Oh shit, Joe Strummer's dead, making a full Clash reunion at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year impossible. London Calling will be in heavy rotation on my stereo today.

From the Sudden Reversal of Fortune Dept.: Someone had to back out of Tomfoolery, I was asked to join the production, and I gladly accepted. With Tom Lehrer songs careening through my skull for the last month, I need to get them out of my system somehow. The production will have two separate casts performing 10 times each for the duration of the run, perhaps more if the literate and urbane S.F. theatregoers clamor for extra. The details as they currently are:

OpenStage Repertory Theater Presents Tomfoolery
Words and Music by Tom Lehrer - Directed by Jon Rosen
Saturday, Feb. 15 through Sunday, Mar. 16
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (matinee only on Mar. 16)
Goat Hall - 400 Missouri St. (at 19th. St.), S.F. (Potrero Hill)
For more information, go to OpenStage's site

Good news: Power's back on today, cable modem's working again (knock on router).

Bad news: Had to get a hotel room to be guaranteed electrical power and sound sleep last night. Also, I didn't get cast in Tomfoolery. Time to get back on the auditioning bike.

2 Days in the Life of an Apprentice Stoic

Sunday started the current confluence of shitty events in my life. My cable broadband went out, after a few days of spotty service. I was then informed that a technician could not come to my house until mid-afternoon on Xmas Eve. (Thanks, AT&T! Can't wait for the Comcast shakeout to start happening, so I can wait 5 weeks for service.) Until I get a dial-up backup service installed on my machine, I'll be incommunicado from home.

Sunday evening was a fun one - the audition finally happened. I sang "The Vatican Rag," and unfortunately the accompanist on piano was a pinch-hitter, and he stumbled through what is a fairly tough piano piece, and I had to adjust by slowing down the song. I think I still came off OK, though. We were put through our dance paces - oh Lord, I cannot waltz to save my life - we read sides, then we adjourned into the rainy, blustery night on Potrero Hill.

I got home at 11, had a late dinner, and eventually drifted off around 12:30. Starting at 1, the power flickered on and off around 5 times. The power went out - nothing remotely flickering about it - around 1:30, while I spied the tall trees heavily swaying in the heavy winds that also rattled my windows. If you're like me and you suffer from sleep apnea and use a CPAP machine to sleep soundly, having no power is a fucking nightmare. So I tried to sleep without the CPAP, enduring a weird dream where I was suffering from laryngitis and when I was trying to tell my mom this (in the dream), she thought I was saying I had a boil on my ass. Kids, this is what happens when you don't get enough oxygen to your brain when you sleep.

Woke up at 7, power was still out. Seemed to be out everywhere except at my dentist's office, so at 9:30 my sleep deprivation was compounded with novocaine and the singularly heinous smell of tooth enamel being drilled out of my mouth. Cavity filled, back to the house, power still out, drag my ass to work, cranking Jane's Addiction to keep myself alert. I've called the PG&E outage info line numerous times, and they still haven't given an ETA for restoration of power at the house. Unfortunately, about 110K other people in the Bay Area are in the same boat as me, so who knows when things will be fixed. I may have to get a goddamn hotel room just so I can plug in my CPAP and sleep soundly tonight. I sure as hell am in no shape to hit aerobics class at 6. I am tired all the way into my sinew and bones.

Speaking of weed... presenting a great way to fuck with the DEA.

Oh good God. You know kids are in trouble when they have more steps in their recovery programs than years on this planet.

Just got back from a theatrical type event. Hard to explain the event in a neat sentence or two, but it was sort of an extension of acting classes I'd taken earlier this year. (I was a spectator and not a participant.) Lots of actor types in the audience, most seeming to know one another, schmoozing and such. And there I was, attending solo, knowing maybe a couple of people, the only fat person in a room full of professionally pretty and hip people, feeling like a yutz. I fucking hate that feeling – being alone in a social setting, people looking at me like, "Who's this guy and what is he doing here?" (Or at least the perception of such.) It was combined with the feeling that these people were actively in the "biz," such as it is in San Francisco, and I was a dilettante turd. I don't know why this wave of bitterness, jealousy, and self-insignificance washes over me when I'm put into these situations. And that after I experience all these warped emotions, I still want to be an actor. Am I a masochist in need of Paxil?

Today was laundry and errand day. And now let me bitch about said errands.

The short amount of time I spent in Kinko's to print out my theatre résumé was enough to make me slightly meshuggah. First, a howling, wailing child was in there. Then more noise pollution was provided by a particularly clueless woman and her shitty teenish son, who were seemingly baffled by the self-service computers and loudly made it known to the passive staff. And finally, self-service really is self-service, especially when you have to troubleshoot a paper jam in the laser printer like I did.

From there, I took a trip into Trader Joe's. It's my favorite market-type store, but it's a logistical clusterfuck, from the cramped parking lot to the aisles that, after a big renovation, are still too narrow. There is no room to dawdle there, which is a shame, because there's always loads of new stuff worth dawdling over. Once you stop to look at something, or try to park your cart somewhere, 10 people suddenly materialize to get where you want to go, or to try to grab an item where you parked the cart. If you don't know what you want and where exactly it is, forget it, you're roadkill. And that was me. Another thing about TJ's is that I usually pick up one or more new and interesting items that I never get around to eating at home. We'll see if I get to the goat cheese-stuffed salmon filets. Looked good at the time.

Last night, I had so many choices for social activities: 2 comedy shows in S.F., a BBW dance way the hell out in Martinez, Jonathan Richman in San Rafael. I went to S.F. and got screwed when tickets were sold out for both comedy shows. So I essentially drove around S.F. and did nothing. At least I picked up my latest mantra from Primus: When I write, words flow like coins from a candy box / Get out of my way / I've got something to say

We'll see if I can make that happen.

Another nondescript week, y'all. The only noteworthy thing to report - culled from my server logs, this week's Weirdest Search Term That Somehow Led to This Blog:

fucking objets up my hole

It's a new school of art: L'école du objets d'ass.

Today was spent hoofing it through a couple of places, stalking the sometimes-elusive FOR RENT sign. I looked around Mill Valley and could not find any such sign. Soon after, I traveled into San Francisco and zigzagged through six square blocks (43rd Ave. to Great Highway, between Irving and Judah) - admittedly a small sampling, but I wanted to get an initial feel of the neighborhood. Dwellings ranged from a few nicely spruced-up places to more dilapidated offerings, the norm being a bit more grotty as you get closer to Ocean Beach. There were a couple of cafés, a couple of bars, and a couple of cuisines I'd never seen - a South African restaurant and an Italian/Pizza/Indian restaurant (I'd like the deep-dish Mulligatawny, please). Seemed like the population was an even mix of older Asian folks, younger people, surfers and bikers/roughnecks. Final count of empty Mickey's Malt Liquor bottles in the area: 3. On a Sunday afternoon, it was pretty sleepy, but hey, the Outer Sunset is supposed to be that way.

I was looking out there because the commute to work (Great Highway to Skyline Blvd., cutting over to 280) would not be bad at all, and I could always hop the N-Judah streetcar into downtown S.F. As I start looking a little more in earnest, I think I may also look on the other side of the city, in the Glen Park and surrounding districts, like Sunnyside, where I had lunch with a pal the other day. It's a nice area, close to Muni and BART, and is about 10-15 minutes away from work. If I decide to go south of S.F., I'm thinking Burlingame, San Mateo, maybe Millbrae or San Bruno. Having worked in the South S.F. / Daly City / Brisbane area for 3½ years, I know the lay of the land there, and none of those cities stir my interest. Then again, all my legwork is just extensive window-shopping / tire-kicking at this point.

OK, why did I dream last night that I was at a doctor's appointment, the doctor was George Carlin, he wasn't in the least bit funny, and he wanted to jab me with a long needle so that it would touch my liver?