January 2011
34 posts
Illinois Tax Increase: Why Lawmakers Passed 66... →
allow this to explain your suddenly skimpier paycheck. seriously? and no, we-the-peons couldn’t have done anything about it. we were too busy working our asses off.
the encyclopedia show
just finished my piece.
come see The Encyclopedia Show this Groundhog Day at the Vittum Theater in West Town. the show starts at 7:30pm so bring your writerly genius friends and don’t be late else you’ll have to enter stealthy through the rear voms.
a tipping point
wrecked & clueless.
i have three new writing assignments this week. good! yes! no self-denigrating commentary. holding on that for at least seven days. (personal challenge) this is the best i can be right now.
dear guacamole
how does it feel to have your ass kicked?
six state of the union degrees of too many best...
this is the second year in a row i’ve noticed an announcement of the year’s Oscar nominations landing right on top of the presidential State of the Union Address. the coincidence is just too incoincidental.
last year AMPAS capped out the nominees for best picture at a staggering nine. this year they’ve upped the ante with a farcical ten.
in other news, Annette Bening will once...
hack
is it pathetic and fraudulent that Slings & Arrows is the only influence that makes me actually want to read Shakespeare?
frickin' snacks!
made these raw cinnamon-sunflower truffles tonight. they are super easy and delish. we’re talking 20 minutes from start to finish.
better than the taste was the surrealist cultural experience i had today at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, where i acquired some of my ingredients in the interest of convenience at the detriment of cost. i could tell you about it, but you already know what...
A Racy Show With Teenagers Steps Back From a... →
bottom line: not unlike The Office, the new British version of Skins is better. though also like The Office, it’s a rather satisfying crossover given the wild success of the original.
Skins is a good show. unlike “reality” shows like Laguna Beach, The Hills, Sixteen & Pregnant, My Super Sweet 16, and Jersey Shore, Skins is a fictional account of rambunctious teens getting...
“thank goodness. over the break, i forgot which floor i worked on. i knew it was...”
– Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock (after being reminded that he works on the 6th floor)
neti pot is the devil
be warned. don’t believe the hype.
i had never even heard of a neti pot until about two years ago. as far as i know, they don’t exist anywhere other than Chicago. if you claim to believe they do and are as miraculous as people claim, how is it that i went the first twenty-five years of my life without ever hearing anything about them?
behold. Neti Pot.
Neti Pot is this dumb fucking...
peddling thoughts over black ice evenings with a...
an opportunity is all the more precious a gift when it becomes no longer available for the offering.
donation demonstration (part 1)
this is the product information for the “Pig Popper”
below you will find a video of me being nailed in the face with the “Pig Popper” which, as the packaging advises, should never be shot “at someone’s head or animals.”
WatchDonation Demonstration (part 2) with Michael.
it's a busy sprinter/wing season
many new things coming up in the next few months. debut performances at Write Club & The Encyclopedia Show, plus a new run of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind.
also i am pregnant, engaged, and adopting twin lesbian babies from Mozambique.
please skeedaddle over to the recently updated “performances” page for upcoming events and dates.
shaggy bulk coupon junk in your mailbox = fail →
do you get those flimsy paper flapcrap RedPlum/Local Savings booklets in your mailbox once a week or more? me too. they are a pain-in-the-ass waste of paper.
visit the link above to remove yourself from their mailing list. you can do the same for credit card, insurance, magazine, and catalog offers by visiting DMAChoice and opening an account to put a foreseeable end to postal buildup.
on the loss of a(n) ___________ teacher
i have had exactly three writing teachers in my life who i would consider to be major influences. all of them are women. one of them was Mary Scruggs.
i ended up in the guinea pig semester of Columbia/Second City’s “Comedy Studies” semester intensive in the second lap of my junior year. Mary’s comedy writing class was immediately my favorite. when our “Context For...
new music t---wednesday
courtesy of Laurie’s Planet of Sound. and by courtesy of, i mean i gave them a couple dollars more than i could have given iTunes in exchange for a couple of CDs. not a terribly bad deal considering that Cake’s newbie just came out yesterday and they already had a copy in the used section thanks to some music critic with pre-release copies and a more reliable CD burn drive than mine.
...
spotted at i.o.
“do you recognize that guy at the end of the bar? to my far right?”
no.
i think about it for a few minutes, trying to figure out if i saw him perform in a show or had a class with him or if he is a customer at my place of work.
oh!
it’s John Lutz from 30 Rock.
the (real) dilemma
here’s the real dilemma—
i didn’t put it together. a few things, actually. in looking for this picture so that i could bitch a blue streak over this new movie, i made the connection that this was the movie that shot here at the end of last summer, the one i only knew as “the untitled Ron Howard project” because someone i knew spent a couple of days shooting on it....
comfort foods
sesame ginger kale. potato leek soup. Cee-Lo Green & Kanye West. this month, anyway.
and none of these things are southern. except Cee-Lo.
slings & arrows
I have tried to get into this show at least twice before now. all it took was streaming Netflix and the courage to be lazy for once.
do you think if they put it on Bravo following The Real Housewives and spelled it $ling$ + Arrow$ that it would have been a great commercial success?
probably not. it’s a teletheatrical jab at the Stratford Theatre Festival, and who the hell’s ever...
“POSTED ON JANUARY 1, 2011:
The Neo-Futurists
By Bill O’Driscoll
I...”
– from The Pittsburgh City Paper, written by Bill O’Driscoll
reckon they liked us then. that’s always nice
