Saturday, January 28, 2012

Why I'd Be a Bad Candidate for An Acid Trip Right About Now

If some one were to hand me a box wrapped with left over X-mas wrapping paper with a few tabs of acid on the inside, it would be a terrible idea for me to partake in the contents.


Last night I had a dream my bath tub was infested with bugs. Long, wiggly, snarling, hybrids of ear whigs, tube worms, and leeches. I would see these everywhere if I took a tab. 


Yesterday I helped solve a technical issue with a client. The client was of course stressed, passing on the whole man who kicks dog syndrome of hand me down agitation. So of course not wanting to lose a client I took the whole situation seriously, to the point of paranoia. Now that the issue was resolved yesterday, the paranoia lingers that the error will re-present itself, laughing in my face. I can't seem to stop thinking about it, thus compelling me to keep checking in and probably bugging the shit out them. 


Today I went to a Mexican grocery to get stuff to make my sick girlfriend soup. Hordes of kids ran up and down the aisles. I couldn't make a step with out feeling myself spun around with their sprint made wind. At the check out the clerks were munching on apples and I couldn't understand what they were saying to me. I felt dizzy when I left. In fact, I'm feeling some congestion fill up my cheek bones with a visit from the winter depression witch doctor. Oh boy, it's true, I have felt pretty damn jolly this winter season up until this point. I need to lay out on a beach drinking canned beer with limes crammed in, soaking up the 10,000 IU of natural radiating vitamin D. My Wood Sugars counterparts are in Hawaii with their family right now. My girlfriend and I are planning an exotic trip to Milwaukee in the spring, so they can feel the pay back of jealousy. 


Clearing my head would be a good thing, and granted an acid trip would do an intense job of it. But I think instead I will compete with myself on the Wii, blaring classical music on vinyl, while sitting on the lazy boy recliner, pressing my lower back up against my heated massage pad. 


For the record no one is pounding on my door bearing gifts of LSD. And if they were, then this post would actually wind up being a misguided farewell letter blaming the end of my coherence on hybrid bugs ruining the place where I take long, hot showers.


Whenever I feel stressed, I find it reassuring to stop for a moment and remember that I am not a presidential candidate. Since everyone these days is apparently an expert on politics and character, a presidential bid is just asking to have your guts kneaded by bony hands. 

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Dropping the N Word

So I did the reading at 8x8 at the Hungry Brain on Monday and it went pretty well. In my story I read, one of the characters gets accused of calling another character a "nigger." I was nervous about reading this one, and thought about swapping it out with a newer short story among some of my recent ones but this one seemed funny and since 8x8 is a mostly booked with stand up comics, I thought I should go with funny to keep the night giggly. My other recent stories are darker, twisted, not that this one isn't but it has the most laugh out loud absurd touches. So I read it, and one of the stand up comics, Will Miles, is African American, so I got even more nervous but I didn't bring other copies of my stories so I had to stick to it. And as I said, it actually went well. Someone said he got a laugh out the n word part.  


As you can see I have a lot of inexplicable white man guilt. 


I once did a play in college, about African American fraternities. It was how I met Donny Rodriguez and became good friends with him and eventually got involved with Wood Sugars. I started off playing a small part, and my character had a line that involved the n word. And I couldn't say it convincingly. I remember taking up half an hour of rehearsal because I sounded like a clunky dork trying to say it. And the cooler, smoother, natural I tried to say it, the more it just sounded dorky. Eventually the lead actor quit and I asked to take on the role. The director thought about it for a week and wound up throwing me the role because he probably didn't have any other options, the show dates were getting closer. He must not have marketed the casting announcements to the right demographic as evidenced by my getting to play the lead role in a play about African American fraternities. And we didn't use black face. 


I had a good time Monday at the Hungry Brain, enjoyed all the other acts, and wound up drinking 6 beers. I think maybe I have some liver fat clogging up the detox process because I woke up feeling like shit on Tuesday. For lunch the next day I went and got myself a shit load of breakfast food. See the thing is, and why I don't go out to bars too often, is drinking gets money flying out of my wallet. Such as in ordering drink after drink. And the next day almost dropping $15 including tip on weekday brunch to inject protein and grease into my queasy digestion. I'm giving myself a 3 beer maximum for a while. I hate losing steam the next day and getting crabby. An ineffective crab is not me at my best. 

Monday, January 23, 2012

Marshmallow-y

Tonight I will be reading at You Me Them Everybody's 8x8 at The Hungry Brain. 
It's supposed to snow tonight, but I still hope a lot of people come out. Events that still get a good turnout despite inclement weather are some of the warmest, communal get-togethers. Forgive the cheese, there is some sort of magic in those flakes hitting your head, not holding you back, you got a reading to go see damnit! I've noticed myself grow cheesier as a person in humor and just general conduct. And I'm okay with that. I'm nearing my 30s and will probably be a dad in the next 10 years. My personality is not that of a rugged, intense dude. I'm a somewhat marshmallow-y fellow. 


I'm reading two new short stories. In one of them, a character drops the "n" word. I'm somewhat nervous about dropping the "n" word in a public place. I am indeed white, like a marshmallow. It may be rather jarring, and goofy being flung from my mouth.  We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A Taunt to the Rygodancish


To the leader of the Rygodancish forces,

I do not address you by name, because (by time I write this and send this via foot page to rush off to our messenger pigeons that I am sure you would shoot and waste your bullets on) you will probably have removed your current general for another scandal of gay misconduct. I cannot keep up with your shifts in leadership due to poor appointment choices to begin with. A little advice, do your research and learn how to read people. I can send you some book recommendations, but I understand this letter will be enough of a reading challenge. I avoided using big words. Just sound it out if you have to.

Anyway, I originally wrote this letter in blood, for it is a war letter. But the rain storm that came out of nowhere bitched up and bled the bloody language etchings into a pink sheet of mulch. So from memory I had to retype the ranting of my blood lust and put them on digital ink instead. The rain storm also seemed to bring on a form of bird pneumonia which fucked with my coop of messenger pigeons hidden in the mountains of Anguish Bugging. I have no problem telling you of their whereabouts now. Go take a look! At their rotting carcasses and puny bones! It is but an omen of the devastation I can’t wait to pop down upon you. The best way to deliver this to you will be through an anonymous tweet account, so search hash tag losing and be sure to refresh because there might be things I want to add along the way.

I wrote this letter because I like to lay down my intentions for all to see, even the opposition, your ugly mug. I have been incredibly moody lately because my government privatized health insurance once again after a great transition into Papa Kako Care but then decided one year into the program that it couldn’t afford it any longer in face of a looming new budget deficit created by the expense of the war I waged against you. So, my therapy is no longer covered, nor my message therapy, so these knots in my shoulders are making me a pissed off war monger and I am craving the devastation of your military. I want it to be a sickening row. I want to skull fuck your men and feed them to my new messenger pigeons whenever I get around to perusing the pet store and falling in love with a dirty little bird that I just have to take home. You might not know this, but I have feelings. Not for you and your race of pallid flat faced back-deck monkeys, but for little animals that don’t have obnoxious sayings, unlike your peoples and their unrelenting need to reinvent popular mumbo jumbo. Really this war is about inspiring the Rygodancish to shut the fuck up. And to devastate your currency so 3% of the Papa Kako Party shareholders can enjoy the surge in the share prices of our new PeaPash currency. It’s complicated, but the old currency is backed by shares in your RygoFilet currency, and by crashing it, the PeaPash currency transition will be pushed forward due to urgent necessity.

So, in short, I want to thank you in advance for taking a whooping so I can be the war hero who brings economic stability to the New Republic of Papa Kako. May hell hath appropriate accommodations for your thick skull. I hope they drain your t-cells and marrow and feed them to the souls of my dead messenger pigeons. And I hope you get to watch. And I hope they’ve been fed very well, so they eat slowly. And I hope in hell birds have the ability to laugh. Cackle even! Cackle in your thick, flat, probably pock marked face (because stereotypically the Rygodancish have bad acne in their teens, we know how terrible you looked when you lost your virginity).

I hope it rains blood when we hit the battle fields, in a series of run down industrial parks that will create the right creepy mood. Please @tweet me some incantations I can use to invoke the demons to make the rain blood wish a reality. I know your people are lazy witches. I once read in National Geographic an article about a Rygodancish girl who cast spells to get her chores done. And we all know you guys are all the same. And don’t be shy about tweeting this to me, for if it does rain blood, the blood will help smear and bring some color to your soldiers pallid skin, so they will at least die good looking. The only way to die with honor is to not look completely butt ugly when you die. I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I have several fashion designers on hold to dress your corpses for our little ghoulish beauty pageant we will host the day after your slaughter, which incidentally will be All Hallows Eve. HAHAHAHAHAH!

With no regard for you as a person,

Colonel Fat Wrist the III

P.S. If things should not turn out to my advantage and long standing wishes, and you somehow do wind up the victor, which is a fat chance in anorexic hell, please also accept this letter as an apology, and go easy on us if we survive in any capacity to become residents at your smelly prison camps. In fact, you best treat me and my troops as one would be treated at a weekend spa retreat, or I will kill myself and my ghost will be a perpetual cold tornado in whatever bedroom you occupy for the remainder of your stupid days as a little worm turd.

May the Good Lord bless you and fuck you. 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Little Pleasures

Id. Gratification. The pleasure principle. 


No matter one's beliefs on the purpose of life, pleasure is at least a pretty damn important additive. It's important to give into temptation every now and then.


I took a walk in the bitter cold then came inside and took a hot shower. The expansion of my circulation melted my interior with glee.


Mexican music playing from the next door neighbors. Made me think of summer, of family. 


Last night I got a good beer buzz going and watched an assundry of music videos on YouTube. This was after another solid Wood Sugars writer meeting. We're getting on those more regularly now so can keep developing new live sketches and new short films. 


Today I did more edits on my novel manuscript. I spent a good while on it and my brain felt a bit sapped after so I played Sonic Colors on Wii and then decided to walk to Walgreens to get cookie dough. Again, giving into temptation. I hope scientists develop a cure for diabetes. My sweet tooth is a good salesman. 


I sat here for a good few minutes trying to think up a good poignant post but this is the best splattering of wisdom I could come up with for now. I have been writing a shit ton though. That's where my brain has been spilling its juice. 


In a little over a week, Monday Jan 23rd I will be reading at the Hungry Brain in Chicago in the 8x8 show. You should come. We can drink IPAs together. 







Sunday, January 8, 2012

Inflatable Black Matter

I had a nightmare in the classic sense last night. In my dream I had 8 kids, this wasn't necessarily the nightmare part. We lived on a farm and they went missing one evening. My neighbor farmer noticed a strange lurking figure in the stalks at night and researched him to be something of a diabolical wisp of black matter, inflating what looks to be a big snow suit made for a giant. I tried to puncture his suit with a shot gun but he was not an easy beast to aim at. He returned my kids to me so I thought we were all good, but in reality he had hypnotized my kids to hold me down at a certain point late at night so he could chew my face off. They tried this but I wiggled free and blew him apart with a shot gun after quite a struggle. I had to shake my kids to break the spell of this thing. When they all came to and apologized, we barbequed sausages for breakfast.


Somebody & Me invited us Wood Sugars onto their podcast last so we went a recorded that. It was indeed a blast, and we had such a lively conversation and swell improvised sketches that their may be material for two of their episodes. Pat and Rob of Somebody & Me are great guys and I hope we get to riff more in future. 


I took a shitload of valerian root last night along with melatonin. Usually parking is very easy to find on my street. But not last night, and I got stuck by someone trying to park that was obviously drunk by evidence of the ineffective angles  they kept trying to park at, and repeated, slow, sloppy attempts. My impatience had already started to get triggered on the way, getting stuck in clusters of cabbies trying to solicit drunk bar exiters. At one point I stopped to let some people jay-walking finish crossing the street, as they were standing in the middle of the road. They continued to walk slower than a turtle after a stroke and cars behind me honked. I can have loose fuse when it comes to driving in the city, and last night was no exception, I felt fired up! I was so fired up that I punched the seat next to me.  I found parking a few blocks away after circling some, and I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep for some time without the aid of something, preferably not beer as I was looking forward to a night not of drunk sleep. And hence the shitload of valerian root, and the vivid, angry dreams it gave me. 

Friday, January 6, 2012

Displays of Passive Aggression

We've been developing a new approach in the Wood Sugars Comedy group as to create an efficient and active process for writing, shooting, editing, and releasing a ton more short films in 2012.  We'll be meeting late into tonight to hash out some new ideas, riffing, and getting ball the rolling on these. 

Here is a recent one we've released based on one of our live sketches we did throughout our summer "Freak Show" format. We added a new character element to it. Please go nuts watching The Passive Aggressive Panic Attack. 




The passive aggressive concept led me down a memory lane to the time I lived in a storefront, The Manor, in Rogers Park. We had a continuous issue with people and dog's both peeing on my door. I'd be in there rehearsing with my theatre company and we'd hear someone walk up and unzip and piss would trickle down from under the door. Quickly I'd throw something, a roll of gorilla tape, or whatever was near at the door to scare them off and we'd give chase to the door, throw it open and they'd be out of sight. I hope I gave them a panic attack. 


One morning while my brother was visiting we left out the front to go get some breakfast. Thick dog shit clung to the front corner of the door on the outside. It took a lot of elbow grease to get it clean. And some gagging. I posted the following note to try to put an end to the pissing/shitting epidemic.  My brother took this picture of me. He was quite proud of me taking a stand.



Not the best photo, all I got though, the sign reads something along the lines of:
Due to assholes and their dogs pissing and shitting on my door, SURVEILLANCE has been installed and police are on call and ready. And for those who still feel the urge to unzip and aim, scissors will also be ready.

It's a touch more on the aggressive/aggressive side than passive aggressive. I got a call from my landlord a few days later asking me to please take it down.