Filed by Bil at 9:10 pm under Fightin' Words

The Olympics are going to Rio De Janeiro in 2016. This news was met with mixed emoticons here in Chicago last week. By the time they finally made the announcement, the latest polls were showing roughly half of the city still wanted the Olympics and roughly half the city did not – in fact, I think the nay-sayers even had a slight edge in that poll. Personally, I wanted them. I won’t lie. But I wasn’t exactly devastated by the loss.

A lot of people were so worried that the city would lose money on it. News flash: the city has been losing money on far stupider ideas than hosting the Olympics for years now, and guess what? I’m still alive with a roof over my head and I’ve still got cable TV.

The pro of the bid loss is that yes, the city losing money probably would have hurt me, at least a little bit, in some obscure and subtle way that I would never have noticed but nevertheless would have crushed the inner soul. So good on that one, I guess. Dodged a bullet there. Also, there would be a shit ton of new construction, and construction makes everything less convenient. There’s the silver lining.

The part of it that’s sad for me is that I would have had the opportunity to actually watch some of the games live. I could say that I was there, in the flesh, in the bleachers, watching the world’s greatest living athletes do what they do best the best they could. I could have mingled with people who travelled there specifically to see those games, and shouted and hollered with them in the stands. It would be great.

And the prospect of having a show at the theatre during all this time? How exciting would that be? An international audience? Maybe that’s not an exciting thought to many people, but I’d be thrilled to have people who speak little to no English come watch me perform. Would they get it? Would they not get it, but still enjoy the spectacle? What a thought.

That, of course, is also assuming I’m still living and working in Chicago theatre by 2016. It’s a long way off. Think about it. Theatre actors: where will you be in 2016? How many of us could really be doing the same thing seven years from now – tolerating a day job and running off to rehearsal or performance at night, with so little sleep and so much stress? Will we be professionals by then, with no day job? Will we give up theatre in order to stay sane, if not rather bored, at a predictable day job and a restful evening at home? We’re young now. Will we still be young in 2016?

I recently got a promotion at my day job. It’s more like a day career, and like many other people who work in an office, I never dreamed I’d be doing this for a living. I’ve never in my life kept a full-time day job as long as I’ve had this one, and now I’m moving up. The interview for the position included most of the typical interview questions, including: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” My answer was a slightly ambiguous, slightly ambitious-sounding, “I’m open to whatever might move me to act in that direction.”

The truth is, as soon as I can make a steady living either as a writer or an actor (or both), I will gladly take it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful for the promotion in more ways than one. But with the promotion at the office comes more money, and the more money you earn, the harder it is to give it up.

So be it the next five years or the next five days, I’ll do as I said and stay open to whatever might move me to act in that direction. But I’m learning more and more as time goes by that you really have to make your own opportunities. Chances to act in shows open up without much of my own control, much less paying acting opportunities that don’t require me to be more handsome than I actually am and sing better than I actually do. But the acting I do now for free might eventually turn into paid gigs if I work hard and work smart to bring people into the theatre, and if I can impress them enough once they are in there. Also, I can write anything I want on my own time and try to get published as I go. It’s up to me to make the opportunities I need to take, and I am definitely feeling ambitious.

So I’ll say this, just to put it out there, just to make myself too scared of embarrassment not to make it happen. By 2016, I will not be working in an office. With a roof over my head and cable TV.

There.

I said it.

Project No Office Day Job By 2016 is now in effect.