Drunk haircut works out!

Yeah, I got inebriated and then gave myself a buzz-cut. According to myself, my roommate Jess, and her sister Lauren, it looks really great.

Wow. Chalk that up to random good luck.

"Nato on alert to provide help in Darfur."

What the hell took so long?

What Dave McGee Has Been Up To

Part 1: 2004 in Brief

Post-graduation freak-out is, sadly, a reality. Young'uns beware. I graduated 52 weeks ago. I got wasted at a boat party. In a blind panic a few weeks later I moved, though it would have been much smarter for me to stay where I was living until I calmed down a little bit. Nonetheless, an apartment in Spanish Harlem. I appear in a professional workshop at New York Theatre Workshop by a total fluke. I go home to CA in a daze, I direct a play, I alienate my entire family whilst in the heat of a double-dose of crazy-- post-grad freak-out and pre-play-opening freak out at once. The entire month is, honestly, sort of hazy. I seriously can't remember much of it. I come back to New York. I avoid the East Village because it reminds me of school and I get depressed. I avoid life. I sleep a lot. I don't work, I leech off of my absurdly patient and generous mother, doing nothing for anyone. I watch a lot of football. When it's not Sunday morning, I wallow in depression. I attempt to write and I fail miserably. I try to work on performance (COW) stuff and every week I throw everything away that I did the previous week. Winter, inevitably, descends. I go back to CA for Christmas festivities. I feel like the up-swing may be beginning. I have a wonderful time at my family home. For the first time, I remember that I need to walk when I'm out of the city or I'll go crazy. I smoke a clove cigarette on the patio at the Starbucks on the corner of Las Tunas and Rosemead, drinking a pumpkin spice latte and reading Dave Eggers.

I am definitely on the up-swing.

Part 2: 2005, Where Dave Approaches Normality

Section 1: Employment

I am gainfully employed. I work at The Open Society Institute as what they call a "records clerk" and I call a "file monkey." In my small way, I help my employer distribute his questionably-legally but certainly morally sketchily begotten gains in a bizarre act of modern Robin Hood-ism: the rich stealing from the poor to give to the poor. (does that last sentence win the award for most adverbs ever? good grief) The job is mindless, which allows me to keep earphones in all day. I listen to books on tape, and try not to think about the fact that my employer crippled nations in order to become a billionaire. Hey, at least he's giving large amounts of that money away to people who are using it to accomplish real good in the world, and he's spending vast amounts of that money to help other countries achieve true democracy... justifying a little? Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyway, I listen to books on tape. Right now I am listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance: An Inquiry Into Values. As crappy jobs go, this one goes pretty well. It pays the bills, I get free lunch every day, I get out of work at 3:30 pm, I get to walk to work along Central Park, I get to keep my mind going wondering if working for one of the people primarily responsible for globalization makes me complicit in it, and how I feel about that, and wondering if I would feel any better working for any given insurance company or anything... (you know? he's giving the money away, I can't be mad at that right?) Whatever whatever whatever; sometimes I feel like a total and complete sell-out. I just keep reminding myself that Bob-Mike worked for McDonald's for crying out loud. And he's a good person. In summation, I have health insurance. How do you like them apples?

Art

I'm directing, acting (way more than I thought I ever would), and sitting patiently by the phone praying for a call from New York Theatre Workshop about the full production of that show I was in.

Random New York Moment

Walking home, I began to admire the fantastic architecture of a certain building. While wondering how I'd never noticed it before, I suddenly realized that it was Carnegie Hall. Duh.

Romance

There's this girl, but it's an impossibly complicated situation, so that has almost certainly been relegated to the realm of the historical "if-only's." This does not depress me as such, but simply is. There will be other girls (unless I turn out to be, as the last post suggests, into dudes). But I am not one for the casual "I'm just bored" relationship, and by the time I realize that I'd like to date a girl we've invariably passed her "just friends" point of no return. But I think I am getting a little bit (just a little bit) better at this. We'll see. Also, I'm in no hurry whatsoever.

Health

Having eaten nothing but crap for, say, the last five years, I finally decided to get off my chunk-ass and do something about it. I have begun to treat myself better. No fad diet, just making sure I know what I'm ingesting. In the three weeks that I've been keeping track, I've lost fifteen pounds. The fact that I'm still grossly overweight would normally, at this point, cause me to give up in an "always have been/always will be" defeatist squalor, but my mind is set. I'm-a get healthy again.

Random New York Moment 2

I fell asleep on the bus going home from a party last week, and woke up by chance or instinct two blocks before my stop. That could have ended really badly. I'm going to try to never do that again.

Housing

My lease is up at the end of June. I am bouncing like Zummi on a bender. Stay tuned for housing updates as events warrant.

Life's Work

For a number of months now, my friend and I have been co-writing a very funny... story. The working title is "Professor J. Everett Maple and the cipher of the Last Elk." Nearly 200 pages in, we're approaching legitimate novel length (and we're only about 2/3 done). If there's any justice in the world, we'll get this mofo published and I'll pay off my student loans in one lump sum. Advance audiences love it, but of course these are our friends who are bound to be of similar mind when it comes to what's funny. Here's to hoping we find an editor who agrees too. But first, we need to finish it. Updates to follow as well.

Anything Else

This was written by hand at the Starbucks on the corner of 15th Street and 9th Avenue between 6:00 and 6:41 pm.

Huzzah!

This story will demonstrate a relatively large cultural gap that separates me (and my immediate family) from the majority of the people in Temple City, California (which, if pressed, I would call my "home town")

It begins about three weeks ago, when I was cast in a musical called "Run, Teddy, Run!" This is a new musical, written by recent graduates of the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Department, about the failed presidential aspirations of Ted Kennedy. It was just a reading (i.e. not fully staged) at my old school.

I called my mother to tell her that I had the role (she had been in New York for my audition) and I caught her in the teachers' lounge at her school (I'm feeling particularly link-happy today). The conversation went like this:

Dave: Hey, mom! I got that part! I'm playing Ted Kennedy in a musical about Ted Kennedy!
Mom: (announcing to teachers' lounge) David's playing Ted Kennedy in a musical about Ted Kennedy!
Dave: (mock embarrassment) Mom! Don't tell them that or they'll think I'm gay!
Mom: (announcing to teachers' lounge) David says not to tell you or you'll think he's gay!
Dave: Oh, forget it. (mock realization) They all know I'm gay already.
Mom: (laughing) David says you all know he's gay.

Time lapse.

Today, the vice principal approached my mom to let her know that there was some worry among the teachers, that they wanted to be able to commiserate with my mother about her homo son... but the way she announced it so cavalierly... they didn't know how to approach her about it.

The vice principal (who is actually really good friends with my mother) said to the teachers that they had probably been mistaken; that she'd been to my mother's home, that she's seen pictures of me with my (ex-)girlfriend. The teachers said: no, she announced it to everyone in the teachers' lounge. How could they approach her about it?

My mother called me today, laughing, to tell me this story. Then she said "I don't know how to fix this without making it seem like I think there's something to fix." I said, "Let's take this all the way. I'll send you a picture of me with one of my male friends for your desk at work. Hell, let's get you a t-shirt that says "Proud Mother of a Gay Son."

As the Temple City rumor mill runs rampant, my mother told me that this rumor could already by all around Temple City.

To which I said, quite honestly: if anybody out there cares enough to make it an issue, I'm really not all that interested in their opinion as it is.

Stay gay. Stay proud. Good grief.

Yeah, I'm getting my theatre on. Holler back at me.

I am acting in this play and I am directing a reading of this one.

The first is a new farce written in iambic pentameter, about a woman who convinces the world she's giving birth to bunnies. I play a villager; the personified manifestation of the abstract concept "Good Sense"; and a coffee cup. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

The second is a new play about a couple's relationship deteriorating over something going on in a back room that one of the two is unable to enter. The play isn't "finished" yet, but my fingers are crossed. Excellent cast, good early drafts, definitely check-it-out material.

Coming soon, by popular demand, a post about what I'm actually doing in life, as opposed to which of my useful accessories have broken down prompting purchase of replacements.

My backpack died on Friday.

It had been getting old and rather frail, and near the end some of the edges started to fray. On my way to rehearsal on that fateful afternoon, it finally popped a strap, and I made a detour to K-Mart to purchase myself a new one.

Stuff is just stuff, but sometimes possessions take on new levels of meaning. When I was just a lad, I literally cried when I had to give up a toothbrush I particularly liked. I haven't returned to that level of misery, but I still find myself wearing shoes far past their prime because they begin to seem like a natural extension of myself.

I'm not saying I had an emotional breakdown over losing my backpack. But it had been with me for years, and traveled with me on many continents. For the peripatetic New Yorker, the backpack is both constant companion and trusted servant. We have no cars with trunks, and no quick jaunt home between stops. Like snails, we carry our lives with us on our backs. And my friend had served me well.

And so it was with a little hint of sadness marked by memory that I shoved the inert, floppy, empty bag into a trashcan and walked away from it without a glance backwards.

Here's to my new backpack, my new friend. May he serve me well.