When Life Gives You Lumps...

Make Lumponade?




Judy Fabjance is one of my favorite persons in the world. Sweet, caring, funny, loves animals, has a great partner and a wonderful baby. I met her while she was working for the training center over ten years ago and performing in the early days of GayCo. I had one of those secret "maybe she's not really gay" crushes on her.

She's one of the most positive persons I know. And she has cancer. Just found out yesterday and I was waiting/hoping to find out it was a joke.

Her family has set up a blog tracking her progress and allow friends to post their prayers and wishes and assorted healthy vibes.

If you don't get a chance to read all the updates, at least check out her initial welcome post HERE.



YES, I COULD WATCH THIS ALL DAY

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"A report published by CHEMTrust shows that pollution has caused more occurrences of what in males?"

61% said "male pattern baldness"
- That's what I get for wearing asbestos hats.

15% said "backne"
- That's from swimming in Lake Michigan.

9% said "unibrows"
- Blame my mom for that.

15% got it right with "feminized genitalia"

According to The Independent, the male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers.

So, what does feminized male genitalia look like? Like this, of course.



Stay away from bees.

If You Don't Have Anything To Say, Shut The F@ck Up

As the Improv Program Coordinator at Columbia, one of the responsibilities to come under my guard is providing guidance and love for Improv Club. Improv Club is a weekly improv drop-in workshop open to any and all Columbia College students. Yesterday was the last IC of the semester and my goal was to bring in a reputable improv master for the students. I couldn't find a reputable one, so I called Don Hall.

Seriously, though, Hall was the kick in the pants these students needed to get them through their holiday break improv withdrawals. The man spouted improv wisdom like a sprinkler system on high. While observing him deftly and enthusiastically demonstrating and engaging the students to press to new levels of skill, I sat in the back of the room and tried to catch some of the nuggets flying about.

1) If you're not failing, you're not learning. Improv is disposable theater. Once you have done a scene, it is gone. If it didn't work, it's gone. Learn from it and take what you learn into your next improvisation.

2) Improv doesn't work most of the time. That's what makes it interesting and so wonderful when it does work.

3) If you don't have anything to say, shut the fuck up. Basically, don't talk in a scene for the sake of flapping your jaws and filling silence. Use the silence to explore and discover what the scene is about.

4) Hurt is more interesting than anger. Not that anger has no place in a scene, but hurt affords you more places to go. Anger, if used, is a place to build up to.

5) Go for what you want without ever asking for it. I have said this about writing. It's a dysfunctional playland. Drop hints, bribe, seduce, pull whatever tactic you realistically can to go for what you want. But once you directly ask for it and get a response, the scene's pretty much over.

6) Say would you would say or do what you would do. Pretty simple. Many of us to use improv to fulfil our fantasies of what we would really like to say in situations and that is possible, but it's a place to build up to. Start with what you would do or say.

7) A third entrance can be tactically used to heighten a scene. It can do this by directly engaging the other two scene partners by being in relationship with them or it can do so by fleshing out an unknown environment.

I probably missed about a dozen others. It was a good reminder for me that, as a teacher, I learn a lot by watching other teachers.


POLE-DANCING ROBOTS

I would so run out of dollar bills at this place. Can't wait til they remake Flash Dance with robots. Anyone up for Flash Drive?




THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"The world's first zero-star hotel has opened in Switzerland inside a converted what?"

30% said "goat barn"
- That's not a chocolate on your pillow!

30% said "sewer"
- They cater only to mutated martial arts turtles going through puberty.

10% said "landfill"
- That's a Motel 6.

30% got it right with "nuclear bunker"

According to The Sun, beds are on offer for just £6 a night at the world’s first zero-star hotel — based in a converted nuclear bunker.

But guests at the no-frills establishment will have to put up with hot water bottles rather than central heating.

And they will be given a pair of earplugs to help blot out the racket from the ventilation system.

Standard beds at the austere Null Stern (No Star) hotel in Sevelen, near Zurich, Switzerland, are military-style bunks.

Eleven pounds extra buys a “luxury” room, with “antique” beds from a condemned hotel.

Complimentary slippers are provided for walking across the icy concrete floors — while customers enter a draw to decide who gets the luxury of a hot morning shower.

And with no windows, the only view of the outside world is via a row of monitors in reception.

What they don't explain about the shower, is that you get hosed down and scrubbed by two guys in hazmat suits.

This sounds like it would be fun for about one or two hours on the first night. The novelty would wear off rather quickly. Here's a patron leisurely reading about better hotels he could have stayed in if he had ponied up the money.

The Generic Comedy Troupe

The picture above was taken, by my guess, sometime in the spring of 1983. I may be totally wrong about that. Being the archivist/historian is not my strong suit. For that, talk to the guy holding the Crispy Rice. Clockwise from center is Brad Sherwood, Melissa King Schlosser, Jeff Strohaver, Pete Ficht, Tom Brooks, Peggy Queener, Paul Custodio, Jude Prest, and me, the only one mugging(!).

((For those not born at this time or who were just little toddlers, generic brand products were all the rage in the early 80s for saving money. They came in these black-and-white Dharma-like boxes and were super cheap. A college student's friend.))

When I teach classes, I am aware that I am facilitating many people becoming best friends for life. When I was in college, there was no improv program. I didn't let that stop me. I took what I had learned from a Del Close workshop and from what I knew seeing Second City trouco shows and put together The Generic Comedy Troupe. We all knew each other from theater classes, but how we formed as a company was through a series of improv workshops I put together that were open to anyone. After a few weeks, this was the ensemble that naturally emerged from the process. It was rough and tumble. We were college students, we were hormonal, self-conscious, hungry, we had no models on how to do what we were doing off stage, we fought, we laughed, we loved. We were family. And are family. After more years passing than I care to admit, we are all in touch with each other. We come together for a few weddings and some of us have made kids. One of us died, which wasn't cool.

The GCT was an experience that I still carry with me. I learned a lot about directing, producing and comedy writing from this gang of ragamuffins. And everyone you see in that picture is a success.

Brad can be seen touring with Colin Mochrie with whom he worked with on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Melissa sadly subcumbed to cancer eight years ago and it still feels so recent. She was working out of New York as a popular actress working regional theaters. Her future was so bright. And she held that rare feminine mix of class, beauty and a tough broad. I miss her.

Jeff works in Florida and if you have seen any film or television series produced there, he had his hand in the production of it.

Pete is a web designer in Portland and also a damn fine musician and composer.

Tommy is the actor and human all of us wanted to be. Funny, charming and unjustly talented! He continues to act and coach others in the fine art in Virginia. He also has a thing for alpacas.

Peggy, who still looks much like she did in college, is an actress in New York. I still laughwhen I think about an adlib she did as the Virgin Mary about eating the Christ child.

Paul is an advertising copywriter in Seattle.

Jude produces and directs documentaries. You have probably seen his work on The History Channel of The Learning Channel. Check out his documentary called Rabbit Hash, about a town in Kentucky that elected a dog for mayor.

Me? I'll do something some day. Legally. Not in a psycho-sniper-taking-out-people kind of way.

The point? If you have ever wondered about taking improv or writing classes, jump on it. These are the people that make treading on this planet a little easier.


I CANNOT WAIT!

Nor will I wait. I'm already playing it in my head.

And, yes, it's the original actors providing the voices!

(If the embedded video isn't working, click HERE!)


THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"Timothy Havens of Springfield, Ohio told police he accidentally shot his wife while they were doing what?"

50% said "pointing guns at each other"
- The number one cause of people being shot.

33% said "watching television"
- Sorry, Elvis.

No one said "eating dinner"

17% got it right with "having sex"

According to WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, a Tri-State woman is in critical condition after police say her husband shot her while they were having sex. Timothy Havens, 38, told Springfield police he was reaching for something on the nightstand when the pistol went off, hitting his estranged wife Carolyn in the upper chest.

I'm all for sex toys, but...a toy that makes extra holes is not a good idea.

CUTTING TO THE QUICK

REVIEW: Cut To The Quick

Cut To The Quick: Splayed Verbiage
Written and
Directed by Various Artists
Presented by The Side Project

Through Dec 21st 2008

For ticket information and performance times click HERE

19 Plays. 3 Programs. 1 Theme.


Cut To The Quick is a festival of short works presented by the Rogers Park company The Side Project at their extremely intimate Jarvis theater. Artistic Director Adam Webster states in the program that this series has been a great opportunity to work with many new writers, actors, crew and directors. It's also a fairly quick and easy way to put up a production. That's not a slam. It's brilliant. You'll see more companies doing this. A small team of a writer, director and a few actors can get a ten-minute play together on rather short notice and on their own schedule. The trick is making sure they're all there for performances.

The Side Project has broken down their festival into three programs; Splayed Verbiage, Splinters and Shrapnel and Static/Cling. Each one, apparently, devoted to a theme. I saw Splayed Verbiage. I have no idea what the theme was. I also don't think that's important. What is important is that it is a strong evening of theater.

Splayed starts off with emerging birth-like sounds that erupt in a woman simply dragging herself out of the bed she shares with her husband. 78, by Laurel Haines and directed by Gina LoPiccolo quickly runs the couple, portrayed by Kelley Minneci and the physically deft Daniel Howard through the stages of life. It was a good choice for kicking off the evening. It reminded me that this wasn't an evening of bloated comedy sketches. This is theater. If there's a gimmicky concept, it's there for a purpose and mined for insight rather than laughs.

The rest of the evening chugs up and down through monologues, two-person scenes and a few slightly larger pieces. The styles range from straightforward to downright bizarre. Splayed is most successful in its two-person scenes. The New Lonely, by Andrew Hinderaker and directed by Vance Smith, is driven by Mike Harvey's recount of a one-night stand to a friend that tears through the seams of a tale of conquest to show us the loneliness and hunger underneath. It ends on a joke that undermines the intelligence of Mike's character, but it's forgivable, especially when handled so expertly by Joshua Toups. Black and White, by Mark Young, directed by Anna C. Bahow, pits a young sailor on a Chicago day trip against an art school chick on an El platform. What could have been a Neil Simon-y odd couple cute-meet goes beyond the surface to show us there's more to people than what we initially make of their appearance. Aaron Carter's O'Dark Thirty was one of my favorite pieces. Two buddies meet in a bar the night before one of them is returning to Iraq. It's played very nicely and puts human faces an that unneccessary war over there. Brett Neveu's Ethnic Cleansing Day, subtly delivered by Bob Wilson and Mike Harvey, again, is a disquieting reminder of how skeletons end up neatly packed into family closets.

Two pieces completely lost me, which, for a festival of 12 works is pretty good! Space, by Laura Jacmin and directed by Megan Shuchman, is so mired in its style that I have no idea what it's about story-wise. Fortunately, it hits you over the head with a hammer-encased message at the end. What keeps that piece entertaining is Cheryl Roy's delightful and energetic performance as Alice. Another piece that just seemed to try too hard to pack too much into a small space was Agony in the Garden by Crystal Skillman. There's one good idea about a friend who steals another friend's ashes. Unfortunately, it gets lost in too many other less interesting ideas. It also has a contrived happy ending.

One thing that I thought was sheer brilliance from a production point of view was the first act closer. It was a piece called Not That (But Something Else) by Brian Golden and directed by Chelsa Marcantel. And it features everyone. Even a few people not in any other piece. It's a great way to sneak in a curtain call and allow the actors from the first half a graceful exit from the proceedings and it also introduces us to the actors coming up.

The show is worth seeing. If you have never been to The Side Project, all the more reason to see this show. It's a strong reminder that when it comes to Chicago theater, good things come in small packages.


YEAH, IT'S FUNNY

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"To illustrate a loophole in procedures, the NY Daily News stole what?"

54% said "Donald Trump's hair"
- Don't touch the Don's hair. Your fingers will burn.

19% said "The Brooklyn Bridge"

18% said "The Statue of Liberty"
- We're going to give it back to the French. Needs too much upkeep.

9% got it right with "The Empire State Building"

According to The New York Daily News, in one of the biggest heists in American history, the Daily News "stole" the $2 billion Empire State Building.

And it wasn't that hard.

The News swiped the 102-story Art Deco skyscraper by drawing up a batch of bogus documents, making a fake notary stamp and filing paperwork with the city to transfer the deed to the property.

The massive ripoff illustrates a gaping loophole in the city's system for recording deeds, mortgages and other transactions.

The loophole: The system - run by the office of the city register - doesn't require clerks to verify the information.

Less than 90 minutes after the bogus documents were submitted on Monday, the agency rubber-stamped the transfer from Empire State Land Associates to Nelots Properties LLC. Nelots is "stolen" spelled backward.

Better return it. Don't want to piss off the previous owner.

I Believe...

...that satirists struggling with how to make fun of Barack Obama is a good problem to have. An even better problem is how Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left deal with their approaches to news reporting. Admittedly, Keith Olbermann seems to have less punch and the sails seem to have gone out of Bill O'Reily's wind. But this, again, is a good thing. Bush is/was a polarizer. Now, I can find out about Britney and Madonna and not feel guilty about it.

...that the story of whirlwind romantic comedies makes for nice whirlwind romantic comedies. In life, I'll take a slow and steady relationship with many moments of mutual hoo-ha excitement any day.

...that after years of resisting, I am now a fan of Facebook. It's a great way to stay in touch with people and reconnect with people I haven't seen in years. Just, please don't poke me.

...that we need new euphemisms for masturbation. Submitted for your approval: tickling the turtle, strapping on the jet pack, logging on to blogger.

...that the current economic climate is going to make corporations rethink outrageous executive pay packages. The reason the big three automaker CEOs are talking about only working for a dollar this year is because it won't affect them a bit. They still have a ton of perks. And, if they end up canned, they will float on their multi-million dollar golden parachutes.

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"The Pentagon plans to deploy 20,000 uniformed troops by 2011 to where?"

22% said "Afghanistan"
- Someone has to protect those poppy fields!

Wishful thinkers ignored "Iraq" and "Iran"

78% got it right with "United States"

According to the The Washington Post, the U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

Many people are worried that an increase of military presence in our cities may lead to an expansion of the executive branch of government or will keep peace via an oppressive presence.

Sending in the boys in green is a typical knee-jerk American response for making us "safe." What we really need is to divert all the robots seeking careers as actors and get them stationed across the land.

I'd love to see this guy at all the Chicago El stops.

REVIEW: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Tim Supple
A Dash Arts Production
at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Through Dec 7th 2008

For ticket information and performance times click HERE

This impressive production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream was two years in the making in India and is currently on a North American tour. I saw it on the day news was breaking about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. While no one was speaking about that, on stage or off, it was certainly in the air. How could it not be? A few of the actor's bios reference Mumbai as their home.

In a way, it made being a part of the show as an audience member particularly special. I know I personally felt more welcoming and wanted them to feel safe. It also made me more appreciative of the cultural gifts they were about to share. The cast should certainly be heralded for performing their show with great glee and gusto in the face of such turmoil. That act alone strikes at the heart of what theater is all about.

This Dash Arts production shows us how Shakespeare can be interpreted when embraced by another culture. Refreshing not to see a spin on Shakespeare that's different just for the sake of being different. If any playwright can bring multiple cultures together, it's the Bard. It is spoken in eight different languages, one of them English!

Sadly, this show is a mixed bag. It's a combination of Bollywood (without the sexual constraints), Cirque Du Soleil and community theater. It's a brilliant experiment weighed down by some just gosh awful acting. Where Shakespeare's story telling is universal, so is wooden one-note acting. The four lovers at the core of Midsummer's tale just don't have the chops to make us care about them. Their acting is so without nuance of emotion, that one really, really needs to be familiar with the story to be able to figure out what is going on.

Counter to them, though, there's some exceptional acting being done by a few others. Nick Bottom, played by Aporup Acharya, is an expert comic portrayal. Physical, concise and full of life and energy. Aporup, by the way, is one of the actors from Mumbai. His performance alone makes the show worth seeing. He and his company of rag-tag actors from the streets of Athens brighten up the stage every time they enter. Each characterization is clear, you get who they are and you know what they want. And they're delightful.

The duke and queen, played by P R Jijoy and Archana Ramaswamy, who double as the king and queen of the fairies, bring a lot of excitement and energy to the play. They are strongly masculine and feminine and provide an emotional anchor for the show. And Puck, as Puck should be, is a riot. Played by Ajay Kumar, he evokes a 1970's Ringo Starr in a red diaper.

And there's the spectacle of it all, fights and acrobatics, that is well done and if you get lost in the foreign language, well, just kick back and enjoy the fireworks.

Like I said, it is a mixed bag, but certainly worth seeing for the cultural aspects and for Bottom. Just bone up on the storyline beforehand.

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

" 'Hataraku Watashi,' a play that recently opened to positive reviews in Japan, features two actors that are what?"

22% said "terminally ill"
- If that packs them in, don't tell Don Hall.

21% said "CNN-style holograms"
- Ya know, aside from serving no purpose whatsoever, they weren't really holograms.

7% said "lizards"
- Giant mutated lizards?

50% got it right with "robots"

According to The Sun, a play with a difference has opened in Japan – it's cast is half robot, half human.

The theatrical production stars a pair of Mitsubishi's 'Wakamura' robots alongside two human actors.

The robots play two depressed household servants who work for a young couple.

But the robots grow tired of their mundane lifestyle and long to break free and see the world.

The 20-minute piece titled Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker) was written by Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata and opened this week at Osaka University.

Robot actors. Great. Let me know when the robots start writing.

No one told this woman the actor's golden rule. Never work with animals, children or robots.

Same Shit, Different Planet

I don't know where the title of my post comes from except that it was rolling around in my head when I woke up and it, oddly, sums up my attitude this morning. There's a shoot in Naperville that I have to be at by 8am. When I booked it, I was not informed on where I needed to have my body at 8am on a Monday morning. Naperville is about an hour and a half west of Chicago. To be there by 8am, I need to leave from Fig, in northern Chicago, by 6am. And since I may not be back until 3pm and I teach tonight, I have to be prepared for the day. So, I'm up at 4am. Boo-hoo.

I feel your empathy, so here's something to cheer you up. A fun, simple music video from The Producers. A British group featuring Trevor Horn (Art of Noise) and Lol Creme (10cc, Godley and Creme). That's Lol on lead vocals. Thanks to Randy Craig, a fellow 10cc fan, for turning me on to them.




THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

On Wednesday of last week, I asked...

"Parents of a Claremont, California kindergarten are clashing over a Thanksgiving celebration because some of them don't want what?"

41% said "Their kids supporting eating animals."
- Even the parents realize that, historically, there were no vegetarians at Thanksgiving until the discovery of the tofurkey.

35% said "Their kids sharing their food."
- Be thankful for what you got and shiv any student who wants you to share!

5% said "Their kids wearing ugly pilgrim outfits."
- Seriously. Who puts a buckle on a hat?

19% got it right with "Their kids dressed like indians."

According to The LA Times, for decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on last Tuesday, when the youngsters met for their turkey and songs, they weren't wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.

Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child's depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?

"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter's teacher. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history."

Great. Now we have a war on Thanksgiving! I think the kids should be allowed to dress up like pilgrims and indians. Just as long as the pilgrims tell the indians where to sit and it's nowhere near the pilgrims. Or the food.