So guess who I ran into on the sidewalk last week, completely by accident? That's right, my old friend Alyson Lyon, a playwright and stand-up comedian here in Chicago. Regular readers will of course remember Alyson as one of that holy trio of sexy, bitter, hard-drinking women I ended up spending time with in 2001, which also included Mia (who I tried finding a date for back then through my journal...um, it didn't go very well), and of course *Maryjaine, who I briefly dated. Alyson ended up moving out to Los Angeles a couple of years ago, where apparently she had a couple of successes in the mainstream entertainment industry (apparently she appeared on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, among other experiences, although I haven't gotten to ask her about the details yet); fortunately, though, Alyson eventually realized the thing that a lot of Chicago artists realize after moving to LA - that it's a lot more fun to be an artist in Chicago than an artist in LA - so ended up moving back here I guess last year sometime. And I didn't realize that, because in recent years have completely lost track of all three of the ladies, so it was great to run into her and realize that she was indeed back in Chicago.

In fact, Alyson's directing a new play that's taking place here in Chicago right now, an absurdist comedy called Overwintering, written by and starring Patrick McKenna and Ian Eastin, and taking place at least through the end of August at ImprovOlympic (oops, I mean "IO") on Thursday nights, upstairs on their second stage. And Alyson was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to attend, and to offer me a couple of free tickets if I did, so is exactly what I did end up doing last night.

And of course, it was at that point that I immediately faced the problem all of us face who are friends with artists, which is - what if our friend's artistic project sucks? That's a more complicated question than it might seem at first, especially if you're someone like me who wants as much as possible to both support local artistic projects while simultaneously being honest about that project's strengths and weaknesses. Do you be honest with your friend and potentially discourage them from doing further projects, from growing as an artist and becoming a better one? Or do you lie and say it was great, and never give them the chance to learn from their mistakes, to become a better artist in the first place? And this was an especially relevant question in this particular case, because I had read a review of Overwintering in the Chicago Reader beforehand that completely trashes the play - that basically calls it worthless and not even worth the time it takes to actually sit through it, much less to pay for the privilege. (What? The Chicago Reader writing a bitter, pissy review designed to tear down and humiliate a local artist? That can't be!)

So, you know, thank God that the play turned out to actually be incredibly good, and that I didn't have to deal with the issue just described above. Overwintering is, in fact, a much more bizarre and serious play than you would expect to see at a place like ImprovOlympic, which I think is why the Reader guy so completely got his review of it wrong; I mean, there are still lots of moments where you find yourself laughing out loud, don't get me wrong, but there are also lots of moments where you find yourself creeped out by what's going on up on stage, or marveling at just how pathetic yet sympathetic the characters actually are. Which is exactly how I in particular like my live theatre, although I could see why a bitter reviewer might call it "worthless," for it not having the usual pat jokes about sexism and homophobia that one usually expects from a place like an improvisational comedy venue.

Overwintering is at its heart a character study of two losers: Isaac, one of those weirdo art-school dropouts you often see here in Chicago, with their funky haircut and ridiculously ornate thrift-store outfits; and James, a straightlaced corporate worker, who happens to have become a complete shutin since getting mugged six months' previous. And again, just like you actually see here in Chicago all the time, these two have somehow managed to become "friends," although that's not exactly the right term for it - more, maybe, that they're two profoundly lonely men, neither able to negotiate relationships with the opposite sex very well, so have ended up spending time with each other by default.

Their relationship in the play is a complicated one, one that is constantly getting redefined on a minute-by-minute basis; one moment they might be screaming at each other, while the next they're banding together to solve a common problem, or making tentative steps towards being "supportive" of the other's problems. Their relationship, in fact, reminded me a lot of the one shared by the characters in Samuel Beckett's absurdist classic Waiting For Godot - these two men who individually can both be sympathetic and repulsive at the same time, who form this quasi-friendship out of common need, one being constantly renegotiated and yet somehow working (you know, in this completely dysfunctional, utterly hilarious way).

The plot itself is a minimalist one, as the best absurdist plays always are; James' senile mother has run away from a recent hospital check-in, and the two decide to take a road trip to find her. But again, just like the best absurdist plays, this seemingly simple storyline unfolds to reveal a whole complex myriad of issues regarding the human condition, a way to examine the dark parts of the human soul without needing to beat the audience over the head with them. Like, about halfway through the play, James has a major shutin freakout about suddenly being out in the middle of the country without a car (which of course they had to abandon earlier, because neither of them bothered remembering to fill it with gas before starting their roadtrip); so Isaac, in this bizarre act of friendship, finds a body-sized cardboard box and cuts out some eyeholes for James, which James then ends up wearing until the end of the play. And then, of course, later in the play they end up finishing their roadtrip on a bicycle (don't ask), which James rides even as he's continuing to wear this giant cardboard box over the top half of his body. (In fact, this is where the image on the play's posters and programs comes from.)

That was one of the lovelier moments of Overwintering, to tell you the truth - watching these two guys on a stationary bike on stage, one pumping away like crazy, the other riding the handlebars while wearing a giant cardboard box, a computer-generated nightscape being projected behind them on a giant screen, and a plaintive indie-rock alt-country song blasting over the whole thing. It's at a moment like that that you can't help but go through a whole complex series of emotions as an audience member: this sort of sadness for these two losers, out in the middle of the country in the middle of the night, armed with nothing but a bicycle and a cardboard box; a quiet happiness at knowing that these two losers have at least found each other; and of course, an irrepressible desire to laugh your ass off, just at the absurdity of the whole thing.

Overwintering is the perfect kind of play to be produced in a city like Chicago, and a concrete example of why I think Chicago theatre is so much better than anything you'll find in New York or Los Angeles; because here, where it's so profoundly cheaper to mount a production and find an audience for it, you can get away with weird-ass shit like this. It's the ultimate irony, in fact, of being an artist in Chicago in general: that the circumstances that lead to people in New York and Los Angeles dismissing Chicago artists, are the same circumstances that let Chicago artists get away with much more challenging, much more thought-provoking projects than anything you ever see in New York and Los Angeles. And so the weird back-and-forth attitude continues among those of us who choose to be Chicago artists - that partly we would love to get the kind of mainstream media attention artists on the coasts do, but partly realize that our artistic community as it currently exists would be completely destroyed if that actually happened, and that we'd just become like what you see on the coasts - a bunch of badly-dressed white guys making jokes about faggots, and stepping all over each others' necks for a chance to get on HBO.

Anyway, I just thought it was really unfair of the Chicago Reader to give Overwintering such an undeserved hack job like they did, so wanted to just throw up my own two cents about the play as well, and to tell all of you out there in Chicago that this play is worth going to; that it is, in fact, a textbook example of what makes the Chicago arts so great, so exciting, such a wonderful thing to be a part of, either as an artist yourself or simply a satisfied audience member. I encourage all of you here in the city to get out and see it yourself, and to see just how great modern absurdist theatre can actually be.

A couple of random notes, while I'm here...

--TRAVEL UPDATE: Okay, so it turns out that I will not be visiting St. Louis the weekend of August 20th after all; I have, in fact, agreed to perform here in Chicago on August 20th, and had completely forgotten about it when first making my travel plans. For those who are curious, the show on the 20th is at Quimby's Bookstore in Wicker Park, and is going to be doozy: Thax Douglas (aka "that freaky poet guy who was introducing all the bands at the Intonation Festival"), Jonathan Messinger (of This Is Grand and Time Out Chicago fame), Wendy McClure (of Poundy and I'm Not the New Me fame), and the list just keeps going on and on.

This will be the first time in about two years that I've performed in Chicago, and likely the last time for another two or three years; I didn't want to perform at this show to begin with, to tell you the truth, but the whole thing is being organized by my friend Katherine Hodges, and it's in celebration of her tenth anniversary of moving to Chicago, and her whole idea was to invite people who have been big parts of her life over the last decade to come out and help her celebrate it, and how can you say no to that? Anyway, fans of my old performance work should definitely come out on the 20th, because this will be the absolutely last chance to see me perform for at least another two or three years. And hey, there's free cocktails too!

--MEETRO UPDATE: Last week I issued a public challenge to the Chicago-based social-networking company Meetro here at my journal - specifically, I asked them if they would consider creating an HTML version of their service at their website, for those of us without the proper hardware to run their proprietary software (and, uh, you know, those who don't want to install proprietary software on their computer, giving hackers God only knows what kind of access to our machines without us knowing). And a couple of days later, the Meetro guys wrote back with an answer: Um, no. And even more frustrating, they didn't give a single reason why they refuse to create a web-based interface for their service, even though it would literally only take a couple of days of work to do so, using AJAX and the dozens of premade modules that already exist precisely for such a purpose. So, you know, I hate to be nasty here at my journal (no, seriously, I do) - but frankly, I'm sick of talking about a company that's obviously going to be bankrupt a year from now. Good luck, guys; damn, you're going to need it.

--Today's a Sugar day:

How can I explain away
something that I haven't done?
And if you can't trust me now
you'll never trust in anyone
With all those crazy doubts you've got, I love you even still
But if I can't change your mind, then no one will

Fuck yeah, Bob!