The Eels are my favorite band of all time. The driving force and lead singer of the group, E (Mark Oliver Everett), is the greatest practicing lyricist today. Tweedy is a close second (although, much as I liked the album, Sky Blue Sky was really a step backward lyrically). And Dylan is, by my definition, no longer practicing (if you hadn’t been so excited the man was still alive, you wouldn’t have given a shit about Love & Theft, much less Modern Times). So E is the king of lyrics in my eyes. He’s also a dick.

If you’ve seen the Eels perform, or an interview with E, you know he kind of likes to piss people off. But then when you hear his most painful songs (off Electro-Shock Blues, mainly) you kind of forgive him for it.

If you wanted to understand me better, I’d point you to Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, his latest masterwork. Not because “it’s like the soundtrack to my life,” or because I identify with the emotional trauma that E sings about. It’ll help you understand me because I’m the kind of person that points you to Blinking Lights and Other Revelations.

What I find impressive about E as a man is that his songs are so often about him being a fuck up. If you don’t know the Eels, the only song you’ve heard by E is “My Beloved Monster” off the Shrek soundtrack. He’s like that, a lot. And better than that. A lot. He even has a lot of songs about his misanthropy, and I don’t really connect with that, but I am fascinated how he can make hating people sound charming.

And yes, I do identify with the persona he’s created (the dramatically over-confident). And I met have them write “I do a lot of stupid things, but my heart’s in the right place,” on my tombstone. But the problem with music is that if you’re any good at listening to it, everything intertwines.

I’m not just listening to E, I’m thinking about how my dad showed me the Beautiful Freak album when I was like nine (this may be misconstrued as bad parenting by people who know the album, but don’t worry, I was ready for it). And I’m remembering that E’s father did some of the earliest theory work in the study of parallel dimensions. And how his sister killed herself, and he put “Elizabeth on the bathroom floor” as the first track off Electro-Shock Blues. Or how I went to see him with one of my best friends in the Park West, and it was the first time I ever went to a real concert without my parents.

Me in one of the four t-shirts I own (Blinking Lights)

I was thinking about this today, because yesterday I listened to “My Sharona.” And it nearly made me tear up, because it reminded me of my best friend, Michael. The music I love isn’t just music, it’s memory and subconscious connection and milestones in my own personal growth. And nobody is further buried in me than the Eels.

Actually, Tweedy put it well on Sky Blue Sky when he said, “What was yours is everyone’s from now on.”

Something about me you wouldn’t expect: I’m a morning person. It’s weird, I know. Because there’s evidence to suggest that I sleep til three in the afternoon on a lot of Sundays (this is a dirty, communist lie). I actually enjoy the sun coming up, and the feeling of getting things done while everyone else is asleep.

But when I woke up at 7 AM at a Tuesday, I was not happy about the sun, or the coffee, or the birds chirping, or the tulips starting to bloom in front of my porch (I have fucking tulips. Roland Realty has a strange sense of appropriate landscaping). I was getting up to go see my Business Decision-Making Models professor. Who apparently thinks it’s funny to schedule his office hours from 8-10 AM. Of course, this is an evil practice, and if we can’t have a mildly racist mascot, I think that this far more heinous act also needs the university to step in.

I was going to see Professor Englebrecht-Wiggans (eplus17, as he calls himself) because I had a gigantic simulation project and corresponding business report to write. And it was due at 10 AM the next day. So I woke, showered, and coffeed myself, and caught a bus with my laptop to see E-wiggles.

When I got there, it was a few minutes before 8, and two students were already in Ewig’s office, and I thought, “Oh good. Other people are just as fucked as I am.”

One such person walked in not more than five minutes after me, and that person was Alex. A perfectly reasonable frat brother who was in my class (apparently) and whom I had never met. Most people were working in “project groups” which is college of business code for “Fucking bullshit.” But not Alex and me. We were flying solo. And crashing into the Atlantic. After a few moments with E-W. I turned to Alex and said, “D’you want to work together?”

So we spoke briefly, and then he had class and I had to pick up recycling (If you want to have your recycling picked up once a week email me at gogreeninco@gmail.com). So Alex and I met back up at 5:30. After changing locations three times and getting some Antonio’s, we each had a victory Harp at 2 AM.

I’ve never pulled an all-nighter before, and I don’t usually work this long or hard for school. Partially because I usually don’t have a production week and die right before I have a big project due in a 300 level course. But there Alex and I were, and we did magnificently, and when I wake up in six hours I expect to shower and coffee myself, and catch a bus to turn in an A paper.

What was significant about the experience for me wasn’t working hard (I do that all the time, just not for academics). What made it significant was the connection between myself and this stranger, who shockingly had a lot in common, apart from a desire to not fail and disappoint their parents.

It’s only in bizarre and trying situations that we allow ourselves to make this kind of connection. Stranded in an airport, you might talk for three hours with someone you’ve never met, and even though you never see each other again, and might not even think about that person, it’s interesting how in a more or less novel situation (working for eight fucking hours straight on an excel spreadsheet) you allow yourself to really connect with a complete stranger, because circumstance has brought you together, and so you think, “Aw, what the hell. Alex ain’t such a bad guy.”

I was just standing in the undergraduate library courtyard, which is dedicated to former university president Edmund James, who was probably a fine fellow. But it got me thinking, if I had money, real money, like Google money; how much would I have to donate before U of I would let me inscribe

WU TANG CLAN AIN’T NOTHIN’ TO FUCK WITH

On the side of the union. In big fucking Corinthian letters and shit.

People often (and by often, I mean once in a great while) wonder, “What will be on the radio when we’re the target audience of ‘oldies’ stations?”

Actually, I’m really excited for like, ten or fifteen years from now, when there’s whole radio stations devoted to Biggie, NWA, Ice-T, Master P, and Pac. They will be called “Classic Rap” stations. And this will be funny to me.

My dad used to listen to a band called Grand Funk Railroad and grew out of them. He still listens to Cream. Partially because Cream is one of the greatest bands of all time, but he does still occasionally listen to the minor artists of his youth like The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Rascals. Will I put on my old Marshall Mathers LP and think “God, I was thirteen when I first heard this song. Two pills and my pew-pils swell up like two pennies. Sing it, M.” (In the future, everyone will only be referred to by the first phonetic sound of their name).

Personally, I hope we never stop listening to that stuff, and that we do associate a weird sentimentality with the shitty songs of our youth. I hope we tear up when we listen to “Allstar” and get weepy when somebody plays Vitamin C at our fiftieth wedding anniversaries.

And our grandchildren think our old-timey “CD players” are totally cool, the way we feel about vinyl. I can just see it now, my grandchildren arguing with other peoples grandchildren about how there’s “more depth to the sound” off a CD. Because some things really are genetic.

Tom Brokaw waited a long time before he had the perspective to judge “the greatest generation.” And the baby-boomers are just starting to be. I think it’ll be super-interesting to read what twenty-something sociology graduate students (yuck) have to say about us.

I’m also think that my third million is going towards the “Notorious B.I.G. Hall.”

So I lose a lot of stuff. I’m just one of those people. The experience of losing stuff all the time/ growing up with my father, has cultivated the proper attitude in me for this kind of thing. I honestly don’t think it’s a big deal to lose something. “It’s just a thing,” my father would say.

I added my own business major caveat to that: “It just costs money, and I can always make more of that.”

I’m feeling real lucky right now because I just had my wallet returned to me, which saves me a huge pain of having to try and replace all the crap in it. Earlier this year, I lost my laptop, which is a serious sin. That’s one of those things you’re just never supposed to lose. But not only did I deal with it, more or less gracefully both times, but when both items were returned to me, it was totally awesome.

Not just because it was lucky for me that there were decent enough people who found both to get them back to me, but also because by the time I got each item back I had already full processed and accepted that they were gone.

What I mean is that, for example, when my laptop was returned to me, it wasn’t like my laptop was returned. That laptop was gone. What it was like, was getting a new laptop that already had all my shit on it. Totally awesome.

My Ipod was also stolen on unofficial (if you’re reading this, Ipod thief, fuck you. We opened our doors to you and you stabbed me in the back. Which is why my new ipod is named “Julius.”). Now this was not returned, but my friends and friends of friends came to a little fundraiser soiree at my house that raised nearly the entire purchase price of the new ipod that I’m currently listening to.

I could tell you about the race track, but that’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say that I am very, very lucky.

I could also get real sentimental here and tell you that my real blessings are my friends and family (which is true).

If I believed in fate, and reflected on how often the good Lord reaches down and gives me a do-over, I would have to believe one of two things, Either:

A) I am being watched out for by a supernatural power because I am destined for greatness.
or
B) I am being set up for a fall. Like Odysseus. Or Lucifer.

Or the state of Massachusetts.

Of course, the luck isn’t all bad. It doesn’t just convince me that there’s some sort of higher power shielding me (I ALONE CONQUERED TROY). It also reminds me to be generous.

I think my boss Leon once put it as something along the lines of:

“It’s easy to be generous when life’s been as good to you as it has to me.”

I had a long week. I’m not complaining, I’m prefacing. It sucked. I put in a ten to twelve hour day each day, had rehearsal for a show that I was concerned about (it went off without a hitch, and thank you to all who came). And I had to go to work, and go to class, and lose my wallet.

And then, I went to Dixon last summer. ( I recognize the tense is fucked up, but I’m trying a literary device thing, so hush up). And I stayed with Greg and brought Nick and Woody with me. Greg’s backyard is the Rock River and so when we didn’t have much to do one day we took his boat out on the river and the four of us went for a little ride. Greg took us to a cliff, called Third Rock, where youngins in Dixon climb up and jump into the river.

So Greg told us about it, and when we got up to it I said, “Well are we going to do this or what?”

I went up first, and I don’t wear swimsuits if I can avoid it, so I was just barefoot and bare chested in blue jeans, standing at the top of this 35 foot drop (it felt like a lot more). And I looked over the edge at the blue river on a sunny day, and felt the sandy soil among the cliffs surface, took a few steps back, and jumped the hell off.

When I looked down on the fall, the water seemed bluer, the sun brighter, and time died for a moment. Then I hit the water and swam to the boat and it was over.

And yet, when I think about it now, almost a year later, I can close my eyes and see the look from the top, and the steps back, and the jump and the fall. And it feels peaceful.

There’s a great deal of peace in the wonderfully frightening. And I’ve done some things that scared the crap out of me.

So I was walking home last night, and without getting into any details that would make my reader’s uncomfortable, I jumped off Third Rock. And the whole week of rushing from work to rehearsal to buy props and make programs and lead focus groups and losing my wallet was all gone.

Sunday is a good day to swim back to the boat. And get a little perspective.

I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I’m in a play tonight at 8PM and tomorrow at 2PM in the McKinley Foundation, upstairs, tickets are $4@the door.

Now there’s a few tricks to shameless promotion. First, I didn’t start this blog to promote my work as an actor, I started it with more lofty ambitions (writing about cigarettes, buses, eventually boobs). So I don’t want to go overboard telling you about how the show is a mash of nine different personalities that creates a near always funny- super-interesting, unique blend of theater. I don’t want to cheapen Warrior Poet (is it possible to do so, it’s just a blog after all) telling people to pay $4 to see me and my friends for an hour and a half. (Tonight at 8PM and tomorrow at 2).

Plus I don’t want to set expectations to high for the people who read this and do come to the show. I don’t want them to be disappointed them because I promised it would be

A CROSS BETWEEN THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, PITCHFORK MEDIA, AND CHUCK NORRIS

But I can’t sound half-hearted in my promotion either. The worst thing you can say is

IT WOULD MEAN A LOT TO ME IF YOU CAME

because it sounds like the show isn’t that good, but I’m trying to guilt you into coming out of friendship to me (also, the show is good).

That’s Tim Anderson. He’s a Badass

So I decided not to write a persuasive essay explaining how the format of COME SEE OUR SHORTS allows for an organic expression of the actors in two minute bursts, and how the 32 repetitions of these two minute bursts create a sort of theatrical semi-automatic.

Instead I just wanted to make the information available, that a superb piece of theater, put on by a student group of a certain reputation, THE PENNY DREADFUL PLAYERS, is going to opening TONIGHT AT 8PM and closing TOMORROW AT 2PM, and if you’re interested it’s only $4 @ THE DOOR, and feel free to bring your mom along. We’ll save a car bomb for her (to get on the inside of that joke, COME SEE OUR SHORTS).

Liz Rice is not actually naked.

Feel free to get my partner, Charlie’s perspective right on the217, here

There are two things that suck about smoking cigarettes (other than death). The first is that every time you get a cold, a legitimate cold, just like every body else gets; all anyone can say after you cough is “Oughta quit smoking.” Actually, I oughta quit being vulnerable to the common cold, you dick. On the other hand, if you climb up three flights of stairs with a non-smoker, the top flight would be an appropriate place to say “Oughta quit smoking.”

The second, and much worse part about smoking, is that any time you even hint at quitting to anyone you know, and you fail (only 3% of self-initiated quitting attempts are successful), everyone around you will watch as you take a drag, and then say:

“I thought you quit.”

Quitting is hard, and there aren’t that many people my age who really know that. If you are 19 and you have “quit” you probably didn’t smoke that much in the first place. If you’re still a smoker, you probably tried to quit and failed, but convinced yourself that your heart wasn’t really in it.

It’s a common, well quite frankly it might be a myth, I’m not sure, Common knowledge says that after three days without cigarettes your body is cleanse of nicotine (it’s in your piss, if you’re playing along at home) and the physical addiction is conquered. All that remains, and it’s a bitch, is the mental addiction.

So as I wake up on day four this morning, I have nothing to fear but me myself.

I picked a rough week to quit, almost on purpose. Every time I’ve tried and failed to quit before now, I ended up buying a pack because I was stressed about something. Addicts do this sort of shit all the time. Things are going wrong, we turn to chemicals to make us feel better.

But actually, this is the perfect week for me to quit, because I’ve wanted a cigarette every second of every day so far. It’s been a rough week because I’m in the middle of a production:

COME SEE OUR SHORTS
THIS FRIDAY @8PM AND SATURDAY @2PM
IN THE MCKINLEY FOUNDATION (SECOND FLOOR)
$4 @ THE DOOR

and nothing makes me want a cigarette more than theater. And I mean nothing.

The frightening thing is, if the whole three day thing is true, that means only my own weakness can stop me now (which it very well may).

Come see my show. Read Charlie’s article about it in the BUZZ today, or on your faithful 217 here

I apologize for the recent infrequency of posts following Do you Realize week. But like a lot of people, I’m busier than shit right now. My head is firmly up my ass, and it’s dark in there. High pressure, too. I’m expecting to extricate and pop my ears around next tuesday.

The reason I’m so swamped is because I don’t have finals. Sounds counter-intuitive, and yet. It means I have three projects, each of which accounts for at least 25% or more of my grade in its respective course. And all of that needs to get done this week.

And it’s production week for a show that I’m producing with my buddy, Charlie. The show is COME SEE OUR SHORTS and is at the McKinley foundation @ fifth and John, this Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 2PM (BRING A MOM AND ONE OF YOU WILL GET LAID).

The cast. In their Shorts. Get it?

I won’t pimp the show too much here, but I will refer you to Charlie’s shameless promotion in the Buzz coming out tomorrow.

This is what college and creative life are supposed to feel like, I think. Busy, busy, busy.

Also, Wikipedia keeps un-killing Norm Macdonald, but they don’t take away my right to kill him with an overdose on speedballs in 1996. Norm, Wikipedia, Let me do it. It’s for your own good.

Norm, start playing fast and loose with speedballs. I just saw the star of Dirty Work, and one of the last people to be funny on SNL, on The World Series of Poker. Granted I’m apparently a frat brother at heart (I watch poker on tv when I’m alone), but I honestly forgot he was alive. Apparently he was on a TV show named after him on ABC. The show lasted for three seasons, which I think is one of those wikipedia lies

(you know how academics rail against it as a source of inaccurate information? Has ANYONE EVER HEARD OF A WIKI LIE NOT PLANTED BY THE COLBERT NATION?)

Because if it is true that means a major network had a show that ran from 1999-2003 and I’ve never heard of an actual human watching it.

Norm, you should’ve died right after you did the voice of Death on Family Guy. Maybe even before that. If you’d just died in 1998, we would’ve put you in the same place in our memory as Chris Farley (who was probably funnier). Speedballs, norm. A stimulant and a depressant at the same time. Not that hard. Farley even used morphine instead of heroin.

Instead I’m watching as mid-level comedic force (a canadian at that) who has fallen from America’s funny bone. He’s currently under America’s pile of dirty laundry. So when I put on poker, and they interviewed “Funny man Norm MacDonald” (For less than eight seconds, mind you) I was really surprised he wasn’t dead.

In fact, I’m going to do Norm a favor. How do I sign in to wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Macdonald_%28comedian%29#After_Saturday_Night_Live.2C_Norm_overdosed_on_a_speedball

Rest in Peace, Norm

I basically believe that human beings are inherently selfish creatures and that this is tied firmly to the possession of a single consciousness, and an inability to comprehend the conscious mind of another. People are basically taking care of #1 all the time in my eyes. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because people are happy when they do “the right thing.” And I’m not going to split hairs over doing the right things for the wrong reasons, because I’m nearly a moral relativist. (What, you didn’t know I took Philosophy 101?)

So it’s really quite simple why I’m so intensely loyal to my friends, they prove that I’m a good person, and every time they lean on me, I’m reminded of my own strength.

My friends are necessary support for me, but they’re also a chance for me to see what I’m made of. Totally self-serving, and yet, the basis of my most cherished relationships aside from family.

Which brings me to an old cliché: Your friends are the family you choose. Wrong. Well, half-wrong. When I read back through these, what I notice is that when I actually try to think about why I’m friends with someone, the reason is always tied up in who that person is. Mitch is open, Woody is impulsive, Alex is kind hearted. So I don’t think I chose them really. I think I just always needed someone to shut me up like Alyssa, someone who I can say anything to like Michael, and someone who I could go through hell with like Nick. It’s less of choosing them as my friends and more of a magnetic attraction. I don’t want that to sound like I believe in fate or something. It’s not that I was meant to be friends with these people. But the pieces all fit together, so it almost seems like someone planned it. My group of friends was intelligently designed, perhaps.

I said the cliché was half wrong. They are family.

This week has been very interesting for me because it’s very rare that we think in even a slightly formal way about our friends.

I mean, they’re just our friends, right? But I found as I thought more and more about these people, that there’s a lot that I’d never put in words. There was a lot I even learned, which is why I encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

And not only do it, but put it into words and write it down. Every person and relationship is constantly in flux and so the entries from this week are just a little part of the truth, but only the truth of the present moment (I don’t know why I’m getting all Zen on you). It might not be true anymore in a year, and it certainly won’t be in ten. But it is now.

You realize the sun don’t go down, it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.

I’m a hugger