Tony Mendoza Winner or Loser?

2010 - Winner Or Loser?

2011-05-10T19:17:00.001-05:00

The idea for this blog came to me after a succession of rotten days in November of 2009.
I thought I could reap some decent comedy from my daily humiliations.
It's a popular, well worn path.
I assumed most days would be a "loss" and joking about it would help lighten the load.
But it only magnified my misery.
This silly diary made me confront the fact I had to change my life.

Messengering had become my security blanket.
It had tattered away to nothing, and I was still clinging to it.

I couldn't keep writing about being stuck in a dead end job in a dying industry.
It was funny at first, but then it grew pathetic.

So after ten years, I officially retired.
I'm not sure I would have quit if I hadn't been publicly pouting about it every day.
I probably would have just found more things to drink.

A lot of good things happened this year.
I got engaged to a most beautiful woman.
I toured Europe and recorded with The Bitter Tears.
I formed The Nurse Novels and recorded an album.

I recorded with Tijuana Hercules.

I played drums for The Second City.

I conceived and directed a silly show about a Beatles tribute band.
I did music and taught improv at The Annoyance.

Remember when I was a jogger?

That happened.

What else.

I wrote a lot.
It seems I wanted to make writing work for me.
I considered journalism.
But I think I respected journalism too much to sully it with my drivel.
It's too legitimate.

So I freelanced very, very briefly with The Onion AV Club.
I thought I could write goofy blurbs on city happenings.
I pitched an interview piece about improvisers and bad audience suggestions.
If it got published it would pay $50.
I thought it would be a good foot in the door.
Using Facebook I interviewed a bunch of friends, and got some good quotes.
It took a week to get it all together.
The editor liked the piece and shelved it.
It never ran.
I pitched another idea: A Misanthrope's Guide To The Taste Of Chicago.
The editor didn't like that one as much.
Then he quit being the editor, and I lost interest in sort of working for the possibility of maybe $50.

I also tried writing for Groupon.
Again.
In 2009 I freelanced as a humor writer.
When it was time for full-time hirings, I was in Europe with the Bitter Tears.
Upon my return, they lost interest in me.
My friend who did get hired put it this way.
"You had that job. But then you went on tour."
This summer, a details writer position had opened.
I sent in my samples.
The guy who hired details writers asked me if I was serious about having a full time job.
I told him yes.
A week later I followed up about my samples in an email.
He didn't respond.
Another week went by.
I applied for customer service.
Customer service said that I was still being considered for the details writer position.
I emailed the details writer guy.
No response.
I no longer wanted to work for Groupon.
A few weeks later, I met my humor writer friend for drinks.
"Yeah, he hired a bunch of young hot girls."
I think I made the right choice in not pursuing that further.

I may not have made any money writing this year, but it didn't stop me from doing it.

I wrote and read original pieces for The Paper Machete and The Ray's Tap Reading Series.

I wrote in moving cars and I wrote while working bars.

I gave out stories as Christmas gifts.

In total, I made $0 writing this year.

But if the glass is half-full, then writing those Christmas stories did save me a little money.

The glass is hall-full, alright.

Half-full of shit.

Nevertheless, I'm going to keep writing.

I've gotten really good at first drafts.

It's funny.

I still feel as scattered and unfocused now as I was at the beginning of the year.

I know that I want to write.

I want to publish something that will make people laugh and resonate on a deeper level.

I know I've still got a lot of work to do.

I have to figure out the business.

Whatever that means.

I'm pretty sure I can do it if I don't let myself get in the way.

A misanthrope's guide to travel is a good idea.

Here is the final tally:

Wins: 250
Losses: 114
Shit: 1

May was the winningest month with 25 wins.
This can be attributed to being in Europe for most of that month.

December was the losingest month with 14 losses.
This can be attributed to financial burden and Christmas.

The shittiest day was September 15.
The day I emptied RV's of their human excrement.

But that was not the worst day.
I don't know which day was the worst.
It's hard to pick just one.
Probably one of those summer days spent soaking in my own butt sweat losing money and jacking off in the back of the van to induce a temporary suicidal cum coma.
I had several of those.

The best day was October 23.
My engagement to Lauren played out like a goofy, feel-good hour-long sitcom.
I'm looking forward to our nuptials.

It was a tall order.

Writing about every single goddamn day.

821 pages.
177,884 words.
I can't believe I actually finished it.

It seems I am a winner.
At least for this year.

Thank you for reading.

December 31 - Cafe Bong

2011-05-10T19:17:00.000-05:00

Today is my mom's birthday.
Lauren and I took her out to eat at one of those Brazilian meat houses.
That is what she wanted.
We ate an endless parade of steak, lamb, pork, chicken.
We ate forever.
The room turned warm.
Our eyes glistened with blood and bacon juice.
We paid the bill in meat.

True Grit was playing at the movies.
The rare film that we all liked without compromise.
How often does that happen?

We bid farewell to my Mom and headed back to the city.
Tomorrow morning Lauren leaves for Louisville.
She will be there for five weeks.
Which means I'll have no one to slap me straight when I start letting myself go during the inevitably unemployed winter of discontent in cold, dark Chicago January.
December's been rough lately.
January's looking even meaner.
Fun needed to happen soon.

We went to Cafe Bong.
It's a dive bar known for its karaoke.
I've always wanted to go there.
It looks horrible.
We walked in and were confronted with a thick stench.
It reeked like a vestibule in a rancid Vietnamese sandwich shop.
Lauren balked and made an offended grandmother face.
To me it smelled like adventure.
"C'mon, let's go!"
Once inside, we were greeted by a happy Korean woman, dressed to the sixes.
She gestured at the buffet of tin foiled Korean fare.
It looked authentic and frightening.

The karaoke was in effect.
Behind the bar, a VCR-esque machine sat hooked up to a tube TV.
The production on the videos was very 80's, meaning cheap 90's.
A bearded kid in a tux commandeered the remote control.
You could manipulate the tempo of the song, and make key changes(!).
He led his pack of pals as they passed the mic around the bar, goofing on all the hits.
After each performance, a crazy Japanese cartoon noise would scream your score at you.
"96!!!"
Everyone was in jolly spirits.

Lauren and I took the two stools at the end of the bar.
A Marilyn Monroe poster sat on top of a cigarette machine, leaned against a neglected wall.
The corner acted as storage for cases and cases of beer.
We perused the playlist, a thick tattered binder.
70% Japanese (I think), 30% English.
Some of the selections were crazy.
They had four songs by Helloween.
You know, the German 80's metal band.

We drank Corona.
Well, I did.
Lauren wasn't feeling that well.
"We'll go after one song," I promised.
It took me a long time to decide on a song.
As it always does.
I ordered another beer.
Lauren got a soft drink.
We made conversation with the woman to our left.
She was there alone.
We talked about acting and work.
I think she was happy to see us.
She handed me a microphone for a duet.
"94!!!"
But that didn't count as a song.
Poor Lauren.

It was my turn.
I had chosen "Night Fever" by The Bee Gees.
I do love that song, and the whole Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
My falsetto was in fine form.
It danced well above the staff.
For the third chorus I sung in my given register.
Variety!
Then back to the sweet tones of my Corona-courageous obbligato.
I finished the song in tandem with its fade out.
Save for a few smatters, the room laid still as the cartoon made its judgment.
"100!!!"
Whoa!
The room of fifteen exploded.
The bearded kid with the tux high-fived and high-tenned me.
It was the first 100 of the night.
He bought me a drink.
Lauren was happy for me, but happier now that the song was over and it was technically time to go.
While I downed my congratulatory beer, the Korean proprietor sang a traditional song.
I think she did "ギテペミロ".
Either that or "ぎのま".
It got the room's attention.
Everyone applauded respectfully.
Then the bearded kid in the tux appointed me to sing Abba's "Waterloo".
I forgot how the verse went.
"Mmmnnnyyaaa..I bryn ni yaya nya nya..."
I did that thing where you laugh at yourself but no one else is laughing at or with you.
The bearded kid in the tux rescued me with an off-mic guide vocal and goosed it up a few keys to salvage the blunder.
We did not score 100 that time.

Poor Lauren.
I still had more beer to finish.
Midnight was nearing.
I asked her if she wanted to ring in the new year at Cafe Bong.
She made a face that said "I love you. But fuck you."
I finished my beer while the men gang-sang a Backstreet Boys song.
The "tell me why" one.
Its karaoke video featured lots of topless European women dancing on a sound stage.
It was the most awesome karaoke video.
And it couldn't get any better.
So we headed for the door.
The bearded kid in the tux persuaded us to stay.
The Korean proprietor offered us buffet food.
But even now, I knew it was time to go.
And we bid adieu to Cafe Bong.

The remainder of 2010 was spent in the comfort of our little apartment.
We set our alarms for the early flight tomorrow.
And had our last sleepover of the year.

Verdict: Win

December 30 - How A Tire Store Works

2011-05-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

I took the van in to Tire Party again.
They had patched my flat a couple of days ago, but there was still a leak.
I looked at the work order.
They had tried fixing it with armpit farts.
But they didn't take.

I looked through the glass at the tire mechanics yelling and dropping metal objects and masturbating at calendars.
They saw that my tire was still flat.
They told a bunch of fag jokes to it.
But it was still flat.
A tire scientist was dispatched to see what the problem could be.
He looked like a nerd.
And a fag.
While he found the source of the leak, the mechanics depantsed him and snapped oily rags at his exposed buttocks.
This caused a lot more yelling and clanging of fallen metal.
Then they gagged the scientist and forced him to bend over a Mazda.
A circle formed.
The mechanic with the largest penis inserted it into the scientist's butt.
Some mechanics took disposable pictures of the event.
Over his shoulder, one of the mechanics masturbating to a calendar noticed the scientist being humiliated.
He edged his way into the circle and continued masturbating.
The scientist handed his analysis to the new guy, and began screaming in terror.
To drown out his cries for help, the mechanics who had prematurely ejaculated squealed their air guns.
Everyone else reached their climax to a general Guns 'n' Roses song.
When it was over many of the mechanics used the scientist's body as a facility.

So that's how a tire store works.
Hey, man.
I don't care what they do, as long as they find the leak.

The cashier showed me the tire.
He pointed to the patch on the tread.
"This is the leak we fixed."
He pointed to another hole near the sidewall.
"This is the other leak."
He asked me if I wanted to continue.
I said yes.
I didn't want to know how they fixed a flat, so I sat in the waiting room.
The cashier came in with some paperwork.
"Tony, I just need you to sign off on the new tire. With labor it will be $285."
"Oh. I just need you to patch that other hole."
He told that since it was on the sidewall, they couldn't do that.
I told him that I couldn't afford a new tire.
So he raced back into the mechanics dungeon.
They wiped all the fresh blood, excrement and semen from my old tire and begrudgingly put it back on the van.
Wait til next year.

Verdict: Loss

December 29 - Sakura Of America Pigma Micron Pens

2011-05-09T11:43:00.001-05:00

Holli and Mike invited me over for the day.
We drew pictures using a wide variety of Pigma Micron pens.
Holli drew a horse.
Mike made a city out of a building.

I drew a hodge podge of American margin doodles.

I needed to get out of the house.
And spend some quality time with friends.
We spent the entire day drawing in the kitchen.
I think Holli wanted to do something active.
Sledding, ice-skating, snowball hijinx.
Mike and I were content to doodle.
Men.

I worked at the bar and it was dead.
Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.Again.
Again.Again.Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.Again.
Again.

Again.

Again.Again!Again.

Again.

Again.Again.

And again.

Verdict: Win

May 21 - España

2011-05-09T11:09:00.001-05:00

We were in Spain.

Verdict: Win

December 28 - Haircut Whine

2011-05-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

I needed a tremendous haircut.
My greying hair resembled a yarn mop.
So I went to my two-chair barber.
A card table displayed a bottle of purple drink and some dixie cups.
"Have some wine!"
I did.
It was good.
For haircut wine.
The barber said it was homemade.
"You can't get it anywhere else!"
I looked at a big jug of it.
"Jugs are $30," he said.
The guy in the chair spoke.
"It's good wine!"
I tapped a bottle.
It was a thin vodka bottle.
"How much is this?"
"That's 3 dollars."
Sold.
It was 10am on a Tuesday.
I just bought homemade wine from a barber.
Maybe he could pull my wisdom teeth, too.

While waiting for the haircut, I decided to brood some more about that stupid Stuff White People Like book.
I wanted to find out why it affected me so much.

Research suggests that I don't mind being a punchline.
As long as I am the one making the joke.
That's the whole point of this blog.
Look at what a loser I am buying wine from my barber before noon.
Ha ha ha, but I'm not really a loser, right?
Stuff White People Like is telling me that yes in fact, I am actually a real loser.
Look at this loser putting his diary online.
Everyone's a writer, you pinhead.
Been on the internet much?
You're not unique.
You worship The Wire and eat at stupid diners just like every other middle-class Gen X indie rock slouch entitled to remain clueless and directionless at age 35.
You had your chance to do something.
You spent it at bars doing bits.

Now you're old and confused.

Ha ha ha.

I wasn't ready for this sort of confrontation from a novelty book at Borders.
The people that usually made fun of me were mono-chromosomatic Wrigleyville rapists yelling "faggot" at me because I was riding a bike.
Those guys usually didn't have things like insight.
They didn't put out books.
Although I'd like to see that book.
Badly drawn stick figures with captions like "Faggot" and "Fuckin' Faggot".
Bikes are hard to draw.
Uh oh.
I'm being directionless again.
The point is I could write them off.
And now I was the one being written off.

After the haircut I noticed that the tire on the van that had been patched yesterday was sagging again.
Cool.
I went home and uncorked the previously corked bottle of haircut wine.
And went from figurative to actual loser.

Verdict: Loss

December 27 - Stuff Old People Hate

2011-05-06T13:10:00.001-05:00

The van needed a new tire.
Every two days I've had to fill it up with air.
I took it to Tire Party or Mostly Tires or one of those tire asshole places.
It stunk of rubber and unwarranted male bravado.
Guys with tan lines where their gang bang wristbands used to be.

They said it would be a few hours.
I had a few gift cards to burn.
So I went to Borders again.
This time I skimmed the latest Stuff White People Like book.
Another blog-turned-book deal.

Biting satire and all that.

I always thought it was a funny website.
Until I realized that I am its target.
Obviously, I'm white.
Even though I'm Cuban.
The author is white.
But this isn't about being white.
It's about being boring.
And useless.

So what's some stuff white people like?
Road Trips - He railed on people who romanticize small highways and eat at places that aren't chains. His point was that observing townies in their natural environment was as artificial as a quarter pounder.
I like road trips, and I like eating at restaurants that aren't chains.

Improv - He pointed out that only white people will pay money to see something that most likely will fail. It's true that whites dominate improv for whatever reason. We've all made fun of this fact for years.
I have performed and taught improv for over ten years.

Ironic Facial Hair - He understandably mocked this.
In 2000, I grew a moustache for curiosity. I did it again this year, though irony wasn't the goal. I don't know what the goal was. But I am guilty of having facial hair while being white, but not qualifying as a Mancow meathead or a union schlub.

The Wire/Mad Men - He made fun of liking these shows. I forget why.
I have said out loud that, for me, The Wire transcended the concept of a television show. I like Mad Men.

Considering Journalism - He derided the privilege of being white and the luxury of finding oneself, which often leads toward thinking about getting a journalism degree.
This year I borrowed books from my journalist friend Christy. I was considering journalism.

Writing Short Stories - He ridiculed short stories as the perfect medium for white people's directionless drivel.
I just gave out short stories as Christmas presents.

It went on.
I went on.

It inspired me to do a new blog.
It's called Everything Is Stupid: You Suck.
I'll just list things and why they are stupid and why you suck.

Here's an excerpt:

Pizza - You have eaten a pizza probably. This is every idiot's dream. You suck. Fuck you.

Then I'll have a picture of someone who thinks they are cool, but in reality they are worthless, eating a pizza.

That's an entry.
Then I'll get a book deal.
Maybe even a shitty sitcom.

Oh no.
I'm old.
I'm bitter.
I'm taking satire personally.
This is my nightmare.
I do suck.
I am an idiot.
Fuck me.

I left Borders empty-handed again.

The macho tire clowns patched up my tire.
It only cost $40 or some shit.
I paid for it with a gift card.

For dinner I rubbed garlic on some toast.
And thought about how much I suck.

I didn't understand.
I liked the website.
It made me laugh.
It's good satire.
What happened?

Defeated by a bathroom book.

Verdict: Loss

December 26 - Almost Home

2011-05-06T11:29:00.001-05:00

Football was on TV.
Bears vs. Jets.
We were waiting for my mom.
She had gone out to run a quick errand.
That was over an hour ago.
She wasn't answering her phone.
We were dressed and ready to go.

In the meantime, Lauren was going over lines.
For all of next month and the first week of February she will be in Louisville performing with The Second City.
While trying to memorize the show, my aunt asked Lauren lots of questions about acting.
Surprisingly, Lauren was happy to answer her questions.
Her family doesn't show much interest in her performing endeavors.

My uncle watched the football with me.
He's not the biggest football fan.
But he watched it with me.
He seemed moody.
I think he misses his brother still.
There's no one to speak Spanish with anymore.
No one that knows Cuba.
I miss him, too.
Every day.

My mom finally returned.
She was holding two big sleds.
She bought sleds.
She thought we might want to go sledding.
We just wanted to go home.
We said farewell to my aunt and uncle.
It would be the last time I would see my Uncle Jose.
In February, an uninsured driver would hit him head-on while he waited to make a left turn.
But I didn't know that yet.
I'm glad I got to see him one last time.
Mom was right though.
We could have gone sledding.

Verdict: Win

December 25 - Christmas Cliff Notes

2011-05-06T08:33:00.000-05:00

Christmas was nice.
We ate a bunch, drank a tad.
Didn't drive too much.
Now Lauren wants a cat.

Verdict: Win

December 24 - Santa's Ghost Writer III & A Cuban Nochebuena

2011-05-05T14:47:00.000-05:00

I got up at 4:30am so I could write a story for my cousin Michelle.
When she was nine or ten, she had a pet goat.
This story is for her.

SIGOURNEY

For her birthday, Maggie asked her parents for a goat. She had wanted a goat because Cheryl Ladd kept a goat on her Hollywood estate. Star magazine said so. It sounded glamorous and eccentric. Always supportive, Maggie’s parents made the effort. They searched the Yellow Pages. But there was nothing listed under GOATS. They tried calling a few farms. But none of the farms in the area farmed goats. They went downtown to the pet store. But the kid at the pet store said goats didn’t make good pets. Also, they didn’t have any.

Over dinner, her father suggested the idea of a stuffed goat. This idea horrified Maggie and she ran into her room and cried. While her father finished Maggie’s macaroni and cheese, he got an idea. He called his friend Joe.

“Hey Joe,” he said with the last remnants of dinner still in his mouth. “Remember that nativity you did last year?”

Joe did remember. He was fond of telling the story. Last December Joe got a call from his brother Maury out in Sigourney. Maury was frantic.

“I need you to be a shepherd!” he gushed. “I just fired my shepherd!”

Joe had no idea what his brother was talking about.

“For The Nativity! I’m doing a real life nativity!!”

It seems the role of shepherd had proven too demanding for Maury’s paperboy. So Joe drove down to Sigourney. He brought his brown bathrobe and some rope. When he pulled into the driveway, Maury went ballistic.

“PARK BEHIND THE HOUSE! BEHIND THE HOUSE!!! THERE WERE NO CARS IN BETHLEHEM!!” It was going to be a long day.

Maury played Joseph, who clearly had rented a robe for the occasion of fatherhood. Kind of like a tux. His wife Bonnie played Mary, and their four-year-old daughter Kylie played Jesus. In his brown bathrobe, Joe found himself in charge of an actual living goat.

“Make sure he doesn’t steal the show,” Maury directed.

“What’s his name?” Joe asked.

“He doesn’t have a name. I just got him yesterday.”

“Where did you get him?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Maury barked, and gestured hysterically at some neighbors who had parked in the driveway. A handful of locals had gathered to witness Sigourney’s first live nativity scene. Maury had posted flyers at Casey’s. The show was free. It was also quite cold.

Joe shivered in his bathrobe, and held a potato sack of carrots to keep the goat at bay. Maury, seemingly impervious to the elements, read all of the lines boldly and loudly over the freezing winds. Everyone else shimmied and shivered in the scorching, burning cold.

During “Away In The Manger”, Joe checked in with the goat. It was going through the carrots like they were candy. Suddenly Kylie, who as Jesus had no lines, panicked with stage fright and ran screaming into the house. Bonnie followed to console her daughter. Maury adlibbed a line about there being “too much frankincense” in the manger. It would have gotten a laugh if it weren’t so cold.

The goat had devoured the entire sack of carrots but was still hungry, and began eating the bag. Joe and the goat had a tug of war with the bag. Joe won, but goats are sore losers, and this goat charged at Joe. Maury, ever the thespian, stayed in character.

“Perhaps the ox detects myrrh.”

This time he got a laugh. Especially since Joe was knocked down by the goat. Maury smiled for the first time that day, until a station wagon full of late comers pulled into the driveway. He finally broke character.

“HEY!! NO CARS!! NO CARS!!”

The goat charged at the station wagon, but got distracted by Maury’s rented gown. This time the goat yanked at it, and thoroughly ripped its cheap design. Maury let out a string of obscenities that began with “Goddammit”. It would be the last living nativity hosted by Maury in Sigourney.

Joe gladly gave Maury’s phone number to Maggie’s dad.

It's Christmas Eve.
Lauren, my mom and I drove to Iowa.
We visited my dad's side of the family.
My Uncle Jose was in good spirits.
He played Cuban records on the turntable.
We ate Cuban food.
I made terrible mojitos.
We exchanged presents.
The stories qualified as gifts.
My family seemed to enjoy them.
We played board games.
We argued and laughed.

Christmas wasn't the asshole I thought it would be this year.
So I guess that makes me the asshole.
Oh well.

Verdict: Win

December 23 - Santa's Ghost Writer II

2011-05-05T13:15:00.002-05:00

My cousin Melissa works as a flight attendant.
This story is for her.

FLYING OVER IOWA

She enjoyed the turbulence. To her closed eyes it felt like a much needed massage. Baltimore. Most of the odd ones would probably deboard there. This leg was packed with oddballs.

She pried an eye open to ensure her massage did not become a nap. A dreadlocked guy in a vintage Gumby T-shirt was staring at her. He knew he had been caught but continued to stare anyway, like a game of chicken. She did not avert her eyes either.

A large lump of turbulence declared the staring contest a draw. The sound of snoring suddenly removed itself from the airplane’s blaring mix of white noise. For a moment she glanced out the window and focused her attention on the perfectly round crop circles below.

Her attention returned to the passengers. The dreadlocked guy calmly munched on some ice chips from a plastic cup. She noticed the ice in his cup was red. Red? The airline had discontinued Hawaiian Punch years ago. So it wasn’t Hawaiian Punch. He caught her staring at him and gave her a toothy and bloody smile.

It was her job to assist the dreadlocked man with the bloody mouth. With a sigh she approached him with routine caution.

“Sir, is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled with bloody lips, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Your mouth is bleeding.”

He laughed again. “Don’t worry. I’m a glass eater.”

A glass eater. This was new. His serene reassurance misled her, and a game curiosity quickly reverted to professional, distanced concern. She spoke in a stage whisper.

“For safety reasons, we can’t have broken glass on the plane.”

He assured her that he did not have any broken glass. Just hard plastic. Pen caps and bottle caps. He was chewing them to reinforce the strength of his gums and his threshold for pain.

“I perform with a midnight circus,” he explained.

“Sir,” she persisted, “we still cannot have you bleeding aboard a United States aircraft.”

A bald, in fact completely hairless, man chimed in.

“C’mon, Gums. It’s not like I can practice eating fire during a flight.”

She gave the bald, hairless man a sideways glance. He added.

“I’m a fire eater.”

She scanned the plane. The over abundance of oddballs now made more sense. The facial tattoos. The vertically challenged twins. All the scarred and branded hands handing her their trash. She was traveling with a traveling circus.

The fire eater continued.

“We’ve got shows all this week.”

“In Baltimore?” she guessed.

“No. New York.” The beast man next to him let out a horrid, sour burp. “But we’re all from Baltimore.”

“I tell you what,” said the glass eater. “If you have any more of those dinners back there, that’ll clean up my mouth good.”

She rolled her eyes and went to get him one of the many dinners declined earlier by the other circus people. It’s funny, she thought, they’ll eat fire and glass but won’t touch Chicken Parmesan. She grabbed a warm tin and a set of silverware and headed back down the aisle.

Suddenly, a thick patch of turbulence sent the plane jarringly downward. She braced herself on the overhead compartments, but in doing so sent the silverware flying from her grip. It soared awkwardly until landing squarely on the nose of the glass eater. A few of the non-circus people gasped.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” she stammered.

“It’s okay,” he smiled. “I’m also a sword swallower.”

My aunt and uncle on my father's side introduced me to wanderlust.
Between ages 12-14, they brought me along on their road trips.
My closest cousin Michelle and I would get into all sorts of boneheaded mischief.
We did things on the cheap, and always on the fun.
This story is for them.

NEW LIBERTY

The van broke down again. This time at night. Almost home. But not quite.

The vacation had been fun. The kids got along well. They counted VW bugs the whole time. In Pennsylvania, George decided to venture up the steep, densely wooded hill behind the motel. His path was choked by pine trees, and he used them like levers until it got too thick. Audrey followed but got stuck. George tried to guide her down but she skinned her legs on the sharp rocks. That hill wasn’t meant for climbing really.

DC was neat. They escaped the sun’s oppressive breath inside the museums, spritzing their day with history and education. The next day Philadelphia would offer more of the same, but the van didn’t want to go. At least the carburetor didn’t. George and Audrey didn’t seem to mind. For two days they hung out at the motel across the street. It had a swimming pool and miniature golf. George and Audrey were having fun.

They watched Philadelphia from the expressway. It looked grey and mean. Like a nasty dog. They decided to skip past it. Atlantic City promised the enchanting possibility of recouping their losses. They strolled around the boardwalk, and saw a roulette wheel made out of jellybeans. The kids bought gag souvenirs. Liquid-filled shot glasses. Somehow they amused themselves for hours with those things.

George and Audrey played at the motel pool while Mom and Dad hit the casinos. They stuck to slots mostly, but ventured out for the occasional hand of black jack, mostly breaking even. Then a couple of shiny guys in spacey disco suits hit the jackpot on the slots behind them. They whooped and danced and swore and gave each other high fives. The sound of endlessly plinking coins grew tiresome. Those guys didn’t need that jackpot. Mom and Dad glanced one last time at the disco jerks and left the casino. They were down by a few hundred dollars.

George and Audrey had been jumping on the beds. Doing flips. Rough housing. A particularly graceless somersault by George ended in Mom’s purse getting knocked from the nightstand onto the floor. Its contents spilled all over the green and yellow shag carpet. Audrey scurried to scoop up the dollars and coins and put them back in the purse. George helped. As the kids hurriedly shoved fistfuls of small bills back into the purse, the door opened. It was Mom and Dad. George and Audrey froze, the guiltiest looks of real fear stitched on their faces. They started to explain that they weren’t doing what it looked like they were doing. But their folks just burst into laughter.

It had been a long day of driving. Probably close to twelve hours. Almost midnight. Almost home. But broke and broke down on the side of the road. Mom and Dad were worried. George and Audrey didn’t seem worried. They just sat in the van and waited.

A car slowed down. A white sedan. It pulled over and stopped in front of them. A guy got out. He was a young man, with dirty blond hair and a dirty blond beard. His button down shirt seemed permanently wrinkled. It looked fresh from the trunk. He offered to take them home, just forty miles away. They cautiously accepted.

He apologized as he rolled up a tattered wool blanket and brushed several crumpled Budweiser cans from the rear window. The sedan had become his home of late. Its windshield housed a generous crack that spidered diagonally. The upholstery on the ceiling sagged, and the vehicle smelled odd like stew. But it ran.

George and Audrey sat in the back with Mom, playing with their shot glasses. Dad kept the man company up front. His name was Bobby. He talked about losing his job at a furniture warehouse. He talked about trying to get a job at the mattress factory in Coralville. He started to talk about his family, but Dad made sure things didn’t get too dark. Dad talked about the casino, and how they had lost most of their vacation money on car repairs. Every now and then Audrey or George would chuckle from the back, in their own world. He counted the miles.

Bobby pulled into their driveway. The dogs went wild, not recognizing the strange vehicle and its strange but also familiar scent. George and Audrey hugged the barking, snarling beasts and tiredly lugged their bags into the house. While Mom and the kids lit up the house, Bobby asked if he could stay the night. Dad gave him the last twenty dollars.

I prefer writing stories to being a sad sack.

Verdict: Win

December 22 - Santa's Ghost Writer

2011-05-05T12:49:00.001-05:00

Undeterred by my recent failure at the Ray's Tap Reading Series, I came up with a solution for the whole gift-giving-without-having-money bit.
I'll write short stories for my family and give those out as gifts.
Stories inspired by the recipient.
I think it will say more than something apathetically selected from Target that I can't even afford.

My cousin Josh was raised on a farm in Iowa.
For the time being, he sells cars in Muscatine.

MUSCATINE

He could tell they weren’t going to buy anything. Especially a car. They already seemed to have one. A late model Kia. And they were using it to cut through the dealership lot.

Where were they going? And why were they in such a hurry? Muscatine was a bigger town. But not big enough to be in that much of a hurry. The music blaring from within suggested they were in their teens. Some sort of hip hop. Not his thing.

He stood up. It was what he was supposed to do when a potential customer approached. Also, he just wanted to stand up. He had been sitting on his ass all day. It didn’t feel like work. But it made him tired nonetheless.

They weren’t teenagers. They weren’t even a they. It was a man in his forties. Driving a Kia. A Kia Soul. Weird. He smiled and tried to make eye contact with the man, but the man was wearing sunglasses. They looked expensive. If you’re into that kind of thing.

To his surprise, the man slowed to a stop in front of him. Time to do his job.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

The man in the sunglasses wouldn’t turn down the music.

“Do you guys…” The rest was inaudible.

He had to crouch down closer in order to hear the man in the sunglasses. But it also made the music louder.

“Sorry?”

The man used his sunglasses to look around.

“I thought this was a gas station.”

“No. It’s a car dealership.”

The man in the sunglasses turned the music down a fraction.

“Do you know where I can get some tacos around here?”

A purse and its contents were scattered across the interior of the Kia. Credit cards, lipstick, some jewelry.

“Well, there’s Taco John’s down on Grandview.” He noticed a few fresh scratches strewn across the man’s face. “But if you want to have a good sit down dinner, then go to Mami’s.” He memorized the man’s features. “That’s the real deal.” White guy. Dark hair, going grey, long on the sides. “It’s on 2^nd Street downtown.” Moustache, goatee. “They’ve got killer margaritas, too.” Masculine nose. Kind of big lips. “Do you want directions?”

He didn’t mean to use the term “killer margaritas”. The man in the sunglasses turned up the music louder than it was before.

“No. Do you have any air fresheners?”

Medium build. Black trench coat.

“Let me check. I think we do.”

They didn’t. He knew they didn’t. In the lobby, he pretended to futz around for air fresheners. Red Kia Soul. Mid to late 40’s. He scrambled for a pen. The muffled hip hop pulsed against the lobby windows. The man in the sunglasses suddenly sped off. South Dakota plates.

“6RC..” But he missed the rest of it. He called the police.

“Red Kia Soul. White. Mid to late 40’s. Dark hair. Moustache. South Dakota plates. 6RC…”

It felt good to work.

As an only child, I played by myself a lot.

Football entailed tackling linebacker pillows.

And making lots of gnawing, beastmaster noises.
Baseball meant tossing a wiffle ball at the batter (my bicycle tire), and throwing the ball to first base (the wall to my left).
All the while announcing the plays in an excited Al Michaels head voice.
Everything was highlight reel worthy.

Adventure also occurred.
The hallway in our apartment became the mausoleum corridor in Dragon's Lair.
The space between the bed and the wall became the junkyard where The Incredible Hulk wasted a punk.

So when we visited my aunt and uncle's farm one blustery winter in the early 80's, I was delighted to find their yard piled high with mountains of well packed snow. I played GI Joe and Automan all day in blissful solitude, taking dramatic death plummets into the forgiving, white trenches.
Also, my most recent forays into self-absorbed patheticism helped influence this story for my farming aunt and uncle.

CLARE COUNTY

He had pulled the trampoline out of storage and placed it next to the twenty-foot tall snowdrift. It was probably more like eleven feet. But it had become known as the twenty feet of snow.

From the bedroom she watched him bounce up and down, building momentum. He had almost retained the confident posture of the athlete she once knew. But forty new pounds and a tattered pair of pajamas had removed the notion of professionalism. Nevertheless, it was the happiest she had seen him in months.

He was getting up there. Almost as high as the bedroom window. She hoped he would snap out of his doldrums. Lately he remained a fixture of the couch, obsessively watching ESPN. The network had rejected him as a commentator. They were polite about it. Said they were going in another direction. Yet every day on the screen sat a thinner, younger version of him. Analyzing statistics. Making observations. Joking around with the guys.

He wanted to stop brooding about it, too. Hence the trampoline. It reminded him of summers at his aunt’s house. It was a simpler time. He was eight. Football was still a dream waiting to come true. So was drawing cartoons. He had almost forgotten that he used to draw. And was actually quite good at it. Could have gone on to be a professional if the lure of football hadn’t been so shiny. While bobbing through the prairie air, he finally smiled.

Just then a gust of wind shoved across the plains. He lost balance in mid air, and lost his footing back down on the cold mat. His once mighty body sprang wayward, and plopped awkwardly atop the twenty feet of snow.

She rushed to the backyard.

“Honey! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said calmly while writhing in pain. He had broken his ankle again. The same broken ankle that had cut his career short on a Monday night two years ago. “Go back inside,” he tried.

“Can you get down?” Her bare feet danced on the uncompromising cement deck.

He didn’t want to get down. He welcomed the pain like an old friend. He wanted to stay there all day and rehash old war stories. But he knew this was an impractical tactic.

“Call an ambulance,” he managed.

They were new to this rural expanse of Iowa farmland. They hadn’t gotten to know any of its residents yet, and hadn’t really tried. So they didn’t know that they shared their gravel road with the head of the volunteer fire department.

“It’s gonna take forever for an ambulance to get out here!” she protested.

“Then start building a casket, I suppose.”

She ran into the house frantically and called the fire department. She told them her husband fell on twenty feet of snow and couldn’t get down. “He used to play for the Vikings!” she added, hoping that would speed things up.

He stared paralyzed at the grey sky as the snow began to soak through his pajamas. The clouds ran flush against the blankness like hospital sheets. He drew cartoons on them. A group of guys joking around the water cooler about the football player that broke his ankle on a trampoline. He chuckled to himself between bursts of excruciating pain. It seemed he would soon be seeing his face on ESPN after all. Albeit from the hospital.

A familiar looking pick-up truck pulled into the driveway. It was the guy who lived down the road.

I worked at the bar tonight.

It was dead enough for me to start on another story for my cousin Melissa.

Verdict: Win

December 21 - Electronic Distraction (Not Video Games Or Porn)

2011-05-04T20:30:00.000-05:00

How do you shake a depression?
With distraction.

I woke up bright and early and drove north for one day of work.
A commercial shot on location at an electronics compound.
A store, their offices and the warehouse all in one spot.

I was the craft services PA.
I lugged around coolers all day.
"Anybody need a water?"

Around 8am I was dispatched to pick up some camera gear that had been accidentally left behind downtown.
An eighty mile round trip.
The roads were dead.
Cold and dead.
It wasted less time than I had hoped.

We filmed all over the compound.
Interviewing employees.
"Anybody need a water?"
Around 1pm I was dispatched to get some coffee and Emergen-C.
GPS said there was a Starbucks on some railroad tracks in the forest.
There wasn't.
Just some railroad tracks.
And some forest.
They didn't have Emergen-C there, either.

It would be a long day.
My fellow PA Atom complimented me on a recent Facebook status.
"Depressed = deep rest"
He liked that.
Hey, I try.

We filmed all over the warehouse.
Everyone screamed over the noise.
"ANYBODY NEED A WATER?"
Around 8pm I was dispatched to pick up second meal.
I almost ate shit on the ice holding a stack of ten pizzas.

We got done around 9, which meant 10.
It was a long day.
But it prevented me from exploring more depths in self-loathing moronism.

Verdict: Win

December 20 - Ah, The Holidays

2011-05-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

Ah, the holidays.
God's way of reminding you that your father died an early, painful death.

Verdict: Loss

December 19 - S-Elf-ish

2011-05-04T16:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know what happened.
Lauren made a most delicious dinner.
Baked salmon with lemon risotto.
It was cooked perfectly.

Then we watched Elf.
It's a Christmas movie about Will Ferrell.
I got dark.
I got hateful.
I sat there grinding my teeth.
I thought about Christmas.
And its expectations.
And its forced, artificial merriment.
And how I didn't have the money to participate properly.
And how I didn't know what to fucking get anybody.
And how I didn't want to receive any fucking presents from anybody.
Because it's always a fucking shirt that I never fucking wear.
Because nobody knows me.
Because I won't let them know me.
Because I'm afraid they won't like me.
The actual me.
The me that uses the word fuck.
The me that has an obtusely dark sense of humor.
The me that doesn't believe in God.
The me that doesn't belong to this society.

I can't say I'm the biggest Will Ferrell fan.
But he couldn't have taken me here.
I had gotten here on my own.
In my 2010 Selfishmobile®.

The movie ended.
Lauren asked me what I wanted to do.
"I don't know."
I laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Lauren had no use for me.
She's not good with kids.
So she closed the door.

And I laid there in darkness.
Wide awake staring at a black ceiling.
Until I hated myself to sleep.

Verdict: Loss

December 18 - Last Nurse Novels Activity of 2010

2011-05-04T15:37:00.000-05:00

The Nurse Novels had a show tonight.
I wrote a smart ass press release and sent it to The Reader, The Onion, Time Out, Tribune, Sun Times, and New City.
Here it is:

THE NURSE NOVELS TO PLAY CAL’S AGAIN

Dear iTunes,

Why can’t I get my band onto iTunes?

I have a band.

We’re The Nurse Novels.

We’re really good.

But everytime I drag our record from my Desktop to the iTunes store, it justs zips back to the Desktop.

I even created a folder called “Nurse Novels”.

But the iTunes store won’t take that either.

I figure if The Beatles just figured out how to do it, then so should we.

I tried to find your number online but I couldn’t find it.

That’s why I’m writing this letter.

Please call me.

Thank you,

Tony Mendoza

The Nurse Novels

(my phone number)

P.S. iTunes rocks!

The Nurse Novels with The Heavy Bombers

Saturday, December 18, 10pm

Cal’s

400 S Wells

Chicago

5 dollars

•••

My old tricks don't work anymore.
No blurbs on us anywhere.
It seems the press wants to cover bands that care.
I do care though.
That's why I write these anti-press releases.
I figure they get inundated with bands and paragraphs and adjectives.
If I can make them smile, right?
That's my goal.
But like I said, my old tricks don't work anymore.

It's funny though.
The music I'm making now is the best music I've made.
But I've lost the energy to promote it.
So it will go largely unheard.
That is funny.
Right?

Enough people turned up for the show to happen.
We played well.
People were mostly listening during our set.
I think I got some aggression/depression out on my kit.
I liked whipping around it on "Here Come The Warm Jets".
We're a good band.
We do care.
I'm glad a few people got to hear us while we're still around.

Verdict: Win

December 17 - Bordersing On Depression

2011-05-04T14:48:00.000-05:00

I tried to go Christmas shopping.
I didn't have the money to do it properly.
November was slow and I won't see any Veruca money until next year.

I wandered around Borders.
The doomed one in Uptown.
Most of the books on display were penned by angry white comedians or comediennes who slept around.
A table crammed with big cocks and loud twats.
Like in a gag shoppe.

A few of these books started as blogs.
I skimmed some of Shit My Dad Says.
Good formula.
Would make a better calendar.
I imagine they did that already.
A sticker on the cover promoted its new sitcom.
$h*! My Dad Says.
I had seen a commercial for that show.
It looked worthless.
Ⅎ♥¢₭ing worthless.

But it is success.
Good for him.
He came up with a good idea and made it work for him.
And it was turned into televised horseshit.
But at least that guy did something with it.

I walked out of Borders empty handed.

Verdict: Loss

December 16 - Sleep Beats Life

2011-05-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

I slept til 11.
I went back to bed at 1.

I woke up at 5.
The mail arrived.
I got a letter from the unemployment office.
Back on December 1, they called for a hearing over the phone.
My old boss Wroth was on the line.
Along with some attorneys.
They wanted to know why I was claiming unemployment if I quit my job as a messenger.
Wroth had the floor first.
He went on to say that I had quit, and had only given him one week notice.
The truth is I gave him two weeks notice.
He asked me for three, and I told him I couldn't do that.
Wroth spoke his mind some more.
Then it was my turn.
I told them that I indeed did quit the messengering job.
I didn't mention the two weeks vs. one week notice thing.
That moment had already passed.
I told them I was claiming unemployment for my work after that.
They asked if I had anything else to say.
"Just, hey Wroth."
"'Ey, Tony."

The letter said I was officially unqualified for unemployment benefits.
It went on to say that I had quit my messenger job with just one week notice.
Fine.

I got another letter.
The city said I parked in a residential permit zone on October 27.
But I didn't.
I don't have proof.
But I didn't park there.
It's too late.
The city has made a final determination.
They want me to pay $120.
For now I am refusing to pay it.
I don't know what I can do.

Being awake hadn't gone my way today.
I went back to bed at 8:30.

Verdict: Loss

December 15 - Tony Go Home

2011-05-04T10:53:00.000-05:00

Today was a wrap day for the cellphone shoot.
Ned and I painted the stage from green to white.

I returned a shopping cart full of clothes to Target.
The holidays reared its ugly, infected scrotus.
Everything was impatient and shitty.

Nurse Novels had band practice.
It was joyless.

I worked the bar.
It was dead.
I kept falling asleep at the door.

While the regulars hung out after hours I slept in a booth.
"Tony, go home!" Kim called.

Verdict: Loss

December 14 - Groovin' With Mr. Blow

2011-05-04T10:46:00.000-05:00

It was an easy shoot.

People wearing ear buds and grooving to bad music on a green screen.

The director was a friend of mine from the incestuous world of improv.

Lex.

He was nice to me.

"Maybe we'll get you in there, too," he felt obligated to say.

Though we both knew that there was no way I was going to be on camera for any of this.

Julio and I moved some couches for the clients.

"You still gonna work in radio?" Julio asked.

Radio?

Oh yeah.

Last time I saw Julio, I had just started PAing and was looking toward public radio.

Before I got discouraged.

Yeah.

Sometimes I think I'm going to do something.

The line producer came up to me.

"Hey, Tony. It's Paul. I was a student in your class."

I didn't remember him at first.

Of course.

But then I did.

I felt embarrassed.

I set up lunch tables.

I took out the trash.

I got coffee.

Lex put the VTR girl in front of the camera.

She grooved to the bad music.

I guess it could be worse.

Verdict: Loss

December 13 - I've Come A Long Way, Baby

2011-05-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

I worked today.
Prep day for a commercial shoot about cellphones.
I took a look at the call sheet.
I know the director.
He's a fellow improviser.
Cool.
He'll get to see how far I've come.
Getting coffee.
Taking out trash.
Setting up lunch tables.
Awesome.

Verdict: Loss

December 12 - Mem'ries Only

2011-05-04T10:17:00.000-05:00

The Nurse Novels met at Thea's to go over new songs.
Tom moves to Rhode Island in 106 days.
Our plan is to record as many songs as we can before he moves.
Then go dormant.

We freed the songs from their demo purgatories.
Nicole's bass lines gave them a good goose.
Can't wait to hear them on a proper drum kit.
Right now I bang on notebooks.

Today was my friend Mick's birthday.
He founded The Annoyance.
Tonight he premiered a film called Bandicoot!
It was written and performed by him and my old comedy cohort Josh.
It is the stupidest film.
And this is why I love Mick.

I hung around afterward.
That's what you do at Annoyance.
A couple of former students of mine said hello.
They seemed genuinely glad to see me.
I hadn't felt that in a while.
Unfortunately, I couldn't remember their names.

This year on the plane to Amsterdam, I saw my high school English teacher.
Mr. Erford.
Dennis.
I hadn't seen him since graduation day.
I wanted to say hi.
But I didn't.
We were in the same room for nine hours.
But I didn't say hi.
I saw him at baggage claim at Schiphol.
Still, I didn't say hi.
I didn't want him to not remember me.

Then I went home.

Verdict: Loss

December 11 - Stay Funny

2011-05-02T10:29:00.006-05:00

Hard Times Dining
Saturday morning began at Captain Hard Times Dining.
Or is it Captain's Hard Time Dining?
The sign out front says Capt's Hard Time Dining.
But the one on the door says Captain's Hardtimes.
Let's see what our internet says.
The url for the website is http://captainshardtimedining.com.
Though the home page refers to it as Captain's Hard Times Dining.
I guess it depends on where you would like the hard times to go.
And how many hard times are occurring.
I like the idea of a captain embodying the hard times.
A surly, swarthy old barnacle of the sea.
So I like Captain Hard Times.
But nobody seems to call it that.
Most references to the restaurant make the captain possessive of the dining.
That way the hard time or hard times also falls on the dining.
Either way, I admire any business that celebrates hard times in their name.
Rarely do you see Bob Evan's Shit Happens Breakfast Specials.

Hold on.
Apparently there's a chili chain in the DC area called Hard Times Cafe.
Their mascot is a ragamuffin kid in a wash basin.
Hmm.
It feels like it's trying to resonate with NASCAR existentialists.
Or something.
I don't know.
Zagat gave them a Top 20.
Penthouse seems to like them.
So there's that.
I don't know how to feel about it anymore.

The Captain
Josephine Wade sat behind a plate of chicken and waffles.
An active force in the community (NAACP, Rainbow/Push, The Urban League, and much more) and a confirmed gumbo champion, she owned the room with humor and power.
Josephine Wade runs a tidy ship.
The director wanted quiet.
So Josephine yelled "QUIET!"
No dinging coffee cups.
No incessant chatter.
No timers going off.
The staff was dressed for Sunday.
They muttered obscenities under their breath.

Hard Time Dining
Chaz and I enjoyed breakfast in a booth.
A table of grey-haired Gradies slid their jibs about old stick up boys and other crazy motherfuckers from back in the day.
They laughed heartily and rapped the table.
Veruca texted me to ask them to keep it down.

A waitress showed me an ad for two types of cellphones.
"Which one would you get?"
I made a selection.
A coffee cup rattled on its saucer.
Veruca texted me again.

Petty Cash Pencil Clash
Saturday afternoon was spent at the Black Ensemble Theater.
I started to snap a photo of Veruca.
"You're going to put that on Facebook and say what a bitch I am."
So I didn't take the picture.
Instead, I did my petty cash.
Taping receipts to scrap paper.
Adding it all up.
A pencil is required.
Jerzy lent me his.
"You call yourself a PA?"
No, Jerzy.
I don't.
I call myself an unfocused humorist.
I don't know which is worse.

I should have said "I am Chicago."

Stay Funny
It was a rainy farewell.
I hugged Veruca au voir.
Jerzy and I returned the vans to Movie Movies, and unloaded them in the rain.
He split without shaking hands.
"Stay funny," he sarcasmed.
Stay fun, Jerzy.

I should have said "Stay funny looking!"

Gripes To Mike Royko At Ray's Tap
Tonight I read at the Ray's Tap Reading Seriers for Gripes To Mike Royko.

In 1993, the Chicago Tribune's Mike Royko responded to Bob Greene's letters of American Optimism, asking his readers to send in their petty complaints. His readers inundated him with pedestrian bile and vitriol about the volume level of commercials, gays in the military, and other delights.

A savvy Wilmette garbage picker scooped up a healthy pile of these letters discarded on Royko's estate, and gave them to Chris Bower, curator of the Ray's Tap Reading Series.

I was asked to select a letter and write a piece about it.

I picked an angry rant about gum.

Last time I read at Ray's, I did a few character pieces.

My comedy comfort zone.

The same shit I'd been doing for thirteen years.

So this time I chose to write prose.

Just a straight story.

I timed it at ten minutes.

I cut a bunch of it to get it down to six.

If I spoke briskly.

I felt good about it.

The first act killed.

Everyone did comedy.

Everyone shone comedically.

The bar hooted in its own stitches.

I felt less good about my piece.

During the intermission, Ray told me how he was looking forward to my piece.

He thought the last one I did was the best.

Because it was so funny.

I told him I was going to try something different tonight.

The second act continued in the spirit of comedy.

To vary from the theme of the evening was going to prove difficult.

And it did.

I read my piece.

It was long.

It got one laugh early on because laughing during a reading had been firmly established.

But it wasn't funny.

And it wasn't meant to be funny.

But it wasn't funny.

I had unwittingly betrayed the night.

My words were less noticed than the smoke in the room.

Even the smoke was bored.

DO NOT ENJOY

Eight minutes later, nineteen people had checked their cellphones, and politely applauded when it was over.

Afterward my friend Greg complimented me on how I held my papers.

He pointed out that they didn't shake.

Yeah, I suppose I've gotten used to failure.

It doesn't frighten me anymore.

Maybe Jerzy was right.

I should have stayed funny.

Verdict: Loss

Here's the gripe:

Dear Mike,

The most aggravating vermin on earth are the gum-chewing cretins who noisily gnaw on their cuds with a single-minded intensity that makes Mike Ditka seem placid by comparison. These people should have their jaws permanently wired shut.
Edwin C. Kehm, Elgin IL

Here's the piece:

To Lose
by Tony Mendoza

            “So what’s your biggest fear?”
            It was a question Edwin liked to ask people while they had food in their mouth. This time it was doner kabob, which is European for gyro.
            “Kwabbeen aw dad aw bee,” she gagged.
            He wasn’t used to an immediate answer. Usually they mulled it over mid-chew then formulated their answer.
            “What?”
            Josie held up her finger then pointed it at the bulbous guy by the jukebox. Challenging the durability of the buttons on his shiny club shirt, he had let himself go but was trying to prove otherwise. As if a pint of hair product could distract the world from the futbol occupying his man-womb. It jiggled as he clapped to the fade out on Bowie’s “Modern Love”.
            “Clapping on the downbeat,” she repeated.
            He frowned.
            “C’mon, no more bits. What’s your biggest fear?”
            “I don’t know.” Edwin’s line of questioning was diluting Josie’s enjoyment of the doner kabob. You can’t get doner kebob in Ohio. She took a sip of beer. A Depeche Mode song made itself important on the jukebox. The bulbous guy ran his fingers though his hair and made a sort of praying face.
            “Really though. That is my biggest fear,” she reinforced.
            “What? Getting fat?”
            “Well, no-“
            “I’ll love you no matter what,” he awkwardly interrupted. They had just started to toss the word “love” around in their relationship, and Edwin just tossed it through a vase with the finesse of a farting chimpanzee.
            She rolled her eyes and took a large bite.
            “Goo(d).”
            They were in France. She didn’t want to have dumb college quad conversations in France. She wanted to get loaded on beer and eat stupid food. She wanted to do dumb off campus things in France.
            He sniffed.
            “There’s so much dog shit in this town.”
            He had already stepped in it twice while his nose was deep in a Lonely Planet. She snapped a few shots of his shitty shoes and pouty grimace.
            “Not enough if you ask me,” she joked.
There really was a lot of dog shit in this town. Her eyes brightened.
            “What if we put little flags in all the dog shit?”
            “What?” He was trying to make sense of the newspaper.
            “What if we went around and put little flags in all the dog shit?” she repeated, to which Edwin repeated his pouty grimace.
            “And the flags would all say different things…” She was on a roll.
            He rested his hands over his ears and tried to concentrate on the movie listings. She hopped out of her seat and grabbed a handful of toothpicks from the counter. The man at the counter frowned, looked at the bulbous guy lip syncing to “Personal Jesus” and went out for a smoke.
            Josie grabbed at the sports pages from under Edwin’s elbows.
            “Hey!” he protested.
            “Oh, so you’re into fuutboll now?” she mocked.
            “I like sports.”
            “Okay, who’s your favorite fuutboll star?”
            He looked at her like she was a child and pulled his elbows up like a slightly older child. “Mike Ditka.”
            She tore off little scraps from the borders of the paper and folded them into acute triangles. Edwin tried to read but couldn’t.
            “Are you actually going to do that?”
            “What should the flags say?” she offered. He paused and wondered how the girl he had recently decided that he loved had become his annoying little sister.
            “I don’t know.”
            Josie wrote I DON’T KNOW on the little flag and wrapped it around a toothpick. Twirling it between her thumb and forefinger, she admired it and proclaimed, “I don’t know!”
            She rewarded herself with a stick of gum.
            Edwin hated gum. To him, gum was a device used by incessant blatherers to continually make noise for them while their brains rebooted. In high school he had written a piece for school paper about gum. He referred to the chewers of gum as cretins and vermin and called for their jaws to be permanently wired shut.
            He loathed the way she chewed gum. Like a prostitute. Gnawing on her cud. Her mouth gaping open like a loud sucking wound.
            But. He was determined to not let it ruin their vacation. Or their relationship.
            “I was thinking we could go see a movie,” he suggested. “There’s this old slaughterhouse they converted into a museum. Les Abattoirs. They’re showing a film called L’oeuf de Noisette.”
            Her gum popped and smacked like wet bubble wrap flatulence. She rolled another flag.
            “A movie?”
            She scrawled HOLLYWOOD SUCKS on the flag.
            “It’s supposed to be good,” he defended.
            Their heads remained locked downward, calmly holding their ground.
            “Ed, we’re in France. I don’t want to spend my time watching a movie we could see at home.”
            He focused on the newspaper.
            “That’s the thing. We can’t see this in Ohio.”
            She assembled more flags. She chewed more gum.
            “I just don’t want to see a fucking movie when we’re in France.”
            He raised his eyes to aim them at her.
            “Well, I obviously don’t want to spend my day poking fucking toothpicks into fucking dog shit when we’re in fucking France!”
            “Wow,” she said with distance. The jukebox went silent. The bulbous guy gave them a look, ran his fingers though his hair for Josie and left. The man at the counter returned.
            “Un más cervesa, see voo pley,” she butchered. The man at the counter looked at her with actual contempt. Edwin grinded his teeth while Josie blew a big pink bubble and chewed it back into her mouth.
            “So what’s Loofa de Nawlins about? A crawdad that scrubs itself?”
            “You mean L’eouf de Noisette? It means egg noisy.” The man at the counter sighed.
            “Your beer,” he said in shitty English. Josie stuck her gum under the counter and enjoyed a large warm gulp.
            “You realize your movie isn’t going to have English subtitles.”
            Edwin got up.
            “Maybe we should just meet up later,” he exhaled.
            “Fine. See you at the hostel.”
            He hesitated before leaving.
            “I can’t believe you’re spending your time in France with dog shit over me.”
            Her small glass was already empty.
            “Ed, I don’t want to sit in some pretentious cabaret and watch somebody else’s idea of art. I want to explore and I want to create my own.”
            Edwin’s neck elongated in astonishment.
            “Okay. So what statement are you making with your dog shit art?”
            She cocked her head.
            “I don’t know yet.”
            “Yeah. I know.” He headed for the door. “See you later I guess.”
            “Ciao!” she sang.

            They called it the pink city. It was pink. Pink like a hog. Caked in dirt and hoof-deep in its own shit. It was a filthy sow of a town.
            Toulouse was her idea. They couldn’t afford Paris. Besides, Paris was too obvious. They probably didn’t have dog shit on the streets.
            She found a fresh petite sphere on a crack in the cobbles. A bouquet of weeds framed it like an icky still life. She inserted a flag in its north pole. NO FAT CHICKS it boasted. She snapped a few shots.
            A guy in a stained, tattered green T-shirt and black jeans stood in the background. He wouldn’t move. He was staring at her. Josie put down her camera. He was a young guy, thin with long dark locks and a lazy beard. She decided that he might be considered attractive, and zoomed the camera on him to make sure. He was smiling.
            “Okay,” she allowed herself to admit.
            He shouted French at her.
            “FRENCH!” she shouted back.
            “ENGLISH!” he responded.
            He followed her around until she started following him. His name was Guillome. He showed her the river. He showed her the capitol plaza. She showed him all the dog shit on the street. When she pointed, he pointed too, and performed a funny disco dance. He bought her a hazelnut crepe from a street vendor. It was better than the fois gras whatever thing that Edwin had insisted was heaven.
            They stopped for a glass of beer. She took photographs of the graffiti. They ordered another round of beer. She took portraits of him. The man at this counter smiled. She drank her beer fast. The jukebox played The Stones. She tickled his scruff. He was in mid-sentence. She kissed him.

            They were near a university. The mucky streets teemed with youth. In her jacket she had one flag and in her mouth one stick of gum. A long log of dog shit sat fatly on a curb. It looked like a submarine in need of a periscope.
            “Perfect!” she slurred and audibly sucked the juice from her gum. She pulled the final frayed flag from her pocket.
            FREE TIBET.
            She squatted for the shot, but lost her balance. The alluring cushion of her American ass became an anvil that crashed into Guillome’s skinny shins. He toppled like a tree, bracing his fall manually. His right palm slammed directly on the protruding toothpick and hit the warm dog shit hard.
            Josie let out a big drunken “HA!”
            Guillome screamed in agony.
            Josie put her hand over her mouth in shock.
            He examined the damage. His hand was smeared in Josie’s art – the toothpick planted firmly in his skin, a dog shit stigmata. She removed her hand from her face, revealing a wad of gum resting in a mouth agape.
            Guillome winced as he plucked the flag out of his palm and let out a strange whimper. Josie felt this a bit dramatic and pointed at the shit on his hand. This was his cue to do the funny disco dance. But he didn’t dance.
            “Hey!” she giggled. “You-“
            But her sentence was hijacked by a huge burst of her own laughter. The gum shot out of her mouth, hitting Guillome in the face. She covered her mouth again but it was too late. Enraged, Guillome grabbed her wrist with his good hand and wiped the shit across her smirking face.

            L’eouf de Noisette was a stroke of cinematic masturbation. Or so said Ralph, the American foreign exchange student who sat next to Edwin at Les Abbatoirs. The film had just let out and they discussed its merits and downfalls. Edwin appreciated the Dadaist humor in its meta take on the daily struggles of a chestnut. Ralph thought Dada and meta were dated and that the film offered little more than trite fluff from an immature trust fund art school dropout.
            They hit gridlock in the square. A crowd had formed. A Frenchman screaming at an American girl. The American girl taking photographs of the screaming Frenchman. Both speckled in excrement.
            “Oh my god,” Edwin gulped.
            Ralph chuckled.
            The Frenchman swatted at Josie’s camera. She kicked at his balls. The crowd had made a song of ooh’s, but was now growing more hostile. Josie threw a dried nugget at a kid dressed in stereotypical punk rock gear. His mohawked friend retaliated with spit. Others hawked their own gum at her. It was a hail of hate. All the while she continued to snap pictures of the filthy, frothing mob, with an actual shit-eating grin on her face. This was Josie’s art.
            Edwin felt too many things. Shame. Pain. Cowardice. Defeat. Envy. But mostly defeat.
            It was like he had played a game of telephone with a genie.
            He had wished for all gum chewer’s mouths to be wired shut, not mired in shit.
            So how come he was the one that felt like dog shit?

December 10 - The Adventures Of Harold's Chicken Shack #82 And Other Windy City Folktales

2011-04-27T15:05:00.001-05:00

WWOE
We began the morning at a prep school in Obama's neck of the woods.
The students huddled in academic one-upsmanship, clad in pristine blazers and red ties.
They used words like "sir" and "good morning".
Earnest goes to school.

Chaz put me in charge of scouting lunch.
My first locations assignment!
I drove around Hyde Park and wrote down some options.
• Valois "See Your Food" Cafeteria
• Ribs 'n' Bibs
• Harold's Chicken Shack #14
In the scout, I inadvertently drove past Obama's house.
Barriers, secret service, signs.
Where Would Obama Eat?

WVON
Our second location was at the legendary WVON.
On the way down we passed Harold's Chicken Shack #2.
The crew really wanted to eat there.
But we had to get to WVON.
There was some buzz that Jesse Jackson was coming.
To get Jesse Jackson would be a coup.

Tensions were high.
Veruca was stressed out trying to get Jesse Jackson.
Jerzy was being difficult.
He wagged a "why are you so stupid" face at me while trying to communicate on the other side of a closed window.
I screamed at him.
"WHAT!!?? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!"
The gaffer was baffled.
"Why are people screaming?"

I got away from Jerzy and walked the halls taking pictures of framed pictures of Al Sharpton.
Veruca's accent pouted from a meeting room.
"Dew yew have okra? Alright, we'll have tew pints of okra..."
She was ordering lunch from Harold's.
I guess we were eating at Harold's.
And I was picking it up.

Harold's Chicken Shack #82
Harold's is very Chicago.
The customer is at the mercy of the business and is rarely right.
Every order is made to order.
You can place an order over the phone, but they will not start making it until a representative physically arrives at the location.
I was to enter Harold's Chicken Shack #82 on 79th and Cottage Grove at 1:15pm to begin the cooking of our large order.
Some buckets of chicken and a bunch of other stuff.
I approached the cashier behind the bullet proof glass.
She seemed guarded.
"Did a big British woman call an order in?"
I don't know why I used the word "big".
Veruca isn't even big.
The cashier knew who I was talking about.
Who else would be calling Harold's Chicken Shack #82 with a Queen's English dialect, besides maybe a suburban Jerky Boys wannabe?
The cashier was cute in her Cookie Monster hoodie and frownie face nails.
"I like your nails," I flirted.
She cracked a smile.
(Still got it!)

The lunch rush was in its twilight.
About five people waited for their chicken.
Though it seemed to be taking longer than usual.
A restless man in stained beige coveralls playfully pounded on the bullet proof glass.
"Hey! Where's my chicken!?"
The cashier pointed in my direction.
"Y'all are waitin' on heeis chicken."
The coveralls guy pointed at the guy on the stool next to mine.
"Who? Him?"

She pointed directly at me.

"No. Him!"
I smiled like I had won a small lottery.
The coveralls guy rolled his eyes and shook his head.
A kid on another stool asked what I was doing at this Harold's.
I told him about the spots and Jesse Jackson and the crew from New York.
"They don't have Harold's in New York?"

At 1:30, while our chicken was cooking, Veruca called.
"Tell them to stop the order!"
I used the word "okay" like a chain lock on a motel door.
Veruca went on to explain that things were running late and that she wanted the chicken ready at 2pm, as opposed to 1:40. Because the 1:40 chicken would be cold by the time they were ready for lunch. So have them make another order ready at 2pm.
I wanted to explain that I was at the Harold's Chicken on 79th & Cottage Grove on the same side of bullet proof glass as the hungry folks who were vary wary of the white boy already making them wait for their lunch. That I was on stage in a theater. And for me to knock on the glass and announce "stop that order and make me another" would confirm that I am indeed the villain in this play. The villain and the fool. And! Harold's would not toss out a large made-to-order take out order and immediately start the same order for us. This wasn't a lavish hotel. There was no concierge. This was fucking Harold's Chicken Shack #82.
But a short circuit in my logic gland prevented the transmission of any sense from my lips.
All I could do was sigh.
This upset Veruca.
"Alright, fine. You don't want to do it. I'll just do it myself!"
And she hung up.

I watched the guys behind the glass.
They were on the phone with Veruca.
Their body language shifted, but stayed firm.
Harold's was not going to re-start the order.
So Veruca ordered another large order.
This way we would have fried chicken that was 20 minutes fresher.
I ended up spending over $200 at Harold's.
6 buckets of chicken, 2 buckets of fries, okra, fried mushrooms, coleslaw.
It took four trips to fill the van with the steamy fragrance of fresh and fresher bird.

I snapped a photo of the cashier.
"You've got a nice smile."
Lauren and I have agreement.
I can flirt with other girls as long as they are behind bullet proof glass.

Chicken Dick
Back at WVON, the stress was suffocating.
Jesse Jackson was looking like a bail.
The pressure was on Veruca to make it happen.
I laid out the buckets of chicken in the meeting room.
"Where are the salads!?" Veruca demanded.
I had picked up some salads at vegetarian soul food spot on the way back.
I put them all in a large Einstein Bagels bag.
"Where's the Einstein bag?" I asked aloud to myself.
"The Einstein bag!!?" Veruca freaked.
The Einstein bag was in the corner, and I began handing the salads to Veruca.
"Calm down," I assured. "I said they were in the Einstein bag."
"No you didn't!" Veruca spat. "You didn't say they were in the Einstein bag! You said 'where's the Einstein bag?'. You don't have to be a dick about it!"
I froze, anemically holding a salad and my tongue, letting the silence speak for me.
She frantically arranged the table and left in a tense huff.
Chaz and the Stijn the VTR asked me why I was such a dick.

Chicken Bits
Harold's was enjoyed by all.
Except Veruca.
The Jesse Jackson thing was a bust.
He went to the TV station downtown instead of the southside radio station.
The client was trying to blame Veruca.
I kept my distance and ate chicken with Jerzy in an isolated production room.
He laughed about my trials at Harold's.
I was wearing a Second City hoodie.
Jerzy asked me if I had PA'ed for them.
I told him I had performed with them.
He seemed incredulous.
"Believe it or not, I'm funny, Jerzy."
I had to explain that I'm not a stand up or one of those guys that's always on.
I did so by being unfunnily on for a few seconds.
Pretending a chicken wing was a phone and yelling about it.
That sort of shit.
Jerzy just thought I was weird.
Curtis Mayfield played softly in the background.
I switched the topic to music.

Church's Smitten
Then we went to a Baptist chapel.
Kano the soundman wore a Danzig shirt.
God don't like it.

The walls of the chapel were decorated with portraits of Harold Washington and Martin Luther King.
And Jesse Jackson.
Veruca didn't like it either.
Actually she was over it at this point.
She made off color jokes about the reverend over a dwindling pack of Marlboros.
It seemed she needed a little love.
Later while I assembled the jib, she gave me a wink.
I didn't know what to do with it.
There was no bullet proof glass.

GP Ass
All day long, Jerzy had been telling me and Chaz that he was no longer going to follow us.
He called us "Chicago people" and criticized the way we drove.
From now on, he was just going to use his GPS.

Our final location for the day was in the Fulton Market area, about nine miles north of the West Englewood baptist church.
Jerzy bolted away first in the cargo van while the crew loaded into mine.
"See you there, Jerzy."
We grinded our way through the rush hour clot of the impending Chicago spaghetti bowl.
I noticed Jerzy, who got stuck in the line for the Stevenson.
It's a common mistake, but a hard one to recover from.
Merging back onto a 55-mph highway is hard when you're stalled to a crawl.
But it can be done.
I passed him without pointing it out to Veruca.

We got to the location and waited.
"Where's Jerzy?" Veruca wanted to know.
"He's on the way," I vouched.
Jerzy had all the equipment.
We couldn't do anything until he arrived.
The talent showed up.
A former Chicago Bear who was giving back to the community through education.
An honorable man.
More people were beginning to inquire about Jerzy.
"Where is he already?"
I didn't know.
He gave me a ring.
"Yo! I just passed Damen on the 55. I think I'm lost."
Oh no.
He was.
6 miles in the opposite direction.
I started to give him directions.
"Hold on. This bitch is calling me."
Oh Jerzy.
You're done.

Jerzy called back.
I gave him directions.
He knew he had fucked up.
But he blamed it on everyone else.
And then himself.
I played bartender.
He considered walking off the job.
"Let's just get through this last location."

Jerzy eventually arrived, over an hour late.
Veruca chose to reserve her venom for afterward.
But Jerzy's defense was offense.
He carelessly dropped gear and gave Veruca some snippy lip.
Veruca carefully explained that his tardiness had just cost her over $1000 in overtime.
Jerzy wasn't trying to hear that.
He stewed in solitude in the cargo van.

Bullet Proof Girls
The talent was nice and hit his cues.
He was a handsome man.
Football hadn't beaten his looks or brains.
During wrap, he found himself surrounded by a wall of women.
Veruca included.
They smiled and talked about Barcelona.

Verdict: Win

December 9 - Direction

2011-04-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

Ursus Maritipests
Another early morning on the arctic beach.
Today we filmed polar bears.
Polar bears are those weirdos that decide to swim through frigid waters in the dead of winter.
I'm not sure what the purpose of it is.
Maybe people that dip themselves into active volcanos or run over small parts of their bodies with lawnmowers could better elaborate on the attributes of polar bearing.
But they were nice weirdos.
The director had them strip down a few times until he got the timing right.
It took a while.
The eldest polar bear was an Eastern European guy who laughed a lot and didn't take direction.
He kept ruining takes with loud Slavic interjections.
I liked him.

It was time for the polar bears to jump into the freezing lake.
I was looking forward to seeing the purposeless of it, but Veruca-
"Guys, we're really behind schedule. We need you to load the gear and go."
So while they filmed the polar bears doing their thing, Jerzy and I had to drag the C-stands, flags, and diffs across the beach and away from the "fun".
It was like she changed the channel on a junk TV show we were watching so we would take out the garbage.

Kites Are Fun
Next was a kite flyer we met on Montrose Harbor.
He was quiet and didn't offer much in the interview.
Lots of no's and yeah's.
As an editor it's hard to cut to a guy with a kite and all he says is "no".
But wouldn't that be fun?
So I liked him, too.
He flew his kites in the windy biting anger of December while the crew danced to keep warm.
Kites are fun.

Pho-ender Bender
For lunch we went to a Tank Noodle, a Vietnamese spot.
Jerzy protested.
He didn't want to eat Vietnamese food, even though he didn't know what it was.
So he got a hot dog somewhere else.
I dropped the crew off and looked for parking.
On the second circle around, a spot had opened up in front of Tank.
I put my signal on and proceeded to back into the spot.
I heard a distant horn honk.
And honk again.
The horn kept up while I continued to back up into the spot.
Then I heard and felt a smack from the back of the long 15 passenger van.
Oh.
It seems that horn wasn't all that distant.
I hopped out of the van to find a very angry man yelling at me.
He called me stupid.
He called me an idiot.
I asked if he was all right.
He yell-asked if I had heard him honking.
There was no real damage done to either vehicle.
He asked me what was wrong with me.
I dead panned a sorry.
He called me stupid one more time and drove off in a huff.
Luckily, none of the crew saw the nonsense of no consequence.
Veruca delivered pho to me in the van, where I would enjoy it in solitude while Run DMC's "Sucker MC's" was dissected on Fresh Air.
I inhaled pho, and exhaled.

Locations, Locations, Locations
The rest of the day was spent in the van while the crew filmed indoors.
Every now and then people would poke in and grab some crafty.
Chaz, the locations manager, hung out with me for a while.
He said I would be a natural for locations.
I listened.
Locations.
That is probably my direction in this world.
Hey, I found a direction.

Verdict: Win

The Judy Green at The Hideout

2011-04-21T23:46:00.000-05:00

My friend and pal Reid (All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, Beatlemagica) assembled a nifty guild of nomads (Roommate, Bitter Tears, Mucca Pazza, Fruit Bats), myself included, to augment his fine songs with The Judy Green.

Join us this tonight as we touch on many sorts of rock:
From big to bummer.
From butt to bumpkin.

They gave us the sweet slot, between Relaxation Record and AZITA.
It should be fun, and therefore will be it.

AZITA
The Judy Green
Relaxation Record

Friday, April 22 • 10pm
The Hideout
1354 W Wabansia
Chicago

December 8 - Snow Day Work Day

2011-04-21T14:07:00.001-05:00

Icicle, Youcicle
Today we shot at the Millennium Park Ice Rink.
While they assembled equipment, I ran errands.
Veruca had me buy 500 of those hand warmer things.
The New Yorkers seemed to think they work.
While walking under the El, I got a call from her.
"Tony, can you-" (THE EL)
I explained that I was under the El and could she please repeat herself.
"Can you-" (ANOTHER EL)
Sorry. One more time.
"CAN YOU ICE SKATE!?!?"
Oh.
I told her that I had been ice skating once when I was 9 and that I hadn't been very good at it that day.
"SO CAN YOU ICE SKATE THEN!?"
I told her I would probably fall a lot.
"VERY WELL! JERZY WILL HAVE TO DO IT THEN! GET OVER TO HIM AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND RELIEVE HIM! WE NEED HIM IN THIS SHOT!"
Jerzy was not happy about having to ice skate.
He cited his race as the reason he shouldn't have to do it.
"How many black men have seen on ice skates?"
He told me that I owed him.
I sat in the cargo van and worked on my upcoming reading at Ray's Tap.

Ice Follies
Jerzy relieved me of my sitting in the van duties.
He scowled and complained about the spill he took on the ice.
I tried to point out that he was getting paid to ice skate.
He chose not to see it that way.
I made a joke about suing them for his injuries.
He seemed to like that.
"You still me owe me one," he concluded.

Veruca had also taken a spill.
When Chaz tried to help her up, he ate shit back-first onto the ice.
It's on the B-roll.
Along with the laughter of the assistant cameraman.

The Skater With "A Following"

I helped set up the next shot in the skate rental, making sure all the skates poked artfully out of their cubbies.
"You're arting the shit out of that," the DP complimented.

We filmed while the skate rental shop did business.
The DP and I noticed that many of the skaters were black, debunking Jerzy's earlier claim.
Then we noticed a woman in a professional figure skating dress.
She had perhaps the most perfectly sculpted ass.
Its curvature was mathematically flawless.
Science would have to agree.

She spun around and around in the center of the rink.
Like a toy made of candy.
Me and the DP stared.
She swizzled and twizzled.
She shot the duck.
She jumped a sheep.
She Sasha-spiraled, she choctaw-turned, she Besti-squatted.
She did a haircutter. a pancake spin, a Rittberger.
She even flutzed.
Me and the DP stared some more.
Then it was time to go back to work.

While wrapping at the skate rental, I noticed the woman with the perfect ass sprawled out on the ice.
Next to her on the ice was a gawky, Indiana-looking preteen girl.
It seems they had collided while the perfect-assed woman was continuing to show off.
I guess she wasn't looking where she was mohawk-turning.
I made several trips in and out of the skate rental, grabbing C-stands, sandbags, kinos and stingers.
The gawky Indiana girl was back on the ice having fun.
The perfect-assed woman was not.
She sulked inside by the lockers.
She hid in a ball, her head in her knees.
She seemed unnecessarily emotional and European.
A perfect ass in an imperfect world.

The Pitts
Jerzy had decided to still be mad about having to ice skate.
He stewed in the cargo van watching the gear while the rest of us ate lunch at Pittsfield Cafe, tucked inside the Pittsfield Building.
We ordered in its huge art deco lobby, reminiscent of where Clark Kent once worked.
I delivered a styrofoam cup of soup to Jerzy, then walked back to my French dip.
Halfway through, Jerzy called for another cup of soup.
Veruca seemed annoyed.
"Where are you going?"

Augie
Next was the bike messenger.
Augie.
I knew him.
In fact, I remembered him from my very first year on the streets.
Augie was one of the first messengers to give me the nod.
When established messengers encountered each other on the street, they nodded.
The nod meant you were worthy.
Rookies, crusties, and losers didn't get the nod.
It seems stupid now, but receiving the nod from Augie meant a lot to me in the year 2000.
We caught up in the van while they set up the shot.
He's riding for 4Star these days.
We talked about all the times we've tried to quit messengering.
And how we always came back.
It was really great to see him.
It felt good to laugh like that again.
And for people in the production world to see that side of me.
A less quiet, more confident version of me.
The me that still has some dignity.

I drove the picture car that Augie followed down Wabash, east on Monroe, north on Michigan to Lake, down Garland Court to Lower Wacker Place, up Lower Michigan to Lower Wacker Drive, west to Garvey Court, south and back up onto Lake Street, east to Wabash, and south to Washington and The Cultural Center.
We were behind schedule.
Augie had grown tired of being filmed and not making money.
We kept him out longer than promised.
He signed a release form and vanished.
We hastily packed up the gear and rushed to the next location.

The City So Nice, It Has No Vice
We drove to Humboldt Park.
The New Yorkers likened it to Brooklyn.
They also called Lake Michigan "the ocean".
Everything is an imitation of New York I guess.
That cornfield over there is like New Jersey as seen from Battery Park.
Those pigeons are definitely from Flushing.
New York invented Greece, therefore democracy.
Fine.
You win, New York.
You are important and original and the greatest thing that ever happened.
And you pretend to not give a shit.
Way to go.

Jenny From The Alley
We pulled into a snowplow company and set up.
It was soon discovered that in the mad dash to wrap the previous location, we had left behind a generator.
I was dispatched to retrieve it.
Rush hour traffic clogged the Ike.
I pulled into the alley where we last used the generator.
But it was nowhere to be found.
A $1500 ghost.
"We lost the jenny."
Surprisingly, Veruca took it well.
She sighed mostly.

I came back to find a chorus of coverall-clad ruffnecks spreading salt and lugging sand bags.
"WE ARE CHICAGO!!"
The lights from the snowplows lit the shot.
They were Chicago.

Movie Movies was the company that rented us the generator.
They are known for their horrible crappy gear.
In the van with the crew, I suggested that we could just put a cat in a cardboard box, shake it up, and Movie Movies would think it was a generator.
It got a pretty big laugh.
Except from Veruca.
"That's not funny!" she insisted.
But she was outnumbered.
The crew had taken the joke and were riffing it around the van.
"That's not funny!" she demanded.
Sorry, Veruca.
If people are laughing, it's technically funny.

No Sleep Til Andersonville (Park Slope)
I worked at the bar tonight.
I don't know how.
But I did.
I ate Harold's Chicken.
I drank Heineken.
I revised the Ray's Tap piece.
I kept going.

Verdict: Win

December 7 - Beach Bitching

2011-03-28T13:16:00.000-05:00

Beach's A Bitch
We filmed on the beach this morning.
It was 4º.

I wore my polyurethane tights.

It felt like when I used to bike messenger.
Only I wasn't riding a bike.
In fact, I wasn't moving at all.
I just stood there holding onto a cold C-stand.
And when I messengered, no one had me deliver anything to the lake.
So it was nothing like bike messengering.
It was just 4º on a beach.
That is what it was like.

Bitch's A Beach
The weatherman was a lady.
She stood in the cold like a pro.
Even cracked jokes.
She was Chicago.
She was also single.
Chicago is a lonely hot chick.

And Then You Die
Next stop was the zoo.
This time Jerzy went with the crew while I stayed with the equipment.

I guess I missed a tiger eating raw meat or something.
Oh well.
Sometimes life is a piece of raw meat shat out by a doomed, castrated tiger.

Verdict: Loss

December 6 - Veruca's Salt (Winter Version)

2011-03-28T12:02:00.002-05:00

Snozzberries
Today began a six day shoot of run 'n gun style promos for a local affiliate.
The themes: Winter Weather and Black History Month
I would be working for Veruca once again.
A temperamental Brit with a sharp sense of humor.
I would also be working with Jerzy again.
A difficult contrary man.

We began the morning with hugs and handshakes.
I drove Veruca and the gang around in the passenger van, listening to them do bits.
As an admitted comedy snob, I usually have little tolerance for amateur bits.
But their bits were pretty decent.
Meanwhile Jerzy got lost with the cargo van.
Poor Jerzy.
This was going to be a long shoot.
Eventually Jerzy arrived at the first location and we shot a weatherman out in the stupid cold.
"I am sh-sh-Chicago."

Vermicious Knids
The second location was an elementary school in the South Loop.
We shot a first grade teacher with her rambunctious students.
The director this time was slow and boring and had little interest for anything it seemed.
His interviews dragged like talc in a sand smoothie.
The kids squirmed and whispered and shuffled and whizzed.
I would have a hard time being 6 around him, too, let alone 35.

After pizza, we interviewed the principal.
She owned the room like Tina Turner.
"I am Chicago!"
While the gaffer was busy setting up lights, Veruca took it upon herself to assemble an ancient rented jib.
It looked like a small, portable Texas oil rigger, and took her a while to put together.
Jerzy maybe could have figured it out quicker, but he had been exiled outside to sit and watch the vehicles.
He did this for four hours.
He was not Chicago.

Slugworthy Hornswogglers
The director's spiritless approach had put us behind schedule.
So we scratched the third location and went straight to Navy Pier.
That's where the ice sculptors lived.
In a ventilation duct inside a fake tree.

Nightfall had started and the pizza had worn off.
Veruca was getting salty.
Navy Pier, which inherently sucks, was awash with Christmas cacophony.
Sleigh bells echoed with reverberated choral dissonance.
It marred the possibility of filming anything coherent.
Besides, the ice sculptors weren't even sculpting ice.
They were sculpting styrofoam.
This was bad for all environments.
Veruca took it out on Chaz, the locations manager.
Chaz absorbed it and shrugged.
We aborted Navy Pier.

Wangdoodlers
Having sacrificed a location and reduced another to solely B-roll, we had officially gotten the shoot off to a wonky start.
Veruca was pissed.
She lashed out at Jerzy when he asked her what he should do with the cargo van.
"JUST PARK IT IN A GARAGE!"
Jerzy got mad, too, and told me how these New York people and these British people didn't know how to do things.
Then he asked me what he should do with the cargo van.
I told him he should park it in a garage.

Hsawaknow
It was a long, tiring day.
The first of six.
Stress and tempers were in the forecast.
But somehow I escaped their wrath.

Verdict: Win

December 5 - Nurse Novels "Frozen Muzak" Is Mixed

2011-03-24T07:47:00.000-05:00

Today Greg, Tom and I finished mixing The Nurse Novels LP.
It's called Frozen Muzak.
Here's the info:

1. War (Lux)
2. Sea Day (Mendoza)
3. Work Whorse (Lux/Mendoza/Vale)
4. Little Boy (Mendoza)
5. Make Me Cry (Vale)
6. Mirror (Lux)
7. Monsters 'n Moldies (Mendoza)
8. Catalyst (Lux)
9. The Pelts To Prove It (Vale)
10. Shoo Fly (Lux)
11. Inside A Car Wash (Mendoza)
12. NIMBY (Mendoza)

Thea Lux - Guitar, ukulele, vocals
Tony Mendoza - Drums, keyboards, vocals
Tom Vale - Keyboards, guitar, vocals
Nicole Vitale - Bass, vocals

with
Alan Scalpone - Accordion on "War", trumpet on "Make Me Cry"

Greg Norman - Trombone on "Make Me Cry"

Heinz - Pedal steel on "Sea Day"

Recorded by Greg Norman at SGSII in Chicago, 2010

This LP is not available anywhere!

Verdict: Win

December 4 - Eggs

2011-03-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

My old pal Bill read today at The Paper Machete.
I loved his piece.
It was a tribute to a guy who died this week.
A guy he knew from hanging out at a 24 hour diner.
In the wake of pearly tributes to Ron Santo and Leslie Nielsen, Bill's homage to his diner buddy was poignant, rambling, and incredibly funny.
The totebaggers didn't know what to do with it.
It seemed so...unpolished.
I laughed sympathetically and appreciated the man for whom Bill was paying his respects.

I hadn't seen Bill in a long while.
He used to work as an apartment hunter.
Three years ago he showed my girlfriend and I a unit in a complex.
In the elevator he lowered his voice to a secretive level.
"Just you know, there are a lot of saxophonists in this place."
My girlfriend nodded, the gravity of the statement weighing heavily.
I didn't understand why saxophonists were such a nuisance.
Yeah, I guess hearing them practice scales would get annoying after a while.
Especially if they're just going to use them to play David Sanborn smooth jizz.
I asked Bill why saxophonists were such a problem in the building.
He seemed confused.
But then he figured it out.
He didn't say "saxophonists".
He said "sex offenders".
Slight difference there.
Yeah, but..
I wonder how many sexual offenses have been committed to the music of David Sanborn.
I say about 1,300.

After his piece, we caught up a bit.
We decided that being in our mid-30's is funny.
It's better than being in our mid-20's, because things are now worse.
And that is funny.

I said we should hang out at the 24 hour diner sometime.
I meant it.
I looked into a snowglobe of the future and saw Bill and I hovered over our greasy plates like a couple of stationary hobos, still trying to figure it out between drinks.

Sometimes I believe in the romance of Nelson Algren.
But then I see Nighthawks on some dumb wall.
And I wonder if I just like eggs.

Verdict: Win

December 3 - Simpler Times

2011-03-19T12:42:00.000-05:00

We did wake up today.
We weren't sure if we would.
This place was pretty remote.
And we weren't alone.

A nice lady greeted us in the lobby of the lodge.
She gave us a tour of reception hall.
It did have a view of the lake.
A few drifter types were fishing on its muddy shore.
We weren't feeling it though.
I think we would have to rent a PA if we wanted music.
And it's far away from everything.
Except nomadic fishermen.
Militia types.

We had to be back in the city by 3pm.
Veruca from NYC wanted me to pick up camera equipment and craft services for next week's shoot.
So we raced down the peninsula, and coastal Wisconsin.
I thought about starting a magazine called Coastal Wisconsin.
It would be a nice way to go bankrupt I felt.

It seemed like Chicago got dark by 3.
We got the camera gear and the craftie junk.
Veruca likes her yogurt-covered pretzels and kettle corn.
I like them, too, as long as she's buying.

I bought a $3 six-pack of Simpler Times beer.
Remember simpler times?

Yeah, man.

When a wedding cost $3!
That's the way it should be.
Simpler times.
Like those guys do it up in remote Wisconsin.
No more cellphones.
No more iPods.
No more Facebook.
No more government space cameras stealing your identity with AIDS and solar powered windmills.
Just me and my horses.

And my outhouse.

And my guns.
And my America.
And my racism.
And my SUV.
And my drive-thru Wendy's.
And my plasma-screen TV.
And my anti-socialist chat room.
Oh hey.
Please "like" my militia on Facebook.
We're called The White Devil Risers.
Thanks!

Verdict: Win

December 2 - Nuptial Fieldwork

2011-03-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

Lauren and I drove to Door County today for research purposes.
We scouted three reception halls and a venue.
(For our wedding)

The first reception hall was idyllic.
Luxury lodging.
Lakeside and bayside cabins.
Rooms with retro fixtures.
Wood burning fireplaces.
I fell for the restaurant which overlooked the water.
But they were pricey.
And not the warmest people.
But maybe that was the Scandinavia in them.
We liked the hall and said so on the way to the next one.

The second hall was warmer.
They smiled and wanted to work with us.
However, the room offered no view of the lake.
It seems I was fixated on that view.
And the lodging wasn't as adventurous.
Or expensive.
And again, they weren't as standoff-ish.

Then we checked out another stave church.
Door County has two stave churches(!).
The one where I proposed was on Washington Island.
It is only accessible by ferry.
The logistics of getting a large group of people punctually onto the island seemed nightmarish.
Imagine getting all the way out to northern Wisconsin only to find you've missed the ferry, and therefore the wedding.
Or you arrive on time but the ferry is full.
Or we hire another ferry through the Coast Guard or something and it only costs $30,000.

It's December.
There's snow up here.
The sun had vacated the horizon.
We snaked through the twilit woods.
This place was secluded.
Somewhere in the middle of the darkness was a little black church.
A goofy woman with a cold gave us a tour.
The goofy woman with a cold was warmer than the guy at the first hall.
The church was pretty rad.
For a church.
It had a pump organ.
And a little one person balcony.
Like a minister's sidecar.
We pulled on a rope and it rang a bell.
This place was pretty awesome.
For a church.
We decided that we would do it here.
Get married that is.
Not have sex right there in the church.
We wouldn't want to catch a cold from that goofy woman.

It was dark now.
And cold.
We had one more appointment.
A reception hall on the lake.
It was huge.
And German.
And unheated.
The woman who showed us around seemed distant.
Maybe it was the cold.
Or the German in her.
We followed her breath to all the many rooms.
This place was nutty.
There were large cut outs of drunk cartoon animals in lederhosen cheering us with cartoon beers.
Everything was wicker.
There were pianos in a few of the rooms.
The rooms seemed to be from the 80's.
The general theme was brown.
I liked it.
It could be fun for our October wedding.
Maybe it could contain elements of Oktoberfest.
We're open to things.
But the hall closed on October 1.
And they were rigid about that.
Oh Germany.

Door County gets deserted by December.
The streets are pretty empty.
Only a handful of restaurants are open.
I found it quite relaxing.
We settled on a barbeque spot.
Then it was time to discuss our budget.
It helped unrelax me.
There's no getting around it.
A wedding is going to cost money.
Fucking money, some would say.

Church.
Reception hall.
Entrees.
Hors d'oeuvres.

Bartender.

Bar charge.

Liquor.

Liquor, that's an idea.

Mmm.

This beer tastes relaxing.

Dance floor.
Linens.
Cake.
Cake fee.
Flowers/Decor.
Music.
Photographer.

Oh good.
The food's here.
What are these?
Fried corn poofs?
Mmm.
Slightly relaxing.

Officiant.
License.
Invitations.
Save-the-dates.
Thank you notes.
Postage.
The dress.
The suit.
The rings.

Could I have another beer, please?
Mmm.
Almost relaxing.
What else?

Rehearsal dinner.
Transportation.
Lodging.
Honeymoon.

So far the grand total is $1.6 million.
I think we're having our honeymoon in Gary, Indiana.

We took our barbeque out in doggy bags.
Tonight we were staying way up in Ellison Bay.
On the edge of nowhere.
It was real black up there.
Like the sky had turned off its TV.
We didn't even know we were twenty yards from water.
I think the moon took the night off.

They left the door open for us.
There was an Omega Man feeling to the lodge.
We felt like the last people on earth.
But somebody had to be running it.
The last couple alive...is not alone!

Verdict: Win

December 1 - The Green Tin Ceiling, The Checkered Floor

2011-03-18T22:11:00.000-05:00

My notes for today say:

Waste of a day
Dead night at bar

When it's dead at the bar, I read in the dark.
When it's too dark to read, I spend money on the jukebox.
When I run out of dollars, I look around the bar peacefully and purposelessly.

Here are some things I have looked at in the bar when it's dead:

Nude Madonna poster
The El
The Tamale Guy leaving
Giant Bears helmet atop the defunct phone booth
Kim texting
Taxidermied antlered deer
A TV playing B-movies
Framed Happy Jack LP
Ceiling kites
Budweiser blimp
Lingering hipsters playing the same three ELO songs
Errant Connect Four pieces on the floor
Dr. Dude pinball machine
Another TV playing the hockey game
Ceramic pigs overlooking Beach Street
Leroux peppermint schnapps mirror
Sloppy couple public foreplay
Einstein poster
Chrome or Timbuk2 messenger bags
Miniature footballs (Spiderman, Jack Daniels, Navy)
A third TV playing Pee Wee's Playhouse
Peanuts, Cheez-Its and Slim Jims
Drunken off-key, off-lyric shout-alongs
Rotating Radio Shack color sphere (resurrected by Kim)
A dictionary and a thesaurus
Old Style lamp
H.R. Pufnstuf poster
Hoodies
Bears gnomes
A big tooth
The green tin ceiling
The checkered floor
My cellphone

I think I almost made $30.

Verdict: Loss

November 30 - Lauren Wins, Therefore...

2011-03-18T20:24:00.000-05:00

Today I biked to Kinko's.
I mean Fedex Office.
I mean who cares.

To file unemployment electronically in Ill-annoy, you need to use a PC.
I own a Mac.
Did I ever tell you I auditioned for those Mac/PC ads years ago?
At the audition, I was supposed to be paired up with my good friend Mick.
But Mick blew it off.
I wish I had blown it off, too.
I could have eaten a sandwich or something.
Instead of riding the fence between nervousness and apathy.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, at Kinko's.
I mean FexEd.
I mean who gives a rat's fax.
Ha ha!
Still got it!

Um, yeah.
I filled out all the unemployment crap on a Windows 97 machine.
It made clicking noises until I think it all went through.
I guess.
I wiped the ribbon ink off my hands and went home.

Lauren's been a busy one this month.
For the second year, she entered NaNoWriMo.
It means National Novel Writing Month.
So Lauren wrote a novel this month.
Uh-gain.
Pretty impressive.

Verdict:

So normally, this would be a loss for me.
I went to Kinko's.
I mean FedFux Orifice.
(Still got it!)
And I applied for the dole yet again.
On paper, a worthless day.

But you see, I am engaged now.
To a creative, driven, and productive woman.
Now we experience things together as a unit.
Like a sexy Voltron.
Or those evil GI Joe Twins.
Tomax and Xamot.
When she wins, I win.
When I win, she wins.

Today she finished a novel.
And so now I wrote half of it.
Right?
I think this is how it works.
Cool!
Lazy worthlessness finally pays off for ME.

Verdict: Win

November 29 - Carl, You Do An Excellent Job

2011-03-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

I wrote a silly song today.
Actually, it's a stupid one.
It's called "Carl, You Do An Excellent Job".
It takes place in an apartment complex.
Carl is the maintenance man.
He leads a simple life.
And he does a good job around the apartment complex.
Some would say an excellent job.

I made a video for it.
For no reason.
It ended up being a tribute to the first Carl I could think of.
Enjoy?

Verdict: Win

November 28 - Toled'oh

2011-03-18T17:27:00.000-05:00

We bid adieu to Lauren's folks and the great state of Pennsylvania, and greeted eight hours of roadway.
I had scouted a lunch spot in Toledo.
A diner called Schmucker's.
They had a neon sign said "GOOD FOOD".
But when we arrived, the sign wasn't on.
Maybe they were only serving bad food at the time.
We were hungry so that would have been fine.
But alas, Schmucker's was closed.
Bummer.
Next time.

We tried another place.
One of those 50's diners from the 90's.
It had just closed.
It was 3pm.
Toledo is a tough town.

Backtracking toward the highway, we stumbled on a jumbo restaurant.
The Six Pack Bar & Grill.
We walked into the large box.
It was an ugly barnacle of a barn, illuminated by 427 television sets.
All the TV sets were forced to play sports.
They seemed sad.
We sat down next to a couple of dudes watching NFL and waited, eventually flagging down a waitressy looking girl.
She took our drink order.
Three waters.
"Do you have a menu we could look at?" Lauren politely dangled.
The waitressy girl pointed to a wall.
"It's on the wall."
We squinted, struggling to find the wall menu in the dimly lit horse shed.
She must have thought we were complete morons.
Yeah, maybe.
After all, we chose to come here.
"C'mon, I'll show you," she waved.

Once we saw the menus we said understood.
"Oh."
The menu was printed on a giant, saggy vinyl banner in a corner by the restrooms.
The options were limited.
Pre-made apps.
Frozen pizzas.
Burgers from bags.
The way they were positioned on the dying banner, the menu items looked like they were competing against each other.

Cheeseburger vs. Nachos
Hot Dog vs. Cheese Fries
Potato Chips vs. Ding Dongs

We were hungry.
But not 7-11 hungry.
We retreated to our table and sat down.
The waitressy girl came back with our waters and accidentally spilled one of them on my mom.
"Oh no/shit!" they said respectively.
The NFL dudes shot us a look.
We sipped our waters.
Time to go.
We put our coats on.
The NFL dudes seemed offended.
"Are you leaving because she spilled your water?"
No, I said, we thought this was a restaurant.
Y'know.
The kind that has the word "Grill" in its name.
The waitressy girl was nice though, and recommended a spot in a strip mall back by Schmucker's that actually used a grill.
So we went there.
And then we went home.

Thanksgiving weekend had ended.
It was an emotional roller coaster.
But a mild coaster.
Like The Whizzer.

Verdict: Win

November 27 - Family Friend Grabass

2011-03-12T22:27:00.000-06:00

Tonight we threw a surprise party for Lauren's mom.
We hid in a steak house filled with balloons.
All her friends were there.
And all her daughters, too.
Including a daughter who flew in from Mississippi.
Even my mom showed up!

We yelled it.
"Surprise!"
It blew her mind!

Lauren's folks have good friends and family.
They like to get silly and make sloppy, slippy speeches from the heart.
It was a wonderful tribute to a wonderful woman.

The spirit (and spirits) of the evening overtook me.
While hugging a family friend goodbye, I inadvertently squeezed her ass.
Poor Bonnie.
I apologized profusely.
She dismissed me with a hand.
"It was the best part of the night," she said.

Verdict: Win

November 26 - Ducks, Talks, Drinks

2011-03-12T21:42:00.002-06:00

Lauren, Lauren's folks, my mom and I went on a duck tour.
Those amphibious WWII-era tanks that have been known to cause casualties.
It was fun.
We quacked along with the best of them.
Surprisingly the citizens of Pittsburgh weren't annoyed.
In fact, they quacked back.
Why not?
The Stillers are having a good season, n'at.

Brrr!!
It was brisk out in there.
Especially when we drove onto the river.
Either the Allegheny or the Monongahela.
Or both.
It is a confluence.
It gets slippy.

For lunch we ate at Primanti Bros.
I love Primanti's.
They put coleslaw and fries on the sandwiches.
I forgot what I ate.
Kolbassi, cappicola, knockwurst with egg.
Yinz gotta try it anymore.

Ah, but the fun had to end at some point.
It was time for Lauren's folks, my mom, and Lauren and I to sit at a round table and discuss the wedding.
It didn't go well.
We explained that we are not having a traditional ceremony.
I think this conjured images of blood soaked orgies, homosexual Manson worship, bestiality, consumption of human organs, and guzzling wine made from abortions.
At one point, my mom said "who are you?"
I was reduced to my sixteen-year-old self once again.
We got to the dead end of the discussion in a circuitous manner.

In lieu of peace, I drank.
In lieu of sleep, I harbored anger and resentment about what is scheduled to be the happiest day of my life.

Verdict: Loss

November 25 - Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh

2011-03-12T19:49:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving!
Pittsburgh!
Turkey!
Beer!
Football!
Family!

Verdict: Win

November 24 - Chicago To Pittsburgh With The Women In My Life

2011-03-12T18:49:00.000-06:00

Lauren, my mom and I drove to Pittsburgh today.
It's about an eight hour drive.
I got crabby.
Why do I get so crabby around my mom?
We do things differently I guess.
She likes to bring lots of pillows and bedding to places that already have pillows and bedding.
And other stuff.
It turns me sour and silent and sixteen.
I have to stop being sixteen at some point.
It's not that bad.
It's not even bad.
She loves me.
And she doesn't want me talking about her on the internet.
So I'll stop.
But I was crabby all day.

We stopped for lunch in Toledo.
Tony Packo's.
It's a Hungarian comfort food spot.
Klinger name-checked it a few times on M*A*S*H.
They have hundreds of autographed hot dog buns framed on the walls.
Including:

Jamie Farr
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Barack Obama
James Earl Ray*
and
Burt Reynolds

* no, not James Earl Jones

Despite displaying a racist murderer on their wall of fame, lunch was yummy.
Hot dogs, chili, paprikas dumplings.
Four more hours to Pittsburgh.

Lauren's folks welcomed us into their warm home with home made lasagna and wine.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
Here we go.

Verdict: Win

November 23 - Brief Nudity! Diane Lane! Brief Nudity! Diane Lane!

2011-03-11T16:24:00.001-06:00

Lauren tolerates my celebrity crushes.
I am quite thankful for this.
There are many.

Donatella Arpaia
Maura Tierney
Angela Kinsey
Kim Deal
Rashida Jones
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Randi Oakes

Like most fellas, the list actually never ends.

For tonight's entertainment, Lauren suggested a film starring a long time crush, Diane Lane.
It was called A Little Romance.
It is set in Paris, a romantic town if ever one was forced to be that way.
"Okay," I said, and wondered aloud if it would have any brief nudity.
Lauren made an ostrich face.
Undeterred, I prepared for the possibility of brief nudity.

The lead in A Little Romance is a little girl.
She plays the daughter of an American actress.
They are living in France while her mother films a movie.
The girl seems to be about 9 or 10.
She's precocious and this sort of thing.
A French boy takes a liking to her and begins to court her.
He, too, is about 9 or 10.
Okay, cute, cool.
Where is Diane Lane?
She must be the hot actress mom.
I wonder what kind of actress she was playing.
Maybe a Skinemax actress.
Maybe one of the scenes would take place on the set of her Skinemax movie.
And I would get to see Diane Lane's boobs.
Or her butt.

The movie went on and focused on the little kids and their romance.
No sign of Diane Lane.
Wait.
"When was this movie made?" I asked.
"1979."
1979?
How old was Diane Lane in...
Ugh.
So.
The 9 year old is Diane Lane?
Eww.

Lauren has a funny sense of humor sometimes.

Verdict: Win

November 22 - Life And Its Endless Possibilities

2011-03-11T15:16:00.000-06:00

Today I wanted to watch Gumby.
I ended up watching Eraserhead instead.
That is all I did.
I don't remember leaving bed.

Verdict: Loss

November 21 - Getting Married Is A Snap

2011-03-11T15:12:00.000-06:00

Tonight Lauren and I hosted an engagement party.
The first of many mandatory "LOOK AT US" events held to satisfy the requirements for the ritual of marriage.
This one proved relaxing and fun.
We held it at The Edgewater Lounge.
Nice beers, nice woodsy decor.
Friends from all local walks of our lives celebrated our impending nuptials.
Bitter Tears, Annoyance, Second City, Boom Chicago, NCL, and PAing were all represented.
It was an easy night.
So far getting married is really laid back.
All you do is meet, drink, and receive good cheer.
There's no stress and nothing to get worried about.
I'm looking forward to it staying like this for the remainder of the process.

Verdict: Win

November 20 - Santa's Hell

2011-03-11T14:44:00.000-06:00

Today Tom and I recorded a Xmas song for WXRT.
It's called "Santa's Hell".
You can hear it here.
The lyrics:

Santa watches your life
He sees when you've been naughty
Bad kids have a bad life
This year you've been naughty

Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

You'll work 16 hour days
In a factory without ventilation
Making toys in a blaze
Of tears, blood and dehydration
Your timid organtic (sic) parents can't help you
They took the hybrid car and went on vacation
So grab a mallet
Make the toys
And while you're at it make me a yuletide libation

Cuz you're all in hell, you little geniuses
Santa's Hell
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

The lyrics were inspired by a moment at the Lincoln Square Costello's on Halloween weekend.
I was exiting and noticed a little boy and his mother entering.
I held the door for them.
The little boy stood in front of the door pouting.
"No! I don't want to!!"
He stomped his feet.
His mother talked to him gently, like she was his lowly assistant.
"But you like hot dogs."
I continued to hold the door for them.
The little boy stomped some more.
"NO! I HATE HOT DOGS!!"
I aborted being nice (a verb the mother might have considered), and walked through the eye of the tantrum.
They were oblivious.
They were oblivious to the world.
I looked around Lincoln Square.
The streets were saturated with hundreds more of these people.

In 2010, kids are king.
This song harkens back to a golden age when children were lucky to have survived birth, punished with hard labor, and subsisted on a diet of mush and gruel.
Enjoy!

Verdict: Win

November 19 - The Sushi Cunts

2011-03-10T16:36:00.001-06:00

I treated Lauren to a belated birthday dinner.
We chose Sushi Mike's, where Mike Sushi makes sushi.
It's a favorite of hers, now meaning ours.

We sat at the bar.
It was Friday and busy.
Mike Sushi seemed preoccupied.
With getting drunk.
At least he was a happy drunk.
That's the kind of drunk you want brandishing knives.
Mike Sushi also seemed preoccupied with the group next to us.
A gaggle of drunk trixies.
The kind that all go out in a uniform of blue jeans and white tees.
White teases.
We endured their grating cacophony of upward inflections.
And waited.

An apologetic looking server opened our bottle of wine.
We sipped on that for a while.
And waited some more.
The sushi trixies gave Sushi Mike another bottle of their beer.
They laughed in flat, ugly cackles and blathered on about screechy nothing.
I felt my teeth grinding.
The apologetic looking server took our order.
We opted for "The Mike Sushi".
That's where you list things you like and don't like.
Then Sushi Mike makes tailored sushi magic!
We were excited that our order was being taken.

While pouring our second glass of wine, we felt the periphery of the sushi trixies staring and laughing at us.
When we met their judgmental stare, they quickly looked away and stifled their giggles.
Lauren was wearing her pilgrim dress.
I was donning my diabolical goatee.
Yes, we looked like Satanists.
But the sushi trixies decided that was "gay".
Their pickled, snake-faced laughter transported us back to high school.
Or even junior high.
It was gross.
So we changed their names to "the sushi cunts".

I stared back at the sushi cunts and held it.
They were gross.
I put on a pair of X-ray glasses and observed them some more.
Their hearts were the size of tiny penises.
And they had fake tits for brains.
Interesting.

Sushi Mike broke the tension by fawning over their malicious flirting.
Remember when a popular girl would make fun of a dork by pretending to think he's cute?
This is what the sushi cunts were doing to Sushi Mike.
Selling him fictitious pussy.
And he was buying.
He fed each of the sushi cunts' mouths with his chopsticks.
"You get the big one!" he funnied to one of them.
They all laughed at the originality of the joke.
Then one of the sushi cunts spoke louder than the other sushi cunts.
"I FEEL CHEATED CUZ I GOT THE LITTLE ONE!"
Our wine bottle was almost empty and we hadn't eaten a thing.

It had become a horrible birthday dinner.
But we decided to accept it.
So we let horror lead the way.
"Maybe we'll get a story out of it."

Eventually, a dish arrived.
It was good yum yum etc.
But it was the same Mike Sushi original that we had the last time.
Oh.
So he was phoning it in for us.
While we were re-eating his personalized creation, a woman on her way out shook her head shamefully at Sushi Mike.
Then the table behind us murmured about the lack of service.
We commiserated, though it was hard to hear over all the amateur innuendo from Mike Sushi & The Sushi Cunts.
The apologetic looking server apologized and gave us a free dish of sushi remnants.
"I'm sorry. He's really drunk tonight."

Finally, the cunts left.
They took their queefy stench with them.
A blue glow pulsed under Sushi Mike's apron.
He staggered around, clumsily cranking out more careless sushi.
He attempted to have a conversation with us, but sentences weren't happening for him.
He knew he had fucked up, but he was too fucked up to amend it.
We nodded and smiled.
He stumbled over to other tables for unexpected visits like Drunkzilla, decimating the art of conversation.

We sighed and put on our coats.
Sushi Mike had become The Wizard of Oz.
Behind his curtain were just a few plates of sushi.
And an endless mirage of carnal hallucinations.

He intercepted us at the door.
"I'm moving. Got to move," he slurred.
Poor Sushi Mike.

It was a horrible night.
But sometimes horror is fun.

Verdict: Win

November 18 - Happy Birthday, Lauren!

2011-03-10T12:57:00.000-06:00

Today was Lauren's birthday.
She is my current fiancé.
How did I celebrate?
Well..
I got up bright and early.
And I tip toed out of the house.
And...
I went to work!

Once again, on two hours of sleep, I PA'ed.
It was a Spanish version of the commercial we had shot last month.
I got to stand-in for the female talent.
It looked like this.

Some of the fellas whispered on the radio about how sexy I looked.
They were right, in a GHB kinda way.

The AD asked if I could slate.
I made the word "yes" with my mouth and found myself purposeful for the entirety of the day.
Miraculously, my slating was flawless.

Meanwhile, Lauren was birthdaying all over Chicago.
She got massages and oilses and featherings and all that stuff the gal pals in Sex On The City did.
Then she went out and enjoyed nondescript celebratory activities during the night.
When she got home I was asleep.
If you squinted hard enough, my snoring almost sounded like a garbage disposal singing "Happy Birthday".

So Hrrrkkkkkapprrrrkkkky Brrkkthkkkkrrray, kkkLrrrrnnnnnnkkkkk!

Verdict: Loss

Nurse Novels - Last Show Of This Vintage

2011-03-07T22:22:00.000-06:00

The Nurse Novels are playing our last show.

Here is what I told the press, who ignored it.

I'll pass it along to you.

In 2010, Chicago needed one more band. And The Nurse Novels (former members of Let’s Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop with Nicole from Unicycle Loves You on bass) rose to the challenge.

But the challenge proved difficult.

Without a flashy, obnoxious name, few took notice of Chicago’s latest band. The six that did declared it a graduation from the Sandwich Shop. The Nurse Novels wrote stronger songs, had matured as musicians, and crafted better arrangements, without having to rely on improv bits or sketchy gags.

So now they were just another band.

And they didn’t have the energy to pitch their songs to ad agencies, sift through hourly Reverbnation spam, or figure out what item to sell at the merch table other than their album to get people to buy their album.

Last week, The Nurse Novels saw a classified ad in Illinois Entertainer. A new reggae band was forming. They call themselves Peace Spliff. They sell one-hitters and jam.

So in 2011, The Nurse Novels are dissolving to make room for Chicago’s newest band.

Services for The Nurse Novels will be held Wednesday, March 9 at The Abbey Pub.

There will be no merchandise.

The Nurse Novels

opening for

Tahiti 80 (from France!)

Chateau Marmont (also from France!)

and

Gemini Club (not from France!!)

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Abbey Pub

3420 W Grace, Chicago

8pm

$15 (take that, Fugazi!)

We are going out quietly, like how we came in.

Maybe I will see some of you there.

Look for our records to come out at some point.

Verdict: Loss

Ray's Tap Plug

2011-03-04T09:20:00.000-06:00

Short notice I know but..

Tonight I'm doing a new original bit for the Ray's Tap Reading Series.

This week's theme:

The Anti-Erotic/Sex-Negative/Anti-Natal Extravaganza

Here is curator Chris Bower's description of the event:

Prepare to be turned off!

“We are only alive because two people did a disgusting thing or a scientist in a lab did a series of disgusting things. “

Who said that?

A reasonable person did.

The Ray’s Tap Reading Series is going to be exploring the stories that come from that very perspective. What we want to do to each other and willingly allow ourselves to do to ourselves, has reached a point where the world should cease to be. We need to first look to Japan and then away from Japan because it is all just too disgusting. And the we look to Germany and we are horrified by what we see there as well. And we are not talking about niche groups, you can find the same thing happening all around the world, even in more wholesome places like the Middle East where there are women that can only orgasm when they think their vagina is in outer-space. And it is. They are right. I am sure Adam and Eve had a passable time, but they only did what they did because they were bored and just got lucky. I am sure Adam had next planned to hit Eve with a tree trunk to see if another head grew out of the one he just knocked off. We got lucky, and not in a good way. It may have felt good for them at the time, but that wasn’t the point. They were just fucking around, sticking things into things and when Adam first orgasmed into Eve, he was waiting for a butterfly who he saw turn into a butterfly turn into something cooler, and when it didn’t happen, he just couldn’t hold on any longer and was ashamed about it and Eve was not happy about it either. He was ashamed because he thought the butterfly would have turned into something really cool if only he waited. She was waiting for the butterfly to turn back into a caterpillar, the only image that could make her orgasm. In the end, they were both disgusted. Whatever felt good was erased by all that didn’t. And we remain that disgusted, today.

Just to let everyone know, the Ray’s Tap Reading Series is not interested in telling you that sex does not feel good. We are just out to tell you that it is disgusting and awful and should never be done because it only causes pain and trouble and large buildings.

Featuring new work by
Matt Test
Dave Snyder
Lindsay Hunter
Tom Vale
Daniel Shapiro
Tim Racine
Mason Johnson
and Tony Mendoza.

posters by Susie Kirkwood

Bar opens at 8. Remember that Ray's is small and smokey so don't come if you can't handle it.

Tonight, Friday March 4 at 9pm

Ray's Tap

3047 N Kimball

Free

November 17 - Tipping vs. Hipsters

2011-02-26T15:03:00.001-06:00

I worked at the bar tonight.
Lots of ID's from the late 80's.
Rude and entitled hipsters wearing things they perceive as outrageous.

Did You Know...
Hipsters don't tip.
It is because they don't have jobs.
Why don't they have jobs?
Because they've never had to work.
It's almost a Catch 22.

I felt bad for them.
Not being able to tip.
They needed that money for the next round.

More ironic ELO worship on the jukebox followed.
There are other ELO songs besides "Mr. Blue Sky".
I understand that it was in that one movie from when you were in junior high, but yeah.
Also, "Where Is My Mind" was a song before it was used in the credits of Fight Club.
So when you nostalgically reference Fight Club while it's playing, you shouldn't.
Just do some research is all I ask.
You have the internet.
There's no excuse.

Oh, but I forgot.
Hipsters don't work.
And that's why they don't tip.
It's so close to a Catch 22.

Verdict: Loss

November 16 - Jog Nog & God

2011-02-26T14:32:00.000-06:00

Jogging has become my heroin.
My crystal meth.
My biting women if I was Marv Albert.

I had already jogged twice this week.
It's only Tuesday.
I even went out jogging today.
So now that's three times.
For three days in a row.
Clearly I have a problem.

Now that I'm addicted to jogging, I realized I had to do something about it.
I went through denial and anger and bargaining.
All of the 39 steps.
And then I relinquished my soul to God.

God spoke to me in his soothing, buttery baritone.
He told me to make egg nog.
So I created a recipe using computers.

• 6 eggs
• 1 or 2 pints heavy cream

• Cinnamon sticks

• A snifter of brandy

• Nutmeg shavings

• Any amount of rum
• Your favorite bourbon x 3
• Sprinkles of vanilla
• Chaser of beer (optional)

I drank a bunch of it.
It was very edible.
I mean imbibable.
It made me feel the spirit inside of me.
Yeah, it was very imbibable.
And you know what?
"Imbibable" spelled backwards is "Bible...I am".
Yeah, man.
I am The Bible!
Cuz like God's words live through me.
And you, too.
Know what I'm sayin'?
Hey, which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Trick question.
The answer is fucken God, man.
Look it up.
In the Bible.
Look it up in yourself!
Ooh.
I have to take a piss.

Hey I'm fucken back.
So yeah, today cuz of egg nog and a higher power, I was cured of my addiction to jogging.

Verdict: Win

November 15 - More Jogging

2011-02-26T13:51:00.000-06:00

Today I made more jogging.
I used the just the right amount of running.
Lauren took notice.
"Mmm. What smells like socks?"
My jogging was delicious.
I poured the excess sweat into a jar under the sink.
It was so good.
I made a note to label jogging recipe "TOP SECRET".

Verdict: Win

November 14 - Jogaholic

2011-02-15T09:57:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah.
I used to jog.
When did I stop doing that?
The jogging.
Hmm.
It looks like July was the last time I jogged.

I should keep trying to do that.
The fucking jogging.
Even though it's awful and horrendous.
And stupid for you.
Because it means I can look in the mirror, still see manboobs and flab, and say "Hey, I'm doing everything I possibly can!"

So I jogged for a mile.
A whole mile.
That is such a long distance to have to be jogging for all of it.
It's the equivalent of running a marathon if I was 2⅔" tall.
Also I sweated.
Wait.
Sweated?
Is it sweated or swat?
It's been so long, I've forgotten how to conjugate the verb.

But whatever, man.
I am a JOGAHOLIC!
Gimmee a fuckin' PROTEIN SNACK STICK and a POWER POWDER POWER MALT!!
RIGHT NOW!!
BITCH!!!

Sorry.
It's the creatine.
I need it for my jogging.

Verdict: Win

November 13 - Try Oomph

2011-02-12T09:11:00.006-06:00

I was in the mood for a triumphant day.

So I had one tailored up.

First, I went to Studio Greg Studios II.

A mixing day for The Nurse Novels.

I love recording.

But I was nervous.

See.

I was reading in the afternoon at The Paper Machete.

Last time I read, it was an exercise in failure and humiliation that led to episodes of premature bitterness.

So I had to overcome that.

I like being a curmudgeon and that whole bit, but I don't want to become actually bitter.

I've seen those guys.

Their faces are like fists.

They look like owls.

Without make up.

My piece was about a group of nuns in Baltimore who had acquired the world's most valuable baseball card.

Chris, the host, told me I would be reading first, after joining the Paper Machete Chorus in reprising "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine".

I sipped a beer for good luck.

Last week the world's rarest baseball card was auctioned off.

A 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco card.

Only 57 are known to exist.

It went for $262,900.

"It is the Mona Lisa of baseball cards," declared the winning bidder.

He's right.

Decked in a drab grey collared Pirates uniform, the pursed lips of "The Flying Dutchman" prompt the question: Is he about to laugh or about to spit?

The previous owner of the card were a group of nuns.

They have ties to an organization called the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

They're the Latin Kings of nuns.

We don't know how this gang acquired the world's most famous baseball card.

One of the nuns said it belonged to her brother.

But no one seems to recall the name of this brother.

The nuns claim he's dead.

I don't trust these nuns.

That line got a big laugh.

I had them.

You see, the nuns I encountered in my Catholic school were a bunch of assholes.

They pulled me by my ear, gave me detentions for things I didn't do, and used a paddle to humiliate both me and my butt in front of the entire third grade class.

They also gave me a lifetime supply of Catholic guilt.

So fuck those nuns.

They're assholes.

No.

I shouldn't have said that.

They were great nuns.

We should have lunch soon.

Ooh, I lost them a little bit there. But not entirely.

What we do know for sure is that nuns love to confiscate.

This got a strangely huge laugh. I got 'em back.

Toys, dolls, any item of great value to you.

They take what doesn't belong to them.

And they never give it back.

It's how they retain their hunched, lumpy figures.

Do I think these nuns stole that Honus Wagner baseball card from a little boy 100 years ago?

Yes.

In fact, I think it happened 100 years ago today!

In this very room!

That's how strongly I believe it happened.

I knew that bit wouldn't get a big response.

But I also didn't care.

These nuns are bullies.

They're thugs.

And they're everywhere.

If we tore down that church in Baltimore or any Catholic church (God forbid), I bet the walls would be filled with all sorts of valuable goodies. From 1943 copper pennies to Series 1 Garbage Pail Kids. From vintage 1959 Barbie dolls to hundreds of antique Vaseline jars that also somehow found their way in there. And buried within the spackled and spackled over crawlspaces of these churches would lurk an entire yearbook’s worth of the headless, amputated corpses that donated these rare collectibles.

Caked in old, dried priest jizz.

No.

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't have said that.

I shouldn't have inferred that Catholicism condones theft and murder and -

Well, just theft and murder.

It's a great religion.

It really is.

It so is a great religion.

Everyone should try it out.

We just went for a little ride there.

But they're still with me.

I've never seen the 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco card with my own eyes.

But I have seen perhaps the second most famous baseball card.

In 1989, The Fleer Corporation issued a baseball card of Billy Ripken, brother of Cal and son of Cal Sr.

In the photo Billy proudly poses while holding a bat.

Scrawled on the knob of his bat in thick black Sharpie is the word "FUCK FACE".

Realizing their error, Fleer rushed to correct the mistake with air brushing.

But by then it was too late.

Hundreds of these cards were already in the hand of Americans everywhere.

It had become known as the Billy Ripken Fuckface card.

Not so much the Mona Lisa of baseball cards.

More like the art school kid draped in raw meat takes a shit on stage of baseball cards.

A few people liked that one.

In 1989 a young boy in suburban Chicago got this card in a pack of cards from the local supermarket.

"I'm going to be rich!" he cheered.

That week the Beckett Baseball Card Monthly magazine had listed its value at $30.

"Imagine what it will be worth in a few years.

Thousands? Millions? Shablillions?"

He'll never know.

Because when he brought it to St. Joseph's School that week to show to his friends at recess, Sister Jean confiscated it.

And she never gave it back.

And later that day she interrupted class to lay him across her knees and paddle him with what she jokingly referred to as "The Board of Education".

And he cried.

That boy was not me.

Thankfully my parents pulled me out of Catholic school after the third grade.

So I was able to hang on to my Billy Ripken Fuckface card that I too got from a pack of baseball cards purchased at the supermarket.

I still have it.

In fact, I thought about auctioning it off to start a new charity.

The charity would help emancipate kids from the shackles of Catholic school.

After all, Honus Wagner pulled his likeness from tobacco cards because he didn't want youngsters to purchase cigarettes.

I don't want youngsters to be humiliated by paddles attached to cruel, deranged, physically and psychologically abusive nuns.

I'll call it The Tony Mendoza Fuckface Fund.

As I write this, there are a few auctions for this card on eBay.

One has 2 bids.

$3.26.

There's another that's going for $10.

But with no bids.

Another seller is offering both the original Fuckface card and its airbrushed twin.

2 bids.

$6.26.

Not quite a quarter of a million dollars.

But a decent start.

You can do a lot with $3.

You could buy a bottle of Coke.

12 ounces of gasoline.

A torn shirt sleeve.

A lighter.

To my surprise, people didn't know where I was going with this.

Or maybe they did, and were just waiting on confirmation to laugh.

Together these ingredients could be used to blow up St. Joseph's School...

Ah, there it was. The big laugh.

I actually had to pause for it.

The next line in the piece would be the most tasteless and polarizing, and I knew it.

It would threaten to negate the positive feedback that was currently showering me.

But I was not going to take it out.

Due to my real Catholic guilt, I felt bad for what I was about to do to the decent people who had warmed up to me. Their grips had loosened on their NPR totebags. They had accepted me.

This next line would be a betrayal in a way.

"Get ready," I said into the mic as the laughs naturally decayed.

Oh well.

It's just comedy.

...sending all those asshole shitty nuns screaming, clutching their burning flesh, running naked for their lives like the little Vietnam napalm girl.

But less sexy.

Well.

There was that silence again.

A groan and a wince happened.

Luckily, I protected that line.

Hopefully enough to get them back.

No.

I shouldn't have said that.

St. Joseph's was a great school run by the best nuns.

You should go there.

"You should go there" somehow got them back.

The mathematical rhythm of comedy.

In all fairness, the School Sisters of Notre Dame is an international organization, with presence in over 30 countries.

So I was joking around earlier.

I didn't mean to say all those tasteless things about nuns.

Because I'm eternally grateful to them.

If it weren't for those nuns I'd still be a Catholic.

Applause.

Success.

Triumph!

The Dryell Sisters provided music at half time.

That's Lauren, Jessica Joy and Rebecca Hansen doing Andrews Sisters style songings of today's big pop.

Diana Lawrence plays piano and I play drums.

It was fun to reunite with them after a year long hiatus.

More Dryell Sisters, please.

In the full house at Ricochet's was Alan from Bitter Tears, Holli, and Tim from Second City etc.

I'm glad they saw me do something of success up there.

I kissed Lauren goodbye and headed back to the studio for more mixing.

The Nurse Novels stuff sounds really good.

It's the best music I've made in my life.

Also, Greg Norman is an amazing recording engineer.

This isn't said enough.

I like triumph.

Failure's fun to write about and gain weight about.

But I prefer triumph.

Verdict: Win

November 12 - Metal Flake Rake

2011-02-08T09:44:00.004-06:00

For some reason, every autumn I go through a surf/hot rod phase.

I don't know why this is, and I don't think too much about it.

I'm too busy waxin' my woodie.

Inspired by The Hondells and The Rip-Chords, last autumn I wrote a song with those kooky surf/hot rod chord progressions called "Two-Wheeled Vermin".

I've always wanted to write a kooky, spooky surf song about bike messengering.

Poeticizing the perils of winter riding.

Getting squeezed between busses, the slick metal bridges, the puddles that were potholes filled with rain, wiping out on manhole covers, getting doored by a box truck.

Messengering was the closest I've ever come to surfing.

On my indestructible Yamaha Portasound PSS-380 I wrote some chords.

A Cm to C intro into a C#m that begins the progression.

It went on from there, with more key changes and all that.

I had a good base for a cool song.

Then it was time to write lyrics.

I was having difficulty with this.

I think the first line I had was

Sleet shitting out of God's cold asshole

Not exactly Yeats.

I couldn't get it to work.

And so it sat dormant for a while.

Inspired this fall by The Super Stocks and 1963 Bruce Johnston, I revived the tune.

But I changed the lyrics from bike messengering to old timey carnival rides.

You hold me

And I hold you

A scream and a smile

Electric fumes are in the air

And the sparks rain down

Smells like burning hair

Not exactly Yeats either.

But at least there's no mention of God's intestinal tract problems.

Verdict: Win

November 11 - Fooser

2011-02-04T07:28:00.004-06:00

Today was a wrap day.

I lucked out in a way.

My fellow PA Vince was given the unenviable task of deconstructing an IKEA kitchen table and putting it all back in the box as it was.

This meant he couldn't scuff it up in the process.

Or strip screws.

Or lose any tiny parts.

Then he had to return it to IKEA.

I did office stuff.

I used Excel for the first time in my life.

Excel is a computer program that has existed since 1826.

I was very proud and excited to use this historic program.

I used Excel to log the sizes of butcher coats.

Just like they did in the Civil War.

After lunch, Vince and I found ourselves twiddling our thumbs.

I was on two hours of sleep (again) so my thumbs collided more than twiddled.

A Kobe beef induced coma added to the general glaze.

We drooled onto our orbiting thumbs, creating a cat's cradle of saliva.

Hypnotized, the production managers had us rearrange the furniture in the office.

We moved shelves.

We moved tables.

We moved chairs.

We removed lots of sports equipment to a dead room.

The foosball table wouldn't get through the dead room doorway.

The foosball table weighed 1400 lbs.

Vince was conVinced that the foosball table would go through the doorway.

I was not.

Vince and I failed to get the foosball table through the dead room doorway.

But I succeeded in dropping the foosball table, injuring my fingers, and yelling "fuck".

It seemed we needed to remove the legs from the foosball table.

We worked in darkness on astroturf.

It's a weird office.

It used to be a tiny video studio where they shot sports related green screen stuff.

I think.

Nobody tells you much of anything in the world of production.

You just kind of go and do and accept.

Without the legs, the foosball table only weighed 1360 lbs.

Vince and I set it in the dead room next to a large doll house that belonged to an assistant director.

It's a weird office.

Then I went home and slept for 300 hours.

Verdict: Win

November 10 - Romancing The Ham

2011-02-03T07:59:00.005-06:00

Today was the big day.

Filming turkeys, roasts and hams.

I stuck close to the food stylists.

We covered the meats in foil and gave them numbers.

"That's a 1. That's a 2."

The clients all gathered around video village.

I steamed the wrinkles out of a butcher's apron.

The head food stylist was also the talent.

I was in charge of her rubber gloves.

First up was the ham.

The camera closed in on her rubber gloved hands slicing into the big pink stone.

The director gave her a note about her technique.

"Romance the ham!"

I wrote this down on my notepad.

Next was a roast.

The assistant camera was impressed.

"This meat looks good from every angle."

The head food stylist sliced and folded the cut over itself, revealing a nice marble.

Mmm.

It was almost time for lunch.

So naturally we threw away all the wonderfully cooked hams and roasts to make room for the catered lunch.

The trash cans were stuffed with warm, delicious autumnal aromas.

The garbage smelled good from every angle.

I'm glad we threw away all that food.

It created a nice potpourri for us while we ate other food.

After lunch, it was the turkey's big moment to shine.

And be juicy.

The clients wanted it juicy.

Meanwhile, the food stylists created a spackle to cover up any turkey blemishes.

Here's how to do it:

Using a cuticle tool, scrape shavings from one of your uglier turkeys.

Mix it in a small pinch bowl with a small dab of KY Jelly.

And voila!

You have made turkey spackle.

Apply the spackle to any unsightly speckles on your hero turkey.

Still, the clients demanded more juice from the turkey.

Time to get the big guns out.

The head food stylist filled a syringe with saline and injected the bird with a large dose, seconds before the take.

The turkey oozed and goozed, but mostly at the bottom.

The clients wanted the juice to come from the top.

The food stylist was getting annoyed with the clients.

The director was getting annoyed with the food stylist.

I crouched on an apple box and prepped more rubber gloves.

Since lunch, it had been 4 hours and 5 turkeys.

There was talk of adding more juice in post.

CGI turkey sweat.

And without any fanfare, the director had announced that the shoot was over.

It took forever to clean up.

All those spackled, saline-juiced birds were stuffed into bags and tossed.

The floors were slick with gristle grime and meat water.

There was a general air of salmonella in the room.

Mmm.

We ate pizza.

We painted the stage floor.

We were close to finished by 9:30.

I had to go to the bar and work the door.

And get salmonella fingerprints all over hipster ID's.

Verdict: Win

Happy Groundhog's Day

2011-02-02T12:09:00.006-06:00

It is Groundhog's Day.

So if you know one, wish it a happy one.

Apparently it is also snowing.

I went out to see about it, the snow.

It's fluffy and tall and white and cold.

And it's still coming down.

Inspired, I wrote a play script in homage to the blizzard, and how it unites everyone in a universal spirit of good cheer.

GROUNDHOG'S DAY

A short play script

by Tony Mendoza

It is Groundhog Day in Chicago. TONY, dressed in his old bike messenger winter gear, shovels snow around his van on a side street. An OLD WOMAN emerges from her home with a shovel. She growls.

OLD WOMAN

Did you put that snow on the sidewalk?

TONY points to area between the street and sidewalk.

TONY

I put it here, some of it might have gotten on the sidewalk.

OLD WOMAN

You put the snow on the sidewalk then.

TONY

I didn't put the snow on the sidewalk. The snow did.

OLD WOMAN

I know the snow did. But you put it there, too.

TONY points to three pellet-sized pieces of snow on the sidewalk.

TONY

I might have put that one, that one, and that one on the sidewalk. I'm sorry.

OLD WOMAN

I'm just going to shovel it back.

TONY

Okay.

OLD WOMAN

You live on Clark, don't you?

TONY points to apartments on the next block north.

TONY

I live there.

OLD WOMAN

Why don't you park on that street then?

TONY

This is a public street.

OLD WOMAN

I know it's a public street!

TONY

I'm sorry that you're upset about the blizzard, ma'am, but it is not my fault.

OLD WOMAN shovels heapings of snow toward TONY's van. TONY looks at her and shrugs.

OLD WOMAN

Now I have to shovel the sidewalk all over again.

TONY

It's still snowing. You were going to have to shovel it again anyway. (Under his breath) If you were nice I would have done it for you.

The OLD WOMAN growls.

TONY

The snow did all this, not me. But if you need me to be the bad guy then I will play that role for you.

OLD WOMAN

You're such a martyr.

TONY

Happy Groundhog's Day!

THE END

February thru December 2011 - Highs Highs Highs

2011-01-31T15:27:00.008-06:00

Last night my friend Mick and I tried to walk into a White Castle.

We are in Louisville visiting our girlfriends.

It was around midnight.

The dining area of the White Castle was closed, but the drive-thru was open.

So we stood in line at the drive thru between a Dodge Neon and a sports car with a bra.

There's a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about this.

In the episode, Larry is refused service at a Jack-In-The-Box because he is not in a vehicle.

In 1994, I also tried this tactic at a Del Taco in Palm Desert, California.

I was denied tacos for the same reasons.

Knowing this, we decided to stand in line anyway.

After all it was January.

"Hello!"

The drive-thru speaker box ignored our salutations.

Meanwhile, another man and woman on foot stood in line behind the car with the bra.

We tried a few more hellos to no avail, and decided to just order at the window.

The Dodge Neon's order was taking forever.

The driver had turned off the engine.

The car with the bra drove up to our heels.

"Did you place your order?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Maybe you guys aren't heavy enough."

I took the compliment.

Our fellow drive-thru pedestrians were also having trouble at the speaker box.

"Did you order?" they asked us.

"No we're going to try the window," we explained as the Neon pulled away.

"Let's be nice," I suggested to Mick, who took the lead.

The teller was laid back.

"I'm not supposed to take walk up orders, but what do you guys need?"

Mick turned on his native Kentucky charm for the White Castle teller.

We needed a crave case.

That's 30 sliders in a box.

A coffin of grey steamed "meat".

We were bringing them back to Freddie's, a bar that never closes.

That's where our friends and girlfriends were.

"You need 30 burgers?"

He paused for dramatic effect.

(The White Castle was on Broadway)

"Okay."

Mick handed him a 20 and we stepped aside.

It was 12:15.

"Did you get to order?" our fellow drive-thru pedestrians probed.

"They'll do it reluctantly," said Mick.

The car with the bra got his food and split.

Thanks to our heroic efforts, our fellow pedestrians were also able to order their food.

They paid and stood a safe distance from us.

A car full of well-dressed, middle-aged black women pulled up.

They pointed at us and laughed.

We began laughing, too.

A woman in the backseat rolled down her window.

"What are you laughing at?!" she joked.

"What are you laughing at?!" we retorted.

The car let out a collective howl and the woman rolled up the window.

Our fellow drive-thru pedestrians were laughing, too.

A woman in the front seat rolled down her window.

"Why didn't you order inside?"

We explained that the inside was closed.

"We had to go through the drive-thru as civilians," I said.

The car laughed again and rolled up the window.

Our fellow pedestrians were now laughing at us.

"Are you guys high?" they asked.

"No, we're drunk."

"Oh."

They seemed disappointed.

A long line had formed.

While the women waited for extra straws and condiments, they continued to roll down their windows to laugh at us.

It was 12:20.

It was cold.

Mick and I were being heckled at a White Castle drive-thru in Louisville, Kentucky.

Like a couple of lost dunk tank clowns.

The women got their extras and one of them waved goodbye.

Our fellow drive-thru pedestrians got their food and wished us luck.

"I can't feel my feet," said Mick.

It was 12:30.

We had been standing outside for half and hour.

Mick's girlfriend Jennifer texted.

"Are you guys okay?"

Lauren texted me, too, but I didn't know that.

Finally, the big bag of boxed "meat" was ready.

Mick awkwardly retrieved it while pinned between the drive-thru window and a mini-van of humorless passengers.

We shivered through the ten minute walk back to Freddie's.

Our girlfriends were happy to see us because we weren't dead.

"That was a long trip to the ATM," Jennifer pointed out.

Oh yeah.

Mick and I had made the decision to get White Castle en route from the ATM, and hadn't bothered to tell anyone else.

"But we got White Castle!" I said Santa Clumsily.

Jennifer is a vegetarian.

Lauren is not, but thinks White Castle tastes like dead buttholes.

My words, not hers.

"Did you get my text?" Lauren asked.

"No," I said.

I checked my phone to see that Lauren had in fact texted me.

"Oh," I noticed.

"Are you okay?" it said.

"Yes, we're okay," I said live and in person. "We got White Castle!"

Someone played crickets on the jukebox.

Only a handful of our friends had lingered.

Mick and I wolfed down a few sliders.

John joined us.

Steve considered, but only ate the pickles that I had removed from my sliders.

"I can't do it," he said, and left soon after.

We ended up giving half the sliders to the bartender.

"I'm sure somebody'll eat these."

The jukebox returned to bad music.

Glee Journey and Will Smith's daughter.

Knob Creek helped burn the White Castle off of my esophagus.

Things are bound to get better.

Verdict for the Rest of 2011: Win

January 2011 - New Lows

2011-01-29T11:36:00.005-06:00

January has been an exploration of self-loathing and discovering new lows.

Lauren is in Louisville for a month.

She's staying in a suffocating apartment with windows that look directly into its suffocating Siamese twin.

Without a vehicle, she is anchored in Louisville's ghostly downtown.

It's snowing and cold and no one wants to leave their suffocating apartments.

I'm unemployed or freelance or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

I didn't qualify for the dole.

So for all of January I've stayed inside our own suffocating apartment trying not to spend money.

There hasn't been any work in the world of fucking production bullshit.

Once a week I work at the bar.

I make about $32.

Last week a drunk girl tried to steal one of the ceramic pigs from the bar.

I had to wrestle it out of her drunk-powered clutches.

That was the most honorable thing I've done all month.

The Nurse Novels played Subterranean.

We had to make $300 from the door in order to make any money.

It's a shitty sleazy deal, but we wanted to play a show.

The door generated $304.

I handed out $1 bills to the other three bands.

It was hilariously depressing.

Today I had to cancel our show for next week.

I finally got some work.

But one of the days I'm working is the day of the show.

And right now work trumps artistic aspirations.

The Nurse Novels are dissolving.

It's too bad.

I thought we were a better band than Sandwich Shop.

The songs were better.

Our musicianship had improved.

But I didn't have the energy to get anyone to care.

I spent all that on Sandwich Shop.

So I sit at home.

With Lauren gone, it means a tremendous increase in masturbation.

It feels good.

And then it ends.

And it feels empty.

And I lie there for a while.

Until it dries.

When it's dry it means less materials used cleaning up.

Yup.

Keep reading.

Over the course of the month, I drank all the bourbon that we had in the liquor cabinet.

So yesterday I bought a bottle of wine.

Yellow Tail is perpetually on sale.

So I got that.

A constantly full glass sat on my nightstand while I instant-watched Office reruns again on Netflix.

I nodded off around 10pm with the lights on and my laptop open.

At 6am I woke up.

The glass was still full from the night before.

I hate to see anything go to waste.

So I decided to finish the glass.

I watched more Office episodes for the fourth time.

I tried watching a documentary about parking lot attendants.

But it was awful.

Self-proclaimed freaks who stayed in a college town too long showing off about how wacky and iconoclastic they are.

Wait.

Isn't that pretty much what this blog is?

I began to hate myself some more.

And the only way to combat it was to love myself.

Buzzed on sunrise wine, I began to jack off once again.

While reaching for a hotel container of lotion on the nightstand, I accidentally knocked over the glass of wine.

The glass shattered and wine splashed onto the walls.

It stained an enormous Beatles book.

It spilled all over several unframed pictures of Lauren.

Oh no, oh no.

I hobbled in only a hoody to the bathroom.

While getting a handful of toilet paper, I saw my image in the mirror.

My dirty wayward greying hair.

The tape on my glasses.

My chapped lips, stained purple.

A limpening penis shamefully pointing south.

It was 8am.

It would be fun to kill myself.

So these days would end.

I could stop being a failure.

You know what I mean?

But that wouldn't be much fun for anyone else.

Like Lauren.

Or my family.

Or anyone that has given me encouragement about whatever it is I do.

So I won't kill myself.

But I don't know what else there is to do this month.

Verdict: Loss

The Night The Music Got Killed

2011-01-27T16:06:00.005-06:00

My friend Ray Mees' show opens tonight at The Annoyance.

It's called The Night The Music Got Killed.

It's about Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, but mostly about The Big Bopper and how he drove Buddy and Ritchie to kill him with his annoying fucking novelty songs.

I did the music for the show with some help from Tom & Thea of The Nurse Novels.

Look for lots of one minute imitations of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, The Everly Brothers, Bobby Darin, and fellow air crash perishee Patsy Cline.

It runs until February 17.

Check it out.

November 9 - An Orangic Day

2011-01-24T15:38:00.005-06:00

I was the first to arrive at Stage 2.

A dark pungent odor permeated.

It smelled like old flies.

Sven walked in.

He grimaced and gagged and handed me $150.

"Get some candles."

A supermarket serving the upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic was having a commercial.

It would shoot tomorrow.

They had shipped over a dozen of their own turkeys.

The turkeys had all gone bad.

So the mystery stench was rotten meat.

I bought $100 worth of organic, gluten-free, cage-free, free-range, locally grown, homeopathic, organtic, environmentally ouchless EcoCandles from Whole Foods.

Those three candles did the trick.

The rotten meat now smelled healthy, the way rotten meat used to smell.

The candles also:

• rescued six kakapos from the endangered species list

• saved a rain forest in Papua New Guinea

• cleaned four pelicans from the BP oil spill

This gave us all peace of mind as we watched Cabrini Green's final demolition from the safety of our condo balcony.

The rest of the day was spent helping the food stylists prepare twelve new turkeys for tomorrow's shoot.

These turkeys were purchased at a local supermarket in town.

But do not tell the clients about this.

In fact, get rid of all materials that bear the logo of the local supermarket.

Each turkey was placed into a plastic tub filled with water.

Then I dumped the tub's salmonella water in the parking lot.

It was a really nice day.

Sunny and mild.

It was so nice, we decided to eat lunch outside.

Right by the puddles of salmonella.

Nobody noticed it smelling like salmonella.

It was like the day was organic.

And we were cage free.

Like a condo.

Verdict: Win

November 8 - It's A Nice Day To Start Again

2011-01-24T15:27:00.003-06:00

My mom called.

She just wanted to ask me a question.

Were we planning on having a Wiccan wedding?

I laughed.

Oh.

But she was being serious.

I sighed.

No, Mom.

We're not having a Wiccan wedding.

Verdict: Loss

November 7 - Penis-Chins & The Laws Of Unconditional Love

2011-01-24T11:01:00.005-06:00

Lauren and I met my mom for dinner and a show.

We went to Twin Anchors in Old Town.

Sinatra used to swing there, Charley.

It was the end, a real gasser.

Platinum pussycats and ripe tomatoes.

Though the twirls said it wasn't their bag.

Dig that sign: NO DANCING.

"We're Scramsville. I think it's going to rain in this clam-bake."

Those dames were nowhere, Sam.

A couple of hacked off mish-mashes.

I didn't like their clyde.

Send a hunker for some gasoline.

Lauren showed my mom the ring.

For a brief moment I was an adult in her eyes.

Over barbeque, we told her the engagement story.

Mom wanted to talk about the wedding.

And our plans.

All we knew was this:

October 2011

Door County

Stave church

Mom explained to us that we were going to need things like a marriage license, and witnesses, and files and documents and-

I told her that we knew this already.

Mom wanted me to be stressed out about it.

So for her sake, I decided that now would be the best time to start getting stressed out about what is traditionally supposed to be the happiest day of my life.

We went to see Lauren perform on the Second City Mainstage in Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies.

She was going in for our friend Allison Bills.

Lauren's a pro.

She always is.

She killed it.

During intermission, I showed my mom a photo of the stave church in Door County.

Then my friend Joe approached me about a video project he was working on.

A lampoon of the improv scene in Chicago.

He asked if I would like to play the leader of a Wiccan improv troupe.

I laughed and said it sounded fun.

My mom took mental notes.

The improv set was ba-luuue.

Feces and fucking were discussed.

Bestiality was touched upon.

Plus a tour de force about a man with a penis on his chin.

The penis-chin was masturbated frequently by the cast, and sung about.

Lauren did her best to lay low during this.

Oddly, I didn't hear my mom laugh too much during the set.

Huh.

Afterward, Julie the musical director apologized to my mom for the blueness of the set.

My mom thanked her for apologizing.

Mom still loves us.

She may not get who we are.

Getting married in a big black evil knife.

She might think we're still children.

Laughing at penis-chins.

But the laws in her head say she is required to love us.

And she obeys the law.

Verdict: Win

November 6 - Friendly

2011-01-24T09:20:00.004-06:00

The Paper Machete Choristers returned to the stage today.

The stage being a corner of a bar.

Sam, John, the two Dans and I sang and snapped to "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" while Chris riffed over it.

"And the cabbage wasn't hay...it was sauerkraut!"

I am a fan and supporter of this program.

It's dangerous though.

It's in a bar.

Often times by the end of it I'm a bit loaded.

Though I prefer the term friendly.

Most attendees to the Machete tend to split immediately after the show.

Not me.

I stick around.

Because it's in a bar.

And I'm feeling friendly.

Chris, also feeling friendly, asked me if I would like to read next week.

I happily agreed.

I'm glad he was feeling friendly enough to give me another shot after my disastrous debut this summer.

Chris left, but I stuck around the bar even longer.

To research the news with all the friends I didn't know.

Apparently some nuns auctioned off a Honus Wagner tobacco card.

I decided to write about that.

I came home around 8 to an empty apartment.

Lauren was understudying on the Second City Mainstage.

All that friendliness had exhausted me.

I don't remember falling asleep.

But I immediately did.

Around 2, Lauren came home.

She bounced around the apartment in her jacket.

She giggled and wilted.

And sprang.

Apparently, she was feeling very friendly.

By then I wasn't feeling as friendly, but acknowledged her laughter with some of my own.

I wonder if this is how Steve & Eydie do it.

Verdict: Win

November 5 - Revisiting My Childhood Obsession with Late Night with David Letterman

2011-01-23T07:51:00.007-06:00

Today I watched a tape of Kamarr the Discount Magician from the old Letterman show.

I guess you should know this about me:

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Late Night with David Letterman.

It began in the summer of 1986 when I asked my dad what was on after Johnny Carson.

It was like asking what planet came after Pluto.

The vast unknown.

My dad liked Letterman so he let me stay up to watch it.

I was eleven.

And was immediately hooked.

I watched Dave drop turkeys off of the five-story tower in New Rochelle, goof and flirt with Riquette and her international beauty secrets, make fun of GE, and banter with Paul Shaffer about how the show wasn't going very well and how cranky he was as a host.

I enjoyed the first segment comedy pieces the most.

Dumb Ads, Small Town News, Supermarket Finds, Dave's Record Collection, New Gift Items, The Super Slo-Mo Experiments.

I taped these segments every night on our then-new VCR.

When the new school year started, my parents miraculously still let me stay up to watch the show.

As long as I kept my grades up.

And so I did.

That year I dressed like David Letterman for Halloween.

I couldn't get my hair like his, but who could.

I taped pictures of Dave to my school desk.

The margins of my notes were crammed with doodles of Dave and Paul.

I wrote letters to 30 Rockefeller Plaza - Room 1410W, hoping they'd be read on Viewer Mail.

They never were.

But I swear that one of my letters was actually shown on the show.

In the fall of 1986, I mailed a letter to Late Night.

As a gag, I taped it up heavily, like a mummy.

This would get their attention, I thought.

That Thursday during Viewer Mail, Dave visited with Flunky, the Late Night Viewer Mail Clown.

Flunky was writer Jeff Martin, chain-smoking in a purple and yellow onesy and full clown make-up, pre-dating Krusty by a few years.

Dave asked Flunky how to get a letter read on the show.

Flunky suggested including a nude Polaroid.

Then he said he was looking for a letter that was easy to open.

He held up an envelope covered in tape.

"This one's all taped up. Forget it."

I was very certain that that was the letter I had sent them that week.

I could go on and on about my peculiar preteen devotion to David Letterman.

So I will.

In 1987 my Mom scored a giant Philco TV box from Fretter.

We covered it in dark brown wood grain contact paper.

This became my David Letterman desk.

I set it up in my room with two patio chairs.

I took down the curtains behind the desk.

Instead of a fake skyline of New York behind a fake set of windows, my backdrop was a real suburban townhome community behind a real window.

I kept the Late Night set in my room until one creepy night.

The phone rang.

It was a guy from Denver who said he was conducting a survey.

If I answered his questions I would get $50.

I was still eleven, and $50 sounded great.

His questions started off routine.

Age, height, weight.

Then he began asking me more personal questions.

Questions about erections.

It was weird, but I was focused on that $50.

$50 could get another set piece for my David Letterman village.

So I moved the phone call to my room.

"Who are you talking to?" my parents asked.

"It's a survey," I quipped as I galloped upstairs with dollar signs in my eyes.

I sat in the host chair overlooking the communal backyard, and continued answering questions about erections with the man from Denver.

He asked me how big my erections got.

I didn't know yet.

I hadn't started measuring.

$50.

He asked me if I played with myself.

I actually hadn't started doing that either.

I watched Late Night.

That's what I did.

He asked me to put my thumb in my mouth and talk.

So I tried that out.

$50, $50.

It felt weird.

He wanted me to talk some more.

I took my thumb out of my mouth and talked like it was still in there.

"Wha' 'bou' da fiffy dowwuhs?" I asked.

My dad picked up the downstairs phone.

"Who are you talking to?" he demanded.

The man from "Denver" hung up.

There would be no $50.

I felt beyond stupid.

My parents raced upstairs to find me sitting ashamed in my David Letterman chair.

They immediately hung the curtains back up.

I kept telling them it was for $50.

I felt beyond stupid.

There was nothing else that could be done.

I don't remember who was the guest or what the comedy segment was that night on Late Night.

I felt beyond stupid.

Hmm.

I'd rather not end on that humiliating and admittedly uncomfortable read.

So let's keep going.

I wasn't going to let some successful pedophile ruin my Late Night fun.

So a few weeks later, I moved the Letterman set down to our unfinished basement.

It was roomier there, like a real set.

My friend Matt had a video camera.

On institute days we made our own Letterman shows.

I was Dave.

Matt was an off-camera Paul and played our guest Marv Albert.

We shot suction cup darts at the camera.

We made a confetti cannon using a blow dryer and a poster tube.

We threw things out of his second story bedroom window.

Inspired by the Sky-Cam, Thrill-Cam and Monkey-Cam, we created the Skate-Cam, Bike-Cam, Oven-Cam, Record Player-Cam (which went up to 78), Fridge-Cam, and the gross and misguided Spit-Cam.

I will say, this is probably one of the happiest times in my life.

Soon I would be 12.

And then 13.

And then it would all be over.

I don't know if it's cool to watch an old grainy VHS tape of Kamarr the Discount Magician when I'm 35 and unemployed.

But at least nobody got orally auto-raped over the phone.

That I know of.

Here's some more Letterman fun:

Mashing things with a steamroller 1982

The Suit of Velcro 1984

5-Story Tower 1984

The Custom Made Show #2 1984

Jane Pauley & Denise the NBC Nurse on the Custom Made Show 1984

The Suit of Alka-Seltzers 1984

Smashing things with an 80-Ton hydraulic press 1985

More hydraulic press 1985

The Suit of Sponges 1985

The Late Night Anthem 1985

Carol Channing on the Late Night "Morning Show" 1985

The Suit of Chips 1985

Stupid Human Tricks 1987

Chris Elliott as Marlon Brando 1987

Crispin Glover 1987

Verdict: Win

Don Kirshner - The Paper Machete

2011-01-20T21:20:00.004-06:00

Hey Don Kirshner died this week.

I'll be reading about it at The Paper Machete this Saturday.

It's free as usual and always and forever.

The Paper Machete

Saturday, January 22, 2011, 3pm

Ricochet's

4644 N Lincoln, Chicago

Free

Man, 2010 is dragging.

Nurse Novels Tonight at Subterranean

2011-01-18T11:58:00.004-06:00

Here are some new songs we will bring to your heart tonight:

Wimps

Carnie's Gone

Waterbed

Money Man

And some old songs for your liver:

War

Sea Day

My Fucken Family

N.I.M.B.Y.

The Nurse Novels

Elvisbride

The Family Gun

Transmontane

Tonight, January 18, 2011

Subterranean

2011 W North Ave

Chicago

Doors 7:30pm

Music 8pm

November 4 - Nurse Novels Live & Unlogged

2011-01-18T11:29:00.005-06:00

Not too long ago, John from The Bitter Tears gave me a CD-R.

It was a recording of the first Nurse Novels show.

We played at Quenchers back in March.

According to the blog post for that day, "it was a great night".

According to the recording from that night, it was not.

I cringed a lot while skimming through its portions.

Under-rehearsed, no set list, no sound check.

I ejected it dejected.

So tonight we returned to Quenchers.

It was a better night.

People liked our banter.

Thea and I do this "fun" thing where we kind of bicker at each other.

I'll say something like, "This song is about a guy who feels guilty about breaking up and thinks it's his fault, but really it's not his fault."

Then she'll shake her head and say something like, "No, it was his fault."

Or she'll stand in front of me while I'm telling a story (because I am Ray Davies), and I'll say, "Hey! You're blocking my story!"

And she'll say something like, "Oh, I didn't know this was story time."

Stuff like that.

See, we used to date.

Like five years ago.

It didn't end very well.

I think she even kept a blog about it.

It's taken about four years for us to be cool again.

Still, old petty nonsense likes to creep in now and then.

That and musical codependence.

So yeah we had fun about that.

Like I said I think it was a better night.

I hope nobody recorded it.

Verdict: Win

November 3 - Work In Progress

2011-01-16T09:30:00.003-06:00

A line had formed outside the unemployment office.

The weather was being grey and grimy.

I joined the line.

We all waited for the office to open.

Some people made universal jokes that aren't really funny.

You know, jokes about coffee or whatever.

Prodding you into conversation.

I did my best to not be an asshole.

Nodding, half-smiling, yeahing.

One guy started boasting about his time in the service.

He was in his forties maybe.

A kid in his early twenties played his lapdog.

"Did you ever have to use your gun?"

"Oh sure!"

The boastful man elaborated on his gunsmanship.

He spoke fondly of all the kills he created.

I can't remember if he said he knew Rambo.

Or maybe they were just Facebook friends.

For entertainment, we all watched the security guard scream at people who dared to park in the parking lot of the unemployment office.

He seemed to really hate his job.

A human NO PARKING sign.

I suppose they could just get an actual NO PARKING sign.

And then the man wouldn't be so miserable.

But he'd be unemployed.

And that would mean more paperwork.

And unfavorable statistics.

Best to just leave things be.

The doors finally opened and we all shuffled in.

This time my number was 13.

By the time I sat down and opened my book, they had called my number.

A fast-talking man ushered me to a nice, distracted woman at a shabby desk.

The fluorescent light accentuated her guidance counselor wrinkles.

She handed me some appeal forms and told me to keep filing.

"There's nothing wrong with switching careers," she encouraged.

Ironically, I did work tonight.

With Kim at the bar.

But it was dead.

We closed early.

I think I made $28.

After hours, Kim told me the story of the bar.

It is owned by two brothers.

Their parents originally owned it.

They all lived in a house next door.

One night while the father was bartending, a man robbed the bar.

He shot the father.

His son watched through a peephole on the back door.

He was in his early teens.

The father died.

They continued on, staying in the house next door.

When the mother passed on years later, they sold the house.

It was torn down and replaced it with condos.

The brother who didn't witness his father's murder moved away.

He works at the bar once or twice a week.

The brother who watched his father get shot and killed lives in the room above the bar.

I've never met him.

But he's always there.

Six nights a week an old high school friend of theirs comes in, usually carrying a plastic bag of take out.

He never drinks or hangs out.

He goes directly to the back room and plays video games in solitude.

Six nights a week he sleeps there.

I guess that's why it's called an inn.

While the neighborhood around it has changed, this bar has remained the same.

It's one of the last few relics of Old Chicago in Wicker Park.

Or Real Chicago if you prefer.

There's still a bullet hole in the door.

It's not on any of the jokey gangster tours.

Maybe because this bullet hole actually means something.

I can't live off of $28 per week.

And I'm not sure if the bar can live off of closing early all the time.

But I like it there.

Verdict: Win

November 2 - D'oh(le)

2011-01-16T09:20:00.004-06:00

Discouraged by yesterday's visit to the actual unemployment office, today I tried to contact them on the phone.

Yes, on the phone.

What on earth was I thinking?

After several thousands of minutes of automated redirecting, I was ultimately transferred to a voicemail mailbox.

The mailbox was full.

It was around 10am, which meant that going to the office would take the rest of the day.

I decided to remain unemployed without insurance for another day.

Verdict: Loss