Filed by Bil at 7:58 pm under Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs, Social Issues, The Arts
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Good people of Cyberspace, prithee, look to the right side of thy screen and hark! You’ll notice we are holding an open recording session for actors to read some hatemail for us. Inquire within for more info if you’re interested. It’s from 2 to 5 PM at Trevor’s live-in recording studio (AKA his apartment). There will be coffee.

For those of you who haven’t heard me talk about it a gajillion times already, the premise is this: we get people to send us hatemail intended for someone else (anyone in the world can participate). Then, we get local actors to give them dramatic readings (any actor in town can participate). Once we have recordings, we get local musicians to underscore them (any musician in town can participate). Finally, we get local visual artists to make something pretty/grotesque/interesting for them (any visual artist in town can participate). It’s pretty simple, really.

Now then.

You know those people who claim to have read “1984″ and say that the future Orwell presents is the scariest thing they can think of? I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that one.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts, The Media
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Here’s a clip of the most recent episode of The Cleveland Show. The point here is not the relative merits of Family Guy or American Dad! versus this MacFarlane project, but this clip is a classic rule of three with a nice button at the end.
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Filed by Bil at 8:01 pm under Love, Pop Culture, Religion, Shameless Plugs, The Media
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I’m gonna say it up front: I have no idea who this blog’s audience is. It is entirely possible that we have NO audience, and that the hit counter is just making shit up so that we don’t fire it.

That being said, I still take it as bad news that teenagers and pre-teens are reading fewer and fewer blogs these days:

Teens Spurn Blogs, Twitter

In light of the fact that it’s going to get harder instead of easier to pull an audience, I think it’s time to ask myself: what do I want from this blog?
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Filed by Bil at 11:16 pm under Pop Culture, The Science
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Check out this performance from Tom Jones doing “It’s Not Unusual” from 1965. Dig his awesome hybrid cardigan sweater/leisure suit outfit. Stand in awe of his sweet dance moves. Try to keep up as he deftly switches back and forth between snapping his fingers and clapping his hands.

Here’s a story for you. Immediately following this performance, Tom Jones walked off the sound stage and punched a hole in the wall. Inside the hole in the wall was a small ruby and a map of clues leading to more precious jewels. Tom Jones took the map to his twin brother, Gallagher Jones, and offered him a choice: take over for Tom Jones as the crooning singer destined for fame and glory, or hunt down the jewels by following the clues. One road was a non-stop hunt for buried treasure, undoubtedly beset on all sides with danger and heartache. The other meant that he got to be Tom Jones for the rest of his life.
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Filed by Bil at 10:54 am under Politics, Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs
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I have recently had my head forced out of the sand, where evidently it’s been for some time now. It’s what happens when you intentionally ignore both politics and pop music.
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Filed by Lance at 2:53 pm under Fightin' Words, General, Pop Culture, Stuff to Read, The Arts
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This is, of course, the only appropriate music to accompany this post:

Thanks to all the time I have riding the ‘L,’ I recently finished Homer’s Illiad for the first time (I didn’t actually read it in high school when I was supposed to… did you?) I kept being impressed by Diomedes’ epithet: “Diomedes of the great war-cry.” In ancient warfare, when it wasn’t just click-and-dead, you had to really want to kill the other guy, that is, had to really want to take a piece of bronze or iron and cut the other guy’s skin off his bones. A war-cry was an essential part of keeping the veterans focused, and the young guys from wetting themselves and running. Or at least from running.
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Filed by Bil at 8:23 pm under Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs
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One nice thing about working in the office where I work is that so many of my coworkers are so plugged in. I got the news about Michael Jackson today at about 4:45 PM, before his death had even been confirmed.

The not-so-nice thing about where I work is every time there’s news of this magnitude, I’m so backed up with work that I don’t have the mental capacity to care. I felt badly right away, of course, but I also felt a very quick annoyance at everyone getting up from their desks and talking loudly and not working while I was answering phones and typing furiously. I was working, those bastards, couldn’t they see? Lazy and irresponsible pricks.

But now I’m not at work. I’m at home, and I am slowly getting that profound sense of loss that I’ve seen on the faces of so many people at work and on the train ride home. And not just over Michael Jackson – I’m also sad that Farrah Fawcett passed away, since I had just heard that she was finally going to get married after being with the same guy for, like, 30 years.

And I had been thinking how much Ed McMahon did to further the status of sidekicks in society. I was grateful for Ed when I watched the first “Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien and saw his old pal Andy Richter standing there – it was very much the Ed-and-Johnny feel, and that’s a good, good feel. It made me happy.

I have nothing earth-shattering to say about these three; I was not the most obsessive fan of any of them. But controversy or no, they were, in fact, true American icons, and I acknowledge the gravity. I would never have predicted that these three would be grouped together in any category, but this kind of makes sense.

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EDIT 6/28
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Actually, apparently they come in fours sometimes: Billy Mays, darling of infomercials everywhere, has also died.

TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead in Tampa home

And, if you count David Carradine not too long ago, that could really make five.

Or else we should be waiting for one more, which would make two sets of three. Who’s next in line?

Filed by Bil at 1:55 pm under Pop Culture, The Arts
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I will offer this confession: I did not watch the Tony Awards.

Worse yet: I have never watched the Tony Awards. Ever.

Still worse: I have never really cared about the Tony Awards. Ever.

To top it off: I watch the Oscars every year. I love the Oscars. I care about the Oscars.

I am sure this places me among the vile outcasts of the theatre community – that I should follow Hollywood and ignore Broadway – but it’s the truth, and, to quote a play, “To thine own self be true.”

(Of course, when someone says such-and-such was nominated for a Tony, then, of course, I pay attention. I’m shallow like that, yes.)

However, I do take it upon myself (as a matter of duty, I suppose) to read the list of winners after the ceremony is all done with. Apparently, God of Carnage won Best Play, which puts Yasmina Reza back on top of the world, and I really love Art, so good job, Reza! Keep it up.

Also, some of my favorite film actors won Tony Awards (Geoffrey Rush, Angela Lansbury, and Marcia Gay Harden), and oddly enough I sort-of-kind-of-barely know a cast member of Hair, which won Best Revival of a Musical.

So cool beans for the Tony Awards, and congrats to all nominees and winners. I probably won’t watch next year, either, but you know…can’t predict the future.

Filed by Bil at 11:13 am under Pop Culture, Social Issues, The Media
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Note of contention: I have been trying to post this article for over a week now, but something was wrong with our Word Press editor software. Yes. Technical problems with the website prevented me from posting an article titled “Websites are the future”…anyway, here it is, in all last week’s glory…

I’m going to write this article with three points that seemingly have nothing to do with each other, starting with:

1) Pay for what you get.

If you don’t give money to Chicago Public Radio, here’s what you have to look forward to. Or, if you don’t listen to Chicago Public Radio, it’s what you have to look forward to hearing me talk about.

You don’t want that, do you?

Give $20 at WBEZ.org

Speaking of websites being the future…

2) Make the most of a dire situation.
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Filed by Lance at 11:55 pm under General, Love, Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs, The Arts, The Media
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It’s been a crazy two weeks. Here’s what the program looked like:

1. 4/20, Act I: The Game of Contact and a workshopped performance of The Meaning of Anthology
2. 4/25, Act II: Directing for Theatre of Women IV at Dream Theatre
3. 4/26, Act III: Directing a staged reading of a new play called To Grandfather’s House by Nancy Schaefer at Chicago Dramatists
4. Relaxing Denouement (Be be be be be beep, be be be be be beep.)

(Keep reading…)