Graffiti 100

Over the past couple years Mars has been heating up in the summer time. The southern polar dry ice cap has been shrinking. Some scientist have used this as proof that climate change on Earth is not man made. I wonder how long it'll be till we start sending our excess population to colonies on Mars.

"If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long." -Noam Chomsky

"I think space exploration is very important. I think there is very intelligent life on Mars. I believe that Martians are spying on us from the bottom of the ocean." -Annabella Sciorra

"When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It's like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then?" -Bill Nye

Robyn Hitchcock

Yesterday out of no where Chloe asked me if I wanted to go to a concert of a guy I had never heard of, Robyn Hitchcock. The concert was at City Winery a relatively pretentious and slick venue in the near west side. When we got there we discovered the concert was coupled with a wine pairing that was suppose to "enhance" and "deepen" the musical experience. Needless to say Chloe and I didn't purchase the wine pairing and we were uninterested in any explanations of the wine or their intended effect.

When Hitchcock took the stage it turned out local WXRT DJ and buffoon Norm Winer was going to sit on stage and interject Hitchcock's set with explanations of the wine and how they were suppose to "meld" with the songs.

Hitchcock is an old-school folk-rock musician who is quirky, kind of awkward, and surprising surrealist with his lyrics as well as between-song pater. His set was amazing and definitely had a peculiar but enjoyable energy, Chloe and I were the youngest people there who weren't accompanying their parents. My favorite songs from his set were "Harry's Song" and "Be Still" from his latest album.



Norm Winer being on stage was ludicrous. He is clearly incredibly self involved, he constantly interrupted Hitchcock to steer conversation towards himself and who he's met and went into long unnecessarily protracted explanations of the different wines.

I had no interest in wines even when I was drinking and now it seems almost idiocy to pretend that particular reds and whites would improve a concert experience above and beyond regular drinking. Maybe it would if you had a significantly refined pallet but I don't think most of the people there were wine experts.

Some of my favorite moments of the evening were when Hitchcock would speak off the cuff.

"So at this point you should be in a dream like state. You're in a garden with Norm. Norm is dressed in a wondrous white tuxedo. You see in front of you this flower with blue pedals, you get closer and you look inside and its cream colored, you should be wondering why is the outside blue and the inside cream, but you're not you like this cream color and you touch it and it feels like cream. You look around to tell Norm about the cream colored center of this blue flower. And he looks like he's right behind you but in fact he's far away talking to some hooded figure..."

Speaking about Paul McCartney never drinking any beverage onstage "He probably visited a shaman. In a cave off a cove somewhere. And he said to the shaman, 'give me a super power' and he did, he did."

Balcony Garden

I've never had a green thumb or had plants of any kind. The last time I took interest in a plant was in grade school when we did that Lima bean project which I think I failed miserably. This past winter my dad got me a poinsettia, my first ever, which I'm proud to say is still alive. Since then I noticed it just makes me a little happier to have some living green around.

I recently acquired some plants and flowers for my balcony so we'll see if I can keep them alive and hopefully help them flourish.

Arrested Development Season 4: Dead In The Water

I enjoyed the original Arrested Development, I watched the series probably twice over the 8 years since it's been off the air, but I wouldn't call myself a fan. I began watching the Netflix produced reboot with no expectations other than to enjoy myself. I was extremely disappointed.

Season 4 feels like a long convoluted TV reunion special that's ramping up to a feature film. There's a lot of set up and little to no pay off. Without the structure of a network sitcom the episodes meander on to thirty plus minutes losing the quick passing and fast editing which gave the original series it's edge. Without having to make hard choices many scenes and jokes are left in, at times bringing episodes to a complete halt, which should be cut. Repetition is used often to ill effect. Season 4 relies to heavily and everyone watching it knowing all the intimate details of the characters and back story as well as long protracted expositional flashbacks which often serve no other purpose than setting up the present plot which ultimately goes no where.

The reason the original series worked was because Michael was, ultimately, a good guy. We sympathized with him, we liked him. He was trying to keep the family together, a noble cause. In this ill conceived Frankenstein no characters are likable, every character is shallow and deplorable and self serving. Each episodes focus is on a different character which loses site of one of the key things that worked originally. Getting a taste of Gob or Tobias or Buster or Lindsay is great. They come in make some jokes and walk out. Whole episodes following those characters have no real comedic moments because none of these characters are based in any semblance of reality.

The one thing I enjoyed about Season 4 was the structure. They very cleverly and artfully weave the intervening years since the show has been off the year together with the present plot line with everything connecting. Which is all well and good if anything was actually happening or if we, as an audience, actually cared which we don't.

A miss, a most palpable miss.

If an Arrested Development movie comes out I'll see it. But hey, I saw Jack Reacher in theaters opening night.

Four Square

This afternoon I went to a Memorial Day BBQ today hosted by Pat. A lot of friends gathered to eat, talk, throw around the pig skin, and play four square. It was a great afternoon- cool and overcast but still a wonderful day.

It reminded of college for a couple reasons. At the BBQ, inexplicably, I saw a guy I went to college with: Josh. I hadn't seen him since our days together at ISU 8 years ago. We were acquaintances, never really friends, but we had a running bit that we did the entire time I was there. We would always greet each other as "friend" and never say each others names. It started out I think because we didn't know each others names and we had talked too often to ask without insult. That eventually morphed into some weird badge of pride of not knowing each others names. Towards the end of my senior year he found out my name and I found out his. As a result our interactions lost some of their magic. But some of that magic resurfaced today because I couldn't dredge up his name from my sordid college memories. I don't think he noticed.

The other thing was playing four square. It's a game I remember loving in grade school and then didn't play again until college where I fell in love with it again. The ISU theater department had a weird tradition of playing whenever it was nice in front of the building. They also hosting a four square marathon fundraising event at the end of the year. My sophomore year of college I hadn't really played much. It was a way to socialize with people I didn't know and I shied away from it. At the end of my sophomore year I felt a little more involved, a little more a part of so at around 10 in the evening of the first day I started to play.

The hours past and partying theater students came and went. I kept on playing and gradually struck up conversations with strangers and people I had seen around but never spoke to. The mechanics of the game came back quickly and I started to really enjoy this simple childish game. Around two in the morning everyone started to filter away or take naps inside the building to recuperate. Me and a couple other die hards kept playing. I started to get tired but pushed through. Kept moving, kept playing and from 3am to around 7am I hit the zone. I hit my second wind that was like a smooth plateau. Not to say that I was playing amazing four square because I wasn't but it was this zen like place of calm and endurance. It was like everything faded away and the world was just a ball and four squares and potential jokes to be made. I wasn't tired, I wasn't sore, I was comfortable in my body and able to control it. It was a very alive type of feeling. Around nine in the morning I crashed, I was sore and tired and dead on my feet. People started coming back and the people that had played the graveyard shift were relieved.

So it was weird, seeing someone from college and playing a game I so closely associated with college. It brought back some good memories and some bad ones. But today looking up at the clouds, surrounded by talented, kind, gracious friends I thought- there's no where I'd rather be.

'Stories We Tell' A Review

Stories We Tell is a documentary from Sarah Polley about memory, family, and truth. The film starts out ostensibly about the mystery of Sarah's parentage but then morphs into a much more complex story. Polley interviews her father, her biological father, her siblings, and her mom's friends. She uses her father's written account of his life as narration throughout the film. Along with the talking head interviews she intercuts super 8 footage of her parents as well as recreated super 8 footage of past family events.

The film emerges as Polley's attempt to reconstruct her mother who died when she was 11 and as a loving tribute to the father who raised her. She includes candid moments before, after, and during interviews making it very clear she is making a movie. She is constructing this narrative, however she does endeavor to synthesize everyones memories in order to get at some kind of truth. To answer the question: how do we define the past?

The film is full of touching, deep, profound moments. It's rich and lyrical and thought provoking.

Don't Miss It.

'The Great Gatsby' & 'Frances Ha' Reviews

The Great Gatsby is the most recent fmovie adaptation of the 1925 novel this time brought to you by Baz Luhrmann. Maybe the novel makes a more pointed statement about the American Dream but the movie deliverers virtually nothing on social commentary and entertainment.

The performances are shallow, artificial, and unconvincing except for Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan and Jason Clarke as George but who unfortunately have little to do. The visuals are flashy but the CGI is so bad nothing in the entire movie, including the actors skin tone, appears real. No character is likable, empathetic, or kind and therefore garners no interest in the viewer. The voice over is contrived and the convention of the narrator being in a sanitarium looking back is unnecessary and pedantic. 

I can't remember much about the novel which I read in high school other than disinterest. The movie offers less, nothing, and reminds me of costume jewelry: fancy from far away, junk close up, and shoddily made.

Don't See It.

Frances Ha is a black and white dramedy about a 27 year old becoming an adult. The film has no narrative arc and simply follows Frances(Greta Gerwig) over the course of a couple months. Watching it I began to wonder "why?" The story in and of itself is not very interesting and Frances isn't likable. She's self centered, naive to the point of irritating ignorance, lazy, and totally out of touch with reality. Not to mention her biggest "problem" is growing up: she can't pay rent, she's not being hired by the dance company she's apprenticing with, her best friend is spending more time with her boyfriend than with her etc. She's unsympathetic. It's a film about a white privileged twenty something Peter Pan.

Most of the comedic moments fall flat and we're left with a story that may be true and cathartic for Gerwig but which isn't interesting to watch. The film is like a long, less funny, less sexually explicit episode of Girls.

The film is shot beautifully, for the most part well acted, and well constructed but it's not a story begging to be told it's not even a story inquiring to be told. It's forgettable and self involved.

Don't See It.

A Restless Night

I saw a coyote in a graveyard

which might have been a ghost

or hungry spirit

trapped inside a ring of stones

with buried bones

wandering and free.

Curious I called out

"Are you searching and for what?"
Coyote looked and grinned
and licked his chin
yipped at me then disappeared
the moon covering his tracks.

The night was cold but not alone,
even shades need company.

A Disturbing Dream 11

I have had a reoccurring dream for the past year, between two and four times a month. The basic idea of the dream never changes but the circumstances and locations are always different.

I have to go back to high school and retake one or more classes. Usually they are biology, chemistry or physics classes. It may sound relatively mundane but there's an oppressive sense of panic and desperation in the dream.

Sometimes I'm in my former high school or middle school but most of the time I'm in some huge weird conglomeration of all schools that I've ever been to or heard of.

I'm usually lost and late for class. I'm always my age so I'm a decade older then the oldest students.

Almost always the material being presented is miles over my head which invariably makes me incredibly frustrated and/or depressed. Many times I get kicked out of class and wander the halls looking in to classrooms trying to gain entrance, to learn something, to have some purpose.

Other times I'm at my childhood home and I'm late for class. I feel like a real bum at 28 being late for biology. I show up late and get hall-swept and end up spending the whole day in detention with students and a teacher who's younger than I am.

Often times I'm in the main office getting directions to my classes from a secretary. She outlines a route on a map which I immediately forget, she gives me my schedule which I immediately lose, I wander the halls aimlessly looking in at classrooms full of smart kids I have nothing in common with. I don't fit in and I never will.

Out of place, out of time.

Bubble Boys: Finale

Our season 1 finale ends with a bang. We have Tisher and I's beloved teacher Bill Arnett and my good friend Ted Tremper as our guests as well as some surprise cameos. When we started writing the series we knew we wanted to end in San Francisco but didn't really know what we would do once we got there. This episode came together pretty organically with a lot of surprises and a lot of energy. And we ended almost right where we began.

Tisher, Tim, and I thank you for traveling with the Bubble Boys on their bumbling cross country adventure. It's been a great pleasure to work on this and I'm grateful to all who helped and any and all who listened.


Sven and Henry seek out Henry's uncle in San Francisco in the hopes of perfecting their gum and ending their journey. Little do they know what lies in wait for them in Fog City.

Featuring:
Steve Nelson as Sven Ingaborg
Andrew Tisher as Henry Mossmouth
Bill Arnett as Gustus Mossmouth
and Ted Tremper as Lamont Meringue
with Gary Richardson as Chauncey Winge
Sarah Shockey as Ms. Prettybook
and Tim Joyce as Errol Burrows

Spring Rain

It stormed last night. The first thunder storm since its gotten warm. I love standing out in the rain during a really fierce down pour. Just letting the rain wash over me and wash everything away. It can make for some uncomfortably soggy shoes though. Going out and being part of a storm, instead of taking shelter from it, is a way to get in touch with those chaotic elements of life which we often ignore.

This scene from Cool Hand Luke sums it up.

Tune Up

I've had 7 bikes in the city: 5 were stolen, 1 was ravaged by weather, and 1 I currently ride. Every spring I get my bike fixed up or, depending, purchase a bike for the coming season.

Every year I go to Nearly New Bikes on Broadway to get my tune up or a new(old) bike. It's a great hole-in-the-wall shop with great service and great prices. The guy who owns and runs the place is named Ron, for the longest time I thought the place was just called Ron's, he's quiet and watches over all the bikes like a little kingdom. It's a great place, not so hipstery where everyone there is a bike snob and not commercial where all the employees try to up sell you and take advantage of the fact you don't know anything about bikes. The only problem with it is it usually has a lot of volume so you may have to make more than one trip to get what you need.

My yearly bike repair or purchase feels like it starts the summer. I get my bike tuned up and I feel ready to hit the road, enjoy the sun, the wind, and battle the heat. I feel mobile. The chains and the webs of winter are finally shaken off. The road ahead is bright and warm.

And the summer full of promise.

Smokeless

I just found this poem when I was going through an old binder. I wrote it in college, it's about dip.

I deposit it

Gingerly

Between two tube like necessities

And salivate.

A waterfall of drool

Escapes threw a crack,

A polluted Spring.

I wretch brown bile

One of the seven

Personality fluids.

The camel passes time, incessantly

Gumming an imaginary nipple.

Real addiction

The oral fetish.

Fluid flees a cleft chin

Stars double

Bells,

 a sound

that isn’t…

'Mud' & 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Reviews

Mud is a coming of age thriller about two 14 year old boys, Ellis and Neckbone, in Mississippi who meet a mysterious man on an island. The film is reminiscent of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and even tips its hat to those books with McConaughey's character Mud having a cross nailed into his boot heels like Pap Finn.

The film follows the two friends the summer before they enter high school. They hear about a boat stuck in a tree on an island and they go to investigate. On the island they meet Mud, a drifter, living on the island who they befriend and help. Although the film is titled Mud its more about this particular summer in Ellis's life and to a lesser extent in Neckbone's as well.

Ellis's parents are going through a separation and Ellis sees Mud as a father figure, someone to look up to. Mud is hiding on the island in hopes of reuniting with his high school sweetheart although it's unclear why exactly he needs to hide out.

The film unfolds in a blend of emotion and excitement. The friendship of Ellis and Neckbone is real and engaging and McConaughey as Mud puts in his best performance since A Time To Kill. The film has a substantial and amazing supporting cast which fills out the world which jumps off the screen. It's unfortunate though because the supporting characters only get so much screen time.

Mud is a vibrant, touching, film about growing up and adventuring out into the unknown.

See It.

Star Trek Into Darkness is the follow up to the 2009 reboot. Lots of action but almost no surprises. The movie looks great but the story and the acting have taken a dip since the previous incarnation. The plot is incredibly convoluted and seems to have been put together for maximum spaceship-phaser conflict as opposed to actual narrative coherence.

The entire cast returns but are given substantially less to do, it's a waste to have such a great ensemble pigeoning their previous performances. There are a few great moments between Kirk and Spock but they are few and far between. Benedict Cumberbatch is a great addition to the cast but he too is underutilized.

I was entertained while in the theater but didn't give it a second thought after.

Rent It.

Doodaloot

A received a couple notes during classes and after that have stuck with me over the years. One of my first notes that I really took to heart was during Susan Messing's level 2 class at iO. I made this move to do a flashback and used the Wayne's World doodaloot-doodaloot thing where Wayne and Garth wave their hands up and down. Susan stopped the whole thing right there.

Susan: Stop, stop, stop! Don't fucking do doodaloot, everyone fucking knows doodaloot, I've seen doodaloot! Do something different. Do something original. You want to flashback? Don't do something you saw in a movie fifteen years ago.

At the time I was incredibly embarrassed and ashamed. I felt like an idiot. But it was a great lesson that I will never forget. It's sticks with me even now, not only not ripping off bits you've seen but also keeping things fresh for yourself.

Recently I've seen a lot of recycled stuff. People doing a lot of the same bits or characters or lines that they've used before because they work. And I think that's ok up until a point. With improv I think we're obligied to be constantly changing, constantly evolving. We can go through our period of playing old people, or playing ourselves, or playing the opposite sex all the time but then we have to push through and try different stuff. Keep it fresh. I recognize this in myself also. Craig said something to me last week that kind of stopped me short: "Oh we'll probably see the Steve Nelson teenage girl character tonight." I do play women frequently and in the past month or so I've played a lot of teenage girls.

Finding characters that you like and that audiences like is good, but relying on them heavily and never straying from them is a crutch. Not only do audiences get sick of it but the people you perform with get sick of it as well.

Strive for something new and more often than not you'll find it.

Editing

Tisher, Tim, and I edited the season 1 finale of Bubble Boys tonight. The most surprising thing about the project has been how interesting and fun editing has been. When we first started I thought editing would be laborious and during the first couple episodes it took us a long time to decide on what takes to use and how to put them together. As time past we all became much better about choosing takes, cutting in jokes we wanted to save, and making each episode flow.

I've always loved putting together Legos and puzzles as well as making collages. Fitting things together to make something else maybe something greater than its parts. Editing is evokes that same feeling but even more so because instead of using uniform blocks or someone else's art to make something we are using are own.

One of my favorite books is Zeroville by Steve Erickson, the main character in it is a film editor. I didn't understand when reading out how editing could be just as vital to a project as the acting or directing and just as satisfying. Now after our process I realize how crucial it is. How a joke here or a joke there, how this take as opposed to that take can influence the feel and flow of an episode.

I think the three of us have gotten substantially better about putting episodes together which makes me very excited about our second season, the editing will be much easier and theortically more streamlined.

Editing is a process I've come to take great pleasure in and I hope to do more of it in the future maybe branching out into videos. Although I'd have to get a camera first and a bunch of software I don't know how to use.

#1 Fan Fan

I love fans. I love the whirring sound while I go to sleep, the constant breeze, the smell of a well circulated room.

In an effort to beat the summer everyone-buying-fans rush I picked up this fan from Target yesterday. I threw away the receipt on my way out because I was 100% confident that I wouldn't need to return it because I get so much use out of fans.

When I got home I unpacked the fan and put it together. Much to my shock and disappointment when it came time to put the cage on the fan I couldn't find a vital piece. I searched all over my apartment and ripped the box completely open but I didn't find the piece I needed to secure the cage on the fan. I read the entire manual only to discover that I had to show proof of purchase in order to get a replacement. Foiled.

I'm using the fan and getting a substantial amount of enjoyment out of it. I've yet to hurt myself on the unshielded blades but I know an injury is inevitable.

I'm sure you will be purchasing a fan sometime in the near future when the Chicago heat descends like the inexorable blade of the guillotine.

When you do, remember to keep the receipt.

Bye Bye Love

I miss your comfort
your warmth and skin.
I miss burrowing under the covers
in a stuffy room
and whispering at night.
I miss the stupid jokes,
the secrets and gossip
and the hand-holding walks.
I miss the intimacy
the partnership.

There's a love sized hole
where you use to be.

I forgot to say good bye
to that part you took,
take care of my love
it was precious to me.

The Only Constant Is Change

Spring in the Midwest always seems very brief. And it always brings lots of changes with it. I got my insurance producers licence today, a situation I would have never predicted I'd be in. The license finally lets me take on my actual work duties without supervision. I don't enjoy my day job but I don't loath it either.  I can tolerate it with a smile and with little to no stress, a change in my self I never thought possible.

The weather is getting warmer and soon people will be complaining about the heat. Presently though we're in that wonderful inbetween. The cool heat of spring. It seems like everyone and everything is opening up, stretching out, and going back out into the world. People are being stirred up and change is in the wind. As I was walking to the exam building I saw this large patch of tulips. It made me forget all the pointless insurance nonsense I was storing in my brain for a moment. I took that moment to appreciate the view.

The tulips will be gone soon. But they're there now. And now is all that matters.

Heart of Darkness

When I was a boy I would lay in the long grass and watch the bees. After long mornings and even longer afternoons I became one. My hair fused together and became two feelers, my arms and legs shrank and splayed and became six stick like limbs, my torso truncated and sectioned off, and two clear wings stabbed out of my shoulder blades.

The world was odd, stretched and shallow. I felt a tugging on my head, the tickle of a beckoning finger drawing me towards a flower bed. To my bee-eyes what I knew to be a bunch of purple flowers looked fluorescent green and orange and at the center of each one there was powder particles. I could see individual motes of pollen scattered on the flower like salt on a table. I flew down and started collected little pollen dust bunnies and storing them inside one of abdomen sacks which was evidently made for just this purpose.

When my sacks were all stuffed I followed the twitching of my antenna back to the hive. I deposited the pollen I collected and gleefully joined in with my brother and sister bees mixing the pollen with water. We made a delightfully smelly sticky paste which I took in my mouth and fed to my little brother and sister bees secreted in their little combs. Then I decided to start all over again.

I flew out and made my way to the flower bed but on my way I saw a little boy lying in the grass. I could feel my stinger sharp and deadly in my bum. I wonder what it would feel like to sting someone. I flew close to the little boy but didn't land, I didn't want to wake him yet. I built up steam with my beating wings and dived bum-stinger first into his arm.

"OUCH" I cried. I sat up and a bee tumbled off my arm and into my hand. I poked at it, it lay curled and unmoving, dead. "I don't think I'd like to be a bee."

Valhalla

In Norse mythology there's a majestic hall in the sky where all the heroic spirits are gathered. The hall is called Valhalla, under the watchful eye of Odin the All-Father the dead heroes feast, tell stories, and train for the coming of Ragnarok. The end of days.

When I look up in the sky I think of Valhalla, I think of all the spirits of great men and women who have passed, that are waiting, watching, vigilantly for a time they will be needed.

I imagine my grandfather there. Smiling and telling stories to his brothers. Watching over me and helping when he can. It's a comforting thought. It makes the day bright and sharp.

Full of potential.

Truth Will Out

I'm a proficient liar. As a product of being raised by two lawyers and some unfortunate habits I developed growing up I became very good at misdirection, omission, and untruth. I became interested in acting and performing when I was young and that also enhanced my abilities for interpersonal deception. The key to a good lie is three fold.

1. Believe It- You have to summon up the same kind of ease you have when telling something that's true. There's a little switch in your brain you can flip to make yourself believe, on a very basic superficial level, something false is true for a short time in order to deceive someone.

2. Elements of Truth-  If your story or deception has elements of truth in it it will be easier to tell. Out-and-out lies are difficult to tell because of all the unknown variables, but lies with parts of truth will make the lies sound true.

3. Simplicity- The more complex the lie or deception the easier it is to identify as an untruth. Keep things simple, the simplest explanations are usually the correct ones, most everyone operates on this basic reasoning, so something simple will not set off any flags but something elaborate will invite scrutiny.

I don't advocate lying and I'm not proud of having done it or the time I spent analyzing its application. I list this information here to give some credence to my experience with it and my subsequent change of heart.

For the past couple years I've tried to analyze my own behavior and be more truthful. In the past year I've tried not to lie at all and have been moderately successful. The reason being I discovered how pointless, selfish, and harmful it is.

In order to be happy you need to have relationships, romantic and otherwise, you need to have friends and family that love and support you and that you love and support in turn. Those relationships, those connections, are two way streets, they are partnerships, and are built on a level of trust. Lying and deceiving your loved ones degrades that bond, breaks it down, until you are left with shallow connections or no connections at all. Loneliness is a toxic thing, it breeds desperation and dangerous behavior. They way to combat that is simply to be honest. It may be hard at times to express yourself, it may be a challenge, but in the end expressing yourself and having your needs known and listening to the needs of others strengthens your relationships as well as your well being. If you have honest fruitful relationships you will be happy and balanced. Not all the time of course but more often than not.

Deception creates drama, creates tension, creates pain and misunderstanding and hurt. The more lies you tell the more they have to be maintained with other lies. And in the end the truth always comes to light. Truth will out. It's buoyant. And once it does there's collateral damage to deal with. Save yourself the trouble and be as truthful as you can be to forgo all that. Life is never simple but we can manage and grow and develop ourselves if we stay open and consider the needs and wants and desires of those around us as well as our own.

Stay in your truth.

'Iron Man 3' & 'Kon-Tiki' Reviews

Iron Man 3 is the seasons first superhero movie spewed out of the Marvel sequel machine. The film picks up an unspecified amount of time after The Avengers and doesn't hold up in anyway as a stand alone movie. The action is decent and the story is passable but the film leaves a lot to be desired. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark a fourth time and some of the polish has worn off. He plays it a little darker and a little more flawed but the only real success is the chemistry he has with an 8 year old.

Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall and Ben Kingsley are underutilized and struggle to bring the flat dialogue and shallow story to life. There's a twist regarding one of the villains which is predictable and disappointing.

Overall, moderately entertaining but nothing new. You would get equal or more enjoyment of rewatching the previous films.

Rent It.

Kon-Tiki is a historical adventure film based on the journey of Thor Heyerdahl in 1947. Heyerdahl sailed on a balsa wood raft from Peru to Polynesia with a five man crew. The film is shot beautifully but unsophisticated in its editing which at points becomes distracting. English is the second language of the actors which makes their accents believable but at times impairs their acting, especially the actor playing Thor. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film but must have been recorded in English or dubbed for the screening I saw.

The beginning of the film starts off slow and confusing however the film picks up once the raft is launched and the six men are alone in the open sea. The relationships that develop and the characters that reveal themselves are what the film is really about, and they are engaging, thought provoking, and at times inspiring.

The story in itself is miraculous but the film conveys only a portion of the magic of the real act. Heavy handed underscoring and plot devices hit the audience over the head with the theme of the film which would be more poignant with more finesse.

Rent It.

Bubble Boys: Twin Trains To Cairo

Twin Trains To Cairo is the fictitious movie Tisher and I created for our "movie premiere" episode. The movie reminds me a bit of this historical fiction series I was really into in high school by Elizabeth Peters. This episode was especially fun for me because it was centered around the movie biz and Tisher and I got to play different characters that were just as much the focus of the episode as Sven and Henry. Julia and Ariel were a joy to have in the studio, songs were sung and innuendos were made in plenty.

We have one more episode to go and we're taking a week off before releasing the season 1 finale, so listen, enjoy, and let your mind wander.


The Bubble Boys get a peek inside the glitz and glam of Hollywood.

Featuring:
Steve Nelson as Sven Ingaborg, Zed Virtue, and Bradley Dingaling
Andrew Tisher as Henry Mossmouth and Patrick Dingaling
Ariel Dumas as Joanna Vonkraminschlamer and Ethel Gerkin
and Julia Weiss as Faye Sparrow and Timmy
With excerpts from original songs "Kittens" and "The Moon & Me"

A Disturbing Dream 10

I'm at an outdoor music festival. It's grunge or punk or something. It's in a valley in a state park and the site is ringed by trees. The crowd is filled with people wearing dirty jeans and t-shirts. And for some reason everyone has brought their dogs. There are as many dogs as people. I brought my dog Pepper with me, Pepper's is a 14 year old excitable beagle, and I can't find her.

I'm walking around through a bunch of my fellow attendees who are significantly rougher than me. As I go through the crowd I'm getting more and more anxious and scared. I call her name and then start to shout it. There's tons of dogs, some of them beagles, and there's a good amount of fights between them. I feel like I'm about to cry so I make my why to the bathrooms in order to do it privately.

In one last ditch effort I whistle as loud and long as I can. (I can't whistle in real life) Pepper scampers up to me favoring one of her back legs, I'm overcome with joy. It looks like she's hurt and I lean down and take her in my arms. She licks my hands, my neck, and my face. She looks at me and grins her dog grin, takes a deep breath, and sighs. As she lets out the sigh she starts to shake. After the breath has completely left her she lies in the crook of my arm limp and still. She's just died. All the sorrow and fear in me is released, I look up into the dappled sunlight, and let out a long cry as tears begin to flood down my cheeks.

I awoke.

Pepper was put to sleep almost two years ago. She had been battling cancer for the previous three. I never got to say good bye. She was a great dog: beautiful, energetic, and loving.

Graffiti 99

"For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it." -Ivan Panin

"This is the female form, vapor,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heavaen or fear'd of hell, are now consumed, Mad filament, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable..."
-Walt Whitman

"In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves." -Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Inciting Incident 16

I ask friends "When did you first feel the need to perform?" This comes from amateur lyrisist and Chicago's man-of-a-thousand-voices Scott Nelson.

April Showers, May Flowers

 I came back to Rockford for the weekend to see my folks, sister, my friend Adam and his boys. I had a great visit with everyone and went on a walk with my sis at one point. We saw a bunch of beautiful spring flowers, enjoyed the sun, and I reveled in the spaciousness of the neighborhood I grew up in.

 We saw a ton of tulips(my favorite flower) and daffodils.

 A couple small dogwoods.

 I think these are phlox but I'm not sure.

 More tulips!

 A couple gorgeous magnolia trees. Adam has one in his yard.

 Tons of daffodils, I'm not really fans of these things, overexposure maybe.

I got to see Adam and his boys Ethan and Eli. We played outside with some sidewalk chalk and glow sticks, then went inside and played with action figures for about an hour and a half. Toward the end of the night we we're flipping and flying and throwing the boys around. Probably not the best idea right before they went to bed but it was a great night. The highlight of my week. It's a joy to see Adam so happy and to be a part of the family he's making.

Rockford is my hometown. A great place to visit to decompress, see the stars, and smell the grass.

 

The Hague

My new team picked a name and had our first show last night. It's a great mix of talented committed people, half of which are from Rick, that I'm really excited and grateful to perform with.

Rehearsals the past month have been great, people seem to be gelling and were doing some different stuff form wise that frees us up to develop our own style and experiment. Everything is just starting of course but its a good start and I'm eager to rehearse more, do more shows and see where we end up. I love beginnings, there's a lot of energy, there's some uncertainty and because of that maybe a little danger, a little more risk.

The show was good but not great. I think anyone watching enjoyed it but it wasn't up to the caliber we've been doing in rehearsal. Fun and funny without being cohesive. We were all kind of down after it, the post show blues which happens every once in a while. But we talked about it in, diagnosed it afterwards which brought it into some perspective. I haven't dissected a show like that with a team afterwards in a long time, I remember The Album use to talk the show to death after, and its a good thing. It gets everyone on the same page, solidifies that feeling of team, we're all in this together.

It wasn't a firework display of a first show but it was a start. And at this points thats all we need.

You have to take the first step down the path in order to walk it.

Anticipation

From a friend

every time
a fart sneaks out
i'm scared it will be
liquid poo
because i've waited too long
you see
to go to the bathroom
and now my roommate
primps and grooms
as i sit here
bubbling
as urgently i pray
that i do not poop my pants
this morn
"please poop, just go away
but not by coming out of my
butthole and into my pants"

Bubble Boys: The Gubernatorial Race

Episode 8 and we're that much closer to the season finale. This episode takes a little from O' Brother Where Art Thou?, my father's political career, and also from the real life dynamic of our guests Gary and John. As the season has progressed I feel like Tisher, Tim, and I have hit our stride on recording and editing, there's a lot more confidence in our own performances as well as what we want from an episode. I love this one and I hope you do too!


Sven and Henry throw their hats into the political ring with disastrous effect.

Featuring:
Steve Nelson as Sven Ingaborg
Andrew Tisher as Henry Mossmouth and FDR
John Reynolds as Doug Znacks and Poll Worker #2
Gary Richardson as Chauncey Winge and Poll Worker#1
and Tim Joyce as Newsman