Balls.

Hey cyber-junkies,

Well it has been a long time since I've updated my blog. As I'm plugged in to a full-time desk job, I find it hard to carve moments free to keep all 4 of you readers posted on my daily exploits. But now, at long last, I have time to fill you in on my life. Why, you may ask? Because I'm recovering from surgery!

Surgery? Surely you jest, Markre. I'faith I do not. Last Thursday I had emergency surgery on a remote and rarely seen organ of mine that I like to call my balls. It turns out that I have a genetic deformity in the inner workings of them which made them susceptible to flipping around in there. On Thursday morning, one of my little acrobats flipped himself and was caught in the choking grasp of an epididimus cord - which began a boa-like suffocation of my lluevo.

I left my place of business and hurried to my physician's office (uninvited) to get an immediate checkup down there - I feared that the pain that I was feeling was testicular cancer. My physician said that I should go to the E.R. immediately, so I galloped down the street to the hospital. Once there, my change purse was manipulated by about twelve different medical experts - each of them concluding that I had to get that thing untwisted before the life was choked out of it. Did you know that a Necrotic testicle will shrivel to the size of a marble or pea? That did not sound too fun for swimsuit season, so I was like "open it up, bitches!"

To be honest, once they told me that I didn't have cancer I didn't care what they did to me - I was content in the knowledge that I was going to live. So they rush me into the O.R. and I'm leaving voicemail messages to my Destructicon and my mom trying to be all calm like, "Just thought I'd drop you a line and tell you that they're going to be cutting open my bubblegum." Then they gave me the anesthetic drip and I lost about 8 hours.

I woke up in the recovery room. Did you know that in modern hospitals they put electric leg squeezers on your calves to massage the muscles and prevent blood clots from lying in bed for so long? I was a little freaked out by it. Oh yeah, they had strapped me into an enormous gauze codpiece which made me look like I had the balls of a Kodiac Bear. It lifts and supports.

So my Destructicon swung by to check on me and gave me flowers and a card, and my mom even flew in from Pennsylvania to watch out for me in my first few days out of the hospital. It was pretty great. Stuff like that really makes you understand what it means to have people who love you. Love isn't about words, its about actions.

Anyway, I have been steadily recovering this week (mercifully my boss sympathizes with my plight) doing my taxes and playing xbox 360 - a little gift from my mom/broseph for being such a brave little trooper. Rawk.

All things considered I am very lucky. Things could have gone much worse, but now they are looking great.

I will divulge more of my Testastic Voyage in future blog entries, but for now I must take a rest.

Torsion,

Markre

Blogger F'd my S

Blogger apparently does not like the Spartan staid and true course of its own administeration of which I was so fond. The result: Blogger has forced me to update my blog with its new google-enriched ways. Humbug I say. I prefer the blogs from the good old days - wrapped in cheese cloth, bound together with rivets, and running a staggering 4.5 miles on only 40 gallons of diesel motorfuel. Oh those were the days....

Anyway. On to more pressing issues. I am le sad. Why, you ask? Is it not an unseasonably warm night in Chicago? Are you not gainfully employed and now (for the first time) free from the parental influence that monetary vassalitude inherently promotes? Are you not a man, made of blood and iron, fighting for justice in a city that knows no other name than DANGER!? Well, all except that last one.

But nevertheless, I feel sad and insignif. In the absence of Theatrical environs I feel small and unspecial. Performance satisfies a need in me to prove that I am valid, not only to the world, but also to myself. Without that outlet (or inlet?), I am a mild-mannered, restrained paper-pusher who wades home everyday through the congestation of commuters just to rub his tired shanks and spend an idle 4 hours until it is time to go to sleep and do it all over tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.... You get the idea.

In short - I'm looking for auditions. I want to get up there again and flex my Perf-cepts. I want to work towards something that I care about, not just something that pays the rent. But overall, I want to feel special again.

Boo hoo. Giant robots will eat your babies. Then we'll see whose inadequate!

Insincerely,

Mre. d'S.

Eccentric artist does taxes left-handed

Fergie-Fergs,

Alone this weekend. I am. Mein leiben is out of state. This means that I have hours upon hours of time to dwell, brood, and marinate in my own juices. Getting restless. Reh!

Had ein Kafelunchen with Futurist T today. She clued me in to a short play/sketch festival going on in June so I have spent the afternoon/evening committing my recent idea for a solo show (tentatively titled "Zombies!(and also Giant Robots)") to paper (well computer-code). FAT.

The story is about a guy named Walter Roi who builds a giant robot to escape his unhappy marriage. He names the robot Rudy Giuliani.

Some ideas for new stop motions are also poking their amorphous eye-stalks into the backwaters of my mind. More on those as they become realized.

Start wearing purple, wearing purple. Wearing purple for me now.

ESSEN MEIN GAMSPATEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everybody's pants now

Photochemicals,

I just spent yesterday adding sound to an oldish piece of claymation that I made way back when I lived in Ohiey. It is an anti-war piece. Political satire at its most sophomoric. Who would have guessed it?

John Malkovich's head-oils are famous.

It is a lazy Sunday and I know not what to do with myself, so I opt to boil frozen chicken and write this blog entry.

All is well on the Western Front.

Pax,

Ma' R. Kre

JOBBED!

Snakemen and ladies,

I've done it mon amigos. I have secured gainful employment - full timesies! By way of the "direct hire" department in a Chicagy employment agency I was able to find an interview with a company. Through my concerted efforts at jedi mind training, I was able to convince the execs that I am a good candidate for their administrative assistant position. So I nabbed it. 8 months of living in this city and I have finally landed my full time job. Whew.

Simultaneously, the Destructicon is cleaning up shop with landing audition appointments and recommendations from castmates to act for area theatre companies. I am very happy for her. Things appear to be taking off for us in this roost that we have built for ourselves on planet sub-zero.

So my next step (after getting comfortable at my new job and avoiding passing out fearful-Johnny Depp-Sleepy Hollow style at my desk) is to reapproach theatrical auditions and/or scope out local improv troupes to join. I want to do some theatre/performance that is higher quality than the place that I left off. My last play and improv performances, although valiant efforts were not really a progression to a higher quality of work. If I'm not being paid to perform, then I want to be artistically satisfied at least. I think that I've outgrown the days when the thrill of being in a show was enough to make all the hours and energy invested within worthwhile. I wish that I could bring Johnny Longform back to this city. I didn't realize it at the time, but we had something very special going on.

In other news, I'll be returning to Ace Morganville in March to participate in a Burpee's reunion. This will be my first official academic reunion of any kind that I've actually participated in. I anticipate a lot of good nostalgia, an abundance of physcially detrimental drinking, and a painful undercurrent of sadness. My assumption is that the older alumns who gave up performance to move on and become bankers or (GASP!) administrative assistants will probably smack of quiet desperation around the youngsters who are currently Burpee's. Conversely, I also expect that those of us who have continued to dry hump the dream of being Professional Improvisers (if such a thing even exists) will be silently screaming that we are still funny and not pathetic former-performers/current training center students.

Although maybe I'm just a heaving bag of insecurities and the former troupemates just want to get together to horse around for a weekend.

Oh yeah. "Burpee's" is an improv comedy troupe from my undergrad institution. It is spelled correctly because it is the possessive form of "Burpee". As in, "Mortimer Burpee's cock was exceptionally tart today." End of line.

Oh yeah. I've been having all these dreams where I'm in the Medival times. Not the theme restaurant, but the era from 400 C.E. to 1200 C.E. (or at least until the Italian Renaissance started).

Joik,

M

Interview from beyond the deep

Hey tremors,

I have started taking this antibiotic for a crazy ailment (yes I, like my martian brothers before me, can also be felled by the humble bacteria). Last night was my first dose, which I took without ceremony or pouting. In the middle of the night I awoke with a feeling of nausea, confusion, and trembling. I read the perscription's indications and warnings and it said that such things were possible side effects as was Hypoglycemia - too little sugar in the blood. So I drank a grape juice and tried to stop freaking out about my imminent demise. At least I'll take the bacteria down with me.

Needless to say, I awoke this morning still alive. And a good thing too because in 2.5 hours I have a job interview downtown! I don't particularly relish the job that I am applying for, nor do I have any feeling for the company, but they apparently trade money for time. And lately I have a surplus of one and a deficeit of the other. I just hope that with my weird sleep and my already extant fear of all things that the interview will go smoothly "irregardles".

I just found out that an alumn from my grad school days has moved to Chicago and is in a play with my darling Destructicon. What a small world it is, mon ami.

Kiss my dust, dust lover!

M

Skaties, Snowies, and Lainies

Pirate Jennies,

Hwad up? Lots of activities have been done within the past two weeks and I shall henceforth disclose such things unto you.

Destructicon and I took a pilgramage to our alma mater in the land of rolling hills and stayed with old friendsre. It was really great. It is lovely to escaparse the cuidad Chicago and also jawsome to visit w/ old buddies. I picked up a book called "Gospel of the Living Dead" which is a scholarly analysis of Romero's zombie films. Sound familiar? It simultaneously gives me hope and stokes my ire at not actually working to have my thesis published by the man. Oh well, I suppose that there will always be a place for it in the stacks of OSU's library. Oh yeah. We were visited by the pinkeye fairy. Poof!

Once back in town, I met with the cousin of my stepfather in order to network and learn about the grownup world of working. I'm torn between having a big kid job with full benefits and full responsibilities and having a highschool job that makes me go crazy with rage at how much I suck because I have a highschool job. I supose that time and debt will yield an answer. It is also important to not define yourself by what you do to earn money, but rather who you are when you're not out earning money. I have a job interview next week for a desk job at a security company. Not exactly my area of study, but hey - baby needs a new pair of shoes. And a plasma screen.

Went skating with Destructicon yesterday. That dynamite lady is responsible for me poking my head out of my tortise shell of an apartment and sniffing the air of the real world. Within the past four years I have ridden bikes, flown kites, taken road trips, hiked up mountains, and now skated in spite of my inner sluggard. Everyone should take the time to reach outside of their comfort zone once and awhile. It makes you look at yourself in a different light. Or at least with a different gobo. Mine's a swirley.

Oh yeah, I saw Ol' Dr. Evans-Bryan. He is cool. Still got it.

Gimme a job. Cast me in a play. Til then, I'll cover the video games.

M