classes began for me today. the rest of the campus began theirs yesterday. that's how much of a badass I am. looks like a peachy keen semester. I have a neat-looking Shakespeare class early in the morning. the professor asked the class about the relative virtues of seeing Shakespeare performed versus reading the text, whether one was inherently superior to the other. After listening to a few answers, I raised my hand and announced cheerfully that "I don't think actors can be trusted. I mean, they're always trying to pull something. You have to read the play first so that you can figure out what their agenda is." This, like every single other joke I have ever made in any class anywhere at any point in my life, was met with confused silence and finally the professor changed the subject to his lengthy background as an actor. so the class is off to a more or less typical start. should be as fun as...well, other classes have been.

all of that is irrelevant right now, though. I've known about what I'm about to announce for a few days, but I didn't want to mention it in the last update because it was already full of stuff. I wanted this to have a column to itself, the echoing sweep that it deserves.

Scott Adsit left Second City. I had the good fortune to witness one of his last performances, and it was an exceptional one - the cast was in preparations for a new revue, and though the overall presentation was as sloppy as previews would be expected to be, Scott singlehandedly carried the show. He filled the silences with more manic energy than I'd ever seen him perform with. A few days later, he was gone. I could rhapsodize for pages about the brilliant dynamo that is Scott Adsit, but instead I'd like to do it in song. It originally appeared in a play that I finished writing with Rory Leahy the very day that Scott left Second City. When I first wrote it, it was for Charlton Heston, but he doesn't matter anymore. so, with no apologies to Elton John, I present for you:

A Flower in Any Soil '98 (b)

Verse 1:
Goodbye, Willy Licious, may you rave on in our hearts
You were the old bluesman who wrought genius from the lost and found
A moment later a monk, the Weasel, young Hemingway or someone new
Now your crusade moves on to Hollywood and nationwide television too.

Chorus: (repeat after every verse)
And it seems to me that you would be
a flower in any soil.
Never fading with the house lights when the improv set comes to a close
And your voice will always echo even if you've now settled for a mere writing job
The sound died down before your manic glory ever will.

Verse 2:
Truth and innovation your art, cowardly yuppies and frat boys on spring break quaked in the dark
At the towering brilliance of our mentor and creative patriarch.
And even though boring people tried to put predictable words in your mouth
You continued to define "cutting-edge" with your every breath.

Verse 3:
Goodbye crazed Saturn salesman, bringing them into the family whether they liked it or not.
Goodbye Mr. Grissom, IQ of a raccoon and struggling with the roundy-roundy tupperware.
You were the force that mocked convetionality, shitty improv suggestions, and blandness masquerading as art.
Goodbye Scott Adsit, from an audience lost without your inspiration.

(Final line)
We will miss your rendition of the American Dream for the rest of our theatergoing days.


see, I'm all emotional now, so I'm going to leave it there. check out the updates throughout the rest of the site.
additional massive respect to Junior Wells and Carl Perkins, two very cool people who died in the last couple of days.
and a hearty "fuck you!" to el nino, who I blame for all this shit.