Open Mic Night

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

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

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.

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

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.