2003-03-13 - 10:32 a.m.

Sweet Home Chicago, and again with the well-meaning friends

So last night, I was at Improv class, which at this point is more like a rehearsal for our upcoming improv show. Anyway, we're doing a guitar bar theme, where I and another guy play guitar, and then people make up songs on the spot (the performers, not the audience). Herr Director wanted me to have some blues songs ready. So I practiced up a few. Last class he'd been asking me for Sweet Home Chicago, so I pulled out my Robert Johnson book and learned it. So I was playing it, and I thought things were good. Then he started saying things like "Don't play that bit there". And I'm all like "Okay, but that's the turn around and pretty much the only part of the song that's not really simple and repetitive." And then he said "The song needs a chorus." And I'm all like "Okay, first you didn't tell me I needed a chorus, and second, have you *listened* to Sweet Home Chicago? There. Is. No. Chorus."

So the musical section of the rehearsal was very frustrating for me, cause now he's wanting to call in his Big Gun musical friend, which makes me look inadequate, but damn, if he'd just tell me what he needed I might have been able to provide it.

The rest of rehearsal went pretty well, though. I think I made up for any of my previous failings with the pop-up goat character. (Really, way too difficult to explain.)

Afterwards, the Usual Suspects went to the usual bar. We've started sitting in the front section, cause the back bar, where we used to hang out, has been closed in, and the smoke has gotten intolerable. Seriously, it looks like a sauna, only with cigarette smoke. So that means we're learning a whole new set of servers, who aren't necessarily aware that we've been going there every week for over a year.

Anyway, Stimpy and Dorothy got it into their heads that the waitress liked me. And they were doing their absolute utmost to embarrass me. At one point while she was walking by, they decided to discuss my sexual prowess in really loud voices. I think I managed to play it cool, but it's hard to tell when you're beet red, with your face on the table, begging God to save you from your friends.

Ah, well-meaning friends.

Today, some more job hunting and hopefully working out. Which would make four days in a row, and by the way, in the past week three people, completely independent of each other have asked me if I've lost weight, so I guess I have, but I've been pretty much the same old slug I've been for months, so I don't know what's causing it. Probably cancer.

Tonight, back to CandleMan's for more XBox.

Mmmmmm....XBox.