Goodbye, Chicago (for now)

I've been feeling a feeling for the last couple weeks and I couldn't put my finger on it until I drove down Lakeshore Drive yesterday with a U-Haul full of everything I own.

I said goodbye to Roommate Stephe (who will retain that name) at the door of his excellent new studio one block away from our old apartment. That's Stephe, one block away is enough variation for him. More than that might give him a heartattack. It was an emotional goodbye, next to Jim McWilliams, Stephe is one of my oldest friends and our living situation for the last year has been the best I've had since I've been here. Stephe is a genius, I'm glad we'll be friends for life so I can steal all his ideas and make millions off of them.

I drove south on Lakeshore, every inch of it held a memory. At the Sheridan intersection I thought that taking a left would take me to Fred Mowery's old apartment where I slept on his floor during some tough times and discovered a little theatre called The Heartland Studio where Schadenfreude would perform 200 shows. As I drove down Lakeshore past Montrose I remembered a morning where Justin and I went to go play park football with Meredith Voller's park team. Nobody showed up, we walked back counting women waiting for buses who had very clearly gotten fucked hard the night before. At Irving Park I remembered my first apartment with Matt Larsen, Fred Mowery, and Stephe Gluck as well as a little sketch group called Apocalypso. Traveling south from there, looking to my left brought many memories of my jogging route when I first moved here and the Crimson Tide soundtrack I listened to too many times while exercising.



As I approached the Drake and The Hancock going south on Lakeshore it got very difficult for me. That view is one of my favorites, Chicago will always remain the most beautiful city in America, and this view is the best one the city has to offer.

This feeling had been rising in my chest for two weeks. It started when we performed our 1999 show at The Playground and pulled out the running order we were doing when people would line up down the street to come see our show at The Heartland. That was an emotional night. I was flush with the number of times that I and this group of my closest friends had performed these sketches, The Heartland, The Chicago Improv Festival, Edinburgh, Scottland, New York, L.A., and all colleges in between. To the nostalgic mind it's not too far a leap from The Uncle Sam sketch to the hotel in Northfield, MN where that crazy old lady threw her dog in the pool or when John jumped on a table and showed the entire bar his nuts.

I passed Navy Pier and thought of how my five close friends worked ourselves to exhaustion to push the limits of what one group of writer/producer/director/actors could do. How we found resources to write and create and spontanously bring forth magic for three years straight. If I could bottle what it felt like to do that radio show I could make millions, giving every Chicago comedian the chance to feel the confidence, fear, intelligence, trust, and love they come here looking for.

The radio show solidified the bond I share with those four random people I met at 1616 N. Wells st. in Spring of 1997 after failing to get into Second City the first time I auditioned. Oh how life would be different if I had. Had I gotten in the first time I wouldn't have felt what I was feeling as I drove out of Chicago.

Heartbreak.

Thank you all so much for the decade (DECADE?!?) of amazing memories in that town, it's too bad that Chicago blew up and all fell down and I died. Oh wait, Chicago's still standing...and I'm still alive? That what the fuck am I blubbering about? Wait, I'm still working on a daily basis on Schadenfreude.net and a weekly basis on the Schadenfreude books, movies, musicals? Then what the fuck am I pining for? SCHADENFREUDE IS NOW BI-COASTAL BITCH! We're BI, that's so hot!



LET'S ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!