Filed by Bil at 12:43 am under General, The Arts

It takes a very unique news article to really unsettle me. I would say it takes something really big or really awful, but obviously really big and awful things happen all the time, so big and awful is kind of routine now. At least when reading the news.

But then today I read this:

Scorching Chicago Marathon leaves 1 dead

And that freaked me out.

I was going to run this marathon. This one, this year. Back in June I had decided to do the AIDS Marathon again, but then due to time constraints and extreme poverty I had to abandon the notion.

Of course, now I am glad I didn’t do it. Nobody wants to run a marathon in this kind of weather.

The one I ran in Honolulu last December was supposedly similar – mighty humid and in the mid to high eighties by the time I finished. The crucial difference there, I guess, must have been the cooling sea breeze. Because as I recall it was actually very pleasant weather; I never wished it were cooler while I was running it. I may have wished for a cooler hair style, but not for cooler weather. And I certainly didn’t die.

At some point today I do remember thinking to myself, man, it’s hot! and I found myself constantly questioning the point of clothing (and frequently considering unburdening myself of them). I didn’t realize this was record heat for this time of year. Where I come from, summer lasts until about Halloween, and then it cools down to the 70’s or so, and by mid December it can get down to the 50’s at night. But I have lived outside of southern California for like three years now and I still forget that by this time of year everywhere else, it should be chilly. It should start snowing in about a month. It definitely should not be too hot to run. But it was today, and somebody died.

Fuckin’ a.

On a totally unrelated note, I’m feeling the theatre vibe. And this time it’s not so much the usual end-of-summer-start-of-audition-season vibe, but more like the new-to-me end-of-summer-time-to-get-our-own-theatre-company-up-and-running vibe. I’m getting excited all over again. We’re building an army of artists. We have leads on where to hold staged readings and even where to perform shows…like, for a whole run…and I have the star of our first show totally on board and he is very eager to do it, which makes me eager to do it, too. We have people who can help with business-y type projects like articles of incorporation and fund-raising. This season should be interesting. I really think this will be a pretty hot little theatre company. I have a good feeling about it.

I’m thinking about how I can use next year’s marathon to raise money for the company. I’m not really sure that just asking people to donate will work. It barely worked for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and people are way more inclined to donate to that than they would be to donate to some theatre company. Especially if we don’t even produce “Angels in America” or “RENT” (which I’m pretty sure we won’t be producing…EVER). I will think on this, though, and hopefully come up with something clever involving the Chicago Marathon.