The Mark Weber Show Hosted By Stephanie and Starring Other People: A Look into Mark Weber

For July I have been hosting this show with the above silly and long title. It is at 8pm at The Upstairs Gallery in Andersonville. The Mark Weber Show has, for me, been an experiment in extreme fun. Each week a special guest displays their talent and me and my favorite people to play with improvise scenes inspired by their performance. It's been a big success!

However, people have consistently asked me: "Who is Mark Weber?" Very good question.

He is my brother. Two years younger than me, but very close to me. Growing up I really don't remember us fighting. Especially as teenagers. Probably when I was about fourteen and he was twelve, we truly became best pals. My brother was always one of my favorite people to hang out with. He's easy-going, smart, hilarious. The kind of person that thinks almost everything is funny and will laugh for hours about it. I've always loved how something silly might happen and we will look at each other and wordlessly know exactly what we both are thinking. We did almost everything together. We both did martial arts and when I broke my hip and couldn't do it anymore, Mark stopped also. When I joined choir, Mark joined choir. We both began taking an interest in theatre. We made movies with our cousins and the two of us even wrote our zombie films together and only last summer Mark and I wrote a terrible one-act play together (Nightmare Thunder still has yet to debut). When he lived here he gladly auditioned for my sketch show (using a copy of Vin Deisel's resume handwritten on notebook paper as his own resume). Mark is the best and so he deserves to have a show named after him. Mostly because I knew he would think it was funny.

Do you think he sounds cool? He is and you can find out for yourself this coming Wednesday at 8pm! Mark Weber will be attending The Mark Weber Show! Dreams do come true!

There's Always Ice Cream

Remember when Cold Stone Creamery was everywhere? Maybe you don't because you don't care about ice cream. Or you are lactose intolerant. Or you hate things that are delicious. I care because I love ice cream and this is my blog so I will freely talk about ice cream (if either ice cream or my I-don't-give-a-fuckness offend you, then please stop reading now). They have all but disappeared and I blame it on one terrible new trend: frozen yogurt (if you dare say fro-yo with sincerity, I will put you in a room of hungry toddlers who will cry until you give them a snack). 

Whenever anything would go wrong as teenagers, me and my closest group of friends - who admittedly were pretty much all related -  would comfort each other by putting a firm hand on the shoulder and saying "Well, there's always ice cream."

 Believe it or not, that meant everything. Maybe because we didn't quite know how to talk about our hormonally Xtreme feelings - maybe because most of my friends were guys who had a masculine way of expressing themselves - or maybe it was out of respect for each other's privacy. Whatever the reason, that sentence meant so much. It continues to mean so much. To this day if my cousins tell me bad news, I will reassure them that there is always ice cream, When I went through a terrible heartbreak, my brother not only confirmed that there is ice cream, but he also suggested I try the new Oh Fudge shake at Coldstone.

Call me old-fashioned, but "there's always fro-yo" does not have the same creamy reassurance to it. It doesn't sound sweet or comforting or even sexy. It sounds goofy. It even tastes a little goofy. There's not always frozen yogurt. There is, however, always ice cream and I will always find it. 

This is Our Song

"The next song that plays will be our song," Adam said while we listened to his iTunes play on shuffle. His itunes collection is like a Pizza Hut jukebox. It is stock-full of hits that you love and hits that you forgot about. A song comes on - Billy Joel, Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson - and you think "oh yeah, this song. All right." Then you immediately want cheesy garlic bread.

We played this game a few times, deciding that "Damn Girl" by JT wasn't appropriate. Michael Jackson didn't quite feel right and Savage Garden was just too...tacky.

"The next song. This will be it. No matter what."

"Jingle Bell Rock" played next.

It's safe to say we don't have a "song". To be honest, I don't think most couples do. Really I've only known two that do.

Where does that notion of having a song come from? I always imagined it's your first dance or the song that played when you met or first kissed or something that you wooed each other with. But I don't think any of my couple friends have songs (if so, please tell me the story and song).

Growing up, my cousin Laura was the coolest. She was only a few years older than me, so when I was 11 and 12 she was the cool teenager I aspired to be. She was punky: listening to Deftones and Blink 182 while she dyed and cut her hair and formed anti-establishment opinions on everything. To me she was the coolest. Especially when she handed down her JNCO jeans to me - when they were no longer "cool" to wear (it's the kind of clownish clothing that Juggalos wear). I was an awesome 7th grader wearing comically giant pants when everyone around me wore tight faded jeans and Abercrombie sweaters.

Anyway, Laura and I were at the park when she began telling me about her latest boyfriend, Larry. I remember his name because she said, "Larry is a cute name" as if there was a list of cute names somewhere that she had confirmed this with.

We were listening to music in her room. Blink 182 was playing. "Adam's Song" came on. Laura said, with her head in a dreamy place, "This is our song."

"Adam's Song", for those who who not know, is about suicide. It's probably also Blink 182's ONLY serious song (remember how their album was called Take Off Your Pants and Jacket?). If a song is a reflection of your relationship, then you can probably imagine that Larry and Laura did not work out. 

But the couple that really does have a song are my aunt and uncle. My Aunt Laurie is only about ten years older than me, so when she was a teenager she was into all the cool alt-90s stuff and that was what I listened to when I first really started listening to music. I remember that she and my Uncle Tim danced to "Ice Cream" by Sarah McLachlan at their wedding. That was their song. She played it in her room one time for my mom and I before the wedding (mostly to my mom and I just hung around as per usual) and eleven year old me listened to the song and really understood the lyrics. I got it. "Your love is better than ice cream" What? How is that possible? Ice cream is SO good. It's the best. I will write a later blog post about how much I love ice cream. So I thought about it for the first time. "If anything is better than ice cream, it must be love."

Thanksgiving 09, I wanted to make a CD to play background music while people ate. This was mostly to avoid anyone turning a TV on while having holiday dinner - a giant pet peeve of mine. Dinner is for conversation. Watch TV after. So I put mellow, autumn-sounding stuff on it. "Ice Cream" seemed appropriate. Laurie and Tim came into that Thanksgiving with a tension between them with the heat of The Gaza Strip.

The song came on. Their anger melted away like...well...like ice cream. You could see it unwind from their faces and they looked at each other sweetly. Then they kissed. That was the power of a song. Just like magic, it made all obstacles in the way of your love disappear because that song was some kind of boiled down symbol of your happiness. There was simply no way to be mad while it played.

Songs that would be hilariously awesome "songs":

1. "The Monster Mash" - that guy who sings it. His name is Boris, I think.
2. "Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen
3. "Push It" - Salt-N-Pepper
4. "Symphony no. 7 in A Major: Allegretto" - Beethoven
5. Probably anything by Tupac

Tell me what you think about "songs". Let's see if our lists match up. Regardless, I'm sure I'll be filled with gooey feelings next Christmas when I hear our song.

I'm Going to Honor You By Talking More About Myself...

"Hi Stephanie," said an actor from BWC over the phone. "I have a gig for you."

I got excited because he was also a talent agent. I was completely flattered that he would think of me for a gig! And I was excited. Audibly excited. This had been a great day. The weather was gorgeous. I had had two job interviews that went exquisitely. I treated myself to breakfast at Nookie's and I spent some time reading Derrick Brown in my favorite park. Now this! A gig! Oh boy! 

"Are you free on Monday night?" Hmmm...well, I had a rehearsal with my new independent improv team Ben Franklin Presents and I really love those rehearsals...but if I got this gig and it was paid, then I should do this. This could be good for my career. 

I said, "I believe so." And then he continued to tell me that a talent agent passed away and they wanted to do a memorial at The Apollo, where I work for BWC, and they needed a stage manager. My heart sunk. Oh. That's right. I'm a writer and an actor. But to him I'm a stage manager and that is literally the only place and time I'm ever a stage manager. And then I remember that it's not a rehearsal I have on Monday - it's Ben Franklin Presents' first show. But How do I possibly get out of this event now? 

My BWC boss and colleague found out about the event and tried to explain, to my surprise, that I was not really a stage manager and that lights for BWC are pre-set so really I just push buttons when I'm in the booth. But the actor/agent insisted that I am a stage manager. I got a call from him asking me to tell them that I can do it because, "All it is is lights and sound which, to my knowledge, is what you do for BWC." This is why actors need to also learn tech...tech people are NOT magicians.

To make matters worse the hours got extended from 6-9, to 5-11. Great. I can't get there at 5! I told them this and they said, "get here when you can." God damnit. 

There's just no way I can so "no" to this thing. My sympathy ultimately wouldn't let me be that inconsiderate. Every opportunity I had to flat-out say "can't make it" or "I have a show" or "I don't know how", I swept aside after talking to them. With a sigh I said, "I'll keep Monday night free. I'll be there if you need me." 

I get there and I'm joined in the booth by a rather ridiculous and narcissistic "rockstar" couple as well as a guy who my BWC colleague warned me "seems to hate women". I am twenty years younger than all these people, but I'm the only one who knows what to do. Suddenly I take over. I know how to do everything and really they should have had me do audio and lights. 

The memorial is really sweet. I never met this man, but it's amazing how this memorial started to make me feel like I had. Like I could feel his presence the way these people all did. You can really get the picture of the person. I started to imagine I knew what he was like, too. His warmth, his smile, his casual wardrobe. Seeing all the pictures started to make me feel that sweet sadness funeral pictures bring. "Ah yes," my teary eyes would smile, "That is what he looked like!"

 But then the facilitators of this memorial opened the floor to any friends who wanted to speak. 

"Oh no," I thought. "These are actors...they will all want to speak." And they did. For an hour and forty minutes. To be honest, most of them felt like monologues. With each Oscar-attempt at a eulogy, I found my sympathy eradicate. Did they hear themselves? Did they hear how...false this sounded? I hate to say that, but truly, it seemed that way and it seemed that way for one obvious reason. Almost all their sentences started with the words "I" or "my career".  We get it! We know that he helped your career. That was his job! But a person is never their job. Talk about his humor, his laugh, something funny he told you, a time he gave you advice, a funny outfit he wore. Anything that doesn't have to do with the commercials you booked or how you moved to LA or whatever the fuck. Who cares? You. Only you care.

There was name-dropping happening. It began to really infuriate me. It made me furious the way that when Second City teacher Mary Scruggs died a teammate on Peach of the Neighborhood joked that he would go to the funeral to network. It just was not appropriate in the same way that I felt this was not appropriate. But this was what almost everyone was doing. I'd say 25 people spoke and 5 were the exception to the "my career" stories. 

I started to feel disgust for these people. This business. I felt defensive about the man and his family and felt like people were not paying him enough respect. They were just patting themselves on the back and thanking him for getting them where they are today. That's an award speech. Not a memorial. 

Then an actor - in a spiffy suit who had been waiting to speak so I knew he was the showy kind, the one who would do some stunt and an uber-emotional yet phony-sounding speech (and I was 100% right) - came onstage and said, "Stage Management! Can we turn up the house lights?" Well...the lights were pre-set because they are for BWC. I could only turn up house lights and darken his light on stage. Instinctively, being annoyed he was asking me to do this by calling me 'stage management', I shouted, "no." The rockstars in the booth said, "yeah, you can" so I pressed the button and everyone laughed in relief at the drastic lighting change. 

Everyone ate it up, though. So I began to feel bad. This whole thing was such a sweet gesture. This is the kind of thing I'd be weeping about if it was at a family or friend's funeral. If this had happened at Mrs. Griffin's funeral, we would have been there for five hours and I would have been crying all the way through. Yet I felt disdain. I was that audience member that said "oh, I don't believe you" as they acted on stage. 

And really - was I much different? I'm the one who assumed it was a gig that  highlighted my clear and obvious talents. That was silly. The guy who called me had never seen me perform. He certainly never read my plays. He probably didn't know I did anything aside from holding a walkie talkie every Friday night at for Baby Wants Candy. In the end, I was no different. 

 

Animals Have no Feelings, So It's Okay to Not Believe in Big Foot

I hate it when people ask "can animals feel?" Not because I am adamant that they do (oh come on, people, haven't you watched those heart-destroying ASPCA commercials?). I get annoyed because that question is so arrogant. 

 

Frankly, so is the idea that we are alone in the universe. Space is expansive. There are thousands and millions of things out there that we DON'T KNOW about. But, no I'm wrong, it tooootally makes sense that there is NO LIFE OF ANY KIND OR DEFINITION out there somewhere. Yeah. That makes sense. It's like we as human beings want so badly to believe we are special that we deny animals of feelings and hope to God that He didn't make anyone else in the universe. So, no, aliens of any kind can't possibly exist.

 

My dad believes this. He firmly claims that "aliens" are completely fake. He always points to those old videos from the fifties of flying saucers caught on tape. "You can clearly tell this is fake," he always says. Then he adds something like: "You can sing the strings." or "That's so easy to doctor."

 

 

 

What does my dad believe in? Big Foot. And the Loch Ness Monster. He makes my space argument about things being too expansive and he applies it to forests and oceans. I'll give him oceans. I'm sure there is a cousin of Nessie flaundering about somewhere in the ocean (let's just remind ourselves, though, that Loch Ness is a lake). But the forest? How could it be that in this age of rain forest demolition and parking lot pavement that we have not seen some kind of Sasquatch?

 

But if Sasquatch was real, he would have no feelings. Because only human beings can feel anything ever. Just ask this puppy:

 

The Vortex of Exes

One time I broke up with a guy I had been dating for a few months. He didn't take it so well. About a week later, I noticed he had friended another ex of mine on Facebook. I freaked out. Why? Why would they be friends? Did they even know each other? Were they meeting to throw darts at some terribly mangled picture of me? Ever since then I wondered if my exes liked to meet up as though they were in some kind of Ex Boyfriends Club.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if this were true then their meeting place is 600 W. Chicago because at one day working my new assignment at Groupon I saw three of them.

Mind you, I already knew one of them worked there. So seeing him in passing as I entered the building was no big deal. The real shock came in seeing the ones I did not expect to.

I was at my desk, minding my own, when I got up to stretch. Mid-stretch I saw the ex mentioned in the first paragraph walking into the conference room behind me to be interviewed. Interviewed to work there. Oh, great. At least we were nice to each other now.

Then came lunch. Lunch that I had with my boyfriend who is wonderful. Completely wonderful. But we're not here to talk about the mushy stuff. So I was eating lunch with him and some friends when another ex walked by. He said hi to one of my friends and quickly left the cafeteria. It wasn't awkward. We both pretended we didn't see each other and it's been so long that that is not a horrible thing to do to each other. It's pretty much understood that we are civil and nice, but we don't owe each other anything else. I just had no idea he worked there. And so it was that in only four hours I managed to see pretty much all the guys I had dated post-high school and there was really only one I wanted to see (see "boyfriend" mentioned earlier in this paragraph).

To be honest, all of these quick sightings made me...um...I don't know...uncomfortable? Sad? These are all people I don't care about anymore. Really, at all. Which is weird considering at one point they all meant something to me. I shouldn't mean anything to any of them either. But still, it's weird. It's weird whenever you see someone you thought was out of your life. You feel like they are intruding on your territory.

"What are you doing here? This is a new chapter. You were written out of this book a long time ago."

It made me feel like my world had shrunk. Since I was 19, have I really only dated improvisers? I mean, really, I met all of these men in some kind of improv class. So, of course, they all migrate to the company that stereotypically hires improvisers (I am removing myself from the blame by saying "they"). I felt so weird and wondered if anyone else ever experience this kind of...well, for lack of a better word...nightmare. All of your exes - all in the same place - like some kind of horrific romantic comedy. Really, almost everyone I've ever dated. In the same place. God, I hope they don't talk to each other.

Today was better. I didn't see any of them and that's probably the way it's going to be. At 1:00pm I left my desk to meet my boyfriend - who from this point forward shall be referred to as "Adam" - for lunch. I took the elevator down with a girl who looked familiar. We smiled at each other.

Adam and I walked down the river to a sort of secluded shaded area. There was no one around us. So we happily ate alone. A boat went by and Adam pointed to it. I turned to look when I hear Adam say, "What the--?" as elevator girl came into view. Clearly this was his ex-girlfriend. Also, clearly, she was going to this area to be alone, but saw us and vanished as though she thought she was a ghost that we had not seen.

It appears that 600 W. Chicago is just a nightmare for everyone. It is a vortex of exes where the conflicts of your past glare at you and quickly rush away.

Although, 600 W. Chicago is just a large building. It houses Groupon which hires people in their twenties with an affinity for goofin' about. There are also many other companies in the building where people like elevator girl are likely working. A lot of people work there.

In the end, that obnoxious Disneyland ride is more correct than any theory I have about vortexes and clubs. It really is a small world...but still one in which I'm sure my exes have a secret society of some kind.