The last rehearsals of The Bonfire...




So why is it called The Bonfire? Well, the penultimate scene takes place at a 4th of July bonfire, but it works also as a sort of "crucible", where people's lives are burned away by a fire, to be born again, phoenix-like.

Come see the show, and try and spot all my recurring images of rebirth, fire, starting over, etc. etc.

It was the Duder's birthday today, so we grabbed some pizza and beers at this new place in town. Nice place, but no one's ever in it. Maybe because it doesn't look like a bar, or a restaurant. It looks like a crap place in a strip mall. If you're from around where I live, go check out Bacetti's. It's a decent place.

Today I had to play four different roles in the play. I'm thinking of just turning the play into a one-man show.

This is the second time I've been stuck at that damn theatre while everyone else gets to be home and watching TV. I hate being the last guy out...

Bought the last Johnny Cash album today, after months of staring at it on the racks.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was the number one movie in America.

We had an earthquake last night. Remember, I live in Illinois.



Three days until opening night. And I have to play one of the roles. And I still have one part not cast. All those people (i.e. adults) that said they wanted to come in and act in the play? Yeah, screw you...

The new Wilco album is really good, but Jeff, baby, it's still okay to write a pop song every now and then. Listening to some of A Ghost is Born is like reading a textbook. But the fucking 10 minutes of static and feedback is worth hearing "The Late Greats."

The first show of Limelight 2004 premiered tonight, and it was quite successful. "Random Acts of Theatre" was a holdover from our aborted Winter 2004 season. Basically, it's a collection of short one-acts, designed to give some newer actors something to really excel in, and a chance to see how some new Limelight directors would do. And as you'd expect, some was great, and some was not. But overall I'm very pleased, and one director has already earned her own show next summer.

Man, that last Harry Potter movie was a good one. And you gotta give it up for David Thewlis. I first saw him in a Mike Leigh movie called "Naked" about 10 years ago. So fucked-up, vicious, and tender, and freaky, and real. He plays Professor Lupin. He's cool.

This is one of those days where everything I wanted to talk about has already been covered by Tony Pierce. So go read his blog and get excited about Fahrenheit 9/11 with me.

I will not be seeing it anytime soon, or any movie for that matter, since we've got three different productions going over the next four weeks.

Clink the Limelight link if you're into that type of thing.

Man, I hate that stupid Scottish piece of chewing gum.

Why does every picture of me only show my left profile? Is it my good side or something? Maybe I'm subliminally pulling a Barbara Walters, who only allows herself to be photographed from one side.

Actually, it's because I'm left-handed, and whenever I take a picture of myself, I'm using my left hand to do so.

Trivia question: who was the celebrity interviewee who told Walters she should only show one side on camera?

I don't think I've actually posted this on here. Any bloggers out there that come see the show get a special prize from yours truly!!!

You know, after that whole thang with Bill Clinton and Monica, the Republicans (specifically George Bush) have been walking around trumpeting the fact that they're the "moral" party, the one with the sense of decency.

Give it up. As Steve Dahl said today, any hooker will tell you that it's easier working a Democratic convention, because they tend to be pretty straight up, while the Pubs tend to be really creepy.

I bring this up because the GOP scored a nice hat trick in the last 24 hours. First the Republican governor of Connecticut resigns due to a major scandal involving bribes and corruption and whatnot.









Then it's revealed that the Bush administration lied about the number of deaths associated with terrorism, in order to make it seem like we were "winning" the war on terror.





And now Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Illnois, Jack Ryan, has been accused of forcing ex-wife Jeri Ryan (from Star Trek: Voyager) to go to sex clubs with him, so that she could have sex with strangers. (I don't think she actually did it, but it was Jack's modus operandi.





And yet the nation's youth (at least an alarming number of them that I know) think it's Cool to be Conservative, and proclaim their love of Rush Limbaugh and the "Fair and Balanced" FOX News.

Stop this fucking ride, because I want to get off.

(Click the pictures above for the story, if you think I'm full of shit.)

Ohhh, to have the energy of my younger days...

I'm still a night owl, but it ain't like the old days. When am I going to surrender and start going to bed at a reasonable hour? I know people younger than me that go to bed before fucking 10! What's up with that?

Happy Belated Father's Day to DAVE...

I got him a couple of Trekking Poles for he and Ma to use when they go hiking, which is quite often.

Seriously, I have such an awesome set of parents. They never try and tell me what to do, they travel constantly, love the Cubs, and spend their weekends hiking and drinking the occasional margarita.

I love you guys...

While walking around Prairie Fest, handing out flyers for my show, stepping carefully amongst funnel cake remains, corn dog stands, and Band Boosters, I apparently missed one hell of a Cub game. Mi Madre even called me to see if I had caught the end.

That's the coolest thing about my mom. She'll call me just to talk about baseball.

Three more days...

For those of you who blog, but don't know the ins and outs of blogging, I suggest going to
Tony's site to read up on the 20-something rules of blogging. I asked him about 1 or 2 more, and I'm waiting to hear back from him. In the meantime, he was kind enough to add my site to his links. He gets thousands of links a day; I get about 20. So that's praise from Caesar, I guess.

A long day today...

Thank Jebus that most everyone lets you pay your bills over the phone. Bonfire rehearsals have kept me so busy I haven't had time to do the usual household crap like bills, groceries, and garbage. (I think I need a houseboy or assistant or something.)

One of the more annoying things teachers have to do every year is "pack up" their room. Everything comes off the walls, and everything gets boxed up, even if you're going right back into that room come September. So I packed up my room, and then suddenly got a new job in two (yes, two) different buildings. So now my job is to go back and unpack everything, separate the stuff I need versus the stuff I can pitch. So that's my project right now.

Then I whored myself out at Prairie Fest for about 5 hours today, passing out flyers for the Limelight shows and trying to get people to buy raffle tickets, so insuring that the Limelight Theatre Company isn't seen as a huge financial drain for my park district sponsors.

Groceries, Target, and now home. Was supposed to play cards with the boys tonight, but too many people cancelled, so it may just be me and the Lost in Translation DVD.

My hands smell like gyros...

COWBOY BEBOP IS THE FUCKING SHIT!!!!!



I watched "The Ballad of Fallen Angels" again tonight. Come on, why isn't this show on some legendary list of greatest stories ever told. It's the first really big Vicious story, and most of it goes pretty normal-like, except for that ending where Spike falls through the stained-glass window (what's a Gothic cathedral doing on Mars anyway?), and his whole former life flashes before his eyes. Is it another show we never saw? The early manga days? A life we never really see? And then there's Julia...the girl that haunts him forever.

Watching that show makes me glad I'm alive.

My heart's in the highlands...

Actually, it's in Ireland. I heard from my friend Clare today. She's back in Dublin working, probably on another film. Glen's still in Galway.

I could walk away from this all in a minute, and disappear over there...

The news on the MRI: perfectly normal. So now that's doctor #4 (and who knows how much money spent) that hasn't told me dick. I can apparently still bike ride, not that I've done much of that lately. So who knows what's up with this stupid foot...

The second week of rehearsals are drawing to a close, and they're going well, although a few people aren't into my "let's create scenes and characters through rehearsal" philosophy. I think some people just want their part and that's that. Ok, whatever. I'm just trying to get them involved, learn how to "create."

Enough of that.

Meet Joe Blog


Courtesy of fellow blogger Di, the above article from Time magazine focuses on what this whole blogosphere is all about.

More from me later.

I gotta give a little shout out, mad props, holla, or whatever it is the young urban youth says today, to Anti. He's another blogger out there, and the first that I've heard from since my brief conversations with Bunny.

Basically, he's got a crapface for a father like me, so I salute him for living with it and moving on.

Yes, that is a penis. A penis in a jar. A mummified member, if you will.

It's apparently Rasputin's penis, on display at the Russian Museum of Erotica.

Just in case you hadn't figured out your summer vacation plans yet.

I think my body is reacting to stress in a not-so-good way.

Like it's completely shutting down or something. I can't explain it all, but I have had too many things wrong with me, from gimpy foot to bronchial infection and several things in between that we don't need to get into.

Basically, I'm a mess. I think once this play is done I'm just going to sleep for six weeks and tell everyone to fuck off.

For more pictures of HOT OLD LADIES GETTIN' NASTY click the Pictures link above.

Ok I have all these great pictures from the wedding I was at, but Buzznet seems to be inoperable right now.

Actually, it seems to have completely disappeared, like it never actually existed. I checked Bunny and Tony's sites to see if their links were up, but....nothing.

I'm a little freaked out. Or it could just be that it's after 1 and I'm tired.

The first week of rehearsals for The Bonfire are over. We spent a week working out some of the kinks from the script (there were many, since I wrote it), and will continue to do so next week. I'm really trying to stretch my actors on this one, and get them to learn some good imrov skills, and also how to write a scene, tell a story, yadda yadda.



So far I feel good about the play, although my head certainly hasn't been in rehearsals 100% this week. I've had a bad cold/allergy thing, the new job, and just coming off the last week of school has worn me out. I've got that stretched hobbit feel to it.

Speaking of: best part of the MTV Movie Awards: Hobbit-on-Hobbit Action!

I have a new job!

Today I was hired as the district's new Academically Talented Resource Teacher. In ther words, I pull out the smart nerds for a couple hours a week to work on some more challenging lessons in small group activity, etc. etc.

I am very excited about this. It's a promotion, of sorts. At least what constitutes a promotion in the teaching profession, without having to be a fucking principal or anything. I still work with kids, but I don't have the pressure and the stress of trying to run a full classroom any more, or run a grade level, or things like that.

On the other hand, I won't get to teach history any more, which I dearly love to do. Or the worst: I won't get to do read-aloud. I can't tell you how much I enjoy taking 20 minutes to read a story to my kids. That'll be tough.

Also, I won't get to work with a really fantastic team. Joe, Tara, Katrina, Sara, and Eric: if you read this before I get a chance to tell you...well, sorry guys. Too good to pass up. But you were an absolute blast to work with, and I am very proud of the work we did together. Leaving you guys is the bitterest pill to swallow.

Did anyone see this? I guess Chicagoans only got to see an hour's worth.

So I installed one of those counters that tells me how many hits I've gotten. While it's pretty small potatoes compared to some blogs, I had 20 hits in the last 24 hours, which is kind of creepy, since I don't know 20 people who read this blog. Or maybe I do, and too many of you aren't into the whole commenting thing. Well, listen up: part of blogging is commenting. So if you read this, you gotta let me know sometimes and drop a comment in here or there. That's part of the deal. And if you start a blog of your own, I'll be happy to a)link it and b) read it and comment on it.

This blog's readership spans quite a spectrum; I know I have a few high schoolers that read it, some family members, and maybe some far-flung bloggers that I do not know. I know I obsessively read a network of blogs that all interconnect, but yet I am not a part of their world. Sad, really. But maybe one day fortune will shine upon me and I will get a lovely link spot on Bunny or Tony or Raymi's sites.

In other news I had a job interview today, where I kicked major ass. More later.

WTF? I put up a bunch of new pictures and no one checks 'em out. Come on, people. I've got too much time on my hands. I need comments, comments!

In other news, today I had an MRI on my right foot. The stupid thing has been giving me trouble for the past 18 months or so, and no one seems to be able to help me get it fixed. So today I get to be inserted into this big tube, where I have to lie perfectly still for sessions that last up to ten minutes each. But I have to cough constantly, you see, and so all I'm doing there is desperately trying to keep my cough in my system without it erupting outwards, shaking my body from head to toe in a horrible spasm of MRI disaster. It wasn't fun.

I also bought some items to keep my occupied, now that my lifestyle has lightened up a bit. "i" by the Magnetic Fields, the latest issue of Magnet, and the new book by David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. If you haven't read Sedaris, pick him up. Very funny stuff.

It's strange...in the past few weeks I've bought my first Morrissey CD and my first Sedaris book, yet I know all of their works backwards and forwards. I guess it's because my old roommate Randy always had that stuff, and I never needed to get it for myself. Ahh, but how times have changed...

Summer allergies, a summer cold, or some sort of wiccan curse has taken hold of me the last few days. So whilst trying to get my classroom packed up and start auditions, I've had to deal with expectorating crap out of my lungs.

In the meantime, I've seen a few movies. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was so much better than the first two, which is pretty much the same thing everyone said about the books as well. They stop being Scooby-style mysteries and embrace this rich world that offers up dark, rich stories that are beginning to take their place alongside the classics.




Rented Kill Bill Vol. 1; if you want two hours of Uma kicking a lot of ass, then this is the movie for you. It was good, but not awesome. I think it'll make more sense once seen with Vol. 2.



And then there was Timeline...

I read the book a couple of years ago; I'm a sucker for Michael Crichton, and the book was a decent time-travel story mixed with 14th century French history. The movie sucks ass. That's all that needs to be said.

D-Day -1...



Sorry I haven't updated at all this week. Last week of school, first days of Limelight. Plus I have some sort of bronchial disaster happening in my lungs right now.

I think it's appropriate to look back at General Eisenhower's brilliant letter he wrote to the 150,000 servicemen that were about to cross the English Channel to begin the great invasion of Nazi Europe.