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May 31, 2005
Reverie Theatre
Jason Vizza and Melanie Keller as "a couple nearing an end"
A couple of weeks ago, Erica and I went to a benefit for Reverie Theatre Company that featured a performance of The Closer We Get by Chris Pomeroy. It was quite an extraordinary piece of theater. For an hour and a half, ten different scenes were performed simultaneously in different set-lets around the art gallery where the benefit was being held (except for the "Cupid" scene, which took place in the art gallery itself and was the only one to feature audible words) -- all having to do with different kinds of relationships at different stages: a couple on the verge of a breakup, a mother and child, a poet dealing with a failed relationship, a woman and her peeping tom, etc. At the start of the evening I thought it might be a bit hokey, but found it to be surprisingly powerful. Enough so that when it got a bit overwhelming, we'd go back and look at the mother and child for a while to reset. That kid was great!
More pictures after the jump...
Jorge Sanchez as "a struggling, manic-depressive poet"
Abram Rabinowitz as Cupid
Elizabeth Wetmore and Henry Sanchez as "a mother and her beloved newborn"
Melissa Hard as "a woman with a picnic basket, three nearly invisible friends, and a powerful imagination"
Fannie Hungerford as "a young, vengeful woman"
Gary Sugarman and Betsy Zajko as "a peeping tom and the object of his obsession"
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:45 PM | Comments (3)
Brennan-Seidelman
Mike Garvey (right) gives his best-man's speech to Patrick and Jenny
Friday night everyone who was anyone was at the Chicago Cultural Center for the wedding of Patrick Brennan and Jenny Seidelman. The bride was radiant and the groom was handsome. The surroundings were beautiful -- the Cultural Center used to be the Chicago Public Library and the room the reception was in was designed by Louis Tiffany. And they had a photobooth where guests could take their own pictures and then paste them in a scrapbook for the couple.
Or take a copy for themselves...
More photos in my Flickr account...
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)
#1
The #1 song in the US when I was born was Venus by Shocking Blue. Not bad... Dutch pop, only song to hit #1 three times by three bands, one of the lyrics is just "Wa!"
But they claim that your life's "theme song" is the song that's #1 on your 18th birthday. Could’ve Been by Tiffany. Nooooooo!
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:25 AM | Comments (4)
May 30, 2005
Another brick in the wall
We made the last big push and got Erica all moved out of her apartment this weekend. All moved out of there and all moved in here. Well, "all moved in" as in everything of hers is inside the building. Not all unpacked and sorted and filed. But then, I'm not all unpacked from moving in here a year ago.
But what I want to tell you about is a loose brick in the wall at ComedySportz.
Documentary South opens this week, a few weeks ahead of the original schedule, and so Dan was pushing us pretty hard at rehearsal tonight. When I'm standing "off-stage," which in the "Colonial Room" rehearsal space at ComedySportz means at the back of the room, I try so hard to listen to what my fellow improvisors are creating in scenes and absorb the feel of the piece and imagine how my characters could contribute, but without getting too much in my head and so on and so forth... but I'm a fiddler and there's this loose brick in the doorway of the room and I stand in the doorway and put my hand on the brick. And I move the brick out as far as it goes (which isn't very far -- it's completely loose, but it's trapped by the doorframe) and put it back in. And take it out and put it back in. And take it out and put it back in.
I think I had a good rehearsal tonight, but man that's a fidgetable brick.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2005
Doc South
Lookee! PR on this show just keeps happening without me! Whee! We've got posters and a Metromix listing and everything.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
Lil' Guys
Erica: I just gt back from lunch, so i haven't checked emailabout o'leary
Erica: i have a honkin big beef chimichanga for you if you want it, though
Erica: i could barely eat it
Fuzzy: I had a jumbo dog with fries and little birds came and visited me at lunch.
Erica: really?
Erica: snow white gerdes
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:53 PM | Comments (1)
Kings and Queens, I tell you
4-1 over Ferocious. This was a huge win, because they were also undefeated, but a game ahead of us, since we had a "buy" week and they had not yet. So we're now 5-0 and they're 5-1.
After the game we went to the official league-sponsor bar. It's new this season and last night was the first time I've made it over there after a game. I guess it's a little hoity and everyone else on the team is tired of dealing with the staff's attitude. So we packed up and moved up the street to Gio's (4857 N Damen) where they welcomed us with open arms and treated us like Kings and Queens. And not just the staff, the patrons were very accomidating to this huge group suddenly appearing in their midst. And Gio's looks very regular-Chicago-barish, but has a lot of Mexican food on their menu, which turned out to be excellent. Mike inhaled a beef chimichanga next to me and I had a delighful carne asada.
And... 4-1. Remember that part? Aces!
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Documentary coming soon
It's fun being in a show that I'm not producing... I just get to sit back and watch things like posters and publicity and venue rentals happen around me. DSI has leapt upon a sudden gap in the Playground's rental schedule and so Documentary South will be opening in a week and a half. We'll run every Saturday in June at 10:30 and then have an encore performance the next Saturday (July 2) at midnight.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:43 PM | Comments (0)
Documented Fun
To paraphrase the Geto Boys: Damn it feels good to be a geeksta. Biking is fun and all, but biking with numbers... yeah boyee.
Home to work: 7.24 miles
Max speed: 18.3 m/h
Moving Avg: 13.2 m/h
Time taken: 32:40
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:35 AM | Comments (1)
May 23, 2005
You won't even miss it/Ask me to make you one the next time you're over
Two kinds of geekery here: technical and mixological. I disabled Trackback on the site a week ago -- Trackback is such a great idea, but the only Trackback pings I've gotten for months have been nasty, nasty spam. On Friday, Making Light announced that they also have disabled it, and, as a side note, gave a link to the recipe for the Sazerac -- a venerable New Orleans cocktail. Well, that led to a trip to Sam's Wine & Spirits over the weekend who, not surprisingly, had all of the somewhat-obscure ingredients to make the cocktail. There's nothing I like better than buying three or four 750 ml bottles to make one cocktail -- the back of the liquor cabinet is littered with an army of 7/8 full bottles leftover from similar experiments. In any case, Sunday night after a long day of packing and moving (thanks Jin and Shaun) and sorting and building and rehearsals, Erica and I sat down to a fancy Southern meal - KFC and Sazeracs. Delish.
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2005
CMB: Ryan
I posted on the Chicago Metroblog about an ad downtown with Jay Ryan artwork on it.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
Ryan
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
There's a hoooge Jay Ryan downtown at Ohio and Wabash. As with most Jay Ryans, it makes me happy just to look at it. It's an ad for ConverseGallery.com and I went there to see if there were more Jay Ryan images, but there were none -- it's all some sort of short film competition. But the good news is that it reminded me to check out The Bird Machine, which was great news because it turns out that all the liner art Jay Ryan did for Andrew Bird's latest album is now available as a set of 14 posters. And now I'm sad, because it's a limited edition set of posters and now that I've told you about them, you're going to go buy them all before I have an extra $200 to get a set.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
She plans
What mysterious thoughts is she thinking?
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:43 PM | Comments (6)
CMB post: Chicago hot dog
I rhapsodize a little about Chicago-style hot dogs on the Chicago Metroblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:24 AM | Comments (1)
Chicago-Style Hot Dog
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
In the comments to a different post, our own Alana asks "What is an authentic Chicago hot dog and where do you get it?"
A Chicago-style hot dog is:
- a beef hot dog
- a poppy seed bun
- yellow mustard
- sweet relish
- chopped raw onion
- a kosher dill pickle spear
- tomato slices
- sport peppers
- celery salt
- no ketchup
Dear god, it's 1:00 AM and I was headed for bed, but as I'm writing this my mouth is watering and I'm tempted to go out and get a dog. A Chicago hot dog is such a perfect little meal -- a little meat, plenty of vegetables, spicy from the peppers and cooled down with the tomato and the zing of the celery salt... damn! And get a milkshake with it and you've even got all four food groups (if they still did that).
And the great thing about a Chicago-style hot dog is that it really is the Chicago-style hot dog. That is, nearly anywhere in the city that serves a hot dog (which is a lot of places) serves it Chicago-style. And it's hard to mess up a hot dog and some vegetables. You can surround it with kitschy ambiance or late-night vulgarity or an incredible variety of other sausages, but the best hot dog I've had in Chicago hasn't been that much better than the worst. (But I stress that the reverse is also true -- the worst hog dog I've had wasn't that bad.) So, just head down to the place on your corner that has gyros and burgers and pizza puffs and dogs... and get yourself a Chicago-style hot dog.
But if I have to suggest some places, I've had some stand-out dogs at:
Cubby Dog
3550 N Clark
Fluky's
Three locations
Hot Diggity Dog
251 E Ohio St
Hot Doug's
3324 N California
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:21 AM | Comments (0)
Confidential to McWeirdy
Someone left the rest of their facial-hair disguise kit at the Don't Spit the Water auditions today.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
Kick that ball
7-0 over Is It In You? last night, and I kicked in two of those runs (whee!). It was sprinkling throughout the last three innings, but we all soldiered on and played a full game.
The league supplies shirts to everyone, with the only difference between teams being the color of the shirt. So we had our shirts screen-printed again with our team name on the back and team nick-names on the front. Here team co-captain Amber models her fetching new shirt:
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)
Shaun at E3
Shaun is about to do a live interview with Gamestop about the game he's producing.
Update: It's the 12 pm clip entitled "A Man Called Reggie" (not, oddly enough, the 11 am clip called "Midday with Midway") and Shaun comes in about 28 minutes into the clip.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:58 PM | Comments (0)
Kitty Weigh-In
One of the first things of Erica's we moved into the house was Parker. It's been interesting as the cats get adjusted to each other. Mustapha, as expected, wants to be friends with Parker, who is slowly warming up to him, and Latte... well, I guess Parker is lucky Latte can't use a knife, otherwise she'd probably shiv Parker in the sunroom.
It's been a little worrying that all three cats seem to be eating Parker's weight loss cat food. Neither Mustapha nor Latte really needs to lose any weight. I hauled each cat onto the scale to check out where they were:
| Cat | Weight (lbs) |
|---|---|
| Latte | 5.2 |
| Mustapha | 9.8 |
| Parker | 19.8 |
It's such a tidy geometric procession of weights, it's a little weird. I think I'll stop using pounds and just talk about the cats' weights in terms of Lattes, as in "Parker weighs about 4 Lattes".
Oh, and thinking of other made-up units, I'll point out that the house is steady at a CCI of 1. (CCI = Cat Craziness Index. Having any cat makes you crazy, but how crazy is determined by dividing the number of cats in the house by the number of people. If you say "do you mean humans, because cats are people," multiply your CCI by 2.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:54 AM | Comments (5)
CMB posts: Dancin' and Springin'
I just posted a round-up of the Chicago Metrobloggers' favorite places to dance in Chicago. And I realized I never mentioned here that I did a similar group post a few weeks ago of the CMBers' fave Places We're Going Again Now That It's Warm(ish)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
Creative Angst
Megan took her website away from me yesterday -- which is fine, it's hers and she told me she was going to be hiring a real web designer and I just threw it up and I don't have time to really do it right and (whisper) I'm not that great a web designer and (even quieter whisper) I haven't had time (in the last 4 years) to learn CSS, which I know would make my webdesign sooo much smarter and better and easier. So, like I just said, it's fine. Buuuuuut... whenever I hand a project off to someone else, there's always this twinge of "ohhh... I could make time to do this project right. I could invent a new day of the week and then I'd have loads of time to redesign this website!" And that's what I'm feeling right now.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:30 AM | Comments (3)
May 18, 2005
CMB: a little rant
I just ranted a little on the Chicago Metblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
And now a pause...
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
... from restaurant suggestions and theater recommendations for a good old-fashioned rant at a stranger online instead of yelling at them on the street because it's not worth getting into a fight over. Also, I quote and use strong language.
Last night my friend Dan gave Erica and I a ride home from a rehearsal in his big ol' SUV. He dropped us off at the corner and while Erica was getting her bags out of the passenger side of the car, a man came walking along, stopped when he realized that he couldn't fit between the car door and the parked cars on the right side of the SUV, sort of doubled-back and came around the left side of the car and muttered half-under-his-breath as he walked past me, "...stop in the middle of the fucking street..."
I felt just a little bad that we had inconvenienced him... until it struck me that he was walking in the street! "That's what the fucking sidewalk is for!" I wanted to shout at him, "It's very unusual for a car to block your way when you walk on the sidewalk!"
But then I thought about becoming a statistic on one of Lauren's crime maps -- "Man stabbed for suggesting that imbecile walk on sidewalk" -- and contented myself with staring pointedly at the back of his head as he turned the corner and continued walking down the middle of the (fucking) street.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
Doc South Chicago
Here's the cast of Documentary South - Chicago. Hmm... that sounds like it's a documentary about the south side. Here's the Chicago cast of DSI's Documentary South. This is not our press photo - I just asked Dan to snap a quick picture of us at rehearsal last night.
back row (l to r) Sammy Tamimi, Ryan Gilmour, Fuzzy Gerdes, Brad Dunn, Mike Higgins
front row (l to r) Christopher Alvarado, Kristen Studard, Erica Reid, Ryan Stone
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:31 PM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2005
Ups and Downs
FuzzyCo has been going up and down like a yo-yo on a bungie cord on a rollercoaster. And we're not sure why, yet. Your patience is appreciated.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
The Target Shot!
OMG!
I found The Target Shoots First! All my various finding-rare-movies resources had failed me, but today I found it... on Erica's living room coffeetable! We were packing up her house today and she said held up a hand-labeled video and tape and asked, "hey, what was the name of that movie you were looking for?"
Her friend Rick had given her a copy for her birthday and it had gotten buried on the coffeetable. And then we got cast in Doc South and I started going documentary-crazy.
The coffeetable! Ridiculous.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:10 AM | Comments (1)
CMB post: Dave DaVinci
I posted about The House Theatre's new show over at the Chicago Metroblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)
Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
I've raved about The House Theatre before, and we just got back from the opening night of their latest show, Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe. It's a very House show -- it's a crazy time-travel adventure with a mad scientist and the crew of an (imaginary) spaceship, but it's also a brave and sad story of parents attempting to deal (or not) with their teenage daughter's suicide. It's a great show.
The House Theatre is also jumping headfirst into Internet technologies: of course they have a website, but they also a blog where they've been experimenting with podcasts, and a Flickr account.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Photobooth
I love photobooths. Erica loves photobooths. Yet somehow last night at Sheffield's for Beth's going-away party (she's headed out for four months as part of a Second City cast on a cruise ship) was the first time we'd both been in a photobooth together.
(Beth is the one in the blue vest in the clip called "Working" on this page.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:07 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
MK:SM
E3 is next week, so there are likely going to be a ton of these sorts of previews of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, the game Shaun is producing, but GameSpot sneaks in early with a preview that gives the game a solid "Given ... as well as ... we weren't really expecting much... However ... combined with ... might just make this the first good non-traditional fighting MK game."
Might make? I say MK:SM is definitely the first good non-traditional fighting MK game. (Oh, Special Forces was soooo bad.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:52 PM | Comments (0)
PIF photos
Photo by Michelle Edwards
The Phoenix Improv Festival, as I mentioned, rocked. All of the organizers and volunteers were great -- shout outs to Bill, April, Darin, Stacey, Jose, and Mark for making our stay so enjoyable -- and we did (I say humbly) pretty-good shows and I had fun teaching two workshops. And super thanks to Michelle Edwards for taking some cool pictures of Bare. Yay!
I came back from Phoenix and was thrown into the maelstrom of CIF, and Documentary South rehearsals, and Erica moving in and so I've just managed to get my photos sorted and now posted. Enjoy!
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:36 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
CMB post: Dessa Kirk sculptures
I posted a post on Dessa Kirk sculptures over at the Chicago Metroblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
Dessa Kirk sculptures
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
Sunday, out for the Y-Me Walk (that's those 30,000 people in the background of this photo) we came across a sculpture in the median at corner of Congress and Michigan and then a group of three similar sculptures in Grant Park near Roosevelt and Michigan. "Why, these look brand new," I thought.
As usual, I was wrong.
Thanks to the helpful folks at the Chicago Public Art Program, I have learned that they're all by Dessa Kirk and that Daphne Garden will eventually make way for a large sculptural installation by a Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. (Magdalene will be on Michigan until the winter.) It's all part of the Art in the Garden project.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
So... hire my girlfriend. Please.
So Erica was an Assistant Ticket Services Manager at the Goodman Theatre for almost 5 years, pretty much since she moved to Chicago, and she loved the people there and was very good at her job, but she woke up one morning (or a bunch of mornings, actually) and said, "If I don't quit this job soon, I'll be in Ticket Services for the rest of my life, and that's not what I want to do."
So she gave two months notice (like I said, she really liked the Goodman and didn't want to leave them in a lurch) and went and talked to a staffing agency that a number of her friends has recommended. They told her that two months was really too far out to start looking, and to come back a few weeks before she left the Goodman.
Well, just before Erica's last day, her dad got some bad news about his cancer and began to plan a trip to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas for some more tests. Erica decided her new joblessness was a God-send and went along with her parents. Which, from a family- and emotional health- and living your life right-perspective was great. But it did set her job-hunting back a few weeks.
Now that she's back in Chicago, she's been working with that staffing agency, interviewing up a storm and working temp jobs, but nothing has clicked yet. So... if you know anyone who's looking for a swell gal with excellent project management, personal management, and general office (Word, Excel, databases, etc.) skills, and ton of personality and enthusiasm, let her know.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
CMB post: Turtle Racing
I posted Turtle Racing over at the Chicago Metroblog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)
Turtle Racing
originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago
The Mighty Athletes
My roommate is a fan of bars in general, but especially of bars with activities -- karaoke, goldfish racing, pub quizzes -- if you can win a t-shirt with a bar logo on it, he's there. So Friday afternoon when he called and asked, "Do you and Erica want to come to turtle racing tonight?" I was not very surprised, even though I had no idea what turtle racing might be. Would we be squirting turtles with squirt guns? Would that make a turtle move?
Turns out the first rule of Turtle Racing at Big Joe's 2 and 6 Pub (1818 W Foster) is "don't touch the turtles". (They don't mention this, but it's not just for the turtles' sake.) And there are no squirtguns. Buying drinks gets you tickets, a randomly-drawn ticket makes you an honorary Turtle Jockey for a race, the turtles run out from the middle of a table towards the edges, and a winning turtle wins you a t-shirt. The loseriest turtle gets its jockey a free drink.
It was DumbFun enough to distract us from the Bulls' HorribleStupid loss to the Wizards, so there you go.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)
May 6, 2005
CCC au revoir
As usual, I am posting this too late for any real PR benefit, but you're the sort of person who a) reads blogs on Friday night or Saturday afternoon and b) lives in Chicago and c) is a Fuzzy-fan, then you might be interested to know that tomorrow night is the last Chicago Comedy Company show at The Playground for the foreseeable future. The demands of CCC's corporate work, classes, and their new suburban theatre means that CCC will be stepping down from active membership in the Playground.
It's been fun playing with CCC for this last year (I'm in an odd little arrangement where I only perform with CCC at the Playground, not as a part of any of their other activities) so come watch us before we become "emeritus" members of the Playground. We probably won't be doing any big blow-out, just the kind of fun-messing-around we've been doing all along -- at our last show, while we were warming-up we decided to do a Half-Bat (alternating scenes in the dark, Bat-style, and in the light). Whee!
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:33 PM | Comments (1)
May 4, 2005
Char-grilled comedy
While we were in Phoenix a couple weeks ago, we ate at the Schlotsky's across the street from the hotel a couple times. The second time we ate there Shaun got the Angus Steak & Provolone sandwich -- tasty, he says, but more importantly it gave us the name of our next show:
I think it'll be like Bassprov, in that'll just be us two talking on stage, but it'll draw from Sickest Stories, in that we'll grill real steaks while we talk.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:06 PM | Comments (0)
Just me
Clearing images off the camera phone -- I like this one from a few weeks ago.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 3, 2005
Congratulations!
It's Master Disco, now! (My brother successfully defended his Master's Thesis this morning.) Congratz, D!
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:29 PM | Comments (1)
Slowly (very) but surely
Cue the elephants. Assemble the brass band. Let's get a parade started -- I have ordered bookshelves.
If you've visited the house in the last year (which is to so say, ever since we moved in) you know how big a deal this is. Last year when we had to move out of the old place rather suddenly, one of the casualties was 5 or 6 bookshelves -- the books went into the storage unit, but the bookshelves were left at the old place.
When we moved into the condo, we decided that the room that would, for most people, be a dining room would be our library. And the boxes of books got stacked in that room and I started a search for the perfect shelving system to maximize the use of space in that room. Well, a year later and I realized that the perfect was never going to happen, and that I was using the space in the least efficient way possible as long as it was filled with boxes. So I went to 57th Street Bookcase & Cabinet and ordered a pretty good bookcase solution. In six to eight weeks, we'll have a usable room. (Bum-bum-bump-a-bum) (That's the brass band starting up)
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:48 AM | Comments (0)
May 1, 2005
CIF is over
Pretty uneventful second weekend of the Chicago Improv Festival -- except for the Odd Political Thing that I had to fix in my video unexplainably reverting to the Old Wrong Name the one time the Important Person was there. And KOKO doing a great show as headliners on the Showcase stage. And these cuties showing up semi-unexpectedly from Texas:
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:34 PM | Comments (1)