CHRISTASTROPHE

Introductory Music

2009-07-14T14:18:44Z

(Uh, imagine something really bombastic and awesome, like "Latin Thugs" or "Shadrach" or, I dunno, "A Fifth of Beethoven". Or, OK, alternately, a music box filled with ants. Whatever. Think of something that is wonderful.)

My website has gone live, with a few weeks worth of old posts that have been retroactively published. Check it out, tell your friends! Make it your favorite website ever. Rock and roll and the attendant hoochie-cooing.

Make that change

2009-06-26T20:34:03Z

One time in high school I got really bored and dropped a whole lot of powerful acid and drove down to the golf course to hit a bucket of balls. I had recently acquired my trademark fedora on a trip to New York and, at the time, wore it everywhere I went. I also constantly wore wraparound fake Oakleys.

Anyway, the acid hit really hard on the drive over and I stopped into a gas station to get my head together and snag some water and cigarettes. As I was waiting in line, tripping my nuts off and attempting to keep my brain in my skull, this tiny Mexican woman nudged me from behind and asked me if I was Michael Jackson.

This is the sort of thing that they show on commercials for LSD.

I had no idea how to react, so I just politely said I was not Michael Jackson and turned away, thankful that she couldn't see my eyes behind my sunglasses (because they'd turned into rotating beach balls by that point, of course, to match the rising and falling oceans of blood behind the counter). But she was a sweet little woman of a certain age, and I pictured her listening to Jackson Five records on the floor of her bedroom, possibly on a tiny plastic record player like the one we had at home that we listened to "We Are the World" on over and over again.

I was about to start running from the Dragon that was stalking the gas station aisles when I heard her little voice again. "No, I know it's you" she playfully insisted. I turned back to her.

Then she did something that will stick with me absolutely forever, particularly since it was so sweet and awesome it broke through all the drugs to absolutely kill me. With the most adoring look in her eyes and the sweetest little goofy smile she said, "I love you, Michael."

Now, all these years later, I honestly couldn't tell you if this woman really thought she was talking to Michael Jackson. Probably not. But there was something so real and sweet and vulnerable in that moment, and I don't know that there are all that many people who have ever lived who can engender that kind of feeling in people they've never actually met. 'Thriller' was the number one album in the country for 37 weeks. THIRTY SEVEN.

I left the gas station and headed out to the golf course completely discombobulated, and not by the drugs. There was something so sad and sweet and honest in that moment that just really crushed me. Maybe if she had been goofy about it I would have just walked away. But for a teeny tiny instant I was some kind of surrogate for Michael Jackson, and saw for a teeny tiny second the way that people look at you and genuinely love you when you're Michael Jackson, and it was no small thing to behold.

So then Michael Jackson left the gas station with a tiny wave to his fan, who lovingly watched him climb into his beat up Dodge Van, and then Michael Jackson bought a bucket of golf balls at the the par 3 course, but Michael Jackson's LSD was too strong and it got way too hard to hit the ball because the ground kept undulating so he kept hitting them all over the place, and at one point a guy came up to Michael Jackson and said "Are you the guy selling the golf clubs?", and it took Michael Jackson almost a full day to realize that he'd just totally gotten burned.

Dwight Howard is still OK in my book

2009-06-14T22:13:51Z

I will not say who, for national security purposes, but I applied for a an Associate Editor position with a popular internet weblog and they actually bothered to read my stuff and actually said that they liked it! Who knew?

So they threw a couple of topics at me and asked for some sample stories, and here they are. Because really, when you're on a job interview it's best to bring your friends along so they can stand behind you and go, "Hey good work, bro." "You should totally get this job." "You were great in there."

The one problem I had (of course) was sticking to a word limit, but considering that I usually throw down 5,000 words on the subject of "this one CD I used to listen to a lot but don't anymore", this is pretty miraculous. LJ tells me I've opined on the events of the day over 1,600 times; here's hoping I can grab a little walking around money for continuing to do so. Sha-boom!

*******

Your Bodega Guide to Mexican Beers in New York

Of the myriad indignities visited upon Texan expatriots in the Big Apple, few sting as viciously as paying $7 for an "imported" Mexican beer that's basically given away for free on any street corner in San Antonio. In these trying economic times it's best to save your money and drink at home, but what to do with the limited selection at your average New York bodega?

We here at Christastrophe believe in our responsibility to The Public at Large, so we grabbed all the Mexican beer we could get our hands on at our corner bodega in Bed-Stuy. FOR YOU. Here's your handy guide to building your own at-home cabana on the cheap:

Most Mexican beer in the US comes from one of two distributors: FEMSA or Grupo Modelo. As luck would have it we found two from each brewery, plus a cousin of the Modelo family.

TEAM FESA: You do not seek out Carta Blanca: you drink it because it is there. Better to skip this bland, watery concoction and go straight to Czech-influenced Bohemia. This lager has a surprisingly sweet aftertaste that the average beer-swiller hasn't come to expect from a Mexican beer.

TEAM MODELO: Hey, everybody knows our friend Corona! But bodega mishandling left our bottle skunky and burnt, so the crown goes to much tastier Modelo Especial (pilsner step-brother of Christastrophe favorite Negra Modelo). If you like Corona's light, crisp taste but wonder what else is out there, this one's for you.

TEAM BUDWEISER: Anheuser-Busch owns half of Grupo Modelo, which probably explains why they thought it was an OK idea to squirt some sickly-sweet flavoring in a Bud Light, slap a "BL Lime" wrapper on it and call it a day. Buy this as a joke. Once. Know your world. Then stop being lazy, buy a real lime, and never walk this path ever again.

*****

"Rampage" Jackson ex-manager sues Tito Ortiz, Yahoo, various MMA websites, Keyboard Cat, a song on the radio, ten boxes of nails because hey why not?

So last September UFC legend Tito Ortiz did that thing he does where he gets all hilariously mouthy (in this case, about Rampage Jackon's manager over-charging for his services), and then the internet did that thing it does where it goes and tells everyone, and now said manager Juanito Ibarra is doing that thing that Americans do when they can't think of what else to do: he's suing the crap out of everything that moves.

The whole dumb spectacle stems from an interview Ortiz gave Punch Drunk Gamer in which he acknowledged the open secret that the Jackson/Ibarra split was mostly about money. Namely, Rampage was paying $65,000 to train with Ibarra, a full $30K more than Ortiz himself charges. The quote was carried far and wide, Ibarra denied it in SI.com, and that, it seemed, was that.

Which makes this defamation lawsuit all the more confounding. Ibarra has to prove (a) that he doesn't over-charge and (b) Ortiz knew this and said it anyway. Further, he has to prove that all twenty six defendants, most of them blogs and websites (including Yahoo----YAHOO) did the same. It's next-to-impossible to prove, and Ibarra has to know it.

So what's going on here? Is Ibarra trying to monkeywrench Ortiz now that he's an unrestricted free agent? Is this just naked publicity? Moreover, does he really think every random blog needs a research team to verify every block-quote? We at Christastrophe eagerly await having our RSS feeder sued by Ibarra for even telling us any of this happened.

*****

Bloodless Bullfighting: Manolete rolls over in his grave, PETA still unimpressed

Believe it or not, bullfighting is still perfectly legal in these United States of America (at least in "California") as long as the bullfighting is in the Portuguese bloodless tradition and is presented as a part of a religious observation. And other than the continuing animal abuse and occasional bursts of violence it's still a totally noble way to pass the time!

Now, we here at Christastrophe aren't about to liberate animal testing facilities or picket the circus or whatever, but bullfighting is really one of those things best left to an overly-romanticized memory, like the Civil War. In the abstract, the image of the graceful, august matador in a flowing cape and torero is mesmerizing when related by, say, Ernest Hemingway or Bugs Bunny. But the blood and guts reality feels a little anachronistic in the age of the iPhone, even with a kinder/gentler version of the "sport".

This recently came to a head in San Joaquin County where two men were arrested after assaulting a nosy animal cruelty investigator. It seems the velcro targets used in the bouts had been (allegedly) enhanced with metal spikes because ha ha did we say "bloodless"? The investigator ended up getting choked and beaten by an organizer, and another man was arrested for fighting with sheriff's deputies trying to calm the situation.

So, if you're in the neighborhood, head on down to Our Lady of Fatima Society Portuguese Hall for the next bout on June 19th where animal control officers will be closely monitoring the situation. Or, y'know, for the love of God, don't.

*****

If You Want to Take to the Streets in a Riotous Bloodbath, There's an App For That

Last week's Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference provided much exciting news about Snow Leopard, Safari 4 and Steve Jobs himself (back at work in June!) but for iPhone users The Day You Knew Was Coming is finally at hand. Starting June 19th, that iPhone you bought for $600 two years ago is officially better in every way and only costs a hundred clams.

The new iPhone 3G S is two-to-three times faster than last year's model with many exciting new features (voice control, better camera software with video capability, digital compass, Nike+ jogging log, etc) but if you're looking at upgrading it might not be as simple as you'd hoped. Mike Musgrove explains in today's WaPo:

Just about everybody will have the option to pay $299 for the device, but iPhone owners who bought the then-new 3G phone last year will have to pay $499 for the now-new premium version of the device. It's not as profitable a proposition for AT&T to offer the same customer a deeply discounted phone two years in a row, so the company wants more money from last year's buyers.

Whoops! And, OK, this is the nature of the technology beast, and Jobs himself correctly opined, "If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product." But this feels extra special bunk (as the booing hordes at WWDC will attest), and somewhere John Hodgman is settling in to a nice scotch because, for once, he has won the day.

Your Spring Quote of the Day

2009-06-05T17:17:46Z

(upon seeing a hipster girl at our grocery store)

"Wow - either Amy Winehouse looks great or that girl looks like shit."

love you like I love you

2009-05-24T06:07:52Z

I never go out on Saturday nights anymore. I've never been a big fan of going out on the weekend, preferring instead to rock it out in the middle of the week, when you can own the bar. There are very few places in this city that are worth dealing with huge crowds on a Saturday night. Really, the only places I can deal with any more are small bars in the neighborhood. Or nothing at all. This is especially true now during the great drying out.

It's actually been a lot easier than I expected. It's usually not that hard for me to sober up for a month or so here or there, but my newfound obsession with riding my bike everywhere has made it even easier than usual. I've stopped craving the booze at all because I'm looking forward to my next ride. I'm looking forward to feeling even stronger and faster and sharper than I did the day before, to the weight I'm losing, to the newfound energy. I'm riding around ten miles a day (including two bridges a day), and logged around 33 miles on Wednesday when we did the Ride of Silence for Leigh.

So I'm sitting here sober on a Saturday night, in my apartment, watching Saturday Night Live as I usually do on Saturdays, because I hate going out and dealing with people on a Saturday night. I'm sitting here by myself and SNL is over and now the TV is just background noise and I want to go to sleep but I can't.

*****

Lonely.

*****

My relationship with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a bit strained, but I ultimately enjoy them. Really, it's Kelly's fault. She and Amy were obsessed back in the day, blaring 'Fever to Tell' every day for breakfast when Spring and I were dating and I never got over the association. Karen O kind of bugs me, but not enough to where I can't appreciate them (Nick Zinner, for my money, is pretty much the greatest guitar player to emerge in the last few years, when you consider that he's doing all of that all by himself.)

Anyway, I'm sitting up by myself watching this SNL rerun and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are there and I've already seen this one but nothing else is on and I'm still annoyed that the Nuggets couldn't pull it out in the end and for their second song they decide to play 'Maps'. I put the computer on the floor so I can concentrate just on the TV.

I choke up listening to it, which is funny to me because I never really gave a fuck about that song. Never really cared about it. I remember that the last time I watched this performance I was bawling. I look it up to be sure, googling the original airdate. Sure enough, it was April 11th. Seeing the date in pixels in front of me sends an immediate kick to my gut.

Saturday April 11th at 12:10 PM. This is a fact that I have memorized, for some horrible reason.

*****

It strikes me as odd, with some distance, that I would have been so affected by the Yeah Yeah Yeah's performing 'Maps', even given what was happening. I don't even really associate it with Back in the Day. Maybe it was the whiff of it, combined with an unexpected sentimentality and beauty of the song. Something so achy about it, where my brain just wanted to associate it because, why not? It's a perfectly decent song to release yourself into when you want to cry about your dead friend. I mean, it's no 'Tuesday's Gone', but it'll do in a pinch.

Oh man. Now all of a sudden I DO want to drink again, just so I can get drunk and listen to "Tuesday's Gone" and just fucking cry. IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY!

*****

It's weird because it's not like I would, in a situation like this, just up and call up Dru or Eric or Laura and ask them what they were up to on a Saturday night at 1 in the morning. But knowing that they're gone makes me feel lonelier for some reason.

I mean, let's be honest here. If nobody told me that Leigh had died I wouldn't know the goddamned difference except that I'd be wondering why she hadn't updated her LJ or Facebook in a while. It's not like I was up and calling Leigh at 1 on the morning on Saturday to see what was up. So why do I miss her so much at 1 in the morning on Saturday? Maybe it's just comforting to know that the people you care about are somewhere, and that wherever that somewhere is they're happy. Maybe it is just an energy. Maybe that's what love really is - this thing that allows you to connect in some metaphysical way in the absence of direct contact.

Or maybe that's just something you tell yourself when you're sitting up by yourself at one in the morning on Saturday and you feel lonely.

*****

Just this feeling when you part ways with people you care about, people you love. "Get home safe." "Take care." "Be good." Go back out into that world away from me, and come back to me soon and in one piece. Come back with fun stories, and let's make some fun stories of our own. Come back with a tan, some back with a new job or a new adventure or your hair different. Just come back at some point.

Come back.

*****

I blame the internet. Fifty years ago this whole idea of a global network that you kept tabs on would just sound silly. Now, thanks to the miracles of modern machines, I can see that...uh...hold on. Ryan is in Houston and he has the sniffles. SharOn is excited about her new mattress. Good to know. Josette is exhausted in San Antonio, and Amy caught fireflies with her daughters. These are tiny nubs, and they create stories instantly in my head. There are stories everywhere.

Or is it cheating, in the way that our grandparents would say its cheating? "Real" interaction replace with a poor, lazy substitute. But that's too simple and too dismissive of real connections that happen in this way.

Of course, when I'm thinking about the things I miss about my friends who have come and gone it is absolutely never anything to do with the internet. It's the big hug, the awkward way you walk, the laughing until I can't catch my breath. It is all there.

*****

I'm actually, these days, feeling a lot better than this journal would make it seem. I actually spend a lot of my day smiling. I love my job. I have fun every day. I'm writing again, and have an exciting new project in the works.

Anyway, the point is that I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I'm healthier, more energetic, in better spirits, more full of life than I feel like I've been in years. And I'm looking this way and that way, all of the world laid out in front of me, and I'm frozen in place. These hands, this brain, this body, this soul. What to do with it now?

All of this sadness.

do they even call it Clutch City anymore?

2009-05-11T05:35:50Z

Truth be told, I never liked Houston. I'd visited a few times, had a couple of adventurous road trips in college on top of a few little mini-vacations growing up, and something about it never jibed with my whole deal. Too congested and gross and overblown and humid. Mostly the humidity. Occasionally stranded. There were a few good memories here and there, but growing up my brother and I delighted in our decision that Houston was a cesspool, the way that when they do David Paterson on SNL he's obsessed with knocking New Jersey.

Really, it's my fault for never going anywhere other than the Arboretum. And, OK, the art museum. Still.

(And, OK, goddammit, that one terrible year that David Robinson won the MVP but Hakeem took him to pieces in the Western Conference Finals. I am petty.)

When we were kids my dad took us to see the Oilers. But we weren't there to see the Oilers. I was obsessed with the San Francisco 49ers. I have a bunch of great pictures of Joe Montana that I took with my shitty plastic camera, that we thought was the absolute greatest back then.

It wasn't until last year when I stayed with Leigh that I finally got it, got that thing that you forget and sometimes run from. There are cool people everywhere. It shouldn't have surprised me that there were so many like-minded artists in Houston, such a cool little community of scrappers and weirdos, but the Austin-to-Brooklyn snob in me let it be so. And now there it is. I could live in Houston. I could live in Montrose and have a happy little life.

This has, obviously, intensified since the funeral. For the first time in my life I hear the word "Houston" and I do not immediately spit on the floor. I feel warm. There are people in Houston right now that I can call my friends. And, barring some enormous geological upheaval, there is a good friend of mine who will always be there, who is still on my mind every day and everywhere I go.

I thought about this a lot today riding around on my new bike. Tearing through the streets and then around Prospect Park. These solitary moments, whizzing around other cyclists and couples pushing strollers, pushing and pushing myself until my heart was ready to burst and I had to stop and lay in the grass, staring straight up at the sky. Holding it together. Wanting to stop at the lake but thinking better of it, pushing further.

Tearing down Fulton to grab some Thai food and the sun is setting and it feels like the wind has been in my face all day and I want to think she's here with me, I want to hope that she's here with me. I certainly can't stop thinking about her when I'm on my bike. It's certainly better than thinking about her every time I see a fire engine.

It's sweet to me how everybody is so "no joke" about me wearing a helmet, and how I am too. Not that a helmet did her a lick of good. But, y'know. Love.

*****

Standing at that corner, a few feet from her ghost bike. Staring down the direction she was heading on her bike. Trying to see it through Leigh's eyes.

*****

Writing this while wearing a Brooklyn Lager hat that I got from the Brooklyn Lager lady having a final drink with Eric Motolove "Alan" Scott, the last drinks I'll have for a month because all of this has not been good for my liver or my mental constitution. Pricing plane tickets to Austin, just because I'm curious. Still hurting, but getting used to the idea of life here without the Scotts, who were such good friends for so many years. It hardly seems possible. I've never known a New York without them, without their apartment on Nassau. Every iteration, every adventure, every misbegotten theatrical suicide mission. Three in the morning at Under St. Marks drilling Jimmy because he can't remember his lines. Good times. Jimmy the Lollipop. Good fucking times.

And, yes. Our weddings. Mine on the bridge, with Eric and Laura right up there with us. And theirs in Houston, all of us gathered on the bus and awed by the sight of the lake as we pulled up. My brother driving up just so that we could see each other. I hadn't been in New York long, and we still had intense separation anxiety, and when it was time for him to go we hugged and started crying and as he turned away he said, "Of course it's in fucking Houston."

*****

What really sells it for me is the way that Fred Armison leans forward when he says, "New Jersey!" and holds for applause that never comes. Like, none of the jokes are actually funny, but that bit gets me every single time.

*****

The Spurs were a wash this year and had been for some time. Pretty much anyone who knew anything about anything could see that, so I didn't much care when they were eliminated. What are you gonna do? Manu is necessary for their success and there really wasn't anybody to fill that hole. And, y'know. Other things on my mind.

So the point is now I'm a de facto Rockets fan. Blame it on Leigh's step-brother Mario, who I took a real shine to while we were there. Sure, there's the thing where I Hate OHHHH HATE the Lakers so very much. But also I find myself wanting to return to Houston, wanting to stay there for a while. Maybe take in a Rockets game with Mario, not talk about anything serious for a few hours. I'd have given anything to be with him for today's massacre, jumping up and down and celebrating the insanity of Aaron Brooks going nuts and hitting everything he threw up, even with his eyes closed.

But no. I watched by myself.

At one point, feeling Sports Guy Lonely I called Sleazy for his raised-in-Houston expertise. The Rockets were, at that point, up by 27 late in the third quarter.

"Am I supposed to be nervous? If it were the Spurs I'd be nervous. What do the Rockets do in this situation?"
"Well, if they're up 27 I don't think you'd have to be too worried. But I would advise against getting too emotionally attached to the Houston Rockets any year no matter what."

Gotcha. Noted.

*****

One thirty in the morning and clean out of sleeping pills.

circling again, destined, meditated, revolt, laugh until you drop

2009-05-06T15:26:31Z

Keep writing this and keep locking it up because I just can't get it Right.

Uhohherecomes Intrusive Therapist

IT: Right? So, presumably there is a wrong way to go about this?

Yes. Yes there is. For me anyway.

IT: You seem to put these things on yourself. The Right Way. Perfection. Why do you feel like everything had to be Right and Perfect?

I dunno. Because there's no such thing as perfection, so I can continue setting myself up for failure and disappointment with myself, to the point that it boils up into full-on self-hatred of my personal and professional shortcomings, and I spend every day kicking myself over the things I should have done and that I should have done better, which then feels justified when it spills over into displacement and acting out on those around me that I care about.

IT: Uh...OK, good.

*****

I am sitting in the lobby of my theater and inside a small group of kids is watching Rikki Tikki Tavi kill a snake. They're laughing, which is a funny reaction to me. Half of this school group canceled without any advance notice.

I am sitting in the lobby and nobody is with me except for Orson Welles and a dead fish. The dead fish keeps asking me why I'm gritting my jaw so tightly. I don't want to tell the dead fish all of my problems, but I can tell him some of them, but not as long as Orson Welles is here because that smug look on his face is getting to me.

The dead fish gives me a comforting shrug, or the closest he can approximate, and sighs. Orson lights his pipe.

"You're doing it wrong," he purrs in his thick horrible voice.

"I know."

*****

I am nothing but a series of flashbacks. I have lost all sense of tomorrow.

I am flashbacks all day long. They hover around me, around my head, catching my eyes which is why I'm always looking this way, that way, any way but at You.

It would be one thing to lose only one of you. It would hurt, it would sting. I would still be sour and sick. But all of you at once, with threats of more to come, it's too much.

*****

More to come...

*****

Other things, other bad things, other places in my brain.

*****

I am nothing but flashbacks and they spin mercilessly back and forth and, of course, there is crossover, there are those places where all of you are in the same room and those were the best places. But mostly it is the Alone Time that flashes back. Leigh's apartment. Dru on the roof. On a park bench in Austin with Laura. On a bar stool with Eric. More to come.

It's the tearing apart of this whole thing that I can't bear. It's this desire for everything to stop in its tracks and just stay there, just remain in some magical time and place in suspended animation forever, in peace, in fun, in love. Fear of movement and, yes, of growing up. Of doing the right, responsible thing. Just want to be a kid forever; a visceral, naughty kid but a kid nonetheless.

It is jealousy. Jealousy of these other things and places and people. You have what I want, you have who I want, and I want to keep them. Jealous of San Diego and Austin. Jealous of babies and continued education and responsibility. Jealous, perpetually, of Death. Give her back, goddammit, GIVE HER BACK.

I am crying in the lobby of my theater and Orson Welles is long gone. It's just me, pitiful me, and I need to pull myself together because I need to go back out there in ten minutes and ask the children if they have any questions for the actors and thank them for coming.

*****

I remind myself that it has not been that long. That all of these wounds are fresh, and feel all the fresher for the enormous wound caused by the death of Leigh.

I curse myself for being this sensitive. I wish I could be flippant, pretend that I don't care, that I'm unaffected. I wish for once that I could not be hurt by this or by You. Wish I hadn't admitted that you could hurt me in the first place. That I was made of flintier stuff, as I've said over and over again.

Wish I could change every word of this fucking stupid journal to "Eh, it was cool I guess but whatever."

Can't take it back now. Earnestness, oversharing, over-indulgence. Had to tell you about Love. Can't take it back now.

*****

Fine! Go then! Have a blast! I'll be here, totally rocking out! See if I care!

Egh. I can't even fake it.

You're my friends and I love you. And if I'm being a child about this whole procedure then I guess there's no changing me right right now.

*****

Trying to concentrate on the Good Things. That was my promise. Trying to only think about the Good Things, trying to only live the Good Things. They are here and they are all over the place. There is Love. There are so many amazing memories on rooftops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, of nervous beers on 9/11 after making sure that everybody we cared about was safe. The Blackout. The Big Fat Reds. Fireworks and beach blankets.

*****

I will miss you, my Family. I will miss you Eric and Laura and Sophie. I will miss you Dru. I miss you Leigh.

I will miss whoever's next.

*****

So many ways to get your goddamned heart broken in such a short period of time.

*****

I am all memories and quick flashes. So many bars and dark rooms, so much music blasting and laughing and good times. Brunches. Oh God, that one hilarious Easter brunch with Eric and Laura and Leigh, mostly weird because Leigh steadfastly refused to go to Brooklyn because she was a Manhattanite now, but was willing to go because I told her I was going to dress up in my suit and she should wear a nice dress in honor of Our Lord.

If I recall we argued about the merits of Donnie Darko.

*****

I take a break.

*****

The kids love the show and they unpack their lunches to eat on the stage, which makes them very excited, and I put on the stereo for lunch music and the first song is The Zombies ha ha.

They're a lovely group of kids and their teacher is apologetic all over the place because she's never been here before and doesn't know the protocol and I try to put her at ease. This is my house, it's an easygoing one.

This thing happens that happens from time to time where a kid just totally fixates on you for whatever reason. Sometimes little dudes just totally dig bigger dudes, and little girls just totally dig bigger girls. It always gets me when little girls fixate on whoever plays a princess (Maid Marion, Rapunzel, Cinderella, etc). It's adorable beyond comprehension.

He can sense that I'm totally awesome, I suppose. He keeps following me around and asking me questions, telling me he liked the show, likes the theater, likes the part where there was the fight, he likes my hair. When they all line up to leave he asks for a hug. I put an arm around him, lift him up until he's almost sideways, let him back down, and high five.

They leave and I'm here by myself in the theater. All the words I had written before they left are still on the computer, but my mood is totally changed.

Bug makes his way to the theater to borrow some speakers for the big BBQ death match in Memphis. We talk about awesome things and not-awesome things and I play him this Toadies song I haven't been able to stop playing on the theater's casio keyboard. I walk him to the door and am surprised to find that the weather has taken a drastic turn and the sun is out and, for the thousandth time in a month, I shake my head at God because God is the fucking corniest screenwriter in the world.

*****

There is the school of thought, of course, that the best way to honor Leigh's memory is by living life exactly as she would have wanted you to: with vigor and excitement and spontaneity and Love.

As I've said a few times over the last couple of days, I am simply not ready for that. I want to be. I want to imagine that Leigh is somewhere and she is watching and she's hollering "You should get up and dance!" And I did, Leigh! I got up and danced! I danced until I couldn't breathe anymore! And then danced some more!

But then I couldn't help myself. I went outside to cry, because I couldn't pretend anymore that I was having fun for another reason. I was having fun for you, and all that made me do was just think about you, and I flew off the rails. I flew off the rails the same way I did the morning of the wake, the day after the memorial, jumping into the pool at Dru's parents' house in Houston, and the water was so shock cold I couldn't do anything but laugh with my eyes as wide as they could go, and before I knew it I was sobbing uncontrollably in the backyard in the sun in the cold cold water. Because, for an instant in between eulogizing you and viewing your body, my body was filled with euphoria, and I wished that you were there to feel it with me.

*****

The term flips. It is either "miserable euphoria" or "euphoric misery". It is the sensation of being unbelievably sad, but with other people, so you work yourself into a lovely frenzy, even with people who were total strangers earlier in the day. And you are sad, in a way, when it's over, because it just doesn't feel the same to ride the subway by yourself and you're sad. Or wash the dishes by yourself and you're sad.

Something about breaking into deep, angry tears, and feeling someone right there behind you, holding you, refusing to let go of you, because otherwise you'd float somewhere horrible.

*****

But these are the differences, and we know the differences. There is a difference between getting all heartbroken and having someone you love move away and having someone you love die. These are all overwhelming things, to be sure. But there are differences.

I will miss you but I will see you again. Just know that I miss you.

Things will work themselves out. "You'll be fine."

There are stories. They are all stories. They move and they begin and reach their climax and denoument and then, yes, they end. Aristotle told us and it is so. We should not fear the end of stories because there are so many left to be told. And we should not end a story that's still right in the middle. It's easy to see endings everywhere when it rains for days and days and there is death hanging over you. But it is not so. No need for the word "goodbye".

But yes. Sadness. No time yet to think about the future, certainly no time to compare it to the past, to a specific moment in time that is gone gone gone. Just time to learn. And yes, to grow up.

To think about how to be a better man than I am today; all the terrible words that have come from my mouth, from my diseased head.

My head.

*****

I told them, standing up there, not sure what to say next, stuck at a thought, stuck on the fact that there's no conceivable reason that you should ever have to eulogize your 29 year old friend -- I didn't know what to say next up there in front of all of those people at the memorial so I just said, "We called her Wendy."

As I've told a few people, her brother-in-law Mario loved this. He fixated on it.

When Sleazy got there he was happy to have even more Lost Boys in his midsts.

And then, back in New York, there at the end of the party, with everybody else gone and collapsing after fun times and deep conversations, all that was left awake were Lost Boys after a night of watching old videos and looking at old pictures. And there, captured forever, sometimes in the background and sometimes just at a glance - there is Wendy. And me reaching out for all of these bits and pieces, all these valuable pixels, still grasping for whatever there is, whatever exists, whatever is left.

At the very end of the night myself and Junebug and Sleazy, all sitting outside in The Pavilion. The three of us, constant after all these years. And so many close friends and loved ones still within arm's reach. And we, for now, we are going nowhere.

that dance that you dance with abandon

2009-04-09T19:15:35Z

Once again I extend the warmest thank you to everyone of you that has been following Leigh's condition.

The last 24 hours have been rough on Leigh. She is having serious setbacks and the swelling has returned and may be unmanageable. The doctor for the first time has called into question whether she will be able to survive.

Thank you for your prayers, kind thoughts and good vibes.

*****

It is a few weeks ago, the Friday before my 31st birthday and I am cursing my body for failing me yet again. I pulled my back at the gym a few days before, but decided to go out dancing anyway. Hadn't been out like this in forever, and Annie (the set designer for my show) is the sort of person who can get you to dress up to go out goth dancing even though you know better.

Spring and I have had a decent enough night, mostly hanging by the bar and getting drunk enough to join this gang of weirdos on the dance floor. We converse with an intense young guy dressed like The Joker who has just returned from Afghanistan. He describes friends who were blown to pieces with an eagerness and and intensity that begins to wear on me. He cuts sharply across my belly to illustrate exactly where this kid was sawed in half by the explosion.

We dance for a bit, and my back starts to nag. Before long I am in a booth massaging myself, feeling old and stupid, and I leave early while Spring and Annie and Annie's boyfriend dance the night away. I sit alone with a massager and beer, watching television. I am worthless.

*****

When I wake up on Monday, the day before my birthday, the pain is getting intense. My back has seized up entirely, but so have seemingly all the nerves in my body. And I'm running a Super Fever. And I've somehow chewed the inside of my cheek raw. And my tooth hurts.

Jeremy takes me to get a nice shave for my birthday, but I'm feeling horrible. Still, it's good to be sitting across from my friend, even if we have to eat at Hale and Hearty Soups. I spend the rest of my birthday in bed and begin hallucinating from the intense fever.

*****

It is Tuesday, the last day of March. The past week has been fucking torture, but the nasty little bugger that gave me pericoronitis has been pulled and I can finally pull my head on straight after a week of pain and delirium. Somewhere in there I played a show with Spaniard and hosted a birthday party at the theater for our beloved Sophie Scott. None of it made sense.

I have no dental insurance anymore, so instead of going to some fancy dentist I go to the nearest clinic in Bed Stuy. They say the oral surgery I'll need is too complicated for them so they send me away to another place within walking distance, a converted brownstone (like Cliff Huxtable's office). I pay whatever, I sign whatever, OK OK I might lose my sense of taste due to the proximity to the nerve whatever just get it out.

When they put me under I have terrible nightmares until I'm awakened.

******

It is Tuesday, the last day of March and, as I say, the last week has been fucking torture.

My phone rings and it is Eric and he is delivering bad news. And on this, the first day I've been able to think straight and sit up in over a week I am now sitting up and thinking straight and slowly sucking on jello and eating pain pills and antibiotics and reading everything I can get my hands on to try to figure out how on God's green earth my friend Leigh could possibly be involved in such a strange freakish accident and now be in a coma fighting for her life.

My jaw hurts and I don't care anymore, all of a sudden.

*****

We are all texting and e-mailing and chatting back and forth like crazy. We do the only thing we have the power to do, which is to get together and drink.

Of course, things don't go according to plan because they never do. I want to sit in this dark bar and talk to my friends about our mutual friend Leigh, who we love so so fucking much it hurts and we need to make some sense out of this because it is horrible and rotten. And it is impossible to do this properly because the chosen bar may have Leigh Significance, but it also has trivia night tonight, so I can't get it together enough to say, "I wish with all my heart and soul that Leigh will be OK", because the trivia master is giving out the clues and we know that the answer is that they are all acting teachers because this is what we all went to school for.

Trivia ends and we gather and we talk and I stumble home and I am miserable.

*****

I wake up the next morning and check my e-mail, check the Facebook group, and no, our night of drinking didn't instantly heal Leigh, which some ridiculous part of me hoped would happen.

I roll over.

*****

I've never been in this situation before. Never known anybody in a coma. I've lost friends and family. Never the long drawn-out process of the coma. The uncertainty.

It is frustrating and I hate it. I assume we are all doing the same thing, separately, and I hate that we're apart. When you have a friend in a coma they should come around and get you and put you up in this huge Real World-type loft where you can all be together all the time and talk about your friend and check on each other. If someone starts crying, you can immediately go to them and hug them and say, "It's gonna be OK. She's gonna pull through. You know her, how much of a fight she can put up." And then whoever's crying can say, "I know. I just, I hate that I can't talk to her and tell her it's going to get better." And then you say, "I know. Me too. I hate it."

You can do this or variations on this all day long, occasionally playing pool or looking at the fish tank or getting in the hot tub. You walk in on everybody watching a movie, but you can tell that nobody's really paying that much attention to the movie.

You'd go out on the porch and somebody's smoking and you bum one. And you admit that you catch yourself feeling guilty for thinking about yourself. For thinking about regular day-to-day stuff and love and pain and sex and money, because you feel like every second you spend not thinking good thoughts about Leigh is a second wasted. And your friend who bummed you the smoke says, "You know your life can't just stop. You have to keep going. Just keep her in your heart and know that you have such love for her, and trust that somewhere she knows that." And then you start crying softly again because you feel so fucking helpless and this cigarette tastes like shit.

Occasionally the people who brought you here (a government agency? Yes! Something Obama made up), they bring new supplies of food and alcohol and videos from high school and college, and you all watch them together and laugh and tell stories. And sometimes you say "Yayyy!!" just like Leigh and you catch yourself doing it and you have to leave the room.

But mostly you just sit and wait.

It is exhausting, but at least you are doing it together. It is not this thing where you are at work wherever you work, say at a non-profit theater, and a song comes on Pandora that reminds you of parties on the roof, and you pull up a picture to show the educational director and say, "That's her! There's our Leigh. We're doing karate in front of the Sam Adams statue." And they look at the picture of this stranger in this place and this situation they've never been in or seen, and they try to look sympathetic, and it's close but its not the same.

No, this huge Loft for Collective Coma-Fighting Good Vibes and Hugs is the only way to go.

*****

I have my own problems, and sometimes they are important and sometimes they are not. Today, with this latest pronouncement, they are not.

This could not be the last word. It probably is not. It has been so exhaustively up and down so far. It drains.

All I can think about is running and giggling with my friend and how I yearn to do it again, how I know that I'm going to do it again, how I absolutely HAVE to do it again. We have to celebrate again. We have to dance and shout and pass out with the music blasting.

Still. So few words. So stark.

Just have to pray. Just have to think about good times and beg and plead. Somebody out there is listening. Somebody out there has to be listening. Somebody who can tell her.

What drives me crazy, what drives all of us crazy (I'm sure) is that this is so intangible. It's not about putting together a blood drive or finding a liver donor or raising enough money or getting somebody to donate a free weekend at the spa or whatever. It's just the mysterious workings of the brain, and there is pretty much nothing anybody in the world can do but hold hands and pray. Centuries of medicine and the cure is still Wait and See and Hope for the Best. And I would do anything for Leigh, and so would you, and you know that she'd do the same. But it's hard to donate Thoughts and Love.

I just wish that somebody, some dark spirit, would appear and say that Leigh will come out of her coma as soon as we can find 700 copies of 'Back to the Future' on Laserdisc. And we would all scour the earth looking for every last copy of 'Back to the Future' on Laserdisc, wherever it may be, because that's what we would do. We would find copies on the lip of a volcano. We would outsmart evil Russian super-agents and steal the three copies they keep in their bungalow. You know we would. And then we'd all come running back to Houston with all the laserdiscs under our arms and count them all up and YAYY!! we did it!!

That's not how it works, of course. It is not fair, the way that it actually works. But it is how it is. So we wait. And we pray and hope and look at the floor a lot. And we'll celebrate soon. We have to.

Boo on your things and those other stuff!

2009-03-19T17:26:15Z

You know what I want right now? Like, right right now or I'll scream?

It's a dumpy rainy bloopy fucking day in New York and I'm cranky and I think the only thing that could totally make me happy right now is a breakfast taco.

Not a regular breakfast taco. All of you who are all "Ooooh Cabana" or "Ooooh Mama Margies" please stop insulting me with the horrible words.

I want a motherfucking breakfast taco from a San Antonio municipal golf course is what I want.

Seriously. There's something nuclear about those. I can't quite explain it. But if you've been there, you know. There's just a certain way a breakfast taco even smells different, tastes thirty times better, when you're eating it on a municipal golf course at seven in the morning and you're already starting to fuck with each other and the day hasn't started yet. That first breakfast taco, sitting greasily in the tin foil, sitting at a picnic table outside the club house or in the golf cart with your foot up.

That's the business. That's what I need right now.

Anyway, like I've been saying

Please don't mind my brain exploding while I try to hide the panic

2009-03-04T17:28:42Z

The weekend cast of my show has already opened, on Saturday. Today is opening day for the weekday group that performs for just school kids. It's an operation that's grown exponentially over the years. Back in the day we'd do three or four of them, just tagged on to the shows we were already doing on the weekend. Now they do about 25, which necessitates a second cast. Which means, for the past month, I've been simultaneously directing two different versions of the same show with two different casts of six.

It has been, well, let's call it a journey.

The technical elements of this show are as numerous as they are rewarding (I just heard a group of schoolkids "oooh!" excitedly about bike helmets flying in from the sky, an effect which gave my TD a minor heart attack when I demanded it, but it was the lighting designer's fault for suggesting something so awesome in the first place).

Anyway, even after opening over the weekend we are still tinkering. I got here at 8:30 this morning to build and paint more crap. We can't stop adding crap to this show. Still have some work to do after this round of shows. But if it means the ringing bicycle bell thing gets attached to the back platform to make the shadow puppetry scene easier, it's worth the extra coffee.

So I get here at 8:30 in the morning and my SM rolls up and we're sawing and drilling the morning away. And, oh crap, Chrissie has food poisoning so I have to handle the front of the house by myself. No problem! I am a genius after all. I am very proud of my skill as an all-encompassing Theatrical Handyman, so I'll just unplug the jig saw, dust myself off, and deal with this invoice that needs to be faxed.

When you are in charge of a place you get used to hearing people say your name pretty simultaneously. Years of being a waiter have taught me how to prioritize my time. But sometimes they're hard to untangle, like when the first busload of kids arrives a half hour early, while the actors are still warming up, and one of them informs me that the toilet is clogged and she cannot fix it herself. And my SM is upstairs sewing velcro onto a dress for a quick change and doesn't have a free hand. And also the phone is ringing.

I stuff the phone in my back pocket while the first group comes in and the actors are clearing the stage. And then I start panicking. Because my book with the reservation information is upstairs, but the toilet is downstairs, and several minutes of plunging have done no good because, apparently, this actress only eats rocks and bricks or something. And there are children knocking on the door who, unlike the adults, are not so polite about saying, "I'll hold it" when they see the hastily scrawled "Out of Order" sign.

It is at this point, with my sleeves rolled up, bailing out toilet water, sifting through the fecal matter of one of my actors, whose every flat note and dropped line I am suddenly fixating on, that I remember:

Laura's back in town.

She's just visiting, taking care of some immigration problem. (She wants to stay away from the theater for personal reasons, for "my baby in someone else's hands" reasons, but she wants to see the show this weekend).

It is at this point, when I am again plunging with all my heart, peering through the clouded brown water for any sort of encouraging sign, that I start to question everything. Because there is still another group of schoolkids on their way, and I still haven't gotten the payment from the first group, and our SM is messaging me that some other small group of mothers that I wasn't told about has just showed up, and a voice over my shoulder is asking me if the velcro has been attached to her dress yet, and I actually consider it. I actually consider calling Laura and asking her to come in and help me out.

Wait, wait wait.

I consider the encouraging words of my brother when I started here and something went wrong. 'What, are you gonna lay on the floor and cry?'

No. No I'm not.

One last forceful plunge and the water recedes. Alright. Gotta find bleach and clorox wipes. Your dress is almost done; I've asked the SM to pre-set it after fitting it on you. Hi I'm Chris I'm the Managing Director here I can take your money. I'll be right back with some change (I'll grab my reservation book and scissors and tape while I'm getting the change so I can re-do the pre-set that I forgot about). Here are some more books to read to the kids while we wait on the next group to arrive. OK, here you guys are we were waiting for you go right on in while I send this e-mail to Time Out New York.

And we're off. And the screaming child who was red-faced and kicking in the lobby is now transfixed, and the kids are eating it up and screaming with laughter. When the 11:45 group shows up an hour early I am unfazed. And when I have to direct traffic with them, getting one group out, letting a smaller group eat their lunch, and escorting a third group in while restoring the set for the second show, I am cool as a cucumber.

I never lost my shit.

I am smiling, in fact. I am loving this.

The kids are completely losing it. They are laughing their little asses off. I have the sense of humor of a five year old, apparently, and it's paying off handsomely this morning.

To watch you fall

2009-02-12T21:45:20Z

This is from Christmas. If I still worked at Pfizer I would have posted this a month ago.

My beloved father-in-law Larry shot this in his living room. I'm playing a Ghost Runner song with our friend Brennen. Afterwards, Larry said he was always amazed at how musicians just pick up instruments and play together, even if they've never met. They just know each other through music. Brennen didn't know any of the songs I threw at him and I didn't know his either, but we just jammed. I never really thought twice about it. But it blew Larry's mind. And it's stuck with me, and I appreciate it for the everyday miracle that it is.

Anyway, things are awesome, is the point. And my Dad is doing pretty good. He gets to eat pizza! Bless his soul.

I'm losing weight, but for the wrong reasons. I keep forgetting to eat, because I get too busy. I've never in my life forgotten to eat. I've lost fifteen pounds in the last few months, most of it from working out, but that last five pounds or so is just from directing a cast in the afternoon, getting busy with admin crap, directing a cast at night, and getting home without any food in me. Laura was stick thin and I'm starting to understand why.

Gotta pick a song that sounds like roller coasters. 'Scuse me.

I don't get around much anymore

2009-02-05T08:34:19Z

* I am currently thrilled with my actors, all six of them in both casts (12 total). I direct one in the afternoon and one at night. I use my free time to handle theater admin shit, which...well, fuck. I'm never on here any more if that's any indication.

* I had a great day today. I won't go into any specifics, because who cares, but I handled a pretty wide variety of problems with the landlord, a group of autistic children, invoices, actor issues, ED appeasement, designer issues, and running two rehearsals with simultaneous shows going in completely different directions.

* Did I mention I'm the musical director as well? And that I deferred a portion of my salary so the lighting designer and the choreographer got more money? And that I should be hung on a cross?

* Also, for what it's worth, I'm totally on Team Bale. If Harry Knowles' version is to be believed, all reasonable avenues had been exhausted (discussions with the director, discussion with the DP directly) and, eventually, you just gotta chew a motherfucker out.

* I don't mind admitting that when I first heard The Bale Tape, all I could think was, "He sounds great. What a great voice." When I get that pissed my voice gets all pinched.

* The dance remix is my favorite new song.

* An actor made a suggestion and I took it way further and OMG I'm so excited about tomorrow. The script calls for an impromptu sword fight between two characters. This has grown, in our insane minds, into a full on complete replication of the light saber fight choreography of the 'Luke, I am your father' scene from "The Empire Strikes Back". I have sent the actors the appropriate YouTube links, and tomorrow we have set aside a full hour to perfect it.

* At rehearsals tonight, I accidentally said that the scene was from 'Return of the Jedi', for which I got a swift rebuke, for which I really love this cast of dorkatrons I've invited into my theater

* One cast member is, by day, an astrophysicist. I tried to talk to her about superstring theory in the audition, but she quickly told me that she thought it was bullshit, and she was immediately cast.

* I use this astrophysicist to map out the various realities I'm setting forth. I want everything to be dramatically and physically justified (such as "What happens when you walk through a door into another theatrical universe but then utilize that same door again to a different end? Do you go further in or does your frame of reference reset?")

* (hint: it re-sets. I didn't know this, but it totally makes sense to me now.)

* (Oh Christ. I am directing a children's theater show that stops every few minutes to make sure that the ghost of Oppenheimer won't destroy everything.)

* Meanwhile, Ghost Runner has embarked on a totally new set of music, with the latest batch of songs based around the conceit of "International Space Treaties" and all that implies, and I shouldn't be this amazed at this point, but I'm totally dumbfounded by what we can come up with when we're feeling good and crazy.

* Anyway

* The point is

* I didn't write about this, because

* But my father just had surgery and he's come out perfectly healthy

* By all indications

* And that trumps every insignificant thing I've written here

* I interrupted rehearsal the other day to cry

* At the sight of my father in his hospital gown waving to me (us) in a cell phone pic

* I cried my eyes out

* While Jessica was teaching the dance

* And thanked everyone for being so great

* And said, pretty much, "My father has survived cancer, so you have no excuse for fucking up this harmony, so let's take it again from measure 26."

* And, God bless 'em, they fucking nailed it.

Fancypants Comes to Town!

2009-01-20T15:42:07Z

Jake Tapper is interviewing Magic Johnson and the subject, of course, turns to basketball. And Magic declares that he would be honored to accept an invitation to play against the President at the White House. "We can get together, throw some elbows..." And he says that Michael Jordan and Larry Bird would probably love to come, too.

And there it is. Forget about everything else. Whatever, nuclear codes. Whatever, laws and policy. When you're the President of the United States of America, you can up and decide to have a pickup game with Magic Johnson, Michael Jordon and Larry Bird, and those motherfuckers will show up. Those motherfuckers will be nervous to meet you. That's cool.

I've been watching coverage since this morning at 8:30, because I couldn't sleep. I ran two general audition sessions yesterday and I've got another two today. I'll be at the theater late tonight making decisions on who to call back and when. I'll be exhausted. But I don't care. Had to get up early because it is Christmas Morning.

My favorite is all the elderly Black men and women in wheelchairs. You made it. You got to see it. OK, that made me tear up. Christ, I'm gonna be crying all day, all through auditions. "No, go ahead with your monologue. There's something in my eye."

Alright. I decided, out of respect, that I'm going to wear a suit to watch the inauguration, and keep it on all day, so I gotta go shower and shave and iron my shirt. Spike Lee's wife just said that the sun is gonna shine today. And Spike Lee looks like he's gonna cry and then everybody starts making fun of his Yankee hat. "When have we had two days like this, back to back, in the history of this country?" MLK to Obama. And then they cut to a homemade sign that says "January 20th, 2009 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." Ha ha ha ha.

It's gonna be a good day. It's gonna be a good four years, God willing. One way or another, I've got a pinstriped suit and a bottle of champagne that says it's going to be a good afternoon. This is a good country, and the joy on all these faces is incredible. Two million people don't care that it's 25 degrees out. Today is a good day.

This is all because of Junebug

2009-01-16T18:05:47Z

I really really love that the Biggest Hero in America, the humble bad-ass who's more Hank Hill than Evel Kneivel, the salt-of-the-earth cool-headed professional motherfucker who landed a motherfucking airbus with no engines in the middle of the Hudson River, the only place for miles where such a landing was possible, clearing the GW Bridge by a mere thousand feet before unloading his entire plane and crew and being the last off because the captain goes down with the ship, and when he was finally dragged off the plane his uniform was still impeccable...

I really really love that this guy's nickname is "Sully", which we usually use as a verb but occasionally as a sweet-intentioned term of endearment.

Seriously, though. Sully is the baddest motherfucker in the world. And as much as I love Obama, I think we should go ahead and swear Sully in as President. Of course, his solution to everything will be picture perfect landings in the middle of the river, but could it be any worse than anything Bush did on purpose?

*****

Meanwhile, I'm terrified that my Pandora radio station is somehow connected to the NSA or something, because I didn't put ANYTHING on it, I mean I just put my name and my e-mail and fired it up and it knows exactly what I like and it's freaking the fuck out of my brain. I mean, maybe the default setting for Pandora is "lovely alt-country rock for the office", but I'm still totally spooked. It just served up Silver Jews, Wilco, and Belle and Sebastion all in a row. I half suspect that they have access to my webcam, and they just took a look at what I'm wearing today and were like, "Oh you're THAT guy. Well, here's some Meat Puppets B-sides you wuss."

We are all princesses

2009-01-14T21:29:56Z

We turned around the theater in six days, as we always do, and now a new show is in the space. They opened for the general public over the weekend and the second cast had their first show for a huge school group this morning. I've realized that, as many years as I've been doing children's theater, I've never gotten over the hair-raising panic, the Aneurysm In a Box that is that moment when a character is hiding, and the other character giving chase wonders aloud "Where did he go?"

If you haven't been around a large group of children who are dead certain about WHERE HE IS I cannot describe the feeling to you. It's primal, like when you know there's a moose somewhere near and he wants to mate with you. It is chilling.

This guy Tim used to work here a lot as a musical director, and he and I always gabbed about how we loved this phenomenon, how we were basically torturing these children, and they had no idea because they were convinced our mothers had raised fools. "You imbeciles!! He's behind that bush! I CAN SEE HIM WITH MY TINY EYES WHY CAN YOU NOT??"

"OH GOD WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME TELL YOU WHERE HE IS????"

What I never got over, what I talked about this morning, was remembering when I played Robin Hood, and I was hiding out in disguise from the Sheriff of Nottingham. And at one particular performance the kids actually ratted me out. These were children who were rooting for Robin Hood to be arrested and hanged in town square. They were rooting for Robin Hood to lose. They will grow up to play for the Philadelphia Eagles and they will be scumbags.

Anyway, now they're in the middle of an acting class for tiny little kids, which is heart-breakingly adorable. I keep clutching at my pearls every few minutes. Kids fucking rule.

But I can't concentrate on the work I'm doing, all the stuff with our online account and the grant we just got and scheduling for next week's auditions, so I'm drowning it out by listening to the Cypress Hill CD I just bought with a gift card from my Aunt Moochie. Thanks for these infectious Latin rhymes, Mooch!

Also, we're totally obsessed with Cakewrecks right now, having been introduced by our fondit-avoiding costume designer/local baker Jen. This one is my favorite, because there are terrifying deer on fire.

As man was meant to be

2008-12-31T20:05:40Z

I'd write something more substantial, bigger, more literary, more over-reaching, but I don't really feel like I need to. Not like in past years, not like before, not this thing of building myself up in words because I needed it, because I needed my own reassurances. My own little pep talks.

I sent Leigh a whole bunch of resolutions, and they're good ones, and they're ones I'll keep in mind, but the biggest problems in my life are lifting. And, most importantly, I'm dropping that horribly annoying thing I do where I get really drunk and I cry about what a failure I am. And nobody can convince me I'm not, no matter what. It is the most annoying thing about me.

Well, I don't feel like that anymore. I am not a failure. And I don't care if this only lasts for a year or less, and I have to go scrambling away somewhere. This is what I was meant to do, and I feel like lucky to be able to do it if only for a short time.

I am sitting here in the office loft overlooking my theater and underneath me our TD is listening to Duran Duran and creating the stage left circular platform. I have a stack of checks to my side, portioned off by production, and a stack of cash portioned off by performance. I'm preparing a deposit, using a spreadsheet that I fixed when I started working here because it was a mess. Thanks, Pfizer.

Once I drop off that deposit I'll finish work on our new Flickr account (or maybe Picasa; haven't decided yet) and put the finishing touches on the little widget I created for the next show. I've written to my set designer, confirmed with my lighting designer, re-ticketed that group from last week, and filed the IRS paperwork.

I am drinking a beer and wearing a t-shirt and jeans.

Gotta design the back page of the program. Try to get that done before ducking out for New Years.

This feels so good, man. This feels so right. I'm good at this shit. I love this shit. I have fun putting together deposit slips for this place, because it's this place, because it's just this good.

So Happy New Year. Happy new everything. Happy new day off tomorrow and then production meeting on Friday, then taping the show this weekend, then load out/load in on Sunday night, then tech week, then auditions start in a couple of weeks for the next one that I'm directing. Things are still scary, and I need a minute to sit down and do some math, but that's a side note. This is about a mission. This is about a life unwasted.

There's this story that showed up in 'Carrot and Stick' from back in the day in Austin. I was at this Mr. Fabulous gig, with the infamous Dino Lee (a friend of Eric's, I was later to discover). And his band sounded great and he sounded great but the small crowd just wasn't feeling it. And we smoked cigarettes together and I asked him about it, and he compared it to some great warrior who trains for an opponent, and you train and toughen your fists up by punching bags of rice.

"And this crowd," and looks back in, "This crowd is a bag of rice."

What I say, when I am that drunk and I am that crying, is that I've wasted my life, wasted my talent, wasted all this time and I have nothing to show for it. And now, for the first time in years, I actually feel like there was a reason for it. For ALL of it. For all the weird jobs, all the weird paths. They all make sense here. And wherever's next. I have no earthly idea what 2010 is going to be like. In 2009 I work in theater and make inspired music with my best friends, and I have a loving wife to support me in my endeavors. It is snowing cats and dogs. It is all good.

scenes from a mall

2008-12-27T22:22:35Z

So I'm running around the Piggly Wiggly in Opelika, Alabama and I'm on a snack run for the kids and Spring's family is really healthy, not usually ones for processed foods and saturated fats and whatnot, so I kind of feel bad for being the Bad Uncle that runs out to get sugar water and salt chips, so I decide I'll try to emulate the rest of the family and try to find something healthy to bring back as well.

So I set about looking for my alternative.

And I decided that it is prejudice, yes I'll say it: PREJUDICE!! that has made me think to myself, "There's no way the Piggly Wiggly in Opelika has hummus and pita bread" and I set off to prove my PREJUDICED ELITIST EAST COAST LIBERAL mind wrong. They, after all, have several varieties of goat cheese in that one little fancy foods island, and the sophisticated palates of Spring's parents do not want for much here. We've eaten healthier food in four days than in the past few years in New York.

So I walk around the Piggly Wiggly four or five times, and I don't find any hummus, and I do find some pita bread and feels really stale but soft on the bottom, and then I realize that it is soft on the bottom because it is completely green from mold, because nobody who shops at the Piggly Wiggly gives two American shits about pita bread, and thus my open-mindedness about the Piggly Wiggly is not rewarded at all and I just buy stuff for nachos.

On the flip side of this equation, I am that horrible asshole from New York sashaying around the Opelika Piggly Wiggly asking, without a hint of self-awareness, "Um, where do you guys keep your hummus?"

Ah well. Our tree is twelve feet tall and Larry is making Mexican Lasagna tonight for dinner. Jeff Goldblum is drunkenly fighting aliens on the TV and I'm settling into a Yuengling. I couldn't be more comfortable.

(And, hey hey, gookalockgeek!! My father in law loved the Willie pin! Thank you so much! Merry Christmas!)

Alright. Gotta tune the guitar because we're having a back-porch hoedown tonight with our buddy Brennen and his lovely wife Sarah, who is pregnant with their first son. It is seventy degrees and I am chilling out in a t-shirt with the door open, and if there's ice and snow somewhere, for the time being, I can't see it.

"this is a farewell kiss, you dog"

2008-12-15T16:12:19Z

Via the great almighty Wikipedia:

A reflex arc is the neural pathway that mediates a reflex action. In higher animals, most sensory neurons do not pass directly into the brain, but synapse in the spinal cord. This characteristic allows reflex actions to occur relatively quickly by activating spinal motor neurons without the delay of routing signals through the brain, although the brain will receive sensory input while the reflex action occurs. The main source of the reflex action is through the bottom muscles.

And that's the story of how a man with pure shit for brains, and I mean manure, I mean manure with bits of dead rats to hold it together, that's the story of how a man with a head full of feces and rats was able to dodge two shoes that, by all rights, should have broken his fucking nose, or at least his orbital bones, or ha ha if David Gregory had a pair of nuts he would have done this years ago.

Also, ha ha the Giants suck!

everybody loves raymond

2008-12-11T05:23:22Z

Married life is having two MP3 players while sharing a computer. She has made it clear to me that I need to remove Lavender Diamond and That Dog and Laurie Anderson from her iPod, because they're completely impossible to work out to, but I need to find more Queens of the Stone Age ASAP.

I can't disagree. 'Let X=X' is a brilliant song, but it doesn't exactly give you that extra fuel for "breaking through the wall" or whatever.

Meanwhile, I've been running to 'In Rainbows', because it calms me down and strangely lets me run faster. Well, I haven't been running lately, like, at all, but I was able to sit up all day today. I'm am Thor.

I created a powerpoint presentation for my "Education Initiative" presentation to corporate donors today, combining the years of work I've done with the theater, marketing, and in corporate administration. I am using words like, "targeted demographic" and I am meaning those words. I am debating attending a breakfast meeting of lower Manhattan community leaders tomorrow morning, but I'm still occasionally clutching my back and I don't want to make a weak first impression.

I wanted to buy a new suit for Spring's office Christmas party, but that's not in the cards for us, but that's OK. I will wear my old suit and a tie I haven't worn in a while. And the lion mask that she bought me, because I am The King of the Jungle, lest you forget it.

Captain Fantastic is here to stay

2008-12-08T17:58:10Z

So, instead of embarking on my first day of my remarkable new life and career, and capping it off with a triumphant night of rock and roll with both bands after taking a few weeks off, I am laying down and occasionally staggering around the apartment, stinking of Ben Gay and FAILURE.

Eh.

Throwing out your back is lamest feeling in the world, lamer even than when your stomach goes crazy or you've broken a limb. At least when my stomach goes crazy I can still basically take care of myself. And when my leg was broken I at least got to tool around in a cool wheelchair. But this, this is a Lame Pie with a dollop of Iced Lame on the side.

When I'm back to normal in a day or two I'm going to spend all my time jumping up and down for no good reason. Like usual.

turning into insects or perhaps doves

2008-12-06T08:30:13Z

This is one of my absolute favorite pieces of music in Western literature

If you're hardcore, you should watch Part I and Part II before this. I love the whole thing. It's what's so great about Philip Glass: I love the tiny, slight variations, the way he lulls you in and then, once he starts in with real huge variations, it feels like Venus is crashing into the sun.

I am, obviously, going through enormous transition at this moment. But this compositions is majestic, and it has been with me for years. I have strong memories of that Huge Important Time, when Sleazy and I were on unemployment together, and we went on a huge bender and wrote all the Ghost Runner songs in a few days. And one morning, as soon as we woke up, I put this CD on and we smoked cigarettes and drank beer out of coffee cups, and I played this as loud as my stereo would allow it. And we sat there sipping cheap beer, poured from 40's into coffee cups, cigarettes dangling, and wordlessly listened. It was, honestly, pretty much the happiest I've ever been, because it was everything I know in my heart I was supposed to be doing.

My faithful cat Izzy, my Best Friend, is on the couch next to me and we are in it to win it as I listen to this again. This is not Philip Glass playing, so it's slightly more expressive, and I pet her belly, and he claws at me because she wants more attention. And I use one hand to pet her and the other to select the video.

I am terrified.

But it will be OK. I have my perennials. I have Izzy the Cat and Philip Glass's 'Metamorphosis'. Among hundreds of other things. I will be OK.

I will be better than OK. I will thrive.

But still, I am terrified. And who in their right mind wouldn't be?

This is the way I do things and this is the way I think of things, and this is what I have in common with Laura (the outgoing director). We both believe that we are not just making shows for people to watch. We both see a responsibility. We are shaping young minds. We are creating a safe place to foster intellectual, artistic, and personal development. We refuse to condescend to children. We want to help them grow. And we want to make a place where parents and children can enjoy something that bonds them, that excites them, that brings them closer together.

We don't just say this on the brochures. We truly believe it.

We both talk with our hands a lot.

I want to do it right. I want to make something that is good, that is useful. I see the world magically and I want kids to see it the same way, with the same lack of impossibilities. I want to create something that causes children and adults to giggle and smile and widen their eyes and "I've never seen anything like that in my life!" I want to do my part to destroy cynicism.

It sounds too lofty for a small theater in downtown Manhattan, but that's the point.

I reflect on the life of CS Lewis. I want to age like CS Lewis. I want to know that I've done it right.

And, OK, I want to age like Joe Strummer and Hunter S. Thompson, obviously, as well. But that's all hand in hand.

No. Fuck that. I want to age like Chris Alonzo. The first Chris Alonzo. I want to leave a trail for someone else to follow.

Sometimes I feel ancient, being thirty in a business that favors youth (be it in rock stars or actors). But there is still time to make my mark, still time to be whoever the hell it is I'm supposed to be, the same me that I already am. The same me that has already done all this and will do more. The same as everyone, the same as all of us.

Anyway. The point is, Philip Glass is great and so is Izzy the Cat. And so am I. And so are all of you. It is central to my being. We're good people in search of good things. And I threw my back out again, probably because of the stress, but I'll get through that and many other minor catastrophes, because I'm surrounded by the best people in the world.

it feels like a big day

2008-12-05T21:06:51Z

Going through my filing cabinet and computer files for the last time is turning out predictably. I'm such a softie. So much Ghost Runner stuff and wedding stuff. Lots of memories.

Even Pfizer memories. I'm surprised at how much of that is going on right now. I'm really gonna miss this place. It's so weird to me that I'm not coming back on Monday.

And then sending out an e-mail to the group saying goodbye, and realizing that I've worked directly with probably a hundred people over the years.

And my computer locks up while I'm throwing out files and I unlock it and see that I've already got about twenty e-mails from people responding and thanking me for all my work and wanting to keep in touch. So sweet. So many lives.

My audition was OK, not great. I sang really well, but I never know what to do with my body while I sing if I don't have a guitar or piano. Just kind of let my hands hang there like a t-rex.

Anyway, I walked in and who should be auditioning right after me but Juliet Hussein Jeske, who I haven't seen in the flesh for a year or more. And we walk back to the subway together but she has to go because she's buying feathers for a dress she's making for a gig tonight. Of course.

These days are strange and kind of sad.

Before I leave I'm gonna go to the very top floor and look out over the city from up here one last time. Put away my picture of my wife and my picture of Ann Richards. Put away my Spurs championship poster and my guitar-of-the-month wall calendar. Throw away pounds and pounds of junk, because I don't need it anymore.

On to the next thing.

At least we'll always have dancing

2008-12-03T22:28:05Z

Among the eight billion or so hysterically brilliant people featured in "Prop 8 - The Musical" is our buddy, San Antonio native, Clark High School alum, Broadway sassmouth, and funny funny weirdo John Hill.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

He's in the back rock of "The Gays", in the blue shirt behind Maya Rudolph and Margaret Cho. And, OK, now that I typed that I totally hate John Hill. I don't care that he professed undying lust for me on one of my Facebook pictures. I hate you and your stinky famous friends.

Man. Everybody's in this! It's nice to see John C. Reilly singing again, and I wish Sarah Chalke had more to do because LOVE HER. But wowee. Good for you, John. I hope he took Neil Patrick Harris home.

OK, it's official

2008-12-03T15:34:25Z

Most of you in New York already know but I've been keeping it off the internet because staff members were not yet informed and I didn't want them to find out via Google or rumors or whatever, but they're having the staff meeting tonight (while I'm in tech rehearsals for another show, so I can't even be there, Ha ha) so here is my big honking announcement:

Friday is my last day at Pfizer. I turned in my resignation a month ago.

Monday, I start my new position, as the Executive Director of Manhattan Children's Theater. Laura, the current director, is moving overseas with her husband and kids (ostensibly to be closer to his job, which is based in the UK).

(And, yes. Laura and I had a falling out and didn't speak to each other for about six months. And then she called me and we made up. And then, about two weeks later, she offered me her job, on the same day that that Pfizer announced massive restructuring.)

Tomorrow morning I meet with my new accountant to sort out all kinds of complicated transactions. And then tomorrow night I open this show (at Nicu's Spoon! Where Dru hangs out!) And then Friday I officially clean out five years of crap out of this computer and cubicle.

I have probably eight gigs of nothing but retarded photoshops. Like this one:

And this one:

I need to sort through all those and find out if I actually need any of them (the answer, over and over again, is "no"). And all kinds of music and personal pictures and hundreds of Ghost Runner and Spaniard related files that I'll spend the next three days burning onto discs. And look, there's an envelope on my desk from Jeremy with a DVD of "Mothership" on it. Dammit, I've accumulated so much stuff here.

This weekend Bug and I moved out six boxes of hundreds of Ghost Runner CDs. And, oh look, a whole box of GR business cards that I never even opened. And two sets of headphones. And a can of Orange Fanta. I need to take all of this home.

The other day I found a bottle of wine that I'd totally forgotten about. Spring and I assembled a stinky cheese plate from Whole Foods.

So yes. My life is completely changing in about three days and I'm leaving the comfort of the corporate world to run a non-profit theater in the middle of a recession. I've never exactly shied away from a challenge.

And, as you can imagine, I'm so excited I could sing and dance and scream all day.

So hooray! Also, I will never ever be on LiveJournal ever again because, like Laura before me, I will be doing the job of four or five people. And, oh who am I kidding, I'll be on here every day. Fireworks! Glory! Theater! VALHALLA!!

And give me a sigh....ah

2008-12-03T07:51:19Z

"Christastrophe, I know you've been in rehearsals all night and you're all wound up, and it was fun to do that thing you do in tech week where you're acting in a show but you can't help it and you change your shirt and go to the TD and say 'Is there anything I can do to help?' and you end the night with sawdust on your jeans while you're acting and you help break down the set and get home late and drink a 40 to calm down so you can get to work in the morning, but that is no excuse to listen to 'Don't Cry' while you watch Sportscenter on mute." And then I'm all, "Shut up and turn this GNR up, motherfucker, because I'm going through a bonafide renaissance and it won't last forever, bro. And oh shit I forgot how hardcore the solo to Perfect Crime totally smokes ass..."