The Two Ketchup Doctrine

I went to Chik-Fil-A today and ordered a no. 1 combo meal with no pickles. I also asked for ketchup and mayonnaise. The girl got my order ready and proceeded to hand me two handfuls of ketchup and mayo! I was pleasantly surprised as usually fast food workers are stingy about giving up ketchup.

No matter how much food one may order, fast food workers think that two tiny ketchup packets will cover and entire meal; it's as if they believe the customer is Christ and can make that amount of ketchup last forever. No one I know of would just grab two ketchup packets if they had the choice, thus, I must believe management has made the Two Ketchup Doctrine standard across the country. When I order my food at these establishments, when asked for if I would like any condiments, I say, "Yeah. I'd like two complete handfuls of ketchup. Give me as many as you would use when you eat out." Typically I get a laugh, a smile, and just enough ketchup to make the meal enjoyable. Sometimes I get the dreaded two ketchup packets which forces me to ask for more.

I've learned to eat a lot of fast food without ketchup as a result. However, it is nice to have it when desired.

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:

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Welcome to 1080i

I got myself a 60 Gb PS3 system with a few games of Craigslist. I got it as a result of a promise I made myself and the wifey if I correctly determined the sex of our new addition. Not taking into account a 50/50 probability and that it could've all been incredibly wishful thinking, I KNEW from pretty much the beginning of this journey we embarked on that'd it'd be a boy. I professed my belief so deeply that there was absolutely no doubt in my mind. I felt like Morpheus believing in Neo .

The cool thing is that I got the game I wanted with it (Call of Duty 4) plus a couple of PS3 titles. I am excited to get back to trying to beat the multiple PS2/PS games I have collecting dust. I am also excited that the dude upgraded the hard drive from 60 Gb to 120 Gb so downloading games can become more of a reality .

I plan to play the hell out of that console and my Wii now. Of course, it might take me till June to do so

Lolla-Money-I-Looza!

With the reunification of Rage Against the Machine, I have an excellent opportunity in August to see them at Lollapalooza, a staple concert of the Grant Park for the last three years. In addition to Rage, Girl Talk, Floggin' Molly, The Go! Team, and Blues Traveller will be there as well. It all sounds good but I can't get passed the $200 ticket price .

Has anyone gone to Lollas of the past in Grant Park? Is it really worth it to see them in such a large and ultra public venue? Or should I save my cash and wait to see them individually?

In the meantime, I'll be listening to as many of these bands via Myspace to make the ticket price in my head seem more reasonable.

I Needed Today

Today was gorgeous day in Chicago. It was sunny outside, the wind was moderately blowing, and the temperature was somewhere in the 60s. I had performed my promotionathon Friday and Saturday and felt like I could actually take a break from it and enjoy the day.

No sooner than I had decided on doing that, I spent a couple of hour sin the morning creating this for Brat Pack :

Okay, so I lost a couple of hours of daylight! I showered, got dressed, then went out for a walk. I figured I wasn't starving, therefore, I could walk to where I wanted to eat. Heading east on Montrose, I headed towards the park on Montrose and Western to see what was going on there. I chose on this walk to not wear any sunscreen and allow the UV rays to damage my skin as it wanted to. Lord knows I need the vitamin D . It was great to see all the people milling about with their kids, dogs, and various sporting equipment enjoying the day like I was.

I decided to head on over to a sports bar that I've been meaning to eat at for a while on Lincoln and Irving Park. When it first opened up, it had a Texas motif to it. So, of course, I had to go and check it out. The owner claimed he was from Austin so we struck up a conversation about what we liked about Chicago and what we liked about Texas. I then sat down to order some non-authentic Texas cuisine. I ended up getting the nachos there which wasn't anything too terribly exciting. It basically tasted like high school football stadium nachos . Since I hd rehearsal in a few hours and was about 45 minutes away from home walking distance, I booked out of there.

I got home and promoted the hell out of BP:TM on MySpace by hitting up every local Chicago contact we had on our page with the video No rest for the weary. Instead of it feeling like a chore, I actually enjoyed doing it today as I felt like I was doing my part to make this show as successful as possible.

The point of me telling you about my day is that it's the first time this year I've enjoyed being. Yes, just being. I lived moment-to-moment for a while and it was so liberating. I look forward to more of these mini-vacations from myself.

Email-a-thon

I spent most of today sending press kits out for Brat Pack: The Musical today. I must've sent out over 300 emails of which maybe 10 were bounced back. It was so arduous to do with Yahoo because they only allow like 100 emails an hour to ensure that you aren't just a spammer. As long as we get butts in the seats and making people laugh, I'm happy!

BTW, for those whoread the blog, please make plans to see BP:TM!

Nice To Know Ignorance Is Everywhere

Lately I have heard about a few different hate movements popping up in weird places.

One of them was about the growing skinhead/Nazi-related movement in Argentina and Latin America in general. Based on my limited knowledge of it, many glorify Germany's Nazi Party and Italy's fascism, championing the country's European roots, and lashing out against drug addicts, Marxists, Jews, and homosexuals. I've seen videos on YouTube showing these guys Hitler saluting and making their opinions known about ethnic cleansing. It makes me sad to think that anyone would glorify hating others to this ultimate degree.

There is now news of an "anti-emo" movement in Mexico. There are groups of people attacking kids trying to assert their identity. I'm like WTF?! The following video goes into the latest string of bullshit explanations as to why people hate these "emo" kids. Don't Mexicans have better things to worry about than a bunch of kids dressing in all black and adoring AFI? C'mon!

..

I support these kids expressing themselves even if I don't like their music. Shame on the folks being violent towards them.

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
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Da Jank Ease

I'm going to NYC in June to recover from the month of May as well as see some friends on the east coast that I didn't get the chance to see. I've been to Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Japan, Germany, France, England, Holland, India, and Italy but never have I been to New York City . The though of going there has been "Well...uhm...why?" I live in the best city in the world! Why would I want to go to an even bigger city and deal with it? Well, it was about time I got around to doing it.

As I've gotten older, planning my trips has become a chore. I like to show up at the airport then figure out what to do moment-to-moment. That way I live to my whims vs. being a slave to a schedule. Well, for this trip, I've planned a few different activities. The one look most forward to is seeing my first Yankees game ever and seeing Yankees Stadium before they blow it up and it becomes only a reference in sports books. I'm a Yankees fan by default as my Dad is a huge Yankees fan. he's the one who turned them onto me. There was a period in my life where I was a baseball card collector and so I all of a sudden knew everything there was to know about the current Yankee teams. Don Mattingly was my hero! I got us semi-nose bleed tickets and plan to just chill and enjoy being around my friends and letting the history of the franchise soak into my being.

Go Yanks!

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
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Blessed Be The Month of May

14 shows in one month. That's what I'm looking at. Between Salsation, Recapitulation, Genre, and BrownCo, the month of May is jam-packed full of theatre, laughs, and traveling. It's totally freakin' awesome!

There are a couple of drawbacks like being unable to spend more time with family and friends, the millions of lines I have memorize, and the fact I don't get a real vacation until June, but I'm super grateful for all of these opportunities to flex my acting and producing muscles.

A theatre friend of mine asked me why life makes such expectations of ourselves to draw us away from chillin' out. I told her "Because we choose to do this." It seemed so simple but yet rich of answers. Life is a resultant of all the little choices we make on a moment-to-moment basis. We can choose to be happy with all of our choices either good or bad or convince ourselves we can avoid the responsibility by blaming other things. Choose to be happy each time you decide to do something. That way the entire process is enjoyable.

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
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Karoake Retirement

I partied like it was 1999 on Saturday after a show with a bunch of actors at a place called The Hidden Cove in Chicago. I’ve driven by it many times but never actually went inside as it looked like a massive dive bar from the outside, and since there only thing to do at a dive bar is drink, it pretty much knocked me out of that category.

The wifey and I walked in and there were a lot of people there. Apparently it was karaoke night and there were at least two bachelorette parties there. I had s inking feeling that we wouldn’t get a chance to sing because it was a Saturday night, there were tons of people there ahead of us, and we got there around 11:30 PM with two bachelorette parties going in full swing. It was so loud in there that you really couldn’t hear anyone really so that gave you the option of dancing or hanging out waiting for your name to be called. So, I opted to do both at given times.

While waiting, people picked the most horrendously overplayed and oversung songs. Why do Northsiders pick songs to sing that they wouldn’t even bump in their own cars? For example:

1. Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
2. The Love Shack - The B-52s
3. Say You, Say Me - Lionel Ritchie
4. Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
5. Killing Me Softly - The Fugees
6. It’s Raining Men - The Weather Girls
7. Summer of ’69 - Bryan Adams
8. Jack and Diane - John Cougar Mellancamp
9. Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet
10. What I like About You - The Romantics

The list can go on forever. A majority of these songs are sung by drunk, college girls with pterodactyl-like vocals at the top of their lungs. If you’re drunk, I guess it’s fun to be bombarded with such crap but when you’re not, it’s annoying as hell .

Because I know they are staples of any Northside karaoke place, rather than eradicate these songs from the catalog, I have come up with a proposition. I suggest that the people who pick those songs be allowed to sing them until 11 PM on any given night. After that, those songs are "retired". If people sign up with them after that, oh well, they mystically don’t get called up to sing. By 11 PM, those songs have been sung 15,000 times by relatively sober people, thus, "we’ve been there, done that". This allows the new comers who aren’t quite as drunk to have a chance to sing something relatively uncommon and make the night more enjoyable for everyone.

On my list of songs to do, I have a common pattern I take. I warm up with a song I already know and know quite well like "Bust A Move" or "Under the Bridge" and then graduate to a leser sung song like "Heart and Soul" or "Peaches" and then I begin the night of trying songs never tried before. It keeps me off my feet as a performer.

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=16074757&blogID=375197122&Mytoken=D6B7CB3D-C615-4B3C-A55467B6C8462A5B27366631

Young MC To The Rescue!

Yesterday I headed over to Second City for an impromptu audition for new show going up in a few weeks. I was contacted directly by the director to audition after receiving some recommendations from the faculty and staff over there (thank you guys for keeping me in mind!). It was the most interestingly non-traditional audition I’ve had .

For the first part of the audition, I was asked to rap. Apparently this is major part of the show. I asked if there was anything in particular they wanted to hear. They let me know that I could take any particular song I want or even freestyle if need be. So, my mind began racing through all of the songs I could use and nothing felt good. Then I thought about Young MC. I could do Bust A Move but to me that would’ve been a little too easy and trivial to perform as I do it al the time at karoake bars (since typically it’s the only Young MC song they have in their catalogs ). I then decided to try a song I’ve never performed live and went with Know How from his first record which is great example of his excellent lyricism on that record (probably the best from all of his records). So, I spat the rhymes out and they seemed to perk up while I did it. It was fun as hell. I fumbled a few words here and there since I haven’t tossed that song into the mix for a while but I got through it. After I completed I got some applause and the director whips out his cellphone and starts waving it in the air in respect! I can’t remember the last time that’s ever happened. The rest of the auditions were doing impressions of political candidates and then redoing the rap song as one of them. Overall, it was a fun audition.

We’ll see where it goes. My availability is killing me through June right now . I really just wanted to head down there and let them who I was and to keep me in consideration for any future projects they may have as well as to honor those folks who threw my name into the hat of actors they recognize have skillz.

Note: This was originally posted on Myspace with comments at:
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A New Dance Craze, Kids!

I’ve come to the decision I’m going to learn how to moonwalk this year. All of a sudden I feel like it’s going to be important for me to dance away from the ladies while on the dance floor and never breaking eye contact with them . Join me in my crusade!

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=16074757&blogID=373519717&Mytoken=2D45BB8C-3BF3-4564-86FC62F1AEA43E449043548

Explain Tupac to Me

It’s uncanny the references to Tupac I’ve witnessed this week, thus, why I’m writing this blog. Why is Tupac a legend? I bought a greatest hits collection for Tupac, have streamed tracks off his other records, and have watched documentaries on the man. He definitely had skill and came from an obtuse angle in the game with regarding some of his lyrical content. He had his own style like many a rapper do. However, do I hold him in my top 20 list of all time greatest rappers? No.

A family friend of mine tried explaining it to me the other day by asking me to view it from the vantage point of the era in which he became famous. To be candid I tuned out of the rap game because the industry betrayed me by bring a bunch of sorry arse gangsta clones to the forefront and leaving my fun loving, party oriented rap artists in the dust. Hence, why I didn’t get into Tupac, Biggie, nor any other dead rapper of the 90’s. I don’t have this perspective to work from so I only can rely on the music as a guide into the hype.

I respect that he did his thing but I can’t hold him up in such high esteem like everyone else seems to do. Somebody school me.

Currently listening : 2Pac - Greatest Hits By 2Pac Release date: 24 November, 1998

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
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