportz theater, and had my bike stolen. Fourth and finally was a three-month, nine-state, ten-thousand mile excursion through the Midwest playing Huckleberry Finn for grade schools everywhere. My childhood dream of doing vaudeville was finally coming true, slowly and painfully, one dank rural elementary school basement after another.

This is the year I started on-line journaling. I hate the word "blog"; prefer to call it my "website", as if the term alone gave it more credentials. Created one for Uncle Freddy as well. Wrote, recorded, edited, and produced three episodes of the radio show this year alone, including one completely on tour from hotel rooms, just because I could. Used the open forum of the website to start burying the hatchet with the girl I divorced three years earlier, and she responded in kind. All of this stuff, the original writings and audio clips, still exist online and are easy enough to find. My dayplanner writings get very ornate and condensed. I record all 175 shows on the road, with individual snippets about each. My Sunday pilgrimages in Humboldt Park, although sweet and picturesque, with a brisk walk through the PR barrio, pale in comparison to everywhere else I've trekked. I pick up a string of jadelike beads in Sedona and construct my own 4th chakra mala along with the developing patchwork stalwart, but being on the road and low on funds gets me experimenting with different materials, wire and hemp twine, for Year Five.

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Now playing: The Killers - All These Things That I've Done

Can't talk right now...

2008-09-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

Moving.

Evanston.

October 1.

Lots of crap to transport.

Yeeee.

Eulogy: Everything Must Go

2008-09-10T16:26:00.001-05:00

You will leave unfinished business.

This is one of the hardest lessons you will have to accept.

Plans will be left undone. People will be left hanging.

You will not meet expectations.

Accept this:
At one point in your life,
the end,
the people who cared about you most,
who put up with you through everything,
will wish you could have done just a little bit more.
More oomph.
More wow.
They saw so much light in you,
but now you can't give enough.
No matter how much you've done,
they want to see what you can do
tomorrow.
Disappointing.
Disillusioning.
Sad.
Nothing is ever enough.
You give and give
and they remain insatiable.
Makes it seem not worth your time
to do anything.
You're not happy
And they'll never be happy.
Besides,
you do less damage
when you do nothing.
If you don't affect anything,
you can't make it worse.
You can remain
impartial
a benchmark
an oasis
Someone people come to
for comparison
measurement
comfort
It's not a bad existence.

But
A life without effect equals a life inert.
No friction, no movement, no noise.
In the grand microcosm of you,
all your greatest accomplishments
resonate
only within the shell of yourself.
Resigned to the will
of others' perception.
You are solely
what they make of you.
And sometimes they get the message wrong.
You say, "I love you."
They read, "Olive loaf."
And you wonder why that happened.
Impartial, nonjudgmental
becomes
Unfair, self-imprisoned
Crossed wires blocking all,
straining out the meaning
and killing this link between us.
With a life like this,
who needs to live?
The last page in our books
all read the same.
Might as well go peacefully
and without struggle.

Until
the miscommunication gets edgy
peevish
a boil.
Not only do they misread,
they spit back
the same thing
they swore they got from you.
And it stings.
You've lost who you are,
and they don't know you.
As hermetically sealed
as you are,
it's enough to make you implode
Outward.
They cannot take this from you.
You are someone.
You stand for something
honest and vibrant
hard-fought, resounding
worthy of someone's time
for all time.
They better damn well get the story right
and enough with the bloody spitback.

So
with every faculty at your disposal
with any ability you can conjure
with whatever method you still have left
you must
build those bridges
unsnap those gates
break through those walls
even on the brink of extinction.
You were made in the image
of Divine Inspiration
and your name must not be taken
in vain.
Tell the world.
Show them all.
Rouse up their ires with your
flippant stylistics
extensive verbosity
and a smile that leaves 'em simmerin'.
And although
the countdown keeps tickin',
the deadline approaches,
and total system failure is imminent,
to make sure you and I
see eye to eye,
I will continue to make plans,
agree to meet up,
and shatter your mind with my cause
well after I've worn out my welcome
even though every step
takes me closer to the void.

At the end of it all,

even in the face of losing everything,

you must have unfinished business.

'Tis the only way to truly live.

----------------
Now playing: Muse - Sing for Absolution

Third Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-09-04T23:20:00.001-05:00

2004. I returned home from Vancouver back to my parents' basement. Again. Sorta had to. Ran out of money 9 months in and had to radio home for more. Cashed in my 401k from Iowa, too. Flat broke. Drew a hard line for myself. From here on out, there's just some things I wouldn't do. I can't always end up like this. Once I leave, I have to be gone. I can't get as sick as I was last year, again, either. I wasn't gonna stick around here long. It was up, up, and gone.

Last year's caper should've put me in jail. A cop stop early in the year should've kept me there. Cosmically driven story: Workouts equalled Randhurst equalled reunion equalled Our Town equalled absinthe equalled contraband. Squeaked out cleaner than expected. Met the girl who broke my dry spell through all that. A calendar year to the day, and a Full Moon to boot. In fact, this was my most promiscuous chakra. Only three women, but the quality of sex was par excellance. Two were Wiccan feminists, two were Irish princesses, two were professional intellectuals, two were S&M fethishists. That summer was the teenage rebellion I never had. First started working for corporate coffee. Broke my own rule about relationships at work. What started as an easy catch and a playful fling became the start of a 2-year testament to romantic endurance and a taste of a more privileged life.

Actingwise I was just starting out. Film fans found each other over coffee and American Prophet was born. Rolling Thunder at Roosevelt University. Mid-year I moved downtown and was itching to get my feet wet. An essay by David Mamet and good friends gone by gave birth to Uncle Freddy. Lent my voice to the Mad Hatter and my magic hands to the menorah. Shopping for headshots and searching the web for publicity. None of this stuff pays, just a labor of love.

Spiritually I was all over the map. Spent half of New Years' Eve at an OTO gnostic ceremony. Later I experienced a Wiccan New Moon. A brief stint at Trader Joe's taught me Kai-zen. Actually attended a nearby Buddhist center, an attempt at organized religion. Vancouver infected me with the knowledge of Sacred Geometry. Along with my patchwork mala, I wear a yellow jade one from the Buddhist Temple. My incense, my Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva pendant, my cosmic radio, all remnants of Richmond pilgrimages.

Paris occurred this year. I can't come up with enough flowery words to lavish upon this experience. Most awesomest tour guide ever-est. "Where do you want to go today?" And she took my hand and we went. I'm cogitating verbs in my head while she walks right up and starts conversations. She knows the hidden spots, little cafes and the right times to do when. Something got stolen from the Louvre while we were there, but 'twasn't La Giaconda. Dirty Sanchez on TV and francais-chinois cuisine. The sewer system, carriage ride at Versailles, and Naked and A Sartori in Paris at Shakespeare's. Got myself lost on my Sunday Morning excursion, and she was so wonderful to return to. My sparkly lighter got confiscated on our layover at Georgia. Couldn't replicate that experience with anyone else, ever. Thank you, Tchotchke.

There's lots more for this year, but I'm impatient to get this one out.

The third chakra is yellow, sunny, and located at the solar plexus, the diaphragm. It controls breathing and relaxation, happiness and contentment, center and balance. Its energy can be controlled by the stone Citrine. After the being has considered the consequences of its actions, it must accept its capabilities and shortcomings and learn to see itself as complete and whole. It must harness tolerance, patience, and steady nurturing in order to support the potential which lies inside.

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Now playing: Better Than Ezra - A Lifetime

Commercial Break

2008-08-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

And now for something completely different...

It's been said that there are words in the English language for which there are no rhymes:

Purple
Orange
Oriole

Poppycock.
I have stumbled across the rhyme for "oriole".
However, it's not the most couth of words.
It is a compound word, and each component is acceptable on its' own.
But put them together and Parent Groups form committees to ban it.

So,
for the sake of tact,
I have hidden the word between the quotation marks below.
To view,
highlight the space between with your cursor.

But don't say I didn't warn you.

"gloryhole"

With regards to George Bernard Shaw.

Second Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-08-30T00:20:00.001-05:00

2003. The year in Vancouver. After filling out forms, applying for loans, and getting my audition tape sent in, they accepted me for September 2002. Had no funding, no place to go, never been there yet, so I got it postponed to until January 2003. I had gone through many hair changes last year: Bald, bleached, red, black, shaven all crazily. Got frisked a lot at the airport. Stayed my first couple weeks in a hostel, two blocks from the school, in the worst postal code in Canada. Touched down December 27, right after Boxing Day.

This whole year will center around the Tarot. Since the Tarot has been so integral in connecting the many facets of this spiritual journey, it acts as an exceptional storytelling tool. I did countless readings this year, simply by sitting in the lunchroom at school and placing on the deck on the table as I ate my food. People would line up. Good thing to bring to bars, too. Free drinks, to say the least. To start off, I will do a Tarot card reading for the whole audience. The rest of the year can be told as a Tarot card reading on its own.

Card formation:
Celtic Cross
Cards used:
The Hermit, 9 of Swords, The Tower, 8 of Wands, The Fool, 7 of Cups, Lust, 4 of Discs, Princess of Swords, The Sun

Present = 4 of Discs: Everything I used to build myself up also eventually walled me in, or walled me out. Vancouver meant ultimate freedom, a new life half a world away. But I was stuck to make big decisions and go through everything all alone. My first apartment locked me out on my balcony, and the harsh junky environment surrounding it kept me cooped up inside my comfy Fight Club filing cabinet. So proud to be a legitimate working actor, but I couldn't watch any of my work without cringing. "Drop the American" fits in here, too.

Significator = The Tower: I was awash in spiritual visitations this year. Started off New Year's Day when I took my first ever tab of acid in a Gastown pub. Meditation got so involved that my body got in the throes of what I can only call Tantric Orgasms. Spring Break had a bad trip or two, one was so intense it was panic-attack scary. Then there was the gram of shrooms in a cup of tea which permeated throughout the week and gave me a new way of reading scripts. As I switched apartments I found out the shelf I had used as my altar had been used by a previous tenant as a Ouija board. Sundays I would walk to Chinatown and stroll in the Sun Yat-sen gardens, or pilgrimage to Richmond and take in the whole of the Buddhist Temple. Sacrifices, oracles, sitting for 15 minutes meditating on a rock in the middle of the lagoon. Malas get broken and the beads are collected and reconfigured into a whole new mala, telling its own story.

Past = The Fool: Cliche beginning. Started at Square One last year, not really knowing shit about these chakras, this whole process. It can also pertain to the fact that I haven't really had much formal acting training. A few classes here and there, the year of improv, but mostly just doing shows and messing around in everyday life. And the yearning, aching, unstoppable desire. Now my talents were to be directly challenged by actual working actors, trained staff, and a slew of drama majors. The school's a whole learning laboratory, at least that's what it's best for. And emotions spill out of the walls.

Future = 7 of Cups: Decriminalization of marijuana changes everything. I can count on one hand the number of days I was sober that year. I was a regular to the pot district and an easy mark for street people selling wares. Great story about one on roller skates and a steering wheel who sold me two bags. New Amsterdam Open Mics, Cannabis Day, remnants from the many breeder competitions, the silver door on Hastings Street. There's also the early trips to the Beer store before curfew or picking up six packs at the pub. Shenanigans and Hooters. I worked on a scene from Leaving Las Vegas by taking the script to a bar and matching Nicolas Cage per drink. So strung out, so cooped in, stuck inside. And the piece de resistance, the caper on the last flight home that would make Reservoir Dogs blush.

Conscious Thought = Princess of Swords: As court cards go, the Princess is the most vivacious. Impulse is her game, and she wields her power at moment's notice. Think Paris Hilton with a bazooka. Swords represent intellectual energy, thoughts, ideas, theories. Since I can get so stuck inside my head I tried to focus on acting on my basest thoughts instead of taking time to dissect and debate them. Led to some great adventures and many really stupid mistakes. What happens when you're 100% behind half-formed ideas?

Subconscious Thought = 8 of Wands: My brain's going everywhere. What with the constant supply of psychotropics and endless conscious awakening, my thoughts gain the capacity to hit nth-degree extremes. If I died at home alone, no one would know until the stench hit them. I'm so good I don't need this school, I could just jump on the many film sets here and run away with them. Maybe I could marry someone and become a citizen. I'm writing with my left hand at times, getting creepily sculpturelike with my prose. Everything has to move, to shift, to change. Have motion. Except me. I need to stay still.

How You See The World = The Hermit: Everyday I wake up it's a thrill just to be in Canada. It's so exciting it becomes sufficient. I don't need much else to be elated. I want it to never end but I know it's fleeting. So I don't venture out much. When I do I don't interfere much. And I make sure people don't interfere much with me. It's inevitable, of course, that people are let in. But they don't get everything. And if they do, rarely. It's a year in transit, and I'm a tourist with an expiration date. So hard to keep people at bay when you get ripe, though.

How the World Sees You = Lust: It's a cursory feeling when your dick gets groped in the hallway at school and you turn around to find a guy winking back at you. At parties people would sidle up past one another to make time for me. Every Tarot reading became like speed-dating. Raised a fat kid, I never got used to that. But I only had sex with two people that year: One a girl from the hostel, the other my bestest Canadian friend. And nothing after March. Had pussy inches from my face and still I did not succumb. Everyone knew me as an intense actor, though. Was chosen for a live scene where I played a dental patient who was driven to orgasm during a check-up. After the standing ovation my instructor pulled me aside saying, "I knew to tell them to give it to you! I knew you'd go all the way with it!"

Hopes and Fears = 9 of Swords: What's the worst that could happen? You're dropped in a foreign country, all of your belongings in bags you carry, surrounded by shit, piss, junkies, hookers, attempting to legitimatize your passion to yourself and the world, unable to get a legal job for additional income, balancing your life between your artistic education and your addictive personality, fighting inherent magnetism with strict isolation, and you fought tooth and nail for all of this. What's the worst that could happen?

Ultimate Goal = The Sun: Yellow light pierces the holes and floods the empty crevices. In an instant the haze becomes illuminated and begins to mist aside. Jagged peaks needle golden and slope down merging with smooth, frictionless plains. Every sort of texture and shape live in between. But no nook or cranny remains sheathed. Even the deepest, darkest, dankest holes fill to the brim with shimmering brilliance. This is what thou hath wrought. Take a look. Take it in. And smile, damn it. Smile at your creation.

I graduated the Acting program with honours. At the grad ceremony I interpreted the entire proceedings for my brothers. Never have I sweat so hard than at the terminal right before we boarded the plane home. We touched down days before Christmas. I always wanted to write a book with these stories titled, "I Never Saw Boxing Day".

The second chakra is orange, located in the lower abdominal area by the kidneys. It is represented by a circle inside an upside equilateral triangle, the Female triangle in Sacred Geometry, all encased in a circle surrounded by lotus petals. It controls passion, desire, sex and lust, creation and reproduction. After clawing for a foothold for anything and everything with the First Chakra, the being starts to understand its methods of acquisition and learns the good and bad consequences. But consequences are arbitrary; it's the chase that's most fascinating. Its energy can be channeled by the stones Carnelian, Alexandrite, and Tiger's-eye. In order to progress from this chakra, the being must consider the consequences of its actions and take responsibility for itself.

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Now playing: Squeeze - Another Nail in My Heart

First Chakra: Sketchpad

2008-08-28T07:38:00.001-05:00

This isn't said monologue. I'm having major issues delving into this material, especially in a manner which pleases me. When I write I tend to form and edit in my head before I get it out on paper. This allows for perfect phrasing and form, but it's hell with getting projects done in a timely manner. Many get abandoned. So, for the sake of progress, I'm just gonna run through events of the first year just to get the pieces out so I can put them together later.

2002. Months earlier I moved back to Chicago from Iowa. I was at the start of a massive breakup, a feeling akin to what I could only describe as a divorce. Tail tucked between my legs, I moved back into my parents' basement. Very depressed, very self-destructive. Was already knee-deep into a healthy drinking bender. My main goal for that period was getting myself to Vancouver for school. Acting or writing, acting or writing? Was working two jobs, saving money, and jumping through all the hoops needed for study abroad. Nobody wanted me to go, not from my family. "Why Canada? Why can't you learn acting here? It's so far away by yourself..." Had to fight for my actions against a lot of people, people I thought would be proud and excited for my big decision. In the meantime my desire to perform was so powerful that I took up free improv classes through the Chicago Reader to sate my appetite. Learned Meisner, Hagen, all under the tutelage of a Second City legend. Bar Louie afterwards; driving back to suburbia from the Gold Coast, that late at night, as drunk as I was... it's a miracle no one was killed. Then the Second City classes at the Metropolis in Arlington Heights. Head off to Harry's afterwards for drinks and whatever. Fuckin' Tuesday Night! Again, it's amazing my police record isn't longer after my 2am driving hijinks getting home. Did get to perform on Wells street. Jelly on Saturday nights in the Skybox and class shows on the e.t.c. stage. Saw Rachel Dratch's handwriting on the set backstage. The energy of that room is unbelievable.

Body modification occurred heavily this year. I started out with three piercings: left lobe, right cartilage, left nipple. I ended with five piercings, a tattoo, and scars. Lots of scars. I began cutting as a way to curb the drinking. That, plus some masculine macho thing about battle wounds and healing. Nothing life-threatening. All incisions were thin scratches made at the shoulder. Why else would I consider a shoulder tattoo? But the end of the year brought big things that would later prove to never be covered up. One piercing was meant to be a symbolic end, the other a self-imposed dare, the one piercing I never thought I'd ever do. Thing is, all actions were made under months of research and inquiry. Learned all about tribal art and talked to many people who had had stuff done before. Foolhardy decisions made under as erudite and controlled an environment as personally possible.

Vices also played heavily. Drinking, blah blah blah... It's amazing how when you talk one language you automatically attract people who speak in kind. New substances, odd places. Inappropriate places. Not back-of-Volkswagen inappropriate; on-the-job inappropriate. Taking major advantage of the fact that I worked many overnights. And that I worked with the Deaf. Lots of guilt involved as well, detoxing and retoxing. There was this one time at work when I was celebrating a month of sobriety. Didn't consider the hearing woman sleeping in the next room while I was vomiting. She disavowed knowledge. Apparently I can't.

Sex and relationships were askew this year. Ended up dating two girls at the same time, both Geminis, both of whom I worked with and did shows with. Same job, same shows, all three of us. One of them was beloved by my brother, the other was the first time I got laid in my parents' house. Outside of that rigamarole I spent a lot of time learning about myself. Lots of porn, lube, toys, self-exploration. Wanted to prepare myself for more adventurous times. Most of the year, though, I was aloof in this area. Between the blow I was dealt in leaving my whole life in Iowa and the fact I knew I'd be leaving for Canada eventually made me stick mostly to myself during this time. Plus I was dealing horribly with the break-up and shame of living at home.

Spirituality was in its infancy and journaling was in full-spread production. I was juggling three journals: Dayplanner for chronicling everyday events, Meditation to record my progress, and another for everyday thoughts and issues. Because of my rapid descent into vices I was keeping tallies of different habits: Whether I drank or not, smoked or not, how many cigarettes per day. I was also paying more attention to my dreams and recording any kind of details I could remember from the night before. I was, however, just starting to compile my altar and rituals. Taoism and Buddhism sat prominently with my mindset, but numerology and astrology fit strongly into the structure. Tarot cards, Qabalah, and spellcasting became more influential to me due to a friend who did a Tarot reading for me at work one evening. He used a Crowley Thoth deck, and I fell right into it. I found a how-to book at Border's about Buddhist prayer rosaries - malas - and made myself three, one carnelian, one sandalwood, and one tiger's-eye. But so difficult to find time to sit and focus on breathing. Lucky to make it 5-15 minutes in one sitting. I began taking Sunday walks in the park district woods nearby, a habit I would carry through the seven years. Most of my supplies: Candles, incense, stones, books, chimes; they all came from Iowa. Everything was stored in a steamer trunk meant for easy transportability.

The first chakra is red, located at the root of the spine, the anus. It controls pure primal energy: Eating, sleeping, fighting, fucking, the basest of instincts. It is represented by a snake coiled around an egg, the male Kundalini power as dictated by the Hindu religion. Its energy can be guided by the minerals Garnet, Bloodstone, Hematitie, Petrified Wood. It is considered a more masculine energy source because it is so close to the testes on men, whereas the second chakra, the passion chakra which rules over the reproductive organs, is considered more female due to its proximity to the ovaries on the female.

Abstract

2008-08-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

Originally this was planned to be a manifesto which, although quite cool to conceptualize and write, really doesn't fit the purpose of it. This isn't a declaration of beliefs, this is a statement of purpose.

Let me begin at the end.

For the past few years I have been having trouble relating socially. It has become so comfortable to stay solipsistic and distant that the situation is routine and preferable. Which isn't to say that I haven't craved human contact. So on the many occasions when I've been asked to go out my brain tends to hit overdrive. How do I act? What do I say? How do I present myself? When I am with people I can only imagine the impression they take in from me: Male, white, 30 years old, intelligent, witty, talented, highly energetic, broad aspirations, and very easy on the eyes. Yet works a menial job well below his education, abandoned his artistic dreams for little reason, appears bogged down with familial obligations, and, especially as of late, has done nothing to improve any of this.
This is an image of conflict. Two equally strong opposing forces, refusing to find any common ground. If this is what I am left with when I look myself over, what fraction of this is projected across when I am with someone else?
This was running through my mind one night about a month ago when I was recounting a recent time at work when I had asked a girl for whom I had a crush on to go out. She refused. I was bothered. My intentions were purely familiar, but I felt grossly misread. Unfair, unjust, I thought. Who I am before you is a shell of who I truly am. My story is grand and sprawling, covering three countries, full of epic iconic triumphs and heinous personal tragedies. And I am currently at the tail end of a near-decade-long spiritual journey, the most dedicated feat I have ever undertaken. Things, ideas, changes are still settling, still yet to be fully understood. It's all too much to keep inside my head. But it's right here, on the precipice of everything. And it refuses to go away.
So how do I project all this potential energy across, as well?
I looked at my dresser mirror. And I saw the girl. And I figured I just had to start from the beginning. How does it all start?
Seven years ago.
Seven chakras.
One chakra per calendar year.
And as I started I immediately stopped.
And I dropped to the floor.
And I stayed there in that spot for a good 10 minutes.
When I moved again I went to my altar and grabbed my meditation journal. I wrote one more entry. Then I tore out the rest of the blank pages. They were burned a week later.
Without opening the altar I thought about the books inside.
Seven academic dayplanners.
Each filled with meticulous notes, daily observations, symbols, vice tallies, dream recountings, emotional landmarks.
Without searching out any notebook I thought about every project I started in that time.
Radio plays, script ideas, stage shows, story topics, unfinished poetry, letters never sent.
Without opening my laptop I thought about my blog.
Every dramatic story, every open confession, every pointed comment meant to stand as true communication.
It's all fodder.
It's all usable.
It's already written.
And delivered in a nice, neat, numerologically-sound structural package.
All I have to do is put the pieces together.

This is my life's ambition: Over the past seven years I have undergone a complete transformation. The journey has been long and mostly alone, and I see the world in a vastly different array of colors. And the best way I know how to share this story is to make a production out of it. I am proposing a series of monologues, one for each chakra, written in the energy of that chakra, incorporating the events of each specific year. I envision a sparse set but a multimedia extravaganza, complete with music, lights, pictures, text, visual language. And I've prepared companion material, stories and audio tracks to accentuate and enhance the experience. It all must be accounted for and it all must be told, not only as an artistic goal but also a personal necessity. The point I have reached requires that I freely and easily present these topics on a daily basis else my social development become forever stunted. As drastic and unnecessary as these measures might appear, I consider it critical to back myself into a corner and invoke a challenge or else I will find any other way to avoid the task. It must be done. It shall be done.
It is so written.

Swinging Either Way

2008-08-06T12:00:00.003-05:00

"...so she told you she thinks she's a lesbian!"

Am I that transparent?

"Ha! You have no idea!"

I'm sitting in a coffee shop next to someone I haven't seen for awhile. She and I used to have a thing. Long time ago. We're over it.
She looked me up. Asked for my help.
We make a date.
Business is business, but first things first:
How are you?
She doesn't want to speak first. Go figure.
I'm having a rather laid-back summer. Plus I got nothing to hide from her.
So there.
She's too attentive. Quiet, clicking. Lots of silly stupid grins. A few I wasn't expecting.
"I love the way you talk."
"Shut up."
She can't stop smiling.
"Why do you do that?"
"Because I know you."
You know nothing.
;)

"So what's going on with this chick?"
No clue.
"Aw. Why not?"
Can't handle it anymore.
"Can't handle what?"
Her.
"Can't handle her?"
I can handle her.
"So?"
Just fell too hard too fast.
"...so?"
I can't explain it.
"Try."
I don't want to get in her way.
"What does that mean?"
She's going through a lot right now.
"Ohhh... the whole insecure with herself thing?"
Not just that. She just left a big relationship.
"So what?"
She apparently wants to play the field.
"You think you know what she wants."
Her actions tell me what she wants.
"And it's not you, right?"
She ain't movin' too fast on me.
"What if she did?"
What?
"What if she flat out attacked you?"
She hasn't.
"What if she did?"
I don't know.
"Picture it. Happening right now."
Well...
"Yes..."
I'd love it.
"Mmmm..."
But...
"Yes?"
How would she do it?
"...you never know."
I don't think I would.
Ha.
You never do, Kevin.
"That's the bigger problem here."
Got something bigger.
"Oh?"
That thing she did.
"The lesbian thing?"
Yeah. I'm torn on it.
"How so?"
It hurt.
"Duh."
But it's so hot thinking about her like that."
"..."
What's that look for?

you all think the same.

so whatcha gonna do?

nnn-nnnn

good answer

what would you do?

if i knew i wouldn't be here

right

what have you done?

nothing

how long?

long enough

i wouldn't say that

i would

youre having too much fun with this
why not its a game isnt it

what do you mean
this or that

love or sex
you two or us
whats going on here

Well?

Fuck'er.

"That's your answer?"

Yeah.

"Why fuck'er?"

'Cause that way you're both miserable and good and fucked.

Good seeing you like this.
Perhaps another time?
"I love the way you talk."
Shut up.

Fin.

Smitten to Hell

2008-07-30T11:11:00.003-05:00

I snapped a picture of her self-portrait during one of my visits. Crashed on her couch after a party at her place. Didn't necessarily want to stay the night there, least of all on the couch, but I had too much of everything and wasn't gonna sleep in my car again. And she treated me like a perfect guest the whole night: Sheet, blanket, pillow, glass of water, the whole schmear. Woke up on my own terms, well before her, and quick snapped a picture with my phone of her fiery face adorned on canvas. Shortly after she came out to join me, cup of coffee already in hand. She had someplace to go but she wasn't kicking me out. She also brought a camera with her to the coffee table, but she never used it while I was still there. At 11am we both left together to go our separate ways: Me to find food before my matinee and her to wherever.
Damn right I stared at her picture all the way to the theater.
It was all I could do to contain myself. Not everyone knew about her, but those who were privy to the info found themselves gushed upon. It had been literally years since I found one woman for whom I lost all my shit.
And I can't stop it. I really wish I could. Past handful of relationships I got quite good at control.

Maybe the seasons
The colors change in the valley skies

Dave Grohl's voice coming through the gym speakers. I love this song.

We see each other once in a while, every two weeks or so. Usually me going to see her, but twice she came up by me. Once was for my Open Mic Night. Translated all my pieces just for her at last minute. It sucked. The words matched, but there was little life to the stories. Another time she came to hang out at my place. Eventful visit, too. My parents showed up. They never show up. My Dad opened the door and her dog ran up to meet him. They came to collect a rack of TV tables and end up being introduced to a girl and an animal in my house. But, cool chick that she is, she made everything seamless. And I left candy on her doorstep. On her birthday. Never heard my car comin'.
Everything else?
It's all rote.
Drive Down, Meet, Chill, Catch Up, Pet Dog, Hang Out, Smoke Cigarette Outside, Chat, Pet Dog Again, Smoke Another Cigarette, Eat Something, Gather Stuff, Walk Together to Door, Hug, Leave.
Nothing tops Our First Night Together.
But I keep hoping it does.

Until one time...

She told me a story. A scandalous story. Something she couldn't share with anyone at work. They all talk. Something she could only tell a good friend. Like you, Kevin. You're a good listener and you seem trustworthy.
"But I don't know if it's right telling you."
If you feel like sharing, share away.
"Okay."
"So I met this one couple, guy and a girl, they've been together for awhile, and they're really cool and we've been hanging out together and really hitting it off with each other, and they're both really great, the guy's cool but the girl and I have really been connecting and we've been hanging out a lot more and, well,........"

I've heard this story before. A myriad of times. It's nothing new or scandalous.
But all of a sudden her hair and her eyes are less vibrant.
And the ghosts of the past seep through the farmhouse walls.
"Is it awkward that I told you this?"
...yeah, it's a little awkward.
"Oh. I think I know why, but tell me, why?"
And I told her why.

I go to the gym a lot more now. Yoga classes when I can make them. Totally making eyes with this one redhead at the juice bar. Yeah, she's catchin' me. Even though I look scrubby. Every day on the elliptical. If she could just catch me playing guitar. Four weeks in and I'm alright. Yeah. Not too shabby.
Hey now, don't make a sound
Say, have you heard the news today?
I love this song.

sigh

Melissa.

To Be Concluded...

----------------
Now playing: Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin

Our First Night Together

2008-07-23T23:11:00.004-05:00

Mid-February. Halfway through the run.
We were at intermission one Saturday night when Gina stops me while crossing through the dressing rooms to grab a smoke.
"Is that the girl from the bar?"
"Excuse me?"
"That girl you were talking to in the bar that one night. Isn't she in the front row?"
I rub the bridge of my nose. My glasses sit untouched with my street clothes.
"I really wouldn't know."
She escapes back through the girl's dressing room. Her face bursts as she reappears a minute or two later.
"It's her!"
Seriously? Crap, don't tell me that. I can't focus the whole second act. I can see her, blue striped shellback coat sitting Stage Right, front row, aisle. Can't miss the hair, the glasses. Dear God, what does she think? Am I selling it? I'm doing everything with a Deaf chick on stage, the whole gamut of a relationship. Does it look real? Did I look hot? Can't concentrate. What's that saying? "Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture." Yeah, that's all I got.
The Lobby after the show. I've grown to detest it. The smothering, the rigamarole. If no one I know shows up I'll sneak out a side door, I detest it so much sometimes. But I can't sneak out. I gotta talk to her. I know she'll be there.
I've been envisioning this moment. I knew I'd see her again. Been planning my move. So totally gonna ask her out. Smoothest motherfucker you ever did see.
"Hey, babe, you were the hottest thing in the bar that night. Wanna go grab a beer?"
That was, honest-to-God, the line I was gonna use.
Brian, Tim, and Amber all came to see the show that night, all of them very congratulatory. Redhead's there with a friend. I make introductions all around. Friend excuses herself to leave, I excuse myself from my brothers to grab a smoke outside with the girl.
Say it! Use the line, goddamnit!
But it's so bad! It'll never work!
You gotta! You'll never get a chance like this again!
No... Wait, shut up. Let me think of something...
During a break in the conversation I just blurt it out.
"Doing anything tonight?"
No.
"Would you like to get a drink?"
Sure. Where?
"Just down the road somewhere."
Fine. Let me run home to take care of my dog. I'll meet you there.
This is all too much. As I re-enter the theater Brian can tell from my face that I'll be late tonight coming home. Tim doesn't quite grasp the whole situation but Amber smiles brightly enough for two and pulls him along, leading a couple steps ahead. I don't know where to go so I set my sights on the most recognizable bar on the strip and text her to meet me there. In the half hour I'm sitting there on my own, with the way I'm feeling, I could pick up any girl at the bar there.
And then she walks in.
And from here on out I'm lost in whatever she has to say.
I'm not the chatty one in a couple. I tend to be the sounding board, the release valve. But this girl ain't saying anything and I have to pull the conversation along between us. Her list of accomplishments reads like Lisa Simpson mixed with Ernest Hemingway. Rugby player, were you really a rugby player? Already published a book of her own poetry. Using fancy vocabulary words like "epicurean" and "synesthesia". A huge music fan, she can match me per nuance on many a modern rock band. Two people sitting alone in a crowded bar, not speaking a word, getting to know each other. Sharing things only we would know. Everyone else stealing glances.
Hers is a story I haven't experienced before, in many ways the exact opposite of mine. She recently became completely Deaf, within the past few years. Her parents are Deaf, which is how she learned to sign. She knew she and her brother would eventually become Deaf as well, and due to an operation she lost all her hearing. Her eventual fate implanted a deep sense of urgency in her. Chill, reserved irises do little to project the kinetics of her, the nitroglycerin nature of her will. Life is fleeting, intangible, and must be jumped upon before it fades.
My mind sucks all this up like a blood cell swimming in ethanol.
Then takes a double when she mentions presently breaking up with her boyfriend of three years.
What did you think of the show?
"I thought it was great. You did an amazing job, I was very impressed. But I have to admit, the first night I met you at the bar I didn't think your signing was that good."
Well, I have to admit, I was a little stoned that evening at the bar.
"Really?"
A sharp look, carried towards the exit behind her, then slid back with a smile.
Really?
"No expectations."
"No expectations" was my middle name.
In the car I try to follow her but Hermann's droning roar makes me drive slow this time of morning. She's texting me directions one wrong turn after I need them. But we get there. And it's quaint, a colonial-style village farmhouse. As if Donna Reed moved to Green Acres and rescaled the house for a 4 ft. family. She rents the whole first floor.
I break out what little wares I have. And all of a sudden the signing goes wild. People standing around me would have had their faces slapped. She just sits on the other side of the loveseat facing me, one elbow bent and propping her head up, eyes registering somewhere between awe and drool.
All the artwork in the place is original, her own. A fiery red-and-yellow self-portrait. Fuzzy Mediterranean frescoes. And this green-faced Messiah, very like a Marley blacklight poster, sitting in the prominence.
Who's that?
She chuckles brightly.
That's Adam Duritz. She has a sort of thing for Counting Crows.
Understatement.
At this point she regales to me a story that officialy makes her the coolest thing on two legs.
Whenever Counting Crows would play Rochester she had to sit first row every show. Had to. But even that wasn't close enough. So she devised a plan to get as close as possible. The next time they played she called the arena holding the gig.
"Hi, I'm a free-lance interpreter and I understand some Deaf customers have bought tickets to see Counting Crows. Could you tell me where I can park my car?"
The toughest part was finding people who could sign to play the customers. Which wasn't that hard.
At the arena the night of the gig: Parking was free, backstage pass sat waiting, friends got great seats at a rock concert, and she stood in skin-tight leather pants, 10 feet from Adam, signing every word coming off his lips.
She repeated this.
Multiple times.
One time actually catching Adam and Ed Kowalcyk from Live in a pick-up basketball game. Adam saw her, flashed a cursory glance her way. She had gotten very close. And he knew. She stopped after that.
Coolest thing on two legs.
It's getting early now. Really early. "No expectations" means no expectations. So,... nothing's happening. Right?
So I have to go home.
Right?
I don't want to crash here. That's a poor first impression. Besides, I'm so lost now. I would do anything she says. The most epochal person I have met in forever, and I'm a foot away from her. I'm soft and mushy, a puddle of wet diary pages in her living room. But I don't want to crash here. That's a poor first impression.
She asks if I'm okay to drive home.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Where's the door?"
Her text messages don't help in reverse. I've nodea wheremat. By the zoo, somewhere. Fuck, Hermann's loud. Waking the neighbors driving like this. Someone's gonna call. I can't get another ticket. Cannot. Shit, where the fuck am I? Driving around, fucking map... someone's gonna spot me. No, can't do it.
Hermann pulls over into a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot.
Just gonna relax until safe to drive. Daylight or so.
Can't keep the motor running. Cop might pull up.
Holy living fuck, this winter's fucking cold.

To Be Continued

----------------
Now playing: Counting Crows - Einstein on the Beach (for an Eggman)

Just a Girl at a Bar

2008-07-17T22:05:00.001-05:00

Third week of January. Third week of rehersals. Thursday evening. No one had to work early the next day. We're done at 10. Drinks? Yeah, sure. Hell yeah! Where at? Kevin, you been here before, what's good?
We went to a bar I thought I had been in before. One from last year, couple of guys from the band and the come-hither hottie serving drinks. One where I heard "King of Carrot Flowers" played on the jukebox. You never hear that song in public. This wasn't the bar, but here we were. All of us. Two circle tables pushed together, half of us fast-flinging fingerspellers, the other half loud-talking others.
Didn't really wanna be there. Stopped drinking habitually. Bars are too loud for me. Conversation gets lost, drowned in the squelch or yanked by a drop-dead hook. So I arrived already comfy. Dressed a little like I was askin' for it. Christine took one look at my preppy cardigan and shook her head slowly. Oh, brother. Or so her face said. Neither table is drawing me particularly, so I start out playing waiter. Everyone else picks a side and I end up losing musical chairs. Boo-hoo. I gather orders and take to the bar. The husky-voiced bartender is a little plump, but she's catchin' me, so that's cool. People scuffle, people leave. Something opened up right next to the Lighting Designer. Don't know him. Perfect. Bring some drinks back and collect money. Gina slips me a fifty. She's got first round. I go back to Miss Smoky to pay.
And I catch her out the corner of my right eye. Redhead, purple shirt, tall, slim dancer's build. Slow reveal towards me showed distant eyes framed by sweet pointy glasses. She is perfect. Exactly what I like. I'm horrible at chatting up girls at bars. So much so I don't even try anymore. So she'll be the most visited landmark on the scenery of the evening.
I'm chatting at the tables, making small talk, nursing my Blue Moon. She's sitting at the table directly to my left. Two other friends, a stack of cups, and a pitcher of Bud. I'm listening to dude next to me, trying not to look so blatant. The girls still flinging their conversation cross the table to my right. Something about training for the Marines, rolling your own cigarettes, yeah, dude, I'm with you. Redhead gets up to move. Can't mistake her for a second. She heads over to the girls flittering away. She starts to flitter along. Holy shit, she can sign.
I'm committed now. I couldn't hide anything if I tried.
Christine is all over this, talking animatedly to the redhead. Pulling out postcards, writing down notes, explaining the whole operation.
"The whole show's done in sign language, and we'll have it captioned as well, and these three girls are Deaf, they're in the show, and Kevin over there, he's hearing but he signs very well, he plays the lead."
She's staring at me. I know she is, 'cause I'm staring right back. Everyone can see this, can't they? There's like, something going on between us, right?
Isn't there?
She comes over to introduce herself. Her name, she's from New York, recently became Deaf due to,... something something. I'm listening, I really am, but I can't put two words together to save my life. I'm so incredibly amazed that this girl is even talking to me. Her nose ring, her bright eyes, her gorgeous body. Her voice is strong, but the signing really helps in the bar. After making a complete fool out of myself and her returning to her table, I head outside for a smoke break. Lighting guy follows me too. We're not a minute into freezing our asses off when she comes outside with one of her friends, lighting a cigarette and loudly talking about placing bets on the Packers. No one can ignore that. Some more exchange of words outside. Why does it have to feel so difficult to talk to her? Why is this even happening? She's meant to be a landmark, a beautiful eye-catcher in a sea of monotony. What is she doing talking to me?
This is supposed to be happening, right?
Her party takes off before we do. She comes over to me before she leaves. Squeezes my bicep as she says goodbye.
I knew at that point that I would see her again.

To Be Continued

----------------
Now playing: Neutral Milk Hotel - The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One

The Jig Is Up

2008-07-17T09:02:00.000-05:00

This is no joke.

Last night I realized my life's ambition.

It was as if someone peeled away the foliage and a shining path lay there all along.

When implemented, this plan will bring only good and will make all my dreams come true.

This thing is so big that nothing else matters. It's as if I was given the plans for checkmate for my life. All the steps are right there. As soon as I take them, everything opens up and falls into place.

Basically put, the answer is:
Where have I been for the past seven years?

It begins with a microphone, an empty stage, and light.

It ends with a book tour.

----------------
Now playing: Fastball - You're An Ocean

2008-07-15T14:54:00.001-05:00

Came across this while doing my thang on Wikipedia.

Learned helplessness

This puts a whole lotta pieces together.

Submission

2008-07-09T11:09:00.001-05:00

If I glance over to look at you
Furrowed brow
Sheepish grin
Muttering something about how I tend to overanalyze things
Please realize
The brow will never be resurfaced
The grin is anchored by dimples
This mutter cannot be more understated

Last year: Rollercoaster of a lifetime
Always edging forward
Speaking the future
Meeting opportunity
No wrong moves
This year carried hope that
Lightning strikes twice
Does it ever?
Everything's trapped in sap
Either suctioning sideways
Or ever sloping southward
All attempts are equal
Every result the same:
Wait and/or Fail
Wait and/or Fail
Yet
I swear
Nothing here is wrong
Fairly sure of it
Intentions held ever true
Methods still improving
But they are my own
And I feel every fault
Imperfect but so it goes
Chuang Tzu spoke of this
Madman singing at the door
"When the world makes sense
The wise have work to do
They can only hide
When the world's askew."

Conventional wisdom dictates
Flipped on its head
The root remains and the weed
Gains a new genus
Dandelion becomes flower, another rose
By any other name

"Surrender" : Process :: "Submission" : Destination

If progress is halted
Then let me stand still
Denied the greener grass
Though now grows not brown
My goal is out of grasp
So heaven becomes here
It is time
To live the luxury of the meek
To play prey instead of predator
To yell out Hello World
Alone + Easy Target
Free Hot Lunch
Guy Fawkes for Hire

The universe is giving a bye
A year-long Labor Day Weekend
Seven deconstructs
into Three and Four:
Own the mirror's warts
And bask in everyone's beauty
This equals enlightenment???

Like
Milkweed seeds ending up in window boxes
Thistle redeposited from backwoods to downtown
Cross-pollination aided by migratory swallows
Life finds a way
It must:
Form follows function

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa...

So this is why
My life is crap
People see me as a threat
I am exactly where I'm supposed to be
And my furrowed brow
sheepishly grins

"Every man knows how useful it is to be useful
No one seems to know
How useful it is to be useless."

Quotations from:
"Confucius and the Madman", The Way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton, c. 1965 Abbey of Gethsemani
----------------
Now playing: XTC - The Mayor of Simpleton
via FoxyTunes

The Ultimate Chortle

2008-07-02T00:08:00.003-05:00

These thoughts, when popped into head, always elicit the brightest grin from me:

My life is crap
People see me as a threat
I am exactly where I'm supposed to be

I believe that the world ends in one big huge bellylaugh. I believe that the Big Crunch at the end of the universe kaplongs into one God-sized guffaw. The big joke's on us. You work, you build, you slave, you risk. The last page's the same in everyone's book.
How tragically hilarious to be born unto this world of ironical sin.

----------------
Now playing: R.E.M. - The Great Beyond
via FoxyTunes

Go Away

2008-05-14T00:11:00.000-05:00

Application Thesis

2008-05-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

Topic: "A top priority of the University of Chicago Medical Center is to provide flexible and sensitive patient care."

The woman looked relatively normal, maybe a little sad. The rest of the patients on the locked psychiatric unit were far more distressed in appearance. Half the rooms were occupied by geriatrics, wandering the hallways either catatonic or lost to Alzheimer's. The other half was a regular rogues' gallery of psychoses and personality disorders. She just sat quietly, forlornly, perhaps a little sad. We were three hours away from change of shift. I was making my way through the halls asking patients the infamous "8 o'clock question". We had to find a way to ask if the patients have had bowel movements that day without shouting "bowel movement" every two minutes, hence, "8 o'clock question". Most of the patients either responded in kind or silently referred to their nurses. I was more than halfway through the population when I came across the woman, sitting on a chair in the middle of the hall, looking a little sad.
"8 o'clock question?"
"Huh? What? Oh! Umm... yes, I did."
"Great. Thank you." I marked it on my clipboard and moved on.
"Wait!... could I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure, let me just finish with the last couple patients. I'll be right back."
"Oh..."
She resumed her position from before I approached her. There were only three more patients left to ask, so once that was done, I dragged a chair across the hall and sat right next to the woman.
"Hi, what's going on?"
She looked at me as if I just asked her to marry me.
"You said you wanted to talk?"
"Oh... Okay."
The woman started to talk. She was deeply, deeply depressed. She had brought herself in for depression a week before, sat through five days of rounds, and was going to be discharged tomorrow morning. She hadn't felt any different. She didn't like the idea of going home. She was afraid of what would happen. She didn't want to go.
"Why didn't you tell anyone earlier?"
"I tried. I asked, but they never came back. I didn't want to bother anybody."
It's my job to be bothered. I sought out her nurse, explained to her what the woman had said. She took notes, went out to talk with the woman. The next day when I came in for my shift I found the woman had been discharged. Transferred, to another unit downstairs. Saw her again two weeks later at a bingo game on the 8th floor. She was bright and lively. She was excited to see me. She put aside the plush rabbit she just won and gave me a big hug.
"I'm so glad I talked to you. I don't know where I'd be without you. You saved my life. You really did."
A couple weeks later another woman was admitted. She was previously diagnosed with bi-polar affective disorder. Her family brought her in. She was ranting and angry. We had to change her into a hospital gown and check in her belongings, but she was far less than cooperative. They assigned her to me. As we walked down to her room, I let her vent. She was scared and frustrated. She had been to the hospital multiple times before and never enjoyed it. She didn't want to be here again. As we got to her room, I allowed her to take her time changing her clothes.
"Y'know, you're the only one here who doesn't make me feel like a freak."
"But, miss, you aren't a freak."
"But you don't know how hard this is. Coming into the hospital. I feel like a damn animal in here."
She spent the rest of the shift with the doctors after that. The next day she was an absolute sweetheart, a model patient, so happy that someone had taken the time to listen to her.

These are small examples, but I believe their roles are mighty. When people come into a hospital for health care, they really have no idea what to expect. They do want their problems and ailments relieved, but they don't want to get caught up in a system that takes away their humanity. A top Health Care Provider must learn to cover this area with broad brushstrokes as well as attention to fine detail. The medical staff, from Administrators to Doctors to Nurses and CNAs, are able to take the incoming patient and, from their file and initial meeting, establish triage, discover conditions, make diagnoses, and set up a plan of treatment. As technology improves and advancements are made, the medical staff can narrow down and perfect their course of action. They must be caught up on the latest of studies and be ready for any kind of anomaly that might appear in their waiting room. But that's only half of health care. While the medical staff is treating the illness, the rest of the hospital staff is here for the people. Those who are worried, frightened, confused, or downright lost, we are here to support and guide. University of Chicago is world-renown for its level of quality and excellence, which means people of all walks of life will walk through our doors, and each of them has a story to tell. It is our job to become attuned to their story and accommodate as best as possible. Content patients make fore more effective health care. It is as simple as that.

It's All About the Cocksucking...

2008-05-03T23:03:00.002-05:00

I took in the film Art School Confidential rather recently. Brilliant underrated film. Terry Zwigoff, director of Crumb and Ghost World, follows in kind with this glowing rendition of a Daniel Clowes comic. The story is all about a young man starting out at the fictional Strathmore College with high aspirations: To become a great artist. In the meanwhile he gets caught up with the intrinsic pretension of all art students and scholars, self-doubt about his talent, and being distracted by an absolutely stunning (and sometimes scantily clad) Sophia Myles. There's a mass murderer out there who helps string the plot together, but it's a lovely little treasure of an art-house theater classic.

WARNING: Here be spoiler

There's a scene where Jerome, our young protagonist, is taken by his new best friend, Jimmy, to an apartment where resides a Strathmore graduate, a surly balding man whose once-prodigious talents have fallen way to narcissism, angst, and vodka. He sees Jerome with his bright-eyed optimism and tells him that if he wants to become a great artist, he'd better learn to suck cock. Jerome loses his luster, retorting that his talent will carry him to his goal but the jaded cad maintains, militantly, obsessively, convincingly, that sucking cock is the only way he'll be able to get anywhere in the business; the dankness and depression of his apartment and lifestyle apparently his testament of never selling out to the Pink Nazis. Jerome, spiraling down into scorn and desperation, finds himself with a less-deserving rival for not only the top spot in his class but also for the hand of Life Drawing model Audrey (the aforementioned drop-dead gorgeous Sophia Myles) and, in an effort to gain entrance to an important gallery show where Audrey and rival Jonah will be, pleads with the gallery owner, getting down on his knees, saying he would do anything to get in. Zwigoff leaves it up to us to imagine how Jerome got his golden ticket.

Spoiler ends here

The cad is right. About sucking cock. Sort of. Cocksucking isn't always cocksucking. It can be, and oftimes is, but not all of us partake in that particular hobby (although the Casting Couch is alive and well in the mythos of the theater). The ideas (and the risks behind it) are very real. In the business of making a living out of art, you will be forced to do things you aren't comfortable in doing. You will have to exploit yourself for the sake of a greasy buck. You will have to take on projects you absolutely detest just so you can use your talents and instincts to pay your bills.
I felt I had done all that already. I dropped everything 2-1/2 years ago and went on tour for three months with a children's theater group living out of hotels getting paid chicken feed just so I could live a life as a full-time working actor. I halted all sense of a regular career to work at Starbucks and maniacally audition for shows for over a full year. I ended the paying summer gig this year so I could promote my own work instead. I thought I had done my work in the trenches and was ready to be promoted to Officers Training School. Start an empire. Make a name.
Apparently I haven't even started sucking cock.
In fact, I believe, the more you want it, the more cock you'll end up sucking.

Huh.

Step 1: Choose a better-tasting metaphor...

Witnesses to the Execution

2008-05-02T10:12:00.002-05:00

Thank you, everyone, who came by last night:

Kate Lesciotto
Bruce Lau
Melissa Skyer
Maggie Swatek
Jennifer Veselsky
Maxwell Veselsky
Elizabeth Hoag

And a special thanks to Beth Gainer, a stranger in the crowd who saw some guy moving tables and ended up sharing some moving poems about breast cancer.

It was a small but mighty gathering. I was exhausted afterwards. So glad the first one's over. This next one's gonna be ten times easier.

Thank you, everybody.

Open Mic Night

2008-04-21T09:50:00.002-05:00

Mark your calendars...

Always On Stage Productions presents...

An Evening of Art & Storytelling
Open Mic Night

Thursday, May 1
7-9pm
Willow & Waukegan Starbucks
In Shopping Center near Whole Foods/Best Buy
in Northbrook, IL

Open-Heart Surgery

2008-04-18T15:10:00.006-05:00

Three weeks ago I endured a 17-hour road trip over two days to help my sister and her family move back from Texas to the Chicago Suburbs. It was more a tightly-knit operation than a pleasure cruise. Jennifer and Jeff had had their house on the market for months, an absurd exercise in futility considering today's real estate market. But, they were desperate to make it happen. Jenn was expecting the second bun from her oven, and to raise this one completely unaware of the trove of cousins, three freaky uncles, and the gushy, soppy love of Mimi and Papa all residing 1100 miles away was unthinkable. So they opened Pandora's Box and waited. Sacrificed and waited, like a fisherman lost at sea trying to catch the first meal in days. 'Til someone bit. Then it was all action. That's how Jenn operates. She has the ability to walk into a room and reign over it like that. Smooth and confident, a charismatic Aries who commands you give your trust to her, and you want to comply. By hook or by crook, she'd get her ass back home. And so she spread the word out and organisms all over flooded the network to her aid. I drove down once with the moving van and never saw much of Texas outside of being a wanna-be roadie, but here I was, a one-way ticket on a last-minute flight, playing a roadie once again. Friends from both Jenn and Jeff's jobs had pitched in, and most of the vehicles had been loaded by the time I got there. My biggest duty was that of morale builder; a babysitting, topic-sharing, meal-eating morale builder... who happened to lift heavy crap. The day we returned I came home to a very dim Hermann. He's old and feisty but a trooper, and yet the ignition key wouldn't tickle anything out of him. He's had that battery since before I bought him, installed back in Who-Knows-When. Tim's ride couldn't jump any sparks out of him. So now here I was switching roles from roadie to mechanic.
I know little about cars. When one breaks down you're sorta forced into position to learn. That's how I did. Three weeks' research and begging for rides to work led me to Hermann. I wanted a reliable, strong-willed car with soul, and here comes this boisterous crimson craigslist-lingering suburban pimpmobile. No quarter, no dice. Bought it for a song, warts and all. Got what I paid for. Almost killed me, it did. Couple times. Now it sits dead on a patch of asphalt, and some clueless novice is expected to give life to this Frankenstein. Pause to laugh. Brian's a much better candidate for this. He's got a garage full of car stuff and fluids and tools and things, but he's unavailable elsewhere. Dad takes me to get a new battery, and both of us spend the evening heads bent under Hermann's gaping hood, staring over his flashlight-lit innards.
Yep, there's the battery.
Yep. Terminals.
Ooh, rust.
Hmmmmm.....
Dad's done this before, but not enough times. He could talk me through most of it, but dwindled sunlight makes everything seem less possible. He lends me his car for work and we pack it in. Hyundai's got great pickup but no oomph. I actually miss that blaring mad son-of-a-gun muffler of mine. Hermann must rise again. I left note for Brian to see if he could assist, but our paths had been avoiding each other lately. I ransacked his basement and garage for anything I thought could help: Pliers, towels, issues of Popular Mechanics. Stopped at Google to look up "how to change a car battery". Yep, just as easy as Dad said. A gnawing rumor I remembered from something I read once stated that Coca-Cola, because of its high acidic content, is excellent for stripping rust from car battery terminals. What a fortuitous time to try an experiment! Brian is a real-life Coca-Cola fanatic. We have two rooms in our place decked out in full Coke regalia, our kitchen stocked with shelves of Coke memorabilia and toys, some still mint-in-package. And wouldn't you know it, not one unopened can of Coke anywhere in the frickin' house. Not one. There were some cases of soda in the garage, stuff Brian bought for family at New Years' but doesn't prefer to drink. Coke? Pepsi? Same thing, right? Decided Hermann was gonna take the Pepsi Challenge. So, like last night I stood, hood yawning open, lantern-lit innards, except this time I was pouring brown bubbly liquid into the insides of my car.
Field surgery.
Witch doc'try.
MacGuyverin' it.
Neighbors strolling by in the twilight doing their best to pay no mind. I figured they saw me as either That Loud Driving Asshole or one of the Deaf boys. No matter. Let it sit, let it bubble, let it soak. Hope this isn't completely idiotic. The terminal did get cleaner and rust-free, and half a can later the positive terminal connection started to loosen, to twist. Clumsily my screwdriver worked its way around wires and underneath the coupling 'til POP, the coupling hung tethered like the Space Shuttle manipulator arm, unattached from the terminal. Hot damn, it worked. Halfway. Negative terminal's relatively unchanged. Now what? What other tricks do I have up my sleeve? I've been through the house four times and there's no WD-40 to be found either. I still have the Hyundai, I can throw in the towel at any time. Wait for Brian. Get a tow or something. Deal with the puzzle later. Can't I?
What if I can't? What if things couldn't wait, if Hermann was losing pints of blood and there wasn't any help for miles around. Doctors don't have the luxury of solving the puzzle later. After you cut someone open you can't remedy half the problem and then stitch up knowing you tried your best. It's go from there. Roll up your sleeves or all is lost. "Square peg into round hole" time. I look upon Hermann as my friend, and I lean on him too much to let him down now. So we go. There's no WD-40 to be found, but lubricant's lubricant, right? It all comes from the same place and used to the same means, so let's improvise. The only thing that comes close in the garage is a bottle of 5W-40 motor oil. Giv'er. It's dark enough that I doubt anyone looking who cares notices that I'm pouring this bottle nowhere near the oilspout on my engine. It's thick and amberlike, a blob melting down the terminal. Alchemical chicanery. God, shut up, Kevin. So, like the Pepsi, the motor oil works and the terminal gets dislodged. The battery slips out easily, new one in quicker than a pit crew moves. Everything attached and pounded into place, hood closed, a deep breath, open up the driver's side door and the dome light goes on. I was a man with tools today. Prometheus bringing Fire from the heavens. Samuel F. B. Morse tapping out, "What Hath God Wrought...". A new father clipping his first umbilical cord.
I drove the two rumbly blocks over to deliver Dad's keys.
"You can have these back."
Jennifer, settling down into the old rec room for the first time in years, looks me dead in the eyes.
"How did you do it?"

I'm putting up my own show in two weeks.
It's square-pegs-into-round-holes time.

Memory

2008-04-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

Preface: In acting school we were given an exercise, to write a story based on our earliest memory, sometime around 3 or 4 years old, which we would then present to the class. If we couldn't remember anything from that long ago, to make something up. This is the story I presented.

I like cars. Hot Wheels make me happy. I like to play with my Hot Wheels on the floor. Mama put tape on the floor. It looks like a street. She put the dotted line in like a real street. The room's dark, but that's okay. There's light from the window. The hallway light's on, too. It's okay. I like cars.
Jennifer and Brian are downstairs. They're watching TV. Mama's downstairs, too. She just woke up. She's going to work soon. She works at night. That's okay. Daddy'll be home soon. I like Daddy.
I hear the front door close downstairs. It's loud and thumpy. Daddy's home. I hear Mama saying hi to Daddy. She sounds happy to see him home. I don't hear Daddy say hi back to her. Maybe he does, but it's not like it used to sound. He's really quiet, sorta grumbly. Mama screams. I hear it, but I'm too busy with my cars. Maybe something's wrong. I don't know. It doesn't sound right. My tummy gets warm and starts to hurt. But I like Hot Wheels. So it's okay.
Mama starts to ask if everything is okay, what happened. She sounds scared, like she's late for work or she burnt dinner. But worse. Her voice is high and loud. I can hear her through the floor.
“Well, what happened? Is everything alright?”
I can't hear Daddy talk back. Well, I can, but it's a grumble. He doesn't say nothin'. I can't tell. Sounds like he's angry, but his voice gets high and squeaky at the end. I hope he's not angry. My tummy hurts. It starts to make sounds like I'm hungry. But I'm not. I like cars. Hot Wheels are fun.
Mama talks again. She's talking to Daddy like she's putting a Band-Aid on an owie. But Mommy sounds so sad. So sad.
“It's alright, honey. Don't worry. Everything's alright. We'll be okay. We'll get through this.”
Daddy's making a sound I never heard before. Daddy's voice is louder now, but it's different. Like when the dog gets her tail under the rocking chair and cries off. Hiccups, too. But Daddy's doing it.
I don't know. I don't know what to think about it. I like my cars, though. They slide across the floor good and I like the colors. They keep me from thinking about my tummy. It hurts and I don't know why.
Daddy's coming up the stairs now. I can hear the thumping on the stairs. But it's real different. Slow. The thumps are louder, too. My cars won't stay in place. Daddy's thumps are bumping them around. Sometimes they flip. My tummy hurts hurts. Hot Wheels aren't fun anymore. They keep flipping.
The thumps stop. The hallway gets dark. It's Daddy! I can see him in the hallway! He looks different. He looks short. I can see the top of Daddy's head. Can't see Daddy's face. Daddy's looking on the floor for something. Why is he looking on the floor? What did he drop? I don't see anything. But it's Daddy! I love Daddy.
“Hi, Daddy! See my car?”
Daddy's tired. He needs a nap.
“Tired, Daddy? Need a nap?”
Daddy smiles. He makes me smile. His eyes are wet and red. His face has a lot of lines in it. Daddy looks like Grampa. Water comes out of Daddy's eyes. Daddy's crying. Daddy's crying? What's wrong, Daddy? My tummy gets angry again. I don't like that.
“You okay, Daddy? Want my car?”
Daddy's big hands come around my side. He picks me up. He squeezes me. Hard. I like when he flies me. But it hurts now. Daddy's hands hurt my sides. I can't... it hurts! Daddy's hands pushed the air out. Daddy won't let the air in good. Daddy holds me in front of him. His face is big. He is making a sad face. Very, very sad face. His eyes are water. His smile is small. His air is moving very good. It's warm on my face.
“I'm okay, Kevvy. It's okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay...”
He hugs me. It hurts, too. His face is scratchy on my neck. He's shaking me. Hard, harder than before. I can't make any air go in. I can't feel my tummy. I can't feel anything except the hurt in my sides. Daddy says the same thing over and over.
“It'll be okay. I love you, Kevin. I won't let you down.”
Daddy holds me out. I can see his face. My air goes in okay now. Daddy looks like when Grampa was sick. His eyes and face are shiny and wet. He has such a big frown. Sad, sad face.
“I love you so much, Kevin.”
That makes me smile.
“I love you too, Daddy. Don't be sad. It'll be okay. Here.” I give him my car, my happy car with the orange and the pink. My tummy feels good now.
Daddy smiled! His eyes are still wet, but he's laughing now. I made Daddy laugh! Then Daddy's face gets real big. He good-night kisses me on my face. Then again. And again and again and again. I don't know how many, but he good-night kisses me a lot. Then he hugs me again, real hard. Hurts a lot, but not like the other. He talks real quiet in my ear.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome, Daddy.”
Daddy sets me on the floor. He is big. He smiles at me. Daddy walks to the door. He hits my cars with his big shoes. Daddy's not looking at the floor now.
Daddy looks short in the hallway. He walks slow. His feet don't pick off the floor. He walks real slow. Turtle slow. My tummy feels different again. I don't like it. My tummy feels bad.

Postscript: I told the class that that day my Dad came home and told us he lost his job at the bank.

2008-04-06T12:23:00.005-05:00

Anyone who thinks celibacy is a punchline deserves to be dragged out into the street at Ungodly-o'clock AM, kicked and scratched repeatedly about the facial area then left alive to bleed a slow, painful, fully-conscious purgatory while maggots chew at the dead tissue around their eyes and teeth and ears and the skin and nerves and cells regenerate at a slow, itchy, annoying rate, bubbling and contorting, reeling into thick serpentine coils flapping in the wind until reconnected at the base, platelets attaching onto platelets, capillaries reabsorbing blood flow, nerves realighting to stabbing, tingling sensation and charging sodium and potassium ion particles jumping from nucleus down the axon hillock through myelin sheaths, snapping open and shut protein gates all along the way, down to the dendrites, emitting neurotransmitters across the synaptic cleft with little reuptake, reactivating protein gates on the neighboring nerve cell and igniting the process all over again, sometimes through an interneuron representing a reflex action, sometimes connecting to the spinal cord and transmitting the impulse from the Peripheral Nervous System to the Central Nervous System, going up, firing neurons the whole way through, passing across the blood-brain barrier, through the brainstem, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, and into the cerebrum dancing and frolicking to and fro across the corpus callosum, a grand mal seizure of emergency, and embedding itself into the cerebral cortex itself, the "gray" in "gray matter", flooding all of its corners with alarm, with a spark, a thought, an epiphany, which grows and seeps southward from gray to white, bursting whole areas of mental activity into reanimation, sending signals from thought center via blood vessels and endocrine systems to glandular organs which immerse the entire meat puppet with hormones, stimulating growth, progress, maturity, increasing survival instincts, making the heart pump faster, inflating the lungs deeper so that more oxygen can feed the blood which is engorged with white blood cells trudging to battle off the inevitable infections starting to sweep throughout the whole vascular system, making way for the epinepherine which kickstarts the neurons into afterburner-like overtime, speeding processes, dilating pupils until the black overwhelms all, simmering the whole body with a sense of hope, of life, of possibility and opportunity, until the boot which kicked you to the curb steps on you repeatedly, each time crushing harder and deeper, until releasing just in time for you to see the headlights of the incoming semi truck with its vulcanized Goodyear tires roaring on by, a millimeter away, crackling the hair splayed out aside your head.

I work around too many intelligent, arousing, drop-dead-gorgeous women for it to be otherwise.

Spring Cleaning

2008-04-04T23:10:00.002-05:00

Thank you, everyone.

I owe you the world.

Things were said and done.

Many hearts were broken.

I feel bad that I've hurt you.

I had no malice, and still don't.

Please forgive me someday.

Let me repay you for your kindness.

I thank and honor you.

A La Recherce de la Coquette Perdu

2008-03-29T21:39:00.000-05:00

O Muse!
Sing your siren back into my life
I am full from my empty plate
And no amount of vice can cull this hunger
This sagging belt hanging from my midline
Engorged, ensconced
With nothing to feed on but sight
And words
and maybes

On this First Quarter night
May all change
And begin anew
May your waxing face paint out the comings-to-be
Vibrant and murky
Chiaroscuro
Til gibbously bulging out, cresting and mounding
Bounding, devouring
Then bright and sharp and Full.

My head is thought out
My body is your tool
Mon coeur est presque vu

...what better time than now?

Om Namaha Shivaya

End of the Month

2008-03-27T03:13:00.002-05:00

I've confined myself to afterhour quarters this week.

Cops need to meet their quota.

It is Spring Break.

I just got Hermann street legal. Can't afford another stupid ticket.

Next week's gonna bust wide open.

Spring Break

2008-03-26T00:25:00.003-05:00

First thing I noticed was that my alarm clock was an hour late. My phone vibrated me awake and the sight of the time between the two was discombobulating. They're synced to go off 10 minutes apart, but now the numbers were all wrong. It took me a bit. NPR and Radio Canada brought me back to realtime. So tough to stay awake. I'm driving to work and my usual route is blocked by a stalled freight train. And I can see the sparkle of police lights between the boxcars. My schedule's stressed to the second, I can't stand for this. So I reroute and end up 2 minutes early. Tank and I are setting up, and both of us can swear we hear the safe beeping. My key hadn't been near it yet. We're one crate short in our sandwich supply.
The mouse in the store got caught. Dear God, I had to move it. EEughhhawaaaggughha! Never gotten used to that feeling. Store's open and no one's coming in. Not even regulars. It's really odd.
The biggest issue this morning is the boy, the scourge. This whole situation is out of control. Nobody can agree on anything and nobody's getting penalized. He was late last week when I was out of town. An hour and a half. He's been written up about this before. And he left us hanging yesterday. Don't want this. Not today. He strolls in at 7:30. I'm in back putting away boxes. "Could you authorize my time for me?" Does he have the book I lent him? "No, I'll get it later." Go home. He laughs. Go home. "What do you mean?" You're not working today. "Yes I am. I'm on the schedule." Schedule says 7:00. He looks; "They told me 7:30." You're half an hour late. "But I called, they told me 7:30." You were late last week. "I called in about yesterday." Yesterday is moot; Go home.
I feel my parasympathetic nervous system flare up. The wave pulsates from the centre and tingles out. Want to get away fast. He's a big guy. Former wrestler. Personal trainer. Not sure how impulsive he could be. Can't let him see me shudder. Stare.
"I called in about yesterday." We don't need you today. Nothing from him. I hold open the door out. He begs to stay. "You're going home." He quietly leaves the backroom.
And I await judgment.
I hate doing that.
There's no need for this today.
Back on the floor I cancel the authorization. Tank knows something's wrong. I give her some details. She says it had to be done. Then I see the boy leave the bathrooms and exit the store. I just made us shorthanded. Gravity sinks in and I shift like a golem for a while. The crowd influx is thin but a late burst floods in. Three of us on the floor: Tank, Me, and Newbie. Newbie's on bar. He's exceptionally good, but a morning rush is hell for anyone two weeks in. And then he has to deal with me helping him out. We respectfully avoid crowding each other. It's clumsy, but we get 'em all. My guilt-fueled overadulation of his fortitude probably embarassed the crap out of him.
I meet my first new Deaf customer since I moved to this store, a man named Mike. Nice, genial. Hope he comes back. A woman walks up to the counter. She picks up the book we're selling. "Y'know, I just read that book's near the top of the New York Times' Nonfiction Best Sellers List."

"Oh. Then he beat me to it."

I take it in but parry it aside, start talking about A Million Little Pieces. She mentions her son's an addict. I motion her aside by the bar; Recovering? Seven months. Congrats. I maintain low information transfer and quiet tone: She wants to talk but who wants to listen? I do let slip that I used to work in mental health and have seen people detoxing.

"You wouldn't believe how widespread it is. Here, too."

She buys a copy of the book. I give her two recovery coupons, one for her son. At that point it felt like the very least I could do.
Breaks and lunches are murder. I'm out on the floor alone for a little. Haven't even touched the cashwork. Eliza comes in an hour early, black skirt staring at the MP3 track listing. Bubbly, she cannot wait to show me her new T-shirt. She takes off her button-down workshirt and POOF!, a picture of a running refrigerator. She's tickled to bits. Returns the poetry book I lent her. What's her favorite? She takes it back and starts hunting. I mention mine: In a Gas Station Outside Providence by Mike Doughty. She replaces her workshirt, buttoning just the middle one, and sits down paging furiously. She flashes back two pictures of female poets she liked, along with one piece, "mantra". Very cute. Her first two hours are off-floor, reading manuals for Supervisor training. So we do that. I set her up on-line and run out to handle customers. She offers to help, but I veto it. Tank's gone for the day, Newbie's at lunch, bring it on. Deal with money later. Newbie returns and I leave the floor to him, tell him I'll jump out when he's sinking. Eliza scoots over. We share the desk, her studying and me calculating. Questions, questions, bouncy, bubbly. I leave twice to save Newbie. She's brilliant and articulate, quizzing me on specifics. I tell her to avert her eyes when I make mistakes. She takes her break 10 minutes early to hit the floor sooner. With her on I can hit the bank early, which is unusually flooded and understaffed. Miss Ann, the crackerjack teller, and I catch up briefly, breathlessly, and I'm out the door lickety-split. On the way back I catch Anastasia in the parking lot, reading. I catch her up on the long and short of the day. She invites me to hang out, chill after close. We agree on a text later. Inside, wrapping up the day, I say my goodbyes and Newbie, eyes closed, brow furrowed, says it was a good day. Newbie rocks.
At home I am spent. The phone vibrates me awake again, a call from Ma. It's about 6:00, so I figure it's an invite to dinner. I stir, head downstairs to reheat some food. After I scarf, I call. Ma wants to talk about the other big issue, He and She. She's doped up in treatment with some inconceivable back pain. He waits hand and foot. She's pulled this stuff before. Mom doesn't want He to follow She down the abyss. We hear each other out. I'm very opinionated on this. I don't trust She. My brain says, "Let her rot." He will stand to make the biggest decision so far in his life: Us or She. And he must make it alone. We spend time rehashing old details, but we hear each other out. Another time, then.
And then it hits me. I text Anastasia: "Another time."
It would be best if I stayed home tonight.

Does This Site Look Gay?

2008-03-12T00:18:00.000-05:00

I mean, seriously.

You got your pink curtains on each side here, a love sonnet plastered on the front page, some creepy, cheesy folk lyric underneath the title and, to top it all off, a shirtless, hairy man lookin' all fierce staring out at you.

Dude's even talking about bein' in The Full Monty.

If I didn't know the guy...

Gay.

I'd love to take a poll.

But people rarely leave comments.

If you don't leave comments, does that make you anti-gay?

Shame on you.

Sonnet

2008-03-08T14:35:00.001-06:00

So many things hath cross'd my mind since we
Pass'd by each other like two stars in space
The summer sun hung brightly o'er the sea;
Such beauty pales whene'er I see your face
Forbidden love is all our future holds
Like owning mirrors solely meant to break
Our life's rich tale lost within the folds
My heart has no more corners left to ache
Our fam'lies cannot understand the truth
'Tis this; that you and I were meant to be
Your claim to Montague's clan I seek proof
Alas, forever Capulet, 'tis me
Yet in thine eyes I see the spark so true
Empires rise and die before we do.

(Inspired by Romeo & Juliet and a Texas homework assignment)

What I Want

2008-03-02T08:37:00.001-06:00

I want to make a living, build a foundation, not simply earn money.

I want the next time you hear about me to be from someone else.

I want my own Wikipedia page.

I want to sell my ideas and fund my empire from there.

I want to be "Trey Parker" ginormous without losing my "Thich Nhat Hanh" intimacy.

I want a profession, a calling in life that I can talk about with pride every where every time.

I want you to like me, 'cause I like you.

STARTLING PERSONAL OSCAR-WINNING CONNECTION DISCOVERED!!!

2008-02-27T17:17:00.002-06:00

NORTHFIELD, IL -- After reading this article on Tuesday afternoon in a suburban Starbucks, local barista Kevin Swatek discovered he had a distant, fleeting connection with highly-lauded and incredibly sexy former stripper and Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner for the hip independent teenage pregnancy flick, Juno, Ms. Diablo Cody, nee Brook Busey, herself a Chicagoland native from western Lemont. Upon realizing this connection, Mr. Swatek almost spat up the latte he had just made for himself.

"What the?... Gah!", Mr. Swatek sputtered. "Who... what... huh? Hey! That's so cool! I kinda sorta knew her!"

After a few more seconds another discovery sparked in his brain: "Damn! I used to be her boss!"

The grand epiphany happened after Mr. Swatek read this item in the Chicago Sun-Times article: "...creative writing award winner at Benet [Academy in Lisle, IL] (Class of '96) and a graduate of the University of Iowa, where she hosted a pre-dawn radio show." Mr. Swatek claims he is a graduate of the same institution where he attended from 1995 to 1999. He offered as proof his college ID card, which he briskly plucked from his chain wallet.

The college ID Mr. Swatek removed from his wallet.

"And I still kept it too! All these years! Still gets me into places for cheap! Check out how long my hair is! Y'know, if I keep clean-shaven, I still look like that! Still got it, baby!"

Mr. Swatek continued in saying that one of his extracurricular activities at the school was working at the college radio station, KRUI 89.7 FM. Along with duties as an on-air DJ and production engineer, he mentioned he also held the position of Assistant Program Director during the 1996-97 academic year, its sole purpose being to schedule the new on-air talent to the daily 4-7am shift.

"We put them on early in the morning because that's when our listenership was lowest, so when they screwed up they wouldn't feel so stupid. We don't want them on in the afternoon when everyone skips classes, do we? They suck! Even less people would listen to us!"

Mr. Swatek could not remember any personal encounters with the former Ms. Busey, using the phrase, "couldn't pick her out of a crowd." "But," he added, "I'm sure I heard her voice on an answering machine when I called about her shift. Cool! I knew her phone number!" Independent research could not find any lists of University of Iowa Alumni where Kevin Swatek was included.

Customers to the Starbucks where Mr. Swatek currently works paint an altogether different but consistent reaction to his discovery.

Bud Miller, a 43-year-old local businessman, had this to say: "The man's a complete whackjob. He talks to one person like a Scotsman, then to another like a New York cabbie, then he flames out and gays it up for the ladies he works with. Who can believe one word this guy says?"

"Oh my god, what a goof!", said Gergana, a 34-year-old nurse at Evanston Northwestern Hospital. "He throws the cups up and catches them behind his back before he makes the drinks. He's cute, but my kids think he's crazy."

After hearing for the 10th time that shift all about Mr. Swatek's discovery, most of his partners at work responded with the same question: "What's Juno?"

Diablo Cody was unavailable for comment.

A Great BIG Heartfelt Hug

2008-02-24T21:45:00.002-06:00

The run is over.

It's been a phenomenal run. Incredible, exhausting, exploratory, evolutionary, friendship-shattering, challenging, amazing, self-exiling, self-flagellating, and ultimately the most rewarding experience of my career.

Thanks to everyone who braved the icy cold weather and long distances to share these moments with me.
In no specific order:
Lacey Bade
Kate Lesciotto
Nicole Zurek
Brian Swatek
Tim Swatek & Amber Walls
Robert & Margaret Swatek
Tom & Helen Platt
Joe & Catherine Platt
Jim & Cindy Platt
Dan Platt
Amie Platt
Tom Platt
Dennis & Marlene McKenna
Marc & Terry Bernstein
The Matzkin Family
The Mailling Family
Julie Herman
Emily Herman
Brendan Connelly
Mike & Carolyn Kalina
Jessica Strejc & Joey Burger

To all of you and everyone else who came, this comes from the bottom of my heart:

To anyone I missed, I apologize. Either my tired head has misplaced your name or I never knew you came to see me.

Now, to shave this dead muskrat off my face...

Kevin Swatek Comes to You

2008-02-10T21:25:00.000-06:00

Some of my old films have been uploaded to YouTube.
Sit back and watch some seminal gems.

Release (2003) - VFS

American Prophet (2004) - Walking Man Prod.

Something Wants To Come Out

2008-02-06T18:40:00.000-06:00

I'm restless but not.

This winter is driving me crazy.

Cooped.

Frozen.

Can't say a goddamn thing.

Was given a day off and all i want to do is nothing.

This whole thing is stupid.

Why is it continuing?

I have phone calls to make, i have things to write, i have chores to do, i have yoga to catch, i have friends to catch up with, i have a future to meet, i have women to want, i have a lot of fucking i want to do,

Bleagh.

I hate this whole entry.

Why is this perpetuating?

Don't want no more.

I need Spring bad.

Phonin' It In

2008-02-04T14:45:00.000-06:00

Articles:

TribLocal Listing (w/pic)

Oak Park Leaves (w/pic)

Children of a Lesser God

2008-01-29T12:04:00.000-06:00

Village Players Theater

Presents

Starring:

Gina Matzkin

Kevin Swatek

Directed by: Christine Strejc

February 3 - 24, 2008

Fridays & Saturdays @ 8pm

Sundays @ 3pm

Tickets $25/$20

Village Players Theatre of Oak Park
1010 W. Madison Street
(866) 764-1010
www.village-players.org

Map & Directions

Where Would You?

2008-01-26T01:45:00.000-06:00

A theater.
Cineplex, proscenium; either one works.
Fourth row is so high school.
Backstage is better.
Center stage is hotter.
Projectionist's booth is funkier. Very Tyler Durden.

A playground at night.
Quiet, no one around.
The whole yard to us.
Tire swing.
Suspension bridge.
Merry-go-round.

A forest.
Tent or au naturel.
Breezy late afternoon or groovy moonlit dusk.
Soft thicket of grass surrounded by warm dewy musk
Something about the outdoors gets me wild.

At work.
Anywhere.
Backroom.
Countertop.
In the lounge.
At the bar.
Stop for a drink afterwards.

A car, or a fire escape.
Or right outside church.
Again.
Nice to revisit some favorites.

A store. The gym.
Some random whim.
An elevator going down.
A limo drive around the town.
A restaurant beside the stove.
Inside a pub, some van I drove.
Jacuzzi jets, just to be frat
With nothing on but a baseball hat.
Anywhere I've never done before.

Or would you rather keep me guessing?

No, Really... How's the Show Goin'?

2008-01-19T23:21:00.000-06:00

- I haven't been in a relationship for over a year...

yet I meet, date, make out with, fall in love with, and marry a Deaf girl. In real life, she and I went to high school together. She's currently married to a great Deaf guy I grew up with. And for three days a week throughout February I'll be doing things with his wife in front of an audience that he's probably never done with her their whole private life.

- I haven't been cast in a role this big ever...

and in this script, not only do I have my own lines to memorize, but I'm the interpreter for every line the female lead says in the play. She signs a line, I verbalize it and add my own lines. There are more yellow highlighted areas in my script than there are white pages. And having only a month of preparation while working full-time doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else.

- I've spent a lot of time learning and respecting Deaf Culture...

but there are moments in this show where I say and do things that I absolutely hate. The fights written for this show are just epic. The ignorance and the stubbornness and the animosity reach levels that I actively avoid in my waking life. And the aggression has quickly raised within the past week from verbal abuse to physical. Rehearsals get done and I detest myself for hours afterward.

Come watch my most beautiful moments in hell.

It's that good.

So,... How's The Show Goin'?

2008-01-15T23:00:00.000-06:00

It goes intensely.

I've never been known as a lead actor. Never given the opportunity. I've made a career out of bit roles and sharp comic timing. This show I live up to my namesake: I am always on stage. Never a break. And everything happens in front of the audience. Every kiss, every argument, every tender moment, every shouting match.

All in two languages. And a subject matter very close and dear to me.

If you live in the Chicagoland area and don't see this show, then you might as well stop reading this blog. Nothing I will write will be as impressive or as important as my performance throughout the month of February. This is the shit I was born to do.

Celibate Playa

2008-01-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

If ever
there was a person for whom
the term,

"Celibate Playa",

would be perfect,

C'est moi.

You want me.

All of me.

All to yourself.

I know you want me.

But you can't have me.

No one is having me.

At this moment
right now

anywhere

everywhere

no one

is having her way with me

not

one

bit

everything

she ever

dreamed of

wanting
to do

every

stolen moment

she wanted to have

with

no one looking

no words spoken

no questions asked

every

anxious wait
staring at my face

wondering

hoping

when will he
stop

talking
listening

being so good

leading me on

boy scout

twattease

eunuch

when will he
touch my hand

pull me close

caress my arms

smell my neck

kiss my cheek

glance my tits

hold my back

press our hips

meet my eyes
when will he

just
jump in
dive deep
real deep
so hard
smooth
slick
wet
red
strip
rub
scratch
ooh
tear
oh
bite
aah
thrust
yell
scream
goddamn
oh fuck
yeah
good
so good
more
now
fuck
yes
fuck
yes
fuck
yes
aah
bitch
shit
ow
yes
now
more
ooh
more
ooh
yes
ooh
aah
ooh
yes
yes
yes
aah
ooh
oh
oh
no
no
no
no one
no one
is
having
me
no one is
having me
no one is having me

At this moment

anywhere

everywhere

no one is having me

and no one knows why.

Ow.

An Evening For The Ages

2008-01-04T20:13:00.000-06:00

The names have been changed to protect real people.

When I was living in Iowa, I was asked by two of my actor friends to share an apartment with them. I was going to become a junior and spent my first two years in the same dorm, in the exact same room. Mostly. The last couple months of my sophomore year I vacated that room due to an abusive asshole roommate to live with my best friend, but I ended up staying in the girls' wing living with my girlfriend anyway. That summer she and I split up while I was back in town seeing acting friends, and Chrissie and Marv asked me to join them in their new apartment whilst I stayed with them that visit. This was exciting. I had been doing plays for the past three semesters with this student theater group, and now two of the members thought I was cool enough to share a pad with. I's excited.

Chrissie Opinicus and Marv Simpson were about as yin and yang as the magnetic poles. Chrissie was bright, sparkling, irascible. A thin blond Vegetarian (with a capital "V", meaning no meat whatsoever) from New York City, she worked in the make-up department at the University Theaters and was best known for scene-stealing cameos, on and off-stage. Marv hailed from Marshalltown, Iowa and was passive, blunt, a lump. His SAT scores spelled "Harvard", but he was an Iowa dropout who worked at Blimpie's and conjectured artistic brilliance. They had been roomies for years, joking that they had only a couple years to go before they were common-law spouses. Chrissie was the fuel behind Marv's baby-step development and Marv was the vehicle for her greater wants and needs. Sometimes literally. Chrissie had no car, so when she needed groceries she'd playfully entice Marv with her girlish charms and the promise of a home-cooked meal if he put down his Playstation controller and drive her to market. Platonic for years, Chrissie was the loving, nagging housewife to Marv's surly, magnanimous sugar daddy. Now I was to be put in the mix.

We got along just fine for months. Rehearsals were held at our place. Regular MST3K evenings. Planning meetings revolving around a new public access sketch show. At night I would go to bed, stare up at the ceiling in the dark, and think about how this room was mine, that I was paying for the roof over my head. Made me feel good. Out of my room I played a versatile foil for both Marv and Chrissie. I was handy in a kitchen and would help Chrissie around the house, but I could sit on the couch and grunt along with Marv just fine. They, in turn, opened me up to a whole new world of people, new friends and new opportunities. Broken up from my first girlfriend ever, they provided distractions and distance. I had my first video rental card and would pick up the weirdest cult movies and avant-garde art films, sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion. Shortly after I moved there a tornado hit nine miles south of Iowa City and left the town in shambles. No power for days, so after driving around to look at the fallen trees and sparse wreckage, we loaded up on booze and had a social get-together in the dark. Led to my becoming a man at the tender age of 20 to a shapely redheaded Irish girl. Good times. Good people. Good apartment.

This was the '90s and Lollapalooza had its first incarnation, a travelling carnival of the hottest alternative bands and keenest underground acts. Summer concert festivals have never been my bag, but since I fell into popular music in high school and was a radio DJ now, I read Rolling Stone and Spin by the stack learning about all the lineups. The one that caught my full brain's attention since I heard the smallest buzz about them was the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. Modern primites, regurgitating the freakshows of the twenties, actual human oddities laying on beds of spikes, swallowing roadkill, lifting weights with piercings, chewing broken glass, causing controversy across the nation. While I was shopping in the University Bookstore my freshman year I wandered away from the textbooks and found Jim Rose's autobiography for sale, which slipped neatly under the pile of Biology notes in our shopping cart and ended up on my parents' tab. Read that thing dog-eared and memorized the part in the back where Rose explains the secrets to all the tricks. The book still finds its way in my bathroom for months at a time. I yearned to have seen them on Lolla's Second Stage or as the openers to Nine Inch Nails' world tour. Alas, this was 1998, and Lollapalooza had withered into happy memories by the status quo, so no chance of an audience with them any time soon.

However, there existed a tape. Rose had commissioned a video in the early days of the troupe as a media handout and concert merch, and whaddyaknow, my local video store had a copy. Ooh, I was gonna enjoy this. Once it was in stock at the store, I was gonna watch the shit out of it.

It was a light autumn dusk. Marv was at a friend's house creating a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Richard II. Chrissie was busy with dress rehearsals all day at the Theater Building. The apartment was mine. Our building was only blocks away from the Ped Mall, the unofficial focal point of downtown. I had just strolled outof one of my usual hangouts: Record Collector, Tobacco Bowl, The Deadwood, whatever. Buzzed by That's Rentertainment just next door and scoped out the Cult Films rack. Holy shit, the black tape's in. The tag's just sitting there. Jim Rose is in the house. Not for long. I'm bouncing as I can feel the videotape rattling in its case, enrobed in my jacket, strolling down the street away from town. This is going to be an evening for the ages. Chinese take-out, couple of beers, and shots of fainting vomiting hipsters. Nothing could make me excited-er.

The apartment is getting darker. Sun's going down but there's no need for electrical light yet. And it's quiet. Deliciously quiet. And still. All except me, I'm bubbling with just this pang zow ka-wowwie 'cause I'm about to watch someone stick something into somewhere it ain't supposed to go. And it's not porn. And who cares I'm still buzzing! Digging through the catch-all drawer, searching out coupons, phone numbers, menus. Huzzah! Easyplace! Decent shrimp and broccoli, free delivery, nothing more than $6 plus tip, and an eggroll comes with. Perfect. Dance over to the fridge, grab a Milwaukee's Best. Click. Ssssst. Snap. Glug. MMMmmmm-mmmmmm. It's watery and noxious, but damn if it ain't cheap! And it'll getcha drunk! Singing some song at the top of my lungs, I plop on down into Marv's barcalounger. Way too giddy he ain't here! Reach over across the aisle and grab the cordless phone from its cradle, set it down on the arm, and get to poring over the menu to see if something else sounds better.
Phone rings.
"Hello!" "Hello! Is Chrissie there?" "No, Chrissie's not here right now. Can I take a message?" "This is her sister! Tell her to call home as soon as possible! There's been a family emergency!" "Okay. I know she's at the Theater Building, but she usually comes home for dinner." "Tell her to call home as soon as she gets in! Our mom's passed away!" "Okay. I will. I'm so sorry. I'll tell her." "I'm sorry! It's just been happening so fast! Just tell her to call home." "I will. I will." "Okay. Thank you. Goodbye." "Goodbye."

The girl was frantic. The whole phone call happened so fast. I don't know what... just... Wow. Pang. Ka-wowwie.

The apartment is silent again. Except for the clocks ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. It's getting darker. No lights are on. Tick. Tick. Tick. What's the time? VCR says 6:38. That's about right. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

I waited for her a long time. It felt long. But the sun was still out when I left the house. The Theater Building is way across campus, across the Iowa River and exactly kitty-corner from us layout-wise. Didn't know what route she'd take. I just couldn't sit there anymore. We lived on Dodge, so I was just gonna take the main roads and see if I could catch her. She, I could spot anywhere. Especially now. Got down to the first main intersection and marched on towards town.
I was just about at the Vine and spotted her right outside Sera-Tec Plasma Center:
"Kevin! Hi!"

"Chrissie!"

"Hey! I was just on my way home!"

"Yeah!"

"What's up?"

We started walking back to the apartment.

"Your sister called. You have to call home right away. There's been a family emergency."

"Oh. Okay. Huh. Did she say what it was?"

"Not really. You should call home. Talk to your sister."

"Okay. Huh."

We chatted a bit. A lot of silence. She turns to me.

"Y'know, I really wish she had told you what the emergency was, so you could tell me, so I wouldn't be so worried."

"Uh... you should just talk to your sister."

More uneven silence. We're getting close to home. Her puzzled face turns to me one last time.
She again wishes I knew what the emergency was.
We were less than a block away from our back door.
Just about to turn down the alley into the parking lots.
My eyes close.
At that point I did something.
I took a gulp of air.

"Okay, Chrissie, your sister told me why you have to call home."
Head nod. Deep sniff.
"Your mother's passed away."

I had never seen a face so bright go so cold so fast. Her eyebrows slid down like a rusted roof wicking away rainwater. Her eyes fell, a somber glaze of shock, disbelief, fear, anger. Her lips curled low and agape, a silent scream of a Noh-drama. But she wailed. And cried out. Right in my face.
I have read many things in that face since.
We didn't talk anymore. Looked only at the ground. I tried to hold her hand during the walk and she grasped it briefly before letting both just drop to the side. Up the stairs, into the silent apartment where the sun still made no other light necessary. Chrissie went right on the phone. I just sat on the couch and tried not to squirm. Chrissie talked with her sister, let her know she knew already. Their talk was brief, and with a promise of calling back later that night, Chrissie was off the phone and in her room changing her clothes. She didn't eat. She didn't stay long. We exchanged pleasantries, said goodbye, and off she went back to the Theater Building.

After a long while I picked up the phone and dialed Easyplace. The tape was okay. Food, yeah. And I got drunk.

I never really knew Chrissie after that. She left halfway through our lease to go back to New York. Our encounters together during that brief period were minimal. I just couldn't bring myself to more. More blame. More hurt. Didn't know if it was really there or not. I only knew one thing: She requested three times, and I finally obliged. Couldn't tell you what she saw. And she left like the fog in the night, clean as a whistle, paying her rent off from afar, leaving me and Marv to each other.

I can still tell you where that exact spot is. Where I told her. Haven't been to Iowa City in years but I can still stare in its direction from anywhere in town.

Year Purple

2008-01-01T22:52:00.000-06:00

Surrender is the watchword for 2008.

I am not in control.

I take what is given to me.

Everything has been preset.

I deserve every bit of it.

I am a leaf on the wind.

10 Top 10s: 2007

2007-12-15T12:56:00.001-06:00

Top Ten Books:
1. White Noise by Don DeLillo
2. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
3. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
4. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
5. Quiet Days in Clichy by Henry Miller
6. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
7. Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
8. Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
9. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist by Mark Leyner
10. The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, Ph.D.

Top Ten Films:
1. Oldboy (2003)
2. Road to Perdition (2002)
3. Across The Universe (2007)
4. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
5. Battle Royale (2000)
6. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
7. Paths of Glory (1957)
8. Withnail & I (1987)
9. Holy Mountain (1973)
10. 300 (2007)

Top Ten Documentaries:
1. A Certain Kind of Death (2003)
2. Air Guitar Nation (2006)
3. Born Rich (2003)
4. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)
5. Wordplay (2006)
6. Jesus Camp (2006)
7. Rize (2005)
8. Missing Victor Pellerin(?) (2006)
9. Ringers: Lord of the Fans (2005)
10. Devil's Playground (2002)

Top Ten Songs:
1. Icky Thump - The White Stripes
2. King of Carrot Flowers (Pt. 1) - Neutral Milk Hotel
3. Kick Push - Lupe Fiasco
4. Hang Me Up to Dry - Cold War Kids
5. Martha My Dear - The Beatles
6. Dashboard - Modest Mouse
7. Lazy Eye - Silversun Pickups
8. Stronger - Kanye West f/Daft Punk
9. Can You Feel It? - The Apples In Stereo
10. Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder

Top Ten Albums:
1. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
2. Epony mous (T he White Album) - The Beatles
3. Icky Thump - The White Stripes
4. Gadzooks!!! The Homemade Bootleg Album - Mojo Nixon
5. Infinity On High - Fall Out Boy
6. Bone Machine - Tom Waits
7. God Ween Satan The Oneness - Ween
8. This American Life 2006 Live Tour - Ira Glass et al.
9. The Wall - Pink Floyd
10. Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys

Top Ten Episodes of House, M.D.
1. The Jerk - Season Three
2. Three Stories - Season One
3. Pilot - Season One
4. Son of a Coma Guy - Season Three
5. Maternity - Season One
6. House vs. God - Season Two
7. Detox - Season One
8. Deception - Season Two
9. Airborne - Season Three
10. No Reason - Season Two

Top Ten Moments
1. Sitting on my rooftop listening to iTunes on random while the sky erupted in the most amazing electrical storm in history.
2. Watching Ms. Dork Femme become an honest woman to one of the coolest Canadian cats ever spawned (Love you Karen & Phil).
3. "Didn't I see you on TV?" -- A witness offering redemption after Blue Man Group became the biggest train wreck.
4. A long-lost friend, a brand-new Beatles movie, and the evening of conversations that made my whole year.
5. The slobbering, snot-nosed emotional semi-breakdown while making my grilled cheese, leading to my first therapy session.
6. The incredible yet subtle chain of events which ended up with my brief stint in the fashion industry.
7. Dropping Saks Fifth Avenue and picking up the actor's life again, all in the same day.
8. 1:30 am at the Des Plaines Police Station, detained by a noisy muffler, when hours earlier I portrayed one of the boys in blue.
9. Mr. Coffee Shop Owner offering me his venue after a reading of just one monologue of an (as of yet) unfinished one-man-show.
10. "Then slip, SLAM, right onto the brick."

Top Ten Lessons Learned
1. Speak your dreams to everyone.
2. Opportunities abound everywhere.
3. Talent requires direction.
4. You are never alone.
5. I Deserve Better
6. Imagine three steps ahead.
7. This does not belong to you.
8. Celibacy can be unavoidable.
9. It's like spinning plates.
10. Think for yourself or think for no one.

Top Ten Random Things
1. Ringing ear flare-ups
2. The square root of 3 (1.732...)
3. Saturn Return
4. Saturday Morning NPR
5. Plow pose
6. Gravity bongs
7. "Jus' sooth a' Glasgow."
8. Crawfish Monica
9. Grey goo and Xeno's paradoxes
10. The dumpster behind Staples

Top Ten People I Didn't Mention Enough
1. Barkme Laughing Wolf & Bridgit Wolf -- Though I resembled furniture whenever I came over, I thank you for not treating me as such. And Barkme: Thanks for encouraging my wacky side. Whenever, wherever, however.
2. Nicole Zurek -- We didn't communicate all too often but your presence was felt every day. Thank you for being the beacon of direction through the ebb and flow of the year.
3. Kate Lesciotto -- For the evenings out to dinner in Evanston, I can't thank you enough. For the fallout of the past two weeks, I can't ask for more forgiveness.
4. Jennifer Veselsky -- When in the name of god's green earth are you coming home sell the house pack up the kids grab jeff caravan all night come home we miss you right now right now right now.
5. Chris Isaacs & Dana Hannon -- Thanks for putting up with a crude glue-eating Scottish lad & for letting him wreak a little havoc at the beer tent. Miss you guys. Viva NOLA.
6. Hermann -- My beloved screaming-red '93 Volvo 850 GLT. Sputters to a start but never fails to turn over, with a yawp like a low-flying Cessna. Hail to the Prince of Cars.
7. Cortney McKenna -- I suck at returning phone calls, but that didn't dismay you from trying. A dedicated & talented actress, I'm honored to say I shared a stage with you.
8. Christine Strejc -- The only one who can get me dressed in fairy wings and knickers for an audience. Thanks for always giving me a role when no one else would. And here's to our new project together.
9. Jen King -- Actually, I did mention you enough this year. More than most. You survived the epic that was 2007. Good for you, Jen. Good for you. Hold on tight, though, next year's gonna rock.
10. Chelsea Knight -- For telling your story, for sharing your plight, for doing all you can with what you have to stay legit. Don't know where you are. Really wish I did. Think you deserve the best.

I Am Mine

2007-11-28T13:56:00.000-06:00

This one's for you.
You know who you are.

The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure, as each breath goes by
I only know my mind

North is to South what the clock is to time
There's East and there's West and there's everywhere life
I know I was born and I know that I'll die
The in-between is mine
I am mine

And the feeling, it gets left behind
All the innocence, lost at one time
Significant, behind the eyes
There's no need to hide
We're safe tonight

The ocean is full 'cause everyone's cryin'
The Full Moon is looking for friends at high tide
The sorrow grows bigger when the sorrow's denied
I only know my mind
I am mine

And the meaning, it gets left behind
All the innocents lost at one time
Significant, behind the eyes
There's no need to hid
We're safe tonight

And the feelings that get left behind
All the innocence broken with lies
Significance, between the lines
We may need to hide

And the meanings that get left behind
All the innocents lost at one time
We're all different behind the eyes
There's no need to hide
We're safe tonight.

thank you, e.v.

Sous-marin

2007-11-11T23:17:00.000-06:00

I have nothing worth writing.
Tons of ideas, plenty of drafts.
Nothing completed nor worth sharing.

I'm lost. And going dark.
What does any of this mean?
Why do I do what I do?
Where is this coming to?
Nothing.

Don't like this.
Bad scene.
Limp.

Going under for a little while.
Let you know when I surface.

About Time

2007-11-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

When I make it big...

I don't imagine there will be a deluge of congratulations. There will be some hugs, a couple phone calls. The website will take a few more hits, and perhaps people will write more comments.
E-mail. Yay.
Maybe some more people will acknowledge me in the streets. More guys will posture nervously and more girls will bat me an eye when I walk by. My family and friends will be glassy-eyed, faces stuck in a smile.
I will get sick of the phrase,
"I am so proud of you!"
This will happen. But it's not that much. It's just Step 2 to my Step 1.

This, I imagine, will happen more.

There will be an immediate line of people, single-file. Each of them wear angry faces, sharpened eyebrows and upturned lips. One-by-one they step up to meet me.
A slap on the back.
Another slap on the back.
Hands smacking my back. A couple land on my head. My shoulders. Chest. Cheek. Someone punches. Hands grasp and grab. Throttle me. Choke. A slam to the gut. Fist in my balls.
Some heel strikes the back of my knee and I go down. And then the kicking. Base of the spine. Foot up my ass. Knocking the wind out of me. Their endless faces seething, fright wigs of disbelief.
I'll never stop hearing the phrase,
"It's about damn time!"

This won't happen. But I'll feel it. It's what keeps me from taking that step.

Got Nothin' Today

2007-10-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

Got another IIDDI,WW story all in the works.

Didn't make enough time to get it all out.

See you in a couple days.

Cosmic Irony?

2007-10-25T13:54:00.000-05:00

You be the judge.

The below stories are true.

24/October/2007
11:38 pm

I am sitting on a cold metal bench in an abandoned Police Station on the South Side of Chicago. It is the set of Chicago Overcoat. I am decked out in full cop regalia: Badge, nameplate, regulation blue shirt, utility belt, walkie-talkie, and even a replica 9mm pistol. I look good. It is the first film set I've been on all year and it feels like home. A bunch of us actors and extras sit in the "greenroom" area swapping glory stories of near-misses with celebrities and being spotted by random people. Most everyone is just scratching for screen time but I'm one of the very few who's collecting a paycheck. Craft services is overflowing with snacks, food, fruits and veggies, gum, and there's even a fully catered meal. There's no real name actors on set today, but rumors abound of Sopranos regular Frank Vincent and '50s crooner/Jersey Boy Frankie Valli showing interest and even possibly attached to the script. My group shoots two scenes, both involving a fight between two detectives, its climax a beaten-down water cooler splattering everywhere. The other two cops and me all ham it up in costume and the short cute blonde playing the secretary won't leave my side between takes. Cracking jokes with the casting director, the costume ladies, the lighting crew. Share some stories about actual run-ins with cops and how to talk yourself out of a ticket. We were supposed to be done at 3:00 am but we wrap two hours early, meaning I can actually go home and perhaps catch a nap before I open the store.

25/October/2007
1:43 am

I am sitting on a plastic chair in a waiting room of the Des Plaines Police Station. I am waiting for the cop who pulled me over to tell me if I can leave tonight. I took the Kennedy home and got off at River Road, like I usually do. Was driving down River Road in Des Plaines when I pass two cop cars on the left side of the road. I was driving the limit but one of the cars does a U-turn and begins to follow me. I keep myself at the limit but after a good mile the cop flashes his lights and pulls me over. A nice cop, he cites me for a very loud muffler and after tailing me he notices my licence plates are expired.
ASIDE: My car was purchased with an aftermarket muffler so loud I have had the profoundly Deaf ride in my car telling me, "This car's loud!", but I have driven it in the late, late of night and the wee, wee of morning, and this is the first time any cop has pulled me over for noise.
After asking for my licence and insurance he points out that my Driver's Licence is expired and he can't legally let me drive. I follow him to the station where he says with my compliance we can clear everything up for $75. I have $50 cash on me and no ATM card. Since I haven't been arrested ever, he tries see what he can do for me. The waiting room is locked from the outside. It contains a graffiti-scratched metal table, two busted plastic chairs, yellow-stained walls, trilingual metal signs, and a pay phone. Through the thin rectangular window in the door I can see myself hunched over in a chair, slightly rocking, on the Closed-Circuit monitor in the main office. How long will this take? Who can I call for $25 at this time of night? Will I get to work on time? Will I get out of here tonight? After what feels like a week the cop returns with a ticket for expired plates and expired licence. They say they procured an I-Bond for me. I sign a paper, they let me go. Court date's in December. Cop told me already he ain't showing up. He sees my army jacket and asks if I'm military. After I deny he says he could've cut me a better deal. I tell him I'm starting with the Green Berets tomorrow. I get home an hour before I have to leave for work.

SOOOOO relieved he never asked me to open my ashtray...

Into the Unknown

2007-10-23T18:57:00.000-05:00

It has been six years since I started on my spiritual journey.

Seven chakras, a different chakra each year, in order from root to crown. Mix in gobs of assorted occult apocrypha, a degree in Psychology, a dash of Taoist interest, and a buttercream thick facade of Buddhism.

The What of Kevin.

Some things metamorphed immeasurably. Some not a bit.

Is this better?

I don't honestly know.

My mala broke weeks ago. I have plans for Barkme to reconstruct it, plans that will be ceased indefinitely.

My altar is all packed away. I knew I was right to get a steamer trunk. A hackneyed writing studio sits in its place.

My walk has remained untouched half a month. And so it remains.

My history is steeped in solid Roman Catholicism melted down into a static agnostic murk. Toying with the thought of going back to Church one Sunday.

Poo-tee-weet.

"If I don't do it, who will?": Hide-and-Seek

2007-10-20T22:52:00.000-05:00

We grew up in Chicago, North Side, Ukranian Village, in the shadow of St. Mary's of Nazareth Hospital Center. A small yellow-brick bungalow, garage off the back alley, postage-stamped sized backyard with a swingset and no central air anywhere, nestled with six others between two shocking canary City signs plainly reading: DEAF.
Brian was bussed to a Catholic grade school with a deaf program, Jennifer went to St. Helen's just a couple blocks away. I didn't get the Parochial treatment 'cause I tested high enough to be sent cross town to a public school with a gifted program which, coincidentially enough, had its own Sign Language Club. Tim was so small during this time. My most vivid memory of him is my Mom giving him a bath in the kitchen sink. I marveled at seeing my brother getting scrubbed in a place usually reserved for dirty dishes, and I couldn't believe a human being could be small enough to even attempt that.

We'd play a lot of games together outside. Tag, water fights, Mother-May-I, Jennifer and I usually signing instructions for Brian because he was such an athletic and valuable player. We three had our own version of The Wizard of Oz we'd act out on the front sidewalk, all of us covering multiple parts but it usually ended up with Jennifer as Dorothy, me as the Tin Man, and Brian as the Cowardly Lion.

When it got dark or the weather was bad we were forced to play inside. Not many games we could all decide on for inside but Hide-and-Seek was always popular. When you're that small there are just endless amounts of nooks and crannies you can search out to get lost. No one would ever venture into the hall closets, which is where I'd usually be found 'cause I just got so damn predictable. Brian was always happy to play, but Jennifer and I had such an ulterior motive for always pushing for Hide-and -Seek.

The trick was to get Brian to be the Seeker early in the game. Then we'd all be holding glue, tell him to count, and we'd run off while he closed his eyes and did his thing. While Brian was out seeking, Jennifer and I would yell out our relative positions.

“Kev! Where are you?”
“I'm in the bathroom!”
“Why?”
“I thought I had to pee!”
“Need a book to read?”
“No! Thank you!”
“Where's Brian?
“He's looking underneath his bed!”
“Okay! I'm going downstairs to Mom and Dad's room!”
“'Kay! I'm gonna hide in your closet!”

We could keep this going on for a good half-hour. We could, if Brian weren't so quick and had such damn good eyesight. Actually, even with Jennifer and me playing off Brian's deficit, he was still a fearsome opponent. Throughout most of his life Brian was in competitive sports. He played hockey on multiple teams for decades. He was a four-letter Varsity athlete in high school. My Dad nicknamed him “Ox” because of his immense power and tireless drive. So, it wasn't even like cheating. If it were a level playing field Brian would have creamed our butts every time we played anything.

We had the last laugh, though. When Brian wasn't seeking it was always an option to stop playing and never let him know. Let him sit and stew in his cramped hiding space for who-knows-how-long. But we never did that.
Not often, at least.
That would be cruel.

"If I don't do it, who will?": FAQ

2007-10-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

Here's answers to some questions before you even ask them. Anything I miss? Let me know. I'll answer it.

Is this story for real?

Absolutely. This is a picture of my siblings and me back in 1986.

Jennifer's on the left, Brian's on top and Timothy's on the bottom. If you can zoom in on Tim's face you'd be able to see he's wearing earpieces and a body aid, which was a much more common hearing aid style in the less-technology advanced '80s. If you've seen Mr. Holland's Opus, it's the same hearing aid Cole wears as a child, with a small box held in a pouch on a harness worn on the torso. Brian isn't wearing his because his hearing loss is so severe that a hearing aid makes little difference for him. This is something that has affected my life since I was born.

So what is the story you tell people when they ask?

It goes a little something like this:

“Both of my brothers are Deaf. My older brother and younger brother were both born Deaf. My sister and I are hearing, as are my parents, and all of us know sign language. They are the only Deaf people in my whole extended family.”

Okay, it's not quite two minutes long, but at this point people are generally engrossed and skip to their patented response anyway.

I can, indeed, relay this story in French and ASL as well.

How were your brothers born Deaf?

Strictly through genetics. Both my parents have a chromosome that carries the recessive Deaf gene and passed it on unknowingly. How it skipped over my older sister and me is purely through chance and circumstance. I have a large extended family and Brian and Tim are the only members who are Deaf. This whole situation is miraculous unto itself. All 6 of us participated in a study through Gallaudet University to see how the gene traveled. After a simple blood test it has been identified in both my sister and me, giving our potential offspring a 50% chance of being born Deaf. There are many congenital conditions that cause Deafness but the one most likely affecting Brian and Tim is a poor connection between the cochlea of the ear, which translates sounds into electrical impulses the brain can read, and the Auditory Nerve. Between the two of them, Brian and Tim have roughly 20% the hearing of an average person (Tim 15%, Brian 5%).

Can they hear anything?

Yes, but only very loud and very low frequencies. During their adolescence both Brian and Tim experimented with rap music with its booming bass lines. There's a famous family story where Brian and Tim took the family van to drive a few errands and Jennifer was out on the front lawn when they were driving back to the house. Jennifer could see both their heads bobbing rhythmically to some deliberate beat, looking at each other in silent recognition, heads nodding at exactly the same time. They parked the van and went inside the house. Jennifer just had to know what they were listening to so she went into the house to get the van keys and turned on the radio. The only thing that came out the speakers was static, loud hissing static. It's a great little story and I couldn't tell you what quotient of it is absolutely true, but it's a nice illustration of what kind of trials and tribulations Brian and Tim have had in the Hearing World.

In winter of 2006 Tim underwent surgery and received two Cochlear Implants which changed his and our whole perception of his Deafness. This is a very hot topic in the Deaf World which will be dealt with in detail later.

How did you learn how to sign?

I am a native signer. I have not had a conscious day of my life when I didn't know sign language. When Brian was born and was diagnosed as Deaf, my parents took it upon themselves to learn the language and everything else they could to understand Brian. You'd be surprised at how much of a rarity it is for families to do this nowadays. So, when Jennifer was born she was taught to sign and took to it so easily she began signing before she was speaking, leading some to think she was Deaf as well. When I was growing up I remember we had a collection of Signed English Fairy Tale books. Stories like “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and “Little Red Riding Hood” were printed with large pictures, very simple sentences, and illustrations of a person showing the sign for each word in Signed English. Every day, at every meal, every TV show, every public outing, every Sunday at Church, we were signing something. When I was in college I had completed my Language Requirement early and had some room for electives. University of Iowa is well-known in the country for a strong ASL Language program, so I decided to take classes there to brush up on my signing. Say this with me: ASL and Signed English are not the same language. Three semesters of ASL classes and two years working as a Teacher's Aide for mentally ill Deaf children helped boost my signing to very skilled proportions.

Jennifer, however, has had no formal training and her signing kicks my erudite ass. You think I'm good? She'll make you weep, she's so incredible.

Have you ever interpreted? Are you an interpreter?

Yes, I have interpreted countless times, some for pay but mostly not, however I am not a Certified ASL Interpreter.

Why not?

Stupid, isn't it? A natural talent in something so missing from our culture, yet I have not gone and exploited this resource. I've tried. I looked into Interpreter courses and researched the Testing Battery for certification. Even with my already-present ability, it would take a good 1-1/2 to 2 years of classes and preparation and three expensive tests before I receive a document telling me that the State recognizes that I can speak to/for the Deaf. For what I want to do with my life this hasn't appeared as a viable option. Without any hesitation I will sign for anyone Deaf at any time in any situation, and I use my signing most every day. I don't feel any need to wait for any Government to give me clearance to do that.

You sound bitter. Do you have any issues with this whole Deaf thing?

For the record, I am a deeply sarcastic person. A lot of my humor comes with my being inappropriate for the moment. This makes it difficult for many people to know when I'm being on the level with them. However, yes, there is a bit of bitterness written into that story. After talking with thousands of people and sharing stories about childhood, I've realized that my time growing up was uniquely different from just about everyone I knew. They look at me and consider me well-adjusted and compassionate. I look at them and consider them normal. And many times in my life I wished I was just normal.

I have lots of issues with the whole Deaf thing, all of which I want to confront and clear up in the process of writing this.

Why did you take offense at people calling you “cool” for knowing sign language?

Take a look at it from my point of view: If I didn't know this language, this whole lifestyle, I wouldn't be able to speak to or understand 1/3 of my family. I didn't choose this, it became me. Yes, it's cool to flaunt at the beginning but after a couple years you begin to wonder why people look upon this with such novelty. Is it cool to learn how to share, so much so that you'll stop and stare every time someone splits a sandwich with a friend? How excited do you get when you observe an immigrant testing their strained English on someone? Besides that, none of this has been easy. I make it look easy because it's natural to me, but nothing about this has been a cakewalk. The years of ostracism, the steady piercing stares, the lifelong guilt, the constant conscienciousness of the situation; all of this and then some reduced to someone calling you “cool”. I don't do this to be cool. I do this because there's no other way for it to be done.

I'm not nearly as bitter about this anymore, but I retain some skepticism. I'm much more open to the idea that any kind of awareness, even wide-eyed shock and awe, is still awareness and it's a good thing I can deliver it. But I'm always curious about why some people get involved in Deaf Culture when they don't have as direct a link as mine. “What made you want to interpret?” “Why are you teaching the Deaf?” Why do you bear the weight of this voluntarily when I was born with the responsibility? Shit like that fascinates me.

Do you ever wish your brothers could hear?

Yes. I used to, often, but not really much anymore. Above all else, it would make life so much easier. Basic daily communication aside, it would have really helped with searches for schools, trying to find a job, overall social skills. I don't wish for them to be hearing now. The shock of suddenly being able to hear everything would boomerang them backwards into silence. Even Tim turns off his Cochlear Implants because the sounds give him a headache.

On the flip side, Brian has told us all that he wishes we were all Deaf.

Will you teach me some signs?

Sure, I could. I'm usually not in the mindspace to do so, but if you catch me with some idle time I'd be happy to show you some conversational signs, mostly pertaining to what you like and what you do. I don't give formalized lessons, though, so it's up to you to remind me. If you take the time to think about it, you'll realize sign language is really a more focused form of pantomime. If you can act it out and express your emotions freely, you can say it to a Deaf person. Start with sports. I'll bet you'll come up with the natural signs for “baseball”, “bowling”, and “fishing” without thinking twice.

If you're really serious about pursing this as more than a novelty, I can direct you to a number of resources much more knowledgeable and less restrictive than me. Some of then are even free.

If you just want to know the dirty words, don't worry. We'll cover all that soon.

New Moon

2007-10-10T20:33:00.000-05:00

Every week I get a horoscope e-mail from Rob Breszny (www.FreeWillAstrology.com). I've read his column since college. If you check him out you can see where I get some of my lofty-headed storytelling. He preaches the case for pronoia (the belief that the world is conspiring to shower you in happiness, i.e., the opposite of paranoia) and uses devices like Pyrrhic victories and name-drops koyaanisqatsi to get his point across. The e-mail usually makes its way into my Inbox every Wednesday, but Mr. Breszny was a bit precocious and too eager to share his news so I got it yesterday. This is what he has to say this week to us Libras:

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "The future is already here," says science
fiction writer William Gibson. "It's just not very evenly distributed." Your
job in the coming weeks, Libra, is to locate hotbeds where the future is
concentrated, and put yourself in the midst of them. It's time, in other
words, for you to escape from the wan, sludgy places where the past is
masquerading as the present. You're ready to thrive on the delightful
shocks of the new.

Yesterday I was also delivered some news which made made Mr.

Brezsny incredibly poignant and eerily spot on: I am being

transferred. Starting next week I no longer work at the store

where I got my start and stayed on-and-off for the past three

years. Most of my good friends are there. A lot of customers I

built great relationships with, including my own Deaf contingent,

will remain there. People who are dear to me and much better

staff than me are being left behind. It sucks, but at the same time,

it's great. I'm working up the Corporate Ladder there, and this

move shows their trust in me to take on the next challenge. It's a

new store with new staff and new customers, so I can start over

completely fresh and new. All of my old jokes are relevant and

usable once again.

I'm being given a golden ticket yet again this year. Why must it

always be a difficult gift to receive?

"If I don't do it, who will?": Introduction

2007-10-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

I went through a period as an incoming college freshman when I didn't want to let anyone know that I knew sign language. It's one of the ultimate trump cards. When you're talking about yourself nothing less than astrophysics or brain surgery can really compete, but sign language's easier to travel with. Proving the mass of the Milky Way or repairing Broca's area requires a lot of materials, extensive jargon, can get a bit messy, and tends to lose most everyone to boredom or sleep, but most people will stop what they're doing and stare when I drop what's in my hands to interpret a conversation. It looks so simple. A couple of hand movements, some weird facial expressions, and the world falls silent at your behest. When I engage in conversation with a Deaf person a line of spectators gather and watch as if it were the Wimbleton Title Match and they don't know a thing about tennis. Spellbound yet dumbstruck.

I didn't want that. Too easy, too confining. At worst you get permanently labeled as "That Guy Who Knows Sign Language". At best, everyone will be telling you how cool it is that you know that.
Everyone.
Without fail.
100% expectency.
This is the flow of the most frequent stock response:

"You know Sign Language? That's so cool! I've always wanted to learn how to do that!
The next sentence will include one, a combination of, or all of the following:
1. I have a (friend/cousin/friend of a cousin) [who knows a (friend/cousin/friend of a cousin)] who's deaf!
2. I learned the ABC's (in school/at camp/a long time ago)! (This is usually accompanied by a demonstration of said ABCs)
3. It's one of my ultimate life dreams to learn that!

"How do you know signing?"
At this point I relay a story about my family and childhood, by rote, tight and 2 minutes long. Well-practiced. I can deliver it in three languages. This is the trump card being played.

"Wow! So your brothers are deaf! That's so cool! I mean, not that your brothers are deaf, but that's so cool! It's really cool that you know sign language."
Sheepishly, I give my thanks.

It's all putty in my hands. It happens pretty much this way, most every time. If I'm talking to a guy, he'll fire a barrage of questions getting deeper into the situation. If a girl, she'll ask me to teach her some signs or even ask me to tutor. Either way, I've caught attention. I got nowhere to go now. Five minutes into meeting someone new and I've given up the coolest thing about me. How do I compete with myself? And why is it so cool that I know sign language? That never connected with me. In fact, I was offended for a long time by that answer. I still haven't completely accepted it. Whatever. It all gets very tedious and unspectacular. Downright idiotic. I wouldn't want to use that opening for anything in the world. So I won't. Ever again. I'm gonna stop talking about it right now.

And I can't stop talking about it. 'Cause when I get pissed off or deeply emotional or just don't want to talk, my hands start to move. Everything I don't want to say my hands do. They know exactly where to go, how fast to go there, what shape to make. I break down my thought processes, trying to make phrases out of ideas, and they manifest themselves into pidgin ASL flow. This kind of thing has happened everywhere: Public, privacy, arguments, with headphones on, after months of never seeing a Deaf person. I have spontaneously signed peoples' conversations for the hell of it. I have translated unsubtitled signing I've seen on sitcoms and network television for anyone listening. I could never not do any of these things. I could never not sign to anyone Deaf. I could never not be conscious of how to translate any thing anyone is saying. I could never just stop and deny what I've been taught as a baby to be normal and essential to everything.

Signed,
"That Guy Who Knows Sign Language."

No Such Thing as a Coincidence

2007-10-04T15:20:00.000-05:00

So more stuff sprinkled into the wind this past week...

Y'all know I ain't been auditioning much this year.

And the Bars thing came out of the blue.

Between talking to people there and I-don't-know-what-else, I've been offered a part in a movie starring Armand Assante, am being sent a stage script for callbacks, and talked to two directors about participating in/starring in Children of a Lesser God.

And my agent called me today. Haven't paid them dues for months. Called about a beer commercial.

All of these gigs pay.

Something else I'm not supposed to know: One of my stories got read by someone at Simon & Schuster.

Don't know what this means.

Happy Birthday to me.

**NEW STORY COMING SOON**

Birthday Wishes

2007-10-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

I wish life becomes more like the movies.

I wish to know what triggers people and how to wield that trigger properly.

I wish to spend quality time and attention to my body.

I wish to become closer to my meditation.

I wish to continue making smart decisions.

I wish to leave with less baggage and a sparkling memory.

Weather Forecast

2007-09-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

We're more than halfway through this theater run and there's plenty of activity on the horizon this coming week.

Expect early sunrises and scattered afternoons resulting in a crepuscular end-of-day. We've got some relief mid-week with a bright Full Moon in the sky but if you're up before the rooster then expect total activity failure before midnight. Torrential bouts of oncoming drive-time rushes are foreseen, but they've become very common so there's no big threat. The week's gonna be hectic and exhausting, but it's all one small part of an ongoing global pattern.

Some new drama is popping up down the line. We've joined a system of new fronts, young unpredictable bodies operating on a different kind of sensuous plane. Things will start out slow, a bit turbulent at times, but will ultimately make a splash. A slight danger in things picking up prematurely or dispersing into so much wind, so proper timing, rhythm, and smart decision-making will prevail. It's less messy than it sounds, so we're gonna take the ride for all it's worth. And there's a flood of opportunity that just reared its head. Thursday night shows some action building in the City. A chance of a big bang, thunderous attraction, and even a fertile chance for change in the weather coming up. More on this as it progresses.

Plus, the big story gestating this week: Silence. A whole unexpected period of vital, vibrant, but restrictive silence lasting decades, even centuries. How do people deal with this? How can we help our loved ones? One man puts his perspective down on everything. Stay tuned.

And finally: What was the final result of this month-long theater run? Film in the 11th.

And The Reviews Are In...

2007-09-19T17:55:00.001-05:00

I make it a point never to read reviews while I'm doing a show. Bad mojo. Did it once. Once. Their comments on my acting made me all self-conscious and screwed up my performance for the rest of the run. Not worth it.

But, I encourage you to read them. They sound very positive. Plus, leave a review of your own if you've gone to see it. I promise I won't read 'em until October.

Village Players' "Piano Girl" a very pleasant surprise

Enthralling "Bars" hits mostly right notes

Opening Weekend

2007-09-18T17:14:00.000-05:00

**See Comments for Disclaimer**

Bubblegum and paper clips. This was the essence of my theater career up to this point. We didn't discuss things like "budget" because there was no budget. We actors made up the talent, stage crew, make-up, art direction, made sets, created costumes, even ushered our own audiences. Thing of it was, we all wanted to be there. Sure, we did shows that opened and closed on the same night, but we got to do a play. We got to act and feed an audience. Damn the fancy theaters and celebrity-inflated paycheck. We learned that drama, like religion, can happen anywhere to anyone at any time so long as one, or a whole cast and crew of people, had the will to make it happen. Hence the bubblegum and paperclips, 'cause that's what we used sometimes to keep the flats of the set together. Anything, so long as the story gets told.

I lost sight of that when I declared myself a professional actor because I felt, at that point, that my ability and experience demanded monetary compensation. Increased pressure from family and my girlfriend, a hundred failed auditions, and several auto-related incidents later, I couldn't do it anymore. I lost the love of performing because I didn't do it for fun, I did it for money. And all my money was spent before I earned it. That's why I stopped auditioning and spent my life searching out a career instead. And we know how that turned out.

We opened Bars this past weekend. Friday was our First Night, but Sunday afternoon was our Opening Night gala. First two shows we had no audience larger than 40, a tad intimate for a theater that can hold 150 or so, but they were lively and involved. Village Players Theater is undergoing a bit of a Renaissance under its new regime of artistic leadership. The lobby has been repainted and a new original show, our show, was slated to be the beginning of a new future. The set looks good, a visual collage of the different zeitgeists in which our stories take place under the roof of one rustic bar, a grand piano its centerpiece, and terraces in back to hold the band. Backstage is pretty meh, not much better than a Waiting-for-Guffman scenario, but you're also talking to a guy who's changed and performed in a Tulsa synagogue hallway, so it's halfway to heaven to me. Reminds me of the high school shows they never chose me to do. The theater really added some special touches to make us appreciated. First Night had champagne and chocolates waiting for us in our dressing rooms. French champagne. Two different kinds of French champagne. Three bottles, one of them cartoonishly large. Made a Magnum bottle look impotent. You looked like a Dionysian wine orgy steward pouring that bottle with both hands, which was the only way you could pour it. Opening Night brought out the bigwigs of Oak Park, a catered meal, and an ice scuplture. The piece de resistance: An ice sculpture of a bar from which they served more champagne and wine. Frickin' ice sculpture! And real Grapes-from-the-Champagne-region-of-France champagne, not that California sparkling wine sham-pagne! And we got two more weekends of this! And a paycheck to boot!

Needless to say, this is, to date, the most professional show I've ever done. Not quite as thrilling as perfoming on the Second City mainstage, but it swells me with pride.

Tickets still available
Runs through September 30

Local Press for Bars

2007-09-13T15:49:00.000-05:00

So the nice people at the Oak Park Press did a nice little write-up on our forthcoming show.

Read it here.

...and notice whose names are conspicuously unlisted.

Get Laid

2007-09-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

I have a wish for everyone who reads these words:

I hope you get thoroughly and deliciously laid.

I hope you get laid with a sweaty humid musk that lingers for days. I hope you ache from the waist up and down and have to walk funny for weeks. I hope you rediscover nerve endings and tiny muscles deep inside your naughty bits and awaken them with juicy tingling. I hope you invite more people, more accessories, and more positions into your boudoir than you ever imagined before.

You seen Amelie? There's that scene where she stares out the window and postulates how many people are having sex that evening and then turns to the camera and whispers something like, "Sixteen."? This past summer I spent many a night sitting on my roof postulating the exact same question. I am into month God-Knows-What of celibacy. This celibacy is not at all completely self-imposed; sometimes the heavens stack the odds against me. So I sit on the rooftops on the far Northwest Side of Chicagoland staring across bungalows and townhouses, sand traps and putting greens, pre-fab families and retirees, and hope to God someone's getting laid tonight. At work the parade of Wisteria Lane MILFs and back-to-school poptarts line up for their hourly fix, sharing their Louvre smiles and lascivious glances, and I hope someone is actually giving to them what my ribald mind has planned but my professional demeanor cannot. At rehearsal I flirt shamelessly on stage with women in a bar and joke dangerously with them on smoke breaks, and everyone can see the strings of my acting.

I'm not using my sexual energy. It's become a joke, a toy, a storytelling tool. Anything but a means to a loud, nail-shredding, arcing gooey orgasm. So I bequeath it to you. May you swim in the fallopian tubes of utter hedonism. Call a friend, call two friends, grab some lube and keep your minds open. Have sex so good it inspires you to sculpt, write, sing, make some art. Cause I'm not, and it'd be a shame for all this energy to go to waste.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading this, go out, and get some motherfuckin' ass.

Somebody's getting laid tonight.

Bars: The Girl on the Piano

2007-09-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

WORLD PREMIERE! STARTS NEXT WEEK!

FEATURING THE TALENTS OF:

CORTNEY MCKENNA
STUART RITTER
KEVIN SWATEK

DIRECTED BY: ALISON HENDERSON

MUSICAL DIRECTION BY: ANDREW CHUKERMAN

SEPTEMBER 14 - 30, 2007

FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT 8PM

SUNDAYS AT 3PM

TICKETS $25/$20

VILLAGE PLAYERS THEATRE OF OAK PARK
1010 W. MADISON STREET
(866)764-1010
www.village-players.org

MAP & DIRECTIONS

Words to Think About

2007-09-03T23:50:00.000-05:00

"From utter chaos thrusts brilliant light."
-- Somebody

Other words that drag off the tongue with awe and juicy rawness:

"I am Ozymandias, King of Kings! Look upon my works, O ye Mortals, and despair!"
-- Percy Shelly

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave
Await alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
-- Sir Thomas Gray

"I'm only one
But not alone.
My finest day
Is yet unknown."
-- Whitney Houston

"Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd."
-- I Ching

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
-- Mark Twain

"Henceforth, I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune."
-- Walt Whitman

"Never give in. Never, never, never, never."
-- Winston Churchill

"I burn the books in my bag, but the lessons written in my guts will never fade away."
-- Zen koan

BTW, the comments have been fixed. They should show up instantaneously instead of having to wait for me to log on and screw everything up.

L'esprit de l'escalier

2007-09-01T01:05:00.000-05:00

So, this show...

Dropped out of the blue. I auditioned for this theater last year: The Buddy Holly Story. Totally looked the part but my singing looked less than authentic. Learned a valuable lesson: Bring sheet music. Never do a singing audition a cappella. It don't work.

Dropped it from my memory. Said they'd keep my info on file. When do they ever dip into that pool again? Never in my history. You can imagine my shock when they called. Callbacks for this show I never heard of. Thought I misheard the message, but no.

...

Y'know, I don't want to write this anymore. The story's been stuck in my head for days, the title affixed itself to me weeks ago. I sit to write this to finish it and I just get pissed off at the screen. It's not coming out spontaneously enough. I have to hunt for words, and when I do that I lose time. So forget it. I'm not gonna beat a dead horse.

I know I'm lucky. But not completely. The opportunity and I met each other halfway. Partly my ability, partly my availability. Yeah I got the chops to give the part justice, but I also was one of two guys young enough to fit the role who have nothing better to do for the next month. All I had to do was show up.

The show's got a lot of work to go through if we want it up in two weeks. The script's still relatively amorphous. It's an exploration of cabaret music through the past century. Each vignette is a diorama of underground clubs, smoky sirens, and the menagerie of patrons separated by the zeitgeist of decade and country. Sounds good, but it remains a work in progress. The decisions we make one night never stay concrete to the next. My best work's based in improv, so I can roll with the punches. My problem is: How serious do we want to make this? Time's of the essence. Everyone's talking "backstory", "throughline", "relationship", which is good and right and professional and so forth, but nothing gets hammered into shape. I'll just take a character, make some choices, and do my thing. It's called a "play", so let's play. Why throw so much labor into it?

We do have a name actor for the show. Lisa Zane. Heard of her? You probably know the last name. Good locally-born talent. I was delighted just to know her from her connections, but I got more impressed once I checked her out here. And here. And here. Gorgeous. I's impressed. Hell, if this show becomes a movie I might just have a smaller Bacon number.

That's all I really wanted to get out. No doubt I'll think of the right way to say things later.

A Letter to Tchotchke

2007-08-26T11:40:00.000-05:00

You'll probably never read this, but I hope one day you stumble onto it.

There are three things that I keep as my memory of you:

1. I like you. I never didn't. Your brash, loud-talking Peppermint Patty demeanor got me curious about you from the day I met you. And for as much as your brashness kept a lot of people at bay, it allowed me to see what happened when your defenses went away, when you became sweet and generous and completely the opposite. Even when we were at odds and spoke in tension or not at all, I still liked you. Even now.

2. You were good for me. You taught me how to argue, how to present my thoughts and motives patiently in an organized and effective manner. I had to bring my A-game every time because I knew you would. And you deeply cared about what I did, in my career and in my life. You were my loudest cheerleader and my fiercest critic. And I know I would be nowhere near as dedicated in following my heart and my dreams had I not met you.

3. At some moments, you were absolutely the most perfect person at the perfect place with perfect timing. To this day I recall our trip to Paris as the best vacation I ever had, solely because I had the most perfect tour guide ever. You threw my first and only surprise party and succeeded in delightfully shocking me speechless. You took a stronger personal interest in Deaf Culture than any girl I ever dated, and that meant the world to me. And how many girls would sit in their man's broken-down car fending off cabbies waiting for the tow truck to come? I felt like a complete loser and you defended my loser-ness.

If you think I haven't been hurt this past year, you're wrong. So many things happened where I wanted you to be the only one around me, and I know I missed out on a lot of big events in your life, events I wanted to share with you.

I know you're seeing What's-His-Face now, and I'm sure you're having a wonderful time with him. Even if you're not seeing What's-His-Face, it's easier and better for me to believe that you are.

A good friend is a rare commodity and a priceless treasure, and I lost one of the best the day we stopped talking to each other. I understand why it is this way, but nothing can stop me from having hope.

Miss you lots. Would love nothing more than to meet up with you some place and catch up with everything.