KingLou Drops Science 2.0

I don't know why codine cough syrup isn't legal here over the counter in NY. It is in Maine and other enlightened places. Whenever I pass through those places I buy some. Why? Because when I get a cough it always sucks. Regular cough medicine doesn't do it. Codine does. After 9/11 I was a wreck with a cough that wouldn't quit. I left the city to the explanses of New Hampshire for some fresh air. My wife started feeling good right away. I was just a coughing idiot. Someone sent word of the Maine codine connection. Jetted right up there and bought some. It was the first good night sleep I had in a month. You can feel it hit as it relaxes your diaphram. Suddenly there is no coough. I actually waxed about his topic on my old online diary. Lots of good stuff there. Anyway, I have had this crazy cough for the last 3 days and OTC stuff ain't cutting it. I know what will. Codine. I have 3 bottles of the stuff at home, bought in Switzerland, but nothing here. Or so I thought. Found a bottle in my mom's medicine cabinet. Roche Broncorinol. First ingredient "Pholcodine". Cough already easing. Sweet. I have calmed down from my negative feelings about the show this last Weds. I realize now that my feelings are really more about my disappointment with my own performance. Everyone at the show enjoyed it. Now I can focus my rage on the fact that Gunshow didn't get into the Del Close Marathon. It's an annual improv fest here in NY. We got into it our first year together, we got shut out last year and now again this year. Total bullshit. I guess it's time to hit some festivals across the country or something. Keep it interesting and get the fucking credit we deserve. Personally I have been feeling like a comedy comet lately. That's right a ball of space ice, gas & dust that comes around every couple hundred years or so. And yes, crazy people worship me and commit suicide so they can get transported to the spaceship in my tail. This is how I feel. Well more like my ideas have been really good and do-able. They are still very very wrong for the most part but that is what is funny to me. Hooray for wrongness. Today as I waited for the super genius' at CVS to tell me they couldn't find my perscription (because they are subhuman tards) I was witness to an spectace of almost pure "After school Special"ness. As I waited in front of the condoms and pregnancy tests for the CVS phrama-tard to not serve me and forget about me I noticed a high school kid, wearing the shirt of the school I went to Grade School. slide up next to me. He stood there staring for while eyeing up the selection. I like a guy who is picky with his condoms. I myself tried several brands in my pre-married days. Mentor, Trojan Large, Magnum and others. I settled on Trojan large. Hooray for me. Anyway, I kind of watched out of the corner of my eye as I rocked ace's stroller back and forth to stem off any crying. Which would he choose? Something tacky? Something with the new heat lube? Something glow in the dark? He knelt down and examined a box more closely. It was here that I noticed that he was looking at pregnancy tests. I now also realized that there was a sort of embarassed/excited girl behind him by a few steps who was watching. YIPE! I was so freaked out for the kid. I wanted to say something but I thought that it was so weird a situation already that I'd better not. I wanted to say "Look I have a great kid. It's a lot of fun!" and I also wanted to say "Hey, guys, just relax." They picked a box and kind of wandered into an empty isle where the stood and read the package together. Neither of them seemed too freaked out. They were touching each other reassuringly and I ran into them later in the street. The EPT clearly visable via their bag. I wanted to follow them home and find out the results. Such a crazy time. I recall in High School having that scare and also a couple of times later. Always kind of a dreadful moment. It's like either I am going to make it out of here alive or the world is gong to change drastically in a minute. They were all false alarms. Ironically later in life you're like "How the fuck long does it take to get pregnant?!" I have several friends in tha boat now. Trying all these methods mainly because they waited too long. Science can help but after 35 the chances drop dramatically. Scare to think about folks. Start the good fucky fucky for baby making now. Unless you are poor. Then stop fucking. Sex is for the rich. I mean it.

Long story short I took that job at Columbia. I start on June 14th. Hooray for me. In the end the more I looked at it the more it just made sense to take it. Perks, money & that sweet columbia name on the resume. So I guess here we go. Gunshow had a show tonight. It was a big deal show at the PIT and I thought it sucked ass. Our stories in the beginning we just too similar and there weren't enough stories. So when we started doing the show we hit the limit of show ideas right away and got stuck. We repeated scenes that weren't that great to start with, we used ideas from multiple stories in one scene which left us without stuff to do in other scenes. For the 2nd show I was barely in the show. I have been hitting some kind of wall as far as starting scenes. So that leaves me stuck dealing with whatever random weak shit I am given. Not to say that it's always weak but I haven't been doing a great job lately justifying bad initiations or really adding much. I was in a scenen with Ryan tonight where I was just like "What the fuck is happening?" then someone did a walk on and made it even more confusing. It just sucked all over. I wish I could shake it out at the end of a bad show. Just shake it off. But a bad show lingers. Scenes that I remember: 1) arresting dude in weed shirt, 2) Spitting on Rollercoaster 3) I am a vigin because of you 4) Weird business guys arguing on rollercoaster. 5) Awkward birthday 6) Teacher who is 69 7) Math student who always says 69 wife buys father a crazy sex night As always the audience enjoyed the show and the performers are baffled. I have to put this behind me and get back to it!

So we're moving back up to my mom's house for up to 10 days tomorrow. The bathroom deconstruction and closet building begins in earnest. Hello new bathroom. Goodbye ten thousand dollars. We went up there earlier today to drop off some stuff. The asian cab driver was a little weird. He wanted to take a crazy route from the get go. Then he suggested taking the FDR instead of the upper west side. We said okay because we are push overs. Our spinelessness probably tacked an extra $5 onto the ride. The upper east side of New York is evil if only for the shittiness of it's traffic. When you add the people who live up there and just the general attitude it's Hell like qualities can't be denied. Another interesting thing was that the cab driver had no license. Every once in a while youy run into that. A cabbie who lets someone else take his cab or perhaps he was murdered and the murderer takes the cab around but there is no picture or anything official in the cab. It explained his seemingly bewildered driving style and the shitty attitude he had when I tipped him and opbviously nice tip. Fucking asshole. Closer to job decision. Need to ask for the upper limits of the job pay scale because by going back to work full time I am increasing my child care needs by ten thousand dollarinos a year. Thats the 2nd time I have mentioned spending ten thousand dollars in this post. I feel ill. The real issue with me taking this new job is that I would rather be doing something else. Specifically persuing voice over work or some other actorly thing but to be successful I would basically have to do a total personality change. I full frontal lobotomy. Reinsert a nice new self confidence chip, a new "effort" booster for extra trying and a new depression deflector. Yeah, I think that would do it. As it is the people I know who actually do acting have to do all kinds of shit and auditioning and I don't know if I could handle that. See? New self confidence chip is totally in order. Well I have to go and move all my possessions out of my bedroom. How fucking depressing. See?

As my job decision looms I was accutely aware that this might be one of my last weekdays with Ace. The thought of only having the fleeting pre & post sleep hours and weekend with him fills me with a heavy sadness. I have been seriously blessed to have this crazy three day work schedule offered to me. It pays pretty well. If I worked full time I would make $50K or something, before taxes. So for 3 days... you do the math. Not bad but not enough to plug the hole that being unemployed for 8 months put in my bank account. And in reality the leak continues so it looks like I will need to take this job whether I like it or not. And I should like it okay. I guess we'll see. After my interview I had some time to kill so I went to Kim's up by columbia. That store is so cool. I know it's a really pretentious place in so many ways and all the people who work there come off as extremely put out and bored but it's nice to know that its there. It's a good source of weirdness on a campus of not so crazy partying. People keep saying "Well if you hate this new job then quit!" When you have my outlook on life, which is sort of a "Who the hell would hire me?" kind of thing, it's almost easier to stay with a job you hate than sit at home wallowing in fear of rejection to the point of inaction. Slowly getting even more down on yourself as you become depressed and addicted to video games. My cat Buster has some kind of nasty urinary track infection. He's ruined all his things with bloody pee so tonight we locked him in the bathroom until tomorrow when we'll take him back to the vet. They gave us medicine after the last visit but since I started putting it in his food he stopped eating enough of it. Today he ruined his little krinkly sleep sack with some bright red pee. DRAG! So he's in the bathroom meowing his head off. I remembered I need to close the window in there. Growing up with my mom we had a similar situation, male cats get the hurty pee more often that the girly ones, so we locked the cats in the bathroom and they just busted out the bathroom screen. Just broke it with their little heads. At that house we had a terrace for them to walk around on. Here it would be a quick drop to the world of Ferral Kitties. He ain't got no name tag so I imagine he would be gone forever. Now if I can only get in there wityhout setting him free. Major construction starts in our bedroom on Monday. No, that is not a euphemism. We're having closets put in our beautiful large bedroom and we're punching through Jodi's closet, again not a euphemism. We're going to make our rooma master bedroom, too. So for a week we'll be living with my mom on the fabulous upper west side. How very nice. A week in the palacial luxury of the penthouse apartment. Hooray.

So... I went to meet the Dean of the school I have applied to work at. We talked and went over some issues I have with the job. Mainly my inability to work nights other that the ones the schedule at the beginning of the semester. I think it gave them pause but in the end they were willing to make some concessions and I think they tried to be understanding of the situation. I didn't mention what would be taking up the nights. I just said that I had commitments. If I said "I do comedy performing" I think they would have not conceeded. Any expression of creativity outside of work usually freaks employers out. I think they are like "What? You're expending too much energy thinking about that during the day. I think you should be thinking about nothing except Amalgamated Paper" So anyway they basically told me I have the job but gave me over the weekend to think about it and to see if I thought I could hack the evenings. Very nice. The weekend will be spent worrying about that now. The main issue now really is "Is this something I want to do? Is this something I can afford not to do? I am ever going to just shut and make a decision?" Went to Andy Secunda's birthday party last night after rehearsal. I was invited by the female member of the improv troop. It was quite a scene. Writers from Conan O'Brein, SNL and the cream and not cream of the improv scene. Very hip. I actually got to meet Eric Slovin finally. An ex-worker of mine knows a lot of comedians and somehow I never got meet any of them so this is kind of like my make up time. I handed out cards for our upcoming show and people like it. It's a play on the DVD cover for the mini-series "ShoGun" but the card is so good that people don't realize it's us that have replaced the actors on the cover. I don't think any famous people are coming to the show no matter how nice the card looks. We're been so focused on this upcoming sketch show that we've let the improv slide. We did a crazy rehearsal last night. 100 scenes. The dread decameron. It got pretty crazy pretty fast but it was also extremely fun and funny. I think our show on Weds is going to be a good on! Again at the party last night I also ran into my friend Guy's ex-girlfriend. She was there for another birthday party at the same bar. Small big town. She seemed actually glad to see me. I didn't bring up her ex-boyfriend whom I am still greatest of friends with and who got married to the next girl he dated after her. Yipes! I forgot to mention that I finally finally finished the pilot of Friday the 13"r for Channel101.com and it is great. Universally loved. I just hope that everyone in the audience loves ass jokes. I recall at first I had some reservations with the the whole project because after the first day I was freaking out about the footage and there not being enough and it was the first time I had directed and not been behind the camera, too. But that was just my knee-jerk reaction. I need to recognize that part of me and not overreact. It all looks great and the sound and graphics rock. The next one will be even better and more gross. Have to jump in the shower now. I reek from yesterdays Dean fear sweat.

So I have my first meeting with the Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture tomorrow. I already had the traumatic 5 person gang interview last week and according to my plant in the group, the former holder of the position for which I am applying, I got the green light from all in attendance. So now I meet The Dean. I am deeply devided about taking the job, if I am offered it. The benefits are great but the job in my opinion is not. It involves some late nights and that is something I am unwilling to do right now. I have been weighing the pros and cons. They are pretty even. The main pro is the $ and benefits. They are many and substantial. The opportunity to get some kind of dental insurance is almost worth suffering for. Some people say that it's not really worth it and it doesn't cover enough. They obviously don't have the trainwreck that is my mouth. Benefits continued: 28 days vacation, reduced airfare, free class every semester and the list goes on and on. The main cons is the fact that I would be in charge of this filming this lecture series every Weds and occasionally more days of the week. They say that they ae trying to get permission to have a graduate student in place to cover some nights but I would like it to be ALL nights. The responsibilty in and of itself is a nightmare for me. I am sure I can do it but I am having serious anxiety about it. Another con is that I will be getting home later than I would like everyday. Currently I work like 15 mins from work. This new job would be 45 min from work and that cuts into my Ace time. I know some of you might say "you whiny bitch." to you I say... you don't even know me. You walk a mile in shoes! And then we will fight on stage for the love of a midget. Anyway, if you know me you've been exposed to the "Lou is panicky" information virus. I think I have told everyone I know about this. And at first everyone is like "Awesome. University jobs are the bomb." Then I tell them about the late night stuff and the fact that I am so attached to my son right now that I don't know if I can do it and they say "Oh man. Do what makes you happy." The answer is.... I won't be happy either way. One way I will make more $ and be able to make my family more finacially stable, which is something we could use right now. But I will be unhappy because I will have my Ace time cut by 29 hours a week and run the risk of not being able to persue my comedy addiction which anyone who knows me has discovered is my true calling. A friend told me that my concerns are something that I should bring up to the dean. That it's not fair to take the job hating it (something both my wife and mom said as well). That is one option. I have never been so bold in a job interview. However this is one case where it might be merrited. Well tomorrow is the big day. Wish me luck. In comedy news Gunshow picked it's favorite 25 sketches and now is on path to whittle it down to 10. Hard work ahead!

Went to see Morrissey tonight at the Apollo theater in Harlem. I anticipated heavy security due to the usual crowd that attends the Apollo (see dictionary definition of veiled racism.) So I didn't being my bag or camera or anything that might slow me down. We get to there and sure enough they are frisking everyone who comes into the theater. Men & Women. Everyone gets their purse checked. No cameras. Nothing. "No sweat" I say. But I should have been sweating. The security guard asked me about my chain. "Chain? I don't own a chain. Oh, you mean the six inch chain that I have hanging off my wallet. Yes I guess I... what? You want me to check it? You must be joking. FINE!" I couldn't believe that they wanted me to check my innocous wallet. I emptied it and handed the wallet to the lady who was bagging bad items. She looked at me like I was an idiot. We both agreed that the security guard was crazy but she had to do it anyway. When the show was over getting my wallet back as a snap. Very well handled. The staff there is a little on the harsh side. I wonder if it's always that way? The show was awesome. A few too many new songs but Morrissey dug into his bag of tricks and played some classic Smiths tunes as well as earlier solo stuff. One of our companions was saying that Morrissey is 44. He's still going strong. We left Ace at the my moms house for the show. He was a champ. Everyone just loves Ace so much. We really are lucky.