I'm Gonna Keep Writing About This Fucking Show Until Every Single One of You Comes and Sees It

Well, tonight was not exactly our best performance. I mean, Act Two had some great stuff in it, but Act One had really low energy and some other problems (some shithead forgot an entire verse of "Donna"...). What are you gonna do, though? First shows after a week long break always have those problems.

On the upside, I got my favorite piece of praise ever. From Maddie's mother: "You were wonderful. You're my absolute nightmare of a son in law, but you were wonderful."

Here are some more Onilx pictures to beat the point home. I'm in Hair. Come see it. I'm in Hair.



P.S. Sometimes I hate that my name sounds so much like the word "job". On the way out, some girl said, "Good job!" to me and I thought she said, "Hey Jon!" or something like that. Naturally (since this happens to me all the time) I assumed I knew her and had just forgotten her name. So I tried to play it off like I remembered exactly who she was and got real excited and said, "Hey! How have you been?". Of course I had never met her before in my life. So she was real confused. And I was real confused. And it was real bad.

Almost as bad as Act One...


P.P.S. I was pretty much just writing this thing for myself but apparently there are a few people reading it. So why don't any of you comment ever instead of just mentioning it to me (you know who you are people at dinner, play director, former ice cream clerk girl who messaged me on Facebook, and currently-European friend who told the ice cream clerk girl to read it)?

The Countdown to a Haircut Begins

Well, the closing weekend of Hair begins in a couple hours. We have four shows this weekend (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 plus a bonus midnight show on Friday night) so don't miss your last chance to see the show. Or your last chance to see it again if you're really crazy. Show and reservation information can be found at the Cabaret website.

ps. Cabaret had this local photographer who goes by the handle Onilx come and take photos last week and they look great. You can find them on his website. That picture above is from there and here are a few more.

How to Make "I Hate Mondays" Jokes Funny!

Garfield the comic strip is not funny. The fact that it has run for three decades (this year is its 30th anniversary!) using only four repeated jokes is mildly funny, but the strip itself is not. It has an endearingly cartoony art style and I've always enjoyed that I share a name (spelling and all) and a hairstyle with the main human character but...yeah...that's all it's got going for it.

Recently though, the absolutely wonderful Comics Curmudgeon blog, which brings me so much joy every day, has posted links to a few sites that attempt to mine real humor out of Garfield's bloated, cavernous, lasagna-reeking gut.

The first is this message board where people have taken all of Garfield's thought balloons out of the strips to create a vague surrealist comic. My favorite is definitely this one:


Even better is the blog Garfield Minus Garfield where the creater uses a similar idea but takes Garfield himself wholly out of the comic to make it just a strip about Jon Arbuckle, lonely (and possibly mentally disturbed) young man. Here's a taste:

My favorite of the group, however, has to be the absolutely brilliant Lasagna Cat. This one's kind of hard to explain and you either love it or hate it, but I'll try. Lasagna Cat films Garfield comic strips starring people in creepy costumes and set in a tone which is like a mixture of a bad sitcom and a nightmare. Then every video follows with an intrepretive music video with a song that may or may not relate in some strange way with the topic of the comic. Oh, and each video somehow incorporates a picture of Jim Davis (actual Garfield creator) at the end.
You really have to watch a couple to get the hang of it (drugs help to) but they begin to take on a deranged genius after a while. They're very existence is just so absurd. Here's a couple:

Goddamn, it's about time someone made comic strips entertaining again. Now, if only someone did the same for Mary Worth...

Random Cartoon Fun!

A Jumble of Thoughts

With a couple of days off from Hair, I feel like I'm swimming in free time. It's not true, but it feels like I am. That being the case and, having written mostly posts about other things recently, here's a random list of things going on with me:

At Cabaret Theatre, Word of Mouth is Our Best Advertisement and Use of Mouth is Our Best Entertainment: a Hair opening weekend round-up

• The shows went really well. The midnight show was actually the best, which is weird considering it was the performance we were the least sober at.
• Saturday afternoon I got a call asking if one of my housemates was a drummer. This is not something you want to hear a couple of hours before a musical. Fortunately, we got someone to fill in last minute for the one show we were missing a drummer and she was excellent.
• I spilled bong water on my lap onstage during the second performance. Very unfortunate.
• Text message from my brother during intermission opening night: "U made bershads everywhere proud in that nude scene" Touching.
• And my favorite story of the weekend: During the course of the play, there are two scenes where I get simulated blow jobs (a number I will spend the rest of my theatrical career attempting to surpass). The first one takes place during the song "Sodomy" and involves Danielle, an actress in the show, literally pushing me into the lap of an audience member in the first row and then pretending to go down on me. At the end of the song, the music reaches a climax and I, ahem, pretend to follow suit. To make this clearer (and basically to fuck with the audience even more) I usually grab someone in the first row's knee and squeeze. During the intermission of the first performance I asked Danielle if she saw whose knee I grabbed. She said yes. It was her boyfriend.

Things I'm Doing Post-Haircut
I agreed to take a small role in Zipperface??!?, the musical I wrote over winter break with Dave and Andy. Also I've got Hijinks right after that and once school ends I'm heading to South Jersey to film an independent horror movie called Sorrow Hill. All of these things things deserve their own blog entries, so basically I'm just writing this to remind myself that my current free time will be short lived even after Hair's over.

I'm Almost a Good Student
I had a very nice conversation with one of my professor's today after class where she asked about my future plans and told me I made large contributions to the class. You're all probably thinking that that's not very interesting, but it was really cool for me. The last time a teacher seemed genuinely pleases with my in-class performance was in first grade when I was the only student in Mrs. Powell's class who wrote a Season poem that rhymed.

Grown Up Food
Since I'm partly writing this blog to be read by a hypothetical future Me, I think it's important to note that I made big steps to becoming an adult type person today. I went to the grocery store (all by myself) and got some real meals for myself. Sure there was nothing that required anything more complicated than a microwave, however, any night without RU Grill or takeout Chinese is still a whole night without RU Grill or takeout Chinese.

Grown Up Food for Thought
Last week, during tech for Hair, I had next to no time to sleep. And when I did sleep, it was fitful and brief. During times like that, I tend to have really strange dreams (or perhaps I'm just able to remember them more). One night in particular, I had a whole string of absolute whoppers. It began with me being a mafia hit man and later developed into a look at some extremely dramatic Bizarro World cast party for Hair. However, the most interesting part of the dream (and the part I remember the clearest) came later.
It was incredibly vivid and took place at some kind of seaside resort town (think LBI). It was the future and I was sitting in a lawn chair, having a conversation with my parents. After a couple minutes, three young children ran up, one of whom was my son. He had bright blond hair, which I suppose he got from his mother's side (she didn't appear in the dream. He was really happy and asked me if he could go play with his two friends whom I remember quite clearly being a young Asian boy and a cute, little girl. I said yes and they all ran off. As they were leaving, I pointed to the little girl and joked to my parents that in a few more years, my son would start spending all his time trying to bang her.
Then we all laughed.
It was very odd.

And They Won Too!

I'm so happy they won. Although it doesn't change the fact that I still really want to see Enchanted. Yes, I said it. I really, really want to see Enchanted.

Random Movie Fun!

Well, we finished the first weekend of Hair. How about that? It actually went really well and a lot of funny things happened. But, you know what? I really don't feel like writing about it. Today is officially the first day in a month I haven't had to think about Hair and I'm not going to start now.

I spent the whole day trying to do as little as possible and I think I succeeded admirably. The only real activity I engaged myself with was watching The Graduate with my housemates. Sure, it was the same time period as Hair (1967 vs. 1968) but it was the opposite side of the counter culture, so I felt safe (only one afro in the entire film!).




God, I love that movie. I have to say, it was a little disturbing to discover that I am now the same age as Ben Braddock is supposed to be (the scuba suit scene takes place on his 21st birthday).
It's interesting, I remember reading an article by Roger Ebert where he talked about his changing views on the film. As the years have passed, he wrote, it became clear to him that Mrs. Robinson is really the most interesting character of the film. In the few years since I first watched the movie I've come to the same realization. Anne Bancroft gets so much backstory across in just a couple of lines during that bedroom scene where she discusses Elaine's accidental conception. It's amazing.

However, I still love the Ben role (and Hoffman's performance). It was always my dream role to play. Back in high school, I always used to push for our Performing Arts classes to perform the play adaptation as our spring show. It never happened because there aren't enough roles (Mrs. Robinson's scripted full frontal scene didn't help). It was probably for the best though. As much as it tries, the play really is just a pale imitation of the movie and the CharlesWebb novel that inspired it (which, I'm sad to admit, I've been stuck in the middle of for an eternity. God, I wish I had more time to read for fun). I still used to use the seduction scene as an audition monologue back when I thought I wanted to be an actor.

I really love that movie.



ps. I used to love to watch the Oscars when I was little. I'd tape it and then make my parents promise not to tell me who won. Now I can't even sit through a couple minutes of it. It was a sad day when I realized the Best Picture was very rarely the best picture of the year. Right up there with the whole Santa Claus thing.

Questionable Life Decisions: How I Came to Star in an American Tribal Love Rock Musical

Did I really write a full post about a stupid celebrity scandal the other day? Wow. Good to know that when I'm exhausted I develop the writing style of a bitchy gay man.

So, why am I so exhausted? Well, Hair, of course!

You see, there are times in a young man's life when he comes to question the life choices he made that led him to where he is. Sitting under a parachute naked with a bunch of other naked people wearing fake afros while you hope your genitals look good to the paying audience is one of those times.
The first thing naked me thinks about is the fact that I was never supposed to be in this play to begin with and that's because I was never going to audition.

I'm not really a big musical guy. And I don't mean that I'm one of those theater people that feels he's somehow above plays where people sing their feelings instead of discussing them. I love watching musicals. I think they're a lot of fun and I think that sometimes, if done right, a simple song can tell infinitely more about a character than a thousand perfectly phased soliloquies. I'm just not a big musical guy because I'm not very good at them. I've never really been able to sing and when it comes to dancing, I got my rhythm from the same side of the family that gave me my curly hair and frugal financial sense. And since I'm a fragile, fragile soul, I tend to stay away from things I'm not good at.
Except baseball. For some reason I played that for years.

Anyway, out of all the plays I'd done my first two years of college, not a one had been a musical. Then last semester, I decided to go out for Reefer Madness. Sure, I was worried, but I loved the play and a bunch of my friends were doing it so I decided what the hell. A few weeks into the rehearsal process I decided I was never going to do another musical as long as I lived.
Not that Reefer Madness was a horrible experience at all. I mean, aside from some offstage drama (one of those stories that doesn't belong on a public blog) I had a lot of fun. It just wasn't my thing.

So then, when people started asking me if I was auditioning for Hair, I practically laughed in their face. The question then is, what happened? Well, it's simple.

Pretty girls asked me.

The truth is, sometimes I'm a weak man. Sometimes I'm not, but on this occasion, all it took was a nice smile and I was sitting in the Cabaret lobby preparing to sing.

But don't think that I instantly went whole hog into this thing just because of a pair of tits. I mean, that is the reason I went into it, but I only went half hog. My whole audition was basically a joke. I answered all the questions on the audition sheet sarcastically and when I had to sing, I sang the only song I could think of. What song was that? "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

And I forgot half the lyrics.

This right here, is the point in the story where I need to get punished. I've said it before and I'll say it again; my life is basically a sitcom. And, in many ways, sitcoms are structured like all classical drama and that means that the hero needs to be punished for his hubris. I had auditioned jokingly for a play that really meant something to a lot of people and I had done so purely for the chicks. The Gods were just itching to fuck with me.

So what did they do? The worst thing possible. They got me cast as a lead. In a musical.

So now, here I am, and it's opening night, and in just a few hours I'm gonna be naked under that parachute. And you know what I'm gonna be thinking? I'm gonna be thinking that I couldn't be happier.

I may have made a mistake when I auditioned for this play for the wrong reasons, but now I really feel like I'm a part of something special. Sure, the production has been rocky at best both on-stage (to start, our original director was fired the first day) and off (you can read about that all here) and sure, if we had a couple more weeks the show could be better. But you know what? I really love the people I'm working with and I love what I'm doing and, dammit, I think I'm growing to love being a naked hippie under a parachute as well.

Episodes in the Lows of Humanity

Apparently Denise Richards is getting a reality show. This news somehow passed me by. Probably because I have no desire to watch anything with Denise Richards where she's not fighting giant space bugs or making out with Neve Campbell. Anyway, she plans on having her two daughters (age two and three) on the show with her, something that Charlie Sheen, her ex-husband and the girls' father, doesn't really want.
Of course, I don't really understand that at all. How anyone could not want their todler daughters to star in a nationally broadcast reality television show during important formative years of their lives is beyond me, but I suppose Sheen has his reasons. So he sued Richards to stop her. And lost.
Here's some quotes from an article on the subject:

...a Los Angeles judge ruled in Richards' favor and gave her the green light to feature the kids in the currently untitled program.

Richards insists her daughters were desperate to be a part of the project.

She says, "I am a single mom and I am very hands-on with my kids so I can't do a show without the kids at all.

"I asked them if they wanted to be on TV and Sam said, 'Yes!' My girls have been around it so much. They love the make-up. They love the hair. They love all of that.

Wow. Congrats, Denise Richards.
I'm not anyone to judge and I've always followed Thumper's mother's advice, so all I'll say is at least you've got nice tits.

Old Cartoon Fun!

Here's an old cartoon of mine. Just for kicks.

Random Video Fun!

Because I love this movie so much and not enough people have seen it, here's Don Herzfeldt's brilliant short Lily and Jim. Crystal and I performed it at Cabaret a couple years ago directed by Greg N. Still some of the most fun I've ever had on stage.

Don Hertzfeldt - Lily and Jim

I really shouldn't post it like that since it's basically stealing money from Herzfeldt so, to make myself feel better, I'll tell you all to go to his website (http://bitterfilms.com/) and buy his DVDs.

I personally own a shirt, the DVD with all his old movies, and his newest one, Everything Will Be Ok, which is one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen. It's sad, hilarious, and a little bit enlightening all in the course of 17 minutes. You should all really seek it out or ask me to loan you the DVD.

Getting Tacky on Valentines Day

I know I already kind of wrote a Valentines Day entry by posting that Review article a couple of days ago, and I know that I personally have a few problems with the holiday (while all those advice columns are written with tongue in cheek I actually do agree with some of what I said this time), and, most importantly, I know I promised that this blog would be both treacle and poetry free, but..........well, I'm a rule breaker. What can I say?

I had to write a poem for class and since this whole blog was started as a way to inspire me to do more writing, I felt I might as well share it. Please forgive the repulsive amount of icky sentiment you're about to wade through.

A Love Story in Verse

Gentle reader, if you’d perchance to stay
And give me a couple minutes of your day
A story I’d love to now relay
Told through pleasant rhyme

A tale of that wonderful horrible sin
Known as ‘love’ to both men and women
And now, if you’ll allow me to begin
I’ll say ‘Once upon a time’

There was a boy of average genes
Not too short, or tall, or fat, or lean
Not really at all special by any means
Just typical like you or me

But there was one thing that set this boy apart
For he had gone and lost his heart
For a girl who was a piece of art
The most beautiful you could ever see

The most striking thing about this girl
Was her smile filled with twinkling pearl
That made you feel like the luckiest in the world
If it ever shone on you

And of this smile there was more
Because it often came before
Her infectious laugh came spilling forth
And sounded as sweet as dew

And her glistening eyes delicately round
Were like her hair a beautiful brown
And more wondrous than ever dreamed or found
By Van Morrison

Her body should never need to be
Described to my reader carefully
For you should care about her personality
But I’ll admit she was a perfect 10

And so this was the goddess of his desire
That filled his stomach with butterflies and heart with fire
That wore a face of which he’d never tire
For his love was true

But here a problem then arose
For, reader, how do you suppose
An average boy like this one goes
To a goddess with hopes to woo?

This would take much more than flowers
He’d need to summon up all his powers
And spend all of his waking hours
And come up with something soon

Suddenly with wondrous luck
A spark shone through his mind’s murky muck
As glorious inspiration struck
And he decided to write her a tune

She deserved a wondrous song
With Shakespeare words and Beowulf long
An orchestra to play along
But he had none of that

For all the things she did to he
Lyrics steeped in hyperbole
Are what he should write for she
But all his words fell flat

And the music was the hardest part
He wanted a piece straight from his heart
Notes that could be timeless art
From God to his fingers sent

But alack, alas, oh woe is he
For this simply would never be
Impossible most decidedly
For he knew no instrument

So he told his music all to hush
Tossed out his composition in a rush
Instead he picked up paper and brush
And tried to paint his muse

But he found to his dismay
As he mixed his colors a whole day
No shade would properly convey
Her skin’s translucent hues

So he eschewed music and paint
To find an other to create
Which he would present when proposing a date
With his most beauteous one

A poem, a statue, a three-course meal
A garden, a quilt, a spinning mobile
No project matched the girl’s natural feel
When they were finally done

So he moved from task to task
Occasionally looking up to God to ask
‘Why can’t I make some art that lasts
And does justice to my love?’

And he fell down in despair
Gnashing his teeth and ripping his hair
It seemed that God just didn’t care
For he received no sign from above

And when things descended to their worst
And he’d screamed every scream and cursed every curse
Drunk a bottle of gin to quench his thirst
A knock at the door he did hear

So our boy managed to gather himself up
And put down his alcohol reeking cup
Went to the door and opened it up
And standing there was his dear

She walked right in and looked and found
His failed love projects scattered around
Discarded, ripped, and tossed to the ground
Or crumpled to a ball

But they all merely made her groan
For his love for her she’d always known
But all she wanted from him was to grab a phone
And finally give her a call

She said, ‘I want no proclamation
No theatrical declaration
Or gesture set to orchestration
All I want is you’

And so our boy learned the fact
There was nothing his wooing lacked
For you need not put on some big act
When your love is true

And so the couple came to be
Together most inseparably
In love for all eternity
I promise you, my friends

So remember our hero’s folly-filled sport
How it proved a useless sort
And know that you need only love to court
And with that I say ‘The end.’

Again, I'm really sorry. I'm a self-aware sentimentalist which is the worst kind. It means I make myself gag.

If that poem didn't make you kill yourself, you get a prize. A slightly less painful look at romance, courtesy of The Jerk.

Happy Valentines Day!

Anyone Want to Go to Europe?

Hey, I'm going to Europe over spring break to visit some people and just bum around for a week. Some of my housemates are going to be there for part of the time but I wondered if anyone wanted to be my travel buddy(ies) for any of it as well.

I'm (most likely) going March 14th to the23rd.Planned destinations include most of the United Kingdom, France, and Amsterdam (y'know, to pay respects to Anne Frank).

Write back if you're interested.

Special Valentines Day Rutgers Review Article!

For the past semester, I've been writing a regular advice column for the Rutgers Review along with drawing the occasional cartoon.

Unfortunately, the Review has about the same readership as this blog (basically, I read it and that's it) so I'm going to start posting my articles up here as well in the hope's that someone might actually look at them and because it's an easy way to fill space.

The latest article (to appear in this week's issue) is another installment of Advice by Jon, my advice column. This week, "Jon" (who's opinions usually don't actually connect with the real Jon writing them) helps a poor soul who's alone on Valentines Day. Enjoy!

Advice by Jon

Dear Jon,
It’s Valentines Day again and I’m single…again. How can I fix this?
Glen, RC ‘08

Ah, Valentines Day; the deadly black mark weighing down the calendars of many, many single students. It’s kind of like seasonal allergies. Every year you hope it doesn’t come but, every year, there it is and you’re forced to take a bunch of pills until it goes away.

Most people think Valentines Day is the most romantic holiday of the year. This is wrong. A real romantic holiday is something like New Years or Halloween where people are festive and partying and new romance can bloom. There’s no new romance on Valentines Day. It’s just a day for old couples to lord it over single people so that they can pretend to feel good about only being allowed to screw one person. And thus, everyone else gets to feel depressed.

I, on the other hand, never get depressed. That’s probably because I get with mad ladies (like literally though, angry women). And if I don’t have a special lady at the moment, I just wait for one of my single ex-girlfriends to get depressed about their Valentinelessness and call me up to arrange a time to “talk” and “catch up”*.

But what can you do, Glen, to solve your mid-February depression. Easy! Take those lemons and make some sweet lemonade (preferably pink lemonade to be holiday appropriate). What do I mean? Use the depression to your advantage!

Just think, for every depressed single guy out there this Valentines Day, there’s also a depressed single girl. You just need to get these depressed single people together. And how do you do that? Throw a party! You can call it the “Screw Valentines Day (and Possibly Someone Else As Well) Party”! Sure, the next morning, that house will be filled with more regrets than the post-Super Bowl Patriots locker room, but you’ll be feeling good. Just remember these magic words: “I’ve got an early class” and you’ll be fine. Take that, Cupid!

So there you have it, Glen; the surefire way to have a great Valentines Day while still being single. But, next year, try not to get in this mess again. You know that pretty girl in your Psyche class you’re always talking to. Ask her out. Like really ask her out. Nothing’s gonna happen unless you do. I just don’t think your thinly veiled flirtations over text messages are getting the point across. Sorry.

*In this case, “talk” stands for “sex” and “catch up” stands for “a specific type of sex they probably wouldn’t have done when we were actually dating”.


Hey, reader! Has life gotten you down? Is there some little thing eating at the back of your mind in the middle of the night? Would you like to publish your problems in a public forum so that you can get advice from a complete stranger? Then write to Advice by Jon at advicejon@gmail.com
He’ll fix your shit!

My February Playlist

I posted my monthly playlist. Like always, I will put it in the corner of the page, but here it is for people who, I don't know, are at the edge of their mouse pad and can't scroll to the right.

At first I was thinking about doing a special Valentines Day playlist (I made a really good one in high school that, I think, perfectly mixed ironic sentiment and honest to goodness real sentiment) but I had gotten too much fun "regular music" this past month to pass over. Maybe I'll do a small one on the day itself although I doubt it, what with all the Hair rehearsals I'll be doing.
In the meantime, please enjoy the fact that I put the most holiday appropriate song up first even though it's a totally weird playlist opener.