The A Side

My uncle Ringo is a drummer.  Apparently "Ringo" is a more common name for drummers than I thought.  He had a teacher that worked on the last two Beck album, so he asked me to make a copy of "The Information," since I bought a copy in the fall.

 

When he picked me up we popped it in.  I made it last minute, so I didn't have a chance to check it first.  It started skipping a lot, so my uncle asked if I wanted to go to Amoeba Music after dinner with my extended family.

 

I found him the CD and bought myself a copy of the Buggles album "The Age of Plastic."  You know the Buggles for their smash hit "Video Killed the Radio Star," the first video played on MTV.  The rest of their album is just as good, sort of a concept New Wave album.  You could call them a concept band, as both of their albums use what was cutting edge electronics to write songs with similar themes to their hit that launched a network.  The Buggles lead singer Trevor Horn produced albums for bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Belle and Sebastian.

 

That wasn't the only thing I bought this week.  The previous Friday, I killed time by going to EB Games while waiting for my uncle, so we could go to the Baked Potato.  At EB Games I perused the used DVDs and found the special editions of Star Trek III and Star Trek Nemesis.  The deal there was taht you buy two and get one free, so I could pick a third one.  But the clerk couldn't find the DVDs that belonged in their cases, so I left my information.

 

On Monday, I went back because I had some time to kill before class.  I bought the two Trek films and just grabbed something to buy as a third DVD, "just because."  It was "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow."  I'd never seen it before.  I heard it was pretty good.

 

When I got to class I noticed I was the first one there so I turned on the air-conditioner but not the lights.  It was still pretty hot and I didn't want it to get more so.  Some fellow students came in and I noticed that I was fast becoming the nerd of the class.  I mentioned wormholes or something and someone else said, "Wow, sci-fi!  When I hear that I just turn my brain off."  This puzzled me, so I asked if anyone wanted to see the movies I just bought.

 

We waited and waited, but our teacher didn't come.  Instead there was a substitute.  The students seemed to find me funnier than the previous week, so that was interesting.  The substitute was...interesting.  In a way it almost seemed like he didn't want to be there, but he was funny, a little harsh (in a good way) and the class seemed to like him.

 

We continued work on the Harold, this time, as promised the previous week, openings and the first three scenes.  There was one opening where the suggestion was cigarette box and I was in the first scene.  It was all my fault, I set the tone for the other two by making it about smoking.  From the sidelines I was kicking myself for not being more creative and getting the ball rolling for something more stream-of-consciousness.

 

Our regular teacher lends out books on improv because he's a self-proclaimed improv-geek.  One student brought in a book she borrowed, with the intention of returning it.  She said she was done with it, so I grabbed it, Guru: My Days with Del Close by Jeff Griggs.

 

On Thursday I didn't have work.  I asked for the day off some time ago because that was when the headshot photographer was available.  The appointment was moved back to 2:30 rather than the original 1:30, so I went to the laundromat with my clothes, many of which I was to bring with me.  On the consultation appointment she pointed to a rack and said, "As long as you can fill that we'll be all set," I did a mental double-take and just decided, then and there, that  I would basically bring everything I had and let her decide.

 

For a laundromat on a weekday it was busy, but I started reading my borrowed book anyway.  Del Close was a strange fellow.  He was suffering from emphysema and his own filth when Charna Halpern hired an intern at IO Chicago to take him grocery shopping on Thursdays.  Jeff Griggs was that intern.  This book was a series of vignettes of that year-and-a-half.

 

I got to chapter fifteen and went back to iron some shirts.

 

When I got to the appointment, I met the photographer again and her makeup lady.  I had never had makeup except perhaps when I was in that high school play.  I told her that on that occasion, I had relatives over and we took pictures.  Having not washed off the theatre makeup, I stuck out like a sore thumb.  Here, it would be significantly more subtle.  They had satellite radio and they asked which station I wanted, so I looked at her listing.  "Uh, 43 I guess," I suggested.  It was the indie rock station and I recognized Belle and Sebastian's "Lord Anthony" and the White Stripes "My Doorbell."

 

So we talked about how she did the makeup for a session with Beck and we all took off for our two locations.  It was weird I was joking around, having more fun than I thought and was basically doing stand-up for much of it.  It was sort of the first time in a while.

 

I considered going to an improv show that night, but I realized I was carrying a lot of stuff, so I'd need to go back to my apartment first.  I went to my apartment last as it turned out.

 

I no longer intern on Tuesday nights.  I was moved to Friday nights to the Andy Dick Theater.  It was a smaller theatre, used for teams that booked the space more, by request.  The shows were free and it was much looser.  It was where I used to hang out after doing the stand-up shows upstairs on Friday nights.  It was a little odd to be there actually, but it was nice to be back.  I felt a bit like I'd come full circle, if only for the first part of this ride out here.  The needle had finished the A side and now was time to flip the record over.

 

Next week I'm going back to the open mics.  For a while I've felt like I've had some writer's block.  I don't know how much of that has to do with my time at IO West but I'd like to see what's going on at the places I used to go, especially now that I have Tuesdays free.

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.

 

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