common criminal

the Swim Cafe is approximately 4 block from my apartment (2 blocks east, 2 blocks north). i'm parked facing east and if I continue that way I'll have to cross the highway, head south a couple blocks past my street then head west a few more block and come back up north a couple to Huron, where I live. it'd be much easier, in my opinion, to wait for traffic to clear, make a U-Turn out of the spot and take a left at the Stop sign, right on Huron and I'm pretty much home. so it goes...

I've done all that when I hear sirens behind me. I quickly get over to let the paddy wagon following me pass. it doesn't. I feel I haven't pulled over and when I look in my mirror I see the cop in the passenger seat getting out. Oh! shit. he's gonna come yell at me to move so they can pass. I hit the gas a bit and make the turn I'm pulled over at and find more space between parked cars to get over all the way. the wagon follows and stops. OH! shit. they're pulling me over.

the female cop comes to my window, "license and insurance." confused, I hand over my license, which I've already pulled out and look for my insurance. "do you have your insurance card with you?" I have insurance, but I don't think I have my card with me. "you have to keep your insurance card with you, you know that?" I know, I don't have it. "do you know why I pulled you over?" no. "you made a U-Turn back on Chicago." i see. she starts to walk off. "is this your car?" yes.

madeline and I rifle through the rest of my papers to see if my insurance card is anywhere to be found. no. I do all my billing online now. I don't think they send me a card anymore. I think I have to print it out. I haven't done this. so it goes...

she takes a long time with the paperwork. I'm definitely getting a ticket. I've never, never, never been asked for my insurance. i have been pulled over before. it has always been license and registration. this situation is very odd to me. i know I should have my insurance card with me, but I have been a pretty safe driver for some time. ask my insurance company. now, it seems I am getting in trouble for not having it. the paperwork is taking an awful long time.

when the female cop comes back she tells me that she's holding my license and I must send in the paperwork she's handing me in order to get it back. some sort of bond situation. "why is my license being taken away?" I ask politely (Madeline commented later on the politeness of my questions). she responds with venom, "I could take you down to the station and hold you for not having your insurance card. I also could've made you come to court." o.k. so I send this in and get my license back. I apologize for the day you've been having. so it goes...

that last bit I didn't say. i just sat there. o.k. she is obviously not happy with my U-Turn and deep down inside she must hate bearded men in their thirties who drive 2001 Honda Civics. it was really a simple question I posed. why? but apparently, you can't ask why, you must just accept that the cop has the power to enforce whatever they feel about the situation at hand. yes, I am very happy I didn't get taken down to the station and do not have to appear in court, but aside from the mistake that they were trying to pass me and the minor traffic law I violated, I was never aggressive toward the officer in the situation. apparently, though, the officer decided that she needed to be aggressive toward me. assert her power, etc. etc. etc.

like a common criminal, I now drive around without a license, but a yellow slip of paper that states my license was taken from me. I can pay a fine and have it go on my record, pay a fine and take a class and have it cleared or attest in court that this cunt cop was in the wrong. of course, I was in the wrong and any sort of appearance by me in court would only prove her right even more. I could go to court, stand up and explain that I felt the cop placed undue emotional stress on me. 'I felt like I could break down, your honor. it was a minor traffic violation and I felt like I was being bullied on the playground. I thought police officers were supposed to be "civil" servants. not uncivilized aggressive byotches. I was in the wrong on the offense, your honor, but there was no reason to try for the cop put undue stress on me by being terrible at her job.' the gavel would come down and I would be made to pay and a mark would go on my record and the cop would walk out of the courtroom star badge entact and no pox on her house except that which I stir up in my mind. so it goes...

karma is a bitch, bitch. I wish I could be around when it comes and bites you in your tight ass, but I sleep at night knowing you are living unhappily and without humor or peace of mind.

caffee

i rarely make it to work at 9. told in my interview some 2 and a half years ago now, it was make apparent that coming in at 9 wasn't high priority (on my first day, no one was in the office until 9:30), more important was to do my job, the tasks assigned. i do this. to some chagrine at times, but I do this.

since arriving in Chicago, now a little over 3 years ago, I started drinking coffee. never suited me before, but for some reason it made living in the city that much easier. where I currently live there are so many choices for coffee in the morning I find that rather than hitting one shop everyday, it is much more enjoyable to hit a different one everyday. the amazing thing is that this is possible and with very little driving out of my way to do so...or walking, as I like to do when it's not tits ass cold...

Starbucks will be mentioned first to get it out of the way. While most staff is friendly at two convenient locations within a couple blocks of my apartment and work, getting in and out with a Grand Vanilla Latte (Skim Milk) and an orange juice is never easier, though always a little more expensive.

Ritz Tango is by far my favorite cup, but there is only one barista and it is always the same dour barista. more often than note, though, there is no one in the shop so the quick cup is easily gotten and the drink is always better than any other shop (the only times I have been displeased is when it is not the dour barista working...though hats off to the owner as well because when he is in, the cup is just as good). the other great things about Ritz is that they have empenadas. when in need, this is a great stop.

Mercury Cafe is such a warm place that I have forgiven them for booking a Goth meeting at the same time I was trying to do a staged reading. If folks showed up to our event I would have been more upset. I did ask once about Lox on a bagel and the barista (not Alex, the owner) gave me a dumb look and asked what that was. Salmon, I said. Huh? she looked/said. no lox, I'm o.k. with that, but don't know what it is, you need a sign...The coffee is always great and the price is right. Sandwiches are superb for lunch or dinner, always filling.

Swim Cafe needs to get their shit together because they have the most people working there and the slowest turnaround. The food is excellent and the coffee is great, but even when ordering a bagel with cream cheese and lox, it will take about fifteen minutes to receive said order. five folks seem to be working towards something every time I am in the place, but none seem interested in getting the customer's order. I can't fight the cravings for the turkey wrap sometimes, so I make sure I have time before walking in. (And don't ever try to call ahead, they will put you on hold and when you give up and walk over there, the phone will still be on the counter waiting to be picked up again).

Arabia Cafe is a hookah bar/coffeeshop. I haven't partaken in the hookah yet, but the coffee is good and the atmosphere is fine. From my assumption, the owners just moved here. I walked in one day and Seasame Street was on the wall-mounted flat screen TV. there were no kids around. I watched the barista making my coffee and she had one eye on the machine and the other on the TV. You gotta learn the language somehow. it's how I learned. props to Arabia.

Lovely is like a slice of pumpkin bread. it is so quaint and delightful. the only problem I have is that my first visit ended in a terrible cup of coffee. I decided to give it another chance and they redeemed themselves. now, I've been back a few more times and when the need for some baked goods hits me, they got the goods.

Leticias is a bit far from the apartment and work, but on the weekends, Lady Madeline and I like to hit it up for the best Vanilla Lattes in town. like candy. they also have delicious sandwichs and their bagel with cream cheese and lox is yummy.

Flo is more of a breakfast joint (they also have an exceptional lunch and dinner menue). I went in there the other night to get an order to go and they made me a Cafe Latte instead of a Vanilla Latte. it was awesome.

so, that's 8 or 9 coffeeshops in spitting distance. for the coffee lover in me, not too bad a place to be. not mentioned, though, is the diners/breakfast joints. maybe that's a blog for next week (Flo, Hollywood, Windy City, Blue Line, Bialys, etc). whew!

time - the essence

how do you fast-forward thru time to see things now that you can't until then? it doesn't give you something to look forward to though it satisfies desire in an instant. i'm sure not gonna try, but, well, sometimes I damned well want to.

philosophical bullshit aside, I'm really looking forward to seeing 'I'm Not There' (the new movie about the lives of Bob Dylan) and 'No Country for Old Men' (the new Joel and Ethan Coen movie).

finished reading The Google Story and those guys have a shit-ton going for them. fortunately, they live in a country where you can blur the lines of ethics and causality. "Don't Do Evil" is their mantra. "Evil" is whatever they say it is. They live and work on principals that they fought tooth and nail to get. You'd think the fuckers wouldn't bend to no one. Well, they bent to China, according to the book. It's o.k. guys, you still hold every bit of information about anyone who has ever done a google search or set up a gmail account, you've even got vans driving around the country recording us all so we can see where we're going before we get there and for that matter, see where we've been after we've gone...if we're lucky, I guess. oh! yeah, they also make billions on internet advertising. fuckers.

Drinks Before Dinner was also a great play I read recently. A dinner party, before the party and one of the guests decides to be disruptive and hold everyone hostage with a gun he got off some kid on the street earlier that day. he forces the group to tie up the guest of honor, a local government representative and nearly blows the guys head off. he is merely looking for an engaging conversation about anything and everything and hopes that after the ordeal they could still have dinner. we'll not everyone makes it, but the last line of the play is, "well, we should all sit down to dinner." (or something like that) great, absurd, brilliantly written.

and last night the lady Madeline treated me to the Profiles production of 'Some Girl(s)' which was stellar. they even performed the deleted scene which Madeline has been using as one of her monologues. the first in their Season of Labute, I hate them for stealing all the good plays and love them for giving me the opportunity to enjoy. a must see.

shooting some more 'It's Madeline Long' this weekend!!!

peace.

storyboard for "It's Madeline Long's Enlightenment Manual"

Coming Soon!

Check out more "It's Madeline Long" videos here

p-u-t i-n rehearsal

with no competition for power

&

lack of independent television

let your fingers do the ramblin'

i was e-mailing my lady, Madeline's her name and found myself letting my fingers ramble more than usual. it could be the Claritin-D or the lack of sleep (been a cold lately) but I thought, well, while they're moving I should blog a bit without any sort of conscious thought about what to blog about.

thursday I was finally about to see The Collector, which LiveWire has currently mounted up at The Side Project. i was first impressed by our production staff for putting together such an engaging stage picture. my next impression was the actor play Clegg, Matt Kelly. he puts on one hell of a performance that shouldn't be missed. the script, I've always said, is great literature, but it is either something in it or the staging that lacked a sharpness. the time shifts over a month within the play and while there were elements to suggest and indicate these shifts, some seemed forced while others were completely lost. in the end, I felt like I had spent 2 hours with these characters, which was about as much as I wanted to spend with them, but I think the play would have had a stronger impact on me if I had walked away feeling I spend the entire month.

in Elmina's Kitchen, the show I've been longing to see for a couple years now and finally got to see this Sunday (with my lady), a cast of West Indian characters struggle with their place in Britain's Hackney neighborhood. the cast of the play were all completely engaging and 100% inhabited in their characters. in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood, for 2 and a half hours, I felt like I was in Elmina's Kitchen and feared whatever lurked outside the storefront door. What was going on inside the restaurant was just as heated and while there were a few moments that didn't seem to fit (like the grandfather's calypso singing or the random old man with very little wisdom to put forth) the whole of the story hit me like a ton of bricks. fathers and sons. youth rebellion. love. hate. good. bad. blood clot! [translated, Holy Shit!] while most American plays end happily ever after, Elmina's Kitchen represented what I like most about British theatre...life isn't always a bowl of cherries. Sometimes, life dumps on you a whole lot of shit and shit stinks long after it's dumped if you don't clean it up right quick. the protagonist of Elmina's Kitchen, Deli, learned this the hard way...the way he's been learning his whole life and the way he's gonna keep on learning. Deli's cycle isn't over yet and in Elmina's Kitchen he wasn't able to break it. leaving the audience heartbroken.

i had to miss the third show I was to see on Sunday night due to my cold, but I had the chance to lay on the couch and read some more. since moving my TV to Madeline's house, i've had the chance to pick up some good books & plays I've had on my shelf to read. LiveWire is also in search of good plays for their upcoming season. last night I read an original work by Lawrence Levine called Territory (which has been made into a movie you can rent on netflix, haven't seen it myself) and lacking the ability to sleep, I also picked up Dawn by Elie Wiesel. I'm a huge Wiesel fan and am trying to make it through his cannon. each of his books leaves my wrenched. Dawn tells the story of a soldier who is part of the Israeli resistance during the British occupation and Israelis plight for an homeland in Palestine. another soldier has been captured by the British and is sentenced to death. the resistance takes prisoner a British soldier and marks him for death unless their comrade is released. Elisha, our soldier protagonist, his executioner. The night before the dawn of the execution, Elisha tells us how he's gotten to this place and how everyone that has touched him has made him who he is and his actions are now their actions and their eyes, his eyes...it was as timely as anything out in the theatres now or told on the local news. it is in fact more important than anything out there as well as it tells an uncensored tale, one so believable it is only fiction to the unbelievers. don't beat yourself up. this is war.

other books/plays I've read recently are Maltese Falcon (another Dashiell Hammett detective novel). my second of his books. great stuff. couldn't wait to turn the page. Here by Michael Frayn, he's a brilliant playwright and his dialgoue was both engaging and hilarious. it was a couple piece so that was fun too. I like some of his other stuff better, but it was a good read. Songs of the Dragon by Young Jean Lee. a Korean-American tour-de-force. it made me want to continue being a playwright and not just break the boundries of my craft, but bulldoze them to a fine dust I can create magic with. A Dark Dark House by Neil Labute. one of my favorite playwrights proving once again way he'll go down in history. tackling abuse, brotherhood and what it trully means to be in love. ouch! that's all i've got to say.

what else? is this not enough?

i'm excited by the prospect of being...doing...everyday.