4/28/06

I don't want to

I don't want to listen to the Daily Show, I want to listen to the live version of "Like a Rolling Stone" from Live at Budokan.

I don't want to go to sleep, I want to feel the exhaustion in my bones and weariness in my eyes.

I don't want to hold back the tears.

I don't want to finish these Baby Goldfish crackers, they are absurdly small.

I don't want to take another pill, I want to feel better.

I don't want to describe the unusual harmonies, I want you to hear them.

How does it feel? To be without a home. No direction known. A complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.

I don't want to proofread that.

I don't want to unclasp the pearls that are half-choking my trachea.

Most of all, I don't want to hear Robin Williams right now.

When you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose. You're invisible you got no secrets to conceal.

I want to apologize.

I want to cry it out.

I want to ride the train.

I want to sleep for eight hours under a fluffy down comforter with lots of pillows.

I want to finish crying, but I can't. I just can't. I just stop. I'm not done yet.

4/26/06

We aim to educate.

Symptoms of Hypothyroidism

Fatigue
Weakness
Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
Coarse, dry hair
Dry, rough pale skin
Hair loss
Cold intolerance (can't tolerate the cold like those around you)
Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
Constipation
Depression
Irritability
Memory loss
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Decreased libido
Forgetting to pick up your prescriptions for a week at a time
Feeling oh so attractive
Posting retarded blog entries.

4/25/06

What's under the towel?

bzzzy!

Lessons potentially learned today:

1. Don't dye hair before making a business call that should have been 'brief' but has lasted several minutes longer than the box time...while getting a cell phone call in the middle that you just had to take to be polite.
2. While on a business call, do not have ringer of cell phone on Loud.
3. If rule #2 is violated, do not have ringer set to "Don't Stop Believin'"

I am going to rinse. I am afraid.

4/24/06

Now, play nice!

Person 1: Hey, Person 2, you were funny/did a great job!
Person 2: Ha/derisive snort/self-deprecating gesture/dismissive wave
Person 1: Visible expression of dismay.

Fine, Person 2 is me. Person 1 is another improvisor (well, 3 or 4, by some fluke last night.) There, I'm the Big E on the chart again. How long did it take you to figure out, campers?

I don't often take compliments well, although I'm getting better. (There's a few more of you like me out there, I know there are.) I had an honest and reasonable believe (fine, I'm still paying for the degree) that I did a balls-out shitty job during ten minutes of competitive improvisation. It's over, I've moved on, excuses are my own.

But you know, I didn't realize (or only dimly), that the self-deprecation stuff really slams down someone's elses nice gesture. It's like hitting someone in the face with their own pie. And it's not very nice, really.

To be an improv geek - It's the ultimate 'no-but' and the antithesis of 'yes-and' (Maybe this belongs in the comedy journal. Maybe I'll do a rare reprint.)

Along these lines....Yesterday I also picked at someone for apologizing to me. You know, he was probably just being nice. Instead I just took it as an attempt to make me feel insecure.

What have we learned here, folks? FOLKS?

- The simplest explanation is usually the best. If someone says you're funny, maybe you are. If someone says they're sorry, maybe they are.
- Yes, and generally works.
- Don't be a dick. (Unless absolutely necessary.)



Addenda: Who were the other 2 votes?

4/21/06

Familiarity II: Addenda

So I got up from my terminal at the Kinko's on East 52nd Street, so I could pick up my (very pricey) thirty-page printout....was that a grey-suited Dave McKeel sitting behind me? That would certainly brighten my day! I turned fully. Inconclusive. I strolled to the printer and retrieved my Operating Certificate, laser-printed on oddly shiny paper. I looked expectantly at the bespectacled man at the terminal, hoping for McKeel's sweetly reassuring smile. He, in turn, looked expectantly at me, hoping for Kinko's potentially reassuring technical support.

Neither of us, alas, were satisfied.

4/20/06

Familiarity: Or, Name-droppy as hell, but in a good way; or, it would be funnier if, Dyna Moe or Andy Rocco wrote it.

So I was riding the F train from Brooklyn this morning after a hearing, and I could have sworn that I was sitting across from Will Hines.

Now, I don't know Will Hines, personally, all that well. He's an enormously talented and funny performer/writer/filmmaker sort of fellow; I know him "well enough to say hello to and have pleasant/amusing conversations with at a show" but not "well enough to have in my cell phone and ring up to go to a movie." I'd venture as far to say he's even a "friend of a friend," one degree removed from someone whose number is in my cell phone on the Recent Calls list. He's also very polite. I'd say that Will Hines is someone that perhaps I'd like to, given the opportunity, get to know better.

At any rate, the gentleman sitting in front of me was, within 90% accuracy, a stunt double for Will Hines. I blinked, but something was off; perhaps the shape of his head, the hairstyle. He was wearing a business suit; it wouldn't be completely ridiculous for Will Hines (unlike some other improvisor types; sorry, Curtis Gwinn) to wear a suit, at least in my estimation. The resemblance was that close. Every so often I'd look up, pretending to stare off into the middle distance, at the nonexistent subway map over faux-Hines' head, just to make sure.

I wished it was Will Hines. I'd be assured of a pleasant, amusing conversation about people we knew in common, perhaps; I could share the news of my recent comical legal victory. It would have enhanced my subway ride greatly. He lives somewhere in Brooklyn (I don't know him very well; see?); maybe he was going in late to work, or to an interview. Good luck!

At Delancey Street I thought I caught a glimpse of Amey Goerlich, but my perspective was way off; halfway down the car, I was visually conned by a taller, heavier woman. Where have you been, Amey Goerlich?

At Second Avenue I got nervous. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Will Hines in a while. What if it was him and he was ignoring me? Or worse, what if I was ignoring him? I got nervous.

Two Mexican singers entered the car. He played guitar; she sang. Apparently they were also evangelists of some stripe, because there were a healthy dose of "Allelujias." They canvassed the car for donations, then tried to sell their CD. Faux-Hines didn't look up; I was relieved. Real Will Hines would've certainly, in my estimation, happily purchased the CD and incorporated it into some potantially amusing bit down the road (or at least blogged about it in some far more eloquent way than I'm doing now). Really committed to the bit. Cause he's funnier than me, I thought, as I saw them slipping into the next car, me frustrated and a dollar short.

An Asian man sat down next to me, eating a sandwich apparently made of dead-and-buried-and-then-excavated-cat salad. The purulent odor distracted me from further musings on the subject. Probably for the best.

My accidental-doppelganger-traveling-companion, who'd unintentionally amused me after all, pocketed his Treo at 34th Street, gazed longingly at an overstuffed blonde in tight capris, and got off the train.

And, did I mention, that while killing time at the Transit Bureau, I spotted Matt DeCoster of the future? With slicked-back hair (barely receding at all), and snappy maroon suspenders that matched his half-framed reading glasses. Smart!

4/19/06

Juxtaposition

Those last two posts. Weird, huh?

Blueswailin'

The title of my first folk/blues album is going to be "Cry like a Girl."

And I am hard at work on the first track, "Totebag Full of Blues."

"If you need a friend, get a dog."

"The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of it's forms - greed for life, for money, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you."

- Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), "Wall Street"

4/16/06

You're so vain (REM sleep edition)

you'll probably think this dream was about you.

So at some odd confluence of locations (a school? A party? A show?) I find myself in the company of a gentleman known to me, let's just say (let's call him "Mr. Hankey"). Mr. Hankey is angrily deriding me in front of some of my stand up comedy friends - well, nearby - "why do you hang out with these losers...what are they doing with their lives...what are you doing with yours" and proceeds to run down a gut-punching and not entirely inaccurate litany of my perceived weaknesses and faults. He storms off, promising to retrieve me shortly. I skulk miserably around the corner of what appears to be a school, train station, some tiled-wall building hallway, and see, sitting against the wall, holding his knees to his chest, grinning, an identical, parallel-universe version of Mr. Hankey. How do I know P-Hankey is different? I just do. (Surprisingly, no goatees are involved.) Because he's smiling and has a cheesy yellow shirt on. He comes over and hugs me, and tells me not to let Evil Mr. Hankey get me down. I am relieved to have him holding me so reassuringly, being so nice, but I am afraid that E-Hankey is lurking, and shoo him away. "He'll be back, soon." I think they'll weirdly annihilate each other, or something, I guess. So I detach him, shoo him off. He casually turns the corner just as E-Hankey appears around the one behind me, throws his arm around my shoulder, and continues his litany of asshole-ness, insisting it's right and "for my own good." I'm forgetting what happens after that.

Upon reflection, this is fucking weird. Isn't it? Oh yeah, Mr Hankey is probably me, blah blah blah. But I never wear yellow.

No.

http://www.united93movie.com/index.php

4/15/06

Read a damn book, okay?

"He looked at her and for a moment she lived in the bright blue worlds of his eyes, eagerly and confidently. Then he shouldered his last piece of junk and went up to his car, and Rosemary came out of the water, shook out her peignoir, and walked up to the hotel."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Tender is the Night"

Prophet knows best...the great work begins.

To paraphrase a phrase....."Forgiveness...perhaps that's where love and justice meet."

"Angels in America" is one of those movies that, when it's on too late, I'll stay up. Get it? Well, here I am. And I'm a sucker for a well-turned phrase.

But I'm in the midst of life-inventory, of re-stocking and garage-saling my personal inventory. At the risk of sounding self-helppy (Hey, I see some toilet-room paperbacks in someone's future!), damn if I don't hate when I realize shit about myself. Maybe it's time to start making it stick.

And sometimes, as the kids say, it ends up synching up.

Sometimes, forgiveness is important. I know, believe it or not, I've forgiven some crazy stuff in the past. Forgive and forget? Forget and forgive? Sometimes, one is harder than the other....Perhaps the logistics aren't as important as the actual process. Perhaps it's the result. Perhaps it's your own sense of peace with the one who has wronged you.

And sometimes, people can't tell you who to forgive and who not to. It's up to you to decide. Flip side: You have to learn how to trust yourself.

And maybe, just maybe, you have to learn how to forgive yourself.

(I reserve the right to insert and delete specific examples whenever the fuck I want.)

Like, discussing your divorce settlement with someone who's divorced. "Blah blah..I wouldn't have settled for that..." Gently pointing out that this is your choice-

Actually, examples don't work. What I just realized, is that I don't have to justify myself or explain myself. And sometimes, yes, sometimes, gently point that out to people. And explain, maybe, just a little.

And realize, that some things are inexplicable. And unknown. And yet to be discovered.

Angels in America makes powerful use of weather. Darkness, light. Rain, sunshine. Wind and water.

Emotion surrounds you like the air you breathe, like the feeling of damp and chill and heat on your skin, like the light that casts a gentle dawn glow or blinds you starkly and fierce.

"Failing at love isn't the same at not loving."

Damn you, Tony Kushner!

Painful progress. I can't stay up till the end without tears.

4/14/06

Miscellaney

1. I had a vivid and shaky dream that someone I slightly know (an improvisor, well-known and liked) died suddenly. The rest of the "community" was assembled in what looked like an elementary school assembly room/cafeteria, harshly lit, for the announcement and "healing" service. His wife (who I don't know) was led in, shakily and tearfully; their child was not in evidence. I didn't recognize the leader of the service, and not all the people; there was a large photo up on some sort of stage. People were behaving oddly and in unfunny and awkward ways.

2. Assertive, aggressive, annoying. You decide.

3. Time to clean the house, so I can have the house cleaned.

4. What does 'dollars to doughnuts' mean?

5. Am I obsessive in having to end lists in multiples of 5 or 10?

4/10/06

Where is my F***ING Palm Pilot

This is really, really not good. Not good at all. At. All.

Seriously.

Although this was a borderline-gratuitous purchase to begin with (the Monopoly/scrabble chip notwithstanding), I really have come slowly to develop a 'calendar' routine. Anybody who knows me knows that developing a routine that doesn't depend on me keeping inordinate piles of information in my head knows what a huge goddamn step this is.

Most of my stuff is neatly coded inside my computer. And I'm getting better about checking.

I'm starting to keep lists, gain focus. Trying to get a grip.

And the fucker is gone. Fucker, fucking shit.

Fucking Tungsten. I knew it was too good to be true. I was just getting Graffiti 2. I knew I didn't deserve it, and it's still got the new-case smell.

If you loved me, you'd buy me a new one, whoever you are.

(I don't know who you are. I'm just whining in utter frustration about the Sisyphean nature of it all, while scratching a plot of my hours on the back of a business card).

4/5/06

For Guy and Dale

Pulchritudinous Haiku

Voluptuous breasts,
Cascading, casting shadows
O'er the spare mike stand

Barely restrained by
leather jacket, partly zipp'd
yearning to breathe free

Gloriously full,
aglow under hot stage lights,
How's that for a POEM!

xoxoxo

ps - boobies.

4/4/06

Me! ME! ME!

So, I've yanked this out of the sidebar and put it on the main screen.

What the heck. Be anonymous, make up hilarious pseudonyms. Go nuts. I'm curious.


  • Hey! I'm feeling narcisisstic. Tell me the good.

  • Hey! I'm feeling masochistic. Tell me the bad.

  • 4/3/06

    America's last top model.




    I've got to stop watching, for real. It doesn't make me want to be dumber, just prettier.

    How much prettier do I need to be? Come on guys, girls.

    (In full disclosure, I think the three hours' worth of videotaped episodes did ruin my brain. And give me an overwhelming urge to purchase mascara. Cover. Girl. Mascara.)

    Cool stuff I got today (inspired by an eclectic friend and package-sender)

    In a Priority mail box:
    - an allergy-products catalog
    - two pillow covers
    - two cartoons (one lawyer, one New York related)
    - one tape of two episodes of America's Next Top Model
    - one handwritten note

    In a small plastic wrapper:
    - one pair original iPod earbuds (yeah, the crappy white earbuds I desired)

    On a shopping trip:
    - Apples, potatoes and cash

    From the Greek restaurant at brunch with dad:
    - Spinach Omelet, potatoes, warm pita, grilled octopus (share) and feta (stolen)

    At the theater:
    - Several very warm hugs
    - Compliments (awkwardly acknowledged)

    Nice to focus on the things you did get rather than the things you didn't, right?

    4/1/06

    I meant to go to sleep but ended up in Baltimore.

    but I got disc 1 season 1 of the best TV show ever.

    It's got Baltimore, buddy-cops and Belzer. And a Baldwin to boot!

    Unbeatable. Tom Fontana. Catch the episodes before the shark-jumping Jon Seda and Michael Michele (the short and the female Ted McGinleys) join the cast. Even they can't totally destroy the magic, no matter how hard they try. And the late-limping season-wrapping two hour movie that came along some time afterwards is worth watching, even just for the final Pembelton Bayless scene. Not as finely drawn as the original series, but worth it for a fix.

    Look for Fontana-crossover favorites Zeljko Ivanek, always smarmy, and a sweet-faced Lee Tergesen before the land of Oz. Dean Winters too!

    Edit: Episode 3: "Night of the Dead Living" - Watch closely. The candle subplot which I won't give away but left me stunned.