The Mourning Commute

There are countless reasons why I enjoy waking up and being over taxed in Cook County. One of which is this odd stigma about our city not moving on to say, present day life. If only Saturday Night Live immortalized the Bulls Dynasty better we wouldn’t have to walk around like its still 1985.
If you’re lucky (and stubborn) enough to regularly wake up in Chicago, then you know what it feels like. Bill Murray has nothing on this perpetual sunrise face plant. I wake up, snooze, wake up again, and tell myself I’ll work out when I get home, wake up walk the dog and then hit the road. That’s where for many of the RedEye readers, the similarities end.
I drive to work. Yes, I get in my car drive past the L stop my family thinks I use every time I step outside and head north of Skokie to a land with Acura’s as far as they eye can see. The joys of a morning commute not packed in next to people whose headphone are purely decorative rather than functional is quickly wasted upon realizing I’m surrounded by approximately 1,000 first time drivers headed to the North Shore at 7:00 a.m. It’s too bad the CTA can’t adopt the IDOT method of keeping an active death count to scare people into being respectful commuters. If you’re unaware, throughout our fine highway system, IDOT gives us a real-time death count ticker of vehicular fatalities that happen in our fine state. You don’t have to be named Katniss to realize that is Orwellian governing.
After my podcast wraps up I turn on the finest retreat for Chicagoans to plunge back into a time capsule, our morning radio shows. Scan across the FM dial in Chicago and it’s like a teleport back to a time where life was much simpler, and the clichés were just beginning to take their first steps.
I know since I’m white and in my thirties I am supposed to LOVE XRT. Back when I was younger I always thought from the way that it sounds like they’re broadcasting from the back of a public library that XRT was NPR. I was sadly, kind of right. XRT never let go of vinyl and likely never will. If there were a frequency in the late 70s it may be more fitting for them.
While hunting for my fifth play of “shake it off” on my drive, I’ll hit B96.  Why do they act like they’re above having Eddie and Jobo on their station? I have found them doing crank calls, yeah those things were clutch. So was Pepsi Clear and snap bracelets. B96 is Chicago’s older sibling who just couldn’t finish community college and move out of the basement.
I generally don’t think there’s a station more stubbornly in love with the 80’s than WLUP. Well, they’re not completely lost, they still to do a “Rock Girl” right? Although misogyny and rock going together like pb &j, I thought that was a bit unfair to have a very attractive 20 something year old woman paraded around their dive bar events when we all know that girl’s mom is really the woman best suited for WLUP listeners.
 According to ratings, most of Chicago takes solace just a bit higher on the dial with The Mix 101.9.  It’s fair to say that I can turn on the Eric & Kathy show any day and not know if it was live or a rebroadcast from 1993. I love Seinfeld like no one else but Eric, my man, you can let go of the references. I know it hurts but if I could get my dad to stop quoting Cheers in 2009 maybe I can help you.  Insisting we see a DJ photo on a billboard, yeah, could you be any more 90s?!
Whenever I’m ready to catch this week’s guilty pleasure jam made on Auto tune I hit up Kiss FM. It’s our gateway to the present day as any artist over 24 is immediately sent to Throwback Thursday.
As mind numbing the morning grind is to us all, these frequencies allow us to take solace in reminiscing to when the dread that fills our gut was once sweet blissful ignorance of starting something new.

Don't Make Me Get Out of the Booth!

Without inflating my friend's ego, I hope to not become as he says, a Jack of all trades, master of none. That being said, I've ventured into a new space that allows me to perform in the awkward silence that without years of professional improv training and performances from Second City, I would be ill-prepared.

Last night I stepped into the sound booth for the first time ever. It was a local voice over actor's apartment in Ukranian Village and he had a professional sound proof room next to the microphone and recording space I used in the corner. It was like Jack Lemmon knowing that Baldwin had the good leads locked away but just at an arms reach.

Voice over work is something I know nothing about. Darren was a very impressive professional voice over actor who gave a quick crash course. I got the low down on where to look for auditions that I could too could be rejected from. He let me know what to expect with auditions, the cost of a demo, and how hard it may be to crack into.

Then he had me read. Out loud. It was fun. Even fumbling over a fifth grad vocabulary in front of a stranger was simply therapeutic. The big breakthrough came when I relaxed and talked with my hands and let it fly. Darren was critical and also complimentary of my reads. I'm one of the gifted souls who can make three sentences about the beaches of Cabo San Lucas sound like they're a parking lot in Milwaukee.

It was not a loss though. I read two sentences about Midas breaks. Yeah, Darren said it was very impressive on how I was able to bring such an honest and real interpretation  to the copy (of break warranties and certified mechanics). Which is impressive to me, as I know squat about my car.

I agree with Darren 100%. I'm not the best he's ever seen, but I showed promise on day one and that's a great thing seeing as I'm in my early thirties and although it's never to late to pursue a passion in life, I am too old to expect my parents to blindly support me.

I completely recommend taking Darren's Voice Over Exploration class. He was really great to work with!

Chasing My Tail: Ep 51 Baby Room

Social Interaction Bucket List (for a 33 yr old)

Every year around my birthday I write a bucket list of things to do that I've never done before. 1 for each year. Rarely do I get them all crossed off but it's fun to do dozens of things I would not make time for.

I want to do or say the following things in the next year in regards to correcting some butthead socially accepted things. Yes, butthead needs to be used more.

1. Tell someone that they're hat is on crooked.
2. Photo bomb a gym selfie.
3. Make a teenager yield the sidewalk to me.
4. Grow the worst beard to end all this facial hair nonsense once and for all.
5. Put a Calvin peeing cartoon over someone's 26.2 sticker on their car.
6. Ask a 30 year old guy in a graphic t-shirt where his younger brother got that shirt.
7. Ask a female coworker for help changing the water cooler.
8. Tell a kid throwing a tantrum that God is watching.

SUV Driver Successfully Climbs "Bump in the Road"

Chicago, IL- Never before has the thought entered the mind of SUV drivers in America. Veteran SUV driver, Mike Maxwell took the lead by driving his standard issue SUV through a residential construction zone. The good people in orange gave Mike and his fellow motorists the heads up of a "Bump Ahead." 
 
As Mike expected, the German engineered luxury SUV ahead of him slowed nearly to a complete stop as they approached the treacherous 1.5 inch climb. "I suppose if I was a finely tuned German suspension, I'd like someone to cut me a little slack too." Mike said as he flipped through all his radio presets.

Once Maxwell had the space to move, he did what no other SUV owner has ever done while approaching uneven pavement. He hit the gas pedal, with relative force. Not teenage jackass cruising force, just I gotta get this pizza home warm force. 
Mike associates his grace under fire with such unique road conditions to his seven MarioKart Star Cup Championships.

"Chasing My Tail" ep. 37 Midwest Beaches

www.mikemaxwell.org

"Chasing My Tail" ep. 33 Innovation

History Repeats Itself?

Chicago Cubs Promotion of the film ‘Se7en’ Comes Full Circle

Chicago, IL:  The 2013 baseball season is just a few weeks old but what is being confirmed as an epic tribute to director David Fincher’s ‘Seven.’ This week Chicago Cub fans were treated to the story that Cubs owner Tom Ricketts was delivered a box with a goat’s head inside.  Although Ricketts has made no official comment on this gesture rumored to be done by a crazed Cubs fan, it is well known that Theo Epstein is a huge fan of the 1995 Brad Pitt movie.

  Chicago Police have confirmed that indeed this goat head in a box is more of a cinematic tribute than another pathetic attempt of a Cubs fan to deny the fact they are willingly supporting a perpetually failing organization.  There have been accounts of the other seven deadly sins in and around Wrigley Field since the 1995 release of the dynamic Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman masterpiece. 

           October 1996: Gluttony- Chicago Cubs fans poured into Wrigley Field to watch the legendary play of Sandberg, Grace & Turk Wendell.  Northwestern Memorial Hospital attributes the 37% spike in diabetes to their patients purely on the record sales of Old Style beer & Champs Malt Cups sold at the stadium. 

Spring 1998: Greed- Sammy Sosa took it on himself to bulk up and chase the all-time home run record once held by a legitimate baseball player, Roger Maris. Sosa denies any steroid use during the ’98 season but equipment records show his batting helmet went from a size ‘large’ in ’97 to a size ‘egomaniacal’ in ’98.

October 1998: Sloth- Thousands of Chicago Cubs fans feared any change to their appearance after the team clinched a playoff spot would curse their team & consequentially continue the nearly century long drought of accomplishing anything. Wrigleyville, a community that prides itself on pretty little faces, was plagued with men & women who refused to wear clean clothes or shave for weeks. A dark, funky time in Chicago history.

Spring 2003: Lust- Cubs management created a starting pitching roster that boasted Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano, & Matt Clement.  Fans drunk off an actual winning season were swooning for the pitchers, even the portly and mentally unstable Zambrano. 

October 2003: Pride- In what turned out to be a pivotal moment in Chicago Cubs franchise history, their outfielder who prides himself on urinating on his hands, Moises Alou, botches an attempt to catch a foul ball as it goes out of play. Immediately Moises blames a fan that also went for the ball. To this day, Alou is publicly satisfied that it was not him that had to move out of state and change his name and quit his job.

April 2013 Envy & Wrath: After laying low for nearly a decade, Theo Epstein hires someone to deliver a box to Tom Ricketts at Wrigley Field.  Upon opening the box, Ricketts recoils in horror from what he sees inside the box.  Epstein admitted to Tom Ricketts that he was guilty of envy. Theo had become jealous of the goat’s simpler life.  Epstein admitted he tried to “play along” with the curse but it didn’t work out so he took a souvenir instead “his pretty head.” It was Theo Epstein’s plan all along to kill the Cubs franchise.  Tom Ricketts is so devastated he signs the official documents moving the Cubs to Rosemont Illinois. In killing all that is Wrigleyville, Tom Ricketts comes to embody the sin of wrath. 

Spring Time in Chicago

One day reaching 50 degrees reminded me of this fact of life.

The Flying Popeshank Redemption

I wish I could tell you that the Flying Popes fought the good fight, and How I Set Your Mother let them be. I wish I could tell that  - but recreational volleyball is no fairy-tale world. They never said who did the beatings, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile - rec. volleyball life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, the Flying Popes would show up with a few fresh bruises on their egos. How I Set Your Mother kept at them - sometimes they were able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for the Flying Popes - that was their routine. I do believe those first five weeks were the worst for them, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this rec. league would have got the best of them.

As we sit, waiting for a shot for proving our growth and abilities to the fine administration of Players Sports Group, I can only imagine a regular season exit interview...

PSG:Flying Popes Volleyball, your file says you've played out twenty four games of a seven week regular season. Do you feel you've been competitive?

Flying Popes: Competitive? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.

PSG: Well it means that you are inclined or desiring to succeed over all others...

Flying Popes:  I know what *you* think it means sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A commissioner's word so young fellas like you can wear stripes and whistle, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for how we played?

PSG: Well, are you?

Flying Popes: There's not a day that goes by I don't feel regret. Not because we're in the bottom of the standings, or because you think we should. I look back on the way we were then: a young stupid team who committed those terrible unforced errors.  I want to talk to them. I want to try and talk some sense to them, tell them the way things are. But I can't. That young team's long gone and this thirty something is all that's left. We got to live with that. Competitive? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and fill out your playoff bracket, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

*********************************************************************************************


I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a recreational champion can feel, a recreational champion at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the gymnasium. I hope to see my dad and shake his hand. I hope the banner is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Week 3: Flying Popes' Silver Linings Playbook

We are three weeks into a title defense and the Flying Popes appear to be hung over. The only other collection of highly skilled athletes that seem to be on such different pages are the Los Angeles Lakers. Losing two of three tonight to "How We Set Your Mother" was extra painful as a team chose to be more pun-laden than the actual CBS sitcom itself. Salt, meet the open wound.

Simple unforced errors can attribute to this early season slide. Why really are the Flying Popes unable to pull it together? Pressure to deliver again? Aside from the Popes championship last year, it had been two years since Chicagoans we treated to such a rise to glory. Maybe it's because the court in our peripheral, Team Juicy, were too much a distraction (pure speculation). I'm not sure if they're called Team Juicy but if every woman on your team is in yoga pants or actual volleyball shorts, odds are Team Juicy should be your name. Our season is at a point where we may need to channel our inner Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards. It sure could help pair with the Kenny Loggins stuck in my head.

Taking stock on the evening (it's nearly midnight I am still thinking of this game!) I must say at least I didn't lose my cool and further my attempt to publicly impersonate myself at the age of six. That's progress right? Recently watching Silver Linings Playbook makes me wonder if the Flying Popes plan to get our season back needs to be hit head on with an equally crazy idea, like a grown man drawing parallels between his struggling recreational volleyball team and an acclaimed story of lost man intent on getting his life back together no matter what it takes.

Who knows, maybe next week we should all play in trash bags!? (side note, thank you God, for not having Tom Petty's Free Fallin'  on the soundtrack.)

Flying Popes 2013 Season Preview

Flying Popes 2012 Players Sports 6 Coed Volleyball Champs

Chicago doesn't get the chance to celebrate champions the past few years (or hundred for some yahoos). While most our pro teams play like they're in a rec league, Flying Popes are the rec team that has pro swagger to it. Let's be honest, who doesn't take a team more serious when they step out on the court with red, white and blue sweat bands?

Above is the photo after the 3 seed ran the table and cut down the net (no we didn't PlayersSports, we don't want a fine) last season. Now what? What do the Flying Popes do to keep their focus and not stare up at the rafters of St. Andrew's Church? I'd like to believe budget cuts is the main reason why the Flying Popes Championship banner is still not hanging up. I digress.

The bands are back on our heads creating the minimal intimidation and distraction we planned on. The Flying Popes roster is impressive once again. In the era of rec-league free agency, anything can happen once the season is done. People move, get a dog, or lose the drive to be a top tier athletic specimen, recreationally speaking. Flying Popes return all members of the 2012 title team with the addition/return of the wild card Vincente Lacey. I had to change his name a little because of all his tv commercials, we don't need this season to require security Beiber style. Little does most of Chicago know, but Lacey was integral in the roster creation of the 2012 team.

Having Vinnie on the court is like if Jerry Krause wanted to lace up with Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman.

Week 1 saw a Flying Popes match victory, winning 2-1. As, Alabama football coach Nick Saban says, there's no talk of repeat. Each season is it's own, full of it's own challenges and goals. It's going to take a lot of effort and teamwork, good thing we're wearing those cool sweatbands.

Rumormill week 7: The Mariah Carey Factor

The fact of the matter is that planning a destination beach wedding is pretty great. Even though it still has the typical annoying parts of planning wedding nonsense, it's on a beach so that sets the tone.

I have to be careful with the ideas that I think pass for suitable for a beach wedding. Many times I've already caught myself thinking of things that essentially are a weak attempt to recreate MTV Spring Break coverage in the 90s. Short of having a fashion show w/ Limp Bizkit in the middle of our reception, I think I've thought of it all.

I recently suggested to m'lady that her procession to our beach wedding be something special to the location but also with a fine bit of excessive self righteousness that sums up our generation so well. Now, my idea is not necessarily contingent upon her going Pam Anderson and wearing a white bikini. In fact for direct replication it will need to be the color, honey.

How cool would it be for the father of the bride and bride to make their procession via jet ski? A la Mariah Carey in the hit jam "Honey."

As the video shows, a beautiful woman on a jet ski doesn't get a drop of water on her as she evades a squad of assailants or even spinsterhood. However, the inspiration from Mariah Carey stops short of any singing. Neither of us should punish our guests that way.

Rumormill Week 3: The Great Matrimony Montage

I think we just attended our last wedding before our own. That being said, wait there are still three magnets on the fridge of people dressed really nicely (and naturally staged I must say). Fact: m'lady has a spreadsheet. Well, sure we have a spreadsheet for our venue ideas. I don't know what we are going to do but I think when faced with uncertainty on getting to your goal do what Hollywood does...do a montage.

What's a Matrimony Montage?
A matrimony montage is a term I just made up (believe it or not) so fortunately, our parents can't tell us how to do it right, or within the guidelines of 'etiquette.' M'lady & I have been together for almost five years. In those five years we've been to so many weddings we're able to help our dry cleaner put on that much dreamed of addition to his home.

I have an idea. Let's take a piece of every wedding we've been to and make a save the date montage?! That's a great way to show
1. I can pay attention
2. I can finally use those Jordan almonds in my globe box.
3. What better way to tell everyone not only are we in love, but when you condense nearly five years of courtship into  three minute video, even Ryan Gosling may cry from joy.

Why a Matrimony Montage?
* We're in the digital era people, hard copy reminders are good but I fear so many people will want a save-the-date magnet from us that it could interfere with the Earth's gravitational pull. Thus, to save humanity from a real-life Jerry Bruckheimer experience (with or without Liv Tyler) we go digital.

*  Facebook. Sure, it's nice to post ring pics, status updates about planning or eating cake samples, but there is something that no one has wanted before our generation and Facebook is integral in accomplishing it-make your wedding go viral! Self importance, vanity, and the perpetual threat of just "one special day" year(s) out just isn't enough anymore. We can post and repost this montage of love and you can't avoid it. It'd be like those pictures you post of (well your kids but I guess they're adorable, don't think this is personal) never mind.

When a Matrimony Montage?

That I don't know. At this moment, you've given it more thought than m'lady (If my term of endearment is to have a presumed accent, then I choose one from the motherland!). Contract talks with half of the cast are still quite far a part on terms of agreement. That being said, I know the 50% of the cast that are already on board love this idea and hope their family and friends start asking m'lady on Facebook when they can expect the mother of all e-Harmony commercials.

2 Weeks in: An Engagement in Review

Two weeks ago I decided to finally propose to my girlfriend. We have been together nearly five years and people we on me to ask her more than anyone trying to get Romney's tax returns. I can't really explain, nor could anyone before me explain how amazing it feels right now. Then again we are two weeks into the lovefest and no checks have been written. This is the highest concentration of dreaming two people can ever do.

I am hoping that within the engagement process, I can reduce the stress of planning by creating rumors to distract family and friends. Maybe we will consider these ideas, maybe we won't.

Rumor 1: Beach Wedding...Toga Party Theme

1. I have only been to one toga party in my life and it was for some lame fraternity when I was a freshman. A Wisconsin toga party is what you'd imagine. Kids wearing bed sheets with tractors on them, or some nimrod using the fitted sheet.
2. Let's register for some nice Egyptian cotton sheets, sandals and take it from there. Why should the bride be the only one in white?
3. The Isley Brothers deserve this.  Perhaps the most famous toga moment in American history is because of their iconic song. Is it cliche at a wedding? Maybe but so is a lot of stuff (this blog is old, borrowed, new AND blue). It's my favorite song played at weddings why? It is the song that gives the old people their last hurrah on the dance floor and tells the next generation 'it's bout to get crazy (for white people) in here!
4. How else can we eliminate the nonsense of 'what do I wear?' for the guests. Hell, I bet that when you've been drinking for hours and are already wearing bedding, you'll find the beach a more welcoming destination than your hotel bed.
5. Weddings are often have this undertone of making the bride out to be a princess or a queen. That's absurd. Not only is this a slight to the groom, but it's inaccurate. Wearing togas embody the image of a bride and groom as Emperor and Empress. A princess rarely has the opportunity to make decisions for the masses. On the other hand,  an empress or emperor, now that's their job...and they're pretty good at it too.

Mr. Butter Face

There's that old expression that 'slow and steady wins the race.' Well, that's nice and all but that is a cushion for slow people whose parents or teachers are hoping to God that something else in life distracts them from wasting their life with a 'dream.'

Dreams vary for people of course. Dumb point Mike, what else? I've had some time to get my adult life moving in effort to land some of these 'dreams.' Time passes and then you revise said dreams and end up with goals. These 'goals' are things that typically are less damaging to the ego when you miss out on them, after all, goals are something that hangs over you professionally so personally they can suck an egg if they must.

I've dreamt of someday being in great shape. If I were to get into amazing, toned, muscular shape I could be the epitome of male butter faces. I think that growing up in the Midwest, with my dad reminding me to be realistic, that I aimed right on mark to one day be a butter face. Well, I graduated college, not in shape. Time went by and now I maintain a fitness regimen due the pending rivalry between denim's spacial capacity and my stomach's inclination to never let go of the mass quantities of pizza I eat.

I no longer dream of being a male butter face. I have a goal of one day winning a rec league title. There is something to be said about the struggle between my friends and I against other people our age to gain validation as the most qualified recreational human in a particular sport. I've been on winning teams in gym class, how is this still an obsession of mine? Maybe life would be different if upon completing a memorable run to gym class champions, the teacher/coach let us know it's perfectly fine to not be humble in this moment, the rest of our life will silence us soon enough.