THE SAGA OF THE ANGRY UMBRELLA

What has been going on in the world of Team Power Love? Glad you asked, alert Power Love reader. As you may know, this past weekend was all about the umbrella. It was National Take Your Umbrella to the Garbage Weekend. To wit:

1. Friday, April 11—Victory Gardens presents: Literally Sexy
Anonymous sources throughout the city reported a slippery substance falling from the sky. Later, this was confirmed to be rain. No matter, though, because if you have been stalking the Power Love events like you should be, you would’ve gone to the Literally Sexy show at the Biograph and you would’ve gotten all hot and bothered and then you would’ve needed to get some rained splashed on you.

This was a most excellent event, mostly because there were many most excellent people who were doing it, the most important of whom were these peeps here in this picture and CP, who is strangely absent from my photos and one does not get away with that for very long. The 2nd Story-ers did a little song and dance, complete with a kick line, about how nouns and verbs that agree with each other are the very definition of sexy and everyone in the audience had a great time listening to a song about grammar, as we knew they would. The grand finale was me doing cartwheels across the stage, which was a bit difficult given the fact I was wearing a fake lion’s head and juggling torches, but I am nothing if not a conquerer of logistics, and by the end of our skit, the audience was begging us, literally begging us, for more. Next year this show is going to be called “Literally Begging for Grammar” and I am going to come dressed as a semicolon and read my treatise about that much-maligned punctuation mark.

In addition, I can tell you that reading a story to 300 people about how you passed up a potentially really cool dating experience with a super hot guy makes your brain split in two and the one half is calm and articulate and nailing the jokes that are in your piece that maybe only you think are funny; and the other half is floating outside your own head, blinded by the spotlight, chastising you for slouching, trying to stop your hands from fluttering like bird’s wings, and wondering if 300 people can see that spit that keeps flying from your lips.

2. Umbrella Killer
Sometime during the festivities, this umbrella was tossed in the garbage. Possibly it was tossed in the garbage before the weekend’s festivities. Anyway, it deserved it and I think you will agree given the following exchange, which is herein reported dutifully and verbatim:

Me: Umbrella, it’s raining. The point of your existence is to cover my head while it rains.
Umbrella: Is it? Is that really my point of existence? What is your point of existence? Huh?
Me: OK, this is really no time to get existential. We are clearly in the midst of a typhoon, which is odd given that we’re in Chicago and odder still that I’m trying to combat a typhoon with a $3 umbrella from Target, but still, the point here is that flipping inside out and falling apart and sticking me in the eye with those pointy things is ungraceful and, frankly, rude.
Umbrella: Oh yeah? Well, who are you? You’ve had your finger up my ass for the last four blocks and by the way, I am not a shield so stop poking me into passersby.
Me: I don’t like you.
Umbrella: I don’t like you either. I want to break up.
Me: You can’t break up with me, I’m breaking up with you.
Umbrella: I just did.
Me: Yeah? Well I have an opposable thumb, so I trump your evolution, shitfuckhead.

And that was how my umbrella and I broke up. I highly recommend pulling out the opposable thumb argument whenever breaking up with an inanimate object.

3. Sunday, April 14—2nd Story Press Night #1, Ladies’ Night
Similarly, if you were sitting around your living room on Sunday watching the Sox suck the life out of the Tigers and wondering why the Tigers sent their high school children to play pro baseball instead of showing up to the game themselves, you probably would’ve naturally thought, “2nd Story! Ladies’ Night!” And you would’ve been right. Ladies’ Night was on Sunday and this was perfect because it was all about theme nights this weekend. And juggling torches, which is another post.

Ladies’ Night was a raucous affair completed by a visit from James Bond, who has a really cool car. For my story, I drove James Bond’s cool car around the venue, while quoting T.S. Eliot and everyone had a great ole time. Nothing says fun like “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

In addition, I noticed during sound tech/check/practice the evening of Ladies’ Night that the crotch seam in my pants had ripped. This was awesome because there is nothing better than getting up in front of a room full of people with a ripped seam in your pants and even awesomer was the fact that I had a glaring zit on my top lip. So as you can see, I am clearly The Person To Hang With, obviously, and yes, I will be signing autographs at my next venture out, when I will be wearing pants that are not ripped, but probably experiencing something equally embarrassing, like being chased by a pack of wild rabbits or having a really bad acid trip without having the pleasure of dropping acid. This next time will be April 26, and I will give you details later, and you should be there.

In additioner, there are no pictures from Ladies' Night because when you drink Delirium beer, which is a beer made by pink elephants who live in the Swiss Alps, your camera will leave you and will drunk-text your stupiddumb umbrella and they will hook up for a tawdry one-night stand and your ears will ring all night long because they are talking shit about you, but guess what? I REALLY DON'T CARE WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT ME BEHIND MY BACK--I HAVE THUMBS!