Mark Bazer, a columnist for the Red Eye, hosts The Interview Show at the Hideout once a month. This month I’ll be one of his guests, along with Kevin Coval (hip hop poet) and Frank Catalano (jazz saxophonist). The show starts at 6:30pm at The Hideout, which is at 1354 W. Wabansia, in Chicago.
Swing on by! We’ll be talking about Impress These Apes, among other things. One of his guests has a book, the other has a CD, and I’m just a goofball with the crazy ideas. It’d be great to see some friendly faces in the house, folks who can at the very least pretend I have interesting things to say.
I took Izzie out for an early morning walk on Monday to give Becky an hour of real live uninterrupted sleep. Sleep when the baby is out of the house is the most precious commodity there is. Sleep when the baby is in the house is always light. You know it can be interrupted at a moment’s notice, and it usually is. But when the baby is out of the house, oh man, you can just close your eyes and disappear. It’s amazing.
Izzie and I traced one of our old routes that morning. It was great. We walked down to the lake, up the coast a bit, and then back up through leafy Evanston streets. This is a path I would take Izzie on back when her stroller faced me. I used to love watching her slowly release herself to sleep on those walks, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier until finally they’d close. Nowadays it’s rare to have her fall asleep on a walk. There’s too much for her to look at. So we strolled at a pretty quick pace.
On the way home, Izzie and I were tailed by a fox. A fox! It took my brain a while to understand what was happening. A real live fox ran up to us, then slowly circled me and the stroller as we walked up the sidewalk. A man on a bike screeched his brakes and asked, “is that a fox?”
I have no idea how dangerous foxes are, or if they eat people or babies. It seemed interested in the stroller, so I picked up the pace a bit, hoping to get the few blocks home without incident. I was ready to go primal, though, if the situation called for it. If that fox touched my little girl, I was ready to clamp my teeth down on its neck.
I crossed the street, the fox crossed the street. It wasn’t until a rabbit darted across a lawn that the fox left us alone. It zipped after it and disappeared into a bush. Cars pulled up alongside us. “Was that a fox?” a lady asked.
I called information on my cell phone and asked for Animal Services. There was no such listing in Evanston, so they connected me to the non-emergency police. “Hey,” I said. “My name is Steve, and I live in Evanston. I’m not sure if I’m calling the right place, but there’s a fox over here on Judson.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Evanston has foxes and coyotes. We don’t come out for them unless they’ve attacked someone. If you see any cougars, though, be sure to give us a call.”
So now I know. Foxes probably don’t eat people or babies. They’re just inhabitants of Evanston. I’ve lived in Evanston for a pretty long time, and this is the first fox I’ve ever seen. So maybe they’re just starting to move in.
I stopped by the little convenience store by my pad this morning to grab a Coke, and for some reason picked up a scratch-off lotto ticket on a whim. It was a $1 ticket, with a big 7-11-21 on the front. There were three areas of play. If the numbers in any area added up to 7, 11, or 21, then I’d win the prize listed below the numbers.
The first numbers I scratched off were 1 + 4 + 2. Seven! Whoopy! I won… $2! The second set of numbers were 6 + 9 + 6. Twenty-one! Yahoo! I won… another $2! The third set of numbers were 5 + 3 + 3. Eleven! Hooray! I won… another $2!
So I’ve got a $6 scratch-off ticket in my pocket, representing $5 of pure, unadulterated profit.
What’s a guy to do with that kind of scratch? Any ideas?
Here’s a very rough clip of what will eventually be an opening credits sequence for a new yet-to-be-titled Blewt! project. I’m poking around Adobe After Effects, trying to learn this puppy, and using this as a good excuse to figure it all out.
Sunday was my 6-year wedding anniversary. To celebrate, Becky and I went out on Saturday. I had taken her to see Wicked back when it opened, and she loved it so much, I wanted to take her again before it closed.
Saturday was a very long and arduous day for me. I woke up super early to head to Johnny Knight’s studio, where I had a day of filming for a new yet-to-be-titled Blewt! project. We had to turn his AC off for most of the shoot so the hum wouldn’t be picked up by the mics. His studio is up several staircases in a Ravenswood warehouse, and aside from a few sips of water, I didn’t touch any food until I got home at around 3pm. So when Becky and I left for a 5:30 dinner reservation, I was already feeling a touch odd.
Dinner was rough. I couldn’t really eat anything. The first act of the play had me feeling a little better, but I was dizzy and nauseous for much of act two. When we were driving home, I started making puke plans with Becky. “What do I do if I start puking?” “Pull over, open the door, puke outside.” Then she gave me a little paper bag she found in the back seat, put it in my lap, and told me to aim for that.
Warning: the rest of this post is about large volumes of vomit. If that type of thing makes you squeamish, then you’re a big stupid baby.
If that paper bag could have talked, it would have laughed and laughed at Becky’s suggestion. When the vomit came, it came as an explosion. Getting it in the bag would have been like using an exploding water balloon to fill another water balloon. I did, however, have no problem getting the windshield, steering wheel, floor mats, console… you name it. I heaved a’plenty, and emptied what seemed like twelve meals worth of food into every concievable crevice in my Honda CR-V. I also completely drenched my shirt, pants, socks, and shoes. While puking I swerved off the road and up onto the curb, threw her in park, and opened up my door. By the time I had the door open, the damage had been done.
I was sure I was going to be pulled over by a passing cop, sitting there, as I was, completely doused in vomit, one tire up on the curb. I had not had one drop to drink that whole night, but I bet I would have had a hard time convincing any police officer of that.
My parents were at my apartment watching Izzie while we were gone. We drove the last couple of blocks home. When I got out of the car, a large wave of puke spilled out of my lap and onto the pavement. I was still completely covered in all sorts of gross particles. I imagined my folks asleep on my couch, and I knew there was no subtle way of walking in and letting them know what happened. Light travels faster than sound. They’d see me covered in my sick before I could tell them about it, and they’d probably smell me walking up the hall. I opened the door, walked on in, and let Becky do the bulk of the explaining while I retired to the bathroom to clean up.
I was sick all night, and most of Sunday. I was well enough to get back to work on Monday. I think I lost a few pounds, which is nice.
Becky’s anniversary gift to me was scrubbing my puke out of our car’s upholstery at 7am before the sun could come up and permanently etch that night into every car ride. My gift to her was, and always will be, these foolish little adventures I force upon her.
The two of us laughed and laughed walking up to our apartment that night. I am lucky and fortunate to share life with a person who sees the comedy in moments like these.
Hello hello. We had our last Don’t Spit the Water on Saturday. The theater was packed, the crowd was friendly, and the show was pretty good. It was a nice way to tie things up. I think our 2nd-to-last show was a little more fun, but this one was definitely more meaningful. It was nice to see some old friends in the crowd, some old comics on the stage, and perform some old bits for the last time. We’re already knee-deep in Impress These Apes production and planning, so I don’t think I’ll even notice it’s gone for another six months.
Speaking of which… congratulations to our eight new contestants for the new season of Impress These Apes! You can view their callback audition videos and learn more about them on the web site, http://www.impresstheseapes.com. We have some incredibly cool things planned for this season. Last night Paul, Ken, and I went to Time Out Chicago’s offices to record some cool promo video stuff for their Fall Preview. Then the whole production crew met up for a late night meeting. The ball is rolling very quickly, and everything is shaping up to be super, super cool. Hurray!
Hey, you should buy a Tootie Pie today! They have all sorts of delicious flavors and varieties. Mmm, mmm. A Tootie Pie would be a delicious treat for you, family, or a friend!
I don’t think that Izzie has learned that a duck says quack. I think she has learned that people say quack when she holds up a duck, or points to a picture of one.
A while back I answered a Craigslist ad posted by an author who was looking for a stand-in to attend their readings as them. I responded to the ad and said I thought it was a neat idea, and that I’d be game. When I got a reply inviting me to the callback, I was surprised to see that I knew this author. Like, personally. And it was a woman. I don’t want to use her name here in case this pooches her little experiment. But she’s a published author who’s done some work with Chicago Public Radio.
I think this was more social experiment than anything else. The callback consisted of me sitting in a studio, reading a passage from one of her books. When I arrived, there were about 4 other people milling about, waiting for their audition. Nobody was speaking to one another. Everyone was looking down. It felt like we were at a porn convention or something. There was this cloud of shame over our presence there. We were there because we wanted to pretend to be someone else.
I bombed my callback, which is fine. Actually knowing the author takes some of the thrill out of being the author, and the whole girl/guy thing would have been hard to pull off anyway.
I drove back north to Evanston, just in time to pass through the heart of the hellstorm that exploded on all of us last night. It was scary as heck. I white-knuckled it the whole way. At times, I couldn’t see a thing, except for giant waves of rain coming from all directions.
Tron Guy was indeed at Don’t Spit the Water on Saturday. And he won, too!
I dumped a buttload of photos and videos to Isabella’s Flickr page. These are not great videos, just the little ones we’ve taken on our digital camera since she was born. They span her entire life, though, so that’s pretty neat. I will categorize them soon to make them easier to find. For now, they’re just sort of dumped into the account.
Here’s one of my favorites:
This is one of the reasons Becky is so great. She serves Izzie as if she’s dining at a baby food sushi bar. Presentation is so important!
