Did I just drive from 1:30am until 10:00am and then work from 10 to 8? Yes I did. As I write to you I am in a decidedly different hotel room in a decidedly different town as I'm working at a decidedly different fair.
It all started Friday night.
Schadenfreude put on a show of it's vintage "canon" at the Playground (the first place we ever performed, long before The Playground would call Halsted or Lincoln avenue home). Monty Python had "the Parrot sketch" and "The Lumberjack Song", The Kids In The Hall had "Reg" and "The Chicken Lady." We've got "Crazy Pants", "Sign Language," and "Raffi." It took us two solid years of performing to figure out what worked and what worked for us. The running order we put up Friday Night was what we had after those first two years. We took that running order to L.A., New York, Scotland. So, doing the show Friday night was the perfect storm of nostalgia and I must admit to getting a little emotional during some of them.
Of course, the fact that I'm moving adds exponentially to how I felt doing that show.
I'm very torn emotionally about the whole thing. I didn't love movies so much, making them so much. If I didn't love the politics of movie making, the creative process, the troubles you have to navigate, the egos you have to deal with, the neverending stream of problems that need to be solved during production and the pure buzz of creativity. If I didn't love all of that so much and want that to be my life until I die, I'd find it impossible to balance out ten years in the comedy community in Chicago on the other side of the scale.
I still can' believe I'm leaving, it's very weird, and we didn't put up a running order of favorites as some sort of going-away gift to me, but it was perfectly timed to revisit some long-past Schadenfreude history. Doing those sketches brings back a lot of memories. We haven't done a stage sketch review in forever, we went to radio and then our current in-mic stage setup, which I love, I love that we've evolved and our current act is more versatile and if we wanted to, we could put together a run that wouldn't be beholden to theatres and lighting plots but could play in concert venues anywhere in the U.S. Someday that tour will probably happen. The group's not going anywhere, I am.
Revisiting our classic sketches was, as everything seems to be for the last few months, a moment of perspective. Doing the same moves that we did 6 years ago, having done them then, and to be doing them now is an overwhelming sense of persepctive. I remember the kid who wrote the Uncle Sam sketch (during the Serbian conflict) and what he thought was funny and why he wrote what he wrote because he was who he was. Now I'm me, now, doing it again. We've had a crazy journey together, this Schad crew. Hung out long enough afterwards to talk to James Joseph and Andrew James, always a pleasure, and then...
Into the Promo Van
For my midnight ride...at 1:30. I'm amazed I made it, I hadn't had a nap as I intended to, so I was tired as hell. I took two or three fifteen-minute naps along the way but I made it to the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds around 10:30, ready to put in a full day of explaining how to putt. Ever been to DuQuoin? It's near DeSoto, which is near Tungsten Junction, sorry Bismuth Springs, sorry, Osmium Falls. I never get tired of that bit. By the way, Osmium is the world's heaviest element, Osmium Falls isn't just funny, it's Galileo Players funny.
What I listened To On The Way Down
Wolfmother, or what would happen if The Darkness and Led Zeppelin fucked.
The Commentary Track from One From The Heart, Francis Ford Coppola
The Teaching Company, Great Lectures Audio Series: A History of Science 1700-1900 and The Other 1492, Spain Under Ferdinand and Isabella, I've got a good excuse for that last one.
Audiobook: The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, I only got up to 1972, I hope this David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash collaboration works out. And I hope they find a name!
The Penn Jillette Show, my new favorite talk show. Penn is one of my favorite people, and his book How To Play With Your Food is on my all-time top 10 books, available on podcast from iTunes
Sam & Jim go To Hollywood, great podcast chronicling the lives of two Minnesota Restauranteurs who gave up their lives and moved to Hollywood to become writers.
That's right, I'm a nerd, an educated one. Want to know how we REALLY discovered electricity?
"We always have coffee brewing, 24 hours a day
So I get done with my 10 hour shift after the 7 hour drive after the hour-long show after the regular-length day and I drive to what I expect to be another fleatrap. But I don't care, I'm willing to enjoy the hell our of every spring that digs into my back as I sink into the center of the 30 year-old-mattress. But I got something shockingly different.
The lobby looks like a lobby, a nice one. TV, Fireplace, I note by glancing down the hallway that the pool is inside. The guy at the counter is busy so I wander around. Coffee!, godbless them they have coffee in the lobby, but god knows when it was brewed, but I really don't care. I brought my coffee back to the counter and asked if it was okay if I have a cup (holding up the cup I already have). I asked if the decanters were for some event. He says "oh no, we have coffee available in the lobby 24 hours a day." Is this heaven? I'm a terrible cliche, I'm a writer who doesn't watch tv and drinks nothing but coffee all day.
But the coffee was no fluke
This is the bourgeous life I'd always hoped for.
Is that a lap-thingy on the bed? I believe it is.
What's this? The door doesn't hit the toilet?
More coffee a-cup-at-a-time?
Are those bottles of shampoo and conditioner thin and attractive like Keira Knightley?
I believe they are.
My view.
Next: Where the fuck is DuQuoin and what the fuck do they do here once a year????
2 comments:
Sounds like you a coffee whore!
I'm a terrible cliche, a writer who loves coffee and doesn't watch tv.
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