H-WEEN, Tricks!
My friend Ithamar made a film short this summer with his pal Chris called THE PICKLE. You should see it - it's super funny! He's so hilarious. (P.S. - This is in Quicktime.)

Also, I ran across this Halloween fun movie - so cute. Check it out.
(link courtesy of Howie.)

AM I AN ASS FOR KIND OF WANTING TO SEE 8 MILE?
That's all.

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
Alright, so I'm back from NYC. I mean, obvious good/positive things aside, I am mostly relieved not to be quite as plagued by a weird montage of songs relating to New York. At first, it was New York, New York; then "There's a party goin' on up in NYC!" - which I think is from Nelly's Ride with Me; with many others to follow, including an outburst on the Ellis Island ferry of "WECOMINTOAMERICAAAA! (TODAY!)". Enough is enough.

So, the trip was great - very fast, but fun. After hours of general navigating and then having a lot of tech for the show, we performed Friday night at 10 to a small, but warm crowd. Saturday, we toured-it-up, visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, as well as Ground Zero (which we stayed only three blocks from - the "Hot Zone" of 9/11). Ground Zero was, as you may suspect, surreal. I was wandering down W. Broadway to our hotel, and when I first saw a shot of the south, I thought Why do I know this place? Why is everything familiar? The reason - the place where we stayed was the standing spot of a load of footage that I had seen of the buildings collapsing, all the surroundings covered in soot and dust. Now, it was clean, but there were small reminders everywhere - a twisted street sign, a closed subway entrance to the WTC stop.

The visit to the WTC wasn't much to see, and I think that was the point - just to grasp the void in the skyline and the earth. Next to the site, there were still major renovations taking place on neighboring buildings - you could see into them like a diorama, walls missing, but lined up neatly with stacks of papers and filing cabinets. I walked by the viewing dock and was looking down at the land, and a construction worker on the other side of the fence walked over to me. He totally broke my suspension of disbelief, making me realize that this wasn't some snowglobe scene of repair or some human zoo like I had felt before. He caught my eye and said hello - I said the same. I asked how he was doing. "It's still hard to be here," he sighed, and looked over his shoulder back at the site. I caught major snippets of conversation - This is the engine house that lost all their men ; They are re-building the subway, but don't know what else to do ; Look at how big that building still standing is - it is only 1/4 the size of the WTC. A child walked by and asked his mom what everyone was looking at - she said, "They're looking at a terrible tragedy, that's what." I wondered if this was the best you could do with a child, but couldn't think of anything better.

The rest of the day, I spent looking at vendors booths and people watching. I bought all kinds of junk - a Yankees hat, a purse (?!), I heart NY t-shirts for my nephews and niece, my name in calligraphy in Chinatown. I got the general idea that after living in Chicago so long that NYC is no where near as intimidating as it once was.

So, that night at 8pm, we had our second and final show. The theater was packed, and we really did well. People were really excited about the show, and we were really excited to learn that we were working off-broadway. I mean, that's dope! We left the theater late, and hit West Village - visiting a diner where you could drink, and checking out theaters for the potential GayCo move to NYC. By happenstance, I ran into an old friend from college who was hosting her own show in a caberet space - she said she'd give us a super deal, so that was perfect.

Overall, a success.