my onion article audition

"Area Man Not Actually Down With O.P.P."

WAUSAU, WI-- On Thursday night, 28 year-old Scott Wakowski realized after the fact that he was actually not "down with O.P.P". "I've heard that song before," said Wakowski, "and never gave it much thought, but now that I have a girlfriend, I don't know how I or Jessica would feel about it." Naughty By Nature's summer jam from 1991 was played at a New Years eve party where he and girlfriend Jessica Ploeger were attending. "Everyone was shouting 'yeah you know me!' with me, too. I mean, do they know they're just allowing infidelity with the ones they love? Just think about the lyrics." Ploeger could not be reached for comment, but sources close to her say that she was and probably will be one of the "every last ladies", despite Wakowski's new-found impressions about the song.

f.t.t.h

This is a repost from something I had written about 7 months ago. Maybe you're interested?

"See you in hell."

I remember the first time I thought, "This was a bad idea."

On my refrigerator in college, there were the words "fuck theatre to hell" written in out in those poetry magnets (the single dumbest idea ever realized). Somoene had even drawn a little fire around it with a red and orange erasable marker. Every morning, I would wake up, open the fridge only to have that little phrase stare me in the face. I would dismiss it. Whatever. Or not even notice it somedays.

Eventually I would say it to myself when I'd stare at it. "Fuck theatre to hell. Heh."

Then I'd think about it during the day. Maybe put a little melody to it (Toto's "I'll Supply the Love" was a good one. )

Slowly, and without warning, it became a mantra. "Fuck. Theatre. To. Hell." It was my answer to everything; the panacea for whatever ailed me.

The self-fulfilling prophecy began. I became jaded, old, cynical, ironic, detached, hatful, and hated, like, all in a few short weeks. And all because of those poetry magnets.

I would amble about, always questioning what I was doing, how selfish this stupid profession was, how I could be paying an institution for them to teach me how to stipple a fake hobo beard on my face, or to crawl around on the floor in sweatpants screaming at other people "NOOO!!" as they encroached on my invisible pile of post-apocalyptic government-issued bread loaves in an acting exercise geared toward expanding th-- fuck this. Fuck this to hell. Surely this can't be real.

Though:

I would take solace in the fact that I was "doing what I want", but I would step back, and third-eye the situation: I'm getting a degree in pretending, storytelling, entertainment, buffoonery, talking. Those people you see on Disney cruise ships that play at 2:00, 4:00, 6:30, and 9:00 to tracked, canned shitty medleys of Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter tunes, those actors you make fun of on the Soaps, your bearded high school drama teacher who was "a little too nice" to the girls, the girl putting extra espresso in your latte in the morning, the guy getting you some more water: they all did this, too. They took the classes, got the degrees. And here I am. In the middle of Wisconsin, at a school you wouldn't hear of in all your life time. And I'm taking the classes and getting the degree."This was a bad idea."

But the very next synapse that fired from my brain was:
"Nope, this is what I love."

For better or for worse, I had fallen in love. Fallen in love with the acting exercises, the plays, with other actresses, with the parties, the complete ego trip that it was, the thrill of applause, the possibility of creating artMany actors hang all their collective hats on this theory that they are artists or will one day create art. It helps them sleep at night. Please don't disturb or question this idea, or you'll mess with the very fabric of actors' existences. , and the relative meaninglessness of all that was promised to me.

So, here I am. A few years later. With that same mantra "Fuck Theatre To Hell" tacked to my wall, scrawled in Sharpie. Like Theopholis, Faust, Robert Johnson, Zeppelin, MTV, Bernie Madoff, and "2 And A Half Men", I sold my soul to the devil for a chance at a taste. To suckle like Judas, Brutus, and Cassius (All three of whom are dream roles all actors want to play. Coincidence?) at the teet of Satan. So here I am.

Why don't I stop? Cause the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. And the devil I don't know would probably include more schooling and douche-bags and less casual smoking of weed and bi-curious women. And I don't care to meet any other life-sucking, wang-shrinking, fire-breathing, soul-shattering, personality-homogenizing, gateway-drug demon than Theatre.

I'm in hell. And I'm not leaving until I die.

See you in hell.

hold steady

one of my favorite bands (and frankly just one of the best live shows i've seen (thanks lindsey)), the hold steady, lost their delightfully anachronistic keyboard player two days ago (to quitting, not to death). he added this color to the band that was much needed: the guitarist is a detached mystic white boy, the bass pl. is a bass pl., and the drummer purposefully gets his rock-kit groove on. but craig finn needed that yang, that dichotomy that made t.h.s. something to remark. what entity goes better with those barked lyrics 'we drink and we dry up and we get covered in rust/we get wet and we corrode and now we crumble into dust' than a preposterously mustachioed ham, pounding it out on the B-3 or the Korg.

anyhow, Paste did their top 8 t.h.s songs. a fine list, sure.

here's mine:

Lyric Honorable Mention: Citrus : "i've had kisses that made judas seem sincere"

Muisc Honrable Mention: Most People Are DJs

Honorable Mention: Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night - this song is over far too soon. if there's one gripe i have about t.h.s , it's the declarative unity of the pronoun 'we'. however this tune goes yard with that concept to describe debaucherous nights for us. the best song that conveys a unity of subject and author. you just want to say 'fuck yes'.

*bonus points for terrific rhyme (we mix our own mythologies. we push them out through pa systems. we dictate our doxologies and try to get sleeping kids to sit up and listen) 4*

8. Stay Positive - a sort of 'where-we've-been-how-we-got-here' tribute to their friends, vices, characters, and fans. they stumbled upon something many writers do and few bands can do well: bringing it back. t.h.s do that so well without sounding precious. it's almost jarring to hear them sing about anything else than Holly-leuja or Gideon or Ybor City.

bonus points for fist pumping shout chorus: 3

7. Knuckles - at his barkingly best, finn just succumbs to the fact that he'll never be anything but some self-effacing bastion of mediocrity. a lying liar. or is he commenting on someone else? an introduction to the tiered structure to t.h.s. songs. armed with a shield of characters and a weapon of wit.

*bonus points for the sunny d line (i've been trying to get people to call me sunny d/cause i got the good stuff that kids go for/ but people keep calling me five alive) : 4 *

6. Stevie Nix - by virtue of the last verse, this earns a spot. unique lyrical brush strokes unparalleled save maybe by bret easton ellis in 'less than zero' (he never rocked this hard, though.) catholic mythology + minnesota + /drugs *weak-willed teenagers looking for escape = the t.h.s. oeuvre

*bonus points for naming your song after stevie nix - 32*

5. Stuck Between Stations - i popped this album into my car after much hype by virtually every music mag, and it was one of those transported moments, both cinematic and out of body. too amazed to rock just yet. now, yes, subsequent listentings provided opportunity for plentiful air guitar, drums, and esp. piano, but what a great song.

*bonus points for creeping closer to the E-Street Band - 5*

4. Chips Ahoy! - a diddy about cookies? nope. the name of fortuitous pony that came in 6 lengths ahead and allowed the purchase of copious pharmies and weed only to further distance young men from young women? hell yeah. 1,000 chips delicious indeed.

*bonus points for shout chorus - 4*

3. Certain Songs - for all their high-falutin irony, gen-y ennui, and caustic myopia and 20/5 hindsight, t.h.s. have a soft spot for that old time of rock n roll. they love music, and here is their torch song for billy joel and meatloaf. certain songs get scratched into our souls (see blog posts sub.) and they ain't always the greatest, but when it hits, you feel no pain. or maybe a lot of pain. either way: truth.

*bonus points for hitting the nail on the head: 4*

2. Positive Jam - proof positive that finn is spinning a story. the foreward to a band actually committed to a song, complete with cliff notes on the 20th century, and a mantra that becomes turned on its head so quickly it barely is recalled fondly. but how often have we given ourselves a resolution only to have that resolution take on it's own perverse irony based on how much we fucked it over? they start off on a good note full of resolve. the fall is great. the further t.h.s. get into their career, the stronger this song is.

*bonus points for telling someone to do what your band name is: 6*

1. First Night - a masterpiece. a post-mortem for his characters, a lament on the fleeting nature of youth, and recalls everything for me from those nights with blurry vision at a party, or at a bar, or in a room with old friends, old girlfriends. steeped in nostalgia and ruminations of choices and mistakes and the haze of something that existed as undefinable in the past that now brings a crystal clear definition to the present. anchored by the words of kerouac 'boys and girls in america have such a sad time together', the music builds to a spine-tingling climax to finn repeating 'when we kiss we spit white noise'. finn is always looking back at the youth, an OTS glance as he's writing. he never seems to stare at the problem and analyze it. it's off-the-cuff reflections coupled with the introspection of crippled soul.

ok. its just one of the best fucking songs. period.

*bonus points for still giving me shivers: 7*

yrstruly discusses objective baking

i've been cooking vegan/gluten-free food lately and what do you know, it's tasty. and healthy. and challenging. i'm usually not a "baker", per se, simply because it's one of those perfectionist food preparation styles. measure everything out and it's perfect. fuck something up, and you've got some sort of ruined cake that you'll pass off as intentional. cooking is more a "feel it out" subjective kinda thing. now, i really like all of my other activities besides acting to be very objective to balance out the sheer insanity of having a profession based solely on concepts and grey areas of success and failure. sports, building ikea shelves, putting my shoes on those shelves; things that are clearly right and wrong. Baking may become that other thing. though, i hear that you have to alter recipes and tweak things to add your own eponymous 'jeremy's rough-hewn chocolate chip cookies'.

holy shit the new spoon album is incredible. listen to britt daniel on "written in reverse". there's some incredible song-craft on 'transference'.

miss julie is opening... well... now. i got about 30 min until i start dancing like hormone crazed teen and melding to and fro into sexual poses. it's midsummer's eve, what do you expect?

get ur freak on.

the year of glad

happy new year. the year of glad. 2010. the future.
sorry i've been slow to update this blog since christmas and everything. i've been distracted with video games and shadow-fucking as peasants in 'miss julie'. serious stuff. not to be meddled with.
i'm, as promised, 84 pages into 'infinite jest'. carrying this thing around is work enough. i probably appear to everyone i work with as this over-reaching pseudo-intellectual, like i'd think of someone if they always carry around the bible. "i get it, thumper." but as a matter of a fact, i have great reasons for reading this book, and heckers, you shouldn't need a reason to read.
we open 'miss julie' next week along with 'krapp's last tape' and 'hughie'. what barn-burners! i actually think it's some of the company's best work this year. dissimilar to most theatre jobs, (and similar to most real jobs), i have to go in and february and defend my position in the company. while i think it's a necessity and a definite good thing, it's gonna be a little scary.

like waiting for the STD test to come back from the doctor.

i worked with stoker and sabrina to create possibly the funniest, f(c?)ringiest sketch ever committed to digital 1s and 0s. another far more tame sketch is obviously a clearer more thought-out version and will garner laughs from the peanut gallery, but this... oh... this. you'll see.

i need to do more. more writing, flex my creative digits, (side-note, i've had an infected finger for about a week now. most irritating), juice my art fruit, or whatever.

commercial auditioning has been going well, but no bookings yet.

got a couple v/o auditions on monday.

and then there's this: