my stupid thoughts

What? Aw…huh? ’sthat you say? A whole f-ing week? Well that is right. I apologize to leave the thousands of you hanging for a week with out an update from me about my preciously important life.

My recent wanderlust:

The tour of Minnesota was grand. It took me twelve hours to drive up to Bemidji last thursday and I made it just in time to catch Blake’s play. The play itself was okay, nothing too great. Nothing too bad, but Blake was hilarious. His cartoony portrayal of officer O’Hara in Arsenic and Old Lace was over the top with greatness and not only I, but the entire geriatric ward in the audience and the cute, obviously in-closet couple sitting next to me, laughed out loud at Mr. Hogue’s antics. Usually I am a bit skeptical of the comedic “stunts” Blake has pulled in the past, but this instance had me raving for days–hmm I guess, an entire week, in fact. After the show, a woman thought Blake and I were brothers or something. We had fun joking about that and then took a picture which I will post when it is developed.

Friday morning I trekked east four hours over to Duluth and along the show of Lake Superior up to Gooseberry Falls State Park. I arrived to find my oldest sister, Becky laying on an air-mattress under a tree reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” while attempting to alleviate her back pain. Mary and Dave (my brother-in-law) were finishing up their lunch of HyVee Mac and Cheese. Hungry as a mentally ill sheep, I dove into the Cheesiest Mac I had ever experienced while “roughing it.” Due to Mary’s new found fake allergy to campfires, the rest of us were not allowed to experience the full camping experience. All cooking was done with a small propane grill. It was declared that if any of us were to think about building a campfire, it would mean that we did not love Mary, and in fact wished her death. As logical as this all sounded, I was able to abstain the joys of camping for this one trip.

On the up side, it was absolutely beautiful up there. (I really fit in –Bw-HA!) But seriously, folks, Lake Superior was surprisingly calm and the sky was clear. Everything seemed to have a wonderful pastel color to it. The so bright. It was wonderful. When looking across Lake Superior, it was clear enough that I could see the shoreline of Michigan on the other side. Quite amazing. After that we all hiked along the gooseberry river and checked out the falls. I had a lot of fun hopping from rock to rock across the river to the edge of the falls and then just taking a seat on the overhanging rocks, admiring the scenery. Latter, I continued this practice of hoping from rock to rock, and I managed to slip on some moss and bash my left shin. That hurt and I sat on a rock in the middle of the gooseberry river wet, stranded in pain, for a good 5 minutes. I then managed to creep to he shore and hobble back. Hurrah for glacier rocks beating up my shin! Hip-Hip-shut-up.

That night, unable to sleep due to the wonderful chorus and occasional three part harmonies emitted from my companions, I wrote a comedic skit I am fairly proud of. I am refining it and I hope to post it by my next blog.

Saturday I drove back to Iowa City with my friend, Tyler. After dropping him off at his car around 10 pm, he noticed that his tires on his tan 2000 Toyota Corolla had been slashed. Why someone would slash the tires of a tan, 2000 Toyota Corolla, I don’t know, but someone decided when they saw Tyler’s tan, 2000 Toyota Corolla, “Hey, look at that tan 2000 Toyota Corolla I would like to slash the tires of that tan 2000 Toyota Corolla right now. I will now go fetch my swiss army device.” That person was obviously a genius and spoke with an irish accent.

On Sunday I was the best damn dancing robot umpire ever in Jason Nebergall’s movie. It was fun. I had fun. During a break in shooting, I took off my robot legs and arms and in a pickup game I hit my first home run I have ever hit. I rounded the bases with vigor and was very gleeful. The robot suit began to give a weird rash on my arms but that seems to have gone away now. The last few days have been spent working on the movie. I made a lot of progress yesterday. Woohoo.

I will leave you with this quote: “If dog’s are really man’s best friend, then why don’t they buy us beers after they have been hit by cars?” – Lucient Sanderson, PHD.

Today was a solid day, folks. Keep it real. Do whatcha can. Do your best. Stay Afloat, that’s all we can hope for.

Since last time on “We Blog”
I talked to Graham Goetz last night. He is a good friend of mine. I love him to bits. thousands of teeny-tiny bits. sliced, diced, and pre-priced. The guy is overworked and I worry about it sometimes. Graham lives in NYC. As my conversation with Graham was coming to a close, Amanda called. Amanda is staying in Manhattan as she is improvising at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. My conversation with her was cut short because her telephone’s battery died (please emphasize the first syllable of battery so it sounds like BATre). Within a minutes time, that’s 60 seconds, who calls, but Sam Rosenberg, master of ceremonies. He and Amanda had hung out earlier that night and apparently they saw Colin Quinn do stand -up and the man was actually funny–really. I was and am still shocked by this fact. (three calls from nyc in a row!) Anyway, Sam and I talked at length about you, the person reading this right now. Woah! You are asking yourselves, “How, in the sacred name of Charles Bronson, did mr. fishel do that?” Well the answer is simple. I’m not telling.

Yesterday I had my first rehearsal for Aprille Clarke’s play, The Stabbiest Mexican. I play a downtrodden, yet chipper, middle-class, half-Mexican, veterinarian who performs lethal injections named Mike. I am working on that. I have about one page of dialogue. It was a fun but kind of awkward practice. I think I will become more comfortable the more we practice.

Last night I constructed a robot costume for Jason Nebergall’s newest epic, The Baseball Kid. (aka Million Dollar Dog Two, Deuces Wild) Max took some pictures of me in the suit. It rules, people. The robot’s head and hands might be the best part.

Today at work Joe Hall and I finished up the chess game we had started on the 14th. I totally whooped up. I am gloating now because after twenty-two years of losing at everything, I think I deserve the chance to gloat. These things come along so rarely, you have to live life. In other words, when you get a chance, sin as much as you can. I have included a picture of the final chess board from the game. Look to the left (for the right is filled with rich white men.)
Here is a joint interpretation of the chess game created by joe hall and myself. This was made before we were able to access any sort of photographic documentation device.

Well, I tried out Blogger.com. I realized, though I would have easier access to my weblog, I would not have as much freedom. c’est la vie. Or such is life, even. Today my friend Amanda is the maid of honor in her friend Lynette’s wedding. Then, tomorrow A-Bomb leaves for NYC where she will be studying with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre. This is exciting. As far as I know, Sam is still rocking the mic out there. By now he may in fact be hosting his own talk-com late-day celebrity worship hour, but then again, he might be roaming Penn Station, collecting change for his next hit of ecstasy. I don’t know which would be more demeaning. I hope he is kicking out comedy and having a blast, no matter what you jerklords wish upon him.

It has been a slow day today at work. Joe Hall has been bothering me for two hours, trying to figure out a way in which I would let him listen to Hail to the Thief which is securely placed inside a pocket of my backpack. It is somewhat comical because I have been waiting for Joe to simply ask for the CD. I guess he assumes that I am some kind of jerklord.

Here is some news, the overwhelming success (?) of my web site has landed me an offer to write a column for Tiny Mix Tapes Gone to Heaven. Marvin Lin, editor, has given me one week to write a piece, then we will go from there. Next stop: Broadway!

This Thursday I am going back to MN to visit my two sisters, my brother in law, and two of my sisters in law. (I never understand the plurals for those) We are going camping at gooseberry falls. I have not been there. For the first eighteen years of my life, I would travel with my family 6 hours north to Northern Pines Campground on Fishhook Lake outside of Park Rapids, MN where we would check into a cabin as a family and “camp” there for a week. I used to look forward to taking that trip for the entire year. I would waste all of my summer waiting for the chance to escape to this magical place where structure and formality were vacant. Any definitions of who I was or where I was from could easily be formulated and/or refined. I think when I was young, I would adopt a different personality, and I enjoyed every second of it. For some reason this bliss was manifested in my memory of the place, Northern Pines. As I grew older, I changed, and the camp itself physically changed. Because of the alterations and “improvements” made on the campgrounds, and more importantly, because of my supposed growth, Northern Pines, the magical campground outside of ‘Bark Rabbits’ no longer exists. I remember retreating to the camp when I was 17 and 18. At that time, my sisters had moved away and it was just my parents and I. For those last few episodes, I recall still feeling the anticipation, the excitement I used to feel, but when I would arrive and check in, the magic and fun seemed to be vacant. I would blame it on the new owners, or the modifications to the camp, but the real reason came from me. With age, I had lost the ability to escape myself and become the different David (the one deemed grimace). At the age of eighteen I said farewell to any leftover excitement I had for Fishhook Lake. Occasionally I will walk to class or work and catch a whiff of a pine tree or kick up some mulch and dirt, triggering a lost memory from the campground. I then wonder if I could return and reclaim that feeling at that place. Would it still be there? I have come to the conclusion that I have changed too much. Never again, will I experience that experience, and this saddens me.

So I chose to optimistically look to the future. A future of motorcars and superb railways made of candy-canes. A future where commonplace surgery allows everyone to be beautiful according to the standards set forth by the media. A future where racism does not exist because everyone’s skin is made of gold. In this better future, poverty is not a problem, because all of the poor and homeless will be gassed in camps. In the utopia of the future, no one will ever have to work, beaus all the tasks in the world will be completed by special robots which are simply minorities in funny aluminum hats. And a funny licorice marionette will be president king of the world, or as we will call it in the future, America.

It has been nearly a week since my last blog. That is good, in a way, it means that I have been busy with other things. Last night I listened to the new radiohead album for the first time. It was so good that I had to stop halfway through and take a break before continuing. My friend Alec is apparently back in the states. I received a telephone message from him this morning that is one of the funniest phone messages I have received. Did I mention that the new radiohead album is great? Yea I love it. I also will continue to sing the praises of Finding Nemo. If I ever have children, or a wife, or a girlfriend, or a friend, in the distant future, I will show them the movie. In the last week I went to visit my very good friend, Amanda, in her home town of Tama, IA. Tama is very small and there are not a lot of things going on in Tama so it seems boring, but I had a lot of fun. It was really good to see Amanda and to hang out in Tama for 26 hours. Today at work I was cast in a play that Aprille Clarke is putting on at Public Space One. I don’t think it will be a very big production, and I will have a very small part, but it will be my first play in over four years. I am excited. I also will be playing a Robot Umpire in Jason Nebergall’s upcoming feature entitled The Baseball Kid. I am very excited for that. I think, because of ease and because it will be easier, I am going to begin using blogger to make my blogs instead of this manual method of using tables in Dreamweaver. Joe Hall and I successfully produced a DVD for the movie Ishtar. Why? Because no one else will. I think we are the only two gentlemen who truly appreciate Ishtar. Others might say we are the only two stupid enough to take pleasure in watching pure crap. Hmm there is a thought “pure crap” Is that even possible? Even if someone only ate fecal matter, I doubt their crap could be pure. What makes it pure anyway. I will contemplate this for the following hour as I sit here at work. Waiting for patrons. Silly patrons. Most of the people who come in here are very kind and pleasant, but occasionally a grouchy apple enters the barrel. A woman toting five partially filled hemp sacks stomped into the info arcade today demanding that Joe Hall and I help her take an already burned DVD and edit down the video from that. We both politely informed her that our facilities did not have the technology to rip a DVD and then edit the video from it. She forced us to repeat this several times and then retreated in a grumpy grouchery. I wonder if she had compressed everything into only the amount of hemp sacks that she required, if then she would be in a better mood. I doubt it. Okay I will now go on my break and the next time I blog will probably be via blogger.com.

I just got home after seeing Finding Nemo with my friends, Leigh, Tyler, Ben, and Kristin. The film was great. It is good to know that some movies are being made by some studios that are not bad. I can tell you the characters in Finding Nemo are much more realistic looking than any of the special effects in Matrix Reloaded. Down with the Matrix, up with Nemo. It is so incredibly refreshing to see an animated feature that is not just void of musical numbers, but entirely vacant of musical montages as well. AND The music they DID have was pretty good, and fitting! Good Job Pixar. Keep making them movies. Ellen DeGeneres is hilarious and all around it is a fun movie that tells a good, classic, and interesting story. I give it three thumbs up –and one fin. hee hee. (Sorry ladies, I’m not telling).

So today after I finished up at work, it turned out that the library had locked up and I was all alone inside. I felt as if I had slipped through a portal and entered a John Hughes movie. Alas, Jennifer Grey never appeared and I did not make out with anyone in the 900 section, but after about half of an hour of trying every door and deliberating over whether to spend the night absorbing all the hard-bound knowledge in the building while finding friends among the roaches and rats residing in the bibliotheque’s walls or breaking the fire exit open and running for ‘it’ to avoid campus police, I chose neither. Realizing I had an armful of paintings/drawings, a newly purchases vinyl record, and a shotgun mic, I opted to set my items on the front counter and rummage through every drawer until I found keys. The third drawer I tried (the most obvious one) was the jackpot… of drawers. Six keys lay at the base, two of them with labels. After using every key on every surrounding drawer I finally figured out a way to open the entrance to Shambaugh Auditorium and still have the door lock behind me so that I might return the key. It involved a bit of hopping, but in the end I made it away scott free. yippy I am alive and I made it to Finding Nemo, a wonderfully good film for everyone.