Apparently I'm Glenn Close!

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

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

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

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

Blech,

-michael s.

Chicago, IL

Spurious Snow Boots and the Parachute of Doom!

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

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

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

"So what happens now?"

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

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

xoxoxoxoxoxoxxooxoxoxoxoox

-m

Student Matinee

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

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

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

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

December!

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

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

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

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

Meh...

(The New) Black Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Redux and Heart-Thrusts

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

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

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

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

-m

Post Hair-Sex

Weekend(s):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome Back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Focus on the process...

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

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

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

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

-m

Aggressive Will Now Be Palatable

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

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

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

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

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

Ick.

I sleep now.

A Finite Jest?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meeting People Is Easy...

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

I'm 28 years old.

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