April 9 - Quandary

I have a hard time doing my job on four hours of sleep.

I scream at people in cars.

I give and receive the finger from cement trucks.

I am downright nasty and surly to the crappy assholes at The Laborers Union.

Traffic halts as if its posing for a horrid hotel room painting.

Taking the Lord's name in vain has lost all of its creativity.

I sulk miserably in the van, gaining weight, feeling the ache of my hips expanding. I keep expecting an Antarctic alien dog to crack through my pelvic bone.

As long as it takes over the wheel for a while.

Yeah, today I just drove non-stop from 8am-5pm in all that new construction traffic.

It simply sucks.

No, but I am glad that guy at the country club got his documents delivered to him before his tee time.

That was pretty cool.

I brought a Vietnamese sandwich to The Annoyance to watch Flames and Blazes, a musical set in an unburnable hotel on New Year's Eve 1928 in Chicago. It's playful and silly and at times peculiar, and I really liked it.

I caught up with friends, drank beer, smiled, laughed, good-timed. It was great to see Mick, Jen, Ellen, Lilly, Chris, Brian, Conner, Ken, Jet, Angela, Tyler, Tim, Vanessa, Dunbar.

So here's the quandary. How do I rate today?

The first nine hours were miserable, the last nine excellent.

Well, how did the day end?

Let's see.

I watched a Forensic Files about a South Carolina man who murdered women and stole their clothes.

I ate saltines with swiss cheese.

I masturbated to pornography from the 1980's.

Verdict: Loss

April 8 - Bad Advice From My Own Voice

Tonight I went to Greg Norman's home studio to record vocals for The Nurse Novels. Thea joined me, lending her critical ear to the proceedings.

I forgot how frustrating recording vocals can be. Especially if you don't consider yourself a singer and struggle with being in the spotlight. But after 13 or 14 tries at the line "You're too old for this," you have to listen to your own lyrics, get over it, and just do it. This required ignoring my own voice in the cans telling me I'm not good enough.

Vocals can be a mindfuck if that's what you choose.

I sang "Little Boy" and "Inside A Car Wash." Then we sipped some Jefferson bourbon and I screamed through "Monsters 'n' Moldies." I worry that it's too Jon Spencer of a vocal, but I think the world will survive it. Next I yelled through a song either called "NIMBY" or "Frozen Muzak" before my voice gave out. It was 12:46am.

We had 18 items on Colonel Tom's spreadsheet to accomplish tonight.

We achieved three and a half of them.

Still.

I got to sing on a record.

Verdict: Win

April 7 - Come Up 'n Shee Me Shumtime

It got cold again. There must be a reason for this. No one knows why. It has become a great mystery to us all. The weather and why.

On this frigid April night, I met Joanna at Big Chicks for what she called our "semi-annual check in." Joanna and I have known each other for eleven years. For four of them we dated, for six of them we played in bands, for two of them we performed in a burlesque show. She contributes drawings to this blog. Here's a story from our dating days.

Big Chicks is cool. Laugh-In subtitled on the televisions while close-to-crappy music played at an unobtrusive level. Joanna just got back from a six-week stint in Miami performing Spanglish comedy with Second City. In Miami, she berated a guy who joined her onstage for karaoke, got her nose pierced, and was chased by a crackhead during a jog, all while living in a 54th floor penthouse with maid service. Not bad.

At one point during the check-in, I did my new and amazing impression of Marilyn Monroe:

(left hand cupping back of head, right hand on right hip)

Come up 'n shee me shumtime!

I rode home in the cold, misty rain that didn't have the balls to be snow.

Verdict: Win

April 6 - Russian Recording III

I had set the alarm for 5am.

At 5:30am I changed my shirt.

I put parts of a drum set into the van and headed straight to a place in my neighborhood named McDonald's.

My plan for today, a Tuesday, was to find somewhere to record the best possible music with parts of my drum kit.

Unfortunately, McDonald's did not have a recording studio.

Nor were there any other musicians willing to make good music there.

But I did notice that they served coffee and breakfast there.

I gave the man at McDonald's some money and he gave me some coffee and something he called "breffix."

I drove and drove and drove a van.

First south, then east, then south.

That breffix from McDonald's made me feel like sleeping while driving and dying.

I was in a place they call "Indiana."

It almost rhymes with Windy Banana.

It was early and you could see the sun starting to get all bright and shit.

I thought about the recording I was going to find somewhere, and the cool musicians I would meet and immediately gel about with.

I thought of the perfect name for this band: Windy Banana.

Then I thought of a better one: Windy Morgana, the Kissing Bandit with Problem Flatulence.

After that I thought of several worse names: The Friendies, Friendies Forever, Frendz Forevz.

I never thought of a better perfect band name than Windy Morgana, the Kissing Bandit with Problem Flatulence.

It was getting early still.

I pulled over in a town named after Bloomington, Indiana called Bloomington, Indiana.

There were crazy hippies all over the place playing football and taking tests.

At a thing named Circle K I found a location for my used coffee, and walked aimlessly down a whimsical alley you might say. It reminded me of that movie about the girl and the annoying dog, and the witch, and the midgets (I'm allowed to still use this word), and The Monkees, and the stagehand who hanged himself from a prop tree supposebly.

On a big set of double doors were the letters R, and R spelled backwards.

A cat answered the door. He said "meow" or some shit.

Then a boy with a beard let me in and noticed I had parts of a drum kit in my van.

He forced me to add them to his vintage red sparkle Gretsch round badge drum kit.

All I had were some cymbals, a kick pedal, and a snare.

He didn't care, he said, and forced me to augment his mangy, old, collectable drums.

Then two vagabonds from the big city kicked open a door.

Everyone began fighting.

I got punched in the haircut and kicked in the facial expression.

Someone broke a rake.

A wedding cake was upset, but nobody laughed.

Not even the laugh track.

The boy with the beard said "Enough" and went away to feed several thousand cats.

The big city vagabonds rubbed their eyes and spit in my direction.

They velcroed me to the elderly drums and shut off the lights.

"LET'S SEE WHAT YOU CANNOT DO!" they shouted in unison through the loudest microphones.

All I could do was cry.

My woeful, sadful tears bounced off the drum skins like crying butter, creating the most magnificent music ever recorded. That's more magnificent than Chuck Beatles and Virginia Slims combined!

But the boy with the beard forgot to turn on the red light machine, and did not capture it.

After another fight involving urinal mints, a weather balloon filled with meat water, and Chinese stars (I'm still allowed to call them that), we had to do it all over again.

"Oh no," I muffled under a painters-taped mouth.

The big city vagabonds waterboarded me with vinegar and melted ice cream.

Anything to make those beautiful, elegant tears scream from my wonderful, classy eyes.

The bearded boy and the big city vagabonds captured four total sounds, and ripped them directly to iTunes, where you can also garagehero movies and burn bands.

In a separate room, they relaxed by wrapping pineapple-jalapeno pizzas around their rock hard penises and made individual love for their amusement. I was only allowed to watch and eat the leftovers. It was okay and shit.

By the time I got back home it was time to work again.

I'll never take another day off from work ever again as long as I shall live forever.

Verdict: Win

April 5 - Nappy Dugout

Another beautiful day. Sunny. Mid-70s. Slow at work.

So slow that for lunch I lied down in the back of the van and continued watching Charro!

Like a nice lazy summer afternoon, I fell asleep during this old Western.

Elvis' gunshots woke me up. I was lying next to a half eaten sandwich.

A run to Winnetka allowed me to listen to the White Sox opening day game. I haven't really followed baseball since 1988, but the generic sound of baseball on AM radio in the afternoon took the edge off of the obligatory afternoon traffic.

I snuck in another nap before teaching.

Verdict: Win

April 4 - Part Success

Now that Lauren is away, there's no one to tell me when bedtime should be.

So now I:

Fall asleep on the couch around 11pm.

Wake up at 1am.

Watch Forensic Files until 3am, then go to bed.

Wake up at 7am for no reason.

On my day off.

It's Easter Sunday. We had an 11am Rush put-in rehearsal for understudy Ross Bryant (my cabinmate on the cruise ship). Unfortunately the doors to the theater were locked and no one had a key. While waiting in the lobby of Piper's Alley, the cast went over songs from the show. One is in the style of that Rent song about numbers, only it quotes Rush Limbaugh for its lyrcis:

Let stupid unskilled jobs go to stupid Mexicans,

AIDS hasn't spread to heterosexual men,

Feminism allows ugly women in the mainstream,

All photos of criminals look like Jesse Jackson

Meanwhile a man walking his toddler son, both in their Sunday best, strolled through the lobby and into that chorus. Happy Easter, guys!

The Easter Sunday crowd was strangely into Rush Limbaugh! The Musical. They were hooting and yacking at the actors. Some people hissed at Rush. And we got applause in odd spots that theoretically shouldn't receive applause:

RUSH: I want to own a couple dozen black men but the St. Louis Rams wouldn't let me.

After that, The Nurse Novels met to go over more sounds for the recordings. Tom's old Korg provided lots of possibilities. Thea seemed to favor the robot sounds, while I preferred the smoother ones.

Rain poured down. Gawd took some Polaroids.

During a cigarette, I thought of a percussion overdub: slow motion cymbal.

A couple of days ago I asked my boss if I could use some vacation time for the upcoming Bitter Tears tour in Europe.

"You're part time!"

Which means I don't get vacation pay.

At first I was a little miffed. After all, I come in every day and I haven't called in sick in two years. But then I remembered. Last year I took a total of ten weeks off from work. Not too many other jobs would allow someone to take time off like that.

"You're part time!"

Which means I do other things besides my day job.

This is a good thing.

It means I'm part way there.

To Successville.

To Success Heights.

To Successlawn.

I'm part time!

I'm part success!

Verdict: Win

April 3 - I Didn't Do Anything I Didn't Want To Do

The Bitter Tears played their first morning rehearsal with me. We ran over the new songs for the recording in Bloomington on Tuesday. I switched from brushes to sticks on "Things The Boys Love," giving it much more swing. That song has become one of my favorites. We also made feel adjustments to "Movin' Down South" and came up with a new encore trick.

At home I caught up on this blog and downloaded days of music from The Monterey Pop Festival, Motorhead, Bob Dylan, Santo & Johnny, Isaac Hayes, and of course, more crazy Beatle crap (Beatles in Spanish, Casio SK-1 dogs barking Beatles, The Beatles as mall punk, and hours and hours of demos, different takes and false starts). Motorhead's "On Parole" rules!

I bumped into my friend Meghan Murphy at the supermarket. The Second City crew met her on the cruise ship. She sang big in the big revues and stole our hearts with her moxie and sass. Now she lives here in Chicago. She was shopping drunk! In her cart were radishes, lettuce and more assorted greens. Kudos to you, Meghan. Look for her cabaret in early May, directed by the inimitable Mitchell Fain.

Lauren called to tell me she had received the flowers I had sent her for tonight's opening of The Second City show in Tucson. She said the flowers made her cry.

Oh well. I try.

With a 10pm bellyful of speed-eaten tacos I began watching Charro!, Elvis' 29th movie, and the only one to not feature any musical numbers. He plays an outlaw trying to break out of the gang and into the straight life. It's scored by Hugo Montenegro, and so far it's great. I'll know more when I'm not asleep on the couch.

Verdict: Win